DRAFT FILM - POST PRODUCTION

EDITING -POST PRODUCTION

We finished all of our filming at the weekend which went well and so this week we have been able to concentrate on editing our film together and choosing what shots to use for our 5 minute film. We have enough footage for 5 minutes and have been editing the sequence together to determine what shots to use and if we need any more so we have more time to be prepared in case we do.

However, whilst editing, we realised that our long continuous tracking shot was too long for our film so we had to cut it down. In doing this, we lost the end of the shot so which we really liked as we had the tracking shot change from a mid shot to an extreme long shot which looked impressive. However, we had to sacrifice it in order for the length of the shot not be too long and boring which would result in the mood and tone of our film possibly being taken away.

We had to go down to the station and capture one shot we need of a train pulling in at the station. We have to take in account the weather forecast before as we are due heavy storms and this would not fit in with the rest of our shots as they had sunshine. If we are unable to get the shot then we can get the shot in January when we come back to college after the Christmas holidays. Currently these are the three shots that join together - we feel as though a shot linking the train moving and it being completely stopped together (like a shot of the train coming to a hault). 

(Above) This is a picture of us getting a really nice shot of a train pulling into the staion like we wanted. However we had some problems with the continuity because although we could look up when a train was due to arrive, there was no telling what kind of train it was going to be - and it had to be the same type of train to the one the male character was on, this meant that we had to aniticipate the train we wanted and just film and wait to see if it would work.

(Right) This picture shows another problem we encounted with continiuty. We really liked this shot of a train pulling away so we came up with the idea to reverse the clip which looked really good. However after watching it a few times we realised that there were people in the background (circled in red) who were walking backwards, forming our continuity problem. So our solution to this (shown right) was to still use the clip but to start it after the people where no longer in the frame.

Another thing we had think about whilst editing that had not occured to us before this stage, was how we were going to really get the idea that the flashbacks were indeed flashbacks and seperate from the rest of the footage. Orginally we had planned to use cross cutting, however because we are using cross cutting already in our film in parts that werent flashbacks we needed even more differentiation. So firstly we interchanged between the flashbacks and the real world with a fade to white which we felt blended them together (shown left). Secondly, we came up with the idea of destaturating the flashback or making it brighter to exgagerate the difference between the flashbacks and the real world as well as adding a glow to give it that dreamlike feel. Below is an example of our experiment. We ended up liking the desaturate more.

THE ORIGINAL CLIP

THE CLIP WITH THE DESATURATION AND GLOW ADDED

THE BRIGHTER CLIP

We used a range of continuity editing  practices whilst editing:



SHOT REVERSE SHOT
This shot's function in films is to show a character looking at another character that is off screen so the audience can see the character's facial expression and composition more closely. Then in Shot reverse shot we see the other character looking back who was previously off screen. As the characters are placed in the 180 degree rule, the audience can tell the characters are looking at each other as this rule is in place.The function of the shot reverse shot in our film was to show the characters POV and what they are seeing to give another dimension to the audience of these characters and to allow us to see what they are seeing on screen. We can also tell from their facial expressions who they are feeling and this demonstrated on screen and comes across to our audience as we have a close up shot of their faces to show their facial expressions clearly to the audience.

DISSOLVES INTO OTHER SHOTS
The function of a dissolve shot is very similar to a fade shot and how they look. However, the difference between them is that a fade changes into a color. We used a dissolve shot as a dissolve passes into another shot and changes the visibility until the transition is completed and the shot has changed entirely. It can be used to show a  from one from the other until eventually the shot has link between a objects or people or to show the passing of time. We used this shot to show the passing of time in our film. We wanted to emphasis with this dissolve that she has been talking on the phone over a long period of time. We used the dissolve as we felt it look good and send the communicated the message that she had been on the phone a long time rather than using the option of text on a black screen after it had faded into it saying 5 minutes later " over and over again on the screen as this wouldn't look good and wouldn't keep the pace of our film going.

EYELINE MATCH

The function of the eye line match is to help continuity flow in films and is part of the continuity editing system.  An eye line match allows the audience to see what the character on screen is looking at and are then able to see it from their point of view allowing the audience to connect more with the character we see on screen and establish more of a relationship with them. In this case, the use of eye line match in the scene allows us to see the character look over at what is annoying him and from the eye line match, we see the crisps and the female is the thing that is causing his annoyance in the scene and the audience can understand this from the shot we have used.

DISCONTINUITY ZOOM
But then there was also some problems we encountered that we know would make our film have discontinuity. Like one of the Close up shots of the female character leads into another shot of her supposedly in the same position, however the background changes. So to try and mask the issue we compromised slightly on quality and zoomed the shot in, in order for the background to not be noticable. In this example of when we did this (below) we changed the close up into an extreme closeup.

FILMING FEEDBACK - PREPRODUCTION PLANNING

The first day we filmed was really quite hard because of several reasons:

-When we actually got on the train we realised that the interior was much smaller than we were antisipating when we were planning our shots

-It was impossible to use a tripod to film most of our shots as there was simply not enough room

-Although we tried to film out of rush hour there was still a lot more people on the train than we had expected

-Even though we emailed the train man again making the length of the journey longer we still simply didn't have enough time on the train
-We realised on the day that some of the dialogue in our film had not been scripted and so the characters had to improvise.

All of these factors made some of the shots we wanted impossible.

Some of the things that went well however:
-We didn't have any trouble with the train workers at all and we were allowed to travel on the train freely -We got pretty much got every shot we wanted within the time frame
- The fact that we were filming on a train meant that the slightly jolty footage due to the lack of tripod looked quite suitable
-We were really happy that we thought about and remembered to bring the voice recorder because now we have ambient sound and can delete the original sounds which were quite noisy.
- The weather was nice and sunny so, as we werent using any lighting, this was extremely important, it also allowed us to film with ease and with less stress over the safety of the equipment.
- The second day we filmed was good because we got all the shots we wanted easily without any unforseen implications.

We plan on going back to get a couple more shots that we need which fortunately dont involve the characters and only the platform and not being on a train.
However a concern we have is for the weather and the lighting to be the same as when we filmed the first time. So we checked the weather forcast on the day we planned on filming.

FILM POSTER IDEAS - PRE-PRODUCTION PLANNING

While doing our preproduction we realised that we need to think about our poster that we will use to promote our film as well. So on the day we are filming we will take a digital camera with us and try and capture an image we could use for our poster or at least begin thinking about what we will do. Here are some examples of the concepts we will try out:

	This is our first poster design. In this design, we have a picture of the train station in a landscape poster. The two characters are walking away from one another on the platform in different directions while the camera is on another platform so we can see the train tracks and more of the platform. Where we can see the platform and train tracks towards the bottom of the picture, it will fade out to a solid colour which is where we will display our film title and credits on as well so it can be read easily rather than overlaid on the image which would be difficult to read.
	This is the second poster design we produced. This poster is in portrait. It is very similar to our first design and will use the same image as the poster before. However, we also liked the look of the design in portrait and felt it was a nice design for a poster. It will feature the platform fading out into a solid colour again so it highlights the titles and credits more to the audience.
	This is our 3rd design featuring various pictures. In this design, we would want to feature the 2 characters pictures who are looking out the window and can see their reflection but manipulate the images together on the poster to look as if they are both facing each other out the windows and looking at each other through the windows and reflections. We would would also want an image of a train at the bottom faded into the top images to highlight the story's location and how much relevance and importance the train has to our story. The titles and credits would be at the bottom and placed over the platform part of the image but could also be onto a solid colour as we could also fade it into a colour like previously.
	This is our final design and one which we both really liked. On this poster we have a picture of the 2 characters walking in different directions away from each other and in the center of them we have a poster which you would find on a station. However, we will manipulate the poster on photoshop and replace it with text from our film so it seems as if it is a poster on a station but will be used to display our film's title and credits.

These are how the shots we descirbed above turned out as a ruff guide on the shoot. shot 1,3 and 4.

FILMING ORDER - PREPRODUCTION PLANNING

[The filming movements and shots can be found on the list of shots post]


Key:
Red is all the flashback shots that don't need to be filmed at or near the train station.
Green are all the shots that involve being on the platform
Purple are all the 2 shots
Blue are all t he POV shots
Black is everything else

First of all we are going to film our story cronologically so that the  actors can get a better feel for their roles but then when we will film for a second time in sections and so we have grouped them here.

Shot Number	Shot size/angle	Description of shot
1	Establishing shot	Establishing shot of the station
2	Establishing shot	Shot of a train passing by at train platform
3	Close up	Leaf travelling past screen - Male character’s foot steps on leaf
4	Low angle	Character walking up stairs - figure shadowed
4.5	Long shot	On platform - see back of character run for the train
4.6	Close up	Feet dangling - see background of station behind - sound effect of train stopping - feet go down on ground - Feet disappear from shot - added sound of feet
5	Close up	Character pressing 'open' button for train door
6	Tracking behind OR side shot	Feet getting on train - behind feet or side view - not decided on shot
7	Tracking shot	Character walks down isle of the train – Behind feet
8	Mid shot	Shot at mid waist - characters sits down - camera tilts up slightly when he sits - see face of our character - looks out the window
9	Mid shot	character looking out window
10	Close up	character looking out of window
10.1	Tracking, extreme long shot – mid/long shot	Flashback - character is going to exit house and walk down street - He's going to walk out of shot, female character appears in view and walks past camera
11	Behind the shoulder shot	See female characters feet on station out of window
12	Close Up	Her hand pressing 'open' button for train door
13	Mid-long shot	Camera on table opposite characters - walks down aisle and begins to sit down
14	Mid Shot	Match on Action shot - Her sitting down in train seat - Both characters sitting and getting comfortable - she has earphones in - music playing very loudly
15	Mid shot	Male character turning and looking at what she is doing - annoyed by loud music
16	2 shot	She catches him looking - awkward smile between them - looks away
17	Mid shot	Character looking at her phone
18	Over the shoulder shot	See phone light up and ring - takes headphone out - music stops - phone to ear
19	Close Up	See her talking on phone - fade into next shot
20	Mid shot	Still on phone - fade into next shot
21	2 shot- mid shot	her on her phone - he turns to look at her - she ends conversation
22	Close up	Close up of bag - puts phone away - getting out crisps
23	Extreme close up	Extreme close up of male characters eyes - Looks at crisps
24	POV from males perspective	looking at crisps as she opens them
25	2 shot	she finally opens bag - puts hand in and takes 1 out - just raises out of bag
26	Side shot	puts crisp towards mouth
27	Extreme close up	Extreme close up of his eyes - following her hand towards mouth
28	Side shot	she puts crisp in mouth - slow motion - adding enhancement of sound of her eating it
29	POV from him	side at first - turns head to camera - looks down after him getting iPod out
30	POV shot from her	his legs - getting ipod out of pocket - rests hands on table - showing iPod screen
31	Mid shot of her	Still eating crisps - Asks question relating to artist on iPod - e.g. "Have you heard their new album?"
32	2 shot	Holding up headphone to ear hasn't put it in yet - answers question - about to put headphone back in ear - she asks another question - soundtrack fades over dialogue - fade into next shot
33	2 shot – mid shot	talking to each other - fade into next shot
34	2 shot – mid shot	characters body positions have changed - fade into next shot
35	2 shot – mid shot	characters body positions have changed
36	tracking shots behind heads	Cut into flashback - crossing paths - cross cutting
37	tracking shots in front of heads	after crossed paths - sound bridge of train announcement
38	2 shot	them listening to train announcement - finish conversation - say goodbyes - "This is my stop coming up"
39	Close up	Female character - "It was really nice meeting you"
40	Close Up	Male character - " It was really nice meeting you too"
41	Close Up	Female character - looking at male character walk past - he walks past camera - partially blocks screen
42	Mid shot - slight angle	camera on opposite table - walks past her - down aisle and past camera
43	Medium long shot	waiting to get off train by doors - turns and smiles at her
44	Close up	train pole in focus - face not - focus pull - his face in focus - realization on face - walks past camera
45	POV from her	him walking towards her - slow motion - walks right by her face - reaches to side of her - added heartbeat sound for humour
46	Mid shot	he reaches across her - slow motion - see facial reaction as he reaches for phone
47	POV from her - Mid shot	out of slow motion - "Forgot my phone" - turns around and walks down aisle
48	Mid/long shot	behind him - see him get off train - camera stays on train