For my film project, we were in a group.  My group consisted of: Diana Jones, Najhet Thompson, Jordan Brooks, Kelly Tang, Sam Dobson and myself.  We were assigned with different roles:

-          -  Diana Jones – Camerawoman

-        -   Najhet Thompson – Director

-         -  Myself – Assistant Director

-         - Jordan Brooks – Producer

-         - Sam Dobson – Editor

-         - Kelly Tang – Sound

In my role, I had to do the lighting for the film, partial directing and did get involved in some other parts when necessary or asked to.  I scheduled some days to film and delegated some organisation to the group which proved positive.  I also edited the script which was written by Jools Ayodeji we got given using Celt X which I found an easy program to use.  It was used to specify different aspects of the script such as props, characters, locations for each scene which can then be generated into lists to use on location.  Here is the script that we used once changed:

1  EXT. ARBORETUM TUNNEL. NIGHT

TITLE: White text on a black background fades in SHIFT.  It shimmers as if a light source is being played across it before the screen fades out to black

CHRIS is flat, flat, flat against the wall.  Eyes roll from side to side nervously.  Squeezed in as tightly as possible, Chris listens

Nearby we hear footsteps.  Someone is creeping along, someone is trying to make as little noise as possible.  Panicked Chris dashes through the alley.  Chris is pursued by footsteps and shouts.  Chris flees

2  INT. OFFICE WITH BLINDS. DAY

Chris peers through blind, opening it with two of his fingers and is momentarily blinded by the light shining in through the window.  Stumbles, squints, fingers white, grip the briefcase even tighter.  Nods to receptionist, hesitates, slows down then nods to security.  The revolving door exit seems very far away

3  INT. OFFICE. NIGHT

The only illumination comes from the blue light in the dark room studio as the photograph produces.  Chris is nervous.  Chris removes a developing photograph from the monomethyl-p-aminophenol hemisulfate.  Chris stares at it in shock.  Listening Chris shuts off and pockets the photograph.  Ducking down beside the table the door handle struggles to open.  They open the door ajar.  After talking, the door closes and the security personelle walk away

4  INT. FRONT ROOM. DAY

Chris writes an address on the envelope.  The label reads The Daily Telegraph, news desk, Media City, London

5  EXT. POST OFFICE POST BOX, QUEEN STREET. DAY

Chris approaches a post box, package in hand

6  INT. BEDROOM. DAY

Chris scans then pockets the negatives from a briefcase

7  INT. OFFICE. DAY

The briefcase is placed inside a safe. 

8  EXT. HOUSE LIVING ROOM. DAY

Chris scans the Daily Telegraph for his article. Nothing

9  EXT. ALLEYWAY. NIGHT

Chris rushes around a corner and jumps recklessly over the stair well.   As he runs he repeatedly looks over his shoulder for his pursuers.

Running he drops the briefcase.  Rushing back to the retrieve it, he abandons that idea and continues his escape

10 EXT. ARBORETUM. DAY

Chris dumps the negatives into a bin and slowly walks off down the street.  As he does so Sam emerges out from a hedge, lowers sunglasses and begins to follow him. Chris paces faster looking back gradually getting faster.  Sam paces after him.

11 EXT. NEWS STAND. DAY

The billboard reads : Local Journalist Found Dead

THE END

I found modifying the script hard as it wasn’t easy to keep with a flowing storyline.  I did not learn Celt X in the lecture as I was late but I managed to pick it up in 5 minutes.  The rest of the group could not figure out how to import the script from Microsoft Word into the program but I managed to do this by saving it as a Notepad file first before importing it.

eXistenZ!

Narrative

The narrative of the film I felt was successful in the way that the ideas and concepts of the storyline were done.  I felt that they did not portray it so well in some parts as for example, there wasn’t really a beginning to the story which could explain what some of the features were like the “Pods” or “Bio-ports” but we got to know this as the film went along.  The narrative and concept of not knowing which part was in the game world or in reality was portrayed well although it was obvious with the clues which was reality or not.

Interactivity

The interactivity of the film with the audience was ok as they introduced the main characters at the beginning.  At the end of the film, these main characters as well as being throughout the whole story, ended the plot.  The film interacts with the audience being that it is a game world which is now popular and becoming more of a reality to do.  Some parts of the film were too gruesome to watch but the audience still felt interacted with it as it drew them into to question why they are doing things like that in the first place?

Convergence

The convergence of the film focused on the game world or reality.  This became clear later on in the film when both characters played the game using the “Pod”.  They had to show you what the object did before the convergence became clear. 

My First Finished Ident!

Using C.R.A.P!

We had to redesign a business card using C.R.A.P features.  Here is my version of the business card:

 

C- Contrast.  I have used contrast in colours by making the text stand out from the background.  I have used a larger font for the company name and smaller for the contact details.  I have used an even smaller font to say the owner is a proprietor as I felt this information is unnecessary.  I have used a different colour for the title and a different font which shows contrast but I feel that it works well. I have used equal gaps between the text pieces.  The size of the space at the top is larger than the space at the bottom but this is to make the company name stand out more.

R – Repetition.  I have used repetition by the use of the colour light blue, white and black.  I have used the faded out bar at the top and the bottom of the business card which also shows repetition.  Another aspect of repetition is the use of the lines on four parts of the business card.

A – Alignment.  I have used left alignment on the text throughout and made sure that it doesn’t touch the image.  This is better for the person to read.  The image is right aligned.  Everything is visually related due to the colours and the lines and faded boxes.

P – Proximity.  There are relations in the gaps between the text pieces.  They are all the same size and equal which makes them relate well.  The use of colour makes the proximity relate well too which makes the reader read the whole business card rather than just one part.

Interview Using Lighting!

For our second one shot film, we were concentrating on lighting using a specific scenario.  We had to do a day time interview next o one window and use lighting.  We decided we did not want any shadows therefore lighted Ajay so that there weren’t any visible.  If wasn’t easy in such a tight location.  We then had to decide what questions we were going to ask and first improvised.  We then took a few minutes out and practised before filming.  We had the interviewer out of the frame so that we could get a close enough shot.  The reflector was used too so too in order to gain an equal lighting on the other side of Ajay’s face away from the window. Before filming our final take, we had to wait for another group to finish as their lights were affecting our frame and casting an unwanted shadow.

First Shot Of One Shot!

We have been creating one shot films which means that we have to keep the camera on a tripod and can only move it once! In our group, we had to first film outside where we could use natural lighting.  We did not have long to think of something even though we went scouting on the locations.  We all decided that we should think of the idea first then decide which of the two outside locations we should use.  We decided to use a bench at the Arboretum.  The one we chose was on level ground and had a hill behind it so we did not have to worry about people walking behind on our set.  We set up our equipment, struggling to set the tripod to the right level as it wasn’t a good one on the day of shooting.  On the day we improvised lines of what we were going to say and decided who would play what role.  I played a posh person who had things on her mind and Alyssa played the drunken tramp.  This gave the basis of our story and we shot the film in just 3 takes until we were happy with it.

Once we viewed the video back, we had noticed that there was a lot of background noise from the wind therefore if we were to shoot outside again, we would use an overhead microphone or use something or someone to block out wind passing from the sides.  We also should have used a tighter frame as my face was not visible enough.

My Ident!

I am now creating my fourth animation with more knowledge of how to use the program.  My previous 2 files have been deleted so I thought I would use what I did with all of the animations that I have practiced with for my personal ident.  I first created my text name and used a rounder font as it looks better.  My ideas for this are that my character will swing on my name and the colours for it will be a sort of jungle theme. 

On my name, I have added a bend modifier with the bend angle of 150.  This means that you can still see the name on the front view.

I then started to create my character starting off from a cylinder and adding vector points to it.  The vector points were useful and allowed me to modify the shape of the character without added extra bits to the shape.  I added teeth and ears using this.  Having the vector points available also allowed me to modify certain parts at a time for example the colour or extrusion points.  This helped me to build my character.  The one thing I could not do was create round eyes from this but maybe if I had more vector points, this would be possible.  I had to create the eyes using extra sphere shapes.  At first, I had a white eyeball and black pupil for the eye but I found this hard for when I was animating the character therefore, I only kept the black pupil. 

When I got to the point of changing the colours of the character, it wouldn’t allow me to assign the colours in the way I was advised to by using ID numbers for the different parts therefore, I used my own choice of doing every colour selection part separately which I found a lot quicker, less confusing and easier to do.

To change my character’s expression, I had to go into the “edit polygon” menu and select vector to be able to move the different points of the character’s mouth.  To be able to do this accurately, I had to zoom in a lot and do every single vector point that it might affect.

For my ideas for my character to swing, I wanted to make the brown tree ropes bend and swing but as I could not apply the bend modifier to the ropes, I had to swing it from the top.  This still looked OK. 

 

For the first part of my animation after using the Auto Key tool, I made the character jump, bend and twist.  I found that I could not make it jump without applying the other modifiers first and separately therefore, I applied the bend and twist modifiers first.  I started the bend modifier at frame 3 and the twist modifier at frame 7.  The twist modifier was done in the centre so that only the head would twist and not the whole body.  These were applied accordingly to make it look like it was enough.  I started the jump using the move and select tool on frame 2.  At frame 7, I started to change the character’s face expression again. 

When I got to frame 32, I used the squeeze modifier to show the impact of the character’s bounce and when this finished, I started the swinging motion using the rotation tool from frame 56.

I found that when I was using the rotation tool when selecting the whole character, the point of rotation wasn’t right so I had to move the eyes separately from the rest of the character.  I found it hard to keep this accurate.