My Journey Through Film

Filmmaking 101

This was our first project on the SRC film and TV course. This assignment helped us learn many new skills and become friends with each other. The first task we got set as part of filmmaking 101. Filmmaking 101 helped me learn more about cinematography and about how important cinematography is with working with the director. We worked on the Shining recreation shot and the dolly zoom shot from Jaws. doing research and looking into the industry we found out how to do these shots and how the change the scene and add tension. This was a helpful in my journey when becoming a filmmaker as it allowed me to learn more about cinematography and about the industry. It also helped me to learn how to use different equipment and experiment with different styles of filmmaking.

The 180-degree rule is a cinematography technique with two characters in a scene that should maintain the same left/right side to one another. 180-degree rule is often used for over the shoulder shots and is used for conversations in a scene. We had to put together a scene using the 180-degree rule. This would demonstrate that we understood what the 180-degree rule is. We came up with an idea about a game show and the idea was the game show would go wrong. Once we had a script, we began to figure out how to do a 180-degree rule. This was the most helpful as it showed me one of the most important cinematography rules when filming a scene. Furthermore, it showed me how important continuity is for each shot.

We then filmed a Film Noir as part of our filmmaking 101. The film noir was difficult as we had to tell the story without any dialogue in the scene. During filmmaking we experimented with different shots and all worked together to come up with the most creative ideas. During this project we used storyboards. This was our first insight into the pre-production side of filmmaking. I was the main editor on this project and I learned many new skills that I used for my future projects, film noir are in black and white so after doing research we figured out how to change to black and white and how to have interesting transitions in our film noir. This was very helpful as we learnt about locations and different aspects of the pre-production side of filmmaking. This project also advanced my knowledge in editing and allowed, me to learn from certain mistakes.

The final project for the filmmaking 101 was making a short western fight scene. After reaching different western stand offs in iconic movies such as, The Good the Bad and the Ugly. I learnt that the music and the build up to the fight I the most important part. We also looked at different shots used and there are lots of close ups shots of the eyes, hand and more. Furthermore, there is usually multiple wide shots as well to add the tension to the scene. I was director on this project, meaning I was taking on a different role to the rest of the filmmaking projects. I did this so I could experiment with different roles and understand what role I would love to do in the future. This project was helpful as it allowed me to understand how many movies take inspiration of other films to make it their own. I also really enjoyed directing meaning I carried on directing in future projects.

Advertisement

The first project that we were set was creating a short 15 second Greggs advert. We had to create a pitch and proposal for this project. This helped a lot as it allowed me to understand how important it is in the industry to present your idea so the producers like your idea and invest in it. My idea was a based of the briefcase scene from Pulp Fiction and using costumes and props to make it clear it is based from that scene. This project was very interesting into the understanding of the industry and how the pitch and proposal really sells your idea to the producer.

Our first major project was creating a Christmas John Lewis advert and making it appeal to the audience. We used the advertising technique Pathos in our advert as we aimed to appeal emotionally to the audience. We pitched and presented our idea. Furthermore, this was the first project where we had to do all the pre-production paperwork. The pre-production is so important to make to the whole project run smoothly and effectively. I was the main director on this project meaning I had responsibility for the whole cast and crew. I really enjoyed this role as it allowed me to express my idea and work with different people. I was the main editor on this project, and we used a green screen for the photo frame, this was a very advanced editing style and using chroma key for the picture frame. This really helped my editing and filmmaking skills. Overall, this project allowed me to understand the advertising side of the industry. Furthermore, it allowed me to understand all the pre-production and different paperwork that I never did before.

Christmas Carol

On this major project my main job role was 3^rd assistant director. This job entitled me to direct all the background extra in busy scene to one point to the other. The reason this is important because the extras can’t get in front of the camera, but the camera also needs to see them to make the scene look busy. This meant I had to communicate with the actors and the camera team to see what direction the camera is going in so I can move the actors. Another job role on set was sound operator as on some scenes I oversaw sound. This allowed me to learn here the best place to put the microphone to pick up the best high-quality sound. My other role om set was costume and getting all the costume ready for the actors for each scene. We also had to look at continuity on the costume. Overall this project was a great learning point as it showed me a set with a big cast and crew. Furthermore, it allowed me to learn about the different job roles and understand how each job role is important to make the production run smoothly.

Music Video

The music video project was very important in bringing together all the skills I learnt on all my other projects and using them for this project. Using an original artist that I know and being director on this project was very interesting and a challenge for me. I was a joint director with Harriet on this project which allowed us to bounce ideas of each other and work well together. Using all the skills we learnt including, pitching and the pre-production work was very helpful for the pre-production as it allowed us to plan the project. One problem that we did face was the mis communication with the makeup department as we didn’t make it clear that we would need them for our planned shoot day. However, due to out contingency plan we were able to film on the contingency date that we planned. This proved how useful all the pre-production work is before we go into filming. This project also allowed me to understand how important locations are. We went to multiple locations looking at different places which could work for our music video. We went to different locations and took pictures for the crew.

When filming we planned out every shot for the makeup team and after doing some research from movies like Rocky. To save time we had to put all the make-up on first for the cuts the slowly take it off as it would save time. This was a challenge as we had to direct all the actors to make sure they were in the same spot and make sure the cuts and bruises match up with the fight scene.

Editing was a challenge on this project as we had to match up the beat of the song with the video. Furthermore, using the colour technique that I learnt on the Film Noir allowed me to create the best back and white effect that I could.

Overall, this project was a very challenging and ambitious, but the product looks professional and interesting which I was very proud off. Using all the techniques I learnt in other projects allowed me to use the past experience on this project to make it the best it could be.

Oscars Rundown 2020

We then created a magazine show about the 2020 Oscars, before the Oscars and after the Oscars. We had multi-cam set up for this and this was the first time the first years had experience with a multi-cam setup. I worked on many projects as a camera operator.

Two main shows I worked on were the best picture and hosting the Oscars which I did multiple bit of research and looked into the winner of best picture as we were presenting the morning of the Oscars so we had to plan before, because we didn’t know who was going to win. I tried to lead the conversation and make the conversation flow by asking my co-host his thoughts on the topic. My main project was best picture, so I edited this. I used effects from other magazine shows that I research such as ‘This Morning’ and had the clip from the film play over it whilst we talked about it. I also had UFilms banners pop up when we are talking about the topic. This gave the show a professional look. Furthermore, it was the first time using multi-cam so we had to match up the audio with all the clips. We clapped before we began filming, this made it easier to match up all the audio.

Podcast

Our audio-based project was to create a podcast with three episodes ranging from five to fifteen minutes in duration. I and Kai worked together on creating a podcast about conspiracy theories and the most popular ones. I did a lot of research ion the topic and found some facts about the topic that could prove the conspiracy theory correct. We also research about podcasts and how popular they had become in the past few years with young adults listening to different shows such as The Joe Rogan Experience.

Short Film

I am currently in the process of my short film, however due to COVID-19 all colleges have shut meaning we can’t advance massively as we can’t leave our homes. With my contingency plan, I saved all the pre-production work to my hard drive meaning I can do all pre-production work at home. This will allow me to go straight into filming ponce colleges re-open. I am currently on my third draft of my script looking at the feedback and trying to improve my script, so I have a final version for when colleges re-open.