Shoot of London

As a group we travelled to London and filmed lots of footage. The photos that i have included are screen shots from the videos that we took. As a group we decided to shoot iconic places in London such as Tower bridge , the Shard and also the London Eye. The sites that we travelled to will signify to the audience the location of our movie and will also set the scene for our movie. These scenes will also be used to credit the 'editor' and 'photographer' for example. Overall we are pleased with the footage that we shot as it came out as planned. We have decided to replace the map scene with the photos because they both still represent where the film is going to be set.

Journal : Hospital Scene Take 3

We showed our title sequence to both of our teachers today and they both instructed us to film our final scene again. We also felt that as a group it was a good idea as we want our title sequence to look as good as possible. We all agreed that the head movements from Thabo were to repetitive and that it wasn't creating the right effect. Although when we was filming the second time we felt that what we had shot looked good but when was editing and watching back over our title sequence we could notice that it did need some improvements so therefore decided to shoot again the third time.

In the photos that i have included show me in a white cloak which represents me acting as a doctor. We felt that if i walked past Thabo as an extra looking like a doctor it would make the sequence look a lot more realistic and also make it more obvious to the audience that it is a hospital waiting room. Another photo i have included shows Harry positioning the camera above Thabo's head on the tripod to catch a shot of him looking up. It was hard to try and keep the camera still and film at the same time. The last photo shows how low we had to position the tripod so that the camera could catch a shot of Thabo with his face in his hands.

Overall this shoot was successful and hopefully we managed to get every shot which we needed. We also tried to catch some other shots from different angles of Thabo sitting down which we will keep as spare as they may come in useful. We felt that it was a better option to have more shots which we could include instead of not having enough.

Journal : Script

We had to write a small script to be included in the first scene we shot, which will be used at the end of the sequence in our hospital scene. Thabo played the son (Anton Lewis) and a teacher at our school played the father (Luther Lewis). The script is a short conversation just before Luther died. This conversation is going to be edited into our sequence as a voice over and is going to be running through Anton's head whilst he is in the hospital waiting room. Luther was trying to explain to his son about 'the books' and is trying to imply to his son that he now needs to watch himself in life.

Son- "Take it easy Dad"....

Dad- "The books"....

Son- "The books are done,dad. They're okay. I took care of it"......

Dad- "I'm Sorry".....

Son- "You don't need to be"!

Dad- "The Books,... I'm ... I'm Sorry"

Son- "NURSE"!!!

Journal : Filming the hospital scene part 2

As a group we decided that our hospital scene which we shot in the science needed some improvements. We decided to that we wanted Thabo who is acting as Anton Lewis in our title sequence to stand up and move around whilst he was acting to show that he was worried about his dad. In our last shoot we didn't think about this and by him doing this it makes it seem a lot more realistic. In this shoot the facial expressions used by Thabo also express his emotions which makes this part of the sequence look good this creates good tension for the audience. Thabo uses a very firm looking face which makes the audience want to know what he is thinking about/planning to do.
Overall this shoot was a lot more successful than the previous shoot. The acting Thabo did was also a lot better as we was able to catch good shots of his facial expressions.

Filming of the new cards

Here are some photos from our second shoot of the cards scene. Our group all went back to Harrys house and filmed the scene again in his cellar. We set up the cards again to create the casino look. We decided to film the scene again because the first cards which we made didn't look professional enough to put into our main title sequence.
 This shoot went much better than our first shoot and we are happy as a group that we decided to make new cards to make the title sequence look a lot more better and professional.

The new cards

Here is a photo of our new cards which we designed on photoshop. We made these cards from scratch and decided to add the actors name on them. We printed them onto photo paper and then cut them out to the correct measurements and then glued them onto a real card so that they look identical to a normal playing card.

We designated each character with the card with best represented them. We gave Ray Winstone the king of spades as he is the leader of the gang. We then gave all of the other gang members black cards which represents that they are the antagonists of the movie. We then gave Idris Elba and Ashley Walters the king and ace of hearts this then makes these characters the protagonists as the audience will feel sympathy for them.

Film Studio

As a group we decided to choose 'Lionsgate' to be the studio our film. We was asked to research into different studios and then to put their titles into our title sequence. These will feature at the beginning of our title sequence. We chose Lionsgate because they have worked with actors who star in our film for example Jason Statham (Transporter 3) , Tom Hardy (Warrior) , Tamer Hassan (Blood Out) , Ray Winstone (Tracker) , Idris Elba (Daddy's Little Girl). Therefore this shows that the actors we have chosen may have a good relationship with the studio and like the way that they work as a studio. Lionsgate are also well known for being a very successful studio due to films such as Hunger Games which made $408,010,692 and the 'Expendables which made $103,068,524.

Lionsgate also distributed 'Harry Brown' which is a famous British crime film which in some aspects is similar to ours due to the setting and also the violence used within the movie.

Also Lionsgate tend to focus mainly on foreign and independent films, and is perhaps best known for distributing films that are too controversial for the large American companies. Therefore we felt that due to the storyline it may appeal to 'Lionsgate' the most out of the well known studios.

Making of the cards

Below are the cards that we made. the first image shows how we printed the cards onto paper to check if they was the correct size. However, they wasn't this meant we had to alter and resize them. We used photoshop and then used the constuction lines to get them to the correct size. Once we finally got it right we printed them onto photo paper and they came out how we wanted them. However, Ray Winstone's card wasnt edited properly and came out a different colour to the rest as we didn't make it white enough. This ment that we had to apply the change and make it the same colour as the other cards.. Overall I think these cards came out really well and looked a lot better than our first idea which was to just write the actors names on using a pen. We then cut out the cards and glued them to a real card this then made the cards look very realisitc and professional. 

Filming the Maps

Filming the maps

On 9th January we went to Harry’s house to shoot the scene involving the map. We wanted to film it from a bird’s eye view to establish the scene and also to show the locations of each of the opposing characters. The plan was to pan across slowly including the thames to show to the audience that the setting is London. We struggled to get it perfect and tried to do it freehand to see if this was a better solution we soon found out that by filming freehand it was very hard to keep the camera still and the end footage came out very shaky and blurry. We decided as a group that this footage was very unprofessional and wasn't good enough to put into our title sequence.

 We all agreed that we still wanted to keep the idea of using a map as it sets the location and also shows the location which is very iconic for our film.

 

We are currently thinking of a new idea still involving maps but haven't quite made a decision.

Sound Track

Sound Track Research

 

The website we used to research for our sound track was ‘Audio network’. The website was very useful as it gave us a very wide range of tracks to choose from. The track we chose is called timeout by Igor Dvorkin and Duncan Pitttock this is perfect as the clock rhythm is just what we was looking for. The ticking of the clock fits perfectly with our scene as it creates tension which is what we want our title sequence to do. The pressure of the songs builds slowly which also creates good tension.

Journal Post : Burning the book

Burning the book

On Friday the 4th January we went to Harry’s house to do some more filming for our title sequence. Our initial idea was to have blood dripping down the inside of the book to represent the death of a character. As a group we decided that by using blood it may make the film come across as a horror and the blood gives the element of gore which is not what we wanted, therefore we decided to burn the page to represent how Luther Lewis (Idris Elba) had 'Cooked the books' and led a life of corruption which ruined his life.

 

In the book we decided to credit the producer whilst the page was burning which creates good effect because as the page is burning the producers name will also be burning away along with the page.

 

When we set up the book we were supervised so that the flame didn't get out of control. We placed a black sack on a small table which created a dark back ground which was what we wanted so that the flame stood out more. The positioning of the lighting was also important as we didn't want the setting to be either to dark or to light. The camera positioning was also important because we needed it just higher than the table so that the effect of the flame was caught and so that writing on the page was visible to the audience who need to read it.

 
Overall this shoot was successful and the footage that we filmed will be used in our title sequence once it is edited.