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Catching up Robyn showed us a storyboard she had drawn up in which we discussed it and all agreed we liked it. 

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Today's class was all about Visual Style. We were recapping on camera angles and what effects and meaning they can have. We also looked at colours and the connotations of certain coloured lighting. For example Red can be danger or love. Watching openings of superhero movies helped me understand and look more in depth at the Directorial and aesthetic choices the production team did. The Avengers: Age of Ultron opening: Used blue lighting to create a cold and isolated atmosphere, whilst also starting straight in the action.

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This lesson was finalising ideas and going through how to write a short story script. What's important in a short script - one thing is that everything is shown through mainly visual effects like costume, props and set. As a group we discussed some ideas for ours, finally coming to an idea after a vote. The idea is an assassin being sent to a party to get rid of a target, however after meeting her he starts to fall for her. We thought there was a lot we could do with this visually and technically to make it interesting for the audience.

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Today's class was an introduction lesson to what we will be doing within this module. We got shown the lesson structure and assessment briefs so I understand more what is expected of us throughout the module. I think I will enjoy being able to come up with our own creative ideas as a group. As well as having more creative freedom with the filming, lighting and sound process. I'm also interested to learn, but know I may struggle with, more editing, colouring and sound editing.

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An example of aesthetic look number 1 for our short film.

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We sat in our groups today for the final project. Looking at different popular character traits and coming up with film examples we had seen them in. We had a look at some short films such as 'The Blackhole" and went through what makes a short film interesting for the audience. I found this gave me an insight into what our short story could be and what routes creatively we could go down.

I came up with an idea of someone trying to solve a mystery, however we find out at the end that it's their own mystery and is about them.

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Learning about Director and Producer roles today. As a group we sorted out our roles for the film. I am sound so it will be a challenge as I didn't really get the sound equipment, however I will book it out to practice with and as a group we will all help each other. We learned that the director has an important job leading, with some paper work but also that they need to always listen to the group for creative ideas. The producer has a lot of paper work to sort out like Risk assessments and agreements with actors.

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Today was a lecture style lesson as there was a lot of people missing from groups.

We were focusing on sound and editing, which was interesting as I am doing sound within our group. Watching a few examples of how sound is used in openings helped me get a better understanding of the different effects sound can have in the final edit. For example looking at Apocalypse Now (1979) the sound of a helicopter is heard at the start with a black screen and throughout, which starts to show PTSD in the main character. Other sounds are present such as music which builds up and narration.

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We went through the practical research tasks we need to complete. I am going to book out the sound equipment and have a go recording different sound effects, as well as some dialogue, moving the boom pole closer, further away, behind something, move it left and right to see how this effects sound. Talking in my group we have decided on a date to do the script and to talk to our director and start with the sound planning.

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Meeting for 1 we started to set up the space into a New Year's Eve party. As the actors and extras started to arrive. It was a slow start, however once we started filming, we started being able to move a bit faster.

Starting off with establishing shots of the crowed. To then focussing in on smaller groups to get a more closer feel. We then did a few dialogue scenes - doing it a few times with different angles. The hardest scene to shoot was probably the New Year's eve count down as we had to get the extras in certain spaces to make it feel more crowded. We ended the day filming Charlie's death scene as we used fake blood so it would be messy.

All the cast and crew were patient and I feel like we all worked well together. As it was a long day for everyone we decided to film the individual Nathan scenes the next day as we thought they would come out better once we had all had a break.

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Lesson time was to be used for practical research.

We met up between 10am - 1pm to solidify our story/characters and actors and to also work on the script. The script was a group effort with people putting in their ideas for the dialogue and action. We also discussed some of the camera angles, leaning towards wanting some of the short film to be filmed holding the camera and following Nathan the main character around. As it is from his perspective.

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For my practical research I booked out the Sound equipment I will be using.

I watched parts of the Sound induction video again to just refresh my memory and started to try and record a few sound effects. I recorded four different sound effects trying the mic at different angles, a few came out louder than others because of this. I recorded a door closing, plug being plugged in and switched on and a plate and bottle being put down on a desk.

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Today, was all pre production stuff.

We went through the things that still need sorting out within Fridays lesson time such as shot lists, producer paper work and props. We now have a date though which is within week 7: Wednesday 26th February and then we have Friday if we need to shoot anymore scenes as a backup day.

We said we are just worried about getting enough extras to fill the space, to make it look like a party but we can always work round it with shot angles.

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I recorded a lot of background noise so we have options to use in the back of dialogue scenes.

I also got a few sound effects like the door closing and glasses clicking together.

The dialogue came out good. I changed the volume of the audio device depending on the setting e.g. hallway is more echoey etc.

The trickiest part to record on audio as well was the New Years countdown as it was breaking up and had a vibrating static sound.

When filming loud scenes I made sure to listen to the audio back to make sure it was smooth - in some cases I had to ask to redo the scene because of noises or the sound breaking up. I also asked for a practice of the scene to check the sound level of how loud the actors were going to be, to check if I needed to readjust the volume or mic position.

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We then had to change our date to the Friday 28th as the date clashed with one of our actors but that still works.

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I went through and looked at the sound paperwork that I had to do before we start the shoot.

Going through the script I typed out a plan split into each scene that listed the types of audio we would want to record within the scene, just so I could visually see the audio sections that need to be recorded. This should help us to be more organised.

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Today, me and my group had a face time call to finalise any last bits ahead of tomorrow's filming (28/02/25). We added another scene into the script, went through equipment bookings and made a plan for timings tomorrow. As we now think setting up will take a while as we have to set up the party , whilst also doing some make up on Isobel which is a bruise.

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Filming establishing shots of smaller groups.

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Scene between Charlie (Isabel) and Isabel (Isabel).

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Day 2 was all about getting the individual scenes with Nathan(San) filmed. It was easier as it was just the crew today so we got through things a lot smoother. We found we had forgot to film a line but it was easily sorted as we had Robyn say it. The scenes we shot were in the hallway/bedroom and outside the flat door.

A fun one to film was the bathroom scene as we were all squished into the bathroom. It was worth it as the scene turned out looking really good.

After filming we looked through script making sure we had filmed all the scenes. Then checking paper work such as actor and location release forms. Looking to see if we had anything else to do.

We as a group are all happy with how the 2 days filming went and are looking forward to seeing the final thing when we edit it all together.

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The audio today was mainly dialogue so it was clear. At every different camera positions I tried to get the mic close to the actor in one scene and then further away in another.

We recorded more sound effects such as - The front door closing, a scream and a phone ringing. The scream we did muffled where I stood in the corridor and Robyn was in the living room as we wanted that muffled/far away effect.

I also got a lot of silent background noise, especially on the final scenes when Nathan is running out the living room and then the camera moves hand held into the room he just exited to find the body. It will help in the editing when layering sound onto the scenes.

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When I got back I started to go through some of the audio files - We had 103 of them.

Some are just 1 second files of accidentally pressing the record Botton or some are cut halfway through a scene but the others have turned out good!!

I have started noting down the good and usable audio files so it's easier when it comes to the final edit. We found it hard to do this when actually filming as there was a lot going on on set.

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Carrying on with my edit of the short film I made some more progress. Getting some advice helped as I got a few things I needed to tweak. I had a jump cut so got suggested to add more within that scene to make it look intentional. Also I need to add 2 J cuts where the sound will be heard at the start of the next scene, this will help it flow better.

One thing we didn't realise as a group is that we broke the 360 rule on the camera so doing it again we would check that rule as we are going along.

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Editing today, I finished putting all the clips together and started on finding all the right audio parts that go along with the scene. I have had to cut some scenes down as we have loads of shots of Nathan walking up and down the corridor that take up a lot of time. You need them for continuity, however I found a way for the story to still make sense and look good.

A problem we have is that the clapper bored did not match the scenes, this makes it harder when trying to find the audio clips. We tried to fix this by writing on the video clips for example - scene 1 (4 audio). I should have given all the group all the audio files anyway as some people were using different scenes to the labeled ones, next time I will.

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I wasn't in on Monday so me and Hope tried to transfer the footage on Tuesday in the Library. However the computers were crashing and not working so we had to leave it till Friday. It was slightly frustrating as I had wanted to start my rough edit to catch up to everyone else.

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I got all of the scenes transferred onto my hard drive so I can start the editing process - also I transferred all the audio onto peoples hard drives. I started on my rough cut by just putting all the scenes in order of the story. Aesthetically I wanted the establishing party shots to be first to then go onto a shot of bottles as the title scene.

We recapped premier pro which was useful as some things I had forgotten how to do.

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Today, as a group we looked back over our footage from the weekend before. It was all in focus and we managed to match up the audio files with the clips. Lara came round to review the footage - one note we got was that it was a little dark in some scenes, however we were told that it could work as not every scene is like that and it is meant to be night and a party.

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I added music over the top of the party scenes which gives it more atmosphere. I went for an upbeat party un copyrighted beat.

After having a reminder and suggestions about colour correcting I went ahead and start playing around with the different colours in the party scene, going for the blue tone in the end. I also auto coloured the bedroom phone scene as after some advice I could tell it had a yellowy tint to it. Another thing I knew was that some scenes didn't have the sound audio so I went ahead and tried to find that.

I went ahead and added the scream sound over a black screen in-between Nathan walking down corridor and Izzy of the body. It gives the ending a final impact and suddenness.

Another thing is that I can hear a slight ticking noise in the background of Charlie and Izzy's scene, we got rid for the rest of the scenes in that area as I realised when shooting a different scene in the same area so asked to re film that one there and then. Doing it again I would make sure to listen back to all the audio there or we could have done a reshoot.

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With the music I was unsure if I should carry it through to the end scenes after the countdown. But I decided to keep it going even when Nathan is walking down the corridor with the weapon as it contrasts with the sudden black screen and a scream. The scene over Charlie's body is also silent. I think this gives the ending even more of an impact.