Group meetings

First group meetings

Our first group meeting was when we started the project to get our initial ideas together. But after we had got all our ideas in we had to keep meeting or talking every now and then to make sure we where on the same page as each other, understood what was going on and when we were filming next etc.
It was also very helpful if anyone had any other ideas that we could have added into the shoot. Because everydy we realised there was new things we could pop into it to make it better.

After our first shoot, we looked back on the footage and realised it was nothing like how we wanted it to be. It was really dissapointing and we started to panic. As that shoot had taken us about 10 hours to do, and we were running out of time till it had to be finished. We had a meeting and we had to decide what to do. As we knew we couldn't have stuck with just the footage we had or our film opening would look terrible. So we came up with another day, time and location for our next filming session. We had to come up with a whole new idea that would be just as good as our last one, but also work. It also had to be a reachable target for the time we had left.

Luckily it all worked out. The panic was finally over.

Group meeting at the editing stage
In the editing stage we had to have more meetings of how to piece everything together that we had filmed. But because there was four of us, we couldn't all bundle round one computer as there were other things we had to do. So we had two at a time round a computer. Ben at all times as he was the main editor. When we were not editing we decided we should do blog work and finish off little tweaks that we needed. Before the editing we all decided on what kind of idea of what we wanted it to be. But as the editing went on we'd all sit together at a certain point and screen it so we could all decide how it looked. This process really worked as we finished it and we all loved how it looked. And in between we got work done which was perfect.
by kira knight

pre production work, shot list

shot list written by Amy meitiner

pre production work, first draft of shot list

Shot list written by Amy meitiner

pre production work, voice over

credited to Ben halliday, Amy Meitiner and Kira Knight

pre production work, log in sheets

Credited to Amy Meitiner and Kira Knight

pre production, video risk evaluation sheet

Pre - production paperwork

Pre production was a very important part of making our film. Without it we would have had no structure or order when making the film

The pre production we undertook included storyboards, resarch and shot lists.

Research was one of the first things we did. We looked at past neo noirs and contemporary noirs to get the sort of feel of the film we had to make. As none of us had made an opening sequence before, let alone one which was of a contemporary noir nature. We did surveys to get information of what sort of thing people of our age group would want to watch. So we could get our idea perfect for our film.

We had to write a quick synopsis of our film, this was about 150 words just so we had our idea on paper. We then wrote wrote a more detailed synopsis, which was more helpful in a sense because as it had more detail, thus it was easier than having to remember every little idea.

Then again, this is what the storyboard was for. We had the type of shots, the duration and what kind of sound would be on it, followed by a quick description of what the scene was all about. This was important mainly to know what sort of sound we would have under the scenes we were shooting, and the duration of the shot.

The shot list was probably the most important of our pre-production work. This is because it had all the shots we needed and the description written down. We did it for every shot we needed. So if we forgot anything we could go back to it everytime and it would be perfect because we'd look at the shot type, what was happening in the scene and where it was being filmed.

I never realised at first how important pre production could be. I thought it might just be extra hassle. But without it, we would have had no idea as a group where to start. It gave a lot more structure to our filming and deffinitly saved us in times of trouble.

credited to Kira Knight