Advanced Portfolio A2

Saturday, 10 November 2012

Story Board

Thursday, 8 November 2012

Prop List, Mise-en-scene, Costumes & Locations

Props

Tea set - which I will use for my tea party between the Mad Hatter and Alice Borrowed off a friend

Small table or blanket - for the tea party between the Mad Hatter and Alice Borrowed off a friend

Teddy bears - to act as the Mad Hatter's companions My own and friends

Mobile Phone - to symbolise her breaking up with her boyfriend Rosie's own

Green blanket - for Alice to lay on when she wakes up in forest Havent managed to find

Bedroom props - to give the feeling of being at home and making it personal My own

Looking Glass - to show that the Red Queen is watching Alice as she makes her way through Wonderland Havent managed to find

Locations

Forest scene - Park near College
I have chosen this location because it is easily accessible, therefore enabling me to get more filming done during college time when the weather permits it. This changed to the forest near Humber Bridge

Field - Rugby field near College
I have chosen this location because it is remotely accessible, I am able to have my forest location in the background which I had initially planned and there are less likely to be people around to capture in the background because it is somewhat secluded. This changed to a field near the Humber Bridge

Execution room - Seating area in park near college
This location is different to my initial plan. However, when wandering through the park I came across it and thought it would be perfect because there is a seat where the Red Queen could sit and watch and a overturned log on which Alice could kneel to make it seem like she is on trial.

Bedroom - My Bedroom
I thought my bedroom would be the best place for the bedroom scenes. This is because my house is central for both cast members and includes all the aspects that I had initially planned. When I first planned it, I was hoping to use my original Alice's bedroom, but then we had to change cast and my bedroom was the closest in comparison.

Porch - My friend Rosie (Alice)'s porch
This was the best option for the porch because her porch leads straight to her staircase which made it more realistic when she turns to run up the stairs. Also her main doorway doesn't have much of a step up to the door, on which the boyfriend would fall down when he got pushed out if it within the beginning shots. However, this had to be changed due to unforeseen circumstances.

Queens' room - ?
I have yet to find a location that would be realistic enough to pass as a Queens' bedroom.

Concert room - Pastel Jack's practise area
Due to the fact that I am friends with the lead singer of Pastel Jack, he has said that they would be willing to let me into their practise room to film them performing the song.

Monday, 15 October 2012

Evaluation of Deconstruction/Reconstruction task

For my practical work, my group initially consisted of 5 members including myself, who decided to take our inspiration from Florence and the Machine – Rabbit Heart, which we chose because it was the most attainable music video that our group had from the summer work, other people’s videos had aspects that would have been near impossible to recreate. We had to try and make the video as close to the original as possible, which we assumed was going to be easy since the original video consisted of people dancing in a field. We divided the responsibilities within the members of our group, so that we all had a part to play in the completion of the task.

In order to recreate the music video we hunted around the college to see where would be the best place to film our music video. We chose either the back of the college field or the grass near the pond. When we took pictures of our choices, we thought that the grassy area near the pond was the best choice because there would be less chance of getting the houses in the background which would make the shots look less authentic. Once we got our entire group together we then divided the costumes that we had collected between the actors in order to make them look like the actors in the video.

The section of video that we chose was the first 30 seconds which showed ‘Florence’ standing facing the camera then dancing with other people around her. The mise-en-scene was obtained quite easily as it was made up of pieces of clothing that people had in their houses and a piece of lace to put over the front of the camera to be the shimmery material at the beginning of the original video.

One of the main problems we found was that some of our team members weren’t showing up to lessons and the producer didn’t get us people to film, which meant that when we were trying to film we were unable to do so because we didn’t have anyone to film. In order to overcome this problem we joined forces with another group whose members weren’t turning up either, therefore, the people that wanted to get it done weren’t being obstructed by people that weren’t turning up to the lessons, however, we then decided to just join as one big group of 9 then if some people didn’t turn up then we would still have a significant amount of people to make the video. Another problem we had was during the editing process, we found it particularly difficult to lip-sync the actor singing to the actually music because our actress sang the lyrics too slow on one of the takes which meant that the shot started off in sync, but then later in the same shot, the mouth wasn’t in sync and that shot was the only version with a certain amount of lyrics which was even more infuriating because we didn’t have the time to reshoot that section so we needed to accept that those lyrics wouldn’t be in sync.

I found out the skills which went into editing just a mere 30 seconds of film which was difficult on its own because I had forgotten all the skills that I had developed during the transition period last year, therefore, I had to re-learn the skills that were required. I am worried that I will not be able to master these techniques before I have to take on the task of creating my own music video. I have also learnt the importance of planning my project and giving myself a schedule of when I will be filming and where since I have chosen may different locations, also, I have learnt the vitality of actually sticking to the schedule so that I don’t fall behind and have to rush my work, very much like my group nearly did with this task, but we were lucky enough that the location was at college so we were able to film during our study periods so that we didn’t fall that far behind our timescale.

One problem that I can see occurring with my video is that I won’t be able to find a location for a specific section of my video that is actually quite vital for the storyline that I am aiming for; therefore, I will have to rethink that section of my video. I will overcome this by looking round my local area for a location that will give my video the look I am hoping for. Another problem that I can see occurring is that my main actress’s busy schedule will cause her to miss a few shooting sessions as she is part of Hull Truck Theatre and has a few shows coming up which will take up most of her time this will result in me having to find a new willing actress to be my main person which I don’t want to do since my friend is a natural performer and will be able to get this part perfect as she is flamboyant and eccentric which I need for my video. I will try to overcome this by making sure that I alter my schedule round her and my actors or shoot the sections that don’t require certain actors at a different time and then edit them all together so that they look like they’re there. I’m also scared that I won’t leave myself much time to edit my video or that when I do decide to start editing, the editing suite that I am assigned to is taken up most of the times that I have free which will mean I have less time to edit than everyone else. I am also concerned that I won’t be able to the costumes that I vision in my head and therefore, my video will not look the way I want it to. I will try to overcome this by making sure that I spend most of my study periods.