Meeting 1: We discussed each of our film pitches and evaluated the pros and cons of each. The four genres we discussed were: romantic comedy, horror, horror comedy and teen drama. Each had positives and negatives but in the end there was a draw between the romantic comedy and the teen drama. Both had very similar plots and storylines so we merged the two and came out with a romantic comedy.
Meeting 2: Jonathan completed the task of evidence of how the opening fits with genre codes/conventions and audience; Dom and Zahra together worked on the storyboard for the opening; I completed several moodboards for similar films, typography and costume.
Meeting 3: Jonathan and I wrote the narrative for the voice-over that Dom will be reading over the opening scene whilst Dom and Zahra continued with the storyboard.
Meeting 4: Jonathan and I completed the narrative for the voice-over; Dom and Zahra completed the storyboard and worked on the timeline for the opening scene.
Meeting 5: We discussed the different things we needed to complete before shooting next week, issues that we may have with continuity (weather; it will be hard to travel to Southend several times etc.) and continued work on the task list. Jonathan found photos of the locations we will shoot in (Southend-on-Sea beach, Adventure Island theme park, Southend arcades and a coffee shop e.g. Costa or Starbucks). Dom and Zahra touched up the storyboard to make it absolutely accurate. I wrote out a list of all of the shots.
Meeting 6: I filmed the storyboards and Dom uploaded them onto Adobe Premiere. He then recorded a voice-over explaining each of the shots which fit with the storyboard video. Jonathan finished his location and recce shots and Zahra helped finish the storyboard.
Meeting 7: Dom recorded two versions of his narrator voice-over, one in a happy tone and one in a sadder tone. We then voted for which we thought was the best-suited for the opening sequence and decided that instead of a romantic comedy we are veering towards a romantic drama, choosing the sad voice-over in order to fully portray the feelings of the character Brody (Jonathan's character).
Meeting 8: We were given several questions to answer about box office and the audience of our movie and we set up the green screen to film. We each answered one question, with Dom posing as an audience member and answering a question about his favourite romantic comedies, and Miss Brookes filmed for us.
Meeting 9: As Miss Brookes had accidentally taken photos instead of filming our 'interview', we had to re-film with the green screen using Mr Amato as the cameraman.
Meeting 10: We edited the 'interview', cutting out over 20 minutes of extra blooper footage. We experimented with different backgrounds for the green screen and different effects that Premiere had to offer.
Meeting 11: We finished editing the audience interview, using a background which blended in with the parts of the classroom wall we hadn't covered with the green screen, overall creating a realistic effect.
Meeting 12: We wrote lists of things we needed e.g. props and costumes. Dom completed the risk assessment for each location we would film at.
Meeting 13: Dom completed a shooting schedule for the following days' filming. Jonathan checked out the camera and tripod so that we were able to film the day after.
Meeting 14: We all went to Dom's house after school in order to complete the first few shots of filming: a video gaming scene, watching a scary movie, studying together and relaxing at 'Brody''s house.
Meeting 15: We uploaded the footage from the night before and added them all onto Adobe Premiere.
Meeting 16: We edited the footage we had together and tried to find some music that would fit with the tone of the montage.
Meeting 17: On Saturday 30th November we met at the train station and took the train to Southend Victoria. We walked down the high street and discussed which of the four coffee shops we'd like to use for the end of the montage and also which shops we could visit to film in. We went to the arcades first as the tide was out and filmed in those. Then we went onto the beach and filmed until it was dark. The only shot that we did not get was the coffee shop shot.
Meeting 18: We uploaded all of our footage onto Adobe Premiere and deleted those which we didn't think were good enough for the montage. Altogether the footage came to over four minutes so we chopped them down.
Meeting 19: We continued to edit our footage, exploring Premiere for effects we could use, including creating a big border to give a sort of old-time indie film effect. We also dimmed the opacity on the beginning shots to made them look sadder, and added sad piano music to set the atmosphere.
Meeting 20: Editing continued. We chose the music for the montage, a happy-go-lucky indie acoustic song. We started attempting to cut the montage to the beats of the music, cutting the entire time of the opening scene down to just over 2 minutes.
Ellie Robson - AS Media