Pre-Production Diary 1

 For our Depict piece, we've had to create a shot list and begin making storyboards.
 Whilst we were deciding and writing the shot list, we found that it would be difficult to get a young girl to co-operate during filming and have decided to scrap the idea of the man having a daughter in the bed in the first place. Instead, the piece will show a man talking to his daughter, warding off "monsters" and will finish with the audience finding out that the bed was empty from the offset.

 In order to effectively finish our shot-list, we've created a Google Doc where we can all edit the same piece and have our input to make the work an equal effort from all people. It contains the lighting, angle, mise-en-scene, directions, duration and transitions for each shot. All we need to do to finish it is add the sounds and refine the dialogue, although we have already written briefly about them.

 Having finished this, we began drawing a storyboard using the methods which Ellie had told us about during lesson. This involved illustrating the scenes which we'd written about previously. Because none of us are too fond on drawing, we came to the decision to take turns drawing each scene as to not place too much pressure on somebody to do something which they didn't enjoy. For each of the pieces we draw, we must also add information about the sound effects, dialogue, transitions, a description of what's happening on-screen, a description of the mise-en-scene and the duration to which the shots will take place.

  Because we didn't complete it, we'll continue doing that through next lesson whilst other members complete other activities given to us :) yay

Thursday 2nd October
 Today we completed our storyboards and refined certain aspects of the shot-list in order to make it more effective for the audience.

 I drew all of the pictures, whilst Connor began writing details of camera direction and mise-en-scene on the side of page 1. Because Ellis wasn't here we left him one page of storyboards to write about as we felt he'd want to have input on this part of the production.

 We'd also scouted certain locations, and (as we've decided to film it at my house) I took pictures and got permission from my mummy :) to film there, which preceded in us filling out location forms or Reces.

 After completing the drawings I filled out the detailing for page 3 of the storyboards.
 Our final step is to arrange what times and dates we'll be filming and get the rest of the paperwork done, alongside deciding what sound effects to use in the final scenes.

Friday 3rd October
 We've completed all of the detailing on our storyboards, and have filled out all the paperwork we've been given so far in class. I finished the risk assessment sheet and helped with the prop and costume lists, alongside getting the pictures for the Reces which still need to be uploaded and completed.

 As we're filming next Thursday and Friday, we're practising opening credits & closing scenes on the editing programme in class during Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; alongside finishing off any paperwork which needs to be done and finalising our ideas so we're fully prepared for filming.

 Connor contacted two of his friends who will act in the piece if they're available, and so the only major thing left for us to do is fill out the forms regarding the talent agreements for the actors.

Monday 6th October
 We added some extra information to the shot lists, including the transitions and edits between each shot.

Tuesday 7th October 
We didn't do any work as we watched the movie "The Science of Sleep."

Wednesday 8th October
 Today we added more information to our paperwork, and noted that Connor will play the part of the father and Ellis will play the hostage.

Friday 10th October 
 We were not in college today so we took the opportunity to film everything we needed.

Monday 13th October
 We uploaded all of the footage into Premier Pro on a Mac computer but could not begin editing due to the fact one of our classmates wasn't here.

Tuesday 14th October 
 Today we began editing the footage which we uploaded - we simply put it all in a timeline and played around with the length of each shot.

Wednesday 15th October 
 We made sure everything was in order on the timeline during editing, and altered the lengths of some clips to make the piece flow better. During this, we were also looking for sound clips to use in during it and converted some clips from Youtube.

Thursday 16th October 
 We added some of the audio to the timeline, and uploaded the audio clips we recorded from that day.

Friday 17th October
 We began playing with the lighting tools, trying to make the scene look darker by changing the opacity and colours in the clips and added some edits between shots.

Monday 20th October
 Deciding that the lighting looked better with the default settings, we restored it back to how it originally was and made sure the audio matched perfectly, changing the edits so it makes the piece flow a bit better.

Tuesday 21st October
 We finished up watching through our video and began choosing fonts and colours for the title screens.

Thursday 23rd October
 The clip was finished today - we spent the last moments watching through and refining the edits.