On the 13th of December, after school, Daniel and I stayed behind to film some test footage of the D.T. room and the English corridor so that we had an idea of how we could film and where actors needed to be positioned for the best results. We found that the D.T. room was the perfect place to film the Girl scenes, as it had big industrial doors and looked like an abandoned warehouse or factory of some sort - the kind of effect we wanted for these scenes. We were pleased to see that there was a place where the Girl could be positioned where, when the doors were slid back, a crack of light would illuminate half her face, as specified in the storyboard. There was also a good section of the ceiling where we could tape a torch for the effect of a swinging light bulb. With all of this in mind Daniel began to take pictures for reference, such as the clothes I would be wearing, where the stool and torch would be placed, the doors... he then filmed me opening the doors and the effect that they create of my face when I am sat on the stool.
On the 15th we began to look at film posters and film magazine covers to help us to create our own. As a class we criticized each others drawn out drafts and left post-its with good and bad feedback so that we can work on them and meet specifications. We received all good feedback from our film magazine cover with no areas where we needed to improve which pleased us and our teacher. However there were a couple of things that needed improving on for our film poster - it needed an age rating, producer information, newspaper reviews and when it is coming out to appear on it. So I made these changes swiftly; remembering my target audience being 15-25+, I put the age rating as a 15. I then added 'coming soon' and 'from the producers of...' on it and made up some reviews from The Times newspaper and Total Film magazine.
After this exercise we looked at some professional film posters and magazine covers. The posters were for "McGruber", "Crazy Heart" and "Never Let Me Go". We analysed them as a class, noticing that "McGruber" was an action comedy as there was a rather large explosion in the background and each character had a mock 'serious' face. The title suggested that the film was a spoof of well-known action programme "McGyver", and spoofs tend to try and be funny. We said that "Crazy Heart" was probably a feel good country and western themed film about a man and his love for music, as there was an old man with a guitar and the font for the title was in a font that if often used on Cowboy films. Therefore the film had no age rating on the poster as it wouldn't appeal to a younger audience anyway. "Never Let Me Go" had the appearance of a romance film as the colours were all black, red and white which is conventional of this style of film. Keira Knightly's award was advertised under her name on the cover to show people that she is a very good actress, therefore this is a serious film with good acting involved. We knew that it wasn't a Romantic Comedy, as there were no smiles or laughing on the cover. All characters looked either serious or sad.
We looked at some issues of Total Film and Empire. We saw how each main image was central and mostly had direct mode of address. The conventions of the magazine were sometimes subverted in order to fit with the genre of the film in the main image, for example, when 'Inception' was the main image, the subtitles and surrounding text was given the effect of being sucked into the centre of the magazine. The conventional colours seemed to be red, white and black with the occasional blue. The title of the magazine is always in the top left corner and the bar code in the bottom right corner.
When school had finished, Daniel and I came back at around 5 'o' clock to begin some filming. I got changed into the clothes of my character - baggy, scruffy jeans and a plain white t-shirt - and put on some eye liner and mascara to smudge down my face to give the effect that I have been crying. I then back combed my hair to make it look incredibly messy. We went to the D.T. room and my feet were duck taped to a stool that I was sat on, and some duck tape was placed around my mouth to be used as the gag. I was the Girl, and ready to be filmed. Some string was placed on our torch which was then taped above my head but out of shot so that it looked like a swinging light bulb above me. Daniel used his camera to film me acting distraught with the help of extra lighting from Russell Shaw and Ashley Pitt who used other torches and their phones. Daniel filmed a close up, mid shot, long shot, high angle shot and panning shot using a trolley. All these shots were repeated at least twice so that when it comes to editing, we can pick the best take. After these shots were done, we went to the English corridor to do some test footage how to film the Magician walking using Russell Shaw's feet as our real actor was unavailable. We realised that a skateboard would need to be used to give the effect that the camera is following the Magicians feet, otherwise the camera is too shaky and it looks unprofessional.
On the 16th Dec, we filmed some of the Magicians scenes before our classes begun. Because we only had a top hat and blazer available at this time, we said that this would simply be test footage. We only filmed Scott as the Magician opening the big industrial doors. We filmed his face in a close up and then a mid shot from the back so that we didn't get any incorrect mise-en-scene into the frame.
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