Tuesday 25 February 2014

Character Profiles

Hitman - Very secretive, a person who keeps himself to himself, straight forward & of course has a dark mind Wealthy Man - Determined on seeking revenge and will not stop at anything until the job is done. Hard working and self-motivated with a mind for business and profit. Target - Wreckless, a lair, jobless and a cheat; without a care for anyone but himself, however his misfortune lands him in trouble, but he cannot disprove the allegations with his past..

Confirmed Filming dates

For definite, we will now be shooting on Monday 3rd. With confirmed locations being isolated woods, urban streets & from within a car.

How the camera will be used

We will use the camera on automatic setting, as i think this will be easiest, however as shown in the mock-up scene footage some manual focus will be used as we change the depth of field. This creates a nice effect on screen and makes a good transition between cuts.

Tuesday 11 February 2014

Interesting Site

A website, dedicated to the Tarantino film making style - lists all his trademark film shots & some examples from his films

Tarentino Trademarks

Wednesday 5 February 2014

Proposed Equipment

Obvious equipment that will be needed is a camera and tripod, the camera to be used is a D-SLR as it has good video capabilities and is a nice, portable piece of gear.
The tripod will be used for steady shots and is small + compact, again making it easily portable.
Other equipment will be improvised,  a suggested homemade dolly track is a possibility as it would give a nice perspective instead of a conventional tracking shot.
A boom mic will be used but only for dialogue scenes rather than for the entirety of the film.

Tuesday 4 February 2014

Mock-up Scenes


Interesting Shooting Technique - Defocus Aberration

In optics, defocus is the aberration in which an image is simply out of focus. This aberration is familiar to anyone who has used a camera, videocamera, microscope, telescope, or binoculars. Optically, defocus refers to a translation along the optical axis away from the plane or surface of best focus. In general, defocus reduces the sharpness and contrast of the image - Wikipedia

Thriller/Gangster Scenes

This is one of my favourite Thriller/Gangster scenes. The budget and technical advantages that the filming of The Sweeney has over any film i could possibly shoot is massive. The camera shots and editing in the duration of this scene is quite achievable, and would prove very nice if i could pull the shots off

Music Choices - Fitting Genres

An idea that immediately sprang to mind was the soundtrack from the film The Sweeney, now obviously the project cannot include copyrighted material, however the ambience created via The Sweeney's soundtrack is ideal for the type of film we are shooting. The film holds inspiration which is key for developing my own soundtrack as the genre of The Sweeney almost fits perfectly the type of film i'm trying to shoot.

Proposed Shooting Locations

After a brief discussion, some unconfirmed shooting locations were made. Isolation was key for a genre film like this, and as such the edge of a woodland seemed ideal as good quality, undisturbed scenes could be shot.

The film is based predominantly at night, which agin is a convention of a thriller/crime film. Various urban areas will be used but mainly un-pedestrianised areas will be essential in maintaining the continuity.

Monday 3 February 2014

Script

Character names are yet unconfirmed, however a script is put together and names will be decided at a later date.

Salih
Michael
Sean

Michael - I've got the keys for your job (Throws keys to Salih) Don't get caught

Salih - Yeah alright sweet boss, no problem

-Next Scene-

Salih - (Calling Michael on phone) I think i've found him boss, you still want me to go ahead with it?

Michael - (Not in shot) Yeah, do it.

-Next Scene-

Salih finds Sean

Sean - Oh shit its you, (Begins running)

Salih - (Catches up with Sean) Michael wants me to give you something

-Fight occurs-

That is the initial script (subject to changes and improvements) for the first scene.

Dialogue & Acting

Dialogue is without question an essential part of film, its used to convey everything, however sometimes scenes without dialogue have most impact if shot correctly. With this in mind, my film scene will have part dialogue, part no narrative.

Convincing acting is a crucial element in the continuity of a film, this is why careful planning must be used in order to gain maximum marks.


Film Testing

With some light attempts at shooting some mock up scenes of our film, this was purely to see the logistics of how the scenes may pan out when it comes to the final shoot.
Its clear to see that daytime is probably best for the initial scenes as lighting would not be an issue; however a night scene maybe required and the conventions of gangster scenes contain night shots.
The test footage will be uploaded shortly.