Cou231 Film Production Blog

We all met up this week for an overview of the final draft of our film with the music which was produced for it finally edited in to it. All members of the group, including the sound producer were present. We presented our thoughts on the production and decided on any last changes that were needed.

We discussed the documentation we required and any and all issues that we might have with the final product as it is the last week before handing it in. 

The link to the final draft is presented bellow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAhSydcc-BY&feature=youtu.be

This week we all met up, including our music composer to view the latest draft of our film and discuss it. This allowed our composer to see what the final product would be like with a draft of the music she provided.

We also showed it off to the rest of the  groups in order to gain some more constructive criticism towards it, however the return on criticism received was much less than the time before. 

- The use of two panning down shots, one after another is a little unconventional.

- Shaky handheld shots needed to be sorted out.

During the Easter break shooting took place at the island with the actress now present, this allowed us to focus on editing the film together so that it had more of a story to it. The over all story has come together quite nicely with the guidance of the poem, however we do need some more additional scenes with our actress. I am also aiming to attempt to re-record the sounds that we need.

We were also able to find someone to provide a voice over to narrate the poem which we had the rights to. The voice over is in keeping with what we had in mind during the pre-production phase.

We spent a few hours this week editing the footage that we had gathered at the island, we arranged it in to a basic sequence that resembled something close to our mood reel, however with the constructive criticism in mind so that we did not make the same mistakes that we did prior.  Unfortunately the audio I recorded at the island won’t work within our film due to the poor weather conditions effecting the recordings. According to Lyver and Swainson “All manufacturers provide wind socks for their microphones. These are inexpensive and very good at reducing low levels of wind” (113 : 1999) This however did not provide the necessary protection needed against the levels of wind present during the shoot, however there is a solution as Lyver and Swainson also suggest, stating that “The expensive solution is to go to a special manufacturer who produces proper wind shields designed to eliminate higher winds.” (113 : 1999) However this seems unlikely to happen.

We also arranged to set up a meeting with our selected actress in order to decide as to whether or not she would be suitable for our Dwynwen. After meeting up we decided that she was suitable for the role.

This week we visited the island for the first time since the pre-production phase, this time was used to take cover shots of the landscape and experiment with different shots that might work within the film. We had an idea as to what we aimed to film so that we could use our time to the best of our abilities.

I also used this time to attempt to record a number of sounds which we could use in the final product, however the weather conditions made it difficult to find locations which recording a decent selection of sound was possible.

This week we met up to arrange dates that we were available to film at Llanddwyn island, the issue here is that our timetables do not match up making it difficult for us all to be free to film when others are. We also discussed what we would aim to film that day so that we could had an action plan and not waste time looking for scenes to film.

We met up for the first time with our music producer Ellie, to discuss the music that we would like to have for our final product. 

We discussed that we’d like something quite melodic and sombre which reflected the spirituality of the island of Llandwyn. We suggested something aiming towards a celtic style of music, for instance something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl9hK60BHZs

This week we presented our mood reels to the rest of the group in order to gain their feed back, it allowed us to gain an outsiders perspective on what people thought and gain some constructive criticism of our current work. This information really helped us to understand what we needed to change and what could be added.

The constructive criticism outlined a number of issues, for instance:

- Issues with camera shots, such as the screen being shaky from the camera moving, panning shots taking a little too long.

- The use of special effects not working all that well. Most deemed it unnecessary.

However point that were liked included:

+ The selection of music, this suggests that we are on the right track.

+ That the moving shot would work well if it wasn’t for the shakiness.

+ That there were a good range of camera shots.

This week we arranged to meet up to make refinements to the mood reel which had been produced during the last semester. We decided on a placeholder soundtrack which reflected on what we hoped would be delivered on by our music composer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz9DP1H-Nvo&feature=youtu.be

We also spent this time before the mood reel presentation looking for suitable texts that we could possibly use in order to produce our film around. We made contact with one individual who gave us the rights to use his poem. The poem can be found in the link bellow.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-legend-of-llanddwyn-island/

We met up with with a group of composers to discuss the style of music which we would like to feature within our finished product. There were a number of composers, each with there own style and preferences as to how they liked to produce music. After meeting all of them we eventually settled on a composer named Ellie Green who understood what we were after and claimed that she could deliver on what we asked. Doing this helped us to focus on the direction we wanted to take with this project, aiming it more towards the spiritual and moody side without it becoming too much of a ghost story which Ellies portfolio of music apparently seemed to fit. The music is something which we all decided was going to be a key element within the film as there would be little in the way of dialogue except for a voice over for the narration of the poem we have to decide on.

According to Honthaner “Obtaining the rights to specific songs you might want to use in your films could be costly, but securing good music doesn’t have to be expensive. You can’t just attach the music you want, but you can find up-and-coming composers, groups and singers who would love the opportunity to provide music for your film” (427 : 2010) Thankfully however we were presented with a group of composers who were willing to provide music for us, if this was not the case then another method would have had to have been taken in order to ensure that we received the music we needed.

For this first week I spent catching up with the group, during which we spent some time to discuss whether or not we still agreed to produce the idea we had covered within the pre-production phase/module. Job roles were assigned to each member. Siwan had the role of director as she was the one who came up with the initial idea and had the most knowledge on the subject. Ethan was assigned to be the camera man as he claimed to understand how to use the camera equipment effectively. I was given the role of sound recorder due to having previous work with recording equipment. Finally Ben was given the job of editor as he claimed to understand how to use editing software. We also used this time to discuss any further ideas we had for the project, such as using different ways to tell the story and various ways in which we could go about producing such a film. We eventually decided on having the use of a poem in order to tell the story, it was just up to whether or not we could find one that had already been produced or if we'd have to go about writing our own.