#;prepro

We were considering what kind of music we wanted and we knew that we wanted something similar to Brian Eno. The spacey airy kind of music with a sense of wonder and adventure but also contemplation. We looked into a few artists in order to get a feel of the kind of music we want so that we can either reach out to musicians to create the music or find royalty free ones that suit the music.

Brian Eno

Lights & Motion

Hans Zimmer

Call Sheets and Lunar/Weather Data

Though it was the day before pre pro, we were counting on the filming schedule to be decided and completed by the producer, but things were still not confirmed and locked in. We had another production meeting with our actress in order to make sure things were confirmed and solved. 

Shillington Weather

Due do the weather, the initial idea was to film from 20th Monday afternoon to 22nd Wednesday Morning, however our actress could only make it on Tuesday onwards, but Monday was the best weather day and a few of us were adamant to go on Monday. Plus we also had the problem of transportation, Elisha’s car can only fit 4, while our whole team was 6, and a few were not too on board with spending money on train. Thus in this production meeting, we finally came to a solution to split into two teams Team A: Ellie and Shantel, Team B: Farah, Elisha, Ian and Agne

Team A, of the director and camera operator were to leave Monday afternoon via train to Shillington, costing a total of £60, and start filming unscripted shots of nature and the moon and location recce in order to make full use of the weather as the weather doesn’t wait for anyone. Team A will carry along the following equipment:

70D DSLR

VTP Tripod

DSLR Remote controller

50mm prime and 500mm telephoto lens

T ring and Adapter

Team B, with the rest of the crew and cast, will leave on Tuesday morning in Elisha’s car, which we will split the gas cost along with the train cost as a team. Once they arrive, we’ll begin shooting more of the scripted scenes. Team B will carry the following equipment:

LED Lights

7D Canon DSLR Kit

35mm and Hasan’s telephoto lens if possible

Reflector

On Wednesday both teams head back together on their respective mode of transport, Team B leaving earlier for Ian to reach his presentation in the morning.

The next night we decided to bring the kit out for a test shoot during dusk and if we could catch, the moon. We knew trying to film the sky in Harrow would be challenge but we would test everything else that we could just so that we could get familiar with the settings on the camera of each lens and test out the telephoto lens. Ian also began testing the sound with the zoom mic to bring it back and listen to the quality of it as we were very keen on using atmospheric sounds.

We found that the magic hours of dusk and dawn were ideal for us to film as it has that  feel of night time without being too dark which gives us the opportunity to work with an extra bit of natural light and being able to bring it down in post. But even then the window of time was very tight and we’d have to work very fast and the light would constantly be changing.

50mm prime and 18-135mm zoom:

500mm Telephoto lens:

Today in class we looked more into the idea of improving the ideation of the project asking ourselves a few questions:

Is it making you excited?

Is it topical?

Does it link to specific aniversay or day?

Does is satisfy me emotionally or physically?

What happens to kickstart the narrative?

who is the story about?

why should we care about the,?

what background info do we need?

what do your characters overcome the obstacles?

How do you want the audience to feel?

what do your characters want or need?

How can I make this even better

For us what we considered after looking at the list of questions would be to understand this letter to the moon, has anyone else written letters to the moon? What is this girl’s motivation to write a letter the moon? What has the moon helped her in her life?

During our tutorial we talked more technical talk as that was our biggest concern at that point of time. The script and mood board was completed and pre production was underway. 

We discussed a breakdown sheet and the specific types of equipment that we should consider adding to the list in order to shoot well at night. After discussion we have fixed on the full equipment list:

BOOKED AND DUE BY

VTP Tripod 41 : 27TH MARCH

2 remote controller for DSLR: 27TH MARCH

Zoom Mic: 27TH MARCH

Telescope adapter (BOUGHT) 

500mm Telephoto lens 27TH MARCH

50mm lens for canon DSLR 27TH MARCH

Canon 7D DSLR Kit 27TH MARCH

Battery powered LED Lights: 27TH MARCH

VO mic (Marantz): 31ST MARCH

Editing Hard drive: 6TH APRIL

We also discussed what settings would be best on the camera and looked at these optimal options that we can test out tomorrow: 

BOOKED AND DUE BY

VTP Tripod 41 : 27TH MARCH

2 remote controller for DSLR: 27TH MARCH

Zoom Mic: 27TH MARCH

TO BOOK

Telescope adapter** (T Ring + T Adapter-depending on eyepiece) (why telescope and eyepiece do we have?)

Telephoto lens: reserved from Tuesday 21st March

Battery powered LED Lights: 21st March

VO mic (Marantz maybe?) + sound booth: ??

32 / 64gb sd card if possible?: 21st March

Today we focused on confirming the script, thinking more into actual pre production mode of schedule, roles, elevator pitch, music, locations, paper work and equipment. Meeting started: 1PM

SCRIPT

“238,900 miles away; how’s that for a long distance friendship? Well, I say friendship, but it’s not exactly like I can send you a text saying ‘hey man, long time no see! How’ve you been? How’s your family?’. It’s an unusual friendship.”

The script was done with its first draft and will be brought in on friday’s tutorial to get feedback on. Ellie has also begun working out a storyboard for shoot.

When then discussed our roles overall which are not fixed nor finalised but gives us a vague focus, but all of us will be taking secondary roles to help out where our strengths can be of good use.

ROLES Director Ellie Producer Farah DOP Elisha Sound Ian Editor: Shantel

CASTING  We are considering casting a girl for the short film, looking into anyone close or who can give a good sense of wonder and awe and innocence, female around the 18-25 age range. However should we fail to find a good cast, Ellie would be the last resort face in the film! Farah would be helping out in this area as well as much of the releases preparation and call sheets.

EQUIPMENT We begun discussing the equipments we needed along side with what we’ve researched on filming the moon. I will go draft out all the equipment we will need to book, have already booked out, and may need to spend money on. Also collectively we have our own personal DSLRs of a Canon 700D, 60D and 70D that we can play around slightly but we will have to be cautious of our settings as they are much different cameras which will produce very different footage.

LOCATIONS

Shillington - in general 

Village Hills -Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire 

Ellie’s House 

Ellie’s Dormroom

Elisha’s Car

Classroom - Harrow Campus

Ellie will be looking into contacting the areas that we will require location releases especially in Shillington.

FILMING DATE AND OVERALL SCHEDULE

17TH MARCH - Tutorial w/ Sue

18TH MARCH - Harrow Shoot (for nature + timelapse)

21ST - test shoot of the moon with telephoto lens

22ND - 23RD(+24TH?) MARCH - Shillington Shoot

24TH MARCH - Tutorial w/ Sue + Voice recording day??

24TH - 5TH APRIL - EDITING PERIOD

6TH APRIL DUE

SOUND AND STOCK FOOTAGE we have considered reaching out to perhaps make our own music as there’s a style of music that we are interested in having, very much like Brian Eno, Hans Zimmer, and Lights and Motion, and of course getting permission for them would be tough. Ian will be looking into researching a lot of the music options we can have and stock footage and helping with the legal side of using them.

MOODBOARD The visualisation of the film is something we still need lock down on because shots wise we still aren’t very clear yet. Elisha will be helping to work out a moodboard as well as aid in the storyboard and cinematography in any way.

With the conceptual side coming together we had to focus on the technical side as well, because everyone had the same stressful question in mind; How are we going to film the moon???

I started looking into a few possibilities and hopefully with the least cost overall.

DSRL

- With Telephoto lens The first option would be to test it out with telephoto lens, Mark Gee makes a very good example and post about taking it with a super telephoto lens on a Canon DSLR. 

The footage was shot with a Canon 1D MkIV in video mode, with a Canon EF 500mm f/4 lens and a Canon 2x Extender, giving me the equivalent of a 1300mm focal length when taking into account Canon 1D MkIV’s 1.3x crop factor with the APS-H sensor. The camera was mounted on a Sachtler tripod with a Sachtler FSB 6 head.

Though what he used is a super telephoto lens PLUS an extender, the school may not be able to provide such lens (we’ll hafta check with photography side) and even if they do, not to first years, we managed to secure a simple telephoto lens and will do test shots when we can.

- With the Telescope + T Ring + T Adapter

Ellie’s father has a telescope that we may be able to couple with a DSLR and play around with, however he doesn’t have a T-adapter required and that’ll cost us some money. :c

The Telescope we have at hand is a Meade LX90 8" with a 25mm eyepiece holder. What we would simply require is a T Ring for Canon EOS, as well as a T-Adapter that can fit onto the telescope’s eyepiece. The T Ring is cheap enough and however what’s going to hurt the wallet is the T-adapter. We’ll attempt to hunt around the film and photography places if we could get our hands on a T-adapter