New Schedule for Filming

We have decided to film during the first week of the Christmas holidays. e decided to choose this time period because both Me and Vivienne will have free time but also our cast will also be free due to there being no sixth form.  

Due to work commitments we will be having a group discussion on Friday, currently we know that our actors can film any day of the week. 

Possible filming days will be:

Tuesday 21 December 

Thursday 23 December

Filming Day 3

Filming: Pub Location Scene 1-2
Directors: Channan and Vivienne
Cast: Daniel and Shola

We knew exactly what we were going to when we came to the location and so setting up was easy. How ever upon arrival and when setting yp we realised that the lighting of where we shot before had changed. The lights were no longer still but they were colour changing. After discussing this we decided to go ahead and film anyway because they were in a pub environment.  The scene that we were up to was the rising tension between Shola and Daniel. We made many changes due to discussing the location and the development of the characters such as wether we should keep the characters cockney or to make them more urban. The cast suggested that they found it more easier to be urban as it was themselves and so we adpated the script to this change.


Shola and Daniel In Action

We had some real achievements that made this scene even more authentic. We soon came to realise that in our scriot we had casted that a muslim woman would walk past the window and Daniel would make a statement based upon this. The problem was we hadnt found some one to be this woman and so thankfully the pub owner volunteered to be this woman. We ensured that she looked that part and knew what to do when we filmed. To our surprise when we filmed a real muslim woman walked pass at the same time that the pub owner did as well and to even more positivity the shot we filmed was spot on perfect. 


Vivienne Filming

When recording their were people in the pub so recording the sound was difficult at times because we didn't want to take the reality sound out of them being in a pub.  When recording the sound I ensured that we gotthe actors to speak clearly and fluently as well as if we were doing retakes they would have to repeat their lines spot on as before.

Channan Recording the Sound

Filming Day 2: Pub Scene 1

Filming: Pub Location Scene 1
Directors: Channan and Vivienne
Cast: Daniel and Shola

 We filmed at the Pub again. This time filming we took into consideration the Daylight Times we had previously researched as well as tried to find an alternative position in the pub where we could film that would have significantly more lighting than where we filmed before.  When filming we managed to do the first part of the Pub Scene we got different shots and various takes on how we would portray this scene.  



Filming Daniel and Shola

We decided that the place we would film would be near to the window, whilst filing this sequence we came up with further ideas that would make this scene even more effective. We discovered that we could do more with our shots as well as the position we were filming in. Daniel and Shola both got into character quickly and we were easily able to shoot the emotion that both the brothers would be experiencing. 



Daniel and Shola/ Stan and Mitch

There were some issues that we had to carefully consider such as how we would continue to shoot at the pub and still ensure that the continuity of the film stays he same, if not this would make our film look uneven as well as bait that we did not shoot it continuously in one go. 

Overall we think that we made significant progress when filming this scene and that we were able to film many different portrayals of our cast when in action. 

Poster Idea Development

We both came up with poster ideas on how we would want the film poster to look like. Both our ideas were fairly different but had the same focus point which was the two brothers.

Vivienne and Channan's Poster Idea

After looking at each others posters we came to have ideas on how we would design our final poster and whether we should use elements of both. We decided to do some research into film posters that we thought had presentation and some portrayals of what our short film would be about. The main thing we were looking for was the brother relationship. 

Channan And Vivienne Discussing Poster ideas

We came up with three poster ideas and we decided to draw three mock ups of our three poster ideas to see how they would look like if we were to carry them out properly.  We also came up with a range of taglines that we may choose to use. when comming up with the Taglines we wanted something to reflect the drama within our short film and something that would stand out and attract our target audience.



Inital Tagline Ideas and Poster ideas.

Our three ideas were:

Idea 1:

This first idea was to Have shola (Mitch) on the far right hand side of the poster and then to have Daniel (Stan) in the background on the left just behind his shoulder. Daniel will be more faded than Shola. The background will be black and the tagline at the top of t he poster. The Title will be on the bottom right hand side underneath shola and the arabic title will be under this as well. The date upon release will be on the left hand side of the title.

Idea 2:

Our Three Psoer Ideas 1, 2 & 3

This would be a single image of shola (Mitch) but in two different ways. Shola's face will be split in half and have two different images but they come together as one. The right hand side will be of normal Shola that Stan knows abd then the left hand side will be of Shola (Mitch) that is in islamic clothing. the title will be athe top and the tagline at the botoom of the poster with the date underneath. The background will also be black in order to bring out the image of Shola in two different ways.

Idea 3:

This Idea wiould consist Daniel (Stan) and Shola (Mitch) in two different perceptions. On the right hand side will be Shola facing Daniel who is on the left. How ever facing Daniel also will be shola but in an islamic wear but slightly faded. This faded perception of shola will also be facing Daniel but be on the right hand side behind the already stated image of shola. The background will also be black. The titile will be beneath these images centered with the islamic writing slighlty to the right beneath it.  the date will be bottom centered. The tagline will be centered at the top of the poster.





Channan and Vivienne 



Filming Day 1: Tester Day

We began our filming with our second scene, which was the pub. We decided to start with this scene because it is the main location as well as it having more happening within it than the pther location. When we got to the pub we realised that the lighting was really dark but decided anyway to see how filming would go. Filming the first Scene was fairly easy and we experimented with different shots and angles as well as try different ways of showing what is meant to happen in the scene. We managed to film some really good effective shots and were thinking of extendning these shoys when we film again.

Due to not having the merantz, we were unable to film things that we could keep due to sound quality not being good. We hope by next time when we film we would be able to film and capture good sound. The things we will need to ensure we do is to probaly enhance the luighting where we are filming and request that we have the pub quiet for a short period of time so we can get the sound quality we need.

Things To Ensure:

• Lighting
• Sound
• Timing

Editing: Colour Correction

After our first day of filming, we started to capture and edit straight away. We liked the ambient lighting that the street light created within the pub, but it gave the interior a purple tone on camera. To try and resolve this problem I used color correction in Final Cut, as to fade down the harsh shades of blue and red.

Problems and Solution

After finding our new actors, we were initially due to film straight away, however, due to unexpected snowfall, school was closed and the pipes at the pub had frozen, which set us back a few days. We are now scheduled to film all the scenes in the pub this week and this weekend all the scenes in the house. Therefore our target will be to have all our footage by the 13th December.

Casting

After carrying out some intense research into finding the right people to cast, we narrowed it down to two people.  We ensured that the people we chose had good acting as well as had the ability to play the role that they were casted for. Each role will have to be played out effectively and this we took into consideration when casting the little brother who would be playing a boy who has converted to muslim. 

We have decided to cast Daniel Meghie as the older brother and Shola Stewart for the younger brother. 

Daniel Meghie

This decision was based on the facts that Daniel does have the acting ability and the role that we are casting him for he suited the persona that we were trying to portray. The older brother will come across aggressively and in a negative manor and this is something we know Daniel can do easily. Daniel also would be the typical build and have the appearance of the older brother and so this is also which made him well suited for the role of the older brother.

 Shola Stewart

We decided to cast Shola as the younger brother because he had the characteristics that we were looking for in the younger brother. Shola also has the acting ability as well as him too suiting the persona of the younger brother. The younger brother will come across as a quiet person as well as being a younger brother who has converted to Islam. Shola also has the build and appearance that we are looking for in the younger brother. The appearance for the younger brother would be slim build, humble and towards themselves which is the characteristics that Shola has. 


Both Daniel and Shola are reliable people and have agreed to film when we need them best of all they are friends and so filming with each other wouldn't be an issue as they are used to each others company. 

New Script

As we changed the character's relationship and location, I had to adapt the script. Were going to give the audience a sense of dramatic irony, as any good drama does, as we will know that the younger brother is muslim, but when it comes to the conversation scene in the pub, we find that he is trying to shield is identity from his brother.
here is a sample:
The pub is a little dirty and run down, if there is ever a cleaner, he is not there now. We can almost smell the odour of the footballs fan's beers. As we pan through the pub we see that is quite busy. MITCH is awkwardly sitting alone on a small table. STAN effortlessly glides through the pub with two pints of beers in his hands. His eyes are focused on his, 'golden- boy' and the camera follows him to his seat. MITCH begins to become less stiff.

STAN

Here we are, get that down ya.

MITCH

Cheers (muffled)

STAN begins to gulp down the beer instantly before MITCH even replies. MITCH strokes the beer gently, contemplating whether to drink it or not. STAN glances over the top of his already half empty glass at MITCH and realises something is wrong.



STAN

I know what you’re thinking.  Listen Mitch, mum/

MITCH

I'm not thinking about her Stan

STAN

She would of wanted us to keep on going as if/

MITCH

 Stan can you please stop I've I've just...well I've decided to give up the drink. (Quietly) that's all

There’s an awkward silence. STAN looks confused

STAN

Ey? What’s brought this on then? We did jus' win MITCH...go on Mitch, its Cors, light beer

He winks

MITCH

I'm not on a bloody diet I just don't feel like drinking anymore dad, not now, not ever.

STAN

Alright then, more for me.

Poster research

We looked at various film posters that had an aspect of our them that we wanted to portray, which was brother relationship. We reserached films that had brothers in them and a development of the brothers a swell as a solution or not if it arised. The brother relationship is a key element in our film as we are displaying a deep change that could either make them or break them. The films that we looked at were: Bloodbrothers, Takers, Boys in the hood and The godfather and the Godfather part II. We felt that these films ahd relation to what our film was about and would possibly have the effect and perception that we want to portray.

Boys N the Hood

Takers

Pre- Production Planning

Addressing the Changes

We had to address the changes that we will be making and what we would be sticking with in order to see what we need to work on and develop in more depth. So we decided to list everything we have and would have and then see what we would be keeping and ditching. So from this we decided we would not need the crystal Palace location anymore because it was irrelevant and we did not need it as much as we thought we did. 

Timeline Planning

This is the Timeline we created

In order to ensure that we stick to the conventions of a short film as well as display our story effectively we produced a storyboard timeline where we were able to note down where key points in the film will be such as the start of the film, the first shot we will see which will be the younger brother praying. On this timeline we also found it easy when and how to raise the tension and when it should go down as well. 

Narrative & Story

We changed the narrative slightly, where by the older brother will be seen as a narrow minded person and sticks to his own teachings and beliefs and doesn't like change that much especially when it comes to religion. he is really against the idea of anyone being of a Islamic faith. The younger brother however is how we portrayed already (the son) and he doesn't tell his older brother about his change in faith and they both get into a dispute where by the older brother challenges the younger brother mentally and makes some statements that the younger brother does not agree with. In the end they come to a conclusion and whether they have resolved the issue or not will be revealed.

Further Knowledge into short Films

To get better understandning of the kind of film we were trying to portray we were shown a short film called: "Lovers Jump". When watching this short film we saw how effective it was and how having limited locations and focussing on the emotion and actual storyline can be displayed without having to go into such deep explanation or long lead up. We was able to get a whole story from just a few sentences from what the characters were saying, even with the long pauses these proved to ectremely effective as it set the modd. the music as well set the mood as well so we as the audience automatically knew that the atmosphere of the film was not a happy one but one with lost and deep emotion.

Lovers Jump

Lovers Jump Trailer

This film also gave us an idea into how we would end our film. Lovers jump had a post credit sting whereby we assumed that the film had finished but there was one short sequence of say about 20s of the man walking away. We decided to have this element ino ur short film to show a falshback from the older brother. This flashback will relate to the start of the film making it all come together and not seem out of place ot left in limbo.

Filming: Solution

Our solution to this problem was to tweak our storyline and script slightly, so instead of presenting a Father-son relationship, we would show the relationship between brothers. We already had a strong knowledge of what we were looking for when it came to the portrayal of the characters. Such films as Dead Man's Shoes.

This film  Showed how brothers are rarely presented as having the same personality types. This concept put us in the right direction, casting wise. We will then be able to cast around our age group from people within our Sixth Form, which will give us the stability we need to shoot. We have also accessed in such films as Brothers, that it is almost a cinema trait to have "brother", not related. This will be able to visually aid our storyline, as we can highlight the cultural clash, if the brothers are foster brothers or one is adopted, bringing in themes of social stigma.

Although we might have been set back location and timing wise, It has been a eye-opener to the world of short films. As they are usually short in only one or two locations, our initial ideas didn't really follow the conventions of one. Now, we will shoot primarily at our Pub location, who signed a filming contract, and perhaps have a flashback to other location and time. This will eliminate any issues of the audience not connecting with the characters. 

We will, of course, have to work harder to show that the other brother has higher status, but this will all be shown through the body codes of our actor and the new script.

Filming Problems

PROBLEMS

Over the last few days we have experienced many problems that have led us to make considerable changes to the idea of how and what we will portray in our film. The problem we encountered was our actors have dropped out of our film and same as our back up actors as well. This proved to be a big halt in filming our film which was due to take place this week as scheduled. We both tried extremely hard to find replacements for both characters in our film but work commitments and school commitments often was a reason for not taking part. With the Father Actor dropping out we lost one of our locations as well and this was a big let down as well as we already struggled to find this particular location alongside with the pub location as well. And so now we are faced with no actors and one location down.

We were faced with the possibility of not having anything to film and so we had to come up with a solution in order to get back on track before anymore time will be wasted.

Presentation: Prodigy Short Film

This is video of our Presentation.

How did it go?

Overall we think that our presentation went well, in relation to sayingthat we felt we highlighted key points within our idea and the portrayla of our film. Although due to actors availability, we were unable to present our final shooting schedule. We were also unable to play our animatic due to it being on lock which was a technical error and so we didnt tend to this problem till after our presentation. We were able to give our audience an overview into the play and what it was focused on.Fortunately, everything else is organised including the weather forecast and sunset times for the next two weeks, this way when the actors tell us their days of availability, we will be able to just slide them into the schedule.

We were both slightly nervous when presenting our final idea, but because we think that our outcome will be strong, we were able to articulate our ideas clearly

Any Improvements?

The things we could improve on in the future is getting to the point much quikcer and also ensuring that we are more organied when presenting our pitch. we do think we could have extended on many aspects of our play such as the animatic and audience research and how it helped us get the idea that we have. We will ensure next time to have the presentations on one slide rather than two separate slideshows as this proved to be a difficult transition.

Presentation Part 1 & 2

We created our Presentations separately. In this we mean that Channan had parts that she would be talking about and Vivienne had parts she would be talking about. Due to time limitations we chose to create our presentations in this way and then combine them both once we have finished each of ours individually. 

Here is Vivienne's:

Prodigy prezi

View more presentations from viviee.

Here is Channan's Presentation:

Prodigy Presentation

View more presentations from Chanz Darlin.

Shooting Schedule

When coming up with locations for the house scene, we found it very differcult as none of the crew had 'boy-like' bedrooms. so to resolve this, we are going to use two houses for Stan and Mitch's house, both mine and one of the actor's, to make it look more authentic.

Saturday 20th November -

2pm

Vivienne's house

Run through of script with actors


Monday 22nd November -


3:45pm


Harvey and Rusell pick up at Streatham Station


4:00pm


White Lion Pub introductions and icebreaker


4:04pm


Sunset
trial run through of pub scene with lighting


Friday 26th November -

3:00pm

Harvey and Russell pick up from Streatham Station

3:15pm

48 minutes before sunset
 Pub scene filming


Saturday 27th November -

2pm reshoot day

120 minutes of sunlight
Pub scene

 Sunday 28th November -

1pm

Crystal palace Stadium scene
light scattered showers


Tuesday 30th November -

5:00pm

outside of Russell's house


Saturday 4th December -

 12pm

Harvey and Russell pick up from Oval Station

12:15pm

Mitch's bedroom (Vivienne's house)


Sunday 5th December -

1pm

Stan and Mitch house scene (Russell's kitchen and bathroom)

Filming on Location Contract

I drew up the contract between us and the Pub managers, as through my secondary research I found that if we didn't have permission, we could create an awkward situation and be escorted off the premises.

There were a couple of disadvantages that we had to take into consideration before finding the perfect pub such as:

• lack of control over the environment- people in the background trying to get in the shot
• finding a real-world location which matches the requirements of the script

As our filming equipment isn't very discreet, and through good practice, we went location scouting although getting permission was very hard to find, but we eventually found a great pub, The White Lion, as pictured, which we through had the best look for what we are trying to achieve.

We were very lucky to escape paying a fee as we have a very small filming crew.

Here is the contract that permits us film on location:

Updates...Location

Location: The Pub & House....

In regards to our location, we mentioned in our presentation that we have yet confirmation on two locations of our choice which was the house and the pub location. We have been fortunate enough to find a house and this will be at our Father figure Actors house. This location proved to be the best out of the possible choices that we had in mind. 


Were still looking for our pub as we are having difficulties getting a pub due to filming times availability. Vivienne will be attending a meeting this afternoon at another pub and Channan will  be contacting the pubs that we had suggestions about.  This is our last location to find and so we will be finding somewhere each actor can get to easily and whereby filming will be with ease and not a hassle to the pub owners. 

Fortunately, We have been able to secure a pub location.

Shot List

As a group we came up with a shot list with broke down the complex story narrative into simple breaks to see how it would plan out.

Weather Forecast

Although we did want to portray London iconography, and we wanted the British audience to identify with our film, we didn't want there to be to much rain as it is that season.  We also didnt want any unexpected weather outbreaks that might put a halt to our filming and progression. The weather could affect the continuity of our film if we were to film in different weather conditions.

So we are planning on filming around the rain showers. In order to do this, we had to get the weather forecast and match them with our actors availability.

Naming Our Film..

We have decided to name our film Prodigy.Coming up with the perfect title is crucial so we deliberated over it for sometime. It had to role off the tongue but have meaning. When considering appropriate titles, we thought about:

• Father and Son
• The Prodigy
• Prodigy

we thought that "Prodigy", touched upon both themes that we will be trying to present in our film as well as simplistic. The definition of Prodigy, (referenced by wikipedia, dictionary.com): an unusually gifted person who excites admiration, religious or spiritual themes are usually connected.

Mitch is the centre of Stan's world, and holds all of his affection. Although not particularly gifted, in the sense of the tangible, he can be seen to have a spiritual gift; as being such a young person yet striving for a difference in his personal and spiritual life. As well as this, the word itself is a noun, so unlike our other options, can be directly linked to our protagonist as a personal name.

Our Short Film Prodigy

This is Our Animatic of our Short Film: 

Prodigy 

.

This is our animatic version of our short film, Prodigy. We made this in order to help us have an idea of final outcome and what would work and what wouldn't.  

Sunrise and Sunset Times

In order to get organized, as we would be filming in the day and the night. We found out the sunset and sunrise times of the next 2 weeks (the time period we are planning to film in). This way, we will be able to know how much time we have to film and be certain on the lighting quality we will have in each scene.

Location...

The locations that we will be looking to film at are:  

• Crystal Palace Stadium (External)
• Local Pub
• A House (Bathroom,Staircase,Kitchen and Bedroom)
• On the Street ( Near Crystal Palace, and Outside Down the Pub)

Crystal Palace

This location will be for our first scene. The football Stadium with our characters will represent that stereotypical Father and Son bond as they are coming home from a football match. This location is also easy to film at as we will be filming on the external of the Stadium. 


Local Pub
(images used are not real images of location they are interpretations)


This Location will be our secondary location and will be in our second scene. Once again the reason for the Pub is to still show that Father and Son relationship of going to the pub for a drink to laugh and converse. It is at this scene where difficulties arise in our film and a little bit of tension arises. 

With this location we have yet to have confirmation on whether filming in these places are allowed. However we do have back locations that we will take on board if finding the Pub Location proves to be difficult to get hold of.


A House
(images used are not real images of location they are interpretations)

The house Location we Have yet to find but we know what we are looking to get out of this location. Hopefully we can use one of our actors houses or a friends house in order to film the scenes required. In the house we will be using many rooms such as the Bathroom,Kitchen, Sitting Room, Bedroom as well as the Stairs.  This location will have more filming done within it as most of the action takes pace within this location. This will also show the emptiness of the house in terms of it just being the Son and Father. 

The Street


We will be filming also on the road nearest to the pub to show how the characters travel from the stadium to the pub. Not much focus will be put on these shots as it will be the Transition as well as passing of time from Crystal Palace to The pub. 

Getting Copyright Music

For our animatics we found a copyright free website to get instrumentals off of for our short film. We sieved through many songs which were saved as individual moods such as: heroic, tension and anger. We chose a couple which we found fit the mood at certain times.

this picture is of the website: http//: audio.lgfl.org.uk

Working on the Animatic

A view of our Animatic in Final Cut express

We uploaded our storyboards into Final Cut Express in order to make our storyboard into a short video.  We did encounter some problems when trying to produce the Animatic such as the files where not opening correctly and saving correctly and so in the end we had to save our animatic on a hard drive. We recorded our script that we produced into Final cut Express. Channan played Mitch the son and Vivienne played Stan the father. When recording our script we matched the script to the images and ensured that we got the timing correct.

Vivienne working on the Sound of the film

When it came to recording we added sound effects that would be heard so that the animatic could seem more real rather than images changing.  We incorporated some good sounds that would be heard in everyday households such as when the father is cooking breakfast we incorporated a frying sound and the footsteps we created as well.  We also added an underlying theme tune that was copyright free. We really targeted on how we was going to set the scene and what music should be added in order to relate to what is happening. 

Channan looking over the animatic

Working on The StoryBoard ( Pre-Storyboard Planning)

Pre StoryBoard Planning

Before we planned our storyboard with images we first completed a pre storyboard sheet where we wrote down all our shots and what would be happening in them. It was here where we made changes and improved our ideas that we had first formed for our Short Film. 

(Storyboard Planning sheets)

StoryBoarding our Short Film Idea

Example of Storyboards we created

The storyboard we created basically was images of how our film would go. We drew images for each shot to portray how we would go about filming it. Each shot highlighted a specific part in that scene.  The storyboard enabled us to see our film in still images before filming it and make and quick changes into how we would film them as well.  When drawing the storyboards we also named them via Scene,Shot and a brief description of that shot. By having our images of our shots it will help us make filming easier as we will know what to film and what emotions should be displayed. This will also help us position our characters and know what they should be doing in each scene. We organised our images in chronological order. Our images were basic still frames that we drew onto post stick notes. 

Scene 4 Shot 28 & Shot 29

We found this process really time consuming because we had repeats of shots and we had to make each shot look effective. Many of the shots we had to re-draw again due to them not looking how the description made them out to be. 

Examples of the storyboard images that we photographed and placed in the Animatic

In total we have 5 Scenes and 43 Shots