Professional Studies- Writing a Report

In the upcoming weeks in professional studies we will be working on our report in the area we've chosen, so this weeks professional studies lesson focused on how to write a report and how to structure one for those who are new to writing reports. It covered all the information and techniques to successfully write a report and showed us the best way to start the process. The key points that were given to us at the start were to remember that writing a report is not writing an essay, there two different things and are done differently. Also to stress how you gathered the information and make sure all the available ways of linking your source in the report are there, it's key to remember that reports are designed to be read accurately and quickly so should be straight to the point with all the facts.

When it comes to starting the report you first need to research, to start this process you'll need to identify the purpose of your report and decide on the structure and style your going to use throughout the report. In many cases reports that are been written are aimed towards a client or boss and ours will be written with the readers in mind which will be our tutors, Mike and Di. A simple step process is to plan out your work and then collect the information, after that you start your first draft and then continue to check and re draft until satisfied. This is a good process to use and I'm currently focused on using this because it simplifies it and gets you writing instead of thinking to hard about it and if there any changes you can figure them out in the re drafts.

When researching on the internet or while reading books I need to make sure I trace back the information and make sure their quality sources and not unreliable or passing off as someone else's work. There are two different types of research to use while writing a report, primary research and secondary research. Primary research is first hand meaning you gathered the information and facts while secondary research is you using and incorporating research a third party has gathered. Interviews and questionnaires are a good way to get primary research while secondary research can be found all over the internet or again in books. It's significant to keep a balanced view throughout the report and not let any opinions or views effect how the report is been written. When I arrive at my conclusion I need to make sure it brings all the main issues together and to keep it nice and clear with no new information popping up. If I manage to use all this advice and knowledge when it comes to writing my report, I should be able to successfully finish my report to a high standard.    

Scriptwriting- Structure

This week we looked closely at structure and the importance and ways you can build it in scriptwriting. We looked at the popular three act structure and went with the basis that every page equals a minute, looking at roughly 120 pages for your screenplay. Act one is where you start and normally contains about 30 pages, about three pages in you should include your hook, something that engages and draws in your audience and gets them invested, then around page 27 you introduce plot point one, something that carries the story further where theres no turning back. Next is act two which carries on from page 31 - 90, during these pages you'll hit your mid point and around page 87 you'll want to include plot point two which makes a conclusion more accessible for act three. Finally you have act three consisting of pages 91-120 and this is all about tying up lose ends and coming to the conclusion. This is a solid structure to use in scriptwriting and is popular for a reason.

We then moved on and started to look at theme and how theme is structure, if narrative is what happens then theme is why it happens. There all lots of components to think of when touching on theme such as moral undertones which can reflect:

Humanity,
Core Beliefs,
Values  
Whats Important to you
What do you Believe in
What you know
Life Experiences

There are many different ways to show and convey theme in your script and it's crucial you find the right one or combination of ones to successfully communicate the theme. This can be done with:

Characters
Actions
Decisions
Relationships
Conflict
Dialogue
Symbolism
Visual Imagery

It's also key to try and create a backstory for your character so you can lay groundworks for his past and have them reprise in your story so your character is more human and believable to your auidence.

Location/Drama- Final Shots

On Monday 1st December we started to film the final shots of our production, these were shots we decided to leave to last due to how technical they could be while filming. The main shot we needed to get was Georgie's hand been pulled into the drain by Pennywise and because this scene only features hands we used different people to do this scene than the people who did the acting. We filmed outside on the university campus and reused the drain that John created to make it look like through the camera the hand is reaching into the drain.

Crew filming final shots for recreation

We watched the scene for the shot we were looking to recreate on set so we could accurately set up the camera to the right height and angle for our production. The shot also includes water flowing down the drain so we had multiple bottles of water on standby so we could use them in the shot, we tried several times to get the water to look like it did in the film but it was complicated with having electrical equipment around to keep a good distance between the two while managing to get the shot. We did multiple takes of this shot some with and some without the water flowing, it only took 20-30 minutes to set up and film and their was very little obstacles to overcome.

     
Later on Chloe (Director of Documentary) scheduled interviews for the documentary to take place at Flix Cafe in the afternoon, all of the crew turned up and we shot the interviews in twos. Steven (Director) and Simon (Production Manager) did their interviews together and John (Sound and Lighting) and Jacob (Cameraman and Editor) did their interviews together. The interviews weren't too time consuming and went quite smoothly. Chloe asked all the questions she wanted to feature in the documentary and now has enough footage and completed all the footage she wanted for the documentary and ready to edit it to go along side the recreation.

Crew in Flix Cafe filming interviews

Location/Drama- Georgie Shoot

Our second day of shooting took place on Saturday 29th November in Hartlepool, it was first shoot to take place outside for this production and was all of Georgie's scenes where he's talking to Pennywise through the drain. We casted a kid actor called Connor to play the role of Georgie and he was supervised by his mother on the set while he was filming. Filming took place from about 12:00- 1:00 and we managed to get all the shots of Georgie we needed on the day, Connor was very good at learning and remembering his lines and responded well to been directed on the set. Unfortunately we couldn't find a real storm drain for Georgie to talk too so John (Sound and Lighting) created on himself out of strong card and we used this on set for a point of reference and to give the effect around the camera that it was looking out of a drain.

Cast and Crew Preparing for Scene

All the cast and crew turned up on time and we all managed to do our jobs successfully and ended up wrapping before our scheduled time. We had a slight problem with sound because the location was close to a road so occasionally we would need to stop so we didn't get the sound of cars in the background but we got multiple shots in case some were unusable. Overall I think it was a successful shoot and we all left feeling like we managed to achieve our goal and complete our jobs to the best of our abilities.

Director and Producer Working with Actor

   

Sound and Cameraman - Photos Taken by Chloe Lowe

Location/Drama- Pennywise Shoot

Our first day of shooting commenced on Thursday 27th November for the Pennywise scenes in our Stephen King's IT recreation. We were on set between 5:00-8:30, much of this time was spent setting up the equipment and making the set, once our actor arrived we spent from 45 minutes to an hour doing his Pennywise make-up and sorting out the wig. The result from all the make-up was successful and looked really good on camera, very close to the original film. We then talked him through his lines and started filming his scene. Filming took place in the front room of Jacobs house and we used black curtains as a background, since I'm cameraman for the documentary I spent my time filming the process of the shoot and everyone else doing the roles to make the shoot go smoothly. We finished filming around 8 and got all the takes and more for the recreation of Pennywise's scene, we all agreed as a group that the shoot was a success and we got all we needed for post-production. Since the shoot finished quite late we paid for the actors taxi to get home as payment for helping us out, we then packed up all our equipment which we will be using again on saturday for the Georgie scenes to finish our shooting for the recreation of IT.

Photo's from the set of the recreation of "IT"

Location/Drama- Make-Up Test

I was absent this Monday but my production team for the reconstruction of "IT" had a make-up test for Pennywise the Clown, they gathered the equipment and the products needed to recreate the clown effect and tested it on Simon (Production Manager) to understand how they would need to apply it and what skills some of the finer details may need.

Production team in process of Make-Up test- Picture by Steven David Brown

Doing this helped them understand how much needed to be applied to the actors face and a estimated time of how long it may take to do on the shoot. This was also good for the documentary as it was something to show the process of what the group was doing while leading up to the shoot. The production team seemed very happy with the results of this test and are confident for when it is needed to be done on set for the reconstruction.

Face cream been applied- Picture by Steven David Brown

Location/Drama- Ready to Film

We are now at a stage where we are ready to film, we have both our actors cast and organized with props and costumes also in our possession. We have schedule to days of shooting, one on Thursday 27th November and the second been Saturday 29th November. The first date is to film all the Pennywise scenes at Jacobs accommodation as our location/set and the second date is to film all the Georgie scenes on a patch of grass not too far away from the university, both actors have been informed of these dates and agreed to turn up and complete their filming. We've agreed to turn up to both shoots 20-30 minutes early so we can set up and be organized with the equipment so were not wasting ours and the actors time to film on set.

The difficulty with filming these two on two different days is trying to make it seem like one in the edit, so we'll need to take extra care at making sure the angles and even maybe the lighting match up to how they are in the actual scene. We are aware that we may not accomplish gathering all the shots and scenes on the day even though we'd like too but with filming this little bit more early, allows us time to review the footage and then organize another shot if needed with the actors. Everything seems to be going smoothly at the moment but I am hesitant at the time limit we have on each day of shoot, hopefully we'll be able to fit it all in and be able to wrap this time next week.

Treatment for Script Idea 3

LOGLINE: A story focusing on the 10-year reunion of a secondary school and all the alumni’s that return to see how their fellow students have changed since school. It features two main characters that were once in love at school but drifted apart afterwards as there lives went down different paths. The story shows the highs and lows of reuniting with old friends and evil bullies and how easier school was to growing up and been an adult.

Act One

Flashback scene-1999, 1^st day of school, Shawn walks into school all by himself with a scared look on his face, as soon as he enters the building he is pushed over by some bullies who remark on how uncool he was in primary school. Shawn reaches for his bag, when a hand reaches down and offers to help him up. The girl tells Shawn to ignore the bullies and they start to walk to class together, she tells him that her name is Elizabeth and that things will get better. Shawn tells her that he’s been to 6 different schools and he always has bad luck whenever he’s near one, Elizabeth laughs and tells him his luck is going to turn around.

Present day, Shawn gets out of his car in the school car park and steps in some fast food leftovers that someone has littered, Shawn gets annoyed and remarks on how its his bad luck. He starts walking towards the school when he hears his name yelled out across the car park, a woman runs over to him in surprise, he recognizes the woman from when he was at school. She comments on how much he’s changed and that she didn’t think he would come tonight because of what happened at prom.

Shawn continues his way into the school and can hear the loud music playing from in the gym, he sees Elizabeth (who he hasn’t seen since prom) enter the gym and he goes to catch up to her but the head teacher interrupts him. The head teacher comments on how Shawn has changed and how he didn’t think he’d be here because of what happened at prom again, Shawn tries to leave but the head teacher puts his hand on Shawn’s shoulder and tells him to stay away from his daughter Elizabeth. Shawn gets nervous and scared and contemplates leaving the reunion. Shawn gets back in his car after stepping in the fast food litter again and has a flashback of him and Elizabeth back at school. The flashback is Shawn getting told of by the head teacher for doing something he didn’t do and been told to stay away from his daughter, Elizabeth runs into the room and yells “What’s this going on here?”, Shawn laughs and the head teacher tells Elizabeth to leave but she grabs Shawn and heads towards the door, the head teacher goes to tell her off but she cuts him off by saying ‘We wouldn’t want to tell people the time we switched your cereal out for dog food now would we?” the head teacher becomes quiet and Shawn and Elizabeth run off. Elizabeth tells Shawn that whenever he’s in trouble to come get her.

Act Two

Shawn gets out of his car and heads back to the reunion. Elizabeth is already inside socializing with her former classmates with her dad keeping a close eye on her. She’s asked a question about Shawn and if they ever kept in contact after prom to which she replies that they didn’t keep in touch and she regrets not calling him. The girl from the car park interrupts Elizabeth and starts acting like there long lost friends, Elizabeth is surprised and quite hostile about the situation, the girl apologizes to Elizabeth for how difficult things were between them at school and then purposely spills a drink all over Elizabeth and says “Maybe your boyfriend can help clean that up”. Elizabeth is confused by her saying “Boyfriend” but then looks over and sees Shawn getting in trouble with some old bullies.

Shawn is talking to some old bullies who start making remarks to how uncool he was in school, Shawn tries to play it all off calm but they start making jokes about what happened at prom, they bring up the fact that he can’t make any comebacks now that his girlfriend isn’t around and Shawn goes to leave but accidently knocks one of the bullies and their wife into the food table. The bully gets back up and challenges Shawn to a fight, Elizabeth swoops in and rescues Shawn and runs off with him out of the gym. The bullies chase them but Shawn and Elizabeth hide in the toilets. Shawn and Elizabeth start to catch up and talk about what they’ve been up too and how much they’ve missed each other, Shawn talks about how he thinks he may be in a little trouble and needs her help with the head teacher and the bullies. Elizabeth replies with no problem and says it’s the least she can do after what happened at prom.

Flashback to the night of prom, Shawn and Elizabeth are almost ready to leave and are getting pictures took before they do, the head teacher pulls Elizabeth aside and tells her to have fun tonight and not to do anything she doesn’t want to do, he also adds that going with Shawn is a big mistake but Elizabeth laughs it off. The head teacher also pulls Shawn aside and talks to him about if he touches his daughter he’ll kill him.

Act Three

Back to present day Shawn and Elizabeth sneak back out the bathroom and go back to the gym, their told that the bully and his wife went home to get changed so Shawn offers Elizabeth that dance they never had at prom. They start dancing slowly and Shawn also apologizes for what happened at prom, the song then changes to a more up beat track and Elizabeth starts dancing in a fun and crazy way and Shawn joins her.

Flashback to prom where everyone is dancing and having fun, Elizabeth pops to the bathroom and Shawn says he’ll get them some drinks. Shawn goes over to the bar and is confronted by the bully who starts pushing him around, Shawn stands up to him and the bully pushes him over, in result of this an engagement ring in a box fall out of Shawn’s jacket. The bully picks up the box and ring and yells out “You were going to propose?” The music stops and everyone looks at Shawn, including Elizabeth who has just got out of the bathroom, he looks over to her but she runs out and everyone starts laughing at Shawn.

Present day, the bully and his wife return back to the reunion and enter the gym, he sees Shawn and Elizabeth dancing and yells out if Shawn has proposed yet. The bully challenges Shawn to a fight outside to which Shawn gets angry at and accepts. Elizabeth is trying to calm him down and tell him how insane he’s been but he’s too focused on fighting the bully. Everyone gathers outside to see the fight and circles around Shawn and the bully, the bully gets the first hit in and knocks Shawn to the ground, the bully jumps on Shawn and starts hitting him. The bully is then thrown of Shawn and knocked out by the head teacher who yells out for everyone to go home.

Flashback to night of prom, Shawn is trying to talk to Elizabeth but she’s locked herself in her house. The head teacher comes outside and talks to Shawn, he says how upset he is that Elizabeth said no and that Shawn’s a good kid and proud to have known him, he tells Shawn to leave and stay away from Elizabeth cause she’s only going to hurt him and he wants to save Shawn the heartbreak.

Present day, Elizabeth is aiding Shawn’s injuries and says what he did tonight was both brave and stupid. Shawn and Elizabeth make a few jokes and Elizabeth says how she wished she said yes that night at prom. Shawn smiles and says maybe they should start again from the beginning and asks her out on a first date. They both smile and then go to Shawn’s car, this time Shawn doesn’t step in the litter and they drive away from the school.

Treatment for Script Idea 2

LOGLINE: A women struggling to come to terms with the loss of her infant daughter in a car accident must start the path to recovery and ease her way back into the world. Fighting against depression and denial, the woman’s life becomes a long exhausting path of therapy, abusive ex-husbands and intruding news reporters. The story chronicles the difficulty of moving on.

Act One

Jenny Collins is jogging along a beach with her earphones in, other joggers start to recognize her but she ignores and continues jogging. Jenny gets to a point where she breaks down in tears and collapses against a wall while having quick flashbacks of her and her daughter in a car accident. It is revealed on screen in words that this scene takes place 45 days since the accident.

3 days since accident- Jenny is grieving in her bedroom alone, she is carefully looking at pictures of her now deceased daughter. Jenny’s phone starts ringing and it is shown it is her Ex-Husband Brian, she ignores the call but he rings again and again. Jenny finally gains the courage to answer the phone and starts to apologize when she is cut off by Brian’s abusive language and blaming. Jenny hangs up the phone and throws it at a wall, breaking the phone.

7 days since accident- Jenny is with family and friends preparing to leave home to go to the funeral, Jenny’s sister hands her a phone telling her it’s their mother (who is suffering from Alzheimer’s and is been looked after in a special home). Jenny informs the mother that her sister is going to pick her up in 20 minutes and bring her to the funeral, the mother becomes confused and starts asking who’s funeral and who died making Jenny tear up a bit. After explaining it’s her daughters funeral the mother is still confused and starts going on about “I have a granddaughter? She must be so beautiful, I can’t wait to see her” This pushes Jenny over the edge to the point she hangs up and falls into her sister’s arms.

Act Two

13 days since accident- Jenny returns to work at her job, which is advertising, she is welcomed back by all her colleagues and returns to her desk, which is exactly the same as she left it. The boss calls her into his office for a talk and suggests therapy sessions that the company offer to their staff. Jenny is hesitant at first but then realizes it was less of a suggestion and more of a demand from her boss.

18 days since accident- Jenny attends her first group therapy session and is introduced to people, who have lost like she has, Jenny is very quiet for the length of the session but starts to connect with a woman (Mary) who talks about the loss of her son. After the session ends, Jenny catches up to this woman and asks if she would want to grab some coffee sometime to which the woman replies she is free right now. The two go of to a coffee shop and sit and talk about each other’s stories and feelings, Jenny finally feels like she’s met someone she can connect and relate to.

24 days since accident- Jenny agrees to an interview with news station since all the press has been reporting Jenny in a bad light since the accident. Jenny wants to clear up all the mistakes and lies the press has been telling. She is sat down in front of a live studio audience and is been interviewed by a woman. The interview starts off nice but the questions start to turn dark and twisted which forces Jenny to leave, before Jenny can get of the stage she is attacked by an audience member who calls her a child killer.

25 days since accident- Mary meets up with Jenny after work and they start to walk and talk heading towards their group therapy session. Mary brings up the interview and how bad she feels about not been there for Jenny, Jenny goes on about how violated she feels from the press and the abuse she has been receiving from her Ex-Husband. Mary starts talking about how she had/has been under similar circumstances and that there’s always a way to escape it, the two arrive at the session and are interrupted by another group member.

Act Three

30 days since accident- Jenny wakes up happier than usual this morning and calls Mary to let her know she is coming over, the phone goes to voicemail so Jenny leaves a message and heads over to Mary’s. Jenny rings the doorbell but there’s no answer, Jenny seems confused and tries calling again, she hears the phone ringing inside the house and looks through a window and sees the phone, she then looks closer and sees Mary hanging from noose in her living room. Jenny screams out for help and starts banging on the door, a passer by helps Jenny break down the door and she runs in. It fades to black on a shot of the house.

36 days since accident- Jenny attends the group therapy session and you can see that Mary’s chair is empty, Jenny is back to her quiet and depressed self again while a member talks about their problems. Mary walks into the session late revealing she survived the suicide attempt, it is clear that Mary is no longer friends with Jenny as she refuses to make eye contact and it is assumed Mary hates Jenny for saving her life. Jenny gets up and leaves the group and bumps into her sister outside to Jenny’s surprise, the sister reveals she was checking up on Jenny and gives a speech about how no matter how bad things get that Jenny never gives up. Jenny leaves feeling a bit happier than she previously was.

40 days since accident- Jenny has a meeting with her boss who tells her she has made an improvement over the past few days and is offering to allow her to choose whether she wants to carry on with the group sessions. Jenny takes the option to quit the group sessions. The boss remarks on how Jenny doesn’t look as healthy and fit as she once did and how whenever he feels like that he starts running. Jenny takes this into consideration and starts to leave, before she does the boss tells her that running is hard at first but to never give up, she then leaves.

45 days since accident- it cuts back to the first scene with Jenny running getting flashbacks of her daughter. Jenny fights the flashbacks and gets the strength to stand up again; she then takes a deep breath and starts running again, showing that she never gives up.   

Treatment for Script Idea

LOGLINE: Will Taylor is an up and coming writer who has recently received a book deal, unable to get a spark of creativity; Will searches for a new source of inspiration. After the murder of his neighbor, Will’s interest and determination to write a book lead him on dangerous path, as he looks closer at the murder. Hell bent on been accurate and getting the facts for his story, Will gains the suspicion of not only the police, but also the murderer.

Act One

Will Taylor is lying in bed listening to music through his earphones, his bedroom hasn’t been cleaned in a number of days, judging by the clothes on the floor and the plates and bowls that are stacking up by his bed. Will begins lip syncing to the song while trying to start his new novel, with his hands struggling to type actual words on his computer, Will begins to get angry and tears out his earphones and throws them across the room.

Will takes a deep breath and attempts at typing his story again, not long after he begins writing his phone starts ringing, it’s his agent. Will ignores the call and turns back to continue his work when he receives a text, the text is a threat telling him to answer the phone, the phone rings again and this time Will answers. A conversation takes place where the agent is asking Will about his progress on the book, Will lies and tells the agent what they want to hear but the agent knows Will is lying and yells at him to get it done. The now angry Will after been yelled out decides he is in no state or condition to write and calls his friend to meet up with him.

Will and his friend Eli are walking through a mall, Will starts to discuss his problem while Eli’s concentration keeps getting distracted. Will brings up this girl he likes and how after he’s done with the book he’ll have the time and money to win her over, Eli reveals that he has slept with the girl recently on a night out. Will’s temper rises and Eli tries to comfort him by saying he didn’t think Will would mind cause he was busy writing the book. The two arrive at a Café and discuss this conversation more.

Will returns home even more angry and upset then when he left and comes to the realization that every problem he has right now can be traced back to this book. He starts angrily typing about how his life sucks and is divided on weather he should call the girl he likes, knowing now that Eli has slept with her. Will falls asleep out of exhaustion at his desk.

Act Two

Will wakes up in the middle of the night to sirens and flashing lights, he goes outside to investigate and sees that his elderly neighbor has died. He talks to a police officer on the scene that tells him that she was murdered a few hours ago and discovered by the victims daughter, they believe this isn’t the first time this person has committed murder due to similarities with other recent murders. Will starts wondering why anyone would want to hurt his neighbor and describes her as harmless, Will begins to think of all the possible reasons and realizes he has found his inspiration. He races back to his room and begins writing his idea down. Will titles it “ The Diary of a Serial Killer”.

Morning arrives and Will is still at his desk and is just finishing off a huge portion of his book, pleased with what he has, Will calls his agent to tell them that they can expect the first draft by Monday. He sits back down to continue writing and realizes he has no idea how it is going to end, this angers Will again and he comes to the solution that he needs more facts and information about the case. He calls the police but they wont reveal anything about an on going investigation and then he calls Eli to help him break into the crime scene so he can have a look round, Eli tells him that he’s mad and not to do it, just when Will starts to agree he hears the voice of the girl he likes in the background of Eli’s phone, this triggers Will to go through with his plan.

Will sneaks in to the house at night via the back door after paying two homeless people to fight each other to divert the police officers attention who are watching the house. He looks through the house too see if there is anything useful to add to his story and then makes his way to the room she was killed in. Will sees the outline of where the body was found and the blood surrounding it, he searches the room and finds pictures of the deceased with her daughter, Will had never seen the daughter look so happy. Will immediately decides that his book will reveal the serial killer to be the victim’s daughter and races home to finish writing. With Will no longer at the crime scene, a dark figure emerges from the shadows.

Act Three

Will finishes his book and is proud of the ending and the twist his book has, he saves his work and is so excited to show his agent it on Monday. Will starts to feel cold and notices his window has been left open, he closes it and then goes of to bed and falls asleep almost instantly. Will awakens again in the middle of the night; he senses that someone else is in the room, fearing for his life he decides to stay completely still and it is revealed that the dark figure/killer is in the room with him. Will closes his eyes tight and wishes that nothing is there, he then quickly jumps out of bed and sees that the room is completely empty, he searches around to find that his window is open, a now confused and concerned Will returns to bed.

Will wakes up still chuffed at himself for completing the book and goes to his computer to print it out, he notices that the ending he wrote is now missing and has been deleted from his document, Will checks when the document was last saved and it says 2:03am last night which is impossible because Will was asleep.  Will hears a loud banging noise on his door and the police burst in, they restrain Will and see his story on his computer but to them it’s just a detailed explanation of a killer that they’re investigating. They tell Will that an anonymous tip told them he was involved and that the murder weapon is in his home, Will laughs and claims they made a mistake but suddenly quiets down when an officer walking’s in holding an award statue with dried blood on it, an officer says that this is the writing award the daughter said was missing from her mothers house. The lead investigator makes a remark about Will not been able to win his own award so he killed the victim for hers, Will is then taking downstairs and put inside a police car. Will hears yelling and turns around to find the daughter shouting “Bastard” at him, once she has Will’s attention she smiles at him proving Will’s story is true and then she continues to cry and yell. The police car drives off, taking Will away after been set up by the daughter.     

Professional Studies- Upcoming Report

In professional studies we have an upcoming report we need to start thinking about now, the report needs to focus on an area of the film business of your choice, it could be from cinematography, editing, screenwriting or any job roles from the extensive area of film. The report is to be 2000 words and will require a large amount of research which is why we are to start thinking about it now, currently I am drawn towards the writing aspect and want to focus on screenwriters and how many actually transform it into a career. I thought about this because there is such a variety of writers out there all competing for work and you don't always hear about writers as much as you do directors, this led me to think about how many actually write for a career and how many have done it as a one off job and not been able to sustain it. There's also a range of writers who will also direct their own work which is another aspect I can look into on the report and I feel overall this would be an interesting area to look into for the report. 

I can start researching some of my favorite writers and some of the most successful writers early so I have that information for when I need it, I can also start looking into the salary and pay for a screenwriter and how much it varies and how much you'd need to write to make a living out of it. There's different ways to assess a screenwriters success and that is weather the quality of their writing is good, the amount they get paid for the work or the amount their work grosses at the box office. It'll be interesting to see what information and results I find while doing this report and weather my view of screenwriting changes throughout.     

The Message- Filming and Production

One of our tasks so far was to create a short 2-3 minute video called "The Message", the film could be about anything we wanted as long as it carried or gave out a message. We continued to work in our production skills groups and brain stormed a few ideas that may be good for this project, we came up with a few ideas but eventually settled on our main message been "Don't forget to carry the one" and it focusing on a scientist/doctor trying everything to find the meaning of life and in the end forgetting to carry the one. Once we had our idea, we developed it into a script and gathered all the necessary props and clothing needed for the shot and then we started filming.

We filmed "The Message" in Jacob and Daniels front room as they were both in my group and thought it would be best to film here with the amount of space we can use, for our production we took out a Panasonic camera, two redheads, sound equipment and a tripod dolly. We took about 20-30 minutes to set up all the equipment and the scene with props and then began filming the scenes, we all took on roles and offered advice and contributed evenly to the production. Overall it was roughly a 2 hour shoot because we were using some new equipment and we wanted to experiment and see what was possible with it, it was a success in the end as we captured all we needed and kept it too a good quality and all enjoyed working on the shoot. The final step now is to enter post-production and edit the pieces together to see our final work, because it's quite short it shouldn't take too much time or energy to complete it and we hope to have it done within the coming weeks.  

RTS Awards

On Tuesday 11th November we had the chance to attend the RTS Student Awards in York, with us been first years we were taken along to get a look at the awards and to support our second years that had been nominated. The night on a whole was enjoyable, it was really interesting to see the quality and standard other students were producing in our area and some of the productions were outstanding. It was an opportunity to socialise and talk with other aspiring filmmakers and to understand how an event like this is pulled off, it was very smart and formal and an overall professional event. Unfortunately none of our second years won an award but the quality of all the films nominated were outstanding and so close to been equal, I'm glad I have this insight to prepare me for the next few years if I get lucky enough to be nominated or work on a production that gets nominated, it has really opened my eyes to the quality and standard RTS is looking for and has helped me get excited for any future projects.
 

Location/Drama- Production Meeting

On Monday our production group for the reconstruction of it had a meeting to see our progress and what we need to do before we can start filming. We had currently been looking in to actors to play the roles and had auditions in place for the role of 'Georgie' on Wednesday, myself and Jacob went looking for some black cloth or something for a black background that we could use to film the Pennywise scene for the coming weeks and returned with plain black curtains to cover the background. Simon, our production manager had begun working on the risk assessment forms for the production and me and Chloe (Director of Documentary) started gathering video clips for the documentary, such as clips of the team working and trying to find actors, as well as them discussing difficulties when coming to filming and solutions that could solve them. We have in place to film the audition on Wednesday which will be helpful in the documentary. Our biggest struggle currently is costume and finding appropriate clothing for our actors, if all things come into place we hope to be filming within in the next 2 weeks.

Visual Culture- Visual Language and Emotion

Today's lecture was on The Eighteenth Century Fantasy between 1715-1760, it looked closely into styles such as Rococo and Chinoiserie and the French culture at the time. It started in 1715 with the death of Louis XIV and his infant son Louis XV been crowned the new king, until he reached an age where he could rule the country, he was taught and raised to be king. During this time France was close to been on the brink of bankruptcy. The Baroque style began to decline and was replaced with Rococo, this style expressed emotion rather than power. There is a common symbol that occurs throughout Rococo which is the Rocaille which symbolises water flowing over rocks and can be seen on a lot of furniture in this period. The obsession with nature and love was clearly displayed in this style and heavily featured this surge of emotion that was always expressed in this style. You can see this style in paintings a lot with bright colours and images of frolicking (sex is usually indicated or implied) an example of this would be The Swing- Fragonard 1766.

Madame de Pompadour was an impactful character during these times and was groomed to be the mistress to the King of France, this led to her been one of the most powerful women in France at the time but she was later rejected by the king when she started to age and lose her youth and beauty. The paintings and images of her always showed her clutching or wearing an open rose, this was to celebrate the French culture and beauty. Unfortunately her beauty disappears from art as she began to age and instead of been the King's mistress, she became the King's confident based on the friendship and trust they had built.

The fantasy of romance echoed throughout literature, paintings and clothes. The males dressed flamboyant to adopt a political stance whereas the females wore court dresses that were very elaborate. Both would spend hours doing make-up in the toilette, this took place two times a day. This period of France was very much about expressing love and emotion in any way possible, this became a unique style at the time and is very interesting to look back on in hindsight.

     

Smoke Machine

Today we looked at and tested the smoke machine equipment our course has, whenever you need fog, mist or smoke in your production this machine will be your best option. The machine can be operational inside or outside but for the purposes of a demonstration we tested it inside in our studio. To use it inside the studio we had to follow precautions so there are no accidents or misunderstandings during the time we're using it, first thing to be aware of is to warn and alert the university and the building managers that you will be using the smoke machine as well as the fire department in case any alarms go off. To make sure the alarms don't go off we cover them with plastic caps that block the smoke from reaching the alarm. When using this in a production you want to make sure that none of your cast and crew have anything like asthma that will cause harm to them on set, there are different settings to the smoke machine and different intensities you can use to get the right smoke you want so it's best to know what you want for your shoot before hand or to experiment with the machine before the day of the shoot to be able to know how to operate it for when you want. We did a few tests with the smoke machine to see how it looked on camera and to see how effective it was, we incorporated lighting as well to see the different styles and effects it can produce and it was great experimenting with this equipment that could have so much potential in our future productions.

Studio Lighting

After working with the lighting equipment we'd be using when were shooting on location, we started to look at the studio lighting and how we can use it if we have any productions or scenes where we'd be filming in the studio. The studio lights are hung above the studio on these rails that are attached to the roof, there all in place but can be moved if needed. When moving a studio light to a different location you need at least two people performing the procedure, one person will be going up a ladder to remove the light they need and the second will be manning the ladder and making sure it is safe for the first person. After you've unplugged and taken down the light you want you will be putting it up in the position you want, this may require you to take down another light if one is in your way. When your lights are in place there is a stick like device that is used to operate the lights if you want it facing the opposite direction or rotating at all. Moving and using the studio lights can be a challenge but it makes it easier if you know what you're doing, it is important to make sure the light is properly attached to the rails and is plugged in with the wire wrapped around a second rail as well for safety. Because locations can be tricky to find many productions or scenes may take place in the studio so it's important to know how to operate all the equipment safely and professionally. It's also a good idea that if you want to use the studio lighting, it may be best to set it up a day or two before your shoot to save time on the actual day.

Vox Pops

Today we were going to gain more experience with using the camera and microphone as a crew by doing the task of getting Vox Pops from the public on the street. Vox Pops are short interviews that are normally used in the news showing the general publics views and opinions on a subject, the subject we were asking about was Ebola because of it's current status in world news. Within our group we thought of well worded questions to ask people and selected roles we all felt comfortable in for when were filming. The roles were interviewer, camera, sound and someone to find people to interview, I varied from filming with the camera and monitoring the sound and once we started to get going we got some great interviews and responses from the public that were very genuine. It was great how well people cooperated with us and how willing they were to give up there time for our project, I'd say the task was very educational in the fact we needed to get everything right to be successful, we were quick setting up and on time and focused while doing the interviews, it also helped us gain confidence with talking to the public and becoming a lot more familiar with the equipment we'll be using over the next few years. We had one minor problem with the headphones connecting to the camera because we couldn't hear the sound coming through clearly but we seemed to overcome it and the sound quality was not damaged by this when we played it back so it was quite successful in hindsight.

Production Skills- Continuity

In Production Skills we had a lesson about continuity and the importance of it in a Film and TV production, without it you can pull your audience out of the experience and lose their attention because they have lost that belief in your film and recognise the cuts and the fact it is just a film. We looked at a few examples of mistakes with continuity in films and the most well known one is a scene from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, theres a scene where there about to order food and the Uma Thurman character starts smoking, throughout the scene and the various cuts the cigarette starts jumping from hand to hand and in each new cut it is in the opposite hand from before. Some continuity errors are hard to find and are only noticed if you look for them but if their are some continuity errors in your film then some one will find them. To help reduce the chance of these from happening, you can have a member of your crew be in charge of making sure the continuity is correct and that your not going to be doing something that you can't repeat again for another shot.

While looking at continuity we also had a challenge where one group would look at a number of items on a table and try to memorise as many as they could and then leave the room, another group would then come up and move and take items away to see if the first group would notice. It was a good challenge to test peoples memories and to see what certain people remember and don't. We also looked at a trick called the Monkey Business Illusion or The Invisible Gorilla, which is a video of a group of people walking around passing basketballs around and you have to count how many times the balls switch hands, while this is happening a man in a gorilla costume walks into the middle of the screen and walks out, but because your attention is focusing on counting the balls you don't notice the gorilla. This was interesting to see because it makes you wonder how many other illusions and tricks can you get a way with on film and it would be interesting to see how far you could take this idea.        

Professional Skills- Casting

This week in professional skills we looked into all the websites and options for casting actors/actresses at our disposal for our reconstruction production and for any production in future. Because our reconstruction has specific characters who talk with accents or have certain looks, it's important to cast the role right and thats where these websites come in.

Castingcallpro.com
Starnow.co.uk
Shootingpeople.com
Kreativetalent.tv

These websites have local actors and actresses as well as actors/actresses all around the country that are looking for work, there are profiles of each actor about all the basics you would need to know about an actor before an audition along with certain skills they have that might come in handy. My group is considering using these websites to cast one of our actors for the reconstruction if all our other tries come up with no results, but these are very helpful websites to find up and coming actors that are looking for experience so hopefully we'll find some reliable and excellent actors to perform in our productions.  

Scriptwriting- Basic Stories

This weeks screenwriting lesson was about understanding the basic stories used in screenwriting and learning about how to overcome writing block and be creative with stories. We went through the list of basic stories which are:

Achilles- A fatal flaw the leads to the destruction of the main character
Candide- The naive triumphant hero
Cinderella- The dream come true
Circe- The chase, innocent and the victim
Faust- Selling soul to the devil to bring riches
Orpheus- Gift taken away, loss of something personal
Romeo and Juliet- Boy meets girl, boy loses girl
Tristan- Triangles (Eternal or otherwise)

After talking about these basic stories and listing examples of these stories we moved on to choosing 3 random words, one been a character, one been a place and the last been a key word to help develop the story. We were told to create a short synopsis for a story using these 3 words. My 3 words were Ninja, Street and Anger. I used these words to write this synopsis.

Ninja on a secret mission for his brotherhood of ninjas, when a accident leads to a head injury giving the ninja amnesia. After becoming lost from his brotherhood and winding up in America with no knowledge of his past or who he is, but left only with some kick-ass ninja skills he takes up occupation as a street dancer and gains worldwide success and fame. Understandably his brotherhood become very angry with his apparent betrayal and abandonment they seek revenge in an ultimate dance showdown thats fun for all ages.    

After writing the synopsis we were told to think about which basic story category our synopsis fell under and I felt like mine was a cross between Candide and Orpheus with the main character not been too smart after his accident and been quite naive with his gift been taken away. 

Visual Culture- Visual Language and Nationhood

This weeks lecture focused on The English Renaissance from 1550-1660 and spoke of it's influences and inspiration leading to its impact on modern day and modern art. It started as a transitional phase at the end of the medieval period began the process of breaking away from the catholic church, leading to Henry Viii been head of the churches. Elizabeth I reign from 1558- 1603 was a major force in European global affairs and creating a new identity from England. The palace and country houses evolved for entertainment and power, with owners spending money on the display of the houses on what tends to be modern at the time. Hardwick Hall (Derbyshire, Robert Smythson) is a great example of an Elizabethan house which was built for Elizabeth Talbot also known as Bess of Hardwick who was one of the most notable women in England at the time.

The display of things were a visual testament to an individuals place in society, showing how much one was valued in society and how much they are worth so you would expect to find plenty of expensive and well crafted objects in rich and well respected peoples homes. This led to everyone trying to out do each other and trying to be more modern than everyone else. This gave birth to the consumer society, with people buying objects and making purchases that they necessary don't need or have a purpose for other than showing off to everyone else also known as conspicuous consumption. This is also connected to emulative spending which is where people are copying other peoples purchases which can be seen in todays society as well.

March 23rd 1603 saw the death of Queen Elizabeth I and ushered in the reign on King James I 1603-1625 leading to the Jacobean era and ending the Elizabethan era. Overall the Elizabethan era can be seen as a novelty with people constantly trying to out do their rivals, making it all about what looks better rather than what is needed.  

Location Lighting

This week we were introduced to the lighting equipment that we can take out for whenever were filming on location and need some accurate lighting, there is also studio lighting but we will learn more about that next week. This introduction was to inform us on what the lighting equipment is and how to use it and makes the course more confident about letting us take the equipment out for shoots. The first light we were shown was the Red Heads which are quite common on film shoots and are 800 watts, they are known to get very hot and can set things on fire when not used and monitored correctly. There are also the Blonde lights that we can use in our productions that are 2000 watts which is considerably more than the red heads, but they can provide a stronger and more powerful light for a backdrop or any purpose you need on set. In case you want a light to cover more space you can use the flood lights and they can provide a more even overall light effect on a production. Before using any of these lights, it's important to check the electrics on any location or house you are filming in. You will need RCD's when plugging the lights into any sockets to make sure they don't overload the electrics or blow a fuse so it's important to remember to use these before using any lights on location. Also important to never use the lights without mesh or safety protector on them because there is a risk they might overpower and blow up and without the safety protector the glass could hurt a member of the crew or an actor. We were also informed that the UK works on a 23A voltage which can do up to 240 volts and in each country it can vary so it's important to understand this information for when filming in different locations.

After learning about the lights and the set ups we were given a task to recreate a scene just by reading the scripts instructions in a three point lighting set up, the script included shadows so we needed to interpret and recreate this as best as we could. We split up into two groups and divided the group up into actors and crew and started to film our recreation. We wanted to film it all in one take and get large shadows of two of the characters on the wall, so we needed to position lights correctly for this effect and it was a good exercise for us all to see the complications and skill that goes into lighting, we now know just how long it takes to set up a three point lighting and will be better prepared for next time.

Location/Drama- Research into Documentaries

For this assignment focusing on the reconstruction of a film scene (My groups scene been "IT") I am working on the documentary side of this production and my role is camera man working with Chloe Lowe who is the director for the documentary. Since I want to be able to capture footage and document the process professionally and successfully, I've begun some research into different types of documentaries and the different camera movements and angles that are common within documentaries.

I started to look at popular television documentaries like "Planet Earth" and watched a variety of short clips so I could observe the camera skills and movements. I looked into it more and found that the cinematographer for the show was a man named Doug Allen, who has had experience at film and photographing many aspects of wildlife and has worked other documentaries such as "Frozen Planet". I liked his use of focus and how he could frame two important things into his shot but make you focus on one and then reveal the second slowly through focus. 

I also looked into a few websites that explained and described the difference camera movements and angles used in documentaries. A popular technique I found was the Tracking Shot, this has been used plenty of times in documentaries and is quite effective for long takes of observing someone doing something. I like the idea of having a nice focused shot without cuts to take people's attention away. But with the documentary been limited to around 5 minutes so I don't want too many extended shots that will end up been cut anyway. Another important thing I learned about documentaries (mainly for interviews) is symbolic placement, this is a method of placing something of relevance in shot weather it be the background or the foreground but it helps compliment the overall look and feel of the shot, so this will be fun and interesting to apply to a few of my shots.

I'll continue to try and gather more research on different techniques and methods but I'd prefer to try and experiment and get experience with the methods on the cameras and maybe film some unrelated topics to gain experience. 

Scriptwriting- Writing Kickstart

This week in scriptwriting we started to prepare for writing our screenplay ideas and did a few exercises and tasks to help us kickstart our writing, we started to draw from existing memories and feelings and it helps to understand it more when your writing what you know instead of making something up out of the blue. The first task was to write down something you dislike and why you dislike it, I wrote about how I dislike people talking and using their phones in the cinema while watching a film, because it's the exact opposite of what you should be doing while your at the cinema. Knowing this is what some people do or what some people also dislike it would be a good characteristic to use in a story because people will be able to relate to it and connect to the story because theres that shared opinion. We also talked about habits and habits that we know we or other people have that were quite interesting, I recalled a habit someone had at my college of always going around tidying up and an obsession for things to be clean and for everything to be in it's place which sometimes could get out of hand. This can be used to a similar use by giving a character this habit or obsession because I know more about it because I'm drawing from experience of knowing someone who does have it so it's a lot more realistic.

We ended the session by each writing a short paragraph or two about someone and incorporated these habits and ideas or memories into the character and story. I wrote about a man waiting for his coffee shop to open in his car trying to get across that he is addicted to get coffee and is always on time or early for anything he needed to do.

Will Taylor waited for a quarter of an hour in his car. He was early. His daily coffee shop 'Coffee Empire' had yet to open although a small queue started to form outside. Will remembered the days when queues would lead around the corner for a drink from 'Coffee Empire' and to tell you the truth, it doesn't even taste very good. The doors began to open and Will made his way over, with the correct change in hand, Will joined the queue and continued to wait.   

That was my small narrative story that I put together using what we had talked about earlier and what we had learned in previous lessons. I like the detail it goes into about this mans life and his habits but it doesn't seem to go anywhere narratively very fast and needs to continue more for a story to develop but overall I think its a nice build up to a story.    

Production Meeting- Reconstruction of "IT"

20th October 2014-

We had our first production meeting on Monday for our group who is reconstructing a scene from Stephen King's IT. We were given our roles earlier and I was given the role of camera man for the documentary side of the assignment, Chloe is the director of the documentary as well as sound while Stephen is the director of the drama and reconstruction of the scene with Simon working as production manager for both and Jacob taking lead on the camera for the drama. We had a production meeting to make sure we could set off all the tasks that we need to do individually and start putting key parts into play. We started to organise when we need to have certain tasks completed by and that we all should get familiar with the roles that we would be performing as on the team, we also set a goal of finding a location to shoot on for the coming weeks but needed ASAP.

Because Chloe is the director of the documentary she started to map out what she wanted to film and what should be included in the documentary, she also started a draft of questions that would be relevant to ask the cast and crew so the audience would have a wider knowledge of what was going on. So far our team is working well together and offering up great suggestions and ideas to work with, hopefully we will be able to find all the components needed to successfully complete our task.  

A Trip to Newcastle

Recently we visited the city of Newcastle with our course Creative Film and Moving Image Production at CCAD Hartlepool. The trip consisted of a guide around the magnificent Tyneside Cinema and a visit to the famous Baltic Mill for a look at some contemporary art. When we first arrived in Newcastle we made our way over to the Tyneside Cinema first and waited for our guide to begin. We started on the ground floor where the box office was and made or way up the building, we found out that the cinema was designed and built by a man named Dixon Scott who was also the uncle of filmmakers Ridley and Tony Scott who are famous for films such as Alien, Blade Runner, True Romance and Top Gun. The cinema has five screens on various floors of the building that the use to view films and also allow to be booked out for any occasions you may have, the cinema had recently gone through a renovation and restoration back in 2006 but tried to keep it's classic style and design by recreating some of its patterns and tones on different floors. We were able to sit down and enjoy an old news screening in a screen they call "The Classic" and got to experience how people would find out about news back in the times it was created. It was an interesting view on how important the cinema was and still is and how it could be used for much more than just film. The further we went up the building we were introduced to different screens and cafes the cinema had and it was nice to see that each screen had it's own design and wasn't an exact copy of the previous. It was a great experience visiting Tyneside Cinema and a pleasant surprise to see an independent cinema doing well and still having that love for film and cinema after all these years.

After Tyneside Cinema we were given a lunch break and then it was off to the Baltic Mill to have a look at some of it's new additions and presentations. The Baltic also had many floors, each filled with a different artists work that you could walk around and view and each offered a different experience than the last. There was some very intriguing pieces of art and some that were either to complex for me to understand or just not to my taste but it was nice to see peoples thought process and how each individual interprets the art differently which is one of the best things about art. We finished up at the Baltic after just over an hour and then made our journey back to Hartlepool. I really enjoyed the trip to Newcastle and both the experiences we got to enjoy, it was definitely worth the the trip and the insight gained from visiting places like this is very valuable.

Visual Culture- Visual Language and Knowledge

This week for our visual culture lecture we were introduced to The Continental Renaissance and it's impact on art throughout history. The Continental Renaissance was a cultural movement from the mid 14th century to late 17th century and originated in Italy, it came around due to all the war and disease (Black Death) that happened in the 14th century and led to a decline of the medieval world in the 15th century that encouraged European discovery and prosperity. The survivors of all the war and disease believed they were saved by God which links to the name Renaissance meaning rebirth. Florence, Italy was the centre of trade banking and the centre of Christianity, this all helped to develop the city life in Italy and resulted in Europe looking to Italy for help and knowledge. The rebirth meant starting again but they used the past as inspiration for the future so there wasn't huge break of originality that kickstarted the Renaissance but it did lead to amazing works of art such as The Scrovegni Chapel (1305) and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel.

During this time of art there was the discovery of perspective and foreshortening that changed the way art could be seen and viewed by everyone, this even has a huge impact on us today with how we design and view art. Also in this stage there was a switch from religion to mythology and we started to see more depictions of Roman and Greek Gods in pictures and been presented in the style of allegory, which was a device that used characters or events in literal or visual form and represented them as a symbol. There was also an increase in nudity in art where they would use the nakedness of a male to represent perfection and the nakedness of a female to represent beauty.

This was certainly an interesting time for art with the cultural movement been at it's peak and there is so much inspiration from this era that has impacted our society and culture in the present which I was uneducated on before this lecture. It's interesting to see how much of history is used and repeated throughout time to work towards something new.

Scriptwriting- Narrative Structure

Our second lesson on screenwriting explored the topic of Narrative Structure and it's importance in a story or script, I learned about the origins of Narrative Structure and how it can be traced back to a Greek Philosopher by the name of Aristotle who noticed the importance of a plot and how they must have a beginning, a middle and an end. Of course their are also Non-Narrative plots and stories in the form of documentaries and commercials but the more common and popular structure is narrative. A great way to create a narrative structure is to give your story some pre-narrative stability by giving the setting and the characters of your story a history so they don't seem like they were instantly created, another point to making a strong narrative is making sure that the narrative gets disrupted at some point and sets off a chain of events for your characters to follow which you can end with a solution to close the narrative.

I also learned about Diegesis, which is the specific world that the story creates and inhabits by using tools like Mise en scene, characters and costumes. This helps set a tone and a history to the world your story takes place in and gives you a foundation to build on. Of course your story won't move anywhere unless you have Motivations that move the story along, these are events that occur in the narrative that function in the overall plot. The motivations need to be justified and can't just appear to be random and need to be believable in the world your narrative takes place in. These are all great guidelines to follow and consider when writing a screenplay with a narrative structure, they make sure your ideas become a story and not just random scenes and dialogue so I'll defiantly be thinking about where and when to use this information when writing a screenplay.

Scriptwriting- Mise-En-Scene

We started a new lesson that focuses on screenwriting and explores all the needs and options you have when it comes to writing a screenplay, the first week looked into Visual Style and Iconography which Mise-en-scene falls under. Mise-en-scene is a word used to describe the design of a shot and the arrangement of the framing, actors and even the lighting and pretty much anything you see in your shot. It's always related to the narrative and is ProFilmic (staging of events for the camera), there are so many details in a shot it's important to recognise all of them and have them correctly positioned or stylised such as the setting, the costumes, the proximity, the acting, the lighting, the camera movement/angle and the framing. Their is a popular tracking shot at the beginning of 1958's Touch of Evil (Orson Welles) that lasts three minutes and twenty seconds that shows the amount of effort and planning you can put into a single shot/scene.

Each genre has its own visual style so it's important to use this to your advantage and take this visual style and it make it your own without disfiguring it too much, like film noir is known to be dark and gritty while a comedy would be more lighter and playful. It's great to break films down into single scenes or even single shots because it reveals the effort and planning that goes into films and how difficult it is to create a successful film.It's important to capture everything you want in your shots and to know everything thats in your shots and not leaving everything to chance and I'm starting to learn some key elements to filmmaking from Mise-en-scene.    

Visual Culture- Visual Language and Empire

Visual Culture is a weekly lecture my course has that explores the history and the impact art has had on the world and the impact art has had on history. The first lecture was about The Symbolic Arts of Imperial China and showed the basic history of Imperial China and how it's influenced modern times. It was interesting to learn about it's religious heritage with the likes of Taoism (Daoism) and Buddhism been huge contributors to the empire. The Emperor and Empress of china were depicted as a five toed dragon and a phoenix to show their great power in this ancient civilisation, with the Emperor known as the celestial being and the Empress known as the celestial servant. Art was a big part of Imperial China and symbols in ceramics were used as gifts but it was more about the meaning of the symbol than the material object given. Decorations in this culture were never purely ornamental and always had a symbolic meaning behind them, it was also interesting to find out about colours and how they can auspicious or inauspicious and the Emperor would wear certain colours reflecting his feelings such as:

Black-Water
Red-Fire
Blue-Wood
White- Metal
Yellow-Earth    

These were all known within this culture and was a way of expression without words. There is also the language of the plants where certain plants and flowers would represent a season like:

Peony-Spring
Lotus- Summer
Chrysanthemum- Autumn
Plum Blossom- Winter

It was interesting to see all these hidden languages and forms of expression Imperial China had and in some cases still has but is becoming a lost art, Imperial China has become lost in modern China with it evolving with technology and global affairs but it's culture was and still is rich and offers lots to learn.

Health and Safety

Because of all the equipment we'll be working with and all the locations we'll be working on we can be put in some potentially dangerous situations, so we have to go over all the health and safety aspects of working in film and on film sets. The health and safety rules help us to prepare for the worst and make sure everyone is as safe as they can be, we were introduced with a presentation of risks that you may find on a film set, we were also shown previous mistakes and in some cases deaths on film sets that happened due to lack of health and safety procedures. The main example that stuck with me was the accidental deaths on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie where actor Vic Morrow and two Chinese child actors were killed in a helicopter accident, it shocked me because you automatically assume that on such a big production you were safe and that many people were there to ensure that but even on huge film productions things can still go wrong.

We were shown the risk assessment papers that have to be filled out before any shoot, to show you have recognised all potential risks with your production and that you have done all you can do to make people aware of what hazards the location, props or actors may cause. There is a certain way of ranking these risks and there are charts that help you decided what type of risk they are depending on there likeliness to happen and the seriousness of the risk. We were also visited by a member of Cleveland Police to show us about counter terrorism and received a presentation on what it was and how we can help. Because of the situations we may find ourselves in due to our productions and studies, we may be seen as acting with suspicious behaviour so it's important to let people around us know who we are and what were doing, it's also important to let the police know where we are and what were doing if it's in any public space where we might cause a disturbance or any dangerous place where we might need permission.

Many of the health and safety risks in a film study are quite obvious but many times forgotten, equipment like studio lights and cameras are quite hazardous because there heavy and connected to many wires that run all over the set, it's key to make sure everything is set up to the high standards they need to be to ensure the safety of the cast and crew. It was great that we had these lessons and presentations to remind us of the dangers that we will be working on and with throughout the coming years, they were many risks that I had already known about and some that are common sense but there was also many that I was unaware off and I am now far better off with this new knowledge.

-Mikey Barker  

Production Skills- Camera Angles

After testing and experimenting with sound, we moved on to camera angles and the effects they can give, we started learning about many different camera angles, some we already knew and some we hadn't heard of and looked into the effectiveness of the angles and shots and what each one can mean. We touched on the length of shots and talked about the Extreme Long Shot which can be used as an establishing shot which helps with setting the scene, this led to the Long Shot which generally gives a life size effect with the audience,  a Medium Shot which would normally show an actor or figure from the knees/waist up, a Close Up which concentrates on a face or a detail leaving the background out of focus and then finally the Extreme Close Up which is a close up of a object or person which would commonly be of the mouth or eyes and features no background detail at all. These were all good at framing the shot in a still scene so we moved on to camera movement which included Pan shots, Tilt shots, Dolly shots and Zoom shots which will also come in handy.

Once we understand the basics of the shots and angles we started experimenting and filming or own shots with this knowledge, we split off into groups again and searched around campus and Hartlepool for interesting features to include in our shots. We tested out a wide range of different shots on people and buildings and tried to make them as engaging as possible. This was a good exercise to work on because it helped develop some peoples camera skills and even directing skills with what people wanted in their shots.

-Mikey Barker

Production Skills- Intro to Panasonic Camera

After we were introduced to the Canon camera we were given an introduction to the Panasonic camera, both cameras have a lot of similarities and the Panasonic camera has a lot of features that the Canon camera has so I won't go into too much detail about that. The Panasonic camera can film in both 16:9 and 4:3 unlike the Canon camera, when using microphones for sound it is important to know there is a line option and a mic option so you need to have it correctly set up for the use of the mic. We were informed about OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) which can help when using the camera handheld with any sudden movements or vibrations that camera picks up. We were also made aware during this intro about Interlace and Progressive frame rates/scanning. Interlace is two images/fields that come together to make one image, there split into odds and evens and it's main benefit is that it can give detailed images within a limited bandwidth. Progressive gives a more filmic look, it delivers the whole image and allows for images to seem smoother and sharper.

-Mikey Barker

Production Skills- Microphones and Sound

Sound is one of the most important aspects of making a film and is normally overlooked during productions, to get some practice at using the sound equipment and to test our creativity we were set a task to go out around the campus and Hartlepool to record some sounds that we would then playback as sound effects and have the rest of the course guess what they were. We split off into groups and used the Canon camera as our recording equipment with an external microphone which we plug in to capture our audio, to make sure we all got some experience with the equipment we rotated job roles every now and then, we would have one person holding the camera, one person holding the microphone, one person listening with headphones on to the sound and another creating the sound. We had equal turns in the job roles and each role was interesting. We didn't want to be completely average so we tried to search for sound effects that were too obvious or common so we experimented with the sounds in a phone box, the sound of a pen rolling off a table onto the floor and even a mobile phone vibrating on a table. We weren't 100% sure what the quality of the sound was until we played them back for the course but we were quite proud and impressed with the quality once we heard it, it was nice and clear with the audio not too loud or not too quite.

It was a great exercise at getting used to the sound and camera equipment and even helpful at showing how difficult it can be to get great quality sound.

- Mikey Barker

Production Skills- Intro to Canon Camera

On our course we use primarily two brands of digital cameras, the first been the Canon camera and the second been the Panasonic. We were introduced to the Canon camera first and were explained all the technical aspects the camera has, we were taught how to set the camera up for specific shoots and even a little intro to microphones and how they work with the camera. The Canon camera has custom presets that you can customise to your liking so you don't have to keep reconfiguring every time you use it, you can save your chosen settings under custom presets. The Canon only shoots in 4:3 unlike some more modern cameras that can shoot in both 4:3 and 16:9, this is important to remember so you don't film with this camera if you want to shoot in 16:9 because it's not something that is easily fixed in post-production. The camera also has a zoom grip that you want to keep the same speed throughout filming, the options the zoom grip provide are Variable, Low, Medium and Fast. When going deep into the settings you can change and adjust modes such as Rec Mode and Audio Mode which need to always be Rec Mode- Short Play and Audio Mode- 16 Bit, this is compatible with the rest of our equipment and gets the best out of our equipment. An interesting new setting I learned was Zebra Levels, these are zebra lines that appear when above the set number on the camera and are affected by light exposure, commonly you'd have it set to 85% because this is the recommended setting for skin so if you start to see zebra lines your light exposure is too high. The camera also has features such as Manual Focus and Auto Focus (Manual Focus is the better option, Auto Focus should not be used when filming). White Balance is a key feature the camera offers as well because it helps you achieve the right colour for your film and can be adjust for whenever your filming outside in sunlight or inside with studio lights.

This was my basic intro to the Canon camera and I'm sure I'll pick up more when I have more experience at handling and using it on projects.

-Mikey Barker

Location Doc/Drama Pitch

The next step in our Location Doc/Drama module was to pitch a scene from an existing film that we think would be fun and challenging to recreate in groups, the scene needed to be no more or no less than 2 minutes and I needed to convince the course why this film would be perfect for this task. I was shown examples of what we would be doing by watching previous groups recreation at scenes from films such as A Clockwork Orange and The Godfather so I knew what some challenges I might be faced with were.

The scene I chose to pitch was from Up in the Air (2009) starring George Clooney and Anna Kendrick, I choose a scene that was quite early on in the film and only required 3 actors. The scene is contained in a room in an office building so there were no extras wondering around in the background, I was attracted to this scene because of the strong dialogue and amazing acting that occurs during it. The film is modern day so there were no complications in trying to find costumes or props from 20-30 years ago and there are no long monologues that would be too hard on an actor. Unfortunately the scene did have windows behind it giving a view of a city street which would be hard to find and would only be achieved with green screen, it also had multiple cuts which was a concern for some people and the location itself was a concern for me. In the end my scene was not selected to be recreated but it helped me understand some complications with the scene and that it wasn't as appealing as other scenes that were pitched.

- Mikey Barker