Starting the Project

I'm very excited about this project, even if to be honest it also scares me a bit, because I've never really done a short film before. But I'm happy with our group, I think we're all going to work well together. I feel like we can be a strong team as we all have different abilities and we are all hardworking.

After getting the brief we talked about our ideas and what came out of the talk was one main ideas: the windows. We love walking in the streets and seeing a window with the blinds open and you get to have a peek inside, and see how other people live. We'll obviously talk about this a bit more but for now we're quite pleased with our idea. And I think the tutors were also excited about it! So off to a good start.

Developing the project

So after meeting again and having had a couple of days to think some more, we came up with another idea that we're all very excited about. It's about a girl daydreaming in the overground and imaging a life with this stranger she just saw. We like that it could be more lighthearted and playful, and we love the reality/dream side of it too. Of course we're still excited by the window idea but we really like this one. Even if I know it sounds a bit more cliché, the more I think of the windows also, and the more research we do, the more I feel like the window thing also has been done millions of times before. So right now I'm more excited about the daydreaming idea, but we'll see where it leads!

Hard Working Weekend

Just finished a long weekend of writing treatments for our two ideas with Carolyn. I'm very happy with our work, the other girls had made moodfilms and sent us images references, so we all put a lot of effort into the project. Really pleased with how they turned out, I think ew explained our ideas quite well, and the images/references were amazing, which really helped explaining the mood and feel of the films.

Back to the windows

So after presenting both treatments, the tutors suggested us to go with the window idea. I think we were all a bit "disappointed" because we were very very excited about the other project, we had already called Ikea and got permission to go shoot there for the dream part of the film, and we had found the perfect actress to cast. But it's ok, we knew whichever project they preferred we will eventually make the other at another time of the year (hopefully we'll have time to do it). So we got over our deception and went back to work. Within the next couple of days we went out to Acton to find which windows we'd like to film.

Film Development

This week we kept planning our ideas for the windows film. I'm excited again about the project, I can visualise it a bit more, and we're all very motivated and we work well together, which helps a lot! Jessica did an amazing job on the story board, it looks amazing. We had our tutorial today to present our progress and it went really well. I'm happy to see the tutors excited about the project as well, it's encouraging and makes us want to work even harder! We will go filming this evening and tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to that!

Shooting Week

Shooting went really well!! We went to Acton on Monday to shoot most of our scenes. We had done a preselection of the houses we liked the week before, but obviously we couldn't really predict which would be lit up that day, and we ended up filming others as well. I think that's one of the good thing about our film, we can't predict what's happening and for the most part it won't be directed at all. It's just going to be capturing the reality. The first couple of scenes took a bit longer, as we were setting up and organising ourselves but once we got the rhythm it went faster and we got more productive. Half of us was staying to film, while the others went to find the next window and ask the person for their authorisation to film their house. We even bought little cupcakes to offer them, so it was really a good atmosphere! We stayed for maybe 3 hours or so, and then went home.

The next day we met at school to look over the footage, because even if we had a good time shooting on Monday we didn't really know how it actually turned out; because it was pretty dark and we're not used to filming at night, we really didn't know if the footage was going to look good! But it looked so great, and we were all really happy with what we had! So we went filming some more around Pimlico for about 30/45 mins to have some more shots and Carolyn went to her grandparents that night and she filmed their window as well.

First Cut

So everything is coming along well, we met a bit before our tutorial today to watch the first cut and it's turning out really well! We are all happy with the footage we took, and the test recording we did with Jess' friend was unexpectedly great! It's far from perfect of course and we'll need to record her again, but her voice is going to be great for the film. The tutors seemed really happy with our work, and gave us some advice. So we need now to reshoot a bit more, to get some more scenes with the brighter light, because most of our shots are really dark, so we need more light ones to balance it out. They said the recording was a bit monotonous, so Jess will record her friend again and ask her to recite it better. Also we're still a bit stuck about the title, but we're all brainstorming together, so hopefully this will be figured out this week!

Reshooting

So we all went to reshoot again, to try and get more "brighter" shots. I think we got everything now!! We should have more than enough footage to have a good colour gradient from light to dark. We also searched for some very light music to go in the background, and found a few, so that's also another good thing done. We will try everything while editing to see what feels best! Another major problem is also solved : the title. We struggled for quite a while on this one but I think we found the solution. "Honey". We found that while searching for that shade of yellow from the light inside the homes. And we think it's so perfect for the film. Not only it refers to the colour, but honey is also something you take when you're sick to feel better, it's sweet, it's comforting.

Final adjustments

Today we showed our first cut, and everyone was very happy about it! The tutors said the title should be changed, as not to make the film too sweet. So we all agreed on a new title: Frames. I think it’s a great title, and we are all happy with it. The feedback on the first cut was good, we only have to adjust the grading on some shots, and perfect the recording/ sound aspect of it.

Screening - The End

The film is done, and we are so proud of it! We’ve been adjusting and re-recording the voice over, and making sure everything was perfect, and now it’s finally over. Tonight was the big screening, and I’m very impressed by everyone’s work. I can tell everyone put a lot of effort into their work, and we all did that in different ways. I was so happy to see our film on the big screen, it looked really good, I have to admit it made me a bit emotional! I’m so proud of our group, of the effort we all put in the project, and I think our film turned out really good. We’ve agreed to all come together again later on during the year, and try to find the time to make our other film idea. It would be amazing if we found the time to do it, to get more filming experience, and add another thing to our portfolios!