Group Production Meetings: Decisions Made

Previously, during our most recent lecture, we had been set the task to [each] make a whole synopsis for our desired noir film, based on our knowledge from our research of the term "Film Noir".

Once I had joined in a group of four, we looked at each other's individual ideas for the whole synopsis of a noir film, then selected the best two and combined them in the synopsis of our Noir coursework.

My idea about a film containing lots of murders was dismissed because there were too many murders involved and the synopsis did not seem to be the stereotypical film noir. Josh had written about a film containing revenge, where the character pursuing revenge was represented by 'shadows', adding to the mystery and enigmas that would be understood by the end of the film. Emily's idea contained a man in a bedroom, preferably a hotel room, drinking a glass of whisky, staring down at the street through his window, and a girl who sympathises with him and tells him that he 'shouldn't have done it', shouldn't have committed the crime - the murder.

After much discussion, we decided to combine both Josh's and Emily's ideas to make a group idea. This would contain the mystery of the shadows from Josh's idea, and the room where the man wish he hadn't committed the deed in Emily's idea, thus creating "Shadows Present", a title which Josh had created in his idea and upon which we had all agreed.

When we were confident about our synopsis for our group project, we were given a worksheet containing the details of each job role within the group. We thought about what we would like to become within the group, and which job role was best suited to us all. I was to be the Director and Cameraman/Cinematographer, Josh Payne was the Script Writer (since his synopsis was the one which we had chosen), Emily Swager the Art Director (because she had a good idea of the clothing and props to be used in the interior shots in her synopsis which was combined with Josh's synopsis) and Chloe Atkins the Editor.

On Wednesday 7th January, we thought about the possible locations for our film noir opening sequence. Each of us took a copy of a draft of the script, written up by Josh, and mentioned anything we thought should be included. We all discussed the shots that should be used, where they should appear in the script, and finalised a list of individual pre-production tasks which we had to do. We decided upon completing four or five tasks each from this list. We also decided on the actors - I was to play the main character and Josh's friend agreed he'd star as the "Shadow" in our opening sequence.


Josh had decided upon a location for the exterior sequences, and I agreed that he show me the location. Covered completely in foliage and only accessible by a gap in a fence, it is situated in Alexandra Park, near to the construction site of our new College building, and its whereabouts is our secret!


The following Wednesday (14th January) Emily, with the help of me, Josh and Chloe, produced a list of costumes and props we would be needing for use in our opening sequence. We agreed on who would obtain each item. Also we decided what I should wear, in terms of costume, as the main character in each location (exterior and interior). The exterior location was the one that Josh had shown to me, and the interior was to be a dark room, but its location was to be decided late on.

Josh and I agreed on showing our location to the girls, since they had no idea about where we were talking about. We took some photographs, and looked at where the main character would be running through. We looked at where the camera could be positioned in order for us to film the best shots that we could possibly get. Also how the camera will be positioned - the possibility of using Dutch Tilts.

In more detail, Chloe Atkins had produced the Production Schedule and had since posted this up on her blog (Chloe's Blog). Here is the finished Production Schedule (written up as we went along):


Group progress and discussions

In order to reach conclusions about our film noir opening, we meet up in our group to discuss ideas and answer any problems. Below are notes on what we discussed during our meetings along with the general progress we made towards creating our finished sequence:

Wednesday 7th January 2009 - Emily looked at locations for our film noir opening. We each took a copy of the first script draft from Josh and mentioned anything else we wanted to be included. We all discussed what shots should be used where in the script and finalised a list of individual pre-production tasks to be getting on with. As editor, I asked about when we wanted the titles to appear and we decided that the main title would go at the end and the personnel titles at the beginning. We also decided who would play each character and decided on Chris to be the main person.

Wednesday 14th January - Chris was finishing the storyboard whilst Emily produced a list of costumes and props we each needed to fetch, and discussed who would get each one. We also looked at what the main character would be wearing in each location (woods and in the dark room). We all went to go and look at our chosen location, Alexandra Park, to take pictures, look at where the main character would be running from and to think about where the camera could be positioned to get the best shots possible.

Thursday 22nd January - Chris scanned the finished draft of the storyboard into the computer to create an animatic. We each prepared something to say to the class in tomorrow's presentation speech (except I was off ill so I did mine at home).

Friday 23rd January - Today we did our speech to the rest of our media class and showed them our finished animatic. We answered any questions they gave us and considered their comments. One of the things someone mentioned was that it may be too much to film with too little time to show it all. We took this on board and will consider shortening the scripts and including less of our ideas to make it more simple, yet still with the same desired effect.

Wednesday 28th January - We finalised all our pre-production work and Josh asked if there were any issues we found with the script. Emily reminded us of what props and costumes we needed to bring in individually, and I suggested that we used a small glass block (which I have at home) if the college cafe couldn't supply any ice-cubes to us. I also took the questionnaire results away to write up an analysis on them, whilst Chris thought about what we would do in wet weather conditions. We decided that if it was rainy on the day of the shoot, we would have to take the camera kit out during the half term holidays, or film the following week. Or we could use an umbrella to shelter the camera , though this would limit our filming abilities and we doubt the media department would allow it, though the rainy effect would add to the atmosphere of our film! We all went to the college library during break to search for sound effects CD's that could us in our film. We took out 4 in total with footsteps, outdoor atmosphere noise, indoor atmosphere noise and gunshots on each. We would listen to them tomorrow. ONLY 1 WEEK LEFT UNTIL OUR FILMING DAY - WEDNESDAY 4TH!

Thursday 29th January - Today we spilt up as a group as Emily and Josh remained in the media classroom to look over the pre-production work and finish a birds-eyed view map of our Alexandra Park location, whilst Chris and I went into the editing suit to listen to our music choices. We came up with a shortlist of 4 possible music pieces, each from the CD albums that Chris and Josh found at home and brought in. We listened to the sound effect tracks and decided that the gunshots would be useful, but the footsteps didn't sound very realistic so we would try and record our own on the day.

Wednesday 4th February - Today was our filming day and the weather was perfect for it. However the ground was icy and (in places) slippery with mud, and it was freezing cold being outside for hours. We all gathered at the media department where Chris had arrived early to take out all the kit we needed. We spent about 30mins checking everything worked and asking any last minute questions before leaving for Alexandra Park at 10am. The park is only 10mins walk away so no transport was required. Emily left the group at 2pm though we carried on filming until 2.30pm. We ensured we got all our shots from the storyboard and extras just in case. Once we'd captured all our footage and viewed it from the camera, we returned to college to give back some of the kit (microphone etc). We took the camera to the library and logged our best shots so it would be easier once we were in the editing suite.

Thursday 5th February - We went into the editing suite to view our best shots on the computer and to check that everything was working. We finished our animatic and decided on a piece of music we wanted to use. WE chose 'Mausam and Escape' by A R Rahman as we all agreed it's suitability to our noir.

Wednesday 11th February - Today we filmed the rest of our footage from the media studio. We began filming at about 9.30am once we'd all arrived and checked the kit was working. We arranged and lit the set to create a film noir approach, and used a piece of card to create a Venetian blind lighting effect. We were only given maximum 3 hours to film all of footage in the studio, so we ended up being finished at about 1.30pm. Altogether we took about the same amount of time to film in the studio as in the wood, and we captured a total of 25mins footage - though we won't use it all!

Wednesday 25th February - Today we went into the editing suite to capture our woods footage onto the computer. Josh and Emily then logged the best shots from our studio footage whilst Chris and I began a rough-cut of the woods footage.

Wednesday 4th March - We all continued with our editing and added the music to our footage. We also captured our studio footage and realised that one of our shots containing synchronised sound would have to be taken again as the volume was too quiet.

Thursday 5th March - Me, Chris and Josh went into the editing suit at 12 today to sort out our music and get some extra editing done.

Wednesday 11th March - Chris, Josh and Emily went to the studio today to film our synchronised speech close-up shot of Chris at the desk speaking his first line of dialogue. Whilst I stayed in the editing suite to rearrange the music. We finished our rough cut today though we are reconsidering the order of our shots and thinking about where we would position transitions effects and titles (though we didn't add them today). Emily also recorded Chris's voice over and the various sound effects we might need to include - e.g. Chris's coat zip, the desk lamp switch and shuffling money.

Wednesday 18th March - Today we finished our rough cut of our film and began to apply titles. After showing our finished rough cut to class members and Jon (our media teacher), we were advised that we should change our music as it was setting a too manic atmosphere and it was looking like a movie trailer, rather than a film opening. Therefore, we took a copy of our timeline and applied our second music choice 'Clues'. As a group we all found that this piece of calmer, more noir style music better suited our noir opening than our first choice.

Wednesday 25th March - Today we started a new sequence with the same 'Clues' music but with all our studio scenes in the beginning and our woods scenes at the end. We found this presented more of an enigma straight away, rather than confusing the audience about what's going on. This is our 3rd sequence we have made, and we all agreed as a group that this is the best one simple because it meet the noir codes and conventions, and looks less like a film trailer and more like a film opening sequence. We began to apply titles to our scenes and changed our minds about the final film title 'Shadows Present'. before we had the film name appearing on a piece of paper attached to the package. though after following advice that this shot looked 'too student-like and unprofessional' we decided that an ordinary title would look best. Chris, Josh and I stayed in the editing suite through lunch time today as Chris was looking for a good gunshot sound effect (with a silencer) so that it sounded like it was shot inside a room, rather than outside. And Josh and I were fiddling around with the titles to ensure they worked well with our footage. We also applied church bells to the beginning of our sequence as we felt they gave connotations of death and funerals.

Wednesday 1st April - Today we decided to try out a new sequence layout for our film by adding new titles in between the action to break it up a bit but keep up the pace. We also experimented with the film transitions ('tumbler', 'spin', 'blur' etc.) We liked the 'blur' effect on the titles as they would disorientate the audience and the fitted in well with the noir theme. We then screened our opening to 2 people in our class who hadn't seen it before. They're response was useful and we took their opinions into account when putting the final finishing touches to our film.

Wednesday 22nd April - Today was the last editing session we had left to finish our opening sequence. We finished applying titles and used feedback from group members about how to reduce the hissing noise in the background of our voice over. For this we applied a 'Constant Power' fade onto the end of each sound bar so that the hissing noise blended in and couldn't be heard as loudly. We then screened our film to Jon, our media teacher, who suggested we should ensure the font style and size of each title was the same. This would add continuity to our film and make it seem more professional and less amateurish. Simple things like this are quick and easy to correct but are still important as they can often be really noticeable to the audience. At about 12 o'clock we had finished our film completely and began to render the file so it could be written to a DVD. We could have spent another few weeks tweaking and changing little things about our film, but as a group we're happy with the standard of film we've produced and I'm particularly pleased that no drastic errors occurred throughout our entire project. We worked well as a group and although we often spent too long on decision making, we still managed to end up with a good finished noir style film opening within the deadline. As editor I've learnt lots about how to use the editing software 'Adobe Pro' to make the best of our footage, and am pleased with the end result.