NARNIA FILMING
GROUP WORK ETHIC
PLANNING
Overall, our planning for this project had been successful, as everybody within our group had been allocated to their desired role. This then allowed us to collectively plan as a group. As I had been the director for this project planning had been an important necessity to then direct the final outcomes when actually filming. The main tool of planning had been story boarding which allowed me to plan out each scene, including the timings of each scene, ultimately this had to be agreed by the whole group, including the editors so that once all the clips had been filmed that the editing would be as simple as possible. Looking back at the final outcome of our scene from Narnia I am pleased with our planning as it is clear that we have used a storyboard to create new shots. This had been difficult, when shooting our interior pieces of dialogue, the storyboard had been a task to complete. We knew before making our storyboard where the location would take place, and understood the scale of the shed that we would be using. As it had been a long piece of dialogue we had to think of constantly changing the angles between the two main and only characters- Lucy Pevensie and Mr Tumnus. There had also been a long piece of music within the interior scene, therefore our planning had been important with the length of each scene, and whether or not to change it with the music, ultimately we chose to simplify the shots. However, with our new knowledge of filming, we tried to use as many of these new techniques as possible. This highlights how important it had been to prepare and plan ourselves before we filmed in our location. The pictures shows how I have created the storyboards, one of the most important aspects of planning, they also show in red pen how I have tried to time each scene. The simplicity of the storyboard also allowed us to change some angles when filming the final shots. Overall, I am pleased with how our group had planned ahead, however, perhaps when creating the storyboards it would have been a fairer portrayal of how the group wanted to see the final shots if we had a joint group meeting whilst making the storyboards.
COMMUNICATION
This had been a very important aspect of our filming, as communication within our group had to remain updated with every action we wanted to make. As the director, it had been important for myself to constantly be aware of what everybody else wanted to include when filming. Within our classes it had been easy to communicate with everybody and have all our ideas to be clearly shown and dictated, however, we also chose to have a group chat out of school that we constantly had the capability of directing each other with our own ideas. To make it more certain that everybody's ideas had come across more, we should have had more class discussions in which we all deliberate where the filming would take us next. Overall, I think communication within our group had been successful as we all had access to bringing new ideas forward which allowed the portrayal of the final shots to be a combination of how we wanted to see the characters and the setting to become Narnia. However, it would have more helpful to communicate with everybody, for example on the day 1 of filming only a small number of us could film, therefore instead of actually being there, instead communicate via messaging of how we could film our shots. Although this hadn't been too much of an issue as our planning had been more successful and we relied heavily on the storyboards and our discussions in class.
ORGANISATION
Firstly, we had to organise our cast before thinking of any thing else. We chose cast members by auditioning multiple people for each role, this allowed us to see who would play the cast the best, by interviewing more people for the roles, it became easier to witness who portrayed the characters well. As a group, within our group, we also had to arrange the time and place of when and where we were going to film, which mainly came down to when both the characters had been free to film. We sorted this out around two weeks before the filming day, as our Lucy Pevensie character. Overall, I think our organisation skills had been successful as we comfortably knew when and where to film and what to bring to where we had filmed. By arranging everything before band it had made the filming day less stress-free without the aspect of planning and organisation it would have been very difficult to ensure
DISTRIBUTION OF ROLES
This had been our first job within this project, this meant that we each discussed what we wanted to do. As a group, I think we distributed the roles very well. Collectively, we assigned each person in the group specific roles and tasks they had to complete later on with the project, this had been important so that everybody had understood what they would do later on and not give a role where somebody has too much work, and another with not enough. We shared out the roles equally and everybody eventually had been happy and content with their responsibilities. I chose to be the director of this project as I wanted to be able to learn to communicate, organise and plan better within a large group- this being our whole class, instead of independently creating something. Overall, I am pleased with how we
DECISIONS AND THEIR OUTCOMES
SHOTS AND ANGLES
As this had been our first major project within our group, it had been important to show our new techniques, as well as the timings of each shot. In terms of actually capturing the shots and angles on the days of filming, during our shooting for the exterior scenes I chose to look closely at our storyboards, however, as we were limited with time due to the weather and lighting of the sun, as it had been around 3pm when we finished, all this time still considering how to create interesting angles between two different characters. By the time all the shots had been completed almost all the light had vanished. We also decided to create some more adventurous shots, to create interesting compositions through the shots.
We decided to have two people filming at one time to varied perspectives of the shot being filmed. Having done this, it helped us to change up the shots regularly to keep the audience interested. We used a wide range of camera shots to make the perspectives seem realistic. Some of the shots we used were: the OTS shot, the noddy shot, the POV shot, the weather shot. The over-the-shoulder shot is looking from behind a person at the subject. the noddy shot usually refers to a shot of the interviewer listening and reacting to the subject. We used the weather sot which is where the subject is the weather. it can be used for other purposes, especially when Lucy is discovering Narnia. The use of the POV shot which shows a view from the subjects perspective had been important to show the reactions as the two main characters would converse. We also used a wide range of camera angles to demonstrate different aspects of the films setting. The camera angles we have used were: eye - level, birds eye view, low angle. We used the eye - level shot because it shows the subject as we would expect to see them in real life. It is a neutral shot. We also used the low angle shot because it shows the subject from below, which gives the audience the impression that they are powerful. One shot that we found particularly effective was the birds eye angle because its a view which can be used for dramatic effect. We used this angle to show the positions and motions of different subjects.
MISE-EN-SCENE
COSTUME & MAKE-UP: Through our new knowledge of learning the importance of mise-en-scene, even the smaller aspects of creating a shot scene can make or break how it can finally look. During our distribution of roles, we had chosen to use two people to ensure that both the costume and make-up would work with both of the characters. It had been useful as Mr Tumnus had been acted by Raygen who also helped Bethany Etheridge, therefore when it came down to his own costume and make-up the planning and communication had been minimal between the two. Our Lucy Pevensie had been portrayed by Isobel, a year 7 student who had been very eager- therefore when we had our first discussion as a cast and group for our project we had combined our ideas with costume and makeup with Isobel as Lucy. She had then later brought in multiple dresses which had then been collectively decided to use a blue sleeveless dress. It had been important to communicate with this aspect of costume, as we constantly extended our ideas as a group, by choosing t have no makeup and to have a white long sleeved top underneath the dress. Beth Harmer who had been in charge of the location had the largest role of communicating with Isobel, therefore they both had the final choice of costume and makeup- but also had to be agreed by the rest of the group. Overall, I think our costumes for both characters had worked very well, and equally portray how they are and how they act through the way had looked.
PROPS: When distributing our roles, we thought it would be important to direct only one person to work with props, this had been because props had been minimal as a big cut from this scene had been to lose the snow. The props tied in nicely with costume and makeup therefore the communication between these roles had been important to understand who would cover what for each character. Overall, in terms of mise-en-scene I think that the smaller aspects of the scene really brought the way we had portrayed the two characters to life, for example the use of parcels really replicated the films style of portraying Tumnus. As well as the small framed picture of Tumnus' dad shows how the smaller details had been important in the portrayal of the character. Lucy had minimal props as she had wondered into a new world, and therefore, for her character we chose to heavily rely on the costume aspect to portray Lucy. Overall, I think the use of props had been successful, however, it had been set back due to how the group had visioned the portrayal of Narnia and the characters.
SETTING: As there had only been two characters to direct, it had been easy to create the scenes that I wanted that were shown on my original storyboards. The only small issue had been the weather, as it had been cold the day of the shoot. So some lines and camera shots had been rushed due to the cold weather. Within our group Beth Harmer had been in charge of the location, therefore all choices of setting had been finalised by her, however, as a group we all collectively chose to film the exterior shots in a woods, and the interior in a shed that had been easily accessible by Ben Wilkinson, who finalised all the sound for our final outcome. Overall, our collective choices of the setting had been successful for achieving the shots that would fit into my storyboard, therefore it clearly shows how important the planning aspect had been. However, the two main settings of this scene do not clearly show the world of Narnia, therefore we needed to really exaggerate the costume and makeup of Mr Tumnus to create an unrealistic magical character which unfortunately couldn’t be captured within the setting.
LIGHTING: This had been effected by how we wanted to capture the shots and angles with the cameras that we had ended up using. As half of our scene had been exterior shots, it had meant that we chose to use natural lighting, however, this had been quite risky as the sun had been going down during our filming, therefore there had been some aspects of this that had been rushed. For our interior shots, we chose to use natural lighting in the beginning, and we also chose to use artificial as by the end of the filming the sun had gone. Overall, I think our lighting had been successful in what we had planned within the time frame of the day of filming, as it had been a sunny day it had been capable to create interesting shots due to the lighting, I am pleased with how the final outcome came out even with the use of mainly natural light. The most difficult part of filming with the lighting had been when the fire had disappeared after dramatic music, this had been because there had been no actual fire light, so with an artificial light we had to turn out.
CASTING: After the distribution of roles within our group, and looking at the script in detail- it had been important to then decide who we would need for our cast. This had been quite easy because for our short scene we had only two characters, therefore, we really wanted the best cast to then show off every other aspect of mise-en-scene. When we were first given our script we knew it would be important to choose the perfect pair, and knew that the chemistry between the two would also play a key aspect with our final outcome. Overall, I am pleased with the two choices of our main characters as they both had clearly got on on set, therefore this bond could be shown through both Lucy and Tumnus.
CHARACTER EXPRESSION AND MOVEMENT: As the director, I chose to work closely with the camera people who would capture the shots. whilst creating the storyboard I chose to specifically look at Wes Anderson's style therefore by centralising the characters had been an important aspect of the filming, however, I found this more difficult with the interior shots, as it had been a smaller area to work in, which meant that the movement of characters had been minimal. However, it had been interesting to film outside as we could easily capture unique and interesting shots of the characters movement- therefore for the inside scene we had focused mainly on the expression of both of the characters, as this could be easily achieved within a confined space. These two images show how when outside we had tried to create more movement, e.g following Lucy walking. However, the interior shots show how we relied heavily on both characters expressions and the way they would react to each other.
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