Get Carter Practice

With the new knowledge of What Kev and Matthew taught us we were set a task to help us to learn the basics of the cameras and how to adjust the settings. Our task was to watch a clip of Get Carter (1971) and take notes of the mise-en-scene, sound effects/music, camera angles and shots and to reinact the scene as best we could using only our local surroundings. Working in the groups we were working with on our main project we set out to mainly learn about the new cameras. We all had a go of acting and being the cameraman which would help us in our main project.
The idea was to recreate the scenes as close as possible and I felt my group were very successful in doing this. We had taken a good set of notes and got the camera angles/shots as close as possible to the real thing.

YourFilm Lecture

Successful local production company 'YourFilm' came into our centre and gave us a lecture on what it takes to get to where they are now. 2 ex-students Kev and Matthew are both in charge of YourFilm and they were talking to us about how they achieved such goals. With little or no knowledge of video production Kev and Matthew basically taught us the most important aspects to creating an authentic looking piece. This can be done mainly in planning. Planning was stressed to be one of the most important stages in video production. A good plan/idea produced poorly will end in decent results, however, a bad idea produced well will still not be satisfactory.

Because this was our first time at this sort of thing it was important to realise that we would make mistakes. We learned that these mistakes can be rectified and that we should learn from our mistakes. That being said we were told not to limit ourselves in the way we film. If we have a good idea, try it, if it doesn't work, try another idea.

Another important point is that it is very hard to produce an original piece. In order to counteract this we were taught to twist an existing piece. With this in mind the idea of many different locations came about. I thought that if we were to make an existing piece as original as possible we should use varied locations, especially locations local to use.

Another key factor was to get it right in production. You cannot rely on editing to make a piece the high standard required. This means that getting the lighting, mise-en-scene, sound right in production work.

Link to YourFilm's website:
http://www.your-film.com/

Foo Fighters - Pretender


Foo Fighters - Pretender is a good example of what I don't want. The video is very effective and the use of lots of cuts and camera angles suggests this, however the whole video is shot in one location. In my opinion the use of more locations will prove to be more effective in my video. This video does prove to be useful in the fact that it gives me a good idea on what to look for when shooting the stage shot. I need to make the shot look as authentic as possible and using a wide range of camera angles and shots will help me to achieve this.

Just Jack - The Day I Died


Just Jack - The Day I Died is an ideal video for me to look at. This is due to the narrative nature of the video. For my project I decided to focus on a narrative story as it involves more technical work such as much more variation on locations rather than just filming a stage. Although I will be focusing on a narration this does not necessarily mean I will not have any footage of a stage shot. I will include stage shots to show my understanding of lighting and how it can be used to create realistic footage.