As we come into our research and planning for year 13, we have gone over what we have improved on since year 12 and reflected on how more advanced we have become with everything involved with the work in media studies.
For our prelim, we involved multiple shots but we didn't have much time to plan so we thought of places outside to film and we decided to film at the exercise park. However, this resulted in poor sound quality for our prelim as you can hear the wind in the background and you can't hear the people talking very well. When I film outside again, I will consider using a wireless microphone to see if the sound quality is better with/without it depending on weather conditions, especially as we are now part of a news team in year 13. We involved a match-on-action shot involving me opening a gate and a shot of my shoes as I walk into the exercise park, and two shot reverse shot sequences of people talking to each other and one being a 180 degree shot at the same time.
We considered when filming for our opening thriller sequence what the best times were to film. My group decided to film on a sunny day in central London, and a cloudy day in Mill Hill to compare the contrast in the mood and atmosphere that our opening sequence had. Our skills with filming and editing has improved and we've noticed how much of a difference it has changed towards the end of the year. From now on when we film, we will make sure before we start filming, that the camera is focused and still on a tripod (when necessary.) We will avoid shakiness and slanted shots so that our shots look as straight, still and clear as possible so that they look as professional as possible. When we filmed for our opening sequence we planned to film on two days. On the first day, Anna and I went into central London, to film the still shots of famous landmarks such as Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Place and Picadilly circus screens that our target audience can relate to. We took two cameras and a tripod. Our main camera was Anna's Sony bridge camera and she also had a little camera (similar to a GoPro) that we used when I fall over in the station to emphasize the impact of the bomb explosion and when we run through stations. We used the little camera for our point of view shots so that the audience could connect with our filming and feel like they're walking in the shot. Anna's camera was of higher quality than the school camcorders as it had higher pixels. The weather was really cold but it was sunny so it was perfect for what we wanted. We went to Southbank, Hyde park, Buckingham Palace, Picadilly, the city of London, Canary Wharf and also filmed in multiple underground stations to get a real sense that the nuclear bomb was going to affect everyone in London as a whole and not just in one area of the city. We worked around the fact that Jeet and Mariam weren't able to make the first filming day, but they came to film with us on the second day of filming.
On the second day of filming, Anna, Jeet and I left school early on a Friday to film at The Millfield, Mill Hill Park and Brent Cross. Mariam joined us later on as she had an economics lesson period 5. We took a school camcorder to vlog our filming along with a tripod and we used Anna's Sony bridge camera to film the still shots, shots of the swings and the cars driving on the road. The weather wasn't great as it was cloudy but it was what we were hoping for as we wanted to create a gloomy atmosphere compared to a sunny one, when the mood changes when the first title appears and there's a shot of a cloudy skyline.
We all quickly learnt how to use editing programmes such as Adobe Premiere Elements, and GarageBand for the editing and music/sound design for our opening thriller sequence. We looked at YouTube tutorials of how to use these programmes and quickly learnt how to use them. However, on After Effects which is a more advanced editing programme, still not managing to understand how it works, I struggled to create the edit of the title when the van drives over it, so my friend in year 13 at the time helped me and showed me how to edit using After Effects. I'm trying to teach myself how to use After Effects now, but even when I try to follow YouTube tutorials, I really struggle with it. This will probably be my biggest challenge this year as our news report needs lots of graphics and animation. On Premiere Elements, I quickly learnt how to import videos, export videos, cut, elongate videos, change the opacity, speed videos/slow videos and also add text. Anna and I especially loved to edit the parts for the panic shots as we overlaid footage to create a sense of panic and build up emphasis towards the end, whilst Jeet and Mariam worked on the titles and IDENT.
When it came to adding the titles, we would make them look like they're part of the scene, e.g. part of the sky or on an escalator step. We made sure that the text font wasn't too extravagant as we kept it simple and in capitals. The fact that we named our thriller sequence W27, is because the bomb that would've been used in the film would be coded 'W27' .
When it came to creating the music, I experimented with different tracks to use. I made three tracks on GarageBand, two of which, I thought, didn't match the genre that our opening sequence followed. At first, I tried to make a contrapuntal sounding piece of music to our opening sequence based on a nuclear bomb attack, but we thought that will detract from the fact that we wanted our opening sequence to send out an important message to our target audience, and involving contrapuntal music, we all felt that it would create a sense that we aren't taking the message behind our opening sequence seriously. On top of the non-diegetic music I composed, we edited sound design over the top, such as sounds of static, news reports and people screaming to build emphasis for the ending of our opening sequence. We also involved our own recording of a national emergency broadcast message that I got a teacher to record of what we wanted said in the message. Originally, I was going to record my own voice, but I thought a teacher's voice would sound much more mature and clear for the recording.
I've uploaded the music I composed and the panic music/sound design that Anna created, the national emergency broadcast message and also the music for our IDENT. It was a bit challenging however, when I had to fit the music to what was being shown on screen as I didn't want to end up with the ending being cut off just because the music track wasn't long enough. In result, I played around with the track to replicate parts to the music in multiple places of the sequence.
The final music track and sound design that Anna and I wrote is in our final submission for our opening sequence, W27 below.
Everyone in our group, Jeet, Mariam, Anna and I, felt that we worked really well as a group and we met all deadlines, kept on top of all editing and in the end created an opening sequence we were happy and proud of to be marked for AS media studies. I will continue to work as hard as we did last year and create a news report that we will be happy of and meet similar standards.