Progess report

18/02/2013: I have completed filling in all the forms with my group members and have posted it up like I've been asked to.

Action Plan:
Decide our final piece of music in which we want to portray in accordance with the scene
Film our final scene for A STEP BACK
Meet up with the group and edit our final production.

Pre-production: storyboards

Forms

Ill manors case study

Group progress reports: Tutorial Targets

29/01/2013:    Completed..  

1. Complete storyboard

2. Shot list

3. Progress reports/action plan

4. Complete all forms (from mise en media)

5/02/2013:

1. Post up storyboards and shot list

2. Ensure that editing is pacing 

3. Forms documentations on blog

4. Consider how to use after effects
 - helicopters?
 -other surreal elements?

5. Re-consider audio

12/02/2013:

1. Ensure everyone has the copy of all the needed documents

Print Magazine: Draft

This is the draft of one of my print magazine, as you can see it's not entirely finished off because I had a short amount of space of time to complete it by. From this I have learnt a majority of various of things, from making effects to the pictures and changing the input of the text. This is going to helpful for me when it comes to doing the original piece of the print magazine. The things that I'm personally proud of from this magazine in a whole is the layout of the text, as when I was doing my research especially from Q magazine's I identified area's in which I can use. For an example the text was spaced out and in bold but from the sell lines they had a pattern from big and bold to smaller and italics. Which is useful as there shouldn't be that much text on the magazine because it will look to busy which is a disadvantage. The central image I think Is useful (as I stated in my other post) however I feel like I could've done a lot to the image; crop it out, make it bolder, have a background to match with it and cover the image where text is not shown. 

Something that I added on top of the magazine was 'Souvenir magazine' showing to the consumers/audience that this is all about the teen programme 'a step bag'. The colour I did for that was the same as 'E4' because I wanted to highlight that this is on channel E4 reminding the audience constantly, I thought it was a good idea to have the same colour. In addition to that I have spaced it out to make it look more so clear, but also in a whole it makes the magazine look more so real. For the tagline I opted out for 'The road will never be the same again', this sums out perhaps the film as a whole because I'm connoting that thing's aren't going to be the same for some of the protagonist's and this would get the audience curious allowing them to pick up the magazine. However, the central image is hiding the tagline which doesn't make it look clear and bold so if I had a chance to change it it would be that. Another thing I was lacking on was the colour scheme I wanted two significant vibrant colours, but I didn't seem to make up my mind because there was so many! So next time I need to decide and add that, having red though is showing how bold and informing the text could be which is useful.

This is one of the scenes I captured which I thought was effective and looked realistic, this is the scene where Rashmi takes the train and is not travelling this is effective as the audience are now curious into where she's going. I wanted to add this in one of the small frame boxes which I have as in the magazine I'm connoting what will happen next as teenagers love spoilers! In my official print magazine when we as a group go shooting next, I will take a number of pictures so I can use it in my magazine and it wouldn't be as blurry.

This is another scene which I screen captured I thought it was very effective, as this is a useful wide shot allowing the building to be scene in a numerous of diverse aspect's allowing the audience to engage fully. Adding it into the frame is beneficial as they can look at these footage and get valid and latest information out of it. And as I only have one 'central image' and less writing adding three scenes would make the magazine stand out more and entice the teenagers (audience).

This is the scene where the camera focuses on the phone as that's the main suspense for the audience because they aren't aware of who the person is. So to make them feel more so curious I wanted to add it on top of the third frame box to make it engaging. Also I can show through the context of the magazine me conversing about this scene and the reasons we chose it etc. which would move them to read about it. If I had the opportunity I would've added it on  to the frame boxes but the process was time consuming, however I know what I need to do to make the magazine very effective which I will be using. 

Research into one of the magazines

The title of this magazine is placed at the top so it's easily visible, as other magazines are stacked with each other thus causing limited space. The typography is established as the magazines logo, as you can see there is not lines of text 'total' is in clear black bold easily spotted and this is placed in the other title 'film'. This evidently makes it look more neater and prevents the reader from reading too much as it's just the front cover. 'Total Film' is slightly covered by the centre image, this is effective as the magazine is well known and also their regular consumers are welcomed to feel 'loyal'.

The slogan is 'the modern guide to movies' it's a short, catch statement intending to sum-up the magazine's image and to stick in the readers mind. This connotes that the audience are reading the correct magazines, and 'modern' shows the latest films that consumers can grab hold of which is very attentive. Being short and snappy allows it to stick in the readers mind, and would allow them to grab hold of the similar magazine next time as they know they'll be getting the latest feedback, news. The central image is of the protagonist from the movie 'salt' this is effective as it brings the audience closer also as she is looked as a 'sexy' woman which would be attentive. Another point to be noted is the fact that she's acting too as she's holding the gun which makes it more so engaging. The flash is called 'salt' and this advertises the films name flash is an example of a convention- a device to which the audience have become accustomed and whose 'sense' they take for granted. The typography is diverse from the rest which makes it stands out being in lines, informing the audience straight away of what film it is.

The colour scheme is not a lot which is effective as it thus avoids the cover becoming too busy. Sticking to a limited colour scheme is advantageous as it allows the design, font, images to stand out more neatly. As you can evidently see the three main colours which are used are; orange, black and grey. All in which are used effectively displaying the magazine cover very well as it works well together creating a vibe, creating the cool and fresh look effectively. The sell lines are useful too as 'Bikinis in the Movie' underneath the flash is a source of engagement as it's displaying information from the movie inside the magazine which the readers may want to see. This can be a similar thing I could be using for example, Heartbreak in the movie? allowing the audience to assume several things and get's them questioning.

Group Progress

03/02/2013: The picture above was from Ealing Town Hall the area in which we did the shooting in, and ofcourse Mandeep taking the picture of us. From my previous group progress report (which was month ago) we have improved so much. As in this we got together in my house creating a slide show to present to the entire class, on our idea talking about the synopsis, setting, casting, location etc. And we got approved everyone liked our idea we had the downs which were; Locations getting accepted to shoot in local areas otherwise it'd be a lot of trouble, having the right casting because without good actors our film wouldn't be as good. Taking everything to consideration we have moved drastically ahead, having now completed 50 shots in the storyboard, having done all our pre-production tasks and so on. 

Today we went to Ealing Town Hall to shoot a few scenes for the first time, we did get accepted and got the manager to sign on the location papers (which I'll be uploading soon) for evidence.

 We spent 4 hours in total shooting today, from doing various of retakes again and again getting it right also making it easier for us to edit as we will have many scenes. The first scene we did is of rashmi the protagonist we shot her and ashwaira (school friend) inside the class this went very well as we had the correct shots for example: low angle shots, match on action, over-the-shoulder shots and so forth. We also shot the tracking shot of rashmi going down the stairs checking her phone, going outside and having a mid-shot of her. So we did get a lot done and what we needed to in ealing town hall. As we got accepted so we didn't waste any time and moved straight on to it. Overall I think it did go very well and we looked back at the scenes to see if we need to do another take, and this is what we did. Overall We're happy with what we've done so far.

After shooting at Ealing town hall we did eventually go to southall trainstation, we thought we might as well go as we had the time, camera and cast. We did firstly ask permission from the security and person working their and they accepted (signed the form) so we went ahead and shot the scene. What we did was shoot Rashmi from the other end of the platform having a mid-shot of her, showing the platform in a whole then as the train went by stopped then went she wasn't their that's what we wanted to display. And it worked perfectly, as we got everything in time this is were the storyboard helped us a lot as we followed it carefully. 

In addition we filmed rashmi going inside the trainstation and we took several takes but it worked out correctly, we also made sure that people weren't looking directly at the camera and did a tracking shot of rashmi upfront. Which did go as we planned we also added more shots as we felt we needed too from the storyboard, which did get us thinking ahead and we were all in focus today which was very good.

ACTION PLAN:

Finish of other scenes which need doing
Add more shots in shot list, as filming we know we need more shots in other scenes
Come together as a group discuss sound
discuss editing
look upon doing title-sequence

Progress Report

01/02/2013: My previous action plans were;
Show Mr Bush our storyboard, scripts and casting etc.
See whether or not it's up to scratch and is good. 
Start Shooting 

As a group we showed sir our Pre-production elements, he agreed on the script however the storyboards were exceedingly short this is because we only done 15 shots and were being very precise. This was a huge drawback as we needed as many shots at possible because when it comes to shooting, we have to keep taking diverse shots and retaking the scenes. So we needed to add in detail all of the shots we will be using from the start to the end. Me and a group member Ashwaria have started doing this dividing the sheets up 5 me, 5 her altogether having 50 shots as their are 5 shots in each paper. As a group on Monday's lesson we came up with diverse camera angles we may be having and put it down, we should have this completed by Saturday. 

As the other casting and pre-production, ideas were good we are therefore going to start our shooting, as If you can see on Rashmi's blog she had asked permission whether we can shoot at Ealing town hall or not and the date we got was 3/02/2013. As a result me and the group feel confident enough to commence the shooting as we have our cast (Rashmi & Ashwaria) for the chosen scene. Moreover I have completed scanning sketches for our ideal scenes, this is useful as we can visually see how it looks like. Also I have asked several pupils ages 15-18 of how effective this looks and if they are willing to view this, and the answer was yes also the teacher agreed so we'll be using that as an influence and help with the acting. In addition I have also described our synopsis in detail so it's understood by us and the teacher too as it's a tricky synopsis, outlining the storyline is short for our whole clip "A Step Back".

ACTION PLAN 
Complete the 50 shots (storyboard) by 03/02/2013 in time for shooting our first scene.
Complete shot list after storyboard. (Mandeep)
Print out all the essential forms needed i.e  permission for the location.