YOU MUST CHECK WITH US THAT YOU ARE PERMITTED GO ON TO FILMING.YOU ARE OVER HALF WAY THROUGH THE FILMING STAGE!

The EXTENDED deadline for improving your individual RESEARCH grade ENDS TONIGHT. AFtTER TONIGHT, ANY IMPROVEMENTS MAY NOT BE MARKED. At this stage, there appear to be many people who have not acted on our advice or in any way improved their work. This is a serious situation, and very likely to affect your individual grade. However, you are reminded that you must also let us know if you have improved your work - don't expect us to re-read all of your work on the chance that you might have done something to it! So far, only one person has contacted me to say this.
In the meantime, ANY MISSED PLANNING TASKS ARE ALSO NOW VERY LATE AND AFTER THE DEADLINE FOR THIS WORK. You will already have lost marks for late work, as this is recorded on our Tracking Grids, but there are still several groups who have not completed all of the tasks listed on the checklist (mentioned many times by myself and Andrew). Your blogs should have a heading for each of the tasks on the list, and these should now have plenty of detailed information about planning, using terms, theory, detail, analysis and varied visual material. This should have been shared within the group, with your names appearing in headings and archive. Any changes to planning must also be blogged. YOU MUST STILL ASK FOR PERMISSION TO START FILMING, AND CLEARLY YOUR FILMING TIME IS NOW SQUEEZED BY YOUR LATE WORK.
AS YOU KNOW, WE ARE NOW COMING TO THE END OF THE FILMING PHASE, AND THE DEADLINE FOR THIS IS THE END OF THIS WEEK. Any filming to take place after this time MUST be agreed by us as this must be a permitted extension. Do not assume that cameras will be available at Half Term as there are not enough for all groups to do this.
AS WE APPROACH HALF TERM, WE EXPECT VERY HARD WORK FROM ALL GROUPS THIS WEEK, INCLUDING EVIDENCE OF WORK AS HOMEWORK AT HOME AND IN STUDY PERIODS.

Tuesday, 15 October 2013

YOU MUST CHECK WITH US THAT YOU ARE PERMITTED GO ON TO FILMING.YOU ARE OVER HALF WAY THROUGH THE FILMING STAGE!

Although we are now half way through the FILMING TIME ALLOWED, you are not permitted to begin filming until we have given you the go-ahead based on how well you have completed the planning as a group. DON'T FORGET TO CHECK THE LIST OF TASKS POSTED BELOW (ALSO IN YOUR BOOKLET), AND AS A GROUP, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE BLOGGED YOUR RESPONSES TO THE APPLICATION OF THE 5 KEY CONCEPTS TO YOUR FILM. IF YOU GO AHEAD WITHOUT CHECKING THIS, YOU RISK COMING UNSTUCK IN THE EXAM (SECTION 1B)! The longer you continue to plan, the more delay you are creating! Deadlines are fixed, and so this will squeeze time later for editing, and so on. REMEMBER, THIS IS YOUR INDEPENDENT STUDY/HOMEWORK TOO, AND REMAINING TASKS SHOULD BE COMPLETED IMMEDIATELY. NO-ONE SHOULD STILL BE PLANNING AFTER THE END OF THIS WEEK.

References for UCAS

As part of the reference that we will be writing on you for your university applications, we would like to include information about your short film.  In particular your ability to visualisie and plan a short film will be of great interest to admissions offficers.  It is therefore in your interest to really ensure that you have completed all the planning stages very soon because we are in the process now of writing these.

NEXT DEADLINE - FILMING - ROUGH CUT: FRIDAY 25TH OCT

ONLY WHEN YOU'VE POSTED THE MATERIAL NEEDED TO PASS THE PLANNING STAGE (see last post) WILL YOU BE ABLE TO START FILMING. YOU ARE NOW OFFICIALLY IN THE FILMING STAGE, SO TREAT ANY REMAINING PLANNING TASKS AS URGENT! SOME PEOPLE HAVE STILL NOT COMPLETED RESEARCH. AFTER THE END OF THIS WEEKEND, NO FURTHER RESEARCH WILL BE MARKED.

Deadline Two - continued

IT'S ESSENTIAL THAT THIS STAGE IS DONE PROPERLY BEFORE YOU START FILMING.
DON'T FORGET TO USE THE CHECKLIST BELOW (IN YOUR BOOKLET):

Pre-Production Checklist – tick off tasks as you complete them

Allocate pre-production roles in the group: location scout; prop ‘buyer’; storyboard artist/s; animatics director; sound designer; lighting designer; screenwriter; camera operator/s; costume, hair and make-up designer and ‘buyer’; posting synopsis and shot list to blog.	Done
Group writes synopsis – about 200 words posted to blog
5 Key Concepts: Genre and style decisions – single genre? Hybrid? Or resist genre category? Will you use established film styles – eg Social Realism or ‘Noir’? Decisions to blog with justification and links to similar real texts if possible (these may be feature length films)
5 Key Concepts: representation – initial ideas about representation of social groups, places and ideas or issues covered by your story, posted to blog
5 Key Concepts: audience – initial ideas about your expected audience – by age, gender and social class. Link to expected viewing platforms for your film (where would it be screened ideally?). Post to blog.
5 Key Concepts: narrative – initial ideas about the structure of the story – linear? Non-linear? Circular? Use narrative theory here – Todorov; Levi-Strauss; Vogler..Post to blog.
5 Key Concepts: media language – initial ideas about film techniques you’d like to use and examples or suggestions posted to blog
Location decisions and photos of selected and rejected locations
Written permission granted for privately owned locations
Storyboard for all shots, carefully timed to ensure that film lasts 5 mins
Animatic with voice-over commentary
Acting decisions

Deadline Two approaching - Pre Production planning


You will need to be getting on with the storyboard on post-it notes early this week, and by the end of the week, you should have completed 2 ANIMATICS:  

One should have each shot timed correctly, so that the total animatic lasts as near to 5 mins as possible (not more than 10% either way), 

The second should have a detailed and previously scripted commentary to explain the techniques used in detail, and explain what else the shot would do (your post-it note is only 1 FRAME of the total shot - it's a single frame in the editing process). See our additional handout information on this (also on moodle)