Wednesday 17 December 2008
Synopsis
A reconstruction of the attempted suicide of Lucy Baker, set in the heart of south east London at the present day. In the UK there are around 400 recorded suicides per year. An estimated 30%-50% is under-reported. Masked with smiles and laughter Lucy lives life day by day; surviving. Oblivious to those around her Lucy is trying to find an escape, an escape from her corrupt past, an escape from her deteriorating soul and an exit from the cruel society that tears her down. Lucy finds herself battling with the tragic events from her past, present and unknown future. Unable to cope with the recent death of her mum and ongoing bullying; she feels isolated and alone. At 15 years old Lucy is emotionally frail and socially unstable. Confused and morally broken she begins to break down from the moment she says goodbye. Each day since the death Lucy gets emotionally unstable. Running seems like the only way of escaping her harsh reality. Frantic, quivering and distressed Lucy can’t help but fiddle with the pills that are so temptingly beside her. “Who would have thought something so small can cause something so immense?” Familiar tears flow constant and Lucy’s fate is undecided. With no one to turn to or heal her pain Lucy results to the only thing that’ll answer her echoing question, “When will it end?” For some people-including Lucy, death seems like the easiest and quickest resolution for unhappiness. This story reflects the unacknowledged seriousness of teenagers in need of help from there pasts and troubles.
Friday 21 November 2008
Practice Practical Assesment
For our filming practice assessment we were asked to film a short 2 minute piece snippet to the opening of a scene. The criteria specified that we had to show a character entering the room and 2 lines of dialogue between 2 people.
I think my group managed to fulfil most of this, however there were several weakness’ that needed to be improved on. The majority of other groups noticed the same problems in our piece such as the lack of shot reverse shot, which should have been included in our conversation section and therefore we needed to go back and re-do.
However there were also many strengths such as framing a shot, editing and transitions. This was because we framed the feet walking towards the interview room, which was the main feature of our piece. Transitions were used a lot to get from one setting to another e.g. from outside down the lane to entering into the extension block we used a fade out and fade in effect.
This analysis of our practical piece and what other groups thought of it helped me to see what went well and what areas we really needed to improve on. This assessment has been very good practice for my real piece and I now know that I need to follow the criteria very carefully and make sure I am doing what it is asking to gain the best grade that I can get.
I think my group managed to fulfil most of this, however there were several weakness’ that needed to be improved on. The majority of other groups noticed the same problems in our piece such as the lack of shot reverse shot, which should have been included in our conversation section and therefore we needed to go back and re-do.
However there were also many strengths such as framing a shot, editing and transitions. This was because we framed the feet walking towards the interview room, which was the main feature of our piece. Transitions were used a lot to get from one setting to another e.g. from outside down the lane to entering into the extension block we used a fade out and fade in effect.
This analysis of our practical piece and what other groups thought of it helped me to see what went well and what areas we really needed to improve on. This assessment has been very good practice for my real piece and I now know that I need to follow the criteria very carefully and make sure I am doing what it is asking to gain the best grade that I can get.
Monday 6 October 2008
Filming, Editing and Sound
Filming
For the filming we spent a couple of lessons learning how to use the camera and what all the different angles and positions were to create a specific effect. The first time we used it we didn’t exactly have to know about the various different angles and zooming in effects for example, but just how to handle the camera and what the different buttons were used for. Out first task was to shoot a 2 minute clip of a scenario called ‘The Accident’ and we could make anything up as long as it was based around this title. My group decided to have an incident where a girl fell over the banisters of a stair case because she was being bullied. We used different effects such as an aerial shot just to show the extremity of how far she had fallen and a zooming in shot to show her facial expressions after she had fallen. We also did a long shot of the girl walking down the stairs and the 4 bullies approaching her, which gives the audience a sense that something is going to happen between them. Our second filming task was to use the camera in a much more technical way, thinking about angles and positions. We did a very basic scene with one girl on a chair and another girl rushing over to tell her some gossip. But we did this scene in great detail with better quality than the last one. We started off with a long shot of the girl running in so we could capture all her body movements and then zoomed in to the 2 girls having the conversation so it would get the audience more interested and involved. This has helped me a lot for my real production as I now know how to use all the different parts of the camera and what the angles are.
Editing
We spent a couple of lessons learning how to use all the different editing effects and what you can do to make a scene look a lot more effective than if you just leave it straight after it has been filmed. We did this by filming a short extract from a script we were given, which was very basic but could be easily edited. We did this on an apple computer, which has a special editing software on it in which you can do a variety of different editing. Firstly we filmed the scenario but it was all jumbled up so our first job was to re-arrange them into the right order. We also had to cut out certain parts that were too long and made the piece look unorganised and messy and we did this by using a cropping tool. I contributed to a lot of this and had quite a few goes cropping out the un-needed parts. After the scene was all in place we could then start looking around for any special effects we thought would look good in our piece. Such effects were fading in and out, glistening, fog, sepia and many more. We were also able to add text into it so we decided to make a title for ours and put it in at the beginning. This has helped me a lot as I now have a better understanding of how to make my piece look better and more effective.
Sound
I only spent one lesson on using the sound equipment but I learnt a lot from it. Again it was used on the apple computers on the special editing software. We were allowed to be as adventurous as we wanted even if it didn’t go with our piece at all, just so we could get an idea of how to use it and what different sounds there were. The variety was huge ranging from string instruments to screeching car noises! It made it possible to have pretty much any sound you wanted to fit any particular scenario. Again this helped me into understanding how to place the music under the right part of the scene and how to make it as effective as possible.
For the filming we spent a couple of lessons learning how to use the camera and what all the different angles and positions were to create a specific effect. The first time we used it we didn’t exactly have to know about the various different angles and zooming in effects for example, but just how to handle the camera and what the different buttons were used for. Out first task was to shoot a 2 minute clip of a scenario called ‘The Accident’ and we could make anything up as long as it was based around this title. My group decided to have an incident where a girl fell over the banisters of a stair case because she was being bullied. We used different effects such as an aerial shot just to show the extremity of how far she had fallen and a zooming in shot to show her facial expressions after she had fallen. We also did a long shot of the girl walking down the stairs and the 4 bullies approaching her, which gives the audience a sense that something is going to happen between them. Our second filming task was to use the camera in a much more technical way, thinking about angles and positions. We did a very basic scene with one girl on a chair and another girl rushing over to tell her some gossip. But we did this scene in great detail with better quality than the last one. We started off with a long shot of the girl running in so we could capture all her body movements and then zoomed in to the 2 girls having the conversation so it would get the audience more interested and involved. This has helped me a lot for my real production as I now know how to use all the different parts of the camera and what the angles are.
Editing
We spent a couple of lessons learning how to use all the different editing effects and what you can do to make a scene look a lot more effective than if you just leave it straight after it has been filmed. We did this by filming a short extract from a script we were given, which was very basic but could be easily edited. We did this on an apple computer, which has a special editing software on it in which you can do a variety of different editing. Firstly we filmed the scenario but it was all jumbled up so our first job was to re-arrange them into the right order. We also had to cut out certain parts that were too long and made the piece look unorganised and messy and we did this by using a cropping tool. I contributed to a lot of this and had quite a few goes cropping out the un-needed parts. After the scene was all in place we could then start looking around for any special effects we thought would look good in our piece. Such effects were fading in and out, glistening, fog, sepia and many more. We were also able to add text into it so we decided to make a title for ours and put it in at the beginning. This has helped me a lot as I now have a better understanding of how to make my piece look better and more effective.
Sound
I only spent one lesson on using the sound equipment but I learnt a lot from it. Again it was used on the apple computers on the special editing software. We were allowed to be as adventurous as we wanted even if it didn’t go with our piece at all, just so we could get an idea of how to use it and what different sounds there were. The variety was huge ranging from string instruments to screeching car noises! It made it possible to have pretty much any sound you wanted to fit any particular scenario. Again this helped me into understanding how to place the music under the right part of the scene and how to make it as effective as possible.
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