Coursework Animatic (1st Draft)

Since we had finally finished the storyboard for our project, we decided to compile them together to form the first draft of our animatic. This draft was used not only to visually present our concept to provide our team an idea on the sense of the tone; our main interest was to try a particular song choice and decide from the animatic regarding whether or not we should in fact proceed with that song selection.

The song selection was an opera track which was aspired through our interest to challenge the typical conventions of a traditional thriller opening by including a classical track whilst presenting dark and gritty imagery. However from this draft overall as a team we ultimately decided that the track didn't effectively provide a sense of tension towards the audience; we have therefore decided to go back a choose a far more relevant track and re-edit the animatic till we are happy with the final concept. 

But the animatic is pleasing in regards to how in which the footage will be presented within the sequence; from the next draft of the animatic will give our team another glance at our concept. 

Storyboard for the thriller project

Progress with our coursework project

What are our job roles?

Benoit Ganesan - I am the director and co-editor of the project which in other words entitles me to helm duties to ensure that our group remains on schedule and remains on task. Regards to development; I am developing the ways in which we are going to achieve the visual look of the project that we as a collective team have agreed upon.

Jamie Gerrish - He wrote the screenplay along myself in order to help our team have a verbal illustration of the sequence in order to help the creative team fully understand the tone of the piece. Jamie is also a concept artist for the team by drawing the storyboard in addition to being the director of photography helping the director visually capture the aesthetics regarding colour,lighting and angles in order to fully achieve the director's vision. 

Aayush Joshi - He is the member who came up with the concept for the sequence which he will in fact play the lead role of the antagonist "Joseph" . Regarding the development of the project, Aayush is researching costumes in which could inspire our vision for the character's outfit. In addition he is researching past work that we can use as creative inspiration to the visual look and feel of the work. 

Ashley Banger - He is assigned to be the production manager supporting that we're getting our own individual tasks done to ensure that all aspects of the project are met to high degree of input.

What have we done?

Over the course of the week we've remain on schedule regarding the development of our concept for our thriller opening. Our progress consists of us finalising our ideas for the visual look and the tone of the piece which has been visually illustrated through the creation of a storyboard for each prime frame of the sequence; the storyboard is a way of visually presenting our ideas in order to further develop the project by debating whether or not certain aspects may or may not be needed.

Further signification of our progress is the assembly of an animatic for our project to further present our ideas and to help us visually test our ideas before we commence principle photography.

In regards to visually presenting the conceptual artwork for our project; we have a range of ideas of particular types of tracks which we are interested to include in order to convey the tone we so desire.

What do we still need to do? 

However, now we must proceed to approach the filming stage of production. But in order to do so, we must have found locations regarding where in fact the sequence will take place whilst deciding on the outfits for the character.

Continuity Edit Task completed

After a completing the principle filming for our task, we then compiled the footage onto the editing software in order to sequence the footage according to our storyboard. Within the editing stage, our sequence went through various drafts where our group felt that certain aspects of the sequence had to be altered in order to benefit the audiences viewing experience from our clip. Aspects such as shot durations affected the sequence due to their effects on the shots following each other that may play a toll on the realism of the actions such as walking due to failing the action match ; this is why we needed to perfect these moments in the sequence. 

As a group we felt that in order to truly immerse the audience within the situation presented in the clip, inclusion of non-digetic sounds such a music helped provide the audience with a sense of the tone we wanted to achieve from this piece.

After various drafts we have draw to our final edit which we feel has met all objectives on the task's criteria. This task has expanded our knowledge as aspiring film-makers in which we intend on utilising our experiences not only from this task but from our experiences with producing videos in the past.

We as a group have expanded our understanding of collaborating with one another in order to share our creative ideas in regards to our project; whilst learning how to convey meaning through shots and sound.I look forward to progressing with our development on our coursework project and I'm truly eager to produce our project. 

Progress on the "Continuity Edit Task"

Over the past week we have made progress with our task by preparing our shoot which we did by reserving a camera and tripod in advance to ensure that all the equipment necessary for the shoot was acquired prior to the day of shooting.

Just before we concluded the week, our group managed to go out and finally shoot our task according to the established storyboard we had previously made. Once we had completed principle photography,we exported the footage onto the camera and had begun to edit the sequence and put the clips together.

Currently we are finalising the edit of our sequence by looking over our project and deciding on what to alter through either re-editing or re-shooting a selected piece of the entire sequence.

As we draw to a close on this project; we'll continue with developing our coursework project and delve into the planning stages of our sequence. This will require the creation of a visual presentation through the assemble of a storyboard with a further emphasis through an animatic.

The 180 Degree Rule

The 180 degree rule is apart of the criteria in which we must complete within our continuity edit; in order to do so we must fully understand what it is and what is acquired in order to properly execute it within our sequence.

What is it?

This is guideline within film-making that is primarily associated within an on-screen spectacle between two character or objects place in the frame. It's a rule that is executed by having the subjects remain still in the centre as the cameras can be placed within an 180 degree ratio around the subjects in any particular angle within what proximity and must alway be facing towards the subjects.

Examples of films using the 180 degree rule

This is a shot from 'Pulp Fiction' where two characters are seen within the frame due to the positioning of both the camera and of the subjects. 

It's use can have different effects depending on it's execution; for example within this shot its focusing entirely on the two character largely on the screen therefore causing the audience to focus their attention on them as if it were a real situation. Emulating your intentions to focus all our attentions to was is and whom ever is in front of you.

Continuity Task - Storyboards

This is the storyboard for our task which depicts all the frames from our sequence. These shots have been envisioned by the shot list which was incredibly helpful when illustrating the storyboard.

In regards to the storyboard, it helps us as film-makers by providing us with an outline for a basic visual presentation on what our sequence should looks like. The storyboard will ultimately act as a guide and insight to how in which the camera should capture those specific shots.

As a result, this specific task was compelling in regards to the development and planning of our sequence due to the fact that the storyboards allow us to decide on the look of the project and if need be; we can simply make alterations before principle photography has commenced. This experience has provided us with experience and knowledge in association with planning and development which we will incorparate within our coursework.