We didnt end up filming on Monday 28th because i couldn’t get to the location due to transport issues.

CADY AND REGINA’S HOUSES.

Split screen. Cady and Regina are on the phone from their respective phones. Regina’s skin is looking pretty bad.

CADY: Gretchen thinks you’re mad at her because she’s running for Spring Fling Queen.

REGINA: Oh my God, I’m not mad at her, I’m worried about her. I think somebody nominated her as a joke or something, I mean nobody votes for her, she’s gunna have a total meltdown, and who’s gunna have to take care of her, me!

CADY: So, you don’t think anyone will vote for her?

REGINA: Cady, she’s not pretty, i mean, that sounds bad but whatever. The Spring Fling Queen is always pretty. And the crazy thing is, is that it should be Karen, but, people forget about her because she’s such a slut. Anyway, i gotta go, i’m going to bed.

Regina hangs up and disappears

CADY: Well, she’s not mad at you.

The screen splits again from the other side to reveal that with 3-way calling, Gretchen was on the line the whole time. Her eyes are full of tears

GRETCHEN: Hold on!

CADY: Are you ok?

GRETCHEN: Shhhh

Gretchen hangs up on her. Cady looks surprised as she slides off screen. Gretchen sobs for a second as she dials the phone. Split screen as Karen answers.

KAREN: Hello?

GRETCHEN: If someone said something bad about you, you’d want me to tell you, right?

KAREN: No.

GRETCHEN: What if it was someone you thought was your friend.

KAREN: What are you…? Hold on, other line.

GRETCHEN: Im not taking this anymore.

CADY: Good for you Gretch!

Karen clicks over. The screen splits in thirds. It’s Regina. We still see Gretchen holding the other line.

KAREN: Hello?

REGINA: Lets go out.

KAREN: Okay. hold on, i’m on the other line with Gretchen.

REGINA: Don’t invite Gretchin, she’s driving me nuts.

KAREN: Hold on.

REGINA: Ok, hurry up.

Karen clicks back over to Gretchen. While she wait, Regina eats a loaf of French bread

KAREN: It’s Regina, she wants to hang out with me tonight but she told me not to tell you.

GRETCHEN: Do not hang out with her.

KAREN: Why?

GRETCHEN: You don’t want me to tell you.

KAREN: Ugh, you can tell me, hold on…

Karen tries to click back over to Regina but it doesn’t work

KAREN: Oh my God she’s so annoying.

GRETCHEN: Who is?

KAREN: Who’s this?

GRETCHEN: Gretchen.

KAREN: Right, hold on…

Karen clicks over again. This time she gets Regina. While Gretchen wait, she studies her face in the mirror.

KAREN: Oh my God, she’s so annoying.

REGINA: I know, just get rid of her.

Karen clicks over to Gretchen

KAREN: Ok, what is it?

GRETCHEN: Regina says everyone hates you because your such a slut.

KAREN: She said that?

GRETCHEN: You didn’t hear it from me.

CADY: Little harsh Gretch.

GRETCHEN: Ugh, whatever, she has a right to know.

Karen clicks over

KAREN: I can’t go out “cough cough” I’m sick.

REGINA: Boo you whore.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF TASK

Our first proper task was given to us last week, which was to re-create a film scene. We also had to research a director, which i did in my last blog post (Steven Spielberg). Then, we had to come together in groups and choose a director one of us had researched, and re-make a film scene from one of their films.

I joined a group with Shauna and Magda. We decided to do a film from Shauna’s director “Mark Waters” as he directed a film that all three of us love, “Mean Girls”.

Mean Girls is an American Teen Comedy. It is based on female high school social cliques and the damaging effects they can have on girls.

The scene which we have decided to re-make is one where the four main characters are all talking on their phones to each other. The reason we chose this was because we wanted to push ourselves and try something that would be difficult. Although when you are watching the scene it looks pretty simple, the editing that has been done is very complicated. We thought this was a good way to learn and develop new skills in final cut pro as none of us are familiar with it.

LOCATION OF FILMING 

As the scene is set in all of the girls houses, Shauna has kindly allowed us to film in her house as traveling to my house is quite an issue as its quite far away, and we can’t film at Magdas house either. We will be using three bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom, so it is pretty simple. Although, the only problem is that obviously Shaunas house wasn’t used in Mean Girls, and therefore isn’t identical to those in the scene, but you aren’t going to get anything identical so we are going with the best option available.

EQUIPMENT

We have decided to use our own cameras for this task as we then have more freedom of when we can film.

          

                                                                                     

WHO IS STEVEN SPEILBERG?

Steven Spielberg is one of the most well known directors around. He was born on December the 18th 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He became an amatuer filmmaker  at a young age, continued his work, and is now a hugely successful and award winning director. Spielberg was infatuated with the control that movies gave him in creating a sequence of events. As he was growing up, he moved around a lot. He was one of the youngest directors for Universal in the late 1960’s. An opportunity arose for Spielberg to direct for a cinema when a film he directed, (at a young age) was highly praised. The name of the film was Duel and was release in 1972 which would mean he was only 24 years old. Starting filmmaking at a young age has proven a good thing for Spielberg as he has been able to create many films which have all been great hits with the general public all over the world, which is why today, he is one of the most commercially successful directors of all time.

History and Primeval are reoccurring themes in many of Spielberg’s films, for example “Jaws” and “Schindler’s List”. Jaws is a very well known film, along with many others which where directed by him, such as E.T and Jurassic Park. This goes to show how good Spielberg is at what he does. Dreamworks SKG studios was formed by Spielberg himself, along with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen in 1994. It was later bought by Paramount Pictures in 2005.

ACHIEVEMENTS

He has received many awards for his work, including:

• Three Academy awards
• Irving G
• Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences – 1986
• Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award – 2004
• French Legion of Honor – 2004

In 2005 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame

When he was young, Spielberg was infatuated with the control that movies gave him in creating a sequence of events.

FILMOGRAPHY 

Some of the most famous movies that Spielberg has directed include:

• Jaws
• ET
• Jurassic Park
• Indiana Jones
• Back to the Future
• Saving Private Ryan
• The adventures of Tintin
• War Horse
• The BFG

INTERESTING INFORMATION ABOUT SPIELBERG AND HOW HE BECAME A FAMOUS DIRECTOR

Before working at universal studios, Spielberg snuck onto the lot for a couple of years. At the time, he was a university student from Arizona, but he was visiting his cousins in Orlando.

One day he decided to take a tour of the Universal Studios as he was keen to work there in the future. During the tour, around mid-day, Steven got off the tour bus to use the toilets, and hid in one of the cubicles until he was sure the tour bus had carried on. Half an hour later, he was on his own, roaming Universal. He spent the whole afternoon walking in and out of doors. At the end of the day Spielberg attempted to contact his cousin to come and pick him up, but had to borrow the phone of the Universal Studios Film Librarian (Chuck), who obviously asked him what he was doing there. After Steven told Chuck what he had done, he just laughed and said he found it quite funny and that it showed how passionate Spielberg was about becoming a director.

Steven was lucky to receive a three day pass under the Chucks name, so he could come back for three full days and carry on exploring the studios. During the three days that he spent there, he dressed smart. On the end of the first day, Chuck came to Steven and told him that he no longer had the authority to sign any more passes, and that he should try and use his own resources or contacts that he had made over the three days. Unfortunately, no body else would sign passes for him.

However, on the fourth day, Spielberg decided to try his luck with the guard. He thought that maybe if the guard recognised him then he could get in without showing his pass, and sure enough it worked. He went in the following morning, dressed in his smart clothes once again, and the guard just waved at him. This continued for two and a half months, five days a week. He then returned to University.

When he went back to uni, he wrote a short script, which landed him a seven year contract to direct television at Universal Studios. This lead to him dropping out of college in his sophomore year.

As he had been there before, Steven of course knew where everything was in the studios. He said he felt very much at home.

SPIELBERGS TRADEMARKS

• The Spielberg face – first used to great affect in Jaws – The idea is, the camera zooms in on a character when they are looking at something. They often have an amazed expression. It creates a better human connection. He uses it to show that. although special effects have there place, his films are about people above all. It is present in almost all of Spielberg’s films.
• The Reflection shot – Spielberg is know for using complicated camera movements and angles. The reflection shot is where he uses a mirror or window reflection to capture his characters identity. This technique has been used by Spielberg to show the face of the character when the camera is located behind them. This allows the audience to see the details of the setting as well as keeping that connection with the character.
• Parent Issues – Most of the main characters from Spielberg’s have issues with their parents. This trend started at the beginning of his career.
• Glowing lights – Spielberg has experimented with visual texture in many of his films. He uses light to add texture to his films. Jurassic park is full of interesting background  lighting. Steven pays special attention to the contrast between the dark and drury, and bright, glowing white light.
• John Williams – John Williams is a composer of film soundtracks, and many of spielbergs films include them. They are both very good at what they do and their work compliments each others very well.

SOURCES:

http://www.biography.com/people/steven-spielberg-9490621#video-gallery

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Spielberg_filmography

http://www.cinelinx.com/movie-stuff/item/6309-directors-trademarks-steven-spielberg.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6E7u2FJO2I

Shauna, Magda, Sinead, Sian and I have completed our short film “CREEP”.

I think i can safely say that none of us are 100% happy with the way it turned out, but it was a good attempt for our first project. Over the course of working on this short film, we have learnt many different things, wether it being camera shots, or things we could improve on next time. Most of what we did didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to! For example, some of the actors which we used, from the drama department, let us down and because we didn’t have much time we couldn’t start filming everything again, so our actors change in the middle of the film. Also we accidentally filmed objects in the background that weren’t meant to be there, e.g. the tripod. Our locations also went wrong as we filmed in a classroom one of the days and then when we went to film the next day, there was a class in that room we used so we had to change the class rooms half way through which looked really bad. The sound was also an issue as we filmed in the college so there was loud background noise. This lead to us cutting the sound out completely and adding subtitles. Overall, we were not happy with our film and there are many things that we would change if we could.

Here is the link to our short film – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1_2CFBw68I
The plot – i have written the plot of the story in a different blog post earlier on.

Different camera shots used:

• pan
• over the shoulder
• tilt
• high angle
• worm eye

Roles:

• Producer – Sinead
• Director – Sian
• Recce – Me and Shauna
• Editors – Me, Magda and Shauna

Pre-production is anything done to the film/project before production starts. For example, planning, script writing and storyboarding are all examples of pre-production. Storyboards help the producer/director to have a clear image of what they need to film and how they need to do it. It includes pictures and information about what happens in that scene, audio, and camera shots.

Joe Ranft was a famous storyboard artist, animator, voice actor, American screenwriter who worked for Pixar and Disney at Disney Animation and Disney Television Animation In 1980, Joe joined Disney as a writer and storyboard artist. During his first five years with Disney, he worked on a number of television projects that were never produced. Skills include: Drawing, voice acting and creative writing.

Job description for a storyboard artist: Storyboard artists draw storyboards for animated features, films, television commercials and other ad campaigns, music videos and video games. They begin creating the story board after a concept or script has been written. They will either draw scenes by hand or computer and use black and white sketches or produce full colour storyboards.

Production is the actual making of the film/project. For example, camera operating, directing, acting etc.

Haskell Wexler is an American cinematographer, film producer, and director. He is said to be one of the film history’s ten most influential cinematographers. Wexler briefly made industrial films in Chicago, then in 1947 he became an assistant cameraman. He worked on documentary features and shorts, low-budget dramas and TV commercials. Along with director Sual Landau, he made ten documentary films, including “Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang” which won an Emmy, and a George Polk Award. He’s won Oscars for some of his work. Skills include: camera skills, creative visual skills.

Job description for a television camera operator: a television camera operator works with digital, electronic and film cameras and produced required shots by combining the use of complex technology and creative visual skills.

Post production is any thing which is done to the product after production has taken place. For example, editing, presenting etc. I would say the editing is the most important part of post production, as this is what brings all the clips together to make the final product. With out editing, the product wouldn’t exist.

Wylie Stateman is an American supervising sound editor. He has been nominated for many industry awards, including seven academy awards, four BAFTA awards and fifteen motion picture sound editor awards. He was introduced to the world of feature films in 1980. Over the next five years, his name appeared on such films as Das Boot, TRON and Footloose.

Job description for sound engineering technicians: Operate machines and equipment to record, synchronize, mix, or reproduce music, video, or sound effects in sporting arenas, theater productions, recording studios, or movie and video productions.

We finished planning our short film and managed to find some actors to play the roles of our characters. We have also started filming some of the scenes, and we began editing, but have decided to leave it until we have got all the footage. Some of the scenes we have filmed need to be re done as they were too shaky and the actress wasn’t really doing what we asked her too.

Our first task (unit 1) is to get into groups and create a short film. The title (CREEP) was given to us by our media teacher. Our group (Shauna, Sinead, Magda and Sian and I) decided to make a psychological thriller. The idea of our film is that a young female student is stalked by who the audience thinks is a male class mate who becomes mentally obsessed with her. It is set in a college, and the second scene is set in a classroom, where a male teacher is talking to a class (which the young female is in). However, to make it more interesting, we decided to have a plot twist. The twist is that the stalker isn’t who the audience are lead on to believe it is, it is in fact the teacher from the second scene. The first scene involves the girl taped to a chair with her mouth taped up. The teacher has locked her in a cupboard which is full with pictures of her that he has taken, whilst following her around. So far, Sian has written the script and Magda has done a rough storyboard with all the actions and camera shots included in our film. We made some posters to put up around the college asking if any drama students would be interested in being the actors/actresses for us. Sinead filled out a recce sheet, which included our locations where we have decided to film. These locations are; classroom, tv studio and a park. We decided for the first scene (when the girl is locked in the cupboard, we could use the green screen to make it look like she is in a scary place, rather than going out and finding somewhere spooky, as we only really have 3 days to complete this task and i am familiar with green screening as i have used it myself a couple of times.

The Sims 4 is a PC simulation game, in which you create characters and their lives. You can create different looks, personalities and more. I really enjoy this game because its almost like your creating a life you can never have. I am quite into fashion and makeup and when you are creating your Sim, there are so many options to choose from, so I like putting together different outfits and makeup looks. EA are always coming out with new expansion packs and things you can add into your game, so it never get boring and is unlike many other games where the content is the same every time. Because its a simulation game, you control what goes on in the game, so essentially you are creating your own game. The possibilities in this game are endless. The reason I have called it my guilty pleasure is because most people associate it with children, however, I disagree because when I’m bored, it gives me something to do and I find it entertaining.