R+P Post 17: Our planned costumes, hair and make-up

Jim Levenstein

To portray our characterisation of Guy, we have come to the conclusion that we need a hideous shirt. First of all, we used a shirt that I owned for the test-shoot but we found that it didn't look bad enough on camera. Therefore, we realised that we needed to order in a shirt matching our criteria. We felt a hawaiian shirt was a good option as these are commonly renowned for looking ugly. We also wanted him to be wearing shorts as we felt this added to his geeky nature. A good example of this kind of character is Jim Levenstein from American Pie. 

Our Hawaiian shirt

Shirt after arriving

We ordered the shirt and found it was exactly what we wanted when it came. It was definitely far better than the shirt we used on the test shoot.

For Bella, we wanted the complete opposite of Guy. This meant we needed her to be wearing a smart dress, be fully made up and generally looking attractive for the date.

A table we created to show what we wanted each character to look like

Props-wise, we didn't need a lot. We needed a brush and aftershave which I already owned. Then we needed some game posters, I already had 2 and then we borrowed one from a class-mate. I also created a 'gaming' calender and printed it off to be used in one of the shots.

The gaming calender

R+P Post 16: Casting

For our actors, we set a rigid criteria in order to attempt to get the best actor and actress we could.

Our criteria for 'Guy':

• Had to pull of being socially awkward in a comedic way
• Must be available during shoot times
• Must be good at following instructions of directors

Our criteria for 'Bella':

• Quite attractive and stylish
• Must be available during shoot times

Being in a school gave a large pool of potential actors; we managed to narrow this down to 2 options for each character.

Our potential actors for 'Guy':

Our potential actresses for 'Bella':

After weighing up the pros and cons of each option, we chose to cast myself as 'Guy' and Aybala as 'Bella'. This is due to the fact that we felt I better fitted the criteria and could portray our attempted character better. In addition to this, being in the group was a benefit as this meant I knew the character better and was automatically available for all shoots. We cast Aybala as 'Bella' as we felt she was a better fit for playing 'Bella'. Although Angela is in our group, we felt the characterisation was of greater importance so went with Aybala.

R+P Post 15: Our planned filming location and set design

Bedroom

Spotlights

For our shoot, we are going to film all of the 'inside' shots at my house. This is for a number of reasons, the first being that it is a boy's room allowing for the closest representation to what Guy's room would actually be like.

 My house has spotlights throughout allowing for even and bright lighting, in addition, this solves the problem of having to use bulky lights in smaller rooms such as my bedroom.

We found my room was quite bare so decided to dress it accordingly to match Guy's geeky nature. To do this, we put up posters from game's such as Skyrim and GTA V.

Bathroom

Poster from Skyrim

Stairs and downstairs

Hallway

After all of our location scouting, we found that our locations were suitable and decided to go ahead with them for our test shoot.

R+P Post 14: Our production schedule

We will now create a production schedule to finalise our locations and shoot dates. By doing this, we ensure all of us and our actors are free and also that our teachers are fully aware of the date so that all of our equipment can be prepared in advance.

Our test shoot will be on 7th February, our main shoot will be on 28th February and our back-up shoot will be on the 7th March (if necessary).

In terms of editing, we will utilise our lesson time but this won't be enough so in addition to this, we will edit during our production meetings twice a week. Finally, we will each edit individually during some of our free periods.

R+P Post 13: Our shoot-board

 After our animatic, we now feel confident going ahead with our shoot-board. The shoot-board will have multiple columns narrating important information such as, the time of the shot, the location, the key actions or dialogue and the actors and props involved. We also left columns free so we could annotate how many takes there were for each shot. The shoot-board basically compiles the storyboard into a workable document to use on set. This is our major reference point when we are on set and helps us greatly to set up each shot.

Our Shoot-board

Above is our shoot-board for the real shoot, we've laid the shots out firstly in terms of location, with all the shots at my house going first and then in terms of costume, seeing as 'Guy' changes from his pyjamas to his shirt but his hair changes too. So, in order to promote continuity, we needed his hair to match in the correct shots before and after he changes his hair respectively.

We found the shoot-board very effective as it kept us organised on the test-shoot and will continue to do so on the real shoot.

R+P Post 12: Our Animatic

After completing the storyboard, we decided to create an animatic. This is a video sequence of all of the individual shots from our storyboard with the music, titles and voiceover overlayed. We decided to do this as it could help us to identify any mistakes or errors within our storyboard that we may not have picked up on. For example, the shots may not flow together once you see them in a video sequence. We had to take photos of each shot on the storyboard and upload them to Adobe Premiere Pro to edit them together. The photos were mainly taken by the other 2 members of my group and I did the majority of the editing, however they did also do their part in editing too. We feel that by doing this, we contributed equally and we were all happy with the amount we put in.

After the creation of the animatic, it was clear to us that there were substantial gaps in the voiceover that had to be filled. This meant that we had to go back and re-write our voiceover. We also discovered some initial problems with the length of some shots such as the 'tea making' shot but we went ahead with this for the test-shoot anyway. Finally, it told us a lot about the pace of our shots as we had some random short shots mixed in with longer shots, this was quite confusing the audience and we noted this and changed it in time for the test shoot. After getting the 'all clear' on the animatic, we are now confident to go ahead with a shoot board and ultimately a test shoot, using this as our base for each shot.

R+P Post 11: Our Storyboard

In order to have a visual representation of our opening, we are going to make a storyboard. We feel post-it notes are the best option to use to represent each shot as they are easy to move about if we need to make changes to the storyboard. We are going to use different colours to represent different shots. Orange represents a title, Blue is for Long Shots, Pink for Mid Shots and Yellow for Close Ups.

Our Original Storyboard

A zoomed in section of our original storyboard

After the creation of our original storyboard, it was easy to visualise how our opening would come together. I would say it was very useful in this sense but it also allows us to easily make an animatic from the shots we've put together. I feel this will be very productive for the future.

Our New Storyboard

After filming our test-shoot, we came back to our storyboard and changed it accordingly for our real shoot. Above is the new version. We added in new shots such as the one on the right and changed the order quite easily by moving the post-it notes around. This is where we found the post-it notes really useful otherwise we may have had to redraw a whole storyboard.