Initial reaction

When i saw our finished film opening for the first time i was very pleased with it. I was surprised that we had managed to get it all edited in time and it looks like we pulled it off. When we first chose to do a western we had no idea that we had such a big task ahead of us. although we encountered many problems with the horse, weather, actors etc i think what we produced at the end was worth the trouble. I am very pleased with it and hope that all the hard work has paid off, the more i watch it the more little mistakes i see or ways it could be improved however i think I'm just picking at it and hopefully they go unnoticed by others. Though i can see room for improvement i think we did the best we could in the time given and, as it was said in class "a film is never finished only abandoned".

Sound and finishing editing

Today we finished editing our western opening. The company never emailed back to say we couldn't use the piece of music so, as it was from a music for education website and we aren't using it for commercial purposes we assumed that this meant we could use the piece. It took a while to edit all the sound and you can faintly hear a bit of wind in some areas but given the clips we had this was the best we could do. I am relieved that we have now finished.

Title

We had to come up with a title for the western opening. Th only idea that we had originally was 'Stealing' or something along the lines of theft or a chase however we couldnt come up with anything that sounded as though it fitted with a western. We visited a website that had a list of traditional western words and whilst scrolling through them discovered that the western word used instead of 'to steal' is 'annex'. We decided that this well fitted with the theme and narrative of the story as well as the genre (what with it being a western word). Hence this is now the title of our film. We added this and other titles : directed by Nikki Hackshall and Jess Moulsher, Music by ''Dreaming Guitars'' and the actors names. We added these titles as these are ones that featured in the westerns openings that we looked at initially.

Editing

Throughout this week we have been focusing on editing the film opening. The biggest problem we had was sorting out the brightness levels, this is as the shot of over the horses head was filmed at 2pm whereas the shots it was going alongside (of the people 'riding' and the hooves) were filmed at 5pm so they were darker. To rectify this problem we had to change the brightness settings, it took a while to get the right balance and it still looking realistic but we got there eventually. We also had to do this with the shot of the hand picking up the bag, this was harder as the darker we made it the less realistic the hand looked, but we reached a level inbetween that makes it look ok.

Finishing Filming

At the weekend Nikki filmed the last of our shots. It was the view over the horses head that we were going to cut an put with the shots of the people 'riding' the horse and the hooves. We couldn't film the shots of the 'evil men' due to the actors not being free so we had to change our storyboard to get rid of this. This completed all our filming and meant that this week we could focus on editing and sound. 

More Filming

This evening we managed to film more of our footage. We filmed a shot of Jane (the wife) closing a door and one of her and rob (the husband) on peoples shoulders running along to look like they were on horses. I was a bit worried about how this would all work out and one of the people that was meant to carry them pulled out so we had to find someone else at the last minute. However everyone co-operated well and was very helpful. We managed to get it done before it got dark. We had a slight problem in that it was rainy however it was only drizzle and this was solved by holding an umbrella over the camera so no rain got on the screen and by making the ''horses'' run on the path so they didnt slip in the mud. The two people carrying Jane and Rob (the ''horses'') were extreamly willing to help and do whatever we told them. This helped a great deal as they were able to jog along bouncing slightly so it looked like the actors were on a real horse. One of them (the ones carrying them) even made horse noises to ''try and get into his role''. It worked far better than i thought it woiuld, we were not able to get many takes as the ''horses' were getting worn out and the light was fading but i'm fairly confident we got all that we needed to. Here are some photos of us filming:

In action

 Rather wet looking actors and 'horses'

Filming with an umbrella to stop rain getting on the lens.

Editing

Today we continued to edit in class. We have now added some titles but still need to think of a name. we still havent heard back about the music. I am now more confident that we will get it all completed for the deadline-the other day i was a bit worried as we didnt have enough film but now that we have filmed more (especially the pan) it is longer and i think it is all coming together well.

Filming

 Last night we filmed more of our media. This time we filmed the pieces of the horse (hooves, tail and head). To do this we got someone to ride the horse whilst we drove alongside on a quad bike filming. I think it went well and turned out better than I'd expected. Though some of it was a bit bumpy i think we got enough footage to crop out the bad bits. Here are the story boards for the new shots we are adding:

 

Here is a picture of us filming the scenes:

 

Finding Music

Here's the full message that we sent.

Dear sir/madam,

I am a British student studying at a sixth form near Cambridge. I am currently studying Media Studies at AS level, as part of this we produce a 2 minute opening of a film. This work is not not used for commercial purpose purely educational. I am in the process of creating my film opening and have taken on the task of a western and was wondering if it would be possible to use a piece of your music to accompany it. It is the piece 'Desert wind' (dreaming guitars) that i am interested in using as it would fit well with my work. Please be assured that this is for no commercial gain what so ever and is simply to help with my studies. I look forward to your response.

Yours Faithfully,

Nicola Hackshall, Saffron Walden County High Schoolear sir/madam, 

Music

We have spent the last two lessons looking for copyright free music that we could use in our western. Finding some is proving to be a real problem, we have tried you tube and googleing it and so far haven't found anything. We did think that we should make some however western music normally has orchestral instruments or unusual instruments like banjos in it and it wouldn't be feasible for us to do this in the time that we have. We will have to continue our search in our next lesson.

Today we continued to edit the shots that we have. We encounter ye another small problem in that some of the shots are shaky or dont quite flow however we think we have managed to rectify this by cutting them. We have virtually finished editng the shots that we have so far but we still need to add titles. We are struggling to come up with a name for our film-this will be our target for tomorrows lesson along with either looking at where to place the titles in the opening or searching for some music.

Storyboarding extra scenes

Yesterday in lesson we talked about how to get around the problem of the horse shot. We did think we could put the actors in a trolley or sit them ontop of a car but we realised that this was not very safe or practical. In the end we decided that we will have 2 people carrying the 2 actors on their shoulders running along behind each other pretending to be riding a horse. THough this may still be quite tricky to film we will only need a few seconds of it that we can put in between clips of the horses hooves (to be filmed whislt someone is riding the horse and we are on a quad bike alongside filming) with the sound of the hooves over the top to make it appear realistic. We will need someone to ride the horse and 2 people to carry the actors, we have already sorted this out and they have agreed to help us. The only propblem that we may encounter is that we are having to do this one evening after school as the actors have other comitments at the weekend so we will need to be quick and efficient so that we get all the filming done before it gets dark. Given that we will not reach the location untill 4:15 and the light begins to fade at 5 it will give us roughly 50 minutes to film. To give us enough time (and because the horse is in a different location to the actors) we will film the horse one night and the actors another. We have already storyboarded the changes to our plot and are aiming to get this done next week so that we still have a week to finish editing. 

Reviewing previous students work

Yesterday we watched the work of previous media students. I found this interesting as well as helpful as it showed us how careful you have to be of factors such as wind and making sure they dont disturb the film. I particually noticed this as wild interferance was something that was a problem when we were filming, we have revisited our shots and edited the sound so that it is no longer such a big problem. It is still noticable at some points but we are hoping to fix this by reshooting some of it. Another thing that i noticed from watching previous students work was how important continuity is and keeping the camera steady when appropriate. We will bare this in mind whilst editing and filming the rest of our shots.