April 2022

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Friday 1st April

I started my day by beginning work on my resources list. I had made one in my options project and so I knew what I was doing. However, I expanded my resource list and this time I added two new columns titled "Acts and Scenes" and "Purpose". These columns add a little more context onto what the props and equipment are being used for. The props I'm using are less expansive than the ones I used in my options project, however in my FMP resource list, I have added in the equipment I will be using as well as I felt this was also relevant and would be useful to also include in there. To discover what I would need and for which scenes, I used my storyboards, shooting script and audio script. These allowed me more information on what is visible in each scene as well as helping me understand which equipment would be needed for each scene. Doing this with my equipment was particularly useful, as I've now got a rough idea of what equipment will be required for each scenes as well as the locations these scenes will be at. This will be particularly helpful in producing my production schedule. Unfortunately, I have not been able to fully complete my resource list, as the final column is the dates I need the equipment from, and I will not 100% know this until I have produced my production schedule. However, I have uploaded the current resource list to my WIX page and I will update it when I have completed my production schedule.

After I had completed my resource list, I updated and improved my script, which I talked about doing yesterday, thanks to my script mark up. This update mainly comprised of adding additional descriptions onto the Actions as well as specifying when a character’s dialogue is off screen. Updating my script is quite useful as it means all my pre-production are all on the same level of detail, as well as the story being at the same level of development for all of my pre-production.

My last bit of work for today was character designs. I created character designs for Cody as he is the only character who is animated, this means that in his design I’ll have to pay more attention to the continuity. Whereas for real life characters I can pay attention while on set. I created 5 different character designs for Cody as he has 5 different outfits throughout the piece. These are costumes for scene 1, outside, inside, school and his final breakdown. The main reasons for these character designs are so that I know roughly what I need my Cody actor to wear, so that Ebsynth can better track the clothes. And additionally the character designs will act as colour palettes in order to complete my animation, and keep the colours consistent throughout, especially regarding skin and hair colour.

Overall this first week of pre-production has been very useful. I’ve now got the majority of my creative pre-production completed, I’m planning to do a couple more pieces on Sunday but otherwise that’s it. I’ve started initially planning my locations and actors today but I will conduct these properly over the course of next week which is when I will do the majority of my technical pre-production.

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Friday 1st

Sunday 3rd April

I spent my day doing a little extra work that I had planned to do on my action plan. This first bit of work was to visit the locations. I was able to visit 3/4 of my locations as they are my house and two places within walking distance. The fourth location should be at college which I will be able to take photos of yesterday. Visiting these locations today provides me with the photos that I can use for my location assessments tomorrow.

The second piece of work I needed to do was my style sheets. I created 5 style sheets for the most important parts that needed style sheets. These were for Cody, Director/Crew, Doctor, School and Animation. I chose these 5 as I felt they were the features I would gain most benefit for making style sheets from. And they are also the pieces that require the most detail and consideration into. These style sheets are slightly similar to my mood boards and will act as a useful aesthetic reference for these characters and locations, especially when I’m preparing to enter production.

Sunday 3rd

Monday 4th April

Thanks to me visiting many of my locations on Saturday, I was able to make a good start to my location assessments today. This took me the majority of in class time, as I wanted to make sure they were detailed enough. I was able to fill out everything to what I felt was a good amount of detail. However, I wasn't able to fill in the dates/ times that I will be at these locations yet. Similarly to my production schedule, this is because I haven't completed my production schedule yet, which I will be doing on Wednesday. Once I have completed this bit of work, I will be able to come back and finish my locations assessments properly. But for the meantime, I have uploaded the almost completed ones onto WIX. The only location I couldn't visit on Saturday was College, so I took the photos for that today. I have also emailed Nigel today to ask for permission to film within the College, as well as asking if he could inform me of when the classroom is empty and available so that I could fill in it. It's important to ask him this now, so that I know before Wednesday when I complete my production schedule. Emailing Nigel now and asking permission will hopefully also allow me to get him to sign the location release form later on. I have also gathered permission from my parents to shoot within my house, and this will also be backed up by a location release form by the end of this week. The other two locations do not require location release forms as they are free to use and public property. I have also began to ask people about being actors and will also have this backed up by talent release forms by the end of the week. Currently, I have a definite Cody, Cameraman and Director as well as a possible Doctor. I know who I will ask for the other characters I just need to get in contact with them. I am hoping by Wednesday I'll have all of my actors so that I can start on the talent release forms.

Nigel has emailed me back and said that that our classroom is only usually free around lunchtime. This could work but Nigel also said that I could possibly book another empty classroom. I have emailed Nigel back asking about who I should talk to in order to book a classroom. Hopefully Nigel will get back to me and I can try to sort the room out tomorrow so that I’ll be prepared for Wednesday. This means I’ll have to complete the last location assessment when I have a finalised location.

Before the lesson ended I started creating my Shot list. At first I thought it was very similar to a production schedule and shooting script but as John told me last week, this is something you would take on set with you. Because of this I sectioned my shot list so that all the shots that take place in the same location are grouped together so that when I take it on production it will be easier to manage. The basis of the shot list is that it contains all the useful information you would need to film the shot. So my current plan is to bring this as well as my storyboards with me when I film as this will mean I will have the proper description and planning in the shot list as well as a visual within the storyboards. At first I was a little hesitant about the purpose of the shot list but now that I’ve made it I understand how useful it can really be now, and I think it will be very useful that I can bring it onto my productions.

The final thing I did today was find the music for my piece. I made sure to find copyright free music as I want to upload this final piece to youtube and so using copyright free music means I won’t get copyright striked. And additionally, in many short films with minimal budgets copyright music would be used as it does not cost any money and is free to use. And luckily, while looking I found some quite good pieces of music. There was one account called “LuKremBo” which had lots of free uncopyright music. Lots of the music I found was also in roughly the same genre, being Lo-Fi/Jazz, which is good as this allows the piece to have a consistent style throughout, which is carried by the same genre of music. Thanks to this found music I’ve been able to update my Audio Script with the music pieces and so I’ve been able to upload the fully completed version to WIX.

The very last thing I did today was update my Bibliography. Today, I had used a reference in order to complete my shot list as well as updating my bibliography with all the music pieces that I have found. I have been using less references in my pre-production, but it’s still good to keep my bibliography fully updated.

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Monday 4th

Tuesday 5th April

Thanks to my completion of Location assessments, shot list and music yesterday, it meant I only needed to complete my risk assessments today. This was not too hard to complete as I have a decent amount of experience with completing risk assessments by now, so I was able to use this prior knowledge to help me complete these effectively.

With my risk assessments done I have now almost finished all pre-production which relates to locations. Currently I only need to fill in the dates on my location assessments and these will be completed by tomorrow or Thursday after I have completed my production schedule.

I have continued to email Nigel from yesterday about booking a room to shoot my college scenes in and we are going to have a chat tomorrow where he can help me look into this. I already know roughly what days and times I will shoot these scenes as to be in line with the timetables of my actors it will likely be the first Tuesday or Second Tuesday back from Easter which is my two weeks of production. And will be during College hours. These are the times the actors are available and there aren’t too many shots within the College room so hopefully this should be plenty of time to get the shots I require.

So by tomorrow all my locations should be figured out.

I also continued scouting my actors today and now have a definite confirmation for the STUDENT who defends Cody. By the end of the week I should have a signed talent release form from them. For my bully character I am likely going to need to re-dub the voice of the character as the actor cannot film during college time as they go to a separate school. However, I’ve already planned for this as I have been thinking that would be a likely problem. My planning is that I will get a body double in, and make them cover their mouth when the camera pans to them, this will also help to show the fact that the two characters are whispering. Additionally, this was also likely going to have to be done anyway, as due to the high demand that all the equipment will be in, I think it is unlikely that I would be able to book out two audio recorders at one time, as I will need one for Cody’s part within the scene. I have received confirmation for the body double for the Bully and am currently waiting on confirmation from the actor who will dub the voice. Hopefully by the end of the week I will also have them signing talent release forms.

The last thing I did today was start to roughly plan my production schedule, however this will be fully completed tomorrow. I think a big hindrance will be access to equipment due to high demand. My current plan is that I will plan everything for when will best fit me and then after I will look into booking equipment. If the equipment is in extreme high demand then I will likely need to discuss with a lecturer about the best approach to take, but hopefully it will only cause small changes and adaptations, or even none at all if I’m lucky, however I think this is unlikely.

Tuesday 5th

Wednesday 6th April

I started my day with the second of the feedback meetings, this time focused on my Research. Once again I had it with Nigel. Nigel said it was really hard to fault my research, and that every time he thought I could’ve added something extra, he then scrolled a bit further and found what he was looking for. This was very good to hear as I spent quite a lot of time and effort on it. And Nigel saying that it was really up there in terms of grading was really nice to hear. So, there wasn’t to many things that Nigel recommended me to change really. He only said to possibly look into how to make Foley for example footsteps and things, as well as to talk to Ash about using 4k footage on our computers. When I film with my phone I was going to use its 4k feature and Nigel said that the computers at school may have trouble with this and so to talk to Ash. This is fine to do and I will do it in the coming days. The only other things Nigel showed me was a couple of pieces that may be good for inspiration. A documentary called Welcome to Chechnya and a Mockumentary series called Cunk on Britain. The latter seems to be on youtube so I can watch it however I will have to look where I could possibly watch Welcome to Chechnya. Overall, it was a really good meeting and has made me feel a lot more confident with my work so far.

The other thing Nigel helped me to do this morning was book out a classroom for my production. I now have room C15 booked out for 2 hours on Tuesday 26th April. I was able to go review this classroom and I’m pretty confident it will work. And seeing the classroom allowed me to complete my location and risk assessment for it. However, I was unable to take photos for the location assessment as the classroom was in use. I’m planning to go again tomorrow at lunchtime when it should be empty and then I’ll be able to upload the location assessment to my WIX website tomorrow.

The rest of my lesson time was dedicated to creating my Production Schedule. This is one of if not the most important piece of technical pre-production as it structures my time for the next month or so. I have talked to my actors and knew when they’re free to film, as working around their college timetables would be a big struggle. I already had an audio recorder booked for Easter, so I structured some of my production with that, when I don’t need any additional equipment. Currently, I have all my production structured across 9 days from the second week of Easter and the two weeks of designated production. I went through several versions of production schedule, but I’m now confident that this final version works. However, I will be 100% checking these dates and times with my actors tomorrow so it could still possibly change slightly, however, I’m confident it should remain relatively the same. Tomorrow is also when I’ll be getting all my talent and location release forms signed.

Completing my Production Schedule also allowed me to update both my location assessments and resource list with the correct dates and they are now updated on my WIX website.

When I returned home, I started booking equipment as I now knew what days I needed it for. I made notes in my notebook for when I would need certain equipment and I was astonished to see I only needed to book equipment out on two separate occasions. On both occasions, the equipment needed was: Canon DSLR 600d, Tripod, Zoom H4n Recorder, LED Light Kit, Boom Mic and Boom Pole. Other equipment such as the phone gimbal and phone are my own property and so didn’t need to be booked out. The first occasion I have booked is from 12pm on 25th April till 3pm on 26th April. This covers my productions for these two days. And the second days were from 12pm 29th April till 10am 3rd May. This covers the production over the weekend and then my final one on the Monday. On this second booking I was able to book all of the equipment needed. However both the Tripod and LED Light Kit are unavailable for my production on the 25th April. However, to be honest, this is the best day for this equipment not to be available. I have my own tripod, which even though it is worse can still do the job. And the only shot the LED Light kit was needed for was shot 39. So I will film this without lighting and if it turns out bad I will reschedule Production for that shot.

To aid with my equipment booking, I created a table to present which equipment I have booked, what it’s being used for, when I need to pick it up and when I need to drop it off. This will aid me in remembering what equipment I need as well as making sure I don’t return anything late, as I do not want to hinder any other students productions.

The only thing left to do regarding equipment is booking the boom mic and boom pole. These pieces of equipment cannot be booked on the online system and so I am planning to talk to Ash in person about booking them tomorrow. Hopefully, if that goes all well then my equipment booking will be almost completely successful.

The very last thing I did today before uploading all my work was to update my action plan. Now that I have created my production schedule, I not only have my production planned out but also my post production. I have structured the majority of my first week of post production focused on visuals and then the majority of the second week is focused on Audio editing. This is primarily due to the fact that the visuals will take a lot longer, especially in regards to Ebsynth. Whereas because it’s a mockumentary the majority of Audio editing will be Dialogue and music, which I have a good amount of experience with and so I’m fairly confident I can finish it in the time I have dedicated myself. So now that my Action plan is updated, it’s pretty much complete as the vast majority has been filled out. The only time it will likely change now is if production or post production is haltered or when I come to properly planning my evaluation and reflection stage.

Overall, today has been extremely helpful and productive and I’m now confident I’ll be able to complete all of my pre-production by the end of the week.

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Wednesday 6th

Thursday 7th April

I started my day be revisiting the classroom that Nigel had helped me book yesterday. Luckily today the classroom was empty so I was able to take photos of the room in order to add them onto my final location assessment. Now that I have taken these images, all my location assessments are 100% completed.

When I first got to class, I talked to Ash about how to book the boom mic and pole as I wasn’t available to book these yesterdays as they’re not available to book on the website. Ash told me to email him with when I would need this equipment. So, now that I have emailed Ash this information, I’m hoping this now means that all the equipment is booked. I currently haven’t received an email back from Ash but the email I have sent should be enough to have this equipment booked. So now all my locations and equipment are fully completed which means that all my days of production should run smoothly with everything already prepared.

I then spent the entirety of the lesson on creating my call sheets which was one of the last pieces of pre-production that I needed to complete. I needed to create nine call sheets, one for each of my production days. These were not too hard to complete, and I was able to use the additional notes that the lecturers had provided us. These notes were able to guide me on some of the points when I wasn’t entirely sure what I needed to do. My production schedule, Script and Shot list were also very helpful in the production of the call sheets. These aided me in knowing what scenes, shots and actors I need for each of my production days. But now that I have completed my call sheets, this is practically all of my pre-production that I needed to complete.

There was a small part of the call sheets that I wasn’t able to 100% complete which was the weather. Most of my productions take place to far in the future for the weather reports to be complete. However, I was able to find a small prediction of what the MET office says about the weather during the weeks of my production. But I shall check the weather before productions and update these call sheets before each of the productions.

The very last thing on my pre-production were my talent release forms and location release forms. I was able to get all of these signed today by my actors and the location owners. All the people had previously agreed to be part of the production and so these release forms were just the final paperwork that needed to confirm their participation. I was also able to confirm the filming days with the actors and they said that they should be able to do them.

So, with all of my work that I have completed today, I have now finished all of my pre-production work. Now that the work is completed I am ready to head into my production phase. The last things that I will complete during tomorrow’s lesson will be to write up an evaluation for the pre-production phase as well as tidy up all of my work on my WIX website. But getting all of this pre-production work completed feels really good and I’m confident that the work I’ve completed is to a good standard.

Thursday 7th

Friday 8th April

As I had finished all of my pre-production work yesterday, today acted as a way to get it all wrapped up and completed. This mainly revolved around the presentation of it on WIX.

Yesterday, I had planned what I needed to do, these included, adding a brief description and detailing what was on my pre-production page. This was not too hard, as I have done this several times before for my initial idea and research pages. Adding these just helps to flesh out my WIX page a bit more as well as making navigating the pages a little bit easier.

So, with that completed the only thing I had left to do was write up an evaluation for my final Pre-Production page. I underestimated how long this would take me. In the end, I spent about an hour and a half working on it and ended up writing about 2 pages for it. This was a lot more than I expected, but after reviewing it, I felt that it was all useful information and should be included. Within the evaluation, I evaluate each piece of work I did as well as how I felt about the Pre-Production as a whole and so I think this is why it turned out so long. But evaluating each section thoroughly is incredibly important as it allows me to convey my thoughts as well as what I learned from each stage of production. And so with the evaluation completed, my pre-production is now officially finished.

The only other thing I did today was pick up the audio recorder that I have booked over Easter, this'll allow me to do some of my production over Easter.

Next week, I am away on holiday which means I won't be able to get any work done. However, as seen on my production schedule, I plan to start production the week after. And to be honest, I think it will be good to take a week off between pre-production and proper production. This'll allow me to clear my head and relax a bit. Meaning I'll be able to jump straight into production with a fresh and energetic attitude.

Friday 8th

Tuesday 19th April

I started all of my production with the recording of Cody’s voiceovers, these are pretty crucial as they help to link the piece together as well as helping to further build Cody’s character. These recordings were fairly easy to complete as both me and my actor had done voice recording for my options project, so we both knew what we were doing.

Cody only has 3 voiceovers and so I was able to get them completed in a good amount of time. I have now listened to them over on the computer and I think they sound good and I’m confident they’ll work within my piece.

I was also able to complete the audio recording for the conversation between the student and the bully today. This conversation needed to be recorded beforehand as the person voicing the Bully is unavailable for in person filming.

This meant that during Pre-production, I planned to have this conversation recorded beforehand and then have a stand in for the bully character when I actually film the scene. Having it recorded separately will also help me as I will only have access to one audio recorder on the day of filming.

But, I’ve listened over these recordings and I’m fairly confident they will be able to be blended in with the rest of the scene. Combined with the atmospherics of the room, I’m hoping the blend of the two audio recordings will be able to work well.

Tuesday 19th

Wednesday 20th April

Today I felt was my first proper day of production. Today I was shooting for Act 1 Scene 1 which is Cody walking across the field at sunset. I decided to shoot this during the holidays as I only needed to use my phone and gimbal which are readily available and so I felt completing this shoot before the rest of the equipment was needed would make the production later on run more smoothly.

A couple of days ago my Cody actor had contacted me to inform me that they would be unavailable to shoot on this day. This was slightly disappointing however luckily could be worked quite easily around. This shoot and scene only contains Cody with no other characters, and Cody also does not speak within this scene. Additionally, because Cody is animated you cannot see the actor underneath. This means that in this one scene replacing the actor for Cody would be quite easy. And I have checked with the original Cody actor and they are still ok for the rest of the production which creates no more problems.

To replace Sam (the original actor), I enlisted the help of Gary who I luckily already had a talent release form as he will be playing the body double for the bully. Gary was readily available and willing to help which was really useful. The only slight problem is that Gary is quite a bit taller than Sam however, as there are no other characters within this scene, I don’t think this will be noticeable.

I had checked during the day what time the sun would set and it was at roughly 20:15. This meant I decided to be there for around 19:40 to give myself plenty of time. I began by setting up my phone and gimbal as they were my main piece of equipment. Thanks to my demo tasks, I was confident in setting it up and knew what I was doing. At this point the sunset looked really nice and I was very happy in my decision to shoot at this location and time.

I was then able to record all my shots. Act 1 Scene 1 is only comprised of 5 different shots and then I needed some footage for shot 38 and so I was able to gather all the shots as well as some re-takes just to be safe. By the time I was finished it was around 20:10 and the sun was just beginning to set. But, I’m very happy with the shots I’ve produced and I think with a little bit of colour correction and grading they’ll look even better.

I differed my final shots slightly from how I had originally planned them. Originally, I had planned for Cody to walk from screen right to screen left. However, while on location and the position of the sun, I felt it made more sense and would look better with Cody walking from screen left to screen right. I also realised this would help better for shot 5 where the title appears as people read from left to right so it makes sense for Cody to appear from left to right as the title would then be read as he moves past it. Overall, it’s not a huge difference but I think it was definitely a good change.

The very last thing I did on location was take an audio recording of the natural atmospherics. I think it is quite unlikely that I will use this recording as the scene will have a voiceover and music, but additionally, there was a fair bit of wind which has made the audio recording not that great, but it was still worth it as it will provide me with a backup in case I change my mind in post production.

Overall, I’m incredibly happy with how this production shoot went and I think the results from it are almost exactly what I was trying to achieve.

Wednesday 20th

Thursday 21st April

I started my day with the recording of my narrator voiceovers, this was fairly easy to do as the only things I needed were the audio recorder, which I had booked out over Easter as well as the actor for the narrator, who was myself. This meant production ran very smoothly and I was quite easily able to gather all the recordings I needed. I had a little bit of struggle when I was recording my first couple of narrations, which led to my first narration taking about 10 takes for me to be satisfied. The problem was that in the recordings there kept being these little audible bumps or noises in the recording which would then ruin the recording. However, after a couple of tests and trying out different things, I discovered that the problem was my breathing. Because the audio recorder is quite sensitive, it was picking up my breathing and causing these noises. However, I found a relatively simple fix for this problem. Originally I had been holding the audio recorder directly in front of me which was most likely the cause of the problem, however, I moved it to the side of my face still pointing at my mouth. This allowed the audio recorder to still pick up my narration without it picking up my breathing. And after this fix the rest of my recordings were able to be carried out a lot easier and more effectively.

Thursday 2st

Friday 22nd April

The first thing I needed to do today was the creation of shot 33 or Act 3 Scene 2. This is the scene where the Director comes to Cody’s house and finds his room fully animated. To create this animated room, during this production, I placed a greenscreen just inside of my door so that when the door is opened all the camera sees is green. This means that in post I will be able to key out the green and replace it with the animated room image that I will be creating later during post production.

Similarly to yesterday, the only actor I needed was myself and the only equipment I needed was the audio recorder as well as my phone and my gimbal which I all had easy access to. This meant that the production shoot was able to run pretty smoothly, and I made sure to get a good handful of takes until I felt satisfied with the amount and quality of the shots that I had produced. Overall, I feel fairly confident with this shoot and I think the recordings I’ve got from it will be able to work well within the final product.

To finish off my day, I needed to record all of my foley. As my piece is trying to replicate a documentary, I wasn’t planning to use too much foley as if it became too much or too obvious then I feel it would ruin the emulation of a documentary. So the majority of my foley was focused on minor sound effects that I feel would be important to be able to hear within the scene. This included sounds such as footsteps and clatters for when Cody drops stuff.

I had done quite a bit of foley work for my options project, so I was pretty prepared and knew what I was doing when it came to recording my foley. The majority of my foley went smoothly as my room is pretty quiet, which I discovered during the options project, and it was good weather which meant rain wouldn’t interfere with the sound recordings. I had a little issue when recording the footsteps outside as there was a decent amount of wind which affected the recordings quite a lot. However, I simply waited for the wind to die down as using headphones allowed me to hear what the audio recorder was recording. And on my re-listens I’m fairly confident that when cut out the wind noise shouldn’t interfere with the rest of the recordings. Overall, I’m pretty happy with how my foley recording went and I think when it comes to post-production these recordings will help to just finish off each of the scenes.

Friday 22nd

Monday 25th April

Today was our first day back after the Easter holidays. And it started in one of the worst possible ways. My actor who was supposed to be playing the body double for the bully has said he now can’t make tomorrow’s shoot, which is the only one he needs to be in. This is very frustrating as I need the body double there as the audio has already been recorded. Additionally, as he has told me so close to filming it’s near impossible to find a replacement. However, I have come up with one solution that could save me. The scene within the classroom is portrayed as one shot quick pans to change the angle. This means the camera will be on a tripod.

So, my current plan is: I still have the actors for Cody and the student. Cody will always be animated which means we’ll never see his real face. So, I will shoot the start of the interview with Cody. When he is “interrupted” I will keep the camera stationary as it is on a tripod, then the actor for Cody can leave his current position and go move to be the body double for the bully. Then I will do the quick pan for the camera over to the bully and student. That will play out and then as I’m panning back the actor for Cody can move to the door as at this point Cody is already supposed to be leaving. Then in post production, because the camera will stay stationary due to the tripod. I should be able to just cut out the part where the actor moves. Then I can use the last frame of animation for a freeze frame to lead into the camera pan. Hopefully, this should mean that there are no obvious cuts. I think this is a pretty good plan and should work. However, I do have a backup idea which will be to use some motion blur within the quick pan to hide a cut between shots if the initial idea doesn’t work. Either way, I’m confident I can work around this problem.

I had a shoot planned for today, but first I had to have our lesson. I didn’t want to waste these three hours, so I began by updating the call sheets with the new weather, now that the weather apps were predicting weather for my shooting days. This was not too hard to do and was important to complete as it prepares me for my upcoming shoots across this next week.

I then spent the rest of the lesson completing my logging for all the work I had completed over Easter. This included all of the audio recordings such as the voiceovers and Foley as well as the visual production I had produced such as Act 1 Scene 1. Logging is a really important process and comes in particularly useful later down the line during the post production stage. And that’s why getting it completed now is extremely useful. Additionally, I’ve made sure to complete all my easter logging now as it leaves me with time to complete the logging for my upcoming shoots without having to be dragged down by previous work that would also need to be logged. Logging all this work did take a while and I had to finish it off when I returned home however it is now completed which will hopefully help lighten my load in the upcoming days.

At the end of the lesson I then went to Ash to pick up my equipment. I was able to pick up the camera as well as the boom pole and mic to go with the audio recorder I already had booked out. For this shoot I will be using my own tripod as there were none available to book out. When I returned home, I tested all the equipment before my shoot. The camera and all visual equipment worked fine. However, I was a bit concerned at first when I connected the boom mic to the audio recorder as there was quite a loud buzzing sound. So, I recorded me speaking then listened to it on my computer. The buzzing sound wasn’t there which is good as it means it won’t be in the recordings. I then realised what the buzzing sound most likely is. I think it’s just the sounds of the atmospherics in the room as the mic is a lot more sensitive. This makes the most logical sense, but I have confirmed it won’t interfere with my audio recording so there is no need to worry about it.

So then I was finally able to do my filming for today. Originally, I had planned to shoot a lot of different scenes today, including cutaways for Act 1 Scene 3, shots for Act 1 Scene 5 and shots for the very end of the film. However, there was nice weather today, and many of the shots I’d planned are shot inside, whereas next Monday I had planned to shoot the interview for Act 1 Scene 3 which takes place completely outside. I had checked the weather for my call sheets today and next Monday was also supposed to be nice. However, I thought it wasn’t worth risking it and so I made the decision to switch my two Monday shoots around. This does not impact me too much as they both use the same equipment and I had already planned something similar during pre-production in case of bad weather. I don’t regret this decision and believe it was the right call.

When we got to location, I began by setting up all my equipment. It was only me and the actor for Cody there which meant I was working on both audio and camera. Today, I was using the camera on a stationary tripod which made it easier. Setting up the tripod took a bit of hassle, as the ground was fairly uneven, however I know the importance of having straight shots so I made sure to take my time balancing the tripod.

Once the tripod was set up, I attached the camera, and made sure to correct the ISO, Aperture and white balance. The white balance was particularly tricky as I was shooting outside. This meant I had to correct and re-do the white balance quite often as the sun would go behind clouds or come out more. However, I had thought about this beforehand as I didn’t want to forget to do it.

Once the camera was set up, I set up my audio equipment. Today, I was using an audio recorder attached to a boom mic and pole. I chose the fuzzy boom mic for two reasons, one was as I was shooting outside and the fuzzy mic helps to reduce wind noise and additionally the boom pole helps me to keep the microphone out of shot.

Now that I was ready, I turned all the equipment on and began filming. As I was using both audio and visual equipment it meant I couldn’t keep a constant eye on the camera while filming as I was holding the microphone. This meant, I made sure to rewatch each take afterward to check for any obvious errors such as the microphone coming into view. Luckily no major problems occurred and although checking each shot meant I spent more time on set I think it was worth it as it would have saved me later down the line if any major problems had occurred.

Before all of the shots, I made sure to discuss with my actor about their performance. One thing I made sure to point out was about their movement. I requested they kept movements to a minimum while still looking natural. This is due to the fact that the more movement there is the more Ebysnth will struggle. Thankfully, my actor was really good and was happy with the performance I was looking for. Overall, I think they did really well with the slight limitations I had to give them.

I was able to get multiple takes for both of my angles as well as shooting the close up of the graffiti. This provided me with all the visual content I needed for today. In addition to the dialogue recording I also made sure to do about a 2 minute recording of the location natural atmospherics. This will come in handy if I need to stitch two shots audio together or to provide a backing track to the audio.

Overall, I believe this has been an incredibly successful shoot and I’ve briefly looked over the footage and listened to the recordings and I’m confident that they’ll be able to work well within my piece.

Monday 25th

Tuesday 26th April

Today’s shoot was the one I was the most worried for. After losing one of my actors for today there were many things that could go wrong which could then potentially ruin the whole shoot. And with the booking of the location this is the one shoot which would be the hardest to re-organise.

The first problem would’ve been any of my other actors having to cancel. To try to prevent this, I contacted them the day before as well as this morning to double check that they still good for filming. They both confirmed they were and so no problem arose from this.

The other major problem was if the location was in use. I had pre-booked it but there was always the chance it was being used. When we arrived a lecturer was in there, and so I explained that I had booked the room for filming and luckily he already knew and was able to move to a different room.

So, as I had picked up additional equipment, which contained a tripod and the lighting equipment I could begin filming.

I began by shooting Act 2 Scene 2 which is the interview with the student. I chose to start with this as it was the shortest scene and was very similar to what I had been shooting yesterday which meant that I already had practice. I began with setting up the lighting and camera. I’m really glad I had lighting today as I feel it really helped with the look of my shots.

The only challenge I had with this scene was that there was a slight reflection in the window behind them. I realised about halfway through that part of the other actor (who was behind the camera) was visible. However, it is only very noticeable when the actor was moving. So I made sure that in the next few I recorded the two of us behind the camera stood as still as possible. Aside from this I’m quite happy with how these shots went.

One of the hardest shots I had for today was shot 28 which I discussed yesterday. Because I had lost an actor the Cody actor also had to step up and play the bully. To do this shot, I did exactly as I planned yesterday and there is a short video on my production page which runs through how I did this. Aside from that I didn’t run into any problems while recording this shot and I’m fairly confident that my plan from yesterday will work meaning the final shot will look how I originally intended. One thing my actor pointed out was that within this shot you see the lighting (that was being used for Cody’s interview) as the camera pans. However, this is actually intentional. This scene is the start of the “documentary” falling apart as well as Cody’s breakdown. And so by showing the lighting, it breaks down the fourth wall showing that everything so far has been part of the “documentary” that’s being made.

My penultimate shot was the shot that has changed the most. For Act 2 Scene 3 Cody storms out where the cameraman and boom operator follow him as he leaves he tells them to leave him alone and animation bursts out of him. Originally I had planned to do this outside, however there were a lot more people moving around outside than I had predicted. This led to me altering my decision and instead opting to shoot it outside of the classroom location as it had a long corridor that would also work for this scene. However, here I ran into another problem. At the end of the corridor a class was working with the door open. And not wanting to disrupt them I opted to change it yet again. Instead of rushing down the corridor, Cody would now rush down the stairs which he came up to, to get to the classroom. There is a small landing which I felt would also work for the exploding animation. And although this scene has differed quite drastically from the original plan, I’m still fairly confident it will serve it’s purpose as part of the climax in the story.

And so to finish off my shoot I shot a couple videos with my phone and gimbal of the Cody actor walking up the stairs to the classroom. This was fairly easy to do and will simply be spliced up in the edit to create the shots leading up to Cody’s disrupted interview.

Overall, I’m very happy with how this shoot went and the footage I’ve gained from it are definitely what I was aiming for.

Now that my shoot was finished it was lesson time. I began the lesson by John informing me of my results for the Options project. He told me I had got Distinctions throughout and I was very happy with this result. He also explained that he was the lecturer who has been assigned to monitor and mark my work for the FMP. This is probably a good decision as John has the most experience with animation and my piece contains a decent amount of animation. John also had a quick look through my pre-production work and said it all seemed to be there and to a good standard. This is really good and hopefully means there won’t be too many things I need to change about it.

Finally, I spent the rest of my day logging all my shots and audio recordings from yesterday and today. This was quite a long process however, it’s really good to get this completed today as it allows for me to continue production with less on my plate as well as meaning I’ve 100% finished all the work needed for the productions I’ve already shot.

Tuesday 26th

Wednesday 27th April

I had a dentist appointment today which meant I had to miss the lesson. Luckily, the work I planned to complete today was able to be completed from home. Today was the start of making the smaller animated sections for my Project. However, today were focused on the drawings for Cody’s animated room and the Images of Cody growing up.

I started with making Cody’s animated room. This is for Act 3 Scene 2 when the Director visits Cody. On the day I shot this scene, I made sure to record a small clip of the room from the POV where the director stands at the door. I then took a frame of this video and used it as my reference for creating the animated version. Avoiding the door and side of the wall that was in shot I outlined everything in black. I did this all freehand using my drawing tablet as I felt if all the lines were perfectly straight it would remove some of the animated feel to it. And I didn’t want the drawing to feel to artificial. I then coloured this drawing in and added Cody in his breakdown costume. I completed this all in photoshop as I have a large amount of practice and experience within Photoshop thanks to my GCSE’s as well as I used it for a large amount of my options project. This drawing is what will be added onto the greenscreen from the original video for Act 3 Scene 2.

The second piece of animation work today was the creation of Cody’s childhood photo. I needed 5 different drawings in total for these. One each for; Baby; Toddler; Primary School; Secondary School and Cody currently.

For current Cody I used a frame from my Act 1 Scene 3 production as this image will be used to transition into that interview. However, for the other drawings I decided to use stock photos. I felt this was the best decision as they’re free to use and I wouldn’t need permission from the people in the photo. However, as an additional precaution, all the people who weren’t acting as Cody in the images, I blurred. This was just to make doubly sure that no problems arose from the use of stock images.

To actually create the images, I used photoshop and the same technique that I used for the animated room. To make sure all my colours matched, particularly Cody’s skin and hair colour, I used the character designs from my pre-production, and these came in super useful. Between the animated room and the childhood photos, I thought of the idea of using a screen recorder to make a timelapse of my creating the drawings so if you want to see the timelapses for Cody’s childhood photos head over to my FMP Production page. These childhood photos comprise Act 1 Scene 2 and provide some backstory to Cody’s life as well as being a comedic part of the piece.

Overall, I’m very happy with the work I completed today, especially the childhood photos and they were definitely what I was aiming to create. The work from today will be used next within my post production and help to bring Cody’s side of life into the final piece.

Wednesday 27th

Thursday 28th April

As I had completed my drawings yesterday, it meant the only piece of work I had to complete today was the short animation for Act 1 Scene 4. In this scene the Doctor briefly mentions their theory about why Cody is animated, mentioning TV Waves. Then a short animation appears demonstrating what the doctor is saying.

To create this short animation, I used the skills and techniques that I had developed during my options project. This involves drawing all my frames within photoshop and then exporting them individually as PNG’s and finally collating them into the final animation within Premiere Pro. I created this animation within College which meant that I didn’t have access to my screen recorder, so for the production today, I had to resort to just screen captures.

I began the creation of my animation by first finding an appropriate image of DNA. While looking through potential ones, I realised a lot of them would be unusable as the images already looked drawn or animated. In the end I found one that looked like it could be some form of CGI, but it looked appropriately different enough to what my final one would be.

Then taking this into photoshop, I first cut out the strand of DNA and began duplicating it and placing it around the frame to create multiple copies. I then duplicated this layer and moved their position slightly so that when put together it would look like the DNA was moving slightly.

I then created the TV drawing that would come into frame to project the TV Waves. I used rectangles to form the base frame and then duplicated the drawing positioning them all slightly apart to create the final wave movement which is what I was going for. I then created the TV Waves which are added on once the TV stops. These contain about 12 frames of drawing each and I planned to repeat it later on to keep the wave effect.

Then it came to the creation of the animate DNA itself. This was quite an arduous process. There were three components for it. The first DNA line, the second and finally the Chromosomes. Each of these had 12 frames and then I had to duplicate each layer and resize and reposition it onto each of the other DNA strands. This resulted in me having lots of different folders containing dozens of frames each. But thankfully because I’d put them into folders they were easier to navigate through.

Now that all my frames were complete, I exported all of them. I separated them once again into folders to correspond with each part of the animation. This was not difficult but did take quite a long time.

And now I could finally start the process of collating the animation. Thanks to my research into Ebsynth I now knew that you could tell Premiere to interpret PNG sequences into an image sequence which allowed me to convert the PNG’s into videos a lot easier. I had to do a little positioning and speed duration adjustment to make sure everything played in time with each other but once that was completed the base of the animation was created.

At this point I knew I needed a background video to provide a backdrop for the animation. I found a good one which was a video of blood cells flowing throughout the body, and although the video is not scientifically accurate, I felt it worked well for what I was going for. When I put the video into the background it created a couple of problems which I needed to fix.

The first was that because the background was comprised primarily of reds, it made the blue pieces of DNA stand out and look quite out of place. To fix this I adjusted the colour of these frames to make them more red. This made them blend in a lot more and make it seem more like one whole video.

The only other problem was that the animated pieces of DNA had black lines which slightly blended in with the background near to the end of the video. To fix this I simply slightly turned up the exposure and black highlights in premiere just to make it stand out slightly more and this helped to fix the problem.

And with that the animation was complete. Overall, I’m very happy with what I’ve created today and I think it will definitely work and fit in with Act 1 Scene 4 as well as the piece as a whole. I also feel the style of animation that I’ve developed through options and used today will blend in quite well with the rest of the animation that will be within my FMP final piece and that’s a really good thing.

Thursday 28th

Friday 29th April

I was a little late to College today as my bus was running about half an hour late. And as I walked in I saw everyone was surrounding one desk. Turns out we were looking at other people’s work and progress so far.

This was a really interesting thing to do and it was good to see how other people were working and the other ideas people had come up with. I also had the opportunity to display some of my work, and I showed some of the shots I had already shot as well as showing my Ebynth primary research and explaining my idea and how it will all work.

This was quite a good experience and I was able to get some good feedback and the work I’d shown. People were very interested in Ebsynth and how it worked. I showed the animated room that I created on Wednesday and people said they really liked the style of drawing that I am using and compared it to things such as the Adult Swim TV channel. One person mentioned the hand drawn style of the animated room and that is something I mentioned in my journal on Wednesday and how I wanted it to look slightly rough and so I was really glad someone picked up on that.

On my production schedule, today was a pretty easy today. With over half of my productions behind me and a couple more in the coming days, today was a chance to check over everything I’ve done and complete any work I’d fallen behind on. However, I was up to date with all my work, particularly logging and so there was no work I had to catch up on. So I spent most of the day checking work and tidying up my WIX website.

The only major difference I made was adding to my animated room drawing, where I had realised Cody’s legs weren’t shown behind the bookcase and so it looked like he was just floating. This was a simple fix and I was able to just add them in within photoshop.

Overall, today was useful to just collect my thoughts and work that I’ve already completed as well as looking forward to the next three days, after which my production should be completed.

Friday 29th

Saturday 30th April

My task for today was shooting for Act 1 Scene 4 which is the Doctor’s interview. Prior to this shoot I had shot several other interviews so I was able to get the framing a lot quicker than previously. Before I shot I changed my mind about the framing and thought that I’d prefer to have the Doctor framed to the right of the screen rather than the left as I had originally planned. However, after playing with this thought I realised it wouldn’t work as the wall to the left of the actor is a shade of blue and I needed the light yellow that was consistent with the back wall. This meant I had to go with the original plan of framing the Doctor on the left. However, I’m considering flipping these shots in post so that the doctor would be framed right. But, I will experiment with this idea later on down the line in post production.

The actual shooting of Act 1 Scene 4 went pretty smoothly. It was only me and my actor so it meant once again I was working both the camera and audio, but I had experience from last Monday on this so I was prepared. I was able to get multiple takes of both the primary and secondary angles and so I think I have enough possible options for myself to choose from in the editing process.

The only major problem I faced was the lighting, and I’m still not entirely sure if I’m happy with it. When I originally placed my lights, I realised there was a similar problem to the one I had on Monday where it almost looked like the actor was on a green screen. To fix this it meant I had to move one of my lights from the side of the actor to slightly behind them, so that the lighting would separate the actor from the background. And although it fixed the green screen problem I felt it harmed the lighting slightly. However, I think fixing the green screen look was more of a priority.

Overall, I am happy with what I produced in today’s shoot and I feel it will be able to achieve what I wanted from it. Although I also feel this may have been some of my weakest work yet. I think by fixing the colour grade a little bit in the editing process, the final product will look a lot more like what I was originally aiming for.