Film Diary

DAY ONE

STACEY

Shot one

We started filming by getting the shot of Stacey in the bed to do this we set up the camera to make sure the bed was in the frame and Stacey face could be seen.

We started filming but soon realised that it wouldnt work without timing it correctly so instead we set the alarm and counted it down would be better. You can hear the counting in some of the clips, this way all film-makers knew what to do as well as actors.

Shot two

This was a shot of Stacey straightening her hair. we filmed this first and got about 6 seconds of footage. We then filmed her brushing it this was also about 6seconds. This worked well but wanted it to flow smoothly so we recorded them together for about 15seconds and this enabled us to cut it in editing.

Shot three

This was a new scene as we did not prepare for it. while filming we realised that Stacey is in her pyjamas then she is suddenly in her daily clothes. this is a continuity problem, so we added an extra shot of her pulling her t shirt down, this worked for male gaze theory as well.

Shot four

tissue scene, changed the angle from the original plan

was going to be from the side, stuffing in but changed it to all one shot, pulling down top, then stuffing bra.

acting was really good and she didn't mean prompting, looked really natural.

Shot Five

Changed angle again, but worked out better as it showed more varied angles. instead of filing her looking into the mirror putting on make up, pretend the camera was the mirror as she put it on looking towards us. This is considered as a point of view shot,

Shot Six

had to change sides because of lighting, was to dark in one corner of the room while she was reading so we wanted to change it so she was reading on her bed, taking advantage of the natural sunlight from the window.

STUART

Shot One

We set up the camera several feet higher than Stuart so the audience could see within the frame the book connoting he is the nerdy geek. We had to have the camera's tripod balance on a table and a sofa to get the higher shot we desired what took some time.

Shot Two

Stuart is seen impatiently waiting as he sighs and looks at his watch.

We set up the camera to face the character head on, the shot was a mid shot.

Shot Three

Stuart looks through his window

This shot was suppose to be an easy to achieve shot of the character looking through his window connoting he was impatient for the day to begin. However, we did not think of any relection issues from the glass. Through the camera's eye you could not see the character Stuart but instead only the reflectiong of the crew. To solve this problem we ultered the shot so Stuart opens the window and looks out for his two fellow geek friend before once again closing it.

Shot Four

Stuart is seen walking through his door. This was an easy shot to achive but it started to rain whilst we were filming and therefore we had to have to people filming so that a umbrella could be used to stop the camera getting damaged.

BOB

Shot One

Originaly we wanted the character Bob to be sitting on a chair leaning on his keyboard asleep. However, due to the change of locations we now have the character Bob sitting on his bed asleep upon the keyboard. This wasnt a big deal as the shot still looked good. We had to position the camera perfectly so when Bob stood up and exited the frame the shot didnt blur.

Shot Two

Bob is seen tucking his shirt in. We wanted the shirt to appear tight on Bob connoting little pride in appearnce. To do this a member of our film crew stood behind Bob pulling his shirt back making it appear tight.

Shot Three

To stay true to stereotypical geeks we wanted one character to have ashma. This character should be the one that appears the most un healthy. This was Bob so we have a shot of him using his inhaler connoting through an enigma code Bob is unhealthy.

Shot Four

The actor Bob decided to check himself out before the shot was filmed of him putting on his glasses. However, we left the camera rolling and thought the shot of him checking himself out before putting on his glasses was worthy to be placed in our opening.

Shot Five

Whilse filming Bob leave his front door we had to be coucious. This was due to the fact that if we went to far back we had other doors within the shot; something we did not intend to include. Also the path way the tripod was placed upon was uneven, making it diffucult to get a shot perfectly balanced. As a result it took several minutes to find the perfect angle that wouldnt capture other doors within the frame and would also keep the frame evenly angled.

DAY TWO

BOYS WALKING

Due to the actors only being able to film after school and the fret of the sunlight fading quickly we filmed this shot first, though it is the last to appear in the opening. This also saved the actors Bob and Stu time as they did not have to watch the filming of Tom's scenes first.

TOMS

Shot one

The shot of filming the character Tom watching the femernine show lose women required the moving of furniture. The sofa the actor, Harry, sat on was against the wall. We needed to push it forward so the camera crew could be centred behind him and capture the over the shoulder shot required. We also filmed this shot from the front to see if it would look better or suit the opening more correctly. It did not and was quickly scrapped from consideration of our final edit.

Shot Two

The gloves the character wears had to be done first, so that it was easy for continuity as he could keep them on throughout filming and didnt have to worry about them being on and off.

Shot Three

The batman belt given to the actor was to small to fit. As a result we didnt expect him to wear it so we ultered the shot so the audience could just see he was putting it on (but it was never actually fitted).

Shot four

This was a shot of Tom putting on his white socks, we had to try it at least thre different ways including sitting on the bed, stand up and putting it on and using the chair to lean on. We tried the chair first but it moved very easily but we also tried to film it while someone was holding the chair down out of shot. This still didnt work so we tried him standing up but the actor found this hard to do. We then had him sit on the bed and put his sock on there. The bed worked well because of the white on black contrast.

DAY THREE

Shot five

This day we had forgotten to film Harry coming out of his front door. This was our own fault as it was planned to be done but our group got excited about finishing everything and didnt think about the last shot. This had to be done another time although this was easy to re film as someone in our group lived close to the actor and it was able to be filmed after school one day.

Problems faced with the shot was that the door was less than a meter away from the neighbouring one. There

was no way of avoiding it from our frame, it appeard within the shot slightly. To be as polite and thoughtful as possible and to insure the shot looked better we avoided as much as possible of the neighbouring door.

Film Schedule

This is the filiming schedule for our opening commencing 13th March 2011. We also needed to film our insitution logo for 'Wisecrack Studios' and so we have incorporated this into the schedule. If we stick to this, we will be able to complete it with enough time to edit, arrange feedback and re-edit our piece. This schedule is for the crew only and a new, simpler version will be created for the actors as to when they're needed for filming.

Charlotte Morrison

Improved and Final Shot List

Several changes have been made to the final shot list, including:

• Scene and shot order. Instead of organizing the scenes/shots in order of appearance, we organised the scenes and shots in order of filming. This is more convenient as we don't have to skim through the shot list during production, and can alternatively go in the order it's been set out.
• Shot duration. The shot durations were manipulated to avoid short cuts and dragging shots.
• The sandwich scene was cut out of the opening, and will alternatively end with the title and a fade to black. This decision was made after suggestive feedback that it was unnecessary and made the opening feel too cramped.
• Institutions. Although we initially decided upon 2 institutional companies, we were unsure that we had enough time to open with both logos. We left 'Wisecrack Studios' out of the initial shot list, and re-introduced it into the final shot list after deciding that we had plenty of time to fill.

Overall, all of these decisions were considered within the group and we believe that our final shot list is a major improvement and will make filming easier and more manageable.


Devon Dalton

Initial Shot List

Emily Wallace

Charlotte Morrison

Character Auditions - Script and Process

Before filming our opening sequence, we had to cast actors for our characters. To help us choose which actors would best suit each part, we planned auditions. As we had some people in mind already, we asked them all to meet us in a certain room at our school during break time. We had to plan it so that they were all available and, as most of our actors were from younger years, it was quite hard to find a time they could all attend. However, we eventually found a time, and even though some were late, everyone turned up and our auditions were able to take place successfully.

We also found that having everyone in the same room created a more friendly and fun environment, and throughout auditioning, the actors said they much preferred this as they felt more relaxed and less stressed. By giving the actors a short briefing of the characters they were auditioning for, they felt more confident about what they needed to do as they had a better understanding of the part. We simply read out the character descriptions for each relevant actor.

Before meeting everyone at our auditions we had to create a short script. This was quite difficult as our actual opening consists iof hardly any dialogue and the only person that speaks is the character Bob. We used his line in our auditions as its one of the main parts, and assigned other auditioners tasks that their character would be seen doing.




Emily Wallace

Character Auditions

This is the video clip we created for the auditions we took.

Emily Wallace

Scott Collins

Popular Actors for Our Film Genre

Jonah Hill Feldstein was born in 1983. This photo was taken in 2007 as he portrayed his character Seth from the smash hit ‘Superbad’. This shows how good makeup and a shave can still make him look young and also geeky. His physical appearance fits perfectly of how we would want our character Bob to look like.  Also, his portrayal of his character Seth also fits perfectly with Bobs. However, Seth only cared about trying to have sex and Bob cares about the girl making one small change being necessary.

Michael Austin Cera was born 1988. He in most his films plays either the geek or the weakling. His physical appearance looks nerdy and weak, he also seems book smart what would fit perfectly with our worried intelligent geek Stuart. His character he portrayed in ‘Superbad’ (2007) was of a young nerd called Evan. Evan cared for the girl he liked instead of his friends who just wanted sex. He was shy, funny, smart and very sarcastic what would fit perfectly with our Stuart. His character Evan with a name change would make our ideal Stuart.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse was born in 1989. He has portrayed many lead role geeks. Two that stand out as sterotypical geeks was his character Fogell in ‘Superbad’ (2007) and Augie from ‘Role Models’ (2008). Both characters were nerdy however Fofell was dying to be popular and cool. Wanting just sex and fame. This would suit the character Tom as both long to be cool. His portryal of Augie however was fantastic bringing a nerdy fairy tale land geek to life. He would run round with a fake foam sword and fight other players in the park who would do the same. This character would fit Bob though we wrote he never played with toy swords. However, he likes World of Warcraft and I can't see why he wouldn’t want to adventure into a real life role playing world. The fault with Christopher is that his physical appearance does not fit the requirements for Bob leading to him not being able to play our Bob despite the life and atmosphere he could bring to the character.

Jon Heder was born in 1977. Though he may not look like a typical geek he played one of the most over the top geeks ever to be portryaed on a film, ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ (2004). A ginger boy who was simply a loser. Napoleon Dynamite is also like ‘Kevin and Perry Go Large’ (2000). Based on a tv series, it tells of two fifteen year old boys who want to be famous DJ’s but are really just losers.

Kathy Burke as Perry

 Kathy Burke was born in London in 1964. The interesting thing about Kathy is that she played a boy called Perry. The female playing the male worked perfectly as it just highlighted how unmanly and cool Perry really was. A woman playing Stuart could possibly work as he is the weakest and most feminine out of all the geeks. A woman playing his role would really help connote this fact.

Jim Carrey was born on January 17, 1962, and is regarded a comedy genius. In 1994, Jim Carrey played Lloyd Christmas in the comedy film 'Dumb and Dumber'. Lloyd Christmas is a stupid and easily amused geek. He doesn't fully understand the struggle of life and has a childlike approach behind his character. His friend Harry Dunne, played by Jeff Daniels, is the same as Lloyd in almost every way, making their petal arguments more humourous as they make no progress of winning throughout them. Both men love the same woman which is linked to our film. And the girl actually dates Harry Dunne. This is like when Stacey dates Tom, leading to the fall out between the friends. Both actors performed their geeks brilliantly. However, they are just too silly and rediculous to fit any of our characters.

John William Ferrell was born July 16, 1967 and is a very talented actor for giving characters a believable, humourous feel. I could write a long list of characters he has performed amazingly that could possibly fit our film, however, I want to focus on two. In the film 'Step Brothers' (2008), Will Farrell played a fourty year old geek living with his father called Brennan Huff. The man was hysterical to watch. His performance amazing and was believable. Though we wouldn't want a fourty year old man to play any of our characters, the arguments he has with his new step brother (once his father re-married) was brilliant and would fit well with the arguments our friends have with one another once fallen out in our opening. Here is a short clip of one of the earlier less violent argument from Step Brothers.

Cameron Diaz was born in 1972. She has had a diverse list of characters she has performed varying from an Irish gang member to a beautiful ogar from far, far away. I'm going to concentrate on her character Mary from 'Something about Mary' (1998). Mary was a beautiful, young woman who had several men fighting for her love. She was funny, relaxed and fun; the sort of personality traits required for Stacey. Mary however wasn't geeky, though she was attracted to them. Stacey should perhaps take some of the characteristics from Cameron Diaz's Mary for the geeky side on Stacey.

Kirsten Dunst was born in 1982. In the film 'Bring it on' (2000), Kirsten played a cool, young cheerleader called Torrance Shipman. She was the head cheerleader and, like other examples from this post, she falls in love for the geeky, nerdy boy. From this her geeky side begins to show and the young girl eventually wins the heart of the cautious geek. Her character is perfect for our geeky Stacey. She also has been seen as a bitch during other films such as the Spiderman sequals. She can be confrontational and during Spiderman One (2002) her character, Mary Jane, hid her geeky side by dating the school bully similar to our film.

Scott Collins