Arranging the filming

Before I went out on location to begin filming ,I had to find actors to take part. I had to use the social media site Facebook to make some arrangements with a someone from my media class. I have taken screen shots of the conversation which you can view below:

last year AS short film-The Trail

Last year for my AS film studies I directed my first short film entitled The Trail. I thought it would be valuable for me to look at what worked and what was not as effective when planning my next short film,this time for Media studies. For instance , I have now started filming for Illusion,my second film,and have challenged myself by writing a script for it,something that I never made for The Trail. Ive also decided to this year add more sound effects instead of having one long piece of non diagetic music.

Looking back on this piece of work , I can see the flaws. It is often too simple to be a silent film , and this may have stopped the audience engaging with it.Weather was also a factor that may have affected the end product. It was often raining , so I was forced to rearrange the shoot on several occasions. I think that I have learnt from my mistakes this year as I am going to check the weather reports online to determine what time I will begin filming.With this film , I found it hard to arrange a certain time me and my actor could meet as we both had busy timetables at college.To remedy this this year , I will plan ahead in advance. Finally , the other problem was that I did not take enough footage , so I had to to go and film extra on another day.

Blog checklist

As part of my time management , I filled in a checklist of what I had completed on my blog and what I still needed to complete. After I had completed this , my teacher filled in a separate sheet , giving me feedback on the quality of the work through the use of red , yellow and green colours.

magazine review page and poster progress

As you can see, I have made progress on both my film poster and magazine review page by including the conventions of what makes them appealing to an audience. For example, Ive tried to avoid having blank space on my poster and covered it with as much content as possible.This was difficult , as I also needed to make the eye in the centre the main point of interest. As I have found out in my research , that some people are influenced by the critics comments on a poster , so I have tried to add some here.

With my review , I found that I had to keep the page concise and easy to navigate. I attempted to make the end product seem professional and have much in common with contemporary film magazines on sale.

Time management/work progress

After beginning my filming , I started the editing process on Premier Pro. I added some sound effects and music to build suspense. I had to arrange the clips I had taken and delete the ones that I didn't need. I think that editing is as important as filming as films are often not shot in the order of the storyline. I added special effects to keep the audience engaged and intrigued by dragging them onto the timeline.You will notice that the clips have spaces between them as these are for additional shots that I plan to film on another day. I think that the I have progressed since last years AS film because I have had time ego practice using the editing software and have gotten familiar with the technology.

Time management

Below are my updated film poster and magazine review page. I have tried to make both products look realistic and professional. Before I created these products , I took inspiration from film magazine such as Empire and other successful thriller posters.

Group filming and editing practise

Before we went out to shoot our short films and trailers , the class decided it would be useful to practise the skills we had learnt through filming and editing. We were given a story which we had to follow, so I learnt how to take a concept from paper to film. After the shoot , I edited the footage so it was easy to understand what was happening. The narrative we were given involved a text message that was sent to the protagonist , which took him by surprise. The team were not too worried about the overall the storyline , but practicing our skills we have learnt in our two years of studying media. I believe that this task gave us some much needed practice with Premier Pro.We found using the program initially difficult , but gradually became familiar with the editing software.

The group hard at work