Nisserin Bessioua - UCA Television Production

This is my basic film schedule for my first shoot day on Tuesday the 9th. When I have more details from my actors and specifics on my location, I will be able to create a more detailed one. 

Directing the Story - Francis Glebas  After reading this book, it really made me think about the shots I had chosen for my drama and whether they we all necessary. There's a section in the book called 'Every shot is a close up' where it talks about how each shot is framed to show something important and points the audience towards what they should be focussing on. It explains how films and tv use visual sequences and composition to tell a story rather than having the characters explain everything in their dialogue.  I went back to my storyboard and looked at all the shots I had planned out and it became clear to me that some of them weren't showing the audience anything, they were just for effect. I have since then been through and looked at each shot, seeing if I can change it so that it points the audience towards something in the scene that will give them an idea about the story or maybe what might happen next. For example, I have included more shot...

For my script feedback, I was told that my script was very dialogue heavy and would require good actors.  The first scene I chose was more dependant on the locations and the set design rather than the dialogue because I knew my second scene was quite dialogue heavy and required lots of good sound design.  I agree that a good location will be key for the establishing shots of the location of the scene as this is the first shot in the video and will set up the scene for the rest of the video.  I chose my second scene because I felt that it would give me a good opportunity for sound design. In the scene, the main character walks inside a building but the camera stays on the outside, following him along the different floors of the building.  In order to build up the tension  and suspense in the scene, sound is used rather than the audience seeing the action, they hear it. Lots of the sounds used are gun shots and people shouting. I will pre-record...

I have planned out the set up for my drama, including where I am going to place my characters and where I want the lights and camera to be. I have decided to use two lights in my set up, one to light up the background and create some depth in the shot, separating the character from the wall behind him, and the other to light up the face of the main character.  For my production design, I will bring in props to make the room look more like an office. These are some images that I used to give me an idea of what I want it to look like and the kinds of things I will need. I have included pictures of the characters children as that is part of my script and drawn pictures to put on the wall to emphasis his family orientated character. 

I have created a shot list to help on the day of filming. This is the shot loft for my first scene. 

To cast actors for my drama, I used Casting Call Pro. I described all our characters that I was looking for and made sure to mention their personalities and what I wanted from them. I also mentioned my location and filming dates.  When actors started to reply to my post, I looked through their profiles and watched their showreels to see which ones best suited my character descriptions. These are the ones i have chosen for far, I still need one more to play one of the Police Officers.  These are the two actors I have chosen to play my main characters. I think they best suit the roles of my characters are they are both have experience in acting and I think they'll both be able to take on the roles of my characters. 

Today we went to Whitstable to film my self portrait video. I also filmed Becca's as we had the same location. We went early in the morning so that it wouldn't be too busy and we'd have lots of space to film.  We had a few problems with the weather as it was very cold, windy and heavily raining. However this added to the whole effect of my self portrait and gave the videos and cold and moody tone which I like.  Filming the video went well as I knew what shots I wanted and had my storyboard and shot list so Becca who was filming could see the kind of shots I wanted. On a few of the shots, you can see some water droplets on the lens which at first I though would be a problem but after watching them through again, I liked the way they made the video look as they gave it a distorted and blurry feel.  Recording the sound was also difficult because the wind was quite strong which was mostly what we could hear I the microphone. Some of the sounds we recorded we ok to ...