Production Meetings

Group: Grace Lester and Sarah-Louise Horne


Short Film Title: Lost


Tuesday 13th October 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 9:00 – 9:45am

In today’s lesson Zoe gave us the task of deciding whom we were going to work with for the duration of the production. Sarah and I decided to work together as a team as we believe that only having a small group of 2 it will be much more efficient as the work load can be split equally, also being friends we are able to contact and discuss ideas and issues about our short film in the future.

Thursday 15th October 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 10:50 – 11:50am

Today was our very first meeting in thinking of many ideas about our short film. Zoe instructed each person to compose a short story so that we can compare them when finished and then go on to decide which idea was the best one to use and the more realist one in being able to film successfully.

Some our initial ideas were:

· To make it into some form of horror or thriller that will have people thinking and wondering what is actually going on.
· Having a cliff hanger ending.
· Using the camera as a handheld – therefore making the film seem real life like it was an actual happening.
· Creating an element of fear for the viewers.
· Only have 2 main characters.

Tuesday 20th October 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 8:50 – 10:00am

As we had had both finished writing our shorts stories today we discussed in detail what one would be the best to take further and turn into a script ready to create a short film. My short story was called ‘Alone’ and Sarah’s was called ‘Lost’.

We decided to use Sarah’s idea which was about 2 young girls who are best friends, they go on a little road trip to go camping in the woods, when one of the girls disappears, Sarah’s character is left alone in the woods and is totally oblivious to the fact that she is indeed the murder and suffers with a mixed-personality.

We decided on using Sarah’s short story for we believe it would be more realistic to create, therefore making it seem more realistic overall.

Then we when on to start thinking about how the script was going to turn out.

Thursday 22nd October 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 10:35 – 11:00am

This Thursday we started on writing the script during the lesson, we will carry on with next lesson which is Friday, editing and debating the best way to portray our short film to the best of our ability.

Tuesday 27th October 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 8:45 – 9:30am

As we finished our script over the weekend by emailing each other to finalise it, today’s lesson meant we could start on the shooting script, so we decided to go into the learning centre to begin on it working together, which we will also be working on Thursday’s lesson.

Friday 30th October 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 1:00 – 1:45pm

In today’s lesson we had with us the completed script and shooting script therefore it was time to begin thinking of suitable locations to film and local woods and areas around the college to take advantage of for our filming.

Tuesday 3rd November 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 9:00 – 10:00am

Over the weekend Sarah and I had discovered the locations where our filming would take place, therefore today we are going on a quick location lookout, first to the petrol station that we are going to use which is in Henley – very convenient to film, our two other locations were in Caversham – at Sarah’s house and in a local woods near Sarah’s house which was perfect for what we wanted for our film. We took the hand held camera with us just to practice using it for an actual filming day.

Thursday 5th November 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 10:20 – 10:40am

Now with our locations ready, script and shooting script all done, it was now my job to complete the story-boards, therefore in this lesson I (Grace) got on with this job, whilst Sarah started researching and seeing how other short films are created on the computer via ‘YouTube’.

Grace will finish the story-boards over the weekend.

Friday 6th November 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 1:00 – 2:15pm

Today was the first day of filming, we decided on filming the car scene, where we are driving to the woods, we have decided to take and use advantage of all the little lanes and little woodland avenues in and around Henley to achieve this, we are going to be filming several shots from inside of the car for the duration on the lesson.

Tuesday 10th November 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 8:50 – 9:15am

Today we decided on filming another scene from our short film, being the petrol station scene which is in Henley. We are going to have to actually have to buy petrol and film smoothly quickly as the petrol station will be busy.

Thursday 12th November 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 10:30 – 12:00noon

Today lesson was all about editing the story-boards making them more realistic to what the filming will be, making them more reader friendly and described. We then planned on what filming we were going to do next lesson, after watching back some of our earlier filming of driving around we decided it need to be done again.

Friday 13th November 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 12:45 – 1:15pm

We had a quick re-brief of the script and the lines today before heading out to re-film the driving scene around Henley to create more choices when it comes to the editing.

Tuesday 17th November 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 9:00 – 9:15am

Today we did not have a day of filming and instead worked on our AS coursework which we have to re-submit in January and focus on that. We then discussed what to do on Thursday’s lesson.

Thursday 19th November 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 10:30 – 12:00noon

Today we decided to have a whole lesson meeting to see what section of the film we should plan to shot later this week, therefore organising the rest of the filming. We decided that we needed to film the beginning of the film, which is outside my house so we decided to go there on the Friday to shoot that particular scene as that is the only time we have available to shoot that scene.

Friday 20th November 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 12:50 – 1:00pm

Today we only had a short meeting creating lots of time for us to get started on the filming outside Sarah’s house. Where we are going to experiment lots of different ways throughout the afternoon, on using the hand-held camera to portray the most realistic way of acting and making the camera look like it’s just being used for a recreational activity and also getting in all the shots we need.

Tuesday 24th November 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 9:00 – 10:30pm

In today’s lesson we looked back at the filming we did for the beginning of the short film, seeing if all the crucial scenes and elements need to create the film we desire are there. We then talked about whether we should do a magazine article and a poster or a radio interview. We both decided that we should do the magazine article and the poster. So we have more time, I will do the poster whereas Grace will do the magazine article.

Thursday 26th November 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 10:30 – 11:00am

In today’s lesson we decided to start concentrating on the coursework for this short film, therefore doing things such as our diaries etc. we then planned to film the opening sequence of our film in tomorrow’s lesson, which will take place outside Sarah’s house, we also talked about the important aspect of keeping all the props, clothing and our hair and make-up as similar as possible throughout the filming process.

Friday 27th November 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 12:45 – 2:15pm

We when to Sarah’s house today to film the beginning sequence. We decided to take many takes, therefore having a much bigger choice when it comes down to editing.

Friday 4th December 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 12:45 – 2:00pm

Today we decided that we were going to start filming another scene for our film, the scene in which we are ‘driving to our campsite’ therefore from our recent location hunt, we has found some country looks and little woody areas were we thought would be perfect to film along, these roads were in Shiplake right near Henley, so we did this for the generation of the lesson.

Tuesday 8th December 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 9:00 – 9:20am

Today was a quick meeting on the best play to film our night scene, we discussed our previous locations that we had found abut wondered whether they would be realistic enough seeing as houses in the background may spoil the ‘Lost’ effect of our film.

Thursday 10th December 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 10:40 – 10:50am

Today just a very quick meeting to talk about our blogs and what was needed to be put in them.

Friday 11th December 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 1:00 – 1:30pm

Today we talked about whether we need to have sound within our short film. We came to the conclusion that we should but depends what music we have because of the copy right law and the mood we thought it would create, as we didn’t want to ruin the ‘fear’ and ‘confusion’ in our short film.

Thursday 17th December 2009

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 10:30 – 11:30pm

Today we are going to plan what we need to do over the Christmas holidays, we also went through the script and discussed what is left to film, and we found out that we have not got that much left to film but some of our work needed a few more takes, therefore we planned to see each other over the holiday to gain more takes of scenes and also to carry on with the magazine and poster that we were set with to complete as part of our coursework.


*CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS *


Tuesday 5th January 2010

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 9:15 – 9:30am

Today was the first lesson back from the long Christmas holidays, because of the heavy snow fall we couldn’t get to each other to film as driving wasn’t a possibility, also during the snow filming at to come to a stand still as we started filming when there wasn’t any snow, therefore the film would be obvious to all that it was filmed on different occasions making it look very amateur. So over the Christmas holidays instead we focused on the written work.

Thursday 14th January 2010

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 10:30 – 11:00

Today a meeting where we planned on the filming for tomorrow for the wood scene, we planned on what props we need to take, for example bags and a torch. Also what time of day to film in. we decided that about 5 o’clock was a good time as we get the dawn of night as well as the darkness to experiment with which was one is going to be more effective.

Friday 15th January 2010

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 1:00 - onwards

Our meeting today consisted of planning the nights plan to film the woods scene, we are going to go to Sarah’s house first and start the filming on the way there.

Tuesday 19th January 2010

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 10:45 – 12:00noon

Today’s lesson we looked at everything we recorded and then discussed if we needed to film anything to complete our short film. We decided that we needed to film a bit more of the journey and at the campsite for Friday, but apart from that everything else was complete and ready to start the editing process.

Friday 22nd January 2010

Present: Sarah
Time: 12:45 – 2:15pm

Sarah began uploading the film onto windows movie maker to start the editing process of the coursework.

Tuesday 26th January 2010

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 9:00 – 9:15am

As the saving of the film went wrong, we have to upload it again and in the meantime continue with the coursework.

Thursday 28th January 2010

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 10:45 – 11:30am

Our meeting today consisted of myself and Sarah decided on how to edit the film and yet again deciding on whether to add additional sound and other types of media, such as photos. We are planning on making the film a little confusing and twisted, therefore getting the audience hooked.

Tuesday 2nd February 2010

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 9:00 - 10:45am

Today we are organising all the coursework we have done and what is left to do, also up-dating the blogs and making sure everything will be completed for the hand in date.

Friday 5th February 2010

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: 12:00 – 2:15pm

We continued editing all lesson and including lunch, we will continue doing this for the next few lessons.

Friday 12th February 2010

Present: Grace and Sarah
Time: -

Today is the day of handing the coursework in.