Science Boys - Evaluation

During our planning for the Science Boys, we looked at scripts from The Big Bang Theroy to get inspiration for the type of film we were trying to create. Me and Kirsty soon realised that it was going to be a difficult task to create a script and this took up the bulk of our time. Also, due to casting issues our original script had to be altered as we only had two available 'science boys'. We wanted to create humour but also make it realistic for what British school is like, and this was great when we needed a location as we could easily use one of the school scicne labs. Contacted and arranging to use the space was easy, but we did have time restrictions on how long we could film there after school.

When it came to the shoot, I know see we should have done more planning. We took different shots from different angels and tried the actors lines many times to gt them right. What was difficult is we didn;t have proper actors and when doing a comedy this is vital as some of the lines didn't come off as they should have. We saw this later while editing and even cut out some lines which weren't working. During filming we had difficulty with the camera on getting its angle in the right position while it was on the tripod. Also, we had the difficulty of the humming noise in the scince lab which was really picked up by the camera. This also didn't give the film a crsip sound and later in editing we had to use backing music through then entire piece to try and make it sound more professional. In our final project, if we use a location like that again we will have to re-record our dialogue to ensure we get a crsipt sound that sounds as proffessional as the music.

We filmed most lines shot by shot to ensure our actors got them right and so we could switch between close-ups on each character. We tried a pan shot, which we used in the final film, to show the audience the setting and the relationship between the two characters.I feel if we continue with the concept of the Science Boys for our final project, we need to give our actors rehearsal time and even try and get ammateur actors as this would really help give the film its comedy edge. Also, the stroy-baord we created was too brief and when we came to filming we didn't take much notice of it which meant some of the shots we got weren't good enough. Also, when we come to filming again me and Kirsty now really know our strengths and weaknesses so we can take on roles that best suite us. While filming we were both doing a bit of everything and this sometimes made it confussiong for the actors who didn't know who to take direction from.

When we came to editing, we labeled all the shots so we know what we had to wrok with. We tried to get fast, clean cuts between each shot to provide the quick comedy but the light and sound is most of the shots didn't provide them with a good finish. We knew the music we wanted to use as it is used often in The Inbetweeners - which we also took inspiration from - so we were able to dowload it from musicaddict.com and cut it to suite out clip. The instumental at the beginning we knew would work best for our end sequence of freeze-frames of each of our characters so we cut the music for this. We wanted to use this project as an almost taster or trailer of Science Boys so really wanted to introduce the characters with these freeze-frames. However, in our final project we would like the gang of boys to be bigger so they can bounce of each other more.

Science Boys

Me and Kirsty created the idea of the 'Science Boys' and decided to trial it in this continuity project as we would like to do a better version for our final project. The conecpt is a group of science-nerds who are best friends but end up in detention.... The idea came from us wanted to create a British teen-movie that would be fun and we used inspiration from The Inbetweeners and The Big Bang Theory. So, here is the taster of Science Boys- it's a little rough and has taught us that A LOT of planning and some better acting will be required if we want to use this idea for our final project! However, enjoy.....

The Prisoner Evaluation

It was a lot harder than I first thought to produce a small piece of film like The Prisoner which i did with Kirsty. Firstly, we anotated our script so we knew what shots we wanted, camera angles, how we wanted our actors to deliver the lines, where we wanted them positioned etc. We clearly had a hiccup with filming due to our camera, but that got sorted.

My favourite shot in the Prisoner is when Sam (Number 2) enters as you get a silohette of his head and shoulders and he looks very demeening as we used a low angle shot. It was Kirsty's idea to use the Moby music which we'd seen in the Bourne Ultimatium movie. It stsa good atmosphere for our short film and the identity theme which is in both movies was why we picked it. Using the music throughout The Prisoner makes it much more efeective to watch and makes it sound more proffessional thna it did when we cut the music only to the beginning and end.

Another part I love in The Prisoner is the end when we used the effect of cross-disolve in the editing process so Sam's laughing face in close up would gradually appear over Billy (Number 6) crying. We slowed down Sam's laughing to make his voice sound deeper and scarier but also to make the ending much more dramatic. I also like how we bring the volume of the music back up at the end which overall I beleive gives The Prisoner a very powerful ending.

During editing we did realise that we needed a few more shots; we didn't feel we had enough footage of Billy and also some of the cuts we had to make due to lack of footage meant there are jumps in our editing. We tried our best with the shots we did have and the overall finish doesn't look horrendous! Next time though, we will definatly do more repeats of the same shot to esnure we get an excellenct finished product.

The Prisoner...finally here!

Here is mine and Kirsty's 'master piece', The Prisoner. Due to rendering, the film begins 55 seconds in, so don't fear the black screen at the beginning....and enjoy!

Blooper Reel !

Working with amateur actors meant we had a few mistakes made with lines. But lucky for you, we have made them into a Bloopers Reel! Enjoy this tiny taster of The Prisoner...coming soon.

Filming Began...then Stopped...then Began Again!

Yesterday, me and Kirsty filmed our our first scripted & planned short scene 'The Prisoner'. Of course, there had to be some hiccups, the main one being our video camera wasn't fully charged and ran out 15 minutes into filming! But, luckily, the schools FLIP HD video camera came to the rescue! We mamaged the film the entire scene on this camera which meant we got some really intimate shots.
We also did a mini casting session in the sixth form common room and managed to recruit two actors, Billy Bradshaw & Sam Humby, to play Number 2 and Number 6 in the scene which meant me and Kirsty could do the camera work and directing fully.
For the setting for scene, we chose the ambiont drama studio as we could get the room really dark to acheive a mysterious and shadowy effect. It turned out as a brilliant place to film as we could get a totally black background and there was facilities (like toilets!) near by.
We had to do numerous takes of each shot so we could get the right angle and make it look the most effective. we also had to do a few extra because Sam & Billy forgot lines, or laughed, or weren't in the right position (check out our coming soon Blooper Reel for those takes!) We are in the editing stage now, so watch this space for The Prisoner, coming soon....

PS a huge thank you to the dedication of time & effort of Sam and Billy!

Camera Angle's....

Me and Kirsty created some differnt camera angle shots and put them together to improve our camera skills. We created our very own 'dolly' using a wheely computer chair and then stood the tripod on top of the chair to get a smooth point of view shot. It took a view takes to stop the wheels bumping into chair legs, but we got it! We also had to slow it down which gave it some drama too! Hope you can spot the shot in our short video.....