Preliminary Task (Feed The Fish)

This is our Preliminary Task, Feed The Fish,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7K63whp6ww

Director's commentary of train-station scene (Robyn)

Shot 1/2 (Close-up of Jade crying and smoking)
We really liked this close-up shot of Jade because she was crying and so it would immediately draw the audience in. In instantly creates enigma, as the audience questions; who is this girl?, why is she crying?, how did she get a black eye? The enigma we created here is important because the audience will want to get these questions answered and thus watch on. We can see from this shot what social group our media product will 
represent, for example the cigarette, black eye and the fact that Jade is crying, show that it will represent a troubled teenager. 
Shot 5 (Long-shot of Jade kicking bag off bench)
We used this long-shot because we can see the whole of Jade, meaning the clothes she wears and the setting that she is in. These both represent connotations of her as a character and of the genre of our film. For example, we can see that Jade has spoiled make-up, messy hair, dirty tracksuit bottoms, the pink holdall and the parka jacket, showing that she has been living rough recently, and has ran away from home. The fact that the clothes cover up her entire body signifies that she wants to cover up as she has been exposed, which we will see through the film, particularly within the theme of prostitution. 

Shot 7 (Close-up of Jade texting)

We decided to include this shot because it creates tension, as we wonder who Jade is texting, telling them that she is 'coming'. As this scene will be shown again at the end of the film, we will be watching with extreme worry over whether Jade will go back home, back to the gang, or commit suicide. However, by showing this at the beginning of the film, the audience are completely unaware of who she is texting and where she is going. We also liked this shot because it showed Jade's hands, which relates to the bedroom scene where she writes the letter to Emily. We also decided that later on in the film, when we have gone back in time to before the train-station scene, we could show Jade painting her nails in the orange colour that we seen in this shot; relating the two together. The painted, clean nails represent how Jade is trying to do anything she can to make herself clean, and to cover up the sinful things that she has been forced to do throughout the film. Throughout our production, it was important for us to consider that the train-station scene would be shown twice, once in the opening, and once in the ending. This meant that it was important for us to bring up significant themes that would relate to other times in the film.  

Shot 8 (Extreme Long- shot from behind pillar, panning Jade walking to the rails) 

We really liked this shot, particularly at the beginning when the pillar takes up most of the frame. By the shot focusing on the pillar, the audience can recognise the rough and grimy setting that Jade is desperate to get out of throughout the film. The fact that Jade walks away from this and the camera pans away from it, could signify that Jade is finally escaping. The fact that Jade is walking slowly really forebodes that something bad is going to happen. 

Close up of Jade sitting on edge looking to the right

This still shot really shows the audience Jade's feelings. Particularly when we see this shot again at the end of the film, as we have watched the whole film solely about Jade, this shot will really touch the audience as we have seen everything she has been through. 

Last shot (Empty bench)

This shot really emphasises the fear that the main protagonist, Jade, may have just killed herself, and we will not find out until the end of the film what actually happens, creating a mystery within our film. By showing the empty bench we really notice the fact that Jade has gone, as we have watched her in the station for the whole of the first scene, the audience will now be completely shocked, and engaged to find out why she killed herself. 

Things we learnt through editing.

During the editing process, we have learnt many things that have helped us to improve our film:

• We found it really helpful that before starting we had copied and pasted all our clips, so that we had two of every shot, in case we edited a clip and wanted to use it again in the future.  
• Due to the two times that our work got completely deleted, we learned the importance of regular saving and saving our work in many different locations. 
• When we filmed, for some reason, the camera didn't record any sound, meaning that our opening is completely mute. Fortunately, there is not any dialogue in our opening, but we now have to edit sounds into our film, in particular, the sound of the train coming, the ambient sounds in the background, and the noise that Jade hears to make her jump. 
• We learnt how helpful it is to have a second opinion on the opening as it is always hard to find criticisms in your own work.  

Editing- Titles

Today during editing, we added titles to our sequence. We had to come up with a name for the production company, and we decided on using Greenway Pictures, as we thought it sounded professional and fitted in well with the tone of our film. As the tone of our film, particularly the music, is quite slow rather than high packed with action, it looked nice to have the tiles come up separately, rather than over the shot. Therefore at the beginning of the film I added a black shot with the title of Greenway Pictures, and then the first two shots of the film play, and then another title shot comes up, saying "A CNR film, as these are the initials of all of our first names. This adds to the tension of the opening, and emphasises the slow pace that we tried to achieve. It also makes our opening look much more professional, especially as we made it so that the music starts before the first title appears, and we made the singing start again whilst a new shot comes up.
We also added titles over the shots. Although all of us took on each role of production equally we decided to make the titles: Directed by: Robyn Archard, Camera by: Chloe Thomas, and Edited and Music by Nephthys Foster. Unfortunately, for some reason the shots that this titles are over have gone blurry, for some strange reason!! We are hoping to fix this in our lesson on Monday.

Actor/Model Research

HANNAH WATSON

To play the role of Jade Owen we chose Hannah Watson. Hannah is an A-level drama student and achieved high grades in her GCSE drama exam. We chose to use Hannah because she is one of our good friends and she can adapt into different roles regardless of who is around her or where she is. Which is a good quality seeing as she did not mind that people where staring at her when we filmed the train station sequence at Hampton wick station. She was also very professional when it came to filming at both locations and she got involved and shared her ideas as to where the camera should be which was very helpful and fun.

JADE OWEN


The character Jade Owen is a troubled 16 year old who has overcome many problems in her past such as her mum dying and her dad falling into a deep stage of depression and alchaholism. Up to now Jade has stayed at the family home with her sister Emily (12 years) however her dads depression is increasingly getting worse and as he takes it out on her she feels the need to run away and start a new life .. leaving behind he young sister Emily. Jade is a delicate character but she also knows how to stick up for herself as she is very streetwise. However she tends to often get involved with the wrong people which lead her into more trouble. Throughout her journey she has a deep feeling of guilt for leaving her sister at home with her dad. Another increasing feeling of hers is loneliness which she tries to overcome during the film.

Problems during editing!!!

On the 17th of march we experienced a huge problem whilst editing, As we started to edit our final shots the hardrive unexpectedly shut down. Because imovie was still running it had deleted near enough all of our work!! which we all found very frustrating. However our teacher brought in the technician who was still unable to retrieve our previous work. Therefore we had to start all over again. But fortunately the clips where still saved onto the computer meaning we did not have to upload them again. Because Robyn and Chloe had a lesson to attend i offered to stay behind and begin editing them again and was joined by Chloe after school. After around 2 hours we had finished the editing and was quite relived. HOWEVER the next day we went to our lesson and got told that once again we had lost all our work this made us all even more frustrated because of the time we had both put into it the previous day. Our teacher brought in the technician once again yet he was unable to restore our work, this time all our clips where gone as well. Therefore we decided to use a different computer and Robyn uploaded all of our clips again and began editing them. Myself and Chloe then stayed after school to just run through the sequence one more time shortening the clips as we had run over the time limit and also adding the music to our sequence. We have now finally saved our work and hopefully it will still be there tomorrow.

Recording Song - Nephthys

Today I wrote and recorded the song to go over the sequence in which Jade is packing her stuff to leave. The lyrics and pace of the song symbolise her feelings representing her as a girl who believes that she does not need anyone to guide her into adulthood instead she can now stand on her own two feet and fight her own battles In order to do this she shuts down her blinds symbolising a new start. However throughout this bravery she experiences many painful memories which she tries to overcome and not think about yet they only bring her down. I named the song "Shutting the blinds" because it is one of the main phrases I use during the song as it expresses Jade's feelings towards preparing herself for a new start by shutting everyone and everything in her old life out by metaphorically "shutting her blinds". I recorded the song on abelton live which is a digital audio work station (DAW) also using the recording equipment i have at home. The song was not that difficult to write as I had a lot of support from my group giving me ideas of what the song should represent and what feel and effect it should have on the audience.


You can listen to the preview of the song here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb-7SF6kN0c&feature=channel_video_title

Filming

Today we filmed our opening sequence. Here are some photos:

Location Research

Today we researched into our locations. We only need two different locations for our opening sequence, and have chosen to use a bedroom and a train station. We decided to use Nephthys' bedroom, and used Google Maps to find close stations that we may be able to use. Eventually, we decided on using Hampton Wick as it is small and 'trampy', which would therefore give off the right vibe that we wanted to set. Here are some photos of our locations:

Hampton Wick

Nephthys' bedroom

Today we researched into how to make a bruise, as we want to do this when we film on Thursday. We watched a video on Youtube on how to make a realistic looking bruise, and we followed the steps on Nephthys. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BAf1yiXehs&feature=related
We were quite successful and think the black eye looked quite good. However, we think that we might buy some theatre make up or face make up to give a more realistic effect.