Shooting Our Second Scene

Our second scene was shooter than our first but it included dialogue which meant we needed to bring more equipment. It was a morning scene so we turned up on set (our friends house) early that day. We wanted to make the most of the morning light so we began filming as soon as possible. We followed the story board, capturing shots and spontaneous shot ideas until we got to the dialogue scene. This was a conversation between the younger brother, Jason, and his older brother, Michael as he went out to work. 

 

To ensure our productions high quality finish, we used the shotgun microphone I talked about in a previous blog to record the characters dialogue. It was quite simple because the mic plugged straight into the camera using an adaptor. Then we got our friend to hold the microphone above the characters but out of shot using a microphone stand, recording their audio in sync with the visu al being picked up by the camera. 

Shooting our Third Scene

This scene is key to the build up in our production, it is essential that we got this scene right so that we could really set the scene for the later events. We needed to get the location right so we came to the conclusion that the side streets in Jericho would fit just right. This scene is where a gang member finds Jason and gives him the gun in which he will kill the hitman with. For the gang member, we asked a friend who fit the profile of the character and could drive for the start of the scene. Zach was happy to play the part and we started filming.

For this we used many different varied shots inculding a time lapse of the street, this added a really nice effect of time speeding by and then Jason walking into the shot after it had slowed down.

We then used many point of view shots to aid the dialogue and from there the focus pull of Jason walking away after collecting the gun and walks away down an alley.

Final Locations

After Dan, Dave and I all agreed on our ideal locations for filming. We decided to come up with idea's for good places to film close to home. After a lot of driving around, we decided a good place to start was Cowley in Oxford. The blocks of flats and run down streets it was ideal for us because it the just the look we were after, hoping to give the illusion that we were in rough area.

After choosing this, we needed a house to use as the home of Jason and his older brother. We needed this to be realistic in the fact that they wouldnt have a big house, and needed the rooms to act as a young lads room. We used a friends house for the scenes in the lounge, kitchen and the older brothers bedroom. For Jason's room we used Dan's bedroom as he had the right look for Jason. With some good editing we were able to make it look like the rooms are all in the same house.

 

 

 

For the end scene it is key that the look was right. We needed a underpass or bridge to use, for this we are going to use one it Botley. It has the right image due to the graffiti on the walls etc. Key to our final scene.

 

 

BFI - British Film Institution

Earlier this week, my A2 class and the AS class went to the BFI (British Film Institution) in London's Southbank for study day on Youth, Media and Collective Identity. Ran by Matthew Hall (Head of Film and Media Studies at Seven Kings High School). We started off with a presentation on Collective identity, we looked at a pyschoanalyst called Jacques Lacan who proposed the mirror stage in a young child. This is when a child begins to develop their identity; recognising self in the mirror. It is believed that this is done to find identification and aspiration. This is influenced by the media as we again use TV/film as a ‘mirror’ to back-up our identity. However, media portrayals can sometimes be inaccurate. Stuart Hall believed that we accept, negotiate or interpret influences. It depends on the audience interpretation. Hall continued to propose his ideas on 'encoding/decoding'. This theory is about how media messages are produces, circulated and consumed. Later on, We went on to look at Youth Culture in British cinema. We looked at and analysed a few different film clips for example The Wild One, Quadrophinia and Kidulthood. I have included the clip from Quadrophenia below.

This clip was used to show the Youth Culture in the 1960s and showed the huge gangs of mods and rockers at the time and the problems that they caused. This clip gives the impression that the youth of this time were extremely rebellious and very badly behaved.

During our time at the BFI we also watched a screening of the film My Brother The Devil. This is also a film about modern day youth culture but it has a very dramatic twist in it. I have also included the trailer from this film below.

This film has some very clever shots and editing that show enough for the audience to understand whats going on but not give away too much. This i feel is a very clever way to keep the audience interested in the film and keep the general edge of seat action flowing.

Looking back at our day at the BFI, i defiantly gained some new ideas about youth culture in Britain and how this was built up over the years. Considering our short film includes the theme of youth culture it was very helpful in giving us ideas about our own piece and helping us broadern our own production.

Research into Similar Products - My Brother The Devil

My Brother The Devil is a British urban youth drama set in Hackney. The story follows two teenage brother's struggles growing up in East London and face conventional issues of media aimed at a young audiences including voilence, drugs, money, sexuality, gang rivalry and theft. The story is about the older of the two brothers trying to keep his younger more innnocent brother from making the same mistakes that he did getting himself involved with gang and drug crime when he was younger. From what we see from the film the two brothers have an extremely close relationship as the older brother plans to move his family out of hackney and send his brother to collage

I think the film portrays the sensitive issues from this genre very effectively but at the same time exaggerated for dramatic effect. There is a big twist about half way through the film, where it turns out the older brother, who was homophobic and sickned by it at first, comes out to be gay. This adds a fresh layer to conventional urban dramas that explores masculinity, cultural roots and beliefs about sexuality. It was very hard for older brother to realise he was gay when he was against it for so long by the pressures of the gangs in Hackney.

This is similar to the plot of our short film as are two main characters are the older brother, Michael and younger brother, Jason. Michael is a hard worker who wants to keep his brother out of trouble and off the streets. Similar to how Rash looks over his younger brother Mo. However, we wanted to go against the classic conventions by having the brothers living on their own without their parents making it a more diverse situation. We will also use the more frequently used conventions of urban youth dramas such as slang, drugs, guns and crime.