Post 8 – Script Workshop

Over the past few weeks we have been researching important information that is relevant towards our final project; we have researched online and looked at many sites that give us details towards sexual grooming. First of all we thought of appropriate characters that would be needed for our short film, we looked at examples of who had been groomed in the past from the internet and ages of potential groomers. After we had done some serious research towards grooming and finding out important facts we then started to come up with a few ideas for relevant characters. In our group we sat down and discussed who we thought would be right for our film, if we use unsuitable characters then this may not get the point that we want to achieve across to the viewers. This is a key point of our film and we want the story of the film to be easy to understand, this will give the viewers more of an idea of who is being groomed and concerns that will lead to grooming. We also carried out some further research involving a member of staff who deals with the child protection act at our school. We asked the member of staff nicely to have a interview with us and give us some examples of what has happened in the past and how he has made rules to prevent this. The information he gave us was very relevant towards our project, the facts he gave us really did help with our project as we did not know this information before the interview. Before starting the interview we did come up with some relevant questions that were appropriate to ask, we also recorded the interview so no information was lost in the process, after this we then listened to the interview back and made some very crucial points for our short film outcome.

Before starting to write the script we needed a short story line for us to plan our script on, if we had not of done this then plotting the script would have been very hard. We discussed this in a small group around a school desk and focused on the script and how many actors we would need. Alex and Katie said that we needed to keep the script as basic as possible but create a story line that viewers will understand easily with no confusion. When discussing the script many errors and mistakes did appear but this was all in the process of making a successful script. The script features two young girls; one named Sophie who is being groomed in a disguised way by a character named Alan (The groomer). Alan has a daughter of his own named Paige who loves to have Sophie stay round and learn mathematics together. Sophie and Paige are good friends as they go to school together, they also focus on swimming together and race in many galas. This is a very short plot of how the story develops and we used this idea to create the script and make it a short film. The script had to be re-drafted many times but this was not a problem, we did this over and over again as we knew that every time we did this then the script would get better and this is how we developed the script. When working on the script we all had individual parts to take on, for example I stuck to a scene where Alan is approached by Police, this was a great idea as we all had a chance to show how we wanted a part of the script to go. This was also a very fair way of sharing the script, If we had let one person finish it then we could have disagreed and it would have been unfair as people in our group wanted to share their thoughts and opinions on what they thought would be a high standard script.

 

ND Neutral Density

Neutral density filter or ND filter will reduce the amount of light entering the camera, enabling a longer exposure time than otherwise possible. This can emphasise motion, or make a scene seem more real as the shot will be more in focus and will also make characters in films look more surprised when using a ND filter. Alternatively, an ND filter also enables larger apertures, which can produce a shallower depth of field, or achieve a sharper photo. Either way, this is a useful and often under-appreciated filter that deserves a deeper look. ND filters are also one of the easiest filters to use, and their effect cannot be replicated digitally at least not with a single shot.

We will be using the ND filter in our film when Alan is talking to Sophie and he seems surprised, this will give a clearer effect as the shot will be more sharp and focused. This is because the F setting on the camera will be lower to create more light into the camera making the shot more sharp, when the F setting is higher then this will reduce the light getting into the lens making the shot more dark and unfocused.

Colour Gels CTO + CTB

Colour Gels

In our group we carried out a Colour test using colour correction Gels, by using colour gels, or filters, is a process used in stage lighting, photography, television, cinematography and other disciplines. Colour gels are used to alter the lighting to make it brighter a blue gel would be used to warm the screen up, and an orange colour gel will cool the room down. In our group we thought the colour gels would be the opposite way around, I myself thought the blue colour gel would cool the room down but it does the opposite to this, the orange gel in fact cools the room down and the blue makes the room more warm and bright. Without colour correction gels being used this can alter the light in the recorded scene causing light to vary throughout the clip, this can make the scene have bad continuity as the light will change in each shot. Applying colour correction gels in front of light sources can alter the colour of the various light sources to match. Mixed lighting can produce an undesirable aesthetic when displayed on a television or in a theatre. In our group we used ½ and ¼ orange and blue colour gels; we covered the lighting with the gels and made sure all the wires from the lights were covered with black electrical tape to make sure it was safe.

White Balance test

In photography and the film industry white balance is a key part of making the colour realistic, Proper camera white balance has to take into account the "colour temperature" of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light. Our eyes are very good at judging what is white under different light sources, but digital cameras often have great difficulty with auto white balance (AWB) and can create unsightly blue, orange, or even green colour casts. Understanding digital white balance can help you avoid these colour casts, thereby improving your photos under a wider range of lighting conditions. We used our colour correction gels to help us create a bright or cool lighting and we used the colours blue and orange, when we used the white balance setting on the camera we held the colour gel over the camera, then the camera automatically adjusted it’s colour temperature to how the environment’s temperature is.

Lighting test to see the values of using Colour correction Gels

After we had completed our White balance test we then used the colour correction gels to create emotion on our characters face, for example I was the actor and we used Green and Red colour gels to bring out a emotional effect that can be seen easier when the camera is recording. To do this we covered the lighting with the colour gels using crocodile clips to make sure the gels were at a safe distance from the lights as they can heat up very fast causing a high temperature so could be very dangerous. In this test we also made sure all the wires from the lights were covered up with black electrical tape so that all students in our group were at full safety.