Term 4 LiaD Trailer and BtS - Production

The Plan
Our plan for the behind the scenes was to interview different people. We wanted to follow kind of a BuzzFeed format where people are interviewed in front of a green screen while providing not too long answers. At first, we wanted to include everyone's answers for each question, but since we interviewed so many people we had to cut it down. At that point we decided to select what we feel are the best answers for the questions.

The Shooting
Since we had to interview different people, and the fact that we had to book the studio and equipment and whatnot, it was a pain to get everything and everyone together and we struggled to follow our schedule. In the end, we ended up interviewing a total of 12 different people. The equipment we used was a camera, tripod and 2 LED lights. Minkee and I were the cameramen and Fajar was in charge of asking the questions. I also helped set up the lights and provided the SD card. Minkee and Fajar helped set up the rest of the equipment. On some shoots, one of us could not make so we sometimes needed help from the interviewees to setup.

On our very first shoot, there was a second camera available on the set. We decided to use that as a prop to give the scene a more 'behind the scenes' feel, and to help construct the image that we are film makers. However, the camera did not appear again in subsequent shots and thus we had to live with a continuity error. We can try to edit it out in post production if possible, otherwise we'll have to let it slide. Another continuity error we found is that in some shots the table has a green cover while in others it doesn't. This one we can't really fix without putting a lot of effort because of the shadows and arm covering.

Camera present on desk

Camera not present on desk

Table cover present

We think the lighting is OK but in order to really use the green screen we have to get it to be more consistent and have lighter shadows. We also think the sound is a bit 'echo-y', but it's not much of a problem.

We also had to reshoot some people a few times because of a few reasons. Some people weren't satisfied with their answers, and some needed to reshoot because of lighting errors or other things. Some also needed to reshoot because we came up with an extra question ; "Why should people watch it?" to get the audience more interested to watch our Life in a Day.

Aside from the interview shoots, we also shot scenery from around the school to use as filler footage and maybe cutaways, but our main purpose for them is to blur them out and use them as the background for intertitles. However, after looking at them, we think some of the clips can't make it.

The Trailer
We have looked at several trailers to give us inspiration to make our own. The first one we looked at was the original Life in a Day Trailer.

One of the things we decided to follow from this trailer was the jump cuts from different scene to different scene, like in 0:22 to 0:30, but instead of going from random scene to random scene, we want to make each scene connect to each other, but from the perspective of different people. For example, we want to show someone waking up, then cut to someone else brushing their teeth, then to someone else having breakfast, etc.

Other trailers we looked at included the Captain America Civil War trailer and the X-Men Apocalypse trailer if we wanted to go the "action" route.

In the end we were satisfied with what we did so far. We think the interview shows a bigger picture of people's opinions on the documentary. We believe most people answered truthfully, but some may not really have. We now have to face possibly the most frustrating and intense process of film making: post production.

Term 4 - Entry 1

At the beginning of this term we watched a short film called "7:35 De La Mañana" (7:35 in the Morning) and had to analyse it and writing the information on a timeline. The story is about a woman who goes to a cafe as part of her daily routine, but the usual atmosphere of the cafe is different. 

Unlike usually, everyone is quiet; and when she sits down with her food, people start glancing at her. Suddenly, a man starts singing and dancing and the rest of the customers join in, seemingly against their will.

We watched it bit by bit, analysing the setting, characters, mood and story. This took a few lessons, and right before we reached the end we had to make a prediction of what the ending will be like.

In the end, it turns out the man was a suicide bomber who wanted to confess his love to the woman. The police arrive on the scene, and the man goes outside with a bag of confetti and blows himself up. The camera cuts to the woman's shocked reaction, and the credits roll.

One thing to note about this movie is that it is in black and white. We discussed how the lack of colour adds to the mood, and the class agreed it helped make it feel like something unusual. There was also a lack of background music which, again, added to the mood.

Moving on from there, we later decided to start some work regarding the term 4 project. We formed groups and were allowed to choose between 3 different topics: Making a documentary of our choice, making a trailer for last term's Life in a Day, or making a tutorial for the Year 9s to promote the Film Studies subject. My group, me, Fajar and Min Kee, decided to create a trailer for our Life in a Day documentary. In our trailer, we also have to include a 'behind-the-scenes' clip where we interview some people involved in the creation of the documentary (aka our Film Studies classmates) and some of the audience who watched the finished documentary.

The questions we will be using for (most of) the interviews are:
- What do you think of the finished life in a day? 
- What inspired you to make your segment the way it was?
- What challenges did you face whilst making your segment? 
- What were you most proud of/what did you like the most of LiaD? 
- Would you have done it any other way? 
- What do you think life in a day means? 
- Rate it from 0-10 
- How would you describe it in one word?
- Why should people watch it?

A very basic sketch we used as a storyboard.

Our Timeline for the project:

Week 3 (April 18-24): Storyboarding and Planning

Week 4 (April 25-May 1): Test shots

Week 5 (May 2-8): Principle shooting of interviews

Week 5-6: Assembly editing

Week 6 (May 9-15): Re-shoots if needed, otherwise start post production

Week 7 (May 16-22): Post Production

Week 8 (May 23-29): Exams

Week 9 (May 30-June5): Post production

Week 10 (June 6-12): Final Edits, export movie then showing at Arts Assembly on June 10

We chose to make the trailer because we have learned the concepts on how documentaries are made and what role they play in the film industry. This allowed us to better understand what we want to do. Since we want to show our daily lives to other people, we want the trailer to show a smaller glimpse of that part of our lives. We chose not to make our own documentary because it feels too ambitious. We also chose not to do a tutorial because we thought it would be more interesting for us.

We started shooting on Tuesday, May 3. The location of our shoot was the News Production studio. We chose this place mostly because it is near to where the equipment is stored, it is isolated, and most importantly, it's a studio. Because the studio had a green screen, we decided to experiment with it.

However, one problem we faced was that the shadows and lighting were unbalanced and created visual artefacts in post production during our testing. Because of this, we decided to either leave the background green or change the colour, where the artefacts are less visible. Since we wanted to make the clip look like it was taken in a studio, we are considering leaving the green colour. This also explains why we left a redhead light and camera in the shot.

Despite this however, we are pleased with our current footage and we will continue shooting this week. We do realize we are running later than what we had intended in our timeline.