Filming Update...

We have now filmed all of the footage needed for our programme. It altogether went very well with only a few minor problems along the way, which we easily overcame. 

It took five main shoots to film everything for our sketch show: 

- The interviews in central London.

- Shannen's house to film paranormal activity and some of the challenges. 

- A multi-storey car park in Kingston to film some footage for the 'Annoying Chav'.

- Shannen's house again to film the rest of the challenges and another section for the 'Annoying Chav'      feature. 

- The green screen room at university for the introductions for each of the features.

• The main problem that we had when we were filming the interviews in central London was that the boom mic wasn't functioning properly. We made a bad mistake in not actually testing any of the equipment before we went to shoot at this location. When we got to our first location of the shoot (at Covent Garden) we realised the wire that connects the mic to the camera which we had been given from the loans room was faulty. There was not much that we could do about this, we had lots of footage to shoot, a tight time limit because of the daylight hours, and also didn't know of any technical shops in the area which could sell us a new cable for the boom mic. Because of our tight schedule, and the fact that we had all taken time to travel into London and meet as a group, we made the decision to try and film the interviews anyway. We thought we should see how they sounded when we got back to the edit suite, and if we decided that the quality wasn't good enough we could go back into London again and film the footage with the fully functioning boom mic. Unfortunately the weather was fairly windy on that specific day so the sound quality of the footage we took wasn't great. However, when we uploaded the footage onto Final Cut we played around with it for a while and managed to add some effects and filters and the clips all now have a good, clear sound to them which we are very pleased about. 

• The change in lighting was also an big issue that we faced when filming. Because we filmed the footage in the autumn, the times at which the lighting and brightness changed was different from shoot to shoot. In each of the shoots we were on a very tough schedule to get everything shot before the brightness changed and the light disappeared. We were very aware of this issue when filming, we made sure that there was no big difference in brightness from shot to shot, we knew we could get away with a little bit of difference by changing the filters and settings in post production on Final Cut. 

• Getting people to answer questions for the interviews was also an issue which we came across when filming. Approaching people and asking them to answer a few questions was much harder than we first anticipated, when some people saw that we had a camera they seemed to get scared of us and avoided us. At first it was quite daunting going up to complete strangers with a camera and a tripod and talking to them but as the day went on we all got more confident and we were getting better answers and responses to the questions because of it. 

• The green screen studio shoot was really successful. We all had experience of using it from different projects that we did last year so we made sure everything was planned and thought about before we went into the studio. This meant filming these scenes were very straight forward and took a lot less time than it could have done. Because everyone in the group had experience of using green screen before the editing of this was also made very easy and once we got the footage onto Final Cut it was very straight forward and the technique's needed for this quickly came back to us. 

Script.

This is the script for our television programme (the name of the programme is still undecided on at the moment). Obviously the individual lines may change during the production of the television programme if we find that some of the lines don't fit, or we find a better way of delivering the line. However, this is the basis of what will happen in each scene of the programme. 114930492-Script

Paranormal Activity Spoof Phone Conversation Script.

This is a rough script for the phone conversation in the Paranormal Activity trailer spoof feature.
Paranormal Activity Spoof Phone Conversation Script

Paranormal Activity Movie Spoof - Plan

For the film spoof we have decided to recreate a trailer for Paranormal Activity. It will obviously be slightly different to the actual version because it's a spoof so we are trying to make it humorous and funny for the audience. Below is our plan for this feature, it will be enhanced by the short sharp editing style and music which we will use. It will probably change slightly during the filming and post production but it roughly outlines which shots and scenes we want to include in this part of the programme.

• Image of house in blue light CCTV style. On screen title - opening 2012.
• Green background with the text - "The following preview has been approved for appropriate audiences by the motion picture association of America".
• Various shots from different place around the house - it's empty, creates tension and horror, and shows the girl is alone and has the house to herself
• Still image on screen before: 'nothing can prepare you' in big bold letters.
• DAY 1. Door opens, 3 second pause dog lifted up in front of the camera (with horror sound). Slowly zoom in. 
• DAY 2. Girl on webcam sitting on her bed. Curtains slightly open for light.
• Shot of the 'ghost' in bed sheets with comedic eyes and mouth drawn on. Girl invites her friend over because she's scared and can hear strange noises.
• Girl goes to the toilet, leaves some food on her bed (clear shot of this) ghost comes in takes bite of food, the girl then walks back into the room and goes to her bed. She notices that her food is missing/ has been eaten then ghost makes noise etc... they both scream - close of of ghost and girl screaming)
• Various shots of the girl running round the house looking really scared, close ups of her face and in some of the shots you can see the ghost in the background following her around the house.
• DAY 3: bedroom door opens. Ghost goes in watching her sleep. Girl wakes up, screams, then rolls off the bed. This creates a loud bang then there's silence for 3 seconds and then the ghost helps the girl up back onto her bed, girl sleepily thanks the ghost.

Treatment

To help us with the planning of our production we have produced a treatment form. This document gives a small summary and synopsis of what our programme will be about and what it will include  It also covers every aspect of our production in relation to the roles and jobs which we each have assigned between us. Obviously these will all cross over slightly and we each want to have a go at all of the different roles so we gain more experience and learn from this production process for future projects. It's just a rough guide to who will mainly be in charge for each of the different components of our production. 

Programme Name: Still unsure of this at this moment in time

Genre: Comedy

Brief Synopsis: Our programme will be a comedy sketch show which would be uploaded to Youtube and other streaming websites (such as Vimeo) once a week. We are aiming for a cross between Armstrong and Miller and Balls of Steel. The programme will include a variety of  sketches and entertaining scenes from things such as; interviewing people, taking part in challenges and also playing pranks on the general public. The main basis for the programme is going to be three girls (me, Carys, and Shannen) who are all friends and together they create, produce, film and edit the programme to be streamed online on Youtube each week on our channel. Our channel can also included behind the scenes features, bloopers and what each of us have been up to during the week when we aren't filming the programme. We will also present parts of the programme and star in it at various points. In the programme we will include features such as; interviews with the general public in various famous, recognisable landmarks. In this we will ask them random and crazy questions which people will give comedic answers to and hopefully the audience will find them funny and be entertained. We will also include film and trailer spoofs, making fun of certain films and recreating them in a humorous way. Challenges will also take place throughout the programme. The presenters (Me, Carys and Shannen) will take part in these challenges to portray across to the audience the fact we are friends and have fun making the programme. These will be things such as; trying to eat 20 McNuggets in 2 minutes, eating doughnuts without licking our lips, how many Ferrero Rocher can we eat in a certain amount of time, and trying to eat some very sour sweets whilst keeping a normal face. Archetype characters would also be used from week to week if this programme was to be continued. This would bring some familiarity for the audience and would also help to bring them back to watch the new episodes each week. These characters would included people such as 'The Annoying Chav', and  'Lord Gaga' just to name a few. The archetypal features would also have their own titles, this will helo to introduce their character to the audience.
 

POSITION	JOBS	NAME[S]
Director of Photography	Shoot film.  Sound.  Lighting.	Carys Marchant
Director	Direct film.  Continuity.	Lucy Mannall
Producer	Oversee and drive people and the project.	Shannen Williams
Researcher	Find facts, people, locations.	Carys Marchant, Lucy Mannall
Production Manager	Organisation.  Call sheets. Recces.  Risk assessments. Point of contact.	Lucy Mannall
Writer	Write links, VO, scripts.	Shannen Williams
Editor & Post Production Supervisor	Digitising.  Editing.  Graphics. Play out.  Compression and delivery.	Carys Marchant, Lucy Mannall, Shannen Williams
Talent	Acting.  Presenting.	Carys Marchant & Shannen Williams

Possible names for the programme

We have been brainstorming some different ideas for names and working tittles for the programme these are some of the ones we have come up with and discussed so far: 

• You've Been Fooled
• PR4NK 
• Just For The Lols
• Laugh Out Loud
• Pranked
• The Prank'd Show
• Frivolty

Developing our ideas as a group

Over the past few weeks we have  been meeting as a group to discuss and further develop our ideas. We have put together a structure for the programme and decided which features we want to include. 

The main structure at the moment is as follows below: 

• Opening title sequence. 
• Introduction: Presenter introduces the show and explains what the show is about and what's going to happen. 

(Before every sketch a still shot introduces the characters/performers that are about to appear in each of the scenes) 

• Entertaining interviews with members of the public

          - Possible questions: 

             What would you do if you was invisible for a day? 
             What is the worst lie you ever told? 
             What is your best chat up line? 
             What is the worst excuse you have ever used? 
             What is your most embarrassing moment? 
             What is the weirdest dream you have ever had? 
             What is your best impersonation? 

• Punk’d: a prank is played on someone and they are secretly filmed to show their reaction and how the behave during it <- Still needs developing.

• The annoying chav- washing car prank x2

•  Film spoof trailer - Paranormal Activity spoof trailer

• Lord Gaga - using the green room and filters and effects on Final Cut. Making fun of Lady Gaga. Enthusiastic over the top performance/mine over the top of one of her songs

• Challenges: Eat 40 chicken nuggets in 20 minutes… How many Ferrero Rocher can you eat in 5 minutes…Eat krispy creams without licking your lips..... Eat sour candy whilst trying to keep a normal face

Locations for each of these features:

• Introduction/ opening sequence - green room studio

• Interviews with the general pubilc - Trafalgar square, Buckingham Palace, Covent Garden, Camden Town, London Eye, South bank street performers.

• Challenges - Someone's house, McDonalds, Krispy Kreme

• The annoying chav car washing prank - Shannen's house

•  Lord Gaga - Green room studio

• Punk’d - n/a, needs further planning

Initial thoughts and ideas for a pitch

1. My frist initial idea is a video blog (vlog). This would include someone infront of a camera talking to the audience, maybe telling a story, doing challenges, or asking his or her viewers questions on several subjects. This video would be fully interactive, smooth, and lively to keep the attention of the audience throughout all of the video blog. To exhibit knowledge and understanding of software such as Final Cut (and also make use of the green screen) I would create opening tittles for the blog which leaves lots of scope to do many different things and use lots of different effects. This idea doesn't have to be a person just sitting infront of a camera in their home. To make it more interesting and varied, I would shoot some of the footage at several different locations as well. The main person/ presenter involved could possibly venture out onto the streets asking people questions and their views on different topics. See video below for an example 

2. The second idea i had was a tutorial of some sort. In the video the audience could learn how and attempt to do something new. This could be literally anything such as; how to make a pillow case, how to apply make up, how to play a certain song on a musical instrument or how to cook a certain type of food. If I was to make more videos for the Youtube or Vimeo (etc) channel then they could follow and theme. For example the channel could be about Japanese culture or cooking in general or how to play a certain style of guitar or drums. This gives us lots of scope to work with and we could also use lots of effects with the editing software in this video as well. See video below for an example 

3. For my third pitch idea I thought we could make a promotional video for one of the University's sports clubs. In particular, The Cycling Club. My flatmate is the president and I am also apart of the society. This means it would be very easy to gain access to shoot footage and interviews with the people involved. This video would be used to raise awareness of what the club do and give the audience any information that they would need about the club if they were interested in joining. The video could also include interviews with people on the club's committee and the current members getting their views on the club, why they joined and why other people should join. See video below for an example.

Project Brief

In this blog I will be sharing my thoughts and ideas, during the process of creating my group's short audio and visual video to be streamed online. In this project I will be working with Carys and Shannen. I am confident that as a group we will work together and cooperate with each other to produce a high quality video that we are all pleased with and proud of. We all have experience in working in a group format to create audio and visual texts, and we currently have lots of ideas and inspiration to be doveloping and working with.