Planning and filming.

The start of this lesson was spend story boarding the task. Catherine and I worked on the technicalities like a reasonable plotline and camera work, while Ash came up with general ideas for props and costume and generally put his ideas in. Trisha put a few ideas in at odd times.
Catherine drew and wrote the storyboard out neatly, however since none of us were very good at art, stick men were used to get the camera angles and storyline drawn.
The story is about a pizza delivery guy, who goes round to a woman's house to deliver a pizza, with murderous results. We wanted our piece to be original and creative.
We came to film, we needed a hat and a pizza box for props for Ashley. After requiring them we started filming. We had to wait a while as another group was using the room that we needed.
We began using a low angle shot of Ashley's feet to the door and carried on from there. We found our main problem was the light in the corridor and room. We got a small industrial light, there was a small problem with lack of sockets. When that little problem was sorted, we found the light was too bright and revealed every shadow possible. After a few goes at moving different pieces of equipment, we found out how to position everything right and began filming.
Next lesson - Carry on filming

Introduction Lesson - Blogging, Using Cameras, First Ideas.

Using the Video Cameras
Just incase my notes go missing.

Tape goes in upside down.
- Clean camera lens with a tissue, not your finger.
- Keep filming is the same aspects. (Widescreen, 16:9)
- Check recording format is set to slow play. (SP)
- Play with Manual focus, not just automatic.
- Audio should be recorded in 16bit, NOT 12bit.
- Pre and post roll (Record 5 seconds before and after action)
- Pan wider that needed. (Smooth pan, rather that jerking)
- Always use a tripod. (Only handheld when needed)
- Don't point the camera at the sun. (Causes glare)
- Rule of thirds. (Stick to the lines)
- Ambient sound - Record background noise.
- 180° Rule - Stick to one side of the line, less confusion.
- White balance
Set location up, get blank white piece of paper taking up the whole frame, set white balance. Must keep balancing when in different locations.

Introduction
Introduction into the coursework tasks. Given a sheet, which outlines the tasks for coursework. Then set up our blogs, I've never blogged before, so this is a new experience for me.

The Preliminary Excerise seems pretty easy, I've edited clips into short films before, but never shot them myself so I think it could be good fun. We were shown a few good and bad clips from the previous year, one that completely broke the 180° rule, and by doing so, has made the clip very confusing.
I'm happy about the group, Trisha, Catherine, Ashley and Myself. There doesn't seem to be any immediate conflicts, hopefully it'll stay like that.
We're all enthustastic about the project coming up with quite a few ideas.
We want it to be quite creative, we know it doesn't have to be, but it's a good time to practice for the main project.
We brainstormed some ideas, we know we want it to be quite dark and scary. Even though it's only 30 seconds. We were discussing the different rooms we could film in, there doesn't seem to be much of a challenge where that's concerned.
Next lesson, we'll develope more on those ideas, and hopefully choose a direction to go.