Journal entry 15

Today during our lesson we began to finalise the edit by adding filters and fixing any small issues. We showed one of our teachers our edit and she told us to add filters to some shots in order to make them easier to distinguish between from other shots. For example, the shot of Ghanshyam tearing the wall down was too bright and seemed like just a normal shot. To amend this we added a filter in to make it look slightly more grey. This allowed us to know when the shot has changed. We also added a filter onto the desk scene to make it look darker so it was a little more realistic seeing as the shot was meant to be inside. These were the minor changes that we felt were needed in order to finalise the whole sequence, ready for it to be shown on Tuesday during our lesson. Our teacher wanted us to re-film the desk shots, however after we told her how the previous ones had gone wrong she agreed that it would be fine to then just put a filter on it.

Journal entry 14

Today after school myself and Ghanshyam stayed behind to finish the editing of our sequence. As the editor, Ghanshyam carried out the editing process whilst I gave him support whilst also working on my blog and research from other films in our genre. We managed to get the main issues solved concerning the editing and are now currently in the process of fixing minor issues like sound effects and the length of certain shots. By making minor changes to the length of some shots we feel we have made progress and are now almost ready to present our final cut to the class.

Journal entry 13

Today 3 members of our group (Me, Adam and Thomas) re-filmed the desk scene shots. However, as we were looking over it we felt the shots weren't good enough. Our cinematographer (Adam) didn't keep the camera steady enough. This wasn't stable and therefore needed to be stabilised through Final Cut if we decided to use them. The lighting wasn't as good as we hoped either. Because of this we decided we aren't going to use these shots and will either edit the current ones differently or re-film them in our next available lesson/ after school.

This is a picture of our set up which we used to shoot the desk scenes today. However, as stated already, we feel the shots weren't good enough so we decided to scrap them.

Journal entry 12

Today our group went up to Bexleyheath during out 2 hour media lesson to film the rest of our opening chase scene. We filmed the first 2 shots of this scene whilst we were up London but we then had to leave because of timing issues. We deliberately shot the first 2 shots so it would lead Agent X down a staircase into a car park as we already had the Bexleyheath ASDA car park in mind originally. We could then go to Bexleyheath during our lesson in order to complete the scene. Now all we have to re-film is the desk scene which we will look to film in our 2 hour media lesson on Thursday. Then we will edit it together and hopefully have the whole sequence finished by the end of this week. The filming itself went well. There were no distractions and the location itself wasn't that busy. It was a bit noisy, however that didn't matter as the majority of the scene is going to be soundtrack only.

Journal entry 11

Today all four of us in our group travelled up to London to re film the shots that were suggested to us when we showed our class our first edit. These shots included the briefcase exchange, time-lapse and the tilting shot of the mi6 building. We also added in a shot of the Houses of Parliament and the British flag on the top. We felt the flag was very iconic as it is a British film.


For the time-lapse shot we had to film it in a different location to the one we filmed the first one. This was because there was some sort of event at Trafalgar Square which was our first location. Instead, we filmed opposite the Houses of Parliament. Our feedback for this shot was that it was hard to notice me when I walked past the camera with the briefcase. One suggestion was that we should slow down the time-lapse in order to show me walking past the camera. We made sure when I walked past the camera it was relatively clear. The shot was also considerably lighter than the first time we shot it. We also added a completely  new shot which we came up with whilst we were in London. We filmed a shot of Agent X (me) walking along the walkway next to the River Thames from a high angle.


We also began filming our opening scene which was suggested to us by our teachers as our first edit was quite short. Our opening scene was a chase scene. We shot the first two shots of this scene, with Agent X spotting Morgan Freeman (villain) and turning to run. We then filmed Morgan Freeman chasing Agent X down a stairway leading to a car park. We will continue filming of this shot as soon as possible. For this shot we stuck to the characters we had assigned each other for the whole sequence. Therefore, I played the protagonist Agent X and Ghanshyam played the villain which is played by Morgan Freeman.




Here are some pictures of our filming session. Our cinematographers for the day were Ghanshyam and Adam. They both took turns with the camera and both contributed to the filming of all our shots.

Journal entry 10

Today in class we all decided on a new soundtrack for our sequence.

We showed one of our teachers and she agreed that it was an improvement on the original soundtrack we had as it had more momentum behind it and more of a beat and melody. Now we will have to make sure all the text is in sync with the soundtrack and that the shots are too. Our editor, Ghanshyam, has edited it so it appropriately suits the flow of the sequence at the start and when the title appears.

Journal entry 9

Today we showed our first edit to our class and teachers. There were a number of improvements suggested by our peers and teachers which we will take into consideration. Firstly, the soundtrack was a common problem. Many people shared the same thoughts as us where it doesn't really fit the sequence. One of our teachers also suggested that it never really picks up pace wise and therefore doesn't match the pace of our sequence as a whole. We will look into different soundtrack options and how they fit the sequence in the next few days and hopefully find a new one by the end of the week.


Another issue that was raised is the font of our titles. Many people agreed that the font of the film name doesn't suit the genre. To fix this issue we will go back into researching different fonts and experiment with them in our piece.


A few of our classmates also said it was quite difficult to distinguish the main character in some of our shots. This was particularly clear in the timelapse shot in Trafalgar Square. Agent X is supposed to walk in front of the camera with the briefcase before the timelapse starts. However, most people didn't actually realise it was Agent X who walked past the screen and suggested that we could maybe draw more attention to him. One way to do this that was suggested was to slow down the time-lapse as Agent X walks past, then speed it up again.


One of our teachers also said the table scene could do with improving. She said it felt like the table was empty and there weren't enough props on the table. We will have to come back to this shot and recreate the shot exactly how it was with the added props.


We have also been asked to create the first scene of the film itself as our sequence is quite short.

Journal post 8

The soundtrack for our piece was chosen off of the copyright free music website linked on the Welling Media and Film blog. We were reasonably happy with the soundtrack at first as we felt it suited the genre in particular. However, through the editing process we started to notice how it didn't completely fit the flow of the sequence. It was difficult to find a soundtrack that already existed that was copyright free and fitted the sequence seamlessly. The only real alternative to finding a soundtrack which completely suited the flow of the sequence was to make our own, but we all decided we couldn't do this as we didn't feel confident enough in our ability to do this. After we have shown our first edit to our class we will take on board the feedback and look to solve any issues raised whilst also looking for another possible few options for soundtracks.

Journal entry 7

For the past 2 weeks during our media lessons our group has been creating and editing our first edit of our title sequence. Our main editor has been Ghanshyam whilst myself, Thomas and Adam have been giving our advice and thoughts on how the sequence should be edited. We have also been working on our blogs and researching different fonts for the text that appears in the sequence. This is something I in particular have attempted to focus on and so far we have a possible 6 fonts which we could use for the text. Ghanshyam's role as the main editor means he has been in charge of putting all of our footage together, applying filters, cuts and transitions and adding text in. As already mentioned, we have all had a say in how the sequence has been put together and have helped Ghanshyam with the editing. On Tuesday during our double media lesson we will show our first edit to the rest of our class and receive feedback from them over what went well and what could be improved.

Journal entry 6

Today our group finished off our first edit of our sequence. We finished off the text and titles and now only have a few shots which we will need to re film. We may also reconsider the soundtrack and whether or not it suits the pace and flow of the sequence. We finished off by exporting the sequence from final cut pro onto Ghanshyam's USB to present to the rest of our class during tomorrow's lesson.The main shot we will need to redo is the exchange shot with the briefcase. Originally we had filmed the briefcase exchange shot right in front of the mi6 building. However, we felt the lighting wasn't good enough and the fact that we couldn't get a good shot of the mi6 building itself spurred us on to film the shot on the other side of the River Thames. Myself and Ghanshyam were the two actors in the shot. The main problem with the shot was the camera was tilted because one of the tripod legs was wonky. This meant that the whole shot was off centred and therefore needed to be redone. Also, Ghanshyam had already played Morgan Freeman in the sequence. This shot required him to play Michael Caine. Therefore it didn't make much sense. When we come to redoing it we will have either Thomas or Adam in our group playing Michael Caine alongside me in this shot.

Journal entry 5

Today we started looking at different fonts and ways to position the text in our sequence itself. We have a few ideas of fonts as shown below:

We will continue to look for other fonts but have decided that "xperia" and "breamcatcher" are the best fonts for the film title itself but not the other titles such as actors and the director.

Journal entry 4

Today our group put together a rough edit of all the footage we have filmed so far. It was a reasonable success with everyone that watched it. However, we did notice that a few of the shots were a bit slanted because of a slightly broken tripod. Because of this our group will have to go back up to London next Saturday in order to capture the few shots that had this problem. Only a few shots will have to be redone and these include; the briefcase exchange shot and the Big Ben and Houses of Parliament shot. We will also have to choose a filming day which has similar good weather to the original filming day in order to keep the lighting consistent throughout the whole piece.

Journal entry 3

Today 3 members of our group (me, Ghanshyam and Thomas) went up to London to film our establishing shots of the landmarks. The shooting went well, the weather was perfect and so was the lighting. We managed to film the majority of the shots on our storyboard with relative ease. Some of the shots came out blurry but we made sure that we filmed each shot at least 2/3 times.
 There was one issue with the Houses of Parliament show however. We didn't know beforehand that there was construction work on the Houses of Parliament. This meant that we couldn't get the shot we wanted to get originally and meant we had to improvise and change the shot when we got there. We weren't able to find out when this construction was due to be finished so we will have to go back at a later date and re-film the shot regardless. We managed to film in all the locations we wanted to including; the Houses of Parliament, Mi6 building and the River Thames. We also filmed our time lapse shot in Trafalgar Square with relative ease.

Journal entry 2

On the 16th of February in half term our group has planned to go up to London in order to take pictures of our locations and start filming for our title sequence. We will film our establishing shots which open our sequence. The locations we will go to in order to film these are: Vauxhall Bridge (MI6 building), Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the London Eye. There may be other places where we decide to get a shot of during the time we are there but the places stated are locations we will almost definitely visit.

Journal entry 1

Today we started creating and printing off props for our title sequence. A couple of our shots require newspaper clippings and articles. Because of this, one member of our group created some using Photoshop. Here is an example of these newspaper articles:



We also wanted to create an investigation wall for one of our shots. To do this we had to print off lots of different pictures off the internet of key characters and locations. We then got the permission of one our teachers to use one of their classroom walls to create this for our shot.






This is how the wall looked after we created it. We still had to remove the blue borders around the edge of the wall but other than that this is how it would like as the final product. When it came to actually shooting this scene we turned all the lights off and set up a studio light just off shot. We also experimented with shooting the scene with a Go Pro and a steady cam to see what gave us the best results.