Film Synopsis- Maria, Chloe, Anna, Aisleigh

A reconstruction of the attempted suicide of Lucy Baker, set in the heart of south east London at the present day. In the UK there are around 400 recorded suicides per year. An estimated 30%-50% is under-reported. Masked with smiles and laughter Lucy lives life day by day; surviving. Oblivious to those around her Lucy is trying to find an escape, an escape from her corrupt past, an escape from her deteriorating soul and an exit from the cruel society that tears her down. Lucy finds herself battling with the tragic events from her past, present and unknown future. Unable to cope with the recent death of her mum and ongoing bullying; she feels isolated and alone. At 15 years old Lucy is emotionally frail and socially unstable. Confused and morally broken she begins to break down from the moment she says goodbye. Each day since the death Lucy gets emotionally unstable. Running seems like the only way of escaping her harsh reality. Frantic, quivering and distressed Lucy can’t help but fiddle with the pills that are so temptingly beside her. “Who would have thought something so small can cause something so immense?” Familiar tears flow constant and Lucy’s fate is undecided. With no one to turn to or heal her pain Lucy results to the only thing that’ll answer her echoing question, “When will it end?” For some people-including Lucy, death seems like the easiest and quickest resolution for unhappiness. This story reflects the unacknowledged seriousness of teenagers in need of help from there pasts and troubles.

Practice assessment evaluation -13 steps!

For this practice assesment me, Chloe and Anna worked in a group together to produce a short film called "13 steps". The brief for the film included a door opening with someone walking across a room to deliever short dialogue with another character. The technical brief included the 180 degree rule, shot-reverse shot and match on action.
We rated our clips as well as the other groups from level 4 being excellent to N/A. Overall we rated our own work between level 3 and level 2 basic. Some of the other groups rated our clip in the level 4 excellent category however, i feel that it was not that high of a standard as we had not completed all of the set briefs. Although we had this outcome the majority of others were in agreement with us.

The main strength for us was the editing. We used a series of different transitions ranging from fades in and out to overlaping clips. A good example of this was at the end of the clip where Chloe was asked by myself "what do you have to say for yourself?" All she does is lift her head and the same footsteps from the opening are repeated faded in the background to the full clip of them. This gives a really good effect as it is as if the feet are her thoughts to that question.

A weakness of our work was that we did not include a shot reverse shot between the two characters in dialogue. When we had finished the practical filming we did not realise, until we were editing, that we didnt have the shot. However, if we had the chance to do this again or to make adjustments then this would definately be one key factor we altered.
As for the sound in our clip we used a voice over of the suspects thoughts as she walked into the interview room. This was rather effective as the audience were engaged in this moment of the clip and understood what was going on. The other part of sound we used was at the end of the clip for when the credits ran. We used an investigation theme tune to link with the genre of our clip.

Overall, i feel that the production was a success as one of our first practical assesments. We all worked really well together in a group and i am looking forward to our real practical assignment where we can use all our new and old skills to make it more professional and brilliant.

Practice Evaluation

Filming
Two weeks ago we were put into groups of about 6 and were given a video camera. Our task was to produce a short film with the title 'The Accident'. The short film that I and my group produced went very well. We all had our own ideas and used them all to make our film as good as we could. Individually I got to grips with how to use the video camera as I filmed the majority of the film. We filmed with a hand held camera, used many features such as zooming in and out and shots at different camera angles. Our scenes were basic but the techniques we used on the camera made the clip much more effective to the title of the project. In my opinion the reason why our first attempt was successful is because we all worked as a team and spent time before filming planning what we were going to do. For future production I have learnt that depending on the genre of the project there are specific features available- like using the camera hand half to create a jerky view for a horror film. Also that our individual ideas could work even better if joined with other ideas to produce a more professional clip.
Another type of filming that our group produced was the ‘pencil case ‘scene. The difference with this filming was that we used the tripod for the camera. The point of this task was to use different camera angles and see how they effect the filming. This worked really well and we used over the shoulder shots, birds eye shots, corner shots and close ups. We all worked together in a team and it went really well. for the future I will use of the camera angles we used to help me with my coursework project.

Editing
I especially enjoyed the editing part of our task on the Apple Mac computers. Once we filmed our video clip about the phone call we used the editing software to cut parts out that we thought were unnecessary, add transition effects, titles and credits. At first I found the software quite confusing to use however, the longer we used it the more I understood how to do edit the clip. For this task I felt that our team work was not as good as it could have been as I personally only used the mouse for a minute of two. If I had more time on the mouse I think I would have been able to understand how to use it much quicker than I did. On the other hand we all had input to what effects were used and the timing of the clip. Our finale piece, when show, was not at all what we expected to see. There were blackouts towards the end cutting out most of the scenes. What went well for this section of our practise assessment was the different effects we used that matched the different clips. However, what didn’t work so well were the amount of effects we used that complicated the film. Also we tried to explore all the effects that were available in putting them into our clip but personally it ruined the end result. From this task I have learnt some good tips to assist me in future editing:
-To keep the editing simple!
-if using transitions to use them for a particular effect or use one consistently
-To make tight edits
-Try to film as much footage as possible for editing options.

Sound
For the last part of the practice task we were producing a soundtrack to go with our short clips that we previously edited. I really enjoyed this part of the task because there are so many different things you can control from the tempo to the instruments and melodies used. it was really easy to use and mix instruments from base to orchestras instruments. From the sounds you use you can tell a lot about the film that is going to be shown whether it is a thriller or a romantic genre. As a team we worked really well on this part and all had a go at adding and moving the sections of sound around. We all had our own opinions on the different sounds available but came to a conclusion that suited all of our types. Individually I submitted ideas on the length of the sounds we used and also on using a low drum base all the way through with the sounds with more impact over the top.