Goodbye...

: ( Hand in time

Overall Project Reflection...

Overall Project Reflection

As I've said many times over on both my blog and in my research book, I was extremely apprehensive about this project. Although excited I was also worried about how my lack of knowledge for film might hinder me, especially in the editing process. I think I'm much more of a thinker then a doer. In both this and the Creative styling project I have really enjoyed thinking of a concept and putting the research in behind it. As I feel to be honest this is my strongest area. Although I've surprised myself in this project, not only have I work hard producing my research book and ensuring mine and Rosie's concept was water tight, and made complete sense with the words we had been given, I feel I have got really stuck into the process of filming and editing, I have completely surprised myself.

The 3 words Rosie and received were Marios Schwab, Silhouette and Wild, on first thoughts I was glad we were given a designer I had heard of, as already ideas were flying through my head. I think we did really well to get Schwab and silhouette as Schwab is famed for his body conscious way of dressing women. As me and Rosie researched we found a distinct contrast between Schwab's past and present collections, once were deep, dark dresses made from mutilated sheer fabrics were now pastel and nude coloured soft and flowing organza. We found the contrast really interesting and knew we wanted to incorporate it into our film. After a lot of brainstorming, we decided to use our technical effect Silhouette, pretty literally and knew we wanted to focus on the human body and its perception. After a lot of debate we came up with a 'beautiful suicide'. We wanted to take something as dark and sinister as suicide (referenced from past collections) and make it soft and beautiful (as seen in previous collections). We thought this was quite an original idea. We incorporated our mood of wild, by shooting within a forested area, and by using water as a medium throughout our film.

Our filming day went perfectly and I feel we got all the shots we needed in order to successfully produce our film. I think this is due to the sheer amount of testing me and Rosie did. We visited our location twice before we shot in order to take stills and mini film clips, to make sure it looked good on camera, it was safe for our model, and so we knew exactly what we wanted to achieve so we didn't waste time on the day. If it wasn't for this I don't think it would of been as successful.

I also feel our editing process ran smoother then I expected it to be, although attending all of the tutorials on Final Cut Pro, I still didn't think I had any idea on how to use it. I was right to a certain extent. Me and Rosie had to spend a day acquainting ourselves with what tools did what in order to start making our clips into a film. Once we got into it I found we were very efficient, time wise it making our film what we wanted. Although we have just spent 2 whole weeks in room 205b. Never again.

All in all I'm so proud of what me and Rosie have achieved. I think I have learnt a great deal throughout this project including how to extend my research of a good concept, how to use Final cut pro and technical knowledge for film effects. I have completed all the aims and objectives I first set out to achieve and for that I'm really pleased. I knew at the beginning of this project the standard I wanted the film and my work to be, and I feel I've exceeded my own expectations. At times I have found the project hard, getting to grips with technical effects but it is such a huge pay off when you watch your finished article. I think everyone on the course has done brilliantly this project, and I think we should all be extremely proud of our work and what we have achieved. I know me and Rosie are. I am really looking forward to seeing everyones at the screening event.

Testing Testing Testing Part 2..

I've not to overpower you with videos. But I wanted to include the test's me and Rosie went out and filmed before we took part in filming. We realised the importance as this, as it was going to be FREEZING we didn't want to be messing around all day deciding where to shoot. Therefore we had planned out already where we were filming and what. Although this slightly varied on the day, we stuck around the same area, near the cars so Sophie could go and warm up if necessary.

We also needed to test out the water, as we didn't want to just 'throw' Sophie in. Both Rosie and I donned our wellies and went off on a little adventure. Ending up extremely wet and suffering from a fever for the next 4 days..

I'm really glad we made the time and effort to go and make test shoots, as I really think it helped with how smoothly our filming went on the actually day. We were completely prepared in order to get what we wanted shot wise and came out successfully.

Im so pleased with myself this project, I think I worked my utter hardest and Rosie too. I feel so proud with what we've achieved and its through sheer determination and hard work. By going on and testing everything we were more then prepared to make our film, and I really hope this is shown in our final edit.

Testing Testing Testing...

Press Release...

Rosie and I completed our press release today, and I think its looking good. We changing the format in the end. As we think the one we first made was far to busy and distracted from what we were trying to say. Therefore we went for a much more simpler aproach and set our text over a still from Mote park and Im really pleased with how its turned out. I have included both of the pictures in my research book as for some reason my blog isn't letting me upload... I have also included in my research book my knowledge of how important a press release is. Please refer. Thanks

I think our press release flows really well with our film and represents it successfully.

NEARLY FINISHED eeepppp....

I feel like I have been spending my ENTIRE life in room 205b...Which by the way is the worst room in uni...Please someone fit some air con... (Moan over)

Me and Rosie are so close to finishing our film...Everything is pretty much done, except we are unsure of what to have for our title....At the moment it is 'We all have stories to tell' but we think this might be a bit cheesy as this saying is also in our film....We can always have it as a back up and are going to brainstorm ideas over the weekend....Hopefully one of us will come up with something good.

Over the weekend I am going to have a think about our press release as well as we haven't done this yet...This is mondays job....

This is the first project I have felt really on track to finish and have genuinely enjoyed...I didn't think Film was for me but now I'm not so sure, i've surprised myself with how motivated this project has made me...

Check list of things to do:

Finishing touches on film and compress onto disk - Monday

Press Release - Weekend and Monday

Research Book - Weekend (So close to being finished)

New Story board & Mood board (Weekend)

Here's our so close to being finished final edit... (Finally worked out how to upload it) YAY

Final Song Choice...

So today me and Rosie decided on our final song for our film...After a talk with Geraldine the other day she advised us to not use music as she felt it would be to boring and suggested we had a look at suicide notes and talking over the top of the film. I really didn't like this idea to be honest...

Therefore we have rethought and have decided to use an instrumental piece from the sound track of Amelie, I think the music works really well with our film and helps to create such a dramatic, sombre mood...

Here is the song for you

HOW'S IT GOING SO FAR...

Once again all day has been spent editing, except the screening event information with Dennis. Im head of Logistics lets hope I can live up to that role.

Today Rosie and I spent time putting finishing touches into our film, adding the music and credits. We did this to ensure it looked professional before showing Olle and Geraldine tomorrow, for the last opinion.

I managed to catch Dennis just before he left and asked him to take a look, just to get his thoughts and to see if he likes it. And he did : ) yay....He said it was brilliant how sad we had managed to make it, and how well we had used 'the power of suggestion'. I think this has restored faith in my work again as I was getting a little fed up with it. I guess when watching the same footage over and over again you will be bored and it will suck. But deep down I know I've really loved doing it and would love to do something like this again.

TTFN

How I love you Cross Fader...

Rosie and I had been really struggling with how to gel our film together. We had our timeline set out pretty quickly, but didn't know what else to do with it in order to make it flow. We played around and we managed to find the CROSS FADER...what a dream. I think sometimes it can look tacky and make films look over effected. But I think it works really well in our film. As our mood is soft and flowing we didn't want anything which took away from this and made it too jumpy.

I then also worked out how to create layers and opacity fade in and outs. This is unbelievable, this is exactly what we wanted in our film to make it look dream like and surreal. I really think our film is starting to take shape. Me and Rosie have been listening to a few of our song choices, and are still at odds and ends as what to have. We know when we hear something perfect it will stick. But we do have alot of choices.

Anyway back to finishing my research book.

I...

HATE EDITING...THANKS

Rough Edit 1

Crazy times, Me and Rosie spent all day at uni today in that god awful stuffy room....But we survived with the help of chocolate fingers... I was really apprehensive today about editing as I was really worried it would put a downer on my confidence in this project as both me and Rosie had no idea how to work Final Cut Pro...We have both been to the tutorials, but putting that into practice seemed a lot easier said then done.

We went with high hopes for the day and I feel we succeeded in what we wanted to do. We had a slight problem at the beginning. We forgot to shut down FCP after setting the system preferences, after wasting an hour...We got back down to business and carried on with what we wanted to do. In the morning we managed to rename everything and get all our shots into a timeline of how we wanted them to appear. This was actually harder then I thought, although we both had a rough idea in our heads of what we wanted, when pasted together it seemed very different and we had to shuffle some shots around. We finally had the shots in the correct place and went for lunch.

After lunch we played around with different affects and trying to learn how to link all our shots together. We played around trying to create a grainy effect...We didn't manage to do this as it seemed far to static and tacky. We will definitely need help from Geraldine/ Olle on how to create this. Hopefully we can get the effect we want. We did find whilst messing around, The feather effect, which we really liked as it gave our film a sort of old effect which we think looked pretty and really beautiful... We will keep it on for the time being, we can always remove it as I have a feeling the tutors wont like it.

Our film is made up of alot of different short shots and we really need help in learning how to connect these fluidly together, as our film is mean to be slow and beautiful we don't want quick cuts and the film to look to jumpy..

Overall Im really pleased with our first edit..Its starting to take shape. Fingers crossed for tomorrow...

Im having trouble uploading onto my blog..I will try and sort this out tomorrow, so you can see the progress we made today

TTFN

xoxo

Silhouette...

Here's a few images from my Silhouette folder...I wanted to show you the different types of silhouette Me and Rosie have been looking at...

These include:

• Conventional silhouette (Blacked out body)
• Shadow
• Reflection

Today..

I've been at uni all day doing Dissertation stuff...Was pretty boring, especially as me and Rosie just wanted to crack on with our editing.

Seeing as we now don't have JVD tomorrow, were getting into uni at 9 (eeeeeppp) in order to edit ALL DAY...

I've just spent 2 hours sorting out all of my research in order to print off and stick in my research book, about 500 images later, It is all sorted out into 6 separate folders of, Mood, The Human Body, Silhouette, Wild, Colour Palette and Marios Schwab..Now just to get it stuck in the book.

I've decided to do a research book even though we don't need to as I don't feel I've been able to expand as much on my blog as I want to. I want to be able to show you, the tutors, my exact thought process and everything that has gone into producing my film and how I got there.

TTFN

xoxo

This song is perfect...

Found this...

I came across this photo shoot on a blog I follow...I love the colour palette, and I think it sums out mine and Rosie's outift choice really well...

One last post today...

My very depressive friend introduced me to a band, Eluvium today, who specialise in instrumental pieces, I've fallen in love. I thought I definitely wanted lyrics for our film, but the more I listen to these two pieces the more i'm not sure. The song I will not forget that I have forgotten, was so powerful and touching in such a raw format.

Possible Song Choice...

Such beautiful lyrics...

I wish I was special, your so very special, and I'm a creep...

Virgin Suicides...

I came across these stills on a blog a while ago (Beginning of project) and I really wanted to know what film they were from... FINALLY found out where from... The Virgin Suicides. So today I have expressed order from amazon and cant wait to watch it...

Interim Presentation Evaluation...

I wanted to do a mini evaluation to let you know my thoughts and feelings on how I feel our project is going so far.

So we have just finished week 6, and this is one of the first projects I feel I have truly been able to be as creative as I wanted, and for the first time think it will actually be successful. At first I was petrified of this project, I had never done film before and looking at previous years of the cut I never thought I would be able to pull off something so epic. But how I was wrong. I feel the lectures have been really interesting and helpful this project (What on earth would we have done without Geraldine) and when it came to the nitty gritty of shooting I felt confident in both the styling of the model and the film, and although we started to panic and stress I feel Rosie felt the same.

We managed to decide on a concept pretty early on in the project (roughly week 2) which I think really helped as it gave us 3 weeks to research extensively into our concept and helped prepared us for the shoot. We both looked at different moods, uses of angles, silhouettes (our technical effect) and looked for different locations.

I feel this helped us to be more prepared come shoot day, and touch wood so far nothing has gone wrong. We successfully completed our interim presentations, have converted our footage into Movs. Now all thats left is to edit and complete my research book. Although I know we don't have to hand in a research book, I still choose to do one. It helps me to see my work when its on paper in front of me. And I have used my blog as more of a learning journal and feel I need my research to back up my blog...

TTFN

xoxo

There was a time when my world was filled with Darkness...

My favourite person in the world...Sky Ferriera, has covered a song bye one of my fav artists (Mike Snow)...The song is absolutely beautiful sung in her voice. Im in love. Deffo an option for our film...

There was a time when my world was filled with darkness

Then I stopped dreaming and im supposed to fill it up with something..

Boring...

Today Rosie and I have strapped ourselves to the computers and are converting our film footage from TOD files to MOV files... and it takes soooooo long... Fingers Crossed it will all be worth it in the end. I am really worried about the editing process as I think there is a quite alot we need to do in order to make our footage into the film we have in our heads. But we are both more then prepared to give 110% in order to make this film this best thing we have ever produced....

Im really looking forward to getting even more creative in the editing process, and so far in this project I feel me and Rosie have worked really well together in a team, and I would love to work with her again. I think this has helped us to keep clear heads throughout the project and hopefully create something we are both proud of...

TTFN

xoxo

Shoot Day...

Yesterday we shot the footage for our film. We wanted to try and get everything filmed on one day, as we knew out model would be FREEZING and we didn't want to put her through any more of an ordeal then she already was.

The day started at 11.30am when I picked up Sophie and bought her back to my house in order to prep her for the shoot. We tried on the outfit quickly to make sure everything was perfect, packed up an extensive supply of blankets, jackets and dressing gowns, to make sure Sophie was comfortable. When Rosie and Sam arrived (Rosie friend assisting us with the shoot) we set off in two cars following Rosie..my friend Lisanne Churcher also came along for the day (Eager to see what our work involves and to give a helping hand)....

Although we have already been to Mote park for testing, we needed to find the alternative entrance in order to get as close to our desired part of location as possible. After driving around for an hour and a half... (Rosie really didn't know where she was going and she also doesn't know where her indicator is haha) We finally arrived...

We got Sophie dressed and wondered off to start our filming....4 hours and 4 sandwiches later we had 4 hours of footage to play with... Sophie was such a trooper throughout, although absolutely freezing, we horribly asked her to get in the lake and didn't so much as care.

I feel we have really good footage to play around with, and it feels such a relief to have finished filming. ALOT of editing is needed before we can call the film perfect and our own, but it really feels great to have made such a strong start.

We also did our presentation today...I know i've already posted about it ALOT i'm just so excited that Geraldine and Denis liked the look of our original footage, and it has given me great enthusiasm to create something brilliant.

Here's a couple of stills from the day..Not that exciting as we didn't have time to be whipping out the camera as well as the video recorder. I had to help Sophie into the lake to show her that it wasn't that bad...God how I regret that...Overall though the day was a brilliant laugh...

Our Presentation..

Here is a copy of our presentation. When making our presentation we aimed to keep it pretty simple and to the point, we didn't want to distract the viewers with anything Geraldine and Denis didn't need to know.

I feel we managed to keep our cool during the presentation, we were really lucky as both me and Rosie are very confident students and I feel this was portrayed in both our presentation and our idea. We wanted to make it clear, that we knew what we wanted to achieve and we went out and did it...

TTFN

xoxo

Phhhheeewwwwww...

I couldn't wait to explain just how excited I was about what happened today. Me and Rosie were petrified as we only filmed yesterday we obvs did not have time to convert our files in time for Geraldine and Dennis to watch them today... We were really worried they would shout at us for not doing it... But we were wrong

We offered to go first as Rosie needed to go to London to help River Island with a press day. For once I wasnt nervous when presenting, I think it was because we had developed the concept. It was in our heads, we set out to be clear on explaining our concept and I think we managed this well, especially as our concept is backed up with strong research.

I feel we gained really strong feedback, and with no negative comments we were really relieved. Obvs we are going to get cracking on our editing, and with help from Geraldine and Dennis I feel our film could really be something brilliant.

Im happy Denis and Geraldine liked our concept and understood what we wanted to achieve, and from the small clips we showed, they appeared to be happy with the style in which we had filmed, they particularly liked our model choice. YAY

So all in all a brilliant day....Now to crack MPEG Streamclip and Final Cut Pro

TTFN

xoxo

Coffee smelling of Marmite...

Preperations...

Today we met our model for the first time. She was absolutely lovely and even prettier in real life, she is going to look perfect on camera. Her dark hair really suits the colour palette we've chosen to use. So I'm now really looking forward to shooting tomorrow.

We picked up some shoes, ribbon and elastic from town to put the finishing touches to our costume. We also needed to finish making our 'journal' as a prop, using coffee and images. It turned out really good....My housemate Lisanne Churcher (2nd year Atilier) has helped us make our costume, as the 'slip dress' needed taking in, and we needed to make a cape and ruffled collar. Thanks Lizzie :)

Im a little nervous about tomorrow, keeping my fingers crossed, lets hope Rosie remembers to charge the camera...

The images below show outfit inspiration from Marios Schwab Spring 2007 collect, Lizzie 'slaving' away and the final outcome of our model in our completed outfit, sorry about the bad quality...

Sorry Blog...

I have become a little complacent with you recently...This project is sucking the life out of me in a bad way. Me and Rosie plan to shoot on Wednesday so were in overdrive trying to sort everything out to make us look 'professional'... Haha..

I promise you an intense blogging session once the filming and presentation are over and done with

TTFN

xoxo

La La La La La...

Today I have been looking for more music suggestions for mine and Rosie film. I have been looking at another one of my favourite artists, GREGORY AND THE HAWK.... (Love), They create absolutely beautiful songs which I feel could work well with our style of film...

Heres a couple of videos, to give you an understanding of the type of music they produce...

TTFN
xoxo

A Chat with Dennis...

So less then 10 people turned up to our lecture today with Denis entitled 'Reviewing the footage' like a lot of people me and Rosie had not yet managed to film anything as we were on the waiting list for a video recorder. But all in all today was not wasted and Im really glad we went in..

We managed to have a tutorial with Dennis about our concerns about shooting, We were feeling positive today as we have just found a model and set a date for filming, so we felt very together and really on track..The only concern we had was staging our end scene, the drowning scene.

Obviously at this time of year, we really couldn't be putting our model in freezing cold water, take after take. Kim Howells in a previous lecture told us to look into using Rosie's pool..This seemed like a good idea but the more we thought about it, the more it seemed un obtainable. Denis told us to look into using the 'power of suggestion'...Suggesting she was drowning as opposed to showing it. This got us thinking maybe we could have our model walking into the water and quickly changing to the models dress floating on the water. We thought this could be really powerful.

Were going to Mote park on Monday to test it out and see what it looks like on film.. Im guessing one of us will need to get in the water...We should prepare for this...

TTFN

xoxo

So Excited....

TODAY WE FOUND OUR MODEL.....Me and Rosie did some Facebook stalking and came across a 1st year through mutual friends. Sophie Blakesly is exactly what we were looking for..She has long brown hair and such a pretty face, without being overtly in your face...Perfect for what we wanted...We contacted her on Rosie's Facebook and she replied instantly saying she would lov to help...

We are meeting with Sophie on tuesday to discuss our ideas, show her inspirational images and mood boards. Really excited to meet her, she seems such a nice girl..Now just to tell her she has to get in the lake..

This morning we went to uni for James lecture, he showed us short films from a previous student, Joelle Vosper. I was blown away by her stuff, I thought it was brilliant, and really helped me think a little more out of the box. It was a really nice atmosphere today, when discussing the films no one held back and it got really good conversations flowing. From my personal opinion it was really nice to see these films shot in such simple locations, but with good filming and editing they were made amazing, Her way of casting models was brilliant too..The models made her films and without them they would not be half as good as they were.

We held this in mind all day, but we knew Sophie would be perfect and didnt hesitate today is asking her to star in our film..How could she resist?

TTFN

xoxo

Under the Sheets....

Here's some mood boards and sketches I have made up for this project relating to 50's pin up and underwear. Looking at the way underwear dresses the body...

TTFN

xoxo

Someone told me that you still love me...

Rosie came across this song by Carla Bruni, and I absolutely love it... Its so beautiful. I translated the lyrics on google, and once you understand the pain behind the song its more then touching. Definite possibility for our film.

I’m told that our lives aren’t worth much,
They pass like an instant, like wilting roses.
I’m told that time slipping by is a bastard
Making its coat of our sorrows.
Yet someone told me…

That you still loved me
Someone told me…
That you still loved me.
Well ? Could that be possible?

I’m told that fate makes fun of us,
That it gives us nothing and promises everything,
When happiness seems to be within our reach,
We reach out and find ourselves like fools.
Yet someone told me…

That you still loved me
Someone told me…
That you still loved me.
Well ? Could that be possible?

TTFN

xoxo

Bettie Page

Is a pin up star of the 1950's. I have been highly influenced by her style and what she stood for. She used her body as a sexual tool, and to me she is still seen as a highly influential icon. Here are a few of my favourite images I've found of her so far...What a babe...

TTFN

xoxo