A TRIP OUT TO BAHLAM WITH DON AND THE CAMERA CREW.. ;)

Well well well.. A outing finally with Miss.Williams! :)


Today went great, first of all in the morning we all met up in the back room in the library and we were given a brief about what we were expected to see and what was to happen. Don was creating his own mini-episodes of a soap show which will potentially be a weakly downloaded clip and hopefully he could take this onwards to maybe even an official scheduled programme on television. After being explained, we travelled up to Bahlam by 2 separate cabs, on the way we saw all these beautiful views and venues around Bahlam and came across the common station. It was a relaxing ride up there, although when we got out of the cabs. It was freezing cold! 


We headed first towards the outside of a clothes shop next to "GC Kitchen" which was where the first shooting took place. At first we put all of our luggage down and discussed who shall be assisted by the different sections of staff.. after coming to a conclusion who we would all work with. I ended up working with the make up specialist Joanna Sim but we all called her Jo.


This is her professional work card:

Here are some of the examples of work that she has created previously:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Leer And His Daughters

This is what has been described for the purpose of her artistic work in her own works:

Feb 2010
This play was an adaptation of King Lear, set in the 1960's. I worked alongside other CBMA students doing 1960's make-up and hairstyles. It was performed at The Rosemary Branch Theatre, in north London.

         

• The affects that she has included in this women's face is simply amazing, first of all you can tell that the concealer she has used really stuns out the women's face and the small amount of blusher that was used on her cheek was a excellent affect because she has such high cheek bones it has a good reflect. 

• The red lipstick also blends in with the purple dress and blue eye-shadow because they are invert colours.

• I love the way she has done the eye-shadow because its an unusual look and the photography used looks professional, not a lot of people would think of doing that technique and both eyes look identical.

WOW! From this photo I can already tell that Joanna is quite experienced with working with Horror Film actors and their makeup. The storyline for this photo was of a young girl who committed suicide and as her parents were in struggle to find her, it was too late. She had killed herself and as you can see this photo is really affective and we can empathise the emotions that were going through the girls head, she must have felt alone and upset, or even heartbroken. This was a short film called One Last Note by Epping Forest Fleet.

• The makeup affect she has used makes the character look dull and deadly and her hair looks very warn out and dirty, she looks almost dead but as in she was born with no blood in her body. Her head looks like it could have the texture of rock. 

• Her lips blend in with her skin which is not good.

• Her face looks gritty and dirty, she also looks slightly bruised.

I enjoyed researching her work.. So as I was saying!

After meeting our working partners, we then were told to sit back and watch what was happening in the first scene, we were told to take some photos as well. 

• In this photo of scene 1 a women who is out shopping in Bahlam stops beside a shop window and slowly drops her bag and starts to gaze into the window and 'checks herself out'. She seems almost amazed with her new look . As if she had just came back from the hairdressers and had purchased a new cut!

•  Don the director kept cutting the scenes and many acts had to be done over and over again until she got it perfect. After the clip at that angle was perfect, he would then move it on to the next angle. He done this at least four times.. with the: close up, side view, long shot and ext. 

In this picture we can see Shenell in the same scene that the actress before was in.. that's because Shenell's job was to improvise and be a stand by for the lady. The camera crew wanted to use Shenell almost as a prop to see if the positioning for the scene was good.

After about an hour we headed off to our next location for scene 2..

Fortunately this scene was inside a posh pub which was very warm!

When we got inside we all headed off to our separate working spaces.. As I expected I had to watch as Joanna aka Jo as she created her master piece with her patients face. Although I did not get to actually put make up on someones face, I did observe the situation and I learnt a few tips on how to do a smokey effect with eye shadow. And I also learnt that even males(actors) get their make up done not just females (actresses).

After the actors and actresses were all dolled up, they then set up for scene 2.

This is a image of one of the heads of the film cast crew giving instructions to one of the staff telling them to adjust something in the scenery area used to produce the clip: 

This is a photo of one of the film crew showing us how they use a DVCM microphone enable to project the actors (in terms of both sex) voices. The lighting in the scene is bright enough to blatantly see that it is meant for a day line scenery.

    

This photo shows how the actor looks frustrated and angry with the actress as tension is building up. They have also positioned the microphone closer to the both of them, because what the actor was about to say was important and a highlight of the scene. 

This photo is VERY important - tit shows a various of activity happening. The main film recorder who is the director in terms of actually rolling the film who is in the black top looks as if he is focusing on something near the wall.  Whilst Don is the overall director is exploring it with him, they are setting up and everyone is getting ready. The script writer in the pink shirt seems to be interested as well, but the man with the long hair in the greenish top is more worried about getting lightening and sound to be in good condition for the next scene.

So can you see how everyone is connected? And trying to do their best as a team to make this mini-film happen?!

This last scene .. Scene 3 was intense.

Don used a technique with the position and height differences with them both to show how tall the actress looks sitting down as if to show how in power she is. She is blackmailing the actor with a tape proofing that he has been cheating on his fiancee (pronounce fi-onse-say). His attitude seems as if he is trying to put on an intimidating act, but he knows that he is desperate to get that footage. He even offers her money, but she seems to be more interest in playing mind games with in. She seems logically intelligent and has a cheeky attitude. Kind of like the role of Janine Butcher from "EastEnders" when she blackmails Ian Bill.

After this scene, we received email addresses from the people we worked with and set off back to school 

THIS IS A PHOTO OF ME AND THE DIPLOMA CREW NEXT TO BAHLAM SUBWAY! 

Today was a great experience and I will never forget it :) !

Dance - MISS SHRUBB IS BACK!!

Words cannot describe how overwhelmed I am to have my regular dance teacher back. Ms.Shrubb was gone too long, I missed getting back into a regular routine of just having one teacher. *Phew* glad that hassle is over!


This lesson we spent the time to write out our Winter Evaluation sheet which we have to finish and put away in our examination folder. We had to answer questions such as?

• How has your presentation helped your overall created dance?
• How did you explore the theme of winter? How did this help you to create your dance?
• What movements did you use that is in the contemporary dance style?
• What aspects of the choreography/performance did you find difficult? What helped you to overcome these difficulties?

We had to answer all these questions and more.. on lined paper in which miss said we should write up on document and print out.

I made sure that my answers were full of detail and description. I included advantages and disadvantages, I also included the theory that enable for you to write and choreography a dance about winter. You must be able to understand it first, so I did some individual research at home about contemporary dance separately and how I could connect it with winter aspects to actually create a WINTER CONTEMPORARY DANCE PIECE. 

Overall, Today was a helpful lesson. :)

First Diploma Session - Director Don.

Today was actually quite interesting, I was introduced to our director that we will be working with for the next couple of weeks. Although, he was involved with a previous project which took place in June which involved the filming of a performance in the BFI project - which was a success. I feel as if I have accomplished and acknowledged a lot today. I learnt a lot of advanced physical work based on film, cast and lighting. First of all, I was shown how to put up a tripod and expand the three tripod legs. Which took me approx 5 minutes.




REGULAR UN-EXTENDED TRIPOD 






A Tripod as small as this could extend out to a tripod as tall as this..

Now can you tell the difference from an extended tripod to an un-extended one?








I also learnt what all of the technical names are for film casting whilst the camera was on role (filming) such as:

• Tilt: The camera lens are moved up or down whilst the horizontal axis is still constant.

• Zoom: The focus of the camera lens are changed, it can be tightened too make the view appear smaller or loosened to make view appear larger. Some camera's have different speeds than others! Beware!

• Pan: Moving the camera from one side to the other e.g from left to right, then right to left.

• Pedestal: Moving the camera up and down without changed the vertical/horizontal axis of the camera. Imagine as if the tripod is a body and the camera is the head, and you are just nodding the camera head up and down.

• Dolly: Stepping towards the target of the scene whilst keeping the zoom the same at all times.

• Truck: Similar to panning but rather than moving from one way to another, this hand-held technique most likely e.g trucks to the left and constantly follows the women down the road. 

It might seem like a lot but seriously its not that far to figure out. Although, all of the above are hand-held techniques. But to make any of the footage look  good the tripod and the camera must be screwed on properly and in a good maintainable stand. Don (Our Director) taught us how to use the controls on the 3.2 Mega Pixel camera.

Heres some of the other equipment we used

3.2 MEGA PIXEL CAMERA "16 ZOOM

• This camera is the highlight of our equipment - we use this enable to capture the footage of the film.
• Our camera was a typical 3.2 mega pixel, but 
• the molecules in the camera was highly clear.

RODE Directional Video Condenser Microphone (DVCM)

• This little handy tool is used to capture audio sound clearly without all the disturbances within the working space. Hence the reason why most films sound proffesional

Using this tool was actually quite interesting, because when the diploma team was testing it out. We chanted "bloody Mary" into the microphone and we attached it to the headphones and it sounded really spooky!

NORMAL SLR 3.2 MEGA PIXEL CAMERA

• This type of camera is specified to capture imagines and most likely does not have a sling fitted to it as it is hand-held most of the time but for some safety issues it may be necessary to attach it.

• We used this enable to capture images around the school of the diploma teams exploring places in which we could start filming in.

We came across places such as:

DEAD END OR NO WAY OUT SCENE

TRAPPED IN THE CUPBOARD SCENE

This spot in the maths room looks perfect for the scenes when the various of students are poisoned in the cupboards by the smell of roses and are surprised by the soundtrack to ring-a-ring-a-roses.

RUNNING SCENES 

This is a running shot and could be used for when a student is running away from danger and is in shock. This particular picture would also look good for a high angle shot.

STAFF ROOM SCENE

These two rooms would be really good for the staff room scene, especially with all of the draws and filing cabinets as the two rebel bullies could ramage through peoples files and look for thing to blackmail people and use their personal info to commit practical jokes on them.

OTHER LOCATIONS THAT COULD BE USED

Locations:

• Balcony outside the headteachers office
• SLC room (Staffroom)
• Detention room (RM 401/402)
• Maths storage room on top floor (*needs cleaning out)
• Corridors: Top science floor, Hall at bottom floor 
• House on off site/on site

We also rehearsed through our scenes and we decided that our horror film is going to be based on improvisational and not a script. Plus it will be more enthusiastic that way because lines and facial expressions will come without practise and it makes us look professional.

Here are the Characters: 

(*cast list)

Character name	Character traits	Year	Played by
Courtney White	Good Girl	2011	Aaliyah Bell
Tammy	Bad bully	2011	Deme Bekir
Dawn	Funny bully	2011	Shenell Poorman
Kimberley	Believer bully (emo)	2011	Jessica-Lily Ellis
Teacher	Ms Graham	2011	Actor
Teacher as child	Bella Graham	1991	Shyanne Watson
Cynthia Walters	Murder victim (unseen)	1971	-
Caroline Warren	ditto	1991	Naomi Mwakamowo

Because, I play a much more logical character, I like to play a lot of mind games. We rehearsed the first scene when Tammy (Deme) and Dawn(Shenell) are the two cheeky bullys. Whilst Kimberley (Me) and Courtney (Aaliyah) are just thinking that they are such immature idiotic attention seekers in detention. This scene went well and I think we got through a lot, although I found trying to find my characters overall personality difficult to create. But then again the character is 
what you make it! 

There was a bit of a hard decision deciding who should take the place as the main character, Courtney (the nerd). They both had to improvise for a mini-audience as to how Courtneys reactions would be locked in a cupboard. I was amazed with Aaliyah's acting skills, she just blew me away with her facial expressions and tone of voice. With the standard of her audition, personally I would have believed that; that was practised before. Because, it was that enthusiastic and great. She is very advanced when it comes to drama, she did not even hesitate to laugh with is quite hard to do with the maturity levels of our generation age group.


Demi's mini audition went well aswell, she was very enthusiastic, but she needs practise with repetitive lines. She kept saying "Oh my gosh!" and "Oh my god!" too many times, which looked unprofessional - that is probably why she did not get the part.


We also played a game where we would have to pass the bottle around and say the months of the year - This is 
practise for us to be able to let one person speak at a time.




Photo of the game:







Here is another photo of Me, Naomi and Demi testing with the camera and looking away for effect:

Today was great and I got a great experience

BYE! THNX 4 READING ;) 

Storyline For Our Horror Film!

This is the full story line in detail:

Horror Synopsis

Timescales:

1971…… 1991……2011

Act 1

Flashback to 1991, the cupboard – delirious girl sings ring a ring a roses as she dies (because the chemical inside smells like roses). Friend outside can’t get her out for fear of the bullies. Film this from inside the cupboard only.

• the detention room – Courtney is telling the flashback. It happened in 1971 as well. Every twenty years, a girl is murdered.
• Teacher says story is a myth and begins to stammer. Bullies make fun of Teacher, she runs from the room in tears.
• Bullies turn on Courtney – she’s not one of them, why is she here?
• Lights go off. Ring a ring of roses outside.
• Girls rush out, find her keys/belongings

Act 2 (a)

• Courtney and Kimberly go to the cupboard. Tammy and Dawn don’t want to and go elsewhere.
• Courtney explains why she’s in detention – because she thinks the ghost will strike again.
• Bad girls messing about – jump out of cupboard at Courtney & Kimberley. Courtney notices some of the chemical is missing.

• First murder (Dawn) – Tammy and Dawn off to do something bad (break into staff room?)

Act 2B

• Race to get out of the building – try windows, doors, mobiles, technology etc etc
• Ring a ring of roses over the Tannoy.
• 2^nd murder – run round the corner – one doesn’t make it. Discussion about whether to return or not.

Act 3

• Realise it can’t be a ghost, why would a ghost use the chemical?  They go back to the cupboard, realise chemical bottle is emptier than before. They discuss who will be the bait. Final girl must win.
• Tammy sets up video outside cupboard.
• Good girl in the cupboard – hears noise. Tammy tries to persuade them to go – this is a bad idea.
• Good girl tells bully to hide
• Noise
• Silence
• (teacher has returned for more chemicals)
• Teacher opens the cupboard & finds good girl.
• Good girl explains that bully is missing but set up camera & shows film to teacher. Behind Courtney, the teacher pulls out the chemical soaked rag. Courtney sniffs: can you smell roses?
• Return to 1991 – see the friend outside the cupboard. She has the same stammer/glasses as the teacher (something which links them together)

Here are a list of things that will be needed/included/used in this film:

Props:

• Rags
• Chemical bottles/containers
• Keys
• Computers
• Camera – video Spectacles (for teacher as child & adult)

Locations:

• Cupboard (in hall or classroom)
• Classrooms x 3
• Corridors
• Staffroom

Effects:

• ‘Ring a ring a roses’ on tannoy

We all had to write different summary plots based on which scene our charachter was in. I worked with Ms..?  to write my summary . Heres Acts 1 ,  2A  and 3.

Act 1 Plot Summary

The scene opens with the flashback to the 1991 of a girl called Caroline Warren being bullied at school by four girls and eventually ending up being trapped in a cupboard. As she’s dying she smells roses from the cleaning chemicals in the cupboard and to stay calm her self down she sings ringa-ringa-roses… Her friend hears her singing this so she comes along to see what is going on. As she approaches she hears that Caroline is in trouble and she hears Caroline cry for help. Her friend approaches the cupboard to help her out but hearing the bullies she runs off scared. A few days later Caroline is found dead, at this point the audience does not know who the teacher is in the following scene which is the friend in this flashback.

From the flashback the scene cuts to the present day of a group of students in detention for bullying. The four bullies are Tammy, Kimberly, Dawn and Courtney but in fact Courtney has another agenda for being in detention.  She is there to tell the story of the girl who died which was Caroline Warren. She has also uncovered another death which took place in the same cupboard at the same date which was Friday 13^th 1971. Courtney believes that something sinister will happen today as it is the anniversary of the two girl’s deaths. As she tells her story Ms. Graham starts to stammer meanwhile all the bullies except Courtney start to turn on the teacher and she runs out the detention room crying. With the teacher gone the bullies then turn back to Courtney and questions her motives being in the detention room. Courtney finally confesses that she thinks this is going to happen once again. 

It suddenly dawns on the group that they cannot hear the teacher anymore so they decide to split into pairs to find her. This is where things start to go wrong. Two of the bullies don’t believe the story while Courtney and Kimberly believe that something will happen and they are scared.

Act 2A

All four girls start to get serious and run for their lives as they think that the ‘myth’ is real because, they find their friend (Dawn) killed. Tension builds up as ‘Ring O Roses’ is being played over the tannoy. They run around the whole school building trying to find an exit to get out of school. They turn a corner but Tammy, (the bad bully) gets killed. The two girls left are still running for their lives not noticing that Tammy is missing, but they stop and hide, hearing doors moving in the wind, and windows creaking, hallucinating their minds for them to think that the ‘ghost’ is near. They find a way to escape the hidden place and try to open windows and doors the computers are not working for communication and their mobile phones have no reception…

Act 3 (The End)

Act 3 starts with Tammy and Courtney White realising that they need to do something clever in order to stay alive and uncover the mystery. They come to the conclusion that it’s not a ghost killing the bullies but has to be someone else. They go back to the cupboard to look for clues, they realise more of the chemical is missing. Courtney White and Tammy decide to set a trap to find out is really behind the killings. Courtney White decides to hide in the cupboard while Tammy videos the evidence, Tammy is scared. While Courtney is in the cupboard she hears noises. Tammy walks to Courtney and doubts the idea will work while she is talking to her they hear footsteps approaching the cupboard Courtney tells Tammy to run buts it’s too late. Courtney is scared to hear noises … and then silence. She hears footsteps approach the cupboard. It’s the teacher she opens the cupboard and is surprised to see Courtney. Courtney assumes that the teacher is on her side and tells her everything she tells the teacher that Tammy has been killed and it has been caught on tape she goes to the camera and watches the video back to her dismay she finds out that the killer is the teacher but might it be too late?

Everything will be revealed when the film is unleashed.