LSD Live - Editing

Our client couldn't turn up today to watch back our videos, so we had a quick meeting with all the levels looking for extras and crew for their shoots (I put my name forward for all of them as I know how painful looking for extras can be). I'm pretty excited for their noir scene where we need to come suited and booted. 

We were left to our own devices today so I took the time to edit out live gig footage from Friday. It turns out Richard is also editing this so we are now having a private competition to see who's is the best. I found an easy way out and make different tracks for the different cameras so it's easier to sync them up, and then edit between them. Richard has not done this and was reluctant at first to include other cameras as it would look "mismatched". Since I had done this, I was done at around 15:45.

Lots 'o layers.

I also included some cut aways at the start of all the pretty lights and disco balls in the bar. The sound was a bit dodgy as I foretold, but I managed to fix it with a mixture of Janice's camera's mic and the master camera's mic. It not the best sound ever, but it will have to do. 

We also showed the actors what we have done so far and our drafts. They seemed very happy with the results, Ryan even said we "would get a good mark" for it. 

While waiting (ages) for the file to export, I found and watched the tech dem I missed on vision mixing. The thing they actually recorded afterwards with the blue screen and Rosie the baby was terrifying and also the best thing ever.

Overall I am happy with the results! I hope the clients will be too!

LSD Live

Today, me, Janice, Richard, Jamie and Ethan went to KU Bar in Stockton to film our clients live as an extra bit on top of the music videos. If we don't use the footage in out music videos, it's still nice to edit together the live gig and give them it as well. This is for brownie points (please).

Equipment pick up at 3:45. We had to book out the P2's as another group wanted the AVC's and we had to do a trade with them tomorrow. This was fine as I have used them before. Lee also gave us a few handy pieces of equipment on top of the cameras like lights to put on them for crowd shots, monopods and sound cables and equipment so we could use their output and recorded it.

8:00pm at Spoons for pick up and we were told nothing. Luckily someone on the bus found our hoodies and guided us to the bus. We met Ethan and Jamie there since they live near Stockton. We set up quite fast since there were 5 of us and we knew what we were doing. We even had time to look around (and film some nice filler shots of all the neon signs) and enjoy the sound check.

Lost State of Dance performed quite late compared to the schedule on Facebook (they were due on at 10:30 but ended up not playing until 11:00, ish, maybe even later). We assigned roles: Richard and Ethan were in charge of the master camera (Richard was also in charge of sound on this and make sure the levels are fine as this one has a microphone and is most important for sound) and me and Janice were the secondary cameras getting close ups of the band. Jamie went home at this point but he was taking production stills and helped us set up (cheers Jamie!) 

The gig went really well! I haven't seen the footage back yet but what I got was really good. I was just a bit upset the crowd wasn't as active or drunk so we could film them dancing along. It was also really nice to hear all the songs live and in the flesh. A nice round off to Live Project.

I asked afterwards how everyone found it. Most were positive. I asked Richard if the sound was fine and he "doesn't know". I told him before to make sure the level's don't go in the red and showed him how to turn it down if they did. I looked back at him a few times during the show and he was enjoying the show with his headphones not plugged in, or anywhere near the camera. I wasn't very happy. I just hope the sound is alright (luckily I changed it during sound check but it did get louder during the show). 

We packed away very quickly and got Richard and the kit home and ready to hand over to John the next day. Me and Janice hung around with the camera we need to return (that John didn't book out) and the P2 cards to transfer the footage before we and over to John. Janice brought her laptop so we could do this at the venue and give it to John any time the next day. Transfer went quickly. We had time to enjoy the other band and watch everyone get drunk throughout the night (we didn't have much to drink as this is technically work). Me and Janice ended up getting back in Hartlepool at around 3:00 am. Commitment. Thanks Janice for letting me kip over as well!

Post Production Panic!

Today me and Beth booked the edit suite for 8 hours (wow jeez. I don't think we will use all of this time though as we only have a few more minutes to edit). I found a few found footage files last night that were royalty free that we could use since we were running out of footage because of our fast cuts. I also found a high quality and stable vinyl player to put at the start! I also have a 80s old games compilation for Ethan's group to use.

Beth tried putting the 1974 on the vinyl needle and did it, but accidentally removed it and couldn't get it back, so we abandoned that idea. After putting the vinyl at the start of the sequence, Beth accidentally deleted a track and the footage on it, and we couldn't recover it. Luckily we managed to put it all back in 2 hours which was fine. 

Our project has a lot of layers because of all our effects to make Tetris.

Like an onion. Or an ogre.

It's all ogre now.

We learnt that syncing up was a pain, especially when we recorded the synth during the guitar solo and the guitar during the synth solo (as I realised Ryan wasn't recording the guitar solo).

Mine and Brad's catchphrase in the edit suites

http://ask.metafilter.com/275337/Not-quite-my-tempo

3:30 we finished editing!!!.!..!.!!! We are having a group viewing on Monday with the client to see if they are happy then we will definitely be finished. But for now, WE ARE DONE!

*UPDATE* Beth broke Avid. She wanted to put her own credits in and made the sequence 'corrupted'. We are trying to fix it now. If we can't, we will have to go to Lee when he is in to fix it. 

*FURTHER UPDATE* Beth fixed Avid. Thank Jesus. Also had a nice catch up with the level 6's and graduate Adam who was also in the edit suites, asking about his previous works and future films.

Group... 4?

Our clients for our live project have a gig coming up on Friday. After reminding the group, half of those who were interested dropped out, leaving me and Janice a bit stuck. We had to find another two members or we can't film. 

Filming gigs and bands is what I want to do as a career. I love both Films and Music. Every time I go to gigs with live feeds on screens, I always think to myself "this is what I want to do when I grow up" (haha like I'll grow up).  I was very lucky to have this as a live project. (this is turning into a sob story so I'll wrap this up). So of course I jumped at this chance to film a live concert. I just hope we can still get the kit out and record. Even if we don't get it in our music videos, it's still something to edit and also give to our client. 

So far me, Janice and Jamie have put our names forward. We need one more member or we can't film, which would be such a shame. I don't want to let go of this opportunity so I really hope we can get someone.

Cultures of Youth 1

Today in Malcolm's lecture, we officially started next years work with Cultures of Youth: 1955-1970. He started the presentation with a picture from A Clockwork Orange which hyped me up.

Me being team leader

http://rebloggy.com/post/a-clockwork-orange-malcolm-mcdowell-laranja-mecanica/32167151917

Children and parents used to wear the same or similar clothes until the late 40s. Mass employment and disposable income meant youth could be 'seen' and had an identity. Adverts with teens appeared, and new films aimed at teenagers were produced since they now had money to see these.

Space was also a big theme in the 50s and 60s with the space race being echoed in art. Cars had 'go faster stripes' and new technology was being introduced. It also influenced the media with TV series' such as UFO and Doctor Who being produced.

http://www.inceptionaudio.com/?page_id=340

Clothes were also huge with women showing off their bodies more with 'figure hugging' dresses, such as Marilyn Monroe, but also some more casual fashion, such as shorts, such as Doris Day.

Same Eddie.

This gif is only relevant as it's from the series My Week With Marilyn (great series just saying)

http://addictedtoeddie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/my-week-with-marilyn-filmography.html

Drugs were also starting to influence art with hypnotic patterns. 

Glam rock was also starting to take off, with the idea of experimentation. Men were finding fashion from women. Personally, I love glam rock and I was brought up with this music. Just putting this out there. This isn't really relevant, but just wanted to say how much I love it. 

http://en.vogue.fr/fashion/fashion-inspiration/diaporama/fashion-evolution-david-bowie-style-from-mod-to-glam-rock/24737

Arcades and Pac Man were also introduced in the 70s, linking to our live project! We have officially gone full circle! Again this was because of new disposable income and leisure time.

http://giphy.com/search/pacman

Tribalism was emerging with youths looking for identity. Later this is relevant to Punk, but with the context of youths being angry with a social unrest. Working people were promised lots after the war by the Labour party but received nothing. There was chaos and strikes and anti-immigration policies. Which links more to next week session.

Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO

These three settings are part of what photographers like to call the exposure triangle. ISO is the digital camera sensor’s sensitivity to light. The aperture is a structure in your lens that works much like the iris in our eyes. It opens and close to let more or less light in, and also changes the depth of field, or how many different objects can remain in focus in the shot at the same time. Last is the shutter speed, which controls how much time the camera’s shutter remains open when taking a photo. A longer shutter opening will let in more light but may also cause blurring if any motion occurs while the photo is being taken. This is the same for film making. 

I found this picture explaining what each setting does, which will be very useful.

http://www.boredpanda.com/photography-shutter-speed-aperture-iso-cheat-sheet-chart-fotoblog-hamburg-daniel-peters/

Post Production

Today I set Jack and Ryan onto Production Logs while me and Beth lived in the edit suite.

It took us a while to import/AMA Link all the footage. We could have also done with the production logs to help us choose which clips to import in, but we managed. We tried to stick with the shot list as much as we could (we didn't deviate from it much so it was relatively easy to do this). We also looked back at the footage we filmed, which looked really good! 

Me and Beth work very well together, so much so that if I groan or make a certain noise, she knows exactly what to do (communication is obviously key in this course). We also decided to sadly let go of the vinyl at the beginning of the video idea as it was too shaky, we couldn't think of a way to put the 1974 on, and I liked how it starts with the guitar slide. 

We also tried to think of where to put certain videos, e.g. having the extras for the 'friends with my friends' lyrics and the pace of the video. It felt more like composing rather than editing a video. Every time there is a snare drum, we would put a cut in, giving it a nice pace. 

The test shots we also did came in very handy where we had various gaps between ends of verses and beginning of choruses. 

What was a pain was syncing up the band with the music. The drum roll was particularly hard for Beth as she didn't know which drum makes what noise. So I stepped in for this bit since I play drums and was aware about noises various drums make (put this on my CV!) I like to think I synced it up pretty well.

Beth had fun with various effects today to, especially the kaleidoscope effect which didn't turn out well at first and looked very creepy. But we did it for another angle which looked much better, but not much like Dan which is what we wanted. We will have to experiment later.

I love #editing.

A photo posted by Beth Taylor (@remainingoptimistic) on Feb 22, 2016 at 9:54am PST

 
It was also nice seeing everyone else's video come to life. Each one looks great. Brad's group is almost done already, only needing his arcade shots! Jamie's is also off to a good start and looks really great. Standards are high!

This is what we have done today. I am really proud of it so far. The pace of the video makes you want to bop up and down with it, which I love! My favourite bit so far is the UV paint montage. It looks amazing and I really love Janice's and Jamie's stoke of his hair which acts as a transition between shots. Great progress!

Vinyl Demand

I tried to do a pun for the blog title. I guess it didn't work.

Originally our group had an idea for the beginning of the video where a vinyl is spinning and when the needle hits it, the song starts to play. I completely forgot about it until Janice brought it up in the group chat after production. I decided to try an experiment. 

I filmed the vinyl on my high quality camera, it is a little shaky, but it can be fixed later. I wanted to put 1974 on it too as that is our recurring theme in all our videos as it's the code to get the robot out of the locked room. I thought my shirt said it but I was out by a whole year. 

I didn't want to damage my vinyl collection or my vintage stereo so I ended up putting 1974 on pink paper, but I wasn't very happy with how it looked. It just looked like 1974 on pink paper.

I then recorded it normally. Beth said she had an idea for it but isn't promising anything. I also had a play around with it on HitFilm 3 Express, the software I got with the FutureLearn programme I have subscribed to. More about this can be found here. 

I did this much, but I couldn't get the words to go around with the vinyl so it looks a bit odd. Janice however liked it. I'm still not sure about it. Hopefully Beth has a few ideas.

Visual Effects for Guerrilla Filmmakers

Lee sent us an email about an online course about Visual Effects and editing on FutureLearn. I was already familiar with this website having completed a course called 'Explore Filmmaking' over the summer last year. It's a great website and I have learnt a lot from it.

I will be updating this each week with more notes and examples.

Week One Notes

• Special effects- real things like stunts
• Visual effects- Digital versions. Done to the footage later. 
• Compositing- layering prints. At least two layers of combined imagery
• Keying- green/blue screen
• Tracking- digitally attaching an object to a moving image

I tried my hand at tracking with the footage they supplied and the software called HitFilm 3 Express. It's relatively simple to get the hang of.

Questionnaire Results

I have put a questionnaire online using a website called SurveyMonkey. I have used it before for my A Level Media so I was familiar with the layout and how easy to distribute it is. I have spread it across Facebook and Twitter and I so far have 12 responses. I have included questions about age and occupation as I want a variation of opinions, expert and novices to the film industry, and see how they feel about the film industry producing so many remakes. 




Create your own user feedback survey 

Most of the surveys back are from students aged between 18-29. This is fine but I will have to spread it further afield to get more varied responses and from different backgrounds. It might be an idea to hand out physical copies to people on the street. For my A Level Media, I gave my mother some physical copies to hand out to people in her shop. It will be a good idea to do this again for this.

Most people think that the film industry should not remake classic films.

"A classic is a classic for a reason, because it is so good that it is loved and treasured. They should not be remade, it is simply not necessary."

"Absolutely not! If it isn't broken don't fix it, there is no need to remake classics, it just tarnishes the reputation" 

A few have said yes, I particulary like this response:

"Yes - they make money, as marketing budgets don't have to be as huge. They ride of the original. They bring old stories to a new generation, the vast majority of whom, don't watch films more that 5 years older than they are."

One film that kept creeping up for people's favourite films being remade was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. 

"I know there are some out there, it's tricky to think of them on the spot. I don't hate the Johnny Depp version of Willy Wonka, but I much prefer the Gene Wilder one. I have heard that they are remaking American Werewolf in London and I think that is a mistake, the idea of changing anything about that film makes me cringe. I definitely won't be watching that."

"Charlie and the chocolate factory.. Big name actors try too hard to enhance their careers/reputation. The original is natural, innocent and genuine."

A few people have said 'no' or 'N/A' or 'yes' to other questions which I'm not too happy about. I WANT TO KNOW WHY!!! 

Most people have said that there are so many remakes as they make money and people would be willing to see it if they liked the original.

"I suppose there is a school of thought that there will be a ready made audience for a story and characters that are already liked. It's all about the box office."

However, when I asked them if they would want to see one of their favourite classic films remade, most of them said no.

"I would tend to avoid a remake of a favourite, I would think that it would not be possible to make it better. It is a favourite because it couldn't be any better. It could only be worse, it would be sad to watch something I liked being changed." 

There was a relatively even split when I asked if the film industry should not produce remakes. One particulary controversial person said 'yes' but failed to say why which I was upset about. I liked this particular response:

"It has to be easier to remake a movie than to start from scratch. The ideas and characters and story have already been thought out. It takes less imagination to remake than to make something new and different. It is always risky to be innovative. But surely the movie industry should be imaginative and bold. There are always new stories to be told, writers never run out of ideas."

Most people have said yes to less remakes as 'classics should be left alone'. There are a few sensible people saying it's fine as long as people have room to pitch their own original ideas.

"I suppose there will always be a market for remakes, the industry will look at a successful classic and say "we can make it better". But I doubt if it's what the public wants. We want new original classics."

One person who filled out the questionnaire also thought of something they forgot to put on the survey. They said that we don't remake classic books, so why do we remake classic films? It's quite interesting.

*UPDATE 22.02.16* I now have 20 responses. This response to the final question I really liked.

"The film industry should get their shit together, grow some balls, support original concepts and take a risk. It's not like they can't afford it."

Post Production Action Plan

The camera ops have asked me what they can do the next few weeks now that production has finished. Here's a list of things that need to go on the VLE and are needed:

• actor release forms
• production schedule
• call sheet for the 17th
• location release forms
• production log
• evaluation
• blog

Me and Beth will be in the edit suite for post production, putting the footage in an order similar to the shot list and some effects like the tetris and where to put them. We will work together to create 'the vision' of an 80s roller disco.

Dance Floor Filming: Day 3

Today we got the rest of the footage filmed that we didn't get to do last night with the drones and the UV paint.

After some disasters on the morning, including losing the plate for the slider (which luckily Ryan had) and breaking the battery on the camera because of a faulty tripod plate, we were off to a rough start. We ended up going handheld for most of today's footage.

We did the UV shots first in the base room since Brad was filming in the studio. We only had 4 volunteers including me to have UV paint on them which was a bit upsetting (c'mon guys be more childish). It looked really good in real life but it was hard to focus it on camera. We could probably still use it.

We then went into the studio after Brad to do our final shot. Ryan didn't turn up so we couldn't use the drones, so we used the ladder and the camera (Jack was camera op today by the way). We made sure he was safe by footing the ladder when he was up and that he was wearing the hand strap when operating the camera. 

Lighting set up. Credits to Jack.

We did a shot and also a still of each shot; normal, with roller skates, and with glow sticks. We got a few level 5's in to throw glowsticks onto it. The only thing was that we only had one take and we could see everyone's hands but we could go around it in post possibly or just say that it is a busy night club and people are going a bit wild. It looked really good afterwards in the complete dark (the pictures don't do it justice).

SO that is a wrap for production!! Now we need to finish editing!!

After Effects

Today was mostly a shooting day for us, with a huge shoot on the night. I did help Beth edit in the morning to make some effects that could not be done in Avid. I am not fluent in After Effects so I just YouTubed some tutorials.

One idea was from Janice where we could include fire for the lyrics "I don't wanna get burnt". I thought it would look good with the orange window with Jess sat in front of it. I found a few tutorials covering the basics. I tried to do this a day last week but I never got the hang of it, but today I did it in 10 minutes. All I had to do was create another 'solid'.

I also tried to do a zoom of the ending shot where the two actors go to touch hands. Beth was trying to do this on Avid but it turns out you can only do it on still images. 

Beth's reaction to finding this out

So I used this tutorial to try it. The only thing wrong with it is that it makes the end zoom in look really low quality, so Beth fixed this by a fade to black.

Today we have about 1/3 of the music video done. Most of the footage tonight will fill the other 2/3 and most of the narrative we have, which will help Beth as she like to edit in linear order.

About 1/3 edited

Dance Floor Filming: Day 2

Today was mostly a waiting game for the evening when our actors and band were free. I did help Beth edit in the session, more about this can be found here.

We got the actors in early at 4:30 to go through plans for tonight and to get Jess straight into make up. At 5 we moved to The Studio. Brad's group also came as they wanted the band playing live too. They gave us a hand getting the equipment over and setting everything up. 

The evening went off to a stressful start with us missing a few necessary props for Jess' costume, no extras to be seen, everything going walk about including nail varnish and a few pieces of equipment and my memory card not working. We managed to make do and found some of the missing props and borrowed Shaun's memory card. Cheers Shaun for that and also being stills photographer (with Ethan too!)

After I had calmed down, I got into the swing of things and told the actors what to do in each shot, starting with Ryan since Jess was still in make up, with how to act out 'taking a selfie'. We then got them both to skate on the bench and to act with their friends. We were hoping for actors but we had to think on our feet and just used ourselves. Beth brought some awesome jackets and we used some of Jamie's props (as modelled beautifully by Shaun). 

There were two cameras like day 1, with Ryan filming shots of Terry and now Beth filming shots with Tracey since Jack was absent.

Ready to film the band, the guitarist went walk abouts for a pizza. We tried to get close ups of Jess meanwhile but he came back as were just about ready to go. So we did the band's wides. Brad's group did theirs first and we went second and went on a rota like that. However, the band played the wrong song for ours so we had to redo ours. I'm sure we could still use the footage as it still looked fab. I was getting to into it, shouting at the actors when to come in dancing. Brad fell over at one point though (risk assessment!) but he was laughing the whole time and was fine. Blooper reel!

I was our second camera op tonight as I was aware what shots we were after and knew how to frame them. I really enjoyed doing close ups of the band on the stage with Ryan. We went handheld due to space and time so we could duck and weave when something was happening and I really enjoyed it!!! This was my highlight of the night.

We then did actor Ryan's scenes as he wanted to be off so we did a shot of him reacting to Jess ripping her arm open and bleeding gold. Meanwhile, we were getting Jess in prosthetics (Janice was telling the make up artist what to do). The gash looked great and gruesome! Me and Jess carefully choreographed the fall. It was going to mostly be a close up so we could avoid Jess being in roller skates as she isn't confident in them, especially falling in them. I told her to fall slowly so we could track it easily and she could plan her fall and not ruin the prosthetics and get gold everywhere (which we did somehow even though we were careful). It looked really good! 

We then got kicked out at about 9 so we couldn't do the UV light shots or the final drone shot, which we will do tomorrow. We then took Jess to Wetherspoons for a few drinks (brownie points please for treating our actors nicely). Overall a good nights shoot, with loads of footage to edit with! 

Prosthetics Test 2

Today while we were watching Only Lovers Left Alive (my favourite film every yay but no one else seemed to like it) and Inglorious Bastards (after I could tell everyone hated my film, so Beth changed it), we experimented with the prosthetics.

Janice wanted to try putting a glow stick in the wound and also straws to look like bones. We put a glowstick on my arm and put latex around it and looked pretty cool!

We then put foundation on it which looked good in the daylight but awful in the dark as the glowstick was shining through it. Janice thought it would be a better idea to crack open a glowstick and paint a circle. But we found out that glowstick juice doesn't last long and doesn't look effective. I kept trying to say and persuade her that glowsticks in the wound are not the way to go. She tried to do it on the day of the shoot as well but I told the make up artist otherwise and to just do a gash.

Beth then gave her arm to try something else out. We put scar wax on in a circle and put and ripped latex around it and filled it with gold. Janice then tried to put a glowstick inside but it popped open soon after.

Janice also put straws on mine which to be honest, didn't look good either. It just looked like I had straws stuck to my arm, which I did. Beth's was clearly better with burnt edges too. 

I do prefer our first prosthetic test with the gash and on the day I would want the same but a bit smaller. (but on the day we didn't go with that as the make up artist didn't quite understand what we were after. But what we did get was good and looked gruesome)

What we ended up getting on the day

Director Notes

ART ATTACK

http://www.thedailytouch.com/abbie-osguthorpe/10-tv-shows-that-defined-your-childhood/

Today was mostly a creative day. We filled out another risk assessment and booking form for Wednesday. Then I took Beth through the footage we filmed and the production logs. Beth was mostly editing all day again bless but it looks really cool so far! Beth and Janice had a few ideas for more shots. We had quite a lot of Jess but not much CU's of Ryan so we have a few ideas of getting him taking a selfie or rapping with a guitar. We also have a few more shots of Jess spinning around for the lyrics "the way you twirl" and a shot of a balloon popping to match cut with the bubble gum.

I gave Ryan and Jack the task of painting and drawing the big finish of the video, where the roller skates have drawn the band's name in their tracks. The film department gave us some good quality paper to use as it was going to be thrown out as the posters on them printed weirdly, so we nabbed them. 

Ryan brought a few Illustration students to draw the logo, and I helped them in the right direction saying how they are supposed to look like tracks and in cursive.

Quite a few people joined in for the painting, thanks Ethan who was especially enthusiastic. But I wasn't very impressed with Jack and Ryan abandoning it at 3 o clock (when our lesson finishes, but I still wanted them around so we could discuss plans. I will have to have a word.) 

The painting take over

Janice was trying her hand at prosthetics today, practising effects for Wednesday. I was a willing volunteer to try it out. 

Janice used a YouTube video showing how to do a gash with liquid latex and toilet roll. It didn't smell very nice (the latex not the toilet roll, ew if the toilet roll did). 

After showing the Jess the footage waiting for it and the foundation to dry, we had to peel/cut the layer we applied. This was harder than the YouTube tutorial made out for it to be. We tried a paper clip, then scissors then a drawing pin. I did stab myself a few times (dedication/brownie points please) but the drawing pin gave it a rough look around the edges as I was hacking it open.

It felt quite strange opening the wound, and Jess might have to hack it open herself as if someone else did, it would probably go through to the skin. We also did an allergy test on Jess for the liquid latex and she's fine with it (phew). Janice added some gold cream to it we found in the make up kit and looks much better than the gold dust. Janice also had an idea to put a glow stick inside it to look like a bone and some glow in the dark or UV paint around the gash. Beth also mixed some blood gel with gold dust which made it turn bronze and also looks good.

Foundation is a little patchy as it wasn't my colour! Buying one for Jess' skin colour for Wednesday!

Looks really good! Successful test!

However, we then had a thought. How can a robot get a gash this painful from falling over? We had an idea that she could fall on glass. This is the team's homework! 

Overall a successful and fun day! 

Dance Floor Filming: Day 1

Happy Valentines Day! Have some stress! 

After getting all the equipment from Chris' house (cheers Chris and Brad for nursing it over the weekend), we found out that we didn't have a pack of gels. So our red heads were pretty much useless. So we decided to rig the ones in The Studio so they lit the dance floor. I, and a few others, have faced the fear of heights, but I am still scared of them. We ended up using some of the red heads in the end to light the shadows on close ups. Ryan also forgot to bring his drones, and the LED light was too big on the train, so we will have to do these shots on Monday too.

We also forgot to ask if we could use the smoke machine so we rang up the owner who said it was fine, and we ended up forgetting to use it in the end!

Make up (cheers Beth) was great. Fair enough it took her all morning to do Jess' make up, but it did look good!

Janice and Chris went on a little wonder around all the rooms and came back saying that found an 'awesome window', so I send the camera ops and Jess up to get some good shots. 

Since we had two cameras out, I assigned Jack and Ryan a camera each and also a character to track each for when we were doing two shots. Ryan was tracking Terry and Jack was tracking Tracey. Good system!

The morning was off to a bumpy start, only having recorded one big shot and a few small ones. While the others went to Wetherspoons, I minded the place and recorded a few filler shots of random bits of equipment and scenery.

The afternoon went a lot smoother. Got quite a lot done even though we didn't have the band or any extras. We have decided to do Wednesday at 5 for a few quick shots of the band, scenes of extras and we also need to do the gash on Tracey's arm (yeah it was the leg but the costume has very long socks so it's the arm now). Now I look back, I have no idea why we didn't do Dan's close ups since he was there (maybe because the lighting was rigged, maybe because we were bothered about the actors, maybe because I was so stressed to realise, or maybe he was too engrossed in the football match to realise). Jack too was distracted by the match but once I shouted him over, he did what he was told. However, looking back at some of his camera's footage, some of the shots are a bit soft. So I will have to tell Jack to watch his focus.

Overall not a bad day's filming considering the disaster we had on the morning. We have some footage for Beth to edit with on Monday. Meanwhile, those not editing will help paint the 'big finish', 'Art Attack' piece of the roller skates making paint tracks to spell out the band's name. 

Deadpool - Review

AKA Fourth Wall Break: The Movie

*GORE AND SPOILERS AHEAD*

£6.99 for a Student ticket?! Sure it used to be cheaper...

Anyways, aside from the new expensive tickets and a bit of a delay to get into the screening and a few people challenged for ID, it was time! I was so hyped for this movie and trust me, it was worth it.

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/deadpool/box-office-deadpool-on-course-to-be-a-hit-as-it-takes-aim-at-55-million-a130261

The beginning scene *spoilers ahead* was my favourite of all the film. We see a slo-mo car crash with the camera focusing on various parts, such as a Hello Kitty lip balm and a Green Lantern card (which I like, suggesting that this film is not going to be a flop like the Green Lantern film). Then we see the credits during the carnage. But instead of Ryan Reynolds' name, we see "God's Perfect Idiot" and other names being replaced, such as; "A Moody Teen", "A CGI Character" and "A British Villain" amongst other humorous and clever changes. 

Deadpool is a very clever film and also has many Fourth Wall breakings. The whole movie is just Fourth Wall breaking. Deadpool includes the audience like another movie character, filling us in with every detail and assuring us that we are "caught up". I like this as it makes a change to mainstream films and makes us think we are on an adventure with the cast. My favourite fourth wall break was when Deadpool makes a comment on the studio having only Colosus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and no other X Men due to "budget".

http://www.mtv.com/news/2691712/deadpool-script-page-notes-doodles-12-days-of-deadpool/

Gore is another big feature of the film, however I was expecting more from all the press about it. Once scene which was particularly controversial is when Deadpool uses one bullet that goes through 3 heads. This, not sure if I am desensitised, didn't bother me. However, one of the deaths following this did. The worst death was one of the henchmen being flung off a motorcycle and full force into a billboard, making a horrific sound with guts and blood everywhere. *shiver*. What I did find funny in terms of gore though, was the end scene where Deadpool spells out 'Francis' (the villain) in dead bodies.

http://comicvine.gamespot.com/articles/new-deadpool-trailer-arrives-in-two-different-vers/1100-154574/

Another big feature of the film was innuendos. Deadpool has a very unique sense of humour and I must admit, some of Deadpool's whit and innuendos were lost on me, but I understood and laughed at most of them. One controversial part was a montage of sex scenes celebrating each holiday. And also some nudity with Deadpool fighting Francis which looked really painful to be honest. PLUS, SO MANY CROTCH SHOTS. I should have counted how many crotch shots in the movie there are.

http://www.mynewplaidpants.com/2016/01/our-second-deadpool-post-of-day.html

Overall I really enjoyed the film and people even clapped at the end of the film which is the first time I ever have seen this happen!! The gore was realistic, the humour was clever and funny, and definitely challenged superhero conventions. On track to be a hit with a $55 million opening, Deadpool is defiantly a one to watch.

9/10