We have finally finished all the editing for our preliminary project! Ben uploaded the video to Youtube and I have pasted it here for you to enjoy.
I think that it looks quite good overall, the only things I can 'complain' about is the cake shot with the black lines. I'm annoyed that we ate the cake before realising that those lines were on the shot however I think that everything else looks really good. We will hopefully be showing our work to the rest of the group tomorrow in class and hopefully they will like what we have done.
I learnt a lot making this video. Firstly, I learnt that filming outside has a lot of difficulties and particularly if it is windy and near a road, background noise can be a massive pain and you then have to edit out the noise after you have uploaded the footage to the computer. I also learnt how important lighting is. It can be used to great effect to produce atmosphere. Finally, and probably most importantly - always check the footage before you eat the cake! I really enjoyed making this video and I learnt a lot about what it is going to be like when I have to create my own foundation piece later this year. I think that we worked really well as a group as we were able to bounce ideas off each other and learn from each other and so I can apply what I've gained from this project to my foundation piece.
Today in class, we set about editing all of our footage to get it as close to the original opening of 'The Hangover' as we could. It took a while (and it's still not totally finished) as we were quite meticulous about getting it as perfect as we could. Ben knew the most about Premiere Pro and Jake had a good eye for detail so they took charge of the editing while taking contributions from the rest of us. Bill finalised the title shot and I had downloaded the title song so that Ben and Jake could overlay it onto our footage. Also, some of our footage was a little dark so they brightened the darker shots. They also added a colour filter to some shots to make them look more like the original film.
I think that it looks really good so far and when it is finished I will post a copy here on my blog.
On Saturday, Bill, Jake, Ben, Nicole and I aimed to finish shooting the beginning of 'The Hangover'. We arranged to meet at Jake's house at 10am however as always, we had a few problems. Firstly, our friend Becky (who was cast to play the bride) was still grounded and so we had to re-cast Nicole as the bride at the last minute. This wasn't ideal as Nicole hadn't really had a chance to learn her lines but she did a good job. Also, Beatrice had left our group and joined another so we were short on extras. This meant that myself, Bill and Ben's mum had to be extras in most of the scenes and in some cases, we had to play multiple characters though hopefully it isn't that noticeable.
Changed cast list:
Phil - Ben Hurst Stu - Ben Thorpe (a friend of ours) Alan - Bill Mumford Black Doug - Jamie Saunders (another friend of ours) Tracy - Nicole O' Malley Tracy's father - Ben H's dad Tracy's mum - Jake's mum Bridesmaid - Ben H's mum Hairdresser - Me Flower carrier #1 - Ben Hurst Flower carrier #2 - Me
I brought four bridesmaid dresses, a clothes rail and a dress that we could put on the mannequin back to Jake's as we had to redo the shot with the dresses as the camera picked up some funny black lines that flickered across the screen. Annoyingly, this also occured on the cake shot. With the cake eaten by us the previous week and no time to make another, we had to settle for the shot we had. Ben had an idea to up the contrast and brightness levels on the shot in Premiere Pro to hopefully reduce the prominence of these black lines.
Overall, the shoot went quite well and we got everything done (even with multiple pizza, dorito and penguin breaks) Once we had finished shooting, we looked back over the footage from the Deep Lane shoot the week before. We realised that the wind and the noise from the nearby road ruined the shot a bit and so we decided that we would overdub it. Jake grabbed his THX microphone and we began overdubbing. It was quite hard for Ben to speak at exactly the same time he had before but after a couple of tries, he had it pretty much perfect.
There was nothing left to do but edit.
Pictures:
Nicole and I checking the original film for positioning of shots
Today in class, Jake brought in the footage that we had shot for the opening of 'The Hangover' and we began to edit it and create titles. Jake and Ben sorted out the cutting and putting together of the shots that we had done so far and decided that they would apply a colour filter to make the image look softer and brighter so that it looked like it may be set in somewhere that was sunny rather than a dull field in England.. Bill was sorting out the end shot where the title faded out to white and the main title of 'The Hangover' appeared, looking slightly blurry. He did a great job and it looks really good. Then, Bill and I set about finding the font used in the opening credits so that we could replicate them. We didn't find the exact font but we did find a very similar font and so Bill and I set about replicating the opening titles. There were only four to do so we did two each and then gave them to Jake and Ben to layer over the film footage.
We agreed to all meet at Jake's house to film the inside scenes (and the outside one of setting up the wedding if the weather was good) on Sunday 9th Oct. The shoot didn't go well... I was prepared with a smaller almost replica of the wedding cake and lots of formal dresses and ready to play Tracy if nobody else wanted to do it as Becky informed us that she was grounded and unable to make the shoot. More disaster struck when we heard that Nicole had broken her nose and was unable to make it. We though that we could still manage to shoot most of it but then I was kept two hours late at work and when I finally arrived, Beatrice hadn't shown up so we were only able to shoot the shot with the dress on the mannequin, the shot with the wedding cake and a few shots of the bride's dad and bridesmaid on the sofa with Ben H's parents. However it wasn't all bad. Jake had made a rig so that we could rest the camera on it and roll it along so that we got nice, smooth shots and everything we shot looked great. Another bonus was that myself, Bill, Jake and Ben got to eat the cake after we had finished the shots with it! It was rather nice even if I do say so myself... Pictures:
We were given the task of remaking the opening few minutes of Todd Phillips’ famous 2009 comedy, ‘The Hangover’. The film is A Las Vegas-set comedy centered around three groomsmen who lose their about-to-be-wed friend during their drunken misadventures. They must then retrace their steps in order to find him. The remake had to be a true shot for shot remake and we were told to get into a group of six. My group consisted of myself, Bill Mumford, Jake Brownbill, Ben ‘Gary’ Hurst, Nicole O’ Malley and Beatrice Norman. In class, we planned to have allocated roles (such as director, producer etc.) but we then decided that it would be far more efficient if everyone did a little bit of everything. We watched the opening of the hangover several times and made a list of what we would need in the sense of props and cast. We would also need to purchase the song ‘It’s now or never’ by El Vez to go over our titles.
Cast:
Phil – Ben Hurst Stu – Ben Thorpe (a friend of ours) Alan – Bill Mumford Black Doug – Jamie Saunders (another friend) Tracy – Becky Easter (another friend) Tracy’s father – Ben Hurst’s dad Tracy’s mum – my mum Bridesmaid #1 – Nicole O’ Malley Bridesmaid #2 – Me
Props:
Wedding dress Bridesmaid dresses Mannequin Mirror Wedding cake Phones Aviator shades Convertible White bath robe Flowers White van Clothes rail Lots of white chairs Hairbrush Magazine
Obviously, with a budget of absolutely nothing, putting all of this together wasn’t going to be easy. We asked around to find close matches to the props that we needed. I was able to find my old bridesmaid dresses from when I was younger and my mum had a few formal dresses and a white bath robe she was willing to lend us. I was able to make a smaller almost replica of the wedding cake, Bill’s dad has a 1966 Buick Special which he kindly lent us for a shoot along with some sunglasses. Jake said that he would be able to get flowers, a mannequin, a magazine and possibly a clothes rail though if not I would be able to get one from my nana. We could use our own phones for the shoot and we could use either Bill’s dad’s friend’s van or my uncles for the opening shot. Chairs were the big issue. None of us had lots of identical chairs and we were not sure how to overcome that problem.
We wanted to start shooting as soon as we could and after hearing that the weather was going to be terrible on the day that we had planned for, we rearranged the date and headed to a field just opposite Melton Road in Wymondham for our shots with Phil on the phone. The field location wasn’t ideal but as we didn’t have a desert nearby, we had to compromise.
5/10/11
Today was the day of our first shoot and the thing that worried us immediately was that the weather wasn’t anywhere near as nice as it was forecast. It was dry, but it didn’t resemble a hot Nevada day in the slightest. We thought about rearranging again but the weather for the rest of the week was forecast as worse so we decided that we would have to settle for what we had. We all met up at the field at 4.30 with the Buick waiting for us. We set up the car and Nicole and I sorted out Bill, Ben T and Jamie’s clothing as they looked way too smart to be stuck in the Nevada desert so we had to make them look a little scruffier. I also had to create a fake cut on Ben H’s lip using red and black biros as just using red made it look too bright and unrealistic so I added a little black so it looked dirtier and the result wasn’t too bad (which you can see below). Jake was filming, Nicole and I organised shots and the rest of the boys were acting and I think that they all did a great job. I haven’t seen much of the footage as yet but I trust Jake’s judgement when he says that it all looks ok!
Me drawing on Ben H
Close up of make-up at work
More make-up
My finished artwork
Our script
Nicole organising shots
The amazing '66 Buick
Filming on location
From left to right: Ben Hurst, Jake Brownbill, Jamie Saunders, Nicole O' Malley, Me, Ben T & Bill
There will be more posts on our remake after we have done more shooting.
In class on Wednesday, we looked at film openings, as this is what we shall be doing for our practical coursework. We needed to understand how important the opening few minutes of a film are. They can give away everything or can build suspense. The main things that we would have to focus on when making our film openings are: originality, creativity, performance, professionalism and intrigue. To make us more aware of the importance of these aspects, we watched some film openings that students have done and some film openings done by professional directors and we compared their styles.
A still from 'BROKEN'
‘BROKEN’ was the name of the first student project that we looked at. While it was intriguing, creativity, originality, performance and professionalism were seriously lacking. The film opening starts with a boy crying in his room with soft piano music in the background. It then cuts randomly to a street chase with a wobbly camera and two completely different people. These two characters proceed to try and beat each other up while somersaulting off walls – clearly an attempt by the film-maker to show off his friends and when the fight ends, there are opening credits with a voice over that cannot be heard due to the music playing too loudly. The film opening ends with a gang outside the crying boy’s house. This opening is all over the place with no clear plot or sense of what is going to happen. Characters are not built and setting is not clear either.
A still from 'Basis & Foundations'
In ‘Basis & Foundations’ – another student project, it starts with a boy who looks about seventeen in bed. We then see a wobbly camera shot of his profile although it is clear that the film-maker has a tripod as we then see it in the next shot up against the wall as the teen walks past. The teen then picks up a gun that is just lying in clear view on a desk and then to the bed where he picks up his wallet. A close up of an ID in the wallet shows that the character was born in February 1974, making him thirty-seven years old. The main character clearly isn’t. The main character then walks into the kitchen where we see a fridge full of magnets. When he shuts the fridge door after getting out some juice, all the magnets are gone and a picture of a girl has ‘magically’ appeared on the fridge door. An appallingly acted gun threat scene is next, shot outside the main character’s house. In a badly positioned over shoulder shot, you can see an old man on the other side of the road laying a path in his front garden, ‘totally oblivious’ to the fact that the main character shoots the person he’s talking to. While a plot is clear in this film opening, performance isn’t fantastic and professionalism is lacking.
Mathew Broderick breaking the fourth wall as Ferris Bueller
Comparing those two with professional films makes them look even less creative and original. In class we looked at the opening of ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ (dir. John Hughes) – one of my favourite films. The first shot you see of a person, after the shot of the front of the Bueller household, is a close up shot of Ferris (Mathew Broderick) looking ill, lying in bed. We are immediately introduced to Ferris, his parents and his sister Janie who has an attitude problem and feels like her parents love Ferris more than her. So immediately, characters are built up and the audience are aware that this is an average American family living in a suburban neighbourhood. We also learn that Ferris’ mum is an estate agent and while we are unsure at this point where Ferris’ dad works, we know that he works away from home. Once Ferris’ parents leave his room, we see Ferris talking to the camera as if the audience were right there with him this technique of filming that John Hughes decided to adopt for this movie is known as ‘breaking the fourth wall’. The fourth wall is basically an invisible wall that stops the character in the film from ‘seeing’ the audience and so they are unaware of their presence and therefore do not engage with them. When you break the fourth wall, the audience become ‘visible’ to the character and so they engage with them. This is rarely used but other examples of film where they break the fourth wall are: Pierrot le Fou (dir. Jean-Luc Godard), Wanted (dir. Timur Bekmambetov) and Wayne’s World (dir. Penelope Spheeris) I think that using the technique of breaking the fourth wall can be very effective and is something that I would like to think about when planning for my film opening. Below is a clip from the film 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off', in it are several examples of breaking the fourth wall.
