I watched a Hollyoaks episode (Tuesday 26th January 2016), in which a girl, Jade, finds out she has cancer. Although this is not exactly the same as our storyline, believe that the two are quite similar and this episode helped to give our group ideas on how we could film/ change our opening to improve it. This is due to the doctors surgery scenes and the way in which she is told the results and has flashbacks are all similar to how we originally had planned our opening.
Below are my notes from the episode:
- Shot of her close up walking into the doctors surgery (Looking nervous)
- Tracking shot of her walking into the doctors surgery
- Medium shot of her sitting down
- Shows her looking around the room nervous
- Looking at doctors anticipating her results
- Hears her name called
- Looks shocked
- Holds hand of friend/ sister for support
- Shot of her walking into doctors room
- Looks at the clock-time passing
- Hand holding from dad to show support whilst she still nervously looks at clock
- Doctor has to take call from someone quickly- done to drag out finding out the results- builds anticipation and nerves
- Looks at clock again with extreme close up shot of the bottom half of the clock
- High pitch noise and shot of her crying follows- exaggerates her nerves- all stops when the doctor finishes her phone call- later on in the episode we realise that this shot is done to show how time had stopped for her and she is imagining all that happens after this moment:
Everything is happy for her after this moment as she is imagining it all:
- Is told her tests are clear- everyone’s happy
- Tells everyone else- all hugging her and happy for her
- Looks at magazine about luck (lucky charm bracket)- happy music in the background- everything is looking hopeful
- It’s her birthday so she happily attends her party- surprise party, presents, everyone there, etc
- She receives the bracelet she saw on the cover of a magazine from her boyfriend
- Troubles occur- helping friend- problems sorted
- Back to enjoying her party- gets a present of adoption
- Everything’s resolved and is going her way
Beginning to come back to present day however not fully:
- Starts to get flashbacks and hallucinations- realises all isn’t as it seems- still happy though as she tries to ignore it and enjoy her party
- Looks around the room at people smiling and begins to hear the high pitch sound she had previously heard
- Gets more flashbacks of nurses at the doctors surgery- looks nervous- imagines her doctors at her party as the dj (hallucinations)
- Goes outside with her boyfriend to try and stop it all from happening and becoming real- she says ‘bad things only happen if you let them’- this foreshadows how she is trying to prevent herself from hearing she has cancer and imagining only good things- allows the audience to begin to piece together the clues (this isn't all really happening)
- Talks about wanting to live life to the full and wanting to fit everything into this day- again, foreshadows how she might not be able to live a full life as she has cancer (ironic thing to say)
- Says that she ‘knew the results would be negative as life wouldn’t do that to her’- repeats that she ‘loves life’- again all ionic and foreshadowing the future- shows jade trying to convince herself subconsciously that she hasn't got cancer
- Kisses her boyfriend and everything appears happy and perfect for her
- Suddenly her boyfriend notices she’s dressed in different clothes- she looks down and she is wearing the clothes she was in the doctors surgery (medium shot)- shows her beginning to come back to the present day
- Her boyfriend disappears- she begins to become confused, looks around, starts running- hearing high pitch sound again that was previously heard before she hallucinated
- Goes to where her party was and no one is there- sad music begins- starts to hear people talking with flashbacks of when she was happy at the party
- Hears doctor saying ‘jade’ in a muffled voice as she still isn't fully in the present day with zoom lense shot of her standing still but the background moving (changing from the hallucination to present day)
- She is crying and saying ‘no’ as she realises what’s happening- she’s been dreaming that she hasn’t got cancer and has had a happy birthday
- Sees the doctor stood in front of her at her party venue- still not fully in present time
- She hears the clock ticking with the doctor continuously saying jade in a muffled voice still and jade is crying and shaking her head as she can't believe what is happening
- The scene then completely flashes back to present day with the original close up shot of the clock ticking and the doctor clearly saying 'jade' now
- The doctor says ‘do you understand what I’m saying’ with a close up shot of jades face looking sad
- Sad music is played in the background to exaggerate the misery and sadness of the scene
- Shot reverse shot of doctor and jade used to show how the doctor has just told her about her results- Jade looks to her dad for support and she looks sad
- Jade says ‘yeah, I have cancer’ whilst looking distraught, and the episode ends
Episode analysis:
I believe that the episode is shot in this way to present Jade's thought process and show how she was in denial for the whole episode. This episode presents the journey that Jade herself has gone down when finding out that she has cancer and how she has tried to convince herself that it's not really happening to her and that everything will be alright. It has been presented through hallucinations so that the audience is able to follow her thought process as well and understand how she feels. The episode cleverly ends with her fully realising she has cancer as she says 'I have cancer', which is done to end the journey of her wondering/ finding out whether she does/ doesn't have cancer and to instead begin the journey of her coming to terms with having it and dealing with it.
How the episode links to our film opening:
From this episode I believe that we will be able to take some things from it. We could include a clock and loud ticking noises in our film opening as well to emphasise the nerves that Henry will be feeling and how time slows down when you are finding out life changing news. This also adds tension and drama to the scene. We also could end our scene in a similar way of the doctor saying 'Do you understand what I'm saying' and Henry replying, 'Yes, I have HIV'. This again adds drama and clearly shows how the rest of the film will be the journey of Henry accepting and dealing with his HIV and how those around him will deal with the news. However, when comparing our opening to the Hollyoaks episode, there are some similarities which we have already included in our film opening. Both have sad, dramatic background music to build the tension as well of close up shots of the patient looking nervous as the wait to hear the results. Also, they both have flashbacks of happier times as they are trying to forget what their futures may hold for them. Additionally, they are both set in similar scenes, eg, doctors surgery, doctors room, etc.
Sunday 21 February 2016
Saturday 20 February 2016
Creating and editing our film opening
We firstly began the process of creating our opening scene by filming the scenes for it. We filmed on multiple days: the 2nd, 6th, 11th and 12th of February. We also tried to film on the 10th of February, however when we went to film the scenes, our location was occupied and we therefore weren't able to. From this experience we were able to learn that we needed to check ahead next time to see if our location would be free.
We began our editing process whilst we were still filming our scenes. To begin it, we started off by editing a couple of our scenes in Final Cut Pro in our media lessons. However, when we came to editing, we realised that many of the clips we had filmed were not good enough for us to use. This was either due to the clips being out of focus, the lighting being dark, lots of background sound/ sound being quiet or the camera being wonky. We also had problems with our microphone that we were only able to sort out at a later date. So we therefore decided to re film these scenes which we later did when we had a large filming session on February the 12th. However, because of this, we had little to edit and therefore edited the few clips we had and put them in chronological order so that when we came to import our other scenes it would be easier to create our opening scene.
On February the 15th, me and Milly came into school between 9-2 to edit the majority of our opening scene. We began by importing all of the footage we had accumulated, which we had on two seperate memory cards. We imported this footage into iphoto to begin with, instead of Final Cut Pro so that it wasn't confusing when coming to editing it and we could decide what specific clips we wanted before we started editing the footage in Final Cut Pro. We then re-watched all of our footage and chose the clips we wanted. As we had taken many videos previously, we had a lot to re-watch and decide whether we wanted to keep or get rid of them, therefore this took a long time to do. When we had chosen what we wanted, we dragged the clips into Final Cut Pro. We then had to re-watch each clip and edit it down to what we wanted. To edit it, we cut out any mistakes that we had filmed, or any movement/ sound we didn't want in the scene. When editing our opening title sequence, we edited each clip so that they were all about the same length. This is because we wanted it to be continuous and because we needed to include the names of everyone involved in our opening scene, and by making all of the clips the same length, this meant that each person was given equal credit. However, we did make the opening clip the longest as we did not have enough clips for each individual person and therefore made the first clip double the length of the others.
After we had edited the clips to how we wanted them, we then put them in chronological order. With the opening sequence scenes at the beginning, followed by the doctors surgery, church, flashback, and doctors surgery scenes again at the end. We then re-watched the entire scene to check that we didn't need to re-edit any scenes that we hadn't properly edited before and to check that it was all continuous. When we had done this, we found that we were beginning to see continuity in our opening scene for our film as it was beginning to come together.
After this, we started to work on getting our opening title sequence looking how we wanted it to. We added in each name of everyone that was involved in creating our production. We went and looked through multiple different text edits and then looked at different fonts. Eventually we chose what we wanted, and then decided on the colour and size. We chose the Helvetica font for our text and we made it white at a size 63 font. We went and did the same font, size and colour for each name and as we did this, we positioned each name of everyone who was involved in creating our film opening on the clip in the correct place. We made sure that each piece of text was put on screen for the same amount of time and that it all worked with the clip that it was placed over (eg. the text came in and ended when the clip did).
Next, we worked on the sound for the video. We started by importing our background music which we had already previously saved/ imported onto itunes. When we had done this, we edited the music down so that it was the same length as the scene. Then we re watched it and realised that there was still a lot of background sound on clips that we didn't need sound for. So we went through each clip and took the volume of the majority of the clips off, leaving the clips that had sound of digetic voices in.
Then, we included our film name at the beginning of the opening. We chose a font that we thought was best suited to our film and edited it by changing the colour, size and letter spacing. Our film name is in a white text with a black background which we chose to coincide with the white and black theme that is in our ident and also the white font that is in our opening title sequence that displays the names of everyone who was invloved in creating our film opening. We also edited how it entered and exited the page by adding in a fade effect. We then started to add a fade in/out effect to other parts of the film opening that needed it in order to allow it to make more sense.
We began our editing process whilst we were still filming our scenes. To begin it, we started off by editing a couple of our scenes in Final Cut Pro in our media lessons. However, when we came to editing, we realised that many of the clips we had filmed were not good enough for us to use. This was either due to the clips being out of focus, the lighting being dark, lots of background sound/ sound being quiet or the camera being wonky. We also had problems with our microphone that we were only able to sort out at a later date. So we therefore decided to re film these scenes which we later did when we had a large filming session on February the 12th. However, because of this, we had little to edit and therefore edited the few clips we had and put them in chronological order so that when we came to import our other scenes it would be easier to create our opening scene.
On February the 15th, me and Milly came into school between 9-2 to edit the majority of our opening scene. We began by importing all of the footage we had accumulated, which we had on two seperate memory cards. We imported this footage into iphoto to begin with, instead of Final Cut Pro so that it wasn't confusing when coming to editing it and we could decide what specific clips we wanted before we started editing the footage in Final Cut Pro. We then re-watched all of our footage and chose the clips we wanted. As we had taken many videos previously, we had a lot to re-watch and decide whether we wanted to keep or get rid of them, therefore this took a long time to do. When we had chosen what we wanted, we dragged the clips into Final Cut Pro. We then had to re-watch each clip and edit it down to what we wanted. To edit it, we cut out any mistakes that we had filmed, or any movement/ sound we didn't want in the scene. When editing our opening title sequence, we edited each clip so that they were all about the same length. This is because we wanted it to be continuous and because we needed to include the names of everyone involved in our opening scene, and by making all of the clips the same length, this meant that each person was given equal credit. However, we did make the opening clip the longest as we did not have enough clips for each individual person and therefore made the first clip double the length of the others.
After we had edited the clips to how we wanted them, we then put them in chronological order. With the opening sequence scenes at the beginning, followed by the doctors surgery, church, flashback, and doctors surgery scenes again at the end. We then re-watched the entire scene to check that we didn't need to re-edit any scenes that we hadn't properly edited before and to check that it was all continuous. When we had done this, we found that we were beginning to see continuity in our opening scene for our film as it was beginning to come together.
After this, we started to work on getting our opening title sequence looking how we wanted it to. We added in each name of everyone that was involved in creating our production. We went and looked through multiple different text edits and then looked at different fonts. Eventually we chose what we wanted, and then decided on the colour and size. We chose the Helvetica font for our text and we made it white at a size 63 font. We went and did the same font, size and colour for each name and as we did this, we positioned each name of everyone who was involved in creating our film opening on the clip in the correct place. We made sure that each piece of text was put on screen for the same amount of time and that it all worked with the clip that it was placed over (eg. the text came in and ended when the clip did).
Next, we worked on the sound for the video. We started by importing our background music which we had already previously saved/ imported onto itunes. When we had done this, we edited the music down so that it was the same length as the scene. Then we re watched it and realised that there was still a lot of background sound on clips that we didn't need sound for. So we went through each clip and took the volume of the majority of the clips off, leaving the clips that had sound of digetic voices in.
Then, we included our film name at the beginning of the opening. We chose a font that we thought was best suited to our film and edited it by changing the colour, size and letter spacing. Our film name is in a white text with a black background which we chose to coincide with the white and black theme that is in our ident and also the white font that is in our opening title sequence that displays the names of everyone who was invloved in creating our film opening. We also edited how it entered and exited the page by adding in a fade effect. We then started to add a fade in/out effect to other parts of the film opening that needed it in order to allow it to make more sense.
BBFC creation
To create our BBFC sign to put at the beginning of our film opening we began by googling BBFC images that we could take to use. As we could not find one with an age rating the same as our film (15), we instead chose one with a 12A age rating.
To change the rating to fit our film, we then had to use photoshop to add a 15 age rating sign over the top of the 12A one. We googled 15 rating signs, picked one and cut out the white background of it in photoshop.
We also made it smaller and moved it to fit over the 12A sign in order to fit our BBFC properly. We then used the text option in photoshop and typed in our film name 'Retribution' on the line where the film fits. Finally, we added it in to our film opening using Final Cut Pro, to go straight after our ident.
To change the rating to fit our film, we then had to use photoshop to add a 15 age rating sign over the top of the 12A one. We googled 15 rating signs, picked one and cut out the white background of it in photoshop.
We also made it smaller and moved it to fit over the 12A sign in order to fit our BBFC properly. We then used the text option in photoshop and typed in our film name 'Retribution' on the line where the film fits. Finally, we added it in to our film opening using Final Cut Pro, to go straight after our ident.
Monday 8 February 2016
HIV factual video notes
Notes:
- HIV on the rise in young gay and bisexual men in america: 13-24 year old men who have sex with other men, 132.5% rise in HIV between 2001 & 2011
- 22% increase in new HIV infections among these men between 2008 & 10
- 13-24 year olds account for more than 1/4 new HIV infections in the US in 2010
- Rising due to riskier sexual activity in younger men & anal sex
- New drugs- attempts to snip it out of the person completely
- People learning how to live with it
- Most likely contracted with male on male sex
- When men have sex with men they are less likely to use a condom than when they have sex with women (70+%- women, 45%-men)
- Men who have sex with other men and have injected illegal drugs in themselves have 20% chance of contracting HIV compared to 3% when it is a man and women having sex
- Information, education and young people knowing that they should/ how to protect themselves is needed more (beyond gay community)
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