Today we filmed the revised fight, walking to the prom, and the prom scene itself.

I worked on my evaluation and album artwork all morning, then went in for period four, where me and Amy refilmed the fight. I managed to get my friend Becca involved in stageing the fight, to make it as realistic and dramatic as possible; her being a drama and E15 student. She also worked the camera (in the way that I told her), after giving her a tutorial in using it. Sophie was in a lesson at the time and so couldn't make it, she said we should do it without her though as we're running out of time.

We experimented with a variety of ideas, and filmed them all so that we could watch back a vast selection, and select parts from that. This, we figured was the best way to approach it, as at least some of it should be convincing!

Update: Rhys can only take part in our filming session tonight or tomorrow lunchtime and period five, before the deadline, because he's going to Wales after school tomorrow. It's Amy's birthday today so she doesn't want to film tonight, and it's unlikely we'd convince people to help us during their lunch break, so we're filming the prom during period 5 tomorrow.

Due to a lack of time, I've decided that it would be best to scrap the taxi idea. I figured it's not a vital part of our storyline, and it would take more effort than we can give, so our time would be better spent on something else. I shared this view with Amy and Sophie, and they agreed.

Tomorrow morning, period one, me and Amy have a free lesson, so we're going (to continue in my case), to prepare points of discussion for our evaluation.

Periods two and three we have media studies. Sophie offered to continue with our evaluation notes whilst I edit, and Amy wants to put an input in on what I do.

Then, period five, me and Sophie are free so we'll continue with our evaluation notes, and prepare ourselves for recording our discussions after school time. Our teacher said that we can stay until 5:30pm; when she leaves.

Period one then on Thursday, we'll put together our evaluation recordings and combine it with Powerpoint slides and footage from our videos to illustrate our discussions with examples. As long as I manage to get my album artwork completed at home, and when I've had more of an input on our webpage (Myspace page), - everything should then be ready!

Today our teacher told us that our final deadline is Thursday.


By then we have to have ready to hand in:
- our completed video
- our completed album artwork
- a link to our completed myspace page
- a link to our individual blogs
- a link to our group blog, and
- our completed evaluation


We've nearly completed all of these, however we haven't even thought about our evaluation! We'd all thought that we had until the end of this term to complete everything, and the the few weeks after for our evaluation, but no, it's due Thursday. So, we had a bit of a panic and I decided to write a list, firstly of what we have left to do - followed by when we could do it. Here is my timetable for up until the deadline:


MONDAY
-(after school)

Me - film "in taxi"

TUESDAY
-(periods 2 and 3)

Me, Sophie and Kelsie film"getting into taxi"
-(period 4)
Me and Amy film revised "fight scene"

-(after school)
Me and Amy film down the road "come on!"

Me, Amy, Rhys and extras film "prom"

Me and Amy - film Amy’s "stairs + door scene"

WEDNESDAY

-(periods two and three)
Editing
-(after school)
Record evaluation video

Album cover - every evening in free time!

Notes, tomorrow:
Curl hair

Bring fight clothes

Bring prom clothes

+ make-up

We decided to cancel today's filming due to rain, and also Amy hurt her back. Tomorrow we can edit what we recorded yesterday, and then compress and share our video so far with our teacher, to then add it to our class showcase for evaluation. We'll also discuss when to reschedual our filming for.

In class today I confirmed tomorrows plans with Amy, Sophie and Kelsie and answered questions about details I'd thought about and worked out at home. Everything is good to go! We just need to collect the camera tomorrow, I need to sort out my costume tonight so that it's ready to put on and go through exactly which parts we need to film.

This lesson we also looked through our video so far and tried to add a bit. None of the footage so far had an ideal clip for the extended "woah" before the final chorus, so I suggested filming a close up/extreme close up there and then in the lesson so that we'd have that and nobody would know that it was spontaneous as my uniform wont show if done correctly.

I went to the technicians and asked for a camera, they then refered me back to my teacher who needed the camera for ten minutes so we started to set up our Myspace page. When she'd finished with the camera me and Sophie took it outside whilst Amy chose to continue with our Myspace page. I grabbed my iPod from my car so that anything I'd mime would be in time with the actual music, guessing the timing probably wouldn't be a very good idea and would be difficult/verging on impossible to get insync when editing. Sophie asked if we should go to find a spare classroom, which we could have done, but I figured that it would be time consuming. The weather was idealic and we were surrounded by greenary so I suggested that the mise-en-scene would be more interesting and suited to our genre where we were. So, we settled on some green bushes which could be decoded subconciously by our audience as jealousy. I then said that perhaps we should record the entire song incase any other lines haven't worked out for us so we did this. I had a bright blue, summery scarf on so i wrapped this around my school shirt's collar to make sure that it wasn't showing. I checked with Sophie that the shot was close enough for it to not notice and she reassured me. We then recorded the whole song, including the "woah" part three times to be safe.

Finally we went up to our classroom and transfered the videos to our 'editing station' whilst Amy showed us what she'd done to our Myspace page. She didn't know how to edit the profile as it has all changed since we used to use the site, but I managed to work it out quite quickly and showed her how to do it. We then watched through a tiny bit of the footage me and Sophie had produced. The colouring was very bright and summery, with well-suited mise-en-scene and animated facial expressions, however I'm worried that the filming wasn't zoomed in quite enough and some of my uniform shows. It does seem quite subtle though, so we can study this in more detail in Wednesday's first lesson.

Today we found out that instead of Friday as our showcase deadline, it would in fact be Wednesday period three, so we only have the one hour on Wednesday to edit! I plan to ask Amy to simply transfer whatever we record tomorrow onto our computer during her morning registration to save time, and I might try to work on editing throughout my period one free, depending on how the room is being used.

Once I got home today I got stuck into editing my album artwork straight away. I completed what I set our to do on Picnik and added a black "wall" in Paint - which goes with the diary/girly/animated theme I'm going for luckily. (Finished image: right)

This is of course not the completed album cover, I have to add the other half first, as well as the text and the diary/cartoon style scribbles. It will also have to be the correct size of an actual album cover, and I'm going to have to design the back cover and an optional spine too.

This lesson I also found out roughly from Sophie and more acurately from my teacher, that the album cover is not supposed to be for Taylor Swift, but in fact for our fictional singer's name, which we hadn't realised at all. This entire time we had been pretending that I was Taylor Swift. Luckily nothing has to be changed, other than my name in the album artwork and Myspace page. My actual name is Emma Langschied, which is quite long, complicated and in no way catchy, so we've decided to shorten it to Emma Lang. This is the new name we'll refer to the music artist as.

I went through what we need to film on Tuesday, making notes, so that I feel more organised and I know what we're doing. I know that Amy and Sophie like to turn up on the day and improvise, which I'm sure works but I like to plan to feel like I know what I'm doing and to make sure that we get everything done in time!

Today we discussed when to film the prom and taxi scenes. I suggested Monday after school as Wednesday's double lessons we'd need to edit, but Amy works Mondays and Sophie has psychology revision, so I suggested Tuesday after school; we can all make this so it's been decided. All three of us have our media theory lesson last period on a Tuesday, so we're going to leave straight after this together, either I or Amy will drive Sophie to Kelsie's where her dad's taxi is available (I'd previously checked with her). I'm going to prepare my costume and plan my makeup Monday night so that we're all good to go on Tuesday, and it's not all a last minute rush like last time!

Update: I managed to talk to Amy, however I didn't see Sophie all day. I told her about next week's deadline and she said that it's okay as we'd planned to film next Wednesday anyway. I highlighted the fact that we'd need that time to edit the newest footage in time for Friday because I can't keep using frees for editing, she agreed and said we'll get together with Sophie in Thursday's lesson and discuss our next and final(hopefully) two filming sessions, maybe for during Monday's lesson.

Today neither Amy or Sophie were in our lesson, so I planned to play around with Photoshop to practice for my album cover. However, our teacher told us that next Friday our entire video needs to be completed (roughly), all the way through without gaps. So, I decided to go through our music video instead to see what needed doing, and although Amy had said that we have nothing left to do until we next film, there were plenty of lines I could still fill in, so I did. I didn't change anything we'd previously done, except the timing on one part because it was approximately one frame out of sync, I just added fresh new bits to it. This made quite a difference with few gaps left up until closer to the prom scenes that we haven't filmed yet. I did also add an effect to a new "live" performance piece I added - strobe lighting. It kept coming up as unrendered, but each time I rendered it, it would work so hopefully it shouldn't be a problem.

Due to acedemic review day on Wednesday, we said that we couldn't film until next Wednesday during our double free, all together. However, with the firm deadline being Friday, and us being physically unable to film everything in one day, we're going to have to film before this, and probably even use the double lesson on Wednesday for editing the new footage in time for Friday's deadline. This does probably mean that we won't all be able to record together, though I'll do everything I can to make sure that we're all present at the final few filming sessions. We also have to bare in mind that the closer we get to the deadline, the more booked up the cameras will be, and as we've been using the new cameras, there are only two to choose from. Assuming Amy and/or Sophie are in school tomorrow, I'll be able to talk to them both togther in our period five theory class to get them thinking about it, and to get the ball rolling once again.

Today we have a double lesson and had planned to film the taxi scene at Kelsie's, and some of the prom scenes if we had time left over and people available, however the weather is misty and grey - not at all appropriate for what we need, so we're postponing this filming session. We've discussed when we can do it, and decided that people are more likely to participate during their free periods rather than time outside of school, so during our double media lesson would be ideal. Next Wednesday unfortunately is Academic Review Day so we're off timetable and can't really organise filming as everybody's appointments are at different times, so, our next available slot will be the Wednesday after next which is the 30th of March. I'm thinking of creating a Facebook message because people our age check it regularly, to alert them of this new date and ask for them to get involved. If this isn't successful I'll bribe them with free pizza or something! 

I missed today's media lesson as I had a hospital appointment, so I'll have to catch up with Amy and Sophie tomorrow. Also, I think I might call Amy later on tonight to ask if we could use Kelsie's taxi, and if we can see if we could film the taxi scene tomorrow and maybe the prom scenes too, to try to get everything filmed and sorted because we've come to a bit of a halt and its on my mind!

Filming Session 4
During period one today, me and Amy both had a free so I went to find her to discuss plans for the day's filming. I pointed out that the weather wasn't at all suitable for filming the fields scenes - which is what we had planned to do today - so I suggested a rethink. I logged onto a computer and onto my blog and printed off a few copies of the lists I made the other day, stating what we had left to film still. I crossed off fields and the prom, as the weather wasn't right for it, then thought through the rest. I then told Amy what I'd come up with. We thought of doing the "live" performance in the drama studio, as they have professional lighting, so we went to the drama department to find a drama teacher to ask for permission for a time slot - preferably today. We didn't find a teacher, so we went to student reception to ask whether the studio was free period 3 or 4. They said it was free during period 4, and that we should find a teacher at breaktime. With this knowledge, we went back to the study centre to continue planning. I thought of a short task we could fit in an hour (period 2), so that we could be back in time for break. We figured that filming the last few lines in Amy's room would fit - it would be tight but possible. We planned to drive back to school for break, ask permission to use the drama studio throughout period 4, then to drive back and film in Kelsie's dad's taxi, then to drive back for period 4. With the plan sorted, all we had to do was wait for Sophie, so we started to do that. After a while I thought that seeing as me and Amy both drive, maybe I should get a head start and drive home to get changed in time for when Amy and Sophie get to Amy's, so having explained to Amy I left to get changed, and asked Amy to call me as she left. I then got changed into the red/cream jacket and jeans I wore previously, and tried to match the look exactly so that the clips could be seamless. I then ran around trying to find a costume for the "live" performance as we hadn't planned what I'd be wearing because we weren't expecting to be doing it today! I also located the dress I'd wear in the taxi scenes - which i was aware had to match the prom scene.

Amy then called me to say that she was on her way back, and that she'd pick me up on the way to save time, so I agglomerated everything we needed that I had, ready to jump in the car to go to hers. She got to mine much quicker than expected, it turns out she wasn't at school when she'd phoned, they'd stopped off at a local Sainsbury's, so we left in a rush. As we got to hers, I began explaining my storyboard to Amy as everyone got settled, then I realised I'd left the camera at my house, so I literally ran home to get it and back again. As they were eating an early lunch I was thinking through every detail I could, to figure out how to make it run as smoothly as possible. I mentioned curling my hair a few times as Amy curled my hair last time and she does it differently to how I do it, but no one was really listening. I checked the time, and it was 10 minutes before the start of breaktime - and it takes around 15 minutes to drive to school, so we left then to ask for permission. I said that we don't all need to go, but Sophie wanted to go to media and blog instead of filming, Amy wanted me to go to drama with her and Kelsie didn't want to be left at Amy's alone, so we all went back to school - me fully costumed.

We made it to school mid-break, and went to the drama office. The teachers said that we could use the big drama studio with the proper lighting during period 4, and said that they'd show us how to use the lights, as none of us had ever done drama at our current school. We thanked them, then me, Amy and Kelsie set off back to Amy's. When we got back Amy curled my hair to match how it was before, then we filmed the opening line "now go stand in the corner", seeing as it had messed up before. We did the shot as me looking down into the camera - an extreme low angle shot! My hair was covering around a third of my face, and I looked as angry as possible, and slightly insane; to give the video a strong start. We recorded about 8 attempts - only one matched what we'd pictured, though I believe it will need the colour restoring - but we can see to that later.

Next, I got out my storyboard and explained it to save Amy reading it. As it had been planned out in such fine detail, it was so easy to record and took no time at all! The extreme close-ups where supposed to be in the same location as the other shots, but our teacher had said to us before that she adored the shots we composed previously in the other room, so we tried to do a bit more intimate camera work in there instead. It's hard to see how any of this went until we watch it back. If it needs re-doing, it's not the end of the world, it won't take long.

Period 4 - Drama studio"live" performance

We don't have much of a budget at all so we made full use of the school's facilities - including stage lighting and a black backdrop/curtain for the limted time of an hour. Whilst in the drama studio we recorded my miming to the entire track from five different angles, so that we could pick the best of each line we need, and fill in any unplanned gaps in our video. It took quite a while to figure out the lighting and get me stood in the most ideal places to make the best use of what we had, and to make the end result believable.

It was just me and Amy so we couldn't have Amy operating the lights at the same time as filming so we have to make use of the spotlight. We also kept the red lighting on as it's obviously code for anger, revenge and passion - all things that the song focuses on.

As Amy's form room is our media class, she used the 20 minutes to transfer the day's filming to our designated mac to save us time next lesson.

Once I'd arrived home from school, the weather was extremely sunny - though quite cold, so I called Amy. I asked if she wanted to film the field part today seeing as the weather had been grey and wet recently and we may not get another oppertunity. She said yes and that she'd hang onto the camera, and we arranged to meet at 3:30. I'm not sure if Amy told Sophie our plans or not, I think she did, but Sophie has said before that she cannot film after school as she lives quite far away and can't travel that far, and we'd filmed the rest without her too. I got changed into the white dress, the same necklace Amy had leant me for the "live" performance to introduce a bit of subtle cohesion, and re-did my makeup. At the last minute I remembered that we needed a diary, so I found a book and wrote typical diary notes down - being sure to reference parts from the song, so match the line "she thinks I'm psycho 'cause I like to rhyme her name with things". I also grabbed the straw hat from before to enhance the mise-en-scene.

 

At 3:30 on the dot, Amy knocked for me and I showed her the 'diary' as we walked over to our local fields. The ground was extremely muddy, and I was dressed in white! - but we had to make do with what we had. I pointed out that we could always re-film it if things don't look right. I had pictured this with me sitting cross-legged on the grass, daisy chains, sunny, bright saturation - all with a summer tone, however we had to try to recreate this as best we could. I ended up sitting and posing on a graffittied, modern blue bench in the middle of the muddy field. It was extremely cold, around 3 degrees, but hopefully this won't be decoded as it's definitely not the intended, preferred reading.

Near-Future Plans

• Tomorrow we plan to get to Kelsie's for 8am to spend period one's media lesson filming the taxi scene in Kelsie's dad's taxi. Kelsie also has a free here so that's no problem.
• Amy will then upload the footage from the fields yesterday, and the taxi videos during registration.
• After school we're considering recording the prom scenes to get it all done in one day, this wasn't made a solid plan though and as it will involve organising other people I doubt it will happen tomorrow.

Having checked the weather forecast earlier, me and Amy have discussed filming the in the fields location tomorrow to make full use of it being bright and hopefully dry. We didn't see Sophie at school so we're going to have to talk to her in the first media lesson tomorrow about it.

Editing monday's lesson

For the last hour or so I have been going through my notes and highlighting key outdoor recordings we need to carry out, and grouped them into four main locations. One, is to be located in a field, for the diary scenes - judging by the quantity of this it will probably take the best part of a day to complete, so it wasn't really realistic to try this in less than three hours. The other parts were located: in school (on and around a bench, in the common room, on stairs and out by the front of our school); across the road and in Amy's car, and at Ray Park (a large, local child's park). I thought it would also be a good idea to record random footage of us in character throughout the morning, in case it could then be used - as fillers or as a new fresh idea for the odd frame. I've thought about what I need to wear first, and what I need to bring with me - several changes of clothes to show temporal progression, and I've kept my costumes lightly western and closely iconic to Taylor Swift. I'm also going to use black eyeline to draw '13' on my left hand, and go over it in different glitters to represent the fact that she changes it each day. It's unlikely that any audience would notice, or even if it will show up on each frame, but it will be there in case it does. For the diary scenes I plan to make sure that it can be seen as I'm holding the diary, so that it is guaranteed to be in the video. I've also been looking around for white horse nail design stickers on the off-chance that they exist, as a self-referential alusion to another of Taylor's tracks - White Horse, but so far I've had no luck. I've decided to only use light make-up so as to be decoded as natural and wholesome, to exaggerate the juxtaposition between myself and Amy.

For a fair part of tomorrow's filming we need 'the guy' to be featured in quite a lot of our recordings, and as it is me that has to act all content and in love, we have decided it would be more believable if my boyfriend, Rhys, played the part. Luckily, he has free periods whilst we have our media lessons, so he's available and willing tomorrow, and said that usually he would be available if we have to re-shoot anything at a later date. Whilst going through what parts to film tomorrow, I made sure that every part that Rhys is in, in these locations, will all be filmed tomorrow so that we don't mess him about. He asked what to wear so I said casual American. He knows of Taylor Swift so he understands her 'look'.

I spoke to Amy at break time today to catch up on things. She said that neither her or Sophie had done any editing or group posts as they didn't want to do anything without me. I then said that I thought that we should film tomorrow, and as the weather has been improving and exams have now finished we could film some outdoor footage. Amy agreed and said that she'd organise booking a camera as her form room is in the media block. I facebooked Sophie once I was home as I hadn't seen her around school, and told her our rough idea about filming during our double media lesson tomorrow, and arranged to meet her in the common room after period one's lesson.

The next lesson, period 4 on Monday 7th of February, I was absent as I had an interview for Oxford Brookes so later on today I need to find Amy and/or Sophie to see what progress they've made. I also intend to suggest filming tomorrow morning during our double lesson; similarly to last week. I know it's last minute so they might not be able to make it, and even if they can we might not have access to a suitable camera, but it's worth a try. If not we can continue editing the footage we recorded last week.

In addition, I'd like to suggest going to see a drama teacher as soon as possible to set a solid slot for us to use the drama studio, with the guarantee of access to appropriate lighting.

(02/02/11)
More Filming
Today we have organised two more filming sessions. Sophie unfortunately has a psychology exam over our double lesson on Wednesday, so me and Amy are taking the entire morning to continue filming in her bedroom, and hopefully outdoors in the field as it's becoming sunnier.

(07/02/11)
Overall, today was productive.

(08/02/11)
Filming Session 2
On Wednesday morning, the weather was unfortunetly far too cold to film outside, especially as the clips were supposed to take place during the summer. My costume for that involves purely a thin white dress - so it was a no-go. Instead, we continued recording in Amy's bedroom, and managed to complete filming footage for the lines:

She looks at me like I'm a trend and she's so over it
I think her ever present frown is a little troubling
Sophisticiation isn't what you wear or who you know
Or pushing people down to get you where you wanna go
But no amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity
She's not a saint and she's not what you think she's an actress, woah
She's better know for the things that she does on the matress, woah
Ha ha
 
That Wednesday afternoon, Amy had a free period so she went to the media department and transfered our morning's recordings to our designated imac work station, so that the footage was ready to convert and import early the next morning and we could focus more on editing rather than all waiting for the data to transfer - wasting time.The next morning, me and Sophie converted and imported the videos to Final Cut Express. This ended up taking the majority of the lesson as the files had combined with our old files so we tried seperating them again, and converted and imported some, before realising we'd missed some vital footage. Then, we decided to start from fresh and convert and import all the files so that none were missing. This was more thorough but time consuming. By the time this was done, we only had time to view the videos and begin cutting and editing a few lines, and not to the standard we're aiming for.Just these eight lines took approximately four hours to produce. We had to reconstruct the mise-en-scene to look identical to how it had been at our previous session; details from which dresses go where, to my hair being curled in the same way, etc. This took long enough; then figuring out how to transfer our ideas to reality wasn't all smooth. We had planned for the line: Sophistication isn't what you wear or who you know, to take place infront of the mirror, with a sequence of jump cuts to create the impression that the outfits are changing in sync with the music - a post-modern idea in the hopes that it's preferred reading would be that the main character is trying on different outfits; adhering to the stereotypes and ideology of gender - females are forever trying on clothes - materialistic society.




Thursday 10th however, it turns out, is being used for A2 drama rehearsals and performances so it's unavailable to us being media studies students; meaning that we'll be set back another week.In order to keep things going and continue making progress, we have agreed once more to continue filming at Amy's house on Wednesday 11th to hopefully finish off our need for that location. If the weather is warmer, hopefully brighter, and more promising, we will take advantage of it by changing our plans to film the diary footage over some open fields situated near by to mine and Amy's houses. Our next filming session had been booked for later that day after school, Thursday 3rd February, however as Sophie at the last minute could not make this session, and there was a chance that we may not be able to access the lighting needed for an ideal construction of our "live performance" footage we decided to postpone it until the following Thursday.

Editing Session 1
blah blah blahhhhhh

Organising filming sessions

In order to organise dates and times in a way that we can all comprehend easily, I decided it would be a good idea to do things in a typed up format. Therefore, as we all have each other on Facebook I created a message to get the ball rolling. We had discussed details of dates, times and locations in class, but with all three of us coming up with a muddle of reasons as to when and why we can't do things, and with exams and revision being important to factor in, it hadn't really be very useful. By using Facebook, we selected the day with no problem and a time followed even more easily. It was a successful way of organising ourselves.