Diary 30/06/12

A while ago my ebay bid for the alarm clock I intend to use in my short film ended. However in the last minutes another bid was put on it and I did not get to it in time to put a new bid on. Therefore I lost the auction and am now in the process of looking for another alarm clock. Hopefully I will find one soon.

Camera Slider Part. 1

For some of the shots in my short film I need to create some perfect steady pans especially low accross the floor. However the equipment I have available to me has not given me the desired affect I want. This has caused me to find an alternate method and create something that I will be able to ensure gives me the desired effect. Therefor I am going to create a camera slider as demonstrated in the video bellow that I have found.

Camera Slider Tutorial - build it easy - a professional Cam slider / glider from Friedhelm Fischer on Vimeo.

Diary 27/06/12

Prop Selection 1

So I have been currently searching for an alarm clock to use in the opening scenes of my short film. To do this I have asked around for people I know to borrow their alarm clocks. In order to create the parallel worlds I will need to use two different but similar clocks. Ideally I would like to use non electric ones will a ringing bell. These are the ones I have gathered to chose from at the moment. I may however find more and I shall decide on my final selection at a later date.

Diary 26/06/12

Today I visited the OCR website as linked below. This has vast amounts of example projects that have recieved full marks. I have viewed several of these also linked below. I have used these as firstly it is important to learn what needs to be done to get full marks in the course. Also I feel that it is important to get a perspective of how other schools create their coursework as they may do things differently and I can get inspiration in how I can complete my short film.

Diary 19/06/12

Last night I created several more blog entries. One was some research I had done into a famous short film director. This has benefited me as I have been able to view their style of filming and get inspiration from it. I also got my actor releases for permission to use their images in my work. I have started short listing my props and locations into more detail today and hopefully I will be able to post the resaults in the upcomming week. Currently in school I have had some technical difficulties which have prohibited the speed of my work. Firstly I can post on blogger from school but I cant view my blog which has been a slight hassle. Also I have been having account troubles in which I have lost all my documents. However I am currently working on fixing this and hopefully it will be sorted soon!

Actor Releases

These are the contracts I had the actors/actresses I intend to use in my short film sign. They give consent for me to use their image throughout the production and final process of my short film.Actor Releases

Director Research

I have conducted research into famous short film director Penny Grylls and watched some of her work. This has given me inspiration into my own short film.Director Research

Diary 18/06/12

This week I have currently been planning out which equipment I will be using in order to film my short film to the best possible quality and standard. I so far have decided which camera I intend to film the majority of my short film in. And the mount i will use to steady the camera movements. However some shots I intend to do and have story boarded will need special attention. Firstly the in shower shot I plan to use a Go-Pro camera as it will be waterproof and still film in the HD quality I require. Also in the initial pan across the bedroom floor I will not be able to use the mount as it is for a shoulder so is not possible. This has meant that I have had to find an alternative solution. My first plan was to use a camera crane pointed low. However this only works with the pan in an arcing motion and not the straight line I intend for. Another idea I had was to use the wheels for a camera tripod to roll the camera along.

However I did not find this to be a good solution to the problem. I have now decided to create my own camera stand on wheels that I can use to create the desired pan effect I need.  

Camera Equipment

There are several main pieces of equipment I plan to use in the filming of my short film.

This is the camera I am going to use to film my short film. It is the canon 550D DSLR. I have chosen to use this as it can film in HD and also using different lenses I will be able to create a wide range of focus changes and shots.

I am also going to use this shoulder mount. I will use this to steady my camera when I do certain panning movements.