Make Up Scene Re Filmed

This is one of the scenes I ref limed for my project. The original clips had extremely bad lighting and the background distracted from the viewer. In this one, the lighting (although redo lights were used in a photography studio) looks realistic and natural, with no harsh shadows or spill. The background is plain and professional really making the woman stand out.

Docudramas

I began to very much look into docudramas as I feel my piece would very much benefit from being within this style/genre. Docudrama (as described on the website link given below) is where

Events are portrayed by actors in front of an invisible "fourth wall"


I believe it is where you are given shots of commentary followed by a sequence of drama where the events are carried out. Shooting techniques remain the same as conventional film and television shots, and whilst these visual sequences are acted out, there is not commentary. Docudramas are non fictional drama. The real is being represented.

I feel the trailer below is quite an interesting example. It shows real footage but merges it with modern day sequences reenacting of what it was like in the past. There is a commentator describing what is happening within the scenes as well as given additional information. As an audience you trust what this trailer is telling you, as the information is factual and the miss en scene used enhances the realism, even though it was filmed many years from the actual event.

Lighting Resolved

Today I reshot my scenes in the Photography studio using Dedo lights instead of the fluorescent lights that I previously used. It looked much better and far more professional. There was slight grain which I sorted out on Final Cut Pro, but apart from that, the models skin colour looked much more realistic and overall healthier! I increased the contrasts lightly to make it more dramatic and then reversed the shots. This created a really unique effect which I felt was highly effective. It is representative of how her daily routine has been disrupted and she now has to remember new tasks to do every day in order to maintain her sugar levels. It has left her slightly confused and this effect is meant to symbolised the chaos now in her life, which she will eventually have to learn to control.

Sound

For the scenes of my model running, I removed the sound as it was not appropriate to the piece. However, I then felt it was far too silent and needed some sort of background noise. As the original footage had people talking over it and was generally poor quality, I used Logic Pro and the effects available to me on that software. I added 'Town' background noise and footsteps of someone walking on gravel. I cut each footstep and timed it every time Lizzy's foot touched the ground. I also adjusted the with the volume making the footsteps quiet as she was far from the camera, and gradually louder as she came towards it. I then bounced the sequence and added it to my piece in final cut pro so that it synced perfectly.

Lighting Issues

I filmed the below footage in my bedroom as I wanted to make the video look more like a realistic account of the girl's life and I feel by filming in her bedroom makes it much more personal. However, lighting was difficult and especially at the time I was filming looked extremely inconsistent and dull. That is why I have decided to book the photography studio to achieve much more professional and dramatic lighting for my piece.

Sound Effects

I decided to use this copyright free website to download some sounds that I want to use in my piece. I rented a Zoom microphone and tried to record the sounds myself however for the dripping of the tap, I feel that I could not get the right sound. I wanted it to be loud with a large echo, which is something that I could not achieve on my own. Therefore I have used a sound effect that sounded as if it had been recorded in a sort of cave, which sounded extremely more stylistic.

http://www.freesound.org/people/sazman/sounds/17431/

http://www.freesound.org/people/Percy%20Duke/sounds/23872/

Opening Titles

For the beginning of the film I created opening titles using After Effects. I used a few text generators as well as adjusting the opacity levels in the transform options. I wanted 'diabetes' to enter quite stuttered, to make it look quite blunt as it is quite a harsh illness generally. Towards the end, 'type one' and 'one type' flicker into each other to represent how type one is quite negative but it eventually becomes something that is manageable and more positive (e.g only 'one type' of illness that exists in the world).