Progress

Since the beginning of my course I have gained the knowledge of the utter importance of lighting. And it is now going to be one of my main concerns when filming.

My basic planning has been improved a little although I still need to be far more organized so in that respect I have only progressed moderately. I still need to remember every time I film to have props i need ready, avalible actors, appropriate lighting, the story board the camera and the tripod.

I have also learnt that I need to explain to my actors more thoroughly what I would like them to do, rather than expect them to know exactly what my partner and I am thinking. I have been quite successful in keeping to what I have learned. For example one girl we were filming with had absolutely no idea what Erica and I wanted from her so I decided to show her by getting her to step behind the camera and watch me do the actions I needed her to do. In this way she was able to distinguish how much she should move in one shot and the type of reaction we required her to have.

I have been having a lot of trouble recently having to keep asking for a macbook to take out when they are never there. I have figured that if I have a mac with me when filming I can figure out whether the lighting is adequate or not. So my progress is to take up my uncles offer in buying me a mac and finally being able to get some serious work done.

Problem again with Ad 1

After putting our filming onto the mac Erica and I were disappointed to find that the filming we did for Ad1 is far too dark and the camera is constantly trying to re-focus. We have learned that we will need a different sources of lighting to make this particular advert look more professional and also to never depend on sunlight and blinds allown.

Ad 2

I believe that the filming we did for ad 2 was quite successful as the light wasn't too bright, although it still could have been darker. The light seemed to disapear incredibly quickly once the sun began to set with the trees in the woods not exactly helping.
My brother had to be in this advert too, to his dismay. And although unprofessional I was the other actor: After asking a great number of people to film they all seemed to be too busy so me being infront of the camera was unfortunatly the result of this.

I figured there were some shots I could potentially film to make it more proffesienal such as an over the shoulder shot and a point of view shot. More importantly though I would like to include a CU of both my brother and I together meeting one another to finish the advert properly as well as the finishing touches with the voice over and the logo  

Filmed Ad 1

Erica and I have finally been able to do some filming today although we had to make a few changes From the original idea:
Firstly through lack of actors over the half term Erica and I had to comprimise. Instead of having the continuity of a male and a female part in every advert I had to use my Father and Brother who were the only people avalible and prepared to film with us.
We also had to change the setting as last time we filmed in an actresses house so we filmed in an office where my Father works.
The ending also had to be changed as two males gazing into each others eyes is not exactly stereotypical to any advert we therefore got both of them to throw away all 'evidence' they had found and made sure we included a number of different angle shots of both the actors with their glasses on.
As my brother looks a little young I attempted to cover his blemishes with make up, but he wasn't having none of it. So we gave him the glasses that looked more sophisticated and didn't make him look like he was 7 years old. We had to put up with his laughter for a time so that took more time.

I would suggest our filming went well as, although we had to ajust the lighting quite regularly we tried to keep it consistent.