'The Student' - Needs more editing at the end!!!

Voice over recordings

When we recorded Alex's voice over, we chose to do it with Pro Tools mostly because this would allow us to edit the sound really easily.
We did things such as put separate takes together to make one very good one (comping) and moving the recordings so it flowed much better.
Pro Tools also allowed us to add effects to the voice over. Nothing extreme such as a huge echo or pitch shift, just minor adjustments such as adding a reverb to the track to give it more atmosphere and make it feel 'wider' as if it were outside, like it was the narrator genuinely following the subject around outside. We also added a compressor to the track. This is a plug-in that reduces the dynamic range of the sound; it makes the louder bits softer and the soft bits slightly louder so there is less of a change between the quietest point and loudest point. We did this so the voice over would be more flowing and coherent, as some parts were louder than others due to Alex moving in between takes.
Here is a sample of the voice over, before any editing was done:

ALEX VOICE OVER UN-EDITED

This is the same section of speech, only this time edited with the reverb and compression

ALEX VOICE OVER REVERB AND COMPRESSION

The second sample has a more obvious 'echo' effect because of the reverb when compared to the first, but on its own it isnt as noticeably obvious. The compression isnt as noticeable in this particular section, as it is a whole-track kind of change rather than editing particular segments. Overall the second voice over sounds better and will work better with the theme of our production.

Voice Over Script

These are the voice over segments we will be recording and using on our production 

"Today, we we will be looking at an indigenous species to many urban areas. This creature is all around us, but rarely gets noticed. They are vital to the advancement of our society and without them... there would probably be no need for fast food. I am talking of the Student"

'As you can see, the student has very little problems about where they take up residence. Some have even been known to live in amongst piles of old food, and are close friends to scavengers such as rats and badgers for this reason. The sleeping patterns of these creatures vary greatly, and some, such as this particular specimen, are near nocturnal'

I think we had better leave, as a tired student has been known to rival the anger of a freshly castrated grizzly bear. We should observe from afar

Now the student is dressed and awake, the fight for food can begin. Often the student will live off scrapings and minimal food, such as last nights left over pizza or the last few crushed up cornflakes

Often food can be scarce and the world will become a hard place where only the fittest will survive

here we have the student in a social environment. The student is a very sociable animal, often seen in packs and large groups in grassy areas. In the fast paced world of the student, they rely on their pack for the latest updates and security in harsh environment

If the students dont keep up to date they risk being rejected and exiled form their pack, left to fend for themselves

The student is a creature known to spend a large amount of time sleeping. They have been known to sleep in odd places such as bushes, wooden floors or even upright in the beer garden of a pub'

 The student has to search high and low to ensure he can survive the next day, finding methods of acquiring food.

'This student has survived another hard day, and now chooses to relax in the safety of his own home. 

tomorrow however, may bring a different challenge' 

Final Filming

The final scenes of filing were recorded outside Barnsley college and at a local newsagents. This however did leave some scenes that needed to be filmed at my house, and as everyone else was busy and the deadline approaching  I had no choice but to film these myself. Most of the shots were accomplished by me pressing record and quickly moving in to position, after which I waited a couple of seconds to ensure the clips could be easily edited to cut out the movement.
One shot in particular was impossible to do alone though. The pan shot at the very end of the production, where the student is playing video games and the camera pans to a deadline date on a calendar would have been impossible to do alone, as I had to be in the shot and could not pan it. For this reason I had to ask my sister to help out, and so the pan is not as smooth as it could have been if I had had another member of my group with me.
Other than this small problem, the filming went well and should now be complete, leaving only voice over and editing to do.

One of the shots I did, for which I had to stand on my amplifier to ensure I could get the correct angle and framing (I'm too short :( ) 

Voice Over recording

As our production is done in a 'Planet Earth' nature style documentary, a key element we need to include is the voice over narration of what is going on on screen. The use of a voice over allows for the viewer to clearly see the subject without any distraction, such as would be caused by an on screen narrator, whilst still being told what is going on and having it explained to them.
For our voice over we knew we would need a good, clear recording. As a Music Tech student I knew that college had a Neumann U87 AI microphone, which is a very high end, top quality microphone. We chose to use this rather than a hand held Zoom recorder, as we had used this last year and had problems with some parts of the speech not being distinguishable and clear enough.
Once we had secured the microphone and a studio to use, we asked Alex to record all the voice over segments, with spaces in between so we can cut them up and place them in the correct place using Final Cut.
We recorded using Pro Tools HD. This is a top of the range system, and we knew would give us high quality .wav / .aiff files rather than a compressed .mp3. It also allows us to add effects such as a reverb to thicken Alex's voice and take away from the 'obviously recorded in a studio' feel and add a more polished, finished effect.
I will be added the before and after of the voice over's once I have edited them and added the effects tomorrow.
Here are some pictures of how we set up our recording:

Alex recording his perfect Russian voice 

Enjoying the time in the studio, feeling like a star

Alex and Josh listening back to the recordings to ensure everything is good 

FIlming: Title Sequence

For our title sequence we decided to do a time-lapse of the outside of college. We thought about doing this from the outside, with our student stood still and people passing by. However as this would take a long time we would have to hope for idea weather and lately we have had snow and wind which would make our filming a lot harder to accomplish. This could also raise the problem of people possibly not wanting to be on camera and use having to edit them out or re-shoot. For these reasons, we decided to do the shot from inside college, looking down from the 4th floor (the highest we could get) on to the outside of college. This, combined with the speed of our desired timelapse would make it impossible to distinguish any one person, and this way the wind contributed to the filming as it meant leaves and things were blowing by, which would add to the time lapse. 

I set the camera up and pointed it down, making sure to get the locations people will walk past or stand in most in the shot. I also had to be careful of the reflection from the window, but as the sun was fairly bright and the shot was very low angled this didnt seem to be a problem. The recording was done for 25 minutes (30 minutes filmed, but the last 5 were interrupted by a student knocking the camera and so are unusable). This footage has yet to be edited in to the time-lapse titles, and once it is we intend to add our 'The Student' title as a fade in in the center.

Here are some pictures of the camera set up.
          

Filming: 12 March

Today we are going to film the scenes outside college, and hopefully the scene in which the student buys a drink and leaves the shop looking happy. This should leave us with just a small amount of filming left to do at my house for the third scene and the final shot.
Today we will be needing at minimum our student character, 2 other male/females at at least one girl. Other students may be around outside the college, which will add to the feel of our film as it looks more genuine with people wandering around.

Amended script

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we have come to the decision we will have to edit the script if we are to finish our production by the deadline.

ACT 1 Scene 1
'Today, we we will be looking at an indigenous species to many urban areas. This creature is all around us, but rarely gets noticed. They are vital to the advancement of our society and without them... there would probably be no need for fast food. I am talking of the Student'
-Narrator is sat in bedroom, behind the sleeping student's bed. The bedroom is messy with clothes on the floor, blinds closed and minimal natural light.
'As you can see, the student has very little qualms about where they take up residence. Some have even been known to live in amongst piles of old food, and are close friends to scavengers such as rats and badgers for this reason. The sleeping patterns of these creatures vary greatly, and some, such as this particular specimen, are near nocturnal'
-Student moves and starts to wake up-
'I think we had better leave, as a tired student has been known to rival the anger of a freshly castrated grizzly bear. We should observe from afar'
-Narrator slowly heads to the door and leaves room, narration is done by voice over from now.
-Student starts to get up slowly and sits up. They reach out and grab the first clothes they can find, grunt and pull them on.
-Student walks downstairs to the kitchen while being followed by the camera-
- Camera setup to look like surveillance from high surface -
Narrator: 'Now the student is dressed and awake, the fight for food can begin. Often the student will live off scrapings and minimal food, such as last nights left over pizza or the last few crushed up cornflakes.
-Student is shown using the last of a bottle of milk-
Narrator: 'Often food can be scarce and the world will become a hard world place where only the fittest will survive'

SCENE 2
- Outside Old Mill Lane / Eastgate Campus -
Narrator: 'here we have the student in a social environment. The student is a very sociable animal, often seen in packs and large groups in grassy areas. In the fast paced world of the student, the they rely on their pack for the latest updates and security in harsh environments''
-Show student stood with a friend, who then leaves to talk to someone else, leaving the student alone. The student's friends then start laughing at them too and the student leaves looking depressed'
Narrator: 'If the students dont keep up to date they risk being rejected and exiled form their pack, left to fend for themselves'
Student then walks past a girl and says hi, who rejects him and continues walking.
Narrator: 'the student makes his mating call, but unfortunately this time he has been rejected due to other better suited specimens being available

SCENE 3

-Show student entering his home, sitting on bed and laying face down, dejected.
'The student is a creature known to spend a large amount of time sleeping. They have been known to sleep in odd places such as bushes, wooden floors or even upright in the beer garden of a pub'
- Fade to black for passage of time, then fade from black and show student waking up.
-Student checks pocket for money, close up of hand showing very little, around 70p
Narrator' The student has to search high and low to ensure he can survive the next day, finding methods of acquiring food.
-Student starts to search under the bed for money and finds a pound coin, instantly cheering up.
-Student goes downstairs and looks in the mirror, shrugs, messes hair up and leaves the house

SCENE 4

-Student is seen walking in to a shop, then walking out with a drink looking extremely happy.
-VO 'The student has survived another hard day, managing to negotiate the interactions with other students and find food to sustain himself. He now chooses to relax, safe in the knowledge he has made it through to tomorrow with little worry' Fade to black
-Fade from black, Show student sat playing on a games console, then a pan and close up of a homework deadline on a calendar.
Narrator: 'tomorrow however, may bring a different challenge'

Callum's Film Poster

After looking at some other film posters, I have produced one for our film following some common themes.

We took this picture out side Old Mill Lane, and used the 'Barnsley College' sign as a place to put our title as it looked good placed above my head. We used a very high quality camera to ensure our poster would be of the best quality.

We used the Steel Tong's font to ensure the poster fit in with professional standards. We checked with other posters to see what needed to be wrote, and tried to apply this to our production by adding all people that were involved and giving them a job title.
Once the text on the poster was right, I added our production logo and our distributor logo. I'm aware this poster isn't up to professional standard as I am not well trained in using photoshop, and had to ask for help from one of my friends for editing parts of the photo.

180-Degree Rule Theory

This "rule" is used all the time within media and films as a way of making the scenes between two people or a person and object look nature and consistent between shots. The idea is that the camera stays on one side of a 180-degree axis so the the shots aren't inconsistent and confuse the viewer because the objects in shot are unfamiliar because that side has previously been unseen. The most obvious example of this is in battle scenes in films, the camera has to stay on the same side otherwise it would look as if the two sides keep changing the side of which they are charging/fighting from, the same applies when filming sporting matches.

The 180-degree rule can be used to great effect, for instance it can show two sides to a person as in the Lord of the Rings trilogy where Peter Jackson uses the rule to portray Gollum to have two sides, the bad side looks to the right as he speaks and the good side to the left.

Location Research - College

Because our film is based on a student one of the main locations had to be a college/educational place, for easy access and location we chose to film at our actual college main building. The only scene we shot at college was shot jut outside the entrance next to some steps. We tried not to film loads around the college as we wanted to make the rest of the students life the key subject and not just going to college.