Questionnaire for my film

An investigate of my film work Valentine’s Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY0-yNVZudA 

Author: Ye Yuan (Johnny)

1.     Can you understand the flashforward in the film? If not, why?

2.     What do you think of the flashforward in this film?

3.     If you were an audience, what kind of flashforward is better in your own?

4.     Other suggestions from your own.

Flashforward: Taking the time to the future from the present time, during the story develops. 

闪前：将时间点从当前带到将来，例如幻想、预测等等。

Newer timetable of my project

Timetable

·         Outline your plan of action; give dates of developmental milestones linked to the PGC / PGD / MA stages; include personal tutorials and your vacations.

·         Identify a programme of events in which you intend to participate: lectures, exhibitions, tutorials, seminars, workshops, research visits, interviews, searches, on-line activities, etc.

16/12/2013 Write a short film screenplay with Lee.

18/12/2013 – 21/12/2013 Shoot the first short film (using flashback to display characters’ mental activities)

1/1/2014 – 2/1/2014 Edit the first short film and make audience testing

3/1/2014 – 8/1/2014 Prepare the assessment (presentation)

10/1/2014 – 19/1/2014 Read the book ‘The Visual Story’ especially the part ‘Story and visual structure’ (learn about the flashback in theories).

20/1/2014 – 14/2/2014 Watch more than 10 flashback flims then analyse and make conclusion on the differences of them onto online reflective journal. Then make a conclusion about how the audiences know the current scene that they are watching is flashback or flashforward.

15/2/2014 – 20/2/2014 Watch more than 4 flashforward films then analyse and make conclusion on the differences of them onto online reflective journal. Then read the book ‘Directing’ especially the ‘Aesthetics and authorship’.

21/2/2014 – 8/3/2014 Write a screenplay for the second film and finish the storyboard (the second film is using flashforward to display characters’ mental activities)

9/3/2014 – 20/3/2014 Send the screenplay to tutor and get the feedback, then amend the screenplay

21/3/2014 – 24/3/2014 Rewrite the storyboard, get the permission from the places I need to do shooting, get equipments well prepared and tell the actors about the story and any other details.

25/3/2014 – 27/3/2014 Do the shooting part of the second film

28/3/2014 – 10/4/2014 Finish the postproduction of the second film, then make a questionnaire to test the audiences.

11/4/2014 – 28/4/2014 Read the book ‘Story’, then rewrite the learning agreement, then make preparation of assessment on 28 April.

5/5/2014 – 12/5/2014 Watch at least 5 films about flashback or flashforward, then write journals about them.

                                           

13/5/2014 – 20/5/2014 Review the two films I have made, then make a list that what should be paid attention to, and then revise what I have read from books, journals previously.

21/5/2014 – 4/6/2014 Write the last screenplay about the third film and make it into a storyboard (the third film is about using both flashback and flashforward to display characters’ mental activities).

5/6/2014 – 8/6/2014 Get feedback from tutor and make some changes on it.

9/6/2014 – 11/6/2014 Get the permission from the places I need to do shooting, get equipments well prepared and tell the actors about the story and any other details.

12/6/2014 – 16/6/2014 Do the shooting part of the third film

17/6/2014 – 1/7/2014 Finish the postproduction of the third film and test the audiences

2/7/2014 – 7/7/2014 Revise the theories I have learned from books, journals previously.

8/7/2014 – 15/7/2014 Assessment week

Final version of my film

This is the final version of my film, named Valentine's Day. I added all the sub-titles, soundtracks. And I changed some shots and I tried to give more angles to audiences. As for the connections, I inserted some titles between the different things, because there are no connections between the different things in the first draft, so the development of the story seems farfetched. As for the flashforward in my film, I let it appeared for three times so as to display different moods of the main actor, in the first one, I tried to display that the main actor is imaging there meeting in a happy mood; the second one is the main actor is also imaging there meeting but in an anxious mood; the third one is the main actor is still imaging there meeting but helpless is shown on his face when the story backs to the present time. And I'm not sure that whether the format of sub-titles in my film are correct or not, so if they are incorrect, I will amend them.

Conclusion of my shooting part

Last week I finished my shooting part and it cost me two days and a morning. I used two DSLR cameras (Nikon D800e and Canon 5D Mark III), a shotgun mic, a monitor and two tripods. I got permissions successfully from everywhere I need to shoot.

From this shooting, I learned a lot. In my opinion, it is difficult to be a good director, because there are a lot of things needed to be considered, such as arranging actors' time, controlling the costs, telling story to actors and so on.

First, I found that I am not good at telling stories to actors and sometimes I ignored the dialogues between actors, because I wanted the actors to speak to each other temporarily, but now I think that it is not a proper way to do that. At that day when I was shooting in Broadway Cinema, I let them to speak to each other temporarily, they didn't know what to say. And it is difficult for me to do the post-production about this because the sounds can not be used because the actors said something unrelated to the story.

Then, Another thing is that I brought one camera only when I was shooting in the Boots Library, I didn't get the actors to remain the exactly same actions during the time I was shooting in different angles. So, some difficulties are added to my post-production, the shots can not be well connected together.

The last thing is that I should pay attention to goof shots, like the shotgun microphone lifting-up into scene, changing of weather and so on.

First draft of my film

This is the first draft of my film, I didn't make any sub-title because it will cost me a lot of time so I'm afraid I am not able to post on Fri. if I did the sub-title. So the final version will be uploaded next week with sub-title, background soundtrack and some colour corrections.