Filming

Due to problems with all three of us being free at the same time, we only had one day to film. However, in order to make the most out of this day we woke up at 5am so that we had as much time as possible. Firstly, we filmed the last scene where Joelle has a shower, which results in the burns on her skin. We chose to film this scene first because then we could move onto the scene where she puts onto her makeup so that she could leave that on for when she had to go into work later on. We then washed off the burns makeup and filmed the scenes in order as this made most sense to our schedule. For the scene in the shop, we were able to film in the Co-op just around the corner from my house. We simply asked one of the people who worked there and due to the time being early hours of the morning, the shop was not busy and so we were able to film. We encountered quite a few problems along the way, such as the fake blood not coming off Joelle’s face or struggling with the smoothness of shots due to our lack of use of the Steadicam. However, we overcame these problems fairly well and managed to continue filming. In the end, we managed to film everything that we had wanted to. Here is our finished film…

Although the shots are not as smooth as we had initially wanted them to be, we are glad that we decided to experiment with the camera as now we have practised and so could use these techniques next year in our A2 coursework. Arguably, one of our most unsteady shots is the one towards the end showing the shampoo and the feet. We were keen to cut this shot when editing, however it turned out to be the only shot where you can see the shampoo bottle and so we had to leave it in as this was the entire point of the task! Although this was fairly annoying, it has taught us to film each shot at least twice when filming next year. Overall, Emelia and I are happy with how our film turned out.

Makeup

Here is a picture of our main actress before the makeup look…

Firstly, we used PVA glue and tissue paper to create the uneven look on the face…

We then had to use a hairdryer to speed up the drying process…

After this, we applied foundation on Joelle’s face in order to disguise the tissue paper as skin. We then used eyeshadow in different shades from red to black in order to begin the burnt look…

Finally, we added some fake blood to the wounds to make them seem realistic…

Here is the final look…

Casting

For our short film, Emelia and I needed one main character. Ideally we wanted this character to be an adolescent/teenage girl. We also wanted to show our character being fairly self absorbed and slightly obsessed with her makeup and appearance. For this character, Emelia and I asked our friend Joelle Bromidge if she would be willing to help. Luckily, she jumped at the chance to help. For a previous halloween occasion, Joelle had created a burns look on her face. Here is what it looked like…

Emelia and I thought that a less severe version of this makeup look would be perfect for our short film.

 

 

Final Plot

Emelia and I could not decide on one of our ideas from our mind map and so decided to combine three of them. The three we have decided to combine are: the self obsessed girl who has a problem with her shampoo; the zombie apocalypse; and there being a virus in the water supply. In combining these three we have come up with a new and final storyline. For our short film, Emelia and I have decided to have a water virus that burns the skin on touch in the water supply. Our main character will be shown to be living out her everyday life with all the chaos from the outbreak of the virus surrounding her. However, the main character (alike in Shaun of the Dead) will not notice the havoc playing out around her and will carry on living her daily life normally; this is until towards the end of the short film when we will show our main character having a shower despite the many radio and television news warnings, which will result in horrific burns on her skin.

Steadicam

In order to carry out our aim of constantly moving the camera during shots, Emelia and I were able to use a Steadicam. When filming our AS Coursework, Emelia and I did not use the Steadicam due to the nature of our shots being still and so we used class time to practise with the equipment. Although at first it was more difficult than we had expected, with practice we got better. Here is some footage from our practice sessions…

Summer Challenge

Now that we have finished our AS Media Studies course, we have been set a task for the remainder of the summer term. Our task is to create a short film, however it must somehow include shampoo. Shampoo can be included as a main area of the plot or can simply feature in the background of a shot. This challenge is not just for fun, it will also help us to develop our filmmaking skills before carrying out our A2 coursework.

For this challenge I have chosen to work, once again, with Emelia Rodgers. At first we decided that we would like to create a short film within the genre of either sci-fi, comedy or adventure. We wanted to do something completely different to our film opening at AS and also wanted to physically film our project in an entirely different style. At AS, Emelia and I used predominantly still shots. For our short film, we are going to try and have the camera moving at all times. We have decided to be daring with our camera shots due to the fact that this project will not be marked for our A2 coursework and so we can experiment without risking our marks. We would also like to try and incorporate some of these techniques into our final project next year and so view this opportunity as a good chance to practise. Here is a mindmap showing our initial ideas for our short film and how we planned to film it…

Hello…

My name is Emilia Pearce and I am a student at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School. I am currently in my second year of the A Level Media Studies course and will document my progress on this blog. Alongside Media Studies, I am studying History and Geography and will soon carry out an EPQ.

Here is my AS Final 2 minute film opening, which we completed for our coursework. I carried out this task with Emelia Rodgers…