Character profiles - Laura & Mark

Sam's character profile...

Dialogue:

• During the scene of the second flashback, we thought carefully about Sam's dialogue. He has used repetition of the sentence :"I do like it". This shows he does not know what else to say, and that he is perhaps intimidated by her. The body language furthers this as we see he flinches throughout this scene, once when he is being hit by the pillow, another when she does not actually go to hurt him, but she pulls her arm back. This also shows his scared feelings, and the fact that it is repeated allows the audience to infer that it has now become a natural reaction for him to flinch from her, suggesting her abusive nature. We will have him flinching throughout the later flashbacks to reiterate this. 

Body Language: 

• He shows confident body language when he is with his friends, as well as in the dialogue, as they often call each other "mate" showing comradery. But also with the way they say they will "go out on the pull", this suggests that they are stereotypical 'lads' who go out with each other, 'picking up girls'. He even appears confident at home, when he is by himself, as he shows independence with the way he is staying at home by himself, cooking dinner. This is even shown with the way he says "cheers mum", he is showing a close family relationship. This confident body language reflects his confident characteristic and also shapes the way the audience feel about him. We  

Amy's character profile...

Dialogue:

• When filming we thought carefully about her dialogue, an example is the first flashback, when Amy walks in after texting her mum. Originally we had her say "I've asked my mum if I can stay late", we then wanted to shorten this sentence as it wasn't important, so we then had her say "mum said I can stay late". However after analysing the lexis in this sentence, we realised there is no powerful language to show Amy's dominance. In the end we changed this part of the script and reshot the scene, with Amy saying "I've told mum I'll be home late". This an assertive declarative showing her dominance, even in her family life, not just in their relationship. The contractions used throughout the script also reiterate the social group we are representing: teenagers. This is because contractions are perceived as an element of informalisation which is predominant amongst teen slang. This will contrast with the language that the news presenters use because as part of their occupation they need to use formal language. 

Shot Ideas - Megan and Mark

We decided to do a couple of test scenes using the shots that we have so far. This one uses shots from various angles in the second flashback of Sam and Amy.

This shot shows a rough version of the transition we will be using from the cupboard upstairs to the fridge downstairs.

Problems with filming so far... - Laura

Here is a prezi showing all of the problems we have encountered whilst filming so far... http://prezi.com/jpv_5xnkpew0/filming-problems/?kw=view-jpv_5xnkpew0&rc=ref-26484195

Another problem we faced was during the flashback scene between Sam and Amy. We had to fold the LCD screen into the camera so that we could move it as if from Sam's point of view without having it reflect in the photo frame. This caused some issues for us, as we are able to see here. We were unable to see exactly where the camera was pointing so we ended up with a shot of the room rather than a shot of the photo frame. However, this ended up being quite useful as we realised that our equipment was visible in the frame of the rest of our shots.

When reviewing our footage so far, today, we noticed a few more problems. Two of which are errors that cannot be changed, so we will either have to reshoot or crop the image. Firstly, when doing a tracking shot of Sam walking to his car, we were so concerned about people being in the background that we actually left the tripod, which we weren't using as part of handheld tracking, in the shot. Sam actually walks past it at one point, so we're not quite sure how no one realised it! Luckily it wasn't in the whole of the frame so it can easily be cropped, or if we get time we will reshoot, next time making sure our equipment is entirely out of view. Secondly, we were using our actor who play's Sam, Mark's car. In his car there are two small license plates that say 'Mark', now we remembered to take the one in the rear window out as we started with the shots of the back of the car. However, there is still one in the back of the car. We assumed this would be alright as you only see the front of the car, yet there is one shot we had where Sam was driving, so we can see over his shouldher into the back, where the plate comes into the frame. This only happened in one part of the shot so we can always cut the shot down, or we can always crop or reshoot. This is most definitely unuseable though as it completely contradicts the identity of our main character.  

Second Day of Filming

Today we managed to film the following scenes: 

• Sam in his car when he is going to college, coming back and also driving 
• Where Sam makes his dinner then leads to the first flashback
• The beginning of the first flashback where we first see Amy - but unfortunately we ran out of time

Filming will continue next Thursday (13th)

Here we discuss our thoughts from Friday's filming session.
James and Laura talk about our driving scenes.