Day 10: 25/10/2010

Today was our first class after mid term break. Ms. Wong had told us that we should have finished filming by the end so we would have lots and lots of footage to edit when we got back, but my group didn't manage to film once throughout the whole week as most of us were away and busy. So instead during today's class, we used the footage we filmed the last time we filmed before the break and Kazia and I worked on editing the clips and deleting the parts we didn't need while Sharon and Betty worked on our filming schedule. Even though we didn't have much to work or edit because we didn't shoot much the last time, it took us the whole lesson just to get through 2 of 5 or 6 clips we've uploaded already. While we were editing it, we realized that there was one scene we'd have to re-film and that we weren't very aware to our surroundings when we were filming because the clock we used for the second shot was still there later on, and we had forgotten to change the time on that clock.

Other than working on our film during today's lesson, we also got the draft of our essays back with Ms. Wong's comments on it as well as her suggestions to what could help us get an even better grade on it. For the essay, I got a 6, out of 8, and I think that that's pretty good. But I also agree with Ms. Wong's comments about my essay; how I was more descriptive than analytical in my essay. Sometimes that can be a good thing, but in this case it isn't because this essay is about analyzation and how we interpret different scenes and such.

I think that during today's class, I was mostly a communicator. I think that this is because I spent most of the lesson talking to Kazia about all the different parts that comes with editing footage. Even though Kazia was controlling the computer, we often talked to each other about which parts of the film we were going to keep or cut and when there were more than one take of a certain shot we'd discuss which one was better with the rest of our group. And once Sharon and Betty were done organizing our filming schedule, we all worked together and talked to each other, which is what communication and being a communicator is all about. :)

Day 7, 8, 9 - 21, 24, 30/9/2010

Day 7: 21/9/2010

During today's class, in our groups we continued to work on our script. We managed to achieve what we were aiming for last time; to add more dialogue in order to balance out the dialogue and the description and to add more characters and thicken the plot a bit more so that the film won't be dull. I think that achieving this was great because it helped us get a better sense about what the story is going to be like and what is going to happen as the story continues. But as we were writing the script, we came across a couple of problems which took some time to sort out and decide on what we wanted to do, which resulted in us not being finished with our script. We came across problems such as how we were going to make her invisible, how we were going to incorporate action into a movie about a teenager who gets a superhero, and how we were going to separate her regular life and her superhero life.

I think that overcoming these problems helped us develop more as thinkers and communicators, and I think that although we had to finish our script as homework, we worked really well as a group and as individuals. :)

Day 8: 24/9/2010

During today's class, we spent the lesson working on our scripts and finalizing it, adding in things, taking away irrelevant things and making sure that the script was clear and easy to understand. After we did so, we printed out our script, one copy for us and one copy for Ms. Wong. Our script ended up being 7 pages long. :)

After we printed out our scripts, Ms. Wong handed out storyboard sheets to each group. For the rest of the lesson, we worked on the storyboard. Because we spent most of the lesson working on our scripts, we had to split up the storyboards among all of us. I got the first and the third scene, which really wasn't that hard because we did most of the first one as a group before it was time to go and the third scene was more focused on Julia and Julia's mom talking and her going into the bathroom getting ready. Before we worked on our storyboards, my expectations as to how hard it would be to draw the storyboards were really high, so I was really surprised when it was that easy to get the storyboard done.

I think that throughout today's class, we all worked really well as a group, working as open-minded students, thinkers as well as communicators. I think that I was a communicator today because I often suggested ideas to make the story more interesting and to make it more like a teenager and casual rather than formal, which I think was one of the main problems towards the end of our script. :)

Day 9: 30/9/2010

During today's lesson, we put all of the storyboard sheets together and started numbering the shots as we didn't do that because we decided it'd be easier if we did it all together because we didn't know how many shots each person would've done for their storyboard scene. After we labelled all the shots, we put them all together and made sure they were all in the right order.

After we were done, we started working on the shot list sheets of paper that Ms. Wong handed out to us near the beginning of the class. A shot list is a table with 6 columns; shots, distance, angele, movement, blocking and script notes/dialogue. This was to help us organize what we were gonna film first, and we decided to sort out the order we were going to film in order of location. For example, we put all of the bedroom scenes first as we were planning on filming in the bedroom first, then we put all of the house scenes next, and so on. I think that having this shot list is really going to help the process of filming as it'll help us be more organized when we start filming. Another reason why I think it's really important is because the table included the camera distances, the camera angels and the camera movements, which even though were shown in our storyboard drawings, it'd be hard to tell what we were trying to achieve in the cinematography area without the actual words. :)