Update 23/02/12

The test shoot has now been edited, although the shots of the computer screen where graphics are supposed to be have been left blank.


Some of things that have noticed and/or changed from the original animatic:

• Two focus pulls of the phone might be waste of time so we removed the first one, that way we can use that time for more varied shots rather than repeats.
• Changed the first typing shot to a still isntead of a pan that we took just in case. We decided to do that because we wanted the action to build up, instead of jumping straight into it.
• We noticed that at the end we had two shots that were from a similar to one another in terms of angle and framing, this was a bit disconcerting to viewers so we got rid of the frame where he looks shocked and simply kept the shot of the hacker taking off the headphones. This made the sequence flow easier.
• I edited and matched the speech of the main hacker to the footage as it was not long enough, we'll have to extend the script in order to fill the time, at the moment there are some gaps in the rough cut where the main hacker is not speaking at all.

Update 07/02/12

After school on Friday, Anna and Raef both helped dress the set ready for the shoot on Saturday. We stuck posters up and chose items we thought suitable for a teenage boy's bedroom. Afterwards I changed the curtains and bed covers to something less feminine.

The next day we put the final touches onto our set; placing mugs, moving tables into place, arranging objects, setting out a plate with biscuits and chocolate, writing code onto the whiteboard, hanging wires from the computer and more. I covered the windows with black bin bags so that unwanted light would not get in the way. Raef brought lighting and we experimented with the filters, trying red, green and yellow before choosing blue which helped with creating the atmosphere for the room. For some of the shots we used an honeycomb grid which focused the light on one point, this was really useful for when we wanted the viewer to focus on something in particular during a shot, for example, the hacker's hands.
 

Soon after we finished setting up and experimenting with lighting, our actors/assistants (Nico and Francis) arrived. After choosing an outfit for Nico and gelling his hair, we were ready to start filming. The shots were equally managed between us, roles such as keeping track of shots, filming, lighting were rotated among us so that everyone had a chance to do a bit of everything.

The shot was successful as we managed to get all our shots taken in the allocated time, despite having to rush slightly at the end. One of the problems I noticed is that if anything needs to be shot again we'll have to retake all the shots as the set design is so unique that attempting to recreate it would almost certainly result in continuity errors.

Update 04/02/12

So we finished our animatic on the Friday before our test shoot. Raef chose some music suitable for opening sequence and we added some titles, using a font we all agreed on, though we might decide to change it later. Anna matched the shots to the beats in the music so that footage and music generates a stronger impact. Movement was added to the frames, something we could not have done with a storyboard.

Creating an animatic has helped us get a gerneral idea of which shots work best and what changes need to be made, for example, we originally wanted a central shot of the hacker's back but after creating the animatic it seemed appriate to change it to a over shoulder shot, focusing more on the screens infront of him. It'll also be easier to edit when we have our test shots captured as we can then match the shots to the animatic frames, then if we notice anything that doesn't work we can change it.

The animatic will be uploaded onto the group blog in a while.