Robert, Harry and myself thought it was crucial that we retook the opening scene of our short film once again to obtain better quality, and a much larger range of footage so we have more to play with in the editing stage. We thought we were more successful today with our footage captured due to us planning this day in much more detail.

Robert and I attempted our 2nd attempt of filming the Exeter scene with our main antagonist actor 'Harry' on the 22nd December. We were certain from the first filming day attempt that we needed to reshoot mostly all of the first scene due to the bad weather and the densely populated area od the car park. As we used the first day of filming as an 'experimentation', we were more organised for our 2nd filming attempt and improved our last footage from the first shooting day.




We also played around with some playful shots that involved the vehicle to 'glorify' it a bit. So due to the great weather , we attempted this with no problems, here are some examples.






Form a whole mornings worth of filming, we got some excellent footage that meant we didn't need to come back to Exeter to reshoot anymore of the first opening scene. Robert and I were much more pleased with the overall success of the day and are looking forward with the rest of our filming production.

The weather forecast for this day we are planning to film on is looking good with sunny spells with light clouds. We want the weather to be more cloudy rather than sunny so the the weather matches the connotations of a gritty British film.

               Our current first minute of footage, compressed down to low quality due to copyright audio:

Zeb, who is a high ranked employee of Igor (the main antagonist character), from Syndicate International. Zab and Igor are the ones who tracked down and captured 'Jack Morgan' for interrogation. Like in many action/adventure films, many antagonist characters have 'sidekicks' which is what the role of Zeb is (a sidekick villain.) Zebs matching physical build makes him appear more superior and threatening towards Jack the main protagonist.

The moodpboard above is what Robert and I have made to illustrate what we want Zeb's character to appear as. Zeb will wear an incredibly similar suit to Igor's so the audience can identify they are together. He will be ordered around by Igor which Zeb will obey and take control of the interrogation until Igor arrives from starting out in the city.

Robert and myself have decided who will be playing the role of this character called Zeb. This actor is called 'Luke Dix' who is a friend of Harry Cockayne (actor of Igor). Luke and Harry have very similar strong physical builds which fit the exact stereotypes off super athletic agents in action films.

Jack Morgan, is the name for our main protagonist character. His character background includes being a worker for a secret organisation called 'Syndicate International'. He was an ex-moilitary soldier before he joined Syndicate International and then left to 'seek peace'. Jack has been tracked down by the main antagonist and his men. Jack has experienced the worst in his past, after the death defying 'Crimson' murdered Jacks family. Jack now fights to gain revenge from the main antagonists gang including Crimson.

Robert and I have decided who is now going to play the character for our short film, his name is 'Morgan Taverner' who is going to play Jack Morgan as our previous actor who was going to play this role 'James McCullin' is unable to give up his time to play the character. Morgan is determined to do a good job of the role and is very excited to get on with the filming.

To give our media class an insight of what it is like to work in the media itself as a correspondant, Simon Hall gave our class a visit to give a very valuable presentation talk.

Robert and I attempted our first scene of footage on the 18th November 2016 with our main antagonist character 'Igor' played by Harry Cockayne. This scene took place on the top floor of Princesshay Car park in the city of Exeter. This filing day was va very good 'test day' which made myself and Robert experience timing errors, equipment usage and weather changes. The footage we had got was useful for myself and Robert to group together in a rough cut and present to our class audience back at school for some audience feedback.

We were very lucky when we arrived due to there being only us in the car park and no other public  shoppers. SO we weren't disturbed for the first couple of hours. We scripted the day based on the actions from our story-board which was useful. Our rough storyboard included the opening sequence of Harry walking out of a lift which we attempted to film. After several attempts, it started to get busy all around the area and we soon realised that it wasn't easy for us to capture quality footage without people walking into shot. We tried many more times, but more and more shoppers were entering the car park, so we tried some other different shots of harry walking around the floor for a short amount of time, but the weather was starting to get even worse with wind and rain showers.

 

This short clip is one of the few decent pieces of footage that we managed to record that shows our original opening sequence idea. Robert and I quickly decided to change the idea of using the lift for our opening sequence and introduced a smooth over the shoulder pull over shot for our opening. The weather also got sunnier as the day went on, which was not what we wanted, as it doesn't represent a British gangster film with sunny weather. We wanted gritty weather with a grey sky to illustrate darkness. Our gathered footage we made from this filming day has been presented to our class for audience feedback and has given us some tips for improving and developing our short film.

• Canon 600D DSLR
• RODE NTG3 Mic
• RODE Mic Boom Pole
• Audio Recorder 
• iPhone 6s 

Igor is the character name our main superior antagonist (who is played by Harry Cockayne). Igor is a superior high ranking member of Syndicate International. Igor is on the hunt for Jack Morgan (our main protagonist character) Jack possesses a Swiss vault which Igor wants in order to conqeur. A bounty hunter called 'Crimson' is hired by Igor to hunt down Jack and to bring him to a rural location isolated from everything where Igor's sidekick 'Zeb' interrogates Jack for the Swiss Vault. Just like in most action/adventure films, Igor is played as the superior, powerful villain.


The moodboard above is made by Robert and myself that illustrates what we want our character Igor to look like. We want him to look intimidating, superior and villainous. The suit he will wear is also a typical convention/stereotype of sophisticated criminals in action films such as Agent 47.

Harry Cockayne is our actor for the role of Igor as his physical appearance is perfect for the role (large and intimidating.) He also looks older than he looks (he is currently 16) even though he looks like an 18 year old at least. Harry played a great role in our AS media studies opening sequence so we wanted to use him again for an even more key character in this years A2 media short film.

Robert and I think that it is crucial for us to identify who we want out target audience to be. This will enable us to sculpture our product more and enhance the conventions and features of our film that will please our audience.

Due to the conversations made with out media Facebook group chat, Robert and I have successfully organised dates in advance for our actors to attend filming dates for our short film. We asked the actors which dates they were available and what times. They all replied and we all agreed on certain days which we all were able to attend. The image below is a screen shot of our chat using the social media website called 'Facebook'.

 

This production schedule lists each location of each shot, as well as the props, equipment and timings which will all help myself and Roberts organisational skills for a better post production.