Logline
A teenage boy sits at a bus stop awaiting a bus that is running late.
SCRIPT
LOCATION
Ashley Down College bus stop, Sefton Park Road BS7, Bristol.
This bus stop is very close to my house so transporting the equipment won't be a problem. The only issue I might have is the weather conditions seeing as the location is outside. I will have to keep an eye on the forecast for the shoot days and use appropriate wet weather protection if I am unable to reschedule my filming days.
This bus stop is very close to my house so transporting the equipment won't be a problem. The only issue I might have is the weather conditions seeing as the location is outside. I will have to keep an eye on the forecast for the shoot days and use appropriate wet weather protection if I am unable to reschedule my filming days.
SHOT LIST
EQUIPTMENT LIST
- Canon 700D
- Canon 50MM lens
- Tripod
- Boom Mic
- Zoom
- XLR Lead
SHOOT DAY 1
Got to the bus stop in full sun and started to film. Luckily the stop was empty which corresponded with the script. Thunder storm started about ten mins after arrival so this made filming very challenging. Trying to hold umbrella over the camera and moving it around to get different angles and shots. Managed to get most of the wide and medium shots, just need close ups and establishing shot.
SHOOT DAY 2
Raining again so had to hurry to get last few shots. Will at least help with continuity while editing. Got all close ups done but didn't manage to get sound of cars passing etc. with boom due to the bad conditions, will have to use free sound effects from google.
EVERYDAY EVENT FINAL CUT
EVALUATION
I wanted my film to be slow paced and have a realist feel. I decided to have the boy sat alone at a bus stop to create a quiet, abandoned atmosphere.
I wanted to use a wide range of camera angles and movements as shown in my shot list however I didn’t take into account the possibility of bad weather. It rained very heavily for both days I had set aside and so filming was made a lot harder given that I was using some expensive equipment which needed to be kept dry. I ended up holding an umbrella over myself and the camera but this made moving it around very difficult meaning that I had to minimize the number of different angles/movements I was doing. I had originally hoped to include some dolly shots, moving the camera forwards and back to make the film look more cinematic but this proved to be too tricky. I also wanted to use some high angle shots but again, the weather made this impossible. I kept the camera on a tripod throughout the whole shoot because I am very prone to camera shake and I didn’t want the film to look too amateurish. Perhaps a bit of handheld footage would have leant itself to the authentic, ‘real life’ atmosphere but I didn’t want to risk it. In the end the rain actually complimented the film and created a gloomy feel which was exactly what I was going for however it did mean that I had to discard a lot of the shots I hoped to do and the script was considerably longer than the film ended up being. I was however able to get some wide, medium and close ups and I think this was a successful range of shots for my first film attempt.
Originally I planned to record my own sound using a boom mic but the weather made this difficult given that I have no experience with sound recording and since I had a limited amount of time left to complete my film, I ended up using free sound effect downloads I found on the internet. I found a track of rain falling which I used all the way through and the sound of a bus pulling up to a stop at the end of the film. Although this worked relatively well, I think the final product would have been a lot better with my own recordings. If I were to do this again I would have recorded my own ambient sound such as a real street with cars passing, rain falling and birds singing. I would have also liked to create some extra sounds such as a crisp packet being opened, munching sounds, yawning sounds etc. I think this would have made the film more interesting and is definitely something I would like to experiment with in my next project.
Because my film was set during the day, I didn’t give much thought to the lighting and so it is entirely reliant on natural light. This worked well for my film because it added to the realism and made it feel a lot more real. I think if I had used any sort of synthetic light, the image would have looked to polished. Having said this, lighting is something I would be very interested to experiment with in my next project. I would like to play around with filming at night to see how lighting can be used in that environment but for this project I think my film benefited from my use of natural daylight.
I have very little experience with editing and so when I took my footage into premiere I ended up using very basic tools to piece together my different clips. I would have liked to experiment with different effects and jump cuts but I am not yet confident enough with editing. For my next project I would like to play around more during the editing process.
Overall I am quite happy with the final piece given that the filming conditions were very challenging and I am quite new to the filmmaking process, I think that although my film is quite straight forward and basic, it is a good starting point for me in terms of my filmmaking style.
I wanted to use a wide range of camera angles and movements as shown in my shot list however I didn’t take into account the possibility of bad weather. It rained very heavily for both days I had set aside and so filming was made a lot harder given that I was using some expensive equipment which needed to be kept dry. I ended up holding an umbrella over myself and the camera but this made moving it around very difficult meaning that I had to minimize the number of different angles/movements I was doing. I had originally hoped to include some dolly shots, moving the camera forwards and back to make the film look more cinematic but this proved to be too tricky. I also wanted to use some high angle shots but again, the weather made this impossible. I kept the camera on a tripod throughout the whole shoot because I am very prone to camera shake and I didn’t want the film to look too amateurish. Perhaps a bit of handheld footage would have leant itself to the authentic, ‘real life’ atmosphere but I didn’t want to risk it. In the end the rain actually complimented the film and created a gloomy feel which was exactly what I was going for however it did mean that I had to discard a lot of the shots I hoped to do and the script was considerably longer than the film ended up being. I was however able to get some wide, medium and close ups and I think this was a successful range of shots for my first film attempt.
Originally I planned to record my own sound using a boom mic but the weather made this difficult given that I have no experience with sound recording and since I had a limited amount of time left to complete my film, I ended up using free sound effect downloads I found on the internet. I found a track of rain falling which I used all the way through and the sound of a bus pulling up to a stop at the end of the film. Although this worked relatively well, I think the final product would have been a lot better with my own recordings. If I were to do this again I would have recorded my own ambient sound such as a real street with cars passing, rain falling and birds singing. I would have also liked to create some extra sounds such as a crisp packet being opened, munching sounds, yawning sounds etc. I think this would have made the film more interesting and is definitely something I would like to experiment with in my next project.
Because my film was set during the day, I didn’t give much thought to the lighting and so it is entirely reliant on natural light. This worked well for my film because it added to the realism and made it feel a lot more real. I think if I had used any sort of synthetic light, the image would have looked to polished. Having said this, lighting is something I would be very interested to experiment with in my next project. I would like to play around with filming at night to see how lighting can be used in that environment but for this project I think my film benefited from my use of natural daylight.
I have very little experience with editing and so when I took my footage into premiere I ended up using very basic tools to piece together my different clips. I would have liked to experiment with different effects and jump cuts but I am not yet confident enough with editing. For my next project I would like to play around more during the editing process.
Overall I am quite happy with the final piece given that the filming conditions were very challenging and I am quite new to the filmmaking process, I think that although my film is quite straight forward and basic, it is a good starting point for me in terms of my filmmaking style.