What we did (29th June 2012)

Today me and lee went to Rudis house to film certain scenes we wanted for our film. We arrived via train and discussed how we would film these scenes, we had many ideas. The scenes that we wanted to create had to match the voice over we had already done, in this voice over Dirty Derrick mentioned his violent past so we had to show this. We came up with the idea of Derrick smashing a glass bottle before 'torturing' a character played by Rudi, we had the location of Rudis bathroom which is currently being worked on by buildiers so looks abandend, health & safety was very important here so we discussed what we would do and decided to lay towels on the floor to cath the broken glass, we all wore glasses to protect our eyes and shoes for our feet. Lee was going to smash the glass bottle gently against the wall whilst I filmed a point of view shot of Rudis character. Eventually we decided against this plan as we were uncertain to what might happen when we smahed the bottle and we were worried it would dent the wall- also we would only have one take of this so we decided it wasnt worth the risk.
Instead we went outside to film a simialar scene which shows Dirty Derrick (Lee) approuch Rudis character with the bottle, the next shot shows Rudi laying on the ground next to the smashed glass with Derrick walking away. We wrapped the glass bottle in a towel and then smashed it to ensure we didnt get glass anywhere. I layed on the ground behind Rudi to focus the camera on the broken glass, in the blurred background you see Derrick calmly walking away from the scene. We believe this is very effectiive in showing how violent our charcter is, especially as he calmly walks away from such a horrific scene. The glass is the main focus here as this is the weapon used to kill.
Also in the voice over Derrick mentions his love for alchol or 'booze' , we decided to show him relaxing in a garden enjoying a beer- we were clever in filming this. We had the idea of focusing the camera on the beer bottle as it stood on the table, in the background you can see Derrick, he then carelessly lifts the bottle away from the camera, pulls open the lid and begins gulping it down (very similar to the broken glass scene I mentioned above) we watched this back and believe it looks great especially alongside the voiceover.
Alongside alchol Derrick mentions his love for money and riches, we decided on showing him with lots of expensive items such as phones, wallets, iPods and watches. We filmed him sitting at a kitchen table counting money (luckily lee had 5 or 6 notes in his wallet) all three of us put our phones and wallets into a pile on the table and found a few other items. I then stood behind Lee (over the shoulder shot) of him counting the money you can also see the items laid out on the table in front of him. This proves he is rich aswell as a thief, the fact that three wallets are on the table proves the items are stolen.

Possible Editing Effects for Dirty Diamonds

In terms of editing effects for dirty diamonds itself we were thinking to establish the idea of the 'Sin City' effect. This effect showed a diverse way in how to approach editing effects in a different way, conveying a sense of darkness of the backdrop and of the characters.

What the effect did was to basically mimic the effect of comics, such as the use of dark and light contrasts and thereby implying it into the film where the dark and light contrasts would pass by the characters to give a comic like feature.

This effect was adopted by 'Frank Miller' who actually created 'Sin City' the comic version. This has inspired us use his technique as it is a unique way to show the emotions of the characters. What Frank Miller also conveys is the use of color dispatch to create a knowing of symbolism, to demonstrate to the audience that this is the subject of the matter.

Here is an image to show what the effects can imply:

• In terms of 'Color Dispatch,' the use of the heart and the blond hair being singled out from the rest of the frame reveals a sense of significance as it may mean something to that particular person or the man sitting down next to her.
• The use of use of lighting effects shows a sign of disturbance allowing the audience to feel that there is something behind the story of this man, what does he do? what has he done? etc
• As it's a compact room the light shows much more direct to the characters, giving it that Frank Miller comic look about it.

Here is an image of an extract from Frank Miller's Sin City Comic Book:

• Ass you can see in comparison the comic book extract gives tell tale signs that Frank Miller has tried to adapt this effect into his movie. He is has obviously done by the use of 'Color Dispatch' and the use of dark and light contrasts.
• Immediately you can tell that the Sin City movie is based on a comic book as it has uncanny resemblance to one, as captions are indicated in the film as well as in the Sin City comic book.

This Can help get a visual idea of how to create an effect such like this one. If we do pull off this effect in the process of post-production we may be in for a surprise and so will our audience.

Filming Equipment

In the process of our filming we had more of software and hardware to use for filming. Our recent upgrade in terms of software was the editing software, previously we used the original default editing software which was 'IMovie', now we have recently downloaded 'Final Cut Pro' which is classed as apple's new editing program for film. What we also had to our advantage from what we had in our last unit is the use the Tripod which could help us with our steady shots, but most of the time we filmed freehand to get the idea of flow through the film and also it would be better as it doesn't restrict us in terms of movement.

Further more we had an idea of using a made-up 'dolly' which ccontains two people in order to keep a steady aim of the camera. What will happen is the use of two people on each side holding the tripod and moving in a placed direction. This should give us a decent substitute for a 'Dolly'.

This is the tripod that we will use within the filming of 'Dirty Diamonds'. This tripod is a 'Hama Star 61 Tripod'.
The tripod will be mostly used for 'still shots' of scenes and the substitute for the 'Dolly'.

This is a new addition to the equipment we gained. This camera will be used pretty much throughout the whole process of our filming, this camera comes with two lenses, one of the lenses is an 18-55 mm lens and the other is 55-200 mm lens. The that we will really use is the smallest lens to capture typical shots.  td>

Problem!

We filmed Dirty Diamonds on two seperate  SD memory cards but have lost the 2nd card which contained the last half of our film. We have tried looking for it but were unsuccesful. We will have to re-film a few of the scenes again soon.

StoryBoard

I have found the storyboard I created a few weeks ago for 'Dirty Diamonds', we had already been to the locations so we had a really good idea of what we were doing. I created the storyboard to give us a better idea of what to do, I didn't include every scene of the film but I included the main scenes. Filming only slightly changed from the storyboard.

I have uploaded a few pictures of the storyboard I created-

What we did: filming

Yesterday, Friday 1st June we filmed all the footage needed for 'Dirty Diamonds' by visiting Lees grandparents caravan park which has the pub, house, land and nearby cliffs that we needed for filming. We were there for around 6 hours (as we could only get there and back with lees dad who works on site) this gave as plenty of time to film all the shots we wanted and luckily for us the weather was good.

Me and Rudi filmed the shots including an establishing shot, a long take, canted angle, over the shoulder, match on action, long shots and close ups. We also directed the film and managed to get everything in place with the help of Lee and Kieran.

Lee and Kieran were the main actors who played Ted and Derrick, playing the roles very well. I played a character called Shaun who undergoes a deal with Derrick (we named the character Shaun because his white shirt and red tie reminded us of the character in Edgar Wrights comedy 'Shaun of the Dead')  Shaun doesn't have any dialogue and isn't in the film for long. Lee and Kieran also suggested new ideas when acting one being to change to a different cliff for a scene as this allows for an ariel shot which helps to make their fighting look more realistic on camera. Lee talks to the camera directly throughout the film and starts the film by asking us 'Do you wanna know how I got ere?' whilst looking intimidating and tough to the camera. Kieran playing Ted had to look scared of Derrick throughout the film which he did very well in the scenes we shot and acted well in the montage of shots that will contain the voiceover.

All four of us were involved with the choreograph of the film discussing the fighting scenes and seeing what was best for Lee and Kieran on camera, we filmed practice shots of the fighting and made improvements after watching them.

Throughout our filming we made behind the scenes footage on my phone which I put together today in 'iMovie' and edited to make a 2-3minute video showing a bit of what we got up to yesterday.  I uploaded the video to YouTube.