Production Log #4 - Second Shoot and Updates

I met with Rowan at 10:30am on Sunday to shoot for her parts in my documentary, and also photograph her for my ancillary products. However there was a dilemma as although I had checked that my library location's opening hours are 11:00am-4:30pm on Sundays, I didn't realise that only the bottom floor of the library was open. As most of my footage of Rowan will be shot on the second floor, we are arranging to meet at another date.

A location we found whilst shooting, and considered using, however I decided it was too quiet for my urban documentary location style

Rowan's hair in continuity with her hair style from my first shoot

Rowan's similarly formal shoes and youthful and unique roll-up jeans to represent my younger demographic and narrator character's interesting and unique style

Rowan's make-up in continuity of character's style but more detailed than the previous shoot due to my brighter natural/ artificial lighting for these locations. Eyeliner and mascara for youthful cat eye and bright eyes, foundation, highlighter, blush and tinted lip balm for a fresh and glowing face, and defined brows with an eyebrow pencil for detail as well as a sophisticated look which represents my character and target audience

Rowan's formal and sophisticated costume to represent my professional documentary style and older demographic (fitted jacket and high neck/ modest shirt), incorporated with more casual, youthful, and uniquely interesting roll-up trousers for my younger demographic. This reflects my intended character style, and is also in continuity with the first shoot's costume due to the black colour scheme and style

The footage I did shoot of Rowan was within all of the locations other than the second floor of the library, however after making a rough cut of my documentary footage so far (as not all of it was shot) on Windows Movie Maker to test my timings and structure, I've decided to make some adjustments to my script and shot list. This is in order to meet my 5 minute extract duration, as my rough cut presented that there's a chance I won't, despite planning this with my animatic. I would also rather have more footage to edit with so that I can be selective and replace any unsuitable shots with my extra footage rather than film a re-shoot. I'll be making a revised script, shot list and changes to my storyboard this week, and when that is finished I'll re-film my final footage with Rowan again (hopefully this weekend or the beginning of next week).

Equipment brought to the shoot included my tripod, camera, script and shot list (pictured in first shoot), and;

Laptop mise en scene with loaded and pauses at points to film - making me prepared for this shot and without wasting time, and planning. Also prevents the possible issue of not being connected to wifi

Sexist tabloid newspaper mise en scene

Magazine mise en scene

I'll be bringing this exact equipment along to my next shoot, and will also style Rowan with the same costume and make-up to maintain continuity.

Blog post with rough cut deconstruction: http://codonnella2mediaproductionsschs2015.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/rough-cut.html

Production Log #2 - First Shoot

Today I shot the first footage of my documentary, which was my interview content and interview introduction within my cafe (Starbucks) locations with Emily Gooda as my interviewee and Rowan Perrow as my interviewer. After reviewing my footage and considering the shoot, I am very pleased with its success.

Styling my actors:
The costumes and make-up styles for my first shoot consisted of formal, sophisticated, expressive, and feminine contrasted with non-feminine outfits to be representative of my feminist and formal documentary style, and expressive-sophisticated young-mature target audience;

Emily's sophisticated and expressive cat-eye liner, shadow and mascara, and defined brows style

Emily's sophisticated, feminine and formal, yet youthful and expressive make-up, hair and costume to represent my different target audience demographics

Emily's formal and sophisticated shoes

Rowan's simplistic and formal make-up (simple eyeliner, mascara foundation, highlighter and blush for a fresh and natural face), contrasted with her interesting/ expressive hair style

Rowan's simple and sophisticated outfit to represent my older demographic

Rowan's formal and sophisticated shoes

Production:
The equipment I brought to my first shoot consisted of;

My tripod (borrowed from my media department)

My camera (also borrowed)

My shot list, script, make-up, and coffee cup mise en scene to set the relaxed coffee shop location (which I purchased)

All aspects of my production were successful for this shoot, including;

• a wide range of fluid and steady shots by shooting with my tripod 2-3 times from different angles/ shot types
• my clear and unfiltered lighting
• costumes/ acting/ make-up
• my organisation

However, when reviewing my footage, I noticed that there is background noise in some of my shots due to the varying business of my public location. Therefore, I will need to experiment with noise reduction audio options during the editing process for this footage. My next shoot is tomorrow at 9:30am with Rowan for the introduction and main content of my documentary, as well as my ancillary product photographs; for which I am bringing the same equipment, in addition to my shoot specific mise en scene and costume for Rowan.

Costume, Mise En Scene and Semiotics

Below is my Prezi demonstrating my research, planning and organisation for the costume and mise en scene (including the semiotic representations which they create) that I'll be using within my documentary and ancillary product photography.


To research in greater detail about semiotics, I used these resources;
http://www.uvm.edu/~tstreete/semiotics_and_ads/terminology.html



I've also created a concept board for my costumes using Polyvore, which I have based on my Prezi presentation for this area. Polyvore was very helpful for creating this concept board as it links to where the costumes can be purchased, which I'll use for organisation of costumes and to include more detail about them on their original websites. My narrator's costume is to the left of the collage, and my interviewee's is towards the right.

Media Studies Costume by roseycourtney featuring a short sleeve black dress

Next, I'll send these costumes to my cast to organise which similar clothing items they own themselves and which I'll need to arrange in their sizes.

*Update: After casting, I've sent this concept board to Rowan and Emily to arrange their costumes. The ones which they own match perfectly to my envisioned style as set out by my concept board, therefore they will wear these to each shoot, with Rowan varying between jeans and black trousers to create a slightly more interesting range and to differentiate between time during my shoots.*