Second day of shooting for the Prelim video

We showed our teacher the footage we shot in the lab. We got a great boost of encouragement when she told us that she is really happy with our work. After showing our footage to the media teacher we started work on some more shooting. We approached the school  counselor, Mr. Nadeem  and requested him to grant us permission to use his office to shoot in. He let us have his office key, we locked the room from inside and started working. Selecting possible locations to place the camera.

We had to shoot the same shot again as our principal (Shanza khan) was too busy in her classes, and we had to place the camera quite a long distance from the subject so as to fit Shanza’s head in the frame. Most of the shots had to be retaken because of the noise and the students outside were making as some students were enjoying recess outside. We had to wait for the corridor outside to become quieter so we could continue.

Textual analysis practice

Our theory teacher gave us some sample answers and homework to do with some extracts that were provided to us. We were supposed to do a textual analysis at least a 1000 words long. 

The extract I choose was 'The Bill.'

I watched this clip many times with keen interest and came up with a textual analysis of more than a thousand words.

The link of the extract and my textual anaylsis is as shown.

The Bill - The forgotten child is the extract.

My textual analysis is as follows:

The clip begins with a man pointing a gun towards two people who are sitting on the floor leaning against a wall. We are shown all this a part of a  recap of the previous episode.  The two people on the floor are one male and one female. Next, we see a man telling the female on the floor that if she must get involved she has to do it in his way, and we see her screaming that she will not back off and what keeps her away is crime . Then we hear sirens and are shown huge buildings and people in black clothes with wireless attached to their belts. From their dress and the purposefulness of their gait they look very professional,  their jackets have the words “metropolitian police” written on them, and we see these policemen jogging in sync into a building that is labeled “Metropolitan Sunhill Station”. We see the Policemen in green jackets cordoning off a space with warning tape, and police men holding guns and also someone being arrested and handcuffed.

Then the serial starts and we are shown a top view of the building which is surrounded by policemen in green jackets and we see that it is some public place which has a *live football T.V* screen attached to one of the buildings, and a lot of traffic and a bus on the main road. Also on the road we see a police car entering and going into a the tunnel. From those Police cars we see many policemen getting out and we see the same lady who was shown talking in the recap previously, this time she joins another police officer and we now know for sure that she is a police officer who is in charge of some case here. The 2 police officers stop near a dead body of a cool teenaged girl which is lying against a steel fence  a man in blue uniform is on his knees beside her and his heavy voice starts commenting that the girl is around 15 or 16 in age he then points to her arm and we are shown a close shot of the bruises on her arm, he says that these are marks of self mutilation and that apart from these the girl’s arm has a butterfly tattoo and she is wearing a necklace with a pendant with the initial “k”. Soon we are shown a shot from below and we see the police officers turn their head and inform someone at the back that they have found her. Then the police officers repeat the information they heard from the man in the blue uniform, they sit down and the female police officer seems to recognize the victim from somewhere and then they  stand up and walk away to see what the female officer has to show. On her way the female officer joins the two policemen who were interviewing a man who is apparently the owner of the pub , she takes one of the policemen aside tells him to investigate properly.

Suddenly the mise en scene  changes and we are taken into a police station where we see the  two officers searching through files and looking at some pictures as they exchange some humorous dialogues amongst themselves and laugh at the picture of a girl called ‘Kief’ and create a mess of files and papers. T. The female officer finds the file with the name “ Kelly Kong, CRO-198743/07, souciting”, which contains a picture of the victim. The file contains the information that ‘Kelly Kong, brother King and lives in the jungle’. A copy of the picture is given to a female police officer who has blond hair who joins a male police officer very unclear. We are shown a view of what from the front of what and from another room , the camera looks though the gaps in the blinds into a room the police officers walk into as they talk and they join another man and walk up the stairs of the station  and discuss further on that  Again looks like you’re referring to something specific topic. The female office tells who some stuff  like that her whose last name was Arnold and that the victim died just before 5 that morning and that she had had sex and consumed drugs just before she died.

Next, we are taken to a new scene all of a sudden and we hear sirens and we see the blonde lady police officer (who was given the victim’s picture earlier ) walk towards a lady in green who is sitting with her back to the camera ,sits on her knees and address  women asking her if she  was okay ,as  the  man joins her.  The man introduces himself telling her who the signal manager told them about her that she was looking for her daughter too . She tells them about her daughter that she called her from a phone booth last night , her name “Kelly Potterfield” . After that the mother registered did a 1471 and that has been really worried for her daughter’s safery as her daughter had told her that someone was after her. The mother is shown the picture of her daughter, of which we are shown a close-up and the audience instantly recognizes that it’s the same girl who was shown dead at the crime scene at the start of the episode.

Then we see a new lady wearing a casual T-shirt , she takes the female police officer along with her into a room and shares some information about the mother. The two enter the room which seems like a waiting room which is very comfortable and has sunlight entering in  through the window which gives a warm and welcoming effect The room has yellow walls and posters displayed on it. On the comfortable sofa we see Kelly’s mother seated all tense and confused. She is told by the female police officer that they found a body this morning and they think it might have been Kelly.  Soon we see the mother end up in tears and the police officer tries to comfort her. The lady hides her face and continues to cry and we are shown a close up of her crying.

Throughout the extract the police staff has not been behaving very serious, they smile amongst themselves and they are shown kidding around. The females wear a lot of make up, they have their hair set very fashionably/beautifully and are wearing stylish and figure hugging clothes that make them look like models. The female  police in white uniform wears so much makeup that she looked like a fashion model as listens to the story of the mother on the road. The main police officers on duty laugh when they see the picture of a girl ‘kief’ when they were searching for the picture of Kelly , that joke at  that time looked inappropriate as they had a murder situation to tackle with.

The Police station looks like it could be any office of any organization, the walls are painted in bright colours like sky blue, the red floor on the stairs and the frames of colourful posters on the wall makes it look more like a advertising office than a police station.

Kelly’s mother didn’t react as the audience would expect her to when she was told about the death of her daughter. She did not give any sentimental comments like ‘you cannot leave me ‘ etc, she just says ‘No , Kelly’ and cries in a soft tone and hides her face. Hmm I’m not so sure about this last point- people even on tv in dramas act in different ways when they hear bad news so this is not different in the same way that the other factors you mentioned are.

My teacher was really impressed with this, though he found many mistakes. But he was really satisfied as it was our first attempt and he liked mine the best amongst the class, he even gave my example to the class.

After my teacher gave remarks on my work. I realised the weaknesses in my work.

So I started working to make my work stronger.

I went on Youtube and watched some videos which proved really helpful.

Here is one of the videos I found helpful: OCR media studies

Sama this is a nice first attempt- now you know a lot more about mise en scene so you should be able to do better. You should aim to write more clearly and you should maybe try putting in analysis along with description for example you could say, “the photograph of the victim is handed over to a blonde police officer, this officer is wearing a lot of makeup which looks unsuitable and inappropriate for a officer of the law, also her clothes are a little too tight and too fashionable. It seems like the Director is either challenging stereotypes about how policewomen should dress and make themselves up or he is trying to show them as sex objects.” Also, we expect police officers dealing with crimes such as murder to be very serious and maybe even a little depressed or angry, however, these officers have taken the situation very lightly and are joking around. I think the director did that because, he thought it would be more realistic, Maybe he wanted the police officers to seem insensitive and without feelings, hardhearted etc.

An example of such is OCR media studies

Re-editing of the script

Working further on that Principal and child script, we had a hard time editing it, my fellow group members and I realised that we were performing no miracles. All the students from our class ( other groups) had a very similar story or theme.

                    

Also, as the administration office is located near the playground, there was a lot of noise in our video and this made us look very disorganised. Though our teacher told us some of our shots were really good, she seemed disappointed with the sound quality and also with certain shots.

So we all decided to take the risk and start with a new script all over again. That night three members stayed up late, we had many, many different ideas in mind, the fact that we had to shoot in school helped weed out most of the options. Arika came up with the idea of showing a saas-bahoo ,  ( mother-in-law/daughter in law argument), which can be humourous topic. I suggested that we make the mother-in-law criticise her daughter in law about amount of salt in the food she cooked, I suggested we use the school kitchen. I also suggested that the mother-in-law would notice the daughter in law wearing expensive jewelry and then scream at her son for wasting money. On the other hand, Arika came up with the idea that we show that it is the son’s Parent-teacher-meeting which both daughter in law and her mother-in-law attends. But neither of these ideas became successful , because none of the people our age would resemble the mother-in-law or the daughter in law and that would make the video seem unrealistic. Secondly the school kitchen was too small and had bad lightening. We did make the story board and present it to our teacher , but she didn’t really like it too much as a topic. 
That Script was as follows:

Daughter in law with her son in a Parent-Teacher meeting. She hears her mother in law calling her.
Mother in law: Sarah stop it! Why in the world are you running? What are you doing here?
Wife: (shocked but recovering) uh what do you think I am doing? I wanted to search on the African zulu tribes in my sons parent teacher conference. (she laughs while they both look at her as if she has lost her mind. Bahu notices that no one is laughing at her joke) I was being funny
Mother in law: don’t sweat it my dear. People will end up getting in loony bin for just trying to figure you out 
Wife: (surprised) what are YOU doing here(and slightly irritated)
Mother in law: (in a sophisticated manner) I am here to support my boy (she grabs the other hand of the son. Son gives a fake smile)
Wife: (holding the other arm) he doesn’t needs your held thankyou not very much 
Son: ooouuw
(A secretary comes from behind)

Secretary:excuse me there is a meeting going on. Please have a seat n keep it quiet here..
Mother in law, Wife and son in a chorus: sorry
Next scene
Secretary showing Mother in law, wife and their son inside principal office.
Principal: ( on the phone) no no it is today. … .(pause) yes there would be no more meetings (she looks up distractedly) oh hello! You must be his… (she trails of and looks at them expectantly)
Wife: mom (she holds her sons arm)
Mother in law: (holding other hand in a death grip) Grand mom 
Son: (grumbling) ease of both of you
Principal: uhh good good. Please have a seat and please excuse me (in a hurry) I really need to take this call (walks out of the room). There are only three seats. Grand mom marches forward and sits down haughtily (I was a day away from being a principal. You know I can be more professional than her (she sneers at the mention of her) by attending the parents and telling the caller to buzz off. She examines her nails. Son and mom roll their eyes and take their seat.
Mother in law: That is because every time u laugh, it was as if you were talking and trying to swallow a truck engine at the same time.
Mother in law: Are you trying to joke again? 
Wife: no this time it was a complement
Mother in law: Watch it you sorry excuse of woman!! First you ruin my sons life now you misbehave with me!
Wife: Oh did I hurt you feelings! I am so sorry 
Mother in law: you should be !
Wife: I don’t specialize in dealing with pure evil 
Mother in law: how dare you!! My poor son! You made his life miserable. I regret that day when you trapped by son and started growing over me like a smelly fungus!
Mother in law: yeah even I regret that! I should have asked if his mother had some sort of personality disorder. Or maybe also send you to zoo along with your monkey! 
Son: Mom!
Grandmom: did you say disorder?? You’re the one who serves boiled eggs without actually boiling them!! And what about that pant you wear all the time with a kitty face drawn on your fat butt!! 
Wife: (getting agressive). If we are discussing disorder than let’s talk about u using razor to shave off your mustache 
Mother in law: you do that with your armpits! And….
Son: Cut it out both of you! Please give it a break you both are in my god damn school! 
Wife: sorry son. 
Mother in law: see how dare you ruin my young man’s day
Son: (warningly) grandmom! 
Grandmom: sorry (and she sits down brooding)
Principal: I am so sorry to make your wait. Seems like a happy family 
Son: (mumbling) you have no idea 
Wife: not a problem. Always ready to meet the two headed monster. (Mother in law and son look at her as if she has lost her mind. Principal shocked) 
Principal: I am sorry you called me a monster
Wife: no No . you are a principal, a head…. And …uh… u have a head…. And …. It was a joke 
Principal:…. Uhh…hahaha(fakes laugh) funny. Anyway you son is progressing well in his new class. Here are the reports. He is doing it really well in media, thinking skills! And …….(and the principal goes on)

We made a promise to ourselves , that we will make the best video in our class as we had taken a lot of time to come up with an idea already. 

My mom suggested the idea of showing a typical maid servant, so we can raise awareness of how tough life is for the working class people in our country. But when I discussed this idea with my group , we ended up making really good modifications to the idea and we came up with a script, which we all felt we could work with.

We had our whole script ready in our Facebook inboxes. We then got a print out of it. We all made the storyboards individually so we could choose the best one and came fully prepared to shoot the next day.

Next day, the shooting day was really memorable. After attendance we left the class. Fatimah Qayyum (our group member) wore my lab coat and a shawl on her head. Our friend Abeera also wore a labcoat. We had to ask permission from the lab assistant for shooting in the lab, he granted us the permission. Arika and I tested placing the cameras at different angles as there was sunlight coming in from a window and it was difficult deciding what locations cameras should be placed at while our actors went through the script and we explained to them what they have to do. During the lab assistant’s absence I stood up on the lab table , beside the chemicals (carefully so as not to break anything) and started shooting. We had a really tough scene in our video where the lab assistant drops a conical flask with chemical in it and it breaks.  We used ink water instead of chemical, a conical flask and a broken conical flask (that was already broken- we didn’t damage anything) and a transparent water bottle to give the impression of an object falling.

That turned out to be a successful sequence , but we created a lot of mess in the science lab so we mopped the floor up before we left the lab.

Practice making a video

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2010

11/10/2010

At the start of class today , all my group mates gathered in class on time. We borrowed the school cameras from the admin office. The script was prepared the night before online in a joined conversation and we already had a hard copy with us. We handed the script to some senior students who were free at that moment and really liked the script and agreed to act for us.

We started shooting in the alley behind school, which is a quiet narrow corridor and borrowed some items such as a cap, a gown, school bags and a register. From some of the members of the other media studies students . Working in what is popularly called, “the back alley” was fun and the actors enjoyed it as well. When that part was done, I went to check and see if the principal’s office was not too busy- the Principal had given us permission to shoot in her office earlier, but only if she didn’t have guests visiting.

Since the Principal’s office was very busy with visitors streaming in and out I chose an alternative location and talked to our admin to see if we could borrow the admin office for a little while.

The person in admin informed me that the office had a lot of work and were busy, but I persuaded him that it wouldn’t take too long for us to finish up our shooting, so he agreed. That room was comparatively very small and the main light source was unfortunately located behind the chair our character would sit on and it was difficult deciding where to place the camera as there was not much space to move and the light made things look very blurry in the viewfinder.

There was hardly 2 or 3 feet behind the desk and no matter where we placed the camera somebody’s head or toe would get cut off.

It took quite long to decide the camera location and those friends of mine who were acting for us had a class and they kept complaining that they have to leave. We took all the shots of the principal (played by a friend of ours, Zain Agha) first as he had to leave soonest. During that time the other character (played by Daniyal Qureshi) who entered the office in the start of our video had to leave so we had to cast someone else in that role (Umer Ahmed) who did a great work as well.

During the shoot there were three administration staffers working in that room and somebody’s parent was there as well, talking nonstop and we couldn’t ask her to stop talking as that would have been quite rude , so we had to wait for the parent  to go. As soon as the parent left our Principal ordered us to empty the room as the administrative staff had important work to do, so we had to leave. So although using real offices helps out some with misce en scene – it may be easier to shoot in a room where we have more space and less interruptions even if we have to work harder to make it look believable.

12/10/2010

We transferred the video we had shot on to the school computer. We had a look at it and realized that most of the camera shots were a total disaster. My group members and I went through all of the clips and discussed what should be done now. I tried to figure out a possible solution but I was also aware of the fact that we cannot manage to get all the actors we used previously together at the same time because they all had free periods at different times and what’s more the admin staff would not give us permission to occupy their office everyday. I suggested that we start working on the same clips we had shot, it can at least be a good practice of video editing and also we had promised our actors that they would get to see their video on Facebook.

I started to arrange the videos in the order we had to use them meanwhile my friends sorted out some stuff with my teacher and then we all started to select where we wanted to begin and end each clip, which was a very tough job indeed as each of us had different opinions about how long each shot should be.