Our ‘Love Actually’ media project: Project- To create a short film from a set script from ‘Love Actually’. Group- M...

Love Actually Film

02:59 0 Comments

Our ‘Love Actually’ media project:

Project-

To create a short film from a set script from ‘Love Actually’.

Group-

Meghan Kelly
Holly Gunton
Laura Walker
Ollie Turner
Emma Hagstrom

We allocated roles loosely as, for our first task, we felt it would be more beneficial to have the input of the entire group. Ollie and Emma volunteered to do the editing as they were more experienced at it and more adept with the software. Holly then volunteered as director, as she is particularly interested in directing and had a lot of ideas for the film. Laura then focused on our story board and assisted me in casting. Finally, I casted with Laura as, due to taking A-level drama, I knew who was interested and comfortable in/with performing. I also filmed, as it is the aspect of media I want to particularly focus on. The whole group then assisted Holly in co-directing.

Casting-

The first thing we decided to organise was casting. We decided on our cast based upon their acting abilities and whether or not they were comfortable and confident in front of a camera. We decided upon the roles of ‘PM’, ‘Annie, and ‘Natalie’ quite quickly and easily as we already had a reasonably clear idea of their character from the script. We cast Tom Coath as ‘PM’, an A-level drama student who we knew had been in a variety of productions and was used to performing. We also thought he would be particularly good at replicating the confidence and calmness of the ‘PM’. Mrs Tremblay, the head of our schools drama department, was casted as ‘Annie’ as we knew she’d have no problems with performing in front of a camera and is a very experienced and proficient actor. We also thought she would suit the business like, organised attitude of ‘Annie’. We then casted Rose Mason to play the role of ‘Natalie’. Not only because she is also an A-level drama student who both knows and co-operates well with the other cast members we had selected, but also because I had acted with her in a previous performance whereby she had played a similar character, and we therefore knew she’d be good at the characterisation of ‘Natalie’. The last two characters, Pat and Terrance, we found incredibly hard to cast. We first found it difficult as, due to them only saying a few lines, we didn’t know much about them or their characters. After much deliberation we found two actors, however they then became unavailable to make our filming date. This became a frequent problem and we had to re-cast several times before we found two actors who were willing and able to play them. In the end, we casted Charlotte Flaherty as Pat. Whilst she hadn’t had much experience, we felt she could play the role well and had previously worked in a short film, so would be more confident. Finally, we casted Terrance. We casted the IT teacher Mr Dickerson, as we believed he would suit the role (from what we knew of it) and seemed happy to take part.

Location-

Originally, we had decided on the location of ‘Park Farm Hotel’. We spoke to the manager and, whilst he was willing to allow us to film there, he unfortunately didn’t have many available dates so, due to our deadline, we couldn’t film there. Whilst we were reluctant to film at our school, we found it was the only location that was both suitable and available. We chose to film in two different locations within our school: the sixth form reception area, and a quite large sparse room we knew was rarely used during the times we chose to film. We chose the sixth form reception area because of its air of professionalism and the fact there are wooden double doors that lead into it from outside. The problem we faced was the fact there are lots of school related notices and posters. We countered this by ensuring the camera angles excluded too blatantly school related things. We chose the room we chose due to it being quite bare of school related things, being available to film in, and because it is a bright and open space which could easily be constructed into the ‘office’ space we had envisioned.

Costume-

We found costume to be a very simple endeavour as our sixth form uniform (teachers included) is ‘smart, business-like clothing/ suits’, which were what we had envisaged our characters wearing.

The filming process-

I found the filming process very interesting as I hadn’t realised how much there was to consider and plan for. I found it quite trying as there were quite a few actors to co-ordinate, which made switching from scene to scene and using different angles very difficult. However, I think filming went well, particularly in the first scene where the ‘PM’ enters ’10 Downing Street, and the scene where he looks back at ‘Natalie’, as I am pleased with the way my idea to have ‘Natalie’ just visible through the window as I think it worked well, however it became quite zoomed in during the editing process. If I were to re-do it, I would want to improve the scenes where he has just entered, as we didn’t take into account the ‘welcome’ sign, and then when greets ‘Terrance’, as when I zoomed in it seemed jittery and didn’t have much effect.

Editing-

For editing we used Adobe Premier Pro. As well as putting the clips together we also used many different techniques and effects. This included fading videos in and out, shortening clips and adding audio. For example, we added the 'Beep' sound effect when doing the 'bloopers', and at the start of the short film, we added the 'clapping' sound effect to mimic crowds cheering for the ‘PM’. We took our sound effects from YouTube and converted them into MP3 files using an MP3 converter. We also watched YouTube videos to help us work out how different effects work. Although the editing was interesting, it also came with its difficulties. When we first started editing, we were faced with the problem of our clips zooming in, however, we overcame it by researching how to fix it and trying things out on Adobe Premiere Pro. We also learnt how to render our clips and managed to successfully export it onto our desktop and onto YouTube.

Final Product-            

I am pleased with the final product as I think the amalgamation of the previously mentioned factors lead to it being quite successful and having a level of professionalism. The reaction to the film seemed quite good as our audience appeared to like it, however, I would definitely try to improve upon the previously mentioned aspects of the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQU41wX9Yqg&feature=youtu.be