Problem Solving

Planning for theoretical Problems

Problems I may encounter when How I plan to resolve
researching and planning
1) Surveys may not get many responses 1) I know that many people that I send
surveys to tend to be busy or simply
don’t care to answer my survey. To try
and reach and larger audience I can
send out my surveys on different social
media sites. This should allow my survey
a greater chance to be answered by
my target audience and should
hopefully gather more results.
2) If some of my survey responses are not 2) I will make sure to get many focus
useful or outright off topic group to get direct answers from my
chosen target audience. I have found
in the past few unit, gathering a small
focus group gather a lot more genuine
answers as the people are there and
present and it is more of a
conversation. Especially if people are
confused by any questions, instead of
skipping them, they can ask for further
explanation to help them give a good
answer.
3) My research is not accurate 3) For this unit I am going to make sure to
use multiple sources. I am doing this to
not only find out more information
about a specific topic, but the use of
two or more sources means I can find
irregularities and similarities between
two different sources. Not only will this
allow me to strengthen my works
legitimacy but also the accuracy and
the trust worthiness of the content as
well.
4) Is my idea developed and have 4) When developing the Idea Jordan
changes been made when given and I aim to take in all comment and
feedback. responses into account. We will try to
take the main feedback/ changes
people want us to make and try and
put that into our work. This is to make
sure that we are developing the idea
around the needs of our target
audience.
5) How do I know that what I am doing is in 5) Whenever Jordan and I develop our
line with my target audience film idea, we will make sure to create
and send out survey to allow the
target audience to have a say, make
decisions and share their opinions. We
will also set up focus groups where we
will target our main age range and
getting opinions from them. Making
sure that the feedback that we take
into account is coming from our age
group.
6) Going into production without a 6) What has happened in past
Problem Solving

completed script productions is that I have gone into

Storyboards not complete filming without a complete script. This
has meant that scene have had to be
improvised or cut. For this production
Jordan and I are writing the script
alongside storyboards. This mean that
we can accurately get these two vital
pieces of work done at work.
7) When going out for test shoots, the test 7) With Test shoots, I haven’t been able
shoot corrupts or is nowhere near to do them and so for this production
adequate. there are several different test shoots.
However due to the short amount of
time that Jordan and I will have after
production begins we both want to
make sure that specific things in the
film look how we want them to do. A
lot of our test shoot do overlap a lot so
it is vital that we both do the test
shoots that are needed. This means
that if I do have any corrupt footage
from test shoots or if the footage is of
bad quality or doesn’t really help I will
make sure to give myself time to
reshoot these. This can also help as I
can talk about how I improved.
8) If production starts and Jordan and I still 8) In most of my production I have this
can’t secure locations by the time we struggle. Location are hard to secure,
have start filming. especially when there are many
places that do not want to close or
limit their workplace for entire days.
This is why I am already looking for
several different locations in a hope
that I have back-ups for each
9) If we have no permission for locations to location.
film and there could be trouble with 9) If we do not have permission from the
either authority’s or the owner owner for a specific we can always
ask or call up. This is the only way to
film lawfully. If they say no, then there is
still time to find another location and
so that is all I can really do. If it comes
down to it than having to film in public
10) Paying for Locations areas may be a good solution.
10) In the past I have had to pay for
locations to try and secure these
location. However this has usually
meant that I have not been able to
film there just due to the amount
requested. For this production I am
hoping that this situation doesn’t arise
but if it does I have at least am
prepared with some contingency’s
Problem Solving

Planning for practical and technical problems

Practical and technical problems I How I plan to resolve
may encounter
1) Actor Pulls out 1) If actors were to pull out the Jordan
 A and I are planning to have back-ups
 A for each main cast member. This is due
 A to us both having been effected by
 A last minute drop outs. To ensure this
 A doesn’t happen. I have also figured
 A that those with a very busy schedule I
 A plan to give them much smaller roles
 A to make sure that if they’re written into
 A a scene it is ok if they can’t attend the
 A scene due to them not being essential
 A to the scene.
2) Location Pulls out 2) Just like for actors, Jordan and I both
 A want to avoid having to rush around
 A trying to find a location when a
 A location pulls out. We have already
 A began to look at location and I have
 A also tried to try and look for
 A contingencies so that we don’t have
 A to delay a shooting day and risk losing
 a actors as they aren’t available.
3) If Jordan and I were to fall out and 3) If Jordan and I were to fall out it would
effected our work be a big problem. For one if we were
 A to fall out, we would resolve things very
 A quick, even if it is just for the
 A production as grades that decide
 A whether we can go to university or not
 A is more important than personal or
 A work issues with one another
4) Footage corrupts 4) In the past I have had footage corrupt
 A or go missing. Because Jordan is
 A editing the piece, he has a no delete
 A policy whilst he’s deleting and he
 A makes a habit of copying footage
 A onto his computer and hard drive. I
 A will also try to get Jordan to send me
 A premier pro files, after every draft so
 A that if his copy corrupts he has a copy
a from my computer he can use.
5) Work goes missing 5) What can happen sometimes is that
 A online sites that our year uses such as
 A Weebly and Wix they can crash. This
 A can lead to work missing and a huge
 A set back in progress. This is why that I
 A want to try and avoid that by
 A producing a lot of my work on my on
 A Microsoft word and then pasting that
 A work on to my website, just so I have a
 A saved copy safe, so that there’s a very
 A low chance of me losing an hours’
 a worth of work.
6) Audio doesn’t record 6) What we’ve planned for production is
 A to make sure to sound test everything.
Problem Solving

 A Before going for a take, we will do a

 A quick audio check to make sure that
 A everything is recording. If something
 A isn’t recording right then we will check
 a and sort out the problem.
7) Equipment runs out of battery 7) Equipment running out of battery is a
 A huge problem, especially when filming
 A outside. So what Jordan and I have
 A planned to do is to firstly, charge up
 A spare batteries for all devices that
 A need power. We will make sure to also
 A bring chargers for these devices and
 A their chargers so that I can charge any
 A batteries whilst filming. Also I will bring
 A any mains plug in cables for
 A equipment such as my lights so that
 a batteries do not have to be used.
8) Equipment breaks 8) For equipment to break is very
unfortunate and if something were to
break such as lenses, this would be a
major setback. The only real thing that
I can do is to use another lens so I will
make sure to pack all my lenses just in
case. If a camera were to break that
would be very serious. However
Jordan and I both have insurance for
our cameras and also we will always
have at least two camera for each
filming day so we can use the other
person camera if need be.

Mid Project check-up (After Research and planning)

For my research and planning, a lot of things that I thought may go wrong, did go wrong.
However the contingencies that I came up with did work. For example when trying to get
responses for my surveys, I did get a lot of responses for it, which was really good and it did
turn out that publishing the survey on different social media sites did help phenomenally in
getting those replies. However as expected my second survey did not get many responses
at all and so the use of a focus group really allowed me and my partner to develop our
idea further from an audience we knew was in our determined age group. This was very
helpful as getting these responses allowed us to move on to the next step and we were
able to move onto codes and conventions and genre research.
Another big problem that I know I’m very bad at is staying on topic. I found this apparent
back on Unit 10 where I found that I made a documentary on buster Keaton and stunts
instead of cinematography. So for this unit I said that I wanted to make sure my research
was detailed and accurate so that this couldn’t happen due to my research on units
being my downfall. What I did was trying to draw from two different sources when starting
my topic research. I decided to use books as a good way to back up online research that
I did for my topics. As I predicted a lot of my book research seemed to back up all the
online research I had done. Not only do I know that my research is accurate but the books
also added extra information to my research and also helped me in coming up with
questions that I used in my interview with Gary Mills.
The interview with Gary was really helpful in trying to solidify our main characters activities
and habits. When I asked a question Gary would go into vigorous detail and so when
cutting the video together due to loads of interesting and useful information was there in
the entire 1 hour and 17 minute interview. I tried adding some things into the script which
Problem Solving

can match Gary’s own act. This was in an effort to try and take our character and blend it
with Gary’s life to try legitimise and make our character a real person. Things such as
having our main character (Arthur) always in the bar in the morning, with no one around
to show how the bar isn’t really open yet, similar to what Gary would do.
One of the problem that I usually have done with past unit is have to go into production
without storyboards. For this problem I said that Jordan and I would work in conjunction to
finish the script and storyboards together. I wrote the script and Jordan drew the
storyboards, with us both taking time to help out with each other’s job. This was a great
way to construct our work flow and actually allowed time for us to get feedback on our
script from one of teachers which allowed us to correct mistakes and also improve the
overall story and structure of the film. Even small details like giving small directorial points
for actor to help them act out this scene properly.
With test shoots I very much thought these were important. Between me and Jordan there
were a lot of things that Jordan and I wanted to execute right in our film. To do that we
had to do a lot of test shoots. With Jordan there was a lot of editing and special effects
tricks that he had to learn and also there was a danger that he may not be able to do
certain things and so testing before hand was crucial. This was also the case for me as
there were a couple things that I hadn’t tried before and also things that I have struggled
with in the past. One of the main things that I have suffered within the past is lighting. In my
last FMP i was really unhappy with a lot of the lighting in that film. The fight scene in the
changing room was grainy and the lighting and grade was pink and yellow and was very
off putting. So for these rounds of test shoots I decided that I would try and improve on this.
With Locations Jordan and I did run into a couple issues. The main problem was trying to
secure a pub location. I very much wanted to have a pub scene to set up our main
characters safe space of sorts. This is the place where he feels most safe and so when this
is space is jeopardised it releases Arthur of his comfort, his place solitude and also alcohol. I
thought this would be a nice way to show a character switch through location and is a
small detail that some people may pick up on. However we couldn’t get the location we
originally planned upon, which was “The Queen Vic” in Henley. However due to my
contingencies I was able to contact a company called resource Production, a company
that I had worked for in the past, to help me find a new location. After sending email back
and forth they were able to get me in touch with the landlord from a pub called “The
Herschel Arms”. I talked to him and managed to get the location for two days completely
for free. This was an amazing result and was very generous of the Landlord, Tom who has
been very generous and very kind to let us use the Location.

End of project review

After a two and a half week shoot, we finally finished the film. We faced many problems.
One of the big ones was actors pulling out. This happens in every production. However in
this production especially, there was quite a few. The major ones were for Otto’s character
and Daemon’s character. These were two very big character and so for actors to pull was
a huge problem. For Otto’s character, I was originally going to get my friend Anthony to
play the character, due to him being an experienced actor; I thought that he could bring
a lot of weight and really sell emotional point in the film. However after he had got
involved he realised how much time shooting would take up and so he had to pull out due
to him having to focus on A levels. Luckily this was just before we began shooting and we
had time to recast our character with our other friend Liam. He however was originally
going to play the character of Ziko, but we found that Liam was the most free during the
Easter break and believed he’d be much more reliable and able to film for a character
that has several important scenes, and so we thought it best to cast him as Otto and find a
replace for Ziko.
We didn’t have much of a pull out of locations. There was the misfortune of not confirming
the Pub location but that was due to it being closed down more than anything. The only
real issue we had location wise was with our infra red sequence. We had originally
planned to film inside a locker room that was located underneath the school studio and
hall however we could not get access, with our teacher not being able to get us access.
Problem Solving

What he had to do instead was film in a wood nearby and basically work the scene round
that area, and the end results turned out quite well.
Audio was another big thing that I wanted to work on and really improve. For the most
part the audio works great, with a lot of the Foley sound being really good and also most
of the dialogue and vocal coming out quite crisp, with a few exceptions. One of the things
Jordan and I did after every take was check the sound and we would do mini sound
checks to make sure that the microphone was working. This was one of contingency plans
and is one of the reasons how we managed to avoid massive reshoots and panic.
However what did cause a problem was on the last day of shooting when Jordan and I
really had to rush out the last couple shots and so we began to forget to turn the
microphone and so this lead to having reshoot sequences, and meant that we wasted
more of the owner’s time.
In our production I do use a lot of light and I try to add it in as naturally as possible and for
some scene, the lighting is a little out of place or doesn’t do enough. However throughout
the production Jordan and I managed to keep all the equipment working and functional.
We had chargers, spare batteries, and a tone of extra equipment for any scenario that
were to occur. Our planning really payed off, especially for outdoor scenes that, where
the lighting at night time was crucial. Thanks to me packing spare batteries we were able
to shoot several scenes with good light so that the image was clean and high quality. The
night shoot was the most logistical shoot out of all of them and was the biggest day for us,
with a bigger cast and time limits; it was all thanks to the planning and communication
that we were able to make the scene work.