Feedback on the footage we have so far

Our media class held a screening of all the groups' footage to gather some feedback.   

Here is a brief outline of the feedback they gave to us:

What went well:

• The mise-en-scene and characterisation "Smoking seems like something a gangster would do" / The iconography in China Town i.e. stone lions and lanterns 
• The ambient lighting - "it was not too dark so you are able to see the smoke clearly" (smoking scene) 
• The diegetic sounds were not overwhelming and would work well with the scene if we were to include it
• There was more than one version of one scene - it gives us more variety 
• A wide variety of clips to choose from and different settings 
• The shots with a deep focus were good, "moments of clarity hit the audience well"
• The progression of the story is becoming clearer 

What could be improved:

• The diegetic sounds 
• Some shots were not in focus i.e. pan and tilt shots, ensure the lens is focused on the subject otherwise it detracts from the effect
• The ambient lighting in China Town was "off", too dark

Now that 80 per cent of our filming is complete, what our group needs to do now is to prioritise compiling the footage and piecing together the different clips. This is the most challenging part of the project as we need to consider the music that will go with the footage and the style of editing. 

 

Compilation of Vlogs (Before editing)

VLOG: 5th Day Filming // China Town montage

SCENES: 

• Various clips of lanterns
• People walking in China Town
• Location shots on Gerrard Street
• Behind the shoulder shot of James walking 

ACTORS:

• James - Gangster roaming the streets 

These scenes are for the purpose of a montage so we didn't need our actors.

During half-term we organised a day out during Chinese New Year in China Town to film the iconography for our trailer. Although this may not be culturally authentic, the location and mise-en-scene fits in with the overall oriental theme of our film. (If there was a Tokyo Town in London we would have filmed there instead). 

China Town was buzzing with activity; the atmosphere, the lanterns and the people provided us with enough footage to create the montage that would be used to present our theme. The wind was actually on our side this time because it made the lanterns shake. We thought about using the shaking lanterns as the turning point of our exposition. 

We didn't plan to film in a specific location within China Town so we just walked around and explored. We stumbled upon a restaurant called 'Imperial China'. The interior was stunning. It had a bridge over water which had Koi fish in it. In Japanese the word Koi is a homophone for 'affection' or 'love', koi are therefore symbols of love and friendship in Japan. 

We particularly liked the scenes we filmed of a man standing outside a restaurant that was painted black on the outside:

His costume fit the role of gangster as the glasses and all black outfit made him look intimidating. We had no intention of disturbing him so we discreetly filmed him from far away. His expression looked stern and his eyebrows were furrowed; he also kept scanning the area so it looked as if he was on the lookout whilst some men brought in some vegetables in boxes.  

VLOG: 4th Day of Filming // Flashbacks, Bowing, Dinner, Tattoo scenes

ACTORS:

• Child version of Kaya Maki - Venice Anonuevo 
• Child version of Kazuo Maki - Tyresse Anonuevo 
• Young Kazuo's Karate teacher - Raymond Pham
• Tattoo artist - Ranch Clemeno
• Kaya Maki (protagonist) - Chantelle Anonuevo
• Kazuo Maki - Marcus Francisco
• Kato Maki aka Head of the gang and Father - Francois Francisco  
• Kaya's bodyguard/henchman - Chandler Idos 
• Kazuo's bodyguard/henchman - James Tuano

SCENES: 

• Childhood flashback scene of Kaya Maki tending to the bonsai tree
• Childhood flashback of Kazuo (Kaya's older brother)
• Present day Kaya tending to the bonsai tree
• Tense dinner scene
• Bowing to head of yakuza scene
• Tattoo scene

PROPS:

• Bonsai tree
• Plates
• Cutlery
• Glasses
• Marker pens

2 weeks prior to filming, we asked our friends: Nina and Patrick, for permission to film at their houses. Coincidentally, both of them owned bonsai trees though we favoured Nina's bonsai tree over Patrick's. Venice doesn't own a kimono so we asked Chantelle to dress her up in a dress; we picked the middle dress. 

We decided to film at Nina's house first because it is closer and we anticipated that the time taken to film the shots with the bonsai tree in her garden would not take as long as filming the acting at Patrick's house. 

Our child actor, Venice, is the younger version of Chantelle's character. Venice wore a gold dress to project the wealth of the Yakuza. Jasmine and I worked together to film this scene at different angles so that the flashback would seem realistic once we piece together the footage during the editing process.  

After we filmed the flashback scene in Nina's garden, we took a train to Patrick's house. The majority of our day consisted of filming there because his house is adorned with oriental ornaments and elaborate furniture. 

We all took turns filming different scenes, Jasmine filmed the dinner scene to showcase the tension between the siblings, James filmed the tattoo scene, I filmed the bowing scene where Chandler and James bow to Francois to establish power and authority, while Chandler filmed the flashback karate scene.







Unfortunately, Francois had to leave early and Marcus arrived after he left so we had to schedule another day to film Francois.

Other than the bowing scene, I was tasked to draw the tattoo on Chantelle's back so we bought some permanent markers from the 99p store and I Google searched some images of existing tree tattoos for inspiration so it stays relevant to 'The Bonsai Tree'.

A lot of the tattoos were accentuated with Kanji - Japanese writing so I decided to include some. The Japanese characters on her left side say 'Loyalty' (I used Google Translate to copy the characters) which is a key theme in our trailer. 

To establish tension and conflict between the two siblings, we arranged to film a scene where a negotiation between Kaya and Kazuo goes wrong during the start of a dinner. Kaya slams her glass of water while saying "NO!" as an act of defiance.

VLOG: 3rd Day Filming // Enemy pursuit scene

ACTORS

• Kaya Maki - Chantelle Anonuevo
• Enemy 1 - Daniel Windele

SCENES

• Chantelle raising a gun to the camera
• Chantelle running from Daniel and kicking him down

SHOT LIST:

• Low angle shot
• Perspective shot 
• Tracking shot (running)

Today James was behind the camera filming our female protagonist Chantelle. We realised that there needed to be more action scenes so we asked Daniel to be the enemy pursuing our female protagonist.

We weren't happy with the perspective shots from inside the room because we could not get enough light so we decided to go outside. Jasmine assisted James with the lens settings because James wanted to experiment with the focus. We wanted to know whether a shallow focus or a deep focus on the gun would be more effective.

In the end we decided to go with the deep focus because it creates a sense of mystery: the person holding the gun is unrecognizable until the last second when their face and the gun come into focus. 

Daniel's staircase scene was not in the original storyboard but taking on the advice of our teachers, we needed more characters so we added a villain. 

In the next scene we will be filming the flashback scene of the main protagonists and the initiation/tattoo scene as well as the dinner table scene. 

VLOG: 2nd Day Filming // Smoking scene

ACTORS

• Kato Maki - Francois Francisco

SCENES

• Blowing smoke into the camera

PROPS

• One cigarette

This week Chandler was in charge of filming the smoke scene courtesy of Francois who will be the father of our main protagonists. As I am in charge of location scouting, I suggested we film in front of these wooden boards that were painted black so the background doesn't subtract any attention from the actor's performance. 

The shot is exactly how I drew it on the storyboard which is an extreme close up of the actor's face, only revealing the bottom half of his face to create a some ambiguity. The use of a close up also intensifies the frame because the main focus is on the actor blowing the smoke directly at the camera.

  It was my turn to document the process of filming this week :) James and Jasmine acted as barriers so that the smoke would blow directly into the camera and not in an undesired direction.

However, containing the smoke proved to be quite difficult LOL:

But in the end we managed to film the shot we were satisfied with: 

We were pleased with this shot because the ambient lighting was perfect which was a step up from last week because we had some issues with the lighting indoors. On the next day of filming, we intend to film the female protagonist fighting and using a gun to threaten an enemy.

VLOG: 1st Day Filming // Gangster Walking Scene

On the first day of filming my media group gave to me..... Some actors for The Bonsai Tree :)

From left to right: Roden, James, Marcus, Joseph and Brandon.

Apart from the perspective shot, for the majority of filming today, the camera was mounted on the tripod. We explored different camera angles and tripod levels to achieve a wide variety of shots to choose from when we move on to editing. 

We cast James as our male protagonist's confidante. In this shot we strategically positioned James on Marcus' right hand side to demonstrate this. His character will be more obvious in the other scenes that we plan to film. This wasn't originally in the storyboard however after getting some feedback from our teacher, we decided to add more characters. 

Chandler was in charge of vlogging and I was the director and location scout.

SCENES

• Gangster squad walking
• Marcus shooting someone
• Mirror scene 
• James being threatened

SHOT LIST

• Long shot
• Group shot
• Perspective shot (low angle)
• Establishing shot
• Tilting
• Tracking

PROPS

• Gun

Today the cinematographer was Jasmine. For the establishing shot we decided to position the "gang" behind the male protagonist (Marcus) in a V formation; this allowed him to stand out as the authoritative figure in the front and centre when they all walk forward in sync. 

The costumes also determine the status of the characters within this group shot; Marcus is the only actor wearing a coat and scarf while the actors behind the male protagonist are all wearing black suits to illustrate the Yakuza.

We didn't want the actors to stay out in the cold for too long so before we filmed the real shot, a rehearsal was carried out inside. 

Jasmine was able to play around with the framing and suggested Marcus should walk towards the camera and look straight into the lens as if to stare down the viewer. 

Meanwhile I directed the actors in the way they moved and to control their facial expressions to convey a sense of superiority and confidence when walking towards the camera. 

When we got outside the actors knew exactly what to do because we briefed them beforehand. As a group we all carefully viewed the footage and pointed out any errors or issues.

One main issue was how much we needed to move the tripod further away from the group so that the long-shot did not crop out their heads.

This low angle showed the victim's inferiority while Marcus looked powerful, holding the gun towards the victim's face. It took some time for Marcus to get the hang of jerking his arm back when pretending to shoot the gun but we eventually captured a shot we were happy with.

We also filmed an over the shoulder shot of Marcus looking at himself in a grand mirror. This was important for mise-en-scene as we had to establish the luxurious lifestyle in which our characters live in.

For this staircase scene, the over the shoulder shot of James cowering and being held at gun point shows concealment. The staircase is a compact place so it was perfect for shooting a scene where one of the main characters seems to be threatening his own. This scene will surely evoke curiosity in the audience and conveys mystery.  

Character Profiles

Originally, we wanted the Yakuza members, of Asian origin, to be aged 30-50. However, we were unable to find any willing participants. We had to ask our friends to be part of our trailer instead.