VLOG: Car Scene Take 1 and Take 2

ACTORS: 

• Kaya Maki - Chantelle Anonuevo
• Yui/double-crossing yakuza member - James Tuano

SCENES: 

• James gives Chantelle an envelope which contains the profiles of the Yakuza's enemies and rivals
• James instructs Chantelle to kill the rival gangs bosses and accomplices in order to "gain the Yakuza's approval"

PROPS:

• Envelope containing pictures of rival bosses
• Black car

SHOT LIST:

• Perspective shot
• Over the shoulder shot
• Tilting/Tracking (passing envelope)
• Tracking (Chantelle walking) 
• Close up shot

Prior to shooting this scene, I photographed Filip in a telephone box and Daniel walking past a window. I instructed the both of them to ignore the camera; Filip was to pose with the telephone and Daniel posed outside while I took a photo of him inside a room. I then edited the photos on my iPhone using a black and white filter so that the photos appeared more subdued. Once I had printed them out onto photo paper, I put them in a brown envelope.  

Chandler and I filmed the car scene with a Sony camcorder because we were unable to use Jasmine's Nikon D3300. James, Chandler and  I conferred with each other during filming and agreed on filming different perspectives to make the conversation between James and Chantelle look as real as possible. For instance, we made sure to record reaction shots that would correspond with James giving the envelope to Chantelle. 

Filming went smoothly, however, after reviewing the footage on Adobe Premiere we noticed that the quality of the camcorder was too grainy due to the dim lighting inside the car. We immediately arranged to film the car scene again on a day when Chantelle was free.

CAR SCENE TAKE 2

This time the whole group were in attendance and we used Jasmine's Nikon D3300, the camera we originally used for filming the majority of our scenes. I filmed most of Chantelle's scenes while Chandler filmed James' perspective shot. 

As a group we felt that focusing the camera on the envelope would be more effective than keeping the camera focused on Chantelle the whole time. 

The DSLR performed better under the dim lighting of the car and the footage appeared significantly clearer when we all previewed it on Adobe Premiere.

VLOG: Dunking Filip Scene

ACTORS

• Enemy Boss - Filip Jastrebszki
• Kaya Maki - Chantelle Anonuevo

SCENES

• Kaya proceeds to torture the enemy's boss by dunking his head in water

SHOT LIST

• 2-shot 
• Reaction shot (Extreme close up)
• Fast-paced tilting shot 
• Mid-shot/Profile shot
• Perspective shot
• Close up 
• Over the shoulder shot 

PROPS

• Black Bucket
• Black Duct Tape
• Chair for Filip to sit on
• Stool for the bucket
• Towel (to dry Filip's hair after each take)
• Warm water

Chandler and I were in charge of directing this scene while Jasmine vlogged the process. We filmed outside in Jasmine's garden, she hadn't cut the grass or cleaned the debris (twigs and vines) so it looked gritty and abandoned.

It was quite cold on this day so we made sure to refill the bucket with warm water on a regular basis  so that Filip would not freeze his face when Chantelle dunked his head in. We directed Chantelle to tug Filip's hair and to push his head into the bucket and pull it out; Chandler tilted the camera downwards and upwards to track the motion. Before we filmed this, we made sure Filip was satisfied with the script. During filming I stood behind Chandler with a towel ready in hand to dry Filip's hair.

To make the torturing scene seem even more authentic, we made sure Filip blew some air into the bucket to produce bubbles to show a struggle. We purposefully intended to speed up the footage during editing so the original footage is slower than what it will actually look like in the trailer. 

VLOG: Shooting the footage for the city montage

We collectively agreed to film more footage of glass buildings for a city montage. James and Jasmine weren't free so it was up to Chandler and I to explore the city.

Ultimately, the perfect location was Canary Wharf because it was not as busy as Central London therefore we were free to stand still and record the buildings without having to worry about being in the way (this was an issue in China Town).

Editing: Piecing together the montages

Today we mainly worked on editing the montage clips for China Town and the city. When we compiled the clips we realised that it was far too long so we decided to cut the footage frame by frame and to alter the speed so that the montage would be, at most, 8-10 seconds.  

Production Logo Intro

Chandler and James were in charge of the production logo for the beginning of the trailer. They borrowed a preset online which they found out about using a guide on YouTube. The tutorial taught them step by step how to create the blue and pink smoke that comes from the bottom left hand corner. Learning the basics of After Effects was challenging and overall it took them 45 minutes to finish the 3-5 second opening for our productions logo. 

VLOG: Bar Scene

Set: My dinner table adorned with an ornamental bonsai tree, flowers (left over from mother's day), glasses and wine/champagne bottles

ACTORS:

• Kaya Maki - Chantelle Anonuevo
• Aiko (Kaya's Bestfriend) - Me, Celina Laureta

SCENES:

• Kaya confides in Aiko about her brother, Kazuo, and the Yakuza's ignorance of her capabilities 

SHOT LIST:

• Close up
• Over the shoulder shot
• Profile shot

PROPS:

• Wine/Champagne bottles
• Crystal glasses
• Flowers in vase
• Bonsai tree centre piece
• Ribena juice (as an alcoholic beverage) 

Today Jasmine and James took turns to film while Chandler advised them and vlogged behind the scenes. I assumed the role of Aiko, Kaya's bestfriend. 

I was instructed to listen to Kaya and encourage her to do as she pleases, prompting her to talk about her brother. 

This scene took a few takes to get right because we had a specific idea of the tone in which Chantelle says certain lines. The close up of clinking the glasses was also a meticulous process because Chantelle and I had to make sure to be in line with the camera. However, we eventually got the perfect shot. :)

SCRIPTING and CHANGE IN PLOT: IMPORTANT

So far we have filmed 80% of our trailer and have begun the process of piecing the scenes together.

UPDATE:  We decided to change some things in our original plot so that the story is easier to understand. The sibling rivalry and female empowerment will remain key themes, however, we feel that the shots we have filmed so far do not show the reason why the female protagonist feels so strongly about the rivalry between her and her brother.  

Having identified this issue, we decided to film some scenes with dialogue even though our trailer is mostly reliant on a voice over. Some of the dialogue will be in Japanese because we want our film to appear genuine and to engage the reader with the story (seeing as they will have to read the subtitles).

I have highlighted the translations in orange and included the romanized version of the one liners so our actors will find it easier to pronounce the words.

Below I have crossed out the ideas that we have scrapped. We filled in these plot holes with fresh ideas that were more appropriate for the scenes that we filmed.

NEW SCENES aka remaining 20% of filming:

Francois (The father and head of the Yakuza) slaps Chantelle (Kaya Maki/The daughter) 

FRANCOIS: [Backhands Chantelle across the face] 

Anata no basho o shitte iru
(TRANSLATION: Know your place) 

CHANTELLE: [Eyes wide open, staring at the floor in shock, breathing rapidly]

[stuttering] I.. I.. J-j-just... 

                                
                          Bar scene - Chantelle confiding in Aiko, her best friend (Me)

CHANTELLE: [Takes a sip out of her glass]

I am fed up of walking in HIS shadow.

ME: His?

CHANTELLE: It's funny how they don't know what I'm capable of.

ME: [Scoffs] They don't.

[Toast each other's glasses] 

Information exchange scene 
["Sama" is a Japanese honorific suffix, it is important to include this in the dialogue as it shows that Kaya Maki is still the daughter of a Yakuza boss therefore she deserves respect because she has some authority]

JAMES: [Sitting in the car, holding an envelope containing pictures of the yakuza's enemies]  

CHANTELLE: [Looks around before getting in the car]

JAMES: Kaya-sama [bows] [rises from bow] 

JAMES: [Hands Chantelle the envelope] Get rid of these rats and you'll gain the Yakuza's approval. 

CHANTELLE: [Nods in determination] Is this all I need?

JAMES: Yes, Kaya-sama.

Torture scene 

CHANTELLE: [Begins to duct tape Filip to a chair, then grabs his hair and pushes his head inside a bucket full of water for a few seconds before pulling him out]

[Coolly] Had enough?

FILIP: [Stares at Chantelle with fear in his eyes]

Fighting scene
(My younger brother, Eugene, does karate so we will have him choreograph the fighting scene to make sure it looks as if Chantelle has the upper hand against him)

Fighting ensues between Eugene and Chantelle

CHANTELLE: [Throws a barrage of punches against Eugene and eventually pins him down to the floor]

EUGENE: [Straining] Dono yo ni fukaku watashitachi no rutsu? (TRANSLATION: How deep are your roots?) aka our tagline 

CHANTELLE: [Looks down at him]

[Apathetically] Sono fukakunai.
 (TRANSLATION: Not that deep)

CHANTELLE: [Punches Eugene's face]

Editing: Cross cutting the tattoo and flashback scenes

To reinforce the gangster genre and the yakuza theme, I decided to rework the footage Chandler edited of the flashback scene and use the tilt upwards to view the tattoo because the motion of tilting upwards fits nicely together. 

Before cutting the footage, I first made space between the areas where I intended to place the tattoo scene. Then using the razor tool I cut the tattoo footage that would link with the flashback sequence that Chandler had edited; to make the cross cut effective, I had to remove the cross dissolve transition after the shot of Venice. 

This is how it looks like so far.

Editing: The dinner table scene // Walking scene // Running from enemy scene // Bowing scene

Today, Jasmine and I worked together to cut and edit together the footage of the dinner scene, the running scene, the walking scene and the bowing scene because Chandler and James were unavailable. 

Firstly, we chose to edit the bowing scene because there were only two clips that needed to be put together. Once the clips were dragged onto the timeline, I dragged the end of the clip to cut it where we wanted the scene to change.  

 I dragged the dinner scene clips and grouped them in the order we wanted. I spent a few minutes cutting each clip so that the scenes would go together seamlessly, it was a lengthy process because I had to go frame by frame to cut the clips. The important aspects of this scene is the rivalry between the siblings so it was crucial for the transitions to be quick and seamless between these four different clips. 

Next we moved on to editing the running scene where Daniel is kicked down the stairs by Chantelle. There were also a total of four clips for this sequence and it was the first instance where we sped up the footage because it was too slow especially when she was running. I had to view the frame per second in order to cut the clip for the transition so when the scene cuts to Daniel's reaction, the transition is seamless.  

To make the walking scene a little more interesting, we decided to have the low angle shot of just their feet sandwiched between the the tilt upwards to their faces to extend the mystery before their faces are revealed. During production we purposefully readjusted the lens when he stops walking so that it focuses on his eyes - this was so there would be time for the voice over.

Editing Begins

After a quick tutorial from our teacher, we learned the basics of Adobe Premiere, the software we will be using for editing and compiling our footage. 

The first scene was edited by Chandler as the rest of the group were occupied on the day. Although Jasmine, James and  I could not be there, Chandler made sure to update us on the footage he edited via the Whatsapp group chat. 

. As you can see, we gave him feedback and made sure our ideas were acknowledged. Below is the footage Chandler edited. He used the cross dissolve to create a smooth transition between the flashback and the present day scene of our main protagonist. Overall, we were very pleased with how the exposition turned out.

We hope to edit the footage together soon :)

Case Study: (A Grade Exemplar) 'Playing Judas'

To give us an idea the quality of work that is expected of us, we were tasked to count the scenes, cuts and transitions from this exemplar. The pace was one of the best things about this trailer because the exposition was built up well as it immediately introduces a problem.