Group meeting 16th March

Meeting with tutor:

.We need to decide:

.Exactly what lighting we want to use

.Camera height 

.The width of the ally way

.Flooring

.If we want street detail/ door ways

.Type of lens

.Where we want the shadows

.Height of the smoke from the Smoke machine

.What we are tying the man up with 

Tutors suggestions:

.Could have the light close to the wall to and shoot downwards to create shadowing on the floor and accentuate texture

.Dont have to get stuck with the idea of reality and creating a set that is realistic (trying to create drama)

.Look at Pinewood studio for brick walls

.Making the camera the third person in the scene so taking the photo from around a corner etc so the the audience would appear to be a character looking upon what is happening. This was suggested as it could add drama and tension however probably wouldn't work for us as we are only making the back end of the car.

.The story line of the male/ is he wounded /dead 

My ideas:

.When the tutor said about not getting stuck in the idea of reality it made me think back to the film 'Inglorious Bastards'. There is a scene when a character walks out of the room and it is shot from above the set so you can see the tops of the boards used to make the walls. It made e think that if we do have difficult with the car seeing as we are only making the boot we could maybe consider making it a style within our image to show that it is actually a set. This is not what we are currently wanting to do but is something that i could suggest if we come to a dead end when making the car. 

Group meeting:

.After looking at the model that Sam made me and Sophia questioned the size of the ally compared to the car. The car is a lot bigger than i thought as it is two meters and this is a large car so we may need a larger alley. Talking about this lead us to discussing what able we wanted the street at. As a group we have already said that we want to take the photo face onto the street which can't be changed now because the able we take the image affects how much of the car is made. Becca suggested having the street angling in slightly to create the illusion of it becoming more norrow. I am not sure with angle would make the street look the best but I also felt that it would look better with the wall angled in some way. Sam and rosie did not like this idea so we decided that it would be something that we would have to experiment with next week when we are deciding on camera lens.

.We then discussed street detailing. Sophia, becca and myself thought that it would look better if we had a bit of detail on the walls of the ally way for example a dip in the wall where we would hang black velvet to create the illusion of a doorway or something similar. Rosie and Sam were insistent that they thought this was pointless and that the walls were not an important feature and that we should focus on the car. This became quite a debate but eventually we came to the conclusion that with out dark lighting and shadows not much of the wall would be visible anyway so the detail would be lost. 

.Flooring was something that would had pretty much already decided on. We knew that we wanted to mimic the floor in the image below. It was suggested that we use canvas for our flooring and then paint it. Rosie remembered that another group are using canvas for their ceiling and it is cheaper to buy in bulk so to save money she is going to ask them if they would like to do a joint order. The floor shown below has a shine to it which came us and becca suggested painting over the grey painted canvas with varnish to create this wet look/ shine but Rosie and Sam felt strongly that it would not look realistic as a floor which we all eventually agreed on.

.We have found a smoke machine that would only cost us £5 each which is very reasonable for the week. Rosie found out that we are allowed to use the smoke machine depending on which smoke is used and we also had to decide if we wanted a machine that released the smoke upwards or along the ground. We wanted to achieve a look with the smoke similar to that of the one above as we think it will be very dramatic and resemble film noir but also the fact that we can't just cut off the back of our street so the smoke would create the illusion that there could still more of the street behind it. 

.After talking about the smoke we had to think about what we wanted to put behind it. Did we want another brick wall or need boards? Becca made the point that it wold be visible because of the smoke so to save money and resources we could simply just use the large black backdrops supplied by the uni. 

.Lighting was something that the group have thought a lot about but had not come to a conclusion on yet. from our workshop we looked at blue lighting on the actual model and having 2 light in the background like street lights. We are going to have to block off the blue lighting with shutters so that it only falls upon the model because too much lighting will reveal the fakeness of the car and its lack of wheels. We have drawn up a rough plan of lighting but Becca needs to talk to our tutor and make a final plan so that we can test it and see how suitable it will be. 

. The tutor that e had our worksop strong suggested that we consider making the image black and white. We thought that having it in colour would give it a modern twist but then during our group meeting started to change our minds. The image would be a lot more classic film noir if we did it in black and white and would also make it easier for us to work with dramatic shadows. We decided as a group we would now defiantly make the image black and white so there for would not need the blue lighting on the model. 

.As we had decided to change the image to black and white sam then made the point that we had planned to make the car black. This would make the car harder to see so we thought that we should paint it a lighter colour such as red. This however is not our final choice of colour and we shall seek advice from the men helping us to make the car and our tutor.

.We need to source rope to tie the man up with and Rosie remembered that she had seen some thick rope at work that they no longer used so is going to ask and see if they would let her have them. This would mean not having to shop around or pay for the rope saving us time and money so we are currently waiting to see what they say. 

.The tutor asked up if we were having wounds on the man or if there were any weapons on the scene. We had already decided that the idea is that she had used her sexuality as her weapon so we did not want to display any actual weapons. Sophia suggested wounds as it is unrealistic that she would have got him in the boot without harming him in some way but we stuck with our idea of having just a lipstick mark on his cheek instead of wounds. Our story is very much about the femme fatale character and more about sexual manipulation that about action and violence.

.I have found a stylist but still need to find a make up artist and hairdresser so this is something that i must go away and sort out by next wednesday.