The Coin: Assistant on Camera/Sound

I was an assistant on the filming set project: The Coin. A short script about a girl, Patricia and a boy called John searching for photos of students from the past for the current website for the University of Bolton. Patricia finds a photo that matches John, a flashback occurs of a photographer taking a photo of John. The twist is his lucky coin that keeps him young forever.

Helping out on set was a joyful experience since i got to give my ideas, help other people and have ago on two seperate pieces of equipment too see which i liked best:

The flashback scene:

This particular bit in the film was the most important, since it mainly explained what the film was about and the twist that the film had. I suggested the flashback scene to either be grainy or black and white to connote the past.

Sound:

• music 
• sound effects
• voices

These must be balanced correctly, or one or the other may be more dominant depending what emotional you are trying to portray. Sound is much more important than people may think, for this filming process i suggested we mainly use diegetic sound- since there is a lot of dialogue and the dialogue mainly tells the story; very important in the coin since there is not much emotion displayed within the script. 

Too improve/ideas:

To have used more synchronous sounds too our advantage. merging and the synchronizing sounds of the door opening to the stockroom, coin rolling, camera flashing increasing the volume of these three things would show the audience that they are important to the story line (opening the stockroom- raises questions, coin rolling- something special about the coin, camera flashing- showing he is frozen in time/ a time loop). this would help the audience engage with the situation more. 

 

Documentary: Art Director

My mind map ideas: 

This is the spiritualist church located in Bolton centre:

We picked this place since it is something that we all sort of believe in and hasn't yet or cant be proven. So we thought it was very interesting to document, many people shy away from spiritualism since they do not understand it or are scared of it. Thought it would appeal to many different types of audiences.

Typical codes and conventions for a documentary:

• A voice over- this helps people connect better with the documentary as you get footage with someone with specialists knowledge.
• Real footage- non-fiction footage which shows you what its actually like within the spiritual church if they would ever visit. 
• natural sounds and lighting- helping you emphasis yourself being there and what you would feel being there, helping yourself feel good when watching the documentary- wanting you to visit the centre 
• unobtainable information- interesting facts about the history that the man (who spoke the majority way through e.g. voice over man) did, since the public may not be able to find that information for themselves. 
• interviews- interviews with the public, too get the truth and since people trust public recommendations over someone who is an expert (seems that they are trying to sell the place too you/ not get their opinion) 
• Text- quick way of getting information across ( interviewers questions, title of film and end credits) 
• Non-diegetic sound- towards the end, hymn songs, since this has a strong link with worship and spiritualism 
• Mise-en-scene- not a big part since we wanted to show how casual the people are dressed, comfortable to visit- members of staff or clairvoyants are clearly dressed differently to easily distinguish the contrast of the visits too staff. All the props we needed were already there. - we wanted to make it a very natural, casual and real setting. 

Spiritualism is coming i believe in dearly and had much fun going into the centre; i still go now.
Here are some photos of the two sets of Tarot cards I own:

Spiritualism gives you something to believe in afterlife, being able to contact the dead through mediums giving you hope and closure to any given situation. To believe that goals and too carry on living once as a spirit and also believe in some kind of god.

Tarot cards (78 in a pack) helps map out a mental or spiritual path. Past, present and or future.