Imogen Polycarpou TV Production Blog

At the beginning of term I was really nervous. Loads of thoughts were running through my mind as to what scene I should pick and what I would do for my self-portrait. Drama For the drama I was constantly thinking what would be easy for me to chose. Easy in the way of finding actors and location for a student production. Originally I chose a different series but though finding older actors would be harder than finding younger therefore I chose Vampire Diaries. My original thought was that it is such a dramatic scene that what actor wouldn't want to put on their showreel that they can cry. Unfortunately I was wrong. I didn't get many responses for any of my characters and had to settle down with the one actress who actually took a great interest but turned out for the best as she was really good and gave me what I wanted. As for the other two actors (Damon and Elena) I had one application for each one but both decided to stop communication with (I guess they changed their mi...

After speaking to Ferg about how design my opening title, we decided that the best option was to create myself as the original is not clear but also by creating it yourself it looks more realistic.  Ferg showed me the basics of how to use After Effects, Photoshop and Maxon 3D. After he showed me demonstrations of each one, I decided to only use photoshop even though Maxon 3D looked amazing its effects didn't suit my video. Below is the original title of Vampire Diaries which is used in their series. Below are images of me editing my version of the title in Photoshop (I will also include my self portrait title, as I also did that in Photoshop:   --> Vampire Diaries title   --> self Portrait title I decided not to have the red line on top of VD title.  When I imported the titles into premier is where I experimented on how I wanted them to enter.  For the VD title i decided to have it appear out of no where, freeze for a ...

As further research for the Direction unit I came across a video on youtube of some of the top directors discussing their career and what is being a director and the struggles they face.              Directors in it: Quentin Tarantino 'Hateful Eight'  David O.Russell 'Joy' Danny Boyle 'Steve Jobs'  Tom Hooper 'Danish Girl' Alejandro G. Innaritu 'The Reverent' Ridley Scott 'The Martian' Post-Production Audio for Film and Television  Mark Cross After reading this book, I was shocked as to how many people are involved in sound throughout the whole production.  First off, the sound department has to have a lot of communication between each other throughout the production and a lot of trust is needed. The sound department, on set, makes sure that the dialogue and all the ambience sound is recorded properly before being given to post-production.  Here are some sound department positions:  ...

Rough Cut 1 Drama:                 Feedback from Simon:  - Zoom works at the end - Good opening - zoom okay / opening okay - More reaction shots needed from the two male actors - A scene in the kitchen between Damon and Elena; they are far apart but when I go over  the shoulder they are close together - fix that - Add atmospheric sound Feedback to myself:  - make the colour darker - make sure the sounds blend in good Self- Portrait              Feedback from Simon:  - It's a simple idea but it would be great with good sound effects - It will all be about the SOUND DESIGN - As the sound, don't have the actual sound from clip (e.g. if its a sea, don't have the sound of the ocean) - as the sound have sounds from my life here in Rochester = doubling up story Feedback to my self:  - add more clips What I did: I re-filmed more reaction shots of my t...

The day started off with me so nervous that I felt sick. I woke up at 7:00am to set up the kitchen and bedroom to figure out where the lighting would go and the camera. In the end I only used one light in the kitchen and one light in the bedroom (due to being a small area, 2 lights made it too bright for what I was looking for). Unfortunately, for my kitchen scene it created shadow which is something I should think about a lot more on my next project. At 10:30am, I went to Rochester Station and picked up my actress (Elena), and once we were back at student halls I waited for my other 3 actors who were on time thankfully. Once everyone was there, I offered them refreshments and biscuits and briefly went over the schedule for the day. After I asked Ida (my camera man) to put matte make up on my actors so they don't shine, whilst I took my actress (Elena) and prepared her for her clothing and spoke to her about what I was looking for in Elena. Then I had to take a picture of my acto...

All my actors signed their contracts: