Final Major Project: Pre Production

Gantt Chart for planning Tasks:

Cells at the top of the chart represent weeks and days, Cells to the left of the Chart represent tasks that need to be done. A cell is coloured in if it is to be completed on that day. I gave myself 2 days for pre-production, 4 days for production, and 2 days for post production. Generally I would Work Monday to Thursday, with Fridays being used to catch up on the weeks work if needed. At the end of the project I decided to allot time to make any final changes and to polish up the work, just in case anything else needed doing.

I then created a Moodboard for some ideas I was coming up with for the project. Initially I wanted to create some sort of dragon and having it interact with some kind of object and myself. However, I realized that a dragon was most likely too complex and would need to be too high detail to fit within my vision. And I didn't believe that I had the time for such a thing.

After this is considered making some sort of horse and have it edited into a field with me. I could be touching the horse to show the interaction. While this would definitely be a feasible idea, it was not something that I wanted to do. It didn't interest me.

My third and currently final idea was to create a Shadow of the Colossus-like creature that I would be able to interact with in some capacity. Perhaps sitting on it to perhaps running from it. Because I didn't want to only have myself noticing the Colossus and have it far in the background, I had to think of a way to have my self up close and personal with a giant creature. I though that perhaps i could greenscreen myself running up the Colossus as shown in the sketch below.

I liked this idea for a model as something this large would distract from any mistakes made during the modelling process. Something rocky is definitely something that I believe myself to be capable of making. So this was my final idea for the project. However, this would take a lot of personal time to create and would be something I'd need to put a lot of effort into. Meaning I would need to closely stick to my schedule.

I created a treatment document to talk about the events of the project and the characters to give people an idea of my intentions. This would help me ensure and check if I had kept to my ideals and what had to be changed for the project to be possible. The treatment would be useful in the reflection period of the project, once it was completed.

After this, I created the location scouting document for the place I would be filming at. As it is a public access field there was not much to do regarding permissions. In the case of changing the location of filming at a later date, I would fill another one of these out for another location. Fortunately however, my first choice was a great choice. I would not need any extra equipment fortunately, thanks to the natural lighting of the sun. I would need to wait for a clear day as the clouds could mess up any masking i might need to do by creating visible seams in the footage. Another thing I would need to do is record all my footage quickly, to prevent the lighting from changing as the day progressed, a long time spent filming between masked scenes would make the masking obvious and would mean reshooting would be necessary.

I created my story board that I would use for planning my shots and creating a mental image of what i wanted to do. This would work as a guide for when I came to do the shooting. I would be able to better plan out my shots if I used this as a guide. Not only that, but when I visualized the times it would take to do these shots I became able to ensure that I would reach the minimum time for the project video.

Creating a risk assessment of the shooting area allowed me to be prepared and careful when shooting as to avoid damaging any equipment or injuring myself. There were not many risks that needed to be accounted for due to the isolation and flatness of the shooting area.