Our class's task was to recreate the opening sequence of the film Submarine. We had to do this by casting an actor, find locations, record footage and edit it using Adobe Premier Pro. I worked with one of my classmates on this project, called Abbey Hunter. 

Cast

Finding someone to play Oliver Tate appeared to be a challenge for me and Abbey, but we were lucky to find someone to fit the role at such short notice. To begin with, Abbey wondered whether she should ask her friend Dan to play the role. However, after some consideration we both thought that Dan looked too old to play a 13 year old boy as he has a beard. Our next option was our friend called Adam Barratt. At first he was interested, but a few days before filming he backed out. With the deadline approaching, me and Abbey asked our other friend Adam Bate-Weldon. Luckily, he was willing to take the part. We also felt that Adam looked like Oliver Tate and therefore we were glad that we inquired him. Adam Barratt was still happy to record the monologue. This saved us time as he attends the same school as us (unlike Adam BW) so he could record the monologue in school hours. Even though that the audience does not necessarily know how the actor sounds, we felt as though Adam B's voice matched well with Adam BW's appearance.


Location

Finding a location to film the bedroom shots in was not too difficult. Adam Barratt was happy for me and Abbey to film inside his bedroom and we liked it how his bed was against a window. However, unlike Oliver Tate's bedroom, Adam's is not particularly cluttered. Therefore, I tried to make use of the few objects/posters he had around his bedroom by taking close up shots of them.  The outside shots were more difficult and stressful to plan as we had limited time. This meant that we could not afford a trip to the coast and take establishing shots similarly to the ones shown in the Sumbarine opening. We managed to take some sunset shots over fields one evening, which turned out to look quite impressive. However, we made a significant yet easily avoidable mistake - we filmed all of the scenic shots without a large tripod. This meant that the shots we took were rather shaky. Me and Abbey hope to avoid doing this again in the future as shaky shots can affect the overall outcome/quality of a film. 

Storyboarding

Me and Abbey felt as though we didn't need a storyboard for this task, as we had the original Submarine opening to reference our shots/camera angles from. In addition, we looked at the duration of particular shots and how many scenic shots were included. This meant on the day of filming, we didn't need to sit and mess around with counting shots or counting the lengths of shots when we could be filming instead.

Filming

Me and Abbey started by filming the bedroom scenes one weekday after school. We used my camera to take all of the shots as it results in taking high quality outcomes. It was a little bit stressful at the beginning because I have never used my camera for filming before so it took a while for me to work out how to. Once I did, I took slow panorama shots of Adam B's bedroom in order to replicate the original opening. Taking them at a slow speed helped us to not run out of objects to show, as Adam's room is not cluttered like Oliver Tate's. When it came to filming Adam BW as the character, it was crucial for us to get the shot lengths accurate in relation to the film opening's. We tried these shots a few times so that when it came to editing we had a few options to work with. Me and Abbey decided to move physically closer to Adam as zooming in may have decreased the shots' quality. 

By the time we got round to filming the scenic shots, light was fading so we had to work quickly. Luckily, that evening was clear and sunny so we walked to the nearest fields to take some beautiful sunset shots. Despite that we could not access the coast and there are not many things in Wymondham to take dissimilar pictures of, we managed to take a few different shots in varied positions as the sky darkened and the sunset changed tones. Unfortunately, our shots did not look as professional as the film's because we did not use a tripod. Abbey knew we needed roughly 8 shots to be true to the original, so when Abbey needed to go home I took some more whilst walking back home. 

Editing

Editing was rather a time consuming process, as neither me nor Abbey had had any experience with Adobe Premiere. However, once we understood the basics of cropping and inserting shots, it did not take us too long to put together our recreation of the Submarine opening. We began with creating credit inserts. Abbey helped with judging colours and positioning and I wrote the content and decided which font to use. It was our aim to make our credit inserts as similar to the film's as much as possible. This was the longest process of the editing operation as we had to make sure they had the same time scales as the actual video clips, as well as cutting them down with the razor tool. Abbey tried to use the stabilising took on some of the shots, but this made the clip seem like a still image and it did not look right. The most difficult task of the editing process was sorting out sound. All panning clips were muted to remove any camera movement/noise. We had to make sure the monologue fit with the right clip. Luckily, it just fit the length of the panning shot of the character. The start of the song involved the ticks, which Abbey had to try and match to the close ups of Adam BW. This proved to be extremely difficult. It was also extremely difficult to adjust the song to fit with the time sequences of some clips. 

Evaluation

Me and Abbey managed to film everything we needed in one evening, and I feel as though we took the shots efficiently despite having limited time. Therefore, we were happy with how things went in the time we had. We both know that there is room for improvement if we have more time for future tasks. We certainly feel as though the absence of a tall tripod affected our video's professionalism. Additionally, the sound and timings needed to be improved. But we are both pleased with our choice of cast and the shots we took in our location.