Behind the Scenes
For filming the first section of the FMP, considering I didn't rent a camera alongside not having a phone tripod to rest my phone, I had to get a bit creative with making a makeshift tripod that would not only rest my phone, but provide the best framing for the FMP.
The stuff I used to make this tripod was using a foldable desk that can be seen at the very bottom of the photo, alongside using a whole bunch of VHS tapes, including clamshell cases, and the bottom of a football trophy that you can remove the trophy bit of. Despite what it may look like, this wasn't that hard at all, in fact, the position of the football trophy stand made it much more easier to use compared to laying it flat, which is what I used to do until it kept constantly making my phone fall down or make the framing off.
If you look closer at the background, you can partially see a bit of my DVD/Blu-ray collection, which I used to film the first section of my FMP. I had to take off all the titles on the first and second shelf in order to properly film the FMP, with the third shelf remaining largely untouched save for a few select tiles I used for filming when necessary.
This is all of the stuff I had to take off just to film the half life part of my FMP, as you can see, there are a lot of piles of DVD's and Blu-ray's almost scattered around the bed, and even some recognisable titles you can catch if you look close enough.
This part was the most hardest to do during filming, especially when I finished filming and had to put back everything in its place, as it did take some time to do. Despite that however, I mostly finished production on this section relatively quickly compared to how long I thought it would take (somewhere around 2-3 hours minimum and maximum).
The filming of the second section of the FMP did not start until the start of May, mostly because I was fully focusing on my EPQ, which didn't allow me to have time to finish my FMP, but I eventually managed to get it all done by the end of the week.
We filmed the second section around a stone wall closer to where the car park is alongside the back end of the Elm and Reception building, which is where the fight scene in Thomas' FMP was filmed. I got the inspiration to film there when Thomas was shooting Dennis' finger gun scenes where I had to stand behind a wall until the shot was done, while it wasn't an exact brick wall, it looked perfect enough to replicate what I wanted to achieve in terms of location.
Unlike the first section, the filming for this section didn't go very smooth. A heap of issues arose such as terrible blocking that made the items either too zoomed in or zoomed out, the way I made the actors perform the items leading to their fingers being in the shot, and that I didn't give the actor's the script in time so I decided to play my voice lines in real time as opposed to imagining, which somewhat helped with the performances.
Despite all the massive hurdles, we managed to film everything in under an hour, which is how I imagined it would take before shooting. A major benefit as to why it was short was the specific area we filmed in didn't mean people were walking into the shot and also didn't seem to account for any disruptions, unlike last time we went to film in that area.
Editing Process
The reason I used CapCut and Premiere Pro for the 2 different sections was to convert the footage from the shelf from 16:9 to 4:3 to give it the illusion as you were watching it in DVD quality. I didn't know how to do this on Premiere Pro at the time so I copped out and used CapCut for the first section.
Throughout the video, I utilised editing techniques like zooming in and fading into the next scene to try give the video some life despite the items being stationary throughout, and to also cut down on aspects that were too long. An example would be when the sales assistant is putting up the HD-DVD and Blu-ray, the original footage I shot was way too long for the pace of the section, so knowing how to fade in on CapCut, I stuck it on there to keep the pacing consistent, while also implying some form of time-skip.
Despite that hurdle, I had fun editing the first section, especially since the decision to make it 4:3 added a lot more depth and intrigue to the video as a whole, which was pretty surprising.
The second section was edited using Premiere Pro, with this section set in the present day and features the DVD alongside the VHS that the DVD replaced, alongside a random HD-DVD that is just there. In terms of filming and editing, this one was a lot more trickier than the first section.
There were way too many problems that arose during filming, first off, I wanted the items to be performed off-screen by real people. Why I didn't use stop motion for this section was because the movement I wanted to utilise for this section was pretty impossible to achieve, so I decided to do it how I wanted to. This proved to be a challenge as the actors hands kept on popping into shots, some of it too far behind or too close, with the HD-DVD being particularly frustrating to film.
To counter this, I zoomed in the footage to obscure all the hands present, which made the footage look worse in my opinion, but there was no other option, and I wasn't bothered to go and re-shoot everything considering the deadline. Speaking of re-shoots, I forgot to shoot one close-up shot of the DVD talking around the very start of the section, so I countered it by adding the 'PRESENT DAY' timecard and having the screen black for some time before the footage pops up into frame, which is why it starts off black for some time before we reveal the gang.
Rough Cuts
This is the first rough cut for my FMP for the first section, this is a very early cut that is completely silent and has no dialogue yet. I intend to add music, and a Voiceover recorded by me.
This is the second rough cut for the second section, this one showcases the items up against a wall, talking about the DVD's feelings of abandonment. This one does have audio including some dialogue, but it is heavily muffled due to the loud traffic. The Final Cut will replace this audio with the dialogue, and some ambient wind noises to give it some realism.
Poster Design
These are the three posters that I have made for my EPQ, with all of them looking indexical to one another, with the big difference being that the placement of the items differ each time and tagline for each of the posters.
Creating the initial idea for the poster was a tough challenge, unlike last time where I already knew what I wanted to create beforehand. One of the ideas was to use the pre-existing footage and have all the different titles lumped together, with the poster focusing on the Matrix DVD, but I scrapped it because of how uncertain I was willing to do it. I brainstormed a few other similar ideas before deciding to depict the DVD in a position similar to Walter White's death at the end of Breaking Bad, with other items strewn around him.
As you can see fro the posters, I used a wide arrange of different formats like VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, and 4K Ultra HD and took some titles that were present in the video (Tears of the Sun, The Bourne Supremacy, Jungle Cruise, The Magnificent Seven) while also including titles that weren't present (Master and Commander, Matchstick Men). A brief side note to mention was the blank disc you see on all posters was from 'Monty Python's The Meaning of Life' and the blank VHS tape is just a plain tape recording I found in storage somewhere in my house.
The reason for the distinctive posters came from when I was in the process of arranging then capturing the photo, as it was a huge struggle to fit all the titles while also capturing specific details (like the DVD logo, Maximum Hi-Def Experience on Master and Commander, and combining Experience High Definition and The Look and Sound of Perfect for the Blu-ray and HD-DVD). It was a bit frustrating at first, but this allowed me to push my idea further and experiment a bit with the posters, which I ended up with 3 different photos, which I would then turn into posters and decide which one I, along with others, prefer the most, and for the different taglines, I wanted each tagline to feel unique to the respective posters, utilising design choices within the original photo to pinpoint where the tagline should be.
The second one to me stands out the most among the others, as it's the poster that I would say best describes my original vision for the poster that closely fit what my FMP is about. For the tagline for that poster, I decided to change the tagline to 'Life's too short to be an obsolete format', with the meaning behind it being a play off the idiom 'Life's too short' that is used to describe someone who feels there are better things to do than the activity in question, with the activity on the tagline relating to the DVD and how physical media has declined in popularity.
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