Our first task as to decide a film, preferably one the whole group was familiar with (my group contained 6 other media students). In the end we fell for the dazzling effects and action packed story line of fantasy film, Harry Potter. Narrowing our choice we chose to recreate the trailer of Goblet of Fire; as to incorporate effects, drama, and action.
In order to organise the filming and production of this swede we organised a shared document, in which the filming of each scene was planned. This can be viewed here.
Titles
Instead of digitally creating titles a member of my group drew them, and we filmed the handwritten titles at a close up range.
Filming and editing
Perhaps most enjoyable to edit, was the green screen scene - in which Harry Potter is chased by a dragon. We decided to impose a background and video of a dragon onto a video of Harry "flying". We filmed a medium shot of Harry running across a green screen, and a close-up shot of a bearded dragon on green paper (a make-shift green screen). In editing we the used the ken burns effect, (a type of panning and zooming effect used in video production from still imagery), in order to move the background and create the effect that Harry was flying.
Scenes that where relatively simple to film were the medium close-up shots of Harry Potter; the dribble scene and wand scene. One white balance had being considered and focus set it took only a few takes to find a decent shot.
Perhaps the most difficult scene to recreate was a long shot of a mermaid flying through the air. We used a doll as the mermaid, and so we could control the flying Barbie we secured it with wire at both ends. We then flip the Barbie in front on the camera; this proved difficult to film, as the doll flew in and out focus.
White-balance was another difficult aspect of this scene, as the artificial lighting was very yellow, and we struggled to correct this to a natural tone.
The shot we eventually shot was reasonably well focused and naturally coloured. However featured both the wire and handlers arm. We decided the addition of a hand didn't matter as it added to the hap hazard nature of the film, emphasising the comedic factor of our shanty re-creation.
In one scene, a medium-shot films Dumbledore catching a slip of paper out of a fire. To shoot the scene, Dumbledore (played by myself) threw a piece of paper into the fire (a buses burner), this took many takes to achieve. This take could then be re winded later in editing. In retrospect I would have shortened this clip in editing, as the start of the clip shows the paper bouncing on the table.
I one scene an effect s used whilst the camera zooms in on Harry. This is meant to be a POV shot from Mad-eye moods glass eye. To recreate this we shot the scene through a plastic cup. This was very different from the original but suited the nature of a swede.
For some scenes we had to create our own props, for example; in a scene in which a long shot films a ship emerges from a lake we had planed to use a toy ship. However the group member assigned to bringing this forgot, and so we resorted to constructing our own vessel (a wheelie chair, bucket, and paper sail). We used bobbles and sell tape as Harry Potter's glasses, and a paper mask a Mad-eye Moody's costume, hap hazard props like these are frequent in swedes, hence our use of homemade items.
Soundtrack
To accompany our trailer a few of us recorded a choral cover of the main themes on a Nokia Lumia phone. Granted this lacked accuracy, but caused no concern as it in kept with the style of a swede.Below is our swede and the official trailer.
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