Transmedia: Letter Adventure.
Hello, fellow readers.
Today I will be reflecting on this film, so let’s get started.
(My Brainstorm.)
The first step I figured to do was brainstorm story ideas, and the one I liked most I stuck with. Because our film could be about anything, it was a great outlet to let creativity and imagination flow through the mind. The first idea that came to my head was an adventure where letters and post it notes struck the way to something amazing.
That night, I had looked up love letter adventure-esque videos on Youtube and found a few that inspired me. On one of those videos, on the related videos side, I saw a proposal video. Therefore, I based the idea of a proposal at the end of the video. I knew that I didn’t want it to be fancy or long, so I linked the letters around Melbourne to a certain location where the proposal can happen, while being filmed by different mediums.
My mediums I used with the help of Sharif (@sharifduffus) and Carolyn (@CTupua, http://haveallthegoodnamesg0ne.wordpress.com) was a Fujifilm Finepix S4000 and Sharif’s HTC one mobile phone. Because Carolyn and I both had the same model of Camera (coincidentally), it helped with filming different scenes where I had to use Carolyn’s camera to film my Camera. For example, this scene:
In this shot, because I had to film my own camera, I thought it would be good to use Carolyn’s camera as the prop, while Sharif recording me taking the picture. Thus, I would still have the recording in my own camera. I don’t think it would’ve mattered with any other shot, however this shot was extremely crucial as it introduced the setting for the next letter discovery: Federation Square, Melbourne.
The locations I used in the film were:
- Carolyn’s home in Glenroy.
- Glenroy Station.
- The train ride on the way to the city.
- Federation Square.
- The Amphitheatre at La Trobe University.
- Bourke Street Graffiti Wall.
- Docklands Tram Stop.
- Docklands, Melbourne.
- La Trobe University.
- Yarra Park.
These are all in chronological order, however the last scene was filmed at Carolyn’s house. The struggle of going to all these places were that we had to film over two days as I had work the night we filmed most of the film itself. So after Docklands, I went straight to work, and we filmed at La Trobe another day.
We spent the whole day filming in various locations from 8:30am until 2pm. I referred back to the storyboards and shots over and over so I could make sure the shot was taken correctly.
There was a missing scene in the film which I had to use an alternative to film: The theatre. The reason the theatre ticket lead to the amphitheatre at La Trobe University was because while we had intended to film at a local theatre in the city, they would not let us in to film the scene because rehearsals were being done for a show. However, we had originally intended to inside a theatre, and had already filmed the two shots outside the theatre (the deleted shots were shot 23 to 27). The alternative Carolyn came up with was to film at the amphitheatre on the day we filmed at La Trobe because it was close by. The problem was the theatre was outside, but then we brought up the conclusion that it did not need to be filmed inside a local theatre as the ticket could have no actual purpose. This was not suggested to the audience, however they could interpret the scene as they wished.
We also had to re-film the letter on the train shot as the original shot went missing from the SD card.
I decided to do this after filming the closing sequence at Carolyn’s house on our way to University the second day of filming (which was a week later). Because we could not find the original letter #2 and still had the first letter, we put a two over it in blue pen because of time restrictions. If I were to film this shot again and re-film certain scenes without time restrictions, I would rethink some scenes and film them over again.
The transmedia side of it was introduced as part of the the film’s plot and within the filming process. I inserted a quote from Dr. Pamela Rutledge in the first shot that related with the film’s plot and was based on transmedia.
This linked to the film’s development because it was filmed with two different mediums, the Fujifilm Finepix S4000 and a HTC one mobile phone. These shots were used to enhance the transmedia storytelling side. I was planning to use more mediums, but I thought it would be too much for a 3 minute short film. The transmedia is also within the plot as there are shots of her being filmed herself.
(This is an example of one of those shots.)
There were also sketches of her done to contrast the use of cameras and mobile phones in the transmedia aspect to show her adventure through a comic strip and a sketch. It also created a paper theme as the letters were written in paper, the sketches were done in paper and the proposal was written on paper. This created a motif I didn’t realise I would capture until half way through the filming process, and initially I stuck with it as the theme gave the film an interesting flow.
This is one of those sketches: a comic sketch. You can see this in my film right after the shot where she gets off the tram and her walking in the background. It’s a contrast from the ordinary story where she’s followed around by camera, but her story is also told through pictures and images.
The transmedia ideas I thought of outside the film was to stick those letters around the locations I went to, and leave them there with a QR code. This would lead the viewer to this blogpost and the video on the start of my post, and show them another world and lead them on an adventure.
I would also get copies of those sketches and put the same QR code, so if anyone was interested about where they came from, it would lead them to this post and to an amazing letter adventure filmed by different mediums and told through different pictures and images.
This is how the Transmedia side of it outside the film would engage with the audience. The audience would scan the QR code, and be invited into a blog post and a video which will show them why the letters were there and are there now in those locations, what locations the letters would be in and the copies of the sketches, and they’ll get to watch what happened because of these letters.
I hope you all enjoy my film, and please let me know if you enjoyed the adventure it lead you on in the video with this poll:
Ciao, readers!
inspirednetwork 