Life on Mars- Write Up

Life On Mars

In recent media classes, we were asked to 're-create' the opening scene of popular film, Life on Mars. This exercise was to be a short 3-4 minute clip of the scene but with the actors as ourselves, in this case it was myself, and my partner filmed. We were also in charge of using a camera to film and using other important camera tools such as a tripod and a dolly (to film 360 degree shots). 

To start with, myself and my partner watched the clip several times to make notes. We made sure that we timed the shots correctly so that we could match our re-make as closely as possible to the real thing. We used a timer and the pause button to measure how long each shot was. We then recorded this on a sheet with print screens of the shot to help us. Once we had made this precise we went outside to find the closest possible area we could to the real scene. We found a concreted area and set up the tripod.

Once we started filming we timed the shots as closely as possible and re-filmed anything that we did not think was long/short enough. In the first clip of the actor lying on the ground after being run over, we used several close up,mid-close ups and extreme close ups. We also made sure that the actress (myself) did not change positions and continued to lay on the floor until the shots had been filmed. In the shot where the actor gets up and looks around his new surrounds, we used a 360 degree angle shot, and in addition used different clothing to match the change in the real scene.

Once we had finished filming we went back to the classroom and logged onto the Mac Pro computers. There we used the editing software for the first time and learnt how to transfer all the clips from the camera. Once we completed the transfer we were able to cut the clips so that they didn't include any unwanted clips. After this we also learnt how to transfer the music of the scene onto the computer and onto our project. We watched our project and the original clip again to match it up and was very happy with the result.

Overall, I have learnt how to, with my partner, use a camera and a tripod to film- using pause,stop and record buttons. I have learnt how to transfer clips onto a Mac computer and use the editing software. I have also learnt how to transfer music onto the project and finally use all of the tools on the editing programmer, for example the 'viewer' option. 

Amber Salomone