My Directors chair interview

Evaluation: 7. What have I learnt in the progression from the preliminary task to the full product?

Since starting to prepare for the production of the opening sequence I have learnt many new editing techniques on the apple mac. I have also learnt a lot about filming and many of the camera shots and angles and what they are used for. Foe example you would use a low angle shot if you wanted to make a character seem strong and superior or an establishing shot would be used at the beginning if you wanted to give the audience an idea of what location the characters may be in.

Example of an establishing shot

I have also learnt that:

• Shot lists
• Screenplay
• Storyboards
• Scripts
• Audience research

are vital if you want to produce a good quality and very organized film. The screenplay tells you of any dialogue and the order in which it is said, it also gives you the location of the character speaking which can be very helpful. In doing research into filming before starting to produce our film i found out that Me-En-Scene is very important as it can help to create the right atmosphere for your film and the props and costumes can help to portray characters as you want. Foe example in our opening sequence formal clothing is used to represent the seriousness of the character and the situation.

Evaluation: 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Through constructing this film i have learnt:

• How to film using digital cameras, rules about filming and how to use the cameras special effects.

• I have learnt new editing techniques including transitions and special effects.                                          
• I have learnt how to use new modern software and technologies such as garage-band and I-movie which helped in the composing of the music and the sounds for the film and the I-movie helped in putting the film together in correct sequence.
• I have learnt how to use the site Blogger which is another social network similar to Facebook. I also now know how to use scribd which is very helpful as it can hold work files making it easier for on-line transfer especially when transferring to Blogger.

Evaluation: 5. How did we attract/address our audience?

One of the main ways our intended audiences found out about the film was through word of mouth. Another way how are film was advertised to the target audience was through social networks such as:

• Facebook
• Blackberry messenger
• Twitter

As the target audience was intended to be people both male and female varying from the age of about 16 to people around the age of 40. The audience research was vital in finding out what the people would want too see if they were to watch a thriller and what would attract them to it. The audience research that was gathered through questionnaires was put into pie charts so that it was easier to use when deciding how to make our opening sequence.


The feedback we gathered from the audience which was on Facebook, blackberry messenger and twitter was from people of all ages both male and female which makes are feedback results more generalisable to a wider population. Although most of the feedback was positive there was some constructive criticism which we have taken in and will bare in mind when making future productions.

Evaluation: 4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our product would be quite good as it would mainly be aimed at people from the age of about 16 up until the age of about 40 for both men and women. This is good as out of all the people that go to watch films in the cinema a high percentage of them will be teenagers and younger adults. Hopefully the audience would be people who like thrillers as some of the main characteristics of our film our tension, excitement and suspense.

Evaluation: 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The type of media institution that would distribute our film would be a small British film institution. This is as it is a very low budget film that is looking for digital distribution. It would be distributed by an independent film company however a problem with this is that as there funding comes from the UK film council they only get the funding if there films cover a certain quota of specialized films.

As there is a low budget for the film and it is not available to the best technology we are unable to use distributors such as 20th century fox which have global ownership meaning they don't have to pay for exhibition of there film in other cinemas and can advertise there films on fox run television channels whereas we would have to pay for exhibition and advertisement.

Evaluation: 2. How does your media product represent particular people and social groups?

In our film as there is only really one main character as the other character involved in the opening sequence can not be seen.we have portrayed are black adult male character as quite serious and his character also give the audience the impression he is quite smart through the way he talks which is formal and also through his quite serious and formal clothing which would maybe lead the audience to believe he is a business man due to the Mi-en-scene and costumes and props on set. We have represented are character to the audience in a way which will make him stand out. The way in which we a portrayed the character may not be a clear representation of all black middle aged people however it does allow us to create more suspense and excitement. The costumes used again may not be what all people wear but help in making the situation more serious which is what we were trying to do.Also the characters body language, as he is standing upright with his chest out would signify to the audience that he is reasonably confident and has quite high self-esteem which is the sort of character we are trying to create although this representation may not be generalisable to a wider population. Throughout the opening sequence the main focus is always on the main character which shows maybe that he is in power and makes the audience feel like he is superior. The use of a camera angle such as a low angle shot was also used to suggest to the audience he is in power and superior and if we wanted to portray are character as weak and inferior we would of used a high angle shot which would make the audience feel they are in power.Although are representations may not always be applicable to all people in the real world it fits in with our plot very well. The black middle aged character which we are trying to represent as powerful, authoritive, clever, strong could easily be compared to people such as Curtis Jackson(50 cent)who has appeared in films such as get rich or die trying and Gun.He inspiration for are character as he is strong and is looked up to by many people as he has made it big growing up in a poorer part of America where there is a lot of crime however are character may not have exactly the same background but the way in which he is represented may suggest similar characteristics.Above you can see our character and below you can see Curtis Jackson and it is clear they are both strong,superior and you can see how powerful they are.All in all I believe we were quite good at giving representations of certain individuals as we took are time as we did not want to stereotype which has been done which has had a negative effect on films in the past.

Evaluation: 1. In which ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our opening sequence can be compared quite easily to real/actual opening sequences as it is a genre that uses suspense,tension and excitement as some of its main elements which are common characteristics which are seen in thrillers and have been used to attract the audiences.Our opening sequence does not really challenge the forms of thrillers as we believed are film would be better if we made it as realistic as possible.Generally in thrillers the main sub-genre that is most used is psychological thrillers and although our opening sequence does not involve many psychological aspects people however we still believe it gets the audience excited and makes them want to watch on.As it is only an opening sequence we believe our opening sequence takes on some of the characteristics of both crime thrillers and mystery thrillers as we have left it quite open meaning a range of things such as heists,captivities,ransoms and kidnapping which are generally seen in crime thrillers and also even an investigation which would be seen in a mystery thriller.As we have left the identity of the characters left out in the opening and a very mysterious voice over is used only revealing nationality all make our opening sequence seem like a mystery thriller.All of the me-en-scene and the costumes used has also helped in the production of making our opening sequence more like a crime/mystery thriller.

DVD Extra: A commentary over the opening sequence

This is a DVD commentary and explains to the audience the camera shots and angles that have been used and why for example a high angle shot has been used to the character to seem week,inferior. A basic summary of the plot is also given to help the audience understand what is going on. Explanations of why certain props and costumes are used are also given in the DVD commentary. Editing is briefly explained and also the audio used as it plays a big part in allowing the audience to know what is going on.

Preliminary Task

This is the preliminary task that was done at the start of the year. It helped us in understanding basic filming rules such as continuity. It gave us good practice at getting use to using the rules which meant we did not make as many mistakes when actually filming our opening sequence.

Audience feedback video

Audience Research Results

These are some of the audience research results we got at the start of the year and helped us to decide how we were going to be making the film and are done by many film production companies so the makers of the film can include what the people want to see.

Audience research results

Audience Research Results

Audience feedback

This is some audience feedback that our group decided to collect on face-book and will be very helpful in helping in the evaluation of our opening sequence. Overall including other people in the groups face-book the feedback was quite positive however there was some constructive criticism which we think could easily be changed when making another opening sequence or short film in the future. You tube and blackberry messenger were also used to collect feedback which can also be useful in the evaluation.

Powerpoint analysis of 'The Case'

The Case ppp

The Case: Our opening sequence

Editing

Recently me and my group have been taking turns and also sitting down as a group to discuss how we are going to edit the film and editing together. As the voice over at the beginning is quite important to our film we recently spent a whole day getting the voice over perfect and it took us a few trials before it could be edited in perfectly over the opening credits with perfect timing. The editing was done using i-movie and garage-band.

Filming

This week we have finally finished and edited our opening sequence despite the fact we have had many setbacks over the last couple of months. We have begun to talk about plans for the audience evaluation of our opening sequence. We our also discussing how we are going to do are DVD extra which will give a commentary over the opening sequence and another one of the DVD extras which will give the audience a directors chair interview about the opening sequence.

Filming and editing idea: Inspiration from Salt

In our film we have decided to use for one of our voice-overs a Russian voice which we feel is very effective. The voice used by Orlov in the film although only some of it is in Russian the part which is in English is very mysterious and gives the audience the idea that there is something quite mysterious and interesting about the character. We as a group have decided that the Russian voice is going to be heard over the phone which will make his character even more suspicious and will make the audience want to watch on to see the identity of what we have portrayed as a very interesting character. We have also done research into the Russian language and have decided that we are going to use a Russian word 'Dasvidaniya' which is a formal way of saying bye in Russian. We believe that this will leave the audience in suspense as they will want to know what the word was meaning and also helps to emphasis just how unknown his identity is even to the other characters maybe.Thanks to the film Salt which has given us this great idea we were able to begin recording the voice voice over which is crucial in helping the ability of the audience to understanding the opening sequence.

Screenplay for 'The Case'

The Case Screenplay

Storyboard: The Case

The Case Story Board

Shooting schedule

Schedule for Filming by George Robinson

The Final plan: The Case

Music idea

Hans zimmer is a German film score composer and music producer.He has made music for some very famous films such as Inception, pirates of the Caribbean and many others. A lot of his music has been very inspirational in deciding are choice of music for are opening sequence. A piece of music we are going to try a make are music like is called time and it in used in the film Inception.We believe this sort of music will set the right sort of atmosphere for a thriller and hopefully can be done by using garage band. This piece of music really suites inception and we hope that it would suite are opening sequence and set a nice calm atmosphere which we want the audience to feel.

Analysis of opening sequence presentation(Wanted)

Opening sequence analysis

Actual film plot and new idea

For are new opening sequence we have had a change in props,costumes and locations.First of all the props used such as a brief case will hopefully help to portray are character along with the help of his costume which is going to be a suite(very formal and serious). We have also decided to use more prestigious locations such as London bridge with again add effect and help to build up a more intense and serious atmosphere.

The sequence starts of with an unknown man walking around London with a briefcase in search of his destination. He receives a phone call from who we don't know but he seems very determined to get there. The contents of the briefcase are unknown to audience just as his identity is as we believe this will make the audience start guessing what is in his briefcase and they will then be wanting to watch on to see what is going to happen next. The way are opening scene is done allows for a number of things to happen which will be good for the future of the film as it allows us to shock the audience.

The main character is seen walking over this bridge and past big Ben in a very crowded place where anything could happen. This will make the audience assume that something is going to go wrong and the setting will hopefully help to emphasis the serious situation that we are trying to create.

Moodboard

Mood board

Props idea

Although we are not going to be using that many props in our opening sequence they are important and can have a lot of affect on the audience and what there attention is drawn towards.We are not using that many props as we want the audience to be focusing on the briefcase and what the character is doing rather than trying to get in to many irrelevant props which can distract the audience. The location will hopefully set the atmosphere in our film so we wont need many props as the main focus should be on the character and his briefcase.

In films such as Al Pacino Scar-face props have been used to emphasis his power and prestige as you can see in the picture below he is surrounded by gold and alcohol. The gold is a sign to the audience of how rich he and the alcohol could be a sign of how corrupt he is as alcohol can be associated with drugs and criminal behaviour . This signifies to the audience what type of film it is. Everything in the me-en-scene at this time in the films adds to the negative atmosphere which is being created by location, props, costumes and he Scarfaces facial expressions.We want to keep the identity of our character unknown which will create suspense.

Locations idea

For any type of film the locations used are always very important.The location below was used in the Thunderbirds film as it is at a very well known tourist attraction in London which will help to grab the audiences attention as it is somewhere they can relate to. Hopefully we as a group are going to be able to film at some of the more prestigious locations in London. The attention of the audience is drawn to the London eye.

Another location we plan to use is the houses of parliament.It is also another well known location and it has been in films such as James Bond- the world is not enough(1999).By using these locations it creates a more tense atmosphere and we have decided to use this location as it will help to emphasis the serious situation that we are trying to create.

Idea for film remake based on collateral

At the beginning of collateral there is an accidental bag switch where an innocent man picks up a criminals bag and then ends up finding himself in a lot of trouble. We were thinking of using the bag switching scene incidental or not at a train station and would be made very mysterious through the use of props and costumes. This would hopefully make the audience ant to know what is in the identical briefcases and emphasis the importance of the contents of them. This would make the film a lot more suspenseful and would create a shock for the audience later on in the film. At this time it is clear which character is good and which is bad, this is done through the costumes.

idea for film remake:Inspiration from kidulthood

The underneath girl is in kidulthood and is very depressed and due to this ends up committing suicide.

One of are first new ideas to remake the film is to kind of do what hey did at the beginning of kidulthood which is follow the life of someone who is very depressed and thinking about committing suicide. We are thinking of having a man on the way home from work who is very depressed as he has just been fired from his job. This adds to the stress that he already has as he has just currently divorced his wife and is not with his children. He believes alcohol will help solve his problems and on the way home are just getting fired he gets very drunk. When he finally arrives home in a very unhealthy state of mind he finds himself wanting to take his own life as a result of what has happened to him. He goes as far as taking pills in the struggle to take his own life.

The above picture would be used in the scene where he is attempting taking his life. This sort of the scene in his house would add to the depressed, dark,gloomy atmosphere that we are showing to the audience. I believe this sort of scene would make the audience sympathise towards his character and portray his emotionally self.

Costume idea: Inspiration from Men in black

The costumes used in Men in black let the audience know that the two men are quite serious at whatever they do and also helps to portray how the two characters are meant to be represented which is as clever,strong and serious agents. The white shirts, black ties and suits are items of clothing which are generally associated with being quite formal and important unlike more casual clothing. As the sunglasses are worn across the eyes this hides some of there identity and signifies to the audience that they are quite mysterious men as they are trying to hide something.This also helps the characters to stand out which indicates to the audience they are importance and should be focused on.

The costumes used in Men in black inspired are costume and by dressing our actor in a tie and shirt(formal clothing) allowed us to represent our character as more serious which is how we wanted are main character to be portrayed. It would not help to tell the audience what kind of film it was if we were to dress our character in casual clothing as this would not emphasis the seriousness of the situation and would not be a clear reflection of what we are trying to get across to the audience.

Characters for original opening sequence

Decision to remake opening sequence

We as a group have come to a decision that we are going to remake the opening sequence as we feel the standard needs to be better in terms of costumes, props and locations if we are going to obtain a better grade in our AS media course.For example in some of these pictures you can see quite poor costumes which will not allow us to portray are characters as we intend to and lack of props which we decided after looking over other opening sequence are crucial when setting the scene at the beginning of a film.

This does not really look like clothing an undercover police officer would be wearing and he does not really look like police.

Screenplay

The screenplay tells us where we are shooting,the time of day, whether its inside or outside and also what is being done in the scene.

recently me and my group have decided we are going to have to come up with a new idea as what we have so far done is not good enough due to problems with props,costumes and plot idea. Due to this anything done from no on on the blog will be relevant to are new opening sequence. This screenplay is for are new idea.

Screenplay for Opening Sequence

Original opening sequence Day 3- Assins intruding short scene

This is when a mysterious man is being bought in to a police station for questioning.The location of a police station was very important at this time for setting the scene as it tells the audience something serious is going on as police are generally associated with trouble and crime. At this time in the sequence digetic sound of sirens will be used to again emphasis the seriousness of the matter. This would of helped the audience to build up a picture of what kind of man he is just by us portraying his character as bad through the use of props,locations and sound.

Original opening sequence Day 2 filiming police station and wandsworth common

This was the second scene of the opening sequence and at this time a mysterious man is being followed by police in the common. We used the park as a location as they are usually quite peaceful and quiet and the audience would not be expecting an arrest to take place in a park. This would surprise the audience and would make them want to know more about what is going to happen next.

Audience research

Film survey-Audience research

This is a survey that I made which allowed us to gather information on what type of film we should make according to the feedback we got from the people who took are survey

Original opening sequence Day 1 filming- Interrogation scene

The first scene or are opening sequence sequence started with a man sitting in an interrogation room being questioned by police officers.The man was very reluctant to answer any of the questions truthfully and even when he did answer the props and costumes used allowed us to portray his character as very dark and mysterious.As we where able to use are school drama studio for the interrogation room we where able to dim the lights creating a spotlight effect on the man who was under interrrogation which tells the audience exactly what they should be focusing on.

Resident evil afterlife analysis

We open to a pattern of blinking lights, seen from the sky. It could be a distant constellation – but in fact it’s a city, specifically Tokyo. As we get closer, the neon-lit streets are full of people; it’s raining hard and, to the thumping drum-beat (the music is by trendy-sounding ), the camera slo-o-owly pans up a young woman’s legs, finally revealing the woman herself. She looks pale and. A harried Japanese salaryman walks towards her – and she suddenly attacks him, sinking her teeth into his flesh. The camera moves up and away with the street still in view, the city lights, then Japan itself turns to a city of flesh eating zombies.

The woman whose legs we just ogled being presumably Patient Zero in the zombie epidemic. It didn’t need to be there, of course, since Afterlife is the fourth instalment so Resident Evil fans know all about the back-story, but the whole scene is irresistibly cool and of course that’s the point. Afterlife is a very fetishised film, lingering over its visuals.

Matrix film analysis

The film is known for a visual effect known as "bullet time", which allows the person watching to explore a moment progressing in slow-motion as the camera appears to go around the scene at normal speed. This allows the audience to take in everything on screen as it may be of importance to the film or just simply be interesting.

The method used for creating these effects involved a technical version of an old art photography technique known as time-slice photography which i have researched however we would not be able to use this in our opening sequence as the technology is not available to us. A large number of cameras are placed around an object and triggered nearly simultaneously. Each camera is a still-picture camera, and not a motion picture camera, and it contributes just one frame to the video sequence. When the sequence of shots is viewed as in a movie, the viewer sees what are in effect two-dimensional "slices" of a three-dimensional moment. Watching such a "time slice" movie is similar to the real-life experience of walking around a something to see how it looks from different angles. The positioning of the still cameras can be varied along any smooth curve to produce a smooth looking camera motion in the finished clip, and the timing of each camera's firing may be delayed slightly, so that a motion scene can be watched (over a very short period of real time).

Some scenes in The Matrix feature a "time-slice" effect with completely frozen characters and objects. Film techniques improved the film and allowed for slow motion so it seemed as character movement was still in progress.

Location scouting

These are just a few of the possible locations that we feel will be best suited to our opening sequence and some of our main location possibilities.

production

This week we were planning to continue filming but we were unable to due to a few technical setbacks. Also todays weather did not permit my group to film as it would of affected the continuity. So far we have done the first indoor scene and we were able to use a drama room in my school and we were able to dim the lights which was very effective.

My Groups Pitch

Title: The Case
Genre: Crime Thriller
Time Period: Contemporary
Location: All in south London, England
Budget: Low
Target Market/ Demographic focus: Male/Female aged 16-40

Shank part 1 analysis of first 3 minutes

The establishing shot of this film is a close up of the boys feet whilst he ir running and the digetic sound of the motorbike engine that is chasing him also youn can hear deep breaths of the boy who is running. All three of these things represent danger and tell the audience that the boy is in danger as the fast paced non-digetic music in the background gets faster and louder the closer to danger he gets and helps to create tension and keeps the audience in suspense as they want to knkow what is going to happen next.


At 1:56 the editing technique of slow motion is used as he is vaulting over a metal hand railing. The slow motion puts the audiences focus on the stunt that he is doing and helps to exaggerate the danger of the situation he is in.


At around 2:19 a hand held camera is used to create a jerky unsteady image to create a sense of chaos which is the boy running from the motorcyclist and as they get closer to the camera it begins to jerk. The camera has been used to build up tension with the unsteady images.


At about 2:25 a low angle shot is used after he is trapped and has no choice but to jump. The low angle shot shows him just as he has jumped and makes him seem superior to the audience and as if he is in power even though he is being chased which suggests to the audience he is good at this sort of thing.

The Bone Collector

Lighting and colour
At the beginning when he is enetering the tunnel the lighting and colouring of everything on the screen is very dark which creates suspension and tension before entering the tunnel. The opening credits at this time are very bright which pulls the audiences focus towards the credits.


Camera angles and movements
The establishing shot at the beginning shows the location which is obviously not important as there is a shallow depth of field which tells the audience they need to focus on the foreground as it is more important as it is not blurred out like the background. When the main character wakes up in a hospital bed there is a high angle shot looking down on him which helps to portray his character as weak and vulnerable and makes the audience feel superior to the character.


Sound
The non-digetic music at the beginning is quite soft and mysterious and helps to set the scene as what is happening is unknown to the audience and as the music creates suspense and tension making the audience want to know what is going to happen next.


All of the cinematic techniques so far have all worked together to help emphasis the seriousness of the of the situation in the film and have made the audience want to watch on by creating suspense and tension.

Identity

Lighting and colour
The black and white writing in the opening credits puts the focus on the writing as they are two contrasting colours.


Camera angles and movement
While the opening credits are on a close up is used to show to something of importance and tells the audience it is important by focusing on it. This helps to emphasize the mysteriousness of the film by using close on things unknown to us but relevant to the film.


Framing
When the man is talking on the phone the framing is enclosed. This is so the audience know the phonecall is what their focus should be as it is important to this extract. The framing in this extract helps to emphasize the importance of the phone call and tell the audince the background is unirrellivant the background is in this part of he extract.


Me-en-scene
Everthing such as the objects we see in the extract lead the audience to believe the film is quite mysterious and scary as they seem pretty random in the audiences eyes and annd show no importance to them.

Batman Begins

At about 1:50 as the boy is falling down the hole a low angle shot is used to show his sister on top of the hole which portrays her a superior as the audience have to look up to her.The two shot at 1:34 puts emphasis on how close they are but then this relationship is then broken up after the low angle shot helps to show to the audience the end of the brother and sister relationship.At around 4:28 there are over the shoulder shots and point of view shots that allow the audience to see from the characters points of views. This film would be seen as a crime thriller as there is a lot of crime and inhumane behaviour involved however the opening sequence does not show any crime which leaves which leaves the audience in suspense and excited which signify to us that it must be some sort of thriller which will be revealed later on in the film.

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This is my blog for AS media .