Sum Up

What was successful:
The opening to the film went well overall, the cut rate between each shot was well thought out, especially with the crosscutting of the two scenes. The characters performances were done well, as they weren’t seen smiling or looking into the camera. The diegetic sound when the main characters are running was off a good quality. I believe that everyone contributed greatly towards the task.

What could have been better:
The change of plot affected our earlier plans, so our story board had to be ditched and made again. Some of the film had to be re-done and more filming had to take place, which was wasting valuable time, as the original idea was just a chase sequence, we realised that would have been boring for the view as an opening so we decided as a group to a cross cutting, we then got into more depth and decided to use the same characters to confuse the user in a way which would make them more into the film. The voice over gives subtle hints to the spectator as its poetic nature helps the reader understand there is more to the film than once expected.
Our use of time could have been much better.

Final Cut Pro

Final Cut pro is the software we used to edit the shots together,

The pro's of using this includes

Log and capture- This lets us capture the bits we wanted from the film shoot rather than including all of what we just captured.

Its installed effects lets us change from scene to scene with effects such as wipe and dissolve.

It was easy to understand and use.

The disadvantages was that sometimes the software would not let us capture our voiceover.

But overall, this is one of the best editing softwares available to amaeture film- makers.

Deleted Scenes

We decided to delete these scenes from the opening for a number of reasons.

The first scene shows shaky camera work and the lighting was low key and quite grainy. The camera was not in focus on any character or prop so the quality was quite poor, also the use of zoom was quite badly done. We re-did the intended scene by only focusing on the key character- Mussa and captured the scene outside when it was sunny. We checked the forecast for this date to not waste time on the day.

The scene where a character opens the door was deleted as the camera was unsteady and weakly compositioned so as a group, we decided to delete it.

The shot where both characters meet was deleted as the characters were seen smiling throughout, and the main character Mussa, can be seen staring at the camera.

The shot in black and white was deleted as it was obvious that the character had not actually tripped.

The shot where one of the characters is walking down the stairs was deleted for the fact that we had changed the story line.

The next scene of both characters running were deleted for the reasons that the first take, Mussa stops half way through and the next take shows them going in different directions.

The last shot was deleted for the same reason that we had changed the story line and if included, would not have made much sense.

Final Evaluation

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our media production peice entitled 'Tuesday,' it portrays a variety of ethnic and social groups, though a range a frameworks. These are represented in many fashions throughout my film opening, e.g. Choice of character, the group focoused on; Gender (male and female), ethnic origin (white and black) and mise en scene (prop, clothing and appearance). Mussa plays the lead role throughout the opening as a male character, we purposely put a male typecast into the vulnerable situation to challenge his masculinity, in the intention that this will raise questions to the audience because male figures in films more often than not typically have dominant type casts. The iconography of having beth in shot while she's running away from the killer, implicity suggests that beth could be the reasoning for the vulnerable situation. Also implying a narrative theme of mysogny, almost like a downfall of Mussa. The representation of women thanks to hollywood is that they come across in a less dominant fashion, undermined by the role of men, we represented this fact through the frame works of our opening. The irony is that beth leads the way in shot, while herself and mussa are running away from the killer, thus emphasising the fact she could be to blame for the situation. To greater impact mussa remains the powerful presence on screen, he is larger in structure in the majority of shots while him and beth flee. Both characters are dressed sterotypically teenage british, with mussa lookin of other ethnic origin, but also being dressed in the casual british style which could arguably suggest that he is trying to change his cultural capital, in the modern day the average black male is prejudged to be associated with the 'gang' lifestyle. The evidence is in the dialogue of mussa's freeze frame. His accent does not sound british, yet he is talking with a mancunion accent. This links back to the fact that he might not be of a full british origin but also helps to recognise a full british film.

What kind of media institution would distrubute your media product and why?

Verve Pictures (Independant) Released feature length film 'Bullet Boy' in 2004. Leading male character 'Ricky' is if young nature, a man who's been caught up in violence and crime in the east end of his home town London. 'Bullet Boy' explores what life is like to grow up "On the streets" in a run down area of the country, showing how Ricky's actions effect his younger brother 'Curtis' and mum 'Diane'. In our opinion Bullet Boy plays on social and ethnic groups as the main focus to its narrative, being in relation very similar to our media production 'Tuesday'. We believe that Independant label Verve Pictures would be likely to take strong interest in our project after having great UK success with 'Bullet Boy' we used simliar frameworks and played on a similar style of using social and ethnic groups as our main narrative focus, by doing this we intended to imply the stylistic genre conventions of a drama and thriller. Both films played on the realities of British life, and steers cleer of hollywood cliche's which makes them more successfull as their original storylines attract a bigger audience.



Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for our production 'Tuesday' would be between the ages of 15 and over, but mainly categorized as 16-24, This is because it appeals to the younger spectators directly by involving and casting the younger generation as the lead roles. In hope that they could relate to the characters, due to similar experiences and similar age groups. As well as having a younger audience, we would like it to expand towards the more mature audience also, to make it niche e.g. Parents as they would watch it in hope that they could get to terms with the new teenage life, and use it to help guide their own childern or family from the experiences they have seen.

How did you attract/Address your audience?

We styled our media project around a drama/thriller genred peice. A stylistic we felt is commenly used in these type of genres, is black and white footage. While beth and mussa flee we have used this technique to imply that of a flash back. We have put this in our product to attract our audience because throughout the scene, there is a clear structure of two stories being told, attracting the audience wanting to continue watching and to find out more, as more and more black and white flash backs occur. To impose a thriller style we used a variety of camera shots for different puroses, e.g. hand held running shot, continuing in black and white, showing the emotion that mussa is vewing as a victim, from a direct point of view. Also as his point of view rotates, we, as an audience descover the reality of his surrounding because the woods are renound to be used in thriller films, for tippically chase scenes. Further more we see a glimps of a dark figure in the background. Considered to be, what looks like, a killer. He gives off this effect from the clothing he is wearing, which is all black to create that dark, scary, misterious look. This greatly adds to the impact the scene has to our viewing audience, adding tension and worry to the viewing atmosphere. The frantic footsteps and breathing in the diagetic sound also helps with the thrilling atmoshere, as well as, the unusual non diagetic sound of the music in the background. The transitions between edits are not soft, but very abrupt and sharp, keeping in relation to the frantic style of the scene.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? And, Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt from the proggression from it to the full task?

The preliminary task was a introduction to the main task, so we could get used to the equipment and software that we were going to be using. We did this so we could get to grips with each others ability, so we could know what boundaries to push for our final peice. During our preliminary task we had a confound location, as we was only able to shoot around the college. We made the college look like different surroundings using camera angles and props. It was a big difference going from windows to using a apple mac for the first time, But i think we all got quite used to it after a while. We used lots of different software, such as; Final cut pro, to edit the clips and put everything into place to create the final peice, Garage band, to make the sound effects and background noise, to make it more interesting. And also, Photoshop, we used this to create our credits on the opening of the film.


This question was also answerd in a podcast style, by Bethany Sherwin. But blog spot will not let me upload it for some reason.

Equipment

- This shows us all of the equipment used for the making and editing of the opening of our film.

Movie Certificate

-The certificatefor the film- chosen as the film genre is classed as horror, but as it is not too graphical to be classed as 18+ and not to be classed as PG, 12 or 12A as it would not be suitable for a younger audiences.

The BBFC's Guidelines state that the language used such as F*** is innapropriate for ages 12A and below, Reasonable use of expletives such as 'bitch' and 'cunt' are allowed in a modest content.
In our film the language will be used in an aggressive tone but not used in every sentance.
For example - Where is the bitch?
The use of moderate violence is allowed but not those of a viciously sexual nature.
An example of this in our film could be a fight between one Mussa and his attacker.

Inspiration

This is the opening of the film Severance that we got some ideas for our running scence.

New Ideas

We have decided to cut some bits out and film activities, e.g. Playing basket ball, dancing and being with friends. We did this to put it inbetween the running scenes, as flash backs. This is to add effect and doesnt give too much away towards the film. Also we have added voice overs in the opening creditis, freez frames and music.

Real filming

We have officially finished filming our opening of a film. We filmed it in the haughton green vale, tameside. We have also started to edit it and made some samples of music for the backing track to go with the video capture. Also we are trying it out in different sets e.g colour, black and white, bits in sepia ect. This is to add effect to the mood of the film (which is thriller/horror). It will be finished soon as we just need to finish editing.

Test Filming

Today we did some test shots at Alexandra park in Moss side. We filmed running shots of Beth and Mussa being chased by Alberto. We did a tracking shot, point of view shot, long shot, extreme long shot. Today we will start to edit it and see what to keep and what to film again.

Research

For our video we are getting the inspration from the opening scene of 'Trainspotting', in our video we going to have the similar idea, but in our case is going to be a murder scene were beth and mussa are both getting chased by Yusuf,
http://www.youtube.com/watch#playnext=1&playnext_from=TL&videos=8dtr6farVjc&v=koP4O6QAzx4

Pictures of location.

These are some ideas of the location that we are using. We got these pictures of the internet but we can see them from a view out of one of the students window.

Treatment.

The Outline of our main task.
- Murder Mystery (Thriller)
Plot, a person is dreaming, having a nightmare about a murder. He see's little bits of it, the camera cutting backwards and forwards to him turning in his sleep and bits of the dream he is excperiencing.. It shocks him and wakes him up. (By a ringing of the phone that was in his dream and is actually happning next to him) Cross disolve to the chilling music and title.
- Person dreaming, Ahmed
- Killer, Yusuf
- Person getting killed, Beth
- Camera work, Aisha
Location, manchester.

The Main Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task - Portfolio Evaluation

What did you learn about the cameras and editing software during the preliminary task?

We learnt how to use the camera in our task, setting it up and putting it away, how to use the tripod and how to use it for a range of shots. E.g. close up's, high angle's, low angle's, zooming in and out, long shots, medium shots, shot reverse shot and 180 degree rule. In editing we learnt how to use the software by cutting out clips and using desolves. Also we used garage band to create background music for our task.

In the filming and editing of your project, what worked well or what could of been improved?
When filming, the high angle shot of 'the man answering the phone' and 'the man making the phone call' worked well because it was a match cut and worked well with the narative and showed that they were in two different places. This was effective in our task. We could of improved the close up's of 'the man's' faces too make it look more effective e.g Extreme close up on an angle.

Give a detailed, specific example of how you have used a shot/ reverse shot combination in your film
Our example of the shot reverse shot was when our charactors were sat at the table, exchanging looks and comments, switching form one person to another. This was then followed by the 180 degree rule.

Give a detailed, specific example of how you achieved match cuts during the editing process
We achieved our match cuts by using two people on the phone in different locations at different angles. This is at the start of the clip to open it.

How did you make sure that you didn’t break the 180 degree rule? Or if you broke it, what have you learnt from this?
W didnt break this rule. We made sure we didn't by starting in the middle of the mans chair and panned to the other side of the other mans chair, but staying in the middle. This is done so we could recognise the effectiveness of the 180 degree rule.

The completion of the Preliminary Task.

On Tuesday 2nd Febuary, we completed the task. We filmed the scene in and outside of the college, which involves shots of high angle, low angle, shot reverse shot, close up's, point of view shots and the 180 degree rule. We then edited the clips on the Mac to develop the final peice.
Thursday 4th Febuary. We are currently making the music for the backing track for the clip on Garage band. The video will uploaded shortly. :)

Preliminary Task.

Today we started our Preliminary Task. It's shot around loreto college. We created our shot list and then filmed the start of our preliminary film. It is going good so far and next lesson we are updating it and finishing it off. :)