Final cut of film opening.

Evaluation.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From constructing this product, in particular I have learned how to use the camera and its equipment, using Final Cut Pro editing software and using social media. Without the technology available to me for making the film opening, I would not have been able to achieve any good quality shots or editing. First of all in terms of blogging, I learnt that constantly updating my work and keeping a record of my work on the blog was very useful as it helped me remember what I needed to do further. It was also useful because it is easily accessible, even on my iPhone which allowed me to look at my blog wherever and whenever if I needed to in the process of research and planning and then the actual film production. Using blogger has allowed me to present my work in various different ways such as posting video/website links and using pictures that link to my work. Presenting my work in a visual way makes my blog more understandable and easier to find important aspects of it such as the risk assessment and storyboard. During the filming day, I needed to quickly look over the risk assessment and I was able to access it straight away on my phone, this was better than having it in a hard paper copy as we already had lots of camera equipment to look after.


As well as using blogger, I used YouTube in the pre-production process which was extremely useful because I was able to see how other media students had filmed their media task. Also, YouTube allowed me to look at a variety of real film openings which I was therefore able to analyse and apply to my selected genre(psychological thriller). From using YouTube, I learnt how to upload videos as well.

Tripod

In terms of the camera, I learnt how to use it in various ways especially using the different range of lenses to create our shots. The camera and its lenses were full of quality which an old, usual handheld camcorder would greatly lack. For all the shots we did not just stick to one lens, we used the 35mm, 50mm and 75mm. For example for filming the main characters eyes, we wanted the camera shot to be a close up so we ensured that we used the 75mm lens to achieve this effectively. For the shot of the main characters sister on the bridge we used the 35mm lens to create a long shot. To make sure that we had steady camera shots, we put the camera on a tripod and steady cam which worked very well. I also learnt that using the boom microphone is important in achieving good sound quality but for the film making we did not need to record any diegetic sounds. I also learnt how to import footage from the camera memory card on to the apple macs and then import selected footage in to Final Cut Pro.

Steadicam

I have also learnt to use the editing software 'Final Cut Pro' on the apple macs. From editing I learnt that editing is not a straightforward process, it is complex but gradually I was able to use it to a good standard for editing the final cut. I learnt how to balance sound levels and cut and add in audio levels where appropriate, I learnt how to colour grade the footage to a desired level (increasing the darkness in my case) and adding in titles.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Who would be the audience for your media product?/How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In research and planning we researched the different age classifications and what they involved and we decided that 12+ age classification was best suited for our film. Our film does not contain any extreme or violent scenes but it does contain some scenes that would be psychologically upsetting to any viewer so that's why our selected choice of audience is 12+ because they will be able to have a better understanding of the concepts. Due to our film being made independently, our target audience would be a niche British audience. This is because the film is gritty, low budget and set in British locations. We looked in to the stereotypes of a typical teenage girl and we met these stereotypes through costume and emotions. The mise en scene is quite dull which reflects on the emotions teenagers can feel. To add suspense and to draw audiences in further we used mysterious and enigmatic music to build up tension and curiosity for audiences. Our film has not been marketed, but if it were it would be online below the line advertising through various platforms such as Facebook and YouTube and would draw in only those interested in it to watch it. As a group we decided to give our film a 12A certificate so it could reach quite a large age range of audience, however only people interested in small niche British films would be most likely watch it. In particular I think the most common type of audience our film opening would attract would be teenage girls because the main character in the film is a girl meaning that she would be relatable to girls similar of that age.

 

What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?

 

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Here are some examples from our film opening of conventions we used:

Extreme close up- only showing eyes not to reveal characters face.

 

Fast and snappy flashback scenes- add to the enigma and mystery.

 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From the preliminary task, I have learnt a wide variety of skills ranging from using the camera equipment to a high standard to using the editing software ‘Final Cut Pro’ on the Apple Macs. The most important thing I have learned is to be efficient in research and planning in order to ensure that everything is prepared and organised before filming begins. Being prepared before filming is extremely important because when the filming day comes, you need an accurate plan of what you want to film and how you want it to be filmed otherwise problems may arise which can result in time being  lost. My group and I learned that having a finished storyboard is vital before beginning any filming because otherwise you do not have a clear structured plan to follow out which can make the filming and editing a lot more difficult. I found that good time management is necessary for all aspects of research, planning and filming because for both the preliminary and main task we had a fixed time to complete the full task and meet deadlines.

Colour correcting

For filming in the main task, I was able to use a range of different shots by using quality professional camera equipment and apparatus such as the tripod to create steady shots to ensure the film opening would look polished and well made. The preliminary task enabled me to practice using the camera efficiently so for the main task I knew how to use it properly. The preliminary task was also useful to me because it enabled me to gain and have a better understanding of the editing software Final Cut Pro for use in the main task. For example, I learned how to edit sound levels, use the colour corrector to even out cuts and creating and adding titles where appropriate.

During planning for the preliminary task, my group’s storyline was too over complicated and from feedback from peers and teachers we were advised to make our storyline more simplistic. This was because only the quality of the shots and camera angles were important. I applied this to my main task, creating a storyline that has mystery, enigma, quality camera shots/editing and simplicity but effectiveness which I think my group and I achieved well. Without having done the preliminary task, I do not think that I would have been prepared for the main task so the preliminary task was good practice and was useful in developing skills such as team work in that everyone has to contribute to the piece equally.

Altering sound levels
 

 

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK:
Priya Grace said: The film opening definitely has enigma and mystery within it and I think that Simren and her group have met the conventions of a psychological thriller very well. The music matches the tone of the film and as it builds up, so does the action. Not showing the girls face made me intrigued to continue watching and it was a very clever technique that Simren and her group applied to their film opening.


 

Research and Planning- Editing.

Letterbox from our film

Editing has been a fun experience. I have learnt various types of skills within the editing process. We learned how to put the letterbox format on to each cut of footage which is like a black border above and underneath the film footage. We did this because it makes the film look more professional as films always have this on them.

Fading the music

Another skill I learned was how to fade out music/audio. To do this, I had to double click on the audio where I would like it to fade out and then an audio adjustment box opened. You could adjust the sound on here by clicking on the audio levels and dragging them up or down. We wanted our music to fade at the end so we dragged each area down in to a gradual line to make the audio fade like how we wanted it to.

For some of our shots, we wanted to make it clear that it is a flashback so we decided to use a black and white effect on these. To do this you we had to go to colour corrector and adjust the colours to get the effect that we wanted. Also, to make these shots seem a bit dazed, we decided to insert a slow motion effect which added more to the the enigma.

Research and Planning: Risk Assessment.

Having a risk assessment is a very important thing to have because it helps you with awareness of potential risks and hazards during the filming process. Its purpose is to decrease the possibility of hazards by exploring control measures to prevent the risk of the hazard occurring. We created a risk assessment because it shows that safety has been taken in to consideration and thought through in terms of precautions to enable the prevention of hazards.

 

Here is our film opening risk assessment:

 

Research and Planning: Costume, props, actors, audience, film name and lighting.

Costume
Casual teenage girl style yet slightly scruffy clothes to show main character has been laying down in grass for a while.

• Grey leggings
• Converse shoes
• Hoodie
• Jacket

Props
Silver charm bracelet.

Actors
Simren (myself) as Crystal- main character.
Asfah as Crystals sister

Target audience
Teens & Adults. It would appeal to teens because the focus of the film is on a teenager and how she has to deal with such a difficult condition (amnesia) at a young age along with various other emotional factors that teenagers face on a regular basis such as relationships and feeling under pressure from various different sources. It would appeal to adults too, because of all the interesting psychology behind the occurrences and the story line.

Lighting/Colour
The opening of the film is shot outdoors with natural daylight, including sun but won't appear too bright on film.
The colours are quite bright (sunshine, and surroundings) reflects how Crystal is seeing her environment around her, a bit dazy.

Film Name
'The Forgotten One'

Research and Planning: Shotlist

Research and Planning: Animatic Storyboard.

Research and Planning: Storyboard for film opening.

Research and Planning: Film Production Name

For our film opening, we had to come up with a film production name. Originally, we had decided on the name 'Alumination Productions' and asked our peers on their opinions of it and they said it sounded too Hollywood. The next step forward after this constructive criticism was to research British film company names which are more simplistic but professional. We came up with some ideas of film company names such as 'Blue Moon'. However, we searched these names on the internet and they had already been copyrighted by other people so we had to continue to think of a name. Eventually we came up with 'Blurred Path Productions'. This is unique, easy to remember, professional and it also has a slight link to our film which we thought worked well and would appeal to the audience and genre of the film.

Research and Planning: Titles/Credits research.

During research for title's and opening credits for our film opening, we watched a variety of film openings; yet they were not much help because they were too over the top than what we wanted. We wanted to portray a more simplistic mood with titles that fade in and out with a basic but striking font. We came across the 'Man Of Steel' opening credits. The credits are very simplistic and flow well, so for our own film opening, we used these credits as inspiration to pursue what we wanted to achieve through our titles and credits. We also analysed the order in which the production company name appeared and when the actors' name's appeared so we could get an idea of how to structure our own credits/titles. The 'Man Of Steel' credits also had a variety of different shots in which they displayed different credits on which is similar to my groups idea. However, in the 'Man Of Steel' credits, the title of the film appears at the end of the opening sequence, but we cannot do that as we are only making the opening of a film and if we did put the title at the end of our opening it would look similar to a trailer which is not what we are intending to show.

Here you can see that the visuals are changing each time someone's name comes up in the credits.

Here is the 'Man Of Steel' opening:

Research and Planning: Music

We did some research in to different film soundtracks and what kind of soundtrack would best suit our film opening. We decided that we wanted a slow paced piece of music without any vocals in it. As we were researching, we came across a piece of soundtrack called 'On Thin Ice' from 'The Dark Knight Rises' official movie soundtrack. It fitted in perfectly with our opening. However, we were not able to get permission to use this in our film opening. We had to find an alternative piece of soundtrack. Our teachers informed us on a website (Moby Gratis) which had a variety of different music and which we were allowed to use for free; the link for the website is http://www.mobygratis.com/ . Although the music was free, we still had to wait 24 hours to get our license to download the track, therefore we ensured that we did this before the first cut deadline. Here is a link to the piece of music we decided to use which is called 'Live Forever' which is full of enigma :

http://www.mobygratis.com/catalog?title=live+forever&field_album_tid=All&field_instrument_tid=All&field_tempo_tid=All&field_type_tid=All&field_mood_tid=All&field_genre_tid=All&=Search

Here is a link to 'On Thin Ice':

Research and Planning: Location

Here are some photographs of the location of our film opening. We chose this location because it is isolated and has a mysterious feel to it due to there being nobody else around. It adds to the mood of loneliness and feeling lost which links to the character Crystal and how she constanly feels this way emotionally and physically in the opening and throughout the rest of the film.

 

 

 

Research and Planning: Model example of script/screenplay

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Twilight.html

In order to get an idea of how to write a screenplay we did some research in to film scripts. We used the Twilight script to guide us on what type of things are required for our screenplay.

Research and planning: Screenplay

BLACK SCREEN (non-diegetic music)

STRAIGHT CUT (non-diegetic music)

EXT. Jubilee River - DAY

Sunlight is reflecting on the river, silhouette of trees, sun in the sky

Tree tops with sky

Vanishing point of bridge 

White  sunlight glowing through the leaves with river in the background 

CRYSTAL 

Hand lying on grass with sun glistening on bracelet 

Flashback/vision of bracelet being handed to Crystal (black and white format)
 
Eyes flickering with confusionFlashback/vision of her sister on the bridge 

Gradually getting up from the ground unstably near the river and bridge

Feet stumble on wet grass 

Hand in hair, looking around dazed with disorientation 

Walking towards the broken fence and climbing over, puzzled of her previous actions 

CRYSTAL POV

Walking away, looking around, quick glance at bridge 

Walks on to bridge and walks away.

Research and Planning: Test shots.

As a group, we went to the location of where our film opening is going to be set. We used the schools iPad and my iPhone to practice shooting different types of shots that we may use for our actual film opening. It helped us a lot to visualize what we want. Doing practice shots, has given us an insight for preparing for the actual filming day. Now we can plan exactly what we need to do without wasting time or shots.

Research and planning: New film synopsis

A girl wakes up at an unknown location confused.

A 16 year old girl suffers from amnesia after being involved in a tragic accident. Her parents died in the car crash, due to the impact of the accident it resulted in her to suffer from amnesia. The girl is always confused and unsure of what she is doing. She now lives with her aunt who works long night shifts as she is a nurse. She is drawn to this bridge location frequently as she keeps seeing visions of her sister who committed suicide at the bridge. The girl does not have much knowledge of her sister due to her condition but learns more about him everyday through her aunt and the visions she has. Her sister gave her a bracelet which she does not know the full meaning of, but she feels complete and significant with it.  Her aunt is concerned about her, therefore she recommends her to see a therapist to help her out with her memory. As time goes on, her memory starts to improve however, when she goes back to school she wanders off  with frustration and ends up hurting herself. As a result of hurting herself, she wakes up in hospital confused, not remembering the previous events that occurred. At the hospital she is put through some brain tests but the doctors are unable to diagnose her with anything but give her some medication anyway and advises her to continue on with her therapy sessions. The more time goes by, her memory deteriorates even more, she feels empty as there is nothing in her life to live for and she feels like she is dying inside. Due to the pain of seeing the frequent visions of her sister, it drives her to commit suicide at the bridge like her sister did.

Research and Planning: Film opening analysis- Inception

We decided to carry out research in to the film Inception as it is a psychological thriller which is the same genre as our film is going to be. We wanted to see how the director shot the opening to gain some insight in to what we want to do with our own film opening. This film is full of suspense and enigma which keeps the audience curious and interested throughout the film, the reality is constantly blurred.

Right at the beginning, dramatic music begins straight away as the film company/production titles appear on a smoky black screen. The music draws you in and instantly sets a tone of mystery. 

Suddenly we are introduced to some visuals of waves in the sea, the music stops and there are diegetic noises of water. The camera then pans to a character who is lying on the shore with waves splashing on him. This creates mystery. Audience will ask questions such as; who is he? what is he doing there?

Just as you think that the music has stopped, gentle music begins to play which contrasts with the dramatic music right at the beginning. We see that there are 2 children playing on the beach and the man laying in the sand is watching them. The voices of the children sound as if they are coming from the mans point of view as they do not sound very clear. This can suggest that the man is just regaining consciousness perhaps.

All of a sudden out of nowhere, a man comes along and holds a gun to the other mans back and then the camera shot shows who he is (some figure of authority). 

The security guard finds a gun on the man and shouts out in a foreign language to another security guard. The camera angle is from a low angle from the security guard, perhaps to show vulnerability of the other character and maybe a differentiation in status.

Now the camera shot is inside in a strange looking room. The shot makes it feels like you as an audience is peering in to the room or like someone else is maybe watching and it slowly zooms in to bring you to see an old mans head who is talking. 

In this shot, we see a character eating some food. Then it changes to an over the shoulder shot where the old man is blurred in the background but then gradually we come to see his face and finally that anticipation to see who he is is fulfilled for the audience. 

Here is a link from youtube for the opening: