Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation Question 7

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

A lot of progress has been made since the preliminary task, as i have learnt from my mistakes and gained experience in using the cameras and in editing on the computers. For example in my preliminary task many errors were made including continuity errors, bad camera shots and jumpy editing. In our final product none of these errors were made and in result of this our film is a lot better than the preliminary task. I feel i have learnt a lot since the preliminary task, these include working better in a team to create our final product, understanding the film making process a lot better as i have learnt what i did wrong in the first task and making sure that i did not make these errors in my main task. I have also learnt a lot about editing using the apple macs, i have gained experience in Soundtrack Pro, Final Draft AV, Final Cut Express and StoryBoard Quick.

This is my preliminary task.

This is my main task.




One of things i feel we had problems with in the preliminary task is bad editing, for example very jumpy cuts from shot to shot which make the film not look very professional, in our main task i feel we have overcome this problem very well as all of our shots link into each other nicely and have more effects now i have learnt more how to use Final Cut Express.

Another problem we had in the preliminary task is bad camera angles, for example at 0:06 you can see me and the camera in the reflection in the window, we overcame this in our final task by making sure throughout filming we were shooting correctly and had no continuity errors or bad camera shots.

Throughout the filming of the preliminary task and the final film i have learnt a lot and gained a lot of experience which i intend to make use of next year in media, i have learnt how to work better in a group, to spread the work out throughout the group and work together to get more things done.

Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation Question 6

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

Below is a screen-cast of Becky presenting a Prezi that we have made to answer this question.

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

This is an interview we conducted with Daniel to see in which ways we attracted our target audience, so then we could use this information to help when attracting our target audience. 

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be your audience for your media product?

The target audience for our film was older teenagers up to middle-aged people who like to watch films with a hint of mystery. We also decided to aim it at males rather than females because the reviews of Psycho on IMDB are mostly written by males.

   

 Daniel Jones is a 19 year old university student studying Criminology. In his spare time Daniel enjoys going to the cinema and watching thrillers. His favourite film of all time is Psycho, as he likes the eerie feeling the film gives off. He also enjoys the film Jaws. He is single and lives with a group of 5 male friends at the University he attends in Wolverhampton. He went to a state comprehensive school in Walsall and achieved 11 GCSE’s and 4 A Levels, his best subject being Psychology.

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 3

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

Our film was made to be a British Independent film meaning the distributor would most likely be somebody who specialises in these films. There are many ways that you can distribute a film, for example Cinema, DVD and Download. I am now going to research some companies who distribute short films as I believe this is necessary for us, I will then give a short description of the company.

http://www.elypsefilm.com/

Elypse are a distribution company based in spain, however, they also distribute films world wide. They have many films in their catalogue and they do not seem to have a specification for what they are looking for. They also seem easy to contact, and I believe that they would distribute our film for us.


http://www.dazzlefilms.co.uk/

Dazzle is a short films distributor. They are based in London and they distribute "From 90-second, digital micro-movies to super-35mm masterpieces" which means they would probably distribute our film. Also, they have an e-mail address and telephone number on the website which we can easily access.

http://www.omnifilmdistribution.com/

Omni is a film distributor who also sell them on DVD. They distribute films of all lengths and genres, which would mean they would definitely be a good choice of distributor for us. On the website you can also view and purchase the DVD's they are currently distributing.

I believe that our best chance of getting our film distributed would be by Dazzle because of the length of our film. Another way we could get our film seen would be at a film festival, however we would have to research into which film festivals will show a 2 minute beginning to a film.

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Teenagers

In our film we represented the social group of working class teenagers. We did this by getting our actors and actresses to walk out of a school whilst wearing their school uniforms in a very specific way. The boy in the white shirt wore his shirt untucked without a tie or blazer, this could suggest that he may not have a lot of money and also doesn't really care about his appearance, i.e. a rebel. The other boy in the shot has his hands in his pockets which shows he is quite arrogant, another stereotype of working class teenagers. The dialogue used was a discussion of an after-school detention showing that they are quite rebellious and break the rules, which is a general stereotype of working class teenagers.

The freezeframe above is of our teenager having an argument with her stepdad. We did this because a stereotype of teenagers is that they are very hormonal and argue with their parents. This stereotype is further enhanced by the fact she is arguing with her stepfather; playing on the stereotype of childrens' relationships with their stepparents, often portrayed as negative and tense.

The bag that the girl in this shot is holding is a inexpensive, high street, copy of a more desirable branded fashionable bag. This represents working class teenagers as having a limited budget to spend on fashion. Also, the way she has her bag 'slung' over her shoulder suggests a lack of etiquette or 'breeding'. 

Also in this picture there is a 'hoodie' which suggests an environment where troublesome teenagers are the  'norm'. The girls lack of attention to the 'hoodie' shows she is not phased by them being there; this is her natural environment.

Evaluation Question 1.

Evaluation Question 1 -  1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

KF1 - Location, For our location we used a local UK police station to give the effect that our man has had a criminal past and this will give our viewers an insight into the mans background. Police stations, prisons and the legal system are often a focus for thrillers, for example The Shawshank Redemption where prisons are used.

This is an image from the film The Shawshank Redemption, including a prison setting.

KF2- Props, For our film we used a number of props, for example we used a students school bag for our girl to show this is what a typical student would have when leaving school at the end of the day. This makes our girl look more realistic and as if she had just come from a long day at school and is leaving for home. We also used a letter in our film, this is to show that when the step dad is arguing with the girl that she has done something wrong and has had a letter from the school about her bad behaviour and the step dad is not happy with this. 


KF3-4 - Camera shots, During our film we used a range of different camera shots. In KF3 we have zoomed in on the sign of the side of the school, this is to show the viewers where we are and what the name of the school is and to also show that this establishment is also a state comprehensive school. This also sets the scene to the next shot, in KF4 this is showing that we have focused on the sign on the side of the building then we have zoomed out into an establishing shot of the school to set the scene, it is also zoomed out so then we can fit the characters in the shot and can carry on the scene.


KF5- Titles and ident, For our film we have created an ident and main titles, the title "SINS OF THE FATHER" is in a bold white font on a black background which makes it easy to stand out, we have chosen a black background because the end of the film fades out to black and this creates a good effect as the title comes straight on the screen. We have chosen a typewriter effect to drag out the suspence which we created during the film and to leave the viewer wanting to watch the end of the film. We have created an ident and put this at the start of the film, this is also white writing on a black background with an effect to make it look more professional and interesting for the viewer. Our company name is DOMINO PRODUCTIONS and our effect links to this and it could relate to dominos, our ident is unique and would be very easy to recognise when compared to other idents.

This is a well know ident for many films - 20TH CENTURY FOX TELEVISION. This ident is simple yet effective as it is well known for its image and background music.

This is the titles from the thriller " THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION " These titles are similar to our film titles as they have the same colour scheme.






















KF6- Effects, We used many effects in our film for example in our flashback scene we put a sepia effect over the film to create an old fashioned effect so our viewers know that the scene is a flashback and is in the past, we also used a fade in effect into our flashback so that people realise that it is in the past and its a flashback. We put a textual overlay on to the beginning of the flashback to show that this piece of footage is from 10 years ago, to inform the viewers that the girl in the flashback is the girl at the beginning of the film but a younger version.

This is a shot from a old film called "Wild Harvest' set in the 1947, in the 1940's sepia was a popular effect for films but is not very common in recent thrillers today, because sepia is related with the past we have used it for our flashback so people can relate to this and they will feel more like our film has gone into the past and is a flashback.










KF7-8- Introducing characters, we have a long shot of our character coming out of a police station, this makes the viewer already imagine his background, making people think he has a criminal past or had been in prison. This single shot means we don't need to devote more time of our film explaining the characters background.


KF9- In this frame the stalkers face is not shown, this is a convention used in thrillers frequently. This is to create mystery and tension as the audience does not know who the stalker is. By hiding the persons face this makes the scary

This is a shot from "The Strangers" they have masks, on by hiding their faces this keeps the characters anonymous, meaning it keeps a barrier between the audience and the characters.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Our Final Cut

This is our final cut of our film.

Re-shoots and Re-edits

After hearing our feedback from our peers we made the following changes:
-We changed the name of the title to Sins of the Father, and made the typewriter effect quicker.
-We added an indent to the start to make it look more professional.
-We did a textual overlay on the flashback so that the audience know its 10 years earlier.

Unfortunately, we were unable to overdub the sound of the dialogue due to not being able to get the same actors, however, we feel that this minor problem does not effect our film that much and we are now happy with the finished product.

Rough Cut

This is our completed first rough cut of our film.





We believe that our rough cut is quite successful and that there are not many changes that we need to make. We are happy with the eerie feeling that the film gives off as this was our aim when making the film. One thing we think the viewers may not understand is the flashback, so we are going to show it to our peers and see whether this is how they feel.

Ident Research

An ident is a short animation that culminates with a channel’s name/logo, usually used to brand a company. For my film i will be making an ident with my production name to show that it has been made by our media group.

This is an example of a well know ident for 21st Century Fox, this is a good ident as it is very unique so it is easily recognised. It has bold yellow writing which stands out and is easy to read and recognise. When creating my own ident i will keep this in mind and produce it using bold writing making it easy for people to read.

This is the BBC SPORT ident, this is a good ident as the font is easy to read and the white stands out well on the blue background. This is easy to recognise as well as because of the colour scheme and the font style and colours no other companys have any idents like this. From this ident i could influence my ident by using a patterned background or a background with a gradient in it to make it unique so people will recognise my ident easily.

Shooting Schedule

This is our completed Shooting Schedule,  we created this so that our media group and actors would know when we need to shoot and what props are need to record our film.


Shooting Schedule

Editing the footage

We edited our film in Final Cut Express. We did this by capturing the footage and then cutting and editing together the shots onto the timeline. Once we decided that all the shots were edited together correctly, we then started to add effects. One of the effects we used was sepia, we added this to every clip to make it look a little bit darker, we then changed the amount of sepia so that it was just a slight colour change. 

We made the amount of sepia quite high on the flashback to show that it was the past.

For the flashback we also used a transition to make it fade back into real time. We also made the last shot dissolve into the titles to create a dramatic effect. 

For the indent and title we used a black background with white typewriter effect, we decided to use this as we believe the simplicity adds to the eerie feeling of the film.

Shooting on location

On Tuesday 28th February we shot outside Bloxwich Police Station and outside GWPAHS, this was our first time of filming together and it went really well, we got the shots that we needed for our film, including a establishing shot of the police station which went very well and we will use in our film at the beginning.

The next bit we filmed was on Wednesday 29th February at Rebecca's house, during this time we attempted to film the flashback scene with a young child, this was very unsuccessful as she found it difficult to act with strangers she did not know, because of this we had to shoot this scene again but with a different little girl. This time we decided to use an older girl so that we could focus on our filming techniques rather than a younger child. We did this on Monday 5th March and it went very well, as we got all the footage we needed and we believe that this turned out to be one of our best shots.

On Tuesday 6th March we filmed again outside GWPAHS for a number of hours, most the shots in our film were recored in this time. The only problem that we found during our filming was that it was quite windy so the voices in these shots are a bit quieter.

Preparing for the Shoot

To be able to shoot our film we will need the following equipment:
-Canon Video Camera
-Tape
-Tripod and Adapter

This is an image of a tripod that we will be using. We use this so that we get steady shots.

This is an image of the type of camera that we will be using to shoot our film.

We have assigned roles to each person, these are as follows:

Camerawork-Rebecca

Director-Jess

Sound recording-Rebecca and Jess

Managing actors and distributing scripts- Dean

Monitoring continuity- Dean

Costumes- Laura

We now feel like we are ready to begin shooting our film and feel confident that it will go well.

Prop List

Prop List

A props list is important so that when shooting the characters always have the props they need during the correct scenes.

Prop	Character that uses it	Scene needed in
School Bag	Girl	Shot 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9
School Folders	Girl	Shot 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9
Letter from the school	Stepdad	Shot 6, 7 and 9
Painting done by child	Child	Shot 8
Picture of child	Dad	Shot 7
Red Car	Stepdad	Shot 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9
Suitcases	Dad Mom	Shot 1 and 2 Shot 8

Addressing The Evaluation Questions

After our film is completed we will have to answer a set of evaluation questions, therefore we need to make sure that whilst we are making the film we have an answer to all of these questions.

What thriller conventions will be used?
We have decided that the thriller conventions we are going to use are;
-The fear of the unknown
-Colour conventions to show good and bad characters
-The villain is a male
-Chilling music to create tension
-Stalkers.

What thriller conventions will be developed?
The thriller convention we have decided to develop is the fear of unknown, we have decided to exemplify this convention because we believe that by doing this we will be able to get across an eerie feeling. Recently the convention of the male characters being the villains has been challenged alot, so we have decided to stick to the traditional convention.

What thriller conventions will be challenged?
We have decided to challenge the convention of using props such as knifes or guns, we have done this because we believe that it will add to the mystery of the film if such props arent used. We are also not using a chase scene as we want the film to have more of a slow spooky feel, rather than a fast paced horror feel.

New film idea.

New Idea
We have came up with a new idea which will be alot easier and less confusing than the old one. We have solved the problems of location and characters as the new idea will be set just outside the school gates and will involve teenagers, which are easier to find as actors than adults.

The idea of our new film is as follows...

A girl being watched by a man whilst walking out of an after school detention with her friends, she leaves her friends to approach her stepdad waiting for her. The man watching her is in fact her real dad who keeps having flashbacks of his time with the daughter before her mother left him. The teenage girl has an argument with her stepdad, the whole time her real dad is watching, causing him to become enraged.

We believe that this new idea will be easier to film and that the audience will understand the situation the characters are in. We also believe that by choosing this idea over our old one we will end up with a better quality film. We have discussed our new idea with Mr Hood and he agrees that it will be easier and we will have a better outcome.

Final Treatment

This is our final treatment, we have made a slight few changes from the first plan which include some more flashbacks in the middle of our film. The treatment is important because without the treatment we wouldnt know the story or the plot, the treatment then allows you to write the script and many other things, so this is important. The conventions of a treatment are things such as what the characters look like and what the say, where the story is set, the plot and a few background details.

Also-
Font- Courier. If any other font is used the treatment will not be read.
Font Size- 12.
Average about 40 pages long for a full film.
Present tense.

Treatment Final Draft

Animatic

This is our completed animatic.

Due to our change of idea we were behind before half term, and the sound on our animatic is not complete, however, we have checked the timings of all our shots and it will fit into the two minutes we are allowed are film to be. We will put it on our blog when it is done. Also, myself and my group need to get together and decide when we can all get together to film and where so as soon as the shooting schedule is done that will also be on here.

Our Final Script

Dean Becky Laura Jess

This is a copy of our final script.

Location Research

This is our location research for our film, there are many different locations we could use for our film for example in a house, or in the woods. All these different locations create certain atmospheres for a film, we are using a school for our film idea as it can be easily used, and also a house for a flashback scene or a small cell like room< we are also doing an establishing shot of a prison, we are thinking of using Bloxwhich Prison as is it near and has been able to allow people to film there before, this would be our establishing shot during our film. In thrillers many locations are usually used, some of these include, houses, hospitals, woods, forests, schools and many other buildings.

These are some images of locations from thrillers.

This is an image of Bloxwich police station which we will be using in our film.

The pros of using this location is that it sets the scene for people and makes them think that someone in our film has been in prison, it is easy to access, and we are able to film here.

The cons of using this location is that there may be background noise as traffic goes past, and also people walking by may get in the shot and could get in the way of the public.

Location Reasearch on Prezi

Final Presentation Of Treatment

We presented our treatment to Mr Hood and had a very lengthy discussion about it. It was said that there were no actual issues with our treatment, however, after discussion we have decided to add a back story to the father. We want to imply to the audience that he is a dangerous man without using dialogue, therefore we are going to add a scene at the start with him walking out of a prison, however, we will have to pick costumes carefully to show that he is in fact an ex-prisoner rather than a prison officer.

Mr.Hoods opinion is important because he is going to be marking our work, and has had a lot of experience with with media and work before, as a result of his feedback we have changed our treatment so that the plot is easier to understand and the film will be easier to produce.

Screenshot Of Storyboard

This is our storyboard for our film, it contains screen shots of what our shots would look like and the text is what the people would be saying. The purpose of a storyboard is to tell and help people when you are finally filming our film.In our film we are using quite a lot of point of view shots, from the fathers point of view. Also, we are using a few shot reverse shots to show the argument between the stepdad and the girl.

First Treatment

A TREATMENT FOR A TWO MINUTE OPENING

By

Rebecca Wheeler

Dean Turner

Laura Gardiner

Jess Jones

January, 2012

Present.

United Kingdom.

Small village.

Late Afternoon.

A MIDDLE AGED MAN, wearing black trousers and a black hooded coat walks past a poorly lit secondary school. He walks into a garden opposite the school, mysteriously gazing at the entrance.

A group of mixed sex TEENAGERS walk out of the school gates, gripping their folders. Laughing and joking about detentions, they wave bye to one of the TEENAGE GIRLS as she is walking in the other direction over to her STEPDADS red car which is waiting to pick her up.

As the TEENAGE GIRL is walking up to the car she suddenly feels eerie as though somebody is watching her. She is correct; the MIDDLE AGED MAN is in fact peering at her through the bushes in the garden opposite the school. He is trying to be quiet, although unable to control his heavy breathing.

Seeing the GIRL draw closer to the car, the STEPDAD angrily gets out, clutching a letter from the school. He starts shouting at her “Another Detention” “I didn’t raise you like this”. The TEENAGE GIRL now forgets about the weird feeling she had just felt as she is more concerned about arguing back with her STEPDAD. Voices are raised and arms are flung about as the argument progresses.

The MIDDLE AGED MAN watches on, his breathing increasing, as he starts to have a flashback. His flashback consists of a YOUNGER VERSION OF HIMSELF being shown a painting done by a LITTLE GIRL at school, the LITTLE GIRL being a younger version of the TEENAGE GIRL. “Daddy Daddy, look what I did at school”. It is at this point we realise that the MIDDLE AGED MAN is actually the TEENAGE GIRLS real DAD.

Then the MOTHER of the GIRL walks down the stairs, struggling to carry two suitcases. She looks angry and has quite obviously been crying as she has mascara running down her young fresh face. “We’re leaving”. The GIRL cries as the mother drags her out of the house, she desperately stares at her dad confused and distraught. This is the moment that his daughter was taken away from him.

The DADS flashback ends and he once again witnesses the argument between the GIRL and her STEPDAD. The argument becomes ever more intense and the volume of their shrieking voices multiplies, until abruptly, the DAD hears the GIRL call the STEPDAD “Dad”. This is all too much to handle for the DAD, his heart begins to pound louder and louder. His breathing becomes heavier and he becomes enraged…