Evaluation Question 7

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

To begin with, Here i have embedded both our Preliminary Task and our Final Cut of "Withheld".

After looking back at the Preliminary Task and then to our latest piece "Withheld" i can easily spot the differences that have occured between then and now. We have improved our skills to work in a group as well as our individual skills. The most important lesson i have learned from this year is that there is so many different things required to produce a proffessional looking film and if one area is not good enough, the final product will not be good enough either. But after taking this journey i feel i am prepared with the knowledge for the future when i should need these various skills again.

One of the comparisons to be made between the two is the way in which the titles were shown to the audience.

 In the preliminary task we attempted to use animated titles but after putting them in we noticed a number of flaws. In the first image to the left we notice our first blunder. By having such a bright natural light shining through the window we have in turn made the titles barely readable to the naked eye. As for the second image, we see "Cam raw" has been left on the screen as the titles flash off. Although this provided us with a new name for a production company it also taught us that pre-programmed title sequences can be develish to control.

 This we corrected in "Withheld" by the intresting use of household objects such as a steamed up window or a knife block or even typed words onto a computer screen. Because we were then filming our titles rather than adding them after we could tailor exactly what we wanted into them. By doing this we greatly reduced the risk of another technical blunder involving out titles.

Another important comparison to make was our attention to continuity.

If you look at the image to the right you can see the wig that was originally next to the box, jumped from where it was and into the lap of Matty during the few scenes inside the office. After we made such a mistake we made sure to pay enough attention to not make another one when filming the final piece. Another lesson not to be forgotten in the future.

During the filming of the final piece we decided we would use a standard three point lighting system, similar to the one seen in the diagram to the right. After making a note from our preliminary task to keep a focus on any natural light which may effect the piece, we made a very bad misjudgment on set while filming the interior bedroom and bathroom shots.

Below is a small screenshot of the natural lighting seen in the bedroom. Had we used 3 point lighting we would have had a much brighter look on the action but i believe the way the light is in the shot suits the film much better than had we used lights.

This said, when we felt it necessary to use a 3 point lighting system i believe we used it quite effectively to show the harsh lack of colours in the theatre shots. An example of which is placed on the right.



Overall i am very pleased with myself and the group and how we have progressed through the year. We have taken any negatives we have come across and improved upon them as best we can to come out with our final product and the lessons to stop us from making the same mistake again.

Evaluation Question 6

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

To make our film we had to used a lot of new technologies. It was thanks to these pieces of technology that we were able to create and complete media products faster and more efficiently.

Digital Video Cameras:

This is one of the biggest and most important pieces of technology we had. Before the invention of modern Digital Video Cameras production companies had the disadvantage of having to cut and splice large reels of film together before the final piece was complete. And once complete there was no going back on the decisions that were made. The cost to make the changes would be immense. That said, with the invention of the Digital Video Camera the construction phase in our film's creation became a lot easier. We were able to record all the shots onto a memory card and then move them around as we pleased in our Editing Software, trying out different techniques or orders to the shots without having to go through carious pieces of film reel to try out something different.

Apple Mac:

Next to the Digital Video Camera we have another very important piece of technology in the film making industry. The Apple Mac. They have enabled us to use all of the software tools we needed to produce our film. On top of this we have also gained the benefit of experience as Apple Macs are used a lot more often in modern times to produce movies. If we decide to go into the film industry we will have the skills required to use an Apple Mac and the software used when creating media products.

Final Cut:

Final Cut Express is the editing software we used to turn our collection of various shots into the film it is now. It is a vast improvement on the old methods of editing where the film reels were cut up and glued back together in the order needed for the movie. This pack has provided us with the ability to Edit in HD, add transitions, alter sound, brightness and contrast as well as animations. But the greatest part to using Final Cut is that if a mistake is made or it is agreed something needs to be changed, we can do so very easily by digitally cutting and splicing the clips together. It is because of these advantanges that this piece of software has become the piece of software many production companies use to edit their movies.

Web 2.0:

This is the future of media exhibition. With the arrival of Web 2.0 people are able to upload their own pieces of media to websites such as Youtube, share their work with people over facebook or even produce projects or presentations in Blogger and Prezi. Essentially Web 2.0 allows the user to store information or upload data onto the internet for use in a web browser elsewhere.

Evaluation Question 5

"How did you attract/address your audience?"

In order to attract your audience, you first need to know what it is that will attract them. As for our film this was a very simple task because the target audience we had intended for our film was an age range that we fit inside. Since we knew exactly what would attract us, when it came around to pre-production and preparing ideas of what we need to add so it will appeal to our audience was a simple task.

Below are some examples of the ideas we encorperated into the film in order to attract our audience demographic.

Firstly, our choice in actress. Looking back on research into the victims of thrillers, those which contain female victims almost always have an attract female blonde playing the lead role. An exmaple of this can be seen in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds".

As you can see in the image to the right, we have a blonde and attractive woman playing the lead role.

This use of an attractive blonde actress has been implemented to attract a large male audience.

Another method, this time to try and attract more female audience members is to add some kind of relationship based storyline, or something that could be based on real life. By adding for example, a romantic scene involving a lead male and female character may attract a small amount of female audience members willing to watch the film. This is exactly what we did to our film. In order to widen our male dominated demographic we added a relationship "on rough ground" in the hope that teenage girls may sympathise with the girl in the scene as they themselves may have had similar experiences.

On top of these there is also the use of modern technology. Youth today have grown up surrounded by the ever expanding world of technology and it has now earned our generation the title "Technological Natives". And this term is very correct, having grown up in a world where one second it is DVD and the next it is Blue Ray we have grown accustom to the changes in technology and we see it as the norm. In our film we added a hidden context to the piece by involving a "new" mobile phone. The message being "Be careful who you talk to and to be careful about who give your mobile number to". Because we use a "new" mobile phone, the audience are more likely to pick up on the hidden context.

Evaluation Question 4

"Who would be the audience for your media product?"

Our film's audience will mainly consist of people in the age range of 15-25. This will most likely be caused by the fact that our film can be related to by the viewer.

It has also been found that it is this age range which covers the mean age of film go-ers, making it a large target for companies to try and market their media products to the consumer.

Here is a suitable picture for our intended audience:

The people featured in this image age from 16-18 and enjoy watching thrillers but as you can see there is a major imbalance of the genders. It is statistically proven that more men would rather watch a thriller compared to the amount of women.

In this picture we have two friends who love to watch films, but sadly while the one on the left enjoys watching thrillers, the other does not like them so much. This said though because they are friends they still both decide to watch the movie as the person on the right enjoys the fact that the film encorperates real life scenario's into it.

Evaluation Question 3

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

Our film was produced using near basic equipment, independant funding, a volunteered actress and ofcourse our 4 production staff. Because of these reasons it would most likely be a small british distribution company releasing it, either directly for sale over the internet with companies such as Apple and their iTunes service or on DVD in certain stores.

iTunes:
If for example iTunes were to distribute our movie we would benefit from the global market they have. iTunes offer many types of media as well as different methods of viewing them, for example you can purchase a movie for a higher price or if you simply want to watch the film once or twice over the course of the day you can rent a copy of it. It is this popularity and accessability that would be the greatest benefit to us when we came to distributing our film.

Shorts international:
Shorts International is based in London, however, also has offices in New York Los Angeles and Paris. I gather from their website that they have links to iTunes, which would mean that the films are distributed to a wide range of people. Their submission form gives the option to state whether it is a student film and if so, what school you attend. I think that this would mean that this company would accept our film and would distribute it for us, definitely as a finished product and possibly also as a 2 minute beginning as it is.

Omni film distribution:
Omni Film Distribution Inc is based in California and distributes films and sells them on DVD. The description of the film can be found on the website and can also be purchased on the site. They accept films of all genres and lengths so I think that they would accept our film. This would be a good option for us as it would be a way for us to distribute our film on DVD.

Though all three of these companies would be a great benefit to us when distributing our film, i feel the best decision would be to go with either the iTunes System or Omni Film Distribution. This is my choice as iTunes has such a large market we would be able to sell our film practically all over the world. As for Omni Film Distibution i think they would also be best suiting to our needs as they would be one of the most likely to accept our film. On top of this, many of the population still use DVD's, leaving us open for the larger areas of the market.

Evaluation Question 2

"How does your media product represent particular social groups?"

Our film represents only a small number of specific social groups, and though only seeing one character fully i feel the opening two minutes allowed us to represent three seperate groups.
Below i have provided images of the three social groups along with a description of who the characters are, their social group and finally how this social group is portrayed.



This is the original perspective of our main character. At this point in the film she represents the social group of teenagers and young adults (Between the ages of 18 and 25). This is done for example by the use of costume. By wearing a red dress and high heels she is showing our audience she is a "Party Girl". This use of red as mentioned before was also seen in the film "Sin City" in which a very attractive woman is wearing an elegent and stylish red dress. It is this look we had hoped to achieve in our film to show teenagers sexually provoked lifestyles in modern society.



In contrast to how she looked before, we have our main character after the events of that dark night. Her ruffled hair, smudged make-up and white/blank costume shows the psycotic side to young peoples minds. Because of modern society many young people find themselves suffering with stresses in various aspects of their lives. The reason for this sudden change in appearance would be revealed later in the film. That reason being our character had had her drink spiked by someone. This in itself is a way which the fore-mentioned social group are represented. As time has moved on, modern teenagers are finding new ways to try and calm themselves for example through the use of drugs or alcohol.



Lastly we have the mysterious and unseen Ryan, similar to the stereotypical looking teenage attackers in the thriller film "F" he is wearing a hoodie covering his face. It is because of this we are able to assume he is roughly the same age as our Heroine/Villain. In this scene we show a mild form of domestic violence through the way Ryan acts. He at first kicks her from the car and goes to drive away, only stopping when she has chased after him screaming his name out.

The overall intention for our film was to encorperate characters that looked like they could be real. This would then in turn allow the audience to empathise with out Heroine and possibly relate it to their own lives. They too could be experiencing the stresses of a violent relationship or the hardships of modern society as a whole,

Evaluation Question 1

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

Conventions Used:
 -The colour red to represent violence/blood.
 -Female victim.
 -Action taking place at night in an eery location.

Conventions Developed:
 -Victim/Killer is mentally unstable.
 -Element of mystery.
 -The end of the film as the start.

Conventions Challenged:

 -Female as the Killer as opposed to a male killer.

 -Male as the Victim as opposed to it being a female.
 -Protagonist is also antagonist.

Below is a recording of us answering this first Evaluation Question.

Withheld. Final Edit.

After going back over our film we have now produced the Final Edit and here it is for you to see.

Withheld. Rough Edit.

This is the first edit of our film Withheld. This copy of the film is the rough edit as we intend to re-shoot a number of the shots and work a little more on the editing side of things. This copy has enabled us to see what our film looks like already and catch what and where things need to be changed.

Construction Phase 3.

Monday 21st March 2011.

Present: Matty, Josh, Holly. (I could not be present due to unforseen transport issues.)

Even though i was not present at the shoot, the group have filled me in on what they filmed.
On this night they filmed the remaining external shots revolving around Sophie's character chasing a "Mystery Person" in a car down a reasonbly small length of road. They told me they were posed with a couple of major problems. These problems being; as they filmed on a strech of public road they were seeing traffic come past while recording a shot. Sadly this was completely out of control and unavoidable. Although they could attempt to time their shots so as soon as the traffic had passed they could begin filming and try to minimise the amount of time spent recording, thus minimising the possibility of cars passing by during a take. The final problem the rest of the group told me they came across was interuptions from members of the public being concerned for Sophie. Seeing her chasing after the car in a dress and high heels can understandably attract attention, but i believe this was infact a good thing as it means that our film looked realistic to the general public. Apart from this they informed me that there were no other problems and many of the shots they did were done in one take.

Construction Phase 2.

Wednesday 9th March 2011.

Present: Myself, Matty, Josh, Holly.

Today we used our two hours of lesson time to film the internals shots that are featured at the beginning of our film. The set up for the fore-mentioned internal shots are Sophie standing against a black curtain.
For this we had intended to use the schools drama studio but due to some administrative errors we had to relocate to another location. This posed a few problems as there is only one other set with a black curtain that we are able to access, the schools theatre. This change meant we had to alter our original lighting plan to fit on the stage. While we were altering the lights and setting up the camera equipment on the stage we were struck by a thunderbolt moment. We changed our original idea of having her standing in some unknown area against the black curtain and decided that Sophie would be performing on stage in front of an empty auditorium, showing her madness by making her scream at the end of the shot. This in turn made us think of an intresting graphic match we could encorperate into our film to take us from the stage, to the action packed night scene. Apart from this we came across a couple of problems with the tracking dolly. This came in the form of trying to match the speed at which the curtains opened to the speed at which the tracking dolly would track backwards. After a number of re-takes we managed to get it right and as well as this, possibly made it better. Holly and Matty shook the tracking dolly as it tracked back to add effect to Sophie's scream. We did this to show how powerful the scream was and to shake the audience in their seats so they really feel this power.

Construction Phase 1.

Sunday 6th March 2011.

Present: Myself, Matty, Josh, Holly.

Today we git together ar Matty's House to film the indoor shots for our film. These shots revolved around Sophie our actress, waking from her "bed" and moving into the bathroom to then discover her injuries. We began at around 12 and filmed all the way through to 4:30. This may sound like a very long period of time spent on shooting our indoor shots but by spending this much time on them we have guranteed ourselves the best quality shots for our film.
We stuck to the story board exactly making no change to the shot order, or the shots themselves. Overall today we encountered quite a few problems while filming. We had to retake a number of the bathroom shots as we found it extremely hard to fit ourselves, the camera, and the actress into the bathroom to film. To fix this problem of space, half of the group left the room while we were recording and those inside would film from the comfort of Matty's bath tub. As well as this the space restrictions made it incredibly hard for us to make a successful pan from the door to the mirror. And to make this an even harder shot we also needed the door to be part open to avoid making a continuity Error. We solved these problems by reshooting each shot a few times and deciding on a group which would fit best.
Overall today went very well and i am happy with the decisions we made and the shots we filmed.

Preparation for Shooting.

Before we can commence with Filming we need to compile a list of all the equipment we will need on set.
Below is a list of said equipment along with a list of who will being doing what primarily while shooting.



First of we have what all film makers need, A Camera. We felt it would be best to use a HD Camera, provided by Josh, to record our film for a couple of reasons. These being; instead of the film being recorded to a tape, it is recorded to a memory unit. This makes things easier for us as we dont need to worry about losing the tape or forgetting it. Secondly, because a scene in our film is set at night we came to the conclusion that to best capture the footage for this scene we would benefit from recording it using a HD Camera.


As well as a Camera we will also need a Tripod to aid us in filming any panned or tilted shots in our film. We decided it would be best to book one from School rather than purchase our own. We picked the one with the smoothest movement so that we do not accidently jolt the camera on a pan, or get any shakey cam.


The next item is very simple, This Tripod Adapter will enable us to attach the Camera to the tripod with ease.



Lastly we have the Tracking Dolly and Tracks. These will help us make effective and good looking tracking shots and possibly when panning.

That covers all of our equipment for shooting our film. Next step is to decide who will cover each area while the group is on set a ready for a take. To do this we decided to look at our strengths and weaknesses.

Matty: Primarily Directing but also assitance in Sound.
Josh: Primarily Editor, Responsible for Scripts.
Holly: Camera person, Sound and Costume.
Me: Continuity, Sound and Props.

Our Shooting Schedule.

We created a schedule for filming and production of our film. This document also included a list of the actors/actresses and potential problems which may arise later on in production. We put this information there so that we never forget the possibility of an error and in turn prevent or fix said errors should they occur. To sumerise what is actually on this list we have; a list of all the shots required for the film, where and when we shall be filming said shots and lastly any props that are present in the shots.

(Technical difficulties in embedding the Schedule.)

Our Costume/Make-Up Research.

This still of the Th13teen Trailer shows exactly what we would like to recreate for the first few shots of our main character. The use of a white dress to show innocence while her body shows a very different story, being battered a bruised as if she has been in a rough fight and is now scared about what has happened to her. As well as the use of a white dress we also decided to use a red dress for her in the car-chase scene. The use of the colour red on a character could signify a number of things, such as; Love, Revenge or Blood being spilled.





In our film we needed the actress playing the protagonist to appear battered and bruised. The best was to get this effect is by applying make-up to give the appearance of bruises, cuts and a black eye. Holly came across a few videos posted on YouTube which provided adequate demonstration on how to apply make-up to show bruises and such. She took these tutorials and then tried out the techniques on herself to show us. Below is a copy of said test and i think it can be agreed upon with all that look at the picture that it is really realistic and when applied to our actress will suit the story brilliantly.



Below are the two video tutorials used by Holly to produce this:

More Location Research. (Bedroom Interior).

For our film we required a typical teenage girls bedroom, in order to make our set fit this convention we researched images of the stereotypical teenage bedroom and put them together to create the key frame below.



As you can see in each and every one of these images the rooms are all unique, full to the brim with clutter, posters sprawled across each wall, desks with computers and television sets. These images have now set the bar for what our bedroom set will look like.

Our Prop List.

To make things easier when gathering the props for our piece we compiled a list of all the props we are using throughout the piece. Though there may not be many here they are:

MOBILE PHONE

• A mobile phone, most likely an iPhone or HTC HD7
• Used by the GIRL during the second half of our film, in shots 19-32

SHOES

• A pair of high-heeled shoes worn and then removed by the GIRL
• Removed in Shot 12 and carried until Shot 14 (when she gets in the car)

CAR

• A car (Ford KA in silver-green) driven by RYAN
• The car will be driven from Shot 15

KNIFE

• A knife removed from a knife block
• The GIRL will remove the knife from the block during Shot 6

These props will fall under costume as well as misc-en-scene depending on which shot they are shown in. In order for it to be a prop it needs to be interacted with by the character so some of these items may or may not be considered props by some people, never the less it is best that all the items are noted down for future referance.

The CAM RAW Production Team.

While on the Location Research outing we made photos to put to the names involved in the infamous CAM RAW Productions.

Here we are:

Video Test Shots/Location Research.

After discussing some of the shots and camera angles we will be using it was decided that it would be best if we tested said shots in our free time. So on a very cold sunday afternoon we met up on our intended location to see if the shots will work. Though the shots worked on paper could it be possible for them to work in real life? If not we would be a great disadvantage being so far into our concept. We would need to rework the entire piece and possible change our whole film idea.

Below are the results of our external location research.



This first video explores the idea that we had of a shot being filmed from the rear window of the car. In this test i was the subject running behind the car while Holly filmed through the window. After looking back at the recording we agreed this worked very well as i remained pretty much in the center of shot as it tracked my movements.



This second clip is taken from when we explored the mirrored shot. We wanted to include a match-on-action shot of our main character running along side the car from the view of the mirror. In this test we see Matt being the subject, running up to the car to see if the shot would work.



In this final test we see Josh running with the car trying to catch up to it while being filmed by Holly again from the side mirror. We decided this had to be tested as it would be difficult to film and it could also make or break our final piece. As a result of the test we came a decision that our actress will need to be slightly closer to the vehicle and we will need to keep a constant measure on the speed of the car so that we are not so slow that she can easily catch us or not so fast so she vanishes from shot.

On a side note, We had already decided that for the beginning of our piece we would use the interior of the school's drama studio as it has black curtains which can surround the girl.

I think it can be said we are very happy with what we worked on and the results we got. With these tests now complete we are almost ready to begin filming.

Our Animatic.

This post will be featuring our completed animatic, this has been posted so that we have a referance point when we come to filming and editing the final cut. From this we know exactly where each shot has to go, how long each shot is on screen and also a greater detail on the camera angles.

We have taken the exact images used in the Storyboard but have included a layer of dialogue on top and also added timings so we can see how long each shot takes in our film. This timing is likely to be more accurate as it involves both the storyboard we produced for visual effect and the script for the dialogue. With these two things we can time more accurately how long our film opening will be which will lead us on to what may need to be cut from the final edit.