Target Audience/ Focus Group Feedback

We did a focus group with 5 individuals between the ages of 15-24 (our target audience) to get their views on our sequence. They were each given a questionnaire with 5 questions.


The first question was structured as follows:

The genre for the sequence you just saw is ‘Thriller’. Did the sequence look like a ‘Thriller’?
Yes No Not Sure


3 people ticked the 'yes' box while one person said 'no' and the other person was not sure.

The responses suggest that most of the respondents thought that the sequence looked like a thriller. Since not every respondent responded 'yes' this tells us that we may have needed to do slightly more to the sequence to perhaps make it look more like a thriller.


The second question was structured as follows:

As someone between the age of 15-24, do you think that the sequence appeals to 15-24 yr olds?
Yes No Not Sure


3 people ticked the 'yes' box while one person said 'no' and the other person was not sure.

Most of the respondents believed that the sequence appealed to 15-24 yr olds. Since not every respondent responded 'yes' it suggests that we may have needed to do more to the sequence to make it appeal more to that age bracket (15-24).



The third question was structured as follows:

What did you think of the storyline?
Obvious Interesting Complicated Boring
Not Sure

2 people thought it was interesting, while 2 people thought that it was complicated. Only one person thought that it was obvious.

Since two people thought that the sequence was interesting and two people thought that the sequence was complicated it says to us as a group that our sequence performed well. This is because we wanted our sequence to be interesting and as a thriller slightly complicated.



The fourth question was as follows:


Did the sequence look professional to you?
Yes No Not Sure

One person ticked 'yes' while three ticked 'no'. Only one person ticked 'not sure'

Since only one respondent responded 'yes' it shows us that we should have done more (in terms of the editing) to the sequence to make it look more professional than it is now.

The fifth question was as follows:


How would you rate the sequence?
1 2 3 4 5

Three people rated the sequence as 3 while one person rated it a 1. Only one person rated it as a 4.


Although the results suggest that the sequence was good overall in the eyes of the target audience, it also tells us that we should have done more to the sequence for a higher overall impression. The reason why we are not entirely pleased with the overall result is that it was mainly a '3' whereas we would have preferred an overall '4'.

Director's Commentary

We have now sorted out the 'log and capture' problems we had with our video camera and the iMac.

Some of the scenes in our commentary have been slowed down because they were too fast for the commentary (audio) so we had to make sure that they were synchronised with the commentary (audio).

Storyboard Animatic

Here is the animatic version of our storyboard.

The Other Opening Sequence Analysis

Another opening sequence we studied (outside class and before the production of our main task) was that of the film Munich (2005, Steven Spielberg).
In the opening sequence of Munich the mise en scene is dominated with a mixture of low lit lighting and the darkness of the night - this combination of light and dark connotes a sense of normality but is perphaps foreshadowing a dramtic event. In the background we can hear non-diegetic drumming as if something is approaching or about to happen - in our sequence we used an altered version of this technique (through the Mystery Man character), instead of the drumming we used loud footsteps to portray the same sense of an impending circumstance (by the Mystery Man in our sequence) portrayed in Munich. The mise en scene also shows us a group of individuals trying to climb over a fence suggesting that they maybe trying to escape from something. After the individuals arrive at outisde their destination a hand-held medium, tracking shot shows the individuals in a hurry to get inside a building. Their urgency is demonstrated by the 'shaking' of the shot/camera as it tracks them. With our sequence we implemented a similar version of the hand-held/'shaking' tracking shot through the shots of the Mystery Man's journey to the interrogation room.
The Munich opening sequence was an important source of inspiration for our own opening sequence as it influenced some of the scenes in our sequence (such as the shots/footsteps of the Mystery Man making his way to/approaching the interrogation room).


















Theatrical Poster for 'Munich'
Trailer - http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2929131801/

Ratings

The rating for our film sequence would be 12A. We are aware of the fact that our target audience is those in the 15-24 age boundary but the reason why we believe the rating for for our film sequence would be a 12A rather than a 15 is because of the content of the sequence.
As of 2009 the BBFC rating system is based on the number of issues shown in the film. There are 9 main issues/categories that the BBFC awards a film a 12A rating on but out of those 9 only 1 issue is present in our opening sequence (which is 'Violence').
For a 12A rating the BBFC states that:

"Moderate violence is allowed but should not dwell on
detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood,
but occasional gory moments may be permitted if
justified by the context.
Sexual violence may only be implied or briefly and
discreetly indicated, and must have a strong contextual
justification."

The violence in our film sequence is moderate as there are no violent scenes which are dewelled on for too long nor is there any emphasis on blood though there is some emphasis on the victim-character's unspecified-injuries.
Even though we believe that our sequence should be awarded a 12A certificate we also believe that we have the correct target audience (15-24). The reason for our belief in the target audience of 15-24 is based on the context and narrative(s) of our sequence. Our film sequence has multiple narratives which interchange between each other quite quickly meaning that it can be to some extent difficult to keep up with the narratives and decipher the events as they happen. We feel that younger children may be faced with this problem as younger children are not as cognitively developed as adults/adolescents (15-24) in terms of being able to handle fairly complicated narratives.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt from the progression from it to the full task?

What have you learnt about technologies from constructing this product?

For us, operating the camera was a simple and mainly easy process. Although the camera was easy to operate we did suffer a few problems in terms of how we filmed our footage. During the filming of our footage we didn't observe some of the basic rules of filming. For example, in some of our footage a few members of our group can be heard talking in the background of a scene that's being filmed. We weren't aware of how sensitive the microphone on the camera was and because of the unwanted diegetic dialogue/sounds (from the public, cars, birds and as well as from some of our own group members) there were a couple of moments were we had to disregard some footage (e.g. in one interrogation scene the camera picked up the sound of glass breaking from outside the room we where filming in). Although there were a couple of moments were we had to disregard some footage which was ruined by background noises there were some other moments where we able to get rid of those unwanted sounds. Getting rid of those sounds was due to Final Cut Pro's ability to be able to intricately edit the diegetic and non-diegetic sounds of a scene. For example, in one scene where the Mystery Man was walking, the cameraman could be heard saying "Slow down, you're walking too fast" and then during the editing sessions we were able to use the 'Pen' tool to mute the dialogue completely and then use the Pen tool again to increase the sound level of the non-diegetic footsteps that we had added by importing them from Garageband.
With Final Cut Pro we were also able to figure out how to use other tools, most of which we were able to find and operate easily due to what the icons for those tools depicted. For example, with the 'Bladetool' it was easy to figure out that it's use was for cutting video and audio footage whereas the tool - 'Snapper' (which was represented by a bold right-facing arrow) took more time to understand what it's use was (we eventually found out that it can used to get rid of small gaps between video footage in the Timeline). Final Cut Pro made the editing process of our sequence a fairly pleasant experience as it was easy to use (after getting used to it) and if there was something we didn't know how to do there was plenty of online tutorials for us to read/watch.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The dictionary defines the term 'thriller' as "an exciting, suspenseful play or story, esp. a mystery story" and during the production of our thriller influenced opening sequence we made sure that we kept to that definition by using a number of techniques with the aid of the equipment and editing capabilities available. One example of this technique was how we deliberately withheld the facial identity of the character in the suit (known to our group as the 'Mystery Man'). We purposely withheld the Mystery Man's facial identity throughout the whole sequence by using the camera and the objects around us. With the camera we filmed parts (such as his shoes - [we used a high angle shot for this] and chest) of the Mystery Man's body but we were careful to reveal his face. Using this technique allowed us to introduce the character to the sequence but it also allowed us not to show his full identity which meant that we kept in line with the definition of the thriller genre as it was suspenseful and exciting since the audience would be trying to figure out as to who that character was. Also, the Mystery Man appears in the first 1o seconds of the sequence beginning, meaning that the character's secrecy would attract the audience's attention. Another thing we did to develop the character's secrecy was to add footsteps as he made his way to the interrogation room. As the Mystery Man was advancing (we presented his journey through a series of short clips as there was more than one narrative - this was parallel editing) to the interrogation room, we added dramatic, loud and urgent non-diegetic footsteps to show that he was in a hurry to get to the interrogation room - this would have made the audience question his urgency thus stimulating their curiosity.

Through our editing we were able to deliver the conventions of the thriller genre by using an effect called 'blur'. Blur is an effect that causes scenes to become blurred. With blur we used it to blur out two pivotal scenes of our sequence. In the first scene (which was a point of view shot) blur was used to convey the character's disorientated feelings and as well as to disguise the character's location (to add a sense of mystery). However, in the second scene (a two shot) we used blur for the sole purpose of concealing the identities and actions of the two characters. The mise en scene created by the effect of blur was needed for our sequence because in order to keep in line with the conventions of the thriller genre we had to develop a few layers of mystery throughout to keep provoking and increasing the audience's interest.

As mentioned before we used parallel editing in the sequence. The main reason we introduced more than one narrative to our sequence was so that the audience wouldn't express discontent towards to the sequence. If we had not used parallel editing (e.g. in the sequence there's more than one narrative occurring) then it's likely that our audience would have lost interest due to the lack of narrative action i.e. having just one story would have made the sequence stale. The way we implemented parallel editing was through: the scenes in the interrogation room, the suspicious-looking character waiting by the woodlands, flashbacks/references to the victim-character's situation and the Mystery Man making his way to the interrogation room. The use of parallel editing was how we addressed our target audience of 15-25 yr olds (15-25 yr olds like complicated/active narratives and are able to keep up with them whereas older and younger audiences may have trouble keeping up with the events in the sequence).

Who would be the audience for your media project?

This poster of Bullet Boy features actors who are black while one of them is seen holding a gun which illustrates the niche elements of the film's target audience of teenage black males.

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

The kind of media institution which would distribute our product is likely to be a British institution such as Metrodome Distribution. The reason why we believe a British institution rather than the distribution arm of Transnational Corporation (such as NBC Universal) is most likely to pick our product is influenced by 2 factors. The first factor is that our product has been independently produced by a small British production company. Global distribution companies such as Warner Bros. tend to stay away from independent British productions because if they are to invest money into the distribution of a British film then it's unlikely that they may not be able to get a full return on their investment (or it may not be financially worthwhile) due to the overwhelming popularity of Hollywood blockbusters (they are able to get bigger revenues from the global distribution/release of Hollywood films compared to the revenues of limited distribution/release of most British films).

Metrodome Distribution is a British distribution company that might be interested in picking up our product and distributing it. We chose Metrodome Distribution because it is a distribution company that is willing to distribute British productions (it also distributes foreign language films into the UK). For example, Metrodome Distribution has distributed a number of British productions (with the same genre as our media product) such as The Last Seven (featuring Danny Dyer) and Fifty Dead Men Walking (featuring Ben Kingsley). After researching Metrodome Distribution we felt that it might be one of the few British distribution institutions that might offer to distribute our product. We think Metrodome Distribution would offer to do so because it's one of the few media institutions that is able and willing to distribute independent British productions seeing as it has done so in the past e.g. they released the film Shifty featuring Nitin Ganatra.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LsDPRfDROk - Film trailer for 'The Last Seven'

A poster for 'The Last Seven' from the official website of the film

Screen Grabs Analysis

THAT WEDNESDAY















We used an over the shoulder shot for this scene, this is to show the interaction between the interrogator and the character, you can see the facial expression the character gives to the interrogator.
















Straight flash back :it is a previous video of an unknown individual standing beside the unknown female victim while she‘s laying on the ground.
There is a blur effect applied to this scene, this is the idea of hidden identity, this is to give it a dramatic feeling and it adds a direct interaction from the audience to the scene.




















This scene you can see the interrogator is angry of the character denying anything to do with the whole situation. An overhead shot and an eye line match has been used in this scene, this is from the third character who is experiencing the interrogation of this character.

















As the scene goes on a clip is show with a shot including the character (anatagonist/protagonist) and the victim, this raises doubts, whether the character is lying or trying to protect someone else who knows about the crime. The frame shot that includes mise-en-scene of the black fence and the character on the right suggests the danger that is closing in on the victim- character.


















As the scenario goes on the character makes an approach to attack the interrogator, we can now see he is starting to take the situation serious as of that moment he notices there is a lot of consequences. The framing shot distinguishes him from the other character as he can see his anger through his actions.

This medium shot of this character raises questions of who he is and why has he been placed the scenario, could the character be lying for him? If not then there must be a link between him and the characters.

This character keeps appearing in the sequence, this is to make people wonder why he keeps interrupting the sequence, and the close-up shot of the feet has hidden his identity, another element to make the audience doubt the characters.

This scene also has the same emotion of frustration, the only difference is the type of shot use to express it which is a medium shot. The character put his hands on his face to show his frustration.

In this scene there is a character waiting at the door, this scene is done with a framing shot with an eye line match of the other characters looking at the door.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our sequence made representations of certain social groups through ethnicity and gender. One of the most evident representations in the sequence is how black people are mainly portrayed in unfortunate circumstances. For example, our main character (Carter) is a black male who is shown as a thug and an individual who is linked to trouble. The is representative of real life because the media sometimes represents black males (particularly teenagers) as troublemakers and we have portrayed this element of social realism in our sequence as Carter is seen as a troublemaker. In the sequence the only person who displays the most dominance is a white male - the interrogator (an authoritative figure who is tall and has a deep voice). We felt that it was appropriate to portray a white male character with power because in society the majority of those with dominant roles are usually white while the majority of ethnic minorities have less dominant roles. Although, it's true that the most dominant character is white, there is another character who is an ethnic minority and displays some form of dominance - this character is the individual who restraints Carter as he lashes out at the interrogator. This individual displays his form of dominance through his ability (e.g. he is able to push Carter straight back down to his seat with relative ease) to prevent Carter attacking the interrogator.



As for the gender aspect of the representation we decided to use the female gender. Our reason for this decision was that it was stereotypically easier to do so. In society females are often seen as weak and inferior to men. We portrayed this element of society through the victim character of our sequence. This character is shown as battered and almost lifeless. Although the audience is never able to get a good look at her, her weakness and injuries are shown through her actions. For example, we see her staggering and we also see her reaching out her hand for help.

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

The genre for our film sequence was the Thriller genre. When it comes to comparing our work to other films of this genre, in terms of....

Camerawork: Our sequence utilises close ups on the characters in tense situations to portray the emotion(s) of those character(s). For example, in the sequence there's a particular close up on a character who is agitated - this was done to emphasise the individual's anger and anxiety on the situation they had found themselves in. We were right in doing this because the conventions of the thriller genre includes putting an emphasis on certain characters or items (e.g. an inset shot of a murder weapon).

Sound: As for the sound (unlike 'The Usual Suspects') we decided to use a slightly overwhelming mix of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. One example of the diegetic sounds we used was the dialogue. We thought that the dialogue was needed because in certain scenes (e.g. the character being interrogated shouts at the interrogator) we wanted to bring out vocal emotion such as in the previously mentioned scene. An example of a non-diegetic sound we used was the 'footsteps' effect when the mystery man was walking. The reason for this was that we were not able to produce the sound of footsteps during the actual filming so we had to use a sound effect (from Garageband).

Mise En Scene: For our mise en scene, a third of it was dominated by the interrogation scenes and in those interrogation scenes we used a small room with one chair and a table. This was because a typical interrogation is usually a small room with minimal furniture (as in 'The Usual Suspects') - to emphasise the 'on-their-own' element of the individual being interrogated. So we decided to use a small room to portray this element in our own sequence. In the sequence there was also some scenes where woodland was featured. The intention for this was because woodlands often have connotations of mystery and an aspect of danger and this was appropriate for our sequence as those connotations are linked to the thriller genre.

Editing: In some of the thriller genre films we researched (such as 'Munich') they used some effects such as 'slow motion' on some of their scenes. In our sequence we used the same effect on certain scenes. For example, there was one scene in which a character was approaching an injured victim, the slow motion effect we used on this scene made the actions in the scene seem more dramatic daunting as the audience isn't sure of what the approaching character is going to do to the victim. It also gave the approaching character power. In this scene we also added another effect - blur. The reason for this effect was to convey mystery and deliberately withhold information. The withdrawal of this information was to tease the audience and draw in their attention further.

Structure: For the structure, our sequence mainly had a linear plot. During the planning stage of the sequence we considered the idea of making the plot non-linear instead of a linear plot. In the end we disregarded this idea because our plot was becoming too complicated for us to make sense of so we made the plot linear.

Production Name and Logo

For our film sequence we decided to make our own fictional production company and a logo for it. The reason for this decision was that we wanted to be original rather than use another existing company's logo and name in our sequence. The name for our fictional production company is 'A GERC Productions'. The 'GERC' part of the name is a mnemonic for: Gabriel, Eugene, Rita and Constantine - the people in our group.

We decided to make our own logo for our fictional film production company. At first the logo was going to be stationery but we then decided to give it a kinetic element to make it seem more professional and frankly because it looked better. The logo was then introduced to the film sequence at the beginning along with the film credits.

Below is the stationary image of the logo. We would have uploaded the final result of the logo (the one with movement) but the blog isn't capable of showing the image due to format issues.

Final Edit

On 30/4/10 we had our final editing session. In this session we mainly focused on the audio because when we added the extra footage on 29/04/10 we had to re-adjust the existing scenes in our film sequence to make space for the extra footage/scenes so this meant that the sounds connected to the existing scenes was displaced and therefore synchronisation was lost. One of the ways we adjusted the audio was by getting rid of all the custom made soundtrack and adding it again. We then adjusted it according to the new sequence e.g. we reduced the sound level when one of the characters was having a flashback. Another way we adjusted the audio was by tracking the out of sync sounds and re-connecting them with their original clips. The last thing we did for the editing was to add non-diegetic sound effects (such as the wind howling) to certain scenes.

The Day Before The Deadline

On 29/04/10 we incorporated our extra footage into our current film sequence to increase the running time of the sequence. The extra footage was taken by Constantine during the Easter holidays as he anticipated that the current footage we had might not be enough - he was right. The footage we added was about an individual who is connected to Carter (main character) and it showed the individual clearly agitated and waiting for something. We added the footage at certain intervals of the current sequence e.g. every time after the mystery man appeared.
During the addition of the footage we did a number of editorial things to the footage such as taking off unwanted parts using the razor blade tool and we were also careful to make sure that the extra footage was in chronological order and that the scenes of the footage complimented each other e.g. when there was a close up shot of the new character turning around to look at something we made sure that the next shot would be a point of view shot of what the character was looking at. This editing session took us until 17:45.

The Editing Still Continues

After Tuesday's lesson, most of the editing was finally done. All we had left to do where the final touches to the footage so it would sync perfectly with the music.
Since we added non-diegetic sounds like 'foot steps', 'door knocks' and as well as a soundtrack to the sequence, we had to find a tool that reduced the sound level of the soundtrack and sound effects so it wouldn't overwhelm the diegetic sounds such as the dialogue or the tables being moved. The sound perspective/'Pen' tool was easy to use and clearly understandable. We used it to make the soundtrack decrease gently when the other sounds began and then increase when they stopped. This technique made the video sound and look more exciting and professional.
We also had to increase the length of the sequence so we used some more clips from our old sequence (although we had to adjust them accordingly), to increase the tension of who the antagonist really was. One of the scenes we used was when Rita was laying on the floor looking bloody and unconscious, we thought that this could make our sequence look more unexpected and cause questions to be asked by the audience.
During the second part of the lesson we went through the video to make sure we hadn't made any major mistakes in the sequence e.g. mistakes such as accidental blank parts in the Timeline.
We were also careful not to add certain scenes because during the filming of the footage we filmed too much, which would have allowed the audience to figure out the main narrative of the sequence had we added those scenes to the sequence.

The Editing Continues

On 13/04/10, we carried on with our editing seeing as that we didn't finish it last time. In today's lesson we got rid of the unwanted sounds/dialogue that we failed to spot last time. We also added some additional changes to our soundtrack i.e. we got rid of the chiming bells. Another thing we did was adding non-diegetic sound effects such as footsteps and door knocks and just before the lesson ended we were able to add the custom soundtrack to sequence (after learning how to deal with the conversion issues such as changing file formats from 'mp3' to 'AIFF'). All in all it was a good day today. In the next lesson we need to adjust the soundtrack to make it synchronise more tightly with the sequence and we might also change the sequence slightly i.e. changing the chronological order of certain scenes and aspects.

This is a screenshot of our custom soundtrack during the construction of it, using Garageband.

Editing Begins

On 26/03/10, we began editing our footage. During the editing we constrcuted almost all of the opening sequence - we placed the footage into chronological order, added transitions (like fade in), effects (such as fast-forward) and we also removed the excess sounds like unwanted dialogue. We also 'messed about' with Final Cut Pro just to get more familiar with the software seeing as it was a new experience and encounter for most of us in the group (we were more familiar with iMovie). In the next lesson we're going to have to 'shape/sharpen up' the sequence i.e. making sure that it is more fluid. We are also going to have to add the soundtrack and non-diegetic sound effects such as foot steps.

Filming Begins... Again

On 19/03/10, we began filming our new idea 'Carter'. During the lesson we filmed the scene when the mystery character makes his way to the interrogation room. After the filming of that sequence we uploaded the footage onto the Macs but after reviewing it we realised that we had made some mistakes (e.g. there was quite a lot of wasted spaces), so we did the sequence again.
For the sequence Constantine had to come in with black trousers and a pair of black shoes. The use of those props/clothing had connotations of a mysterious, shady and powerful figure. As our sequence was influenced by the Thriller genre these connotations were essential for us to use because those connotations are key to the conventions of the/a Thriller genre.

After College we went to our filming location (B137). The room was small, simple and there was hardly any big furniture (apart from chairs and a small table which could all be easily moved). Due to the room's appropriate features we thought that it was adequate for use as an interrogation room. When we had finished rearranging the room we began filming for our other sequence - the interrogation scene.
Due to unforeseen circumstances one member of our group couldn't make the after school filming session, this meant that we didn't have someone to operate the camera. Fortunately Eugene's friend (Connor) was able to help us out and we managed to get the filming for our scene completed.

This is what our filming location looked like before we rearranged it to make it more suitable for filming.

This is what our filming location looked like after we had rearranged the furniture.

New Production Treatment

Programme: Wednesday

Duration: 2 minutes

Audience: The opening sequence will not contain any elements of physical violence. The main target audience will be teenagers to young adults/adolescents (15-24 yrs). Those who enjoyed thrillers such as 'The Usual Suspects', the 'Bourne' Series and 'Double Jeopardy' should be able to enjoy 'Wednesday'.

Resume: An individual called Carter is being interrogated for a certain incident (which is never specifically explained or identified). While Carter is being interrogated a mystery man is slowly making his way to the interrogation room and when the mystery man arrives at the room he opens the door. Carter and especially the interrogators are surprised to see him. The mystery man's face or identity is never revealed.

Suggested Elements:
- Use of shadows and low lit locations to implement the generic conventions of a thriller genre
- Use of short shots to emphasise tension
- Use of thriller genre props e.g. black suits, black shoes.
- Use of thriller genre characters e.g. a mysterious male who is never identified

Filming Locations: B137

Recording Days: 19/03/10.

New Idea

On 12/03/10, we finally came up with a new idea but we decided to keep the genre as a Thriller meaning that we'll still use the production research for our earlier seeing as it is compatible (we just have to adjust it accordingly). Our new opening involves an individual being interrogated for a certain incident and while he is being interrogated a mystery man slowly walks up to the room the individual is being interrogated in and when the mystery man opens the door everyone (including the interrogators) are shocked to see the mystery man but the mystery man's face is never revealed in the whole sequence. I know this may not sound interesting in written form but it will look better when the filming has finished.
We started the storyboard today but we weren't able to finish it, we'll finish it in the next lesson.

Wake Up Call

On 9/03/10 we were meant to carry on our filming but two of our group members never showed up so in the end we never did the filming. However, their absence may have been a good thing. On that day we were shown 'A grade' examples of movie openings. When we saw how good the examples were compared to our own movie opening we realised that our opening sequence needed improving or a complete reboot. We referred this to experience as a wake up call.

After deciding to alter our opening sequence we struggled to come up with ideas to use in the new opening sequence. By the time the lesson had finished we still hadn't come up with any new ideas.

Beginning of Filming

On 05/03/10 we began filming our film sequence. It was a cold day especially for Rita as she was wearing clothes that weren't suitable for cold weather as part of her role in the sequence. We also placed fake blood on Rita's face and clothes to make it look like she really had been attacked. When we were filming we experienced a few issues such as interuptions from the public (locals of the area) as they sometimes walked through our scenes, there was also unwanted background noises such as children playing (from a near by primary school). Despite some of the difficulties we faced, we managed to get a significant amount of the filming. The reason we didn't finish all of the filming was because it got too cold and Rita (who has a big role in the sequence) could not cope with it so we had to postphone it for Tuesday (09/03/10).

This is the prop (fake blood) that we used for our sequence filming. We got it from a small costume shop in Manchester.

Pilot Study and Location Photos

Today (2/03/10) we took pictures of the location we're going to film from. The reason for this was that we needed to see if our ideas would suit the location (e.g the practicality of making sure the area was secluded). In a way this was a pilot study as we were making sure that everything would go to plan before the actual filming of our main project. The pilot study we did today helped us improve the quality (e.g. when we get to the location for filming we'll be aware of what the location is actually like and where certain aspects of the location are) of our pre-production planning and it also assured us that everything we planned to (i.e. from the story board) was plausible in our location. Due to the fact that we got to know our location today, we won't be wasting any filming time getting accustomed to the area on our filming day (Friday 5/03/10).

Although everything went well today, it was difficult to carry out. For example, in the beginning there was a missing member from our group so we had to wait for them to show up and then when we finally got to the location there were a few moments of light friction between some members of the group. All the disagreements that were experienced were fairly minor (most lasted for two minutes) and dealt with quickly.

Location Photos

The Usual Suspects Opening Sequence Analysis

The Usual Suspects

The film first starts off with a tracking shot on a dark river with dark orchestral music which connotes a mysterious emotion, which is a generic feature of a Thriller type film. The overwhelming amount of darkness and obvious absence of light further emphasises the mysterious element of the film.

The first person we see in the film is sitting down on the floor and after lighting his cigarette he then lights what appears to be a line of oil or petrol. The fact that this is done in near darkness and that the man appears to try to kill himself by burning his surroundings with him still present beggars the question why the man is doing. Because the audience is unaware of the man’s reason for his action the element of mysterious is brought up, thus the sequence displays a generic feature of a Thriller genre.

The main source of mystery in the sequence is the identity of the gunman. In the sequence we are only shown shots (such as a close up of his feet) of the man’s body apart from his face. As the gunman makes his way to the other man we see matched cuts of him all which refuse to show his face. For most of the sequence we see the gunman in high low angle shots which portrays his power and dominant status in the sequence. The restriction of the man’s identity creates further suspicion and suspense as well as secrecy which are common features of the Thriller genre. Also the fact that the man is violent (shown by how he urinates on a corpse and shoots the other man) draws in the audience’s attention as this is a typical feature of the Thriller genre.


















A few of members of the cast:
Gabriel Byrne as Dean Keaton
Kevin Spacey as Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint/Keyser Soze
Chazz Palminteri as U.S. Customs Special Agent Dave Kujan
Stephen Baldwin as Michael McManus

Trailer - http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2717188377/

Inspiration

We got the idea for doing a thriller based opening sequence after watching the opening sequence for a thirller movie called 'The Usual Suspects'. We decided that a thriller genre would be best for us because the city we live in (Manchester), would give us the best tools for implementing the traditional conventions of a thriller genre into our own thriller aspiring opening sequence. Conventions are the features that are usually present in genres. For example, a romcom genre would have lighting ( usually from the Sun), bright colours and a town based location (like Times Square in New York). For our opening sequence we are going to use the conventions of a thriller such as: low key lighting, use of shadows, a mysterious individual and violence.

This alley way is typical of a location that might be used in a Thriller film. This is shown by the dominance of the shadows, somewhat low lit lighting and poor/'shady' conditions in the image.

Loose Ends - Story Board

Today, we finished the loose ends of what we had done on Tuesday.

For example, we finished the last few shots of our story board and added some more detail.

We also decided on the location for our filming.

Production Treatment

Programme: 'The Job'

Duration: 2 minutes

Audience: The opening sequence will not contain any elements of physical violence. The main target audience will be teenagers to young adults (15-30 yrs). Those who enjoyed thrillers such as 'The Usual Suspects', the 'Bourne' Series and 'Double Jeopardy' should be able to enjoy 'The Package'.

Resume: A girl appears weak, battered, bloodied and is weakily staggering. She's dazed and confused about where she is. A few metres away from her, a man is observing her, waiting for her to faint. The girl finally collapses because of her injuries and the observant man approaches her. The man makes a call on his phone and tells the person on the other end of it that the girl has collapsed. A low angle shot of another man (the other person on the other end of the phone) appears and we hear him telling the other man to do the job 'properly'.

Suggested Elements:
- Use of shadows and low lit locations to implement the generic conventions of a thriller genre
- Use of short shots to emphasise tension
- Use of thriller genre props e.g. black suits, black gloves.
- Use of thriller genre characters e.g. a mysterious male with a deep voice

Filming Locations: To be announced/confirmed.

Recording Days: To be announced.

Constantine

Main Task Early Development

Today we started planning the story for our main task. There were a few small disagreements about the storyline but these disagreements were quickly sorted out. Another difficulty we had was developing the storyline, we were sure about the main narrative of the story but we weren't sure about the other small narrative parts of the story. After 10 minutes of discussion, we came up with the other narratives for the story. On the storyboard we added 5 possible shots for the main task. We have yet to come up with a name for the project.

We also uploaded the preliminary task video to the blog (which is in a seperate post).

Lost and Found (Video)

Here's the video upload for our preliminary task (Lost and Found):

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation

On Friday we did our 'Foundation Portfolio Evaluation':


On the first day of filming the preliminary task we learnt how to operate the camera. The number of things we learnt when it came to operating the camera where: how to insert the mini DV into the camera (as well as ejecting it), how to attach it to the tripod and how to use the camera controls (like fast forward and rewind). During the filming we became aware of the fact that the camera was prone to static so we had to be careful about how we filmed scenes. Another thing we learnt was that when it came to filming, we had to make sure that the camera microphone didn’t pick up any sounds which weren’t relevant to our scene(s).

The editing software we used was 'Final Cut Pro'. With Final Cut Pro we learnt how to upload the recorded footage from the camera to the editing software. We also learnt how to do a number of things (such as trimming excess scene footage, marking in and out, adding transitions and as well as adding [sub]titles) on the uploaded footage.
We learnt that when it came to using the camera we had to make sure that the camera microphone didn’t pick up any sounds which weren’t relevant to our scene(s).

For the filming aspect of our project we experienced a few problems. One of the problems we faced was the camera picking up extra sounds. When we first started filming we weren’t aware that the camera was picking up static sound or the extraction fan in the background. We only realised this when we went through our footage. Because of this we had to re-take some of the scenes. Another filming problem we faced was interruptions. During our filming we had a number of interruptions from passer-bys walking in front of the camera which means that there were a number of times when we had to re-do certain scenes.

In terms of editing we really didn’t face any difficult problems. The only problem we faced was altering the sound. In some of the scenes we were editing, there was some unwanted background dialogue. After getting some help on how to use Final Cut Pro’s audio properties, we were able to get rid of the background dialogue by muting it, making sure it wasn’t noticeable.


For the shot reverse shot combination we had two people facing each other and we then had the camera (on a tripod) positioned between them. Using this technique allowed the cameraman to easily rotate the camera’s direction between the person on the right to the other person on the left, so we were able to do this when it came to the dialogue of the shot reverse shot (by rotating the camera’s direction to the person who was talking and so forth). We then edited out the parts when the camera was rotating to make it look like a more a shot reverse shot.


One of the matched cuts we used was when we had a shot in which one of our actors (Gabriel) opened a door and then the next shot we had was of him coming out of the door on the other side.


When we were doing the shot reverse shot scene, we also implemented the 180 degree rule. This was done by having two actors facing each other and we then had the camera (on a tripod) positioned between them (look at diagram A for example). Using this technique allowed the cameraman to easily rotate the camera’s direction between the person on the right and the other person on the left therefore letting us implement the 180 degree rule.

Diagram A

Lost and Found (main preliminary editing)

We began to edit our preliminary task on friday 29th of january, by this date we had completed the preliminary filming. Eugene had used Final Cut Pro so with his experience we were able to do the editing without any major issues. Capturing the clip onto the final cut pro software was a challenge as the footage had different time codes so the software couldn't pick up the connection clearly.
After successfully capturing the clip the scenes were merged together chronologically to follow the film scenario. We had to do a lot of organising/categorising because as a group we took a lot of filler shots just for back-up safety. We also managed to combine the clips as accordingly after which we then began doing proper editing. One of the editing tools we used was the 'Blade' tool to split up scenes and make them look like matched cuts e.g. when Gabriel opens the door.
The name of our preliminary sequence is Lost and Found.

Preliminary Start

On the 22/01/10 we began to film our preliminary. For the first half of the lesson we were introduced to the filming equipment and how to use it. Afterwards, we then started to plan the storyline for the preliminary. In the second lesson we started to shoot the sequence but we weren't able to get it finished, we just needed to do the shot reverse shot scene.

The story of the prelimnary task was a simple one:

1. Gabriel's NI card falls out of his pocket but is unaware of it.
2. Constantine sees that Gabriel has dropped his National Insurance (NI) card but looks up to see that he's already left.
3. Gabriel is still unaware that he's dropped his NI card.
4.When Gabriel is at the bottom of the stairs he realises that he's lost his NI card.
5. Gabriel retraces his steps and finds Constantine with his NI card.
6. Gabriel thanks Constantine for finding his NI card.
7. The end.

Final Editing...And its Issues

Today we finished editing our video shoots , we muted the background sounds that weren't relevant to the scenario. For example the camera picked up sounds of the camera man giving the cue for the actor to act in the scene, which interrupted the continuity of the edit and sound.This was an issue that was easily sorted. We realised that we could use more close up shots as it was relevant to the element within the scene, for example in the scene where Gabriel dropped the card; we could have used a more close- up shot to catch the detail of the falling object, as a long shot tends to be boring in a scenario that requires more detail of the props used in it.

This list below consist of the type of shots that were used in our preliminary test:

1. Long shot
2. Extreme close-up
3. Shot -reverse -shot
4. High angle shot
5. Low angle shot
6. Two shot
7. Close- up shot
8. Point of view
9. Tracking shot
10. Eyeline match
    
    

Re-Shoot

On 26/01/10 we had to re-shoot the prelimenary task again because of audio problems. When we first did the filming, we were not aware that the camera was also picking up non-relevant background sounds. Due to this issue we decided to re-shoot some scenes where the sound problem was present. The scene we re-shot was the stair scene. We couldn't finish the rest of the filming on that day so we decided to finish it on friday.