Task 7- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back at our preliminary task, I can notice a distinct change in sophistication and execution of then and at to how our final thriller turned out. Without a doubt it has been a very fulfilling experience and one that hasn’t come all at once. We have had to have a lot of patients in learning how to do camera work, different type of shots, editing and learning how to use after effects. 

The planning and preparation for our prelim task compared to the planning and preparation of our main task was hugely different. Obviously we weren't given as much direction with our main task as we had with our preliminary task, where we were given a basic storyboard a script and a lot of direction. As a result planning our prelim task only took one lesson, to decide upon the type of shots, and angles we would use. We simply took the basic script and decided on shoot day what we would base our script around—in our case we based it around a rubix cube. However, when planning our main task, we took at least two weeks, planning and preparing a range of different ideas and coming up with different styles of shots, comparing what would look the most effective and transfereing all our ideas onto a storyboard and powerpoints, keeping track of the development process.

When shooting our preliminary task we used more basic camera shots, like point of view shots and over the shoulder shots. However, as we had become more advanced through intensive research and planning we were able to develop our style and use tracking shots, which took a lot more time and accuracy to create and make good.

In regard to shooting location, we were able to be in contorl, deciding upon where would be the most effective place to shoot, making our film look consistant. Whereas, in our prelim task, we were given a location and told to make what we could out of it. By having this sort of control over our main task, we were able to create the image of what we actually wanted. This was also contributed in the mise en scene of the piece, we were able to desing our set, making it a more realistic setting compared to the media suite.



Throughout the filming of the prelim task and the main task we learnt different things. Obviously we were able to use much better equiptment when shooting our main task, and we used much more advanced things, allowing us to extend our knowledge of using the camera, which wasn't accessable to us when filming our preilm task.



When making our prelim task, it was quite straingforward, iin the aspect that the sound and film was craeted all from the same place. As our main task was thematic, and didn't include people, we had to record our voice over and then transfer it into the sequence, then instering music of top of that. Here we encountered a problem as none of us had actually any experience in doing this. However, we quickly found out that it was quite straight forward  and was simple a question of repeating what we had done with our film shots, removing background sounds, but instead, using the sound and removing the image that was connected to it.

It is very clear from watching our piece that we have been hugely dependant of after effect, which also at first glance seemed to be a bit above our level. However, we actually took to it surprisingly quickly and compared to our prelim task, the use of after effects has show a drastic change in ability. With after effects we were able to control things like mood of the piece, evoked thorough colour changes and things like the smoke, which just simply isn't avalible to us in final cut pro, when making our prelim film. We were also able to add different layers like our diary extracts, which enabled us to create depth to our piece which again, is an aspect of the prelim task which isnt possible.

Task 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Task 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Powerpoint task 5

View more presentations from hurtwoodhousemedia5.

Task four - Who would be the audience for your Media product?

When deciding upon an audience for our thriller, we did some research to show us the type of films different age groups, class groups and genders prefer. With our idea of a thematic, artistic sequence, we are well aware that it will not appeal to all types of social group.

 Collectively we decided that the sequence would best appeal to a more educated audience, and also maybe a slightly older more sophisticated one as ultimately our film is about gerascophobia, which is fear of ageing. We though this type of audience would be able to appreciate the artistic and creative look it gives off. We also decided upon this audience group as our sequence is not a conventional opening to a thriller, therefore the film that followed would also represent this idea of an unconventional story.

 We decided against marketing our film towards the younger generation as we thought that there is a lot of film which appeal to this age bracket, so with our sequence we are breaking into a new type of audience--providing something for everyone!

However, even though we had a specific audience type in mind we would not rule out the younger generation completely, as we still feel that there are aspect within the sequence that would appeal to a younger audience, maybe with things like the plot being loosely relatable, based around a young woman who’s life drastically changes, all be it due to a less conventional reason, however, it may be an aspect which could draw a younger audience in. 


 We also though about gender as an issue, researching to find out what different genders would perfer to find in a movie. Generally we recognised that a female audience would be more interested in going to see a ‘chick flick’ or a 'rom-com' in the cinema as opposed to our film, however, being able to comment on this as our group was made up of boys and girls, we came to the decision that actually the film would be marketable to both genders—it is not gender specific. 





We also looked at different cultures within our society to see if it would be marketable to everyone. We can to the agreement, seeing as our group was made up of, one British person, one German, one Swiss and one Indian, we decided that generally most cultures would approve!

As a result of all the different groups in society that we look at we decided that our film would be highly marketable in today’s society, and although it may not be to everyone’s taste, it would certainly draw in various members of our society.
 

Task three - What kind of media institution might distribute your film?

Our film is clearly, to the inexperienced eye as well as the experienced, a quirky unconventional film. Our voice over throughout is British, which implies that our film may be British made, with British money, which also suggests it could be quite a low budget film as Britain is know for producing those films of a more quirky, unique nature.  Therefore we decided that a good distributor for our film product could be a company like Vertigo.

Vertigo, is a British production company which is known for its release of the more quirky, individual movies which require a specific taste, releasing films like ‘Football Factory’. Not a mainstream company.

This is where we decided “Askew” would be best suited in distribution, as we feel that our film isn’t entirely conventional and feel like there is a targeted group that would watch it. With the films artistic influence and different style, we thought Vertigo would be best for us! However, in our title sequence we used Artisan entertainment as our production company as we thought that similarly to Vertigo, it specialises even more so in specific films, with an artistic quality about them, making it as, if not more, appropriate than a company like Vertigo.

Task two - How does your product represent particular social groups?

Being a thematic title sequence, which involved no people, we found it difficult to evaluate what social group ‘Askew’ would represent. However, with further thought into the question, we figured that there must be a possible answer. We looked at the wider picture and considered that the social group that would be represented in our sequence would be young educated women. This is represented through the mise en scene which would be the diary entries and the voice over. Both of these demonstrate, correct use of grammar and spelling, using poetry and philosophical ideas to explain the the meaning behind things, which suggests the idea of education and culture. 

We decided the use of language such as solitude and self fulfilling prophecies are things that the younger uneducated market like teenagers may not understand or appreciate and are more common in young adults in their 20's or 30's, therefore we decided that our sequence best demonstrated this social group in society. We also thought the idea of keeping a diary isn't as common in the younger generation therefore making it more recognisable to the next generation. We also could argue that because of the gradual deterioration or the hand writing and ink staines that appear as the diary entries continue and time passed, that there could be some representation of mentally ill people in society, even though we don't stress this point as much as the previous.          

Task One-In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge form and conventions of real media products?

When initially planning our thriller sequence, we didn't want to conform to the traditional conventions of thrillers. We wanted to develop our own technique and style, which made it individual. However, we realised, like other triller openings, we would have to make things like the titles still very clear and make the sequence, understandable. We also realised to had to conform to the traditional order of the titles.


Having said this, our first title is very conventional in the way that the distribution company is the first title to appear:

However, as you can see from the picture below and above, we created different layers in our sequence, which created a sense of depth, allowing us to be more unconventional in our style, as this is not a common idea in the opening sequences of many films. Our diary entries we all hand written as well, creating a personal feeling which were scaned into the computer, demonstrating a more individual style to our piece. 

 


























The light bulb that we used in this shot also developed a unique looking piece, which carried a message of the film about time changing, from the flickerin effect that it had. Out next title of the production company also followed the conventional form or titles.

The next title that follows the conventions of a title sequence, due to the importance, is the director. Below i have shown how we showed this. Although our title follows conventional forms, we again created layers, and changed the focus making the titles stand out as the main thing on the screan. We also encouporated smoke though the shot, as we didnt want the background image to detract from the main titles. This is also similar with our next title, with the next most important title, the actors.

The next title we embeded after this was the dirctor of photography, who again, is the next conventional important person involved in a film. The picture belows still shows the blurred, disoriantated effect, however after this shot there is a focus pull, which makes the diary extract appear in focus at the same time the voice over is saying it, while the titles go out of focus.

Our next conventional title is the original score. This title shot, even though had no diary extracts, was one of the hardest to make, as the use of after effects is higly advanced. In this shot, we mostly thought about the sound aspect of the clip, creating the right sound effects as the smoke erases the title-even though this can't be seen in the screen shot. This style is more unconventional, as we encouporated something that we had been using from the beginning (the smoke) and used it in a different and interesting way, to move onto the next title.

Our next title, is the screenplay writer. This shot, certainly doesn't uphold traditional conventions. This is because of our choice of shot. The ice cube, is a new and inventive way of evoking our main theme of aging and time passing. With the sped up melting of an ice cube, we were able to create a new and interesting approch to this theme, which achieved the unique style we wanted, without looking amature-ish. It is also clear at this point that we have been working on a colour scheme, changing the colour of each shot, suggesting a change in mood throughout, each colour representing a more disturbing colour as we continued.

This next title is the production design. As you can see we have continued with that same theme of the previous shots with the title, and the blurred diary extracts. By doing this we have been able to bulid up the message and meaning behind the sequence.

The final shot, is of our changing fruit bowl. As you can see we have again changed the colour of the shot, inton black and white, evoking the deteriotation of our main protagonist. Here we have also again drawn in the smoke and the diary extracts, ans as the shot is moving we are further drawing on the idea of insanity, conveyed through a small amout of things, making it an unconventional.

The title however, continues in the conventional theme of the editor being the next most important person.

The next title is the producer.

Once again the diretors name is mentioned at the end to just reinforce the fact that he is the most important person in the making of the film.

Our final shot is our title, following the usual conventions and structure of a normal film opening sequence. However, we have continued using the idea of the smoke, making the title as unclear as possible, while still being legibal.

Post production evaluation of main task

Editing is the most important part of making any film. However, for us the post production is a major part of the process as our sequence was heavily dependent on post production, to achieve the look we were going for.

It took us a lesson or so to get back into the swing of things, however, we found our feet quickly and became very familiar with using final cut pro. I feel that I improved hugely in using final cut pro, and am now quite confident with it, compared to how I was when we did our preliminary task.

After a few lesson of working with final cut pro we ran into a few problems in our editing. We found that our idea of a thematic film sequence wasn’t working as well as we had hoped it would, we encountered problems such as we couldn’t get images like the computer turning into the real mouse to look good enough or how we wanted it to look. We struggled getting the overall impact we wanted for the whole sequence.  We began to feel a little bit apprehensive as to the look of our sequence, as the pieces we have filmed didn’t look as neat as we wanted them to. However, we were reassured that once we started using after effects it would look much neater and sharper, but we just needed a rough outline of how long things were going to last and where the titles would appear and disappear. So we carried on doing our basic editing, figuring out where things would go etc. After a while we came to the realisation that actually what our sequence was missing was a connecting idea or theme to tie all the individual pieces of film together to make it look like one continuous film sequence, So we decided to go back to our original idea of a psychological thriller. We did some research and decided that the thing that would look best would be to collect pictures of brain scans and insert them between each of our frames to relate the sequence to one particular theme.

We continued doing this, and we were all starting to feel more hopeful about the overall look of our piece, however we still felt it was missing something, and that it didn’t feel quite right. So once again we changed our idea and decided that a more effective way of creating our sequence would to be by making it into a diary type sequence. This idea was defiantly the favourite within our group as it allowed us to be very diverse in the style and in the choice of music we used. With time against us we had to be very definite about our decision, as we were all very adamant in the fact we wanted it to look as professional and good quality as we could—you could say we are perfectionists! We researched diary extracts and though about how to write them out, showing the digression in the writing, resembling the digression of the person our sequence would show if it were to be made into an actual film. We decided to add ambient music as a base for our thriller, which we decided help add tension. We put a person talking over the top of all of the sound as well like someone was reading from the diary. This ended out looking very good as in after affect we added in our diary extracts, making them appear throughout the sequence. We also built up the music, adding different components like heartbeats and wind. These different layers created a sense of confusion—a sense of ‘askew’. I think in the end we created a piece that was very much based on layers and levels, which are all very necessary parts of crating a thriller.

Some Pictures of our Shoot Day

This was at the beginning of our shoot day, when we were about to begin shooting. In this photo we are deciding where we wanted our light bulb to be set up in relation to the camera and the wall. 

This is a photo of our set. Even though we didn't need a huge set as our sequence was thematic, we decided to set up a basic living room situation, to give the impression that we were in a realistic living room. 

This photo shows us setting up for one of our shots including the laptop, computer mouse, wine glass and real mouse. It was very important in this shoot to keep the laptop in the same position in each of the shots, and we needed to film each item separately and then with the wine glass. 

This photo is of our most challenging shot of the day, which was the tracking shot around the bowl. Here we are just setting up the dolly, checking that everything is in the correct place after moving the flooring to create a level surface for the tracks. 

This is a photo of our rotten fruit, that we used to show the time change from ripe fruit to rotten. 

In this final photo, it shows us in action, trying to do the tracking shot. For this particular shot we need to all get involved to ensure that the focus pull was correct as we moved around the fruit, to ensure the camera was moving at the same speed the whole way and to ensure that the camera moved in the correct way, creating the illusion that the camera wasn't moving. 

Account of shoot day

On the day of our shoot we had to begin by completing our set, which probably set us back a little while to begin with. However, we found our feet straight away and were very organized in our thoughts of how we wanted each shot to look and what we wanted to shoot when. As our thriller is a thematic title sequence, we didn’t need to have a huge set with a lot of detail, but we decided to create a room, which enabled us to have a background setting which was sufficient in creating a home like feel. We also thought about basic key things that we would find in a living room, like a sofa, TV, coffee table, which, again, would create the image of a living room for the audience.

We decided that our target audience would be adults, who would be able to appreciate the artistic effect of our opening sequence, as it may not be something that children would be able to understand or connect with.  We initially thought we would finish quite quickly as we hadn’t go any cast members to worry about. However, this was a preconception and it actually took a very long time as ours was thematic and required a lot of close ups which took time in planning as we had to make sure the lighting and set was consistent throughout.

As we followed the thematic route, we were able to set up and shoot in the studio. By shooting in the studio we were at an advantage as we were able to control things like the weather and the lights to keep it at the same time of day/night. The studio environment also enabled us to have nice tracking shots, avoiding uneven ground and arising problems. Our background set, we decided to put them as brick walls because we thought that it was a realistic setting for a home living room, as we could decorate the walls, to establish a more homely feel. For our thematic title sequence we used panning shots which demonstrated the idea of askew perspectives. All of our shots were close-up shots of particular things. This was because it worked best for our thematic sequence, allowing us to demonstrate the idea of perspectives clearly to the audience. We followed our storyboard very closely using our original ideas, which worked well. We could have improved our film however, by adding more material ie, more shots, but on reflection of the shots we came to an agreement that we had enough material to create a moving and dramatic opening sequence.

On the day of the shoot we were all very organised but we did have to do a bit of running around, borrowing bits of items for our set, like paintings for the walls etc. just to make it more realistic.  However, by the time shooting had begun we were all silently confident, as we knew all the different shot types we wanted and the disjointed, arty effect that we were going for and the pieces that would be improved in post editing.  

Our sequence was heavily prop based, with things like the fruit going from good to bad, portrayed through a wine bottle. We had many ideas with using contrasting props which allowed us to see the change from good to bad, which is what our sequence is based on. Another prop we discussed using was flowers, showing some living and then some dead. However, we came to the conclusion that showing live and dead flowers would be too complex and time consuming, but we still used the same concept for the fruit which worked well as it showed a good demonstration of the perceptions between good and not so good.  

Prop List

below is the original list of props we needed to collect in order to shoot our initial idea:

• Men’s suit

• Square table with decorative cloth

• Fruit bowl with fruit

• Flower vase with flowers

• A door to be closed

• A decorated wall with, wallpaper and a cheep painting and a small coffee table with lamp

• Tarantula-Pink toed tarantula   (http://www.twobytwoltd.co.uk/pages/inverts.htm)

• Window

Media shot list

Below is a rough idea of our original Shot list:

1)     Blackout with title                

     

2)     Into panel two with man walking in medium/mid shot. Tracking shot, done twice once with good background one with bad background.

3)     Blackout with title

4)     Over the head shot with hands rearranging the fruit, with hands then pulling out. Shot done again, same action but the fruit is rotten

5)     Blackout with title

6)     Straight shot, medium/mid shot of healthy flowers, then same shot done again with dead flowers.

7)     Blackout with title

8)     Medium shot of printed wallpaper with frame of painting and a small table with a lamp. Shot done again with everything messed up

9)     Blackout with titles

10)  Over the shoulder shot with man looking out of a window with a tarantula on his shoulder.

11)  Blackout with title

12)  Extreme close up of an eye with all the previous images flickering into the iris and pupil of the eye.

13)  Blackout with main title.

Call Sheet

Day of Shoot:
Friday 21st January 2011

Location:
Hurtwood House Media Studio

Meeting the crew:
8:55am on set at the studio

Timings:

9:00 am - 3:00pm

(9:00-10:00) Set dress, lighting and prop arrangements

(10:00) Start shoot

(12:30) Lunch

(1:00-2:30) Continue shoot

(2:30) Packup

pre-production planning

Below i have included the storyboards we drew up as a guideline to our thriller. This is designed to help us throughout the day, to have a clear idea of what we need to do, and what type of shots we needed. We tried to stick to our storyboard throughout the day but found that, if we had another idea we would shoot it, regardless if it was on our storyboard or not, and subsequently we didn't do all the shots in our storyboard. 

Planning our film sequence

We started out by researching other opening sequences of other thriller films, and researching pictures to give us inspiration as to what we could use for our own opening sequence. We came up with many different ideas of what we wanted our sequence to look like. In the end we came the decision that we wanted our sequence to be unconventional, so we decided to go down the psychological route. We had many idea of what we could base an opening sequence on like unconventional phobias. This idea seemed very approachable at the time, and we looked up many different types of phobias, which could have been a good idea to base a film around like, time, isolation and people. However, one thing that stood out to up the most was the idea of parallel worlds. We based our opening sequence around one man and his perception on how things appear to be one thing but actually they turn out to be another.  We came up with an idea, which involved one image of the world rising up and then splitting into two to show parallel world.  However, once we started planning our ideas, we realise that the concept would have probably been better than the execution, as after talking to Matt and Luke, it proved to be a lot harder than we initially thought it might have been.

Our new idea is one that is still based on the perception of the world, but mainly focuses around one man, and his inability to see things how everyone else does. It starts with our main character walking down the street and we have an establishing shot of how the world in perceived and then we cut to him with a POV shot in his office and everything around him is tidy and the we quickly cut to another shot of everything untidy and ‘messed up’. We decided that this would be the basic idea for our video and then we went on and created a story behind the opening sequence, to make it make sense. We made the main protagonist a male, with a well paid job and a nice apartment, to show how one can drop within society over something which is uncontrollable. We argued that this way the gradual deterioration we would see throughout the film would be more drastic, creating a bigger impact for the audience.

Planning our film sequence

View more presentations from hurtwoodhousemedia5