Evaluations

WHAT WE LEARNT

PLANNING

EDITING

ACADEMIC AND ANALYTICAL

DVD COMMENTARY

Individual Evaluation

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

Our product is an 21st century take on a film noir. We modernized the characters, setting, plot and twists.

We have the basic characters of the anit hero in Bill as he is a good person but finds himself in troubled situations. We have a femme fatal in Larni's character but toned down the manipulation and underlined evil plot within the femme fatal role.

We used modern day setting of local estates and housing giving it the 21st century look and feel witch our audience could relate

The plot was based on up to date issues and circumstances that people may find themselves in to date.

We tried to take pieces and ideas from other film noirs that we had watched researched and give it our own little twist to update it. Such as the voice over in Double Indemnity. We took our main character and used him to create part of the enigma, 'What is he on about', and to tell his story. We also tryed to adopt the dark and sinister feeling that we saw in Brick, something to give the audience and uneasy feel either through shots or music.

During the openings we saw within these films that they gave a brief outlook on what may have happened. These films also make you connect with the character. With these in mind we tried to create that same feeling and enigma in our audience. We used shots that would make you connect with our characters; close emotional shot of Bill, Happy chirpy shots of Bill walking down the street. the contrast making you feel for the character that somethings gone wrong for him. We also did the same with Larni's character as when she was walking down the street to with the flash back where she was getting beat also making the audience feel for her.

We tried to adopt the classics film noir effect with the venetian blinds although we didn't pull it off very successfully in the opening show we feel it added to the scene. We went with a high contrast of black and white of film noir but we used allot of dark and light effects to show contrasts and moods within those scenes. We had a solid noir plot with falling into a bad situation. ending in a death, where our guy could have gone one way or the other, good or bad, but from which the situation witch he was places made a bad decision. Using a non liner time line gave it the ultimate classic film noir feel and enigma which we also stole from Double Indemnity. We used a bit of iconography with our bad man, Rhys's character. As he Was the bad guy we wanted to project this by giving him the typical black out fit, hooded up. With our femme fatal we toned down the beauty and extravagant clothing so the our audience would connect with her more and feel sympathy for her. And with our main character we dressed him in normal casual clothing that he could be accessible to the audience and too feel that they know him as such a typical character.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our film opening there are typical teenagers males and females. Larni's charater being a typical teenaged girl in a rough relationship. Bill, my character, typical teenage boy falling in love. Rhys's character a bad person, drug dealer. The setting is in a normal urban council estate in Britain. Ideas we in corperated of love between Bill and Larni's character. Hostility between Bill and Rhys character. A disfunctional relation ship between Larni and Rhys. Confusion and stress or what to do in Bills case. Upper class people are not presented with this product where as lower to middle are which is also our target audience.

We create these reps to suite our audience, something that they could relate to. Bill could be a story that they may feel close to as they may known of something similar that has happened. There are a number of issues and problem that crop up in which our target audience may have had experience with. We have done this as we are appealing to our target audience as these are issues and subjects that middle class people and relate to or have had contact with.

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

British based film companies such as Film4 are most likely to distribute our film as it would predominately attract a British audience. We would need to target distributors that deal with low budget films. Because it is a low budget project it would be unlikely to be shown at cinemas such as Odean and Cineworld. Our film would more likely to be shown at smaller independent cinemas such as Ipswich Film Theater at a much lower cost. To attract distributer we would show our product at film festivals that focus of independent British films such as Edinburgh Film Festival. Film competitions could also be away to find investors for grants or sponsorship to get it into local cinemas. With our violence we aim for our product to have a 15 rating from the BBFC to avoid limiting our audience.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The typical audience for our film would be lower to middle class British people aged from 15-late 20's. This is because our product is about this class of people and hope are attracted to this type of film as we found in our earlier research. We have aimed out Film at this age range as the are the main cinema customers. The sort of people to come and see our feature would be people who may live in such conditions within Britain and may connect with the story line or characters such as older teenagers/young adults. Hoping to have an active audience as they would be involved with the enigma and piecing together what's going on, involving in the story line and characters. If our product was given an 18 restriction it would reduce our target audience that we where aiming our product at. We created our film with our previous research in mind of a modern day film noir with a twist. As we would aimed to do this in order to please and our target audience to maximize. The audience we did screen our piece to agreed that we had done what we had set out to do with the enigma and the modern day take on noir. They enjoyed the uneasy feel of the music. The opening shot went down well and with the street scene although it seem that it dragged on at the end. Our audience particularly like our flash back and how they jumped on and off screen. the longer flash back was said to have a good effect and worked effectively. The audience like the idea of our voice over but said we could have thought of better lines to go with and add to the enigma. Every one decided it was pretty good over all and understood the what they where shown and where intrigued and would watch the entire feature film.

How did you attract/address your audience?

To attack our audience we based our product about british culture and typical goings on you may find in certain places within england. Some people may have found them selves in situations that we touch on in our product such as drugs, love, hurting someone or even making decisions. The characters were normal teenagers that found themselves in a sticky situation that anyone could find them selves in, torn between two paths. We did this in order for our audience to relate to them and feel apart of the film as characters could be generalized to typical common people.

We used location that looked like everyday places to a normal person. to connect with the audience we tried to make everything casual and normal as if it was apart of there lives and these things could be happening with them realizing. To connect with the audience we shot close ups to show emotions on there faces to covey the feeling and severity of the situation which Bill had found himself in. To contrast we shot another side of him in the street scene, happy normal teenager. We involved the titels into the editing and shots so the audience could easy digest the footage and text at the same time, and to show who was who acting. We tryed to make pleasure within the audience by getting them questioning 'why is there blood?' 'who's he?' 'why is she getting beat?'.

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

During the research stage we used various equipment such as the internet and films we had watched to see what we had to do and how it has been done before, we found out everything from stylistics to typical characters. We used various internet programs and hosting sites to hold all our information. We used our blogs to keep all of our research on, prezi and power point to make presentations and youtube to embed and copy past or existing videos.

During the planning stage we used face book and our phones to keep in touch and arrange meeting times and schedules. We used scanners and paint shop to produce a stroy board that we planned shots on.

During production we used various editing software such as Final Cut Pro and Motion to create tittles putting our shots together adding music. We also used Logic to record the voice over. We used a Canon HV30 taped recored to record all of our footage with help from lighting.

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

Our preliminary was very basic we have limited knowledge how how to use the camera and the various shots we could shoot. When it came to editing we had a hard time putting it together because of things as continuity and no set script, as the conversation came out different every time. By the time we shot our final product we had exceedingly more knowledge of shots and how to use the camera and were more confident in doing so. We had prepared a story board in which we knew which shots we needed to make the piece to make sense and flow together. We got all the shots that we had planned and carried on shooting, improvising shots. As we learnt its better to have more than not enough. And some of the shots we took that where not planned looked good in certain locations from different vantage point. We took allot more care we continuity to we could use every shot we took. Although there was no dialogue during the shooting we had a script planned out so we knew which shots and where it would over lay. As we had a time limit that everything had to be finished we had strict timings on shooting days and editing that we stuck to in order to get everything done. We used shots angling down to show venerability and close ups to show emotions and time to bond with characters. We used faster and bubblyer feeling shots to show better happyer times to contrast.

rhys tech- embed this in your group evaluation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27YIQ1xKIBM

FINISHED FILM OPENING

Group Evaluation

Typical Audience

Debra MacMillan

Age 19

Boyfriend

White

Middle classed


Lives with her mum, step dad, younger brother and 2 younger sisters in a council house in the outskirts of a big town

Studies beauty therapy and works part time at the cinema distributing popcorn
Debra enjoys going out drinking with her mates on the weekend, either to a friend’s house or out clubbing. Aims to become a hair dresser and one day open her own salon

Tyrelle

Age 21

Black

Single

Upper middle class

Lives at home with mum and dad in a nice house in the suburbs

Studies sports at university and a part time bartender

Tyrelle enjoys playing sports such as football and cricket. He also plays alot of video games in his spare time. Aims to become a P.E teacher or personal trainer.

Our target audience is aged from 15-late 20s. Lower to upper middle class males and females. Although predominately more males. We have aimed the film at this type of audience as they are the main cinema customers. Our target audience would mainly be from the working class as and at a wide variety of classes to optimise viewers. We’ve tried to achieve this by creating character that the tagert audience would be interested in. By making them roughly the same age and of the same class we hope the audience would be attracted to Bill. We have kept the violence, swearing and sexual content to a minimum of BBFC guidelines to make Bill no more restricted than a 15 so we don’t lose any of our audience and opening it to the wider public. We took our questionnaire results into consideration as this was from our target audience that we needed to cater to, so tried to make a contemporary film, with added noir aspects and stylistics.

feed back on Prezi

Attract/address the audience

We tried to make a story line that the audience would buy into. And make it based in a place that our target audience may have grown up or are currently occupant. We also made it so the audience could relate to on so many level; Abusive relations ships, Making hard decisions, Taking the wrong path in life, Growing up in a rough area, all things that our target audience may personally have encountered or know people that have.

The characters were based on people that actually exist in real life, we all know a ‘jack the lad’ and a mysterious girl. The ordinary type of people caught up in sticky situations to get out of hand, and try to make the audience feel interacted as this could happen to someone they know or themselves and can relate. And the costumes reflected the commonness of the characters of the casual clothing, to how they act.

We tried to incorporate the titles in with the shots and editing so that the audience could digest the text whilst consuming the footage but also to keep the audience interested and reframe them from getting bored of solid text. We also tried to keep the pace of the piece quite fast to keep the audience attention and interested. But not too fast that you can’t see the emotions and the ideology behind some shots eg blood on the hands and sitting all alone, feeling alone in the world. We used a piece of music that we thought would give an effect of uneasiness and that something had done wrong. Music that gave an edge on the whole piece further more leaving the audience questioning.

We hope the attraction came from the setting of your average place in England that everyone has seen, been to, lives in. And that the characters are easily related to and that people know or are just like these character. Also that the storyline can be interpreted to so many things that people also can touch into; violence, relationships, love. And that the enigma of what happened and the questions keep them hooked and really involved in the story and the characters.

Media Distribution

How does our film represent social groups?

TECHNOLOGIES

Tuesday march 8th

- We added Light ray effects added to the flashback of the dead body give mysterious look to it.
- We added car sounds to the main (street) flashback create an urban effect
- We lowered the sound from the main flashback because it was a windy day and the sound gear picked up too much unwanted noise
- We moved the flashbacks of the dead body to make it fit to the character, because it didn’t fit in because it didn’t make sense being flashback straight after flashback.
- We added an effect called “over drive” To the flashback of the fight scene and we changed the white and gray colours to create an effect so it was clearly a flashback.
- We shortened the fight scene and sped it up to make it appear more violent and more physical to the audience.


Tuesday march 15th


- We put a fade on the shot where Ashley is opening the bathroom door and we also put a fade on the flashback where the door is being opened in order for the shot to swap over nicely and smoothly from the present to the flashback.
- We put on the title of the film “Bill” and also the production titles such as “ a teleport production” and “BXU” which are our production companies.
- We added a bit of non diegetic music at the beginning of the scene, this is our start off point for music in the scene.
- We deleted the close up shot of Ashley as it appeared too quick on the edit and so was unappealing to the eye.


Tuesday march 22nd


- We recorded the voice over and cut and paste it onto our film noir style opening
- We typed out and researched the audience views via a questionnaire


Tuesday march 29th


- We changed the colour on a clip of Ashley as the colouring stood out compared to the other clips as it was too red/orange. Because of the colour difference we altered the orange clips with a colour altering effect.
- We placed the voiceover clips in the correct place so it made the best out of the scene, we placed a large section of the voiceover on a large shot so that the clip appeared less boring to the audience.
- We decreased the volume of the music where the voiceovers were also playing so the voiceovers were audible.
- We faded the music just before the voice clips so the alteration in music was not too noticeable
- We added character titles in so the actors are known within the opening sequence, we placed the titles over the shots on an invisible background so the titles linked in well with the opening scene.

Research

From the research we undertook we found out that for the age group we are aiming at would prefer a contemporary style noir that contains modernised aspects, however contained some of the classic characteristics of film noir, such as an enigma and a possible twist at the ending.

Preproduction

For the preproduction paperwork we completed the hand drawn storyboard along with shot directions and timing. we also typed out the script complete with voice-over and stage directions correctly formatted using a program called “celtx” . We wrote out the shot list for the shoot we completed and I typed up some prewritten editing notes for the group.

Story board

Script/Screen play

Completed synopsis and treatment.

Story line

A late teenaged boy street wise, bill, a bit of a 'jack the lad' but smart with a lot of potential although growing up in a rough area. There is an instant connection between Bill and a girl from the other side of the estate who is popular, good looking and a mysterious bad girl. Bill is caught in a downward spiral of bad decisions when he finds out the the girl is in an abusive relationship with the well known older drug dealer of the estate.

Bill is intent of helping the girl he loves out of the relationship in order to be with her. And at a party at a empty house out of the area Bill ceases the chance to tell drug dealer to leave her alone. They get into a scuffle where Bill ends up killing his opponent and realizes what he's done as he as he's left with a body and blood on his hands.

Synopsis

Opens with man sitting in corner, hand on head covered by hood. The man appears emotional as he throws objects from near by over the room. He sits in the room as he thinks he has flash backs of the events leading to this point. From meeting the girl where all his problems began and other flash backs that could be linked with his story, leaving the audience with an enigma.

Treatment

We aim to use high contrast of black and white in the film noir style and adopt the use of the venetian blind effect within the room . We are going to use shots that are not pleasing to the eye to keep the audience feeling edgy. We hope to find some dark low sounding music to reflect the emotions of Bill and the feeling of something bad has happened. We wont use any lighting outside as we'll shoot during the day. We're going to use modern day casual clothing/costume in order to portray our characters in their own light, 21st century teenagers. Locations of a street that could be part of the estate near to where they live. And a house where we can use an average bedroom and bathroom. We aim to have a typical rooms and odd bits of furniture of a typical house party, beer cans etc.

The exchange

In groups of 4 we where asked to film and put together a simple project of 'The exchange'

the aim of this was to use our knowledge, skills and techniques from our past project and further these to increase our chances of making a good final project.

The project was to make a minuet long sequence of an exchange between two characters adding a little bit of noir, if we could. We couldn't add any dialogue or voice over so we had to try paint by pictures. Say as much as we could with visual representation. Although we could add music to our vid to add mood and tension.

We decided on a simple exchange of money between a possible drug dealer and a client. During the filming session we learnt from our mistakes and shot from everywhere trying all different shots from different distances, shooting through objects, dutch tilts to over the shoulder so when we got back to editing we would have a wide variety to chose from. We shot the individuals by them selves, them meeting and handing over the object.

I feel that we had come far since the preliminary exercise and had learnt allot. although it didn't come out prefect. we stuck to the 180 degree rule and believe our framing was better although still not perfect. And we had a much better outlook on shots and the mixture of things we could do with the camera.

Whilst handing over the money we had a problem with continuity. As we had switched hands during the passing over, so we could no longer use the those shots.

We added a bouncy slick piece of music that went well with the pace and feel of the video.

If i was to film this again i would change the outfit i was wearing as when screen this my audience laughed.. maybe i went a bit over the top. I would also pay more attention to continuity to maximized the amounts of shots we could have use.

All over i thought this was another great learning experience again and we had still improved and learnt alot and felt we did a good job for the brief even with slight hickups.

Film idea

Synopsis for opening
Open with a man sitting in a corner, head in his hands covered in a hood. The man appears emotional as he throws objects from nearby over the room. He sits in the room as he thinks. As he thinks he has a flashback, seeing a man walking down a road and seeing a girl, their eyes meet and the problems begin. The film goes back to the man in the room he has various flashbacks which could link to the story which will follow, leaving an enigma for the audience.

Later on the man is getting ready for a party with some of his friends, they talk about the girl he saw earlier that day anf he finds out from his friends that her boyfriend is a physco drug dealer.
At the party the guy and girl begin to talk then they get together, the boyfriend bursts in on them and hit’s the guy then proceeds to chase him out the house where he catches him and they both fight. During the fight the guy picks up a metal pipe that’s laying on the ground and brutally attacks the drug dealer, killing him in the process.

Preliminary exercise

For our preliminary exercise we got into groups of 3 and where asked to film a 30 second clip with the guide lines of 180 degree line rule, rule of thirds and had to be 6-8 shots. The mater piece was of a person walk down a corridor and into a room and have a simple conversation. Simple enough... you'd think. The aim was to familiarize our selves with the equipment and get a rough idea of how this whole thing works.. from shooting to editing.

During filming we tried to get a variety of shots from different angles and distance. We where working with a limited space and found when we came to editing that we should have moved around a bit more as the shots weren't to far apart from each other, not giving it a variety of angles we had expected. We also realized that our framing wasn't perfect and there was a few bits of dead space.

We all got hands on with editing trying to make our shorts flow from one to the other making sure our timing and things where right. As we didn't have a script our conversation came out differently every time so was hard to piece together something that made sense. This also may be the reason the shots where restricted.

But we hoped to learn from our mistakes and improve on our next project.

Analyze film opening

Black Hawk Down

The scene opens with a shot of Evers (Matt Eversmann) and his fellow army rangers in a helicopter. With a close up of Evers to show he is the hero. We next se a wide shot of a crowd gathering in a rather remote, hot piece of land in a foreign country (Somali). Whilst the helicopter is passing by be notice armed cars of self empowered natives (Somali militia) escorting a large wagon of food suplies. The locals, clearly starving, try to retrieve the food and are beaten back with sticks. In the chaos the Militia fire into the crowd from the mounted guns killing dozens. We cut back to the helicopter to see Evers reporting and requesting to help the civilians, in which the reply is that they have restrictions so they cant take action. Cut back to the ground where the man in charge of the men is claiming the food and telling the locals to return to there homes.

Evers is made to look like the main character, the hero as he is shown straight away and is the one wanting taking action. He is made likable by the way he wants to help the innocent with no benefit to himself. His facial expressions show that he is deeply worried, truly wants to help and is concerned for the locals. And is deeply disturbed when they cant help.

The militia are shown as heartless from the emotionless face to killing innocent hungry without hesitation. The opposites and contrast show that their enemies and two opposite ends of the scale.

Analyze film opening

American Pie

The scene starts with sounds of what you think is people having sex. With a pan shot across the floor filled with miscellaneous items of clothing. Eventually getting to the bed where we see a late teenaged male (Jim) attempting to masturbate. Whilst givinghimself a pep talk we see a shot of the TV of a, to say the least, fuzzy image of what seems to be naked females as he is certain that he sights a breast. Whilst continuing to talk to him encourage himself, he pulls out a sock in which we see to be placed on his reproductive organ as his mother walks in. As he scurries to hide what he is doing with a pillow, his mother goes to kiss him good night she becomes aware of the sound coming from the TV. Jim then is franticly trying to change the channel and assuring his mother and raffling off the excuses that he is innocently trying to watch a nature show, that the TV is broken. His Father then walks in when the mother informs him that there son is trying to watch an illegal channel. In realizing that she is telling the truth the father grabs the remote off of Jim in order to help his son to turn the TV off, but accidently revealing what Jim was desperately trying to hide beneath the pillow.

Jim is portrayed as a typical teenaged boy by his messy bed room floor, watching pornography, and masturbating. His room has checkered wallpaper as if his parents had decorated maybe suggesting that he respects them as not tried to alter it ect and that he is a good child. Also as he doesnt tell his parents to get out of his room and trys to hide what he is doing, wouldnt want his parent to judge him and speak to them respectfully.

Jims parents are dressed very smart suggesting they are of middle to upper-class. His mothers actions are more of shock to what she is seeing and maybe disgust. Where as his father is surprised but tries to him help to turn the TV off either to turn it off for his wives disgust or to not to prolong Jims embarrassment. Suggesting a close relationship between father and son.

The whole scene seem very clean cut and bright further adding to the nice household and the suggestion of a nice neighborhood and up brining.

My Film Idea

Story line.

A dancer at a strip club catches the eye of an innocent clean cut man (Jerry). He falls more and more in love with every visit back to the club in hope of catching her eye too. They finally meet when she catches her being beat in the alley by her boyfriend/the club owner. After helping her she begins to wrap him round her finger with promises of a happily ever after, they plan to kill the club owner and for her to inherit his money and club.

The film ends with the club owner dead as jerry drives to the local river to dump the body. The dancer has fled with and obscene amount of cash from the clubs save. And the man has been left to suffer the consequences from the police as hes caught red handed trying to dump the body.

Contemporary Neo noir

Brick

Brick was released in 2005 In the style of noir making with its modern setting with a hard boiled plot making this an epic neo noir. It was written and directed by Rian Johnson, but never planned it to be classed as in the genre.

Brick is a crime drama staring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Brendan. Brendan is force to investigate when his high school girl friend mysteriously goes missing. And finds himself up involved in the high school crime gang. He is the typical anti hero, intelligent and stubborn but a loner that makes him venerable and appealing to the audience.

There are various dark and shady characters to encounter during the movie. The dialogue is noir style, snappy and will keep you guessing.

The film made so with its $500,000 budget with dark scenes, off putting shots, jump cuts and rough edits all adding to the feel of noir, making it dark mysterious and some times hard to watch putting you on edge and on the edge of you seat.

The sound track and music are classic noir using classic instruments as piano trumpet which is hard hitting and down beat throughout.

Classic film noir

Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity is the first movie you think of when asked of classic film noir. It was a fictional crime based on a novel by James Caine. The film was released in 1944 and was directed by Billy Wilder.

The characters in Double Indemnity follow suit of the typical film noir genre.

Walter Neff narrates through out the whole film about his own fall and what lead him to the sticky end. He's always smoking and is the typical anti hero. plays the beat down insurance salesman that gets played by his attraction.

Phyllis Dietrichson is your run of the mill femme fatale, pretty, slightly dark and mysterious and more and more manipulative through the duration of the film. She winds Neff round her little finger with the picture of being happy together with the pay off of her husbands insurance policy.

The film follows a non linear storyline. We are shown Neff who has been shot and who is not in a good way at the beginning and the end of the film. From which he is telling his story and his actions to how he has ended up in this predicament. There is heavy music through out the dramatic scenes. There are often cut back through the movie to him in the office voicing his story and a dictaphone. There is high contrast of black and white and the occasional vanician blind effect. Various close ups coupled with prominent cigarette smoke make for a classic film noir touch leaving you intrigued to see how it all pans out.