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.