Dear Moderator,
Thanks for taking the time to look around my blog. My group blog is linked to this page aswell as links to both of my teachers blogs. Both are found on the left hand side, from which you can find links to the other members of my group's blogs.
On this blog you will find my individual research into film opening sequences and the film industry and also a few of my planning and production work over the course of the project.
As you have probably noticed my film opening sequence and preliminary task sequence have been posted at the top of the blog.
Use the labels, also on the left, to navigate my work. Enjoy at your leisure..
Thanks, Lewis.
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Monday, 4 April 2011
Question 1
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.
Our film 'The Witness' is and Action/Thriller that follows the story of a teenage boy named Jack. Feeling isolated by everyone else in the world Jack turns to drugs and soon finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. He witnesses two murdering gang members attempting to burry their victim, he attempts to flee, but not before being spotted by them. After a chase through the forest Jack is caught and taken capture by the bloodthirsty killers.
After escaping the gang use evidence of Jacks drug use as leverage to keep him quiet, threatening to turn him in to the police. In order to stay alive, he must take matters into his own hands and uncover the truth behind the gang's murders and protect both himself and their next victim from harm.
Genre:
'The Witness' is a British Action Thriller. The primary signifier of its genre comes from the gritty themes of Gang violence, kidnapp and murder. The film contains many moments that create both adrenaline and fear with multiple point of view shots to immerse the audience and allow them to empathise with Jack. Our project shares similar themes to Pierre Morel's Action Drama Taken, a film where an ex-spy must save his daughter from an estranged captor.
These similarities are:
Within this trailer we can clearly see the similarities between story lines of the two films and how in both the primary victims are women with a male protagonist attempting to save them.
Narrative Structure:
When deciding the narrative structure for our film we took into account Todorov's theory of equilibrium:
As this theory works particularly well with Horror and Thriller films we decided to apply it to our storyline. Following this idea you can see use of the theory within our opening sequence.
Our film 'The Witness' is and Action/Thriller that follows the story of a teenage boy named Jack. Feeling isolated by everyone else in the world Jack turns to drugs and soon finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. He witnesses two murdering gang members attempting to burry their victim, he attempts to flee, but not before being spotted by them. After a chase through the forest Jack is caught and taken capture by the bloodthirsty killers.
After escaping the gang use evidence of Jacks drug use as leverage to keep him quiet, threatening to turn him in to the police. In order to stay alive, he must take matters into his own hands and uncover the truth behind the gang's murders and protect both himself and their next victim from harm.
Genre:
'The Witness' is a British Action Thriller. The primary signifier of its genre comes from the gritty themes of Gang violence, kidnapp and murder. The film contains many moments that create both adrenaline and fear with multiple point of view shots to immerse the audience and allow them to empathise with Jack. Our project shares similar themes to Pierre Morel's Action Drama Taken, a film where an ex-spy must save his daughter from an estranged captor.
These similarities are:
- Themes of Kidnapp.
- A protagonist having to take matters into his own hands to bring the antagonists to justice.
- Similar plot line (an alone protagonist having to track and fight his enemies to survive)
- A protagonist having to take matters into his own hands to bring the antagonists to justice.
- Similar plot line (an alone protagonist having to track and fight his enemies to survive)
Within this trailer we can clearly see the similarities between story lines of the two films and how in both the primary victims are women with a male protagonist attempting to save them.
Narrative Structure:
When deciding the narrative structure for our film we took into account Todorov's theory of equilibrium:
As this theory works particularly well with Horror and Thriller films we decided to apply it to our storyline. Following this idea you can see use of the theory within our opening sequence.
 |
| Equilibrium |
 |
| Disruption |
As our project is only an opening sequence we do not yet have a 'Journey' or a 'Resolution' featured however these two would be Jacks mission to stay alive and the final resolution being Jack defeating or exposing the gang, winning the girl (their next victim) and walking off scott free. Very similar to the film 'The Sentinal' where the main character is on the run whilst trying to figure out the truth about the things happening around him, the character is also being blackmailed from doing the right thing and cannot turn to the police for help.
Our films form is similar to that of most others as the story is often set up within the first few minutes and the Heros Journey makes up the rest of the film with the resolution ofcourse coming in at the final minutes of the film.
Purposes of opening sequences:
Opening sequences aim to achieve three key things that will encourage someone to watch the rest of the film, these include the introduction of characters, the establishing of the films themes and genre and to engage the veiwer so much that they continue to watch the film.
I believe we achieved all three of these as we introduce the character of Jack and the two unknown villians, we set the tone with the image of a dead body and a chase sequence and we also engage the audience through fast paced shots and handheld POV shots.
Our films form is similar to that of most others as the story is often set up within the first few minutes and the Heros Journey makes up the rest of the film with the resolution ofcourse coming in at the final minutes of the film.
Purposes of opening sequences:
Opening sequences aim to achieve three key things that will encourage someone to watch the rest of the film, these include the introduction of characters, the establishing of the films themes and genre and to engage the veiwer so much that they continue to watch the film.
I believe we achieved all three of these as we introduce the character of Jack and the two unknown villians, we set the tone with the image of a dead body and a chase sequence and we also engage the audience through fast paced shots and handheld POV shots.
Saturday, 2 April 2011
Question 2
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups
The main characters within our product have quite obscure backgrounds and portray an acute social group. However as a whole modern, British, teen culture does play a role within our film we could argue that we are representing a portion of teenagers. This social group is represented in a gritty, realistic fashion without glamouring up the lifestyle. This is similar to the social group shown in the films Adulthood and Kidulthood.
The main characters within our product have quite obscure backgrounds and portray an acute social group. However as a whole modern, British, teen culture does play a role within our film we could argue that we are representing a portion of teenagers. This social group is represented in a gritty, realistic fashion without glamouring up the lifestyle. This is similar to the social group shown in the films Adulthood and Kidulthood.
We represent this social group through costume and props, for example we have a spliff being smoked which immediately and quite obviously shows that our characters are drug users, this is shown in a lesser extent in the main characters clothing which is branded Adidas jogging bottoms and a jacket, this suggests he is working class and not particularly well off.
In certain aspects I believe our casting was not particularly representative of the social group we were aiming to present. In my opinion our actors didn't look the part for who we were trying to represent and looked to staged and unnatural.
Question 3
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our film company, Bite the Bullet, focuses primarily on the production of British themed films with emphasis on youth and gang culture. Our films are most likely to be of the action/thriller genre as the name suggests.
A possible distributor, on which our group agreed, was Revolver Entertainment. This was chosen as the company has both a UK and a USA base for which to distribute and market our film from giving us a international reach, however we are unsure of the reception our film may get in the US for the reasons that we believe the theme and story may not be believable, applicable or realistic over there.
They are also a leading, high-tech distribution company that utilise multi-media technology in terms of distribution and marketing, this is great for our audience who are youthful and tech-savvy.
Question 4
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our pitch was originally aimed at young men between 16-25 who are fans of action/thriller genres. This is because the film features violence and drug use and would probably be certificated as a 15.
I would expect our film to have a national appeal and a minor international appeal this is because our target audience is somewhat niche, to the extent that the film is intended for a British audience, and the genre is fairly open to everyone. We expect our audience to be similar to that of the main character, young, thrill seekers who can relate to our protagonist.
Example Audience Profile:
This is Mark, He is a 19 year old student who lives in London. He goes to Kings College London and enjoys going out to clubs and bars etc.
He utilizes a range of different media platforms and owns an iPhone. He regularly uses the internet and his most visited sites are FaceBook and YouTube.
We chose this audience within production as we thought it would be an exciting audience to create a film for, despite being very conventional.
Our pitch was originally aimed at young men between 16-25 who are fans of action/thriller genres. This is because the film features violence and drug use and would probably be certificated as a 15.
I would expect our film to have a national appeal and a minor international appeal this is because our target audience is somewhat niche, to the extent that the film is intended for a British audience, and the genre is fairly open to everyone. We expect our audience to be similar to that of the main character, young, thrill seekers who can relate to our protagonist.
Example Audience Profile:
This is Mark, He is a 19 year old student who lives in London. He goes to Kings College London and enjoys going out to clubs and bars etc.
He utilizes a range of different media platforms and owns an iPhone. He regularly uses the internet and his most visited sites are FaceBook and YouTube.
We chose this audience within production as we thought it would be an exciting audience to create a film for, despite being very conventional.
Friday, 1 April 2011
Question 5
How did you attract/address your audience?
We tried to make the film appeal to our audience in a number of ways. For starters we made sure that even our main characters costume would feature things that we believed our audience would be able to identify with. For example here is a sketch of our protagonist, Jacks, outfit.
Jack's clothing is very casual, immediately making him a normal, approachable person, and features a number of brands such as 'Nike' and 'Adidas' that our audience would recognise making the character more believable and realistic.
Similar to his clothing Jack speaks casually using slang and abbreviations common in youth culture in London. Jack is an 'antihero' and more appealing for it. It is proven that our audience, more often than not, are more likely to admire characters such as Jack; with fatal flaws or dark backstories. Considering the theory of uses and gratifications we decided to focus on the idea of adrenaline and fears. e.g. Fear of gangs, abduction, police etc.
Jack is of a similar social background to our audience, the difference being, he is considered a loner and neglected. Despite this throughout the film we see him change and become more heroic and confident allowing the audience to aspire to be like him. The fast paced chase scene within the opening sequence is intended to thrill the audience and 'gratify their needs'.
We wanted the realism of our film to aid the audience in the 'suspension of their disbelief' and help them enter the world of our film. We went about this by setting the film primarily in an urban environment within London, despite the opening sequence location being within the suburbs.
The Witness Audience Feedback Questionnaire:
After seeing our audience feedback it was reassuring to see that our film had successfully appealed to young men between the ages of 14-18 this was a fraction lower then the age we had originally intended to market the film towards, however, it is still above the age limit to what we had based the film, 15. Along with this we also noticed that some females had also enjoyed the film rating it with an average of 7/10 where as the males within the audience averaged it out at at 8.5/10.
Similar to his clothing Jack speaks casually using slang and abbreviations common in youth culture in London. Jack is an 'antihero' and more appealing for it. It is proven that our audience, more often than not, are more likely to admire characters such as Jack; with fatal flaws or dark backstories. Considering the theory of uses and gratifications we decided to focus on the idea of adrenaline and fears. e.g. Fear of gangs, abduction, police etc.
Jack is of a similar social background to our audience, the difference being, he is considered a loner and neglected. Despite this throughout the film we see him change and become more heroic and confident allowing the audience to aspire to be like him. The fast paced chase scene within the opening sequence is intended to thrill the audience and 'gratify their needs'.
We wanted the realism of our film to aid the audience in the 'suspension of their disbelief' and help them enter the world of our film. We went about this by setting the film primarily in an urban environment within London, despite the opening sequence location being within the suburbs.
The Witness Audience Feedback Questionnaire:
After seeing our audience feedback it was reassuring to see that our film had successfully appealed to young men between the ages of 14-18 this was a fraction lower then the age we had originally intended to market the film towards, however, it is still above the age limit to what we had based the film, 15. Along with this we also noticed that some females had also enjoyed the film rating it with an average of 7/10 where as the males within the audience averaged it out at at 8.5/10.
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Question 6
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the project I have improved my skills in both editing and filming. With the camera I have learnt the importance of manual settings and how to utilise them and from within what circumstances to use them and I have become more decisive in terms of editing and decision making. This interest in manual settings upon the camera came about when after a shoot we realised that half way through the shoot a number of shots had had their colour grading edited giving them a washed out effect meaning that we could not use them in our final sequence.
I have become a lot more confident with the different software used in creating films on the computer. For example, I now know my way around Adobe Premiere Pro and know various shortcuts and tools to help make editing a lot easier. We extended our knowledge of the software by using different video effects and transitions such as editing the Brightness and Contrast of a shot to make it look entirely different. This can be seen on all of our shots within the forest as we wanted to create a gloomy, eerie atmosphere to set the mood for the rest of our film. Along with Adobe softwares we also used Live Type on a Macintosh, this was used to create and animate the titles within our opening sequence.
I think that for our entire the group the most valuable thing we learnt was the importance of lighting. Lighting had an enormous effect on how our project played out as we originally wanted to film at night to cause the murderers hiding the body to seem more realistic and believable however it immediately became apparent that we did not have the sort of technology available to properly light our shoot. After changing the timing at which our opening sequence was set we soon learnt how to frame our shots so it appeared to be of a similar time of day to the other shots. This was very important as we wanted to remember our preliminary task and how important continuity is.
As you can tell from this shot we have various lighting issues such as camera lens glare and beams of light shining through the trees, we decided to ignore these issues as overall we agreed that the shot worked. However we still had to heavily edit the shot to reduce the glare on the camera and increase the contrast of the shot to make it more enigmatic and ominous.
Question 7
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Since the preliminary I feel I have progressed an enormous amount in terms of both knowledge and practical ability. I know how to edit to a strong quality and have learnt a lot about continuity through editing and then finding out we have to have another re-shoot.
In terms of shot quality I have learnt about the importance of tight framing and creating focus on certain things to create enigma or to tell a story. The most important skill Ive learnt since the preliminary task was the importance and application of different continuity theories. These include the 180 and 30 degree rule and match-on-action shots which we enjoyed using in our editing sessions. Correct application of these rules assured that our sequence made sense and aided in immersing the audience into the film through seamless action.
As well as practical skills I also learnt alot about organisation, such as filling out shot logs to make for simplar editing sessions, which also aided our time management meaning that in the week of the deadline we were less stressed than usual as we were confident we would finish our project on time.
Working as a group was often annoying as we were all in conflict over how we wanted to shoot and edit our piece. However, as we spent alot longer together than we did in the preliminary task we began to spot trends in how eachother edited and got things done. This was beneficial as it meant our group finally began to agree on things and we could play to eachothers strengths whilst also nurturing our weaknesses.
Since the preliminary I feel I have progressed an enormous amount in terms of both knowledge and practical ability. I know how to edit to a strong quality and have learnt a lot about continuity through editing and then finding out we have to have another re-shoot.
In terms of shot quality I have learnt about the importance of tight framing and creating focus on certain things to create enigma or to tell a story. The most important skill Ive learnt since the preliminary task was the importance and application of different continuity theories. These include the 180 and 30 degree rule and match-on-action shots which we enjoyed using in our editing sessions. Correct application of these rules assured that our sequence made sense and aided in immersing the audience into the film through seamless action.
As well as practical skills I also learnt alot about organisation, such as filling out shot logs to make for simplar editing sessions, which also aided our time management meaning that in the week of the deadline we were less stressed than usual as we were confident we would finish our project on time.
Within the editing process we found, as a group, it was neccersary to have our own timeline each so that we could play about with the editing software and start to learn our way around the footage without causing any damage to the files or changing something we probably shouldnt.
Friday, 4 February 2011
Rec Shoot
Before filming, a member of our group, Sam went out to the location we intended to shoot at and took a variety of photos of the area and relayed them back to the group. All went well and we agreed on the location of the shoot to be at The Orchard in Cheyne Walk.
Cheyne Walk google maps search:
Cheyne Walk google maps search:
The Voiceover
During the final week of editing we realised a few of our shots were lacking neccesary audio to anchor our storyline. To get around this we decided to film a voice over for these tracks using Lewis and a friend as actors.
To make the voiceover realistic we decided we would have to record the audio within a similar enviroment to where the video took place so we headed to the far corner of the school field to get the same ambient wind and bird song in the background. We also filmed the shot from different distances CU, MCU and LS as these were the distances within the video were we wanted the audio to cut in. These varying distances would hopefully make the audio, when coupled with the video recording, sound realistic.
We decided to act out what we were doing when reading the script as to help get a sense of place and realism within our voices.
To make the voiceover realistic we decided we would have to record the audio within a similar enviroment to where the video took place so we headed to the far corner of the school field to get the same ambient wind and bird song in the background. We also filmed the shot from different distances CU, MCU and LS as these were the distances within the video were we wanted the audio to cut in. These varying distances would hopefully make the audio, when coupled with the video recording, sound realistic.
 |
| Lewis and Chris reading 'The Witness' voiceover script. |
We decided to act out what we were doing when reading the script as to help get a sense of place and realism within our voices.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
The Script
Group Brief: To create a script to fit to our original storyboard
Working Script - to be used with storyboard
Storyboard shot(s) 16-18
1: Hurry the hell up!
2: Lift her legs up!
1: Screw you, I'm doing all the work.
2: Fine. Leave them then.
1: Just hurry up.
Storyboard shot(s) 19 Jack gasps, slight mutter/swears
Storyboard shot(s) 21-22
1: (Whispered) Did you hear that?
2: You're bloody paranoid!
1: (Whispered) Shut up, listen!
Storyboard shot(s) 23 Jack steps backwards, twig snaps.
Storyboard shot(s) 24 Reaction shot. Muted tracks, no sound.
Storyboard shot(s) 25-26
Everything goes silent. Jack sprints away.
Series of shouts from 1 & 2
'Music starts'
After the initial shoot we soon realised that some of our shots were different to how we had them on the storyboard and we decided to change certain aspects of the storyboard, this meant that a new script was needed and that a voice over would have to be done and layered over our footage.
The new script was not matched to the storyboard yet it was matched to time codes within our footage.
0:53 'Hurry up! It's getting light'
1:00 'Did you hear that?'
They approach littered spliff, Protagonist charges bad guys.
Impact shot (sound of someone getting hit)
1:21 'Oi! GET HIM!'
The voiceover can be veiwed after 0:50 seconds and has been edited to try and sound more realistic.
Working Script - to be used with storyboard
Storyboard shot(s) 16-18
1: Hurry the hell up!
2: Lift her legs up!
1: Screw you, I'm doing all the work.
2: Fine. Leave them then.
1: Just hurry up.
Storyboard shot(s) 19 Jack gasps, slight mutter/swears
Storyboard shot(s) 21-22
1: (Whispered) Did you hear that?
2: You're bloody paranoid!
1: (Whispered) Shut up, listen!
Storyboard shot(s) 23 Jack steps backwards, twig snaps.
Storyboard shot(s) 24 Reaction shot. Muted tracks, no sound.
Storyboard shot(s) 25-26
Everything goes silent. Jack sprints away.
Series of shouts from 1 & 2
'Music starts'
After the initial shoot we soon realised that some of our shots were different to how we had them on the storyboard and we decided to change certain aspects of the storyboard, this meant that a new script was needed and that a voice over would have to be done and layered over our footage.
The new script was not matched to the storyboard yet it was matched to time codes within our footage.
0:53 'Hurry up! It's getting light'
1:00 'Did you hear that?'
They approach littered spliff, Protagonist charges bad guys.
Impact shot (sound of someone getting hit)
1:21 'Oi! GET HIM!'
The voiceover can be veiwed after 0:50 seconds and has been edited to try and sound more realistic.
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