Reflection

Looking back at our project we can clearly identify areas where we could have improved our film, that is not to say we are unhappy with the product but, as is the nature of things, will never be completely satisfied with it.

In particular the dubbing and vocals are a key area that we would improve, leaving the process until relatively late meant we were not afforded the opportunity to pick and choose and trial the audio as we would have liked. As a result there are several lines that appear out of sync or simply sound out of place, the line 'Gang related?!' springs to mind as one particular aspect that was not quite what we had hoped, becoming something of an in-joke in the process. The performances in general were adequate, we did not expect anyone to perform wonders but obviously with more time additional takes may have rendered slightly more real and emotive performances, on a whole however the performances were not an area that we found to much wrong in.

The editing was an area that was, for the most part, satisfactory, we managed to accomplish what we intended albeit in a slightly different fashion. With greater time and software we could perhaps have achieved something better, in particular the escape scene which could have been edited to a much more artistic degree, however it was as good as we could get using the relatively basic software at hand. The general composition was unambitious and rather limited in variety however we would not want to saturate it with to many varying angles simply for the sake of it, however a few more may have been good. With regards to post-production we failed to create the gun muzzle flash in time and this was a major disappointment and something we would certainly add in. We would also have added a greater degree of visual polish through colour correction and perhaps more advanced use of colour grading, however we were happy with the overall visual aesthetic of the film and acheived the look we wanted. The titles were another area that, with more time, we would have liked to have incorporated in a more interesting and unique manner, however as this aspect was undertaken very late, something we foolishly failed to account for, this was not possible and we are happy with what we managed to achieve.

The camera work could have perhaps done with some work in order to steady some shots and and reshoot a few others which jump slightly, the film on a whole does not quite flow as most major pictures do however we managed to acheive a certain degree of fluidity in our composition with only minor continuity kinks needing to ironed out. We would also perhaps have used a blue screen filter for the exterior shots, this has been used to great effect in recent years, creating a moody, saturated and grim atmostphere that is visually striking, with its most notable proponent being Christopher Nolan(Batman series etc). In addition we would have liked to have used some more advanced techniques, in particular regarding the use of focus, however we never managed to get around to this and perhaps with more experience and greater expertise would have managed this.

Final Piece

Thanks to all support and influences. You can see our evaluation soon enough!

EVALUATION - Notes and topics

Here are some notes and topics that we should mention during our evaluation and use as a spring board for other points, they should be treated as almost a check-list during the video.

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

Generally we have not included any striking challenges to social conventions or other forms. We thought that to keep this particular piece uncomplicated we should follow some simple rules or conventions shown in other films, or movie pieces, we preferred to look and learn from past innovators and film makers, as they are clearly more experienced and we can draw from them, rather than attempting to innovate ourselves. 


We found that it was much easier to draw on ideas that we could relate to from well known films rather than trying to create an entirely new groundbreaking piece of dramatic film.

On our blog we have included some film clips that show some of the ideas that we have tried to include in our piece. This may be simply a type of shot that we thought was particularly effective or something that plays a larger part in our film e.g. score and emotions portrayed through the characters dialogue and actions.

Defined into a genre I think all of us would agree that our film is for the most part a crime thriller.
There are several conventions associated with this genre that we have tried to work into our piece:


As main elements- Suspense, Excitement, Tension and Cliffhanging


Sub themes- The coverup of important or critical information from the viewer, Some form of violence either explicit or implicit (we went with both for good measure), Investigation - whodunnit?
                  
Tension arises when a principal or secondary character is placed in a menacing or potentially life threatening situation from which escape seems impossible.


Setting in thrillers is generally an ordinary city or unsuspecting sleepy suburb where nothing ever happens and we tried to recreate this (Twinbrook is a dangerous place so this kind of thing is commonplace but I suppose this adds to the reality and suspense involved)


Jeopardy and violent confrontations are standard plot elements that we were involved with in the murder of one criminal by another and the near escape of the victim.


Crime thrillers usually emphasise action over psychological aspects. Although our film generally sticks to this rule we do have a certain sense of mystery and enigma included in that in the opening minutes of our film the viewer is only presented with questions as to why the criminals are so ruthless and merciless. This leaves the viewer to speculate and conjecture about the reasons behind their brutality - desperation, money, drugs etc

For our film titles we viewed many examples from many various and adverse movies without really having a set idea in mind. In particular we noticed an influence from the titles of ‘Vertigo’ from Alfred Hitchcock.


Hitchcock in general was a notable influence, he and more modern directors were a major influence. We hoped to strike a balance between the traditional narrative intrigue and twists of Hitchcock with the grittiness and more kinetic, realistic style of modern directors such as David Fincher, Richard Kelly and Martin Scorsese.


Use of flashbacks and disorientation of time common in thrillers. Use of setting in the shadowy garage reflects the inner cruelty of the two criminals and we picked up on all this without even thinking about it because we are that good.. 
Shadows also create tension and eeriness 


Obtrusive editing- Quick shots in the garage accentuate the feeling of suspense and this can be seen in many other great thrillers.  Almost montage editing used in the garage scene to make the scene and subjects seem frantic and panicky.


Flashbacks- Seen this in 'Memento' by Christopher Nolan. Thought it was a good idea and allowed us to mix it up abit and make the narrative less linear and boring.

How does your media represent particular social groups?

Detectives- Is this case personal to the detectives? No, but we still show the often unpleasant nature of their line of work and the cases they have to deal with.

Criminals- Audience wonder why the criminals are involved with this man, we try and represent the brutality and callousness of the criminals and the ruthless world they have become mired in.

Drugs

Gang Related lifestyle

Male


Perhaps in later works we shall delve deeper into social representations.


As amateur film makers we didn't pay any particular attention to very specific social groups and went with a broader sense of crime and lowlife in a suburban housing estate area in young males (if that much can be seen from our locational shots)


It could be said that our film represents young males subjected to gang culture, being forced into a life of crime because they see it as their only way to make a living. 


The film represents the very callous and apathetic attitude that people show towards each other when trying to get ahead in life.

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

Independent film studios, possibly of the bigger studios New Line Studios

Internet distributed, marketed as an amateur film, since it is. Would be low-key, if attempting larger release but still internet/viral focus.
Not attempting to make any kind of profit from piece.. just want to spread it around to become a little more renown and gain some positive critcal feedback about improvements that can be made (there are alot of them) 

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Anyone interested in a crime action thriller.

Fellow students.

No one under the age of twelve due to violence.
14-40
Male

How did you attract/address your audience?

Twitter

Facebook

Youtube

Blogger

Pre screening

Posters

Word of mouth
Easily found an audience in our peers in school

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


The camera itself- each person in our group took turns filming different scenes and we each tried to bring something new to the way we used the equipment and technology available to us

Adobe after effects was used to create our movie titles and I think we found this the most challenging piece of software because none of the group had any previous experience with it but after some tutorial videos and some testing we found it easy enough to create some simple titles with animations for our film.

Photoshop- We used this software on numerous occasions just to touch up or create some sample images e.g. our posters or the image for our titles.

Imovie- The main software we used, all of the group had a chance to work with this software and found it rather easy and intuitive if not slightly basic but it did nearly all the jobs we had in mind for this years production.

The use of the internet and new media to promote our film, in particular social networking and video sites such as vimeo/ youtube

Garageband- How we were able to construct a soundtrack the film entirely using digital instruments

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

In our original preliminary product we did little planning before recording, ie we came up with a simple idea and improvised on the spot, whereas in our full product we did extensive planning in the forms of multiple scripts and storyboards.


We planned the setting, times we would be filming, dialogue, mise en scene and general plot for our main project quite thoroughly. That is not to say that it didn't change dramatically from what we first envisioned. The film and how we planned to shoot it mutated and changed (for the best it would seem) while we were filming and the days in school that we were editing afterwards.


Most of the preliminary coursework was improvised including dialogue, mise en scene, location, camera angles, shots and actors. It was rushed and as we found out from both projects that if we didn't take care and time while filming it proved to be disastrous. 


We took the main film very seriously...most of the time.. and after eventually settling into filming we took many different takes of each scene learning from our previous mistakes in that one can never have too many different angles of a shot.


While editing the preliminary coursework I don't think any of us in the group tried to do anything ambitious and we accepted a very low standard of both shots and acting leading to an unsatisfying end product. We paid no attention to detail in our preliminary coursework and so it turned out quite badly as I think as a group we underestimated the task even if it did seem simplistic at the time.This changed slightly when editing the main piece.

Editing the main piece played a huge part for us in recognising many mistakes and shots that we would have to reshoot due to lapses in continuity, the lighting changing or being too harsh/too dim at times, the movement of the characters in the shots and how they would interact with their surroundings sometimes not being picked up by the camera.

We also learned the importance, and the difficulty, of acheiving continuity and how crucial shot structure and angling was, though this was more of a consequence of our preliminary, something we could look back and learn from.

We also learned that we needed to show greater ambition and scale, the resultant film was very stale and uninteresting, it wasn’t meant to be exciting but it was nonetheless very dull.


We may have been too ambitious to start with when creating our main film (we had it in our minds that our film was going to be something in the realm of 'good') but we soon realised (after 3 weeks of filming) that something relatively simple and well thought out was going to be infinitely better than something very ambitious that fell flat on its face.

Titles

A key component of any media product is the titles, these grab the viewer and offer a hint of what the coming film or show will offer, they are critical for securing the viewer's attention and so were carefully considered for our project.

Our major influences were the innovative and experimental titles of Saul Bass, who worked with many of the leading directors of his time, most notably Alfred Hitchcock. This relationship created some of the most recognisable and ingenius titles in film history and were a major influence. Vertigo in particular was an inspiration, it's spiralling credits are quite similar to that which we aimed to create.

For our movie titles, we used Adobe After Effects CS4. We have never used this software before so we had to watch several tutorial videos to learn the basics and then experimented with it to work out what the titles would look like.















We downloaded some images from Google,I.e various Silhouettes of business men and gangsters and then used Adobe Photoshop to create a custom image.

Using these images above and a few others, we created a new unique image that would be used in the ending of our title sequence. These criminals that appear in the image are the criminal organization that will appear later in the movie. As our movie opening focuses on the victim and the criminals, the leaders of the organization will not make an appearance until the plot unfolds, we only wanted to set the scene in our video and start our story. These images establish the tone of the film and their enigmatic nature draw the viewer in and leave them wondering who they are and how the connect to the plot.

Poster

After much work we finally have a poster that i consider pretty darn good,if i do say so myself. I think it does a great job capturing the feel of the film and is a pretty good representation of what we wanted to achieve. We made it by using a still from the film and then putting it into GIMP, a free piece of image-editing software for Google Chrome, this was essential for creating the distinctive stylised look of the poster, the vivid red and black contrast starkly and grab the viewers attention and get them interested.

Recording Diary - How we made our film

Filming
For recording our video we spent most sundays from the 16th january - 6th March.
The sundays in between these dates we spent our spare time on sundays to record our media studies project. We would meet up at the local Tesco and proceed to the garage location.


16th January - This was our first recording of our original script. We were initially unsure of the location and spent much time trying to fix the garage and change the layout to be able to record. We had many problems involving continuity of objects in the garage for next weeks shots, the change of lighting from the window throughout the day & this lead to many shots that could not be used. We decided as a group that it would be too difficult to reconstruct the garage to the position we recorded in and that the shots were not to our full ability. This was a learning curve which we sought to overcome in next weeks recordings.


This is a compilation of the footage filmed during the first two weeks, it was subject to major changes later and its incompetence served as a learning experience and added impetus for our later work.



23rd January - After two relatively unproductive, or rather unsatisfactory, weeks of filming, we decided to evaluate the footage so far. There had been concerns amongst all the group about the quality of the footage as well as the locational issues which plagued our previous attempts. After reviewing the footage we decided that it simply wasn't up to scratch and drastic changes were needed. An intense brainstorming session followed in which the group expressed their concerns and recommendations and in the course of which numerous decisions were made which we felt would substantially improve the film. Among these were the addition of a new location, adopting a more non-linear narrative and substantially reducing the scene of the murder. Following these changes there was a marked improvement and we were able to film most of the first scene that weekend with only minor alterations needed. This dramatic restructuring of the film may have rendered the first two weeks a waste but in the long-run it has proven to be a wise decision and has helped us learn from previous experiences and made us more focused and driven to make this as good as possible.


The remaining weeks were spent ironing out flaws and errors we spotted during the editing process as well as redubbing the vocal tracks.


Editing
The editing began as soon as we had footage available, we would generally work on the editing and evaluate the our work during the week and film at the weekend. This meant that we got the film done piece by piece and so it was a a gradual process rather than one intensive session after filming had ended. It also meant that during our next filming session we could iron out flaws early that we had discovered during editing. The editing work was largely done by Hugh and Dermot however everyone participated at some point and in some form.


Using the footage from the first week we had already found some flaws and alterations were made accordingly, ideally we would have re-assessed at this point rather than later however it was useful nonetheless. We decided that the footage would require significant editing and that visual alterations would serve us well. We decided to go for a high-contrast, saturated look that almost resembled bleach-bypassing. This was inspired by FilmNoir as well as more modern films such as Minority Report which used a similar effect. We hoped to achieve a very gritty, grim, realistic look and we felt that draining the colour could achieve this.


Editing continued as normal with the following weeks of filming though we developed greater expertise with the technology and refined previous shots as well using more advanced techniques. We also then began to contemplate a more non-linear narrative and began to experiment with inter-cutting the two scenes as well as stripping the second down and having faster cuts. We also began to be more considerate and measured with the use of transitions, using them only where we felt they would add to the film; previously we had used them for a majority of cuts and the result was a very cheap,immature looking product.


Editing continued down to the wire as we continued to refine and reshuffle the film but we finally finished with time to spare and are very happy with the result which is a much tighter,structured piece than what we had initially, naively, planned.

Memento Titles

THE BEST EVER Memento Title Sequence from Gabriel Simon on Vimeo.