Y1 Group 5

2010-05-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

Attached is a directors commentary of our opening start to finish, it takes us through the whole opening highlenting key points and what we were trying to achive through our filming. The commentary starts after 10 seconds as there was a voice over at the very start of the opening that we couldn't delete.

2010-05-10T09:05:00.000-07:00

During production, our group decided that we would make two versions of our opening to see what would look better. The video attached is our daytime version; all the filming is done at the same location but the acting was changed and we used a different character.

2010-05-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

This is our groups establishing wide shot of Manchester. We used hulme bridge as it is an iconic figure in manchester

We as a group decided upon the name "From the streetz" as our film is done in the local community and it means something to us all.

This shot is where the audience get the first viewing of the mysterious kidnapper. We kept the kiddnapper with their hood up and gloves on as to not show any ethnicity as to stereotype.

This is the point where the kidnapper makes his move and attacks the boyfriend and knocks him out. After this point the boyfriend blacks out and his girlfriend is kidnapped.

After the black out, the film fades in again, and the audience sees a phone ringing and a hand scrambling to pick it up. This was used to bring in the next scene of the phone conversation between the boyfriend and the kidnapper.

This shot is from the phone call scene where the boyfriend wakes up to a phone call from his girlfriend only to find out it is the kidnapper.

This is screen shot of our timeline on final cut, this includes our audio, video and editing.
On this screen shot you can see we used a range of editing techniques such as the transitions, fading, audio fading and titles.
This shows our full opening in one shot; the top blue boxes are the actual video shot we did and the green boxes on the lower half are the audio. Some of our audio had to be chopped to fit in with certain parts of our opening, for example, the phone conversation at the end of the opening; the kidnapper read of a script which we recorded on a camera, then we uploaded it onto final cut and we chopped it to fit in with the timings of the boyfriend talking.

Feedback of main task

2010-05-10T07:37:00.000-07:00

we asked a few peers and our teacher to watch our footage and give some
feedbacks to what was good and bad about our film.
Comment 1- I thought the twighlight shot of the bridge were atmospheric and quite eye catching. Which added to the good sense of mystery.
Comment 2- I thought the editing of the film and the themes were good, although they seemed too short, if made longer mybe could have been even more ineteresting.
Comment 3-They spent a lot of time on editing, but would have been better if worked effciatly and put more effort in their work from the begining. The storyline is good as it tries to potray young peoples lives in urban evironments. The could have finished filming faster which could have given them more time on editing and finishing of the blogg.
Comment 4- Could have tried filming in the day light and compared it to the filming in the dark to see what worked better.
Comment 5- The filming in twilight was great as they not having the equipment but were still able to get the lighting to work with the film.
Comment 6- The film is easier to relate to as a teenager, and the fact that the have kept the mysteriouse firgures identity a secret, it keeps their adience more interesting.
Comment 7- I think the voice over adds to the mystery and keeps the adience interested, although it tells abit about the film it does not give it all away, a bit like a cliff hanger.

Evaluation of our final film

2010-05-05T02:06:00.000-07:00

Foundation portfolio evaluation- Evaluation of your finished film

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The genre of our film is horror/thriller. In comparison to other thriller/horror films, we have tried to come up with something quite similar to something of which the real major productions such as Warner brothers/WT2 would produce. Thriller/horror films concentrate on a main character, which we did. The structure of our film is a standard structure, compared to a formal structure of which Hollywood would produce. Our film structure is based around the genre of social realism, as documentary elements were we follow the lives of young people in Britain, a life of violence, fear, drugs and distraction.
We overcame the fact that our short footage may not be done by professionals but may come out looking professional by having good planning and dealing with the minor problems that occurred, to get a great final product efficiently.
We exploited with the use of camera angles to see what would work well. We research on YouTube different films to see what we could get from them to help our film product come out as good as the pros would produce. We used a lot of close ups to distinguish the feelings of the characters. We used unique music to give our film a spooky feeling. Our film is set at Hulme Bridge at night which makes it more dramatic and adds the effect of the couple being vulnerable to a multi-cultural Britain were young people tend to get each other’s respect through violence.
Our film is original in the sense that we filmed at twilight (between day and night) which would mainly be done by major film productions with professional equipments, but we were able to film at this time of day with just a simple video camera.
The way in which we used the camera in capturing our shots was interesting as we used quiet a lot of different angles, such as bird’s eye view, of the area in which we were filming in , to show were the film is set, and bring familiarity to our audience.
We used some over the shoulder shots; point of view shots.etc by using these kinds of shots we brought our short footage to life. Also when it came to editing we added some effects which made our film come to realistic and more dramatic.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our chosen social group for our film is males and female teenager, even though it may apeal to older people who are interesting in social realism, we aimed it more to young people as they could easily relate to the theme of our film.
There is a young teenage couple, of which there’s a black young man and white young woman protagonist, by using these characters we aimed to portray a multi-cultural biracial Britain of an urban environment. This film portrays the black environment as positive (non violent) as the boyfriend is black. At the begining an ominous figure of a man enters the shot, although we do not identify the assailents identity we know its a man. We deliberatly kept the assailents identity a secret to give a sense of suspence and to avoid racial stereo typing.We also decided that the assailent should be a man as we believe that its stereo-typical of men to be in such violent situations withought being biased. There are many shots that show are main task is about the younger generation. Our first shot is of hulme bridge, being part of the younger generation I know that alot youths are in this area, and alot of them like to gather in area's like this. This is all adding to the young actors. Also as our film came from the idea of kidulthood and adulthood, they too have younger actors, showing alot about the younger generation.

What kind of media institution would distribute your media product and why?
Our film could be seen as being similar to films such as kidult hood, adulthood and bullet boy as they are urban dramas based Britain. Kidulthood and Adulthood were both distibuted by Revolver Entertainment. This distributor allows any film makers to distirubte there film in any place, with terms and conditions obviously, but they are open to anyone with a good film. As our film is based on teenagers in an urban environment, we could be compared to films such as shifty. So if our film was real it could be distributed by Metrodome Distribution who distributed Shifty, as our film is quiet similar to Shifty, but not as much violence and bad language. These kinds of films wouldn’t be able to be realised in the States, due the culture boundaries, were compared to the British people lots of Americans go to cinemas a lot, and films like Shifty mainly do not go as far as cinemas. Here are some websites that could distribute short or long films that the general public could use with out payments these include, YouTube, Vimeo and other websites.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our audience are young people of the ages 16-24 years of age. We research into our chosen age group to see what they like watching and made sure our films had met the level in which they enjoy. We aimed at finding out what they enjoy and we aimed for a mass audience as, our film portrays today’s Britain for which we want to teach young people what is going on around them. Although our main audience are young teenagers, we believe our film could apeal to older people who may be interested in social realism films, for example the films of Ken Loach are very popular with film lovers in britain. But its mainly aimed at teenagers as they could relate more to our film, due to the fact that we have used situations of which they would be involved in, in todays urban environment.

How did you attract/ address your audience?
As our film is thriller/horror (although it includes some social realism, as documentary elements were we follow the lives of young people in Britain of all races). We used a wide shot of the area in which our films takes place, as this helps the audience connect or relate to the environment. There is a close up of the phone ringing this helps create an eerie feeling for the audience as they are expecting it to be the girlfriend ringing but it happens to be the kidnapper. A medium shot is used at the beginning of the film when the mysterious figure enters the shot this helps create tension in the sense that the audience want to find out who that figure is. By using different camera angles we were able to create what we believe is a unique but socialist film which young people from all races could relate to as an urban environment. The film opening takes place on Hulme Bridge in Manchester; we chose this for our film to take place at this location as it is perfectly open and at night could help give our film that extra edge of fear and eeriness.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
As a group we compromised by helping each other in learning how to use every technology we needed to make our film. With camera work, we developed the technique of the 180 degree rule, this was used in our preliminary task. With editing software we used “Final Cut Pro” on the Apple Macs and we learned various techniques as how to capture the film off the camera and put it onto the computer, we learned how to add video and audio effects such as fading and cross dissolving, and how to cut down shots to make it perfect. We also learned how to make titles and credits to introduce and close the film. We also have a phone call towards the end of the film, which was done with the main filming and a voice over. We had to cut the voice over up, so that it would fit around the actual filming.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt from the progression from it to the full task?
The preliminary task helped us in the sense that we learnt how to use the equipment we needed, which made it easier in the final task. We were able to learn from the preliminary task what we did well and what needed to be improved for our final filming to come out as planned. We learnt how to use the editing equipment, the cameras and how they function.
The preliminary task acted as a base for our main task, as everything we learnt from it would be applied to our main task. Everything from the planning, editing and use of technology helped in the final task as we knew what we wanted our film to turn out like, we knew how to handle the cameras and how to do use the editing suit. For example the bird’s eye shot, we had to make sure the camera was perfectly placed on a levelled ground for the shot not to be shaky. In our preliminary task, there is 2 shots of someone walking through the door, one showing them open the door and the other showing them come through the door. We had to make both shots perfect in order for it to actually look like the person has walked through the door. This is like our main task as we had to show the couple walking up the bridge towards the camera and then a shot of them walkin arcoss the bridge away from the camera. Both shots had to be done with good timing and good camera angles.

Reasearch into genre of our film

2010-04-21T02:13:00.000-07:00

Research into the genre

The genre of our main task is thriller/horror. The opening is set in a dysfunctional Britain with people being kidnapped everyday by unknown people and the government is trying it’s hardest to cover up for all the missing people. A young teenage couple are enjoying a walk on a bridge in the sunset, but the day ends in blood and tears, as the walk turns into a horrific kidnapping of the teen’s girlfriend. The film starts with a voice over of an unknown person, (who later on is identified as the kidnapper) talking about the streets of Britain and how it is his turn to take advantage. The film then opens with an establishing shot of Manchester and then fades into the young couple walking on the bridge and a mysterious figure enters the shot, he runs up behind the couple and attacks the boyfriend. The boyfriend is knocked out and left unconscious, and the kidnapper escapes with the girlfriend. The boyfriend wakes up to a phone call of his kidnapped girlfriend but it is really the kidnapper calling to give orders on what to do in order to get his girlfriend back, and the mysterious man calls it a game of Simon says.

Linked below is a trailer for the movie "Alpha Dog" (2006) wirtten and directed by Nick Cassavetes. This movie was also used as inspiration for our opening as the movie is based on a true life kidnapping.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPbwocBe_tQ

2010-03-01T06:17:00.000-08:00

The above photo is an Establishing shot of the Hulme bridge to show the area/setting in which the shot will occure in.

This is a Long shot of the young couple walking

along the bridge/A Close up of their Faces insert-to show that they are a couple.

Medium shot of a mysterious figure/ shallow depth of field blaring the couple out to show that his the important figure in the shot.

This is a Medium shot of the young couple being harassed/ a fight occurs between the boyfriend and strange man.

This is a Long shot of the boyfriend on the ground /panning shot of man dragging the girlfriend.

Close up to the phone. Extreme close up of the boyfriend on the phone/voice over of the man on the phone (background girlfriend calling for help, stranger threatens girlfriend to make her stop screaming) “I’ll kill you if you scream again”.

Extreme close up of man on the phone to the boyfriend/medium shot of girlfriends face to show that she’s scared of the situation (voice over of boyfriend).

Voice over of strange man on the phone instructing the boyfriend of what to do in order to get his girl friend back (play Simon says)

The above video shows a animated clip of our location photos, were our filming will take place for our group main task. the filming will take place at humbridge in oldtraford. we chose this location as it would give us a good natural lighting and a more spaciouse place for us to film at. this location is also good as it will make our film more realistic if its filmed in a natural place.

In our film we include a phone conversationwhich occurs between the boyfriend and the stranger. we took a screen shot from the movie "phonebooth" and used it as an idea to how we may do our filming . Some aspects of the film fit in with out opening as there is an unkown assailant in both films, also the idea of the phone is a key prop in both movies and this is highlighted in the movie "Phonebooth" from the title. If our opening sequence was turned into a full length movie, the audience would see how key the phone was as that would be the prop that leads the movie on.

Voice over at begining of opening.

During production we as a group had our ideas set on just opening the movie without any voiceover or introduction. over time our minds changed and we decided to add a voice over of a person introducing the movie, as if they were speaking to somebody.
We decided this person would be the kindapper.

Psycho :*Inhales as if smoking*
“. . . These streets”
“They’re fucked. . .”
“Nobody’s safe. . . . *Pause* especially not from me.”
“One by one, they will all go.”
“Society has had their chance.”
“Now It’s my turn.”

The phone call between Psycho & Innocent Man.

Innocent Man wakes up after black out too phone call of girlfriends number.
Blinking &hearing his phone he answers. . .

Innocent Man: Baby are you ok?
Psycho: This isn’t your baby (laugh)
Innocent Man: Where is she, what have you done, why are you doing this?
Psycho: One by one, you will all go
Innocent Man: What are you talking about, please just leave us be, we’ve done nothing wrong?
Psycho: If you want her back, do what I tell you, walk towards the car at the end of the bridge and look underneath it
Innocent Man: No just let me. . . .
Psycho: Not Possible
*Hangs Up*

PROPS. . .

Our main prop is a phone. The innocent man wakes up too a phone call of the pyscho.

2010-02-01T06:11:00.000-08:00

Preliminary Task

For our preliminary task, we were asked to do a basic exercise of a person walking into a room. Within this, we had to show many various different shots, and camera angles to create effect. For our short clip, we used a 180 degree shot reverse shot. We choose the storyline off two friends , not exactly on the best off terms, arguing over a boy that one off them liked/ likes. We used over the shoulder shots, and panning shots , this helps the audience to feel involved in what’s happening in the present moment.

For our main task got inspiration from watching a number opening sequences.

Our two given openings were Gurrinder Chandha's "Bhaji on the Beach"

and Bryan Singer's "Usual Suspects".

Linked below is our Completed Preliminary Task.

Upon Completing our Video we were asked to do a complete evaluation of your task and answer the five following questions. . .

1.) What did you learn about the cameras and editing software during the preliminary task?

What I’ve learnt about the cameras and editing software during the preliminary task is that you have to know what you’re doing with the camera and have a shot list ready to actually shoot a scene. In the editing part, I have learnt how to edit a simple scene from the preliminary task. To select the timing of what you want to include from several practice shots.

2.) In the filming and editing of your project, what worked well and what could have been improved?

In our filming and editing of our project, the editing worked well because we put it together well and it flows easily – continuity editing, apart from the odd clothes not matching from previous shots. We could have improved using different shots and angles.

3.) Give a detailed, specific example of how you have used a shot/ reverse shot combination in your film

Shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at a character and then the other character is shown looking back or showing their reaction to what’s been said. We used a shot/reverse shot when the two characters are sat down at the table having a conversation. We have used this to show their facial expression and them talking.

4.) Give a detailed, specific example of how you achieved match cuts during the editing process

We did a match cut at the beginning of our filming, when Andrea walked through the door. I did an over the shoulder shot of her opening the door &about to walk through, then I filmed a panning shot of it from the other side of her actually walking through the door. It was not great when we first filmed it so during the editing we cut bits out and made it look more like she had just come through the door. This was how we achieved out match cuts.

5.) How did you make sure that you didn’t break the 180 degree rule? Or if you broke it, what have you learnt from this?

The 180 degree rule is important in a scene when they’re sat at a table. The 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making that states those two characters in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. We have used the 180 degree rule when the two characters are sat down having a conversation. To do this 180 degree rule, we placed a camera at the same place to do a medium shot there and then did shot/reverse shot – over the shoulder shot.