Thursday 12 April 2012
Evaluation
Description of plot beforehand,
Decipher at first begins with an interrogation scene which just has two characters appear. One character can be seen in very dark, stark lighting with his face not being shown amidst a shadow, he speaks with a slightly middle class accent and is wearing a smart suit, the other character in the room in contrast has very bright lighting towards his face which highlights a bandage that appears to have blood on it, he also speaks with a much more working class accent and is wearing a grey tracksuit. The scene carries on and through dialogue it can be understood that the character amidst the stark lighting is a detective or at least a superior lawful character in regards to the character amidst the bright lighting and that the character with very bright lighting, in Decipher’s case this character is called Ryan Taylor whilst the stark lighting character is called Nicolas Sharpe (although he is not referred to by his name in the project). The scene becomes clear that Ryan is being convicted of murdering a young girl of a roughly similar age, as the two characters begin discussing the events flashbacks are seen indicating exactly what happened on the previous night, throughout the flashbacks it is implied that Ryan is dating or is married to the young woman character, they start off in a domestic house, after they leave the start to walk down the streets until they get towards a small tunnel, as they walk in they begin to start arguing and bickering over a subject which is not identified, as they bicker a mysterious new character walks towards them armed with a large weapon that looks as though it has been cut off a section of furniture, he then strikes Ryan on the head knocking him out, then scenes begin tracing back and forth between the interrogation and the flashbacks, it can then be seen that the detective interviewing Ryan is actually the same person who knocked him out in the flashbacks, then the flashbacks scenes can be seen again in which the detective is clearly shown with a knife over the young woman’s dead body whilst Ryan is unconscious in the background, the scene then finishes.
How does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Stark lighting is another convention of typical crime dramas/thrillers, considering stark lighting is obviously very dark it is often used to convey a character as very mystical and mysterious as usually a characters face is either not seen completely or only aspects are shown to make them appear either very villainous as though they’re keeping their heads in the shadows in a similar fashion to a predatory-type figure, however it can also indicate a mysterious factor on the basis that the audience will not be able to see the characters face for the most part, subsequently the audience start to ponder who the character is and the reason why his face appears distorted. Discovering that stark lighting was a typical convention links back to a lot of research we conducted such as The Departed which used stark lighting in order to hide a characters face, in The Departed’s case the character was a villainous mafia boss symbolising how the dark imagery can help convey a very villainous character (see image BELOW). Decipher used this most notably in the interrogation scene, this appears on both of the side shots and close ups of the two characters. Firstly, the use of the side shot is useful as it indicates the intensity of both characters and the stark lighting emphasizes the mysterious aspect of the characters with Ryan being brightly lit it makes him appear slightly more heroic as heroes are often casted in bright heroic lighting, take Sherlock for example which in an interrogation scene in the opening of series 1, episode 3 the heroic protagonist Sherlock is seen in very bright lighting (BELOW) whilst the (current) antagonist of the sequence is seen in notably much more darker, stark lighting, this was used in Decipher (BELOW) in order to convey a similar aspect with the villainous, mystery character in stark, dark lighting whilst Ryan as the protagonist is seen in much brighter and more heroic lighting, it also allowed audiences again to feel mildly sympathetic towards Ryan’s character whilst the audience also become intrigued and mystified by the detective character.
Black and white imagery is another convention of typical film noir films, this is mainly due to the fact that many film noir films E.G. Citizen Kane, The Fallen Idol, etc were all made in the 1940s, at a time when colour technology in film was not developed enough for the quality to be considered effective. Therefore film noir relied heavily on being very atmospheric and stylistic in order to appeal even more intriguing and mysterious. The use of black and white imagery became synonymous with stylistic, atmospheric dramatic films. Even films many years after the 1940s which were not related to crime such as Raging Bull utilized black and white imagery in order to indicate more dramatic intensity. However black and white is still very synonymous with film noir and therefore to crime dramas/thrillers, examples of this can be seen in relatively recent crime films such as 2005 film Casino Royale which used black and white throughout the opening sequence in order to be very stylistic and dramatic. Decipher overall utilized black and white imagery within the flashbacks to indicate the past as the character Ryan is reminiscing the events of the previous night, using black and white therefore links with the past with the 1940s indicating that Ryan is delving into his memories and also creates dramatic intensity towards the audience as they will be curious as to what Ryan has done to end up in a prison-type-of environment.
Diegetic sound can be heard in a variety of sequences such as Casino Royale which at first uses simple sounds such as car doors opening and closing, footsteps etc but then once another character (James Bond) is introduced then suddenly the two characters start exchanging dialogue, this is also seen in Sherlock series 1, episode 3 opening sequence as the whole sequence is literally just 2 characters talking about a murder. Therefore Decipher utilized this convention also in order to highlight that they match the typical conventions of crime drama/thriller. This overall allowed the audience to understand that Decipher was a crime drama/thriller by using and following typical conventions of many previous classic crime drama/thriller films. Decipher expanded and utilized all these conventions not only to achieve this but also add dramatic intensity and angst towards the characters and towards their motivations and goals.
There is also titles which followed the typical conventions of the genre, The Dark Knight is notable for using a black background with bold, simple white texts and has the title of the film appear after the opening sequence, Decipher follows this in exactly the same fashion using very similar texts to The Dark Knight in order to conform to the genre more effectively (see BELOW). There is also a use of inter-titles in Decipher, this does not conform to The Dark Knight specifically however it does conform to films such as Lucky Number Slevin which also uses intertitles.
Representation
In Decipher, there are two main types of representation in terms of social groups; the first is the representation of women which follows closely to typical conforms of the genre. In the sequence there is only one woman character shown and she does not have any dialogue or an actual referenced name. This is a similar concept to the woman mentioned in Sherlock who was murdered but never is she seen or called by a name, just discussed amongst 2 men indicating a superiority factor of men over women. Film noir can possibly be argued as a misogynist genre, this is due to many film noir films having women die or become a very ‘damsel in distress’ image in the films, although not necessarily a film noir film, Psycho is a very famous example of a film in which a woman is murdered by a superior male character, there are also films like Swordfish in which a character states “the blonde gets it” in reference to stereotypically idiotic blonde women being killed and not having any emotion towards referencing it. The Departed also utilizes a female character that is in debt to a mafia boss and is taken to a beach and killed by another supposedly superior male character. In Casino Royale is also notable that in the opening sequence there is just male characters featured with no women at all, this indicates how death, politics and governance is essentially ‘mans business’ as though men are the only ones that have the capability of handling issues regarding governmental issues. All of this highlights that typically in crime drama/thrillers women are seen as inferior to a superior and dominant male character. Decipher conforms to this typical representation by having only one female character in the whole sequence, by not giving the woman character any dialogue it emphasized the theory that women are essentially meaningless and irrelevant. The male characters also appear to be fighting over her indicating which could imply the woman character to be like a sexual figure as the detectives motivations are most likely to revolve around his relation with the woman character, this indicates men being superior to women whilst women are also considered sexual objects towards the male characters. This conforms and follows the typical conventions and representation of crime dramas/thrillers in regards to the social group of women.
However it is also notable that there is also another representation of a social group highlighted in Decipher, this was the representation of both the working class and middle class with the working class being represented through Ryan’s character and the middle class through the detectives character. Decipher establishes that Ryan is a working class and the detective as a middle class character in multiple ways; one way is through Ryan’s accent, during Ryan’s dialogue his accent is notably more regional whilst the detectives middle class character has a less regional accent and more of a general English accent, typically the working class are depicted as having very regional accents such as in This is England, a film utilizing very working class characters who all have regional accents, therefore Decipher uses typical conventions of the working class in order to portray Ryan as a typical working class person. Ryan’s character’s mise en scene also shows him to be wearing a grey tracksuit, a trait which is typical imagery in terms of working class ‘chavs’. The detective in contrast wears a very sophisticated and smart suit, this allows the middle class to be seen as far superior to the working class as the middle class are wearing very sophisticated clothing and therefore resembles the middle class as far more sophisticated and subsequently superior, they also appear superior in the sense that the detective is actually the one in control of the situation as he is the interrogator and therefore has clear authority over Ryan. Typically, this is the representation which is conformed in crime dramas/thrillers with the most notable example being Sherlock which highlights the working class as very stupid and guilty criminals, with the criminal in the opening sequence admitting to the fact that he killed her as well as frequently having a vast amount of grammatical errors in his sentences thus showing the working class as idiotic and guilty criminals whilst the middle class (Sherlock) is very sophisticated, intelligent and superior to the working class character. However Decipher appears to follow this typical representation until the end of the sequence in which it is revealed that the working class character is being framed by the middle class character, this subverts the representation by indicating the middle class as the criminals whilst the working class are perceived to be criminals when in actuality they’re just being framed by the middle class.
2. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
In terms of media institutions, Decipher will be distributed by Warner Bros, the reason for this is because during research we discovered that a large variety of crime drama/thriller films were in fact distributed by Warner Bros, some of these examples included The Departed, Oceans 11, The Dark Knight and Swordfish. This symbolised to us that Decipher should be distributed by Warner Bros due to the fact that Warner Bros are very well known for creating films similar to Decipher in terms of the genre. Decipher will also utilize the use of an independent production company known as DynamiteKitty Studios, the reason Decipher will using an independent production company is because independent companies have been known for producing many films that have the crime drama/thriller genre such as Dead Man’s Shoes which uses Warp Films (a British independent production company) as they did not have a sufficient budget so the financial backing from Warp allowed the film to be made and launched to the public. The logo for DynamiteKitty is also black and white which allowed Decipher to link into the black and white imagery also used in the sequence within the flashbacks and titles. Decipher will also use Secession Studios, this studio will not help distribute the film however it will allow Decipher to work with a media conglomerate to produce music which can be used throughout the film within the background, this may allow Decipher to produce a soundtrack album in the future depending on how financially successful the film becomes. This will allow Decipher to follow in the success of films crime drama/thrillers like The Dark Knight which had a very successful film soundtrack.
3. What would the audience be for your media product?
In our project we used a marketing segmentation in order to determine the audience for Decipher, this involves taking the whole entire market which is split into different segments I.E. age, gender, etc and then the ideal audience is combined together in order to create one target market. Whilst we were researching into the success of our genre we discovered that 2010 was a very successful year for our genre as there was a vast variety of different films that were part of our genre that were located within the top 25 highest grossing films of the year, however in 2011 there were very few, however we considered this was most likely due to the fact that in 2011 there were a large amount of highly anticipated films which were not related to crime drama/thriller most notable Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2, Transformers: Dark of The Moon and Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides all of which grossed more than $1 billion which is incredibly high. We know that however there is still a market for crime dramas/thrillers due to The Dark Knight, a film released 4 years ago which grossed more than $1 billion also. Also the upcoming sequel, The Dark Knight Rises trailer has amassed over 15,000,000 views on YouTube making it one of the highest anticipated films of all time thus indicating a clear audience for crime dramas/thrillers. We know that the audience will be generally located in the age range of 18-64, the reason for this is because there is clearly a murder within the opening sequence, although the murder is not actually shown there is still violence such as the detective knocking out Ryan which should certify the age limit at 18, therefore children and very young teenagers will not be permitted to see the film because of its clear violence and relatively complicated storyline which young viewers may find it hard to understand. Also male audiences are typically more attracted to crime films as opposed to women; this will be due to the representation that women are normally subjected to in crime dramas/thrillers which will obviously not appeal to females very well as very often they’re treated as second class in comparison to men. Decipher will also target primarily the lower middle class audiences, the reason for this is because the film may be considered too sophisticated and confusing for a stereotypical working or lower class family with the storyline being frequently changing whilst the lower middle and middle class tend to stereotypically prefer more sophisticated films. The only classes which are seen is the middle class and working class in the project, although the working class are overall innocent it will still be following the representation of them all being involved in crime in some way, even though the crime is not actually their fault, this may repel more working class audiences from the film as they may feel as though they’re are being stereotyped as is often the case with This is England, Shameless (TV Series), etc. However the lower middle and middle class may appreciate the film more for being more different and unique in regards to their social class as generally the middle class are seen as the ‘everyday’ men and women while the upper class are incredibly posh and the working class are criminals, the lower middle and middle class may therefore feel as though the film is very unique and different which may attract them more into watching the film.
4. How did you attract/address your audience?
By following a variety of typical conventions of crime drama/thriller it allowed Decipher to attract their audience by using the typical conventions, as expressed before the conventions of stark lighting, black and white imagery, canted shots and diegetic sound will allow Decipher to appeal to their audicne by highlighting an intriguing but also atmospheric aspect towards the audience. By subverting the representation of social class it will allow Decipher to appear very unique in regards to other crime drama/thriller films as the representation is not typical it will allow the storyline to become more unpredictable which should intrigue and attract the audience as they will be unsure as to how Ryan is going to stop the detective. Also the detective’s character’s legacy and motivation is left completely unclear to the audience which will intrigue the audience as they will want to understand and discover exactly why the detective has done this to Ryan and what he plans to achieve from doing it, and also how will Ryan be able to do anything to stop the detective character as he is clearly in a prison environment so this will make the audience begin to think about why the detective has done this and how Ryan will stop the detective and highlight that he is in fact innocent. By using plot twists such as revealing that the detective is the murderer at the end of the sequence it presents a sophisticated notion towards the audience as the plot and storyline consistently changes resembling that the audience will need to constantly think about the story and what each character is doing at certain points.
5. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learned a vast array about different technologies from constructing Decipher, the equipment used which did not include props included a steadicam which was created in order to achieve shots such as the revealing of the detective as the killer. This was a shot which panned up from beneath a table and thus revealed the detectives face with his arms around Ryan, the steadicam is a piece of technology which uses weights in specific areas to effectively counter-act the camera shaking vividly whilst its handheld, therefore for the pan up shot to work more effectively the steadicam was implemented to create more affect on the audience with the shot being very smooth as opposed to very shaky which would have happened if the steadicam was not used. The steadicam was made by Katie and her dad and used materials of plastic, wood, screws and gimbal’s (which were used as the weights) in order to make the camera steady when it was handheld. Unfortunately the steadicam was only involved in the interrogation scene due to the fact that the steadicam broke and was not able to use within the flashback as the interrogation scene was filmed approximately a week before the flashback sequence. There was also a tripod, a mechanism which is made to keep the camera steady so that the camera is not always handheld and therefore shaky. The tripod was used throughout the vast majority of the entire sequence, very rarely is a tripod not used, we knew that utilizing this technology was necessary as otherwise the footage would look very shaky and would distract the audience from the story. However we had to learn how to use the tripod effectively such as attaching the camera to the tripod, how to do a smooth pan shot, etc. The smooth pan shot specifically was relatively hard to achieve, this can be seen how we struggled to achieve an effective pan shot by the fact that at one point we used a pan shot in the rough cut of Decipher sequence which was not very effective as the camera stopped a bit too far whilst a character was talking, this meant that we had to change the shot in order to create more of an effect on the audience, thankfully we shot a vast amount footage which allowed us to change the shot very quickly. The editing software used was Adobe After Effects and Adobe Elements on Katie’s laptop. We needed to learn how to use both these software’s in order to make the sequence have more effect. Adobe After Effects was primarily used to create the titles such as “Decipher” and most notably the DynamiteKitty logo whilst Elements was used more to edit the footage together in the sequence. Considering Katie already knew how to use the software it meant that I and Barry used our free periods to learning how to use use the software, I learned about layers used in the software such as having one layer for sound such as music and another for dialogue in order to make the sequence flow better. Whilst editing we also learnt about altering the lighting and contrast of the picture as we changed the contrast of the picture to create a more dramatic, stark lighting effect. During the flashbacks we also slowed down the footage in order to emphasize a dreamlike quality towards them which would resemble Ryan’s thoughts and emotions of the night.
6. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Decipher at first begins with an interrogation scene which just has two characters appear. One character can be seen in very dark, stark lighting with his face not being shown amidst a shadow, he speaks with a slightly middle class accent and is wearing a smart suit, the other character in the room in contrast has very bright lighting towards his face which highlights a bandage that appears to have blood on it, he also speaks with a much more working class accent and is wearing a grey tracksuit. The scene carries on and through dialogue it can be understood that the character amidst the stark lighting is a detective or at least a superior lawful character in regards to the character amidst the bright lighting and that the character with very bright lighting, in Decipher’s case this character is called Ryan Taylor whilst the stark lighting character is called Nicolas Sharpe (although he is not referred to by his name in the project). The scene becomes clear that Ryan is being convicted of murdering a young girl of a roughly similar age, as the two characters begin discussing the events flashbacks are seen indicating exactly what happened on the previous night, throughout the flashbacks it is implied that Ryan is dating or is married to the young woman character, they start off in a domestic house, after they leave the start to walk down the streets until they get towards a small tunnel, as they walk in they begin to start arguing and bickering over a subject which is not identified, as they bicker a mysterious new character walks towards them armed with a large weapon that looks as though it has been cut off a section of furniture, he then strikes Ryan on the head knocking him out, then scenes begin tracing back and forth between the interrogation and the flashbacks, it can then be seen that the detective interviewing Ryan is actually the same person who knocked him out in the flashbacks, then the flashbacks scenes can be seen again in which the detective is clearly shown with a knife over the young woman’s dead body whilst Ryan is unconscious in the background, the scene then finishes.
How does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Considering Decipher is a crime drama/thriller it was very important for us to follow many of the typical conventions of the genre in order to both appeal to the audience and denote the fact that Decipher is an actual crime drama/thriller, if we strayed too far from typical conventions and decided to subvert a large amount of conventions then we may have risked being completely unrelated to the genre and may have created a project which would instead suit more with conventions of other genres, or become more of a surrealist genre. Therefore in order to communicate effectively with the audience that our genre was crime drama/thriller then we needed to follow a vast array of typical conventions to communicate and strengthen the authenticity of the genre in regards to Decipher.
Typical conventions of crime drama/thriller specifically involve the use of stark lighting as well as diegetic sound (usually through the use of dialogue), black and white imagery and also a use of canted angled shots. Canted angled shots are shots in which the camera is placed on a slight angle reflecting a disorienting but also very intriguing factor towards the audience, these types of shots are seen within many films which follow typical conventions of film noir, film noir is a genre which has many relations to crime drama/thriller I.E. the fact that many film noir films centre on some sort of crime that has taken place, very often the crime is murder but not as a rule, classic film noir films such as Citizen Kane utilizes both crime uses a vast number of canted shots and helped pioneer the film noir genre. Film noir is notably one of the major influences in crime dramas/thrillers as typical conventions such as canted shots have transpired into this genre, this can be seen in relatively recent films such as Casino Royale (below) which is clearly following the same method of canted shots in order to create a disorienting and intriguing concept to the audience. In Decipher canted shots were used multiple amount of times, this was done in order to convey the same aspect as film noir and thus exemplify our genre to the audience but also to create the same affect of a disorienting but also intriguing factor, in analytical terms the canted shots could also help highlight Ryan’s damaged and almost abstracted thoughts and memories of the night and therefore the canted angles signify how he cannot fully remember what happened which allows the audience to feel as though Ryan is more sympathetic and may not be a criminal despite the fact that no evidence to prove him innocent was shown at this point. Below the Casino Royale image there is also some examples of how Decipher used these same canted angled shots to create the same affect on the audience. The canted shots also resemble the typical conventions of crime drama/thriller which also indicates that Decipher is following typical camera work of this genre.
Typical conventions of crime drama/thriller specifically involve the use of stark lighting as well as diegetic sound (usually through the use of dialogue), black and white imagery and also a use of canted angled shots. Canted angled shots are shots in which the camera is placed on a slight angle reflecting a disorienting but also very intriguing factor towards the audience, these types of shots are seen within many films which follow typical conventions of film noir, film noir is a genre which has many relations to crime drama/thriller I.E. the fact that many film noir films centre on some sort of crime that has taken place, very often the crime is murder but not as a rule, classic film noir films such as Citizen Kane utilizes both crime uses a vast number of canted shots and helped pioneer the film noir genre. Film noir is notably one of the major influences in crime dramas/thrillers as typical conventions such as canted shots have transpired into this genre, this can be seen in relatively recent films such as Casino Royale (below) which is clearly following the same method of canted shots in order to create a disorienting and intriguing concept to the audience. In Decipher canted shots were used multiple amount of times, this was done in order to convey the same aspect as film noir and thus exemplify our genre to the audience but also to create the same affect of a disorienting but also intriguing factor, in analytical terms the canted shots could also help highlight Ryan’s damaged and almost abstracted thoughts and memories of the night and therefore the canted angles signify how he cannot fully remember what happened which allows the audience to feel as though Ryan is more sympathetic and may not be a criminal despite the fact that no evidence to prove him innocent was shown at this point. Below the Casino Royale image there is also some examples of how Decipher used these same canted angled shots to create the same affect on the audience. The canted shots also resemble the typical conventions of crime drama/thriller which also indicates that Decipher is following typical camera work of this genre.
A canted shot taken from Casino Royale
Both these images are taken from Decipher and are both canted shots resembling a similar fashion to the shot seen in Casino Royale
Black and white imagery is another convention of typical film noir films, this is mainly due to the fact that many film noir films E.G. Citizen Kane, The Fallen Idol, etc were all made in the 1940s, at a time when colour technology in film was not developed enough for the quality to be considered effective. Therefore film noir relied heavily on being very atmospheric and stylistic in order to appeal even more intriguing and mysterious. The use of black and white imagery became synonymous with stylistic, atmospheric dramatic films. Even films many years after the 1940s which were not related to crime such as Raging Bull utilized black and white imagery in order to indicate more dramatic intensity. However black and white is still very synonymous with film noir and therefore to crime dramas/thrillers, examples of this can be seen in relatively recent crime films such as 2005 film Casino Royale which used black and white throughout the opening sequence in order to be very stylistic and dramatic. Decipher overall utilized black and white imagery within the flashbacks to indicate the past as the character Ryan is reminiscing the events of the previous night, using black and white therefore links with the past with the 1940s indicating that Ryan is delving into his memories and also creates dramatic intensity towards the audience as they will be curious as to what Ryan has done to end up in a prison-type-of environment.
Diegetic sound can be heard in a variety of sequences such as Casino Royale which at first uses simple sounds such as car doors opening and closing, footsteps etc but then once another character (James Bond) is introduced then suddenly the two characters start exchanging dialogue, this is also seen in Sherlock series 1, episode 3 opening sequence as the whole sequence is literally just 2 characters talking about a murder. Therefore Decipher utilized this convention also in order to highlight that they match the typical conventions of crime drama/thriller. This overall allowed the audience to understand that Decipher was a crime drama/thriller by using and following typical conventions of many previous classic crime drama/thriller films. Decipher expanded and utilized all these conventions not only to achieve this but also add dramatic intensity and angst towards the characters and towards their motivations and goals.
There is also titles which followed the typical conventions of the genre, The Dark Knight is notable for using a black background with bold, simple white texts and has the title of the film appear after the opening sequence, Decipher follows this in exactly the same fashion using very similar texts to The Dark Knight in order to conform to the genre more effectively (see BELOW). There is also a use of inter-titles in Decipher, this does not conform to The Dark Knight specifically however it does conform to films such as Lucky Number Slevin which also uses intertitles.
Representation
In Decipher, there are two main types of representation in terms of social groups; the first is the representation of women which follows closely to typical conforms of the genre. In the sequence there is only one woman character shown and she does not have any dialogue or an actual referenced name. This is a similar concept to the woman mentioned in Sherlock who was murdered but never is she seen or called by a name, just discussed amongst 2 men indicating a superiority factor of men over women. Film noir can possibly be argued as a misogynist genre, this is due to many film noir films having women die or become a very ‘damsel in distress’ image in the films, although not necessarily a film noir film, Psycho is a very famous example of a film in which a woman is murdered by a superior male character, there are also films like Swordfish in which a character states “the blonde gets it” in reference to stereotypically idiotic blonde women being killed and not having any emotion towards referencing it. The Departed also utilizes a female character that is in debt to a mafia boss and is taken to a beach and killed by another supposedly superior male character. In Casino Royale is also notable that in the opening sequence there is just male characters featured with no women at all, this indicates how death, politics and governance is essentially ‘mans business’ as though men are the only ones that have the capability of handling issues regarding governmental issues. All of this highlights that typically in crime drama/thrillers women are seen as inferior to a superior and dominant male character. Decipher conforms to this typical representation by having only one female character in the whole sequence, by not giving the woman character any dialogue it emphasized the theory that women are essentially meaningless and irrelevant. The male characters also appear to be fighting over her indicating which could imply the woman character to be like a sexual figure as the detectives motivations are most likely to revolve around his relation with the woman character, this indicates men being superior to women whilst women are also considered sexual objects towards the male characters. This conforms and follows the typical conventions and representation of crime dramas/thrillers in regards to the social group of women.
However it is also notable that there is also another representation of a social group highlighted in Decipher, this was the representation of both the working class and middle class with the working class being represented through Ryan’s character and the middle class through the detectives character. Decipher establishes that Ryan is a working class and the detective as a middle class character in multiple ways; one way is through Ryan’s accent, during Ryan’s dialogue his accent is notably more regional whilst the detectives middle class character has a less regional accent and more of a general English accent, typically the working class are depicted as having very regional accents such as in This is England, a film utilizing very working class characters who all have regional accents, therefore Decipher uses typical conventions of the working class in order to portray Ryan as a typical working class person. Ryan’s character’s mise en scene also shows him to be wearing a grey tracksuit, a trait which is typical imagery in terms of working class ‘chavs’. The detective in contrast wears a very sophisticated and smart suit, this allows the middle class to be seen as far superior to the working class as the middle class are wearing very sophisticated clothing and therefore resembles the middle class as far more sophisticated and subsequently superior, they also appear superior in the sense that the detective is actually the one in control of the situation as he is the interrogator and therefore has clear authority over Ryan. Typically, this is the representation which is conformed in crime dramas/thrillers with the most notable example being Sherlock which highlights the working class as very stupid and guilty criminals, with the criminal in the opening sequence admitting to the fact that he killed her as well as frequently having a vast amount of grammatical errors in his sentences thus showing the working class as idiotic and guilty criminals whilst the middle class (Sherlock) is very sophisticated, intelligent and superior to the working class character. However Decipher appears to follow this typical representation until the end of the sequence in which it is revealed that the working class character is being framed by the middle class character, this subverts the representation by indicating the middle class as the criminals whilst the working class are perceived to be criminals when in actuality they’re just being framed by the middle class.
2. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
In terms of media institutions, Decipher will be distributed by Warner Bros, the reason for this is because during research we discovered that a large variety of crime drama/thriller films were in fact distributed by Warner Bros, some of these examples included The Departed, Oceans 11, The Dark Knight and Swordfish. This symbolised to us that Decipher should be distributed by Warner Bros due to the fact that Warner Bros are very well known for creating films similar to Decipher in terms of the genre. Decipher will also utilize the use of an independent production company known as DynamiteKitty Studios, the reason Decipher will using an independent production company is because independent companies have been known for producing many films that have the crime drama/thriller genre such as Dead Man’s Shoes which uses Warp Films (a British independent production company) as they did not have a sufficient budget so the financial backing from Warp allowed the film to be made and launched to the public. The logo for DynamiteKitty is also black and white which allowed Decipher to link into the black and white imagery also used in the sequence within the flashbacks and titles. Decipher will also use Secession Studios, this studio will not help distribute the film however it will allow Decipher to work with a media conglomerate to produce music which can be used throughout the film within the background, this may allow Decipher to produce a soundtrack album in the future depending on how financially successful the film becomes. This will allow Decipher to follow in the success of films crime drama/thrillers like The Dark Knight which had a very successful film soundtrack.
3. What would the audience be for your media product?
In our project we used a marketing segmentation in order to determine the audience for Decipher, this involves taking the whole entire market which is split into different segments I.E. age, gender, etc and then the ideal audience is combined together in order to create one target market. Whilst we were researching into the success of our genre we discovered that 2010 was a very successful year for our genre as there was a vast variety of different films that were part of our genre that were located within the top 25 highest grossing films of the year, however in 2011 there were very few, however we considered this was most likely due to the fact that in 2011 there were a large amount of highly anticipated films which were not related to crime drama/thriller most notable Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2, Transformers: Dark of The Moon and Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides all of which grossed more than $1 billion which is incredibly high. We know that however there is still a market for crime dramas/thrillers due to The Dark Knight, a film released 4 years ago which grossed more than $1 billion also. Also the upcoming sequel, The Dark Knight Rises trailer has amassed over 15,000,000 views on YouTube making it one of the highest anticipated films of all time thus indicating a clear audience for crime dramas/thrillers. We know that the audience will be generally located in the age range of 18-64, the reason for this is because there is clearly a murder within the opening sequence, although the murder is not actually shown there is still violence such as the detective knocking out Ryan which should certify the age limit at 18, therefore children and very young teenagers will not be permitted to see the film because of its clear violence and relatively complicated storyline which young viewers may find it hard to understand. Also male audiences are typically more attracted to crime films as opposed to women; this will be due to the representation that women are normally subjected to in crime dramas/thrillers which will obviously not appeal to females very well as very often they’re treated as second class in comparison to men. Decipher will also target primarily the lower middle class audiences, the reason for this is because the film may be considered too sophisticated and confusing for a stereotypical working or lower class family with the storyline being frequently changing whilst the lower middle and middle class tend to stereotypically prefer more sophisticated films. The only classes which are seen is the middle class and working class in the project, although the working class are overall innocent it will still be following the representation of them all being involved in crime in some way, even though the crime is not actually their fault, this may repel more working class audiences from the film as they may feel as though they’re are being stereotyped as is often the case with This is England, Shameless (TV Series), etc. However the lower middle and middle class may appreciate the film more for being more different and unique in regards to their social class as generally the middle class are seen as the ‘everyday’ men and women while the upper class are incredibly posh and the working class are criminals, the lower middle and middle class may therefore feel as though the film is very unique and different which may attract them more into watching the film.
4. How did you attract/address your audience?
By following a variety of typical conventions of crime drama/thriller it allowed Decipher to attract their audience by using the typical conventions, as expressed before the conventions of stark lighting, black and white imagery, canted shots and diegetic sound will allow Decipher to appeal to their audicne by highlighting an intriguing but also atmospheric aspect towards the audience. By subverting the representation of social class it will allow Decipher to appear very unique in regards to other crime drama/thriller films as the representation is not typical it will allow the storyline to become more unpredictable which should intrigue and attract the audience as they will be unsure as to how Ryan is going to stop the detective. Also the detective’s character’s legacy and motivation is left completely unclear to the audience which will intrigue the audience as they will want to understand and discover exactly why the detective has done this to Ryan and what he plans to achieve from doing it, and also how will Ryan be able to do anything to stop the detective character as he is clearly in a prison environment so this will make the audience begin to think about why the detective has done this and how Ryan will stop the detective and highlight that he is in fact innocent. By using plot twists such as revealing that the detective is the murderer at the end of the sequence it presents a sophisticated notion towards the audience as the plot and storyline consistently changes resembling that the audience will need to constantly think about the story and what each character is doing at certain points.
5. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learned a vast array about different technologies from constructing Decipher, the equipment used which did not include props included a steadicam which was created in order to achieve shots such as the revealing of the detective as the killer. This was a shot which panned up from beneath a table and thus revealed the detectives face with his arms around Ryan, the steadicam is a piece of technology which uses weights in specific areas to effectively counter-act the camera shaking vividly whilst its handheld, therefore for the pan up shot to work more effectively the steadicam was implemented to create more affect on the audience with the shot being very smooth as opposed to very shaky which would have happened if the steadicam was not used. The steadicam was made by Katie and her dad and used materials of plastic, wood, screws and gimbal’s (which were used as the weights) in order to make the camera steady when it was handheld. Unfortunately the steadicam was only involved in the interrogation scene due to the fact that the steadicam broke and was not able to use within the flashback as the interrogation scene was filmed approximately a week before the flashback sequence. There was also a tripod, a mechanism which is made to keep the camera steady so that the camera is not always handheld and therefore shaky. The tripod was used throughout the vast majority of the entire sequence, very rarely is a tripod not used, we knew that utilizing this technology was necessary as otherwise the footage would look very shaky and would distract the audience from the story. However we had to learn how to use the tripod effectively such as attaching the camera to the tripod, how to do a smooth pan shot, etc. The smooth pan shot specifically was relatively hard to achieve, this can be seen how we struggled to achieve an effective pan shot by the fact that at one point we used a pan shot in the rough cut of Decipher sequence which was not very effective as the camera stopped a bit too far whilst a character was talking, this meant that we had to change the shot in order to create more of an effect on the audience, thankfully we shot a vast amount footage which allowed us to change the shot very quickly. The editing software used was Adobe After Effects and Adobe Elements on Katie’s laptop. We needed to learn how to use both these software’s in order to make the sequence have more effect. Adobe After Effects was primarily used to create the titles such as “Decipher” and most notably the DynamiteKitty logo whilst Elements was used more to edit the footage together in the sequence. Considering Katie already knew how to use the software it meant that I and Barry used our free periods to learning how to use use the software, I learned about layers used in the software such as having one layer for sound such as music and another for dialogue in order to make the sequence flow better. Whilst editing we also learnt about altering the lighting and contrast of the picture as we changed the contrast of the picture to create a more dramatic, stark lighting effect. During the flashbacks we also slowed down the footage in order to emphasize a dreamlike quality towards them which would resemble Ryan’s thoughts and emotions of the night.
6. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
The most I feel I have learned is mostly due to the continuity project, although we learned a large amount about technology through the prisoner sequence such as editing software, tripods, etc. I still feel as though the continuity project taught us more in regards to actually producing and creating an effective sequence, the reason for this is because within the continuity project we simply tried to make the project incredibly quickly without caring much for efficiency or proper planning, although we made a script for the continuity task it still did not work as effectively as we’d like it to. We arranged to have a location within our school for the continuity project within mere days and we actually shot the whole sequence in the space of around 40 minutes using few takes and just trying to finish as soon as we could. However later on we discovered that certain shots in the sequence were missing and therefore could not be added to the sequence. This meant the quality in the sequence dramatically decreased by the time it was finished. To prevent this from happening again in Decipher we started to spend a very large amount of time on each shot, not only was each shot directly thought of and anticipated but we also took into account the lighting, the camera angles and so forth, subsequently the quality dramatically increased and we also had a variety of camera angles, I think when the interrogation scene was filmed we highlighted more of these aspects, considering the whole continuity project was finished in around 40 minutes we decided to spend far more time on each angle and actually filmed our all our dialogue in every shot we did almost like having multiple master shots, our main master shot ended up being 30 minutes long which is almost as much as the whole continuity sequence and that was just one shot in the whole sequence. By filming multiple variations of side shots, close ups, long shots it also allowed us to have a greater diversity in the editing stage, the most prominent example is through our rough cut we had a pan shot which did not transfer effectively as originally planned so due to our vast array or camera angles we were able to change the shot very quickly and produced a better effect on the audience. We also took a vast amount of time to review locations as opposed to the continuity sequence which we literally just tried to get any room which was remotely similar to an office. In Decipher multiple locations were considered and analysed on account of their availability, access, relevance to the project and so on. The mise en scene was also an aspect we learnt about to include in Decipher, the continuity project did not have much in terms of mise en scene other than the location, whilst in Decipher every single aspect was included from the location of a tunnel resembling a ‘bathroom tiled’ location similar to the murder scene in Psycho, also the characters clothing such as Ryan’s ‘chav’ clothes and the detectives very smart, sophisticated clothing. This allowed us to create more dramatic intensity and both intrigue and attract the audience more effectively as they will understand the characters social class, emotions, etc purely through their clothes and then the dialogue helps add to the narrative of the sequence, none of this was included in the continuity project which highlighted how we have learnt a vast array of techniques to use due to our unsuccessful continuity sequence.
As referred to in the stark lighting conventions, this is an image taken from The Departed highlighting a villainous antagonist character.
Here is an example of how Decipher used this within its sequence, clearly the stark lighting creates a clear mystical element to the character with his face being left unseen.
Here is an image again referred to in the stark lighting conventions. This is an image taken from Sherlock, in the image is the protagonist character Sherlock who is clearly shown in very bright lighting resembling an heroic, positive atmosphere around him,
Here is an image taken from Decipher, clearly the influence can be seen from Sherlock as the heroic protagonist is highlighted in very brightly lit lighting.
Here are two images, one of which is the titles in The Dark Knight whilst the other is Decipher's, as referred to in the title conventions they're both very clearly bold, simple black and white texts and thus link with the genre more effectively.
Thursday 5 April 2012
Making of
http://vimeo.com/39797589
Here is a making of video we made on the day we filmed the interrogation scene. Unfortunately the camera cuts out before we finished talking due to the camera running out of memory.
Here is a making of video we made on the day we filmed the interrogation scene. Unfortunately the camera cuts out before we finished talking due to the camera running out of memory.
Monday 26 March 2012
Friday 23 March 2012
Saturday 10 March 2012
Final Cut
http://katiesawesomeasmediablog.blogspot.com/2012/03/final-cut_7695.html Here is a link to Katie's blog in which she has posted our final cut for our project
Friday 2 March 2012
Absents
Unfortunately Katie is off ill again today, this means that we can not continue developing small aspects of the project as a group. We feel slightly disappointed by this however we cannot blame anyone for dire circumstances, luckily for us though there is not much development needed in the project which means we are not under much pressure to upload our project, subsequently since me and Barry cannot work on the project today then we decided to discuss with Sir and between ourselves aspects which we could include in our evaluation, since we feel it is foolish to start evaluating before the project is uploaded then we are just simply discussing what we can and should include in answering the seven required questions for the analysis. We also discovered that in order to fulfill our commentary we simply record our voice through a camera and then place the project onto Premier Pro and repeat it continously until our voices are finished talking. I asked Sir this after watching a previous student's commentary from last year. We also discovered that in order to answer the question "use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products" we simply have to compare our project with elements from our research such as linking with films in terms of specific shots (in our case canted shots with stark lighting etc), as well as sounds, institutions, mise en scene, representation amongst others. This means we are better prepared for the evaluation and we should be able to each gain a substantial mark for it. An interesting aspect of the evaluation is that we each have to start writing the evaluation individually which will be interesting to see as so far we have all worked as a group and almost every single blog post is cenetered around us working as a group so it would be interesting to see how we each cope with working without eachother over the Easter holidays, although I am confident Katie and Barry as well as myself will be able to write a very effective evaluation (and create an effective commentarty) individually whilst still working as a group in regards to the presentation we need to give towards the class and also the interview we will have with Sir.
Monday 27 February 2012
Titles Again
As we discovered in lesson today it turns out that our project will require 3 more titles. These titles include "Warner Bros Presents", "A DynamiteKitty Production" and "A film by Katie Boal, Reece Wilkins and Barry Stubbs". Therefore there is good news and bad news, the bad news is that this may be time consuming once again as we will need to create the titles once again, however the good new is that it should not take too long to create and also these titles are shown before the first scene of our project, therefore there should not be a major issue in inserting this into our sequence. These titles will obviously need to follow the same style as the other title sequences, which will require using black and white text along with the same transition used previously. Overall this should help amass us to the highest grade possible, if we did not include these titles we will risk losing 1 or 2 marks which is not a very substantial figure however it could help be the difference between an A grade project and an A* grade project. I think with Katie's absence today as well as a likelyhood that she may not be in tomorrow as well means that it may take a considerable amount of time for us to complete these titles, although in retrospect 1 or 2 marks is not an incredibley big deal so we will not panic for now.
Absents
Unfortunately Katie is ill today and thus will not be in the lesson, this means me and Barry are limited to how much work we can do as Katie has the contents of our project on her laptop in her house. Therefore me and Barry have decided to dicuss our porject in detail and discuss representation within our project. Hopefully Katie will be in the lesson tomorrow.
Sunday 26 February 2012
New Film with Comparison
http://katiesawesomeasmediablog.blogspot.com/2012/02/tweaking-and-extras-film.html -
Above is a link to Katie's blog in which she has posted two videos, the first is effectively a comparison to our old footage to our new film. As you can see there are many differences between the two I.E the newest edition has titles and the audio level is more consistent. You will also note how some shots have changed in order to add more effect towards the audience. I've already explained in an early blog about this but in a nutshell we were able to change shots thanks to us spending 3 hours filming during the interrogation scene, in which we shot at a various number of angles some of which are included in the newer project and some others which aren't. Therefore when Sir asked us whether we could change some of the shots such as the pan shot (at 0:38 in the "before" half) it was not a major issue for us to change it.
The second video is our new project in all its glory on its own. I am quite happy with it overall, as you can see the issues i have addressed in previous blogs have almost completely disappeared now so that if there are any issues its mostly extreme nitpicking. There's also the title of the film which appears at the end, I showed in a previous blog that the title of the film should have the same font and should appear in the same transition as the titles of the people working on the project, therefore we have now completed this so that "Decipher" is now shown at the end in the same font and the same style as the previous titles, it keeps the black and white imagery just like them but is notably much larger than them signifying that it is the most important information.
Above is a link to Katie's blog in which she has posted two videos, the first is effectively a comparison to our old footage to our new film. As you can see there are many differences between the two I.E the newest edition has titles and the audio level is more consistent. You will also note how some shots have changed in order to add more effect towards the audience. I've already explained in an early blog about this but in a nutshell we were able to change shots thanks to us spending 3 hours filming during the interrogation scene, in which we shot at a various number of angles some of which are included in the newer project and some others which aren't. Therefore when Sir asked us whether we could change some of the shots such as the pan shot (at 0:38 in the "before" half) it was not a major issue for us to change it.
The second video is our new project in all its glory on its own. I am quite happy with it overall, as you can see the issues i have addressed in previous blogs have almost completely disappeared now so that if there are any issues its mostly extreme nitpicking. There's also the title of the film which appears at the end, I showed in a previous blog that the title of the film should have the same font and should appear in the same transition as the titles of the people working on the project, therefore we have now completed this so that "Decipher" is now shown at the end in the same font and the same style as the previous titles, it keeps the black and white imagery just like them but is notably much larger than them signifying that it is the most important information.
Friday 24 February 2012
Nitpicking
Today me Katie and Barry continued to edit our project, we concluded that although the shots and narrative etc was all brilliant there were still issues with the titles, this was because we placed the titles in the wrong order as we were not fully certain that the order was "starring...", "music", "editor", "producer", "writer" "director". This caused us to spend the majority of the end of the lesson working on rearranging the titles in order to suit the requirements so hopefully we gain full marks. When Sir watched it again he pointed that our project was "phenomenal" which was a very positive influence on us, however he did express that the music and sound was slightly off at some points this means sometimes the dialogue between me and Barry in the interrogation scene changes tempo frequently which is frustrating as it meant we had to change the sound for each shot so that it stayed the same, however because of the fact that some shots were filmed in different places it means that it will be very hard for us to continue consistency, however we will continue to work on this within the oncoming days. Also Sir pointed out that the title of our film "Decipher" should be changed to match the previous title shots I.E using a swipe, he also said that the title of the film should have exactly the same font as the titles, this means we will need to change the title of our film to match these requests. Overall however these are not major issues which is why the title of this blog is called "nitpicking" as we're simply trying to make the project slightly better than it already is in order to achieve a slightly higher mark in the end, these issues are not major and although getting the sound right may be tricky we should hopefully be able to achieve the other issues as soon as possible without issue.
Sounds On Institutions
Recently we have noticed that our Warner Bros and DynamiteKitty logos did not have any sound, therefore we discussed what sound effects would be best suited to our institutions and logos. We subsequently have now included the typical Warner Bros logo music which is always seen in Warner Bros films, this makes our film much more authentic as opposed to having no sound whatsoever. We were originally confused about what sound would best suited to DynamiteKitty logo however we eventually opted to use the sound of a black panther roaring a bit similar to Lionsgate however it is not the same sound effect which means we wont have any issue with copyright, I think using the sound of a panther is very suited to us as it fits the logo almost perfectly and allows us to continue using sound as opposed to having moments where there is no sound which may have damaged our chances of gaining very high marks in the end.
Tuesday 21 February 2012
Almost Finished
Today we continued to edit our project, overall I am very happy with the way we are working and progressing as a group. So far we have had no eceedingly harsh issues with the project however there has been some minor faults, Sir realised some of these and posted a review of our rough cut on Katie's Blog, I read through the review and took notes as to how we could change each part to make the video better, he expressed that we needed to add titles, after today I can say that the titles are now included into the project along with the DynamiteKitty logo and Warner Bros logo, we also included the title of our film at the end, we chose to place it at the end in order to help link with other crime films such as The Dark Knight which has its title shown at the end of the opening sequence, we have decided to use inter titles within our sequence, this means there is a short bit of narrative followed by a brief title then another bit of narrative. The use of inter titles allows us to link alot with crime films such as Lucky Number Slevin and The Departed. We have also now changed the contrast within the interrogation sequences in order to make the scene more gritty which helps link with film noir. Also we have decided to slow down the flashback sequences as well as the music throughout the whole sequence, this helps create a more dreamlike quality to it which emphasizes the mystery element of my character as well as the narrative of the story. The music was slowed down primarily in order to suit the sequence a lot better, since we made a few changes and have to add intertitles we discovered that the sequence became much longer and thus meant that the music was increasing its tempo before the appropriate moments, this caused us to panic for a short period of time until we found help from a friend whom stretched the music so that it became longer, this helped dramatically and also allowed us to continue working on the sequence without issue with music.
Tuesday 14 February 2012
Possible Titles and Logos
http://katiesawesomeasmediablog.blogspot.com/2012/02/titles-additons-to-squence.html
Here is a link to Katie's blog in which she has posted some samples of titles and logos which we may use within our sequence. The first video posted is another option for us to use for our logo of Dynamite Kitty, before this it was simply a spin logo, we felt this was ok for us however we felt we could possibly do better so Katie ended up creating this, I feel as though this logo is by far superior to the previous spin logo, therefore I would be much more tempted to use this logo as opposed to the spin logo, I feel this way due to the logo being far more unique and in turn looks much more effective. The logo still stays the exact same and remains black and white which links into film noir as well as the flashback sequence.
The second video posted shows the Warner Bros logo (our institution, due to Warner Bros being known for creating many crime thrillers and dramas) as well as our Dynamite Kitty logo (our studio) and the titles we are thinking of using. Overall I am very satisfied with the titles here, I think they fit in well with the logos and should fit in with the sequence. Originally me, Barry and Katie actually considered whether we should use titles at all, this was due to films like The Dark Knight which shows no credits at all (apart from the film title) until the end. However we ultimately decided that titles should be included within the sequence as this would hopefully be more effective and should also help us link with film noir even more (as the titles are black and white still). We discussed that the titles should be only two things, sophisticated (I.E. simple) and remain black and white. This would again help us link with classic film noir and would also allow the audience to be more intrigued to the story as opposed to being distracted by the titles. These were made using linear wipes on Katie's laptop and allows us to stay both sophisticated and intriguing towards the audience at the same time.
The third video shows the logo, titles and interlinks them within our sequence (rough cut version) using the titles and logos first and then showing the sequence naturally with the film title at the end. After watching this I feel as though it may possibly be best for us to use intertitles which will mean showing a little bit of footage and then showing some titles followed by more footage and so on. This would probably allow the sequence to flow more and keep the audience interested to the story arch. I think using the film title at the end fits in much better and is far more effective towards the audience, this should also help us link to films such as The Dark Knight, Inception among others who all show an opening sequence and then the title of the film afterwards. So far, we're very happy with the sequence however we are starting to wonder about the music which should be used throughout the titles, this may require us to look at secession studios again to try and find some music which matches the titles, this will need to be discussed in due course with the rest of the group.
Here is a link to Katie's blog in which she has posted some samples of titles and logos which we may use within our sequence. The first video posted is another option for us to use for our logo of Dynamite Kitty, before this it was simply a spin logo, we felt this was ok for us however we felt we could possibly do better so Katie ended up creating this, I feel as though this logo is by far superior to the previous spin logo, therefore I would be much more tempted to use this logo as opposed to the spin logo, I feel this way due to the logo being far more unique and in turn looks much more effective. The logo still stays the exact same and remains black and white which links into film noir as well as the flashback sequence.
The second video posted shows the Warner Bros logo (our institution, due to Warner Bros being known for creating many crime thrillers and dramas) as well as our Dynamite Kitty logo (our studio) and the titles we are thinking of using. Overall I am very satisfied with the titles here, I think they fit in well with the logos and should fit in with the sequence. Originally me, Barry and Katie actually considered whether we should use titles at all, this was due to films like The Dark Knight which shows no credits at all (apart from the film title) until the end. However we ultimately decided that titles should be included within the sequence as this would hopefully be more effective and should also help us link with film noir even more (as the titles are black and white still). We discussed that the titles should be only two things, sophisticated (I.E. simple) and remain black and white. This would again help us link with classic film noir and would also allow the audience to be more intrigued to the story as opposed to being distracted by the titles. These were made using linear wipes on Katie's laptop and allows us to stay both sophisticated and intriguing towards the audience at the same time.
The third video shows the logo, titles and interlinks them within our sequence (rough cut version) using the titles and logos first and then showing the sequence naturally with the film title at the end. After watching this I feel as though it may possibly be best for us to use intertitles which will mean showing a little bit of footage and then showing some titles followed by more footage and so on. This would probably allow the sequence to flow more and keep the audience interested to the story arch. I think using the film title at the end fits in much better and is far more effective towards the audience, this should also help us link to films such as The Dark Knight, Inception among others who all show an opening sequence and then the title of the film afterwards. So far, we're very happy with the sequence however we are starting to wonder about the music which should be used throughout the titles, this may require us to look at secession studios again to try and find some music which matches the titles, this will need to be discussed in due course with the rest of the group.
Friday 10 February 2012
Rough Cut
http://katiesawesomeasmediablog.blogspot.com/2012/02/rough-cut.html
Here is a link to Katie's blog in which she has posted our rough cut, overall I am happy with it, although there are some issues (see previous blog) but still I think it looks ok, hopefully the narrative is clear and any issues which Mr. Earl arises can be sorted quickly, efficiently and easily. We understand that the titles are not integrated with this rough cut, this is due to us developing the titles within the lesson today, since we did not have time to complete the titles then we hope to upload a video with just the titles soon.
Here is a link to Katie's blog in which she has posted our rough cut, overall I am happy with it, although there are some issues (see previous blog) but still I think it looks ok, hopefully the narrative is clear and any issues which Mr. Earl arises can be sorted quickly, efficiently and easily. We understand that the titles are not integrated with this rough cut, this is due to us developing the titles within the lesson today, since we did not have time to complete the titles then we hope to upload a video with just the titles soon.
Deadline Day - Rough Cut Due Shortly
Today was the final day in which we could complete the rough cut for our project, originally we came into lesson today with the vast majority of the rough cut already created, the only parts missing included the titles as well as some components which may possibly could have changed. Most of the components we ended up changing were thanks to Mr. Earl who told us that there were some aspects that he would like to see in different ways than what we showed in the original rough cut, some of the examples include the pan shot (which i have already included a link to in a previous blog) as well as other parts which included me about to hit Barry's character on the head with an object similar to a baseball bat (see equipment post), he stated this was because it looked notably quite fake, this has caused us to possibly think about cutting slighly earlier than we oringally thought.
In the lesson we ended up producing some titles, these are slightly different to what we oringally intended however they still keep a lot of qualities about them I.E the titles are clearly black and white which helps link us to film noir as well as fits in with our flashback sequence. These should be uploaded by the end of the night along with a Warner Bros logo (which is our institution) and our dynamite kitty logo which is our studio name.
Overall I am very proud of what we have acheived (thus far). I understand there are multiple issues with the project I.E some of the shots could possibly be done better, however to combat this we did filmed our sequence in a variety of different angles on the day, this caused us to essentially fix the pan shot which Sir did not like very quickly as we simply replaced it with a canted close up shot of me saying my lines. The rough cut should eventually be uploaded tonight probably on Katie's blog as she has the contents on her laptop.
In the lesson we ended up producing some titles, these are slightly different to what we oringally intended however they still keep a lot of qualities about them I.E the titles are clearly black and white which helps link us to film noir as well as fits in with our flashback sequence. These should be uploaded by the end of the night along with a Warner Bros logo (which is our institution) and our dynamite kitty logo which is our studio name.
Overall I am very proud of what we have acheived (thus far). I understand there are multiple issues with the project I.E some of the shots could possibly be done better, however to combat this we did filmed our sequence in a variety of different angles on the day, this caused us to essentially fix the pan shot which Sir did not like very quickly as we simply replaced it with a canted close up shot of me saying my lines. The rough cut should eventually be uploaded tonight probably on Katie's blog as she has the contents on her laptop.
Wednesday 8 February 2012
Experimenting Sound
Recently me, Katie and Barry have been discussing sound and how this can be used within our project, since we already have permission to use secessionstudios music me and Katie spent a very long time on Tuesday discussing music from secession via Facebook that would be best for us to use. Ultimately we had a various amount of options at the end, however the music we thought was best is called "Epic and Dramatic Trailer Music" (link below), I think we chose this in the end due to the music being very soft but also quite upbeat at the same time thus meaning it could help us create a sophisticated nature within the interrogation scene but also a very upbeat, dark atmosphere within the flashback sequence.
Below this post there is a link to Katie's blog in which she posted 4 samples of us experimenting with sound. The first example I feel is very good, the music helps match the surroundings and creates the same moods which we wished to create within the sequence. However I feel the sound effect is slightly misleading, although originally I suggested this when me and Katie talked over Facebook I feel as though it does not match the sequence as it sounds roughly similar to what would be typical in more science fiction films rather than crime dramas or thrillers. You can hear this sound effect at 0:31 within the sequence. It is supposed to signify a different mood and a different time setting (as the sequence goes into a flashback at this point) however it just does not seem to match the surroundings.
Sample 2 does not have any music in, however it does have the dialogue within the sequence with less unnecessary sound in the background which makes it sound much more effective and grittier than it does naturally. However the sound effect within the transition towards the flashback sequence remains within the sequence which I have already stated I feel is unnecessary in the sequence.
Sample 3 I feel is without question the best, I feel this is due to misuse of the sound effect within the sequence as well as the music creating a better, more gritty atmosphere and is also very sophisticated and dramatic. I really like how it builds up once the flashback sequence starts as though something is about to happen.
Sample 4 I think is way too dramatic, although the editing of the imagery remains the same throughout all the sequences, with the music used here I feel the music makes the scene seem way more dramatic than it is, there is without question no need for music this dramatic (at least not this early in the sequence).
As for the editing of the sequence as a whole I feel it is coming along very nicely, I like how the black and white imagery signifies the flashback and I also like the transition into the flashback sequence, although Katie and I have agreed that the sequence would probably be more effective if the transition was slightly longer as it could possibly feel as though the transition happens for no apparent reason which could be very off-putting towards the audience. Hopefully we shall be able to finish the editing process for the rough cut by Friday so that Sir can review it and suggest any other issues he feels should be fixed and how we can go about fixing these issues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeEDQMLtyGY&feature=related - Secession Studios YouTube link
http://katiesawesomeasmediablog.blogspot.com/2012/02/sound-expermintation.html - Link to Katie's blog in which you can see the samples of the music implemented into the project.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5hdJ3Z4pDY&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL&fb_source=message - Here is a link to another piece of music we were considering, this ended up becoming the sound effect which you can hear in most of the samples to highlight a transition between the interrogation and flashback sequence. Ultimately I feel as though we will not go with this piece of music as me and Katie feel it does not match the surroundings in which it would be shown within our sequence. Although I originally intended to use the sound effect I subsequently realised how it does not suit the sequence at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81NwhVs7hD8&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL&fb_source=message - Here is a link to another piece of music which was considered. This was probably our second choice (with epic and dramatic music coming first) to choose for our sequence, the reason for this is because it is very soft and also very upbeat, we both agreed that it may be possible to have this particular music throughout the whole sequence, however we then agreed that epic and dramatic trailer music suited the scene much more, plus when hearing this music in the sequence (look at sample 4) it appears that it does not fit in the sequence and makes it seem far more dramatic than it needs to be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ-JDeaKaBU&feature=plcp&context=C33f650aUDOEgsToPDskKMKsMkn9_HqPqFAvRqye46 - Yet another piece of music that we were considering was this one, I feel as though this is slightly too upbeat, although it may fit in with certain parts as some pats of the song are very effective to create an eerie but sophisticated atmosphere. The fact that it is slightly too upbeat means that I feel as though we shouldn't use this in the sequence, possibly certain parts would work in the flashback, however I would not want to risk using a variety of different pieces of music as this may corrupt the sequence and distract the audience from what is actually happening on screen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5hdJ3Z4pDY&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL&fb_source=message - Here is a link to another piece of music we were considering, this ended up becoming the sound effect which you can hear in most of the samples to highlight a transition between the interrogation and flashback sequence. Ultimately I feel as though we will not go with this piece of music as me and Katie feel it does not match the surroundings in which it would be shown within our sequence. Although I originally intended to use the sound effect I subsequently realised how it does not suit the sequence at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81NwhVs7hD8&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL&fb_source=message - Here is a link to another piece of music which was considered. This was probably our second choice (with epic and dramatic music coming first) to choose for our sequence, the reason for this is because it is very soft and also very upbeat, we both agreed that it may be possible to have this particular music throughout the whole sequence, however we then agreed that epic and dramatic trailer music suited the scene much more, plus when hearing this music in the sequence (look at sample 4) it appears that it does not fit in the sequence and makes it seem far more dramatic than it needs to be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ-JDeaKaBU&feature=plcp&context=C33f650aUDOEgsToPDskKMKsMkn9_HqPqFAvRqye46 - Yet another piece of music that we were considering was this one, I feel as though this is slightly too upbeat, although it may fit in with certain parts as some pats of the song are very effective to create an eerie but sophisticated atmosphere. The fact that it is slightly too upbeat means that I feel as though we shouldn't use this in the sequence, possibly certain parts would work in the flashback, however I would not want to risk using a variety of different pieces of music as this may corrupt the sequence and distract the audience from what is actually happening on screen.
Tuesday 7 February 2012
Reviewing Some More Footage
Here is some more footage that me and Barry have subjected ourselves to review. This clip is supposed to be shown either directly or shortly after the previous shot I just reviewed. Overall me and Barry feel as though this clip is very good, the camera stays steady throughout and there are nion no issues with this shot, apart from one, at roughly 7 seconds in the shot the clip becomes seemingly out of focus. This reduces the quality of the shot sufficiently and means it is possible that we will not be using this particular take within the sequence. However, I feel as though the take is actually very good and effective, we used a canted shot here in order to create a more effective, disorienting feel which also links into some of our research into some of our research such as Casino Royale which in turn links to a lot of film noir. We decided a while ago that the flashback sequence would be edited into black and white whilst the interrogation sequence would remain in colour. This would help us show that this part of the sequence is set in the past whilst the interrogation scene is set in the present, this also helps us link to film noir. Since this particular shot is set during the flashback it means this will hopefully be edited to black and white later.
Reviewing Some Footage
Here is a take taken from one part of the flashback sequence within our project. Since Katie was absent today it involved me and Barry reviewing some of this footage. Overall I feel as though this footage is ok, I feel the lighting and framing of the shot is very good, and is almost preciously what we were aiming to create. We used a vast amount of mise-en-scene in this shot, if it were to be analysed it could be said how the ligt shadow is shining brightly behind Flossi's character thus indicating a very bright, enthusiastic person. However there are some issues with this shot; the shot would not be used in the project until roughly 5 seconds in as before this we are telling Flossi what she is supposed to be doing, at the seconds 9, 13 and 17 it appears that the camera starts bouncing and the shot becomes out of focus on occassion. This makes the actual quality of the shot decrease and therefore would not make it look as authentic as we originally intended, however the look of the shot we feel is very good and is notably very effective. Therefore we feel as though this shot would be good to use in our project, however we feel as though we will have other takes of this shot which are of a better standard.
Monday 6 February 2012
Absent Today
Today I was absent from my media class, this meant I was unable to help both Barry and Katie continue editing the project, and I have since heard that Katie was ill and was absent today (and will also be absent tomorrow!) this is unfortunate and I wish her a speedy recovery. Unfortunately our project is located on Katie's laptop so me and Barry will not be able to do editing tomorrow...However thankfully Katie said she will be able to continue editing as much as she can tomorrow whilst me and Barry can review some footage so that we know which specific takes to use etc. Then we can email Katie via Facebook and she can apply it to the project. Then on the day she comes back to school fully recovered me and Barry will be able to see the project and hopefully be satisfied with it.
Friday 3 February 2012
Editing
Today we began editing the beginning of our project, so far there have been no serious issues, however we have come into a few problems, mostly involving sound, this is due to the camera filming both mine and Barry's voice from different angles which therefore picks up different depths from the camera.
This meant that when editing the sound needed to be changed in order to suit the dialogue, therefore our voices will not change in depth and volume within different angles. When editing we have sort of taken over different jobs, Katie is the main editor ensuring that tasks are done based on both what me and Barry say we feel is suitable, I have taken the job as a kind of organiser, this is because we did not film in many different files and instead filmed for very long times within each angle, ensuring all the lines we said in each angle, this was more time consuming on the day however this should allow us a larger variety when editing if we choose to change a few aspects.
Since the files were so long this meant we needed someone who had the ability to write notes effectively, stating each individual video file, what shot it used in the file and also at what point in the time range each line is said. I effectively appointed myself as this job since I felt this would save a vast amount of time later on when we're wondering where each line is said within each file. So far editing it going well, however we have only edited roughly 20-30 seconds of footage so far, although Katie has decided that since she is doing the project on her laptop then we have capability to work throughout the weekend and after school on the project.
This meant that when editing the sound needed to be changed in order to suit the dialogue, therefore our voices will not change in depth and volume within different angles. When editing we have sort of taken over different jobs, Katie is the main editor ensuring that tasks are done based on both what me and Barry say we feel is suitable, I have taken the job as a kind of organiser, this is because we did not film in many different files and instead filmed for very long times within each angle, ensuring all the lines we said in each angle, this was more time consuming on the day however this should allow us a larger variety when editing if we choose to change a few aspects.
Since the files were so long this meant we needed someone who had the ability to write notes effectively, stating each individual video file, what shot it used in the file and also at what point in the time range each line is said. I effectively appointed myself as this job since I felt this would save a vast amount of time later on when we're wondering where each line is said within each file. So far editing it going well, however we have only edited roughly 20-30 seconds of footage so far, although Katie has decided that since she is doing the project on her laptop then we have capability to work throughout the weekend and after school on the project.
Wednesday 1 February 2012
Recapping
I haven't made a blog in some time now so I thought now would be an appropriate time to catch up. We appear to have finished our filming now, both the flashback and interrogation scene.
I have already spoken about the interrogation scene and some of the complexities of filming there so instead I have opted to discuss the flashback sequence at this moment in time. Throughout the week prior to filming the flashback sequence me, Katie and Barry were discussing what would be required within each particular shot in each section and how we will incooperate this into the sequence. It was very important that a relationship between the womans character and Barry's character (I.E. Ryan Taylor) was established effectively, we decided to try this by allowing the woman character (thankfully Flossi, a mutual friend who agreed to be in our film) who would have to wear a vast amount of red or exotic clothing. This would establish a typical representation of women being sexual figures whilst Barry's character it was important for him to incooperate the same tracksuit he used in the interrogation scene (this is because the interrogation would be set a day after the flasback sequence), the tracksuit will help establish Barry's character as a lesser social class towards my character in the flashback sequence.
When we filmed our sequence we used a total of 2 locations, the first of which was my house which was used to establish that the two figures were getting ready to go on a night out, the second location is the tunnel which i posted pictures of in one of my previous blogs, one problem which Sir arised from the tunnel was that the lighting was very dark, however thankfully the tunnel lights were replaced by the council a few weeks before we filmed, this caused a great weight to be lifted from my shoulders as befroe I discovered this I was awake at 2:00am with my mother and father trying to see if we could use these very strong torches which my dad could hire from his workplace, however when we arrived at the tunnel in the early hours of the morning we discovered the lights had been changed which prompted me to film a short video on my phone chronicling mine and parents reactions (link below).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnBoySNupjs&feature=g-upl&context=G21b78cbAUAAAAAAAAAA&fb_source=message
Anyway, back to filming, the filming for the majority went well, everyone was working perfectly happy together and there were no issues, however we soon discovered that because we were filming so much and doing so many takes of each shot we realised that the battery within the camera was running out sharpish. This caused masses amount of frustration around the group as we were now very timed constrained (we could not film any other day of the week due to Katie and Barry being preoccuipied with work) which meant we had to film all the required shots very quickly to make sure each shot was made properly, however there were not as many takes. Eventually some shots which were originally ideal for us were not shot as the camera was completely out of battery, this prompted us to come up with an idea of using pictures to incooperate in our film, i took the picures on my mobile phone (as Katie decided Barry's phone may not be as trustworthy as mine). We are considering using these photos in order to highlight the story that Barry's character is being blamed for the murder whilst Flossi's character has actually been murdered. The photos within the film world would have been taken by the police so that they can investigate the scenario and the crime scene. Hopefully we can figure out someway of using these pictures eventually (i will post the pictures we are going to use soon)
Whislt reviewing the footage a few days after so far it seems to look good, some shots were not as ideal however some worked perfectly, on the link below is a link to Katie's blog in which she posted from her memory stick a piece of raw footage from the interrogation scene, I think this looks very well for us, there is a problem with the sound in that both mine and Barry's voice is not heard very well, also in the pan at the end it appears Katie may have strayed a bit too far away from my face (although my face is not meant to be seen anyway). However overall I think this piece of raw footage looks good, we have many takes of these (from what I recall at least 4) and the main part is that the pan is very smooth and works at preciously the right time thus meaning that the effect is much stronger.
http://katiesawesomeasmediablog.blogspot.com/2012/01/example-shoot-raw.html
Overall we have decided to name our film "Decipher", this name was my idea and I chose it through the fact that decipher means solving a puzzle, which coresponds well with our film as the opening sequence will establish that my character is blaming Barry's character for a murder, and the rest of the film would be Barry's character dephiering what is actually happening around him and why I am doing this to him.
The image above is taken from the logo in which Katie (quite brilliantly i might add) created for us, the original image was copyrighted which meant Katie had to create this image based on the original image using Paint. We decided to use the two colours of just black and white, this would mean it would be more accessible for us to discuss the typical colours used in film noir (as many of these older films are created in black and white and also pose a lot of stylistic aspects which are based on this).
http://katiesawesomeasmediablog.blogspot.com/2012/01/logo-in-film.html
The link above again links to Katie's blog in which she posted the original idea for how our logo will be animated and be shown before our film. We decided to animate it in order to make it seem much more auhentic and more similar to an actual film logo.
Currently, we are now starting to record voice-overs on Katie's lapop, thankfully her lapop has an effective microphone which will help us a lot more in the long run. However, whilst we were recording the voiceovers in a small room there were a lot of voices coming from the background which prompted us to get frustrated as classes around us were very noisy, however we decided to carry on and see how the voices would sound with this anyway, the end result is not perfect to say the least however it is still understandable, but we will be recording the voiceovers again in due course in order to combat this.
I have already spoken about the interrogation scene and some of the complexities of filming there so instead I have opted to discuss the flashback sequence at this moment in time. Throughout the week prior to filming the flashback sequence me, Katie and Barry were discussing what would be required within each particular shot in each section and how we will incooperate this into the sequence. It was very important that a relationship between the womans character and Barry's character (I.E. Ryan Taylor) was established effectively, we decided to try this by allowing the woman character (thankfully Flossi, a mutual friend who agreed to be in our film) who would have to wear a vast amount of red or exotic clothing. This would establish a typical representation of women being sexual figures whilst Barry's character it was important for him to incooperate the same tracksuit he used in the interrogation scene (this is because the interrogation would be set a day after the flasback sequence), the tracksuit will help establish Barry's character as a lesser social class towards my character in the flashback sequence.
When we filmed our sequence we used a total of 2 locations, the first of which was my house which was used to establish that the two figures were getting ready to go on a night out, the second location is the tunnel which i posted pictures of in one of my previous blogs, one problem which Sir arised from the tunnel was that the lighting was very dark, however thankfully the tunnel lights were replaced by the council a few weeks before we filmed, this caused a great weight to be lifted from my shoulders as befroe I discovered this I was awake at 2:00am with my mother and father trying to see if we could use these very strong torches which my dad could hire from his workplace, however when we arrived at the tunnel in the early hours of the morning we discovered the lights had been changed which prompted me to film a short video on my phone chronicling mine and parents reactions (link below).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnBoySNupjs&feature=g-upl&context=G21b78cbAUAAAAAAAAAA&fb_source=message
Anyway, back to filming, the filming for the majority went well, everyone was working perfectly happy together and there were no issues, however we soon discovered that because we were filming so much and doing so many takes of each shot we realised that the battery within the camera was running out sharpish. This caused masses amount of frustration around the group as we were now very timed constrained (we could not film any other day of the week due to Katie and Barry being preoccuipied with work) which meant we had to film all the required shots very quickly to make sure each shot was made properly, however there were not as many takes. Eventually some shots which were originally ideal for us were not shot as the camera was completely out of battery, this prompted us to come up with an idea of using pictures to incooperate in our film, i took the picures on my mobile phone (as Katie decided Barry's phone may not be as trustworthy as mine). We are considering using these photos in order to highlight the story that Barry's character is being blamed for the murder whilst Flossi's character has actually been murdered. The photos within the film world would have been taken by the police so that they can investigate the scenario and the crime scene. Hopefully we can figure out someway of using these pictures eventually (i will post the pictures we are going to use soon)
Whislt reviewing the footage a few days after so far it seems to look good, some shots were not as ideal however some worked perfectly, on the link below is a link to Katie's blog in which she posted from her memory stick a piece of raw footage from the interrogation scene, I think this looks very well for us, there is a problem with the sound in that both mine and Barry's voice is not heard very well, also in the pan at the end it appears Katie may have strayed a bit too far away from my face (although my face is not meant to be seen anyway). However overall I think this piece of raw footage looks good, we have many takes of these (from what I recall at least 4) and the main part is that the pan is very smooth and works at preciously the right time thus meaning that the effect is much stronger.
http://katiesawesomeasmediablog.blogspot.com/2012/01/example-shoot-raw.html
Overall we have decided to name our film "Decipher", this name was my idea and I chose it through the fact that decipher means solving a puzzle, which coresponds well with our film as the opening sequence will establish that my character is blaming Barry's character for a murder, and the rest of the film would be Barry's character dephiering what is actually happening around him and why I am doing this to him.
http://katiesawesomeasmediablog.blogspot.com/2012/01/logo-in-film.html
The link above again links to Katie's blog in which she posted the original idea for how our logo will be animated and be shown before our film. We decided to animate it in order to make it seem much more auhentic and more similar to an actual film logo.
Currently, we are now starting to record voice-overs on Katie's lapop, thankfully her lapop has an effective microphone which will help us a lot more in the long run. However, whilst we were recording the voiceovers in a small room there were a lot of voices coming from the background which prompted us to get frustrated as classes around us were very noisy, however we decided to carry on and see how the voices would sound with this anyway, the end result is not perfect to say the least however it is still understandable, but we will be recording the voiceovers again in due course in order to combat this.
Thursday 19 January 2012
Shots Taken From Tuesday
Monday 9 January 2012
Murder Costume
Here is the costume which I should be wearing during the murder scene within our project, the reason I chose this is mainly through it being predominantly dark clothing as well as a 'fiery' red aspect to it with the red t-shirt which should either reflect the danger I will bring towards the other characters or allow me to resemble blood with the red clothing. There is also a faint but noticeable RAF badge on the jacket which may or may not come in use but it can help reflect a more aggressive and possibly strategic aspect towards my character as my character will end up blaming Barry's character for a murder. On the t-shirt there is also a caption which states "university of life" emphasizing a more rebellious and slightly more sinister aspect. Bearing in mind these particular aspects of clothing may change by the time of the final piece it still means it is very likely I will be using this uniform as there are many aspects of it which should create the hopeful effect on the audience we are trying to do. It is also much more casual which should reflect on the suit I will also be wearing within the interrogation half of the sequence.
'Working Class' Costume
Here are some pictures which Barry has taken of his own personal tracksuit which will be used within our sequence to reflect the everyday 'working class' man. This should correspond well with the very 'posh' and upper-class suit which I shall be wearing when reflecting the detective thus indicating a significant difference between the two characters. Tracksuits are also a typical feature of 'chavs' in the media, 'chavs' are very typically represented in the media as being criminals, prisoners etc. This should play to our advantage as initially it will seem to the audience that the 'chav' character is a criminal, however througout the course of the sequence it should end up revealing that the 'chav' character is actually innocent and is instead being blamed for a murder in which he has not taken part in which should help subdue the representation of typical 'working class' people.
Sunday 8 January 2012
Time Schedule
Week 1 - Ensure that all pre-planning is complete e.g. gathering props and finalising storyboard and script. Gather props and find a female actor.
Week 2 - Decide upon colour / tonal use of flash backs and present time - prophase run a test. Create a study logo and running clip for pre editing. Book camera and schedule meeting days and begin to bring all equitment needed for interrogation shoot e.g. torches and lamp.
Ensure camera is charged and memory card is inserted.
Week 3 - Begin shooting interrogation scene, idealy having at least half of the squence shots done before the end of the week.
Week 4 - Finish shooting interrogation scene, begin house scene and finish up to tunnel set.
Week 5 - Start shooting tunnel scene of Ryan and Sophie, finish. Start shooting attack scene in tunnel and finish.
Week 6 - Hand back camera for media file conversion. Begin to record voice overs Bring laptop for voice recording.
Week 7 - Create title opening sequence as follows - Insitute (WarnerBros.), studio (DynamiteKittystudios) and finally opening credits / opening squence of film / title. Have opening titles finished and title.
Bring laptop for Adobe After Effects use.
Week 8 - Begin to edit video footage only. (possible rough cut for blog)
Bring laptop
Week 9 - Aim to rough finish video footage without effects or sound. (possible rough cut for blog)
Bring laptop
Week 10 - Begin to add sound e.g. music, incidental themes and voice overs and produce a rough cut.
Bring laptop
Week 11 - Fix any errors in current rough cut. (possible rough cut for blog)
Bring laptop
Week 12 - Begin to add lighting effects such as brightened, serial colour and sepia tone - finish film opening squence.
Bring laptop
Week 13 - Finish editing by joining credits, film and title effectively.
Bring laptop
Week 2 - Decide upon colour / tonal use of flash backs and present time - prophase run a test. Create a study logo and running clip for pre editing. Book camera and schedule meeting days and begin to bring all equitment needed for interrogation shoot e.g. torches and lamp.
Ensure camera is charged and memory card is inserted.
Week 3 - Begin shooting interrogation scene, idealy having at least half of the squence shots done before the end of the week.
Week 4 - Finish shooting interrogation scene, begin house scene and finish up to tunnel set.
Week 5 - Start shooting tunnel scene of Ryan and Sophie, finish. Start shooting attack scene in tunnel and finish.
Week 6 - Hand back camera for media file conversion. Begin to record voice overs Bring laptop for voice recording.
Week 7 - Create title opening sequence as follows - Insitute (WarnerBros.), studio (DynamiteKittystudios) and finally opening credits / opening squence of film / title. Have opening titles finished and title.
Bring laptop for Adobe After Effects use.
Week 8 - Begin to edit video footage only. (possible rough cut for blog)
Bring laptop
Week 9 - Aim to rough finish video footage without effects or sound. (possible rough cut for blog)
Bring laptop
Week 10 - Begin to add sound e.g. music, incidental themes and voice overs and produce a rough cut.
Bring laptop
Week 11 - Fix any errors in current rough cut. (possible rough cut for blog)
Bring laptop
Week 12 - Begin to add lighting effects such as brightened, serial colour and sepia tone - finish film opening squence.
Bring laptop
Week 13 - Finish editing by joining credits, film and title effectively.
Bring laptop
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