Evaluation Question 7

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

When I compare our work in the preliminary task and that in our film, we have clearly developed our filming and editing skills. In the preliminary task we mainly got to grips with the basics of producing a film, like the effective camera angles and cross cuts.  In our group,  we tried to effectively use the 180 degree rule, shot reverse shot and a match on action as we were briefed to help us achieve the most effective shots. In particular, trying to use match on action showed us the importance of consistency and angles in a film, as each cut had to link with the next in order to portray a continuous plot. At the time we were very happy with our preliminary product, however reviewing it i can now see how much we and I have learnt. I found that my editing skills have greatly improved, as i remember simple tasks such as cutting shots took me longer for the preliminary tasks than it does now. I have also learnt many new features of programs such as Final Cut and Motion; whilst also developing my physical skills with camera work, lighting and sound. Reflecting on my knowledge and capability before I began Media, i have greatly developed and learnt new skills along the way.

Over the course of product, i have greatly improved my ability to plan ahead and adapt to situations in the moment.  We found the best way to complete tasks within our group was to assign ourselves each with a task, allowing us to focus on the primary subject and then combine our results at school.  We had to begin the planning of our film product very early on due to the need to produce storyboards and a clear narrative/script prior to our shooting days.  I found the completion of this storyboard very challenging as, we had to visualize the ideal and most effective shots for our filming without being on location. Whilst in the past, prior to beginning our product, I would not have been able to do this. Doing the preliminary task helped me later in my project as I had already got to grips with how to plan a shoot and what would need to be achieved, such as the sound and lighting along with the camerawork.

I was little aware of the importance of sound, and the multitude of ways it can be adapted and used. In producing our product I learnt for the first time about foley sound, and the key role it plays in films to allow the editors to create the most realistic effects for a film. We used foley sound in our film for the phone ringing and the sound of it hitting a concrete floor. We used a directional microphone for the foley sound and that recorded in our film , which I had learnt to use in other practice films and sessions.  It was very advantageous that i was aware of how to use the sound recorders as by mistake our camera that we filmed "Strobe" with, had not recorded the sound itself and so we had to overlay it during editing.

I feel that i have learnt the most about the effective use of lighting, which i had no experience of before. During our light testing work, i was able to see the postive effect a well lit stage can have on the quality of the film and the perspective of the frame. When we used little or no light, the frame was very flat. In comparison, when we combined a fill light with top lighting on a mid shot, we were able to achieve much greater depth of field, thus making it look more realistic. 

For the preliminary task, we used very basic camera shots, primarily using mid shots with the subject in the centre of the frame, as we knew little of the importance of positioning within the frame and camera angles.  Considering our later work, I can proudly say that I have learnt a great deal about camerawork, as when we were filming we were aware of intersting angles and visual aids for the viewer, such as the rule of thirds.  I have also found that we have got much more efficient in our production of work. As we were able to have less out-takes but still be able to achieve the desired effect.

Overall, I have learnt a great deal from our preliminary task to the progression of the full product. Learning new technologies and advancing old ones, has helped me to create a better product and develop my skills to which i can take onto future work.  

Evaluation Question 6

To conclude we have learned a lot about the technologies from the process of constructing our product, as many we had never used or had little experience with before.  Our greatest advancement in skills was with Final Cut Pro, as we quickly learnt the most effective and coherent ways of editing our film. However we also learnt a great deal from the cameras, aiming for the most visually stunning shots using the rule of thirds and shooting from various angles.
While filming we struggled the most with lighting, as the batteries ran out very quickly. Luckily, due to our past experience, we remembered to bring multiple battery packs, which allowed us to continue filming.
Reflecting on our filming day 2, we also greatly struggled with sound as we found out after the shoot that our camera had not recorded any. This made us realise the importance of using an external mic recorder, to have a clearer, extra layer of sound.
From our experiences in the project, I believe that we have learnt a lot, and so in our future ones we will not make the same mistakes.

Evaluation Question 5

How do you attract/address you audience ?

Our scene opens on a beach, this immediately attracts our audience as the setting is pleasant and the sound of the water is soothing, fitting with the calm tone of the production. By opening the scene with a soundbridge of the lapping water we felt the viewer would feel more included in the situation - thus heightening the verisimilitude. We use shots of the water going back and forth on the beach to further create the appearance of calmness, ambient sounds of the water further builds to this calmness. 

Long shots of our character sitting on the beach with members of the public in the distant background hint at her detachment from reality at this moment. We also use a female actor in an attempt to draw sympathy from the audience, as audience members will be more likely to sympathise with a crying woman than man.Cross cutting into the club scene juxtaposes the setting and the tone, further drawing in attention. We attempt to create an image of reality, to make the scene appear similar to any experience an audience member has experienced in a club, dancing, drinking, and many POV shots to make the audience feel as part of the production, this is vital due to the audience gratifications theory where people are most likely to watch a film where they can envision themselves in it, seeing as our target audience is 15 - 25, this is the age where socialising in clubs is popular, therefore it is key that our verisimilitude is high therefore the audience will relate with the scene and therefore enjoy it more.

We included many shots of people finishing their drinks, combined with a shaky handheld effect to create the illusion of intoxication. We use quick short shots in order to keep the audience interested, constantly using different coloured lighted shots to appear more party like.

A girl throwing up immediately following the club scene suggests these particular girls are heavily under the influence of alcohol, again, a situation our target audience will be able to relate to. Having to take care of drunk member of the group may appear almost comical to our audience, as they will further be able to imagine themselves as part of this group of people. Our atmosphere following the club scene is eery and ominous. This is done to create a tense feeling, as due to the crying girl at the beginning of the scene, we are immediately made aware a tragedy has occurred. This makes the production seem edgy as something is going to happen but we do not know what due to the cross cutting between the past and present.

In reality it would be preferable to draw this scene out for longer than 2 minutes so we would have more time to build the suspense of what is going to occur and further attract the audience, but in the 2 minutes we are able to keep the audience attentive by cross cutting back and forth to the incident occurred and the repercussions without taking much time. Hopefully this will grip the audience and make them feel urged to continue watching as the plot of the movie is still not quite revealed.

Our target audience is the late teens, as this age group can relate to being at a club of some sort and losing a companion amongst a horde of strangers. The feeling of vulnerability is portrayed when our main actor is left behind, lost and alone. I think the final wide shot of Helena in the alleyway highlights this point exactly; the expanse of space in the frame makes her seem isolated, and the perspective is very ominous, implying someone could turn the corner at the very end of the alley. 

Although our audience may not fully be able to relate to this exact scenario, they can grasp the concept of how this could be dangerous for a young drunk girl. The seriousness of this further draws in the audience. In order to ensure that our audience enjoyed the production and fully understood the plot we conducted a short online survey.

One of the main ways by which we wanted to attract our audience was by filming predominantly in London, this was mainly because of the amazing oppurtunities it poses as a city. For example, even from planning stages I knew I had to take advantage of the Thames and the shingle at the southbank, just because of what an amazing bit of film it would create. I think that particular scene really makes the opening more sophisticated and controlled than it would have been otherwise, as well as it's beautiful and serene environment both promoting London by posing its best assets and attracting the viewer.

Finally, we felt the modern aspects of our opening such as the answering of Helena's smartphone directly link to our target audience of teenagers and young adults as modern technology and equipment. We thought most of our target audience would most likely have the same smartphone as Helena and if not, something similar. This ability to compare oneself to the character again heightens the sense of verisimilitude and empathy for the victim.

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

 Because we had already taken out a vox pop, an online survey and given people surveys to fill out in real life asking them about film genres and their preferences, we already had an idea of the type of opening we were going to create and who we would want to position it towards. In the screening of our opening, we asked similar questions on a hand out that people could fill in after watching our piece. We also conducted an online survey on our facebook page, (which reached 561 people!) asking what people on social media thought of our final cut. 

These are the results we obtained from the screening:
60% of the audience were male and all were within the 15-20 age bracket because of it taking place at school.

Question 1: What film did you see most recently at the cinema?

1. 'Home'?
2. The hobbit
3. The imitation game
4. The theory of everything
5. The theory of everything
6. Kingsaren
7. Foxcatcher
8. Whiplash
9. Ex Machina
10. How to train your dragon 2

Question 2: What type of cinema did you see this film at?

1. Multiplex
2. Arthouse
3. Multiplex
4. Multiplex
5. Arthouse
6. Arthouse
7. Arthouse
8. Arthouse
9. Multiplex
10. Multiplex

Question 3: What kind of genre do you think our film is?
Out of the options Action, Thriller and Horror, Thriller was the unanimous choice.

Question 4: What would you rate our opening out of 10?

1. 7
2. 9
3. 10
4. 7
5. 7
6. 9
7. 9
8. 8
9. 9
10. 10 

Question 5: What do you think was the plot?

1. Girl gets kidnapped
2. Party went wrong.. girl left behind.. she got kidnapped..
3. Some girls are at a club, and start walking home, but one gets a call from her mum and her friends walk off and leave her in a dark alley way when you see a figure walking towards her
4. A girl gets followed after a party and is taken.
5. 'Helena' was abducted when she was separated from her friends
6. Girl taken by man after party
7. Helena is killed, Anna blames herself and spirals into insanity before tracking down the killer and vanquishing evil.
8. Girl gets kidnapped after club, other girl remembering what happened.
9. Girl gets killed, then friend finds who did it.
10. Girl going home from party, girl left behind rapist/kidnap

Question 6: Would you want to continue watching?
5 answered agree
5 answered strongly agree

Question 7: What was your favourite part of the opening?

1. The strobe sequence
2. The party scene all v.good.. continuity of the shots
3. The ending because of the suspense
4. Title and music
5. The sound effect/phone call with 'Helena' and her mum
6. Intro and ending
7. The very opening scene
8. The flash back transition and ident
9. The party scene and music, the opening shot on beach
10. Party scene, good. Cinematography, sound.

Question 8: What was your least favourite part of the opening? 

1. The throwing up scene could have been less... humorous?
2. No clue
3. /
4. /
5. /
6. That it was a different character in the intro
7. The vomit
8. The coming out of the club and vomiting shot
9. The phone call at the end - the sound was strange
10. Intro, seemed irrelevant (different character?) Waves too quiet.

Question 9: Do you feel you can relate to the characters in this film?
8 answered yes, 2 answered no and were both male (which could suggest that because they wouldn't ever worry about something like this they couldn't empathise with the character)


Question 10: Are there any things you think we could improve on?

1. Make the charms stand out more (???)
2. Nope
3. /
4. /
5. The plot could be a little scarier
6. Balance audio
7. /
8. Audio
9. Audio levels
10. Opening shot louder waves, phone scene clearer, more contrast

We only got 17 results from our online survey, of which 76% were female and 23% male.

The majority of people who filled out the survey were between the ages of 15 and 18, which was understandable because of the age of people we are friends with on facebook and who like the page are of a similar age and still at school.
70.59% of people said that they 'strongly agreed' they would continue watching, and 29.41% said they 'agreed', which is incredibly positive results seeing as the survey was anonymous and there was therefore no bias.From this graph you can see the extremely positive results we have obtained, with the majority of people rating our opening a full 10 out of 10, and none going lower than a 7.

The unanimous choice for the question 'What type of film would you think this opening would lead into' was thriller, which was exactly what we were hoping for.


Here are some examples of how people responded to the question 'If there was anything we could improve on....'

1. Virtually nothing! Perhaps carry sound from club on subtly in background. BPM perhaps halved. 
2. Genuinely think this a pretty fab opening for a film I would definitely continue watching! Well done dudes 
3. Soundtrack  
4. Perhaps more of an ending- build up- suspense- close up of figure coming- slower steps- then quicker steps- however I was scared for the girl though. Wanted her to run after friends.. Party scene was good and the audio was correctly -non descript rhubarbs- but then clear when needed to be.  
5. No  
6. Make it longer as so intrigued!  
7. FABALICIOUS FUNKy FrESH  
8. Nop! I love it. 

Evaluation Question 3

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

For our final production company ident, after many trials we decided that we preferred using simpler graphics, as we felt this might convey a sense of elegance and give a professional feel. We wanted to create a production company that felt more specialised than large distributors such as Fox Entertainent, and i think that using the unusual word "Euphora" helped to stand it away from them. A production company holds a large stake in the process of creating a film, as they invest money and resources into a project in the hope to recieve an even greater return. However they are required to take risks as many films unexpectedly make a loss rather than profit. As our film is a psychological thriller, it would not require as much investment as an action genre film. Thus I think that independent British film distributors may be more interested in its production.





We wanted to achieve an edgy authentic feel to our film, not following the glamourised typical hollywood productions. To achieve this we tried to use more interesting camera angles such as extreme close ups and possibly canted framing, I would therefore class our film as an in Art House style.
In this style, media institutions such as Film 4 might distribute our product, due to their previous products.  In recent years Film 4 has funded/developed films such as "the Double"; "Frank" and "Never Let Me Go". All these films are highly stylised and I believe that our product would fit into this category.
The Double, with shots pictured left, was a very interesting film that conveyed a distopian place and had a many colour palette of green hues. This collated for a surreal effect, however it also had a raw feel to the film which I believe relates to the feeling of our own.


Another media institution that might distribute our product is the British Film Institute. Like Film 4 they fund very stylised and unique films , mainly British products, and help them to reach a wider audience. Looking at BFIs showreel their choice of film products is very particular and shows the true elements of life rather than glossed over. As our product includes a hopefully dynamic party sequence, this reflects the kind of individual style I believe BFI is looking for.

I also think FilmNation might distribute our film as, like BFI, they produce stylised films such as 'Under the Skin'.  The difference being that FilmNation distribute for a more global market, which would increase our products publicity and value.

BFI Film Fund showreel 2013/14 from UK Film on Vimeo.

Evaluation Question 2

 Transcript, if video doesn't play:

• Our production includes a broad range of actors, including gay actors to emphasise the level of modern sociability and the broad range of people in which this group socialises with. This builds to our main representation of this social group as social, which adds to the feeling of solitude in the first scene where the main character sits on her own, in contrast to the other scenes which involve large levels of sociability. 
• Our opening shots show a young girl sitting on her own by a river. From the way she is dressed, we can deduce that this individual comes from a relatively wealthy background due to her expensive looking clothing and jewellery. 
• We attempt to create an image of a stereotypical girl in her late teens still dressed as she was the night before in order to show that she has not returned home yet 
• The music used in the club scene incorporates a sample of Beyonce (Me Myself and I) and Aphex Twin in an attempt to create a piece of music that would demonstrate what a typical teenage girl would listen to - modern pop combined with old school house 
• Our representation of youth in our production is carefree and irresponsible. This is shown in our production by including many shots of people finishing their drinks to suggest excessive drinking as well as the use of the girl throwing up following the clubbing sequence. 
• Our clubbing sequence includes shadier looking characters such as the man wearing a hat and hood to disguise his face to incorporate different social groups besides our main one, We do not put much emphasise on this character but include him as a suspect for the crime which gets committed. This rougher character represents a typical south London youth, showing aggression and violence towards our main character in an attempt to draw a negative response from the viewer. 
• It is unclear as to the age of the girls in the production however it is easy to assume late teens as they appear young, but are involving themselves in adult themes such as clubbing and drinking and flirting with older men. In this aspect we can compare our characters to the girls in Skins, who are similar in the sense that they are irresponsible and act as adults despite being quite immature and over dramatic. 
• We emphasise on the fact that our characters are relatively young as our character is being phoned by her mother and has to explain why she hasn't returned home yet. This is done in order to achieve an accurate representation of this particular age group, which is old enough to be out socialising with friends, however still somewhat reliant on parents. Our target audience will be able to relate to this as they would have most likely endured a similar phone call. 
• We can also compare the girls in the production to those in the movie clueless, who are similar to the girls in the production in the sense that they are generally ignorant of real life and are too caught up in their own social lifestyle to be aware of the world around them, which allows for incidence like the kidnapping of our character to occur as the characters are blind to the fact that threats are constantly present in the outside world such as our shady hooded character

Evaluation Question 1

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

Our media film challenges certain aspects of conventional psychological thrillers particularly those based upon an attack or kidnapping. In earlier research, I was less keen on the almost artificial nature of the majority of films, meaning that as a viewer you felt unable to relate to the situations.  Thus we tried to achieve a more edgy and raw feel whilst keeping the balance to make it look professional as well. 

 

Final Club Song

Molly and her brother Joe have finished the song that we are going to use for the dance sequence. Using Logic, they were able to incorporate everything we were looking for - a house beat of around 130bpm, an interesting bassline and most importantly a slow climax in the music which would alert the viewer that something wasn't 'quite right'. I think we achieved this through the minor synth which kicks in half way, and also the increase of reverb on the vocals.

I am really pleased with the end result, I think it's realistic (something you could well hear in a club) yet fits the scene exactly and the feeling of unease.

Final Title

-If it doesn't play first time just reload it After many trials, creating the title on motion, we found it very limiting as we liked the font however we were unable to change the green colour, and so I tried other ways of achieving it.
Our final film title I created straight onto Final Cut, which I found much easier to use. The text and backgrounds were still images that I cut up and repeated. This created the strobe effect we wanted and allowed us to keep to minimalistic colours, to prevent distraction from the action.

Filming Day 2

For our second day of filming we filmed the beginning beach scene and then the final scene at night. For the beach scene, we looked at the tide times and found that low tide was at 4pm, this worked well for us as we were able to capture the sunset in the scene. Access to the beaches on the Thames was limited, however we did find an area by festival pier that we could use. The space under Golden Jubilee  pedestrian bridge offered the perfect place for our filming. All the filming went according to plan however we found the sound hard to record as under the bridge, sound from local pedestrians walking past echoed, which in turn distorted our recordings.

For the night scene, we found it hard to coordinate the seven people involved and ensure that everyone arrived at the right time. In future we would ideally have used less people to make it easier to plan. 

We filmed, the actors leaving the 'club' out of an office building in clapham. We later filmed the alleyway scene near Wandsworth common station.  We were rushed in filming this last scene as some of our actors hard other commitments.

We later found out that the camera we had used throughout the day had not recorded any sound. This meant that we will be solely relying on the external mic recorder for our sound.

Planning filming day 2

For our second day of filming we need to be on a beach on the thames. I looked at high and low tide time to help us work out when would be the best time to do it. We found that in order to be able to use the most of the exposed beach, we would have to be there at around 3am or 4pm, in February.  We wanted to film when the sun was either rising or setting to achieve the reflection across the water and to minimise shadow under the bridge. At the calendar dates around February 15th, we knew that we would have to be there for filming from 4pm onwards, as there would be no light at 3am.

For the scene at night, we are looking at filming at an alleyway near Wandsworth common station, as we thought that the available light and the effect of the high walls would look good.