Final Product

Our finalised cut to our project. Dead Facade. In this piece we added a soundtrack for the second scene to even out the background noise, we added a calmer background track unlike the previous drafts where the wind was unsettling and ruined one of the key moments with its disturbing level of noise. To tackle this issue as we mentioned we simply replaced the second soundtrack but kept specific intervals of the previous track, for example when the main actor coughs. We did this to keep authenticity and professionalism as it would suspiciously seem unjust if the main character was to cough and yet no effects were to proceed (i.e - the coughing sound effect).

Evaluation - Question 7

Evaluation - Question 6

Evaluation - Question 5

Evaluation - Question 4

Evaluation - Question 3

Evaluation - Question 2

Evaluation - Question 1

Editing - Overall Analysis

We didn't want dialogue in the film because we felt it was the one part in amateur filming where it made the film feel less real so we opted to use a sound track through the first scene. As mentioned before we used a classical song by Mozart to give an ironic and dark feel which draws contrasts from 'A Clockwork Orange'. We used a variety of shots and used the point of view shots alot to show the action at a better pace. In the second scene we wanted to keep a more real life and edgy feel so we hand held most of the shots when following the character.

Editing - Sound Analysis

We wanted to give this scene that edgy but real feel to it, the problem with the cameras we use is that the sound starts off and stops when a new cut is put in. In order to combat this we overlapped the sound so that there are no sudden changes between the shots with sounds changing. We would ideally want to get rid of the whole wind noises going through the camera but we don't really want to use another sound track to go through it.

Shot Evaluation

As a group we watched various videos of previous continuity pieces from both our school and others, we then planned to make the shots simple and basic as it seemed to be the best formula to creating a successful piece with ease.

We analysed the use of several shots for our piece; 

• Close-Up Shot
• Extreme Close-Up Shot
• Mid Shot
• Long Shot
• Over the Shoulder Shot 
• Point of View Shot
• Two Shot

After having thoughtfully analysed the shots we planned to use for our piece we went out to film a first draft to give us further insight on how these shots would work favourably for our piece. Below is a sort analyses of some of the shots we used and why we used them.

Close-Up Shot

This shot helped us establish emotion from the victim in our piece as well as show specific props such as a pistol we later used in order to focus the audiences attention to these props.

Mid Shot
This shot helped us establish specific characters that are of lesser importance but yet allowing them to be implemented in the scene such as the 'henchmen'.

Long Shot
This shot helped us establish the scene where we filmed our piece as well as the characters within the scene but mainly to show the audience the type of environment the characters are in which is important for the audience to understand the atmosphere we are trying to perceive - Dark, Spooky etc.

Point of View Shot
This shot helped us to establish the distance between the characters in the scene which complemented the two-shot when establishing two characters, one looking at the other in fear, i.e - The victim looking at the henchman whilst being beaten.

Software - iMovie

We used 'imovie' for the editing of our film, we found it easy to use and suited to the sort of filming we wanted to edit.We later used parts of 'Adobe After Effects' but removed these parts as we did not like what we had produced in comparison to what we produced with imovie. We do plan to use programs such as Adobe After Effects to a further extent in the future when we decide to produce a piece with a more complex editing style. We may use it for example on our A2 project in the future if it demands the need of similar software as Adobe After Effects in our opinion is a much more sophisticated piece of editing software than imovie with less restrictions and more availability. For the time being we are happy with what imovie has allowed us to produce thus far.

Target Audience

Our target audience was at first for people within their late twenties to thirties, this is because of where the film draws its influences from, that being 'Carlitos Way', 'A Clockwork Orange', and 'Pulp Fiction'. We felt that the older generation would appreciate this film more than the average teenager. On the other hand while filming and analyzing the clips we felt that although it is a violent and dark film it would probably be best suited toward the age group; late teens and early twenties. This was mainly because of the actors we chose and were accessible to us who are all between the ages of seventeen and eighteen. We had little choice in this and using other pupils to act made filming vastly easier. We also came to the conclusion that although we want an ironic and more sophisticated look to the film, it is an amateur styled project and we cannot achieve what we want to it's full extent at this stage with our filming expertise, so the film would suit more to the average mature teenager who likes a bit of violence and action rather than the older late twenties to thirties audience.

Pre-Finalised Draft

In this pre-finalised draft we've undoubtedly made a decision on the song we wanted to use for the first part, as you may notice the copyright free song we have chosen is 'The Marriage of Fiagro Overture' by Mozart. A well composed piece of classical music which works perfectly in our scene to give the audience the irony we want to perceive.

Fifth Draft - Merged Parts

This draft is our fifth draft, the first draft where we have merged both parts into one piece. In this draft we removed the soundtrack due to the copyright issues that proceeded with it and therefore created this draft from all our other drafts, minus the soundtrack. Later today we will be previewing some more tracks and hopefully get to a conclusion where we will be able to find a suitable song that brings the same ironic atmosphere that our previous song did in one of our previous drafts. Once we find a suitable track we will be uploading the video to youtube and embedding it into the blog with an explanation of the song we used, why we used it and how it replaces the previous song effectively.

Fourth Draft - Part 2

When filming the next scene which is set 12 hours prior to the initial scene we made one of the actors change some parts of his costume, a clear example can be visually made, we now asserted a new prop to the character, that prop being the glasses that the character is now wearing. We also decided to add some authenticity by changing the characters shirt colour, this was purposely done to show that there is a clear gap in the time between the first sequence (Part 1) and the second sequence (part 2). Above is our Forth Draft, part 2 of our piece.

Character Development

Jonathon:
The main character Jonathan, played by Femi Williams, is supposed to seem like the average man, he is casual and we wanted that effect so the viewer can be sucked into the film more proficiently.


Personality:
He is a happy go lucky type of guy but a curious individual, he also gets into financial trouble.. often through his gambling addiction. He lives on his own. His family are not introduced and it is assumed that they are not on speaking terms with him or are dead.


Additional Comments:
We did want to give the film an adult theme and atmosphere to our piece but because we are all centered around the ages of 17-18 we couldn't use any other actors foreign to that age group essentially, although on a positive note the actors are students in our school which meant we could film more flexibly.

The Henchmen: Baz & Reg
The two people in the masks we see at the start were meant to act as underlings to the boss who arrives later, we assume that the first man is the boss because of where he is standing and because he punches the main character.

Personalities: The first henchmen whom appears, Baz, is played by Erin Whitfield. He is supposed to be a the more confident henchmen out of the two, he likes to play leader when the boss isn't around, this is apparent at the start when he punches the main character. The other henchmen, Reg, played by Shaquille Mayanja, is quiet and reserved, he is also considered a psychopath but fears his boss greatly, he will follow orders with commitment until the end regardless of the task. His character is shown when he warns Baz that the boss is arriving.

Additional Comments:
We asked the two actors to act tough and authoritative, but once the boss arrives to act slightly more aware of their surroundings and to make themselves more scarce.











The Boss:
Only known name is Boss, or so is how we planned to reference him throughout the entire movie, played by Stephen Aneiros. The character who is last to arrive and holds status among the other two antagonists.



Personality: Little is known about this character except that he is the boss of an underground crime family, nobody has seen his face and he deals little with words. He is sadistic and enjoys the suffering of others holding no respite. We wanted to reflect upon his character by asking Stephen to act very robotic and abrupt.



Additional Comments:
We used a hat with the boss to show differences between him and his lackeys, the difference in the ranks and authority, his costume is also more extravagant while the other two simply have shirts and ties. This is just to bring a contrast between them. He was told to act completely as if he harbored no feelings and this was easier through the mask which is why we used them. We also wanted to show the smallest amount of skin just to dehumanize him that little bit more.

The Wild Bunch

Above is the scene which we referenced in our piece as it was one of the opening scenes that inspired us whilst in the editing process in order to refrain from using too much screen time with all the additional credits. Once again this was an easily made decision as we all agreed that the more material our project contains in contrast to a bunch of credits, production titles and actors names the better, hence the visible comparison than can be made from our second draft to our third draft of Part 1. We also all agreed that the extra 10 seconds that the credits would initially take up including having to queue them at a specific interval were too vital to throw away with a bunch of text and therefore we promptly made the decision as a group to add these still-frames. Not only has this given us slightly more time but it also adds effect to our dark and sinister atmosphere which we are very content about.

Third Draft - Part 1

A previous issue arose with the credits where we didn't want to overload the audience with loads of names and taking up screen time which we vitally wanted in order to project a better and lengthier opening scene for our story. To combat this we previewed a few solutions and almost instantaneously agreed upon the same idea, we took influences from the opening scene of the film 'The Wild Bunch' which puts the names of the actors through the scene using a still image with about a two second pause with a clear visual effect having been added and the name of the actor being displayed on the side of the image. As you can see from our first draft to this second draft the change is quite adequate and works substantially well with our piece, we still have a 30 second window where we will be implementing a scene subsequent to the scene above which will be the highlighted factor which sets our movie in motion.

Second Draft - Part 1

The rough cut of our piece, our initial idea as mentioned before is a gangster thriller with elements from the film  'A Clockwork Orange' as an implemented twist. We planned out a scene where the main character is being kidnapped and dragged to a chair, he is then beaten and fatally wounded. Before the audience is able to determine whether he dies or survives the scene will then cut to a previous stage of the main characters day prior to the events of our current piece with the main character finding a suitcase setting the film in motion. The idea of our movie beginning with the ending events of the main characters journey was taken from the movie 'Calito's Way' whilst the idea of having a suitcase being present as the factor that will set the movie in motion was taken from another movie by the name of 'Pulp Fiction'. Further visual analysis will be shown in another post subsequent to this one.

Setting

In continuation to a post below about the setting where we chose to film we definitively chose the Main Hall as it matched a lot of the ideas we had in mind for our media piece. The Hall matched the ideology of the atmosphere we were trying to perceive; Dark, Spooky, Empty and therefore worked out well for us. As you can clearly see directly above this post the shot of our setting reflect the exact theme we were looking for. Due to the light being automated by a matrix control we were unable to change the bright lighting in the photograph above although when filming we had done so as well as using a hard light option in the editing process to make our piece darker for the mysterious and spooky feel we were going for.

Shot List - Part 2

After planning out the second part of our project we created a second shot. Here is the shot list we created for the second scene in our film:

1. Long Shot/Establishing Shot - A vicious and abrupt cut from the first scene to the main character walking down a road 12 hours prior to the events of the first scene.

2. Mid to Long Shot - A shot of the main character coming out from the corner of the road and approaching a telephone box.

3. Mid Shot/Tracking Shot - A mid shot of the main character with the camera following him to give an edgy feel, it also helps gives the viewers the sensation of being dragged into this characters story.

4. Point of View - We will use a point of view shot from the inside of the bag which the character will pick up, his expression will urge the viewer to want to view more to see whats in the bag and why it displeases him to the extent of being kidnapped and arriving to the events of the first scene.

5. Mid Shot - A mid shot to show the main character stunned by the contents of the bag and walking away with it.

Song Choice

Initially we had a specific genre choice of 'classical' when deciding the type of music we were going to use for our media piece. As previewed in one of our drafts we primarily used the song 'Edith Piaf - Non, Je ne regrette rien' but we had an issue where we determined that using a Copyright song such as the popular one above would not be permissible and therefore we established that we would have to use a Copyright free song hence the change that will be visibly made from our draft to our actual finalised media piece. Below i have linked the website we have recently been observing in our aim to make a definitive choice as to which song we are actually going to use.

http://freeplaymusic.com/

Dialogue

When choosing the main character for our media piece we decided to use a friend who was sufficient enough in the art of acting to help the scene feel more realistic and professional. As made visible by the image above we used another prop to our advantage; a tie to put around his mouth so dialogue wouldn't be necessary, this gave our piece a darker look and a more serious kidnapping feel. To add to this the implementation of the tie worked vastly in our favour as being inspired by Carlito's Way we abstained from having the main character speak in action but rather have him narrate his events in the opening clip.

Location

We chose our schools main hall as the location, it gives a good feel to the area and the lighting works well for the sinister image we want to portray. The use of masks means that the actors we chose apart from the victim are limited and dont have to show emotion which works well and also means they dont have to act through facial expressions. We used a specific themed soundtrack for now but we are aware the copyright problem that may arise so we will find a copyright free soundtrack or create our own before this is finished fully. Some shots and the setting will have to be re-done, because of the restrictions imovie has, we may continue the project onto Adobe After Effects which is a more professional software with less limitations. Overall there is a substantial amount of work to be put in still but were eager to complete this promptly.

Shot List - Part 1

After planning out what our film is going to be about we started a shot list which derived from the first draft we did to get used to what were going to shoot. The shots in chronological order:

1. Point of View - Main character being dragged onto a chair. We used a coat to mask the camera and make it look like we had put a bag over the characters head.

2. Point of View - Using the black background created by the coat we will slide a new shot into here, it is a point of view of the character slowly looking up at one of the henchmen.

3. Mid Shot - A mid shot being used whilst one of the henchmen walks towards the main character.

4. Mid Shot - Another mid shot from a different angle showing one of the henchmen walking towards the main character.

5. Mid Shot/Two Shot - A mid shot of the henchmen reaching the main character and and over to the other henchmen. He proceeds to punch the main character.

6. Point of View - The punch hitting the main character with a point of view shot to show the effect and movement.

7. Long Shot (Moving Forwards) - The camera will move through the henchmen now showing a new character (the antagonist) slowly walking up some stairs. So essentially starts as a mid-shot and moves to a long shot.

8. Mid to Long shot - A cut back to the main character just to give it a more full effect and not to bore the viewer with the long walk the antagonist does while proceeding towards the main character.

9. Over the Shoulder - An over the shoulder shot of the antagonist which turns into a mid-long shot as he will move away and stand in front of the main character.

10. Mid Shot - A mid shot of the antagonist taking out a weapon.

11. Close Up - Close up shot of the weapon so the viewers can see it clearly and acknowledge it's a weapon.

12. Mid Shot - Another mid shot of the antagonist hitting the main character.

13. Point of View - Just like before we use a point of view shot to show the character being hit with a gun to the face, from his own eyes, also makes it look more realistic.

14. Two Shot/Panning - A two shot of the antagonist getting ready to shoot the main character, we will have the camera following the guns movements.

15. Close Up - Close up shot of the main character about to get shot, we need this shot to show his facial expressions reflecting fear.

Storyboards

Above are images of our storyboard which we created before our initial draft, after having created a written shot list and self drawn storyboard we decided to make a digital copy of the storyboards. The storyboards show the rough idea we came up with as a group before our first shoot. Whilst all of us had contributed to the decisions made within the piece we assigned the storyboard drawing to Rene. Having assigned a lead artist was a great advantage as it both relieved others in the group to work on other parts of the project as well as having presented to us professional artistic pieces to look at when filming our actual piece.

Pulp Fiction

This is another film we researched, we wanted the audience to be intrigued by why the main character is being horrifically subjected to torture and so we kept the suspense going for most of the clip. We then planned to shoot another scene which is set 12 hour prior to the main event with the main character finding a bag or briefcase, this will leave the audience wanting to find out what is actually in the briefcase that will set the movie in motion and subject the main character to such beatings. This idea was taken from Pulp Fiction because of the mystery surrounding the briefcase in the film. Unfortunately this is the only clip we could find from the 'Pulp Fiction' briefcase scene, please excuse the mere idiocy displayed near the ending of the video with the toy inside the briefcase.

Costume - Part 2

Mask

 

Hat

In regards to the first draft of our piece we had no hats, one group member then suggested the use of hats to break the scene down from the simplistic thriller it was becoming into in order to reflect the idea of our piece being a 'gangster' thriller and therefore in the final decision to the costume section we decided we needed to use hats, keeping a gangster element present within our piece. Without the hats the gangster stereotype would be incomplete leaving the negative characters to turn our piece into a horror due to the other props involved such as the masks. We all agreed on this use of costume and carried it on to the shooting. Above is an image of the masks we used as well as the hats which we later decided to use.

First Draft - Part 1

This draft was just a rough idea of what we wanted to do, we wanted to get to grips with our piece and just pre-film some of the stages that we were certain we wanted present in our main piece to see the outcome of how each individually selected shot worked in order to give us an insight on how our actual piece would look like. Furthermore this helped vastly when analysing which shots we were certain we wanted to keep and which we would discard when it comes to filming our actual piece. Thankfully the sinister look we attempted to uphold worked out favourably for us.

Equipment - Tripod

Naturally we used a tripod for our filming when not using the crane nor Rene's steady handheld ability, this tripod helped us holding the camera in fixed positions and allowed the shots to look more professional. It also made sure that we could achieve some of the pans and movements that we would find more challenging if using the crane or handheld, and make them become more fluid altogether helping the film to become more satisfactory as a whole to the viewer.

Equipment - Shoulder Crane

We knew from our planning that we would utilize the point of view shot as much as possible to allow the viewer to feel as though they were in the film. We also needed it for certain shots of violence so that we could make things such as punching look more realistic and professional. We then got hold of the shoulder crane, the crane itself worked by having the camera attached in a fixed angle directed to the front. By having the shoulder crane we were able to make swift movements seem more realistic whilst at the same time less shaky which was exactly what we wanted. This shoulder crane proved to be very useful.

Equipment - Camera

We will use this camera to take stills for specific parts of the blog such as the costume whilst we already used it to take stills of the locations that we scouted for to film. It is a very good high quality camera and belongs to the school, therefore although we are allowed to use it to help us with our media work we are not allowed to take it off site without permission and in some cases supervision. Using still images will help us to plan and explain more proficiently and get certain aspects of our blog completed to better a degree.

Equipment - Camera Recorder

Above is the image of the Exemode DV580HD camcorder which we will be using when filming all of our raw material. This high definition camera is currently available to us through our schools equipment and funding. We hope we'll also able to record, upload content to the computer to later edit and so forth with ease. This hassle free camcorder made everything a whole load simpler when constructing our preliminary piece, hopefully it will be just as effective when filming our main project.

Battle Royale

In regards to the sound and as a group wanting classical music for our piece we looked at various films including this film which also utilized classical music to its violent themes. Although on the other hand, this trailer was more direct and didn't tend to use the music in an ironic sense but all the same it had very well crafted scenes with classical music backing it up to a point of visual perfection. Being a fan of the film in general i personally liked how little disregard it had to human life and wanted that to reflect upon our film with the dehumanization of certain characters as well as the swift nonchalant view on human life.

Planning The Draft

Today we decided to film a rough draft of what we want our actual piece to look like to contemplate the shots we had in mind and used to make decisive decisions as to which we should keep and use in the final edit. Due to how amazingly pleasent some of the shots in this rough draft turned out we may use one or two of the shots from this draft for the final piece when in the editing process although unfortunately most of it will have to be replaced and re-filmed and therefore a heavy amount of filming is due for this upcoming week. Later on next week we will be uploading this draft as well as analysing what we have so far including a shot list and how these shots work for our piece.

Costume - Part 1

Due to our plan to film a gangster-thriller genre film we really wanted that classical aspect to the costume and because of the lack of dialogue and sound we wanted the audience to be able to notice the difference between the mobsters and their boss hence why we plan to put the henchmen in shirts and ties in comparison to the boss whom will be well and fully suited in something along the lines of the image above.

A Clockwork Orange

In regards to searching for music we decided that orchestrated music for our piece would add the effect of irony in response to the violence as demonstrated in the clip above from the film 'A clockwork Orange'. As a group we agreed that we equally enjoyed the effect it had on the violence within the clip and the sort of ironic and weird style of the scene, the music creates this atmosphere and without it the scene would just look like a simple brawl.

Organising Dates

Today we may start filming providing everyone is available which still needs to be sorted out fully. We will create a timetable to make sure we can organise what dates we can film and the times. We also need to take into account when we can actually film since some of our locations may have background noises due to the other pupils within the school. If we aren't able to film today we will plan our piece further and may even just film a rough draft which will be deleted later, this will be done just so we can organise which shots would look good at certain intervals and how many shots we can fit. We can then film it properly with full costume and in more preferable conditions at a later date.

Carlito's way

As an idea for our media piece we studied the opening scene of 'Carlito's Way' thoroughly and we liked the slow opening with the classical music to the extent where we wanted to produce a piece similar to this opening scene of the movie. One aspect we very much liked was how the ending of the film was the opening scene, so we put together an idea of a gangster/crime thriller themed film and then set out to develop the storyboards before going to our chosen site to begin the filming process. Linked above is the opening clip from 'Carlito's Way' which greatly inspired our piece.

RocknRolla

We also looked at this film, it carried the gangster element we wanted but with the british aspects such as the cockney accents and the dialogue they used. We liked this opening scene quite a bit, if we later decide to add dialogue to our piece its going to be in that of a comical British accent. Furthermore we very much liked how the film title was a still image from the film and we would like to incorporate this style either in the film title itself or for the opening credits.

Goodfella's

When looking through films which could influence us this opening scene came up as one of the films which caught our attention, this was due to our initial idea to make a gangster themed thriller. We wanted to primarily add dialogue and a slightly comedic aspect but with a british twist. We then established that we needed good actors for this to work otherwise the effect would look weak and not very professional. Despite avoiding dialogue and comedy as a whole what we want to take from this opening scene are the costume ideas as we all liked the classic feel.

Timetable

We created a time-table for our filming, editing and blogging sessions. The time table is as followed:

Monday: (9:15am - 10:55am)
BLOGGING
We all have a free first period and period 2 is a media session dedicated to blogging the morning of school, excellent for blogging.

Tuesday: (9:15am - 1:30pm)
FILMING
This is a good day for filming as the actors have free periods on this date at around roughly the same time as us.

Wednesday: (11:00am - 4:00pm)
FILMING + EDITING
This is also a flexible day for the majority of us, it means we can re-shoot any problems within our piece as well as also being able to edit most of the day.

Thursday: (1:40pm - 3:10pm)
EDITING + BLOGGING
Most of the people in our group have free periods 5 and 6 during the end of our lunch break until the end of our day meaning this is invaluable time which we will use to either edit or/and blog.

Friday: (3:10pm - 5:00pm)
EDITING + BLOGGING
This is the only day of the week where the majority of the group have a full day of lessons although some of us plan to stay after school until around 5pm the latest (which is the time at which the school closes) to catch up on any blogging or/and editing.

Scouting the Location

We previously scouted the school in order to decisively choose which locations we are going to use while shooting our media piece. We also took still images to help us better comprehend how were going to shoot the film and better decide what shots were going to use. We will be fully shooting the main piece very soon and make the most of the time we have.

Ideas

When we were given a task of pitching a film idea to our teacher we got together to decide on what genre we would focus the foundation piece on. We initially agreed that we should either do a horror or thriller as opposed to a comedy, drama or romance. This is because those genres would require more dialogue which would be more difficult to film and with a horror or thriller we can rely on silence to create the atmosphere. One of our main ideas was to do a sort of crime thriller and create a scene where the main character was to be kidnapped. We can use the schools location to its maximum potential and because our dress code is quite smart it would make the costume work easier and less of a hassle because of the common representation of gangsters being dressed in suits.

[Continuity Piece] Analysation

First of all we tried to find a quiet area in our school to do our first piece of filming, we then later made the decision to film the scene in the sixth form area, however this should have been avoided as it is a very loud part of the school considering it is next to the common room where a lot of loud conversing took place whilst filming and therefore affected our piece. Before filming our media teacher, Mr.Mcmanus, introduced us to the 180 degree rule which gave us a greater insight on how to keep our piece fluid and realistic. At one point we had broken the 180 degree rule at a specific interval but thankfully when editing we were able to cut the scene out to make our piece seem continuous.

[Continuity Piece] Decisions

We chose to film using only Rene's hand held skills with the camera, we opted for this as a group as it gave a more realistic view of the scene. While filming we faced a variety of issues such as the background noise level of other students around the Sixth Form block, we also has a few interferences from surrounding students while we were filming. On the other hand the positives of filming in the Sixth Form block include the new innovations that were recently made to the building which allows us to project a modern and well lit environment to the audience. This of course made filming easier and less of a hassle of having to adjust the lighting when editing. When editing the piece we used the software 'iMovie' which was quite good for a basic piece as it was simply to use and therefore allowing every group member to take part in this process as it was the first time editing videos for some members.

Continuity Piece

This is the continuity piece we did as a group. This helped us to work together and better understand how to create a media piece, when filming our first set of shots were not good enough to use because of the many problems such as background noises and other individuals entering and ruining the shots. When filming for the second time we made it as simple as possible and decided what shots we were going to use before shooting, we also made sure we were filming during lesson time so sound would be at a minimal. When it came down to the editing we unfortunately broke the 180 degree rule and had to edit out a shot in order to allow the piece run smoothly, because of this error we had a first hand experience of the rule and now know how to avoid it.