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.