Our finished Product: Night Falls Fast
Here is our final product! We used Final Cut Pro and Motion to edit the footage and make the ident and titles.
Preliminary Study
In our preliminary task we had to show we could successfully create a piece of film with a narrative and show proof of a match on action, a shot reverse shot and of obeying the 180 degree rule. The narrative was to follow someone's action down a corridor, into a room, across a room and then a conversation between two people.
My preliminary task went well, it was interesting to experience editing the footage and matching the action for myself, and learnt new techniques with the equipment and editing software.
My preliminary task went well, it was interesting to experience editing the footage and matching the action for myself, and learnt new techniques with the equipment and editing software.
Evaluation Question 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms or
conventions of real media products?
In the process of research and planning we investigated the
conventions of thrillers for our own film introduction. We reviewed thriller
openings including ‘Kidult hood’ and ‘London to Brighton’, taking notice of the
social realistic style of the films and techniques used that we could include
in our product.
It was clear there were some gothic representations, often
shown through darker lighting and night time scenes, creating suspense and
darker gothic tone. This created an almost horror type atmosphere, with the
presumption that something bad is eminent. We wanted to develop this, creating
both the suspense of a thriller while incorporating this darker gothic
element. Both films mentioned above are
social realistic, a genre that we wanted to incorporate into out product, as
there was a natural feel to the shots that we thought we could develop into our
piece. Thrillers often present action and pace, which is shown by the use of
camera movement, and high speed cuts. We used this in our opening in the chase
scene, sometimes using handheld shots and high speed cuts to represent the
frantic situation and build suspense.
Evaluation Question 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
There are two sides to the distribution process, that being two different styles: Independent and Major. Majors are large Hollywood companies, such Warner Bro's who distribute 18.3% of the films we see nowadays. Another example are United International Pictures who have distributed 10.2% in comparison to Warner Bro's. The films they distribute are often large; big budget Hollywood blockbusters then generate a large turn over profit, and work on a multi million-film budget. This is not the style of our film at all.
We would look to use a much smaller company, which release a larger range of films in comparisons to the larger companies. They target small independent audiences instead of world wide, allowing for more specific films to be distributed by certain companies. Companies like these often have very small budgets, using more general locations and less cgi. This is something our product incorporates.
An Art-house, or much smaller companies would most likely distribute our product. An example of this could be Vertigo, which is an independent British company who work on micro-budget productions. They are a London based company, who have previously worked with unknown thrillers and products. They generally aim their products at the British population, and would hopefully take interest in our small independent product. Film4 might also distribute our opening, with our minimalist indent, and low budget feel to the film.
Our ident has a sophisticated feel to it, with its minimalist style matching those that suit smaller independent companies. The titles are similar; creating interesting graphics that could be used on a larger film, but have a smaller budget feel and more of an arty presence. The rest of the titles, where only words are used compared to out actor titles, are dotted across the page, similar to the style of London to Brighton, a film that was low budget and was an inspiration for out product.
There are two sides to the distribution process, that being two different styles: Independent and Major. Majors are large Hollywood companies, such Warner Bro's who distribute 18.3% of the films we see nowadays. Another example are United International Pictures who have distributed 10.2% in comparison to Warner Bro's. The films they distribute are often large; big budget Hollywood blockbusters then generate a large turn over profit, and work on a multi million-film budget. This is not the style of our film at all.
We would look to use a much smaller company, which release a larger range of films in comparisons to the larger companies. They target small independent audiences instead of world wide, allowing for more specific films to be distributed by certain companies. Companies like these often have very small budgets, using more general locations and less cgi. This is something our product incorporates.
An Art-house, or much smaller companies would most likely distribute our product. An example of this could be Vertigo, which is an independent British company who work on micro-budget productions. They are a London based company, who have previously worked with unknown thrillers and products. They generally aim their products at the British population, and would hopefully take interest in our small independent product. Film4 might also distribute our opening, with our minimalist indent, and low budget feel to the film.
Our ident has a sophisticated feel to it, with its minimalist style matching those that suit smaller independent companies. The titles are similar; creating interesting graphics that could be used on a larger film, but have a smaller budget feel and more of an arty presence. The rest of the titles, where only words are used compared to out actor titles, are dotted across the page, similar to the style of London to Brighton, a film that was low budget and was an inspiration for out product.
Evaluation Question 4
From our research and planning (vox pops, questionnaires and online research) we found that an older audience of about 17-28 would enjoy our film genre, psychological thriller, more. However, we hope to push the boundaries by using a younger main protagonist and hope that this will open up the range of our audience age to younger people too.
Our film is open and available to many different types of people, any gender and of any personality.
However, in order to understand the market audience for our film, we have compared our film to the
However, in order to understand the market audience for our film, we have compared our film to the
So, in general, we believe that a viewer interested in visiting arthouse cinemas like Greenwich Picturehouse or The Ritzy Brixton who enjoys developing an amateur critique of many different films would enjoy our film.
Since our film's plot is much like that of 'Taken', though in a completely different aesthetic, the audience who found the story of 'Taken' thrilling would also find ours thrilling. This would mean our audience could dip as low as 15 years of age.
We hope that through the distribution of our product would be available and attractive to all kinds of classes. However, since our film is a psychological thriller, we would aim it to be predominantly presented in city centre art house cinemas. This could mean that it might narrow our audience range as the prices might not be affordable to all classes of people in a city.
Essentially our audience for our film would be young adults (17-28) who are interested in psychological thrillers and go to art house cinemas regularly rather than blockbuster cinemas.
written by Eliza Teale.
Evaluation Question 5
How did you attract /
address your audience?
Initially Eliza and I decided to change our target audience
from a lower age group to 20-30. This is because we discovered that younger
ages where less keen on the idea of a social realistic thriller compared to a
slightly older audience. This gave us a better idea of what the audience wanted
and so allowed us to create a film specifically for that audience.
We rated our film a 15, and chose to target slightly
older age group, but wanted to include the excitement of a thriller that
might attract some of the younger age group as well. We generated a survey
during our audience research, allowing us to see that it was the older age
group that understood what a social realistic thriller was, which was the main
motivation for our middle age group. We also learnt that people thought that
the Mise En Scene and camera angles were very important in a thriller, and also
the soundtrack, as these are all things that help make the thriller
suspenseful. Through these studies we addressed our target audience and
developed our product around these ideas to try and attract our audience.
Our audience response video is seen below:
We set up a Facebook page to help attract our audience,
posting a survey to find out further what people were interested in. We
continued to learn that a slow building suspenseful opening is what they wanted
to see, and is hopefully what we achieved with our finished product. We really
took into account what our audience suggested and developed our product around
these ideas, which would help attract them, as they can then take more interest
in our product.
We also wanted to attract our audience by having characters that people can relate to. The involved using verisimilitude to produce an opening that can involve the audience, to make it seem like a realistic plot so that they relate and take more interest in our product. We thought our soundtrack was a strong point to build suspense, as well as the contrasting settings, light and camera shots, which allowed for our slow building opening to be produced.
Survey response:
We also wanted to attract our audience by having characters that people can relate to. The involved using verisimilitude to produce an opening that can involve the audience, to make it seem like a realistic plot so that they relate and take more interest in our product. We thought our soundtrack was a strong point to build suspense, as well as the contrasting settings, light and camera shots, which allowed for our slow building opening to be produced.
Survey response:
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?
Since
my preliminary task, I have progressed my understanding of equipment and
software, as well as education on all aspects of media products.
The main skill developed was the planning, learnt from the preliminary task, as I was comfortable with what I needed and everything that had to be done in preparation for shooting and editing. The storyboard helped us picture our exact shots, which is something we had not done for our preliminary task, and so it was made a lot easier because of this. I learnt small amounts about the use of sound and filming during the first tasks, though my skills developed hugely during the actual product.
I
also developed my software skills, having never used final cut pro or motion,
and I learnt how to edit footage and music, as well as create titles and idents
in motion and Photoshop. Eliza and I also learnt how to edit to create suspense,
and how to contrast this, playing around with variations of our rough cut to
find the perfect edit. As I had used Photoshop before, I found it easy to
create the titles and indent ideas, but the editing was where I learnt most,
being able to manipulate the footage to create the overall tone of the opening.
Though I had used Final Cut Pro in the preliminary task, I was unable to such sophisticated
things, as I have done in our film opening. I learnt a lot about these programs
just by using them and learning little tips and tricks.
I
learnt a lot about using equipment while out shooting. Eliza and I had some
difficulties with filming, and so this is probably the area I have learnt most.
On our recce shoot we had not checked that the equipment was charged to full
power, as well as not being able to find the media card (which we realised we
had later). I learnt from our mistakes like this, which made our next shoot run
a lot smoother. As well as filming, I learnt a lot about sound, using the
equipment and taking ambient sounds to overlay onto your footage. This is
something I would not have known otherwise, had I not been told and tried it
for myself. We used a range of skills, figuring out how to get around
difficulties such as a slanted surface to put the tripod on, and dealing with
people and locations. It took us several shoots to complete out footage, but by
the ends I was more experienced than our initial recce shoot.
Overall,
The preliminary tasks were extremely useful, as they allowed me to improve and
develop camera skills and use editing software that I had never used before. I
learnt how to use the equipment, including sound and camera, and then how to
transfer these skills onto the computers to develop our product further. I also
learnt that planning the shoot using a shot list, and a storyboard was an
essential part of the process, allowing for exact details of our shoot to be
included so that we knew exactly what we needed to do. I learnt a lot about
equipment, software and planning during this process and since the preliminary
task.
Our Ident:
Here is our ident, we wanted the minimalist feel of an independent company, while maintaining enough motion and for it to be swift but interesting. We used a simple fade for the 'Productions' and slowed the spin of the EE as the ident then fades to black.
It was all made using motion.
Rough edit cut
There was a problem with uploading, the clip is not 7:45 mins long but in fact ends at 2:00 mins
This is a rough cut of our editing. Though we decided most of the editing and the way we wanted our piece to look like, most of the editing was done by Eliza whilst I developed the graphics of the ident and the title sequence.
We tried to create a smooth finish with the editing; we wanted high speed cutting to create tension and thrills.
Elements of psychological thrillers includes high speed editing, motivated editing, cross cutting and a face pace thrilling soundtrack. We have tried to create this in our first rough cut of editing.
However, upon attempting to edit our piece at first to create a similar opening to our animatic, we realised that cross cutting between the two parallel times was confusing and didn't make sense.
We have tried to clarify our piece by changing our narrative slightly, so that our piece is not cross cutting between past and present but stays in the present the whole time and only cross cuts between locations.
We thought this would would make our piece easier to follow as the audience follows the story of the protagonist at the same time.
Titles Complete
Here is our final product. We used the masked titles, (shown on a white background) to introduce the two main characters met in the opening. We then used general overlay of white text for the rest of the titles. We did this as we wanted to include some more effective graphics, without cutting up the edit too much, so use both concepts overall. The title at the end is then a small stretch of the text, sticking with the minimalist style of the ident and graphics throughout.
Rough cut
Here is a rough cut of out product so far. We still have to add a soundtrack and finish titles, as we have just been experimenting with shots and order of scenes. We will export another update soon.
Titles work
After deciding that we wanted to try incorporating the True Detective style titles, we created our own titles in this style using screenshots from the footage and photoshop. I overlaid pictures of Heygate Estate that I took for a previous art project, as this would be the ideal location for out overall film, and this would be where the rest of the film would be shot. We only created these titles for the two characters met in the opening, as shown below.
Eliza and I used a hue overlay, creating the sepia effect shown in the True Detective titles. We used the similar idea of shots of the upper body, changing opacity so that some detail of the characters was available, but the buildings where visible underneath. I then blurred the edges using Gaussian blur to add a softer edge. To compare, some True Detective screenshots are shown below:
Our First Shoot
Unfortunately, despite our media teacher's warnings (and threats) Eliza and I were unable to film more than a recce shoot today. We had failed to charge al of the equipment to maximum capacity in preparation for our shoot.
However, we managed to get a shot of our Protagonist (Sara played by Meredith Mack) in the location we wanted to use for our opening scene and possibly with the same sort of lighting that we aim to capture in our end product.
Eliza and I chose this location (the Southbank) because we felt it encapsulated the urban effect we were aiming to achieve, yet the reflection from water (of the river Thames) gave slightly eery, mysterious look in winter weather.
In actual fact, Eliza and I captured a shot where the sunlight was reflecting off the water left on the pavement, framed with large trees on either side. We thought this was quite beautiful, against the urban backdrop of London.
DISCLAIMER: we haven't quite yet mastered the act of uploading footage to youtube under the correct title...…
However, we managed to get a shot of our Protagonist (Sara played by Meredith Mack) in the location we wanted to use for our opening scene and possibly with the same sort of lighting that we aim to capture in our end product.
Eliza and I chose this location (the Southbank) because we felt it encapsulated the urban effect we were aiming to achieve, yet the reflection from water (of the river Thames) gave slightly eery, mysterious look in winter weather.
In actual fact, Eliza and I captured a shot where the sunlight was reflecting off the water left on the pavement, framed with large trees on either side. We thought this was quite beautiful, against the urban backdrop of London.
DISCLAIMER: we haven't quite yet mastered the act of uploading footage to youtube under the correct title...…
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