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...…

Actor update

Unfortunately Eliza and I encountered a problem. Our protagonist, Merry who would play Sara, flaked out and so we had to find a substitute. Fortunately during the planning of the film, Eliza and I had already thought of other actors, and quickly found a replacement; Eliza's sister: Gracie. After only doing a short recce with Merry, this was an easy transition and required no extra work.

Planning sound

Our final inspiration for our finished soundtrack was from this scene in the french film "Tell No One". Although the building guitar strumming with the atmospheric sound slightly contrasts the scenes that are being shown, it builds tension and suspense whilst still being thrilling. We used this to aid our composer Joe Reeves to compose a similar piece of music.

Location inspiration

Eliza and I decided on out location, after inspiration from old photos of Heygate estate that I used in a passed art project. These photos showed the dark and grungy elements to the estate that was deserted for 15 years. Unfortunately the estate has now been knocked down, and is being rebuilt, however it inspired us to find a similar location. 

Some of the photos are shown below:

I have several more of these photos, which may be incorporated into our title sequences and indents, and we will decide after determining our exact ident layout, and title sequence design.

Film Title

Originally we were using this name (Night Falls Fast) for our ident, however we decided the name would be better suited to out film title due to research into the factual book named 'Night Falls Fast'. We created a logo for the ident already, but then decided that we could try and incorporate it into our titles for the film. This is shown below:

The graphics wouldn't necesarily be on a dark background, but could be overlaid on the video, such as the still shot shown below:

Ident Re-thought

After deciding that our initial ident name (Night Falls Fast) would be better suited to the title of out film, we decided to use 'EE Productions', where I will be looking to practice more possible ideas for out ident itself. I will be using cinema 4d again to try out simple indents, and see what ideas we come up with.

Location

For our locations, we are using an estate in New Cross Gate (south east London). This estate is undergoing maintenance and is covered in scaffolding, hopefully presenting a deserted estate within the film. There is this one light that stays on all the time, just above the stairways which we will use as Merry (the protagonist) is being chased. Below shows some of the pictures of the estate. We will be filming here when dark.

As well as this estate, Eliza and I will be filming at the south bank in the very opening of the film. We did a recce where the light was reflecting off the wet floor with the shadows of the trees contrasting to give a really interesting shot. This is shown as below:

Actors

Eliza and I had a vague idea of our actors as we were planning the film. We had several possibilities for the lead protagonist, but decided to use a friend name Merry, who has been involved in a series of school productions, and we feel she will suit the character. As for the antagonist, we will be using Eliza's dad, playing the mysterious character who is seen to be following the protagonist. There will be a short voice recording of the phone call, which will be done using my mum to record the short conversation.

Phone Call Draft: Mum

Mum:

''Hey darling''

''Hope you had a good day, how are you?''

''When will you be back?''

''Okay see you soon! Have fun!''

Recce shoot

This is our rede shoot, getting in some practice shots for our filming. We visited South bank, where the lighting and reflections were great given the dull light colouring. The shadows of the trees contrast the light reflecting off the wet surface, making for an interesting and exciting shot.

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......

Lighting: First Use

Eliza and I reminded ourselves how to use the filming equipment, including the use of the lights for the first time. We learnt how to create depth within the shot, using a back light and key light to create contrasting tones.  For one camera angle we had the camera facing into the light, creating a glowing edge around the actors, while the backlighting ensured the depth of the shot was kept.

We learnt that the lights power source lasts no longer than 25 minutes, some key information for when we begin filming. It was helpful to learn about the use of several lights to create the best depth, and creating angles to get the optimum brightness.

Lighting Practice

Here is a task we were set in practicing using lighting before we began filming. We experimented with making flat weather into interesting lighting through the composition of the shot. We also experimented with using filler lights and spotlights in an interior atmosphere. We learned a lot about where to position the lights and how long their battery packs last for, hopefully avoiding them running out during our night shoots!

Sound

Eliza and I decided that there won't be a lot of dialogue within our opening, but we want a tense and fast soundtrack, consisting of piano and maybe some brass to get the instrumental type of sound. We looked at several film trailers and soundtrack but found that Maze Runner and London to Brighton had soundtrack similar to what we wanted, but ones that are still reproducible at our level.

We want the soundtrack to build the tension, and we will be looking to use aspects of atmospheric and folly sound in our film opening.


 

Ident small practice

Here Eliza and I came up with a simple ident practice, I used cinema 4d to create it, and will be looking to add smaller text underneath using motion:

IDENT RESEARCH

Idents are an important part of the marketing towards a productions company and also can be used with a sound bridge to enhance and the atmosphere set up for the film that is about to happen.
Whilst researching ideas for our own ident concepts we came across a selection of 'Film 4' idents as shown above. Eliza and I liked the composition of these indents though we know it isn't possible for us to create our own ident in a similar way. We liked the concept of a dark graphic, cleanly cut ident that was simple. We liked the motion animation of the film 4 indents which worked to create a slick, professional and thrilling ident. We aim to achieve the same effect with our own ident; though it is graphic and simple we want to make it edgy. Here are some indents we liked and thought would influence our ident design well:

Audience Video response

Here is our uploaded video of our response to our audience research. We did this as we found it easier to film and get our point across than type it up.

Vox Pops

Eliza and I recorded some Vox Pops alongside the rest of our audience research. Here is the video.

Target Audience

After doing our audience research, 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 gives us a better idea of what the audience wants and so will allow us to create a film specifically for that audience.

Graphics

For Graphics, Eliza and I were keen on using an idea similar to 'True Detective'. We love how the titles are simple, and the use of the text in the negative space, which makes the titles really effective and visual as the cuts are composed of layered video. However our only concern would be how to make it feel more like a film, rather than a tv series, which will be the biggest problem when producing the titles.

We thought this idea would fit well with a social realism thriller, as the narrative we have decided on consists of real teenage life, with a dark and edgy tone. This will be shown in the titles with the gurney backgrounds and layered photos/ videos to really get the idea of the dark life shown in the film.

In the opening few cuts of 'True Detective' there are some really nice still shots (or slightly moving) of people which is then over lapped with video of rural areas and the setting of the show. This will be interesting to try in photoshop, and then upload into motion to get the movement around screen.

Here are some screen grabs of the 'True Detective' opening titles:

Eliza and I then had a go at creating our own little still shot in the style of True Detective:

Camera shots - First plan

Eliza and I came up with a plan for the shots we want to use before starting the story board. These are just simple shots of the rough ideas we wanted to use, and this gave us a good idea to the overall plot, layout and shots needed for the story board and for when we shoot the shots. 

Our film opening consists of interspersed shots of past and present.

A rough plan, more shots of each point will be seen in the story board.

Italics = past

Normal = present

Fade from black

Cut to footsteps running 

Cut to protagonist present footsteps running (chase)  

Close up running away

Close up protagonist looking back (the chaser) 

Close up keys unlocking the door

Running to push open the door

Footsteps climbing stairs

Footsteps running up cement staircase (estate stairs)

Enter room, calm, dump bags

Enter room, frantic, lock door

Close up head against door

Profile in darkness looking up at estate

Shot of here running around

Shot of her moving to draws

Draw opening

Shot of moving around the room

Close up looking under / around her room

Cut to tilt upwards of antagonist entering estate

Bend down under bed and find package

Backing bag

Close up of zipping bag

Leaving room (door open)

Running through tunnel

Skyline ots of London

Hand on shoulder

Titles

Style / Tone

The overall style and tone of the opening that Eliza and I want to achieve is that of an edgy and urban environment, where for young people their atmosphere is a place of threat. The style will be similar to several films, especially Kidulthood, where there are a lot of urban shots, much more simple camerawork than other films and  an edgy feel with lots of close ups and point of view shots. This will present a feeling of personal connection between the audience and the character. This will also be achieved through the presentation of the protagonist in the past, as the audience (as discovered by audience research) finds a film more intriguing when they know elements about the character.

The setting will play a huge role towards tone, being dark and tense. The contrasting light between the past and present is what will really emphasis the present as being atmospheric and grungy. The buildings and locations we use are what will really present the realism feature of our film, and will set the edgy feel that we are working for.

Here is a scene from Kidulthood that represents the urban and natural environment we will being aiming for to create the style and tone:

Narrative. Decided

After discussing together, Ewan and I decided to edge our narratives together to form the plot of our opening sequence.
We decided upon following the life of a girl (our protagonist) and the change that has taken place in her life ( like a before and after). Her life used to be simple and normal but it now seems obvious that a person has come into her life who has put her life at threat.
We wanted to set up a a parallel between two moments in time; matching and cross cutting between different locations and shots.
It seemed that we wanted to leave the ending to our story undecided, a cliff hanger: where will she take her life after this moment? Whilst still we found from our Audience research that it was crucial we established an emotional attachment between our protagonist and our audience.
We came up with the idea of a package being involved, shots of our protagonist searching for the package unable to find it, interspersed with shots of our antagonist figure searching for her.
We hope this will create a sense of pace, rush and an awareness of time; just as time has lapsed and changed our protagonists life completely.