Evaluation activity 7

7) Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?
   From our continuity editing and 180 degree rule tasks I feel I have learnt more about camera work and I've also learnt a great deal about how to edit shots together to make it appear smooth and look like a continuous action. Continuity shots can be filmed at completely different times as long as the lighting, set and costumes are the same. One scene is filmed many times but from different angles and then cut together during editing so that the changes aren't noticeable to the audience. This is also called a match on action, as the shots are cut so that the whole of one action can be seen. We used this type of editing twice in our film, once when I run down the set of stairs and then again when Sian and I enter the building. We cut the shots together in order to show our whole journey to the audience so that they could understand what was happening and make sense of our narrative. Our continuity task is featured below.

I learnt that the 180 degree rule is considered to be an imaginary line that can't be crossed unless the movement across the line is shown, because otherwise the audience would get disorientated and not be able to figure out where the characters are in relation to each other. We didn't use this rule in our film because we didn't need to. The camera stayed in a fixed position when filming most of our scenes so the audience wouldn't get disorientated and could see us only from one angle at a time in each shot.

Lastly I learnt about shot-reverse shots. This type of shot is used usually for conversation sequences in films. The camera is on one person to see them talking and cuts to the other person or people to see their reaction or to show them replying. It cuts back and forth between the people so that the audience can see the whole dialogue. We didn't use this type of editing in our film, because we didn't have any dialogue scenes. One scene we could've used it was when I was under the stairs and Sian was bullying me. However we wanted our audience to see the whole picture so had a medium long shot of us both.

Evaluation activity 3

3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
    Originally we thought that our production company would be Warner Brothers, but then realised that protagonist pictures would be better for our film. Protagonist Pictures are based in the Uk and produce more specialised films. Our film could be considered to be specialise, because we are only emerging talent in the industry. Protagonist Pictures have also worked with a variety of different companies that all work more with specialised films. This companies include: film4, Vertigo films and ingenious media.
    A production company provides the physical basis for films and may also be responsible for fundraising for the production. It deals with budgeting, scheduling, scripting, supplying talent and resources, organizing the staff, the production itself, post-production, distribution, and marketing. Production companies are often either owned or under contract with a media conglomerate, film studio, entertainment company, or Motion Picture Company. These are the parent companies. Production companies can also be mainstream or independent.
    A distributor is responsible for the marketing of the film, when then helps to finance a film. For our film, our distributor would be the BFI because they could help to fund our film. Our film would pass the BFI cultural test, since our film is British, meaning we would get 25% tax relief on our film. The BFI also deals with more specialised films, like ours. They have also worked with Film4 just like Protagonist pictures.
    Our film credits and the order they appear are: production company; title; distributor; main stars; editor; cinematographer and sound editor. Our production company was Warner Brothers; the title was 'Fading fast'; our distributor was the BFI; the main stars were Sian and I; I was the editor; Ollie was the cinematographer and Sian was the sound editor.
    Some films that would be similar to ours Insituationally are: 'A girl like her'; 'Mean Girls'; 'Cyberbully'; 'Carrie' and 'Odd girl out'. These films are all about bullying in some form and most of them are set in secondary schools or high schools, much like ours. Even though these films are similar to ours, one difference is that on the whole they seem to be American.
   

Evaluation activity 1

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film opening)
   
The title of the film with font and style

The title of our film is Fading Fast, because it has a darker narrative where a girl is killed. It is also titled this, because we also used a lot of shadows to create effects and set the mood of scenes the way we wanted. For example in the shot where the dead girl is first shown, we filmed in a pitch black room and only used our phones to focus light onto me so that I could be seen and stand out in the dark room. We chose to use this font, because it was bold and easily read. We also added a slight glow around it in order to reflect our use of lighting once again and to give the film a sense of eeriness, drama or mystery, which is what our intended film genres were. It is central and stands out against the completely black background, therefore making the audience focus on it and set it apart from the rest of the film. A film that has a similar title style to ours is Psycho as it is a white title in all capitals and is on a plain black background, again making it stand out.

Setting/location

Our film is set in a school location, in classrooms, corridors or stairwells. The majority is filmed inside the school building, however some scenes were filmed in the playground or outside the front, as shown above. In this particular shot it is made clear to the audience where we are and they are able to understand more about our film's narrative. We also filmed several shots on the school field where there is a small area of woodland. We filmed the shots that show more of the decline in mine and Sian's friendship in these areas with trees. We filmed a scene, where we were laughing together, in the canteen. Our argument scenes, the continuity shots and the shots where the body gets dragged into a dark place are all filmed under two different sets of staircases. We also filmed a couple of shots in various classrooms and the drama room. Some films that are set mostly in a school much like our film are: 10 Things I hate about you; Clueless and The Breakfast Club.

Costume and props

We wore our own clothes, so they were modern clothes that real teenagers would wear, therefore making it easier for our target audience to relate to our film. For the most part I wore jeans, a jacket and converse shoes, however in several of the scenes, including the ones where I was acting dead I wore a tank top instead. In the shots where I wore a jacket, it was always zipped up, showing that my character is more closed of towards other people. When I did wear the tank top, it shows that I was more open but more vulnerable, since this is shown when my character died. Sian mostly wore leggings, boots, a jumper and a coat, showing that her character could be deemed popular. These are typical outfits that teenagers would wear in winter months when at school. A film that uses similar costumes to ours is Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, due to it also being a film aimed at teenagers and being set around a school.

Camerawork and editing

Ollie was the one filming all of the shots. We experimented with various angles and shots while filming in order to fit it to our genre and keep our film interesting. For this shot Ollie started with the camera half behind the tree and slowly moved out as we walked past, so it appeared to be tracking us and it looks as though we are being watched, so gives the shot a creepy, dramatic and mysterious feel. We took another shot like this later on when we are filmed from a low angle walking into school. We also have some shots from a birds-eye view to show the dead girl, so that the audience can see the whole scene and understand what has happened.

    Most of the editing we did was cutting the shots together and also using transitions. We mostly used a cross dissolve to show time skips between some shots and to give our film that sense of mystery and drama. We did use one dip to black after the title is shown in order to fade the shot into the next. We also had several scenes which included continuity editing, so that the audience could see the characters journeys. We used a variety of sound effects and music tracks for the background of our film to create tension and suspense. We faded these sounds in and out and overlaid some audio sounds on top of others to get the effect we wanted.

Story and how the opening sets it up

Our film is about two girls, one that gets bullied and eventually killed by the other. They begin as friends, but as the film progresses we slowly see that there is more to them than first appeared. We start to see the decline in their friendship, as Sian's character proceeds to bully mine more and more. Throughout there is a few shots where I can be seen dead, which hints to how the film will end, but the audience will be questioning how we got to that point, therefore our film fits to our genre of mystery. The dead girl is shown in the opening shot, which allows the audience there first insight into what our film is about and how it will progress, therefore setting up the story.

Genre and how the opening suggests it

Our film's genre is drama and mystery. These are conveyed in the beginning of the film opening, as the audience can see a body being dragged under some stairs. This creates drama, since there is someone dead and being pulled into a dark location, enabling the body to become hidden. Mystery is created, because this shot leaves the audience with questions. They don't know who the character is; who is dragging them away; if someone killed them; what happened to them or why they might've been killed. We also filmed in a lot of dark or dimly lit places in order to fit the mood and tone of our scenes. This is both dramatic and mysterious, because the audience sometimes can't see the whole picture clearly, which leaves them intrigued and curious.

How characters are introduced

Our characters are first introduced in the first shot of our opening, but no much can be said about who they are or what they are like, because one girl is dead on the floor and only the feet of the other one can be seen standing wordless over the first girl. Because, we don't see the face of the one standing over the body, the audience doesn't yet know who either of the girls are. After the title fades out however, there is a shot of the girls talking and laughing together in a canteen, the audience can now start to work out and understand more about the characters. As the film continues, it is clear that our characters aren't they way they originally seemed to be and they are shown to no longer be friends. One film that uses a similar scene to ours in order to introduce the characters is When Harry Met Sally.

Special effects

We didn't really use any special effects, but in our whole film opening we made the footage black and white coloured. We added this effect in during our editing process in order to make our film fit better into the drama or mystery genre. This also fits the mood and tone of our film. A couple of films in the same genre of ours that are also in black and white are Schindler's List and Psycho.



Evaluation activity 5

5) How did you attract/address your audience?
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38k3rLufjRo
We put our film onto YouTube so that we could get feedback from our friends or family both from the school an outside school. We annotated the video so that the audience can see the ways in which our film differs from or is similar to other films in our genre or with the same target audience. We were then able to get constructive criticism to find out how to improve or what we could do next time we make a film. Several of our friends said that our film was really good and told us that they liked it.

The first shot in the opening is from a birds eye view and is of me laid still on the floor. The camera stays in a fixed position as Sian walks into the shot while holding a torch to light up my body and her feet as she stands over me. This creates drama, mystery and suspense, because the audience will be questioning what has happened and who is the person standing there. It will make the audience want to keep watching in order to get answers to their questions and to see how the narrative progresses. The shot is also mostly dark at first, which creates further drama.

An aspect of mise-en-scene was our clothing. Throughout the opening we wore our own clothes to show that we were teenagers and allow our target audience to relate to us. For most of our film I wore jeans and a big, zipped up jacket showing my vulnerability, compared to Sian who wore shorter outfits with tights and a coat when we were outside, showing that she is more open and outgoing.

One sound effect we used was the a diegetic splashing of a puddle as Sian walked through it. We got the sound effect from Youtube Audio Library and then Sian added it to the audio tracks of the film, timing it to match the shot. It adds more drama to the film, since only a couple of our sound effects are diegetic and it shows more ways in which Sian bullies me. It is also a sudden sound creating further drama.

At the end of the opening there is a jump cut from one shot of me under some stairs to a close up on my face, showing me unmoving and presumably dead. This shows our genre of drama because the audience still doesn't know how we got here or what has happened. It also seems as if someone is watching me which would build mystery and more drama.

Evaluation activity 4

4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

    Our target audience was older teens, so they would shop in places with the latest fashion or newest music, for example, high street shops, such as Primark, New look, Sports direct or Hmv. They would listen to newer pop songs and would watch dramas like Doctor Who, The 100 or Once Upon a Time. They would like drama or mystery genre shows or films since those are the genres of our film opening. They would understand the concepts of our film and would be able to relate to some degree, since they are the same age as the characters and some would probably have experienced bullying first hand or known someone who was bullied and how they were affected by that experience. We reflected this by having actors around the same age as our audience and by setting our film in a school environment, but having a darker feel so that it would attract our audience and make them want to continue watching. We chose the genres that all of our group liked so that our target audience would be more likely to watch our film.

Evaluation activity 6

6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?   

This was the equipment that we used in order to make our film opening. We used a tripod, a Canon Powershot camera and headphones for when we were editing the sound for our film on the computer. We also used our phones to film some of the shots and also used them in some scenes for the torches to make the lighting better and to get the effect that we wanted. For the shot where you see the dead body in the dark room, we used all three of our phones in order to get the lighting just right so that I could be seen fine by the audience but was still surrounded by darkness, until Sian comes into shot holding her phone torch to light up the shot more. On the computer the program we used was Microsoft Premiere to edit our film footage with any sounds or music and our credits. We used this program to add the black and white effect and also included any transitions we needed inbetween shots. We also used Freesound.org and YouTube audio library to get the sound effects and background music or sounds, both dietetic and non-diegetic. YouTube audio library was the website we used the most, but we got some of the music tracks from freesound.

Evaluation activity 2

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

    There is only two characters in our opening and they are both very important to our narrative.  Sian's character is a key character, because she is the one who does the bullying and in the end killing. My character is a key character in our opening, because she gets bullied throughout and later ends up dead. She is a teenager in secondary school and quite closed off to others. She tries to avoid conflict, which is shown when I run away from Sian down some stairs., but ends up being the victim of bullying.

A character that is similar to mine is Bianca from the film 'The Duff'. Bianca also gets bullied and made to feel like she doesn't matter throughout the film. She has friends but only a few. This is similar to my character, who doesn't have anyone other than Sian's character at first. Bianca is also around the same age as my character and is shown to be in an American high school setting. Being a teenager she also wears a similar style of clothes. However, unlike me, she doesn't get killed. With the help of her friends, she instead rises above the bully and learns to love herself for who she is.  



 We have a similar appearance and  could both be classed as unpopular within the social groups in secondary school or high school. We are also both bullied by girls of a higher social status due to our lack of popularity and are therefore seen as easy targets. However she has two friends who could be deemed popular that stand by her side. I don't appear to have anyone, which makes it harder to not succumb to the bullying and this ultimately leads to my death.

Thirteenth set of shots

We decided to re-film the shot where Sian pushed me into a locker, so that the audience can see the whole scene and while doing so we filmed a close up shot of my face so that you could see my reaction to Sian. We cut these shots together with the previous ones we took so that it appeared continuous. 

We wanted to add a shot where I am looking at my reflection in some water and Sian walks through the middle as an aggressive act, in the process appearing to destroy the reflection momentarily. We filmed this shot several times until we got the positioning right and were happy with the way it looked.

Twelfth set of shots

We wanted to add more shots to the scene where I run  down some stairs away from Sian so we re-filmed some of the journey but from different angles and positions and in post we cut these together with the other shots of me running, so that the cuts aren't necessarily noticeable. 

We decided to add another shot of the dead body before the camera focuses on my moving hand, so filmed a shot of the body from a different angle. While we were filmed Sian accidentally moved in front of the light and it cast a shadow over me, but we kept the shot, since we realised it gave the shot a darker, creepier feel and could show that the murderer has come back and is now watching the body.  

Eleventh set of shots

We re-filmed the shots where Sian and I were walking into the school building, but this time we showed more of the journey and used continuity editing. We also added an extra shot where Ollie filmed from inside the building, to show that Sian pulled the door shut before I got to it, which emphasises my isolation from everyone around. 

We decided to add another shot at the end of our film opening to create suspense and drama. In the shot the audience sees the dead body that was previously dragged under a staircase, but as the camera zooms in to my hand, I twitch suggesting I'm not really dead. At first we tried taking a shot from a high angle and then zoomed in on the hand. Then we tried a pan shot from a low angle that moved right until the camera stopped on my twitching hand. Sian filmed this by sliding the camera across the floor. We included the second take of the shot in our film as another glimpse into the present, before it would go back to past events. 

Tenth set of shots

We spent this day re-filming previous scenes in order to get better shots that we could use in our final film. 

We re-filmed this shot from different angles and experimented with using close up shots, to show the violence.   

We re-filmed this because we didn't feel it looked right with Sian walking up behind me, so shot it again with only me looking into the mirror. This was the shot we preferred out of the two so we used this one in our final film as it showed that I was isolated and lonely. 

We re-filmed this shot but from a different angle to show more of what was happening in the scene.

Ninth set of shots

We decided to experiment to see if the argument scene could be taken out. Ollie filmed a shot of Sian walking past where the audience had seen me run to just before. Sian stops and turns to glare at me to show that she doesn't like me. We didn't include this shot in the final film and instead kept the argument scene.





We again decided to experiment with shots and wanted to show more development between mine and Sian's character. We filmed a shot where I go to walk through a doorway but Sian grabs me to stop me. We filmed this several times and from different angles. We also didn't use this shot in our final film.  

To again show more aspects of the relationship between Sian and I, we filmed a scene where I was staring at myself in the mirror and Sian comes up behind me. Ollie filmed this shot several times until we were happy with it.  

So that the audience could see more about our characters, we filmed a shot where I go to get something out of a locker and Sian pushes me against them. We filmed this a few times before we liked the shot.

Eighth set of shots

We had the idea to add in another shot to the argument scene, where we see Sian walking away from me to show more of the decline in our friendship and to further show my isolation. Ollie filmed this from a low angle and it took several takes to get the shot that we wanted.

Sian had the idea to include a shot where it looked as though she was burying the camera by dropping earth on it. We filmed this with the camera laid on the floor and pointing upwards with a plastic sheet covering the lens. It took several takes before the ending of the shot looked good. This shot will show what's happening in the present time, since the rest of the film shows the events that led up to Sian killing me. 

Lesson Tasks

1. Complete your film (1:55 min) and ensure that you add the credits where you think the have the most dramatic impact.


2. Make sure you have used the right font/colour for your credits according to the genre and feel of your film. Make sure you have recorded explorations on your blog, stating why you have chosen them. Remember that you will probably use different fonts for distribution/production companies
but probably the same for the rest of the credits.

3. I would recommend you have layers of sound - one soundtrack and SFX( see free sound.org or YouTube audio library which you cut accordingly. Max can show you how to alter sound levels.

4. Show your film to people in the class - get their honest feedback  which you can record on your blog. Tweak film according to feedback.

5. Upload extracts onto social media - ask a range of questions to your audience about your film- not generic ones - but ask about narrative:sound:mise character/etc and screenshot feedback and upload to blog.



Targets: (28/3/17)
1) use fonts on premiere, experiment with all and get feedback. link to previous research and put stills on blog.
2) blog everything done on film
3) research companies that would create and market (distribution/ production companies)- similar sorts of films they have made. DNA productions, bfi, bbc film?

Seventh set of shots

I had the idea to have a shot where the audience would see somebody dragging the dead body under some stairs in order to hide it. Ollie filmed it from the floor, then had the idea to film it as a birds-eye view, to create drama or tension. We had to film this shot several times before it looked the way we wanted it to. This shot now appears at the beginning, right after the shot of the body with Sian standing above it.

We re-filmed the classroom scene, because we thought the other shots were too yellow due to the room colour. To fix this we filmed in a different room and filmed from some other angles. Again Sian and I were sat away from each other to show that we were distanced from one another. This time we also filmed me walking out of the room, to show that I didn't want to be near Sian. 

Sixth set of shots

We re-filmed one of the shots from our storyboard but from another couple of different angles as an experiment to see if they would be better shots to include in our film.   

We filmed some shots outside the front of the school. Sian walked ahead of me to again show that I was isolated and distanced from everyone else. Sian then pulled the door shut behind her so that it would appear that we weren't friends at this time. We only filmed a few takes to get this shot and filmed from a couple of different angles.