Evaluation

Media Evaluation by Jayne32

Filming: Final Cut

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHIMKMtZtWE

Editing: Sound

Originally we decided that we were going to have our music made for our opening by a guy me and Oscar no however when we all listened to the piece that he had created we decided that it didn't suit our film. So Oscar went home and researched some royalty free pieces of music and started to download them, luckily he has found a perfect piece that goes really well with the movie with no fuss what so ever.

As for the sound effects originally me and Bethany went out and made our own sound effects for the movie but these weren't very good quality and some didn't really go with the new cut that we had layered out. So we found a website that gave thousands of different types of sound effects, this really helped layer up the opening and give it that quality of sound that it needed. It also helped with the cut aways as we have a reversed gun shot sound that sounds and fits extremely well with the cut away scenes. As well as foot steps and doors closing we have also found a sound effect that fits in with the torture victims attempts to free herself from the rope.

Overall our sound is more or less done the music has been chosen and put in place as well as the sound effects, all that needs to be done is the changing of levels so that they mix in well with each other at different times. This will help the audience focus in more with certain sounds that either might shock them or build the opening's suspense.

Evaluation: Looking at the Questions

Today in our lesson we looked at the evaluation questions that we would have to start answering soon in great detail. This really helped me as some of them confused me a bit and i didn't no how i was going to present it on my blog or all the ways that i was aloud to present it. We also went through the requirements that you need to have and one of them is to make sure its multimedia so i'm thinking of maybe doing an audio clip with some visual aids as i am not so good with typing. The questions that i will be looking at are:

- In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


- How does your media product represent particular social groups?


- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?


- Who would be the audience for your media product?


- How did you attract/address your audience?


- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?


- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you fell that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Filming: Vicar Scene Re-Shoot

Today was the day that Imogen and Bethany had both planned to do the beginning of our film with the vicar interveiw. As they went of and did this myself and Oscars job was to do some editing. The group decided to change the dialogue of this scene and the layout as an interview seemed like it would work better and add a little more realism to our opening.

They filmed two actors today Finley Harnett and also Luis Harding However i don't think it went very well as they cam back quite early with no footage i think the problem was that the actors hadn't learnt there lines and all no one was prepared for this.

However they had another go a few days later and this time Oscar and Bethany did it while i stayed and worked on the film. This turned out to be a successful try as they even managed to get the green screen in the background which i think will look brilliant if we can get it right. The dialogue worked really The actors did really well and the footage more importantly was useable. Now all that needs to be done with it is for the green screen to be edited and for it to be imposed on to the TV screen in our opening.

Editing: Font

Today myself and Imogens job was to look and interesting fonts online from the website Dafont to try and find something for the titles. I want to stick to a font that will be quite bold and will stand out and is easy for the audience to read as well as interesting.

This is the first font that we looked at i really like this one as it is a strong font, its very bold, very clear exactly what i personally was looking for. It is also very masculine and would fit in very well with the our story line, i also love the fact its in capitals as it adds drama.

This is the second font that we looked at on the website that drew our attention. Personally i am not fond of this font as it has a very feminine feel to it, although it could be interesting as it would go against the normal conventions of a thriller film. Also the use of texture in the text makes it almost look like twigs found in a forest which is quite scary. I think that aspect of the font would make it fit in with the horror aspect of our film, but i was looking for something that is bold and something very dramatic and unfortunately this font doesn't have that.

Finally this is the third font that we had picked out of the bunch. I think this one would be perfect as it is bold, it stands out, its very interesting to look at and it has that drama as well as the capital letters. I think the different hight's give it that edgy tone to it and this could suggest that it doesn't follow the thriller convention. However it's not so different that it wouldn't go with our story line.

Overall out of all of the fonts that we looked at today i think we should choose the third and final one 'Dirty Headline' as its very interesting and defiantly would fit in would not only our genre but also the storyline of our film.

Planning: Dialogue

This is the dialouge which Bethany wrote for the news shown on the TV.

Announcer:

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to Spotlight. Here today to explain to us the dramatic resigning of Pope Benedict due to the Saint sinner killings. The Lords messenger Arch Bishop Hartley.

Hartley:

May our lord bless you and keep you citizens of God we have received information about the dead sinners who whilst their sin was great their souls were redeemable without this violence.

Announcer:

What is the church doing about this situation?

Hartley:

Well we are obviously working with the police on these so called Saint Sinner murders and are trying to solve this as quickly as possible. There will not be a government enquiry but these murders are in no way connected to the resignation of the Pope.

Announcer:

I think the public will refuse to believe that, we all know what’s going on in the Vatican and no one here would be surprised if one of your alter boys turned and did the killings. We all know the treatment they get.

Hartley:

Obviously this has nothing to…The Vatican is in no way implicated, no minister or vicar is involved this is obviously a fanatic carrying out God’s work.

Announcer:

Are you saying you agree with the killings?

Hartley:

Obviously this is an observation upon the prophecy and the true Christians are being tested. I assure you everything is being done to persecute them but…

Announcer:

That wasn’t an answer to my question

Hartley:

Well obviously I don’t agree but in principle Satan and his hoards must be punished.

Announcer:

Final question then your Holiness.

Hartley:

Yes, fire away

Announcer:

Where is your God now?

We have filmed this before but i think we all agreed that the sound wasn't very good and it was also too short to have to it going over the majority of the scene. I think Bethany has done a brilliant job and hopefully this time round everything will work with the sound. We are also planning to shoot this on a green screen background to see if we can put a TV studio and a church in the background to make the film look a little more realistic. I think this might be a little difficult to edit but if we can manage to get it right i think it will really add to not only our marks but also to the atmosphere of the film altogether.

Editing

Second Draft Rough Cut

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7lYLtHu96k


This link is our second draft rough cut.

Planning: New Location and Actors

Thanks to Imogen and Oscars very good organisation skills we managed to get an excellent location and five new actors.

Actors

Pic 1: Protagonist - Aiden Lever
Pic 2: Child -Angelo Gizzi
Pic 3: Main female torture victim - Lucy Wise
Pic 4: Dead man - Reece Collins
Pic 5: Dead female - Melissa Kerrison
Pic 6: Dead female - Cindy Sidhu

Location

Living Room
Kitchen
Garage
Outside Church

Props

Bible
Rope
Car
Knife

Filming: Third Time Filming

Unfortunately i couldn't be there for the filming of the second draft, as i was away for the whole week of the holidays and the others couldn't do the days i was free. We were going to maybe try and Skype but this seemed to be something of great difficulty and in the end i had just called them up every now and again to check everything was okay and maybe try and have an input in the film. I no that the whole of the title sequence has been changed but this i think was needed as it will show progression and the journey that we have gone on to get to the final edit. I have seen the footage Oscar and Imogen filmed and it was brilliantly done, the mise en scene and make up was amazing as well as some of the new bits, dialogue and also the camera direction.

Planning: Re shoot

We finished our first draft for the film and showed it to our Coursework teach Mr. Ford to see what he thought and what maybe we should include/take out or edit. He suggested to us again that we need to redo the female torture victim as it's not very realistic and we cant compare it to any other Thriller/Horror movies that include this kind of reaction. She also swore to much, and by the survey we did as part of our research shared the audience thinks that too much swearing can ruin a movie and take away the Horror element of it. As well as this unfortunately the group has decided to shoot in the holidays of which i am away, however we are going to attempt and try an internet chat so that i can have some input and some direction to where the movie is going. As well as this we have had to change the location as the location we previously used is no longer available for our use this is the same for the protagonist actor and the second torture victim. However this can be sorted as Imogen luckily knows a friend that would be willing to do it at her house as well as two other torture victims and a protagonist who looks vaguely had the same look as our last protagonist. As well as these changes we decided to change the child to a little boy, and to add in more interaction between him and his father. Another change that we have decided to make with the torture scene is to add in more violent acts such as him kicking the female victim or maybe throwing something at her. We have also decided to show his head as this proved to be very difficult to keep his head out of the shot. It will also allow the audience to interact and no the protagonist.

Filming: What We Need To Change

Filming: First Draft Filming Day

Filming: Shooting Schedule

We will be filming the scene with the Priest giving the speech on Monday the 14th of January and we will be filming the rest of the film on Sunday the 27th of January. 

Charlee, Oscar, Beth and I will all be there when we film the scene with the Priest.
Charlee, Oscar and myself will be filming the rest of the film as Beth is unable to attend.

Filming: Actors and Location

Actors:

Protagonist: Giles Westgarth
Girl tortured: Lucy Wise
Boy tortured: Jonathan Morris
Child: Rachel Mockler
Priest: Oscar Bath

Location:

As we weren't able to use our location and child actor for unknown reasons my group and I had to quickly think of a new location and also a new child actor. This proved to be very difficult because all of our houses were being other wise occupied. However luckily Giles was very kind as to offer us to be able to film at his house this helped out a lot and them on the day Imogen found a solution to our child actor problem by using her cousin. This means that instead of using a young boy we are now using a young girl.

Filming: First day filming

Yesterday my group and I had our first filming session for the priest scene. It is only a short scene but is vital for the film to go a head as the film starts with the man watching TV with the priest being interviewed by the news. Our location for this short scene is in front of a local church as it was a very short scene with little dialogue and movement it was very easy to film. As there were so many sides of the church were we could film we had to try various places to see which one looked better. After we had found this place we set up the camera, our actor and started shooting. However we didn't think of the weather when we decided when to film and unfortunately it started to snow very heavily. This made it very difficult for Oscar (our actor) to be heard and also for me, Beth and Imogen who were filming to cover the camera up so it wouldn't break. However despite this complication me and the other girls found it particularly easy to do. We finished filming quickly as temperatures were dropping but we looked over the footage and agreed that it was exactly what we were looking for.

Overall now that we have this footage we can now start filming the rest of our film for our rough cut.

Planning: Updated shot list

Since my last post on our story board/shot list we have made a few changes due to some peoples opinions and also our teachers view so far. Here is our new and updates shot list revised:

1. Close up of TV, slow zoom, shot of protagonist on sofa.

2. Zoom of previous shot,
3. Long shot of table with religious items and Polaroids
4. Close up of Polaroids, title, jump cut to next shot
5. Medium shot of child playing on the floor
6. Close up of Polaroids, title
7. Mid shot of protagonist from behind watching TV
8. Mid shot of child playing with toys, zoom up
9. Close up of Polaroids, title
10. Medium shot of TV and sofa
11. Close up of Polaroids, title
12. Medium high angle shot of door
13. Close up, low angle of door handle
14. Close up of Polaroids, title
15. Low angle, long shot of door from the bottom of the stairs
16. Long shot of door
17. Extreme close up of lock on door
18. Close up of Polaroids, title
19. Long shot of boy playing with toys
20. Close up of Polaroids, title
21. Close up of male torture victims hands
22. Extreme close of of victims face
23. Close up of Polaroids, title
24. High angle, extreme close up of protagonist and victims
25. Long shot of female torture victim
26. Close up of polaroids
27. Blurred medium shot of protagonist
28. Blurred but then changes into focused extreme close up of protagonists eye

As you can see we have added in a few more shots of the Polaroid's because when we looked back over our previous shot list we realised that we didn't have enough Polaroid's for all of the titles. The additional changes that we have put in are much more camera angles to help to establish the room and also the characters, we hope this help the audience to connect to the characters whether its in a negative of positive way. As well as this we have changes some of the timings of the shots because some were to shot for example our zoom was to short realistically to shot. Transitions has been added in to add more interest to the sequence and to also show some of our technical skill and also makes the film flow a little more. We plan to keep make storyboard changes all the way through our filming process including after the animatic and also after we have filmed as their might be a certain shot that we want to add in.

Important dates and deadline

Last week in our coursework lesson we revised over the important dates and deadlines for our coursework piece.

15th January - animatic and storyboard
28th January - filming finished
15th February - post production rough cut
8th March - final deadline coursework complete
29th March - individual evaluations finished

I think that having these deadlines helps my group to realise how close the deadlines are and what we need to do to achieve these deadlines and will push us to work harder so we can meet them.

We have sat down as a group and we have decided that oscar will do the majority of the filming while me, Imogen and Bethany prepare for filming. My job is to take pictures of the location and actors, Imogen's job is to create the new and improved shot list ready for filming and finally Bethany's job is to bring the costumes and props.

Planning: Actors, Props, Location and Equipment

These are the final decisions, lists of actor, locations, props and equipment:

Actors and Actresses:

Protagonist - Giles Westgarth

Child - Still Need Naming 

Male Captive - Connor Barbor 

Female Captive - Lucy Wise 

Priest on TV - Oscar Bath

 

Location

Basement - Giles Garage

Stairs - Beth's House 

Living room - Beth's house

Church for TV Segment - St Joseph's Church

Props:

Religious Paraphernalia: Beth

Children's Toys: Beth 

Chains: Myself and Oscar
Sheet for Basement floor: Myself

Table: Myself

Tatter clothing: Everyone

Preacher costume: Myself

Equipment:

HDV Camera 

Boom Mic 

Tripod 

Lighting Rig

Adobe Premier Pro CS6  

Continuity task: Evaluation