Directors Commentary

Directors Commentary By Katie-Ann on YouTube

Final AS production

Media Opening Sequence on YouTube

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt from the progression from it to the full task?

Looking back at the Preliminary task, it has taught us alot about filming and the use of camera work etc. At the beginning of the preliminary task we were taught how to use the camera's and how to film in a way that would help us obtain a good mark for our media product. One of the skills we learnt was the 180 degree rule, whereby the camera must not step over the 180 degree mark, otherwise the sense of the shot would be gone as it would look like a person has switched sides, when infact they have been stood in the same place. Our preliminary task was a sort of practice to our main task so we could get use to using the equipment, and also learn how to create a piece of a film. Our preliminary task did not show our full potenial and was not very good. There were continuity errors in our original filming and the bits of film we managed to use did not really go together, as the diologue in the clip didn't fit, and did not really make sense. We learned from these mistakes and were able to make sure this would not happen in our main task. Our preliminary task also reflected on the lack of editing skills we had, so we knew we would have to further improve these when it came to editing our main task. An example of this was using jump cuts and being able to even them out and put them in the right places. We had a little trouble with this when editing our main task; as the main protagonist is walking down a long path, there is jumpcuts. These jumpcuts had to be redone and experimented with as sometimes they didn't really flow together. This meant we had to really think about how we were going to obtain these and make them look good and allow them to flow together so we could create a good piece of film.
Some extra knowledge that we have learned post making the preliminary film are that we learned how to use the equipment properly and knew what rules to follow when trying to make a piece of film.

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

During the Entirety of creating this product we have learned several new things about technology, and its uses.

Camera: We have learned how to film effectively using a digital camcorder that saves on to a SDHC memory card, and we found that this had many advantages over the conventional film roll based Video Cameras. For example there were some shots that we filmed and decided were not suitable for use in our final piece so we just deleted them off the card. This had several advantages, as we found that because we could delete the poor quality clips we had more space available on the card to re-film and get better quality footage. The other advantage with having A memory Card is backups of the footage can easily be made making sure that important parts of the film are not lost. We learned how to make a good piece of film with a camcorder, as we leaned different shots that would be good to involve and include in our film.

Editing: For editing our video we used a Mac Pro and the software we used was was Final Cut Pro which is industry standard software. At first it was difficult to Use the editing suite as the majority of our group had never used a mac before. However this was not a problem as we quickly learned and became confident using the Macs and Final cut pro.We learned that we could add effects such as Bad TV. Bad film, add effected texts and change parts of clips that we would not have been able to do if we ware using software such as Windows Movie Maker. We also learned how to add and change other effects such a the lighting and contrast. When editing our media product we changed the lighting in the film and made it seem darker than it actually was at the time that we filmed it. We could also change the colour of the film. An example of this is toward the end of our main task, where the main protagonist is lay in the tunnel. We changed the colour of the film to try and represent death well and add mystery to the film. We felt that changing this scene into black and white would help us to portray a sort of miserable feeling as the mian protagonist lays dead.

Through the use of the macs and final cut pro this has helped make our film opening look more authentic rather than just your average home movie.

We also used the technology of photoshop to produce a poster that we could potentially use if we were to distribute our media product. Considering a few members in our group were new to this technology, we all worked together and now fully understand many of the basic features of photoshop.

How did you attract/address your audience?

During the making of our opening sequence, we considered a number of techniques which would be used effectively to define the chosen genre and grab the full attention of our audience. To start, our audience consists of both genders, varying from the ages of 15 to 25.
The main protagonist in our media production is female and around the same age as the main intended audience. Therefore, the audience are able to relate to the protagonist and makes them feel more involved in the film, as they would relate/warm significantly more towards a person of their own age rather than if the protagonist was an old man for example. Our media product would also make the audience feel connected to the female in the film. This is because she is a young female walking alone in an area of forest. She is instantly seen as very vulnerable, and as she has her hood up there is an element of mystery, which leaves the audience interested and wanting to know who she is and what significance she has in the film.
As our chosen film genre was thriller, we had to use certain techniques to make it represent the thriller genre so it would be easier to attract our intended audience. To do this we used various techniques involving our camerawork, mise en scene and editing.
Our camera work was mainly hand held, as this adds to the scary nature of the film, that we were trying to portray. It also helped us to show that the film had a stalker theme.
We placed our film in a forest as we felt it gave the effect of lonliness and vulnerability to the protagonist. It is also a typical place where someone can be murdered etc, as it is in a secluded area. We also chose to film in a tunnel, because it's a very desolate area that not many people would go by therefore a typical place to dump a body, that wont be found easily.
While editing we put alot of jumpcuts in to show the jumpiness of the film and it also added to the scary nature of the film. We also put in cross dissolves so our media product would flow nicely together.
The title of our film is 'Berore I Wake'. We felt that this title would attract our audience as the title of the film doesn't really give anything away to the audience. We felt that as there is an element of mystery to the title, this may attract an audience as they will want to find out about the film.
We also decided to take in consideration how we would distribute/advertise our product, by thinking what techniques would be good to advertise our product and would be used by more popular distribution companies. We then decided to create a poster for our media product.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media product would be prodominantly young people, but may also appeal to people of an older age also. The young people we list would most likely be from around 15 to 25. As our film is a thriller, it would attract many people and we would be aiming for hopefully a mass audience and not just a niche market. There is no particular gender or ethnicity that we aim for our audience to be, but think it would appeal to all genders and ethnicities. We feel it would appeal to males as it is a thriller and the male audience would be attracted to this sort of film, as it isn't a chick flick, romance comedy etc. We also feel it would appeal to the female audience, as the main protagonist in our film is a female. The female audience would be more likely to warm to her than they would if our main protagonist was a male. As the main protagonist is a female, and is walking in a forest alone, she is automatically vulnerable and almost gives off a 'damsell in distress' sort of feel which would attract a female audience. We have not tried to appeal to a particular social class, but feel like this would appeal to both as we haven;t represented class in the film. We have not represented working class people in this film or middle class etc.

What kind of institution would distribute your product and why?

The film Brick’s main production company is ‘Focus Features’ which is a massive company parented by NBC Universal which has produced very successful films such as Atonem ent, and In Bruges. Another suitable company would be Rogue Pictures, who were the production company for the strangers. As the two companies are well known in the media industry and have experience with working with very similar media Texts. The advantages that this would give us is that the companies know how to market Thriller/Horror films and successful marketing can often be the make or break of a film regardless of the quality of the film.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our main film consists of one character, and is a young girl. We chose to have a girl as the main character as a common stereotype is that girls are generally seen as more vulnerable and almost the weaker sex in terms of physical ability. The main social group our media product represents is females, with our film showing how defenseless they are on their own. This is common of the thriller type films as the victims are usually women. The girl in our media product is white, as this is the only choice we had. However, we did not aim to represent a particular ethnicity. The first shot of the female in our product shows her walking down a path in the middle of a forest. A stereotype of a girl her age, which is roughly around 16/17, is that she would be hanging with friends etc. This raises the question as to why is she out walking through a forest all alone. Also, females around this particular age are thought to want more independence, and think they are more grown up than they actually are. This shows by the fact that she is walking on her own and could represent the fact that she wants to be alone maybe. There is also the possibility of naivety and that the protagonist believes that it is safe to be walking alone.

Also in our film, the main protagonist is wearing a hooded jumper with her hood up. This is to hide her face and to add more mystery to our product. By not seeing the main protagonists face, the audience does not get to know the protagonist or establish a relationship almost as her identity is unknown.

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

The main genre of our media product is a thriller, in many ways our media product compares to many other films of this genre. Firstly because of the way it has been structured and the camera work we involved into our film. Our media project involves many different aspects of handheld camerawork including the effects that the main protagonist is being stalked throughout the woods, which is an important feature within our film. We were able to give this effect by holding the camera behinds the trees and also running whilst holding the camera which although it makes the quality of the film very poor, it distinguishes our film as a thriller and that even though its not clear, something bad is going to happen to the main protagonist.
Before we chose the main genre of our film, we were quite certain in what we wanted to do which was a thriller, we chose this genre because we found it was the easiest to portray in the short amount of time we were given and also that it would be quite interesting to research and conduct ourselves into how a thriller is made. We conducted research into various thriller films, such as The Blair Witch Project, The Strangers, and also Silence Of The Lambs.
Firstly, we chose to conduct research into The Blair Witch Project because it is highly popular and known, especially for its use of handheld camerawork. This feature was a main aspect of what we wanted to include in our media product. We also thought that this film was relevant to our main product because of its fairly similar location, and it also doesn’t fully allow the audience to know what’s going on, which leaves them interested and intrigued into what’s going to happen next after the beginning of the film has ended.
We also researched The Strangers and The Silence Of The Lambs; as these were both thrillers and both have slight scenes of our chosen location of a forest. The Strangers forest scene had a lot more impact on the thriller genre in comparison to Silence Of The Lambs because of the context it was put in. This is because in The Strangers the woman in the area of forest was being followed, whereas in the beginning of silence of the lambs the woman is just running through the forest to give the film an eerie feel.
The final film that we analyzed was Brick. This film influenced the way in which we chose to improve our final media product, and was a fundamental inspiration into the way we edited our product e.g. the flash-forwards of the tunnel scene we incorporated into our main media product. The originally thought features that we thought of ourselves and included into our media project were the various different video effects we used such as the “bad film, and bad television effects” which were basically cut in scenes from the tunnel that involved miniature cross dissolves, dark colored effects which were different to other parts in the film and also we incorporated two clips we had filmed into the one clip we inserted into our media project.

Our initial idea was to film the whole task in one location; that location being Heaton Park. We were going to end the main task with the main protagonist (Emma), being chased from behind and being caught. In our initial idea, there was no plan of showing the main protagonist dead or unconscious throughout the task. We then decided we wanted the film to be more interesting and have a bit more depth that it had in the beginning, so we decided to use one more location to show the transition from the main character being followed, to when she has been captured and is lay in a tunnel. The different and second location we decided to use was Platt Fields as we wanted to add more to the task, as it would be dull if it was just the main protagonist walking through an area of forest. We also did not have much footage, so that was another reason we decided to film parts of it in Platt Fields park in Fallowfield.

We thought Heaton Park would be a good place to film our task as it has a lot of wooded areas, and would be a good place to film the type of film we wanted to. It was a good location to be able to show the main character being followed and watched through bushes etc. Platt Fields was also a good area to shoot parts of our films as it also had some wooded area, and has some deserted parts that mad us able to portray the fact that a body had been dumped, or taken to a particular quiet place, in a derelict area that not many people would pass and see. eg, the tunnel we used to film the main character lying down dead, as it is covered by bushes and trees on both sides and to get there you have to walk through trees and bushes.

We decided that the shots we had filmed in the tunnel at Platt Fields were going to be used as flash forwards throughout certain bits of the film, to portray to the viewer that something has happened, or is going to happen. However, how it happens is not known, as they are only quick flash forwards and do not tell the whole story.

Production Treatment For Main Task

Z2 Group 6 2011 - Emma Smith, Katie-Ann McKeeney, Sean Warman, Nathan Leader.

Title:

Genre: The genre of our main task is a thriller.

Duration: Our main task will last around 2 - 3 minutes.

Audience: The intended audience for our main task is both males and females aged 15 – 25 with some appeal to older audiences.

Our main task begins with the main character walking through the woods; we then incorporated split second flash-forwards into these scenes and used various different effects, which limits the amount the audience is able to view which gives the film and mysterious feeling. These flashbacks will continue throughout the film until it shows the protagonist finally dead/unconscious in a dark tunnel. The location of the woods in comparison to the dark tunnel insinuates the opposites of death and life. The woods is in an environment which is linked with nature and living plants, whereas the dark tunnel gives the effect of an unnatural, and lonely atmosphere. Also during our film the camera work gives the audience the feeling that there is a second character in the film, although you never see them. However, it does insinuate that this second character is following the main protagonist throughout the duration of the film.

The suggested elements within our main task include the performance of a female walking through a woodland area with cuts (flash forwards) of the same female lay in a deserted tunnel. This shows the element of thriller within our main task as the audience will be unsure of what has happened to the main character.

There were no significant costume ideas within our main task, just that the main character was to wear a hooded jacket to add mystery as you can't see the characters face.

Again, there were no significant props within our main task besides a mobile phone for the duration of a few seconds; we used this prop to show the audience that the character wasn’t randomly attacked for her possessions as her phone was found next to her, and she has a call from an unknown number. This also raises suspicion as to why an unknown person would be phoning the main character and whether it has any significance to the attack. The key locations of our main task were Heaton Park and Platt Fields Park. We used Heaton Park because of its woodland scenery and its dark nature. We then used Platt Fields as a second location because of the dark tunnels and forest like areas it had, as those features were very significant in our main task idea.

TITLE/OPENING CREDITS

The production of our main task consisted of three full days filming and gathering shots of our locations.

The Blair Witch Project Trailer 3 HD

Film Analysis for The Strangers:

The Strangers is a film about a young couple who are being terrorized in their own home by three masked people. This film is based on a true story and inspired by the murders of the well known serial killer Charles Manson. We had chosen to look at this film as it involves similar scenes that we are thinking of using within our main task. The first scene we have chosen to do an analysis for our main task, consists of a dark setting, handheld camera works and the location of numerous trees. This is where the woman is running away from the home to save herself and get help. This is what we want to do, as our main task involves a girl being followed in the woods, also using some handheld camera work, although our main task will not involve murder and chases but it still has some resemblance to The Strangers. Throughout the scenes the camera work switches pace, the most significant part would be the fast cutting as this gives the effect of tension and shows the panic of the main protagonist. This also adds effect to the frightening nature of the film and links with the idea of what we are trying to portray in our sequence. When the woman in the film is crawling on the grass, the camera work is done at quite a fast pace. This adds to the overall feeling of the film, and is a feature we would like to include in our main task.

The Strangers on IMDB

Film Analysis for Blair Witch Project:

The Blair Witch Project is about three students who go into the woods to film evidence of the urban myth; Blair Witch, but are never found. Their footage although is found a year later. The Blair witch project is similar to our main task plan as it involves similar camera work of what we want to do such as handheld camerawork, jump cuts etc. The Blair Witch Project is a thriller film, and seems very realistic as the majority or the movie is filmed with a handheld camera which gives the effect of shakiness to the characters and adds to the frightening nature of the film. As it is handheld, there is limited amount of the scene that the viewer will see which gives the film a mysterious element. This adds mystery to the film, as the viewer cannot see properly what is taking place in the scene although they can hear it . An example of this is when the students are filming in a derelict house: in one of the shots the camera focuses on the stairs, yet you can still hear the voices and noises so you are still interested in what is happening within the movie. As the viewer can only see the bottom of the stairs due to the way the camera is being held, they are unable to see any activity taking place in the room or to the top of the stairs.

The Blair Witch Project on IMDB

At first, the idea we had was to have a girl walking through a forest area, whilst giving the effect on her being watched by an unknown figure. We filmed our shots for this idea, but then realized we were trying to incorporate too much into a short space of time. We then had to think about the factor that it was only the beginning of a film and not the entire film itself, we discussed these factors and thought it would be best to come up with another idea. Our second idea was based on the beginning of the film brick, where a girl is filmed lay at the side of a stream unconscious with the element of flashbacks. During the editing of these clips we realized we could incorporate the first set of shots, which were taken in Heaton Park and link them together with the shots that we took in Platt Fields and then complete our final two minute production.

Film Analysis For Silence Of The Lambs:

The opening scene of silence of the lambs shows a woman running through a forest, we chose this film as an important feature within our movie is the locations, and as one of our locations we are using the woods. The non diegetic sounds used are very low pitched and go very well with the empty, dark forest setting which creates a mysterious atmosphere to the film. During the film, there were many close ups on the women's face and although we are not using close ups in our main task, we thought that this feature was used very cleverly to show the emotion in the woman's face. The fog and mist in the forest also add mystery, which is a main feature we are planning to include in our main task.

The Silence Of the Lambs on IMDB

Ideas for main task:

• TV static on camera to end film
• Camera on tripod falling into leaves
• Scenery with lots of dead foliage
• Establishing shots
• Night time
• Night vision editing
• Tracking shot of objects falling from bag
• Jump cuts to show panic
• Zoom in on object of interest
• Close up on face, upset, make up, looks like crying
• One Actor
• No dialogue, just heavy breathing and crying
• Heaton park
• Minimum amount of face shots creates mystery
• Blue wash/Grey scale color scheme
• Handheld camera work
• Shots of behind trees far away, shaky and builds tension.
• Shots from behind the trees closer every time

1. long shot of character 1 walking through the doors to the room where the story takes place.

2. Extreme long shot with a slow pan and a jump cut of character 1 walking to the table where character 2 is sat down already.

3. Close up of both characters hands as the shake hands.

4. Over the shoulder shot from behind character 1 looking at character 2 while he is talking.

5. Over the shoulder shot behind character 2 while character 1 is talking.

6. Another over the shoulder from behind character 1 while character 2 is talking.

7. Long to extreme long as character 2 walks away from the table and slow pan as he walks towards the door.

On the 4th February, we filmed the preliminary task. Due to some changes in the group, we were unable to complete the task to the best of our ability. This is shown in the sequence as some of the dialogue and shots do not match up.

On the 9th February we edited the shots and compiled the video using final cut pro, which is industry standard editing software.

01. What did you learn about the cameras and editing software during the preliminary task?

We learnt how to operate the camera and how to use final cut pro. Although our preliminary task was not completed to the standard of which we hoped it would be, we have learnt from our mistakes. This includes some of the ways of editing that we did not expect were possible before now.

We also found that filming for a motion picture was not as easy as we first thought it would have been as you have to plan all of your shots before filming, as it is far easier to edit when you have your production fully planned out before filming and editing. What we have learned from learning final cut pro is that you have the advantage of being able to easily change what you have edited if what you have made did not flow properly, or if it did not make sense.

The advantage that we have gained from completing the preliminary task is that we know know how to use a video camcorder, and also how to use final cut pro, which is industry standard editing software and will allow is to create a professional looking start to a film production.

02. In the filming and editing of your project, what worked well and what could have been improved?

As a group we worked well together, and this has let all members of the group have an equal input as to what has been done to the video during both the filming, and the editing stages of our preliminary task. We found that although our preliminary task was far from perfect; we adapted well to time constraints and changing circumstances. Some of our shots that worked well were the shot reverse shot, however the dialogue did not match properly and this made our scene makes less sense. We did not however break the 180* rule so this conforms with the way in which one would expect to edit any type of media text. Our continuity editing could have been improved, as one of our protagonists was holding a pen in one shot, and then in the next he was not.

03. Give a detailed, specific example of how you used shot/ reverse shot combination in your film.

In the preliminary task we used a shot reverse shot when the two characters were talking, this was used as it makes the conversation more realistic and can capture the attention of a more avid viewer. The use of the shot reverse shot also helps the user establish who is talking to who.

04. How did you make sure you did not break the 180 degree rule? If you did what did you learn from this?

To avoid breaking the 180 degree rule, we made sure we positioned the camera correctly, so we didn't cross the line on either side of the characters, and kept it on the left hand side of the table. If we were to cross the camera to the other side, it would not make sense.

Welcome to our Blog!

Before we could start our main task, we were asked to conduct a preliminary task, which would enhance our knowledge of how the camera works and increase our editing skills. We also needed to recognize the filming techniques, which were required within our sequence, such as the 180-degree rule, shot/reverse/shot, and jump cuts. The preliminary task involved us filming and editing a character walking up to a door, entering a room and sitting down on a desk opposite another character where the two characters exchange a short conversation, and character one exits the room. The preliminary task prepares us for the main task, which is an opening of a two-minute opening of a film.