My evaluation Prezi!

Here is a link to my final evaluation prezi
http://prezi.com/qfnoonu2rjcj/martin-campbells-media-evaluation/

martin campbell's media evaluation on Prezi

The Final Piece

Out Of Time from Ben Goulder on Vimeo.

Here is our final opening title sequence.
Overall feedback has been very positive and we are happy with the final result.

Initial viewer feedback

After most of our editing it was time for our film presentation. Due to illness me and another group member missed this presentation but they gave us details on what happened when we returned and in general the feedback was very positive. One issue that was mentioned alot was the lack of titles. This was however mainly just due to time constraints meaning we had not put them in yet rather than having no intentions of using them. Following this presentation we quickly added the titles in to the sequence and got that issue sorted.

Another controversial part of the film was the scream we had at the end of the sequence. It was more comedy orientated than horror which some caused some issues how ever alot of feedback on it was positive so in the end we have left it in but just made it a bit quieter to try make everyone happy.

Editing

Once the filming was finally finished it was time to put it all together in editing.

 The first thing we done was put all the scenes together on a timeline so we could watch through it and just get a basic idea of what the film was going to look like. After that was done we then had to sort out effects and transitions. One of the main effects we used was the ghost trails effect on all the point of view shots. This showed very well what the world looks like when you are drunk so we thought it would be nice to add in the protagonist point of view shots as he is supposedly drunk during the sequence. To break our two scenes apart from indoors to outdoors we used gradual fading out then fading back in a couple of seconds later to the outdoor scene.

One of the main effects we used in editing was the black and white effect. This is a typical convention from early film noir and suited our piece perfectly. It also had a added benefit of making everything naturally darker as due to lighting issues we had to film in the day light.

Once the general effects and transitions had been sorted it was time for sound. We found this quite difficult as everything we tried seemed to distract from the storyline and felt out of place while the general silence was quite effective. To solve this we got some people in our target audience range to watch the film and comment on what they felt about it. After the tests we decided it would be better to leave music and backing tracks out of the film as the silence was fairly effective for creating the mood we wanted.

Filming time !

After months of people moving groups and ideas changing then endless planning and stalling we finally began filming at the start of February. Our original idea had been to use a car and some other things as the lightning from headlights would have been nice and effective but as we got closer to filming it became apparent this would not be possible so we had to create a whole new story which was loosely based on the same concept and with the same characters.

We began with shooting a indoors seen which would be our opening scene. This would set the mood for the ots and introduce our protagonist. We set up a nice amount of signifiers in the mise en scene to give the audience a general view and opinion of the protagonist as a stereotypical film noir character. This filming went very well and we completed the whole scene in just over an hour.

The next day we decided to try and finish the rest of the filming and to fit with general film noir conventions decided to do it at night. This however caused alot of lighting problems which can be seen clearly on Jamies blog here :
http://jamiesasmediablog.blogspot.com/2010/02/ots-lighting.html

Following the lighting disasters we decided to try again the next day a couple of hours earlier. This went well at first but after half an hour it rapidly became dark again which ruined continuity and made it impossible to film the climax of the scene.

Learning from the previous experiences on the 11th of February we arranged to meet in the afternoon and set out with filming it all in the daylight then planning to darken it in editing. This worked very well and despite panic with a race against the camera battery and countless dogs getting in our shots we managed to get the filming done fairly quickly and effectively. After reviewing the shots from the previous attempts we also filmed the pieces from the previous nights again just to eliminate any continuity issues that may have came up.

Cinema Listings

To get a general idea of target audiences and what people are watching I decided to have a look at the current films being shown at the cinemas in a particular part of the country. For this I used the Odeon cinema in Glasgow. Here is a link of all the films currently being shown there :
http://www.odeon.co.uk/fanatic/film_times/s120/Glasgow_Quay/
You can generally tell which films are being watched more by how many times they are being put on each day. This is nice for learning about our target audiences as we can see which films are popular and it can help us when decided which age classification we would like to have.

For our film we are aiming to have a BBFC classification of fifteen as it will be a horror and have violence.

Film inspirations

Before we began making our opening title sequence we had a look at some of the films that inspire us and give us ideas to use. For me one of the films I looked at was the Last Samurai. This is one of the films we got some of our character portrayal ideas from. The film is about an American military advisor embracing the samurai culture he was sent to destroy. The film shows how this character develops from a alcoholic loser who is just scraping by in life to a honorable hero. Our films plotline we developed from brainstorming ideas that we had generally got from old horror films such as Halloween or Silence of the lambs.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325710/ The Last Samurai (2003)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077651/ Halloween (1978)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102926/ The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Continuity Task

The continuity task is a sort of practice film before we create our main opening title sequence.

We get a specific specification that we have to follow to create it which is. A person walks upto a door then opens it goes through it and walks across the room where they sit down and talk to someone. We also have to include alot of camera shots and techniques these are :
- 180 degree rule
- Reverse shot
- Match on action
- Footsteps
- Opening of the door

In the end we made two continuity tasks because we just felt our first one was to bland and made in to much of a rush. It had a very simple story and was in a fairly unsuitable location. The second one however went a lot better although still not perfect.
Here is a link to the video on Vimeo : http://vimeo.com/8888318


Lady In The Loo from Daniel Bokenham on Vimeo.

Character's

First things first i have been having a lot of internet issues which mean now got a lot of catching up to do so better start with some things from back in January.

Characters are a important part of a film as they can help create emotional bonds between the audience and the film or they can alienate a audience completely. For our film we want to keep with in the Film Noir conventions with characters which means that our protagonist has to be flawed. To achieve this we plan to use mise en scene techniques and casual character signifiers. These are things like being drunk, smoking and gambling.

I think a good example of the character we would like to portray for our protagonist would be something like Nathan Algren from the film The Last Samurai. At the beggining of the film he is a alcoholic and generally mentally unstable. This is very similar to the goals we have for our character.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325710/

The antagonist in our film we want to be mysterious and not show his face or body to clearly. To achieve this we plan to use a mask to cover his face. This idea was inspired after watching some films such as the original Halloween in which the murderer wears a mask through out the film. It also shows alot of nice camera shots from his perspective in which you can hear his deep calm breathing against the mask. This is a nice effect but I doubt we would be able to use something like it in our film with out taking the audience away from the main plot.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077651/

Experimenting with lighting

to prepare for our final production we learned about some different lightning techniques and how they can effect an image depending on what angles they are at or how people are positioned.

Here are some of our pictures:

In this picture we attempted to use the lights in a way to light up one half of each face while keeping the other half dark and shadowed.

A proffesional picture that uses similar techniques looks like this :

this picture shows alot of typical things you would expect to see from film noir such as the darkness, the black and white colour depths and also some key character that are typical of film noir such as the Femme fatal. the cigarette can also act as a signifier to film noir.                                                                                                                                                                    

   This picture we took by only using a light on one side of the shot. This creates a shadow across the other half of the face which can be a very effective camera technique for creating   mystery and confusion. It also follows the typical conventions of film noir with the darkness.        

A proffesional example of this technique would be something like this:                                               

      This picture just like the one above shows only half of the face to help keep with the dark and mysterious themes of film noir.                   

   This was a fairly experimental image that we attempted to see how the light would reflect off the umbrella and the effects it would have on the image. effects similar to this are  used often in films by usually reflecting very powerful lights off of objects such as ceilings to give a particular lighting texture or effect.

   The silhouette is a common image used in the horror and film noir genres. It creates an impression of mystery and darkness which often makes the audience curious to continue watching something to see who it is and why they are portrayed so darkly and mysteriously. To take this shot we used a powerful light right behind the person to give out alot of light behind him creating this effect.                                                                    

An example of this from a film or official photo shoot would look like this :

    In this image there is a strong light coming from behind the doorway to create this silhouette while the rest of the scene is in darkness.

This picture shows these two people with a light coming from above them to create a mild shadow across there faces and body. This is another common film noir lighting technique which we would consider using in our production.                      

A film version of this technique would be this :

This picture like the last one also shows two people with a light above them to create shadows across their faces and shoulders.            

  This image was taken with the light shining from above him. This does a strange effect to the shadow on the floor which can clearly be seen in the picture.                                                 

     This image has the light coming from underneath him to create a huge and unnatural shadow behind the man. This is another potent lightning effect which could be used in our final production.                                              

    This image has the light shining from the right of the picture creating a nice clear shadow to the left of the picture. This is another useful lighting technique that is commonly used.

This image has the light shining directly towards the person in the exact opposite way of the silhouette. Yet it can create the same sort of effect by making it impossible to see the person. This is a unnatural yet effective lightning technique which can be used to create mystery.                         .        

Aswell as all these things we also learned about three-point lighting which revolves around having three lights on the particular person or scene to help keep it seeming natural or real. Usually three point lighting uses a      powerful camera to one side of the scene a less powerful one on the other side focusing on the same thing     and then another one in the middle to light up the background. This stops the subject of the main cameras      light from seeming unnatural and out of focus with the rest of there surroundings.                                          

All original pictures taken by group at the sixth form. The comparison pictures obtained from Google images after a search for film noir lighting.                                                                                                                                                                                                        

The Production!

For our main practical production we have formed groups so that we can produce more work of a better quality and it will allow us to cover all aspects of the course. to view my group members blogs the links are below :

http://jamiesasmediablog.blogspot.com/

http://bengoulder.blogspot.com/

http://conorasmedia.blogspot.com/

Semiotics

Semiotics is the study of sign processes, communications and significations.
In Television and Film they are often reffered to as items or objects that give off a meaning and are relative to a particulur culture. We plan to use some items in this way to give off a specific feeling or meaning in our production.

For more information on semiotics and how it can relate to media check this website:

http://www.rssmediastudies.co.uk/main/semiotics/