Evaluation

Our media product develops forms and conventions of real media products such as the scene of the stabbing, when one characters (Micheal) stabs another character (Wayne) the stabbing involves some quite graphic detail e.g coughing up blood, this could be seen as forms and conventions of real media products such as the film ' Dressed to Kill' or other slashers such as 'Scream' and 'Halloween'. Our film was a sort of 'social realism' meets 'american slasher', we created a slasher movie with similar forms and conventions to a typical American slasher film and gave it a working class, British feel to it. A major form and convention to a film in our production is 'Donkey Punch' as the scene when 'Sharron' cuts her hand is similar to a scene in 'Donkey Punch' when a characters cuts her armpit whilst shaving, this connotes to the audience that theres going to be some violence.

In our media product we have represented the 'working class' social group(C2DE), we have done this by using costume, as we are representing the stereotypical working class, we want to represent the 'chav' so we gave are characters the 'chav' look aswell as having them put on a posh English voice but a Yorkshire accent. We have also used props such as alcohol to show that these teenagers have been boozing and also the first scene is located on a bed and the dialogue in the seen suggests to the audience that the two teenagers have been having intercourse.

The type of media institution that would distribute our media product would be a small indie company because of course we ourselves are just beginners and could not afford to even try and attract one of the big 5 conglomerates, our best and cheapest option would be to go to an indie company e.g Icon Film Productions. Our production would unlikely gain funding to gain national distribution because of it characteristics, we havent got the best equipment, we havent got enough experience and also the way the film is set, it reflects the North of Englands working class and so only would really interest people from Yorkshire and the rest of the Nort

h of England. Altough films such as 'Donkey Punch' a low budget slasher, by the company WarpX, which our film develops forms and conventions on did have relative national success, shows us that there may possibly be light at the end of the tunnel for our production. The chances become more likely to our production being distributed by WarpX as it makes similar films to ours also it is regional, based in the North East of England.

The audience for our media product would be people aged from 15 to 24. We attracted our audience by the content of the film, although 'illegal' until 18 alcohol is praised upon by the youth, aswell as sex and violence, these things attract the attention of the audience and keep them drawn in. Also attracting our audience is made easier as we have used similar aged characters to our target audience. We have also attracted our audience by using an attractive and 'slutty' looking blonde aswell as a 'jock'. The mise-en-scene we used specifically interests the audience. The BBFC rating I would give our production would be 18, as we have frequent reference to sex, drugs and alcohol and also use of graphic gory violence.

The things I have learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product would be that I know alot more of how to use the camera and mainly how to use Imovie, throughout the project I became more and more confident at using it, although it is not the best piece of editing software to use. We used the Mac computers to edit our production which took

some getting used to as we usually use windows, but once we got used to them we could see they were actually more efficient than PC's. The SONY DV camera we used, isn't a professional piece of equipment, but as we are amateurs it was suitable and straight forward to use. For the background, non-digetic music we used garageband to create music to give the audience the feeling we wanted to create. I searched online for music we could freely use, we hardly found any we could use that legal and free, this was the reason we decided to use garageband, also this meant are music was completely unique and our own.

Looking back at my preliminary task I feel I have become a better film maker in general, the editing was smoother, the shots had more variety and the framing was much better, the costume, the props and the dialogue was much better. Our preliminary task was poor compared to our final production.

I am very happy with with my overall product, I have put a lot of time and effort into it and it has been an enjoyable experience.

If we were to make the entire film, the storyline after the first to minutes would be, Micheal continues to target Sharrons ex-boyfriends, using the same style of attack 'stabbing' this continues the theme throughout the film which is 'slasher'. One by one people in Sharrons life keep disappearing, Sharrons inability to recognise the relativety and similarity between the kills means more and more people begin to be stabbed, then she realises when her little brother fails to return home from school and is found dead slashed and hanging from a bridge. She calls the police right away when a polaroid picture of her brother hanging is posted through her letter box, her parents are rushing home as they were away for the week on a break, she hears a smash, she runs upstairs, footsteps can heard on the wooden kitchen floor, and then the stairs, her parents run in, but there to late, she has already been killed, slashed on the stairs.

The feedback we have recieved was from our class, we sat down and watched each others productions, after each production we comment on what points we thought were good and what points we thought were bad.

Feedback :

'You know its a slasher straight away'

'Red signifies to me its a horror'

'Blue tint in the window'

'Beep of camera should have been edited out'

'Prefered reading not followed'

'You seem to have fused comedy with horror'

'I couldnt see how she cut herself'

'Its obviously an 18+'

'Complex story line'

'Seems to have a sexual feel to it, like its going to carry on throughout the film'

Semiotic Analysis : We used many different shot types to give the each shot what it needed to give the audience the feeling we wanted to. So for example, one Micheal is in the garden and first speaks we have a low angle shot of him, to show the audience he is in power as he is about to stab Wayne.

We had to re-film a few shots, especially the violence seen, this was because as it is action packed and violent, we decided we needed to shoot it again a few times because we needed shot reaction shots, high angle shots, sticking also to the 180 degree rule, as watching the first shots of the stabbing seen we needed to give it more of a feel, rather than just one long continuous over the shoulder shot. Using more types of shots we created a much better product, adding more shots made our product more dynamic.

We used shot reaction shots in the violence seen to help show the characters reactions to each other and we stuck to the 180 degree rule. We also used a high angle shot on Wayne as he comes out the door to show the audience at that point he is the one in power, in control of the situation, but as he walks towards Micheal, Micheal gains the power of the situation as he has the knife and then it goes to a two shot two connote to the audience that they are now on the same leel, this is also a good shot to show conversation and it captured the stabbing action. Also toward the beginning of our production we have two shots to show clearly the conversation on actions of the characters. We also have a tracking over the shoulder shot of Micheal walking towards the house, this along with the music connote to the audience that there is something mysterious about this character and the tracking conventionally connotes to the audience that he is after somebody.

The white t-shirt signifies to the audience once the blood shows up, the red really shows, this makes it clear to the audience that there is graphic detail and the blood on white signifies it is a slasher.

The blue blind in the window signifies to the audience it is going to be a conventional horror film.

The clothes of Sharron signifie to the audience that she is a 'promiscious' girl and sexually active.

The colour of the door which is black signifies 'death' and the style of the knock signifies the creepy knock of the 'Grim Reaper'.

The dark clothes of Micheal signifies to the audience that he is the 'antagonist' and that he is about to do something bad and Wayne's clothes his top, is white which signifies he is innocent and clearly about to be the victim.

The shot of Sharrons legs connotes to the audience that intercourse has been going on, aswell as the shot of pants on the floor along with bottles of alcohol.

Final Cut

Here is our final piece, our film is called 'Rough Cut'.

Directed by Toby Hampson and Tom Copland.

Edited by Toby Hampson and Tom Copland

Starring Eirian Burke, Toby Hampson and Tom Copland

Hardware

We used 2 Sony camcorders and tripods to film our production. We got to grips with using the camcorders almost straight away, also we had used them for our prelimary task so we have had some experience with them. On a few occasions when importing our clips using the cable onto the imacs, a few clips seemed to jump a bit, meaning we had to re-import certain clips a few times until it just played what we had filmed which slowed down the editing process and became quite frustrating.
Using the cameras was quite simple, we knew there the cable sockets were, we know how to zoom and playback or footage. If we were to film something else we could use things such as a dolly or boom mike.

target audience and bbfc

Our production represents quite a well known and recognisable social group, teenagers, working class and we presented them in a sort of typical american movie style way a 'nerd', a 'jock' and a typical blonde haired sexually active female, but we gave them a very British touch.
The audience for our production would be people aged 13 to 21, as they will find the characters will appeal to them as they our of a similar age to them.

BBFC : We attract our audience by using characters of whom will appeal to them and also the content of our production, violence, sex, alcohol abuse are all common ways of attracting a young audience.
Our target age range would be people of 13 to 21 but we have one refernce of the word ' f***' and a stabbing scene so chances are that it would be given a certificate of 15, but because its a 15 people who are 13 to 14 will want to see it more as it would be 'cool' to watch a film that really you are not supposed to be.

Ethnicity : We used only caucasian characters, which in the eyes of some could be seen as a disadvantage as we lose a multi-ethnic audience. But we are reflecting Britain and we have used traditional British characters.

Gender : We have appealed to both males and females in our production, as we have used a A 'jock' and a 'slut', it is easy to pull in males and females. Also the type of violence we have used ' slashing' is not hardcore violence e.g a long scene showing someone getting beaten up wouldnt really appeal to females. But we have cleverly used slashing, which is quick but effective and doesnt necesserily cause offence or cause distress.

Socio-economic groupings : Class terms AB = upper class, C1 = upper-middle class, C2 = lower-middle class and DE = Working class. Our production in these terms would target C1C2DE. As our characters are of working class it would appeal to most classes as of the type of film it is, a 'slasher'.

Nationality/Region : Our characters have Yorkshire accents, which would give us a good audience in Yorkshire, but moving out of Yorkshire, I doubt it would appeal widely to many of the other regions of the UK. We havent used stereotypes of Yorkshire e.g the moors and basically the working class region of England, we have just used Yorkshire for what it is and therefore I believe we would have great success in Yorkshire, which is a big place! Also we are an 'Indie' production company, so have limited international appeal.

We could realate our film to a few other slasher movies e.g Cyco, halloween and dressed to kill. As we have a few similar shots. e.g the beginning of halloween zooming into the house is similar to us zooming into the window.

Sexuality : We have only heterosexual characters in our film, so we have limited appeal towards the pink pound. We are also appealling to an working class, middle class and lower middle class audience in Britain and mostly the Yorkshire region, where homosexuality is accepted but again not shouted about.

Psychographic profile : A typical person to watch our production would be a 16 year old boy, into his x box and into slasher movies, aswell as many other types of teenager such as it is a film to be watched at a gathering at someones house or students at university in their halls of residence or housing etc.

Copyright Free Music

You can purchase copyright free music from -

http://www.akmmusic.co.uk/

http://freeplaymusic.com/

http://audiojungle.net/

MediaMusicNow.co.uk/Copyright-Free

http:.//www.soundrangers.com/

Feedback

Most of the feedback we have recieved is mainly positive, people have commented on the variety of shots we have used, the positioning and timing of the titles, the use of non-digetic music, the realism of the stabbing scene. Negatives we have recieved are of the volume of the dialogue as at some stages of the production it becomes quite hard to hear a character, also the camera beeping noise at the begining of a couple of scenes and once when a character accidently smiles at the end of a scene.

The Group

My group consists of me Toby Hampson and my friend Tom Copland. Me and Tom decided to work together because we have been good friends for around 12 years, we also work well as a team without falling out, we co-operate very well, we can not agree with each other without falling out, we also had a similar idea to what we wanted to create.

Editing

The editing took place  after and in between shoots. We used Imovie to edit our production. My editing skills have made a vast improvement since our preliminary task, editing took quite a while as we had many shots to cut out, edit and cut down to shorter lengths. The editing also had to be made smooth so it looked professional. 

Cinematography

We used many different shot types to give the each shot what it needed to give the audience the feeling we wanted to. So for example, one Micheal is in the garden and first speaks we have a low angle shot of him, to show the audience he is in power as he is about to stab Wayne.
We had to re-film a few shots, especially the violence seen, this was because as it is action packed and violent, we decided we needed to shoot it again a few times because we needed shot reaction shots, high angle shots, sticking also to the 180 degree rule, as watching the first shots of the stabbing seen we needed to give it more of a feel, rather than just one long continuous over the shoulder shot. Using more types of shots we created a much better product, adding more shots made our product more dynamic.

We used shot reaction shots in the violence seen to help show the characters reactions to each other and we stuck to the 180 degree rule. We also used a high angle shot on Wayne as he comes out the door to show the audience at that point he is the one in power, in control of the situation, but as he walks towards Micheal, Micheal gains the power of the situation as he has the knife and then it goes to a two shot two connote to the audience that they are now on the same leel, this is also a good shot to show conversation and it captured the stabbing action.

Software

The software we used for our production was Imovie. Imovie is quite simple to use once you have had a play around with it, it provides the basics to film making, its good for beginners, we made a good production using Imovie and it allowed us to do some good editing. It was really useful for cutting down clips and for adding transistions aswell as sound effects, as it can also be used with the apple music creator.
Although Imovie was good, it also had some disadvantages to using it, it didnt really give enough options for editing, limited choice of transitions, titles needed more advanced options to give them a bit extra, something a bit more amazing.
Imovie could improve by giving users more advanced tools to give their productions the 'wow' factor.
The Transitions available where ok, but they needed more types for users to choose, and also they need more options to make the productions editing look smoother, not just basic put that in their, which we can make smooth but with just basic transitions you can only be so smooth.

Equipment

The equipment used for our production is...

• two digital cameras
  
• two tripods 
  

As for props we need...

• Condoms 
  
• Tablets
  
• Fake Knife
  
• Male and Female underwear
  
• General Clothing
  
• Fake Blood
• Razor

Locations, Costumes, props

Throughout our production, the various locations we are using to create a vision of urban British culture are:
 

My house, not a council house, but a house with particular British character, we used the exterior and interior. We had originally planned to use a council house as the exterior but are plans failed and we did not do this. We also used part of my street for the overshoulder tracking shot upto the house.

The costumes we have used delibrately signify to the audience what type of people the characters are. We have dressed the character Sharron in revealing clothing and traditional chav hooped earrings. Wayne is dressed in a tank top to give him the sort of Jim Royal look (an intertextual reference). Micheals clothing has been delibrately chosen in dark colours to match his gothic persona.

The props we have used are bottles of alcohol to signify a drunk night, underpants to signify sex, the razor to signify the type of film it is going to become, a knife to anchor the point to the audience that it is a 'slasher'.

Casting

We are trying to create stereotypical characters with our British chav culture horror movie. Therefore we need, a blonde haired girl with a large chest, the British equivalent to an American 'Jock'. Finally a dark haired actor to play the antagonist. So we have decided to cast the following people to the following characters:

Toby H as Wayne Carpenter

Tom C as Michael Bailey

Eirian B as Sharron Carter - Amber Heard style

Production Shedule

1st shoot - Wednesday 18th March @ 12:00

Thursday 19th as a back up date if we are not finished on saturday.

Editing will be done on the following day.

Screenplay

Rough Cuts

 

By Toby Hampson & Tom Copland

 

 

 

 

Pre Production Script – 6^th March 2009

Monkey Funk Productions

Ilkley Grammar School

 

 

1.  Mayfield Avenue – Day

 

A council estate, red car drives past, a car drives past the council house. A young man stood across from the council house, wearing black hoody and jeans.

 

2.  Inside a bedroom of the council house, with clothes and condoms on the floor. A young girl aged between 16-20 is getting changed after spending the night with a young guy. She has long blonde hair, dressed in a short skirt with skin coloured tights on, low cut top and long red finger nails. There is also a young guy in the room, naked and relaxed. He has blonde hair and blue eyes.

 

SHARRON

I’ve got to go

 

WAYNE

Don’t go Sharron, oh give us another one yeah?

 

SHARRON

No, I’ve really got to go, I wasn’t meant to be out again.

 

WAYNE

Hang on I’ll give you some cash for a bus fair.

 

SHARRON

Thanks love. I’ll just grab my stuff babe.

 

3.  Sharron walks through the bed room and towards the bathroom, she enters the bathroom, drops her phone and while picking it up and reaching for her tablets, she cuts her hand on a razor. Blood is the shown.

 

4.  Sharron says a final goodbye to Wayne and then leaves the house. The hooded guy outside is watching her as she leaves.

 

5.  Shortly after Sharron leaves, a knock on the door is heard Wayne answers and is greeted by the hooded guy.

 

MICHAEL

Hello, Wayne, enjoy last night?

 WAYNE

Michael, what are you doing here? You split up with her ages ago, you've got to stop coming around here. You've got to get over this man.

Micheal

Nothing, In alright, Im fine.

6. Michael then stabs Wayne in the stomach. Wayne falls onto Michael but is pushed off into through the door and the door is slammed shut with blood all over Wayne’s torso. Wayne is seen.

Storyboard

Here are our storyboards, we used these to help us make our production, they help us get a good idea of the shots we need to use and the way we want it to look

Prelim Task

Are prelim task was to create a short 30 second film which contained a seen of a person opening a door(match on action) and then a scene involving a conversation between to people, here is the are short film...

The task ran smoothly, although sometimes the shots were not as accurate as they could be. It was a good first attempt, also there is room for improvement on the editing. I have learnt alot from doing this task, I've gained more experience especially editing experience as I now feel more comfortable using the editing software. We had to do a couple of re-shoots because there was some un-anticipated background noise and also if the actors were not ready. To make this a more organized task I believe we could have worked together a bit more efficiently, to improve it I believe we needed to re-do some of the shots and spend more time editing it.

Initial Group Idea

Are initial group idea is...
A stereotypical slutty blonde girl who has had plenty of boyfriends has one ex-boyfriend who just cant let go, she is at her present boyfriends house after just having sex with him she is getting dressed at the side of the bed whilst her ex boyfriend is watching her through the window, she then goes into the bathroom, as she is in a rush to leave she trys to grab her lip gloss off the side of the sink and ends up cutting her finger on her boyfriends shaver. She then procedes upstairs puts her lipgloss in her bag, she is still being watched through the window, she then opens the door and there he is with a knife plunging it into her stomach.

My Initial Ideas

Idea 1

A student who has been bullied for his school life, always fancied a blonde good looking girl, she is friends with him, nice to him but never fancied him back, his and hers families are close friends and they are close, she trusts him. He asks her round to his house after school to do homework together, he pulls a knife on her, he explains why he is doing what he is, he hates the fact that she dates they guys who bully him and how she has failed to stop them from bullying him. He wants her to feel his pain, suffer like he has he breaks down and ends up killing himself.

Target Audience - Students, 13 to 24, BBFC rating - 15.

Denotation of shot types and editing - Mid shots, close ups, long shots, establishing shots. Flashback effects.

Genre - Horror

Idea 2
Two boys and two girls, Tom, Ash, Brittany and Beth. Beth and Tom are going out, but the thing is that Beth likes Ash and Tom likes Brittany, they all go places together so they all get to see each other. They all get secretly jealous of one another. Tom and Brittany cheat and so do Beth and Ash. They find out about each other, they argue and fight, and the groups friendship ends.

Shot variety - Mid shots, close ups, long shots, establishing shots.
Genre - Romance
Characters - A blonde female, A brunnete female, A blonde male and a brunnete male.
Locations - school, various house each house of the characters.
Props - condoms, lipstick.
BBFC rating - 12
Casting - drama students, us and other students who would like to take part from IGS sixth form

Codes and Conventions Of Film Openings

Non-digetic music - teenage audience

shot of main character

voice over of main character makes it clear he is the main character.

A regional scottish accent used.

hit by car and then he leans on the bonnet and it shows us what he looks like, who he is, point of view shot and this also grabs the audiences attention.

The characters 'Spud' and 'Sick Boy' - binary opposition

The 4 Characters - Stereoptypes

Baby - Heroin = shock shows that it is a gritty social realism style film.

Laid on floor smoking - bit like a steam train, matches what the character is like.

28 Weeks Later

Establishing shot sets the scene

POV shots makes the audience feel as if they are there

Flashing lights and close ups all add to the tension

like a documentary as the camera moves freely

Male nudity - challenging shot

Touch of evil (1957- Orson Welles)

Expectations/Conventions of film companies

Denotation - Bomb

Non-digetic music emphasing idea of anchorage - explosion

Device about to set off

Narrative enigma

In and out of shot

Crane

tracking - clubs - different music

Well dressed - straight - upper class

Audience requires exposition

Leprechaun (Mark Jones)

Trumark Pictures

Blue tinted light

Fantasy

Font used - celtic

Canted angle

Signifier - lighting

Intertextual refernce to 'Physcho' when she falls down the stairs

Post modernism - intertextual messages

Initial Analysis Of A Film Opening

Toby Hampson
The Dark Knight
Director : Christopher Nolan
Writers : Jonathan and Christopher Nolan(screenplay), Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer(story) and Bob Cane(characters)
Release Date : 24th July 2008(UK)
Awards : Won 2 Oscars, 46 other wins and 47 nominations
Budget : $185 000 000
Opening Weekend : US - $158 411 483 UK - £11 191 824
The film stars a high budget cast with actors such as Christian Bale and Heath Ledger.
BBFC Rating : 12
The opening scene : The scene starts off with the Warner Brothers logo in black and blue colours, with non-digetic tense music in the background this creates a tense atmosphere for the audience and the colours also create a chilling effect. Then the legendary pictures logo appears in the same colours followed the DC comics logo creating also in black and blue. We then know the film is Batman and its going to be packed with action as the logo for Batman appears in explosive flames. The non-digetic volume decreases a little and then increases when into the action when the actual film starts, this creates a build up effect and excitement.
There is then an establishing shot some tall buildings, this tells us the film is set in a city and also the style of the buildings suggests that it is a capitalist society. The camera zooms in on the black building and as the zoom furthers in non-digetic music also creates a tense atmosphere and then the window smashes, a bit like waiting for a bomb to go off.
We instantly know that they are robbers and they are a criminal gang as they have joker masks on, as they are shooting an arrow with a wire attached to it we know this is a well organised robbery. Throughout this clip there is tense non-digetic music.
The non-digetic music begins to speed up creating an even more tense atmosphere and it begins ticking like a bomb.
It then cuts to a character stood waiting on the pavement, not wearing a mask but the camera is behind so we cannot see his face, this makes this character more mysterious than the others as the rest all have masks on and we see the front of them straight away. The camera then zooms in on the mask the character is holding suggesting that this character is the real joker.
The character enters the car , they prepare weapons and talk about shares of the money, letting us know that they are obviously robbing a bank.
Quick cuts. Quick cut to 2 gang members on roof cutting silent alarm, non-digetic music becomes louder when one gang member shoots the other, creating more tense and more action feel to the scene.
We know that that this robber is getting the money as he is in the dingy part of the bank, not in the front public area.
Quick cut to a focus on a character sat at desk not looking frightened, costumes easily let audience know who is who, jokers, civilians in mixed clothing and bank workers in uniforms.
The colour of the rooms where the vault is, is green like money.
We can easily guess that this is a mob bank as one man has a shot gun in his desk, this assumption is backed up when a robber says it’s a mob bank.
The way the banker walks, brave and not scared he is also a criminal himself.
Money bags, looting the cash.
We know this is a very high budget film, the setting, the effects, the stunts.
The real joker always keeping quiet, until he finally reveals himself at the end.
Use of smoke bomb, irony.

Coursework Task

The brief set for our AS coursework production is as follows :

Preliminary exercise : Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Main Task : the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source.

THE DEADLINE FOR A COMPLETED PRODUCTION IS THURSDAY APRIL 2ND.