Trails Of Water Rough Cut 2

Kieran Belshaw
Joseph Moss
Harvey Andrew

Evaluation Question 7

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?


In the process of creating our film opening, I think we have progressed in terms of what we were capable of in comparison as the preliminary task was one of the first times we had ever used an editing software before. During our film opening production, we were more familiar with the program allowing for more options in terms of how to improve our post production process. The editing software allowed us to make full usage of the camera shots that we took and adapt them to our opening whereas the preliminary task mainly depended on the raw footage captured. We were also able to learn how to add text to the film opening at different points giving us the ability to add titles to our film opening. Finally, we was able to add music in the background of the film opening in order to make the opening more tense and therefore more like a thriller genre film.


The planning stage towards our film opening was more detailed such as the storyboard having more scenes to work with and we had a better shot list in order to guide us what camera shots to take. The detailed planning helped us because it gave a better idea in terms of how our opening was going to be filmed and as a result had a clear plot to the opening. The process was also much smoother as we had knowledge in terms of typical genre conventions based on our storyline. This would make the opening appear more genuine and improve the quality of content as a result. In terms of the location we chose, we was able to choose a location that would suit the opening instead of relying on a school environment which generally made the opening seem more interesting.


In the production of our film, we were able to make better use of the camera such as activating manual focus, making better use of the tripod (at certain scenes) and panning the camera to allow the camera to capture a characters movement. The manual focus helped us focus on the scene where it featured the girl crying because we would be able to closely focus upon her tear which showed her emotions much clearer. We also used it when the detective walks from the bush though this would end up being less successful in comparison as his face wasn’t in focus when he reached the camera.


I think our film opening was quite successful as it clearly illustrates that it is a drama genre film with the narrative showing what the detective is thinking and that moment in time. It also has a clear plot which has benefited from more research than compare to our preliminary task. I also think the quality of some shots is quite effective such as the voice over which can be heard quite clearly. However, I believe we could have improved the film if we had stabilised some of the shots to make them look smoother and for certain moments could have improved the focusing of the camera. I also think we could have planned our film opening in more depth to give us more information when recording our film.



Kieran Belshaw

Evaluation Question 6

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

The camera equipment we used a DSLR camera the Nikon D3100 with the assistance of a tripod in order to make parts of the film stabilised. This camera was quite useful because it allow us to access features that are usually only available on DSLR cameras such as manual focus which was needed for the tear scene. Some members of the group also had experience with the camera meaning it was easy to adapt their knowledge into the making of our film opening.  The tripod allowed us to make use of panning during certain sequences allowing the opening to follow the characters movement and track where they going to. The limitation of the camera however is that because DSLRs can be complex to learn, we believe that we was unable to make use of full potential of the camera. We also was unable to film at a higher resolution which could have been effective in making our film of a higher quality.  This could have also helped when it came to editing the film as we would have been able to preserve more of the quality in the settings. We also didn’t have access to a small tripod which we could have done with in the first scene of the opening as the scene is very shaky as a result. 

 The camera was very effective in teaching us how to film with a DSLR and parts of the film shows that throughout the opening we improved the focus of the characters. It also allowed us to clearly make use of the 180 degree rule because of the fact that we were able to pan certain scenes in the forest. We also learnt how to make use of the focus in the film as the camera was able to focus upon the girls face and as a result being able to show her emotions in the scene. The camera zoom was effective at teaching us how to capture the wide shot into the establishing shot of the forest.

 In terms of editing the opening, we made use of Adobe Premier Pro program because it was accessible to us for a short period of time at home allowing us to spend as much time as we could on editing the film opening. The program has many advanced features such as tweaking the saturation of the film and export many types of media files in the opening. This allowed us to easily import the videos from the camera which enabled us to be able to actually create the film. We was also able to then overlay the narration onto the film allowing for the background sounds to be filled.

For our research and planning, we made use of Blogger, a website that lets you create and control your blog posts. This was effective for our work because it allows us to access the work from almost anywhere and

Kieran Belshaw

Evaluation Question 5

When we first thought about the people who are going to watch it we mainly focused on the age of our characters because the audience will be able to relate to them and have some sort of connection with them even before they have found out more about them by watching the film. Our age group target was 15 to 30 we have done this because our 2 main characters the detective and the female protagonist were young characters. the type of audience we were looking for is someone who is young between the ages of 15-20 so they are sensitive and they will be emotionally connected to the movie and would react to some of the scenes in our movie because they will have sympathy for our characters this type of audience member would connect with the scene where our female protagonist is crying could be very emotional depending on the member of the audience. We are also looking for an audience member who is slightly older and more intellectual from the ages of 25-35 that will try to analyse the movie and guess what will come next because we open with a cliff hanger and no information is given, this is effective because it entices the audience member to watch the whole movie so they understand the whole story and see if their theories are correct.

               

The use of camera work is the most important way to connect to your audience because it allows them to put themselves into the character’s shoes this can help making the audience feel the emotion in the scene. We used this in the starting scene of the movie with the close up of the young female protagonist with one tear on her face this instantly makes a connection with the audience and this character.  This enigma works well with the detective because the audience puts themselves into the detective shoes and tries to come up with a solution before the detective does himself.  It is stereotypical to have these realistic characters and events in crime dramas like this. For example, in a crime drama there is stereotypically a male character playing a detective and a young female character who is in danger so the detective has to save her.

When conducting a survey to see how people will react to the clip we got these results.

What impact did some of the shots have on you?

“I really felt sorry for the young female, even though I didn’t know what was wrong with her”

“I wanted to be the detective myself”

“I wanted to watch the rest of the film”

What was your opinion upon where the opening took place?

“I thought the forest was a unique idea because it seems as if the detective cannot find her due to how vast it is”

“the river was very impactful as it gave the opening a sense of eeriness”

These questions shows that the audience of our product generally felt impacted after watching the film and shows that the cinematography in the opening was very effective to making the piece emotionally powerful. This is what we aimed for because of us targeting the drama genre and shows that our film definitely suits this genre.

Harvey Andrew

Evaluation Question 4

4. Who would be the audience for your film?

For our film we have chosen to target a niche audience between the ages of 15-30. The content of the film is not suitable for younger audiences but wouldn’t be as appealing to older audiences mainly due to our main characters being relatable to our target audience. Being an independent film it is focused on drawing in a specific niche audience who enjoy watching crime dramas similar to our own. Our film is also likely to attract some audience who watch TV crime dramas.

Like the majority of crime dramas, our film features many difficult subjects and explicit content due to the nature of the genre. Much of the planned film would not be suitable for viewing by a younger audience and we didn’t want to aim any of the content in our film towards a younger audience. We knew early on that we would be dealing with content and subjects that would be restricted mostly likely to a 15 rated film as we want our film to be.

Our target audience is mixed for both male and female. We picked a main character for each to relate to, a male detective and a female protagonist. The film planned to focus on each fairly evenly throughout the film to cater for the wider audience in that manner.

We want to attract an audience that enjoy thinking about what they are watching and solving puzzles, intriguing story, maybe even an element of adventure following the two protagonists travel in search for clues and answers. We chose drama to allow us more opportunity to attract that specific audience and focus on story and character. Our film doesn’t have the action or great spectacles to attract a main stream audience.
Joseph Moss

Evaluation Question 3

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your film?

With our film, we knew we were probably going to be aiming for a niche audience rather than mainstream. The content of our film was never going to be big enough to appeal to the wider audience as we did not have the budget or ability to incorporate any amazing CGI or practical effects that will be found in the majority of mainstream films to appeal to the audiences. Along with many other limits we had, we had to focus on producing an interesting, unique and compelling story that would attract a niche audience.

What Independent institutions would be the likely candidates for distributing our film. Likely candidates that we would chose are film 4 or an online distribution to secure the highest profit. Social media like Facebook and twitter through this we can reach a range of people in a very short amount of time and we would advertise the release of the film by creating our own website it would be cost effective easy to do in these modern day times. Our film could be compared to a field in England because they made as much profit as possible with making use of all sources of media available to them but because of our low budget this would be our only 2 formats we could offer. If film 4 were to distribute our film if it was successful, then later on film 4 could eventually distribute it into physical media. In the future this movie could have been so successful that the fan base around it wanted another one then we could make a sequel and possibly generate a series of crime movies connecting them all, or with the money we made make another film and because by this time our company would have a fan base we know we could make a profit out of it even if the next one we made may not be as good as the first. This all can eventually grow our production company and then turn away from independent films and make some mainstream ones, but if we have a niche audience it could prevent us from this success because when making and independent movie you don’t expect to make much of a profit.

Harvey Andrew 

Evaluation Question 2

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

The young female protagonist in the film is represented both stereotypically and non-stereotypically. It is stereotypical of the blonde female girl to be innocent and be the damsel in distress relying on the hero to save them which is somewhat true with the way our character is represented as it is sown that the detective is trying to save her and she is shown to be upset and scared, however she is represented non-stereotypically as she shows independence as a main protagonist taking responsibility for herself running through the woods by herself and taking her life into her own hands. She is fairly unique as a character and there are not many characters from other films to compare her with. She has similarities to characters like Clarice Starling from silence of the lambs even if she isn’t a detective she is trying to do her best to solve and prove her mother murders guilty, being an independent in her own investigation and search, but a lot less professional, and getting herself very close to danger at times showing vulnerability throughout the film.

The detective in our film is a mostly stereotypical representation of the detective character, as in most films, the detective is adult male wearing the stereotypical suit and coat to connote the fact that he is a detective. As a middle class male he is represented stereotypically as being professional, dominant, braver and heroic attempting to chase after and save the girl protagonist. The detective character fits stereotypically with a male character to have these stereotypical characteristics. There is, on the other hand, an element of non-stereotypical representation as he is shown to have fear of loss in failure realising the girl has drowned. He shows a consistent fear of losing her throughout the opening showing a non-stereotypical weakness of a male character to have a connection to another character. The detective is also represented to be slightly younger than expected which is non-stereotypical as this connotes he is less experienced and more fearful.

Thinking about our whole film, we have planned to have to have some stereotypical representations of criminals as there are two murders in the film. We would have liked to emphasise their look as dark and cold hearted killers however we had an idea for one of them to be younger and less experienced or non-professional. He would show remorse and mercy towards our female protagonist and show his weakness throughout the film.

A victim and mother figure was planned as well; she was to not feature for very much of the film at all but would represent a stereotypical innocent damsel in distress. We planned for her to wear lighter colours to emphasise again her innocence.

 Joseph Moss

 

Evaluation Question 1

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

Our film compared to other media products was limited in terms of the resources that other companies have access to. For example, we was unable to have access to expensive camera equipment that could have improved the quality of our film. We was unable to employ professional actors for the film so we had to use those who suited the role of each character that our group was associated with. In order to prevent these two factors from affecting parts of our film, with the usage of editing, we was able to improve the look of our film to make it look more like a film opening which improves the quality of our films. We also feel that we chose the best actors available to us for the film, so that minimised issues in terms of acting out each of the characters.

Our film differentiates itself compared to other films as in the film, the protagonist is shown to be the girl as she is seen throughout the opening and that she is the main reason as to why the detective is following her tracks. This is different other films that involves a crime, as the main character is usually a male (such as The Departed which features two male protagonists and Lethal Weapon which features both the main characters being both male). However, the detective is stereotypical as the male is usually shown to be of this role in films like these and is often seen as the person who is trying to solve the situation. 

The content of our film makes use of the location of where we filmed which is stereotypical because most films emphasise on their location throughout. This is effective because our film is mostly about the girl committing suicide in the river, which throughout our opening, nature is present to illustrate this setting. However the location itself is non stereotypical because most drama films take place in a more urban environment. This emphasises the fact that our film in an independent film because a typical mainstream film involves more characters. It is also non-stereotypical because the film is based around murder where the location is actually a peaceful and quiet environment. This shows the disturbance of the equilibrium because of this situation.

Kieran Belshaw

Rough Cut 1

What worked well:
*Some beautiful shot compositions - well done
* Nice use of voice over to help aid the narrative
*The CU of the tear on her cheek is lovely!
* Lovely ending - I want to see the rest of the film!

Even Better If:
*Add institutional logos
*Watch the jump cuts of the girl running at the beginning - it is too jumpy!
* Show that he is a police officer, even have a police file at the beginning with her photo and name in it
*Camera is wobbly from the step up to follow Dan running across the field
*Consider adding in non diegetic sound - see if it helps add impact
*Add titles - remember the correct order too!

Kieran Belshaw

Harvey Andrew
Joseph Moss

Institutional Logo Reasearch

Institute logos are often made up of a signature object or being in their logos such as the Universal Globe and MGM’s Lion. This shows that by having this feature will make the logo more likely to be remembered by the audience of the film allowing the institute to become well known. They also usually feature an animation instead of a still image in order to make the logo look more interesting to the audience and many are made up of bright colours in order to make them appealing.

Kieran Belshaw

Filming Schedule

Saturday 18^th March 2-6 PM - recording of girl in the opening

Sunday 19^th March - recording of detective in the opening

Monday 20^th March – Editing of Rough Cut 1

Kieran Belshaw

Organisation Of Sound

In our film opening, we want the sound to be made up of three different things. One thing will be that the natural sounds inside the forest in order to make the location seem more realistic and to be able for the audience to identify where the girl was and show how peaceful the environment is. This will be recorded during the raw footage of the scenes. Another will be to have a monologue in order to clearly show the detectives trail of thought through the opening. The monologue will be recorded during the post production stage of our opening allowing for higher quality sound to be recorded then placed into the opening.  Finally, in order to make the film more intense, we will add a non-diegetic piece of music in order to fill the background noise in the opening. This will be done through the post production of the film such as during the editing by downloading a royalty free tune. This can then be applied to the different layers of the opening allowing for the different sounds to be of different volumes.

The diagram shows the different levels of audio within Premier Pro and therefore allowing us to adjust the volume of different parts of the film.

Kieran Belshaw

Location Choice For our Film

The key part of choosing the location for our film is that we would require to have a water natural source available to us because we would require this in order for our plot to work. We also wished for a forest based area because we wanted to clearly show the disturbance of the peace of the area as a result of the situation the girl has been placed in. We choose Little Waltham Nature Reserve because it fit the criteria for both these options and we wouldn’t be affected by others as not many people visited the reserve. It also has a clear path in the forest showing a clear route for the detective to follow in our film opening. Finally, as a result of a bridge, we would be able to record certain scenes from the other side of the river in order to receive a different perspective of the character.

Kieran Belshaw

Logo Choice

Kieran Belshaw

Audience Appeal

To make our film more appealing, the film will emphasise on the emotions of the girl in order to show that she is the victim of a crime. This will be effective because it will clearly show her feelings and how she is dealing with her difficult situation allowing the audience to feel empathy for her situation. This is necessary for our opening because it clearly shows that she is upset and explains her actually committing suicide.  By having her react to her situation this way, shows that obviously something has occurred to the girl and leaves an idea for the rest of the film. The detective is also shown to be young in order to allow the audience watching the film to be more relatable as a large amount of the people watching the film will be young adults so having the detective at the similar age may engage the audience more. The environment shown will also be interesting because the environment is mostly calm so having the film set place here will make the film more interesting as most dramas are set place in urban environments. Finally, by narrating over the opening will allow our film to be more interesting as it will allow us to show the thoughts of the detective.

Kieran Belshaw

Film Certificate

Our film rating is going to be a 15 because of several factors that would feature in the whole film. One thing is the fact that it is indicated she committed suicide showing that the theme is very serious and generally wouldn't appeal to those who are of a younger age. This is because these dramatic often appeal to young adults or adults and wouldn't appeal to children as a result of the serious theme. I think being a 15 will also allow us to show what exactly happened to her parents in the film as if the film was based around a younger rating then the film would be forced to leave out any strong violence which could impact the atmosphere of the film. I feel it would be unnecessary to limit this film especially since the majority of people who will watch the film will be above this age. The film may have a fight scene between the police detective and the criminals who killed the girl’s parents showing that the violence seen in the film can be shown to be of ‘strong violence’. Due to the nature of the crime, I think it also may contain strong language as a result that the police officers anger at the situation though this will not be shown within the film’s opening.

Kieran Belshaw
 

Ideas For Films

Kieran Belshaw

Initial Shot List

• Logo Company
• Name of the Film
• Long Shot - Establishing Shot of the Woods
• Mid to Long Shot - Detective runs down the path
• Panning shot - to close up then over the shoulder shot
• Long shot in the woods
• Over the shoulder shot - Girl runs as Detective follows
• Long Shot of the girl running near the bridge
• Close up of the Girl crying
• Panning of the Detective chasing after the girl
• Over the Shoulder Shot of the Detective at the end of the film opening

Kieran Belshaw

Harvey Andrew

Joseph Moss

Initial Hand Drawn Storyboard

   Joseph Moss

Research Into Drama

The genre Drama evolves all around the realistic and emotional aspect of films and heavily on audience reaction to the actors and story line this can make for some really intense movies and TV series that can send deeper meanings. Drama films tend to focus on themes such as corruption which puts the character in conflict with themselves in terms of their feelings. This is what occurs in our film because the girl is having a conflict with herself as a result of her situation which has caused her to wish to kill herself. By showing this development of character, will be effective because people will be able to see how she is feeling resulting in a more realistic film. This allows the film to draw in its audience more and allows the audience to become more attached to the characters and may cause them to feel sympathy for the characters. This can often lead to the experience of the film being improved and can assist in terms of providing a better experience for the audience.  The usual situation shows the character being a normal person being placed in a difficult circumstance. This helps the audience be more relatable in terms of the characters of the characters and allows them to feel empathy as a result making the experience of the film much more enjoyable.

Kieran Belshaw

Harvey Andrew