Abridged - Final Cut

This is the final cut of our AS media studies film opening Abridged. 

Evaluation Question 7 - Progression From Prelim

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

Prior to starting media studies at AS I had never had any experience filming never mind understanding how to use a DSLR camera. I thought that i would be able to film both portrait and landscape but this was not the case as i learned you can only film landscape. I also learned that there were two settings on the DSLR cameras one for filming and one for taking photos- all data is stored separately.I knew some basic terminology e.g long shot and close up shot but there were many that I wasn't familiar with. Soon I learned the terms 180 degrees rule, shot reverse shot and match on action.

The prelim (an event which precedes or prepares for another in particular:) task was a continuity task where we had to film a character opening a door, walking across the room, sitting down with them and having a conversation. The characters involved were the people who weren't filming.  This was when we were able to put the 180 degrees rule and shot reverse shot to the test to give us a better understanding of these terms. We were told to follow the 180 degrees rule but also break it in order for us to see how critical it is to follow this. Once we had gathered out footage it was down to us individually to edit it these using Final Cut Pro X. We made four different edits: prelim basic, breaking the 180 degree rule, prelim with titles and prelim with SFX and titles. This was the first time we were introduced to final cut so generally people were quite daunted as this was a professional piece of software. For this process we only really needed to use the simple tools such as the cut and select tools so this was pretty basic. I also learned how to to transfer the footage from the SD card to the desktop and how to import it into final cut.  Our planning was minimal for the preliminary task as we had only created a basic story board but we had no screenplay or shot list to follow.  We didn't use any props or a cast as we used the people who weren't filming. Also we stayed in the same location so no planning was needed there.

The  swede was our second experience with filming and editing. We first watched the existing film example   of the Paddy Consindine film Tyrannosaur which is produced by Warp Films. Our aim was to recreate the story line but we were turning the Warp style film to a Working Title style film. We looked into the other typical working title film and we found that they generally use a well known stereotype of an upper class man from the south of England, London. We changed the lower working class character in Tyrannosaur to this typical Working Title character. In the opening of Tyrannosaur it shows a drunken man using vulgar language so we transformed him to a well spoken upper class man. At first we tried to do the swede without any planning, the outcome of this wasn't good. I learnt that the planning e.g storyboard, screenplay and shot lists were vital factors that helped production to be more efficient. Following this each one of us was then designated with a separate role e.g Screenplay, shot list and storyboard for scene 1,2 and 3, props used in the swede and a director . By using this technique it enabled us to be more independent and gave us the knowledge and preparation to go out and get the shooting completed. We all took turns to to film a different part of the swede, from this I learned how to use the equipment more independently and think about different types of shots and depth of field without any support from the teacher. Once we had gained all of the footage it was then down to us to complete the editing. After brief contact with final cut in the preliminary task our knowledge was still fairly limited. Once we had simply used the cut and select tool to created a rough version we then went on to include SFX and titles. This helped us create the humorous feel we set out to present.

From the swede the key aspects I learned was that planning a major step in order for the production to he successful. Independence when it came to filming and editing- the filming showed that it was better to hold the camera using a tripod as it made it  more sturdy and had a more professional look, and for the editing I learned how to use the tools more effectively in order the give the swede a better look overall. 

After the swede, we went in to research more into Warp and Working Title to see how their companies develop so we did film opening analysis to help get a better fame for how we want out AS film openings to look. From this we pitched our film opening ideas to the class. Milo, Tom and me all chose the social realism genre to research further and pitch. We found that it was generally warp films that provided social realism films e.g This is England so this influenced our ideas. As we all pitched the same genre ideas, it was down to us as a group to decide on which was most likely to work best, eventually we came to a conclusion that we were going to work with Tom's idea. Each of us looked into 3 other social realism films: I had 'The Guvnors', Milo had 'Harry Brown' and Tom had 'Ill Mannors'. These analysis's helped influence Toms idea further which helped us get the idea setting stone. The two main protagonists would be opposites and the locations would include council estates etc in order to follow the conventions of these other social realism films. 

Once we had our idea set we each had a role in terms of the planning. Tom completed the storyboard, Milo completed the screenplay and I completed the the shot list. Whilst doing this we has already thought about cast and location and what would work best for our film opening. For the cast we used Milo to represent the teenage protagonist and Tom's dad to represent the older protagonist. so we didn't have any complications in finding the characters, For the locations we were able to include council estates as we knew of some due to us living in close proximity to them. We were also able to use Tom's dads bedroom and Milo's bedroom to shoot the bedroom scenes, so there was no accessibility problems in terms of locations.  We had already thought about the type of shots we were going to use as we created the story board trying use a widest range and variety we possible could. This included:

Sliding Scale 

• Close Up Shot 
• Medium Close Up Shot 
• Medium Shot
• Medium Long Shot 
• Long Shot 
• Extreme Long Shot 
• Establishing Shot 

Movement

• Panning Shot

Angles

• Low Angle 

Common Framing

• Over the Shoulder Shot 
• Two Shot 

As I had already used the majority or these shots it was easier to incorporate them into our film opening. In terms of movement- the panning shot worked well as it enabled the audience to see what Michael was looking and gave them a better sense of what he could see. The low angles also helped in the bedroom scene to show the characters sat on the side of their bed, we could fully see their faces even though they were looking down so the audience could see their expressions and emotions. And the two shot of the characters coming together at the end helped us include common framing. 

By the time we got to the editing stage everyone seemed very comfortable with the process and using Final Cut Pro X due to the fact we had had experience during the prelim and the swede. After using the basic and more simple tools through out the prelim and swede we were then able to advance these in the process of editing our own film opening. An example of a more complexed tool we used is when we created a time lapse by speeding up the clip. We did this by choosing "Show Redtime editor" from the Retime pop up menu (or Command-R). Then we chose a speed and applied a fast  preset speed setting. By learning this it helped us incorporate another technique into our opening and also helped represent the passing of time at the end our our film opening. 

Throughout the process I have progressed and developed my skills immensely. I have learned vast amount to do with the camera and all the different parts of to to work it as I never fully understood the filming side to the camera. Cinematography was another thing i learned a lot about, the framing of shot types and how this and the mise en scene creates exposition with the characters. I never realised that it can influence how the audience perceives a character. In terms of editing my skills have increased massively and contrast with my limited skills and lack of understanding at the start of the course.

Evaluation Question 6 - Technologies

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

Recording Hardware 

To create our product, we used:


DSLR Camera:

Before I started media I had never had any experience with a proper recording camera therefore I had to learn different aspects it. Trial and error during the preliminary task and swede was the fundamental way I improved my skills. By using a DSLR camera it enabled me to take more professional shots with a higher quality.


SD Card:

Again I had never transferred content from an SD card to a computer so this was another thing that i learned so this was also a recent but straightforward experience. After being taught the correct method I became self assured which made it quick and easy to transfer data, therefore it was generally more efficient.






Tripod:

As I hadn't had any experience with the DSLR camera the tripod was something I also hadn't handled before. Nevertheless, this was very easy to get to grips with and once I had it was very simple. It was a critical piece of equipment to ensure our shots were steady and smooth. If we didn't use a tripod our shots would  mainly have had to be filmed handheld which would have lead to shaky and unclear shots. By using the tripod it assisted the professional look of the shots and reduced the amount of editing to remove and steady the movement.



Boom Microphone:

This was the first time I had used a shotgun mic so I had to be educated on how to use it. Once in production it was down to trial and error in order to get the perfect sound. The first time I tried to record the dialogue I figured that the microphone was to far away from the mouth. So after working out the best way to record the sound i decided to have the microphone closer to the mouth underneath the person directional to their mouth. Whilst holding the shot gun mic for long periods of time I found that it became tiring so i rested it over the back of my shoulders. This also helped with the steadiness and made sure no movement interfered with the sound or got in the picture.

Garage Band: 

Music wasn't actually my role in the production of our product so I didn't get as much time to get to grips with software. This is  because I hadn't has any technical experience with this in the past. Tom created our soundtrack for the film so I understood more as I closely observed him. here is Toms experience with Garage band:
"This is the software we used to create our soundtrack for our film. Previously I had only played around with garageband but had never created a final product. Generally garage band is very complex and takes time to adjust to this complexity. At first I found garage band very difficult and couldn't quite get to grips with it. I began by using basic tools such as the trim tool, position tool, blade tool etc.. Our film required a rather complex soundtrack due to the situation. We thought that the music is a major aspect to our particular film as it creates certain types of emotion to the viewer. Our soundtrack involved remixing the song 'to build a home'. In order to do this more complex tool had to be applied. We had to change the bpm (beats per minute) in order for the two different beats to mix and run smoothly. The beats per minute could be changed on the top bar. Another complex but convenient tool that I learnt to apply was the flex tool. This allowed me to change the bpm without changing the pitch.This was vital when mixing the two beats into each other. The beat that was mixed into the song was a loop found. Loops are short looping sequences of beats/sounds. These were very simple to use. the whole point in mixing these two contrasting beats is that in our film opening there is a jump between two characters and their situation/environment. We wanted a slow, slightly depressing sound overplaying Michaels situation as we wanted to create a upsetting mood. We then tried to replicate a more grime sound whilst overplaying Kieran. This software has been extremely useful in the making of our film opening as it provided us with a large variety of pre-recorded music, meaning we didn't have to record our own music. This saved us a huge amount of time."
Source- http://www.atkostudios.blogspot.co.uk



Final Cut Pro X:

Simple tools with shortcuts

Final Cut Pro X is the software we used to edit our film. Before studying media I dint have any knowledge on editing a file so it took some time in order to understand this complex piece of software. The blade and select tools were the basic editing tools that I started off using. Soon after this i learned that there were shortcut i.e The key 'B' moved you to the blade tool and the key 'A' was for the select tool. This enabled me to edit things quicker generally making the process more efficient. 

More complexed tools

After grasping the basic tools i then went on to learn the more complexed tools e.g altering the speed. We used this in our film in order to create a time lapse. By understanding more competed tools like this it enabled us to to speed up the footage quickly and easily. I also used Final Cut Pro X to create suitable titles in our opening. First of all I went to the tool bar and selected the text icon which then brought up a variety of different styles of titles/text. I chose a title under the category 'Build in/Build out in order to create the effect of appearing and disappearing which was heavily influenced by 'The Guvnors' opening titles. I believed that the one we chose best replicated this and suited our film greatly. Once I had decided on a style of title I used the select tool to drag the title on top of the other layers. I Then used the select tool again to drag the actual title to the correct place on the screen, this is because there was a variation in where our titles appeared. From this it was down to me to pick a suitable font. I reviewed the type of font that was used for the tiles of 'The Guvnors' and used 'Font Book' on the Mac to preview and select relevant fonts. After narrowing it down to several San serif fonts I finally chose the Helvetica font as it was the closest following to my influence. The main things that i changed from the standard title was the size, positioning, font and spacing of the title. I looked at different ways of spacing the letters and found that they looked best when they are slightly more spaced out. I did this using the advanced setting by changing the tracking. As I had had some experience previously creating titles using this software I already knew the basics. But when it came to the titles for our film opening it became more challenging as it is highly important to make sure the titles suit the opening. Once I became more used to the text tools it became more straight forward to pick and create relevant titles 



Our use of technology helped us to:

Share posts:

As we all had different roles in the production of our film we created individual blog posts. Following this we wanted to make sure we shared our blogging onto each others blogs. We did this by simply copying and pasting the post and providing a link to the source of the post. This made sharing our work quick and easy ensuring we all had the relevant posts on our blog. 

This is an example of the method we used.

Feedback :

We received feedback generally through email and the comments on our blogposts. With frequent feedback it enabled us to constantly make improvements in attempt to make produce a high standard of work. Overall, I thought that this method of feedback was very useful. 

Youtube:

Youtube simply allows us to uploads our rough cuts so they can be seen publicly. This way they can be easily embedded into our blogs. This speeds up the process of uploading the video rather than having to transfer files using a memory stick.

Blogger:

This was the first time any of us had used Blogger to it was all very unfamiliar. Blogger was very straightforward to use allowing to store all of our work regarding pre-production, production and post production. I found the Blogger was very good enabling us to organise our blogs generally making the process more efficient. Blogger allowed us to:

• Include photos and videos from our desktop or even directly from Youtube. 

• Add lables relating to the post making them easy to find.

• Organise our work using link lists.

• Change the size, font and colour of texts making the posts more clear and easy to understand. By changing the colour of the text it also enabled us to highlight our key terminology. 

Evaluation Question 5 - Attract and Address

How did you attract/address your audience?

We don't have any posters, trailers, DVD sleeves, full websites and social media. these are the key approaches of distribution as they are ways of marketing a film. Many films include teaser trailers before the full main trailer which involved a quick montage of shots. This is just another way of attracting the audience and marketing the product. For example San Andreas (teaser trailer). Companies like working title and their distributors can afford to spend alot on their marketing but smaller Indie companies don't tend to do as much marketing due to their low budget.



Here is how we have attracted our audience:

Evaluation Question 4 - Audience

Who would be the audience for your media product? 

This is my response to to the question, I did it in the form of a vodcast: 

Evaluation Question 3- Distribution

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

Definition of Distribution 

• A film distributor is responsible for the marketing of a film. The distribution company is usually different from the production company. Distribution deals are an important part of financing a film. (Wiki)

• In terms of shorts, a distributor is an individual or organisation who will represent your film at festivals and markets around the world and who will attempt to sell it to television (including terrestrial, cable and satellite), airlines and other companies that show short films. The major short film distributors in the UK are (in alphabetical order): Dazzle, Futureshorts, Network Ireland TV and Shorts International.In terms of features, a distributor is generally an organisation who handles the theatrical release of a film in a particular country as well as the marketing and circulation of films for home viewing (DVD, Video-On-Demand, Download, Television etc). Often feature films have different distributors representing them in different territories and different distributors handling the home-viewing circulation. (BBC)

Top 10 Distributors of 2016

The big six distributors are: Warner Bros. Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Univeral Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Walk Disney Studios. The other ones are: Miramax, Dreamworks SGK, Lionsgate and Newline. The majority if the big 6 also own their own subsidiaries that concentrate on art house pictures which are typically smaller independently produced films. Miramax is an Indie, formerly owned by Disney, Dreamworks is an Indie but have a distribution deal with Disney and New Line  is a Warner subsidiary.

Our Budget 

To give an estimation of what I think out budget would be, I would probably say around £600,000. This is because we would need to think about props, costume, casting, locations etc which would increase spending if we produced a full film. The reason I chose this budget is because it would fall in to the 'low budget indie' category. Dead Mans Shoes with a budget of £695,393, Tyrannosaur with a budget of £750,000. Both these films fit roughly into the same margin and are both distributed by Studio Canal.


Which distributor we would use and why...

Distribution companies such as Warner Bros. Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Univeral Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Walk Disney Studios (the big six) would not be ideal to distribute our film. This is because these companies distribute major hollywood films with well known stars which makes it easier to market the films as they can market the actors to the audience. Also Hollywood films have extremely high budgets and make a a lot more money from box office. For example Avatar had a budget of $237,000,000 and had a box office of $749,766,139. Whereas our film budget is only around 600,000 so a company from the big six would be unrealistic for us. 

After researching into different distribution companies I came to a conclusion that Studio Canal would be most suited to distribute our film. This is because they are a large independent distributor for 'micro budget indies' like our own. An example of social realism film distributed by studio canal is This is England which made a box office of £5,000,000. Even if Studio Canal don't get our film shown in cinemas they will still use Optimum Home Entertainment for DVD and Blue Ray releases, closely followed by Optimum Classic Service for re releases of back catalogue films. 

Self Distribution 

Digitisation is a main reason why self  distribution is becoming easier for film producers. This way its allows film film companies to film quicker and cheaper due to the advance in technology. If we were unable to find a micro budget distributor we would have to use our own distribution strategies. We would market our film through social media, creating posters and even teaser trailers. Social media would be an effective way due to the majority of our primary audience and even secondary audience that network on these sites - this is where we could share things like a teaser trailer. Posters could be put up around the local area making making people more aware of the narrative and name of "Abridged. 

Evaluation Question 2 - Representation

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

For this evaluation question I did it in the form of a Prezi which can be viewed in the link below: 

http://prezi.com/he2y_dp9kv_f/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Evaluation Question 1 - Conventions

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

Titles 

With regards to titles our film follows this convention for social realism. This is due to the titles being a plain white font with a simplistic San serif font. Our titles were highly influenced by the titles the guvnors as they also provided a modern font with an appearing and disappearing transition which tries to add to the 'realism' of the film. It helps to present a film based on the working/middle class lifestyles and struggles within Britain.

Soundtrack/Music 

Our non diegetic sound shows how we have understood the conventions regarding sound for social realism. In some modern social realism films a slow paced instrumental is  used. The soundtrack we created was based around the song 'To Build a Home' By Cinematic Orchestra which represents this slow paced song that helps build up the emotion we hoped the audience to share with the upper/middle class character. In other modern social realism films the soundtrack consisted of underground, youthful and grime music. As we introduce our younger working class character we incorporated an underground theme into our main soundtrack. Here we followed the conventions of two different types of soundtrack/music of social realism.

Mise En Scene/ Opening Shot 

The opening shot of an upper/middle class big stately home are counter typical of social realism and don't follow the general conventions. This opening shot uses a low camera angle which makes the audience look up at the house. Using this angle also makes the audience feel small so they can automatically associate the house with wealth. Social realist films generally contain a working class setting for example in the Warp film This is England many grafted walls are included with austere and depressing working class surrounding. Although our opening shot may seem bleak it doesn't represent a working class house or area, this is the fundamental reason it doesn't follow the convention.

Editing 

In terms of editing our opening consists of fairly slow paced shots, this is a convention of social realism. The reason the shots tend to be slow paced is so the audience are able to get a wider sense of the realism involved with in the film as is it dealing with modern, individual and social issues.


For social realism I found that the other conventions were:

• Location Shooting - The locations are generally shot on actual real life locations e.g parks and council estates. Unlike big Hollywood films that shoot in a studio. The film 'This is England' was primarily shot in Nottingham.

• Unknown- These are used to add to the effect of the realism. Also film company's generally cant afford A-list stars to feature in their films.

• Regional Identities - This depends on where the film is set and based around, this will use correct accents and language in the suitable setting. 

• Social Class - Usually social relist films deal with issues around working class people e.g 'Billy Elliot' and 'This is England' 

• Semi-Improvised scrips- Sometimes used to achieve realistic dialogue that closely follows life like conversations. This was used in the films 'Kes' and 'Sweet Sixteen' directed by Ken Loach..

• Types of Shots- Normally in social realist films wide shots/establishing shots are used to give the audience a better understanding of the environment. 

What we chose from the Social Realism conventions:

Un-glamorous Locations

 In our film we opted to film parts of it in a working class environment. This followed the common conventions as may social realist films are filmed in these areas. Our film completely follows this convention due to our entire footage being filmed in real life locations. These locations consisted of Ben Rhydding council estate, Burley in Wharfedale tunnel, Ilkley cemetery, Ilkley bridge, Ben Rhydding train station, Milo's house and Tom's house. As social realism deals with real issues it was important to use real life locations in order to give it a more realistic feel, also it helps identify and separate different social classes. Throughout 'The Guvnors' (a film we followed closely) the whole film is based with in a council estate symbolising the working class environment. 

Unknown  Actors

Unknown actors are used mainly because of the the low budget. They are also used as people have never seen them before so they aren't associated with any other characters they may have played previously. By doing this it adds to realistic look of the film that is trying to be created. Obviously as this is only an AS media film opening we don't have to funding and access to professional actors anyway so this is another convention that we were forced to follow regardless.

Type of Shots

In social realism close up shots are used in order for the audience to visualise the emotions of the characters. Also long shots/extreme long shots are used go establish the characters place in society. I believe that out film follows this convention as we have included both close up and long shots have been used to present the older protagonist and younger protagonists emotions and place in society. This makes the audience able to see the clear contrast of the characters in society.  We have also used a lot of wide/establishing shots in order to give the audience a better understanding of the environment although these shots convey both working class and upper/middle class environments. 

Audience Feedback- Final Cut

We have gathered feedback from our primary audience and secondary regarding our final cut. To get this feedback the questions we asked were: 

• Did you understand whats going on?
• Would you watch the film and if so why? 
• What element of a trailer would attract you to the film?
• Did the soundtrack compliment the opening?
• Do you think the opening matches the target audience of  15-30 years old?
• How well do you think the opening matches the genre and if there was another genre category what would it fit in to? 
• What would you improve? 

Evidence of Time Management

During the production and pre production I believe that we presented good communications and organisation  skills that provided us with set days so we knew specific days for us to film. We mainly communicated through text message and Facebook messenger group chats. Here is some evidence to support this:

Messages with Milo and Tom 

Messages with Tom and Me

Facebook Messenger Messages With Tom, Milo and Me

These screenshots show how we communicated which generally made production easier and more efficient. Without this organisation I believe that we wouldn't have been able to film as swiftly as we wouldn't have known exact times and dates. 

I also set reminders using Google Calendar. 

Abridged- Rough Cut 5

My Company Ident

•       I started in Adobe Illustrator, where I chose a suitable font, Gotham, for my logo. I centered the text, converted the text to outlines and scaled up JAY R so that it was the same width as PRODUCTIONS.

•    I copy and pasted the logo. I then used the pathfinder tool to cut out the logo from a black rectangle.

•    I then exported this as a PNG (I chose PNG because it allows you to have transparent parts of the image.

• I also exported the image with the white logo on a black background.

•  I found some royalty free footage of camera flashes.

•   I then imported the video footage and the PNGs I had created into Premiere Pro and layered them on top of each other so that the camera flashes could only be seen through the cut out sections.

•     I added the sound of camera flashes from a sound bank.

•   I then used a fade to transition from the cutout image to the white logo image.

     Overall I am very happy with the way my ident has turned out. I feel that it looks professional and fits the conventions of a professional production company ident very well.

Abridged - Rough Cut 4

Target Audience and BBCF Rating

In terms of the BBCF rating we have chosen to opt our film as a 15+ rating. Below is the information regarding the rating on their website.

What does the 15 symbol mean?

No-one under 15 is allowed to see a 15 film at the cinema or buy/rent a 15 rated video. 15 rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age.

Are there any limits on what sort of theme a work can have at 15?

No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds.

What might I see in a 15 rated film or video?

Any of the following:

•   strong violence
•  frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').
•   portrayals of sexual activity
•   strong verbal references to sex
•   sexual nudity
•   brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
•   discriminatory language or behaviour
•    drug taking

The above criteria we believe suits our film accordingly. in the opening our film doesn't include things such as: frequent strong language, sexual activity , strong references to sex, sexual nudity or brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence. Although if we were to produce the rest of the film then these aspects may be included. As our films does include violence and the use of drugs, we wouldn't be able to give it a rating any lower than a 15. 

In terms of target audience we are targeting our film for people 15-30 years old. This will mainly be aimed at the male audience mainly because the two protagonist are male and it is generally male orientated with the drugs and violence etc. Although, our secondary audience could also include females due to the emotional attachment and relationships.