Evaluation by Almaz Camporeale

Media cw 2

View more presentations from almazgc.

Last post by Kimberley Griffiths

This is my last post :( The whole experience of blogging has been great fun. i have learnt a great deal of things and may even create my oun blog and carry on blogging about one of my interests. It was a pleasure to work with the people in my team, we shared great experiences and all learned many new things along the way. I hope that whoever reads our blog will find it as rewarding as we did. Goodbye blog... Its been fun :D

Evaluation by Kimberley Griffiths

Evaluation by Kimberley Griffiths

View more presentations from kimberleygriff123.

Final Evaluation - AS MEDIA STUDIES- Nikita Patel

Niki's AS Media Evaluation

View more presentations from nikibhav39.

UK Film Distributors - Nikita Patel

When deciding on who would distribute our film, we took into consideration that not many UK film distributors that distrubute psychological thrillers. Therefore we thought about how to advertise our film. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are greats ways in which many people try to catch attention to their media products. This leads to distributors hearing about it and grabbing attention. By using Facebook events and groups, more people are likely to hear about it, and pass it on to friends to look at.

List of UK film distributors:
Revolver Entertainment
Pathé Distribution
Lions Gate UK
Eros International
Alpha Films Ltd.

different angles by Sooraj

by us filming our preliminary task 'feed the fish' we have learned different angle shots such as medium close up, extreme close up, long shot, medium shot, and different camera movement such as pans, tilts and hand-held shots. By learning this in our preliminary task, this really gave us an advantage for our filming and become more professional with our final filming and learn more of different angle shots.

problems when filming by Sooraj

We had few problems when filming. One of them was that we went all the way to Richmond park and ounce we go there and ready to film, the camera had no charge so that day kinda ruined but we all went to Niki's house and planned more of how and where we are going to film the next shot while the camera was charging. Another one was when Niki got sick on the day we meant to film one part of her, so we waited for her to get better and do it which was 2days after. the first shot we did of Niki, i lost the tape when i took it home and i couldn't find it, probably fell out my bag or something, so we had to buy a new tape.

choosing our genre by Sooraj

when the teacher told us to make groups of four, we decided to work with the same people as our primary task because we already knew each other and what skills we have and importantly work as a group. then we all sat down and decided what film genre we were going to make. Nikki wanted and Kim want to make a horror one and me and Almaz wanted to make an thriller one, so we got these ideas and come up with Psychological thriller.

Planning our Final Piece by Almaz

Whilst planning we knew that we wouldn't get anywhere without a storyboard to relate to. We went through a good number of lessons planning, changing our plans, drawing different storyboards until we knew which one was good enough to film with. With that said, having the storyboard with us, helped us a great deal as we knew exactly what we were to do so we did not end up lost and confused or arguing over what to do next! Below are a few examples of the storyboards i came up with while planning!

Examples of Psychological Thrillers by Almaz

These are some examples of Psychological Thrillers which inspired and influenced us while planning and shooting our final piece. We chose to fit our prduct into the 'psychological/mystery/thriller' genre as it is a very challenging genre, and it really got us thinking and active throughout the whole process of filming; which made the whole experience a lot more interesting and enjoyable!

Other examples of 'Psycological/Mystery Thrillers' are as follows: The Others, The Butterfly Effect, The Blair Witch Project and all films directed by Christopher Nolan such as Shutter Island, Inception and Momento (as seen above) and Following.

Evaluation by Kimberley Griffiths

I feel that the product that we have created was fairly well constructed. We use different aspects to represent a range of things. We represented teenagers through the creation of our main character; we illuminated psychological issues that many teenagers suffer with in today’s society, showing it though the main storyline and her personality too. Continuing, I believe that our audience would most likely be teenagers and people who are into Indie Cinema, which would probably be older teens and onwards. To address our audience we used typical everyday things such as location and costume so that the people watching we able to relate to what they watch and put themselves in the characters position, allowing them to enjoy the film more.

I believe that the type of film institutions that would distribute our media piece would be small and independent organizations. Institutions that probably base their choice of films around nationality, that they would pick British Indie films, small unknown directors and possibly more complex and unusual storylines that wouldn't normally make it to larger film distributors.

From this whole experience I have learnt that creating a film is extremely hard work and involves a lot of dedication and faith in your project. Moreover, I have learnt that new technologies drastically help progress and that without such things as 'Moviemaker' the whole process of editing a film would be completely different and I'm sure 100x harder. Nevertheless, technology does have its drawbacks and the fact that it has such a wide range of possibilities can be seen as a bad thing as it is easy to do something without knowing that cannot be un-done. Looking back on our preliminary task, I definitely learnt that planning was key to creating a good piece and continuity was very important, that the smallest thing can make or break a movie.

Overall, as a project I believe that I am not grasping the main parts that are involved in making a movie, however I believe that I work best editing the film post-production that working on the actual filming of the work. I now understand how time is extremely precious and 10 minutes can change the lighting completely and create a horrible continuity mistake. I will now take from what I have learnt here and apply it to my exam work and also I different aspects of my life where filming and preparation is key.

Examples of Psychological Thrillers - Nikita Patel

These films gave us ideas and influenced us on what to do for our final piece and how to improve it to make sure it fitted the genre of a psychological thriller.

Dialogue - Nikita Patel

When creating the script for the final piece, we altered what was going to be said, as it was only one protagonist in the film and we had planned for there to be a conversation with another person. Yet we decided to do a voice over to create a more personal connection for the girl and her story. Also, it adds to the genre of the psychological thriller as many psychological thrillers have first person narratives to add to genres connotations. 


Whilst recording the voice over, and editing it into the final piece, we realised that the edits did not sound very well as the voice over was quite loud. Yet we kept it as it still fit into the piece and added to the girls thoughts and feelings felt during the sequence. 

Process of Our Final Piece - Nikita Patel

The planning stages were a bit boring and repetitive, as we knew we would end up changing our ideas as we filmed and edited, yet it gave us a good base and plan to fall back on if need be. The story boarding helped us when we needed to look back on what part we were planning, also the research on films we had done helped us with ideas and influenced us on how to produce a successful psychological thriller. 
We changed a lot when editing yet we knew we did not have to stick to all of our planning. We came up with new ideas to improve the final piece, therefore we altered what we had to, such as the location, to benefit the final look. 

Psychological Thrillers - Nikita Patel

Psychological thriller's can described as a sub-genre that ranges from thriller to horror genres. Yet it still includes elements from the genres of mystery and drama.  
When planning our opening sequence, we picked to produce a psychological thriller film as we felt it was a challenging but interesting genre. Also, we felt it would be something different and we could produce an original yet intriguing story-line to create. 


Psychological thrillers focus on characters that are no longer able to control their minds and cannot rely on their physical strength. Many end up using their minds and consciousness to control their actions and thoughts. Suspense and tension is created through this and many psychological thrillers are used to keep the audience on the edge of their seats by adding mystery to the story-lines. 


First person narrative is commonly used in psychological thrillers to give the audience a first hand account on the situation in the film. This makes the character more involved and thus makes the audience relate to the protagonist on a more personal level. In our opening sequence, a voice over is heard of the young girl talking to herself. This shows her instability as a character and her thoughts are directly heard by the audience. 

Skills Gained - Nikita Patel

During the process of filming and editing our final piece, I have gained many skills. The camera we used, a Canon HDV30 Camcorder ,, was used for the preliminary task and the final piece. The I have never used before. By using the tripod, I was able to film different angled shots to improve our final piece. Although the camera picked up the smallest of sounds and movement; therefore we had to be careful when filming to ensure there was silence and only sounds we wanted in the film. Also we used small Mini DV Tapes which were easy to carry around and have in our bags if we needed to film something spontaneously. 
By using software such as iMovie, I learned to edit the footage to run in a smooth and interesting way to ensure our final piece was as its best standards. Also, I learnt how to import songs from iTunes to include to run over the footage. In addition to this, I learn to use transitions, such as fade outs and cross box effects for the flashbacks, to add suspense and tension to the film.
Being the main protagonist and acting in the final piece, taught me many acting skills which benefitted our final piece. Although we record the same scenes over and over again, I slowly forgot the camera was there and acted to the best of my ability. I kept on looking directly into the camera at first but slowly started to focus my attention on the acting and staying in role. 

The Butterfly Effect - Nikita Patel

'The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber and starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart. The title refers to the butterfly effect, a popular metaphor for the principle in chaos theory that in any dynamic system, small initial differences may over time lead to large unforeseen consequences.'

During the opening sequence of 'The Butterfly Effect', the logos of the companies that were involved in the production of the film are seen;  New Line Cinema, owned by Time Warner and Film Engine. This gives the audience an idea of what kind of film to expect if they have seen films by these companies before. We then see a quote from the Chaos Theory “It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon half way around the world”. This quote could be implying that anything can happen to anyone, at any time; everything is universal. It also gives an idea of the butterfly effect, the name of the film, to give the audience an idea of what might happen.  The music starts to play and is of a mysterious sound. 
When the first scene begins, an empty room with the blinds shut can be seen, with someone's shadow on the outside. The tracking shot of this person and the movement of the character gives the audience the idea that they are sneaking around and are involved in something they should be involved in. The music also changes at this part, and becomes high pitched and screechy; adding to the suspense. As the protagonist kicks the door open, it makes the audience jump. Furthermore, the suspense is being built up even more within these first seconds of the opening. This makes the audience want to watch more as a lot is happening and it is full of tension and suspense. 
The character is dressed in a blue robe, which normally is associated with a doctor or nurse. The music changes again, becoming fast paced which links to the fast movement the character is acting in. The use of the character moving the sofa from the door shows danger and mystery; we do not know if he is hiding or being chased, and more tension is created. 
When the protagonist has sat down and is writing what looks like a note, the music changes yet again. It has changed into a more calm and tragic tone. As he reads the note aloud, we hear his voice and can hear that he sounds worried and nervous. Furthermore this adds to the mystery we feel as the audience so far in the scene. 


The start of this film gives us a lot of information within the first minute. We get an impression of how the film may be; a suspenseful yet twisted story with a lot of mystery combined. The mixture of music and fast movement makes the audience jump and want to know more about what will happen. 
The dark lighting adds to the mystery in the opening sequence and creates a suspenseful mood. 


By watching this opening sequence, it gave me ideas on how to construct our opening sequence. The fast movement and suspenseful music helps to engage the audience in wanting to watch more, yet still leaves a sense of mystery. 

Problems faced by Almaz

Filming our final piece:
Finding a good location was very challenging as we were not sure what scenery would fit with our theme and genre. At the beginning of our planning we thought we could film in Niki's back garden, but we realised that we needed to go a bit wider and chose to film in Richmond Park which was a much better idea as it gave the scene the exact effect needed!
Apart from having problems with the locations of filming we also had problems with actually filming the scenes. At first we were stopped by policewomen who told us to be careful to not get number plates in the shots, and then we also had the problem of cars and buses passing when filming on the main road.
But other than that we did not seem to have any other problems! 

Uploading the video:
Whilst uploading our final piece on to youtube Kim and i found that we had a few problems such as changing the type of video to the one needed. But once we found out how to do so it was very straight forward - even though it took half an hour just to load it!

Combining the Titles with the Images and the Sound by Almaz, Kim, Nikki and Sooraj

Choosing where the titles were to be placed was very challenging as well as it was hard to know where exactly we were to place everything, for example the actors names, the directors, producers and the title of our final piece.  

To do all this we had to use  iMovie at first we found trying to work the programme a little confusing, however, because we are all digital natives, once we got the hang of how everything worked and where we wanted everything it was quite easy.

Storyboard by Kimberley Griffiths

Pages of planning by Kimberley, Almaz, Niki and Sooraj

Combining sound with images by Almaz

Combining the sounds, images and titles was much harder than we thought! If choosing/recording the sound/voice over wasn’t hard enough – combining it with the correct scene was much more challenging. Kim and I had to choose parts from the previous recordings in which we thought we thought would go well together with the particular part of the scene.  We had to be very precise about which extract from the recording we would use and test it out and if that didn’t work try another part, it was continuous until we found the perfect part.   

Mise-en-Scene by Almaz

While planning our final piece we had to think of the different elements of the mise en scene thoroughly, because with out that our project would not have been as good as we wanted it to be or as good as expected from us. The first thing we had to decide on was the setting, we chose Richmond Park because its big and spacecious feel to it fitted perfectly with the narrative and what we had in mind of our final piece. The atmosphere which was created by this is exactly what we needed – which was suspense, curiosity and isolation – this picture is a good example of what i have written above.

As you can see the weather was perfect for filming this shot – cloudy and misty - which gave the effect needed for the genre of our piece which is ‘Thriller’ and ‘Mystery’.

Lighting by Almaz

Lighting was a very difficult part of filming. We were given the opportunity to borrow professional lighting from the school but we missed our chance to book them! With that said we could only use natural day light, and lucky enough for us was not a major problem as most of the time spent filming was sunny. There was just one little shot which was lacking a little bit of light but looking at the positive side of things it created the atmosphere which was needed. It would have been nice if we could have had the lights but we managed just fine without it!

Character profile - Niki and Kim and Sooraj

The main character in our final piece, played by Niki, was a young, trouble girl in her late teens, overcoming a troubling dilemma. When thinking about who to play this character, we thought about the age group that we would be targetting our film at; this meant that the girl we needed to play this part would have to be appealing to that age group. Therefore we chose her as she had many features that contributed well to our final piece.

Her long hair conveyed a sense of mystery and could be interrepted of her hiding from society. Niki has a very expressive face which helped to show the varied emotions the protaganist felt during our opening sequence. 

Our protaganist was called Rune. We choose this name as the meaning behind it is 'secret lore'.

Difficulties faced - Niki and Kim

Whilst choosing our location for our final piece, we brainstormed ideas on which location would be the most suitable for our genre. We found it difficult to find a location that contained relevant scenery. When filming on location, as we were filming on the main road, with cars and buses passing, we had to be careful with what our footage contained. Whilst filming, two police women stopped and asked us questions on what we were filming. We explained that we go to Coombe Girls School and were filming our AS project for Media Studies. They were  friendly and told us to just be careful with getting number plates in the shot. We then decided to change the angle of the camera to ensure our actors and the pavement were the main focus.

'The Beach' by Kimberley Griffiths

'The Beach' is a British film Directed by Danny Boyle in 2000. It was based on the book by Alex Garlands 'The Beach'. It had a $50 million budget and runs for 119 minutes. 'The Beach' follows a young American called Richard (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) back packing in Thailand where he meets a man called Daffy (played by Robert Carlyle) who tells him about a paradise island. Daffy commits suicide leaving Richard with a mysterious story about an island and a map. Richard is left to make the choice as to whether or not to find the island. 

Sound

In the opening sequence to 'The Beach' music plays a key part. The first words of the character Richard are "my name is Richard", this tells us that the film will be following him though his adventure, moreover it implies that whatever happens to him, he will survive, he will come out of it alive as he is narrating what has happened to him. The music played is called 'snakeblood', composed by Neil Barnes and Paul Daley and Performed by Leftfield. The word snake blood and what it can mean is played through the opening sequence. Here is a link of the music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18S-NEZjEj0

The music has a heavy bass and very modern, it expresses the attitude of 2000, everything is fast, new and optimistic. Also reflecting the party lifestyle of the 20-somethings of 2000. At the beginning the music starts of quiet and increases in sound as Richard goes deeper into the city of Bangkok.

Speech is key in the opening sequence, the voiceover is giving us connotations to what type of film it will be, that it will be focusing on his internal thoughts, what he thinks in his head and what is actions show. In addition, the speech in the opening is slightly contrapuntal; both speakers are clearly heard despite being in a presumably noisy market area within the inner city of Bangkok. 

Camerawork

It opens with a long shot of Richard in the middle of the screen with cars driving past him. The camera id on the other side of the road, revealing Richard only when there are no cars. This tells us that his life is insignificant and that his is unsure where he is going. He then begins to walk left and look at a large golden Buddha statue; this conveys the two different types of cultures clashing together.

As the beat of the music drops, the shot changes to a tracking shot of Richard walking from behind. As he looks at a man on one of the market stools the camera flows and changes to forward mid-shot. Again linking with the voiceover, it tells us that the film will be flowing his life. The colours used are vivid and are a wide range. Smoke is used, possibly to represent that he is walking into mystery and another chapter of his life is beginning. Signs and bizarre adverts are abundant again revealing the complete isolation he is in, in this new country. The rule of thirds is constantly used, again telling us that it is his life that we are following. The last shot of the opening scene is where he is drinking snakes blood, a reference to the song title. Before him sits a clear glass box filed with a few snakes and a clear vodka shot glass filled with snakes blood. He is sitting in the middle of the screen and a mid-shot is used, the rest of his body is hidden beneath the table. The whole opening scenes are covered in a faint haze, almost expressing a dream-like state, conveying an unsurely and possibly foreshadowing the use of drugs.

Lighting

The lighting is used very cleverly; it opens with very bright almost over- exposed lighting. Then changing to a more toned down light (in the market) with small areas of bright light signs. Cleverly, when 'snakes blood' become the topic of discussion for the two characters; red light is shone on the characters. This could represent the snake’s blood and it could also represent danger and some thing new and mysterious.
In the next show where Richard is about to drink the snakes blood the dominant light colour changes to blue from red. This could show a cooler atmosphere but also intensifies the danger.

Titles

The titles are placed sporadically; we are first given the companies that produced the film 'Twentieth Century Fox' and 'Figment Film'. Then while the opening scene plays out the name of the actor who plays Richard is revealed. It is revealed at the point where he drinks the snake’s blood, this particular part tells us that he is an adventureouse person who is open to try anything new. The colours used reflect the atmosphere at the time of the scene. The production companies are written in blue because the background is black and because it reflects the passing lights of the cars in the beginning, furthermore could show the clam before the storm, that nothing has actually happened yet, everything is calm. Leonardo DiCaprios name is written in orange because it reflects the high tension in the room where he drinks the snake’s blood and also the temperature of Bangkok.

Narrative

The plot isn't completely introduced though the opening sequence as there isn't enough speech for us to understand what will happen. However we do know that he is a foreigner in an Oriental country, this is clear as he is Caucasian while other people are oriental and though the large golden Buddha statue in the street. We assume at this point that Richard is the main protagonist, however as there is a voice over which indicates that this film will be a psychological film, his own person cold become the antagonist in this film, however at this point we are unsure of this. The snake can be a narrative enigma that the dangerous snakes are contained within a glass box but could by the end be free, wild and dangerous.

Canon Camera By Kimberley Griffiths

For the film piece that we produced we used a Canon HDV30 Camcorder. It has been described in an internet reviews as 'One of the best products for the advanced video camera user' and I agree with that responce. I found that while using the Canon I was able to detect the smallest of sounds and illuminate the slighest of movements. The Canon HDV30 offers; 10x Optical Zoom, High Definition lense, HDMI Commection ( which would allow you to play on BluRay), Widescreen, SuperRange Optical Image Stablilizer, 2.96Mp 1/2.7" CMOS Sensor and records of small Mini DV Tapes which are light and easy to carry around.
As a digital native I found using this fairly easy, I was able to find the different buttons and control it without having any extensive tutoring in how to work the camera.
The Canon camera is designed for people we are at an 'intermediate level' of using video cameras and because of this offers professional levels of filming while making it easy enough for everyday peope to use.
Were there any obstacles that you had to overcome while using the camera?
Yes. While filming we looked back onto our work that we had already recorded, unknowingly we were skipping large ammounts of space and giving ourselves smaller ammounts of film to work with. This however was easily overcome as we had five Mini DV Tapes which each held 90 minuites of film. Another thing that was a problem was that at times the film that was produced wasn't as high of a standard as we might have liked, this would've been affected by other factors such as: storylines, acting, location and framing, however the film looked fairly mediocre. This was not completely overcome as we still used the film but the edting did 'correct' the filming to an extent. 

Photographs of the camera used for our final piece

Here are photos of the camera that we used. We used a tripod to keep the camera steady and safe while filming, we found that it made a very distinct improvement on our work when we used the tripod. We found that using the camera was fairly easy. The butons and all of the things that it offered were clear and easy to understand. However, we encountered a problem while uploading the different bits of film. While filming we looked back on our work without knowing that by doing so, we had skipped large ammounts of space and wasted vast ammounts of film. Despite this we were able to continue filming as we had five tapes that each heald 90 minuites worth of film. 

Photographs of location for our final piece

Here are a few photos from Richmond Park, where we filmed half of the final piece. In the photos the lighing changes, this is because during the whole filming period the sun began to set, this did give us a beautiful shot where the light shines through the trees ( photo 4) but on the other hand it did become a problem while filming. Richmond Park plays host to a large range of animals and one that was very distinct was the Parakeets. Their constant singing was at times annoying however while filming it created an eerie sense of loneliness that we found work very well.

Photographs from filming our final piece

These are photographs we took while we were filming. they show that we have used more than one location. Moreover, the photos were taken while we were filming, as you can see in some of them, Niki and Kimberley are both acting.

Photographs from planning our final piece

W

Whilst planning our final piece, we decided to document through the stages. By planning together, we combined our ideas to improve our final piece.  These photographs show members of our group planning.