Final Media Product Evaluation

AS MEDIA PRODUCT TITLE SEQUENCE FINAL PIECE

This is our final media product that me, Alexandra Higgs and George Nolan created.

Characterisation

Our main character 'Veronica' is a central character to our film is the only main character that we introduce in our Title sequence media product. She is introduced with the accompaniment of Diegetic music which helps indicate an Urban scene, the police sirens indicates the type of area which our protagonist is in, which is a run down urban area with American Inner city connotations. The non diegetic soundtrack which runs through the whole opening helps set the atmosphere and representation of the narrative. The Mise-En-Scene is a lowlight, dull, gray urban environment, which assists with the construction of the narrative. This can reflect as an indications of the characters outlook on life. The camera pivots around veronica and does a closeup of her face to show her expression, she sighs like she is exhausted from the stresses of live and there is an blurring editing effect used to transition between scenes which indicate the blurriness of her mind and life as she has a flashback.

Establishing Shot:

                                                          Closeup Before the Flashback

Influences and Comparison

One film which hugely influenced our film project is "KidultHood' by Noel Clark. Teenagers are clearly targeted as the film contains generic conventions of an Urban Drama film. This includes having teenage characters, and encoding issues which are specific to teenagers into the narrative such as drug abuse, violence and teenage pregnancy, our media product shares these themes and youth subculture themes. 

Our films share similar camerawork techinques, such as high-angle shot in KidultHood is used to show 'Katie' after she has been pushed to the floor by Sam. This positions the audience to look down on her, which conveys how weak and defenceless she is towards her oppressors. This causes the audience to feel sympathetic towards her. This is a similarity within our film as there is a scene where Veronica is being pushed around and beaten by her pimp Rodney showing her powerlessness and fragility.

Lots of close-up shots are used to portray Trevor's facial expressions when he is cutting the man's face. These help to convey how traumatising it is for him and how scared he feels. Our film also uses close up shots to help magnify the emotions Veronica is feeling.

Another film that greatly influenced our media product is 'City of god'. Again it also shares the  same Urban drama film which shares the similarities of being set in a foreign country.
The City of god is a crime movie infused with a gangster action film which is set in a poor run down area of Rio de Janeiro so it shares the same basic mise en scene with our film. 

Ill Manors has influenced our film as it share the same themes and represents the same form of gritty realism we want to achieve. It has really hard hitting scenes that move the audience emotionally and draw the audience in to empathise with the characters. It shares   similar themes in the mise en scene as our media product mainly in the urban areas. It also shares some of the same basic camerawork.

Film Proposal - Land of the free

Name: Land of the free

Plot:
 Veronica is a young teenage girl from a refugee family living in Chicago, USA. She been abandoned by her family at the age of 13, the state do nothing to help her and she spent alot of her life all alone and isolated. Unable to work or find a job as she was too young, Veronica turned to prostitution to survive until she was 15 until where one of her clients kidnapped her and brought her to his boss, Rodney. Rodney is a london born and bred crimelord who came to America to get away from people who wanted to escape from his enemys, and begin a new crime syndicate based on mass import and export of drugs and prostitution. Veronica was taken to Rodney and was offered protection and a place to stay in return for being pimped out by Rodney. Due to Veronicas desperation she accepted. Veronica spent two years under the thumb of Rodneys criminal organisation, having no one to turn to and nowhere to go she was virtually alone. Over the two years her anger and resentment grew towards Rodneys organisation for what they had done to her. She discovered where the money from rodneys criminal misdemeanours was kept before it was laundered. She had always managed to take a couple of notes when they werent fully focused on the duffle bag filled with money. Her emotions got the better of her and she struck out at the men watching the bag, grabbed it and made a run for it narrowly escaping by jumping out of a second story window. Thanks to this she essentially painted a bullseye on her head and subsequently Rodney sent his hired 'Goons' to go after her, kill her and get the money back. Veronica hidden her money in a place of great emotional sentiment to her as she knew it would be safer there than carrying it around with her. Veronica begins to spend her money on alcohol and drug fuelled night when she has a sad moment of clarity on a comedown from her Methodrone high at the end of the weekend. She realised how alone she was and how empty her life is. She realised she now had the means to make something of herself and do something valuable. She spent the remaining money she had on her on various bus tickets to get her to Los Angeles in California. In the early hours of the morning she made a dash to get the duffle bag of cash and to begin her new life. When in California she met a social worker who was the first person she opened upto for the first time in her life and who she begged for to help. She was directed to some people who ran a charity called 'Children of the night' which helped child prostitutes be taken away from that lifestyle and dominating pimps. After having been helped by the charity, Veronica realised that the money she had stolen would be better put to use donated to the charity. The Charity was so grateful for the donation they wrote an article about her on their website http://www.childrenofthenight.org/index.html, It was through this became getting famous on national television, telling her story to the millions who watched and being a source of inspiration by the fact that she overcame her hardship. One night when Veronica was coming back from a fundraising event to her apartment. She hear the click of a pistol being cocked directly behind her head, and she died that night.

Length of film:
We want to keep it to be a shortish film as we want to have a sense of constant intensity through out the film without having any scenes which are unnecessarily elongated, and also due to the fact that we are a small and independent production company we simply do not have the budget to afford the extra time of camera equipment rentals and actors wages.

Budget:
We are working with a relatively low budget of £300,000 due to the fact we are a small production company but also because the style of movie we are using is relatively inexpensive to make as it is done mainly with handheld cameras in urban environments to give the narrative a sense of gritty realism like you are right there with the main actor Veronica throughout her journey. We will apply to Film4 commissioning department to look for funding as they tend to try and support upcoming British directors and production companies.

Genre: 
The genre of our film is a gritty drama which encompasses characteristics and narrative conventions of other films and genres. The text of our film will fulfil some generic expectations of the genre, for example life or death situations, urban scenery, portrayal of a journey of a character development and the dramatic storyline that is supposed to move the audience emotionally. 

Target Audience:
We are aiming to target young adults, as there will be aspects of the youth subculture, but the narrative of the film makes it accessible to people of all ages and social classes.
Our film will most likely be rated and 18 by the British Board of Film Classification. This is due to the fact our film contains alot of senstive topic, themes and graphic scenes. Our film contains: Discriminatory language and behaviour, Very strong violence, frequent strong language, strong portrayal of sexual activity, discriminatory and offensive themes.

Main Characters:

Veronica - (Protagonist)

Veronica is a teenage girl who has had a tough upbringing which began with her family fleeing from Poland due to political tensions in her neighbourhood of 'Ursynow' between her father who was head of the local communist party, and the local Neo-Nazi political group who chronically vandalised her family home, they finally fled when her house was petrol bombed and her father was brutally beaten. After this her family fled to Miami in America as they had family living and working there. As Veronica entered her teenage years she began to experiment with drugs and alcohol, once her parents discovered she had developed an addiction to Methodrone, Her family spent their life savings sending her to a top treatment clinic in Chicago, which she escaped from in a desperate state to score some more Methadrone. She from then on severed connections with her family and spent the last few years of her life alone and fending for herself by living in abandoned houses and industrial estates, being left no other option to make money Veronica reluctantly turned to prostitution as her only means to fund her addiction.

iLL Manors was a huge inspiration in the construction of the character of Veronica, The story of a teenager getting an addiction to Hardcore drugs and becoming destitute is not an uncommon one, which we felt was well portrayed in iLL Manors as the character Michelle was portrayed as a stereotypical drugs addict in the form of most of her behaviour (eg, prostitution, petty burglary, etc) but also shows a different side to her which is unexpected and widens our views on her due to breaking the typical behavioural conventions of a drug addict. Below is a short clip of the actor who plays Michelle explaining the fundamental factors of her character.

Rodney - (The Crime Lord)

Rodney is the leader of the crime syndicate that has main control of the criminal underworld of chicago. He was born and raised in the Eastend of London where he became a notorious drug kingpin who was responsible for most of all the cocaine, cannabis and firearms in London. He is third generation Ghanaian and he started his criminal life when his uncle used to send him on little 'jobs' around his area (delivering pay as you go phones to his uncles contacts). As Rodney grew up he started taking bigger jobs and climbing up the criminal hierarchy until his uncle was kidnapped from his home by a rival gang and executed. Rodney then started taking over his uncles position when he reached twenty five and became the notorious man to fear by the time he was twenty eight. He expanded the business from drugs to firearms which he was arranging to be brought in from the west indies and latin america, but while inspecting a shipment of automatic weapons from Peru a rival gang stormed his warehouse headquarters and killed most of his men and left Rodney with bullet wounds to the leg, arm and a punctured lung. The rival gang soon took over his business killing all Rodney's associates, and putting a price on his head. Being too dangerous to stay in London he fled to the United States and settled on Chicago as he had associates who were controlling the synthetic drugs trade in from the Canada to the north of the United States. He started recruiting within the Chicago crime syndicate and he and his new crew executed the Bosses much like the rival gang had back in London and took control of the operation. He started to branch out into pimping prostitutes to bring in more money and expand his drugs market. He has remained anonymous by  bribing Political figures within the Chicago sector of the government, police officials, DEA agents and executives who control the press. He is rarely seen by anyone except his second in command, he never directly handles anything in his business unless absolutely necessary to prevent what happened in London happening again. He has built a small army of hired thugs, who wear the black suit and with no tie as an inconspicuous uniform to make his presence know in the criminal underworld.

The film iLL Manors shares many of the same narritive characteristics and the character 'Kirby' has also had a great influence on the construction of the character Rodney. They share alot of the same personality characteristics and desires.

Permission to use the 'J Dilla - Runnin' Soundtrack

A member of our group George Nolan contacted Universal Music Group to inquire permission to use the J Dilla - Runnin Soundtrack in our media product. We have yet to receive a reply. We outlined it was not for profit use and to use for educational purposes.

Imovie editing help

Im using iMovie programme to edit my title sequence. It was my first time using iMovie and after picking up the basic skills I tryed to expand my knowledge using videos from Youtube to widen my editing skill and gain a general comprehension.

For example this Video Taught me to use the Ken Burns Editing Effect, Colour Grading and Text Effects.

I have been mainly consulting Matthew Pearce's Youtube Channel where he has lots of youtube tutorials giving tips and explaining how to use iMovie effectively, it has helped me greatly when troubleshooting and to help give the media product some variety editing wise.

Here is a link to the YouTube channel I have been using:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MattsMacintosh/videos?sort=dd&view=46&tag_id=UCQqCU9HtbaWyWIXKoro8Fqg.3.imovie

Applying The Concept Of Genre To Our Film

The genre of our film is a gritty drama. The narrative takes us into the topics of abandonment, isolation, abuse and high level crime which can be upsetting to some viewers as we hope our narritave can cause empathy for the protagonist Veronicas situation. The text of our film opening will fulfill some generic expectations of the genre, for example life or death situations, urban scenery, portrayal of a journey of a characters development and the dramatic storyline that is supposed to move the audience emotionally. Much like in other Films sharing the same genre as ours, the heart of the drama is conflict. Our narrative structure is structured with climaxes and anti climaxes to keep the audience emotionally attached and the tension ongoing. The mise en scene of our film overall is grey, dull and lifeless. We have chosen this to help portray the narrative text of our film and help solidify its place as a drama genre. Genre wise our film shares a commonality with the drama film titanic in which it breaks a convention of a drama film because it does not have a happy ending which is unusual in a drama text which we hope will have a profound effect on our audience. Our drama text has a combination of genres which combine to achieve our intended narrative, for example incorporate some aspects of 'Slice of life' genre which is a phrase describing the use of mundane realism depicting everyday experiences in art and entertainment and the incorporation of a biographical genre which is a detailed description or account of a persons life. It entails more than basic facts (education, work, relationships and death), we believe the use of handheld camera and addition of mundane diegetic sound played a key role in this combination of genres. We believe these adaptations of the Drama genre is now the norm. This is due to genres having to adapt in order to survive, for example westerns. This development yet familiarity of genres help build a relationship between audiences and producers which help minimise the risk of financial failure as they help meet audience expectations as a whole but also include some originality within the genre which attracts the audience and helps the movie distinguish itself. We belive we have achieved this as we still incorporate a set of characteristics recognised by the audiences over time, eg iconography, narrative, mise-en-scene, themes and representation.

Production Companies That May Distribute Our Film

Our first choice was Revolver Entertainment. This was one of the first production companies we looked at because it distributed the film Kidulthood and other low budget films. It is an english production company which is one of our criteria because they have experience and a reputation in marketing and distributing films in England and specifically to our target audience. A reason we want our film primarily marketed to the UK audience is because low budget films tend to be more widely watched and accepted within the UK whereas in the USA the films that gain a large audience and attention tend to be big budget films with famous actors and directors, so we felt targeting the english market is more appropriate. Revolver Entertainment also has a reputation for distributing films with our genre for example, Kidulthood, iLL manors, Offender. They are also know to distribute films with alternative genres, for example Flying swords, Flowers of war, Iron Sky, etc, etc. They also use a wide range of distribution channels, eg Cinemas, through physical products like DVD's and Blu Rays, and arguably one of the most important in the contemporary film industry, On demand and online streaming. Revolver Entertainment clearly covers a range of distribution channels and what we found that was very important is the use of social media as a marketing and distribution method for On demand and online streaming. They use Facebook as a base site to redirect and stream movie files, this is a good choice because Facebook has 1.06 Billion active users worldwide meaning there is lots of potential internet traffic that attracts people to the site. They also use promotional deals such as discounting the price of an On Demand film by sharing the site to a friend, which increases the likelihood of that individual watching the film and also means the site is marketed further.

We also researched Film4 as it is a well known and recognised UK institution that funds and commissions a lot of UK films. It is an attractive distribution company to us as it targets to develop (new) British talent and to be a leader of innovation in the british film industry so there is a high likelihood that we can receive there backing as we are a new british production company. We believe our film has some distinguishing features that can be seen as innovative for a British film which is what Film4 tend to look for. Another reason we decided to research Film4 is because it is has a huge audience and distribution channel. They commit to showing all their films on either Channel 4 or the Film 4 channel, these channels are on all TV cable/satellite distribution companies eg, Virgin, YouView, Freeview and Sky which indicates their huge audience across Britain. Channel 4 also has a good ethos which attracted us to them which sets them apart as a commercial broadcaster as its primary concern is to fulfil public needs instead of making its shareholders money.

Editing process 2

We used Garageband software on my MacBook Pro to create a basic layer of diegetic sound for the opening scene of the title sequence.

 

I learnt from a video on Youtube some extra editing tricks, this one is called the ken burns effect, it artificially pans and zooms within the frame.

This editing feature is the 'Clip Trimmer', It trims or lengthens the base soundlayer for the whole film and makes it easier to line it up to the video clip.

This is the Crop editing feature which is used to remove useless space around the borders of shots, it helps focus the audience on the character within the scene.

This is another use of the Ken Burns affects to pan very slightly within the frame.

We learned how to use the inspector tool to finely edit alot of the shots and sequences, in this case we felt the running scene was slightly to slow so we used the clip speed editor to adjust the frames per minute.

This is more editing using the clip speed adjuster to find the right adjustment.

We found the scene within the abandoned factory was slightly to dark and the girl was not visible enough, so we decided to fiddle and edit with the 'exposure', 'contrast' and 'Saturation' of the clip simply so her outline show up more.

The Clip we sped up was a bit shakey once we did, so we used a clip stabiliser from the inspector button. 

We used the Ken Burns Effect to Zoom and Pan to the 'Welcome To Hell..'

This was done to draw audience focus and attention to the writing. 

After Using YouTube to Select the right soundtrack, We Used www.flvto.com which is a music downloader from youtube.

I Used a the youtube to mp3 downloader to download a track of lots of guns shooting and cocking the hammer, we selected the one we thought was most fitting with the gun we used in our title sequence, cut down the track to the one we wanted in Garageband, finalised to and had to export it to iTunes before it could be used on iMovie.

First Title Sequence Draft Feedback

We presented our first draft of our title sequence in class infront of our teacher and fellow students and we ask for feedback and we were presented with constructive criticism.

- Font? Consider changing to a different iMovie font, or making your own in Photoshop 
- Positioning of titles- consider alternating between top and bottom corners? Try it and see, as opening might benefit from titles being a little more dynamic. Which corner could be decided on image framing, and where the best 'spaces' for titles are. - Are titles in right order? Convention? Check other openings on Art of the Title to be sure. - Running works in time with the music.- Music atmospheric, complementing moving image - adding to mood of desperation, despair, and slightly dreamlike/out of time/ inner turmoil feel to film (that reflects your central character's state of mind)- Comedy where not intended? - chase doesn't work so we laugh.... Needs variety of shots (facial close ups, side angle of running etc) to be effective and conventional. Close ups of the men's faces looking menacing? Also need more meaning here, to give us a clue to who these men are (they look a little like young undercover policemen or A level students dressed up?! They do not look as menacing as you intend unfortunately- consider reshooting with older actors, and with close ups, side angle shots, over the shoulder shots from the girl's perspective. If we canbe made to believe in them as a serious threat, we will buy in to her need to escape, but if they don't feel threatening enough, we won't care enough or believe in the scenario. I think it is crucial ou have another look at this part and plan a new shoot.- Welcome to hell- Cut more to the beat of the music throughout the opening- Sequence in warehouse needs more to grip us in terms of the story- flashbacks, voice overs that let us into her state of mind, and offer us clues (enigma codes) as to why she is frightened, running scared, losing her grip on reality. - Are you sure you don't want two sound layers during the VoiceOver part? (For example, foley sound effects of heavy door closing, perhaps giving the impression that someone has entered the warehouse, or her mind as she drifts into restless sleep- you could leave this ambiguous for the audience, with both meanings remaining possibilities. The warehouse section basically needs to draw us into her world further, but at the moment we learn very little about her there, and this is a problem in terms of audience attention. - Camera work suits genre gritty realism- Blurs when she's in the warehouse- gives a sense of her perspective- blury, confusing, unsettled, etc- Cutting to the sound-
- Shot of her running when you are shooting her - variety of shots needed for that to have proper impact, audience to feel - her fear, their menace.- Darkness, no bright light, reflects her dark state of mind- Font to reflect something about her- handwritten, text style font? Or design your own? - Welcome to hell, works well to have long shot and then close up alongside titles- Ellipsis could be used in warehouse sequence- to reflect her perspective, like she hasn't realised it's real yet, bad dream,etc.- Montage of head shots of that person giving that message


We Referenced this Feedback list but unfortunately we were not able to tackle everything on the list, as we felt some couldn't be done until the final editing stages of the title sequence project, for example the positioning/timing of the font. We were also unable to re-shoot which we believe is a crucial change we must make so we can add a variety of shots to mainly the chase scene. We are currently working on our 3rd draft. 

Draft title sequence - no.2

Sound for the draft - Sourze Music

We were experimenting with different soundtracks layered into our title sequence to help represent the  genre and the narrative. We found this soundtrack from 'Sourze Muzik' on youtube, he stated it was to be used for 'non profit and promotional use' so we thought this was a good producer to look into. The soundtrack is hiphop based appealing to our target audience, with a dark undertone accentuated by the piano layer within the soundtrack. We found this soundtrack set of our title sequence well and worked well as a soundbridge between the scenes.

We downloaded the music using a youtube to mp3 converters which are free to use online and can be used with any youtube song. Used with copyright music these youtube to mp3 convertors are one of the highest sources of music piracy, which is why many site like this have been closed down.

Suits - Mise en scene

For our chase scene in our media blog we drew inspiration of the suits used in the Men in Black trilogy. The suits portray  power, status and a sense of commonality and inconspicuosness. This is due to the fact suits are pretty indistinct and too an extent identical. So cause people wearing them to lose their sense of individuality. This is what we wanted to portray the men chasing her have no importance as there are in a way thousands of people that can fill the same duty, they are simply hired muscle. The fact we did not use ties gives it a sense of informality and it detracts from the suits 'official status'.

This is a screenshot from our title sequence draft.

Our Title Sequences First Draft

This is our first draft there is still alot to be edited and possibly reshot.

Day 2 of shooting - 28/02/13

For the second part of our shooting, we decided that the long alleyway just round the corner from our school would be a suitable (as the scene is a shot that includes a 15 meter run)setting for the flashback that occurs from Veronica awakening, which fits perfectly from where we left off. In this scene what we wanted to achieve that a chase that takes place in Veronica's life, the Crimelords thugs trying to capture Veronica from her escape. Instead of holding the steadycam, we decided to use a tripod, with George sitting in a trolley which would be pulled backwards whilst filming Veronica and the two men in suits chasing her. By doing this enabled the camera to be more still and central, rather than someone having to run backwards whilst doing this.  

We had one person pulling it straight whilst running, and two people on either side pulling and running in order to keep the trolley straight therefore the shooting of the run still and professional too. For our shot, we had Veronica in the middle with the two men either side her about 2 meters back. The trolley was pulled backwards whilst the shot was being taking, enabling for the run to look realistic as possible, eventually with one of the men pulling a capgun out and shooting. This was a prop we used, which added to the tenseness of the scene in contrast to the previous scene which was instead quite eerie, lonely and negative.

We were able to shoot this about 3 times, which was enough for us to use and edit into our opening. We didn't come across many difficulties, apart from having to pull the trolley backwards in a straight line! However we managed to achieve what we needed. 

Day 1 of shooting - 09/01/13

 My group and I decided that the best location to shoot part 1 of our opening would the old factory just off the main road to Kidlington. It has quite an eerie feel to it, which is exactly the effect we wanted to portray of our opening. The weather suited the setting, beginning to become dusk and very light snow. This set the tone and mood of our opening, signified quite a chill and somewhat negative atmosphere of Veronica's escape. We began filming with our handheld  camera by the main road right next to this factory, of Veronica walking sullenly and exhausted looking for a place to stay. We had no problems with filming this, as it was quite straight forward, expect for the traffic as one of our shots would mean stepping out on the main road at rush hour. We edited and cut time out of while using a slow motion effect. Adding to this we used a steadyhand camera for a purpose, we thought by using it, would give the opening (and our film) more of a realistic and biographical view, as if the audience was following Veronica through her journey and escape.

Once in the factory, we began by filming Veronica walking towards the factory. Whilst doing this, we came across a slab which had written 'welcome to hell...' we had the idea of erasing this, and instead adding our film title as it was a perfect space to write our film name on. However we decided to keep the 'welcome to hell...' as it added to the eeriness, especially negativity of the setting that Veronica would be part of. 

We followed Veronica through into the factory, this was done to show the audience exactly what Veronica would be putting up with for the night, especially to create empathy towards her. One thing that became difficult was that inside was quite dark, so became a little hard to film, however we overcame this by using a torchlight Alexandra had on her phone, which we used with the steadycam. Our last shot of Veronica for the day was off her taking her coat of and lying on the ground, when she was lying down we put the camera on the floor facing her, and a shot that we would include in our opening was of Veronica closing her eyes and using the fade out to signifie her transition into sleep, which lead into her nightmare about the man she stole from. We purposely didn't include any speech in our opening, as it helped portray Veronica's loneliness and and also helps set the atmosphere, as we are aware of how alone she is and that there is no one to talk to or trust.

Improvised camera equipment

  For our flashback/chase scene we wanted a smooth dolly shot style as opposed to contrast with the handheld/steadicam work used in the rest of the opening. We put or cameraman, George Nolan In the trolley with a tripod jammed between his legs and the trolley to keep it steady, and 1 person on each side of the trolley mainly to stabilise it and keep it on track and straight as the ground we were on was curved and one person at the back pulling the trolley smoothly delivering the buildup of speed to the trolley till we were at a good average speed. It was quite tricky to master getting a smooth and straight shot so it took us a few takes to get a shot we were happy with. We had to set a general marker to get all the characters within the shot and to improve the symmetry as we discovered when we were reviewing our shots that in alot of them you could not see the other suited actor.

Project Inspiration - City Of God

City of god

The City of god is a crime drama movie set in one of the slums ('favelas') in Rio de Janeiro.

The editing transitions, camerawork and mise en scene used was a huge inspiration in the storyboarding and planning of our title sequence mainly in the middle flashback scene. The most notable of which was the jump cuts to black which used a short sound bite as a sound bridge between the two scenes. The close ups on peoples hands an feet was also a notable inspiration. The Transition between the pace of the scenes was also a feature that we ran through our title sequence as we felt is gave the film a good contrast showing two sides of life of the protagonist. The Panoramic shot used around the city of gods protagonist is also an element we recreated and modified to suit our needs.

Moodboard for target audience

Official Shooting Schedule

Screenshots of the editing process

Editing the blackout-clip timing to accommodate the length of the audio clip.

Selecting the clip to apply the slow motion editing feature

Sectioning of the audio clip to increase the volume.

 Erasing clip time to reduce the length of the first draft to prepare for the addition of the next scene.

The iMovie editing interface.