Final Film

This is my final film. Unfortunately the ratio has been changed from 16:9 to 4:3 when uploading.

My teacher should be sending a copy to you (the examiner) in the correct ratio, and this should make it easier to mark.

production report

Most of our film was filmed during weekends, and then we would take the footage in to school and edit it during the week. Because the actors we used were form a GCSE drama class, it was easy to get them to perform the roles to a high standard, especially with the two main actors. On one of the shooting days, when filming the bathroom scene, my partner was away doing a P.E assessment. This therefore meant that I had to shoot on my own. However because we had already planed every shot in our technical recce, it was an easy and quick process. When filming with lots of extras, we split the actors into two groups, those with lines and those without.  I set up the camera and got our scripted actors to stand in the correct position, while Tom gave a briefing to the others, explaining what they were expected to do.  This was really useful on set as it allowed us to gain the best from our actors, as well as get filming done quickly. All in all the filming went smoothly and as planned.   

This is a clip of us managing the extras in the scene where Ronnie moves from one side of the table to the other. As you can see we wanted them to stay as still as possible in order to move the actor, and obtain the shot.

post 19: Evaluation Questions & Tasks

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

Task 1

1.       We shot the film in color in order to get the best picture possible, because the camera would pick up the lighting better this way. This also allowed us the opportunity to change our minds about having the film in black and white if we wanted too.

2.        We then change the picture in editing, using the black and white tool, along with the color and contrast tool. This allowed us to also manipulate the shades of gray on the image, as opposed to filming in black and white, or even on stock film.

3.       We created our titles on PowerPoint, and then saved them as JPEGS. After this we imported them into the editing software and put them on our film. This was mainly because the editing software we used didn’t have the font we wanted for our film (DomCasual BT).

4.       The credits at the end where again done on PowerPoint, for the same reason. However we had to move the image around so that all the titles lined up. We also imported a music file, which we originally didn’t want, however we felt it fit the tone of the film better.

5.       We decided later in the process that we wanted fewer titles at the begging of our film, as it took away from the dialog. Once we had made the changes, we separated the titles out to fit in-between the dialog, in order not to have the audience miss anything.

6.         In this scene we wanted the sound of the dad in the kitchen, overlapping with the two boys, so we filmed the two sounds separately. This meant it was easier to cut, move and manipulate the outcome of the sound in the room. We also added the sound of a kettle boiling.

7.       In the last scene we have over lapped the crash zoom and still with the audio clip of the two boys fighting, in order to show that Ronnie is in Edger’s head.  

8.       Whenever there is evidence that Ronnie is not there, such as only having one bowl put away, we used a fade to black. This hopefully, subconsciously tell the audience that something is amiss.

9.       We made sure that continuity was the best we could do. In order to do this, for example, we filmed the entire opening of the door from both the outside and in.

10.   Then we went through the footage frame by frame, to obtain what we thought was the best match for the image.

11.   We tried to use naturalistic lighting when shooting, in order to get the most realistic feel to our film. You can see, for example that we have dropped the blinds to the exact position we wanted, in order to get the best lighting possible.  

12.   In the bedroom scene, we took some existing objects out of my room, in order to fit the scene better. For example, the door normally has more cotes and bags on it, however ,we thought that if there was only one coat this would be a suttle hint that there is only on boy.

13.   When we filmed the shot reverse shot, of the confrontation, we obviously filmed the scene from two angles, and edited them in post production. However, we also tried to focus on Edgar the entire time, rather than his dad, back to him. This was to show that he feels the whole world is watching him and against him, hiding his non existing twin brother.  

14.   When the alarm sound goes off, followed by the flat line, this is two sound clips from a public domain website, that we overlapped, not the actual alarm sound. We also cut them down and faded them out rather than have them go on for too long.

15.   Half way through filming, our actor who played Edger, unfortunately cut his face. This of course screwed up the continuity of the film, but we had to just go with it. However the black and white effect sometimes hides this slightly.  

16.         Of the days I was editing, I decided that it would work really well if we had a shot of the door from the outside, to bridge the two scenes together. Therefore, I went back to the location, which was located extremely closely, and filmed the extra scene, and I feel it ties the two scenes together perfectly.  

Task Two: finished postcard

Below is my finished postcard, front and back.

As you can see I have gone for a simplistic design, much like the ones in my designs, especially . I have followed the conventions on the front of the postcard, putting the title in bold and a simplistic photo. This helps not only to build an enigma but also sticks with the style of the film, hopefully giving it a raw and realistic feel to it.

On the back I have continued to stick to conventions, having the title again printed at the top. Also I have included a space for a stamp and an address so that the postcard can be used in its primary function.  I have however broken some conventions. I have included a brief synopsis to attract a wider audience and let them know what to anticipate. However I have tried hard not to reveal too much about the plot, in giving the twist away.

As you can see, the production notes have also been included, but they are printed bigger than the ‘normal’ convention. This is so that it is easier to read, hopefully making it quicker in the process. I have also included a QR Code.   More than 11 million people in the UK alone now access the internet and services from a Smartphone, and therefore it seemed logical to include a link to the blog. This also means that the website will saved automatically on the users’ phone, making accesses easier later. 

Task Three: Magazine film review page 

The article reads:

 'A new look at an old subject, Living with Ronnie is a short film from brand new directors Alex Coles and Tom reading, that deals with schizophrenia . We have all seen films about this subject matter, most noticeably Fight club (David Fincher) in 1999, however this is a totally different take on the subject. Most interestingly the film uses’ a combination of stark black and white, and colour, a brave move from the two new directors, but somehow it works in their favour.  The film is set in the middle class  village of Kings Langley and its local school, and the contradiction of the almost picture perfect location with the tough reality of subject matter, tied together with the colourlessness of the film,  creates a eerie artificial feel to the film. Soon enough, things start to get weird and Ronnie becomes a sinister character, watching Ronnie’s every move and the two young actors (George Callcutt and Gabriel Oakley) pull this off brilliantly.Being a short amateur production, the film has its floors, especially in the technical aspects of things, but this does not take away from the strong storytelling aspect the two young filmmakers have, and you can feel real heart and effort behind this film. THE VERDICT  However much we love this film, it cannot be ignored that there are floors present, but never the less this is an interesting film from two fresh young filmmakers. '

I have tried to stay close to the conventions of Total film magazine, in order to make it look professional and realistic. Therefore I have tried to copy every little detail, such as the website at the bottom, the star rating system, including the exact colours, and the way that the line on the left side of the page rest under the picture and against the title box at the same time. I have also found other short film reviews, in order to stick to the convention of having two smaller reviews; however the reviews are cut down for my product.  I feel that I have been sucsessfully in creating this product, making it look like the real thing.

I used Photoshop when making this product. This was because it was easy to insert image and text and then manipulate them to fit conventions, in order for it to look professional. The magazine review is used to help advertise our film, along with the postcards. It helps get our film to the widest audience available. However it is not conventional, as you can see from the example, for film magazines, such as total film, to review short films. It is instead much more likely that you will find short film reviews online.

Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Task 1 : This is our audience feedback on the film

Post card feedback

I asked a selected number of people to give a brief written feedback on my post card and this is what I received   

 

The feed back reads:

After seeing the postcard for Living with Ronnie, I was Satisfied with the overall image. Specifically I liked h figure and shadows on the front. I like the way that Alex manipulate the two images together, I feel that the postcard was simplistic but that this worked well. Looking at the back of the postcard, once again it was very simplistic, however this stuck with the theme. I liked the inclusion of the QR code. I feel that this will appeal to a modern audience. The postcard opens enough questions that I would watch the film in order t have them answered.

Charlotte Barnes 18

My first thoughts on the postcard was confusion, I was unsure how one person could have two shadows. This made me want to find out more about the plot. I was rather enthralled after I read the synopsis. The layout of the postcard was very good and clear. This made it easy to understand. However I would say that the figure on the front was a bit edgy and not made of smooth curves like people should look like. But other than that a very good postcard.

Joel Simmons 18

I think that the simplicity of the black and white colour scheme and the minimal design are very effective – It allows you to concentrate on the image. Using a man with two shadows also works very well as it gives me a subtle indication on what the film might be about. I like the title font, as it is also simple, but looks slightly childish and innocent. I also like how the main words of the title are enlarged and emphasised. On the back of the postcard the childish font is continued. The description is good as it give an over view of the film without giving two much away. I was pleased that the film was about mental health, because the shadows on the front suggests this.

Zoe Fletcher 17   

  

 What have you learned from the feedback?

I have learned that people were interested in seeing the film both from my postcard and my film review. This has reinforced my knowledge and understanding of marketing a short film and why a production company would use these methods. It was not to difficult to create both products with a basic understanding of software such as photoshop.

I have also learned that the younger generation are open to a more artistic style o f film making than I anticipated. I previously thought that most people would be turned away by the fact the film is mainly in black and white, but I didn’t receive one negative piece of feedback about this factor.

What would you change if you could do the project again?

Two main things about the project stick out to me, when I think about changing anything. Firstly I would have had more up to date equipment. This would, for example be better cameras; to pull shots into focus from out of focus quicker, i.e. the opening shot of Edgar. Alternatively I would of used a track to obtain my crash zoom at the end of the film, however I feel that we worked with what we had and It aloud us t think of interesting ways to obtain the shot we wanted.

Secondly, I would have loved to make a longer film. I understand that the film is a short; however the limitation of 5-6 minutes was very constraining for us, especially when writing the script. If we were allowed to have a 15-20 film I feel we could have explored the subject matter even deeper. However I feel that we did well on the task bounders we were set.

Magazine feedback

 

Below is a video clip of a few people aged 17 & 18 giving feedback on my magazine review:

The overall feel I got from this was that they seemed to like the style and format of the review, from the tiny details that make it look professional, to the humours tag line. However they said that the other film review on the side don’t necessarily fit the genre of my film, and possibly feel out of place.   

Question 4 - How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

New media technology is any equipment or technology that transfers information using digital techniques, or data networks. Examples of new media technologies include websites, CD-ROMs and DVDs, where as television, film or paper-based products, are now consider old media technologies. A list of new media technologies I used are:

•  Blogger
•  adobe premiere plus editing software
•  Microsoft word
•  Photoshop
•  PowerPoint
• Iphone

We used blogger in order to make it easy to access our course work for teaches and examiners alike. It was also a useful way to embed pictures such as scripts and storyboards and links to research. If Blogger had not been available, we would have to send physical copies of all our coursework, and this could lead to papers going missing or not arriving in time for moderation.

When editing, we used adobe premiere plus editing software. This was used primarily to cut footage precisely, as its simple but effective editing software. We also used it to transferee the footage into black and white, as well as changing the contrast on some shots. If we didn’t have any editing software we would have had to shot our footage on stock film, rather than tape, in order to cut and splice the footage together. We would also have to shot in black and white, without changing the contrast. It would also make it harder to upload the final film to the blog for moderation.

I used Microsoft word in order to write up all my posts, so that the grammar and spellings were correct. Without this I would ether had to write directly onto blogger posts, and then get someone to check it for me, wasting valuable time, or if we didn’t have computers at all, hand write it and send it in the post.

To create my post card I used Photoshop. This was the easiest way to manipulate my images and create the product that I desired. Without this, I would ultimately have to ether draw my image, or cut and stick my photos to paper, meaning the quality would be lowered. Finally, I used PowerPoint to allow me to embed photos. Blogger will only allow you to embed photos that are in a JPEG format, and the easiest way to do this is by using PowerPoint. Without it my blog would not be able to hold items such as my script or storyboard.

I used my Iphone to record my video discussing and highlighting how my ancillary tasks work with the short film. This was incredibly useful as it was easy to film and but more importantly easy to upload to YouTube, as I could do it using the phone itself. It also came in handy when taking photos on set. We gave it to a fellow student and asked them to take photos. This meant that I didn’t need to explain how to use a ‘professional’ camera in order to obtain the best image, as you can just point and click with the Iphone, and the inbuilt software will create the best image possible. The only downside to filming with the Iphone is the shot size comes out strange, however the audio is very clear and makes up for this.     

Research into target audience

Throughout England there are many short film festivals, such as the Bristol Encounters Short Film & Animation Festival, the Edinburgh International Film Festival and most notably, London Short Film Festival (LSFF). (http://shortfilms.org.uk/) The LSFF is an annual event that presents the best in UK short film-making talent. For a couple of weeks in January the festival takes over multiple independent cinemas and venues in London to showcase a range of short films and next year (2013) the festival will be celebrating its 10^th anniversary. Last year (2011) over 5,000 tickets sold with 60+ events across 10 days and 22 venues. Out of the 220 films that were screened, 75% of events sold to capacity, with the others not far behind. This shows that short film festivals are extremely popular. The Guardian Guide states its “The Best Short Film Festival in the World”, but who are the people who attend these festivals?  “Film fans who prefer multimedia thrills to multiplex fodder have flocked to this festival since its inception” – Metro. It stands to reason that in a modern day society, where roughly 100 remakes, sequels or reboots are released in one year (2011) that people are looking elsewhere for originality. But it is not only short film festivals that are showing these films. Feature length festivals, such as the Palme d'Or trophy for the best short film, at the Cannes film festival or a similar trophies and awards at the Sundance film festival.

Our film will hopefully fit into these festivals easily, as it is simplistic in style but has a lot to say. This is partly why we will edit the film into black and white, to show the reality of the situation and keep it simple, with a message. Although the subject matter is familiar, we hopefully will have a British take on it, brining something new and interesting to the table, showing the hardships and reality of living with schizophrenia. We also believe that the film will help raise awareness to the severity of the illness, and help people to really understand what the effects are.          

Magazine Article

As you can see, conventionally the magazine will have a main review each page, with a selection of smaller reviews to one side. Each review has its own picture, with the text located underneath. It I also conventional to see the title of the film overlapping the picture in a whit box, with a rating out of five below.

The bigger reviews will also have the first letter of the opening paragraph, in a red box, to stay close to the theme colures of Total film. You can see that underneath this main article there is a section for a verdict and this is used to summaries the article.

At the bottom of the page, you can see the page number, along with the web address, and a separate address to subscribe too. This can be found on every page.

Here I have analysed, highlighted and made notes on another article:

Once again, I have looked in particular at the size and style of the font and the positioning of it, in relation to the pictures. I also focused on the language and style of the article, so that when writing my own it will match best as possible.

 

Analysing postcards and posters

Film Posters:

As you can see, film posters often stick to conventions, but depending on the genre of the film they conventions vary. A lot of modern horror films use close ups of the eye, in order to show a claustrophobic atmosphere, where as comedies are more likely to have two of the main characters back to back. A recent trend is to have the main character situated with their back to the photo, to create a mystery to the film. Another recent trend that is used all around the world is to use a contrast of blue and orange. This creates the feeling of action and drama wanted to pull in the widest audience.  Most of these posters have the title of the film situated at the bottom third of the poster, and if not then in the top third, with the name of actors at the top. A different way of marketing posters is to have the text cover the entire picture much like the ones below.

Postcards:

It is very common for short independent films to make postcards instead of movie posters, this is because they may find it harder to make movie posters as it would cost more to print than a postcard. An advantage of making postcard instead is that they are cheaper and easy to leave at cinemas and film festivals.   As you can see a lot of these postcards follow the set conventions, however, they also have more freedom to break them. Unlike ‘Hollywood’ films, there are no restrictions on what you can do with a postcard (other than the size), so that the more you break bounders, the more interesting it will become.   

The back of the post cards are very simplistic, as seen in this example. They typically hold the title of the film, production notes such as director and cast, a place for a stamp and any company logos needed. There is also room for an address to be written in order for the postcard to be sent.

Underneath are three of my postcard designs. I have tried to stick with a simplistic design to stay true to the style of our film, and the black and white nature of the subject matter. This will also hopefully help to catch the audience’s eye, making the title clear and easy to notice.

This is the design that I have deiced to follow. I feel that is simple enough to easily catch the eye of my audience; however it holds enough ambiguity about it to create an enigma about the shadows.  I will also try and find a font that best matches my film when creating and editing my final piece.    

Influences on ‘Living with Ronnie’

At the start of the course, with one of our teaches,  we studied ‘French new wave’ in brief, looking at the work of Jean-Luc Godard in particular. This was a good starting place as it showed us a different take on film making, other than the typical Hollywood style of modern films, and emphasized the existents you can go to with a minimalistic budget. We learned that by using the camera in interesting ways and holding our shots a few seconds longer it can become a really interning way of film making.

We then moved on to look at other film makers that interested us. This included films about schizophrenia from film makers such as David Fincher, Alfred Hitchcock, Richard Kelly and lastly David Lynch. Firstly looking at Fincher, we watched the legendary, ‘Fight Club’. This was an incredibly helpful film to watch when studying ideas on how to translate schizophrenia on to the screen. We kept returning to this film for inspiration, and this lead to us having a flash back scene at the end in order not to leave the audience in confusion, but to leave enough up to debate.

After this we looked at the work of Alfred Hitchcock, and psycho in particular. This once again showed us how to film schizophrenia, but in a totally different way. It showed us how to build suspense and the importance of a mysterious element. This re-enforced our understanding that when filming schizophrenia, we should leave the audience in confusion, until the end. We also looked at a few scenes from other Hitchcock films such as vertigo, and this gave us the idea to use a crash zoom or ‘Hitchcock zoom’.

One of the later films we watched was Richard Kelly’s ‘Donnie Darko’. This was a completely different take on schizophrenia and showed us the pain and suffering that the illness can have on the person. However this film also gave the condition a Sci-fi element that we didn’t necessarily want. The main thing we took from this film was the fact that Frank’s voice was in Donnie’s head, and how you could shoot this affectively.

Finally, we looked at David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’. This helped us develop the style we wanted and lead us to put the film in black and white in the editing stage of the process. We loved the nightmarish feel the film had and felt in some ways we wanted to emulate that. This lead to use trying to leave corners of the room covered by shadows in cretin situations, creating a mysterious atmosphere.

     

Eraserhead Trailer: