Coursework Evaluation

Final Title Sequence

Cut 3

This third cut is the closest to our final version of the opening sequence. However there is still a number of areas that we feel need improving.

Changes made to third cut:
• Re filmed the first shot of protagonist walking into the room - ensuring the card covered wall was shown
• Some of the cards were changed to fit in with the new plot
• Added more items into the mise-en-scene of the room making it look more natural
• Added the alley way scene to break up the card sequence - adding in more live action
• Added in the woods section again breaking up the card sequence and adding more live acton and variety to the opening
• Changed the order of the opening around in post production to make the narrative more intense

Problems faced and criticisms given when filming

After talking to our teachers we have been given some serious feedback as to how to improve our opening - making it evident that further filming is going to be required.

Criticism given/Problems faced: 

• not clear that protagonist is filming herself on webcam - include over the shoulder shot of protagonist filming herself to ensure this is clear
• alley way section not completely effective - add point of view shot from the antagonist
• the woods section - protagoninsts head is cut off in one shot, protagonist is out of sight of camera when running -re-film and ensure protagonist is filmed correctly
• hand over protagonist face not compeltely effective/screaming needs to be louder and more dramatic - re-film
• hanging shot appears too suddenly/no build up - add new section before to provide evidence that protagonist is suicidal
• music doesn't fit the tone/mood of sequence completely - change
• titles not effective - place actors name titles over live action/change font

Titles Tutorial Video

Editing Task

In our group, Beth wanted to learn how to properly edit using Adobe Premiere Pro. I sat down with her and went through the basics - cutting clips to size, adding titles, adding music and making a successful fade in and out. I have recorded the work that we did as evidence to show that she has made progress and will now start to edit our final intro

Introduction of new character

After cutting together 2 drafts now, it has become clear to us (through feedback) that our opening does not have enough variety as it needs. In order to improve this and add variety to the opening, we plan to add in a character to the opening. In the story there is mention of a mystery man that is making the female protagonist feel as she does. We plan to show flashbacks of the female and the male in a live action shot. This will allow for us to use the camera in a much more creative way and will also help to break up the card sequence - something which has been suggested to us. We feel that by adding in this male character it will make the narrative of the opening much more intense and allow for people to being to gain an insightful understanding as to what our opening sequence is about - we also feel as though it will help them to understand what the rest of our film would have been about.

Audience and Institutions Brain Storm

Filming Schedule

Wednesday 27th February - Shots which require re-filming

• Walk in shot - use tripod
• Laptop shot - ensure continuity is kept (female protagonist on screen not accurate)
• First 3 cards - original were cut off slightly
• Over the shoulder shot - ensure continuity is kept (books visible behind laptop)
• Film the protagonist holding up different cards - related to her stalker
• Film alley/beating scene
• Walking up to the wall - use tripod/film slower/ensure chair and bibles are visable
• Rope scene - using a bigger/more effective rope
• Last card shown on wall - use tripod /zoom out for last shot of opening

Second Cut

Improvements made since 1st Cut: 
• The setting has been modified to make it look more like a bedroom - making the room appear more personal to the protagonist
• Made sure that the cards were clear and easy to read
• Added new music to the piece - we feel it fits the mood of the opening more, creating a more eerie mood
• Included a new shot showing off the wall covered in hand made cards expressing how the protagonist feels
• Changed the hanging shot so it is clear she is hanging
• Made sure the chair falls over in the hanging scene - making it much more dramatic
• Modified the protagonists make up - making the bruises and cuts more prominent

Challenges we face: 
• Filming had to take place yet again with no tripod - some shots are wonky and have too much movement
• The nope is not thick enough, therefor it does not look as effective as we had hoped it would - it does not have the correct presence in the shot that we wanted
• When gathering feedback, people said that the opening was repetitive with the card sequence, so we plan to add live action and titles intercut between the sequence to break it up
• The lighting of the shots have not been kept the same, therefor re-shoots are in order as it is too much of a dramatic change to sort out using Premiere Pro.


 

Music Choices

Audiences and Institutions Brainstorm

Props, Costumes, Characters, MakeUp

Actors: 

Female protagonist- Beth Richardson

Props:

Laptop with webcam - Reece

Rope (to hang the girl with) - Beth

Small lights (to use for the lighting) - Charlotte

Pole (to hang girl on) - Harry

Cards for the character to hold up - Charlotte

Costumes:

Actress is bringing her own dark black clothing (strappy top and dark jeans)

Dark make-up 

Location:

House/bedroom - Harry's

Magazine Article Analysis

The magazine industry has been around for over a century now. During this time, on the surface there has been small amount of change to the main concept of the magazine. Yet, in the modern era and the ever expanding sophistication of technology, the magazine industry is becoming under increasing threat. So what does the future hold for the magazine industry?

With the growing market for tablets and smart phones, magazine publishers need to make the decision of whether or not they want to make the digital switch - do they want to make their magazine solely an online read, or do they want to continue printing hard copies? Are they going to keep their company one step ahead of the game? Will they come up with the next unique selling point (USP) or will they fall behind with the times? 

With all of the growing changes, just how is everything effecting the audience that purchase magazines? 






From the diagrams it is clear that the digital market isnt affecting the sales of magazines, and they are still being bought - just not digitally. If anything, through the introduction of digital applications, magazine sales have increased and will continue to increase as the new media has begun to interest and entertain people in new ways - unlike the original paper back copy.

The article that I decided to analyse was taken from the Guardian's Magazine section on their website.
The article was published on 24th January 2013 - so the article is very current.
The article was written by Stuart Dredge who works as a freelance journalist and editor specialising in mobile apps and mobile content.
Stuart started The Guardians App Blog on February 2011- so it is still a fairly new area for The Guardian paper. However, the fact that Stuart started this blog and over the years has posted over 800 times in it, suggests that he knows what he is talking about and is going to write a fairly accurate article that should have a high level of reliability.

In the article that I read, Stuart is summarising how Magazines are being careful about how they approach the app market and are not rushing into anything too fast - they are experimenting by 'spin offs' hoping to find a new revenue. These experiments will eventually help the publisher decide wether or not they think they are ready to take their magazine fully digital.

The key quote that I feel summed up the article was:

'This all makes logical publishing sense: take a supplement or one-shot magazine that's already been designed for print, and turn it into a digital version for the app stores. It's a good way to test the app waters.'

This quote is backing up the path that publishers are choosing to follow.

In small groups, a number of us shared our own quotes and took notes on each of them. 
One of the quotes that was discussed was 'Ebooks and tablets are rapidly changing the distribution' 
The source of this quote is Englishandmedia.com/articles - a specified website that purely focuses on publishing magazines that talk about the future of the magazine industry and what the future holds for it. 
The article that this quote came from is about how the ever growing market for apps could effect and eventually kill the magazine industry. One of the areas that it focuses on is how the consumer is said to be too lazy to go out and buy a magazine - when they know that it is available for them in their tablet at home. With nearly of the magazines revenue coming from print, with the decreasing demand for paper copies, magazine industries need to reconsider the way that they distribute their products. 

First Rough Cut

With the footage that we got on Sunday, in class, we started to edit together what we had. Before we had exported anything, we showed our teacher who then gave us some much needed, constructive criticism. After he watched our cut, he told us that we need to consider:
- Adding another section to add variety and make the storyline slightly clearer
- Ensure our filming is accurate 
- Think about the lighting in the last clips (shadows etc)
- Ensure the cards being held up by the character can be read 

Research Project

I was set the task to individually research into the history and publishing of a set magazine - mine being GQ. This research had to be collated together in presentation that I would deliver to a small group. I would then have to take notes on two other peoples presentations, as long as they had a different publisher to mine.

My presentation:


Speech Notes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pj14qwm9plx4wey/GQ%20Notes.rtf


Jess Mockler - Playstation Magazine

future plc - video games tech cycling films photography 

Niche market 

playstation brand helped sales 

launched in 1999 

Audience - ages varies 15-18 

male 

middle upper class price 

Heading at the top 

titles on left - read left to right 

dark colour scheme - yellow makes it stand out 

follows house style 

Facebook page and app - market research - listening to their reader 

expanded globally 

Magazine is a part of its own brand - people that play playstation will buy this 

Connor Barbor: Top Gear Magazine

Top Gear Mag 

Bbc worldwide publisher 

Automobile magazine 

1993 - £3.95 

History: 

1922 

6 companies coming together

First national operation operation 

Multi media - TV podcast 

Bbc worldwide is an a arm of bbc

Bbc focus on mostly 18+ 

They do try and aim for younger audiences 

100,000 hours of programming 

Most TV shows are magazines 

THE MAG

They have a website 

Promotes their magazine 

Dark and masculine website 

APP 

free app 

Cheaper 

PODCAST 

it's free

Promotion tool 

Speak of magazine in podcast 

EXPANDED 

show stared 2002 

After it started 

26 countries 

December 2007 200,000 copies sold 

Introduced a comedy section 

Analysis 

Symmetrical 

Masculine font 

Bold font 

No negative space 

The use of color helps 

Contents page - structured page 

Posh typography - gentleman 

Mclaren is significant - main attraction 

At the end if the presentations we were given scored out of 4 on our Presentation Slides, Presentation Skills, Research Detail, Use of key terms. 

1 = Excellent 

2 = Great 

3 = Okay 

4 = Bad

The aim being to have the lowest score. 

My scores: 

Myself: 1 1 1 3

James Michie: 1 1 2 3

Connor Barbor: 1 1 1 3

Jess Mockler: 1 1 1 2

Charlotte Fischer: 1 1 1 1 

Immy Welsford: 1 1 1 1 

Presentation Slides: 6 

Presentation Skills: 6 

Research Detail: 7 

Use of key terms: 13

From my feedback I have learnt that my slides were very effective due to the fact that they had minimal text on them and they incorporated different forms of media on them (video reviews). This enhanced my presenting skills as it meant that I was not reading off of the board or my laptop. The area that I need to improve on is my key terms. I did not include enough in my presentation - by including more it shows that I truly understand what I am talking about and that I am not repeating what other have written. 

Filming: Day 1

Today we filmed the first draft of our project.

Firstly, we needed it to be dark when we filmed so we had to wait until it was the evening. 

We needed to set up the room before we could start filming. For this, we needed to place lamps into the correct places of the room. If the lamp was in the wrong place, you would get a lens flare appearing in the camera - something that needed to be avoided at all costs. We then needed to set up the desk in the room, this was done easily enough. 

 The only area that could have been improved in the set up of the room is the plain walls - I think that if we were to re-film, we should add posters or drawings to the walls which will add to the tense feeling that something is not right.

One of the difficulties we faced as a group was following the storyboard. As we didn't have it with us, we were going by a digital version. Also, some of the angles that we had hoped to film were not as easy as it was to write down on paper, this meant that we needed to change certain shots and think up new creative angles that we could use to still successfully convey the meaning if our film, whilst keeping a high level of cinematography.

Another element that we found difficult to control was the continuity of the miss-en-scene. In a few of the shots we did not realise that some of the background had changed and the make-up of the model had altered. Luckily though, we noticed there and then and not when we came back to edit. This meant that we would do a quick re-shoot with the miss-en-scene under control and back in the same state as it was in previous shots.

Filming Locations

This is the location that we will be filming our opening at. We have chosen this location because it has a very lonely, small feel towards it. We think that this room will create the right atmosphere for

our film, as we will be able to light it correctly, which will hopefully convey the idea that something     is wrong with the protagonist. In the room we will have a desk in the room which will house the laptop. We will also have a lamp on the desk, which will not only help to light the room how we want it, but it will also add to the minimalistic, simple feel of the room. 

Revised Animatic

After listening to our feedback, we decided to edit the animatic and re present it. We only made a few small changes to the animatic - putting in foley sound effects  and adding in movement - zooms and camera tracking.
In our presentation, we tried to use more technical language and explain why we had used various shots and how they created meaning. The one area that was said we needed to really work on, was our editing. We did not speak about it too much and if we want to achieve the highest grades then when it comes to our evaluations, we would have to talk about why we chose to edit the film as we did and how it has created meaning and conveyed the ideas we wanted to get across.

Animatic

To help visualise what are film is going to look like. We needed to make an animatic. An animatic is a preliminary version of a film, produced by shooting successive sections of a storyboard and adding a soundtrack. Now that we had our storyboard in the final order, the making of the animatic could begin. To start, we photographed each individual part of the story board, and then placed them into Adobe Premier Pro. From here, we arranged the photographs and set them to the right amount of time that we wanted the shot to last for. We then looked at the kind of cuts & transitions that we could make. Most of our cuts are going to be straight cuts whilst we do have a few cross dissolves in there to keep the fluidity of the piece going when changing the scene. We then added in the music for the piece. As we did not need to use the exact music, I used a piece from the 'Dark Knight Rises' sound track by Hans Zimmer. This piece of music reflects the vibe and feel that we want our final piece to have. 








Once the animatic was made, we needed to present it. After we did this we got a number of constructive comments: 
    - Add movement to the animatic
    - Use technical language when presenting
    - Look at the evaluation questions and refer to how our film is targeting/answering these questions
    - Look at how to create meaning - how are we targeting different social groups 
    - What is the specific genre of the piece

Updated Roles

At this point in time, we need our project to keep moving. To ensure that this happens we have assigned new roles to each member of our group:

Reece: Animatic

Harry: Shooting Locations

Beth&Charlotte: Prop list, Characters, Make-up, Costumes

Shot List

The shot list for our final film are as follows:

• Long shot from behind character
• Mid shot from behind character
• Long shot of character and laptop
• Close up of laptop (point of view)
• Close up of characters face (webcam point of view) 
• Long shot behind character (high angle) 
• Close up of characters face (webcam point of view) 
• Mid shot of laptop (over the shoulder) 
• Long shot - tracks around the room
• Mid shot of laptop (over the shoulder) 
• Mid shot of laptop (over the shoulder) 
• Mid shot of character (webcam point of view) 
• Mid shot of character
• Extreme close up of characters eyes
• Mid shot of character (webcam point of view) 
• Close up of titles (birds eye view) 
• Close up titles (birds eye view)  
• Close up titles (birds eye view)   
• Close up of titles (birds eye view)  
• Close up of titles (birds eye view)   
• Mid shot of character hanging
• Long shot of character picking up the camera (webcam point of view)

Final Storyboard

Since our group put our storyboard up, there have been a number of discussions about the order of our intro. The main cause for concern was the positioning of the title sequence. The group thought that based on our thriller opening research, that we should have a bit of live action film before going into the title sequence. After moving the storyboard around, we decided that we should have the suicide tape section first and then go into the title sequence. The reason that we have decided to arrange our intro like this is so that we can build the maximum amount of suspense in the time given. We felt that if we started off with a suicide tape, it will leave the audience feeling some sort of sadness but also confusion as to where the film is heading. This would then lead into the title sequence. After the title sequence, we can begin to resolve the questions asked by the very first scene by showing the person they thought had just killed themselves is still alive.
For this storyboard, we have added large arrows that show the angle of the camera. This just reinforces the shot as our drawing were not highly accurate at times. We have also added the types of transitions that we will use for each shot. Another important element that we added was the shot time. This has made us realise that we may need to change the amount of shots that we use to show certain things. For example, how many shots would it take to show someone moving across a room? Do we need more than two angles?

First Draft Storyboard

This is the first draft of our storyboard. This storyboard is no where near as detailed as we need it to be. In this version of the storyboard, we had decided to place the title sequence at the very beginning. We thought that this would be a good idea as it would slowly introduce the audience to the film and prepare them for what is to come.
We need to add many different things onto our storyboard. First, we need to add the shot length - this will give us an indication as to whether or not we are over or under the 2 minute time limit. We need to add sound bridges and transitions which will make the whole thing more detailed.

Actress Choice For Our Final Piece

In our final piece, we are only going to need a female actress. As this person is going to be pretending to kill themselves, we want the actress to be someone that we can dress up to look dark, and mysterious.

Our first idea was to use Jodie Burridge. Jodie would have been a good choice, but we as a group we didn't feel as though she was the right person to use in our film; we don't think that she gave off the right feeling for our mysterious opening.

Our second - and final - choice, is Beth Richardson. The reason we have chosen to use Beth is due to the fact that she has long dark hair. We had always envisaged our character to have long flowing dark hair as it adds to the mystery of the character. We plan to have Beth wearing a fair amount of dark makeup which again will emphasise the mystery and darkness. Beth is also a Drama student which means that she will be able to act. As a group we have decided that she is overall the best possible choice for our film.

Continuity Task Evaluation.

How has the Continuity Task aided my understanding of the film-making process? 

Storyboard/Shot list: When we had come up with the story for our continuity task, we needed to bring it to life in a number if steps. The first of those steps being to draw up a storyboard and shot list. The storyboard would be vital as we would need to follow it when it came to filming. 

I think that our group used the storyboard when filming very effectively. Having it with us when filming allowed us to efficiently get the whole film shot. Simple things like knowing where to set up the camera for the correct angle, and if there would be any dialogue in the shot, meant that we were able to film everything in a good amount of time, leaving us with a good chunk of time to edit and re-shoot anything. 

The only element of the storyboarding process that I feel our group could have improved on is the detail that we put down on the paper about mise-en-scene, sound and transitions. Most importantly, we need to include details about sound bridges - something we did not think of when making the storyboard for this task. 

Filming/Editing: I think that the filming of our task went very well. We filmed most of our shots all on one day. I think that we used a various number of shot types which has added to the originality of the piece and all of the shots are stable and in focus which adds to the quality of the shots. I feel that the continuity has been kept throughout the piece, however, the first shot of the scene was filmed on a different day to the rest of the piece. This meant that our main character was in different clothing - yet, the clothes are fairly similar which was very helpful for us. I personally, do not feel that it is very noticeable and does not ruin the continuity of the task very much. 

If we could re-film the piece, then I think we would need to try and include more interesting camera movements. For example we could put a track in or a pan. This would add variety to the piece and not make it look as still as it does. 

As for editing, we edited it together as a group using Premier Pro. The editing process was not that advanced - we cut the clips down and put them in order. Then where necessary, placed in different types of cuts. We have a few cross dissolves which makes the flow of the piece less jumpy and quick. This was said about one of the sections in our film. That the cuts where too fast and sudden and made the scene too jumpy and harsh on the eye. 

In our piece, there is not that much dialogue, which mean that the sound was taken out of the a majority of the clips. Meaning that we needed a fitting piece of music. I found a piece that was used in the film 'Kick Ass' which suited our piece well. When we added it over the top, it suited the piece and the timing was synced.