EVALUATION QUESTION 1

annnddd the question  is 'In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products'

We used very conventional things in our media film... First of all we used the typical theme of kids been the victims or 'protagonist' in the film.

  Similarly with our film!
Having young characters as protagonists create an instant link with our targeted young audience, drawing a stronger emotional response from them when needed.

OUR SHOT







A particularly good shot i enjoyed was the shot of the corridor and this idea came from the film the shining, where the corridor although seeming quite calm and normal gave the audience a uneasy feeling that's just as strong if not stronger than a corridor full of blood and guts.

OUR SHOT

To give the character a mysterious/Scary feel we decided one of the shots of him should be shrouded in darkness similarly to this picture! Shrouding the antagonist or villain is a great way to build suspense and create mystery as the audience are less familiar with the character, distancing themselves from him/her making him seem scarier.

 



OUR SHOT








HERE IT COMES, the infamous locked door (close up) SHOT used in countless films from the Thrillers like the stepfather to cartoons like the Simpson (couldn't find pics of the two but i saw the Simpson one on TV sky 106)
The example i used was a shot from 'the janitor's closet' where the janitor locks the door. The significance and power of this shot brings the feel of been trapped and the sense something is about to happen and there is no way out for the audience/character, the very shot itself builds suspense and is often used when to strike fear and get a strong reaction from the audience

OUR SHOT

ONE TRANSITION we used to show a change in scenes and a complete chain in pace of film was the use of the ball in the air, as it traveled in the air from one scene to another it represented the change completely, we borrowed the idea of kids in a park and a ball been across the sky from the film 'The janitor's closet' ALTHOUGH THE IDEA TO USE IT AS A TRANSITION WAS MY IDEA :)

OUR SHOT

EVALUATION - IN CLASS - QUESTION 6

In our media lesson earlier this Monday, everyone watched everyone's films in class and wrote down there personally evaluations of each film and focused on their strengths and weaknesses.
Since there were soo many reviews 12 from every person in the class apart from our group, we split them into 4s - because we are bad at maths shazray didn't end up getting anything to do.

THIS ISN'T THE FULL ONE, JUST THE RANDOM 4 THAT I GOT TO WORK WITH

As you can see the word GOOD comes up alot and so does HALF this is because the audience particularly enjoyed the 1st half of the film but saw the second half are particularly boring. The most interesting part of the film in the BEGINNING was the MUSIC, SOUNDBRIDGE and the fact it was WELL editeD.

THIS WAS THE FOOTAGE I RECORDED WHILE THE CLASS WAS EVALUATING OUR FILM:

AND THESE ARE THE FILLED IN REVIEWS BY PEOPLE IN CLASS.

Final Film

Group Evaluation

It was no secret that i hated my group at the beginning to be honest i still hate those guys now but in the end we managed to put together a decent opening sequence to a thriller so i applaud us.

It was a stressful process for me i was in a new environment where i had to work harder than necessary just to meet standards. I had to invest a lot of spare time into the project which was new for me staying at college until 6.30 and coming in on fridays (my day off). Saying my group where unreliable would be the complement of the year however we did show initiative some of the time but if everyone put more effort into the project i think we would have made an even better film.

We Jayijeet who i cant even remember making a single contribution throughout the project he was just there.

Adekunle who was a typical director he just talked a lot not very much manual labour except the hassle of bringing in a football and taking his 5 minute breaks from sitting and watching us work. 

and Aykut who probably did the most because he was the camera man and did half of the editing but those where chores that he wouldn't give any one else a chance to do. Every-one offered to help but he was insistent,  in the end he didn't even finish the editing so i had to piece together the second half in time for the roughcut deadline which is why there was very many flaws in our rough cut.

Nevertheless we got it done.

Yours sincerely   

Shazray Carty

Final Evaluation

My final thoughts on my groups film is that i am very happy with the way it has turned out, considering the difficulties we had with our pitch and first time filming. I think my group has managed to turn the tables around and made a pretty decent thriller opening. Filled with sharp editing, loads of different camera angles and catchy and appropriate soundtracks.

However my only two criticisms are that, our montage for the football scene could have been longer and that we didnt have enough time to film the students once there ball got kicked over.

Making The Titles For Film

To make the titles of the film i began with watching the openings to other thrillers and made a list of what order the titles go. Then i made another list of all our names and which order they would go on to film.

After came the process of thinking what font to use. Using what i learned from the past media lesson about font and that it should reflect upon the genre of your film. So i thought that the font Groudy Old Style represented what i wanted the long lettering and sharp points could represent danger and possibly represent the screw driver used by the Caretaker. I also used white to colour the font  because to make it stand out from the film, especially the movie title.

Making The Soundtrack

FOOTBALL MONTAGE


After researching soundtracks for montages and watching alot of football montages. We wanted something very fast and catchy for the beginning for, both to show the fun the students are having playing football, and something that would well with the editing.

But for the every beginning where the student we entering the turf we thought that because nothing much was really happening, that nothing much should also happen sound wise. So we went with a simple snare drum beat.

Then as the students get ready, and dressed up for the game, the snare stops and an energetic guitar riff come in to liven up the mood and add energy into the film.

Then When the ball come into the frame, along side the guitar comes a marching drum beat, to add some more energy to the scene.

THE CARETAKER SCENE


Once the ball was kicked over we filtered out the energetic montage track, then once the Caretaker is scene added a mysterious and creepy back drop noise, and occasionally added in a non-deigetic droning sound. Which really worked well to create a tense but spooky atmosphere for the Caretaker.

Research For Sound track

After doing some research, watching different montages, reading some articles. I found out that the most common used songs or soundtracks. Where either Brazilian Samba music or Modern/Alternate Rock music.

We went down the more rock route, But we made our sound track more fact pase to compliment the pase of the montage. 

Research For Football Montage

Here was some on the research i did for our montage. I wanted to understand all of the elements to one because i havent had and practice or past experience in making a montage

Putting Our Film Together

During editing we discussed that we didnt want our football scene to take up alot of  time, so we reached the conclusion that we should turn it into a montage. Once watching some youtube tutorials, and reading guides online, we began making our montage. The key was to cut bits of a scene that didnt have much movement init and paste it together to give it fast pase. I highly enjoyed making our montage, because it was my first ever attempt at a montage. Though i am highly proud of the end result. I do think it should have been quicker.

However for our Caretaker part. Because we wanted to give the scenes that this was our villain, and we wanted to set a disturbing atmosphere. We didnt want it to be as fast pase as our football montage. So wen cutting clips, I only cut the bits till the Caretaker enters the frame. So that the film doesnt slow down sooo much that it becomes boring. Also for the Caretaker part. There were alot of match cuts. Because i would be acting out the same things over again just with a different camera angle, i had to watch the clips and cut out parts that were repeating and cut them and then match them.

I found that our prelim film before had helped me get to grips with final cut pro, because i knew all the functions, and found my self never asking for help, just occasionally asking my teachers to watch, so i could get there judgments as they have a better judgement towards a thriller than my self.  

My Caretaker Costume

This is a replica of my janitors costume.

The green jumper was used an a slightly darker tone. We used this because Janitors/Caretakers generally wear jumpers. I realised this looking around college. Imitating the caretakers from our college.

The Jeans were used again because the caretakers I've seen around generally wear jeans, Possibly because there made from tough material and can
             with stand being torn.
                                
             Finally finally the black work mans boots were chosen,
             because they were dark and made from tough material,      
                                    ideal for a caretaker.                                                                                


                                

The Filming of our Opening to a Thriller Part 2

After our little mis hap with the camera, we had to shoot everything all over again. BUT, Shazray didnt like his performance and a demented janitor, and thought someone else should be janitor. Ade said that his too good looking to be a janitor( which is all bull crap), Jaijeet was too short to look scary and apparently because i have bags under my eyes from lack of sleep and a crazy look on my face( which i wasnt even aware of). I was the new Janitor.


And because I wouldnt take part in the football scene, that left me as camera man once again, for the football scene. We set  about shooting the same way as before, only with the camera settings the same through out. So again i wud set the camera on and off the Tripod, set the camera on the floor catching the feet of the person whos dribbling the ball, Standing behind the to catch the ball hit the net, pan the camera as one of the guy run with the ball.

Then came the Janitor scene and i had to hand the camera over to Ade, and instead of focus on the shoots or what to do with the camera, had to take directions from Ade. Again we took multiple shots, pans, ect. I found my self acting out the same thing 5 times but each time the camera would be some where else. And again we started filming at 9am and finished 12:15.

The Filming of our Opening to a Thriller

From 9 am on Wednesday 2 march, we began our first ever filming of our final film. We gathered at our college astro turf, got the costume ready and every body took there positions. As camera man I was running around all over the place, climbing up stair cases, lying down on the floor. Getting an array of different shots from high angle, to low angle, from birds eye view, to worms eye view. Capturing Jaijeet, Ade and a couple other guys playing a match. I also had to give Jaijeet a crash course on how to be a good goal keeper, as he was too afraid to dive and get the ball, so his goal keeping wasnt very convincing.

After the football footage was caught, we went to the college basement, to begin shooting our mental Janitor. Played by Shazray. Again as camera man, me and camera went high and low climbing on things, lying on the floor using carts to again capture an array of footage. So we could have a wider selection to choose from when editing. And by we finished the filming at 12:15. And in the end had 127 different shots to sort and edit.

However disaster! When we were sorting our footage for editing we found that all the clips had different filter settings and focus, so the lighting didnt match for different clips, I figured during the filming when was constantly moving around the camera i must have accidentally changed the Camera's filter and focus settings. So we cudnt edit to clips together and make them match due to the different focus and light.

The Pitch For Our Film

Before we were granted the media equipment to begin shooting our film, we had to put together a pitch, showing our films title, treatment, props, location, story board or animatic. Our original plot was to have a tray of tools and sharp objects trended in blood and the guy who these tools belong to cleaning them up. But using only extreme close ups and tilts, not revealing the guys face. To give our opening a mysterious and creepy effect, to catch the audience off guard. What inspired us to come up with this idea was the beginnings of The Step Father and Seven. In the step father all we see in the beginning is an array of shaving equipment, all neatly put together. Whereas In Seven where we only see a persons hands doing very demented and sinister things , such as razor blading his own flesh off. Me and my group thought that they were both very effective openings and we wanted to use elements of those linked with our own plot.

However Our teacher brought up that there would be too much gore, that our opening would fail to bring forth any suspense and keep the audience wanting more. Then we decided on a less "intense" plot to our opening. Then we came up with the scenario of college students having a mini football game in an astro turf, and one of them kicks there ball over and the ball hits a mad janitor. Who takes the ball and stabs it with a screw driver.

Fonts for TITLE sequence

 The font creates the mood or represents the type of film and whats in the film. Since our films about a crazy janitor who no one suspects, i don't want the font to seem too 'out there' or too evil .
I wanted to along the lines of papyrus but not exactly because its too over used.

SO WE PICKED THE FONT HERCULANUM

The red obviously has connotations of danger and that there is something wrong with the janitor.

Genius Soundtrack

It was surprisingly easy today with (little) assistance from Aykut i created and ultimate soundtrack for the film.

We start with the bend it like beckham inspired sequence . The uptempo music while tyhe characters played football then dramatically changing when it gets to the janitors bit with little jumps to surprise the audience.

The soundtrack has officially saved the film.

DeadLine Approches: Planning sound 4days left.

In this lesson (21st of march 2011), we were closing in on the deadline the rough cut deadline had passed and we had less than a week to submit our final pieces. PRESSURES ON.
While Aykut worked on placing clips in better order using FINAL CUT PRO

Me and shazray attempted to find some sound clips that best suited our film and it is VERY VERY long seeing as there are sooooo many of them.

Some sounded nice but due to working in a group and the rest of em saying NO.... They couldn't be used.  I HAD TO LEAVE AT THE END OF THE LESSON BECAUSE I HAD TO GET READY FOR A MOCK I HAD NEXT DAY...Hopefully they can work without me being there....

Finding the right sound

i'm struggling to find a sound to go with our film. Its a lot harder than i thought it would be its tempting to download the bend it Beckham music because that seemed to work well. im just stressed out its like 6.00 and im still in college hard times.

PLANING SHOTS

This time two weeks ago, we were in trouble! For one we had no plan, two we had a very very bad location (IN COLLEGE), 3 we had to shoot in two days.
Frustrated and annoyed we could barely think of anything to do to better the situation... Although phil did give me an idea and that is to after getting our ideas together (Which we did at the end of the lesson) we should plan EVERY SINGLE SHOT TYPE that we could think of... and that is exactly what i did when i  got HOME!

Here i wrote over 9 DIFFERENT PAGES ON SHOT TYPES I WANTED AND HOW TTHEY WOULD BE DONE.... This took me ages!
Different scenes included BASEMENT/BALL ROLLING/FOOTBALL PITCH/HOW BALL FLEW OVER FENCE AND HIT GATE/CORRIDOR/INSIDE THE ROOM

Evaluation of Rough Cut!

The rough cut was.... How can I say this... RUSHED! mainly due to our fault of time wasting and not getting our heads together from the start, but its finished... I wouldn't call it amazing, but compared with what it was before and thanks to the effort put into editing and naming 161 CLIPS!!!!! we have a rough cut.

To improve it i think we should add transitions from each clip and try and get it to flow easier and quicker and maybe get rid of the keeper kicking the ball out because it kills the speed of it all!

For sound i want two different ones, Firstly a very up keep fast paced on for the football scene and Secondly a very eerie soundtrack that introduces the janitor!

ALL IN ALL EVEN THOUGH THE IDEA IS IFFY AND THE LOCATION PANTS, WE CAN MAKE A COMBACK VIA EDITING AND SOUND!

Costumes #2

Although Shazray was replaced I still think this picture best highlights the janitors costume
which featured
A staff thingy: We borrowed from bernard, this is to give the janitor an official role on the premises, the whole staff bit was to couple the school kids in uniform playing football but we scrapped the uniform idea but kept this!

What the Janitor is wearing!

Dark Green Jumper:  the Color green, not as obvious and dangerous as color red and has a casual feel to add more the whole 'All is supposed to be normal' atmosphere i want to set at first.

Black shirt (under green jumper)/Black trousers: Yet again this is to make him dress casually not too flashy and 'out there'.

He also wore boots but sadly THERE IS NO PICTURE OF EM!

InTeRTEXtuaLitY! - From The Shining

THE CORRIDOR!
the corridor was a very important part of our filming when filming i especially tried to get as many shots of it as possible from as many angles as possiible!
WHY YOU SAY?!?!

 

That's why! The shining, this corridor scene i find particularly striking, its not gruesome, Gorey or bloody like what shazray picked. But i believe its just as if not more striking....Why? because its so calm, quite... Too quite, the low angle gives it an eerie feel the shot from just behind the kid makes empathize with him as if were alone in the LONG, EERIE, DEAD CORRIDOR! GREAT MOOD SETTER!!!!!!!

This corridor we filmed from a low angel all the way, although its not as striking as the shining.

OTHER THINGS USED (PICKED UP FROM SURROUNDINGS)

We managed to cover the basics when it came to bringing stuff to the filming i.e basic things like football, janitors outfit SOME cleaning stuff and a screw driver.

But a benefit of working in a place like the basement was that there was tones of stuff that we could've used for scenery and it helped ALOT! the things here circled in red are what we found in the basement and put on our set to add to the 'MIS-EN-SCENE' of our film.

 

It didn't just help with the MIS-EN-SCENE, it also helped us with actual filming... For example when we neeeded a tracking shot of the corridor we were stumped because doing it hand held made it too jittery, for a second i thought we wouldn't get the shot, that is until we found this baby!

This allowed us to film a tracking shot quite well :) all we had to do was place the camera on it (CAREFULLY) and push (CAREFULLY)

 

Techniques used in Our filming: Consistancyy Technique

THIS ONE WAS MY IDEA!!
A lot shots were required to be shot from multiple angles to make it looked for dramatic and often we found that Aykut (our janitor) would forget where he was before. So in order to avoid this problem and make filming as less tedious as possible. I the BRAINS of the operation did this!

 

 With only TWO pieces of rubbish found on the floor, i put an end to the problem :)

These two pieces of rubbish acted as two markers for where the Janitor would place his feet, incase we needed to reshoot a specific shot from a different angle. 

It may not looked like much but it helped quite abit when it came to filming!

Costumes #1

Football Scene:
For the football scene at first i wanted there to be a uniform kind of look for the ones who played football but due to some of the group not having the proper attire we had to scrap it!!!!!!!!!!
This was something i was hoping we should of worn to create the 'boyish/playground/school' atmosphere.i.e 
Shirt Trousers and Tie

 

 I personally think it would've worked well and if we could start all over again it would definitely be an idea (Y)

Since it was scrapped we decided to go with a less thought out wardrobe and wear what ever we had to bring, the only thing actually thought out to bring was the Goal keeping Gloves and Football