GROUP 31!!

Our bloggers. :)

(From left to right: Thao, Czarina, Dennetta and Kim)

Our group failed attempt in trying to show a sign of '31'.

We as a group developed insights to the media world, knowledge of technologies as well as building up friendships.

Overall it was a extremely rewarding experience! :D

Final Edit of Four Walls

Group Evaluation - Question 7

Here are some shots from our Preliminary task and a match cut task. However it then shows the improvement of mise-en-scene, camerawork and edits from our first time filimg to our thriller title sequence.

Evaluation - Question 6

For evaluation question 6, we had to get together as a group and think about our journey of progression with the use of technologies; to form the end product.

Evaluation: Question 8

Q: Audience Feedback and comment?

I took feedback from 5 students that have al studied media either as an A-Level or GCSE. Here is our feedback on strengths and weaknesses of our thriller title sequence:

Evaluation: Question 7

Q: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

From our Preliminary exercise, we used various shots that we had been taught such as a match cut and over the shoulder shots.

In our thriller title sequence, we use numerous extreme close-ups and long shots which show binary opposition,

In order of our first filming to our title sequence, you can see the difference in Mise-en-scence for our match cut shot. For example, the first shot above uses great camerawork but lacks in lightng but however in the third shot, there is dim lighting that makes the mood suit the thriller genre.

As a close up shot, the first shot is a good over the shooulder shot but once agen lacks the mise-en-scene to suit the tension and suspense that was supposed to be created. In our title sequence, we used visual effects which look more effective.

Evaluation: Question 5

Q: Who would be the audience for your media product?

I think that this title sequence film would appeal to both genders simply because men love to watch horror and thriller movies that contain blood and action. Whereas, women are attracted to it because the main actor is a female and the plot for our title sequence applies to women and what they have been through in their life.

With age, it would be aimed at a age range of 15-30 year olds as older seniors would not be interested in the genre of thriller due to the high rate of violence. Also, kids are not permitted to view the film as the violence does not apply to kids under the age of 15. This is we would rate our film as a 15+ viewing.


Below are some examples of the target audience for our title sequence and what the contents of their handbag/manbag:

Brooklyn-Myla, 17 (College student)

Hobbies: Modelling, shopping, singing

Contents: Make-up, hair products, phone, purse, oyster card, vaseline, body spray, camera

(Brooklyn is a good target for the audience as she is young and into the latest films that contain romance, comedy and violence.)

Leonel Velasquez, 23 (Model & Fashion Designer)

Hobbies: Designing new gear, clubbing

Contents: Mobile phone, wallet, keys, bottle of drink, cigarettes

(Leonel is a target for the audience because he lives in an urban area where violence is an everday thing. As seen in the photo above, money is a goal in their life and it is like a battle. So therefore, this type of person would definately be into this kind of thriller title sequence.)

Justin Timberlake, 29 (Singer)

Hobbies: Dancing, singing, making music, partying

Contents: Keys, mobile phone, headset, sunglasses, magazine

(Justin is a good target audience for our title sequence as he is interested in those types of movies. In American, most of the population love to view horrors and thrillers. And as a young artist, it is part of his life to go cinemas and watch scary movies.)

Evaluation: Question 3 & 4

Q: What kind of media institution might describe distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience ?

On Youtube, one of the world's best known website for viewing videos, i found a clip intro trailer from student Michael Maksim from Vancouver Film School. It was uploaded 10 months ago and currently has hit a high 158,037 views which shows that is had been a very successful video.

In comparison to our title sequence, both clips could be classed as a low budget simlpy because our sequence was distributed by New Line Cinema and 'Rise of Legends' uses great visual effects and editing but it was done on a computer and does not look like it costed a lot of money to produce.

Distributing a product nowadays is so easily to access since the technology is more advanced. Videos become well known and popular through file sharing between friends and family. Also because of social networking websites like Facebook, MSN and Twitter, people like to share links which does boost up the amount of views. Also, through the website Youtube, because it is a worldwide website so people all over the world view your work. And with that, even companies can promote people for jobs etc.

For our thriller title sequence, we chose New Line Cinema to distribute our film because we had watched a thriller movie in lesson called 'No Country for Old Men' of which inspired us since we loved the film. Also because New Line had distributed good films such as Se7en, The Mask. Another reason why we chose New Line Cinema is because we did research on google for different companies and we felt our sequence did not match a high budget company like Paramount and a low budget company like Working title 2. So we decided to pick a company that was in the middle ranking.

Our film will be released globally like 'Star Trek' so it becomes more popular in the movie distribution world. It will be released digitally and additionally on IMAX cinema because the 3D effect would look amazing and terrying to the audience especially when there are many extreme close ups in our title sequence.

For advertising, I would have a trailer for our sequence that would appear as an advert on TV after 8pm. This is because firstly, our sequence is not suitable for kids under the age of 14 as there is violence and blood. Hopefully at this time all kids will be absent.

Moreover, there should be billboards for example in Vauxhall and posters on buses that advertise our film 'Four Walls.' To the left and above are a few examples of which I used the website Photo funia to transfer our images into a billboard.

Evaluation: Question 1

Q: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms an conventions of real media products ?


Forms of Conventions:

- Mysterious and suspenseful theme
- Slow paced & dragged on music OR Upbeat & fast paced music that suits the action
- Mainly dim lighting or use of shadows in Mise-en-Scene
- Often introduces a main character(s) or victim

In comparison with...





Se7en Title Sequence

Looking at both the title sequences from a glance, they look very similar in terms of Mise-en-Scene, Camerawork and Titles which shows that our production of work was successful as our ideas were inspired by Se7en's title sequence.

One of the main similarites of both title sequences is that they both use extreme close-ups e.g. of an eye. However, Se7en does not reveal the main character as quick as our group did.

Evaluation (Question 8)

Rough Cut Edit

This is our Rough cut edit (excluding sound) of our idea for a Thriller Title Sequence of which we named 'Four Walls.'

The 'Making of the Film'

Our scheduled date to film was 10th March 2010, in which our group thoroughly planned the day because we would only have one attempt at it- which is why it is crucial to make it organised and to the best standards as we can.

We planned throughout the weeks after the pitching with ideas what we might do and how we would carry it out. We had planned to follow the storyboard- but as our idea for our film wasn't a series of follow-up events, we can add aspects that is not included in our storyboard as we just wanted to achieve the effects of different images, quick cut shots that does not necessarily need to tell a story.

Days before the filming day, we decided to experiment with makeup so that when it came to the day it would be 'almost perfect'. We also decided what kind of props to bring in- the table, camera equipment was provided by our college. These are the list of the different props we brang in to be included in our filming, such as:

• Fold up chair


• Scissors


• 'Disturbing images'


• Antique styled paper (with handwriting)


• Piece of white cloth


• Fake blood


• Pen


• Torch


• Makeup equipment


• Shirt


• Bracelet
  

These aspects were important in the making of the film to achieve the mise-en-scene we wanted to achieve. Obviously some of these are self-explanatory in why we brang it- we also had different props but we did not use it in the end as we found it unnecessary to use it.

Photos taken by: Czarina Baticos

Dennetta had printed out the photos- she had edited and altered the photos that she had printed out for copyright reasons. From 'Se7en', there is a series of 'disturbing' images and we wanted to achieve that Horror/Thriller aspect as we find it very appealing.

I myself (Kim) had provided the antique style looking paper- achieving different effects such as spilling tea all over the paper and also putting the paper in the oven- to give the crisp, old looking feel to it. I also had to study different 'gothic' fonts and 'script' looking fonts to achieve a eerie feel to it, as well as devising sentences that has the connotation of death, and associating that whoever wrote the letter was extremely hurt. E.g. "broken", "death", "hurt", "ripping", "tear" etc

With the fake blood, we had many ideas on how to make the fake blood. Originally we thought to mix soy sauce with ketchup- but that did not look as effective- instead we had researched on how to make fake blood, we concluded to buy glucose syrup, red food colouring and blue food colouring (to give it a different type of tint) which gave it a thick feel to it which looked almost real.













Photos taken by: Kim Nguyen

The first t-shirt that we bought had ended as a catastrophe, the first attempt in 'making the t-shirt look slightly dirty and worn out' had been ruined, so we had to throw it away and buy a new one. So on the day, this time me and Czarina was in charge of designing the tshirt to make it look worn-out but not too 'over the top'. Whilst we was doing this, Dennetta was helping Thao do her makeup and they were setting out the camera equipment and setting of the filming. We used a mixture of black eyeshadow, fake blood, scissors to cut and fray the edges of the t-shirt. We also had yellow wax- the effect was to make it seem like it is old and unwashed.

As you can see from the setting and environment of where we was filming, it looks very effective. Even though it is a public place, not many people were around. In the Safe Storage Store, they had automatic lights, so if there was hardly any movement around it will completely turn off- this was very important in making the film to give that dark, eerie feel to it.

In addition, this was very important as the variance of light could have gave different shot takes a different look when coming to watch it.

Thao had to get into the characters shoes, in which obviously her physical appearance but mainly her acting skills to make her seem deranged to fit her image- which she done really well. For the makeup, we decided not to go for a 'white faced' look, for the main part, we did not want our Title Sequence to look more as a horror, although in our personal opinion we thought it would look extremely effective.

From where the Photography Activity with the representations of the word, we felt that we should combine this aspect from what we did and use it. The words we previously used was Claustrophobic and Paranoia, in which we used this to our advantage from our previous knowledge of camera work.


Photo taken by: Czarina Baticos

Overall with the day, I think our group had done great, each of us (excluding Thao, for obvious reasons as she is the actress) had a go at being our own 'director' as us as individuals had our own ideas to make it effective.

More other pictures and film clips are shown in the 'Four Walls Behind the Scenes' video clip, made by Czarina Baticos.

Editing our Film

There are 4 people in our groups and we have decided to choose two people for each task which are producing our own soundtrack and combining all the clips together.
Dennetta and I (Czarina) are incharged of editing the title sequence. It was hardwork doing this task especially when using a new editing software that we were unfamiliar with. But in the end, we managed to finish editing our title sequence as we have planned it. Also, we have learnt a lot of techniques in editing. The challenges that we have undertaken made us explore different ways and techniques on making our title sequence film better.

Here are some screengrabs photos of some clips that we have edited from our Title sequence film:

While adding the titles on the clips, our teacher advised us with a helpful tip on how to put the titles on the right positions without going through over the limit box.

• We dragged the title on final cut pro and placed it above the clip where we wanted it to appeared.
• We clicked on the title and then went on the right canvas and clicked on the third small button above it, and selected IMAGE WINDOWSFRAME so that we could move the title itself around the frame.
• But in order to not go over the green box, we had to go on the left canvas and clicked on the third small button at the top and select Title safe and two green box will appear on the canvas which is a guide of where to place the title.
  

The Making of our Titles

The making of our titles was quite straightforward. We wanted it to look simple and sharp. For our font colors we have only chosen one color which was white. However, we have adjusted the brightness of the color by adjusting the line in the middle of the title clip, we adjusted it downwards in order to do this. For our font style, we have chosen 'SimSun'.

The font style that we have chosen for the title of our Title sequence is 'Cracked' because it perfectly matches the plot and name of our Title Sequence Film. This is what it looks like:

Lastly for the effect that we have used for the name of our title sequence, we have chosen 'Static'. It works really well as it makes each of the letters fade in and out. It's like a lightbulb running out of energy. It has similarities with the lighting that we have used for our mise-en-scene.

Group 31's Pitch Presentation

Pitch Part 1

Pitch Part 2

Pitch Part 3

Initial idea for the Story Board

During our Pitching, we came up with ideas of what our Title Sequence should be about. Since we was inspired by Se7en, we like the idea of close ups and extreme close up camera shots. The story plot for our Title Sequence is about a girl- who is suffering from a mental disorder who wants to seek revengence. The idea of her being enclosed in 'Four Walls' made us base the the following shots in a small room; where she is displaying extreme emotions and paranoia.
Because our idea does not have a set sequence that follows up, we can film any kind of shots or ideas and embed it into our final Title Sequence.


Here is ideas of what kind of shots to carry out:

As you can see, we have a mixture of different shots- from establishing shot (which we scrapped as well because the room would be small) to various mid-shots, close ups to extreme close ups.

(After our pitching, we had feedback of our whole idea. The teachers thought that doing our filming in someones room would not look as effective- so some of the sequence shots in this storyboard would have to be scrapped.)

Because of our idea, it is quite easy to do this anywhere else- all we needed was basic equipment such as a table and a chair. In this storyboard, we could carry this out without the bedroom setting. The idea we wanted to portray was quick edit shots that would last a minimum of 5 seconds to 30.

The first two storyboard was our first ideas- these other two had later developed as we visited the 'Safe Storage' place and we discussed what kind of props we should bring in.

In this storyboard, we wanted to achieve the 'paranoia' effect, in addition we wanted to give it a queasy, disorientating feeling as well. We wanted to give off the effect of a 'Chiller' (a horror/thriller)
















(In this storyboard, quite a few ideas was scrapped when we started filming. In the 'Safe Storage' there is numerous amount of doors that all look the same- we had a idea that we should track all the doors to give a ever lasting effect- but we decided to scrap that idea because the doors were bright yellow which had the 'Safe Storage' logo on it. We thought that we could edit that and make it a negative effect, such as the film title sequence of 'Arlington Road', which had a lot of disorientating camera edits, but we did not really like that idea much. Other ideas that we discussed we did not carry out in the real filming as we found it unnecessary to do so.)

All of these ideas of shots we mainly carried out in the real filming process- but when editing the actual Title Sequence of ours we did not use most of it. Some of the shots either wouldn't have followed up that well or we felt we did not need to use the other numerous shots we did.

IN addition, we also made a different storyboard for the actual sequence for our final product- but unfortunately we lost it.

Four Walls Behind The Scenes

Intro to Cameras & Health and Safety Tutorial

At the beginning, before we start our filming our teacher gave us a tutorial of how to use the camera correctly and safely. We were given a JVC GY-HM100E Camcorder, two 16GB memory cards, battery for the camcorder which allow us about 2 hours recording time and a tripod.

The camera has many functions which include a built in Mic therefore it doesn't need the external microphone unless necessary. On the side of the camera, there is an on/off button and it is very clever as the camera will switch off automatically if not used for 5 minutes. The lens is operated by the lever next to the focus ring. Our teacher told us that we must not touch the lens as when we editing because there will be finger prints on the clips. The viewfinder on the side tells us how much time recording time we have remaining and how much battery power is left. We can also focused on certain subject as well as zoom in and out. When recording, we are able to press 'Q.Review' to constantly play back the last few seconds of our shots.

The memory cards allow us to film up to 1 hour and 40 minutes and it has a switch on the side which protect our clips in case anyone used it, it will be locked.

The tripod were given to us for preventing the camera movement while filming, it reduce the camera from shaking. Also, it offers stability within a shot as well as certain desired heights. Furthermore, it allows free movement which you can track or pan as well as tilt up and down.

Final Location

After our Pitch presentation, both of our teachers from media suggested a perfect location which is 'SafeStorage.'
So after this discussion with our teachers, we went on the internet to research informations about it. We wrote down the contact number and informed our teacher about our updates. The college talked to the incharge person from 'Safestorage' about the dates that we are going to use one of their storage room to film. After this conversation, our teacher had informed us about the schedule.

Last week, friday morning, we made a phonecall to the safestorage company if we could visit the rooms to check out the size and also to visualise where we are going to place the camera and the props. And luckily, they gave us a permission to visit it. As we arrived in the safestorage building, we had to sign in for safety reasons, the incharge person guided us to the storage room that they have given us, and it looked perfectly fine. Here are the photos:

Left corner

Outside view, but when you go in it's much more wider

Right corner

Later updates on Searching for Locations

So after we got turned down from Barbican Centre, we had a group discussion on that same day on what other options we have left.

The second option we had was to make a phonecall to one of our secondary school if we could book a room. The reason for this was most of our secondary schools had an antique old room that matches with our film. So one of our group members made a phonecall to her secondary school, and yet again, we wasn't allowed to film to that secondary school as the policies have changed and also the person who is incharge of the property of the school.

The third option that we had was to either use one of our rooms. We tried taking a photo of each of our room, but all of our rooms needed a lot of fixing up if ever we are going to use it, and we haven't got that much time to fix a room. Then, we've decided to use someone else's room but not from our group. However, our teachers suggested that it wouldn't work because of the whole composition of the room. There were too many things and bright colours which will not match with our sub-genre of thriller.

After all of these trials that we went through, our teachers suggested some locations that they can help us to hire.