Evaluation-

Evaluation final from Priyanka Chawla

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Survey- final piece

A survey has been created to gather feedback regarding our final piece.

Below is the link to the survey:

https://chanceasmedia.typeform.com/to/uKwbAN

Creating a survey regarding our final piece is beneficial to us as a group as it will make answering one of the exhalation questions, considerably easier.

Titile sequence

Within a title sequence, there is a particular order that is followed, in terms of when each job should be shown and who stars in the movie. 
The orders as follows; 

• Name of the studio
• Name of the production company
• Starring
• Filmed by (cinematography)
• Sound (if necessary)
• Editor
• Producer
• Director

We have followed this order so that we stick to the rule so that it is clear who the most important people within the film actually are. In our case, all titles up until the end of the actors/actresses names (starring), are on a black background in white writing. They appear using a film dissolve and when they come on and off I have made sure in editing that they appear to the sound of the audio. Obviously at this point, working with the sound, a few changes can be made, in order to create as much tension for the audience as we can.

From our research, and focusing on the psychological thriller genre, these opening credits are shown in the beginning of the opening sequence (usually within the first quarter but in only some cases the first half), as the codes and conventions of this genre show this is a normality. We have set these opening credits fairly and have explained through them the workload that has been completed by the team.

Our titles appear as below:

Name of studio
motion cube pictures presents

Name of production company

a PCLA film

Starring
Aman Dhillon

Luke Mayes

Lisa Machin

Filmed by (cinematographer)

Priyanka Chawla

Sound

Luke Mayes

Editor

Chelsea Wilson

Producer

Priyanka Chawla

Director

Chelsea Wilson


This blog post was done by Chelsea


My Evaluation
Identifying the order of the titles, enables us to either determine whether we are following a the codes and conventions of our genre, or if we are challenging them, if we are challenging the, then why are we challenging them? 

CHANCE- Final cut

Final Cut of our opening sequence 'CHANCE'

By- Priyanka Chawla, Chelsea Wilson, Aman Dillon and Luke Mayes 

Sound

By tuesday all our footage will be cut and ready to add sound and our title sequences.
Today I was doing the final bits of research regarding the use of sound in our sequence. We have to ensure that the sound we use is copy right free. Therefore I visited this website called 'freeplaymusic.com' on this website there is a search bar, where you enter a keyword, e.g. the genre of sound you require, and you will be provided with a list of sounds that a relevant to your search.

The use of sound from this we site is free for educational purposes, therefore there will be no additional costs for us. 

my progression

Throughout this media course I have developed a lot of personal skills that have helped through the final stages of my coursework. At the beginning of the course, I was not completely sure of the amount of work that was involved with the project. As I became more and more aware, I started to change the way I worked. My level of commitment has increased, in terms of how I managed my time with getting the filming and editing complete. instead of waiting until next week or the weekend I learnt that there is no time like the present, filming needs to happen today, editing happens today and blogging also takes place today. By starting your work then and there allows your grow more time for changes and improvements if needed- in most cases this is needed.
Another large aspect of this media course is communication skills- therefore taking this into account and I created an iMessage group chat, therefore any ideas or plans that needed to be made would be clear- leading to less chance of misunderstandings.

A crucial skill I have developed is, my skill with the camera. at the start of the course when we conducted our continuity task, using the camera proved to be a lot harder than we had projected. however, when the filming process for the final piece had begun, the process of re filming certain scenes, really helped improve my skills with the camera. For example the execution of a pan shot is a lot harder than it looks, to get the camera to work in sync with the actor is a process that needs to be accurate. This shot requires the character to be in the middle of the shot throughout the pan. initially i found this difficult, because I couldn't keep the camera still whilst panning. however as they say, practice makes perfect. At this stage I now know how to keep the camera steady and execute various types of shots.


Overall as a group, we have defiantly made a vast amount of progress from where we began. We initially started off indirectly working against each other, there came a point where as a group if we did not pull together, we would have failed our coursework. This really bought us together as a group and highlighted everyones rolls and responsibilities within the group.

21st March

Today I re-filmed the pan shot in Aman's scene. I also got various other shots, that will enable us to have a variety of footage to play with, that way if later on during the editing process we decide that the pan shot does not work, we will have the other scenes to take place.

over the weekend the a re shoot of the alley way scene will be recorded, a re shoot is required because the feedback we received regarding the shots I had gathered, was that there was not enough variety within those shots.

overall at this stage the opening sequences coming on swiftly and I believe that the title sequences shall be complete within the next week.

update on progression- 19th March

A re-shoot of Luke's scene was required as there were some issues with the continuity of the scene.
So prior to the re shoot, I played back the old footage that we had, by doing this I could pin point what aspects of the scene I needed to pay special attention to, in order for it to be perfect.
once I had all the points of improvements I went out to re film.This process was efficient because I had clear objectives.

Whilst playing back all of the footage that I have gathered, we noticed there were some shaky points during a few of the shots. therefore over the last couple of weeks I have gone out with the actors and re shot the scenes.

This is a snippet of the editing in action. at this stage we have about a minutes worth of our footage edited. Therefore at this point I asked the teacher for feedback on our work so far.

alley way scene

16th march- I will be filming the alley way scene.
My main aims:

• to get as many shots that consist of a variety of angles and techniques- the reason i'll be doing this is so that when we come to edit the footage we will have a range of shots to decide from, it also helps if one shot does not fit the criteria but the another shot does, this will save a great deal of time as a re film will not need to be scheduled. 

this scene should last between 15-30 seconds. 

In this scene there will be a variety of mid shots, low angled shots to show the characters journey.

I filmed the alley way scene this morning, and got multiple shots of Jack walking up through the alley. I believe this filming process was successful because, I managed to get many shots that will and can be very useful as they fit the certain criteria that needs to be met.

The first shot of this scene was not successful, therefore Chelsea took charge of this scene and went out to re film this scene. After a second try of the whole shot, the scene seemed to work efficiently. Though the first shot was not of any use to us, regarding the final piece, I believe it was extremely beneficial as it highlighted areas for extra care, and extra ideas that may have needed adding.

shooting schedule

16th march - Alley way scene

17th and 18th march- re shoot of Luke's motorbike scene front on shot of Aman's scene, and a low angle back shot of Luke's feet walking away from the camera

17th- kitchen scene with mum 

Filming

Our filming is very much in full swing, however we have incurred a some problems. one of our scenes was heavily dependant on a train station. the problem here was that filming permission was needed from the council and the head office for the underground station. this seemed like an unrealistic to follow through with as time is something we do not have to play with. therefore to get over this problem we changed to location to filming outside school. this is a more practical location for us because if a re shoot is required it is more accessible. another positive impact of this decisions is that there are less obstructions, which means we will always have a clear shot.

After making the decision of moving the scene to outside school, the filming process has been more efficient and has worked just as well as planned. when we need to re shoot there has never been a hindrance in terms of location. we are able to take action almost right away. therefore the editing process isn't delayed and a project will not fall behind.

Train Scene

Over the weekend myself, Luke and Aman went out to Uxbridge station to film a part of our opening sequence. The process was efficient for the majority of the time and was a smooth process. However we did face a couple of issues. The first being that, we realised that you are not able to film in the station, unless you have permission from the London Underground. However we overcame this problem swiftly as we had alternative shots to use. the sec on minor problem that we faced was that during the filming process, a lot of the general public walked in front of the camera, vaguely interrupting the scene.

Over the last couple of days we have played back our footage and found many improvements.

First and foremost, though when you look at the shot normally, you cannot notice the camera shaking, however once looked at in detail, there is a visible shake in the camera. This means that the shots need to be re-shot as a shaky camera would significantly lower our grade. Though a re shoot is required, I believe that the first shot was extremely helpful, because we bought our shots to life and saw that if executed correctly, they will work well.

Secondly the pan that was used was not quite up to scratch as instead of following the characters actions, it was slightly behind. The pan shot needs to start and finish with the character in the middle of the shot. In order to achieve this myself and the character I am filming need to have some sort of mark that needs to be followed- this will allow synchronisation to be as precise as possible. Making the pan shot clear cut.

Shot List

Storyboard

There are 30 blocks to the storyboard. Our storyboard will be of great use to us during our filming process because it gives our filming a baseline to follow. From the first filming session onwards we can playback our footage and if our initial ideas did not follow through as we projected, there is an opportunity to re-film.  

The final 13 blocks of the storyboard consist of our title sequence, which explains who each character is played by and who was involved in every process of production. 

The storyboard:

Typography

The typography that will be used for our title sequence is called 'lucky typewriter' the size that we will be using is 60ppt in the colour white. The font will be capitalised throughout the whole of the title sequence.

This image gives an insight as to what our title sequence will look like.

In order for the text to move from one shot to the ned, the text will need to be converted to a gif file.

As a group we decided the title sequence would look best on a black background as the writing is white. Therefore it will stand out, and be legible. The reason for this decision is that it follows the basic codes and conventions of the thriller genre.

In order for this final decision to be made we often referred back to our research and planning. This was extremely helpful as we had deeply analysed what types of title sequences were successful and which were not so successful. Some of the title sequences I looked at were quite complex and others were simple. we decided on going with simplicity as over all the simple ideas worked best and tied the rest of the opening sequence together.

Locations- (location shots needed) and Props

Staff Room Kitchen

Alley Way 

image 

Train Sation 

image 

Outside a House 

image 

Props that are being used:

- Drinking Glasses
- Car
- Beer Bottle
- Cigarette 

The First Shoot- (kitchen)

Our initial filming schedule has been altered slightly. The first scene that shot today was: 'the kitchen scene' 

The second change that has been made, is the location of one of the scenes. The alley way scene will no longer be filmed at school- instead Chelsea will be filming it over the weekend. 

The first shoot was executed efficiently. As a team, whilst filming we looked at various camera angles that would best suit this particular scene. 

Tomorrow this footage will be uploaded and played back. This process will enable us to make further decisions. For example: - does lighting need to be altered?

                                       - was the camera shaky? if so re-shot is inevitable

                                       - does the shoot fit the frame? 

                                       - do camera angles need changing?

The first scene.

The first scene will be shot on the 25th Feb- 'The Alley Way' scene. The alley we will be using, is the one around the back of the school. We will use this because it fits the image we had projected in our mind. It is also extremely accessible, therefore if we require some re-shoots, it is convenient for everyone to participate.

I have sketched out two possible ways of shooting this scene. Once this scene has been shot we can look further into various other camera angles that could be used if we are not happy with the result.

1st shot

This scene will begin with the use of an establishing shot. The use of this shot will give an initial overview of the scene that will begin. This shot will also trigger some sort of thought process, within the audiences' minds, as too what could possibly happen within this scene, therefore engaging the audience into the movie as it connotes the feeling of suspense. Following this establishing shot the scene will cut into a mid shot, of the drunk man's back. The use of this shot gives the audience a slight insight into this particular scene, yet still not giving away any clues as to what might take place  in the rest of the scene- at this point the audience has not been told of any possible motives of where the drunk man is heading. Overall this shot does not allow any room for the audience to loose interest in the film, in fact it would engage them further. Last but not least, the final shot that will be used is a low angled shot. This shot will only show the drunk mans journey through his feet. This adds suspense to the scene because the audience is kept in the dark as to what is going to happen.

2nd shot

The second shot that could be used is similar to the 1st shot yet different in a way that could change the overall outlook of the scene. It uses the same shots but in a different order. However the establishing shot will remain at the beginning of the scene as it works best when introducing a new scene. The second shot that will be used is a low angled shot focusing on the footsteps of the drunk man, indicating his journey. The camera will change position to face the drunk man. The shot that will be used is is a close up to emphasise the emotion of the character, leaving the audience on a cliffhanger to ponder on what his intentions are.

Jane Eyre horse scene

Jayne Eyre- Horse scene editing and sound

In this scene the theme of gender was represented in many ways. In particular the concepts of editing and sound were used. To start off with non diegetic sound was used when Jayne Eyre was entering the scene. The non diegetic sound that was used, was a soft piano ensemble. This type of sound represented gender in a stereotypical way. It connoted the ideology that the female gender is feminine, gentle soft and almost weak. As a complete contrast to this the male gender was represented under the ideology that they are strong, powerful and dominating. This was also shown through with the use of sound. The scene used foley sound when the horse made an entrance. In the real world when a horse is galloping around, it would make a slight sound, however during the post production process the producer may have felt an exaggeration was needed to add emphasis on the fact that men are dominating.

So overall the use of sound in this scene led the audience to the conclusion that the male gender is the more dominating and stronger person, because of the musical backing each of the characters had. To further back up this conclusion the use of editing also had an impact.

Crosscutting was used when the man on a horse was making an entrance and when Jane Eyre was making an entrance.  Though they were two separate scenes to connote that two were going to meet crosscutting was used. However to emphasise that the female was less dominating the male had more screen time.

Jane Eyre desert scene analysis

Desert scene

The extract I am about to analyse from an episode of Jane Eyre. This clip starts off with an establishing shot of the desert. The use of this establishing shot was to give the audience a sense of what the girl was feeling. This was done by the fact that the desert was empty and desolate. This could emphasise the feeling of loneliness and isolation. This was further emphasised by the use of a pan shot- this was a vast shot of the empty desert with just the one girl in the middle of it. The use of the two shots together connotes her being isolated. Rounding the idea up with an extreme close up of her face. This connoted her various emotions and really gets the audience to connect with the character and her journey. The use of non- diegetic sound in this scene was slow and desolate which helped show the link of her feeling lonely. It added to the ambience of the scene almost taking the audience on the journey with her. Finally in terms of editing, a graphic match was used. This was done to ling into the next scene. In the desert there was a still shot on the girls face and then then the next scene came in where the girl was in the same position and her facial expression was the same throughout the transition. The aspect of mise-en-scene that was enhanced was the use of facial expressions. The girls face was depressed and looked as if she was deeply saddened. Overall all of these four aspects linked together to give the audience and idea that she feels lonely.

Behind the curtain.

This scene starts off with the use of a graphic match from the desert scene before. The girl has the same facial expressions and is in the same position. The use of this connotes that the feelings of loneliness that were represented before link through and stay with her throughout the rest of the extract. The use of camera is used further to represent the Jane’s insignificance throughout the extract. This was done with the use of high and low angles, when the camera was on the girl she was looking up at the camera when her brother came over to drag her out and beat her up, the camera was angles at a low angled connoting he had more importance and she was completely insignificant. The theme of insignificance seemed to be a theme throughout the clip as the use of a sound bridge showed her loneliness carry on from one scene to the next. Finally the use of foley sound exaggerated parts of the scene. When Jane’s brother hit her over the head with a book. The sound it made was much louder and defined than it would have been in real life. This exaggerated the intensity of the hit and how much hatred Jane’s brother has for her.

TV Drama essay practice techniques.

When you are given the question in the exam, one should automatically start to think about what they are going to see.

This is can be done because, each genre has a set of key concept and a set of codes and conventions that they each follow. 

Key Concepts 

• Ideology- a set of beliefs, sort of like a stereotype. e.g.- 'Blonde girls are thick'
• Audience
• Realism- verisimilitude which is alternatively known as surface truth or accuracy. 

when writing the essay these ideas should be clear in your head, because if you already have an idea of what you are going to see, before the clip starts you will be more likely to pick out the technical elements. 

The elements you should always keep a look out for are:

-mise-en-scene 

-editing

-sound

-camera angles

For an example to predict what you are going to see lets use the idea of gender. How will gender be represented typically?

The male character may be deemed to be more powerful so high angled shots would be used, loud strong sounds longer amount of screen time.- Parallel editing. 

However the female would probably have quite music backing her, less screen time and low angled shots to show she is less significant. 

Once these ideas have been planted in your head you are likely to pick out more techniques to write about. 

American Hustle

Editing analysis of American hustle trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST7a1aK_lG0

-In this trailer many jump cuts were used. The jump cuts were used to draw the audience in, because it is a trailer of a movie the audience needs to be attracted to the movie almost instantly so they are inclined to go out and watch the film.

-The jump cuts used also speed up the scene which shows the film is fast paced and keeps the audience engaged at all times, always wanting to know what will happen next.

-The typography of the characters names in the trailer jump in on the screen 

the way in which they have been edited is that they match the pace of the music.  They have a quick entrance and exit- this therefore created the effect of a climax being built. 

-Finally the scene also uses cut away shots. This helps show they key points of the story in an efficient way without telling the whole story. 

The overall effect these editing techniques have on the audience, is that they are put together to draw the audience in, essentially creating what a trailer should be.

camera angles

In this Post I have captured a few examples of camera angles we can use within different scenes. they all have a different affect:


This is an image of a high angled shot, this could be shown to emphasise one character being inferior. Another use of this camera angle, is to make the character look a lot smaller, again resulting in with the same conclusion that the person under the camera is insignificant.

This is an example of a low angled shot. This shot makes the object/person look larger and more significant. Has the opposite affect of a high angles shot

This is an example of a mid shot, this shot is used to give the audience a sense of real life. This type of shot would make one feel as if they are watching it happen in real life.









This is an example of a long shot. This shot is used to prompt the audience to be aware of the set around them. It also gives off the idea that the scene is moving from one location to another.

Characters, Costumes, Profile Shots

Ace of Spades-

Reece will be playing the character of a drunk man. As a group we decided that his appearance would be relatively rough. In order to achieve this look, his costume will consist of a dirty white t-shirt, rough denim jeans and worn out footwear, he should also be carrying an beer bottle in his hand. This overall look gives the audience a feeling of intensity.

King of Aces- Aman Dhillon 

Aman's character is to be portrayed as high class and quite reserved. Therefore we have decided his character should be dressed in a suit and black tie. From his scene the audience will not gather much information about his character. His character will add the aspect of suspense and suspiciousness. He will be seen walking off the platform of a train station and making eye contact with one of the other characters.

                    

Jack of Clubs- Luke

This Character is to be portrayed as another mysterious person, but there seems to be some underlying history between King of Aces and himself. This is portrayed to the audience within the train scene. As the King of Ace walks off the platform he notices Jack of Clubs smoking a cigarette outside the train station. Luke's character will be dressed in a white shirt and trousers.

                   

Queen of Hearts- Chelsea's Mum 

Chelsea's Mum Character is to be portrayed as a lady with class. To represent Daisy as a lady with class her costume will be simple and modest. She will be wearing and tight fitted skirt that falls just below the knee, paired with a simple black cardigan and a cream scarf. Her character is very sly, because in the first scene she acts as though she takes orders, however towards the end, the audience will begin to realise that she is the leader of the game.

                    insert profile shot here

Planning process what we need to do next- FINAL DECISIONS

we are now at the final stages of our planning, we have a detailed idea of what we want to film and the majority of locations we will be filming at.
we are going to need 5 different locations to film 1 of the places is to film where the main events are going to take place. The next four locations will be used to show the entrance the four other characters in the opening sequence.

Things we need to finalise over during the next lesson:
- who we are using for our actors
- the final locations with images
- final list of props needed
-story boarding and script
- costumes

sound and possible film titles for a western thriller

Common elements of western film (westerns, cowboys and indians) music:* the beat sounds like a horse galloping* harmonica* old-sounding piano* whistling* violins* brass instruments, e.g. trumpets, that give a slight mexican/mariachi feel* simple, clean electric guitar solos, backed by classical guitar rhythms* jews harp* gun sounds* horse sounds* native american ("indian") warcries* bell 

Typical Western Film Titles:

Cowboys Love To Rope And Ride Home Home On The Range Giddy Up Git Along Lil' Doggy I'm Just A Country Boy I Want To Be A Cowboy (Cowgirl) I Want To Grow Up To Be A Cowboy (Cowgirl) Little Buck-A-Roo Our Little Cowboy Real Cowboys Know The Taste Of Dirt Rodeo King In Training Rodeo Queen In Training Stampede Thank God, I'm A Country Boy Wanted Wild Wild West The ones in red are options for possible film titles that are well suited to our genre choice.

22nd January 2013

Over the last few days as a group we split up to do some research on some hybrids, they consisted of sic-fi thrillers, western thrillers, comedy thrillers and horror thriller.

By doing this activity we as a group were going to come back and make a decision as to what was going to be the most unique to execute:

From the research we gathered, collectively as a group we decided to go with the idea of a western thriller.

By choosing a western thriller we have given ourselves more to work with and more diverse routes for a sequence.

Final Cut- Continuity editing task

When filming the final cut we had to take into account our problems from the first cut.
we paid more attention on making sure that the actors head was not cut off the screen during filming as this would significantly lower our grade.
If you notice that on the final cut the camera was a lot stiller that the fist cut as we had got more familiar with using cameras and how to handle them.
Our use of SRS was a lot more improved as they were filmed over one of the actors shoulders.

finally we one thing we added was that before myself and Aman walked through the doors there was an establishing shot to introduce the scene a lot better.

planning

we have begun planning our final piece and at this stage we are evaluating our research and trying to think outside of the box to think of a unique thriller we could produce.

we came to this conclusion because our initial plan was too cliche. 

initial idea:

overall this idea seemed too cliche, and the typical predictable horror film. The problem with this kind of idea is that we would have been limited to the diversity of shots we can use. To solve this as a group we decided to research different types of hybrids. The hybrids we narrowed it down to were as follows: 

• western thrillers
• romance thrillers 
• comedy thrillers
• horror thrillers 

from our research we decided to go with the idea of a western thriller. 

now we have made this decision we are going to start story boarding and creating a shot list so we have a guide line to follow when it comes to filming.

Update 2nd april-
from our progression throughout the term, as a group we have come to the conclusion that our title sequence, follows the codes and conventions and a psychological thriller. 

Where are we at this point?

til date we have finished filming the basic editing task twice the second shot being our improved piece. we are in the process of editing the second shot, our plan is to have it completed by Friday 10th january.

after this we will need to work efficiently as a group to fit in deadlines, so this means splitting our group up to work on different tasks and meeting outside of lessons to consult and share ideas.