Research: Music for title sequence

Music became a struggle to find because we didn't want to use somebody else song. Hence we opted use instrumentals made from people who make independent sounds. The effect we wanted to present was kind of dreamy music with the some sort of beat to it to fit the transitions of the title sequence. We found a song called 'remember you' to be ideal for going along with the title sequence's transitions, and plus adding to the effect of mystery and a dream atmospheric tone which we wanted to represent from the outset. To avoid any legal action being taken place our group asked permission from a person  that remixed this track and we was lucky enough to be granted permission to use it.

Planning: Costume

We had to take careful consideration into the costume that we had our characters are seen in, this is due to the connotations that go along with whatever characters are seen wearing.
As the characters within our production were to be affiliated with organised crime, we took inspiration from various Organised crime/Gangster films.

Iconic Suit and Tie Ensemble in Reservoir Dogs 

Again we were influenced by Pulp Fiction and costume choice

After looking at 'Goodfellas' we noticed a trend within films of this genre and costumes worn by their characters. This reinforced our decisions in having costumes for our characters to be suits and ties. Our understanding of connotation and denotation lead us to believe that this sort of costume suggests that our characters are at a higher level of crime and not just petty criminals.

Connotations surrounding such costume choice reinforce viewers beliefs of who the characters are.

Research: music for montage

The music we had chosen for the montage had to create the feel of a lapse in time within our media products world, we felt this instrumental created this and combined with various shots and with correct editting this should the desired effect that we are looking to achieve within this portion of our media production.

Split screen and Inspiration behind it

The use of split screen in our media production was to show what the couple within our production is going through despite them being in two different places. As we knew our audience is that of a younger generation we decided that this was the best way to ensure we had ensnared their attention as the split screen and camera shots almost replicate those found in music videos our audience are exposed to.

In 500 days of summer split screen is used to show two different instances although in the same setting, we thought this to be an interesting element to have so we decided upon a way we could create our own rendition of this and came up with split screening a scene to create the unsettling feeling of anxiety and panic between the couple although they are in two different locations.

What had inspired us to do this was 2006 film Kidulthood, we thought that the way they managed to expose the audience to what is happening with both groups of people was highly effective even though both groups were not near each other.
We decided we would include our own rendition of this in our media production as it would retain the attention of viewers as well as giving them further insight into the action of the scene.

Planning: Character Profiles

Miles Fehmi 

 

Miles Fehmi is our protagonist in this film. He is the person that gets involved in an unwanted activity which puts himself and his girlfriend in danger. We wanted to make this character act very vulnerable to represent something he has to protect, in this case his girlfriend. Therefore, the personality which Miles posses is a very conceited character who hides much of his emotion until push comes to shove. The reason we wanted to present Miles in this way was to show the dominance and power of the other characters in the production (the villains). The hero's quest in this film is for his beloved girlfriend and his fight for freedom.

Sophia Abbassy

Sophia is the girlfriend of Miles and is shown in this film as very sweet, innocent and vulnerable who is always at danger no matter where she turns. However Sophia does have a nature to love being treated and going out to places to eat and having money. This type of personality Sophia has causes the story have a equilibruim to it which can change at any second because the audience are believed to think shes trustworthy but is she? This type of character adds a twist to our storyline which adds to the story and will make paudiences think more about the storyline.

Lekan Akako

Even though Lekan's role isn't as substantial to the other roles in this production his influence in the short movie is vital for the way things flow within the way the story unfolds. Lekan is a character who is very devious and sneaky, he works alongside the main gangster (Omed) and assists him in the pursuit of capturing Miles. Lekan works under the rador and monitors on the streets every move that Miles makes and reports this to Omed. His personality is very unpredictable and has violent nature, but also can be manipulated by the main gangster.

Omed Popal

Omed is the main gangster who has a vendetta against the protagonist. A truly methodical character who plans his every move Omed's personality and nature helps add to the effect of the production. His personality is a bit like Lekans unpredictable however with Omed he can snap at any second no matter the circumstances. We needed a character like this in our production to present a dominance and power over the other characters in our film. Without this role in our film the story would have no substance and edge to it.



Location Problems

Whilst searching for locations around our school our group encounter several issues. Firstly when our group went to DT rooms to check for there availability we found that the rooms may not be available every time when we seek to shoot. This constraint is going to affect our schedule, so we have come up with an alternative method that will overcome this, which is to film at lunch times and after school. This way our group is avoiding lessons as students will be on their way home, meaning we can film. However the group realizes that are schedule will be affected either way. Our group also anticipated the corridors are likely to become noisy during certain intervals during the day, with addition of students and teachers walking around the corridors from time to time. Our filming routine will be affected as students and teachers may look at the camera distracting our focus and progress. Our group understands that there isn't a way to uphold this as its something unavoidable; our group will have to therefore shoot scenes efficiently to aviod disruption during the production of our film. Moving on from this, the hostage scene will have to be shot when the school is empty, this will be something hard to achieve as the school is hardly empty as its contained with teachers and students. The best way to uphold this is to film in the half term as there is a minimal amount of people in the school, maximizing our chances of shooting this scene.

Schedule problems

Problems between us group members and our timetables:

Some problems we had faced was the difficulty of shooting times, as our timetables were not completely the same, there would be times where Kingsley would have free periods, where I would have lessons.

To over come this problem we agreed that during times when all of us or at least 1 of us have a free period  we can shoot or edit our footage as tasks where delegated between the group. This was an effective way to keep the progression of our media work constant instead of waiting for opportunities when all of us are available.

Also times when we need to shoot school pupils would be walking around going about their business. This posed the problem of them disrupting the scene either by making noise or walking on to the set. To get passed this we decided to shoot during lesson time, this was when the school was at its most quiet as pupils would be in their classrooms. Although this meant we had an extremely limited amount of time to shoot, this proved to be a learning curve as we are learning to shoot very efficiently in any given amount of time.

Alternatives where also arranged in spite of this and shooting after school was another way  for the group to overcome the restraint of times available to shoot. This also solved the problem of pupils or teachers disrupting production as many of them would have gone home.

Group members timetable

 

Above is our timetables within our group. Our group decided it will be suitable to print off timetables to see when we are free to shoot when we needed to shoot and when we needed to edit. For us this was useful because we can create an official schedule which we can stick to whilst during the course of creating the short media production, enhancing our time management skills. 



Schedule

Today we have created schedule because it will help outline what we can do everyday each week so that when a group member is not in the other member will have a secure idea of what they could do instead of wasting that time. We have currently only planned up to until half term because objectives may vary depending on how much we can get done within this time period. Drawing towards half term, on the last day before we break up we plan to discuss our next schedule for after half term.