Prop research

We looked into props for our media production. We realise that we need to add effective props in our production in order to make scenes look more effective when the final production is created. We first looked at this magnum to use for the gangster Lekan in our film. We needed to give him a weapon in order to look like a threat in the dream sequence of the film and we thus looked towards a gun to show this.

Research: Ancillary poster

Whilst looking at potential ideas for our aucillary piece we found inspiration from the Bourne Legacy movie poster. We espcially liked the template of how the poster was structured and we could use this sort of templete within our aucillary piece to represent a broken world which the protagonist is living in.

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.

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.

Continuity exercise in class

During one of our media lessons our group and the rest of the class where involved in a continutiy excercise to demonstrate power and status, and we had to show this within a 30 second clip. This excercise was a success and benefitted our group because we had a very short time frame to present and finish filming and editing this exercise which we completed. Resulting this our group realised that we can film in much quicker time scales and can represent people walking across rooms to have power and status through a range of extreme camera angles such as low angle shots for instance. Furthermore, we understood that if we had a range of shots already planned for a specific scene then the likelihood of the scene being completed quicker is of higher possibility as shown in this exercise. We also gained an insight into what shots are most useful to represent people as either inferior or dominant within the frame of the shot.

Testing (Over the shoulder shot)

When discussing potential ideas with the group,the over the shoulder shot was something that became apparent as an essential shot  in one way or another. Our group opted to implement this in our media piece. We conducted a few test shots to see whether we were creating the desired effect from shooting the over the shoulder shot.



Over The Shoulder Still

When viewing what had been shot as an over the shoulder shot, we were pleased with the results and with other viewers providing positive feedback on how it had been shot, we were confident in using an over the shoulder shot.

Testing (Microphone)

We tested the microphone in several environments and in the locations that we had selected for scenes in our movie. We found that particually in restaurants a lot of background sound was present and this was due to other conversations that went on in the room. This hindered the dialogue that actors had to say in our movie and affected the volume of their voice, making it hard to be picked up by the camera. Ouside the same incident was present and this was due to factors such as wind and transport affecting the sensitivity of the microphone. Our group realise when it comes to actual shooting that we will need to over come this constraint. We thus looked at how close the actor has to be towards the mic for relatively clear speech to be present. We tested the actor from a range of distances varying from 3feet all the way to 6feet. Our findings where that from when it got to about 5-6 feet the actors voice became rather quiet and bleneded into the background noise that was around them. However, at 3-4 feet their voice stood out more and was more clearly heard with background noise a minimal problem.  This test was useful for us as it meant we could alter shots to overcome background noise and we would know where the actor would have to be positioned to be heard effectively.

Location (Jordan's House)

During the creation of our storyline our group realized that we need to find a house to use for one of the scenes in the production. We where lucky to find one of our colleagues in our 6form who was able to provide us with his to use for scene 2 of our production. Scene two included a scene where the protagonist wakes up hence we needed a bed and a room with a decent amount of space to fit our kit in and incorporate unique shots. We found that Jordan's house provided these conventions with great sources of light and room which will be beneficial when it comes to shooting this scene.

Audience theory

After reading up on various explanations of audience theory, we were able to reach an agreement of which theory we were to follow in order to tailor our production to appeal to our chosen audience. 

Our chosen audience was was from 14 years of age to early 20's as we fall between these age groups, we felt we identified more with them and understood what may appeal to them the most. From the theories we read through, Uses and Gratification model was chosen as we believed that our audience would be engaged through atleast one of these three elements; 

• To Be Entertained
• In order to identify with others in the situation
• To escape from their daily lives

We understood that our audience would prefer a production that did not feel stationary in its cinematography, we knew that they would be much more engaged with much more dynamic shots and editing which closely resembles the music videos that our age group is exposed/attracted to.

As you can see in this video camera movements are vivid and and dynamic, parts where the camera seems to be stationary effective editing compensates and adds a new dimension to the frame. This is what we believed kept our audience engaged, which we made efforts to include in the production of our media piece.

Genre

The term 'Genre' relates to the categorising of a product especially a product of media i.e Music,Film or Books. They are put into these categories due to their conventions and characteristics and placed in a particular category because of the characteristics that media product has displayed. For example a film that were to have a substantial amount of eerie music and ghosts/apparitions appearing would fall into the genre of 'Horror'. This is due to other films carrying the same traits of that particular were also dubbed as a 'Horror' movie. A flm or media production will be put into a genre through what it contains and what that can be associated with, if a film were to have a killing but the audience do not know who the killer is, that film would be associated with the 'Mystery' genre.

Knowing this, we used it to our advantage as our understanding for genre enabled us to implement certain characteristics and traits from other films to incorparate in our own production, knowing the associations that will be made when the audeience view it. For example we wanted to give our audience the sense of urgency that our character was feeling, therefore we included a kidnapping and some dynamic camera movements to encapsulate the audience in the action of our media production, trying to imitate that of what would be expected in a feature film 'Thriller'.

Narrative theory

To look at our storyline more critically we looked a narrative theories which we learn't in our media lesson. Narrative theories refer to the way the story is told in both fictional and non-fictional texts, we looked at theorist Propp and Toderov the help aid our storyline.

 

Narrative theory 1: Propp

 

Propp looked at folk tales and saw some structures they shared in common. He found 8 character roles and 31 functions that mvoe the story along. The 8 character roles can also be types of action because they are no the sort of roles whihc appear in the cast list. One character in the film or place can occupy several of his character roles or types of action. These are

 

1. The villian

2. The hero (not always good byt always carries the story along. the central character and not always male)

3. The doner (who provides an object with some special property)

4. The helper (who helps the hero)

5. The princess (the rewaard for the hero and object of the villan's schemes)

6. Her father (who rewards the hero)

7. The dispatcher (who sends the hero on his way)

8. The false hero

 

The 31 funcitons includes events such as:

- The heros is prohibited from doing something.

- The villian learns something about the victim

- The villian is punished

 

And etc.

 

Narrative theory 2: Todorov

 

Todorov also saw the underlying structure on narratives

 

He argues that stories all begin in 'equilibruim' when all forces are in balance. This disrupted by a problem to cause 'disequilibrium' Then more events take place before a 'new equilibrium' is established. Many film makers today don't bother setting up the normal world in order to disrupt it with a problem (a killer shark etc.) and go straight for the problem and disequilibrium. However, there will always be a sense in the film of what life was like before the problem came along and therefore what the characters can return to if they can only sort the problem out.

 

These narrative theories has given our group and insite of how to plot our story and how to add twists that may be beneficial or detrimental towards the hero. We had also found within our storyline that the characters that we have scouted and the roles we have given to them coincide with Propps character archetypes and functions as the villian does get punished for his actions. Furthermore, we had also noticed that the equilbrium changes when the hero's girlfriend gets kidnapped but a 'new equilbrium' occurs when they become reunited as the story comes to a close.

  
        






 

Location (The Pizza Factory)

The pizza factory is located at the top of Victoria station and we found this while looking for locations around the area. This location is particually ideal for what we imagined our scene to look like. The lighting is perfect for shooting as its not too dark and not too bright making the room have an essense of natural background light making the scene look more realistic than other locations we have found. The Pizza Factory is further ideal for capturing two-shots and over-the-shoulder shots in the way the seats have been arranged. Our group had further noticed that this location was very similiar to Pulp-Fiction's cafe scene hence the effect of tension with the addition of low key lighting really would add a great effect towards our opening scene.

Location (Marks and Spencers)

During our free periods on a friday our group went around Victoria station to find good locations for our first scene of shooting. Our idea was to shoot a scene in a cafe where the protagonist and his girlfriend would be talking. We knew we needed a location that had space and was assembled in a way which we could work around shots. We found this location in Marks and Spencers to be a good place to shoot due the space around the cafe, meaning we would have space to put the camera and the tripod. However, we found that the way the chairs and tables where assembled werent what we was looking for when we had two-shots in mind therefore we couldn't use this location.

New Camera Vs Old Camera

 

 

This year our group has been enabled to use the Canon EOS 7D camera for shooting. This pros of this camera in comparison to last years camera above is that it can shoot up 1080p videos from up to 25 frames per second which is great enhancement from the 720p recording from the previous Panasonic camera. This enables us to create much more detailed shots where all the elements of the setting are in full focus, we wasn't able to use picture of this quality last year and thus the effect of a movie picture was lost because of this. We can also attach various lenses to the Canon EOS 7D camera which is beneficial as we can zoom into areas from a much longer distance than we could before. The lenses that can be attached from this camera can be from 50mm to 125mm which allows the frame and picture to be adjusted based on type of scene we want to film which is a huge improvement from the one and only lens we had avaliable on the previous camera last year. However the disadvantage with the Canon camera is it's microphone is not as good when dialogue is used as the previous Panasonic camera, thus we will have to use an add-on mic which clips on the top of the camera to get a more clearer sound when people are making dialogue. In spite of this overall, we are at a big advantage this year as big blockbuster films have used this exact piece of equipment such as the likes of The Avengers and 127 Hours, putting us a better position in terms of getting a better quality short film than last year.

New Kit Vs Old Kit

This is the one of the new pieces of equipment that our group may be using when we start shooting our new film. In one of our media lessons we where introduce to this tripod that is used for the Canon T05 7D camera, which our group may be using for some parts of the shooting during our film production. The advantage this piece of kit will have towards our group is that it will keep the camera stable and secure, and with the addition of moving about in certain angels to create effective camera angels. 

 In comparison with our old tripod of last year this new tripod above is much more useful as its considerable heavier than the tripod from last year (on the right). This allows the camera to be much more stable in windy conditions during filming. The new tripod can be adjust to higher heights than the previous tripod from last year and can reach lower levels on the ground as well allow high and low angle shots to be generated much easier than last year. However the downfall with the new tripod we are using this year is that it is considerably bigger in size making it impractical to move about during shots and to locations because of its size and weight where as this wasn't a difficulty with the old piece of equipment. 

Here is the mono-pod. The mono-pod is a piece of kit that has been implemented in our media department over the past year. This kit will be very useful for getting shots from high-angles, as the mono-pod can extend higher than most pieces of equipment used in the media. Furthermore, this piece of equipment can be useful for over the shoulder shots when people are walking as you can obtain much more stable movements whilst walking with the mono-pod, whereas last year we was restricted from this piece of equipment and had to use the camera handheld which created a much more agitated shot.

Following on from this, this piece of the equipment was introduced to our media group last year when we was doing our first short two minute film. We didn't use this piece of equipment as we found it very confusing, but with a demonstration from our media teacher the group feels this piece of kit can be useful. The reason for this, is that it can create very still movements of when someone is walking as this piece of equipment attaches to your shoulders, enabling walking movements to take place or jerky movements; for example someone being chased.

Taxi Driver

In terms of using Taxi driver as inspiration, we're using aspects of its cinematography to implement into our production. The way the camera is mainly fixed on the main character engrossing the audience in the characters world, we found this an interesting element that would make our production more captivating to the audience.

Also small parts of the storyline contributed to our idea as in Taxi Driver the character is under some sort of elusion about the world. We used this as a platform for our idea in making the character confused about what is going on around him

 

Training Day

In our storyline there is a scene where a car is involved, however me and my partner realized that shots are going to be hard to create in the environment of a car as inside the care is a relatively confined environment. We looked at movies where gangsters where involved and found that Training Day had the most useful shots that will help establish the setting and get good view angles of the characters inside the environment.  The shots in Training day vary from low-angle shots to two shots to close-up shots, all these shots me and my partner found would be useful to use in our scene to help show the status of the characters in the situation that there in whilst in the scene.

Another reason why we also opted to research Training day was because of various bedroom scenes that are implemented in this film. There are in particular close up and extreme close up shots in and out of focus that show the element of confusion on the characters face and by distorting the image the audience is as confused and anxious as the protagonist. Our idea originally was for a bedroom scene to take place where the protagonist is woken up by an alarm or phone call of some sort. This movie helped enhance our creative ideas of what shots to use during this scene and how the focus on the lens is used to add effect.

Drive (2011)

We needed to find inspiration and ideas that linked to our genre of gangsta and mystery. Drive was a perfect movie for our group as it demonstrates mysterious characters with characteristics of a typical gangsta. Our group used the main character in this picture to the left, and used some of his characteristics and implemented it into our villain even  though this character is a hero in Drive. We decided to use the conventions of this character in our movie for our villain to add suspense and drama to our short film, as we are trying to portray a mysterious character with psychotic ideas but you never know what he is thinking, thus engaging the audience.

Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs we researched as the main characters where based on typical gangsters to be frank. From watching this film we thought it would be a good idea to dress the gangster's in suits which their hair slicked backwards as it would make the audience perceive them as a typical gangster looking for trouble. The other reason we looked at this film as part of our research is because a part of our idea for this short film was for the protagonist to get kidnapped and put into a room similar to environment where the victim is tied to a chair in Reservoir Dogs. This movie was hence useful to us as we could see how to recreate shots that would add the drama that shown in a similar environment in this film. We therefore found this as a useful piece of research towards our media production as it helped enhance our idea, and showed us how our characters should appear to make them suit the genre we are trying to portray in our media production.