Final Film

This is our final film. It has the production image we created, the improvements we made based on our feedback and we even got the soundtrack into it.

Self Evaluation

Evaluation

We finished our group evaluation today in the form of a Youtube channel that takes you through the different parts of our evaluation. Here is the link:

Group T Youtube

Soundtrack completed

Our group managed to finish the soundtrack for our film yesterday, in time for our deadline. I think our soundtrack is very good because it represents the gangster genre well by being almost jazzy and fits well to what is happening on the screen. We hope to mix it into our film before the deadline.

A reflective summary to problems in group work

My group worked very well so we didn't face many problems except the typical problems that come with being in a group such as, ideas clashing. This meant that we were able to work efficiently together and share out the work load that we had to do. Which meant that the pressure of the course was reduced thanks to this. One small problem that we encountered is that we found it difficult to create the soundtrack in time for the showcase. We're now on the way to finishing our soundtrack for the film.

My feelings towards our openings

I think that our film opening is good but could be better. I thought the lighting that we used during the filming process was well-suited to our genre of gangster films and the costumes we used helped reflect the genre. I think that we had good control of the narrative as we presented multiple enigmas that interested the audience with a the plotline of murder beginning the movie. I think we could've improved out by spending more time filming scenes so that we could get more shots to make the film flow more smoothly.

Post-Feedback editing

We had to edit our film again after the showcase so that the first half of our opening was more fast paced. We done this by cutting the clips we had and mixing them together so they cut to each other quickly. This told the audience the narrative faster than our previous version of the film. Another thing we did was move the titles to the start of the film and add the refraction effect to quickly distort the titles. We did this to maintain the interest of our audience.

Preliminary sequence editing software

During the preliminary sequence I used the diting software Final Cut Express for the first time. I had never used this particular editing software before instead, I had used software like the typical windows video editor and sony vegas pro. Although, I eventually learnt how to use as I do with other software it took me a while to figure out how some parts worked. Therefore, I had to look on the internet to find out how to use certain functions. I did learn how to use video transitions and effects in Final Cut Express and how to manipulate the audio of clips to make them fade or be silent.

Feedback to film

This week we showed our film to the rest of our class. It was a working copy, the only thing we missed though was the soundtrack. It all went pretty well except during the showcase one clip hadn't exported with the rest so we had three seconds of "Media can't be found" but it didn't have too much effect on the overall film.

The feedback we got was better than I expected. People did enjoy the film and thought we had some decent camera shots and angles. They especially enjoy the last half of the film as the pace picked up and they became more ivolved in the characters. The first half was the main problem as we had complaints about it being too slow and the credits not fitting in well enough. We hope to address these problems and improve the film. Overall, we had some positive feedback, even though some of the marks we found were quite harsh, but that's just people's opinions.

Showcase Film

This was the film we showed at our showcase.

What I liked:

- Camera angles e.g. smoking scene, cigarette scene

- Sound effects, although some need to be added the ones we had I thought fitted nicely.

- Lighting, although hard to get right I thought it fitted the genre.

Things I think need improvement:

- Titles and credits need to be added in a more sophisticated way that better reflects the genre.

- Soundtrack soundtrack soundtrack

- The pace of the first half of the film needs to edited so it's quicker

How we plan to do our evaluation

We have an idea of how we're going to do our evaluation and that is by using Youtube. We were told to try and make it interactive and as creative as possible so we have the idea of using annotations on Youtube videos to navigate our evaluation. We will have a main video which you can navigate to each question and on each question you can progress to the next question or return to the start. We feel this would be better than one long video as it will make the user intereact more with it.

Editing

The editing has mainly finished now. Although, I hope that we will be able to edit more once we have shown it to the class and been given some feedback on how to improve. The only thing that needs to be done now is to add the soundtrack to the film. Max is currently working on this and will hopefully be finished with it soon.

Preliminary sequence

This is the preliminary sequence that me and my group made before we did I real film opening. I enjoyed doing this as it was the first time I got to handle the camera and experiment with the angles. Personally, I think the sequence isn't that very good as we rushed it in an hour when we should've spent more time planning it and shooting the conversation multiple times.

What I learnt:

- A variety of camera angles is good when it comes to editting.

- Conversation needs to be done multiple times so during editting it can be editted to flow smoothly

My idea submissions to our opening

I like to think that I helped in contributing ideas towards our opening sequence in terms of good camera angles etc. The scene with the panning of the gangster murderer walking originally came from a storyboard that I made up for an old media homework. I also helped develop the storyline that we hoped to create but only with the stalking aspect, the idea of love was done by the other members of the group.

Final filming

Our last part of filming is being done today as we film the last bit of our opening sequence. The part that we are filming is only a small part of the film but it is important to the enigma we hope to create. It will be hard to get the same lighting effects that we had from the past sequences but hopefully it we will be able to do it.

Film analysis 4

The opening scene of the movie Blade uses dark lighting and colours in the clubs and on the streets to represent the seedy underworld of the city. During the start the movie is sped up so daylight quickly becomes night which hints to the audience that most of the events will happen during the night. The use of the nightclub setting shows that the vampires are similar to normal humans with their behaviour and it is yet unclear about who is a vampire yet. It is still unclear until blood begins to spray from the ceiling when it is revealed that it is a vampire nightclub. As soon as the character Blade shows up the camera shots become more varied with angles such as POVs and also quickly cuts. This represents the action genre as Blade dominates the vampires. The target audience of the film is obvious straight away as the content of the film is for mature audiences as in the car the woman grabs the crotch of the man beside her.

Film analysis 3

The zombieland opening scene is good at setting the genre of the film. During the opening it shows a large amount of gory scene for example, a woman getting her ankle bitten and several zombies covered in blood. This represents the genre of horror but the film cleverly mixes this with comedy as the narration makes jokes about the deaths of others for example at 1:31 he says "Poor fat bastard" Several scenes are also seen comical as we see a scene where a man is attacked while on the toilet. The scenes during the opening vary greatly as we see a large amount of characters in different scenerys who're being attacked by zombies. This tells the audience of the narrative and that the zombie infection has spread and affects everyone from different backgrounds. The titles also shows rules on how to deal with zombies which hints to the background of the narrator and that he has experience with dealing with zombies even though we haven't seen him yet. The non-diegetic music is from the band Metallica as it plays over the destruction that the zombies are causing. The music fits well with this as the metal music is stereotyped as destructive music so correlates well with what is going on in the film. The first scene of the opening is of a handheld camera of a man being attacked by a zombie. This grabs the audience's attention straight away as we are straight into the action and destruction of Washington. The slow motion of the shots help highlight the action that is happening on screen for example; blood spurting, glass smashing, money being thrown about and people falling.

Detailed storyboard

I thought I'd post a segment of our detailed storyboard

Production image created

We created our production image logo that we added into our film opening to try and make it seem more professional and realistic. The image we used is from the manga "Bleach" which features the mask of creatures called Hollows. We thought this would suit well with the name we had come to conclusion with, it also adds a more sinister tone to the rest of the film as the image is ominous.

Filiming on Tuesday and editing

Tuesday after school my group went down to Loughton where we began filming our opening sequence. We filmed the vast majority of the footage that we needed. In the clips we filmed I was an actor on screen but sometimes I was assisting with the camera angles and filming. I thought that what we filmed was good but it could've been better due to us not having the appropriate lighting so some clips are too dark to see what is happening. Yesterday I tried to edit the clips we had filmed on Tuesday and had some difficulties trying to adjust the light of the clips so that we could see what was going on. After some help from the teachers we had managed to lighten up some of clips so they were visible enough.