Film Opening Coursework. EVALUATION - TASK SEVEN

Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task) what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product? 

If I look back at my preliminary task, I feel I have learnt an unbelievable amount in terms of camera work, editing and even planning since then until now. During my preliminary task, I was quite unorganised and didn't fully appreciate the need to carefully plan out all of the shots needed, the need to do a storyboard in detail and the need to plan out my time carefully and make sure I stuck to a time schedule in order to make sure I got everything I needed. Whilst doing my preliminary task, I forgot a few shots that I needed to make sure I did the best I could do. The reason I forgot this is because I hadn't done my storyboard correctly and thought I had finished all my filming. I also hadn't stuck to my time schedule so I only had a few hours to sort out the missing footage and re-film and re-edit the whole task. If I had properly planned my time and made sure I had done my storyboard correctly, this problem would have happened. By making this mistake, I made sure I planned extremely carefully for all of my shots and made sure I had enough time to film everything and actually stuck to my time schedule.

In terms of camera work, I feel I have learnt a lot in this area because I have learnt that even camera work helps set the mood for a film and can help foreshadow the plot of some films. In my preliminary task, I didn't use a wide range of shots. I mostly just used mid shots, long shots and close ups which are three of the most popular shots to use. They don't provide much help to set the mood of a film subliminally so in my film opening, I used a wide variety of shots to help. I use low angle shots to suggest power and dominance because it gives the feel that the characters in the shots are looking down on you. I used high angle shots to suggest weakness, to give the impression that the character in the shot is being looked down on and disrespected. I used extreme close ups to help set the feeling of confusion it also makes the audience realise that yes, this person is obviously drunk because you wouldn't normally have your face that close up to your face. Also, in terms of camera work, I followed the 180 degree rule throughout the getting reading scenes and throughout the morning after scenes but not technically through the party montage because this helped create the idea of confusion and mayhem which was the feeling I was going for so I broke the 180 degree rule two or three times then to add that confusion.

For my editing, I feel I have come on in leaps and bounds in the amount I've improved/ During my preliminary task, I didn't really have any idea when I started the editing process. It wasn't until I had finished it that I was reasonably ok with using iMovie as my editing software. It took a long time and it involved a lot of googling "How to do..." and "What do I do when..." because things kept going wrong or I wasn't able to work out how to do something. So, even before I started editing my film opening, I made sure I was completely comfortable with using iMovie by making sure I knew how to add music in, edit effectively and make clean cuts etc. By the end of editing my preliminary task, I knew how to edit effectively whilst still making sure all my cuts were clean and made sense. I also took into account the amount of attention to detail it takes to edit. I wanted to make sure no one person was in two consecutive shots because it would have looked very odd and would have caused a lot of confusion. One thing I did struggle with was putting more than one track onto the footage but eventually I worked it out without even having to look it up on Google. Compared to the preliminary task, my match-on-action was a lot slicker and looked a lot better. The match-on-action happens when George Lamb (who plays Christopher) looks down at his hands and sees the blood. We go from a mid shot of him going to look down at his hands before cutting to a POV as he is looking down at his hands. It's very effective and I think it helps add some atmosphere to the scene.

Film Opening Coursework. EVALUATION - TASK SIX

Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

This is a tripod. Before starting my product I wasn't too sure how to properly set one up or why they were used but now I know that they're used to make sure that camera shots aren't shaky and making sure the framing is all correct to ensure that shots are perfect and clear. You set them up by adjusting the height from the bottom by simply unclipping the hooks and pulling the legs to the correct height you want. Some tripods come with spirit levels so that you can make sure your shots will definitely come out perfect and not wonky. You then attach your camera to the tripod and voila, you can begin filming without having to hold the camera and risk having shaky film.

This is a laptop.. I think most people would be able to realise that. I used my laptop to blog on and do all my editing on which includes iMovie. My iMovie skills have improved massively because now I know how to include music, adjust the diegetic sound in the film and how to include title credits and black outs which I didn't know how to do beforehand. I learnt how to import sounds from GarageBand (for us, the sound of the birds) into our movie which I didn't know how to do before and I also learnt how to change filters on YouTube to find audio which artists are willing to let you use for free with their permission which is where we got our Boombox Cartel track from. 

This is my Panasonic Lumix DSLR which we used to do all of our filming on. It's my camera so I knew how it worked already and was able to teach Dan how to use it effectively. Even though it technically a camera specialised for photography, it films in HD which was good because it meant the quality of our footage was better compared to if we had used a video camera from school with less megapixels. 

Here are some pictures I found on Google Images of UV light. Unfortunately we borrowed two UV lights off some friends which we have now returned so I cannot take a picture of the exact one we used but the pictures above represent the type of light we used. What I learned about UV light is that when you wear light and bright coloured clothing underneath it, it brings out the colours fantastically so we made all of our actors wear light and bright colours because it made the party montage look more exciting and more like a rave. At first, using two UV lights didn't appear to look like it would make everyone's clothing "light up" but turns out it did. 

These are strobe lights. This strobe light I believe belonged to Dan but he can't find it so I've had to fin pictures of strobe lights off of Google Images again. The strobe light we used made the party seem, again more like a rave. It made the party seem less like a house party as well which is good. Strobe lights are very atmospheric and they help create the sense of mayhem and chaos as it makes the scenes very distorted as it's constantly flashing.

Film Opening Coursework. EVALUATION - TASK FIVE

Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCMXCFmpHZs

The link above will take you to a question and answer video I had with Chris Kilworth, a guy I used to work with in my local pub, about my film opening. I sent it to him whilst he was at uni and made him watch it a few times over to make sure he had a full understanding of what it's about. Then I asked him the following questions:

1) What did you think of the film opening on first impressions? 

2) What genre would you class my film opening as and why? 

3) What is your favourite genre of film? 

4) Did the music help set the mood of the film opening including the nature sounds at the end? 

5) What film would you compare this movie opening to? 

6) If you saw this movie opening on TV, would you carry on watching it with your friends and why? 

7) Did you find the camera work and editing effective? 

I feel that according to Chris' answers, we effectively addressed and attracted our audience because we made it relatable. By making the film opening about teenagers underage drinking, it's something most teenagers and young adults can relate to (even though it is technically illegal) so teenagers will watch it and it might bring back memories of parties they have been to or make them want to go out  to a party and then, due to the mystery of the ending of my film opening, it makes them want to carry on watching even more because they want to find out why the boy died, how the boy died etc. It triggers the audiences' morbid interest which everyone has, even if they don't like to admit it. 

Film Opening Coursework. EVALUATION - TASK FOUR.

Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product? 

This is Owen Davies and Kasia Miller. They're both 17 and go to sixth form. Kasia is taking Photography, English Language, Food Technology and Sociology at AS level and Owen is taking Graphics, Business and English Literature at AS level. Kasia likes watching horror films with her friends even though they scare her to the point she can't sleep that night and she loves going out, drinking and socialising. Owen doesn't like drinking or drugs but loves to play football with his friends for his local football team. He also loves watching social realism films such as Trainspotting because they're realistic and he can easily put himself in the characters shoes and feel as if he is living their life for the few hours the film is on for. Kasia's favourite TV program is American Horror Story because she likes how it's very confusing and you have to pay a lot of attention to it to fully understand it. Again, she doesn't like the fact that it's really scary but she thinks that's part of the thrill of it. Owen's favourite TV program is Breaking Bad because he likes watching all the fighting and the many twists in the plot. Kasia listens to a lot of indie-rock music like The Maccabees and The Arctic Monkeys but does enjoy listening to remixes of popular songs because she can party and dance to them whilst still knowing the words. Owen listens to dub-step and drum and bass music because he likes the strong bass lines and fast rhythms. Kasia likes to buy her clothes from stores such as American Apparel, Pull and Bear and Topshop because they're always in with the new fashion, even though she doesn't like the price tag at all. Owen likes to buy his clothes as cheap as he can because he likes to save his money, so he'll buy his clothes second hand from eBay or in charity stores, however he always make sure he looks good in what he wears and is always in with the latest fashion trend. Kasia doesn't like going to the cinema because she thinks it's too expensive so she uses websites such as Netflix and LoveFilm to watch films on, she can also find some really good indie films on these websites that wouldn't normally be shown in cinemas or even on TV. Owen doesn't go the cinema often either but he'll go if there is a new film out which he desperately wants to see. The trailers are the deciding factor for him whether he'll go see it and he doesn't pay attention to who directed the film, who produced it etc. Kasia doesn't like it when films are too intense and she likes them to have a little bit of light-hearted fun in them whereas Owen prefers his films to be really intense the whole way through as it leaves a lasting impression on him. 

Overall, our media product is mostly aimed at teenagers aged between 16-18 as they would relate to the film opening a lot more than people in an older age bracket as youth culture has changed drastically over the last few years. 

Film Opening Coursework. EVALUATION - TASK THREE

Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why? 

This question has been the hardest one for me to tackle in all honesty because it has taken me a lot of research to do. I have done research into what production companies actually do and what their purpose is and what distributors do etc.

I considered doing a running commentary over the top of my video which would point out why I used and did certain things in the place I did in the video (not sure if that sentence makes any sense) but I feel like I will be able to go into more detail by writing everything up in more detail as I can talk more without having to rush.

Firstly, by definition (wikipedia), a production company is "a production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video." This means they handle things such as budgeting, scripting, casting, organisation of staff, filming, editing, promoting and distributing. Film distributors are the main people responsible for marketing the film. They might choose how the film will be shown to the public e.g. will it go straight onto DVD or into the cinemas? Film distributors also might be owned by production companies which makes it easier and cheaper for production companies to distribute their films as they wont have to pay anyone to do it. 

This is my production logo. Myself and Dan called our production company "Tortuga" for one reason and one reason only.. we both like Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad is one of our favourite TV shows and Tortuga is a character in it who is a Drug Enforcement Agency rat who also works for the mexican drug cartel. We thought the name Tortuga would make our production company sound more small and independent compared to if we were to have called our production company a name such as "Worldwide Productions" or something along those lines. If I were to compare our production company with any other existing institution, I think I would say Tortuga would be similar to a production company such as Film 4. Film 4 has made quite a few small, independent films which have turned out to be massive successes, such as This Is England. They have now gone on to help produce films such as the oscar winning 12 Years A Slave. Film 4 also like to make social realism films, such as This Is England and they are very good at it as well. Our film opening is a social realism film and a thriller together so Film 4 would be a perfect production company to use if we were to promote our film opening to them. British film companies have a reputation of being able to make the best social realism films in the world and if Tortuga were a real production company, I hope that they would be able to keep up that reputation as well. 

I have noticed a few films that are similar to mine. The first one being Project X. Project X (a film that I have mentioned in a few blog posts) is a semi-realistic comedy about 3 boys who throw a massive house party where thousands of people turn up and the house gets burnt down, things get broken and the police have to shut it down. It attracted millions and millions of teenagers to go and watch it and even inspired a few people to try and throw their own "Project X", many of them turning out to be flops and not work. I feel like the reason Project X took off as well as it did is because it was almost entirely about teenagers smoking, drinking, taking drugs, being wild and causing mayhem. It made people want to be there which is what I've tried to do with my film opening. I tried to make people who watched it want to go and party and get involved. Another film I think that is similar to mine is "I Know What You Did Last Summer". Again, I have mentioned this in another blog post but this is similar in the idea that teenagers are again drinking and having fun but they accidentally kill someone and for the months, they receive notes saying "I know what you did last summer" and turns out that the man they thought they'd killed, wasn't actually dead and then he kills them as revenge. (Sorry, spoilers.) Our film opening plot matches this because the guy who is dead is in the afterlife trying to work out why he was killed and who killed him so that he can kill them too and get his revenge. You can only work this out though by watching the whole film, if it were to be made. 

I have clearly established that my film is a social realism film and a thriller through two ways. I have made it gritty and about real life issues such as drinking and drugs which is typical of social realism films throughout the party montage as everyone is drinking and dancing and doing illegal things. I have also established that my film is also a thriller by the end scenes of people waking up with blood on their hands before cutting to shots of somebody who has been brutally murdered at the end. The audience get to realise that something serious has happened and this wasn't just your average, teen party where everyone gets drunk. 

I have included three names in my actors billing; George Lamb, Chloe Brock and Harrison Lowe. Obviously in every day life, these people aren't actors and they're just normal people but if my film were to be shown to the public, they would be upcoming actors who had been in a few TV shows as extras or had been in some very independent films which weren't distributed in cinemas etc. I chose to include these three people's names as these three are the three in the morning after scene where everyone is waking up. These characters are the character I did the profiling on in a few blog posts back. These three characters are the main characters in the film. There would be more if it were made feature length, however they would not be as important as these three so I included their names so that people would realise who they are as most people do not read the end credits after films carefully. I considered not putting actors billing at the beginning because then it would have made the whole movie more realistic as it wouldn't have seemed that there were any actors and they were all real people but I felt like it was appropriate to put their names as it fitted with the editing plan and it gave them recognition. 

Film Opening Coursework. EVALUATION - TASK TWO.

Question two: How does your media product represent particular social groups? 

                                                            

The character on the right is called Michelle Richardson and she is played by April Pearson in the hit UK social-realism show Skins. This character on the left is called Lucy Jones and is played by Chloe Brock in my film opening, Revenge.  The character at the bottom is called Helen Shivers played by Sarah Michelle Geller in I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Similarities they share: 

1) Appearance 

Despite having different colour hair, Lucy and Michelle have a lot in common in terms of their appearance. Both of the girls are very attractive which is a very prominent stereotype in the media representation of women. Popular women in Media are almost always attractive and lusted over by men. Lucy and Helen are very similar in appearance as well because they both have blonde hair and wear similar clothes (jeans and a vest top). Vest tops show quite a lot of skin, not exactly promiscuous but they're quite tight and very typical of teenagers. 

2) Role in film 

They are both the girlfriends of the "popular boys". In Skins, Michelle is dating the popular boy of the school called Tony but she is lusted over by many men, mainly Tony's best friend. If Revenge were to be made into a film opening, a sub-plot would be that the reason Lucy had a part to play in the death of Marcus was because although she was/is dating Christopher (see character profile blog post), her and Marcus had a drunk "one night stand" and she wanted to make sure he never told anyone. This also helps support the genre as my film opening is a social realism/thriller. Lucy and Helen have very similar roles also because they are both girlfriends to the hot, popular guys. Helen is a beauty queen and very popular herself and quite ditzy which, if we were to make the film feature length, would be the same case for Lucy. 

3) Life of character

All three characters are in college or the US equivalent (high school). This is very typical of teen horror and thriller movies where characters are usually around the age of 16 or 17. It's also typical of teen social realism films. This helps promote our film to our target audience of teenagers because its rather easily to relate to if the characters are teenagers and the audience are teenagers. 

Film Opening Coursework. EVALUATION - TASK ONE.

Question 1: In what way does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e of film openings) 

The title of the film 

The title of my film opening is called Revenge. We called it Revenge because the plot, if it were to be made into a feature length film, would be about a boy who tries to work out who killed him and get revenge on that person/people. The idea of revenge is a typical plot of thriller and horror films. For example, the film 'Dead Mans Shoes' is based around the idea that the killer was tortured and abused both mentally and physically by drug dealers which resulted in him taking revenge by killing them one by one. This is similar to the plot of ours as the boy, Marcus, who is murdered, decides that whilst he is in the Inbetween, he will take revenge on everyone who bullied him.


The setting of the film opening

This is the only screen grab I could get which would roughly show the main setting of the film opening. This is a medium shot of two of our characters dancing in blow up handcuffs. You can see in the background some of the setting and you can see the UV lights around characters. The main setting of it is in the top of a garage which is mainly used for parties. It's rigged with UV lights, strobe lights and speakers to make it the optimum location for a party. This is very similar to many social realism films about drugs, alcohol and teenagers. Also, because it looks like an enclosed space, it makes it look like it was more of an illegal party or a free party which suggests that they are underage. For example, in the hit TV drama Skins, they frequently attend underground raves where strobe lights, UV lights and loud music are common. One key stereotype of teenagers is that they like to go out to parties which supports our genre of a social realism/thriller as I said, most social realism films are based on drugs, alcohol or teenagers.


Costume and props

We decided to let the actors choose their own clothing as we thought it would represent the typical teenage style a lot better  than if we told them what to wear. The only thing we said was that they had to wear something that would show up really well under the UV light. As you can see from my screen grab, these three girls all decided to wear white tops of different styles, one of them being cropped and the other two being very low cut. This represents what a typical teenager would wear to a party - not overdressed but definitely look like they were making an effort. We also provided UV body paint for everyone to apply with the most style of applying the paint being two stripes on each cheek. In the film "Project X", the teenagers are all wearing smart casual clothing just like our actors so we haven't challenged any conventions of teenage fashion. You can also see that one of the characters on the right hand side is holding a bottle of cider. This supports the idea that teenagers like to go out drinking and partying. We also bought fluorescent shot glasses to pour water in to mimic people drinking shots which are seen in the first shot of somebody pouring liquid into the shot glasses.

Genre of film opening

The genre of my film opening is a social realism/thriller. For the most part, the film opening suggests that it is only a social realism film as it focuses on teenagers having parties, drinking, smoking and doing the stereotypical teenager things that the media represents. This shot here shows many shot glasses being filled up with vodka. The whole party scene is very much like the film "Project X" which is a semi-realistic comedy about a boy who throws a house party and over a thousand people turn up. Even though our film isn't a comedy, throughout both my film opening and Project X, there are teenagers seen partying and generally being reckless and causing mayhem. According to Project X's IMDB page, many of the smaller antics which happen e.g. dancing, throwing things around, smashing things, were improvised by the extras and weren't directed at all. This is similar to our film opening because during the party scene, myself and Dan gave no instruction to our actors other than that we wanted them to have a party and act even more wild than they normally would.

How characters are introduced

In my film opening, the first few opening shots are of people preparing the party and no faces are included in the shots. It is obvious that people are getting ready for a party because there are shots of people pouring shots out and applying make up.
Characters are properly introduced in the party montage because you can see everyones faces. However, you can't work out who will be the main characters and what their names are which makes people guess. In most social realism films, there is one main character who is introduced straight away, for example in "Trainspotting", the main character is introduced in the first scene of the film with Renton, played by Ewan McGreggor, running away from security guards with a monologue put over the top of the footage of him talking about "not choosing life". Even though the monologue itself does not introduce his name, we do find out that he is a heroin addict and doesn't want to be the same as other people. So, our film opening challenges typical social realism film openings as we don't introduce anybody, neither do you find anything out about anybody other than that they all like to party. You could say that the final scenes of the people waking up introduce the characters as it focuses on three people; two people waking up and one person who is dead but just by watching the film opening you would not be able to tell anything about them or why they are in that situation without watching the rest of the film.


Camera-work and editing. 

Throughout my film opening we used a variety of different shots and editing techniques, especially in the party montage. This shot here is an extreme close up of one of our actors faces looking very excited and happy with his tongue out. He is looking directly into the camera and I have put this shot strategically in a place which fits the music exactly. The music at this point is building up to a "drop" which is the climax of a piece where there is a switch in rhythm or bass line.  In our film opening, we used medium shots, close ups, extreme close ups, low angle shots, high angle shots, long shots and POV's. There are a few low angle shots of people partying and dancing. The reason I chose to do this is because low angle shots suggest power and authority and because someone eventually does get killed at the party, it very discreetly hints that someone has power over someone but this is not obvious at all. When choosing my soundtrack for the film opening, I spent a long time checking tracks beats per minute (BPM) and making sure the drops happened in the right place and that the tracks had the perfect atmosphere for our party. When I found the right one, the one that is used in our setting up of the party scenes and the party montage, I went through my shots and edited them perfectly in time with the track. I did this by making sure the shots changed exactly on the beat (the piece was in 4/4 time meaning four crotchet beats in a bar). This makes the editing a lot cleaner and slicker. We used a tripod for the waking up scenes but not for the setting up or the party montage because this gives the shots a more gritty, realistic feel. Making the shots shaky also resembles the effects of alcohol and how alcohol affects the body.


Title style and font

I have already put a screen grab up of my title (see point 1 of this post regarding the title of the film) so I have put this screen grab up of our actors billing as I thought it would be a good to mention the colours and what they might represent. For our character billing, we used a black background with red and white san serif font in capital letters. The red represents the blood from the dead character and the anger from the dead character as he tries to get revenge on the people who killed him. The white represents the innocence and the purity which these teenagers should have, but lack because of the amount they party, take drugs and drink. The reason I chose a sans serif font is because it is typically less formal and more childish looking. Whereas, with my title I used a serif font. I did this because it shows that the situation is a lot more serious now. Again, I used red to represent the blood and anger and the white to show innocence and purity. The use of red is typical of thriller films because most thriller films are about blood and anger.

Story and how the opening sets it up 

The story behind our film opening is that there is a party full of teenagers and a boy is murdered. No one knows how he is murdered or who killed him. Throughout the film, if it were to be made into a feature length film, it would focus on the guy who got killed whilst he is in the afterlife, trying to figure out piece by piece who killed him and why he was killed. This high angle shot is one of the final shots in the film opening which shows our main character dead in the middle of a field. This helps the audience realise that something has gone wrong and that the plot of the film is probably somehow based around the death of the character.


Special effects

For our special effects, we used UV make up to make the party seem more like a rave. The make up shows up well under the UV lights we used and makes the shots look more colourful and fun instead of dark. We also used used fake blood for our dead character. It looks very real and doesn't look over exaggerated. We mixed corn flour, red food dye and water to create the gloopy texture. By doing this, it doesn't just look like red paint which we found in an art department or something. There is evidence of this under my blogpost "Filming one of the "Morning After" scenes where it shows how we created the blood and another piece of evidence is the picture above of our dead character. Another thing we did was that for the morning after scenes, I put the sounds of birds over the top of the footage. This creates an eery feel to the footage as we have just come from scenes of loud music and partying and now we're in scenes with only the sounds of birds and its very quiet. It helps provide suspense to the scenes as something bad has happened and instead of having dark, mysterious music like we were originally going to have, the contrast between the birds and the bloody scene provides a lot of suspense.

Film Opening Coursework. The Final Product.

After what seems like a lifetime of editing, I have finally finished. I am very happy with the finished product and I think that it is the best I could have done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e333297zrC4

The link above will take you to the video.

Film Opening Coursework. Editing Nearly Complete!

After spending what seems like forever editing, I have put together the beginning scenes where everybody is getting ready for the party and the actual party. All I have left to do is insert our company logo which I am still waiting for Dan to finish and to put the end clips of everyone waking up the next morning into the final product. We've decided that the title of the film is going to be called Revenge as the plot is based around a boy wanting revenge. 

To create the movie title shot, I used a website called cooltext.com and used their "LEGAL" font to create the title. Using the colour red to represent blood and anger with a white background which represents innocence and that some people in the film are innocent and some people aren't. However, the colour white in China is associated with death and is worn at funerals so it could symbolise death as well, depending on which way you looked at it.

Our film company is called "Tortuga". There's no special meaning behind the name, simply that myself and Dan are massive Breaking Bad fans and Tortuga was a character in one of the seasons and it just seemed like an appropriate company name that we could both agree on. 

Film Opening Coursework. Character Profiles.

To add to my blog (and to give myself a break from editing), I thought I'd do a couple of character profiles for the main characters in my film opening. Even though during the film opening, you can't actually tell who the main characters are, if this were to made into a feature length film, then the following characters would be the main ones. 

Marcus Humphries

Marcus Humphries is the boy who is killed in the film opening. He was 17 and he didn't have any friends at school. In his spare time, he stayed at home and spent all his time revising for his exams and playing on his Xbox until the early hours of the morning. He was a straight A student and his parents had no idea he was being bullied at school. He was quite secretive and never like to share too much personal information with anyone, not even his pet snake Ralph. Christopher "befriended" Marcus so that he would come to the party, meaning they could get him drunk and make him try different drugs and make fun of him for it. Marcus honestly believed that Christopher liked him and is out to get revenge on everyone who ever bullied him, because now that he is dead, no one can hurt him anymore.

Lucy Jones

Lucy Jones is Christopher's girlfriend. She is17 and the blonde character who wakes up with blood on her hands. She is, just like Chris, very popular at school and all the guys thought she was hot. Her and Chris were very alike as she likes to go out drinking and taking drugs but her parents are fully aware of her wild lifestyle. Her parents travel a lot so she always was able to get away with it. It is her house where the party in the film opening is held. She doesn't do any sport and is failing her A-Levels quite drastically but she doesn't care because she has convinced herself that she is happy doing waitressing her whole life. Her parents are very wealthy and she has always been spoilt. She is very much in love with Chris and wants to spend the rest of her life with him. 

Christopher Leigh

Christopher Leigh (who was known as Chris by all his friends) is 17 and very popular in school. He is liked by everybody and people looked up to him. He was captain of his local football team and in his spare time, he likes going out, drinking, partying and doing drugs with all his friends. He is a straight A student and his parents have no idea of his wild lifestyle. He likes everyone to know every detail of his life as if he was a celebrity. He is an attractive boy and all the girls think he is near-enough perfect. He is dating Lucy Jones but he knows she likes him more than he likes her. He just wants to use her when he wants and has a few other girls on the side just in case he gets bored. He supports Tottenham Hotspur and wants to play for them when he is older. 

Film Opening Coursework. Still Editing..

The editing process is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. Being the perfectionist that I am, I really want to get all the shots in time with the track and that is proving very difficult to do. Just as a little bit of proof that it's me editing, I took a picture of myself whilst I was editing. I have NEARLY finished the whole party scene and after that, I just have to piece everything together. 

Film Opening Coursework. The Editing Process

I have began to edit my film opening using iMovie. It's quite difficult because I have never properly used iMovie before so I watched some YouTube clips on how to use iMovie effectively.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFuLi8D-qGk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCq2ncg7Mqg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KHwiCTMyJE

The editing is also difficult because I am trying to keep the shots in time with the music, to create the full effect of the party and also because I am a musician and I hate things being out of time with music.

Already, I have come across many problems with the editing process which is why it has taken so long to begin. Firstly, we lost some key footage we needed for the end scene so we had to search for the missing memory stick. Luckily we found it in Dan's bedroom but that was our first problem. The second problem was that the memory card from my camera had a virus on it so we had to take it to the technician at school to transfer the files onto a different memory card so that the virus wouldn't wipe the files and that took up a whole lessons worth of editing time. The third problem was that some of the shots that were filmed weren't how we had planned them. For example, the actor used was laughing throughout and there were no other possible shots filmed that we could use or the sun was directly behind the actor, making the actor seem like a shadow. Myself and Dan sat down and spoke for a lesson about how we could go around this and due to Dan's busy schedule, we decided to work with what we have which I am currently trying to do, as I blog.

Roughly, I reckon the editing will take around five-ish hours to complete, providing nothing else goes wrong.

Film Opening Coursework. Second of the "Morning After" Filming Slots.

This was our second filming session of shooting the "Morning After" shots. This involved shooting Chloe Brock waking up in the middle of a field. Immediately we ran into some issues, on the day we originally planned to film, it decided to absolutely chuck it down with rain and we didn't think it would be fair on Chloe to make her sit in a field during school time and get soaking wet. So, we postponed it to the following week. Our second problem was that we didn't have enough of the 'fake blood' left over to use to we had to use red poster paints from the art department. It worked just as well, luckily. Our third and final problem was that because of the recent storms and flooding, the field was still soaking wet despite there being no rain for a few days so we decided to give Chloe a towel to sit on. It does not look odd on the camera and it could mean something later on in the film. For example, maybe the towel was a crucial element in the murdering of the person? Who knows.

Again, being in the location we were in, we had a chance to play around with a lot of shots as our space was not limited. It was also quite sunny that day so whenever Chloe looked into the sun, it made her look tired (because she was squinting) which is what we wanted as she is waking up! Again, Chloe was very co-operative and listened to everything we had to say.

Film Opening Coursework. Filming One of the "Morning After" Scenes.

For our second day of filming, Dan filmed our actor George Lamb in the first of our 'Morning After' scenes. To create the fake blood which we were putting on George's hands, Dan mixed cornflour with red food colouring and water so it would create the right texture, colour and look of blood. All George had to do was place his hands in the bowl and it created the perfect 'blood-stained hands' look.

                    

During filming, Dan put neon face-paint back onto George's face so that it would definitely look like the morning after and we made sure George was wearing the same colour t-shirt as he was wearing during the party. This was to make sure all of our shots were accurate when it came to editing. However, we did allow him to wear a jacket as it was absolutely freezing that day. 

For the filming, we put George on a bench as his 'wake up' spot. This is because it is completely different to the two other 'wake up' shots we have planned and it is different to the 'death spot'. Dan was able to play around with lots of different camera angles and overall the shots came out great! George was a good actor and co-operated well which is what we wanted, even though he is not a professional actor. 

Film Opening Coursework. New Music Track.

Much to my annoyance, the artist that I mentioned in the post below never got back to me so I'm assuming we're unable to use his track. However, one of my friends showed me that you can filter videos on YouTube to find the ones which are licensed to be re-used. After a lot of searching through these YouTube videos, we came across this track. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Beh8u3DFs 

It's called Boombox Cartel - Hysteria ("WTF Is Festival Trap"Anthem)

We are going to be using this as our party soundtrack. However, I don't feel that this fits our end section perfectly well so I am going to find a more dark, eery track to put over the 'next morning' scene. 

Film Opening Coursework. FOUND THE PERFECT MUSIC.

I HAVE AMAZING NEWS WHICH I'M UNBELIEVABLY EXCITED OVER CONSIDERING HOW LONG MYSELF AND DAN HAVE BEEN SEARCHING FOR A TRACK TO USE FOR OUR PARTY SCENE..

I HAVE FOUND A ROYALTY-FREE TRACK WHICH COMPLETELY SUITS OUR GENRE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9l8xk5mbeA

It's called Party Ghost - 2.0

I am going to message the artist to just make sure that we're allowed to use it and under what conditions and then the party soundtrack will be sorted!

Film Opening Coursework. Inspirational Music For "Party Scene"

Considering as Spinnin' Records still haven't replied in regards to myself and Dan using one of their tracks as our backing soundtrack for the party scene, I've found several pieces of music we can use for inspiration when looking at copyright-free websites. We are going to call Spinnin' Records by the end of the week to see if we can get an answer that way but if not, this will be useful to us.

This track is called 'Best of House Music - Vol. 1 (1 Hour Mix) [Monstercat Release]'
The reason I have chosen this as an inspiration as it has a really great, party feel about it. It is in a major key throughout most of it and has a high BPM which makes it easy to dance to. It sounds very fun and young which is perfect because our plot is about young people having fun and partying before everything goes wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBJk0Tq3JDU

This track is called 'NEW HOT SEXY ✭Electro House 2012✭ 1 Hour Electro/House March 2012 Mix│Mixed By Dj Vick'
I chose this track as an inspirational track because it has a 'Friday Feel' about it. I think most people know what I mean by that but if not, it sounds like one of those tracks you can just let your hair down to and have a really good time and forget about all your worries. Again, major key throughout and also uses popular songs and remixes them. This would help because if you have a more relatable song which the audience know, it's easy to recognise and notice which would help show how much of a good time the characters are having. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l-CpGPtwQ8

This track is called 'Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball (CAKED UP Remix) 
This track is a perfect example of how we want the transfer from the 'Getting Ready For The Party' shots to the 'Party' shots to go. From 0:00 to 0:40 seconds would be the 'Getting Ready For The Party' and at 0:40 onwards would be the 'Party'. The drop is very clear and would make for a fluid, amazing transition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHC8Hwq9Eag

This track is called 'Trap Megamix December 2013 | Best of Sickest TRAP MUSIC'
I chose this as an inspirational track because, although it has a slower BPM compared to the other three tracks, it has almost a 'sexy' feel to it. All of the tracks on this video are completely different to the others but because it is Trap, it's very new and fresh and VERY popular right now so it will associate well with the younger audience who watch our film opening (by younger, I mean teenagers compared to adults).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUB8oMr42Og

Film Opening Coursework. SAMPLE EDIT.

Whilst going through all of the footage we got for our 'Party' scene, I decided that I would make a sample edit to practise my editing and see what shots look good together and what music we could possibly use. This is how it turned out. Obviously this is a very small selection of the footage we got but I think this has given us a better idea of what we're looking to do and helps us understand more how iMovie works, which is what we'll be using. 

As a side note, the music in the background of this video is: 

Showtek ft. We Are Loud & Sonny Wilson - Booyah (Original Mix)

We have contacted Spinnin' Records, who produced this track to see if we can get their permission to use it as our background music. It fits perfectly with the sample edit but if we cannot get hold of them or they say no, we will search for copyright-free music to use. We have e-mailed them twice as well as tweeted them on Twitter. This is NOT our final piece again, this is just so that we can get an idea of what we're working with. 

Film Opening Coursework. Filming The Party.

On 24/01/2014 myself and Dan filmed our 'Party' scene. It was a lot of fun to film and we had a good time whilst doing it. We managed to get all of the shots we originally wanted such as people taking shots, laughing on the floor and dancing etc plus a lot more shots which are perfect and suit the 'Social Realism' genre perfectly!

Here is a photo of us preparing Dan's garage for the party.

We painted the UV paint on the actors as they arrived and used it to cover bed sheets with so that the windows were blocked and no light was let in. Dan's family had also saved up loads of beer bottles which we set up on a table so it looked as if we were having an actual party with alcohol. 

The photo of the room is how the room looked like after we had set up for the party with the lights on. When we turned the lights off and put the music on, we were so shocked at how well it had turned out! The video featured below is a video Dan filmed on his phone as proof of what our party looked like. None of the footage used in the clip will be used in the final production as it was filmed with an iPhone.

So that was our 'Party Scene' filming and overall, we have been extremely successful! We got all the shots we needed, all of the actors listened to us carefully and followed all of our instructions and everyone did very very well. We ended up filming over TWO HOURS of footage which we're going to go through every second of it and decide which shots are best for the montage and which shots we can cut. The preparation of it went well and we managed to get everything ready before the actors turned up. 

We'd also like to say thank you to anyone who donated a UV light to us or any bedsheets.. Wouldn't have turned out the way it did without you! 

Film Opening Coursework. Storyboard.

Here is my story board for our film opening.

I think it's safe to say I'm not a very good artist and have definitely struggled to draw the storyboard but everything makes perfect sense to myself and Dan so we're happy with it. 

The reason we have not drawn out every single shot in our 'Party Montage' is because we don't fully know what shots we're going to get. We've asked all of our actors to improvise but we have a few ideas in our heads as to what we want them to do e.g. have a shot, lie on the floor etc. These shots are typical of a party. We have no idea how the editing is going to come together in our party montage as we have no idea what shots and film we'll have to work with, we just have a few ideas in our heads which the actors can go off of and we'll see what we get! 

Again, I do apologise for the EXTREMELY poor quality of my drawings, you can clearly see i'm not an artist. 

Film Opening Coursework. Storyboard Problems.

We are having trouble uploading our storyboard, will be uploaded within two weeks hopefully!

Film Opening Coursework. Film Schedule.

Here is our film schedule we are using for our filming. This is subject to change because we are bound to have some problems whilst filming, whether that be due to weather or any other matter. This is why we have the additional dates to use for any additional filming we have missed out.

Our deadline for filming is 24/02/2014.

Film Opening Coursework. Script

Our script was hard for us to write as there is no dialogue involved whatsoever. The script is useful to us as we can follow the script for our camera angles and make sure we don't miss any shots out which are useful to us.

OUR SCRIPT IS SUBJECT TO CHANGES AND EDITS.

Film Opening Coursework. Roles and Responsibilities Within The Production Team.

Myself and Dan (danjproductions.blogspot.com) are the only two members in our production team. Dan has been allocated as director of filming and cameraman whereas I have been allocated the role of director of editing and head editor. We will swap between the roles, ensuring we both further expand our knowledge of filming and editing but Dan will be focusing mostly on the camerawork and I will be focusing mostly on the editing.

Film Opening Coursework. Analysis Conclusion.

After going through all of my analysis of different film genres and films within these, I have found certain codes and conventions which are typical of Social Realism films and Thriller films which we will use in our film opening so that make it as effective as other film openings.

SOCIAL REALISM CODES AND CONVENTIONS:
- Location shooting (We will not be shooting in a studio)
- Non professional actors (Our actors will be people we know from school with no dramatic training)
- Semi improvised scripts (There will be no specific instructions, just a broad overview)
- Humor and seriousness (The humour will come from the party, the seriousness will come from the morning after when we find the person who has died)

THRILLER CODES AND CONVENTONS:
- Tense music (This will be played when we are viewing the characters the morning after, when they are waking up with blood on their hands)
- Montage editing (This will be done when we are in our party scene, the shots will be a montage of the night)
- Extreme close ups/Close ups (This is to highlight the fear and horror on the characters faces)

Film Opening Coursework. Survey Analysis.

Myself and Dan decided to do a SurveyMonkey instead of a Voxpop to establish what audiences are interested in, in regards to film openings. This is what we found:

The first question in the survey asked about peoples favorites film genre. 48.72% of responses said Comedy was their favorite film genre. We have chose to stay away from comedy as the main genre for our film opening as it is difficult and a too high skill set for our current media skills. The second highest response was Romance with 15.38%, followed by Thriller with 10.26%. Horror and Social-Realism were the last two with 2.56% of the votes each. Other responses such as Drama and Marvel were added. Although Social-Realism was one of the lowest, we have still chosen to use it as our main genre. This is because we will be able to go in-depth into the scenario filmed with the use of drugs and alcohol. One of our main objectives it to change the way Social-Realism films are portrayed and hopefully change peoples opinions about them as they are not the most popular at the moment; as our survey shows.

The second question asks about specific favorite films. Many of the responses relate to films directed by Quentin Tarantino. Using his ‘wacky’ ideas we hope to use a similar style when filming ours, especially in the opening party scene. Other answers mention films like ‘The Inbetweeners Movie’ which fits in very well with our party scene as it has very short shots of the party, in ours we hope to develop the scene with the use of lights, music and drug use. Many of the films people submitted are comedy, our party scene also has the objective to make the audience laugh as watching nowadays teens at a party can be entertaining to watch.

The next question asks about what makes a good film opening. Many of the answers said suspense. This is exactly what we intend to use when we produce our opening. The final opening part of the scene revolves around an incident with a lot of suspense as to what actually happened. Another answer commented that a good film opening should be one that ‘grabs your attention quickly’. This is what we have planned to do with the use of non-diegetic sound which will be placed over the top and the short alternating shots in which we intend to use. The use of bright colours used (neon paint, laser and UV lights) will make it stand out.

The final question relates to the best film opening they have scene in a film. Pretty much all of the films people replied with have opening scenes with the use of loud sound, and suspense. As I mentioned before this is exactly what we intend to do as it grabs the viewers attention straight away.

We have adapted our film opening to meet the preferences of our audience, (teenagers) who took this survey. We want it to reflect nowadays ‘Teenage Raves’ by focusing of alcohol, drugs and sex. We will do this by filming close-ups and use slow-motion to show the effects of what these substances feel like.

Film Opening Coursework. Ordering Products.

For the party scene in our film opening, we have had to order a few items in which myself and Dan have split the cost of.

These items include:
- 3 bottles of UV paint
- 2 tubes of UV face paint
- 1 UV light
- 1 set of UV contact lenses
- 1 eShisha Stick

These items will all feature in our party scene.

Film Opening Coursework. PLAN.

This is our plan which we will continue to edit and change as we progress through planning, shooting and editing our Film Opening.

Film Opening Coursework. Collecting Data.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q8SRCHT

Above is the link to our SurveyMonkey questionnaire on Film Openings. 

This is so myself and Dan get a better understanding of what makes a good film opening and what things to avoid when creating our film opening as to make it 100% effective. 

Film Opening Coursework. Film Examples.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaVYcH7QlbA

This film is a thriller called Along Came A Spider. With Morgan Freeman playing Alex Cross, it is a high action, high suspense psychological thriller with the best ending I have personally ever seen to a film. It's very different from the novel written by James Patterson but it is directed in such an amazing way that no one even cares about the difference between the book and the film.

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

This film is a social realism called Trainspotting. It's extremely popular and was released in 1996. It follows the story of Renton, played by Ewan McGregor, who is deeply submersed in the Edinburgh drug scene. It is a social realism film because it focusing on aspects of Edinburgh which sadly are true, such as the heavy drug use.