Evaluation question 1

Sound Editing (music and effects)

There are 5 non diagetic sounds in our film opening; the music, the interview, gun shot, production company sound and the bird noise..

Music

We did this first by finding a non-copyrighted drone on this website we had been recommended by our teacher. We wanted a sound that complied with the conventions our genre. This sound does as it builds suspense, its eery and sad. Here it is with our final edit.

 

The interview

This is a convention of the genre as it sets the scene for the film and creates an enigma. For us it creates a paradox as it is talking about curing the common cold over shots of a destroyed country.. Here is our interview.

.

The gunshot

In our opening Abbie kills something with her gun so we needed a gunshot. We found this website with lots on and thought this was the best fit for what we needed. Here it is.

Production Company sound

For this we needed something memorable, but fitted with our genre. So we chose a lightning bolt as natural disaster is a sub genre of post apocalypse. We found it on a website when we were just trailing through having a look. Here it is with the logo.

The Birds 

After the gunshot, there is 3 seconds where there are birds flying round. The only sound we had was me and my group talking and going "Woaahh look at that!" "Thats mint!" so we found these on a sound website. Here it is with the shot.

 

Sound Editing (diagetic sound)

   Now, this is the hardest part of editing in my opinion. The microphone on the camera we use is poor so we used and external microphone that recorded the sound at the same as filming shots. This is good as the sound quality is 100% better, but it is incredibly difficult as you then have to cut the sound and fit it over the shots so it fully flows.

   We started in the same way as the action shots: by going through them to find the best ones as we recorded things for too long or not at all. Then we imported them into Adobe to start editing.

   Then the hard bit started, we had to now cut them down. This job took around 5 hours to do. We started by matching up the sounds to the shots. Then we started to cut them down and have the sound match tot he action. This was the hardest thing to do. We did this to all the shots. This meant all we had left to do was to add in the non-diagetic sound and music.

Editing Process (action shots)

Once we finished editing our establishing shots, we the wanted to add the shots of Abbie acting, so the action parts.

   Firstly we went through the shots we had taken to find the shots we needed as we filmed a lot of the shots twice because of mistakes. Once we found them we imported them into Adobe Premier.

   We then put them into the film in the right order cutting them so it all flowed (continuity editing) making it look good. After this we faded some of the shots in and out where it was required.

   Then we started to add in our sound.

Titles (fonts)

   After editing our Establishing shots into the Film we decided to start choosing fonts and adding them into our film. We wanted to conform to the conventions of Genre when choosing and adding them. The conventions would be a bold font, like a sans serif font and to have them still on the screen fading in and out. Furthermore, we added our Main title in. We wanted to stick to the conventions of this as well. This would be to have the Title on a black background in a bold font. Here are our ideas for each title and the main title...

 



   When we added theses titles, on photoshop I inverted the font so the font was white and then made the background was transparent so it could be seen on the black background.
Here are the titles on our final film...

Final film

Here is our final film, 100% edited, ready for the big screen! Hope you enjoy it!


 

Audience Feedback (98% complete)

Today we pitched our film to our class mates at 98% completion. We did this to get feedback on things to improve on. Here it is...

Editing Process (establishing shots)

   Here is a Prezi on the process we went through...

 

Filming

   On the 16th November we went out to refilm our film opening. We refilmed because of a few shots we needed to add because it was a bit boring, and few shacky shots and the main reason that Abbie had bright red nails on! This is why I was glad we started filming so early because we didn't have to rush to film it if it went wrong at a later date.

   The filming went very well: we got everything done in around 2 and a half hours. We went through our shots and everything looked good to use. We made sure that at each new shot we filmed 3 seconds of asction before and after. This makes editing easier as you have more time to cut it. The only downside to the filming is that there was only 3 members of our 4 memebered group. Shannon didn't come because she had plans with her mum. I feel now like this has drawn a division in the group as we are doing the majority of the work and she is just tagging along taking credit for our work.

   This lead us into filming on the Monday, 2 days after, the 18th.

Recce Shots (establishing shot)

   Shannon went out and took a few pictures for our establishing shots. There was another post with some other pictures of other places; to see these go to... http://tobyrodgersasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/recce-shots-of-locations-establishing.html

   This picture is of a burnt and destroyed building. This makes it look post-apocalyptic as it looks like it has been lotted and destroyed because of the pandemic. The building also creates an enigma because it makes the audience wonder what has happened to it. We took our inspiration from the film, I am Legend, as there is a series of establishing shots in it showing the destroyed city. Furthermore, we also thought of using it because we could use the cut in cut away editing technique. This would make it look like the character was inside the building.

   Another, shot idea we had was to film a shot off the top of "pit tip" in Kirkby. This is quite a tall hill in kirkby and it allows you to see most of kirkby and sutton. We thought that it would be a good shot because it allows you to see were it is all set, giving you a sense of the size of the pandemic. It woulcd also be good as we could play around with the effects and add titles easily to them. However there are drawbacks to it. If it doesnt look destroyed or pandemicy then it will be hard to use as it would be a confusing shot. I think this will happen and we will have to use a new shot.

Close up shots

In our film opening there are a series of shots that show Abbies fear, these are all close ups. With some of these shots I have took inspiration from the 2013 movie staring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney "Gravity". In clips in the film there are multiple shots showing the fear in their faces and I thought it would be good to incorporate them into our film. Although this is a si-fi film, meaning the conventions are different, I thought that it would be a good idea to put them in.  Here is the trailer...

Film Title

Today,
we decided on a new name for our opening. Our new idea is "Proliferation". This is a synonim for the word spread, but more in terms of disease. We were also deciding font types we could use. we were getting these fonts off dafont, here is the link...

http://www.dafont.com/

Our first ideas, were to use an eroded font, such as, Birth of a hero, Scorched earth and stone bird. We finalised it down to Stone bird. Here is our title in the font...

But then we decided that it didn't go with the conventions of our genre. From our research we have seen that most post-apocalyptic films use a bold sans serif font, and eroded fonts are more for Horror/psychological thrillers. Here are some of our ideas...

Cut in/ Cut away

   Cut in/ cut away is an editing technique were there is a shot outside something and then it cuts to the action inside it. This technique is often used with cars or buildings. For example, a car driving along, then it cuts to a shot inside the car of the person driving it. We are going to use this technique with an establishing shot, then cuting to the action of Abbie in our location, trying to create the effect that the she is inside the building. Here is an example my group did to experiment with it...

Match on Action

   Match on action is a simple but essential tenchique in editing films, where the angle of the camera changes during a scene and the scene continues to flow. The camera changes angle, often getting closer to the object being used. For example the camera will show the door handle as it oppens.

Here is an example on youtube of Match on action being demonstrated.



   Here is a video of my group experimenting with match on action opening doors. As you can see the perspective of the camera changes, but allowing the video to flow. It changes the angle to keep the audience engaged, but also agreeing with the 180 degree rule.

180 Degree rule

   The 180 degree rule is a rule in filming. It implies that the camera must stay on one side of the location so it doesn't get confusing where people are. The best example of this is a football match. The camera stays on one side of the pitch so that the teams attack one way at once, making it not confusing.

 Here is an example...



And an example of breaking the 180 rule...

Shot type (striking match)

   In our film opening, Abbie our lead actor lights a fire using matches. We shot this in an extreme close up angle. This is so you can just the the match lighting. I told Abbie to not light it the first couple of times of striking. This personifies all the frustrations of life of someone who is surviving an apocalypse. It does this by taking a small thing and making it frustrating to do, show the hardness and frustration of such a simple task.

   Here it is...

Shots of Abbie with the Gun

   In our film opening there is a series of shots towards the end of our actor (Abbie) with the gun we are using. We did a variety of shots to show her fear even though she is playing a strong character. The planning of this was useful but we added extra shots in on the day to see what looked good. the shots we used were...

• Extreme close up x2
• close up
• full shot (actor kneeling down)

   The first extreme close up was of Abbies eyes. This was to show the fear in her eyes to the audience. The second was of the trigger on the gun with Abbie's finger slipping off it and the gun shaking. This shows her fear, that she is rushing and she the fear is eating her up. The close up we used was of Abbies face to show how scared she was using facial expressions. The full shot was where Abbie was kneeled down with the gun. This shows her fear because it allows you to see her full body showing that she is shaking.

   The shots we have used can go against the conventions of our genre and more towards a psychological thriller. This because the shots are used more in those films. This is because it can be used to show emotion. In post-apocalyptic films these shots aren't required because the protagonist is shown as a strong MALE character.

   Here are the shots of Abbie with the gun in an edited clip of them together...

Bird Shot

   When filming on saturday when filming we saw a massive group of birds flying over us. I'm not sure what birds they were, but for the reason of the film lets say they were a murder of crows as it will fit the conventions. I recorded the flying because I thought they looked cool: but we are now going to use them in our film opening as there is about 5 seconds of good footage we can use. We are either using it in our establishing shots to portray that there is still some life on the planet. Or we are going to use them after the gun shot to show the birds flying away from the noise; and the birds being "crows" illustrates the murder. Furthermore, the birds flying is a convention of the genre as in a few films animals are shown doing stuff, showing life. For example, this happens in "World War Z" and "The Book of Eli".

   Here is the shot...

Shot type/ use of the sun and smoke

   At the end of the film opening our protagonist walks away over some rubble, showing that the apocalypse has destroyed everything. Furthermore, the fire we made in the bin for earlier in the film opening, we placed it just out of the shot but near to Abbie. This mean that the smoke would blow across the shot. Also, perfectly timed, the sun beamed down on Abbie at this time. This meant the sun shinned through the smoke.

   From this we are trying to portray that the smoke is badness and the sun beam is good. This shows that good has prevailled through evil and badness.

   Furthermore, we also used the sun to illustrate Abbie as being a heroic character. This was when there was a POV from the man coming through the door and Abbie was pointing the gun at them. Here, the sun shines through the door onto Abbie on one knee pointing the gun at the unknown character. This is showing her as good and heroic.

   Here are the shots...

Audience Feedback (50% edited)

   Today we asked a few people if they didn't mind us asking them a few questions about our film opening. We showed them the video and then recorded their answer.

Here it is...

Production Company Ideas

   For our film opening we need to make a production company that will have produced the film. Our idea is "Irongate productions". The conventional production company for a post-apocalyptic film is either a big company or a company who deals with low budget films. For example, "The asylum" made "Battle LA" and "Warner Bros" produced "The book of Eli".

   Our first idea for the production company was the word "Iron gate" inbetween to gates. Then we had the idea to have 2 gates opening with the word "irongate" coming through. But then we decided it wouldn't work as it would be incredibly hard to do on the software we have. This lead to our idea of the word irongate on a red/black back ground with red/black paint splating on it. This doesn't agree with the conventions, but their isn't any conventions because each production company has its own symbol and logo.

   Here are our ideas... (sorry for rubbish sketching, I can't draw!)

Experimenting with Font Type

   After experimenting with the titles, we thought that it would be appropriate to look at different fonts to use for the titles. From my research I have found that the fonts that are used in post-apocalypse are very, bold, simple but fade out towards the bottom. These types of fonts are used in "I am Legend", "Pacific Rim" and "World War Z". However, the faded out fonts can also be a convention in the genre, psychological thriller. So we would partly going against the conventions of the film genre we have chosen. Here are the fonts we were looking at...



   These fonts are very good and it is a hard choice to choose which one is the best to use. Today we should get some audience feedback on what would be the best to use.

Recording the News report/ interview

   Today we recorded our news report/interview using a microphone. We did it because we're using it in our film opening. News reports are a convention of the genre, so we put one in our opening. There is a news report in the day after tomorrow, I am legend and many others. The news report has a script to it. You could venture a few blog posts back to see the script, go to http://tobyrodgersasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/script.html or http://tobyrodgersasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/ to see it. Here it is with some photos of us recording it.

Script

   The only part of our film opening that has a script for dialogue in it is the news interview. The news interview is around 25 seconds long and will be played over the establishing shots. This creates an enigma as it is a juxtaposition to the shots on screen. The news interview is a convention of the genre as it in many post-apocalypse films. Here is the script.

Research on shots with guns

   In our film opening, we are trying to portray our main character as a strong teenage female. There is a film that came out in 2011 about the same stereotype. It is called Hanna. The film is about a teenage girl who is a trained killer and she is being hunted by a secret agency.



   Furthermore, in our film opening there are shots of the main character, as there is in Hanna. We are trying to make the same affect as Hanna does. We want to show Abbie as a strong character, but also we want to show hints of fear. We are going to use similar shots to the ones in the film. For example, close ups and and extreme close ups: this is because these shots are the best for showing emotion., Furthermore, we are going to use full shots as these are best for showing body language.

Titles experimentation

   Last lesson, Abbie had a go at creating some titles to go onto the establishing shots. This was to see what looked good. We wanted a simple font as this is a convention. I thought about having a simple font but with shaded bits in or bits missing. We took inspiration from "I am Legend" as the titles go across New York when it looks derelict.

   This is only a start and its not finished. We did this to have a play around with the software and get use to it. There will be a few more establishing shots with titles on, see http://tobyrodgersasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/recce-shots-of-locations-establishing.html for the recce shots of our locations.

Here it is...

Bloopers

After we filmed last weekend we started to look through our shots and we decided it would be a good idea to make a bloopers/outtake of all the shots that went wrong. Here it is...

Evidence of Shooting

Here is an edited copy of some of the shots we made last weekend whilst filming... It includes video footage of us setting up the fire, the garage and Abbies costume.


 

Representation of social groups

   The social group we are trying to represent are teenagers. The stereotype of today for a teenager is a "hoodie" and "Chav" or as being lazy with no responsibilities. We are trying to contradict this stereotype by showing the character as a strong willed,survivor character with lots of responsibilities as she is independent. That they can survive hard ship and battle through it to better times. However, in the opening scene we also show her as being a "real" person. This is when the man starts to attack her, there are many camera angles showing her fear. People say that the "teenager" is getting worse as time goes on, but we are trying to send a contradicting message to the audience.

Furthermore, we are also representing females as being strong and not being a weaker character. A convention of post-apocalypse films is to have a strong male character. This shows that if the time comes that women will stand up and survive. Many females portrayed as only caring about their appearance and not wanting to get dirty of do labour. we have illustrated our character in the exact opposite way. We also wanted to contradict that women wouldn't survive through an apocalypse.

Use of Leaflet (mise-en-scene)

   In the film opening, the main character finds a leaflet from before the apocalypse. This is a promotion leaflet telling people to get the vaccination. The character puts the leaflet in her pocket and burns it when she makes the fire.

   The leaflet is a useful piece of the mise-en-scene as it sets up the narrative of  the story and burning it shows that the vaccination hasn't worked and it has destroyed the world. This also creates an enigma as the audience may wonder why it went wrong.

   Jacob made the leaflet as we couldn't find one on the internet. Here it is...

Film Name

 The film name we have chosen is "Bella". This is the characters name in the film. She is called this because the name steams from the latin word "bellator" meaning fighter and survivor. We thought this was appropriate as this is what we are trying to portray the character as. Furthermore, this isn't a convention of the genre, but we are doing the film from a females point of view isn't a convention. We are doing the film from a females point of view because their isn't any post-apocalyptic films from a girls view.

Costume plan/ make up

Here is a presentation on the different elements of costume we are using!

   

New Storyboard

After our decision to re-film after this weekend because of our mistakes, we had a storyboarding session in class today to get a final one done. Here it is...

 The idea of the film opening is still the same idea; it just has a few extra shots and pieces of action.
The first 28 shots are the same including the same actions. It starts with the production company, a quote, which is the definition of survivor. It then cuts to 4 establishing shots of vacant places in the area containing the titles. it then cuts to the title shot. Then it is various shots of the actor getting dressed and starting a fire. Up to here was our original idea. Then our new idea from here on is...

 When she puts the leaflet in the fire, shadows of feet walking are seen under the garage door. Then it cuts to Abbie running towards the gun. Then there is a POV of the person walking towards the garage. There is then various shots of Abbie looking scared and panicked whilst grabbing the gun. Then the door opens and Abbie is aiming the gun at the door. All the editing in this part will be fast as it shows her fear. Then it cuts to a black where there is maybe a gunshot? Then there is a shot with the camera on the floor where you can see the persons hand and Abbie's feet walking away. This could be in black and white to show that they are dead. Then the film opening ends leaving it on an enigma and cliff hanger.

Filming (9th Nov 2013)

   On Saturday the 9th November we started to film our film opening. We decided that we would film this early was because it gave us the back up plan of; if it goes wrong we still have time to film more without rushing it. Luckily we did this as a major part of our filming went wrong. Abbie our main actor forgot take off her nail polish, which was bright red. Non of my group realised this until we started to edit it on Monday.

   However, doing this has been useful for us because we have seen that some areas of our filming we poor and that we need to add more action into it. For example, on a few shots the camera was very shaky and wobbly. It has also given us a rough estimate of how long it will be.

Weather for filming

 

   We are planning on filming this Sunday afternoon, from around 2 o'clock onwards till we finish. The weather isn't a key aspect when filming in the garage because it is inside, but if we want to make it look grey then the wethaer has to be cloudy as there is a window. Furthermore, we need this same weather for filming our establishing shots. So if we do it Sunday afternoon it would be the great weather to do it. I will check the weather everyday as it gets closer to the time to check that it is okay to film.

Lighting planning

   The idea of lighting in our opening is to make it look as grey and dull as possible. We will do the this when filming in the garage by just using a single light at the opposite end of the action. This will make it look grey as the light cannot spread everywhere. Also we can create this effect on the editing software.
   When filming our establishing shots, we also want it to look grey. We will do this by filming on a cloudy miserable day. But we camn also add the effect on the software also.

   Doing this creates a mood and sets up the narrative. It creates a miserable mood showing lonliness and also it shows to the audience that something terrible has happened.
  

Sound Planning

Here is a prezi I made on sound for our film opening.

Actor Documentation

Here is our actor documentation. It is a video of our 1 and only actor Abbie Aspinall. She plays our main character in the film opening. We thought it would be unique to do post-apocalyptic movie from a Females point of view instead of a man, as it is a convention that men always play the lead roles and it would be better and original to do it from a females Pov. She is a 16 year old girl who has survived a pandemic and just manages to stay alive by looking after herself, however she also has people who want to kill her and steal her resources so she needs to defend herself. The character is portrayed as a strong, individual woman who can handle a weapon and will do whatever it takes to stay alive. Here is the clip from YouTube: 

Moodboard

Today I created a mood board to create the atmosphere and mood of our film opening, here it is!
I used the website http://www.glogster.com/
 

Risk assessment

When we are filming we are using a fire, having round knives and a air rifle. We have to do a risk assessment just to make sure no one gets hurt.

• Fire- don't put hands near it and keep something around to put it out.
• Knives-carry them using the handle pointing the blade down. Don't waft them around.
• Rifle- keep the pellets from being in the rifle and don't point it at anyone.

 

Recce shots of locations (establishing shots)

I went out tonight and took a few pictures for the locations of our establishing shots. The purpose of these shots is to show the audience the setting, and to show them how secluded the place is after the pandemic. Our chosen shots are, in a empty field (with a tree with no leaves on in the middle), on a hill to show the area, a empty road (either a country road or if possible the A38[ this will really show the emptyness as its a main road, but it will be hard to do] and a burnt building. Here they are...

 Here is the road (nearly empty)

 the field

  

Mise-en-scene

For our film openeing we need to closely picked the mise-en-scene that goes inside side our locations. This is so it fits in with the conventions of the genre. Our main filming location is inside a garage that we have tried to make look post-apocalyptic bu making it look destroyed. The main things we wanted the audience to see is things that relate to survival. For example...

• mattress
• shovel
• axe
• water bottle
• petrol canister x2
• army bag
• rifle
• knife x3
• logs
• battery powered lamp
• boots
• wellies
• incinerator
• disinfectant spray
• old kettle
• cold leaflet.
• rifle

All these things would be essential in survival as they will protect you and keep you alive. Here are some pictures of the garage we filmed in...

Furthermore, one of our main pieces of mise-en-scene was a leaflet we made. This leaflet explains that there is no cure for the common cold as it is a virus. This leaflet is from a 2013 society. This is contradictory to time of the film opening as the pandemic has been caused by the cure. We have used this to set up the narrative and create and enigma. Here it is...

Post-apocalyptic real audience research and Film Pitch

Today we did a real audience research and pitched our idea to them. We asked 2 17 year old boys, 2 17 year old girls and a woman -30 years old. We did this to get a sense of who we should target our film at and we choose 15 plus, as it would be the most suitable for our film. We interviewed them asking them a series of questions related to post-apocalypse films and our film opening. the questions were...

• Have you seen any post apocalyptic films?
• How many have you see?
• What's your favourite? 
• What do you like about them?

Then we  pitched our idea to them

• Do you like the cliff hanger and enigma at the end of the opening and would you change it?
• What changes would you make? would you add anything?
• Would you see the film if it was to come out?

Here are the videos of our interviews.

Weather Forecast for filming

Here is the weather forecast for Saturday. we are going to start filming on Saturday as the weather conditions for our opening are perfect. Although we are in a garage filming, the mood needs to be set via the lighting which we are hoping to create naturally.

Animatic

After  creating our storyboard we made and animatic of the pictures. We did this on premiere pro, by adding the pictures in and dragging them for however long we needed them. Obviously the pictures are very bland and vague because the drawings aren't the works of da Vinci, and the titles aren't on there. This was a very usefully task as it has shown us that we are around 30 seconds off our 2 minute time limit. Tomorrow we will be deciding what extra to add in to make the 30 seconds.

Experimentation with Camera and editing software

  On the miserable Bonfire night of 2013, we experimented with the camera some of the shots we are going to be doing. The shots we practise were a mid shot, close up and over the shoulder. Doing this will help us when it comes to the actual filming as it has provided us with more info on the 180 degree rule and it has informed us on the different angles to use. It has also helped my group and I on info such as making sure the camera is level as when it comes to filming in our locations we need to make sure our camera is level. Also we edited this on premier pro. on doing this, it has added to our information we already gained from our prelim video, but also it has shown us that for every shot we need to film the whole thing that happens in the shots before and after. This adds to the continuity editing as it makes it more flowing. Doing this has given us more info than just our preliminary video.

Location for Filming

Today we were deciding on our location for our film opening. One of my group members has recently renovate a house and the garage looks quite old inside and dirty. We decided this would a perfect fit for our opening scene as it can look like our protagonists post-apocalyptic shelter. Here are some pics...

 inside garage

 inside garage

garage door

street view on google


https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

Shot Type (POV)

I watch a Tv programme called "Breaking Bad". Its an American programme about a Chemistry teacher who gets Lung Cancer. To pay for the expensive treatment he starts to cook crystal meth with an old student who is a dealer.

One of the signature shots of the programme is a POV shot from inside something, for example, a Bag or fridge. I thought that it would be a really good idea to incorporate this into our film opening. It doesn't conform with the conventions of post-apocalypse films, but it is a really good technique that keeps the audience interested and enthralled on the enigma which is vital for our film opening.
We are using it one 2 ocasions; one where the character puts a log towards the camera and the camera is inside the burner. The other is where the camer is inside a bag and the protagonist grabs it.

StoryBoard

Today, my group and I made our story board for our film opening.

We got our ideas from all the research we have done on post apocalyptic films. Our main inspiration for the opening was "I am Legend", as it contains some great features that we want to incorporate into our opening. We added up the time of the opening, and we think that it will last at least around 2 minutes. When deciding on the shots we used, we tried to involve shots that conform to the conventions.

Our opening is about a girl who is a survivor of a pandemic. Scientists found the cure to the common cold in 2024 and vaccinated hundreds of thousand's of people. However the cure went wrong and instead of curing the people it created a virus spreading world wide. 1 year later Abbie (who is the protagonist) is the survivor of the apocalypse and doing her best to stay alive.

we choice to do it from a female teenagers POV because all post-apocalyptic films are from a mans prospective; we thought it would be good to do it from a different prospective. I thought that we could represent the social group of teenagers in a good manor, rather than the stereotype of today (hoodies). I thought that they could be portrayed as strong characters who will do anything to survive.