Final film - 'Blood Ties'

This is our final short film. 'Blood Ties'.

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 4

Ancillary Text - 'Blood Ties'

 

This is my Ancillary text for our media Production called "Blood Ties"

 

To do this, I started in Microsoft PowerPoint, I then watched through scene 5 of our production and found a shot which I liked and could use for editing. I chose this shot of Jason looking into the mirror holding his gun. I then used Photoshop to edit the screen shot and put the effects in. Added the title which we used in the film itself, and chose two production companies and put them either side to add realism and effect. Then I re-added the screen shot and over layed the same photo of Jason which had no effects on; Matched the colour treatment and placed it perfectly on top to make this. I then transferred this to PowerPoint and added text boxes too add all the writing and the starts. I then grouped the whole photo together and saved it is a photo. 

Ancillary Magazine Cover & Review

This is my second Ancillary text in the form of a magazine cover and review. I created it in the style of empire magazine, I have kept the same image that I used on my poster but I just used a different section of the image and moved the title. To created the original image using Photoshop and PowerPoint, I just transferred it to publisher. I made the review as a real magazine review would, too add realism I added the start rating on the bottom right hand corner and general information about the film. Such as, certificate, run time and cast.

Foley Sound - 2

For our last 3 scenes of our production, we again wanted to up our game by including more foley sound for general atmospherical gain. We wanted to add sound to the parts where we didnt have any background noise to further add realism to our film. Also we wanted to add something extra into the parts were enthusiasm was needed. for example, a small part where Jason gets a gun out of his draw, Music is playing and as he looks at the gun he pulls it out the draw and cocks it. As he does so we added a power recording of the gun which comes over the song itself and adds a real punch to the scene which was exactly what we were after. With this extra foley sound we hope to bring our overall practical grade up and improve the dramatic side of our production.

Editing Sound

We have started editing the scenes that we have shot and had an idea that would make our post production run a lot smoother and more efficient. Serif Movie Plus is not powerful enough to handle the large amounts of media we were importing such as HD video files and audio files like our Foley sound, sound effects and sound tracks, making it very slow running. 
  

It also does not have the tools and features that we would need for sound editing because Serif Movie Plus x5 is video editing software that is not optimised for sound editing, where as Garageband is and will allow us to produce alot better and more clearer sound, making ti easier for us to line it up on time with our video files back on Serif. Garageband also allows you to import videos so you can watch the visual whilst editing the sound. Which is essential for us to line up the sound to our video files perfectly.

Microphones for Dialogue

We bought a HTDZ Super uni and multiple directional condenser microphones in the hope that it will aid us and improve our production. We as a group noticed from last year’s productions from ourselves and our class that videos with dialogue was normally to be recorded straight from the microphone built into the camera. We found that this was a very bad way to record dialogue simply because the quality of the sound was nothing special, we wanted for our production an impressive and very clear dialogue to add realism to our production over others. The camera recording of dialogue also caused unwanted background noise such as wind and just decrease the general quality of sound.

This is the shotgun microphone we brought and it allows us to use two settings. Normal, which uses the multi-directional microphones around the mic and tele, which uses a more directional microphone on the top which can be pointed at a specific target. We did a few tests to test out the microphone.

Shooting Our First Scene - Drug Dealers Murder

For our first scene, It was an indoor scene at night so we didn't have to worry about weather and continuity so this would be easy to film early before the other scenes, also as the same characters were not used again makes it easy to edit together. The first shots were filmed at Dave's house and garage which we cleared out and set up to look like a hitman's hideout. Because it was night time, we used a lamp behind the camera to give an appropriate dim ambient light to the scene, we had to move the lamp in order to keep the lighting the same in every shot. This was effective as you can see the hitman's shadow on the brick wall. The next set of shots was filmed in Dave's living room. Again we cleared it out and added our own props to make it look like a drug dealers pad. We have bottles of alcohol on the table as well as weighing scales, (fake) cocaine blocks, a gun, money etc. The props were a vital part because our location setting wasn't ideal so we had to make it as realistic as possible using props. We got a variety of shots, all adding up to give tension and build up adding a great first scene.

The kit we used for this was a Cannon EOS 550D camera which allowed us to with lenses for different shots and use the manual focus to blur in and out some shots as we have seen this used effectively in our product research. We also had a tripod for still shots so the camera was stable and the quality of the shot was good.


There is also driving shots in our first scene. Because our actor, Dan, wasn't insured, I had to drive. We got around this by dressing me up as the hit man which was ok because he was wearing a hat and scarf, and it was dark, making it hard to see facial features.

Location Scouting

For our production, we needed to have certain locations and surroundings throughout our film, this was an essential to add realism and to make our film look correct. For this, our group decided to come up with ideal locations between us even if it was very unlikely we would actually be filming there. This brought my group to the point where we all had similar ideas on where we wanted it to be filmed and the certain surroundings in that location. For this the area needed to have urban looking surroundings; very built up areas to really give the location to our film. This was essential to find the correct place to film.

My ideal location i chose was Hackney in north London. This i found was the right balance in what we were looking for as the location in London was a key factor. Due to the built up areas and tower blocks i has the right urban look that we are going for in our production. As our group understands it is unlikely that we will be filming there we are just using this exercise to broaden our ideas.

Shooting Our Second Scene

Our second scene was shooter than our first but it included dialogue which meant we needed to bring more equipment. It was a morning scene so we turned up on set (our friends house) early that day. We wanted to make the most of the morning light so we began filming as soon as possible. We followed the story board, capturing shots and spontaneous shot ideas until we got to the dialogue scene. This was a conversation between the younger brother, Jason, and his older brother, Michael as he went out to work. 

 

To ensure our productions high quality finish, we used the shotgun microphone I talked about in a previous blog to record the characters dialogue. It was quite simple because the mic plugged straight into the camera using an adaptor. Then we got our friend to hold the microphone above the characters but out of shot using a microphone stand, recording their audio in sync with the visu al being picked up by the camera. 

Shooting our Third Scene

This scene is key to the build up in our production, it is essential that we got this scene right so that we could really set the scene for the later events. We needed to get the location right so we came to the conclusion that the side streets in Jericho would fit just right. This scene is where a gang member finds Jason and gives him the gun in which he will kill the hitman with. For the gang member, we asked a friend who fit the profile of the character and could drive for the start of the scene. Zach was happy to play the part and we started filming.

For this we used many different varied shots inculding a time lapse of the street, this added a really nice effect of time speeding by and then Jason walking into the shot after it had slowed down.

We then used many point of view shots to aid the dialogue and from there the focus pull of Jason walking away after collecting the gun and walks away down an alley.

Final Locations

After Dan, Dave and I all agreed on our ideal locations for filming. We decided to come up with idea's for good places to film close to home. After a lot of driving around, we decided a good place to start was Cowley in Oxford. The blocks of flats and run down streets it was ideal for us because it the just the look we were after, hoping to give the illusion that we were in rough area.

After choosing this, we needed a house to use as the home of Jason and his older brother. We needed this to be realistic in the fact that they wouldnt have a big house, and needed the rooms to act as a young lads room. We used a friends house for the scenes in the lounge, kitchen and the older brothers bedroom. For Jason's room we used Dan's bedroom as he had the right look for Jason. With some good editing we were able to make it look like the rooms are all in the same house.

 

 

 

For the end scene it is key that the look was right. We needed a underpass or bridge to use, for this we are going to use one it Botley. It has the right image due to the graffiti on the walls etc. Key to our final scene.

 

 

BFI - British Film Institution

Earlier this week, my A2 class and the AS class went to the BFI (British Film Institution) in London's Southbank for study day on Youth, Media and Collective Identity. Ran by Matthew Hall (Head of Film and Media Studies at Seven Kings High School). We started off with a presentation on Collective identity, we looked at a pyschoanalyst called Jacques Lacan who proposed the mirror stage in a young child. This is when a child begins to develop their identity; recognising self in the mirror. It is believed that this is done to find identification and aspiration. This is influenced by the media as we again use TV/film as a ‘mirror’ to back-up our identity. However, media portrayals can sometimes be inaccurate. Stuart Hall believed that we accept, negotiate or interpret influences. It depends on the audience interpretation. Hall continued to propose his ideas on 'encoding/decoding'. This theory is about how media messages are produces, circulated and consumed. Later on, We went on to look at Youth Culture in British cinema. We looked at and analysed a few different film clips for example The Wild One, Quadrophinia and Kidulthood. I have included the clip from Quadrophenia below.

This clip was used to show the Youth Culture in the 1960s and showed the huge gangs of mods and rockers at the time and the problems that they caused. This clip gives the impression that the youth of this time were extremely rebellious and very badly behaved.

During our time at the BFI we also watched a screening of the film My Brother The Devil. This is also a film about modern day youth culture but it has a very dramatic twist in it. I have also included the trailer from this film below.

This film has some very clever shots and editing that show enough for the audience to understand whats going on but not give away too much. This i feel is a very clever way to keep the audience interested in the film and keep the general edge of seat action flowing.

Looking back at our day at the BFI, i defiantly gained some new ideas about youth culture in Britain and how this was built up over the years. Considering our short film includes the theme of youth culture it was very helpful in giving us ideas about our own piece and helping us broadern our own production.

Research into Similar Products - My Brother The Devil

My Brother The Devil is a British urban youth drama set in Hackney. The story follows two teenage brother's struggles growing up in East London and face conventional issues of media aimed at a young audiences including voilence, drugs, money, sexuality, gang rivalry and theft. The story is about the older of the two brothers trying to keep his younger more innnocent brother from making the same mistakes that he did getting himself involved with gang and drug crime when he was younger. From what we see from the film the two brothers have an extremely close relationship as the older brother plans to move his family out of hackney and send his brother to collage

I think the film portrays the sensitive issues from this genre very effectively but at the same time exaggerated for dramatic effect. There is a big twist about half way through the film, where it turns out the older brother, who was homophobic and sickned by it at first, comes out to be gay. This adds a fresh layer to conventional urban dramas that explores masculinity, cultural roots and beliefs about sexuality. It was very hard for older brother to realise he was gay when he was against it for so long by the pressures of the gangs in Hackney.

This is similar to the plot of our short film as are two main characters are the older brother, Michael and younger brother, Jason. Michael is a hard worker who wants to keep his brother out of trouble and off the streets. Similar to how Rash looks over his younger brother Mo. However, we wanted to go against the classic conventions by having the brothers living on their own without their parents making it a more diverse situation. We will also use the more frequently used conventions of urban youth dramas such as slang, drugs, guns and crime.

Target Audience - Research

Every text needs a target audience to be aimed at. For our production, we need to know who our audience is and what the age will be, thier interests and opinions of what makes a good film to that audience. It would also be useful to know what other types of media they use and how they use it. To find out how it is done, we have looked at some case studies. Below is a case study about the target audience for the urban horror fantasy, 'Heartless'.

Case Study

For their audience research, they started by finding out their main audience, which were horror fans and their broader audience which was people aged 15-25. They used fan pages on Facebook to communicate with other fans of similar products, to engage with them and use them to create word going round about the film. They used polls on Facebook to ask potential audiences questions which could be used to structure advertising. Another case study we looked at was for the target audience of...

'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'.

Case Study 2

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was suitable for a digital campaign because its fans were already grouped together online because of the books before the film was realised so eligable fans where already about, they did this through sites such as Facebook, blogs and fan sites. They found their primary target audience was females aged over 20, They again found that Facebook was the best way to target and approach their audience as it allowed them to group the audience together through age, gender, interests etc.

This gives Dan, Dave and I a clear view on how to start our publisising for our film.

Research into Similar Products - Top Boy

Our group has been doing some product research into similar products. For this Dan, Dave and I each took a film or television drama of our choice and
analysed it, extracting helpful tips to use for our film. For my research I chose to use the popular television series 'Top Boy'. 

Top Boy is a programme about a drugs ring in South London following people through there different encounters and events. From this I was able to get a deeper view into what we needed to do and achieve in order to make out film seem more realistic and keep a better flow with camera techniques and movement etc. As well as being similar story line as our film, Top Boy also has the same target audience as us, so we will use the same advertising techniques they used to promote their series. In this series, the main character called Dushane, is now running Summerhouse (The estate in which they live) without his best-friend, Sully. His business relationship with his boss Joe has blossomed and they are about to move into the big time with a large shipment of drugs. But Dushane misses Sully, particularly when he is confronted by a new enemy. With his reputation as Top Boy on the line, Dushane must take drastic action to keep hold of his new-found power and needs Sully on side again. This dramatic yet gritty storyline is exactly what we are after for our film and is a brilliant way to gain ideas.

Camera Technique - Dolly Zoom

Whilst analysing the Jaws clip in my previous blog, I found a camera technique which I really liked. It is called the dolly zoom which is where the camera is placed on a dolly and is zoomed in on a subject for example a characters face or point of interest. The camera is then zoomed out as the dolly moves forward creating an effect which seems to be zooming out but moving in at the same time, creating a surreal effect. It can be quite unsettling and appears to undermine visual perception and create a continuous perspective distortion causing the background to change size while the subject stays the same.


Here is a link to the dolly zoom effect in Jaws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB4bikrNzMk)

This dolly zoom effect can have strong emotional impact depending on the feeling of the scene, for instance, it could portray fright, fear, shock, surprise etc. and can add tension to a scene. It could also create a sense of vertigo and unreality, or to suggest that a character is undergoing a realisation that causes them to reassess. This is why I really like this effect as it can be used in many circumstances to portray many emotions and gives a cool looking surreal effect. I would like to incorporate this effect in to my media production as I think it would give it a professional feel to the final product. I will try to recreate this effect as an example in a blog to follow.

Here is another effective use of the dolly zoom camera effect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv41W6iyyGs

And here is a video explaining it fully: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amj6RiGiTOE

Target Audience

After some discussion with Dan and Dave, we decided that our core target audience is urban drama fans. Our broader audience is mainly males but female’s as well aged 15-25. I want to collect some feedback from our target audience about our ideas to see if they will be effective and appeal to them. We can use this feedback to influence and improve our idea, ideally this will help us make the film more popular with that group of people.

To do this, we will create a questionnaire or survey to gather information about our audience and find out their interests, taste in music and what they would want from a short, urban drama film. This is very important as we only have 5-10 minutes for our film so it has to grab the attention of the viewer and we can achieve this by finding out more about our audience. From the age range, I can imagine that the majority of our audience will be on Facebook or other social networking sites, so we can use this to our advantage. As we know from the case studies, this is a really effective platform to reach an audience on.

Another way we can collect information is to use a focus group to explain our ideas to them and get some feedback. A focus group is good as it lets you interact with your audience face to face and allows discussion between the group and researchers. For this we will use some of our friends from school. From all of these this will help us to create a really effective film.

Background Music - Research

To add realism to our production, we intend to go all out on the sound this year and give the audience the full experience, for this, we are using..

- Foley Sound
- Background Music
- Dialogue
- Non-Diagetic

For the background music, we took examples from programmes and films we were watching such as 'Top Boy' and 'London Heat'. In these two examples, the background music in particular was very similar in the way they used it to portray the characters, this would come very useful in our production, For example, When we have two characters of very different natures. Using music in the background, we are able to show the differences between characters without using any dialogue. This also adds to the dramatic side of our production.

In the first scene, where the Hitman kills the Drug Dealer, There is no dialogue. But as we first see the Hitman, no music is playing and its very quite and atmospherical. Then as it jumps to the drug dealer, you instantly know the difference between the two characters because the music punches is and the match-on-action shot reveals the identity of the Drug Dealer, playing 'Old School Hip-Hop' as he is cutting up his drugs. Then as the scene progresses, the tempo changes and a much more up-beat song jumps in as he is consuming the substances, This adds space for us to use effects in the editing, One part in the second half of our first scene when the up-beat song starts, there is a multiple cut shot between the drug dealer and the hitman. Then as the song drops we use a slow motion jump shot of the hitman taking a shot of alcohol then speeds back into real time. The background music really helps to add a dramatised edge to this first scene and really gives it that edge with us now being able to use copyright music. This gives us the ability to improve our final piece and improve from last year.