CF: Presentation style for evalution questions

• For questions 1,2,3 and 6, it seems appropriate to simply use individual text-posts to the blog in order to evaluate our project. We think that a text-format whilst including pictures and possibly short clips, is the best option for these questions.
• For question 4, we will be producing a 'prezi' presentation in order to discuss the audience for our media product. We think this is appropriate as prezi allows users to incorporate video, audio, pictures and data much more easily than that of a simple power-point presentation. This will be effective because we feel that including statistics and other resources from the world wide web to talk about why we decided to target the audience that we did may be useful.
• Similarily, we will use be producing a prezi presentation for question 5 due to the same reasons as previously mentioned concerning question 4. As these two questions are both focused around the same topic (audience), we feel that making one presentation to discuss these two issues would be sensible.
• For question 7, to compare our final project and our preliminary task, we will be producing a short-interview style video with clips from both the preliminary and final task. We will cover issues such as what we had learnt between the making of the preliminary and final tasks, how happy we are with our work as well as other people's views on our work, we will also cover other aspects. When displaying clips in this video that we will make, we may commentate over the video to give the viewer our thoughts etc.

GROUP: Final Film introduction:

GROUP: Final Film introduction:
Our entire sequence last for 3:03 including titles

Group: Consideration of lighting

• When we originally decided to shoot much of our film outside at night-time when their would be no natural light, we realised that we would have to largely consider how the lighting in the final-cut of our project would look.
• We decided to shoot at a location which had one-major source of light, this worked well has it created significant shadows, which was very helpful, as we had already decided as a group that we wanted to use shadows, for the "murderer" to hide in, to create a persona of 'the fear of the unknown'.
• We found that this decision was effective, in the shot where only the corpse is visible, some viewers noticed that the sillhouette of the murderer was noticable in the background, this is exactly how we wanted it to appear, in that he presence was subtle but noticable. This proved how effective our decision to use one source of light was.
• Another observation that we made, was that  

Group: Modifications

During our recent activity on the post-production process of the video, we have made a few modifications/edits to a number of different aspects:

• Firstly, as a group, we came to the conclusion that the font we had chosen for the title of the movie which was 'mail art rubberstamp', we decided that the font was not appropriate in that it did not tie-in with the theme of our film, we were attempting to give the opening to our film a very distorted look, and as a result, we opted for the font VTKS seven , as displayed below. We think that this is appropriate as it has a very distorted and scratchy feel about it, and can be used to create the illusion that the titles are actually scratched into some of the objects that appear in our sequence.

• Secondly, we also decided to change the point at which the title of the film would appear throughout the opening. Originally we planned to have a completely black screen appear after the opening sequence, on which the title would appear. We have now decided that the title will instead appear on an inanimate object in one of the shots which are set after the murder scene in the opening.
• We have also slightly modified the narrative of the opening, although we did not originally plan to, we decided at the time that we were filming, that camera shots of the murderer processing the photographs could be effective in creating suspense as to what the murderer is going to use the photos for. The shots  we filmed for this scene were very effective in the manner as previously mentioned, and we felt that they looked very professional.

Group: Evaluation and Feedback on Rough Cut

• For our lesson on friday, we were asked to create a rough cut of our footage so far for our final production. We recieved mostly positive feedback for our rough cut, with only very little negative feedback that involved the order of our shots, as it was quite unclear what was happening, and someone also pointed out that one of our shots needed to be shot again as it was too dark to see, this was the shot of Dan's feet walking along the pavement.
• Our positive feedback was varied and from many members of the class. Dan said our lighting was very good as it created a mysterious feel about the opening, and that it was very conventional of film noir. Molly said our opening shot was very effective for setting the scene. Dan also noted that our sound was very crisp and highly effective to support the mysterious feel. Rozzy noted that our use of pull focus and close ups were very attractive and reinforced the mysterious feel, and Miss Johnson praised our consideration of mise-en-scene.

Group: Evaluation of 2nd shoot

• We agreed with one of the actors (Dan Qureshi) to use his residence as a base for our operations for the few hours of filming, this was very practical as we was able to store our equipment and prepare our props and actors/actresses for the shoot.
• We arrived at the location which we used for the scene of the murder, we then consulted the neighbours to make them aware that we were shooting a scene for a film opening, to prevent any distress.
• Firstly, we filmed our establishing shot which was a shot of the environment sorrounding the location of the murder, we found that it was traditional of thriller/horror movies to have a wide-angle shot as an establishing shot.
• Secondly, we filmed the shot of the murderer (Dan Qureshi) walking towards the place from which he would murder the the victim, we shot a number of macro-shots including close-ups of his feet and an extreme close-up of the murderer's face. We also filmed a shot where the murderer is seen to be drawing something from his jacket, we used a stapler and a film canister to portray the look of him getting a gun from out of his jacket, as we were not allowed to use real or imitation weapons.
• Then we prepared the scene of the murder, we used chalk to draw a number of religious and cultural symbols to sorround the body, the victim then laid down in amongst the symbols, as if the murderer had killed her and then drawn the symbols. When looking back at this piece of footage, we were very happy with how the shot looked.
• We then filmed the scene where the murderer is photographing the body, the footage we shot here was satisfactory, but we were not thrilled. We decided that due to time constrictions and the lack of opportunities for our actors to come back and film that scene again, we decided we would use the footage as it was (although we would obviously edit it). We filmed some medium-close ups of the murderer taking photos of the body, the photos are almost a point-of-view (POV) shot from the corpses body, depsite the fact that she is dead.
• Finally, we filmed some more shots of the indoor scene, where the murderer would be planning the murders, these shots look very nice and realistic, this was partly due to the use of props such as a map containing photos, names and locations of the victims of the murders.
• Generally, we were very happy with how the footage we filmed at this shoot, we thought that some shots looked as good as we wanted them too, with most of them exceeding our expectations. One of our main worries about the productions process of our project, was that filming at night time could have looked grainy which would of had a very negative impact on the film in general. When looking over the footage, we were thrilled with how the night-time shots looked, and only required minimal colour correction for them to look good.

Group: Call Sheet and Risk Assessment for 2nd Shoot

Click photos to enlarge. The call sheet and risk assessment for the 2nd shoot is important because it indicates the risks and tells us which precautions we need to take in order to keep all of the crew and all equipment safe from harm. Certain things could be dangerous and need extra care, for example lighting. As most of our shots are outdoors we need to take extra care as outside can be dangerous for filming in.

Group: Plan for 2nd shoot

• This saturday (10th March), we will shoot all of the rest of the footage we require for our final production, as both of our actors (Daniel Qureshi and Charlie Martin) are available and ready.
• We will include all shots that involve the actors, including the shots of Dan walking around Pembury and sitting around in the 'montage area'. We will also capture the shots of Charlie's dead body, with chalk markings and fake blood to make it seem that she has been killed for religious purposes.
• We will be working in two locations, the back alley off Sandown Park which has a singular lamppost, and Dan's house (48 Sandown Park, Pembury), which means we have an outdoor and indoor location so there is some variety.
• The props we will be using for our shoot include a stapler and a film cartridge to imitate a gun (however this will not be shown fully in the footage due to the restrictions we are working under), fake blood and a wall map with photos and string linking them. Our costumes will be a bright coloured outfit for Charlie and a suit for Dan.

GROUP: Creating the montage

Here are some screen shots of the making of the montage in premier. We colour corrected some footage as shown in the two comparison print screens shown below. There are also the different texture 'grunge' effects we used from google images .

                                      

Group: Considering Sound.

   Dialogue:

• Their will be no use of dialogue in our film, this will be done as we think that the use of unprofessional dialogue can make the rest of the film look amateur.
• We believe that the use of silence will create a persona of mystery, this fits in with the theme of the film, because if we were making the rest of the movie and not just the opening, one of the largest themes would have been neo-noir.
• Their will be a voiceover of part of the lords prayer, this is obviously relevant because of the religious undertones of the movie.

Digetic sound:

• There will be a substantial amount of digetic sound used in our movie openng, other than music, the main use will be a screech like sound, which sounds during the montage at the start everytime the distorted shots take place.
• During a camera shot of the local environment in which the murder will take place, a gun-shot will sound, this will be used for a sudden contrast between the un-eventful shots of the environment, and the murder scene. We chose to do this, as oposed to showing the murderer taking out his weapon and preparing to murder the victim, the method in which we are going to do it, will create a sudden shock for the audience.

Issues with sound:

• One issue we had with sound on our preliminary task that we have been careful in order to ensure does not happen again, was a large amount of background sound over the main video. This was the sound of the cars on the road, which really dominated any other sound (including dialogue) in our preliminary task. To counter this, we have chosen our time of filming accordingly, to be able to film at a time when their will be little cars on the road which is near to our location.
• Another large issue we had with sound was that the diagloue in our preliminary tasks sounded slightly grainy and not really professional, this was one of the reasons that we chose not to use dialogue.

Group: Call Sheet and Risk Assessment for 1st Shoot

Click on photos for enlarged image. The call sheet and risk assessment are very important on our first shoot as they help us to stay as safe as possible, whilst looking after all equipment and taking all necessary precations to ensure everyone involved stays safe and all equipment is protected properly. Working outdoors and with lights are some of the main risks and these are dealt with on the risk assessment. The call sheet ensures that all members of the crew have contact with each other and know when and where to go for the shoot.

Group: Camera shot Damnation Animatic

• The shots in the animatic approximately the shots that we will film in our final project, obviously there is a large chance that some of the shots may be changed completely or slightly in order to react to our sorroundings or our situation at the time of shooting.
• This is the original animatic we created for the two-minute opening of our film "Damnation", it presents the shots and camera techniques that we shall use when filming our final project, however, we feel that on the day of the film shoot, we may improvise and change the way in which some shots are shot, in accordance to our sorroundings and the environment. For example, as we will have a track and dolly, we may find that using such equipment may enhance the final result.
• The shots included include some extreme close ups, wide-angle long shots and track and dolly shots.

Group: Considering titles

• We are going to motion track all of our titles in our final production to different items on-screen.
• Our fist title, 'A TWGSB Production', is going to be motion tracked to a pill in the montage scene, in Cambria font as it is a simple serif font that we belive will not overshadow the font of the main title.
• Our second title, 'Starring Daniel Qureshi and Charlie Martin', is going to be motion tracked to the back of a cigar on-screen during the montage scene, also in Cambria to create a constant theme.
• Our third title, 'Henry Cramer-Todd, Jake Piercy, Connor Fitzgerald', is going to be tracked to a bird's eye view of the desk used by the killer with all of the items on it, with the different parts of the sentece broken up into different sections of the shot. This will also be in Cambria. We have decided not include 'Brought to you by', as most other opening we have studied have not included this.
• Our final title, 'Damnation', will be motion tracked to the top of an envelope as it is closed by the killer, folding over with the paper. We belive this will focus all attention on the title of the film. Also the title will be in Mailart Rubberstamp, a downloadable font online, which is interesting and different from the other titles, so all attention will be drawn to the main title of the film.

Group: Audience Research - Methodology

• Through the time that we have spent as a group, there has been aspects of our film opening that we have been able to agree on without any doubts, such as that the first scene should consist of one of the murders that the serial killer would commit.
• However, there has been other aspects that we have been unable to agree on, and these are the aspects that we included in our survey so that we could come to a conclusion on that certain production decision.
• These topics included: Location, time of the day that the events would take place at, the antagonist’s appearance, gender of the characters, colour, narrative (motive for murders) and music/sound.
• We also included questions concerning the details of those filling the survey out, to see if they are the prime target audience of our project of 15-24 year olds, as people in that group’s opinion does not matter less, but may have a bigger effect on how we go about developing our project.
• The results of the survey were then to be analyzed by the members of our group, and came to ‘concrete’ conclusions concerning the aspects which we were originally at ends about. We believed our survey was effective and simple enough to provide us with a good idea on the unanswered questions before.

Results

 

• Question 1: 73.7% of the people who filled out the survey were shown to be male.
• Question 2: 88.2% of the people who filled out the survey were shown to belong to the age group of 16-20 year olds while half of the remaining group belonged to the 21-24 age group, showing that most of the people who filled out our survey belonged to our target audience, thus the rest of the results would be more effective than if the survey was filled out by a different age group.
• Question 3: 47.4% of votes on this question stated that it is very important for our opening to be shot a night time in the dark. No other option gained more votes than this in this question.
• Question 4: The only item of clothing that was shown to have a major importance for the antagonist to be wearing in our opening, was a mask, the other items of clothing were simply voted to have a reasonable importance.
• Question 5: Our results show that the antagonist should be a male while the protagonist should be a female.
• Question 6: By a substantial amount of votes, the most favoured location for our opening was a dark and lonely road with a single lamp post as a source of light.
• Question 7: Concerning the antagonist’s appearance, the majority of the votes showed that their identity should be semi-concealed.
• Question 8: Individual answers generally stated that the culprit of the crimes in the opening should wear dark colours, while many also said that the victim should having a white (and blonde) appearance (clothing and hair), which would create a effective juxtaposition between good and evil.
• Question 9: The majority of our results state that the reason for the murder should be that the killer is mentally unstable, but many also said there should be a religious motive.
• Question 10: The majority of votes stated that the music for the murder scene should consist of a piano tune. Results

GROUP: First Shoot evaluation.

• This week was tricky to film as we did not have an actors and also Connor was unable to be there on the night. We managed to create the bullet shell hitting the floor in Adobe After Effects and piece together some of our footage in Adobe Premiere Pro that has certain effects the school computers don't, that we want in out final opening.
• As the Track was booked out this weekend and therefore we we were unable to use it for our shoot, we had to make our own to get the same effect on your shots. Here is a quick video showing the track we made to use for some of our shots.

• We managed to get the bullet shell casing shot done
• The shot at the beginning of our opening of the street at night as the gunshot sounds
• Small parts of the montage edit with tracking shots along the desk
• This will allow us to integrate the shots we did this weekend with the shots of next weekends shoot when we have actors.
• When asking a member of our target audience, they were puzzled as to why the gun shot goes off when an empty street is shown. They positioned themselves with the street as the place where the murder happens as the gun shot sounds then, however this is not the effect we want to give off and this helped us think in detail about what we want to show to the audience, when and why.
• We have now deciced to slightly change our storyboard and now the scene will start off small montage of the antagonist walking along and pulling out the gun, as soon as the gun is identifiable by the audience and the streetlamp light hits its metal surface the clip will cut as a gunshot sounds and echoes. It will then fade into the street shot at night for few seconds before cutting to the bullet shell hitting the floor and the lords prayer narration will start.
  
  Update: 6/3/12
• We finished editing our first attempt at a fast paced montage edit for the second half of the opening. Here is the final product. We are extremely happy with it and think it could really work well in our final final edit.

Group: Ideas for Typography

These are our ideas for title fonts. Our favourites from these five are the top (I Am Sherlocked), middle (Mailart Rubberstamp) and the bottom (Wicked Grit).

GROUP: Updated and final Treatment:

Our film is a horror / thriller hybrid set in the 1990’s, with our main character in the opening sequence being the antagonist, a mentally unstable man in his mid-20's, who is part of a small, psychotic, secret religious group who organise killings of people who have committed sins based on the ten commandments, their symbol is presented throughout the sequence providing visual links to the organisation. The opening sequence will include him killing a young woman by a street lamp on a dark road, leaving several religious symbols as a mark of his organisation. There will be a shot of the antagonist standing over the dead body, his identity is sealed as his face is obscured by the minimal lighting and shadow cast over his face. The woman is a symbol of light whilst the antagonist is represented as dark and domineering.              
The title sequence will follow with several macro shots with motion tracked titles to objects along the antagonists work station. Maps and enigmatic objects will be shown, revealing some of the plans and previous attacks from the clan. It will show previous and planned murders, and snapshots of the victims will be put in envelopes by the murderer, these will be addressed to the police and will specify the commandment that the victim had disobeyed. In the opening sequence, the commandment that has been disobeyed will be “I am the lord, your God, you shall put no other Gods before me”.