Final Cut

Enfield Filming

On Tuesday the 10^th in lesson time I went to Enfield to film some time lapse shots, however on arriving the sky was completely with not texture or cloud outlines so filming would have been futile as there would have been no deviation in the shot, as this was just days before the final cut I am unsure whether I will be able or have time to retry. I will update at a later time on this matter.

Dates

I have not kept to my timeline past the last time it was updated as I only filmed the faces on the 2^nd and therefore could only be edited after that, but it is pretty much finished, other than the extra time lapse shots, which I want to film, probably in lesson time soon, in a new location, which is completely different and extravagant compared to the ones I have.

Titles

After the first cut was shown I have been told I should make my production more conventional, however I don’t think the look of title screens will fit in with the overall aesthetic of my production, so instead I plan to have the titles read out by some of the people in my production. I feel this will fit in better with my production and, it will make the production feel more personal, as if the participants are directly addressing the audience.

Finally have Faces

After weeks of either putting it off, or not finding any willing participants I finally have shots of faces, I only got around 7 which isn't perfect however, it is enough to complete the look of my production.

New shot

Amazeballs

I have filmed 2 new shots today, which I am very excited about, I was sat in my room, and I noticed the clouds looked really cool, so I threw my camera out on the flat roof out side my window in a dash to film for a while.

I'm really glad I did because I LOVE the way both shots have turned out. In the first it looks really 3D you can see the 2 layers of clouds moving independently from each other, and in perfect quality, I wasn't planning to film any new time lapse shots however from how it turned out I'm glad I did. In the second I LOVE the formations of the clouds. I even like the framing of the first shot which is very unconventional. I have decided to use these shots at the title shots, so I have overlayed the title on to these shots.

The power of sound

To create the mix of sounds, I took clips from all different videos. I downloaded and converted them, then put then into Premier, to cut them down and place them in a logical order. Such as the two clips "What is God like?" and "What is God?", I think they work very well place together. And the first clip of sound which is addressing the audience, this was perfect for opening the video. I also had to change the audio gain, and each clip. The music I have used is appropriate as it fits in with the genre, and cultural theme, but is still fast and up beat, so I can work clips in to time them perfectly, and it suits the target audience.

 The videos I used:

What is God? - Sadhguru

What Is God? - The Amazing Athiest

Worship Through Preaching! - Mar Barker

Marcus Borg - What is God?

ISLAM - The True Religion Of God

The Patchwork Belief??

I have chosen to call my production 'The Patchwork Belief' as the film is suppose to represent all the religions, thus making a 'patchwork' out of all of them, the film will essentially be collaborating all religions and explaining them as one, and apart from each other. I have decided to scrap the science aspect of the production as I would rather focus on religion, however the film will represent atheists. The font I have chosen is called 'Random House' and I think it works well as it looks so scrappy, and mis-matched.

Money, Money, Money

After thinking about where the funding for this movie would come from I have decided that the BBC would be interested in airing, and funding it. However I also feel like although it may not make it into multiplex cinemas, The Patchwork Belief would make it into Art House cinemas. Therefore relying on the BBC to independently fund the film is unlikely. So it would also be funded an established film distribution company, the likes of which I am currently unsure of, so it will be later decided. Typically when shown on a BBC channel my documentary would be shown on BBC 4 however as I want a younger audience I think it would be shown on BBC 3.

To overlay or not to overlay

I have been contemplating putting over lays on some of the time lapse shots, these would be to make sure the text is easier to see and read. Here are some examples of possible overlays.

However I am not sure whether it's a good idea to use overlays, or whether I'm just trying to add more shots and layers in because I feel like whats there isn't enough. So I will be contemplating this one.

Grainy Feathers

I think the shot of the feathers look to unprofessional for my video. There are many thing wrong with it, including the unfixable colour, the graininess and the fact it's far to dark. So I am planning to re-shoot this footage on either 27/10/2013 or the 29/10/2013 as the weather is supposed to be clear, therefore with any hop I might even get some shots of stars as well. I prevent the graininess and to attempt to keep the colour more true I will have to change some of the options on the camera. These options include changing the ISO this alters how much light is let into the camera. 

I have circled the ISO grade line.

When I first tried to change the colour on the shot of the Feathers I used colour balance, however the original shot was so bad, there was nothing I could do to it.

I have circled the colour balance options.

Time Lapse Previews

Here are my time lapse shots back-to-back. I hope this will give you the chance to see them fully without any text overlays or sound effects.

'I believe'

I am no longer going to have the shots of people saying 'I believe', instead I just want silent shots. These will be close up of their faces. I believe this unexpectedly will have a greater impact on the video than if the people were to speak. I want it to represent them being silenced, and not being able to have their say, this being because all the different religion contradict each other. Then at the end of the video / trailer I want to have one longer shot of someone giving the information for the film, I feel this is best for 4 reasons. The first being that having the release date / directors name spoken to the audience is very original, something I haven't seen at all before. The second being that it will create far more recall in the audience, as people can tent to miss or ignore text on screen. Then because, I think its very difficult to have text on screen without it looking tacky or unprofessional, this being something I particularly struggle with. And the last reason is that it will tie in with the other face shots, as I previously stated, I want their silence to represent the religious silencing, or nullifying each other, so I want this last bit of speaking to be representative of this documentary breaking the silence. I might also add to the tag line, so it would be 'Believe those who are seeking the truth, join us, and break the silence.' Opposed to what it was formerly, 'Believe those who are seeking the truth'. But I'm not sure whether that's making the documentary seem to prestigious and full of it's self, so it's something I will be considering.

Target Market

Demographic

My demographic is middle class students. As I want to appeal to people that are interested in educating and informative media. I also feel like this demographic would take the time to actually take a message from my trailer / film, and actually contemplate it after viewing. My demographic is not gender specific, as I want to appeal to both genders. I would also want my work to appeal to those who are more into technology so that they can take to the internet and social media to make the film go viral. I would also want my trailer/ film to appeal to some older communities, who are interested in religion, ideally  would want to both teach a younger generation about religion and culture, as well as sharing the opinions of older generations.

Psychodynamics

I wish to appeal to joiners as I want people to be inspired by my video, and to try and join in group to discuss it, because I also want people to discuss the production after they have seen it, so appealing to joiners because they can make forum websites.

First cut

Time lapse problems

Unfortunately filming is taking longer than expected as each time lapse shot takes 20-30 minutes to film, and then the shot gets compressed down to 5 seconds which means filming is taking a long time. The shots of people saying 'I believe' are difficult to get as I want a very diverse range of backgrounds. I have so far got 4 time lapse shots and 2 'I believe' shots. I am also collecting resources for the newspaper shots, and symbol shots.

Character, costume and location

I want to use a range of characters to show a broad range of opinions. These characters will not be on screen for more than 7 seconds however I want them to flash up and say the phrase 'I believe'. I want to use both adults and my peers at school. However using a range of background so it doesn't look they've all been done in the classroom. As I want to use this range of characters there will not be a set uniform, or costume. I wish to use landscapes location, and religious scene such as church's and mosques. I want a shot in the corridor of people walking past, as well as one of The Feather's.

Animatic

This is what I will use as a guide to my video, I have put it together with the music I intend to use. This will give me a rough guide to stick to, an everyone an insight to what my video will be like.

Production schedule

Shot list

Fade from black to hill shot
Fade to faces x5 [Quick and in time to the music]
Time lapse of church [Overlayed with sermons and preachers]
Fade to mosque [Overlayed with sermons and preachers]
Faces x2 [Quick and in time to the music]
Corridor shot [Overlayed with personal story]
Road time lapse [Overlayed with review and sermons and preachers]
Sermon footage (archive) 
Newspaper shots [Slowly blurred and Overlayed with review]
Faces x 2 [Quick, short shots]
Preacher shot (archive)
Feather time lapse [Overlayed with sermons and preachers]
Shots of symbols [Slowly blurred and Overlayed with review]
What about you? text shot
Faces x30 [Dissolved one into another]
Title [Crossfade, Random house font]
Info 
Slow face shot

Key
Sound
Visuals

Influences

THE PATCHWORK BELIEF

This year I want to do a documentary trailer, which will be based on the on-going conflict between science and religion. I have named it THE PATCHWORK BELIEF because the title represents the collection of different ideologies and testaments which make up the religious society today. I wish to include and represent all religion in the trailer, the best I in the least biased way possible. I want the trailer to appeal to a younger audience, around my own age, however this isn't making things easy for me as the nature of the film is for older audiences, so I will have to try and target them in a variety of different ways. One of these ways will me through the music choice, I have chosen Djivan Gasparyan - Lovely Spring [Stizreth Remix] as it is every cultural, but the remix makes it more interesting and attention grabbing to younger audiences. I want to use a lot of artistic shots, such as time lapses and time shifts to create the look I want. I wish to use some archive footage of sermons and preachers, as well as science lectures and possibly kids informational videos on ‘How the world began’. I want there to be some as non-tacky as possible short narration to briefly describe the nature of the film/ documentary, as well as overlays of more religious and scientific talks. I have a range of locations I want to film; I want to do some time lapse shots over churches and mosques, as well as in public spaces to catch as many people as possible. I want to get short clips of people saying a phrase such as ‘I Believe’ looking dead pan into the camera; I then wish to make a monologue of these shots toward the end of the trailer. I am very comfortable approaching strangers to take these shots of if I feel I’m not getting a diverse enough mix of people.

Time Lapse shot examples

Tilt shift shot examples

Our Finished Production

Question 7

Looking back at you preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product.

Over the course of the preliminary task I have learnt how to visually progress my ideas to be easier for the audience to digest and understand, therefore making my ideas show through better, I have used far more visual effects in my video for A-level, whereas in my preliminary task there were just standard cuts, now in my Red video I used dissolve transitions, and more advanced techniques. I have also put a lot more effort into this task compared to preliminary task, showing I have learned that to make a better video which will achieve a higher grade I need to work harder, and create more cuts. This also shows I have learned to take on other peoples feed back to understand better how my video is being interpreted. From the preliminary task I have also learned a lot about camera angles, as in out preliminary task a lot of the angles were wonky and not at eye line whereas no they are all the the right height and angle.

Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies in the process of constructing your film?

During the process of making my film opening I have learnt about a number of technologies and gained a number of skills, which I have acquired over:

Planning and Research

I have learnt to use blogger as a way of showing my developing skills in media and my work, regarding research and planning. Such as the magazine I created or the movie poster/ DVD cover. I also used social media to get in contact with Dan to plan times to meet up and scout locations, such as Facebook messaging and texts sent by Smartphones. For the magazine I made and the film poster and the DVD case I used Photoshop to make them to perfection, and I used a Canon SLR EOS 1100D to take the pictures which I used in the creative, extended media.

Production 

During the production process I improved my skills on camera work, developing on my technical use of a camera. I also used a micro phone when we needed to record the dialogue for our audio. During production I used a Canon Power shot G11, I also used a Benbo trekker Tripod to support the camera.

Post Production 

In post production I had to learn from starch how to use Adobe Premier as I hadn't properly used it before, in premier I learned how to cut clips together, I learned how to add effects, and how to overlay clips and music together, and I also learned how to use blogger.

Question 5

How does your media product represent particular social groups? Our film would represent a small social group as it is a niche film. I think the type of people what would be able to empathize with our character are people who are slightly outcast them selves, and they would therefore be drawn to see the film as they can relate to how 'Red' feels. I also think our film represents a lower class audience, possibly coming from broken homes who would also be
able to relate to the content of the film, I think the film could
appeal to possibly working class or higher but less because they think it looks interesting and relatable and more because it a horror, and they're going for the thrills. Red is an almost un-relatable character as she is so isolated, and odd almost giving a sense of pleasure to those who can relate and making the experience even better for them.

Question 4

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?I think our film would be distributed by Cruel and Unusual films, as its an indie horror distributor and I think our film fit's in best with the criteria their films fit, such as 'Sucker Punch' which has a young girl with an unusual and non-conformist character, who isn't presented like most characters are , therefore I think Cruel and Unusual represent our film best and would choose to produce it.

Question 3

Who would be the audience for you media product?

We had to consider the following for our audience:

Age - 18/ 30 
Gender - Both
Ethnicity - Caucasian
Educational background - poor/ average
Social class - lower/upper working class
Economic status - Below average
Location - Built up city areas
Accessibility - Possibly multiplex but mostly art house cinemas.

We decided our films would appeal to both genders however most likely the majority of the viewers would be female as there is a female main character therefore attracting a more feminine audience. We also thought the age group would be late teens, late twenties, as Red wouldn't attract older audiences (Frail old Grannies) because of it's content. I also put an eighteen certificate on the DVD case and film poster thus with regard for the cinema sales, it would be over 18's only, however on the release of the DVD I would anticipate a younger audience eager to see the film because it's a horror, and the character is about 14-15. I would assume our film would attract a lower than class average audience in a built up area as our film isn't educational, it's a horror based on a lower class girl, therefore hoping a lower than class average audience would be able relate to the character and want to see the film.

Question 2

How did you attract/ address you audience?

Our visual style is quite Film noir with the select use of the colour red and the high contrast look of the film, also the lack of identity provided in some of the shots by Red's face being covered, the music used also references this as it a classical piece which is quite slow and adds atmosphere. However there are more modern shot transitions such as the dissolve we use, reflects a more modern audience, our film is a lot like Sin city with regards to the cinematography style and the story line, so we would be appealing to the same sort of audience, which put together can attract both a younger (teen) and older (late twenties) audience by combining the use of both styles. The use of the two classing voices overlapped with the classical music, may also attract a

certain type of audience, as it makes the whole video appear

more elegant and mature, rather than out original plan to use

more modern and bold music with out dialogue, as our original

plan could have possibly alienated older audiences (above 25), as the music possibly wouldn't be their style, whereas Beethoven would be more towards older audiences and attract them to see the film seeing as a more mature movie, also the 18 certificate makes the film appear to older audiences.

Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of real media products?

For the display of our character we have challenged conventions as you don't see every aspect of her personality, as of course there is so much of it but also because we didn't want to give away everything so soon, I couldn't find any examples of this, proving it's a

real challenge to conventions. The title are a development as, where the titles flicker in and out between shots, it is an unusual way of showing titles, although we got inspiration from the film Morvern Callar so it's not a development on it's own in out feed back we found everyone thought our titles were original and the best part of our opening this together with the dip to black makes it a development. The camera angles we use in our opening are a use of conventional use of camera angles as we don't have any particularly quirky or original angles in use. Some of the transitions we used when switching between shots are a challenge of conventions, we used a dissolve transitions between shots to fade one shot over another to make them seem more connected and intertwined to show the state of Red's mind, this represents the main character in Number 23, as he has two personalities however we aren't aware of both and evidently nor does he, this is like our character as she has a split personality, which she is also unaware of. However we have also developed on the character from Number 23 as in Number 23 they have used the same kind of character, however we have presented our's far more ambiguously as we have used less conventional eye contact shots.

Final (ish) changes

We have decided the uses Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata will dialogue lapsed over the top. The dialogue is as follows:

It wasn't like I understood what was happening, or that I wanted it to. It just did. Shut up. you don't just wake up one day with it, it grows, don't tell them, be quite, you can't stop me, leave me alone I hate you, I hate what you've done, you're weak, no, you're stupid, weak and no match for me. She grows, feeding on you like a parasite. Until one day, I take over, and that's just it, I'm in control, and there's nothing I can do, I'm just there, just like a, Bloodsucker, never going, to leave, here to stay, forever, and there's no stopping me I've plenty to get on with and first of all, priority number one, the king of all kings. Revenge.

The bit's in red will be read in a whispered harsh voice the whole monologue is to give the illusion Red is being taken over, by her evil self.

Developments

Since my last entry a lot of work has been done on the production. Our last showing was marked and we achieved: (Picture of Feedback sheet)

As we only achieved a level 3 for appropriate material, we decided to make it easier to understand for the audience by filming the start to the film beyond the titles. I therefore went out and filmed shots of Paige waking up in the woods looking dazed and confused and shots of her running away. This was to make it so the audience could see what she was going through and grasp more of the story line before the 2 minutes were over. The shot of her waking up has a varying focus as it's made to seem as if she is just waking up, so her eyes are trying to understand her surroundings. There are dip to white transitions as they are supposed to look like flash back, or dreams before she wakes up. I particularly like the shot where she turns to look at the camera then runs away, I used this shot to try and make it seem as if she is scared and vulnerable as she is running from us, the audience. After filming these shots the next day, I thought of the final presentation for the title, which was to scratch the title into a tree. I originally wanted to film the tree blank and then have RED walk past and the writing would suddenly appear as she left the shot, however carelessly I film the shot of the tree and then carved the title without noticing the writing was outside of the original shot framing therefore meaning the original shot of the tree wouldn't work. However Dan came up with the idea of blurring the shot so you couldn't see the writing on the tree, until RED walks past at which point he un-blurred the shot and made the title visible, which was very effective and I think it worked well to make the production seem more professional. To make these changes Dan and I spent 3 hours after school to get them finished.

The sound I originally put in the production seemed a little bland so I added a reverb over the top of my voice to make her seem more delusional. And we then changed the sound so RED's voice came from the right, and the Wolf's came from the left. This however became a problem when we came to show the production and there was no cross over, and one of the speakers was broken so the production didn't have half the affect. Therefore we added a crossover to make sure even if there were speaker difficulties it would work.

Development

On Thursday I stayed to do some of the audio and piece together the dialogue which was mine and Dan's voices for the two characters. I found it very difficult to put these together as none of the files were in the right order therefore it took a lot of effort to straighten them out. Also I'm not to skilled in premier I find I can only do the most basic things so in the next lesson we had, I got Dan to help with some of the editing. Together we then re-recorded some of the audio to a better quality and continued to put it all together.