Film Opening - Final

Our final submission for our film "Guardian Angel"

Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

There was a big difference between the preliminary task and to our full product regarding our approach from either project. Because the preliminary task required less work as we only needed to mkake a 40 second coninuity piece, we didn't put in much effort. We put in minimal amount of research as the continuity piece focused on how good the video flowed rather than the content of the video. However, for our full product it was a lot different. We spent 2 weeks researching for our film and was required us working a lot off our schedules as research was vital to our project. We learned that research is more important as we expected because from our preliminary task we only did research to get inspiration, but in our full product we had to know what our audience wanted which required a lot of work.

Filming was very easy for our preliminary task as we only dedicated one single day because this was all we needed to get all of our footage. What we got from this experience is complancency as we thought filming for our full product would've been as easy. This was not the case as for our full product we needed to film on several different pages. In the end we ended up with almost 3 hours of footage wchich only resulted in 3 minutes of film in the end. What we lernt from this experience is that handling actors, carry around equipment, which is necesary for a full film, is difficult and is not like what we did in the preliminary task.

Despite all of these differences, there was one aspect of making our full product which was similar to the preliminary task, editing. Editing our continuity piece was quite stressful as allowing it to flow was laborious. We had to make sure every single segment was trimmed out perfectly which required precision timing. We had check back at our back hundreds of times just to make it perfect. What we learnt from this experience is that editing can be fun to do but is difficult to master and requires a lot of time and effort if you want a good end product. We carried these thoughts into the diting stage for our full project. With this in mind, we were already prepared for what editing will take and knew what we were expected to do. This motivated us to edit a lengthy piece of footage and finished with a good full product.

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Throughout the process of constructing our film, we have learned a huge amount about technologies. We used various different technologies in synergy to produce our film and gave us a good end product.

 

   
One way we used technology to construct this product is to communicate through two forms of social media. WhatsApp, a instant messaging service helped us to make our film because this mobile app allowed us to communicate to each other whereever and whenever. It allows us to send video links, pictures and discuss topics about our film. This benefitted us as we both of us had our own assignments so if we needed help, it can easily come to us.

Another form of communication technology we used was Twitter, another form of social media. We used this to send big media files such as segments of the film to analyse and edit and examples from other movies. This benefitted us as without this service we'd have to work together in the same room which was not always available to use as we had to leave school by 5pm every day. Twitter helped us with work at home.

We used handheld HD cameras to record our film in high quality. The camera had several features such as zooming in and out, playback, taking still images and even more. Also, exporting our footage to iMovie was simples as there was a USB port. However, one problem we encountered wioth the camera was the shaking on screen and did not look good when playing the footage back. We decided to use the tripod to prevent the camera shaking and keep the video on screen still.

 

We used an Apple iMac to access thre internet. We researched films on imdb, watched examples on Youtube and edited our footage on iMovie. This is an example of synergy as on the iMac we could take notes, edit movies, go on the internet and communicate as well as other features which brings lots of technologies into one. We learnt that technologies with synergy such as the iMac helped us as all these different accessable features on one device helped us as it saved on time, effort and money as we'd have to buy indivudal devices for each function. 

 

 

We used websites such as YouTube and Blogger through the internet. We had to use YouTube to upload our film ti. What we learnt from this is that YouTube is a great virtual platform to get your product out to the public. This is because tags used on your video can be searched by anyone across the world which means your video can be seen by anyone. This helped us because we did get some positive feedback from people. We used Blogger to create our blog and post entries about our experience about making our film.



Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

During our research process for our film opening, we conducted a survey and was completed by 25 random people aged between 18-34 from the general public. The results were:

• Most common favourite genre was action/thriller
• People like to watch movies with big-name actors
• People want to see a lot of action and violence

After analysing our data we decided to keep the film a thriller/murder-mystery film as this is mostly what our target audience wanted. To attract the audience we had to include its conventions. We made 3 status characters in our film which were a victim, a bully and someone who serves the justice. This is key as most stories in thriller films revolve around crime and serving justice. By following this, we are attracting audiences as they are familiar with how thriller/murder films progress within its story.

We also included other editing techniques, sound effects and costume to attract audience. We used lowkey lighting throughout the film and used it in conjuction with greyscale saturation throughout most of the film. This is too add a mysterious and gritty feel to our film which has worked in the past with films such as Shifty. The audience will be attarcted to this as it helps to add suspense to our film. We used different sound effects such as gloomy ambient tones to create a suspense atmosphere to inform the viewers that the characters in the film were uneased and something was wrong. The audeicne will also be attracted through the use of mise-en-scene. We carefully chose the costume for each of our characters which portrayed the story such as the guardian angel covering his identity with a mask and wielding a baseball bat to show he will serve justce and punish the prosecutor.

Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Primary Audience

Our primary audience may look like this

• Males aged between 18-34
• Enjoy watching thrillers, dramas, murder-mystery films
• Still in education or employed so they can understand social issues in working environments
• Play video games, specifically action and violence
• Enjoy up beat music and up-to-date with technology

The reason why this would be our  primary target audience for our film is because most of these people would visit the cinema for escapism. Although them being in education or employed and being familiar with social issues such as bullying, they are most likely grown up and have moved on from this so watching a thriller/murder-mystery would attract their attention.

Secondary Audience

Our secondary audience may look like this

• Males aged between 12-18
• In education, possibly attend schools in urban areas
• Care-free personality, slightly confrontational and rebellious
• Enjoy action and heavily influenced by society
• Often go outside and socialise with friends

The reason why this would be our secondary target audience for our film is because most of these people our school teenagers who get involved with a lot of social activities. Because these teenagers are commonly found to be causing trouble and being rebellious, they would likely be watching our film as it covers themes of bullying, solving problems and violence which may encourage these children. Also they would want to watch a film which they are familiar with such as a film set in a school environment.

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

An independent distributor might distribute our film. Our film was virtually cost nothing to make and is shown through our film as there is a slightly edgy look which is found in independent films. To be distributed by big distributors our film needed to be a big-budget blockbuster because these films will gain a lot of attention from the public and has a good chance of making huge profits. On the other hand these big distributors would not take the risk in distributing our film as our audience is limited and some people may be put off by it being a low budget film. However, on past occasions, some independent films have turned out to be a success such as Shifty. Because our film and Shifty both share a similar gritty storyline, the same types of independent institution would distribute our film as clever manipulation of marketing would aim our film at different audiences.

Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Before creating our film, we researched about different social groups used in thriller/murder-mystery films. A common stereotypical character found in most of these films was a bully, which in almost every film were black males. A common stereotype with black individuals is that they are exotic and criminalistic. We used our media product to represent this by allowing Ben to play the bully as he is a black male.

Stereotypical bully

Bully used in our film

One of the other characters included in our film was a victim. This character gets his phone stolen which could be seen as bullying. In most films we had researched, most victims to bullying were scrawny white teenagers who were involved with 'geeky' activities such as reading or playing the piano. With this in mind, we decided to allow Mortada to play the victim as he was fulfilled these requirements and is also the reason why he was playing the piano to allow the viewers to identify he is a geek/victim. We represented geeks as being vulnerable and not being able to stick up for themselves as in our film the victim relied on his guardian angel to solve his problems. However, this supports stereotypes found in society about geeks as they are seen as being defenceless and rely on a greater power to help them.

 

Stereotypical victim to bullying

Our victim to bullying

Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The theme of our film was a thriller/murder-mystery so it was essential to include its own conventions. We needed to make the film opening foreshadow aspects of our film so viewers can roughly understand the plot of the film without giving way too much information that will reveal the rest of the story. 


As found in most murder mystery films, we had to include 2 key status characters. One being the person who will unravel the mystery and the other being the villain who caused the mystery. However, we challenged this by making the person unravelling the mystery a murderer to as this fulfils the duty of a guardian angel. This also helps to add a mystery theme as this would not be expected.

Character who is the villain

Character who solves the mystery

One of the themes we had to include in our film was pursuit and murder. We thought about this when making our film as this is commonly found in most murder/investigation films and as we were merging two genres in one, we handpicked different conventions from each genre and combined it together so that the pursuit and murder can take place in a mysterious way.


In terms of editing, a common convention used in thriller/murder-mystery films is the use of fading to black. We used this to add suspense to the scene and to suggest there is quite a dark matter at hand. We also used a limited amount of jumpcuts in our film as murder-mystery films aren't meant to cut to different stories and has a slow progression of the plot.

Choice of Editing Software

In order to make a film, we had to use editing software that would trim out all unnecessary shots, retain  continuity and let the film flow. Also, we needed to include credits and insert a few effects. We were given a choice between two different programs to edit our footage and had to come to a final decision. We judged this on both program's capabilities and limitations.

Sony Vegas Pro

The above picture is the user interface for Sony Vegas Pro. As you can see, there are many features you can use to edit your footage. However, both of us never had any real experience in editing videos before so all of this on a screen looked quite daunting. We decided not to use Sony Vegas Pro as it looked very complex and complicated despite having more capablities than our other option, iMovie.

iMovie



The above picture is the user interface for Sony Vegas Pro. As you can see, there are slightly fewer feeatures compared to Sony Vegas Pro. However, there were digital manuals which helped us learn about all the different editing techniques so we were able to use this when editing our film. Apart from that, other general features were quite self-explanatory as iMovie is designed to be user friendly and makes it clear to the user what each function does.

In the end we decided to use iMovie just because of its simplicity. Even though we were slightly limited in the range of editing techniques, there were still more than enough for our film to be completed up to a high standard.



Film Shooting Complete

We have finally finished our shooting. We started 7th March and finished on 2nd April. Apart from reshooting our very first scene, our recording went well as we constructed our planning carefully. Overall we would consider, in terms of shooting our film, a success because we have included all the camera angles we wanted to include in our film, all our shots were done to a high standard and finished filming our film within our deadline.

Sound Effects

Because we did not really contain music in our film, we had to include a lot of sound effects in our film to keep the viewers interested and engaged with the film. Throughtout the tite sequence, we inserted gloomy music to foreshadow a mysterious atmosphere which will inform the viewers what the film may be about. For the rest of the film we included a low ambient sound which creates tension and shows the something bad will happen.

Weather Issues

The pursuit scene was the only scene that was (partly) shot outside. This was the only scene that we had issues with due to the weather and the lighting outside. The weather conditions could've damaged the equipment and upset our actors. We wanted a clear shot so that no sun or rain would affect the final piece so instead we had to shoot quickly in case the sun changed positions or it started raining.

Dialogue

We encountered a big decision about what dialogue to include in our film. We decided to have just one line as this all we need for the viewers to understand what's going on in the film. However, getting crisp detail of the sound was a problem because of all the sounds outside such as construction work and underground tubes passing under our school. We decided to time it to when there was slighlty less sound in the background. We ended up with a clear recorded line that was good enough to include in our final piece.

Colours and Saturation

When filming we encountered a problem with colours on our footage. There were too many vibrant colours in and around the school and would've guided the audience away from the conventions of a thriller/gothic movie. With this in mind, apart from the Guardian Angel's point of view, we decided to make the film in black and white so we no longer had to deal with the visual jarring effect on screen and added a mysterious mood to the film which complimented our theme. The Guardian Angel's point of view is in a bright red colour to which symbolises blood, danger and ultimately, death.

Guardian Angel's Point of View

Grayscale Effect

Costume

The character who is the victim needs to be wearing a costume that will make him look nerdy and vulenrable, which is stereotypes that is found in people who get bullied. This is the reason we have chosen for our actor to wear a suit and tie as this shows that the character is focused on school work and isn't violent.



The character who is the bully needs to be wearing a costume which would be worn in a school environment- as this is where the film is set- but also must be wearing different clothing from the other students which indicates that he is not like the opther students. Also, a slightly informal look would be better as it shows he is more familiar with urban lifestyle and is more violent. We have chosen for our actor to wear a dark cardigan over a shirt and a tie.

The character who is playing the guardian angel needs to be wearing a formal suit but with a design which is different from other school students. This is to show the guardian angel should not be associated to normal people. We have chosen for the actor to wear a blue suit and dark tie.

Actors

An important part for the planning phase of producing our film was to decide who will act in our film. When creating the storyline in our film, we already established we need a person to play the following roles:

1) An actor to play the victim
The person playing this role will only be featuring in the first and last scenes of the film. We prefer to get someone who looks slightly nerdy as they will be victimised in the film and needs to look defenceless and will not try to confront the bully. We have chosen Mortada.

2) An actor to play the bully
The person playing the role of the bully will feature in every scene of the film so availability is a key issue for this actor as they have to be ready whenever we are ready to shoot the film. We would prefer this character to be big and appear quite tough as this is what we pictures as a stereotypical bully. After considering all of this, we have chosen Ben.


3) An actor to play the guardian angel
The person playing the role of the guardian angel will have to have a strong build as most heroes in films are big and strong, although we do not reveal if the guardian angel is good or bad. Because the guardian angel brings justice in the film, he has to look formal and need an actor who will look good in a suit. We have chosen Ali.

Props

This mask was the mask we initially wanted to use for our film. It's scary and has a gothic look with blood over its face suggesting the character is violent. This would be good for foreshadowing parts of the story of our film which is effective for film openings. However, we did not choose to use this one for our film because the mask was only available in a smaller size we wanted. Our actor who will play the guardian angel, Ali, has a fairly large head and curly hair so he will not be able to use this mask.


 

We decided to use the Vendetta mask because it disguised the character's identity but because there is an open top, it allowed the actor to also reveal his hair showing the audience that the killer is not another being and is just a normal person who wants to kill someone without showing his face.

For our murder weapon we could have chosen to use a toy gun. I would clearly show the audience the guardian angel's intentions and is used to symbolise violence and death. The only reason stopping us using the toy gun on set was because we needed a license to use it to avoid troubling interference from the public.

The murder weapon we have ultimately chosen was a golden baseball bat. It will be very easy to carry around as it is lighter than it looks, it's obvious to the audience that it will be used to hurt the bully and would help with one shot of our film as we want to record the bat hitting the camera with a point of view shot. A golden one will be used because gold is known to be dense and heavy so someone being hit by it will cause severe pain, and in our case, death.

Credits Research

Just after reviewing our first draft, we looked at the specification and identified we needed to have credits and make them appropriate. We looked at films quite similar to our film, specifically Momento. We felt like the credits can be precisely applied to our film because our themes and genres were the same so units in the film can be used in the same way. The credits were in this order:

1) A production company

2) A distribution company












3) People involved in the film

Editing Research

Editing is important in the post production of a film because it provides coherence and continuity to a film. To achieve this in our film, we have gone on the internet and have researched different editing techniques used in real films and implement it into our own. We have decided to use:

1) Continuity Editing

 

Continuity editing means that everything flows in a consistent, orderly, smooth, sequential manner. We need to use this in our film to allow it to flow and avoid any on-screen errors that would confuse the viewers.

2) Dissolve

We will be using dissolve effects in our film to show the audience that a length of time has gone b and the next scene is happening after the previous one has happened which retains a chronological order.

3) Shot reverse shots

Shot reverse shots editing will be used in our film to establish a relationship between two characters and show the interaction between them. This will be used in our film between the bully and the victim, which is a common type of situation to use shot reverse shots in movies when there is a stronger and a weaker character.