Final Film

Evaluation Q7

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

Our first use of the camera equipment and experience of filming was 'The Package'. Being given a short film task with a broad prompt (simply the title 'The Package') was a good first experience with the equipment and softwares, as it gave us free reign to explore a range of different techniques and styles of filming. The final product was a significant influence on the style of our film, especially the more modern, dynamic pieces of camerawork, such as the handheld shots following the first victim/antagonist, shown below:

The shots are extremely similar in setup, but the slight shakiness and the colour and lighting lend a darker tone to the version from 'ShadowMan'. Another example of shots we reused from 'The Package' to 'ShadowMan' is the over-the-shoulder shots shown to the right.

Producing the final cut of 'The Package' gave us opportunity to use the Final Cut Pro editing software, and work out our own styles of editing. The film uses a range of camerawork, both dynamic and less so, and required a lot of editing to provide the fast pace we wanted, making it a perfect trial. Obviously,  it being our first outing into the world of filming and editing, there are imperfections in 'The Package', it seems to be predominated by shots of Max's character walking around, which somewhat damages the exciting pace we strived for, and the music does not fit perfectly with the imagery, as we did not spend a huge amount of time searching through music websites to find the perfect piece.



Our actual Preliminary Task was naturally far easier than 'The Package', due to it's shorter length and less stringent requirements, as well as the addition of a fourth student to our class. 'The Package' and the camera practice it had given us proved invaluable and allowed all four of us to get the task completed in relatively little time. We used shots from 'The Package', such as the door handle match-on-action and the over the shoulder shots, as we found that they were relatively easy to do whilst still being effective.



When it came to the filming of 'ShadowMan', we had to organise our actors and get everyone to out-of-school locations for the first time. For both our previous tasks the cast had been comprised of other Media Studies students, and all of our filming locations had taken place within school premises. This new level of required organisation proved initially to be a problem, as we were unused to filming in public and relying on the attendance of external actors. We were also unprepared for the volume of shots we would require, due to the significantly shorter length, and lesser complexity, of the two prior tasks. These, however, were fairly insignificant issues, as although they were initially irritating, we very quickly adapted to our new circumstances, and thus in filming days 3 and 4 we were able to be efficient and effective in our filming of the scenes.

Overall, in the progression from our first tasks to the final product of 'ShadowMan', the key things we have learnt have been organisation, planning, and equipment use in greater detail. The two tasks gave us a good idea and an excellent starting point in terms of using camera equipment, sound apparatus, and editing software, however the use of lighting and Motion software, as well as organisation with external locations and actors, was more or less completely new to us, and in addition to this the actual filming and editing of 'ShadowMan' gave us a far greater insight into our use of what we already new.

CM

Evaluation Q6

We have learnt a lot about technologies during the film making process. We certainly experienced many problems, none more so than sound but dealt with it accordingly and are satisfied with our final product. If we could re-do anything, we would certainly spend more time focusing on the sound in our film as we didn't realise it's importance to the opening as a whole. However, we were pleased with our use of the Camera and other technologies during the process and are happy with the final product. I have definitely learnt a lot throughout the production process and am pleased with the way in which I, along with my partner dealt with the new technologies that were put in our way. I feel as though I am ready for the future and am certain that I will not make the same mistakes that I made this year in our next project.

MT

Evaluation Q5

How did you attract/address your audience?

The targeting of our film was heavily based on age, due to the increasing destruction of gender barriers and norms in the modern film industry. We rated our film a 15, as shown in Question 4, and chose to target slightly older cinema goers, although we hoped to retain some of the excitement and key features of the modern thriller genre, and thus attract a younger audience as well.

In the course of our research and planning phase, we carried out a questionnaire in order to get a better idea of how to target and address an audience. This can be seen below.

From our results, we felt as though the subgenre we favoured was best targeted at the 25-30, predominantly male market. Film Noir, and the features of it, including suspense and tension, were most popular with this group, with younger members of the group surveyed favouring features such as fast pacing and action, which would be difficult to achieve with the resources and experience available to us, and was also not something we were particularly keen on trying to do.

In order to gauge the success of our film in terms of audience and targeting, we showed our film to a group of potential audience members, and then asked where the film could be improved and how they felt it might appeal to them or other age groups or target audiences. Some of our audience members had already filled out our Research and Planning questionnaire, and we specifically ensured that these people were asked about how they felt we had represented the opinions they had given us.

I have put our key findings and feedback from our screening into a Prezi, in order to best depict the information we obtained.



CM

Evaluation Q4

In the course of our Research and Planning, we made the decision that our film should be certificated BBFC 15. This is not only an appropriate rating for the film, but also contributes to our targeting of the film.

Our key target demographic has been the 25-30 male market, and an active cognitive audience. However, we believe that 'ShadowMan' could in fact appeal to a far wider audience than this, both in terms of gender and age, due to the fairly sophisticated tone of the film. The film has the violent themes and fast pace that might attract our specifically targeted audience of younger men (and even a younger audience of 15+), whilst also retaining the style, substance, and strong storyline of the Noir genre, which may attract the slightly older audiences of 35+ and even 45+.


To generalise tremendously, our model viewer would likely be a fairly intellectual male in his late twenties, possibly a cinema enthusiast or artistic individual, the sort of person who might be an amateur film critic or aspiring director or screenwriter. American arthouse films such as 'Her', as well as more eminent, male audience-targeted films such as 'Fight Club' would likely appeal to this individual, alongside films of a similar nature to ours, 'Road to Perdition', 'Batman Begins', and other dark gangster/vigilante/revenge stories being good examples.


The hope, of course, is that although we could entertain a niche audience of this type, a wider audience may be attracted to our film in larger chain arthouse cinemas, venues such as Clapham Picture House or Ritzy Brixton, although this would undoubtedly be limited by the film's rating. The film's reach would also have an effect here, as larger multiplexes such as Cineworld or Vue may not show 'ShadowMan', especially not on multiple screens or on huge 3D screens such as IMAX.

CM

Evaluation Q3

As seen above, our Ident has a fairly high production value to it and in particular works well with the genre of our film, a Thriller. Many Thriller films will have similar production companies as that is the area they specialise in. We wanted to create a production company that looked both quirky and edgy, but seemed to fit with this idea; that they only produce thriller pictures and are not diverse, unlike companies, such as Twentieth Century Fox. As to why we chose the name, 'Paranoiac Productions', Charlie and I are not particularly sure. We were browsing the web ideas and happened to stumble across the word, 'Paranoiac' and we instantly decided that it would be the name of our production company. This is because it sounded edgy and thought it fit the mood and tone we were looking for in our film, 'ShadowMan'.
Essentially, a production company helps to create a film. They will aid with areas such as the money involved with a film, the casting, finding and employing a director and actors. A production company are also in charge of the equipment  that is used on set during filming and so will have to deal with broken equipment. They are also in charge of the actors safety and so are responsible for any injuries that may occur.


You can see above, an annotated clip of our film, informing you on who might distribute our film. We were testing out a few different titles and so explaining the different fonts that occur throughout.

Who might Distribute our film:

• Independent British Company, such as 'Vertigo', who have worked on micro-budget productions, such as 'Monsters' by Allan Niblo and James Richardson. 'Vertigo' are based in London and are the kind of company we would expect to distribute our film as they are known to pick new, up and coming thrillers. 'Vertigo' are undoubtedly a small company who aim their films at a british audience and nothing else. They vow to produce and distribute at least 4 films per year, meaning that our film would be something they could possibly be interested in. 

• Film4 would also be another distribution company that would distribute our film. They have distributed films to a British audience, such as 'The Inbetweeners 2' and 'Frank' starring Michael Fassbender. However, the big-budget feel to the Ident at the beginning of the film, might mean that a company, such as Film4 would be turned away from our production. 

Distribution:

• The distribution process is undoubtedly similar to exhibition in that it is split into Majors and Independents. 
• Majors are those affiliated to large Hollywood companies, such Warner Bro's who distribute 18.3% of the films we see nowadays and United International Pictures (UIP) who release films connected to Universal and MGM studios and have distributed 10.2% in comparison to Warner Bro's.
• These films are usually mainstream Hollywood blockbusters and so would not fit the style of our film in any way. Most of these companies will either be subsidiaries of even larger conglomerate companies or have branches into other countries such as the UK and even the Indiewood market, who interestingly produce more films than Hollywood per year. 
• The smaller more independent companies as aforementioned ('Vertigo Films') release a much wider range of films in comparison to the larger conglomerates and often focus on particular Niche audience's in specific countries, instead of aiming for a multi-international audience.
• Companies such as, Artficial Eye and Metrodome will distribute titles, which include Foreign Language films, Docu-Drama's and like our film, non-mainstream, cleverly shot independant  films. Artificial Eye have distributed independent films, such as 'Nymphomaniac' and so would fit our film perfectly. 

MT

Evaluation Q2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our protagonist can be compared to Tom Hank's character in 'Road to Perdition', Michael Sullivan. Both characters are motivated by their families, lose family members to organised crime, and change their allegiances in a fashion that places them at odds with dark and powerful figures. The key difference between the characters is that Sullivan spends the remainder of his film running from his new enemies, whereas the protagonist of 'ShadowMan' specifically goes looking for his enemies in order to exact a kind of vigilante justice and vengeance. This character does conform to certain tropes, especially those surrounding revenge ('Vengeance Feels Empty' [1] 'Who's Laughing Now?' [2]), there is also a sense of remorse and self loathing within the character, conforming to the 'Dirty Business' [3] trope. This sort of vengeful character is not really a figure who can be used to represent any particular social groups, however his position as a white man means that he is a privileged figure, and may suggest why he feels such responsibility to his family, as his character would traditionally fall into the breadwinner/protector archetypes. Our use of an older, male, main character is also an example of targeting, as a key part of our market is the 25-30 year old males.

In terms of gender in general, the opening to 'ShadowMan' only ever has male characters onscreen, which may be neglecting a need for female characters, and could alienate female audiences. However, the absence of women in the opening could be said to emphasize the loss suffered by the protagonist. In any case, the fully male cast of our opening sequence represents the world of crime as a male dominated enviroment, which in turn implies that men are more predisposed towards violence, murder, and other forms of crime. The murder of the protagonist's family has implications that they were unable to protect themselves, and that he was able to protect himself, which enforces his status as a would-be archetypal breadwinner/father figure.

'There is also a clear social hierarchy evident in our film, although this is existent in the crime world, where the two antagonists are at different tiers of the criminal hierarchy. This is denoted by their clothing and attitudes. There is evidence of wealth in the second antagonist, and this can be said to be categorising people based on income. As mentioned earlier however, the characters in which this is seen are both in some form of criminal organisation, which distances it from reality and social hierarchy in the workplace or generally.' [4]

All in all, our opening sequence contains strong representations of gender and social status. The representation of gender, although not wholly negative, does conform to tropes and archetypes, and thus could be accused of perpetuating stereotypes. In terms of representation of social status, although potentially negative, due to the categorization of characters based on income and social standing, is fairly representative of the world of organised crime, a world which we were not really concerned with in terms of negatively representing it.

Below is a clip from Road to Perdition demonstrating it's plot and aesthetic similarities to our film, 'ShadowMan', the representations of male dominance and male behaviour are especially notable, as well as that of criminal hierarchy.

[1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VengeanceFeelsEmpty

[2] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhosLaughingNow

[3] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DirtyBusiness

[4] Representation in 'ShadowMan' http://alleynsmedia-mead.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/representation.html

CM

Evaluation Q1

^^^^Annotated clip explaining just some of the conventions of original Film Noir movies and how they link to our own film.


Another annotated clip, with more on Evaluation Question 1:



MT

Editing - Sound

Sound - The Problems We faced!!

Once Filming was completed we tackled the editing stage of our production of 'ShadowMan'. Due to the fact that Charlie and I are not accomplished musicians, we faced many problems to do with sound in our two minute opening clip. Originally, we planned on having film noir style jazz music playing throughout the opening scene, but struggled to find a piece of music that fit the shots we took in the filming stage. We found a piece of music by Miles Davis that worked perfectly with our opening but due to the fact that we were not allowed to use copyright music we were not allowed to use it. After much time spent, trying to track down an accomplished musician to record a piece of music similar to the Miles Davis song, that we had found failed, we decided against the Jazz music and begun our search for more contemporary style music to adhere to our thriller/neo-noir style opening.

After a few hours of research on many copyright free websites all over the internet, we finally located a piece of music that, not only worked well with our film but also fitted our style and genre perfectly (and so began lots of cheering and hugging). This piece was called 'nightfall' and sounds both atmospheric and dark, which are two key themes in many Film Noir films, such as the 'Maltese Falcon'. 

MT

Rough Cut 2

This is pretty much our finished version. However, our music suddenly stops in the scene between the Joe Rose and Michael Hajiantonis. Apart from that, this is our final version. The completely finished version will appear once the sound problems have been fixed.

Rough Cut 1

This version employs the music that we will not be using for our final project but was similar to idea that we had at the start of the process. A lot of work is still to be done.

Filming Day 3

Both the alleyway scene and the kitchen scene are now successfuly filmed with appropriate lighting. Due to the practicing that we were able to do on our first attempt, the day ran fairly smoothly, especially with the kitchen scene, which we were able to repeat shot for shot with better lighting than our first attempt. There was an issue with one of our lights, but it transpired that one light was sufficient for both scenes.

The completing of the majority of our filming in one session has been a great success for us, and gives us a lot of work to do in terms of editing. We now only need the second murder scene, which I feel confident we can get done in one filming day, following the practice and experience that we have gained from our filming of these two scenes.

CM

Filming Day 2

Our aim was to film both the alleyway scene and the kitchen scene in this one session, however this proved more difficult than expected. Our first problem came in the fact that Harry, who was supposed to be playing the victim in the alleyway scene, was delayed in getting to our location. We also had issues with the lighting in the kitchen, as our light was running low on battery and was thus very dim, meaning that subsequently we had to discard the footage we had taken of that scene. We were also unable to film any of the alleyway scene due to the absence of Harry and the extremely wet weather.

Despite our coming away with little to no usable footage, the day was actually very useful in terms of really getting to grips with the filming process in terms of organisation and technology. It also provided an opportunity for planning in context with our locations, as we had not visited the locations together before.

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Editing - Lighting

Following our first day of filming, and having collected what we felt was sufficient footage to edit together the kitchen scene, we regrettably found that the lighting in the scene was far too low key and dim. It had appeared lighter on the camera screen on the day, and we were relatively inexperienced with lighting at the time. We attempted to rectify the issue using Final Cut effects to brighten the scene, or make the lighting more dramatic, however we were unsuccessful in this. As such, we will have to reshoot the scene, although this is not too great a problem, as it is undoubtedly our easiest location, and only requires one actor to film.

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Filming Day 1

We wanted to get ahead with some of the filming and so I decided to film the panning shots of the London skyline at the beginning of our film. This was our first major piece of filming and so I wanted to make sure that we had lots of different versions of the skyline to choose from when it came to the editing stage. I did experience some problems, such as the lighting due to the fact that we wanted it to be nightime, in order to work with our cross-fade into the alleyway scene.

Overall, this stage was successful for us as it allowed us to begin editing straight away, when we got back from the Christmas break. We are now underway with our filming and I am certainly excited to see what the rest of the film making process has in store for us.

MT

Filming Schedule

Location 1 - Shots of London, Buildings etc
Date: TBC
Actors Required: Not needed for this scene
Notes: We will need to take quite a few different shots in order to have a lot to draw from at the editing stage of the film. It will be easy to organise due to the fact that actors are not needed. Have to be careful when taking the panning shots of the London Skyline, because we can run the risk of panning too fast and or too slow. We will also have to try out different buildings to quite a wide variety of different locations when it comes to editing. Must also be nigh-time so will need to chose quite a clear night.

Location 2 - Alleyway
Date: 2nd - 5th Jan
Actors required: Protagonist and Antagonist 1 ( Michael & Harry)
Notes: This scene should also be relatively easy to film as the location is extremely close to my house. The two actors needed also live close to me, which will make it easier to organise. Lighting is key for this scene so it will be difficult to completely set a date as we are not sure what the lighting/weather will be like outside. We are hoping some time between 2nd - 5th of January.   


Location 3 - Car Park
Date: TBC
Actors Required: Protagonist and Antagonist 2 (Michael & Albert)
Notes: We are hoping to start the filming for this scene over the christmas break but realistically this might not happen due to timing constraints of the christmas break. We are both pretty busy this holiday and so will make sure that we perfect the previously mentioned locations.

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Casting

Protagonist:

Our friend, Michael Hajiontonis will be playing the protagonist in our opening sequence. He fits the criteria for our role perfectly. Due to the fact that the protagonist is saying the voice over throughout, he must have a wide range of different voices that he can do so we can try them out and find out which one sounds best. Michael is excellent at doing different voice impressions and so will be great in our short opening to a film. Michael lives close to me, which will certainly make the filming process easier as many of the locations we use are also near to my house. The protagonist should appear dangerous but not as a 'bad guy' and we feel that Michael will fit this role perfectly. Michael is in my drama class so I am well aware of his brilliant acting skills and this is why I would like to use him in our film.

Antagonist (A):

Albert Wayman Scarlett, will be playing the second antagonist in our short opening sequence. This antagonist is very confident within himself and is certainly high up on the so called, 'Criminal food chain' and after working with Albert in my drama class I am certain he can fit this role. Obviously I am not suggesting that Albert is over-confident, he is actually a very 'nice guy', but is a very good actor. Due to this, I know he will fit the role well. He will be dressed in a 'classy' suit and will need to be quite tall in order to highlight the authoritative presence that he holds. 

Antagonist (H):

Harry Wheeler, will be playing the second antagonist in our short opening scene (the alleyway scene). He is a somewhat arrogant who thinks he is high up in the, 'so called' criminal food chain and often has 'notions of grandeur' but nonetheless knows that this is not the case and this is shown by his nervousness in the alleyway scene. He is constantly looking behind himself towards the protagonist and  I think that Harry can fit this role perfectly. He is another member of my drama class (a talented bunch), and so I am confident that he can play the nervousness of this character in the right way to create the desired effect.

MT

Sound Practice

I have learnt many things from this sound practise that I didn't realise from before. The first thing I learnt was the importance of where the boom pole is in relation to actor on camera. The sound pole has to be close to the actor in order to hear and understand what he is saying but you obviously cannot have the sound pole in shot. I also experienced some problems with the micro-tracks, in relation to the sound that we heard. The sound was too quiet during our first test run and so I learnt to check the sound level before filming each shot. I realise now how frustrating it would be to get back after a whole day of filming to find out that the sound is too quiet. We also learnt to start recording before the scene starts as you often miss something and or as you can see from this video, someone is still in shot when the filming begins. This sound practise has been invaluable to us as it meant that we could get to grips with how to use the different equipment (lighting and sound) and mean that when we film our actual opening sequence, we hopefully shouldn't make any mistakes.




MT

Sound Influence

Sound Influences - for panning shots (2nd influence)

'The Third Man' directed by Carol Reed in 1949, has a much more unconventional soundtrack to your more usual 1940's film noir. Usually, you would hear heavy orchestral music, but Reed decided to use a solo Zither (played by Anton Karas). This creates an extremely interesting sound and stands out amongst many other Film Noir movies of the time. Although, this soundtrack is slightly different to what we have decided on doing, it was certainly an influence in the deciding stage. We strongly considered using similar style music in our panning shots of London scene, but decided to go with the more classic film noir Jazz music, as we felt it fit in better with our opening sequence. 

    

Sound influences - Rest of Film

One of our influences when thinking about the soundtrack was music to, 'Psycho'. Not only is the soundtrack excellent, but the film is directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock is a major influence due to the fact that he is often known as, 'the master of suspense'. Films, such as 'North by North West' and 'The 39 Steps' have been big influences for Charlie and I, when deciding on what type of film we want to do. The 'Psycho' soundtrack is very good as it creates suspense fantastically well, which is what we want to do in our film. The survey we took showed that many people like films that create tension and suspense and 'Psycho' undoubtedly does this, especially through the soundtrack and so making it a strong influence for us.  

 Bernard Hermann, the writer of the 'Psycho' soundtrack is another influence as he has written the music for many of Hitchcock' movies. One of the movies he wrote a fantastic soundtrack for is,'Vertigo', again directed by Hitchcock, which similar to, 'Psycho' creates suspense and tension all throughout. The part from 24 mins onwards is especially good at doing this.

  

Sound Influences - rest of film

Another influence for our opening sequence was the soundtrack to, 'The Maltese Falcon'. It has some very suspenseful moments in it and would be great for the more dramatic moments of our opening sequence, especially the parts leading up to the killing of the Antagonists. However, Charlie and I are having problems deciding on the pace and volume of the music and the one issue coming from this piece of music is that it might be a bit too fast paced for our movie. Nonetheless, it is still an important influence as, "The Maltese Falcon' is one of the more famous Film Noir movies from the 1940's and has had a big effect on many of our choices for our short film.  

MT

Opening Sequence Sound

For the start of our opening sequence, we want to have some typical Film Noir, 1940's style Jazz music, similar to the style of the Ella Fitzgerald who is known as the 'Queen of Jazz'. One of our main influences for this part of the sequence is the soundtrack from LA Noire, which is written by Stephen Coates. LA Noire is a video game based in 1940's Los Angeles and uses Jazz music throughout, which perfectly fits with the storyline. This part of the film is a bit more glamorous and high tempo in comparison to the rest of the opening and the Jazz music will certainly show this. We want to show this sudden cut from classic film noir jazz music to more ominous gloomy music, and the locations will help define this without it looking too out of the blue.