Final Production: Short Film

Dear moderator,

Welcome to my A2 media blog where I have been recording my overall progress throughout the A2 media studies course. This includes all the individual stages of the production which are research, planning, production and finally evaluation. Below is my short film, 'Pendant' which is followed by two blog posts which feature my ancillary texts and so on. I hope you enjoy reading this blog.

Thank you,

Abel Clarke

(Please watch in 1080p)

Ancillary Text: Poster

Below is the first of the two ancillary texts. The text is the poster for the film.

Ancillary Text: Film Review

Below is the second of my two ancillary texts. This text is a film review of the short film.

(Please click on the image to enlarge it) 

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

This is my answer to evaluation question 1. To answer this I used a directors commentary which showed parts of my production to emphasise the points I am making.

Evaluation Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

This is my answer to evaluation question 2. For this question I used a podcast with appropriate images being displayed.

Evaluation Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

This is my answer to evaluation question 3. To answer this question, I used a combination of an audience reaction video to gather the feedback and a vlog to analyse the feedback.

Evaluation Q4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

This is my answer to evaluation question 4. For this question I used a PowerPoint presentation

Ideas for evaluation questions

Now that the post production and therefore the whole project is coming to an end it is important to start thinking about the evaluation questions and how to answer them. Each question covers a different aspect of evaluating the production such as the audience or the technology used. When answering these questions it is important to make sure that they are answered in various creative ways that would work effectively with the question in hand. In this post I will go through what each question is asking and the various options that I could use to answer each question.

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

With this question, I am being asked to show my understanding of the different sorts of techniques and conventions that are presented within film and whether or not what I have used lives up to the standard of those used in the professional environment. As well as this, I will also need to show how I presented this in my production. To do this, I can go look back at my research and see how that affected the final piece. After thought I think that the best way I could present this is through a directors commentary. This would consist of recording a voice-over on top of the finished main piece and in this voice-over I can talk about the certain conventions and media techniques that I used within my piece.

Here is an example of a directors commentary from the film American Psycho:

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

For this question, I need to consider how effectively my ancillary texts of a poster and a film magazine review link with my main production. As the main production will be a certain genre, in this case it being a thriller, the two ancillary texts need to compliment this by having the same sort of feel about them. This can be done in a variety of ways such as colour schemes, representations and so on. The two ancillary texts also need to show the basic premise behind the short film and this question will explain how this has been done. Finally, the ancillary texts need to fit the conventions of similar mainstream products such as professional posters and magazine reviews. To answer this question, I will use a vlog. This would mean recording myself answering the question as well as using overlaying images the poster and the magazine review.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To answer this question I will need to reflect and analyse what the audience think of the production. The majority of feedback I need to collect is from the intended target audience however I will also collect feedback from those who aren't necessarily the target audience to get their opinion. To collect this, I will do a reaction video in which I film the audience watching the film for the first time and them ask them set questions at the end to gather the relevant feedback and I will then report the findings in a vlog.

This is an example of a audience reaction video in which certain groups react to a topic which is relevant to them in some way or another:

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

In this question, I need to show how I effectively used media technologies in each stage of the production process which are the planning and researching stage, the construction stage and the evaluation stage. I will need to state every piece of technology that I used and how it was used to benefit the whole production process. To answer this, I will use a presentation of some sort. The best option is Prezi as it is both informative and a creative way of presenting.  

Sound: Music

There are two aspects to sound in a media production that need to be considered and thats diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic sound is everything that is within the scene such as footsteps, cars driving by, explosions and so on. Non-diegetic sound is music that accompanies the scene for added effect, and this is typically done in the form of music. Music can greatly impact the feel of the production at its given stage. For example if the production was a thriller the music would have to be quite suspenseful whilst if the production was a comedy the music would most likely be upbeat.

For my production, music is key to make the scenes feel more mysterious as this is the intended feel of the whole film. Therefore the music will be quite harmonious and not include a massive amount of instruments as if only one instrument is used it can help represent how alone the character is when time is frozen. The problem with using music is that the majority is copyrighted. Copyright protects the owner as it doesn't allow others to use their music without consent. This limits the amount of music available to me as mainstream music could only be used if I contacted either the record company or the artist themselves. As there was no specific music I wanted to use I decided to stick to using copyright free music which meant I could use it without going through the process of getting permission. After researching, I found the best site to use was 'Incompetech.com'. This site was full of genre specific royalty free music which meant I could use it as long as I acknowledged the artist (Kevin MacLeod) somewhere, which I plan on doing in the credits of the production. The music on this site could be filtered to fit moods such as suspenseful, uplifting, bouncy and many more. Therefore I filtered it with the moods suspenseful, mysterious and dark and it came up with a large list of music that could be used and I found a few tracks that will work well and I will then implement into my piece.

Here is the link to Kevin MacLeod's site, Incompetech: http://incompetech.com/

Sound: Foley sound

As my production is a short film, the sound is just as important as shots. One important aspect of sound is foley sound. Foley sound is the extra sound effects added after the production process and can be anything from footsteps to explosions. This is useful as it can sometimes be hard to capture the sounds that make the whole production believable. For my production, I have had to add a large amount of foley sound. The most important foley sound is the sound of the pendant being used. This sound consists of a quick whooshing sound whenever the pendant is activated. This is effective as it confirms to the audience that the pendant has been used. Another less noticeable but important foley sound is the footsteps added. The original footsteps had to be edited out as there were other sounds, such as the wind, ruining the overall sound. Other foley sounds included the ambience that was associated with the setting. For example when the character is in the forest there is a slight breeze and bird chirping every so often and when he is in the town you can hear all sorts of things such as cars driving past, babies crying and church bells ringing. This background sound gives the production a more believable aspect. Below is a snippet from the production in which all the sound that can be heard has been added using foley sound.

  

Editing techniques: Flash Transition

Within my production, a pendant is used to stop time and it was important to make sure this is obvious to the viewer. One way to do this is using the transition effectively between the shot where he twists the pendant and the shot afterwards where he is in frozen time. After researching various options such as fading to white I decided that the best transition would be a white flash that takes the viewer to the next shot. The reason I chose this was because it gives off the idea something important has happened. The only hindrance about this transition is that it wasn't a preset on the editing software I was using so instead I had to create it myself. To do this I combined two separate video effects to make up the flash effect which were 'Fast Blur' and 'Levels'. Fast blur blurs the image quickly whilst the levels allow the colours to be changed. To make the flash effect I increased both the amount of blur and the amount of white every few frames until the image was completely white. The finished transition only lasts a second however it works well to make it seem like there has been some sort of change. Below is both a screenshot of how the transition was made along with a snippet of the production showing the transition.

 

Editing techniques: Colour Grading

An often less represented part of editing is the colour correction. The colour correction and colour grading applied can often change the overall feel of a film. For example if a film was light hearted it would have an overall bright colour grade whilst if the film was quite dark and gritty it will have a quite saturated colour grade. It is important to implement this as it can greatly impact the overall feel whilst not necessarily being noticed by the viewer. In my production, the use of colour will be used effectively. One of the problems I had was making it clear when the character had frozen time and when he hadn't, and this is where colour grading came in. For the parts where the character hadn't frozen time I saturated the colours 50% so that there was an overall gloomy look. However, when the character had frozen time I increased the brightness and contrast slightly as well as increasing the amount of yellow in the shots. This gave an overall brighter and enhanced look, which was effective as the character would also feel enhanced due to the ability that is available to him whilst he's frozen time. Overall, this was effective as the contrast between the two colour grades was greater than if I left one without any colour correction. Below is a preview of when the character first uses the pendant and it shows well the difference in colour between the two states.    

Production progress

Recently I have finished the filming process of the production. Overall, the filming process was successful although slow at times. The first couple of sessions of filming were quite spread out and didn't work well in the terms of time management. However the third session and so on were done in quick and efficient succession meaning the shots would all work well within my production.


I am now moving onto putting all the focus on editing. I have been editing the main footage together roughly whilst I was filming however it was not done precisely and no effort was put towards the sound. The plan is to first edit the footage so that it is in the right order and at the appropriate length. After this, I will move onto adding the video effects such as a special transition when the pendant is used and implementing the colour corrections. Once this is done sound, whether it be diegetic or non-diegetic, will be the main focus. I will need to add foley sound to start off with, such as footsteps and ambience sounds and then move onto adding appropriate music to fit the feel of the production. However, it will probably not be that simple as I learnt from my AS piece. While editing my AS piece I came across problems that weren't necessarily there to begin with. One example would be sound being out of sync or lack of continuity which was noticed at the time. I feel that I have taken care of this not happening while filming and will keep this cautious attitude whilst editing to make sure there is no serious problems there either.

Another focus that needs to be considered is the evaluation questions which will evaluate my media piece and the ancillary texts that go with it, however I will go into more detail of these questions and how to answer them on a separate blog post.    

Last day of filming

The last session of filming was by far the biggest and longest session so far. In this session, we filmed both the part where the main character comes across the remains of the old man as well as the pendant and the final shots where the main character has been driven crazy by the pendant where he then became nothing but remains too.

The shots for the character finding the pendant went fairly well. I wanted it to seem that the pendant was alive and looking at the character. This can be seen from the first shot where the camera is placed behind it to give the viewer the viewpoint of the pendant. The other shots used are used the show what the character is feeling and thinking, below are a few of those shots. 

Moving on from this, the shots for the final part of the film were some of the most important to show that whoever uses the pendant is driven mad. This was done by using the same shots that were used for the old man except it is done with the main character. This makes it seem that the main character has reached the same fate as the original character and also disappears leaving the pendant to take another victim. Below are a few of these shots. 

  

Sixth day of filming

Soon after the last filming session, me and the main actor filmed the shots that bridge the gap between the character using the pendant accidentally for the first time and the montage of him using it to commit crimes. These shots would consist of mostly close up's and mid shots, some of which being high angle. These shots have to show that the character has realised the potential of this device. To do this, the close up will show his facial expression and he will then quickly change into a darker outfit to represent the dark actions he about to undertake. Below is a few shots of this session.

  

Fifth day filming

Earlier this week, I completed the shots needed to make up the montage of the character committing crimes using the pendant. The shot that was needed was a continuous long shot of the character rummaging through possessions within the house and then stealing a phone and a laptop, and he would do this whilst two people are sat right in front of him however they'll be frozen. This shot would then be cut down making the audience get the idea of what he is doing whilst making sure the shot does not stretch out for too long. This session was fairly quick however it did take a couple of takes due to interruptions during this thirty second shot. Below is a screen grab of this shot.

   

Fourth Day Filming

With filming now well under way, me and my main actor went out again to film some of the more crucial shots of the film. These shots are going to make up a montage that displays the character both taking advantage of the new ability he's discovers as well as him going ever more insane. The most important thing to consider for this was what were the best things the character could take advantage of. I decided that the best things he could do is steal from a shop, then a house and eventually a bank. This list is consists of both petty and serious crimes and depending on which they are send him more insane. Some ideas I may implement to show him growing further away from sanity is going into a women's changing room. When we went out filming, we managed to capture a lot of these scenes including the bank and the shop. Next time we go out we will finish up this montage by recording the house scene. Below are a few shots from this session.

    

Third Day of Filming

A couple of days ago, Me and my main actor went out to film the stage at which he walks towards the point where he first discovers he can stop time using the pendant. Initially the filming did not go according to plan as we had two dogs with us rather than the one which is needed. This meant that I had to hold one dog whilst trying to record which equalled in a shaky shot. Therefore we took the other dog home making the filming process a lot easier. The shots I filmed was a close up of both the main actor and the dog, a mid shot of the actor walking down the street and a pan of the actor crossing the street. Even though these shots are quite basic they are needed to fill out the films between the action and the story. Below are a few screenshots of the filming.

Making an item glow

Within my piece, I want to make a certain item glow to show it's significance that it has magical effects to it. The item in question is the pendant that can enable the user to stop time. After filming the initial shots I realised it wasn't clear that the pendant was the cause for time stopping so there needed to be some significant visual to emphasise that this is the item causing it. I've researched the best program to use to do this and it seemed that Adobe After Effects will work well. I do have some experience with this program as I used it to create the motion tracked titles in my AS piece There are also many tutorials online showing how to do nearly everything on After Effects including making things glow. Below is the tutorial that I plan on using when it comes to that stage in my editing.

Media in the online age: The Internet

On the theory side of media, we have moved on to looking at media in the online age, specifically media associated with the internet. We have covered very important issues such as the history and then what is available at the moment.

In this current age, the world relies on the internet to carry out the basic tasks needed such as communicating and banking. The most amazing thing about the internet is that it’s still fairly knew, with it only being initially developed in 1957. It was created by Tim Bernes-Lee who had the aim to distribute it completely free of charge. At that time it could only work on one item at a time using batch processing. This was overall ineffective as it took too long to process anything. As time went on however more connections were developed, such as the Arpanet network in 1966. This added a selection of different networks designed for specific purposes, which were commercial, scientific and military. These were set up so that gateways didn’t have as much traffic as they did previously. It then slowly developed from phones servers to an integrated net of connection in 1990, otherwise known as the internet. As mentioned, the internet was intended to be free for all users however there were people out there who saw this as a huge investment opportunity, such as Bill Gates. Gates is the founder of Windows and essentially made it for a computer to operate, windows would have to be installed, thus creating a massive income.  

As mentioned, the internet is an essential pillar of society as nearly all aspects of life are associated with it. One of these aspects is TV. Before the internet became so big, programmes could only be watched as it was happening on TV with some being able to record a limited amount. However the internet has changed this as it now provided on demand features. This allows users to choose to watch programmes on catch up websites such as iPlayer and 4OD. There are also subscription based websites that provide a wide variety of films and TV shows, some of which are exclusive to that streaming service. Similar to this YouTube has revolutionised how digital media can be distributed and consumed. YouTube lets users upload their own videos as well as allowing people to follow channels. It has around 1 billion viewers a month. An important aspect of this is citizen journalism. Before this was available, the media was dominated by news channels who could miss out key features and censor things their viewers would not like. However with pictures and video being available anywhere through the use of mobiles, things can be seen as they really are with nobody trying to censor it.  Another key aspect of Web 2.0 is social media. There are many social media websites available, the leading ones being Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Twitter arguably contributes the most innovation to the internet as it provides many things that were never available. It lets uses live talk about whatever they’d like wit a character limit of 250. This live feed means that if an event or a news story is dominating the media you can hear people’s opinions about it. It also breaks the barrier between celebrities and their fans. The fans can easily contact the celebrity and vice versa which introduces a more three dimensional take on fame.

A way in which we have learnt about the impact the web has had is through a documentary called 'The Virtual Revolution.' This documentary investigates how far the world has developed in the few years that the internet has been widely available and looks at the positives and negatives that it has had on culture society.  

      

Ancillary Texts: Poster research

Along with the magazine review, another ancillary text that I need to produce is a poster for the short film. A poster is an essential part of advertising when it comes to films as it can be seen by a large number of people and placed virtually anywhere. If this is going to be seen by lots of people in all sorts of places, it needs to be eye catching and effective. I have researched into the forms and conventions of film posters to see what I need to include on mine. My findings show that there are a small list of things that need to be included, the first being the title of the film. The title needs to be one of the main focus points of the poster and this can be done by using eye catching font or font colour. Another needed convention is the image used. It needs to be relevant to the film by either including the main character or giving an impression of the film genre. Finally, the date of release and a shortlist of cast and crew members needs to be displayed somewhere on the poster.

With all this in mind, I have an idea of what my poster will look like. I plan on incorporating the element of stopping time into the image along with the main character. As the film is along the lines of a thriller I will use a darker colour for the background. The font I will use for the majority of the text will be fairly simple as if the font is too complex it will seem off putting. Below are a few examples that I will use as inspiration for my poster.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Beginning to edit

Now that I have done a good amount of filming, I am beginning to enter the post production stage. Unlike a conventional production process, I have decided to edit whilst still having quite a lot to film. By doing this, it means the raw footage can be implemented at stages rather than having to edit all the raw clips all at once. So far, the editing process has gone well and has helped me decide on what I want to add in this stage. These things include the titles I will use, the colour corrections and the effect used to show that whoever wears the pendant is greatly affected by it. To perform all this, I am using Premiere Pro CS6. I decided on this software as it is strongly recommended by many editors and has more features available than its competitors, such as Serif MoviePlus. I have edited the initial opening sequence of the film as well as a few rough edits of the main part of the sequence. Next editing session I will attempt to add the music needed and edit the majority of the main sequence.    

Second Day of Filming

Earlier today, me and the main character went out to film the majority of the second scene. This scene shows the main character discovering the power that the pendant possess. To show this, he accidentally freezes time and then takes advantage and steals a passerby's money. This filming session went well overall. I filmed a substantial amount of footage which I am happy with and don't feel that I will need to go back at any point to re-film. The main concept that needed to be captured was the fact that time had stopped. This was done using the two extras that volunteered. One extra pretended he had frozen whilst drinking whilst the other froze halfway through putting his money away. By having more extras it strengthened the illusion that time had actually stopped. I didn't have the time to do a vlog this session however here are a few screenshots from the footage taken.

Storyboarding for new idea

Now that my idea has changed from a fanasy thriller to a more contemporary thriller, there were a few steps in the planning and research process that had to be changed. One of these things was the storyboard. As mentioned in a previous blog, the storyboard is important as it makes the ideas visual and therefore more realistic. It also helps as it can be taken out filming so that the shots can be filmed efficently. Below is a page from the new storyboard that I am creating so that I will not have to think of the shots to use on the day. 

New location

  

One of the benefits of changing the film from a fantasy to contemporary is that it opens up the opportunity to film in many more locations. The fantasy idea would have restricted me as built up areas would completely ruin the immersion, so I would have to stick to woodland and farms. After thinking, my new location was going to be in Woodstock Town Square, just down the road from the school. I chose this location due to its ease of access for all my actors and the fact that it represents a stereotypical middle class town. Its also not too busy which means interruptions will be kept to a minimum. Below is a few pictures of the areas within Woodstock I will be using.

Big Changes

Now that I've begun work on my filming I have realized that my initial plan was a too much of a push at this stage in media. I wanted to create a fantasy film which I knew from the start would be difficult. However I overestimated how challenging making this genre of film would be without a budget which has therefore led me to other ideas. I don't plan on changing the story but instead adapt it to being in this world rather than a make believe one. The story will still be based around an object which has the ability to stop time however if the person using it decided to do something bad, they will edge closer to insanity. similar films include 'Clock Stoppers', which takes a comedic look on stopping time. This film is aimed at a younger audience but there are definitely parts I can take and apply to my thriller

Progress so far

So far, I have nearly finished the pre-production stage of my coursework. This proved to be a challenging part of the production as there was a lot more to do than I first anticipated. When I first began the pre-production process I assumed the only things I would have to worry about is the producing a story, applying this to a storyboard and then begin to gather all the mise en scene elements needed. However this wasn't the case. The A2 brief is a big step up from AS and therefore involves more effort to gather everything needed. Firstly, the story took a lot longer to come up with than it did at AS. This was mainly because the AS piece only involved a 2 minute opening sequence which left the majority of the story untold. However with a short film the whole story needs to be covered, making it challenging to incorporate everything within the 5 minute period. Getting hold of a costume was also one of the hardest things to do. Usually, a costume would be fairly easy to come across however this was made difficult due to  the genre being fantasy. I still am struggling to find a costume for my main character as the cost of a believable costume is too much. With this all in mind, I will have to make certain changes so that I can keep on track. At the moment, I am slightly behind the approved time as can be seen in the table below. Although I'm behind I still feel I will have enough time to film as I have a good idea of what I have to film.

     

Ancillary Texts: Magazine Review research

As I am doing a short film, one of the ancillary texts i'm doing is a magazine article reviewing the film. As I don't read many magazines I have researched the forms and conventions of making an effective and gripping review article. For this research the best source to use was Empire Magazine. Empire Magazine is a British magazine which focuses on the latest films and giving them reviews. As they're Britain's leading film magazine company they're reviews are good to look at. From the articles I've seen it seems that the image used is important. On the majority of the reviews the image takes up a lot of space on the double page spread, in some cases it takes up 50% of the article. The image tends to either be a direct extract from the film or will be closely associated with the films poster. Along with this picture there needs to be a substantial amount of text reviewing the film. This text has the goal of helping the reader decide on whether they want to see the film or not. Therefore, there needs to be basic information about the film along with the positives and negatives of the film. These image and the substantial text are the main two parts of the review however there are other smaller things which make an effective review stand out from the rest. The image below show some of these features, including important details of the film (release date etc.) and a tagline to summarise the review.

To make an effective magazine review I will have to take all this into account and then apply it to my review. Below are a few examples which I will use as inspiration towards my final magazine review. As my film is a thriller, this will need to be shown through the design such as the colours used and the font chosen.

 

The peasant character

Within my media piece there are a total of three actors. These are the main character (Character 1), this characters girlfriend (character 2) and the deranged character (character 3). On my first day filming I went out with character 3 to film the majority of the shots associated with him. This character needed to look like a stereotypical peasant from the medieval ages so the costume took a lot of thinking about, below is the final product. I used basic baggy clothes as well as a blanket to act as a coat. A belt was also used to both hold the blanket in place as well as holding a hatchet in it. There were a few extra touches such as the walking stick and all together I feel the costume portrayed a medieval peasant well.

Work towards rough edit

So far there hasn't been much filming towards the final product, due to a few stagnations. The main problem being that the costume has been harder to aquire than first thought. For the main character the plan was to have him look like a ranger with a hooded cape with a tunic and large boots, but these are expensive or too small. Therefore I have decided to make the costume for myself as this will be easier. The cape will be relatively easy to make and the tunic can be done by threading string through a v-neck collar. Another problem was getting to the location but this has now been resolved as one of the actors can drive us there. I plan on starting filming by this weekend as I now have all the means necessary to begin. Below is a link that I found which will help me design my cape as well as an image of what I hope to achieve.

How to make a Cloak

First day of filming.

A couple of days ago me and my first actor went out on location to film for the introduction to the short film. In this introduction, the character comes across as confused and dazed whilst wondering through the forest. Overall, this filming went well due to a few factors. The most helpful factor was the weather. Of course the main benefit is that it wasn't raining but instead it was a sunny day and the sun was beginning to set so it gave off great shadows to work with. Before filming got underway, there were a few hindrances (the main one being getting lost!) however the shots that needed to be taken in this session were shot and to a standard that I was happy with. The actor also did a good job portraying the character. Next filming session I intend on filming the first scene with the main actor in which the first actor gets killed. Below is a quick vlog, explaining again what we got up to on set