Evaluation

Media Evaluation

Final Version

After fixing a few sound timings our film opening is finally complete and I am happy and relieved we finally finished!

Here are the normal and HD versions of our film as the HD version crops a few shots.

Normal;


HD;

Twelve Draft

This is our twelve draft and we have now got to the point where we are simply sorting out anything out of place. We have now turned down the sound of the birds and have made the fade a lot more gradual so that the voiceovers can be heard clearly. We have also removed the shots of me at the end as they are irrelevant.

Eleventh Draft

This is our film with the background music added, we decided the voiceover was too dull without music and there was also too much attention paid to the voiceover which is only meant to be an added element to the confusing images. The recording is bad quality again as we are still editing the track in Garageband. We also added bird noises at the end of the opening which leads the film on to the rest of the film.

More Voiceovers

Our previous recording had a few mistakes in so me and Aimie re-recorded the voiceover. I am the 'PC Smith' and Aimie is 'Mrs. Richardson'. We have began to edit however a lot more needs to be done.

As our original script was not long enough to fill up our 4 minute long film we added more to the script;

(after Mrs. Richardson says: Maybe you should be talking to her boyfriend, not me.)
Police: Why? What was he like?
Mrs. Richardson: I didn't get to meet him. She never let me.
Police: What about her friends?
Mrs. Richardson: I only really met Sarah Underwood and Stephen Land, but they haven't been to the house in months.
Police: Do you know if she is still in close contact with them?
Mrs. Richardson: No, like I said, she never told me anything like normal daughters should.

Explanation of Film

As our film opening does not reveal much of the plot to the audience we decided to make up a basic story for anyone who was particularly intruiged as to what would happen further in the film.

We decided that Leyla had gone missing and her Mother is concerned and brings this is police's attention (this is why we have a police interview) and Leyla's friend (played by Sarah in the opening) is made to look like the culprit. However as the film continues Leylas mother behaves strangely and begins is show that she is too possesive and has psychological health problems. Eventually it is revealed that Leyla's Mother had caused her to wake up in the forest due to jealousy from her mental health issues.

This explains why we have the repeating image of Sarah at the beginning.

Psychological Thriller Research

Here is some research which Molly found which has helped us understand our genre further;

Research;
"Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the wide-ranging thriller genre. However, this genre often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre in addition to the typical traits of the thriller genre. Also, occasionally this genre will border into the also wide-ranging Horror genre.
Generally, thrillers focus on plot over character, and thus emphasize intense, physical action over the character's psyche. Psychological thrillers tend to reverse this formula to a certain degree, emphasizing the characters just as much, if not more so, than the plot.
The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.
Sometimes the suspense comes from within one solitary character where characters must resolve conflicts with their own minds. Usually, this conflict is an effort to understand something that has happened to them. These conflicts are made more vivid with physical expressions of the conflict in the means of either physical manifestations, or physical torsions of the characters at play."

The Definition;

Psychological – Elements that are related to the mind or processes of the mind; they are mental rather than physical in nature.
Thriller – A genre of fiction that attempts to "thrill" its audience by placing characters at great risk. This constant unease throughout the story makes the narrative suspenseful to the reader by creating a tense atmosphere.
Psychological + Thriller – By combining these two terms, the definition changes to a narrative that makes the characters exposed to danger on a mental level rather than a physical one. Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies (which is often the case in typical action-thrillers), but rather are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind.

Themes;

Many psychological thrillers have emerged over the past years, all in various media (film, literature, radio, etc). Despite these very different forms of representation, general trends have appeared throughout the narratives. Some of these consistent themes include:
Reality – The quality of being real. Characters often try to determine what is true and what is not within the narrative.
Perception – A person's own interpretation of the world around him through his senses. Often characters misperceive the world around them, or their perceptions are altered by outside factors within the narrative (see Unreliable narrator).
Mind – The human consciousness; the location for personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. The mind is often used as a location for narrative conflict, where characters battle their own minds to reach a new level of understanding or perception.
Existence/Purpose - The object for which something exists; an aim or a goal humans strive towards to understand their reason for existence. Characters often try to discover what their purpose is in their lives and the narrative's conflict often is a way for the characters to discover this purpose.
Identity - The definition of one's self. Characters often are confused about or doubt who they are and try to discover their true identity.
Death - The cessation of life. Characters either fear or have a fascination with death.

Tenth Draft

We have now recorded our police interview with Aimie and my own voice, this draft includes a sample of the recording which has been edited to distort the full name being spoken. Again, the sound is not very clear as it is a recording of the track as we cannot add the track so far as it is not finished.

Ninth Draft

We have now changed my credit to 'Introducing' rather than 'Starring' to make our film seem more realistic and professional. In Dreamgirls Jennifer Hudsons credit is also 'And Introducing'.
The recording is loud as we made a recording of our voiceovers so far, the real version will not be like this as this is only a test.

Eight Draft

This is our eight draft. We have kept the company names and title at the beginning but decided to spread the named credits out amongst the film similar to a real film opening. We've removed the effects off the shots of 'Leyla' after she has woken up to show the difference between her sleeping and her being awake which is not a mistake in our editing as we have added this on purpose!

Use of Sound

In the song In Regards To Myself by Underoath it begins with a clicking noise similar to a tape recording which would be used in a police interview. We decided to play a noise similar to this to create the sound of the recording effect to make the film opening for atmospheric.

The sound is used at 0.00-0.09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDRmbQLftLw

Seventh Draft

After watching the opening of Step Brothers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sczh_KjjFNU) we decided that we really liked the way that the production companies names appeared before any visuals and decided to attempt this with our film opening.
We put all our names at the beginning however it is a bit long to watch and ends up being very boring for the audience and also our footage became a bit full-on with out the name credits breaking it up

Credits Research

In lesson we watch film openings to a selections of films such as Babe, Derailed, Bourne Identity and In Bruges so that we could see where each film placed their credits to help us with our own film openings.
Most of the films had the production companies names appear, then credits and then the title of the film.

We've decided to move the title of our film to the start of the opening after a production company name and after that our names appear spreadout through our footage so that we can have sound before any footage is shown similar to all of these films which makes our film opening look more realistic.

Sixth Draft

After watching over our fith draft we decided we needed the make the time differences a lot clearer especially after getting people to watch and they were confused between past and present. We made the present day shots a lot slowed and changed the effect from 'Vignette' to 'Romantic' which makes the shots lighter and hazy around the edges rather than black to give a waking up and hazy effect. Slowing down the shots made the film slower paced so that our film opening looked a lot less like a trailer.

To stop the film looking like a trailer which we are in danger of we decided to have a black screen with sound paying before any footage is shown. For a test we added walkie-talkie noises over the beginning of this curent draft. We all liked this sound but we obviously cannot leave it simply as this.

After getting a few people in the lesson to watch the film opening they said the 'Filmed and Edited by' finished too quickly to be read so we have also extended the time it is shown on screen.

Fifth Draft

We have now added a new effect on the present day shots in the woods to make it clear which shots are flashbacks and which aren't, we added 'Vignette' to the present day shots to make it seem as though someone is watching 'Leyla'.

Script For Voiceovers

Policeman and Woman (Leylas Mother): This is PC Smith interviewing Mrs. Richardson concerning the disappearance of her daughter Leyla Richardson. Time is 12:43.

Possible Questions From PC Smith
- Mrs. Richardson, when was the last time you saw or had contact with your daughter?
- What was her mood like?
- Did she say or do anything that you consider out of the ordinary?
- Is there anyone that you know of that would have a desire to harm your daughter?


Possible Answers From Mrs. Richardson
- She was at home yesterday, we had a cup of tea and lunch together. Just like we always do.
- Well she's a typical teenager, how do you think her mood was?!
- She was on the phone for a long time, probably to that boyfriend of hers, and she wasn't paying me enough attention. I shouted at her for getting all tarted up in those heels and she stormed out. That was the last time I saw her.
- No. Maybe you should be talking to her boyfriend, not me.

This is our decided script for the News Report;
Concerns are being raised after the disappearance of a 16 year old girl, Leyla Richardson, who was last seen a week ago in North London. The police have stated that the case is becoming more serious than they initially thought it would be. Mrs.-, Leyla's mother is urging people to come forward if they have any information on the case. All those closest to her are being questioned but so far the police can't seem to find any suspects and no-one seems to know anything about the mysterious disappearance of Leyla Richardson.

However the 'Richardson's' will be blurred out similar to Plan B - Suzanne

Voiceovers

We had a group discussion about the idea of a voiceover, so to help us we made a spider diagram of all the possible ideas we could think of such as a police interview with the characters mother or friends, the character herself, simple narration or even news reports on the case. We also discussed who would be suitable that we know for these voices as we mainly need well spoken people (like a news reporter etc). We decided that a 4 minute conversation between two characters would be too dull and a 4 minute news report would reveal too much information to the viewer so we decided to mix our voiceover together to show chaos. We heard the song Suzanne by Plan B and thought the news reported sounded very effective especially how the names blur in and out.The entire song is very graphic however I think this is what Plan B was obviously aiming for particularily with the squirting noise of blood and chainsaws, the news report is between 2:58-3:24.

Fourth Draft

This is our fourth edit of our second film. Before we finished this edit we had a very big problem with iMovie in which our entire footage and film had dissappeared. In the end a folder name had accidentally been renamed causing iMovie to lose track of our film, once we renamed it, it all reappeared in iMovie.

While we had this problem we discussed our film name and thought it would be better to use the supposed name of the character similar to the films "Chloe", "Carrie" and "Juno". Similar to Juno we wanted an unusual name so we scanned baby name websites as none of us could think of anything and we soon found "Leyla".

Once the Mac/iMovie problem was sorted we removed the clip of the clock necklace as it looked messy. We have also finished our credits so that they flow in time completely.

Third Draft of Film

This is our current draft for our film which we have temporarily named 'Pulse'.

We have added in an elipsis at the end so that I fade and reappear down the path. We also removed parts after audience feedback as the film was too repetitive.

We spent a whole afternoon making the credits however we forgot to add "and" before "Sarah Isaacs". We managed to find a font similar to Seven's credit font, it looks very rough and etched fitting in with our genre. We also made sure each credit lasted for 4 seconds so that there is enough time for the audience to read it, however having "Aimie Condon" right after "Filmed and Edited by" makes it seem that only Aimie filmed and edited and that it does not apply to all three of us. Also added togther "Filmed and Edited by" and "Aimie Condon" makes 8 seconds which may be too long for just credits.

We now need to begin work on our voiceover but overall this second film is progressing a lot more than the previous.

Group Dicussions & Decisions

To keep a clear difference between present time and flashback we decided to change the complete black and white to having a hint of colour as the complete opposite effects between the black and whites and colour was too different and made our film seem inconsistent. We needed an effect for the flashbacks to create the hint of colour/drained effect, so we began to play around with iMovie's effects until we found one called 'Old World' which looked dream-like unlike others which were very dark and dim and we then manually changed the colour settings and it looked alot better than previously.

We decided we needed transitions also to stop the film being jumpy as well as making flashbacks and real time clear so we added a 'Fade to White' transition before every flashback although creating the perfect timing has been hard as iMovie decided automatically how long each transition should last.

We also discussed our credits again and confirmed that we all liked the creepy effect created by the Seven Credits, also like the Bulls on Parade video. We experimented how to make the flickering effect and after strenuous amount of fiddling we managed to create it by making several text boxes for every flicker of text and then changing each text box to make the writing look as though it is moving.

Here are the Seven opening credits which shows how we want our credits;

Idea of Voiceover

After our visit to the CLC we have kept music in mind. We opened Garageband on our school's Mac's and unfortunately we do not have all of the music that the CLC had on their version of Garageband so we decided to think of an alternative. We thought that a voice speaking over the random clips could provide more of an explanation rather than music. When discussing our ideas for a voice over as a group each of us has different ideas at to what it should be. We came to a decision that a police interview would fit well as it could reveal a lot to the audience with out being too blatent as well as introducing characters without showing them.
We are still unsure whether we are going to have discreet music in the background or if we are going to edit the voices.

A film which uses a similar technique to this is Trainspotting which introduces the entire theme of the film in the opening through a voiceover;

Second Day of Filming

For the second day of filming we began at Aimie's house and filmed things that happen in people's daily routines such as a point of view of pouring milk into a cup of tea and a close up of slicing cheese which will be odd for the audience as it has no significance. We filmed a clock of Aimies which is very disfunctional and spins endlessly out of control, it looked effective however it was reflective of the natural light and when we blocked out the light it was too dark to see on the camera so we scrapped the idea entirely.
We filmed a shot of my hand reaching over a shelf to try and reach a necklace, it looked very effective as the hand is very snappy and attempts to grab anything reachable, it also looks as though my character was too short to actually reach the shelf even though I was actually sat on the ground.

We then went to Forty Hall to film shots of our character waking up in a forest. We decided to use someone from our group as it was the most reliable option so I offered to do it as no one was too keen. We filmed panning shots of the location of trees as well as a point of view shot of some gates which looks wierd as the bars move along to help confuse the audience. We filmed interesting shots such as spinning around looking up to the tops of trees at a low angle which is very disorientating. I filmed a point of view shot lying on the ground looking up to the trees which was very slow paced compared to the rest of our footage. Theres a variety of shots of me lying on the floor starting from extreme close-ups all the way to long shots. We also included a pan shot of me getting up from the ground and walking away. We filmed a shot of me walking away from the camera similar to a shot from our old opening which we liked, however as the shot is very long we could cut it and add transitions to create an elipsis.

This is the second draft of our film where we have experimented as a group with black and white and colour to show the differences between real time and 'flashbacks'.
We are still in the initial stages of putting it together although I already think this is much better than the previous film;

First Draft of New Film Opening

This is the first drafted opening for our new film opening. We decided to simply piece together our footage and see how parts looked together so far. We still have another day of filming so it is quite repetitive at the moment.
Some of the clips were not muted before uploading so there is some sudden noise.

Storyboard for Second Film Opening

As a group we made a list of images and how we wanted to shoot them and from which angle. We want all the shots to be shown in a way to confuse the audience so they initially do not understand what is happening (to add to the psychological genre) so that they will want to watch the rest of the film to understand what has happened. To do this we may speed up or slow down particular shots.

We want to include a few shots from a car in night and day time to possibly show an elipsis of time and a point of view of traffic lights changing and radio stations changing. A few shots of woods and forests to make the character look lost. Over the shoulder shots of the driver, shots through the wing mirror. Different shots of a girl lying in the forest.

Here is a storyboard for our filming;

Bulls on Parade Music Video

After successfully winning free tickets to see Rage Against the Machine Molly and me were watching one of their music videos which includes a flashing text (1.15-1.30) which appears and disappears and flickers, similar to that of the film opening of Seven which as a group we discussed and liked due to its scratching, etched effect.

Radiohead's Music Video for 'Karma Police'

After watching the music video for Karma Police I realised it includes similar shots from a car involved in out film which may help us when editing.

Here is a link for the video as embedding has be disabled;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uYWYWPc9HU

Alice in Wonderland

Yesterday I saw Alice in Wonderland and really loved it. A lot of people had been slating it and it had been getting really bad reviews so I went in thinking it could be really bad. However I thought it was brilliant, I loved Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat especially how he had been edited in and out to appear and disappear with only his smile being bold. I loved all of the voice overs such as Alan Rickman as the Blue Caterpillar and Barbara Winsor as the Doormouse. I also thought Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen were excellent. I really enjoyed it as it was so unusual and bright unlike Tim Burton's usual films.

Shutter Island

On Wednesday I went to see Shutter Island which is a psychological thriller (the same genre as our film). Theres a few editing techniques which proved really confusing and made me really think whilst watching the film. At one point a woman takes a sip from a glass of water and her drink disappears; this could be seen as bad editing however the woman drinking the water without the glass would have to had been filmed, I think the drink disappears due to Officer Teddy's drinking problem after the death of his wife.

Also in a flash back which Teddy has, an alcoholic drink his wife is holding disappears similarily which suggests the previous alcohol problem which the audience do not understand yet.

A particular part that confused me was when Teddy was in a dream and he woke up to yet again be in a dream which happened several times so that I began to not know when the film was in a dream or reality.

Unfortunately I managed to guess the big twist at the end half-way through however I didn't guess it perfectly so there was still a suprise for me. I wasn't suprised to be told that Teddy himself was a patient at Shutter Island however I was suprised to find that he was actually Andrew Laeddis (a missing patient) as Teddys full name was Edward Daniels and both names where anagrams for each other.

Overall I did enjoy the film however I was expecting it to be more of a horror because of the trailer. I did also enjoy the end once Teddy accepted that he was actually Andrew Laeddis and did kill his wife but decided to "die as a good man instead of living as a monster.

BBFC Classifications

These are the official guidelines from BBFC on film certficates and classification:

Classification Guidelines



This is the student guide;

Student Guide to Bbfc



Following these guidelines it appears our film would be most likely be classified as certifcate 15.

The BBFC guidelines for a 15 rating certificate are:

Drugs

Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example,aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.

Horror

Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised.

Language

There may be frequent use of strong language (for example,‘fuck’). The strongest terms (for example, ‘cunt’) may beacceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeateduse of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.

Nudity

Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but withoutstrong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context. Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail.There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour,but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptableunless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose issexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable.

Violence

Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the inflictionof pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely tobe acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is alsounlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violencebut any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet andhave a strong contextual justification.

Dawn of the Dead

I watched Dawn of the Dead recently and really liked the credits. They include enough time to read each persons name but in particular I like the way the credits fade out from solid to blood as it forebodes the content of the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_thoaXVys&feature=related
Credits start at 1.22 (Embedding Disabled)

First Day of Refilming and First Draft

Visit to CLC

Despite not having a film opening we visited the CLC with the rest of our media class and were taught alot of techniques which we are going to use in our film opening. We played around and managed to create alot of tense pieces similar to the film opening of Seven, which we were trying to create

End Credits Music Video

I saw this video for End Credits By Plan B and Chase & Status and immediatley thought of my groups 'flashback' idea especially as the man is lying on the floor with his apparent memories coming back to him like a dream.

The first shot goes very well with the acoustic guitar at the beginning as it is in slow motion creating a dream like effect despite the man falling to the ground. The next close up shot of his head hitting the ground slowly leaves a very harsh effect due to the slow motion, all the mans pain is seen. The shots are also very long which softens the violence happening in the shot.

The video continues on to cut between different shots and scenes very quickly so they are not recognized by the audience however every other shot is the same; of the man laying on the ground. The pace of the cuts goes along with the music which has now changed to a drum and bass track.

The use of diegetic sounds of characters dialogue makes the video seem a lot more realistic, rather than simply having the non-diegetic music.

I like how the man features in his own flashbacks like a ghost. The shots flashing between the man on the ground and Michael Caine in a hospital bed are particularly effective as they are in the same position but with different conditions.

The shot of Plan B singing in front of a riot and in a pub surrounded by injured people are also very effective as it shows how he does not care and gives an immortal, superior look to him.

The ending is also very interesting as throughout the video only Plan B's face is in view but the small part of the background that can be seen appears to be sinking. One of the last shots is Plan B risen in the air almost leading up to heaven which the song has been speaking about throughout however the very final shot is when his two friends come to save him and find him lying on the floor like the beginning of the song to show that he is dead after his series of flashbacks.

I really like the use of flashbacks here, especially that the man himself featured in them. However this video uses real events suggested by the video unlike our film where alot of the flashbacks are going to be point of view.