FINISHED PRODUCT

Main Task - Magazine Artical 3

Main Task - Magazine Artical 2

Main Task - Magazine Artical

Main Task - Music

A creation i made on a website called aviary, i mixed the song together which builds suspense towards the latter stage.

Media music.egg on Aviary.

Update

Today i am going to have finished all the reaserch for all taks of my blog, now what is left to do is finish the last bits of my editing and finish off the magazine artical which i have started. I will also start drafting my evaluation which i will record as a podcast with my co-producer Chris Hales and someone else who is within the target audince i have aimed my production at.

Character Theory - Esta

Esta the main character would be the protagonist within my feature film. He strives to set things straight between himself, his peers and the dealer who has threatened his life. However his character soon turns dark after winning the game and shooting both the dealer and his supposed friend Troy.

He starts off in the film appearing as an over confident but venerable character on the poker table whilst the other characters are much more focused and serious. He uses this to his advantage by making the other characters more nervous. When he leaves the house however he seems very calm and collected. This again shows when he meets up with Troy and has non-threatening convocation with Troy.

When we meet Esta he is within a darkish room with his TV switched on. He is obviously getting ready for an event which is confirmed by the text message he receives whilst getting his jacket on. He appears to be alone within the house suggesting he has a well-paid job due to being able to afford a middle class location. Due to this location he appears to live a comfortable life, which suggests the game of poker is either a hobby or an addiction.

Esta does take a gun with him. It appears to be a vintage pistol which is unclear as he tries to keep it under wraps. He checks if it is loaded before he leaves his location. He also carries with him a blackberry smart phone which is a type of phone which is usually connected with a business nature.

His costume also suggests wealth as he wears a crisp three piece suit with a black tie and unconventional purple shirt. This is to make Esta stand out a little more from the other characters. This however, when edited, will have a small impact due to the nature of the black and white colouring.

Main Task: Poster version 4 - Finished

I decided to completely change my design for my poster due to it being hard to read the text. My new design is easy to read and can easily be desifered as being a poker based movie.

Main Task - Poster Version 3

Main Task - Artical research

For my second piece to go with my production I am going to produce a magazine artical for it to go with my poster. To do this however I will need to look into the language of the magazine artical and the layout it's self. There are a variety of Film magazines on today's shelf's including 'Emprie' and 'Total Film'.

Both magazines follow a similar layout for their movie reviews, commonly consisting of a large still from the featured movie and main characters and a corresponding colour scheme which connects with the genre of the movie.

Below are a few examples of the layout within both total film and empire. The first is a page from the "i am legend" empire review and the following is a artical on the British film "heartless" by totalfilm.




As you can see the layouts a fairly similar consisting of a large feature picture followed by smaller columned text. Both also have larger fonted quotes from the movies/actors which stand out in a different colour and font.  Both also use subheading to get someone flicking through the magazine to take notice and continue reading the publication.

The language of both is fairly simple, with a quick description of the film to begin with introducing the main characters and actors, along with quotes from actors and critics. Both magazines focus mainly on the pros instead of the cons of the movies and suggest a audience for both. I shall take this into account when making my publication as i already have a target audience i want to hit which i found out through my research.

I shall use a large photo from my production along with some smaller ones of the actual making of the film to make the publication look more professional and interesting to read and look at.

Main Task: Poster version 2

Main Task - Production first cut

Main Task: Poster Idea 1

Main Production - Music

Today i found some suitable music for my production, i found a website in which sold production music, the cost for the downloads were only slightly higher than sites such as Itunes, however these pieces of music have been specifically made for students a film makers to use in low budget/small productions.

Overall i picked some quite conventional pieces which it nicely with my production, they both have a low but constant tempo which will be good for creating suspense and also have some higher points in which i may be able to incorporate into my films highlight scenes such as Esta flipping the table.

Main Task - Opening title sequence research

The first film i am going to look at for the opening sequence of a thriller is the latest Casino Royal. This seems like the perfect opening to analyse due to its emphasis on the poker game at the pivoting point of the film. The opening sequence begins with a black and white figure of the main character, James Bond, a character which I based my main character on.

The title of the film also appears as soon as the credits start rolling in the font of the "casino royal" sign from the film. Diamonds also appear in a foreground in a mind trick kind of style. Images of Kings, queens and jacks are also in the foreground with bond in the background shooting card shapes from his pistol. I shall use the black and white colouring in my own film and will also use a similar title sequence to make my film authentic.

The most important part I was looking for however  was the sequence in which the titles appeared on the screen. They were as followed;

• Production company
• Lead actor Name
• Origination Writer Name of 007
• Title of film
• Actor names
• Designers

I shall use the same style as this will definitely as it would work with my introduction, all there is now is to find a suitable piece of music  and suitable sound effects.

Update - Editing

Today I have been editing the first and third scenes of my thriller movie. The editing so far has gone well, however the software i have to use at school can be temperamental so i have had to back up my work frequently which is good working practice anyway.

Tonight I am going to come up with a sequence for my credits by looking at fonts used in other thriller movies and also the font and way they fade in and out. I had an idea that the letters "K", "J" ,"Q" and "A" could be in the font of the playing cards used. I would also make the font slightly bigger to make them stand out.

Next week we also have to present our first rough cut of our films. I will be ready as long as the editing keeps going to plan. I also need to find a sutiable piece of music which can be used for the opening sequence and the poker scene. I will also look these up tonight.

Target Audience - Results

Today I carried out my survey on a variety of 20 different aged people. The results to the questions i asked were varied however interesting and showed my the audience I should be targeting with my film. 


The Questions




How old are you? (Ranges - 0-11, 12-15, 16-25, 25-50, 50+)
Are you male or female ?
On average out of 10 movies you watch at the cinema, how many of these would be of the thriller genere?
Which specific thriller sub genere would intrest you the most? (Answers include: Consiparcy Thriller, Crime thrillers, spy thrillers, supernatural thriller) 
Would my script intrest you into watching the production?
Out of the characters in the script section, which would you relate to yourself. (All charcters have different back grounds and levels of wealth, so i will be able to make somewhat of a judgment about theirback ground)


From my results shown a interest of my idea within mainly the 16 - 25 and 25 - 50 age range and primary of the male sex. Most of the men in this age range shared a interest for similar styles of movie, mainly being horror and thriller movies while many of the women primarily were into genres such as rom coms, however there were anomalies. 


Due to the age brackets there were mixed opinions on our productions as the younger and older audiences didn't seem to be interested in the plot, this leads me to a conclusion that my production should be aimed at the male target audience between the ages of 18 - 50.

Update

Last week we shot our last scene of the production with quite a good level of success, I kept to my schedule exactly taking almost exactly the same time to film as specified. On the day i had to pick up the lighting kit from another group and had to organise everyone to meeting at the school for 11am sharp.

When we go there we set up all of our equipment and started filming after a script read through which everyone on set sat through. We also adjusted our set slightly with chair arrangements and prop positions.

Below are some stills from out shoot:

Research - Main Task

First off we needed to search for a place to film the majority of our production being the poker scene, both me and Chris agreed on trying to get the back of our school hall due to the gloomy nature of the area and the long black curtains which would be perfect for back drops. After consulting Mr Shepard however we soon came to a problem that over half therm the hall was having major building work. To get around this we went off hunting again for a new location which we found within our 6 form area, the area wasn't ideal, however we would not be interrupted at any time during our shoot.

Below is a shot of our set-up

Before shooting we also had to do research into where we would get props and costumes for our productions, we were lucky enough to have contacts to borrow suits and formal wear off of, however we did need to buy a few props such as the poker set and guns. I did personally order a green poker mat for the table, however the website amazon sent back to me an E-mail which said the product wasn't in stock, this meant we had to use a clean white sheet instead which wasent ideal. 

Story Boards

Target Audience

Today i am going to write up a questionaire to go with a section of my script and film idea to a range if different people both at my school and around my village. This will help me determin which age ranges are intrested and which are not. I will then compare my data to data i can find of the internet to see if my film fits into the generic target audience of a Thriller film.

I am expecting a younger audince between the ages of 16 - 25 year old males who are of a middle to upper class. The upper class element comes from the element of the film revolving around the game of poker which corrosponds to wealth.

The 6 simple questions that i shall ask include:

• How old are you? (Ranges - 0-11, 12-15, 16-25, 25-50, 50+)
• Are you male or female ?
• On average out of 10 movies you watch at the cinema, how many of these would be of the thriller genere?
• Which specific thriller sub genere would intrest you the most? (Answers include: Consiparcy Thriller, Crime thrillers, spy thrillers, supernatural thriller) 
• Would my script intrest you into watching the production?
• Out of the characters in the script section, which would you relate to yourself. (All charcters have different back grounds and levels of wealth, so i will be able to make somewhat of a judgment about theirback ground)

Even having only 6 questions will allow me to quickly predict someones taste in films, and pinpoint which types of thrillers they find enjoyable. It will also allow me to see if there is any appeal to my own production.

Update

Had a play around with my new camera and is much easier to extract files from so will make the post production process much quicker. The shots are also in HD which means large files, this means i may have to obtain a larger memory card.

We have also come up with a week long time period in which we can film. Tomorrow we are going to book a time period in which we can film the main part of our films after consulting each and everyone of our actors. (10th Febuary - 17th Febuary)

Production schedule Day two, scene one and two

Production Schedule (3)

Update

Today I finished off all of my paper work, I completed my last shot list and production schedule, all I need to do now is film the last two scenes.

I also bought over the weekend my own JVC  HD camera to help finish this production and make my own. I also got a tripod with it to create professional shots. 

Update

Today as a class we learned how to dub correctly by re-dubbing a clip from the latest harry potter film. The task was quite hard due to having to time the dialogue to the exact second, it was however enjoyable. When finished i shall post it on this blog.

Production wise I have imported my clips into adobe premier pro and re-named all my clips, I have also completed all of my paper work and just needs to be updated to the blog.

We are having some trouble getting everyone together to film the main body of the production, however we are going to try and plan to shoot during the half term break due to the location being available in the school then. It will provide a more maluable time frame for our actors so we can get them when they are all free at the same time. 

Update

Uploaded my footage today to my hard drive and i am very pleased with my shots for scene one. The lighting looks near enough perfect and I got the best out of my actor. The props and costume were also very good matching my character descriptions. I did however finish my shoot around 10 minuets early.

Today in the media lesson, both me and Chris looked at both sets of clips for both mine and his productions and analysed the quality of both the picture and sound on our laptops. Next I am going to re-name the files for easy use and import them onto the software final cut.

Few shots from scene one prep

 

Some reccy shots, and two pictures of our Actor playing Troy

Update

Today both me and Chris filmed our Scene ones for our main productions, they both went very well due to good organisation. We were able to get all our actors together and take shots for reccys before the shoot. I used my production schedule and shot list to help me direct my actors. Some of the shots i compromised with and experemented with, however i am very pleased with the end results. We are filiming our third scene next Wednesday in our school hall. All relevant paper work will be up on the blog before then.

Test shots - Poker set

update

Poker set and a green felt mat have been ordered and will arrive next week before the shoot. I have almost completed my shot list and shooting schedules. I will talk to Chris next week about when to shoot and ask about days in which our actors can act.