Final Production

Evaluation of our final piece.

What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?

A production company is a company that produces, distributes and markets films. An example of a production company is Working Title. These are a London based film company co owned by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, with a smaller share owned by the BBC. They were a company that moved from TV into Film at the same time as the 'cool britania' mood in the 90s, creating films that represented a very cosy picture of middle class England, using an American star to appeal to UK audiences and internationally.
If we were to distribute our film, we would choose working title because of how successful they are. They have distributed films and have the contacts. Because of how successful they are, they have more power over the other companies that distribute films. This means, they can control what DVD shelf space we get when putting our film onto DVDs. Working title have access to better deals with companies as they are a massive company.
To get the money for our film, we would hopefully get some money from the UK Film Council. This would help massively as it would be free money that we wouldn't have to pay back. Another way of getting money is from the public. We would advertise our ideas of our film, and open a donation fund for members of the public to donate money to go towards our film. If we needed anymore money to go towards the film, we would have to put our own money towards the film and hope that a profit is made so that we get it back. This would be risky because we would not be sure if we would be to make a profit.

In Leicester, there is the art house cinema that smaller films are shown at. I think that this cinema would be better to distribute my film rather than chains such as Odeon/Vue because:
They attract audiences with more of a niche audience. Without the Phoenix art house cinema, these films would not have a chance of being shown in cities like Leicester.
Also, they have independence and control over what films they show. They only show films of which they think the niche audiences that they attract, they will like- they dont just show any new releases. As our film is about a man with severe OCD, i dont think this would appeal to a huge audience as many people may not find this interesting.
Another reason is because they genuinely care about the art of a film, rather than the profit that they could make. This provides an unforgettable experience for the audiences that go to watch the film. The art house cinemas show independent films, some with micro-budgets. This means our film would be screened at these cinemas.





Who would be the audience of your media product?

This is Joseph. He is 19 years old and lives in Leicester. He is in his first year at De Montfort University studying Film Studies with Mandarin Chinese. Joe has many hobbies, like skateboarding and shopping in Ledge; his favourite skate shop. When skateboarding, he likes to listen to his favourite band, Oasis. But when at home, he plays his Chinese relaxation music to calm him down. Joe likes to buy his clothes from a small indie shop in Leicesters town centre called 'Voodoo'. He also likes to shop on ASOS to get some branded skate clothes. When Joe is at home relaxing, he likes to watch Netflix and put on his favourite TV series 'American Horror Story' and 'The Walking Dead'. Joe goes to the Art House Cinema with his university friends to research into films with niche audiences. Joe would go to the Art House cinema to watch 'One Track Mind' because he is intelectual and likes following the storylines to films as it feels as if he is getting more involved. Joe is part of the skater tribe, but is also part of the young alt subculture, and likes looking at film ideas that may not appeal to all audiences. 

When researching into audiences that go to the cinema to watch films, i found that 30% of all 15-24 year olds go to the cinema, which is more than any other age group. I looked at films that this age group went to watch in 2013, and found that it varied over genres. This leads me to believe that this age group enjoy going to watch different genres of film due to the advertisements o that they see to see what film appeals to them. However, due to the serious and deep storyline that has an element of realism in it, i believe that the film would appeal to an older age group.

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

I believe that I have improved a lot since the preliminary task. After this, we did a micro task to a genre that we were given. This was to help us improve our technological knowledge and know how to use things better. Using the camera was easy, as we just turned it on and pressed a button to record, so this was basic understanding. As I have never used a mac laptop before, I didn't really know how to edit. During making the preliminary task, we tried to edit and often lost our work as I didn't know how to use iMovie. However, when we moved onto the micro task, I understood more and managed to get the basic knowledge. We had enough time to play around with the features that we found and made me understand this more. Therefore, when it came to the final movie that we were asked to make, I knew how to use iMovie better. For our micro task, we just used basic knowledge as we didn't really know what to do. However, we learnt about match on action shots, and we found that this made the film flow a lot better than it does without them. Therefore, we practised these and managed to find a way of getting it right every time. So this made it easier for us to do and we used a lot of this in our final film to make it flow better and to get a range of shots.

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

For recording my film, I used a Handycam hdr-CX115. I learnt how to record and take photos on this camera for my work. I managed to learn the importance of camera angles and find what looked better for the scene that we wanted to do. We learnt that lighting needed to be correct at all times. If we recorded it on different days in the same plays, the weather could have played a part of changing the lighting. Therefore we needed to make sure that this was right at all times. In order to keep the camera steady and make it look more professional during the short film, we used a tripod to keep the camera steady.
To edit the film, we used iMovie on a MacBook. We used many different apps on this in order to complete our research and film. iMovie is the programme that we edited all of our film on. We chose the best shots in order to get the continuity and flow to the film. We learnt how to use many things in iMovie, such as titles, effects, colour and transitions. I also used Garageband on the MacBook to help our music. We needed to put some sounds together on this in order to make the film more interesting and tense. This was then saved and put over the final movie to complete this. Finally, safari was used to help do our research. We used this to access blogger, to record our research, and we also used Freesound to get our sounds free from copyright. I explored many different sites that could help me present my research in a more creative way and this worked as I found Prezie

 

Test Shots

These are the two shots we tested to show Reece coming up the stairs. We tried recording him from the bottom of the stairs and then from the top in order to see which one looked better. In the end we decided that using both shots and cutting and editing them together was the best way to do it as it showed continuity and the two shots followed on from each other well.

For the mirror shot we tried recording him from both sides of the room. When looking at the shots we decided the bottom shot with the camera on the right side of Reece looked better because the lighting was better, you could see him turn and walk towards the door and also we liked the fact that you could see his reflection and him. The fact that its an over the shoulder shot is another positive thing as its a good technical shot. 

For the shots in the car we had to try recording from two different angles as the lighting made Reece look very unclear. Even though the bottom one is still very cloudy it worked better as it is a closer shot and allows him to be seen a bit better. 

Typical Order Of Credits

1.    Name of the studio that is distributing the film.

2.    Name of the production company responsible for making the film. 

3.    A (Producer’s Name) Production.

4.    A Film by (Director’s Name).

5.    Starring, followed by the names of all principal actors.

6.    Film title.

7.    Featured cast members.

8.    Casting by.

9.    Music, composer, or original score.

10.    Production designer.

11.    At this point it can vary; you might see makeup, costume, or visual effects credits here or skip to the next few credits. At this point it should vary based on what is most important to the movie. 

12.    Edited by 

13.    Director of photography.

14.    Producer, produced by, and executive producers. 

15.    Based on the (media name or title) by (Author’s Name).

16.    Story by

17.    Writer or written by. 

18.    Director or Directed by. 

Target Audience Profiles

Target audience profile from charliemerry

Risk Assessment

The only risk in our film opening would be to do with the car however as Reece isn't actually driving the car there will be no risk. The car will be stationary on the drive or parked on the street in a safe place causing no risk to Reece, pedestrians or other cars on the road. When the person who is acting like they have been hit is lying on the floor the car engine wont be on and also they will actually be on the drive to avoid any risk there may be if another car were to drive up the road.

Character, costume and props

Reece will be the main character for our film. We thought this because it isn't usually heard of that men have OCD. Also, it is stereotypical that a male is more likely to kill someone.
For our film opening, we first see the characters getting out of his car. For this, we will need to show a car so therefore we need to make sure we have one. This will be fine because a member of our group has a car and we will be filming at the same house that the car is at.
Another prop that we will need is paperwork and office equipment as we see him rearranging paperwork on his desk. For this, we will just get some paper and write some things on it so they look like important documents.
Me or Emily will need to be used to show a body on the road to show that the main character has killed somebody. The other member will also need to be used to show somebody crossing the road at the end as the characters next target.

Shot list

This is a shooting list we have made showing the order in which we will shoot different parts of our film opening. We have decided to do it in the order where we film the flash back last in order to keep continuity with things such as the lighting and it will make it easier as he won't have to keep changing clothes. We are going to try and film it all on one day as it will be quite easy as were only in one location however if we run out of time we will do shots 10 onwards on a different day.

Location shots.

This is the car that the male with OCD will be sat in. The side of the car will be filmed showing the male in this.

The front door will be shown in a few shots as this is where we see the male running in and out of the house.

 This is showing the view from the front door showing inside the lounge where the light switch is that he always has to check, and the porch where we see his shoes.

 This is the view of the lounge that we will see the male walking through avoiding the rug.

 This will be the angle at which we see the male walking around the rug.

 This is the stairs that we see the male running up from this angle.

This shot is clearly shown on the animatic storyboard where we see the man coming up the final steps.

This is also shown on the storyboard as we are going to show where the male walks into the bedroom and then back into the bathroom.

 This is the view that we will show the man reinforcing his OCD with the messy paper making it back into a neat pile.

 This is the angle of which we will film the male washing his hands and looking into the mirror.

This is the mirror that the male will be looking into before and after the flashbacks of murdering someone. 

Target Audience

We have chosen as a group that we are targeting our film opening to around the 20 to 30 year olds. The reason for this is because we believe that this is the age group that will understand our film opening. We thought that a younger teen will not understand what is happening in our film. Also, there is an ethical issue of exposing murder to younger children.

When asking our target audience what they thought of our chosen age group, this is what they thought:

Indi, 17: I think that the target audience suits the basis of the film because if the film was exposed to younger children, they would maybe be psychologically harmed and would not understand it.

Emily, 17: I think the film could be shown to younger people that 20 as i think 15 year olds would understand the storyline.

Josephine, 16: The storyline can be very hard to understand, especially with the younger aged not knowing what is happening, so i think the age group that you are targeting really suits the film opening.

This is a map showing different tribes of teenagers/ young adults. It is a way of putting individuals into groups depending on what they do, wear and like. Everyone in their tribe will be very similar to them and enjoy the same things. Using this we will find the group of people which are most likely to enjoy our gritty realism film helping us to find out what types of people our target audience is and helping us to aim our film opening towards these people.

Young Adults are one group I think would enjoy gritty realism films. They want out of the mainstream things other people enjoy such as your main stream films in cinemas. They are therefore more likely to go to art house cinemas and watch gritty realism films made for the niche audience.

Another group I think would be our target audience would be creatives as they like new creative things which haven't been done before. Gritty realism films are about things you don't hear a lot about therefore I think creative tribes would enjoy our film.

sound experiment

One sound we needed to create was the sound of someone being hit by a car during the flashback. We searched and listened to a lot of car crash sounds on free sound and decided that these two were the best two.

 

This is the first sound we found which is the sound of a car screeching and then the sound of someone closing a kitchen drawer filled with cutlery. We thought this was a good sound for what we needed it for as you could hear the car trying to break and stop and then the drawer which sounder like the car smashing into something.

This is the second sound we found which is a car again screeching and crashing. We thought that this one sounded more like a car crashing into another car as it was much louder rather than a car hitting a person. Therefore, we have decided that the first sound is the one we will use as its more realistic and fits the purpose we need it for. 

Animatic Storyboard

                      We made an animatic storyboard showing our initial idea for our film opening.

Company Logo

We first had to think of a name for our company. We wanted something short and easy to remember which was clearly linked to a film production company. We came up with many ideas eg 22 studios, Act fast productions and box movies. We thought about it, asked other people and researched whether any of them already existed. We then finally came to the decision that Box Movies would be the name of our company. Then we started thinking about a logo and the font of the writing. We wanted a font that was quite simple and easy to read but not just plain and normal, it had to have some kind of special look to it. After looking at a few we decided on this font. 

We then had to think of a fancy logo to show the company name on. With it being called Box Movies we decided to base it around a box. To make it look like a film company we also had to add something film related to it eg a camera or film strip. In the end we decided to use a filming camera and put it on the side of the box. We thought it would be a creative idea to have the box open and show the letters coming out and to make it even more interesting we added a yellow glowing background behind the letters and made it look like a glowing light coming from the box. This is our final design.

Audience Feedback

Typography

Our idea of the title was to make it feel hand written. This would stick to the idea that the character feels at home with himself and his surroundings. Each title we chose had a neat feeling towards it, we wanted to show this to show the balance the character needs to live in. We didn't want to use anything too creative as it wouldn't fit the genre of gritty realism; the hand written style create the effect that the film could be based on a true story and hasn't been adapted on any part to make the film unbelievable. Thin, tall letters add a serious sense to the title and would increase the tension of the audience as it is shown on screen. We want this effect so that the audience can understand that this film shows a realistic side to a mental illness and shouldn't be taken as just an everyday thing. All in all the title need to shown the audience just how serious our film should be and how sensitive the life of the character is. With this in mind, we decided to use the 6th title as it shows the formal and clean side of the character's life whilst it looks hand written to add a personal touch to the character as well.

Initial idea

This is a mind map showing our initial ideas of different genres we considered. We thought about 4 genres and some things relating to them that we could produce a film opening about. From this we will decide what genre to do and create a storyline based around it.