Production Schedule
Casting
After having completed the storyboard and script I had a confident idea of how to go about creating the movie. I collected a few friends to play the actors within my movie, a total of 5 actors to play 5 characters, additionally I needed my own direction of how the movie would be filmed and how to follow the storyboard in collaboration with the script and Tony Cash provided the role of cameraperson.
I gathered my actors in early October and gave those with speaking roles copies of the script to prep them for the film. Casting actually became a problem throughout the production of the movie as certain actors had conflicting schedules which required the production dates to be decided carefully. A rough set of shots was filmed in late October for a rough idea of how the movie would look, unfortunately the footage captured could not be used due to low audio quality and the fact that it was incomplete, additionally the footage featured an actor who was later re-casted entirely due to schedule conflictions. Before filming my finalised casting crew became solidified:
Alistair Goodwin as Detective Gilbert (Main character)
Harry Kelly as Detective Patmore (Secondary Character)
Amy Morris as Olivia Garnet (Femme Fatale)
Lee Bradley as Charles Graves (Background character)
Bradley Lee as Ned Henry (Corpse)
Location
After having a reliable cast I decided to go out with my partner and find a suitable filming location for the movie. I explored a few areas around Tamworth for my movie, initially I was thinking of an area near a river which I had visited on a Duke of Edinburgh walk and though would be suitable, however upon revisiting the location I found the ground to be much too wet and sludgy to have any kind of filming equipment or footwear on. I decided to have the location at a nearby nature reserve in Amington, which is very close to the houses of all the actors involved, which made it convenient and the ground was suitable for equipment and footwear. The location is surrounded in many tall trees and quite murky surfaces, there is also a small swamp-like lake on set which will appear in the film as a local landmark in the story, I chose the area because it seemed like a suitable location for a murder crime scene and I felt that It's muddy appearance would invite a dark Film Noir style atmosphere to the movie. (add pictures of location here later)
Production Schedule
Upon having my cast and location sorted I had to find out which days would be suitable to get the footage. I found that the entirety of my cast was available every Sunday for filming, so I scheduled the filming of the movie every Sunday, however in the end I only needed a single day to collect all of the footage required.
Filming Footage and Role Allocation
After having everything ready I started filming in mid November, with myself as the writer, director and later the editor and Tony Cash as the cameraperson who took care of capturing the footage. After having audio problems in our practice recording in October we decided to make use of a voice recorder suspended on a sturdy stick to capture audio better and later overlap it with the footage to get a better audio quality. In addition Tony provided a pop filter for the voice recorded to reduce the risk of background noise. As we pressed record on the camera we suspended the voice recorder close to the actors while still out of shot in order to get decent quality audio capture. After completing all of the footage recording which additionally required audio recordings at the same time we recorded voiceovers off camera to be placed onto scenes later in editing.
Thursday, 7 May 2015
Friday, 1 May 2015
Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In our media
project we did our best to re-create things we've seen in past film noir movies
and develop them into new and different ways to benefit the watching experience.
We did this a number of ways with the narrative, camera work editing and
mise-en-scene as well as some other smaller details. In this evaluation we will
cover how these methods of presenting different forms and conventions in the
older film noir movies and then show how we re-did these methods.
We will first cover
the narrative of a film. This can be done in a few ways, the most common in
film noir movies is to introduce the movie through a narration over the
establishing shots of a movie. This will be done to show of the location in
which the film would take place while also being given some information relating
to the story or the main character. We did use the the narrative approached in
the same way but instead didn't use the a establishing shot of what city it was
in, instead we started at the crime scene but still included the voice over
explaining parts of the story which has lead up to this scene. Not only could
we use this Technic to introduce our movie but we could create a lot of
questions in the viewers minds which engages them in the movie are interests
them in continuing to watch.
A very important
part in creating a film noir movie was its camera work. In film noir movies
there are a lot of low and high camera angels to present power to particular
characters on screen. In our film we wanted to use similar camera angels to show
power in the scenes. We also included shot reverse shot which can be scene in a
lot of other movies including film noir, this shot is to show a conversation
happening between two people standing next to each other. In these shots we are
able to create dialogue between the two which can elaborate more on the story of
the movie connecting the viewer to the movies world.
Q3. What kind of media institution might dispute your media product and why?
Media institution
There are a variety of different kinds of media institutions, ones that publish Movies, games etc. There are however a lot of well known and slightly less popular film institutions that come with every film, and today i want to find out if i can figure out which company would be most fitting and compatible with my film.
When trying to figure out what kind of institution would work best with my film i started with looking at the genre of film first and then finding a institution that would be best known for that kind of genre. When searching, i came across warner brothers which is know for being a very large company that back in the 1940's to 50's era were famous for making film noir movies. Back then these films were cheep and easy to make due to the lack of need for expensive technology and casting. they mainly focused on what kind of atmosphere they could create with the lighting, creating scenes with high and low key lighting to pick out certain things in the shot to direcct the viewer and also hide away some of the set so that they didn't need to spend alot of money on bigger sets. There most well known film noir movies were "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Big Sleep", both well known by it's film noir genre.
This kind of production is simular to what i experienced when creating our film noir movies, even though our's was more modernised in terms of visual quality they are both simular in creation. This kind of studio however because of its boost in popularity over the years has gone on to make more expensive looking and sounding films, costing them way more then their older film noirs ever did. So realistically our film wouldn't fit into there group of films that they create today but would rather fit back into the 40's era. Our film would be more suitable with people fans of old film noir, which warner brothers (Now making more money of other genre's) wouldn't be interested in making even though there is an audience for it, it's just smaller then their average audience.
Smaller companies on the other had would be more interested in staring something for the fans and less for the money. These kinds of companies start of quite small and build there way up so in this part of their lifespan it would be good for them to experiment and find out what suits them the most, what genres and budgets can they can handle and what kind of actors they could work with. Our style of film would be a good place to start, because it isn't around as much as it used to be starting up an older genre would heavily boosted past fans to get excited and push up the popularity of the gerne and hopefully get more people involved so giving our film to a lesser more unknown team, however not making sales straight away, could revive past fans to enjoy the films once more and spread the work of this genre coming back.
Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product? + Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?
Audiences can be different between certain content. There are some that can range up to near most anybody and some that seemed to be more targeted to certain individuals. for example, romantic comedy can be liked by anyone, but these kinds of films are mostly 9 out of 10 aimed at a female audience. Why is this? well it is done by the creaters of the movie because they know that they can get that kind of audience if they create a romantic comedy, so some film institutions create those films because they have an easy audience to target and can keep making those films and bring in the same about of people In short they do it because they know they can make money from targeting that audience.
With film noir there is a specific audience that the film companies can target. With film noir it's mostly males. This is distinguished by the entire planning, making and history of a film noir, an example of this would be introducing an attractive femme fatal into the film that would generally play an undercover role and fall in love with the star actor or seduce them purposes of her own in the film. This introduces a slightly sexist element to a film noir because if it were for a woman then the main character would be female ad she would be seduced by a man so that it would add an element of fantasy for the viewer. Having this genre targeted mostly at a male audience creates a stander for that company when creating this certain genre. Film noir can appeal to anyone but because the common audience is male they would want to include things that usually revolve around what the common male man would like, for example drinking, smoking action. Things like this are included to bring in a male audience and make the film more appealing to them. With our film we wanted to connect with the same kind of audience but who were used to the film noir genre. This kind of audience will be expecting certain films from the movie, common scenes or characters from past film noir movies that they can relate to other films that they have seen thus letting them know and enjoy the film more than other kinds of genre. So by creating characters that have been scene in past film noirs the viewer can understand what roles that can play in the film.
The only problem with targeting a certain audience like this is that it isn't well known how big the audience is because of how specific the group has to be in order to enjoy it, with actions films it opens up the a larger audience that can come from different backgrounds and still enjoy it, with our wanted audience they have to know what film noir is and be know what to expect because of how we've made the film. To stretch our audiences we've tried making the film look more modernised instead of set back in the 1940's like past film noirs. This way we can open it up to an audience that are interested in the older films but with a modern feel. This way we can expect a larger audience to attend watching this film and get more people from other areas interested.
With film noir there is a specific audience that the film companies can target. With film noir it's mostly males. This is distinguished by the entire planning, making and history of a film noir, an example of this would be introducing an attractive femme fatal into the film that would generally play an undercover role and fall in love with the star actor or seduce them purposes of her own in the film. This introduces a slightly sexist element to a film noir because if it were for a woman then the main character would be female ad she would be seduced by a man so that it would add an element of fantasy for the viewer. Having this genre targeted mostly at a male audience creates a stander for that company when creating this certain genre. Film noir can appeal to anyone but because the common audience is male they would want to include things that usually revolve around what the common male man would like, for example drinking, smoking action. Things like this are included to bring in a male audience and make the film more appealing to them. With our film we wanted to connect with the same kind of audience but who were used to the film noir genre. This kind of audience will be expecting certain films from the movie, common scenes or characters from past film noir movies that they can relate to other films that they have seen thus letting them know and enjoy the film more than other kinds of genre. So by creating characters that have been scene in past film noirs the viewer can understand what roles that can play in the film.
The only problem with targeting a certain audience like this is that it isn't well known how big the audience is because of how specific the group has to be in order to enjoy it, with actions films it opens up the a larger audience that can come from different backgrounds and still enjoy it, with our wanted audience they have to know what film noir is and be know what to expect because of how we've made the film. To stretch our audiences we've tried making the film look more modernised instead of set back in the 1940's like past film noirs. This way we can open it up to an audience that are interested in the older films but with a modern feel. This way we can expect a larger audience to attend watching this film and get more people from other areas interested.
Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Over the experience of creating a small film I've learnt a lot in terms of
production film and even planning. this whole project has been a good learning
experience from the start and as helped me improve my skills with all of the
main aspects of making a film.
for planning, this is where i was the most unsure of what to do. i knew
that things such as scripts and storyboards had to be created in order for
everyone involved to know what to say and do but the research part was very new
to me. i particularly enjoyed the part where we had to analyse other media
products such as films to get an idea of how films were made and how editing
was done etc. But, looking at other media really inspired me to want to create.
The main thing i struggled with was writing them down in a way which was
readable, it was a little too easy to over complicate something in ways which
became hard to understand witch was a bad way to start my research, but after
time i managed to simplify my work in the best way possible. Another thing
that i struggled on in the planning area was research on specific parts of the
film like characters, places, costumes, props and other things. This may have
been because i was unfamiliar to the film noir genre so everything felt brand
new and not something i could write of the top of my head so a lot of time was
spent making sure my research was corrupt and could helpful towards my final
product. The part i enjoyed the most was creating a scripted and a storyboard,
even though the one i wrote was not the final one we made i still had a
interesting experience writing on. I learnt a lot about how scripts and
storyboard were written and drawn in a professional way, especially in the
script part. creating the setting in the script and drawing the storyboard alongside
was a new thing that I've done when creating a project like this, it was a good
way to have everything that ended to be done written down so people would know
what they are doing but for seeing improvements that could be made before they
were filmed. deciding on the final idea for the film was easier than
anticipated, we went with the one that was way more practical to film rather
than the version that required more props locations etc. with that however i
learnt how a film could be changed in a way to fit a budget or a set back which
couldn't be over come. It's very easy to have a perfect vision on a project
that you want but actually getting there can be difficult especially through
not having the right thins to fit the job, so creating something more simple is
definitely better of when starting out. hopefully in the future i can
manufacture something that requires something that has a lot to it. Also while
planning it was very important to keep the viewer in mind, forcing your content
around a particular group of people is something i have done before when
creating content but however this time it was for a very different set of
people so this was again quite new to me. Being able to create something and
people who are into the genre enjoy it is a great feet, it was well worth the
research that came with it. We looked at what common things were put into film noir and brought it into our own with a slight modern twist. we ant over the
stereotypical things that made film noir famous to begin with and included them
into our final piece, things like the femme fatal, the suits that the
detectives wear ever right down to the attitude of all the actors. another
thing as well were the actors themselves, picking the right people to play the
write parts was especially important in the planning stage due to wanting to
make the characters believable in every way possible. The actors we chose we
knew well as friends so working with them was very comfortable for people
because working with complete strangers would have made things harder then it
needed to be and could of taken longer as well.
After the planning stage we of course moved onto recording and editing
parts which i had a lot of experience in doing as of working on things similar
to this before. recording was quite easy, we had a lot of help with camera and
audio to make sure everything was done in the best way it could be, we even
created a homemade boom mic stand that could be held under or over near a
character to hear them better. our location was also well picked as it didn't
have a lot of traffic with people disturbing the area allowing for us to have
the whole day to record without stopping for anyone. we were also lucky in
terms of the weather which allowed us to complete our recordings in only a few
days. We didn't have many problems when recording our project, in fact there
was only just one shot we had to re-record and that was it. After all of our
recording was done we went onto the post-production stage which was the editing
of all the videos, adding things like backing tracks, effects etc. This was the
place i was mostly familiar with, editing videos and audio is stuff I've done
before even starting media so this is where i did my best. Even though I'm used
to editing though, i was completely new to the program we used which was called
"Adobe Premiere Pro." This, even though being completely knew to me,
was in fact not hard to learn. It was quite similar to the other program that
I've used before so there weren't that much that i had to learn other that a
few things when waiting to add or remove audio. We first started the editing
with syncing all the audio we collected, because of not being able to connect
the mic straight to the camera we had to sync the audio manually through the
editing software. This was done by syncing up the camera and the voice recorder
when shooting, we had someone stand in front of the camera while it and the
voice recorder was capturing and had them clap. This is similar to what a
clapperboard does which is give the camera a visual and sound that can be
synced up together in editing to match when the recorder and video started
recording. we could have just not used the recorder to record the audio for our
film but we wanted the audio to be the best it could be because bad audio is
one of the main things that puts people of watching a clip. After the audio was
synced for all the clips and in their respective places in the film we started
altering the look of the film. we improved the lighting in some shots by
highlighting and darkening some areas to make parts stand out form one another,
we also added the black and white filter over all the shots in the film to give
it the classic look that the older film noir movies had. Another thing we did
while editing is add music into the background. this was done to make the
scenes where it was just silent less boring as there were a few moments where
they were quite dull without sound.
In Conclusion i have learnt a lot in the process of film making and wish to
try and make something longer, however this time improving in my research and
over all shooting of the shots in the film.
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