Part 8- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Above is my preliminary task of making short clip called 'The Encounter'. This was made right at the beginning of the year and i think i have made a lot of progress since then in terms of my use of digital technology, creativity and post production.

In my preliminary task i think there was quite a bit of it that was successful in terms of camera work and shot types especially as it had been quite long since i had held a camera and my knowledge on everything was a bit rusty.The idea was originally my partner Kieran's idea however i did direct it and did come up with the shots and when we should use techniques such as match on action. The match on action and the POV shot worked quite well in my opinion. The match on action is shown below. This is seen at 00:11.

The match on action on the left was seen at 00:11 in my preliminary task whilst on the right is the match on action used in my BSR opening sequence at 01:24. The match on action used in the BSR was much more fluid and shows that in terms of editing i have improved quite a bit. We had used the same programme to edit on meaning my skills on iMovie had improved a lot since the first time i used it. Also when we edited in the BSR we had matched it well with music and everything was timed. There was more research and planning that went into our BSR opening sequence as we had much more time to use wisely. If we hadn't had done our preliminary task then our BSR would not have been as good as it is right now.

360 track going around the table

The creativity aspect in this task was done quite well as our time limit on this was around a minute only and to fit in a whole meet and dialogue and different camera shots is quite a bit, so when it came to creativity it worked as we only used specific shots that were essential to the piece and we also used two shots at 00:44 where Kieran was ordering the food and then we cut to my facial expression whilst he continued talking. This was pretty creative as it showed my reaction as well as still being able to hear Kieran. We had done this by filming Kieran talking and then filming my expression whilst he talked but he had to use the same tone. Also the fact that thinking of this idea was quite easy as it actually was based on a true story that happened to me. This carried on throughout to when making the BSR as i had original ideas to incorporate into the production which made it more creative such as the 360 track which happened in the first minute of production.

The skills we had to use on iMacs and the programmes on it had improved greatly as in the BSR we used different programmes like Livetype and we also used different transitions; but as we had used the main programme iMovie before we were more used to it and this helped us a lot when it came to time as we did not have to learn everything again when making the BSR. Also making the preliminary task showed us how boring it can really be when you do not add a variety of camera angles. Due to this in my BSR we did take camera angles into account which made it more interesting. This was seen at 01:33.

Low angle shot used in my BSR to show superiority.

We were more free to do what we wanted in the encounter as the brief wasn't as strict as we weren't limited in the genre section but we still conformed to the BSR conventions. All the shots and editing used in the preliminary task were very abrupt and tacky when they were not supposed to be. However in my final BSR product everything was done more professionally and we conveyed the emotion we need to put over to the audience via the editing and camera shots.

Next year i would set a target for myself of making sure i film earlier rather than later as this time around everything was tight as we had filmed a week before deadline day so we need to make a plan and actually stick to it.

Part 7- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Part 6- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Part 5- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I have done many things to represent the particular social group of young teenagers who are involved in the drug world and how certain situations can be within that social group. In my production i did this by using some of the conventions for a BSR film.

Camera, Angle, Shot Movement and Position

I had used a variety of camera shots in the opening sequence, one being a low angle shot seen at 1:39.

Low angle shot of the boss. 1:39

The low angle connotes the superiority that the boss has in this scene. You can denote everything he is doing from the waist up which is good as you can see the gun and his facial expression. This all shows his authoritarian figure within the opening sequence. Also the low angle shot shows that he is dominating the camera as he takes up most of it and he looks bigger than the camera. This conforms the conventions of a BSR film because in the majority of BSR films the 'bully' is seen to be the one with the authority.

360 pan showing all three characters including protagonist Chas

At 1:30 a high angle is shown of the protagonist and the supporting actor. This connotes to the audience that they are the victims and they all look patronised . This can represent the social group of what impact the drug boss has on the little minor drug dealers. It also shows all the characters in a way to anchor what position they stand it when it comes to authority.

High angle shot of the protagonist and supporting actor. 1:30

This 360 pan shows three characters. It shows two supporting actors and the protagonist. The 360 pan allows the audience to see the characters one by one and let them have insight into each of the characters. There are two characters that are represented as typical drug dealers as they are happy in their lifestyle and then you have the protagonist who subverts the stereotype of a typical drug dealer as he is trying to get out of the situation. This is a representation of the character in a way that it is showing us that there are people that want to change who they are even people are pressuring them.

Editing

When we were doing the editing, it came together quite nicely. There were some bits that really flowed well whilst some bits were not so good but it still had that fluidity. Towards the end when the action sequence began, the editing became consistent and this was when the intensity increased. At the end everything matched properly such as the sequence and the music. The pace of the editing at the end represented social groups in a way of how intense things get when you get on the wrong side of people. Teenagers are normally seen to be going through these sort of things in the experimental age when they get on the wrong side of the law. So these frequent cuts that occur at then end show the intensity of that situation. This can then relate to the teenagers on the wrong side of the law. At the beginning however everything was a bit slower as there were longer takes and they lasted around 20-30 seconds long. Also at the beginning we did not just cut all the time as we did in the second minute of our opening sequence. In the first minute we had used fades. The fades however are only to be used in different time periods which we had. These transitions that we used were the only ones we could have used as no other transition would have fit.  We also implemented match on action which gets the audience more immersed into the production. This makes it more fluent.  Up on the right you can see two shots which we linked together to make it fluid.

Iconography

When we did the editing we had a time lapse in the first minute of when a conversation happened and then a rich item was shown and then another conversation then another item. The items being shown were iconic items as it showed the status of the character. This also represent the teenage social group, especially the ones in gangs.

Gun and money

Hugo Boss watch

Louis Vuitton belt

These three things are the main iconic pieces we have in our opening sequence which can really represent teenagers in this day and age because at the moment all teenagers really want is to look the best and above everyone else so they will buy all the most expensive things to get their status. The gun and the money icon can relate to the teens involved in gangs because they may actually have to deal with that and there is a huge danger being involved in this sort of business.

Mise-en-scene

We had to make sure everything to do with mise-en-scene was set out properly such as the props, costumes, lighting and actors. We had to make sure everything we did was as realistic as it possibly could be, meaning all our props had to look as real as possible. The cigarette we used was a real cigarette and the gun was a BB gun and the cocaine was flour. All of this added to the realism makes the audience more immersed and it doesn't take anything away form the production. 

The two supporting actors are wearing jogging bottoms and hoodies which is typical of characters in a BSR film and typical of teenagers in this day and age. This contrasts with what the protagonist wore which was jeans and a jacket which is very generic. This shows him as a outcast. The boss however wore designer watches,belts and t-shirts showing his status and his worth. This relates to the social groups of higher class people who can afford and wear designer clothing. 

 Sound

When the sound came into play we were quite pressed for time and we ended up with just downloading copyright free music which actually worked with our production. It portrayed different moods throughout the production from beginning to end. We had to put it through the whole thing otherwise it wouldn't be as interesting and it drags down the mood. There was only one section where we took out the music and that was at the end. This worked because it made more suspense and drama making the audience ask more question. We did however add music later that was diagetic and then turns into non-diagetic sound which worked amazingly well. The type of music we had to use was upbeat grime music because this will then relate to our target audience. 

When it came to dialogue there was a lot of things that was said that could relate to the social group of teenagers. They use slang and they talk down to people that they think are beneath them. This is what the stereotype is for youths in this time period. You can tell this is meant for that social group as no one else in any other class would understand the slang being used. An example of this is when Jay said "You hear about that ting i was doin?" This shows his view upon women as he refers to women as 'tings'. Also the fact that everyone didn't question what he said shows they understood his slang. 

Typography

The typography we have chosen can actually say a lot about our production. The colour is very important as it contrasts with the background but also as it is called 'Class A' , the white can represent cocaine. Also the fact that all the letters are cracked is like the powder being cracked up and even shows foreshadowing and metaphors of how life is after doing drugs which is the main theme of our opening sequence. This represents the same social class of teens as this is when they are experimenting really with drugs and other things in life.

Expressionism

We had to use ambient lighting which added realism 'to the production. It adds to the gritty side because if some place is dark then it will be dark. There would be no artificial lighting. This is typical of a BSR. Thecan relate to any social group. 

Part 4- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Part 3- What impact did the media institution Film4 have on each production stage and why?

Part 2- Who would be the audience for your product?

Part 1- Brief

This project began by looking at what we actually had to make our project towards a brief that was set to us. The brief acts like a guideline for our project and we have to follow it. It tells us such things such as who our opening sequence is aimed for and what company we are making it for. The brief has stated:

You have been approached by Film 4 to make a new British Social Realist film aimed at British 16-24 year olds. To give Film 4 an idea of how your film will develop they have asked you to produce the first two minutes of the film, providing a clear sense of the graphical, editing and musical style your film will use. To protect Film 4’s reputation as a leader in British cinema the film must conform to the conventions of the Social Realist genre, and meet all audience expectations for this type of film. Finally, to keep costs low, all visual and audio material used in the film must be entirely original, with the exception of stock sound effects.

My opening sequence did meet the brief as it is clearly directed at 16-24 year olds. This was directed at this audience mainly via the themes that we had portrayed in the opening sequence. We explored typical BSR themes of drugs, violence and corruption of youth. These theme can relate to this target audience as between the ages of 16-24 it is more likely to start experimenting with things, such as drugs. Also the people in that age range are more likely to develop their own sort of language made up of abbreviations and slang which also incorporates a lot of swearing. This makes it relatable to the themes of corruption of youth. Violence is an ongoing thing in the world but it mostly has been stereotyped to people who are within that age range. So all these themes that we have explored can relate to the audience in one way or another. These themes are also explored in successful BSR movies such as This is England.

This is England showing a little kid swearing- Corruption of Youth

The title of our production was 'Class A' . This has various connotations but the main one playing along with the main theme of drugs throughout my opening sequence. As class A is where all the big drugs are such as cocaine. The other connotations of this title is do with social groups and this can connote that class A is being at the top of that social group and being successful. In our opening sequence success is to do with drugs, just how the boss is shown to be wealthy. Also to do with social class it goes along with the narrative as the characters are all middle to lower class characters that are trying to escape into a higher class of people. Below you can see that one of the characters are wearing a very expensive belt suggesting that his line of business has let him afford that and he is living the Class A lifestyle.

Boss wearing Louis Vuitton belt- 01:02

That is the main things that my title can connote really, drugs and social classes. But this does suggest more themes of escape and such.

Our title

When the opening sequence begins 3 conversations are going on between three characters , one being the protagonist. In the middle of these conversations you can see specific rich items on the antagonist as he is walking towards the location. With all this being done in the first minute the audience can establish who each character is and what they look like as well as how they talk and dress and find out what situation they are in at that current moment of time. In that first minute it really establishes the plot of the movie when the protagonist,Chas, says he doesn't want to sell drugs anymore. This sets up the protagonist's story line throughout. As the second minute begins the boss is then shown (the antagonist). He comes in shouting and waving a gun about. This shows he's a bit psychotic and also a statement made by one of the characters saying "oh he's here, you're gonna get fucked' states the authority of the boss. As soon as he enters all the conversations stop and it is silent and the characters then proceed to give the money they have earned to the boss for selling the drugs. The fact that the boss did not even ask for the money shows that the characters are willing to just hand it over with no issues once again stating where he actually stands. The boss then hands them a bag of cocaine saying he is care free as he handling serious drugs,but he keeps them in his pocket as he walks around. The protagonist does not deliver any money as he has not sold any drugs and the boss gets angry and Chas runs out with the boss getting more psychotic and following him out. The screen then goes black in synchronization with the gunshot which leads the audience to believe that Chas has been shot. Watching on, you see Chas walking into school leading the audience to ask questions of what actually happened.  

Boss chasing Chas- 01:45

This opening was done correctly as the brief had clearly stated it had to be a BSR opening sequence meaning we had to include conventions of a BSR opening sequence. We included a smash mouth opening which engages the audience. This is typical of a BSR because a BSR film that also delivers a smash mouth opening is Trainspotting. We also used super imposed graphics which is another convention of an opening sequence. We placed our opening credits in such places that it was easy to read and we made it big enough to see. Enigma was placed near the end of out opening sequence which is another convention of a BSR opening sequence. We did this by making the audience believe that a character had been shot but then seeing that same character in the next scene. It makes the audience as questions. These are just three of the conventions that can be denoted in our opening sequence. We had engaging music, we introduced characters and introduced the themes of the movie. As we have used a variety of conventions it shows that we were successful in making an opening to a BSR film. 

The themes we have explored in our BSR are: drugs, violence, corruption of youth, escape.
At 01:20 of my opening sequence you can see the themes of drugs being portrayed. Below you can see the themes of drugs in Trainspotting and in my opening sequence- Class A.

Trainspotting- Using heroin

Class A-01:20-Boss sniffing drugs

Trainspotting is all about drugs and how life is with drugs and without. It shows the positives as well as the negatives. Drugs is the main theme in that BSR. Our BSR is very similar to this film as the main theme that runs through our opening sequence is drugs as well.  You can see that the boss is sniffing his bag of cocaine as he handing it over to one of his dealers to go and sell to the people. This shows that he is the boss and it shows that he can get access to the class A drugs whenever he pleases as he pull it out of his pocket like its sweets. As this is similar to Trainspotting, it shows that drugs is a typical theme is BSR movies which makes our one successful .

You can also see the theme of violence in a successful BSR such as Kidulthood and my then looking at violence in my opening sequence. At 01:51 you can see the boss holding his gun ready to shoot someone.

Kidulthood- Exploring themes of violence

Class A-01:51-Boss holding up gun

In Kidulthood violence is emphasized through certain objects which are weapons such as bats and guns. We have done the same thing by emphasizing violence through holding a very serious weapon and pointing it down the road. This also tells the audience more about the character committing the act of violence. The fact that the boss is about to shoot someone when there are houses and cars around shows it is a public area and it is not isolated yet he still does not care and he will still hold the gun up in plain sight.

Class A-01:46-Chas running away

At 01:46 you can clearly see the theme of escape as the protagonist is running away which is similar to what the main theme of Fish Tank is.

Fish Tank- Her vision to escape

Fish Tank got its name metaphorically as the movie shows a young girl trying to escape out her world and go into dancing. It is just like a fish trying to escape its tank. This means the main theme in Fish Tank is aspiration and escape. In my BSR Chas says he doesn't want to sell drugs anymore and later on he runs out of the door away from the boss, running away from the drugs. This shows our use of the theme of escape.

Production log 18

When we started all our pre-production which was all the planning everything was working very smoothly. Our call sheets, script, reccies were on point but as soon as filming started everything had started to slack off a little bit due to the fact that we couldn't stick to filming times and we had to re-film quite a lot. Even though in the middle there was a bit of an off moment; at the end of production everything had come together nicely and we were back on track again.

In this project I have contributed quite a bit as i was the director of the opening sequence and i had Kieran film the first half of it whilst i filmed the second half. Even though Kieran filmed the first half i had taken the initiative to tell him how i wanted it to happen and he did deliver. Also whilst Kieran was editing the opening sequence i was looking over it and telling him what i thought and if i had any ideas on what more could be cut off or what order the shots could be in. Filming was the major thing i really contributed in whilst Kieran had taken charge in editing. Jay had contributed by providing suitable music for the production.

Our group as a whole did function adequately however we did have to base our filming schedule around our actors as they were not a part of the group and we needed them more than they needed us. Due to this we had to make our schedule on their day but Jay had other commitments he had to make and this delayed us for a little while but this was not a major issue as at the end our opening sequence became successful.

A good thing when doing this project was the actual filming as every time we did film it happened quite efficiently. Every time we re-filmed we had to re-film the whole entire opening sequence in that one day and the results that came out after each filming session were decent. On the last time we re-filmed it was the best quality of footage and most of that made it into the final cut. When filming there were no arguments which was good and this was due to the fact that everyone knew their roles so they let each other get on with it. To improve i think i could have done everything much more quicker and we should have really prepared ourselves for the shortage in time.

Production log 17

Sound editing wasn't that much of a big issue but it did cause problems in post-production. We were not able to duck the sound on iMovie properly as we did not that the most updated version. We wanted to fade the sound in and out and then duck it to allow sound perspective but as this option wasn't functional in the version of iMovie that we had we were unable to do it. Due to this issue we had to then improvise. The main editor (Kieran) had figured out a new way to be able to do it. He had overlapped the same soundtrack and edited both tracks precisely. He made one of the tracks more quiet whilst making the other one louder so it gave the crescendo effect.  This worked quite well as it was used in a scene where the music starts from quiet and then gets louder when the protagonist, Chas, puts his headphones in. Other than this there was no other real major issue when it came to sound.

Options in iMovie

Production log 16

Due to the fact that we had to re-film our opening sequence more times than we actually had intended we did not get a a lot of time to actually edit our work. With this being said we couldn't make our work up to the full standards that we would have liked. However our final cut did make it to the deadline and it was a satisfying, successful opening sequence and we were pleased with our final product.

Once we had finished filming and editing we had to then get it reviewed by our peers from which we gained several pieces of feedback. When our final product did get reviewed we had gathered that overall they had said that we should take out some cuts that were in between shots as they were unnecessary and had to meaningful role in the production. We then actually did this and we found this feedback to improve our work as less cuts meant that the opening sequence would be more dramatic and it adds to the suspense and makes it more interesting for the audience.

One piece of feedback received

JNK- Class A

Production log 15

This week there were a lot of issues that my group and I had to deal with. The main issue we had to deal with was the fact we had to re-film the whole thing again. It was the main issue but we knew exactly how to overcome it as we already had a mental visualization of what we actually wanted our production to look like. There were minor things that we had to re-film such as different angles and things but the main thing we had to re-film the beginning bit again and do the 360 track as well as adding close ups of the boss to show his status.

A close up of the Louis Vuitton belt

Eventually after we re-filmed the whole opening sequence for the third time but after we had done it we were proud due to the fact that we have now had a lot of shots in our library so we had a bigger selection to choose from to match things together. We finally got the right shots and pieced them together to the final cut. 

Production log 13 & 14

This week we had started filming and we had come across many key issues when we did film. One of the key issues was trying to replicate a scene at different angles. We had done this to be able to cut between dialogue but the issue caused was in one scene it would go fine but when we had to re-film the exact same scene, there were props in different places and the character's voice had been different so we knew that it would be difficult to edit. Due to this we had tried to re-film the scenes again but the lines had been forgotten as well as the mode of address making it a big issue in the filming.

Another issue was filming outside as one of our shots had consisted of a tracking shot of the protagonist running down the street. The issue with this was the fact that the cameraman had to run faster than the protagonist in the scene and capture his face as well as not shaking that much. This was difficult especially when we had attached the camera to a track. This made it more difficult because the pavement was uneven making the camera shake much more than it should. This made it very unclear to see what was happening in the scene and also due to the weather a lot of rain kept falling on the lens of the camera making it hard to see what we had tried to film.

We had also felt that it didn't flow as much when watching it back on the camera but this may be due to the fact that it hasn't been edited. We also had to keep our eye on the time because we had to stick to our schedule and the schedule had revolved around each actor so we had to be prompt with it. In the next week we had decided to film the last scene again. This was easy for us as it wasn't time consuming at all and it probably was the best scene shot in the whole production.

Our protagonist running whilst tracking him, had to re-film this multiple times

Production log 12

The decisions we had to make when it came to the typography were not that difficult as BSR graphics are not normally super imposed and they are just simple graphics. We had to estimate the size they should be by imagining where on screen it should go and how well it would show up on the movie. We also had to decide the font and the colour and when we did this we had to again imagine where in the scene it will go. At the end we had stuck to a plain white colour and a very simple font. We think this will be very visible to the audience and very simple to read. As it is simple to read it gives us the advantage to put the duration of the graphics at quite fast. This is typical of the BSR genre.

To research on how the graphics should be we looked at past student's work and we saw how they did it. We then looked at their grade to see if what they did was correct. From this we got inspiration of ideas on how to do our graphics and it let us know what not to do when placing the graphics. We then looked at proper BSR films and how they did their graphics. As these were proper films it gave us a proper insight on the graphics should be done and once we had watched multiple BSR graphics we had gathered the conventions of what the graphics should be like. From this we then conformed to the conventions and made simplistic graphics.

Different screen stills from the opening of Trainspotting

Above is an example of the graphics used in a typical BSR known as Trainspotting even though these are super imposed graphics.