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Evaluation Question 7

This is our evaluation for the question: What have you learnt from looking back at your preliminary task?
Topics of discussion within our evaluation:

- Planning was a major factor in producing a media product

- The importance of taking more than one shot when filming for the editors peace of mind

- Realising that the lack in planning resulted in a sloppy schedule and unproductivity

- Careful scripting is a must when you have dialogue although we didnt have much to say in our final cut

- That its better to leave out filters if they look to cheesy or deminish what they are trying to achieve in the first place

- If planning isnt up to standard, some improvisation would have to be done

- The importance of proper casting

- There aren't enough of us to shoot, direct, produce, edit and star in our product

- What we can do next time

- How its important to keep to the filming rules (match on action)

- The importance of keeping up good continuity whether it be video or audio

- Making sure the video stays the same resolution and size throughout

- An appropriate timeline planning task is crucial to a successful media product

- Not enough time was allocated to editing

- The importance of test screenings

- How editing can completely change how the narrative pans out for the audience

Evaluation Question 6

This is our evaluation for the question: What have you learnt about technologies while working on your product?
Topics of disscusion within our evaluation:

- How well we got on with working with cameras

- How difficult it was to create match on action

- Why big film institutions find it easier than we and other small film institutions to create these effects as they have expendable money s that they can invest in two cameras for instance

- The amount of re-shoots needed to get enough quality footage to use in our final cut

- Explinations of some shots that were effective but not crucial to our product

- How from all of the time spent filming our shots got better with practice

- How even though we had lots of incredible technologies we still couldnt manage to create some shots

- Problems we faced in editing in the form of continuity errors

- How the enviroment created problems for us when filming

- Other technologies we tried and failed to make our audio more polished

- How we created an effective title sequence and where we went wrong at first

- Other media texts that werent so successful in their title sequences

- Post production techniques we tried which lost its effectiveness and made it hard to read

- How we used the title sequence to our advantage

- Problems we faced with using filters

- Where effects from other media texts inspired us

- Drawbacks with technology and its download time

Continue watching our super long technology question evaulation video in part 2:



Continuing on:

- How different editing programs are easier to use than others

- Whether it was better to have a program that was easier to use or one that had a lot more options and effects to use

- Its good to have a backup save to all your work as we found out the hard way

- How you cant always rely on technologies to work in your favour

- That we wanted our product to have its own independant soundtrack

- That unless your a composer it is very hard to layer music on top of each other to make it sound worthy of our product

- Things we did to make our soundtrack sound as proffessional as possible

- Our initial ideas for our soundtrack were scrapped because of the difficulties that would have stood in our way had we tried to complete them

- Other little sound effects that we tried to input but just made our product look unproffessional

- Problems we faced when editing our product and the audio not fitting

- Unplanned successes when dealing with our audio

- Some effects that we tried to achieve but the technology held us back from doing so

- Restrictions our low budget equipment had on our directing and filming

Evaluation Question 5

This is our evaluation for the question: How do we address/attract our audience?
Topics of discussion whithin our evaluation:

- Technologies that allowed our product to be viewed by many and receive feedback and queries

- Audience feedback

- Post production effects put into our product that helped the audience understand the plot better

- How our audience felt about our storyline

- Problems with effects that we used in our product that confused rather than helped explain

- How from our first draft we introduced a third character to help the audience understand that there was actually someone chasing the daughter

- How we introduced filters into our product to represent a difference between the two storylines

- Extra shots that in retrospective we could have shown to ellaborate the the audience that one of the main themes in our product was indeed kidnap

- Fades introduced to indicate ellipsises and to cover up any mistakes in our office scene

- Shots we introduced to show to the audience the father daughter relationship in the office scene

- Shots, audio and other techniques we left out from our final cut because of our feedback

I DO APOLOGISE FOR HANI'S INTERUPTIONS TO ALL OF US IN THIS VIDEO, THIS QUESTION WAS OBVIOUSLY SOMETHING HE WAS PASSIONATE ABOUT.

Evaluation Question 4

This is our evaluation for the question: Which audiences would be the most likely to consume our film?
Topics of discussion within our evaluation:

- The initial age range of audiences that might watch our product

- How the characters in our product would relate to certain audiences

- How our genre and the themes within our product woud relate to different audiences

- Representations of characters in our product that were contemorary from modern day society

- More themes introduced including the struggles of parenthood and how that would relate to audiences

- That our product might receive a large audience due to the existing audiences for crime thrillers

- That our product can easily relate to audiences by being a used and easy concept (kidnap), but still has the complicated plot that crime thriller fans love

- Themes that effect people from media that we have incorporated into our product

- How our product promotes realism but is still interesting

Evaluation Question 3

This is our evaluation of the question: What sort of media institution might distribute our product?
Topics of discussion within our evaluation:

- Whether or not our product would warrant a big media institution's interest

- How we should distribute our product (if we should extend our distribution to American cinemas)

- What we should do with our product should it do well in cinemas

- If the genre of our film would warrant a big institutions interest

- Similar media products that have been produced and distributed by smaller institutions

- The evolution and expansion of our product

- How themes in our product would point us towards warranting a smaller institutions interest

- How our feedback would suggest that we should promote our product to a smaller institution

- What our product would be looking to achieve (popularity or awards)

- The extent that if we were distributed by a smaller institution how many cinemas we could get out product into

- If our product would relate and be successful in American cinemas

- If a clever choice of director would effect our films success

Evaluation Question 2

This is our evaluation of the question: How does our media product represent particular social groups?
Topics of discussion within our evaluation:

- Where the idea for our project title came from

- Themes our main characters express like over-working parents and drink

- How the themes our characters represent relate to people in reality

- How we have shown the relationship between our characters and how that can relate

- Effects we have used to show to the audience how the characters relate to eachother

- How the characters in our product stick fairly closely to sterotypes of characters in most crime thrillers

- Why we didnt spend much time focusing on the representations of our characters

- Taking more time on our characters back stories rather than how she was shown to the audience

- Older techniques we tried to use, but eventually cut from the final cut that would have represented the characters in our product more indepth

- Problems we faced about the representation of our characters from inadequate casting (the father/detective not looking old enough)

- How we tried to represent our kidnapper as a threat to the daughter

- Effects that we used to try and separate our kidnapper from kidnappers from other cime thriller products

- The social classes of our characters

Evaluation Question 1

This is our evaluation of the question: How does our media product challenge other forms and conventions of other media products?
Topics of discussion within our evaluation:

- Where our media product gets its inspirations and ideas from

- Editing effects that separates our video from others of the same genre and the incorporation of other media to create our product

- How our media product has brought the old crime thriller genre up to date

- How we have taken content from contemporary media to suit our product to a modern audience

- Examples of other media products that have the same concepts that we have in our product

The Preliminary Task

This was the preliminary task that we had to do before we did our final cut of Misunderstood. We were given the genre of film which we had to portary which was a spy. We brainstormed ideas on the day and we had a draft of what we were going to do. Now that we have finished it of course looking back i can safely say that we would have needed more planning to go into our work. This shows of course in the project we then did 'Misunderstood' that we did more planning. Because of this it is understandable now why we had to do this before the full version of the course otherwise not enough planning would have been done.
   The whole process that we took on the perliminary task was short, we planned it on one day, what we would need and where we were going to film, the next day there was a lack of communication which resulted in the props needed not being used, so instead improvised and filmed only a part of it, the third day we finished the filming and made a start on the editing, which was then finished on the fourth, this shows how rushed our work was.

By Hani Matter

The Evolution Of Our Ideas

From the offset we decided we wanted and offcentre project that was completely different, as we delved deeper into our project it became clear it would be hard to make every detail different than other films and it was difficult to subvert some genres. This meant that certain themes and representation in our film were fairly stereotypical of similar crime thrillers.
Other things such as filming permission also got in the way of our filming and stunted how much creativity we had with our  project. For instance our first ideas for the setting for our crime thriller was in an unpopular car park in the middle of Weston, a certainty for damp, dingy and decrepped; exactly the three qualities we were looking for in a setting. The only problem was that this car  park in particular wasnt public property and needed filming permission slip so that we cold film there. We were ill informed of this and decided to film as and when we could to put our project together. This was a big mistake and it dawned to us that to make a polished and professional piece of work you need time; time for planning and almost definately time for filming. Not having enough time for either of these led to our fist project which was less than the perfect finished piece. On the first scheduled filming time we left the video camera behind and led us to improvise some still pictures which although greatly improved the audiences understanding of our film wasnt what media is all about and starting a film with pictures of a rebellious daughter made it look like little less than a simplistic animatic.

Also this lack of time led to everyones timing schedules overlapping and amaking filming hard as everyone was doing different things at different times meaning we could only film one persons scenes rather than creating a crafted piece.
This problem also led to our group having to do 5 re-takes which put a strain on everyones relationships and it looked as if the project would have never have been finished, but with a few minor adjustments and opinions being taken on board from actors we managed to film everything we needed to. The only problem was the continuity, mise en scene, lighting, the environment itself and the fact that with the new ideas on board our project had lost its creative flair and was looking less independant and ou there, these made problems for me (Joe), the editor. Its hard to make two clips look like a smooth piece when they are in two different lights, two different times of day, with actors in two different sets of clothes and the wind muffling dialogue. This was absolute hell for me. This prompted another re-shoot in which we started everything again. One of the best decisions made over the course of this project by far!
In this new re-shoot we kept the same plot apart from a couple of alterations such as the removal of Sophie (the daughter) falling over which had creating intense problems for me before. Instead we introduced the losing of a piece of clothing; a scarf. Here you can clearly see the continuity error.

This creating a new project also made us find a new setting as the NCP was an extreme annoyance. We decided upon the Sovereign Centre staircase and although it was much more modern and clean, lots of the elements that had hindered us before were eradicated by this move. The practicality of the staircase was probably the best improvement. Problems with moving could be the loss of some of the connotations of crime thrillers, an unfortunate loss of mood and atmosphere for the audience, but not necessarily a loss in drama. Although we did have to get rid of the clips where the daughter falls over because our project would have looked fake and unproffessional.
In our previous film we were told its plot was a little complicated and the main theme of kidnap was lost. In our new film we introduced a villain; hidden as much as possible from the audience of course, but we put a sin city like filter on the already black and white filter on the daughters chase scenes showing it was in the past and gave emphasis to the kidnapper. Although this effect may have confused the audience rather gaining the desired effect.
Instead what we should have done was to insert a clip of the duaghter (sophie) getting a bag put over her head, a must for any kidnapping story.

Construction - The Final Cut Of Misunderstood

This is our final cut and remastered version of misunderstood our media project. Our film opening isnt without its problems, so far as saying that some of the effects didnt work as well as i would have liked, a few blips in the soundtrack and a complicated plot that can be hard to understand. Overall i believe this is our best edit and is worthy of the final cut logo.

Rebellious Daughter Stills Pictures For Intro

These were our initial ideas for our rebellious daughter intro pictures, we wanted to show the daughter as the rebellious type, who goes against her fathers orders. These photos would go in conjunction with the audio of the argument between the daughter and father/detective.

                                        Kissing older boys

                                        Getting drunk

                                        Smoking

                                        Drugs

                                        Vandalism

                                        and violence

Illustrated by Joe Lyndon

Diary Entry 14/02/11

During our 3rd and 4th re shoot we were kicked off the NCP and the Sovereign center. As we did not have permission to shoot we were told by the guards we had to leave, causing us not to be able to finish our shooting which led us to a 5th re shoot. This has caused problems like continuity errors such as positioning, lighting and appearance. the shooting also took a while due to many people in the background which also led to background noise which was not needed and led to more reshooting. Also our actors found it hard to work and perform certain tasks, e.g. not being able to fall over correctly on Que, and the fact that they were nervous acting in front of an audience.

Diary Entry 09/02/11

The re-shoot didn't go as planned. There were loads of problems once again although the continuity wasn't the least of problems, mainly because you couldn't see any of it. We went to the NCP to re-shoot everything again but the stairwell lights didn't turn back on ending in VERY dark shots.
Also the sound quality isn't brilliant this time, especially as there was a whole group of people chatting below us.  Finally as we approached the roof of the NCP we were stopped by the security guards there who said we would need filming permission which is something we had no idea we needed and weren't told about before we went out filming. This was a major blow to our plans and instead of filming in the NCP we thought it might be a good idea to re-shoot in a different location, the sovereign centre stairwell which is always lit brightly and was our second location choice anyway Most importantly we don't need permission to film there. Another re-shoot is definitely in order.

The Rough Cut of Listen To Me!

This is our first draft for our crime thriller opening scene Listen To Me!



At the moment there are many problems with our first draft.
Firstly and most importantly it has been stated by our tester audiences that the two time frames in our film are very hard to separate and it looks as if the detective is chasing the daughter rather than the detective arriving after the crime scene to investigate. To combat this we might have to dismiss our hatred of cliche effects and use a sepia or a desaturation filter effect on the daughter scenes.
To combat misleading the audiences into thinking this is just a father and daughters misunderstanding, we will need to insert a couple of quick shots of her pursuer, but not to give away his identity. It has been understood from most horror and thriller films that by not showing the baddie until later the film is more intense because along with the scares they give the illusion of the unknown which everyone is scared of.
Another thing i found out about our film was that the continuity is not great.
For instance from 1:07 to 1:09 the daughter changes knee on which she falls upon etc.
Another thing is that the acting is not brilliant from the daughter in certain places (losing her shoe) which means that we will have to reshoot, unfortunately to get that scene perfect she will have to change her costume, which in turn forces us to reshoot the whole film. This will also effects our use of props and our detective shots. A definate rethink and shoot needed.
One last thing that is bothering me is that it is hard to recognise that our detective is in fact 'a detective'. This is because rather than putting in our office scene which establishes our detectives character weput our improvised our picture animatic with an audio argument alongside. We may have to completely scrap our animatic and switch it for the unfilmed office scene.

Final Title

After we collaborated with the rest of the group and actors we all agreed on the title 'Listen To Me' as it represented our film as exactly what it was, a father and daughters' struggle to get along.
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *
After our final cut was achieved we realised that 'Listen To Me!' wasnt the best choice for our film as it didnt really fit with what our film opening was trying to relate to the audience. We realised that the theme of kidnapping was much more apt with most of the emphasis of the opening scene being taken up by the chase and kidnapping scene. Also without the argument audio in the background the audience weren't supposed to know so much about the relationship between the father (detective) and daughter and we left it for the audience to infer for themselves. The show not tell rule.

Title Ideas

Ideas for our opening scene film title!

Kidnap

Father and daughter relations

Resentment

Rebellious

Misunderstood

Depression

Frustration

Desperation

Emotion

Revolt

Exclusion

Anger

Running

Escape

Worry

Argumentative

Detective

Work and home life

Separation

Taken

The staircase

Ascent

Redemption

Adversary

Reflection

Over protection

Defence

Defy

Alone

Possible Titles

The Descent to Desperation

The Worrier

The Misunderstood

Misunderstood

Daughters’ Defiance

A Fathers’ Desperation

Separating Work and Life

Exclusion

A Worthy Adversary

The Revolutionary

Against the Tide

Dare To Escape

Feeling Far Away

The Unforgiving Daughter

The Forgotten daughter

Losing Her

Unguarded One

Hatred

You’re Past Protection

Problem child

Listen To Me 

Ideas On the Soundrack

These are just a few sountrack ideas i cooked up at home!
The first video is a soundtrack idea for our office/intro

In the second i have made a more rocky soundtrack that i think would fit in well with our chase scene

The Intro Animation Pictures

Violence

Drinking alcahol

Hanging around on street corners

Antisocial behaviour, vandalism

We wanted the daughter to be portrayed as an antisocial, rebellious drop out.

Diary Entry 30/01/11

Today was the day we had arranged for filming. Unfortunately we were too busy in updating the blog and finishing the storyboard work that we forgot to pick up the camcorder on the friday.
Forunately this forced me to improvise and i realised that if we had just the two scenes we had storyboarded then our opening scene would have probably only lasted for about 2 minites at the most.
Then while i was watching a James Bond film with a really good animiation for the title, it provoked me to invent some sort of interesting introduction to our title.
I wanted the idea to be as original as possible and i realised that actual computer animation would have been impossible as noone in our group had an animating program.
Then i thought we could extend the knowledge about the daughter to the audience further by linking a series of pictures of the daughter being rebellious and going against her dads (detectives) wishes. The effect of the pictures of the daughter being rebellious are stills will portray to the audience that they were taken in the past. Also to make our pictures have some original qualities to them i have only taken them looking at only the trousers. This will make the audience relate to pictures that are taken of antisocial behaviour which rarely show the faces of the purpertrator. The daughter will now be seen as a social drop-out.
Along with these pictures we can fade in and out our opening credits and then finally we can end the picture with the title.

Location Scouting: Dolphin Square

 Our last location we looked at was Dolphin Square, this location was quite good although due to it being outside there was lots of wind, ruining audio for the final film. Lighting was good, although it would all depend on the weather that day.

This shot would be good to use as we could show the daughter running up all of the flights of stairs. We could have a long shot while slowly zooming in.

The place was quite run down which is what we were aiming for but overall I think the other two locations would be better to use.

Location Scouting-Sovereign Centre

Now that we had a strong contender for our chase scene, it would be hard to find any more adequate places to shoot. There were a few problems with the NCP however, such as the rooftops being open to the elements and the generator being permenantly under repair.

The next place that had some great staircases and rooftop was the soveriegn centre. It had an interesting enterance to the staircase which would be great for a tracking shot, sweeping round the corner into the large set of stairs.

One of the greatest advantages of filming in the soveriegn centre was the fact that the staircases were much wider allowing the cameraman to film and not get in the way of the actors. It also meant that the shots could be a lot longer. Diadvantages of shooting here would be that the stairs are more modern, although the rooftop is reletively ancient which wouldnt hinder our filming too much.

Fotunately the rooptop onm the sovereign centre has some shelter from the wind so whichever way it is blowing we can film the other side. The only problem is that the soveriegn center is much more busy especially as we are filming on the weekend.

Diary Entry 26/01/11

Today we went out into town to take scouting shots for the location of our movie. We looked at four different locations around Weston-super-Mare town.
The first place we looked at was the National Car Parks (NCP), this placed looked really run down, but for our movie we wanted to have that look. After getting a number of shots we were told to leave by a secruity guard, and although we got all the shots we needed, this may be a problem for future filming.
The second place we went was the Sovereign Shopping Centre, this place was less run donw but still had a look that we could use. There were no problems with secruity but lighting could be a problem.
The final location was Dolphin Square, this place wasn't as big but had much better lighting than the previous two. But due to it being outside we might get a lot of noise distortion becuase of the wind.
While we were in town we also were able to get a number of props for the shooting. We were able to buy fake blood and a coat for the detective, and after looking at different hats we decided not to use one in the final production.

Location scouting-NCP

Now that we had an idea of what we needed for our filming we looked elsewhere and ventured into the town centre. To get the run down, inner city staircase we decided to check out the local car parks.

The NCP car park was the most authentic and oldest car park we could find. It had the inner city feel and most importantly wasnt usually too busy.

This picture is of inside the carpark staircase, the stairs themselves were definately run down and made of stone which would probably aid our audio without us having to spend time inputting footsteps. The walls looked as if they had'nt been given a lick of paint in 10 years and the doors were worn down with years of use. This would definately give our scene our deteriorated, unescapeable atmosphere we were hoping for.

This was the best rooptop we could find in the whole of weston. It will most probably be the one we will film on even if we film the staircase scenes in an alternative place. It too had seen its fair share use and was rotten, moulding and hostile just like we imagined the scene should look like. Most of the time the rooftop is clear of people and cars giving us the space in which we will need to film. Lighting here would not be a problem as the staircase is lighted with the usual flickering lights and so long as its not an eclipse we should have sufficient light on the roof itself. Unfortunately if we decide to film on a windy day the rooftop has no protection  from the elements and as well as clothes and hair flying all over the place, our audio will be affected just like in our previous film.

Location Scouting

Weston College

This was the first idea for our location of filming, we were able to find an outside staircase which looked good but there were a number of negative aspects, including no where to film the roof shots and the fact that you could see parts of unwanted Mise en scene in the back, like people in windows and cars in the back ground. This made us look for a place which was public but had fewer people around and looked more authentic.

Shot List in Text Format Scene 2

SHOT NUMBER:

1. Close up of spatter of blood which is a graphic match of the spillage in the previous scene
2. Pulls back to an OTS shot of the detective inspecting the spatter
3. Into long shot of detective moving on from spatter and walking up the stairs
4. A sepia or black and white effect put on every scene with the daughter in to allow the audience to establish a time difference between the detectives' inspection and the daughters chase scene, long shot into close up of daughter hurting knee and creating blood spatter
5. Long shot of daughter stumbling to feet and managing to get back up to speed
6. Close up of daughters' shoe falling off
7. Mid shot of detective inspecting the abandoned shoe
8. The daughter round the corner to opening the fire exit
9. The detective follows the daughters path and goes to open the fire exit just as she did
10. A long shot of the detective walking out onto the rooftop and imagines his daughter at the buildings edge, focus switch from detective to daughter and detective runs towards the mirage
11. Mid shot of the detective running towards the camera, then back to the long shot but without the imaginary daughter in the shot
12. Finally a close up of detectives reaction to the false hope of finding his daughter

Shot List in Text Format Scene 1

SHOT NUMBER

1. Panning up from blackness to come up over the detectives head.
2. Over the shoulder shot of him opening a drawer revealing a picture frame of his daughter and him. There will also be a bottle of Jack Daniel's.
3. POV shot representing the daughter looking up at him, the dominating father.
4. Close up of his hand going for the picture then diverting away to the bottle, repesenting himself wanting to help his daughter, but he feels inadequate and drowns his sorrows instead.
5. Mid shot of detective spilling the drink.
6. Mid to long shot of him giving up on his work and going home, while putting on his coat.
7. After he has left we go back to a close up of the spillage, which is a graphic match of the blood spatter in the next scene.

This a a first draft animatic which will give us a vague idea of how the scene will look. Later we will add in props and improve the look and add in audio.

Diary Entry 05/01/11

Today on our first day back from our christmas holidays we started working on our storyboard, script, props, casting and animatics.
We started with the storyboard as it seems like a logical starting point. We pitched ideas on what type of shots and mise en scene. After a few adjustments to our storyline we came to our first draft which we were all pleased with, and from this storyboard we were able to create a first draft f our animatic, seeing how it would look as a motion picture and what we can improve on for the second take.
We developed our characters more giving them names and a background, and adapting them to actors and actresses we can use.
We will now try and adapt a script to our storyboard and make it relevant to each character and their background.

Final Draft Of Storyboard

Scenes 1-9

1.) This is our first shot in our opening scene where the camera rises up from the back of the chair and out of the darkness.

2.) From rising above the chair take an OTS of the detective, working hard after a long day

3.) Still working just the camera is a little higher.

4.) Another OTS of the detective opening his office drawer.

5.) A zoom showing a picture of the detective and his daughter and a bottle of jack.

6.) Then we are moved around to the inside of the drawers POV for a close to mid shot of the detective.

7.) Then a close up of inside the drawer where the hand of the detective comes down to supposudly pick up the picture of him and his daughter.

8.) Instead of picking up the picture, he diverts away to pick up the bottle of jack daniels, showing the stress that the job puts on him and that he would rather drink than look his daughter in the eye.

9.) After that he slips and spills his drink onto his desk.

Scenes 10-18

10.) After spilling his drink we see a long shot of the dtective getting up and picking up his coat.

11.) A mid shot of the detective putting his coat on.

12.) A mid shot of the detective leaving his office

13.) After the detective leaves the room we are transported to a close up of the spillage. The spillage is a graphic match to the next shot which is of the blood spillage.

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14.) The blood graphic match leading onto the chase scene.

15.) Then we are transported back in time to the chase scene  where we are shown a long shot of the daughter running away.

16.) Following long shot where the daughter starts to fall over.

17.) Then to the daughter being flat on her face after hitting her knee and bleeding on the step for the detective to come and inspect later.

18.) A picture of the daughter getting back up.

Scenes 19-27

19.) After this the daughter keeps running up the stairs until she manages to lose her shoe, this is a close up of this action.

20.) Another shot of the daughter losing her shoe.

21.) Then a close up shot of the solitary shoe left behind by the daughter for the detective to inspect.

22.) Another mid to long shot of the daughter running up towards the exit.

23.) A long shot whereby the detective finds the discarded shoe of the daughter.

24.) OTS mid to long shot of the daughter eratically exiting the building onto the rooftop.

25.) The detective slowly and regretfully reaching the exit to inspect the rooftop.

 26.) Long shot of the detective thinking he sees his daughter in the distance.

27.) Just as he reaches his daughter she fades away.