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

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.
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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 

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.

25Word Synopsis And USP

A harrowing story of a detective's struggle to rescue his daughter. Can he follow the breadcrumbs to unlock the riddle of his daughters secret life.

We thought our USP would be the indifference and quarrels of normal life turn into something more. He has to put himself in his daughters shoes and try to relate to some of he things she has said in the past that didn't make sense. For once the Dad and detective is wrong and has to stop teaching and start learning.

Ideas on the genre for our production

We decided right to the start that we wouldn't do a horror or a thriller film because we thought it was too cliche and it seemed everyone else was doing it. We thought that sci fi might be a possibility, but then realized that it would take way too much effort and money to buy props, set up settings and make it look vaguely realistic. We decided a western could be a good idea so long as we didn't stick to the typical status quo of gun toting cowboys and bring it up to date. For instance instead of two groups of men facing up to have a duel in some outcast mexican town we could have two rival gangs facing off down a suburban park or public place.
Other ideas were to have an art house / surreal look to the film, eg David Lynch. Or to have a mockumentary, based around somebodies lives. A third idea was to have Phycological Film Noir.