Evaluation

http://ventr3ss.wix.com/asmediaevaluation

Blank - Final Cut

Reflective Comment:
It's done! Obviously we now need to work solely on evaluating and getting more feedback of the final one - perhaps showing it in assembly to the whole of Sixth Form if we're brave enough. Be me and Chloe are incredibly proud of this and feel it was a big learning curve for us both. 

Continuity Task

Sweded Teaser Trailer

OCR Specification

http://ocr.org.uk/images/81037-specification.pdf

'Appendix B: Marking Criteria for Unit G321: Foundation Portfolio in Media' starts at page 58.

Sound for final OTS

Sounds used, and where they're used, in 'Blank':

Sounds Used In 'Blank':

• Better Days - BenSound.com (copyright free) 
• Intimidation - Purple-Planet.com (copyright free)
• House on the Hill - Purple Planet.com 
• Sweep Motion - Downloaded Online (copyright free)
• Thunder Roll - iMovie Sound Effects
• Drone Dark Suspense 2 - iMovie Sound Effects
• Ambient Effect 2 - iMovie Sound Effects
• Voiceover - Original (recorded on a marantz audio recorder)
• Door Close - Original (FOLEY)
• Light Switch - Original (FOLEY)
• Clank - Original (FOLEY)

I have created a SoundCloud Playlist with all 13 tracks (11 listed above) and also 2 which we considered as using as the main music before we found Intimidation, these are called Sardonicus and Insidious and were both downloaded from Purple-Planet.  



We decided against Sardonicus as we felt it was too scary and too breaking of the Film Noir conventions. We also thought it didn't fit with the images shown and had a too disturbing feel when played. We were keen on Insidious for a long period of time but once we'd found Intimidation we felt that worked better and was easier to manipulate around the footage to make it feel scary. 

The main parts of the backing music are Better Days and Intimidation mixed with House on the Hill. Better Days is from a website called BenSound. This is a copyright free website where you can search for ambient backing music by genre. Better Days is a calm piece of music with an occasional jazzy twang. This is the most Film Noir conventional piece of music we have in our project. Most of our scary music, that plays after the ident, is promotionally Intimidation, Thunder Rolls, Drones and House on the Hill. These create an up tempo, low pitched beat for it to be easier for the viewer to watch. We foley-ed a clank from when the pencil sharper blade moves, the light switch click, the door closing, and a finger click. We did also record these noises at the time of shooting the footage but they seemed muffled and unclear to we re-filmed them using a Marantz audio recorder whilst also recording Harry doing a voice over and letting the story unfold of what Harry will do in this film. a Marantz audio recorder is a good thing to use as the sound comes out clearly and they are also easy to use. 

Chloe wrote the script for the voice over, it says: 
I never thought I would have the bottle to commit murder, and take a vindictive, sly, suductive, women from this Earth but she betrayed me and I needed justice. So now I am left with all traces of her, that drill holes through my mind, traces I have to get rid of before I kill another. This time with no consequences. My future is nothing but a blank page.

The Ending ....or the Beginning?

As we have stated before, to fit with Film Noir conventions me and Chloe have chosen to have our opening title sequence (OTS) as the end of our film. However after the OTS has finished, the titles have been and the main credits have shown the actual story will begin. Me and Chloe have decided to add the first nine seconds of our story so that it feels more like an opening title sequence. To fit with Film Noir conventions we're starting with a traditional feature of this genre, smoke. It will fade in from the titles of Blank to the smoke rising. However although it will look like smoke and give that traditional Film Noir film straight away, it will actually be steam and this will become evident by the next scene being of a kettle. Kettles are often used to make hot drinks such as tea or coffee that people normally have with their breakfast so this will symbolise the beginning of the day fitting with the beginning of the film. 

Previously on this blog, I've analysed Gone Girl (2014) opening title sequence. Gone Girl's OTS end with it stating the day and time, in this case it ends saying 
'JULY 5TH 
THE MORNING OF' 
but does not state what it is the morning of, this adds suspense and confusion to the audience. 

However me and Chloe did like the how it says the date and lets you know this is the beginning of the story for you to then follow chronologically. As we liked this and also where it was positioned we used this in our OTS. 

Film Comany Idents Analysis

Film idents from Emily Ventress

Many film company and studio idents are based around the sky, predominately night time. However some, such as 5., 6. and 7. in the slideshare above, just base themselves around their logo with a plain background, this obviously makes the logo and name stand out more but I think makes them less memorable. 
When showing people in order to get feedback recently, many of them have been mentioning how they dislike the ident (which was the first one). They didn't like how it's spelt out and we even recorded a member of our target audience saying this in .........
Therefore me and Chloe realised we needed to make something more professional using some more professional. I then downloaded the Adobe Creative Cloud trial and installed After Effects CC (2015) and Media Encoder CC (2015). Both me and Chloe have never used After Effects before and therefore we followed a YouTube tutorial into making the second ident in the video above. Although I liked it I thought now we'd leant the skills that I'd try make another and therefore made the third one. I really like this one and think it looks really professional. It took me about 2 full hours to make even thought it's only 4 seconds long.

Reflective Comment: I like the final ident a lot and am proud of our progression from the very iMovie generically made first ident of the stars. I also am happy we have used After Effects as that's provided experience and professionalism. 

What Does This Say?

Reflective Comment: I think this was a really effective video. It was a quickly filmed vox pop of what my class thought the titles Chloe had made said. We found that only half got it right and that simply isn't enough for if it was mass shown half of the audience wouldn't even know what the film is called. We know from this quick survey that we need to re-think our titles and try again to create them. 

Reflective Comment: This was another quickly filmed vox pop of what our friends and family thought the titles Chloe had written said. All got it write so we know they've improved since the last ones. 

Feedback

Reflective Comment: I like this video, it clearly shows Harry and Eleanor's views. They point out the parts they liked/disliked. We chose these two as they have experience with mine and Chloe's filming, they know the Film Noir genre and have excisiting knowledge of characters and camera angels due to their drama and performance studies A-Levels. However Harry was our actor in this as so could be bias and not being honest about what he really thought of the acting or scenes filmed. Also Eleanor and Harry are both mine and Chloe's friends and may have felt they needed to be nicer about the rough cut than they would've been if they didn't know us. 

I have received positive feedback in the comments box on the YouTube video. This is always nice to receive and will take his comments on board.

Reflective Comment: This video is something I quickly made to show where me and Chloe are at with our production. Jack and Fabian made some good points that me and Chloe can work on and improve on and they also have knowledge of the brief and theme as they are in our A-Level Media Studies class. However, as this was filmed without their knowledge we wanted them to be as honest as they could and didn't want to prise answers out of them but I do feel we could've asked more questions to get more accurate answers. 

Planning

This is mine and Chloe's rough storyboard. Chloe wrote it on Post-It notes so that it could easily be re-arranged so we could adjust what went where. We did also do a picture story board on paper and we brought the both of them to all filming occasions. They were very useful and kept us on track. 

Reflective Comment: me and Chloe are both happy we did these storyboards and although we could've added more of our scenes to the Post-It note written one we had enough that we could follow it and also improvise where necessary.  

Character Listing

Harry Colgan (Our Everyman)
Harry Colgan is one of mine and Chloe's peers. He's a keen actor who thrives off of his drama A-Level lessons. He enjoys the experience of having to work in front of a camera and gets on well with me and Chloe. His character, a psychotic psychic everyman, who records himself speaking about the dream he had the previous night. He feels the need to record these dreams as he sees his future self at significant moments in his life in them. He records these on cassette tapes. Having this reminder of his not so hopeful past has driven him into being mentally unwell and obsessive over how certain things need to be done, for example he feels the need to unwind and rewind tapes. However in our film, Blank, to fit with Film Noir conventions, we have the opening title sequence (OTS) starting at the very end of our film, when our Everyman has experienced his final and most traumatic dream yet - his own death. Here we will see our Everyman at his most crazed and will therefore draw the audience in as more disturbed images will be shown and the pace will be much faster.

Beth Reid (Our Femme Fatale)
In the OTS the viewer will not see much of our Femme Fatale. There will be a strong suggestion she does not come with good things and that either she will do bad things or bad things will happen to her. This will be through setting alight a picture of here and smoke, a conventional part of Film Noirs, will blow over her. Also to fit with Film Noir traditions I edited the picture of here using an application called Aviary. On this I used the Colour Splash feature so that her red lipstick will in colour and the rest was in black and white. I then played around with the contrasts, brightness and saturation until I was happy with the image. The colour red comes with connotations of stop, blood or danger all of which aren't positive things and again will fig the audience an idea this Femme Fstale isn't to be trusted. The audience, however, from seeing our OTS will not know the Everyman's relationship with the Femme Fatale but as they are the opposite sex and of a similar age the audience should start guessing they are, or once have, been together.

Reflective Comment: Needs finishing

Typography Analysis

For our production me and Chloe will need to include our names, our actor's names and probably a made up team of all the usual job titles that are normally in an opening title sequence. For this we will need to choose our typography for this and also our main titles of what the film is called: Blank. We'll need to choose a font that is relevant to the time period of Film Noirs that we'd be able to see by looking into previous Film Noirs. I am very familiar with Da Font, a catalog of font sets available online for free at dafont.com. On this website we could find the font we want or at least just research through possibilities. Me and Chloe have planned to have our main credits on the labels of cassette tapes, this links to the narrative as our main protagonist records what he saw in his dreams on tapes similar to these. However I have never downloaded a font from Da Font and converted it so it's available to use on iMovie. This will be something I need to research into how to do this. The first slide of this SlideShare is of some examples of Film Noir titles, as you can see they're very varied in fonts but all have in common that they're easy to read and quite thick as if they're bold. The second slide is of the website Da Font and what comes up when you search 'blank'. On the third slide is some possible ideas of what typography we could use, font number 6 and 8 is probably my favourites as they're the thickest and easiest to read. Numbers 2 and 11 are too swirly for Film Noir but probably look the creepiest. 

Blank, Blank, Blank, Blank, Blank, Blank, Blank

Typography ideas for OTS of Film Noir production from Emily Ventress

Reflective Comment: This is the typical Film Noir typography I analysed. I thought this would be useful when Chloe comes to making the titles, when I make the ident and when we both come to making the credits. Although there isn't many fonts to choose from on Blogger I showed more in the Slideshare and also how they are quite accessible via programs such as DaFont.com. However after writing this I attempted to download one of these fonts and it is quite difficult via an Apple Mac computer and I am yet to discover how to get them on iMovie. I also realise how on page 3 of the Slideshare that fonts 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 do not show. I don't know why this is but after trying twice to get them to show it isn't working. 

Me and Chloe have now tested many different fonts and have gone with a scratched looking effect to fit with our Neo Noir horror theme. We based these partly on a trailer Chloe Smith had recently seen and told me about. It's off of the trailer for The Purge 3: Election Year | Official US Trailer (2016). We liked these as they flicker before becoming apparent what it says, this makes the audience feel uncomfortable as the text is distorted and then you see for a split second what it really says.

Titles Ideas from Emily Ventress

The first one we felt was too light and contrasted too much with our footage. The second I had made where I put the text on a document in white with a back background then screen shotted these after moving them, I put them on iMovie for 0.2 seconds each, but these are too slow moving and not creepy enough. The third one is actually out of our final piece as we liked this one. These were made by Chloe scratching paper with a compass, going over it in pencil and silver pen all on black paper and taking a picture of it. I then made the background darker using the colour levels on iMovie and put it at 0.1 second. I then removed the background of these using Photoshop and moved it slightly, repeated this about 9 times into the pattern I liked, saved all these picture separately then put them all 0.1 second after another. I really liked this effect and we continued it throughout our credits. However we realised we'd need one of the names to have a job role of director as that is conventional for the main credits in an opening title sequence. 

Experimenting with camera angles, filters, music, speed etc. of clips we could use

These are possible camera angles, filters etc. we could use for our clips of our tapes and also if our main protagonist does write something. These were just a play around on my iPad on iMovie and also to show Chloe Smith how to use iMovie a little bit in preparation for our editing. 

Reflective Comment: This was mainly to show Chloe how to use iMovie in preparation for our editing of our final production. I like how we showed what we could use and also how we experimented with nearly ever tool on iMovie, it gave a good incite into what we want to try and what we could do when it comes to filming. 

Film Noir OTS: Mise-en-Scène: Costume and Props ideas

Mine and Chloe Smith's narrative is of a protagonist who gets dreams or episodes of premonition, like flash-forwards into his life. He only sees himself doing bad things (conventional Film Noir types things) such as, meeting a manipulative femme-fatale, killing a femme-fatales ex and getting into trouble. So that he doesn't forget what he's seen in his last premonitory dream, the protagonist films himself on cassette tapes and also draws sketches of the people he sees. 

Our opening title sequence will be of our protagonist filming himself talking after one of his dreams and then sorting out his tapes. On the cassettes we will write on the main casts' names as they are typically in the OTS of these films.We are undecided on how to show the title of the film but want them to fit with our neo-noir horror film noir theme of how psychotic we would like the sorting out of cassette tapes to look.

Props:
Props wise we will obviously need cassette tapes. I have managed to find 5 at my home but will also probably nip into a charity shop during the Christmas holidays to see if I can get some more for not much money. We will also need the sketches of the people he's seen, probably within a creepy-looking photo frame. Me and Chloe also said we'd like to have some cardboard boxes within the shot that will be taped up saying something to do with what'd be on the tapes inside the box, something like 'tapes me murdering somebody' so the audience gets more of a feel of what sort of flash-forwards he has. We may need some fairy lights or something for some lighting, as we're filming either in a shed or in a loft to give it a dark, derelict, and cold feel. All of these probs are easily accessible and won't be hard to gain before we start filming. 
In the SlideShare below (pages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) are some ideas of the sorts of things we could use.

Costume:

Traditional film noir dress would be a male in a suit of a 1940s style (as this was when film media was most popular and most produced) and a femme fatale character in a red or black laced, exposing and provocative dress. This was so that a male would instantly notice and be attracted to her. 

The Slideshare below (pages 6, 7, 8 and 9) are of possible dress ideas she could wear/wear similar. 

As mine and Chloe's production will be Neo-Noir  we can break these conventions and will for the male character but probably will keep the femme fatale similar to the original style as long as our actress does not mind. Obviously it'd be quite rude to request our actress to wear something she's not comfortable in so our first step would probably be to ask her if she has any red, black or laced dresses and hope she has one of them. 

Our main protagonist, a man who often sees snippets into significant parts of his life, will be slightly crazed by these weird goings on, for this reason his hair may be a bit messy as if he hadn't slept very well. Me and Chloe have also discussed our Everyman wearing a long white coat of a laboratory style but, although this would make him look more mad, I'm not sure how it would fit into the story as if he records his flash-forwards on a cassette tape there're no chemicals or anything messy involved where he may need a white lab coat. However for our opening title sequence you may only see the end of his sleeves handling the tapes. 

In the Slideshare below (pages 10, 11, 12 and 13) are possible items of clothing our Everyman could wear. 

For our femme fatale will be a women who may be seen for a couple of seconds if we have our recording in the opening title sequence of the protagonist being involved in the femme fatale in the snippet of the future he has seen. If we don't have a femme fatale the Film Noir element will be more lost however having one will involve more organisation into when to record who and when're who available for him to film. Also we've planned those who have study periods when we have Media Studies lessons to be the actors and actresses in our production, as these people will also be 16/17 it may be strange having a 16/17 year old looking into his future for him to be falling I love with another 16/17 year old as it would look like he liked people much younger than him or like it was the present; however there are ways of making people look older than they really are (e.g. heavier and more mature make up). Femme Fatales are usually wearing heavy make up involving lots of blacks and reds. 

In the Slideshare below (pages 14, 15, 16 and 17) are possible make up ideas me and Chloe could try and reproduce.

Props and Costume for mine and Chloe's Film Noir OTS from Emily Ventress

Reflective Comment: I am proud of this piece of work, it took a lot of time to write this up but am glad I did so. I know I need to do another write up of what we did actually use for our final thing but this gave us some really nice ideas when it came to filming. The make up of Beth Reid in the photo of our 'femme fatale' and Harry's costume ideas were used. The props of the tapes and the cardboard boxes were also used in our filming in my shed. I am glad I did this piece of work. 

Timeplan of our Opening Title Sequence

Week Beginning:

21st December 2015: I need to write up ideas on props and costume, Chloe Smith needs to write up ideas on location and set (lighting).
28th December 2015: Script written &; messaged Harry Colgan (the actor of our main protagonist) about meeting and possibly start filming?     
4th January 2016: I need to teach Chloe how to use iMovie and do a trail-run, discus what camera angles we would like to use
11th January 2016: I need to do a write up of typography and start thinking about ident, Chloe Smith needs to start thinking about typography 
18th January 2016: Photoshoot with Beth Reid (our femme fatale) and I will edit it to black, white & red. Chloe Smith and I need to film Harry speaking, I need to trail run make-up (tired looking). 
25th January 2016: Have started editing Harry footage. Harry & Chloe need to come round mine to film more scenes with things such as tapes, blades & books
1st February 2016: Be well into editing. Need to film more blades with Harry and do another voiceover of what's happening
8th February 2016: Edit edit edit sound sound sound
15th February 2016: DUE &; HANDED IN

Reflective Comment: This has obviously been worked around but was useful to keep us on track. Also we have been told we also have the half term break (the week beginning the 15th) to work on this as well so that takes the pressure off a little bit but I am proud me and Chloe have kept plodding through it and haven't left everything last minute, this was evident when we were the first in our class to have a rough cut to show our class to see early on what our peers thought. 

Priest (2011) Extract Sound Analysis

These are the recreated sound effects and how some of them were made.




Reflective Comment:
I am looking forward to continuing with this series of Vlogs and also helps me to keep track of where I'm at. From Ventress Class Vlogs #2 I like the work I did of the Priest work having the red lettering over the top and has opened my eyes into how many sound effects me and Chloe will need to do for our Noir OTS. Now that I've done all the sound effects I needed to do I need to compare with Chloe Smith the other half she's done and start working on our Noir OTS.

Art of the Title, Opening Title Sequence Analysis - Gone Girl (2014)

Gone Girl (2014) Opening Title Sequence: 
http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/gone-girl/

Title Design: Neil Kellerhouse
Editor: Kirk Baxter
Cinematography: Jeff Cronenweth
Music: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

We've been set a task to analyse an opening title sequence (OTS) from a website called Art of the Title (artofthetitle.com). This website has nearly 600 opening title sequences for the public to see. Most with a detailed analysis of the footage and the background story of it. The OTS I've chose to analyse is Gone Girl (2014), this however, doesn't currently have any analysis on Art of the Title. I have not seen the full film but Gone Girl is an American psychological thriller. It is about a man, Nick Dunne, who is the primary suspect in the sudden disappearance of his wife, Amy Pike. It is David Fincher (the Director's) highest grossing film, fetching a commercial success of over $368 million (£244 million). 

(1.,2. and 3. in SlideShare attached.) The first twenty-seven seconds of the opening title sequence are the logos and names of the film coorperations and companies, saying how they 'present..', these in include 20th Century Fox Film Coorperation and Recency Enterprises which is a Los Angeles-based entertainment company. This is a good thing to start off with as you almost know it'll be a good film if it's got these big names injected into the making of this film. It then goes on on to say 'A David Fincher Film' (4. in SlideShare attached) again giving the audience more reassurance they want to watch this movie more if they know other David Fincher films but alsoslightly unfrosts the glass of what genre the film is as Fincher seems to predominately produce sinister films to films that also make you think such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network and Alien 3. Whilst the text of 'A David Fincher Film' is on the screen the non-diegetic sound of a voice over starts playing. A male voice 'When I think of my wife, I always think of her head, I picture cracking her lovely skull, unspooling her brains, trying to get answers. The primal questions of any marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? What have we done to each other?' This is during a large male hand is stroking a young blonde women's head. (5. in SlideShare attached) When he says 'trying to get answers' the women looks up, slight to the right of the camera and remains like this until he's finished his dialogue. (6. in SlideShare attatched).This is a very sinister start as we already know this man must have an obsession with his wife but also imagines himself 'cracking her lovely skull' this is a disturbing thing to say as your wife should be somebody you love and 'cracking her lovely skull and unspooling her brains' would be instantaneous death. He ends the sentence, however, with 'trying to get answers' this indicated she is hiding thing from him but as he sounds like somebody likely to be diagnosed with Psychopathy it is likely he may also have Paranoia and she may really have no answers for him to find. 

(7. in SlideShare attached) The screen then goes on to give us two more names (presumably the main actors) and then tells us to the title of the film on a blue tinted port or bay framed sea scape. (8. in SlideShare attached). After this there is derelict looking parts of a small town that looks likely to have gone into decline without rejuvenation. Each place we see in each shot there's a new name of the cast or crew. After fourteen pictures of fourteen places have been showed we pan up to a village clock face of the (9. in SlideShare attached) time saying five minutes to seven (presumably in the morning based on the colour of sky behind). Then going onto a man (I'd guess in his 30s) standing outside his house after just putting the bins out reading the time, looking around his street and sighing. As he walks back into his house the bottom left of the screen has text saying 
'JULY 5TH
THE MORNING OF'.
The opening title sequence ends on this. (10. in SlideShare attached).
Throughout eerie but forbidding music has been played throughout with a low tempo but quite a high tempo this adds to the tension but also as it's quite quiet makes us an audience feel vulnerable to what's about to happen.
This whole OTS has introduced two characters, the setting, the name of film, those who produced and directed, some of the cast and crew and also given a general feeling or atmosphere of how the film is likely to progress. I think it has been carried out and executed very well. 

Gone Girl (2014) from Emily Ventress

Reflective Comment:
I am really proud of this work, it took me quite a long time but I think reads well and is easy to follow of which bit I meant by using the embedded SlideShare of which bit of the opening title sequence I meant. I'm looking forward to using this OTS as inspiration for when we do our real Film Noir styled OTS.

Narrative adapting for our Opening Title Sequence (OTS)

Mine and Chloe Smith's Vlog we did in class the other day 
(we've been asked to record our progress as we go along). 
We're making a film noir opening title sequence (OTS). We needed to look at different types of narrative so see how to develop our storyline.



Today we planned our narrative properly thinking about all the things on written on the board:

This is our Vlog of what me and Chloe Smith went through today 


Reflective Comment:
Need to finish writing about thess but the Vlogs are done as they weren't serious so although there are improvements that could be made they will do. 

Misfits Storymaking

In class we were set a task where we all had a piece of paper and we had to write part of a story, fold the paper over and pass it onto the person next to us. As we were passed the piece of paper one of our teachers (Ms Humpleby) would said 'write the title of the story' or 'describe a character' so we knew what to write. After this the sheet we were left was 'our sheet'. We had to choose somebody on the other side of the classroom so that friendship groups were mixed and chose one of 'our sheets' to 'create' in some way, we could do a comic strip or storyboard of our story but it had to include every point written on our sheet.
The person on the other side of the room I picked was Fabian Harrison. We chose my sheet as mine made the most sense and Fabian's was mixed on both sides of the paper. We initially wanted to film it as a sweded movie but realised this was impractical in the time frame given, one week. We then chose a storyboard and Fabian is currently writing a script ready for us to take pictures on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
The story on my sheet was this.

It reads:
 'young, handsome and athletic TV, why does Pinocchio have a big nose? Great Yarmouth Donald the killer whale. Kevin hates cats steals milk. Track, zoom, sqelch, boom. Basically Wendy killed everybody along with Geoffrey Wilkinson.'

Me and Fabian met in a lunch time one day this week, we discussed and planned out the storyline. Fabian has also made a storyboard on his blog which I have based this iMovie on.



Literally seconds after reading this I continued to read Ms Humpleby's blog where she said 'on paper'. I now regret making this.

Reflective Comment: I do regret making this as it took time and that time seemed very unneeded. However it improved my iMovie skills and helped me to work with somebody I don't normally work with. 

Continuity Task

Our Brief
To create a Narrative: a Fairy tale reinvented OR modernised OR Subverted but meeting Film Noir conventions in some way. It also has to include a match on action, an 180 degree rule and the set action: a person opens a door, walks through and across the room, sits and exchanges dialogue with another person.

Planning
My group, me, Chloe Smith and Freya Rudd, quickly came to the decision to use Cinderella as our fairytale as it was one of the few we all knew and felt would be easy to manipulate the original characters around the film noir theme. We planned on using peers in my year as actors, who have free periods whilst we have Media, so they would be available to film in our lessons, also allowing myself, Chloe and Freya to focus on what was asked of us rather than learning lines. From here we wrote down all the characters in Cinderella: Cinderella, the Prince, the Fairy-Godmother, the ugly step-sisters etc. Out of this list we chose who we thought we could use basing it on who was available to act and also thinking about the story and how we could manipulate it around the film noir conventions (e.g who would be the femme fatale?). Once we had decided all of that, we wrote down one to ten on a piece of paper and tried to come up with ten significant points in the story, like a written down story board. We also wrote down possible costume, props and camera angles we could use. After this we shot 'stills' of our ten points to give us an idea of where to film, what camera angles to use, and just to give us more of a realistic idea of what we can do. The stills are below and the written narration I did is on top.

Film Noir Cinderella - Stills from Emily Ventress

What We Did

Roles:
Emily Ventress (me): Camera, editor, costume, narrative and props manager.
Chloe Smith: Director, camera assistant, script writer, costume and narrative.
Freya Rudd: Script writer assistant, costume, narrative and actress (Fairy-Godmother).

We used our lesson time to our advantage by filming most of our footage in them. We used many different parts in school and worked around when other classes had their lessons and where (e.g. worked out when there was a P.E class in the hall and when there wasn't). I think we only used one or two lunch times and a couple of hours in a school holiday for me to record 'Cinderella' doing it the voice over. After we had filmed all the clips I did all the editing. The school does have iMovie on their Macs but we used our lessons to film and so we didn't have time at school to edit. I know how to use iMovie and as I have a MacBook at home it seemed the sensible option for me to just do it all at home. However looking back it did take longer than I thought and I could've invited Chloe or Freya over to show them what to do and let them do a bit, however teaching somebody how to use it would've taken up time we didn't really have and we weren't free many of the same days within the half term holiday we had as some of us have outside jobs and some live far away. 
After receiving feedback from our teachers we attempted to 'dub' the scene where Cinderella is about to shoot The Prince as this is a very echoed and muffled scene, the dubbing went well and I managed to edit it so it did look synced with their lips however it didn't sound like that noise was coming from the room they were in, I tried using the Audio Effects in iMovie of Echo Delay, Medium Room, Large Room and Cathedral but the Echo Delay, Large Room and Cathedral made the speech hard to understand so in the end I settled for Medium Room.

What Went Wrong
I think one of the major issues in our production was sound. During Cinderella and her best friend's scene where they're discussing the The Prince coming to town, about 8 table tennis games were going on in the hall in the next room, this has caused a constant sound of ping pong balls bouncing off the tables, the 'reduce background noise' button on iMovie could not correct this either. The background music (Ofelia's dream off Bensound.com, copyright and royalty free) also overtly going loud of quiet frequently as I tried lowering it whilst people were talking but it just sounds very jumpy and doesn't flow very well. Another issue with our final production is the background clutter in the scene where Cinderella is talking to the Fairy-Godmother. We filmed these scenes in the school's studio. We did notice it was in the background so initially we filmed it so you could only see the Fairy-Godmother but still hear Cinderella however as most of hearing is also lip-reading it became hard to understand Eleanor without seeing her. Then on iMovie I tried putting a picture-in-picture of a black box to cover the background but I couldn't cover off of it without cutting off the Fairy-Godmothers back-of-head. Also focusing more on Mise-en-Scène could've helped as Cinderella seems to have sex with socks on which doesn't really add to the stereotypical sexiness of her and Cinderella seems to scrub the floor with her scarf at one point.

What Went Well
I think the general feel of the film feels right for a film noir. I also think we chose actors and characters really well. I like all of the camera angles we used and made a good attempt on some of those we'd never done before (e.g focus pulls). I think lighting went well as although my teacher said she didn't like the shadows I think some of them are really good with Cinderella and the Prince dancing. Also I think the fact we got the whole thing finished is pretty impressive as apart from all the editing, the voice over and the script writing it was all done within school hours. Posting what we had done on social media made a lot more people see it so that was a good idea, I put it on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. On my Facebook post a lot of people commented saying well done and our Youtube video of our final production stands at 176 views.

Overall

Overall I am happy with our final production and feel it was a success. I am proud of what we achieved in the short time frame and I do think it has improved since our previous (and our first) production being a Sweded version of the Insidious 3: Teaser Trailer. Of course there were things we could've improved on but this will be a good learning curve for the next production we will be asked to produce. 

I enjoyed this activity and hope we get to do similar things in the future (maybe with a little extra time!)



Reflective Comment:
My Reflective comment on the actual video(s) are above however my reflective comment on my evaluation would be that I think I did this well, it's not too long but says all I needed to. I could've written more in my conclusion (Overall) but I would've felt I was repeating myself.

Credit to Ms Humpleby

Preliminary exercise from Elaine Humpleby

Challenge 6 as film noir representation create a still image fairy story from Elaine Humpleby

Editing and representation a summary of shot relevance in video = film from Elaine Humpleby

Understanding Audiences

Reflective Comment
I would've preferred to do this better but it says what it needs to and looks isn't everything! I like how the theme fits with the context.

Analysing the Codes, Conventions, and Narrative of the Opening Title Sequence of The Dark Knight

Analysing the Codes, Conventions and Narrative of an Opening Title Sequence

Activity 1: Creating a Film Synopsis
Title: The Dark Knight, Genre: Action / Neo-Noir
The Dark Knight is the 7th film in the action based Batman movies, a series of movies in which Batman, a fictional superhero, defeats the antagonists and restores peace.
Outline of my Opinion of the Film: The Dark Knight puts a slight dark twist on the usual Batman comics and older movies but still comes with all the big-screen stunts, fighting and excitement - one of 2008's must-see movies.

Activity 2: Freeze Frame
Title: The Dark Knight, Analysing One Frame

In the frozen image I can see two masked men, zip-wiring across sky scrapers above a bustling cross roads. In the image it looks like it's daylight which shows how clear the two are. 

The subject (the two zip-wirers) are very far away from the camera, this makes us see how fast and how far they are going. The camera then goes onto follow the two men across the zip wire and onto the roof they are sliding too. In this shot we can see two men, one in completely black clothing and one in a black top but grey trousers - both men are wearing clown like masks. This makes the two men look suspicious and in the film we know at this point that they're committing a burglary on an American bank. The shot is probably composed like this to covertly show how dangerous the action they're carrying out is and what lengths these two antagonists will go to in order to get what they want. If the shot was composed differently it may not show how risky this situation is.

Activity 3: Structure and Style: Telling a Story to a Viewer
Title: The Dark Knight: Opening Title Sequence: Structure and Style
Camera
Within the opening title sequence of The Dark Knight there is a burglery of a large American bank, as this is a high-action scene involving lots of gunshots and other crimes. Because this is an action-packed scene there are many quick changes of camera angles. A lot of the shots are medium shots of ordinary objects within a bank, such as desks, tills etc. In the same shot the antagonists (masked men) appear out of the desks normally pointing a gun towards innocent bank-workers. There are many close ups, medium shots, long shots and tracking but not a lot of over-the-shoulder shots or focus pulls as there is not a lot of dialog.There are no fancy transitions just normal cutting.

Colour
All of the opening title sequence is consistently in full colour. Baring in mind this film in a neo-noir this is unusual as noir films are normally in black and white as their peak of popularity was between the 1940s and the 1950s where black and white was a much cheaper way of making films, it also simplifies the use of shadows and using light and dark to create atmosphere. A burglary is verisimilitude as it is realistic and is rare, but does happen however the idea of there being a Batman is unrealistic and therefore not verisimilitude. 

Character
Burglars are realistic characters but The Joker is not an impossible character but is quite unlikely to never have been sent to jail. Batman, however, is a very very unrealistic character as superheros are unlikely to be real. Within the opening sequence there are quite a few characters, all male, but all but The Joker die. Mise-En-Scène is used to build character by the costume. All the male burglars are masked and so keeps you guessing who's who but The Joker (the only suited robber) and therefore makes him stand out clearer than the rest. Due to the reputation of Batman you can start to guess the rest of the narrative that Batman is going to set out to stop The Joker once again.

Story/Narrative
I do not identify myself with any of the characters in the opening sequence as they are all very unlike me. The main plot of the opening sequence is the general escalation of the robbing. We see how they get in, how they steal the money and how The Joker gets away in a school bus. It does establish interest into watching further as you want to know how The Joker will be stopped.

Sound
Diagetic sound is the sound where they're shouting at each other, however the non-diagetic sound is the gunshots as they were probably put in afterwards and also amplified to make the scene more exciting. The very start is very quite with a repetitive, tension building instrument which I am going to guess is a violin. As the scene escalates drums kick in once the main shooting part starts this is a sound match to the image on the screen.

Settings
The scene takes place is a busy American city - possibly New-York? Probably to empathise how if things did go badly a lot of people could die. The rest of the scene is inside the bank which is a large, modern multi-story building. It reminds me of London as it's that sort of high business city.

Audience
I think the film is targeted and preferred to males, probably 13-25 kinda age as it's Britishly classified as a 12A meaning if you're under the age of 12 you need to have an adult with you. This satisfies their tastes as it's action-packed with lots of guns, explosions and violence. In my opinion other films they would enjoy would be other superhero films such as Spiderman, Superman etc. I am in the age bracket but feel I am the wrong sex to the be the target or preferred audience for this film.

Titles
Warner Brothers Pictures, Legendary Pictures, DC Comics are all involved in this film however from the clip I was using online it did not show all the distribution and exhibition companies, sound or editing companies, production studios, cast details or production teams. The Typography of Batman is famous for being Batman as it has the Batman logo always with it. A LOT of CGI is used for all the explosions and lorries going over and crashes to buildings etc.

Reflective Comment
This went well I feel I covered all points needed. I made the image larger as Ms Humpleby requested. If you're reading this and you think there's anything I could improve on please comment. :) 

Jobs in the Media

Youtube, talking head voicethread on Jobs Within the Media

Reflective Comment

I am very awkward in this. I'm not used to talking on camera and this was my first time. I waffle on a lot and don't actually talk in a great deal of detail. I could've edited sound better, reducing it when I'm speaking and made some title screens to structure the video out. I will consider all these thing when I film another talking head video. I may refilm this at a later date,