Media Evaluation

Our media project this term was to produce an opening sequence to a film. We started off by choosing groups our group was Dan Mckenna, Annie English, and Mollie Bodian. First in our groups we did a prelim task. We didn’t really plan for this task and the product show that, after the task we learnt from our mistakes and made sure that for our main project we would plan well for it, the mistakes were that we didn’t plan the mise en scene so our lighting and setting wasn’t right this was because we didn’t look for a room before we were going to do the task so it was a last minute thing, also we didn’t notice the flashing monitor in the background which made the task look really amateur and poorly done. This made us make sure that our planning for the opening sequence will have to improve.

At first we decided on a thriller/war film however we notice that without any money and lack of resources it would be hard to make the film look realistic. This was a setback so we decided to brainstorm on other genre, the genre caught our eye was the gangster genre because it was easier to make with our budget and resources we had by focusing on the character instead of stunts. It was easier to make situation in the film than explosion.

Our group had the opening sequence all done however we had to make the plot for the whole film otherwise we weren’t sure if the audience could make sense and see where it’s going. We make the plot for the hole film which was that a gang of amateurs were going to rob a bank however there is a traitor in the gang who double crosses them and the gang all get sent to jail except the traitor, when the gang gets out the traitor has come top gangster so the gang all make a revenge plot.

Once we had our plot we started to think about what characters we wanted to have in our film. We decided to go with the stereotypical character with the hard man as a leader, an amateur, a traitor, a drug addict and an every day guy that got into the wrong crowd, who the audience understand. After we got all our character sorted out we went on to think about what we are going to do for our opening sequence, our first idea was the gang playing poker and it goes to each character and introduces them separately and showing something about them, we elaborated with by freezing on each person separately and then show a flashback of something they have done in the past.

Now we all knew how the opening sequence was going to plan out we started storyboarding, showing how the camera angles for each shoot was going to look and how the mise en scene was going to work. In our storyboarding we were making sure that we put in shot type and shot techniques like match on action, 180° rule. After we storyboard we made a shot list so we could start filming.

Now we started filming which is good for our group because we all live about 5 minutes away from each other also it help because Dan had a camera that was compatible to the Macs and Annie had a tripod. We decided to use friends as our actors who also live near us so we did need to take stuff out of school or bring people into school. We set up a schedule so we know when we were going to film and we can tell our actors when we are going to start filming. We thought we should keep organised so we all know when we are going to everything. We only had a week to do all the filming before we started editing.

In our film we wanted all the actors to look like they are in a gang so with there costumes we made them wear leather jackets. We made Jacob have a brown leather jacket because he was the leader of the gang so it will identify that his clothing is different to the others so the audience will see that he is the leader in the gang before they hear martin phoenix say he is. Not everyone had a leather jacket but mark smith had a couple extra to lend out.

We start filming the flashback of our opening sequence first this was because we couldn’t get all our actors out at the same time and also we didn’t a setting to hold the poker game at that present moment. The filming of all the flashbacks went really well expect one of the flashback which was Mickey the kid who josh white play, we had to reshoot the flashback because the lighting of it the flashback changes because it gets too dark in the winter.

The first flashback we filmed was Vincent Carbone’s flashback which mark played we wanted him to look suspicious so he would portray the traitor in our film. We filmed this flashback in a dark alley where he is meeting a dodgy character who hands him a package and walks away. We had him smoking so it looked like he shouldn’t be doing this and looking suspicious so the audiences would hopefully notice that he is the traitor however also we have got a voice over which tells you that he is the untrusted one in the gang.

The second flashback was Powder Charlie. He was the getaway driver and also he was the drug addict. His flashback was him in a van waiting for accomplice to come back where he is taking some cocaine which is four. Then the accomplice comes in and Charlie is a mess and drops the keys. With the voice over it all will make a sense to the audience.

The next flashback we did was Mickey the kids, Mickey is the amateur in the gang so in his flashback we tried to portray this by steal a phone from a park off a little kid, also we made him keep repeating himself so that it show that he does really know what he is doing and just wants to fit in with the gang, we made sure that when we did this everyone at the park knew what was going on and that kids parents knew what we were doing and were fine with it.

The final flashback we did was of Jimmy the Fist, we wanted to so that he was our leader and the reason why he was the leader and we want the audience to see this to, so in his flashback we made him beating up a guy just for urinating next to him. We wanted to make him look violent also with the voice over he explains this.

After we did all the flashbacks we had to do the main poker scenes to do, with doing this we decided to film all of it from start to finish with a lot of different angles so that we had choices of different shoots to play around with when we start editing. We film the gang as a group but also will film them separately for the flashbacks and the freeze frames, therefore with powder Charlie we made it lower than everyone else because he was the druggie and a messy character so it didn’t look even in addition he is also sniffing to show that he is a drug addict. Also with Mickey the Kid he is a clumsy character so to show this in the opening sequence you see him knocking over a glass so that the audience know from the start that that he is clumsy, as well as when he is talk the gang is ignoring him so we made the camera not focus on him so that you can tell that know one cares what he is saying. Before jimmy the fists flashback we have him throwing the cards down this shows that he is the leader and makes the rules. Then we have Vincent Carbone where before his flashback showes him cheat which also lead to him not being trusted so show that later on in the film he will do something to the gang which he does. Finally there is martin phoenix that doesn’t have a flashback but you can tell that he is a normal guy who the audience is going to be able to relate to.

In our planning of the film we wanted to use a room above a pub so you get the gangster feel however we couldn’t get permission to use a pub anywhere although our friend house who plays Jimmy the fist have the perfect lighting and furniture that we wanted for the poker game. We wanted it to look like we were older like the age that gangster would be so we put cold tea into shot glasses and put a Jack Daniels bottle onto the table. so it looked like we were drinking alcohol, we used a few other props like toy guns, the poker set and also cigarettes in there mouths. We use the guns very well in our opening sequence when the gang finds out that Vincent Carbone has been cheating they all stand up pointing their guns at Vincent expect Jacob where he has got a butchers knife and is banging it across the table we wanted this to show that Jimmy isn’t like the rest of the gang and that is why he leads it. The gang wait to see what Jimmy wants to do and he just laughs and everyone joins in because there all friends theirs no point killing him over that.

Next stage of our production was to help with our planning we did this by having separate jobs I had to do fonts and conventions, with the fonts I had a list of font then I analysed a few of them that the group through were best and worst. With conventions I just show all the props and explain why we were using them because of the genre we were using and also what people said were in gangster films in our questionnaires.

The stage of our production now was the editing stage, we all took it in turns with the editing however me and Mollie did a bit more because we weren’t at all of the filming, we edited the film but we needed music Daniel research some music however they were signed so it couldn’t be used, therefore Daniel went to look for songs sang by unsigned band we were looking for the song sunshine of your love but not by cream by an unsigned band however we could find that song for ages and I found a song which went alright with the film which was Diablo- Subdue which was alright then again after a week of look Annie found Sunshine of your love cover by an unsigned band which we used in the end. Now we found this we could keep editing and make it all go, with the music when Vincent carbone gets caught for cheating the music stops this is because we wanted to show that they can have a laugh as mates however they are still gangster so prepared to kill. Once we found the song we went on to see if our flashback should be black and white which we plan on in our pre production however when we change it the atmosphere of the street lights had got especially in Vincent’s one where he’s meant to look suspicious the lighting of it help that lot however when it turn black and white it all went never the less we decided to keep them normal colouring but we decided to have freeze frames before the flashback of each character showing their name and also as the flashback is play there is Martin Phoenix narrating over them, this show that they are flashbacks and will help the audience understand this.

After we did the rough cut of our film we had to show it to the class and they were reviewing our film, our group where concerned that they wouldn’t be able to follow
The film was the flashback and the way we introduced the character in a short amount of time, however our feedback was pretty much all positive feedback although they just said that is was a bit too long. With our feedback we took it on board and re-edited our opening scene by taking out all the useless parts which made the film cut down a whole lot more

I thing that our group worked extremely well we all contributed fairly and shared all the work including the filming, and the research. Before I had media I dint know a lot about Macs and camera work but now I have learnt techniques in both I hope that itll show in my next media project.

I think that our film as a whole went well and would be enjoyed if a whole film by all countries but mainly English because we made our film with English Gangster culture however I think that all culture will be able to understand our film and enjoy it.

I really enjoy the making of our film and I am very proud of how it turned out.

Thinking about the audience:

When we gave out our questionnaire most of the people who filled it in were 12-20 this shows that we want our films target audience. With the gangster genre teenagers and early twenties is the audience we were going for. There was 19 males and 16 females that filled in our questionnaire and they both had the same opinions about the gangster film and the amount of gangster film they have watch was similar as well. Using our questionnaire we tried to attract people by incorporating a few things into our film that they said they expected in the gangster genre, these were things like props, costumes, character, themes and values, people also expected violence, swearing, gangs, guns, betrayal, smokers, we incorporated these into our film as well. In our questionnaire they told us loads of things they would like to see in a gangster film, we use a few of them like traitor, an idiot, hard man, smart person, also we added in a druggy which wasn’t put down in our questionnaire but we thought in went well with the our genre.

group progress

At first we were going to make a film of sci-fi thriller genre however we are now certain with the idea of doing a film of gangster/crime genre and this is what most of our research and planning has been on. We have all come up with lots of ideas and done lots of research. I’m slightly apprehensive on the location on where we are going to do it but otherwise really excited to get filming and see how the film turns out.

the warnerbros film industry

Time Warner Inc.
http://www.warnerbros.com/main/homepage.html
The Warner Bros homepage has link to various other pages, such as films and television programmes that the warnerbros have made. You can link to video games and there is a list of actors you can have a look at that have stared in warnerbros films. And also there are links to a shop where you can buy warnerbros DVD’s
http://wbsf.warnerbros.com/indexvipredir.html
Facts about Warner Bros:- It was originally built on farmland in 1926- In 1990 Warner communications Inc. Merged with Time Inc. To form Time Warner Inc- Warner Bros television is an industry leading supplier of programming to the six broadcasting networks.
- In 2001 Time Warner Inc., Warner Bros parent company formed the world’s biggest media and Communications Company by merging with America online- Warner Bros television has had hits including the ‘Gilmore girls’, ‘Two and a half men’ and my favourite ‘my wife and kids’
http://www.hoovers.com/
Warner Bros also own a number of other companies including:- Warner Bros. Home entertainment group- Warner Bros. Records Inc.
http://www.timewarner.com/
Facts about Time Warner:- It is a leading media and entertainment company.- Time Warner owns a number of companies including AOL which is a broadband company and Home box office.- There headquarters in New York.- Warnerbros once owned DC comics and Mad - In 2004, Time Warner’s marker capitalization was $84 billion.
http://www.time.com/time/arts/artucke/0,8599,1821365,00.html

Evaluation of the Preliminary Task

For our preliminary task we were asked to film and edit a character opening a door, sitting down in a chair opposite another character with who he/she exchanges a couple of lines on the phone. We had to demonstrate a match on action shot, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. We prepare for this task by making a story board and telling the character what they have to say in there little bit of dialog
The story was that there was a dodgy business deal going down and both parties had met to discuss it. Mollie and I did the filming and Annie and Dan played the characters, however we all discussed how each shot was going to be filmed also we all chose the dialog that was going to be said by Dan and Annie. The first shot was an close up of his feet where we just lay the camera on the floor and the next was a mid-shot of him just about to enter the room. We used match on action when Dan was opening the door; We demonstrated the shot/reverse shot when Dan and Annie were talking. We used a close up shot of characters face so you could see who was speaking at what time. We also used the 180 degree rule when dialogue was being exchanged so that the people viewing it will not get confused

I think that the way we edited this task shows that we are capable do do a lot in our media lessons. However there are a few things that we could improve like our filming it was very plain. Think that the overall story and other factors about the film could have been changed, for example we wanted to achieve a darkened room which we couldn’t get at the present time because of we were at school in the middle of the day. The mise-en-scene could have been improved, but we didn’t have a lot of materials so it would have been hard to improve on it in such a short amount of time. Also we should have realized beforehand that there was a computer in one of the shots that went ‘weird’ when filmed, but we didn’t know that the screen would do this at the time so there wasn’t a lot that we could of done till after we filmed and started editing.
Overall, I think as a group we work well, we all contributed in an equal amount and we were all included in the camera angles and the dialog. I feel confident about using my editing skills but I think my camera skills could be improved, because although I know how cut the films into order, I am not that confident at keeping the camera still and keep it at a constant moving pace

28 Weeks later

In the country nearby London, Don, his wife Alice and a few survivors live hidden in a farmhouse. When infected people break in the house, Dan panics and does not help his wife to escape, running away and leaving Alice trapped inside the room. Twenty eight weeks after the outbreak that annihilated the population of Great Britain, London is considered safe and the British survivors return under the coordination of the American Army, that keeps the city under permanent surveillance. The teenager Tammy and her younger brother Andy travel back from Spain to live with their father Don in London. They miss their mother and decide to escape to their old house to retrieve pictures and some other personal belongings. However, they find Alice surprisingly alive and the Army brings her to the base. After some blood test, the biologist Scarlet discovers that Alice is a carrier of the lethal virus and somehow has immunity to it. Meanwhile, Don sneaks through the facility to say how sorry he is to Alice, who forgives him. When he kisses her, he is immediately contaminated, spreading a new epidemic

28 Weeks Later picks up six months after the Rage Virus has decimated the city of London. The US Army has resorted order and is repopulating the quarantined city, when a carrier of the Rage Virus enters London and unknowingly re-ignites the spread of the deadly infection and the nightmare begins...