Evaluation - Part 8 : Preliminary Task.

What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from the preliminary task (continuity editing exercise) to the full product (opening sequence)?

The Preliminary Task = Continuity Editing Exercise


The preliminary task's evaluation = http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/edit-workshop-evaluation.html

Digital technology

During the preliminary task, the digital technology used included a camera and an iMac computer. The strengths when using the camera was that we could explore a range of shot types as we knew how to
operate the camera as we had previous experience using this device. For example, at 0:10 a close-up, at 0:08 a long shot and at 0:13 the use of an over the shoulder shot. It had been a while since I had done any practical work, so I had not used the cameras for a while, but this exercise really refreshed my memory.We also used the iMac computers to edit our footage in iMovie, as I had taken media for one of my GCSE's I also knew how to do the basic editing using this software. However, we had used a newly updated version of iMovie and it had taken me a while to get used to it. Although we used the camera to produce a range of shot types, we forgot to implicate the rule of thirds in all of the shots. We had remembered for some of the shots in our preliminary task, but not consistently. For example, we had not applied the rule of thirds from 0:07-0:08 and at 0:12. Therefore, this makes our camera work less successful as we could have paid more attention and been more precise.

In the main coursework that was set - the production of a British Social Realist film, we had again tried to include a range of shot types, but each one had meaning depending on the content of the shot. For example, in our film's opening sequence 'Maze' we used a mid-shot from 1:11-1:19 because we wanted
to show our main character looking out of the window at the council estates as she is travelling on the bus. This was to connote that she is leaving the life of poverty behind as she travels past it. My partner and I tried to improve on our awareness of the rule of thirds, as we tried to apply it to the best of our ability. Unlike in our preliminary task where we had not acknowledged it. For example, from 0:51-0:54 in our opening sequence you can clearly see that the rule of thirds has been applied. The preliminary tasks weakness had made us much more aware of this rule for our main coursework. Next year I would like to feel much more confident using cameras and digital equipment, as I would like to be able to remember the media language skills consistently.

Creativity

180 degree rule

180 degree rule

The brief given for our preliminary task had asked us to create a very short sequence of events in which a conversation had to occur, showing understanding and knowledge of match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. My partner and I decided to add a creative touch to the brief by making the conversation quite heated, as one of the characters was supposedly having an affair with the other characters boyfriend. We made sure we included the three techniques the brief had specified. For example, match on action is demonstrated from 0:04-0:06 (first action) and 0:06-0:08 (continued action action). Shot reverse shot is shown at 0:13 (shot), 0:15 (reverse) and 0:16 (shot), in these shots the 180 degree rule is also clearly demonstrated as the first actress - Ellie is always on the left of the screen and the second actress - Kalkidan is always on the right of the screen. This is a strength of the preliminary task as we have managed to show all of the specified techniques through our creativity at some point. However, in the second action of the match on action the 180 degree rule was broken as the actress was on the left side of the screen in the first action but on the right side of the screen in the second action. This was due to the positioning of the camera, this made our continuity editing exercise slightly less successful.

180 degree rule

180 degree rule

My understanding of the 180 degree rule was developed in the main coursework - in my British Social Realist film, when there was more than one character on screen each character would have a side of the screen that they are always on whether it be left or right. For example, from 0:58-1:04 we see the main character - Leah and her neighbour. Leah is on the right side of the screen in both shots and the neighbour is on the left to prevent any confusion within the audience. In our British Social Realist film - 'Maze', we also included match on action. It can be seen in our film from 0:36-0:40. The first action happens from 0:36-0:38 and the continuing action happens from 0:38-0:40. If we did not do this preliminary task I would have no knowledge of the 180 degree rule or match on action, therefore this task really did improve my understanding of these techniques and proved beneficial for me in my British Social Realist's opening sequence. Next year I really want to be more creative with my practical work and think more outside of the box to produce something really unique and catchy.

Post-production

Match on action (2)

Match on action (1)

The post-production stage of the preliminary task was done individually, so my partner and I edited our footage separately. I think I used iMovie well to edit as I found all of the cutting and trimming tools reasonably easy to use after a some time playing around with them to understand what to do. Putting all of the footage together in iMovie was easy, the hardest thing that had to be done was cutting the two match on action shots precisely, to create an accurate continuous flow of action. The match-on-action in my preliminary task was eventually edited together well after much cutting and trimming of the shots to make it as good as possible, to meet the brief in demonstrating clear understanding and knowledge of the match on action technique. The match on action in my preliminary task can be seen from 0:04-0:08. In post-production I also included graphics of the title and production credits, this was very easy in iMovie.

In our British Social Realist film editing all of the footage in iMovie proved even easier this time as we had already used it to edit our preliminary task. The preliminary task was very useful as we gained at good idea of how to use the iMovie software during post-production. As match on action was also used in our British Social Realist film, editing it was much quicker than the editing of it in our preliminary task, because I already knew what to do and didn't need to waste time trying to get an idea of how to use the software. However, we had to produce our film's graphics in Live Type and therefore we could not edit our graphics into our film in iMovie, we had to complete our film's editing without graphics in iMovie and then import our final film to Final Cut. In Final Cut we then had to put all of our graphics into our film. As we had not used Final Cut before, it was very time-consuming as we had to work out how to use the software first. Next year I would love to be more confident using Live Type to create graphics, so that I can create graphics quickly and effectively. I would also like to be able to use Final Cut better in post-production so that editing footage is not so time-consuming.

Research and planning

In order to complete this preliminary task to the best of my ability, I needed to conduct some research prior to the practical side of the task, as I was unsure of some of the media language skills including; the 180 degree rule and match on action. I used YouTube to find video's of examples of the 180 degree rule, match on action, shot reverse shot and the composition of the rule of thirds. All of these videos exampling these skills can be found in an earlier blog post - http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/continuity-editing-exercise.html. My partner and I planned our preliminary tasks scenario using a storyboard. Planning via a storyboard allowed us to see exactly where we would use each skill and when. However, my partner and I are not great drawers and therefore at times the storyboard was difficult to understand. My storyboard can be found in the following blog post - http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/continuity-editing-exercise-storyboard.html.

The research and planning stage for my main course work was developed because of the preliminary task. This is because I knew that research into what you had to actually do, really does help your final outcome and therefore I also conducted lots of research into the British Social Realism genre and the themes included in it. For example, I analysed a film of the same genre (http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/analysing-fish-tank_22.html), I analysed the conventions of an opening sequence in general (http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/analysis-of-conventions-in-opening.html), I looked at how themes are used in British Social Realist films (http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/use-of-themes-in-british-social-realism.html)(http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/how-british-social-realism-themes-are.html) and I conducted some primary audience research (http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/primary-audience-research.html). In pre-production for my partner and I's British Social Realist film, we used a shooting script to plan our film instead of a storyboard used in our preliminary task (http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/shooting-script.html). The use of a shooting script really developed my planning skills for the main coursework as I felt that this allowed me to be more organised in production. Next year I would like to be able to conduct even more research covering different elements of my assigned task so that I can increase my understanding and knowledge of the set task in hope of a better outcome. I would also like to be able to use a shooting script again and be able to stick to it more, to make the production stage of my task faster and organised.

Evaluation - Part 7 : Technologies Used in Production.

Evaluation - Part 6 : How we attracted our audience.

Evaluation - Part 5 : Representation of Social Groups.

The main character in our film is Leah, she represents multiple social groups within British society today including; a neet, a battered wife, a poor person and a pregnant young woman.

Leah is represented as a neet because we gave no signs of education, employment or training throughout the opening sequence. This representation was constructed through the camera language because at 0:48-0:49 there is a close-up of Leah withdrawing a bag of coins from a cupboard. This connotes that she does not have an income and therefore doesn't have a job as she is just saving up spare change. Evidentially she is not in education either because she would qualify for a bursary if she was in education due to her working class status. We conformed to this negative stereotype of neets failing to do anything productive or constructive with their lives. This is shown through the editing, more specifically the use of a smash mouth opening which emphasizes Leah's rush to escape the mundane of everyday life and almost trying to run away from her failure in hope of a more successful future with no education, job or training.

Leah is also represented as a battered wife. We constructed this representation through the camera language, editing, sound and mise-en-scene. This representation of a battered wife was shown through the camera language by using a close-up of Leah's face from 0:39-0:47, where we see her looking in pain, fragile and vulnerable - this is the typical state of women after they have been physically abused. However, we subverted this typical stereotype of battered wives being weak minded. We subverted this stereotype through the editing as we used a fast montage from 0:13-0:37 creating a smash mouth opening which adds to the desperation of the need to escape the violent relationship, proving that Leah as a battered wife has the courage to leave. In the sound we used non-diegetic music (a song) to connote the hurt Leah has gone through and to show that she is not going to allow this hurt to continue. This is signified through the lyrics '...and you broke my heart for the very last time,' which plays when Leah is evaluating her bruises and bloody nose in the mirror. These lyrics really anchor the meaning of the shot of Leah looking at herself in the mirror which is necessary as no dialogue was used. We also used a long take in the shot from 0:39-0:47 to really slow down the pace of the film allowing the audience to see Leah's face for the first time. Highlighting her representation of a battered wife to give the audience some time to understand the previous actions in the smash mouth opening, to answer any enigmas like; why is she rushing? Also to allow the audience some time to sympathise with her.The mise-en-scene also helps to establish Leah's representation as a battered wife. This was done through the choice of actress. We chose Amber Quadling to play Leah because Amber has a small structure and is quite short, therefore we felt that she would best fit the role as she conforms to the characteristics of a battered wife as she could be made to look weak and timid. The make-up we used on Leah which includes the bruises and bloody nose definitely helped to establish the representation of a battered wife as we could clearly see the result of the violence although we didn't show the actual violence being carried out. Overall for this representation of a battered wife, we felt that we subverted its typical representations and portrayed battered wives in a more positive light. This was because instead of making Leah put up with the ongoing situation of being abused, we have her trying to escape it as seen through the use of public transport.

The representation of a poor person is established most strongly through the mise-en-scene. The first sign of poverty is when Leah opens her kitchen cupboard at 0:31 and its practically bare, this connotes that she cannot afford to buy lots of food to fill her cupboards. Throughout the smash mouth opening she packs one rucksack with all of her belongings proving that she doesn't have much to take with her because she can't afford much. This emphasizes her working class status. From 0:49-0:50 Leah takes coins out of her cupboard like it is money she has saved which represents her as a poor person because people who are not poor usually save money in bank accounts. This connotes that the sum of money Leah has is not substantial. In this time frame we also see the council flats where Leah lives, this signifies poverty as they are very cheap accommodation and sometimes even free depending on an individuals circumstance. My partner and I conform to the typical representation of poor people through the mise-en-scene as Leah has a lack of food, clothes and money, just like the stereotypical poor person.

Leah is also represented as a pregnant young woman. We created this representation through the camera, editing and the mise-en-scene. The camera and the mise-en-scene in combination help to produce this representation because we see Leah ripping up the letter (prop) at 0:20 and flushing it down the toilet at 0:23. This connotes that she has something to hide but it is not an obvious sign of pregnancy. The previous shot of a close-up of the envelope in which the letter was contained which states 'private and confidential' at 0:19. The use of a close-up lets the audience know that the information documented in the letter is of great importance as this is what triggers her panicked and rushed escape. The close-up also almost lets the audience know that Leah is pregnant because of her reaction following the opening of the letter. This letter, more specifically is the agent of change for Leah and we can tell this because of the editing after the flushing of the letter. The fast montage shows that she is rushing to leave, but this need for escape also highlights our subversion of the typical stereotypes of pregnant young women such as; they don't care about pregnancy because they will just abort it. We have portrayed pregnant young women in a more positive light as we have Leah trying to escape her violent boyfriend to protect her unborn baby, representing young women as bold, brave and loving.

Evaluation - Part 4 : Textual Analysis.

Evaluation - Part 3 : Film 4.

Evaluation - Part 2 : Our Film's Audience.

Evaluation - Part 1 : Brief.

The brief stated that we had been '...approached by Film 4 to make make a British Social Realist film aimed at British 16-24 year olds... to produce the first two minutes of the film...[and it] must conform to the conventions of the Social Realist genre... Finally to keep costs low, all visual and audio material used in the film must be entirely original.' I feel that we met the briefs requirements because when in pre-production we had conducted a lot of research into the British Social Realism genre to gain a better understanding of it's conventions and find some inspiration for our film. For example, we analysed the British Social Realist film 'Fish Tank' and looked at different elements of the film that were typical of the genre, (http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/analysing-fish-tank_22.html). My partner and I had stuck to the brief and aimed our opening sequence towards a British audience between the ages of 16-24 year olds as we included some cultural references, such as the London Underground which appeals specifically to British people and particularly people living in London as this type of transport will have more meaning to them. The iconic London Underground is evident in our film at 1:34 as we
see her entering a subway with the station sign in the background and also at 1:44 as we see her entering the sign posted station. It also appeals to those of or within the ages of 16-24 as the use of public transport is a more common thing for these teenagers/young adults because they are less likely to be able to drive as it is very expensive, public transport is more affordable for them. We also used a young British actress who is within the target audiences age as we felt that this would create some personal appeal or identification within the audience as they could relate to the character and what she is experiencing. Our actress is in our opening sequence from 0:14 and for the remaining duration but you see her best at 0:58. We also met the brief as all of our opening sequence's visual material is original as it has been produced and created by my partner and I. The audio material in our opening sequence is also 'entirely original' as the song was produced by a friend of mine and is copyright free. The song used in our opening sequence starts from 0:15 and plays throughout the rest of our opening sequence.

We titled our opening sequence 'Maze'. We decided to give our opening sequence this title as we felt that a maze connoted our main characters struggle to escape her abusive relationship with her unfaithful boyfriend, in hope of a better life for her unborn baby and herself as stated in our treatment (http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/treatment.html). A maze is isolating and confusing due to the amount of different narrow paths to take therefore we felt that this would connote that a character/s in our film feel very isolated and confused because of what they are going through. Following Propp's narrative theory, our opening sequence is immediately affected by an agent of change which is evident through the use of a smash mouth opening and the speed of the action starting at 0:13. Another British Social Realism film that uses this convention of a smash mouth opening is 'London 2 Brighton'. My partner and I saw this film and we too decided to use a smash mouth opening as we liked how it made us as the audience feel. In our film the agent of change is the pregnancy of Leah - our main character. In this case it is a positive change as it urges her to try and escape from her violent boyfriend. The agent of change sets up the rest of our film as there is still the conflicting complication, the elaboration, the climax and resolution and the coda to be seen, which would all be revealed in the rest of our film. The rest of our film's narrative is displayed in a blog post titled 'whole film narrative' (http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/whole-film-narrative.html), since this post our narrative has been altered in production due to peer feedback.

When identifying the themes of British Social Realism, we found that there were a range of themes that were majorly about the hardships of the working class population. These themes included; aspiration and escape, violence, pregnancy, childhood, poverty, etc. Some of these themes can be seen in some research into themes in real British Social Realist films like; Bullet Boy, East is East, The Football Factory and Kikdulthood, (http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/how-british-social-realism-themes-are.html). When taking a closer look into the themes used in British Social Realist films they all seem to have a link to the news. When researching further I found that the production companies of British Social Realist films and the news influence and inspire each other, (http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/use-of-themes-in-british-social-realism.html). Based on this research my partner and I had individually conducted we decided to look in the new for any stories that revolved around the main themes of pregnancy and domestic violence we had planned to use in our narrative. On the BBC news website we had found a story about a girl who had been abused by her boyfriend at the age of 16 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17787243), this really helped to develop and inspire our narrative. We used the theme of domestic violence and this is evident in our opening sequence at 0:39-0:47, it is connoted when Leah is looking in the mirror at her bruises and
bloody nose. We also used the theme of poverty which is connoted throughout the mise-en-scene in our opening sequence, for example from 0:48-0:50 where we see Leah grabbing a prop of coins, which signified she has very little money and we see the location of council flats which is where she lives, this also signified that she is financially unstable and could be living off of benefits. Both examples connote the theme of poverty. This is similar to the British Social Realist film ' Adulthood' as we see many council flats and people with little money.

Production Log - Week 9.

Week nine of production was the final week of production. My partner and I had planned to film with our actress on Monday, but unfortunately were unable to due to unforeseen circumstances. However, on Wednesday we were able to re-film all of the shots we had listed that needed to be re-done and improved as our actress was available. By Friday, my partner and I had completed our opening sequence as we put in our new and improved shots and used Final Cut Pro 7 to edit our graphics in.

What have been the key issues for your post-production this week?

There weren't really any key issues for my post-production in this final week. If any thing the only issue was the delay we had as we couldn't finalise our opening sequence until we re-filmed a couple of shots.

What decisions did you make about the issues and why?

We couldn't really do anything about when we could film as it all depended on our actresses availability, therefore we just made sure that when we did eventually film, we worked fast and with precision in post-production in order to meet our final opening sequences deadline.

How have you taken into account peer feedback?

After allowing our peers to view our draft opening sequence, they said we should add some more shots into the smash mouth opening and shorten the duration of the current ones to make it more fast paced and to have the audience on the edge of their seats right from the start as it would raise plenty of enigmas within the audience. My partner and I took this feedback into account as when we re-filmed some shots we also filmed some new shots to include in the smash mouth opening and when editing we reduced the length of all of the shots in the smash mouth opening.

Why we decided to alter our narrative when in production.

My partner and I when filming decided to make some changes as we realized that some elements in our narrative just did not look good.

Old narrative (used in treatment)

(http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/treatment.html)

"We will start our sequence with a smash mouth opening in a non-linear format. It will begin with Leah packing up the few clothes she has in her backpack, as she is doing this she receives many texts from and unidentified male asking of her where about. She ignores these texts and calls and packs even faster. As she is leaving her room, a pregnancy test drops from her bag. As she leaves her flat she bumps into a neighbour who questions her about where she is off to with a bag like that. Leah takes out her earphones (listening to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncWv9YYop8I) hears her neighbour, looks back but ignores her and carries on walking increasing her pace. Neighbour shouts 'oi, Leah', with no reply from Leah she shouts again, 'well fuck you then'. (over the shoulder shot - deep and shallow focus). Jump cuts to her walking under a subway, towards the train station. Jump cut to arrival at station as Leah asks an assistant how much the fair is to Stratford. Assistant replies '£4.60', Leah says 'aright thanks'. She then goes to sit on a bench to count her coins to see if she has enough change for the fare when a male whispers in her ear, 'did you think you'd get far?".

Altered narrative (final)

We started our sequence with an establishing shot of Leah's flat and shortly accompanied it with a smash mouth opening of her running into her flat, in the same non-linear format that we had planned in pre-production, but with a few trivial changes. We used a series of short fast paced cuts in our smash mouth opening to highlight Leah's panic as she frantically packs her bag with clothes from her chest of drawers, wardrobe and a few toiletries from the bathroom. When packed, she runs back into her bedroom, closes her bag and takes the time to explore the result of the violence she previously experienced on her face (match on action with previous shot). After this, Leah then bends down to grab her bag and rushes out of her bedroom, grabs her keys and letter then hurry's out of the door. However, during all of this chaos Leah doesn't realize that the letter did not stay in her pocket as it had fell out, leaving it behind.  There is then a short close-up of the letter. As Leah leaves her flat turning into the street her neighbour comes running out behind her, yelling 'oi Leah'. Leah takes out her headphones, looks back at her neighbour but ignores her and carries on walking. Leah's neighbour takes offence to this non-reply and shouts 'well fuck you then!'. The neighbour then turns around in frustration and storms back into her flat (audio overlap). Leah is then on the bus looking out of the window. This then cuts to some hand footage - a point of view shot showing Leah's perspective as she is cautiously watching her phone and looking around the bus. The next shot is a an establishing shot of a subway sign. Leah then walks through the railings heading to the entrance on the subway. She then turns into the subway. The next consist of three jump cuts showing the same continuous action of Leah walking through the subway.

Why we decided to alter our narrative...

We decided to use a static establishing shot instead of a pan as we said we would in our shooting script  (http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/shooting-script.html) as we felt the pan didn't compliment our restricted narrative as it seemed to drag out the action, when we wanted to dive straight into the action (smash mouth opening). However, we wanted to keep an establishing shot of some sort to show the audience the environment in which our main  character (Leah) lives in order to portray the theme of poverty and class (working class), also to highlight the fact that she does not lead a glamorous life which increases the verisimilitude within our film. Moreover, in the mise-en-scene it is conventional of British social realist films to use locations such as; council flats/estates, etc. We also changed the duration that we planned to have the establishing shot on for in post-production as it looked visually better to have a very small duration of 2.5 seconds instead of 5 seconds. The shots of Leah packing her belongings in the smash mouth opening were reduced to a minimum of 2.4 seconds ranging to 4 seconds as we felt that the pace of these shots were very important in emphasizing her rush and need to leave. We done this change in post-production in an attempt to raise enigmas within the audience, for example; why is she in such a rush? who is she trying to get away from? what is she running away from? In the next shots we decided to use match-on-action from Leah closing her bag, rising up and removing her hood, to the next shot if her facing the mirror and seeing her beaten face. We decided to use match-on-action here instead of a cut as we wanted the audience to stay connected to the action and feel Leah's pain, hence why we decided to have a smooth flow through this match-on-action into a long take. This close-up of Leah looking at her reflection in the mirror is a long take to emphasize the extent of the violence. Another change we decided to make was the change of prop from a pregnancy stick to a pregnancy results letter. We done this because we felt it would be a wasted of money to buy the pregnancy stick and we'd need a pregnant person to urinate on the stick to gain a positive reading, therefore it was an unrealistic idea in the first place. We chose to use the letter as we felt it raised more enigma codes within the audience as it seems like an important prop as she enters the flat with it and tries to leave the flat with it but it drops. The close-up of the letter shows that it is of importance and it reveals what the content of the letter is. The next few shots in our film consists of the only dialogue that is heard in the opening sequence and none of this dialogue comes from our main character Leah, instead it comes from her neighbour which supports the theme of isolation in our film as Leah keeps herself to herself. The neighbour says, 'oi, Leah' this is the first real introduction to our main character as the audience learn her name and are a step closer to knowing a bit more about her disposition and her life. The fact that Leah ignores her neighbour, shown through a close up of Leah removing her hood and headphones connotes that she is in her own world as she seems out of touch with everyone around her also connoting that something is wrong in her life or possibly trying to hide something. We decided to use a close-up to see Leah's face to reveal her cuts and bruises more clearly, which could also connote the reason why she decides to be isolated. We included some shots of Leah on the bus to show her journey and how lonely and confused she is feeling. One of the shots is a mid-shot of her looking out of the window as the bus is passing some more council estates. We chose to include this shot as it conveys the theme of poverty as working class people tend to live on council estates - like Leah. This shot also shows the themes of escape and aspiration, as Leah is on the bus almost trying to leave and escape her old life on a council estate and escape from the clutches of her violent boyfriend. She is trying to escape these things because she aspires to live a better more fortunate life away from all of this poverty and danger for her unborn child. In addition to this shot on the bus we added a point of view shot showing Leah's perspective as she watches people on the bus, showing her confused state of mind through the shaky hand camera work and that she feels as if she doesn't fit in with society. In our final narrative we used an establishing shot of a subway sign, we done this to show the audience where Leah is going (to the train station) and to break away from Leah's action for a few seconds. The next shot is of Leah entering the subway, to do so she has to go through some railings similar to the concept of a maze. The railings represent the life in which she is imprisoned in and as she is going through them it shows her attempt to escape. We then have a long shot of Leah entering the subway to allow the audience to see the back of her to show her luggage and the Newbury Park station sign to show her locality and to emphasize her need to escape. The last shot is of Leah walking through the subway, we used some jump cuts to speed up her journey and to emphasize her isolation and confinement in the narrow subway. We felt that this supported the connations made in our title - Maze and our restricted narrative, therefore we put the graphic of the title over these shots. We then decided to have Leah walking out of the subway and into the train station just to make it very clear that she is trying to escape from her normal everyday environment and the people in that environment.

Production Log - Week 8.

In the first lesson this week my partner and I continued editing our footage. We had to finish cutting and repositioning a couple of shots. When this was complete we started paying attention to more detail in our opening sequence. The only piece of dialogue heard in our opening sequence from a character comes from Leah's neighbour. In a couple of the shots we decided to use an audio overlap as it is very conventional of the British social realist genre and we felt it worked quite effectively in our opening sequence. Looking more into detail, as we see the neighbour coming out of the flat behind Leah, we decided to edit the dialogue coming from the neighbour in the audio overlap and make it quieter as it was better for the sound perspective because there was quite some distance between the two characters.



In the second lesson this week my partner and I put in the song we decided to use composed by a friend of mine - Camille Andrea titled 'O.V.E.R', (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncWv9YYop8I). We had to pay a lot of attention to detail as we had to cut the song in a range of places to make the audience think it was diegetic music that Leah was listening to through her headphones, this took a lot of playing around with the volume of dialogue from the neighbour and the actual song.



In our third lesson of the week we had 15 minutes at the beginning of the lesson to complete our draft opening sequence. After this 15 minutes my partner and I had to showcase our opening sequence to the other pair in our class, based on or draft opening sequence they gave us some feedback on what was good about our current opening sequence and what we could do to improve it. We also watched their opening sequence and gave them some feedback. The feedback we had received was constructive criticism, as well as some strengths of our opening sequence so far. My partner and I were very appreciative of the criticism we gained as we felt it would help us produce a good final opening sequence along with a better grade.

In the fourth and final lesson of this week of production we listed all of the shots that we needed to re-film based on the constructive criticism we received, we also discussed what shots we had to remove due to the amendments we were making.

What have been the key issues for your post-production this week?

The key issues for my post-production this week were figuring out how to extract the audio from a clip of our footage to place it elsewhere, over other clips to create an audio overlap.

What decisions did you make about the issues and why?

After playing around with different tools and options, my partner and I learnt how to extract the audio and managed to do the audio overlap we intended to do.

Production Log - Week 7.

In the first lesson of this week my partner and I continued to make the graphics for the opening sequence of our film 'Maze' using Live Type. We found this very engaging as we could play around with different fonts, colours and sizes until we eventually found the perfect look for our graphics that was conventional of the British social realist genre.

In the second lesson, my partner and I were allowed to leave school at break with the permission of our teachers from the media department to film the final few shots for our opening sequence in Newbury Park, a location that is a 10 minute bus ride away from our school.

By the third lesson of this week of production, my partner and I had filmed all our shots. So in this lesson we uploaded all of our footage on to the apple macs which took a short while. Once this had been done, we started organizing the footage. We reviewed all of the shots and chose the best ones that we will use in our film and deleted the rest. But because we filmed most shots multiple times to allow us to have choice, we kept two of each shot so that we had back-ups in case anything went wrong and it would save us time rather than having to upload all of the footage again.

In the fourth lesson this week my partner and I started post-production properly as we started putting our footage together in order. We done this first to clarify that we definitely had all of the shots we needed to produce our British social realist film. When our shots were in order, we started to cut the shots in accordance to their importance and what the length of each shot would signify to the audience, also keeping in mind the time limit on our opening sequence (2:00).

What have been the key issues for your production/post-production this week?

In post-production, when me and my partner put all of our shots in order we found that we exceeded the duration of 2:00 almost tripling it. We were very concerned as to how we were going to shorten our sequence to just under 2:00 to also allow time for graphics. We felt that as we did not have many shots in our opening sequence it would be impossible to cut the shots enough to reduce the current duration as we thought it would force us to cut out a lot of key features in our opening sequence and possibly have to remove shots.

What decisions did you make about the issues and why?

We decided to cut all of the shots in our opening sequence first before making any rash decisions and as we progressed in pre-production the duration of our opening sequence was reducing, because my partner and I worked through each shot thinking about how long its duration should be and why? Asking ourselves the question; what effect will the duration of each particular shot have on the audience? For example, our opening sequence starts with an establishing shot which is then immediately followed by a smash mouth opening. The shots in our smash mouth opening are very short as we wanted the main character - Leah's actions seem very fast, frantic and panicked. This was to raise enigmas within the audience, like; why is she in such a rush? Who or what is she trying to get away from? Where is she going? Etc.

Call sheet 2.

Production Log - Week 6.

In the first lesson this week our teacher let us look at our finished treatments and make any amendments that were necessary.

In the second lesson this week we were given the lesson time to finish of our shooting scripts as they had to be completed by a certain date.

In the third lesson this week we had to start following our production schedule, therefore we had started looking at different styles in which our graphics/credits would be written in. My partner and I done some extra research into these styles by looking at a range of styles from the website 'Dafont' (http://www.dafont.com/). After selecting 5 styles we favoured, we evaluated these styles by discussing what connotations they made in relation to our films narrative. We then made a decision and chose a style that we liked, explained it and justified why we chose it. (http://lorellethompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/possible-styles-for-our-british-social.html).

In the fourth lesson this week we downloaded the font/style (N&D from http://www.dafont.com/) we had chose to use for our graphics in the previous lesson. My partner and I downloaded it to the software programme 'LiveType' a programme developed by apple inc. This was our first time using this sofware and therefore it took a while for us to adjust to it as we usually use Fireworks to create our graphics. However, our teacher felt that this software was better for the production of our graphics as it offered a wider range of tools specific to the production of graphics. This programme was soley created to produce animated title sequences, thefore it is a programme that specialises the resouces to create graphics, so it was perfect for us. After a while of practicing using this programme, we eventually got the hang of it and it became easy to use and we could see the differences in Fireworks and LiveType. We found that LiveType produced graphics that were more effective. By the end of this lesson my partner and I had produced our title credit 'MAZE' and our directors credit.

What have been the key issues for your production this week?

The key issues for our production this week was just learning how to use the new software programme 'LiveType' as it seemed like a very complex and difficult programme to use to create our graphics. It appeared to be very complex as the layout of this programme was very different to Fireworks which is what I was used to.

What decisions did you make about the issues and why?

My partner and I decided to proceed in using this new programme 'LiveType' to create our graphics because after much trial and error we actually started to prefer this programme, as it had a range of tools in which we could use to produce some very conventional graphics for our British social realist film.

Possible styles for our British social realist film's graphics.

Shooting Script.

Call sheet 1.

Production Schedule.

Location Recci.

Production Log - Week 5.

Due to teachers training day, a trip and other obstacles this week we have only had one media lesson.

In the lesson this week we looked at the term 'Narrative', we explored the different types of narrative structures and we identified the different types of narrative structures in media texts. As a class we established that the term 'Narrative' is the skeleton of the story or the structure of a text. We also learnt that there are different types of narrative. A linear narrative is when the story runs in chronological order as it has a start, middle and end. An example of a film with a linear narrative is 'Rocky'. A non-linear narrative is when the story is not in chronological order, for example; flashbacks. An example of a film with a non-linear narrative is 'Memento'. After establishing these types of narrative, we discussed which one was used most often in the British social realism genre, we concluded that films of this genre usually have a linear narrative. For example; Fish Tank, Submarine, Bullet Boy, etc. In this lesson we also learnt two further types of narrative that depend on how the narrative information is conveyed to the audience, these are a restricted or omniscient narrative. A restricted narrative is when the narrative is only told from one of the characters in the story and therefore as the audience we only see the narrative from one characters perspective. Meaning the audience feel how that character feels and are limited as they only see events as the character does. Examples of British social realist films with this type of narrative are; Looking for Eric and Fish Tank. An omniscient narative is when the narrative is told from multiple characters in the story, so we see the story from more than one characters perspective. This allows the audience to have more access to narrative events and sometimes know more than the characters, it also allows the audience to choose who they sympathize with. Examples of British social realist films with an omniscient narrative are; Lock-stock and Snatch. After learning these different types of narrative we watch scenes from four films and answered the questions; linear/non-linear? Restricted/Omniscient?

The first film we watched was 'Slumdog Millionaire', this film's narrative was non-linear and restricted.

The second film we watched was 'Psycho', this film's narrative was linear and omniscient.

The third film we watched was 'Fight Club', this film's narrative was non-linear and restricted.

The fourth and final film was 'Home Alone', this film's narrative was linear and omniscient.

After this exercise we revised Todorov's narrative theory and concluded that most if not all films follow this theory as they have an equilibrium, then experience disruption (disequilibrium) and eventually reach a new equilibrium. We also looked at McKees classic narrative structure and found that again most films follow this structure as it is a more in depth version of Todorov's narrative theory.

What have been the key issues for your pre-production this week?

The key issues for my pre-production this week have been deciding whether or not my partner and I would use a linear or non-linear narrative and whether it would be restricted or omniscient. After learning that most British social realism films have a linear narrative and vary as to whether the narrative is restricted or omniscient, my partner and I had to carefully consider the way in which we wanted the audience to convey our narratives information.

What decisions did you make about these issues and why?

After careful consideration, my partner and I decided to have a linear narrative as it is most typical of the British social realism genre. We also decided to have a restricted narrative as in our films opening sequence we want to focus on the troubles of our main character - Leah. As it is only the opening sequence of our film we wanted to give the audience a strong insight into her life and her perspective of life.