My Evaluation

Please note that in this Video Evaluation I mentioned the thrase "Jibber jabber" reffering to a famous saying in a 80's TV series by that I mean that the language that my actors were speaking wern't actually russian they were trying to replicate russian by using a similar accent and similar form of words.


 How does my media production represent particular social groups?

In my opening I have a few different social groups

• Ultra nationalists
• Hostages
• soldiers

Each group I have represented by the clothing and acting that the my actors have done I used clothing such as Balaclavas and toy guns to give the audience the idea of a villain then using my prologue to state they are Ultra Nationalists they act like bad guys by there use of body language and voice also them torturing the hostage (slapping him) They represent Ultra Nationalists/ Terrorists well as they establish that they are after money "a ransom" for a hostage, they are armed and they are speaking a foreign language. this creates your stereotypical Ultra Nationalist and they present that well to the audience.

  Hostages are my other main social group that I have in my opening and I present him as a tied up, taped mouth and tortured person. an audience will instantly recognise him as a hostage as he is very well represented as a hostage because he is tied up and tortured. also fear is shown in some of my shots such as my high angled point of view before he gets hit and he represents a pretty good hostage.

  My last socail group is soldiers, although there is only a brief shot of my sniper you do get a presence of professionalism from it as he is hiding in camouflage and is scanning the building for threats so he presents himself as a professional type of soldier and that is all you get out of his shot.

Socail Groups are the differant types of groups that media products try to represent or compare with to give the audience a better understanding of that socail group or identify key charicters as part of that group.

What have I learned about the technologies from process of constructing this product?

When i first started this project I knew nothing about the technologies such as Photoshop, The vedio camera and Apple Mac software so from nothing to nearly everything you need to know how to produce a good quality media production I have learned alot. Mostly I have learned alot about photo and video editing software as I knew the basics behind filming a video and could get good footage but editing was a new step for me.  Using the Apple Mac computers was hard as I knew they were differant to ordinary computers and I struggled to ajust to a Macs systems as it is almost completely differant ot a computer. I enjoyed editing more than the filming as it let you alter everything about your footage from specail effects to lighting and contrast aswell as audio editing and adding music and sound effects to your movie.

Over all I have learned alot about the technologies used in the film industry and I have to say I enjoyed making my Opening.

My evaluation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5CNquL0B2Q

Editing software "Final cut Pro" & "Garage Band"

  When I made my preliminary i used an Apple Mac with two pieces of software called Final cut pro and Garage band. Final cut pro was my video editer this let me upload footage that I have taken and then put it inside a Editing screen that lets me select parts of a film that I like and want "basically getting rid of bits such as excess footage" it also allowed me to put this individual clips together and view them to see if they work together. final cut pro also allows for some intresting effects for footage such as my super imposed shot in my preliminary, it has other features aswell as fades and blurs to create differant effects.

Garage Band is a piece of software that allows you to produce your own music from using either samples that are pre installed onto the software or upload your own recordings and then combine and change the sounds to produce your own music. this is similar software used to make proffesional music e.g. Dr Dre used garageband to combine some samples to sing over.

 Garage Bnad isent the best software in the world as you have to either upload or dowmload your samples then place them all in a play bar to hear and change the sample to your liking.
From garage band I got sounds such as my mobile phone ring tone and sound track. Garage band has a load of diffault sounds installed on it which is what I used in mine
My sounds include

• mobile phone ringtone
• regect call button
• sound track
• suspence music
• slap noise

Actually editing the footage then playing the sounds from garage band over it was simple all I did was import the sounds from garage band into final cut pro and then place it on the final cut play "sound" bar

My film location's

To film my opening I had to find an ideal location for my scene and I had two planned out
1. was my uncles barn which was a old barn he is converting into a house
2. was a hill side spot were I live for my sniper shot scene.

The hill scene was needed for my shot with the sniper and this hill side just fitted the scene nicely as it does replicate an out back untouch piece of earth similar to the sort of land you would find in chernobyl.


But as I have mentioned there is a problem
 About at the start of March "two weeks prior to me starting filming" the barn that my uncle said i could use for filming was no longer available to use as he decided to start work 2 months early and said i could no longer use the barn
 these images below are from 23rd of April

this is the outside of the barn which now is covered in scafolding and has ne windows fitted. At the time when I was going to film there it had old smashed windows which was ideal for the window shot I was going to make

This here was the room that I was going to use which had the broken window and the old styled walls, but now it has new plasterboard, window and is full of building eqiupment. the original scene would have been ideal but it was no longer available
so what I then had to do was find a similar location in a two week period but failed to find a locate nearly identical to do so so I had a re think and changed my script a little from it being an old farm house to an old worn down building which made my search criteria little bit more flexable and I managed to find a similar but more accessable and easyier to get my eqiupment too so i went with a local closed  primary school in the holidays which I had access to thanks to friends and the it was an old boardroom/classroom that I used and changed slightly to make it more suitable but it still wasent the best of choices as I had more of an oldish styled building but its what was avalible at short notice and was easy to get my gear, props and cast too so I used it to film my hostage room.

My 2 Minute opening Thriller "EXTRACTION"

Here is my finished 2 minute opening thriller of a hostage film called extraction Hope you enjoy....

My Cast

In my opening I have 5 actors that each have there own important roles and provide an incite into what they do in this film opening.

My 5 actors are.....

:Oliver Morley Brown

  Oliver Played my Hostage in my opening and was willing to be tied to a chair and taped up to represent a stereotypical hostage and played the part reasonably well. the scene were he looks out a window then turns back to the ultranationalists he gives use the impression that he is aware of his rescue or just looking out the window this works well as it then grips the audience into whether or not he knows about the rescue or not and keeps the audience glued to the screen.


:George Moffit

  George played the main Ultranationalist of my opening and provided the opening with a basic incite to his role and power of his character as the negotiator of the group. he played his part reasonably but did have his amateur moments when talking on the phone but I am happy with his performance.


:Isaac Dawson

  Isaac played my aggressive ultranationalist in my opening and quickly indicated his power and attitude in his opening scene by bossing the other ultranationalist about then going and hitting the hostage. Isaac's performance was by far my favorite as he showed try emotion of the character he played with a realistic type anger and attitude.


:Matthew Hunter

  Matt's Played the 3rd ultranationalist who is quickly established as a basic soldier that follows orders and opinion isn't valid  although his act was brief he quickly explained his role in the opening as a guard/hired gun


:James Harmsworth

  James scene was brief, a few seconds to be exact as he was my sniper on the hill side and all he did was hold the gun and look like an SAS type soldier/ Mercenary he proved this well as the serious look on his face shows the true reality of the situation

sniper scope effect "how i did it"

In my opening i have a scene were a Point of view shot is used through a sniper scope to look at the hostage.
this shot wasn't actually taken through a scope or a filter attached to the camera it was in fact an effect I learned after researching how to do it on YouTube.

It was actually very simple all I had to do was take an existing image and play it over the original footage I gathered from researching the effect but my problem was I had to create my own scope so I took a easy image off Google images as a template and designed my own in a bit of Software called "Adobe Fireworks"

 The one above was the original image I used as a template to get an idea how to make my own. my own production is the one below which i made from a series of different shapes and mathematical precision in placing each one to create the sort of scope I was after.

Once I had created my own scope I saved it as a JPEG and transferred it by memory stick on to the Apple Macs which then was converted to a quick time image which I could then upload into final cut pro. in final cut pro it was simple all I had to do was place the image above the original footage in a separate video play bar and then select the positioning of the scope to get the area I want visible in the scope.

The image works because the white inside it does not play in the film and when another bit of footage is played at the same time it replaces the white with that footage and wear as the black cancels out the footage. both of these create the effect I am after which is my sniper scope shot.

Editing my 2 Minute opening

There was a problem with actually filming my footage as i had had a problem finding a location after my previous location was no longer accessible so I took the idea of multi set filming and filmed half and half, half being were i live and the other half in a board room in a local primary school. Please note that I had run out of options by this point as I had all my filming set for 2 days after my proffered location was no longer available to use so I took what i could use and tried to make it ideal.  but the actual setting of the hostage room was a form of old abandoned school room so the setting is sort of correct to my opening.

  Anyhow I managed to get the footage I needed and got them uploaded on to the Apple Mac I would be using to edit my footage.  

Only around 1 minute 20 seconds of my opening is actual footage I shot the rest is all institutional information and effects to give it a more professional affect on the audience.

 My institutional information contains a prologue to give the audience an idea of how the situation came about and this taken up 30 seconds of my institutional info,

 some films Like Black Hawk Down "which I researched earlier" do the exact same and use a prologue to give the audience the background of the story and in that case lasts the full two minute opening. Mine does not use the full two minutes to create a prologue/ background image for the audience to get a better understanding of the film about to be shown. some films use this as attraction for audiences and give away small scenes that make the audience want to see more

   My sound track for my opening was hard as most films have fully made songs that span there whole opening what maintain a dramatic impact and follow the pace of the scene.  so I had to create a song of different parts of samples of music to suit and improve the scene e.g. for the end shot of the sniper to the film title  i had a loud base to give impact. also sound effects like the mobile phone were also put in give the object "the phone" importance to the film so sound plays a key part to what is happening in the film and I used as much as I could to the best of my ability.

Film location Disaster !!!

  I am a few days away from filming when my original place were i would be shooting my opening is no longer available so now i am against the clock to find a new location for filming.  the problem is because i am using fake BB guns as props i need it to be somewhere out of the way and i need the setting to be a small old abandoned looking building with a window. This is a problem as settings like these are hard to come by and especially all in one place. I did some research and found that film companies also have the very same problem and over come this by filming in multiple places, Lord of the rings in a good example of this, they made the set for the hobbit village in a small area in new Zealand as there were no such places that existed they also shot other parts of the films such as The Mount doom scene at a volcano in new Zealand miles away from the hobit set. also such places in the film such as mordor were Computer animated but the setting such as the cliff was shot in real life. Lord of the rings was shot all over New Zealand to create the films as they couldn't find the set all in one reasonable location. So from that knowledge i have managed to decide i will shoot in few different locations.
1. A old abandoned room with a window
2. Edge of a Forrest
Hopefully i will find all three in reasonable distance of each other and i have managed to find the room with a window which is my main set for my opening.
My original location for my room was a barn that had been converted with a top floor level with a window that was idea but the owner need it as of that date without any forewarning.

My Preliminary Film "The Document"

Analysis of Preliminary film
      This is my preliminary film that I made to practise my camera skills and editing on. it is basically a small spy film that involves to exchange of top secret information. Please note that whilst filming you may notice a bit of camera shake in places this wasn't intentional as the camera tripod was broken at the time so I had to support it on my shoulder. After filming this I uploaded it on to An Apple Mac computer and edited it in a peace of software called "FINAL CUT PRO 7" I found it a easy and quick piece of software to Extract bits of footage and put it together to form a film. I also used another piece of Apple software called "GARAGE BAND" to make the soundtrack and the non diagetic sound. this software I used was top quality and easy to use and produce a professional production at the end of it. I am happy with my skills of camera use and rules such as match on action and Point of view shots to provide more detail for a viewing audience.
  over all I am happy with my preliminary and feel that I used my resources effectively and knowledge of camera movement and rules correctly. I am also happy with my editing skills and my ability of producing music sound tracks for my footage to create a suitable pace for the film. If I had to do this again I would be more prepared and make a script for this as this preliminary was made from an on the spot idea.

Institutional Information "Logo"

In my opening I will have about 20 seconds of institutional information and therefore have attempted to create my own institute logo.
 I did some research into logos of existing logo's such as "20th century fox & Columbia" that both use a video animation style logo for theres. They both use sound and picture to grab the audiences attention.

 I also looked at others like "Youtube pwnisher" that are low budget and not as impressive to see what detail they use to fit in with there film. I also saw how Warner brothers use there logo and edit it for each individual film e.g. in harry potter the logo appears in the clouds and is made to look like a object in the film and not a 2D picture.

So after looking at others I began to come up with some catchy names and fancy fonts for my logo and I came up with these two above, "Bad Monkey" came from an id i had after looking at one company called Bad Robot that had a catchy name and audio to it and is none that I found interesting so I took the name and changed it to bad monkey as it sounded cooler and funnier which will help an audience remember the name

this logo was originally constructed with a picture to make it more recognisable but because of copyright issues I couldent use it so I set about creating my own image but it just dident look proffesional enough so i decided to leave it as just text.

This is my original logo for my Bad Monkey but i had to remove the image as it was copyrighted to a art studio somewere in America so i went with just the text.  

Rebel films was a sort of Backstreet urban name I was thinking of, I wanted a title that had a sort of gangster/graffiti style to it so I called it rebel films and gave the font a sort of gang type graffiti style to match and I am happy with the outcome. This logo also has a video affect as it slides across the page from being invisible to fully visible which gives it a eye catching capability for audiences to remember it.

My storyboard plus old storyboard

Here are the breath screen shots of key scenes in my opening 2 minutes for each scene.

  The film with institutional information and a sound track over top the institutional information will then be followed by a prologue "a small summary of the story so far" which will create the scene for the audience then it will fade out to a white screen then open with the motoin picture. it will start with the hostage tied up to a chair and waking up from unconsciousness then it will change to a POV shot of the hostage with a blurred view of his captors arguing in Russian. this shot will contain effects to give the impression that the hostage is derazed and confused once he has woken up the audio will be altered to create a deaf tone to it and subtitles will be added to notify the audience on what the Captors are on about. One of the captors phone will ring and will answer it, he will then have a conversation discussing the ransom for the hostage. the shot then jumps to a close up of the captor yelling down the phone and then the door being banged loudly. another captor then enters the room yelling at the Man on the phone in a Russian styled voice. this scene will be in English over the phone but Russian with English subtitles when the argument starts.

   The camera then jumps back to the POV shot of the hostage as he just gathers consciousness. the hostage that had come into the room then notices he has awoken and walks up to him and hits him. there will be more English subtitles in this scene to give the audience a better understanding of the situation. when the hostage is hit it fades out into a black screen to create an unconscious state of the hostage.and a heart beat will be heard in the time the captor walks up to the hostage to give it a more dramatic effect as if you were the hostage.

the shot will then be a black screen for a few seconds then the heart beat will slow down.

 The shot then reopens with the hostage reawakening in a near dead state and looking out of the window and then jump cut to a sniper scope view of the hostage staring out the window and then a shot of the sniper in the grass then it will go black and the film title will appear....END OF OPENING

But this is my new version of my storyboard as my previous one was a bit longer but because of my topic criteria and restrictions I carnt do the other part of my opening so I cut it shorter and ended it on a cliff hanger sort of moment

Here is my "Full" original storyboard

As you may have noticed the first part is the same as my shorter version and it ends with the sniper scene this contains an actual rescue attempt but it was to much for an opening and too much to fit in 2 minutes so that is why I had to cut it shorter.

S.W.A.T opening scene

S.W.A.T is a film made in the late 90's and opens with a similar set up to how I want to open my film with an instant action scene. mine will not be as high paced as this but follows a similar set up of a hostage scene were there are armed men holding a hostage and another group of armed men rescue him. from this opening I see the sort of tactics that they use in real life so I try and make mine as real as possible. Also another thing is its use of institutional information at the start and then the title of the film I like the use of diagetic sound used over it to simulate police radio chatter I want to use a slightly shorter sort of scene were my institutional information uses actors voices over it to simulate that you are hearing what the hostage is hearing.

This is the link to the hostage scene of the film with the institutional info added

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKW_zMINDBY

Script

Extraction script    

 

Film opens

  Moaning by hostage with RRussian voices over top

 Terrorist 1: arguing with terrorist 2

 Terrorist 2: arguing with terrorist 1

( the argument is fuzzy as hostage is regaining consciousness)

Phone of terrorist 1 rings

Terrorist 2 walks off screen

Terrorist 1: "answers phone" 

AH hello Ive been expecting you... i have your friend here right now....and we want alot of money for this person so what have you got....NO we want 10 million dollars 

(Door banging)

Terrorist 1: we will finish this later

Terrorist 1 opens door to let in terrorist 3 which argues and pushes terrorist 1 into a corner

Terrorist 3 notices that the hostage is awake and walks up to him

 Hostage: moaning in fear

Terrorist 3: slaps hostage and yells at him in Russian

AFTER HOSTAGE WALKS UP AGAIN!!!!

Hostage: grumbles and looks out of window

sniper scope shot then shot of sniper

END OF OPENING

Storyboard and script

I have now made both my story board and script for my opening and will up load them tonight when they are converted to a computer file !!

My Film Title

After looking at results from my survey I have decided that my film will be called "Extraction" as it suits the opening scene and also sounds catchy as for a viewing audience would want to see it with a catchy name.

Also I want the title to have its own font and to look eye catching so I have designed my title below...

Here is may film title with its specially designed font and style.
its is ideal for my film as it is a Block Military style font with fading in places to represent old weathered text.

My 2 Minute Opening (Basic idea)

After looking at my survey results and spending alot of my weekend watching Action films such as S.W.A.T Die Hard 1 & 2 and other hostage film openings I have create my own film opening scene now.

 My opening will have start with Institutional information for around 15-40 (at most) seconds to give it a real film feel and then open into the main feature. the opening will start with a man tied to a chair (like a hostage) then a few shots of terrorists/capters. my plan for this scene is to have a small room with a window that the hostage can be seen through. if possible I want the room to be dark and have very little in it.

 IOnce I have created an image of a hostage situation I will have a shot of the hostage looking out the window then a jump cut to the camera looking through the window (this will be edited to look like a sniper scope. this shot will then change to the sniper and then show a shot of the sniper and then cut to a black screen and show the film title and end the opening 2 minutes

Results from my own survey

After making my own survey with the aid of "survey monkey.com" I manage to portray a picture on what a view audience wants to see in my opening scene.

 In my survey I asked a couple of important questions that are relevant to my Market Research. My first was on genres of film that the public like such as horror or comedy just to obtain a general idea of what the majority of the British public are into.

As you can see the majority out of the 36 people that took my survey over the 3 day period want to see either a comedy or an action film , my film is an action film so I know have knowledge that there is a potential audience out there for that genre so if it was a full movie in the box office this would be good research. also it provides evidence that there is a general interest in sci-fi, drama's and thriller's aswell if I wanted to combine some genres together to increase my audience e.g. an action sci-fi  like Star Wars.

  Another question which follows on from that is a particular film that people like within that genre to get a rough idea what certain people like..

This is a shot of the top 6 out of 36 results in the survey and generally produced a variety of film titles mainly comedy's but I am paying more attention to action films so the ones that cropped up the most in the action genre was "The Expendables & Transformers" these two films are major box office hits but I will focus more on the expendables as it is more related to my film I will be producing. the expendables is a film on a small group of mercenaries that kick butt and over throw a foreign dictator and uses alot of interesting camera angles and props such as explosions and weapons and the story line as well is very intense.


A third most important question I asked in my survey was the possible name for my film this is important as a name can have a deep impact on audience expectation of the film.

 I picked a few names that I wanted for my title and  from my survey people like the name "Extraction and Resistance" which both can work for my story and both were my preferred names but I wont decide till closer to the end of my project

 These are the important questions that I asked in my survey that mean alot to my film as I have a general idea know of how many may view my film and what they may be looking for in my film.

My Survey

The page link does not work I'm afraid but if you copy and paste it into your browser it still does work if you can please answer my survey



<div id="surveyMonkeyInfo"><div><script src="http://www.surveymonkey.com/jsEmbed.aspx?sm=Wzj0dnQfvgcEWzH_2fxjDXfg_3d_3d"> </script></div>Create your <a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/">free online surveys</a> with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.</div>

This survey asks a variety of multiple choose questions and asks what the public want to see out of a film like mine, e.g. do you like the film title Extraction ??

Market research On Faviorate Genre

This Graph is the results of an internet survey that has asked over 200 people on there

faviorate film gnere. It is based on a variety of questions such as what sort of romance film

"do you like watching example 1 example 2 or none of the above"

these sort of questions help create a vision of the sort of type of film and cast that the public want to see.
i am going to conduct my own survey and post the results when it is finished.

Killzone Extraction "Youtube low budget film opening"

    This is a low budget film opening made by YouTube pwnisher (a YouTube company). it is based on the popular game killzone which is based on on a war/action film. I like this because of its use of special effects such as animated of the aircraft and explosions and gun flashes. Also its use of  props such as the weapons and costumes and scene which has been costume made to suit the scene. also its fast paced action scene keeps me interested in the movie which I may want in my opening. this short film uses a simple institutional info intro with a matching logo which is what i want to achieve aswell so this video uses alot of the idea's and techniques I want in my opening. after watching it again and again I analysed its use of camera angles and shot types and one which i am using is a scene were he looks down the scope of his gun to scan the area, I am doing something similar and looked into the technique of doing that on the web and it is done by over lapping a scope image over the original footage.Other shots I payed attention too was close ups that show the body language and exspressions of the actors and may use some of that.

Black Hawk Down opening 2 minutes

  After looking at some existing openings to some action/war films this one came across which is the opening 2 minute narrative of Black Hawk Down which uses an audio sound track and shots of the middle east to establish the scene. It also uses subtitles to create the scenario of the film it then goes into the opening of the film. I'm interested in the prologue technique of there opening scene and would like to feature it possibly in mine. For my opening I want to include some sort of prologue to give a background story to my film to give the audience a better understanding of whats going on.

 Black Hawk Down is personally one of my favorite films and I do like the 2 minute opening as it give a different approach to the meaning of a opening as it gives more of a background story behind the film so the audience can get a better understanding of the film. it does that well by using gripping establishing shots that create the image and the scenario as well as using a super imposed opening using text to describe the film scenario over the gripping shots.

Decision time !!!

   i have decided that for my practicle exam i am doing film and am making a 2 minute plus opening to a fiction film.

 the film type i have decided is a war/action film with a high pace action speed to it

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