Evaluation

Final Piece

Target Audience Feedback Survey

Below is the link to the survey we created in order to gain some audience feedback for our product.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/172x-t1evDRJI5zE2iLT-YJYyVo79CdZEQSOBqebLp-c/viewform

Production Title

Callum has set about making the opening title of our production company 'Lightning Productions' and roughly this is what has been created so far. 

We felt that the black background with the white writing stuck to the typical generic conventions shown to us through real media products during our research. We then decided to modernise this with the lightning bolt making it more appealing and interesting to the audience. We also liked the idea of lightning because it links with the saying 'the calm before the storm'  and this fits with the narrative of our opening. This is because we start with slow continuity and little action until it builds up to a climax towards the end.

As a group we like this title and we will have to play around with it on premiere and see whether it would be best to animate it, or to simply leave it as a still image with simple dissolve effects surrounding it.

Final Shoot

We have recently completed the final piece of filming we needed for our title sequence. This involved filming more of the younger version of our protagonist as part of the flashback asking questions about her brothers disappearance. We will then slot these in towards the final sections of our title sequence to create a more melancholy atmosphere compared to the aggressive and agitated atmosphere we previously we wanted to create. We felt this change in representation would allow the audience to connect with the protagonist and sympathise towards her therefore, drawing them into the rest of the film. 

The physical filming of this section was quick and thorough as we knew exactly what we wanted to film due to writing a list of the questions we wanted our actress to send as well as a short shotlist. Therefore, we filmed exactly what we wanted with very little hassle. 

Overall, I think my group and I have progressed in our filming ability a lot since the start of the course due to all the practice we've had. Furthermore, we can now entirely focus on the final editing and piecing together of our product in order to ensure we create a product that is to the highest standard we can achieve. 

Rough Cut 2

With the help of our teachers my group and I sat down to review our progress so far.




Firstly, it was decided that our first minute was really good and the music we've chosen to use fits very well and helps to create the lonely, isolated, and sad atmosphere we wished to create. This has been achieved through the use of our establishing shots of the protagonist by herself looking out of a window providing a reminiscent mood which then leads on nicely to the flashback. We are extremely pleased with our flashback and believe we have shot and edited it into our piece effectively through the fade into the white screen and back into the action. 

However, to improve our second half it was suggested that we filmed more of the flashback and intercut that between some of the protagonists action in order to help move the narrative forward and represent the girls innocence. Furthermore, we thought as well as filming some more of the flashback, we could record what the young girl says and possibly use the dialogue as a voice over to parts of the action too. This would help reinforce the juxtaposition between her younger self, and herself now and make it clearer to the audience how her childhood has affected her. As well as this it shall provide some variance in the action so it's not too similar. In addition, our titles need to be finalised and we need to decide which font we want to use and where each of them shall be placed.

What we need to do:

• Finish the titles (font, colour, placement)
• Complete further filming of the flashback scene
• Make final changes/adjustments to the music
• Adjust the sound levels

Overall, as a group we are content with our progress and our second rough cut and plan to do whatever we can to make it even better. Therefore, we have each given eachother roles to complete by next Monday (18th) in order to make sure we will complete the project in time to meet the upcoming deadline. 

ReShoot 2

Today we filmed the last part of our sequence that needed to be re-shot. This consisted of our flashback and we received the feedback that we needed to include and film a reaction shot of our protagonist when she was younger and receiving the information she was given in order to make it more realistic and see how she reacted. Hence we cast a girl in the lower part of the school called Sharon who was perfect for the part. In order to be organised we created a short shot list before filming that enabled us to be prepared when it came to filming because it meant we didn't have to improvise on the day what shots we wanted which I believe overall improved the standard of our filming. We also filmed many more shots than we'll actually need because we learnt this was a good idea when we filmed the main part of our sequence as when we started editing it meant we had a large variety of shots to pick and choose from. 
We needed to make sure the filming for this scene was perfect because it could be argued it is one of the most important scenes in our sequence because it provides the 'trigger' for the following action in the sequence. However, I believe my group and I filmed it to the best of our ability because our filming skills have improved greatly since we started the course. 

Camera

The first camera shot we used was a mid shot of both of our actresses sat opposite each other on chairs this gives the audience a sense of location because otherwise the shot would go straight into a close up of each of the actresses faces and this could be confusing. We then had a close up of the young girls face looking worries, a close up of the teacher informing the girl her brother has gone missing, and then a close up reaction shot of the young girl. When it comes to editing we will then be able to see which shots look appropriate and suitable and which do not. 

Mise-en-Scene

We decided to add verisimilitude to our filming by ensuring that the young girl was wearing school uniform as she was at school, and the teacher was wearing smart/casual clothes as appropriate to her character. We then used a small room with plain white walls to not add any distraction away from the action. 

To sum up, we have now completed all of our filming in terms of re-shoots so we will now be able to solely focus on ensuring the continuity of our editing is to the best of our ability. This means we are definitely on track to meeting our deadlines but there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of editing and sound that we'll have to do in the next two and a half weeks. 

Editing so far and our Title

So far all of our shots have been placed in the correct order and we've played around with each of them and the overall sequence and made a few very slight changes. Firstly, we have moved our flashback nearer the beginning of the opening because we feel it is better for the narrative sequence. Furthermore, after revising the research we did on the placement of titles we have moved out title into the middle of the sequence allowing us to show the titles of our actors beforehand and crew members afterwards. In addition, we have decided to place our titles over the top of our shots instead of on their own with a black screen because otherwise we felt we were likely to go over the time limit. During our editing session today though we had to overcome a problematic issue of the fact that when two of our shots were joined together they created a jump cut effect ruining the continuity of our editing. Hence, we had to see which other shots we had filmed and spend a lot of time deciding how we were going to resolve the problem. In the end we simply used another one of our shots and changed the sequencing slightly and luckily it worked.


 Above is the title we have created and are contemplating using in our opening sequence. We have still not finalised this decision because we haven't received any advice or feedback on it but we are hopeful it will be positive. The reason behind the idea is that the smoke can be used as a metaphor for the brother because his sister can't catch him the way you can't catch smoke as he drifts away from his family. The use of sans serif font is bold and eye-catching drawing the audience into the rest of the film and overall I am pleased with this title because I feel it achieves the mysterious and ambiguous tone we wish to create during our opening sequence.

Overall I believe my group have been working really well together in order to finish the project as soon as possible and meet the deadlines as we've each taken on different roles to help the project move forward. Once the titles have been finished and the last bit of filming is completed tomorrow all we will have to do is finalise our choice of music. However, this is will be an important feature which we will need to carefully consider and spend lots of time on. 

Filming and Editing our Re-Shoot

Filming
As soon as we had decided as a group that we needed to re-shoot we got together and found a date where we could re-shoot as soon as possible in order to meet our deadlines successfully. When filming our re-shoot we all found it a lot easier and more efficient than our fist day of shooting because we were more used to the equipment and knew exactly what to do in order to create our desired shots. Therefore, we were able to complete the filming much quicker and more smoothly than before. Once we got to our location we decided that we needed to capture an establishing shot as we were criticised for not doing so beforehand, and also discovered a more suitable location within the same house. This turned out to not be a major problem because all our shots had to be re-shot in the first place because our actress had dyed her hair. Overall, this has ended up working to our advantage as all the shots are now at a much higher standard meaning they will be easier for us to use when we edit.

Editing
When we started editing we decided as a group that the best point to start at would be to find all the clips we wish to use, and place them in the correct order and once this was done we could see what worked well and what parts didn't fit. We've also discussed many revisions to our idea including shortening our protagonists section in order to elongate our antagonist section where we plan to add a bit more drama and excitement to our overall opening. So far though we have made a good start in editing our product but to improve this further we may want to go away and watch some videos online on how to use Adobe Premiere in a more advanced way.

Below are some screen shots of the editing we have completed so far:

Overall, we've made a good start in developing our project so far but there is still lots of work to be done. Therefore, we have discussed as a group appropriate times and dates for us all to come and do some extra work on the project either as a group or individually to ensure the project continues to move forwards in order for us to meet the deadlines. 

Shooting Schedule

Below is our new shooting schedule for all of our re-shoots. 

I created this because it's crucial we stick to a schedule so we can complete all our filming as soon as possible in order to meet the deadline for our final cut on the 8th March. We need to complete all our filming quickly because once the filming is complete and to the standard we are aiming for, we can then completely focus on the quality of our editing which will overall bring our final product together. 

First Cut

Above is the first cut of our coursework and below is our own self-assessment of our work.

Camera:

• We haven't included an establishing shot therefore the audience is unaware of the location and environment so we'll have to shoot this in a re-shoot.
• The tilt-up of the camera we use near the beginning isn't smooth and is unprofessional and therefore needs to be re-shot.
• Overall we need to include more POV shots to bring the audience into the diegesis and connect with our protagonist, but the POV we have used in the flashback needs to be re-considered because it would be better if we could see the protagonists reaction in the flashback. 
• In some of the shots the camera isn't positioned correctly and the body of our actress gets in the way of the shot casuing the audience to not see her actions.
• The drawing of the boy needs a longer, and closer close-up shot to ensure the audience has time to see exactly what is on the drawing. 
• The ending of the final shot is too random and unexpected therefore, we will need to adapt this in order to fit our narrative better.

Editing/Titles/Transitions

• The overall titles we have used are good, clear and a suitable length of time and we are therefore pleased with the effective simpleness of them.
• We have a reasonable amount of transitions which break up the narrative in a positively, effective way which we are also content with.
• Overall, our editing is smooth and shows good continuity and this is something we need to continue after our re-shoot for our final product.

Mise-en-scene

• We wanted to use low-key lighting however, our lighting ended up being too natural and light so we may want to consider this when we re-shoot. 
• Overall the costume and make-up we used on our protagonist was suitable and added to as well as reinforced her character in the narrative. 
• The framing of some of our shots was sometimes not straight, and there were a few times when our protagonist was marginalised and not centralised. 
• Finally, her walk over to the desk after drinking the alcohol and having the flashback is too sober and her overall acting needs to be more 'drunk'.

Sound

• Our use of diegetic sound is clear, parallel and appropriate to the scenes which is good.
• Furthermore, the use of our non-diegetic score is also appropriate however, we need to find another piece of music for the ending of our product which has a faster pace and will help build-up and reinforce the narrative. 

Reviews and Feedback

Today we had our work showcased to the class and we were given some feedback on how our product is looking so far. The work shown was not yet even a completed version of our first rough cut but we had included most of our clips in the correct order and for the correct length of time so receiving some feedback has been very useful for progressing our project forward.

Things we need to improve/ work on:

•  Problems with the camera work - the camera pan we use to follow our protagonist whilst she walks from the window sill to the desk is slightly too fast therefore, we will have to either re-shoot or have a look at some of our other shots to see if we can replace it. Furthermore, we use a tilt down to show our protagonist pouring a drink and this is a bit jumpy and unprofessional, therefore we will have to search through some of our other shots and see if we have another one that could be better.
• Furthermore, we may want to revise our sequencing as there is a part where the flashback triggers our protagonists movements however, there are too many clips in between that the audience cannot tell that the flashback is the trigger. Therefore, we shall go back and have a closer look at our sequencing across the whole product to ensure we haven't made this mistake again. Moreover, the class felt that the protagonists movements were too dramatic after the flashback and there needed to be more of a build up so as a group we shall revise ideas on how to create this effect because it was something we planned to do during the planning process in the first place.

What we have done well:

• We have been applauded on our use of diegetic sound due to the fact it fits the scene appropriately and adds to the sense of agitation from our protagonist.
• In addition, on the whole our camera work has been very smooth and professional for example, our zoom into our protagonists eyes has worked really well as well as our positioning of the camera for the majority of our shots.
• Finally, although we hadn't decided on the piece of music we had used for the non-diegetic score, we were praised on the choice and told it fitted the narrative perfectly. Hence, this was a positive surprise for us because we hadn't actually watched our product with the music added to it before having the class review it. 

Therefore, overall I am extremely pleased with our progress and I feel we are on track for producing a product we are all proud of and the feedback we were given today has been very constructive. However,  there is still plenty to do and lots of decisions to be made about a number of things in the near future. But, for now as a group we feel we are working well and we're on track to meet the deadlines we have been set.

Editing: Where Are We Now?

We have a deadline for the 15th February to have completed a rough cut of our coursework. So far I believe we are fully on track to meeting this deadline because most of the clips we would like to use are in the correct order along with our titles and transitions. However, we still need to find a relevant piece of music to fit our product with and this is proving to be a challenge. 

As I mentioned earlier, most of our clips are in the correct order and look good, however we are having a bit of trouble with the one of the clips where our protagonist brings the glass up towards her mouth. When we were at the location filming, we thought the shot on the camera screen looked good however, after placing it into our product and having a closer look at it we can see that the camera wobbles slightly therefore we will either need to re-shoot this or cut the shot out. 

In addition, we were criticised that the way we had shot our flashback, was not clear enough to the audience that it was indeed a flashback. Therefore, we investigated some of the controls and effects on Premiere and discovered that we could slightly adapt and change the colour of some individual clips. Therefore, we decided as a group that we would try changing the colour of the flashback clip slightly, to a nearly midway point between normal and black and white. The idea behind the black and white is to represent the clip is going back in time. However, if this is unsuccessful we will simply re-shoot this scene in a different way. 

Finding music is one of our next biggest and most important jobs because this may alter the length of some of our shots/ transitions/ titles, or change the tempo and overall mood of our piece therefore we will need to choose it quickly in order for us to adapt our product to ensure they piece together effectively. Moreover, we are in the process of deciding a name for our piece and so far 'Obsession' is the product, however, it is not set in stone. 

On the other hand, we have successfully  incorporated our titles and ensured they are all the correct and same length of time as well as chosen a text and layout for them to appear in. Our product so far is roughly a time of 1 minute and 45 seconds long and there are still a few more clips we can add in to bring it up to the required length of time. 

Overall I believe we are making good progress and we are definitely on track to meeting the deadline next week. In my opinion we are working well as a group because we have each made sure we have equally contributed to the tasks and worked individually to ensure the project moves forward. In addition, we can all work together and come to agreements when it comes to big decisions and checking over each others individual work to ensure we are all content with how our product looks. Furthermore, I am extremely pleased with my own progress because I had hardly ever even used a Mac before joining this course, however, now I have impressed myself by my own contribution to the editing tasks and have successfully edited a number of sections of our final piece. Therefore, I have shown dramatic improvement in my ability to edit and I have gained many skills from using Adobe Premiere in this technical area.

Animatic

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Narrative: Put simply our narrative involves a girl who's older brother went missing when she was 11. At that age she couldn't understand what had happened, or why he left and this distorted her mentality. Therefore when she's older being reminded of what happened (through a flashback) makes her angry and agitated causing her to do all the actions in our opening sequence such as looking through old newspapers, photographs, photo albums, drawing pictures etc. As the tension of the scene builds through our use of intercutting and non-diegetic score, we then cut to the title, and then shoot our antagonist looking a lot calmer to show the juxtaposition between the two characters.
Camera: We start by using a long shot to establish the fact that our protagonist is alone in an empty room therefore she is being portrayed as a lonely character. We also use a zoom (or a cut, depending on whether the zoom works or not) into the protagonists eyes which leads into a point of view shot of her in a flashback where she was told her brother went missing. We will be using a low angle P.O.V to give a weak representation of our protagonist at this time. As a group we have decided to attempt a zoom out from the protagonists eyes too, back into the scene. The pace of the scene will start to increase and we will intercut between lots of mid shots and close ups of different angles to give a chaotic and distorted representation of whats going inside our protagonists head. As well as restricting the audience from seeing everything to give a more ambiguous tone to our final product. After the title appears, we shoot our antagonist male character who will as a whole be shot at an eyeline level. We plan to film our protagonist at this level to in order to show an equal social status. 
Lighting: We plan to use low-key lighting for the first scene with our protagonist in order to create a sinister atmosphere, and then juxtapose this with the natural or high-key lighting of the flashback and our final scene with our antagonist. The use of juxtaposition will reinforce the darkness and agitation of our protagonist compared to the more positive and relaxed atmosphere in the other scenes. 
Sound: We have always planned to have a non-diegetic parallel score but we have decided as a group to look into different types of contrapuntal sound to use instead because this might add to our final piece making it more ambiguous and go against some of the typical conventions of a thriller film. We won't be using any ambient sound but, we will be using lots of diegetic sound, however, if the quality of this sound isn't good then we will use foley sound instead to ensure it's noticeable to the audience. 
Editing: The pace of our editing is important because it will change the mood of our whole product. We are starting with a slow pace through the use of cross-fades, the slow pace continues into the flashback where only one continuous P.O.V shot is used. After the flashback, the pace will gradually start to increase through the use of less fades and more intercutting as well as a non-diegetic score increasing in volume and pace to suddenly come to a climax where our title will be shown. The pace will then slow right down for our final scene with only a few long/mid shots. Our titles will appear on their own screen in white writing with a black backdrop. This is inspired by Se7en and will act as transitions between some of the shots. 
Representations: Our protagonist will be wearing dark clothing consisting of a black leather skirt and a dark coloured shirt. This gives the impression she is a dangerous character but still very feminine. Our antagonist will wear a suit connoting the idea of a business man and both will be represented as formal characters. The female protagonist will have much more prevalence and therefore be the most dominant of the two characters portraying an atypical representation of gender. However, her actions will contradict this representation making her look weak and fragile and therefore more stereotypical of a woman. 
Audience: We shall relate to our audience by giving them something that they can relate to by repeating some of the conventions found in thriller films. However, we will provide something different so that the audience engages with our product through challenging some of the conventions too. For example, we intend to look into using contrapuntal sound as a non-diegetic score, and we are providing both stereotypical and atypical representations of our female protagonist to keep the audience interested in what she is actually like as a character. 

Shoot One

On Sunday my group and I completed our first shoot for our final product. The severe weather conditions of snow and ice meant that our antagonist was unable to reach our filming location so we decided to postpone filming his scenes until the forthcoming weekend. The weather also gave us some problems when it came to our lighting. This was due to the fact that all the snow outside made the natural light shining through the windows a lot brighter than it would have been otherwise. However, we worked with the situation and thought of ways to overcome this problem, for example, we decided it would be best to close one of the curtains and only use the natural light shining through one of the windows so the room didn't seem to bright. 

Regardless of this, we completed filming all of our protagonists scenes which shall take up at least 3/4's of our opening title sequence. In addition, it was also a very experimental day because we decided to vary some of the shots we planned to use in our storyboard. Although we had our storyboard accessible and used it as a guideline, we found that some of the shots we had planned to use wouldn't necessarily work or look good in our final piece. Therefore, many of the shots we took were similar but varied in length and angle in order to give us the widest range of choice when it comes to editing. 

On the other hand due to a number of reasons our timing for filming was also cut short which meant we didn't have enough time to experiment as much as we might have wanted but this didn't prevent us from filming everything we needed in one way or another. Furthermore, if we find that some of our shots don't work or we are missing something then we shall allow some time to re-shoot some aspects to ensure our final piece is as good as we can make it.  

Overall though I am pleased with my groups progress because even though we didn't have enough time as we might have wanted in order to be experimental, we did manage to have good communication and co-operation from all the group and our actress. This meant that we filmed what we wanted fairly quickly. We also allowed time for setting up the mise-en-scene and our actresses costume which didn't interfere with our filming time and presented our good organisational skills and preparation.  

Shooting Schedule

All of our filming is due for Monday 28th January and in order to meet this deadline I have been delegated the role of creating our shooting schedule.

Actors/Actresses and Costume

Due to the fact that we had originally planned to create a Bollywood thriller, we had chosen to use an Indians actress. However, we did not fulfill this desire but have chosen to keep our chosen actress for a number of reasons. 

Our chosen actress for our female protagonist is Cindy Sidhu. She is exactly what we've been looking for because we are searching to create a dark and sinister mood in the opening of our coursework therefore, we wanted to find someone with dark hair because we'll be using low-key lighting and this will make her face and tone of the opening, darker. 

 

Her costume shall consist of a darkly coloured shirt/top and a black leather skirt. We want the costume to be darkly coloured to add to the sinister tone, however we also want to portray our protagonist in a very feminine and stereotypical way. I feel the overall outfit achieves this and will give the exact representation we planned. Below are two pictures that give a rough idea of what our actress will be wearing and the photo on the right shows Cindy before we started filming. We decided to back comb her hair to give it a 'rougher' look and added to her eye make-up after this to make it darker and give her a more 'distressed' look. 

We have also cast a young Indian girl called Sharon in the lower part of the school to act as the our 'young protagonist' in the flashback scene. As well as Evelyn Stafford-Allen, a drama teacher at our school to act as our teacher in the flashback scene. The girl shall wear her school uniform and the teacher shall wear smart/casual clothing in order to keep verisimilitude within our opening. 

Props

I have been delegated the role of creating the props list. This focuses on the props we will need to either make or bring with us when we start filming. It is essential this is sorted out as soon as possible in order to enable us to start filming in order to meet our filming deadline.

This is the prop list we have created:

• A shot glass/Whsikey glass, (We shall decide on the day we are filming which we feel looks better and fits our narrative the best.)
• A water filled vodka bottle/Apple Juice filled whiskey bottle, (Again this will be chosen on the day we film for the same reasons as above.)
• Desk,
• Chair,
• Stack of newspapers,
• 'Missing' article,
• Sketch drawing of a boy in an empty room,
• Photographs of our protagonist and antagonist actors as children,
• Pencil,
• Black marker pen,
• Mirror.

Now I have created this list, it shall allow my group and I to be organised and ready to film in order to meet the deadline we have been set for our filming.

Deadlines for 2012

In order to complete our coursework on time we have been given some deadlines of the different parts of our coursework.

1. Storyboards and anamatic presentation: Tuesday 15th January
2. All of our filming: Monday 28th January
3. Post-Production, Rough cut: Friday 15th February 4pm
4. Final Deadline: Friday 8th March
5. Individual Evaluations: Friday 29th March 4pm

In order to ensure we meet some of these deadlines in the near future, and keep the project moving forward, as a group we have delegated roles to eachother:

• Callum is in charge of creating the anamatic presentation
• Jess is in charge of choosing locations, costume, actors/actresses
• I am in charge of props, shot list and creating our shooting schedule.

Overall, this will be crucial for my for my group, and prove extremely helpful becasue it means we eah have our own section of the coursework to focus and work on. This should meant that our work will get done more qucikly and efficiently in order for us to keep up with the workload and meet the deadlines that have been set.

How has the Continuity Task aided my understanding of the film-making process?

Overall the continuity task has helped increase my knowledge of the film-making process a lot becasue it has given me a practical, hands on experience of what it is like to plan, storyboard, film and edit a short film. This will significantly help me and my group when it comes to creating our final product becasue we will already have had some experiencing in the film-making process.

We planned our ideas very quickly because we wanted to finish our shot list and storyboard as soon as possible in order to give us more time to film and edit. This worked well but provided a few consequences. For example, because we rushed our planning our storyboard wasn't detailed enough which gave us problems when it came to filming becasue we had not been specific enough. However, once we had filmed we then had lots of time to edit which was very helpful because we ended up having to make a lot of changes to our final piece. 

The filming and editing process have also been extremely helpful in adding to my understanding of the film-making process becasue it allowed all of us to gain practical experience with using a camera. This will help us when we have to film our final product because we have now had experience in the different things we can do with a camera and what does and doesn't look good. For example, we attempted to include a zoom in our continuity task but the quality of our equipment was not the highest which meant it looked very amature and caused us to simply discard the shot. Due to this, we have decided as a group that we will do everything possible to ensure we do not include a zoom in our final product because we believe it will decrease the overall quality and continuity of it. 

Finally, from doing the continuity task I have learnt the importance of researching and planning because, as I mentioned earlier, due to the fact, we rushed our planning, when it came to filming and editing, it was much harder. This was because we had nothing to use as a guideline which therefore, meant it took a lot more time than we had previously expected to both film and edit our piece. However, this means that as a group we will be able to ensure we don't make this mistake again and take our time with our planning and continue our research right the way through our whole project. This should ensure that we have a more detailed guideline to use when we are filming and editing which should improve the overall quality of our final product.