Unser Film ist vollständig!!!

For those who can't speak German, OUR FILM IS COMPLETE!!!! woop woop, check it out and be amazed!

Mein Bewertung

My AS Media Studies Project Evaluation

-Ben Lucas

Callums Evaluation

Callum's evaluation can be found here :)

Evaluation - Joshua Perrée

Кликните овде за моју процену
(Click here for my evaluation)

Continuity check for the final film

I have watched our two minute production to ensure it is okay in terms of continuity. Most of the things are alright, as there is no definite assurance that the scenes are meant to be on the same days so things such as changes in lighting aren't too important. However Callum's jacket's do swap in scenes, going from grey on top to blue on top and back again. This could be confusing for any viewers, but we may get away with it as, as already mentioned there is nothing to say the scenes are all set on the day.

Target audience analysis

 The target audience for our film is going to be majorly males, aged from 16-25. We identified this as previous films like ours such as Shifty and Trainspotting and the genres of action and drug-thriller mostly appeal to this age range. Also the cast is mostly male and the film is very male orientated, meaning it would appeal more to males

Photo Storyboard

The four page photo storyboard for our film :

Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4

Title analysis - Trainspotting

I chose to analyse the titles of Trainspotting as this is a film that features heavily around drugs.

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The titles start by showing simply 'Channel Four Productions Presents' in white text on a black background. From the title then cuts to a shot of two characters running down the street, narrated by an unknown voice until one character gets hit by a car and the action freezes, showing the characters name. We are then shown a game of football where the theme of freezing and introducing characters continues. After all characters are introduced, the narrator continues with his speech, talking about heroin and the good points of the drug. During all this we see people preparing heroin to inject. Once the narrators speech is finished, we then see the title of the film in simple black text on a white background and hear a train horn sound. Strips of white and black moving horizontally on the screen, as if a trains headlights were passing by, linking to the title. The screen then turns completely black with the title now in white text.

This title is particulary effective as it introduces all the main characters, so viewers don't have to wonder who someone is or stop and re-wind to hear a name again. It also gets across the title of the film in a short but effective and understandable way.
So by the end of this title sequence we know all the main characters names, the name of the production company and the name of the film, which is why I feel it is a very effecive sequence.

Analysis of the first 15 minutes of a film - Taken

I chose to analyse Taken as although there is no theme of drugs throughout, the entire film is about kidnap, which is also a major theme in our production. The film is based around an ex-government 'preventer' - essentially a secret agent - and his chase to get his daughter back after she is kidnapped on a trip to Paris.

The film starts off with a home-video of the daughter, creating an emotional attachment to her from the start, as its natural to be caring for small children. This then cuts to a shot of the main character sat alone. Close-ups are used to show the emotion on his face, as well as the clearly audible sighs as he remembers the past.

The titles of the film are shown in plain white text over the film, as opposed to obscuring anything that is going on. This keeps the viewers eyes on the film and keeps them interested in what is going on, but allows people to view the titles as well.

The dialogue in the film comes from a character who doesn't make another appearancem which may make some believe they are insignificant. However it is what is said that is important, as the first words are the main characters name: 'Mr Mills'.

Following this exchange of dialogue we see Mr Mills attend a party, where the guests are all in suits and carrying fairly large presents. This gives the impression the person who is throwing the party is of high status, unlike Mr Mills as he was previously seen wearing a grey plain shirt, and even during these scenes has only a cheap suit on with a plain shirt

We then see the main character's daughter, who's kidnap the film will centre around. The plot is set up via a series of shots and dialogue, mainly close ups that show the emotional attachment between Mr Mills and his daughter. This is also amplified by the look of dejection and his body language when his gift of a kareoke machine has clearly been out done by his daughter's step-father's gift of a horse. The music that plays at this time also serves to portray the emotions he is feeling and the enormous sense that he is being left out of his daughters life, as well as to show how much he clearly cares about her.

After this party Bryan Mills returns home and has a night with friends, who appear to be former colleagues. They convince him to help with a body guard job, during which we see that he still has an incredible amount of skill and speed, which also hints towards the plot of the film and shows that he is more than capeable of tracking down a kidnapper. It also shows the emotion and shock associated with an attempted kidnap, both for the person who was the target, and for the person protecting her by showing their faces in a two shot medium close-up.

During this scene we also see him take a phonecall and arrange to see his daughter the next day. When this happens, we find out his daughter wants to go on a trip to Paris with her friend, unsupervised. Mr Mills isn't happy about this, and through a shot/reverse shot series of closeups we see the emotions on the two characters faces: Mr Mills' worry about his daughter going somewhere alone, and his daughters distress and not being trusted. These also serve to show the deep emotional connection between the two, and that Mr Mills will do anything to protect his daughter, as we see throughout the rest of the film.

Behind the scenes 2: Voice Over!

 Josh setting everything up

Matty does his voice over

Then its my turn

 And finally Matty plays us a nice tune before we finish

First 15 Minutes Analysis - Four Lions

For my First 15 minute film analysis I have chosen to analyse Four Lions because It is a British made film and is similar to our film we have created.
 The first scene of the film that we see is animated titles for the film companies, this is like our film because we also created an animated intro for our film company 'Ochre Digital'.




Within the first minute of footage you realise that the film is possibly about terrorists or what appear to me terrorists, this is a good sign for the film as it lets the viewer know what the film is going to include and have a plot about, also in the first scene the viewer is told through the form of dialog that the film is of a humorous nature.

Another good use of cinematography is that the director chooses to switch between the angle of the cam-corder and also room shots and close-ups of characters to help establish emotions and the setting. we can use this type of technique for our own film.

Further into the film at around 2 minutes, the family of 'Omar' who look like a normal family as his wife is a nurse, we can tell she is a nurse as to the costume that she is wearing, costume will playa big role in our film as it will be hard to make Matthew & Callum look like homeless people without a convincing costume and make-up.

3 Minutes into the film the first titles are show, the second title being the actual film name, many hollywood films leave the film name till a lot longer in the title sequence to make the film feel epic. This title also establishes the location of the city that the film is set, for people for Yorkshire most people would recognise that the building in shot is Meadowhall which is a major shopping centre in Sheffield.

The music in this scene sounds like the stereotypical Middle-East/Asian style of music which would be associated with people of the ethnicity of the film's characters.


This scene then turns into the next scene's location which is Omar's place of work, as a security guard at Meadowhall. The viewer knows that Omar is a security guard due to the set which is surrounded by pc monitors and also the costume which is a typical security guard uniform which would be seen at a shopping centre.

The next scene is an extreme long shot which establishes a small house next to the motorway in Sheffield, then this shot turns into a shot from inside the house where the first scenes were shot which tells the viewer that they are new to the idea of terrorism and haven't had the "correct" terrorist training which they aim to have, this adds comic value to the film.

After this scene the film goes to a scene shot in a car where the characters are discussing the idea of going to a training camp in Pakistan, from that point the shots become fast-paced as they tie up Barry, the fast shots show that its exciting and shows how fast the guys react to tying Barry up.

The next part of this scene includes some dialog which is shown by 'Shot Reverse Shot' between the characters that are talking, this is a good technique and is used in almost EVERY film in the world and is an industry standard way of shooting dialog.

The next scene shows a plane taking off which signifies that they are travelling somewhere, because of the dialog which suggests that they want to go to training camps in Pakistan, the viewer assumes that they are flying to Pakistan, the scene following that confirms the viewers ideas.












The next shots are filmed in a small side building which is lit very dark to show that it is an unsafe place and the activity that the are doing is not for the public eye, an excellent shot that the director uses it to film the characters from outside the room that they are in, through the doorway which is covered by beads, the camera work is also not stable which creates the feeling that it is as if you are looking through someones eyes.













The shots are then returned to Shot reverse shot and also the previous camera work through the doorway which shows dialog.


The next scene shows the characters in a car driving through the desert, through this scene the different camera angles include close ups of the characters faces and also establishing shots of the surrounding and the road they are driving down, this tells the viewer that they are in a remote place which could suggest that they are on their way to a training camp.

Once they exit the car, they grab their thing which are large rucksacks, these props are very good because it shows the viewer that they are actually off to the camp whereas if they didn't have any bags the viewer wouldn't be sure if they were at the camp. The costume of the other characters in shot also confirm that they are at a camp as they are dressed like a stereotypical terrorist.

The next scene opens with an extreme long-shot of the centre of Sheffield which shows that the story is jumping back to the characters who are still in Sheffield, England, this type of editing is great because it keeps the viewer on edge and also keeps their mind thinking about what is happening to the different characters at different parts of the film which will keep the viewer intrigued and wanting to continue watching.

This brought me to the 15 minute mark of the film and this is what I analysed.

Feedback of Our Film

To get the best feedback for our film, I shared the link to our film on my Facebook page to ask my peers what they thought of the film and what could be improved. In total I got 10 comments about our film, all the feedback we got was of a positive nature, the main criticism is that in the scene where Jake and Kyle are talking the audio is far too low, we already knew about this issue and tried our hardest to fix it, but it was really hard to get rid of the background traffic noise, we would have gone and re-shot the scene but we didn't have time to do so with all the editing and blog work we had to get through, if we had to re-shoot the scene we would take a Boom-mic to record the talk scene so we had clear audio to work with.

The variation of the scripts

When we went to shoot our film we followed some of our script but but we mainly adapted some of the scenes because of certain locations and scenes worked better than it would if we followed the script completely, we did this with confidence because George Newton who played Banjo in This is England came and spoke to our class and said that the director, Shane Meadows, often changed the script and the way the film would be made on set to create a better outcome.

Individual Film Title Analysis - Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (Matthew Jones)

Click here to view the video


The film titles that I chose to analyse, was Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll - a documentary style film, telling the story of punk icon Ian Dury.

The film opens with dark, mysterious shots of what appears to be an abandoned, derelict theatre of some sort. There then appears a shadowy figure through the darkness, his features still hidden by the shadows. A pigeon flies up into the roof of the building, which is the first defined sound that you hear, but is soon followed by the ring of echoing footsteps, as the camera follows the mysterious figure from behind.

After the character has hobbled towards a lone microphone, his face hidden by a tipped hat, a single spotlight clunks into action and lights him up, alone on the stage. This gives the feel of a very alone, and creepy character. Possibly someone not to be trusted.

He then rolls off his hat, to reveal a white face with darkened eye-sockets. He gives you the impression of an eerie, possibly crazy circus ringleader from the way he is dressed in a suit-like jacket with what looks like face paint. He then begins to speak in a grizzly, essex accent, and seems as though he is building up to something more.

Your suspicions are then confirmed, as he bursts into song, and the previously lonely and mysterious theatre, is full of life and colour. The curtains draw back from behind him to reveal the rest of his band members. They then go on to play to a lively audience, with the creepy main character as the lead singer.

The real-life scenes then move into animated clips, with the human characters interacting with a cartoon world. There are lots of complexed motion graphics and designs, throughout this next scene, that would be far too complex for us to attempt.

One thing that I did like about this title sequence, and something that we can do in our video, is the use of 'film burns'. These are overlays and transitions that flash up orange, yellow and red shapes on the screen, and make the scene look a whole lot more professional and well-produced, with little effort. The way in which we will do this, is download stock footage of these effects, then use an 'add' compositing mode to them, and layer them above the clips we want to affect in Final Cut.

Some relevant shots from the titles are shown below:

One of the first shots, of the abandoned theatre.

The spotlight clunks into action

The first look at the character's face

His band is revealed...

...but he maintains his 'lunatic' persona

The final part of the titles is when real life clips
are mixed in with animated scenes.

Title Sequence Analysis : The Pursuit of Happiness

The opening title sequence for 'The Pursuit of Happiness' starts with a serif font introducing the production companies and other businesses involved with the making of the film. As each name is faded in from black to white, it slowly swiped left to right until they fade back out. 

As for the title of the film, the camera pans over an open book which then highlights the words 'Pursuit of Happiness'.

Compared to the titles in our film, it is quite similar in the fact the white-on-black writing introduces the key companies/people within the first few minutes at a fairly slow pace. The only different I noticed is the title of our film is shown a lot differently as the screen fades to black and individual letter of "LiFE" pop up at second intervals. 

Link to the title sequence

Treatment - Full Film

Introduction:
Our film is an urban drama, inspired by films such as Shifty and Taken. A mixture of drug-fuelled twists and turns along with a touching story of a brothers devotion, makes this a must see for the majority of society today.

Title:

Our film will be called ‘LiFE’ due to the issues it covers, which could become reality for anyone without warning.

Audience:

The audience for our film is people mainly aged 15 to 50 who enjoy gripping, heart-warming stories with a sinister twist. People who enjoy related films such as Shifty and Taken may be interested to watch as it covers some of the basic elements of each without being a blatant copy. The certificate of 15 was chosen so that we can include some scenes involving drug use, kidnapping and strong violence, which may appeal to the more desensitised audience who prefer grungy, urban and realistic scenarios to glitzy Hollywood fakeries. A male audience would probably be more suited to watch the film due to the violent nature of some scenes and the overall theme, drugs. On the other hand there is something for everyone in our film, which makes it appeal to infinitely larger audience.

Duration:

The duration of our film will be about 80 to 100 minutes long, as this gives us time to work in a gripping introduction, an edge-of-your-seat main body and an ending where all narrative threads are tied up.

Synopsis:
“Our drug-fuelled crime thriller, follows the story of two brothers – Jake and Kyle Miller from Barnsley – who’s previously divorced Dad was believed to have mysteriously died when Jake was just 7 years old and Kyle was 12. Having no mother figure to support them, and little money left to them by their father, they struggled through homelessness and living in shelters for the most part of their young lives.

The story picks up when Kyle wins £25,000 on the National Lottery, which his brother Jake has always been reluctant to take part in. Jake is now 17, and Kyle is 22.

Needing at least £2,000 more in order to finally buy themselves a small 2 bedroom flat, Jake turns to small-time drug dealing, in order to quickly raise the money they need. Jake tells Kyle that he’s got a low-paying job, which has provided the extra money they needed, although Kyle remains suspicious of his brother.

On a dark night in a quieter part of town, Jake is kidnapped without any evidence left behind or any witnesses to the crime. After receiving a ransom letter from Jake’s kidnappers, demanding the £25,000 they were going to put to a flat, Kyle then finds out his brother’s secret drug dealing ways, and goes on the hunt to rescue him, being warned that Jake will be killed immediately if anyone else gets involved.

The film then follows Kyle on his hunt for his brother – the only family he has ever really known – as he travels from town to town to save Jake.

The twist in the story later reveals that it was in fact the brothers' father (Brian Miller) who kidnapped Jake after Brian faked his own death once he became involved in heavy drug dealing issues himself. The whole idea behind the kidnapping was to try and shake him out of the shady world of drug dealing, but was it successful, or is Jake on a set path in a downward spiral?”

Suggested Elements:

There are many things that set our film apart from others. The first one of which is the motion tracked text in the title sequence. This is not a common effect in films these days, with most directors opting for static text or motion graphics. Secondly, the film burns between clips make the final product look more professional, and make the piece look more interesting, and in turn keep the viewer interested for longer.

Permission for Train Station Filming

The link below is the permission we received to film some of our scenes at Barnsley Interchange Train Station.

CLICK ME

'Tricky' Camera Angles

 From looking at the script, and from taking photos of the areas we plan on shooting, there is only one shot that I deem to be tricky, and then, it's mainly about timing as we can select which train we need to film.

The only shot that will truly be hard to shoot is the one where we film both main characters walking on one side of the platform for a few seconds right before a train drives by, cutting to a different scene. The main problem that will happen is if the train isn't going straight through the station, and in fact stops, making the shot useless. 

Prop research

Sticking with the stereotypical idea of a homeless person, I've researched some props that could be used.

Alcohol (Specifically Special Brew or White Cider, generic cheap alcohol) 

The most common stereotype of homeless people is that they drink to 'drown their sorrows'. However since they have little money they have to buy cheap alcohol.

Price £2.50 (Need to be over 18 to buy) 

Sleeping bag 

Another common theme was that homeless people carry around nothing but a sleeping bag. This could be incorporated into the film somewhere ro make sure the audience get the idea that neither of the brothers have homes.

Price £8.00 

Newspaper & Cardboard with message

a popular stereotype is that homeless people are seen reading newspapers they pick up off the floor, or with scraps of cardboard on which they have wrote a message to beg for money

Costume research

Both of our characters are being portrayed as stereotypical homeless people. This means ripped, dirty clothes (often lots of layers, as a homeless person would be sleeping in the cold). Homeless people would also have no means of shaving or other grooming, so we will have to fake stubble.

These are stock photos of homeless taken from the web of a homeless person. Below is an on-location photo of our homeless costumes. We've used facepaint to make a stubble-like effect, and worn ripped and old clothes. Matty went as far as to find a pair of fingerless gloves, a hat and scarf. 

Individual Film Analysis : Shifty

Within the first 3 minutes of Shifty, the scene and overall plot of the film is set, with usage of drugs introduced quite early. In this short time, the main antagonists and protagonists are shown going about their routines right before the film begins.

When the two protagonists meet up at a house, through their body language and actions you can tell they previously knew each other and are on good terms. It is not until several minutes later though you find out that one of them has turned to drug dealing for a living. 

Meanwhile, when it focuses on the antagonist, the feeling is less rejoicing and more down-to-earth as you can tell, again, from his body language and behaviour that something is bothering him, causing him to leave the house without interaction with anyone. The idea that something is wrong is then confirmed as he is told to leave his work premises by his Boss for brining and using drugs on site. 

When compared to our film there are many similarities, mainly the use of drugs but also how people are reunited after a long period with no contact at all. The intro of ours is different as it mainly focuses on the fact the main characters are homeless and in a dire situation of being moved away from their current 'home', when in Shifty it is about reunion and drugs. (Which come at a later stage in our production). 

Facebook profiles for our characters

We created a Facebook profile for both our characters, as a way of advertising the film and taking advantage of social networks. These will work alongside a 'Life Movie' fan page we have created.

Title of our film

Our film has finally been named!
We decided upon a title of 'LiFE', as this reflects the fact the film is about the life of the two brothers. It is also a memorable title as it is short and not complicated, meaning it will stick in peoples heads more. A smaller title also means making posters and promotional material will be easier as we wont have to fit a large, hard to read title onto, for example, an A5 flyer

Editing The First Draft

For our first draft of our editing film we have added our Ochre Digital intro video and also added some titles similar to what would be seen in a real film, we have also used some key framing to make the film title appear on the wall and follow the motion of the camera an then fade out again when the camera moves away.