Animatic Storyboard Evaluation

Creating the animatic storyboard was very positive in the progression of our final idea for our music video, we had previously created a timeline of events in the video however by using photographs and drawings in a storyboard format it really brought our video to life and gave us an insight to the finished product. As our group has never created an animatic storyboard before it was a learning experience and took quite a while to do the filming of each individual storyboard as we had a lot of them and filmed each for 10 seconds to make sure we had enough time for each storyboard section. By creating the storyboard we changed and finalised our idea, it is not as we first planned but I feel the idea has progressed and now it works as a finalised idea. The editing of the video worked fairly smoothly and everyone got a go at both the editing and filming which refreshed everyone’s camera and editing skills, preparing us for our final shoot fairly soon. Overall I feel the whole experience went well, our idea has progressed successfully, the animatic storyboard greatly helped this and I am looking forward to replicating our idea in our actual video.

Animatic Storyboard

After creating our storyboard we then created an anamatic storyboard by filming and editing our storyboard using Final Cut Pro; this process was very useful as not only has it left us with an animated storyboard which gives us a moving insight into how our music video will look but it also gave us a chance to refresh our filming and editing skills.

Our Timeline

Copyright permission for track

To (name of record label/contact at record label)

UNIVERSAL PUBLISHING AND RAM RECORDS

 

We are a group of A Level students working on an A Level project for a qualification in Media Studies. We are writing to request permission to use the following track as part of this project:

Name of track and artist

"LET YOU GO" - CHASE & STATUS

With your permission the track would be used as the accompaniment to a short form video that is made purely for assessment purposes and will have no commercial usage. The video will be viewed only by members of the school community and the assessor of the examination board.

The artist and the copyright holder will of course be fully recognised in the pre-production and evaluation material that accompanies the project. We can also include a full copyright notice if required both in the planning material and on the video itself.

Yours sincerely

HOLLY JADE FINLAY, PATCH WADSWORTH, CHARLIE LINDSAY AND OSCAR JACKSON
Student names
Hurtwood House School

Initial Concept of Music Video

Institutional Context

Our Artist SMAK, will be signed to a very small independent record company. A record company such as Bad Sekta. Bad Sekta showcases experimental electronic music from genres that have grown and developed out of the free party scene. Fusing elements of Drum’n’Bass, Techno, Hardcore and Industrial, as well as a hefty dose of experimentation; non-commercial styles of music have been able to flourish in the free party environment and Bad Sekta aims to bring some of these artists to the ear of those who’d normally pass them by.

This type of record company, really helps to highlight their type of star image, and how they would be hired or taken on by a type of company like this. 

 

Feedback

Good work, Charlie, the blog is nearly up to date  but you have not yet covered the institutional context of your artist which is a key element.  It would be worth adding some of the feedback you received on your timeline to contextualise the changes that will be made to this for the storyboarding exercise.  Otherwise, keep going with regular updates.

James

Feedback

Well done, Charlie, there is plenty of material up here despite your problems with Slideshare.  There is a clear sense of the kind of genre you want to work in, although your target audience profile would benefit from having more detail of the lifestyle of the ideal listener.  You could also discuss which elements of the real artists' image you would like to emulate with your hypothetical band.

 

James

Research Into Artists of a Similar Type to our Hypothetical Band

Magnetic Man

Magnetic Man is an electronic music project consisting of popular dubstep producers and DJ's, Benga, Skream and Artwork. The genre of Magnetic Man's songs are Dubstep and are aimed at a similar audience to Chase and Status and our hypothetical band, 'SMAK'. http://www.magneticman.net/gb/home/

Nero

Nero are an electronic music act from England consisting  of DJ's Daniel Stephens and Joe Ray. Nero are electronic music artists, best known for producing house, dubstep and drum and bass. Nero's debut dubstep release was "This Way" in 2008. Nero recently released their first album, named "Welcome Reality", signed to MTA Records, owned by Chase & Status. http://www.thisisnero.com/

DJ Fresh

DJ Fresh (real name Daniel Stein) is an English DJ, and one of the principal members of Bad Company, a Druss and Bass group. DJ Fresh creates predominately Drum and bass songs and targets a similar audience to our group SMAK. His number 1 hit, 'Louder' was used as part of a Lucozade Lite advertising campaign in the UK and Ireland and became his first UK #1 hit. www.myspace.com/freshbadcompany

Identification of Target Audience

The idealised target audience of our band SMAK who would buy into the whole image of the band would be the following;

• Male
• Aged between 14 – 24 (attending school or university)
• Any race although most probably English speaking/Western  
• Middle Class because there are able to afford the consumption of our product
• Trendy and Fashionable, buying into the drum and bass culture
• A trend follower that can dedicate themselves to an image
• To be interested in music culture e.g. reads ‘NME’ and watches MTV
• To be Active on the Nightclub scene, enjoys clubbing music
• Go to Festivals and live performances  

As well as our idealised target audience, the image and music of the band attracts a certain personality also; as the band is young, rebellious, coming from an urban background they appeal largely to any teenagers growing up in London particularly, who are already involved in the drum and bass culture. Predominately aimed at teenagers, SMAK appeal too many different demographics, the image can attract male and females from a vary of classes and locations. Being very much involved in the drum and bass movement they would attract any clubbers.

Research Into Artists Inspiring Our Music Video

We are using Chase and Status’s song ‘Let you Go’ for our music video and so did some background research into the artist who created the song.

Chase & Status are an electronic music production duo from London consisting of Saul Milton (Chase– guitar, keyboards, programming, DJ) and Will Kennard (Status – keyboards, programming, DJ). Chase and Status is a group of two DJ’s who create music associated with the genres; Drum and bass, breakbeat, grime, hip hop, dubstep and liquid funk primarily.

Chase & Status have had three number one tracks on the UK Dance Chart and multiple UK Top Forty hits in the chart, including their forth album ‘Blind Faith’ which peaked at the Number Two spot in the charts.

They met at Manchester University through their mutual love of drum and bass in the mid nineties and have DJ'd ever since, waiting until 2004 for their first production, however their genre has changed as they progressed and became more mainstream to target a wider audience. Chase and status changed their style from more Liquid Drum and bass songs such as "Take you there" and became more commercialized and mainstream after they moved their genre to Club/Dance music. Chase & Status' first album, ‘More Than A Lot', debuted in the UK album charts at number 49 however three albums and a genre change later, ‘Blind Faith’ reached number two, appealing to a mass audience.

Hypothetical Artist Profile and Star Image

Our hypothetical band is called SMAK and is an electronic and drum and bass band consisting of a singer, DJ, bassist and drummer, all of which are included in our track ‘Let you go’. SMAK is a young, urban band raised in a metropolitan, gritty area within London; their back story being that they grew up knowing each other in a poor urban area within London and all were largely anti-authoritarian and rebellious however their music gave them a chance to get out of their lifestyle. The star image of the band is that they are still the rebellious youths that they were, coming from an urban grime area promoting drum and bass culture and epitomising ‘cool’. They would have many stories associated with anti-social behaviour, drink and drugs problems and be constantly on the wrong side of the law which would feed in with their star image. Our star image would be similar to that of the Sex Pistols as an example; SMAK would be known for being rebellious, anti-authoritarian and their controversy as a star image would be just as important as their music. SMAK are a new cool band associated with rebellion and youth and would be heavily connected with the up and coming drum and bass scene.

Our Song- 'Let you go'

After talking as a group and looking at our separate initial ideas for a song to make the video to, we decided to use the popular drum and bass song, 'Let you go', by British band Chase and Status. We chose this song as it was one that we were all familiar with and enjoyed, also because we wanted to create a video for a fast paced dance song in which we could incorporate a lot of movement. Now that we have decided on our song we will research similar artists to create a hypothetical band and star image and then come up with an initial treatment for our music video.

Initial Music Video Treatments

Over summer we had to come up with some initial ideas for music video treatments, to prepare ourselves for coming up with our final idea for our music videos. I came up with three treatments for music videos for existing bands, taking their image, genre and style of music into consideration and portraying this in my treatments.

Music Treatment 1

Artist: Youth Group

Track: Forever Young

Image of Band: Youth Group is a young artistic, independent band who plays songs with a predominately alternative genre. The song is a slow, melodic , alternative/indie rock song with guitar, vocals, drums, bass and piano.

Music Video Treatment: The video would have both a narrative and performance element, as there are the common instruments in bands, guitar, drums, bass, vocals and piano, it would be easy to create a similar hypothetic band and have them mime the song. The narrative element of the song would mirror and emphasise the image of the band, using many artistic and alternative shots and would have a youthful and generally artistic feel to the video. The narrative would be a montage of shots of youthful teenagers acting rebellious yet having a good time, drinking, smoking, doing graffiti, skateboarding, and etcetera. This image would mirror the cool, youthful, rebellious image of the band. As the song progresses however and past the climax of the song, the fun-loving youths would face the consequences of their actions, being arrested for drugs, becoming involved in gang warfare etcetera. This narrative element would again portray the band as rebellious and would tie in with the lyrics of the song ‘I want to be forever young’.

Music Treatment 2

Artist: Fabolous

Track: You Be Killin Em

Image of Band: Fabolous is a black rapper American rapper who creates hip-hop rap music. His image is a cool, trendy, masculine rapper; as he is marketed as a stereotypical black rap artist he is associated with rebellion, masculinity and womanizing, I would replicate this image in the video.

Music Video Treatment: My music video treatment would be predominately performance based and I would only have the miming of the rapping and vocals rather than any instruments in the song. The focus of the video would be on my hypothetical artist who would be rapping throughout the video in various locations and situations. I would mirror and expand on the image of the artist by conforming ‘black rap stereotypes’ by placing him in situations surrounded with pretty girls, excessive wealth objects, illegal substances and creating a ‘cool’ image he is associated with by dressing him in baggy clothes and caps with lots of ‘bling’ to exenterate his wealth. By creating a distinct masculine image for my hypothetical rapper artist I would conform the rap stereotype, having a sexual, sexualised video would add to this image.

Music Treatment 3

Artist: Keane

Track: A Bad Dream

Image of Band: Keane are a fairly well known alternative/indie rock band who’s songs are predominately slow with a rock undercurrent to them; the song is a fairly slow and melodic one however, like my first treatment, includes all the typical band instruments making it easy to create a hypothetical band to mime with. The band has an independent, artistic, ‘cool’ image which I would mirror in my hypothetical band.

Music Video Treatment: Similar to my first music video treatment, the video would have both a narrative and performance element; the performance element would be fairly easy to create as my hypothetical band would mime the common instruments in bands, guitar, drums, bass, vocals and piano. The narrative element of the song would be the story of a youngish boy and girl who have a fight at the start of the song and separate, throughout the middle showing the emotion they feel for each other and the longing for each other as this complies with the emotive song and lyrics, ‘I wake up it’s a bad dream, no one by my side’, ‘You’re long gone’, and would build an emotional connection in the video. As the song builds and reaches the climax, nearing the end I would then have the couple suddenly start running and have a montage of them running through various locations, cross-cutting between the two, using artistic and quick cuts adding to the arty, quirky image of the band. Finally as the song reaches an end the couple would meet and the video with end as they embrace each other, completing the emotional story of the two.

Initial Brief for Advanced Portfolio

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

> A homepage for the band.

> A cover for it's release as part of a digipack (CD/DVD package).

> A magazine advertisement for the digipack (CD/DVD package).

All material for all tasks to be produced by the candidates with the exception of acknowledged non-original sound or image material used in a limited way in video/radio work. Further guidance will be avaliable in the support materials. For music video, permission should be sort from the artist for use of the audio track.
The centre will be expected to allocate marks according to four levels for each three categories:

1. Research and Planning.

2.Construction.

3. Evaluation.

In arriving at a level for each category, teachers are advised to look for evidence of 'best fit'. It is possible both for a candidate to be placed in different levels for each of the three categories and to recieve quite different marks from other memebers of the same group responsible for producing an artefact, according to his/her contribution. Teachers are asked to support marks with written comments under the three categories on the assesment sheet.

Feedback on Preliminary Pop Task

This is pretty comprehensive, Charlie, you seem to have covered most of the items that I asked for and there is some useful evaluation of the prelim music video.  Make sure that you focus now on the new brief and get your initial ideas and the development work up on the blog for next Friday.

James

Pop Promo Preliminary Task

Music video analysis

Party in the USA

Party in the U.S.A. is a dance-pop song which arranges R&B and pop music elements, as it is a pop song, aimed at a wide audience to gain quick succession it completed this task as it got to number 1 in American mainstream charts and sold 4.5 million copies of the single.

‘Party in the USA’ by Miley Cyrus is a good example of a music video which complies with the star image of a performer; Miley Cyrus is also known as her child TV star alias Hannah Montanna, the ‘normal girl’ by day and ‘pop star’ by night. As Hannah Montanna is a child’s show the representation of Hannah Montanna is that of a young, innocent, ‘good girl’ performer, Miley Cyrus however is currently in the stages of breaking out of her innocent pseudonym and so her video ‘Party in the USA’ helps this as she is no longer the innocent child but turning into the slightly rebellious, grown up pop star.

The video shows Cyrus wearing black denim short shorts, cowboy boots, a low cut top revealing cleavage and dark heavy eye makeup, she is dressed provocatively and her dark clothes gives her a more ‘grown up’ and sophisticated look. In comparison to her earlier Hannah Montanna videos, Miley is a complete transformation aimed at an older audience now who has grown with her through Hannah Montanna to the more established pop star she is today. In the video Cyrus is surrounded by girls of a similar age to show that she still appeals to the girls that grew with her through HM, however she also waves to an attractive man to show that she has grown. The song is a very upbeat, high tempo pop song and the video reflects this with a lot of dancing and movement from the dancers and Cyrus’s fans.

"Party in the U.S.A." was a critical and commercial success, reaching the top ten of charts in eight countries. In the United States, the song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Cyrus' best-charting single to date and sixth-best-selling digital single of 2009. It was also deemed one of the best-selling singles in the United States and Hollywood Records' fastest and best-selling single to date, selling 4.5 million copies as of April 2011.”

Research in to performance shooting and editing for prelim video with examples of good music videos you found/shots you like

As the genre of music we created the music video for was Motown/R&B we did some research into the two different genres music videos prior to the filming of our preliminary video;

Motown-

"Motown is a record label originally founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation in Detroit, Michigan, United States, on April 14, 1960. Motown has owned or distributed releases from more than 45 subsidiaries in varying genres, although it is most famous for its releases in the music genres of rhythm and blues, soul, hip hop, and pop."

"Motown specialized in a type of soul music crafted with an ear towards pop appeal, the Motown Sound typically used: tambourines to accent the back beat; prominent and often melodic electric bass-guitar lines; distinctive melodic and chord structures; and a call-and-response singing style that originated in gospel music"

As the objective of the music was to 'keep it simple' the music videos are often the same and will only use basic shots to capture the group; the videos I found rarely consist of a narrative found as they are all fairly old however they focus on the movement of the group or solo artist and their voices in particular.

R&B-

"Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s.The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular"

"Contemporary R&B has a polished record production style, drum machine-backed rhythms, an occasional saxophone-laced beat to give a jazz feel (mostly common in contemporary R&B songs prior to the year 1995), and a smooth, lush style of vocal arrangement."

In researching R&B music videos I found that they incorporate a lot more movement and narrative plots than the Motown videos did, particulary the more modern R&B tracks. They are usually set in urban areas and use dancing or movement in their videos to comply with the upbeat tempo of the songs.

Evaluation of Pop Promo Preliminary Task

1. The shot choices we used in the preliminary task were primarily all quite basic shots in the sense that we did not use panning, tracking or complex shots but focused mainly on close-ups, mid-shots and long shots of the band. From the research of the band we all knew that they were quite a kooky band with a deliberate individual, vintage and arty feel; therefore in the preliminary task we tried to mirror this image or representation of the band by using arty and unusual shots and angles to film the band. I feel that these shots really enhanced the image the band was trying to put across and worked effectively.

2. In the production our group took turns in rotating the roles we did for the shoot, director, camera man and music technician. T was effective as it meant that everyone got a turn experiencing the different roles we would have filming our proper music video and we got to learn how the directing, camera equipment and music technology works. Personally I liked being camera man the best as I studied and enjoyed photography and enjoy filming so I felt quite at ease behind the camera, the camera work is something I hope to do more of in our music video.

3. Personally I think we worked very well as a team, not only in the filming of the band in which we were organised and efficient getting all of our desired shots but also in the editing process as we knew what style of editing and how we wanted the music video to look and feel so we were quite quick at editing the video together and came out with a result we were all happy with.

4. In the editing process I learnt new skills and developed previous ones in editing; as we researched the band prior to filming we knew the ‘image’ we were dealing with and so not only applied to mirror this in the filming but also in the editing. We used sharp quick cuts between the various vocalists and instruments in the band, focusing mainly on the main singer, to give the song a quick, kooky, upbeat feel to it and quite a quick pace, which I feel complied with the representation of the band. A skill I learnt which will be particularly handy in the real video is how to keep the music in time with the performers, syncing the two together in editing. Although I learnt new techniques in editing unfortunately I did not get to try them out too much as we were in a large group so we shared the time equally and therefore did not do too much each, I hope that in the real music video I will have more input on the editing of the video.

5. I think we succeeded in matching the mood and image of the music video to the image of the band; we researched what image we had to go for to comply to that of the band which I feel we did successfully. The music video also matches the track it was designed for, the editing we did was tight and all performers are synced perfectly due to the technique we were taught in editing. All though the video is purely performance and no narrative I feel it still works well as a music video as it says a lot about the band and their style. In this sense I feel that by our editing, camera and directing skills we managed to create an impressive part of the music video which not only improved our skills and gave us a taste for the real music video, but which works effectively in portraying the band. We did research on the band, which we will have to invent for our actual music video, and then tried to mould the music video to meet that research which I think we did effectively and meets the target audience of the band.

Research into the prelim video artists you shot on the day- how did their image influence their decisions?

Before filming ‘Jane Doe & the Undesirables’ our group did some background research to find out the style and genre of the band so we could try and incorporate the image of the band into our video. From the research on the internet I found out that the band’s genre was R&B/Soul / Motown / Pop and found some information of themselves:

“We are a new Brighton based originals band, heavily influenced by Motown, currently performing in and around Brighton, whilst expanding our fan base. We are primarily a 'pop' band with spatterings of Motown harmony and 'Lily Allen' style tongue in cheek humor.”

Members: Sophie Roberts, Tom Billington, Kate Holdaway, Carmen Reumers, Brad Laver, Jamie Batt, Daniel van der Houwen

From this research on the band I could tell that they were quite a kooky and new band so their image would be quite an individual, arty and cool new band. Their combination of Motown, Pop and R&B made me thing their image would be quite a vintage but upbeat individual style we therefore tried to include this in the video not just in the mise-en-scene which has quite a vintage feel, but also in the shots we took of the band which were quite arty from interesting angles. Listening to the song also influenced our decisions in the music video, the song is quick tempo, upbeat and quirky so we therefore used short quick cuts in the music video editing to try and compliment the quirky song and band.

Task 7- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

I feel that over the course of the production I feel that from my preliminary task to my finished thriller opening sequence I have progress a lot.

The main task was much more in depth and complicated to do that the preliminary as in the preliminary we didn’t have to do too much planning, with our sequence already being primarily storyboarded for us, also it was not as important so we didn’t have to use as sophisticated and impressive shots or editing. Prelim we planned and filmed in one lesson and edited in a lesson, where as for our main task we had weeks of planning and re-developing our ideas, then after we had established it we then had to plan props, location and actors, our filming took an entire day and then editing took weeks to complete. The difference between our preliminary and finished task is very noticeable and I am very happy with how our finished thriller turned out.

2. I feel that my film making skills have improved from our preliminary task to our finished product, in our preliminary task the shots were basic and storyboarded for us with the option to add in extra shots if we desired. In the main task of our thriller we had to storyboard and come up with all the shots used and why we would use them, planning the whole thing, this was much more difficult as we had to plan and think about what shots to use and which shots would be effective. My understanding of different shots has also increased since the preliminary task and rather than just picking shots that we thought would look good for our final thriller, we debated as to what shot would portray our idea best for each one. I didn’t mind storyboarding as we worked as a group and got our idea and shots worked out so that it was quite easy, although as our idea got changed on shoot day slightly we couldn’t use our storyboard for our previous idea so we had to make a quick one for the new idea and plan some of the shots while we were shooting. Our editing has also improved vastly since the preliminary task in which the editing was not very flowing or correct, however I feel the final opening of the thriller is fluid and runs smoothly.

3. There is a definite improvement from our preliminary to our main task in the use of camera, we all in the group were more comfortable with the camera, how to function it and how to frame our shots deciding on what will be most effective. We took some of the original shots from our preliminary task but developed them and incorporated new shots which hopefully looked effective and fitting for a thriller. We used eye-line matches from our assassin to the targets; we broke the 180 degree rule with three consecutive shots and used various other shots in it which we did not use in our preliminary such as a tracking shot on tracks. I feel that the camera work improved considerably from the preliminary to the actual thriller.

4. The change in sound from our preliminary to our main task is very noticeable and improved; in our preliminary task the dialogue is quite quiet and does not include music or any other sounds. In the main thriller task we used ambient non-diagetic wind sound that we put in, we used dramatic music to add tension and create a tense atmosphere, put in gunshots and bangs, and also recorded dialogue which we put over the top of our video. The sound for the main task was quite hard to put in place and organise, and to fins the right sounds for our thriller but eventually we got it all together and placed them in appropriate places in the video. I feel that the sound progressed from our preliminary task to our main thriller vastly and that we have learnt a lot.

Task 6- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Double click the video to see our annotated one.

Task 5- How did you attract/address your audience?

How did you attract/address your audience?

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Task 4- Who would be the audience for our Media product?

The audience for our film would be a niche audience of British 16-40 year olds as our independent British physiological thriller would appeal to them primarily as a target audience. As our thriller is a crime and sort of physiological thriller as it involves murder, crimes and a mysterious plot it appeals to an audience who enjoy thrilling, dark films. The violence will charactiristically appeal to men moreso then women, and as it is a British thriller, it will appeal to British men. If we could use Vertigo Films, a British film production and film distribution company, to distribute our film this would be very helpful as they already have a British male audience who follow their films which are targeted at their audience. Vertigo makes low budget indipendent films primarily, a lot which involve crime or phycological thrillers, such as Football Factor and The Business, which are specifically aimed at British males. If we could tap In to this audience it would mean we already have an existing target audience, resulting in a cheaper advertising campain. With our advertising campain we would not need an expensive campaign which high concept, universal audienced films do, as the film would be targeted at a niche British audience, we could bypass the cinema, saving money, and make our profit through DVD sales. Advertising would merely consist of occasional screenings of the trailer on TV and cinema, minimal posters or billboards, critiques in papers, no viral campaigns or franchise, but mostly on word of mouth from our niche audience, which is the most effective advertisement. If we could distribute our film through Vertigo  we would already have an audience, save money on advertisment and make a profit back through the sale of DVDs.

Task 3- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our film is an independent British physiological thriller filmed on a low budget production and targeted at a niche audience of British 16-40 year olds primarily. Our thriller is a crime and sort of physiological thriller as it involves murder, crimes and a mysterious plot; it is not like a high concept film as it is narrative over action. I think a likely distribution company to distribute our film is Vertigo Films, which is a British film production and film distribution company. Vertigo is an independent film company, which relies on sponsors and did rely on government funding to make its films as it does not have the money to back itself, thus making low budget niche films which are predominately targeted at British males, such as Football Factor and The Business. Vertigo creates about four films a year and I think Vertigo would be an ideal company to distribute our film for a number of reasons; it creates films with similar genre to ours, such as Pusher II, a 2004 crime film written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, it portrays the lives of criminals in Copenhagen. And the Business is a 2005 British drama/crime/gangster film written and directed by Nick Love which stars Danny Dyer and follows the Greek tragedy-like rise and fall of a young cockney's career within a drug importing business run by a group of British fugitive criminals living in Spain. The films it creates are low budget and appeal to a niche audience, which is similar to our film so I think they would be interested in distributing it as it appeals to an already present Vertigo audience which will make them money. Although Vertigo, due to a lack of budget, would not be able to create mass advertisement and marketing, the film would not need it and could rely on the existing audience and small budget advertising to suffice. Again due to lack of budget the release would be a platform rather than a blanket release, meaning it would start in a few cinemas and expand depending on the positive feedback of the film, rather than mass ‘blanketing’ of all cinemas which high concept film companies such as Warner Brother Pictures who have the money, do, appealing universally with their high action films. The more probable alternative would be for our film to go straight to DVD as many of Vertigo’s films go; this saves the expenditure of cinema which is expensive and is more suited to a widely appealing film. Although Vertigo are typically independent, they are starting to expand and evolve into distributing and production companies such as Warner Brothers who create High Concept films, Vertigo recently released Monsters, a 2010 British science fiction film, which was a high concept film, and also Street dance 3D which is another high concept film which featured in cinemas in 3D and created a large back profit. I think that Vertigo Films would be a great distributing film company to give our finished film to too distribute as the physiological thriller film fits in with the produced Vertigo films and would appeal to an already existing Vertigo niche audience, meaning that we would not need a high budget advertising campaign as our target audience already exist and we would make our profit most probably through DVD sales rather than through the cinema.

Task 2- How does your product represent particular social groups?

In our thriller we do not have specific social groups as there are only three people in it however we have tried to stick to stereotypes of the social groups that we do have and tried to make them look typical. Our two targets are meant to be a rich, successful upper class couple; we have represented them as a rich by the clothes they are wearing, the house they come out of and their car. This is a social group, also our assassin is based on the stereotype of an assassin from differnt films, the stereotype of an assassin is dressed in black, looking menacing and determined to make the kill.

 

Task 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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Saturday, 5 March 2011

Account and evaluation of shoot day

I feel that our shoot day went surprisingly well considering the circumstances the group was in; our idea for the thriller had been changed a lot prior to shoot day and improved and by shoot day we had planned, storyboarded and arranged props and timings for the shoot, however when we got there in the morning and discussed it finally with our media teacher Matt, he decided the plot would not work to film and so we had three hours to rethink and change our idea before shooting the thriller. As a group we had a brainstorm and rethink about our idea which was originally having a Prime Minister assassinated from an upstairs window of the school, surrounded by extras being reporters and press, we had to simplify this idea down considerably and finally came up with the new plot that our Prime Minister and wife would leave the country house they were staying in and walk to the car, a man standing on the edge of the car park would then walk up to the Prime Minister as he got in the car and assassinate him publicly, afterwards then shooting himself. The plot was more simplistic meaning we could have more creativity with the shots and editing we would use; once we had decided on this we went and collected the new props we would need and we found a new actor to portray the assassin which luckily was easy. Although we now had the idea of our thriller, we did not have time to storyboard or plan in depth the shots and running of it so we were slightly underprepared to go straight into shooting it. As we still had time before the shoot we practised some shots of our assassin in the studio and learnt how to assemble and use the tracks, creating a tracking shot of our assassin, we also decided on some of the basic shots we would use for the film.

We started our filming at mid-day roughly, starting with establishing shots of the location and close ups of our assassin, creating the scene to film in. We experimented with various shots and tried focus-pulls and breaking the 180 degree rule with the assassin which went well in my opinion and we had soon collected a number of easily useable shots which we were all happy with. As we did not have the Prime Minister and wife ready at this time we just focused on getting establishing shots of the country house and close ups of our assassin to cut from the Prime Minister to. We did have some problems however as it was a very cold day which meant the battery drained very quickly on the camera so we had to change it, also it started snowing which was very unhelpful in filming as we had to cover the camera, and for continuity as we had to make sure we did not get too much snow in shot in case it stopped snowing later when we continued filming as that would ruin the continuity of the opening sequence. Luckily the snow was not too bad and so we managed to get a few more shots which worked before we went in to take a break from filming.

When we returned to filming, our Prime Minister and wife were ready to be filmed and as we had already filmed the establishing shots we could start straight away on completing our shots, starting with the tracking shot which we used to reveal­­­ the killer is waiting for the Prime Minister and his wife and that he has a gun, a vital shot in the opening sequence. As this was an important shot we had to properly set up the tracks and scene first, we got three wooden boards to line the floor to make sure it was a smooth surface, and then set down the tracks on top, making sure they were parallel and the camera would run smoothly across them. After this was set up we did some trial shots; as we were shooting this shot in slow motion we had to do some trial shots and practise as there is only 3 seconds of filming so we had to make sure we moved fast and timed the shot well, we set up our actors in their places and tried out the shot three times until we were happy and knew what we were doing. The filming of the shot went very well but we did it twice just to be on the safe side, after this we disassembled the tracks and started on the other shots in the thriller. Close ups of action between the Prime Minister and his wife were all also shot in slow motion, to juxtapose the shots of the assassin, this meant that we again only had 3 seconds of shooting time per shot as it was filmed in slow motion, which proved to be a difficultly however we did get a number of good shots to use from this which was good, after capturing all the wanted shots we now had to film the actual assassination of the Prime Minister. This did not prove as hard as I thought it would as we decided to use only one handheld tracking shot of the assassin rather than many shots from different angles, as it would heighten the suspense of the assassination and create unease. We repeated this shot many times as it was quite hard to time it right and to get a decent shot however we finally got one and repeated it to be safe, we were all happy with the assassination shot however we also wanted to get a close up of the shooting in case we wanted to include this instead of the full tracking shot so we filmed that also. When we had finished that and got a close up of the dead assassin we felt that we had got all the shots that we would need for the thriller and were happy with what we had filmed so we decided to call it a day, we packed up the camera and tripod, tracks and wooden board and took them back to the media room.

All in all I felt that the shoot went very well, although it was not the idea that we planned we were doing, and we were using more improvising than planning, we as a group pulled it together and got all the shots that we needed to create a good thriller in my opinion. The cold was obviously a problem and there were a few continuity issues in some of the shots due to the snow, also another problem we experienced was, as we were filming in a car park, cars were coming and going and it started to fill up which was a problem both continuity and space wise, it did not affect any of our shots although we did have to cut slightly short because of it which was a slight problem. Despite these inconveniences, the shoot day went very well and I am looking forward to starting the editing process and putting the shots together.

Filming the establishing shots and close up's of our assasin.



Our establishing shot and us setting up the tracks to film with.



Our location to film in and us filming one of the shots from the thriller.