Film Evalution

My media film not only uses forms and conventions of real films, but challenges them too. The opening scene allows the audience to see what the film is going to be about and attracts them to watch the rest of the film. The title is bold and ‘in your face’ and immediately grabs the audiences attention. The shot size and angles vary throughout the film, so that the eye is kept moving around looking at what is inside the frame. W wanted to show that we could used a range of angles and shot sizes, and make them work well together at the same time. Close ups were used frequently throughout the film to get shots of the characters facial expressions. Middle shots and long shots were also used regularly, so that the audience can see the characters, what they are doing and the setting. Camera movement was kept smooth throughout the film. In the scene where the drug addict is going in to the bathroom and running down the stairs, we made it seem as thought the audience was the camera, and they were following, or being the characters. The camera movement for this seemed more ‘bumpy’, to give a realistic look.

We looked at different types of lighting from artificial to natural, to see which ones would work best in each shot. The first shot of the film is set quite dark with only a few spots lights on in the background to highlight the characters in the scene. This also makes the title show even brighter when it appears in front of the scene. Inside the bedroom of the anorexic character, the lighting is a little brighter but still quite dull. This represented that the girl was trying to hide away her small frame, while she was talking about herself to the camera, and didn’t want to stand out too much. When it came to the filming of the couple living together, we decided to make the setting as bright as possible. We wanted the audience to see exactly how they were acting around each other and what they were doing. In the shots where the two were talking about one another, again the lighting was dulled down with some lighting to highlight their faces. This helped to make the audience focus on only the characters and listen to what they were saying, and let the background almost fade away from sight. In my parts of the film where the character was suffering with OCD, I tried to make the lighting bright, yet natural. This was because the filming was made to feel like a documentary and therefore needed the lighting to look at realistic as possible. I also wanted the lighting to be bright so that the audience can see clearly how need and orderly everything is in the setting and watch how the character was behaving. The main sound in the film is the Born Slippy-Underground song. The song is drum and bass and very loud. It plays right from the beginning of the film, in the party scenes and at the very end. The sound has a strong bass that you can feel through the speakers when watching the film. This we thought would be a good song for our film as it is ‘rave’ music that is played in the party scenes, and makes the audience feel apart of the party themselves. Other music played in the film is through the TV in the actual film. The music is up to date, letting the audience know the film is set in the present.

We decided that our film would not have so much dialogue as most films do, and we would let the camera work and acting tell the narrative. Through the majority of the party scenes there is no dialogue and just music. Any dialogue that is in the shots are distorted and lowered so that they are not the main focus. The filming of the anorexic girl has the most dialogue as she is simple talking to the camera as if she is creating her own video blogs. The characters who were in love had few lines to say when they described how they felt about each other. The character with OCD also had few lines. This was because it was being as a documentary, so everything is told by how she is acting. There is some dialogue when the interviewer asks her questions about her condition. We decided to have an interviewer talk in certain parts, so that the audience could get more of an understanding about someone with OCD and how they acted around people.

The locations and settings of our film were very easy to find and make them how we wanted when shooting our film. Our parents allowed us to use our own homes for filming. We chose our houses because they gave a more realistic affect to our film, so that the audience would find it more believable. It was also much easier to film in our houses than in a public place, as we do not have to worry about getting permission to film in certain areas, worrying about anybody getting in our shots, or any unwanted background noise. Filming in our homes also gave us an advantage as we knew where would be best to film and what angles would look good. Getting the cast together was also very easy. Our target audience was for people (mainly females) 15-22 years old. Therefore our friends were the perfect age for our film and all had experience in acting as they had taken GCSE drama. For costumes we just let the actors wear what they would normally wear as it made them look like they were people the audience may pass by in real life and could relate to them better. The main characters challenged the normal film forms and conventions as we had four female leads and only one leading boy.

 

After finishing filming, we then had to edit our film. For this we used a programme called ‘Pro 11’. We each had to edit our own parts we filmed by cutting and cropping shots to how we wanted them. We then mixed down each film and linked them together in the sequence we wanted. We used special effects throughout our film. For example, once the character Charlotte had taken the drugs, everything starts to go weird. We changed the colours and made things repeat over and over again. We also slowed down parts of the film to give the audience the feeling that they were on drugs and were hallucinating and seeing everything through the characters eyes. We made our titles and end credits in a bright, bold red so that they stood out from the black background.

Once our film was finalised I then had to make a film poster.  I researched film posters so I knew what usually is on them and tried to replicate them on my poster. Within the billing block, I added my own information about out film and wrote when and where you would be able to watch our film.

Audience feedback is vital information as to whether a film is good or not. After finishing our film we had a small group of 15-22 year olds to watch our film. We then had them each fill out a questionnaire to find out what they thought of the film. All 10 said that the film was interesting to watch and well constructed. The only negative mentioned was that the film seemed too long for a short film. One female who used to suffer with an eating disorder said that the character with anorexia, portrayed the addiction excellently and realistic.

All three combinations of text (film, review and poster) relate to one another. The poster restricts the target audience to what they think the film will be about. The title for instant, clearly describes what the film will be about and this then makes the audience think of what type of addiction the film will be about. Reviews usually do the complete opposite and try to give negative feedback on the film. However, some do applaud the film, which mine has done. I tried not to be biased when writing my review so I did write some negatives, but made sure there was more positives.
New media technology has given us a huge advantage when making our film. We used internet sites such as 'youtube' to research short film, and 'idmb' to look at film posters and reviews. Social networking sites allowed us as a group to keep in touch when planning our film. Mobile phones were used constantly when keeping in contact throughout planning and filming, to see what and has been done. Digital cameras were used when filming, as they are lightweight and easy to use. They also have a good pixel, so the shots look clear. When editing our film we used a programme called Pro 11. This technology allowed us to cut and crop scenes, add special effects and titles.
I think that from last year’s project to this one, I have learnt a lot. I learnt how to plan more efficiently within the time we had been given. There was minor technical problems with the camera, but I was able to resolve them quickly.I was also given new and more roles within my group which I think I coped with well. As the other people in my group were my friends, I found it easy to work with them and we had no problems working as a group. I think our film has been well thought out, planned and produced to the best of all our abilities.

Film Review

All films get a review. A review is when a film critic from a newspaper watches the film before it's released and writes an article about it. To make our film look as if it really would be released, I had to pretend to be a film critic and write a review on our film. I tried to make the article look as realistic as possible, by writing in colums and using little colour. At the top left I put the newpaper title in bold red. Opposite to that in a red rectangle, I wrote some information on the film such as the title, certification, director, plot and what I rated the film myself as a critic. Next to that I put a picture of the film poster for the readers to look at, and see one of the characters. When writing the review I wanted to give praise to Lauren, Jessica and Lorna for their efforts at making the film. I did find some negative points in the film that I mentioned; but I found more positive than negative. I used a vocabulary of words to give the feel that I was a well educated writer for The Sun newspaper. As a critic, I gave our film a 3/5 star rating and recommended the film to anyone who enjoys films such as Trainspotting, or TV shows such as skins.

My Film Poster

Like any new film coming out, it needs to be advertised. Each person in my group is making there own film poster with the character from their section on the front of it. After researching film posters, I knew there was certain codes and conventions I had to include in my poster. I put the title in the same font and colour as it is in the actual film. The main image was placed in the center of the poster, and I coloured the background in all black so the writing and image stood out. The image is of my main character, who is played by Chenice Clarke, looking down towards the floor with her hand behind her back, and in the same oufit she wears in the film. I decided to make her pose like this as it makes her looked ashamed of something by looking down, and that with her hands behind her back she is hiding something. I dressed her in the same outfit she wore in the film so that the audience will recognice her as a a main character when they watch the film. Just above the image and below the title is a strapline which anchors the audience. It says Once you're hooked you can't let go. We came up with this saying as it links with the title and theme of addiction. Below the image is then in smaller writng the production company, directors, editors, storyboard and scriptwriters name. Theres is also the main characters name in order of appearence. At the bottom of the page, in the same font and colour as the title is 'Get a fix on youtube'. 'Getting a fix', is a phrase that is used by addicts who use drugs, and so relates back to the film and title. The bottom writing also lets people know when and where they can watch the film if they want to see it.

Target Review

Once our film had been edited, we then had to show our film to a group of  10 people that fitted our target audience criteria. Once watching the film we then asked them to fill out a questionnaire about what they thought of the film, and if they thought there was any negatives. After reading their answers. I found that all 10 really liked the film and agreed that it had the conventions that appealed to an audience of 15-22 year olds. The only negative that a few mentioned, was that as a short film, it was too long. I think that if we was to recreate our film and found a way to shorten it down, without cutting out important shots, then we would have the perfect film for our target audience.

Editing

After filming, I then had to edit all the shots. I used a programme called 'Movie Pro 11' which has a similar layout to the image on the right. I first had to copy all my edits on to the timeline and put them in order. I then deleted any shots that I did not want in the final take. I used techniques such as a fade to link edits together. It did take a while for me to cut and chop certain shots, and then join them together at exactly the right points. I also had to drop any sound I did not want and carfully place where the voiceover would go, so that it was in time with the film. Once all the edits were how I wanted them to be, I then mixed it all down so it joined together as a mini movie. Once the rest of my group edited their sections, we had to then chop them up again and add all four parts together in the order that we wanted. Finally we added the title and end credits, which included actor names, the director,editor, storyboarder, scriptwriter, etc. We put the titles and credits in a bold red to stand out from the background colours, and attract the audience. One problem I kept experiencing while editing, was that if I did something too fast, then the programme would crash, and all your work would not save. To prevent losing my work, everytime i finished an edit, I had to keep saving as I went along. I personally think editing is the most trickiest part of film making, but it is what makes any film look good and professional.

Special Effects

Special effects in a film can vary from, colours, sounds, imagery, make up, animations etc. For our film, we only really needed special effects in the party/drug scenes. When Charlotte acts out that she has taken the drugs, her vision and hearing become very distorted. To give this effect we changed the colours in the film and blurred it. We also slowed down all the sounds so it became very hard to understand. Another scene is when Charlotte goes to the toilet. Someone is already in there and as Charlotte speaks to apologise, her speach again is very distorted and slowed down. Another special effect we added in this section is the mask shown above. We wanted to make it seem as though the drugs were making Charlotte hallucenate and image things that wern't real. There are no special effects in mine or Jessicas sections. There is one small special effect at the very end. This is in Laurens' scene where the camera becomes very slowed down on the scales and back up to the characters face.

Filming

Laurens' filming went smoothly as she has memorised her dialogue, although a few changes were made to give a more natural affect. Jessica's filming took a bit longer due to the fact that they kept messing up their lines and had to sort out what props to use. Although Lornas' filming was one of the more trickier narratives to film, we did it in quite a reasonably space of time. Even though there was more characters and people to instruct what to do in each frame, filming went really well, everyone acted maturely in the drug scenes.

Filming

On the day of filming I did have a few problems. First off all I had to make sure everything was cleared away and tidy (which took quite a while), to give the feeling we really was in the house of someone with OCD. Chenice -who was playing the character- got lost on the way to my house where we was filming; which meant we lost about half an hour filming time. When Chenice finally got to mine, she had her little sister with her, as she has to babysit. This was not too bad, but we had to make sure that she stayed quiet when we was filming, and didn't get into any of the shots. Naturally, some lines got messed up, or we started laughing while filming. This was easily fixed by re-filming, but again took up unecessary time. The tripod did give me a few problems. One of the bolts kept losening, which made the camera tilt down and film the floor. I fixed this by holding onto the bolt while filming so that the camera stayed in place. Although there was quite a few problems, they were all minor and soon resolved. The majority of the filming went smoothly and quickly. At the end of filming, everything turned out how I wanted and I was happy with all the final shots. If I had extra time, I probably would of added some extra shots from different angles, so that I had a variety to chose from for the final film.

Research

Before shooting my film, I wanted to make sure I had researched enough about OCD. I wanted to know why people have it, and how they cope with it, as well as the different kinds of OCD there was, and which ones I could show best in my film.  I also did this so that Chenice could act it out as accurately as possible, and make the audience believe she was suffering with the condition.

Scratch Movie

Before starting our filming, we decided to make a scratch movie first. This is a roughly made film, so that we as a group could see how long our film would roughly be and what were the best angles to use. It also allowed us to see if certain ideas worked or not. We made the scratch film around different parts of our school that were available to us at the time. For example, when we first thought of the party scene, we decided that the character who had taken the drugs would end up getting knocked down by a car. When we tested this out on the scratch film it didn't look as good as we imagined, and so decided to get rid of that part of the film. The only problem we had when making our scratch film was that we only had enough time and camera battery to make a rough film of Lorna's party film. Me, Lauren and Jessica was unable to make scratch films for each of our sections, and therefore took up more time when actually shooting our films, deciding what worked best and what didn't. If we had more time, I think making scratch movies for all of our sections could of helped us when filming properly, which would of resulted in a better finished product.

Sound

Sound was discussed a lot throughout the process of making our film. In Laurens there is no sound or music; just her dialogue can be heard. We wanted this to be uncomfortable for the audience to watch, so it would make them pay attention to the seriousness and brutality of someone living with an eating disorder. Jessicas' part had 'homely' sounds. For example you can hear the TV, hoover and the couple washing up. There are parts where the only sound is again the characters speaking, which again makes the audience focus on what they are saying. Lornas' section has the most amount of sound and music. There is constant music played over the acting. Born slippy - Underground  is the song that the audience will be able to hear. This song was also used in Trainspotting; a british film that is about a drug addict. The background party sounds are lowered, and the little dialogue used in this section has been made louder above everything else. In my filming I had only the sound of the tumbledryer and whatever noise Chenice made when cleaning around the kitchen. I had a fair amount of dialogue as parts of it was filmed as an interview. There is also a voiceover that is played during certain parts. When the end credits run, the Born Slippy song is played again but at a higher volume.

Costume & Props

For our film, costumes was not really one of our main priorities. We thought that because our film was set in the present time, we would use clothes that teenagers of todays society would wear. This would allow the audience to feel like because the characters may dress like them, they could relate to them, or feel more like they knew them. The only major costume choice we thought was necessary was for Laurens parts. Due to the fact that her character was suffering from anorexia, we decided that the actress should wear tops that were either too big and made her look lost in the clothes, or strappy tops to show of her small frame. We had a lot more thought about what props we should use, and in what parts. For the party scenes we needed alcohol bottles and a poweder substance that looked like drugs. For Laurens film she needed lots of pictures of anorexic models and young girls to stick on the wall behind her. Jessica used household things, such as hoover in her parts. For my section of the film Chenice mostly acted around the kitchen, and because she has cleaning OCD, everything was neat and tidy so she didn't have a lot of props to use. One prop we did use in my film was my car. We used this for when Chenice had to repeatedly make sure she has locked her car.

Casting

Because our target audience is aimed at female teenagers and young adults, we found the casting of our film quite an easy task. We asked some female friends of ours to play the main characters. We also had a few other friends to play extras in the background, or be the supporting character. I think getting people we know to play the characters was a good choice as they are all around the age of our target audience. This means the targeted audience will see the actors, think they are around the same age group, and be more willing to then watch the film as they can relate better to a younger cast. For my section of our film, I have Chenice (see on your left) playing the character with OCD. I think she will play the part well as she has many qualities. She has a GCSE in drama, she's hardworking and acts very mature for her age. Chenice said herself she like to keep thinks neat and tidy, so she think that would help her get into character, and play a woman with dealing with OCD.

Certification

Film certification shows what is suitable for audiences. They ususally judge films on the amount of sex, violence, violent language and substance abuse. Parents sometimes used the certification to decided what they think is acceptable for their children to watch and not watch. U means universal and that anyone can watch it. This certification is usually found on cartoons, where this is no mature content. PG means children can see with parental guidance. 12A is when anyone 12 or younger must be accompanied by an adult to see the film. 12, 15, 18 all mean that you have to be the shown age or older to see the film.  R18 means a film that exceeds the BBFC's 18 certificate and usually contains pornographic footage. The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is an organisation responsible for the national classifications of films and video games in the UK. For our film we decided to rate it a 15. Although our film has no sex, nudity, violence or violent language; it does have alcohol and drug abuse. Therfore we think it would be inappropriate to anyone below the age of 15, and may cause offence to parents or anyone watching it.

Shot Script & Dialogue Script

 The pictures on both sides show the work I did on my shot script and dialogue script. I found working on the shot script quite easy. I had what I wanted my film to look like in my head, so I knew exactly how i wanted each shot to look like, and how long they would last. I also had to write in the shot script what type of shot it would be e.g. close up, long shot etc; As well as that I
needed to mention if there would be any dialouge or sound effects in the shot. When writing out the script, I found it a little more challenging. This was because I didnt want the characters to sound either too formal or too informal. Because of our certification, I tried not to use little or no foul language. I decided I wasn't going to have too much dialogue,  but what little dialogue I did have, I wanted it to be interesting and relevant. I was happy with my final script and thought it would work well in the film.

Distribution

Most short films that are less than 15 minutes long, cannot be ditributed via cinema or dvd. Therefore short films can only be seen on the internet or at film festivals. For our film 'Addicted' we shall be distributing it on http://www.youtube.com/. We have chosen this method of distribution as millions log on to youtube daily to watch flim clips, and so our film should get a large viewing rate.

Planning

Our half term break, was our only time we had to film. Because each of us had our own personal parts to film, we had to plan when each person would get the camera and tripod, how long they had it for, and then who they had to give it to. Due to other committments, it was quite hard to sort out but we eventually planned it so everyone had atleast two days each to film.

Target Audience

Target audience is very important when creating a film. It allows producers to know what elements they can add and get rid of in a film, to make sure it attracts the audience they want. For example; a animated film is usually targeted towards younger children. They do this by making sure the animation is bold and brightly coloured, it has children as main characters, funny, simple to follow and not too long so that kids enjoy the film and dont lose focus and become bored.
We wanted to target our film towards mainly female teenagers and young adults. To do this we have made sure we have elements that attract our target audience. The soundtracks are up to date and mostly 'party' music. We have teenagers actors as the main characters so the audience can relate better to the film. The settings are realistic, and the narratives are again relatable to our targeted audience.

Film Location

While planning our film, the location for different parts of our film was constantly changing. For my section of the film, the location was easy to decided upon and to film from. The chosen location was my house. Therefore we did not have to worry about any members of public getting in our way, unwanted noise, or permission to film there. The majority of the filming took place in the kitchen and dining room. Minor parts where also filmed outside and in the hallway. Lauren, Jessica and Lorna also filmed their sections in and around their houses too.

Film Posters - White Chicks

White Chicks is a comedy about two brother FBI agents, who go undercover as two heiress sisters in an attempt to save them from a kidanpping plot.
The poster is two blonde women holding up FBI badges of two black men, there is buildings a police car in the background and 'caution' tape around the edges. The two women are infact the two FBI agents in the identity badges, who have gone undercover as the sisters. Above the main image is the two main actors names, who are brothers in real life as well as in the film. The title then follows. The 'i' in each word of the title isreplaced with male icons. This is ironic as the title states the movie is about females, when in fact it's really about two males. Underneath the title, instead of a strapline, there is a review quote from a newspaper and 4 star rating. This tells people that critics have watched the film and think it is a good comedy to watch. Below the main image - in a faint blue colour - is the film credits which include other actor names, producers, directors etc. Below this is then in a yellow colour, which matches the 'caution' tape, is available on dvd and video. This allows anyone looking at the poster, and is interested about the film, that they do not have to wait for it to come out at the cinema; and that they can go and purchase it now.