Final film!

So this is it! I won’t be updating the blog for a while (maybe come back to it for A2) But here's the 2 minutes film! ENJOY x

Q7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do u feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The first time we did continuity exercise one of the cameras didn’t have the tape in and at the end we couldn’t get the match on action from the edits. The action repeated 3 times and we took the best parts of each to make the continuity shots but because they were different shot I had to edit them and you could see the clock on the wall jumping from 12:00 to 12:20 in less than 5 seconds. So we ended up doing the film twice.
Next time round I wanted to make sure that I’m doing the 180 degree rule as well as match on action and shot/reverse shot.Second time we used high angle shot with panning movement for most of the exercise and a close up shot for the match on action and some over the shoulder shots for the shot/reverse shot. This exercise helped me learn skills to use for my main task.

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I didn’t like the idea of using firmware and keep uploading the clips to the Macs so I decided to film my movie by using my digital camera. It uses a SD memory stick and it is very easy to transform data between the camera and the computers. It helped me film faster and I could carry it around everywhere due to the small size of it.

I used after effects for all the CGI’s but I used apple Mac for audio because it was so much easier and faster. Although iMovie crashed a few times but at the end it didn’t take long to put the sounds on the clips. I used mac to burn the DVD too.

I used Cinema 4D to do the 3d animations for my film (mainly the car) and making the car was hard but animating it was even harder because I couldn’t animate it in a way so it’d blend in with the original shots and it’d always spin faster or slower than the real life’s frame on original video. But after trying a few times I finally got the right angle for the fake camera in cinema 4d so when the car got rendered out, it was roughly on the surface of the street.

I did all the special effects on after effects such as fake camera shakes and smokes when the car is drifting. I changed the colour of the gun, added blood and titles using after effects. Explosion was done by this software too. But it was hard to get the results at the end! For example that explosion in the film is made of fire, smokes, dark smoke, glasses thronging everywhere, fire marks on the street, blur effect, dust flying at the camera and a lot of colour correction and rendering.

I used Photoshop for typing the Titles in the beginning, my shoes were in the shot when I was filming the street and walking. I used Photoshop to delete the shoes from the shot.

I had to use an Xbox 360 to get some of the sound effects from the Forza game and the game was exclusive to Xbox so I had to travel all the way over to mate’s house to record the sounds from his xbox.

I used my ps3 to play call of duty and get the gun shot sound for the film. And for recording the sound I used my mobile phone.

Q5: How did you attract/address your audience?

First of all the genre of the film usually attracts audience itself. But genre is not enough so after looking around at some similar films I found out that they usually give out a bit of the story or they confuse the audience by changing the timing of the first a few minutes and then the film starts normal timing.

The famous “slumdog millionaire” started like this. I know it’s not exactly the same genre as my film but the beginning was similar. “Iron man” starts like this too. You see a clip of him being in the car and the car explodes but next scene is him having a speech but in the film it shows how after the speech he drives the car and everything starts from there.

Music changes the film so much and it can attract or repel the audience. A slow background song can make the film slow and we usually find this kind of music for romantic films and a hip hop or rock music can really built up for action scene and that’s what I did with my film by choosing 2 Pendulum songs. Characters and atmosphere of the scene can grabs people’s attentions too. A dark and intense scene with a strange looking character dressing weird could attract audience for this genre.And I took the advantage and used a very quiet place to do the filming. I used a lot of Non-diegetic sounds. The car drifting sound to show the car is driving in high speed, the gunshot to add realism to the film and even the explosion and fire are all non-diegetic. Although i used some of the diegetic sounds from the film like the conversation and the ending talking. Pendulum songs in the beginning is for building tension and it fades away when the car appears but and the other song for the second half makes the atmosphere sad scary.

Editing is the main part for my film to attract the audience as in this 2 minutes beginning a lot of action and blood are shown and the viewers will roughly get a picture in their mind of what the film is going to look like and if it is what they are after they will watch the rest of it. I have used special effects and CGI for almost all of the film. The car was completely animated and the smoke, fire, blood and even the gun was changed to a different colour.Other than CGI I had some fade effects between the shots, some camera shake when the car goes past and when the car explodes. (there’s a jump shot in that scene as well)

Of course the story is the most important aspect of a film and I tried to don’t give the entire story away but somehow make the audience ask for more.

Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The questionnaire we did a while back had a target audience for my action/thriller film and after showing the film to people, results show that when the character wakes up and looks into the camera, audience think he has some unfinished business to do and that dream was reminding him what he has to do so the audience want to watch the rest of the film.

Question1: Is the genre obvious when watching the film? Question2: What grabbed your attention the most?
Question3: Does sound effects have a huge advantage on the film or you don't notice the background music?
Question4: would you know who is the bad/good guy just by seeing the characters (only notice by make up and clothing)
Question5: what do you want to see more in this film?

After asking 5 questions to some of my audience I found out that they all wanted to see more blood and also better sound effects in my film.

I've posted these information in previous posts but as the final result I think the target audience for my film (Line of Hazard) are people between age of 15 to 25/30. mostly teenagers and people my age would want to watch it.

Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Marketing is an important part of the distribution and if a film is distributed right it will be more successful and will make more profit. Most films today have a lot of trailers and posters to advertise and depending on the story of the film they make musical or montage editing trailers for action movies.

Since Line of Hazard is a action film and there’s a lot of flashes and explosions in it, I think the trailer should just show the actions and it will grab audiences attention instead of giving out story behind the film. Like harry potter’s trailers where you can sort of guess the story but you watch the film because it looks interesting.

Line of Hazard could be a big budget film if it was made by experienced directors and famous actors.

I think Jon Favreau would have been a good director for my film and it’d be a really high budget film and Warner Bros. Pictures or Paramount Pictures would support it and each of these production companies support the distributing stage for example Warner bros have Warner Home Video for distribution and if my film was a British film it’d be supported by them but since it is going to be an American film Paramount Pictures will do the production and distributions for it. fX Network is another distribution company in USA as well which would advertise my film.
Of course distribution is a big stage and makes a huge difference on a film being successful or not. Even the best films need good distribution companies to advertise themOf course distribution is a big stage and makes a huge difference on a film being successful or not. Even the best films need good distribution companies to advertise them

If it was up to me to do the distribution of my film, I would choose a good scene and put it on youtube so people will see and those of them who are interested in that kind of film will go and watch the whole film. I will also make a flash game with films photos and clips in it and put it as popup for younger people to see the film.

Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Question 1 answered in last previous posts!

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Question 2:

Line of Hazard is a action/thriller film which I made targeting teenagers and mainly boys. Bear in mind it’s only 2 minute of beginning of the film but I can say It doesn’t have audience from a specific class. there are some stereotype people in the film who i chose on purpose. E.g. the black guy is the criminal and he kills someone in the beginning of the film, at the same time i tried to dress him somehow so he looks posh and high class.

His role was very similar to all the mafia films and films which contain kidnapping scenes and there’s always a boss who decides who to kill and who stays alive. For example in Rockn Rolla, Tom Wilkinson played as Lenny Cole who was the boss.

The way they are both wearing suits and expensive clothes makes the audience think he is the person who’s in charge. Now days, film makers try to not be so stereotypical about race and we’ve seen in newer films that the criminal or the baddie it is changed where in old movies, they were always from different backgrounds. I believe Morgan Freeman played in some movies as the bad guy but now race doesn’t matter and film makers focus on mise en scène more in order to show the audience how characters are and to show their personality. Although I used the classic stereotypes for my baddie in the film.

Screenshots comparison "Iron man vs My film"

Iron man VS My Film

lower angle shot when car goes past the camera, in my film the scene finished when the car goes past due to the short filming and limited car animation but in iron man, camera follows the car and shows it from behind when it goes past.

focusing on cars spinning, i have more smoke in my shots and tyres mark on the street are noticeable because i used a high angle shot.

explosions and fire on iron man is more yellow and in mine its orange, I tried yellow but it didn't suit the environment around it. (grass and green-ness of the shot)

again, close up on explosions. the one on the left is sharper compared to mine but if I used better settings for render mine could also be as clear as Iron man.

I found a similar shot to mine when he's in the car and over the shoulder shot is used in both my film and Iron man

as you can see in all the screens above, my film has a green tone into it while the ones on the left are more blue

Gun shots!

There is one scene when some-one gets shot in my film and I had to find a fake pistol to use for that particular scene. But I couldn’t find any black and real looking guns so I ended up getting a blue pistol from Pound land! Good deal but it was blue...

So I changed the colour by after effects and made it look silver in the end and since it was a fake plastic gun, it had no gunshot sound so I went on Call of Dutyand used a similar gun and recorded the sound from me playing game to use for the film!

Comparing My film to "Iron Man"

ok so when I say compare I mean comparing bbfc ratings,companies to support the film, genre and story of both films.

Iron man is a action, Adventure and Thriller film directed by Jon Favreau and supported by Paramount Pictures. the movie is rated PG-13 because of the level of violence and based on this film, i think my film would be a PG-13 too because there are some actions and blood in the film but not as extreme to be R rated.

the target audience for my film would be people between age of 15 to 30 which i think Iron Man was specifically made for that age group. And mostly men would prefer to watch them.

i did some research on the top 50 big movies of last year and looked for the reasons why bbfc would rate film R or PG-13 and it’s based on what roles?

Here are the bbfc rating and reasons for them:

v The Pink Panther 2 (February 2009) Rated PG for some suggestive humor, brief mild language and action.

v Friday the 13th (February) Rated R for strong bloody violence, some graphic sexual content, language and drug material. Rated R for strong bloody violence, some graphic sexual content, nudity, language and drug material.

v Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian (May) Rated PG for mild action and brief language

v Fast & Furious (June) Rated PG-13 for for intense sequences of violence and action, some sexual content, language and drug references.

v Nine (December) Rated PG-13 for sexual content and smoking.

v Knowing (March) Rated PG-13 for disaster sequences, disturbing images and brief strong language.

v Ninja Assassin (no release date announced) Rated R for strong bloody stylized violence throughout, and language

v The Proposal (August) Rated PG-13 for sexual content, nudity and language.

v Planet 51 (November) Rated PG for mild sci-fi action and some suggestive humor.

v The Box (March) Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images.

v Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (January) Rated R for bloody violence and some sexuality.

v G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra (August) Rated PG-13 for strong sequences of action violence and mayhem throughout.

v Fanboys (February) Rated PG-13 for pervasive crude and sexual material, language and drug content.

v Inkheart (January) Rated PG for fantasy adventure action, some scary moments and brief language.

v The Surrogates (December) Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing images, language, sexuality and a drug-related scene.

v The International (February) Rated R for some sequences of violence and language.

v The Spirit (January) Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of stylized violence and action, some sexual content and brief nudity

v A Perfect Getaway (March) Rated R for graphic violence, language including sexual references and some drug use.

v S. Darko (no release date announced) Rated R for language, some violent content and brief drug use.

v Dorian Gray (November) PG-13

v Sherlock Holmes (November) Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some startling images and a scene of suggestive material.

v Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (July) Rated PG for some mild rude humor and peril.

v Bride Wars (January) Rated PG for suggestive content, language and some rude behavior.

v 2012 (July) Rated PG-13 for intense disaster sequences and some language.

v The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (January) Rated PG-13 for brief war violence, sexual content, language and smoking.

v The Lovely Bones (March) Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving disturbing violent content and images, and some language.

v The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Rated PG-13 for violent images, some sensuality, language and smoking

v Coraline (March) Rated PG for thematic elements, scary images, some language and suggestive humor.

v They Came from Upstairs (July) Rated PG for action violence, some suggestive humor and language.

v Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (June) Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material, and brief drug material. (also IMax version)

v The Taking of Pelham 123 (August) Rated R for violence and pervasive language.

v The Informant (September) Rated R for language.

v Inglourious Basterds (June) Rated R for strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality.

v Terminator Salvation (June) Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and language.; Rated R for some violence and brief nudity.

v Monsters vs. Aliens (April) Rated PG for sci-fi action, some crude humor and mild language.

v Avatar (December) Rated PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking.

v Angels & Demons (May) Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, disturbing images and thematic material.

v X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May) Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, and some partial nudity.

v Watchmen (March) Rated R for strong graphic violence, sexuality, nudity and language.

v Star Trek (May) Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence, and brief sexual content.

· Public Enemies (July) Rated R for gangster violence and some language.

· Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July) Rated PG for scary images, some violence, language and mild sensuality.

I don’t see why my film wouldn’t be a PG-13 based on these results and i think if it was a finished film Jon Favreau would of direct it and Warner Bros. Pictures and Paramount Pictures would support it. but it is a very low budget film at the moment and I haven't spend any money on it.