BBC

I looked at BBC films which is a very well known UK based feature film-making arm of the BBC. They have produced and distributed many films such as  Truly, Madly, Deeply, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, Quartet, Chef, Testament of Youth, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, My Week with Marilyn, Jane Eyre which are all relatively well known dramas. 



Even though BBC films are a well known and highly respectable company that deal with the production and distribution of their films, we found another company called Molifilms which we believed would more represent our film openings genre of urban drama.

The British film company have done many films and their cocus is mainly on the drug and crime/war as well as film noir, both conform to urban dramas which main conventions presnets.

• Drugs 
• Sexual refrences or nature
• Crime (guns, graffiti)
• Police 
• Money

Evaluation Links Related To Questions

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Will:
http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/flight-deconstruction-of-heroin-scene.html

http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/best-pretend-drugs-to-use.html

Hugo: http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/deconstrutcion-of-urban-drama.html

Kel:http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/film-opening-sequence-deconstruction_9.html

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Will:
http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/character-bio.html

Hugo: http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/character-profile-of-lucy.html

Kel: http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/actros.html

Question 3: What type of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Will:
http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/moli-production-comapny.html

Hugo: http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/character-profile-of-lucy.html

Kel: http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/production-company.html

Question 4:Who would be the audience for your media product?
Will:
http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/age-rating.html

Kel: http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/heroin-research.html

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?
Will:
http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/character-profile-of-lucy.html


Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Will:
http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/sound-practical_7.html

http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/blog-post.html

http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/editing-sound-in-bathroom.html

Hugo: http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/editing-preliminary-evaluation.html

Kel:  http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/preliminary-deconstruction.html

Question 7:Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Will:
http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/editing-practical.html

http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/shortening-footage.html

http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/rewind.html

http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/editing-placement-of-titles.html

http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/new-final-typography.html

http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/editing-lighting-in-bathroom.html

Kel:  http://midshotmel.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/preliminary-deconstruction.html

Character Profile of Lucy

Lucy Character Profile:

• The plot for our film is that Lucy gets kicked out of her foster home and starts to live on the street. We make her look vulnerable and weak conform to an normal innocent girl. However we do this through make up and selection of clothing. 
• Blacked out eyes to show she is section to abuse
• scraped nail polish 
• Heroin marks up her arm
• A faded face using foundation to resemble that she is malnourished or thirsty.

Clothing 

• We did want her to look like she didn't have lot of clothes as homeless people usually look like they have lots. 
• Hat and fingerless gloves 
• Hoodie so in some of the shots you cannot see her face
• grey shirt to make the scene a little more depressing as it makes the colours look bland.

Evaluation

I think we did a good job on the makeup and clothing choice as she can play a convincing role without too much good acting. The clothing also give the audience a shared past as well as shared emotion on what the character might be going through. To improve we could of done a scene with her on the street rather than her in the toilet to make her look a little more in secure and out of place. 

Age Rating

Age Ratings

Age ratings are very hard to put down on a film during its opening scene or trailer this is because it may not include the needs to be a 15 or 18 but the whole film does.

An 18 requires:

• Very strong violence
• Frequent use of strong language
• Sexual activity
• Strong horror
• Strong blood and gore 
• Real sex
• Discriminatory language

A 15 requires: 

• Strong violence
• Strong language
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence
• discriminatory language
• drug taking

In our Film Opening

In our opening film piece there is drugs and drug abuse which fills the 15 age rating however nothing else is portrayed so this is probably a 12A this is due to the fact there is no violence and only drugs despite it being heroin. Also no strong language or sexual nudity. It is hard to pin point what age it really should be because it fills 15 years old but displays no other characteristics. It is much easier when you look at a film as  a whole.

Our Whole Film

The story line for our film is about a girl who's mum past away and she has turned to a life of drugs and living on the street. How she gets these drugs is by sexual nature or just crime which would fill the 18 category. Also she gets involved with gang that you sort of see at the start so this would fill the strong language as it will be a gritty urban drama. This makes the film an 18 which would otherwise be a 15. 

Character Bio Urban Dramas

In this film flight we see this drug user she is female and has her own apartment. How she got the drugs was through prostitution displayed by the limited amount of clothes on. The shots we see before hand are of her and her mum suggesting that she is vulnerable and something happened that turned her down this root. We also only see her pick up the needle when it falls out the box suggesting she is recovering. She is young however still has experience suggesting it started early on in her life. The room is dimly lit and her eyes are black out illustrating her loneliness and self inflicting mood.  The drug in this scene is heroin which u can smoke or inject this is popular among films as is much more emotional and less funny as people die from drug abuse all the time. 

This character does not look vulnerable and is a man. The common conventions behind them is that they are strong and independent are can do better than females. This guys background is that he is a gang member and knows the drug dealer very well. He looks like he is addicted because of this however his personality does not make him seem like a victim but uses the drug like his relaxation. Again the drug he is going to be using is heroin because it is more powerful but this could display how manly he is considering he can handle it.  

In this picture we can see Trainspotting and the main protagonist who is inside a drug gang or drug user gang. His clothing is a short vest suggesting he has been living off of very low amount of money or he wants the easiest access to his arm to take drugs. He looks vulnerable as he is so skinny and smoking. His face looks white washed and drained. The man steals for his drugs which makes him a addict to the drugs. He will do anything for them even going through a toilet. The conventions are subverted of a man being strong willed and independent when the drugs dictate his life. He is also weak and not violent as he cannot control his body due the drugs.

In pineapple express you see two main characters the one on the right is the drug dealer and the one on the let is the recipient. They are just normal people with no particular purpose and a lot of spare time. The clothes of the one on the right look old and used suggesting he has ever not changed or he has been in them for days. This could be he is very lazy to change or the fact he cannot afford to do so. 

The man on the left looks like a businessman however only delivers letters. Again his suite is wrinkled and with drips of liquid along it suggests he is not smart. The conventions of these drug users are completely subverted considering that they are dumb and definitely not strong. In this initial meeting of them bot they don't seem like the hero or villians just no bodies. This could be like the drug they are taking weed is not in the light for films as it is not emotional and takes a lot to kill you. The addiction is weak and is mainly used for comedian purposes. So the fact that they are addicted shows they are weak minded individuals.

Professional production company for Class A

Professional production company for Class A (BBC Films)

                                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-XC1XDfRe8
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I chose BBC Films as t











































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Addressing feedback - Font

Due to the previous feedback we acquired from our classmates a few days ago we have added some new changes and improvements to our piece. These changes include the titles font being changed and being added at the end. 

 This photo above shows the layers of a boiling water sound effect, And also a knock out title effect of the words 'CLASS A' and also a recording of our

Editing Preliminary Evaluation

Editing: 

Firstly we went through the footage we had collected and drop it into the timeline. This is to display the moving image and make it look like better and more professionally. We had to cut clips so they flowed correctly and looked professional. In order to make sure it had no jumps and ran smoothly with parallel action we had to edit the footage by cutting parts of the video that weren't needed it order to make it more smooth. We did this effectively as there were no obvious jumps and we had a rich amount of footage to use.

We put a security camera shot on a frame where I walk out the building and down the stair case. It is well placed as we used a high angle shot so it actually looks like a security camera placement. The way we did this was just to put a filter over the actual shot.

After we did this we then went on to insert the title into our opening sequence, that read "Drug Deal – Double D”. This was quite effective and gave a little twist to normal titles. Title with black background fly’s onto the screen, Frame behind is the actual sequence and opening camera shot.Finally we had to edit the sound for the rest of the sequence. We conducted this by deleting the background sound for parts of the videos were we wanted to add non-dietetic sounds. We left the dietetic soundtracks in scenes where we needed the conversation/ dialogue to be heard. 

Planning preliminary

Planning Preliminary 

Storyboard

Planning: During the planning stage, we very quickly came to the decision of what we were going to do. This is very good as we only had 3 lessons to finish the preliminary task. By the first lesson we had already decided that we wanted to do a opening sequence in the genre of urban drama. In the first lesson we were set the task of drawing a storyboard, before we went straight into writing or drawing on our storyboard we gathered our ideas and collectively brainstormed. We talked about having a drug deal as we wanted to do something with only two actors, that could easily be done at school during the lesson we had to film it, and that had a few good action scenes that we were looking for. Filming it at school was easy and effective as we wanted to do it in a secluded and isolated area with no-one around to make it as realistic as we could. Also acting is brief and the props were easy to get such as a phone and fake drugs which we made by putting powder in a bag. Doing our storyboard we had our most artistic candidate draw in the boxes and will and i wrote in the lines describing what we would do in each scene, explaining what would happen and how we would do it. The planning part has taught us that plans can change especially when it comes to filming, for example we couldn't get some of the props we wanted such as a gun.

Editing sound in Bathroom

Sound in Closing stages of my Film

The sound I added in was a neon light flickering this was so useful I used it many times to display how the person was feeling when taking the drugs. This sound effect becomes more frequently used near the ed before she passes out. I bladed the clip and edited the lighting so that it matches exactly the points at which the light flicks on and off. Something that proved quite hard as the computer was beng quite slow.

You can see as I got closer to the end the sound started to layer this is cause the sound needed to pick up so that it wasn't quite in the background. Also alot of layering occurred near the end as that is when the lights start flickering a lot.  You canalso see that there was some long and small pieces of sound. That is me trying to make it match what I have in the clips that I bladed as well as make it sound realistic as after all it is non diegetic. 

In this screen shot you case a much closer shot of the should used when the white screen was going to appear. The lightbulb bursting was again non diegetic and was meant to signal the end of what happened in this scene. Then it cuts to a few more credits and then another scene and the main title. To get through the first set of title was I added in a flash bang this last for a long time however fits into the end of my scene very well. Then I kept the sound going on for longer so that the titles were not empty of sound.

 Overall I am happy with how the has played out. Especially at the end as the layer of sound makes the situation seem all so real something which I didn't think was possible at first. With all of the layer the sound makes this better and more interesting to the audience something that only sound could achieve.

Editing the Lighting in Bathroom

Editing the lighting final change before Finish

This changes the colour the saturation so how bright colours are and exposure is how much light is let into the shot. When I was looking at the shot of her walking into the public bathroom I wanted it to be a lot darker. However, what I noticed the midtones sharpen up the images.

You can see in this shot the image is much darker than it was before hand. I only use exposure as that darkens the image as well as saturation and colour don't assist with the lighting only the colour in the background which does not help. This also means that I had to keep the same sort of lighting for each shot in bathroom for continuity error. This includes the rewind.

This displays the exposure of the highlights being really low this is because I wanted the shot to being like the light is flickering so I lowered the highlights less than the midtones that way the lighting or exposure doesn't increase and it is only getting darker. However, I did lower it a little bit as that way some colours stand out at least. 

As you can see the lighting is far different to what it was in the image above and makes this situation that she is in far more dramatic than what it was originally. This is going to be combined with a flickering neon light sound to make it like the bathroom is falling apart sort of representing her life at the moment. 

This shot has a high exposure and more vibrant colour this is cause I decreased the midtones tat make it darker colour this makes the shot more vibrant. This is also very good in this shot as the lighter combined with this level of exposure looks a lot more realistic. However,  I still had to darker the image due to continuity so I decreased the highlights a little bit.

On the shot to the left you can see it during one of the flickering areas as it is darker than usual tis means that on the right you should see low highlights and midtones to make a well balanced section with very little shadow as that makes the shot brighter and more faded which is something that I don't want. 

The two shots side by side you can clearly see the difference in what I have done and this just further proves what I can do with the exposure. The timing for these shots had to be good so that it matched the sound that way the drop in lighting made sense.

 What I also did was bladed a single shot about 10 times and increased the shadow in the positive direction and I ddi this because I wanted it to fade. For every clip that I bladed I increased the shadow by 10 that way you could see a natural progression to the end that way it is not suddenly white. This was a new skill because as I increased the shadow if I decreased the other too much you would be able to see the body behind and it looking metallic which I had to avoid whilst maintaining its darkness when looking at the shots in between.

Sound

The sound we used in our short film opening was from a  none copyrighted sound found on sound cloud. As you can see below I had to layer the sound so that it seamlessly faded and was linked between other sounds. this is because certain parts of the soundtrack didn't sound right and other also were bad quality and audio beeps could be heard in some parts of the raw sound. To get this transition we had to layer the sound in the order if its peaks and troughs so that both pieces of sound spike at the same time. This means that you will be able to hear two different pieces of sound at the same time. I used a fade effect so music could gradually fade out and in so would be acoustically pleasing.

I cut and Shorted the song many times but overall the song used was very effective. It had many intertwining polyphonic melodies and tonal integrity. The slow winding yet exaggerated tones from the timbre made the song perfect for our heroin scene. I chose this very well because of my long time playing musically instruments and listening/composing music.

One of the pieces of feedback was that the sound volume was too quiet which we took on board as the start takes a long time to pick up in volume. we did this by raising the disables to 12bd which is quite loud and you could hear lots of different notes which was very effective. Some problems that we also faced with sound was when the pitch off the sounds were too load. We made sure that no peaks off the music were coloured red because this means the sound quality would be taken down because the pitch was too high. we made sure off this because we wanted our sounds to be effective

How I Manipluated the Sound

This none copyrighted sound that we used was found on sound cloud. As you can see I had to layer the sound so that it transitions into the next piece without it beeping or sound like the track is changing as the music picks up in certain sections without notice. To get this transition we had to layer the sound in the order if its peaks and troughs so that both pieces of sound spike at the same time. This means that you will be able to hear two different pieces of sound at the same time, but not notice when one drops off. Thus creating a seamless transition. This is a skill I had to do in another activity so I could so it quite easily.

But then I had layer some of the other sound as it did not last the whole two minuets this would be a problem however, the sound that we used repeats the part I was using as well as other so that I could find that bit and just play it back from the original until the next transition.    

One of the pieces of feedback was that the sound we use was quiet which we took on board as the start takes a long time to pick up in volume so what I did was increased its decibels to about 12bd which is quite loud and you could hear lots of different notes which was good. However in some parts it is defining so then I reduced the sound to find the equal of which I liked. Moving from one extreme to another helped me find the medium much quicker than if I just chose different point by random.

However on this particular place on the repeat I increased the backing sound a lot and kept it in at 12 decibels as that was the only way you could hear it. As well as in the background of the heart beat this was the only way that it would work.

Feed Back Evaluation - Improvements

when we put up our final piece we were subjected to criticism and also support. To improve on our piece we took some advice from other groups in our class and friends a family too see what we could do to improve. Here are some other screen shots of what people said about or piece.

Here are some of the things we need to improve on to get a higher mark in our piece and make it more professional then it already is:

The first thing we need to improve on is our sound. People said the effect were good about the volume of it needed to be worked on more. Some parts of it were too quite whilst others were to load. We need to get a balance of it so audio doesn't have to be changed whilst playing manually.

Another thing that we need to do as a group is cut some off the walking scenes. In our feedback from many sources people say we need to cut the footage down from the walking parts. They say it is very technically and professionally well done but the long amount of screen time of just walking bores people. We need to choose what shots need to be removed so that it stays interesting for the viewer.

Feedback - What we did well

What we did well
Our final draft of our piece was uploaded onto Youtube for other media students to share their opinion on whether positive or negative. 

We were subject to criticism and also positive feedback which we have considered.  

Here on the right I have some examples of feedback sheets that we received. From these i have gathered all the things we have done
effectively such as:

• Our good use of the rewind scene in the beginning which at first we found difficult to accurately represent it as we wanted to. 
• Also we used some good editing such as match on action. We also had good continuity in between our shots, with scenes that flow almost effortly. such as when lucy is opening the door of the toilet.
• We also used special effects such as the parts where we used the CCTV shots.

Feedback - What we can improve on

Feedback - What we can improve on

 Here we have got some feedback that focuses on our background music. It tells us to match up the music and to increase the volume a little bit. We need to make sure that the music in the background flows and doesn't stop and start at different points. We have also taken into consideration their comment by increasing the volume.

 Some feedback that we got is that the sound after the rewind was quiet and we were told to use a bigger font. Due to other feedback also telling us to increase the sound at certain parts, we have taken this aboard and increased it at the points we need to. Also we are working on increasing fonts and making better typography.

 In this piece of feedback we are told to change the title font and the positioning of the titles in some of the shots, and to reduce some of the footage of our actor walking. We have already started to reduce some of the walking scenes by cutting them a lot shorter to clips that will work and will not be boring. We have also found a font that better suits our idea and we are placing them in more conventional and appropriate parts of our footage.

Here again we have been given feedback on sound, this shows that this was one of our main issues as we didn't appropriately fit in the music in the right places. We are now fixing this by placing the sound better.

New Final Typography

This is the main part of all the titles during the walking scene as this keeps it interesting and good to look at. Some of the titles that are in my final piece i have not changed the position of as I found some used the corners and some were well placed which I found to be good.
However, ones that I have changed I have done so via the font and the size of the font which I can edit to the right of the footage reel. What I wanted was to keep most of the titles consistent so that it looked professional and the different size might make the audience a bit confused on the importantce of each role.

Most films start with the production company presenting something which is something I applied in my own way. Originally in the plan I wanted the title of the film to be on the park bench however, The ending seemed more appropriate now looking at the footage. I used an energetic title for this as when it appear it looks like it is coming from the seat as it appears to be embedded in the background something I always want to achieve.

I missed a screen shot of an actor which appeared in the bottom right via lower thirds which is one of the options of how a title could be used. However this is a basic title which I used in the background this title I used in the old one I found this title still to be in a great place and its font and size is what I used as a basis for all the others as condensed and 56 for names and 48 for descriptions.

A piece of feedback from the teachers is that I used two titles in the security camera in the bottom left. The feedback was to remove one and to put the name in either a different location or to put it in a different shot.
So what I decided was to use the other corner for the title as this would make the most sense and would be able to be seen on the background cause the security camera edit made the colours grey scale.

This title I found fun to do I had to layer two of the basic titles as that is what had to do to pivot both. I found that the title would be used in the foreground and would be useful.
To get them to look like they where on the grated metal I used the transformation key which meant I could move the 360 degrees round. So I had to get the right position so that they look good and I used the seats as a marker. Placing the title on that would get me the right angle.

The next title is makeup something on the deconstruction is didn't realise how important it was in the opening credits reel.
The titles need to be changed on this one as they are the same size for the ob title and name which should not be the case so again I am going to have to get two different basic titles out again.

This is a title I wanted to put in as I found it relevant to what we could do with our footage no special effects or anything like that so I feel editing is important for our scenario. I also wanted to put my name in there as I feel I have don't the majority of the editing which also dictates how the film is going to go.
I use the transformation tool again to fit title against the wall this clip is long enough for people to notice it eventually which is good as well.

The two title I wanted to put in as I felt no priorities where felt on any of the titles and as these two are the most important I felt they needed there screen time which was all I wanted. What I want is the sound to happen in the background almost like the audience is assuming what happening and by the first scene they probably have realised.
I don't like the title at the moment cause the background footage does not reveal what it actually is so I will film a brighter ending that way you can see the title much better.