final evaluation podcast

This is a podcast of me and taylor's evaluation in which we answered 4 questions regarding the quality of what we have achieved in our overall A2 project and we also looked at the process of designing and creating our film in which there were many things we had to consider in making the entire project.

Raincoat killer 5 minute film

The Raincoat Killer from Taylor Allbut on Vimeo.

This is our final piece, of our a2 project in which we created a short film, approximately five minutes, this was a challenge as we recognised some factors were a problem such as the level of lighting in some scenes, how it was difficult in order to level these out as some scenes were shot in the day light and so at night. Overall i feel our film is good but i can see room for slight improvements, the storyline may seem unclear and i feel more dialogue would have helped this. However it was not a bad first effort and it provided me with more knowledge about lighting, camera angles and mise en scene and why they are so important.

The short film industry

A short film is any film that is not considered to be a feature film, short films can be professional or amateur productions. Short films are often screened at local, national, or international film festivals. they are often made by independent filmmakers for non profit, either with a low budget, or no budget at all, and in rare cases big budgets. Short films are usually funded by film grants, non profit organizations, sponsor, or out of pocket funds.




Why short films might be created.
These films are often created by individual filmmakers to prove their talent in order to gain funding for future films from private investors, entertainment companies, or film studios. Short films qualify for academy awards if screened in Los Angeles.
They are a method of showing off certain skills in creating films, and also a chance to create a story with a message, a clear beginning and end.


what to watch out for when creating a short film
Copyright infringement, you must gain permission to represent someone in real life, you must also be legally funded. Also if your film has a distributor, you must be clear on who exactly owns the film. Here i wrote about some of the background about short film industry as this greatly affected us as we also created a short film, by finding out more about short films and how they are posted, it gave me more background knowledge and helped me to create my film.

Ready to mark....?

Hi Craig,

I'm about to start marking - are you confident this is as good as it can be?

Picture camera

This is the camera in which we used to take pictures when showing our thought processes when creating our A2 project. In using this camera it made it easy to upload photos and the quality of each photo was up to standard.

Video camera

This is the video camera we used for recording our short film, it was easily transportable and was of high enough quality, i felt it was effective and easy to use. Uploading our footage was easy, however if we had used a higher quality camera we may have been able to reduce the glare from some of the lights within our film, however i feel this didn't affect our overall film too greatly.

Evaluation

This is me and Taylor's evaluation of our 5 minute A2 film named "The Raincoat Killer". Within our evaluation we have answered 4 questions, analyzing the technical aspects of our film and the process of creating it. We then recorded our evaluation and will upload it so we can then play it back. Our evaluation has helped us summarize the good points of our film and the areas that need to be improved on. We also reflected on our research and planning stage and by doing this we can identify any problematic areas and any wrong turns we may have made which later have developed into recognizable mistakes, e.g. choosing genre or plot perhaps.

Interaction and feedback

This is a print screen of some of the feedback We received for our A2 project, (short film). We uploaded our film onto the internet (Facebook) and this allowed friends etc to view it and say what they like or dislike about our film. By interacting with our target audience it allows us to get a better idea of what certain conventions to include in our film that worked well. And what areas may have not been so effective. Ultimately we must know what some of our audience think about our film as it is purposely aimed at them and by gaining specific feedback we can then tweak certain elements where neccessary.

This is a document created by me and taylor, in which we planned the 10 shots we will include within our storyboard, which we would then be presenting to the class. We were also aware we needed to use shots that could tell a story, and were easy to explain in a single caption. however we did not want to reveal too much of the story-line. by planning our shots it also saved time as we knew exactly what and where we need to go and what type of shot we will be using in each and every shot.

This is me and Taylor's sound clip, we used this through-out our film to try and create a sense of tension and mystery. The clip was created on Garageband and starts of slowly and gradually we made it louder which allowed us to build tension towards a particular moment in our film and we believed it worked and we thought the music was effective, however we feel we may have used it too much whereby it loses some of its effect.

This is me and Taylor's evaluation of our 5 minute A2 film named "The Raincoat Killer". Within our evaluation we have answered 4 questions, analyzing the technical aspects of our film and the process of creating it. We then recorded our evaluation and will upload it so we can then play it back. Our evaluation has helped us summarize the good points of our film and the areas that need to be improved on. We also reflected on our research and planning stage and by doing this we can identify any problematic areas and any wrong turns we may have made which later have developed into recognizable mistakes, e.g. choosing genre or plot perhaps.

Radio trailer

This is the radio trailer for our short film in which we recorded and added music from Garageband, We had created a script for our radio trailer, when creating it we looked at other trailers for horror films and tried incorporating some of the horror film trailer conventions into ours. An example of this is the voice we used in which sounds husky which is relevant to our film. However we should make changes having recognized that the voice may seem somewhat unclear which could mean that the audience do not hear every word.

This winter,

A group of schoolboys amongst 1 violent killer who has stricken fear into the community.

Billy and his friends think they are safe, but little do they know the killer is closer than they think.

In The Raincoat Killer!

This is the script for our Radio trailer, when making this we had looked at other trailers including voice for films of a similar genre to ours and by this we could plan how to write and read the script effectively and what length it should be. When recording our script for our radio trailer we intend on trying to mimic a typical horror trailer voice and this would be a deep and slightly gravely voice to sound more serious and masculine. We wanted to keep our trailer fairly short and to the point to give our audience as much necessary information as possible relevant to our story and in doing this we can also provide a sense of tension as the audience will have an idea of what might happen during the film.

This is our film poster, when making this we used 1 picture of the main character and this is so the focus is on him and within this poster we tried including the typical conventions in horror films such as a large knife to signify violence and death, we also kept most of the poster dark contrasted with white writing and so the writing will stand out more, and i also feel that a dark colour such as black signifies mystery as it is harder to see in the dark. I also think the font used in the title and in the credits is necessary and adds to the gimmick of a scary film. However i feel the image doesn't tell the audience enough about our film and leaves it quite open as to how it could end.

This is our presentation, and within this we were pitching our film, and the aim was to show the possible investors / audience what our film was about and give them an insight into the plot. Firstly we explained our storyboard and the running order of each event and scene. We then prepared a sample scene in which was around 40 seconds long to give the audience an idea of how we have approached the making of the film. We then answered any questions regarding our film, and tried to explain each point as clearly as possible. Overall i thought it went well, however our storyboard had 1 picture missing.

This is our first idea of a picture for the front of our poster, firstly we decided to have one picture on the front with only one person in the frame and this is so the audience focus on the main character and from the conventions you can see he his holding a knife and so this gives the audience an insight into what to expect within the film. We also aimed to include the typical conventions of a horror film in our picture by including a dark background, the face of the character is also slightly covered aiming to keep his identity hidden, and obviously he is holding a knife in which signifies violence and death.
The second image here is a basic idea drawn out by us as to what our poster may look like,and when planning our poster we planned to include many horror conventions. One factor was the style of writing we will use for example in the title, we were going to use a font in which seems different to other common ones, as well as an image involving many of the characters, as we feel it is important to catch the audiences eye and give them an idea of what the film is about.

This is me and Taylor's first draft of our 5 minute film, we notice some of our mistakes and can see a lot of room for improvement a lot of it being minor errors, Our film is also slightly too long and some parts need to be cut again, and we will need to edit some parts differently as well as adding more effects in places, however i feel it wasn't a bad effort.

Title: saw
This trailer is 60 seconds long and again starts showing a main character within the film, black is also the coloured used in transition from shot to shot, this represents the darkness and again the sense of the unknown typical in horror films. We are again shown the main characters in the film and we see several different shots in particular of a saw which is seen as a weapon and the name of the film. Also there a several sharp shots used in quick succession to show the anxiety and rush of it all when you see the prisoners try to escape and fend for their lives.

Film trailer

Scream 4:

The trailer starts showing the main character and shows the typical scream movie mobile phone ringing, then the background music builds up quickly and builds tension all in a short space of time as the trailer is only 80 seconds long.

We are then shown the more important characters showing the expression on their face for a few seconds at a time, and this is coincided with a heart beat noise, which shows fear and anxiety.

For much of the scarier and more gruesome parts it is darker and the killer has kept his identity hidden, which is typical of the horror genre. The actual words that the characters say in the trailer are also related to the on goings and killings and you are also shown police cars and other signifiers or danger to show the scale of these murders.

Film poster

file://localhost/Users/40314/Desktop/poster.doc

This is 1 poster idea for our film, within this picture we have shown the main character in a dark, urban environment which is related to the film, we also show him from behind and keep his identity hidden.

This is our sample scene we created and edited to pitch and present to our class, however we filmed this in night vision and so the quality was limited, when we re-film this part and the rest of the movie we will be filming it in daylight.

This is a print screen of what Garageband looks like when creating a sound clip.

We used Garageband to create a lot of sound effects and noises to then implement them into our film, and using these effects not only meant we would have to search elsewhere for them or create them ourself, but these sounds were made clearly and so there was no noise in the background, and you can also edit sounds and sync them with one another which is a useful effect and thats why we used GarageBand.

This is the sound effect we created whilst using Garageband, we made this to be used within our horror film. Garageband was useful in the way that we were able to generate sounds that were artificially pre-made and so saved us time. They were also categorized into certain genres and so were easy to find. This particular sound effect is ideal for our film as it builds tension due to the gradual rise in volume.

Treatment

Treatment

This is My final draft of our film treatment in which i analyzed our film preparation stages. By writing a treatment it allowed me to plan out our film accordingly, and this helped in the developing stage saving time when filming as we had a better idea of what shots should be used in certain scenes etc. Once i had written the story i could also gain feedback on the general story line and see whether people had thought it made sense and had potential.

List of criteria for blog (due 15/11/11)

1. Media language essay
2. Genre and media language essay
3. About a girl
4. Short film treatment
5. 6 shot analysis
6. Storyboard
7. Garageband
8. Sample scene
9. Pitch presentation
10. Film poster research
11. Trailer research
12. Reflection on work and progress (individually)

THD Meda2 Prt Scr

This is my screenshot analysis of a short film named "The nicest daughter", i chose this short film as it is a similar genre to ours and is also short. By analyzing the shots used gave me a better idea of how to portray a certain emotion within the shots we will take, it also gave me a greater understanding in the significance of shots and how important they are in terms of angles at showing a person or object in a particular way.

10 page storyboard of our film

This is me and Taylor's storyboard, in which we took pictures to explain the caption, (the main point in each scene), we were unable to get all 10 pictures, however we have described what should happen in each scene and this will help us in the filming stage as we will have a better understanding of what precisely needs to happen in each clip. However since we created this document we have changed the story-line of the film slightly.

Research and planning process

This is Taylor contributing to the process of research and planning, we both brainstormed ideas in deciding a base for our film to work from. We listed as many genres of films as possible and then listed conventions linked with each genre, from this we also had to decide other factors that would affect the making of our film including budget, what conditions we would need e.g. lighting and with this we also had to plan where we could physically go to create our film (where it should be set). With this is mind we deciding to choose a film along the basis of a horror/mystery.

10 shot plan

This is a scanned image which shows the thought process we had to undergo in deciding 10 stages to our film. We considered the shots we would use, however we have changed our minds about some factors since creating this document.

However by planning, this will make the process of filming much easier and less time consuming as we will know what shots and props to use in what scenes etc.

Studying short films: Smashed

Explain what this is here;

Explain what you got:


Here i am analyzing a short film named "smashed" looking specifically at camera angles used and other factors that were purposely put in place to make the film seem more realistic and portray what it has set out to show. By analyzing this film it has allowed me to become more familiarized with certain technical terms and how certain technicalities have been incorporated into this short film.
I also learned about stereotypes in this film as there were different social groups involved, and on a more basic level it was about 2 male characters and 2 female characters in which their gender plays a big part as it is there morales and view of life which leads them to where they are at the end.

Concepts of genre essay "The insane"

This is my essay regarding the short horror film named "The insane". in which i analyzed the film in relation to the key concepts genre, in writing this essay it provided me with a greater understanding of the conventions used in horror films and this ranged from the types of shots used to lighting. I achieved a B grade in this essay in which i feel reflects my efforts and this will then help me when making my horror film.

Media msg

When reflecting on last year when i studied AS media i feel as though i did not achieve the best possible grade i could have, our website was on beat bullying and i feel it was relevant and we incorporated a fair amount of editing and writing skill into our website. I have started well in A2 and would like to continue working to a High standard to achieve and surpass my target grade.