Coursework: Evaluation #3

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

Before this project I had not directed nor edit before. And I had barely acted or written. So many things throughout this process was entirely new thing to me. I had always enjoyed film but did not pay much attention to the intricacies of the production. But now I know how difficult and tiring it is and we only had to do 2 minutes of footage! A real production would have been so much more.

Here is what i would have rated myself before and after this whole project

Payut Wongthongsri

Cinematography - 3 (+2)

Camera work - 1 (+1)

Editing - 1 (+3)

Sound & Music - 2 (+2)

Visual Effects - 0 (+1)

Performance - 2 (+0.5)

Creativity and Confidence - 2 (+2)

Organisation - 0.5 (+0.5)

Cinematography

I have always been interested in how film looks and the framing is for each film and genres. Some mind blowing shots have just been etched into my mind and I will never forget them. With my love for them I strive to make the most beautiful shots possible and sometime it works and sometime it doesn't. Before this I would have just done everything through intuition but with this i have learned many techniques and why they are done. I want to keep improving to make each shot as beautiful as they can possibly be. I want them to be able to tell their own story just by looking at them, afterall a photo is worth 1000 words.

Camera work

I have always had shaky hands and very little knowledge about cameras but fortunately we had our friend Pun with us and he taught us many things about the camera. The contrast, saturation, aperture, focus, lighting and many more. Even though I would not feel completely comfortable doing it all myself I feel slightly more confident with it.

Editing

With me knowing so little about editing I had the most to learn about editing, and sure enough I did. Never have using Adobe Premier Pro before this I learned a whole lot that would allow me to make my own video/project now if i wanted to. Before this i would have needed help with everything. Editing software's are just so overwhelmingly massive. There is so much you could potentially do and I just ponder over what could be done and don't do anything in the end. Now i've learned how to use layers, ordering, sound mixing, colour correcting, 21:9, settings, rendering and so much more.

Sound & Music

This is very closely related to editing and I learnt how to choose songs and how i should record sound as it is one of the hardest things to do in film production as I have experienced. I have experienced 3 recording gadgets 

Colour Correction

Sequences

Visual Effects

I had no idea how Adobe After effects worked at all or any visual effects software really. So theoretically I could have learnt most about this. Unfortunately our project required little to no visual effects at all so i ended up not learning much.

Done by lewis

Performance

I have been average with my performances overall and I didn't get any scenes in this so I didn't get to properly learn first hand but fortunately directing Lewis around did teach me some small things such as expression, positioning, gestures, believable and some small stuff here and there

Creativity and Confidence

I have always been a pretty creative person, day dreaming on my own about stories and interesting concepts. I had the chance to explore it in this project. I started of with a very big concept that wouldn't have been possible if I had thought of it thoroughly. We then trimmed the concept down until the simplistic vision you see in our finished product. It's slightly sad for me because I had vision i really wanted to do but wasn't really possible. It has taught me that not everything you want to achieve is possible but at the same time, dreaming big is not wrong and is something that should be celebrated.

My confidence with this project was very wishy washy. One day I would be very confident, one day I would think that this is the worst thing ever. It was a weird but interesting experience to say the least. Seeing it go through it production stages has made me love it much more than I ever would imagine. It's a simple and mediocre product but it's OUR product. I am much more confident now about my future projects than I would be without this experience.

Organisation

Me being the lazy and unorganized person I am, I was extremely unsure about how this would go. It did take several weeks for us to get everything ready to a stage that we could start shooting. And even on the day we shot we were not ready at all. After months of doing this it has taught me to work hard and to create a plan that we can follow as it is much easier for everyone in the project. Also to not do your work the last minute because it'll never work out in the end.

I have additionally learned to delegate work load and maximizing efficiency with the exception of myself but that should be fine.

Overall I have learned more than I could have bargained for in this project and I am very glad that this was the case. I will use the experience in many other things in life as they apply very well to most things. I will allow me to perform so much better with related tasks especially media and coursework related tasks naturally.

Coursework: Evaluation #2

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

Here we used YouGovProfiles and compared 3 pieces of media which we took inspiration from; Breaking Bad, Dexter and Nightcrawler.

This will give us a rough idea of who our audiences may be.

 Engage with audiences

Similar concept Tv series and movies
DEMOGRAPHICS

Similarities:

GENDER = MALE
AGE = 25-39
SOCIAL GRADE: ABC1
LOCATION = London and Central Scotland
PROFESSION = ENTERTAINMENT
POLITICS = Left wing

LIFESTYLE

Similarities:

HOBBIES = Video games/Technology involved

SPORTS = None

GENERAL INTEREST = Movies

NICHE INTEREST = Watch movies at home

PETS = Cats

BRAND

Similarities:

CUSTOMER OF = Sony/Playstation

SHOPS AT = TESCO

GENERAL INTEREST = KICKERS/VANS

BANK = None

CAR = No interest in cars

PERSONALITY

Similarities:

SPEECH = perfer british

THEM = Geeky

AND = Lazy

ENTERTAINMENT

Similarities:

FAV Movie= Violet, Thriller 

FAV Celebrity = Bryan Cranson, Trump?

Target Audience

From this information we can assume that these people would be interested in our film as well because our film is similar in ways such as the tone, mood, interesting and compelling characters, intellectually simulating and more. Especially so when we took inspiration from it. We can tell that young adults to middle aged men will be interested in this product.

How might our product may engage with the audience? (annotated)

Distribution

We will still firstly obviously distribute conventionally through the cinemas and physical copies as majority of revenue and audiences are still there. Our target audience as explored above would also be a good match for this as they are adults who has money and will most likely enjoy going out for a good film. This means that we'll have a distributor such as Sony, Warner Bros., or Lionsgate to market and distribute for us. However I think that our film could be even more successful if we distributed it digitally through a service such as Netfilx because people who use Netflix would enjoy this as well. Research shows that 81% of 18 to 35 years olds have Netflix accounts - therefore we would have to satisfy this audience.

Coursework: Evaluation #1

How does your product use or challenge convention and how does it represent social groups and issues.

Using Conventions

Our opening could easily pass as just another thriller scene. We built tension slowly through the vulnerability and beauty of the backdrop. The calm atmosphere and slowly dropping sun. We built the tension up slowly by music and the framing of our shots to slowly give the sense of unease which would slowly rise until the climax where Roger is pulled from the frame and we are given a first person scene which is often used to show a character's point of view to give audiences a sense of immersion and realism.  So it might feel like they're experiencing it themselves.


Here are some conventions that i have identified and utilised

• The antagonist ensnares the protagonist in an increasingly complex web, until the protagonist feels isolated and helpless.
• The narrative centres upon a crime E.g theft, murder
• A series of enigmas are set up - only to be solved at the end 
• The audience is placed in a the ambiguous position of "voyeur"
• 
  

Challenging Conventions

From the get go i wanted to make an opening, piece of media that doesn't follow normal conventions. In this case the battle of white vs black, good vs evil, heroes vs villains. I wanted to create something that has a morally grey area as best i could even with the limited time that we had as this is supposed to only be the opening of a film and not a whole feature film. I did this by creating a simple premise which is just a illusive murderer killing another person, sounds basic enough right? The main important part are the two characters present in the opening. The murderer and Roger. Two conflicting ideals.

Roger could be seen as the victim here but he is a CEO who has no concern for other peoples life but just his own and his family. He would kill, abuse, and destroy a person's life just to get a bit more money or advantage, but at the same time he is a person who deeply cares for his family and his kids. he would do anything so that his kids and wife live in the best condition they can. Unfortunately we weren't able to explore this because of the time constraints imposed. So we could only lay out the base work for this by showing that he kills without being able to show his relationship with his family which is a shame.

The murderer is well, a serial killer who kills other people for sport and a sense of righteousness. The idea is that he is a high class citizen who killed other high class people who he "deems" is bad and should be killed. He bases all of this of his own thoughts which is obviously extremely unethical. This is also one of the questions that we are posing to the audience to let them decide on what is right, what is wrong. Is vigilante justice something that is good? or a delusion? At first he had a secondary motivation, he kills other people and puts them in beautiful scenery for himself to appreciate and pleasure himself. A fetish if you will. But we couldn't include this as there were too many difficulties exploring this.

I obviously had several inspiration from other pieces of media as well as my own personal experience and imagination. Too frequently are there media pieces where there are just two parties and it is clear which one they want us to cheer for and sympathize with. This is fine as it is mostly done to be entertaining and more satisfying for the audience. However the real world is unfortunately not that simple and it isn't just that simple and i wanted to explore it. Making a thriller we also had to have an interesting premise and story, this fitted the bill pretty well in my opinion.

We took inspirations from films such as:

The Dark Knight Trilogy (especially The Dark Knight):
For the ways Batman tries to combat evil but by using unconventional methods and sometimes driving the line of ethics and morals between good and evil.

Nightcrawler
For how the main character CLEARLY steps over the line of morality but for some reason we can't look away from the things he does

The Punisher
An easy example of vigilante justice. The punisher believes that what he is doing is correct and right but he clearly kills people

Breaking Bad
"A high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer turns to manufacturing and selling methamphetamine in order to secure his family's future" - IMDb
Walter White may have become a drug dealer and maker. But he's doing all of this out of necessity not of a bad intent.

Dexter
"Dexter Morgan is a forensics Expert, but that's what he seems to be, as that not what he really is. Dexter is a serial killer that hunts the bad." IMDb

Star Trek: Into Darkness
Khan is planning to kill and has killed a lot of people but he is doing all of this for his family, quote "He used my friends to control me. I tried to smuggle them to safety by concealing them in the very weapons I have designed. But I was discovered. I had no choice but to escape alone. And when I did, I had every reason to suspect that Marcus had killed every single one of the people I hold most dear. So I responded in kind. My crew is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?"

Elysium
This is because of the main villain and his ignorance to the life of the poor and the non existent care that he has for the lower/poor people. It also shows a conflict between classes, the rich vs the poor. Even though our film doesn't have that we do have a conflict between two high class citizens.

Social Issues

Our project shows how in our society; a capitalist society, the one that has power are the ones that are rich, almost exclusively so. This is shown with our two characters being high class wealthy people and that they are the only ones who has an impact in this. No one else was present at all which represents how little power everyone else has.

In the world we live in, our lives are being controlled and dictated by the rich greedy corporates and the powerful. This is shown by how easy it was for Roger to just tell one of his subordinates to kill someone.

Coursework: Filming #2

So on the 31st of January we decided to go out to shoot in Hypepark again. We gained experience from the first shoot and now we're doing things differently.
1. We're moving the time of the opening earlier so that we don't have to wait for the sun to set.
2. We know how everything is set up around here so we knew how to start shooting right away

We were also lucky enough to have a very beautiful sunset that really enhanced our product by creating a great backdrop for our project.

We also now have a tripod which was brought by our friend Pun which made shooting much much simpler and easier. It also fit what i wanted to do better. The still camera frames create a kind of unease for the audience since it makes it seem like we're watching Roger hidden from afar.

The script and story were changed slightly as I didn't feel like the story flowed too well the first time round.

Coursework: Filming #1

After we had most of the ideas and script we went out to film on Monday the 23rd at Hydepark Bangkok after school. Me, Lewis and our friend Pun who would help with the camera work and sound went out to film.

We hadn't gone to scout the location before so we didn't know what the location and sets were going to completely be like but we knew some basics such as; there are long roads which we could use, houses which we could borrow, some of our friends lived in them, and that there is a pier that is facing the sunset.

This is what it looked like in Hydepark

There were some parts that we thought we could have used but decided not to use them such as the abandoned house and the open space. We mostly just used the pier and the road next to it

The opening was set at night at this time so we waited for the sun to set and while doing so we were setting up and thinking of ways to utilize the space and how everything is going to be filmed. We learned afterwards that filming at night was a terrible idea. Not only do you have to wait a very long time for the sun to set but there is almost no lighting at all making it extremely difficult to see. When we were editing this together it was clear that this wasn't going to work so we immediately planned for a reshoot and decided to change things up slightly.

Coursework: Moodboard

Creating this opening we obviously had to make a moodboard. After discussing about this opening for an extended amount we naturally had several ideas and this is the moodboard that Lewis created

There are several shots that we are planning, the first one that we are planning is the killing and the dragging of the victim. the representation that the villain is doing it for some good even if he is a serial killer. Then there's the floating of the canoe and the discovery of the body. His love for beautiful scenery and them him looking from afar.


The final product deviates slightly from this but the ideas we had mostly still works very well for what we tried to make

Dusk (first draft)

This is the first version with no sound and no credits. We hadn't chosen the soundtracks and the sound effects were not done yet. We also haven't come up with all the names and the technique we were going to present the credits

We had this video to show to our friends to gauge how they reacted and what they thought about our project so far. The pros, cons everything

Here is the summary of the reaction of our friends

Pros

• The cinematography is good
• The opening creates tension very well
• The 21:9 adds a very nice cinematic feeling 
• The setting looks really good

Cons

• The lack of sound really hurts our project as a whole (but we expected that)
• The editing is very unpolished
• Not enough substance
• Scenes hold for way too long

From this I got a lot of information and went to fix several things. The main one that i hadn't notice until showing this was how long some scenes dragged on for making the viewing experience extremely awkward and slow making it boring.