Final

Rough Cut

Rough Draft Analysis

Our Rough Cut was not long enough as we still had roughly 40 seconds to go. Therefore we where going to have to come up with some more footage that will fill in the gap and allow us to further connote the female’s dominance. The title sequence that we had put in for the opening was well positioned however we had picked a inappropriate font to be used with our specific sub genre, therefore we choice Serif Sans as it is a much more simplistic font, that will go with the conventions of a Film Noir better, this will also help the shots flow. We found that making our shots flow was harder than we expected, this was mainly down to our film not being properly edited but because of this there was no rhythm making our piece seem jumpy, we tried to correct this briefly by making the shot length nearly the same where possible. This is something that we are definitely going to have to amend for our final cut. We also found that using transitions could be a possibility for our final piece, as this would hopefully make some shots flow easier. The diegetic sounds that where on the piece needed to be re done, as we are unable to hear the conversation-taking place out side. We also needed to change around the dialogue at the pool table as the accents used did not suit the aim of creating a Film Noir opening. Non – diegetic music was not added and this is something that we need to think about for our final piece, as it is essential to build tension in a scene. Lighting was also a problem in our first attempt, as all of our indoor shots where way to dark; we need to over come this by reshooting or changing the contrast on premier. Lastly I felt that there was not enough bold shots like Close Ups and P.O.V.’s used to capture the female’s dominance and help connote her significance over the males.

Extra Research

We found that further research was needed on the conventions of a Film Noir. Sin City is the most recent and well known Film Noir to us, we decided to take a close look at how the camera is used to connote the female’s dominance in the opening. We found that the use of low angles was mainly used to make her look more dominant than him, to the use of dialogue is a powerful tool that we need to take into consideration as our opening has very little dialogue so far. Additionally we where going to use a balcony which is similar to Sin City, we had to be careful that we where not being to Cliché, but most thrillers especially Film Noir use similar conventions to sell for a mass audience.

Editing

As a group we faced many problems with Mac’s however we where able to overcome this and upload all off our footage onto premiere to start editing. It was at this point where we could look at each shot and see whether it was okay, we found that a few shots needed re shooting. Once it was partly edited we where also able to see whether or not it flowed with the each shot being roughly the same length, shots needed to be added to the first 30 seconds of the opening, as it did not flow. When editing we came across the problem of there being no clear storyline in the opening, for example multiple shots of the female both inside and out, but then no hint or shot that the female has gone inside. Consequently we needed look at the rough cut, and see where we can add new shots to make the variation better, but also where we can add shots or redo shots to make the opening flow and have meaning. Whilst experimenting with our shots, we decided to add in dissolves before the black screen, and during a POV of the female, we felt that using this transition will help connote the female’s dominance. The teacher was satisfied with the start of the opening, however was not sure on what was happening, he gave us some instructions on how we could improve it, bearing in mind shot lengths and angles.

Teacher Feedback 2

After speaking to the teacher who gave us some feedback on our progress and how we can improve our opening. First of all we needed to decide how we where going to fill the last 40 seconds, we proposed some of our ideas, and then together we narrowed it down to one with the teachers input keeping in mind the convention of Film Noir. This then lead on to using the extra 40 seconds to make the female more of a violent and aggressive character, furthermore how we were going to film the actions. He advised us to use as many bold and daring shots as possible connoting the female’s dominance. The feedback given on our editing was, we needed to rearrange some of the shots, perhaps add some in to help it flow also we needed to keep in mind the length of each shot as there was no rhythm. Non Diegetic music was not thought of much, however we where told that a contrasting sound track would connote the violence seen on screen. I think that going and getting a teachers opinion on our work was a vital stage as it has allowed us to get the most from the shots that we had, also is a great learning curve to what problems we have faced and how we can improve.

Class Mates Continuity Task Evaluations

Luke –
We gave Luke’s group a level 2 because there was some good shots used. However the dialogue was not great with it being very rushed and people laughing, further more the piece was not finished as it suddenly just ended as they stood up. Overall was an okay attempt with some good shots however needed dialogue needed to be changed and then the piece needed finishing.

Stephanie –
We gave the group a level 3 as they have clearly shown more than a basic level of ability. The majority of shots where held steadily, and people in the frame, hitting the basic criteria of a level 3. However their only downfall was a limited amount of dialogue, and then not using non-diegetic music to composite for it. Overall the best continuity task, but there is defiantly room for improvement with the music / dialogue and perhaps shot distances.

Ellies –
We gave the group a level 3, this was because of good shots throughout and extremely good music that linked with the dialogue. The non-diegetic and diegetic music worked extremely well creating a sense of atmosphere to the piece. However, there was very visible continuity error where Callum had his arms in the air and then next shot they where on the table, this made the task seem amateurish and editing needed to improved.

Changes

New Character Profile:
Heather Casey
Age: 16
Unfortunately, as our previous actress was ill, we felt that it was best to change the actress as we needed to be able to film fairly quickly, and also have time to do reshoots as well. It made sense to change the actress to someone who is part of the group, as it would be much easier to plan and organise any extra reshoots that were necessary.
Female Protagonist
Elegant clothing - black dress, heels
Main character in opening, dominance connoted through low angles, close ups, and POV shots.

Teacher Feedback 1

The teacher gave us some feedback early on, focusing on our shooting schedule and how we could use our time effectively. Firstly he advised us to rethink our shooting schedule, making it a lot more specific, also adding in dates. This made it clear to us, as to what shots we where going to film each time furthermore allowing us to progress a lot quicker. The teacher focused on how we have dramatically veered away from our animatic, this is a risky move as we have nothing to refer to but on the other hand could be an improvement to what we already had. After seeing our teacher we where able to work out a detailed shooting plan allowing is to get on the filming and not losing valuable time. But trying to keep to out animatic where possible, as we could easy lose sight of our end result, creating a 2 minute opening to a film with no relevance to a Film Noir, or thriller.

Typography Changes

We have had to make many changes one of them was our Typography, as we found that it was too cartoony and did not go with our chosen genre. After doing some group research we found that Serif was the main font used in Film Noir titles. Therefore we chose to use this for our titles keeping to the codes and conventions of Film Noir. The reason that Film Noir use Serif is mainly because it is a very simplistic text, also help to create a mysterious atmosphere to the opening of the scene which is generally created with in Film Noir.

17/03

We had only a few shots that we needed to get done, these where final shots that where going to allow the audience to feel the full brutality of the female. We tried to capture this by using bold shots like a P.O.V. of the male being hit for example. The filming session was only short and just allowed us to get some final shots that will hopefully make the difference in the end.

15/03

This was going to be our final time filming allowing us to use the rest of the week to edit and make any final adjustments. Before filming we discussed how we could film the last 40 seconds, we decided to use as many low angles as possible to connote the females dominance and then high angles to show how weak the cheating male is, this would then have more of an impact on the audience reinforcing the females dominance in the opening. We tried to not use high angle’s when the cheater and Femi Fatal where both in a shot, but instead to make the male positioned lower than the female so that she was always looking down on him, this meant that she was clearly more powerful. After this filming session we found that we had met our 2-minute deadline.

14/03

Once we had got all of our footage we did some rough editing where we found that at most we were going to have 1 minute 20, so more filming was needed to make up the last 40 seconds. However this gave us a chance to use some of our new knowledge and try and create a more believable Film Noir using shot variations and dialogue. Gambling was the best idea we came up with, allowing us to get our 40 seconds, also connoting the females dominance via one of the males cheating. However we spoke to the teacher where he guided us to use the 40 seconds to show a more violent and aggressive side of the female. Then use bold shots to capture and connote her dominance, with more P.O.V.’s of both the cheater and the Femi Fatal.

28/02

We thought we would try and experiment using some bold shots; we did this by having a P.O.V. of Sam as he was forced to look at heather. This was from a low angle slowly looking at the female standing up beside him; this was a good shot in theory as it connoted the female’s dominance. We also did a high angle shot of Sam being dragged in, as the first attempt wasn’t good enough, whilst doing this we decided to get a shot of Sam being dropped from the females P.O.V. However after doing all of these shots we found that nothing fitted properly and we needed to rethink our shots and how we where going to capture the sequence, perhaps a different choice of shots would be needed.

23/02

We spent some time thinking and discussing more shots that will help us to maximise the female’s screen time, making her look dominant and significant. We decided that we could use the balcony as it allowed us to use several different low angles and close ups, however we thought it was a bit too cliché but after quickly looking through our Film Noir notes we decided most films used the same conventions. Whilst doing more research we found that Film Noir specifically use bold shots, we decided to incorporate some in our film and tried to think of possible opportunities to shot some. When we did the filming we focused on a two shot of the bodyguard and the female, however there was a clear height difference we tried to make the female seem the more dominate figure by centralizing her in the shot also making her have noticeable more screen time. After this session we decided to show our teacher what we had done so far, getting feedback on what good and not also where places where we can improve.

20/02

With all the male actors able to come, we decided to get as much done with them as possible focusing on a major part where Sam gets dragged in. We chose Sam because he is smaller than Tom and myself this would help connote our dominance in the sequence. After our first attempt of getting the shot we tried a different location that was easier to film, as it allowed us to use a high angle instead of middle shot, which does not create much meaning. Whilst changing location we found that we where able to create a lot larger shadows which are a key convention in Film Noir. We wanted to capture Sam being dragged in from as many different angles and shots as possible however this created a problem as they would seem more dominant than the female, therefore we had to rethink our shot selection for the next filming session.

16/02

We faced a problem with our first actress becoming ill. This meant that the footage we had previously shot was useless and needed to be re done, we decided to fill her in with someone form the group. Although this created a opportunity to use a variety of shots that we hadn’t thought of in previous filming sessions. Story line was tweaked allowing us to get more shots connoting the Femi Fatal dominance. Due to the males not being able to attend we decided not to waste the session but to film as many of the females shots as we could, focusing on shot angles and distance that are vital in Film Noir. We where going to use a cigarette to help maximise the females screening time, but we found that it gave the wrong impression so we changed it for a glass of wine being a more elegant option.

02/02

We where able to make our second filming session a lot more productive than our first session, as everyone knew what shots we needed to get allowing us to get on with filming not having to discus each shot. For the session we mainly thought about conventions on Film Noir, this is where we realised that we need to vary our shot’s using low angles to connote the female’s dominance however this was made hard due to the female not moving in the opening sequence. A change was needed, we needed to use the shot variation to connote the Females power, and therefore we needed to tweak our story line making it easier to film. Due to this we decided to we where going to use long shots and close although they will not be of the same significance. Additionally we needed to come up with some dialogue or research common non-digetic music found in Film Noir. The male actors playing pool was a possibility of non-digetic sounds but they weren’t available, so we looked at the free music websites that where provided for alternative music or ideas.

31 /01

This was our first filming session, we tried to get most of the shots that where in our animatic, this was going to be the most time effective way of filming allowing us to then see where we could improve or add extra shots. However we found that their was very little variety of shots mainly using mid shots / two shots. A larger variety of shots was needed to creating meaning within the piece, we decided upon using more close up’s, high angle, low angle shots to try and create meaning also show weakness and dominance with certain characters.
Additionally this was made harder due to the animatic being at school, as we had nothing to refer to, therefore next time I think we should talk about what we are going to do in the session before hand allowing us to maximise our filming time.

Continuity Task Evaluation

The Continuity Task was a good insight into how much experience people have had with a camera, we found that we where all new and not very experienced. I trying to use the experienced techniques too early was our down full because our end result looked very fake making a very simple task look amateurish.

We began by trying to get a shot of Sam entering the room, we wanted to use the tripod getting a P.O.V. of me looking up at him as he entered however we found that this was a lot trickier than it looked, as we where unable to make the tilt look natural. We then moved the position of where I was sitting down, to try and change the unnatural angle, I believe that we had done it to a certain extent, as it looks a lot better than before, but perhaps could have experimented with a hand held shot.

Positioning was a very difficult factor that we faced, as we where unable to successfully position the tripod to get clear over shoulder shots of me sitting in the chair. We then had to re position our self once again, causing a continuity error that was clear when we watched it back. This was mainly due to our location of the piece as it was a very confined office making it hard to position the tripod and people inside.

When we had to edit the footage where we found that some of the shots did not look natural still, like the tilt of Sam entering the room, we either could re film it from a different angle or shot however found due to our deadline it was best to keep it. We also wanted to create a sense of tension in the task, we thought we could do this by adding some Non – Diegetic music to build the tension gradually but this made very little difference.