Feed the fish - preliminary task

Abdur Rahman - Media Product - Evaluation

Open publication - Free publishing - More abdur

Finshed

Everything is now finished. the video link below is our video.

Posted by Ishma

Final Project - The Exchange

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bxC2LHs9GQ

Posted by Ishma

Evaluation - Shazmaa

Open publication - Free publishing - More crime thriller

Evaluation - Ishma

Open publication - Free publishing - More 12e2

Textual Analysis- Abdur Rahman

Man on fire (2004),

Directed by Tony Scott
Produced by Lucas Foster, Arnon Milchan, Tony Scott
Written by Brian Helgeland

POSTER
On the left is film poster for man on fire. We can tell who the protagonist in the film is (Denzel Washington) by how they are shown in the poster, the man is in the centre of the frame to show how significant he is and that all eyes are on him. We see part of the background as flames and the other, smoke which could signify the meaning, “there is no smoke without fire” he is placed in the centre of them both like a ‘bridge’ between the two. He has one of his hands covering the small girl; this could imply that he is trying to protect her like a bodyguard.


The girl is shown in front the Smokey clouds, and her face seems to be glowing, there is contrast between the background and her and this could signify ‘hope’, so in all the destruction and danger there is still hope and Denzel seems to be trying to protect that. The poster could also signify that the protagonist is going to a bad place or in danger and the small girl is the bridge to what saves him.


Textual analysis – Man On Fire (2004)

The film starts with the production companies and distributors, the sound is relatively calm its slow but seems as if there is tension building up. We see and establishing shot of a city, which we later can tell is Mexico City.

The camerawork is vital in the opening scenes; they use a rather strange technique, the camera is jumpy/ agitated and does not seem to be at a still pose there is many scenes which are mixed in at once and this signifies the uncertainty of what will happen and the trouble. We see the victim at the centre of the frame with the kidnapper as he has his hands on the victims head as he drags him into the car; this shows authority and the difference in power.

People of authority are made to look as powerless as even they cannot stop what has happened. The use of the man’s white shirt represents how he ‘surrenders’ and that he is powerless although he seems to be wealthy.

Tension is built up by shot-reverse-shot from the kidnapper to the victim, there is a fast pace and this is to signify how dangerous it can be and sudden.
The scenes have an odd pace, at times everything would seem fast and the next it will stop and focus on one area this maybe done to create the effect of how fast the situation could occur and a sense of uneasiness, and this was also done in the credits throughout the start of the film

The film is set in modern day Latin America we can tell this by how everyone is dressed. The kidnapped person who is held for ransom is from a rich background we can tell this by the smart suit worn. Although the kidnappers are dressed in suits we can tell they do not have much class for example the way they commit the crime and the car that they drive for example, the kidnapping is done in broad day in front of a public area, in a way this signifies the growing concern of this type of crime as people are shown as vulnerable. The opening is shown as dark and brutal with blood etc, this I believe is done to make it look realistic and as effective as possible.

In the beginning of the film there was a slow placed sound however it was not a sound of ease as you could tell there was certain tension that was building up, as we start to see the establishing shot the sounds start to get more up tempo which could signify the increasing danger. There is allot of various sound techniques used, there is hyperbolic sounds of children laughing in the background which contrasts with what actually is happening this makes the scenes seem even more effective and somehow brutal. We also hear the sounds of a clock as if to say ‘it is time’ as soon as we here this everything goes quite for a few seconds and then more non-diegetic sounds are added to maybe signify we are now in the danger zone, we can tell this by screaming in the back of people running and calling for help.
Here is where we the viewers get an idea of the type of film this is, we witness s kidnapping and can’t tell by the voice-over of the hostage taker, he is holding the victim and asks for ransom. I believe what makes the voice over more effective is that it is done in another language and not English so the audience have to read subtitles in order to understand and this is very smart as it draws them in more as now they are engaging and may feel part responsible.

The sounds are never fully clear as there seems to be other sounds entwined within, for example noises of traffic or screams and this is done to maybe signify the problem as it occurs allot.

The titles and text are like the rest of the opening scene they are jumpy and in different spots for each credit, this could signify the uncertainly and edge of what is happening, the use of text plays a major role in the opening scene as it bridges some scenes together ,it also shows the difference in time and location. The text is used to give people an idea of what is happening for example it says “there is a kidnapping every 60 minutes in Latin America” not only does this tell us where we are but also what they film may be about. The font is bold and white to signify how important it is, so that is stands out from other parts of the scene.
The narrative: we do not see the protagonist yet in the opening scene but do see the antagonist who I believe is played by the kidnappers. We get an idea of what the film is about from the voice over of the hostage taker and also the text which comes up on screen.

Almost done

With most of our work done and over with,we are set to hand in our completed blog, movie and other aspects tomorrow. Regardless of the inconveniences that we had such as the movie errors, editing mistakes and miscommunication between the team, we managed to secure a decent result which was around what we were expecting.

Posted by Ramish

Textual Analysis - Opening Sequence for "Hard Target"

Hard Target is a 1993 American action film directed by Chinese director John Woo. The film stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as Chance Boudreaux, an out-of-work Cajun merchant seaman who saves a young woman, Natasha Binder (Yancy Butler), from a gang of thugs in New Orleans. Chance learns that Binder is searching for her missing father (Chuck Pfarrer), and agrees to aid Binder in her search. Boudreaux and Binder soon learn that Binder's father has died at the hands of wealthy sportsman Emil Fouchon who hunts homeless men as a form of recreation.
The of the movie starts with the universal film company being shown, which was the distributor of the film. There is heavy breathing in the background while the titles for the movie are being shown in in a blue colour and bold font which signifies the serious/effective genre of the movie.The opening shot fades in with a long shot of a street view, it is night time and heavy thunder and raining is being portrayed on the screen, which shows us, the audience that something bad or sinister is about to occur. The shot is a POV (point of view) shot of an individual who we do not know about.
A piano seems to be playing in the background, this is non-diegetic since the actual instrument is not in the scene. the point of view pans to a horse carriage, it almost tells that the person is maybe weak and is carrying a heavy burden of some sort. This is shown in the next shot where he pleads "help,help" and knocks on the doors of the street trying to get someone's attention and possibly escape from the situation that he is in. Music in the back is once again played, this time being Jazz, this represents the environment where there are a lot of bars and clubs. The entire sequence up till now is shot in a clearly fitted frame in which the audience can see the entire street view.
there is heavy breathing in the shot, quite similar to our sequence, this signifies that the individual is probably running away from something and is quite tired. Theres a quick close-up of a arrow being shot at someone, in the next edit the victim is shown who was the one leading the POV sequence, he is quickly shown as being injured by the arrow; the next edit is a long shot of the 'hunters', who are not shown clearly, there seems to be a shadow effect on them which signifies that they are the bad guys since black is traditionally viewed as the evil/bad side.
Another arrow is shot in the next edit but this one transforms into the films title 'Hard Target',signifies the emphasise on the movie's name, there is obviously a 'target' being hunted/
The victim gets tracked by the camera as he is running away from the people who are hunting him, this automatically sets the idea in the audience' mind of who the victim is and who the bad guys are. A cut to the protagonists is shown and in a situation like this, they seem to be quite calm and relaxed, almost as if they are in complete control and they already know the result of what is about to happen. The victim climbs over a fence in an attempt to escape but is knocked back down by a biker, the shot is in slow motion which signifies that his escape is far from anywhere near,the next edit is a long shot of a biker being behind him and in front of him when he falls from the fence, the focus here is that he seems to be surrounded and that there is no way out for the victim.
Here is when hope for the individual in the eyes of the audience seems to decrease because as the rest of the crew approaches in cars, bikes and on foot the odds against the target seem to increase dramatically but two people of the entire pack of hunters seem to be quite relaxed, the main protagonist/bad guy is in a classic long shot, driving into the scene in his car and the close-up of his face is shown as extremely calm and relaxed, its as if he does not feel the need to get involved at the time because he probably already knows the result of what is about to happen. "If he makes it to the river he's won, we can't allow that to happen Mr Lupaci", the first dialogue of the movie tells so much, the audience now know that it is a deadly game of cat and mouse that is going to be the main plot of the film. The victim runs away onto a field which is standing in between him and the river, amongst the killers. However the victim is shot by the arrow by one of the bad guys which approaches to his death, another arrow is shot again but this time the victim ducks and rolls over in order to get out of the line of fire, the audience at this time wonders if there is still hope for the target. While he is running away there is a medium shot of two bad guys firing at the person, a classic and much used shot in action/crime films, however the victim fights back by throwing a petrol canister at the line of fire and blows up, the hope in our eyes for him increases as well as the empathy for him. One of the leaders fires a grenade at the hut that he is hiding next to which heavily injures him, instantly the narrative is changed as he is heavily injured and we as viewers know strongly now that it is nearly over in terms of his life. As one last attempt for freedom is taken by the target and we go back to a POV shot in which he sees a boat which is like the ribbon at the end of a race, but he can't get to it as one last shot by the hunter with the arrow goes through his back and chest. There is a fade-out effect used which signifies that he is now dead.
In terms of mis-en-scene the time of day is night, when everyone is asleep and no-one is there to assist or help anyone in a similar situation as him, also everyone is wearing a black attire, which again goes well with the environment because of the type of scene that is being portrayed on screen. Most of the props utilised are weapons such as the arrow, the petrol canister and guns, this gets us as an audience wondering of how the movie is going to turn out next, will there be a continuum of this type of killing or is there going to be a twist, will there be an antagonist turning the plot? or is the film going to go into flashback of how this all started.
The time and place as I mentioned before is signified completely by the other aspects of the mis-en-scene such as the costumes and the location which goes from a street to a massive field and onto the docks where the victim is murdered.
There is not may dialogues used, just the one punch-line which the main bad guy says, mostly because in edits and shots such as this opening sequence there is not a need to have a lot of conversations between characters or any other types of dialogues, the characters and the environment amongst the action on-screen signify most of the story in a short 5 minutes which is around the time for the opening sequence to take place.
The film used here is similar to ours because the plot introduced is quite similar to ours in terms of the POV shot and having a victim and a bad guy, there is not any introduction to the antagonist in this scene and also in our opening sequence we did not have the 'good guy', simply because the plot was clear and there did not seem to be any need of the hero being displayed on screen.

Posted by Ramish

Fixing Problems

Today in my free I fixed around the sounds and corrected the spelling error. Now we just need to upload it to youtube and then to our blog.

Posted by Ishma

Our own poster

If our film was to have a poster, we would have something like this.It would be more detailed with credits etc but this picture really gives a insight to the film. The picture isn't used in the film, like most other posters would not have an image from the film as their poster and so this is why i chose to use this.
I edited this myself, adjusting the lighting, brightness, shadows and so on. and then added a basic title in white as this goes with our opening credits. This is simple, and thats what makes an effective poster look good, its simplicity brings it out. The title also stands out and so you know what the film is about. By looking at it, you have a thousand questions to ask like who is the man or what will be exchanged and where is it set or why is he tied up. I think its simple but effective.

Posted by Ishma

Improvising and Developing

When we were doing the text message shot we came across one or two problems but was easily solved. At first, myself and Ishma tried to record the text message using my camera but you could barely see the writing. So what we did to solve it was having the advantage on the iphone to have a button which could print screen everything. We had sent the image to ourselves and this is shown below. 

However, when it came to our editing, this image was not uploading to our film. We tried to use another camera, the Flip which is high definition and a great camera. However, it still wasn't working. What we had done to overcome our problem was print screen another image, but this time using my phone. Ishma was able to upload it on to the Mac using the bluetooth options. Fortunately, this time our outcome was successful.

We decided to have the text recieved by an unrecognisable number in order to keep the suspence flowing in our sequence in order to develop our target audiences attention and further interest. Not knowing who the person is makes the viewer wonder who is asking him to meet. Also the text itself is short and sharp. The person who is sending the text is in control and telling the victim what to do. The sentence ends in '..' which adds suspense. it could mean 'or else' or something threatening along those lines.

Last Minute Problems!

So we uploaded the product on youtube, but i just watched it, we have made a spelling mistake (instead of writing abdur rahman we've written abdur ramish which is my fault, easily fixed) but the main problem is the sounds, whilst uploading, they have moved around and so there are sounds int he wrong places. we will have to move them around tomorrow which i can do in my free and then upload it again. Hopefully this time the sounds won't move. We have had this problem before. We save it, and then when we open it again, the sounds seem to have moved a bit. But this can be fixed tomorrow.

Posted by Ishma

Hoping for the Best

With most of our process for the movie done for instance evaluations and uploading the video to You tube and little aspects of the movie left we hope that it will turn out just as our expectations suggested. here are still things we could have carried out in order to provide a better result but still, practice makes perfect I guess and that's what I as an individual will try to do in the future so that an even better final piece can be done and my part in it can be performed to the best of my abilities.

Posted by Ramish

Evaluation - Ramish

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In my perspective, our media product uses a typical view of a crime thriller situation where you have a bad guy wanting a certain thing from someone else but he cannot perform the task to how the villain wants him to and followed by revenge, he ends up in a situation where his life is in a high level of danger and the antagonist seems to torture him in order to claim what he wants.

Our media project did not quite challenge the traditional view of this type of scenario because what you see in our one is what you would normally see. Since we had Asian actors to portray the characters in our storyboard, this added to the development because you would normally see white actors or black actors because they are usually the centre of attention in these genres. Also in the later part of the opening sequence we had the bad guy running away due to the fact that he shot the victim when he actually did not mean to, the scene where he is fleeing the scene is shown as a point of view shot combined with diegetic sound of heavy breathing so this developed the intensity and suspense of the scene.

How does your media product represent particular social group?

We included Asian actors in our film because as I mentioned before you would not normally see Asian backgrounds being the centre of attention, Asian groups for instance Pakistanis and Arabs are normally seen as terrorists and violent individuals so we included them because it would convey a message of how they are normally portrayed in the minds of our average audience as anti-social groups. Also as you may have viewed that our actors are quite young, being between 18 and 25, this also represented age groups because young boys are stereotypically seen as hot headed and always violent, usually starting a riot or fight. Also the young teens always seem to be carrying a knife or a weapon of some sort in the stereotypical media index and the young teens being of an ethnic background, it just develops the opening sequence because a typical view of the average young Asian is represented as how people view them as.

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

The institutions that we mentioned before such as ‘Revolver Entertainment’ and ‘Regency Enterprises’ would be the forecasted companies we would aim for our film to be a part of since they both have made quite a lot of crime thrillers. We don’t expect a big time company like 20^th Century or Universal to be part of our film because our sequence does not have an American feel to it, it is quite low budget and has more of a urban theme to it instead. 

Who would be the audience for your media product?

In my opinion the audience for our film would most likely be late teens and early 20s individuals because our actors themselves are young, and by past experience, the young target market normally is the one to go see a film on young adults.

We obviously would like to see majority of the audience, those who are not even our initial target market, to still view our project. The reason that young teens would view our movie is because it represents the stereotypical view of ethnic backgrounds and also the stereotype view of late teens and early 20 individuals.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I did not quite set out to have a mass audience with our movie, instead I hoped to achieve a critical response such as uploading the movie onto youtube etc and just gathering a niche market which would give us a response on what they thought about the product we manufactured into an opening sequence.

What have your learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Technology was the prime object of support that we had because without the likes of an editing software on the Apple Mac we would not be able to put any of our film together and make it look as professional as we can, or without the use of a camera we would not be able to do any of the shooting and get every bit of camera shots and different scenes as we possibly can.

Our individual USB’s also helped us a lot because utilising them lead to the group being able to do work outside of the class as well as inside. But because USB’s are quite small and quite vulnerable they proved to have disadvantages as well, Shazma’s usb which had most of the edited movie on it got corrupted in the process so this proved to be quite a bit of a problem so we had to re-do the movie which did not take long because we already knew what to do and how to do it as well. Also about a number of times I myself did not remember to bring my usb in and any work I had saved on that for media could not be done but still I had a back up file of it on the school computer. The lesson learned from this was that we should not always rely on a usb because it can prove to be a high drawback on part f the project we are doing and we should always have a backup somewhere just in case something goes wrong, this can be said about me as well as others who I have worked with.

My phone also should be taken into consideration because I was able to contact other group members through that and also save any tasks that were pending on my behalf onto the phone. They were useful but at the same time had drawbacks to them because when Shazma’s was recording the BBC report on her phone to upload onto the PC, it didn’t work due to some technical errors so she send it via Bluetooth to Abdur and he uploaded it onto the editing software ready to use.

Looking back at your preliminary task (FEED THE FISH) what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to be the full product?

The one thing I learned was that when in a group you obviously need the support of your colleagues but at the same time if you want to get a high grade then there has to be individual effort and time put in order to get the mark you seek.

Also that technology helps you a lot in the process such as this one but we have to remember that it cannot always be as reliable as you would think because it can be get corrupt quite easily.

In the “Feed The Fish” there were a lot of issues that were causing our movie to look quite different as to how we initially wanted it to look. We did not have a strong research field or any major planning for instance the storyboard etc. This lead to us basically showing up to shooting without actually having a strong idea of how exactly we are going to pull off a decent enough scene.

When editing is included the shots in our preliminary task seemed to be quite confusing and at the same time some were short when they did not need to be and vice versa. The 180 degree rule also was disrupted and we did not notice that we ‘crossed the line’ while shooting.

The location that we selected was always varying in terms of it being used a lot of the time leading to our shooting to be on a halt most of the time. We used the music building in the school for the preliminary task because it seemed to be the most convenient place for us because quite frankly no-one seemed to be bothered to visit a far place which at the end of the day would prove to be un-convenient.

All the aspects of the flaws in Feed The Fish compared to the final movie were astonishing, when I viewed the movie before editing it still seemed quite good and also promising that it would turn out better then what I expected.

The shots in the opening sequence as compared to the preliminary task were much more decent, the framing was more on point and there were not as many unusual shots or weird angles, it looked like a traditional crime thriller, obviously not as much as I thought it would but it did meet certain expectations such as that considering that the camera and lightning equipment that the school gave us could not be picked up and the school was closed during half term which is when we were supposed to film the opening sequence, so this proved to be quite a thorn in  the progression. The shooting team had to rely on a digital video camera, which still had decent results in terms of quality and understanding.

To conclude I would like to say that when you view our preliminary task and compare it to our final finished product you can tell that we have made progress in terms of individual skill and teamwork too.

 

Camera

This is the camera we used. It belongs to Shazmaa. We had problems using the school cameras because there wasn't enough and there was too long que to book and to get a tape for it. The picture of it is below. it isn't as high quality as the school ones but did the job. It was easy to use but as mentioned in my evaluation, it was small and so hard to keep still. Also the sound was hard to pick up but it was light to carry around and small to pull out your bag whenever you feel you need to film.

Posted By Ishma

FInally Finished

We have OFFICIALLY finished our product!
We have learned a lot along the way and come across a lot of problems. However we have finished now and it was worth it. At then end of it, we have produced a product and achieved our aims learning  a lot of techniques and skills along the way.

Posted By Ishma and Shazmaa

On Youtube

Today we transferred our product from one hard drive to another so the technitian could upload it onto the Coombe Media Channel on YouTube. Initially, we had a problem uploading onto the blog which is why we are uploading it via YouTube. This will be uploaded later.

Posted By Ishma

Editing

Today, myself and Ishma re-done our credits in order to make the flow of the opening sequence better. What we had changed was our names for each job, for example, the director is myself, the editor is Ishma and the producers are Ramish and Abdur. 


Posted by Shazmaa

                        

 The first three storyboard were done by Shazmaa and I. They were roughly drawn as a guide but the annotations were detailed. When we got to editing, Abdur and Ramish wanted to re-do our storyboard. The drawings are much more neater but the writing is more or less the same. We have changed our ideas along the way but we have tried to stick to our storyboard.


Photos By Abdur
Posted By Ishma

7/3/11

7/3/11

We have had problems with opening the file which our opening scene is in, Me ramish and shazmaa used our frees to re-edit scenes, here I had suggested to shazmaa that it would be good idea to reduce some long clips with other shots, for example when the driver reverses, a shot of inside the car would give the scene better pace and not seem too long as it already did.

Posted by Abdur

15/3/11

15/3/11

I tried to help Shazmaa with some editing. Shazmaa had problems using certain parts of the MAC for when adding sound, so I helped ressolve this by showing her how to connect the bluetooth and transfer files as well as changing the equalizer to make the sounds more effective in the scene.

Posted by Abdur

Uploading the Storyboard

Today me and Abdur scanned the storyboard onto the PC in order to provide evidence of the production of the film. The initial storyboard done by Shazmaa and Ishma was just rough as they had to do all the planning and filming in 3 days so Abdur and myself re-did it in order for it to be better. We scanned  the new storyboard but at the same time scanned the previous one to show how we have improved through out this project. The storyboard will be uploaded shortly.

Posted by Ramish

Some more editing/Evaluation

We decided there were still some shots that did not benefit the flow of the opening sequence. The flashbacks and the present sequences seemed to be going too fast and did not make sense for quite some time. We showed our finished film to our teacher and he did not seem as impressed as we would expect, considering Ishma and Shazmaa spent quite a lot of time on the editing section. He suggested that we add in more credits this will help to show changes in scences which then will create a bigger impact
We decided, upon consulting with the teacher that we could include extra titles such as the producers name, the director and the editor be included in between the shots as well as some sound changes to create a sound bridge, for a better pace to the sequence.
The titles' font was initially set as white and the background as pure black, this was similar to the title of the films' title "The Exchange" and this therefore gave the titles as well as the film a continuous smooth flow because it helped the audience understand what was going on.
The producers being me and Abdur; The editor was Ishma as she done all the editing, and  The director is Shazmaa as she wrote the script.
In order to do this there will be more time required and also judging that we have one week to complete the evaluation, the editing needs to be done and out of the way.

Posted by Ramish

Is our product as we planned?

Looking over our storyboard and comparing it to what we have produced, its quite different. The storyline is the same but we changed a lot. whilst editing, Shazmaa and I realised there was so much we could improve on. As i wrote earlier, we have taken out our establishing shot of the victim and start off with the mans hand which is more effective at developing dramatic suspense. We also had to add in the sound of ambiance of people walking by and the sounds of birds into the scenes taking place outside as it did not sound realistic. We also had to cover up the tripod noises int he scene where the victim leaves the house with the news reports from a TV on in the back. A lot has changed but they have only been improvements and i think this is better and our product have turned out better than we thought even though it was filmed in two days and only two members of the team were involved.

Posted by Ishma

16/3/11

We have finished our editing. It is now just individual work and evaluating our project and this will be completed before the deadline.

Posted by Ishma

·      Injured hand signifies pain and grief that the character is going through in the movie.

·      Emotions on face shows confusion and a double-sided mind, which means that he does not know which choice to make perhaps.

·      Bold red font stands out because the background is dull and grainy; this signifies that the title of the film has the entire story in it.

·      How the bottom half of the name seems to erode away implies that time is possibly running out for him or even that his family is starting to shatter or ‘erode’ from him.

·      The caption “Would you sacrifice another family to save your own?” signifies that the story is about the characters family being in trouble and the only way to save them is to perhaps kill another group of individuals.

·      Rain signifies sorrow, tears, despair, hardship etc.

·      The character is placed at the centre of the frame signifying that there is no way out for him and that he cannot escape or possibly save his family.

·      The gun seems to be on the top left hand of the frame, possibly implying that violence is going to be a common technique utilized in the film, however placing the gun on his injured hand tells us as the audience that he is still weak and is like a mouse in a corner trying to fend of the bad guys.

·      There is however usage of a white light on the right side possibly giving an idea that there could be a way out and that there is still hope for him and the people he is attempting to rescue.

·      His clothes are black that portray his situation as sad and filled with depression, you would wear a black outfit in a funeral, so using those shows that death will also be a part of this film, that being his or someone close to him.

·      He seems to be looking at the ground with a sign of sadness in his eyes, this could mean that someone has just died or that there he is in shock of what has just taken place.

Posted by Ramish

Textual Analysis

The film follows two days in the lives of a group of fifteen-year old teenagers from a rough area of London. The story focuses mainly upon Trevor and Alisa. An older student, Sam, is the main antagonist in the film because of his violent behavior and rough demeanor. It also transpires that a student, Katie, is being physically and emotionally bullied by a group of girls. Katie's parents do not know the extent of the bullying. After being picked up from school, a distraught Katie flees to her bedroom, writes a note and hangs herself. This act is the catalyst for the violent events, which ensue in the film.

The poster of the film tells many different stories of all those represented on it.  How Trevor on the right hand side is shown to have a calm and straight posture, signifying that he is a straight forward type person and is not your average day good guy, this signified by his ‘street/hood’ get up whereas Sam on the further left hand side is portrayed as a high temper individual who is definitely one of the violent bad guys, this is shown by the baseball bat he’s wielding, it tells us the audience that the bat has a pretty big importance in the film and that there will be a major twist due to the usage of the bat and how it is done.

Notice how the lighting in the back seems to be different, how there is a bright light effect behind Trevor on the left whereas the clouds seem dark and dull towards Sam’s side, this is another example of their respectable roles in the film. The girl next to Trevor seems a to be sitting a lot closer to him than she is to the other characters in the poster, this could mean that those two share a bond in the film and are portrayed as quite close friends or even lovers. But since the poster signifies the film to be a crime/street film you would not expect to see a lot of emotional scenes in between these two because the main theme is portraying lives of individuals growing up in a rough environment.

The dark gloomy colors used in the cover signify that most likely there will not be much of an up-tempo or ‘happy’ side to the movie.  Another example to support this statement is the clothes that each of the characters are wearing, they seem to be dark and have more of a grey/black tone to each of them. The life on the street is no different if it was to be put into color perspective because these two colors tell us the story of each of them and how it is represented onto the poster mirrors their personality and how they are towards others.

Posted by Ramish

Textual Analysis

A very well known movie with an unforgettable performance from Al Pacino, Scar face follows the life of Montana, a Cuban refuge who comes to Miami in 1980 as a result of the Mariel Boat-lift and becomes a drug cartel kingpin during the cocaine boom of the 1980s. The movie chronicles his rise to the top of Miami's cocaine empire.

The film is dedicated to Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht, the director and screenwriter of the original 1932 film, respectively.

The initial critical response to Scar face was mixed, with the film receiving criticism for its violence and graphic language. The film was widely criticized by the Cuban community in Miami, who objected to various aspects of the film, and the fact Cubans in it were compared with criminals and drug traffickers.

The film has since gathered a cult following and has become an important cultural icon (particularly in the hip-hop community), inspiring posters, clothing, and many other references.

The film's grainy black and white poster shows the two sides of Tony Montana and signifies the impact crime has had on his personal life, the one thing to notice is how there is more black on the right hand side than there is on the left hand side for white almost as if it is taking over.

The red font used for Scar face displays the violence and gore that goes through Montana’s mind through out the film, how he is a man of both anger and violence on a very high level. The sharp suit and gun are two things that are quite different and contrast each other in normal life but in this poster’s case, it seems to blend in, as Montana is shown to be a crime lord who has a high class life, having a lot of wealth and a reputation but also how he’s wielding a gun in this poster shows that the technique he used to get to the top was crime and anti-social behavior.

The contrast effect used in this poster shows how in the white Montana is not seen or 'noticed' whereas if you move him into the black bit he seems to stand out and become the center of attention, this reflects his role in the film where every crime he does it seems to further boost his reputation and wealth. 

One other thing that should be taken notice of are his eyes, how he is not looking up towards the sky where you would expect him to in the film, he is looking towards the ground which also shows that perhaps somewhere deep inside, he is ashamed of what he does, or perhaps that he would not choose this life if he had the option to.


Posted by Ramish

8/3/11

The editing and film was saved on shazmaa’s USB, due to some technical issues she had problems accessing them therefore we decided to stay back after school to try and re edit some scenes because we thought our work will be lost. There was some issues with the MAC and could not save or add any work which meant we had to redo everything. We attempted to include the black and white effect as well as opening titles and other captions. We thought that it is best if we start re-doing the opening scence just in case something goes wrong and we have to do it anyway later on, it would be better if we start it in advance so we have something less to do.

Posted by Abdur.

Today seemed like a day where individual performance was what I had to rely on because none of my group members were at the Media room with me, they were editing some of the other aspects of the project in another room, while I was in the class uploading my work onto the blog.
I brushed up the research I did and also the Evaluation which I had to do was underway, considering we had not much time to do so I wanted to get as much done in the presence of today as possible. The Evaluation of my behalf will be uploaded in a short period of time.

Posted by Ramish.

Audience research and Film Instituitions

Audience Research

Since the film that our group made was a  crime thriller with a stereotypical view including betrayal and payback, we initially viewed our target audience to be late teens to early 20’s, or about 17-23 in more specific terms.
Nowadays there have been many different forms of films being produced and released therefore the target audience would most likely want to see something different and unique. Also the younger audience tend to be more critical of movies that target them but at the same time are quite easily impressed.
Since our film include a view of stereotypical crime/thriller genre the audience will probably be expecting an anticipated twist much similar to movies seen before by them.
One of the things that a film production requires is promotion from the audience themselves, the main one being word of mouth, which will not occur if the target audience does not enjoy the movie that we are offering them and because our target market will probably be one who is quite critical on these type of films.

Institutions

Revolver Entertainment

Revolver entertainment are a distribution company, they have distributed many films including he likes of Shank, Adulthood etc.
Revolver Entertainment particularly makes urban crime movies that are mostly targeted towards teens for example the urban drama “Kidult hood”, their companies are based in both London and in Los Angeles. They have made many British movies as well as other foreign pieces of work such as “13 Tzameti”

PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
They were a film studio found in 1979, in 1999 they sold and merged with Universal Pictures. They have made many types of films such as crime/thriller films such as the highly known “Lock Stock and two Smoking barrels” which made an outstanding profit of $25,297,569 when the budget for the movie was only $1,350,000.

Regency Enterprises
Regency Enterprises is a Los Angeles-based film and television production company formed by Arnon Milchan and Joseph P. Grace. It was founded in 1982 as Embassy International Pictures, but the company name changed to avoid confusion with Norman Lear’s Embassy Pictures (known from 1975-1982 as Avco Embassy Pictures). Its most successful film is “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”, released on June 10, 2005. It has made quite a lot of films that are similar to our one due to the reputation that the company has developed over the many years. Some of them include the likes of “The Client”, ”Natural Born Killers”, and “Heat” with Al Pacino and Robert Deniro.

Posted by Abdur and Ramish

14/3/11

One of the problems we experienced was that in one of the scenes where the victims is leaving his house, there was an unexpected noise by the tripod and it made the intensity of the scene look bad.

In order to cover this up we consulted with our teacher about what we can do to keep the intensity of the clip and he suggested that we try to include non-diegetic sounds in the background, so Ishma and Shazmaa done a news report in the background.

We decided that we would look for some type of sounds on the Internet that would help cover up the tripod noise. Shazmaa and Ishma looked at some of the news sites for instance BBC while me and Ramish looked at certain royalty free sound sites for e.g. http://freeplaymusic.com/

Posted by Abdur and Ramish

Shazmaa carried on with adding in other sound effects such as the radio and birds. Myself and Abdur carried on with research. 

We included a sound effect of the BBC news being going on in one of the shots where the victim is leaving his house to cover up the tripod noise.

Posted by Ramish

Editing

Today, I was going to upload the sound clip of the news to put in the background for one shot from my phone, however, it was not working as my phone was not connecting to the mac. So what I did was use another members phone in the group to record the news again and upload it to put in our film. .
Looking at the film again, we have now finished the whole of our editing.

Posted by Shazmaa 

background sounds

On Friday we went outside and filmed 5 mins of the noise outside. Today we cut the bits we needed and extracted the sound out. This has made the outside scenes more realistic. Today we also filmed 1 min of the begining of BBC news. We will use this in the scene where the man is exiting the house to distract te viewers from hearing the creeking sound from the tripod. We now need to take pictures of the storyboard and upload it.

Posted by Ishma

adding things..

today we showed our work to our teacher. he suggested we get a clip of background music from outside and just film the ambiance from the road. such as people talking and bird. so me and shazmaa did this today.

Posted by Ishma

Last min improvements.

I showed our opening to one our actors (kasim lone). He asked me 'why is there an imagine as the opening?'. Made me think.. lets take out that picture as its really misplaced. If we start with that hand moving it will be more dramtic and create more suspense because the viewer will question who's hand is that? and thats what we want from our viewers. anyways, i should fix this in the morning as our deadlines coming! 

Posted by Ishma

Collateral Poster

·         Dark colours used emphasises danger and death

·         The spot light on his face signifies his guilt and him being centre attention

·         His weapon represents death, disruption and security

·         The weapon also makes it clear that the film is about crime

·         The font is bold which stands out on the black background which catches the viewers’ attention

·         The character is on the left hand side of the frame which exemplifies that the audience can only see one side of his personality and his hiding the other

·         The splash on the right hand side gives the audience more information about the film which gets the viewers’ attention

·         The black background signifies that there is a lot more to the movie than what meets the eye. The fact that there is only one person on the cover shows that he is the protagonist in the film and that the movie is predominantly based around him.

·         He is looking at something rather than at the camera, tells the audience that he is watching something or someone who we cannot see and this will create suspicion within the audience and will make them want to find out more.         

Posted by Shazmaa

Textual Analysis- Collateral

When researching what type of genre our group should do, I suggested crime thriller to them which they all agreed to as it is an interesting genre to experiment with. During research, I came across a few films which influenced me in a way which gave me my own ideas. However, the film which I found that influenced me the most giving me plenty of ideas was, “Collateral”.

Collateral:

The opening shot starts off with a medium close-up (MCU) of the protagonist on the left hand side of the frame which allows the viewer to see his facial expressions and see where he is going. Similarly, in our film, we used MCU’s in the dialogue scene so that the audience can understand how the victim is feeling which is important as it gives a dramatic effect.

The opening shot also exemplifies who the protagonist is immediately. We know that because he stands out of the crowd with what he is wearing which catches the audiences’ attention. In our film however, we did not convey our protagonist like that as we do not have a crowd in the opening shot; but we had shown this by having him tied up to a chair to leave the audience thinking how he got himself in a situation like this.

The use of colour in the opening shot is predominantly black and grey which signifies the role of the character; evil and mysterious. The lighting on the other hand is mostly on him which symbolises that he is the centre of attention and as if he is about to do something as he looks guilty. Similarly, in our film, we had dark colours in the shot conveying that the victims’ life is black and white, and nothing in between. We had done the lighting so that there is a spotlight on the protagonist symbolising that he is guilty. Also, because it was dark in the room and there is light on him, this exemplifies his isolation, entrapment and no escape.

The opening shot has diegetic sound of people talking which sets the scene; however, it is overlapped by the protagonists’ footsteps. His footsteps signify him getting nearer and nearer to the situation and the fact that it gets louder and louder highlights his importance.

The next shot is a MCU of another man who is the complete opposite compared to the first character. This is clearly portrayed through what he is wearing. For example, he is wearing a casual shirt and coat which gives the audience the concept that he is working class, which is juxtaposed with the other character who is suited, conveying that he is a more upper business class, and powerful. Likewise, in our film, we have shown a contrast between the two characters to make it clear for the audience who is more powerful which is represented through their costume. For example, one of the characters is dressed smart and the other is dressed up casual.

The main thing that influenced me was the exchange. As a viewer, I felt eager to know what was in the brief case, so I decided that crime thriller would be the appropriate genre to choose as it allows the audience to become a part of the film, because along with the other characters in the movie, they are also trying to find a solution and answer.  

Posted by Shazmaa

Textual Analysis - Ishma - Collateral

Collateral was produced paramount in 2004. It is a crime thriller film starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. It was directed by Michael Mann and written by Stuart Beattie. It is about a cab driver who finds himself the hostage of an engaging contract killer as he makes his rounds during one night in LA. I think this film is very similar to ours. The storyline of this film is also similar to ours as it is about a man who is held hostage, as this is an award winning film; it gave us some kind of influence to do something similar. We were shown this opening sequence in a media lesson. In the opening, you see the two men; it reverses from one man to the other until they bump into each other. It is tense because of the shot –reverse-shot technique which we have also used and puts the viewer in suspense. In the beginning, there is emphasis on the steps. The man in the glasses is walking slower indicating that he is more laid back and in control of the situation. This builds suspense as the diegetic sound of the people in the background gets louder and louder. Another technique used here is that the camera focuses on the two main characters, blurring out the rest of the people this makes the viewer focus on the main characters and making it easier to follow the story. Both the protagonists are dressed smartly, with one of them wearing sunglasses. The use of the sunglasses makes the viewer wonder what he is hiding. His glasses represent his life and what is behind it that we do not yet know. The man in the glasses is also wearing a lighter colour, showing his higher status than the other man. We used this in our own film. We dressed one man in lighter a lighter colour to show he in control. As the two men are walking towards each other, mid-shots are used, as they men get closer, the shorts get closer into close-ups. The viewer feels tenser as they watch this. The exchange of the briefcases is quick and sudden which again adds dramatic impact. The dialogue shows that the man in glasses is control as he is the one asking the questions. After the edgy dialogue, the camera focuses on one man, on an extreme close up, implying that there is no going back. The use of non-diegetic sound builds up, putting the viewer on edge as to what is going to happen next.

 This is the DVD cover for the film. The colour scheme is dark and gloomy, which the viewer would automatically associate with something negative. The man is holding a gun which indicates that it is a crime or thriller. There is a taxi in the back which tells us that the man standing in front of it is a taxi driver. The expression on the man’s face on the right looks confused and worried. However, the man on the left is more in control of the situation. He is dressed more smartly which in status, puts him higher. He is holding a gun which puts in control and gives him authority. The image clearly does its job, it tells you about the film, but does not link it, and this makes the viewer want to see the film as they feel more intrigued. 

Textual Analysis - Ishma - Taken

Taken is a crime and action about a former spy who uses his skills to find his kidnapped daughter in Paris as she forced to join the slave trade. The story line to this film is quite different from ours; however, being the same genre, it uses skills which we would use in our film. The opening of taken starts with slow, high pitched, non-diegetic music. This immediately tells us that this is a scary film and something bad is going to happen. It starts with a flashback which is what we have planned for our film, though there is debate as to where to put the flashback, as it will be typical to have it like other movies. The flashback if of his daughter, along with the music, we assume that there is a link between the music and the girl, and this is that something is going to happen to her. It then cuts to the man waking up, which could indicate this is his dream. The lighting is dim which causes suspense and created a negative environment. The colours suggest that the mood is depressing and has connotations of bad things happening. When the man wakes up, it goes back to the negative music and zooms out to an extreme long shot making the audience aware that he is alone in the room. From this we can assume he lives on his own or has a lonely life. The man is dressed is ragged, lounge wear. This may reflect his life as a single man. When he turns the light on we understand that he was looking at a picture of a woman. We can assume this is the girl in the dream. We now know that she has something to do with the events going to take place. The light is positioned on top of the photo, which shows that the girls is a key character and also that it is her who the pain is going to inflicted on as the photo stands out from the rest of the room.

 

This is the DVD cover for Taken. When first looking at it, we notice two main things, the dark background and the word taken. The black background has negative connotations of mystery, death and evil. The word taken is in orange which catches your attention. This implies something is going to be taken away from the mysterious looking man. However orange usually has positive connotations. In this case is can represent the man’s strength and endurance to find his daughter or can also show distrust or deceit. The man we assume is the man finding his daughter. His head is down which can show he is upset or giving up. The gun in his hand can represent what he is capable of to achieve his goal. The last colour shown is grey which has a lack of colour. This can be linked to man and his lifestyle and how he is lacking something which in this case is his daughter as she has been taken from him and it can also represent his personality as being simple or boring. The writing itself gives a clear indication of what the film is about. Over all this poster shows the viewer what this film is actually about.

Textual Analysis - Ishma - Unthinkable

Unthinkable is a psychological thriller centered around a interrogator and an FBI agent who press a suspect terrorist into give in the location of three nuclear weapons set to detonate in the U.S. This is similar to our film, not only as it is a similar genre, but the man being interrogated is in trouble for his own fault. He got himself where he is and so is paying for his actions. The same thing happens in our film, as the man does not do what he told and ends up getting himself killed. The opening sequence of this film is silent whilst showing the titles. This builds suspense and the viewer feels more intrigued to know about what is to come. This is similar to our opening, as there is no sound during the titles. I think we have used this effectively in the same way as this film.  You can hear the diegetic sounds of the camera moving, putting the viewer at ease and making it more comfortable as you have more of an idea about what is going on, that his using a camera to film. It then cuts from the camera in a few positions, from a close up of his lower face, to the ceiling, and then back at his face. These jump cuts put the viewer one edge and wonder what this tape is about. The first thing you see is the man himself. The effect is an old fashioned sepia effect which gives a rustic and dramatic affect on the viewer when they see it. We have used this use of effects in our flashback. The flashback is black and white to indicate to the viewer that it is a different time period. The character is dark haired with dark eyes giving connotations of mystery and threat. The style of his hair is bushy and messy which indicates to the viewer that his rustic and messy style reflects his personality. He is wearing a shirt to try and look more serious as in his video he is trying to look threatening. However, his top buttons his undone with a scruffy collar indicating he is nervous and scared. He breathes heavily showing he is maybe fed up or scared. We can also get this idea as he clears his voice before he speaks showing he is nervous. The room is empty, reflecting his life having no meaning or missing something. It looks run down and not lived in to try and have an impact on the people who will view his video. He then starts talking and we understand what is going on and what he is trying to do. He retakes this a few times showing he may not know what he is trying to do or how to do it. This could imply that during the film this is what is going to happen to him; he will try to achieve something but will have trouble doing it. The expressions he makes and the way he talks shows the viewer how he is feeling and that he is having difficulty to achieve what he is doing. He then puts on a jacket to make himself feel more confident and then finally says his message. During this the camera zooms very slowly, building dramatic impact. By the end of this, we know what the film is about. Then the film cuts into the title with non diegetic music. The music is triumphant and dramatic. This represents his achievement for finally filming the message. The title is on a black background. The black shows connotations of death and danger. The writing is blue showing connotations of sadness which we assume is how he and other people will be filming later on in the film. The blue writing is also flickering, looking like water or a sea which could indicate the feeling of infinity which is what his thinks he can reach by doing what he has planned. 

The background of this poster is a bomb site within a city with flames and explosions which clearly indicates that the film has some sort of action and crime in it. The blue sky in the picture is above all of this and represents that in such a peaceful environment there is still bloodshed. But in the middle you see this man with blood on his shoulder and you question who this man is. The blood indicates he has some relation with murder or crime. One the side with no blood, you would associate with worry and threat and the side with blood you see safety from the helicopter which you automatically associate with being safe. This is irony, however, it could indicate that to be safe and in control you need to suffer. This can also imply that behind all the control and safely, there is also violence and killing. You would then question that maybe this man is the reason for this violence as the blood is on him and he is responsible, which in the film is true, as his threatens the terrorist so much that it causes grief to others even though that is not his intention. The writing is white but ‘think’ is highlighted in red which shows connotations of danger indicating that without thinking you can do harm.

Props and Lighting

Once we redone our storyboard and starting filming, we realised it would be better to shoot the victim instead of beating him. So we had to go and buy a toy gun. The grey area looks unrealistic; however it was covered by the hand so this didn’t matter. But the front of gun had an orange tip and so I coloured it in with a black marker pen. In the shot you can see the orange but it isn’t very faint so this wasn’t a big problem. However, it took up valuable filming time to go and find a toy gun at short notice.

We had a shortage of lighting because when booking equipment we all took one piece home each. However, one member of the group had forgoten to take the lights and its stand home and so we had an issue. The garage had a faint light which we used to just light up the room. This wasn’t enough so we hung a light above the victim’s head which you can see in some shots. However we shot on two days and on some of the shots we forgot to have the light on as we had to turn it off as it got too hot. This still wasn’t enough light so in the back of the garage on the other side we plugged this big light in. It was much brighter and so gave us what we were missing.

Another prop we used was the envelope which was exchanged. We just found a big bubble wrapped envelope in my house and folded it in half to make it look like there was something inside.

Posted by Ishma