A2 Music Video Project

This year we have been given the task of creating a music video for a particular track. I will be working alone this year as i feel it will be a challenge, however it also interests me to see what i can achieve when it's just me working on it. I will be investigating the use of cameras, filters , lenses and various techniques used in other videos of this genre and similar style genres to gain some insiration.

Audience Feedback.

Once we had completed our media product and so had the rest of the class. We spent some time watching each others films to provide feedback, we were told by a few differnet groups that we had some good shots and angles however some of the cuts were too jumpy, with this feedback we were able to correct these editing errors. We obtained feedback from comments on youtube, for example, Mr Kirk provided us with this feedback, "Loved the opening titles and the lighting along with the washed out colours".

Finished product

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

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

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Due to the historical nature of our film, no  social groups are directly respresented by our film. However, the actions of our main character show how the responsibility for the actions taking place rest on this one man's shoulders. The idea of this main charachter may be relatable to by older audiences, or perhaps if we developed more of the film we could explore the idea of him going though a transitional period of having no responsibilities to a position where lives are at risk. The older end of our target audience, generally those 25+ would be able to relate to our characters struggle.The representation in the film is also primarily male, suggesting a similar pattern in the groups represented.

Finally, the military style of the film may be representative of both present day and retired military personnel, and could help show to the audience the struggles faced by those fighting in current wars, and the decisions they need to make in order to keep themselves and thie team safe from harm.

Although not strictly a social group, we felt this film could act as something to inform people about the events of WWI, especially as it is an important part of the UK's history. This representation could cause the film to have success in other European nations, as it represents groups from bygone days in these countries.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I feel that from the beginning to end I have learnt a lot about how to produce a film effectively and efficiently. Most of what I have learned I feel i have learned from making mistakes, much of the filming process was shot twice because of simple mistakes we made the first time round.

Filming; we made many mistakes whilst filming, many of which just didn’t cross our mind till it came to editing. Examples of our mistakes include, filming many of shots without planning on how they would flow smoothly into the next one, we completely forgot to do this in some cases because we were so caught up in getting our main, vital shots not taking into account the linking shots that actually make the production work. This mistake highlighted other issues, like for example we did not get all the filming done on the same day and because of this we found we could not get the actors again when we needed to film again and nor could we ensure the weather was correct. My final problem with filming was maybe expecting to highly of shots before filming without taking into consideration of the props and equipment that we would need to actually pull these shots off, I think next time I will be thinking a lot more realistically of what’s possible and what is not. So I feel next time I will make sure that I address these problems properly to ensure that my project goes a lot more smoothly.

Editing; in the process from my preliminary task to my film opening I have learnt a lot about how to use the editing software. I learnt a lot through Mr. Wallis and also trial and error.

With editing for our film opening we found that we came faced with lots of continuity problems that we firstly did not notice during filming.  Apart from this editing went fairly well, and I found I learnt many new tricks with premier pro for the opening that I did not pick up from the preliminary task. This was because the editing involved in the opening sequence was slightly more complex and so demanded a more advance knowledge of the editing software. For example color grading and proper sound editing.

To conclude I feel that I have learnt a lot since the original preliminary task, I feel i have learnt a better way to approach my tasks, through more through planning and being realistic I will be able to achieve a better finished product with fewer difficulties along the way.

           

What did we learn about technology from the process of constructing our product?

In the process of using a wide variety of both new and old technologies in our media production, we have learnt a great deal. It has given us insight into how we would do things differently if we were asked to produce a similar product again.
We encountered many peoblems with technology, that we solved in different ways to ensure a good end result.

Use of Macs and PCs
One of our biggest problems was that we started off using both Macs and Pcs. The way different editting programs saved files differed between the two devices, meaning that when we tried to transffer different sections from one to the other, the files would not open. We overcame this problem by transferring different shots and editing from the macs onto the PC. This took a lot of time, but helped, as we finally had all our ost production happening on the same style computers. If asked to do again in the future, i would definitely make sure we only used Pc's as it simplifies post procuction an enourmous amount considering we had three people working on the same thing.

The programs we used for our post production where:

• Adobe Flash - For animation of the title sequences and animation of text withing the title sequence.
• Adobe Photoshop - To produce the logo, and moving images in the title sequences
• Adobe Premier Pro - For our editing
• Final cut express - We tried using this for editing, but stopped due to its incompatability with PC's
• iMovie - To convert files and veiwraw footage

The compatability of Adobe programsd with eachother really helped in our production, as we could transfer  different parts of our production from one platform to another (this may have used the program Adobe Bridge)
How we used new and old internet technologies


Internet resources we used were:

• YouTube - To research music and similar films
• Slideshare - To produce animatimatic and storyboard.
• A Microsoft Silverlight slideshow - Another animatic and storyboard program.

Youtube was such a valuable tool for our proudction, saving an enourmous amount of time in finding music for the film as all the music was readily avaliable and searchable. If asked to proudce4 a media product again, i would definetly use YouTube again, as it's the best resource for internet video research in my opinion.

Filming technlogies
Our choice of camera was essential, as our film involved a wide variety of shots used in different ways. We chose a light, small handicam that shot in reasonably high definition. The camera was especially useful in the tracking shot, resulting in a product that looked authentic. 
 We did have a problem with one of the tripods, resulting in slightly choppy panning shots, but this was replaced for different shots in order to keep them stable. We also used a steady cam to keep our camera steady when we did the over the shoulder shots following the main character.
 steady cam
In conclusion, technology played a massive role in our film opening production, and we learnt a agreat deal about it. There are definitely things we would do differently if asked to produce a similar film, but we are happy with the result achieved.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The type of audience we are trying to attract is small yet stable audience with an age range of 18-40 who would maybe be more male than female. This is the type of audience that would likely be interested in a movie with such a historic focus and also the focus on war will attract more adult views. The target audience may not know anything particular about this period in time but will be attracted to the movie due to an interest in history and also because they might have seen other movies like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down which also take place in a war enviroment. We set our movie in war time Russia to mix the history aesthetic with the fact it's a war movie to broaden our target audience and the themes explored in the movie are of a nature that will appeal to an adult audience.

The film would most likely be given a 15 by the British Film Board of Classification due to the adult nature of the film and this age rating doesn't really limit our audience particularly as our target audience is mainly an adult one. We'll market the film as a war movie to broaden it's appeal to adult audiences but also show it in small art house cinemas to further widen the audience it could attract. The movie's serious tone and nature appeal to adults and the historical aspects of it will also appeal to history lovers who are above the age of 15.

We could also show the film on terrestrial television on channels such as channel 4, known for it's indie friendly attitude and large share of television viewers, or a channel such as Yesterday which focuses on Historical documentaries, dramas and films and has an target audience that matches completely with the target audience of our movie allowing us to securely grab our audience and get them to see our film.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The general audience for this media product was aimed at those interested in history and war films. However Because of this, we believe that this a rather large target audience due to its war style genre and that the cast it’s fairly male dominated we think this opens it up to an audience of males from the age 15 upwards. For example “black hawk down” another war film took $274,347 (USA) in its opening weekend.


Due to it being based on history we believe that this opens the film up to mixed gender audience of those who are lovers of history also. For example “saving Private Ryan” another war film but based on the invasion of Normandy took $30,576,104 in its opening weekend at the box office. We have tried to keep it as open as possible but we are aware that it is still a very acquired taste in film for many people.

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

Our media product is considered to be an independent project alongside the fact that is a historically based movie set in 1917 Russia. The movie is produced by Red Star productions, a production company focused on small independent historical movies that have a small but reliable audience with an interest in these types of movies. As the film cost little to make in relative terms it has a higher and more secure chance of making it's money back due to the stable nature of our audience which will be a helpful factor when it comes to securing a distribution deal. however we need to make sure that the movie will also cover the distribution costs as well as the production costs.

In comes Insurge Pictures, a distribution company targeted towards "Micro-Budget films", with budgets of up to $100,000 each, founded in 2010 by parent company Paramount studios who is known for the distribution of two ctitically acclaimed war movies, Saving private Ryan and Enemy at the Gates (One of the inspirations for making our movie).
Insurge would be a good choice for a distributor due to it's attitude towards indie films and the relationship it has with a well known company such as Paramount studios which allows the movie to reach out to a bigger audience because vertical integration Insurge has with Paramount studios.

Another route we could take would be finding a distributor that could show our movie over terrestrial television as that may be a better and more secure way of gaining an audience for our movie. Channel 4 is well known for it's friendly attitude towards indie movies, the well known Film4 is specifically made to produce movies from well known independent directors, and with Channel 4 being a well known name across UK television it would help spread our movie to a wider audience. Channel 4 also has "almost universal coverage in the United Kingdom and some neighbouring countries" allowing for our movie to be shown overseas as well widening the potential audience we have by a significant amount as our film would most likely find success in a more European audience, due to the nature of the film, compared to trying to market it to a American audience. Film4 also has a very successful history in producing Independent films with very popular films such as Trainspotting and Slumdog millionaire so if our film were to be shown on the Film4 channel brand association with them might also help widen our target audience.
I believe we have been realistic in our choice of potential distribution company, as both these companies have a history of supporting small, arthouse films, and in a lot of cases make them a lot of money.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Due to the historical nature of our film, no  social groups are directly respresented by our film. However, the actions of our main character show how the responsibility for the actions taking place rest on this one man's shoulders. The idea of this main charachter may be relatable to by older audiences, or perhaps if we developed more of the film we could explore the idea of him going though a transitional period of having no responsibilities to a position where lives are at risk. The older end of our target audience, generally those 25+ would be able to relate to our characters struggle.The representation in the film is also primarily male, suggesting a similar pattern in the groups represented.

Finally, the military style of the film may be representative of both present day and retired military personnel, and could help show to the audience the struggles faced by those fighting in current wars, and the decisions they need to make in order to keep themselves and thie team safe from harm.

Although not strictly a social group, we felt this film could act as something to inform people about the events of WWI, especially as it is an important part of the UK's history. This representation could cause the film to have success in other European nations, as it represents groups from bygone days in these countries.

Credits

We plan to do our credits almost as if they are being written by a type writer on the screen, the inspiration for using this idea came from previous films and tv shows with the same effect.

For example;             RED OCTOBER

However the letters we hope will come on screen indivually as if they are being written.

Updated ; this is what we believe will be the final product

Editing

Editing proved to be difficult because of techincal problems with the computers. We orignally were using a Mac to edit our film, however the mac kept on freezing and we lost lots of already edited work due to this, we eventually had to transfer what we had of our work onto a standard PC.
Whilst editing, we ended up changing round shots because we found by simply changing the order of some shots, a whole new feel could be potrayed.
-Alex bryant, who is in our group had experience using Flash and so he was able too create the titles and the final shot in which the sky turns red. He did this very well and the titles especially turned out better than we imagine at the start of the project.

Filming

For our filming we wanted a day in which the weather was very dull, and slightly rainy. This was to help set the mood of our film and also keep with the likely weather conditions within Russia. However we could not get all the extras to be available for the suitable weather conditions, so we had to just film when we could. As we started filming we were faced with some obstacles that we had to overcome. We eventually ended up having to the main block of the filming on a sunny day, which was not orginally intended but it was the only time it was possible. However once we had got the main proportion of the filming complete and started to piece some shots together in the editing phase, we found we were missing some crucial linking shots. This meant we had to go out and film again,but we could not get the same actors and we could not get the
same weather conditions. We were forced to film what we could on the day, the shots we filmed were a shot of the main character lighting up a cigarette and walking on, this allowed the the shots of the charcter walking to flow into one another.

We were also faced with issues of props, we had very limited props in comparison to what we would of wanted. However we could not get hold of them, this forced us to come up with new ideas for shots, for example,orignally we  wanted a shot of a tent in which the chacter was in but we could not get a tent that would look right for our film, so instead we had to use plain bed sheets to imply that there was a tent present.

Storyboard

Story boards + Anamatics

We made a start on our story boards, and we further changed our ideas. We decided that we would add credits between shots during the suit up scene, the font of the credits will resemble a type writter to add effect and create a more professional feel. These credits allow the suit up scene to run smootly and not to appear to jumpy between cuts, and this will allow us to run the credits without obstructing any of the shots.




Credits

We plan to do our credits almost as if they are being written by a type writer on the screen, the inspiration for using this idea came from previous films and tv shows with the same effect.

For example;             RED OCTOBER

However the letters we hope will come on screen indivually as if they are being written.

Mise en scene

As we're making the opening for a historical film set approximately 80 years ago, Mise-en-scène is incredibly important for making our opening look believable, interesting and showing good continuation.
We wrote a list of items we could potentially need and went about trying to collect them. This ensured that when it came to filming we had a convincing set with excellent Mise-en-scène.

• Any bullets, bullet casings or shells.
• Any military style uniform, such as boots, military jackets and hats.
• Indicators of the location, era and situation the characters are in (war time) 
•  Documents and papers, some with black boxes over parts of the text.
• Ashtray
• A smoking fire/camp fire, or a campfire effect.
• Any replica weapons

Combined with our plans of making the titles and music represent the location and era, this will make our film opening look authentic.

Production name and logo

We chose the name Red Star Productions. It sums up the genre of film opening we are producing, and is an exciting name that could become associated with producing both historic films, or those based on action and war, to produce titles similar to those found in our research:

• Hunt for Red October
• Saving Private Ryan
• Che

 We brainstormed for ideas for a logo. On paper, we made sketches of potential candidates, deciding we needed a logo that was bold, bright and represented the film we were producing. Eventually we combined two of our ideas coming up with the following logo.
Here is the logo produced to represent what our film company is about: It is simple yet very bold and straight to the point. The Red colour and hammer and sickle symbol were chosen as they provide a bold and recogniseable image when the logo appears in the opening titles of our film opening.

The logo was created using Adobe photoshop CS4 for the shapes, and Adobe flash CS4 for the filters and shading (flash was used as the filters can be changed in an animation, for example where the logo fades in the titles)

Sound

We need to find sounds like;

- Leather boot straps being tied.
- Sounds of crying
- Sounds
- The sound of gunshots in the distance or shells falling.

The two pieces of music that we plan to use are;

-  Fairwell to slaviangca    -------  (red army choir)
-  Les Feuilles              ----------  (Mortes)

cast

- The main charater is a russian commisar.
- There will an extra with a line or two to help develop the plot.
- In the background we hope to have many extras, some will be soilders and others mabey peasents. These extras will be doing various things like standing around talking, smoking and crying.

Plot

Plot

The story of our AS film opening is a russian commisar waking up in the morning, and walking to the bodies of his parents.

Rough walk through the plot

We thought we would start witha suit up scene in a tent , with a a russian commisar getting ready for his day, he then will walk out of the tent with the camera following behind him with an over the shoulder shot. He then finds himself presented with dead bodies, there will be nararted dialog over the top of the shot. Once the dialog is over the camera will pan up towards the sky and the title of the film will appear on the screen.

Ideas

We started to brainstorm ideas, coming up with a theme and then elborating on it. Originally we thought of creating a zombie movie which focused on thoughts and feeelings of a lone protangonist. However we did not think this style of film would be easy enough to film and also contain all the information we needed in a 2 minute section. We started to watch some openings to get a better idea of what we were trying to achieve and also understand the limitations of an opening a bit more. We had to keep in mind the type of equiptment we would be using will be basic and so this limited the type of shot we could produce, the type of costumes we could use which all would affect the whole stlye and structure of a film opening. 

We studied films such as:
- Enemy at the gates
- Che
- Saving private ryan
- Black hawk down   


We eventually came to the descison that we would create an opening for war film based around the Red Army. We thought this would be a good idea, due to the simplistic nature in which we could film the shots and also potray feelings and emotions even with lack of dialogue. The inspiration came from the fact that all of members in the group are also history students and all very interested in Russian history. However we still had to decide what period of russian history and what events to base the film on. We started to plan how we were going to shoot our opening, and also get an idea of what the opening should be about. We brainstormed many ideas, all to do with Russia however we began to relise the real limitations we faced while thinking of an idea. We decided to keep it as simple as possible because of the obvious limitations like setting, cast and props.

Shot ideas
- We liked the over the shoulder shot at the begining of this clip from luther, i would hope to replicate a similar over the shoulder shot in my film.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=senfpLIvboE
- We decided we wanted to have a suit up scene, in which the main protagonist is getting ready in his tent, to go out. We studied many different suit up scenes from films such as Hot Fuzz to Commando.

- We want an establishing shot from a hill overlooking a forest.

 - We want to include some Point of veiw shots for the dialog.

 - We want to try an include a siluette of the comisar.

AS Film Opening; Red october

We have been put into groups (Me, Dan C and Alex B) and we have been set the task of creating a 2 minute film opening. The brief we decided to do was film brief 3 which is "An independent movie featuring a young protagonist the film should appear to be financed through regional funding". Once we had decided the brief we began to discuss what the film opening should be about and how we should come about filming it easily and efficently.

Ideas

We started to brainstorm ideas, coming up with a theme and then elborating on it. Originally we thought of creating a zombie movie which focused on thoughts and feeelings of a lone protangonist. However we did not think this style of film would be easy enough to film and also contain all the information we needed in a 2 minute section. We started to watch some openings to get a better idea of what we were trying to achieve and also understand the limitations of an opening a bit more. We had to keep in mind the type of equiptment we would be using will be basic and so this limited the type of shot we could produce, the type of costumes we could use which all would affect the whole stlye and structure of a film opening. 

We studied films such as:
- Enemy at the gates
- Che
- Saving private ryan
- Black hawk down   


We eventually came to the descison that we would create an opening for war film based around the Red Army. We thought this would be a good idea, due to the simplistic nature in which we could film the shots and also potray feelings and emotions even with lack of dialogue. The inspiration came from the fact that all of members in the group are also history students and all very interested in Russian history. However we still had to decide what period of russian history and what events to base the film on. We started to plan how we were going to shoot our opening, and also get an idea of what the opening should be about. We brainstormed many ideas, all to do with Russia however we began to relise the real limitations we faced while thinking of an idea. We decided to keep it as simple as possible because of the obvious limitations like setting, cast and props.

Shot ideas
- We liked the over the shoulder shot at the begining of this clip from luther, i would hope to replicate a similar over the shoulder shot in my film.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=senfpLIvboE
- We decided we wanted to have a suit up scene, in which the main protagonist is getting ready in his tent, to go out. We studied many different suit up scenes from films such as Hot Fuzz to Commando.
 - We want an establishing shot from a hill overlooking a forest.
 - We want to include some Point of veiw shots for the dialog.
 - We want to try an include a siluette of the comisar.
Plot

We thought we would start witha suit up scene in a tent , with a a russian commisar getting ready for his day, he then will walk out of the tent with the camera following behind him with an over the shoulder shot. He then finds himself presented with dead bodies, there will be nararted dialog over the top of the shot. Once the dialog is over the camera will pan up towards the sky and the title of the film will appear on the screen.

Cast

- The main charater is a russian commisar.
- There will an extra with a line or two to help develop the plot.
- In the background we hope to have many extras, some will be soilders and others mabey peasents. These extras will be doing various things like standing around talking, smoking and crying.

Sound

We need to find sounds like;

- Leather boot straps being tied.
- Sounds of crying
- Sounds
- The sound of gunshots in the distance or shells falling.

The two pieces of music that we plan to use are;


Production name and logo







Story boards + Anamatics

We made a start on our story boards, and we further changed our ideas. We decided that we would add credits between shots during the suit up scene, the font of the credits will resemble a type writter to add effect and create a more professional feel. These credits allow the suit up scene to run smootly and not to appear to jumpy between cuts, and this will allow us to run the credits without obstructing any of the shots.




Credits

We plan to do our credits almost as if they are being written by a type writer on the screen, the inspiration for using this idea came from previous films and tv shows with the same effect.

For example;             RED OCTOBER

However the letters we hope will come on screen indivually as if they are being written.

Filming

For our filming we wanted a day in which the weather was very dull, and slightly rainy. This was to help set the mood of our film and also keep with the likely weather conditions within Russia. However we could not get all the extras to be available for the suitable weather conditions, so we had to just film when we could. As we started filming we were faced with some obstacles that we had to overcome. We eventually ended up having to the main block of the filming on a sunny day, which was not orginally intended but it was the only time it was possible. However once we had got the main proportion of the filming complete and started to piece some shots together in the editing phase, we found we were missing some crucial linking shots. This meant we had to go out and film again,but we could not get the same actors and we could not get the
same weather conditions. We were forced to film what we could on the day, the shots we filmed were a shot of the main character lighting up a cigarette and walking on, this allowed the the shots of the charcter walking to flow into one another.

We were also faced with issues of props, we had very limited props in comparison to what we would of wanted. However we could not get hold of them, this forced us to come up with new ideas for shots, for example,orignally we  wanted a shot of a tent in which the chacter was in but we could not get a tent that would look right for our film, so instead we had to use plain bed sheets to imply that there was a tent present.


Editing

Editing proved to be difficult because of techincal problems with the computers. We orignally were using a Mac to edit our film, however the mac kept on freezing and we lost lots of already edited work due to this, we eventually had to transfer what we had of our work onto a standard PC. Whilst editing we ended up changing round shots because we found by simply changing the order of some shots, a whole new feel could be potrayed.
Alex bryant, who is in our group had experience using Flash and so he was ableto create the titles and the final shotin which the sky turns red. He did this very well and the titles especially turned out better than we imagine at the stat of the project.