Question 5 - Attracting an Audience

This is an interview of one of the media students answering some questions after watching our finished opening sequence. I am the interviewer:

Question 3 - Production and Distribution

There are many ways to distribute our crime film. We could find small, local businesses given that since the businesses are small, we aren't going to get a big theatrical release as if it was a big Hollywood blockbuster but that doesn't necessarily matter. ALTIVEMEDIA is a small, local film distributor which could be a possible distributor for our film. The 'about' page says this:-

"Altive Media is an alternative content distribution company, which acquires and distributes live and pre-recorded events in 2D and 3D into cinemas. 'Alternative Content' is a growing business within the cinema world, which was brought about by the move from film to digital technologies."


Another method of distribution could be online promotion like putting the film or a trailer for the film onto popular video sharing sites like Youtube or Dailymotion. If we wanted to make a profit, it would be best just to put a trailer for the film online, then people could go and see it in a cinema if we were to use distributors like ALTIVEMEDIA, but if we didn't care about the film's profit, we would put the entire film online, most likely Youtube. 

Question 1 - Conventions of Real Media Products

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

Title of the film and Font Style:

This screenshot shows the title of the film, being 'Powder' and this also shows the font style. This font style was also used on other titles throughout this film.







Location/Setting:

 These screenshots show the settings of the film. The top picture shows that it is set in a house for a part of the film and the bottom picture shows the film being set outside, next to a random building which is an old, unused school.

Costume/Props:

The picture depicts the costume and a prop. Costume for Jimmy (as seen on the right, played by me) was just plain, casual clothes likes jeans, a t-shirt and hoody. For the mob boss (as seen on the left, played by Luke M), he wore a leather jacket and jeans. Finally, Big Arth (played by Luke M), wore PJs since the character mostly stayed at home. As for props, the mob boss is holding a pair of scissors as a weapon to threaten Jimmy with.

Lighting/Camera Angles:

This picture depicts the camera angle that is panning from the TV to the sofa that has Luke M lying on it. The lighting is shown from the natural light shining in through the window.







Characterization:

This is the characterisation screenshots which depict me, Haydn and Charlie in the top picture and Luke M in the bottom. These were the only actors in our opening sequence.

POWDER

This is the finished opening sequence:

Schedule/Shot List

This is the schedule/shot list for our opening sequence:


Wednesday 18th January, 13.41pm = Creation of Blog
Thursday 9th February = Updating Blog, started planning ideas for Opening
Monday 20th February (in Media lesson) = Planning characters, story, rough ideas for Mood Board 
Wednesday 22nd February (in Media lesson) = More planning
Friday 24th February (in Media lesson) = Filming of 'Big Arth and Jimmy's House' scene (Luke B and me needed at Luke B's house, pyjamas, can of Coke, comical items)
Monday 27th February - Friday 2nd March = Editing 'Big Arth and Jimmy's House' scene (at Yale)
Monday 5th March (in Media lesson) = Filming of 'Kidnapping' scene (need Luke B, me, Haydn Kidd, Charlie James, guns, leather jackets, filming outside abandoned school)
Tuesday 20th March (after college) = Filming of 'Interrogation' scene (need Luke B and me, light hanging above table, suit, scissors, gun, filming at Yale's Filming Studio)
Wednesday 21st March onwards = Editing all the footage (at Yale)
Monday 16th - Friday 20th April = Final pieces of editing (at Yale)

The Edit

The editing process went alright but our teacher insisted on doing some editing to make it smoother and look more professional, which he did a good job at doing. First we needed to import the film we had shot so we did so. Then we put into the editor and started to cut away at parts we didn't need until we had our film the way we wanted with the dialogue in the right order. The editing done by our teacher made the audio of one shot come in before the shot had changed which made it more professional and smoother. Once we had our basic editing done of just your basic jump cuts, we had to put on the black and white visual effect on the flashback scene then we went down to the film studio to record the voice for the flashback scene. We recorded what we needed in little parts and put it in sync with the video later. Also, transitions between each shot during the flashback scene were just flashes of white. So now we needed to add titles so we added in the names of the actors during the beginning of the opening sequence. At the end we added in the title card, production and other actors like the mob boss goons. As a final edit, we added in background music throughout the film and changed the music at the ending to slightly upbeat, yet silly music which went very well with the ending.
Finally, the entire project was way over 2 minutes so we had to cut a lot of it out. The finished project is now around 2:15 in length instead of its original length of over 3 minutes. We couldn't cut any more out otherwise it wouldn't make sense and it would ruin the entire thing plus also making it a terrible way to open a film.

Production Diary

During the production of the opening sequence for our film, I was supposed to be keeping a diary of production as I went along but I must have forgotten and didn’t do it. I will have to write out as much as I remember.
First off, we had to plan our film out so I wrote out a script later when I got home. We also agreed that we would shoot the majority of it at my house, in the film studio in the college and the rest at the Groves school. We also said we would shoot in a small alley in the college but we didn't need to after all.
Our next lesson, we got the camera, tripod and mic and went to my house to shoot the main part of our film's opening sequence. We had the script printed out so we shot each person saying each thing all at once...by that I mean, the camera would be on Luke M and he'd say ALL his lines then do the same with me. We would put the dialogue in the right order during the editing process. Before hand, Jason shot some cut away shots like recording the clock or the fish tank in my house. The filming was successful and took about an hour to do.
Next lesson, we recorded more at the Groves school which were for the flashback scene. We had Luke M's friend, Charlie in to help, along with Haydn (another media student). They played the mob boss' goons. The majority of what we shot didn't go into the final project but we shot random, on-the-spot shots and cut aways which took us about an hour. The random, on-the-spot shots did slightly follow the script by the way. Finally, we managed to film the torture scene in the film studio which was mostly improvised but it still went along with the script so it would make sense when we edit it. We had to come in on a day we didn't have media since the day we shot the torture scene was the earliest we could book the film studio and that took one hour, also.
Once we had completely finished filming, we went into the editing process which I have put under "The Edit" section on my blog.