Final Piece

Clear Bets

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

Our preliminary task was filmed with fresh ideas, in a restaurant, which was later also meant to become our chosen location for our main task.  From day one we have liked the idea of a sort of gangster/mafia type of film, so we did that for our preliminary task, we learnt about the high importance of having certain rules to filming, such as 180 degree rule, the high importance of sticking to the drawn storyboards, and many more. Over the progression up to making our final piece, we sometimes forgot to incorporate or follow some basic rules of filming, this led us to go back and film again, and each time we would achieve a better result, we always progressed and it always led the group to better ideas and progress. We have also progressed in editing a lot, we have seen a high amount of editing tutorials, mainly from VideoCoPilot, this is s website with hundreds of tutorials which we watched and tried to incorporate into our final piece, most were not suitable, but we could take some ideas from them. The preliminary task was mainly covering the "basics" of filming, for our final piece we had learnt a lot more about the production and editing of a film opening sequence and therefore it was more advanced. We also used a wider range of equipment when compared to our preliminary task; this included all of the equipment listed here, more advanced equipment was used, 22" gold & silver reflectors for light management, a TP-1700 CamLink tripod and a Sony HD Handicam. To conclude, we have learnt both good and bad things since the production of our preliminary task, that sometimes things do not work out as planned, and that most of the time, with planning and research, things will work out as planned.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From the range of products used, we have learnt that technologies are growing ever faster and better for the film industry, programs such as Adobe Premier Pro, After Effects, HD Cameras etc, portray the future of film technology as very modern and electronic.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience through our group's Facebook page and our YouTube page which can be found on the following links:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=102530076478614&ref=ts
http://www.youtube.com/user/SimpleMindedProd

With our videos from our project drafts on these pages it helps people find out about our videos. Also the word of the mouth or messaging each other about the video. Telling friends about our production will pass our production on as a sort of chain, by which one person tells another and so on. Because our production begins with the establishing shot of one actor, with cards and a shot glass, this keeps the audience wanting to see more and as the camera zooms out and moves to the assassin, the audience feels more involved in the film and attracted.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Considering many things as a group we have a target audience of mainly teenagers or a young audience . This is mainly because the characters are young people, the theme music is of something that is modern and in the scene to say, most teenagers would listen to this as everyone of their age group would like the music.
The action in the clip would help attract teenagers as most teenagers would watch action films like the "Hitman" with weapons and people being killed. The fast paced action, gambling, alcohol and killing of the actors in our production would attract a young audience seeking a thrill, and an action packed, contemporary gangster film production.

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

Evaluation 3
The type of institution that would distribute our production would be a small company as the film made by our group is a low market,  low budget film, a likely company to distribute a film such as ours may be a British Film company such as FilmFour, which is small and would cope with the low amounts of profit that a larger film company would not. The FilmFour company also has a channel and this would therefore attract its' appropriate audience.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our chosen character is the gunman, (Zygimantas Pukas), he is kept hidden and in a very secret state and is the assassin. Examples linked to this may include; James Bond films, The Mechanic, Transporter etc.
         They display a lone gunman, who alone can accomplish the mission/contract given to them, and are very good at what they do. The representation of gangsters in the final piece shows what modern gangsters may be like, the house is their meeting place, or hang out area and this is where they are shot, not typical at all for gangster films.

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

We chose to display our opening credits in an uncommon way, we begin by displaying all of the actors, crew and jobs allocated, and the last title is the name of the film. This creates a sort of suspense where the audience will find out who the actors are, and who did what, and at last, find out the name of the film, which will fit in with the opening scene just shown. Our production flows with the titles as the titles are somewhat involved with the footage, ie; "Karl Mould" shoots out of the gun, this creates a nice flow of credits being displayed leading up to the final title.
               The researched that was carried out enabled us to follow codes and conventions of similar gangster titles, and the end results lead us to use typical props such as; guns, suits, drinks etc. Mafia in similar films do not have much speech and therefore this was kept to a minimum as most of the concentration was on the death of the two mafia guys. We tried to hide the identity of the assassin until the very last moment, and this is how the story will continue, by seeing the killers' face, the mafia strike back at who has hired the assassin.
               Conventional products and forms were challenged by using a more modern approach to typical mafia and old style gangster products. The use of CCTV and a bright light next to the focused actor challenges the typical idea of darkness, hidden identities and secrecy.

New Draft

This was our rough draft in our new location, for this we had to do a new storyboard, as the location was different, and a new risk assessment for this location.

Actors..Locations...Costumes...Crew...

For our final piece in our new location, we decided we needed two  actors to be mafia members along with one of the actors being one of our crew member (Luke Sheridan). Acquiring actors was made easier by asking friends, the new location was chosen because it is one of the crew members' home and this made it quite easy to film there, we did not require permission to film there as we did at the restaurant in our preliminary exercise, this was slowing down our production by a lot so we decided to change location.
For costumes, we decided to research into original gangster films and we discovered that it is often suits that are used, therefore we used contemporary suits and cardigans as our opening scene is comtemporary gangster.
Our crew consists of 4 people, Daniel Mills, Zygimantas Pukas, Luke Sheridan & Myself. Luke Sheridan is one of the actors.

Props & Equipment

For our filming we had to purchase a number of props and equipment items, these consisted of:

•  Silver/Gold Reflector
• Plastic Gun
• Suits
• Tripod
• Tracksuit

New Filming Location

We have had to change our location for filming as our primary location produced too many problems for us to film. Our secondary location is now at a house, which will be the meeting place for the assassins' targets. This enables us to come back and film without having to ask permission ad therefore prevents any problems with filming.

Pictures Of Production

Research Into Titles And Opening Sequences

The Godfather’s titles consist of just name strips which appear over police records of mug shots, or as a autograph on the back of pictures as they come onto the screen. All of the titles are in white upon a black background, other than the autographs. These titles are very small and slightly draw just as much attention to them as needed. The shots may display “dramatic irony”, by showing mug shots, which are also used in prison. They may also show a gang, or gang culture and crime, as they are shown one after the other, the colour used is shown to display older times that link to the old family pictures, the lack of colour may be used to show a darker side to these men shown. As the titles come and go, the pictures change and notes come up, this may show a sense of family and being linked. The screen then fades to black and the last title, the name comes up.

Soprano’s Title

The Sopranos title sequence,  a first person view is used all of the time, and this is used to show the audience what the driver, is seeing, this may be a main character as the audience sees him in the shots sometimes.  Different parts of New Jersey are shown, these may be later shooting locations and to show what is to come, different views are used and this may set a delightful mood on the audience. This links to the music, which is also upbeat and happy. This may be used to trick the audience, for what is later to come.

Use Of Light

This is the reflector that we are using for the lighting in our production, this is a good tool as our camera cannot focus due to the low lighting.

Preliminary Exercise Final Post

Main Project Initial Thoughts

Main Project Final Thoughts
Title - Clear Bets

Plot/ Outline - An assassin is contracted to hunt down a mafia leader, he is in a restaurant currently closed, and he is shot, the assassin leaves not realising that the mafia leader does not die, a friend of the mafia leader runs into the restaurant not realising what has just happened and rescues the mafia leader.

Opening sequence outline/summary
Assassin is seen making his way to a restaurant, this is where the mafia leader is. See above for rest of details.
Characters
1 – Main Assassin
2 – Gangsters (Inc. leader)
2 – Waitresses

Lighting
Toplighting, backlighting to create a sense of being superior. Low ambient lighting. Few lights used with mise on scene.

 Main Task Research - Codes & Conventions
Opening
This is the first few minutes of a film which is placed so that the audience watching the film know what the plot is, as the plot of the movie is in these first few minutes. If these few minutes are not good than these can make the audience feel confused and lost when the rest of the film is playing.


Gangster Movies
Motifs of The Gangster Genre
1. The hero is an immigrant who dislikes his low status in life and wants more.
2. Unlike the Western, this story takes place in the big city. The wide open plains have been traded in for the seedy alleyways and wharves of the urban jungle.
3. The gangster can only gain power by taking it. It is survival of the fittest, and the only law is the law of the jungle.
4. The only loyalty the gangster feels is for his own immigrant roots.
5. Success is measured in material goods - flashy cars, expensive clothes, and mansions. Women are measures of success as well.
6. The hero's antagonist is society, and the enforcers of the law. The police, the FBI, the CIA represent the enforcers of societal status quo.
7. The end justifies the means.

Production

Production
Our chosen location for filming our production was in a restaurant, this proved very hard as we can only film at certain times, and the restaurant started undergoing certain changes, this prevented us from filming as much as we would have liked to.
Because of the lack of light, the camera could not focus and was slightly blurred, this was only seen as we upload the content to a PC, therefore we have to go back and film again with more light so the camera can have better focus, for this we will use more light and a gold reflector.We chose not to use a tripod during some shots as we thought at first that this would portray the image of a first person view slightly better.
We hope to film our last shots this weekend, these are the entrance & exit shots, and some shots of the last seconds of the clip.
Our rough cut will require some more editing as it feels more like a trailer due to cutting back and forth.