BLEAK, FINAL DRAFT

Audience feedback

I received a lot of audience feedback on youtube and also on facebook. If you want to see it clearer please double click on the video in the post above which will sent you to youtube. The feedback shows there is still a lot of work to be done and many people are confused about the fight scene.

Improvements that need to be made if this was to be done again..

-Re-shoot the last confrontation scene, and possibly add a few sound effects to show that the youth being robbed is in pain when he gets punched.


-Re-shoot the part where Damien takes a few moments to think about it but next time without the colorful board behind him. 


-Use final cut pro image blur control to stop the beginning of the walking scene looking to blurry. 


-Some extra shots may be needed of the scenery so the audience do not get bored when watching a whole minute and a half of walking. 

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

Try to spot the continuity error from 0.05 to 0.12. If you haven't seen it yet then play it back and keep looking at my shirt.

Wearing black and white checkered
shirt

I believe we have all dramatically increased our knowledge from the first filming that we done. We were much more aware of continuity errors especially after looking back at our continuity footage and realizing we had made some mistakes.

Now I'm wearing a plain white shirt

We decided in order to reduce the chances of continuity error that we would should shoot the footage in one day. This would reduce the     chances of mistakes such as a different car being parked on the road which would be misleading to some viewers with a keen eye.  

 This is one continuity error that we managed to spot during our editing. On the bottom right of the screen you can see a bike wheel which is where the group was standing so they wouldn't get in the way of the film. 

The sound was another issue when filming. Because we had only one camera to film with this meant that when one shot cuts to the next, there is a sudden delay in the sound. This would have been resolved if we had more than one camera and a professional microphone which would have been separate from the camera therefore not having an sound cuts. 


So to sort out this problem we put non diagetic music over most of the opening scene not only to add to build up the correct atmosphere but also so it wouldn't become boring and so there were no noticeable changes in diagetic ambient sound. 

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

My main roles involved with use of technology were being the camera man and editing the footage into the final piece that we have now. The adobe after affects were done by one of my colleges Graham, who used a site called Video Copilot in which they give you detailed tutorials into how to create professional movie animations or logos.

The big leap that I had to take in my learning was moving from a simple Sony HD USB flip camera straight to a Sony HDV 1000 professional tape camera. From the pictures on the left it is pretty obvious to tell which one is the professional one.

The advantage with the Sony HDV 1000 was that due to its size and design it could be mounted on your shoulder to give a much more steady shot when moving rather than the flip camera where you would need time to constantly remove and put on a tripod if you have different types of shots. This was especially helpful in the walking part of the scene giving a "bopping" affect meaning the viewer could relate with the characters personality much easily.

The disadvantage to the professional camera was that it took much longer to process the film onto the computer via a special cable and this took away some of our editing time but in return we got a much more high quality footage. Whereas with the flip camera it would of only taken a simple usb connection to move all the files onto the computer.  Also, with the Sony HDV 1000 we were able to manually focus onto specific things which can be noticed at 1.15 to 1.19 minutes in our opening scene, this is where the background is slightly blurred therefore allowing the audience to focus more on Damiens face

Michael with incorrect colour correction 

Michael with correct colour correction 

Using Final Cut Pro was a real challenge, however after some assistance from people who were familiar with it I mastered the art of editing and was able to experiment with certain types of video effects. Colour correction was very important in the movie because we wanted to put a layer over the real image to make it seem professional and not like it was filmed from a normal camera.

Both of the top pictures are taken from the same part of the opening scene, however the first one picture with incorrect colour correction is from the first draft. This had to be changed to what it was in the second picture which is taken from the final draft. Because of Michaels dark skin colour it was hard to keep the dark gloomy look of the picture without his face being hardly visible. So in order to keep this effect I had to experiment around with the colour correction software and saturation in order to make it look like it had the same effect for the entire movie. 

How did you attract/address your audience?

In our audience research on survey monkey we found that the majority of people (58%) preferred if the opening credits were shown through the opening scene. The type of text was really important as this would have influenced the emotion of the viewer. After some experimenting we found that the simple font used was more effective and understandable rather than a font that would have been written in graffiti style handwriting. 

In some of the transition scenes we left the screen blank due to the fact that we didn't have enough editing footage to continue our movie in one scene. This did not vastly effect the viewing experience but it could have been produced better and efficiently if it was shot again so the audience viewing time would not be delayed. 

To get my product out there and to increase the views of my video (therefore increasing the chances of audience feedback) I posted up my video on youtube and then on my facebook where it would show up on all my friends home pages. Youtube and Facebook are two of the many free ways to market films and are especially important when on a low budget. 

During our production stages there was a discussion about what ending to choose for the opening scene. Due to us not having much time we had to rely on the feedback that we got from our peers to decide which ending to choose. The problem that we found with the first alternative ending was that the graffiti type font was not easily recognizable by everyone and some people mistook the "K" for an "R" and this would have caused confusion if we had put this in our final draft. The second alternative ending was favored by some peers but not by all as it was too plain but it would have fitted in with the previous fonts. In the end we decided to go with the final alternative which can be seen in the final draft.

Who would be the audience for your product?

Based on the equipment and locations that we had to film in, the most successful low budget films are drama films because they do not require any special effects or expensive equipment to film. And the drama that we created mostly be aimed at teenagers who live in London, and we may possibly recieve some interest from adults who are interested in these types of films.

If we were to market our film then it would be unlikely to go on a large scale, so it may possibly start only in the niche film market or may only go straight to DVD due to the likelyness of popularity being low. This is because the culture and characters involved in our movie would only be understood by Londoners (mainly teenagers). Adults are unlikely to consume this film because in their teenage generation the culture was very different and they may dissaprove of this particular film.

Having said this, the profit that would be generated by this film would be pretty low due to our main audience being South London teenagers. And this is because South London being one of the worst parts of the UK for unemployed teenagers and jobs being very scarce, many teens do not have a job to purchase the DVD or cinema ticket meaning the money would be coming from their parents.

The rating for our movie would probably be a 15 due to the fact that there is some violence involved and use of weapons. There is no gore and very little blood later on in the movie however, use of drugs may be present as there was in Kidulthood.

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

Based on my research the media institution would be most likely to distribute our media product had it been finished would be Revolver entertainment. The type of films that revolver entertainment has has distributed previously are films such as Kidulthood, Anuvahood and Shank. These are all films portraying South London.

Many of the same actors such as Adam Deacon are used in different films becuase they have the particular image to fit that South London teenager look. And based on the research on the previous evaluation question I believe that our characters look fits very well with the mise-en scene and environment of the scene.

The genre of our movie is a dramatic thriller type movie which is very down to earth and doesn't exagerate stereotypes to the fullest like similar movies such as Kidulthood where characters are the type of people you would find in the real world.

However, the majority of Revolver Entertainment films are based on reality, and the reason they would have taken up Anuvahood would have possibly been to diversify their product range so people don't get bored of watching the same dramatic storylines. However, after the release of Anuvahood, if Revolver Entertainment were to take our film on (if it were complete and professionaly done) then I believe it would be successful due to Anuvahood being released recently and people may want to be intrested in drama/thriller films again.

Also, Revolver Entertainment is known to market most of its films on a small scale, and our film would be categorized as a niche type film due to its target audience and storyline would mainly appeal to people in South London because they are more familiar with the culture.