Ruby Stockwell: Candidate Number 9579

Evaluation website link: http://rubystockwell.wix.com/mediaproduction

Final OTS:


ACE- Round 2 from Cal Ives-Keeler on Vimeo.

Continuity Task:


Night stab from Cal Ives-Keeler on Vimeo.

Feedback Results

I created the questionnaire on survey monkey, the questionnaire link is shown below:

Click here to take survey

I wanted our results to be accurate, and so I only gave the questionnaires link to  people that fitted the target audience for our OTS; which were young men, between the ages of 15 - 25. This was good, as it meant I could give the link out around the sixth form area in our school. Although they fitted the age range, the youngest respondent was 16 and the oldest being 18, we didn't fill the whole of our target market, which ranged to 25 years, this may have varied our results as if we had asked a 25 year old they may have given us different results.

Evidence of young males taking our survey, I took these photos as I was in the Sixth Form study room at the time.

Choosing to use a questionnaire was a favorable as it gave concise results that were easy to analyse. Also, the questions were easy to understand, even for pupils who hadn't done Media before, as I was near to the computer that was being used to take the questionnaire, even if they did have a problem I could help them.

Results:

My results show most respondents answered with 8 out of 10. This is good considering our OTS was finished, as it didn't have any background music.

All respondents said they would watch the whole film which is brilliant news as it means our target market would like our film.

Comments on our OTS 




Here are some of the respondents comments on the OTS, not all respondents filled in a comment as I didn't make the comment section compulsory. The comments were all positive, although a comment says they'd like to know more of the plot as it seems a bit weak and confusing, as not everything is given away. This is good, as we couldn't give the whole plot away as it was just an opening title sequence; if we had given the whole plot line away in the first few minutes the audience wouldn't want to watch a 1/2 hour long film.

Feedback

Our OTS will have 2 lots of feedback, one from our media class, and the other from our target audience.

This week our media class will hold a focus group, where all groups will show their films and will gain feedback. 

This is good as we will have a more professional, media literate view on our OTS, and so the criticisms will be more helpful. For example, pupils in our media will be able to talk more about their knowledge on film noir, while others may not know the conventions of a film noir.

This has a disadvantage, as not all pupils in my media class fit the target audience for our OTS and so they may not like it. Our target audience is young men, which is why our anti-hero is a young male, shown as being powerful, but sadistic. 

When we have done this, I will upload the footage to this space:

Also, we're getting feedback from our target audience, young men. We will use Survey Monkey, the survey is in the link below:

Click here to take survey

I made the survey monkey questionnaire, I chose to use SurveyMonkey, as our group hadn't used it before, and when I went onto the site, it was quite simple to use. Also, answering the survey is straight forward so there should be no difficulties. The terminology used in the questionnaire is simplistic, so the respondent will be able to understand it, as they haven't taken Media and do not understand the terminology. 

The results will be posted below once we have enough results.

ACE - Final piece inc. dialogue

ACE- Round 2 from Cal Ives-Keeler on Vimeo.

Above, is (hopefully) our final OTS piece. The only difference from the last uploaded edit, featured in my last post, is that the dialogue has been edited in.

There are still ways we can improve this piece, as mentioned in the previous post. This edit still needs the background music included, due to a technical error in school. Ms Humpleby is trying to help us and others in our class with this problem.

We wanted the dialogue to have a gritty, menacing, evil tone. I think Cal did a good job as voice actor. Before choosing his voice, we recorded other voices, but found the recording featured in this edit the best suited.

ACE - second edit

This is our second recording of our ACE OTS. We decided to re-film as we needed to improve the continuity and I needed a bullet wound. Although we re-filmed, we have found some errors with our recording which are:

• Some parts still have bad continuity, this is due to Cal using footage from our first recording and now our second recording. Cal has tried to edit them as best he can, and it doesn't look bad, however before giving it to the examiners we will need to make them more flow better. Examples of this is when Cal looks through the blinds (00.50), and Cal holds the playing card over my body, just before the "Underground Casino" shot (01.14 onwards). 
• Some shots are a little shaky - the first and second shot for instance. This is due to Elliott holding the camera by hand as it was easier than using a tripod, we shall improve this. Although the "Underground Casino" scene is arguably shaky too, this makes more sense and we intended for this, as the handheld effect makes the shot look more like it was from Cal or I's point of view (eg. 01.25), and so, doesn't need to change.
• The money is British money, within our group we didn't decide whether our film will be based in America or Britain, I suppose we could choose in Britain, however Film Noirs originated from America and so I thought this may be a teeny problem.
• As Cal outlined on his blog, the "whiskey" we used, which was apple juice, looks a little too much like apple juice. This can't really be helped, as it's due to the camera and lighting in the room, which I wouldn't change for this small error, however we will talk about this problem within the group and see if we will change this.
• This links to my last point, the start was a little pixelated due to our dark setting and the quality of the camera. Again, I don't think this is a large enough problem to re-film or change, but we'll talk in our group if we shall change this.
• The sound has not yet been edited onto our OTS. Cal has not put the previously recorded dialogue and background music (from audiotool, as mentioned in this post here.) and the gunshot sound that we foleyed.

Although there are a number of ways we can improve, our second version is a lot better than our first. Reasons for this are:

• For our first version, I didn't have a wound. This was a massive problem as the gunshot and gun wound were a key part of the story, as without it, I wouldn't look dead. Cal made the bullet wound on my forhead using special effects clay and colourings, while Elliott made the runny blood with jam and food colouring for partly my face and Cal's bloody hand. Now it looks more realistic, and our story is easier to understand.
• Our first edit didn't include the "Underground Casino" scene. Although this means this scene is a little shaky, and may need more improving, I believe it's overall good, and again, makes our story easier to understand. I think to improve, we could show the "underground Casino" scene at the start, with quick shots of my dead body, to make the OTS easier to understand and make it look more like an OTS and not a short film. I will ask my group if this is a good idea.
• Less continuity errors for the money on my body, as we chose to film the shots with my dead body and money over before any others, so I hadn't moved.

Overall, I think we don't need to re-film, however, we should show our film to the class and see their opinions.

Title

For our opening title sequence, we've decided our title will be placed near the beginning of our OTS, after our production company being shown, a link to our storyboards is here. 

We will be using iMovie to create our title. I have been researching different film noir titles, as shown here:

All titles are in black and white with either bold or script writing, most in capitals. We'll use all these examples to help us decide a title font.

"The Third Man"

"The Third Man"'s opening title sequence is on artofthetitle.com : http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-third-man/

Our OTS will include this:

However in the Third Man, the OTS includes pretty much everyone included in making the film, and our OTS will not as this is outdated.

 I used www.dafont.com to create the title of the film. On the website you can download free fonts onto your computer and use them. To choose the font, I used the first picture in this post, of my Google search of film noir titles. I also took into account our OTS would be neo noir, and so below, chose a few more modern looking fonts.

 This font is similar to the Third Man's font as it is serif. On my Google search this font is much like the title of "Gilda". However, as it's a narrow font, it could look too small.

 This font is similar to "They Live By Night" from my first picture of my Google search. I like the asymmetry shown by the thin side and thicker side of each letter.




This font is similar to the font above because of the asymmetry, but as it is sans serif it look modern compared to the two fonts above, this is good for our neo noir OTS.

Final title.

I made the final title from downloading the font from www.dafont.com and using paint on the school computers. I edited a motion blur to represent the transition I told Cal to use for the OTS, of a fade out.

Cal edited our final opening title sequence and so, changed the font to what he thought would look good not the group, and didn't consult us. Also, Cal didn't edit the distribution company's (studio canal) logo into our OTS. As Cal is the editor, Elliott and I couldn't change the title and distribution company's font, and so it looked like this:

Costume and Make up Planning

Costume:

Our opening title sequence is neo noir, which is a new version of film noir. We chose to have a neo noir genre so we could have our own unique twist on a film noir.


Due to our neo noir genre, our costume is not typical of film noir, which is typically like the picture on the left, (eg. feminine glamorous dresses, men in suits). Alternatively, all three characters (me, Cal, and Elliott) will all be wearing suits. This is similar to the film noir typical conventions. We decided to do this as in our storyline, we meet in a rundown side street casino (due to our age, we couldn't have a real casino), as I am part of the game, we decided to all wear suits, instead of the female wearing a dress.

Make up:

Here is Cal's post on make up

These are the things we used to create my fake wound and blood. Cal used the special effects wax and red colouring for my wound, while the jam was mixed with food colouring to make the would look wet, like real blood, that Elliott made. Also, Cal had the Jam on his hand. Ms Humpleby gave us the idea of using cheap red jam, as it's consistency looks on camera exactly like blood.

Before Cal put it on my face, Elliott attempted on his own hand, as shown to the left.
In this picture, we used the wax, colouring, and jam, as we did on the final recording.

Before using the special effects wax, I researched online for ways to create a fake wound with make up. Here are the links: bullet wound, bullet wound. Although we used wax for the real thing, ideas from these links helped create the final look.

The pictures below are pictures of my fake fake wound. The first picture is just the wax, Cal put into a circle, as recommended on the above links, with an indent. The second picture is with the white, red, and some colouring over the wax. The outcome is it does look like a bullet wound, but more like a scab. At which point we put the jam and food colouring mixture slightly in the indented part of the bullet wound, to make it look like a fresh, bleeding wound.

And here is the final look, just before recording:

Production logo - Pulse Productions

Cal created this studio indent.  His post for this is here

I believe this could be improved, as the black gradient makes the Pulse Productions a little hard to see in our second edit. This is a minor issue.

Sound (Dialogue)

For one scene of our opening title sequence we are planning to include a voice over narration. This is a popular convention in film noir, examples of films that use narration are: Sin City, Sunset Boulevard, Naked City, and Double Indemnity.

A voice over narration is the technique of using an off-screen voice to convey necessary background information, fill in gaps in the narrative, and comment on the action.

The script we created for our voice over is on another post, here. 

We used a Marantz to record our voices, Elliott and Cal were the voice actors. We haven't chosen which of them did a better accent/voice for film noir, we wanted either an American or gritty London accent. As we can't choose which recording to use, we're going to play the clips to our class and ask for their opinions to help us choose the recording which fits our OTS best.

In the picture below, you can see the Marantz we used to record. We used a Music room in school (which you can see in the background - keyboard), the room was empty and didn't echo and so was perfect for recording sound / voices in it as there was no background noise. The Music room is used specially for recording music and so we knew it would be the best room to use.

IMG 1283 from Cal Ives-Keeler on Vimeo.

Here is evidence of us recording the voice over narration on the Marantz, below is the recording we are thinking of using for our final OTS

~~ When we have asked for our classes opinions on our voice overs, we shall record it and upload it to here ~~

ACE props

Link to props post is here -> Cal Ives-Keeler AS media: ACE props: For our OTS it was important to have good looking and effective props. For this reason i decided to take a few from my house because they lo...