Backlash Final Cut 30/4/2013

Here is the third and final cut of our short film. We have smoothed out all of the transitions and sorted out the music and sound to block out any unnecessary background audio. We had to remove some scenes to shorten the length of our short films to be closer to two minutes. We optimised the audio in our film to make it more pleasing to listen to as many scenes contained some unappealing background noise which destroyed the mood and setting of some of the scenes. During the scene where the MI6 agent is sat in his office and is walking in the corridor there was a fair amount of background noise so to deal with it we removed all of the audio from the scene and added a non-diagetic soundtrack on top of it so that it didn't come across as being silent. We took great advantage of royalty free music websites to add a number of different soundtracks to our short film to help create the sense of a dark and tense atmosphere.

Evaluation

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

Our short film, Backlash, can be considered to be similar to films such as Stormbreaker with the inclusions of secret agencies and an adolescent main character. It would be considered to be part of the action, thriller genre as it is a spy movie. We initially didn't plan on taking any influence from films such as Stormbreaker however we found that out short film became more and more similar with Stormbreaker, the more we worked on it, such as our main protagonist and that of Stormbreaker as they are both male teenage boys who's relatives are linked with MI6 and spies. The film meets its key features of its genre as there are scenes containing action in our short film which is the main focus of our film. Our film sticks very closely to the themes and conventions of typical spy movies.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our short film has two characters in it. The main character, a young boy who has been kidnapped by MI6, and an MI6 integrator who has been made out to be the bad guy. In order to make him appear as the bad guy to the audience we try to distance the audience from him by leaving his identity as being mysterious and giving him a deep and unsettling voice. We also made sure that the actor playing this role was taller and bigger than the actor playing the boy in order to create this sense of him being more powerful. This is a classic stereotype of a villain which children would find easy to understand. Due to the lack of overall dialogue in the scene we decided to try and make the audience align themselves with the protagonist by making him seem innocent and helpless whilst being beaten by the bad guy. This also helped in explaining the plot of the story to the audience. To help make the young boy come across as being weak we made sure that the actor playing him was shorter and smaller than the villain.

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

When looking for a viable distributor to distribute our film we came across a company known as Entertainment Film Distributors who we thought were perfect as they are British and they distribute many independent UK films, one of which being Stormbreaker, meaning that they would've worked on similar films to ours as we could see that they work on often smaller projects , such as our own, so we'd hope to work with them as they have a lot of knowledge in films of our genre.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our audience would focus on people of the age 12 and up, particular teenagers as we could see a particular pattern emerging whilst doing background research as films such as Stormbreaker were mainly focused on audiences of this age group. The film would still be enjoyable for people of over the age of 18, especially as there may be some parents who take their young children to go see it but the main focus of our film would still be people of 12 to 15.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The theme of a young main character and spies would appeal to people of this age group so we thought that it'd be best for us to aim our film at this audience, especially considering that we ourselves believed that we would've enjoyed films such as this when we were younger. Despite being somewhat realistic, the film would have a very fictional appeal to it which would attract young audiences who are interested in fantasy and fiction, more than older audiences are.

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

During the production of our short film we were required to use a DV tape camcorder in order to film our short film and to edit our film we used iMacs. Recording and editing our film was not a problem for me as I had already previously used camcorders and iMacs to record and edit a film for another subject. We also used the iMacs in order to find some royalty free sound tracks to make our film sound more authentic. I also used iMacs at school and my own personal PC at home in order to add entires to my blog.

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

Our preliminary task has taught us about the importance of continuity in the editing process. Our preliminary task could've been much smoother in terms of shot transitions. We have also learnt about context since then and the necessity to establish plot and character which was not done in the preliminary task. During the preliminary task we were taught about the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot, which are sued to make films easier for audiences to follow and to not be disorientated by it. During this process we learnt about how to use the DV Tape camcorders to our full advantage and we also learnt how to import short video files on to the schools iMacs through the use of a fire-wire. This was done in preparation of making our short film so that we would be confident and familiar when it came to using the equipment that would be necessary for making our short film. The preliminary task was very beneficial for us as it made us much more confident when it came to the actual production of our short film.

Title card, storyboard, script, filming schedule and prop list

Above, you can see our title image for our short film, Backlash. However, we chose not to use this in our film as we did not think that it suited the style of the film.

 Here you can see our storyboard which we made in preparation for making our short film. We tried to include as much detail into them as possible, such as including the style of music we were planning on using in the final product.

 Here we have a detailed script which we originally made when coming up with the idea of our film. It contains a detailed description of what takes place during our sequence and the dialogue that is used.

 This is the filming schedule which we made in preparation of making our short film. We chose times that we convenient for all of our group.

Here is a list of actors, locations, props and sounds which were either used or featured in our short film. We tried to include as much as possible in order to be fully prepared for the filming of our film.

Pre-Task

http://johncotterillasmediastudies.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/pre-task.html

In this link you can see our pre-task which we completed in order to show our understanding of the shot-reverse-shot technique, along with the 180 degree rule and match on match editing. However, some problems with the pre-task is that some of the character's heads are out of frame so we made sure to take this error in filming into account and to not do this in our short film by taking greater care when filming.

Shot-Reverse-Shot is when a point of interest is shown, followed by the characters reaction, followed by the initial shot again. It is used to display reactions to events etc.

The 180 degree rule. This rule establishes the characters’ position in relation to the frame. Once the 180 degree rule is established it can’t be broken or it will disorientate the audience; unless it is shown to be broken by movement of the camera.

Match on match is the filming of segments which are edited together to form a sequence, rather than filming the whole thing at once from one angle, this helps as you see the film from different angles, and is easier when correcting mistakes than filming the whole sequence again.

This short clip shows each of these techniques.