Continuity Task

Our task involved: filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.


We had two members of our class to be in our film. They were Daniel Riman and Miss Bennet. The whole plot of the film would be about Miss Bennet telling Daniel that he is the top achiever in Drama.


We started off with the camera pointing a the door. Then Miss Bennet would come in.She will then sit down on a chair opposite Daniel. This would cut to a medium shot of Miss Bennet talking. This will cut to a medium shot of Daniels reaction (zoom in to his face). Then it will cut to an over the shoulder shot starting on Miss Bennett right shoulder and shifting to her left shoulder. It will then cut to a medium shot of Daniel looking for his mum on his phone contacts (zoom in to his phone). Cut to a close up shot of his phone (zoom in to mum). Finally this cuts to another medium shot of Daniel talking to his mum.

Why are opening title sequences so important to the film industry?

Saul Bass, a famous graphic designer in the film industry, once stated that 'making a main-title was like making a poster, you're condensing the event into this one concept, this one metaphor a back-story that needs to be told or a character that needs to be introduced'.

The title sequence of a movie can be the most impotent element in the whole film. This is because except trailers, these are the first images the audience sees when the movie starts. These sequences last about two to three minutes. However they can set up the director’s intentions, the story line, the genre and the expectations of the audience.

Furthermore this sequence tells you who directed are stared in this film. So the audience can expect how the film is going to be like by basing the movie on the teams past work. Also if the audience likes the sequence then they will have a good first impression and will be drawn in the watch the rest of the movie. Taking all of these factors into account, I think that the opening title sequence of any movie is the most crucial element in the film industry.

Genre

Kidulthood comes under the drama genre. This is because it's a serious, dramatic film that portrays realistic characters, in a real setting, under real life situations. Also the movie doesn't focus on special effects and comedy. The sub-genre is arthouse. This is because its a serious, independently made film which is aimed at a specific audience. It is an experimental film that is not aimed at the mass market so its a small budget film. Our film will be the same genres as this film but it will be based on the reality of an average teenager and what the character goes through.

Audience Research

Before choosing a film genre to base our opening scene on, we created a questionnaire in order to find out what sort of genre people enjoy and what factors are needed in an opening title sequence to make it effective.

The questionnaire that we had prepared consisted of the following questions:

• Whether their male or female
• How old they were
• What is most effective in a film?
• What makes a good opening title sequence?
• When was the last time they watched a film
• What type of story is most interesting?
• Anything inappropriate in an opening sequence?
• What background music do they best prefer

We created graphs based on the results we got. It was necessary to ask these questions as we needed to know our target audience and what kind of things they find effective in a opening sequence and what things are inappropriate in it.

We found out that a lot of people believed that having good visual effects is the most important factor to have in an opening sequence. One factor that people enjoyed the least in an opening sequence is text and dialogue. From this, we concluded as a group, that we should have as little text and dialogue as possible in our film. As well as special effects, people believed that music and action is important too. So we would have to make the music relevant to the movie and make it flow with the sequence. The ending of the sequence should have a cliff hanger to make the audience wanting to know more. In addition to this, we concluded from our results that our opening sequence should be a crime/ urban drama because the target audience is between teenagers and 20’s.

Title Ideas

This is a brainstorm of titles that we created. This helped us to decide what the title of our film would be.

Shooting Schedule

This was the schedule we made and followed at the beginning of this project:

Initial Script

1. Inside Vishals bedroom - int / day (morning)
In a normal average house, we see a typical teenagers bedroom, messy, untidy, with big posters on the wall. We see think that a person is sleeping as we can not see the character, as Vishals head is under the duvet. We also see the mobile phone on the side which makes us think that it is just about to go off.

(First Action) Vishal under his duvet, gets up to snooze his alarm, and this is the first we see his face. Gradually he gets out of bed and walks out of his room. He then enters the bathroom, and the camera is still running but we don't see anything, only hear the general routine. The effect of not showing when he enters the bathroom is to create tension so the audience thinks its a black out. He then walks back into his room and once again a black-out.

2. Outside Vishals House - ext / day (morning)
He walks out of the house dressed as a typical teenager. The audience does not think he is bad person or anything which would mean he is a bad influence or a ruthless teenager.

3. Vishal travelling to Beavers Park - ext / day (morning)
We see Vishal approaching in the distance on a bike. We already see another guy coming towards him looking very suspicious. Suddenly they make a sudden handshake, where the drug and money have been exchanged. Then very quickly Vishal leaves him and travels to another destination, which we don't know where. Now he is at the entrance of the park and we see another guy coming towards him. He has a strange way of walking and has a very wide jaw. Vishal then quickly exchanged the money for the weapon.

4. Vishal going to College - ext / day (morning)

Vishal was cycling but we see him now entering a college, we know this because he stood there  for a couple of seconds thinking whether it is his college or not, as he is suffering from schizophrenia. He walks in and we also see him through CCTV footage. 

5. Vishal inside College - int / day morning
We know see him going up some stairs with a baseball bat, this was the weapon he bought from the drug money. He walks into a classroom and the buzzer goes off.

Final Script

In an average house, we see a typical teenager's bedroom, messy, untidy with big posters on the wall.


1. Inside Vishals bedroom - int / day (morning)
Dark lighting.Title appears. Sound of alarm goes off. Medium shot of Vishal hand emerging from the white duvet (zoom in). Cuts to point of view shot. Vishal holds picks up the white Blackberry and turns off the alarm. Cuts to medium shot of Vishal holding the phone and turning the alarm off. Cuts to point of view shot of Vishal getting out of bed. Title appears. He's wearing dark trousers and black socks. Walks to the white painted door in front of him. Reaches for the door handle using his left hand. Wearing white watch on his left hand. Opens the door. Cuts to:


2. Inside Vishals bathroom - int / day (morning)
Vishal opens white bathroom door. Normal bathroom. The sink, bath and laundry basket should be included in the frame. Cuts to Vishal in front of a mirror cabinet. Over the shoulder shot. He has messy hair. He slides the cabinet open. He slides the cabinet close. He has styled hair.


3. Outside Vishals house - ext / day (morning)
Long shot (zoom out). Vishal comes out of his house. Opens front door. Natural lighting. He is wearing jeans and a navy Adidas jacket with white outlines. Shuts front door. Starts walking on the footpath. Tittle appears. Cuts to low angle shot. He pulls out a phone from his pocket. He starts talking into the phone while walking. Cuts to high angle shot of him walking (zoom in). Cuts to:


4. Outside newsagent - ext / day (morning)
In an average newsagent we see a person buying food through the entrance. Natural lighting. Gurpreet appears on camera riding a bike. He's wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. He gets off the bike and rests it on the side. He enters an average looking newsagent through the main entrance. Vishal appears on the camera. He runs to the bike, gets on it and starts cycling. Cuts to:


5. In Beavers park - ext / day (morning)
Natural lighting. Long shot of Vishal cycling on a small footpath through a field. Cuts to a low angle shot of Vishal breaking. He rests the bike down. Cuts to a two shot of Vishal approaching Gary. Gary is standing near a old wooden bench. Gary is wearing black jeans, black jacket and a cap with white trainers. Cuts to a point of view shot of the drug exchange. Tittle appears. Cuts to high angle shot of Vishal leaving Gary. Cuts to a two shot of Vishal leaving Gary. Cuts to:


6. Outside Beavers park - ext / day (morning)
Tittle appears. Natural lighting, Shivam approaches camera. He is wearing black jeans, black jacket, white t shirt and white trainers with black sunglasses. Cuts to a high angle shot of Shivam walking. Cuts to Vishal approaching the camera on the bike and turning. Cuts to high angle of Vishal approaching Shivam. Cuts to a  two shot of Shivam taking out a black wooden baseball bat out of his jacket and handing it to Vishal. Cuts to high angle of Vishal handing the money to Shivam and cycling away. Cuts to:


7. Outside school - ext /day (afternoon)
Natural lighting. High angle tracking shot of Vishal cycling to school in the cycling lane (zoom in). Tittle appears. He rests his bike on the floor near the entrance. Cuts to point of view shot (shaky cam) starts of his feet and angles upwards showing a blue Heathland school sign (zoom in) (zoom out). Low angle shot of Vishal walking through the front entrance with the sigh in the background and grass in the foreground. Cuts to a long shot of Vishal walking down the steps (zoom out) (tracking). Tittle appears. The camera is slightly tilted. Cuts to a high shot of Vishal walking through the entrance. Walks into the shadow of the building. Cuts to:


8. Inside school - int / day (afternoon)
Artificial lighting. Yellow staircase and doors with the school's honers board in the background. Cuts to low angle shot of Vishal walking up the stairs. Tittle appears. He steps over the camera. Holding the bat in two hands. Slaps the bat on his hands. Cuts to high angle shot of Vishal walking up the stairs. He opens the door and points the bat at the camera. Cuts to a close up shot of a white clock attached to the wall. Sound of the school buzzer.

Music Choices Analysis

We decided that we were going to use a soundtrack for our film. We decided that we were going to produce something that is related to London unban culture. We decided that the best genre we could research into are dubstep, grime and drum and bass.

Big Boss by Doctor P . This song is in the genre of Dubstep. This song can be useful as it flows with the opening scene and because the song has a fast, upbeat tempo.

S-Hard by Breakage Ft. Newham General . This song is in the genre of Grime/Dubstep. This type of genre is more popular in modern society and so people would be able to know more about the type of film.

No Problem by Chase and Status. This song fits into the genre of Drum and Bass. This song is very fast and the tempo changes. I thought that this could be useful when the video is in the fast/slow scenes.

Casting Shots

These are the three main characters in our opening scene:

Name: Vishal Martin (Vishal Sehgal)

Street Name: Vish

Date Of Birth: 27/12/1992

Information: Suffers from Schizophrenia and so he can easily hang around with the wrong crowd. His personality changes and in the area he lives in, people look at him not normal. He does not have many friends and so he finds it difficult to socialise. He can be the kindest person you know, but can switch to become very aggressive. He is very extreme and sells drugs to make a living. 

Name: Gary Miller (Gary Deol)

Street Name: Gazzer

Date Of Birth: 07/11/1992

Information: The crack-addict. Lives on his own and got kicked out the house after he got excluded from school. His family has not contacted him in 2 years and he lives in a "crack den". He has lost his job and spends all of his money he has on drugs.

Name: Mosley Jenkinson (Shivam Malkan)

Street Name: Big Mo

Date Of Birth: 12/04/1991

Information: The big time shotter. He sells a variety of goods ranging from weapons to furniture to make a living. He lives with his dad. Mum? He didn’t know who she is - she left him at an early age. He tries to be on top of his education even though he does hang around with the wrong crowd.

We had a special guest appearance from Gurpreet Chatha. He played the part of an average teenager going to the shops. He had a bike which he left outside a shop. This was the bike Vishal stole and used to travel around.

Location shots

These are the locations that we filmed at:

This is where we will point the camera when Vishal is going into school.

This is the outer entrance that Vishal will go through. 

This is were Vishal will ride the bike.

This is were Vishal will come in. Holding the hockey stick.

This is where the low angle shot will be. When Vishal walks up the stairs.

This park is were the exchanges will happen.

This is where the long shot of Vishal riding the bike will be.

This is where the drug exchange will happen.

This is the house that Vishal will walk out of.

Shot list

Shot 1 - Medium shot of Vishal lying on bed (zoom in)
Shot 2 - Point of view shot of Vishal turning phone alarm off
Shot 3 - Medium shot of Vishal turning phone alarm off
Shot 4 - Point of view shot of Vishal getting out of bed and going to bathroom
Shot 5 - Over shoulder shot of Vishal sliding cabinet
Shot 6 - Long shot of Vishal coming out of house (zoom out)
Shot 7 - Low angle shot of Vishal walking
Shot 8 - High angle shot of Vishal walking
Shot 9 - Medium side shot of Gurpreet putting bike down and entering shop
Shot 10 - Long shot of Vishal riding bike in park
Shot 11 - Low angle shot of Vishal skidding bike
Shot 12 - Two shot of Vishal approaching Gary
Shot 13 - Point of view shot of drug exchange
Shot 14 - High angle of Vishal leaving Gary
Shot 15 - Two shot of Vishal leaving Gary
Shot 16 - Shot of Shivam approaching camera
Shot 17 - High angle shot of Shivam walking
Shot 18 - Vishal approaching camera on bike
Shot 19 - High angle shot of Vishal approaching Shivam
Shot 20 - Two shot of Shivam giving hockey stick to Vishal
Shot 21 - High angle shot of Shivam getting money and leaving
Shot 22 - High angle shot of Vishal going to school on bike (tacking) (zoom in)
Shot 23 - Point of view shot of The Heathland School sign (shaky cam) (zoom in) (zoom out)
Shot 24 - Low angle shot of Vishal coming in from outside entrance
Shot 25 - Long shot of Vishal walking down steps (zoom out) (tracking)
Shot 26 - High shot of Vishal walking in from main entrance
Shot 27 - Low angle shot of Vishal walking up stairs
Shot 28 -  High angle shot of Vishal walking up stairs, pointing hockey stick at camera
Shot 29 - Close up shot of clock

Storyboard 2

After all our planning and alternations, this is our final storyboard:

Storyline

Vishal is an average teenager who goes to college. He is popular and clever. One night, when Vishal and his friend is walking home they see another person in an aly way. His friend robs this person, not knowing that this person is a gang member who goes to Vishal's college. One afternoon, after Vishal takes a short cut to go home, this gang member violently attacks him and robs him. Two weeks later, Vishal's mum takes him to the doctor's for a normal check up. The doctor thinks Vishal is showing symptoms of Schizophrenia. Vishal is diagnosed with Schizophrenia. He knows that it isn't the gang members fault. However, he doesn't have control over his personality and he is angry at this gang member.

So the plot of the film is based around the revenge of this teenager. The next day Vishal wakes up and gets ready as if its an average day. After he makes a phone call to Gary (the person who he exchanges drugs for money with) and Big Mo (the person who he exchanges money for a hockey stick with). He meets up with them and does the exchange. Then he makes his way towards college (The Heathland School). He enters the college and walks towards his victim!

Mind maps exploring characters

This is a mind map of the character Gary, in the film he buys drugs off Vishal, who needs the money to buy a weapon.

This shows that Gary's' personality is well suited because it automatically combines with Vishals. This can also show how teenagers become influenced by the movies that are targeted at them. An example of this is 'Adulthood', which is aimed at normal teenagers, which teaches and encourages them to do certain things, which are morally wrong.

This is a mind map of the main character Vishal. He is the first character we see and the last character we see. He is a troubled teenager and suffers from schizophrenia which means he hears other voices in his head.

This is a mind map of Mohamed. As part of our development we changed his name to Mosley. In the film, Vishal meets up with Mosley to get the hockey stick. He sells goods to his clients which range from weapons, drugs and furniture. He is good friends with Vishal.

Editing

At the beginning HVH productions would come up. Then all the other details would come up such as producers, directors and casting. The text is in Arial. 

We could not choose between two titles The Endz and Die Another Day. We put it to a vote in class and the class decided that The Endz would be a suitable name. However we did get other  suggestions from the class such as: Bike, Bat, Money and Mash and Dash.

07/03/11

In this lesson we received feedback from OCR which showed us what we have to do/show in our project.

Must:

• Commentary of all analysis and theory covered in class.
• Critical analysis of the work of at least two directors.
• Evidence of research into similar media texts and analysis of their forms and conventions.
• Research into the thriller genre.
• A logline for your film idea/concept or a mind map exploring narrative/character
• Summary of your whole film plot
• Evidence of development of your ideas
• Draft storyboard and plans
• Script
• Shot list
• Evidence of audience research.
• A comprehensive set of posts outlining the processes in the development of your film and the decisions and revisions made.
• Your continuity sequence.

Should:

• Location shots
• Casting shots
• A filmed animatic with camera movement/cuts and sound.
• Second/third draft storyboards.
• Music choices analysis with audio extracts.
• The first cut of your sequence with analysis.
• Detailed critique of the developmental process with reflective commentary on the decisions and revisions made.
• Exploration of why opening title sequences are so important to the film industry.
• Photographs of the shoot.
• Shooting schedule.
• Mini-evaluative postings showing reflective thought processes throughout the project.
• Evidence of audience profiling and audience focus groups sessions.
• Audience feedback on your opening sequence rough cuts.

Could:

• Thorough audience research exploring the relationship between opening title sequences and the spectator responses to film.
• A detailed audience profile drawing upon sociographic and psychographic profiling techniques.
• Case study of a particular film company and its film production processes, tracking its production, distribution and marketing strategies.
• Video footage of you filming the sequence, researching and planning. You could film group discussions to show the thought process and how ideas were initially generated. 

Evaluation

Our media product does represent a particular social group. It represents teenagers in underprivileged areas. It also represents Yobs demonstrated by Shivam, people with mental disorders demonstrated by Vishal and addicts demonstrated by Gary. Also it may attract the  British-Asian audience due to the ethnicity of the actors involved.  However looking back at the product, we could have better demonstrated the effects of what schizophrenia was doing to Vishal.


We think Revolver Entrainment would distribute our product. Revolver Entertainment is a international distribution company based in the UK and Los Angeles . We think they would distribute our product because the company focuses on urban films such as: Kidulthood, Shank and Anuvahood. Also they claim to be 'experts in youth entertainment'.


Our media product is mainly targeted at teenagers and young adults under 21. However we think that everyone can relate to the product in some way or another.


We attracted our audience by creating a title that would appeal to a younger audience. Also teenagers would be attracted to the music that we produced because it has a high tempo and a high pitch.  We addressed this audience by developing these characters and creating a plot that focuses on what some teenagers go through.


Technology was a big part of this project. While filming we used two cameras. Early on during production the school camera had low battery so we could not film that much. Also when we played back the footage it was pixelated and you could not see the image properly. This might have been cause by a technical difficulty.


As a result of this we decided to use another camera that Vishal had. This camera was much better because it was fully charged every time we filmed. So we could film for longer. Furthermore the footage was clear when we filmed on his camera. However it used another input compared to the school camera and Vishal did not have the wire to it. So there was some difficulty in processing footage on the computer. However we overcame this problem by using a memory card and memory card reader to copy the footage on the computer.


Looking back at the final product, we have made a huge amount of progress as a whole, compared to the preliminary task we made. We learnt about different camera angles from films. We learn how to use Apple software such as IMovie and GarageBand. We learnt more about the technology we were using such as: video conversion, camera inputs and different formats that cameras use. We learnt about the effects of text and colour in a media product. We also learnt and improved our other skills such as time management, co-operation and team building.

Development

Camera angles:

At the beginning we thought that the whole film would use a point of view shot. However we decided that using more angles would demonstrate our skills as being directors. Therefore, in our project we used a wide range of camera angles and a wide range of perspectives. We included:

Point of view shot

Low angle shot

High angle shot

Long shot

Medium shot

Close up shot.

All these shots were effective especially the POV shot because this made the viewer feel as though there were in the characters shoes. Another effective shot was the high angle shot because if felt as though the character was being watched constantly. As a result this created tension. We altered the low angle shots by placing the camera on the floor or resting it on the props.

However the shots that were not very effective were the medium shots because they did not create enough tension that was required. Also

Music:

We created our music on GarageBand. We first made a basic initial version of our music using installed loops. At this stage we were experimenting with the instruments on the software and we were learning how to use it. This resulted in a basic version, which did not really suit the genre of our film.

We created a second version were we applied more advanced skills such as longer loops, more instruments, better use of different channels and better synchronization between instruments.

When we edited the film our music extract was too short compared to the length of the film. So we lengthened our extract.

Mise-en-scene:

At first we decided that the main character, Vishal would be wearing school uniform through the extract because the drug and weapon trades would be done before school starts. However we decided that a person in a suit dealing drugs and weapons would not look right and would be pointless. So we decided that Vishal would be wearing his own clothes, which would suit the theme of the film.

Also we thought that we were going to use a baseball bat in the weapon trade. However we used a hockey stick instead. We made this decision because we did not have access to a bat at the time.


During the film Vishal changed his jeans. This affects the continuity of the extract. However, after watching the extract,  this change is not very noticeable.

Time management:

We completed our filming and editing on time. However we could have planned our time more effectively. If we did this we could have finished our project early on and we could have focused more time on editing.

Directors

Christopher Johnathan James Nolan

Born on 30 July 1970 in london, England. Christopher Nolan has written and directed 20 films. He has also produced 6 titles so far. Some of the great films he has directed has been Memento, Insomnia, The Dark Knight and Inception.

In all of his films he often:

• Begins his movies and introduces his main characters with a close up shot of their hands performing an action.
• Casts british or non-American actors in American roles.
• Casts Christian Bale and Michael Caine.
• Starts films with a flashback or a scene from the end of the movie.
• When shooting a dialogue scene, the actors are framed with a wide close up shot with a shallow depth of field to blur out the background.
• His main characters are usually men who face adversity.
• He has characters that are affected by some kind of psychological disorder.
• The storyline of his films involve a character seeking vengeance over the death of a loved one.
• Uses hard cuts when transitioning to the next scenes.
• Uses camera revolving around a character.

Steven Allan Spielberg

Born on 18 December 1947 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Steven Spielberg, winner of three Oscars,  has written and directed 70 films. He has also produced 126 films. Some of the award winning films that he directed include: Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Tempe of Doom, Schindler's List and Jurassic Park.

In all of his films he often:

• Uses flash lights in dark scenes. The light is often visible through dust, mist or fog.
• Uses music by John Williams.
• Often films shooting stars.
• Often uses footage of the sun.
• Often shows children in danger.
• Refers to world war two.
• Refers to Disney films, music, or theme parks.
• Uses the piano as an element in important scenes.
• Important images, or characters, are seen through a car's rear-view mirror.
• Casts Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise.

Michael Benjamin Bay

Born on 17 February 1965 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Micheal Bay has directed 14 films and has produced 24 films. Some of the great films he has directed include: Transformers, Pearl Harbour, Bad Boys and Armageddon.

In all of his films he often:

• Uses intense slow motion shots of characters.
• Uses a US president giving a major speech before a major action occurs.
• Has the camera moving during scenes. 
• Uses flashes to make scenes better.
• Has over the top visuals.
• Uses intense music during car chase scenes.
• Uses shots of a aircraft against the sun, especially helicopters.
• Uses a slow-motion shot of an object crashing towards the camera.
• Uses a 360 degree shot around the characters.
• Uses scenes that involve characters running or moving towards the camera.
• Big explosions.
• Uses one black character in comic roles.
• Uses a shot of pilots running toward their aircraft.
• Uses at least one shot of a man screaming in slow motion.

Thriller

Thriller is a main genre of media that all implement suspense, tension and excitement. The main sub-genre is psychological thriller is uses themes of:

• reality, perception
• mind
• existence/purpose
• identity
• death

Examples of directors and screenwriters in this genre include 

• Alfred Hitchcock
• Christopher Nolan
• Stanley Kubrick. 

A thriller film provides thrills and keeps the audiences at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards the climax. The tension usually increases when a character is in a dangerous situation. The characters life is in danger because the character is usually unknowingly involved in a deadly plot. Thriller films usually take place in the suburbs/cities. However sometimes it can take place in exotic settings. The main characters are men but women leads has become increasingly common.

11/02/11

In this lesson we got a booklet of there will be blood written by Paul Thomas Anderson which included the:

• final shooting script
• production schedule
• opening sequence planning

First we annotated and talked about the shooting script of there will be blood. Then we filled out our production schedule opening sequence planning. While we were doing this we talked about our ideas and developed them. Then towards the end of the lesson we created our own script by using the script of there will be blood as an example. Also we received feedback form the questionnaires.