Evaluation: PART THREE - What impact did Film 4 have on each production stage and why?

This part of the evaluation is based around what impact Film 4 had on my production and why this impact was apparent. By displaying an exploration of pre-production, production and distribution, I have denoted exactly this. This Powerpoint can be seen below:

Evaluation: PART TWO - Whothe audience would be for my product

This is a video diary that my partner and I had filmed, written and edited together in order to depict who our audience are, why we chose them and how we reached their wants. The video can be seen below through an embedded YouTube link:

Evaluation PART ONE - The Brief

The image above is the brief that I was working towards. There were a few key points that I had to follow which were:

• The target audience were British 16 - 24 year olds
• I had to create the first two minutes of the film to show the graphical, editing and musical style of it
• Must conform to the conventions of the BSR genre
• Must meet all of the audience expectations for this film type
• All audio and visual material incorporated must be original

TITLE CONNTATIONS

The title of my production is called "Hit List". We decided to choose this title as a "hit list" is a list of people or things that are to be attacked or opposed, connoting that the film will present the theme of violence a lot. In the film, the main character Zakir results in getting involved in a couple of fights so that he can make sure that others are feeling the pain that he is feeling. He goes after a list of people, thus being a "hit list". As my research stated that they wanted to include violence, my title connotes exactly that due to it being about attacks on another person. I  also believe that my narrative would fit this title as it depicts how Zakir does exactly what I just stated; he gets involved in fight after fight in order to gain redemption.

Other than the violence theme, some may think that "Hit List" is about music. As a "hit" is referred to as a successful song in the music industry, the title could connote that an artist is producing a "list" of "hit" songs. As it is a BSR film, it may lead to some unfortunate things such as poverty. For example, the artist could be really successful and then he loses it and must live like a typical British person in the working class background. This may fit my narrative as my narrative depicts how Zakir goes through a rough patch due to the way that he is previously treated. This previous treatment may be his loss of success, thus resulting in him wanting everyone else around him to be of the same low success that he is in. The music storyline can be explained later on in the film where he speaks to Jenna, someone that becomes close to him.

Another connotation of our chosen title is that the "hit list" can be seen as a form of gambling. Someone may be putting their life on the line (a "hit") as they gamble against a "list" of different people. This can make the audience feel that the film may be quite intense as gambling is quite an intense thing to do. I believe that this would fit my narrative as again, he lives quite an upsetting life. The reason for his distraught feelings may be because he gambled and wants to make sure that everybody else feels his pain as well.

HOW I MET THE THEMES OF BSR

Poverty - I believe that I did meet the themes of British Social Realism as my opening sequence connotes a few of the themes that we see in a typical film of this genre. One example of my film using the BSR conventions is through the costume that Zakir is wearing at 1:22. This mise-en-scene convention meets the theme of poverty as it is quite a cheap product that can be bought somewhere like a market place. This connotes to the audience that this character is not the wealthiest person and it can meet their needs due to it presenting the themes that they would typically be interested in with a BSR film.

Violence - Another time where I feel we met the themes of a BSR film is when we connoted violence during Zakir's voiceover at 0:37. We felt that a way to increase suspension but still meet the theme of violence would be to have someone hint about it in a sly manner. We did not want him to immediately say that he would get involved into a lot of fights as this would feel as if the film was moving too fast. By him speaking about it instead, a sense of enigma was created, thus engaging the audience through keeping them thinking.

Loneliness - We also incorporated the theme of loneliness as at 0:42 Zakir was speaking about how he is "making the most of [life] no matter who [he brings] down". Here he hints at how he does not exactly have many people to rely on and how no matter what happens he will not feel bad about hurting those around him, because there is nobody around him. The audience would be quite fond of this as it is meeting a theme of BSR quite well due to it connoting it so soon during the production.

HOW IT SETS UP THE REST OF THE FILM

My opening sequence sets up the rest of the film through various aspects. One of these aspects is the big impact that the second scene holds on the sequence as a whole. From the calm atmosphere demonstrated through the library scene, a very intense piece of music starts to play at 0:46, which is when the more fast paced street scene occurs. This sets up the rest of the film to be quite an intense production as the shift in atmosphere is quite impactful, thus being particularly important in terms of representing the film as a whole. The audience can get an understanding of how the film in general is quite tense due to this one scene in the opening to be so big in terms of its entrance. 

This fast paced usage is also apparent in the film "Trainspotting". Here it denotes a man running from danger so that the tenseness of the entire film can be created. This film does have some very intense moments in it and it is anchored through its opening sequence. As this sequence creates the same atmosphere, it makes the audience members watching it understand how the rest of the film is bound to pan out. I have used this in my production for the same reason; I have incorporated a tense start so that the rest of the film can be depicted in the same manner.

The rest of the film is also set up by my opening sequence through the loneliness expressed from 0:18 to 0:42 where Zakir talks about how his "life sucks" and how he wants to get away from his current lifestyle. This theme of loneliness exemplifies just how the rest of the film will run; Zakir is alone and he wants to do something about it. He aims to make sure that others feel the way he does, but it ends up turning into him gaining new company. I believe that this sets it up quite well as the theme of loneliness is exemplified through more than just the sound. The mise-en-scene exemplifies it as there is nobody around him that he associates himself with, and he is typing on a laptop in a public area, something that he could do at his home, but that place may make him feel worse. 

This typing and hurtful representation is also incorporated in "Submarine" where Lloyd speaks about his parents and the girl that he likes. This showcases to the audience how lonely he feels and I believe that as his loneliness is depicted at the start of the film, the audience remember it throughout the entirety of the production. This is exactly why I included it in my opening sequence; as I wanted the lonely aspect to be remembered throughout the entire film, having it as one of the first things that my audience sees allows them to remember it more as it's the first introduction to the character that they get.

Overall, it is clear that the opening sequence theory has been identified so that the audience members can understand the intensity and loneliness that will be incorporated throughout the entire film. Also, the themes have been incorporated so early in the production so that the audience can have a general outline of what will happen.

Final Opening Sequence of "Hit List"

After weeks of clicking, moving, re-arranging and stress, my partner and I finally finished working on our final production of the opening sequence for "Hit List".  We took in the feedback from others and had incorporated it within our work. We were quite proud of our end result and look forward to presenting it to the class in the future.

Production Log NINE

This week was the final week in terms of production. With the deadline of the opening sequence approaching, it was quite a strenuous week in terms of packing in any last minute changes.

The first day consisted of my partner and I planning our week ahead. Once the planning was complete, we had resulted in making changes to our clips (lengths and different clips) and adding in a new voice over as we felt that the previous one did not express the anger of the character's current state well enough.

After the lesson was over, my partner and I had gone to Goodmayes Library after school and had re-shot the entire library scene from a range of different angles. When we had gone to the place, the area that we wanted was taken, so we decided to go to the brighter area next to the window. Due to it being so bright, I had to edit the brightness settings on the camera so that we could see the character more. This choice helped us get over the sight issue and allowed us to record the character in a better manner. I placed the camera in various places around the actor so that the audience could see different views of him and also because I wanted to include a range of shots. From side views to point of views, we aimed to get as many as possible. This enabled editing to flow with greater ease as we had a lot of choices to make if the designated shots did not work, which, was not an issue.


The name of the main character, Ben, was also changed this week. As the name did not suit the look of the character, we decided to name him Zakir as this is a name that is typically associated with the same ethnicity of the actor playing him.


We also decided to edit the order of the two scenes. We switched them both around as we felt that by having the library scene first it would be easier to denote the story to the audience. This also enabled the second scene to have a greater impact on the audience as it was much more clear as to what was happening due to it being explained previously. We also got to keep in the enigma as it is still unclear as to what the main character is actually doing, but the audience are aware that there is something suspicious.

The next few days consisted of my partner and I editing the credits and the production logos. A big problem we faced was the production company logo. As we did not save the PSD file, but only the JPG one, we could not edit the "S" out of "Concrete Corporations", so we had to find a similar font and work around that. This worked in our favour but it did not look as good as the other one did, as said by ourselves and other people. This taught us to always save work no matter how necessary the file is, as we may always need it in the coming future.

Another issue was that we realised that the typing format of the credits was not as impactful as it would of had been if it had quickly faded in and then faded out afterwards. With this in mind, we did not use the LiveType words, we decided to use the iMovie texts as it fitted in with the current scene much more.

After Thursday, our deadline, was over, we were then faced with watching other people's productions. During the hour and ten minutes, we only had time to watch a few pieces of work, but we realised that a lot of people had done quite a good job. We took notice of the special aspects that many of them used, such as dramatic moments, makeup and more and were quite impressed with the quality of our year group. We took in account what we could of had done and what would not have been suited with us and realised that we were quite pleased that we had minimal regrets. There were a few editing aspects and shots that we felt could of had been quite good such as the graphic match technique, but other than those we were quite happy with everyone's end result.

Call Sheet 4

Date & Time: Monday 15th April, 4:00pm
Location: Goodmayes Library + South Park
Storyboard Scenes Numbers: 22 + 26 - 35 
Cast: Muhamad Rahman
Props: Camera, Tripod, Monopod, Hoodie, Jeans, Trainers, Laptop
Reminders: Recording the entire scene again so the seat is not too important, just aim to have a table to yourself.

Production Log EIGHT

One thing we had done this week was edited the credits for our production. The initial aim for the production was to have a typing effect for the text, but at this point of the production, due to time limits, we have stuck to having the iMovie text and not the LiveType one. However, we aim to add in the LiveType effects afterwards as we believe that it is quite suited to the whole 'blog' aspect of the film due to it being of a typing format, as done with blogs.

Something else we did this week was focus on the music. Making the soundtrack for the production was quite a struggle at times as we wanted a piece of music that was both appropriate to the current task but still be copyright free. Whilst my partner and I were navigating around numerous websites to find the correct music, we had come up with an idea of creating the music ourselves. We used a friend of ours, Maninder Tack, to create the music whilst we sat down with him and guided him in the direction that we wanted the production to be in. We found that this was a success as it had added an impact on the definitive situation that the production was aiming to portray.

During our last lesson of the week, my partner and I had gotten the feedback for our draft and had the option to look at what we could change about our production. We took this opportunity and allowed ourselves to create a much greater sequence than we already had. From things like re-shooting certain shots to creating a different voice over, we aim to meet most, if not, all of the feedback that we have received. The feedback that we have is quite useful as we have now realised that our production has a lot more work than we expected and we can only look forward to adding the changes in the future.

Overall, I would say that this was quite a successful week for us as it had enabled us to understand that as well as doing things right, there were some things that we could improve on. Also, the entire title adding can be quite strenuous so we need to allocate a certain point to add in the LiveType credits. Nonetheless, the week was great and we look forward to editing our production further in the coming sessions.

"HIT LIST" Draft + Feedback

Getting feedback is a major part of production. My partner and I had presented to the class the work that we had been producing throughout the past couple of weeks. We had received a combination of things to improve on as well as aspects that we had done well in. Below is the first draft that we have made:

For every piece of work, feedback is always key in terms of improving it. By asking our class members their thoughts on it, we were able to produce a range of critical feedback on our production.

FEEDBACK #1

- Good Narrative

- Creates Enigma

- Too rough with camera work

RESPONSE: We will make attempts to the camera work by re-shooting the scenes that appear to be a little rough.

FEEDBACK #2

- Logo is suited

- Credits are good

- Continuity

- Main character looking about is quite effective

- Don't use the laptop, use an old computer instead

- Too much of the laptop is shown

- Difficult to establish the theme

RESPONSE: We wanted to have the character to be in a library as a way of making it seem as if his home life is not very good, and it is rare to find a library with "old computers". We will cut down on the laptop scene, as we will be showcasing a few screen recordings of what he is typing. The theme will be more apparent through the editing that we will do; we will make sure that the order of the shots hopefully establishes it better.

FEEDBACK #3

- Camera shots are quite good; you can tell that it's from his perspective

  

- Title is too big, try downsizing it and maybe not using black and white

RESPONSE: We will try to make the writing a little smaller. 

FEEDBACK #4

- Nice font

- Good range of shots

- We see the shot of what he is looking at after he looks away

RESPONSE: We shall edit that eyeline match during editing.

FEEDBACK #5 

- Too rough with the camera work

- Credits are quite good

- Some shots are good

- Improve the sound

- More camera angles

RESPONSE: We will make the music much for thrashing and use a few more pieces of camera angles.

FEEDBACK #6

- Good continuity

- Good font

- Effective voice over

- Good location

- Confused as to why there are some credits on the screen and some on the black backgrounds

- Shaky camera work

- He says "what anyone says" twice

RESPONSE: We wanted to highlight the more important people involved as well as separating the shots. We can make the shots less shaky when going back to recording, and we will record the voiceover again with a slightly different script.

FEEDBACK #7

- Good use of shots

- Good angles

- Better sound needed at the beginning

RESPONSE: We will make the sound much more thrashing so it showcases the violence greater.