Evaluation answering (question 2)

How does your media product represent particular social group?

• What types of people (age/race/gender/religion/ethnicity/culture) are represented in your film and how do you feel this affects your film and your audiences' reaction to it
• How and Why did you represent these social groups?

In our film, we have a young victim and a middle aged criminal.

The victim:
It is a male young adult, who had a nice time in the pub in the evening and is making his way home. He is a normal, average workman and on the other hand a victim, which he does not know. This is what nowadays no one can now, especially when you are relatively young.
In the film, you can see it due to his clothes, which show that he is young and male. Furthermore you can see that due to he was in the pub in the evening and he lights his cigarette, which is not illegal in this age. He is also self confident, because he is doing his way home on his own and you can clearly see that it is dark and scary. Of course he does not expect that he might be murdered.

The criminal:
He is in an average age ( between 25-40) and he is male. He does know that he is a killer and planned his act before. He has a long coat and boots and a knife. The knife of course does not show that he is an average man, but in this case it shows danger and that he is going to do something. He also spent his time at the pub. 

The affect on the audience:
The audience does actually get scared and sure about the fact, that the video they are watching is a thriller opening scene. So they get what they actually expect. In order to the chosen persons, they will see that a young, inexperienced workman had a nice time after a work day and is spending the evening in the pub to end the day. On the other hand the criminal is scary, you can't see his face and has a long coat. So they do already feel that there is something wrong about the whole situation. So tehy follow the action until they see the scene with the knife, which lets discover their predictions. So the persons represent the thriller and the type of thriller also shows how the people are.

We represented this group, because any young guys could get into such a situation. But actually it does not matter how old he is due to the fact that everyone could be stabbed or killed. But we took this young guy, because we are still young and wanted to represent that into the thriller. We wanted the criminal to be older due to the fact that young people do not murder just like that. You can see and feel that he was planning this and wanted to kill this exact person.

Evaluation (qu. 7)

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

How did the preliminary task prepare you for the creation of your film? What did you learn about the equipment software and from the creative process? How did your knowledge affect your perception of the main task? Were you excited? Uncertain? Do you feel the preliminary task was beneficial in preparation for the short film?

The preliminary task was hold quite simple and just a clip of about 12 shots. We have of course not taken it that seriously as the main video we had to do. We have taken about an hour and a half to make the preliminary task, whereas the main video took about 1 month and a half. So the preliminary task mainly prepared us in terms of using the editing program Final Cut Pro.
Therefore in comparison to the main product we had to think of the story, get used to the camera and learn filming. The problem there was that of course it was our first time making a video. Therefore the filming at the beginning was not that good and we had to refilm a lot in terms of darkness or facial expressions. In terms of the preliminary task we only had to film couple of scenes and cut them together, which of course was fun, but was actually compared to the final video pretty bad.
Our own knowledge got influence not in terms of the software, but in terms of the individual skills in filming, acting or thinking of the story. The good thing was that we both had actually the same ideas of the thriller, which means we both thought of something scary and dark murder scene. Furthermore we had to adapt the story on our possibilities given, like we had to use the location around the school. So our own knowledge and individual class.

I have answered the question mainly but not completely, because we decided spontaneously that we will make a mind map on a big sheet of paper with away of progression shown on it and the way we have developed.

Evaluation answering (question 6)

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

Discuss in detail all the different forms of media you have used throughout your coursework and how this has affected and influenced your understanding to different forms of media technologies.
This can include:

• The filming equipment ( cameras, Tripod, etc.)
• The editing software - Final Cut Pro
• Other software: In design, PowerPoint, Word, Motion, Garage band, etc.
• Your blog and everything that entailed to create and maintain it.
• YouTube, other videos (The Art of Titles), copyright free music, etc. 

For this question we have done a presentation on prezi.com. We will record the presentation and will furthermore answer the question by audio on top of the video presentation. 

Evaluation

Today we have started to answer the questions of the evaluation. Due to the wide question, there is a lot to answer and therefore it will take a long time to answer them all and in a good way. I will continue on answering the questions this evening.

Finished the video

We have finished all our work on the video now. It is called DARK VENGEANCE and is a thriller opening scene for our AS-LEVELS. 
We now will start to make the evaluation, which is answering 7 questions and present them in 7 different media forms. So we will answer the questions and afterwards we will think of the media form and finally will make it.

Titles

We have thought of all the titles and have made them now. The words are glowing and like under electricity in order to make it scary. 
When we edited it into the sequence/ clip there was one problem. The music fitted perfectly without titles and when we put the titles into it, the music of course did not fit anymore. Therefore we had to sit down again and make it fit, which we successfully did. 
We also edited some special sounds, like the lighter or the sounds when the victim falls to ground. Of course the heartbeat is imported as well.

The music

The music is now finished and does actually fit perfectly. We only had one problem which we fixed, which was that the music was a bit too long. But we have cut it in final cut and in garageband that it fits perfectly. 

editing the clip

We have edited the clip into the perfect sequence we want to have it. Now it is only on making the music fit perfectly and making the titles.

Refilming a scene

Yesterday evening, florian and me went out and down to the pub to refilm a scene.

 

In this scene the victim, me, is turning around and seeing the criminal running towards him. In the first filming session, this clip was way to dark, so you could not see any facial expressions, which are very important in this situation. 

Furthermore we filmed some

scenes for the end, like the falling over of the victim from 3 different angles.

We also did a point of view shot from the victim after the tripping. And after that we filmed the shadow of the criminal for the final scene.

Here is again our location

Editing in Final Cut Pro

Today i have started to set and cut the scenes together to mak it to one single film. Of course it is just placed after each other and is not perfect. That is what we will use the other lessons for.

Editing with the clips

We have just started the editing. We were putting all the clips into the program, which a while, because we did about 50 clips. Then we have renamed them all to that name, what the shot or clip is presenting.

While we renamed it we also started sorting out which videos are suitable and which ones we do not need. We also thought about which scenes we will put after each other and which ones might replace the others if they don't fit perfectly as we want it to. 

Filming on 26.02

This evening we started filming, there we have done all the scenes outside the pub. So mainly the part from the middle to the end. Furthermore the lightning and the scenery was perfectly. It was as dark as i wanted it to be and there where we filmed it was like we thought it will be. We have done every scene about 3 or 4 times and we have done additional shots, where we changed mainly the angle and the direction of the shots. So we were quite happy about the process we did today. 
So tomorrow we will start editing it and do all this stuff.

Preparation for Filming today

This todays lesson we organized and planned our filming in the evening.





Planning:

• So we will film all the scenes outside the pub and we will then already ask for the permission for using the pub this weekend. 
• Furthermore we planned the exact looking and playing of the actors. Therefore Max Thiele will be the criminal and he will wear boots and a long black coat with a hood. Me, the victim will be dressed with a grey hoody, jeans and a coat (maybe something else to wear over the hoody).
• We will film from 6-7 in the evening, because we have dinner until 6 o'clock and we have to be back until 7. Therefore we will try to get as much shots and videos as possible, but they should still be quality and real.

Practising our shots

Today we practiced our single shots in the classroom without the real location that we have a rough knowledge how to film every single scene and how to film it that we have enough of every scene. I mean that if we cut it to the final film there must be enough afterwards as well. Furthermore we discussed how everyone has to react in every scene that we do not have to do it again.
So if you have seen our storybook, we have especially practiced the scenes where we will have to use the zoom or where the camera is moving.

If you see number 2 or 3. We tried these ones to 
make it look real and with a good camera movement. The case is, that we can't use real alcohol, so we have to make it up somehow, like apple juice etc. We will use cigarettes, but only for the scene where the victim steps onto it.

Here, we have done the scene 11, 12 and 13. Especially 11, because it is a very special and important scene, where everything has to be perfectly connected, when we cut it and film it.   

Filming

Filming

So we will start filming next week on Tuesday, the 26.02.13, because there we will be back at school and will be able to get the camera and the equipment. The first things we will film, will be the bit which will take part outside the pub, because when we want to do the part in the pub, we want to have a nice surrounding with people be seated and talking  and laughing etc. Therefore we will have to film in the evening, when it is dark outside. We will also have to get the permission forms filled in. When we started filming, we always will dealing with the short videos and we will already cut it together and make the music fitting perfectly.

These are our plans for the next week.

Script

Script apposite the Storybook

I will tell you now a bit about Florian's and my Script for the thriller. 

We did the Storyboard already from the first draw to the final version. 

- a important detail is that between each shot will be a complete black screen.

Florian's Blog: http://florianberberichasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/

Rough first draw:  http://marcellexasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/

Final Version:  http://marcellexasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/

1)
 1 Shot: There will  be a close-up on a beer which stands on a table. The camera will be focused on that beer and you see some blurry people in the background. A hand will crap the beer, but the camera will remain on the place where the drink was before.

2)
 2 Shot:  The next shot is a wide establishing shot or long shot. This helps us to show the flair and mood of the pub and the funny and hilarous night with his friends. So youare going to see the victim with his mates and they bump their pints in the air. So you see in the foreground the victim with his friends and in the backround the other people in the pub. So the aim is to show the good mood and humour in this moment.

3)
 3 Shot: The third shot will follow the arm of the victim, when he is going to lift the pint up to his mouth from the table. We are not sure yet, maybe we are going to use a over the shoulder to film this shot, so you can see how he lifts the beer to his mouth. The other options are we place the camera on the table and lift the camera a bit from the table to follow the movement, this would be a worms-eye-view.

4)
4 Shot: This should is another really short shot, which shows empty glasses. So the audience could conclude from this shot that the friends are ready to leave the pub.

5)
 5 Shot: The fifth shot is focused on the victim as he leaves the table and graps his cigarettes, which were placed on the table for the whole time. This fifth scene could include two shots. Firstly the victim stands-up and secondly a close-up on the cigarette box. So the camera will follow the dissappearance of the victim to have a fag.

6) 
6 Shot: This shot is focused on the handshake of the victim and his friends, because he is going to leave. So he shakes their hands. This could include a close-up on the hands or a long-shot to show the whole scenery.

7)
 7 Shot: This is a very special shot, because it follow the victim throw the opub as he leaves through the door and is at the outside of the pub. But the camera just stay´s inside and  follows the victim throw the window at the outside of the pub. The audience is able to see that the victim meets other smokers and he is asking for a lighter.

8) 
8 Shot: In this shot the second main character come´s on the screen, but you don´t see his face, because it is hided behind the hood of his sweatshirt. You clearly see in this scene that the criminal lights the cigarette of the victim. The are obviously talking to each other and the victim is grateful for the favour.

9)
9 Shot: Close-up on the victims head during he´s smoking he is still quite relaxed and dosen´t expect anything in this scene. 

10) 
10 Shot: In this shot the victim leaves the pub. We are going to use a over the shoulder from the perspective of the criminal, when the victim walks the street along. And he throw´s his cigarette away in this shot, as well.

11) 
11 Shot: This shot shows then a close-up on the cigarette on the ground. And the criminal steps on the cigarette and squahs and crush the cigarette on the ground. This should be a synonym for the victim, so the audience should know now that the criminal dosen´t really wants the best for the victim.

12)
 12 Shot: This is a over the shoulder again on the victim, which is walking away from the pub.

13)
 13 Shot: This is a close up on the pocket of the criminal, as he puts a knife out of his pocket. If we are able to realize that, we will show the victim really blurry in the background.

14) 
 14 Shot: Then the victim stops and turns around, you see the knife or blade, which holds the criminal in his hand. So it is a kind of shot-reverse-shot and you see the fear in the eyes of the victim and then the camera goes back to the criminal and show him smiling.

15)
 15 Shot: Now the camera is focused on the criminal. The shot, which is used in this scene is a over-the-shoulder from the victim. The criminal just starts to run in the direction of the the victim, with the knife in his hand so it is obviously for the V that it´s going to be dangerous for him in a few seconds. The soundtrack will fit perfectly to this scene.

16) 
16 Shot:  In this short shot you see a close-up on the shoes of the victim. Then they turn around and starting to run in the oppesite direction. Consequently, away from the criminal.

17) 
17 Shot: The Camera stay´s in the same position as the in Shot 16 and just wait until the shoes of the criminal passes the camera, so the same position, where the victim stood a few sec´s ago. After the C passed the camera it moves to the right and shows both person running. The V runs for his life.

This is the end of the opening scene.

New Music

Soundtack

I now have finished the music, it only has to be fixed together with the video. But we still don't have the video therefore the length is not right yet. We will still change is so. Don't worry, at the beginning, there is only a crowd sound due to the beginning of our film, because it will only be inside the pub. Then it will change and in my opinion it is quite good. It will fit perfectly into our thriller.
So here is the sound i have done now:

Music

I have played a bit with Garageband and i think this will take me quite a long time to make it, because it takes ages to get the right beats. So before o tried to make and just play a bit, i have been watching some opening scenes on "The Art of Title" to get a bit of knowledge what i have to do. Of course i have watched thriller opening scenes, because ours should be scary and the music affects that a lot. 

So thats what i have tries so far:




I have also watched some tutorials on Youtube to learn more how to make a good song for a thriller.

The Actors and their role in the film

The Actors and their particular role in the film

• The Criminal will be played by Max Thiele.
• The Victim will be played by myself.
• The other two actors in the pub scene will be played by two other students of Aldenham School, which are Moritz Floschuetz and Simon Schwarz.
• Filming will be done by Florian Berberich and myself.

The two different additional actors can still change, because we do not need especially these two. So in the final version you will find out who it will be due to the titles.

The Characters

The Characters

1. The Victim:

The victim will be a male character and in the age about 18. He will be dressed normally, so with jeans and hoody. If he leaves the pub.


2. The Criminal:  

He will be a male persons and he will wear normal clothes too. But he will wear bright shoes and a hoody that therefore you will never be able to see his face.


3. The friends of the victim: 

There will be two more male persons in the pub, which will be sat around the table to have a drink with the victim and they will be around the same age as the victim. 

Permission Form Actor

PERMISSON FORM Actor's

For our film, we need to get permission from our actors to ensure that we can use them in our film.  I shall be giving these out in the next few days - probably only to 2 actors, as our main character is a boy; the other actor will be a boy, as well,  who will be used as the criminal, but you will never see his face.  The permission form looks like this:



Permisson Form                                       Date XX/YY/ZZZZ



I, ____________________________________________, agree to take part and

allow for public viewings of Marcel Lex and Florian Berberich's Media Studies

Thriller film.  They may post their Thriller on their blogs.

Signed: _______________________________________

The person has to sign on the red marked lines.

Permission Form Pub

PERMISSON FORM Locations

We need to do a Permission form for the location we use, as well. We are only use one private location, which is the " The Three Horse Shoes". All our other locations are public streets or parks, so wee don't need a permission form.




Permisson Form                                 Date XX/YY/ZZZZ
I, ____________________________________________, agree to allow the Aldenham students, Marcel and Florian to use the Pub "Three Horse Shoes" as location for their AS Thriller video.

Owner of the Pub,

Signed: _______________________________________

The GREEN area's need to be signed by the owner/s of the Pub. 

Next Posts

Our next posts will be:

• The characters
• The actors 
• The actors playing in every single scene with exact details
• Permissionform for the pub  "The Three Horses"
• Permissionform for the actors
• Title making 
• Soundtrack and music

I will not post them all after each other, so the order might be not the right.

Location

Our opening scene will be a pub, which will probably be in the village Letchmore Heath. There is a pub called "The Three Horses", but we still firstly have to talk to the owner and ask for the permission.

So actually the first five seens will be made inside of the pub. There we will need a table and some glasses and a nice environment. The rest will be placed outside around the pub. There in the evening, the light is dark and there are not many street lamps. So it does actually fit very good into our plans and the story.

 

This is the outside of the pub. In the story, the victim will leave the pub through the entrance and the victim will stand on the outside, smoking a cigarette and then light the victims cigarette. He then will leave to the right  and it will be evening and dark.

Here you can see the main and actual location. In the background, there is the pub and on the right is the street, the victim will leave. As you can see there are not many street lamps, therefore it will be dark, which is perfect for our opening scene.

Final Storybook

You have hopefully seen our first storybook in the post before. That means that you probably know that it was just a rough drawing with some notes and therefore I took my time the last day and drawn everything again and rewrote it a bit.
So we did then a final storyboard with proper drawings and good explanations for each shot. It visually tells the story of the animation panel by panel, kind of like a comic book. It tells something about what characters are in the frame, and how are they moving, what are the characters doing, where the “camera” is in the scene – close or far away. Furthermore there will be a black screen within every scene to show the titles. But they might be not in every black screen, we are not sure about that yet. The other shots are not just shots which are foccused on the action or props, there will be camera movement as well. So the storyboard shows an overview of the different shots and the action in this shot. From time to time, there will always be some changes, but in generally this is our story.
Creating a storyboard helped me to plan our animation out shot by shot. 
And: a storyboard is very helpful to get feedback.

1)
2)
3)


4)


5)


The whole scene will take place in the evening to ensure the dark and scary side of the thriller. That means for us that we have to film in the evening as well.

DRAFTS Storybook

We have drawn our storybook once now. It was just a first drawing of the rough story so this book is not done that good. We will do a second one, but firstly i will present you our first storybook.

1) These are the first four shots with the plot


2)

3)


4)


5)


Drawn and made by Florian Berberich and Marcel Lex.

Preliminary task

Preliminary Task

The preliminary task was made of 11 shots we had to film in different videos and then we had to edit them into one single film. So the 11 shots were:

1) Is a Long Shot

2) There is then a CUT to a Close Up.

3) There is a CUT to, a Medium Long Shot.
4) There is a CUT to a Medium Shot.

5) The next CUT is to a 2-Shot, Long Shot of the 2 people in the  room.
6) CUT to Over Shoulder / Medium Close up + dialogue

7) CUT to an Over Shoulder.

8) CUT to the original Over Shoulder shot.
9) CUT back to the 2nd Over Shoulder shot.
10) CUT back to the original Over Shoulder shot.
11) CUT back to the 2nd Over Shoulder shot.  Fade out, and end.

Long Shot is a camera shot that typically shows the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surroundings.

Cut obviously means that the scene switches between two different videos, edited together.

Close up is a shot that tightly frames a person or an object.

Medium Shot is a shot from a medium distance.

2-Shot is a shot where the frame encompasses a view of two people.

Over Shoulder is a shot of someone or something taken from the perspective or camera angle from the shoulder of another person.

Fade Out a cinematographic technique causing the picture to darken and disappear.

The following clip is my preliminary task. I did it

with two other students of the AS media course in my school. We did this on a Saturday in about an hour and a half. Therefore

obviously it is not the best video, but for the first try it is already quite good i think. Furthermore we students are not actors and therefore our roles are played very badly. So we learned how to deal with the camera and the equipment we are provided. Furthermore we learned how to edit all the short videos into one single extract.

(definitions were copied by Wikipedia)

Titeling Research ||

I have watched opening scenes and have analysed the order of the titles in this extracts. So here i am going to show you the order of the opening scene of "Quantum of Solace".

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/quantum-of-solace/

 

As you can see, in popular and well known films, there are so many people which take part. So therefore there will me much more titles in the opening scene. In this opening scene the titles appeare around every 5 seconds.

Titleling Research

I have watched opening scenes and have analysed the order of the titles in this extracts. So here i am going to show you the order of the opening scene of "Smokin Aces".

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/smokin-aces/

In this extract, the time between each title is about 4-5 seconds.

Films or Videos that gave me better Ideas

The Ideas of my thriller are not really influenced by any films or videos. I actually thought about one clear idea already, when i got to know that i have to do a thriller video. But there are still some films, which i like a lot and which could help me in making my thriller scene. So as i already posted the rough idea of my thriller, you can see that it is more the direction of suspense. Therefore i thought about films, which deal with the same kind and roughly the same story.

I have watched Simon Schwarz psycho thriller. He is a Year 13 student at Aldenham and he did his Video last Year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xul9PDwpWlg