MEDIA EVALUATION

Changes made to storyline and title

Through talks with our teacher examining the rough cuts of our opening we found that our original storyline didn't really hold. The old and young man didn't look similar enough for them to conceivably be the same person. This changed the whole of our original  premise. However we discussed what was feasible considering the opening is 95% done and came up with the idea that the young soldier is the old man's best friend who died in the war. This would explain the PTSD and the flashbacks he was having, and would explain away how different the characters looked. Because of this we wouldn't keep the names we were playing around with as they all centred around the idea that the two characters were the same person (e.g. a War on Two Fronts). We came up with a couple of names to fit the bill including for example guilt and corrupt memory but eventually through lots of group discussions settled on 'Conscience'. We like this title as it incorporates the guilt, and flashbacks and eludes and creates suspicion in regards to the rest of the film. 

Credit to Mariella.

Our Media Vlog

Instead of writing one massive post on what all of us done individually everytime, we decided that we would vlog our experience of filming and that making of putting it all together. Throughout the vlog it is shown what problems we encountered, how we dealt with the problems, what went well and so on. Due to the blog being so long as it was filmed everyday George made markers where each day is.

Conscience Final Film Opening

Survey: Audiences Responce

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DG7NVMC

This a survey we made once we finish our film opening, so that we can get an effective and easy memorized response as if we to make a paper based copy most people would not fill it out as well as it would prolong the process of the working out the results. The questions that we have included in the survey are what are group best think will give us the most relevant feedback that we need. We will then analyse the results once a good amount of people have watched our opening and stated their opinion of it.

Full Cast Roles

Crew
Director -  George Turner
Editor - George Turner
Cinematographer - Mariella Devoil
Producer - Mariella Devoil
Assistant Director - Mariella Devoil
Production Manager - Katy Ward
Art Director - Katy Ward

Hair & Makeup - Mariella Devoil & Mellisa Askew
Costume - Katy Ward
Props - Mariella Devoil
Researcher - Katy Ward
Location Scout - Katy Ward
Location Help - Donald & Sheila Turner
Catering - Sheila Turner

Runners / Assistants -
Louise Tomas
Katherine Packer
Shawnean Milton

Special Thanks - Simon Ford & Kate Brown & The Post Man

Cast 
Old Man - Frazer Camp
Young Soldier - George Turner
Stunt Man - Ed Cummings

Credit To Mariella Devoil

Semi Final Cut and Improvements Needed To Be Made

Text change to white not green

'Producer and Cinematographer - Mariella Devoil'

Change title

Make up production companies due to Lionsgate Copyright issues

Smaller/ Subtler names

Consistent placement of names in the bottom left hand corner

more of a match on action on Frazer on the water scene

Include the bucket shot?

'Set team' take this out  - too ammeter

Names don't need to be true

Include surnames

Aspect Ratio change?

Credit To Mariella Devoil

We also need to get rid of Set Team and Location Managers, as well as everyone who is credited needs their full name one screen as it makes it look amateur and unprofessional.

Actor Profile (Young Persona)

Name: George Turner
Age:17
Occupation: Lower Sixth, Media and Drama Student
Previous Roles: School Productions and Youtuber

Firstly, we decided to pick Ed Cummings to be are actor to start with however as his free time did not match up when we wanted to film, it would have prolonged are filming. Therefore, we decided we would have George as the younger persona due to him having to be there as he is part of our group resulting in no timing problems. However, as George was our camera man and was then therefore becoming an actor Mariella and I then had to take turns with the camera once he was on screen. Overall this was the best possible way we could of dealt with the actor problem and we are happy with our outcome of shots.

Third Rough Cut And Improvements Needed To Be Made

Shot of Frazer looking out the window is still too long.

Sound compression is off, sound effects too loud, backing track too quiet.

At the beginning the gun sound effects should start quiet and then start getting louder leading to an explosion, therefore him reacting in waking up.

George and Mariella's credits need to be added.

Film Industries need to be included at the start.

Personally, i don't like the sound of the tap before if comes on screen as it makes the footage look delayed.

The drowning sequence needs to still include the bucket clip which was included in our last demo instead of him being drowned from two different angles. 

Still need audio to make him look out of the window.

Improvements That Need To Be Made To Our First Representation

Need a production sequence

Better pacing at the beginning

More shot variety of Frazer when waking up

More intercutting - so the audience know right away that he has PTSD 

No Soundtrack

POV shot of washing the hands

Slower cuts from bucket to tap to engage the audience more 

Motivation of movement

Need typography

Hold the flashback and forward shots for an extra second each - the audience is too confused - the cut backs are too quick

Frazers reaction to the flashback in the mirror/s

Inc a shot of the house not exploded

Inc a sound that makes Frazer want to look out of the window

Frazer looks out of the window for 3 seconds too long - more consistency in lengths of shots

The pacing lacks any consistency 

More high / low / canted / distance - more shot variation when Frazer is waking up

Clue to what why Frazer is having a nightmare at the beginning 

Needs more engagement of the character, so that the audience have a good understanding of the story line 

Credit to Mariella, i have edited slightly

Test Shots

Our test shots were purely to test our camera, location and our actor. Our actor was now able to experience the character on set for the first time after we had run through what we wanted. We discovered that our shots that involved camera movement would take a lot longer because we didn't have access to a dolly track or any stabilization equipment. This then lead to us having to use the tripod as fly cam tool. The problem with this is that it takes a lot of body movement to bring the camera down from the light, which creates the shaky camera. However the tracking shot from behind (mimicking a dolly shot) surprisingly worked well except for the framing where the head is cut off. Our lighting was poor in these shots due to us not having our lighting equipment.

Credit To George Turner

Props

Today during our single lesson we brought the spray paint as well as the props in as we wanted to make sure they looked authentic and fitted in with the theme of our film. Therefore we used a hammer and made dents into the bucket so that it would look old/used, Mariella then added primer/silver and black spray paint to add effect to the look, as the paint was wet she used other material to make the bucket look scratched/misused.

Then to go into the transformation of the gun, it started off as orange however George decided that he wanted parts to look like wood and the rest to be black so we decided to cover the wood bits up with marking tape as we sprayed it, we both contributed to painting the gun and after it was sprayed we added some silver bits of acrylic paint which we mixed up with black to make it darker to make it look even more authentic, this was are final outcome and process.

The last prop in which we improved today was the sack which will possibly go over are actor head (undecided due to safety hazards), we cut it in half as it would be too big on top of his head otherwise and then added black and green both light and dark to make it look as if it has been used giving it more authenticity.

Location-Old People's Home

The location for our protagonists house was originally my house. However we soon came to realise that my house, although old was filled with lots of modern technology that we believed someone from the older generation wouldn't have. To overcome this we researched a care home instead. However we thought that it would take to long to get into contact with them and would be inconvenient if we needed to reshoot. 

To overcome this we decided that instead of the care home we looked at other houses belonging to the older generation (grandparents). The decision we made was that our group would film In my grandparents living room and either  have to change the setting of our scene to the living room or have our character go downstairs. 

The reason we chose this location is because it's a genuine elderly persons home, which allows the film opening to become more real and believable for the audience. 

Credit to George Turner.

Shot List For Our Opening

Scene 1
1. extreme close up- shifty eyes
2. medium shot, movement shot - young soldier running
3. medium shot, low angle, still - young soldier running
4. wide angle shot, still- soldier jumping down
5. close up, still - young soldier's face on the ground
Scene 2
6. close up, still, match on action ^ - old mans face
7. wide shot, still/ dolly movement - old man sits up
8. extreme close up, still - water rushing out of a tap
9. extreme close up, still, match on action ^ - water rushing out of an old hose pipe
10. mid shot, still - pipe pouring water in to a rusted bucket
11. close up, high angle, still - old man splashes his face with water
12. close up, still, - [i have no idea whats going on in this shot]
13. close up, still, camera faces vertically upwards, match on action ^ -  young mans face shoved and held in water. N/B camera will need to be in the water
14. close up, still - old mans hand gripping the basin
Scene 3
15. wide shot, dolly movement/still - old man walking his dog
16. medium shot, pan up - old man looks up (camera follows his gaze)
17. medium shot, pan down, match on action ^ - young man looks down (camera follows his gaze)
18. close up, still - barrel of gun, being shot, mussel flash
19. close up, tracking movement, match on action ^- lit match to a candle/ light bulb
Scene 4
20. medium shot, still - old man lights a candle out of shot (if light bulb this shot is not nessesary)
21. medium close up, over shoulder, dolly forward movement - old man looks out of the window
22. close up, still - old man's face curios/ knows somethings wrong
23. wide shot, still - though window you see the house opposite explode
24. mid shot, still - flashes between young and old man being horrified and scared
24. mid shot, still  - flashes between old and young man being horrified and scared
25. mid shot, tracking movement - young man stumbles backwards
26. wide shot, still - back to house, now in smoke and still aflame
27. mid shot, still - old man falls into wheel chair
28. extreme close up, still - belts wrap around the old mans hands and hold him there, struggeling
29. mid shot, low angel tilt, still/ movement - young man in wheel chair freaking out
Scene 5
30. close up, still - belt strap becomes hand of carer
31. wide shot, tracking movement, over the shoulder - over young solider shoulder shows old man with a carer and another person
32. mid shot, still - young solider looking worried, watching
33. wide shot, still, over the shoulder - young soldier moves out of shot, old man's eyes following
34. wide shot, dolly movement (out) -  slowly moving out, young solider walks half into shot and places his hand on the old mans shoulder. "child, its time I told you my story" : old man.
35. Cut to black. Name of film appears, then fades out.


N/B every shot that is of the young man will be shot handheld, and every shot of the old man will be shot on tripod. This is so the audience are part of the young man's battle, therefore they will empathize with him more. 

35 shots
5 scenes
2.5 ish mins
150 ish seconds

Credit to Mariella

Copyright

What is copyright and why is is important?

It is a legal right made by the government as part of the law to the country. It benefits the creator of any original work with exclusive rights in which that they have the control over the work by use and distribution with all intentions of enabling the creator of whatever work is specified for normally a limited amount of time. It is property ownership in intellectual form applicable to any sort of original work. It is most seen to be used within multiple authors which each of them hold set of rights to use or license the work in which ever they wish to do so, these people are use referred to as the "rightholders". The rights in which they have access to is repoduction, distribution, public performance and moral rights such as attribution.

Brainstorm

 

This is our Brainstorm of names in which we created on what we could possibly name our film.As of yet we have not picked a final name from the brainstorm but we have highlighted the certain names that we are peering towards. When we in the process of making names we wanted to consider it to link to the experience that our persona has been through as well as the psychological war that is in his head and will always be a part of him.

Credit to George Turner

From all of these names that we have so far, the ones that I am most leaning towards for the final title is out of these:

• Internal War
• Lost Identity
• System Of The Corrupted
• D.T.S.P

Vogue Research

Who Owns Vogue?

Conde Montrose Nast brought Vogue in 1905, however then died on September 19th 1942 once this has happened Anna Wintour took over.

What Else Do They Publish?

Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Dress, House And Garden, Travel, Merchants, Manufacturers and Journal.

In What Way Do They Use Diagonal Expansion? 

• Website
• Multiple Blogs
• Monthly Magazine
• Events such as runways; Fashion shows, Pageant such as 'Miss Vogue'
• Trends therefore making including Celebrity endorsement
• Shops which include Merchandise
• Video Channel
• News reports
• Teen Vogue- A Magazine aimed at a younger audience
• Voguepedia
• Special Edition Books

How Do They Use Horizontal Expansion?

• Frank Crowninshield is their editor who recommended for the company to cover Theator, Art, Literature and Sport as well as Fashion as this had never been done before in any other magazine creating an original new idea.
• Photographers argued that the images that were going to be used by the company had to be more 'realistic'.

How Does They Use Intertextuality?

• Vogue Talent Contest
• 'Vogue On' which are Special Editions in book form
• Vogue Recommendations
• Vogue Festivals which is in association with Harrods
• Promotions such as purchase 10 issues and get a free gift
• Vogue Arts
• Vogue Spy
• Vogues Website
• Vogue Notices
• Promotes other companies in their ownership- Vanity Fair £3 for 3 issues

Additional Information

Audience: 87% Female, 13% Male.

Online Audience: 1.6 Million

Magazine Audience: 11.3 Million
Google+ Audience: 221, 520 Followers and on going

The Company crashed during the Great Depression and World War 2

Actor Profile

Name: Frazer Camp
Age: 16/17
Occupation: AS
Previous Roles: School Productions

The reason behind our choice in Frazer being in our actor for our film is for the reason in which that he has experience within drama, therefore acting due to him starring in many past school productions as well as drama exams. The role in which we have set him for our movie-tailed is having him to play both the part of the older man and younger man, so that both our persona's will look the same as they should be and not have too much differences. As well as it would be hard to schedule with two actors as they both may not be able to have the same free time as one another, therefore we have more reliability than hiring an old man. This then leads onto why we chose him specifically as we chose him for his bone structure as odd as it may seem we can imagine our actor as an older character such as our persona. This was highly important to us as we need to sell the illusion of him being an older character to the audience, that he was older within the modern world and a younger persona within the time our war is set- World War II. To show that our actor had the potential to be an older character as well as a younger persona, we made him face the sun so that he would squint therefore making him to seem older than he is. As a group we are highly pleased with our actor and are confident that he will pull the role off perfectly.

Credit to George Turner

Typography Practice

As George is are main editor he thought as a group it would be best to practice typography before we had even shot the film as we could develop an understanding and skill with it. The reason in which we decided this is because George wants to be able to achieve what ever affect we desire to have as part of our film, without wasting alternative time trying to learn how to edit it.

Within the final title screen, George felt that for a first attempt it was not as bad as he thought it would be because it was in time with the non-diegetic soundtrack in the background as it came in and out without any jump cuts or bad editing. However we thought that we could have used/tried out a variety of texts to see if certain words stood out and whether not it was effective.

To make these clips, George was going to use after effects however it began to crash so he took he longer route of using the final cuts and built them in motion software.

The first thing in which George had to do to make this effective was to cut out his brother Joe, which he was supposed to use a mask for in after effects however due to it crashing he decided to adjust it in photoshop using a freeze frame from the video.

He then had to add text. He spent around 40 minutes looking through texts as he wanted to choose one that would look right and fitted into the right theme of the genre of film that he had made. Before he chose the text that he initially used he tried western fonts as he thought that the title screen could be similar to 'The good, the bad and the ugly' due to the use of red. However he went down another route and looked into more modern texts.

To add some depth into the title sequence, George used a grunge background to have a freeze frame on. The next thing in which he added to it to create effect was the smoke, in which he got the idea from an earlier film poster which he made for this film. The text then had to be made so that they would interact with each other, which took up a lot of time due to George having to keep using key frames.

Credit to George Turner

Searching For Props

After talking to Mr. Ford about our props the other day we decided to see what school resources we could use in our short film. The first prop in which we decided to search for was the wheel chair, therefore we went to the medical room and asked the nurse if it would be possible for us to borrow the wheel chair, in which she responded to agree as long as she knows where we are with the wheelchair due to incase of an emergency and she needs it back immediately. Due to the wheelchair being a success we moved to our next prop of the World War II helmet which we decided we would search for up in the art department, we went into the cupboard where all the ornaments are kept and asked Delaxie if it was okay for us to borrow the helmet which she responded to agree as well as we saw an old fashioned bucket with she also allowed us to take when needed. However as the hat had minor adjustments made to it by other student we then asked if it was okay to fix the helmet back to how it was for this we had to ask for an art teachers promission so we asked Miss Crow Stewart who was more than happy for us to reconstruct it back to how it was. Therefore I then mixed up some paint until it nearly matched the colour it was and painted over the top of what was already on the helmet, we took some pictures in the process and this was our outcome.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Research

The reason in which we decided into researching Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is for the reason that our persona will be suffering from it. Therefore we did not want to start filming or make assumptions on how they would act without even going into any research.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or a shorter term PTSD is an anxiety disorder that is caused due to stressful, frightening or distressing events which have happened within someones past. Events that can lead to a disorder such as this are:

• Road Accidents.
• Violent, sudden personal assaults such as sexual abuse, mugging or a robbery.
• Consistant sexual abuse, violence or severe neglect.
• Witnessing murders/deaths.
• Military combat.
• Being held hostage.
• Witnessing terrorist attacks such as 911.
• Natural disasters such as earthquakes or tsunamis.

It can be developed immediately after an experiencing an event of such as the above or it can occur weeks, months or years after the event. It develops in about 1 out of 3 people who experience severe trauma which cannot be explained why some people experience it and some people can go without it.

People with PTSD their brain has parts involved in emotional processing appear different in brain scans. One part of the brain is responsible for the memory and emotions that us as humans consume which is known as hippocampus. People with PTSD their hippocampus appears smaller in size. It is thought to be that the changes in this part of the brain can be related to fear and anxiety, memory problems and flashbacks. If the hippocampus malfunctions i may prevent flashbacks and nightmares from being properly processed, therefore the anxiety they begin to generate does not reduce over any time period. Treatment of PTSD results in processing their memories so that over time the flashbacks and nightmares will eventually and gradually disappear.

Animatic For War Thriller

We made an animatic of what our film will possibly look like or roughly along the lines of the outcome, it showed how long each shot would be and which shots would be used. This allowed us to see if our idea would fit into the mark scheme that has been given to us, for example the time limit that has been set. However the time of this animatic is shorter than our limit this is partly because part of our animatic was not put in due to it being merely impossible to do, as well as some of our shots were cut shorter than we originally planned, there was also no dialogue or music included therefore making it partly short. This was our outcome and it was edited and made by George Turner.

Main Problems With Our Filming

Within the making of this film we are going to encounter a lot of problems along the way. One of the best ways I believe to tackle those problems is looking at them early on, this is why I have listed some of our initial problems with the film.

The first problem is a big one... actors. Although we only have about four characters but one splits into a possible two roles their age is a problem. The reason for this is our main protagonist is considerably older than any of the students or teachers at Chalfonts. The reason is because we want someone this age is because they have to look like a World War Two veteran. This is going to be very hard to find someone that age willing to act for free.
Our initial thoughts on this problem was to use grandparents from our families to act in it but this film is going to take up a lot of they're time so we decided that we needed a back up plan. A way around this is using the young actor as the older man as well by using makeup or a mask. 

Another problem is to do with location such as the retirement home and the battlefield because these locations are specific and require a lot of aspects that have to be right. The battlefield for example can't have anything modern on  it within the shot because this would take the audience out of the time zone therefore ruining the film. To avoid this I made sure that the war scenes were medium or close ups so that not much of the background is seen. Another option is to have the flashbacks take place in a kind of cross over time zone where the young character is back in World War Two but this takes place in the current year. This would avoid the problem of the background however I don't think this would be as gripping as the first idea.

Lastly the visual effects, this isn't as much of a problem as the other two because I can just learn how to do them effectively. However I think it would be important to have some test shots for the visual effects and transitions because then we will have confidence in what we are doing.

Credit To George Turner

How We Plan To Use Typography

Storyboard

In our opening sequence we have to include certain texts providing information about the people involved within the making of the film. I have started looking at some examples of opening title sequences before but now I believe that it is more important to narrow down my research to the ones that the group like. This is important because we origianlly wanted the text to be apart of the opening therefore we have to now look at our storyboard and decide on when and how our text appears on screen.

Our initial thoughts as a group were to have two different fonts which behaved differently depending on the scene they were in. For example in the scenes with the older protagonist we decided that it wouldn't work to have the 'jittery' text because these scenes are slower and sadder due to the character being overwhelmed with the flashback. In addition the 'jitteryness' wouldn't reflect the loneliness and shock the character is experiencing in these scene and would feel out of place therefore leading to the opening not working as a hole. 

Another option was to keep the titles in just one part, for example just the jittery part of the opening. However this may cause the text to become repetitive and meaningless because the audience may overlook it. This is why I believe we should and use different fonts that behave differently. 

Examples of openings we liked included: 

• Batman TV series 
• Batman Dark Knight Rises
• Dr. No (James Bond)
• Dexter
• Vertigo 

Credit George Turner

Short Films And Scenes

I looked this this short film because I though it had outstanding props and costume, which I felt is a very important aspect to a war film because it shows the audience the time period and which side your character is on. In addition some of the scenes were shot in a higher frame rate making the action more intense. I would like to adopt this technique because I felt it provided a more intense experience.

Another aspect I like was actually in the thumbnail. I loved the black and white tone in this photo and I might suggest that some of the war scenes are black and white because it would contrast to the other shots, which would be in colour.

I also watched the iconic 'Saving Private Ryan' to get and idea of ​​how Spielberg used the camera to create emotions such as fear and anger form the characters. I further looked at props to include in our film such as the guns and the types of visual effects like explosions form mines etc. 
Both films shared the same war however it was shown in many different ways maybe because of a difference in storyline and budget. However both films used props well and created an interesting story through war. 

Credit To George Turner

Storyboard For War Thriller

The Storyboard: 

As a group we discussed what we wanted from our film and the style we were going for, however we had not yet though about what our shots and transitions were going to look like. 
The first step was to create a storyboard, this is because a storyboard allows every member of the group to put their ideas forward and then have a visual representation of the film. Before diving in to this Mariella wrote up a brief story that we as a group had already discussed; explaining briefly what was going to happen in our story Meanwhile Katy gathered locations and costume so that we knew what our characters would look like and the environment they would be placed in and I looked at examples of war thriller short films that could inspire us. 

After those tasks were completed I was given the task of creating a storyboard that would represent our ideas best. To do this I made a storyboard template and printed four sheets so that we could have enough room for every shot. The reason I wanted to put so much work into the storyboard is because I feel that when you have a clearly laid out storyboard it's easier to organise the narrative creatively. 

This task did take me a while because I put a lot of thought into every shot thinking about practicality as well as creativity. An example of this is on the last page shot three because I would of loved to have both characters in the same shot however we would have to use after effects, which in my experience is not very reliable. Therefore I made ​​it an OSS so that we could just have another actor instead of using masks etc. Another aspect I put a lot of time into was transitions because I wanted to make sure that the narrative flowed well to set up the story, which would follow after our opening. Our aim overall aim was to upset the equilibrium without killing off any characters or changing the story. To achieve this we used flash backs to World War Two throughout our opening which would keep our audience gripped. 
  
In addition to this I also made ​​sure that we had research on 'Waterboarding' because I wanted to make sure that the film was some what accurate to the time period we wanted the film to be set in. While doing this I kept messaging my group my concerns and ideas and made ​​sure that they were contributing to the storyboard with their ideas. 

Lastly when it was done Mariella reminded me that we wanted a first person drowning scene that we added as a side 
         note on page two. Overall I felt we worked well as a team on    this one and I hope the film planned. 

Credit To George Turner