Evaluation Q7 - Powerpoint

Here is our preliminary task.

PLAN 
- sound (main thing - ambience, dialogue etc.)
- practicals e.g. time for reshoot, doing shots more than once,
- organisation (shotlist, script etc.)
- continuity throughout shots

Evaluation Q6 - Animation

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

Evaluation Q4&5 - Video

PLAN 
what is the target audience?
- young adults to middle aged people

how did you attract/address them?
content
- by making it in the style of a drama film as my target audience are more likely to want to go and watch them
- by having characters around the same age as them (so it's easier for them to relate and therefore they will want to watch more)
- by using appropriate language in the narration (fitting to the age and making it easy for them to understand - e.g. not much slang etc.)

distribution
- share on social media (especially groups which contain a lot of adults e.g. groups for parents or village/town communities)
- posters e.g. on buses/at bus stops/on noticeboards
- trailer being shown online and also in the cinema (ref. audience research video as many adults enjoy going to the cinema)

Evaluation Q3 - Podcast

PLANNING

Cinema - it's got quite a wide audience so is suitable for mainstream cinema (not just indie e.g. cinema city)
                     - probably be a cinema like cinema city norwich as they show mainly indie british films

DVD - again wide audience, more accessible form so can be bought online for download etc.

Streaming sites e.g. Netflix - might reach people who aren't necessarily initially interested in it as it won't cost them anything to watch my film in particular

Evaluation Q2 - Written

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In general, middle aged white males are usually presented as being quite ordinary. They are often shown to be middle-class, have an ordinary job and a family. I think my media product is a fairly accurate representation, as my character is represented as almost all of these things - the only thing that isn't told to the audience is whether or not he has a family. 

COSTUME
In my film, the main character is wearing jeans, a white shirt, a dark jumper and a coat. They are all quite plain and boring, and nothing about them sticks out (apart from the trainers, which are a key part to the story). I feel this is a fairly accurate representation of the social group I am presenting, as white, middle aged males, especially when they are going to work (as my character is) don’t tend to dress very extravagantly. I also know the costume is a fairly accurate representation because I got it from the person who’s actually playing the character, and so it’s as true to life as it possibly could be.

SETTING/PROPS
I think the setting also represents white, middle aged males quite accurately. I tried to pick locations that are typically visited by people of any age, and so it’s not somewhere a character like mine would be out of place. I tried to make the set dressing/props quite sparse and ordinary, which reflects both the pace and mood of the stereotypical middle aged man's life.

NARRATION
The narration I used, in my opinion, provides a true representation of the social group I am presenting. Firstly, it was voiced by a middle aged man, and so the actual voice itself is accurate, and secondly, the content and tone reflects the repetitiveness of many middle aged men’s (and also middle aged people in general) lives.

Evaluation Q1 - Prezi

Audience feedback of rough cut

The audience feedback of my rough cut was fairly positive. Everyone understood the concept and storyline, and quite a few people commented on how the narration and pace of the film reflected that. People also seemed to like how the editing was in time with the voice over - since it's only a rough cut, things weren't spot on, and I am going to go back and change the length of some of the shots and the timing of the narration in relation to that, but I am pleased that people seemed to pick up on the fact that it was meant to be in time anyway.

The main criticism I received was the stability of some of the shots - a lot of people suggested using the warp stabilizer effect on one shot (the one in the car) in particular. Some people also said they didn't like the shot at the end with him walking up the stairs, as it lasts quite a long time with no visual breaks, and so can get a bit boring. Another thing a few people commented on was the establishing shot of the train station - they said the ending of it, where it stops on the platform, was a bit too long.

Here are are some pictures of a few pieces of audience feedback I received.

Editing check-in video - how is it all going so far?

I made this video to talk through the (very very) close to finished version of my rough cut - I just wanted to explain what I have done so far, the things I am planning on changing, and how I'm going to go about deciding what needs to be improved.

Rough cut

Filming review

DAY 1
I think day 1 of filming went fairly well. We arrived at the location at around 9:30AM - this was slightly later than I would have liked, however we still had plenty of time to get everything done. I think my greatest strengh during day 1 of filming was my organisation - I had gotten the costume, props, camera, tripod, and the script all ready the night before, and I had also found a copy of the express train timetable, so we knew exactly when we would need to be set up to get the specific shot we wanted. In between the express trains coming, we filmed the other shots - we did have to plan this around the other trains pulling into the station, as there were a lot more people on each platform 10 or so minutes before each respective train came, but it didn't turn out to be too much of a problem because we were quite out the way of the main platform for most of it, and most people stayed out of the way of the camera. I didn't end up taking the storyboards with me, as I had a copy of the script, and I find it a lot easier to follow a written shot list rather than a visual one - I find it's a lot easier to include more detail. I made sure to get several versions of the same shot, so if one wasn't so good we wouldn't have to go back and re-film, as the lighting and weather may cause a noticeable difference in the final cut.

Here is a vlog I did after the first day of filming.

DAY 2
There wasn't much left to film on day 2 - it was mainly the short interior shots and sound that needed to be done. These were fairly simple shots that didn't take much time at all to film, and since they were internal it didn't matter too much when I filmed them because the external light was a lot less noticeable. After I finished filming, I went back to the train station on my own and recorded some ambient sound. This was fairly easy to do as all I had to do was figure out when there wouldn't be many people at the train station and just record 5 minutes of silence. I did a lot more than my final video would actually be as I didn't have any headphones in which I could hear an amplified version of the live sound I was recording, and so I couldn't tell where there were any noises that weren't meant to be there (if there were any at all). After I had loaded all the footage into Premiere Pro and listened back to the sound, I then knew what needed to be re-recorded and so I went out and did it (e.g. the noise of the boot slamming etc.)

Overall, both days went very well. I made sure to get plenty of footage for maximum choice during editing, and I tried to be as organised as possible so I had plenty of time actually on set to not only get what I needed, but experiment with different things.

Images whilst filming

This is the suction tripod set up on the bonnet of the car. I will use this to get the shot of my main character driving in the car - the 'left, right, left' part.

This is an interior shot of the camera set up as mentioned above.

















This is a shot of the train station, where the majority of my filming took place.

 Below are pictures of a couple of pages from my script. I printed it off and took it with me to on set as it is essentially a shot list, and it helped me stick to getting exactly what I knew I needed, and not going off track (before I had gotten the shots essential to making the storyline work) to get things I hadn't planned.


















This is my make-shift boom pole. I took it outside in my garden to get some ambient sounds for the scenes that were outdoors.

BFI Academy Day 3 - Sound Production and Engineering

This week, our masterclass was on sound production and engineering. We had two speakers come in to talk to us about their experience in the industry, where they started off and what their jobs entailed. We first spoke about the importance of sound and music in film - sound makes up half of our sensory experience when we are watching a film, and so it's incredibly important to match it to the feeling and emotion of the scene, as it can make it 100 times more effective. To illustrate this point, we watched one of the training scenes from Rocky - first, without the sound, and then with it. Watching it without the sound made me personally see the scene as a lot more flat - it was very hard to feel any strong emotions because there just simply wasn't anything to drive them.

Next, the location sound recordist told us about what he does. We learnt that a person in this role is basically responsible for recording all of the sound on location, which will then be used in the film. He taught us about the different types of sound that is typically recorded - e.g. ambient sound (background noise), dialogue (talking), and diagetic sound (sound inside of the film world). We learnt about the importance of good quality on-location sound through simply sitting in silence for around 30 seconds, and listening to all the noise that is actually present in a seemingly silent room. You have to be very careful when recording sound on-location, as if it's inside, you will have the hum of everything electric - lights, air-con, camera equipment, etc., and if it's outside you might have birds, traffic or wind noises in the background. Therefore, a good location and good equipment is necessary when recording on-location, as if you don't have it the ambient sound will cause a lot of noise, making your final product sound fuzzy.

Then, we learnt about a sound designer's role. A sound designer is responsible for anything from the sound effects (created in post), to the music choice/editing, to dealing with the ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement). He then spoke to us about the pros and cons of using ADR. One good thing about ADR is the fact that if you can't salvage the on-location dialogue, you can just get the actors back to do it again, and the audience most likely won't notice. This is good for scenes with a lot of background noise, or where you are filming from quite far away, as often in these situations dialogue won't be picked up very well. However, ADR isn't favourable amongst many filmmakers. This is because it is very expensive to do right, and it can sound very fake - since there is no depth to the sound, and the volume isn't relative to the placement of the object making the noise, it can sound quite flat. The sound will be good quality, but it will probably sound overly emphasized and fake.

For our main activity, we were shown a 30ish second long video clip without any sound, and then given a number of objects. We were then told to create Foley sound to go overtop of this. Foley sound is basically the reproduction of everyday sound effects, which are created and added to a clip in post. Foley is especially good in things like fight scenes - you can't actually punch someone in the face (hard) or cut someones head off, so reproducing these sounds using other objects is the best way to create those sounds.

We divided into two groups to create the sound - one group did the diagetic sound, and the other group did the non-diagetic sound. My group was responsible for the non-diagetic sound - the music, the emphasized sound effects, etc. Therefore, we created our part by playing a few chords/notes on the piano (in a minor key to emphasize the mood) and we recorded a heartbeat using a drum. The other group created the sound of someone being punched in the face by hitting a watermelon with a baseball bat, and they also did other sounds like footsteps, and heavy breathing.

I think the final product was actually very effective, considering the amount of time and the limited number of objects we had. We didn't have much time at the end to arrange the sounds exactly as we wanted to, and so it probably could have sounded a lot better than it did, but for our first time doing Foley, it sounded a lot better than I thought it would. Overall, this session was incredibly helpful in understanding sound in film - I learnt that it can be very effective to re-record certain sounds, and if you do it with different objects they can often sound better than the original.

BFI Film Academy - final film

This is the final film that we created in the BFI Film Academy. In my role as a Sound Designer, I was required to record location sound, ambient sound, edit it into the final cut, and compose the music in Logic Pro X.