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Hey,This is my AS Media blog! I am going to be posting all my work we do on here, and I'm really enjoying the course so far! Thanks for reading! Alex x

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Amstetten


Evaluation: Question Seven

Looking back at your preliminary task(the continuity editing task). what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Camra Work
When i first started media, our first task was to create a preliminary task. Back then, i did not really know how to use a camera at all, and after much experimenting, i began getting used to the controls. When i began filming, i became much more confident. When we started to film Amsetten, we changed the type of camera we used. We began to use a SD card rather than having to capture the footage which i found much easier.

It is very evident from our preliminary task to our film opening that we all as a group developed the range of skills we used when filming, for example, we felt more confident to use a lot of shots to edit together to add pace to the clip rather than just filming in one shot everything we wanted to happen in the scene. In the preliminary task, i felt like we were just starting to experiment with shot reverse shot, however i feel like we use that a lot in Amstetten, and it looks more professional.

We also chose to take all of our shots at least five times, so when it came to editing, we would have more clips to work with to find the best footage. This is something that we learnt from our preliminary task as we were finding it hard to work with what we had.

Editing
Because we chose to film lots of short shots rather than long scenes with the camera in the same place, it made editing them together a lot harder. Back in our preliminary task, we found ourselves not having much editing to do at all, so i definitely feel that my editing skills have massively improved. the minimal editing in our preliminary task did put us at a disadvantage because we weren't as clued up for Amstetten, however i feel that we did well to make Amstetten look as good as it is. Although our preliminary task wasn't  as edited, this did make us more motivated to improve our skills to make Amstetten as good as we can.

Music
Because our preliminary task didn't have any music, we felt like we could really experiment with this as we wanted to see how much we could improve Amstetten compared with our Preliminary task. Because our preliminary task didn't include music, we now feel that looking back, we could of made it so much more interesting with music. This inspired us to make Amstetten have music and be a much better sequence.

More Time
When we started our preliminary task, we spent too much time planning, and we didn't leave much time to film and edit. Because of this mistake, we learnt well and we tried to keep a lot of time for editing and other filming we may need to do. This worked well as we did have to re shoot a lot of our footage as we didn't feel it was as good as we could get it.

180 degree rule
When we first started our Preliminary task, we found we had very basic knowledge of the 180 degree rule, and we kept having to check if we were doing it correctly. However from the first task, we learnt more about what we needed to do, and towards the end, it became second nature to remember it.

Overall Development
Overall, i feel that i have progressed in every aspect, especially in the camera work seeing as our first task was very basic when it came to shooting in the scenes in a various different angles like we included in Amstetten.

From our film opening and our preliminary task, i feel like i have a much more broarder knowledge of film production, and i look forward to using my new talents in our A2 Media project.

Evaluation: Question Six

Evaluation: Question Five

Evaluation: Question Four

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Evaluation: Question Three














As our media product is an independent Art House film,
an institution that would distribute it would have most likely
already worked with independent film producers.
Although, this would depend on where our product
would be distributed to.
It’s the type of product that, if it did well at a film 
festival, it would do well theatrically. But otherwise, 
we don’t feel that it would do particularly well in 
large cinema complexes. It would probably be more 
successful if it were to be shown on a terrestrial 
television channel; most probably Channel 4 or ITV. 
In this instance, a suitable distributor would be 
Optimum Release. Optimum have previously 
released indie films that are similar in theme to 
our film opening. They could also be a good 
distributor for our film if it was released solely 
onto home entertainment platforms. 
Another distributer which may be interested in our 
film would be Wild Bunch international sales. 
Wild Bunch are well known for their international 
sales and aim to distribute a broad artistically 
diverse selection of international cinema. This 
would be convenient to us because our film is 
based on an Austrian event. Also, Wild Bunch 
are known for distributing challenging and 
controversial films to film festivals. This would 
be ideal because the subject of our film is very sensitive. 
We also considered that Pathe might be a good 
candidate to distribute our film. They have a major 
presence in the UK film industry and not only 
distribute films but also produce them. This vertical 
integration gives them an advantage. Pathe may find 
our film too controversial compared to existing films 
they have distributed. Their film credits include 
Slumdog Millionaire and 127 hours. Both of these 
films are independent which shows that Pathe are 
interested in distributing this style.

Evaluation: Question Two

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As our primary character in this film is a young girl who has been mistreated, we went out to research different characters who have also been mistreated. We found a few cases of child abuse, however because Elisabeth is a very vulnrable and withdrawn, it was hard to find a character like this. After much researching into existing characters like Elisabeth, we came up with two good examples.
Whitney and her step father Tony.
Our first good character similarity is Whitney Dean from Eastenders. Her story line is that her step father lead her to believe they had a relationship, and he sexually abused her. This fitted very well with our character as we needed a vulnerable character who has a history of being abused, and we felt that Witney was perfect.
On the left is a still of Whitney Dean, and on the right is a screenshot of Elisabeth.
 When we started investigating further about this character, we found that in more ways than we hoped, she was like Elisabeth. In the screenshots above, it captures a very similar scene where both characters are very much in the shadows and very similar expressions on their faces. Emotionally, both characters have both been through abuse from their fathers which makes our link even stronger. Although Elisabeth is in old clothing due to the nature of our film opening, we still felt that Witney was a good link even though she is in modern clothes. Witney also has a feisty attitude unlike our character, but with similar experiences, they seem to fit well.
On the left, there is a screenshot from a Barnardo's advert, and on the right, there is young Elisabeth.
 For this character, we came across an advert for Barnardo's charity which aims to prevent child prostitution. Although our character is not a child prostitute, we still felt that the principle of being forced to have sex by old men shows the link. In this particular shot, we see an old man reaching out to touch the young girl. This shot is very similar to our Elisabeth shot in the way that we only see the old mans hand so it emplies abuse. The other stong link is that we dressed Elisabeth in young girls clothes to represent innocence, and because the other little girl has pink tights on, it also represents vulnerability. Both young girls are about to be abused, and this makes our link very strong.

Evaluation: Question One



Logo Developments


As we were nearly at the editing part, we decided to start thinking about the production name and logo. this involved us doing some intensive research into different possible production names before we could start doing a Logo.
A few names we came up with were:
  • Pipedream Productions
  • Spooks Productions
  • Initive Productions
  • conception Productions
  • perspective Productions
  • prescience Productions
  • standpoint Productions
Our favourite idea was Pipedream productions. We started playing around with the idea of having a physical pipe with dreams coming out of it. We were really happy with our progress with it, however we were not sure if it fitted with the negative story line of our film.
 
However, we continued to develop the logo further. However, we still felt that the idea of more happier and inspiring production names were not right for the film.
After going back to the drawing board and thinking of other production names, we thought more about the film. We decided that in the film, we liked the eye scenes a lot. We then began to play with the idea of an eye being the symbol of the production name. Some names suggested were:
  • Vision Productions
  • Iris Productions
  • Pupil Productions
  • Sight Productions 
  • Forsight Productions
We went on the internet to find copyright free images of eyes and found this one. Although the eye isn't the prettiest, we thought we could play around with it to make it spooky.
We then added darkness around the eye to make it more spooky and also so it would blend in with the black background of the film. We found this much more effective because in the eye above, you focus not only on the eye, but the skin around it.We also made the blue more blue by intensifying the colour more.
We then used brushes in photoshop to add subtle eyelashes. these added to the spooky style we were hoping for. They also made the image look more complete rather than just blurred out with black.
After deciding the fonts we thought we wanted to use, we added our final production name with our logo. We are very happy with the logo and production name, and as a whole we think it fits the style of the film well!
Next we will be editing some more of our footage. We have also decided to refilm a selection of our scenes to make them more interesting, so they will be on soon!

Font research

After much research and planning for our Production name, we have decided to call it Foresight Productions. We like this name because its interesting, unique and it fits with our film style.

Once we had decided on a production name, We decided to start looking into different font types and styles we could use for the logo and throughout the titles of our film opening. Here is a selection of possible font types and styles we have considered.

We decided we didn't want a font which would say too much about the type of film we have, for example a scary or sinister style font for a scary movie, but we also wanted an interesting font that could be used to make the titles not boring.

Next we will start making our logo!

Existing Film production companies- Inspiration for our own!

When coming to research into names for our production name, I decided to do some background research into what film production companies already exist so we can take inspiration from what already exists, but also to make sure we don't use exactly the same ones.

We will be having discussions over the next few days to decide a good name!

Glossary of media termsAs i was a bit unsure of some media terminology, i found several meanings and definitions on the internet and brought them all together. They will be useful for the Media exam, but also for my foundation portfolio to refer back to.

Finalising the filming..


As we agreed last week, we finished the filming which turned out only to be one more flashback. Although we didn't manage to film Friday, it didn't matter because we managed to complete it all Today (Monday 14th March).

We started by coming to my house with Alice Waters, our friend who agreed to play a character in the background and setting up my bedroom to film the scene.





We then shot the scene a couple of times in slightly different ways until we agreed that we had the final one. At first, we were shooting the scene with Elisabeth right next to me and Alice who were suposed to be Elisabeths friends at a sleepover. We didn't think that it worked because the whole point of the scene was to show a connotation to the audience of Elisabeths loneliness and isolation from society.

Then we tried to put Elisabeth right forward in the scene and have me and Alice out of focus in the background. We found this much more effective as it showed more depth to the scene, and it also added a sense of mystery to what was going on in Elisabeths mind when we just see her so distant from the others.

We then went down stairs to film a shot of Alice sitting on my window looking out of the window. This was the last official shot we had to film! It went smoothly as we already knew exactly how we wanted it to look.

Once we had finished our final scene, we had made a list of scenes we had watched back and decided that they could be improved. They were the 'Baby Snatching' Flashback and the 'Pregnant Teen' Flashback. Seeing as we had completed the other scene so quickly, we decided to head back to Alices garage to get them shot.
We have now officially finished Filming!
This means we can now get on with the editing of the film opening. If we do feel that any scenes could be improved, we can also shoot them again, but we have now captured all the footage!
Next we will really start to piece together our clips!

Day 3 of production!


Monday we started filming our cellar scenes. We started by filming the news report bit with the camera behind Alice's arm. It was going really smoothly, and we were making good progress. it was taking us about 3 shots till we got the perfect one.

Then we came across our first problem. Because we didn't take the camera charger with us, the Camera ran out of battery. This was a problem because we wanted to get all the scenes done that morning except the sleepover scene which we knew would have to wait till Friday.

However, we recovered by going into school, leaving the camera charging all day, then Monday evening, we carried on filming well!

We filmed the tv Scenes again, and this time, we had a lamp to create shadows because the light from the tv screen wasn't enough.

We had another problem when we came to shoot the close-up of Alice's eye because the camera wouldn't focus. After many attempts, i decided to have a close look at the menu's to see if there was settings that could be changed. Eventually, i found a setting which let you change the focus manually! After this, it worked really well.

When Alice's Dad came home, we decided to film the 'Baby snatching' scene where Alice had an old teddy wrapped up in baby blankets and her dad had to snatch the baby from her. We decided that i couldn't do this part because you would see too much of 'Fritzl' to show that he is male, so Alice's Dad Rob helped us out!

After Monday, i feel like we are really on our way to finishing and i think its worked really well so far!

We plan to finish our last part of filming on Friday night!

Here is the Video that was playing on the TV. We Found this on youtube!

Second day of production- Lights, Camera, Action!

WOO! Filming time!

Once we had arrived at Alices house, we started by making Alice look creepy! We tried to put pale foundation on her, but it we didn't think it looked pale enough, so we added baby powder to her face to make here paler. we also added dark shadows around her eyes to make her look more spooky.
This is Georgie applying baby powder to Alices face!

Alice Applying pale powder on her lips

The Finished Alice!

Alices Mum found out this jumper from ages ago,
 and we decided it fitted Elisabeths character well.

We needed to block all the sunlight from the
Garage otherwise it looked too light and un-cellar like.

This is me and Alice doing this again.

We needed to stick up the pictures we had created before we started shooting.


This scene is in my house, so we headed to my house to film little Elisabeth scenes! We decided that in front of my fire would be good because it looks old and spooky. We were conscious that we had to film the scenes with little Elisabeth (Amber) that evening seeing as Amber was only free this evening. So we headed back to my house to film the scenes with Amber. We were initially worried that because Amber is only young, she may not take the role seriously and that it may be a problem, but infact she was a great little actress!

My Fritzl part! i had to touch Ambers shoulder, and so
 because it was only the arm in shot, i played 'Fritzl's Arm'!

This is Alice and Georgie setting up the camera for the second scene.
This is Amber, our Little Elisabeth!

When we were filming, my cat Morris kept getting in the way!
But we decided he was our filming mascot!

Because it was still light in my house, we decided to turn all the
lights off, and only have one light on to create the shadow well.
Nice picture of my bum by Alice too here!

After we finished filming the Young Elisabeth Scenes, we went back to
 Alice's garage to start filming the cellar scenes.


Alice Preggers! We stuffed a hoodie underneath
Alice's jumper to make her look pregnant.

We tried to shoot some scenes of Alice Pregnant, but because it was getting late, and the next time we would film would be day time, we decided to just set it up and film on Monday.
Georgie talking to Alice's belly! haha!

After today, i think we have made a lot of progress. We will now film Monday morning because we have taken the morning off because we had a double lesson of media to film!

First day of production!


Yesterday evening, we had our first day of production. We had planned to complete all the setting up of the cellar (Alices Garage) so when we come to filming it, it will save time so the filming will go smoothly.


This is the garage before starting to clear it!:


This Photo is Alice, and we've nearly finished the clearing!

Finished!

This is when we decided to make drawings which the children could of drawn to place on the wall.





The first day of production started by us arriving at Alice's house to clear a space in her garage. When we got there, we started moving some of the stuff to the other side of the room. When we had cleared a space, we started to think about where we would position the camera so that we could hide the garage door. Then we decided that from looking at pictures of the actual cellar, Elisabeth had put up lots of drawings that her children had made. So we decided to make some drawings to make our scene more realistic. These will be put behind the TV to make it look more like what we wanted. We came across one problem which was that we couldn't get hold of an old style television. We have decided to try and find one by friday, so that it shouldn't affect our filming. at this point, once we had left everything set up, there was little we could do without the TV, and also by this point we were getting tired, we decided to call it a night. I think our first day of filming went really well because we managed to get the majority of our setting up done.


Changes to the Schedule
Originally, Monday was kept aside for setting up the set, Tuesday was filming, Thursday was filming and so was Friday. However, there has been some crutial changes in the schedule due to other arrangements for Georgie and Alice. This affects two of our filming days (Tuesday and Thursday).
Now, we have scheduled Friday 4th as first planned to film, and also Monday 7th and hopefully Friday 11th if we need it. 
This has been a problem because it's put our timings back a week, but if we keep to schedule completely, we should get all our filming done in time.

Moodboard


As we were finding it dificault for inspiration, or rather remembering the inspiration that we had found out, we decided it was a good idea to make a moodboard.

Here it is!

Our finished Animatic


This week, we completed our Animatic (Below). We didn't want to spend to much time on making it look really good when it isn't necessary, so we stuck with a basic idea of how the film opening will look using our existing storyboard.
We also started considering the other parts of the planning which need to happen before we can start shooting. We finished our shooting schedule which will be massively helpful for us to keep to deadlines in order to complete everything for our final deadline. We have allowed one intensive week for filming. This allows us to hopefully get all the filming done in one week so we can start the editing, which takes the longest.

Here is our plan:

Monday 28th February
Set up all the scenes, especially the Cellar (Alice’s garage) to make filming for the rest of the week smoother.
Tuesday 1st March
All Cellar Scenes- the TV scenes and the eye scenes.
Wednesday 2nd March
(Nothing to happen on Wednesday due to other arrangements for two of the film crew)
Thursday 3rd March
Little girl scenes + any other scenes
Friday 4th March
Sleepover Scene
(Monday 7th March & Tuesday 8th March As spares if we do not complete everything)

We believe if we keep to this schedule, we should be able to make our filming work all in one week which would be fantastic!



An inspiring video we found


When we were searching for different videos and sound track ideas for our film opening, we came across this video which somebody has created. We not only liked the beginning of the sound track (which was the reason for finding the video) but also the imagery was also very relevant. What appears to be the child and a fathers relationship is showing with a spooky noises in German. The filters on the whole video in a sepia style was also very effective.

This week, we have also completed more of the animatics which we have nearly finished,and i will blog them this week!

Storyboarding our ideas


We have finally finished our storyboard of our ideas of settings and sequence. We have also decided the name. We have chosen Amstetten, This is the name of the town where the event took place.Storyboard of Amstetten


The next step now we have completed our storyboard is animatic.

Further developments and planning


This week, we decided to complete our Storyboard (Next post once we've scanned it!) and do some further planning to the finer details to our film opening. We decided we would start thinking about where we would actually shoot each shot.

Production setting plan

Cellar Scene 
we needed a dark place where we can make it look like it could be the place where Elisabeth was captured, so we thought a garage was appropriate as long as we blocked out all the sunlight. Seeing as Alice was the only member of our group with a garage, we have decided to shoot the cellar scene all in Alice’s Garage. We also plan to put the old style TV in the cellar (Garage) so it looks authentic.

Memory 1 
(the young girl sitting on the floor with her back to the wall cuddling a small blanket)
We decided that because this piece was a flash back, it wouldn't matter where it was shot, as long as it kept in line with the theme. Seeing as all the other scenes were most appropriate to be inside, we decided that we could use Alice’s Garden for that scene.

Memory 2
(The same girl is sitting on the floorwhen a man approaches her and strokes her hair)
We decided that this scene should be inside with her playing with a doll or something to signify the innocence of the young girl. Seeing as i live in a old cottage, the old style of my lounge room would be more appropriate than Alice's or Georgie's more modern houses.

Memory 3
(A teenage girl holding the same blanket)
This is another scene where it really wouldn't matter where we shoot it as long as it looks old or could be old seeing as this would have to be about 15 years ago. We haven't completely decided where we will shoot this scene, but we think Georgie’s garden may be a nice idea seeing as she has a lovely little bench.

Memory 4
(Sleepover scene where Elisabeth is withdrawn from the group)
We decided that in this case it would be more appropriate to film this scene in my bedroom seeing as Georgies and Alices rooms are decorated more modern.

Memory 5
(Pregnant woman)
Seeing as Elisabeth was only pregnant in the cellar, we have to shoot this in Alice’s Garage to match the cellar at the beggining.

Memory 6
(the baby being snatched from Elisabeth)
This once again would have to be shot in Alice’s Garage seeing as in the real life story the baby was snatched in the garage.


Cast List
Elisabeth young
Seeing as we needed a young girl who looked 11, we couldn't act this part ourselves so a family friend of mine's daughter is 10 who could possible play the young Elisabeth. Her name is Amber Moxey.
Elisabeth teen
We decided that Alice Clark would play Elisabeth throughout the opening seeing as she studies theatre studies, and she had blue eyes like Elisabeth.
Extra girls at sleepover
For the sleepover scene, we need three girls to be talking, and then Elisabeth (Alice) to be on her own. We had the idea of setting the camera up on a stand, and leaving it, so me and Georgie could play two of the girls, but were not certain this will work. However the plan at the moment is that the three extra girls are Georgie, Me and our friend (Un decided)
Elisabeth present
Because Alice Clark is playing Elisabeth, she will also play Elisabeth in the present time (when they flash back to reality).
Joseph Fritzl
For the shadow, and when a mans hand touches the girls shoulder, we need a male adult to do this role, so Alice's Dad Rob Clark has kindly volunteered.

Sound effects needed
We also decided to start thinking about sound effects we could need, and this arethe only ones we can think of at the moment.

  • Metal doors
  • Foot steps
  • Echoes Baby crying
  • Echoes of girls laughing
  • some kind of spooky music
The next post i do will be the Storyboard which we have created.

What Exactly is an art house film?


Seeing as we have chosen a brief which we know little about, we thought it would be useful if we did some background research on not only about the event, but what defines an arthouse film.

Basic Definition?
An arthouse film is typically a serious, independently made film aimed at a niche audience rather than a mass audience. 

What conventions does an arthouse film include?
An arthouse film usually  includes, a social realism style, a very distint style or emplasis of the director, and a focus on the thoughts and dreams of characters, rather than presenting a clear, goal-driven story.

Art films are aimed at small niche market audiences, which means they can rarely get the financial backing which will permit large production budgets, expensive special effects, costly celebrity actors, or huge advertising campaigns, as are used in widely-released mainstream films. this is a convention of an arthouse film because it shows how little money they have to produce a film, and they have to rely on talented producers.

From the research i did on Art house films, i have summarised the main points that in my opinion are the main points we must consider. Here are the conventions that makes an art house film an art house film:


  1. Art house films rarely have a feel good quality.
  2. They may make us feel smarter or more wise about the world.
  3. They tell the truth about the world or an event.
  4. They have no famous actors/actresses, just unheard of talent.
  5. Very low budget films, but heavily relies on talented directors.
  6. It doesn't have a general frame because there is no rules.
  7. It faces topics that conventional films don't consider, E.g. Prostitution, drugs.
  8. It includes different formats and ideas (unusual)
  9. The director can be as imaginative as they like.
  10. The film usually would have a message which makes you think out of the box.


After reading and exploring about the art house themes conventions, i'm confident that our film opening will follow the aspects of an art house film so the brief will be fulfilled. 

    Organising the sequence


    Ok, so we now are bursting with ideas of scenes we could include in our opening sequence, but in what order?!


    We decided to start actually putting our ideas together, and organising the sequence before we story board. We definitely thought we needed a 'Cellar scene' in the opening somewhere, but we were unsure weather that should come first or second.


    We decided that this sequence was the most effective!:



    • The first scene is a black screen, with titles rolling across, but in the background we can here Tv Noises in the distance as well as metal doors and footsteps getting louder. This signifies that danger may be approaching because Fritzl is coming.
    • The scene of Elisabeth fades in, and we see a figure standing in a low lit room (light only from the TV screen) watching a news report about Elisabeth.
    • As the noises gets closer, it builds suspense, and then the camera zooms into Elisabeths Eye to start showing the flashbacks.
    • Memory One. A shadow appears over a little girl holding a doll, and she reaches for her comfort blanket. we then shoot to her father touching her shoulder as she cuddles the blanket in.
    • We then snap back out to reality to see Elisabeth start to panic.
    • Then we go back into the eye for another flashback.
    • Memory Two. An older girl, still with the blanket at a sleepover talking about boys and sex, and the girl being withdrawn from the group conversation.
    • We then flash back to an even more concerned Elisabeth as we go into her third memory.
    • Memory Three. A quick shot of a baby bump

    • We then see the camera pan down from Elisabeth's eye to one of her hands - she is holding a piece of material which is implied to be the scrap of blanket she pulled off when the baby was snatched.
    • The Footsteps get closer and can be heard loudly and then Elisabeth cuddles the blanket in.
    • A man's arm reaches out of the darkness and switches off the television.
    • The screen goes black again like at the start.
    Now we have a clear idea of what we want to do scene by scene, we can now start story 
    boarding our ideas.
     
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