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 Six

View more presentations from griffinalex123

Evaluation: Question Five

Evaluation: Question Four

Customer profile

View more documents from griffinalex123.

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

Evaluation - Question 1 on Prezi

Amstetten Analysis

View more presentations from griffinalex123

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 28^th February

Set up all the scenes, especially the Cellar (Alice’s garage) to make filming for the rest of the week smoother.

Tuesday 1^st March

All Cellar Scenes- the TV scenes and the eye scenes.

Wednesday 2^nd March

(Nothing to happen on Wednesday due to other arrangements for two of the film crew)

Thursday 3^rd March

Little girl scenes + any other scenes

Friday 4^th March

Sleepover Scene

(Monday 7^th March & Tuesday 8^th 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.