Evaluation Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

        

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Created with Padlet

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

          

Feedback for our film

We screened our film to a group of 16 and 17 year olds, in the year below and then asked for their initial thoughts and criticisms of our production. 

                          

While everyone we interviewed noted potential improvements our film could benefit from, our overall response was largely positive, our target age demographic relating to the characters and comprehending our plot/premise despite knowing little about the film noir genre. 

We received a great deal of constructive criticism, addressing issues in our final film, one of these was that the camera shook slightly in the final scene, as we cut to the door.  

We received positive comments regarding the editing of our film, however an interesting criticism was that the graphics in our epilogue were to fast, making it harder to read and becoming less effective, this is something we should considered addressing.  

Our use of sound was well received, someone noting a use of the knife scraping sound effect, created using foley sound. 

A topic our audience particularly debated was whether the film would be more impactful in black and white, this was a cause for debate in our feedback, some of our audience preferring our combination of technicolor and black and white. Ultimately we will probably leave this element of our film as it is, this debate being a potential talking point of the film, much of our target audience would be unhappy if we changed this. 

Ancillary Product 2: Film Review Final Product

My Final Product...

I created this using Adobe Elements and iPhoto. I evaluated my ancillary product expressing why I made the choices I did, and where I drew inspiration from in my research. 

Ancillary Product 1: Film Poster

Film Poster Initial Ideas and Final Product from pollypritchard100

My Final Film Poster. 

Where would I like to advertise the film?

Ideally I'd like the film to be advertised across a range of media platforms, a digital representation of the poster used on pop up adverts and promoted through social networking sites. 

Additionally the film could be promoted at local bus stops and train stations, this would be especially relevant to our target age demographic, a majority of teenagers and young adults relying on public transport. 

On a larger scale the film poster could be promoted on billboard or on the side of buildings appealing to a larger demographic, potentially attracting wider audiences and age groups. 

Our Final Film

             

Editing in Our Film

We ultimately found the editing process to be one of the most significant areas of production when creating our film, several of our initial ideas being based in the editing process. This was especially relevant due to our decision to feature flashbacks in our film noir, requiring specific editing techniques and conventions to make this evident to the audience. 

Before we began the editing process we watched back all our footage, our shots for the most part shot twice one take and an insurance take if a take has a defect that we were unable to pick upon when watching the footage back on the camera. After choosing the most appropriate footage we structured our piece and put everything in a chronological order, the order established in our storyboard. 

After doing this we began the more detailed based editing process...

When editing the flashback sequence we attempted to use a sound bridge of a kettle boiling to relate the transition Kevin's mentality. We found this effective as the sharp shrieking noise agitates the viewer, creating tension. We partnered this with droning music playing quietly in the background to create a distant feeling with our target audience, reinforcing the idea that this is a memory that our protagonist represses. While these sounds oppose each other, one particularly high and the other low, we found this  especially effective in presenting Kevin's dissociative amnesia and memory blackouts. 

We then went on to add other sound effects such as the heartbeat and police sirens to add significance to our raw footage, making a narrative more understandable. We faded the sound in and out to make it less abrupt and layered the sounds over each other to make the sound more authentic. 

We conformed to the convention of using black and white in our flashbacks, mimicking the style of traditional film noir and to create a disconnect between the audience and the film, making it seem more surreal. We also increased the contrast on the shot to create high contrast, chiaroscuro lighting. 

We used a flashing/lens flare effect to mask the transition into these scenes to create further confusion in the viewer, this is a frequent technique used in the thriller genre, appealing to a more modern audience. 

We altered the colour pallet of the technicolor section of our film noir to make the temperature more cold and depressing, adding a rain effect in places and upping the contrast in places to make the footage appear as if it were shot across several seasons and weather conditions, this was especially significant in our montage.

We then exported the film as our Rough Cut...

Issues we found in our Rough Cut...

• The psychiatrist's scene is too long and feels disjointed and awkward. 
• The music doesn't fit with the scene.
• The psychiatrist's certificate isn't shown clearly enough, the scene lacks context when this is not clearly presented.
• The transition from this scene to the next feels awkward.
• Credits, title, production company logo and graphic epilogue need to be added. 

Resolving these problems...

Firstly we replaced the music with a striped back and altered version of the same track, making it simpler and more appropriate for the tone of the scene. We then trimmed down the scene and added a fade to black transition with a slight lag to separate the two scenes. 

Here is our original rough cut edit of the scene, followed by our new edit of the piece.

                           

We decided to to use digital and print news articles and social media to conclude our film, by doing this were able to present the fate's of our character's in a fast, succinct way. We used online tools and templates to accomplish this. 

We also used a website called 'Letmetweetthatforyou' to fake tweets from well established news institutions, referencing the fictional events in our film, we hoped this would add a feel of legitimacy to the montage, by using an brands and companies our target demographic, young people aged 17-25 would trust. We also hoped to appeal to our audience with our use of social networking, remaining relevant to a modern audience. 

Additionally we created a twitter account for our femme fatale, demonstrating how she manipulates public attention for her ambition and greed. 

When editing the montage we regularly used the 'Ken Burns' tool to crop in our articles, bringing attention to the most significant information and texts, making the message of the sequences clear. 

                            

Ancillary Project 2: Film Review- Research

       

Behind the Scenes of Blackout

           

Rough Cut of Our Final Film

              

Ancillary Project 1: Film Poster- Research

              

Our Film Noir Title

We debated several titles for our film noir, focusing on the theme of memory loss, a significant plot device in our film and synonyms of bad luck and repression, relevant motifs. 

Ultimately we chose Blackout as we felt it was the most appropriate for our choice to make a film with more similarities to the neo noir genre and would appeal to younger audiences. 

The next decision that had to be made was which font to use for our title....

We knew we wanted bold white lettering against a black background which led us to to 3 fonts and designs

Design 1

While this isn't the design we originally anticipated we liked the complexity of the font, the lined effect making the design look similar to chiaroscuro lighting featured regularly in the film noir genre. 

Design 2

Our second design is significantly more simple as we didn't want to distract from the actually content and events that take place in the film, we chose bold white lettering with a slight mirrored effect to create a more tense feeling to the title. 

Design 3

This design features a marble effect making the title seem more complex, we thought the markings could demonstrate the loss of purity, the white seeming messy and stained, potentially relating to the stained clothing that serves as evidence against our protagonist. 

Our Final decision...

We chose this because it's complexity creates tension adding an air of mystery to the film, it's design serving as a tribute to the genre. Furthermore the darkness of the font is more appropriate with the tone of the film, without being so dark that it would be hidden against a black background. 

We asked some of our target audience what they thought of our title and font, they said the following....

"It was good and it described what and how it's happening"

"Short and relatable"

"Interesting and doesn't spoil the ending"

"Effective and Memorable"

Our Production Company Logo

When planning our production company logo we wanted to create something modern and attractive, to appeal to a modern target audience. Ultimately we created this...

We decided to call our production company, Charade as we liked the mysterious connotations of the name, we also felt this related to a different era of cinema where this word was regularly used, for example in the 1963 Audrey Hepburn film, Charade. 

To make our company seem more legitimate we featured a parent company, common amongst conglomerate media institutions, we chose 'A PF company' referencing both our surnames, Pritchard and Farey. While we initially considered claiming our company was parented a more established company, however decided against it as we thought creating our own allowed us more control and continuity.

Here is the animated version of our logo...

                             

In our research of the film noir horror genre we noticed that production companies often alter their logos to make them more appropriate for the genre or content. Because of this we decided to put our logo in black and white, referencing the cinematic style so often featured in the film noir genre...

                             

We chose to use this as our production company logo for the film noir genre as we feel it pays tribute to the film's genre and it's modern aspect should be appealing to our target demographic. 

Locations in our Film Noir

Locations in our film from pollypritchard100

Props In Our Film Noir

Created with Padlet

Costume in Our Film

           

Shooting Schedule and Call Sheets

Sunday 13th of March: Interior scenes, home(Ashwell)
Sunday 20th of March: Exterior scenes (Baldock) 
Wednesday 23rd of March: Interior scenes, police station and psychologists (Baldock)

Day 1: Ashwell - Interior scenes, home 
Actors: Julia, Tom



Day 2: Baldock - Exterior scenes.  
Actors needed: Tom, Julia, Georgia.

Day 3: Interior shots, police station and psychologist scenes

Actors needed: Tom, Amelia, Robin, Julia.

Our Cast and Characters

 Kevin Gray (Fall Guy)- Thomas Luck 

Kevin is the protagonist of our film noir, suffering from dissociative amnesia, PTSD and Depression, we wanted to focus on the theme of mentality in the film, drawing inspiration from characters such as Leonard from Memento and Buzz from The Blue Dahlia. Kevin suffers from 'blackouts' causing him to forget the brutal murders of his victims until he is ultimately betrayed by  his love interest Violet. 

Violet (Femme Fatale)- Julia ten Hove 

Violet is the ambitious undercover journalist, who manipulates Kevin's mentality for her own personal attainment, seeking career success and independence. We tried to feature the common motif of independence in our femme fatale, as these show women straying from their traditional gender roles in film, something we tried to reflect.

The Police Officer (Moral Figure)- Robin Hutchinson

The police officer is used as a moral foil to the characters in the film, reminding audiences of right and wrong and highlighting the ill decisions of our characters. Ultimately he sympathises with Kevin, Violet blatantly using him to advance her career and personal success. 

Music in our film

We decided to create our own sounds and music for our film, using Foley Sound for our sound effects and creating own score for the piece, using Garage Band. 

We created three pieces of music, an opening/closing, theme for the montage of Kevin and Violet getting to know each other and the music that will play during the scene where Kevin is in therapy, discussing his nightmares. 

In the pieces we commonly used guitar, strings, flute and clarinet to create a low and ominous theme, attempting to build tension, and add mysterious elements and themes in the film. 

Piece 1: Opening/Ending Theme

We combined the music for the opening and closing of our film to create a sense of symmetry in the film, making the film seem more complete in the conclusion, however we will add camera clicking sound effects to the theme for the conclusion, representing the celebrity and success Violet achieved at Kevin's expense. 

We used Strings, Flute and and Finger Bass to create a tense theme that will be featured as we focus on Kevin's blood stained clothes and then his fate. 

Piece 2: Psychiatrist's Office

In our second piece we used Strings, clarinet and Bass to create a tense theme, representing Kevin confiding in his psychiatrist, the music in this scene is significant, as we will not feature dialogue, making the music more relevant.

We aimed to created a stressful, tense theme to emphasise the stress Kevin is feeling and make the scene seem more significant.

Piece 3: Romantic Montage

Originally the music we would have used as in montage to show Kevin and Violet getting to know each other, was planned to be light and bubbly to represent the feelings of their early relationship, however this didn't match the conventions or themes of the film noir genre, so we used a saxophone to make the music more tense and foreboding. 

Our Animatic Storyboard