editing so far!

I think all we have left is finding/choosing music for the opening, though there may be a couple of chunky places we have to finish off editing I'm not quite sure.

We have achieved the ability to actually do something on the editing programme! I feared it would be too complicated/confusing to use. Whey!

We have the surveillance camera shots decorated in the style of a surveillance pov (black and white picture, lil text in the corner saying date and time), and have added a typewriter sound effect to the titles which come up in the right font too (basically the titles just come up throughout the opening in white letters against a black background, no biggie) so there's the effect that someone could be typing up something at the police station.

We uploaded the footage I filmed and once going through all of that (taking out a couple of clips including the different alcohol shots as the montage won't be long enough) it comes up to one minute fifty something seconds. oooh!

We have also added a clock ticking sound to the scenes of Louis on his own in the interrogation room, but that may end up not being heard anyway once we add music. I think there's a heartbeat somewhere, or we're gonna add heartbeat effect to the flashback part when he's going craazy! We now have to find appropiate music. I've thought the music could be kind of quiet/calm/reflective up to the point he sees his gally in bed with his mate and as that shot fades, the music turns more threatening/darker as the dude starts getting angry.

We have a week and a half left of this, lets see how we go this week! Nice one yer!!

editing to the very end

The last parts of our editing:

Last friday's session, Sophie and Eve both brought in music to listen to consider using any of it for our opening. We found some potential tracks in the ones in the classical and new pure moods albums, and we eventually settled for a theme from Schindler's List, as it gave the opening a really sensitive and sad feel to it. The audio from the whole opening was extracted (apart from the typewriter sound and ticking clock) and the music was put on for the whole duration.

On monday I went in to see if there was anything else that could be done and ended up fixing some transitions throughout the flashback sequences which included more fade ins/outs and a couple of dissolve transitions, one of which marked the beginnning of flashbacks in a bid to make it more obvious to the audience that it's a flashback and not something occuring at the same time as Jay is sat under surveillance. I also added a previously deleted clip of Jay stood over his dying friend and running off, as it contributed to more of a closure to the flashbacks (as well as confirmation that the man had died). Also a few more seconds of added length!

On tuesday, we tried to re-add audio for the interrogation room sequence at the end but in order for that we would have to add them all again, and we could not find them (were they deleted?? why??). Sometime after, sophie and chelsea burned the opening to a disc through the transfer process.

EVALUATION 1 - in what ways does our media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The conventional type of storyline of a crime drama influenced film focuses on the lives, actions and moral dilemmas of criminals, as well as stressing the notion that crime doesn't pay. Unlike crime thrillers, these films usually give a more serious, grim and realistic portrayal of the criminal environment, detailing on character development and complex narratives sometimes mixed with scenes of bloody action, gunplay or any violence. The protagonist will often be looking for a way out of the criminal lifestyle, only to find themselves trapped.

A perfect example of all this would be the film Carlito's Way; directed by Brian De Palma, the story tells of a big-time criminal released from prison who vows to go straight and retire with his estranged partner on a paradise island, but is continuously unwillingly dragged back into criminal activities by friends and associates.



Below are a series of screengrabs which summarise the whole opening.



Here we are introduced to how the titles and credits appear (all credits are done in this same style). As you can see, the visual presentation is quite unoriginal but the form in which they appear, as if being typed up, (using typewriter sound effects) goes well in the style of police procedural. One could say it is a representation of a report on the case being typed up by an officer.




This is the very first shot we see, and I think it sets the (dark) tone quite well: the grey colour, the obviousness that he is in custody (location, costume, handcuffs), his hopeless/defeated position and the high-angle which gives that sense of vulnerability informs the audience straight away that this isn't a cheerful tale. We used the conventions (used in nearly all crime-associated films in which a character is arrested) of including a police location as well as a prison outfit and handcuffs as they make it plain obvious to the audience that the character has been arrested, which the viewer has know.






These two shots are almost back-to-back, there is just one in between of the character Jay (I wont refer to him as Louis as Louis is the actor!) coming in from outside (with which we did a match on action of him opening the door). It is quite cliche to have the cheating womans boyfriend come home right as they happen to be hitting the sack and a bit unrealistic - wouldn't she have made absolute sure he wouldnt come back whilst they go at it? It is very common to use the theme of unfaithfulness in any type of film, and we decided to use it as we thought it was an emotional enough occurrence to provoke Jay into comitting the crime.




Filming this shot was a bit frustrating due to the unenthusiasm of the actors, one more than the other but I wont be naming names now! This is what Jay sees as he peeks into the room, and it's a pivotal moment for him as it sends him into a great amount of shock and anger. It's supposed to be that they are having intercourse, but as you can see they are just laid next to each other not doing anything which is quite unrealistic and kind of ruins the story, as viewers may laugh at the awkwardness of this. The actors were so frigid, they could of just climbed on top of each other and stayed there for just ten seconds or have just one of them in the bed bouncing up and down and being filmed from an angle that would make it seem the other is in the bed underneath them but noo, not even that. Anyway, the lighting and colour is good: the lamp gives a cosy lighting (reflecting the mood between the two lovers), and the duvet is red, the colour associated with passionate and/or seductive traits, as well as being known as the colour of danger.




The shot of the two in bed fades quickly to this, which works well as it implies that his immediate method of comfort is in alcohol. Use of alcohol is conventional in any films associated with the drama genre, either to establish a character's personality or as a realistic answer to a character's problems and we used it for both of those reasons as well as to let the viewer know that Jay is not in the right state of mind when he kills his friend.




The idea of having him stood in front of a mirror came from having seen in many films a scene when a character is stood in front of a mirror and is in a moment of reflection on their actions, wether done or upcoming, a notable example being the film Taxi Driver. Also, the lighting here is effective as it shows him as a complete dark figure, representing the troubled position he is further digging himself into.




The shot here is succesful in portraying Jay as threatening, it looks like something like a still from a slasher film. The weapon is slighty unconventional as mostly it is a gun and not a kitchen knife.




Here is the entrance of the interrogator, who enters and sits straight down without bothering for an introduction. This kind of straight-to-the-point attitude is somewhat predictable for police characters. We tried to make his clothing as realistic as we could, but I think it was an error to have me holding the truncheon like that as if I was about to use it, as it kind of gives a suggestion that he's about to start whacking the prisoner which was not meant.




DUN DUN DUUUN!!!


Although I like the name Lethal Affair, and it pretty much rounds-up the story, it seems too hard-to-take-serious for a film that has a serious style. If one went to a DVD rental shop and saw a film with this title, they would assume it is some erotic-thriller type film kind of like Basic Instinct with lots of innuendo and a seductive saxophone filled soundtrack. Our opening doesn't really challenge the cliches and conventions to be expected really, the only slight departure is that our storyline does not involve a criminal trying to leave the lifestyle as is mostly featured; just a normal guy who goes a little crazy one unfortunate night and probably ruins his life.

EVALUATION 2 - how does my media product represent particular social groups?

To avoid confusion, I'll refer to Louis' character as Jay (the name he is called in the opening).


REPRESENTATIONS:

The age represented is that of fairly young so 19/early 20's, though the police interrogator would be older which adds to his sense of superiority. The race is all white and the gender presented is mostly men as the only female is in it for about 5 seconds. You could say the male gender is represented as violent (Jay) and in slight contrast, anti-violent (the police interrogator, though his personality his not revealed much, it could be of course that he is quite violent himself, but I just gave him a chilled vibe for the short while he's in it). The representation for the female gender is as an object of desire and posession as that's how the gally in this opening is presented as.

While never discussed, I'd say Jay and his gally are a working-class couple based on his appearance (worn-out-looking clothing, could be blue-collar worker) and attitude (in films containing different social classes, it's common for a working-class character to be the violent one), and Benjamin's character is middle-class (while this is not obvious, we imply it by having him wear a suit). There's a contrast between the two men regarding their class and probably thus in what they can provide for the girl.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS:

The character of the police interrogator can be compared with a character called Agent David Kujan from the film The Usual Suspects, who is also an interrogator and spends the film interrogating the main character.



Both characters have the same gender (obvs), same role (interrogating the lead) and have a high place in their job department. They have quite similar clothing, trousers and a shirt though Kujan is also sporting a tie and the good old dungarees! They both want to know exactly what happened and for what reasons (though Kujan's interrogation is over a much bigger deal), and Kujan is seen to eventually have a somewhat thin patience yet keen to help his interrogatee though you cannot compare this as nothing is revealed about our interrogator's personality but it could be similar (slight aggressivity/over-eager determination form in the personality of interrogators in most police procedural films).

They are both a power of authority attempting to bring justice to the wrong-doer so they symbolise justice.

Why did we choose to use this character? Well because the whole thing started from the idea of an interrogation after we moved that idea from our continuity exercise so I imagine the first character to come into our heads was the interrogator. The relationship between the interrogator and interrogatee is genre-conventional as any trust, bond, hate, or anything felt between the two can be a leading factor of the film's plot.

EVALUATION 3 - what kind of media institution might distribute our media product and why?

Here we were to imagine it was a real film and bear in mind who would be the director, distributor, etc.

STYLE:
We decided that this opening would not be from a big budget Hollywood film; instead a low budget gritty British arthouse style, as the material is indeed gritty and would not contain big budget requirements.

DIRECTOR:
The group thought that Shane Meadows would be a good director for the film, as he has specialised in directing acclaimed and succesful British independent films such as Dead Man's Shoes and most famously This Is England; thus this would be his area of expertise. If not, we thought Danny Boyle, as he has proven to be succesful with low-budget British films that deal with some form or other of crime - Shallow Grave and Trainspotting.

PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION:
I think the Film4 production company would be appropiate, as they have funded a lot of British indepent films including work by the two directors mentioned above. For our distribution Optimum Releasing would do the job, as they distributed This Is England. Being low-budget, we thought we'd go for a budget similar to what the film Shifty (as the context is kind of similar) had which was £1000,000 so yeah about that or maybe a bit more.

CAST:
We did not come to discuss a potential cast, but it is in the evaluation requirements so I'll just say a few ideas. For the lead role, someone who could act violently but also give a human emotion and sympathy to the role, perhaps the lad who plays Cook in the UK drama skins Jack O'Connell. For the role of his friend who he kills, someone who could be snobby maybe Rupert Grint from harry potter. And we'd need a bad-ass to play the police interrogator! Maybe Kidulthood/Adulthood writer and actor Noel Clarke, who has a powerful presence.

MARKETING:
The marketing for the film would be fronted by the appeal either of those two directors has (they now have a reputation for directing good films) so audiences would be interested to see their latest offering. Also, appealing widely to some audiences would be the two actors pictured above, as fans from skins and of the kidulthood/adulthood series (the audiences of which are mostly teenagers to those in their twenties) would want to see their new film. With this potential popularity, I think it would be billboarded around Britain a fair amount of times, and I could see a lot of internet advertising.

RELEASE:
Being an independent British film, it would show at arthouse/independent cinemas but with a team like that it would most likely get promoted enough to play at multiplexes.

EVALUATION 4 - who would be the audience for our media product?

A typical member of our target audience would be a man of about twenty years-old (the crime genre is usually preferred by the male gender of a teenage age to middle-age).



This looks like one of the guys who would enjoy crime dramas. Pretty decent dude who probably has watched many films and enjoys a serious drama film. Possibly wears quite blokey clothes like jeans and plain wear; shops at music stores, book shops, maybe even a fan of gaming. TV shows he'd watch are the news, documentaries and comedy shows. Music preferences I'd say are indie/rock, drum and bass, reggae and maybe old-school hip-hop. He may identify with some of the situations or may know peers similar to the characters. Our target audience would watch the film for interest on how it would play out, and to see if the main character manages to redeem himself/how the story and characters develop.

Here are two videos of three people who watched it:

KELLY AND ALI REVIEW OUR OPENING


Here are a girl and boy of 17 and 18 years of age, interestingly the girl wouldn't form part of the target audience as it is (as previously) an audience mostly consisted of males teen to middle-aged. But they both seemed to like it..they both mentioned how they liked the flashbacks, that it was a good method of storytelling, and that the music was appropiate and effective. Kelly said she liked the typewriter effect, saying that it went well with the genre as well as the black and white effect (refering to the surveillance camera pov shot). They both seemed to understand the story (that the murder happened cos of an affair), and said they would be interested in watching the whole film if it was a real film based on the opening (saying it was grabbing and that they would want to see what happens to the remaining characters). However, they did not give any criticism. When I asked for what was bad/what they didn't like, they just said "nothing, it was good". Either they are just being polite or they simply could not think of anything at the time.


AT THE MOVIES WITH FRANCIS



This lad says he liked the murder scene because it looked realistic and that it was well filmed, saying he liked the angles used. This supports our claiming that the murder would attract members of the target audience. However, he says he didn't understand the beginning and was thus confused as to "who was killing who and stuff".

EVALUATION 5 - how did we attract/address our audience?

Here are a list of elements of our film and how they may attract the target audience

Genre conventions:

We have the main character who starts off comitting a crime and is probably unliked by the audience. This type of character features as a lead in many films, starting off bad but then regretting the incident. This is like the lead character from the film American History X - a white supremacist who murders two black thugs and is sent to jail, but sees the error of his ways (and tries to stop his younger brother from going down the same path). This form of character storyline falls into the trait of an anti-hero.

The overall atmosphere of the opening is generally dark given the context (murder, unfaithfulness, depression, crime) which is also represented by the cinematography as the scenes have low/dark lighting to them apart from when the interrogator enters towards the end where it is quite bright. Here are some screengrabs so you can see for yourself:




As you can see, the final frame kind of stands out like a sore thumb as it's brighter. One could interpret it as a turning point of some kind, as everything else is Jay reflecting alone. It's conventional for films of this genre to have this sort of style to them as it's realistic (if it was light and/or funny then it would be a crime comedy).

The narrative is linear, with flashbacks. The use of flashbacks is common in crime films, as it allows the audience to learn more about a character or the plot. These three conventions I have discussed will gather interest from our audience.

The use of music is for now one track that plays over the whole thing. It is part of the soundtrack to the film Schindler's List composed by John Williams so there is a potential problem that it may be easily recognised music. We will ask the teacher about that. The music is quite ideal as it goes with the material greatly. Though we currently have it playing throughout the whole opening, I think it would be better to have it fade out once all the flashbacks have finished, as it could represent Jay clearing his head and paying attention to the interrogator. Using this style of music (classical) really gives the film an impression of a film noir, as it gives a mature approach as opposed to giving an urban approach (which is much more common in modern days) by inserting a hip-hop soundtrack. The Usual Suspects also had classical music as its soundtrack, so there is another a comparison to that film.

The mise-en-scene is very conventional of the genre (knife, police custody room, alcohol, a street as a murder location). I think using the surveillance camera point-of-view is an original idea as that kind of shot isn't used much. The editing is fairly standard, we have a a short montage set after Jay sees his mate and gally in bed; however, because we used me as a double for Louis in a couple of scenes some people may get the impression that it is actually two different people which is bad. Our USP is the use of flashbacks as they are the main plot-point,