Evaluation question 4

Evaluation question 3

Evaluation question 2

Evaluation Question 1

Our final film and some audience feedback

Here is our groups final film, i hope you enjoy watching it.

Film Review DPS

LA Confidential - Film Review

Here is a Film review I have wrote on LA confidential, I have looked at numerous different film reviews and have tried to mimic others to make mine look as professional as possible.

New Ink Productions

After going through many different production company ideas we decided to name ours ‘New Ink Productions.’ We thought this was suited our film as we have used many modern ideas and music in our film. 

 We wanted to give our production company a typewriter effective, so searched the internet for images. We found this one and decided it suits our production company, as the stained paper and old typewriter contrasts 'New' Ink Productions' giving it a nice effect.

We placed the image onto LiveType which is a software that can text move and give it effects that aren't doable on final cut. We placed the image on the page and added the text, then went onto effects and chose the 'Typewriter' effect, we then picked how long we wanted it to last.




So each letter came after another making it looking like it was being typed in onto the screen. It carries on doing this on untill the screen shows 'New Ink Productions.'

 This is how the final product looks like, we imported it into final cut and put it onto our timeline before adding the sound of someone typing on a typewriter

Film review research

Here are some links to our group visually analysis numerous film reviews from different magazines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8M3uDGsRoDo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-_LVtxvQfjI

Film review research

 I have looked at some film reviews that have been made for some very successful films. I have highlighted what needs to be in my film review to make it look as professional as these.
The film review on the left is for Pineapple Express, this is a double paged review, and shows a large and clear picture of the two main actors. All good reviews seem to stick to the same font throughout the review.

As you can see, the name of the film is in bold the only part of text that stand out. Both of these reviews have been given a final 'verdict' out of stars, this is what the critic believes it is 1 star - poor, 5 being excellent. The review on the right has more than one, Paranormal activity being the main one, but has 4 other small reviews on the right hand side of the page.

This review for Harry Potter unlike the previous ones has more than one picture, this is to show the audience more of the film, it could also be because Harry potter unlike the other films is aimed at a younger audience who would prefer less text and more pictures. A lot of the reviews i have seen also have the release, certificate  director and cast etc. This is the image on the right.

Final Posters

Poster progress

 I have used Adobe photo shop to create my poster. Photo shop always to me edit and put together many photos to create a professional poster.
I liked how the poster for American Gangster has the main actor and a photo of New York merged together, this makes the poster less dull and shows the where the film is set.

I wanted to make my poster like American Gangsters but still having unique things referring it to our film.
 So i got a picture of London, set it as the background, then inserted the picture of the cast. When i had both pictures on the page, i changed the gradient of the picture of the cast made it merge in with background picture, i then added all the necessary text. I feel by using American Gangster as a template it allowed me to progress my poster and make it look professional.

To make my other picture i did exactly the same as the previous poster. I made this poster as it is portrait unlike the other which unlike many posters is landscape. I also made this one so i could compare which one is the best before publishing them to the public.
The pictures on the left are the original photos. I found the gun on the internet and turn it upside down to show the blood on the cast. The gun could also show the audience what is to come in our film

 

Poster research

 I wanted to do some research on film noir posters before making my own, i will looked at how they position there actors, the texts they use and the layout.

 The LA confidential poster has the femme fatale positioned at the front showing her dominance. They also have the name of the actors in the film at the top of the poster, the first names in white and last in red, this give a good effect and could connotate blood, love or passion. To make my poster as effective and realistic i will take things off other posters and use them on mine. On most modern posters there is text at the bottom listing the production company etc.

This poster is more towards advertising classic film noir's. I am trying to make mine more modern, so i will not use the drawing effect that 'The Dark Corner' has. One thing i will use that this poster has is the names of the actors on, they like LA confidential has used the first name in lower case and the last name in upper case. This looks effective and like something i could use to make my poster seem as professional as possible.

These two films have used a similar effect in their poster. They have blended two photos together, i could try and use this in my poster as it looks professional and can give the audience more of insight to the film. 'No country for old men' has a quote on the poster 'There are no clean getaways' This gives the audience an idea that some one is running away.

Music in our films

As we did not have the time in school to find songs to fit into our film, we all searched at home in our spare time. This is song we use in the scene were Jack the protagonist finds the lead dead, although this has lyrics in we found an instrumental to use in our film,we felt the unusual start and loud drop fitted in well 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrteLD7Tsdo

The link above is to the song we used in the bedroom scene, its is also an instrumental. Its a slow song, but with a loud piano and a good use of a snare drum. We felt as it was a romance scene the slow but yet loud and sharp song would fit well into our story line

This song is used in our final scene, where the truth is revealed about Russell and the Femme Fatale, this is more of a modernised song, and we felt it gave an urban feel to our film. We have tried to make our film more of a neo noir but still using film noir conventions. 

Editing

When editing the bedroom scene we decided to give it a sepia effect to improve the quality of the film and seem more neo/film noir. You can see in the image the effect it made, as on the left, is the scene originally and on the right is the scene after using the effect. As  a group we decided to use sepia as it makes the film seem more professional, and fits our story line.

Also when editing, we searched for some music to put into our film, we needed music for most scenes and looked through many different tracks to make sure it sets the mood correctly as the right music can improve a film drastically. We looked through Youtube and played some songs whilst watching our film to see if they went together, we could not find any songs that would suit our film at this time.

Scripts

Editing so far

 Here is the mac we are using to edit our film. In this photo we are editing the office scene, we are putting the shots we have filmed and putting them into the right order before cutting out bits we do not need and adding transitions. We have taken time out to learn how to use final cut and are all now comfortable to use the mac when editing our film.

This is a close up of the previous photo. As you can see there is a whiskey glass on the screen, in this picture we are shortening down the shot of the glass to show the audience that the drink is whiskey. We liked the sound of the whiskey pouring in the glass so made sure the audience can hear it in this shot. We could also us this shot as a cutaway, which could be effective.

Here we are adding a voice over to one of our shots, the shot is of Ben writing an address on a piece of paper. The shot is a p.o.v shot to make sure the audience can see what he is doing. In the original clip it is unclear when I tell Ben the address, so we tried adding the voice over to make sure it clear and understandable as this is a key part in our film

Day 4 - Reflection

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=trzGfKAYf5I

Quick reflection of day 4's filming

Day 4 - Filming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Yq6bSGT2ri0

This is a quick clip of our 4th day of filming, we took a break and discussed what had happened so far and how the story is going to pan out

Day 4 filming

Character profiles

Russell
Ben plays the character Russell, Russell is a police detective who is also good friends with Jack, who is the protagonist of our film. We first see Russel in the bar scene where he is playing pool with Jack, whilst speaking about a Drug Scandal that has recently occurred.
  Russel is then again seen in the office scene where Jack tells him he has a lead, throughout the film we see Russell as a colleague and a good friend to Jack. In the last scene of our film the audience are revealed to Russell's true character, Russell is in love with the femme fatale and has been going behind Jacks back, to secure the money that had been exchanged in the drug scandal. The film ends with Russell killing Jack and running away with Ruby and the money.

Ruby
Ruby is the femme fatale of our film, she is played by Harri, and plays a key part in our film. Like most femme fatales Ruby is seductive and leads to trouble. We gave her the name Ruby after her red dress as this is what she is first seen wearing by the audience. Ruby is first introduced to the audience at the bar scene were she introduces her self to Jack and asks him to help her find lost money, the scene then ends and we see that they spent the night together. Throughout the film we suspect Ruby is up to no good, as she is asking Jack to find her money.
  Ruby then makes an appearance in the final scene were she shows the audience she is with Jacks friend and colleague Russell and is involved in Jacks death.

Jack
Jack is the protagonist in our film, Jack is played by myself. As Jack is the main character in our film, we wanted to make him liked by the audience as it will make the twist at the end of the film more dramatic. The audience are taken through two days of Jacks life, and we have tried to make him seem like the good guy who is committed to doing this good, providing justice and sticking to the law. Jack falls for the femme fatale, we have tried to make the audience sense that this is dangerous by using many various camera shots to show the femme fatals control. We also see that Jack does not call the shots between them in the bedroom scene when she 'get back to him'. Overall we have tried to portray Jack as the kind of guy the audience will like and be intrigued to follow him on his case to find the money.

Day 3 - Group Discussion

Day 2 - Filming summary

Filming - Day 2

 Our second day of filming was filmed at The Old White Horse in Baldock. We chose this pub as it has a large pool table that we wanted to add in to our film.

 This is the pool table we used to open the scene,we thought using the pool table we could get some really good shots, such as the balls breaking and being potted. The table also added a modern/stylish effect to our film.A few problems occurred when doing this scene as the pool table was next to the toilets so members of the public who needed the toilet would have to walk past, this meant we had to film the same scene more times than normal.

  Another problem we came across in the pub was there were already people using the pool table. This was okay, it just meant we had to wait for them to finish and were not left with much time to get our filming done. Due to this we had to come back the next day to finish off the filming we couldn't do originally .

 This is a picture of us filming. This scene is the audiences first encounter with the femme fatale so we wanted to make sure it was a good shot. The setting was at a bar, and the camera pans up to reveal the femme fatale. We liked this shot as the lighting from the window only lit half of her face, maybe showing a split personality, there was also a lot of equipment at the bar that made the shot more realistic and effective.

We did not include this fire place in this scene as it was not needed, but it could fit into our film later on. The open fire could be used to show love, passion or comfort or it could be include in a seen between the detective and femme fatale.
 Venetian blinds are a typical feature in film noir films and we tried to incorporate them into ours. We filmed Ben walking away through them, they were also useful for lighting, as in a shot of the femme fatale, the blinds added effective lighting across her face.

Day 1 Filming

This is a summary of our first day filming. We filmed the scene where two men men meet and exchange something in a briefcase  We decided to film this scene at the back of tesco car park, as it is rarely busy and has good lighting.This photo is of one of the main lights in the car park that we used in most of our shots. As this was filmed at night, we needed good lighting to make sure the audience knew clearly what was going on, this light plus a few torches for inside the car helped us do that. The car in the photo is one of two that are meeting in the car park to exchange a briefcase. We filmed many different quick shots of our characters in the cars driving and opening doors, un-doing seat belts etc. We did this as we aim to make a sequence of quick shots of these sorts of things to build suspense.

This photo is of the flip cam we are using to record our film with in the boot of Bens car. We did this as we wanted a shot from inside the boot of Ben picking up the briefcase. The low canted angle of Ben doing this worked really well and was very effective, it allowed us to show the audience the importance of the briefcase.

Group discussion - Problems/changes

Detective Costume Ideas

 This hip-flask would be a good prop to use in our film. It could be used by the detective, this will tell the audience that they drink or are drinking alcohol. The flask could be placed in the the pocket of the detectives suit, and he could take it out and drink from it. Hip-flasks usually have strong spirits in, this will give the audience an idea of what type of character he is.






This is also a good prop, the briefcase could symbolize mystery, it could be a good way of hiding something from the audience. The briefcase will be exchanged at the start of the film between two men. The combination of the gold clasps and black case make the whatever is in the briefcase a lot more important.

 This plain grey suit is a costume of the another detective who is not the main character. This suit shows the detectives authority and that they take their job seriously. As its grey it also does not make this detective stand out compared to the main detective. The fact the jacket and trousers are not a pair could mean that the detective is not wealthy, this outfit could be used in a scene were the detective is at work.

 This is another costume for the other detective. This one is more smart and suave, it is all black so could be used at a scene of a murder. It once again shows the detective is smart. I think this costume will be more effective in our film than the other as it can connotate many things and could be used to represent his evil side or even his authority.

 This grey tweet jacket is a costume our main detective will wear. The jacket along with the white shirt, black tie and trousers collectively form a modern, suave look. The suit makes the detective look smart/casual and gives the neo-noir effect. The detective could wear this when at work, out or depressed as the colour grey could be used to connotate depression, dull and troubled.

This navy jacket is more formal than the other, it is more smart and sophisticated. The brown buttons with the navy blazer, bring out a modern, neo-noir look. The detective could wear this in scenes were he is at work outside trying to figure something out, he could also wear it when meeting the femme fatale