A2 Final Short Film January 2010- I.C.U

Final A2 Film Production
This is the final A2 short five minute film. Having finishing the A2 stage of creating a short film I had a great experience in working with the new editing software, different type of cast and crew. Learning new skills and developing from old skills at both AS and A2 stages has now left me at the point where I feel that I have the ability to go and create my own short film. I now feel truly comfortable with all new media technology and am firmiliar with all the different aspects in making a film.

AS Final Opening Sequence 2009

Final AS Opening Sequence..
From both AS and A2 stages of production a lot of changes were made and mistakes made at AS were made sure that they were not carried out at A2 looking at the AS production and A2 there are a lot of elements of the film that you could compare and see a improvement.

Question 3- New Draft

What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback
In order to create a successful media product I have learnt through all 3 stages of production that audience feedback is very vital; it’s like gold dust. It’s very crucial to hear what your audience need to say about any media product produced as they are our only king. Us as film makers or any type of media product producers in order to make a successful film we need to fulfil our target auidences pleasures of predictability and know what they want and expect from the film or media product. At the early stages of pre production during creating our pitch, we were asked to read it out to the class allowing us to seek some feedback. The class feedback gave us so much interpretation on how to make changes to the first pitch and was able to ask our audience any questions about the pitch that was not conceived correctly such as, "how are you going to give audience insight into characters personality and background", "during the flashback are you going to show the two characters Johnny and Marie together" and "how does your story link in with the colour red". All questions were answered up to best standards by group members and myself so that there was no confusion with the audience and the pitch, "the key to showing Alfie’s character will be through flashbacks as his jealousy will show his motivation for his actions. We get an insight of Marie's character in the opening scene when there is a conversation between her and the other character Johnny regarding Alfie’s possessiveness. From this we learn of her need of independence and some freedom, as her cheating shows her rebellious side towards Alfie. Johnny's character is seen as womanising and moral-less through his behaviour towards Marie showing his selfishness, showing he is use to getting his own way. The question asked about Marie and Johnny occurring in the flashback was also answered in perfection, "In the flashback we also see Johnny and Marie together so the audience gets a taste of their relationship that progresses. We will show them by walking into classes together or perhaps a little flirtatious bond, so the fling is a prompted idea for the audience yet not a definite. Lastly our story links in with the colour as "the colour red firstly links through the theme of lust and sexuality. This is shown in the relationship between Marie and Johnny’s characters. The fire that takes place is also key to our “red” theme. Also, the aggression and anger of Alfie’s character and his motivation to seek revenge also expresses our “red” theme. From this audience feedback I was then able to adapt what the audience said to create the second pitch and made sure it was created to what the audience expected.The second stage of pre production was to construct the ideal script in order to move on to the storyboard and the next stages of pre production such as mood board of the world of our film, photo storyboard, location recce, cast list, prop list and so on. After receiving audience feedback on the script, "firstly the first scene in the lab contains a lot of dialogue and not a lot of visual. So think about how to cut this down and include more action to tell the story. Remember that is what good cinematography is about as well. avoid too much dialogue and think of more interesting ways to show the characters and narrative development" other comments were made too such as "same comments for scene 4 - too much dialogue", we were then suggested to watch more films relating with the same genre so that we can overcome this problem and gain more experience to write an ultimate script and permit me to take in consideration my target audience and from this feedback I also learnt that in order to create a successful film the script has to be perfect. Following on from the script we then moved on to the storyboard, the feedback gained from this, "there are not enough cut away/safety shots and in order to show more character development and motivation we need another quick, fast, snappy scene in the flashback. From this feedback I learnt that it is very crucial to have safety/cut away shots so that during production and post production there would be enough back up shots in case of an emergency so it prevents us from re-shooting.
Later then we moved on to the second stage, production which was producing our 5 minute film. This then leaded us into the third stage, post production. During post production while editing our film there was a lot of crucial feedback made specifically towards scene 1 our audience made us realise that when one of the character Marie, screamed it was too sudden and the was nothing shown to trigger her off to react like that and this caused the diegetic sound, dialogue not to match the image creating are very contrapuntal effect which we did not tend to achieve. Another aspect of scene 1 which was also looking out of place, was at the start of the film we as a group intended to create a pan to establish the setting and add a shook when noticing character Alfie on the camera to add a effective look and imply that the character should not be there, however after reviewing this part of scene 1 the target audience added that there’s no point of the shook "as it just seems to look like a camera movement error". This allowed us to fulfil target audience expectations and from this I learnt that we as film makers need to take into account that if we need to apply an effective touch to the film it needs to show significance and it should be clear and understanding towards the audience.
The last and final type of feedback was received when I created the posters to help promote our film. Overall three posters were made and there was a lot essential feedback given, when in progress of creating the first poster a lot of target audience pin pointed that the taglines on the poster "needs to be re-arranged and the red in the protagonist eye is not relevant", however the poster also had positive feedback such as, "the characters Marie and Johnny in the background look very effective with the blurred touch to show that they are not the main focus but still have a crucial part to play in the film". After developing the poster further and adding on the final touches the poster was created and received great feedback, After hearing awesome positive feedback from the audience I as the poster designer felt that the second poster would have to look more unexpected leaving the audience gasped and astonished, in development of the second poster many effects, layers and artistic brushes were used on Adobe Photoshop to help me gain exactly what was in my mind. I then received all positive feedback like, "the poster looks very professional and appealing, the cracks in the wall add the thriller atmosphere and the target audience adding how you could clearly see a house style between the 2 posters and how it is very mysterious and doesn't give away too much". The final poster was then created, as seen this poster had a lot of work to do and needed more work and was "naturally unfinished", using this feedback it automatically forced me to work on the poster and not let me audience down on what they expected so later on that same day the final third poster was created which were I just wanted the protagonist of the film to appear on it and this also had gained an remarkable feedback, "the poster shows that it is finished, looks very formal and proficient.
Overall like mentioned before any type of feedback is very important even if its from the most basic thing mentioned to any positive points made, this allows us as film makers to accomplish our target audiences expectations and needs.

Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

All 3 media products have a relationship between each other and work together to promote the film. The stage in which the film is promoted is, first it sells itself using the posters created to target the audience about the featuring film, the posters font, colours, tagline, title and the location of where the poster is placed helps the audience to acknowledge that the film is ready to be seen and sells itself to the target audience who are interested in the genre of thriller/suspense. The posters use colours such as reds, blacks, greys and oranges to add the fiery, mysterious, suspense and tension building atmosphere towards the target audience who are interested in the thriller genre it also works with the film as the film uses dark and dull colours in its cinematography to add in the psycho, corrupted touch towards the characters motivation in the story. The font style and title "I.C.U", also has a great influence to help make all 3 media products work together. The style of font was used from website http://www.urbanfonts.com/ named psycho, the creepy, loony looking font style works very well with the characters motivation and development in the storyline of the film helping it create the mad, demented atmosphere to the film and poster. The title I.C.U is very convincing as it has a double meaning, the effect of this leads the audience eager to know what the film is about as I.C.U stands for abbreviation of "I See You" and at the same time means "intensive care unit" which are located in the hospitals and as seen in the film there’s a serious accident that takes place and relates to it. Linking in with the title the tagline also has a very energetic effect towards the poster, "who do you see because... I.C.U" as the film is based upon a creepy character that had a very disturbed background causing him to stalk his own girlfriend leading him to kill. This shows the thriller aspect of the storyline and interests that type of audience. The location of where the poster would be placed in order to promote itself definitely had to be taken in consideration as the poster wouldn’t be placed in a high saturated fitness suite as it wouldn't appeal to that type of target audience as their interests and hobbies would vary to someone who is interested in the thriller genre. Therefore our poster would be promoted in places such as back ally ways, billboards in rough neighbourhoods etc... Places such as the common room as the age group we are targeting our film at lie here. The film uses dull dark colours such as greys and blacks like mentioned before which are seen in scenes 2 and 5 this therefore triggers again the target audience who are interested in the thriller genre as you wouldn't expect to see high bright saturated colours. In scene 3 and 4 the flashbacks, this shows a real connection between the film and the poster as flashbacks use the black and white effect which is shown throughout the posters, here you can clearly see how both the film and poster work together to create that house style and I feel the audience would immediately when watching the film relate back to the movie poster and identify that they come from the same film.The film review also works as one of the family members towards the film and the posters, the final stage of when releasing a film is to then review it and express how you felt about the film and as the target audience if it met your expectations. We decided to review our film in "independent critics” magazine" as it focuses on giving brief reviews from different view points. It shows a multiple of reviews on one page films from all different kinds of genres this shows that all kinds of ages are targeted by this specific magazine and this would help still promote our film onto other media products such as DVD'S, blue ray, internet, video on demand, sky/ntl and then eventually on T.V, even though some people may feel that after reviewing a film on to a magazine/newspaper that’s the end but the effect of this still leads into continuous promotion and making the public aware more about your film and to those who are interested into thriller films.Statistics also show that the UK population visit the cinemas at an 8th ranking out of 78 countries.

Question 1

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

My final media product I.C.U falls under the genre of thriller, aimed at the age group of 15 up wards. I.C.U's relationship plot line is based upon 3 characters which use forms and conventions from various TV series and films "Gossip Girl", the love triangle between characters Blair, Chuck and Nate are very similar to the Characters in my film Alfie, Johnny and Marie. This is also shown in the film "Obsessed" starring Beyonce Knowles, the relationship between a husband and wife gets interrupted by a work colleuge who has a huge obsession on one of the main characters and conflict is caused.However at the same time I.C.U challenges the typical forms and conventions of the thriller type genre films as, Marie having the lead actress role she does not tend to be the typical damsel in distress type of character where she has to be rescued by a male as in our storyline Marie's character seems to be quite concerned about her relationship with her boyfriend and is in dilemma between two boys, this is shown from her facial expression, tone of voice and body language in scene 1 in the science rooms and also shown in the relationship between all three characters during the flashbacks. Most typical thriller films tend to be set in the night/dark such as the film "Prom Night" the outside lighting has been stuck to night time through out most of the film, However I.C.U uses this idea of keeping the lighting quite dark to create the intense atmosphere during scene 1 of the film but then it develops further by changing the type of light into morning and creating a very hollow and a intense type atmosphere in scenes 2 and 5 allowing to show that time has moved on and emphasize with the character.The main character, Alfie's motivation in the story was to kill the girlfriend and the other boy due to a deep corrupted past were he lived in a world were there use only relationship he had was with his father and that too consisted of the missuse of alcohol and long term abuse leading Alfie to become a psycho type character, here the film I.C.U again uses the idea of a typical serial killer seen in many thriller films such as "scream 1,2,3". The setting used in films such as "The Dark Knight" and "The Matrix" challenge the typical forms and conventions of the thriller based genre as I.C.U is based in a locked classroom/school and compared to "The Dark Knight and The Matrix" these two films are set either in the streets of America or some kind of underground new dimension hideouts.The characters costume from the film "Waz" automatically relates with Alfie’s costume from my film I.C.U and it uses the typical hoody type of outfit involved with teenagers to create that kind outsider image and a sense of "i don't belong". The quick flashbacks shown in I.C.U uses typical codes and conventions of thriller films as seen in the film "Bourne Ultimatum", there’s a series of quick, fast, flashy and snappy flashbacks in Matt Damon's "Bourne Ultimatum" this also relates to scenes 3 and 4 in I.C.U as the effects added onto these flashback give out the same impression allowing us to relate to other films from the same genre.

Title Sequence Research

Saul Bass In order to get some fresh ideas for our own title sequence we looked at some intresting work and designs of Saul Bass. From analysing many of the opening title sequences he created we were able to take away many possible title ideas for our own film...

Casino, Martin Scorsese 1995

In the title sequence of Casino, the first shots are kept very simple to contrast with the car bomb exploding, creating maximum "shock facotr" for the audience. Fire takes over the screen with the character Sam Rothstein falling across the transitions into the crimson lights of Las Vegas strip. Flames shoot up from the bottom of the frame, showing a screen covered with abstract shots of iconic Las Vegas signage and ilumination. This version of hell created by Bass summarises the narrative ahead, without ruining any of the suprises Scorsese has in store. The combination of image and sound urges the viewer to consider theme: Las Vegas as the most tempting hell on Earth, just as it was for Scorsese's protagonist.
As fire plays an important concept in our film, the Casino title sequence had a specific relevance. An idea which one of the members in the group incorporated the fire explosion transition, after the lighter is sparked in our film. I thought at this dramatic point of the title sequence it would be the perfect time to display the film's title.
However as we were limited to the editing software we used, we learned that the effect we wanted to create was not possible.