"De(i)fied" Final Cut

At long last, here is the final cut of mine and Adam's opening to our film.



AF & DY

Preliminary Study

I filmed this preliminary study a while ago but I never got round to publishing it here. We had to exhibit our ability to use a match on action, shot-reverse shot and that we could follow the 180 degree rule.

The challenging part was the fact that I had to film this freehand because I couldn't find a useable tripod at the time, but I think all things considered I managed to do so with minimal shaking or blurriness. Furthermore, having my friends as actors did not help at all. They kept laughing, despite one of them being a drama student. The amount of unusable material we produced as a result is truly surreal. I wish I had time to make blooper videos for all these projects.

DY

Evaluation: Question 1

AF & DY

Evaluation: Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?



DY

Evaluation: Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your film product and why?

To find out what company might be willing to take on our film, Adam researched the types of companies which exist and the types of films they're willing to work with. A distribution company is defined by the fact that, as a marketer, they raise awareness of the film through a range of campaigns. as well as forming deals with other companies (e.g. Sony) in order to aid the DVD, TV and online releases of the feature.

Adam looked at a variety of companies which we could have considered, ranging from small independent British institutions working primarily within the country to companies which distribute films worldwide.

Adam decided a likely group of candidates was the Independent British Companies, which would be more likely to take on a film shot in a quirky style similar to ours, with its stop-motion ident, unnatural colouring and acoustic soundtrack. "Vertigo", especially, seems appealing due to their previous involvement in micro-budget films, including Gareth Edwards' "Monsters". As our film is also a low-budget sci-fi production, the prospects of working with this company are all the more hopeful. Even the institution's limited reach shouldn't be a problem; much like the above film, Adam conjectured that we could then opt for a larger company such as "Magnolia Pictures" to take our feature to other countries instead.

Another viable option for the distribution of "De(i)fied" would be a company such as Film4, as they finance stylised, unique British films. Their past releases have included "Inbetweeners 2", "12 Years a Slave" and "71". Companies such as this are concerned predominantly with financing and international distribution; two things which are very important for small productions like ours. However, Adam found that, despite the fact that the BFI collaborates with many institutes such as this, a company such as Film4 is likely to overlook our product in favour of more easily marketable works, such as multi-genre biopics or comedies. It is likely our film would be too stylistically different to their usual releases for them to actually regard it seriously, and so a company in this vein wouldn't necessarily be an ideal candidate.

To supplement the above, Adam also researched larger studios such as Lionsgate, StudioCanal and Icon, the first of which stood out the most due to their distribution of "The Hunger Games" franchise from which we partially drew inspiration for our own work. However, considering the fact that these are the three biggest distributors in Britain and such companies usually prefer to avoid financing risky productions, our film is, again, likely to be rejected by them. Although we could use the brand name authority and the reach these titans have even outside of the country, the low budget production of the film and its unusual genre combination (indie sci-fi thriller) would likely put it into disfavour with institutions such as this. We would perhaps be more likely to succeed if, before producing the film, I completed the novel which we based its initial premise on and managed to publish it successfully (bringing "De(i)fied" closer to the standard of "The Hunger Games"), but this would take a significant amount of effort and would also postpone the creation of the feature itself indefinitely. Therefore, unless we managed to concretely show that our film was worth the effort in terms of profit, it would seem wiser to stick to companies that would be more likely to take our work on. 

Adam's research makes it clear that the type of company which would be most likely to distribute our film would be a small-scale British indie institution. The eerie atmosphere of our piece, as well as the saturated colours and guitar soundtrack all lend themselves to the type of feature a small production company would ordinarily release. "De(i)fied"'s originality, in this case, would be considered a strongpoint as opposed to a reason to overlook it (conversely to a typical Hollywood blockbuster). Therefore, a company such as "Vertigo" would have to be our first choice.

AF

Evaluation: Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for our media product, according to the research we've done both before and after creating our film, is likely to be predominantly female and within our own age range (15 to 21). This mostly lines up with our initial target demographic, which we anticipated due to our two leads being female and the unusual, youth-oriented genre combination of the film. However, we found that our post-viewing audience was mostly male as opposed to female. The fact that indie sci-fi thrillers aren't common in the industry meant we had to be particularly specific about the types of people who may be willing to subject themselves to watch our film.

Of course, the above is also dictated by the certification of our film; 15, meaning we would be able to include any theme, "providing the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds." (Source: BBFC) Rather than limiting our work, however, I believe the above criteria makes the production of the film itself more interesting and challenging. Instead of blindly, callously and often gratuitously revelling in dubious themes like a lot of 18-rated products do, this certification would allows us to explore a greater morally complex and directional take on anything we include. Additionally, a younger age of certification broadens our demographic to 3 years below what it would be had we gone for a higher one, meaning our revenues are likely to be equally higher due to this expansion; a fact that is very important for independent studios like ours. The typical cinema which would take us on - most likely an art house-oriented chain like Picture House - would be another limit on our audience outreach, focussing mostly on people who don't have enough time or money to consistently go to multiplex cinemas. A set-up like this is perfect in terms of reaching students of all ages, especially, as well as anyone else oriented around indie productions such as ours.

The survey we conducted after our screening roughly followed the pattern of the findings from our previous online poll and vox pops. It was constructed of two parts (one on the individual's general film preferences and the other on their opinion of the film). It contained the following questions:

PART 1

1) Please circle your gender.

Male                Female                        Other

2) What are your 3 favourite/most watched film genres?

Action             

Adventure

Comedy          

Crime

Drama

Historical

Horror

Indie   

Romance        

Sci-Fi

Thriller                       

War

Western

3) When was the last time you watched a film? (Please circle most appropriate timeframe.)

A year ago       6 months ago              1 month ago    1 week ago      

                                3 days ago       Yesterday

4) Where was the last time you watched a film?

Cinema            TV        DVD     Legally online              Illegally online            Other

5) What was the film’s name?

_________________________________________________________________

6) Did you enjoy it? Why/Why not?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

PART 2

1) Do you have any criticisms of the ident? (e.g. too short, too difficult to read)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2) Could you clearly understand the dialogue throughout the feature?  If not, what was the problem? (e.g. too loud, too quiet)

_________________________________________________________________

3) What was the best/your favourite part of the film?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4) What was the worst/your least favourite part of the film?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5) Do you want to know what happens next? If so, what do you think does happen?

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6) Tick/colour in the amount of stars you would give “De(i)fied” overall.

*~That completes the questionnaire. Thank you for watching and participating!~*

We received 11 responses, although not every question contains a full set of answers due to people refusing or forgetting to answer certain questions. The first half of this information was fairly easy to process into graphs, as most of it was quantitative, but the answers to the second half had to be compiled and assessed in separate paragraphs in order to decide our precise demographic and draw out exactly the type of audience who would be likely to not only watch out film, but enjoy it, too.

According to the graphs Adam created, our demographic remained predominantly male (54.5%), and our target age range of 15-21 remained partial to the Action, Horror and Comedy genres. They were all fairly avid consumers of film, with no one watching a film longer ago than around the 1 month mark, and most seeing one within the last 3 days - an encouraging sign, as this means our target audience was well-chosen for our type of product. The significantly less encouraging result was that of the mode of consumption: most people, 36.4%, said they watched their last film illegally, which isn't fantastic news for a low-budget independent film such as ours. However, there's little to be done about this fact; it's simply a factor to take into consideration should we have reached the marketing stage of our film, as we would have to make the campaign appealing enough for people to want to watch our product in the cinema as soon as it came out as opposed to waiting for an illegal torrent to surface. The fact that our audience's enjoyment of our work averaged at 4 out of 5 stars indicates that this shouldn't have been particularly difficult to achieve.

The qualitative results of our survey gave us more of an indication of the tastes of our average viewer, meaning we could appeal to these more successfully both within the remainder of the film itself and within its promotion. The results (in a randomised order) were as follows:

What was the name of the last film you watched? Did you enjoy it? Why/why not?

1) “Super Troopers” – Yes, because it was hilarious.
2) “Home” – Sort of; it was childish but had some good moments.
3) “Incredibles” – Hell yes; this is my favourite animated film. It’s got great characters, a great story and a cool animation style.
4) “Ex Machina” – Yes, it was a very interesting story with a great cast.
5) “21” – Yes, a great, fast-paced, realistic film with a great plot.
6) “Treasure Planet” – Yes; this was my favourite film when I was younger.
7) “Theory of Everything” – Yes. It was very moving; an interesting perspective on a fascinating life.
8) “Theory of Everything” – Yes, as it was poignant and moving (although a little too romanticised).
9) “Fifty Shades of Grey” – No, it had no plot.
10) “Say Anything” – Yes, because I love 80s movies and it has a great premise.
11) “Fight Club” – …It was alright.

Do you have any criticisms of the ident?

1) Too short.
2) Too short.
3) Too short.
4) Too short, but what I managed to see was cool.
5) Too fast and quite blurred.
6) The text could have been brighter or a little clearer.
7) Eh.
8) Clear.
9) Great.
10) It was good.
11) (One person neither knew nor asked what an ident is.)

Could you clearly understand the dialogue throughout the feature? If not, what was the problem?

1) Uneven volumes.
2) Slightly too quiet.
3) Too quiet.
4) Too quiet.
5) Yes.
6) It was good.
7) Very clear.
8) Yep, all good.
9) Yes.
10) Yes, ‘twas great.
11) Yes.

What was the best/your favourite part of the film?

1) The raccoon hat.
2) The businessman colliding with homeless girl.
3) The typeface.
4) The pan scene.
5) Good cinematography and other shots, transitions, etc.
6) The reflection part.
7) The titles were really good. Also, the intense ending that built up against the wall, plus the window reflection shots.
8) The colours.
9) The “Hello, mother!” scene.
10) The repeated movement through the gates and the mother scene.
11) The beginning was really good. I liked the close ups.

What was the worst/your least favourite part of the film?

1) Flawless. Or maybe not very smooth transitions for the music.
2) Actor’s eye contact with camera.
3) Difficult to understand storyline.
4) Storyline too hard to understand.
5) The transition of the title was a bit amateurish.
6) All the standing around.
7) The weird-looking girl in the raccoon hat. (A comment by the actress who played said weird-looking girl.)
8) (Blank)
9) (Blank)
10) (Blank)
11) I have no idea!

Do you want to know what happens next? If so, what do you think does happen?

1) Not really.
2) Yes. I would guess that the following persists, but I’m unsure of what the outcome of this would be.
3) Yes; I hope there is a thrilling CHASE between the two characters or maybe an interaction.
4) No. Bad things.
5) Yes… I think one girl confronts the other :)
6) Yes, they save the world!
7) Not really. But I think the girl in the racoon hat follows the other one, Terminator-style.
8) Yes. One girl murders the other in an attempt to put more action into her life.
9) Yeah. She probably escapes.
10) Yes! I think the girl in the racoon hat wants love and will find it in unexpected places.
11) (Blank)

The above information makes the kinds of people we can expect to watch our film fairly obvious. The answers to the first question indicate a wish for emotional experiences in films. The adoration of animation, especially, exhibits a sentimentality likely owed to the child-to-adult transnational age of our target audience. Similarly, plot was clearly important, as it was mentioned in at least 3 of the 11 responses. This is good for our film, as it contains its fair share of poignant scenes centred around character development, as well as a cohesive, original take on an admittedly fairly cliché overarching plot.

The massive variety of responses we received in terms of what what good about our film is interesting in terms of showing that, as long as we hit the correct demographic, different people are likely to find different things to enjoy about our work, which is an encouraging thought. The humour of the "Hello, mother!" dialogue was appreciated a little more commonly however, correlating with our audience's interest in comedy films.

The fact that many of the answers on what our audience enjoyed the least were left blank is similarly pleasing in terms of showing that our film succeeds in grasping this demographic's attention successfully, furthering our confidence that we picked the correct market for our piece. The fact that 2 of 11 people found the plot confusing would ordinarily be a negative sign, but I personally maintain the confidence that, if we were allowed to shoot more footage, the premise would become one hundred percent clear fairly quickly due to the standard cues and conventions the rest of the film would exhibit to establish it as a sci-fi thriller. 

The overwhelming positive response we received in terms of whether the audience wanted to continue watching our film (7 out of 11) is the deciding piece of evidence which proves that the demographic of an almost even 50:50 gender split within the older teen/young adult range is right for "De(i)fied". The fact that most of our audience members couldn't guess what would happen next is also perfectly in line with the thriller genre we worked in; after all, if the audience is sure about what will happen next at all times, the film has failed as a thriller! (The deleted final scene of our opening can be seen in our second rough cut, showing that despite a wide range of responses on what could occur next, our hints throughout the opening were sufficient to allow 3 of the 11 people to guess the next scene at least roughly, we had secured a decent level of continuity in terms of plot.)

Aside from researching our target audience, we also used this questionnaire to unveil any problem areas our audience found in our work. The criticisms we received of our ident were, sadly, impossible to remedy, as the most common response we got was that it was too short (5 of 11), but we had already gone over the 2 minute time limit by around 3 seconds. The fact that it was also found to be somewhat difficult to read (2 of 11) was also essentially out of our hands, as despite all our practice on Motion, we couldn't find a way to space the letters of the afterglow any further apart without having the text go out of frame. The presence of positive responses (3 of 11), however, assured us that we would just have to write all this off to experience. However, the volume of the dialogue, which 5 of 11 people commented was too low, was something we went back and adjusted slightly, hopefully heightening the quality of our work somewhat.

In conclusion, the above information not only confirms our previous assumptions about the audience of our film, but also makes it clear what we would have to alter or do better in order to cater to a larger audience in future projects. 

DY

Evaluation: Question 5

How did you attract or address your audience?

In order to address and attract our audience, Adam and I included a variety of cues and conventions which our young adult demographic would be able to identify with, combined with some concepts they would rally against, instead. This manifested predominantly in our choices of cast, action, costume, setting and soundtrack.

The characters' clothes in this opening sequence were amongst the most vital components of both their personality and relatability. Whereas Mal, the girl from our planet, wears the casual, average clothes one would expect of a teenager forced to live on the streets (comfortable hiking boots, a warm coat, jeans), Al's costume was designed specifically to be strange in terms of both its unsuitability to the weather and its jarring style and colour. This would hopefully create a ripple in our young adult audience in terms of forcing them to ask themselves who and for what purpose would dress as strangely and uncomfortably as her, therefore hinting at her extraterrestrial origins. The perception of Al as weird and Other is understandably one of the core concepts of our film; the viewers are supposed to relate to the both physically and metaphorically more human Mal, up to the point when Al's characterisation develops enough for her to be accepted by them as well.

In terms of this, our choice of cast was also important; the leads had to be representative of our target audience to allow greater identification, making the contrast of Al's behaviour greater. We also did this in order to go against certain annoying stereotypes forced upon female heroines in many sci-fi and thriller films (such as their status as damsels in distress, or their characterisation as two-dimensional as opposed to humanly flawed, individualistic and generally well-rounded).

The setting and choice of action in the case of our film go hand in hand to an extent in attracting our audience. The bedroom of the girl whose identity Al has stolen, in particular, would have hopefully appealed to our viewers due to the variety of pop culture references present in the posters on the walls (including the Batman and Superman logos). Al's strange speech pattern and behaviour, however, would conversely have hopefully alerted them to the fact that something didn't make sense about someone being so well-acquainted with our world and yet unable to interact successfully with others (in fact, this behaviour may instead be seen as a comment on the mental state of a lot of teenagers).

The fact that a character of our audience's age commits a crime in this sequence is also resonant of the stereotypically perceived need found in most young adults to rebel or transgress authority and rules, hopefully adding a higher degree of excitement to the narrative. Similarly, the fact that the action begins in a large but mostly unidentifiable city hopefully brings it closer to home for certain viewers, allowing them to imagine it's occurring somewhere near them and lending a sense of immediacy to the plot.

The final component of our address of our audience was the acoustic guitar soundtrack we used to help establish our film as part of the indie genre. The lyrics version would have arguably been more apt in communicating such an atmosphere, but I digress. The guitar line, being fairly simple and easy to duplicate, would hopefully inspire an element of fan imitation, as many viewers of indie films are statistically partial to playing guitar themselves. The cultural relevancy of this instrument, therefore, would hopefully bolster our audience's ability to relate to and immerse themselves in the story.

In conclusion, we attracted and addressed the audience of our film via attempting to appeal to the socio-cultural layer our film is targeted at due to its indie sci-fi thriller genre, as well as by making our characters as relatable to our chosen age bracket as possible. All this would hopefully allow our audience to feel almost part of the story in terms of feeling that the events of the film could happen to any average person on earth; even them.

DY

Evaluation: Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies in the process of constructing this product?



AF

Evaluation: Question 7

Looking back on your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The preliminary tasks I was part of were conducted in different groups to my coursework partner, and included one short personal practice and a feature called “The Package”. The basic premise of the former was to exhibit three key filming techniques (shot-reverse shot, match on action and the 180° rule). The latter had to incorporate a plot revolving around a package arriving at our school. Both of these, however, pale in comparison to the final work Adam and I completed, considering the level of familiarity we had to achieve in our use of software such as Final Cut Pro, Motion, and even Photoshop in order to construct our coursework. We also had to learn the skills needed to physically create the various components (the footage itself, the music, the ident) from scratch, having never done any filming even remotely close to this scale before. Like the editing process this, too, involved familiarisation with a lot of new technology and the gaining of hands-on experience.





One skill which is unique to the Media course and which was in no way touched upon in the first few tasks was the research and planning aspect of film development. It was lucky that, for this part, most of the work was either construction of surveys, research, Photoshop editing or storyboard drawing, as all this wasn't particularly new ground to me. However, the depth of detail we were expected to achieve in our preparations was certainly daunting, especially at first. Whereas my preparation for "The Package" and the preliminary task consisted of a few hastily doodled frames and a mental plan of dialogue (supplemented with a good dose of improvisation), nothing was left to chance in our coursework. The storyboards alone took several hours to draft, and several weeks to actually complete in enough detail for me to be happy with them (which, in the end, was actually very useful in terms of bolstering my drawing practice). Researching sound and music techniques used to increase suspense in film was a part that I found particularly interesting, because it made me realise just how many layers of diegetic and non-diegetic sound it took to create the right atmosphere in a scene; something I feel is too often underestimated in film production. This research certainly paid off; the soundtrack and ambient sound of our work ended up being, in my opinion, one of its strongest points. Compiling costumes for the characters via drawing inspiration from real designs was another educational experience for me in terms of picking out the correct visual cues to communicate the right message to our viewers about our characters' personalities and social status. The more general research into the technical side of the industry (such as on idents and graphics) was definitely the area I knew the least about at first, but by the time we had to make our own decisions on these things I was well-informed enough to understand that even something as seemingly trivial as a marginally different font could have a huge impact on the overall feel of the film (a fact we acted on by spending around 20 mins agonisingly choosing between 3 fonts which looked almost identical when making our title sequence). The audience research parts both at the beginning and at the end of our final piece were probably the greatest challenge for me in terms of having to pester people to pay attention to our work, so I'd venture that I should steer clear from a career in media marketing. However, in the end, we gained some fairly solid feedback before and post-production, and it only took barely enough existential dread to fill a bucket. The usefulness of this research was nevertheless unquestionable, from allowing us to narrow down our target audience (an almost 50:50 male to female split within the 15-21 age range) to gleaning information on our audience's enjoyment of the final product (averaging at a score of 4 out of 5 stars).

Another area in which I feel I progressed well was the practical skill of filming itself, especially in terms of handling equipment. The first filming I ever did in "The Package" was abysmal; when I was first entrusted with the camerawork, I accidentally pressed the photo button instead of record several times, costing us a whole scene. The first pans and zooms I ever did, too (shown in the second scene of the first video) were incomplete and very unsteady. Additionally, we didn't even know how to fix the focus on the camera; it should have been set to auto-focus, but wasn't, and so some of our scenes were shot through a haze. There are, of course, innumerable other mistakes in our technique here (such as the fact that, in some scenes, we clearly knocked the camera during filming, making the image waver), but these only bring out the differences compared to the final product even more. Through intensive practice, I gained a significantly steadier hand in terms of both panning and zooming, and, as my confidence rose, so did the quality of the footage. In the solo preliminary study, I also encountered the more basic problem of not being able to find a tripod in time, meaning the shots were noticeably hand-held and highly unprofessional. Again, this taught me the valuable lesson of securing and checking all equipment before planning any fieldwork. The practicalities of on-set filming in general were brought into fairly obvious relief very quickly during the preliminary tasks; even forgetting the box we used in "The Package" in our classroom was somewhat of a hassle, so of course the prospect of forgetting props or a piece of equipment when filming all around the city was not one I cherished or wished to experience. This way of learning on pre-empted mistakes made sure that, when filming our final product, there was little opportunity for blunders of this kind to set us back (although, like everyone, we didn't manage to avoid mistakes completely, meaning we had problems both with location and with the camera at various points throughout). The ambient sound's interference with the clarity of dialogue in "The Package", especially, was an important pointer for later filming; to the best of our abilities, we tried to either record our coursework dialogue separately or to heighten the volume against the background sound. It's interesting that, before beginning filming "De(i)fied", I saw the sound equipment as fairly fun to play around with but difficult to use practically (due to the short handle on the mikes we had available, for instance). However, towards the end, I was entrusted with recording the soundtrack to our film (a.k.a. its backbone) alone, and managed to do so with fairly little incident. The use of lighting indoors is something I'd argue I didn't entirely get the hang of (one of the lights died down to an orange-tinted glow and rendered the entire learning process somewhat void), and so I would like to do more practice of creating a 3D feel to inside scenes if I ever get the chance to in future. Luckily, this wash;t particularly detrimental to the final piece, as the flat, natural lighting we used for most of our film suited the overreaching sombre mood and indie style of it fairly well. So, it seems that learning to handle the equipment correctly depended greatly not only on patience and practice, but also on assurance in one's own ability to make everything work as it should.

In terms of editing, there was even more to be learned. Not only had I only worked with Apple Macs only a few times before, but both Final Cut Pro and Motion were entirely new pieces of software to me. However, under the instruction of  our teacher and technical assistant, we quickly grasped the basics and were able to apply them to our initial tasks in a rather unskilled, experimental manner. This is evidenced by the sheer over-abundance of audio effects in "The Package" piece, as well as their obvious sub-standard quality in general due to being taken from the programme itself (there was no screaming sound effect, so we used a pitched dinosaur scream instead, for example). The musical choices we made in this piece were also influenced first and foremost by the available soundtracks (although the opening soundtrack was original), so it's no surprise the general ambience was cartoon-like, to say the least. On the other hand, I implemented completely bare-bones editing when cutting together my preliminary task. Some of the shots in both works are also evidently the wrong length (too long, too short, or unneeded altogether). This is clearly contrasted to the fairly tasteful and targeted editing we achieved in our coursework, including the quality of the non-diegetic sound, which we recorded separately and layered (with innumerable volume adjustments and fades) throughout our final piece. The syncing of the expanded breathing at the end of our film was another skill I was surprised by our progress in, considering the fact that the first time we ever tried to sync anything it turned out comically bad (whereas here the audio and video timings look almost authentic). The fact that Adam and I even gained enough confidence to alter the colour pallet of our work as we planned is indicative of how much we progressed; when completing the preliminary tasks, I wan't aware of that particular editing window even existing, let alone understanding the nuances of changing colour as opposed to saturation, for instance. The closeness of the cuts and the transitions (or lack thereof) of our final cut compared to the preliminary task alone did wonders in making our narrative flow smoother. The addition of graphics was almost certainly the most frustrating thing about the editing (or, indeed, the whole process); simply lining up the titles correctly in each shot and making sure they moved in a straight line took considerably more patience than I anticipated. The complexity of Motion is truly incomparable with the basic titles I'd used in "The Package" that had been part of the Final Cut Pro package. However, as with everything else, towards the end of our work we were fairly confident in the programme's implementation due to making every conceivable mistake associated with that software, and therefore finally finding a way to utilise it effectively, if still a little time-inefficiently.



In conclusion, the amount of things I learned from the practice and preliminary task to the final piece is immeasurable. Not only did I gain confidence in my ability to handle technology and software (especially cameras and editing programmes, of course), I gained a more sensitive practical and aesthetic understanding of the process, industry and art of filming itself. Additionally, the fact that we had a chance to independently find out about audience research and marketing, picking location and planning filming times, creating idents, costumes, graphics, scripts and storyboards put the entire process into the ever-useful real-world context many courses so sorely lack. The most important thing I learned, however, was the range of skills needed in film-making; the physical practice we got filming, directing and editing our work, was, on balance, the most vital, useful part of the entire experience.

DY

Ident: Final Version

This is the final version of our ident, which we physically filmed using a light box and pieces of coloured plastic, as planned. However, we had to cut it shorter than anticipated, meaning we didn't get to use the full length of our stop motion animation. To achieve this effect, we filmed the sequence as normal, and then sped up the footage 4x on Final Cut. The name we decided on, as before, was "Elemental Studios", due to the four colours representing the elements. Originally, we planned to form the name of our company out of the pieces of plastic themselves, but we found this was too complicated and made the title look virtually unreadable. Therefore, despite initially wanting to avoid using Motion, we nevertheless ended up having to familiarise ourselves with it. In order to achieve the above font, we wrote out the name of our company, added a background glow and then deleted the text itself in to mirror the effect of the lightbox. We programmed the text to move towards the audience slightly as the ident played because no movement at all made the whole thing look rigid and unnatural, and this was the simplest, least distracting motion we could use.

We combined the Motion graphics and filmed element in Final Cut, cropping the image in order to centre the circle of plastic on the screen. We then heightened the colour saturation of the red tones on both components in order to give the entire image a warmer, brighter and therefore more eye-catching ambience. In the end, I think the ident turned out significantly better than we could have anticipated; despite being fairly clearly made by a low-budget company, its rough, distressed, shadowy style suits the tone of the rest of our film perfectly.

AF

Altering Colour

One technique we had been keen to use at our research and planning stage was that of colour alterations, especially as a device to make the contrast between our two leads all the more obvious. Luckily, we had enough time to work out a satisfactory colour pallet after completing our second rough cut, raising the saturation of red shades in frames with Al, and generally draining the colour from Mal's scenes on the  pallet that had the most influence in each shot.

This is likely the most striking example of a before and after comparison. We chose to alter predominantly red shades in Al's scenes due to her clothing and surroundings, and this shot is surely testament to the effective filming and costume choices we made. The effect of such a trivial change ended up turning this shot into one of our personal favourites due to the huge aesthetic difference  colour alteration made to it.


The opposing colour scheme we chose for Mal's shots created a fairly jarring effect due to the viewer having to constantly watch the camera switch between the two throughout the entirety of the opening montage. However, this effect made the contrast between the two girls more obvious, especially in terms of suggesting the difference in their origins; Al's colours are unrealistically vibrant, connoting her alien heritage which we would traditionally view as a break away from the mundanity which Mal's colour scheme represents. For every shot, we picked a different colour to fade depending on the magnitude of the impact it had, such as bringing down the saturation of green here due to the expanse of the field in the background.

However, it quickly became obvious that the shots where the two characters appeared on-screen together would become a problem for us. Reverting to standard saturation in those scenes seemed like a natural decision to make (especially in terms of symbolically highlighting how the two lead's personalities balance each other out throughout the rest of the plot). However, we nevertheless elected that it would look effective if, every time one of the characters left the shot, the colours would revert to those associated with the one who remained. An example of this is shown here, with the first and third shots having a normal colour saturation because Al and Mal are together, but with the middle shot's red saturation heightened due to Al being alone. Despite the cut we had to make halfway through the shot to apply this change, the transition looks fairly smooth in the film itself; something we were rather pleased with, as it would prove an interesting Easter egg for our more attentive viewers.

The final shot of Mal is the only one which we allowed to be an exception to the rule, in order to emphasise the atmosphere of confusion and fear our protagonist finds herself in. These feelings, which the viewer is supposed to emphasise with, meant the shot had to be brighter and sharper, just as the world looks under high tension or stress for us, allowing us to react more quickly to our surroundings. Hopefully, this choice precipitates the cliffhanger effectively, making the audience wonder about the resolution.

In all, altering the colour saturation of our piece to subtly emphasise the film's themes of reflection and parallel worlds was probably one of our best ideas, effectively enhancing not only the strange ambience of our work but also the other clues within the opening (such as the matching key necklaces and the Al's "mother's" unresponsive behaviour). Although the correct balance of both enhancement and discolouration was at first difficult to find, we eventually realised that the optimal saturation value to use for most shots was +/-50% (discounting special cases where this created an effect too unrealistically bright or dark). It was also interesting to learn that certain colours were significantly more present in our environment than anticipated, as shown by, for instance, a change in green saturation affecting certain brown colours, such as that of bricks. The change we made, overall, is not only interesting but attractive; the normal colours of the footage, while seeming perfectly fine before, now seem in some way unacceptable in comparison.

AF

Animatic

Here is the animatic I completed during filming using scanned-in versions of the storyboards, later augmented with the lyrics version of our soundtrack. It took a rather long time to cut away individual panels from each board using Photoshop, and some of them ended up in Bitmap format as opposed to a normal image, but this would have taken too long to amend, considering the imminence of the deadline. The entire process did, however, allow me to re-familiarise myself with this older version of the software.

It's interesting to see that, even while allowing only around 2 seconds for each shot, if we had stuck to our storyboard our film still would have been at least half a minute longer than the time limit. In the end, there are several shots (such as the point of view one with the tail of the hat obscuring half the screen) which I'm sad we had to get rid of, but, compared to the final product, it's obvious that these were necessary to remove, as the overall fluency of our work improved greatly as a result.

DY

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 refers to the “second” version of the internet which, due to its greater technical capabilities, allows its users to enjoy a higher level of interactivity with the services available online (thus users can now both create content and distribute it to others). Before Web 2.0, the levels of user-inclusion within the internet were comparatively low; there were few pictures, almost no videos, and the very idea of forums was not yet conceived. The gradual emergence of this new web model meant we, as consumers, could ourselves post videos, pictures, opinions and other things, becoming at least partially self-sufficient in terms of our entertainment. Websites that best utilise 2.0 include modern online giants such as Facebook, YouTube, Spotify, Twitter and Tumblr.

These sites now greatly affect the film industry, mostly through their capacity to either increase or lessen the monetary value of movie releases depending on the situation. For instance, films can now be advertised easier if the company, for example, puts up official teasers and trailers on popular sites, not only building up the audience’s enthusiasm in advance (and thus consequently increasing sales), but also opening the floor for pre-emptive discussion about the upcoming picture. No matter which of the above sites information about the film is posted on, it lends to greater exposure of the piece. Furthermore, users themselves become a form of free advertising when they begin to talk about and analyse the content of the film (whether it's using screenshots, short clips or looking at the whole thing after its initial distribution). However, the existence of sites such as YouTube undoubtedly also increases competition for traditional film-makers in the sense that non-professional users are churning out new content all the time, regardless of quality. This has even caused some new filming talents to emerge, although increasingly less so than simply allowing the pirating of already-existing products to flourish.  

This of course is outstandingly useful to film audiences who don’t want to pay more than necessary (or pay at all) for products. Not only that, but the emergence of Web 2.0 means that users feel more like part of a community when it comes to the internet – a fact that poses great problems for companies when a subject like net neutrality is brought up. Net neutrality refers to the fact that, currently, there is a largely similar internet connection speed for everyone, and yet in most recent years big cable companies are effectively attempting to overturn this. The fact that web users feel an increasing sense of togetherness in regards to their personal internet space means that some laws (such as the one attempting to take away net neutrality to allow companies to make even more money), are more vehemently resisted by the public than if the internet had remained the largely impersonal space it initially was. The chance to voice one’s opinion on the internet and be a part of online groups that have similar interests – in regards to film or otherwise – is thus exceptionally beneficial to web users all over the world, be it psychologically or commercially.       

DY

The Rise and Fall of Myspace

At its peak in 2008, MySpace had 75.9 million visitors a month and represented the most diverse social networking site of its time. Indeed, it was the pioneer in the new era of online information sharing, as in its ever-expanding scope it included not only pictures and messaging, but moving stickers and, perhaps most importantly, music. As a consequence of these features, MySpace very quickly gained popularity amongst the younger generation; the majority of its users were between 16 and 25, which is considered the key demographic to reach when it comes to online media. The initial popularity of this site is owed to not only the sheer fact of the ease of communication which it presented, but also the trend of discussing one’s interests using forum posts and the eventual decision of unsigned upcoming artists to post their music on the site (such as the Arctic Monkeys in 2005). The platform allowed its users to buy music using PayPal, which also greatly boosted its user base. As a result of the extensive amount of facilities available as part of MySpace, it soared to popularity quickly and yet almost just as quickly lost its users, causing the number of visitors per month to drop to just 3.3 million by 2010.

The reasons for this loss of popularity are numerous, but in the end MySpace was crippled mostly by two things; the rise of its greatest competition, Facebook, and by the naturally-occurring shift in its age demographic. Every website inevitably ages unless it adapts to attract the next generation, and MySpace failed to do just that, surrendering the majority of its users to the more advanced and newer social networking site, Facebook, which started up in 2008. This also clearly correlates with the steady decline in its user base since its aforementioned peak year. MySpace simply did not have the vision or funds to keep up with Facebook, which already had the advantage of being drawing the public eye just by being new. However, when most of the younger population of MySpace left for a more advanced platform, they were also leaving due to the fact that MySpace had become mundane enough to society to draw middle-aged users. As a rule, younger people refuse to share their space with those who are of the same age demographic as their parents, and the fact that MySpace had become so integrated meant that the younger users were even more eager to leave.

DY

The Problem with Prints

For film companies, there are many benefits to the development of D-List cinema. For instance, the production of digital prints rather than physical reels is ten times cheaper. This also means less money is spent on transport; the reels require a significant amount of space, whereas simple discs do not. The lessened cost additionally means that independent companies will be able to show their work on significantly more screens, heightening their revenue and thus increasing the incentive to film more independent pieces. Similarly, less money has to be spent on storage, as even maintaining reels in working order is strenuous, whilst discs need little to no care. For cinemas, the consequent availability of newer equipment may allow other things to take place in the auditoriums when screenings are not scheduled, including musical or sports events. All this is likely to earn them more money and expand the variety of their audience.

Equally, D-List cinema is also advantageous for consumers. The increased availability of copies of films released by smaller-scale companies means there will be a much greater variety of entertainment for the audience. Additionally, D-List discs afford a much higher picture quality, as well as having a much longer lifespan than a reel, as physical film is prone to wearing down over time no matter how well it’s looked after.

However, there are also significant disadvantages to this new technology. The lowered cost of distribution means that film-makers may feel encouraged to further cut corners to decrease their expenses and heighten their profit, causing the overall quality of released films to go down. Furthermore, as the storing of the films becomes largely digitalised, recently released films become significantly easier to pirate, whether via stealing them in their physical form or via hacking.

DY

Convergence and Synergy

Convergence refers to both the utilisation of several types of media within a company or project and to the combination of more than one type of technology within a single product. This phenomenon presents the proverbial double-edged sword for the film industry for a variety of reasons. The pros of convergence are that it allows the economic development of the world of film; for instance, creating a video game based on a well-received movie is sure to earn the company significantly more money. It also causes the film’s fanbase to widen, encompassing different generations of viewers with varied interests. Thus, for instance, the official website for “Edge of Tomorrow” includes three different types of games in an attempt to appeal to the target audience of the film; teenagers. On a more basic level, the fact that movies can now be streamed online means that they are easier to sell – thanks to outlets such as Netflix, consumers don’t even have to leave their house in order to enjoy a movie that has just been released on DVD. It also means that films can be sold internationally much easier; physical copies don’t have to be shipped or flown over in order to be sold, as they can simply be distributed via the internet. Conversely, convergence has greatly furthered the problem of film piracy and copyright. Piracy in particular is an increasingly huge problem, especially for independent titles which already have less money behind them to begin with. For such films, convergence and consequent illegal downloading essentially increases the possibility of any future financing being taken away.      

The effects of convergence on the film audience of the UK is much the same as on the rest of the world. Convergence is incredibly convenient for consumers, for the reasons mentioned above, but also presents a temptation in the form of illegal downloading or streaming. Additionally, despite giving an opportunity to reach a wider world audience, it leads to certain challenges in terms of financing models, as well as problems with increasing the quality of broadband across the UK in order to ensure the ever-growing needs of the internet age can be met. 

Synergy signifies the collaboration of more than one company when working on a particular media-related venture. This is good for film institutions mainly due to the fact that, if several companies pool their money into a particular movie, it is possible to create a better overall product and thus ensure a greater revenue. The increased competition roused by finer creative pieces being made can also become a catalyst for the overall improvement of the quality of films the industry releases. On the other hand, if a lot of money is invested in a certain picture and yet the movie fails to at least earn it back, any small companies involved in the venture are likely to crumble, and large companies will feel their reputation has been marred and possibly refuse to collaborate with those particular companies in the future. Finally, even if the film is well-received, the involvement of too many people means the percentage each party involved gets is cut down the more companies are involved, which, again, is cause for concern especially for smaller companies.  

DY