Film opening Final draft

After editing our first draft, and re-watching it,and taking into account the feedback we got, we edited our film opening to achieve our final draft.

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

The nine best shots from our film opening.

  Title of The Film:

The title of our film is “Because of them”. We chose this title to emphases the point that the character Charlotte Woods got the sort of life she did because of the women fighting to get the right to vote.

Setting;

We used one main location which was Oaklands museum as it had the feeling of an early 20^th century house that could still be in use today.  We use this setting for the characters to create a connection between the different characters and so that the audience are more interested.

Our Titles

Are titles are in the font Andulas. We also kept them white and not moving. We did this to create regularity between all the titles. We also created them in a white font and not moving due to the fact it films we looked at like Jane Eyre the title were plain. We decided to do this also to keep in line with the genre and to not take anything away from our film opening.

Genre
Our genre is period drama with scenes from the 21st century. We where also looking at films with strong female leads and how they presented them to use similar power. This included looking at camera angle and where they where in the shot. A period drama is a film set in historical time period which is shown with costume and set. However we also have a modern film with Charlotte Wood being in the 21st century.

Challenges to common stereotypes:

We use strong female leads which especially for a 20^th century women is against the stereotype of the role of women. We also had a man as an assistant as stereotypically men are higher up than women so having a female boss with a male assistant is challenging the stereotype of a 21^st century office life.
We didn't show any men in beginning in our film to highlight the importance of women. This meant we draw our audience to the women and their story.

Camera Work and Editing;
We used a Sony Handy-cam to film all our shots. We also used tripods to stabilised the shots. We filmed different angles and height to create the best film opening.

For editing we put all the shots in order then added the effect onto Lorna’s shots to create the older scenes. We then added the titles. Finally we added non-diegetic sound to pull our film together.

Story/Narrative:

Our story is about a young successful business women called Charlotte Wood  whose forgotten about the importance to vote until 1 day she is cleaning out her attic and found a picture of her great great grandmother Alice Greenburg a suffragette.
To portey our story we used Levi- Strauss' theory of binary opposites. We used as went Alice Greenburg was being shown we had it in black and white. Where as Charlotte Wood's scenes were all in colour to show a clear contrast of characters and time. We also had each scene being performed in each different period. An example of this is when Alice and her friend where walking we then had a scene with Charlotte on the phone.

Characters:

Alice Greenburg: 23 years old, suffragette, wife, mother, has little say in the community.

Charles Greenburg: Hard head business man, husband, believes his wife should accept her role in                                        society.

Charlotte Wood: Hard head business women, great great granddaughter of Charles and Alice                                           Greenburg, Single, does not believe she has to vote.

Mark Hughes: Charlotte’s personal assistant, works hard to please her, his work is not really                                         appreciated.

Costumes;

To create the 20^th century costume they wore skirts with tights and black shoes. They also wore white shirts and coats with fancy headbands. This was to recreate the clothes of the era.

For Charlotte’s outfit she had to look serious. This means that she wore black trousers and a shirt and black heels. This was to make her look more like a modern day business women. She also wore a faux leather jacket to make the outfit look sleek and modern.

Themes:

Our theme was women empowerment and highlighting the importance to vote.We chose these films as we believe that these are issues that need to be highlighted. Especially, with voting as a lot of young people seem to forget the importance to vote and how hard some people fought to get this right. We also where looking at these themes as at the time of filming this the USA 2016 election where happening so we saw issues around voting. Also as a group we where passionate about equal rights for women so we found this as a common ground went we first where put as a group,  

Films that inspired our film
Sufferagetes- Due to common themes.
Legally blonde- Due to the strong female lead.
Jane Eyre-Due to it being a period drama.
King's speech- Due to being a period drama and political theme.

2)How does your media product represents particular social groups?

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

4) Who is the audience for our media Production?

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

6)what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

7) looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Compared to my preliminary task the preparation for our final production went a lot smoother and I found it to be more effective. I learnt from my preliminary task that communication is key, which meant that the final production was better organised as the whole group ensured we spoke about everything that was happening. The planning meant that we got all f the shots we needed for our final production however with my preliminary task some shots were lost not recorded properly and many had to be re-recorded, this meant that when it came to editing we ran out of tie. This can be seen I the final production due to it being very short.

It is very clear to me from our preliminary task and final production that the quality of our footage and shots have improved. The shots in ‘because of them’ are a lot more creative and through about in comparison to ‘the boy who couldn’t read’. The footage was a lot smoother with the better use of the tripods  in the final production we shot the same footage but at different angles this meant when it cam to editing we had a variety of creative shots and ideas to use to ensure the best final production.

During the preliminary task I found it very difficult to get the hang of editing, I got very frustrated when things didn’t go right, however when editing our final production I found it a lot easier. The program we used was premier this offered a variety of editing tools to give the final production the best quality and finish we could. Everyone in the group edited parts of the film opening this was a great advantage as we each noticed different aspects and all had a different point of view. It meant each of our knowledge of the editing software was broadened as we were showing each other how to use different tools. 

How far have we come? preliminary task to final production

student film opening

For this task we were asked to find three student productions of our choice one to present to the class that I 

found interesting and two others to mark using the criteria below. 

Level 1 0–23 marks The work for the main task is possibly incomplete. There is minimal evidence in the work of the creative use of any relevant technical skills such as:

• Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task; 

• using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions; 

• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

• shooting material appropriate to the task set; including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene; 

• using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects. 

Level 2 24–35 marks There is evidence of a basic level of ability in the creative use of some of the following technical skills:

• Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task; 

• using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions; 

• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

• shooting material appropriate to the task set;, including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene; 

• using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects. 

Level 3 36–47 marks There is evidence of proficiency in the creative use of many of the following technical skills:

• Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task; 

• using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions; 

• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

• shooting material appropriate to the task set; including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene; 

• using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.

Level 4 48–60 marksThere is evidence of excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:

• material appropriate for the target audience and task;

• using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;

• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

• shooting material appropriate to the task set;including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene;

• using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.

Inner Evil AS student opening

This film opening is not your everyday 'get ready' opening, it creates enigma as it is clear something is going on and going to happen in the rest of the film. I would mark this film as a high level  3 at 47 marks or possibly a low level 4 at 48 marks. It has suitable music across opening which also adds to the enigma, it also contains non-digetic sound effects such as when the glass is put on the counter top.  The sound has also clearly been re-recorded and then added in during editing as all the sounds are clear. The editing of the film is appropriate for the genre and makes the opening look smooth. The titles appropriately go with the genre of the film, both the order and the text font.

Beneath The Trees Student Film opening 

This film opening has some  creative shots which add to the enigma, the titles are simple and plain which matches the background music. From the beginning of the film it is clear what is happening however it still does not give anything away. None of the characters faces are shown which builds up the mystery and the tension adding to the enigma. The lighting of the production is all very natural and the mise-en-scene matches well with the genre which appears to be mystery, thriller perhaps horror as the film continues. the setting of the words is foreshadowed from the title. I would give this film opening 35 marks at a high level 2. The material is appropriate for the target audience,the titles are appropriate for the film conventions and the opening is intriguing for target audience.

Location

chelmsford Museum Interior (Downstairs Interior)

 We used the museum as our main location because we thought that we could use aspects of it in a modern way but also emphasise the more historical features for the scenes set in the past. 

Chelmsford Museum (Exterior of House)

The exterior of the museum gave us a paved road to walk on and some green fields. This was perfect for all of the shots that we needed to film outside.

Student's House (Attic, Hallway and Charlotte's Bedroom)

We needed to use someone's house so that we could sit on a chair in a bedroom and use a loft. We wanted the bedroom to be more modern because we believed that a person in their twenties in the present day would not want a very old fashioned bedroom, even if their house is very old.

Classroom (Office)

We decided to use a classroom for the office because we needed a computer for Charlotte to type on and the classroom provided a desktop computer. The desk was also very plain and wooden, like you would see in an office and the room provided good lighting to film in.

Prop list/ costume

props 

Empty box
Makeup
Photography album/ photo frames
Votes for women sign
Doll
Blanket
Sash- votes for women
Mobile phone
Laptop
Train ticket
Dusting cloth 

Costume

Lorna 
A maxi skirt 
Grey blaster
Long coat 

Leah and Jess 

Long coat 
Skirt

Charlotte 

Black trousers
Shirt 
High heels 
Make up

Because of them website

This is the website that we designed for marketing our film. It includes lots of information about the film and also includes connections to our film opening and social media sites.

Our Web Address -  http://hartounnoushiansl1.wixsite.com/becauseofthem

Because of them Facebook page

We have created a Facebook page to help with the marketing of our film and to make it more accessible to our target audience. 

The link to our Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/becauseofthemfilm/

On our Facebook page we have included our film poster and a link to the opening of our film on YouTube.

production diary

Monday 7th November

Today we were told who was going to be in our groups and were briefed on what our task was going to be. Our group included - Leah Harte, Lorna George, Jess Burdon and Charlotte Revell. 

Tuesday 8th November

Today we exchanged ideas on our genre and plot. We came up with several ideas and then developed our favourites. 
One idea was a woman in the 1900s, who is a suffragette, and a woman in 2016. The girl in 2016 is the great great granddaughter of the woman in the 1900s. The woman in 2016 does not appreciate the rights that she has today until she comes across a photograph of her great great grandparent and has a visions/flashbacks of what her ancestor went through in order to get her the rights that she has today.

Another idea was a family film about a teenager that goes to an arcade and ends up getting 'sucked' into an arcade game. They then have to try to get out of the machine during the rest of the film. 

We also thought of doing a crime drama where a woman finds a dead body down an alleyway and telephones the police. The film then follows the police investigation. 

Our final idea was another period drama where a teenage girl gets pregnant and is thrown out by her parents. She and her friends must travel far away to a place where they are not known by anyone to raise the baby. 

Wednesday 9th November

We decided to use the suffragette idea because it was the one that we though was the most doable and interesting. It is also the idea that we had developed the most at this point. 
We then began to get our ideas together and build a presentation on Microsoft PowerPoint that would become our film pitch to the rest of the class so that we can get their feedback on our ideas. 
We began to think of the practicalities of our idea first- where the best location would be for us to shoot the scenes and what would need to be organised in order to get everything done. Most of our time was spent working on our presentation.

Thursday 10th November

Today we worked on our presentation. We finished writing all of the slides and then proofread the slides to ensure that there were no spelling or grammatical errors. We then decided to upload our presentation from Microsoft PowerPoint onto Emaze to make it more interesting. 

Friday 11th November

We proofread our presentation again to double check that we had not previously missed any errors that were made. We then presented our film pitch to the class and received written feedback on various aspects of our film idea.

Monday 14th November

Today we uploaded our film pitch to our blog and sorted through the feedback that we received from our peers, uploading this onto our blogs also. We then discussed what we thought of the feedback we received and made changes to our ideas accordingly. We also took some time to develop our ideas further where some people said that things were not clear. 

Tuesday 15th November

Today Lorna called Chelmsford Museum to try to arrange a date for us to film in their museum. We also began to make our shot list which includes all of the different shots that we are planning to include in our film opening.

Wednesday 16th November

Today we continued to make our shot list. We also began to transfer information from our shot list onto our storyboard. We decided to make our storyboard out of post-it notes so that we can rearrange the order of our shots or remove them if we change our mind about something or have a better idea. 
We also began to make a prop and costume list so that we can begin to gather the items that we will need for our opening. We realised that this would need to be done soon because we would need to ensure that we are able to get hold of all of the props we will need so that we still have time to purchase them if we need to.

Thursday 17th November

In this lesson we finished the storyboard and shot list. This meant that we transferred our ideas from post notes to our story board. Leah then recorded a voice over to explain what happened in our storyboard. For the shot list Charlotte went through the storyboard and wrote out the shots needed at each location. This meant we had shots for Oakland Museum, Train station and Charlotte's House.

Monday 21st November

We started the risk assessment and did the character representation. This meant that we looked at the different characters and what sort of personality each character should portray. 

Tuesday 22nd November

Today we did Institution. This means that we looked into different companies that would produced our sort of film and that weren't too big. As a group we came  Film 4 as they help with a lot of smaller films however did produce films like 12 years a slave and Suffragettes. 

Wednesday 23rd November

Today we started the marketing campaign and finished it all apart from our poster. This meant that we looked at how we would advertise our film . This meant that we looked at social media and how we could use that to showcase our film. We then also looked at more traditional methods of advertising our film like buses and newspapers/ magazines. 

Thursday 24th November

 Today we went to Charlotte's house and filmed some of the 2016 women. We went in Charlotte's House and went into her attic. Lorna filmed in the attic and Leah filmed Charlotte coming down the stairs. We then went into her room and filmed Charlotte in her chair at multiple different angles to make sure we had a choice when we edited the scenes in.

Friday 25th November

Today we looked at film titles and decided font and the title because of them. To decide what film title we looked at films like Jane Eyre and the Suffragette. We decided on  Andalus we chose this because it looked like the font of old fashion film which is what we wanted.

Saturday 26th November

Today we filmed at Chelmsford train station and Oakland museum. Today Leah and Charlotte filmed at Chelmsford train station the one shot they needed. Leah's Mum then drove Leah and Charlotte to Oakland's museum where Lorna joined them. They first filmed Charlotte outside shot first. Leah then filmed the inside shots for Charlotte then Lorna. We then went back outside and Charlotte filmed Leah and Lorna outside the museum.

Monday 28th November

Today we started editing and found are film logos off you tube. Charlotte and Lorna started to decide which clips to use in the film open. Leah looked on you tube for a film 4 logo and got it off you tube and gave us the clip it import into the beginning of film opening. Lorna also gave us our film opening the solar production.

Tuesday 29th November

Today we continued to edited and added film logos and music. Today we started to look at the timings for and what order the film clips would go in and what transitions would work with our film genre.

Wednesday 30th November 

Leah and Charlotte carried on trying to order the film clips and decided film transition. Lorna worked on the production diary by adding detail to the first part of our production diary.Thursday 1st December
We continued to edited and discussed key ideas in the group to make sure it had all our influence in it.

Friday 2nd December

Today Leah and Charlotte filmed the office shot in a classroom in Great Baddow High School. We also researched what music we could use in are film opening. We had the problem of trying to find non-copied righted music.

Monday 5th December

Lorna and Charlotte added non-digetic music. Leah researched different film posters so we could make our film posters as good and close to our film genre as possible.

Tuesday 6th December

Today we watched the first drafts of the classes film openings and wrote down feedback.

Wednesday 7th December

Today Charlotte wrote up are the classes feedback about the film opening. Lorna worked on our film posters.

Thursday 8th December

We edited are titles by changing the color to black. We also changed the size of our titles. We then also created all the titles and added whole of the crew to the film opening. Lorna continued to work on the 2 film posters.

Friday 9th December

Charlotte continued to edit. Today she looked at the sound and how that could be improved. Leah also look for sounds of protesting for votes for women. This mean that she went onto you tube Lorna finished film posters

Monday 12th December

We added our sound of the women protesting for rights we also changed are titles to make them clearer.

Tuesday 13th December

In this lesson we updated are blogs. Leah also wrote the blog post about what age rating will be and she started our website. Lorna continued to edit. Charlotte updated the production diary and recorded a voice over.

Wednesday 14th December

Today Lorna and Charlotte continued to edited we move are film title from the end to into the film opening more. Leah worked on the location shots and continued to work on the website.

Thursday 15th December

Today Lorna worked on charging the titles so they are easier to see Leah continued to work on the website. Charlotte worked on the production diary so that the detail so each day was there.

Monday 19th December

Today Leah finished our website. Lorna finished editing our film opening and put it onto YouTube.
Charlotte  finished the production diary and spell checked her blog.

Wednesday 21st December

Today we all went through our blogs and ensured we had everything we needed to have we made final touches to our posts and uploaded what was left to finish. 

Group planning- photographs

Throughout the process of creating our film opening, we took photos.

Film titles

Production company-
film4 

other production companies
solar productions 

Charlotte Revell

Lorna George 

Because of them

Leah Harte

Jude pattyfer

Casting by

John ranch

Produced by

Ben Home

Music by

Gavin Luke

Edited by

Roger brown

Produced by

Emily Hall

Director of photography

John deadwood

Written by

William field

Produced by

Emily Hall

Directed by

Todd Haynes

storyboard evaluation

Our storyboard works well because we include details of what we want to happen in each shot and the angles. However, the timings on the storyboard mean that the video will overrun past our time limit. we later reconsidered timings so that our storyboard was the correct length.

The first page of our storyboard works well because we include details of what we want to include and we have also included the transitions that we want to use. However, we have not included all of the information that we could have as we have not included all of the camera angles we used. We decided to remove the part where the letter was posted through the letter box and then Charlotte put the letter in the bin. We felt that this was not a crucial part to the story and since we needed to remove some shots we decided to remove this one. 

This page of our storyboard is better because it includes much more detail and some of the various shots that we are hoping to include. We have also included the transitions that we hoped to use so that it would make the editing process easier. But, we did not have on box for each individual shot/camera angle and so some of them are grouped together. This makes the storyboard a little bit confusing. We also removed the shot where we see the suffragette painting the poster as we felt that it was not vital to the story. We therefore also did not include the transition where the camera tracks into the poster and then tracks out in the next shot. We tried to incorporate this in a separate part of the opening but found that this was too difficult to do without a tripod with wheels. We also decided to have the suffragette sit on a chair with the baby instead of walk through the house. We did this because we thought of a creative way to film this and felt that it would make the opening more interesting. 



The final page of our storyboard is good because it includes detailed descriptions of what we will have in each shot as well as various camera angles we will include. However, like before, we did not put each camera angle/shot in a box on its own which made the storyboard more difficult to read. We also did not include the shot where the suffragette was doing the washing up. We thought it would be better to include a more historical looking object and so had her cleaning a clock instead. We also showed the woman from 2016 looking in boxes in the loft rather than climbing the ladder.



BBFC certificate

Here we have discussed why we have given our film the Age Certificate of 12. 

Our film will include discrimination against women however it will be clear that this is wrong and the main character will be fighting against this discrimination. We will also include some mild violence but most of it will be implied only. There will be no gory details in regards to violence. There will  be some moderately disturbing scenes but the film as a whole will not have this tone. There will be no use of drugs or strong language; there will be moderate language only. There will be no sex scenes and sexual acts will be implied only. 

Our film would not be able to have the certificate: Parental Guidance (PG) because it includes discriminatory behavior towards women and there will be some intense threatening scenes for the characters which could be difficult for children to watch. There will also be moderate language which will not be suitable for children. 

Our film would not be a 15 certificate because it does not include the use of drugs, strong sex scenes or strong language. Dangerous scenes will not be in  a great amount of detail and very frightening and intense scenes will not be long or frequent. The violence in our film will also be moderate only and not strong.

Because of them First Draft- Group self evaluation

what we believed went well as a group.
All footage flowed well.
Footage was in correct order

What we believed should be improved
Fix the volume of the sound and music.

Add foley to the shots where there is speech because it is currently difficult to hear what is being said.
Move the titles from the centre of the screen to around the edge. Make sure that they are all visible. 
 Change the place of the film title. Move it from the start of the opening to further along- after some of the other titles.
We will remove the dissolve transitions.

We will remove the train station shot as our teacher said that it was not necessary to the opening and did not make sense with the rest of the parallels.