Evaluation

My evaluation can be found here: http://jackpacullum.wix.com/mediaas2016jcullum

Red Riding Hood Final Cut

This is our final cut for our OTS. I am actually very happy with it turned out. The only difference between this version and our third draft is that it has an included our final studio ident. We've mixed noir and neo-noir typical conventions to fit with the original story of Red Riding Hood.

Here is a link to my evaluation: http://jackpacullum.wix.com/mediaas2016jcullum

Target audiences

Fabian's post : http://fharrisonasmedia2016.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/red-riding-hood-target-audience.html

Wil's post : http://wallenasmediaproductionschs2016.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/audience.html
http://wallenasmediaproductionschs2016.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/audience.html

Above you can find both Wil and Fabian's blogs about our target audience. From these two posts I can learn and do agree with that our primary audience are predominately left-wing males between the ages of 20-35 due to the age of our cast. Our OTS fits in well with these audience types due to our use of typical conventions for both noir and neo-noir.

Red Riding Hood Draft #3

Above is our third draft of Red Riding Hood, and hopefully the final draft. All we need to add now is the actual studio ident. 

Differences between this draft and draft #2 may not be very clear, but there were several changes between the drafts. I removed one shot and took out all the placeholders present in the previous draft, except from the studio ident placeholder.

I also adjusted the volume of the soundtrack and the dialogue, as many people who completed our survey told us that it could be hard to hear at times. I lowered the soundtrack and raised the dialogue. Also with the use of audio effects I was able to reduce the fuzz and static that was present with the original draft's sound. 

As you can see we finally have our title card. It's an animation found on Final Cut Pro that is supposed to represent ink spreading. I adjusted the colour, contrast and font to create a title card that worked well with our OTS. I also applied the 'noire' visual affect on top of it to improve the lighting of the colours. 

Finally I also removed several titles as our first viewers said that it distracted them from what the actual OTS itself. Therefore I have cut the titles to a minimum, only featuring the most important roles.

Final Cut Pro

To edit our OTS I used final cut pro. While the software can be slow at times it has been very helpful when it came to editing. The software allowed me to edit our OTS frame by frame when needed, add sound and edit the different levels and I could organise all our footage to make the whole editing process easier.

Final cut pro

Our OTS's editing.

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Exposure levels that I edited to create the correct lighting.

All of our footage ordered chronologically. Yellow borders signify which part of the clips were used.

Different transitions we could use. We predominately used Cross Dissolve and Fade To Color.

Different text effects available to use. We used Ink and edited the saturation and colours to create our title card.

Final Cut Pro also provides access to Itunes which makes the sound and music editing process much smoother.

Filming in North Walsham

The video above shows what went into the final take of the opening scene for out OTS. I think it was important to make videos like this because it helps us reflect later on what we can improve on but also at the time of filming it helps remind us what we're aiming to create.

Feedback from our survey

So we got several responses back from our draft and survey. Overall they were very positive, especially liking the narrative, the camera work and the soundtrack. However it has become clear to improve our OTS we can sound level as narration is hard to hear and we can improve the ending as it seems very rushed.

To improve, I as editor am going to adjust the sound levels of the whole OTS. Wil has re-recored the scene's dialogue at the end so that can be dubbed over. Below is evidence of the responses.

Roles in our group

I think that coming to the end of our coursework that it's important that as a group we all acknowledge our different roles.

Fabian's blog can be found here http://fharrisonasmedia2016.blogspot.co.uk/

Fabian has co-directed and filmed the OTS. He has just about forty posts, but those I have found most important are the following.

• Any Location Planning blog, as it was helpful to be able to look back at the videos for when we were evaluation or when deciding on how to move forward with our OTS.
• His Age Rating (BBFC) Blog.
• His Audience Analysis post.

Wil's blog can be found here http://wallenasmediaproductionschs2016.blogspot.co.uk/

Wil has taken on several roles, such as composing the soundtrack and finding all of our props. The Wil has around fifty blogs, but the ones I have found most important are the following.

• Any posts explaining about his soundtracks he created. Me and Wil have had to work together to make sure that we both has a couple of songs that we both felt worked well with our OTS, and his posts helped me understand what he was trying to achieve.
• Wil has made a couple posts about different types of props and what we needed for our OTS. These were helpful because we had to know what props we were going to able to get and those we would be unable to get.
• Wil also completed a character profile for each character which was extremely helpful in making sure we portrayed our characters completely 

Evidence of online sharing

Much like our communication, we've setup a system where we can access any group members work from our google drive. We have a group folder and individual folders. It has been very helpful when it comes to assembling the OTS, certainly for me as I've had to edit a lot of said stuff together.

Evidence below.

Group Communication

Communication is key when it comes to a media production. As a group you have to make that you have the same ideas and are creating items that compliment each other. Our group has to meet up outside of school and create work outside of school, and to do this  efficiently we created a group chat on Facebook so we could communicate with each other whenever needed.

Here are some screenshots showing our groupchat.

In reflection, I do believe that the groupchat has been massively important to the running of our production. It's helped us organise days to work and keep everyone updated on what we're all doing, so it certainly has been of great importance these past few months. 

Survey and Audience feed back!

With the release of our third draft, we've started to ask what people think. I created a survey and have sent it to just over twenty people now. I am going to send it to as many people as possible. On Friday I will update this blog with the responses received.  Below you can see how I advertised our draft.

Here is the questionnaire itself.


Create your own user feedback survey

Editing our final drafts

I have just finished editing our third draft, which can be found in the video below. I still need to add Foley (Wil is currently taking care of this.) and adjust a few things. If you've watched it, please take our survey if you can! https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/JXVFRH2

Editing the footage has not been easy. I adjusted the light of all the shots, making them all black and white and the exposure to make sure that the lighting looks suitable for each individual shot. When it came to making the match being the only thing coloured, it took about two hours. In the screenshot below you can see all the frames in yellow. In total there are just over 160.

To complete this effect I had to use the technique I learnt called the Pleasantvile effect. I source the tutorial in an earlier blog post going by the same name as the effect. To do this I had to go on to each frame, (Each one,  all 160ish.) and then apply a filter onto the match flame, to make sure only the flame was coloured. Due to the unpredictably of a flame I had to do this for each frame. The first photo below is one of the simpler flames. Under that I've shown one of the more difficult flames, which required a bit more attention.

Overall I am quite happy with our third final cut. It certainly needs improving, certainly the ending scene. Adding the Foley should be simple, and the title card is almost finished. Fabian should have finished the studio ident by friday also. 

Filimg the confrontation scene

We just spent the last two hours filming one our most crucial scenes, the confrontation scene. It took rather longer than what I expected and was a bit more difficult than originally believed.

We did manage to get all the footage that we wanted in our time slot, however I feel that we could of possibly gotten more footage if we were more prepared. Our actors were not fully informed of what they needed to do so it took time to get them ready. However I am happy with the footage that we took and we manage to keep to the time schedule. We did make the mistake of using herbal cigarettes for authenticity, which worked well, however he did accidentally end up smoking out the studio. 

Me and Fabian directed the scene, Fabian did film and I did also act. Wil took the photos in this blog post but he was also helping with setting up props and helping the production run smoother. 

 Reflective Comment: In reflection, we should of definitely thought through what we were doing with the herbal cigarettes much more, We also could of briefed our three actors beforehand to help production move along smoother.

Red Riding Hood Script Draft 3 And planning for final two weeks.

So we now have two weeks to finish up our final OTS. I will not line I am a little worried about if we are going to meet this deadline and if we do if I'll be happy with the work produced.

We have this week to film all our footage, and then next week to edit it all together and show a test audience, and add anything else needed.

Script

I've had to re-write the script a third time to improve it and to cut down on certain scenes so we can film everything.

The biggest change between draft 2 and draft 3 is the removal of the nightmare sequence, which would be the first scene. I have decided to remove this from the script due to time restraints, and that it didn't really fit the noire structure. I have replaced it with a smaller flashback instead, echoing what the nightmare sequence would of shown.

Planning

Planning has been one of the things that as a group, we have stumbled with. We would plan but never enough and we never had any back up plans, which has lead to us being left short with time. To combat this happening again I've planned out everything that needs to be done by the end of next week.

This Thursday (4th) we're going to film our confrontation scene and flashback scene. We need to get these done Thursday as these are crucial to the story and if we don't get them done by the end of the week the whole editing process gets delayed too.

On Friday (5th) We will hopefully be filming our final scene, which is when the Lumberjack meets Red Riding Hood. Once this is done we should have all of our footage completed. 

As editor, I would like to have a first draft completed by the end of Monday (8th) This would mean that we can show it to the class on Tuesday (9th) and get feeback, which would then mean I can make the final edit on Wednesday. (10th)

This gives us two days extra to fix any problems we may has a group.

Also, just to clarify, here are the roles of everyone in the group.

Jack

Co-Director

Script Writer

Editor

Casting Director

Fabian

Co-Director

Location Manager

Director of Cinematography 

Camera Man

Lead Technician (Lighting and Equipment)

Wil

Soundtrack composer

Costume Manager

Prop Manager

Aerial footage 

Director of Foley

Film Certificates

Film Certificates

Film certificates identify the minimum age that you have to be to watch such film. When making a film this is incredibly important as you need to make sure your film can be seen by your desired target audience.

A film with this sticker means that anyone over the age of four can watch it. This called Universal. It's over four years old because you can never really tell how a child will react to any film that you show them, even without violence and gore. However Universal films don't normally feature any violence or gore, and no reference to sexual or drug like themes. We are not aiming for Universal because it's no where near the typical noir target audience.

A film with this sticker means that any child that watches should be accompanied by a parental guardian of sorts. Hence the title PG. While it may seem like they are, PG's are not always aimed at children films, sometimes adult targeted films are PG's but are given the rating because there isn't really any reference to sexual themes or to drug abuse either. We aren't aiming for PG because children should not be watching our film even with Parental Guidance.

A 12A is often aimed at anyone over the age of twelve years old, meaning that anyone over twelve can see in the cinema. The themes may be more violent and there may be several references to sexual themes and possible drug use. However if someone under twelve does want to see the film they can be accompined by an adult to see it in the cinema. A 12A is closer to what we want, but the target audience is still too young for our final production.

A 12 is what an 12A becomes when it is released on DVD.  This is because you cannot say who can and who cannot watch a film once it's at home so they decided not to sell the DVD's to anyone who is under the age of twelve.  It's practically the same as a 12A just changed to suit the home environment instead of the cinema environment.  A 12 is the same as a 12A, it's closer to what we want but still isn't quite what we're aiming for due to our suggestive themes.

A 15 film cannot be seen by anyone under the age of fifteen in the cinema, and cannot be bought in the stores if you under fifteen.  These films will always feature a considerate amount of violence and sexual themes, as well as drug reference. It's rated fifteen because some of those under the age of fifteen could possibly find the content in the film disturbing. We are going to aim for a fifteen as we're going to a fair amount of violence and sexual themes, but nothing overly persistent.

Finally an 18 film, you have to be eighteen to see it in the cinema and to buy it on DVD. This is because it has much more explicit and has much more violence, sexual themes, drug reference and obscene language. It's more frequent and more likely to disturb any viewers who is under the age of eighteen. Our film isn't suitable for an eighteen certificate due to the fact while we do have sexual and violent themes they will not be persistent throughout the whole film.



In conclusion, my group have decided as a group that our film is going to be a fifteen. This is because our OTS is going to feature small reference to drug abuse and murder, and if they were going to complete the entire film there would be a large amount of violence and definitely references to sexual acts and drug abuse. For this reason our film is going to be a fifteen. 

Running Out Of Time and Keeping on top of it all

We now have just over three weeks to finish our final OTS and our group have come across a few obstacles.

Reshooting 

We've decided that the filming that we have done is good, but we feel we could do much better. This means that we technically have no final footage since we're going to reshoot it soon. 

Over the weekend we shot a scene on Elm hill and this weekend we are going back to North Walsham to reshoot those scenes. After this all we'll have to film is the confrontation scene, which we're doing this Wednesday.  We've decided to reshoot the scenes we've already done due to a lack of props in our location.

If all goes to plan, all of our footage will be filmed by next Wednesday. That then gives us seven school days to then edit it together and add music, post production sound and the credits over the footage. I think this is definitely achievable and we should be create a first draft and a final edit within this time. However our only problem is if we don't get all the footage by Wednesday we could be pushed back too far. 

Red Riding Hood Costume

We also need to better improve our femme fatales' costume. Wil ordered a costume piece but it was falsely  advertised. It was showed with a knot, made out of cotton and much larger in size. What Wil sadly received it had no knot, it instead had a velcro. It's 100% polyester and is much smaller than shown.

Studio Ident

We tried to film our studio ident over the weekend but due to not enough planning from me and Fabian lead to it not going well. We were not prepared and this lead to us simply not being able to complete it. We've decided to create a much more simpler studio ident for the time being and then if we have time create a better one we can. 

Conclusion

I've had to plan out what we're doing and I've given our group a schedule. If we stick to this schedule we will be fine.

 

Planning for the weekend

This weekend we're hoping to film our studio ident and our scenes on Elm hill. Both of these sequences require quite a bit of planning.

Studio ident

For our studio ident we need to learn two things. How to make fake blood, and how to add a muzzle flash to a gun.

When it comes to the blood, Me and Fabian have researched into different methods of creating a fake counterpart. We have to decide if we want a thick and more realistic consistency or a faker but more suitable thin and watery blood.

Finally, when it comes to adding the gun shot flash and such, I've found a video for a tutorial and I am soon going to test it out some test footage. I've managed to learn how to do this, so this is all ready for when I edit the Studio Ident. Here is the video.

Here is the video that I used as a tutorial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW247wGsENU

City Scenes

We've decided to film at Elm Hill, as it's got old fashioned buildings and even cobble stone roads. I think our biggest problem will be finding a time when there aren't other people walking up down the road, and controlling the lighting when it gets dark.

Reflective comment: While it may not seem like I did much, I believe that the test footage produced is good and I believe we've done a good amount of planning for our studio ident. It would of been better if we could of practiced making some fake blood before hand. 

Pleasantville Effect Test Footage

The pleasantville effect is the effect when everything is black and white, except from one colour. This is usually red as it's a vibrant colour that stands out among the monochrome colours. This is perfect for a noir film. And our group would love to be able to use this effect, especially since our story is based of Red Riding Hood.

In the video attached above, you can see our first attempts the effect. While it doesn't look too great it's better than nothing. I learnt how to do it in about twenty minutes and for my first attempt I think it's not too bad.

Here is a link to the video that I used.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCIis-96Qmc

Reflective comment: Our problem was the colours around our desired target were too alike. However where we would use this in our film  this would not be a problem, as the colours would contrast heavily. We need to do so more testing to better the effect but after that I think it'll look pretty good. 

Location Photoshoot

Here are some photos from our very first visit to our first location. Getting shots like this is incredibly useful as it helps us decide on what shots to use and what locations fit best.

We've decided to use this location, and I do think it's quite important to the narrative. The house is destroyed and abandoned, and it's in the middle of no where. It shows how the main central protagonist is disjointed from society after the events of the film and I do think it represents how the MCP is emotionally defeated by the end. 

 

Reflective comment: I think gathering photos like this is important to location where our shots are going to be and how we can try to control the lighting. It also allows us to plan what we're doing alot more if we have already visited an area. 

Red Riding Hood First Test Footage

Me, Fabian, Wil and our friend went out to our location to film some test footage. We compared me as the actor and Joe as the actor. The following videos shows us comparing the footage and the footage itself.

Joe Brown Test Footage 

Jack Cullum Test Footage

Wil Allen Aerial Footage

Lumberjack Comparison Footage

Reflective comment: After comparing the two actors that we had selected we decided to go with me, Jack, mainly due to the fact that we think Joe suited better the role of the Bad Wolf. However it seems unlikely he will be able to play even this role due to the fact that he goes to a different sixth form, and cannot fit in with our schedule. 

First footage filmed

Yesterday (The 9th), Me, Fabian, Wil and our friend Joe went out and filmed about thirty seconds of footage. We filmed the Lumberjack waking up and narrating, setting up the rest of the film. Before this scene would be the nightmare and after this scene would be the confrontation with the Bad Wolf and his actors.

We filmed the footage twice. Once with me acting as the Lumberjack and once with our friend Joe acting as the Lumberjack. We're not sure who is better suited to play the role so we thought we would shoot us both playing the part, and with the footage we got we would select which actor better suited the role. Whoever doesn't get the part will end up playing the Bad Wolf either way.

I will soon have the footage of me and Joe and I will edit them to play next to eachother. This way our group can compare. I will put this footage on the blog with our thoughts in the next following day.

                 

Over all the day went very well. We arrived at our location at about ten o'clock and we were done by about 11 o'clock. Me and Joe got to practice the role, and I got to see the script I had written in action. It was also my first chance to direct since a production we had made at GCSE level. So it was good to get back to what I'm good at, making sure what I had envisioned was coming to fruition. While it was nothing to complex due to the nature of the script, I still made sure that things were being done the way I had imagined.

Fabian also got to get his camera out and record and take photos. When recording we done the shots several times, and Fabian would record with different shots and from different distances. He was determined to get the correct shots and took some great photographs of the location and of me and Joe as the Lumberjack.

Wil also came along and got to test his quad copter. He was able to record footage of the location from in the sky, which gave us a better look of our location and what surrounded it. I also think coming along helped Wil understand what type of feel and mood the OTS would have to itself, which will help him when it comes to producing the music.

It was a great day out and we all managed to get quite a bit of work done. While we would like to film these parts again and to refine them, since we have the footage filmed it is now on the bottom of our to do list. Before we can think about doing reshoots we need to have filmed the remaining footage, made a rough edit and created the studio ident. Once we have done this we can consider going back and filming the footage again.

Reflective comment: We had a great day production wise, and I don't think there was much more we could do to improve what we were able to do. If we are able to film these parts again, we could bring more props to better improve the Mise En Scene.

Foley Task

                    

Above is our foley Task. We have learnt several things after doing this task. I personally have learnt that I need to better manage my time, as I left this task a little late and therefore I couldn't create the sound effects as well I wanted. We decided after this task that Wil would be stepping down as head of Foley and that we will all work together on Foley, as Wil is not entirely comfortable with being entirely in charge of Foley.

I think some of our best sounds are the following...

• Shell Cases Dropping
• Beeping
• Table Dragging
• Drilling
• Wind
• Heavy Breathing
• Walking

And I think some of our worse sounds are the following...

• Rustling Cases
• Pack Running
• Wind Turbines
• High pitched growl

I believe that it's pretty clear where our group stands on foley. Fabian took the time and knew what he was doing. I had left mine last minute, but I still believe I managed to create some decent sounds. Wil had tried but he just couldn't quite get it right.

 Reflective comment: As a group we were thinking about adding a lot of our sound post production. After this task I think that we need to reconsider this, and perhaps try to capture more sound while filming. Either that or pre-plan what we're going to add post production and make sure we can recreate the sounds before we film.

Jack

Storyboarding

Our group created two sets of storyboards for our scenes, one drawn and then one with photos. I drew some very rough sketches so we could get a vague idea of what we wanted. After this Fabian suggested that we take photos and create a second storyboard. This storyboard, done with actual photos ended up being much better as it made much easier to show what we wanted to create.

Here are the first three drawn storyboards that we created.

As you can see they were very basic and needed to be expanded on. This is why Fabian suggested that we do them again. Below you can see the photo storyboards.

What I've done over the Christmas holidays

Before I left for the holidays I set myself and my group some targets to complete over the holidays to stay on track to complete our OTS on time.

I set myself the following goals.

• Scout Locations with Fabian
• Experiment with Foley
• Start writing the script and get over half finished

I had the stretch goal of finishing the script. However I have managed to achieve all of my goals! Me and Fabian scouted out a location for filming and experimented a little bit with Foley. Here are two videos for evidence of this fact. (The Password for the video is : wordup )

                 
                 

I also finished the script completely, at least the first drat. I need to make a few changes to fix it up a bit but after that we'll have our script completely finished!

I set Fabian the goals of...

• Scout locations with Jack
• Research and Acquire equipment (Mics and Lighting)
• Produce some test shots, experimenting with different angels

With the stretch goal of starting the studio ident. Fabian has done all of his goals except from his stretch, but he has started planning for it!  He scouted locations with me, which he found online, he has done research into what he believes we could use and while we were scouting the locations Fabian tested some different camera shots.

Wil had the goals of...

• Finishing the first song for the nightmare sequence.
• Look into what props we use for different characters.
• Also look in character costume.

Wil had the stretch goal of finishing another song. 

Wil has completed two of his goals and his stretch goal. While he hasn't completed the first song he has managed to complete another song which we are going to use in our OTS. Wil also has competed his character design and prop work, which you can find on his blog.

Overall we've had a very proactive Christmas holiday and are making good progress with our final production. We're actually going to start filming this Saturday, on the ninth. We plan also to scout more locations and test more Foley.

Jack