Title Card

Recently I have been experimenting with photoshop to get an idea of what type of title card we want for our film. I've created several different versions and I've decided to upload them to the blogs for evidence.

These are in no way our final title cards, however they have been helpful in deciding what type of title card we will decide on using in our final piece.

Lesson work on different narrative structures

Our lesson from the 25th to the 26th focused on narrative structures. We decided on our main narrative and then we applied all the different types of narrative structures to our story, changing whatever needed to be changed. Here are the sheets that we used.

This lesson was extremely helpful for our group as we realised what type of narrative structure that we were are going to use. We have decided that story will follow the Enigma structure.

What I've done over the past week (November 24)

Over the past week I've finished the task set by Ms.H in our last lesson and I've started the script for my groups final piece.

Ms.H set us the task of presenting a noir story in anyway we wished. However the noir story was pieced together by random bits of information that individual classmates decided on. Our story is called Biggest Shadow and makes close to no sense. It's great. Me and Freya plan to show it off in our next lesson.

Also, regarding my group work with Fabian and Wil I've started bullet pointing the script to get a vague idea together. I've bullet pointed the first minute, and here is what I have so far.

• Starts in a forest in black and white, gradually breathing appears in the background and appears until noted
• Lumberjack walking through the forest
• He stops, and readies a cigarette
• Behind him we can see Red Riding Hood, who isn't it black and white.
• Lumberjack smokes his cigarette, and the breathing stops once he turns around and sees Red.
•  Turning back to the tree in front of him, he readies a log to be cut
• As he throws the axe down, just before the wood the camera cuts to the next scene.
• Hear the axe hit a person. (We're thinking hitting a watermelon with an axe and adding post production, as watermelon are frequently used to recreate the sounds a human head would create.) Low angle of the Lumberjack with the axe centralised in front of the camera, blood covers the lumberjack with and colour has returned. The breathing has returned and is much faster and heavier. 
• Cuts to the Lumberjack laying in his bed, the heavy breathing continuing. 
• Cut to title. 

I don't feel like I am completely doing justice to the idea in my head with the bullet points above, so I will be making a storyboard and going to actually write the script. Once these are done I will upload them to this blog for proof.

And that is pretty much all I have done this week.

Rumpelstiltskin Final Cut and Final Evaluation

The video above is our final cut for Rumpelstiltskin. I believe that this version is certainly our best as it improves on several aspects of editing and sounds that needed improving in the original cut. Overall I believe our group as a whole can be proud of what we've produced as overall it is a good production.

Jack Cullum: Screenplay
Fabian Harrison: Director of Cinematography
Greg Babstock: Editing and Sound
Max Shephard: Editing and Props

What we done well:

• I believe that the strongest part of the film is our cinematography. This is thanks to Fabian and his camera. We have a variation of shots and angles, but what stands out most of all is the pull-focus near the end.
• We also had good props. We had two different prop guns, one which used smoke like pop capsules which disperse smoke when shot, which was extremely helpful during filming. However we also had a much more realistic gun that was shown more on screen due to the fact it fit the theme and setting we were going for.
• Also our costumes as a whole are suitable. We all wear suits, (Except from Liam, who is part of the lower class, therefore he does not wear a suit.) to fit in with the typical conventions of Noir films. This also helps us fit in with our time frame.
• Another thing we did well is translating the story from fairy-tale to noir. Instead of having the string being woven into gold, we changed it to drugs being produced to not only make it fit in with noir conventions but also to give a more serious tone.
• The music used is well placed and fits well. In the original cut there was only one piece of music so in the final cut Greg made sure to include a variation of music. This helped set the mood and build suspense when needed. The sound effects were also very fitting and well edited.
• Finally I do believe that we used smoke very creatively in our film. It really builds up the atmosphere and fits the noir conventions very well.

What we can improve on:

• I do think that we could of improved on how we introduced Rumpelstiltskin into the film. While his lack of explanation means he has a bit of mystery to him it also means the viewers are left a little bit lost.
• We certainly can improve on our acting. I personally don't like the idea of hiring actors to perform in our media productions but if we cannot improve on our acting skills it may be the safest option, as our acting does take away from the seriousness of the movie.
• Variation of location also needs to be improved. We shot the entire thing in Max's house, in three different rooms. Max's room, Max's kitchen and Max's living room. While I do believe it is better than filming in school, we certainly could of improved our filming locations.
• Some of our transitions are a bit off due to the fact that some of the footage wasn't shot correctly. In future we should probably due scenes in several takes.
• We also need to improve our Mise En Scene. In the living room you can see an Xbox, glasses and cans everywhere. In Max's bedroom you can see figures and a massive flat screen TV. Things like this take away from the atmosphere but we simply did not realize this when we were filming.

Planning:

We went through several stages of planning our continuity task. We made storyboards, we discussed several different fairy tales to adapt and how we were going to adapt them. In the end we decided on Rumpelstiltskin, and as a group we decided on how we would change it to a more noir like atmosphere/story. Planning wise we could of done more, we could scouted more locations, possibly of prepared Max's house before filming and certainly could of how we were going to shoot the film and in what order, as this caused a bit of confusion for us later on.

What I have done over the holidays

Over the past week we've been on holiday. Despite this me and my groups have still continued working on our coursework.

Rumpelstiltskin

Above you can find my groups (Me, Fabian, Max and Gregory!) rough cut of our continuity task. I wrote the screenplay, Greg and Max both edited, Greg also produced the music. Finally Fabian was in charge of cinematography and lighting. I'm very happy with our rough cut and all that needs to be adjusted is some transitions and the addition of my narration. Overall I am very pleased with how it's all come out.

However there were a few mistakes we made. For a start we didn't make sure to make that the scenery fit it in completely with our decided on setting. For example at one point you can see that Greg, who plays our mafia boss, is wearing socks. Also at one point you can see an Xbox controller in the background, which doesn't really fit in.

Also, at about halfway through our short film you can the tap dripping for about a minute. While at first we thought this wouldn't be a problem but after watching, several people had said that this ruins the atmosphere of the scene.

Finally, we also shot a lot of our film in one location, which became very repetitive. So when we produce our OTS we need to make sure we have a variation of locations instead of setting it all in Max's house.

So when we produce our OTS we need to make that we have a variation of shooting locations, make sure we focus more on both Mise En Scene and sound.

The task was very helpful as it helped us understand that our OTS will not be as simple and will require a lot of preparation. Speaking of which...

Little Red Riding Hood

My group has decided on what we are going to do for our final production. Our group has changed a slight bit, so for my OTS my group will be me, Fabian and Wil. We are going to produce a OTS for Little Red Riding Hood, retold in the noir form. For this we've even assigned some roles and started planning.

The roles we've decided on are as followed. I am the script writer, director and editor. Fabian is going to be director of Cinematography, location manager and in charge of lighting. Wil, is in charge of music, props and foley. I believe these roles have been assigned well, as we're all working our strong points. There are still several roles that need to be decided on, but the majority not already mentioned will be shared.

I have started writing the script already, I have some ideas when it comes to editing and with that I have a good idea on how I want to direct it. I know Fabian is skilled with his camera and has been looking into what different types of camera shots and angles he wants to use, as well testing out lighting. Finally we've all been brainstorming ideas when it comes to Foley, but Wil has already started producing some music for us to play around.

On the whole, it looks like our group is well prepared to begin the OTS.

Noir Photoshoot : Rumpelstiltskin

                           
Above is the photo shoot storyboard my group produced for our photo shoot task. The purpose of this task was for our group to practice different uses of light, camera angles and shots and to find which worked best. We'll use what we've found to produce our continuity task, which will be uploaded to this blog sometime in the following two weeks.

Making Of: Rumpelstiltskin Noir Photoshoot

Our group was tasked to create a storyboard of neo noir themed fairytale. We chose to retell the tale of Rumpelstiltskin. 

At first we decided on Red Riding Hood, but we changed our minds to do Rumpelstilskin. Mainly because the typical noir character types were easier to assign to the characters of Rumpelstilskin and the story also fit in very well with typical conventions. 

We changed the characters into the following.

• Daughter who is asked to spin gold / Everyman who is asked to make drugs.
• The king who demands the gold / A Mafia boss who is demanding drugs.
• Rumpelstilskin, a man who can spin gold / Rumpelstilskin a man who can make drugs. (Femme Fatale)
• Father of the daughter, who brags about her gold spinning skills / Everyman's friend, who boasts about his skills when it comes to producing drugs.

The original tale of Rumpelstilskin goes like this : The father goes to the king and tells him that his daughter can spin straw into gold. The king therefore buys the daughter off the father and demands she starts making him gold. If she fails to do so, she will die. Distressed, the daughter begins to cry. Rumpelstilskin hears her cries and offer to help, if she gives him some of her jewellery. She agrees and he spins straw into gold. The king is pleased and asks the daughter to do it once again. Rumpelstilskin agrees to help again, if she gives him the rest of his jewellery. Once again the daughter agrees and the king is extremely pleased. He asks the daughter to do it once more. She begs Rumpelstilskin to help her once more. He agrees to, but only if he is given her first born child. Thinking that she'll never have a child or that Rumpelstilskin will forget, she agrees. The king is pleased once more and decides to marry the daughter. Many years later they have a child. To the daughters horror, Rumpelstilskin demands the child. The daughter refuses. Rumpelstilskin gives her no choice, but tells her if she guesses his name in three days he will go away. After three days, the daughter is distraught but has no choice. Rumpelstilskin starts to celebrate by cheering out his name. The daughter shouts out his name and Rumpelstilskin dies on the spot. The daughter, the king and their child live happily ever after.

We decided to change the plot several ways to give it a more noir feel to it. Instead of gold we replaced the desired product to drugs. Instead of a royal family we changed it to a Mafia ring. There are also no female characters in our plot.

Our story is also much more gritty. Instead of taking jewellery, Rumpelstilskin demands that the Everyman kills a man for him. He does so, and Rumpelstilskin makes the drugs. Instead of a royal marriage, the Mafia boss rewards the everyman with a large sum of cash. Angered that he would not be receiving any money, Rumpelstilskin demands he is given the money. Instead of a happy ending, we decided to go down the typical noir conventional road, and have a sad ending. Accepting that he wasn't going to get to keep the money, Rumpelstilskin would no longer help him, and that he had killed a man himself, our Everyman decides to kill himself. Rumpelstilskin then leaves with the money.

The actual storyboard will be put on this blog soon. We did this task to get a better understanding of what it is like to set up a noir themed film. Also we could experiment with camera angles and mise en scene before our continuity task, which we will be doing in the following week. All of this is in preparation for our final coursework piece, the opening to a noir film.