Closing Post.

This blog is now closed!

We hope you have as much fun looking through our blog as we have had making it and completing this project :D

Audience feedback

We decided to record some audience feedback for our film in order to see what is good about the sequence and what could be improved.  We organised a time and date for a screening in the media block, using our posters and a facebook group to advertise it.  We had a turnout of over thirty people which suggests that in terms of audience feedback, our advertising could be considered successful.  We allowed our audience first to watch the sequence the whole way through without filling out the questionnaire so that they could fully engage with the sequence atleast once.  We then screened the sequence again, this time asking the audience to fill out the questionnaires.  These were there responses.

As you can see we recieved very positive feedback, from a wide range of the lower end of our target audience although there were some things we could have improved on. Please check our individual blogs for our individual feedback on this.

Gun shot

We wanted a realistic gun shot in our movie to represent action. we asked our technician for advice and he told us to look at Freddiew you tube channel which we found very useful. here we have one of his short clips with special effects, and then a tutorial on making a realistic Muzzle flare.





                  

We ended not using the Muzzle flare but we have taken elements from the tutorial to make a realist gun shot. this was all new to us and very useful into how special effects are used, and for the future.

Colour Grading Research: Underworld Awakening

As we are currently starting to finish the basic edit and focus on the smaller details now, we have decided to do some research into colour grading.

We want to use the colour wheel on premiere to give the film a blue tint, to make it seem colder and therefore more menacing.

We found an example of an action film that has similar blue grading: Underworld Awakening. This film is similar to ours in genre (although it has horror and fantasy elements as well) and the fact that it has a female hero. As you can see in the image and clip below the blue colours makes her character seem harder, tougher and more sleek and professional.

However this clip is slightly too strong in it's colour grading in our opinion and we would be more subtle in our film, as we don't want it to be noticeable, just to influence the audience's impression of Lotus and the events taking place subconsciously.The snapshot below (from the same film) is more illustrative of the type of grading we might use.

Lotus the title

while researching fonts we came across this font:

We liked it as it looked pretty like the flower lotus but quite sharp with the pointed extensions.

while looking through Live type there wasn't a particular animation i liked with the font however i came with the idea of having the extensions (the end) growing . Our technician showed me how I could do it and I ended up making a successful title.

firstly i removed the extensions at the start of the time frame

I removed the tools to reveal the extensions at a different time frame so that the extensions are revealed slowly looking as if they are growing

Poster

We have designed a poster for our film! We have built on the theme of shadows in our film which creates enigma, however it is clear the figure is a female assassin our major selling point.

This poster's appeal will be put to the test when we host our opening sequence premiere in school.

Last Minute Name Change

After teacher feeedback sessions, we decided as a group it was best to change the name of our film, mainly because of the misleading oriental connatations of Lotus. Instead we have decided to name our film "Deadly Shadow." This is beacuse the main motif in our opening sequence is the use of shadows. For instance:
The first thing we see of Lotus is the shadow.
When the guy is killed we see his shadow on the wall.
Her shadow crosses his dead body to get the briefcase.
The shadow theme would also be used in our marketing campaign and the rest of the film.

Reply to Re-shoot post:

Hi Francis, it's Nico. I called Natasha and the re-shoot is fine for today :)

Re-shoot: FOR ATTENTION OF NICO AND NATASHA

Hi Guys it's Francis, we need to re-shoot the shot, as the gun shot does not look good without any make-up and we can't edit around it.
If possible can we do today during the media lesson. Chris (technician) can drive us down to mine.
Please reply on the blog. Thanks.

Behind the scenes- Real shoot 25/02/12

This is exclusive behind the scenes footage of our real shoot.  I talk through our setting, props and equipment, whilst also asking talking to group members Natasha and Francis!

Lighting tutorial

None of us have used lightning so we ask for a tutorial from our technician as from our test shoot we noticed how badly we needed them to stop the images from looking grainy.

Our technician demonstrating using Francis as focus of lightening

Nico adjusting the light positioning

Francis adjusting lightening density

Natasha adjusting volume of light projected 

Shoot Permission Form

This is our shoot organisation form which everyone had to sign, including our teachers, to make sure our arrangements were clear and that we would all stick to them.

Real shoot organisation sheets

As one of the main problems in our test shoot was the lack of props. Here we have written up a comprehensive props list with who is getting what. Secondly we have written up a list of things we ned to do better this time around to make sure the shoot goes smoothly as well as the changes we intend to make.

Teachers Improvements

After our test shoot we showed our teachers our rough cut and we recieved feed back which we took o to make sure our real production is successful.

These are the notes we made when running through the rough edit with Mrs Blackborrow, Mrs Dymioti and Chris, our technician.
Many points and issues came up. The main ones were:

• Changing the opening shots so it did not include as many shots of knives as this is a genre convention of horror, not action/thriller. Focus more instead on items like cigars and whiskey to create the uneasy image we are going for.
• Making it look like the action is continuing beneath the titles.
• Lingering the shot where he picks up his briefcase and replacing the match on action of the door with a new title.
• Including more camera movement.
• Making the gun scene less static by shooting from more angles.
• Get rid of jumps
• Use more interesting framing in the gun scene to draw in audience
• Include shots such as CU of money in briefcase (match on action), assasin picking up briefcase and possibly her taking off her gloves
• Using better lighting to get rid of the grainy image.
• Make things faster-faster shots and possibly a cut down script.
• Use make up and effects for the gunshot.
• Use better props for better mise-en-scene e.g briefcase, whiskey glass, whiskey bottle.
• Making the gun scene a lot more dramatic. Possible ways we discussed were non-digetic sound effects, zoom in to the guys face see a change of expression then zoom out to see the gun, or even a fade to black of the guy in his relaxed state with a sudden jolt back to the image as the assasin appears.

Shoot Logistics

Our scheduled test shoot was to be on 5/2/2012; however it snowed heavily the night before and Nico and Natasha wasn't able to get to potteres bar where the film location was to be (francis house) as natasha  was taking public transport and it is quite a distance from her house and the trains were not working, also Nico's mum could not drive him on the icy roads specially since Potters bar is on the out skirts of london; there for still having icy roads.

Our shoot that was meant to be in Hollywood, while we was on our media trip, also failed as we were not allowed to shoot in the location. However it was fine we had a back-up of either shooting back in London next to the enfield civic centre or cut out the scene. As having two locations would be difficult and the first scene doesn't necessarily need that scene.

We rescheduled another test shoot at the film location (Potters Bar, Francis house) to be on 19/2/2012. This meant we would have to catch up really quick with the editing of that week hopefully finishing by 22/02/2012; so that we can do our real shoot on 26/02/2012

Behind the scenes

Here is a behind the scenes view of our test shoot. We are setting up for shot 6, the focus pull of the man washing his hands behind the drugs.

Group 2 LotusTest Shoot

This is our test shoot footage edited into a rough edit which matches our animatic.
The test shoot itself went pretty smoothly. We started quite slowly however and found ourselves a bit rushed towards the end. This meant we didn't use the clapperboard towards the end, something we need to do for our real shoot. We alos didn't have access to the proper lighting kit for this shoot and also had some stand in props but all these issues will be sorted out for our real shoot next week.
There were many great shots and positives from the test shoot, in particular the general style of the opening CU's and the idea of the shadow in the shooting scene. However there are also many things we need to work on and improve on our next shoot. This is all detailed in the Teacher Feedback post above.

Costume, Props, Make-up

Here are all the props that are needed:

Costume

Man:

Dark suite with a tie and white shirt

Lotus:

Grey jeans, military boots, black vest top and a leather jacket if possible

Props:

Whisky bottle

Whisky glass

Briefcase

Big knives

Stack of money and fake money (a lot)

Cigars

Ash tray

Drugs (flour in clear bags, pills

Gun

Table

Drinking storage e.g. Silver tray or shelves

Make-up:

Blood

Concealer for both shades

Face paint/ eye shadow

Latex/lash glue

Cotton

Eye liner  

Costumes

Here are the final costumes we will be using:

For Lotus we went for simple, practical clothing. We wanted it to be dark to contribute to the "shadow" idea. Not photographed is the leather jacket she wears which makes her look sleek and classy as well as hard and professional.

As for the "businessman" we wanted him to be in a shirt, tie and suit, formal trousers and formal shoes to connote the ideas of money, greed and dodgy business (which the iconography helps with.) This is shown in the photo above.

Shot log

We made sure we were organised and kept to our schedule by noting down everything on the table.  It also will help us when editing when using time codes. Here are our shot logs: