FINAL: Retaliation Short Film

TASK 11: FINAL Print Artefacts

TASK 13: Evaluation Q1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

TASK 13: Evaluation Q2- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

TASK 13: Evaluation Q3- What have you learned from audience feedback?

Audience feedback was very vital in the creating of our media product, thought pre and postproduction; even during production feedback was very useful. An example of feedback pre production was drafting various ideas to see which people liked more. The audience feedback was very important during post-production in this project.  As a lot of the content was added in after the first cut, which was still missing some takes and some sound effects and voice-overs.

The first feedback we got during this production was when we showcased a few ideas to our class to see which they liked more, this was very basic and before we had much information about the ideas, just how they sounded. We then pitched our idea to a larger audience of our class, to see their opinion on it. We had rough outlines of what we were doing, which it was supposed to be Crime/Thriller/Detective short film, which from the feedback we gathered the idea would not work as well as it could, in the form of a short film.

As a result of this, we decided to change our idea with something we believed would be much more fitting in the form of a short film, which was purely a Thriller short film, which people liked the premise of the basic ideas. This was a more practical idea that would fit much easier within the timescale of five minutes, which we were limited to. One of the more difficult tasks we faced in preproduction was creating an understandable narrative within the timescale, as we did not have much time to develop characters. We used audience feedback to work on a narrative that was understandable but still somewhat challenging, leaving the audience to uncover the narrative on their own.

After the production of our first draft, which was unfinished as it was missing some footage we had yet to film, we exhibited this draft to the class. We then asked for general feedback, rather than feedback on targeted issues, which we did for later drafts. The main feedback we got from our first draft was about the narrative. Members the audience found the narrative unclear and confusing, which was not ideal, as this was one of our largest concerns. We thought that we would act upon the feedback and work to create a stronger narrative. Which we were able to do in the remaining shots, which we added more shots and sounds to indicate that the protagonist was in danger. Such as an expansion of the planned fight scene, which was yet to be filmed. We decided to change the outcome of the fight scene to make it longer, to add more conflict into the narrative. As well as this, we added some sounds, such as the noise the protagonist hears from the outside.

After building on our first draft, we did the same with our secondary draft, which was the final draft before the short film was complete. This time we asked for feedback targeted on our narrative, sound (predominantly music choices) and pacing of it all. The feedback went well, the positive feedback we got about the music was that it fit very well and built atmosphere, and it matched the pacing very well. However, there was concern over the narrative. Mostly in the beginning, as people could not understand what the phone call conversation was about. We decided to use this feedback my adding in some dialogue we cut from the script early on in pre-production. We added it in using a voice recorder, and fitted it into the gaps that we left in the opening dialogue. Our audience found this helpful to explain the flow of the narrative.

Overall, audience feedback was very important in guiding us in creating a media product suitable for our target audience, as thrillers are a very narrative driven genre, and through feedback we revolved this issue effectively. As well as this, positive feedback was useful in letting us know what didn't need to be changed, and letting us know that what we were doing was going in the right direction. 

TASK 13: Evaluation Q4- How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research and Planning

We used a variety of tools to assist in our research and planning. the browser we used was Firefox, as it allowed us to access some websites we needed to use for research which on the other browsers we had access to were filtered, and would hinder our production. With it, we accessed websites we see examples of short films. Websites such as Vimeo on YouTube were very useful for this. We looked at a wide range of short films to get a grasp on the structure of them, and to build up the knowledge on what to include in our own. An example of this one that we found on YouTube called “The Hedgehog”.  Whereas the film was a completely different genre, we were able to see how it fit a full narrative in under ten minutes.

To research what our target audience would be we used the YouGov.co.uk. On this website it uses government data to find statistics on what groups of people like or do, such as where they prefer to shop, how much they make and what films they enjoy. This was useful, as we used it to find the general audiences that enjoyed films similar to ours, to help find our target audience. However all these films we looked at had totally different audiences according to the website. We decided that since we could not find a solid group of so we could just label our target audience as Thriller fans.

We had to pitch our short film idea to an audience. To format it we used Microsoft PowerPoint. The software allowed us to format different aspects of our idea, such as narrative and character into different slides. We chose to use this over other tools to present this was due to it’s simplicity and how easy it would be to change, if we had any new ideas shortly before presenting the pitch. Where as tools such as Prezi are more visually engaging, we felt the simplicity of PowerPoint made more time for us to create ideas.

To store all our research, making it accessible at anytime, we used Blogger.com to upload our planning, such as scripts, storyboards ad general research on short films and print productions. Blogger is very useful as you can embed videos and images into the html code letting you show something you are referencing such as a part of a scene or a soundtrack that inspired your idea. This give anyone reading it reference to what you are discussing in the planning. Blogger is more useful than just using hard copies of research and planning as keeping it digitally not only makes it more accessible and secure but presents in a tidy and readable manner

Production and Post Production

We filmed our footage using the JVC 3CCD Pro HD Camera. We chose this over the over the Sony Handicam as it has full manual settings, and this was essential as some of the locations we filmed at had harsh lighting which we had to configure the camera for before shooting. Another benefit of using the JVC was that it had manual focus, and this allowed us to achieve the shallow depth of field in the shot where the protagonist is sitting at his table. The Sony Handycam would have allowed us to film in HD, but had full automatic settings and this would have limited us.

We used a Camlink tripod to stabilise the camera for most shots as to not disorient the viewer. However this was not necessary for the certain shots, which were done handheld for the purpose of building tension.

For the final shot when the police arrived, we used artificial lighting to suggest that they are outside the protagonists home. This was done with a phone application that was behind the camera so that it reflected into the scene. We wanted it to end with only seeing the light of the police as this adds to the mystery of the cut-to-black ending.

We decided to use Adobe Premiere to edit our short film, as it is industry standard editing software. What is great about Premiere is that it allowed us to colour correct our footage within the sequence and we could then add the same preset to other shots. We could also edit and add sound easily within the sequence.

Our music was sourced from Incompetech.com. Incompetech has a large library of royalty free music, which meant that we could find the right soundtracks to fit with the narrative and emotion of specific scenes in the short film. Also, being royalty free means that there was no copyright issues with using the music as long as we gave credit to who created it and the website it came from, which we did at the end of the film in the credits.

To create the production logo in post production we used Adobe After Effects. Like Premiere, this is also industry standard and gave us a lot of options as to what the logo was going to look like. We could then export it as a .mov file to be imported into Adobe Premiere without any issues. We found After Effects to be the most challenging software to use as it was unlike any other software we had used in the past and it had a steep learning curve. Therefore, we used YouTube to look at tutorials on the basic effects to use. Should we have had more time, we would have likely spent more time in After Effects to find more complex effects that would have made our logos look better and more professional.

To obtain sound effects we used freesound.org, which had a library of free sounds which could be downloaded. We used this to add sounds that we were unable to during filming, such as the sound outside when the protagonist is at his table inside.

Print Products and Evaluation

To create our print products, we used Photoshop for both the poster and the two page magazine spread.

To create the main image of the poster, we took photographs of the main actor and a mask using a Nikon D3100 DSLR and a green screen. This made the editing process easier as the green stood out and could be taken away from the images we needed.

Then, to create the wanted look of having the mask blend into the actor’s face, we changed the opacity of the mask. However, we found the edge of the mask was still obvious against the actor’s face. To correct this, we added a dark gradient to the bottom of the entire image. Because this made the image too dark, we had to adjust the brightness to that the image would be seen clearly when printed. Then we blended the edges with the blur tool to soften the mask against the actor’s face. We tried to feather the edge with the edge define settings, but this didn’t give the desired effect.

We also then made the credits for the bottom of the poster. This took a long time to do because we had to use multiple layers for each name and phrase. Then, we had to arrange the credits so that they were central.

The use of the colour blue was important in our poster as it linked our print products to our production. We first created the main title of the poster in after effects, creating a blue smoke around the text, then used to same blue to accent the important information on the poster (the release date and the actor’s names). We also tinted the main image of the poster in the same colour used in the production to create continuity between the production and the poster.

Creating the review was a little easier than creating the poster, but it still had its challenges as we used Photoshop in a different way. Instead of using various effects to create a main image, we instead had to shape text, frame images and create bold titles.

To create the various titles, we used different techniques within Photoshop. The more simplistic titles “Director’s Interview” and “Retaliation” were simply created with the text tool in Photoshop. We used a similar colour scheme to the colour schemes used in magazines, such as ‘Empire’. To create the “In Cinemas” title, we had to use the text tool and the shape tool. First we created a separate canvas and added the basic text, using the Times New Roman font. We then changed the colour on the text to two shades of blue so that the text would stand out from the rest of the article. It became tricky to create the white line within the bold text as we had to use the shape tool. We decided to create the text like this because it is used on all the film reviews we analysed. Using the shape tool, we traced the shape of each letter with a white line, make short squares through the letter.

We then added in the main body text. We first wrote the review in a Word document then pasted it onto the main canvas. We had to do this in sections so that all the text would fit into the place where we wanted it to be. We had to leave space for images so that the review would be aesthetically pleasing and so that the text would be broken up.

We then filled in the gaps using the shape tool. The first shape we placed was the “Out Now” circle. We placed this in the space where we thought would be best and hen shaped the text around the circle using the move tool. We then filled in the rest of the gaps with bold line which linked to the layout of the “Empire Magazine” articles we originally looked at.

We decided to produce a green screen video for our evaluation. This meant we could communicate our evaluation whilst having the relevant shots appear in the background. This was beneficial as it gives the audience an idea of what we are talking about and gives them greater understanding.

We also created a Prezi for our evaluation. We decided to choose Prezi over PowerPoint as it has a lot more potential for us to be creative with presenting our evaluation and it makes it much more interesting and engaging to watch. We also had the ability to embed it onto our blog which was essential as we could then contain all of our work into one area.

TASK 11: Print Artefact Concepts

Video production feedback

Excellence is demonstrated in the creative use of a range of technical skills.

An institutional logo is created using After Effects with a signature tune to accompany a professional looking opening.  Use of cinematic bars and colour correction allow the product to look like a short film for cinematic exhibition.  Audio levels and mixing is accurate at most points and audio elements provide a lot of the meaning.  The audio is key to understanding the narrative and some of the shots. These clues are not always clear and along with some lighting issues and some shots being short in length, prevent the highest marks being awarded. However technical skill is excellent throughout with seamless editing and clear continuity due to effective planning and editing.  Music is appropriate and well sourced being copyright free.  It adds tension and creates an atmosphere.  There are a range of shots and use of the camera is controlled.  The narrative is coherent and follows the conventions of a short film ending on a twist as the character realises he has been set up. Credits reach near professional standards creating a professional looking short film.  35/40

TASK 10: Filming the final shots

We filmed the final shots of the film but found lots of the clips too dark. I tried adding a luma corrector to try and solve this problem and it did to an extent, but added a grain to the footage. I will need to discuss with the group wether we will re shoot the shots but it is difficult as the area is one that has little light and we need to note the continuity with previous shots before adding artificial light. In terms of the content of the shots, we felt it was successful, particularly the attempt to emulate police lights shining on the protagonists face.

TASK 10: Editing the Confrontation

Filming the fight scene was probably the most challenging part of the overall short film. This is because we needed to ensure that it was fast paced to create tension and emulate the emotions that would go through the character during a fight. One way we did this is by speeding up the clips slightly. This allowed for the impact to look more severe and added to the intensity of the scene. We had to make sure we only sped it up slightly because if the percentage was over 120% the footage started to look choppy. One way we could have overcome this was to film in 60 frames per second, however we were unsure whether the JVC camera had this ability. Fortunately, only a small percentage increase was required so the overall affect was successful in my opinion.

TASK 10: Retaliation First Cut

Self Assessment

• the volume of the music is too loud at points
• one of the cuts is delayed and needs to be edited
• lighting when shown on a projector may be an issue
• we have yet to film the ending
• the narrative may not be clear at this point

Questions for Discussion with audience:

1. What is the narrative?

2. Can you notice the colour correction?

3. How does it fit the thriller genre?

4. How does the soundtrack create a mood or atmosphere?

5. What is the audience for this short film?

6. Where would you expect to see this short film?

7. Is the pace of editing suitable for the style of the film?

8. We switched the aspect ratio from 16:9 to 2.39:1 which is common with Thriller films. Do you like this style?

9. Is there enough dialogue?

10. Is the lighting an issue?

Audience Feedback 

Medal: Good range of shots

            Effective use of sound

Mission: Make narrative more clear, perhaps have more speech

              more shots of the antagonist

Medal: Good use of camera angles such as over the shoulder and establishing/ wide angled shots. 

Mission: Include some extreme close ups to show the protagonist's facial expressions.

              Have a clearer narrative. Level 3

Medal: Suspense built well

            Follows thriller conventions

Mission: Adjust brightness/contrast in premiere.

              More/clearer dialogue

              Move away from horror themes

Medal: Good camera shots

             Good use of lighting effect

Mission: make narrative more clear

              more dialogue

Medal: Really good camera work and good location used

Mission: I thought the music didn't relate to what was going on. I was also unsure of the

              genre. Level 3

TASK 10: After Effects

As films conventionally include the studios logos before the film, we decided to create our own. To do this we used After Effects, which is industry-standard in creating logos and compositions. Despite practicing with After Effects in AS, we found it difficult to understand and it took a while to get some ideas created. We decided to add an animated background with text that transitioned in, as we felt this was the most aesthetically pleasing. After exporting we decided to import it into Premiere, where we added a sound effect. When this was finalised we added it to the beginning of our short film.

We also used After Effects to create the title of our film for the Poster, as it allowed us to generate a smoke effect to go behind the text which we wanted. However, rather than exporting this as a .mov, we exported it as a .jpeg because it was inanimate.

TASK 10: Editing: Sound

As our production contained diegetic sound, we made sure that we used high quality equipment to record it. The JVC camera we used had an excellent microphone built in that was suitable.
However, even after this there was still unwanted audio in the shots, particularly the outside ones, such as the wind. There was no way I could have prevented this during the filming, however in Adobe Premiere I could add sound effects to remove the unwanted noise.

 I added a highpass filter to the outside shots so that the only sounds of a specific decibel reading can pass through. This meant that the sounds of the door opening was picked up but the wind in the background was not. As well as being more satisfying to listen too, it also helped each shot to flow, as the sound was consistent throughout, meaning that hopefully the continuous editing is unnoticeable.

We decided to overlap the audio slightly with the jump cut to emphasize the sudden change and to create tension. This was very subtle but we thought it looked a lot better than it did previously and helped the shots flow despite the jump.

After this I added soundtracks. Initially after adding the first soundtrack I felt that the ending was too abrupt. I tried to fade it out but it wasn't successful, so I decided to add an more ambient soundtrack to the end of it so that they overlapped seamlessly, and this also helped to build tension in the subsequent scene that showed the protagonist trying to find out what was outside.

Once we filmed the later parts of the film, I noticed for many of the scenes the sound was left ear only. This made it unpleasant to listen to so I decided to try and fix this in Premiere. I found out that there was an audio effect called 'fill left' which meant that the audio from the left ear was replicated on the right side. We applied this to all of the scenes.

November Feedback Response

I am pleased with my feedback and the majority of my focus is going into making sure the ending is good, as the film so far is very mysterious and the tension created needs to build up to a suitable and satisfying end that thrills the audience.

November feedback

Your web-log is evidencing progress and you are adding relevant planning documents such as the script and the storyboard to a proficient standard.  Your edit shows promise and  am expecting you to reach level 4 by Christmas.

Your short film has a clear progression of shots and the bars are effective in giving it a cinematic look. Shots are of a good quality and framing and composition are proficient showing excellent technical skill in use of the camera. Audio has been considered and a JVC camera has been used which shows ambition and an ability to use a more advanced camera.

Music is appropriate and builds tension ass does the length of shots. Feedback may indicate that shots are lengthy but this suits the style of the short film.

Music is copyright free as it is sourced from Incomputech so make this clear in your web-log or put it in the credits.

Document your creative journey

I don't think you need to overdub sound but maybe add some ambient sounds or effects.

The narrative is clear. Make sure that the story is not cliched.  Be original and think of a twist at the end or defy expectations.  I am intrigued as to how you will resolve the narrative.  this is the key to level 4.

TASK 10: Editing- Colour Correction

As our film is a thriller, we felt that it's darker themes meant that the colours would have to suit it. We decided to reduce the intensity of the colour, as we wanted to emphasize the protagonist's emotions of both isolation and fear. We did this by adding... We also decided to increase the contrast, as we wanted the shadows to be more harsh to unnerve the viewer.


 Our film was filmed with a 16:9 aspect ratio, however after further research into the thriller genre, we found out that the conventional aspect ratio was an anamorphic 2.39:1. Therefore we decided to change it in post production.There is not a concrete method of changing aspect ratios in Premiere, but it can be done a variety of different ways. One method we looked at is cropping the video 12.5% on the top and bottom. Although this is easy to do and works effectively, it prevented us from framing the shot afterwards, and the head of the subject was often cut off. We decided to try a different method, which was to add two separate black colour matte's on the above video layers, This meant that the below layers weren't affected and, as a result, we could re-position the shot so that it contained the subject. Also, as this was in a separate layer, it could be dragged across the duration of the film, so it did not have to be repeated for each shot, which would have been the case for cropping.

TASK 10: Editing- Cutting

We began by importing all of the clips into premiere pro and placed the clips we intended to use onto the timeline in chronological order. There was a lot of clips that were considered unusable, but some shots had multiple successes and therefore we had to choose the best one. We picked favourites and decided to keep the backups for later on in the editing stage when sound is added so that we can see which shot fits better. We then watched the clips through and used the razor tool to cut them appropriately. We had a couple of match on action shots that we needed to cut specifically to show that both shots are continuous and flow. There was one jump cut in our film and we wanted to emphasize this by slightly overlapping the sound, which is loud and keeps the viewer on edge.

TASK 10: Filming Day: 2

For the second day of filming, we had to re-shoot the shots that were unusable on day 1. We started filming much earlier, which gave us much more time to prepare and ultimately film the scenes. This day was successful and we got a large portion of the filming done, however it began to rain and so we decided to stop shooting so that no equipment was damaged and also for continuity, as the rain would not have appeared earlier on in the film.

TASK 10: Filming Day: 1

We began filming using the JVC Camera. We used this because it had good automatic settings that would stay consistent from shot to shot, which is important for continuity. With continuity in mind, we noticed that the ovens had a time on them, and that it would change between shots. Fortunately, none of the shots in the storyboard required them to be in camera, and this problem did not trouble us. 

We decided to film near to sunset, as this had the most visually appealing lighting and helped to set the tone for the film, however an issue we had is that we began filming too late and so we only got to shot 8 before it started to get darker. We tried to avoid it being dark as it can cause lots of reflections, particularly as the set had lots of windows, and also we did not test how well the camera performs in low lighting conditions. 

This was the only issue we had with filming and everything else went as planned, so we are going to shoot again next week, after checking what footage is usable and what we need to re-shoot. We are going to start filming a lot earlier this time, so we have plenty of time to get the footage recorded.

TASK 10: Risk Assessment - Post Production

	Risk Assessment Form
ACTIVITIES:     Post Production		HAZARDS & CONTROLS:     Tripping on wires (keep wires on desktop), Mac overheats (ensure they are maintained by technicians).

Activity Title:	To edit our short film
Activity Description:	To go into the editing suite to edit our short film.
List those managing this Activity and their competence:	Joe Hinton – Editor Connor Hanlon – Special Effects Samantha Bowles – Print Product
Who & how many are at risk from this Activity?	Joe Hinton, Connor Hanlon, Samantha Bowles – 3.

Hazards How could someone become hurt or made ill	Control measures How are you going to prevent this from happening?
Tripping on wires to cause injury.	Ensure all wires are organised and on the desktop so as to not trip.
Mac overheats to cause fire.	Ensure the technicians check the iMacs before use.

Risk Level:  After your controls have been applied what is your assessment of the risk level of this activity?	Low