Part 3 - What impact did the media institution Film4 have on each production stage and why?

Part 2 - Who would be your target audience for your product

                            

Part 1 - Brief

This was the brief that we was given to work towards. We had to create a film of the genre British social realist, for the institution Film4. The target audience was of the ages 16-24, and we had to conform to the typical conventions of Film4 and BSR films like the visual aspects eg camera shots, locations etc, and the editing and musical style, and also keep to the budgets of a Film4 film to keep up their reputation. I think that me and Chanel met the brief well, because in our audience feedback we gained many positive comments saying that our work was original, kept to the conventions and looked like a BSR film, which is what it states in the brief that it needs to be.

The title we came up with for our film was Drained. We feel this title relates to what goes on in the film and also to the character. The word drained, connotes to the audience that the character might feel 'drained' and that her life might be like this as well. For example at the start of the film (0.20) the character wakes up in a very dull room and is late already. This would connote that her life is draining as she cant even wake up in the morning as she is too tired or 'Drained'. Also, as the character works in a laundry factory, there would be many washing machines and other machinery. We feel that the title could also connote to the audience that the character does work in a laundry factory, because when washing machines turn off the water gets 'drained' out so the word is also a function that washing machines do. So it connotes a more hidden message as well as portraying what the characters life is like.

Here is our media production again.

             
In the opening sequence, Adriana wakes up late for her first day of work. She rushes to get ready and tries to get there as quickly as possible. She is excited for her first day at work, and it shows her boss walking around waiting for her. At first he looks calm, but then he starts to get angry at her absence. When she arrives he grabs her and threatens her. Adriana is very scared and realises this job is nothing like she thought it would be. The blog post 'treatment' explains this in more detail.

In the rest of the story, Adriana tries to get out of the workplace, but as she would have no money if she left she cant. She starts doing prostitution on the side so she can save some money up to eventually leave. Whilst still working at the laundry, Adriana falls in love with another foreign worker, and they try to get out and find a better life for themselves. You can view what happens in detail in the blog post 'Narrative'

Our opening sequence sticks to normal conventions of BSR films, because we explore themes that are typically seen. For example at 1:57 in the movie, we denote the boss Steve grabbing Adriana by the throat. This connotes the theme of violence, as a man is grabbing a women which is assault. This is the first time we see this theme being portrayed in the film. Violence is a typical theme in BSR films, which can be seen in films like 'Fish Tank' , 'Looking for Eric' and many more. Also when conducting research into BSR films, people said that they would like to see violence portrayed in BSR films, which we have done here. This is in the blog post 'Audience research'

Also, at 0:18 and 0:39, the theme of poverty is seen in the film. In the first screen shot we denote lots of mess on the floor and the room looks very cramped. This portrays the theme of poverty as it shows the character doesn't care about her home, which would mean its not valuable enough to care about, and also she hasn't got enough room to put all her belongings. In the second screen shot, we see a towel being used as curtains. This connotes the theme of poverty because it shows they cannot afford to buy curtains so they use what they can instead. Poverty is a main theme shown in all BSR films so as we added this theme in it conforms to typical conventions that they use.


Throughout the film, the theme of isolation can be seen. At 1:30 is when it can be seen the most. Here we denote the character sitting at a bus stop all alone, and the framing shows lots of space to the left of her. This connotes that she is very lonely and doesn't belong here. Other films that use this style is 'Shifty'. They use similar framing to connote the theme of isolation. This theme is also used widely in BSR films so we have explored the themes used in BSR films well.


Exploring these themes in our film shows how it relates to the genre of a BSR film because these  themes are very common in this genre, which is why we used them so it clearly relates to the genre of BSR

Production Log 9

In week 9, we started to put together the scenes that we filmed in the laundry over the holidays. This was very easy for us to do because we only had to put them in the right places and tighten up the editing so it runs smoothly, however once it was all done we thought the shots between locations was too rapid and it was hard to get a grasp on what was going on. To solve this we added a 1 second fade every time it went from the laundry back to Adriana, but left it as a normal cut when it went from Adriana to the laundry. We done this because the fade helped slow it down a bit so it run smoother, but we left the other ones as it added more tension when cutting to the laundry. Whilst putting this together we used our feedback from the other groups to make sure we dont make the same mistake twice, which made it a lot better.  We added the background sound over each shot so the sound run smoothly throughout the whole film and so the audience couldn't hear a change in sound every time there was a cut, which also made it much better to watch.

This is a screenshot of the software used for editing and you can see where the fades were placed etc.

One of the main issue we had this week was trying to find the right music. We didn't have a clue what type of music we was going to add on or where we was going to get it from which is why we left it til everything else was done. We looked on many different websites and tried upbeat sounds to slow pianos playing, just to see which one went best with the film. In the end we chose the slow piano playing because we thought it went best with the storyline and was very affective. We got the music from www.incompetech.com which is copyright free music. This was on the website showing where we can use the music and the legal terms.

Also, we had to edit all of the sound on each shot to make it blend in and run smoothly. This took a long time as we didn't really know how to do this on the new iMovie. Once we got the hang of it things speeded up, however it still took very long because we had to change the sound of every shot. We also had to go and film some extra shots that was used just for the sound to make the sound run smooth and sound better, because some outdoor shots had the sound of wind, so we had to go out on a non windy day to film the sound then add this over the shot to get rid of the awful sound that you could hear before.

Once everything to do with editing was done, was had to use a different software to put the graphics on. This was hard at first because we have never used the software before, but once we got the hang of it, it didnt take long. We had to decide when the credits were going to be on, so we used a bit of trial and error to see where it looked best. Once we finished i think they looked really good as they didn't stand out too much which is a typical convention of BSR films, and they came on at the right time.

Production log 8

In week 8, me and Chanel began to edit the pieces of film that we done it week 7. The draft was due this week so all the editing of the shots we done needed to be pretty much done.  Our draft didn't really make sense, but we knew this would happen because in our film there was cuts between two different locations, Adriana's house and the laundry factory. We haven't yet filmed the shots that are to be taken in the laundry factory which made our draft look very jumpy and confusing. Some key issues we had when editing this week, was which parts were we going to cut out and which we was going to keep, for example when Adriana was walking down the stairs to leave, we had a shot of her putting her shoes on to make the continuity flow. However we decided that this shot was not necessary and used up too much time in the film which we needed, so we cut it out and the continuity still looked good. 

Once the other groups watched our drafts, we got feedback from them so we could see what they liked about it and what we needed to change and improve. People said that we had some shots we eye contact in the camera. To solve this problem we had to decide which other shots we were going to replace the ones with eye contact in, as we filmed a lot of the scenes more then once. We had to pick some shots that wasn't as good in terms of framing, but there was no eye contact to the camera so it had to be replaced. With some other shots we could just cut it a bit shorter to remove the eye contact part and it still run smoothly. Other feedback we had was that the continuity didn't flow very well in some shots, like a pause before the action started. To solve this problem we only had to tighten up the editing to get rid of the pauses, but this was only a draft and the final version will run much smoother.

Also, when listening to the sound that was in the shots, you can hear each cut, as the sound slightly changes in each shot. But because this was only a draft we hadn't yet film all of the wild tracks of the sound to make it run smoothly, we had only done some. In the final piece we will make it all sound the same so you cant hear any obvious cuts, and we will also add music.

In this shot you can see the purple bar carrying on over 3 shots. That was a wild track sound so the sound between each cut blended in and made the sound run smooth.

Call sheet 3

Production Log 7

This week me and Chanel begun to film our opening sequence in lesson time. We decided to start off filming in Chadwell Heath as it was the closet location at the time. Some key decisions we had to make before we started to film was where the best location in Chadwell Heath would fit BSR films the most. We decided to film right near some train tracks that looked very rough. We took a lot of time on these shots because they were hand held, some of the shots were very shaky so had to be re done, but to do it again we had to wait for another train, which is why it took a while. We also had to think of how many shots we could get done before we needed to go back into school, and weather we would spend another day filming around Chadwell Heath. We decided we didn't want to waste any time as we needed it to film for the other locations, so we done all the shots around Chadwell Heath and managed to finish just in time. We filmed shots on the bus, but we had to do these again as they didn't flow very nicely and we wanted them to be the best as possible so we wouldn't have to re film any shots later when we was editing.

Also this week, we filmed in our house location, where the character Adriana lives. Some key issues we had were to do with things like how are we going to layout the room to make it fit into the conventions of BSR films, and also the lighting. On this day it was quite bright outside, so some rooms looked lighter than others. We had to find ways to make the room darker,  To solve this we used towels to cover some windows that had no curtains,  and in the bedroom we only had to close the curtains a bit so this was easy. When filming we done a shot looking in to a mirror, and we could see the towels covering the window, which we thought looked good for the mise-en-scene as it makes them look trampy and very secretive like they didn't want people looking into the window. This shot was quite hard to do because we had to film at a certain angle so we couldn't see me or  the camera in it, and we had to get Chanel's hands and hair in the right place so the continuity flows well. But overall we done well as this day was the first day of filming.