Media Evaluation 2

 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Video

Media Evaluation 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Media Evaluation Prezi

Coursework feedback

Main Task- 54

Warner Brothers titles are used effectively to indicate industry links which are explained in the blog.  Their own production logo is created using Flash animation and the style of film noir is utilised showing a knowledge of conventions and colour in titling using Pick monkey to create film noir titles. The title Ruby Red evokes film noir titles. A voiceover is effective and overlays a range of shots showing the detective and the victim, which includes over the shoulder and low angle.  Mise-en-scene is effective in the use of costume and props such as the ring which is identified as a key piece of evidence or the enigma.  The genre and narrative are clear from the start showing an awareness of codes and conventions an excellent understanding of the task. The script is thorough and well drafted and the storyboard allows excellent continuity between shots building the narrative quickly and effectively.  Audio is edited with visuals effectively such as when we see the femme fatale. The mise-en-scene accompanied by the detectives audio track allows the audience to understand the back-story. A lot of information is provided in a short amount of time to create an effective opening sequence. The choice of monochrome is in line with the genre if not entirely necessary.  Technically excellent with an excellent knowledge of codes and conventions and an excellent grasp of the task. Characters are outlined clearly through costume and careful framing. Careful planning is the key to success.

Media Evaluation 4

Media Evaluation 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

 

Due to our film being very true to the codes and conventions of the Film Noir genre I feel that it would be safe to assume that the target audience of our film would probably be attributed to the same audience of films that influenced the creation of our film with their conventions. In my evaluation I have noted that our film’s conventions and characters are influenced by films such as “The Maltese Falcon” and slightly more recent films such as “Seven”.

 

Using outside sources such as the “YouGov Profiler” It is possible to create an estimated target audience of our film product based on the audiences of other movies which were used as templates to influence ours through their codes and conventions, such as The Maltese Falcon. The YouGov profiler allows you to search for certain keywords, people, places, movies and things and uses several profiles to calculate a reasonable audience based on profiles listing their preferences.

 

Using The Maltese Falcon as an audience reference the YouGov Profiler concludes that my media product may have an audience of males aged 60+ based on the time the Maltese Falcon was released. Despite this result it may not be reliable to conclude this as the target audience due to the fact that the Maltese Falcon was released in 1941, my media product has slightly more modern elements despite being stylised in the same was as Maltese Falcon. Using the profiler the age range could be slightly decreased by using Seven as a profile reference, getting a result of slightly younger demographic of people aged 40-59, which is still roughly similar to The same demographic as The Maltese Falcon. Despite the change in age the demographic remains male, so I believe that my media product would pander primarily but not exclusively towards a male audience.

 

My media product could potentially appeal towards a similar demographic as “The Dark Knight” demographic, which remains in the male gender range while decreasing in age at the 25-39 demographic. Although The Dark Knight is a film noir product distributed by Warner Brothers I feel that the demographic may not match my own as the demographic is more centred on the superhero genre rather than Film Noir. However from these results I could conclude that the audience of my media product would definitely be males of the 35-60 demographic, ranging from potential neo-noir fans and expanding onto true film noir fans that may be familiar with works from the golden age. 

Film Progress - creative journey

Casting

After having completed the storyboard and script I had a confident idea of how to go about creating the movie. I collected a few friends to play the actors within my movie, a total of 5 actors to play 5 characters, additionally I needed my own direction of how the movie would be filmed and how to follow the storyboard in collaboration with the script and Tony Cash provided the role of cameraperson.

I gathered my actors in early October and gave those with speaking roles copies of the script to prep them for the film. Casting actually became a problem throughout the production of the movie as certain actors had conflicting schedules which required the production dates to be decided carefully. A rough set of shots was filmed in late October for a rough idea of how the movie would look, unfortunately the footage captured could not be used due to low audio quality and the fact that it was incomplete, additionally the footage featured an actor who was later re-casted entirely due to schedule conflictions. Before filming my finalised casting crew became solidified:

Alistair Goodwin as Detective Gilbert (Main character)
Harry Kelly as Detective Patmore (Secondary Character)
Amy Morris as Olivia Garnet (Femme Fatale)
Lee Bradley as Charles Graves (Background character)
Bradley Lee as Ned Henry (Corpse)

Location

After having a reliable cast I decided to go out with my partner and find a suitable filming location for the movie. I explored a few areas around Tamworth for my movie, initially I was thinking of an area near a river which I had visited on a Duke of Edinburgh walk and though would be suitable, however upon revisiting the location I found the ground to be much too wet and sludgy to have any kind of filming equipment or footwear on. I decided to have the location at a nearby nature reserve in Amington, which is very close to the houses of all the actors involved, which made it convenient and the ground was suitable for equipment and footwear. The location is surrounded in many tall trees and quite murky surfaces, there is also a small swamp-like lake on set which will appear in the film as a local landmark in the story, I chose the area because it seemed like a suitable location for a murder crime scene and I felt that It's muddy appearance would invite a dark Film Noir style atmosphere to the movie.  (add pictures of location here later)

Production Schedule

Upon having my cast and location sorted I had to find out which days would be suitable to get the footage. I found that the entirety of my cast was available every Sunday for filming, so I scheduled the filming of the movie every Sunday, however in the end I only needed a single day to collect all of the footage required.

Filming Footage and Role Allocation

After having everything ready I started filming in mid November, with myself as the writer, director and later the editor and Tony Cash as the cameraperson who took care of capturing the footage. After having audio problems in our practice recording in October we decided to make use of a voice recorder suspended on a sturdy stick to capture audio better and later overlap it with the footage to get a better audio quality. In addition Tony provided a pop filter for the voice recorded to reduce the risk of background noise. As we pressed record on the camera we suspended the voice recorder close to the actors while still out of shot in order to get decent quality audio capture. After completing all of the footage recording which additionally required audio recordings at the same time we recorded voiceovers off camera to be placed onto scenes later in editing.

Editing








When filming was finished and it was time to edit I put the footage and audio onto the computer and went through all of the files in order to separate the blooper footage with the footage we were actually going to use in the film. After doing this I imported all the files we were going to edit together into Adobe Premiere to start editing.










After importing all the clips and audio I dragged them all into the timeline in the order they are supposed to go, with the footage accompanied with the audio it was recorded with.

I then synced the footage and audio up appropriately, which you can see in the pictures shows the audio more spaced out as it has been synced with the footage accurately.

After having placed all of the clips and audio into the film and having synced it all I started to add filters to all of the clips in order to give it the black and white film noir colours and some colour edits to make it seem darker since the original clips were quite light.

 

Before adding all the filters I created a second save of the film for applying the edits, this way I wouldn't ruin the project by adding the filters.

Throughout the course of editing the film I noticed that a specific clip had dragged on for an uncomfortable amount of time and it made the pacing of the entire project slow down and it seemed unprofessional. In order to try and correct this I added in a clip from earlier in the project with no visual dialogue, named "over shoulder shot" so then the audio could be heard and it would seem as though the character was talking off-screen without it being a voice-over, remaining diegetic sound. The images below shows the image repeated on the timeline as well as what the clip looked like.

Towards the end of editing the project I found that we didn't have enough footage to sync up to one of the audio voiceovers, which we recorded without a clip in collaboration with it. In order to correct this I took a camera and tri-pod out the following Saturday and simply captured a close up shot of the main character as it was him talking in a voiceover. I did this to make it seem as though the character was in deep thought during his voiceover as earlier in the voiceover he wasn't in the shot and it was focusing on another character.

Below you can see how the audio goes further than the footage.

After collecting all of the necessary footage for the film it was able to all be edited together correctly on the timeline. After being synced with the audio the footage of the film was all finished being edited. During post production my partner Tony and I split up to create different graphics for the opening title card and company logo for the film.

I used flash to create a short animation featuring a company logo named Cashcush Productions, created out of the last names of both myself (Cushingham) and my partner Tony (Cash). The animation was purposely simplistic, not reminiscent of any specific styles and was intended to have no genre-specific impact on the viewer.






While I was creating the company logo animation my film partner Tony was creating a title card for the film, which is called "Ruby Red". After looking up a few tutorials Tony was able to create the title card In Photoshop by layering images and text over one another and by manipulating lighting effects provided by Photoshop. The title card was created to purposely reflect Film Noir aspects, with a spotlight on the title and the title font being quite curved.

December feedback

You are making excellent progress toward the deadline and have produced a promising first edit.  I am expecting you to reach the higher grades so aspire to these.

Planning needs to be documented thoroughly on the web-log. You have done this with the script and the storyboards so now add production schedules and any other documentation. Use the Foundation portfolio booklet as a guide.

Once an edit is complete begin to evaluate your opening sequence.

Film Noir : The Pitch

Film Noir Pitch; Ruby Red.

 

Set in quite a murky location, small woods with a small open lake nearby. Quite a lot of the trees provide shade and affect the lighting of the area to be moderately dark. The film incorporates three signature characters of the Film Noir genre. The hardboiled detective protagonist, a sidekick secondary character detective and finally the memorable femme fatale character are all evident within the film’s opening sequence. Appropriate Mise en scene costumes have been collected in order to provide recognisable clichés for the characters, such as fedoras/trilbies and long coats for the detectives, a very wealthy looking fur coat and outfit for the femme fatale and appropriate suits for the detectives.

 

Synopsis

 

When Detective Gilbert, a hardboiled detective with years of experience is called in for a crime scene following connotations towards his previous cases, he finds himself indulged in a large scale homicide centred on a single ruby red ring. The targets of three cases have all been employees of the law, all found with a ruby red gem-encrusted item of jewellery found on their corpse when found. Accompanied by Detective Patmore, Gilbert must uncover the clues that lead towards several young cops’ demise, all while attempting to cope with his unprofessional interests with the alluring Olivia Garnet; a suspect in the case.

 

Characters

 

Detective Gilbert: The main character and protagonist of the film. A stern but compassionate detective who’s years of experience have hardened his exterior. Gilbert has recently been involved in two murder cases of young employees of the law, and both cases have left a significant item of jewellery at the scene coloured in ruby red. With a third murder and a third item of jewellery uncovering before him, Gilbert must attempt to remain professional while still dealing with his newly developed and unexplainable attraction towards a suspect, the miss Olivia Garnet.

 

-          Played by Isaac Turner.

 

Detective Patmore: A secondary character and sidekick to Detective Gilbert. A young detective who’s lack of experience leaves him with a laid back personality which contrasts with his newly appointed partner; Detective Gilbert. Despite his relaxed personality he is eager to view cases and seem relevant to the situation. Gilbert is talkative and usually the evident voice due to his obnoxious persistence and attempts to lighten the mood. He joins Detective Gilbert on the new homicide case uprising in the town.

 

-          Played by Alistair Goodwin

 

Olivia Garnet: A main character and femme fatale of the film. The youthful daughter of a rich tycoon in the town who’s exterior presents her as timid and helpless. Olivia is the femme fatale character who is introduced when she initially involves herself in a murder case after claiming ownership of evidence in the case to get closer to Detective Gilbert. Gilbert finds her alluring and is oblivious to her manipulative nature which he is warned of by Patmore. Olivia is well dressed and evidently wealthy, adorned in a cream fur jacket and an alluring outfit, she also has an obvious English accent which emphasises her high class status.

 

-          Played by Amy Morris

 

Ned Henry: Minor character, the corpse in the opening sequence. Ned is a recently deceased cop whose killer is still undetermined and being investigated by Gilbert and Patmore after their involvement with similar cases. Ned was murdered with a slice to the neck and was left with a single ruby red ring on his body upon his discovery.

 

-          Played by Bradley Lee

 

Charles Graves: A minor character who appears in the background. Charles is a cop who takes a statement by Olivia Garnet after she insists involvement in the case and is declared a suspect.

 

-          Played by Lee Bradley