Production Diary 4

This time we decided to do an onset production diary so that the audience could really get involved in our production and get a real experience of the planning of our film. Enjoy!

Production Diary 3

This is our third project diary in which me and my partner talk further about our production including the actors, equipment, locations, dates, and costumes in more detail. Plus its in HD, Enjoy!

Production Diary 2

This is our 2nd project diary in which we talk in more detail about our production. Today we talk about  the actors, location, equipment, storyboard, dates in detail so that our audience can understand what we have to do for our production and how we are going to do it.

Audit & Action Plan

Me and my partner did a recent audit of our blogs parrallel to the marking criteria to see what needed to be done. The audit can be found below.

After we had produced the Audit we produced an Action Plan so that we knew what needed to be done and when. We made it in excel so that is was easy to understand and we could include conditional formatting so that we knew what had been done and what needed to be done in what priority.
The Action Plan is below:

Actors

For our production trailer we require a number of actors to fulfill certain roles. Considering that Ross' Dad use to particapate in amateur theatre we have decided to use him for the main roles. This is good because he is a parent it mean he will be easy to get hold and be available most of the time. The other major role that needed to be filled was the role of the historian we decided to ask a history teacher at our school as he was exactly what we imagined when producing the role and he happily obliged which is a great leap forward for our production.

Film company Introduction Video

This is a title screen/ introduction that we made for our film company so that we looked more professional. We did this by incorporating our Woods Today logo, the night sky and some eerie tranquil sound courtesy if Incompetech. This Intro will be used in the production videos and our final film.

Production Diary 1

Here is our first Production Diary, we will be uploading these regularly so that you as an audience can understand everything involved with the production process and how and when we will do it. In this, our first diary, we talk about our idea for our production and the areas involved within it. Enjoy! 

Survey Results

My and my partner decided to do a audience survey so that we could grasp what the audience would want from our media film. The results and comments are below:

Location Hunting

Once we had briefly outlined our storyboard, we realised that we would need to have a obscure lamppost set in a rural location so that we can create the silhouette of the character. Due to us needing this shot, I asked my dad to drive me out to a local little village called Little Oakley to see if there was anyone old stand alone lamppost's that could be used. Below are the pictures taken.

We decided after reviewing the photos to go with the first two pictures of the same lamppost  this was decided because this one was set furthest away from the village so it had a sense of loneliness to it that we wanted to achieve.

Production - 1st Storyboards

After we had finished our Preliminary Task we moved onto designing the storyboard for our actual production.

We decided to go against the results of our survey in that the majority of people wanted to see an original story line  However, in our past productions we had gone with making our own story and have realized afterwards that it was not fleshed out enough and the story lacked realism and background. Therefore we decided to go with an adaptation and in the end came up with The A6 Murders.

The A6 Murder was the murder of a scientist called Micheal Gregsten and his mistress, Valerie Storie were attacked in August 1961. Gregsten was shot and killed and Valerie was raped and also shot however she survived but was paralysed form the neck down. According to Valerie's account the two were abducted in the car by a man later found to be James Hanratty and ordered to drive in several directions before eventually stopping on the A6 at Deadmans Hill were the offences took place. There were two suspects, James Hanratty and Peter Alphon, after many investigations and witness accounts. James Hanratty was sentenced to death and was the last person to be hanged in Britain. However, there was always speculation that he never committed the offences and his family decided to appeal in 2002 when DNA evidence could be used. The evidence proved Hanratty as guilty beyond doubt.

We decided to go with this story as we could do a now time copy of the murder, this will add to the tension as people who may watch it may have been familiar with the original A6 Murder so will catch on to the tension of the story as the police in the film try to uncover what has happened.

Below are our first drafts of the storyboards for our film:

Setback 1

It has now arisen that our professional actors that was willing to help us in our production, has now become unavailable due to work commitment. The role of the 'Historian' now needs to be completely re-cast. We have decided to make this search closer to us, looking at possible teachers, family and friends.

After much deliberation about potential historians we decided to approach a history teacher at our school to fulfill the role of the historian, this was because he fitted exactly what we imagined when producing the draft versions of the storyboard. He kindly obliged which advances us much further forward in our pre-production.

Production LOGO - Woods Today

We decided that in order for our production to look professional and effective we needed to come up with a production company name and a logo to accompany it.

We decided to go with 'Woods Today'. This was because mine and my partners first film we made at GCSE level was called 'If you go down to the Woods Today'. We took inspiration from our first film and played about with the words in the title and eventually came up with Woods Today which we think sounds professional and easy to remember.

Below is the logo:

We used a Serif font as we thought it added to the look of trees with roots and branches coming off it. To increase the look of the tree we decided to add some root like vectors to the edges of certain letters to make it look as if they continue on and grow like trees. Finally we added the cartoon outline of a owl to give it an even more woody feel, we did this using the O's in Woods Today to create the eyes and the mouth and adding in extra elements such as pupils and a nose.

Preliminary Task - LATE

This is mine and my partner, Ross Freeman's preliminary media task, this task was set just to get us back into the rhythm of filming again and familiarize ourselves with camera shots and angles. This has been useful when planning our full production as it lets us understand what angles work well and what don't work. 

We produced a story board for our preliminary task, this allowed us to plan it out on paper and try different shots in different positions until we eventually came up with something that looked good in our heads. 

As you can see in the storyboard compared to the video, some shots were left out or discarded. They were filmed during the production of the task however, in the editing stage we decided that they were not good enough and did not work well with the other shots. This includes, the within the office and the watch shot as they did not work as well as we had liked. We also included bloopers/outtakes at the end which were not planned in the original storyboard but we added them for comedic effect and to show what we had done and how we chose which shots. 

The Bourne Identity Trailer Analysis

- There is a large use of diegetic sound in the trailer to build effect.

- The actor in the film is dependent on females this subverts the stereotypes of the thriller genre.

- The is the use of the stereotypical action film voice over that highlights the narrative for the audience, I think this is good as it sets out early what the film is about.

- The credits used in the trailer could be seen as being no linked to the thriller genre.

- There is the technique of sound bridging  this is done by demonstrating speech with other scenes.

- There is a lot of fast editing building up to the ending this is to keep the pace high and the audience hooked.

- The use of slow motion contrasted with fast motion video can create confusion for the audience - creates confusion

- The entire film is also synchronised to music to give it rhythm. 

Shutter Island Analysis

- The whole trailer is in time with the music

- There is a large amount of jumpy scenes this keeps the audience on the edge of their seats.

- The technique of a sound bridge leading  up to the delivery of the shocking information

- At the start of the trailer the music is calm and tranquil, however this builds to the eventual huge crescendo

- The dialogue in the trailer is mysterious and does not give much away about the plot keeping the audience          hooked.

- There are a lot of unexplained settings in the trailer this adds to the mystery of the plot.

- The trailer is also surreal in places due to the flash backs and dream sequences this gives the audience a sense of the narrative.

- The director has used a lot of gore to display the disturbing injuries and more to give the trailer/film realism. 

Psycho Trailer Analysis

- The film is hugely unconventional and goes against what is expected of a thriller film.

- The trailer involves Hitchcock giving tour of The Bates Motel as if the setting was in real life.

- The trailer explains  the key parts obscurely so as not to give away the significant points in the film.

- The director has taken a huge risk by using this film and has produced  an unoriginal copy.

- The director has composed the trailer well by showing the iconic shower scene -  This enforces importance.