Production Log - Final Piece

With a few days left to complete our Film Noir production, we need to change a few things from the draft we previously did to make our production complete. For example, we need to edit the voiceovers to remove the sound of Matthew's voice. When we originally recorded the voiceovers he spoke and it is clear to hear in the film, so editing that out will improve the quality of our sound. Another thing we have to do is edit the footage shown in our first draft so that Heather's stumble is not noticeable. We've already re-filmed some of the footage so adding that in will eliminate our audience noticing Heather's trip. A final thing we may experiment with is where in our production the titles come up. Currently, they appear midway through the production, but after the comments we received from our survey we may analysis how it works at the start of our film instead.

Production Log

Last night, me Matthew and Heather met up once more to film the final pieces for our Film Noir recreation. We didn't have much filming to do, as we got most of it done before when we met up, we simply just had to film about 10 seconds of our production to tie up some loose ends in our film. The filming process itself went very well last night, we got everything done that we needed to do, and we've now added these scenes into our final production which makes it better. Now that we have the scenes we need to finish our piece, we plan to compose a draft version of it to show to our media class. Matthew is also going to create a questionnaire for the class to fill out so we can get some feedback on our piece.

From our filming process, I've learnt how important it is to be well organised, and how we need to plan ahead with our filming to ensure we get it all done. I think that we've done this very well, as the scenes for our film are all completed with over a week to go before our deadline. Our next step is to analysis the feedback we will get from our class, and discuss our next steps.

Studio Ident - Credit to Matthew and Heather

Here is the studio ident we used and created for our final piece. It is a screenshot from Matthew's blog, because him and Heather were mainly responsible for creating it.





































Reflection:
We had split up the tasks at this point, so whilst I was carrying out some research, Matthew and Heather were able to spend some time designing and editing a studio ident to embed into our Film Noir. The method of splitting up tasks is again shown as being useful here because we were able to get more work done and move further towards completing our film. To improve this task, perhaps they could've spent a bit more time on it. Having said this, I think the studio ident is very good and fits the convention for a Film Noir. Although the rabbit makes it seem slightly childish, the way we have presented it makes it appear more sinister which allows it to fit in our Film Noir.

Production Log - Voice Overs

 Today, Heather was ill so me and Matthew decided to record my voiceovers for the final piece so that once we had filmed, they were ready to add on. We found an empty classroom to do this so that my voice wasn't blocked out in any way by background sound. The technological device that we used to record my voice on was Matthew's iPhone 6. We took a lot of records of each sentence in case my tone of voice didn't fit or sound right when we added it to our final piece.
We plan to film our piece some time next week. We had previously planned to film it before this, but we had to postpone because we weren't in possession of the correct props which play a big part in our filming process.
Attached below is a sound cloud file that Matthew made containing all of the voiceovers we recorded. Although it was made purely by Matthew, I think it belongs on my blog because the sound files feature my voice.



Reflection:
Putting all of our voiceovers into a sound cloud file made our blog more interactive, and made it easy for people to have access to the original voiceovers to see how they sound without the Film Noir around it. To improve, we'd of liked to have recorded more voiceovers to have more options to chose from when it came to embedding them into our final piece. Having said this, the voiceovers we have recorded are very good and we are all happy with them and the way they fit into our media piece. Our next steps are to continue editing our piece to have it completed.

Research of Camera and Composition - Credit to Matthew

Whilst I was researching sound and editing, Matthew did some research on camera and composition. The screenshot below shows the research he did, and the post on his blog:

Reflection:
With Matthew researching this, Heather doing mise-en-scene and me doing sound and editing, the 4 aspects that we wanted to complete have been done. We may come back to them at a later date and improve the amount of detail, but we are happy that we've split up the tasks to get them all done. We all learnt about the different aspects of a Film Noir, and put this knowledge into practise because of the way we discussed what we researched and how we should adapt our final piece to suit each convention. To improve I think we all would have liked to do more in depth research, but we just aimed to cover the basics so we can use the research to move onto the filming process.

Research into Mise-En-Scene - Credit to Heather

Whilst I was carrying out research on location and Matthew was adapting the narrative, Heather did some research on mise-en-scene, and talked about the costume and props typical for a Film Noir. Her post can be seen in the screenshot below.

Reflection:
Splitting our group up to work on different aspects of research was very useful and proved effective for us because we were all able to come into lesson and work independently on different aspects of research. This also meant that if any of us had any free time, we knew exactly what we needed to be doing. We all learnt how much easier it is if we trust each other to do different parts of our planning and research, and how much quicker it can prove to be. To improve this post, Heather could add some links about the websites she visited, but the research she carried out is good.

Photo Shoot

With research carried out about our location, and the synopsis of our narrative having been written, be decided it was time to do a photo shoot using one of our possible locations. The post I previously did about possible locations can be accessed by clicking the link below:
Location Research
This location features in the post above, but we are unsure about wether or not this will be the final place we pick for our actual filming. The purpose of this photo shoot was just to say what scenes will go where. We haven't sorted out costumes or props yet, so we are just wearing our normal clothes for this. Also, this shoot is during the day, but we will film our actual final piece at night to create the 'Noir' effect and match another convention. Matthew took the pictures of me and Heather on his iPhone 6 using a range of camera angels. He then sent them to me via Gmail, and I put them into a power point before uploading them to slide share:

Media photoshoot from Coey1611

Reflection:
In terms of planning, this was a big step up for us and helped us move forward in the right direction. From creating this photo shoot, as a group we now have a firm understanding of what scenes will go where when it comes to filming. We also now all have a feel for the location, because we all went there together to perform this photo shoot. We will now discuss further wether or not we think that this photo shoot could work for our production. From this task, I learnt about the importance of doing a photo shoot, and experimenting with different places throughout our chosen location. We could've done this task better by doing it in the dark or in costume, however we just wanted to draft each scene briefly to give us all an idea and I think we did that very well.

Production Log - Actors

After discussions within our group about what are next steps are to be, we've decided that it could benefit our grade if we looked at the possibility of hiring professional actors. This would also help stick to our conventions of a Film Noir because the actors need to look somewhat older than teenagers because in classic Film Noir's they are always older. The website we found to hire actors is called Star Now, and can be accessed by clicking the words 'Star Now' below:
Star Now
However, after looking on Star Now we discovered that in order to fill out the forms necessary to hire professional actors you have to be over the age of 18.
This is a set back for us because we really wanted actors to play the roles of our characters for us, but after further discussions together, we've decided that we will play the roles ourselves. Heather will play the femme fatal, whilst I will play the everyman. Although this isn't exactly what we wanted, we are glad we have been able to fix the problem.
Our Film Noir has failed to meet one of the conventions because of the age of our characters, so it has now became a Neo Noir because of this. We will still do our best to match all of the other conventions of a Film Noir, but overall the genre has shifted slightly.

Reflection:
This was a major setback for us, but we managed to find a solution quickly to help fix this problem. From this, we all learnt that we have to expect the worst, and plan ahead in case anything wrong does happen. In this case, we weren't expecting something like this to happen but we managed to work our way round out. To fix this problem further, we could have looked at other possible websites for hiring actors, but we anticipated that the same issue would appear on each one because of our age, so we decided that taking the responsibility of acting on ourselves would be the better thing to do.

Our Foley Sounds

After my previous post, we did in fact try to recreate as many as the sounds that we found from the extract of the film 'Priest' that we possibly could. The technological device that we used for this was Matthew's iPhone 6. We recorded as many of the sounds as we could, obviously using the foley technique to naturally recreate them ourselves. After this, we then uploaded all of them to google drive, and from here transferred them into iMovie, where we spent time editing them and adding titles to explain exactly what the sound was meant to represent. The list of sounds we attempted as before is shown below, and the iMovie that we eventually uploaded to vimeo which contains all of the sounds that we foleyed can also be seen below,

   Foley Sounds from Josh Coe on Vimeo.

Reflection:
Overall, this task was extremely useful for us as a group. The analysis of sound throughout an extract allowed us to understand the importance of it, and the recreation gave us some experience of making foley sounds ourselves. We were all able to talk about our ideas on how to recreate sounds ourselves, and we all gained a full understanding on how precise the records must be, and the importance eliminating and background sound. The fact that we then uploaded them to iMovie and edited it to add titles gave especially me and Heather further experience on using iMovie as we have not studied Media before. Our next steps now are to think about what sounds we will need to include in our production, and split up our tasks for further research into Film Noir's.

Research of Opening Title Sequence

Now that we have looked at different variations of narrative structures as well as knowing our genre, it was time to do some research about Film Noir's. To do this, we each picked a classic Film Noir and analysed the opening title sequence, noting down the conventions. The website I used to do this, is called Art of the Title. Here, I found a large variety of different opening title sequences, and by looking up Film Noir's, I was able to find 'Fallen Angel' from 1945, which is a classic Noir.
The website to Art of the Title with the Fallen Angel opening title sequence can be accessed by clicking the link below:
Fallen Angel Opening Title Sequence

After watching the opening title sequence of the Film Noir 'Fallen Angel', there are some clear conventions that are unique to a Noir.
In terms of camera, and the way each shot is composed, its very basic. Noir's are different in the way that the opening titles last for one or two minutes, and whilst they are being shown very little is happening in and around the scene. For Fallen Angel, it follows exactly this because for the whole duration of the opening sequence the camera doesn't actually move, and instead editing is used to display each title. The camera is placed at the front of what appears to be a bus, which is travelling along a main road. The road signs that it goes past are enhanced and edited in a way that titles are visible on them. An example of this can be seen in the screenshot below:
As you can see here, the shot is composed very simply because the camera doesn't move. The titles are edited onto the road signs, and made easy to read for an audience. This carries out throughout the whole opening title sequence, so in terms of camera, the shot used is very simple, and the editing around it allows us to read the titles on the upcoming road signs.


The sound used throughout the titles of Fallen Angel is very typical Noir style. Just by listening to the soundtrack, it gives us an old classic feel, which we will have to try and recreate to match the soundtrack convention for our production. The music in Noir's is generally composed using saxophones, pianos, and trumpets. This soundtrack is played throughout all of the opening title sequence, and fits well with the titles. The soundtrack also helps to create an atmosphere so early in the film.
Very little can be analysed in terms of mise-en-scene, because there is so little happening in the titles. As mentioned before, the camera is placed still at the front of a bus, so all we can see is the road in front. The whole clip and film is in black and white, which is obviously edited in. Film Noir's are always traditionally in black and white, so we will ensure that our production follows this convention.

Reflection:
We each analysed an opening title sequence of a Film Noir, and all did a blog post on it. This was a big step for us in terms of our research, because we were able to analyse each others posts and talk as a group about the conventions we found, and how we plan to match them. The conventions that I've talked about above, were similar to what Matthew and Heather found. This was good because it showed that we all had a good understanding on how identify the conventions of a Film Noir, as well as knowing exactly what they are. We all learnt from this that splitting the tasks between us is good and can be very useful in terms of research, especially in this case because we got triple the amount of research and three different classic Film Noir's analysed. Our next steps are to look out the ways to recreate sounds, and possibly start further planning with out production and look at locations we could possibly film at.

Narrative Starting Ideas

Our task for Media is to recreate an opening title sequence of a particular chosen genre. For my final piece, I am working with Matthew and Heather, and we have started to plan a narrative for our production and discussed different ideas for a story. We started by talking about a genre, and landed on the idea of recreating a Film Noir as much as we can. To do this, we will need to have a full understanding of the conventions that a Film Noir has, and attempt to recreate these into our production. Soon, we will allocate roles to each of us to ensure that we have that full understanding of this particular genre of film. Research will have to be done on things such as sound, so that we know what the soundtracks generally are, not to mention the way the dialogue is embedded. We will also need to research typical camera angles used, and the way that these films were edited, and how, not to mention the mise-en-scene, such as costumes and location. Another aspect of research will be the audience of a Film Noir; with an understanding of who these films were generally aimed at, we will have a good idea on the way we need to adapt our production to suit this particular type of audience. As a starting point, we talked as a group about possible ideas for our film and also about how many characters we would plan to have and what the general idea would be. From this, we were then able to write out a general synopsis of the narrative that we want our story to follow. Obviously this is just a starting idea so we will undoubtedly build on this idea and develop it in different ways.

'Micky is staring in the mirror with a gun... Flashback:

He was a successful person, but he had a big secret.

He employs an assistant (femme-fatal) who finds out his secret but agrees to keep quiet by blackmailing Micky.

Leaves him broke.

In his anger he kills her.'

Reflection:

In terms of planning, this was a good starting point for us. We were able to pitch all of our possible ideas across to each other, and adapt each one as a group. This was also good because now that we have picked our genre (Film Noir), and created a general synopsis, we can move on to research and future planning for filming our production.

This task also had some negative aspects, which allowed each of us to learn what we need to do to improve as a group. The discussion we had about out genre and narrative took a long time, and we were quite indecisive at times about deciding exactly what direction we wanted our production to go in. With future discussions, we plan to try and be more decisive about the decisions we make, which will allow us to work faster and develop ideas quicker. If we had landed on a genre and narrative quicker, we could have adapted our piece further and perhaps starting thinking about other things such as a location for our filming, or what equipment we would use. Having said this, the synopsis above is a good starting point, and we are all happy with the ideas we have.