What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

As we have mainly looked at the film 'Brick' to compare our scenes with and is the most similar to this film, we thought that we should look into the production company that produced this film. We came to find that 'Bergman Lustig Productions' had produced this film and have researched how many films they have produced altogether. We found that they are only a small production company and have produced a small group of films, of which date back from 1994 to 2005. Between these years they have produced a total of 17 films and because they are a small company many of the films they have produced are not advertised much, or from what we can see, we do not recognize any of these films. However, seeing as we are only a very young generation of students we have taken into consideration that this production company has basically been around from the start of our lives. The films produced by ‘Bergman Lustig Productions’ may therefore not appeal to a younger audience like us.

Moreover, the types of films Bergman Lustig Productions produce are mainly murder based films. This in turn links in with our film as we have a character that has been murdered. One film that has been produced that is similar to this from Bergman Lustig Productions would be ' Stranger than fiction'. It shows a murder scene that is trying to be covered up by 4 characters within the film. This adds the essence of mystery which mirrors our film.

As you can see, the tagline states 'One murder leads to another' this shows that the main plot to this film would be murder, which is similar to our film.

We therefore realised that the production company wouldn't distribute any films as they are too small of a production company to do so, so have looked into the distribution of 'Brick' and found that 'Optimum Releasing' are one of the main distributors of this film.

We have consequently looked at the types of films they have distributed and have found that they are a very well known distributor of which who have distributed a total of 185 films. Most of these films are very recent films that have and will be distributed this year (2010). They also have plans to distribute films next year (2011) too, this shows that they are very successful distributors. Some films they have distributed are mainly murder type films and drama, as well as investigation films, such as 'The Losers' which includes a murder mystery as they believe that a group of the characters are dead, however, they are not and have to go undercover to hide the fact that they are still alive. This links in a lot with our film that we have made and the fact that they are a UK distribution company will mean that Optimum Releasing would be one of the main and ideal distributors of our film.

Another possible distributor could be ‘Motion Picture Distribution’ as they are a small distribution company; which in turn would be a good distributor for our film, as it would be a first time movie that we would have produced. ‘Motion Picture Distribution’, who have distributed a total of 27 films, would be a lot more suitable as they are not as well known or as big as ‘Optimum Releasing’ and would therefore allow our small budget film to be distributed.

We found that 'Focus Features', another well known distributor, could distribute our film, but they are more well known for their comedy genre type films. We therefore thought that they might not be suitable for the type of film we are making as the audience may think that the type of film we have produced would be a comedy genre film because it is distributed by ‘Focus Features’ who are more well known for distributing comedy genre films.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We have looked at the typical stereotypes of men and women and we have taken the point that men usually have power, as we live in a patriarchal society and women are seen as victims of weakness. We have therefore taken this and have turned it on its head as Fiona, being alive, has the power and that Ife is weak. This is because Ife is dead and that compared to Fiona, shows that she has the power. This is a very strong point as it reflects the mystery of Ife's death and questions as to why the female has the power compared the male as well as the point of the cause of Ife's death.

Moreover, we have taken the element of power and have modernised it by turning it on its head and making the woman, Fiona, have all the power, opposed to the man, Ife, who is dead and weak. We therefore thought that reflecting the modernised women of our society today would be a good idea, as we have took the thought of women who now have power, whether it being down to having higher jobs in the employee hierarchy or within the home and having power over the men. Also, within the modern society, there are more house husbands around and now more than ever, the women are working to help support the families rather than the men. This in turn helps reflect and portray the society we live in now and gives a more modern effect to our film rather than the typical stereotypes that most films follow. We have therefore offered a new refreshing film for our target audience to watch, as opposed to a film that they could guess the beginning middle and end to.

We have also looked at the typical stereotype of ethnic backgrounds and the fact that black people are usually victims of crime or are somewhat involved with problems of crime. The audience would therefore think that Ife, because he is a black man, has been killed by a gang member because he has either disobeyed or turned his back on the gang leader. This is because a black man is stereotypically in a gang and follows a gang. Also, the types of clothes he is wearing would also add on to the point that he could be killed by a gang member of such because he is wearing a hoodie jacket and this usually signifies a young deviant looking to cause crimes. However, this is not the case within the film as Ife wasn't in a gang or didn't follow a gang. This leaves a mystery for the audience to wonder why Ife is dead and why he is dead in the area he is lay.


Also, both the white girl and black man are involved with each other and are friends or know of each other. This puts a spin on the typical stereotypes as both the characters are from different ethnic backgrounds and they don't usually intermix with each other. This therefore shows that we as a group have taken these typical stereotypes and have changed them from what people usually judge the characters from and by changing them and turning them on their heads allows the viewers to see that not all social groups follow the typical stereotypes. This in turn makes the film fresh and enjoyable to watch.

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

The film opening we've made is a teen drama combined with a murder mystery. While it involves teenagers, the viewer is introduced to a dead body almost immediately. The mystery is made apparent by the fact the body is there with no explanation and the girl seen walking at the beginning walks with no purpose and seems to be minding her own business with no knowledge of what she'll encounter just a minute or two down the path.

Film Titles
We looked at all types of film titles featured in other films and have taken these ideas to use in our own film. We saw various films using the idea of having the film title on its own in white text with a black background. We thought this was very effective as it gives the effect of ellipsis, this of which benefits our film opening as it has the essence of mystery.

Here, as you can see, is the film titles of our film and 'Brick' look very similar. We liked the simplicity of the way the film title is shown as well as its effectiveness. A simple black background and white font has many different meanings to the film rather than just being the introduction to the film title. The text used also portrays the film title, as the 'Brick' text is block text, and our 'Timeless' text is very loose. We also noticed that a lot of different films used this technique as it is very effective.

We also looked at the different titles that are included within the film. These are usually shown on the same scene as film, to help show that it is the beginning of the film. It states the directors, producers and any media institution that is included with the film as well as costume designers etc that had something to do with the film. It shows their names and mentions that they had an input within the film.
As you can see below, the titles of our film look similar to 'Sliding Doors' and show the titles on the same screen as the audience are watching. We also thought that this would be more effective as having the titles on a different screen wouldn't work as well as it doesn’t make it look part of the film compared to how well it looks with it being on the same screen.

Camera Shots
One film that we have looked at from the same genre of our film is 'Juno', we think this film portrays a very good teen drama and the types of shots it uses. We have looked at the opening and have used similar shots to 'Juno' in our own film.

Our Film (Left) 'Juno' (Right)

As you can see we have similar shots to 'Juno' apart from the fact that the characters are walking in opposite directions. We thought that this was very successful in 'Juno' and thought it would be good to include these types of shots in our own film. Another change we put in our film, so that it wasn't exactly the same as 'Juno', was that we changed the colour to black and white. We thought that this would give it a better effect as it helps portray a number of things in our film as black and white are 2 completely different colours that are opposite from each other. It helps portray things in our film such as the fact that there are only 2 different scenes that we cross cut from. It also portrays the 2 different scenario's within the scene as one scene seems calm and another seems tense and confusing because of Ife's death. This in effect gives the 'black and white' concept of the 2 contrasting things. It also has the same similar camera shot as it is a long shot of the character as they walk by and the background and scenery looks very similar.

Here is another similar shot from brick, as there is a close up of the dead characters hand. It helps give a sense of mystery and makes the audience wonder what’s going on with the characters. Also, the fact that we only see parts of Ife's body before we see his face adds to the mystery and makes the audience wonder who the character is, as the face is the main visual concept of someone, for example, you can see 3 different peoples hands and think that they were all the same, where as 3 different peoples faces, we would clearly be able to see that they were 3 different people as their face features of each person are very different from each other.

Location

We looked at different locations and how the scene is set from the beginnings of each film openings. We focused on how each film opens and where it opens to set the sort of feeling the film wants to portray. Therefore, the day we went out and spent time looking at locations and taking pictures allowed us to get a feel of what location we wanted and what we wanted it to achieve and portray so that it linked in with our film. We therefore opted for a place near the canal as our inspiration came from one picture we took, where Fiona is sat by the side of the canal and she looked very calm and collective.

We also thought that someone going to by the canal would only do this if they were upset or needed to think about things, and because we wanted our character to portray these feelings we thought the canal would be a good option to film by. It also adds a sense of mystery as the audience wouldn't know why the character would be by the canal.

A similar film that uses this is 'Brick' as they also have the film opening in a canal of some sort. We have therefore used this sort of location to help with he mystery of the dead body. It also helps with the sense of mystery as there is very limited lighting near the canal. Therefore meaning that filming by the canal is naturally a mysterious and scary place to be as typically darkness equals scary and unknown places.

Costume

For the costumes we have looked at the typical dress sense of teens. we found that there wasn't any specific dress sense of either characters as we wanted it to be really simple and not too elaborate. We therefore thought that Fiona would be in black; tights, skirt, vest top, shoes, all apart from her coat which would be red to help signify that something bad could be coming her way. Also the fact that she is dressed in all black makes her look morbid and that she is attending a funeral, however, she obviously isn't as she is clueless to Ife's death.

We also looked into Ife's costume and also found that there wasn't any specific dress sense that he needed to be in to establish anything about his character as he is left in mystery and we don't really need to know much about his character as we will find out more as the story unfolds throughout the rest of the film. The only piece of clothing that we thought that could signify anything would be his hooded jacket as typically, people who wear hoodies look like yobs. However, we thought it would be clever to have him dressed like this even though he isn't in a gang or a yob.

Editing

We used the editing software ‘Final Cut Pro’ to edit our film opening, in order for us to keep the continuity of each shot. We have also added effects, such as fading in and out, gradient wipes and desaturate. We have managed to use and add sound, from garage band, to help finish the piece off. These sounds consisted of the main soundtrack called ‘Timeless’, but also sound effect that accentuate shots of Ife dead. We also used text effects for credits on Final Cut Pro, to help make the piece look more professional.
We therefore in every other lesson have captured the latest bits of film and edited it into the opening of our film. We have managed to keep the continuity right and have managed to get a lot of editing and filming done in the same time that we were given. We have also found that we have filmed too much and it doesn't fit within the time limit so we are going to have to cut some bits down and try and compromise the time of each shot so that it fits within the time limit. We also have to make sure the sound fits in with the right shots and that the two marry together and tell the story we want it to. Therefore the editing has to be just right to make sure that it doesn't just look like a home movie made by a group of students.

Some problems that we have come across during editing were very minor ones and therefore overcame these problems. For example, the problems with it being too long; we overcame this by shortening down the length of the clips by cross-cutting between Fiona and Ife, and therefore made it fit within the time limit. Other problems that we came across are ones such as some shots being out of focus, we therefore had to re-shoot this and add it back to the opening shot, making sure it fit in the time limit and wasn't too long or too short.

Another problem we have overcome is making sure that the continuity is consistent throughout the whole of the film opening. This was a problem because we were cross cutting between 2 scenes and it was hard to show how much time had passed between the 2 scenes when one scene cut to another.

Moreover, when we were putting on a soundtrack, we had to make sure the sound was right for both the scenes, which contrast each other; therefore the music had to be just right. After looking through a number of soundtracks on 'Garage Band' we found the perfect soundtrack called 'timeless' and decided to name our film this as it fitted perfectly with what we wanted to portray; being that time is an important factor in our film. For example, Fiona's character doesn't care about time, hence 'timeless' and is minding her own business, whereas Ife has lost time and again is literally 'timeless'. It is also very important from the right timing of shots and making sure they fit in with each other to help with continuity.
We also found that having the whole film opening in black and white was more effective than our initial idea which was to have Ife’s shots in black and white, in contrast to Fiona’s shots in colour.

Other than small problems like this the editing went really well and was quick and easy to grasp onto the mechanisms of Final Cut Pro.

Out filming

We have filmed our first few shots of fiona, we want to make sure we have all the appropriate shots needed for Fiona first and then film the ones of Ife after. On our first day out we were able to get a few shots of Fiona to

start off with. However, we didn't get as much as we planned filmed, because the location we decided we were going to film on wasn't as we thought it was. We therefore spent time walking up by the cannal looking for an appropriate place to film.

Moreover, we had planned to film from the other side of the cannal so that we were able to get clear shots of Fiona walking by the cannal, but because the path that we chose for Fiona to walk by didn't really have another side to get to we had to make do with filming on the same side and changing the shots of which we were filming because we had wasted alot of time looking for the location already. Also it would take too much time to search for a new location and we don't have enough time to do that. We therefore decided to compromise with what we already have and work around the fact of filming on the same side and making sure there was enough room to put the camera and tripod as well as having Fiona walk past.

The 2nd time we went out filming we carried on filming Fiona by the canal, moving up the areas of which she was walking up. Some places took us one take where as other places took more, this was mainly because we were panning in the shots and didn't get the timming right, meaning that Fiona wasn't consistantly in the middle of the shot and the panning wasn't smooth.

Achieving Ife's make-up while on set


Before we could start any filming of Ife, we had to make sure that we got his make-up done first. We therefore had to make sure that we had calculated this into the time given, every time we went out to film. We also had to make sure that the make up we applied onto Ife was smooth and didn't look like make up so that the 'dead' affect could be well achieved.

Filming Ife's Parts
For Ife's parts we filmed him lying on the floor, we had to make sure that we got the right shots and achieved these from the camera on the tripod as it would allow us to have a steady shot. In doing this we had to make sure that we could get the right angles of Ife and not make it look like there all from one shot. we also had to make sure that, every time we came out filming, Ife was lying in the same position and same place he had been in previously, as well as making sure that his hands and feet were in the same position and that the way his clothes draped, e.g if his jacket was closed or zipped up or left open. We therefore took photos on our phones as references from different angles so that we could look back on them every time we came back to the location to film.

This was when we started filming Ifes part on the floor. We needed to get close up of Ife's face on the tripod as handheld wasn't steady enough. We therefore had to make it directly above his face and make sure the tripod wasn't in the shot. This was a little tricky as there wasn't much space of which we could place the tripod without in getting in the shot or in the way of Ife's body. It was also hard to film as we had to make it high enough so that the camera was filming directly above his face, but we wasn't as tall as the tripod to see through the camera so had to tip toe slightly.

During the filming with the tripod we had to consistantly make sure that the tripod was flat on the ground and make sure the camera was straight. we therefore had to remember to line up the spirit level everytime we moved the camera as most of the ground that we were filming on wasn't flat or level.

Make up testing pays off!

From testing the make-up we used on Ife before hand in lesson, we were able to achieve the 'dead' look that we wanted. This meant that we weren't wasting time on set trying to figure out how to do the make-up and how we would go about it. The main base of the make-up is a very pale matte and powder foundation. This was easy to get as Fiona has fair skin and uses this make up herself, therefore this make up will definitely look pale against Ife's dark skin.

We made sure that we got the whole of his face and his lips. We therefore made sure that we got the right colour for his lips so that they looked like they had lost colour and wasn't as red as they usually are. For this we made up a dark brown lip balm for him to put on.

As you can see the make-up is very pale against his dark skin and this is the look we needed for him to look 'dead'. However, because we are not make-up artists it isn't perfect and looks slightly streaky but this doesn't really matter as we haven't done any extreme close ups of his face, therefore not being able to see the streakiness of the make-up. We had to make sure we got all the make up on every part of his face, even right up to his hair line so that it didn’t look like it was meant to be a comical feature.
We also had to make sure that we got his ears and neck as well so that it didn't look odd and didn't look like make-up but his natural 'dead' complexion. We also put make up on his hands too so that his hands didn't look alive while his face didn't. This would've probably made him just look ill rather than dead. The make-up and how it was applied therefore made a lot of difference as we wanted Ife to be portrayed as dead and nothing else.

2nd March 2010 - Make Up Testing

For Ife's make up we have researched on how to achieve a "dead" look with make up.
We found a list of make up that we would need, on the internet, that would help us achieve the dead look. We also found out that for dark skinned people making them look dead would mean to make their skin grey, we therefore agreed that making Ife's skin look pale.
Before we applied any make up upon Ife's face we had to make sure that he wasnt allergic to anything and wouldn't have a reaction to any of the make up we would be putting on his face.

We practiced applying to make up to Ife's face so that we knew how to apply it for when we are out filming. We put on a light application of pale foundation on to his face to start off with and then applied pale powder to help even it out and make it look faded. We did the same to his ears, neck and hands so that it was all over to make him look dead. We then applied the dark lines under his eyes with black a black eye liner pencil and smudged this into his skin making it fade off the further away from his eyes it got. For his lips we made a mixure of products, which contained lip balm, which acted as the base for it and was therefore appropriate for us to put on his lips, brown foundation, to make it similar to his lip colour but slightly lighter so it looks as though the colour of his lips has slightly faded. This was only applied very lightly as we didn't want it to look like listpick which would look very unnatural.

Here, as you can see, we tried to work out a nice lighter tone to Ife's lips to tone them down a little making them paler than usual, giving it the effect that the blood circulation has gone and therefore there is no colour to his lips.

We also tried to work out whether or not the dead look was achieved buy pale or dark rings under his eyes, we therefore tested this to see which would work better and found that the dark eyeliner against the pale skin made him look much more 'dead'.