BLACK ROSE

WELCOME TO MY BLOG

I HOPE YOU ENJOY LOOKING THROUGH MY BLOG, CONTAINING MY WORK ON G321. MY WORK REVOLVES AROUND THE MAKING OF A FILM OPENING OF A FICTIONAL THRILLER FILM IN WHICH I NAMED "BLACK ROSE".  I WORKED IN A GORUP ON FOUR PEOPLE. JONNY FITZGERALD, CHARLIE LEWIN, HENRY MCPHERSON AND MYSELF. PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF MY EVALUATION QUESTIONS IN THE TABS ABOVE.

BLACK ROSE- MOVIE OPENING

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE BLACK ROSE MOVIE OPENING

JCW PRODUCTIONS

Today I created an Ident for the beginning of our film "Black Rose". From this we named our production company "JCW Productions". I then took this idea onto Adobe After effects whereby I   created a fast, unique and professional opening title to the film. The Ident consists of Red particles erupting from underneath the title. From this we wanted to represent a blood splatter to give our audience the sense that this is a thriller film and that their systems will be shocked by the pure brutalillty and the twisted plot later to come. In theory this should entise our target audince.

COLOUR CORRECTION

Original Footage



Colour Corrected Footage


Colour correction plays a key part to my editing process. Colour correction has allowed me to alter the colours to add both effect and add a more emotive feeling to the piece of footage in oppose to the raw piece. From the examples above you can see that I have have added RGB curves to the footage and upped the 'blue' to give this cold atmospheric feeling I was aiming to have throughout my whole film opening. I feel as if this has been successful due to the fact i have recived feeback saying that it has in fact added to this 'creepy' and 'cold' feel i was aiming towards.  

ADDRESSING OUR AUDIENCE

Today I began to research into other films and see how they attracted/adressed their audiences. I looked into other films that are the same genre as "The Black Rose" to see what their front page of their website looked like and how they entised their audiences. For example I firstly looked at "Incidious".

From looking at this website I realised I had to make my homepage represent the genre. For example in the picture to the left of this you can clearly see that this is a thriller/horror due to the facial expression, the cold colours and the fonts used. The makers of this film have adressed their audiences by using social media such as facebook and Twitter, from this allowing them to keep people updated on the films status and extra suprises added in. The makers of Indidious have added in other features such as real life supernatural encounters to keep the audience excited to see the film.

This is my homepage to my webiste for the Black Rose. I have attracted/adressed my audience by using social media such as facebook and Twitter due to the fact these two sites are both expanding beyond belief and are a perfect way to keep your audience updated on whats new. Our group have come up with a technique in which we could further adress our audience and keep them excited for the release of our film. For instance in

the bottom right of the website you can see a picture entilted " Have you seen this man" from this we have sent this man to all the major cities in Britain, consiting of London, Birmingham and Machester etc. From this he will be handing out "Black Roses" in which each person would be entered into a draw in which 5 people would recive free tickets to sit the premiere of the film.

This is another way Film makers adress and attract their audiences. Facebook is the largest and fastest growing social website. From this it is the easiest and fastest was to keep your audience updated. From this we made our own for the same purpose.

FILM DISTRIBUTION

I looked at the FDA website to research and find out more about film distribution and what it has to do after the production proccess has come to an end.  The FDA descibe the term "distribution" to be the "highly competitive business of launching and sustaining films in the market place. It's vital to the health of the film industry as a whole. Films don't become well known, or find their place in the world, by accident. The ditributors challange is to bring each one to market , starting from scratch (except for a sequel) and realising its potential."

While on the FDA website: (http://www.launchingfilms.tv/index.php) I watched videos which gave me a further insight into the stages and proccesses the films have to go after the production proccess has come to and end and is ready to be viewed by the public. I began to watch what happend at the beginning of the distibution proccess and what plans they have to make in order for them to release the film. I also watched and gathered information about how important the film trailer actually is, in entising the audience into watching their product. For example:

http://www.launchingfilms.tv/acquisition.php?video=1&autostart=1

I firstly looked at the "release of the film" - This consists of planning on how they're going to sell this product to their audience. The first stage is what their target audience is and then after to make campaign to advertise their product. the second stage is the discussion on the film budget and how much they are going to spend. From this they can begin their distribution of the film.

http://www.launchingfilms.tv/marketing.php?video=3&autostart=1

I then looked at the "film trailers"- From this I found out that the most important piece of distributing a film is the film trailer. From this you are giving the audince a taster and an insight to the film they could possibly see and buy into. The whole purpose of a trailer is to build awareness for the film and lure in future customers.


As a group we decided on choosing "Metrodome" as our distributor seeing as it fits all of the Black roses' requirements. For instance, Metrodome is a London based company in which it produces films that recive a niche audience. These films are culturally based, oppose to being big Hollywood block busters such as films like "Mission Impssoible".  
Metrodome have produced films such as: 
- The last Seven 
- In Darkness 
- Resistance 

RESEARCH INTO A DISTRIBUTOR

Today we looked a low budget London film called "Shifty" as a case study of an distributor:
 

2008

Shifty: "a young crack cocaine dealer in London, sees his life quickly spiral out of control when his best friend returns home. Stalked by a customer desperate to score at all costs, and with his family about to turn their back on him for good, Shifty must out-run and out-smart a rival drug dealer, intent on setting him up for a big fall. As his long time friend Chris, confronts the dark past he left behind him, Shifty is forced to face up to the violent future he's hurtling towards".

See trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT75k8sUXaQ

"Shifty" chose Metrodome as its distributor due to the fact Metrodome takes on small British movie mainly because they themselves are based in London.

TIME LAPSE OF LILIES

I have decided to introduce the Lilies as a symbolic device in our thriller opening. We first see them when our main character Natalie comes across a young, beautiful child. By impulse she hands the child a Lily.

When choosing the flower to give to the child we researched the language of flowers and we found that Lillies symbolise purity which would work well with the purity of a child. We looked at painting from the medieval and Victorian era and found one of the Annunciation, where a lily is found inbetween the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary - picture seen below. We used the Lillies to anchor the meaning of the narrative.

The viewer will probably think nothing of it but later on you see her back at home with the Lillies.When back at home she accidentally gets some pollen on her hand then wipes it on her face to try and clean it off. The viewer then sees the pollen smeared across Natalie's face showing a new side to her, a more unclean contaminated Natalie. The child's name is also Lily as it symbolizes Natalie's connection with children which is similar to her connection with flowers

Here you see the lilly in between the Virgin Mary
and Angle Gabriel to symbolise Purity

7 SET EVALUATION QUESTIONS

Today i have decided to begin answering the 7 Evaluation questions. From this I will be using new technologies to answer these questions fully, but for now will be using plain text to structure and perfect these answers before making them final. For instance, one example of a new technology i will be using is speaking into the webcam in the Macs.
The following questions are:

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

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

4) Who would the audience be for your media product?

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

7) Look back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

1st DAY OF SHOOTING- 1ST OF FEB

Today we began to film our first shots for the film opening of the "Black Rose".
Our first session of filming in my opinion was hugely sucessful due to the fact all our preparations in the previous lesson was helpful in giving our group a kick start into the project.
We picked the camera we were going to use (canon EOS550D), equimpment, clothes and props and then began filimng our opening shots up in the belvidere, from this we got 3 different camera angles:
- an establishing shot.
- Low angle shot
- and a hand held camera shot.

Our second section of filming was in the Kilm, whereby I had to dress up into a prisoners costume. We followed our story board and did a Point of view shot of the character natalie looking down at herself in the cell, this was then followed by the gaurd/ pycologist to come into the cell, pick her up and drag her on her feet and out of her cell. we then a POV/handheld shot to add a "dazed" effect.
After our filming for the day came to an end we began to transfer all the footage we captured and upload it up onto the Macs, from this we got all our folders organized and began the first stage of our editing.

PREPARATIONS FOR FIRST SHOOT

Today we set aside some time to discuss wednesdays shoot with the principle actress.

We have decided to begin our shooting on Wednesday the 1st of February.
Therefore we had to tie off all loose ends by deciding on where we are going to be shooting and our establishing shot.
We wanted to begin filming up in the Belvidere where we would do a mix of 3 different shots:
- An establishing shot.
- hand held cam, following the main actress.
- and a low angled shot to add enigma.
Before all of this happend we first had to play around and experiemnt with all the cameras fuctions, so that we could use it to its full when fliming.
From this we were then ready to begin fliming.

CODES AND CONVENTIONS OF THE THRILLER GENRE

For our background research we had to analyse the codes and conventions of the thriller genre, from this it gave us an idea of what we had to include in our film opening the "Black Rose". This was successful in the sense that it gave us more ideas of what we have to include in the film opening and what we needed to do to achive higher marks. This backgorund information furthermore strengthened our ideas.
http://prezi.com/hfybc2hec-wp/conventions-of-the-thriller-genre/

TARGET AUDIENCE

I started making outline notes about what my target audience for The Black Rose would be like:

Age group: 15-50

Gender: Both genders will be able to enjoy due to the fact that the film is a psychological thriller opposed to a gory one, and the main character is a woman, so they can relate

Television: Sherlock, Mad dogs, The killing, Dead set, Fringe, Dexter, True blood, Lost, Bones & Black mirror

Film: Inception, Limitless, Source code, Sherlock Holmes, The strangers, Paranormal activity, The shining, In time, Moon

Restaurants: Nandos, Wagamamas, Pizza express, Café Rouge, Gourmet burger kitchen, Slug & Lettuce & Giraffe

Clothes: Topman, River Island, Natterjacks & H & M

Media: iPhone, Imac, Imax, Blackberry, 3-D TV’s, Macbooks, Xbox & PS3

Books: The searches of the dead, The clinic, On dangerous ground, Angles and Demons, Black wind & The wind

SKY MEDIA- TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

Today, we analysed and researched  what "Sky Media" thought a thriller film should be and what conventions it should hold. For instance Sky dedicated a channel to "Crime and Thriller" and in a nutshell it consists of films that include "gritty noirs and gangster sagas, this channel is all about edge-of- the-seat plot twists and gripping tales of the underworld. Full of mystery, murder and tension, it's always worth investigating."  

CASTING

Before filming we decided to give people roles and diffrent positions to make the whole filming process a whole lot eaisier. For example:  

 

Actors:

 

Natalie Harland- Charlie Lewin

Little girl- Elizabeth Lewin

Narrator- Jonny Fitzgerald

Guard- Henry McPherson

Psychologist- Will Wright

 

Camera work and editing:

Editing- Henry McPherson, Will Wright

Casting Director- Jonny Fitzgerald

Producer- Jonny Fitzgerald, Will Wright, Henry McPherson

Writer- Jonny Fitzgerald

Director- Will Wright

Taking the photos and beggining to start the editing proccess  

Editing of the animatic

The Uploading of the animatic 

This is our animatic, we choose to show our story board in this way to show off new technologies so that is would be both eye catching and effective for the viewer. The animatic consists of a photo of each  slate, which shows the different camera angles and the rough outline of the opening to the "Black Rose". 

BLACK ROSE TREATMENT

This is our groups treatment. We decided to use new technologies to make our treatment eye catching and effective, hence forth we used the web cam in the Mac Book Pro and used it to our full advanatge. We took turns to tell the viewer the rough outline of each slate we would be filming and what it would show and symbolise. For instance how a certain camera shot would show the rise in tension and suspense for the audience.

Preliminary video

 This is our preliminary video. We made this because we had to make sure that we knew the techniques of both filming and editing when we come to our final piece. I feel are group and I benefited from this greatly seeing as it has given us a whole range of different camera angles that we could use. For example I felt as if the panning shots were very effective at the beginning of the video and that the over shoulder shots were also very effective in carrying on the flow of the conversation between teacher to student.

This is my storyboard that I created, we intend to show this in a more dramatic nature in our film opening