Age Rating Change

Unfortunately, due to the nature of our film, we are going to have to use the age rating of '15'. This will drastically decrease our target audience and could result in the film not getting the views we had hoped.

We realised that, throughout the rest of the film, the violent and brutal nature of the murders increase, and this would not obide by the BBFC regulations of a 12A film.

The following points have been taken from the BBFC website, and state the scenes you may witness in a 15 aged rated films:

• strong violence
• frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking

In our film, there will be some strong violence in a struggle scene with the murderer and the victim, infrequent strong lanuage mainly from the detectives themselves, discriminating langauge and behaviour will be used during the interview scenes with some suspects, and some drug use will be shown, but only briefly.

The above scenes increase the age rating of our film from a '12A' to a '15', but this will not effect our film or how we shoot or edit it, because this category is quite lenient towards what the content involves, including the amount of violence.

Response to 'False Impressions' Improvements

Below are the improvements left on my blog by my media teacher about my first rough cut, in order to help me improve my final project. Over the next week or two, me and David are going to work on all of the below comments and making sure it is improved for the next rough cut. For example, we are going to:

• change the order of the logos at the start of the opening titles
• snap in the music rather than fade it in
• put the credits in the following order: 'Momentum Films presents', 'a Rising Star production', 'a film by David Smith', 'directed by Amy Washbourne', writer, producer, editor, camera operator, actors.
• shortern the time of the credits
• fade out the music as the dialogue starts
• try to use a more varied range of shots
• try to make the dialogue easier to hear
• improve the continuity, in terms of directions faced by the actors (180 degree rule)
• improve the continuity by improving the lighting of shots
• improve the action match of placing the paper in the plastic bag
• improve the blackout at the end
• use more cross-fades in the time lapse
• increase the volume of the voice over on the time lapse
• change the end of the time lapse to remove the gap
• decide whether to have the time lapse at the start or the end of the sequence, and add actors names into the titles

0:00 - I like the studio logo, but this would usually come after (not before) the distributor logo
0:12 - I would snap into the music rather than fade in... sounds a little weird the way you've done it.
0:34 - Credits are not really in the right order. You would expect to see something like "Momentum Films presents", then "a Rising Star production", then "a film by David Smith" (or similar). "Directed by" would be the last credit you see (preceded by writer, producer, exec/ producer credits and others such as editor, camera operator etc. as well as actors)
0:38 - I think you hold on the credits for too long; aim to make them 2-3 seconds max
0:49 -The music cuts out very abruptly - is this deliberate? Sounds a little odd
0:57 - You have chosen to use some very long takes; this has implications for marks I can give you for range of shots and editing. Within the first minute of the piece you have only used four shots, two of which are roughly the same in terms of time (medium-long shot). Some of the dialogue is hard to make out - again, is this deliberate?
1:02 - The continuity here is a little ropey in terms of the direction that you're facing, as well as a slightly dodgy lack of adherence to the 180 degree rule
1:09 - The mise-en-scene (csi guys in the background, costumes, locations etc.) is good
1:16 - It might be just me, but the way you've shot the conversation between yourself and James looks a little odd in terms of where you are both facing...?
1:24 - I like the combination of shots you've used when dealing with the body - these are quite inventive
1:39 - Again, the continuity is a little odd here; in this case, I think it's something to do with the light
1:52 - You just about get away with the "paper in the bag" sequence...
1:56 - The blackout is a little odd...?
2:09 - I quite like the "time-lapse" shot, although you need to make more of it; a lot more cross-fades
2:23 - You will need to normalise the v/o with the rest of the audio; it's a little quiet, comparatively
2:18 - You have an odd gap at the end of the v/o
3:01 - The use of crime-scene photos for the credits is quite good, but you need to make more of this; perhaps treat them slightly, and you will need more than actor credits. I would be tempted to use this device at the start rather than at the end, so you can include the film title as well.

Overall, your piece is quite rough around the edges, as you might expect with a rough cut, in terms of editing and audio. I would like to see slightly more of a range of shots used in the early part, and you should be more careful in terms of editing for continuity. The credits need a lot more work (not just the actor names but the production credits as well).

Interview and Presentation

As part of the research / planning / final steps of our final project, me and David are going to have an 'interview' with our media teacher in order to gain insight into our project. We will be asked questions such as 'what was our inspiration for the piece' , 'how did we come up with the storyline' and 'how did the shooting go' etc. This will be a part of our evalutation, and will allow us to reflect on how we spent our time and what the making of our project involved.

Then, the week after, me and David will be presenting our final project to our media class. I will create a Prezi presentation and include infromation on the shooting, production, editing, and planning of our project. We are then going to interview our peers and voice record their reaction to our video. For example, what they like / dislike about, how they think it could be improved, if they liked the music and the storyline etc. This will help us to get an insight into how we can improve for next time, but this will also aid us in our evaluation.


Below are the dates for our interview and presentation, and more posts will be made in the run up to these events:

THURSDAY 21st MARCH - period 4, interview with Amy / David
THURSDAY 28th MARCH - period 4, 15 minute presentation Amy / David

First Rough Cut Edit

Below is the first rough cut of mine and David's final piece.

We still need to add in the names of actors etc but they are just temporary titles until we finalise the rest of the shots.

In Response To My 'More Behind The Scenes Shots' Post

The shots in the post portray and represent the character of the dead body as mysterious, living in an eerie house. The lighting is crucial for this, as we see only a few candles are lit to create light for the whole room. This creates a dark and unnerving setting. It also adds tension to the scene, which is a necessary factor of this specific genre. This is attractive for the audience as it intrigues them and encourages them to watch on.

False Impressions

Me and my media partner, David, have decided on a name for our project; False Impressions.

We came up with this name by typing a few words into a digital thesaurus and we grew fond of 'false impressions' as a title.
I have researched the name and there is only a single book with the following name, but it is about fake paintings and Van Gough, so we know that no-one will get the two mixed up!


Also, me and David decided that an age rating of 15 instead of 12 would be more suitable for our film.
We came to this conclusion because we address the fact that each murder gets more violent as the film progresses, so it may not comply by BBFC regulations, and felt it would be more informative for our audience.

We have considered that this may, however, reduce our audience, but we are targeting a large audience with the Crime/Thriller genre itself, so hopefully the few years different won't have too much of a negative impact on the box office.

More Behind The Scenes Shots



 

During the shooting of some of the shots, I took some pictures of the crime scene, and I thought I should upload them to my bog whilst we are finishing our first rough edit of our footage.

 

 

 

This is the fireplace in the background of the scene of which Alex Cross walks past when having a shot-reverse-shot conversation with John Walker.

 

 

 

This, as you may have guessed, is the dead body!

 

 

 

This is the crime scene tape on the door frame of the entrance to the crime scene, of which Alex Cross walks under to get to John Walker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a cabinet which we see one of the CSI Specialists dusting for prints on.

 

 

 

This is the staircase which is directly above the dead body, and we see a CSI Specialist dusting for prints along the banister.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of the candle holders placed above the fireplace which we use as really the only light in a few of the shots, used to create an eerie and mysterious effect; perfect for a serial killer's crime scene!

In Response to the 'Behind The Scenes' Video

The reasons for certain choices in terms of genre and representation:
We chose the Crime/Thriller genre because we both know the genre well, to a certain extent, and we felt like it would be the best genre for us to portray and imply representations of the characters.
There are several representations throughout the opening sequence, all of the detectives. Firstly, the young detective is taller than the older detective, which could portray him as seeing himself as having more authority, even though it's his first day. On the other hand, this could be the older detective seeing himself as less authoritative because he is now not the only detective on the case, so he doesn't have full control over everything in or around the crime scene.


The choice of location:
At first, we thought an industrial estate would be the best location for the crime scene. However, after nowhere got back to us about a vacant plot, we decided that a house would be the next best thing. We used David's living room as the main location for the large chunk of the shooting , and it turns out that it was a lot easier to portray the murder and the victim a lot easier if the crime scene was his own home. Also, the lighting acted at our advantage as it portrayed a gloomy and mysterious atmosphere, especially with the curtains shut and a few candles burning above the fireplace.


How the shoot went on the day:
On the day of shooting, it went very well. It was hard to keep a straight and serious attitude at times, but I feel that everything went to plan. However, as I mentioned in my other post, we lost an actor on the day of shooting, which wasn't the best scenario at the time, but we worked around it and I feel that we worked productively and efficiently with the actors we had, and that it worked very well.


Whether you achieved everything you hoped to achieve:
As I stated above, it was difficult to lose an actor on the day of shooting, but I feel like we dealt with it in such a way that, in the end, we didn't need that character and that it worked very well on the day.
It was hard to imagine what our shoot would look like before we got there and before we saw the finished footage. However, now we have seen all of the shots and we have put them together in a rough first edit, we are really happy with what we achieved on the day and our footage is a lot better than what we were expecting.

If there is more to do:
David is currently finishing the storyboards, and we are both finishing our first rough edit. We need to add in titles and extend the song so that it fits with the footage. This can all be done by the end of the week, and will hopefully give us a lot more time to work on the improvements our teacher will give us.

Updates will follow.