Review of own film - Tester

You can also view my review if you click on the link below



https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_erPKeqn-E7amtCelY2VGd0RzQ/edit?usp=sharing




I did a quick draft of my review using Word, and now i am going to refine it using Microsoft Publisher.

Word 

Who is going to distribute our film

We have decided that we are going to have WMM to distribute our film opposed to Disinformation, as although they distribute films that are independent and promote social issues we wanted a distribution company who produces films that affect young women's lives. Although these are both independent, and we would like someone who is independent to distribute it as we decided our product was not going to be commercial, but a public service, we decided to opt for WMM, as they promote social issues that are ignored by the mainstream media.

Target audience for our film

Throughout the progression of our film, we have constantly debated on who our specific audience should be, as domestic abuse can happen to anyone at any age. However, the text shown presents the mater of domestic abuse in a more complex way than others within this category, which is why we had to narrow in on our specific audience so that the concept was not overlooked when viewed.

We used a lot of social networking sites to gain feedback about our music, footage, titles and much more, and the feedback that was given was mainly by students of 18 plus, however, we also opened these questions up to a much older audience to gain a wider understanding of the thoughts that our certain material provoked, and i have noticed that much of the feedback from people 18 and above, centred around the same opinions, which lead me to believe that generally from that age onwards our audience had a more in depth understanding of the concept presented, which is why we have come to a conclusion that our audience should be 18 onwards as we do not want to show this footage to anyone younger incase they get the wrong impression, yet we do not want to limit our audience to a specific age as this is such a widely spread topic that many can associate themselves with.

The footage shown may also be inappropriate for younger viewers as there is repetition of violence. Although according to the British Board Of Film Classification (bbfc) that 15 certificates contain violence, we feel that the complex visuals will be harder to comprehend and have researched this further by asking students of that age to watch our film and tell us their interpretation, our group finding that their analysis was brief and inconsistent in comparison to those 18 and above. Those 18 and above, managed to pick up on the relevance of past and present, and some managed to make contextual links between the white attire and innocence of the characters.

Although this is centred around victims of abuse, we did not just want people who have been abused to watch this, we wanted a wide rage of people from different ages and diverse backgrounds so that we could educate them about this topic, as well as aiming it at the abuser so that they can reflect on what they are doing. By showcasing both the antagonist and protagonists inner emotions within our film, it can enable the abusers who view this, to reflect on the emotions that they feel in the situation and see that what they are doing is not acceptable. By making them look upon this film in third person, it allows the abusers to be more critical on what they are doing and allows them to see the overall picture on how they are affecting those around them.




Ken Loach is a film director who wants to make films that 'resonate with the public', even though our films have a different cinematic style, our group, like Loach have the same ambitions about wanting to make our audience aware of the matters in hand, and we feel that like Loach's films, ours will stay in the minds of its audience. Our film being shown as a public awareness video, that will be shows after the watershed due to its violent scenes. The way it's been filmed in an unnatural environment emphasises the fact that the 'happy family's' show can be exactly that- an act, and that no one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

Feedback on our base piece of music

Feedback from Facebook has told us that the sound quality is not great, however it is fitting to our film that we have produced. From this feedback, we have decided that we are going to re-record this soundtrack so it has a better sound quality, and use this initial piece of music as the base for our film. We are going to further edit this pieced of music so that it is longer for the footage we have, and may also incorporate a layer of sound over the top, however this idea is going to be finalised after the editing of our sound is completed. 

Final piece of music for film

We have stuck with having no dialogue within our film and only music, as it highlights and reflects our title SILENCE, illustrating how the female protagonist has a lack of voice within the situation, and is literally powerless due to herself not orating what is going on even when her inner emotions are presented. We decided to take the initial idea of the music box, and use a piano as the sound is not as soft, yet still creates a emotional tone upon the footage.


All edits done to this piece of music has been done on garageband on a mac.

This is going to be the base music for our film. However, we are thinking of layering the music to reflect the layering of the narrative that is in our film. We showed our footage to our friend who plays piano and told him exactly the kind of tone we were looking for, explaining in detail where we feel some pieces of the music should be elaborated to convey the sadness of the film, and also thought that it was best to have a continuous beat which would sync into the repetitiveness of the narrative.

Feedback from current Film Edit

Film Edit

This is a screenshot of the editing software Premiere, which we have used the whole way through our film to edit it. Here it shows the transitions we used to make the footage look the way it does. Firstly, we used a number of transitions; cross fading and fade to black being our main transitions. By using cross fading, it allowed us to use two pieces of cut footage, and merge them together so that they overlapped. This allowing us to create similarities between the two shots so that they linked in with one another, for example, at 0.26 the protagonist gets hit by the antagonist, and then it fades to a shot of the inner protagonists emotions, whilst the previous scene carries on, this allows us to convey the inner emotions of our protagonist at that point without making it look like two separate time frames. However, we have also used this to convey to our audience the difference in time frames when required, but so it does not become to confusing with the cross fades, we put the past in black and white , the present in a saturated colour and the inner emotions of our characters in an unnatural red. Having these flashbacks, present clips and inner emotions clashing is so that our audience can see the consistent emotional and physical pain of 'the dark angel' and how she is trapped within the narrative.

Our main objective is to present domestic abuse, and how it affects families, relationships and individuals, which is connoted in the last shot when our child character (Bella) is alone.

The contrast and lighting was also changed on Premiere for some shots to create a sharper, more unnatural look.






Within our initial idea, we were going to have the child play with something that reflects pressure, whilst out of focus the parents would be arguing. Using our initial idea, we decided to make the child do an action that reflected the overall tone of the play and at 0.14 the child playfully hides her head as the camera then moves to show a medium shot of the fathers feet. The innocence of the child doing this playfully, could be overlooked, however, we have specifically done this to represent the 'hide and seek' children's game to symbolically convey the overall tone of the protagonist being scared of the antagonist. The child, like we initially wanted is mirroring the protagonist, however, she is mirroring her inner emotions instead of her physical actions.


RED

The colour red has been a main colour throughout our film, and we have used the same tone of red to convey both the characters inner emotions and to also illustrate how they are linked in some way. The red for the inner emotions of our antagonist signifies anger, rage and danger, whilst the red of the inner emotions of our protagonist represent pain, being tainted and being suffocated by the colour that we associate with the antagonist.

My Review lay out for my film

Colour theme for my Review lay out

I am going to have the 'Synopsis' text and 'Credit' text and 'review' text in red whilst the rest of the text is in black and white, this to ensure that my text is visibly suitable for my readers and to ensure that i am following the forms and conventions of a real review to get the best possible results visually.

Although i haven't draw the two word summary of the characters and/or the film as a whole, i am going to do this and i am also going to mention the characters within the photo so it is clear and coherent what the characters look like so that the audience can familiarise themselves with the characters shown. Again, i am going to use red for this text also as, like Sight and Sound, i would like to highlight the factual elements of the film

Is our film commercial or a public service ?

I believe that our film is a public service, as it s not there just to be watched for visual pleasure, as it is sending a message to the viewers who view our film.

Day of filming -part 2

 Today we experimented with our vision of what we thought the second half of our filming should contain. We used a scaffold, chains and obscure lighting to demonstrate the oppressed protagonist. We took multiple shots within different scenes which will eventually create the internal emotions of our character.


We thought it best to shoot this scene in the same space where we shot the previous part of our film, so that we could maintain the colour theme of black as well as having direct links between the two pieces of footage. By shooting it in the drama room, which contained black walls, it allowed us to not only create a sombre effect, but also play with lighting to help draw emotions into the scenario.

Furthermore, we used a hand held camera, to capture the realism of the emotional struggle that our protagonist portrays, using close up and extreme close ups to capture snippets allowing the audience to initially feel confused until later aware of the symbolic references to the emotional abuse.

we thought it best to literally tie our protagonist in chains to show the burden that encompasses domestic abuse, physically showing the struggle to portray the emotional struggle and pressures. After researching into domestic abuse, it was clear we wanted to illustrate emotional abuse as much as physical abuse. The lighting was bright unnatural red and white to present the unbearable nature of domestic abuse.

We also used lighting similar to this to make the shot as raw as possible

This is the scaffold that we used.















The drama room

 

Twitter