Fallen Angel - First Draft

Fallen Angel from Jack Grimshaw on Vimeo.

This is the first draft of our film noir. It is incomplete as we don't have voiceovers for Niamh's character and we also plan to re-film the argument scene between Niamh and Matty. We have sent it out for feedback and plan to use the feedback to improve our film. We also might redo the credits as they are hard to read and unclear.

Where would our film be shown?

Our film would be low budget, indie film. The OTS was created with almost no budget and only using 3 actors. It wouldn't be a blockbuster film, so if it did come out in a cinema it would likely be shown in a cinema that supports independent films, such as Cinema City in Norwich.

This type of cinema would be ideal for our film as it supports smaller films and smaller production companies. People attending these cinemas would tend to be film fanatics, and they are the audience that would see our film.

Survey Results: Credit to Niamh Gallagher

N. Gallagher 2099 AS Media Production 2016: Feedback on draft 2



This a link to Niamh's post of our survey. I created this survey using Survey Monkey and sent it out using Facebook Messenger, sending it to every member of our class. I also emailed it to our teacher and posted it on my Facebook page. We got over 60 views on our video and received 11 complete responses.  We learnt what people liked from the surveys and took into account which changes to make and what to improve before publishing our final edition. This was very helpful as it also helped us see what was good and bad with our film.

Soundtrack Experimentation

http://www.dievantile.com/2010/06/forgotten-dream/
http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/sad-day
https://mp3skull.yoga/mp3/sad_music.html
http://www.opuzz.com/royalty-free-music-cds-atmospheres3.asp

I found these websites which all have multiple sad sountracks that I would like to use in our production. The soundtracks are free to download and the websites have lots to choose from. Browsing these websites was very useful as it allowed us to see what kind of music we would like and where to find out. We will have to return to the soundtracks at a later date to review which soundtrack we both think is most suitable for the opening title scene.

Title Font Experiment

In todays lesson I used Photoshop to experiment with the fonts I had found to see which would look best for our title scene. I used seven different fonts, all in a handwritten style to fit in with the theme of our film. This experiment helped me to see what font would be most appropriate for our film, and has helped me to choose my personal favourite - Birds of Paradise. I like this font the most as it is easily readable and looks very good whilst fitting in perfectly with the handwritten theme. This was only a very short task but it was a good development in the film as we now know what our actual title scene is going to look like.

Storyboard

This is a rough copy of our storyboard. The actors will change when we film the actual project and the locations will change also.

Prop - Angel

Niamh and I purchased a small porcelain angel from “Tiger” to act as one of our props in our film. The small prop is a tea light holder and is to be used to represent Ella throughout, and reference the title “Fallen Angel”. The candle lit is representative of Ella’s life and as the flame slowly dies out, it also represents how the main character is also fading. When lit, the candle creates a chiaroscuro effect that casts shadows upon the Angels face, and creates a dark and mysterious effect. Before filming, I left the candle to burn for about two hours to make it look like it has been used by Ella.

Production Plan Voiceover

Niamh and I left the classroom and found an empty one so we could record our voice overs. We used an empty classroom so there would be no background sound interfering with our dialogue. Niamh's iPhone 6 was used as the recording device, as the audio files can be kept together and are easy to upload when we need them.

Film Classification

Using the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) website, I learned about film classifications. I found out how many different certificates there were, and what made a film a particular certificate.


In order to protect children from unsuitable and even harmful content in films and videos and to give consumers information they might need about a particular film or video before deciding whether or not to view it, the BBFC examines and age rates films and videos before they are released.


Issues such as discrimination, drugs, horror, dangerous and easily imitable behaviour, language, nudity, sex, and violence are what's taken into consideration when giving a film a rating, as these things can vary from mild to very severe and be massively unsuitable for films watched by children.


U




The U symbol represents a Universal certificate, meaning the film should be suitable for generally everybody, however it cannot be certain that nobody will take offence from the film. This is the lowest rating in the scale. Films given this rating will only ever show very mild and brief instances of discrimination, drugs, imitable behaviour, language, nudity, sex, threat or violence, and they will be disapproved of.








PG




PG stands for Parental Guidance and is given to films that are generally suitable for viewing by everyone, but parents should take their children into consideration before watching. Some scenes may be unsettling to children below the age of 8. Films given this certificate however are sometimes made without a child audience in mind. If any instance of inappropriate material is shown in the film, it will either be very mild or lacking detail, meaning that the younger audience won't understand.




12 and 12a






Films that are given this certificate are suitable for audiences from the age of 12 upwards. If a film should be granted the 12a certificate, an under 12 may be accompanied by an adult to the cinema, but cannot gain entry without an adult present. The more simple 12 certificate serves mainly for DVDs as it states that retailers may not sell products branded with this to anyone under the age of 12. Instances of unsuitable material may be brief, however more explicit than in a PG. Discriminatory terms are unlikely to be passed in a 12/12a, similarly to frequent swearing and excessive violence. Drugs and other anti-social behaviours may be seen, but are very infrequent and do not give any clear instructions.



15




Nobody under the age of 15 is allowed to enter the cinema to view a film that is rated 15. They are also not allowed to buy or rent material from shops that are rated 15. Strong violence frequent strong language. 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. 15 rated films have no limit on the amount of expletives they may use. There may be discriminatory behaviour, however it must be shown to be disapproved once again. Drugs may be taken but cannot promote or encourage drug use.







18


No person under the age of 18 is allowed to view an 18 rated film in the cinema. Also, they cannot buy or rent products given this rating. 18 films have more freedom and the limits for unsuitable material is quite high. Anti-social behaviour is used highly throughout and there are no limits on nudity or violence. Drug use still may not encourage or promote use, but can be far more explicit. Very dangerous anti-social acts such as extreme criminal behaviour may be cut from a film, even at an 18.


The film we are making for our final product would be given an 18 certificate for the whole film due to the strong drug references throughout, accompanied by the violence and swearing. The OTS however would only be a 15, as drugs are only mildly alluded to, with short clips flashing up very infrequently. There is also mild references to self harm and suicide, but not enough to promote or encourage it.

I learnt from this task that throughout our OTS and film, we have to make it clear that despite the explicit use of drugs, the repercussions of drug use are very negative and should not be repeated. This will be done through the constant decline of the main characters state. She will start off as a very positive character but by the end of the film, drug use will have entirely ruined her life and relationships and this will be made abundantly clear to any viewer, portraying drug use in a very negative light.

Locations - Outside

I made this presentation to display the numerous different locations we researched before filming in an outside location. This was helpful as it allowed us to learn which place would haven been most suitable for filming. We ultimately decided to use the last location, as it was conveniently located near Niamh's house and created a very dark and mysterious lighting that would fit in with the Film Noir genre. This was originally made in a normal blog post, but I updated it to an emaze as it is now easier to look through and looked better.

Fallen Angel Script

Characters: Ella - Niamh

                   Alex - Matty

*Voiceover throughout*

Ella is in her bedroom, distraught, crying, shaking etc. opens book however we hear her thoughts rather than her speaking, this will create intimacy between Ella and the audience.

Ella: I met a boy. everything was going well and I really thought he loved me. but it didn't last... it never lasts...

     

FLASHBACK TO WHEN THEY MET

fade to black

INT: Ella’s room

Ella: Dear Diary... this will hopefully be my last entry, I don't know how to escape this, I can’t get better, he won’t change, he doesn't love me and I don't blame him.

FLASHBACK TO WHEN THEY WERE HAPPY / CUT TO AN ARGUMENT SCENE

Ella: we were so happy together then i started noticing things about him changing

QUICK FLASH TO HIM STRAPPING HIS ARM UP

Ella:  he stopped telling me he loved me, he barely even looked me in the eyes.

FLASHBACK TO THEM LAUGHING / HIM WALKING AWAY

Ella: I knew I shouldn’t have let him talk me into it, but I just can’t say no to him

FLASHBACK TO HIM PREPARING HEROIN FOR HER

Ella: after that night I couldn’t resist it, the urges became more frequent and more severe

FLASHBACK TO HER PREPARING IT HERSELF

Ella: he stopped seeing me and spent all of his time with her.

FLASHBACK: ALEX AND OTHER GIRL WALKING DOWN A ROAD AND IGNORING HER, CHIAROSCURO LIGHT

Ella: I’m sorry Alex, i hope she makes you happy.

“DEATH” SCENE: SHE PICKS UP A HANDFUL OF PILLS WITH A BLOOD COVERED HAND/ARM, KNOCKS OVER ANGEL STATUE WHICH BREAKS

TITLE APPEARS

Font Ideas

 Using the website "DaFont", I looked for an appropriate font to use in our title scene. I did this whilst Niamh was in an exam as it was important and could be done alone, rather than as a team. I found five different fonts, all in calligraphy styled writing. I think calligraphy would be most appropriate for our film intro because it is based around a girl writing her diary, so the idea of handwriting ties in with the fact that she is handwriting her diary. My personal favourite of the fonts was the "Birds of Paradise" font, as I liked the way it looked more than any of the others.

The font is similar to that used in "Mildred Pierce" a 1945 Film Noir. I used this films title as my inspiration as it looked very similar to the way I'd like my film to look.

By researching the fonts for a while, I learnt what style of font looks good and would fit in nicely with our film. I also discovered a good website to use at a future date in case I ever need a new font again.

Narrative Planning

We decided to base the plot around a love triangle as this is very stereotypical within Film Noirs, which meant we could still use our Neo Noir plot.
We decided to use the Tzvetan Todorov narrative which is very mainstream for film narratives, and it fits in well with the story line of our movie, Cinderella, however we have modernized it and changed it slightly. Our storyline hasn't been finalised yet however we know we want to use this narrative technique, which follows the structure below;
The characters are going to be the most obvious change to a typical Film Noir. We will have a Femme Fatal, Everyman and Girl next door, however the femme fatal is a Male and the Everyman is a female. We have decided to switch these gender roles to give our story a more modern and memorable aspect.

Lighting In Our Film

 At the start of the film, when Cinderella is happy and in a richer position, we are going to use a lot of bright colours and lighting. She will look very cheerful and colourful and her outfit will be very nice. Her Prince will also look nice.

As she continues on to get more and more involved in the drug scene, the colours will become more dull and moody. We will use less colours until eventually, we use almost no colour at all. This is used to represent her diminishing happiness as she gets nearer to killing herself.

Foleyed sounds from "Priests"

We watched a clip from the film "Priests" in silence and had to guess which noises we thought would be in the extract. After doing this, we watched the film with noise and filled in all of the noises that we missed. We were then set a task to recreate the sounds we heard by using foleying, a technique used by film makers to recreate noises externally and add them into films.

Mise En Scene Planning

This is our planning sheet for the Mise-En-Scene for our final production. We decided that the main prop used will be Cinderella's diary and as the extract progresses the pages will get more bloody and ruined. Cinderella will start with nice, expensive clothes and they will get continually worse as she goes on. The Prince wears smart, expensive clothes throughout and the drug-influencing character will wear a tracksuit. We will use dark lighting to create a dark and moody atmosphere. As the extract continues there will be more blood on the book until the end when it is covered because she has killed herself. We used the intro from "Se7en" as our main influence as we liked how they used props and lighting without using dialogue or any actors.

Cinderella: Slideshow - Skupina

This was the slideshow Niamh created to compile all of the photos we took whilst planning our film. She used a comic styled story board, and edited each of the photos in Photoshop. The locations we shot the photos in were changed when we filmed the final piece, and we also changed a few of the characters and modified the story line.

Cinderella - Review

Cinderella Evalution from Matthew Levesley on Vimeo.

This was the review of our production. In this video, we, as a group, address the difficulties we encountered and how we overcame them. We mention how on one day, we only had 1 of 5 members present, which made production levels very limited as there was limited resources, which was an unfortunate and unforeseen issue. One member was also absent for a 3 week period, meaning he was unavailable whenever we tried to film, so he found his work limited to only editing. We restarted our entire production quite late on in the process, which meant we hurried the planning and a lot of decisions were made on the spot as we had to work with what we had before us. This meant that a lot of scenes were not as well planned out as they should have been, with some mistakes and props being missing and costumes going wrong too. The party was difficult to film as we didn't have a free location out of school, but fortunately we found some willing friends to volunteer as we used the school studio. We also lost a number of scenes during the editing process in the late stages, which meant we had to try to make certain scenes make sense, but we couldn't make amends to all of them. We learnt from the task that the group as a whole are unable to work together, so we decided to split the group into a 2 and a 3 for future projects to ensure the highest level of production and standard of work. Generally, I believe we presented ourselves with the most problems as we didn't put enough effort into the planning, but I feel we showed how capable we are of the task by creating a decent final piece out of a difficult project, and we learnt all of our strengths and weaknesses before we got started on the final Film Noir project.

Reinvented Fairy Tale- Initial Planning

As a class, we were given the challenge to reinvent/modernise a fairy tale, but it had to meet the Film Noir conventions in some way.
The full instructions and deadlines are shown below:

As a group of 5, Niamh Gallagher, Heather McDonald, Josh Coe (who was on holiday for the entire task and unfortunately couldn't partake in any group activities until the very end), myself and Matthew Levesley decided to reinvent the story-line and modernise the fairy tale Cinderella, this was done by changing the 'fairy god mother' to a pill, which we named "fairy" and instead of the prince hosting a Ball we used a house party. Also, rather than Cinderella losing her glass shoe, we decided that she would lose her phone for the Prince to find and to suit the cast members, we used an evil step dad rather than the evil step mother. The ending is quite conventional for Film Noirs, the 'evil step dad' shoots the prince as he wanted to marry Cinderella rather than the 'ugly step sister'; this is unconventional to fairy tales as they have happy endings.

Cast:
We decided to link each character to a Film Noir character.
The prince was the 'Everyman' who was played by Matthew Levesley.
We tried to portray the 'Ugly Step-sister' as the Femme Fatal, this character was played by Heather McDonald.
Cinderella was supposed to be the 'Girl Next Door', Niamh Gallagher presented this character.
The Evil Step-dad was the Villain of the story, played by myself, Jack Grimshaw.

Camera:
For the still photos, an iPhone 6 was used and imported onto a Mac. For the short film, a camera with a tripod was used, until we unfortunately ran out of battery and couldn't recharge it in time, at which point we had to use an iPhone. It was the job of whoever was not in the scene to operate the camera so we all had time to use the cameras and gain experience, using a variety of camera angles and techniques to see what was effective in which situation.

Editing:
For the still photos, Niamh edited them mostly with filters using Photoshop. Also, for the final film Niamh began the editing process on iMovie, then Matthew and I took control during a free period as we have the most experience from GCSE Media and only had a limited amount of time before the deadline; we are using this opportunity to improve Niamh and Heather's iMovie ability and also hopefully our own. Josh also helped with some of the final editing as he wasn't involved during any of the planning or filming process. By allowing every member an opportunity to try their hand at the editing on iMovie, we all had a chance to learn how to edit new things, and for Niamh, Heather and Josh, it was their first experience in editing on iMovie, which allowed them to greatly increase their knowledge and skill in a very short space of time.

Generic Conventions of a Film Noir

Generic Conventions of a Film Noir

Camera and Composition: Camera Angles are essential to a film noir and the way they are used can be hugely influential. Often with the femme fatal or the anti-hero, a low angle will be used to represent the characters power; with women it often represents their higher or equal power to the men in the scene. The camera angles are used to create a sense of distortion and unease by using 'dutch' camera angles, which view things through a slightly tilted camera angle, rather than using a horizontal or vertical camera angle. A lot of shots tend to be set up by looking into a dark room, with the only lighting coming through the venetian blinds, making the scene look very dark and mysterious.

Editing: Film Noirs typically don't involve very much editing, as the time period meant they were very limited to the amount of editing they could actually do. A film noir is often found to begin at the end, telling the story in flashbacks and letting the plot unfold slowly. A film noir will almost always be in black and white, but when in colour they will tend to have a dark or sepia filter added to add to the dark, uneasy and mysterious mood that comes with the film. Scenes often are cut using fades in and out.

Sound: When film noirs became popular, in the 1940's, the white people of America were becoming increasingly afraid of the Jazz music genre, as it was a style that was played by black people. This music was used as it was very downbeat and slow, and created a lot of tension and unease for the viewer as they already had fear associated with the entire genre of music. The protagonist often has a voiceover, talking over a clip as he recalls a flashback of the story. Scenes will often go silent to build up more tension for the viewer, with the heavy breathing of the characters often being the only thing audible. They then use sudden, loud noises to break the silence in the quiet, tense scenes.

Mise-en-scene: Film noirs typically use very normal, urban locations to make the films seem more realistic to the viewers, as the location makes it much more believable if the action takes place in a rainy or damp street, opposed to when it happens in the darker, more nasty end of town. The scenes use very little lighting, casting a lot of shadows and darkness to be in the scene. The shadows are used as a way to put more mystery into the scenes, and often venetian blinds are used as the only source of light coming through. Shadows can manipulate characters faces to make them appear distorted and dark. Cigarette smoke is used throughout films, often with the femme fatal, to add to the ominous and mysterious mood following the storyline.

Characters:

• Every Man (Often turns into anti-hero)
• Femme Fatal
• Girl Next Door
• The Villain
• The Henchmen

The Every Man is the typical protagonist for a film noir and often gets himself into trouble with the Femme Fatal, a woman who is supposed to be seductive and often is working with The Villain, usually because of their relationship they are in when the Every Man meets her. The Villain is usually the antagonist of a film noir and is the reason for the Every Man's demise, either turning into the anti-hero or ultimately ending up dead. The Henchmen work for the villain, and carry out his dirty work against the Every Man.

Narrative: Film Noirs have a story line that differs from normal films, as they begin at the end with the protagonist re-telling the story with voiceovers and flashbacks. The first person narration is quite symbolic for film noirs, as not many films were found to be using this kind of editing in that time period.

My Top 10 Films

My Top 10 Films

I decided to use Prezi to make my presentation about my top ten favourite films. I initially found this hard to use, but after playing around with it for a while I managed to get the hang of it. I used Prezi because I wanted to be able to add the trailers for the videos into the presentations as well as my writing. As well as including the trailers, I also included our sweded version of The Babadook in reference to my earlier work. 

Media and Me

Media and Me

This is a short presentation about myself and how I am involved in the media. I used Emaze to make this powerpoint and found it was very easy to use and I got my head around it very quickly. The presentation is only short and very easy to navigate.

Ideas for our Sweded Film

Before deciding to recreate 'The Babadook' for our sweded film, we went through a process of deciding from a number of different films.

We decided to use 'The Babadook' as it is an enjoyable film that all four of us liked before the filming. The trailer itself only had a few characters in, so we could easily fit everyone in, with some of us having to act more than one role. The props used in the film are quite basic and easy to get, so that was another good reason to choose the trailer, which was originally around two and a half minutes, making it the perfect length for a sweded film trailer.

We considered doing the trailer for 'Insidious' as it is a film that did not have many characters in it at the same time. The trailer was too short for a sweded film, not even being two minutes long. The trailer would have been good as it only required very basic locations, but the make-up for costumes would have been too much work to do multiple times.We also found that the trailer wasn't very interesting, so we chose not to use 'Insidious'.

We also considered the sequel to Insidious, Insidious 2, as it is another popular, well known film. It is similar to its prequel as it also only needed very basic and easy to recreate scenes, but again the make-up would have been too hard to do accurately. Unfortunately, this film would've required 7 people to do one scene, one for the camera man, and we only had 4 people to use. This, on top of the fact that the props used in the film are too hard to remake or get hold of, are the main reasons we chose not to do Insidious 2.

Step Brothers was another film we considered watching, as it's a funny, comedy film and would've been funnier than the horror films we were trying to choose from. The trailer for the film was over two minutes long, and only really filmed in very basic locations so we could have remade many scenes very easily. However, we lacked some props, most importantly the drum kit, and did not have enough people as we would've needed one more person to use the camera for some scenes. Also, we would have found it very hard to recreate the scene in which one character is buried alive.

Superbad was the last film we considered, as it's another comedy film and much less serious than the other horrors. Superbad has a very inappropriate humour in it and would have been very funny to remake, but a lot of the scenes, for example the one in the shop or the police car scenes, would have been almost impossible to film. Also, not all four of us had seen the film, and it required a lot of extras to be in the background, so we chose not to use 'Superbad' for our swede.

Props, Costume and Scenery for our Sweded Film

In the trailer of The Babadook, there are only a few props needed, mostly the props were items of clothing to make us look more like the characters we portrayed. To make Josh look more like the mother he needed to look more like a woman, to do this we used a wig the Jack has.

In the start of our sweded film we needed a book that could be used as the Babadook, inside the book we included drawings on plain paper that were drawn by Niamh.

Dressing gowns and hoodies were worn over the top of our original clothes in some scenes when we were filming the scenes with the boy, Sam, and the mother. Matthew and Jack both had to wear a smart white shirt and tie when portraying the characters of the headteacher and the doctor.

In one scene there is wood being sawed and hammered, this was simple as in Jack’s shed he had planks of wood, a saw and a hammer. Also, there was a crossbow used; luckily Jack’s brother had a toy crossbow which we borrowed for the scene.

Multiple scenes were filmed inside a car so, with no keys in the engine, we borrowed Jack’s car to film a few scenes with the mother and son.

Crossbow used by Jack as Sam.

Wig worn by the mother. Jack and Josh as mother and Sam in costume in the car.

The Babadook Sweded Film: Location, Camera and Editing

As Jack had all of the props needed available at his house and he had areas perfect to film from such as a table outside, we decided that we should film at his house.

We decided to use Jack’s iPhone 6 to film on as it has a great camera quality and he will always be there as it is being filmed in his house. Every single one of us had a turn filming parts of the swede and it was whoever was not needed in the scene being filmed.

To edit the swede we used a free app on the App Store called iMovie, this meant we could easily rearrange the clips in order, remove audio from some clips and add voice-overs all on one iPhone.

Here is an example of the layout of iMovie. At the bottom there is a camera button to add videos, a microphone to record sound and a settings button to edit a clip. In this scene we muted the video, added a voice-over then recorded Matthew playing the piano to add some audio similar to the official film.

Here is a photo of Jack recording Matthew whilst he plays the piano for the background sound.