Final Edit of 'Baby'

BABY AS Production

Evaluation 7 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From doing our preliminary task I learnt the basic skills required to create a short, satisfactory sample of film; however the skills required to create an opening of a thriller at the level we were expected to do so, required a more advanced set of skills. Looking back, I can see a massive enhancement in my filming and editing skills, and knowledge regarding the use of technologies.

An important aspect of filming we learned from mistakes we made in our preliminary task was continuity. In our preliminary task we made the mistake of filming the same character wearing different clothes when she wasn’t supposed to be. The images below show the unintentional change of outfit.

                                                            Rosie wearing an outfit

Rosie wearing a different outfit

Mistakes such as this don’t frequently occur in professional films. To ensure that this didn't happen in our AS production we completed all of our filming in one day, and we also made notes of the clothes each character was wearing, this was to eliminate any risks of doing this.

I particularly found the editing process a lot easier to handle in the thriller production compared to our preliminary task.  I feel that this is very evident in the two.  Our uses of dissolves and fade to black were much more effective in the thriller as we had more knowledge about the different effects they both create.  In the preliminary task we were very new to using the camera and so were mostly experimenting with the equipment and trying new things whereas in our AS production we had the skills we needs to produce a better standard of film.

Secondly, the match on action shots we had in our preliminary task looked satisfactory, however we wanted to perfect this in our AS production. It is important when editing a match on action that both clips are cut to the correct length. In our final production our match on action is of the mother entering the house with the pram. This match on action changes from external to internal, we thought this would be the perfect transition of locations from outside, to inside.

 The most noticeable difference between our preliminary and our AS production is the music. In our preliminary we used none, however in our AS production we used a piece which helped create the mood and give our production more meaning. It made the equilibrium of the mother pushing the pram seem happier and heart felt, whereas it also made the disruption of the baby being kidnapped seem piercing, shocking and scary. Music is always used in professionally constructed films to create mood, one example of this is in Face/Off. A soft piano is heard at the beginning where John is riding a carousel with his son showing his unconditional, deep love for his son, and the happiness he brings him. After the attempted assassination of John Travolta's character consequently kills his son the music quickly changes into a different piece which creates a more depressing mood, in hope the audience understand his grief and loss for his son. 

The 180 degree rule was something we were told was necessity in our preliminary task, and therefore had to learn how to use it properly. This rule is applied whether it's a professional film, or a home made one. 

As shown by the picture above, the 180 degree rule is used when ‘shot reverse shot’ is being filmed. The rule’s purpose is to ensure the characters involved in the ‘shot reverse shot’ appear in the correct position, and don’t disorientate the audience. This is a rule that must not be broken.  In the preliminary tasked we used the 180 degree rule when mine and Hannah's characters were conversing.  Similarly in our AS thriller production, this rule occurred when my character, Sarah, and Alexia's threatening character bumped into each other on the road.  Here we used shot reverse shots to push the idea that the two were having a conversation, even though it was extremely brief.

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

Evaluation 6 from AlexiaDocker

Evaluation 5 - How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?

In order to attract an audience to our thriller, we took inspiration from a range of different thrillers.  We did this in order to gain an understanding of what types of themes and techniques are used throughout good thrillers. We found that many use the idea of beginning with equilibrium before a disruption such as a crime occurs.  For example, in the film ‘Face Off’ equilibrium is created when the father is shown with his young son on a carousel, and disruption happen when the boy is shot.  This is similar to our production in a way as both involve a young child.  We decide to use this idea in our own film as by creating a sense of happiness at the beginning, this makes the baby’s disappearance seem more significant and prominent.

In ‘Flightplan’, a claustrophobic, Hitchcockian thriller, a bereaved woman and her daughter are flying home from Berlin to America. At 30,000 feet the child vanishes and nobody admits she was ever on that plane.  Our film will attract a similar audience to this as they will both involve a woman and a child.  Due to this, the main audience for our production is females as the sudden disappearance of a young child is an upsetting event and so will pull on their heartstrings as they can emotionally connect with it.

The build up to these events involve slow and calm music which gradually increases in tempo and volume.  Our production also involves the concept of binary oppositions through the titles where the colours act as representations of good and evil.  We felt this to be effective as it is common thriller convention.

We would create synergy to promote our film by cross promoting it with other products such as music and other things that allow the audience to become more interactive with the production and feel involved.  A website would include the trailer for our production in order to promote the film.  We may also include some sort of game or activity where viewers can become more interactive and feel more involved with the production.  This would also help to sell the film as it would encourage the younger viewers to go and watch it.  We would also include links to download music from the film.  While the film helps to sell the music, the music helps to sell the film for example by promoting it through music videos.  Many thrillers and other genres of film use synergy in these ways like ‘Taken 2’ for example.  When you enter the webpage the trailer immediately begins to play in order to advertise and promote.  

As part of this evaluation we asked some people to view our production and provide us with some feedback.  We asked just females, a family member and people from our college, to watch and review out production as this is our main target audience...

'It is evident from the outset that this is going to be a tense thriller.  The soundtrack adds a sense of foreboding and adds to the feeling of uneasiness created by the quick succession of poignant shots i.e. a lone young mother and her innocent baby walking happily through an affluent residential setting as if to indicate a safe environment which we soon begin to question the scene where a threatening looking youth bumps into her.  The locking of the door and lingering looks following a sudden unknown noise bring about a feeling of fear of the unknown but indicates, along with the continuing haunting soundtrack, that something terrible is about to happen.  The lighting effects as the mother carefully carries her child upstairs adds an eerie atmospheric quality and builds tension as you find yourself wishing she hadn't left her baby alone.  Overall I thoroughly understood the story line and found it to be an excellent thriller from beginning to end.' - Linda Morgan

'While watching the production, I felt intrigued.  I liked that there were lots of different camera shots as this made me feel unsure and as if something bad was approaching.  I could tell straight away that it was going to be a thriller.  I thought the use of titles at the beginning made the film look very professional and the music that played in the background too.  I found the part when the hooded character walked toward the window after the woman left with her baby particularly chilling as it made me question what was going to happen next.’ - Dayna Rafferty

‘In my spare time I watch a lot of thrillers and I thoroughly enjoying watching this film.  It was obvious straight away to me that it was a thriller due to the music and the dark colours.  I though the best part was at the ending when the woman discovered the vandalised teddy in place of her baby.  The loud sharp music that happened at this point was very good as it made me want to continue watching.’ - Emily Smith

Evaluation 4 - Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

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

Production companies 

 Production companies help to facilitate the making of, and distributing films and/or television programs. Most often, the production company for films and television provides the money, and thus sets the budget, and may also make decisions on what director, and actors can be hired. Budget often makes other decisions possible or impossible. A low budget film may not be able to be filmed in a remote location, for example.

The company may also come attached with certain actors, directors, or film editors and photographers. Often this is especially the case when it belongs to a major studio, like Touchstone Pictures, which belongs to Disney. Directors who have contracts with Touchstone are more likely to be offered jobs produced by Touchstone.

 Role of the distributor 

 A distributor is generally an organisation who handles the theatrical release of a film in a particular country as well as the marketing and circulation of films for home viewing (DVD, Video-On-Demand, Download, Television etc). Often feature films have different distributors representing them in different territories and different distributors handling the home-viewing circulation.

For a low budget film like ours the funding would most likely come from a government grant from the British Film institute. The BFI invest £26m of Lottery funds per year to support film development, production and distribution activity in the UK and the budget is set to rise to £30m by 2017. Aiming to champion a breadth of bold and distinctive film making across the UK, to nurture new talent and to back the development, production and distribution of films that will enrich UK film culture.

To fund out film the BFI would provide us with the funding for the following:

·         Feature film production, including international co-production and completion funding

·         Feature film development, principally script development

·         Talent development (including funding for short films) via the BFI NET.WORK

·         Feature documentaries

·         Production company slate development, via the Vision Awards

·         Digital and cross-media activity

·         Distribution of feature films in the UK

·         International sales of UK feature films and other film export activities

The BFI would most likely involve Film4, I believe this is the perfect choice as Film4 are often eager to work with British led talent or with British content additionally they have a target audience similar to ours (16-30, which would enable them to give us a clear insight on what we need to do in order to attract our said audience. Looking at low budget films by Film4 e.g. trainspotting, this is England both of which turned out to be very successful films and TIE resulting in a TV series.

New line cinema logo

 For our professional production company we decided to use new line cinema firstly for aesthetic reasons, we found the dark colours helped to reinforce the thriller genre, the almost shadow affect again alludes to the theme of mystery and helps connote the unknown. Secondly New Line Cinema are an established, professional company renown for their successful thrillers such as the cell, seven, fracture, snakes on a plane and many more.

White productions

 We came up with the name 'White Productions' as for us it was simplistic and had a professional look about it in order to not distract from the actual theme, also it looks a lot less amateur than if we were to attempt, perhaps make a logo with our own drawings. The logo was done in black and white, this is suitable for our production as the binary opposites connotes good and evil which is of course suited to a thriller, the fact the eye is a woman's represents a femme fatale character although typically villainous, if not morally ambiguous, and always associated with a sense of mystification and unease; themes we deemed particularly important in our thriller. The visual medium here bared significance to the plot and connoting the good and evil important to our film and the black and white also reinforced the binary opposites.

The titles

 The titles we decided to use are mostly overlay titles in a white serif font. They appear one by one over the production in the bottom corners of the screen. We chose to use overlay titles as they are simple and don't take too much time out of the film. We felt that when researching into different thrillers, the titles used in 'The Sixth Sense' were quite tedious to watch as they were slow, long and just simple full screen motion titles with nothing particularly interesting or intriguing taking place. We didn't want this to be the case without production.The titles are overlay until the very last one which reads 'BABY' as a full screen motion title. The word is white on a black background as the colours act as a binary opposition for good and evil.  This representation would become clearer if we were to continue to make the whole film.

 The opening credits in our thriller mention each person involved in our production, each person in our group had several roles so our names were mentioned more than once. The opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There may or may not be accompanying music. Using overlay titles we introduced cinematography first, followed by music then the editors, the producers lastly, the Director and actors were shown this is because they are the most important/significant to the film therefore by putting them last as you would in a professional thriller they stay in the audiences mind as they were shown last therefore stay fresh in the mind.