Evaluation: Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation: Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience Opinion from Charlotte on Vimeo.

Evaluation: Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation: Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms & conventions of real media products?

Final Film - Lockdown

Final Film Review

Final Film Poster

ADVERTISEMENT FOR 'LOCKDOWN'

Review Analysis

Name of title with quick tag line underneath. Star rating also features - KEY INFORMATION at the head of the page.



A brief overview of the plot is given here - Link back to the film genre.


The review fills up most of the page and features various different photos and media that are aimed to entice the audience and make the film seem appealing through an action based medium

The review then moves onto an explanation of the first couple of scenes. It enables the reader to look into the films progression, acting as an enticing trick which, as a result, makes you want to go and see the film to see what will happen after this.

It has clear emotive language and uses. The black font against the white background sits nicely and is pleasing to the readers' eye.

Clear layout - Large spaces between paragraphs distinguish changes in what's being spoken about whilst contributing to a very neat looking layout.

There are no distractions on the page, the review is all that features enabling the reader to be fully immersed in the writing.

Final conclusion with pun to relate to the reader. Friendly language and use of metaphors helps to add humour and make for easy reading.



There is a clear star rating with distinguished colours to highlight that the highest possible rating has not been achieved.

First Draft of Film Poster

I used 'Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8' to edit together various different photos I downloaded from the internet to make the poster draft. The Title - 'LOCKDOWN' was made on 1001 fonts then downloaded to my laptop and the Production logo in the bottom left, was made by one of my other group members. 

I used the colour palette to adjust various different colours and to match them with the background and other photos.  

These were some ideas I wanted to incorporate within my poster. I wanted to focus on some of the key conventions that are used in Film Noir, like smoking, chiaroscuro lighting/single source lighting and silhouettes. 







THE FINAL DRAFT

The photo of the couple will be replaced with the Protagonist and his Wife and the woman in the doorway will be the Femme Fatale. The writing along the bottom and the title will still remain, as will the names up the top and the logo's in the bottom corners of the poster.

I analysed various different Film Noir posters before making the draft and I drew inspiration from the posters for, Sin City, Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep and Bladerunner. I particularly liked the sense of danger and mystery highlighted in these posters as a lot of them were focussed on a group of people or couple, often one of them holding a gun, and looking into some sort of image in the background, or, in the foreground but the image was small and hard to distinguish. As a whole the posters provoked a certain sense of intrigue about what the film was about and what was happening which i wanted to capture in my film poster.

Location Shots From Day 1

Precautionary Measures

As our film incorporates a shooting, we had to make a sign as we were filming in a public space. We also spoke to passers by and warned them about the false firearm. 

Opening Sequence For Production Company

Production Company Site & Behind the Scenes Footage

Click on the photo of our logo to head to our webpage.

Equipment

We wanted to ensure our film had a professional quality so we used a camera of a fairly high spec and standard.


The camera we used was a Nikon D3100. We used a standard lens which provided us with a degree of zoom but the lens isn't made for long distance shooting. 

Along with this we used a tripod to film on and we had fold up camera dolly wheels that the tripod could be fitted into. This was to ensure we had the most stable shot without any jolts or un-natural movement.

The only problem we encountered with the dolly wheels though is that we had no track to lay down. With the ground being un-even and the wheels being fixed to the tripod (as opposed to on springs to make the movement smoother) we couldn't film a tracking shot as it was too bumpy. 

Actors Being Used

This is the actor playing the male protagonist 'Ronnie Scott'.
Alex Underwood. He is a large scale drug baron who is arrogant and self centred. He's wearing smart clothes with a purple tie to connote wealth and a big watch emphasises this too. We wanted to highlight a sense of class, wealth and danger. Although he is married to 'Helen Scott' he deviates from their relationships and starts to see the Femme Fatale behind Helen's back.

This is the actor playing 'The Wife - Helen Scott'.
Sophie Stevens. She is wearing mundane boring clothes with dull colours such as green to connote jealousy. Her hair is up and un-styled. We wanted to incorporate the binary opposite theory by Levi Strauss to contrast her with the vibrant looks of the Femme Fatale and make the wife look as un attractive as possible.

This is the Femme Fatale, 'Cora Wilkins'. She is being played by Charlotte Hewitt. We had her in a short revealing red dress with long hair and big glasses. These big glasses hide a lot of her face and her hat covers a lot of her identity too. We chose this outfit as we needed a certain amount of sexual appeal to come across to both the audience and the Protagonist.

Storyboard

Audience Research

This is the questionnaire we made and one of my group members sent out on their Facebook page. Within 1 week we had 29 responses and the results are as shown above. 

Film Pitch

Audience Profile

Our target audience would be Working Class members of society and above in the table above. The people in this category are most likely to buy a copy or view the film when they have spare time. The members of society in category E however are more likely to anticipate the release of the film, hence, not buy a DVD version after watching the film. This could potentially be because of financial reasons.

The age group within this category would be 16 -25. This is because this age group have a regular use of social media sites which would be an excellent platform for advertisement. A lot of short films are also based online and on social media networks.

The Black Dahlia

Detour

Mind Map created by Alex Underwood with ExamTime

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Created with Padlet

Character Profiles

Male Protagonist 

Played by - Alex Underwood 

- The male protagonist - 'Ronny Scott' is married to 'Helen Scott' (Sophie Lacey). The marriage is already unstable and the relationship between Ronny and his Helen rapidly deteriorates as the film progresses. Arguments and rows become more and more frequent about the drugs. He falls for the Femme Fatale as he is in a bad place with his wife - however, ultimately the Femme Fatale ruins his life.

Protagonist's Wife

Played by - Sophie Lacey 

- The wife of Ronny Scott, Helen, has a hatred for the Protagonist's job as a drug baron. She says it's dangerous and tearing apart the family and many arguments crop up as a result of this. 

Femme Fatale 

Played by - Charlotte Hewitt

- Cora Wilkins. The Femme Fatale is an undercover police officer/spy. She is stalking/following the protagonist to track his movements but also to try and grab his attention. Her main aim is to put the protagonist in prison for being a drug baron. She is a seductive character and lures in the protagonist before putting him under. The protagonist subsequently falls in love with the Femme Fatale. 

Possible Film Names and Fonts

Final Production Company Logo

This is the first draft of our production company logo drawn by hand. We liked this as a first draft but when we came round to making the final logo, we found that the layered, 3D design made the letters hard to distinguish. We wanted a short and snappy phrase/saying that was easy to remember so we chose 'GSD' in large font with the smaller 'Media Productions' underneath.








This is the final design of our logo. We rectified the lack of clarity in the letters by taking the 3D effect away and just having the 'S' in the middle in larger font. The font and symmetry makes it easy on the eye with a colour scheme that isn't too 'loud' or bright. 

Characters, Names, Costume and Props

Created with Padlet

Brick

Brick


Brick is a 2006 Neo Noir thriller, written and directed by Rian Johnson.

The film is about a teenage boy that pushes away his school work to try to solve the murder case of an ex-girlfriend by himself. The title of the film refers to a missing brick of heroin that has been separated from the rest of the shipment.

Brick was distributed by Focus Features.

This tunnel is frequently used in the film 'Brick'. It's a place of mystery as you never get to see where the tunnel leads. It is also very dark inside the tunnel so when Brendan finds Emily's body the identity of the person who killed her is hidden by the darkness once inside this tunnel. There are many conventions of Film Noir put into practice when they shot these scenes. For example, darkness, canted angle shots, silhouettes and everything you see looking out the tunnel acts as the single source lighting.

Laura acts as a Femme Fatale in Brick. She follows Brendan to this room in the film and seductively puts her arm around him to try and get him closer to her. She is always seen in some sort of item of clothing that is the colour red in Brick. When she leaves she almost struts off - she wants to leave an impression on Brendan and her heels and tight red dress help to achieve this.

There is quite a lot of chiaroscuro lighting in Brick. The Sun often is used as the single source lighting. The constant use of this lighting casts shadows. The candles in the scene below - make parts of the room lighter than others but also add to a romantic setting when Laura first meets Brendan.

We first see Kara and Brendan in the same scene through a mirror. Rather than seeing them face on in an shot reverse shot, they're cast in the mirror. Reflections and the use of mirrors are a common conventions of Film and Neo Noir. These mirror shots suggest that the relationship between the characters is unstable.

This is the part of the film when Brendan confronts Laura about the whole murder. He knows that Laura set Emily up. At this point Laura tries to kiss Brendan but he turns his head away. He knew that she had a role in Emily's death, yet, all along, he knew not to trust her. He is a very strong Protagonist.






Tug shoots Dode in this scene. The dark tunnel with single source lighting coming in through the entrance acts as single source lighting which causes silhouettes of the characters which helps to hide their identity. Just before tug shoots him, there is a slow motion scene which highlights the fact that danger is looming. This is a very realistic death scene both in terms of mise en scene and directing. The smoke and blood comes out the back of Dode's head and birds fly out of the tunnel, startled by the gunshot. This creates a lot of tension as the tunnel is quiet otherwise.

All throughout the film, Brendan's journey is very focused around isolation and the fact he wants to solve it himself. He is particularly lonely and almost turns away signs of new company. 'The Brain' seems to be the only person he really trusts and converses with. You tend to get the idea that when Brendan and Emily were together they spent a lot of time in each other's company, yet, when she died, he had nobody as close to him a her.