Skills Audit 2 :P

Holding a shot steady, where appropriate - Basic ability. I have not actually used the camera in this project, therefore I do not see any way in which I could have improved with this. However, I do know that on IMovie, if a shot is slightly shaky, it is possible to stabilise the shot during editing. I feel this would be especially useful if you did not have a chance to re-shoot the offending piece of footage, particularly if it was crucial to meaning. Obviously, what I mentioned before still stands; use a tripod or some type of camera yielding equipment which, amongst other things, allows you to keep a shot steady. Additionally, to improve, you must practice and map out the shots before actually pressing record.

Framing a shot appropriately - Proficient ability. Again, I have not used the camera during this project, but I have learnt how a badly framed shot can ruin many things, for example, continuity. Whereas a well framed shot can (amongst other things) in fact improve meaning, for example, a shot of a woman from her shoulders up, )i-e, not showing her clothing) and being able to see her expensive jewellery, whilst a discussion about careers and university is taking place, could set up an impression that the woman is being objectified and possibly set up into a marriage or partnership. Again, It is fairly simple to step backwards a few steps or zoom out slightly to fit everything needed into the shot, or vice versa. Additionally, I take a photography class, this also helps. 

Variety of shot distances - Excellent ability. I have learnt more shot types and camera angles and additionally that many pieces don't just need the necessary shots to show meaning but also some additional shots to make the piece flow better, look more interesting and artistic and change the audiences expectations and emotions. I feel that our piece has a good variety of shots.

Appropriate material for task - Proficient ability. I understand that sometimes, if you are too ambitious, you cannot get everything you want with limited recourses, however I feel that we have managed to create something which is very close to what we intended the film to be like. Perhaps, if I did this project again, I would try something which is still good quality, but slightly easier to set up, for example, something set in this era. As mentioned in the previous skill audit, you need to keep to the conventions of your chosen genre.

Selecting mise-en-scene - Proficient ability. We have worked very hard to try and get an authentic feel for our opening's genre/era. I feel we were very successful in doing so. Again, if resources were not so limited, it would be easier and we would have more range/possibilities to to what we wanted. 

Editing for meaning to viewer - Proficient ability. I have learnt how to edit appropriately through editing myself and watching others edit. Sometimes you may need additional shots to make the sequence more coherent. It is important to have a pilot showing of your film to gain audience feedback on how to improve it and ensure that it all makes sense. We did the same thing with out rough draft and it paid off.

Varied shot transitions, captions and other effects - Proficient ability. When making our film, we learnt very quickly about transitions, effects and titles, especially as we have a dream sequence. This meant that we could not vary transitions or effects quite as much as we wanted to. However, we did try to vary transitions outside of the dream sequence, although this is difficult to do, as most of our opening consists of that sequence. Our titles do vary - we have a font for production and title, and a font for credits. Of course in an opening you need to keep some kind of unity when using text otherwise it could get quite messy to look at, for example, having a different font for each word. 

Use of sound with images/editing - Proficient ability. The soundbible website provided several effects or clips which we could download and put into IMovie. Additionally, we used two different tracks, one that ran almost to the end of the opening and another to add impact to the death of male character 2. All of the clips combined well and worked with the images on the screen due to the music genre we selected (classical). The voice over was fairly sucessful after we edited it in garageband. We learnt a lot during this project.

Using titles appropriately - Proficient ability. We kept a unity for different sections of text, for instance one font for the film title and production, another for credits, et cetera. Also, we feel the fonts fit in well with our genre. The positioning of the titles was also appropriate - main titles in the centre, actors in the corner. We particularly thought that the title for the film was positioned well - in the centre of the screen partway through the zoom past Snow White and male character This provided a blank background to create more of a focus. It was difficult to get the same shade of colours for each title due to being unable to save the colour we had initially chosen. This would be a disadvantage to the macs, especially as Pcs actually allow you to do this. I suppose to improve further you would need an opportunity to create a complex opening sequence, like Coraline or something with wordart and animation.

Contribution - Basic ability/ Proficient. I feel I contributed quite a lot to the plot and the creation of the storyboard and characters. Additionally, I would help with editing or finding tracks. Unfortunatley I was not there on our first shoot due to some unexpected complications, however I was present for our re-shooting of the scenes subsequent to the footage from the ruin location. This made me feel slightly detached from the rest of the group as I wansn't able to contribute then, i.e - Holding the camera and staging a few shots. I was able, however to hold people's coats, glasses et cetera, however, I do not feel that this particularly added to my skills :P I have gained some confidence in voicing my opinions and ideas. Additionally, we seemed to delegate tasks that needed to be completed, for example, research on Danny Elfman. Occasionally one of us would take up a task that we thought needed doing in our spare time without notifying others.

 

Conventions of Tim Burton films

I composed a chart after watching several Tim Burton films;


Director/Writer/ Producer: 

• Sleepy Hollow - Dir. Tim Burton, Produced by Scott Rudin, Adam Schroeder and Francis Ford Coppola, Screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker.

• Sweeeny Tood: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - Dir. Tim Burton, Produced by Richard D. Zanuck, John Logan, Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald. Written by John Logan.

• The Nightmare Before Christmas - Dir. Henery Selik. Produced by Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi. Screenplay by Caroline Johnson. 

• The Corpse Bride - Dir. Tim Burton and Mike Johnson. Produced by Tim Burton, Allison Abbate, Joe Ranft and Derek Frey. Screenplay by John August, Caroline Thompson and Pamela Pettler.

• Alice In Wonderland  - Dir. Tim Burton. Produced by Richard D. Zanuck, Joe Roth, Suzanne Todd
  and Jennifer Todd.

Connventions of Narrative (Mostly themes/symbols)

• Sleepy Hollow - Witches/Death/Revenge/Misunderstanding/Love/Hate/Other world
• Sweeny Todd -  Death/Revenge/Love/Marrige/Entrapment/Beauty/Poverty V. Privellege
• The Nightmare Before Christmas - Other worlds/ Haloween/Christmas/ Monsters/ Death/ Love/ Kidnap
• Corpse Bride - Death/Murder/Love/Marrage/Misunderstanding
• Alice In Wonderland - Society/conformity/other worlds/ monsters/ marrage...

Charaters

• Sleepy Hollow - Witches, Iccabod Crane, The Hessian (Headless Horseman)
• Sweeny Todd - Benjamin Barker/ Sweeny Todd, Mrs Lovett, The Judge
• The Nightmare Before Christmas - Jack Skellington, Boogey Man, Santy Claus
• Corpse Bride - The Bride, Victor and Victoria, the man who tries to marry Victoria
• Alice In Wonderland - Alice, The Mad Hatter, Chessie, The Red Queen

All stories have a protagonist, and one (or several) antagonists. They each have companions that either help them completley, or hinder them slightly in one way, and helping them in another. Additionally, there are several reoccuring actors in each film - Johnny Depp is in all of them and Helena Bonham Carter is is at least two of them. Tim Burton often gets the same proffesionals in for each film. Most characters have a dark past.

Mise - En - Scene

• Sleepy Hollow - Dark, rural, small community. Old fashioned clothing.
• Sweeny Todd - Dirty city, bustling with people. Victorian gothic styles of decor and clothing.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas - Animated world of haloween dark. Christmas world is extravagant.
• Corpse Bride - Again, very dark and based in victorian times.
• Alice in Wonderland - Bright summertime in the real world. During the Red Queen's reign, Underland is fairly dark and run down, whereas during the White Queen's reign (as seen in Tarrant's (the hatter's) flashback, everything is brighter and more extravagant. These reflect the different styles of reign and the personalities of the queens.

Evaluation

 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?  

Our inspiration was the director Tim  Burton. He has created a diverse range of films, however they are distinctive because of the conventions he uses and his style. Plots are dark and twisted tales usually involving love, death. Additionally, the main protagonist overcomes a tradgedy or problem of some varitety. We have targeted the conventions of a Tim Burton type horror film by focusing on the mise-en-scene, music and plot. The micro-elements contributed to the authenticity of the film. We have concluded from our feed back that our film could be easily affiliated with the Tim Burton style - many could see the inspiration. Additionally, we have used a common form of title sequence, first showing the production company, then the main actors, the writer and finally the director. 


Micro- element: Mise-en-scene. We have carefully looked at the type of costumes in the Victorian Era, as well as the costume conventions of Tim Burton and gothic horror films. These have been incorporated into the costume in a number of ways, for example, using lots of lace and dark colours for the Snow White character, or having the male character (1) wearing a cravat - a typical fashion of the late 1800s. As budget was limited, we went to charity shops to find most of the clothing, this then gave us a limit on how elaborate the costumes were, however we mangaged to drastically cutomise them to give us the gothic Victorian Era type clothing we required. Make up of the Tim Burton characters  usually makes them look gaunt, we tried to emulate this with dark shadows around the eyes and on the cheekbones in addition to pale skin and dark lips for the Snow White charcter.

 How does your media product represent particular social groups?  

We did not actively attempt to represent social groups, however the main groups included are; Male; Female; Age Range 16 - 25 and Social Class. Take the Snow White chracter for instance, she is female, around 20 years old and of working class. This is shown through her costume mostly: Women in the Victorian Era will not have worn anything but dresses or skirts, i.e - not trousers. Additionally, the clothes (as mentioned previosly) are not typical of  the higher classes in this era, the skirt does not trail along the ground or stick out, the bodice is basic and there are no accecories. Additionally, she was obviously looking for a husband, which was again, typical of women of her age in this era. The men wore smart yet simple shirts and trousers and were slightly older than Snow White, around 22 - 24years old.

Furthermore, the Victorian Era was a very patriachal society, this shows through the male's influence on Snow White's life. Within the relationship, however, the balance of power was fairly equal as they were both in love with eachother. If they were to marry, then presumably the male would be a hunter-gatherer and Snow White would stay in the house and care for the young. Oddly, Snow White commanded power both when she was talking to her brother (but her lover didn't know this and assumed it was another possible suitor) and when she came back from the dead at the end of the opening. One can only guess that she held this power over the male character (1) because he was completley obsessed with her.


 What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?  

Tim Burton has worked with many different production companies including Warner Brothers, Dreamworks and 20th Century Fox, as well as smaller companies such as Karol Film Productions and his own company: Tim Burton Productions. We think that our film is most similar to Sleepy Hollow, the studios used were both Mandalay Pictures and American Zoetrope and it was distrubued by Paramount Pictures.  Obviously this comes down to a number of contributing factors; whether it will sell, whether they like it and the plot is interesing ,if it is well made and what it suggests about their company.


 Who would be the audience for your media product?  

Our audience would be American and English people, from the age of around 15. As our film has death and malevolent characters, it would not be suitable for anybody substantially younger than this. However there is the question of the individual and how well they can handle that type of thing, for instance, in one scene of Alice In Wonderland, the main character had to use severed heads as stepping stones to get across the moat of the Red Queens palace. Despite this, the movie was only rated as a PG.  It would also interest a predominantly female audience, as well as male due to the different themes running throughout. It would also attract fans of that genre and possibly some Tim Burton fans.

  How did you attract/address your audience?  


Firstly, the characters are around 20years old, this is an age that many people can realte to or imagine becoming. Additionally, the opening changes pace, in the begining, it creates some mystery, i.e - Who died? How did they die? Creating questions keeps the audinece wanting to find the answer to them. Especially as they are about something that everybody is slightly curious about - Death. It then launches into a romantic flashback, this would attract any females (who are typically interested in romance), then the change of pace (having two deaths before the film even begins) would draw in most people as it is exciting and adds interest. The end of the opening is interesting and eerie as the main character comes back from the dead. The three bangs on the zoom adds impact and the opening creates more questions - What will happen? Did she really die? Is she actually haunting him physically? 


 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 


I have learnt how to use professional programmes such as IMovie and GarageBand. These new skills are ongoing so I could definitely learn more in the future, however my skills have improved. And although the skills are fairly basic, for example, splitting clips and cutting music and voice overs, they are important when it comes to creating a professional product. Other skills I have learnt include adding music to a clip, adding transitions and effects, as well as using the precision editor to create accurate timing. Furthermore I have found that the Finder application on the MAC can help to find anything on the computer that you may need, very quickly, be it an application such as ITunes or a file. I have learnt that ITunes is integral when uploading or downloading music as it creates an accessible point from white you can transfer music into other applications.  Initially the IMAC was quite difficult to get used to (No right click!?) compared to a traditional Windows format. The advanced technology gives an opportunity to create what you want and however you want it to be as well as making it of a high standard.     


Programmes, websites and features I have used and learnt about include;


- IMovie
- ITunes
- GarageBand
- Finder
- ImageCapture
- The Grab tool
- Blogger
- MoonFruit

IMovie - This was used to edit our film, obviously. It allowed us to piece together the shots that we needed to create meaning for the audience. We feel this was done sucessfully as the feedback we recived for our first draft was very helpful in gaining knowledge on which parts were confusing so we could smooth them out in time for our final draft. This also allowed us to overlap certain clips of music. We needed a continuous piece throughout to keep the opening flowing sucessivley, however at points we needed to create more impact, for instance, when male 1 kills male 2, we overlapped Prokokiev's Finale for Romeo and Juliet. We could also add in transitions, effects and make the timing perfect.

Garageband - We used this to put our voice over together. We had recorded Rich speaking whilst he was watching the opening. The script had prompts of when to speak, however in some places the speech was not in the place we wanted, for instance, we intended the word 'End' to be when male 1 slit male 2's throat. So we imported the file from IMovie over to GarageBand and improved the timing or cut out mistakes. We feel this was done succesfully as the speec was in the right place at the right time, with barley any mistakes. We used an external microphone to record Rich, this allowed us to get a clearer and more coherent recording.

Blogspot/ Blogger - This Google website has allowed our group to present our work and any thoughts we had during production. This is what you are reading this blog on at the moment. It enables you to create one, or several, blogs, format and design them. You can follow other's blogs if you enjoy reading them, either publicly or anonymously. Additionally, you can create new tabs on your page, this is useful when seperating catogories of information, for example, I have a Foundation Portfolio tab and a Contact tab.

Grab - This feature on the IMacs allowed us to take screenshots of the page we were looking at. This was especially useful when we needed to post photos of our locations from Google Maps.

ITunes - This was extremley useful in uploading tracks and sound effects and when we needed a platform to take the clips we needed and transfer them into IMovie or GarageBand.

MoonFruit - This website is similar to Blogger in the way that you can present your work and thoughts. You can create your own website. You can edit it by changing the design, the layout, the pages, pretty much everything about it. Unfortunatley, you     must pay if you want more space than the allocated amount of memory. This was very akward when we tried to upload our files to the site as we had to be very selective in what we put on there. Occasionally we would have to put a photo into PhotoShop, for example, and make it smaller, then re-save it and re-upload it to give us more space for other things.

IMac - These are so much more useful than traditional Microsoft PCs. They are more professional and accesable (when you get used to them) as well as having more opportunities to create exactly what you want/need for the project.

 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? 

I have learnt a lot in the progression from the pre-lim to the foundation portfolio. I have improved on all of my practical and planning skills. For example, we knew we needed plenty of time to allow for shooting. In the pre-lim, our footage kept getting wiped out by other people's footage, so by the thrid shoot (yes. third.) the shots we obtained were of a very low quality, not varied and there were some continuity errors. We only had twenty minutes to get our footage and then twenty minutes to edit it together. This meant that we could not add any effects, music or decent titles, as well as having very bad shots which did not convey a lot of meaning. See skills audit 2 for more on progression.

Micro element - Sound

In our opening we have used the following;

• Thomas Newman's Any Other Name
• A clip of bird song
• A clip of a choir
• A clip of a door slamming
• A small segment of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet Finale 
• A voice over of male character one speaking

There is not any actual diagetic sound. Additionally, we have not composed any music for this as we have not enough time and none of us are music prodigdies, sadly. The clip of the door slamming will be used at the end for the three jump cuts to create an impact on the audience, these sound effects or foley sounds will be synchchronous with the image. The bird song will be used to add vermilistude to the clip and the choir will add and air of 'mystery and magic'. Prokofiev's segment will be used as male character two is being killed, again to add impact, it will be overlapped with Thomas Newman's piece, which will be running throughout most of the opening. The voice over is included because the opening is male character one looking back on past events before his wife comes back, haunts his and eventually turns him insane (which is what the main film will be about). Were were going to use a piece by Danny Elfman, as he is one of Burton's most selcted composers, however we could not find a track that fitted in completley with our opening. This is WHY we used Thomas Newman's Any Other Name. Additionally, it had this wonderful melancholy and wistful type feel to it, the piano sounds beautiful.

Almost finished editing

We have almost finished editing, however,  we need to add the voice over (which will be recorded tomorrow), we had to get an extention in order to record the voice over and edit it into our work. As the deadline is imminent, I will also be starting to evaluate our work and putting up loads of things that I was supposed to post weeks ago.

Updated Costumes

Here are some new costume designs by Heather! They are fully annotated and much better than my previous drawings. 

Obviously, this didn't need as much detatil as Snow White's costume, however, it still shows the conventions of Tim Burton films. The cravat and the waistcoat seperates this character from The Brother. We considered giving the actor a mirror as a prop to show vanity. The outfit for male character two is fairly simple. This character dies and isn't an integral part in the plot, and the clothes reflect that as he does not get to wear a waistcoat or cravat. Unfortunatley for the male actors, they also have to wear some make up to give them a paler complexion. 

 Of course costume is very important for characters as what they wear shows who they are; their personality their class, et cetera.
This costume fits in with the conventions of Tim Burton films as it looks akin to an outfit of the Victorian Era, and of course, it is fairly gothic.
I hope you can read that. Red, obviously ties in with the colour of the apple, which is pretty much the most significant symbol in the opening. The white blouse is plain, reflecting the class status of the character. The black lace, shoes, tights and corset add a gothic feel to the outfit as well as showing several histoical contextual factors. The makeup - pale skin and heavy eyeliner add more interest and make the character looks slightly ill, as well as showing natural beauty - another convention of a Tim Burton character. The hair is back combed and brushed upward.

Props needed are; a red apple; a knife and fake blood.

Storyboarding and Plot

Hooray: I have the plot mindmap, the titles mind map and the storyboard ^^

After the original idea I came up with (Witches, revenge, et cetera), we have made a unified group effort to think of more plots and have chosen the best one. It is a twisted re-working of the classic fairytale Snow White. The opening shows a memory of a male character. He is in love with his (old fashoined word for) girlfriend. However, one evening he sees her speaking to another man (gasp!) and becomes very jealous, feels betrayed and like a fool. He then kills the second man. After this, he feels that his precious Snow White does not love him anymore et cetera, so he poisons her with, yes you guessed it, a poisoned red apple. Afterwards, we see the male character at her graveside. He then walks away and it is revealed that she has not died after all. The rest of the film is involved with the haunting of the male character, who, as a result, goes insane. We feel that this fits in with the convetions of Tim Burton. Often in his films there are male leads, therefore, we had a problem. However, we resolved this; whilst Snow White was still the main subject, we followed the story of the male character, giving him more of a physical role.