Reasoning for title

I have chosen A Skaters Paradise for the title. The reasoning, simply, skater reflects the background and lifestyle of our main character, and because paradise symbolises death etc. And our story is essentially about this one rural teens life and death. Which essentially is summed up in the first two minutes of the sequence. I feel it is a title that can work, as we have had many problems in deciding for the perfect title (Rough cuts may be called 'Skate'). But my final piece however will be with the new title idea.


A reason for the word paradise, is after research on 'Thesaurus.com' typing in words related to Death. Paradise was the only one which sounded less brutal for a title name. It can also connate to a dreamy word in that its a skaters dream/life etc. But what it actually means is death, however if you research paradise on Thesaurus.com death isn't related to paradise adding a subtle and slightly obvious enigma to our title.

Rough cut v2

Here is our updated Rough cut with our new Actor; Ruben Haywood
Evaluation to follow

Actor update

Due to unavailability of Felix recently and deadlines, we are required to and wish to film constantly. Unfortunately Felix couldn't meet these planned filming times, so we most likely switch to a new actor, someone who we know better and can ask skate and portray a skating role;

Ruben Haywood

Ruben Haywood is a lad we have asked, and he is willing.
We feel that Ruben is also more of a skater so can give a bigger influence and as he's better on a skateboard, it could workout well for us.
Unluckily Ruben did give us feedback on our piece but now he's in it, but obviously that feedback was before he will be in our piece.

 We hope to film with him tonight, update our rough cut and find it easier to get out and film.

This now makes it easier to film for us, and what I have learnt is, to use a reliable actor, and that you can't always expect to have actors constantly but its ideal to have someone who can communicate with us and give availability.

Codes and conventions of a film

Film distribution

 Film 4 is a British film distributor.

We have chosen film 4 because they have been in the film business for a very long time, they are also very successful and have distributed less well known films like sightseers, and have distributed both inbetweeners films which have a convention we wish to follow (Narration).

They have also distributed Trainspotting which is a British film which through distribution of film 4 became a bigger hit than expected, but this could be due to their use of actor;

Ewan McGregor
Key Actor in Trainspotting
Well known for 3 episodes
of Star Wars.

Ewan McGregor

Film 4 aims to develop new and upcoming British talent, and lead the British film industry. They wish to invest £500k per film at a film distribution of 20 films a year, this is important to us as obviously producing a British dram, we will need help to distribute our product, and who else better than film 4. One of British films main distributor who we can place trust to help market and exchange our product.

Roles in filming

Producer

J.J Abrams - Producer
Star Wars

This person is essentially the group leader and is responsible for managing the production from start to finish. The producer develops the project from the initial idea, makes sure the script is finalized, arranges the financing and manages the production team that makes the film.
The producer also coordinates the filmmaking process to ensure that everyone involved in the project is working on schedule and on budget. Without the producer at the helm, films do not get made.

George Lucas - Director
Star Wars 

Director

The director is primarily responsible for overseeing the shooting and assembly of a film. While the director might be compared to a novel's author as a film's primary visionary, he or she would not be able to make the film without the help of numerous other artists and technicians.
In fact, the notion of the director as an author is misleading because it assumes the director, like an author, does everything. A director works at the center of film production, but is inextricably linked with dozens of other people who get the job done together.

Carrie Fisher - Screenwriter
Postcards from the Edge
Also a Star Wars actor

Screenwriter

While the dialogue in a film may seem natural to the viewer, a writer carefully crafts it; however, the screenwriter does far more than provide dialogue for the actors. He or she also shapes the sequence of events in a film to ensure that one scene transitions to the next so that the story will unfold logically and in an interesting way.
Like the producer, the screenwriter's role is generally overlooked by the movie-going public, yet is essential to the completion of any film. If there is no script, there is no movie.

William Cameron Menzies-
Came up with production design

Production Designer

Before one inch of film is shot, the production designer is the first artist to translate the script into visual form. He or she creates a series of storyboards that serve as the film's first draft.
A storyboard is a series of sketches on panels that shows the visual progression of the story from one scene to the next. Creating this sketch of the film on storyboards also ensures the visual continuity of the film from start to finish. Storyboards serve as the director's visual guide throughout the production and will be a template to follow during the editing process.

Stuart Craig - Art Director
Harry Potter

Art Director

The art director is responsible for the film's settings: the buildings, landscapes and interiors that provide the physical context for the characters. This person is responsible for acquiring props, decorating sets and making the setting believable.

Kath Janie Bryant - Costume designer
Mad men and Deadwood

Costume Designer

Costumes convey a great deal about the film's time period and the characters who wear them, including their economic status, occupation and attitude toward themselves. Be sure to think about how costuming can show something about the character visuality.

Wally Pfister - Cinematographer
Batman, Inception & Italian Job

Cinematographer

The director of photography, or DP, is responsible for capturing the script on film or video. The DP must pay attention to lighting and the camera's technical capabilities.
When the director wants a shot to achieve certain visual or atmospheric qualities, the DP achieves it through his or her choice of lighting, film stock and careful manipulation of the camera. This craft is referred to as cinematography.

Mary Jo Markey - Editor
Star Wars
Mission Impossible

Editor

Shortly after shooting begins, the editor begins to organize the footage and arranges individual shots into one continuous sequence. Even in a single scene, dozens of different shots have to be chosen and assembled from hundreds of feet of film. The editor's choices about which shots to use, and the order in which to place them, have a profound effect on the appearance of the
final film.

Liam Neeson - Actor
Star Wars, Schindlers list & Taken

Actors

Responsible for portraying the characters in a film, actors work closely with the director and cinematographer. Considering an actor's role within this larger context also suggests that his or her job is much more difficult than just appearing on the set and reciting lines.

Music Supervisor/Composer

John Williams - Composer
Star Wars, Indiana Jones & Jaws

Emma Watson - Actor
Harry Potter & This is the end

Music has been an integral part of movies since cinema's earliest days in the 1890s. A piano or organ player accompanied even the simplest silent films. The silent movie palaces of the 1920s were equipped with elaborate organs and orchestra pits to accommodate large groups of live musicians. Today selecting just the right music for the film will intensify the story for the audience.

    

Practising establishing shots

Recently I went on a little venture around Ottery (Our place of film) to practice my camera techniques and apply composition into my shots. But also to gain some establishing shots for our final piece. (Which after Liam edits will soon be on my blog).

 This first shot wasn't on our animatic and it was never intended until I felt it could work quite well, the light gives the shot more effect as it increases the texture and could be perfect for our opening credits, it is not guarantee that we use this shot, but the texture aspect makes it a possibility.

I feel it is a good still shot, however I did intend to pull focus as we want to begin our sequence with a pulling focus.

This second shot also wasn't on the animatic but at the time everything just looked right and I felt it was necessary to take. It simply creates a calm atmosphere, I also think it would work quite well or our opening of the opening sequence.

This shot for me was smooth and nice, but it is a little blurry at points, therefore should me and Liam plan to use it, we will either have to cut it down or re-film it.

The final shot once again also wasn't on the animatic or storyboard, however it is similar to one of our animatic shots of the church. We wanted something to emphasise the silence and signifiers of the church, and had we use the original planned shot, there would have been a wall in the way. Therefore it would be easier to go onto the church grounds and shoot a pan across the grounds. This will help the emphasis of the signifiers of death and silence which are conventions of our piece.

This shot was better than the ones in front of the church, simply as it is looking into the light, giving a better view of the church and the ground compared to the planned shot from the animatic.

Overall evaluation:

These shots I feel are good, they're smooth and would work well. However, in places they loose a little focus which could influence it badly. The lighting gives them texture which is certainly is effective for composition, I also chose these shots as they are potential shots I wish to use, I will just need to ask for peoples opinions on how they think the shots are.

Location and areas of filming

Here is an aerial view of Ottery (Our place of film) The coloured lines represent the areas we plan to film in, smaller circles represent indoor filming or one place only filming. The larger lines mean there will be a majority of shots taken. The red line (explained why red below), is our riskiest area as we will be skating there and using tracking and dolly shots on roads where risk assessment will be CRUCIAL.

Red - Area of filming with potential risk
Yellow - Potential area of filming with no potential risk
White - Area of filming with little to none potential risks

Ident update

As I-dents are crucial for identifying a film company, our i-dent needs to be eye-catching and relevant so that it brings in an audience and people recognise our work by our I-dent.


Me and Liam have only encountered two I-dent ideas, these being

• FatCat productions
• Black sheep Productions

FATCAT productions was an idea made in 5 mins, clearly it stands out more, but with disagreement in our group and being told it wouldn't be relevant to our drama, we went against it. There was no reason or synopsis behind it, it was a rushed idea. I feel it turned out well and looks good, but its not completely relevant.

Black Sheep Productions is our final idea, and for many reasons both words have hidden meanings behind them and they fit quite well. As we are doing a drama which can be either dark or sad, we have used black as it symbolises Evil or bad things - Skaters in todays society (even though they aren't) thats what the media makes us believe. It also symbolises death which we aim to achieve in an enigma, deaths also symbolised by our opening shot of the church swell as the colour black in our i-dent. Black also applies to fear and mystery, mystery being whats happening to our main character, and fear the wayne will be presented. The sheep essentially just represents our character, as it symbolises innocence, vulnerability (will be backed by high-angle camera shots). Sheep's also represent social norms, and we are following the social norm of a skater in an unconventional way in that we will portray skaters how the media don't to gain sympathy for our character.

Audience feedback

Audience feedback on our rough cut

Both Ruben and Dylan work on different areas of filming where as Cameron and Matt are just a target audience, we asked them all to watch our rough-cut and evaluate here after.

 Here are their responses; 

(The quotes under their images were said whilst they viewed our piece)

Ruben Haywood (Filmer)
"Im a fan of some of these very high
quality shots, particularly the crab shot.
 Rule of thirds was done well!"

Ruben Haywood - 

Positives: Good variety of shots, editing is smooth, works well I can tell a lot of research went into this, strong piece with potential.

Negatives: A few errors with mise-en-scene, some rocky camera shots, very dim lit and a lack of sound.

Favourite shot: The shot behind Felix is nice, but that crab-shot is high quality, great composition deffo my favourite shot.

Improvement: Re-film some of the darker shots at a lighter time of day as well as the shaky shots, ensure your mise-en-scene is relevant as I spotted christmas lights, its now nearly Easter - if mise-en-scene can be sorted there will be more potential in this piece.

Dylan Fielding (Editor)
"The editing is fantastic, so
much so that the shots slide
together perfectly looks like
a very good piece!"

Dylan Fielding - 
Positives: Editing is certainly good. Some good camera work with particular shots. Can sense the vast research gone into shot preparation.
Negatives: Some shots can be shaky which can impact overall level, there is a lot of unrecognised miss-en-scene which will affect this piece.
Favourite shot: Particularly the crab shot, however the zoom on the clock for me is a key shot, very focused and effective
Improvement: Pay attention to mise-en-scene! Maybe redo some of the shots as it appears very dark and can give a mixed feeling of a horror and I'm sure thats not the genre you guys are aiming for.

Matt Parker (Audience)
"Have you ever heard the story
of 'The Inbetweeners?' This
seems similar, just a little
less...   Funny."

Matt Parker -
Positives Certainly a clean product, flows smoothly gives a great insight as to what is going on.
Negatives: Very dark, quite christmassy despite it not even being christmas.
Favourite shot: When the cupboard opened, I certainly felt the shot was effective and smooth
Improvement: Obviously the lens flare needs to go! Possibly refill a few shots (where the lighting is poor) could maybe do with some more editing in places to increase the smoothness of the shot transitions.

Cameron Phillips (Audience)
"With some improvement
I see great potential"

Cameron Philips -
Positives: Looks good, some well thought out shots.
Negatives: The lack of sound makes this a little confusing as to what is going on, very dim lit as well, couple of minor errors like the lens flare,the shaky shots and obviously the christmas lights.
Favourite shot: Has to be the one in the cupboard, don't see many of these kind of shots today in film, and your one fits in well with the sequence
Improvement: Obviously this isn't final but there is plenty room for change, perhaps add sound to make us aware to the situation of this character. Increase the lighting and re-film the bad shots (shaky and lens flares)