Re-shoot shooting script

After importing the initial footage we need add some shots in and re-shoot others due to sound and continuity. Obviously we will need to consider continuity and we intend to re-shoot the main poker game again using the following shots;

Panning shot right to left of players

Wide shot of dealer handing out cards

Mid shot of every player looking at their cards then putting the blind in

Close up of player's cards

Reaction shot of cards (smirk, etc)

Close up of flop

Mid shot of every player checking

Close up of Turn

Remind audience of everyones cards in relation to the flop

Mid shot of Shaun drinking to connote nerves

Over the shoulder shot of Eddy putting chips all in

Mid shot of Eddy going all in

Close up of Eddy pushing chips in (repeat same shots for every player)

Wide shot of all players going all in - one after another

Extreme close up of every players eyes alternatively

Close up of River (last card on flop)

Reaction Shot Eddy happy - 'read em and weep'

Mid shot of Eddy revealing cards

Reaction shot of Thug annoyed

Mid shot of thug throwing cards on table

Reaction shot of Shaun - initially looks worried

Mid shot of Shaun revealing he is winner

Close up of Shaun smiling

Wide shot of dealer giving Shaun chips

Over the shoulder shot of Shaun - Eddy says 'just take your shit and go'

Mid shot of Eddy saying the above

Shot of 5 of the same cards on table

Reaction shot Eddy looks surprised then angry

Over the Shoulder shot Eddy picks up cards

Mid Shot Eddy smacks the table 'that son of a bitch cheated!'

Extra Mid Shot of Shaun, Eddy and Thug - checking

Research

How did your research into institutions responsible for the production and regulations of the media influence your production work?

We researched similar film genres to see who was the distributor, the gambling film '21' used Columbia Pictures to distribute their film whilst '13 Tzameti' was distributed by Palm Pictures, a much smaller company who focus on innovative film. Our film is different in an unusual protagonist and motivation to most films of this genre, however our clip shows many similarities to such gangster films like lock stock and two smoking barrows. Our film is quite artistic with lighting effects, stop-time shots and breach of the fourth wall so is not conventional therefore a smaller innovative distributor or independent company would be appropriate.

How did your research into genre contribute yo your production work?

As we are producing a poker film it doesn't directly fall into one genre but mimics the conventions of various other genres such as gangster, gambling and drama. We were able to find snippets in movies such as 'Casino Royale', 'Rounders', '13 Tzameti' and '21' where we could research the genre and recreate this in our own film.

From our research we discovered that the shots they use in the high tension gambling moments were often a sequence extreme close-ups of the eyes, evident in the Russian roulette scene in '13 Tzameti'. By understanding the conventions in the films of a similar genre we were able to deliberately break them and subvert them for effect, such as the breach of the fourth wall - something we took inspiration from the Guy Ritchie films.

We found that gangster films often have a powerful villain who uses suited henchman to impose his will, and we used this in our film, we also created the typical smokey atmosphere. However our film also falls into the genre of a drama, and in true 'Lost' style we hope to introduce flashbacks mid-poker game. Therefore by researching the genre we were able to follow the conventions shown as well as deliberately subvert them for effect, however further research into poker games on 'Sky' and 'Channel 4' to understand the logistics and meta language of poker as well as the characterisms of the characters when bluffing or raising etc.

3. How did research into the audience help to the development of your film?

During the development and production of our film, we continuously encouraged feedback from our focus group, in order to receive positive aspects of our ideas as well as constructive criticism, this help us efficiently as we were able to get a no-bias response from individuals which gave us a sound indication and direction on where we could improve.

 we encouraged support from external factors on almost all occasions during the production. Firstly, when we came up with the current concept of our film, we asked a variety of different personalities on what their feelings were on the idea gave us solid material to work with. The potential audience originally rejected our first idea for a film, which was a football music video after being inspired by the previous World Cup tournament in South Africa. They believed that the concept would be 'hard to recreate' and 'potentially boring and would most probably be produced badly', this then aided us in agreeing with them and changing our idea and concept, to something for original and interesting. 

Shooting diary

First day of filming- Sunday 29th January

On our first day of filming, we situated the cast and group to our location which was the home of follow partner Sam Tyler. We converted his dining room into a poker scene, and attempted to create the dark, gloomy atmosphere that we wanted by drawing the dark red curtains, so the room was slightly tinted, which helped to create a misty and smoky environment. We also bought green fabric from a local shop, which was placed over the table, to follow in a traditional poker table set, this helped to improve the verisimilitude. Also, in the corner of the set, we placed a selection of wine bottles, spirits and cigarettes, to once again create the typical assets that are apparent in a back room poker game. Therefore, mise en scene was an important factor in our film, in order to make it more realistic and believable.

Whilst filming the poker scene, which makes up the majority of our film, we encountered various logistical problems but it was successful overall. We had to keep in mind not breaking the 180 degree rule, maintain continuity and make sure the shots are well framed and level.

We had several technological problems with the microphones as they didn't appear to be recording sound at a high enough volume, so we had to use the cameras built in microphones however we have little dialogue as most of it is narration which we will record after we have uploaded the footage so it won't be as big a problem as it was last year. Some shots we wanted to attempt weren't possible such as the 360 panning shot of the poker players as the room wasn't large enough to manoeuvre the dolly around.

On the day we made some changes to the plot such as introducing a prior game to the focal poker hand to remove 2/5 of the poker players and giving the audience a chance to see all our characters playing and lowering the number of characters involved in the final hand to intensify the action.

Overall I think the filming was successful and as we filmed using two cameras we were able to gather just under an hour of footage which should hold us in good stead for editing

Potential target audience

The audience that we are attempting to attract in our film is mainly the male gender, as a dark poker film genre is more likely to attract this type of audience as poker is a game typically played by men. We would also be interested in attracting people who have possibly been related to any of the events that occur in the clip, for example being a war veteran who is now down on thier luck, or maybe a loving wife who has problems with producing a child. This may attract this type of audience as they would feel like they arent alone and it would be something that they would personally relate to, and therefore they would get more out of the concept of the film and it would make it more meaningful for them.

Ancillary Task- Magazine film review



Above is our near finished film magazine review, as part of our second ancillary task. In order for it to be completed, we would replace the current image that is in the middle, with still images that would be from our film. The design of our review came from the inspiration that we got when flicking through the reviews in the Empire film magazines, a majority of them consisted of a brief description of the details of the new release, such as the certificate, when its released, the stars in the film etc, so we included this in the top left corner of the review. Also an interview from either the actors or the director was a frequent inclusion of the reviews from the magazines, and we thought that this would be a good idea, as we could create a mock interview with our film director, Sam Tyler, and then record it and retype the interview as part of the magazine.  

                           

After filming, we carefully analysed the footage that we had shot, in order to select the most appropriate still images, that would be included as part of our final film magazine review. The pictures that we chose consisted of the two main characters in our film as they are the most influential, and they would be the main advertisers persuading people to watch the film. In doing this, it was important to show the mental state of the characters, to enhance their current feelings and the importance of them winning the game. The top image shows Sean, played by Sam Panton, heavily drinking the last of his spirit, this shows that the game isn't currently playing to his favour and he is now feeling that he may need luck to get him out of this horrible mess, this then enhances the bad times that he is suffering and is now showing his desperation. In comparison, the bottom image show Eddy, played by Edward Wills-Wood, smoking a celebratory cigar, as he is playing the game well, and it is working to his advantage. The facial expression of his face shows a smug arrogance as he feels that he is the only winner in this competition, and he will do everything within his power to reach his goal. 

In order to complete the process, we simply saved the still images from our film footage on Adobe Premier Pro onto a J peg. From there we were then able to import the image onto our film review on Microsoft publisher.    

Aucillary task- narrative of the process

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZZ36lHYTes

To underline the process of the production of our two chosen ancillary task, we decided that we would create a different type of distribution where all three members of the group each narrated the process. Achieving this was simple, as we firstly videoed ourselves talking, and then uploaded the video on Adobe Premier Pro where we separated the audio with the video, by deleted the video line. We then imported the relievent images to match the description and then placed them together to make the clip coheivive.

Ancillary task- film poster

Using Microsoft Publisher we created a teaser poster for our film - 'Face Down' embracing creative darkness inspired by the film 'Buried'. We narrowed our choices down to three a portrait poster with a poker-lamp at the top of the picture and a landscape or portrait  poster without the lamp. After discussing the options between us we decided that the lamp looked out of place and therefore ruled out that poster whilst the landscape poster is unpractical for use in magazines thus we chose the portrait poster without the lamp (poster 2). We also decided to ask for feedback from a focus group, another media student in our group Phoebe Ward commented "It's really good, it shows you what it is about in the poster as the poker table is the central focus however it doesn't give much away". We also found that most of the people we asked liked the film name - 'Face Down'. Sophie Sinclair said 'I think it's good, but it doesn't give much away and the gambling genre wouldn't appeal to us' however teenage girls aren't the demographic for our film. We asked another media student, Ollie Kent, to give us some feedback he said 'It's brilliant I definately want to  see it when it comes out, however maybe the poker table should be higher'.