How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Adobe Premier Pro - Once the pre-production and filming stages of our project were completed, Adobe Premier Pro was our primary resource in creating our film. The majority of our film was edited and exported using Premier Pro, and by experimenting with the various effects available we discovered the ‘Luma Key’. We used this to provide a darker and gloomier hue to our footage, to further enhance the gritty atmosphere we were aiming for. We also used premier pro during the evaluation stage of our production to edit the footage for both the audience feedback section and ancillary task evaluation

Garage Band - We had a clear idea during the planning stages of the music and ambiance that we wanted to create for our film.  We used Garage Band to produce an original and suitable piece of music, a blend of jazz like rhythm and rock, similarly found in films such as Ocean’s eleven. We also wanted to create a more gloomy and dramatic section of music for the ending of our film, effectively helping to darken the tone and atmosphere.

Facebook - We utilised Facebook to obtain a wider range of audience feedback post-production. By posting our finished film onto Facebook we were able to receive a lot of helpful feedback, which has helped us to critically evaluate how successful our product is and the ways in which we could have improved it.

 

Microsoft Publisher -Microsoft Publisher was used to create both our Teaser poster and our magazine review. We firstly created the poster, utilising a black background and a minimalist approach to our poster to connote the ambiguity of our film, inspired by the poster for the film 'Buried'. We also used Publisher to create the magazine review, which we were inspired to create by prestigious magazines such as Empire and Total film. By using Publisher we were able to easily emulate a similar style, using font styling and text boxes to our colour specifications.

Adobe After-Effects - So that we could include a suitably ‘explosive’ Afghanistan scene, our group used Adobe After-Effects to add In extra sound, motion blur, bullet effects and the explosion. By getting footage of our main character running through an area that could (with some FX tweaking) be passed off as Afghanistan, the lighting was altered to create the effect of bright sunlight and heat.

Freesound.org - We frequently used www.freesound.org during our production stages to obtain appropriate sound effects. To create a realistic explosion for our Afghanistan scene we found a suitable explosion sound effect and the 'ringing in the ears' noise that we decided to use after the explosion for shock value.

YouTube - We also utilised YouTube as a quick and convenient way to upload our evaluations, finished film and pre-production tasks to our blogs. This was similarly helpful in uploading our production to Facebook, allowing us to gain useful feedback both from the social networking site and from any YouTube comments.

Prezi - To create a more diverse presentation for our evaluation tasks, we have used several different professional slide show creators and other technologies to respond to each question.
For example, we used the presentation maker 'Prezi' to create a much more interesting and diverse appearance to our answer. Prezi also allowed us to include photos, videos both ours and from YouTube and text to go into detail regarding our finished product.

Animoto - We also used 'Animoto' as a way to quickly and efficiently show the different technologies used in a short image led PowerPoint set to music. The free edition allows a 30 second video, and a wide array of music choices, for which we chose a hip-hop song as it suited the fast pace and effects in the animoto.

Panasonic NV GS230 - For the majority of our filming we used a Panasonic NV GS230 to capture our footage. It proved to be very easy to use, and efficient for our purposes, and the only criticism would be over the short battery life, which on several occasions interrupted our filming process, costing us valuable filming time. However, on the whole it was very useful, as it was portable, reliable and produced good quality footage.

Editing

When it came to the editing process, we started with around 40 minutes of footage, and the first task was to select the appropiate scene and individual shots in order to create a narrative.

Influenced by our music and footage we have made the decision to take further inspiration from the Guy Ritchie films such as 'Rock 'n' Rolla' by introducing the characters with titles, narration, freeze frames and some shots that summarise their character. Additionally, we are going to experiment with split screens to imply a busy atmosphere - these decisions mean that we are seemingly moving towards a more conventinal gangster film however it will exagaratte the contrast of the gangster theme to the underlying IVF theme that is very serious.

Additionally, we have used After Effects with the help of a more adept visual effects artist in the group to create a bomb scene in Afghanistan. We added an explosion and gun shots with a good audio to highten the verisimilitude

Sean- voice over script

Sean- voice over

I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly lucky guy

                             

Poker’s a game where luck can come in pretty handy. Take a look (shows his hand of two Aces). But believe it or not this isn’t the type of place I tend to visit often or at all for that matter. First of all, take a look at my fine co-players

That’s Eddy, he’s the ‘Boss’ around here, nothing happens without his say so...He’s quite the poker Player.

This Guy’s Tommy, he’s the muscle for Eddy’s operation, an expert at making people’s life a misery.

As for the others at the table, they’re relatively small fish, most of them junkies and gamblers in debt to the big man, especially the woman; she’s a piece of work.

 In fact, I’ve never met any of these people in my life before, thankfully. They’re not your average upstanding citizen.

You see, I come from a pretty normal background, at school I wasn’t exactly a genius, but I wasn’t thick either. I wasn’t the coolest kid around but I wasn’t a loser either. I was normal. But there was one thing in life that I loved. The army, it was my life. I was a rifleman in Afghanistan, and served 2 tours of duty. And I was good (Trails off)

But I was wounded in the shoulder during operations in the Helmand province; perhaps you’d like to see it

But I guess all good things come to an end. After that the army gave me a leaving present of a disability payment and an inability to work,

Shooting diary- Desert/Afganistan scene

Today we filmed a very short section of the film which will occur in one of Shaun's flashbacks - the shot is a point of view shot of Shaun running in Afghanistan and then falling back as the explosion goes off (an effect we will place in editing) to show how he injured himself. We used the location of the Verwood Sand hills as the setting looks fairly similar to the Middle East desert and it will be easy to adapt the colour/contrast settings in Adobe Premier pro. We cannot be too sure how the outcome will be until it is imported but we are hopeful that we can create the mise-en-scene of a war ridden Afghanistan - largely relying on the success of the explosion effect. We used a single camera, handheld and ran with it holding it at eye level to create the shot.

Filming day 2

Using the Re-Shoot Shooting Script we were able to film most of the shots that weren't of a good enough standard from the initial filming day. Continuity was a big obstacle - we had to attempt to recreate the same mise-en-scene that we had in the initial shots which was achievable in terms of the set and lighting however we couldn't control actor's appearance, but tried to mask this as best we could. To achieve the same lighting we used a loft light on the top of the door to bring up the light levels as it was naturally darker on the latter filming day. To have the drinks, chips and set in the right place we took several screenshots from the current edit and used this to re-create the set and urged our actors to endeavour to bring the same costume and with some characters grow their beard to a similar level for a more convincing verisimilitude. However, hair length was subtly different and one of our characters lost the black tie he wore in the initial filming and the best we could do was a black tie with white stripes. So varying hair lengths weren't scrutinised we took some shots of the character ruffling/re-arranging his hair to create the illusion that it is merely in a different position opposed to a different length. Overall we are happy with the shots and will look to further the editing and record the narration - we may have to expand the script to coincide with the footage.

Sound

For the creation of the soundtrack for our film, we used a combination of musical instruments, including funky bass and drum, emotional piano, rock guitar. These were used in order to create a dramatic, emotional and suspense effect. We took the inspiration to create this music from such films like 'oceans eleven', as the story line follows the same genre as ours.

During the editing part of the production, we attempted to combine the change in beat of music coraponding with a change in shot, for example in the 'stop time' effect, the drum beat came in to signify that he has successfully cheated when looking at his opponents cards, as we felt that this created good effect

The voice over effect was vital in our film as it is the part of the minor amount of dialogue that is evident in 'face down'. To do this, we took the individual with the accent that sounded like he was from the London area, as we felt that this would be the type of environment that is typical in a dark, gangster film. The process was simple as the individual recorded himself reading the script using a voice recorder, from there we imported it onto Adobe Premier Pro. Where we then deleted the recordings that was unneeded, or the ones where mistakes were apparent, and then we corresponded the relevant recording to the correct point in the shot.

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