Post-Production: Audience

The audience demofraphic we were aiming the film at was the teen audience possibly going as high as the mid to late 20's. We tried to make the film aimed at them by making the film about a group of teenagers, the story is relatively simple to follow when you take in to account some of the films that have come out recently (Inception). We also tried to make the subject matter something close to what the younger generation would know a little bit about.The drug fuelled underworld is a scene that only a few neo-noir films have tapped heavily into. We also tried to take elements from other films of the same sort of style, like 'Brick' and the last scene that was inspired by 'Bronson'.

Treatment (written by Rhys Waterman)

• Sound editing: The sequence we shot is fairly non-diegetic. We have focused on overlaying sound, instead of using the sound from the shoots themselves. We have done this to create a sense of motion in the shots, since the concept of the sequence is the chase. The idea which inspired our choice of music was inevitability, as we were trying to create an almost claustrophobic atmosphere, enabling our audience to truly share the protagonist’s experiences.
• Editing: the editing for our sequence is crucial on several levels. Primarily, the entire rhythm and momentum of our project is based within the cuts we have used. We have several fast cuts in the edit, in order to maintain a sense of motion and urgency, crucial to the feel of the chase sequence. We have also used fades to black to mask small continuity errors, meaning parts of our edit were remedial. The final cut switches from a shot in a tunnel to a close-up of the protagonist in low-key red lighting. We decided to use this shot as we felt it presented the urgency of the scenario to the audience as immediately as possible. The shot was inspired by the film ‘Bronson’, in which several sudden close-ups are used to present the titular character as a stark contrast from his surroundings and others within his environment.
• Cinematography: We are trying to make the cinematography interesting, and varied we are going to use a lot of straight cuts. And a couple of fade outs, we will be using this to show a passage of time, whether this is short or long will be shown in the next shot. We are going to use a straight cut to a different scene showing a deadpan shot to the camera, where the main protagonist does a short speech to the audience. This is the final shot in our sequence, but we do have plans to put titles in between shots, these are going to be either clean cuts used to show a transition between two shots. Or they will be fade cuts into the title card, used to show a transition, these could also be used to slow down the sequence if we run into difficulties, and can be used to cover up continuity errors. We have used this to cover up some of a shot we could not reshoot, making it an effective method of “damage control”.

Changes in Plans: Filming Stage

Originally we were going to just do a deadpan shot to the camera in the tunnel at the end. Instead we had an idea to make it more psychological, and gathered inspiration from the film "Bronson", in which Tom Hardy has points in the film where he deadpans to the camera in a spotlight often offering small concise descriptions of this point in time, or thoughts occuring to his character. Also due to the size and design of locations we had to change some shots to keep to the guide lines of the coursework.

AS Media Coursework: Plot Synopsis

Nathan, a small-time drug dealer, is found by a couple of rival dealers. He has been seeing Amy, the girlfriend of Jamie, Nathan’s rival. Jamie and his friend catch Nathan in the park, and chase him down. As Jamie runs from his pursuers, he reflects on recent events, largely involving drugs and Amy. Jamie realises that Amy has betrayed him, and decides that he needs to confront her, in order to clarify the situation.

(Written by Rhys Waterman)

Evaluation of The Exchange

Our exchange exercise was based around a "noiry" thriller with a hint of supernatural on the side. During the making of the project, I was largely responsible for acting in the extract, as well as doing some of the editing that was needed on the finished film. The acting responsibilities took up a lot of time on the filming side, but in the shots I was not in, I played a big part in capturing them on film. Particularly the first half, unless I was in the shot. Most of the shots that I shot were reasonably good technically, we were particularly proud of a shot that we managed to get Becca to walk to and sit on a bench, right below a hazy sun in the sky, with condensation on her breath, we thought this was very effective in ramping up our project. We did, however, have some continuity problems in the second half of the project; we could have made this look better by putting in an establishing shot, to show the movement of the character in the background. Overall during the film we kept to the 180 degree rule. From the exercise we learned to take as many shots as we possibly could, as in "its better to have too much than not enough". We also learned that we need to take our time with the story and use more establishing shots. We made use of a very good piece of music and were able to put the "stings" in the right and relevant places, to make it more effective. I think that the idea was very good, if slightly too complex for a three minute extract. We were given mostly good reviews, it was given good technical reviews, and the music was enjoyed particularly. Our project compares to the real thing, in the way of mood, and music, i.e. slow and moody. Overall I think our project was quite successful, but it needed a lot of work to make it perfect and would need a complete re-shoot. We hope to do better than this in our final project.

Exchange Excercise Brief

We have been asked to, in groups of 4 people, prepare, shoot and edit a sequence lasting around 1 and half minutes. The project we were asked to produce was to be called "The Exchange". We have been asked to produce the sequence in a neo-noirish style displaying some of the codes and conventions of the genre. We were also told that we must all contribute to all of the different stages of the production, meaning we must all help with paperwork, we must all have a go at shooting the project and we must all have a go at editing the piece.

Idea for a Film Noir Opening

Rough Synopsis: Beginning: Starts with a man carrying a package being followed by another man, gets robbed and killed.
Middle: Several killings and exchanges over the package
End: Through some sort of misdirection and deception, the first guy comes back and steals the package.
Detailed First 3 Mins: Man walking along the waterfront carrying a package (Carrier), being followed by another man. Carrier turns the corner, sees he's being followed start moving quicker, the killer starts to move quicker as well, we see the carrier running through the woods, being chased by the killer then the carrier stumbles onto the floor, and we see the killer pick up a rock and repeately hit the carrier with it, killing the carrier. We then see the killer throw away the rock, pick up the package and walk away from the camera.