Continuity Editing

There are a lot of techniques to use when editing. It will make the movie run much more smoothly and can set a mood to our audience. We had nearly an hour of footage which we will have to condense to 2minutes. This will all be done through the editing process. We have decided to use the following techniques: -

- Matched cut. This is when the shot is filmed from several angles to show continuity.
- Jump cut. Abrupt switch from one scene to another which makes a dramatic point.
- Motivated cut. Cut made just at the point where what has occurred makes the viewer immediately want to see something which is not currently visible. This causes us to accept compression of time
- Stock shot. Footage already available and used for another purpose than the one for which it was originally filmed
- Long Takes. A single shot which lasts for a relatively lengthy period of time. The long take has an ‘authentic’ feel since it is not inherently dramatic
- Slow Motion. Action which takes place at a slower rate than at the rate it is in real life
- Freeze Frame. The gives the image the appearance of a still photograph.

Second Shoot Evaluation

On Saturday 22nd November at 8am our group met at Alex Days house to shoot the main scene of our opening sequence. We had to film in his garage.

The scene starts of with Brick (Justin Bishop) and Jimmy (Alex Day) entering the garage with Big Tony(Alex Fermor) kidnapped in the garage. We had to film Brick and Jimmy opening the garage from the outside and closing the garage on the inside. We already had a problem. Alexs car was infront of the garage which was not on the story board so we had to wait for his Dad to move the car. Instead of wasting time we decided to shoot the second scene. We were shooting for the edit. We took plenty of shots from all sorts of angles so we will have plenty to edit and it may mean we won't need any reshoot anything else.

We were going to put make up on Tony to make himlook as though he has been beaten up. We were also planning on making blood so it lookslike he was bleeding but before the shot, Alex Fermor got a nose bleed so we decided to keep that and film it. It was cheap and looked good.

At the end of the scene we needed to kill Tony. This involved swinging a golf club around his head but this could seriously injure him so we had to find a way of bypassing this and edit it to show that this was done in real time. The only way we knew of making this seem real was to film it slowly and then speed it up while editing. We did think about using a dummy but we figured that this would be expensive and we didn't have one on the day so we passedon that idea.

Institutional - Pre-production

Pre production

With the financing secured the full cast and crew are hired and detailed preparation for the shoot begins.

Once all the head of departments are hired the shooting script is circulated and pre production begins. The Heads of departments such as the casting director, editor, head of sound, director of photography, the production designer, the 1st ad and the line producer. The casting director with the director and producer begin the long process of identifying and casting the actors. An average film will have over 30 cast members so planning availabilities and getting the right actor for the right role is complex and challenging job. The story board is then created by the director, story board artist and director of photography. Story boards are the blue prints of the film where every shot is planned in advance.

The production designer designs every aspect of how the film will look, and hires people to design and build each part. Not all sets are purpose built, the location manger and his assistants will scout for locations that fit the design of the production and work with the director and production designer to decide which places to use.

Effects shots take much more planning than regular shots and can take months to design and build. Are large umber of shots in a film are achieved with special effects, both physical and digital. Each effects shot is modelled to ensure that it will look realistic, and it is decided which elements of the shot will be achieved digitally and witch with live action. The 1st AD, the lien producer and the production manager make up the key logistic triangle of the production

Preliminary Task (Conversation) - Pre-production

Before filming our conversation we were about to use equipment that we have never used before so we spent the first half of the lesson learning to use the equipment safetly and efficiently. We then proceeded to film our conversation within the school. First of all, we need to find a room. On the day of our filming, it was an open day for parents so there was a lot of people walking around the school so we needed to find a room where people would not be walking about and not making too much noise. We walked round several rooms but was unsuccessful until we eventually found the conference room by the science labs. This was a perfect location, there would be little noise due to the location and the room is a small enough room so the camera doesn't receive an echo when we speak.

Before we started filming we have already produced the a story board. During the making of the story board we thought we will be filming in the media rooms so our surrounding were different. We had to change several scenes to matched the surrounding of our room but this was a smooth change and did not effect any camera angles.

Overall I think that our conversation shooting went really well and smoothly.

Preliminary Task - Comment on Production

I found that the preliminary task went well because we managed to get some good shots and the recording went smoothly. During the first take when one was walking towards a chair we used our hands first to reccord but then realized it was jolty so we decied to place the camera on top of a cardboard box and slide it across the floor following the feet. During the filming people kept forgetting their lines so we wrote the lines on a board next to the camera so they could read them if they needed to remember. At frist we did not use the 180 degree rule until we realized that it needed to be done. Then we decided to re-shoot the scenes using the 180 degree rule and they turned out how we wanted them to.

Prop List

Prop List
> Suits
> Car
> Briefcase, with number lock
> Gun
> Table
> Chairs
> Cigar
> Lighter
> Sunglasses
> Coats
> Hats
> Scarf
> Leather Gloves
> Rolex


Location
> Garage/Warehouse
> Sevenoaks High Street

Lighting

> 10 watt bulb
> Lamps
> Car Head Light
> Street Lamps

First Shoot

Our first shoot was filming the car scene of our two main characters going to the bar to make a deal. We filmed the car travelling through Sevenoaks High Street and also through other regions of Sevenoaks. I filmed shots inside and outside the car in different shot angles. I tried not to get any people into the shot because of individuals looking at the camera which would make this look unprofessional. The shots that i recorded from the side of the car I ran alongside the car whilst it was moving. The car was moving at a very slow speed so therefore this makes the shooting easier. These shots were sped up on the editing so that the car looks like it was going at a high speed. I found this shooting reasonable because all I needed to do was record with the camera whilst my mom drove the car. I managed to get a lot of shots which made the editing easier. One problem i had with the recording was that the shots were quite jolty because of the car bumping on moving on the road but when put on the computer this made it have a rustic and natural effect when edited properly.

Pitch Feedback

Pitch Feedback

When making our pitch to the class we realised that some of the story line would not be suitable and we may not be able to make it to reality for practical reasons

During the making of the pitch we were involved in making a questionnaire. We wanted to see what plot will be suitable for a beginning of a British gangster movie. In our questionnaire people wanted to see Crimes such as robberies but as a group we decided that this was unpractical and would be difficult to film as it could potential injure the public so we decided to do a dodgy deal.

When we wrote our treatment we mentioned that we will kill a victim at the end of the scene but questions were raised as there would be no point in watching the rest of the movie as someone is killed and there is no sign of a plot. We need something that will draw the audience in the movie so we decided to change the script so questions will be bought forward which will be answered later on in the movie. This means that our audience will want to continue to watch.

Moodboard

Click on the image to enlarge.

Audience Research

Audience Research

As of the 6th November 2008 49 people have completed our questionnaire. We made our survey on http://www.surveymonkey.com/. This website lets us make a survey electronically so we are able to distribute it to a much wider audience via the internet. We chose not to print it out and give them to friends and family because friends and family usually have the same opinions so the results may be skewed. I put the links onto forums as this is meeting place for people with people from different places in the world and would give us a much better representation of our audience.

The reason why we made this questionnaire was so we can see what our audience are looking for in a British Gangster movie. We are trying to get the audiences point of view and try to inetgrate it into our movie so we will be making our movie for our target audience. The questionnaire contain qualitative and quantitive questions. The quantitive results were for us to intepret and use the results and the qualitively was to give us a general idea on what we would like to see as well as any other comments that the participants will want to make.

We will have to take responses from our target audience as their opinion counts most. 43 out of the 49 people were male; we only need to filter out the 6 females and 6 people were out of target age group. After filtering out the results, we are able to draw conclusions from the responses.

Our first question was “What type of people would you like to see in a British Gangster movie?” East End Londoner was the most popular with 36 people voting for it. As a result, we will include East End Londoners in our opening sequence. We have been watching movies such as Lock Stock and Snatch to find good examples of a typical East End Londoner. We found out that a cockney accent is common and it was also voted as “Very Important” in our questionnaire.

People expected to see Crimes such as Robberies in an opening sequence. This was most popular but as a group we have decided that this would be impractical and could be dangerous to us as well as the public so we decided to go with the second most popular which was ‘Dodgy Deals’ This is much more practical as dodgy deals are usually inside and we won’t have to be filming in the public which would attract an audience and people would look into the camera which would look unprofessional.

Institutional Context - Exhidition

Exhibition

Cinema exhibition is still the primary channel for films to reach their audiences and box office success equals financial success.

High profile premieres are usually held in all corners of the world. They usually include massive stars; this helps sells the film. Mega stars have fan bases that follow them religiously regardless of marketing. These people are going to bring a huge audience in its opening weekend. Even smaller stars will bring publicity and a huge hype but once people have seen it and the movie is dreadful then word of mouth will destroy it.

It is not only high profile singers and actors that attract an audience. Directors, writers and even production companies such as Pixar can bring a massive audience as they retain popularity
The UK has over 3,500 cinema screens. This ensures that the film reaches to all corners of the country and even films with a niche market can reach their audience.

The more screens the cinema is showing the film the more films they will need. Hundreds of copies are produced and distributed and then these films are rented by the exhibitors who are screening the film. Special companies have special departments for this the transportation of the film

Making prints of the film for the world is very expensive which is why they make a smaller number of prints and releasing the film in waves. As a result films appear in the UK a few months after the US as they need to be transported.

Box office performance is recorded and continuously used by the cinema to see which films are doing well. Films which are popular will be prolonged. If a film is under performing the cinema cannot ‘wait for it to become popular’ as it is eating into their profits. Box office gross is the money made by the film. Producers can check how much roughly they will make but most of the money will go back to exhibitors who screen the film.

Most big hit films will make a profit but in reality if a film is a hit the cost of marketing and exhibiting it means that the producer is unlikely to see a large profit. Instead the profits will come through other distribution ‘windows’ such DVD selling and TV broadcasts. This means there will be no huge overheads for the exhibition meaning the profit margin is much greater. The growing piracy rate is forcing these windows closer and closer together.

Preliminary Task

Institutional Context - Distribution

Institutional context

Distribution
The Distribution all starts off with marketing. The marketing process starts off with the Marketing team. They are the team that help the distributors to sell the film to the public. Whilst the marketing team is trying to sell to the public they need to see if the film they are selling has an appeal to the market, so they will run test screening which helps them to see where the film can go and also helps to show the audience reactions so they can have a better selling point. The film uses posters, cinema trailers, tv trailers and more to try to sell the film to the target audience. They will use appealing and funny parts of the film in their trailers to use as a strong selling point and they will use strong and heroic pictires in their posters so that when people look at it they feel that they want to know more about this film. The film can also be shown on the newspapers and magazines. The film can have the posters minimized onto newspaper size and then it can be sold through the newspapers because a lot of people read the papers daily. Also newspapers may write comments about the film, so they may write a positive review and give it good star ratings which might convince people to want to watch that film. Another way of the word being spread about a film is the internet. A lot of people use the internet every day so the film distibutors and marketers can use this as a positive and they can pay a lot for advertisements on key websites that a lot of people go on. Also they can put their trailer for the film on websites such as www.Youtube.com which gives people the opportunity to watch the trailer for free and then this may make them want to watch it. After all of this the Distributors have to sign a deal with the cinemas to be able to screen the film. Cinemas are always looking for films which will bring in a lot of people, but they also worry about their reputation too, for instance the odeon cinema did not play the newest Rambo movie in their cinemas due to extreme violence. But most cinemas will allow the movies that contain big actors/actresses because they know that these films will give the cinema a lot of money.