Since our genre was urban, it represents young teenagers growing up in difficult/violent times. Therefore, the stereotypical view of 'Gangster" teenagers would be violent and aggressive as it shows on our media opening. It shows gang social groups, for example, young teenagers associated with gangs or groups of other young teenagers that commit crimes.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The use of the different types of media related techniques to produce the opening seen and the total experience of the of making the film helped us develop the knowledge of using real media products. Having our own deadlines and planning the films our selves gave us responsibility as well as organizing different meetings which allowed us to be and well prepared.
To research what type of opening scene and genre of film that would satisfy our audience, I created a questionnaire on survey monkey and gave the link to 42 people between the ages of 15 to 18 years as this is the age range that we want our target audience to be in. By using websites such as Facebook and Twitter I could recieve quantative data from people which could be very valuable.
This picture shows an example of what one of the questions looked like on survey monkey after all results had been collected.
By our results we have found that the majority of people enjoy action, thriller and horror films because the results were equally matched. As a team we thought of doing a crime, gangster genre type of film and put in the elements of an action/ thriller film into it. Also, due to the environment that we live in being near the suburbs of South London, it would seem more realistic for this genre of film to take place here.
We found our that the majority of people (54.8%) preferred if the opening credits were being shown throughout the opening scene of a film, so this is what we will try to achieve in the editing process.
78% of people that completed the survey preferred if there was lots of physical action involved so during our opening scene we will try to include some physical action, i.e, a very short fight scene.
The majority of people preferred if the main character would be male, but this could be an anomaly due to the fact that a higher percentage of male participants completed the survey. But the sex of the main character would be decided by the group depending on what type of film it’s going to be.
A vast majority chose for there to be 2 to 3 main characters in the film, so we must take this into account when creating our story.
So from this we have established that we want…
In my survey I was able to put in a few questions such as this one where I could collect qualitative feedback from my peers. This meant the information would have meant people could express their personal opinions however it would have been much harder to analyse.
An action/Thriller type genre
The film will be based in South London as this area is very easily accessible to us and we all live near each other
Opening credits to be shown throughout the opening scene
The title of the movie will be displayed before the opening scene
There will be physical contact involved, e.g. a short fight scene
Main character will be male because a male character is more likely to represent our type of movie
Scene starts of with our main character Damien riding his bike through his hometown. He rides past an alleyway and he sees a group of youths hassling/ robbing another young youth. Damien stops, stares for a few seconds but decides to ride off. Then after riding about 25 meters, Damien stops his bike and and while he's facing the camera, we have a close up shot of his face having second thoughts of turning back.
I had created the the production name with the aid of adobe effects. My limitations were that it had been the first time I had used this software at the same time it was a positive because it enabled me develop more skills in computer graphics and visual effects. But to create the piece was so time consuming, however as I progressed I had got a lot better and experienced in using the software.
Camera man- Anid Bytyci Damien Taze -Michael Oddoye
Youths-Graham Oddoye
Savion Bepot
Youth in trouble- Shey Hinds-meikle
This is the camera that we used to do our filming
All in all, the beginning of our movie starts off very well. Our inspiration came from movies such as Kidulthood and One Day where directors such as Noel Clarke are well known for using simple yet effective camera shots. As you can see in the video below titled "Kidulthood-blinded by the lights" there are many shots which are deliberately blurred to correlate in with the emotion through the song used.
Here in our opening scene we have created a head and shoulder shot which is deliberately blurred due to the footage being recorded with no tripod or dolly support. This gives it a "rough and grime" effect which the viewer will associate with Damiens personality.
The mise-en-scene was very important when filming our location. As we could not shoot it at night due to not having the correct lighting equipment this meant we had to shoot the footage in the day thus meaning colours would appear much brighter on screen. For example on the picture above there is a billboard displaying bright red and yellow colours. This would would intervene with the mood our scene has created before this shot as bright primary colours are associated with happiness and joy therefore it might cause the viewer to take the scene less seriously. Had this been thoroughly organised, the sign could have been temporarily removed to create a more authentic mis-en-scene.
Here in this emotional scene taken from a part of kidulthood (no copyright infringement intended) it shows the characters walking through the crowded city at night. Bright primary colours are kept to a minimum and this increases the viewers perception of dark gloomy colours such as dull browns and greys.
This is similar to our piece in terms of mise-en-scene, we had a location in which there were colours such as dark browns and greys which would create a thriller-type atmosphere.
The music that was used was very important as this would reflect the characters feelings and create a mood for that particular scene.
In our film treatment and opening scene description, the first part of the movie ends with Damien going back to help the struggling youth in the alley way. So we need to find a convinient area which would be quiet in the day so our filming will not get distrupted and so we dont have to ask the council for permission to close the area because that may take months and could cost us money as we would have to pay businesses in that area the money that they would usually earn for that period of closure. Also, because our opening scene involves a group of youths confronting a young teenager, people may become startled by this and may intervine in the situation or they may call the police. So a few filming in progress signs so the public do not become frightened by this event and we would have to research or possibly ask the council about rules of filming in our local area.
Conviniently, the members of our group all live pretty close together in Croydon and we cannot pick a location which involves travelling far, for example, in Central London because first of all theres many people there so our filming might be distrupted and if mistakes are made then it would be very costly and time consuming to keep having to go there again. Also, we would have to ask permission because there are many cameras in London and the camera operators may not be aware of the filming going on and Police may be callled.
A possible location is near my house which is located on Swain Road in Thornton Heath and one road away, there is an alley way which is ussualy very quiet.
This is the route that our group has decided for our actor Damien to take, and it was also chosen to match the shooting script. So the initial planned route is that Damien starts in the middle of Marion Road, crosses the road to Bensham Manor road, sees the group of youths confronting the younger teenager in the alley way and then decides to carry on, and then turns back. The alley way cannot be seen on google maps, but it's litterally just in front of Swain road.
Thornton Heath doesn't have the greatest reputation and isn't the most safest area in London, so we will need to take care of our equipment. Also, it would be wise to film very early in the morning, just after sunrise so there's less chance of our filming being distrupted by the public, and also our group needs to keep an eye of the weather so we don't miss any good filming opportunities as we dont have artificial lighting for the dark and also so we don't get caught up in the rain.
These were pictures that Anid had taken on his phone of the location we were going to use for our film. The images are taken in a typical South London borough. It was a sunny day so the original pictures came out very bright which is not the image that we want for our movie. This is because the genre is going to be a thriller type gangster movie, and bright colours would not set the mood for the movie. Next to every ordinary picture I have put an edited photo to see the difference of what it would look like in our movie. Many films have to have a coulor correction layer over them to give them that aesthetic "movie look" which makes it look much different to the original footage.
To create the edits, all Anid reduced the brightness, increase contrast and reduce saturation in each of the pictures. For our movie we would have to insert a colour correction layer over the original footage so it gives it a more professional look.
Equipment
This is the mobile phone we used in the screening
Music
The type of music used in this scene is a "grime" instrumental. Grime music is associated with culture mainly in South London.
This is the mobile phone we used in the screening