Distribution

For one of our evaluation tasks, we have to research one company that is most likely to distribute our film. We have to take into account what themes our film contains, the target audience and also the age rating. We have decided to pick Revolver Entertainment as they make many films based on problems with young people which fit in with the drug problems of our main character.

Revolver entertainment is mainly based around Britain even though a few of their films have been based outside of the UK. This includes the french film Tzameti 13. This film like many others, contains some form of violence. The violent content in these films rely less on blood and gore, and more on social realism violence, like with gangs. Even though our film does not depict violence, it has a drug reference which is heavily influenced by films like Kidulthood.

Audience Feedback

Today our film opening was finally shown to the class, but before they saw it we gave them all pieces of paper which had questions on. After watching the opening they answered the questions and then handed us back the questionnaires. They looked like this:

Many of the questions required you to rate things out of 10, such as technical things like lighting and more practical things such as acting. I counted all of the research sheets up and found out the average result for each of them.

Camera Shots-6................Music- 7/8
Cuts/Transitions- 7/8.......Acting- 7
Lighting- 6.......................Locations- 8

There were a lot of spoken comments from students and teachers about what things could be improved and also what should be kept the same:

Positive Comments:

• The transitions felt natural and helped the flow of the scenes better. They did not look too sudden or dramatic.


• The title of the film was good, as it could mean many things because of its ambiguity. The font was also used well as it fit in with the theme.
  
• It was good the way the music was edited to stop when Freddie pretended to turn off the TV. This made it clear that it was diagetic.


• The Mad Apple logo was very well made and fit in with the opening well.

Negative Comments:

• Through the use of the lighting, the camera shots and the music, it felt too much like a thriller.


• The establishing shot of the house was zoomed in a bit weirdly.


• Some shots like the one with Freddie lasted a bit too long.
  
• The titles need to be consistent with the font instead of being in different styles.


• The music wasn't quiet and moody, but instead was too upbeat and dramatic.


• It wasn't apparent that the music was non-diagetic at the beggining, and it could have been muffled slightly.

Overall, our first version of this film got mostly positive reviews and many people thought that on a technical level our film achieved many standards, however they thought that in terms of traditional genre conventions, our film could have made it more clear as a social realist film.

After filming, our group had to split up into two pairs for the editing process. Sam and Freddie were in charge of editing the footage which meant doing things like cutting and changing clips to make the opening seem more professional. Me and Daniel had to make the opening titles and then layer them over the footage.

Me and Daniel were using a program called LiveType which was a program specially designed for making credits. We typed in things like who the cast were, the film name and production company. To make it appear interesting, we changed and animated some of the fonts to make them fit in with the theme of our opening. The cast names however were left in a normal white font which will be overlapped with a long shot in our opening.


Sam and Freddie were editing clips on a program called Final Cut Express. When they had nearly finished, me and Daniel imported the credit titles onto there and added our Mad Apple logo. We also managed to place our song over the credits. We were initially going to add a heartbeat noise but then realised it was a bit cliched and overdone. After we got the credits, we place them onto the footage.

Good/Bad Camera Shot Examples

This is an example of a bad shot due to the bad experience of the tripod. What was intended for this establishing shot was a zoom upwards tilt into the bedroom window but instead we zoomed in between them. In addition to this, the road was on a hill which went against having a straight and steady shot of the house. However we managed to achieve acceptable lighting conditions with the contrast between light and dark. We had multiple other problems filming outside though, such as passing cars, background noise and pedestrians walking past our scenes.

Our view is limited in this shot which is why it works well. It is a close up of the father's hand opening the door. This shot builds suspense and exaggerates the importance of what he is doing. The lighting was perfect as we could see everything clearly while still appearing continuous with the rest of the scenes. There was a good contrast between black and white here which is symbolic. This was a static shot which meant that it look neat and professional. The slight tilt of the door makes the atmosphere appear unnatural and uneasy.

Props

It is important for the mise en scene in the bedroom to suit somebody who is a drug user, so it should look bleak, intimidating and dark, instead of bright and colourful. It should also not look too much like a typical teenager's bedroom like you see on TV and in films, but it should appear as natural as possible. This means that we probably won't have to move a lot of things around as it isn't a set, but a few things can still be in view of some shots such as:

• Stereo
• Television
• Blinds/Curtains
• Posters
• CD's/Videogames
• Games Console

Many of the things listed utilise technology of some sort which is what teenagers like to use. By involving quite a lot of these things in some shots, it will show that he is an average teenager and it reveals what his interests are. No props for drugs will be shown as we do not want to make it too clear to the audience about what the character's main issues are. By showing that he lives in an under average area, a few things could even be placed oustide of the house so that we get some idea of his living conditions. These could include:

• A broken bicycle
• Scattered Rubbish
• Dustbins
• Cardboard
• Dead Plants

Locations

For our opening we will only be shooting in two different locations, which will be Sam's bedroom and Daniel's road. We are using Sam's room because it is much more suitable in terms of mise en scene, but also Daniel's road as it has a rougher appearance. This means that we have to be careful not to reveal the two different streets in our film opening. This could be helped by closing all of the windows in Sam's bedroom if his own street can be seen and not showing any continuous shots of the teenager leaving his home.

We wanted to start with exterior shots of a street so that it establishes where the opening is going to be set and it also gives information about the character's background, personality and even race. We wanted to end the establishing shots with a shot of the house which will be Daniel's. We then cut to the interior of Sam's bedroom. When we see repeated cutaways of the father coming towards the house, it will give the illusion that both shots are filmed right near each other when in reality they are much further apart.

We have chosen these particular places because we wanted to choose somewhere we thought would be "average" enough for audiences to relate to. This is why we chose a normal road. It is undecided if we are going to show a school in an opening to show that the teenager is a student. It will depend on the running time we got left, and also if we decide if it seems too obvious or not.