Request for Song Use

For the use of M.I.A.'s song we had to contact the record label to ask permission. This is a screenshot of the email that I sent to Interscope's dominant label Universal Music Group.

Feedback

We recently interviewed members of our target audience asking for their feedback on our current music video. some members stated that more black and white shots in front of the green screen were needed and less shots of the car. One member of our audience suggested that we film in an urban location, so like a skate park or somewhere with lots of graffiti instead of filming it in a school car park. Another member suggested that some of the green screen shots are jumpy and don't have smooth transitions. 

Audience Vox Pops

Flawless

We were given the task to recreate part of an existing music video. We chose Beyonce's 'Flawless' for this project.

The original video:

Our version (we recreated from 0:16 to 1:15):

Project Ideas

Pinterest Inspiration

We made 4 Pinterest boards:
Inspiration: http://uk.pinterest.com/louwebb92/inspiration/
Titles: http://uk.pinterest.com/louwebb92/titles/
Graphics: http://uk.pinterest.com/louwebb92/graphics/
Costume: http://uk.pinterest.com/louwebb92/costume/

Research of the Representation of Social Groups

Females

In our horror opening we are going to primarily focus on females. in our opening the girl is the only character (except for the child) who's face you see. Usually in film, women are very unrepresented. They are usually portrayed as a weaker character and a support to the male lead. In our horror opening we would like to contradict this idea and have a leading female. In lots of films with leading females they are either sexualised to appeal to men, involved in a love triangle or seen as an object of desire. They are the ‘ideal’ woman, flawed or developed women are seen as ugly and unattractive. the opening in our horror begins with a deceiving scene or what seems to be a girl begin intimate with sounds and actions that are associated to sex. Really, she is being inseminated with a child  in a hospital. this is ironic because it supports the stereotype of female protagonists when our film is going to do the reverse of that. 

Young Adults

Usually young adults are portrayed as carless, reckless, fun loving idiots. For young females in reality. there are any struggles with even the idea of pregnancy. The film possibly links to the debate of pro choice activists. Young people in todays society do not have a voice or valid opinions on issues that concern themselves. Our opening symbolises the surrounding pressures of society on the individual and how she has no control. 

Infants

We are purposely under representing infants. In a society, children can do no wrong. They are a symbol of innocence and purity. They’re also connected to the issues of abortion. we are half representing the baby to be an object but also something beast like, something with no conscience. In our horror opening the infant has portrayed as an undesired. The infant in the opening is the problem. 

Medical Personelle 

Doctors are trustworthy in reality, kind and caring. We want to subvert this. Like in Frankenstein, it is questioned whether the creature is the monster or the creator. Because no other characters faces are shown, it creates a sense of distrust toward them. Science will be seen as something that won’t necessarily save you. Science conflicts with the ongoing religious themes. 

Props and Location

Today we decided on the props we needed for our horror opening and location.

Treatment Feedback

Our group made an online chat on Facebook in which people of our chosen target audience could write feedback about our film treatment and poster. This allowed us to get opinions from individuals outside of our group about the ideas. The feedback we received was almost all positive.

The Surrogate Poster

Treatment

Name: The Surrogate

Genre: Horror

-Sub Genre: Parental, paranormal and psychological.

Target Audience: Arthouse, independent people aged 18+. People who enjoy psychological horrors and appreciate artistic works.

Outline:

Beginning-  Misleading close up shots of what seems to be a girl becoming intimate with someone. But she is really in a hospital preparing for her insemination. Shots like close ups of hands on sheets, skin and the bed create this effect. Sounds like heavy berating and heart beats would be included to mislead the viewer. It creates a very twisted image of this young girl. Continuous shots throughout would include dilated pupils to continue the medical theme. Skin colours will be used throughout to link with the body and they a quite dull colours.

Noises of drug use made using utensils inspired by Requiem For A Dream and Pink Floyd would also be used.

We would have clips of a false baby growing inside the girls stomach. We decided a good way to link to pregnancy but also make it scary was to use rubber to represent skin and have someone or hands pushing against the rubber. This makes what most parents would relish (their child kicking and moving) very strange.

The last shot in our opening would be a high angle shot of a padded cell or asylum taken with a fish eye lense. This long shot contrasts with all the close up previously used. The cell would be brightly lit compared to the darker other scenes.

Character Breakdown:

We didn't want to include may characters in our opening so we kept it to a bare minimum.

-The girl (She has no name, she is a nobody, a white young adult)

-The baby (Only see the baby once in the last scene of our opening in the padded cell which is a long shot so its hard t focus on the child)

-Doctors and Nurses (Never see their faces In the clips, one male doctor and 1or 2 females)

Visual Elements:

-Lighting: Flashes: light to dark  over the course of the opening, dull lighting,

-Camera Movement: Camera doesn't move only zoom and on the last shot in the asylum. Lots of close up throughout, some mid shots of the doctors (not faces) The final shot is an extreme long shot.

-Editing: Flashes and glitches, change lighting and colours.

-Setting: Bed, clinical hospital room, Padded cell or asylum, white or black plain backgrounds for close ups to focus.

-Actors: A pale (innocent looking) teenage girl, A baby or toddler, a male doctor and extra female nurse.

-Props: Utensils (for sounds) Syringe, rubber sheet, crucifix, moths, rubber gloves.

-Costume: Hospital dress robe, White t shirt, Black t shirt, White lab jacket, Rubber gloves, Hospital band.

Audio:

Utensils. strong bass throughout the opening. Drones increasing and decreasing in pitch mixed with sharp noises and whines. Babies crying and someone screaming.

Distribution

This lesson we did some research into distributors of films, companies, and how they are produced and distributed. We got some information about potential companies to distribute our film.

The Production of Films

Film-making involves a number of discrete stages including an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a film release and exhibition.

Production

In production, the film is created and shot. More crew will be recruited at this stage, such as the property master, script supervisor, assistant directors, stills photographer, picture editor, and sound editors. All other crew such as actors will most likely be requited in the pre-production stage. These are the most common roles in film-making but the production office will be free to create any unique blend of roles to suit the various responsibilities possible during the production of a film. A typical day's shooting begins with the crew arriving on the set/location by their call time. Since set construction, dressing and lighting can take many hours or even days, they are often set up in advance. The grip, electric and production design crews are typically a step ahead of the camera and sound departments: for efficiency's sake, while a scene is being filmed, they are already preparing the next one. While the crew prepare their equipment, the actors are wardrobed in their costumes and attend the hair and make-up departments. The actors rehearse the script and blocking with the director, and the camera and sound crews rehearse with them and make final tweaks. Finally, the action is shot in as many takes as the director wishes. The filming days can last up to 18 hours. At the end of the day, the footage is reviewed for continuity and the director approves of the next filming location. 

Post-Production

Here the video/film is assembled by the video/film editor. The shot film material is edited. The production sound (dialogue) is also edited; music tracks and songs are composed and recorded if the film is to have a score; sound effects are designed and recorded. Any computer-graphic visual effects are digitally added. Finally, all sound elements are mixed into "stems", which are then married to picture, and the film is fully completed ("locked").

Distribution 

This is the final stage, where the film is released to cinemas or, occasionally, directly to consumer media (DVD, VCD, VHS, Blu-ray) or direct download from a digital media provider. The film is duplicated as required (either onto reels or hard disk drives) and distributed to cinemas for exhibition (screening). Press kits, posters, and other advertising materials are published, and the film is advertised and promoted. A B-roll clip may be released to the press based on raw footage shot for a "making of" documentary, which may include making-of clips as well as on-set interviews.

Exchange is what the audience does with the film. There are many film-exchange buildings globally. Western Film Exchange was founded in Milwaukee in July 1906 by John R. Freuler and Harry E. Aitken for the purpose of mass-producing and distributing Western films to movie theatres throughout the American Midwest.

A few examples of film distribute companies are Warner Brothers Pictures, Paramount and 20th Century Fox. The companies have produced some of the most popular films to date, such as The Shining from Warner Bros. and Fight Club from 20th Century Fox.

I looked at the distributors of similar films to the one we are creating. Eraserhead (1977) was distributed by Libra Films International, however this film was made a while ago. I also looked at the more recent film Mama (2013) which incorporates the parenthood theme. Its distributor is Universal Pictures.

'The Surrogate' - The Title, Tagline and Pitch

We were given the task to create a 50 word pitch for our chosen idea, along with a title and tagline. We decided to develop our first idea titled 'The Surrogate'. We came up with two ideas for our pitch.


The Surrogate. An outsider in need of money. Living in a squat, life is already tough. Paid to subject in intensive experiments, she is inseminated with a 'child'. Living as usual, her unborn child begins controlling her. After growing concern she is sent to a asylum. The child is born.

An innocent 25 year old woman was willing to undergo suspicious scientific experiments with her unborn child, little did she know about the unseen sinister world she was about to step into, and that her life would become 'uncontrollable'

These pitches will not only be able to show what the film is about, but it will also help our group since it highlights the main themes of the film which we should show in our title sequence.

The tagline is 'Once it's inside, you're not coming out'

This is intended to outline the themes of pregnancy caused by an experiment and asylums.

We used Facebook chat to communicate with each other about our ideas to come to our final decisions. Lou also made a poster to create a feel for our title sequence, this is shown above.

Film Ideas Presentation

This was the presentation that we showed to the class to pitch our film ideas. We also showed our tumblr and pinterest accounts as well as a clip from Eraserhead that gave us inspiration for the atmosphere of our film. It connects with the parenthood theme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivqvobC9sm8

Presentation Feedback

In our film groups we were set a homework to present our two film ideas to the whole class. We needed to impress our teacher so we had to include a range of media and make it as detailed as possible. In class we presented our two film ideas together. We talked in detail about our inspiration and things we had gathered to come up with these ideas. Including this that inspired us, other films like ours and talking about our target audience. we made a powerpoint on these two ideas. Other members of my group made a Prezzi presentation showing other similar films and facts and statistics about them related to our target audience and age range. i made a Pinterest to give us some inspiration for our films and to make our presentation to the class more interesting. Another member made a tumblr again improving our presentation and giving us inspiration. We included videos in our presentation that we would like to base our work on. Our films ideas are show in the screen shots below from our presentation. The Pinterest and Tumblr boards are on the previous blog posts below. We handed out questionnaires to the class to get feedback from our film ideas and overall presentation. The picture above shows our findings.

Tumblr

Here's the link to our Tumblr blog - http://mediapitchblog.tumblr.com/

Pinterest Inspiration

 

Lou decided to make a Pinterest board on my personal account to get inspiration for our Horror sequence. It includes films We will take inspiration from and lots of scary pictures, real and fake with spine tingling stories attached. Pinterest is a good way to look at individual, interesting ideas for thousands of things. Pinterest can be used for lots of things such as finding art for school work in certain subjects or looking for inspiration on decoration or crafts and new things to try. It's a nice way to share images you've chosen in a aesthetically pleasing way. You can search for specific things and put them together so easily which I really like. Also following people who have similar interests to you or boards is a good way to expand your board and learn new things. Making one for horror inspiration gave us some ideas for colours to use, we also looked at other films we liked, costumes, typical horror lines from memes on there from Tumblr, locations e.c.t. We searched for things like horror and then went into more depth like particular films we wanted to take inspiration for our sequence from to create the board. (Some of the pictures/stories that go with them are quite unsettling, be warned)

Here is a link to the Pinterest board and the account.

http://www.pinterest.com/louwebb92/scary-truth/

Film Ideas

Art of the Title

In my group, we looked into an already existing title sequence, for American Horror Story which is a horror/drama television show. We did some analysis into the images shown (which is on the powerpoint) and also the timing of the titles. 

Link to the full intro: http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/american-horror-story/