Music Video and Genre for our song

We have decided our groups genre is going to be 'Rap/RnB' as we are very fond of the idea of using Eminem and Rihanna's duet "Love the way you lie" as it fits our storyline perfectly.
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Final Film!

After months of editing and filming and a lot of hard work, we have finally finished our 2 minute film.




FEEDBACK

We managed to attract an audience after assmebly to come and asses our two minute films and give us positive feedback on what they thought.

The comments were as followed;

"Good opening music. Loved the typewriter and there was great timing running over the bridge. The whole film was attention grabbing with dramatic music"

"The metropolitan police bit made it seem more creepy and realistic."

"I enjoyed the haunting music playing throughout the film. I liked how the music box dancer transformed into the ballet dancer at the end."

"Use of the typewriter makes it seem like it is a real case."

We are pleased that our audience enjoyed our film.



This blog is now closed.

Final day of filming

Today we managed to film a potential ending to our film. Although this was a late decision to add in the "24 hours later" clip, we thought to make the film more interesting, we would have a scene of the ballerina waking up in the morning ready for a long day ahead of her. As she wakes up to her alarm clock, we zoom in on the alarm clock with the ballerina pressing the snooze button and then cut to another shot of the girl waking up and getting out of bed. She then mutters as she wakes up, complaining of the day ahead of her, unconscious of what is about to happen.

We included a close up shot, medium shot and extreme close up in our film, and also managed to film an over the head shot but this doesn't seem to fit into the other clips once edited.

We went back to school after filming at lunch and managed to edit the clip quite fast. We added the 'Dream' effect to make the next day seem eerie and fresh, and to give the audience the impact that she has just woken up to a fresh day, unaware of what a terrifying day she has ahead of her, making the audience feel slightly guilty as they have previously seen what she has to go through.


I think this clip we have added at the end ruins the audience's own imagination of what happens in the rest of the film, so after much deliberation, my group and I have decided to leave the film as it was without the scene of the "24 hours before" and leave it at the jaw dropping ending when the two characters come face to face with one another.



This is what our film would have looked like.

Evaluation

Evaluation for The Music Box

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Final ending to our film

After months of having our film looking like a trailer, we have finally managed to produce a 2 minute film opening. It has been so difficult trying to end our film, but not completely end it, but thankfully we have found a way.

After the car park scene, we have the Music Box credits introducing our film as the music box ballerina spins with an overlapped image of the ballerina spinning to add to our editing techniques. Then after that, the black screen appears with "24 hours earlier" to make the film seem as if it is starting and to justify why the girl was on the run from Billy, and also to suggest that the film started with the ending and is now going to go back 24 hours ago and explain the storyline in further detail. The sound of this clip is an alarm bell ringing that starts in the middle of the 24 hours earlier clip to suggest the morning.

We also found a CCTV look a like to add to our grainy clip of the stalker inside his "den". We decided to add this to our film, as we have always been in two minds whether to keep the scene, as it was so grainy as our night vision on our camera did not come out as well as planned. This new edit looks a whole lot better as it suggests to the audience that the poor pixels in the film are from a CCTV camera.

Changing the beginning

"MURDER IS LIKE MUSIC TO MY EARS"

These are the 'famous' words we have inserted into our film to confuse and disorientate the viewers. When I saw it actually built in to our film, it really gave it that professional looking effect. After much debating, we all agreed that it looked far to much like a trailer, especially by having "The Music Box" appear at the end. Then thinking about, no film that we had looked at in class, or ever seen, has black images with text on unless its a trailer. Although we didn't want to throw all their hard word away, we felt we all needed to go and fix it as it just didn't look right and we thought by going against the exam specification, we were putting ourselves at great risk of losing marks.

The montage of all the fast clips we deleted, lasted around 23 seconds as so we had to create something new and exciting to take its place, but being based on credits as we now had long enough to introduce some, with it still fitting in time with our music. We then inserted 4 black screens and introduced our credits as follows:

1) " A S.E.E.N Production" - S.E.E.N coming from our four initials is a unique film company we have made up in order to make our film look professional, yet still unique to our group at the same time.

2) We originally had "A Fox film" so we then changed it to "A Jackal Film" and almost mocking the 21st century fox productions as a Jackal is another similar animal. We changed it again mostly for individuality to our film and to avoid copyrighting issues.

All these clips individually lasted around 7-8 seconds and so fitted in time with the music perfectly when the black and white type writer is seen.

As we now had changed the ending, we wanted to still give off a eerie effect and so when the ballerina is shown panicking in the car park right at the end, and Billy just appearing behind her. It somehow gives the viewers a shiver down their spine as it is left to the viewers own imagination to what he does with her.

Deleting the blood scene

Even from the start of our filming days, our group has always been confused whether to keep the "blood scene" as it implied to the viewers that the murder was a killer, who was no doubtebly out to kill the ballerina some time soon!
After months and months of debating whether or not to keep the scene, we have decided to leave it out of the film as after showing it to friends and family, they were always unsure as to why the blood was there, and where it came from. We decided to delete it is as it seemed unnecessary and didn't even show of great camera skills as all it was was an extreme close up.

One thing we did particularly like was the blurriness of the shot at the end which was perfect to fade into a shot of the ballerina afterwards. So, instead of getting rid of the whole clip, we shortened it down to 0.3 seconds and added it to the montage of clips at the beginning of our film opening.

Changing the opening credits

Neelam and Emmak came up with an idea that they had spotted on one of the DVD starting screen when you go to press "play". They said it looked like newspaper cuttings of some sort that spelled out the word "MURDER" which kept flashing up over different images. They felt that this fitted our film and so adapted it to the phrase "MURDER IS LIKE MUSIC TO MY EARS" as this fits with the theme of murder and the theme of the music box from our film. We decided to use this in our film because the fast pacing clips that was usually at the start of our film, seemed clear to us that it was more of a trailer than an actual 2 minute opening.

So, they inserted black screen in between the pre-made montage of short clips at the beginning and each one lasting between 6-7 seconds. Then however, they had the tricky task of making it fit the music we had previously perfectly edited to fit in time with the part of the film when the black and white type writer begins to write "The Music Box" when the heavier part of the beat begins. They took calculators and divided the length of the time by the number and lengthof black screens they had inserted and so after a long process, they eventually made it fit perfectly.

Copyrighted Music

Now that we had an almost perfected our 2 minute film opening, our main issue our group had to face was tackling the whole music issue. We had been told by Miss Foster that we had to make our own piece of music and that if we were to use a piece that already exists, we would lose marks as this would be going against the exam boards specification.

We were searching on YouTube to help us with our Garage Band music, when we came across an excellent piece of music which had been created by a person with the YouTube name of "red hook noodles". We went on his YouTube "channel" and came across this piece of instrumental music.


Once we had uploaded the music to itunes then garage band, to make it our own, we had to split the clips up and edit it to fit our film.


We then experimented with different sounds that could be overlapped. We also remembered a technique we has learnt at the Garage Band trip that was you could make the music fade in and out at different points. So, when the image of the real music box is shows, we had previously recorded that sounds and pout it on our film and as we didn't want the two sounds to clash, we faded out the basking track so that the music box sound was heard clearly.

Discovering Extra's

As I was exploring the mac, and its features, I come across a settings buttons and you can click on "imovie preferences". Once clicked, there is a whole new range of tools that can be used on editing your film. If we only we had discovered this earlier!

Tools include things such as overlapping clips, blue screen and green screen and also being able to edit the colours more specifically on a clip of your choice. So now having these extra tools, we are able to improve our film even more.

Justification of the title 'The Music Box'

The main reason why we decided to call our film the Music Box is because our Rapist, Billy, has an obsession with ballet dancers and usually in music boxes there innocent ballerina's, as it is commonly known for many little girls that want to be ballerinas when they grow up. We have then taken this symbolism of this toy and completely transferred it around into something dark and creepy as a prop associated with a killer.

The music box is shown in many points of our film, so that is made sure it is a key component to not only the film title, but as a symbol of Billy always being around me (the ballerina).

It is shown as a symbol of control when Billy is sitting in the car and it lies on the dashboard. When he slams it shut, the ballerina falls over whilst in dance practice and this shows that he is almost controlling her every move. It is also shows discreetly when I am running through he underground car park trying to escape from Billy and she casually runs past it. We played this clip on slow motion so the audience begin to realise that "The music box" is a symbol of Billy's where about.

Introduction to our film opening

I recently visited the cinema and watched The Bounty Hunter and noticed a green screen that comes up in almost every film certifying the film. I thought this idea would be a good idea to make our film seem more of a opening to a film than a trailer, as we have recently realised that our opening to our film is too much like a movie trailer.

This is the American version of the green screen. For our version of it, we have changed the wording to United Kingdom and changed the websites at the bottom of the screen to our own websites.

Testing my blackberry

I am testing my blackberry to see whether I can blog through my phone
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Film Critiques

I recently watched the films 'The Hurt locker' 'The Departed' and 'Law Abiding Citizern. Both films come into the genre of thriller, The Departed and Law Abiding Citizern more so than The Hurt Locker.

I absolutly loved watching The Hurt locker as it was based on real footage from Iraq following a US army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team which at some points in the movie I found this quite discomforting. For instance, there is one scene where a soldier goes to disarm a range of bombs strapped to all areas of an abandoned car in a car park.

The athmosphere is very tense as the newly assigned soldier 'William James' has a reputation of being a "dare devil" as in the last raid, he took off protection wear and disarmed the bomb without the protected suit provided. As he walks slowly towards the armed car, he turns off his radio, which causes major concern for his fellow soldiers assigned to keep watch, and so raises alarm. All the assigned soldiers throughout the film has to learn to deal with James' laid back attitude, as he disarms many bombs and meets a variety of good and bad iraqy peoplr.

The film is amazing to watch as it gives you an insight as to what goes on in Iraq, alongside showing you the horrors of war and that there are so many jobs involved, I didnt even realise was aceptable for humans to do! Even in this picture, you can see the soldier putting his life at risk pulling out buried road side bombs! How scary!

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I also watched 'The Departed' with an all star cast; Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, MArk Wahlberg.

The film is about two just-graduated officers from Massachusetts State Police Academy who follow opposite sides of the law: Billy Costigan is assigned to work undercover with the Irish mobster Frank Costello to get evidences to arrest him. His true identity is only known by his superiors Dignam and Oliver Queenan. The protégée of Costello, Colin Sullivan, is promoted in the Massachusetts State Police and is the informer of Costello. Each police officer gives his best effort trying to disclose the identity of the other "rat".

Each man becomes deeply consumed by his double life, gathering information about the plans and counter-plans of the operations he has penetrated. But when it becomes clear to both the mob and the police that there's a mole in their midst, Billy and Colin are suddenly in danger of being caught and exposed to the enemy-and each must race to uncover the identity of the other man in time to save himself. But is either willing to turn on the friends and comrades they've made during their long stints undercover?

This film was a light hearted, witty thriller, a lot different to The Hurt Locker, and i thoroughly enjoyed watching it. There were good camera shots when both Billy and Colin are running away from the police and Costello, splitting the screen and dramatic effect was added through the tense sounds and sudden movements.

Loved this film!

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I also watched the film Law Abiding Citizern which blew me away. It was full of twists and action which kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the whole film. The plot was magnificent and I definately rate it 10/10 to watch! here is a rough summery to the plot..

One night two robbers invade his Philadelphia home and brutally kill his wife and daughter, and almost kill him. The killers are caught, and Assistant DA Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) is assigned the case. Nick is ordered by the DA to make a deal with one of the killers to testify against his partner for a 10 year plea bargain prison sentence. Clyde doesn't want Nick to make the deal, but Nick says it was too late and the deal is done. The other killer got the death penalty. After 10 years, the other killer is released from prison, and he soon ends up dead. Clyde is arrested and kind of admits to Nick that he did it. Clyde is put in jail, and he warns Nick that he must fix the broken justice system that failed him and his family or else anyone connected to his case will soon die. Even from jail, Clyde's threats become a reality, and Nick must stop Clyde before his family is next.

Definately the best action film I think I have ever seen! Loved It

Rough Edit 6

Here is near enough our finalized film. The Music Box. We have added music, sound and lighting techniques to it to make it seem more professional. This is the first time we have managed to upload our film to youtube via iMovie and so the quality is a lot better, than normally using our mobile phones.

We adding in the ending of the music box spinning as it blurs and your can see the writing. We still need to change the writing, as we were just experimenting with the transitions. Since I liked the black screen with the scary writing on it better than the music box spinning we used both and added "A Universal Studio Film" which may be changed later to show who's producing the film. We then had Billy at the end lifting his hood up to show that he is on the go to "kill" again.

We also noticed as we were watching the film was that we analysed it in depth. For example, as Billy is winding up the music box, the light in the car goes out. This light could symbolise the dancer as in she's dying out. Also the music is a cycle music, to show that his killing streak is ongoing.

After watching Jess' group, we realised that there was more advanced things you could do on imovie by going onto "imovie preferences". This showed us how to overlap to shots, what we've been trying to do for ages, and how to put a green screen etc. So next time we're all together we will experiment with this.

Credits

As you can see from the above clip, the credits appear on the fast paced moving clips that we created. We thought that this was the most appropraite place as it doesn't take your mind too much off of the drama. After watching "The Panic Room" credits, it has insipred my group to come up with credits that mean something to our film. . We then thought, most credits are in capital letters, for example, The Panic Room and Saw. So we therefore changed the names to capital letters.

After this session, Emma thought of a way that our credits could represent our film. She thought that as the name appeared after a few seconds it can be crossed out with a strike through. This will make it seem as if all of us were victims on Billy's list, and we've been killed and thus crossed out. She came to an obsticle thinking of this however, as the text cannot become a strike out gradually to look like someone's crossing it out. It's either crossed out or not crossed out. Hopefully we can find a way to create this effect and our credits would have a meaning.

The September issue - Magazine Research

I recently watched The September Issue, a documentary film about the behind the scenes drama that follows editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and Vogue Magazine.It was directed by R.J. Cutler, and produced by Eliza Hindmarch, the film follows the making of the 2007 September issue. The film revolves around the making of the Vogue September Issue '07. The audience sees the trouble that goes into making the magazine, and the true passion that Grace Coddington, a former model turned creative director and the only person who dares to stand up to Anna Wintour, has for the highly regarded fashion magazine. In the film, Grace is often portrayed as the leading victim to Anna's aggressive personality. However, the relationship between Wintour and Coddington reveals itself to be highly symbiotic as Coddington's expertise and keen eye for fashion is proven when most of her ideas are printed in the final copy of the September Issue due to Wintour's final decision.
This film showed you the ins and outs of the fashion magazine lifestyle showing the harsh realties of the fashion world analysing the personal lifestyle of the editor Anna Wintour.

This documentary really seeked my attention as it made the magazine industry seem so much more real to me and made me feel that I could understand the lifestyles of the fashion world and how magazines are portrayed and targeted to certain audiences around the world.

Classification research for our film

We have been researching classifications and had to classify our own films. We as a group decided that due to the use of flashing images, scary music and suspenseful chases in our film "the Music Box", we are going to classify our film the certificate rating of a "12A". Meaning that it can be watched by any age, but if you are under the age of 12, it is recommended that you have an adult with you (over 18) due to the content of the film.

12A/12 –
Suitable for 12 years and over. Exactly the same criteria are used to classify works at ‘12A’ and ‘12’. These categories are awarded where the material is suitable, in general, only for those aged 12 and over. Works classified at these categories upset children under 12 or contain material which many parents will find unsuitable for them.

The ‘12A’ category exists only for cinema films. No one younger than 12 may see a ‘12A’ film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult, and films classified ‘12A’ are not recommended for a child below 12. An adult may take a younger child if, in their judgement, the film is suitable for that particular child. In such circumstances, responsibility for allowing a child under 12 to view lies with the accompanying adult.

The ‘12’ category exists only for video works. No one younger than 12 may rent or buy a ‘12’ rated video work.

Our film is scary and jumpy in places and people who have watched have literally "jumped" and been shocked in many places and so we all felt that a 12A is the right rating as a certificate "15" would be narrowing down our audience as our film is not that scary, yet it's too dark and eerie to be a PG in which anybody can watch it as long as it has parental guidance. Somehow, I don't think 10 year old would be watching

Although there is such a film rating as a "12A", this only really applies for cinemas and when the film is released on DVD/Blue Ray, it will be confirmed by the BBFC as to whether it remains as a "12a".

..Here are some of the guidelines and allocations allowed in a 12a film..

Discrimination
Discriminatory language or behaviour must not be
endorsed by the work as a whole. Aggressive
discriminatory language or behaviour is unlikely
to be acceptable unless clearly condemned.

Drugs
Any misuse of drugs must be infrequent and should
not be glamorised or give instructional detail.

Horror
Moderate physical and psychological threat may be
permitted, provided disturbing sequences are not
frequent or sustained.

Imitable behaviour
Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and
self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be
copied, or appear pain or harm free. Easily accessible
weapons should not be glamorised.

Language
Moderate language is allowed. The use of strong
language (for example, ‘fuck’) must be infrequent.

Nudity
Nudity is allowed, but in a sexual context must be brief
and discreet.

Sex
Sexual activity may be briefly and discreetly portrayed.
Sex references should not go beyond what is suitable for
young teenagers. Frequent crude references are unlikely
to be acceptable.

Theme
Mature themes are acceptable, but their treatment must
be suitable for young teenagers.
Violence

Moderate violence is allowed but should not dwell on
detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood,
but occasional gory moments may be permitted if
justified by the context.

Sexual violence may only be implied or briefly and
discreetly indicated, and must have a strong contextual
justification.

Classifications

We have been researching classifications and had to classify our own films. We as a group decided that due to the use of flashing images, scary music and suspenseful chases in our film "the Music Box", we are going to classify our film the certificate rating of a "12A". Meaning that it can be watched by any age, but if you are under the age of 12, it is recommended that you have an adult with you (over 18) due to the content of the film.

Our film is scary and jumpy in places and people who have watched have literally "jumped" and been shocked in many places and so we all felt that a 12A is the right rating as a certificate "15" would be narrowing down our audience as our film is not that scary, yet it's too dark and eerie to be a PG in which anybody can watch it as long as it has parental guidance. Somehow, I font think 10 year old would be watching

Although there is such a film rating as a "12A", this only really applies for cinemas and when the film is released on DVD/Blue Ray, it will be confirmed by the BBFC as to whether it remains as a "12a".

..Here are some of the guidelines and allocations allowed in a 12a film..

Garageband at the CLC

Last Wednesday, my whole media class took a trip down to the CLC to learn how to use the program 'Garageband' on the mac's in school as my group especially, had basically finished our editing of our film and so needed to compose the music.

When we arrived, we all got given our own individual mac's to play around with until the lecture began. Nobody from my group knew how to use Garageband properly and so we were just listening to the different genre of sounds, until we come across the "thriller/horror" genre. For example, we found, "Captiol C Orchestra Kit, Desire E Chellos, The Tad Sound, Atmospheric Beat 01 and many more." All of these sounds created a tense atmosphere that we thought would build up into our film.

After the lecture on how to use the program, my group and I decided to all sit together and experiment on one mac. We learnt how to control the sounds and tempo of the music playing condensing the music to parts that were not soo tense in our film.


These loops that were on the computer were good enough to be put into a horror film, but since we had already had an idea of what we wanted our music to be like we still wasn't fully satisfied. We decided to get the keyboard out and plug it into the mac and try to create our own music that would imitate "Massive Attack - Angel" as we think that this piece of music goes best with our film. We decided to look through the real instruments sounds and we found under guitar, Muted Electric and New Surf Lead. We thought that these sounded right and al most like massive attack so we started playing the beat of it to see if we could figure it out and mix it with some of the loop sounds. We used the simple low keys of C and D repeatedly to try and make a simple but catchy beat. To our luck the beat sounded perfect and would be a good starting baseline.