Tuesday, 12 May 2009

Story boards for Neva Walk Alone

















We used the location in Windsor, as it was local for us & we knew the people that live in windsor would relate to it straight way, the reason we picked the park was because we needed open space for the chases etc.


This is the type of clothing we expected to use, as in several drama movie or shows, you will see youth dressed like this, we used this to enhance the realism and so that our viewers can relate to the video


This is the image of the camera that we have used in the prodcution of Neva walk alone, we used this because Denis was more comfortable and more happier using it.















Here you can see that the mise-en-scene was very simple, as it should be for a low budget film that has taken place in London, the mise-en-scene should be simple so that people can relate to them and thier outfit & say that they have those clothes, trainer etc.
















Here you can see that the genre is blatenly Drama, through the location as they are in a council estate, with guns and baseball bats, about to create havoc.

Opening Sequence For Drama Genre

I had to redo this as we changed our genre for our final coursework peice, that is why i changed the opening sequence from thriller to Drama, the movie I used was Adulthood.

OPENING SEQUENCE OF ADULTHOOD

In the opening sequence, credits are show, by saying who the film was produced by (Cipher films), then it shows the some of the sponsors of the film (UK film council) it then goes to the next clip which shows the distribution company whom are Pathe and also associated with Limelight, then it comes to the creator of the film & who’s initial idea it was ( Noel Clarke) then it starts of the movie with flashbacks from Kidulthood, showing some of the main characters such as Jay, Moonie & Sam, these flashbacks are shown to remind the viewers of what previously happened, as Sam killed Trevor with a base ball bat, then a long low pitched drowsing sound appears when there is a birds eye view of all the action and as the police are arriving whilst Sam stands their shocked, this flashback was roughly 1 minute long which explained for the viewers that have not seen Kidulthood, what Adulthood is all about.
Whilst siren type music is being played to create the atmosphere of a rave, writing appears slanted to catch the viewers attention saying “six years later” which is six year after the death of Trevor.
A long take of traffic passing is taken then a cut is made towards the rave which is taking place, this is the first main scene in adulthood, several different shots are taken, from people dancing, to people kissing & people taking drugs.
Several different cuts are made during this scene which lasted about 2 minutes to catch the atmosphere of the place & to show what is going on at this rave.
Two main characters are introduced at this point, Omen , who is represented as a typical black male, living in London flat estates & Dabz a part of Omen’s crew, who have intent of robbing a wealthy rich man whom has approached their estate, they smash the car window and rob this man & in the process end up shooting him and running away, then the credits come up saying “Adulthood”, which is the first introduction to one the of main characters Sam, who was sentenced for 6 years for killing Trevor, all of this has taken place in 3 minutes and 42 seconds.

The characters are constructed in a manner which many teenagers can relate to know days, as they have the same style of speaking and the clothes and location are also very similar.
The characters have been constructed very carefully, as they have some sort of scenario that we heard of on a regular basis in the news i.e. youth murdered in gun crime, this was shown in Omen’s bedroom, where Sam came to the reality that his little brother is involved with gun crime & how Omen was so easily robbing a laptop out of a car in broad day light, this can be reflected to many of the youngsters now days as several youngsters are carrying knives and involved in gun crime on a daily basis.
Some of the characters have been shown in a very negative manner and some in a very positive manner, such as Dabs is shown as a boy who is willing to harm people in order to make money, which was show when he accepted £3000 pounds from Jay to kill Sam, he also showed that he was very crafty and manipulative as he tricked Omen into potentially killing his own brother.
On the other hand we have characters such as Sam who where bullies, Rapist and thugs, who destroyed life on a regular basis, but in Adulthood he was portrayed as a man not a boy, who thought twice before making decisions and avoided trouble and tried to make peace for his actions.
The main purpose of picking such different characteristic characters was so that the audience could relate and somehow reflect their lives into the action taking place within the movie.

The opening scene shows us that the movie will be based in a estate, as they are having a party in some garages, it seems to be an abandoned area, which shows that they are not going to clubs etc but having a party where and when they can, however there is a slight indication of what the general locations will be used, because it is a drama genre movie, so we know that it will relate to lower/middle classed people so it will be based in areas that we would consider to be slums, which it is, as some of the main locations are areas such as Brixton and London, these are the areas which are ideal for a movie such as Adulthood.

There is a very limited amount of shots taken in the opening sequence, they have used cuts shots the most commonly and at a very fast pace to give us different effects and make the mood abit distorted as there is bright flashing lights & fast paced music being played, From the credits the first shot of Adulthood was a Crane shot which panned across the screen to make a different atmosphere which showed several different shots taking place, i.e. dancing, smoking drugs etc.
They also have an eye line match of where the Indian boy bumps into the girl and she locks eyes with him and walks up to him and then it is shown that she was looking at him, there is also another eye line match when the car pulls up and then it goes back and forth cut shots from the car to Omen and the crew.
The main shots taken on the opening scene where cut shots, which allowed us to see the whole location in which the establishing shot, took place.
The editing in the opening sequence worked perfectly, as their was faced paced cuts which went perfectly along with the backing soundtrack, the editing also allowed us to see the whole location that the opening scene was in and also let us see what kind of things that the youth where getting up to, which gives us a good idea what the film will be based on and what we can expect from the film.

The sound in the opening sequence is used to create a mood which gets you pumped as it is grime based music and the fast and sharp cut shots help to create that mood for us, the dialogue between the characters is very aggressive and impolite to one another as it seems that they are arguing in the manner that they speak in but are actually just generally talking to their friends as they would in a day to day basis.
As Omen and Dabs approach the car, the dialogue become clearer and the music become muffled & just about when they are about the smash the car window, it all goes quiet so that we can hear every detail that goes on, as they shoot the guy that has been mugged, the image starts fading away but the music become louder as it goes to the credits to where Adulthood is shown.
The opening credits where effective as they where placed at a slight angle at which they viewers will look at them even more carefully, however they was abit small and if their was some sort of sound in the background, it would have been better, as it would have been more eye catching and more people would have been more attentive.However they did have something that was unique, once the credits came up, the bumped as a heart beat which was something interesting and unique. However the credits could have been longer and more eye-catching and something more colour.

Final Draft Of The Evaluation

Question 1 of the evaluationOur movie clip is fairly stereotypical of its genre, we have tried to catch similarities from the huge box office film adulthood, we had a very young cast as we intended to bring across our point without making it very obvious, as we have selected the thriller genre, we had to have characters which could help us achieve this to the fullest extent, we set our film in a familiar setting to which we thought would reflect not only the movie adulthood but also the momentum we are trying to capture, we have also kept sound to a very minimal, as their isn't going to be much conversation in a scene where somebody is getting beaten up and robbed for their mobile phone, which also helped us enhance the realism, this was going to be helped by us leaving out any or bringing the communications between the characters to a minimal and enhance all the attention onto the actual action. In our clip their aren’t many significant objects, which reflect on the actual scene or what we are actually trying to achieve, which we actually need to work on, because it will allow us to make our point more obvious and allow us to focus on objects which could be significant to different characters.One of our main conventions used in our clip was the sudden attack, which turned into a mugging, this shows a very common occurring in a thriller, as events like these make the thriller what they are.
The way we have stuck to the convention of a drama by sticking to a steady soundtrack which we created on garage band, which in a way relates to the actions of the characters, we stuck to the basic ideas of a drama movie as our characters were fairly stereotypical as they was represented in a very negative manner as their was one that was shown as a thief and one shown as a victim, which was also shown in the huge UK based film adulthood, where the man Sam was shown as a bully a dominant character and Jay was shown as the boy trying to shine, but always discourage and hurt by Sam’s words and actions. Also we had to think about the mise-en-scene which we had to consider, to make it as realistic, for our target audience, this was done through the process of where we had to find a allocated location to see where youth, hang around and we thought of the clothes they would of chose to wear, that is why we decided to get our clothing from the JD store located in Windsor high street, so that people can look at our video and think that we have the same clothes in their closet & see that there is similar scenarios that happen on an everyday occasions.
Question 2 of the evaluationin our clip, teenagers where represented in a negative and stereotypical manner, our main male group was targeted between the age of 16-20.As in our clip you can see that they are young polish lads, whom are committing pain and murder amongst themselves, the polish boys in our clip where represented very negatively as they showed hate and anger towards one another, which developed into someone’s death.How these characters was represented was negatively, and this was mainly through mise-en-scene as they where walking around with their hoods on, swearing and talking highly aggressively not only towards one another but towards anyone whom made eye contact with them.Through these few opening scenes it makes us one to concentrate on the characters more as we know that most of their dialogue is in their mother tongue, which also makes us wary about what is actually going on here.
Our media work represents a polish social group, from the age of 14-18, as our group that is being represented is a young polish group, we decided to show them in a very stereotypical manner, as we have two main characters, melosh and Michael, Michael has been portrayed as a victim to muggings that happen on a regular basic, this helped us enhance the realism and show how young polish youths have been shown living in this environment and how these survive on a day to day basis.
We had the intention of getting to involve several different individuals, so that our niche audience could expand the slightest bit, if we could relate from individuals from different backgrounds, this would of helped us, as not only would our fan base would of become bigger, but also we could of increased our profit margin & also have the chance to maybe think about maybe another movie. Question 3 of the evaluationThe media institution most likely to promote and actually release our movie would be a company such as cipher, as our movie targets a niche market, as we are making a very basic low budget movie, our promotional campaign would cost us at a very minimal price, rough based at about £10,000 which would make a whole promotional campaign, as our movie would be based within the United Kingdom, in certain urban areas, where we could get our main target audience to be attracted and in ways be hyped to watch our movie.We have seen how successful Adulthood was in the industry with its target audience, however we believe if we achieve the targets that we have made, we could be on of the United kingdoms biggest every urban youth video ever.The main purpose we intend to go with companies such as cipher is that, our cast will be local youngsters same as Adulthood, which will obviously be low budget characters trying to earn themselves a name, location shall not be a problem because we are trying to get a fell of life within the streets for youngsters which also saves us money, that is why we need a company like cipher who can help us promote our movie and make us maximum profit.
We had to consider many things about the distribution for neva walk alone, as we had to think about what would be the best way of getting our niche audience interested and anticipating our movie, we done this mainly through our cast, as you will very rarely or never find a UK based film with all polish cast members, so we had a large amount of polish customers waiting upon, neva walk alone, however we needed to attract more of our target audience, which we did through advertisements such as banners and poster, mainly around London & several other locations, where we thought that our movie could attract a large audience, locations we also considered to target our market at was Luton, Birmingham, Southall, Brixton, Slough & Scotland and several more, we thought that these locations would help us in attracting our niche market for neva walk alone.






Question 4 of the evaluationOur main target audience is for youngsters from the age of 15-28 mainly because our movie rating is going to be an 15 and many people in their late 20's will be able to relate to these situation which will be highly emphasised in the movie.We are mainly targeting our movie at the male gender as it is more of a manly movie, however we are going to have girl characters which will be able to express views of girls, not only in a negative manner, but in a manner which gives a two sided view of the situation being exposed.The main areas we intend to promote our movie is where we think this movie will be the biggest hits, such as urban areas in London such as Kilburn where movies such as adulthood where a great success, these are the type of areas we intend to promote our movie in the United Kingdom.
We knew what our movie would be marketed to a niche market and it would help us to do questionnaires such as ask our target audience between, 15-28 mainly male participants, of which film they would like to see, i.e. which genre they would enjoy the most, the options where between thriller, horror & drama, the most commonly picked on for ourselves was drama, which we understood and decided to go along with that genre, as we decided that in a drama genre movie, actors can be themselves, a lot of our actors live the lifestyles that we portrayed them as, so for us doing a drama film was ideal, as we could use these characters to reflect onto our audience, which we hope has worked as expected. Question 5 of the evaluationAs we are making a small UK based movie, it is important that we attract as much audience as possible, the main way of doing this could be through getting small time artist based in the UK which have a great influence on our target market age, we considered many artist such as Sway, Giggs & Bashy these where some of the artist which we could of considered to do for our soundtrack of the movie, the most important ones for these where the pre production and the post production as we will need characters which can relate to the audience which we need to get to attract our main target audience.
The main way of us attracting our cast was through the a cast & how we explained the movie to them from advertisement, we knew that in drama genre movies, our potential customers will want to see movies which they can relate to, they would want to hear music that they would want to see on a regular basis, that is why we took the extra few steps to make sure that through our cast, advertisement & through our music displayed before during and after the movie, that it could somehow reflect on our audience lives to make then want to watch neva walk alone.








Question 6 of the evaluationIn the process I have learned of how to use such software such as first cut express, which we did all of our editing by & also has been a good experience of using garage band, which helped us to create the scene & atmosphere by adding the different pieces of music at different tempos.Using a digital still camera is more complexes than it seems as their is more to do when you are creating a piece of coursework which you cannot allow the camera to tilt, move freely by swaying from left to right, their is several things which we had to consider to make this as perfect as possible.The main advantage from this was that I didn’t know how to use garage band of final cut express at all, now I have a good idea of how to use both, which could help me in further production I may have to do for Media Studies, as mentioned before, when we first started the production of the movie, we knew, well I personally knew that I myself wouldn’t know how to edit this movie and add the soundtrack, that is why Denis played a big role in this department as he is involved in music production and knows how to edit movies into perfect sequence, so through that I picked up several different features about editing & also learned how to make a simple beat from garage band, to match the genre that we was filming. Question & of the evaluationSince our preliminary task, we have made vast improvements, as we have focused a lot more on our filming techniques and on rules such as the 180 degree rule, which we actually broke in the preliminary task, we also used a better location, which actually gave us more space instead of cramming a majority of our shots in one area.We also planned our shots more carefully and executed them more accurately, we also had many more continuity errors, which we have none in this one, i.e. we had several problems with costume, as that was our main continuity error & also with several different shots which would start at a completely different angle which would make the 1st and 2nd shot completely different & also in this one after our preliminary task we have used several different shots and different camera angle views which made it better for us and allowed us to explore into the media world abit more.

Overall our preliminary task was very poor compared to Neva walk alone, so it should have been, as we picked up many little features and effects and different camera shots which we should of used in the preliminary task, we also had more experience and had planned Neva walk alone much better to a high quality and standard, which got a higher mark.