DepicT! Assignment 1 - Final Feedback

Freya,

good to see you have made some improvements to your work. Overall you have achieved a Merit grade although the pre-production report is the weaker elements of the work.
Something to consider for future work - ensure your written work matches up to your practical work.

Carl.

Location Reece.

Assignment 1 - depicT!: Feedback - 21 Dec

Freya,

some very good work produced to date - well done.

You pre-production processes are detailed and it was clear that solid standard pre-production work was generated for this task. You all shared out tasks equally and worked well as a team.
A successful video was created for this task which followed your planning work effectively. Any changes were documented in detail.

The discussion (essay) on the pre-production process is a good piece of writing which outlines the requirements and sources of requirements for a media production. Try to ensure that for future written work, sections are clearly labelled and heading are used.

Some good work here on which you can build on.

Carl.

Perfect Polaroid DepicT! Video.

Evaluation.

The media product we produced was a low budget short film for an online competition called DepicT! We then put it on YouTube and our blogs to distribute it before entering it into the competition next year.

Other types of moving image production include stop frame animation, live action drama and documentaries. They can be distributed many ways including on television, online (e.g. YouTube), and cinemas.

Sources of finance that exist for moving image production include lottery funding, investments made by an individual or a company or loans.

Things you may have to spend money on could include:

Cast. Costumes, props and make up. Sets. Places to film. Insurance. Permits. Camera, filming and sound equipment.

For our DepicT! Project we had to make 90 seconds worth of short film that had to have a narrative.

In a low budget film the crew is probably a lot fewer people which would be on little or no salary due to budget. This would probably consist of less trained or untrained people who combined roles, for example the camera and lighting person is the same person. However in a television pro-gramme or Hollywood production the budget is very much larger this means that there will probably be more crew with sound lighting, camera and directors.

In our group we had three people. Andrea, Max and myself. We split up the work pretty much equally. Max had to do a risk assessment, props/costume list and a college location release. Andrea did the budgeting, production schedule and minutes document. I has to so the rest of location releases, the talent releases, the shot list and the storyboards.

Contributors to a production aren’t just the crew and the cast. Musicians (make the music for a film or Television show), Sponsors, storyboard artists, costume designers, make-up artists and writers. For example a writer is where the original story or plot has come from and they adapt this for the type of media. Another example is costume designers, they interpret characters and situations and interpret them into clothing.

Our time frame was very slim as none of our group and our actors were free at the same time. Therefore all of our filming had to happen outside of college hours. This also meant that one member of our group, Max, wasn’t there for most of the filming. However, in the times we had set for filming we stuck on schedule and finished before we originally thought that we would. We mostly stayed focused during lesson time when planning and editing. However due to a lack of communication in the group not everyone was happy with the narrative we had chosen. We however stuck to deadlines as best as we could only running over with technical issues and I missed the ideal deadline for the per-production paperwork due to being ill.

 

n the professional industry there is no room for missing deadlines as the company would have set a release date for the film or television pro-gramme. This means that if they were to fall behind they would have to push forward the release date thus upsetting a waiting audience which they would have probably advertised to already.

In professional moving image productions media house facilities are a place to get crew or equipment. For example, The Hall in Oxfordshire provides film crews and kit, shooting in HD on tape or solid state, a sound proof air conditioned 30m2 TV studio with blue/green screen, Media Composer Edit Suites, Final Cut Pro, ProTools HD Audio suite and DVD / Blu-ray authoring. These cost a lot to buy so to pay to use them is a lot cheaper in the short run.

For our project we could borrow a camera, SD card and tripod from college however we used Andreas as it was easier due to the fact most of our filming was outside of college. We also had access to premier pro editing software which would usually cost around £1,000, however this is free to use at college. The college also had a green screen however we didn’t use it for this film, but the option was there.

For our locations we had to get a signature for to say we could use them, they can be seen in the location releases. A location recces is a location we thought about using and the location releases are the documents for the locations we used. For the valentines date, New Year’s/Karma’s birthday and the coffee date/skype call/move in scene we had to get location releases for. For Roman wood in Acle the grounds are open to public use therefore we didn’t need a location release for there. I chose those woods as I know them well and the bench and setting worked well for what we wanted. We picked my grandparents’ house for the valentines date as they had a kitchen table that was a good size for the film. We chose our actor Billy’s house of the New Year’s party and Karma’s birthday, we chose this as the location worked well for what we wanted to do and it was the only option we had left for filming. For the rest of the scenes we used college as we were allowed and it was easiest transport wise for the group.

We needed coffee in our short film and decided that even though Costa is expensive at about £3 per coffee it was worth it for the effect rather than having a terrible looking scene. We also needed food for the meal so we bought some ready meals for quickness. Financially, it would be wise to chose cheaper foods, which we did in the case of the ready meals.

 

Legal issues would include copyright of products that appear in your production. “Copyright is a legal right created by the law of a country that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights for its use and distribution. This is usually only for a limited time.” (Wikipeadia 2015). Copyright didn't really impact our DepicT! However, it did make us make sure that our work wasn't too much like what inspired us (Extra gum advert 2015.)

All your content has to be 'cleared' if it is to be released to the public. This means to get permission to used things in your film.

Public Liability Insurance protects you if clients or members of the public suffer personal injury or property damage because of your business. This is extremely important in the industry as it could save you money and protect your business.

A completion guarantee is a form of insurance offered by a completion guarantor company (in return for a percentage fee based on the budget) that is often used in independently financed films to guarantee that the producer will complete and deliver the film. An example of a completion guarantee company is “Film Finances.”

A regulatory body is a public authority or government agency responsible for exercising autonomous authority over a public area. Their job is to protect the public and they are legally given the power to do so.

 

OFCOM is the communications regulator for the UK. They regulate TV and radio,fixed line telecoms, mobiles, postal services, plus the airwaves over which wireless devices operate. BBC is regulated by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the European Commission, and Ofcom.

The British Board of Film Classifications (BBFC) rate films depending on what audiences should be watching them. They are non-profit and only charge what it costs to do the work.

A trade union is an organization made up of members and its membership must be made up of mostly workers. One of its main aims is to protect and the interests of its members in the workplace. Most trade unions are independent of any employer, however some work closely with the employer. They are important to keep the workers happy and keep equality and fairness in the workplace. PACT and BECTU are media/entertainment unions. They work to keep fairness and happiness with workers in the industry. A trade association is an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry. This means that they are basically a trade union but for businesses not workers.

Shot List.

Location Releases.

Talent Release.

Risk Assessment.

Production Schedule.

Pre-Production, Filming Date Options.

Budgeting.

Diary.

12/11/2015: 

We filmed the Valentine’s meal scene at My grandparent’s house today. While I was filming Andrea created a natural unforced feeling to come across to the camera by letting me and Billy just chat and eat and not tell us when she had started recording. It helped make the filming less awkward and nervous. We spent about an hour and a half filming but we thought we’d need longer.

13/11/2015:
We filmed two scenes at Billy’s parent’s house today. The first scene we filmed was the New Year’s Eve party scene. To try and recreate the typical lighting you would have at a party we turned the lights off and Andrea stood with the torch on her phone shining on myself and Billy or the clock. Due to Andrea not  quite adjusting the ISO to compensate for not having natural lighting the final clips have a bit of blurriness to them. As Andrea reviewed the clips after we had gone home we didn’t have time to re-film the clips with a more suitable ISO. Next time it would be ideal to re-film that section, however we didn’t have the time to in this project.
We also filmed Karma’s Birthday scene. This scene didn’t take very long as Andrea (again) didn’t tell me and Billy when she started recording.

15/11/2015:
We filmed the dog walking scene in roman wood in Acle. This scene only took a while to get the shots right as Smudge (the dog) isn’t a trained acting dog therefore took a bit of time to get him to do what we wanted him to. Closer to the end of the filming session the camera started to die so we had to speed up getting the shots we wanted, however I don’t think this effected the final outcome of this scene.

16/11/2015:
Today, we filmed the coffee date scene. This filming session had to be hurried as Andrea had forgotten to charge the camera. I would have preferred to have had more time. Next time I think I might charge the camera after every filming session if I use my own one again although it didn’t affect the clips that much.

20/11/2015
We filmed two scene at college. This was actually the first filming session that Max was able to stay for.
While filming Issac’s birthday scene (we had planned to screen record a Skype call) we learnt that we could not get on Skype on the college Wi-Fi. So, Max thought of the idea to film me speaking to the webcam on the laptop then Billy speaking to the webcam and during the editing we put them together.
We also filmed the moving in together scene. The room that we used had stairs leading straight up to the door, like an actually apartment building, so we decided to film going up the stairs as a POV shot.

22/11/2015:
Today Andrea took 413 pictures of a calendar. She spent roughly four and a half hours doing it. However we feel it paid off and was worth it so that the film had an extra element (of stop motion animation).

Props/Costume List.

Props:

• ·        Polaroid Camera
• ·        Phones
• ·        Polaroids (Film)
• ·        Hot drinks
• ·        Laptops
• ·        Flowers
• ·        Birthday card
• ·        Clock
• ·        Boxes
• ·        Candle
• ·        Bunting
• ·        Empty alcohol cans/bottles
• ·        Calendar (June 2015–June 2016)
• ·        Plates, glasses and cutlery
• ·        Table and chairs
• ·        Benches
• ·        Bed and covers
• ·        Television
• ·        Necklace
• ·        Dog treats
• ·        Dog lead and collar
• ·        Paper and pen

Costumes

• ·        Casual Clothes x 7

Storyboards.

Initial Ideas Post.

Our initial idea was to show how a relationship between a couple develops over the course of one year starting from when they first meet and ending when they move in together.

The inspiration for this was the Wrigley’s Extra Gum advert of the couple. In this advert the thing that shows time passing but still linking is when the girl gives the guy a piece of gum he keeps the wrapper and draws a picture that reminds him of what happened that time when she gave him that piece.
Similarly to the advert we want to use a calendar and Polaroid pictures to link the time passing to events in the couple’s life together. 

DepicT! Research

If The Cuckoo Don't Crow.
By Steve Kirby.
http://www.depict.org/2015/if-the-cuckoo-dont-crow/?category_request=2015

If The Cuckoo Don't Crow is about a man called Brian from Melton recounts how his mother Doris predicted Britain’s Great Storm of 1987.

I like this because the narrative is funny as it is a comedic. The animation fits the narration will, including panning a zooming with the voice over. It includes several wipes between locations. I like this as it makes the images fit perfectly with what's being said and makes it more humorous for the audience. The audience I believe for this could be anyone of any age over 10. I like how the animation is in perfect time with the words.

Cool Unicorn Bruv.

By Ninian Doff.

http://www.depict.org/2013/cool-unicorn-bruv/?category_request=2013

This short film starts with a long shot to establish the scene. It shows the audience the area and the time period in which the film is set.  The language is relevant to the characters and the time period of the film. This also appeals to their target audience which is teenagers - young adults, this is because the dialogue includes words like 'bruv' and 'innit'.

The film includes some non-diegetic  sound. This includes the unicorn trotting noise as it approaches the scene. An example of diegetic sound would be the bikes bell that gets rung. There are a lot of medium shots and close ups during dialogue that make the scene more interesting.

I liked this film because of the hostility of the man selling the bike to the other man and his unicorn. I like how it was different and I hadn't seen anything like it before.

A Tv Movie.

By Daniel Faigle.

http://www.depict.org/2009/a-tv-movie/?category_request=picks

I like this stop frame animation film. I like how it really reminded me of the machine in Wallace and Gromit when they go to the moon. I also like how it makes the audience think about how they are always watching the TV but now the TV after trying to watch itself it decides it wants to watch the real world.

The audience for this film I believe could be anyone of any age as it is something children and adults can enjoy.

There is a lot of non-diegetic sound effects almost constantly with the sound of static and buttons etc with whatever the TV is doing. I like how believable and interesting this makes the animation. There is however no audio but this suits the film well.

Camera affects wise there is not a lot, some close ups and wipes. But they are used very well with what's happening. I also like the dissolve/fade into white as the TV sees the light of the outside world. It creates the effect of its vision being blinded by the light but then comes back into focus.