31/03/11 Log (Imitation Of Evidence Marker)

The above picture shows the imitation of the evidence markers that we created for our mise en scene. To create this we used resources from our school. These markers were very easy to manufacture. We simply used some yellow sugar paper and a black marker to colour in the numbers. We made 6 of these evidence cards and placed them all around the crime scene to add a sense of realism to the mise en scene.

29/03/11 Log (Fraction Rough Edit)

Above, is the rough edit of our AS media studies project titled 'Fraction' (Not uploaded in HQ due to errors with the site). We have been working on this project for roughly over 2 months now and as a group, we are very pleased with the outcome. Our opening sequence for Fraction was played in front of our teacher and our peers, and we asked them for feedback for our project. We received a little bit of negative criticism but overall, the feedback that we had received was mainly positive. 

Our peers described our mise en scene as realistic, conventional, remote, believable and one person even wrote '10/10' in the strengths box! Not one person in the class gave any negative feedback about the location of the opening sequence or the use of props. Our classmates told us that we had used our props well to make the opening sequence look as real as possible, and as a group, we also think that we have managed to capture that sense of realism within the opening sequence through the use of props, costumes and location.

Our cinematography was also described as good and our peers said that we had cleverly used a wide variety of different camera shots to create a sense of realism within the opening sequence. Yet again, we had received no negative feedback for the cinematography. However, our teacher suggested that when the man in the forensic suit is taking pictures, the audience should have an insight into what exactly he is taking pictures of. As a group, we have taken our teachers advice on board and have decided that we will take pictures showing the audience what the man in the forensic suit is taking pictures of, and we will insert them into our opening sequence. We will add a black and white effect to each picture to make it clear to the audience that they are photographs.

Our peers told us that the non diegetic soundtrack that we created using garageband fit in well with the opening sequence, and that it fit in well with the whole thriller genre. One person described the soundtrack as having a 'good flow' and others said that it suited the scenes from the opening sequence. However, our soundtrack did receive a little bit of criticism. Two of our classmates told us that our soundtrack sounded slightly 'repetitive'. As a group, we agreed. We took the criticism on the chin and we decided that we were going to fix up the soundtrack by adding more sounds into the soundtrack using garageband. Our teacher suggested to us that when the distorted male appears, we should insert a high pitch violin sound or something similar to create a chilling atmosphere for the audience at the point. We have taken our teachers advice on board and we will try and find some samples to add to the soundtrack to create a more chilling atmosphere.

When it came to the editing, one of our classmates said that we made a 'good use of time and pace'. Others said that we had a 'really good match on action', we had really 'clean cuts', the opening sequence 'flowed' and it was also described as 'smooth'. Our teacher had also said to us that she really likes our use of transitions at certain points of the opening sequence, for example, where the scene cross dissolves from the distorted male in the confined room to the detective out in the common at the crime scene. As a group, we personally think that we couldn't have done any better with our editing and the time that we put into editing was worth it. Our peers and our teacher did not give us any negative feedback about the editing techniques used in our opening sequence.

One of our classmates described our titles as 'original' which we were very pleased about. Others said that the 'titles fit in perfectly with the movie', the 'titles were well thought out' and that the 'incorporation was good'. However, we did receive some criticism about our titles, which was purely based on the fact that they could not be seen properly due to the colour of them. We received the following criticisms about our titles: 'was not very clear', 'hard to read on the shots (change the colour)', 'harder to see titles at certain points'. These comments were clearly reasonable as when viewing our opening sequence on the big screen, we also found it hard to read the titles, due to the colour contrast between the text and the scenes in the background. Our teacher also told us that we shouldn't use the colour red as it is too cliche and it seems like the kind of colour used in the title sequence of a horror film rather than a thriller. Our teacher also suggested that we take out the titles where the word FRACTION appears with the letters jumbled up as it creates confusion for the audience and it just generally looks messy. As a group, we have agreed to change the colour of the titles from red, to a light grey colour to ensure that the audience can read them properly. However the titles in white were fine. We have also agreed to take up the titles whereby the word FRACTION appears with the letters jumbled up.

Overall, our teachers and our peers were very impressed by our opening sequence and the feedback that we had received was mainly positive. Our classmates went and told other students around the school about our opening sequence and more and more students came to us requesting to see it. Our media teacher said that she would expect us roughly to get around 53 marks out of 60 based on the rough edit, which is an A grade.

21/03/2011 Log (Police Incident)

 

In the process of filming our opening sequence, many citizens were intrigued in what we were doing and approached our scene. In fact, they thought that is was real and that there was actually a forensic team and detective investigating a murder. Many people were looking out the windows of their homes and people walking their dogs came over to see what was going on. It was so realistic that people started to call the police. An undercover police came over to our scenery and started questioning us, asking us 'what is going on here?' and asking us why he hasn't been informed about the case. We told him that what we were doing was for our AS media coursework and that none of this was real. He then told us that he thought it was a real situation and that people were calling the police headquarters reporting a murder. He told us that in future we should call the council and the police and get permission to do this before we begin filming on free land. One thing we didn't consider was how people would react when filming, and people did react as expected. However, we overcame this problem by filming our opening sequence in a more secluded part of tooting bec common.

16/03/11 Log (Images Of Filming)

Today, myself (Izak), Tanika and Kadeem finished decorating the small confined room in which we wanted to film in. We perfected the room by mounting large sheets of white paper up on the walls. when we had done this, Tanika and Kadeem then began to splash the fake blood which we made as a group ontop of the white paper. We decided to use bloody handprints on the walls to create a chilling and creepy atmosphere. After completely decorating the room, we then started filming the scenes where the distorted man is in the small confined room. The images above are of the team filming and acting.

The filming was done by both Tanika and Izak, and Kadeem played the character of the distorted male. The blood proved to be very effective when we were filming as it added to the insane appearance of the distorted male. Even though the colour of our blood wasnt completely accurate, the red lighting that we used in the room helped to elicit that dark red colour that we were yearning for. Overall, today has been an extremely busy and productive day.

11/03/11 Log (Overlapping Test Shot)

Today in media studies we decided to do some test shooting before we shot the real footage in order to determine if our ideas were possible to carry out. We thought that this would initially save us time when it came to editing; in case our ideas didn't work, we would be able to find a solution now rather then after we shoot the real footage.

The image overlapping that we had practiced today showed us that we could face some difficulty in making all three images appear in one shot. Izak filmed a few shots of Kadeem with his head tilted in three different directions. What we wanted to accomplish was a final shot of all three of these shots combined into one, with each layer having different opacities. We uploaded the shots that we had filmed up onto Final Cut Express and from there, we cut them to make each shot the same length. We then layered each shot on top each other and changed the opacity of each shot so that the shot of Kadeem sitting up straight was opaque, and the other shots with his head titled either side were slightly more transparent.

However, the shot of Kadeem sitting up straight isn't quite as opaque as we wanted it to be. It is slightly transparent. To overcome this problem as a group we decided that we would trial various different editing tools and see if the idea will be possible. If we are not able to overcome this overlapping problem then will will need to alter the way in which cinematography will portray the distorted male played by Kadeem Gordon.

07/03/11 Log (Production Props)

 

To reinforce the realism of our mise en scene we created an imitation of evidence markers that we have seen many times before in television shows such as 'C.S.I' and 'Criminal Minds'. By using these props we feel that it will make our mise en scene look extremely realistic and believe to our viewers.   

As we want our opening sequence of Fraction to look as authentic as possible, as a group we decided that we would use overalls as shown in the picture above for the actors who are playing the parts of the forensic investigators to wear while they are assessing the crime scene. By using this prop as a group we feel that it will make the opening sequence look more realistic and will also show a clear designation of roles between the cast and make it much easier for the audience to differentiate between the characters rather than having all of the detectives dressed similar.

 

The body bag is another prop that we would like to use in order for the opening sequence of Fraction to look as realistic as possible. The body bag will contain the female victims body in one scene, and the distorted males in the other scene. The body bag that we will be using in our opening sequence will be black rather than blue, because the colour black is an eerie colour which represents death. It fits the mood and the opening sequence a bit better because the scene will be shot at the scene of a murder.

Police tape is one of the most vital props that we will be using in our opening sequence. By using police tape alone, the audience are able to understand that the opening scene is being shot at a crime scene without the use of dialect. It will help to make the opening sequence look more legit and realistic. We will tie the police tape around the trees at tooting bec common. It will be surrounding the area in which the victim was murdered.

Another prop which we are going to need in order for us to film our opening sequence successfully is fake blood, which myself (Izak), Kadeem and Tanika will attempt to make with icing sugar, red colouring dye, cocoa powder, golden syrup and blue pen ink. We included the ink and syrup to make the blood look more dark and realistic. We used the blood for our antagonist (Kadeem) to make him look more sinister and evil as well as confused and insane. We used the majority of the blood to splatter on the walls to make the area look more grim and scary.

04/03/2011 Log (Print Screen Of Soundtrack Production)

Today, Izak is going to continue producing the soundtrack for the opening sequence of our thriller called Fraction. He decided to use the 'Thunder Roll's' for the build up of the soundtrack to create a tense atmosphere. Also, the soundtrack that I have created so far has a chilling and mysterious sound to it, which fits in with our opening sequence perfectly. However, when i asked my peers and my teachers for feedback, they said that the soundtrack sounded more like a paranormal soundtrack rather than a crime scene one. They suggested that I use more piano samples. I have not yet finished producing the soundtrack and so I will be using the time that I have in the lesson to perfect it. One problem I have with making the soundtrack sound more like a crime scene soundtrack is the fact that garageband has a limited resource of packages, and the piano samples that are available on garageband do not sound like something you would expect to hear in a thriller.

03/03/11 Log (Fraction Audience Feedback)

In the above clip is the 'audience feedback'. Tanika went around interviewing our fellow school friends asking them for their views and opinions about our idea for our thriller opening sequence 'Fraction'. The reason we did this was so that we could receive both positive and negative feedback, and take it on board so that we could improve in some not so good areas. The feedback overall was very positive and our school members really liked the idea of taking advantage of the fact that we have twins in our group and making two characters within our story the same character.

18/02/11 Log (Animated Storyboard)

In the above animated storyboard, our group tried as hard as possible to try and portray in detail how the opening sequence to fraction would look. We used a variation of shot types in order to make the sequence seem more dynamic and engaging for the audience. We used shots such as shallow focus, low and high angle shots, close and extreme close ups and point of view shots just to name a few. We also wanted to use shots that influence that actual camera that may not have come across clearly on the animated storyboard, such as tracking and panning. Izak Gordon creatively drew out all of the scenes and pieced together each shot in Final Cut Express to create the animated storyboard shown above. We decided to use to soundtrack from the film 'Dead Silence' which again, Izak added into the storyboard using Final Cut Express. Kadeem Gordon cleverly created the opening titles for the storyboard which Izak incorporated into the animated storyboard. Kadeem and Tanika Hibbert created the ideas for the storyboard.