Bloopers: Hacker

Title Sequence Plan: Hacker

Risk Assessment: Hacker

Risk assessment form:

Final Draft: Hacker

Audience Questions: Hacker

Audience questions from gbhsasbeth

Marketing Ideas: Hacker

First trial, unsuccessful, image found online

Second trial, successful, image is a screencap from our poduction

Third trial, successul, image taken by Drea Bunce

Evidence Of How Our Planned Opening Fits With Research Into Genre, Codes and Conventions: Hacker

Our film opening will mainly feature a chase through London, as the 'agents' are trying to catch the 'hacker.'

Other stereotypical spy action features are:
Violent action against the rival
Investigating various events on a global scale
Exciting escapism
Heavy action
Stylized fights
Technological thrills
Exotic locales
Frequent shootouts
Car chases

Films with the genre similar to ours:

The Bourne Identity: a man is picked up by a fishing boat, bullet-riddled and without memory, then races to elude assassins and recover from amnesia.

 

Die Hard: John McClane, officer of the NYPD, tries to save wife Holly Gennaro and several others, taken hostage by German terrorist Hans Gruber during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.

 

Shutter Island: drama set in 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding nearby.

 

Taken: a retired CIA agent travels across Europe and relies on his old skills to save his estranged daughter, who has been kidnapped while on a trip to Paris.

 

Matrix: a computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.

Inception: a skilled extractor is offered a chance to regain his old life as payment for a task considered to be impossible.

 

Mission Impossible III: Ethan Hunt comes face to face with a dangerous and sadistic arms dealer while trying to keep his identity secret in order to protect his girlfriend.

 

Salt: a CIA agent goes on the run after a defector accuses her of being a Russian spy.

Location and Recce Shots: Hacker

 

Piccadilly Circus: This is where we will film most part of our film opening. The busy vibe adds to the tension of the chase, will they find her through the crowd or lose her again?

 

London Liverpool Street: This is where the agents will first spot the hacker and tell their boss they have 'eyes' on her. Again, the busy natural vibe of the station will add to the tension.

Starbucks: This is where the audience will see the hacker stealing the government files on her laptop. The coffee shop is iconic and is a popular place where she can fit in among the crowds.

 

 

The alleyway: This is where the final scene will be shot. The agents will corner the hacker down the alleyway and she will speak into her head piece for back up. The alleyway is effective because it is quite thin and closed in, so it makes their first face to face meet personal and helps the tension build up for the cliffhanger.

Film Pitch: Sci-Fi Title Sequences

The following post will include analysis of title sequences in Sci-fi's and Dramas to help me get ideas to produce a title opening of the final foundation coursework:

Sci-fi - Inception

T1: 0.04 seconds, capitals, font about 50, colour: red, bottom centred.

T2: 0.09 seconds, capitals, font about 40, colour: red and white, middle left and right.

T3: 0.15 seconds, capitals, font about 35, colour: red and white, middle left and right.

T4: 0.34 seconds, capitals, font about 30, colour: white, upper left.

T5: 0.41 seconds, capitals, font about 30, colour: red and white, middle left and right.

T6: 0.50 seconds, capitals, font about 40, colour: white, middle/upper left.

T7: 1.06 seconds, capitals, font about 40, colour: white, middle/upper left.

T8: 1.11 seconds, capitals, font about 20/30, colour: white, centre/right.

Mise en scene:
Positioning of objects within the frame:
The positioning of the text in the frame varies, this means that there is no set pattern, and perhaps keeps the audience 'on their toes.'
Lighting and colour:
The text is always against a black backgroud, this makes it stand out, the lighting is high so you can clearly see everything.
Camera:The animation of the building is quite cool, but was a bit of an anti-climax.
Editing:
The editing is all slick, the text appears at a good time in between each title. The animation of the building and the spinner animation at the end is really interesting.

Drama - The Notebook

T1: 0.05 seconds, capitals for first initial, font about 20, colour: white, bottom right.

T2: 0.10 seconds, capitals for first initial, font about 20, colour: white, bottom right.

T3: 0.15 seconds, capitals for first initial, font about 20, colour: white, bottom right.

T4: 0.20 seconds, capitals for first initial, font about 20, colour: white, bottom right.

T5: 0.28 seconds, capitals for first initial, font about 20, colour: white, bottom right.

Mise en scene:
Positioning of objects within the frame:
The text is always placed at the bottom right, this is to focus on the image of the boat and the sunset.
Lighting and colour:
The lighting is always very low key as it is just coming up to sunset.
Camera:
The camera makes the title sequence feel very peaceful as it is steady and slow.
Editing:
The editing is very slick and there is sometimes tilt up's of the birds flying past in the sky.

What I have learnt that I can put into my title sequence:
Sometimes simple titles can be effective but when they are centred they are much more effective, as the audiences' attention is focused on them and they are noticed. Colours that contrast the background e.g. black background and white text work really well as they stand out. The title sequence should be really slick and edited really well so that it all looks professional and is memorable, and perhaps include something interesting like animations.

Proof: Hacker

These images show proof of our working;

 

TOP LEFT: Drea, drawing the storyboard
TOP RIGHT: Beth, adding to our production diary
BOTTOM LEFT: Richard, making the original pitch

BOTTOM RIGHT: Max, editing our production

Character Profiles: Hacker

Character Profile for my character




Character Profile for Max's and Richard's characters

 

Draft Profile Posters for Advertisement

Production Diary: Hacker

Lesson	Progress
Tuesday 5th November	Shared our individual film pitches with the group and chose the one we would like to develop. Beth’s film pitch was chosen and Richard suggested ideas to develop it. The idea was born. The entire group pitched in, and together we started to make a brand new PowerPoint with our pitch for our film ‘Hacker.’
Wednesday 6th November	The PowerPoint continued to be developed by all, we also assigned tasks to individuals, for example Max and Richard were researching similar film openings, Beth was researching locations and Drea was researching music. The PowerPoint was finished in this lesson. All of the slides we individually made were put together in one PowerPoint, this including genre, locations, narrative etc.
Thursday 7th November	We pitched our film idea to the class. We received feedback from pupils and the teachers, suggesting ideas to make it better and also stating the ideas they liked. We then began to look into locations in more detail, choosing precisely which location we use. Drea began to draft the story board, with all of us putting in suggestions and we made a change to the very first shot, instead of Drea starting on the train, we would start in the station.
Friday 8th November	MEDIA TRIP (at the BFI)
Monday 11th November	(Richard absent due to physics trip.) Drea drew up the draft storyboard into a final version, with each shot on a4 paper so we could annotate around it with frames, angles, movements and other important notes. Max researched ‘spy jargon’ to help write our script. Beth print screened pictures of Piccadilly Circus, including bird’s eye views, to annotate on them.
Tuesday 12th November	Max finished writing the script and researched films that inspire our film. Richard researched type-writer fonts for our titles. Drea researched London buses, practiced with the head cam and documented us working. Beth typed up the shooting schedule. We all listened to Drea’s brother’s music which he has played for our sequence.
Wednesday 13th November	Richard continued to research type-writer fonts for our titles. Drea drew up more story boards as we made a change to our shot. We decided that filming on the underground might be a bit tricky, so we chose to change it to filming getting on and off a London bus. However, we are going to keep the train story board shots and film both in London, then decide what looks better when we get back to editing it. Beth researched bus routes we would need to get on. Max started devising the props list.
Thursday 14th November	Drea and Beth annotated the story board. Max wrote up the class feedback from our pitch and researched the order titles appear. Richard made a PowerPoint slide on how the opening fits the genre and conventions and also researched the order titles appear.
Friday 15th November	(Drea absent due to illness.) Max continued and finished putting our titles in order. Richard took pictures of the storyboard so we could put voiceovers on them. Beth got every piece of work we have done for this (from everyone’s computer) so we could put it all together on our blogs.
Monday 18th November	(Drea absent due to illness.) Today, Beth, Max and Richard recorded the voiceovers on audacity to go over the storyboard in a private classroom. We then came back into the media room to rename all of our clips.
Tuesday 19th November	(Max absent due to illness.) Today, Drea, Richard and Beth had to re-record all of the voiceovers as the audacity files were really fuzzy, so there was a change. We went to a private classroom and used a tripod and a camera, pinned the storyboard up on the whiteboard and spoke over them shot by shot. This was much more successful.
Wednesday 20th November	In this lesson, Beth went through all of the shots we took of the storyboard and copied the correct ones into her area, then put them all together in Adobe Premiere and uploaded it to YouTube. We then all put the storyboard video on our blogs, and spent some time updating our blogs with everything we needed to film it successfully. We decided we would film this Sunday (Sunday the 24th of November.)
Thursday 21st November	MEDIA TRIP (at the BFI)
Friday 22nd November	This lesson, we all practiced filming down a corridor in school. For this, Beth filmed and Drea, Richard and Max acted. We practiced walking, zooming and a chase. We then came back into class and uploaded the footage, and practiced editing it in Adobe Premiere.
Sunday 24th November	We all filmed in London.
Monday 25th November	This lesson, Drea began creating the titles to go over the footage we had got. Beth uploaded all the footage from the camera onto the computer and we signed back in our camera and tripod. We then all sat round the computer and watched the footage, choosing which shots were the best and organising the good from the bad into folders.
Tuesday 26th November	Drea continued making titles to go over the footage and Max, Beth and Richard edited separately different parts of the sequence.
Wednesday 27th November	Drea continued making titles to go over the footage and Max, Beth and Richard edited separately different parts of the sequence. We began downloading the music to go into the sequence and researched some music to go along with the first part of the sequence, so we made a slight change to the music plan.
Thursday 28th November	(Beth absent due to trip.) Drea continued making titles to go over the footage and Max and Richard found sound effects to go into the sequence and made final editing touches.
Friday 29th November-Thursday 5th December	During the course of this week, we have mainly all been editing. We have also found the music we would definitely be using, so we made a change to the music plan again. Also, we did a photo-shoot to make film posters to promote our film. On Tuesday, we recorded the voice-overs to put over the sound on our film.
Friday 6th December	Today, we showed our final first draft to the teacher and some peers to get feedback. From this we learnt that we might need to slow the second half of the music down, put our institution logo in and perhaps edit the colouring of the sequence to make it a bit more greeny or yellow. However, we got really positive feedback; a lot of people liked the music and were impressed with the sequence in general.
Monday 9th December	(Drea absent due to illness.) Today, Beth, Max and Richard filmed the character profiles of Max and Richard in the style of a chat show. Beth was the host and questioned Max and Richard on their characters. We then edited it by adding sound, and uploaded it to the blog.
Tuesday 10th December	Today we peer assessed everyone else’s work. We watched the 22 minute long video miss had put together of everyone’s rough cuts and gave feedback on sheets.

Wednesday 11th December

Today, Beth and Drea filmed the character profile of Drea in the style of a chat show. Beth was the host and questioned Drea on her character. We then edited it by adding sound, and uploaded it to the blog. We also uploaded pictures to the blog of evidence of us all working. Richard answered the audience questions in the style of a PowerPoint and Max re-wrote the shooting schedule in the style we needed it to be.

Thursday 12th December	Today, Beth made a change to the titles regarding the feedback we got from the class and teachers; we changed the font to look more computer-like and the colour to white. Max made a change to the institution logo and thought of a brand new one. Drea started making the film poster on Adobe, looking at the drafts for ideas and help, and Richard answered the audience questions.
Friday 13th December	Today, Beth and Max edited the music so it built up in the right place. Drea finished the film poster and Richard finished the audience questions. When he had finished, Richard helped Beth and Max with themusic also. We then exported our final version of our AS Media opening sequence and uploaded it to YouTube and put it on our own blogs.

Monday 16th December

Today, we all uploaded the film poster, re-written shooting schedule and updated production diary to our own blogs. We then spent some time thinking of some questions we could ask peers/teachers who watch our final version when we interview them for feedback.

First Draft: Hacker

This is the first draft of our film: Hacker.
When we showed our final first draft to the teacher and some peers we got the following feedback:
We learnt that we might need to slow the second half of the music down.
We also learnt we need to put our institution logo in.
We also need to perhaps edit the colouring of the sequence to make it a bit more greeny or yellow. However, we got really positive feedback; a lot of people liked the music and were impressed with the sequence in general.


We showed our first cut in a group seting o the rest of the class and our AS teachers.
Our average score from class feedback was 47/60, which is a high level 3, proficient.

The following questions are what our peers were asked, and here are some of the generic answers:

Is it obviously an opening sequence? Is it clear who the target audience is?

Most were unsure who our audience were. Most said it was clear it was an opening sequence and that leaving it on a cliff hanger was good because it created tension.

Titles go with genre. Is the genre obvious? Are they clear? Are there enough and are they in the right order?

Most identified the genre as being a spy action film, but some were unclear. Some said that the titles were good but most said that they were not effective and sometimes hard to see, also that they did not fit the genre. This is definitely something we will change.

Think about sound and the images, are they appropriate? Do they go together?

Mostly all said the sound was good and helped build the tension, however a few said the voiceovers were out of sync, which is something we will adjust.

Camera – are the shots appropriate and relevant? Is there controlled use of camera attention to framing, variety of shot distance and angle? Close attention use of mise en scene?

Mostly all said that there was a good variety of angles and shots. One said the zoom made it look unprofessional, which is something we will consider when finishing our final draft.

Editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.

Mostly all said the editing and transitions were good and made the sequence flow well.

Any other comments: the titles were sometimes difficult to read.

Teacher’s feedback:
The teachers said that the titles do not fit the genre, and that the ‘spooky’ shadow behind emphasises that. We are going to re-do the titles. There are 3 shots (we know which ones) that either need to be cut better or have the music build up before, which we will also change. ‘Apart from that, everything else was brilliant.’

BFI Media Trip - 08/11/13

Independent film:
Makes you think
Makes you ask questions
Is associated with critical success
Films more as art and cultural expression

Mainstream film:
Makes you laugh
Makes you cry
Associated with commercial success (e.g. Gravity)
Films as escapist entertainment

Mass audiences watch mainstream film.
Film is a distribution led industry, mainstream film attracts significant advertising budgets.
Sound is important, do not underestimate it.

Mainstream conventions:
High production values e.g. multiple camera technology
Saturated distribution by a major studio
Star marketing
Brand/franchise familiarity
Safe genre location = sex/chase scenes/explosions
Key focus on entertainment values
Glossy mise en scene, studio and locations
Commercial success

Independent conventions:
Limited distribution
Rarely shown at complex cinemas
Older target audiences
Limited star marketing and lower production values

The big six:
Warner Bros. The Hobbit
Paramount Pictures Star Trek
20th Century Fox The Wolverine
Disney Saving Mr Banks
Sony Skyfall
Universal Studios About Time

Reasons why Hollywood films dominate global film production:
Significant financial resources
Safe genres, star and genre marketing
Saturated distribution/marketing
Audience expectations and familiarity with Hollywood film
Merchandising opportunities
Access to latest technology
UK markets

Role of distributes:
Chooses films to distribute
Attends film festivals
Decides number of prints
Pays for the cost of each print
Negotiates the release date and site of exhibition - WHEN
Sends trailers and publicity to cinemas
Negotiates budget, pays for audience and markets

Main aspects of marketing:
Advertising in media (TV/cinema)
PR Public Relations (brand images)
POS Point of Sale (displays in cinema)
Market research

Types of UK cinema:
Multiplex (278 cinemas)
Independent
Small chain

Leading UK Multiplex chains
Odeon
Cineworld
Vue
Empire Cinemas
Anderson
Reel Cinema
City Screen

Guest speakers:
(1) Soda film productions guest
(2) Paul Webster (producer)
(3) Timothy Richards (founder of Vue Cinemas)