How we incorporated our Audience Research

I feel I should tell you about the thoughts behind our characters and setting so that you know how we incorporated the findings of our audience research.

We already knew that the film was going to follow the life of protagonist Steve as, from our research into the genre, we knew that following the life of a criminal is a key feature of Crime films. From our questionnaires though, we took the thought that a Crime film protagonist should 'have a personal interest in a case' and developed the storyline around this comment.

The protagonist, Gary, we tried to make look like a 'hard man' by dressing him in a hooded top, as this is stereotypically associated with somebody who might be labelled a 'hard man'.

The setting is an interesting consideration. Almost all of our respondents said that the opening scene should have an air of mystery surrounding it. They also all said that it should be dark. We thought then, that we would create a resounding air of mystery by shooting in the daylight. This makes you wonder what is going on as a substantial robbery should surely not be taking place in the full light of day. It also captures the attention of the watcher as it goes against their usual expectations and so they are intrigued to see what has happened and why. We were also told that the opening of a Crime film should introduce you to the life of the main character. We did this by scrolling down the newspaper prop that we made specifically to inform the audience of what has happened.

Further Research Evidence II

Continuing to go back through the notes I made before making our film, I have found more extra evidence of research, this time into film genres, that I again forgot to add to my blog at the time.

This is an A3 grid which myself and Frank filled out considering the codes and conventions of seven different film genres, thinking about specific films of our choice from each genre.

This was a big help when deciding on our film genre as we had everything that we would have to consider for each genre mapped out in front of us.

Further Research Evidence

Going back through the notes I made before making our film, I have found extra evidence of research into film openings that I forgot to add to my blog at the time.

These are notes I made on the mise-en-scène of the opening to the film The Silence of the Lambs (1991: Jonathan Demme). This was a class task where we were split into groups. Each group had to take notes on a designated convention.

This was a useful exercise as it allowed everyone to collaborate their thoughts, meaning we didn't miss anything, thus meaning we all knew what to think about when planning our films.

Film Complete!

Myself and Frank have now completed the editing of our film opening! We both feel satisfied with what we have produced. It may not be perfect but then we have to remember this is our first attempt at doing something like this (or second if you include the Preliminary Task) and that actual films take months and even years to edit correctly, and so personally I think we have done a decent job.

I am going to do a more detailed analysis and evaluation when I have time to sit down and go through our film.

Equipment Used

Here is the equipment we used in the making of our film.

Camera & Tripod

Dolly

The Filming Process

Just a few snaps showing myself and Frank in the process of making of our film.

Updates

As you have read we had to change our actor. Here is a picture of Frank who plays the guy who makes the betrayl, Gary.

We also retook location photos as the light was better and decided to add a couple of extra locations to ensure we had enough footage.

Final Filming Session ... Hopefully!

Today we spent three hours filming our final shots.

The short notice meant that we couldn't get anyone else to act so Frank had to take over from Nick; myself and Frank both feel that we did just as good a job though, by taking time over the shots in which we were both needed.

Today we also had the use of a Dolly. This certainly was useful for some of our shots, though we learnt that you can't really use it unless you have a smooth surface underfoot as the wheels are not cut out to travel over rough surfaces without bumping around.

Tommorow then we will begin editing. Hopefully we won't have to go and shoot any more footage!

Reshooting

Having spent another hour editing our film we have decided that we are going to refilm in two days time.

Apart from the fact that the camera is not as steady as it could have been in the footage we have, myself and Frank have also noticed a glaring continuity editing error which we are unable to fix no matter which pieces of footage we put together.

For our next and hopefully final filming session we have booked a camera, tripod and a dolly as we believe this can really help us when moving the camera from a mid shot to an extreme close up shot.