Portfolio evaluation

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Continuity task

Sorry for the chronological order break, but I forgot to post it at the beginning.... 

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The Online Versions of Our Piece

Before watching know that the DVD version of the film is much better as the sound does not max out and the film is not jumpy at-all, I am trying to upload the film from my laptop at the moment but my efforts seem futile as blogger is soo slow and even with a download speed of 8.0 meg my upload speed is only 3.2 meg which is a massive pain. the school is even slower... sorry.

Brief summary of the problems we had

Problems

 

As we were filming we encountered a few problems. As previously mentioned we had problems with filming at the weekend because we were all busy, and so we had to film in school hours. On the week that we had set aside to film was the week of heavy snow and we only came into school on the Wednesday, where we filmed the dream sequence. The snow turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we incorporated the snow into the scene and ended up with stylised shots if we had any continuity errors then the whole scene would have had to have been re filmed as there would have been no snow. We were also the first group to completely finish filming and start editing, and because we made the decision to record our film in HD we were the first to encounter some encoding problems with the HD cameras and small other problems which were more easily overcome with more experience. We also had problems with iDVD as we could not get the menu music to play.

will be fleshed out in Portfolio evaluation

Editing

We have edited the film, but fortunately due to the amount of time the HD video took to export as a Quicktime file we were unable to post incremental updates on YouTube.

Similar media products and target audience

To reaserch other similar media products we watched three thrillers and the jason bourne series


In Bruges

Minority Report

The jacket

the bourne series

these films are Thrillers / thriller sub genre's e.g action thriller, horror thriller and so on.

Out of these films only the Bourne series and Minority report sold well, the other two films were more niche market films, and so after a group discussion we decided to try and combine the two main genres of thriller together action and psychological thriller. we decided to implement this by centering the film around 'secret' agents so we could get action in and we also chose to have a no linear plot so we could implement so psychological thrills into the film. 

"The third in a series of spy thrillers starring Matt Damon took in $70.2 million last weekend" 

International Gross

$214,690,492

these quote shows the box office takings of the Bourn ultimatum, which is a spy thriller - much like ours - and the number is massive. this is how we targeted the main stream audience s they will associate "compromised" with the Bourne films and so they will come to watch the film, yet the more psychological thriller fans will also find the film appealing. The International gross is massive and we hope to tap into some of that, by creating a spy thriller.

In Bruges has a cult following that is ever expanding, many people like the stylized feel of the film and we have tried to incorporate this into our film with the framed shots and the snow on the ground. 

International Gross

$22,981,796

The international gross is not excessively high, bit it is impressive as the film was a British film and by using stylized shots, we hope to encourage some of the viewers of 'In Bruges' to watch 'Compromised' therefore widening our target audience.

We liked the way the Non linear plot was used in 'The Jacket'  to create the psychological thriller and we decided to incorporate that into our film through the dream sequence. 

International Gross

$9,151,847

As you can see the international gross is not high, it is relatively small, but I think that this is because it caters for a niche market, and our film is attempting to appeal to a wider audience, and the film could end up being a gateway for people to get into psychological thrillers.

The International Gross for Minority report is: $226,800,000. This is the biggest gross by far and the genre is classified as sci-fi, action thriller. we have created a psychological action thriller which should appeal to most of the minority report viewers.

We should therefore have a massive target audience and our film should appeal to a very wide audience of people, as we have seen what people like in a thriller film and what people do not like and we have tried to include and exclude these factors appropriately. shame i can't copyright it.... 

To research the target audience further we created a questionnaire, but the time scale would not have allowed us to ask and collate more than 30 questionnaires but the exercise would have been futile as it would only be 30 people of the potential target audience of hundreds of thousands. - the survey would not have encompassed enough of the target audience to make the results valid or worthwhile. the time that the data representation would have taken would have also consumed much needed editing and music composing time. If we had more time then the questionnaire would have been an excellent way of researching the target audience.

Story Boards

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Props

Here is a list of all the props we used:

• briefcase - held by victim 
  
• .45 Colt replica - held by Agent  
  
• syringe- held by doctor (from science lab, and yes, we did give it back)
  

ORIGINAL story

Some aspects of this idea was not well thought through, e.g taking out my air rifle in a public train station, and the ideas seem mildly chaotic. time was also as people had part time work, driving lessons, family commitments and social lives so we we adapted the story to suit the time that we had in school, and the areas that we could film in. this is not ideal but I believe that we made the best of it. With this in view the title "compromised" seems rather ironic as we had to make many compromises to get the whole group to agree and to fit into our hectic lives. I have found the original file and it is below.

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Final list of shots/filming locations

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Music

As we decided to make the piece with no dialog the music is very important, and because we did not have full access to Logic 8 and also because our knowledge of the program was limited we made all the music using Garage band loops. This turned out very well as we had full control of the music and we could make it in sink with the film its-self and we could change the tempo / key of the music to fit the scene. this turned out well because it allowed us to produce music that created an atmosphere that draws in the viewers and keeps their attention. The only piece of music that we did not create ourselves was the dream sequence. we got the music from ccmixter.org and then reversed the track so that it played through normally once, then played in reverse creating the dreamlike music.

HD

We decided to film in HD Because we thought that if we filmed in HD then the piece would look better and also it gives the film that film like clearness that the normal SD handheld cameras do not give. We knew that it would take up lots if space, but we decided to overlook that as the film was only about 2mins long which converts into about 2GB.

Filming locations

Our original plan was to shoot the film at James’s house on a Saturday, but due to issues with work and family events we had to scrap ideas of filming at the weekends. At first this seemed like a limitation but we soon discovered that the school and its surroundings gave a far wider range of areas to shoot the film in. the school has old areas such as in the shot where the doctor walks into the red door in the brick alley, which was in fact the girls changing rooms, and we also realised that with some decent editing we could make the places look like they were linked, but in fact they were all in entirely different places. After we looked around school we came up with a list of locations that we were going to film in. and then we decided on the best place for each shot.

 

Character list and costumes

Our character list:
-Agent
-Victim
-Doctor

Agent
We discussed these characters and decided that the agent would be in casual clothing to prevent detection so James wore jeans, hooded top with a black coat and white shoes. Then when he was captured he would be dressed by the ‘clinic’ in white t-shirt and black trousers.
The Weapon used by the agent is a .45 colt replica
This is an American weapon, which is popular
For its accuracy and can even be used for hunting
Game e.g black bear and deer. I thought that this
would be a prime weapon for an assassin.


The Victim

We decided to have the assassin's victim looking more like the cliché shady agent with the black inspector’s coat jeans and army boots. We decided on the briefcase to get the viewer wondering what was inside to warrant a killing.

Doctor
The Doctor we decided to have a white lab coat, but with a black belt and tights and black heels to create an enigma as one can tell that she is not a proper doctor by her dress, but they will associate the white coat with the medical profession so the audience will want to know what she is dong and who she is.

Our Idea

The opening will be confusing to the audience as they will not understand that the character has been set up for the assassination that occurs during the dream sequence, yet the film will explain how the agent got captured and how the dream sequence will help him to uncover the corruption of the Agency. The doctor's face will never be shown and erie music will be played to create an enigma within the character. The main purpose of the opening to our film is to grab the viewers attention and for them to want to watch on to see the story unfold.

Script

we have chosen to do the film with no speaking parts and used music that we have created in garage band to create an atmosphere of confusion and tension instead. 

Influences

We took our influences from other action/thriller films such as the Jason Bourn films, minority report, In Bruges and The Jacket. yet we have kept in mind that we wish to give the film a more arty feel to it, and the inspiration for this came from In Bruges, we have looked at the shot framing in it and wish to incorporated nicely framed shots to give our piece a more arty feel. in hindsight this came from the opening shot with the bench and then the shot throughout the squared glass looking down the corridor.

Blurb

An agent is set up. He was tricked into a faux assassination and  was compromised and captured. now he has been given a chance to topple his corrupt agency and uncover why he was set up.