Scrapping Stop-motion

I had previously decided to replace our original ending with the stop-motion style photographs, I felt that this ending was a lot more effective and looked a lot smoother than the one we used for our first draft. However, when I put the photographs into our film I found that they looked very out of place, separately both pieces of footage work very well but when together the different styles of film look disjointed and do not fit very well together. I feel that if we wanted to do the stop-motion technique we should have done our whole film in this style rather than just our end sequence.

I have now decided to revert back to our original footage and use that for our ending, this time however I haven't cut the footage up to create a 'stop motion' effect so now it all flows nicely together and looks very smooth and polished. I have still experimented with the speed of different clips (inspiration from the Sherlock Holmes films) like I had planned to do with the photographs to try and still create an engaging and effective film ending.

Re-shooting the ending of Flight

One of the criticisms received in the feedback of our first draft was that the ending let our production down, to correct this issue we decided to re-shoot the whole last sequence scene. We scheduled re-shooting for the 23rd February 2012. When it came down to shooting we decided to change tact a little and film with both a film camcorder and a digital camera to give us a stop motion effect. Below is some of the footage we managed to capture on the digital camera which I have put together.

Sample footage of our new Flight ending.

As you can see we used multiple photographs taken seconds after each other to create this animation effect. We decided to use this technique instead of cutting up film footage, which is what we had previously done as we found that this technique was a lot smoother and therefore created a more professional look. Within our final film I am going to experiment by speeding up some of the photographs and other down, to add effect to key moments in the scene, such as the passing over of the drug. This technique was used within the Sherlock Holmes production (see here) and I found that it made the footage very interesting and dynamic. When looking at the footage we captured above, I do prefer this ending to the one that we previously had filmed (see our first draft here), I feel that this technique is definitely a lot better and makes our film look more professional. Although I do like this technique and ending a lot better I still wanted to get the opinions of our audience members so I uploaded both endings to Facebook and then set up a poll asking users whether they preferred our new ending or the old one.

13 voted for the new ending, 5 voted for the old ending.

As you can see from the results of my poll it is clear that the audience preferred the new ending and when asked to elaborate they stated that they thought the new footage was a lot clearer and smoother, they also said that it made our film more interesting and professional.

Muriel - Film Poster Analysis

As we have now chosen our desired photograph for our poster we now need to decide on how the rest of the poster will look. We have chosen a photograph of our characters silhouette, concealing her identity, not a typical convention of the drama genre (click here). To gather some ideas on how to design the rest of the poster I am now going to analyse another poster which also incorporates a picture of character silhouettes.

The Muriel poster has a powerful shot of the back of three men walking through what looks to be a shopping centre. I really love the sense of mystery that this film poster portrays, we want to know why these men look so mysterious and suspicious, what are they up to? From the characters clothing we get the impression that the men are up to no good. The poster gives the audience an indicator of the film genre (drama) but doesn't reveal too much, influencing people to go and see the film to find out more. I also like the way the background image of this poster looks as if its been folded and almost like the image has been taken from a newspaper. The colours of this poster are dark browns and creams, the 'Muriel' film title stands out in a large dirty white font, when designing our film poster we will need to bare in mind colours which will stand out against the primarily black and purple background. I think the dirty white title font is perfect for this poster as its eye-catching stands out without being too offensive. Picking a muted white / cream font instead of a bright white font is a clever idea as a bright white colour might have been too harsh against the dark background, the colours within this film poster all fit well together. Having minimal colours on this poster also draws the audiences eye to the muted yellow wording which stands out against the rest of the writing, the yellow writing (which is in french) lets the audience know all of the awards which the film has won. It is important to include awards which the film has received on the poster as it may influence more people to go and see the film if they know that others have enjoyed the production and that it has won numerous awards for its success. 

Potential Poster Shots

For the next part of our project we have to create a poster for our short film. Below I have chosen four shots which I think are visually appealing and appropriate for our Flight poster. The shot that we choose for our poster will also be the one that is used for our magazine review, the next part of the project. 

Potential Shots

What I like about this shot is the way the shadows cover our main characters face, concealing her identity, this shot portrays mystery to our audience. As this shot does not give much away about our film  it will make audiences curious about our film and influence them to watch it.  I feel this shot does hint that our production is of the drama genre as its quite a strong and emotional shot, the character looks deep in thought and looks like she is struggling with a personal issue.

I think this shot is very powerful and visually appealing, its eye-catching which will attract audiences to our poster and get them interested in our film. I also really like the way the characters identity is hidden, much like the above image, as it will get the audience curious about our production and want to find out more. I also think this shot poses questions to the audience such as, who is our main character? and what is she thinking about? as our character looks as if she is deep in thought.

I think this shot portrays our film genre very well as its a very dramatic shot. In this shot you can clearly see our main character and her expression of thought, again this shot poses questions to the audience such as, what is the character thinking about? which will entice audiences into seeing our production. The only problem I have with this shot is that its not very colourful and eye-catching unlike the above two, its not as visually appealing and therefore may not catch the eye of audiences.

This shot is also very visually appealing, again I have chosen a shot where our main character is concealed as I really like the sense of mystery is portrays and how it doesn't give much away, posing questions to the audience. The only negative I have with this shot is that, as a still, audiences may not understand what the character is doing and this may confuse them.

After individually picking our favorite shots from our film we all sat down together to decide on one that would be the mos suitable for our poster. We all came to the decision that we would chose my shot number two. This is because we thought it was the most eye-catching and visually appealing out of the bunch. We also liked how our character was concealed, portraying mystery and hinting about the themes which may run throughout production.

Sound

Dance Studio
We started by sorting out the music for the dance studio sequence. We decided that we wanted to use classical music that quickly builds up at the end for this scene as it would go well with the movement Sophie creates when dancing and also will help create a soft, smooth and emotional scene. Once we all decided on what type of music we wanted to have within our production we set Leanne (who is in charge of sorting sound for our production) the task of creating her own version in GarageBand. Below is the sound which she created, she used the instruments 'emotional piano' and 'orchestra string'.

On reviewing the sound above we all came to the conclusion that it was too mellow and repetitive, also when we added it to the footage we found that the music did not match the visuals as it didn't have the dramatic increase at the end which we originally wanted. We then all decided that because of these reasons we were not going to use the music.

When looking through Youtube for potential music for our production I came across this piece of music Requiem by Mozart which I thought would be very fitting for our production:

I then showed this music to Jack and Leanne and we all decided that it would be suitable for this sequence. We are going to use the music from 0:20 to 1:00. We decided this because the music builds up dramatically at the end, heightening Sophie's struggle and adding tension to the scene. As well as having this music for our dance sequence we are also going to put this music at the end of our film to make sure that the two different sections of our film link together effectively.

Rope Walk Sequence
For the rope walk sequence we decided that we were going to have really faint music playing underneath the ambient sound. The music we decided on is below:

We felt that this music was suitable as it is still a classical piece (we wanted the music to make the audience draw parallels with the earlier dance sequence) but is slightly different as it include elements of the musical genre dubstep. The mixture of two musical genres will let the audience know that Sophie is confused about her identity and whether to continue dancing or lead a life of hedonism. The music is going to be really faintly played underneath the rope walk sequence to make the scene more interesting and to ensure that the audience can still hear the ambient sound within this scene, we wanted the ambient sound to still be heard so that the film still conforms to conventions of the social realism genre.

Flashback Sequence

For the flashback sequence we decided to layer the Youtube video which Jack created (below). We liked the idea of having lots of whispering sounds over the short flashback scene as it will confirm to the audience that Sophie is unsure about what path to take and that outside influences may be to blame for her decision.

Ambient Sound

As well as having non-diegetic music within our production we also are going to have some sequences which just consist of ambient sound as this is a typical convention of the social realist genre. Ambient, or diegetic sound, allows the audience to focus just on the narrative and can help to heighten a situation, this is why we have chosen to use this technique within the beginning and end of our production.

First Draft and Feedback

I uploaded the first draft onto my Youtube account for audiences to watch and comment on.

Twitter

I also showed the first draft to audiences on Twitter (on my Flight Twitter account) to gather opinions of our film so far. Here is the tweet which I posted:

Feedback

The majority of feedback received on Twitter was positive many commenting on how they like the opening sequence and bedroom shots, they thought that the shots were very effective and drew them into the narrative. The only criticism that was mentioned on Twitter was that they thought the end drug scene using the stop motion technique was a bit shaky and could be improved. As well as showing audiences on Twitter we also showed our Media teachers, the feedback we got from them was that they really enjoyed the bedroom shots, particularly the one with the sun flare. They said that the film felt very tranquil and peaceful. However they did note that they didn't really understand the relevance of the drug scene at the end and said it was quite out of the blue, they said that the film needed to have some hints before hand that our main character was considering turning to drugs. Because of these comments we have decided to add some flash back scenes within the bedroom sequence, this will hopefully drop hints to the audience about whats to come and make the film flow a lot better. Another comment made by Mr Cunningham was that he didn't like the opening shots with Sophie walking to the dance studio, he felt our opening shot was really effective and that it was ruined by the cuts of her walking in the corridor, he felt that our film would benefit if we removed the other shots. I do agree with the criticism we received for the first draft and the comments we got were very helpful, they helped us decide on how to develop our film further.

Improvements

The improvements we have decided to make from the criticism received are as follows:

• We have decided to add in a flash back sequence within the bedroom scene. Adding this sequence in will hopefully make the audience aware of Sophie's struggle and develop the narrative, also it will add a sense of surrealism to our production.
• I have decided to add some transitions into the rope walk scene to make it flow a lot better as at the moment it is slightly jumpy and quick, making the production not at sleek and professional as we would like.
• Improve the stop-motion sequence, re-shooting the sequence so it is smoother.
• Remove the beginning shots of Sophie walking in the corridor to make the first shot of the doors more impacting on audiences.