LO4: Evidence of a Focus Group Screening of Your Finished Film

After we had our final draft of the film we felt it would be a good idea to conduct a focus group of people from our target audience to gauge their opinion on the film. We would then have a chance to alter the film based on their feedback. To conduct this focus group we showed the film to both of the media classes in our college as they are all aged around 18 which falls perfectly into the criteria for our target audience. As well as a focus group we conducted an online survey in order to gain more impartial feedback from people who don't know members of the production team personally as this would likely lead to more honest feedback. In order to gain this form of feedback we set up a questionnaire on Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.co.uk) and posted a link to it in an online forum. Below are screenshots of the survey as well as photographic evidence of the production team conducting a focus group feedback session.

LO2: Following Production Processes (Jacob)

It was important that we followed production processes when creating The White Room to make sure that the filming process was safe and efficient. We were responsible for the safety of our actors as well as our own so it was crucial that we set up equipment properly so as not to cause injury to anyone on set. Because we spent long periods of time setting up equipment it was important that we were organised and prepared so that the set-up would not run into the time when we were meant to be filming. Our organisation meant that when our actors arrived on set we could film their scenes quickly and efficiently.

Because we were responsible for the safety of multiple people we felt that it was necessary to create a risk assessment for this particular process. Below I have analysed our risk assessment and made note of how we have attempted to follow it as strictly as possible so that none of our actors were put in any dangerous situations.

Locksley Gardens/ Hawson Way (peoples houses)

The first pieces of The White Room to be filmed were shot at both mine and Matt Frost's houses. This presented a series of challenges in terms of health and safety as well as personal privacy as neither party wanted an excessive amount of their property to be shown on film. Arguably the greatest health and safety risk at Matt's house was his dog. We had to make sure that it was kept away from the set so as not to disrupt the filming or hassle the actors. Fortunately, all actors present were happy to be around the dog so the crew just had to make sure it didn't wander into any of the shots.


Café Crème

This was arguably one of the most dangerous filming locations for The White Room as it is a fully operational cafe; however, all filming at this location took place after the cafe had closed for the day so the risks were greatly reduced. When we arrived at the café we made sure that the table we were shooting didn't have any sharp objects on it and that the floor around it was dry. As well as this we kept the cafe's first aid kit close by in case anyone was to get injured.

Holland Street

We filmed the final scene of The White Room (where Christopher gets kidnapped) on Holland Street behind the bar, West Street Live. We had to be very cautious when filming this scene as although the road was quiet, it was still open and there was the occasional car leaving the car park at the end of the street. To avoid the risk of anyone being hit by a car we kept two members of the crew on each end of the street to warn the rest of the crew of any oncoming vehicles. We also made sure that we filmed on a day when it was dry so that the chances of someone slipping on the wet pavement were reduced. As well as this we again made sure that there was a first aid kit on this shoot just in case there were any accidents.

LO3: Applying Appropriate Visual Effects & Transitions (Jacob)

When creating the white room, we attempted to create meaning through the use of visual effects during production as well as post-production. An example of this can be seen during the opening scene of our film. The opening cuts between the protagonist and the antagonists from frame to frame so we tried to shoot al the scenes featuring the protagonist in a warm light and all the scenes with the antagonist in a dark light. We did this to give the audience an introduction to the roles of the characters. The use of colour filters added in post-production helped reinforce this.

We continued to use this technique throughout the film, particularly in the scenes showing dialogue between characters with similar connotations. The cafe scene where Christopher is talking with Andrew is shot in a warm light whereas the scene shot in the kidnapper's house where Aaron is talking with Wayne as they sit around a table is shot in a cold light. A blue tint was also added to the latter scene to really portray a sense of masculinity and seriousness (these are connotations of the colour blue).

We did this to portray Christopher and Andrew as friendlier characters to the audience so as to clearly establish who are the protagonists and who are the antagonists. To achieve this we had to experiment with different types of lighting in order to make the scenes look how we wanted them to. We filmed the cafe scene at dusk and used the interior lights of the cafe to give the warm effect whereas the dialogue scene with Aaron and Wayne was filmed in the morning using only natural light from the large window on set.


The most obvious use of transitions is arguably in the introduction of our film. We used quick cuts to jump from the protagonist to the antogonist and vice-versa. We tried to synchronise the cuts with the music we used in the background as this is a common technique used at the begining of films like "V for Vendetta" for example.

LO3: Linking Audio to Visuals & Applying Audio Effects (Frazer)

The main Use of linked audio and visuals in the white room is defiantly the opening crosscutting sequence. In order to create this sequence i had to find a song that would fit the tone of the film’s opening as to give the advance the impression that they were about to watch a rather darkly themed film. This meant that I had to find a copyright free piece of music eventually settling on “Daydream” by “the lovin’ spoonful.” I then arranged the footage so that the shot would switch in accordance with the beat of the song. This gave the scene a sense of rhythm and made it seem professional. 

In the scene of the film which focuses around "Daydream" I decided that I had used enough of the lyrics of the song around the time of the slider shot on Aarons windowsill. In order to make the product sound the way I wanted it to I decided to use the cutting tool on premiere in order to remove the second verse of the song and instead skip straight to the instrumental/ whistling solo section of the song. Doing this presented me with a few challenges. As can be seen from the audio bar of adobe premiere which I have inserted below I had to cut the audio track perfectly in order make the two sections of the song fit together perfectly. I did this by making sure that the cut I did was on the top of a beat. This meant that I was able to stop the track and cut in an accurate place. 

Finally my final edit on this part of the film's audio was to fade the song out as the first duologue scene began,. This meant that the song wouldn't be cut of abruptly which, in turn adds to verisimilitude.

Links to the new tracks to be used: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlAGdr2opdM - For use in the opening scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWaNW-aYhVY&t=39s - For use in the conversation between wayne and aaron

Here I have show screenshots of the premier programme after these changes:

Later in the production In the film we decided that it would be of benefit to the film if we were to insert some background music in the scenes with and without dialogue. In doing this we had a complete rescore of the film. This resulted in the replacement of the song "Daydream" at the beginning of the film with a more tense, dark orchestral piece of music which ,we felt, would add to the tension of the piece as a whole. As well as this we added backing/ background music in the scenes of Aaron and Wayne speaking to each other as well as that of Christopher and Andrew and the scene of Christopher texting Andrew at the bus stop.  

As to adhere to copyright law we decided that it would be intelligent for us to use exclusively royalty free music which we did for the majority of the film. However at the end of the piece it is clear that we have used the song "Tighten" up by American band "The Black keys." The reason why this is an acceptable piece of music to use in our film was because we were able to check the copyright enforcement of the song through a tool which YouTube provided to us. To access this tool we went to my YouTube account >Creator Studio >Creator Studio > Music policies. We then searched for songs which we would like to use in the scene and found tat the Black Keys' song was available for use except in a few countries (Great Britain not included) 

This shows that the video will be viewable worldwide if the song "Tighten up" was used. 

Below I have inserted screenshots of my premier file after insering the new sounds: 

As can be seen in these screenshots the new music added a lot to the scenes as that the soundscape before had was rather empty due to the fact the had recorded no other sound other than the dialogue. The new sound also helped us to drown out sounds created by our own errors when filming the scenes. Most specifically the scene of Wayne and Aaron speaking whish we decided to use was suffered from the sound of the camera it was being filmed on focusing itself as that we had forgotten to urn off the Auto focus feature which the camera had enabled for the establishing shots which (as can be seen in my daily shooting schedules blog post) were filmed the same day. Coving up this error serves to make the viewer feel more verisimilitude in the film which in turn adds to the tension which the viewer is supposed to feel. 

As well as adding to the sound of the film during this process we also changed the look f the scene by applying a dark filter over the whole film as to help us convey the dark themes of the film (when we were filming the piece it was mostly in the daytime and therefore the shots we filmed 

Note: In some of these screenshots there may only be one video and sound layer. The reason for this is because while editing the film Me and my partners Josh and Jacob edited different sections of the film. After each of us had finished our initial edits we transferred each of our exported videos to one premier file which we then exported as our final film. While I understand now that there were other ways we could have done this which wouldn't have involved exporting each video none of us thought of a different method at the time. 

The scene shown above of Chris texting Andrew is our most obvious use of audio and video effects. as can be seen the scene required the use of a texting video effect as well as the sounds which are associated texting. This required a lot of editing to be created. In order to do this we downloaded both a template for the video effect which we then put over the video of the scene and added the text to each of the text bubbles which the effect gave us and the sounds of massages being sent and received on a smart phone. Below I have show how this looked when completed on adobe premiere. All of the sound used for the scene was downloaded from royalty free sound website www.Freesound.co.uk and was thetherefore not open to copyright violations.

LO3: Producing & Reviewing an Offline Edit (Frazer)

When editing the final footage of a film together it is common for studios to create an offline edit which is cut of the film which has no effects added to it at all no music, no visual effects and no liner or non-linear editing. This means that the editor can get a good sense of the tone they are trying to convey before beginning work. We decided that it would be in our teams interest to create an offline edit of the white room so that we could more easily decide on the final shots which we wanted to use and in what order. Specifically, this applied to sequences such as the opening crosscutting scene and the final kidnapping scene. It is important to note that this edit was created before the final cut was prepared which means that some of the shots may not be the same versions as the ones used in the final product and it will be longer than the final film as that shots are not cut down for the purposes of editing. As well as this they are out of order of having audio issues which will be corrected in the future.

LO2: Footage in the Style & Conventions of the Chosen Genre (Frazer)

In our film, many of the shots were included in order to create tension as they are in may thriller movies. As well as this we made sure to follow the codes and conventions that many other films have contributed to making commonplace. These include featuring establishing shots of the places where the scenes are taking place as well as following a standard shot-reverse shot structure in our conversation scenes. I have included evidence of our adherence to the normal practices of film production below using examples from our film as well as examples from other films which fall into the same genre (that being a crime thriller).

LO1: Treatment (Frazer)

Working title: “The White Room”

The films narrative:

The white room is a short crime thriller revolving around two men. The film focuses on them both and contrasts them as it goes on. The narrative is that the first man, Matthew Thomas is going out to have a drink with his friend Pete. This scene contains a brief conversation, which establishes Thomas’s life as going downhill. He has recently been kicked out of University and split up with his girlfriend and as well as this he has owes a local gang over £100. 

On his way home Thomas has a hard time walking straight having drunk at Pete’s house. It is then that he sees a dark shape in the corner of his eye. Tom carries on walking but he cannot shake whatever the thing he is that he is seeing, paranoid and slightly fearful Tom starts walking more briskly eventually escalating to a full on run with the dark figure close behind however, he is quickly stopped when he is tripped by the figure who the kicks him in the face knocking him out.  

Tom wakes up In a dark, musty room alone. It is completely silent until a mobile phone next to him rings and he is able to gather the strength to press the answer call button and the final lines of dialogue ends the film “Good morning.”

Genre chosen to work in:  Crime thriller

Characters: 

Matthew Thomas (Main protagonist) 

Pete Edmonds (Briefly established friend character)

Unnamed man (primary antagonist) 

Brief synopsis:

Matthew Thomas is on a low. He's been kicked out of uni, his girlfriend's split up with him and on top of all that he has a debt to a gang.

The night was November 23rd and he had a new job 6,1/2 caucasian male. He had to be quick the window is short, he has to be quick...

Required crew:

Director 

Editor 

Camera operator 

Lightning assistant 

Scriptwriter

Wardrobe/ costume designer.

Required equipment:

SD Card 

DSLR Camera

Tripod 

Camera slider 

Costumes and props

Production schedule:

Suggested locations