Final Edit of 'Sweet Revenge'

Sweet Revenge from Emma Taylor on Vimeo.

This is the final edit of our thriller feature film opening 'Sweet Revenge'.

7. Evaluation - Comparing to my Preliminary Production

In the time since the preliminary task I have learned a great deal about filming and editing especially. Although I do believe that one of our greatest achievements since completing the preliminary task was our effective use of the green screen. The use of the green screen to swap backgrounds and fool audiences into believing the two locations are the same, an illusion I know is used constantly in the big Hollywood thrillers and nearly every other production. The reason for our illusion was because we couldn’t have our actor actually jumping off of the viaduct so we substituted it for a much smaller wall only a metre from the ground. When watching the production it is quite difficult to tell that the green screen has actually been used which was one of things I was most proud of I am proud of how my skills have developed in a way that has allowed us as a team to create this effect that really adds to the drama and intensity of the psychological thriller. Although I did have a good knowledge of filming and editing before the preliminary task, and have used green screens in other films I have made such as 'Man with Van - Rochdale Movie Makers' I could now learn to use other editing systems and learn in an educational establishment rather than just on location at my film clubs (Burnley Film Club and Rochdale Movie Makers).

Green screen

One thing that this process has also taught me is that the smallest details are often the most effective, things like colour correction for example.

During the scenes where the two characters are together, the colours have been altered to appear happy and bright, this we know connotes optimism and innocence. The colours are not too bright however because even though we are trying to connote happy memories it is also supposed to be connoting the past which is usually associated with black and white although this does not particularly matter for ours as there is a distinct difference between the colours of the scenes connoting the past and the present.

Colour correction

It is clear to see in this screen shot a distinct difference in the colours compared to the last one. This is because this scene is set in the present when Joe is committing suicide and everything has gone wrong due to his involvement with a gang.  The colours have been corrected in a way to make the scene appear dark and depressing. This connotes Joe’s depressed mindset at this point in the film.

Difference in colour correction

Also something that I believe was a key feature in the effectiveness of ‘Sweet Revenge’ was the use of music to create mood and atmosphere. This was not used in the preliminary causing the film to all be on the same level, there was no depth to the preliminary task and there was nothing to engage the audience into wanting to watch on. For example during the romantic scenes between Kym and Joe in ‘Sweet Revenge’ the scenes are accompanied by soft piano and string (orchestral) music this was something that I noticed during our research of thriller conventions particularly in the opening of ‘Face/off’. During the scenes where Sean Archer is happily riding the carousel with his son the music is very soft, light and orchestral, this connotes the innocence and happiness of their father son relationship. When this is all shattered after an attempted assassination kills Archer’s son the music changes to more depressing sad music connoting Archer’s grief. This is the effect we tried to capture in our production as well. When the scene changes to ‘Two months later’ in Kym’s bedroom the music changes from soft and gentle to harsh and uncomfortable connoting Kym’s thirst for revenge.

Two months later

 

Another thing that we learned was very important from the preliminary was continuity. During our preliminary task we had a very obvious continuity error which was that our characters were wearing different clothing at the production was filmed on two different days.

continuity error - from shoot 1

continuity error - from shoot 2

To make sure that this kind of error did not happen in our production of ‘Sweet Revenge’ we completed all the filming within one day and made a note of what everybody was wearing and made sure they were still wearing the same thing in scenes where continuity is required. 
One thing we do understand is very important is the 180 degree rule. We applied this rule in our preliminary task and also in ‘Sweet Revenge’ sticking to the 180 degree rule is one of the most important rules in film production as if broken; the film can become very disorientating for the viewer.  The 180 degree rule must be stuck to in order for the shots to make visual sense. We stuck to the rule when filming Joe and Kym together. We see a shot of Joe and Kym together from the left we then track around them with the camera to show them on the right, this is not breaking the rule because the audience has now seen the movement happen so it still makes sense in their heads.

180 degree rule explained

One other thing we learned in our preliminary was how to use shot reverse shots effectively, we used shot reverse shots several times during the filming of ‘Sweet Revenge’ but especially in the scene inside Kym’s bedroom where we need to see bother her facial expressions as well as the things she is holding and looking at.

mixtures of shots and 180 degree rule

mixture of shots and 180 degree rule

Filming and Techniques Used (Evaluation 7ii)

In the very first shot of 'Sweet Revenge' we see a shift in the depth-of-field. Depth of field refers to the range of distance that appears 'in focus'/acceptably sharp. This creates a gradual transition and moves the audience's attention to another location on the screen, almost without them noticing.

Depth of Field

The 'Circle of Confusion' was used to see at what point the focus was acceptably focused and when filming I altered the focus ring depending on what degree of focus was required.

The 'Circle of Confusion'

This technique is used in many thriller feature films such as James Bond, so we employed this technique to keep up to date with the latest, most most creative techniques.

Example of depth of field in James Bond

Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds states than an image is most pleasing when its subjects or regions are composed along imaginary lines which divide the image into thirds. This creates good composition, and not only gives the audience a good view of the main subject but also a good view of the surrounding mise-en-scene.

A grid is used to help co-ordinate the shot.

Rule of thirds grid

The rule of thirds could be seen in many of our shots creating good composition.

Joe - Evidence of rule of thirds

Kym - evidence of rule of thirds

Joe - Evidence of rule of thirds

6. Evaluation of Equipment

 

For the editing and post production of our film we used Final Cut Pro X. Final cut pro is a non-linear video editing software developed by macromedia inc and later by apple inc for Intel-based OS mac computers.  Final cut pro provides non-linear, non-destructive editing of any quick time compatible video format, it supports a number of simultaneously composed video tracks, up to 99 audio tracks and multi-camera editing for combining video from multiple camera sources as well as many edit functions.

The software is industry standard and allowed us to perform many tasks that simply wouldn’t be possible on the other software option we had, pinnacle studio, such as colour correction, use of vignette, use of black bars above and below the clip to create a cinematic effect  and use of extensive audio enhancement etc…

Final Cut Pro X

  

Canon EOS 550D

 One of the cameras we used for filming was the camera we used to film was a Canon EOS 550D, this is a semi-professional camera that allowed to capture our footage in stunning detail that would hopefully be as close to industry standard as possible. The Canon shoots in high quality 1080p HD video allowing us to create a high quality cinematic effect. However there were some disadvantaged to this camera such as, it is very expensive and could easily be broken if not handled in the correct manner. The camera is also very complex to operate so the whole productions team needed to be aware of how to operate it correctly in a way that would produce the best results before filming could properly begin. 

 

Canon EOS 550D

JVC GY-HM100 

The other camera that we used to film was the JVC GY-HM100, this is also an extremely expensive and high quality semi-professional camera that we actually used to film the behind the scenes footage. The camera also shoots directly in QuickTime format which is the format used to edit in Final cut pro, the editing software we used for the post production side.  The same disadvantages apply to this camera as they did to the canon, as it is a very expensive camera it would be a lot of money for a replacement if it were to be damaged through improper handling. 

JVC GY-HM 100

Steadicam / shoulder rig 

A Steadicam is a type of camera stabilizing mount for filming; the main purpose of the steadicam is to mechanically isolate it from the movements of the operator allowing for a smooth shot. The smoothness of the shot is even maintained when moving quickly over an uneven surface.  The steadicam is basically a slightly more practical and more portable version of the dolly, only it can move anywhere the camera operator wishes to move for shooting purposes and is not fixed on set tracks like a dolly would be. 

Shoulder rig

Dolly

 For many of our tracking and other shots we used a dolly to create a smooth professional looking shot. Although we did not have in our possessional dolly, we improvised and created a homemade dolly and tracks with some plastic piping from B&Q. The homemade dolly worked very well in making the shot smooth so it was not distracting to the action taking place in the scene.  However as with everything there are also disadvantages of using the dolly such as, the tubes use as tracks to run the dolly were not collapsible so remained their full size the whole time during filming and transport which caused difficulties when transporting around the several locations that we were filming at.

Homemade Dolly

SD cards

The SD cards we used to store the footage were SanDisk Ultra 64GB. These cards allowed us to store masses of data in a small confined space in the camera which we could then manipulate later in editing.  By using cards with such a large storage capacity we did not have to change them regularly and were able to just use one in each camera, one for the filming and one for the behind the scenes.  However the disadvantages of using the small SD cards were that they are very small and could easily be dropped and lost along with all the date stored on them. There is also the danger that the cards could not be backed up or formatted properly, jeopardising the footage that we had shot, fortunately we did not encounter any of these problems.

SanDisk Ultra 64GB SD Card

Crane

The crane we used was an 8 foot long camera crane; there were many benefits of using the camera crane such as it allowed for a smooth shot that panned up and down to heights unreachable by hand held and dolly mounted cameras. This was particularly useful for the viaduct establishing shot where we wanted a full view shot panning up from the ground to the top of the bridge allowing the viewers to grasp the fully height up the viaduct. The impact of the film will be much greater if the audience fully understands the scale of the viaduct. However there were some disadvantages of using the crane such as, it is quite large and not particularly easy to transport, it is also quite complicated to assemble and operate correctly so required a lot of skill and knowledge from the productions team to work using the crane effectively. 

Crane

Boom and Microphone

The boom microphone that we used for recording sound was a Rode model, during the filming of the indoor scenes such as the scene in Kym’s bedroom we kept the microphone as normal and the sound quality was perfect. We were able to ensure there was no chance of distortion though the use of headphones while recording and also by visually checking the levels on the monitor. The boom poles were collapsible making the microphone very portable and easy to transport from location to location.  However the boom is not without its difficulties.  When filming within confined spaces it is all too easy to catch the microphone on the ceiling or a wall but this was something we became accustomed to very quickly and easily so it caused us no problems. It is also takes large amounts of physical effort to maintain the microphone at a height that will pick up the audio well nought but also remain out of shot.  For filming the outside scenes (which was for most of the filming) we used a ‘Dead cat’ cover for the microphone which compensated for the wind and avoided distortion of the audio. 

boom

Rode mic

Tripods

 The tripods we used allowed us to film steady shots on constant action. This was especially useful for shots that were either close ups or extreme close ups as it held the camera completely still while shooting when a shake would be particularly obvious and would take away from the professional effect that we were aiming for. The tripod contained air bubble levellers that allowed us to make sure the shot was completely level before shooting.  The tripods were collapsible and very easy to transport from location to location, the camera could be easily secured to the top of the tripod so we didn’t have to worry about it falling off and getting damaged. However the tripods can become impractical when wanting to track a shot smoothly for a particularly long distance as the tripod although very smooth in panning has very limited movement.  But this was when the Steadicam and the dolly came in. 

Tripod

Green screen

There was one particular scene where the use of a green screen was necessary. This scene was the viaduct jump scene where our character Joe jumps off the viaduct. Clearly this scene would be impossible to film exactly this way. So as a solution we filmed the scene up until just before the jump where Joe is climbing up on the fence.  We then filmed the jump from a different wall which was in reality only a metre off the ground as opposed to a huge drop on the other side like on the viaduct. However to make the jump still look authentic we held a green screen up behind Joe as he jumped from the smaller wall, we had also earlier taken a photograph of the background at the viaduct location. This was then transposed onto the green screen during post production editing to make the scene look authentic and like Joe really was jumping off of the viaduct. This complexity of editing was only possible on Final Cut pro, although it is possible to use green screen editing on Pinnacle studio it would not look as authentic as it did with Final cut pro and we wanted it to look as close to being real as possible and not look staged. 

The team with the green screen

We have used Blogger to post our blogs of our AS Media Production. This is mainly because this is available to us from both within Sixth Form and at home for free. This is a very good blogging site which is easy to use and I found the system quick to learn and use efficiently. One advantage of using Blogger is that we have complete control over the HTML, so we could modify or apply any external template if we wished. Also, as Blogger is connected to Google, if we forgot the password onto our blogs it would send us a text message with a security key on, which is useful as we don't lose all of our course work.

Blogger Logo

To post all of our films including the finished product, the behind the scenes and the rough edits, we used Vimeo. Much alike Blogger, we could access Vimeo from inside Sixth Form, whereas we wouldn't use its rivalry site Youtube. We could get high quality videos onto Vimeo and it not destroy the quality as YouTube does, and as we filmed in HD, we wanted to show our film in HD so Vimeo was evidently the best choice for us to use. However, each film that you put onto Vimeo, is limited to a maximum of 5GB of data, which isn't much considering we were shooting in HD, so we had to compress the file in Final Cut Pro and upload it directly.

Vimeo Logo

(Extended 4+5 Evaluation) Film Reviews

Reviews from Sweet Revenge from Emma Taylor on Vimeo.

Here are some reviews of the opening from Burnley Film Makers. There were a range of people here who enjoyed our film and gave us some positive feedback, and we were pleased to hear positive comments from the chairman of the North West IAC (Institute of Amateur Cinematographers).

Even though this particular group were not part of the target audience that we had in mind when making the opening, they had expertise on the technical elements of filming such as camerawork, editing, lighting and sound which we asked them to comment on.

Overall, this was a positive viewing and they were pleased with our work and the general mood coming back to us was that they wanted to see more of the film and we should carry on making the rest of the film, if not a full length feature film, then a short film to put into film festivals. It was an enjoyable evening, and we were very pleased to show the film we have worked very hard on and felt very pleased and proud with the feedback which we received.

( Extended 4+5 Evaluation) Written Reviews of 'Sweet Revenge'

''Your film is very well put together and beautifully shot, the soundtrack is very good, good levels. I am trying to find some constructive criticism, but finding it difficult. It's brilliantly directed, the camera work is excellent with great composition, and very well edited, the effects are in-keeping with todays filming technics and most of all it keeps the attention of the viewer. The shot of the boy jumping is superb! Not sure about the story but then "I am old," (But I am Happy) (Rod Stewart "Father and Son".) 1980s. I assume that this is because you're fitting with your theme which is the opening to a thriller, so as far as the story goes, this not only fits this purpose but is very engaging.If I thought I could have done anything like that at your age I would have been very proud, and I have been filming since I was 15 years old, (9.5 cine). If these idea's are mostly yours, you will do very well. It is good, well done and the best of luck with your future endeavours.''

- Carl Stredder - Chairman of Burnley Film Club 

A nicely shot film with an excellent range of camera angles and techniques ranging from effective use of depth-of-feild to crane shots. A superb student thriller, one which the cast crew should be very proud of. The editing techniques are outstanding, especially the evidnet colour grading and I look forward to see more films such as this in the future. The only constructive criticism I would give is to not have your shots so tight in the frame, but this is a common feature in many amateur films, and is no cause for concern. There are some fine tuning points, but if you didn't have those, you wouldn't be a film maker. Well done!

- Tommy O'Connor - Editor and Director at the BBC

4 + 5. Evaluation Target Audience

Sweet revenge fan 1 from lucypillingmedia

Here is the table from our focus group of young people.

Responses from the Questionnaire.

The questions from the questionnaire were:

Male/Female?

Age?

What kinds of films are you interested in?

What are your hobbies?

What do you spend you spend your money on for leisure?

What kind of magazines do you read?

What attracts you to a thriller film?

We asked these questions to gain a profile of our ideal 'Sweet Revenge fan' and the target audience who might want to watch out film.

The use of the questionnaire and the focus group used meant that we could evidently see that there was a target audience for our film. As our target audience is teenagers and young adults who are the most frequent cinema goers in the UK, this would help our film get the green light to get made into the feature film. Another contributing factor as to why this project would get the green light, would be because our actors have recognisable status as they've been in previous short films of mine and have performed live on stage. 

Upon viewing our target audience really enjoyed our film and it has been popular online on websites such as Facebook and Youtube where it has been uploading for public viewing. (We did not want to upload the final piece as it was our finished coursework and were conscious of the fact that it had not yet been marked and our grades had not been finalised.) But we felt that our film was of a high enough standard for public viewing. I personally was overwhelmed by the response given from my just from a few hours after posting the film online. One scriptwriter had even contacted me after the upload to ask if I could direct and produce his short film that he has written. We felt very proud that all our hard work had payed off and our target audience enjoyed our film.

Comment 1 - Facebook - Austen Lowe. Age: 16

Comment 2 - Facebook - Shannon Duffy. Age: 17.

Comment 3 - Facebook - Sam Newsham. Age: 15.

Comment 4 - Facebook - Rachael Simpson. Age: 17.

Comment 5 - Facebook - Jessica Buckley - Age: 17.

Comment 6 - YouTube - Samuel Brierly. Age: 17.

The number of views and 'likes' on the YouTube page.

The use of internet websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo were very useful to us in getting our target audience to watch the film and give us come comments on the film. This method let us reach many people at the same time, very quickly rather than having to get many people in one room to watch the film at a screen viewing, and meant that the audience could watch the films in their own time as they would on film distribution sites such as Netflix.

Netflix Logo

3 Evaluation: What Kind of Institution Might Distribute our Production?

A production company provides the physical grounds to build on in the form of media entertainment such as films and television programmes. Production companies are usually responsible for sourcing the funds to produce the production, it is also responsible for budgeting, scheduling, the supply with talent and resources, the organisation of staff, the post production side such as editing and distribution and the actual marketing of the production.

The film distributor is the company or individual solely responsible for the marketing of a film. The distributor may set the release date of the film and the way which the film is made available for viewing e.g., directly to the public through either through cinema viewing or directly to DVD. A distributor may do this directly, if the distributor owns the theatres or film distribution networks, or through exhibitors and other sub-distributors. A limited distributor may only deal with particular products such as DVD’s or Blu-Ray, or may act only in a particular country or market.

For a low budget film like ours the funding would most likely come from a government grant from the British Film institute. The BFI have a lottery funding system for film producers in the UK who are emerging or world class and are capable of creating distinctive and entertaining work.

British Film Institute

The BFI would provide us with 'seed' money to help get the planning process underway and involve large production companies such as Film4 to get involved. As Film4 are eager to engage with young, new British film making talent, I think that Film4 would be a good choice as a large production company, and also because they have a target audience similar to ours (16-30) and show programmes which are of an 'alternative' and risky nature, which is a suitable description of our film. Other, smaller production companies would also be involved, such as my own production company 'Broken Coal Productions' and my friend's production company 'Rotted Grape' owned by Tommy O'Connor (Editor and Director at the BBC). Including these small, local production companies would mean that there would be solid relationships between the cast and crew as they have mostly all worked together before, and therefore improve the structure and development of the film in question. The feature film would also aid the development of the production companies as it would help raise their profile and help them obtain more work in the future.

Broken Coal Productions - Owned by Emma Taylor

Rotted Grade Productions - Owned by Director Tommy O'Connor

Many sources of money will have to be found in order to develop the film (BFI Funding, Rotted Grape, Broken Coal and Film4) as this will help spread the immense costs of production - even though this is only a low budget film, the money is hard to gain back in the industry due to the dominance of American production company in Hollywood.

I believe that our film fits suitably into this category and would benefit from this type of funding.  I believe our film particularly would be initially distributed through small film festivals across the country such as the commonwealth film festival in Manchester and the East End film festival in London to raise awareness of the production, not to mention travelling to the world famous Cannes Film Festival to try and get noticed as a company, or even as an individual director so funding for the next film after 'Sweet Revenge' can be easier to find, and also to promote it abroad.

Commonwealth Film Festival logo

When the film had received some more interest and possibly further funding it could go on to be shown in smaller, independent cinemas such as the corner house in Manchester.

Cornerhouse, Manchester

 Films that would be released in a similar way would be other low budget British films such as 'Monsters' written and directed by Gareth Edwards.  

The logo of the real production company we used in our production was 'Spyglass Entertainment', we felt as though this would be a suitable choice as from what we had observed through our research of thriller conventions we noticed that many of the thrillers such as ‘The Sixth Sense' were either produced or co-produced by Spyglass.  The name of our own production company is 'Songbird Productions'; the name was a group decision based on what we had observed from our research of current thrillers.  We noticed that many production company names included connotations of never ending limits and others with the sky and the name ‘Songbird Productions' seemed to feature both connotations. The actual logo features the name of the company ‘Songbird productions’ along with four animated birds that fly in to position over the title in turn. The animated logo is accompanied by the sounds of song birds tweeting to make the logo feel naturalistic and establish a brand to the company. 

The opening credits mention each person involved in the production in the order which it would in an actual thriller production based mainly on importance with the director appearing first, the assistant director appearing second, followed by the editing and other credits such as props and sound.  Each credit is divided with a scene in between; the opening is split between two scenes so the credits only appear on one of the scenes.

The software we used to edit the production logo was 'Motion Graphics' for Mac which enabled us to animate the birds flying easily and create motion paths. Whilst my own knowledge of animation is limited, I was able to create this animation from the original design and am pleased with the result.

Promotion of 'Motion' for Mac

The 'Motion' logo

2. Evaluation: How our Characters Represented Particular Social Groups

Kym Ultio/The Bride

Kym and The Bride are similar characters as they are both seeking revenge on numerous people with acts of violence. In “Kill Bill”, The Bride commits revenge on her ex-colleges the “Deadly Viper Assassination Squad” by brutally murdering all of the members and eventually (though not until the second film) the leader of the Squad, Bill. Kym is seeking revenge on a gang which her boyfriend used to be a part of, and we know she has intentions of physically hurting them, as when she leaves to carry out her revenge, she grabs a knife and places it in her bag. Both characters names are unknown until later in the films, as this creates mystery in the characters, and also implies that they could be anyone, and anyone could seek gruesome revenge in the right situation. However a key difference is that Kym is seeking revenge on her dead loved one, as the gang forced him into suicide, and The Bride is seeking revenge for herself, as the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad tried to murder her on the day of her wedding rehearsal. She is however, also committing revenge for another as she believes her unborn child was murdered on the same day and knows her future husband was. They both also have knowledge on the methods they use to get revenge. The Bride was in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, was in a relationship with the leader and spent numerous months training with the Samurai Sword, the weapon of her choice. Kym has connections to the gang who will have committed several crimes of physical assault, and was dating Joe, a key member in the gang, who could have passed information on to her. Both have similar weapons of choice, knives. While Kym has a regular knife which would be used for stabbing, The Bride has a Samurai Sword.

Kill Bill

Joe Young/ Brooks (The Shawshank Redemption) 

Joe and Brooks are similar characters as they both kill themselves. They do this for similar reasons, neither can face life in the “real world”, for Brooks, this is the world outside of Shawshank prison, he has been in there for so long that he can’t adjust to life outside of it. For Joe, this is a world where he is no longer a member of a gang. He is unable to live with himself because of the crimes he has commit and the hurt he caused to innocent people due to being in a gang. He also knows he will have to live a life in constant fear of the gang, and does not want to do this. A key difference is that Brooks’ choice to kill himself was entirely his own, no one told him to or made him feel he had to. Joe however, while he does feel like this is the consequence he deserves for his actions, is also pressured into suicide by the gang, who hate him for leaving, and fear he will pass on the gangs secrets. Another difference is that Joe’s suicide is at the start of the film, and is the trigger for the main plot of the film, whereas Brooks’ is in the middle, and we see his life before he wanted to commit suicide, and while he was contemplating suicide, so we can understand why he has done it, however, later on in “Sweet Revenge” we may see flashbacks from Kym or even the gang of Joe, so we can understand what he did whilst in the gang that made him feel so guilty, and we can see what the gang did to drive him to suicide. We sympathise for both characters, even though we know that both are criminals, as Brooks was in prison and Joe was in a gang.

As 'Kill Bill' is a stylised fantasy movie,  I also see a strong connection to Paddy Considine's role in Shane Meadow's 'Dead Man's Shoes' where he tries to get revenge on the men who bullied his brother to death.

Dead Man's Shoes

Paddy Considine

Audience reaction

The main point of having young actors the same age as our target audience was so the audience could directly relate to the characters. Their costume is just regular teenage wear (Hoodies and Jeans) and their accent is northern, which is generally associated with 'connecting with the people as the common man', instead of our characters wearing expensive, designer clothing with southern less colloquial language. As these characters are 'normal' everyday teenagers, and there has been a tragic incident, it causes the audience to wonder how they would react to that circumstance and therefore relate to Kym which is vital as the rest of the feature film will feature around Kym and her murdering antics to seek revenge.

1. Evaluation: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We open with a big production company logo; 'Spyglass Entertainment' who have produced other thriller films such as 'The Invisible', 'Unbreakable' and 'The Ruins'.'The title of our own production company was 'Songbird Productions' animated with 'Motion' graphics software and connotes the key principal of our opening; depression. The colour blue used for the birds has connotations of depression, as you feel 'blue' when you're feeling 'down' and the black surrounding also implies death. We have a sound bridge of non-diegetic bird sound effect leading us into the opening scene and creating a smooth transition.  

Spyglass Entertainment

The Ruins - Produced by Spyglass Entertainment

The Invisible - Produced by Spyglass Entertainment

Unbreakable - Produced ny Spyglass Entertainment

There is a fade and focus pull using depth of field techniques to establish relevant correlations between natural beauty of detailed nature of earth and natural love. This shot goes from focusing on macro cinematography and focus pulls to the couple situated behind the plant to establish their relationship. The director's name also appears as an overlay title in a traditional 'reflective' font connoting the seriousness of the film and that the genre is a psychological thriller aimed at an oldeer teen and adult audience. The director's name stays on acting as a bridge between shots to create smooth transitions and to imply the critical roles that each cast member had and their importance in the production of the film. We have also placed two thin black bars on the shots to create a cinematic effect seen on professional short films and feature films. Our footage has also been colour corrected so all the colours are enhanced by raising the amount of saturation in the shot and also being slightly under exposed to create an underlying theme of depression and darkness throughout the film. The evident juxtaposition of bright, slightly angry colours to urban greys and black is key to the story as it shows the change in scene so the audience clearly know about the flashbacks to come. The costume within this shot shows that both Kym and Joe are wearing hoodies and are just regular stereotypical teenagers, which we wanted so our target audience of older teens could relate to the piece. The setting of this particular scene also connotes romance as they're sitting around a lake watching the sunset together, which is very romantic, and also makes the audience relate and empathise with Joe in the next couple of shots.

Showing the depth of field (grass in soft focus), the black bars at the top and bottom and the overlaid director's credit.

We fade to another setting, cutting each shot to show the difference in time and mise-en-scene. This shot tracks Joe and Kym using a dolly; we are seeing Joe and hearing the last thoughts running through his head, before he jumps, through a non-diegetic voiceover - thinking of his girlfriend. The audience may start to think that it is her fault that Joe is about to commit suicide but as this is only the opening to a full feature film so we didn't want to give the plot away too much and decided to hide the motive to suicide until later on in the opening - gang pressure. We also thought it was crucial for the film to show some happy scenes of Joe and Kym together, so the audience could relate to the characters, create a connection and sympathise at the death. As our target audience is older teenagers, love and relationships in a common place such as a reservoir should be easily relatable. The glare on the camera towards the end of this dolly shot shows sun beaming down onto the young couple as they're happy and in love. The long pan shot with follows is striking and angry in colour. The colour correction was designed so the bright colours were nearly overwhelming so it was almost unrealistic, perhaps a hidden clue to the idea that their relationship and love may be overwhelming. Up to this point we have only had five shots, and we are already 24 seconds into the film, the slow editing pace and long shorts are common in psychological thrillers and will speed up when some 'action' scenes approach but in thrillers, it is not uncommon for there to be long edits, so the audience can focus in on the detail within the shots without getting distracted.

showing the intensive colour correcting connoting the danger to come

As we cut to the next shot of the bridge/viaduct, we track upwards using a crane to track upwards. In post production, as the crane movement was relatively slow so we increased the movement x2 to give a more dramatic effect and to show the sheer height of the viaduct. We immediately cut to a medium close up of Joe, on the right side applying to the rule of thirds, and we can see the trees behind him looking over at the drop. There is a black vignette surrounding each corner so there is black surrounding the frame - a symbolism that Joe is surround by darkness.

Showing application of the 'rule of thirds' and the vignette connoting his enclosure and depression.

The fades between settings act as flashbacks so the audience know what's going on in the film and what Joe's thinking inside his head, later aided by the voice over. When editing, we originally were going to put dissolve transitions where he was thinking about Kym and fade transitions when he returned back to reality, but when we watched it back, we saw that it looked rather messy and distracted from the story and shots, drawing too much attention to the construction. We found that it looked more professional with fades and this also added continuity to the film.

In the next two shots there is a match-on-action of Joe pulling his suicide letter out of his pocket and reading it in his head. The angle when reading this is low connoting that he has the power over his life and whether he commits himself to ending it. He also has his back to the camera, an unusual sight within films but this had deliberately been done as it implies that he ‘has turned his back to the world’ As this is a mid shot, and there is evidently a significant difference between this shot and the previous close up, this conveys that he is distant in his mental state.

Showing the 'match on action' editing technique used.

As the story progresses we keep returning to an over the shoulder close up shot of Joe reading the suicide note, constantly being reminded that the ‘happy’ images we see are his memories and now we are consciously returning to reality and depression. The mise-en-scene within this particular section has grey, bleak colours as seen on the grey stone wall, the overcast sky connotes his mind has been clouded by his depression and he cannot think logically and practically about his future. The mise-en-scene in the next shot connotes happiness due to the bright colours and positive natural surroundings. The faster editing pace as we get to the suicide in comparison with the majority of the film (4 shots in 10 seconds) creates more tension and builds up the impact of the action.

When Joe's phone rings, we see a close up of him getting it out of his pocket and also hear the diegetic sound of the phone ringing, this has been forwarded in the mix during post production and was recorded externally through the boom mic so we could alter the sound levels during the editing process to focus the audience's attention onto who the caller may be. We see Joe decline the call in the same shot as when he got the phone out of his pocket so the tension could rise through out the extract. The fact that the audience doesn't actually see who was calling him creates mystery and enigma which are common conventions in thriller films. When the shot of Joe committing suicide occurs we're actually seeing two layers of film, one which is the film overlooking the bridge and the other is of a different bridge on a green screen. We had to use the chroma key to mask out all the green parts of the footage and replace it with the background and then colour correct this to fit with the rest of the film. The audience want to know why Joe has committed suicide and this would be later explained and creates mystery which is crucial in fulfilling the audience's expectations of the psychological thriller  genre.

After the overlay title of 'two months later', anchoring time difference, we use chiaroscuro lighting which is common in thrillers such as 'The Sixth Sense' and connotes that Kym herself is now depressed as it's daylight outside but her black curtains are drawn. We deliberately use lots of close up and mcu shots in this scene as we wanted to create an intense and claustrophobic feel to make the audience feel slightly uncomfortable whilst creating sympathy for Kym. This scene is shot in Abi's bedroom and we chose this location due to the confined space and the monochrome setting (white walls and black curtains) which connotes the binary oppositions of good v bad and is a clue to the rest of the film as we see Kym switch from depression to 'avenger'  if we went on to make the full feature film, as she kills the gang members who drove Joe to commit suicide, one by one.

Showing the focus pull and the anchoring due to the text.

Later on in this scene, special effects such as our own attempt at 'Foley' sound is used; when Kym picks up her bag I recorded the sound of plastic bags being scrunched up and then overlaid this onto the timeline during the editing stage to connote the idea that she's off to a mystery place with a bag full of clothing and a knife in her bag. When Kym had previously picked up the knife, there were props of 'with sympathy cards' and empty alcohol bottles to imply that she's still mourning over the death of Joe and the alcohol is a means of her trying to deal with this.

Showing the props of alcohol and the knife.

Our film's title, 'Sweet Revenge', contains a juxtaposition connoting the psychotic tendencies which will be seen throughout the film as a psychological thriller. The titles also denotes the main theme of our thriller; revenge. The title creates enigma as the audience, just viewing the title wont know the main character (Kym) is getting revenge and why she wants to do this and carry out the dreadful act of murder. 'Sweet' is feminine loaded lexis and therefore implies that the main character is female, which creates more emotion. This is fairly uncommon in thrillers as the main characters are usually middle aged men but we thought that we would challenge these usual forms of thriller conventions and try and be original with our work.

Sweet Revenge