Penumbra feedback session 2

Untitled from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

For a full analysis of all feedback sessions, check out my evaluation prezi and listen to our audio version which is very detailed.

Prezi evaluation:

Audio presentation:

Our final Production...PENUMBRA...

Penumbra from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.

Qualitative Feedback, main short film

In order to get the best product possible feedback is a must.

We had finally finished our production and was very excited to show it to some potential consumer for the first preview of our short film Penumbra.

Penumbra Audience feedback from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Before we showed the video to them myself and Blaine had written down some questions that we wanted to ask the audience to acquire useful information when exhibiting our product but also finding out about our target audience, if we had correctly targeted our film and if the content fulfilled the needs of this audience.

Because the film is very much inspired by David Lynch with very interesting visual signifiers posing complex questions within the audience that are not always that easy to follow, we wanted to find out if the audience could follow the narrative and if they couldn't, were they the active consumers that we correctly targeted our film at, making them want to discuss the film with others to swap ideas trying to deconstruct and follow the film. This would then come under the two step flow categorization of audience that myself and Blaine wanted to target and you can view my analysis of this target audience if you follow the link below:

Research into target audience

Overall receiving feedback on our film was a great way in overall analyzing if we had accomplished our goal and made a film suitable for its target audience fulfilling a niche within the market.

It was like hitting 'The wall' when your a runner

Myself and Blaine have been editing our short film for the past couple of days making everything perfect and to the high standard that we both desire. It was a fun process watching our film come together and how excited we both were, there were disagreements along the way, but either a compromise followed or we had a thumb war to settle it, That's a joke by the way.

It was all going perfect and then.........The most annoying thing ever happens.

If you want to ride the full emotional roller coaster that Blaine my fellow director has only finally just got off. follow the links bellow to view his very informative posts with a little hint of anger.

expanding footage export: The problem

expanding footage export: The resolution/fingers crossed

Internal monologue Blaines blog

Blaine is somewhat a Shakespeare of today's society, with his very elaborate and extensive range of vocabulary backed up by his some what baffling knowledge we both agreed that he would write the internal monologue script. we both discussed what we wanted the monologue to give to the audience and Blaine then went away and wrote some potential lines for each scene.

Like Blaine said within his post we didn't know how it would sound until we were there watching the film and listening to the monologue but because we had planned everything to a fine detail, the final product sounded great. To view Blaine's somewhat detailed post that shows his vast capability and wisdom with words follow the link below:
Internal monologue Blog post

All footage and sound captured and uploaded

OK, so we have finally captured and created everything that we needed to construct our final short film. The editing has been an ongoing process that both myself and Blaine have been very excited and motivated about, whilst watching and editing all the footage making little cuts here having a spark of genius there, it is really exciting to watch our hard work and effort come together as the final product is slowly taking shape.
Yesterday Blaine and I went on a long bike ride into the wilderness with some newly purchased sound recording equipment purchased by the school (A boom). we wanted to re-capture some of the ambient sound made by the birds within the graveyard. This was due to the fact that on the day of filming, maintenance was taking place and this intercepted the sound quality that we wanted and the over all feel and atmosphere we wanted to create of segregation. We decided to film the birds again and it was very good quality and we are happy that we decided to re-capture the sound.
We also used the boom to capture the voice over of the main antagonist, we wanted his voice to be very clear and dominant within the film so we recorded this sound separately to the film and within a quite location to enable the voice over to be raised specifiably to the decibel level that we desire without any ambient sounds also being increased.

We have been editing some of the scenes as we have gone along the course and now we have a large quantity of the film to the standard that we desire. We will try to finish editing the footage today and then we can also add the voiceover and re-captured ambient sounds to have our final short film finished and to a high standard that we want, before we recieve feedback from potential consumers.

Credits

Credits have to be perfect in order to leave the audience thinking that they have just watched a profesinal film. If directors, actors, extras and many other people are not credited within films correctly or forgoten to refence everyone and their envolvement this would give very unprofeshinal feel to the film and would be an insult to anyone that was kind enough to help us in the creation of it.

I decided to create a mock up of some credits that we could potenially use. I say potentially use but the thought never crossed my mind that we would use them because I was trying to create them to look fancy and play around with the effects on sony vegas which is the editing software I have at home.

Half way through I decided I would use them as a DO NOT video in the creation of credits.

I made them look good so they could be used in the creation of other certian products with different requirments. But i also include some mistakes and left out some actors names.

Although I did leave out some names, consumers of the product would be unaware of this (unless it was a very well known main actor) but it is not the consumer that it would seem unprofeshinal to but the actors or technitions ...etc that were forgoten and worked hard aswell as giving their time to create the film.

Below is the video of the credits that we will not be using, because they do not fit the conventions of a steryotypical short film or feature length films credits as well as the mistakes they have within them and absence of actors.

Penumbra credits from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

After creating this video I created a list of everyone that featured within the film that we need to credit as well as a special thanks to Joel for letting us use his soundtrack. These will be the people that are credited within our film:

Starring:
Toby Barrett
George Frost
Eloise Fitt


Supported by:
Martin Palmer
Anne Palmer
Lewis Surridge
Jonny Brown
Victoria Moore
Jamie Reeves
Alex Smith
Conor Murry
Libby O'leary
Daniel knights
Martin Cambell
Jordan Bezants
Lydia Earl
Ben Goulder
Jessica Mills

With special thanks to:
Joel Neilsen
James Wigger

Short presesntation documenting our progress

This is a small presentation made even smaller by the fact that our teacher was using a new HD camera and didnt know how much space there was on the SD card but it is still very helpfull in the fact that it documents some of our progress.

It was kindly uploaded by Richard our technition and to view the video click play below:

PRESENTATION 3 FEB 2011 from fLIX.TV on Vimeo.

Production photos

During production, I have been taking some photos to create a portfolio of the production process and these are just a small minority of the pictures taken which are a preview of how myself and Blaine work on set and how we go from ideas to film.

This is a make shift dolly that I spontaneously thought of one evening, I combined the wheels of this small trolly with some toy car track to make the ride smooth and the shot smooth when we wanted a pan shot of the protagonist in the final scene.

In the end the dolly didn't work on the track because it kept coming off, but we tried it without the track and it worked well. As it was raining i had brought many umbrellas and we were shooting under one of them because we really needed to capture the last scene. We got some very good shots but we are going to have to re-shoot because the lighting changed very quickly which made many shots impossible to film.

This is just an action shot of Blaine filming the classroom scene, it shows SLR camera that we are using. (Got you Blaine) (It also makes it look like your wearing nail varnish)

This is Blaine explaining the scene to the actors and extras in the classroom, he is explaining the shots we are using and then we had a run-through of the script.

This is a picture to give a sense of the scene, but it also act as a continuity image because whilst filming they had to leave and enter the room many times to acquire many different shots and in order to have great continuity I had to record we everyone was sitting.

Finally this is just a picture of the shot list that Blaine create after we had a brainstorm of ideas for each scene. This was an efficient way to record the shots that we had captured and needed to film but whilst we were getting these shot both myself and Blaine were coming up with new shots which we thought would look good at the time and we got many extra shots on each scene that we were filming.

If you want to view Blaine's post on-set organization it shows all of the different shot lists that we used and how we organized each day of filming.

On set organization Blaine's blog

Throughout the production process on set organization has been key in making sure that every thing runs smoothly to a certain extent that is manageable. Because we cannot control the weather some dates which we planned to shoot or even tried, have had to be prospered or re-shot due to the weather, but umbrellas where always on had because myself and Blaine had a contingency plan for if such circumstances occurred.

Blaine has made sure that all technical equipment was working and charged before each day of shooting as well as the shot lists that we defiantly wanted to get but could then be added to on the day if we thought a specific shot would look good and our creativity took over.

To view Blaine's post on our on set organization follow the link below:

On set organization

Short flashback/dream sequence edit

Throughout our short film the protagonist selflessly takes pain away from others but is then acquires it himself. This is done through the process of him touching someone in pain both emotionally and physically. Myself and Blaine wanted to create a short sequence that could progressively play each time he touched someone in need and took the pain away. We wanted the sequence to be very symbolic and we both were inspired by many of David Lynch films with his weird and wacky symbolic signifiers that are both visual interesting but important to the narrative. We wanted to re-create a very visually stunning piece but very realistic and intriguing creating the effect upon the audience that we desired also adding to the narrative and the symbolism it possesses.

After we filmed the footage i was really excited to get home and play around with the software effects trying to make a sequence that could be useable or at least act as a point which we could both add to in the future editing process.

I wanted to add a sound effect of the protagonist entering and exiting this trance state which is shown within his thoughts through the use of this footage. I tried to recored this on my iphone which was fit for purpose at the time because there was no other sound recording equipment available but now our school has purchased a boom so it will be easier, clearer and better quality once we have recorded the sound on that.

Below is a video of my voice just trying to re-create this existing of a dream like state.

Creating sound effects from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

When i was editing the footage i was playing around with the effects that were available, changing the huge and saturation, changing the colour scheme whilst adding key frames to the footage and overall i think for a first attempt the footage looked awesome and the sound added works well. But for our final product a lot more tweaking will take place with better sound and a lot smoother transition between live footage and this footage adding to the whole effect it has on the audience and will make them ask questions into what the footage is symbolizing.

To view the clip of the short dream sequence/flashback watch the video below:

Short flashback/dream sequence from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Narrative theory

Walter Fisher introduced the concept on Narrative theory in 1960 and it explored how humans communicate and then receive.

He believed that everything could be divided into two universal paradigms, which are particular arrangments of related elements. The first categorization was:

Rational World Paradigm:

• People are rational
• People make decisions based on arguments
• Rationality is determined by how much we know and how well we argue
• The world is a set of puzzles that we can solve through rational analysis

The second paradigm was:

Narrative Paradigm

• People are essentially storytellers
• Stories are found on history, biography, culture and character
• Narrative rationality is determined by the coherence and fidelity of our stories

This model of human communication within which human beings as individuals take complex information and establish it into a form of narrative categorizes humans as what Fisher believes to be "Storytelling animals" exchanging messages with each other which are then judged and exchanged by others depending on their values and beliefs.

This is a very complex way to look at narrative theory and Fishers theory goes into extreme depth which I believed to be less important for a short film because very complex narrative structure cannot be established within the five minutes that our film lasts. I also thought that a more classical narrative system did not apply to our film due to the fact that our structure is not in chronological order which means it doesn't fit in with the conventions of a, equilibrium, disequilibrium and a resolution/equilibrium narrative structure which was introduced by Tzvetan Torodov which suggests that the story starts with a status quo and then there is an event that disrupts order, and then moral order is restored.

Certain Narrative theorists have argued that all stories fit into at least one of the following story types. Most movies use a combination of these plots:

Achilles: The fatal flaw that leads to the destruction of the previously flawless individual heroine. This plot line is also the basis of most whodunit flicks with the fatal flaw belonging to a criminal, not the cop.

Candide: The indomitable hero who cannot be put down, this narrative structure is often found in franchise flicks.

Cinderella: The dream-come-true scenario where virtue is rewarded in the end. some examples of these could be shrek, my big fat greek wedding.

Faust: The selling-your-soul-to-the-devil motif where fate eventually catches up with you.

Orpheus: The gift that is taken away - this could take the form of the tragedy of the loss, or journey that follows the loss.

Romeo and Juliet: Self-explanatory. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy finds girl again, or doesn't.

Circe: The spider and the fly, the innocent and the victim.

Tristan: Triangles - Man loves women but third party intervenes.

In my opinion our film fits into three of these story types: Faust, he takes on other people pain but this eventually become his own downfall. Orpheus, we follow his journey of selflessness which results in the tragedy of the loss of himself. Circe, he is both the innocent and the victim as his selflessness makes him the victim of others pain.

Our narrative is very post-modern with the story originating from a video game, it not being in chronological order and it leaves lots to the imagination of the consumers making the connections right or wrong. Lots of shots are used that are inspired from many different films and some of our visual effects are also inspired by certain directors such as david lynch and shane Meadows. But overall we are creating this film in the way that we want to make it using our own creative talents.

To view a very detailed presentation on many different Narrative theorists follow the link below:

Narrative theories

Call sheet

A call sheet is a list of actors who will be required on set for each day's shooting as well as the preparation that needs to take place in order to make sure the production process runs smoothly.

We are shooting on around 6 separate days if everything goes according to plan and this is the call sheet that we have been using whilst filming and in preparation for upcoming filming dates.

The dates that I have included are not set in stone, this is due to the fact that we are not paying our friends to participate within our film, they are giving up their time out of the kindness of their hearts so in return we are mainly working around what days best suit them and which days they are available together when needed.

A call sheet can be simple or it can be very, very detailed. Our call sheet does not need to be overcomplicated like for example a feature length film call sheet with hundreds of actors needed each day, vast amounts of camera equipment, lighting equipment, wiring, sets, explosives..... You get the point. Our call sheet is laid out in a very simple two column design that includes all the information needed. To view our call sheet, which may have amendments if filming dates change follow the link below:

Google Docs call sheet

Quantitative feedback analysis Blaine's blog

Both Blaine and I constructed a questionnaire to acquire information about potential consumers demographics which will help us to understand where we could advertise our short film, but as well as just finding out about their demographics we asked very guided questions about our subsidiary products, which would then help us within the construction process of both our poster and review. After analyzing the questionnaire results, the graphs show specific elements that consumers want to be included within these subsidiary products.

Blaine has provided some evidence of the results and analyzed what we have concluded from them.

To view Blaine's post follow the link below:
http://blainekenneallya2media.blogspot.com/2011/02/quantitative-audience-research-analysis.html

costume and props, subtial but vital parts of of our film

When people hear the word filmmaking, they immediately picture film sets with large complex cameras and do not always take into consideration the smaller things that make up these huge productions.
The importance of costumes is often overlooked, because it is a small factor that everyone takes for granted but the implications can be phenomenal if the costume is wrong in any shape or form. This is also the case for props within film.

Multinational film producers have teams of people to produce and check over any props and costumes that are made and included within the film making sure that the continuity is perfect when actors have breaks and come back to a scene with an extra button done up on their jacket. However we do not have these teams to look out for us so we will do this ourselves but just to give you an idea of the amount of effort and work that goes behind these unseen necessities of films here are some lists below of the people that would be present on set:

-Props Master

The property master, more commonly known as the props master, is in charge of finding and managing all the props that appear in the film. The props master usually has several assistants.

-Props builder

The props builder, or more frequently prop maker, as the name implies, builds the props that are used for the film. Props builders are often technicians skilled in construction, plastics casting, machining, and electronics.

-Armourer or Weapons master

The armourer is a specialized props technician who deals with firearms. In most jurisdictions this requires special training and licenses.

-Costume designer

The costume designer is responsible for all the clothing and costumes worn by all the actors that appear on screen. They are also responsible for designing, planning, and organizing the construction of the garments down to the fabric, colours, and sizes. The costume designer works closely with the director to understand and interpret "character", and counsels with the production designer to achieve an overall tone of the film. In large productions, the costume designer will usually have one or more assistant costume designers.

-Costume supervisor

The costume supervisor works closely with the designer. In addition to helping with the design of the costumes, they manage the wardrobe workspace. They supervise construction or sourcing of garments, hiring and firing of support staff, budget, paperwork, and department logistics. Also called the wardrobe supervisor. This term is used less and less.

-Key costumer

The key costumer is employed on larger productions to manage the set costumers, and to handle the Star's wardrobe needs.

-Costume standby

The Costume standby is present on set at all times. It is his/her responsibility to monitor the quality and continuity of the actors and actresses costumes before and during takes. (S)he will also assist the actors and actresses with dressing.

-Art finisher or Breakdown artist

An Art finisher may be employed during the pre-production setup to "break down" garments. This specialized job includes making new clothing appear dirty, faded and worn. They are also known as breakdown artists.

-Costume Buyer

On large productions a buyer may be employed to source and purchase fabrics and garments. A buyer might also be referred to as a shopper. This distinction is often made when the lead actor in a production has control over their wardrobe, and they may personally hire this person.

-Cutter/fitter

A costume technician who fits or tailors costumes, usually on-set. They can also be called cutters, seamstresses or tailors. Some celebrity actors have favourite cutters, and larger productions may hire several and have them on set at the same time, particularly in period film projects that might have complicated or extremely expensive extras wardrobe.

I would like to say that both myself and Blaine played the role of all of the above minus the weapons adviser, costume designer, costume buyer, and costume fitter. so overall we researched the clothes that our actors had and asked them to wear a specified costume. The main protagonist was the most important to get the look and representation of him correct. We wanted the audience to be curious why a well dressed man is laying, asleep in a graveyard clueless to how he got there. This uncertainty within the audience is what the main protagonist is experiencing and this empathy is what will engage the audience with the film and make them want to keep watching.

We told him to dress in smart casual so: Jeans, he had some converse shoes, a shirt which can be seen within the scene under a black smart coat. We also wanted him to have a bag which was a contrast to his jacket and jeans. Overall he looks very good and within the scene that we have filmed the costume has worked perfectly, every time we have filmed we have asked him to remember what he is wearing due to the fact that the narrative of our film happens all in one day which means we need him to look the same to have good continuity.

The Main props we are using are; a red rose with thorns which the young girl will touch and bleed which leads us to the other main prop, blood. I researched into how to make blood and there where many different ways to do so, I tested lots of different formulas but thought that treacle and food colouring worked the best.

Apart from these main props which we have already bought or made there are no other purchases that need to be made. In terms of costume we need to make sure that the teacher looks like a teacher and the girl is presentable and creates the correct representation of her character, we also need to keep making sure that Toby, our main protagonist keep wearing the same attire to keep continuity in check. Overall we have learnt through many discussions and research how to represent characters through costumes and Mise-en-scene to the extent that we want them to be interpreted by the audience.

Penumbra our ambiguous short film title

Penumbra? Do you know what this means? If yes.... good, if no... even better. This is the name of our short film and it is a very ambiguous name because not that many people know what it means. This fits well with our target audience as under the Two step flow theory of the effects models, audiences will want to find out more about the name and consequently what the film is about, this will lead to discussions with friends and can lead to research upon the internet.

For more information on our title name Penumbra follow the link below to my co-directors blog where he explains what it means and how this fits within our genre.

http://blainekenneallya2media.blogspot.com/2011/01/short-film-title-penumbra.html

Blaine has also produced a short video that represents a way our title can be shown on screen before our film. In my opinion the simplicity adds to the impact it has upon the audience and as it starts to get bigger and turn you as the audience just become intrigued by the unusual rotation that is taking place. Overall i think it is very simple but very effective but to cast your own opinion watch the video below.

Production log 4

Yesterday we filmed our penultimate production log, bringing you up to date with our progress throughout the course and future tasks and ideas that we wanted to share with you.

We discussed vast amounts of research and ideas that we wanted to share and develop upon together before the production log so check out some previous posts to read what we are briefly discussing here.

Untitled from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Animatic for the first two scenes

The purpose of this animatic is to give the viewer an overall sense of atmosphere and order of the first two scenes and this is created not just by the images but with the detailed analysis and explanation throughout by Blaine Kenneally up selling the film giving a general ordering of the shots, sounds and effects we intend to use.

Short Film Animatic from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.

This animatic can not only act as a visual aid for ourselves it can act as a supplement for the active consumer of our film. They will watch this animatic but it could act as a short teaser trailer enticing them to want to find out more and watch the finished product.

Scene one, take one, and action!!

Target audience is a vital variance that any product produced, has to analyse and research in order to then take into account when constructing the product. In our case the short film needs to make sure it fulfills the needs and desires of the target audience in order to make it successful. After analyzing the effects models and coming to the conclusion that our film will attract active consumers under the reception theory of the effect model structure. we will play the part of the Two-step flow theory as we will construct a review of the short film that will explain and diffuse the content to others. This is a modern version of the hypodermic needle model but to completely cover this section people will need to analyze and depict the short film and then readers will adopt their interpretations of our short film.

Myself and Blaine met up with Toby Barret (who we chose to take upon the role of the main protagonist) to shoot the first scene of our film as a second installment to our pre-production testing. unlike the images that we took in my post Scene 1 location and potential camera shots
this pre-production test depicts many of the camera angles, shots and sound that we want to include within the first scene of our short film. We have not added the voice over of the protagonist for this test but i came up with the idea that if we add the voice over, then we could select people to watch the first scene and receive consumer feedback to then be analysed which could outline many different types of consumers that we could then categorize under the effects model theory and work out a marketing strategy based upon the results.

This test footage was edited to depict what we want our first scene to look like and the time we will allocate for the first scene within our five minute short film.
To view the edited first scene watch the video below:

Scene one graveyard test from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Like any filming process we filmed around twenty one minutes of footage for a one minute section of our film to then be cut down, but it is better to have to much footage than not enough as re-capturing footage will waste time, money and may not fit within continuity.
Some of the footage was static camera shots trying to capture the ambient sound of birds tweeting as this is will be a prominent sound effect that we will use within our film.

To view the un-edited footage which we uploaded to give evidence of the time, effort and organisation that went into testing feel free to watch the video below:

Scene one footage to be edited from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Representation theory, analyzed by Blaine Kenneally

Representation can dramatically affect a person's interpretation of a film, the filmmaker is in control of the representation of the characters by choosing: what they wear, their personality, their hobbies, their lifestyle and the events that they participate in within the film. All these aspects contribute to the audiences interpretation of these characters and how they are judged by the viewer. The producer does not have full control over the viewers judgement because their cultural background will have an effect upon their overall judgement. This however does not effect the implied representation of certain characters that the producers portrays, for example women as inferior to men as this will not be welcomed by the viewers as it is insulting but in some circumstances is necessary within the narrative. ill either fall in love with or feel indebted to the male hero; in fact, she is somewhat repulsed by his actions.

To view my co-directors detailed post on representation with reference to a critical theorist Laura Mulveyn, who we can learn from and then apply our own knowledge and hers to our short film to make sure that characters are represented the way that we want them to be and nothing else.

Follow the link below:

http://blainekenneallya2media.blogspot.com/2010/12/representation-laura-mulvey-vs-us.html