Final Piece

*Please watch DVD version as it is better quality*

Moderator

Dear Moderator,
I hope you enjoyed viewing my media blog and final project. I hope my posts' show how much i have learnt throughout the journey of the course and how helpful the skills i have learnt will be in life.

Neil

Prelim

Film Evaluation

Film evaluation

View more presentations from neilpowis.

Task 5

How did you attract/address your audience?.



Note: Not final piece however very similar, you cans ee a second 'starring' apeear, and on the given in disk of my final piece and preliminary there is no second 'starring' however the annotatinos are ocmpletely the same so if you jsut ignore the second 'starring' it would be an annotation of the final piece, if wish watch disk and read annotations from video.

Film Evaluation questions

EVALUATION QUESTIONS - FILM




For the final 20 marks of the project, you must complete seven tasks on your blog, posting them in this order, with the question heading at the top of each task. You may do them as a pair/group, but must post individual copies on each blog. Make sure you answer each question as well as producing the visual elements.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups ?

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?





EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

Remember when we looked at 9 frames from Art of the title sequence? Well now it's your turn to do the same with nine of your frames.

You should go through the final version of the project and select nine distinct frames which you screengrab and drop into a photoshop in the same style as the website. You will be using these to write about how typical or not of opening sequences your particular design is, so choose them carefully.

Once you have the nine frames neatly in Photoshop, screengrab the whole thing and post to your blog, then write an analysis of how you have used such conventions.

The aspects we would like you to consider across your nine frames are:

The title of the film
Setting/location
Costumes and props
Camerawork and editing
Title font and style
Story and how the opening sets it up
Genre and how the opening suggests it
How characters are introduced
Special effects


EVALUATION ACTIVITY 2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Pick a key character from your opening. Take a screengrab of a reasonable sized image of them. Think of one or more characters from other films with some similarity to them (but maybe some differences too!), find an image on the web of that/those characters and grab it as well. Drop the two into photoshop, as a split screen. Export this splitscreen image as a jpeg then drop onto your blog and write about the similarities and differences in terms of appearance, costume, role in film etc.

So for example if you have a lone cop type character, look for other lone cops to compare him with...


EVALUATION ACTIVITY 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?


For this question, you are going to do a 'director's commentary' style voiceover explaining some of the key features of your opening

You will need to script the voiceover which deals with institutional issues to include:

discussion of your production company name and logo and the role of such companies

What does a production company do? start here
the idea of a distributor and who that might be and why. start here
where the money might have come from for a film such as yours herewhy the various people are named in the titles- which jobs appear in titles and in what order and how have you reflected this?
what your film is similar to 'institutionally' (name some films which would be released in a similar way)
You need to refer to actual company names and processes so you will need to go back to the early posts on film companies and maybe do a bit more research

When you have scripted, record the voiceover using Final Cut on a new audio timeline, then export to quicktime and embed on blog.


EVALUATION ACTIVITY 4
Who would be the audience for your media product?

You should have a drawing of your target audience member and an explanation of what kinds of taste they might have- where they would shop, what music they would listen to, what their favourite Tv programme would be, etc.

make sure you have taken a phot of it, post it on the blog and write a few notes on why they would watch your film.


EVALUATION ACTIVITY 5
How did you attract/address your audience?
You will use YOUTUBE's annotation tools to add NOTES, SPEECHBUBBLES, and LINKS to your video:

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=92710

These annotations will highlight the ways in which your Film Opening links to other similiar films in order to attract the particular Audience you have previously identified.

Your annotations will refer to genre conventions, use of music, similiarities with other movies and what you have identified as the Unique Selling Point of your imaginary film.


EVALUATION ACTIVITY 6
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?


In pairs, take a picture of each other holding the kit you have used. This might just be the camera and tripod, and your Macbook but there may be other things you want in the shot.

Drop the image onto your blog and annotate it, adding all the programs and other technology you have used as screengrabs and what you learnt about it/from using it. Your written text need only be minimal. You could include reference to all the online and computer programs you have used such as youtube, flickr, blogger, final cut,photoshop,vimeo garageband, etc.


EVALUATION ACTIVITY 7
Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Concentrate on editing and camerawork.

Grab some frames from both tasks and put them on the blog and show what you know about shot types, edit terms and techniques.


Make sure you mention the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot/reverse shot

Story Board

A Very basic story board, i ahve stuck to most of the story board however added in new scenes.

The Soloist Cast

Jamie Foxx - Nathaniel Ayers



Robert Downey Jr. - Steve Lopez

The Soloist

Susannah Grant (screenplay)

Companies

DreamWorks SKG (as DreamWorks Pictures) (presents)
Universal Pictures (presents)
Studio Canal (as StudioCanal) (in association with)
Participant Media (in association with)
Krasnoff Foster Productions (as Krasnoff/Foster Entertainment)
Working Title Films (in association with)

Full Synopsis

The film opens up in the early morning. A man is cycling by as a paper boy is driving around delivering newspapers. A newspaper hits a door and the main articles title is Life Has A Mind by Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.). Steve Lopez is cycling around town and goes in the opposite direction of a bunch of cyclists. Lopez gives an internal monologue chronicling a biking accident which occurred near a construction site. His bike hits a bump and he hits his head badly on the pavement. In the next scene hes in an ambulance being driven to a busy hospital. While in the emergency room, Lopez writes down his thoughts as if writing an article. He is given an MRI and after being cleared, takes a taxi home. He checks his messages (there are none), continues to narrate into a tape recorder.

The next morning, he goes into work at the L.A. Times. He continues to talk to himself as he walks through the halls about how much he hates hospitals and health care under the governor. The Editor of the L.A. Times, Mary (Catherine Keener), walks down the cubicles past Steve as he is greeted by the people in the neighboring cubicles. Steve and Mary banter about an article Steve was supposed to write before his accident but he tells her that he wont write it as she goes off to her office.

Steve is then sitting outside on the boardwalk drinking a soda. He hears a violin playing and starts to walk around the plaza until he finds the sources. He finds Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx), playing a two string violin under a statue. Steve immediately realizes that Ayers is a schizophrenic and tries to walk away but Ayers follows him for a bit until Steve introduces himself. Ayers tells Steve that he once went to Julliard.

Steve is in his office making a call to the Registrars office at Julliard when Mary sits down next to him. She tells him that the LA times stock situation is looking pretty dire before switching the conversation over to their son. Mary tells Steve to call him but Steve says that whenever he calls their son wont call him back. He sends her away stating that he is trying to find a story before deadline. The Registrars office tells Steve that there is no record of a Nathaniel Ayers ever attending Julliard and then hangs up on Steve. He says hes not taking the blood story but as he crosses violinist off his list of potential stories its clear hes out of options. He is then seen sitting in front of a young nurse preparing to draw blood from him. As part of his blood test, he goes to urinate in a cup. While hes peeing he drops the cup and slips when he gets a callback from Julliard. The Secretary tells Steve that she only checked the graduates but when she checked all students, she found that Nathaniel Ayers dropped out of Julliard during his second year.

That night, Steve returns to where he met Nathaniel and narrates the content of the article Points West detailing how Nathaniel is missing while calling him shy. Steve drives back to his apartment and finds that raccoons ruined his lawn. His neighbor tells him that coyote urine will keep the raccoons away. Steve spends the night walking around his messy apartment while listening to music. The next morning, Steve is calling the head of the coyote urine business when he sees Nathaniel on the side of a busy intersection. He stops his car. Nathaniel turns away from him and continues to play his 2 string violin and doesnt speak. Steve waits patiently against the gate for Nathaniel to finish up. Nathaniel plays the same group of notes over and over until he cant do it anymore. Steve tells Nathaniel that he wants to write a piece about him and how he ended up on the street. Steve asks him about his family, but Nathaniel cant focus and give direct answers and continues to ramble, even asking if Steve is the pilot of a plane flying overhead at one point.

Steve calls Nathaniels sister to learn more about him. A flashback shows a young Nathaniel walking down the street carrying a cello. He met with his music teacher and went on and on about how much he admired Beethovens work. He played the cello for his teacher and the teacher thought that he was an incredibly gifted student. Instead of playing sports, his sister said that all Nathaniel would do was play the Cello. Nathaniels mother told him that when she listened to him play, she heard the voice of God. Steve writes an article detailing what he learned from Nathaniels sister. After it is published, an old lady reads it and sends Steve her old cello with the request that he give it to Nathaniel with her prayers. As Steve is driving through the same busy intersection, he almost hits Nathaniel who is picking up litter from the middle of the street (almost being hit multiple times by other cars) and gets him to walk over to the side. Steve is concerned about Nathaniels safety and the cello and arranges for Nathaniel to keep the cello in the office of a homeless shelter LAMP (under the stipulation that Nathaniel also stay at the same shelter). Steve lets Nathaniel play the instrument on the street for a test run. Nathaniel plays for Steve and Steve is visibly moved by the piece. Steve drives away with the cello to take it to the shelter.

The shelter is located in a bad neighborhood where a bunch of homeless people are gathered on the sidewalk outside the gate. He pulls up to the gate and asks to speak to someone named David. He and David put the cello in his office and Steve sticks around to wait for Nathaniel. He sees all the people with their problems and seems a bit troubled. He goes outside and continues to wait for Nathaniel. He mingles with several homeless people. He waits until nightfall and then goes home. He starts to put tie up a bag of coyote urine onto a tree when the bag explodes on him.

The next morning Steve is seen interviewing an Atheist road-side cleanup worker on the side of the road. when he gets a phone call and hears Nathaniel playing the Cello. He goes back to the shelter and sees Nathaniel playing for the people gathered around.

Another flashback shows Nathaniel in his first apartment and subsequent performances at Julliard. At one point he is surrounded by people and in the next he is in an empty auditorium. His musical performances grow more erratic and his paranoia starts to set in as a voice says they can hear your thoughts Nathaniel. He runs out of the auditorium and runs away because the voices tell him to. He hides in a closet and lets the voices overwhelm him. He calls his 'mother' from a payphone and shares the fact that he cant always tell what is going on in the world around him and that he cant differentiate whats real and whats not and drops the phone and the recording "please hang up and try your call again" is heard. It's obvious he wasn't actually talking to his mother but rather a dial tone.

Steve asks David if he will diagnose Nathanials problem. David says that it would be pointless. Steve asks if theres a medication that can help Nathaniel but David tells him that the last thing he needs is another person telling him he needs medication. Steve goes to find Nathaniel but Nathaniel is gone. Steve goes out to his car and just sits there, observing the interactions of the people outside before going to find Nathaniel. He walks past some drug users and down the street before seeing the police around a dead body. As he looks down to see the person, he sees Nathaniel next to him. Nathaniel finds a place to sleep and starts cleaning the area a little with a broom before setting up his bed. He tells Steve that he will end up like Beethoven and lie down and die. Steve spends the night with Nathaniel on the street and they talk. Steve tells Nathaniel that it is no place for him to live, but Nathaniel is adamant that this is where he should be.

The next morning Steve offers to bring Nathaniel to see an Orchestra perform Beethoven. Nathaniel watches the orchestra with Steve and as they perform, Nathaniel focuses only on the music and imagines each sound striking up a bright color.

Later on, Steve and Mary are at a karaoke bar with their coworkers and Steve is telling her about Nathaniels enjoyment of the music and the grace Nathaniel gets listening to music. Steve finds Nathaniels love of music to be awe inspiring. He upsets Mary when he tells her the he has never loved anything like Nathaniel loves music. He tries to recover from that but Mary leaves and tells him the Mayor wants to talk to him. The Mayor announces that he intends to add 50 million dollars in aid to the citys homeless community.

Nathaniel visits Steve at the office. Steve is busy and tells Nathaniel he cant perform in front of the building, so Nathaniel waits on the other side of the building. He calls Graham Clayton (Tom Hollander), a cellist, to rehabilitate Nathaniel. Steve convinces David to help find Nathaniel an apartment where Nathaniel can live and rehabilitation. Nathaniel doesnt want to live in an apartment. He frustrates Steve but then starts to question Steve about his family. Steve was once married to Mary, but they divorced. Their son, Tom is in college and wont talk to Steve. Steve tells Nathaniel that if he doesnt go to the apartment, he will be on his own.

Another flashback details Nathaniels mental breakdown in his old apartment. He is slowly driven insane by the voices until he cries on the floor of the apartment. A week later, Steve and Nathaniel move Nathaniel into the place where he will live and practice. It is a small apartment with a bed and a bathroom. There is enough room for Nathaniel to be comfortable and practice, but Nathaniel is afraid to enter the room. Steve patiently tells Nathaniel that he can do it. Eventually, Nathaniel enters the room with his stuff. Nathaniel doesnt like the room because it doesnt have the natural sounds of the city and reminds him of the night he spent going insane.

Steve introduces Graham and Nathaniel. Graham brings Nathaniel the sheet music for Bach to begin Nathaniels rehabilitation. Graham is impressed by Nathaniels skill but notices that it needs to be refined. Graham tells Nathaniel that God gave Nathaniel a gift and that Nathaniel shouldnt waste it. Nathaniel gets upset with Graham and declares that Steve is his God. Steve gets frustrated with Nathaniel for being so attached to him. Steve asks David to help Nathaniel with psychiatry and medication and tells David that if he puts Nathaniel into forced rehab for two weeks, that might be enough to get Nathaniel straightened out.

Steve goes to an award show which honors Steves achievement in bringing Nathaniels story to focus. Nathaniel calls Steve and tells him all the things he needs. Steve hands the phone off to Mary, and she listens to all the things Nathaniel says. She gets drunk and tells Steve that hes good at avoiding responsibility. Steve calls her a drunk and tells her she needs someone to drive her home.

Graham calls Steve the next day and tells Steve that Nathaniel should have a recital. At the recital Nathaniel wheels out his card and takes out his cello before sitting down in front of the audience. As Nathaniel starts to play, he begins to have a psychotic episode and hear the voices. He experiences a flashback to when his sister was taking care of him after he fled Julliard. She tries to give him a bowl of soup, but Nathaniel insists that it is poison and instead takes the spoon and starts force feeding her instead. Graham puts his hand on Nathaniel to bring him back to reality, but Nathaniel freaks out and the movie flashes between Nathaniel swinging a chair at Graham and the younger Nathaniel swinging the tray at his sister before he runs out the building. Steve picks up Nathaniels cello and looks for Nathaniel with his car. Again the movie flashes back to when Nathaniel freaked out on his sister and him running away with her following him in her car int he middle of winter and asking him where he is going and where he would sleep.

As Steve searches for Nathaniel, he sees the police launching a large scale arrest of the homeless and drug users. Steve finds police guarding a bloody shirt and is told that a bunch of kids with baseball bats beat a man brutally. Steve, convinced it's Nathaniel, checks every hospital in the area looking for him. He spends all night looking for him. The next morning, Steve gets a call from David telling him that Nathaniel is at the shelter eating breakfast and that he spent the night in the apartment. Steve visits Nathaniel at his apartment and returns his cello. Steve gives Nathaniel a miniature Beethoven and asks him if he did a good job looking out for him. Jennifer, Nathaniels sister, is ready to take over as Nathaniels caretaker. Steve leaves him the forms and tells him to read them before he signs them.

Nathanial reads the forms and throws them around the room when he realizes that its about his schizophrenic state of mind. Nathaniel gets violent with Steve, pushing and slapping him, and tells him that if he sees him again hell gut him like a fish. Steve runs out of the apartment the minute he gets free and leaves Nathaniel to the voices.

A little while later, Steve is taking shots in a bar. He visits Mary at her house. They reminisce about when they moved into the house with Tom. Steve comes to grip with his failures as a father and a husband. He apologizes to Mary and tells her that he thought he was helping someone with a gift who had lost their way. He tells her about what happened with Nathaniel and how he doesnt know how to fix it. He tells her that he officially resigns from everything since he cant get it right. Mary tells him that Steve would never have been able to cure Nathaniel just like he would never prevent a earthquake and that all Steve could do was be his friend.

Jennifer flies into L.A. to see her brother. Steve drives her to the shelter and she goes in to see him. The shelter is not as crowded as it was before the cops arrested people. Jennifer sees Nathaniel sitting and slowly approaches him. They sit together for a while as Steve watches from the car. Nathaniel remembers that Jennifer is his sister and reaches out his hand to her and she takes it. Steve sits outside dangling his car keys until the pair come out. Nathaniel looks down at Steve and apologizes for threatening Steve. Steve tells Nathaniel that its ok. Mr. Ayers, Im honored to be your friend.

Steve begins his narrative epilogue as Mary, Steve, Jennifer and Nathaniel watch an orchestra perform. A year ago, he met Nathaniel and thought that he could help him. His mental state and well being havent changed but he no longer lives on the street. Psychiatrists tell Steve that his friendship alone gives balance to chemical misfire in his brain, but he cant attest to it. Steve tells himself that Nathaniels friendship and courage has made him a better person. They watch the orchestra perform in silence.

Credits roll and the audience reads the following: Mr. Ayers still sleeps inside and is a member of LAMP. He continues to play the cello, as well as violin, bass, piano, guitar, trumpet, French horn, drums and harmonica. Mr. Lopez continues to write his column for the L.A. Times. He is learning to play the guitar. There are 90,000 homeless people on the streets of Greater Los Angelos.

Blog iPod

The Music on my Blog iPod represents gangsters/money, Highs/lows.
For example 'Chris Brown - i can transform ya' represents how your normal everyday average joe can be transofmred into crime.
I added some film trailers such as Snatch and Goodfellas.
The song 'Beyond the Sea' is relative to my film because if i was to make the film fully i would use some old italian music in it that you hear in the film Goodfellas and at the restaurant Frankie & Bennys.

Potential iDent

I wanted to use something simple but affective and i think i have found it, i will go on to get feedback on the ident from my classmates and if the feedback is positive i will keep it, if not i shall make some changes, however i plan to stick to the idea.

Peer Assessment of Draft version

We had a lesson were classmates got to give feedback on eachothers magazine/film production. From the feedback given by my classmates i believe i recieved a mid/low level 3 which i am reasonaly pleased with, however i am aiming for a 4. My classmates notified me that they liked my idea and the shots i have put together and that it has a lot of potential, so i was happy with that. I still need to add opening credits into the film opening and i also need to introduce some soundtrack/music to go in the film. I havent given any thought about a title for my film yet and will do over the next 24 hours. I have madea draft piece of music, however i wont use it on my piece because i know i can do better. Over the next 2 weeks i will be staying after school to do editing, creating music and improving my film opening.

First Draft Media

That was my First draft media, i have already filmed more and i have more to edit and to add onto my project. I am pleased with how it is going editing wise, however filming has been a little issue because the car i used in my production was infact broken into whilst filming so that took time to fix and look normal again, and also some of the actors have been busy and not been able to be filmed. I am learning a lot through this process.

Editing

How does the editing in 'Transporter 3 Trailer' construct a relationship between the characters

I choose to anaylse this trailer because it is fast paced and includes a huge number of shots and techniques of editing. The pace of the trailer is so fast that i have not been able to count to a correct number of shots, but i have a estimation of about 90 shots within the first minute of the trailer.
Because the film is all about a character who drives a car transporting a character who is also the package, the relationship between both characters is close, as the viewer watching the trailer finds out they cannot go a certain distance from the car else they die.

Their are soo many shots of the car moving, for example a car Point of View shot at 0:55, a low angled shot at 0.53 and a birds eye view of the car at 0.54, as you can tell by the 3 camera shots in 3 seconds it shows that the trailer is fast paced from changing camera shots.

'On location'

1. This is where i would shoot the scene where the character in the scene opens the boot of a car with a body and a spade in and he picks up the spade and flings it over his shoulder, then i will freeze frame the picture of a close up of the characters face including the spade in the picture.
I choose this location because its small, and the lighting is perfect for the scene. i will shoot the scene in the dark, but the parking lot lights will add the gloomy look because only some of the lights work so it will make the scene look really good. fig 1.

2. I thought i should add picture of the car into this location post because this car fits into location 1. (see fig 1.) I choose to use one of the characters Black Clio because i believe that the black/darkness interacts well with the story plot/scene. I would of liked a black Land Rover but i could not find one i can use so i decided to use a black car i could get hold off. fig 2.

3. This is the inside location of the office. i will have to work hard to transfer this room into a gangster office set but it is do able. i love this location becuse as you can see from the picture the lighting it perfect to make it dark and gloomy/smokey. I believe i can make this scene look really good.
This location is actually my brothers flat where i am doing most of my filming. fig 3.

4. This is a shot of outside of my brothers flat (office and parking lot scene) i got a shot of this location because i may use a camera angle from across the road of a view of a character entering of leaving the 'office'. fig 4.

Upcoming week Plan

Friday 22nd January - Start and Finish Thumbnails (after speaking to Miss Sutton or Mrs Hammond first lesson about how to go by aobut doing them)
Also Try make a start on my Storyboard.

Tuesday 26th January - Have Thumbnails completed and Storyboard complete/nearly completed.
Also start thinking what music i will have involved into my final piece.

Friday 29th January - Plan shooting my final piece over the weekend (perhaps)

Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st - Begin and hopefully finish shooting opening to film.

Tuesday 2nd February - Begin editing.

G321 Course Outline Dec 2009 to March 2010

Final idea

Finally got a idea of a film opening that i am really happy and looking forward to. i got inspired when i watch the opening to Snatch which i will post below. i am sticking with 3 characters and the gangster genre. i now have to draw the thumbnails and storyboard which i am not looking forward to because it wont turn out good.

Snatch opening

Potential characters

Over my weekend i thought about who i wanted to cast in my 2 minute film opening. I wanted to use a older cast instead of school friends to add effect to my film. So this past weekend i went to take pictures of two potential people to play in my film.

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Craig Powis. Aged 21

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Patrick Wintle. Aged 20

(He couldn't stop laughing.)

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There will be another character added to this post shortly..

Moodboard

I have decided to do a Gangster/Comedy Genre film production, so i did this Gangster moodboard.

(analysis below)

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Analysis

• Quentin Tarantino - Kill bill (1,2 and 3), Sin City.
• Vinnie Jones is a english hardman. Snatch and lock, stock and two smoking barrels.
• Danny Dyer is like a younger version on Vinnie Jones as in he is a english hardman. Dead man running and The Football Factory.
• Robert de Niro is known well for being apart of mafia films such as Goodfellas, Analyse This and Analyse That.

Moodboard

I would like to film a comedy but im unsure how i would go by doing that. Everybody does Horror and Thrillers so i dont want to do those genres, i will continue to give it much thought.

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