Proposal

Our idea for the single camera assignment is a comedic spin on the popular multi-franchised 'Sherlock Holmes' in which the character of Sherlock is mentally unstable who somehow solves crimes due to becoming serious whenever at the crime scene. The title for the short film itself is 'Shernot Holmes' the title came about as he is /not/ Sherlock; hence Sher-not. The title and plot was highly popular with the focus group, receiving good feedback. The main characters are as follows: Sherlock Homes, DR. John Watson, James Moriarty and DCI Greg Lestrade. We're going to film it in only one area, at home. Although this may seem like a bad move, sadly this is the only option we have due to timing/schedule. The target audience is going to be fans of the multiple renditions of the 'Sherlock Homes' franchise and people who are into comedy shows/comedians; Aged 15-21, middle and working class and both males and females. We have a small budget however we have all the equipment and editing software needed provided by the college.

'Shernot Holmes' Script

Below is a link where the script for 'Shernot Holmes' and the Foley version of the script can be found:


https://drive.google.com/?tab=wo&authuser=0#folders/0B_xQFfydR5ATZVJMNC1BV3IxdFk  

Microphone polar patterns

Cardioid.

This microphone is omnidirectional, meaning it picks up sound from more than one place. 

Shotgun.

Commonly used on television and film sets, stadiums, and for recording of wildlife due to the narrowness of their sensitivity area.

Omnidirectional. 

Picks up sound from multiple places/directions.

Shot list

Below are only a few shot's that will be used during the making of 'Shernot Holmes'


Scene 1; Shot 1:

Wide shot of 221B, Watson walks up to the door.

Scene 1; Shot 2:

Over-the-shoulder shot of Watson.

Scene 1; Shot 3:

Over-the-shoulder shot of Susan.

Scene 2; Shot 1:

Medium shot of Watson walking into 221B and closing the door.

 Scene 2; Shot 2:

Wide shot of Sherlock dancing.

Scene 2; Shot 2:

Close up of Watson's face.

Doctor Who: 1963 VS 2005

'Shernot Holmes'

The production of Shernot Holmes first began with the writing of the script. This quickly became as difficulty as it took longer than originally planned; eventually the script was complete on the 18th November (week beginning) and we moved on to the soundtrack. The original draft of the 'Shernot' script featured a character (Lestrade) which was deemed to offensive and was removed and replaced with a less-offensive and more comical version of the character in version 2. Although we both attempted to create separate music, one with 'garageband' and one with 'soundtrack pro' we settled on Brandon's version of the music as it seemed to suit our version of Sherlock better.

Below is the creation of my version of the soundtrack (which was eventually not used)

Although 'Shernot' is a comical production, we wanted the to falsely lure the audience in and play with their thoughts, to make them think this is an ordinary 'Sherlock Holmes' production when in fact it is the exact opposite, we did this by making the theme music/background music much like that of a crime drama. To film the production we used a Cannon 600D and recorded sound with a boom microphone as Cannons are known for having considerably poor sound quality compared to their video quality.





UPDATE (16/12/13)
The filming for 'Shernot' has been completed and it is currently in the editing process.
There were some technical difficulties but these were eventually fixed and filming was completed on schedule; Although many scenes were cut due to timing and I personally do not have high hopes for the project, I feel that because of almost half of the script being scrapped, the film will reach no-where near the 5 minute mark and this is a problem.

 
UPDATE (19/12/13)
'Shernot' has been edited and is very nearly complete, all that is left to do is go through and add sound effects where needed and render the final version and upload it to the blog/YouTube. Although I stand by what I said earlier, I still feel as though the filming/pre-production of the 'Shernot' could have gone better than it did. The blames for this are nothing more than our own poor-planning skills; it was left until the 11th hour due to the actor playing Sherlock was unsure about his own availability. In theory, We should have organised this a great deal more than we did. If we were given a chance to go back and film again at some point then I, personally would consider planning more, Brandon however may have a different view on things.

Idents case study

The design of the BBC ident has changed over the years, the one constant has been the white text and a circular logo which has remained virtually the same since 1953. The purpose of the ident (and all idents for that matter) is to let the viewers know what channel they are watching so that they ident-ify the channel. Unlike the BBC, the Warner Brother's idents change depending on the genre/style of the movie, the purpose in all these cases is to let the audience know what kind of movie they are watching or to simply not ruin the feel of the movie; if the movie was dark and serious then it would make no sense to have the ordinary Warner Brother's ident because it would destroy what emotion the movie was attempting to get across to the audience. The audiences for both the BBC and Warner Bros are  around about the ages 15 - 28. Both companies aim their material at families for family viewings.


 
 Here is one of the first versions of a BBC ident that debuted in 1960. This was most likely done through a small 3D globe physically rotating with BBC logo in front of it. CGI had not yet been developed so making a virtual globe was impossible, a physical model is more likely.





This logo ident debuted in 1980 and was created (like the above) was made by taking a 3D model of a globe, rotating it while it was in front of a mirror and placing a BBC logo in front of the camera. As the globe rotated the background (the reflection of the mirror) would also rotate. An earlier version of this logo (which originally debuted in 1969) was recreated with CGI in 2007 to introduce series 2 of Life On Mars, the show was set in the 1973. This version's movement was made using key-frames (making a slight movement every frame)



This ident was introduced in 2006 and was made using a CGI software (as it was now available, as opposed to the models used years before)
The BBC have now adopted using circles in their indents compared to the earth indents used previously. The hippos (seen on there left in one of the many variations of the circle ident) are circling around the BBC logo, they are most likely on the X and Y axis.



This is the standard WB (Warner Brothers) logo. It was made in  a 3D modelling software (possibly similar to After Effects)
The clouds the logo normally appears from were also possibly computer generated. The logo and the clouds are two separate layers,
both the clouds and the logo are on the Z and Y axis, with the clouds slowly moving across the screen (Y) and the logo zooming out and rotating downwards to face the virtual camera (Z) The music would also be on a separate layer.


This is a variation of the WB logo used in the movie 'The curious case of Benjamin Button', the logo is formed out of buttons that fall from the above. The buttons were most likely animated by a program similar to After Effects whereby a single button was animated in a falling motion (on the X axis) and was duplicated with varying colours. The animation is also different compared to the origional logo.





The final variation I will be talking about is the WB logo from The Matrix. The logo has the same animation as the standard one (the clouds slowly moving across the screen and the logo zooming out and rotating downwards to face the virtual camera) although the clouds are much darker and more like lightning-type ones and the entire logo is green; to continue the theme of the movie.

Ident/Ident preproduction/Ident Evaluation

Above it my mindmap for the ident. 

This is the ident for my production company, the design is pretty basic but this is because I feel an over-exaggerated ident may distract the viewers from the intent of the actual movie or give them a false representation of that it will be about. The purpose of it is to give the audience an idea of what to expect. My target audience is people of my own age, it appeals to them by being short, quick and to the point. The reason for the ident being the way it is is because I enjoy sci-fi programs (as shown by the space backdrop and the asteroids.) The ident also includes an element of comedy (the asteroid hitting the text causing it to fall off screen)

The original idea for the ident was simply just 'MrRAWEEE' fading in, accompanied by my face and then fading out again. Below are my print screens detailing the creation of the ident:

This was the first step, motion tracking an asteroid across a background of a starfield, The reason behind the 'space feel' of the ident is simply because I  have always been a fan of space/time travel and I like to think this ident represents it perfectly.

After the asteroid has passed, the next step was to make the text slowly zoom in and focus.
There is no real reason for this section of the ident other than the fact I thought it looked good.

Now the text was in focus and stationary, it was time to bring back the asteroid, only this time from the opposite side of the screen (motion tracking played a big part in the ident.)

The ident ends with the asteroid slamming into the text and knocking it off-screen. I did this to add a comedic-element to it as up until this point it had been quiet serious and bland. Although there is no sound throughout the ident, if I were to make it again/make adjustments to it I would definitely add sounds .

After Effects - Lesson 7

In this lesson we were tasked with motion tracking an image onto a computer screen, above is the end result. We motion tracker the computer screen by placing points around the edge. Lucky for us After Effects does all the work and did the motion tracking automatically so the image would follow the pointers and therefore, stay on the screen.

Equipment List

Sound shopping list:

Music (made in soundtrack pro)

Foley (using sounds available on  soundtrack pro)


Voices (Recorded on location using a boom)


Equipment:



Camera (cannon 600D, rented)

Tripod (owned)  

Boom mic (rented)

Soundtrack pro (available at the college)

Final cut pro (available at the college)

Sound Editing:

Soundtrack pro

Final cut pro

Footage Editing:

Final cut pro


The sounds we require for our production are mainly the background track (music) and dialogue from the actors; Foley is used but it is not as prominent as the dialogue/music.

We are using diegetic and non-diegetic sound,
Diegetic being sounds that the character can hear (cars going by, doorbells etc.)
Non-Diegetic being sounds that are unheard to the characters (music) although sometimes this rule is broken (along with the forth wall) for comedic purposes.

After Effects - Lesson 6

In this lesson, we created a complex animation with multiple layers and adjusted the duration of a layer. Clipped live motion video using a shape layer, animated with Position, Scale, and Rotation keyframes. Animated a precomposed layer and animated scenery using parenting. We also learned  how to trim layers and add anchor points. 

After Effects - Lesson 5

In this lesson we creates custom shapes, customised a shape’s fill and stroke. Used path operations to transform shapes, animated shapes. Next we repeated shapes and explored design options with the Brainstorm feature. Lastly we added a Cartoon effect to a video layer for a distinctive look. 

After Effects - Lesson 4

In this lesson, we placed Deform pins using the Puppet Pin tool and defined areas of overlap using the Puppet Overlap tool. Stiffened part of an image using the Puppet Starch tool. Animated the position of Deform pins and smoothed motion in an animation. Recorded animation using the Puppet Sketch tool. 

After Effects - Lesson 3

In this lesson, we created and animated text layers, stylised text using the Character and Paragraph panels and applied and customize text animation presets. 
Previewed animation presets in Adobe Bridge, animated text using keyframes, animated layers using parenting. 
Edited and animate imported Adobe Photoshop text. Used a text animator group to animate selected characters on a layer. Applied a text animation to a graphic object. 

After Effects - Lesson 2

In this lesson, we imported footage items then worked with the layers of an imported Adobe Illustrator file. Applied drop-shadow and emboss effects, applied a text animation preset.
Next we adjusted the time range of a text animation preset and precomposed the layers. Applied a dissolve transition effect, adjusted the transparency of a layer and rendered an animation for broadcast use. 

Doctor Who Reboot Stuffs

Doctor Who reboot (1963 – 2005)

Doctor Who originally broadcast on 23rd november 1963 and was cancelled in 1989 because it was thought to be a joke at the time by the BBC controller, Michael Grade. There was a TV movie in 1996 continuing where the show left off however it was intended for American audiences, as the producers wanted the show to go overseas; Although it was a success in the UK, the film did not do well with the intended audience and no series was commissioned. There was a full reboot in 2005 which had more success than the movie due to it being targeted at the british more (The 1st episode was set in London.)  

Although both versions of the show (1963, 2005) were made in the UK, the audiences were very different, aside from being roughly the same age group.

The two generations reacted differently to the show because of their upbringing. Children of the 60s were far, far less protected from the extremes of society than children of the 2000s, this was reflected within the two versions of the show; The Doctor Who of today has much more comedic elements to it as opposed to the Doctor Who of the 60's which attempted to scare and educate children rather than entertain. In 2003, when Doctor Who was re-commissioned by Russell .T. Davies, movies such as 'Matrix reloaded' and 'Terminator 3' and other sic-fi elements were popular. The news of the re-launch received good feedback as the show itself and sic-fi in general was extremely popular. The basis for the reboot were a mix between financial and artistic, although more of the latter; Russell was a fan of the original series and knew the children of the next generation would love it.

The 1963 version of the show also had a very low budget with as little as £2000 per half hour so the production was very sloppy; The sets wobbled, Doors wouldn't close properly and sometimes actors missed their cues and were not allowed a re-take. The TARDIS’s iconic image is only around due to budget restrictions, it was originally meant to change it's appearance every episode but the budget was already over-spent. The 2005 series however had a much bigger budget of £10 million due to the BBC having high hopes of getting a whole new generation of children interested in it.

The social and political views at the time of each version were also very different; in a 1963 episode 'The Sunmakers' was a parody of the tax system at the time.
In 2005, The first Slitheen two-parter (Aliens of London/World War 3) was a reflection of the WMD situation in Iraq.

After Effects Stuff | Lesson 1

 

In this lesson it was necessary to use the Project, Composition and Timeline panels, we had to create a project and import some footage consisting of dancing women; The first step was to create compositions and arrange the layers. Next we applied basic keyframes and effects; customised the workspace and adjusted the preferences related to the user interface find additional resources. 

Tomb Raider Reboot (worked with Brandon)

We were tasked with rebooting the 'Tomb Raider' franchise. It will be filmed in multiple countries; England, Russia Brazil and Egypt. Lara Croft will be played by Camilla Luddington because she is the voice of the character in the game, so she will be more recognisable.

Lara croft will be played by Camilla Luddington this is because she is the voice of Lara in the game so fans can relate to her to the game more with don't work with the original films.

Mads Mikkelsen will play the role off Sergei Mikhailov  as he has the Russian boss look which is shown when he plays Hannibal in the TV show Hannibal . Admiral Yarofev will be played by someone not that well-known as there is very few people we feel could play his character.

Fears and Reboots

Today's lesson was on the fears of the masses and how these fears were presented in the movies released at the time. We were set the task of researching movies of the 80's and 90's in order to see what were the fears at the time.
'Home Alone' (1990) was based on the fear of dangerous strangers; this fear was presented by two burglars attempting to burgle the house of a family that are on vacation. If we were to look at the 80's we would find that many fears are quite far fetched such as the premise of aliens; as evidenced by the 1986 movie simply titled 'Aliens' which was to play on the fear of extra-terrestrial attacks.

If either of the movies mentioned were rebooted in the next couple of years, the threats would still remain the same due to the fear still being present in modern day society.

Pirates of the Caribbean poster

'E.T The Extra Terrestrial’ Film Studies Essay

‘E.T The extra terrestrial’ commonly referred to as just ‘E.T’ was a 1982 film directed by Steven Spielberg about an alien that get’s left behind on earth and while trapped befriends a boy called Elliott.

The poster (left) correctly represents the movie; it accurately portrays the bond between Elliott and ET by showing the now famous ‘glowing finger scene’ (A link to said scene) from the film.  The poster also has elements of ET and Elliott, ET being presented by space and Elliott being the represented by the earth.

The film was made primarily for family viewings; despite the use of mild swear words and subtle hints at smoking and drunkenness the film was given a PG rating by the BBFC.

Spielberg’s original idea for a thriller movie called ‘Night Skies’ was to be the common ‘aliens come down and invade a house’ plot but he suddenly thought about changing it into a completely different movie called ‘E.T The extra terrestrial’ in which an alien gets left behind and instead of terrorising the locals, constantly attempts get back home and befriends the locals in the process.

When it comes to fan culture things get weird; fans of the movie even go so far as to write romantic fan fiction featuring Elliott and E.T.

Although in the 1980’s when the film was originally released, it was common from children to play pretend while reciting E.T’s famous line “ET Phone Home” although ET himself said this incorrectly in the movie, ET states “ET Home Phone” and it was Elliott’s correction that became well known.

The feedback itself was widely positive, E.T has been voted as the ‘greatest film ever’ of 2010 although it is unknown if it still holds this title. Critics have given the movie good reviews; it has been described as ‘the kind of film that young people are going to want to see again immediately after they've seen it.’ (A review on rottentomatoes.com) Producers (such as Spielberg) would often get an idea from how good their movie was from the reviews by critics and fans; many times critics and fans would disagree but in the case of E.T it was widely referred to as a good movie having been enjoyed by both fans and critics. Reviews such as the ones available on online would usually affect whether or not people decide to watch certain movies, if the reviews are good then the film is good so people are more likely to go see said movie out of sheer curiosity and to see if the movie is what the reviews make it out to be.

Although E.T was around in the days before the Internet, interactive marketing was used in the guise of fan clubs such as the ‘Official E.T fan club’ (below) where fans of the movie would sign up in order to get various movie-related things such as posters, photos and certificates. E.T also became well-known enough to be featured on adverts for awareness of such things as drink driving telling those who saw it to ‘phone home’ and not drive if drunk, the ad’s featured ET with his finger raised and glowing as a call-back to a scene in the movie where ET heals Elliott.

The Merchandise for E.T is mainly the usual that you would expect from a movie; shirts, figures, etc. However Atari manufactured and sold a game based off of the movie that did not sell so well and was commonly regarded as a bad move, many say the game was so terrible that Atari even went as far as to crush, encase in cement and bury all of the unsold copies of the game in the sand in a desert in New Mexico, although this is no more than an urban legend.

In terms of the film itself, E.T contains possibly the most memorable (and the first ever) product placement; Reese’s Pieces; the small sweets that Elliott used to lure ET to him. Originally M&M’s were supposed to be in the place of Reese’s Pieces in the film but they declined for unknown reasons. In return for Steven Spielberg featuring Reese’s Pieces in his movie, Reese’s Pieces featured ET on the front of their packets for a brief period, even giving away a free ET sticker with every packet. After being featured in the movie, sales for Reece’s Pieces went up dramatically, other companies realized that their products being featured in movies and TV shows was a way to boost sales, product placement was born and since then countless of brands have sponsored movies in an attempt to get more recognition for themselves.  

 In 1982 when E.T was released it featured a scene where gun-wielding federal agents threaten Elliott and his escaping friends, Spielberg disliked this scene as he deemed it inappropriate for children to be threatened by people with guns so for the 20^th anniversary of the movie in 2002 the guns were digitally replaced with walkie-talkies, ET was also now CGI. However for the 30th Anniversary an edition was released which included a fully restored version of the original film and the guns were put back in place of the walkie-talkies, the puppet ET was restored also.

Due to its popularity E.T has made its way into other forms of entertainment being referenced in many other programs/movies and has even become popular enough to be joked about and referenced multiple times in Family Guy. (a clip from ET's appearance in Family Guy) from this we can gather that the creators of Family Guy deemed E.T popular enough and recognisable enough to be referenced more than once; when  a certain movie/TV show gets referred to or hinted at in other forms of media it shows that it has become well-known.
In making an E.T related joke, Seth McFarlane (the creator of Family Guy) was acknowledging Spielberg’s creation and deemed it popular enough so that enough members of the Family Guy audience would have watched E.T or be familiar with it in some way in order to be able to understand and laugh at the joke.  

Misleading Poster

Evaluation:

As part of our assignment we were asked to create a misleading film poster in Photoshop.  We decided to take ‘The Ring’ which is a horror about brutal killings and change the meaning of the title slightly to make it into ‘The Ring’ a family movie about a wedding; the title remains the same but the meaning is different.

48 Hour Film Challenge

As a sort of mini-assignment we were asked to create a single camera production in only 48 hours. Each group was given a different genre and line to work into the film; we were given action and our line was "I've always wanted you to go into space, man."

This assignment was incredibly stressful for me as I was not in the best state of mind at the time of filming, however I persevered and eventually filming was complete.
The film itself is currently in the editing stage and it set to be finished soon. I look forward to hearing the thoughts on my film and how I may improve.

Test Screenings and Interactive Marketing

Test Screening

Studios often test screen their movies to the production team so they can check if it is satisfactory for public viewing, members of the public used to be invited to come to test screenings however many greatly disliked the however after the release of 'Batman and Robin' this stopped as many people disliked it and left bad reviews, after this incident studios became paranoid of criticism decided
to only test screen movies to members of their own production teams.

An example of a film that has been changed after a test screening is 'Titanic' in which a fight scene was  cut out as it was viewed as pointless.

Interactive Marketing

Interactive marketing is a form of marketing in which elements from the film are included in everyday life, for example for the movie 'The Blair witch project' the producers wanted to make the audience think what they were watching was real, so to help this 'missing people' posters were put up with pictures of the actors faces on in order to convince the people watching the movie that these people were indeed abducted and possibly dead.