Sound/Music comparrisons between The Unconventional Truth and LA Confidential

These are the 4 main songs that we used in our film.

 

THE XX-INTRO

 

 

THE XX-CHAINED

 

 

MADONNA-INTO THE GROOVE

 

 

DAMIEN RICE-COLD WATER

 

Here is a video of myself comparing the music that we used in our film to that of a scene in LA Confidential in which I feel greatly influenced our choice of music for certain scenes within our film.

 

Lustful Injustice opening title/credits analysis

This is a video of me analysing one of the previous years media film opening title and credits.

Timeline and opening credits/title analysis-The Unconventional Truth

Viewing feedback

The Unconventional Truth viewing

Today we held a viewing for our finalised film The Unconventional Truth. We managed to sort out a free classroom in our school and gathered as many people as we could together to watch our film. We decided to gather mainly 16-18 year olds of both male and female, as we felt this was the most appropriate age bracket for our film. Overall the response was really positive and everyone agreed that the storyline and plot was easy to follow yet kept interesting by the choice of subtle enigma codes and hints throughout the film. They all also agreed on the fact that they really like the plot/character twist at the end that we had by the character of Scarlet killing her dad, which the majority of people said they expected to be Jake.

We got everyone to write down a list of things that they liked and did not like about the film, here is some of the feedback that we were given.

 

 

 
 

 

 
 



 

Advertising techniques to promote our film

 

 

This is a short video of me exploring the different ways in which I feel we could advertise our film in order to be able to reach out to all different aged audience members in order to make them interested in our film.

Arthouse or Mainstream?

Dark Night Productions..



This is a video of me explaining the idea behind our production company logo and the fonts that we used.

Production Company logo/font research

This is video of me exploring different Production Companies logo's and font's used and explaining why I personally feel they work or do not work and what aspects I may take from them and incorporate into our own Production Company logo.

Our Production Company final name...

'DARK NIGHT PRODUCTIONS'

The name that we decided on for our Production Company name is Dark Night Productions. We originally started with Black Night Productions but decided to change it as we felt that the 'Black' side of it appeared as though it would be more aimed towards the horror/thriller genre of film. We felt that 'Dark Night' also worked better as it had a better understanding than that of Black Night which we felt did not make complete sense.

We liked the idea of having 'Night' in the title as we felt night time was a key convention of Film Noir/Neo-Noir and reflected the more dramatic scenes that take place as these films reach their climax's and the drama evolves.

Overall we are really pleased with the title that we have come up with for our Production Company as we feel that not only does it well represent the Film Noir genre of film but also the plot line of our film and symbolises the unexpected 'dark' ending to our film.

Our chosen Production Company- Focus features

 

This is a video of me explaining why we chose to have Focus Features as the Production Company/Distributer behind our film 'The Unconventional Truth'. I explore the ways in which the Neo-Noir film 'Brick' (that Focus Features distributed) impacted us as a group and the ideas that we had, I also explore the box office and reviews that 'Brick' itself received once it was released.

Production Company research

My finished second poster

 

This is my second poster that I designed. I am pleased with the outcome as I feel I have incorporated a variety of different key conventions of film noir features. For example the use of the contrast between the red and the white writing, this suggesting the idea of danger vs. innocence. Also the use of the red nails and lipstick on the femme fatale helps to give the audience a perspective of what genre the film is based around without giving too much away about the character herself.

 

The use of the high contrast to differientate between the highlighted and shadowed areas I feel works really well as it could be seen as representing the idea of the split personality of the two characters; they both have a darker side that counteracts their innocent and pure exteriors, which leaves the audience thinking about where the plotline of the film will take their characters and were they will end.

 

The use of the quotations from proffessional companys such as Empire and Daily Mail (used here) I feel helps to add a more realistic and sophisticated finish to the poster to make it seem more believeable as a genuine film poster. This also being reinforced by the use of the 'coming soon' and production company rights in the smaller font at the bottom below the title.

 

Overall, I am fairly pleased with the outcome of my second poster as I feel it has grasped the key asprects and conventions of a stereotypical film noir aswell as giving the audience an inkling into what they can expect from the film itself, without giving too much away.

Character analsysis

 



This is a short video of me explaining the three main characters in our film noir; the femme fatale (Scarlet), the main protagonist/hero figure (Jake) and the villian (Scarlet's dad). And exploring the ways in which they show stereotypical conventions of their roles within the film and also how they subvert them.

Drive-editing analysis

 

 

This is a video of me exploring the different editing techniques used in the neo-noir 'Drive' in order to get an idea for the type of editing that would work well for our neo-noir film.

Drive-effective camera shots analysis

 

This is a video of me exploring the different effective camera shots/angles and movements used in the neo noir 'Drive' to help me get a better understanding of the camera formalities that help to make up a film noir/neo-noir film.

Drive- effective lighting shots analysis

 

This is a video of me analysing a few shots from the neo-noir film 'Drive'. I wanted to do this in order to help myself to explore the different lighting techniques used in other neo-noir films and look into how to create effect and/or put emphasise on a specific character or object.

My first final poster

 

This is my first final poster. Overall I am fairly pleased with the outcome of it as I feel I have included typical conventions of previous Film noir/neo-noir film posters yet also having added my own ideas and elements to make it original and fit in with the plot of our film.

Progress so far..

This is a short video of Rosy and I discussing the progress that we have made so far surrounding the editing and filming side of our film. We also speak about what we have completed so far and what is still left to do.

Getting creative!

Today when filming we had a slight issue with the lighting. We were aiming to have a 'cupboard cam' in which we were going to place the camera inside of a cupboard and see the character of Scarlets dad reach in and take a glass out. Yet when we tested this we realised that the surrounding light was much too dark meaning that we could barely see his silhouette. Therefore we decided to take matters into our own hands and create our own cupboard! Above is a video to explain how we did it.

Production company ideas

 



This is a video of me explaining the different Production company names that we discussed and came up with as a group and why I feel they would work well and why they may not.

Editing so far...

This is just a short video of myself talking about the editing that we have achieved so far and what we have done that worked well and what did not.

Group Film Review Analysis

 

Today during our Media lesson, as a group we decided to look at a few previous film reviews from magazines and analyse them to get an idea of what would and would not work when it came to both designing and reviewing our own film poster and review.

Photoshoot for posters

 

Today we used the photography studio and lights to take our photographs for our film posters. We used Rosy and Jake as the main focus for our poster but also took some photographs and close up shots of Doms face incase we decided to use more characters for our final posters.

Film Noir posters research and analysis

This is a video of me analysing previous film noir posters in order for me to get a feel of key conventions that I will need to include on my poster in order to allow the audience to fully understand the genre of film that our film is based upon.

Mixed genre film posters research and analysis

This is a short video of myself analysing a mixture of different genre of films and their posters to help me get an idea of the conventions that I will need to include in my own poster to make it clear what the genre of the film is (Film Noir) to the audience.

Colour Connotations

The Unconventional Truth fonts analysis

The Unconventional Truth tester posters

 

 

 

Here are two posters in which I have personally designed yet are still a working progress that I will eventually use for our fim noir 'The Unconventional Truth' once they are finished. We used the school photography studio to take the pictures for our posters, we used a variety of different lights camera flashes in order to get the contrast and shadowing that can be seen on their body and faces.

 

The top poster is my first attempt and although I like the design and they way in which the text and photograph are set out, I am not keen on the overall look of the poster itself. I feel that the top left hand side of the poster looks bare as though something else extra is needed. Although I really like the shadowing on Rosy's face, I think that the lighting on Jake lets the poster down and make does not help the photograph to live up to its full potential, this not helped by the pixelated look that the poster has which happened when uploading it.

The bottom poster was my second attempt and I feel that it is a lot stronger. I like the use of the dark shadowing that covers the majority of the right side of Rosy's face and the left of Jakes, showing that the two characters are contrasting one another either through their characterisations or they're actual agendas within the plot.

The use of the bold light that is focusing on Rosy's red lips and red nails help to promote her femme fatale character to the audience before they have even seen the film, it also helps us to view her as a mysterious and seductive character as the rest of her face and body are in a contradictory dark shadow. By using a matching shade of red for the word "heart", it links the two characters seen in the poster together showing that although they may have different alternative motives, they in actual fact need one another to help complete these agendas.

The angle at which the photograph was taken also helps to distinguish the differences between the two characters as we see Rosy facing directly into the camera with a subtle smirk showing that she is confident and has the ability to manipulate people in order to get what she wants. Yet, by having her slightly behind Jake, it shows that she is hiding a big secret and keeping it to herself, yet by having her loosely grasping onto Jakes shoulder it links the two together giving the impression that she is linked to him in some way and in firm control of his actions; showing a dominant feature to her character.

By having the character of Jake in the forefront of the shot shows that he is the lead character within the film, yet by having his eyeline looking slightly upwards towards the left hand side shows that he is perhaps not as straightforward as he may first seem. The bright light beaming onto his eye adds a sense of vulnverability to his character and leaves the audience to believe that he is the "heroic" type character to the plot, however by then having half of his face shaded it could possibly be revealing that he has a split personality, and that perhaps his deeper thoughts within do not quite run parallel to his vulnerable exterior.

The unconventional truth...

When thinking of a name for our Film Noir, we knew that we needed to in some way have it linked towards the secrecy and deceit that our plot is based upon. We were having a discussion about how we felt that we needed the word 'truth' in our title as it gave a subtle hint towards our storyline yet without giving to much away.

After brainstorming a few ideas, I came up with the idea of naming our film 'The unconventional truth'. The rest of the group members agreed that it was a good name as it fitted in with our plot yet also left a bit of imagination to the audience.

I thought of the name as I was trying to think of a word that described the idea of hiding the truth and secrecy. The word unconventional is another way of interperating the mysterious, distinct and unorthodox plot in which our film involves with its hidden enigma codes and subtle hints towards the final scene. It made sense as it linked with the idea of the unknown and not knowing what to expect, yet by then adding in the word 'truth' at the end it shows the idea of not knowing what is going to happen and how everything is not perhaps as it first may seem.

The wording itself for our film title 'The unconventional truth' we felt also had a nice rhythm to it and has a sort of darkness behind it that no one can understand until they watch the film.

We then realised we needed to think of a short punch line in which linked to our newly agreed upon film title and the storyline itself. After mapping out some possible ideas, Rosy came up with the slogan "Truth was in his heart, tragedy was in her mind". We all imediately agreed upon this as we felt it had all the perfect ingrediants for the perfect punch line; it was neither too short nor too long, it included the characterisation of both the main characters of Scarlett and Jake, the line itself linked in with both the title and plot of our film and we felt would leave the audience with a sense of curiousty as they thought about what the twist and contrasting 'his and her' emotions could represent.

Filming day 4

We re-filmed the scenes involving Jake, Dom and Rosy at school. We decided to re-shoot these as the transitions between shots did not flow as well as we had hoped and also we felt that we did not use a wider variety of shots, angles and movements as we could have done to take full advantage of the setting.

The first time we filmed these scenes I sat on a moveable chair and handheld the camera whilst Toby pushed me in order to create the tracking shot that followed the characters feet/legs as they walked down the corridor. Yet, when back chanelling through the takes that we did, we noticed that the movement was not entirely still and that the camera kept moving in and out of focus due to the lack of experience that we had with using that specific camera.

This time round, we came across a camera device in which enabled us to attach the camera to a piece of equipment in which acted as a moving tripod rather than a standstill one. The device allowed us to attach the camera at the front section and be able to move the different levers in order to create either a low, high or canted angle shot. By having the bar that ran across the right side of it, we were able to move the camera up and down in a smooth transition in which allowed us to create panning shots which we used to move up and down the body of the characters in which helped to reveal their identities as it moved from their feet to their faces. The fact that it was on wheels also helped a lot as it meant that we could create a much smoother and accurate tracking shot/movemenent when following the characters as they walked down a corridor.

Although it took us a while at first to get to grips with understanding how the device moved and worked, in the end we were all able to use it confidently and felt completely able to create the effective shots and movements that we were aiming for leaving day 4 of filming as a great success.

Filming Day 4

Editing- Voiceover

 

Here are a couple of photographs that we took when editing today and setting up a voiceover. We selected tools then the 'Voice Over' option on final cut express as we needed Jake to do a voiceover for the graveyard scene at the beginning. Despite an initial bit of background noise, over all the voiceover went smoothly and the sound was neither too loud nor too quiet. It fitted in perfectly with the scene and is used as a way to allow the audience to get the background information behind the plot of the film itself.

Editing Day 2

Today we edited the scene inside the Femme Fatale's house which involve both her and her dad. So far I feel that the editing is going very well. We are choosing the best clips and trying to show a wide variety of different camera movents, angles and shots. In this scene, this is the first time in which the 'villian' is seen so we felt that it was very important to have him portraying in the correct way. We decided to shoot him in a variety of angles and one that worked well was a low angle which showed that he is in control of the situation and used to being the most dominant. When watching what we had edited so far back we found that the lighting was worked really well so we decided to enhance this further by making the contrast slightly higher and the brightness level slightly lower.