Evaluation Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our film is called 'Algorithm 404' and is a cyber-security action-thriller about a teenage hacker, who hacks information that a conspiracy organisation don't want to be leaked. He takes the file on his USB stick to give to a fellow hacker, but is followed on the way and chased underneath a bridge, where his mate is being held at gun point and he is knocked down on the floor by a member of the organisation. The opening uses and challenges conventions of media products.

It used the form of an opening sequence by introducing the narrative of the hacker, who plays the main character, showing who worked on the film, i.e. the distributor and production company of Film 4 and Studio Canal. It also introduced the genre by the fast shots we did with the theme of cyber-security as well as building up enigma with the audience asking who is the character going to meet and why the organisation want the file he possesses.

Todorov's narrative structure was used, for we focused on the disturbance to the equilibrium of our narrative, i.e. the hacker being chased by the organisation and followed when he wanted to simply give over his file. A resolution to this disruption is shown by the fact the hacker seems to be running away from the organisation member, but unlike Todorov's theory we didn't have a new equilibrium reached in which the narrative could end peacefully, for at the end of this chase we saw the protagonist beaten down and realising he has had no control over the situation as the audience might have thought he did.

The Ending of Algorithm 404

There was more a focus on using Levi Strauss' binary opposites theory due to the fact that there was a clear distinction between the good of the young teenage hacker character, who is attacked by the evil organisation members in the opening. We also used the Enigma code to add more suspense for our audience, as there were many questions that needed answering, e.g. what is contained in the file that has been hacked, what is the nature of this conspiracy organisation and why did his friend want to receive the file?

As well as different narrative theories that would suit our genre, we also conformed to the styles of titles expected from the cyber-security genre, taking inspiration from titles used for 'The Matrix' and the new TV series 'Mr. Robot'.

Titles from Algorithm 404

Titles from Mr. Robot

As well as these animated titles used to connote the genre, we also had shots that included technology like laptops, phones and a USB stick in order to make sure the conventions of a cyber, security genre were followed.

Technology shots in Algorithm 404

Technology shot in Mr. Robot

We did also follow the typical conventions of the action-thriller genre, showing violence, including a chase scene, having fast-paced music and some characters were holding guns. These conventions can be seen in films, such as 'Se7en', 'The Dark Knight', and 'Stormbreaker'.

Below is the film opening for the action-thriller film 'Se7en', which also manages to build up suspense throughout, introducing a gripping narrative with fast paced shots and fast paced music, showing the titles and building mystery through withholding information for the plot.

Essentially we did conform to many styles and conventions of our genre for the opening sequence, helping us create an opening similar to real media with an original story arc idea that aimed to keep high tension and action for our audience.

Evaluation Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As a group, we decided to focus on representing the age and gender of a male teenage protagonist, who wanted to come across both mysterious and relatable in order for the audience to feel interested and empathetical towards the character, so as to make sure that he played the side of the good in Levi Strauss' theory of binary opposites that contrasted to the nature of the young conspiracy organisation, who seemed aggressive, tactical and sinister. The hacker seemed reasonably normal and kind hearted on the phone to his mate, who he was delivering the file with use of code words to show the importance of what he was saying in a relatable North London accent to show that he seemed like a standard North London teenager, who was just skilled in the work he was involved in. The fact the character was a hacker and seemed to be very independent, contrasted to the stereotype of a dumb teenager, who when push comes to shove, is unable to stand on his own two feet. We chose to represent young males as a social group, for our group consistent of male teenagers, so it seemed easiest to relate to, the fact that he is a hacker does make the character himself more unconventional as the protagonist of the film.

 

Evaluation Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our Production Company

Film 4 was our chosen production company, which is famous for producing British, independent films such as 'Submarine', 'Frank' and 'Four Lions'. This would be perfect for our film, as it is set in London and has a British cast and the film itself is also an independent film. An example of this type of perfect fit between film and production company is that of 'Attack The Block', which also was produced by 'Film 4' and just like 'Algorithm 404', has an all British cast of small unknown actors and also had to include lots of special effects, yet it only had a budget of £8 million.

This means the production budget for the film would be small due, as it is an independent film, but the fact that the film is of the cyber-security action-thriller genre means that we would need additional money put in for good Special FX. Independent films tend to have a small budget, e.g. 'Frank' had a budget of £1 million, whereas action-thriller films tend to have a much higher budget, e.g. 'Se7en' had a budget of £23 million. Therefore, I believe our film being an independent action-thriller would have a budget of around £5 million.

Our Distribution Company

Our chosen distribution company we used was 'Studio Canal', which is a UK based company that has a history of distributing small, independent, British films, e.g. 'Attack the Block', so it has a history of distributing independent films like 'Algorithm 404', which is also based in the UK. It has had a reputation for also being able to take on enormous blockbusters, e.g.  'The Hunger Games' and 'Twilight'. This experience and great reputation in the film industry would allow the film to attract a potentially wider audience.Studio Canal was also responsible for distributing thrillers, such as 'Legend' and 'Before I Go To Sleep'. It is a horizontally integrated company, who has had history of both producing and distributing films for audiences to watch around the world.

Marketing

We wanted to use both traditional and modern methods for marketing the film with posters at bus stops, in tube stations and on buses and having interviews on radio shows with some of the main stars of the film, e.g. David Sagna. As well as utilising social media cheap and effectively spreading awareness on many outlets that we could use, which were going to be: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Snapchat. We would use the #Algorithm404 to spread videos promotions, posters and trailers to our mass audience. This would be silmilar to the way in which 'Attack The Block' used the #attacktheblock facebook page to promote the end of their trailer. A marketing strategy that Film 4 does is conducting interviews with those who worked on their films uploaded onto YouTube, e.g. Ben Stiller interviewed on the comedy 'Zoolander', generating a greater awareness of the film and having a more efficient film promotion. 'Algorithm 404' would definitely use this method, so as to gain a greater awareness of films from the niche audience of independent cinema.










The Release

We would release the film at the BFI London Film Festival, so as to ensure greater publicity for it and gain a greater hype for it, just as the recent 'Suffragette' film managed to achieve by also releasing their film at the festival. The film would then become available fir the masses at mainstream cinemas, e.g. Cineworld and the Odeon, and at independent cinemas, e.g. the Arthouse cinema near Turnpike Lane, so as to spread word of mouth and attract fans of independent cinema. The film would then be released for home-viewing on DVD and blu-ray, generating a greater revenue with them being sold at supermarkets, e.g. Tesco, and at shops, like WHSmith. In these DVDs and Blu Rays would be 'Behind The Scenes' content for fans of the film to be encouraged to buy it. We would also allow for streaming to be available on Netflix in order to get some money in return from these streaming services and boost the awareness of the film after its release in cinemas. However, inevitably there would be illegal streaming of the film on sites such as putlocker as well as those, who would use torrenting websites to download the film for personal viewing, but this could spread word of mouth despite the fact the film would not make any money from this activity. The film would finally be released on TV channels, e.g. Film 4, Channel 4, E4 and 4Seven, which are all owned by the Channel 4 Television corporation. This would widen the audience for our film after its release  on cinema and would make money from the advert breaks on the TV.

Evaluation Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our group decided to do a cyber action-thriller genre, for we all enjoyed the action genre and the hacker idea we came up with fitted the cyber thriller genre well. When looking at the audience of the action genre, we can see that it mostly appeals to the 15-24 year old male audience in which we, as a group, also fell into.

Our primary target was to be fans of action films with our secondary target audience being a male and female audience between the ages of 15-40, and our tertiary audience being aimed for fans of British cinema.

Primary Audience

• Fans of action films cover a range of genders, ages and ethnicities.
• Fans of the action genre do tend to be of the male, 15-25 age group.
• They would be aware of the conventions of action films and would be concerned about the quality of the genre, wanting a worthwhile viewing experience.
• Due to the considerably lower budget of our film production, we couldn't aim to create a film as well made as some blockbusters like the recent Mad Max film, but we could aim to make the production as slick and high quality as possible, using the action genre conventions for our film in order to attract the audience.

Secondary Audience

• Both men and women aged 15-40 tend to go to see action films at the cinema.
• This study below from IMDb shows the age group that tends to see action films fit in this age bracket.

Tertiary Audience

• By using a British cast, e.g. actors like David Sagna and Danya Bavetta,  as well as shooting in London locations, e.g. tube stations and a suburban park, would make sure that fans of British cinema and British culture being reflected in films would enjoy watching our film.
• Examples of British films that became successful at the Box Office by reaching this target audience include: 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' and 'Attack The Block'. With the 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' being a thriller and 'Attack The Block' being an action film with both genres in our film 'Algorithm 404'.

Evaluation Q5: How did you attract/address your audience?

The hacker protagonist would be relatable for our primary target audience, for he too is a young man between the ages of 15 and 25, just like the highest demographic for action movie watchers. As a hacker, the character seems big, tall and imposing, staying independent and intelligent as a hacker character, so can in a sense be seen as an aspirational character for the target audience to follow.

The fast paced nature of the shots in the film with quick dips to black, and the use of guns and technology throughout would also appeal to fans of the genre. The intimidating presence of the young men working for the conspiracy organisation would bring a level of darkness, intrigue and tactical sophistication for the audience to be interested in.

Intimidating organisation with guns

Fast action running shots

When showing the test shoot to a variety of people aged between 15-25, who claimed to be fans of the action genre, we gained useful feedback for us to work on for our film:

• "The music doesn't work well and its too repetitive"
• "It's not dramatic enough and is a bit boring"
• "The surveillance shots work really well"
• "The plot isn't very clear"

We took on this feedback and found a much more fitting track to play for the opening that added much tension to the film. Then we added new shots to the storyboard to be filmed in order for the plot line to be clearer. We shortened the length of certain shots to keep it at fast pace and added  a bit of dialogue, so that the plot of the protagonist meeting the other character before he was ambushed by the government conspiracy organisation was more clear.  After the changes we made due to feedback from the public we also made some small, subtle changes to the sequence, e.g. adding slicker titles that would connote the hacking genre well and doing colour grading for the  chase scene shots in order to connote a more gritty action film than it seemed in the original test shoot. 

After making these changes we showed the film opening sequence to the same individuals, who gave much more positive feedback:

• "It's very tense"
• "It's really dramatic"
• "Good continuity in the running shots"
• "It doesn't drag out as much, more more happens"
• "The police report at the end works well"

In conclusion, the opening definitely seemed to appeal to our desired target audience with great positive feedback and it had improve a lot with the new changes that were made.

Evaluation Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Before starting this media coursework project, I had very little experience of using professional camera equipment and editing software, so I have greatly improved on my ability on using both the hardware and software available when constructing our film opening. I have learnt how I can improve quality and efficiency of the filming process when using the hardware and software.

Hardware

The Canon Legria HF G30

• I learnt how to zoom in on the camera, but I realised that a zoom in and change in focus, which we wanted for one of our shots would take too long and be too difficult to film well, so we decided to go without that shot.
• I realised that the low lighting in the Seward studio main shoot made the shots look grainy and of a low quality, so we organised a re-shoot in which we would alter the lighting to stop this problem of graininess.

Software

Adobe Premier Pro

• Similarly to the camera I had little experience of using this editing software, but i was quickly able to learn how to edit the film and learnt how to edit the colour grading of the running shots under the bridge.
• I do now feel familiar with the software, although there is more to be learnt, I realised it was easier than I though to play an important role in editing the sequence as well as those, who were familiar with the software from using it before

Evaluation Q7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I feel that I have greatly improved since the preliminary task and have become much more knowledgeable, skillful and gained greater organisation skills from progressing to this stage of working on our film opening media product.

Stages	Preliminary Task	Film Opening
Brief	"Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with who she/he then exchanged a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule."	"To produce a 2 minute opening for a fiction film. All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright free source. It should be clear from your sequence who the target audience is." There was a greater level of creative freedom we were given for the film opening compared to the brief from the preliminary task, giving us more control over what we were going to create, meaning that we would have to apply what we had learnt during the prelim into making a slick, well thought out media product.
Pre-production	We created a small, rough storyboard on a few pieces of A4 paper.  There were multiple shots organised into different colours to represent whether we were using long shots, mid shots or close ups for each shot we planned, which was all organised onto a large sheet of A2 paper.	Our shootboard for the film opening also held a lot more information over the actors in the shots, the type of shot, the props and the timings of the shots.  However, we did not need to use the shootboard by the end of production, as our shoot list we created was far more easy and quick to use to accommodate our more flexible, knowledgeable style of filming for the sequence by the end of our main shoot. We also didn't make a script for our film opening, but we did for our prelim, because we weren't going to use much dialogue and we were already aware of the exact shots and character blocking for each shot.
Production	There was a great focus on continuity, e.g. the opening and closing of doors.  Due to there being just three actors involved in the preliminary task it was easy for everyone to.	There was much attention to continuity for the precise placement of hands when using a phone or the placement of hands when a character is pushing off a wall during the chase scene. There was a much greater number of actors to explain shots, characters and plots to, so that everyone understood their roles on set. Also we had to keep everyone organised well, as there were more people to organise, but we ended up finding it not too difficult to do so.
Post Production	During editing, we only had to place the shots in the correct order and cut them to the right length to keep them flowing continuously throughout in the right order.	For the film opening, we had order the shots, add titles, transitions, editing, volumes and colour grading.  The preliminary task gave me great basic knowledge that I needed to easily be able to pick up the slightly more advanced concepts of editing that were needed for the post-production of the film opening.

During the preliminary exercise, I feel despite helping create the idea, the storyboard and the script, my role in editing and working on camera was lower than that on the film opening task, where I had more responsibility on the group, gaining new knowledge on how to edit and film to a greater standard. I was able to give more advice on how to direct the actors and have a better understanding of what shots would and wouldn't work well. The whole idea of teamwork was key to the productivity when editing the film and I feel we did well in organising our time to contribute a lot individually on the post production of the opening sequence.

Construction Post 10: Looking back - reflections on our final outcome

After seeing how much we had to improve our test edit the improvement was even better than I expected and I was happy with the quality of the sequence. We learnt a great deal from our target audience feedback from the test edit on the change in music needed and the fast shots that worked well at the end, which we successfully kept with for the opening sequence. The quick pace of the sequence worked well with the music to create a fast energy, dramatic film that suited the action-thriller genre with London locations that added to the gritty realness of what we wanted to display in order for the audience to be able to feel on edge the whole time and see that this was a British thriller that could represent the location of North London suburbia well and what could happen behind closed doors. In hindsight, it could have been better with more reaction shots in the last running capture sequence, so as to give the audience a greater sense of character and plot understanding.

Construction Post 9: My technical learning curve (production and post-production)

Before starting the media AS course, I had little to know experience with film editing and only a small amount of experience filming in my free time. I do greatly experience the remarkable learning curve I've had in being able to edit to a pretty good ability. I've learnt how to use Adobe Premier Pro in cutting, colour grading, key framing audio, changing the pace of a shot, using the razor tool and other such tools in order to cut the shots well and place them to the right places in order to keep continuity. I've also picked up the mental skills needed for editing to a high enough level, e.g. the editing of a sequence, i.e. the great attention needed to pick up the precised continuity errors that need to be worked on for each shot. in order to make sure that the narrative is shown well throughout in order for there not to be any jumps or glitches. I have now learnt the importance of lighting when filming in order to show and dramatise what it is that I want to show on film and the importance of moving the camera quicker for pans and arcs instead of worrying that doing so would make the shot look less slick, it doesn't and the fast camera shots allowed for a greater sense of tension and a faster, more dramatic pace to suit the action-thriller genre well.

A screenshot of our editing timeline

Construction Post 8: My personal contribution to the Edit Sessions

During the editing of the sequence, I made sure to edit which shots we should add on the sequence and which others didn't make the cut out of the multiple shots that we left unnamed. I made sure to attend all the lunch meetings, school time meetings and after school meetings to help add the different shots into a cohesive order and cut the shots to the right length in order to give the greatest pace to the film that we were editing. All members of the group managed to put a good shift on the editing of the sequence and we were all responsible in giving feedback to each other and working well as a team in order to make sure that nearly all the editing decisions we made we made as a group. When addressing the problem of the boom mic on the reflection of the computer screen of the hacker's laptop to the media assistant Emma, she was able to teach me about how to crop out an area of the prior frame to layer and copy onto other frames in the sequence, so I was able to crop the area of part of the screen and put that layer on top of the area where the boom mic was in order to avoid an amateur mistake that was made when filming those shots of the hacker hacking. As well as this I was responsible for adding the music track 'the drive' from the Youtube Audio Library. I made sure to narrow down all the cinematic songs I liked into three of the best which I trialed out with the group on the sequence and we collectively decided that 'the drive' was the best song out of the three to suit the action-thriller genre and give dramatic energy to our film opening sequence. I also managed to edit the sounds of the characters dialogue in the sequence, for previously their talking was almost impossible to hear and so with a bit of work with the pen tool I was able to lower the sound of the track playing over the talking of certain characters and heighten there talking to the absolute maximum in order to make them audible and so help the audience understand the plot better.

Construction Post 7: My personal contribution to the Shoot Sessions

I held responsibility in the production of the film by making sure to organise the mates of mine, who I had brought for filming in order to keep a healthy dialogue between the members of the media group and the actors on set. I also had a go at acting in the sequence filmed at the Seward Studio as a member of the conspiracy organisation working on tracking down the hacker. I contributed in giving ideas for shots we would use, so as to make sure that the group had control over the camera and the direction of the film itself. I made sure that the group were sticking to the shot list that we had devised and that all the shots matched up to give continuity in the narrative and deciding on which shots worked the best and which didn't. I was also in charge of making sure all the actors I was bringing were to arrive on time, which they did successfully. I also helped in making sure that all the equipment was kept safe, on us at all times and packed away correctly. I would say that I seemed to hold a great responsibility for the direction of the actors on the opening sequence, for the other members of my group didn't know them. I made sure to communicate what they were to do in the shots that were being directed. Unlike the first draft film opening we did, I was not given the same responsibility on directing, for Alex was operating the camera for most of the filming. However, I more than compensated for this by making sure to have a great level of input on the type of shots that were to be filled, the organisation of these shots and letting the actors know exactly how they were to act in each one we were shooting.

Construction Post 6: Reflections on Edit Week 2

There was a lot to be done in week two despite the hard work we put in week one and the second week was more difficult than the first week of editing. There were now more shots that had to be incorporated into the final edit of the Seward Studio HQ shots and the ones of the hacker filmed at Alex's bedroom as well as the close up of the organisation worker holding a gun and the new shot of the hacker putting his hood up on the tube from the organisation worker played by Danya's perspective. These extra fast shots, e.g. the quick mid shot of an organisation worker holding a gun, allowed for a greater sense of continuity, so that our target audience could understand exactly what was going on amongst all the fast action they wanted to see.

As well as the new shots we had to cut length for and organise into the correct part in the sequence to keep continuity, we also had to work on the titles. We wanted the titles to suit the genre better and look slicker with a more complicated animation, which we made by dipping the previous shots to black to help improve the pace of the sequence and keep it looking slick and layering different animations together to find what looked the best. The titles suited the cyber-security element of the film with the colour inspired from 'The Matrix' with a font that looked like computer code font.

There was a continuity error when putting the re shoot of the new tube shot of the hacker putting his hood up inside the train, because in our other tube shot there were some people walking by close to the organisation worker sitting down at the platform the train was departing from, but we were able to cut shots in ways that would allow for this error to not be shown for the audience to critique, for we altered the order of which the shots came up so that the people who walked past were only in the final shot.

Another amateur error we made was in the shots of the hacker hacking at his home, for the reflection of the shotgun microphone could be seen in the shots of the hacker coding on his laptop. We found out that we could mask a part of the screen on top of the visible boom mic and then we edited frame by frame to make sure the contrast was right for each of these cropped masking squares we would place over the reflection of the boom mic and we changed the height and positioning, so that when some coding words came up on the screen, the mask wouldn't cover those letters either.

Before editing of the shot with the boom mic visible

After editing of the shot without the boom mic visible

There wasn't a real problem in terms of colour grading due to the fact that many of the shots took place indoors, where we were able to alter the lighting to suit the look of the film, e.g. what we did with the Seward Studio shots as well as the shots that took place in Alex's room with a basic lighting needed. However, we had to do some alterations to the contrast and lighting of the outside shots done for the running shots in order for the lighting to look the same throughout and make sure it looked slick and professional with an edgy look that suited the location.

Construction Post 5: The Back-Up Shoot

We decided we had to organise two separate back-up shoots; one for the HQ shots that were to be filmed at the Seward Studio at school, for the low lighting made the film grainy and we were given time to book the studio again for the re shoot. The other shots we had to re shoot involved filming at Alex's bedroom for the hacking shots, giving a point-of-view shot of the hacker putting his hood up from the perspective of the organisation worker working on following the hacker to underneath the Arnos park arches. The train shot gave a greater continuity to the film although it wasn't completely needed for the sequence it just made it look of a higher quality and so we thought it was necessary. As well as a close up of another government conspiracy work reloading his hand gun in order to give more drama to the sequence. The shot of the other conspiracy organisation worker allowed the audience to not be so shocked by the fact they are all there waiting for the hacker later on without any introduction. Overall, the shots we decided on re shooting didn't take much time at all to film, but greatly improved the quality of the film and so it was good to put in the effort and organise filming those back up shots we were lacking beforehand.

A continuity shot we added in the back up shoot.

Construction Post 4: Reflections on Edit Week 1

We created an editing schedule to make sure that we could organise all our free time as a group to maximise the amount of hours we had available to spend on editing for our film sequence and work on it individually and as a group with the free periods we had at school and also in both after school and lunch time sessions that we could stick to.

Adobe Premier Pro editing software

It took an entire day to just go over all of our shots and rename them to make sure they were well organised for when we'd have to use them in our film sequence. However, we then had four days to simply trim these clips that we had ordered into the coherent structure we wanted and trimming them down to make sure to keep the film fast paced and keeping the narrative continuous. The editing of the continuity in the running sequence consumed a lot of time, as we had to edit frame by frame in order to bring a good level of continuity to the actions of the runners involved in order to create the best continuity towards the position of their feet and arms and distance between each other, which took a lot of time to edit to a good level.

When discussing the film with our target audience it was clear that the music had to be changed, so that the opening sequence was more dramatic. Our group decided that the music that we had from the test shoot wasn't good enough due to the fact that it didn't have the dramatic, fast paced nature that would suit the action-thriller genre. I searched through the YouTube audio music library that was recommended by a boy in year 13 and narrowed down the search for the right track into three songs and showed them to my other group members. We all agreed that 'the drive' track was the best for the dramatic action vibe that would suit the film sequence well.

Construction Post 3: Reflections on our Main Shoot Session

All of the actors turned up for the filming on time, where we were able to take many high quality shots building up from the things we learnt worked and didn't work in our test shoot. All seven actors worked well and listened to our advice that we gave them on how to act on camera in order to bring the best out of them on camera. The process was definitely not as stressful as I thought it would be and our prior experience from the test shoot made us more familiar on how to use the camera equipment and control the actors on set with a strong idea on what exactly we were to be filming. We knew the blocking of the characters on film and the precise spot of where the camera should be placed as well as the lighting we were going to have.

Running shot in test shoot

Running shot carried over in main shoot

The majority of our shots we didn't have to re-shoot, but some of them we did. Our target audience were keen on us keeping with the quick nature of our running shots, so we decided to keep the quick pace of the running shots for those shots underneath the bridge. The shots of the hacker at Alex's room we decided to re-do, for it didn't look as slick as we wanted and the hacking detailing on his screen didn't look as complicated as we wanted it to be. This also meant we had to re shoot the HQ shots with Jerom and I acting in it, for there are shots of the hacker's computer screen on the organisation's computer due to them tracking him down. We would have already had to re shoot the HQ shots anyway, because the low lighting of the Seward Studio we chose made our footage look too grainy and so we had to re shoot at school on the Tuesday after school the week after filming our main shoot.

Construction Post 2: Our Post-production Kit

We were able to edit on The Latymer School's edit suites and were giving Macbooks for creating the the titles using the 'Live-type' program. Our Post-production kit comprised of:

1. Adobe Premier Pro CS5.5 
2. Dual-monitor edit suite running Windows 7
3. A Macbook
4. Live-type running on the Macbook to create titles

Live-type on a Macbook

Construction Post 1: Our Production

The media department gave us the equipment we would need and we signed contracts to ensure the equipment was kept safe during the filming of our sequence. The kit comprised of:

How the kit was set up on set

1. Canon Legria HFG30
2. Libec TH65-DV Tripod
3. Canon DM-100 Shotgun Microphone
4. Sennheiser HD 201 Headphones
5. Clapperboard

R+P Post 20: Reflections so far / looking ahead

Our research into the Mr. Robot TV series went well, as it gave us much inspiration to how to film the sequence and what characters should wear and the general edgy vibe to go for. We were also able to use the shoot board in order to create our efficient shot list.

Despite the fact there were mistakes in our rough cut, we could also see the multiple shots that we wanted to include in our main shoot and we were able to talk to the teachers as well and come up with good conclusions on what to change when it came to filming our main shoot. The shoot allowed us to speed up our timing when organising our main shoot as we would know exactly how to set up when we were to reach our different sets at the stations, the park, etc.

R+P Post 19: Our rough cut

Once our test shoot was finished we edited the footage into our rough cut and it was a useful tool to see how our entire sequence would look together with sound effects and so we could perfectly see whether the sequence appealed to the audience we wanted it to appeal to and whether it was fast paced for the action-thriller genre as well as being continuous from start to finish.

On seeing the film we could see that the shots were too long for the fast paced nature of the action-thriller genre and our music also seemed quite dull and didn't have the dramatic affect we needed to grab the audiences attention. There were some continuity errors as well, e.g. the close up of the hacker dragging the mouse the wrong direction to delete the file he had hacked from the computer by putting it in the trash.

The continuity shots jumped too much from the people watching and following the hacker on his journey and the CCTV shots weren't convincing enough. However, many of the other shots did work well for the genre we were trying to connote, as a tense atmosphere was easily created.

R+P Post 18: Our test shoot

The test shoot allowed us to visualise what our shots would really look like and some of them we actually kept for the real shoot, as they had worked so well, but others we decided to do differently.

These two shots are an example of shots that we wanted to stay relatively the same, but there were others we decided to change as they didn't look sleek and they didn't add good continuity to our film. Therefore, the test shoot helped us learn what to include and what not to and we had enough time to work on the real shoot with the new knowledge we had gained from the experience

R+P Post 17: Our Planned costumes, hair and make-up

The costume of the hacker had to make the character seem mysterious and not too noticeable. We drew inspiration from the hacker from Mr.Robot, who wore a black hoodie, black jeans and black trainers, which made us achieve the mysterious look we wanted as the hacker could put up his hood in certain scenes in order to go unnoticed.

The government conspiracy workers were going to be uniformed with the workers on the floor wearing white t shirts, black jeans and black trainers, where as the workers in the HQ would wear dark suits to show that they were more formal and didn't do the dirty work.

For the group of characters dealing with the hacker on the ground, they would have a more causal, edgy uniform to make sure that they seemed like skilled men on the ground and the audience could see they were all part of the same organisation and the clothes were available for all the actors to bring.

R+P Post 16: Casting

David Sagna- The main character and our hacker.
Danya Bavetta- Our main member of the conspiracy organisation
Elliot Roberts- Member of conspiracy organisation
Christian McLoughlin- Member of conspiracy organisation
Matt Davies- Member of conspiracy organisation at HQ
Jerom Thambipillai- Member of conspiracy organisation at HQ
Matt Rogers- Hacker's friend

We had to have as many actors as possible to make sure that the government conspiracy organisation had a lot of characters to make them seem intimidating. 

Alex's friend David Sagna was good because he was reliable and had good enough acting ability to play the main character. He was able to act quickly and do the re shoot on quite small notice, which was really useful, for we did want to re shoot a shot of him on the tube and the hacking shots in which he was involved him.

Danya Bavetta, Christian McLoughlin, Elliot Roberts and Matt Rogers were all friends of mine. I chose them for the acting roles for they were all quite tall and Danya and Christian had had previous acting experience doing acting for Drama at school and Danya doing a course outside of school on how to act on camera. Danya's passion for acting made him a good casting choice to play the fundamental conspiracy organisation member following David from the tube to the under the park arches. He acted very well as an intimidating character on camera and he was very easy to work with as he was open to ideas on how he should act the part.

Jerom and I were cast as the members of the conspiracy organisate at the HQ which was in school. This was easy as we were members of the school, so we could act at the Seward Studio in school during after school sessions.