screen shots

Craig Gannon Cinematographer

Our film is a British Crime Action Thriller sequence. In the clip the audience are shown the development in which one of the main characters finds out about the betrayal between two friends that are in the same gang. After seeing his friend/gang member with his girlfriend he chases him and eventually catches him up and says 'its not about her blad, its about respect' a punch to the stomach of the cheating gang member leaves him laying on the winded.
In our film my part was cinematographer, i had to film everything we needed in our film so that our film could be put together in the end by the editor and so that the sound person could put sound to it so it was a complete piece. Through using certain camera angles and camera techniques i gave impact to the film extract and allowed the film to flow quickly and become action packed when edited. I also filmed camera angles that allowed the film to flow, an example of this is that i filmed the one of the main male characters and the femme fatale walking past and also filmed the gang walking to give the audience the idea that both parties of people were walking at the same time and in the same area.
In our film as a group we decided that we wanted an urban setting to give our footage more of an edge and make it seem more gritty as this makes our film stand out more. We then discussed what genre of film we wanted to make, this was easy as we were all in to the same type of film and decided on an action thriller in a town which involved gangs as we could kind of relate it to real life. We the proceeded to watch various clips of films that are along these lines, the clips we watched were Adulthood, Snatch and 4321, which are gangster or gang cultured films. In the end we decided that our film would be like Adulthood and involve a chase scene as this could involve some interesting angles and make an action packed sequence that people would be interested in the clip we used for our inspiration is below:


This clip gave us the inspiration to include a chase because it involves good action and some good tracking shots which give a bit of action to the scene. We also added a point of view shot which added to the effect of a chase and gave you a feeling of what it would be like chasing someone.

In our film I chose us to do a point of view shot so that you could see that the main female and male characters affection for one another and to show you that they want to be together. The screenshot at the top of the post shows the main females point of view shot towards one of the main male characters.

This is one of the main points to focus on of our film as this was the base of our clip because it is about betrayal. The betrayal is between the two main characters over one girl and that she is cheating on the leader of the gang with his best friend. Using this we set up the reason for a chase because the gang leader finds out about this betrayal. In the chase scene I included a match on action shot so that you could see where the chase was going and so it was snappier and looked bet.

Within our ideas for the film we originally wanted to use a gun in the confrontation scene at the end of our sequence, however we decided to change this as it seemed a bit too extreme just over a girl and we decided to change it to a punch . The punch was used to leave a bit of a cliff hanger in our sequence as i decide to film a falling shot that the editor could use to give the feeling of someone feinting.

Overall with most of the shots I filmed i chose to do short snappy clips in it so that our film flowed and was quick paced so that the audience would be on the edge of their seats interested and would keep wanting to watch. I also involved a number of different camera angles as it made the film look edgy and make the audience even more interested.

After the film was put together completely our class mates got to view them and make comments on each micro element so that we could get feedback, involving the feedback i received about the camerawork is that the "POV shot was good and worked well" and that the "Match on Action" shot involving the walking section at the begining established where each set of characters were and that it worked well and looked good.

In conclusion i think our filming went well as we had no confrontations on what to film or about the genre of our film. Also i felt that my filming was up to scratch and worked well with what we were aiming for, the only bit that i think could have been stronger would have been the shot at the begining as it could have been more stable and looked better.

Evaluation. Bronwen Martin-Miceli

Our film clip was a British crime drama like kidulthood and adulthood, we wanted something that faced similar issues as the films themselves, also looking at films like snatch and 4321 we found certain things we liked and inspired us, for example the soundtrack of the 4321 trailer. The choice of genre played a massive part in all details from macro to micro to ensure that we delivered a believable film clip that people can watch and enjoy without getting distracted by mistakes and unrealistic circumstances within the genre. For my character I wanted to have her dressed like a little sex kitten as she was meant to be seductive; the guys we had dressed up in trackies and hoodies which linked in well with the personalities of the characters. We really tried to get the mise-en-scene perfect for the genre as if there are slip ups here this is when they show and effect the film, it's important to make something authentic.

My main responsibility was the sound which I thought about carefully, I watched other clips and listened to build up music before learning how to construct a suitable soundtrack of my own; I had to make sure it built tension and suspense in order to grab the audiences’ attention and keep them gripped in the chase. At the end I made the decision to replace the end part of the soundtrack with a grime track from youtube (Ill crack your skull- Napper.) I wanted to do this near the start as I thought to myself it would be a really great ending but I left it until the last minute in case my idea didn't work; there was a point when it would've been easier to leave the soundtrack as it was but I'm glad that I put in the extra time and took the risk, this way it gave the credits more of an impact when they came on. Being responsible for sound I wanted to create something that involved the audience more, hyped them up, this for me keeps the audience gripped in the picture, without sound it’s very easy to lose interest despite what’s going on onscreen. I played around a bit with diegetic and non-diegetic sound once I was taught how which actually adds a lot to a film, by mixing the two forms of sound together you can make a really effective piece; diegetic sound allows you to build up the setting and atmosphere and non-diegetic plays a huge part in hyping up the audience and showing when the film is changing.

Our plans changed as we went along, although we knew the genre we wanted to base our film around it did take us a while to come up with some sustainable material. We knew we wanted a film clip including a fast paced action chase scene but we needed a plan and a story to back this, even though it’s not 100% necessary to think up a whole film it is very useful and less stress when you spend the time to come up with a clear idea. Eventually we came up with a small part in the story where the modern day femme fatale is used to break up two close friends in a gang; from there we changed our ending ideas going from pulling out a gun to kidnapping him in the boot of a car and burying him in the woods to our final idea of the punch. I personally wanted to go with the gun idea but this was seen as unnecessary and unrealistic for the situation which I totally disagree with, I mean we’re talking about London here not Cambridge.

We received feedback from Jake and Tom, two men who are both skilled in this area which is perfect for those last minute touch ups. It was Jake who showed me how to upload the grime track off youtube but it was Tom who spent the most time with us. Tom helped us on editing and sound, he first of all showed us how to cut our editing to make it more snappy and our chase scene more fast paced; it was Tom who showed me how to use diegetic sound to build up the atmosphere from scratch instead of relying on the shoddy natural sound which was naff and all over the place. We also used our classmates as our target audience; this is where I got feedback from other people in charge of sound which were all very positive.

Over this task I think I have come away with many new skills not only in using garage band but also in final cut, even from watching I have picked up skills in all different areas which I can now use in the future. I have also learnt how well sound and editing work together, I now realise how powerful macro and micro details are in creating a strong and authentic piece of film.

Changes

Our original idea was to have 2 different types of film, 1 was an urban setting, and a chase scene, and the other was to be a forest scene where we would bury a body. we decided to change this as the idea didn't really fit in with what we were doing.

We also used a gun in the confrontation scene but decided to change that also as it was a bit too dramatic for the type of atmosphere we were trying to create. we changed the gun to a punch, we think this works better as it is more fitting to what happens in our film.

Influences for chase scene

The chase scene from adulthood influenced us to have one in our film because we like the pace and action that happens in a short piece of time and believe it will make the audience stay interested with our piece.

We liked the idea of this soundtrack for our chase scene, we are hoping to do something similar to this. The genre of music links in well with the type of people in our short clip as it is the sort of music they will be listening to, as well as our audience.



At 0:55 the music starts fading in, then finally kicks in when the boot of the car closes, we want to use this technique when starting off our chase scene as we think it is very effective and helps set the scene when the gang member starts running.

Ideas for film

Influences:

• Snatch
• Kidulthood
• Adulthood
• 4321

Themes:

• Revenge
• Gangs
  
• Backstabbing
• 'Femme Fatale'
• Respect

Scene ideas:
We were thinking to have a gang confrontation where we have a 'femme fatale' who causes 'beef' between the main gang member and his second man. The leaders girl is with him for status and protection but she actually has love for his closest boy, they want to be together and do this behind his back which is massive betrayal. When one of the other gang members spot the two together and report straight to their boy this is when all the drama starts.
We plan to have the girl and the second man walking around like friends just chatting and eating chips or something but then the main man comes up with his closest boys and confronts them, as soon as they realise they've been caught out the girl stands by her man putting herself before anything by taking the winning side, the other guy runs off as he is dead either way, then the chase scene starts, then we'll have another confrontation we're he is eventually caught and pinned against the wall with a knife to his throat, later they're joined by the other gang members and the girl who have only just caught up.

New Idea:
Scene 1
The scene will start off with the femme fatale and the 'gang member 2' flirting mildly in the street, bumping into each other etc. we will have a fast pan shot around the corner then a close up to show 'gang leader's' angry face, followed by a fast pan and a close up back to show 'gang member 2's' panic-stricken face. after this, 'gang member 2' looks at the femme fatale to come with him, but as she wants to be on the winning team's side, she backs off back to 'gang leader'. moving into a canted angle, 'gang member 2' will sprint off, followed by 'gang leader'. He doesn't want the girl, as his mind is set on catching 'gang member 2' so he pushes her aside to run after him.