FINAL FILM OPENING

EVALUATION.7

EVALUATION.6

This video shows some of the technologies used throughout the process of filming our title sequence. We used Final Cut Pro for all things editing and Soundtrack pro for making our sound. At first this was quite difficult as we all as a group weren't as advanced in using any of these mac applications but with time i think we improved in our skills.

What I learnt from using these technologies is that you have to gain experience in using it first before you try constructing a project. Gaining experience only helps when you make mistakes. I think that as a grou we tried our best in using all types of transitions to make our sequence flow better but also try to have a variety.

EVALUATION.5

• The first way we reached out to our audience was by doing a premiere at Screen on the Green cinema
• We also uploaded the title sequence into vimeo 

EVALUATION.4

EVALUATION.3

EVALUATION.2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Representation refers to an aspect of reality such as people, places, events and other abstract concepts. The term also refers to the relation to key markets of identity such as class, age, gender and gender shown (represented) in people.  In TV we tend to see very typical stereotyped representations, so the men always coming across as very masculine, the ones making money for the family, the hero and so on. The women on the other hand are always being portrayed as the damsel in distress, the housewife looking after the children or something that flaunts her body. Because this is what we are used to seeing in TV it has become of norm. 

I think what is meant by social group is a group of people that share some social relation whether that be age, ethnicity, gender and so on. We don’t have much variation in terms of social representation in our film, we only have a single mother and a child being represented. 

Because our film is based on a mother who lost her child I think the way we represented her is a typical a portrayal of a single mother mourning over a dead child. Because we did shots of the mother looking stressed, drinking and drowning her sorrows by smoking and so on which is what you would usually see in films or TV dramas; you wouldn’t see her in a happy mood. We made sure we stereotyped the way a single mother is portrayed in the media emphasized on the fact that the mother was in a low place showing a weaker side to her which is what 

would come to mind when thinking of a mother who lost her child.

EVALUATION.1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The meaning of conventions with regards to film openings is that a convention is a specific element (a prop or technique) that film makers use over a variety of different films. Our film is a super natural thriller and some recognisable conventions we use are the child for one as you see her in another life; so in the mothers head. Another convention would be the blood stains on her clothes as it shows that the child was obviously killed in her past life and the horror aspect. In a super natural thriller you would expect to see some elements of emotional shock. 

However we were also breaking typical some conventions as our main focus is the single mother mourning over her dead child which is something you don’t see; being a super-natural thriller the mother wouldn’t be shown as the protagonist. We used her expressions, emotions and body language to convey the way she was feeling showing her crying and in a depressed state.

We didn’t use much mise en scene; for props we used a white dress for the child and we spilt fake blood on it to make it more effective. We used cigarettes, ‘alcohol’ and old pictures to reinforce that she is under stress and not herself so by using these props it shows she’s using this as her only comfort. For sound which would be agreed to be one of our most compelling and effective aspects in our opening, we started off with using foley sounds such as the church bell and then moved on to making our on “soundtrack” by merging some sounds together provided by soundtrack pro. For setting we decided on using St Marys church. We chose this because it suited our storyline and it was very convenient as it was close to college.

BLOOPERS XD

pictures of the group editing affliction of memory!

Theses are pictures of our group working on Affliction of memory, adding sounds, editing and cutting and pasting.

The Costume we used in Affliction of Memory the final result!

This is the blood stained dress that was put on by Sasha's sister who played being Sashas daughter. This dress was worn by her which will be seen in our opening scene. =) soon to be prevailed

Props for Affliction of Memory

This is a picture of tea which was used to create an effect of ageing pictures where we used the tea bag to rub some tea staines onto the pictures.

These are the images we used which was photocopied and then we used the tea bags to rub some tea onto the pictures to give it the effect of an old fading picture. 

This is the final result of the images being stained with the tea which resulted in having the old fading effect which then was cut out and used in our opening scene. :) 

When filming our opening:

Before filming half of our film opening in St Mary church we had to create the costume of the bloody white top. We did this by appplying an already made blood mixture which was made by Nhadia. We had to apply to the plain white top, we had to apply enough blood in order to make the blood look believable as if the little girl has been murdered.

Above is us applying the "blood mixture" on to the top. This was a messy part of us preparing our mise en scene as the blood got everywhere.  After when applying enough blood to the top we had to wait around for 15-20 as we had to wait for the blood to dry. We also applied blood onto the little girls hands.

Part 2 of our filming was done in Nhadia's aunty house, our filming took place in the living room corner. The props we used for this was wine bottle and glass, ashtray and cigarette, old photos. We choose to use these props as we thought that these props was sinister for the mother to make her character look stressed and depressed.

Filming Photos

After filming for our opening sequence Affliction of Memory, Nhadia and Sasha went back to St Mary's Church in upper street islington to film some more scenes needed for our final production. The images show the same specific places that we originally shot some of our scenes. 

Here are images: 

This is a image of Nhadia filming Sasha's footage of one particular scene. She is looking closely to the camera to see if the framing and checking if the footage appears out of focus.

This image shows Sasha adjusting the camera properly so that it is even with the stand as we want  our scenes to be still and not unbalanced. 

This image is a shot taken by Nhadia of Sasha after filming. 

This image is of Sasha stood still to see the reaction of the character which relates to the last scene where she thinks her daughter (sister) is still alive however it is in her mind that her daughter is still around. She sees her daughter although it is her imagining her. 

This is an image of the trees that Sasha's daughter (sister) stands by where Sasha sees her but when she turns back she is no where to be seen. 

This is an image of another tree where we previously shot are scenes at. We previously covered fake blood over it to make the scene look more frantic and spooky. 

This is a brief image of the park itself in St Mary's Church. 

This is an image of blocks of flats behind the park and we shot a few scenes here of Sasha's daughter (sister) walking towards the camera.

The final image is showing the back of the church. 

Affliction of memory rough cut

This is the rough cut of our opening scene Affliction of memory. We shot our opening scene at two specific locations; A park at St Mary's Church in Upper Street, Islington and inside a house in Bethnal Green, East London. We were filming for two days a Saturday and a Monday in the half term including a week day in college to re shot the indoor scenes as they were out of focus and dark.
Day 1 of our shooting started at 2 in the afternoon of Saturday and we finished at half 3. At that time the weather was really cold due to the snow happening a week before. There was still some snow in the ground so because of that a few of our scenes had snow in the background but other than that we had no trouble filming despite the freezing cold weather.
Day 2 of our shooting started at the same time on Monday but this time it took longer for us to shot as the location was quite far and we had many more scenes to do that was required. In terms of the weather it did not concern us as much because we were shooting indoors but the weather was much better than Saturday. However we did have troubles with our lighting. Some scenes shot were too dark and out of focus so during the week when we returned back to school we re shot some of those scenes. That decision to re shot was good as it was an improved and a learning curve for us.

Practising with the camera:

Before filming our real opening Nhadia and Sasha went to St Mary's church in upper street, Islington to practice filming our required shots needed for our final production. When we was at St mary church we thought about specific places in the park where we will eventually shoot our different scenes.

The first shot we took was a long shot of Nhadia walking through the park, with her back towards the camera. This would make the audience question who character is as their facial features are not revealed.

This shot is a medium close up of Nhadia walking around the tree and brushing her hand around the tree. This still causes suspense as you still can't see the character face.

This shot is a close up of Nhadia feet when walking towards the camera. The closer Nhadia got the camera showed her clothing this would effective when filming as the use of costume of the white bloody dress would be seen.

This shot is a long shot of Nhadia walking towards the camera slowly. This is the first time we get to see a bit of the characters identity which builds up suspense.

This shot shows a close up of the main characters face. When editing we will use special effects to make it look more scary.

The final shot we filmed was an over the shoulder shot. When we film the real thing we will shoot this scene twice once with the little girl in the background and one without so when editing we can edit it to make it look like the girl is not really there.






Sasha: "By doing this i learnt how to use the camera better so when it comes to filming our scenes, I feel more confident and that i will be able to successfully film these scenes."

Title ideas and title sequence order

When coming up with ideas for the way we want our title sequence to run, we decided that we will have it in this order:

• DNSN productions

• DNSN presents... in association with CANDI entertainment

• a film by CANDI studios

• Sasha Powell

• Aaliyah Powell

• AFFLICTION OF MEMORY

• Editor: Danriet Kemoi

• Production design: Nawar Saleh

• Costume Design: Nhadia Hussain 

The type font we were going for wasn't the cliche font everyone associates with thriller movies because we didn't see that as professional. Instead we decided on 'Lithos Pro regular' with black colour font for the normal titles and dark red for the subtitles eg: "in association with" and the main tittle "Affliction of memory. We didn't want to make our title sequence too complicated so we decided on going for a fade in and out effect which is the most simple one. 

Setting Pictures for our Opening Scene

Location of St Mary's Church

This is the map of the Location of St Marys church which is taken from Google.  It is located in Islington near Upper Street N1 2TU

Production Schedule

We wil be filming our opening scene to Affliction of memory on Thursday the 9th of February.  Although we alternatively want to film in the half term on the 13th of February which is a monday where we will be filming from the furthest location which is St Marys Church due to the fact that if anything goes wrong during the filming we will have the time to go back and film in that same location again.

The first footage we will be shooting wil be the bedroom scene where the character ie the mother of the dead child will be sitting in the bedroom in the dark by the table flicking through pictures of her late child whom she misses terribly. This will presumably be in Sasha's house. However we have a deadline and have decided to filming it inside a classroom, but we are still debating on this. 

Our story will be uploaded on to blogger very soon as it is complete! :). The first scene in the story board is a scene in the park where we see the child from a long distance shot but we do not see her we only see the back of the child standing in the park. Our storyboard ends with the mother in the park who then turns around thinking she saw her daughter but its only her standing there. 

The props we will be needing are: a wine glass and a bottle of wine, an ashtray with a cigarette butt burning, a bloody stained white dress, fake blood and old photos. 

To get the old photos we are going to get pictures of sasha's sister photocopy them and then paint them down with tea bags to make the pictures look old to give it that fading effect.

We have 2 locations and these locations are Sasha's house or a dark class room still deciding and St Marys church for definite.