Estate of mind from Jemma Goulds on Vimeo.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Evaluation Question Six & Seven
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, was the first piece of editing software I came across when I first started Media, Most of my group and I had never come across it before, and the very first time we used this programme was when we created our short film for our preliminary task.
We required help when using this programme from both our teachers and media technicians, some of us who were really finding it hard to adjust to using this programme used tutorials from the internet which helped me in particular when I was trying add music & sound to our project, cut unwanted parts of our filming, and really move out footage around with the freedom of a professional.
In the beginning when we worked on our preliminary task we used Sony Handy Cam, all of our footage was recorded onto a tape and we had to 'capture' this footage via Premiere Pro. The quality on these camera's were not very good and because they worked with a tape, it meant that if a tape was lost or someone had left it at home, it could cause major problems.
These cameras were given to us for both of the projects we worked on, these were a little more convenient as they did not work on tape, and for us to receive our footage we could just 'capture' it straight from the camera itself. The sound on these cameras were a lot better, which meant we could record voice-overs, which is exactly what we did for our opening sequence when we used the split screen and the voice-over 'It wasnt always like this' was spoken.
Evaluation Question Four
Evaluation Question Three
Part One
estate of mind eval act3 part 1 from Jemma Goulds on Vimeo.
Part Two
estate of mind eval act 3 part 2 from Jemma Goulds on Vimeo.
Evaluation Question Two
On the left is Terry (me) a character from our short film ‘Estate of Mind’ opening sequence, on the right is Trife (Aml Ameen) a character from ‘Kidulthood’ They both play similar roles in these two films. Terry is a young man who tries to change his ways of drugs and gang violence to support Josephine and her child. Trife is also a character in Kidulthood who has gotten his girlfriend pregnant and tells her that he will stay by her side; she doesn’t want him to be a part of a gang and wants him to turn his life around. In the end both these characters die. It shows the emotion of the whole situation and that exiting a life of crime is not as easy as when you entered and there is always going to be obstacles in your way you will have to fight in order to escape and create a better life for yourself.
Both these characters are conventional to the genre of an urban drama; they are used as secretly soft characters with a side of them which only true love can expose, they are characters which an audience will become emotionally attached to and can really relate to how this character is feeling even if they have never been in a similar situation.
They are both wearing dark clothing and are both black males, this is a stereotype of all black males to be in a gang or involved in crime one way or another. What both these characters try to do is create a countertype character which tries their very best to do exactly the opposite of what the stereotype is expecting them to do. This gives the audience hope that this character will make a difference and break out of the cycle, which is the whole point of the film, however, in the end, sadly the audiences dreams are shattered as both these characters die, but they haven’t died in vain and have changed the lives of those around them for the better.
Evaluation Question One
Target Audience Research
Production Brief
Group Members
Terry as himself (Co-Editor & Drug Addict), Myrin as himself (Co-Editor & Drug Dealer), Josephine as herself (Producer & Drug Addict) & Duane (Editor, Director & Camera-man
Content Overview
The film follow the life’s of to young south London teenagers trying to find a way to escape their lifestyle but are really leading themselves to their death. Josephine is a 17 year old mother, who is addicted to alcohol and drugs, she doesn’t realise that what she is doing is not only dangerous and harmful to her, but it also has a significant effect on the people around her, especially her 8 month old baby.
She is juggling the life of a teenager with motherhood and is finding it difficult to cope; she doesn't want to take care of her baby as she feels this requires time and dedication two things which she does not have. Josephine likes to party, which you should be able to see from the opening sequence, she is out one night when she is confronted by a man (Myrin) offering her drugs, she has just come out of the club where she has spent most of her money, she doesn’t have enough for the drugs, but she is reluctant to turn down such an offer, she tells Myrin that she doesn’t have any money on her, but promises to pay him on a later date is he gives her the drugs in exchange for her phone number.
Josephine goes home with three of her friends, while she exits the room to go to the toilet, her friends go into her bag and open the bag of cocaine which Myrin has given her, when Josephine comes back her friends have already gone through half of the bag, one of her friends tells her that this bag is one which she has brought from home, so Josephine is more than happy to join in.
Later on that night she realises that the bag she had bought from Myrin has gone missing and she starts to suspect that the bag which they all took from had in fact been the bag she had bought of Myrin, she asks her mother for money, but she refuses, and Josephine soon realises that she is in trouble. She doesn’t have enough money to pay Myrin back. One day Myrin follows Josephine home and takes her baby from her.
Terry (me) is also 17 years old trying to make something of his life but finds himself confined to selling drugs on a estate but there are other dealers who want to see him dead so he starts to carry weapons. When he gets to a dead end he realizes that “Bad boys don’t have to stay bad forever” and changes his life proving society wrong that teenagers can change.
Josephine and Terry fall in love. Terry tries to get Josephine out of the trouble she is in and get her child back but this just makes Myrin, Terry’s enemy mad. Terry gets killed and Josephine escapes.
Target Audience
Our target audience is both male and female teenagers from different backgrounds, different likes and dislikes because every teenager knows about the drug dealers, gangs, weapons and killings whether it is from seen on the news or in real life. The film includes everything that is happening in real life from selling drugs on an estate to robbing teenagers on the streets for no reason. Every teenager knows about what goes on, on the streets that they live on especially if they live in London.
Research
In researching for our opening we looked at films and programs that are dramas and are targeted at teenagers. From this research we were able to see what type of things interests and attract teenagers to the program/ movie. It then gave us an idea of what are opening was going to include to make our film exciting and an attractable opening. Also from watching mainly dramas we was able to see what conventions a drama has, that we need to include. Our main influence was Kidulthood.
How will we check the movies success
To see if our opening is a success we will show it to the class and a fewer friends to see if they would watch this film. We expect that we will get a positives and negatives, which we want so that we will be able to improve our film to make sure that we attract as much of our target audience as we can. After we have improved the film opening we will re-show it and see what the audiences think about it, this way we make sure that our opening will be the best it can be and the way the audience wants it.
Conventions of a drama:
- Serious
- Realistic character
- Realistic settings
- Real life situations
- Plot driven
- Development of characters
The problems that we may encounter:
- Not all of us are based at one site so we will not be able to meet during breaks to discuss and work on our films
- We will only have certain days which we can film because of other subjects which may cause a problem because other people may need to use the cameras on days that we are free to us
- We will not be able to take the HD camera off school site
- We will need a lot of help with using Adobe Premier Pro and Adobe After Effects as we have never used them before.
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Location
- A city view of London
- An Estate
- An open space (prefrably indoors)
- A Living room
This is the location where the dance and drug scene was shot. We wanted a typical family living room, which would make the actions of the characters more believable and yet still shocking. In the first picture you can see a baby car seat, where when they are taking drugs and dancing the baby would be sitting in the corner inhaling the fumes and bad bahaviour and language.
Equiptment List
Terry
White hat, Black Jacket, Grey hoodie
Myrin
Red hoodie, Pair of black gloves, Dark trousers, Dark trainers,
Drug and Drunken night
Sugar, Flour, Grass, Leaves, Penicil sharpenings, Ciggerettes, Lighter, Bottle of vodka, 3 shot glasses.
Josephine
Long shirt, Red bra, Tights, Heavy chains,
Bianca (extra)
Skinny Jeans, Grey top,
Regina (extra)
Leggins, Long top, Messy hair,
Hidden package
Terry
Black pouch, Locker, Black hat, Dark clothing.