Estate of Mind - Final Cut

Estate of mind from Jemma Goulds on Vimeo.

Evaluation Question Six & Seven

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

Adobe Premier Pro CS4

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.

This programme assisted us in creating our opening sequence. we imported recorded footage into Premiere Pro and cut it so that it fits perfectly with our soundtrack and titles. This stage of our production is vital if we wished to create the desired effect an really reach out to our audience.

This programme made our opening sequence look extremely professional and also gave us some extra knowledge on how to edit videos. This is good as many other production companies or title editors use Premiere Pro, so if we are able to master these skills then it would help us in later life if we decided to go into a media profession.

Adobe After Effects CS4

After Effects CS4, was another programme we used and belonged to the Adobe family, This made it much more easier to use for the first time than Abdoe Premiere Pro CS4 was when we first used it.

I thought that Premiere Pro was a lot more easier to use than After Effects, this is because After Effects is a lot more complicated with the locations of the effects and the layout of the entire programme is quite confusing. I spent most of my time on After effects, as this is what I was involved in when doing my bit for my group. I managed to master the use of this programme to create our opening sequence titles. Using various effects to try and make our opening sequence look as professional as possible.

Cameras

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.

Vimeo

Vimeo was the programme which we used to upload most of our videos, this is because Vimeo is more reliable than other video hosting sites such as Google and Youtube, as videos on these sites can be deleted at any time for being disruptive of offensive, Vimeo is more private which was perfect for all of our media projects.

Evaluation Question Five

How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation Question Four

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Q4 evaluation

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Evaluation Question Three

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

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

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

YOA Productions - Estate of Mind

Revolver Entertainment - Adulthood

Here are some selected snapshots of two films, Our YOA Productions film, Estate of Mind and Revolver Entertainments, Adulthood.

Estate of Mind

The Title of the Film

1. The first snapshot is he title of our film 'Estate of Mind' we chose this title and a motto to support it which was 'An estate is not only a low class building it is a state of mind' .

Title Font & Style

2. The second snapshot is me focusing on the font and style of the title itself. As you will be able to see there is a blur on the title background this is done purposely to give the effect of a shadow and darkness, this gives the audience the impression that our film will be about characters who are always being stereotyped as being the whole reason behind the 'Estate of Mind' hence the shadow.

Location

3. Snapshot 3 is of the location, this is very important when identifying our genre and target audience, because we needed to locate in an area which our genre of an urban drama and for the audience of a young, usually ethic teenager a location such as Buckingham Palace, would not be conventional to either the audience and the genre of our film.

Camera work & Editing

4. This shot is of a vodka bottle's contents being 'un-poured' into a glass. This scene is very effective as it shows our skills of editing and what skills we have in order to manipulate our footage, it also suggests the storyline as this could be interpreted by the audience as the storyline sort of going back in time, and also showing things from the past, hence the black and white effect and the final like spoken in our opening sequence 'It wasn't always like this'.

Costumes & Props

5. This shot focuses on Josephine's face, this shot shows her smoking a cigarette the significance of the cigarette is to show the addiction of which we have talked so much about in our blog so far, we tried to show this in the best possible way we could.

Genre, And How It Is Suggested

6. This shot shows cocaine being shown on the table, this scene is used to show how drug taking is usually associated with people from an urban background and people that normally live on estates are usually stereotyped as drug addicts. As we chose a genre of an urban drama, this shows the stereotype of drug addicts and in some ways enforces it.

How The Characters Are Introduced

7. This shot is of Terry (me) being followed by Myrin. This is a scene where the audience can sense that something is about to happen to Terry as the suspense and tension has been dragged along across a long period of time period to this particular where the confrontation actually begins.

Storyline, And How It Is Set Up

8. This shot shows Myrin grappling Terry against the wall. For someone who is yet to watch our film or even be aware of its storyline they will be able to make out that Myrin is a character which is more dominant than Terry and makes it seem like Terry is a character who has done something wrong in the past and maybe Myrin wants revenge, which is basically the basis of our synopsis. During our opening sequence we decided on an enigma code which means we were not prepared to give away too many answers in our opening sequence but leave our audience asking many questions.

Special Effects

9.The last scene of our opening sequence is of a split screen between me, Myrin and Josephine. This is the scene where we all come together and say the words 'It wasn't always like this' which could have easily been the title of our film, these words sum up our whole purpose of the film and again leave many wondering 'what wasn't always like this?' and 'how have things changed?'. Which made our opening sequence very enticing and make our audience want to watch the whole of our film

Adulthood

The Title of The Film

1. The first shot is of the title of the film 'Adulthood' This is a follow up from the film 'Kidulthood'. which had the same distributor, Revolver Entertainment, and the same creator; Noel Clarke.

Title Font & Style

2. The second snapshot is of the title itself, the 'd' in the 'Kidulthood' and 'Adulthood' is the only letter which is lower case, and the reason for this is that it is the only letter that is both is the words 'Kid' and 'Adult' which is used to represent that fact that some things never change, no matter how old you are.

Location

3. Adulthood, is set in the same town as our film, London. This was crucial when trying to find a film which was much like ours, and this is the main reason why we chose this film over films such as 'One day' and 'Dead man running' because they are not in the same location as our film. London is seen as a more exciting place that other places in England, which is important if a film like Adulthood wishes to gain a more worldwide appeal.

Camera work & Editing

4. This shot is of a split screen, this is a shot which is something like what we did in my last snapshot frame, this shows how good we became at using the programmes we were using the same things that our influences are using, and using them to create a similar effect.

Costumes & Props

5. In this shot, this shows Sam wearing a jail attire as this is him in prison and this is used to express that you can identify from what all the people in this scene are wearing that they are in prison, this just shows how important costumes are in scenes.

Genre, And How It Is Suggested

6. This shot is of a crowd dancing to music which is being played, the genre of music is important in this scene as the music being played is grime, and grime is usually associated among people from an ethnic background and from urban areas, other genre's which would have been acceptable possibly would have been, hip-hop, rap and RnB. However, if there was Pop, Jazz, or even classical music being played you would be wondering what is going on and thinking the audio had been switched.

How The Characters Are Introduced

7. In this scene, Sam is coming out of prison, after doing time for killing Trife in Kidulthood. This lets the audience know that the film carrying on from where it left off and that most of the same cast from the previous film is going to be used.

Storyline, And How It Is Set Up

8. This shot shows a couple of youths in a group talking about robbing a man who is parked outside the rave in his car, this gives the audience an idea that the whole film is going to include this group of youngsters doing these reckless activities. This is part of the plot of the film where they are asked to kill Sam and are paid for it.

Special Effects

9. This shot is of a flashback being used, this is also something we used in our opening sequence, a black and white effect is used when showing a flashback and expresses that what is being shown is something relevant to the storyline.

Target Audience Research

This is a table showing a group of teenagers which we used to find out what genre films they enjoyed the most.

Production Brief

Opening Sequence Title – Estate of Mind- 2 minutes

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.

Location

When In search for a location, this is a list of what we were looking for:

• A city view of London
  
• An Estate
  
• An open space (prefrably indoors)
  
• A Living room
  

And this is what we found...

Carpark - South Norwood

This is the location in fron of the estate, where we filmed Myrin following me.

Estate - South Norwood (Confrontation Scene)

This is the estate of which our short film was based around we used this estate for various shots in our opening sequence. Including the tracking shot of me entering the estate and also the confrontation between me and Myrin.

Living Room -Penge (Drug Scene)
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.

Locker Scene - South Norwood

This is the locker scene where I used a trunk shot to show me placing drugs in my locker.

I believe we ticked all of the boxes for the perfect locations for what scenes we wanted to shoot.

Equiptment List

The Confrontation

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.

Character Profiles

Terry Boateng

Similarities to...

Aml Ameen (who plays Trife in Kidulthood)

Myrin HallSimilarities to...

Noel Clarke (who plays Sam in Kidulthood & Adulthood)

Storyboard

A very rough sketch which helped us visualise our opening sequence in order for us to create our finished product. This was a method of planning which we found very effective, when it came to doing our dialogue, shooting our various camera angles, etc.

Treatment

For our film opening we wanted to incorporate the things that teenagers come into contact with whether it is from seen on the news or in real life.
• Drugs
• Addiction
• Weapons
• Gangs
• Theme of escapism
• Street wars
• Low class lifestyle
• Street reputation.
We wanted our title to represent the film and what the film is about. After we had done so editing we started to come up with titles. Each of us would pick their own name and we would see who’s was the best.
The titles that where suggested:
• Estate of Mind
• Here today gone tomorrow
• The better life
• Eyes of a teenagers

The title that we decided that we was going to use as Estate of Mind because the film is based on a estate and to survive on the estate you need to have your mind focused to make sure that you are not killed.

We then came up it a statement for our film opening; An Estate is not only a low class building it is a state of mind... Estate of mind.

The film follows the lives of two young south London teenagers trying to find a way to escape their lifestyle but is really leading themselves to their death. Josephine is a 17 year old mum who struggles to control being a mum, a student and a broke drug addict. As she tries to quit the addiction she finds herself get more addicted which makes her lose everything she has. She is wanted by her abusive ex boyfriend, who is her drug dealer because he wants his money. Terry is also 17 years old trying to make something of his life but finds himself confined to selling drugs on an 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 Josephine ex boyfriend, Terry’s enemy mad. Terry gets killed and Josephine escapes. Our opening has a mixture of scenes and a smoky effect where the titles of the film appear. We did this to create suspense to see what is going to happen. It starts with an establishing shot of London to show that it is set in London. Then cuts to a drug scene with a few teenagers taking drugs. After that Terry is seen walking into the estate that he sells drugs but then is robbed and threatened.

In our opening you cannot tell the narrative as we wanted to make it attract the audience to carry on watching the film to find out what happens at the end. We do indicate who the main characters are.

Our target audience is both male and female teenagers from different backgrounds, 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.

This is how the opening is going to go;
We had the production logo followed by the ‘Solomon pictures’ with the soundtrack beginning. After we have the establishing shot followed by a title. Then we have a bird’s eye view of Me walking followed by a title. Next we have a close up of vodka bottle pouring drinks but the drink gets less than more followed by a title. Then we have a long shot of Me being followed by Myrin who is a drug dealer who wants to see me dead, then a title. After we have a close up on the vodka bottle to show that the teenagers are drinks alcohol, then a title. After we have an extreme close up of Josephine’s lips as she smokes followed by a title. Then we have the confrontation of me and Myrin, followed by a title. Next we have a dancing scene that has an effect to show that they are drunk followed by a title. After a cocaine scene followed by a title. Then a scene of me putting the drugs into a locker followed by a title. Then a spilt scene with all three main characters and a voice over followed by the main title of the film.

Rough Cut Feedback

Estate Of Mind Rough Cut from Jemma Goulds on Vimeo.

On Thursday 18th March 2010 we showed our opening to our class mates.

This is the feedback we got:
• interesting and good
• attracts audiences
• excellent soundtrack, it goes with the timing of the titles
• titles look professional
• good effect on the dancing adds to the drunk effect
• the "wasn't always like this" needs to be recorded again
• some scenes are too dark and needs to be re-shot
• cannot tell the narrative
• make the main title last longer
• make drugs last longer
we will be taking this feedback and using it to improve our opening.
Improvements we are making:
• taking out the wasn't always like this or re-doing it
• re-shooting today the dark scenes
• adding extra shots to the drug scene to make it longer
• making the titles last longer
we wanted to make the audience not know the narrative so that they can try to just what is going to happen in the film and so that they can try to link the characters together. we mainly wanted the audience not to know the narrative so that they would be attracted and interested to find out what happens in the film.

Soundtrack Creation

The programme Cubase was used to create the soundtrack for our opening sequence, the aim of our soundtrack was to create a piece of music which our target audience would be likely to listen to, we opted for the Grime/Hip-Hop approach, which would help us connect to our target audience at the very beginning of our opening sequence and grab their attention, which would make them want to watch more of our opening sequence, thriving on the mentality of our target audience as if they like the music then they are more likely to give our filming a chance as they may feel the connection between the music and the theme of our short film. Orchestral sounds used in this piece of music to build the atmosphere, create tension and include a more sinister feel into our opening sequence.

Estate Of Mind Soundtrackbyduaneamarquaye

Modboard

To create my mood board I selected images from Goggle which I believed would represent our short films theme and storyline the best, using images of people smoking and drinking, the use of drugs, guns and knives, which usually results in one thing, death, represented by the rose.

These images express all the emotions of our short film and shows the main challenges which face the youth of today, and the decisions they have to make every single day of their life.

Influences

Kidulthood

Kidulthood was a major influence on our short film, there are very few successful films which fitted into our genre and theme, our film was based on drugs and violence and so was Kidlulthood, this film inspired us to create a short film which also gave a representation of youths in today's society, it is fair to say that most films of this particular genre represent young people in a negative way, we were out to do the complete opposite, yes we did portray youths at the start in a way which could be deemed negative, however, in the end we turned the story around completely and sent out a positive message the the viewers of this film.

Here is a list of some other films which influenced us in a similar way:

Adulthood

Bullet Boy

Shank

1 Day

Synopsis

Estate Of Mind

Josephine is a 17 year old mother juggling motherhood and education she is caught up in an excessive drug addiction which she is finding harder and harder to put to an end, she is breaking down and finding life harder and harder to live as the days roll by, will Josephine find the right state of mind, overcome her addiction and become a loving mother to her child?, or will she crumble back into her Estate of mind.

Terry is a young man growing up in the dangerous streets of South London where drug usage and Gun & Knife violence is at its peak. his life is based around both of these and he is trapped in a cycle which he feels he is unable to get out of, until one day when his true love helps him to realise that their is more to life than that of gang culture and crime, from then on Terry tries his best to break away from this chain, which he once called 'unbreakable'. Terry is on a personal mission to find happiness with his new found companion, but will he succeed?

In a place where the right state of mind is only a dream but where the Estate of mind is a reality.

The title 'Estate of Mind' signifies a stereotype of the typical groups or individuals which live there. Having the right state of mind means breaking away from the stereotype (Estate of Mind) and finding your inner potential which we should all be allowed to release in order to achieve.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

AS preliminary task from Jemma Goulds on Vimeo.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Terry, Josephine, Dwayne, Myrin

For our preliminary task we had to direct a short scene of an individual opening a door, walking across a room and sitting down to have a conversation. In this scene we had to include 3 different camera shots, a shot reverse shot, match on action, and also follow the 180 degree rule.

Planning & Research

Before we even were allowed to set our eyes on a camera, we had to conduct all of our planning and research. For this we looked at previous AS preliminary tasks posted on the internet (YouTube), we discussed our views of the various videos we watched and compared them to one another, this was a hard process because it was such a short task and the videos lasted for about 00.30 seconds each, so it was almost impossible to notice any sort of variation which we could comment on, however, this was a good task which would develop our understanding of the different camera shots and looking at what other groups may have not included or if they had included anything extra in their preliminary task, which was not needed so that we would learn from their mistakes and not waste time on including certain camera shots/camera angles which are unnecessary and that wouldn’t gain us any extra marks.

We formed our groups and started to brainstorm, thinking of suggestions or ideas for our own preliminary task. This didn’t take us long as many people had chosen to work in the same groups they had decided to work with on previous/future tasks, which is a good idea when getting the work done more quickly, as you don’t have to spend time on breaking barriers or introducing yourself to people you don’t know or haven’t worked with in the past.

We researched into the different editing techniques, we tried to gain full understanding of the editing techniques described to us, however, there were many occasions where we didn’t understand what a description meant, and this lead to s having to watch clips of editing techniques on the internet, this was a better way of learning as you could be given a definition/description of an editing technique, and also be given an example if you didn’t understand the description which would enable you to understand it better.

Pre-Production Planning

After conducting our planning and research we started developing our storyboards, this was quite a stressful process as we had to figure out what our storyline was actually going to be and also our location. When we had worked that out we used two sheets of A4 paper to draw up our storyboard, this would consist of the dialogue and actions used in the scene and the camera shots used. We planned thoroughly what we would include in our production we wanted to express our skills fully, and this was hard because we had a larger group we all wanted to have a say in what our production would include forgetting that this only a preliminary task.

Production Process

We decided to be a little bit different from the rest of the groups in our class and opted to film our preliminary task outside. We asked for permission to film in a local café just down the road from our school, the location we chose perfectly fitted the storyline/plot and made our production look more professional and showed our creativity as we thought outside the box.

We used various editing techniques in our preliminary task such as dissolve and jump cuts, etc. We tried not to include too many as it was unnecessary and wasn’t part of the criteria to pass the task.

Evaluation

What Went Well?

· Making sure we had included every camera shot we needed to include.

· Finding a unique location

· Creating a convincing storyboard

· Research on other examples of AS preliminary tasks

· Teamwork

Things to Improve?

· Focus in lessons

· Staying on task

· Carrying out even more research

I believe that our preliminary task successfully achieved the criteria.