Evaluation

Question 1 - In what way does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

This is our production company logo like most production company logos used today we have kept it very simple with a minimal anount of sound but enough to engage the audience before the film starts. The production company logo was placed before the film, this is how it would be in the film industry.

We have used conventions of film noir and put our film in black and white, I really like this effect and for our narrative helps shows the audience the difference in time periods. We have also met film noir conventions by setting our film in the 1950's.

This in example of a close up camera angle to focus on text, we have used this elsewhere in our film as well although this isn't a common film noir convention it allowed us to show our narrative through text.

We have challenged film noir conventions by having some of our film in colour this then meets our neo-noir conventions. The reason why we choose to do both neo-noir and film noir is to show the difference in time. To meet the neo-noir conventions, the femme fatale is wearing a very strong red dress.

We have used film noir and neo-noir conventions of having the femme fatale being a very dominant and strong women. However we have developed conventions by having her looking in the mirror showing two of her. This helps show her power.

 We have developed film noir conventions of venitian blinds, this technique is usually used to show trouble or jail bars. We have developed it by using a bared banister which we have placed both the femme fatale and her husband who she later murders behind. We placed the camera carefully to make sure it looks like they are behind the bars. This short is also a good example of a dark shot, this again can be linked to the bars and showing something bad is going to happen.

Again we have develoepd this convention further by having the bars in the mirrors which again shows the audience that something bad might happen to him.

We have used film noir conventions by having an urban area in our film, we have also used stalking which appears in some film noirs.

A common film noir convention is millionaires, we have developed this to show the clash between class. Here we have upper class Evelyn Harold and Waitress Sarah Jones. However, we do seem the unite to kill James Harold. I think that this fits the neo-noir genre more as it is often used in films now.

Another common film noir and neo-noir convention is alcohol we have used this however we have developed and challenged conventions by adding poison to it. Posion isn't a common film noir murder weapon.

The death in our film was a revenge murder because her husband cheated this is a conventions that we have challenged as most narritives suggest its for gang/drug reasons. However our narritave does use alot of film noir conventions; investigation, murder, plot and double crossing. We have also followed conventions with our characters; detectives, femme fatale and police.

We have used guns in our movie which meets both the film noir and neo-noir conventions. However, we have used modern guns which meets the neo-noir conventions and challenges the film noir conventions. This again is also a really good example of a dark shot again this suggests danger and prepares the audience for something bad happening.

We have challenged film noir conventions by having the femme fatale over powered after she double crosses Sarah so that she can get away with murder. Here we also have corrupt police which we have also developed further by having a corrupt marriage at the start of our film.

We have used an office in our film this is a film noir convention that we have used. We tried to make the office look as real as possible but also make it look like a detectives office, we think we have done this with the use of the large map.

Here we have a canted angle and a poitn of view shot both of these are very common in film noir and therefore is a convention that we have used. I think that this shot works really well and looks very effective.

In true femme fatale style we see her double cross Sarah, we have used this scene to quickly explain to the audience what is happening. We have used a voice over of a newspaper headline being read out this is a common film noir convention. We used it really effectively here and I think it explains everything to the audience.

Throughout our film we have used music to compliment our movie this is very common of film noirs however we have challenge by only using jazz music the most common film noir music once our film. Our music mainly compliments the film noir genre.

 Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?

For this project I have created one main product which was a neo-noir and film noir called Hard Cash, to support this I have also created two ancillary texts a poster aimed at middle aged men and women and a film review about my film and two other films. I think that the combination of all three products work really well together and they all compliment each other. As I have already said my poster is aimed at middled aged men and women, I aimed to show the love triangle in the film, I have definantly achieved this by they way that the characters are placed however, some of the connections are not as clear I had first hoped for example the marriage between Evelyn and James. This could though create curiosity for the viewer and make them want to see the film more. One thing that I think I should have come how encoroprated is to show murder or death within my poster as this is a major part of my narritive. When I was designing my poster I chose not to include this as I didn't think it was suitable for my target audience. I have used alot of publicity methods within my poster for example star rattings to try and encourage views to go see the film. The poster alone doesn't give the viewer much information about the film but when supported with the film review it becomes a lot clearer. I have tried with all my ancillary texts to pursuade the viewer to see the film but not give everything away it is for this reason that I decided not to give away the murders in both ancillary texts however, my film review does clearly tell the reader about the plot without giving to much away. I think that my review compliments the poster as it has the same colour scheme and they both have the same image, this links them together well. I think that although I have used similar images and colours I should have used my main title for the film within the film review however I decided not to as it wouldn't follow the design on the other pages. The poster and film review have the same quote on, I have used this because I think it really helps to sell the movie.  Although I have created two high standard pieces which do compliment my film noir, I think a teaser trailer would have complimented my film noir a lot as it would have been able to show a lot more than the film review and poster without revealing too much.
Below is a video of a 20 year old girl who has watched my film and viewed both my poster and film review, they gave thier view on the combination of ancillary text and product:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqECk3RhuOs&feature=youtu.be
Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In the video below I have interviewed two people, one of which meets our films teenage target audience and the other meets the middle aged men and women target audience. I have also included a list of feedback from students at Knights Templar School which where collected when every media students films where first showed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDRtCYzZJyQ&feature=youtu.be

I got some really positive feedback as well as gaining some negative feedback, one thing that came up a lot as a contrivertial topic was the comparison between black and white and colour. Our aim was to show both film noir and neo-noir. Some people really liked it and found that it helpd the story develop but other found the difference in time confusing. Although Lucy and I both found it clear this could be because we created it, what I have learnt is that we should have made the time scale more obvious this could be done by adding text which we only did at the start of the movie to show the difference in time. The other thing that we could have explored is making the flashbacks more clear by maybe adding a blurred effect before the flashback.

One comment made is that we had a good storyline, I really agree with this and I think we spent a lot of time on our script however, another person commented that the storyline could have been developed considerably if we had a longer film but due to time constraints this was not possible.

If I was to make this film again I would aim to make it longr as it would allow the storyline to be developed. Another thing that I would aim to improve is the filming although it was commented that we had very good cinematography it was also commented that the camera work was shaky, this could be improved easily with the use of a tripod so that the camera is still.

I agree with a lot of the comments made and I think that our film; Hard Cash could be improved with the audience feedback given however, one thing that I really like in our film is the credits. The credits are very professional and work well with the rest of the film, I think that we have adapted the usual film conventions by adding moving images of the main characters instead of a simple rolling film creaits.

Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Below is a video of me talking about all the media technologies that I have used within my project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrhix1kj3vY&context=C4fe5f43ADvjVQa1PpcFNsfOM30h36pSXPqEdHN_wEP-G0aAZvwvk=

-Blogs
-Internet
-Youtube
-Picnik
-Photoshop
-Nikon D3000 cmaera
-Panasonic HD camera
-Final Cut
- Mac computers
- Microsoft office word
-Microsoft Publisher

Film Review Spread

I originally planned to do a double page spread with all three of my film reviews on but unfortunally they didn't all fit. So I decided the best thing was to have 3 page one for each review unfortunally this doesn't make Hard Cash stand out as much as I originally wanted to but I have used the space well and I think that it has definantly allowed me to create three high quality pages.

I am really happy with all of these pages, I especially like the use of images. I think I have done well to include everything and still have plenty of space for pictures. My least favourite page is the L.A. Confidential review page as I think it looks really busy and there is a lot of text. If I was to do this again I think I would have written less as it is a very long film review.

Hard Cash Film Review

As well as writing two other film reviews, I have written a film review on my own film; Hard Cash. I have found the other film reviews quite easy to write and I have learnt a lot from them however, I found writting a review on my own film really hard even though I know everything about it. Here is my attempt:

New to the scene directors Rosie Lansbury and Lucy Cunnington have released a hard hitting, 7 minute, 21^st Century composition of film noir and neo-noir in the form of Hard Cash. A combination of the two has never been done before and it’s safe to say the directors have been very brave but have they pulled it off? Hard Cash shouldn’t work as a film with the in-experienced youth actors (who have no future in the industry) and the low budget props (using bog standard tomato ketchup for blood wasn’t their best move) however, they have made this short film work.
The combination of modern day in colour and flashbacks in black and white helps the constantly thickening plot develop. When Evelyn Harold (Chloe Newton) finds her husband James Harold (Daniel Cowie) cheating we see the femme fatale in her unleashed.  This continues throughout and we see Evelyn fool everyone including Sarah Jones (Lucy Cunnington) framing her for the murder of James Harold. However, karma catches up with her in the form of Detective Jack Chandler (Ben Humberstone).
Throughout we are treated to lots of film noir conventions scattered with some bold neo-noir conventions but one major convention that the team missed out was dark lighting and single shot lighting. It’s a real shame that they missed this out however, we are treated to a voice over of a newspaper headline, this is a perfect example of a neo-noir and film noir convention.
Rosie Lansbury and Lucy Cunnington have most defiantly some boxes to be on their way to create an exemplary film. Hard Cash was a brave choice but the combination of film noir and neo-noir made them stand out from the crowd. The duo have a few errors to iron out before they really break through into the industry. I look forward to their next film!

Now I have written all my film reviews I need to create a double page spread that is suitable for a review magazine. It will include all my film reviews and I plan to make it a film noir special edition.

Film review research continued...

As well as discussing film review pages with lucy, I have studied one double page spread by myself. As you can see I have annotated different sections of this double page spread; I have learnt that the images are just as important as the text. From studying this double page spread I have also decided that I want to do a short summary of each film before having the review. I also want to use collumns as I think this breaks up the text well and utelises the space.

I have decided that I want to do a neo-noir and film noir edition as this relates to all my film reviews. My next step is to write a film review for Hard Cash and then design my double page spread which will include the following film reviews:

-Hard Cash (main review)

-L.A. Confidential (sub-review)

-Brick (sub-review)

Film review research

Throughout this project I have written two film reviews one on a film noir (L.A. Confidential) and one on a neo noir film (Brick). I have choosen to create a double page spread for a film review magazine. It will contain the two reviews that I have already written, these will be mini reviews. I then plan to write a film review on our film noir (Hard Cash) for this I will use up a whole page and make it the main review.

Although I have experience on writting film reviews now, I have not yet studied a film review magazines. Below are three videos of lucy and I discussing several pages of different film review magazines. This is in the same format as when we looked at the film posters, again I found this very useful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrj3bZ_SE74&context=C4f9a7daADvjVQa1PpcFO77QS8awzDpGEkrq0TME2-vv2SzOzZu68=


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu6LpLzyF1g&context=C45948e6ADvjVQa1PpcFO77QS8awzDpIE9WjCzmaMLyWOWgU-RwIU


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCUK7i6qsc&context=C48c52c5ADvjVQa1PpcFO77QS8awzDpGjUx6mmxYFTx_Sm1oLJDdE

Evaluation preperation

What have you achieved so far?	Conventions?	What are you pleased with and what needs further improvement?	Good/confident use of the media technology?	Research and planning? Excellent/Good /Satisfactory/Not satisfactory	Audience feedback/ research target audience?
Main product:	Film Noir:	I am really pleased with our final product however, I defiantly feel that we should have used more Film Noir techniques. I think that if we had more time to create our film noir we would have been able to involve more conventions. One thing that I would defiantly want to add is single shot lighting and scenes filmed at night time, although we originally planned to involved night shots due to time constraints we were not able to. I think this would add a whole new dimension to our film and would defiantly improve it. I really like the design for the poster and I think it will be very eye catching. It has been specially designed to appeal to middle aged men and women by involving love. If I was to criticise the poster in one way it would be to say that I don’t think the background which is a plain colour is very interesting however, there is not location that could have been used effectively.	Final Cut:	I did a lot of research and planning throughout the project for each section; film noir, neo-noir, film review, poster and DVD cover. I watched several film noirs and neo- noirs and spent time annotating these, I found this very useful as I was able to develop my ideas. From this I then went on to plan my film, this took a lot of time as I needed to think about every aspect; film name, character names, plot, props, schedule, storyboard, camera angles, sound, script, screenplay and much more. I think that without this our film would not have been at such a high standard. I also researched for my ancillary text, I did this by looking at other posters and reviews. I also did a lot of mock up of posters until I found a design I liked. As I haven’t writer a proper review before I also spent some time writing two other reviews for films that we have watched and getting feedback so that I can improve my film review techniques.	Audience feedback:
My main product is a film noir; it is called Hard Cash and is approximately 7 minutes long. It consists of both film noir and neo noir (shown mainly through black & white and colour). It has a moving production company logo at the start, a main body and ending credits.	I believe we have met a lot of conventions of film noir however, I also think that we missed a view critical conventions out due to time constraints. One well known convention of film noir is black and white, this is something we know we would do from the start. As well as this our narrative meets the film noir convention; corrupt police, death/murder, investigation and plotting. I think that our narrative is very strong and it fits well in the short amount of time that we had to convey it. As well as this other film noir conventions that we have included are femme fatale (we made this character very dominant and wrote the narrative to centre around her), alcohol, costumes , urban areas, low key lighting and deep shots. We also thought carefully about our locations to make them as suited to the genre as possible. One common film noir convention that I think we missed was shooting in at night this was due to time constraints but I think it would improve our film noir.		I used this to edit Hard Cash (Film Noir) it was on the Mac computers, I think I used this software well and I was more skilled after making the music video as preparation for creating a film noir.		I asked a series of questions to people that fell into our different target audeicnes and filmed their answers. These are the questions that they were asked: Do you know what a film noir is? Would you watch a film noir? Why? What film noir features would appeal to you? After watching a film noir does this appeal to you? What did you like about Hard Cash? What didn’t you like about Hard Cash? Was it suitable for your age range? Would you recommend hard cash to a friend? How could we improve our film noir? Please rate our movie out of 5?
	Neo-noir:		Blogs:
	As well as our film containing film noir conventions we wrote the narrative so that it would also have neo-noir conventions (modern day film noir) we used colour scenes to show this and made sure the femme fatale was wearing lots of red to show her power.		I have been using blogs for a while and I found it very easy to pick up using them again. I have always used blogger and I think it is the best for creating media blogs. As well as doing written posts I have also made sure that I have done some video posts. I think I updated my blog regularly throughout the whole project.
Ancillary text:	Film Review:		Film Cameras:		Target audience:
Poster; I have created a poster that is aimed at one of our five target audiences (middle age men and women) The poster consists of the four main characters placed to suggest a love triangle. We will also be creating a poster aimed at another target audience (teenagers).	All three of the film reviews that I have written contain common film review techniques to try and engage the reader. These include; a catchy opening, who is in the film and what the did, a taster of the plot, what genre  it is, personal opinions, entertaing sentence to conclude, rule of three, rhetorical devices, witty, concise, descriptive and persuasive.		I found using the film cameras very easy as this is the 3rd short film that I have made. However, these where new cameras and took both of us a little while to get used to they were very basic though.		1.Middle-ages men and women because of our plot. There is a married couple, life insurance and the 1950's style is very popular in Fashion today. 2. Crime Drama Fans as there are guns, money, sex, police in our film and the plot is a crime unfolding/crime investigation. 3. Film Noir enthusiasts, this is because it has elements of both Film noir and Neo noir. 4. Teenagers, this is because there are teenage actors and producers, it is a thriller/crime genre and there is a love triangle, which is very popular in teen-movies at the moment.
Film Review; I have decided to do a double page spread for my film review. I have already written two reviews one on a film noir (L.A. Confidential) and the other a neo noir (Brick). This works well as Hard Cash is a combination of both. My film reviews double page spread in the magazine is a noir edition.	Poster:		Digital Cameras:
	My poster contains all the main characters and is aimed at the middle aged men and women target audience so I have tried to portray a love triangle. I have used bold text so that everything stands out and is in colour to meet some neo-noir conventions however I have still met film noir conventions by having the femme fatale the most dominant at the front and also wearing red so that she stands out.		I used my own professional DSLR camera to take the photos for mine our joint poster. I was also able to use the schools studio, I know my way around both of these as I am a photography studio. I think that this helped me get it done quickly, efficiently and to a high standard.
			Photoshop:
			Just like the digital camera I was able to use Photoshop with ease as I have used it several times before. I felt very confident at using Photoshop.
			Publisher:
			I used Publisher for both adding text to the poster and the layout/design of the film review double page spread, again I felt very confident about using publisher as we have used it many times before (creating Magazines at AS)

Joint Film Noir poster

Lucy and I did originally plan to do this poster as a joint poster so that we would have three posters for our film noir however, we have both found that we spent along time on our own personal posters and we don't have time to do another poster together. As well as creating posters we are both creating our own personal film reviews so we have decided that our time would be best spent on them. I really like this poster and I do think its a shame that we didn't have enough time to create it but we also have our own personal posters which are both at a high quality and appeal to two different target audiences.

What we did?

Lucy Cunnington and I worked together as a team to create our film noir; Hard Cash but we both played alot of different roles. We outlined these in the credits to which roles we played;

Lucy Cunnington

Co-Director

Editor

Actress; Sarah

Cinematography

Rosie Lansbury

                                                                           Director
                                                                         Co-Editor

Cinematography

Apart from having these seperate roles Lucy and I both feel that we worked well together and split the work between us well. Nothing was decided without both of us agreeing, I think that this worked really well and we where a very successful team. I think that this is shown through the high standard of our work as well.

Final Poster

Initial photos

This was the initial design that I had for my poster as it fitted my target audience; middle aged men and women. My main aim was to show love. However, I think this looks very awkward and far to cramped. I really wanted the main focus to be the femme fatale but because I wanted her looking at detective Jack Chandler she was lost.

I then tried to reposition everyone and to get the femme fatale to sit down however I fount this made James Harold look more dominant. Although here I muc prefer the positioning of everyone as it is like they are in order. However there is nothing to suggest love between the detective and femme fatale. At this point I was starting to think that I would have to think of a new plan where love was still shown but there was no connection between the characters.

I tried to reposition the characters one more time but yet again I found that the focus was on James Harold and not on the femme fatale. Here she is really not dominant like she should be. However I do like the fact she is holding Jame's hand. I found it really hard to show the confussing love triangle that appears in the film.

I took these two back up shots so that if I needed to think of a new plan whilst editing I would have pictures of just the femme fatale this will help me make he look dominant. I also added the feather boa which I thought makes he look more sexy/seductive as the dress doesn't show any clevage.

I can also use all of these photos for my film review I particular think that the feather boa pictures would be appropriate.

Developing ideas

After studying all the photos I have decided that I really don't like the photos where all the characters are in holding hands and looking at each other. I think that they look very awkward and a bit confussing. I have therefore decided that I will use the second image of the femme fatale and hopefully using the other images cut out each character and place them so that the love triangle can still be seen. Luckily I am quite epxerienced with photoshop and this is something that I am able to do however, from past experience this process will take a while.

Edited images

As you can see I have edited all the characters together, I used the single photo of the femme fatale and then I was able to cut out each character from a photo with all the characters in, I have put it all on a black background as I think this is suited to the film noir/noe noir genre.

I have then editied this image on photoshop to adjust the tone, I think however this is a very dark image due to the image and would not stand out which is really essential. However, it has created some good lighting which is a typical film noir convention.

This is my favourite edit, I think it is really effective and will stand out well. The femme fatale is definantly the main focus and the red is a very common film noir convention. As well as this I think the feather boa adds a sexy/seductive side to the femme fatale. Although I did have to change my design I think that it has improved and still shows love effectivly so will still appeal to my target audience.

The next step to creating my poster is to add all the text. I did this using an online software as there are a lot more fonts avaliable. I needed to make sure my fonts suit the film and compliment the poster.

Final Poster

I am really happy with my final poster although it was more complicated than I expected to edit, I think that this is very effective. It fits my target audience and shows love which was my main aim. I have decided to put a dollar sign as the 's' in the title as I think it looks effective and adds another dimention to the poster.

Audience feedback planning

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
This is the third question for the evaluation, I have decided that I will film interviews with people from different target audiences asking them a set of questions about film noir the genre and about our film Hard Cash. After filming the interviews I want to film myself responding to the audience feedback so that I can answer the question effectively. I have written these questions to ask each person:

Before watching Hard Cash:
Do you know a film noir is?
Would you watch a film noir?
What film noir features would appeal to you?

After watching Hard Cash:
After watching Hard Cash do film noirs appeal to you more?
What did you like about Hard Cash?
What didn't you like about Hard Cash?
Was it auitable for your age range?
Would you recommend Hard Cash to a friend?
How could we improver Hard Cash?
How would you rate Hard Cash out of 5 (1- being poor and 5 - being excellent)

Hard Cash

This is our final film noir, Hard Cash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL_C8tbdZzc&feature=youtu.be

We upload our video to YouTube a popular video uploading website on the 22nd of march it is now the 25th march and our film has had over a 100 views. I am so happy and proud about how many views we have one person even commented: "Class! A stunning debut by all involved. 10/10" I just hope that people carry on watching our film, Hard Cash and enjoy it as much as we did creating it!

At the start of this YouTube clip you can also see our final production company logo which we created on Final Cut. We did originally want the clapper board to slam shut and then the film starts however this was not possible to do in the short amount of time that we had. We therefore choose to add sound to the text to make it more hard hitting and interesting to the viewer.

ENJOY!

Brick Film Review

After writing a film review for L.A. Confidential which is a film noir, I decided to write one for Brick a neo-noir. I have used some of the same concepts and wording. All of this is in preperation for writting my own film review for Hard Cash.
From start to dramatic finish, the plot of Brick is constantly thickening and always changing. First time director Rian Johnson sets a hard-boiled thriller in the drappled light of a southern california high school. Bricks concept should not work; unconvincing teenagers, investigating crimes and dealing drugs, acting like adults but somehow Rian Johnson has made it believable and really suitable for the audience. Brick isn't just a great movie; its an amazing deconstruction of the neo-noir genre. Brick is a neo-nior this is a modern version of film noir, and is often in colour.  Neo-niors contain fim noir features. Brick is a 2005 American neo-nior film written and directed by Rian Johnson. The title regers to a block of herion compressed roughly to the size and shape of a brick.
The characters twist and turn in the wind so much that you are not sure who to trust. Well except main character Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Brendan chases down the clues to find out who killed his ex girlfriend. Although he appears weak and timid he will stop at nothing to find the truth.
The lonely teenager Brendan finds his former girlfriend Emily in the entrance of a sewage tunnel and recalls her phone call two days ago, when she she said to him that she was in trouble. Brendan, who still loved Emilt, met bad elements of his high-school trying to contact her, and when he succeeded she told him that she was ok. He then starts to investigate hermurder, investigating the meaning and concepts of two words; Brick and Pin. Using the support of his nerd friend Brain, he succesfully meets the small drug dealer Laura (Nora Zehetner) and Tugger (Noah Fleiss), to reach the teenage powerful drug dealer The Pin (Lukas Hoas).
Slowly Brendan unravels the motives of why Emily was killed and plots a revenge.

The Big Edit

After four weeks of editing, we have finally finished our Film Noir - Hard Cash! This has been very time consuming and has become our main priority, and so we have not been posting regular blogs. Instead we have decided to make one big post about editing as a whole. Therefore this post will be a write up of our editing process.

Week 1 (20th February - 24th February)
We began by uploading all of our footage from the camera's and watching them all. We sorted out the good shots from the bad and then put them in order of appearance in our movie. We also made sure that we were capable in using Final Cut on the Mac computers, for example, how to make our clips black and white and how to make scenes fade in and out. However, we found that this came quite naturally because of the previous experience we had acquired while making our Music Video for Example - Change the way you kissed me, at the end of our AS year.

Although we had started editing, we had some filming left to do. We filmed on the 22nd February in school, for the cafeteria scenes. By this point, we had already edited scene one and two, including music.

We edited both scenes by carefully watching each shot again, and selecting specific sections from the clips and placing them in the time line. We then had to make sure that the scene flowed together well and was easy to watch, to do this we had to remove some shots that we liked, or change the order of them slightly. For example, in scene two we changed the order of the kissing and the close up of the hand shot. This scene had a lot of different sections and angles, and so probably took us the longest to edit.

As we went along, we made each completed section (apart from the coloured Neo Noir scenes) black and white, which made it easier to see which scenes we had completed when we came back the next day. To make it black and white, we selected the whole scene, went to 'Effects', 'Video Filters', 'Image Control' and then 'Desaturate'.

Because we didn't have the footage for 3 and 4 uploaded, we went on to edit scene 5 straight away. This was complicated because of the various angles we'd filmed, and because of the timeline, it was easily edited to the right order, and we were able to make the scene smooth. We left a gap in the timeline so that scene 3 and 4 could be easily inserted later.

Week 2 (27th February - 2nd March)

We began this week by uploading the shots filmed on the Wednesday 22nd February and then edited scene 3 and 4 (which are set in the Cafeteria). We spent some time looking for music for scene 3, as it needed to build enough tension without seeming inappropriate or over the top. Once we found our music, we had to align it exactly with the fade to black at the end of the scene. This added great tension and made the scene appear more exciting and we think that it creates a more professional feel to the movie. For scene 4, we had some issues because one scene, the lines were said wrong, and where the lines were correct, the camera was shaking. We discussed the options of filming again, however, with the time constraints, this would not have been possible and so we decided to use the shaking shots because the other shots did not make sense. Because the first section of this scene was not to a high enough standard, we spent extra time making the rest of it appear professional, for example using a large range of shots and angles.
We then left another gap for scene 6, and edited scene 7. This was because scene 7 is much shorter, and we only had a limited time left to edit that week. This scene was in colour and so needed even less editing. However, we had to align the gun shot perfectly, which took some time, but however, the outcome was celebrated.

Week 3 (5th March - 9th March)

During this week, we went back to scene 6 to fill in the gap in our timeline. We spent a large amount of time editing due to the fact that these were two of the major scenes in our movie. At this point, we had no music for these scenes but we added them later (see week 4). During these scenes, we tried to use as many angles as possible to link with the Film Noir conventions.
Once we had completed scene 6, we watched our movie from scene 1 to 7 to see if it all flowed so far. Because our Film Noir was already 4 minutes long at this point, we decided to cut down the amount of angles and shots in the scenes we had already edited. Our main cuts were in scene 6, removing pauses and some angles as well as unimportant lines. We also removed quite a few angles from scene 2, which at that point was our longest scene.
Next we edited scene 8.We wanted to use a tilt up from shoes to head of Chloe (Evelyn Harold) as this is a common feature of Film Noir. However, the scene was incredibly long already, and we found that the tilt looked awkward and unprofessional. During this editing session, we removed multiply unimportant lines and it was almost a minute long, and it was quite boring in full. We think removing the unnecessary shots has made the scene much more professional and interesting to watch.
Lastly, we edited scene 9. This is where we had to have a voiceover of both Jack (Harry White) speaking on the phone and of Chloe (Evelyn Harold) speaking to Ben (Jack Chandler). We think this scene is another example of Film Noir conventions and are quite proud of this scene.

Week 4 (12th March - 16th March)

We began this week by filming on the 13th March. We filmed our very last short scenes and celebrated when we realised that our filming was over. We then went back into the editing sweet and uploaded the last scenes.
During week 4, we edited scene 10, our final scene 11 and the scenes we had just filmed. These scenes were quite vital to our movie and so we spend most of the week on just the two and a half scenes, editing the flow, angles and music. Once these were finished, we concentrated an entire day to editing the music and sound. This is were we edited scene 6 and added a more dramatic undertone to the scene, as without music, it was not as dramatic as a death-scene should be! We sourced all of our music from www.freesound.org, this was really useful, and the music completed the movie.

Lastly, we added text, an intro and moving credits at the end to our movie. During one day of filming, we filmed each character doing a pose for the final credits of the movie. We put these together, and made them black and white to link with conventions. We then added jazz music over the top, which also links to the Film Noir conventions. We found that these final details really made our movie come together, and it made it look like a final, finished product.

 

The software that we used was final cut which was on mac computers in the editing room which consists of about 6 macs:

This is me editing our film noir in the editing room:

 This is Lucy editing our film noir in the editing room:

 

Production copmpany

After finishing making our Film Noir - Hard Cash, we have decided to make a production logo to put at the start of our Film Noir. We would like this to be a moving animation. We started by looking at production companies that where well known:

Walt Disney:

Dreamworks:

 Greyscale:

 Paramount:

Warner Brothers:

Metro Goldwyn Mayer:

We learnt alot from studing these still images but we thought it would also be beneficial to watch some of the production companies moving images. We learnt that they had very small simple movements and the main sounds used where diegetic or simple noises and not backing music. This is something that we would have to take into consideration when producting our moving logo. From the still images we learnt that as well as having a bold name i.e. Paramount many also had a company i.e. Viacom Company. We decided that we both really liked this and it would be something we would incoroprate into our logo.

We next started to develop some ideas:

Idea 1

We thought that this design would fit the film noir genre however, we later decided that this would not be suitable as production companies are not always for one genre. If we where to use this we wanted the guns to actually fire.

Idea 2

We though that this design would be suitable for all genres however it is a very simple design and I think adding movement or sound which we did want would be difficult. I do like the design however but compared to production company logos that are avaliable today it is very simple and would not stand out.

Idea 3

This is my favourite design out of them all, I think like idea 2 it would appeal to all kinds of genres which is the same as famous production companies avaliable today. I think that it would be really effective if we where able to get the clapper board to slam down and then the film start as this would be similar to filming in the industry however due to time constraints I don't think this will be possible. 

After thinking about the design we decided to think about our production company name and our company name.

We decided to incoroprate our initials into on fo our two names. These are our inititals:

R.G.L = Rosie Gee Lansbury

L.A.C = Lucy Alison Cunnington

From these initials we thought about our first ideas:

RAC

LL

GAL

ELEL

DOUBLE EL

We found that we both really liked Double el and we thought it was much more appropriate than just having letters. We also thought it could work well with our final design. We have therefore decided that our production company name will be Double el.

As I mentioned above when we where thinking about the design for our logo we both agreed that the first logo was related to Film Noir to much and this isn't the case with production companies otherwise we would have thousands of production comapanies made for each genre. We have however decided that we would like a company name to link slightly.

Here are some of our company name ideas:

Cinema Town

Cinema City

CinCity

SinCity

Black film

Noir film

Some of these ideas are too related to Film Noir, however we both like SinCity. Not only is it catchy and rolls of the tounge it still relates to our Film Noir, as the definition of Sin is an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law.

These are the final ideas for our procution company:

Design:

Movement: It would be nice to have the clapper slamming shut with sound but this maybe to complicated to do on Final Cut as it is not a proper animation software. However, if this is not possible I think the text should appear and we should add a little bit of sound accordingly.

Procution Name: Double el

Company Name: SinCity Company

We now need to create our prodution logo on Final Cut and add it to the start of our Film Noir.