Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 2

Deception - Final Cut

New Ending Idea

As a group we decided that our ending idea would not leave a strong enough impact, so therefore whilst we were filming we set about thinking of a new, better idea.

This new idea was to have the protagonist and girl 1 walk up the protagonist drive way, however whilst this was being filmed girl 2 would walk in to the shot behind them, this would make the audience presume that girl 2 has been watching and following them. This new ending helps to get both protagonist and the two killers at the scene of the death. The rest of the ending will then continue as first planned.

Ancillary Task - Final Poster

By previously undertaking a poster analysis on the film poster ‘Inception’ we discovered several things that are important for us to include. One main aspect is to have a centralized image of all main characters; this allows the audience to become aware of who will be featured within the film alongside clearly stating their names at the top of the page. The faces of all the characters have not been included within the poster however; this is to coincide with the theme of the film. The illusion that people are not who you think they are is built up by keeping the audience view limited. The tag line, ’A woman’s desire for revenge outlasts all her other emotions’, followed by ‘Deception’ again emphasizes the theme of betrayal working well alongside the image. At the end of the page the poster states ‘From the creators of Pandemic’. This was a beneficial item within the film as this was the film created last year by our group. The theme of Pandemic is similar to that of Deception, the views towards Deception will be a reflection of the success of Pandemic as they will fall into the same category and the audience will expect the same standard if not higher of Deception.

Ancillary Task -Poster Analysis

Before creating a poster we decided that undertaking some research into posters within the same genre as it would allow us to produce a poster that will entice and attract the target audience. Inception is both a current film to have been released, alongside falling in to the category of a romantic thriller. The title being in bold and red allows a contrast against the dull navy blue background, instantly drawing the audience’s eyes to it. Due to the story line of the film the image used has been edited and warped to create a continuous theme throughout the film. Yet it allows the audience to view all of the characters that will feature within the film, having Leonardo Dicaprio in the fore ground. He is the leading character in the film as well as the most famous; this is emphasized through the image and the placement of his name at the top of the poster. It shows his importance within the film. All the characters are dressed in smart formal wear, showing that the film will be bias towards the thriller aspect rather than the romance. Below ‘INCEPTION’ it says ‘FROM THE DIRECTOR OF THE DARK KNIGHT’ this shows the audience the standard of the film, this is due to the dark knight being huge hit. The audience instantly feel that the film will be of the same standard and are again drawn to the film.

Exemplar Posters

When designing the initial poster for our short film it was decided to look through posters of films that filtered into genre similar to ours. As there are few films that fall into this category the amount of exemplar posters we had available was limited.

Church Permission

We decided that our filmed needed an increase in variety of locations. It was then decided that including a church scene with the vicar giving a speech about the loss of life would be a shot that would improve our film drastically. Yet to film in a church we needed permission. After a vast amount of research I called several churches in the Brentwood area. Thankfully our first choice, St Thomas's in Brentwood gave us permission to film our scenes on the 5th January.

Focus Group

We used four 6th form students that took media studies for our focus group. We chose them because we felt that our target audience would be people who have a solid understanding of the media industry and techniques used within film making. The Q&A session is shown below:

Focus Group Questions

As we discovered our target group using a questionnaire, we believed a focus group would allow us to set the criteria essential to entice the audience to our film, through the content itself alongside the ancillary task. The way in which we undertake presenting our short film will be determined by certain features that our target group believes will differentiate our film to others. As there is a small target group we are able to hear the views of several members, allowing us to have a good range preventing a limited view.

Shooting Schedule 3

Planning Schedule

Planning Schedule

Scenes to Film –
Restaurant
Garden
Pool
Underwater
Killing
Driving away from house
Pulling up to restaurant
Ending

Filming Sequence –
Smiths
- Alice and Joe sitting at the table
- 36o degree turns into Kelsey
- Kelsey and Joe sitting at the table
- Kelsey and Joe leaving
- Alice and Joe entering
- Alice and Joe pulling up to the restaurant

Garden
- 360 degree shot both girls
- Alice exits after looking at phone
- Joe walks towards pool
- Over the shoulder shot, looking at phone

Killing
- Point of view walk
- Hit/flash to black screen
- Falling in

Pool and Underwater
- Variety of angles showing Joe fall in
- Dead under water, with blood
- Floating shot from high angle, filmed at day time (will be used after the first diving sequence and will be the final shot)

Driving Away From House
- Camera on floor showing empty road, the car will drive over and fade to black

Diary Of Day Shooting - Smith's

Shooting Schedule 2

Pitch

Intended Audience

Questionnaire

Although we have narrowed down our target audience, it is essential explore the ways in which they are able to access our film, by conducting a questionnaire we are able to extract this information. It has also become apparent that the number of people who watch short films is a very fine number; there isn’t any concrete evidence to suggest that the general public have any interest in watching short films as there aren’t accessible through a nationwide scale.

Shooting Schedule

Pool Permission

Collectively our group decided we wanted to manipulate the opening scene by enforcing our controlling idea of water as early on as possible. This in turn enhances the unconscious minds of our audience to have water and swimming in their thoughts throughout the short film. Yet we wanted to create two sets of images. The first of which is that the male lead is comfortable in the water as he is a strong swimmer and has no fear when dealing with it, yet we did not wish to associate this with the second imagine of him in the pool for the scene of his death. We finally came to the conclusion that the best solution would be to film the opening scene in a separate pool, preferably a public pool. Yet permission is needed before we could film. Since it is not permitted to film in most public pools it was then decided to ask the Shenfield P.E Department if we were able to use the school pool. With the permission of Mrs. White we were able to film on Thursday 30^th September 2010 and Thursday 14^th October 2010.

Since this post was first published we have had to ask permission to film here several more times, for re-shooting and re-framing some scenes. these dates are as follows Wednesday 17th November and Thursday 16th December. On these dates Mrs. White again agreed to letting us film with the exception of a member of the P.E. department sitting in on our filming session due to health and safety. 

Our Story Board