Plan and Update - Harris

The editing has begun...

We've started putting the scenes together and I've been practicing using the tablet which I'm quite good at using now. So once all the scenes are clipped together; which should be quite soon now, I can finally start drawing the pictures for the animation.

I drew a manga style drawing for my magazine and I need to draw two more for Jason and Kalbir's magazine as well. So all in all, we've got quite a bit done but still a lot to go.

Over the next week we should be finished with editing and filming, and can then fully focus on the effects.

Harris Out...

Plan And Update 22/03/10 - 29/03/10 - Jason

Over the course of this week we are planning to shoot the rest of our scenes so that the filing part of our production will be over. Harris has produced concept art for this production and it looks pretty good. Hopefully he can produced this level of art when it comes to the production so that our anime element will be a sucess. What follows is an action plan for this week:

Monday - The editing of our movie starts with the helps of a portable hardrive.

Tuesday - Editing

Wednesday - We are planning to shoot the final scenes with Mr.bush so that filming will be over

Thursday - Editing

Friday - Editing

It seems that Most of this week will be just editing. Over the course of the holiday we will be editing aswell. Wether we can pull this off or not is 50/50...

Plan and Update - Harris

Yayyy... Kalbir's alive.

Since our main actor has returned though still ill -_-, we returned to filming and I'm happy to say that it's coming to a close. We have one scene for Zack Dylan's training; one for Jason's death; and a classroom scene from the Bush meister.

I've obtained a graphics tablet and Kalbir has started editing some scenes so I cans tart drawing as soon as possible. I also jacked Adobe Photoshop of Kalbir so that I can work on the drawings at home.

So all in all it was a pretty productive weekend. We should be done with all filming by the end of this week or sooner depending on Kalbir's health.

We might jsut pull it off...

15/03/10 - 22/03/10 Plan and Update - Jason

This week I am determained to get the shooting done and finished with so we can finally move on to the editing phase. This all relies on Kalbir being in. This week can go 50/50. I will do another update this week if Kalbir does appear. If he doesn't then there is no point in doing the update.

08/03/10 - 12/03/10 Plan And update - Jason

This week we have not got anything done as our main protagonist Zack Dylan (or Kalbir) is not here. Given he is sick so no blame can really come upon him, there is still the matter of shooting and then finally moving on to the editing phase. There was a media class being held on Saturday and Kalbir did appear so we managed to shoot the second fight scene. Hopefully next week we can finish the shooting.

My Life As An Anime - Harris

Well I basically needed to do some more research so I decided to do it on some more animes or mangas which I haven't mentioned on my previous update of Nerding Out On Anime... Check it if you get the time...

So I might as well tell you how I become a manga freak. One time in the summer holidays, one year ago, I was so bored I started to enjoy the crappy Indian dramas that my mum kept watching, which is when I realised that there needed to be a change... It wasn't really that significant a change but ah well...

I started off on Naruto and Bleach and since I was still young and innocent, I found out what was Hentai was by accident, and I loved it... Anyways, I always liked animes since my childhood packed with Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon, so it wasn't really hard to get into these.

Before I knew it, all time that should've been spent on work was being spent on catching up with 20 mangas at once (not that I did any work beforehand). I kept watching until my drawing style randomly improved one day and kept getting closer to the anime style which I had become obsessed over.

So that was all just a long ass explanation as to why we have anime elements in this trailer... Because I'm an immature kid who loves his anime...

I hope this story touched you in all the right places...

Harris out.

Diary Entry - Harris

Well our group has done zilch in the last couple of days, or weeks. Our main actor is currently ill and he plays in most of the scenes. If he doesn't come in during this week then our group will not get the work done and I will be extremely pissed off...

Our plan for this week is to find a cure for whatever's ailing Kalbir and updating this blog heavily with cast pictures, screen shots of the storyboard, the script and other stuff which I can't remember to well while in a study club...

Well the future looks pretty bleak at the moment but we can always have hope... I guess...

Plan And Update 01/03/10 - 7/03/10 - Jason

For this week we are planning to finish all of our shots (with the exception of a few which may run into the next week). As Kalbir did not come into school for the most of last week it has been difficult to achieve shoooting our production. Nearly all of our scenes rely on him being in school. Hopefully he'll come in sometime this week and then finally we can get some shooting done.
For this week the scenes we are going to shoot are Mr.Bush's fighting scenes, The Enforcer scenes (fight scenes), my death scenes and the rooftop scene. As mentioned before, this does rely on Kalbir being present in school. If he does manage to come into school this week then it may not be too late but if he does not, then I fear that this group won't get the production done on time. Once the scenes are done, we will move on to post production work and editing.

08/02/10 - 12/02/10 Plan And Update - Kalbir

So this week we had a few problems within the group, namely conflicts and disagreements. We all knew we could get this production done, but we were finding it hard to motivate ourselfs and we had almost nothing filmed.

So, near the start of the week we met with Mr. Bush and he helped out 'thrash out' our differences. It worked quite well I'd say, as we started up with a slightly renewed attitude, and began filming almost immediately.

It was the week before half term so there was a bit of pressure, as we wanted to get the final fight scene filmed in the Hall so we could begin drawing in the half-term. Unfortunately this didnt happen as Mr. Bush's schedule didnt permit any time to film in the hall, but we DID manage to get several other scenes done, including the first scene of me, the classroom scenes (for the most part) and the first Enforcer scene.

Ok, so maybe it wasnt as much as we'd hoped, but it was still progress, and I think most people would agree that it's much harder to co-ordinate a scene where punches are thrown as opposed to just a standard scene with dialogue.


HOWEVER....


Near the end of the week, we had to show the class the progress we had made so far. I had spent quite a bit of time using After Affects to add the noir/colour style to the first scene, but because I hadnt compressed the output file, it was a monstrous 2.5GB, which essentially killed the computers at school. So we just showed the class raw footage, which was recieved well but the cricism was made that the Enforcer scene had bad lighting, which to be fair wasnt our fault (extention cords are rare these days). So that crossed that scene off of our "Finished" list, and meant we would have to film it again AFTER the half term


Maybe it was a mistake choosing media,,

Random Update - Harris

Yay!!! It's me again.

We've finally started filming properly and I must say,some of the shots look awesome.
We've done about half the filming now and just have the second half to go. For the next week after the filming is done, I'm going to be drawing non stop as if I have no life. All the scenes will be cut together before i can start my drawings which should cut down the time needed considerably.

Our group is working more like a group now because Kalbir begged me to accept his apology, so I just had to accept...

Plan And Update 22/02/10 - 28/02/10 - Jason

Over the half term we hoped to have finished some of the concept art that is going to be displayed in our production. Sadly, this has not come about yet but we will hopefully be starting this week. Also during this week we will be shooting many of our scenes including the roof scene, my death scene, some free running scenes with the action scene in the hall. Hopefully all or the majority of our scenes will be shot this week so we can start editing next week. An action plan as be posted up for this week and so far we are sticking to it.

Plan Update - Harris

I know I haven't psoted anything recently. So, I'll just give a summary of what's been going on over the past 3 weeks with our group.

We finished the storyboard with a lot of detail and got a HD camera from the school. However, the quality was not what we imagined it to be, so we decided to get a camera externally. This, however, was going to take a long time.

We decided to finish off the script before we got the camera so that we would be prepared to film straight away when we received it. This did not go to plan because no one in the group took the initiative to do it and everyone procrastinated.

So the next plan was to show some unrelated scenes in a fully edited style we would use for our production. We filem d the scene and Kalbir's PC could not recognise the camera. So, we basically had a compeltely unrelated scene which had no relevance to our group at all.

By next week we are hoping to finish the script, and film the first scene of our production and edit it fully to see how it would look in the end. That's if we're still in the same group...

Harris out...

01/02/10 - 05/02/10 Plan And Update - Kalbir

This week, our group was planning to film actual footage of the shots we are going to use for our production. We needed this footage for mondaymonday. We also needed tobuild up a shooting schedule for the coming weeks so we can organise when and where to meet when we plan to shoot footage.

However, by the time we managed to secure the HD camera, the lighting was terrible outside and we couldnt capture any freerunning scenes. Therefore, we got some practice filming by making a short unrelated movie to show to the class.

Shooting Schedule - Jason, Kalbir And Harris

Putting our ideas and thoughts together, we've all decided when we will shoot our scenes starting from 08/02/10 - 12/02/10. Here is our schedule:

Monday 8th: On this day we plan to shoot a couple of shots after school at Kalbir's house.

Tuesday 9th: Shooting continues, trying to perfect our shots of Kalbir while including free-running.

Wednesday 10th: We plan what scenes we are hoping to film as they are the hardest and must be delt with ASAP.

Thursday 11th: Carrying on from Wednesday, we will try and film these scenes.

Friday 12th: We plan more scenes to film for the following week.

Trailer Analysis: Assasin's Creed Lineage - Jason

11/01/10 - 17/01/10 Plan And Update - Kalbir

Its been a very busy 3 weeks, I completely forgot about the blog!

On the week starting the 11th of Jan, 2010, we spent almost all of out time preparing our Pitch in order to get it finished in time and to a standard we were all happy with. We had to consider timings, speech and pictures we were going to show to the audience to highlight our point.

We decided almost straight away that we wanted little to no text on the Pitch slides. Our reasoning for this was simple: the more text there is, the less reason the audience wants or need us up there reading it verbatin.

Therefore, we spent alot of time working on what we were going to say. Another decision we made was to have every slide feature some sort of subtle animation, to keep some sort of motion in the background at all times. So a big part of my time was spent animating the slide titles.

On the 17th, we finished the pitch and had it ready to present. Suffice to say, it went well!

01/02/10 - 05/02/10 Plan And Update - Jason

This week, our group plans to film actual footage of the shots we are going to use for our production. We also need to use this footage as proof of improvement on monday. We also plan to build up a shooting schedule for next week so we can organise when and where to meet when we plan to shoot footage.
While we are still waiting on Hmazah's HD camera, we should be able to secure it on either Saturday or Sunday. Which ever day it is, we should know what we should be doing as our storyboard is near completion. Also, trailer analysis of different films will be posted up on the blog.

25/01/10-31/01/10 Plan And Update - Jason

This week our group mainly focused on the types of shots we were going to use for certain scenes. While I don't want to give too much away, the types of shots vary from close-ups to long shots, combined with panning.
With our storyboard, we tried to be as realistic as possible when it came to the stunts that Kalbir will (hopefully and bravely) pull off. As most of us and i put emphasis on the word most, don't want Kalbir to get hurt, we also set up precautionary measures to ensure Kalbir's safety during filming.
For our post-production, Kalbir and harris's drawing style's are improving and will hopefully be credit towards our production. We also filmed short sequences of random things and then added a grey-scale effect using Photoshop to test our post-production techniques.
Next week we shall develop our shot techniques and filming progress.

18/01/10 - 24/01/10 Plan And Update - Jason

On the 18th, our group had presented our pitch. In an earlier post, I had mentioned both the positive and negative comments that had been made. Overall, I would like to think that our pitch had quite an impression among our classmates as they thought the concept idea of our movie was good. A concern was raised about the monumental amount of workload ahead but assuming me, Kalbir and Harris are dedicated enough to our work, we can pull it off.
From the 19th-22nd, we planned to create our storyboard. We had visualised the scenes we were going to use and then put it into action. We realised that in order to pull off distinctive effects and scenes, we would need to take into consideration the kind of shots we would use.g. close-up, panning etc. One thing we refuse to include in our production is medium shots as it looks quite tacky and half-done at some points.
On the 23rd-24th, me, Harris and Hamzah (our cameraman) met up at Kalbir's house so we could finish our storyboard, our script and decide on our final scenes. Unfortunately, the HD camera the school provided us with seems to give off a "grainy" effect when in use. As a counter-measure, Hamzah will try and provide us with another HD that should hopefully be better.

11/01/10 - 17/01/10 Plan And Update - Jason

Sorry for the extremely late update folks, our schedule has been so hectic i haven't actually had time to update our blog. I perfectly remember everything that had happened these past three weeks so here is the first week update:
From the 11th-17th, we were preparing our pitch. Many things had come into consideration while preparing like our speech, the amount of text we were going to use, text examples we were going to show etc. The main themes of our pitch were post-production, character development and the theories we were going to apply to our production e.g. Toldorov's theory of the seven spheres of action.
On the 11th, we were planning our concept for our pitch. Harris and Kalbir were also busy drawing concept art especially for our pitch.
From the 12th-17th we were busy building our pitch. We were writing our speeches for each topic we were going to explore during our presentation along with trying to find examples and inspirations that were best suited to our pitch to show everyone what vision we were trying to achieve.
On the 17th (which was a day before our pitch) we had got everything into order and was ready for the presentation. A few minor changes needed to be made, mainly to do with our style of speech and what we say. The next post will be about the pitch and the aftermath.

"Constructive" Criticism of Our Film Pitch - Jason

During our film pitch, we received both positive and negative comments about what was outstanding about our pitch and what needed to be included. While I like to think we passed with flying colours, praise and constructive criticism was made.

What was good about our pitch:

One thing that was commented upon was our slide design. According to Mr Bush (and hopefully others) our slide designs were excellent. The animation, concept art, video placement and overall form was pleasing to the eye. Thanks to Kalbir, this was possible.
Another factor that ensured our pitch's success was the humour by all three of us. While noted that some bits of humour were deemed inappropriate (thanks to Harris), the use of humour was quite effective as it both held class attention and made the idea of the pitch sound inviting.
It seems that our idea for our film came across as very ambitious. We came across as ambitious becuase of our idea of implementing anime style art when a fight scene occured. Though pulling off this effect will be a heavy work load, a driving motivation will help us through.
Our use of media language was also noted as being crucial and important to our pitch as we need to provide evidence that we know what we are doing (theory-wise) in our production. During our pitch, we managed to mention several things like Vladimir Propp's seven spheres of action, enigma codes, connotations etc. This seemed to impress our audience.
Another thing that was noted as being bold and virtuous during our pitch was the mention of video games being an influence for our production ideas. The simple reason for video games being an influence is because with movies, there is limited ideas and conventions you can gather from it whereas from video games, you can control the protagonist's actions, speech and circumstances. This is why using video games as an influence is much more beneficial.
One little thing worth mentioning was the fact that our whole presentation was spoken from memory, not from a power point. This is what made our presentation different from most.

What needed to be included in our pitch:

As impossible as it sounds, there were flaws in our pitch. One thing we should've commented upon was our target audience. By mentioning our target audience, the class would've have a more clearer idea of who we were trying to please. Just for the record, our target audience is 15-25 years old.
Another thing that was noted was our mistake of not doing a trailer analysis on an example of a film utilizing the neo film-noir genre, namely Sin City. By doing a trailer analysis, the class would've had more information on what exactly we are trying to achieve in our production.

Concerns:

With the explanation of our production came a couple of concerns associated with health and safety and our processing power. During the pitch, we mentioned use of swords and knives, and naturally, the main concern is our safety when using these props. We will be in a controlled environment when action scenes are shot.
Another concern that was brought up during the pitch was our software capabilities and workload. We have analysed possible threats and the workload and we figure that pulling off our production as intended is possible.

With that said, I wish every group the best of luck along with our own. May the best group win!

Concept Art - Kalbir

Attached are pieces of concept are that we managed to produce in our last few meetings. These sketches server a dual purpose; not only do they allow us to further characterise our protagonist/antagonist, but also give Harris practice with using a graphics tablet as he’ll be doing almost all of the sketching for the animation sequences.

The sketches below are by no means final (regardless of what Harris thinks, he just gets a bit gushy when he’s proud) and will be altered. We’re aware that the sketches have a negligible resemblance to the actors who play the characters, but for the time being we intend to give the anime-style alter-egos a distinctly different look to further exaggerate and stylise the fight scenes.

I’ll explain in detail the implications of and the reasoning behind these sketches later, but as it stands I can look forward to 4/5 hours of sleep, so it’ll have to wait. The real reason this post is up and yet unfinished is that Harris wouldn’t shut up about posting HIS artwork (the twit loves showing off, and yet forgets that not only did I edit some of these pictures to make them look better, but I also showed him how to use MY GOD DAMN TABLET)...

I love this group....

Media Theories And Terminology - Jason

Throughout the media course, we've learnt many media terms and theories that aid us in our analysts of different media texts. When it comes to the theory side of our coursework, these terms and theories will no doubt help us explain our production e.g. camera shots, plot devices etc. Here are some significant media terms:

• Macguffin - A camera shot technique used to lower voice projection
• Denotation - The common sense or everyday meaning of a sign e.g. a red rose is a garden plant.
• Connotation - The additional meaning that an image or word carries with it, above its everyday meaning e.g. a red rose connotes love ( now it represents an emotion and not a garden plant).
• Enigma codes - These codes control how much we know about the narrative and usually holds audience interest. This usually used to create mystery.
• Action codes - These are codes that are used to be seen as important in developing the narrative e.g. a gun being cocked signifies that a violent scene will occur.
• Catharsis - When an audience views a form of media text, they are "purged" or their emotions e.g. violent films act as a catharsis to purge violent emotions.
• Desensitization - When an audience has been exposed to much violence through media texts, they are no longer affected by it.
• Target audience - The audience intended to view a certain media text.

These media terms all link to our upcoming production. Though certain camera shots haven't been decided upon a Macguffin may be used. Both denotations and connotations will be used in our production. Enigma codes may be used to hold viewer interest thus making an effective trailer. Action codes will obviously be involved because one genre of our production is action and our group already have plans to use this code. Catharsis and desensitization all depend upon the audience's part of viewing our production. Our target audience, as mentioned before, will range from 15-25 years old.
With this media terminology comes media theories. Media theories are an interesting way of viewing a certain piece of media text. While viewing, you can apply many media theories with it and can almost figure out what intended reading the director was trying to portray. Here are a few media theories:

1. Vladimir Propp's "Spheres of Action" - Vladimir's spheres of action look at each individual role of characters in a media text. He had developed this theory by studying Russian fairy-tales. Here is each character role

• The Hero - The central protagonist that saves the day and restores equilibrium.
  
• The Villan - This character creates a complication in the narrative.
• The Donor - Gives the hero something that will help in the resolution.
• The Helper - Helps the hero in restoring the resolution.
• The Princess - The character that has to be saved by the hero.
• The Dispatcher - Sends the hero on a task.
• The False Hero - A rare character that appears to be good but is revealed to have been bad all along.
  

Roles can be combined e.g. the donor can also be the dispatcher. In our production, many of these character roles will be fulfilled, nearly completing the spheres of action. Kalbir will be the hero (protagonist), Mr. Bush will be the villan (antagonist), Harris will play the role of the donor/helper and my role is yet to be decided.

2. Another media theory is the Equilibrium, Disequilibrium and New Equilibrium theory. It is a basic theory that is executed in most movies. More taken as a formula to form the basis of a movie, all three terms are explained. The Equilibrium in a media text is an existing state of harmony. Then comes the Disequilibrium where the equilibrium is disrupted by an unfortunate event or character which leads to a chain of events involving conflict. After this comes the New Equilibrium where the evil forces are defeated, the conflict resolved and harmony exists once more.

3. Young and Rubican's 4c's - Young and Rubican are advertisers that invented a phycological profile for their marketing model that they called Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation (4c's for short).These 4c's divide people into seven types, depending on their core motivation:

• The Explorer - These people seek discovery.
• The Aspirer - These people seek status.
• The Succeeder - These people seek control.
• The Reformer - These people seek enlightenment.
• The Mainstream - These people seek security.
• The Struggler - These people seek escape.
• The Resigned - These people seek survival.
  

4. Demographics - Demographics are the statistical characteristics of human populations, such as age and income, that are used by businesses to identify what form of media or what media text they are into. Audiences are placed into groups using quantities data which is also based on their gender, social class, geographical location, religion and ethnicity. A few examples of demographic groups are :

• Group A - People in higher management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professionals
• Group B - People in middle management, teachers, creative and media skilled people e.g. graphic designers.
• Group C - Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialists, electrical staff.

Using these demographic groups, we can see what sort of media text and genre would appeal to each group. Our production will most likely appeal to all demographic groups because there will be a variety of conventions in our production to keep everyone entertained. We hope that our production will be a success so that everyone will enjoy it.
To conclude the explanations of media terminology and theories, every form of media text and genre can be analysed by using media theories and terms. Also, by using these terms and theories, in-depth analysis can be used in order to fully grasp the director's intentions. We hope that in the future, our production will be used as a subject of analytical discussion.

Nerding Out on Anime - Harris

If I don't write more than a page and a bit, Master Kalbir will get mad at me... here goes...

I'll start with a brief history of anime. It abbreviates from the term animation and originated in 1917. It's style has been used in many media mediums such as films and games. Only recently has it become popular in western culture.

Animes begin as manga drawings. They are comic books read from right to left in black and white. When turned into an anime, colour is added along with motion. We plan to keep ours in black and white colours to fit our film noir genre. However, to add a neo film noir element, some items in the animation will be of a bright outstanding colour to contrast the black and white.

We plan to use some anime elements and about 20 seconds of animation in our trailer. To do this we are choreographing a scene and capturing the motion. I then have to draw each frame of the motion in an anime style which will equate to about 320 still images to draw. This is extremely time consuming and tedious. I then have to send those images over to Kalbir so that he can shade them to give a 3-D feel.

Animes have no singular drawing style and some just look plain tacky. We, well I, decided to base our drawing style on animes such as Hellsing and Death Note. These are both realistically drawn mangas that have been converted to animes with a good flowing motion.

Since the majority of our animation scenes will be of fighting, we decided to add more effects to it by having a trailing aura of colour surrounding the black and white characters. This concept was taken from a promotional video for a game called Street Fighter 4.

Our plan changed from the beginning where we wanted a silhouette fight scene. This was because silhouette fights can only be shown as a medium - long shot and won't do justice to the action we have in mind. Directors such as Quinten Tarrantino also take anime culture and add it to their movies. An example of this is Kill Bill, where Lucy Liu's character's past is shown through an animation scene.

Editing cannot begin without the animation scenes done, which will take an approximation of 3 weeks. Therefore, filming must begin early to ensure we reach the deadline. Also a HD Camera will be necessary as drawing over grainy pictures will be harder to do and more time consuming.

Since I haven't wrote as much as Kalbir wanted me to, I'll just give reference to any mangas or anime that I have taken ideas from to choreograph our action scenes.

1. Naruto
2. Bleach
3. Ane Doki
4. Death Note
5. To Love Ru
6. Fairy Tail
7. Full Metal Alchemist
8. Hajime no Ippo
9. History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi
10. Soul Eater
11. Kimi no Iru Machi
12. D Gray Man
13. Code Breaker
14. Air Gear
15. Hellsing
16. Devil May Cry
17. Samurai Champloo
18. Kiba
19. Dragon Ball
20. Pokemon
21. Final Fantasy

I basically have no life during holidays...

Group roles and responsiblities - Kalbir

If was not made clear, our group consists of Harris, Jason and me (Kalbir). Anyone who knows us would argue that we have the most dysfunctional and lazy group of all this year (Mr. Bush tried hinting at it with very little subtlety, and Bianca even left our group before we started). To this end, we intend to prove everyone wrong, and then rub it in their faces immediately afterwards.

After our 4 meetings that have lasted 4-6 hours each, we’ve gotten quite a bit of work done in regards to planning, research and concept (as you can see in above posts). However, we acknowledge that the three of us tend to procrastinate and let our workloads accumulate, and therefore spent quite a bit of time discussing who would do what over the next few months.

Harris

Not only the laziest person in our group, but most likely the laziest person in the whole of the languages department in the history of forever, which is why it is surprising that Harris is actually quite intelligent, and shockingly has been doing his fair share of work so far in this group.

Skills:

• Good at writing and including sarcasm/wit (to the point of being annoying)

• Thorough knowledge of the Anime genre, and experienced with the art style

• Has some knowledge with video-editing

In our production, Harris will be doing part of the written work, along with Jason (who together will be covering most of the work involving research and blog posts). He will also be sketching the pictures we will use for our pseudo-anime portions of the trailer, as he has a greater understanding of the art style common to the genre.

Jason

The gentle giant of our group, Jason is without a doubt the member in our group with the strongest work ethic, and has so far done all of his assigned work competently and in good time. He enjoys English and consequently writing, which will be useful for this production.

Skills:

• A good writer and typist

• Very creative and a good critic

• Has knowledge of different mediums such as film, games and anime
  

Jason’s responsibility within our group will be heavily focused on writing blog posts and written plans, and therefore the majority or work on the blog will be done by him. As he is creative, he is able to provide valuable input and point out where Harris and I make mistakes (which I assure you, we will).

Kalbir

Expect a lack of modesty from herein: The most awesome, organised and generally responsible person in this group (or any for that matter). I/he is good with computers, and consequently editing and animating.

Skills:

• Competent with drawing, shading and colouring

• The only person in the group with any sense of organisation

• Good with editing, special effects and post-production in general
  

In the group I’ll be doing the majority of the computing work, and because of this we thought it best of most of the written work wasn’t given to me as a responsibility. I’ll be doing all the shading and colouring of Harris’ sketches (and will be editing them after he does them), as well as applying post-production effects to our production.

Changes to our Story – Kalbir

After meeting up several times, the three of us have made some minor alterations to the plot, namely with the identities of the characters. While they may not change much, having this down on the blog gives us a clearer understanding of our own production...

· The main character is now going to be called “Zack Dylan”

· The Assassins are now called “The Enma.” At first we wanted to name them Shinigami, which is the god of death (a Japanese Hades), but decided on Enma as, while they mean the same thing, it sounds shorter and more menacing.

· The Assassin who trains Zack will be called “The Enforcer.” We wanted to avoid giving him a name for the same reason that he will be wearing a mask the whole time; we DON’T want the audience to relate to him. This in turn lets the audience connect with Zack more, as they can understand how off-putting it would be to have such an ominous mentor.

· We’ve decided that we want to make the Assassins seem more like the “good guys,” who are killing in the name of justice. The reasoning for this being that we want “The Silencers” to be the anti-heroes, in particular Mr. Bush (*note* We’re yet to confirm if Mr. Bush would be willing to appear in our trailer, but for the sake of simplicity we’ll call the character Mr. Bush until we know otherwise)

The Justification of Our Need of a HD Camera - Jason

The idea of our production is one of a unique stature, and as such our group needs high quality resources in order to truly portray what we think will be a media production to remember. One item we truly desire for our production is an High Definition camera. We think that with a HD camera, our production can reach its full potential.

Without giving too much away, various camera shots and effects will be used in our production and a HD camera will add more depth and a more realistic approach to our scenes. With high quality, the potential of this production could spread far. Also, the high picture quality will be helpful with the editing software we are going to use.

The effects we are going to produce in our production will be of high quality and the software we are using will go hand-in-hand with a HD camera, giving our production the chance to truly shine and stand out among the other productions. To not give our group this chance would be unjust because a tremendous amount of effort will be put into making the overall production.

If our group were given the opportunity to use a HD camera, the outcome would be spectacular in terms off effects in accordance to the available yet effective software we will be using. In some scenes of our production, fight scenes will occur and with our well placed choreography, high picture quality will be the icing on the cake, or so to speak. Also, our production will have some well placed scenery, and in order to grasp the intended atmosphere being created, stunning picture quality will need to be available for a more dominant reading.

To conclude, a HD camera that would be available to us would be very helpful to us as it would help us create a much more dramatic piece for our production. By creating a more dramatic piece, our intentions of an effective trailer will be fulfilled and the audience can judge as to whether our production is award-worthy. Our justification for using a HD camera is complete.

Action Movies: A Brief And Detailed History - Jason

In our production, we plan for many scenes of the trailer to be action orientated, displaying many stunning visuals to leave our audience in a state of awe. Since our target audience will range from 15-25 years old, our trailer will have to relate to many conventions that this target audience can be associated with....action.

Action movies are a film genre where the story is mainly told through physical action rather than dialogue. With this genre developing in the 1970's, action movies would later pave the way for many successful movies and directors...not including Michael Bay.

This particular genre has always been aimed at male audiences. Action movies would usually serve as a "thrill" and "escapism" for male audiences as they would see the protagonist fight their way through the movie in order to reach a certain goal. Primary examples of this formula are films like Enter The Dragon, Rambo, Commando, Die Hard etc.

Though these movies have similar themes of action, there is a distinction of how these movies carry out violence and action. Films such as Enter The Dragon and Rambo lean towards a more physical, agile fighting approach while films like Dir Hard and Commando employ elements of explosions and plenty of gunfire to portray violence and action.

With action movies developing more and more throughout the years, the 1980's was known as "the action era", and with it came many legendary movies and actors such as Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson. Directors such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were majorly recognised with their release of Indiana Jones Raiders of The Lost Ark in the 80's. Some say the 1980's was the successful peak of action movies.

Many sub-genres derived from the action movie genre such as Action Comedy, Heroic Bloodshed, Die Hard Scenario and Girls With Guns. Action Comedy is a sun-genre involving humor in combination with action. With this genre, many comedic icons such as Eddie Murphy began taking lead roles in action films. Very rarely in Action Comedy movies does death or serious injuries to characters occur. Examples of Action Comedies involve Big Momma's House, Bad Boys and Rush Hour.

Heroic Bloodshed is a sub-genre that involves dramatic themes such as honor, brotherhood and redemption. This sub-genre derives from Hong Kong and usually involves stylized shootouts with slow-motion scenes. Barrages of gun fire also ensue throughout the film which is what makes this sub-genre so popular. Director John Woo is often associated with the Heroic Bloodshed genre.

Die Hard Scenario is a formula that is seen in many action movies such as Con Air, Under Siege and of course, Die Hard. This formula involves the story taking place in a limited location e.g. a plane, building or vessel. These places are captured or under threat by the antagonists, leaving the lone protagonist to challenge them using their cunning and stealth to defeat them.

The Girls With Guns sub-genre uses a female protagonist to take a position of high power and defeat the antagonists. This sub-genre is mainly set in a modern context and examples of this are movies such as Kill Bill and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

With such in-depth research of the Action Movie genre, our group has a better understanding of how action should be portrayed and choreographed in our production. This research will also lead to a better outcome of our action scenes, having in mind ideas of an original nature.

Trailer Analysis on Sin City - Harris

Free Running: A Brief History- Jason

Our production will contain a number of scenes that will involve "free running". Free running is a form of acrobatics which makes uses of city landscapes to perform an array of athletic movements and stunts. These stunts are usually performed to awe an audience which also the desired effects of our media production scenes.

Free running has been used in a number of media texts including films, music videos and video games. Though there have been much controversy behind free running, many still use it today to entertain audiences. As mentioned before, video games are now using free running as a basis for movement. One game i would like to look at in particular is a game called Mirrors Edge.

Serving as an inspiration for our media production, this game also gives us ideas on realistic uses for free running. Set in an urban city, this game can be useful in many ways by giving us a view of things we can expect while shooting some of our scenes. This game can also act as a guideline for shooting our free running scenes in our production. Seeing as this game heavily relies on free running acrobatics, our understanding of free running can also improve resulting in better and more effective free running scenes.

Trailer Analysis on Wanted - Harris

Yes... it's everyone's favourite again...

I chose this trailer as the plot line and genre is very similar to that of our trailer. Wanted is known for it's special effects and how they are ahead of their time and we're trying to do the same within our media group.

We are aiming this at the teenage demographic which is why we need violence, sex and drugs... However, this movie is rated 15 so we've decided to just include thrilling effects. Wanted is a movie which has fulfilled many conventions effectively. A running monologue is used to let the audience identify with the protagonist of the story. We have taken this effect and added it to our compilation as it fits in with the neo film noir genre.

The trailer uses many extreme close ups on the characters to get the audience familiarised and comfortable with the cast. We will also be including this in our trailer as there will be a still image for every character who newly appears on screen and is important to the movie, in an anime style.

Wanted is probably gonna be shit compared to this...

A Brief History of Film Noir - Jason

For our production, we are using a neo film noir style genre to create a more stylized effect on the action contained in our production. The effects in our production will involve stunning effects in neo film noir style that create exhilarating action scenes to captivate the audience. Effects will be created on the computer with the assistance of Photoshop, Image ready, After Effects, Adobe Premiere and possibly Sony Sound Forge. To see where we are heading with our production we must trace back to the source of film noir and the eventual birth of neo film noir.

Film noir is associated with a low-key black- and- white visual style that roots from German cinematography that eventually made its way around the world. The term film noir is used to describe Hollywood crime genres and, in terms of cinema, was quite the range in the 1040’s to the 1950’s.

Neo film noir films are aware of the current modern circumstances and technology. In noir films, the basic technique of audiences “building” a relationship with the protagonist was used. Neo noir films encourage audiences to act like as a “voyeur”, peeking into the protagonists’ lives. This is what we want to achieve as the overall effect of the production will be much more effective this way.

Inspirations - Jason

For our media production, Silencer, there have been many inspirations from a number of movies and video games. These movies and games have themes that relate to our media production in a number of ways e.g. genre, cinematography.

Here are a number of movie examples that have been an inspiration to our work in progress:

Sin City:

The cinematography of this film had given us an idea of how to shoot our movie. Being influenced by the neo film-noir genre, our production will be most effective in delivering astounding scenes.

Kill Bill:

The idea of assassins will be a refreshing concept to audiences seeing as this idea has not been touched upon. Kill Bill is a film that contains the stories and lives of modern day assassins which is an essential for our media production.

Wanted:

Wanted is also a film of assassins living in the contemporized word. We aspire to create dazzling effects and scenes in our production and this film contains scenes that are a marvel to witness.

Here are some video games that also served as inspirations:

Mirrors Edge:

This game contains free-running missions that are fun to play and exciting to watch. We are going for the same kind of effect in our production. Since our production will contain a free-running protagonist, it is crucial to study the mind of a free-runner.

Assassin’s creed:

This game plays with the concept of both ancient assassins and contemporized assassins. Since our production will contain a theme of assassins it is, again, important that we study the characteristics and behavior of assassins in order to make character roles more convincing.

Synopsis - Kalbir

After deciding against our zombie-apocalypse film idea, the three of us debated as to which genre we even wanted to represent. Given that we all like games we took a fair amount of inspiration from current generation videogames, specifically ones with a focus on action. As our ideas grew, we decided to go against a complicated plotline, as not only would it not appeal to the majority of teenage demographic but it would also be harder to condense into a 3 minute trailer while still allowing the audience to understand the general idea of the story.

The plot of the film as a whole is as follows (keeping in mind that we may make alterations as we go along, but below s the basic narrative we’ve decided on)...

The story follows an 18-year-old protagonist (we’ve yet to decide on a name or whether we’ll just use my real name) who is a computer and gaming enthusiast, but more commonly considered a nerd. The equilibrium of the story would be at the beginning as we follow the stability of his life, and yet we also pick up on how monotonous and bland it is. Our protagonist is also aware of this, and we see his frustrations with the mediocrity of his life. However, he makes the (rather poor) choice of delving into more underground organisations, and he researches what could only be described as cults. While he acknowledges that most of these organisations are fake or misleading, he stumbles across an incredibly vague website which seems to hint at vigilante work, but does not include specifics or even a way of contacting the group. Instead, our character has to follow a trail of riddles that eventually lead him to a shadowy assassination guild, who tell the teenager that he has past the first test of finding them, but that he must train to be one of them. To his horror, our protagonist is also informed that because he now knows of the guilds existence and whereabouts, if he decides not to train to be one of them he will be killed and if he fails to pass his training, his life will be again be forfeit.

Our protagonist decides to train to be a killer, and this portion of the film follows his steady progress, showing the contrast between how he is at the beginning of his training (clumsy, hesitant and weak) to how he becomes after weeks of constant instruction (swift, cunning and strong). He learns of how the guild only kills truly evil people who manage to escape the justice of law or who the guild feels does not deserve even a chance of living in comfort in a cell (serial killers, rapists etc). The intention here is to show that the assassins aren’t mindless killers, but vigilantes in an extreme sense. The narrative will also present how the boy’s family life and friendships are strained and the general impact on his life. It is at this point however, that the narrative will progress into disequilibrium; the boy is also told of a group of killers called “The Silencers” who are trained in the ways of an assassin, but work to destroy the assassin guild by killing its members whenever possible. The Silencers believe that that the guild are simply murderers, and that they have no place in deciding whether someone should live or die. We want to highlight the hypocrisy in this ideology in our narrative, as the Silencers are doing the very thing they claim to despise.

Things fall further into chaos for our protagonist as one of his teachers from school violently confronts him and threatens him, revealing himself as an undercover Silencer. The teenager is given a week to reconsider his affiliation with the assassins, at which point he will “suffer tremendous regret.”

The disequilibrium is furthered when the boy decides to remain as trainee within the guild, and his world crumbles around him when he returns home one day to find all the members of his family dead, with a DVD left in his living room. On the DVD we see the teacher/silencer who had threatened him, laughing about the teenager’s foolish decision and informing him that he is next to die. Enraged, our protagonist seeks revenge and asks for his training to be intensified tenfold in order to be able to kill the Silencer who took his family from him. The narrative will at this point show the determination with which the boy trains, and anger that drives him, and the outcome of the battle with his supposed “teacher”......

I think I may have gone into too much detail......

Woops....

Baby Steps - Harris

The first steps to pure epicness... Not sure if that's a word...

Our initial idea was a survivor zombie movie. An action-thriller with special effects. The plot would be that of a typical teen-horror in which a group of 'misfits' would be chucked into an impossible situation and have to overcome it through teamwork. We chose this because the target audience can identify with some of the insecurities that would have been portrayed through the characters.

After much speculation we realised that it wasn't practical as the effects needed were too time consuming to make and many actors would be needed. We wanted to keep acting to a minimum as we saw how the previous years epicly failed at their attempts.

We still wanted to keep the special effects going but with more of a story driven trailer. We then stumbled upon neo-film noir and saw through movies such as Sin City, how many effects could be used whilst keeping the plot strong.

The plots that we came up with then were too unrealistic and had too much depth to portray.
So we came to the conclusion of a more action oriented trailer as three minutes wouldn't be enough to give the gist of the plot we had in mind.

In the end it was a group decision to change to our new story now which will kick every other production's ass. Amen...