Evaluation- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and convections of real media products?

Our media product uses and develops conventions of real media products. The real film conventions (exposition) of real media products: establish time, setting, character(s), narrative and conveys enigma. Our film opening introduces the setting of London immediately simply by the wide shot of South Bank’s bridge in London, the audience immediately become aware of the setting as well as the diegetic sound of the people in the town. The time period and of Running on the Cracks is established the effects of the diary at the beginning typewriter and the Mis-en-scene also contributes to revealing the time period to the audience by the use of  costumes and props. Leo is depicted as a rebellious teenager and her costume/attire are casual and is of course modern- hoodie and black jeans subverting to many stereotypes Hollywood Blockbusters portray of teenage girls being “girly” and fashion obsessed. The rucksack (prop) used is rugged and even containing holes although this is for fashion, it adds to conveying her rough situation of leaving home. We established our protagonist Leo, through tracking shots of her journey through London. The opening scene begins with a close up of her shoes as she sits on the floor and a coin is thrown at her feet communicating her situation rough situation and how she appears to the society/public.

Running on the Cracks

The final product..:)

Post-Production

Firstly, when we encompassed our shots together, we as the audience did not feel it was right. After reflecting upon this we knew that match on action was missing making our film seem like a series of shots containing no sense of flow that is necessary in real time. This greatly affected the quality of our film and we knew this was a real problem because we did not have enough shots for match on action in the beginning of the film.  To overcome this we added titles in the places that did not flow into the next shot and the cuts worked really well and proved successful in making the pace slower in areas where we wanted to establish the character through close-ups (e.g.her writing in her diary).

Close ups to create a more personal feel to the audience...

Secondly, a major problem we faced was with the voice over, the voice over which did not match the visuals digitally of our film. Instead of adding depth and meaning to the characters actions it gave our film more of an amateur feel. This was extremely frustrating for us; we recorded the voice over twice in an attempt to fix this. However, after discussing this problem we knew we had to think creatively and problem solve like editors in the industry. We decided to communicate the messages we wanted from the voice over, visually. After adding subtitles- the subtitles appeared like a visual diary as we held a tableau in significant moments.
Through our editing skills we achieved match on action and communicated what we wanted the audience to know visually establishing the beginning of our narrative.

Visually presenting our voice over...

Shooting Journal

During Post Production and Production we many encountered problems.

Production

As stated previously we filmed using to locations London and Windsor so we decided to film on each location on different days. At the London location, we encountered many problems due to the sheer amount of people present during the day. This made it extremely hard to shoot our film as people kept appearing in our shots, this was of course a bigger problem for us in the frame of our wide establishing shots delaying the time we intended to end shooting (making the process of film making slower). The protagonist simply could not be seen in the crowd. To overcome this we had to complete our other shots first and then try and shoot, fortunately changing the time solved this, as it became less crowded later on in the day. Another problem we experienced whist shooting was the weather. It was REALLY COLD. The other group members and the actors were finding it difficult to maintain focus and we were annoyed at the delay it was taking to shoot all our shots. The cold weather also impacted on our work and we later felt we rushed through some aspects of our film and later this was made apparent to us during Post Production. At the Windsor location, we encountered problems with the tracking shot outside the house because it was difficult to track steadily, affecting the quality. This was a minor problem and everything else went smoothly. We planned the time better for this location in terms of meeting together and preparing for the scenes e.g props. So we finished filming on time with a pleasing outcome.

Light & Colour Research

Lighting and Colour was an important aspect of our film because we wanted to make sure that it communicated our genre. Our Genre is Mystery/Thriller.

On the set of our London location the lighting was naturally bright and we decided that would be bring a warm/colourful feel which we did not want since the setting had to reflect isolation that is almost depressing. Our film needed a cold essence/atmosphere also to reflect Leo's sad frame of mine whilst reminiscing about her family. To achieve this we knew this would be done during post production on the software: final cut pro. "Cold" colours were needed and according to our research blue and grey colours connoted cold/mysterious elements reinforcing the genre of our film to the audience and creating enigma. Blue colouring alluded to the genre (conforming to convetions of a Mystery Opening film) and signified Leo's sad state. (Tim Burton's "A Corpse Bride" illustrates the colours which we wanted to include, although the colours were a little too cold for our film it was useful to see the effects it created to the ambience of the film.) At the end our film, when colliding with Alex, the blue colouring lessened slightly to symbolise a sense of hope for finding her family. On the other hand too much blue colouring was undesired because after all our film had to display social realism and therefore had to look naturalistic.

However for our Flashback we wanted the colours to be warm and made sure that the home would be brightly lit with decorations, even adding candles to subtly create this effect. The warm decorations and bright light connote happiness signifying to the audience the fond memories Leo had in her childhood, that contrasts her present state.
Colour and lighting effects ambience...

Location Research

Location- Running on the Cracks

As a group we had to chose the most appropriate location for our production to communicate our protagonist (Leo) is running away.

Initially we chose Maidenhead as our location because it was local and easy to shoot for our group but on reflection we considered that Maidenhead would not illustrate the isolation and internal struggles Leo would have in the narrative. Rather it would create an "amateur-ish" feel to the audience, therefore bringing the quality of our film down. We decided to have London as our setting as it is an iconic setting that would easily portray Leo's melancholy frame of mind whilst she was lost in the busy crowd of the streets. In London we chose to shoot on a bridge overlooking a lake, in order to incorporate a tracking shot of Leo walking in search of somewhere to live. As film makers, we wanted to covey a loss of innocence to the audience as Leo enters the real world, and I felt the ambience/atmosphere of London was perfect to depict this. Whilst searching for the exact location, I kept in mind that during editing we would eradicate the warmth of the atmosphere by adding blue filters to enhance the "cold" feel of London, (pathetic fallacy- English students would know) representing the location as almost depressing.

Images of London location, as you can see the original set for our film is too bright that's why we knew we would alter the colours :
 

 

 

Conventionally, films of mystery such as ours include open areas and crowds of people to demonstrate characters isolation so London was appropriate and a location that the audience would expect to see to communicate the genre.

Contrasting to London, I wanted to convey meaning to our audience about Leo's childhood with her parents and siblings. Thus we wanted the setting of our flashback to develop on this theme of warmth and happiness. When discussing appropriate location, a typical home came to mind because it connotes an intimate/personal ambience which was desired. One member in our group was willing to use a family member's house and we knew with decorations that the living room could be made very inviting/warm contrasting to the London location and communicating to the audience the fond memories of her childhood.

Costume Research

Leo:

Dressed in simple black clothing and a grey hoodie. Her hair will be open expressing uncleanliness and her rough situation. Black clothing connoting rebellious run away. Grey is reflective of her emotions which is sadness and emptiness also illustrating the dirty surroundings. For my research I used "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" as inspiration because the look conveys to the audience the rebellious feel we want to portray as well being fashionable for a teenager.

Family:

Dressed in Christmas Clothing (jumpers). Overall the clothing will be colourful signifying the happiness and joy of celebrating Christmas as a family.

Alex:
Casual clothing jeans and a hoodie/coat conforming to stereotypes of teenager attire.