Creative Critical Reflection

Transcript:

Hi my name is Sitara Sriram and in this creative critical reflection I will be discussing the entire process of working on my title sequence Into the truth.

1.How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do they represent social groups or issues?

Our title sequence is a combination of four different genres: mystery, crime, drama and thriller. (show screen recording of blog post about genre conventions). The main genres that we were researching about were mystery and crime, but when we were drafting the plot of our movie, we felt that some of the elements and conventions overlapped into drama and thriller as well. These genres are all primarily dominated by a male presence. If females are included, they are generally considered to be inferior and have less authority than males in the film have. We used these representations within the title sequence. The female detective  is not taken seriously by the male detective and is discouraged from solving the case. She is not elieved in because she is a woman and is told to “go get her nails done” because the male detective does not believe she is worthy enough to solve the case. In this aspect we went along with the representation of this social group, however through casting, we tried to challenge the gender roles within the movie. Our female lead, Becca is taller than Tommy, so we used this to our advantage to distinguish the two of them.

Starting off analyzing the title sequence, mise-en-scene was one of the most vital parts because it established the mood and setting. With costuming, Victoria, who plays the dead victim, is dressed in a white shirt, (victoria) meant to represent purity and innocence. This is a basic of the mystery and thriller genre as victims are usually seen in white clothing. (horror character in white). Low-key lighting was also used throughout in the evidence scenes to establish the mood as creepy and mysterious, which follows genre conventions of crime and thriller movies because it creates a darker environment. (dark lighting) The setting in the first half was meant to resemble the victim’s room as the crime scene where the murder took place. We tried to make the feel very chaotic with the messy bed (messy bed) and blood stains on the door and table (blood). The props were also really important in creating the overall feel of the crime scene. The shots start off by showing the police tape, bloody handprint on the door, then to the bloody footprints, the shoes, knife, dead body and then the threatening note. This note was one of the original props that we wanted to include in the title sequence, because the setting of this was planned to be in the 1990s. This magazine letter crafted note felt appropriate for the time period especially in the mystery genre. Movies within this genre typically use this style as ransom letters, so this was a prop that we wanted to include to create this serial killer effect. All of these props came together to establish the crime scene feel to the room. Victoria’s positioning on the ground as the victim also made her very vulnerable. The production design completely changed the look of our setting, originally looking very bright and colorful to dim and mysterious.

Going onto the cinematography, the overall feel could be summed up as a point of view shot or handheld shot because it is supposed to be seen from a person’s perspective who is viewing the crime scene and it is left up to the audience for interpretation. A tilt shot was used to display the entire bloody handprint on the door. Throughout the entire crime scene portion, we used several slow pans so that the audience could see the premise of the crime scene in its entirety. Along with each pan shot was a close-up shot that emphasized each piece of evidence.

With editing, each shot of the individual piece of evidence has a fade transition. The purpose of this was to blend it and make it all connect together with the murder of the victim.

In the evidence scene, the background music is a creepy song that increases in volume towards the more suspenseful parts. The only other sound for this section was the door opening and closing, which I recorded separately after filming.

There was not too much to do with the mise-en-scene of the second half. Our only prop was really just the newspaper and the characters were dressed in professional clothing to show that they are in a work environment.

After the scene fades out, we can see a dolly out shot of the newspaper, which reveals the crime scene has been reported on and that there is a person holding and reading the newspaper. Tilt shots were used to reveal both the female and male detective when they are introduced. The tilt shot on the male detective leads into a canted angle facing him, to create a feeling of imbalance to show that he is weaker or in the wrong, because the shots on the female detective are shot with a straight angle, emphasizing her assertion and being stronger. A tracking shot of the female detective shows the story is going to be told from her point of view and to place the centrality on her character.

A match cut was used to smoothly transition from the crime scene to the detectives office, so we closed the door and faded the shot to black. Color correcting was used to emphasize the conventions of the genres we chose, but this will be further discussed in the reflection. Many shot reverse shots are edited in the office scenes because it is meant to display the detectives conversing with each other and it helps to convey both of their emotions during the dialogue. Another match cut was edited when she opened the drawer to get another copy of the newspaper and it cut to show her from inside of it. Then it cuts back to a midshot match cut to show her closing the drawer with her foot. The purpose of these match cuts were to preserve continuity throughout the sequence but to also add some variety to the shots.

For the sound of the office scenes, Taylor recorded some ambient sounds of phones ringing, dialogue, and printer noises to make it more realistic that these scenes are taking place in a real office. At the end when the title card appears, mysterious music is played over this to foreshadow that there is much that needs to be solved and to lead into the rest of the movie.

2. How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be be distributed as real media products?

A very important part of the filmmaking process is seeking a production company, and for us we were looking for one that suited low-budget films and that produced movies in the similar genres that we were exploring. We found a company called Next Wave Films (logo) that satisfied our criteria and it had produced some mystery and crime film such as Following directed by Christopher Nolan, Manic by Jordan Malamed and Envy by Julie Money. (pics of all three movies) Unfortunately, the company no longer exists, so we decided to go with our backup option MGM, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM has produced films from low to high budgets, and a variety of different genres such as crime, horror, thriller, drama and more. Some of the more well-known films that they have taken part in are Se7en, Final Destination and Murder at the Gallop. Some of the distribution companies we were looking at were 20th Century Fox, Artisan Entertainment and Momentum Pictures, but we were leaning more towards the last two options because 20th Century Fox is one of the bigger production companies so our film might not be large-scale enough for them to produce.  Since our movie is a low-budget and independent film, the best exhibition method for us would most likely be platforming. Our movie does not fall within the most popular of genres, so trying to aim for wide-release would be a little bit out of our realistic realm. The target audience that we want to reach would be people in their 30’s, but more specifically women than men. A prominent theme of our movie is about female empowerment, so this could be a popular concept between the women demographic. We feel that the most effective way of marketing the movie is through smaller advertisements, such as interviews, trailers and other forms such as this.

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

The whole process of making the title sequence was very lengthy. First Taylor and I had to decide what kind of movie we wanted to make a title sequence for. When the project was first introduced I was already leaning towards more a mystery movie because I’ve always had an interest and Taylor also seemed to really like the idea. Our first step was planning our plot for the title sequence and this is where we came up with the idea for a movie revolving around a detective solving a murder. We then realized that what we envisioned took conventions from four different genres and researching the specifics for each genre was a very time-consuming process because the online resources we were using did not have much information. After finally finding some of the genre conventions, we started to watch other title sequences from other movies in these genres to get a visual for how they are structured. This stage of research was really helpful and allowed us to make necessary changes to our first plot idea to make it fit more to the genre conventions. Next was the shooting phase. We set a schedule between all our actors to see when it was convenient for them to help us film. The office scenes were initially shot at our school’s front office because this was the only location we were able to find. However, we ran into many issues here, the first being that we couldn’t even get inside. Taylor arranged with another staff member to shoot there after school hours and they agreed but when we got there the doors were all locked and the halls were empty. Then with some luck we ran into one of our teachers who called the assistant principal to come out and he let us in but he said “You got 30 minutes.” at this point I was considering if we should even shoot that day because I felt that it wouldn’t be enough time, but since Tommy and Becca were already there we just decided to try and make the most of what we had. This was definitely a very ROUGH cut because our storyboard was really just a plot outline, and not so much the planning of the shots that we wanted, so we literally were just making the shots up on the fly. Given that and the 30 minute time limit, our first try was definitely not the best because the shots did not have much continuity and it didn’t really flow well. Later that day, we shot the crime scene shots at my house and this went a lot better. The whole process of setting up took about 3 hours, so it did take a bit of time. We had a few issues while setting up, like the police tape wouldn’t stick to the wall and would fall so we had to keep layering on the tape. We also used fake blood for our title sequence and while spraying it some of it got on the floor and my room has carpet, so this took a lot of cleaning but I was really thankful that Taylor and victoria were helping me clean that. I can’t even tell you how many paper towels we went through trying to get the stains out. As the production designer, I also had to create the bloody handprint on the door. This was a bit of a process because it either wouldn’t turn out right or it would keep dripping, but I eventually got it to look how we wanted. My hands smelled like ketchup for the next week, but that’s dedication I guess. One thing on my part I noticed after filming was that the shadow of the camera could be seen when walking over the carpet, but it wasn’t a major problem to the point where we would have to reshoot the whole thing. We didn’t plan too much for this portion either because we knew that we were going to basically just film a bunch of pan shots to show each piece of evidence. We tried it a few different ways, the first time doing a long take, but after a few times we realized this wasn’t really working because it wasn’t smooth and i’m not gonna lie, my arms were really starting to hurt from having to do one long take. So then we decided to try doing multiple shots with different pans and this worked a lot better. Taylor was the editor in our project and she edited all the shots we had together. The crime scene part looked pretty good, but the office part was really just bad, so we set aside another date to reshoot. Taylor’s mom works at Verizon so we were able to shoot in there and the relocation was MUCH better since it actually looked like an office. No hate to our school’s office but the janitor in the back was really killing the whole detective vibe. (janitor clip) But anyways, the week after we went and reshot at her mom’s work and this went a lot more smoothly. We had planned each shot that we wanted so we were able to film more efficiently, especially without having any time constraints. The only issue we had here was us forgetting the newspaper, which was the most important prop we needed that day, so Taylor had to make another newspaper. This took about an hour to make, so it delayed us a little bit, but it wasn’t anything major and honestly the make-shift newspaper looked a lot better than our original. We had a successful day filming and we were excited for the editing process to see how it would all come together. Taylor was our main editor and she did a really great job with putting all the clips together and creating the small effects that we wanted to add to increase the overall look and quality. My role in the editing process was mostly giving her feedback in terms of what was good and what could be improved on while she edited the clips. I also contributed to the sound stage because we knew we wanted a specific type of music to be played in the background of the crime scene to heighten the suspense. Taylor had already edited some track into the clip but I discussed it with her that I didn’t think it fit that well, so then we both worked together to find another track that was more appropriate for the scene. Going through this project has definitely opened my eyes as to how much really goes into creating a film. We only had to film a two minute opening and it was a really hectic process, so filming an entire movie would definitely be a harder task. However, I really enjoyed this project because it introduced me to film and it has made me like and appreciate it for the hard work that goes into it. I definitely am more knowledgeable about pre-production, production and post-production as I personally went through each stage and I am familiar with film terminology and concepts that I had no awareness of before starting this assignment.

4. How did you integrate technologies- software, hardware and online- in this project?

For the filming portion during the production phase of this project, we used a few different pieces of technology. My parents already had a Sony camera and a tripod and they were willing to let me borrow it for the project. (pictures of the camera) (find footage of me using the tripod and pics of tripod) As the cinematographer, it was important to get those steady shots, but my hands are extremely shaky, so the tripod was very helpful in preventing unwanted shots.  The tripod had an attachment that allowed you to put a camera or phone and tighten it so that it would stay there. (pics of attachment) The initial plan was to shoot everything on the camera because I thought it would look higher quality, (show blurry shots) but after I started shooting I realized that it really wasn’t that great. The shots came out somewhat blurry, so I just decided to use my iPhone 8 instead (iphone pics) and the camera quality was a lot better. As for the audio, Taylor has airpods, which are bluetooth wireless headphones, so this would be easier to disguise than normal wired headphones. For Tommy, we put the airpod inside his shirt, and Becca just stuck it in her ear, because her hair was able to cover it. We thought ahead about syncing up the audio during post production, and we had a system where before each scene, Taylor would clap and then we would start the action so that it was easier for her during editing to accurately sync it up. (taylor clapping) For the editing phase, Taylor used different applications such as iMovie, Video Star, Superimpose +, (logos of these apps) etc. and all of these were used for different components. iMovie was primarily used to cut the clips and arrange them in the order that we wanted. Video star was used for color correcting, which was very important because the original shots did not represent the look we were going for. We did shoot at night in my room for the crime scene part, but we needed the light ot be on for filming, so the shots turned out way too bright and did not resemble anything of a mystery genre. Taylor was able to do some color correcting to give the sequence dimmer lighting and to help establish the scary and creepy feeling. Superimpose+ was used for the title card at the end of the title sequence. We agreed that we wanted it to look like a magnifying glass running over the letters of the title of the movie, “Into the Truth.” Taylor was able to get this effect by taking a picture of a cartoon magnifying glass and putting it against a green background, so that the green was only present inside the glass part of the magnifying glass. This was then taken to Video Star to create the finished title card. The majority of the color correcting was in the crime scene, and less in the office scenes. We shot this during the daytime, and we wanted the brighter lighting because it was meant to resemble a detective’s office, so not much color correction was needed here. Through the entirety of this project, I have learned that technology is an essential part of film. Without any of the devices and applications that we used, this title sequence would have been very difficult, if not impossible to make, and the overall meaning was achieved only through using these tools to aid in our filmmaking.

Thanks:

This project would not have been possible without help from my partner Taylor Moore, my media studies teacher Mr. Engle, our actors, Rebecca Wolff, Victoria Conn, and Tommy Mitchell, and three of our class peers, Ava Chandler, Kyler Dickerson and Ryan Mish.