SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS FOR OUR FILM

TWITTER

I created a twitter page for our movie to get an audience exciting about the upcoming feature. By doing this, we are able to share our film online and generate hype for the film, free of charge and open to the public.  It's a great marketing tool for direct promotion. You can record edit and share with immediate responses. It's a great platform that engaging potential viewers into a conversation therefore giving the audience a direct line of communication with the film makers.  Creating a social media profile for our film allows for us to be adventurous when communicating online. It can be used to promote our film directly to our audience, answer questions via tweets and even post sneak peaks of what is to come and when the movie release date is.  It's a vital tool for marketing any film.

CONSTRUCTION: EDITING

EDITING

When editing our film opening we decided to use both iMovie and Final Cut Pro. We used iMovie for our generally cutting and moving clips. We then exported and moved over to Final Cut Pro for sound, titles and effects.

The image above is a photo of our timeline on Final Cut Pro. It is simply the previous exported iMovie edit put into Final Cut Pro so we were able to use our own titles. We preferred this as it meant we could choose the font and create our own graphics.  Final Cut Pro looks more professional upon final export.

CONSTRUCTION: FILM IDENT

FILM IDENTS

When creating our films ident, we took into consideration the speed, sound and effectiveness of the ident. We chose to base our ident on the 'Film Five' ident as we were pleased with how it looked and wanted to reproduce it when creating our own version.

We were happy with the final product as it was how we expected it to be before we had begun creating it. It is masked by thunder in the background and zooms into a fully black screen before the opening scene begins. 

When creating this ident, we used photoshop in order to bring our ideas to life. We continuously added layers of different colours so that we were able to achieve the 3D looking effect. When putting it into the editing software (iMovie) we decided that it needed sound and movement for maximum impact. We added a thunder sound effect followed by a zooming in on a black area of the ident which then set the opening scene for us.

CONSTRUCTION: FILMING

FILMING: BROKEN DOWN

As our filming environment and location needed to resemble an office, Claremont Fan Court School provided the perfect venue for our filming needs.  In the pictures shown we used school phones and offices/classrooms in the mansion in order to capture each scene in a realistic light. The kitchen used was in the Sixth Form Centre with the rest of the scenes being filmed around the school site. This is not due to cost cutting or convenience, it is due to a perfect match for our filming needs.

Due to us working within the school on a daily basis, there wasn't any particularly pressure to get the shots at a specific point in time, however, there were potential issues in place with some of the actors. The main one being their uniform. It would be an issue for actor continuity if we needed to reshoot a character and they had changed the suit that they were wearing.  This was out of our control as we were not able to dictate what they choose to wear to school on a day-to-day basis so we were careful to shoot the scenes we need without the need to go back.

BBFC Rating: 12A

Choosing an Appropriate BBFC Rating For Our Film Opening

As our film opening is a British film, we created a BBFC certificate, which shows the age rating. I went on the BBFC website and looked at the requirements that would make a film age rating 12A. The list below shows these requirements.

Dangerous behaviour

No promotion of potentially dangerous behaviour which children are likely to copy. No glamorisation of realistic or easily accessible weapons such as knives. No endorsement of anti-social behaviour.

Discrimination

Discriminatory language or behaviour must not be endorsed by the work as a whole. Aggressive discriminatory language or behaviour is unlikely to be acceptable unless clearly condemned.

Drugs

Misuse of drugs must be infrequent and should not be glamorised or give detailed instruction.

Language

There may be moderate bad language. Strong language may be permitted, depending on the manner in which it is used, who is using the language, its frequency within the work as a whole and any special contextual justification.

Nudity

There may be nudity, but in a sexual context it must be brief and discreet.

Sex

Sexual activity may be briefly and discreetly portrayed. Moderate sex references are permitted, but frequent crude references are unlikely to be acceptable.

Threat and horror

There may be moderate physical and psychological threat and horror sequences. Although some scenes may be disturbing, the overall tone should not be. Horror sequences should not be frequent or sustained.

Violence

There may be moderate violence but it should not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood, but occasional gory moments may be permitted if justified by the context.


Here is our final product created in photoshop:

CONSTRUCTION: SOUND

SOUND IN 

'THE HONG KONG FILES' 

When creating our film opening we came across some challenges which made it difficult for us to have perfect audio when filming due to poor acoustics.  In the second scene in the 'hospital' we came up against a very difficult area to film for sound due to outside noise interference which was disappointing as the overall location was perfect, however, we overcame certain sound issues by recording separately and individually in a quieter area then editing the sound in at later date.   We conveniently used the app 'Voice Memos' on iPhone. This meant that we were able to dupe the voice recordings in one take with minimal difficulty. By doing this, we had the opportunity to eliminate any echo in the building as it was large and spacious. After doing this, we used a sound tool on our editing software to elimate any further echo from the film.