Self assesment of our group work and opening so far

So far in our group we have came up with ideas, analysed them, found music for our opening and have finished the filming for the first part of our opening. This includes the dead body on the floor with the knife in Niyi’s hand and the people at the party seeing it on the floor next to the dead body, with Niyi running away after. The second half which we need to film includes niyi with his friends in the alley, treding over the newspaper, and a scene at the party. I think we have done well filming and ediing so far as it is a rough copy and gives us a good idea of what we will be doing in the final piece (what we will add and get rid of). We have also had many ideas for the opening and was originally going to do two seperate films (as the group was split with ideas) to see which one we prefere at the end, but as time is tight, we will just have to follow the storyboard and stick with one idea. I also think that we have worked well in a group since we have sorted all the problems out and we are working well as a team to finish the opening in the time frame given.
Phoebe. M

Our story board so far showing camera work, ideas, mise-en scene and music

establishing shot:  black screen fading into the dead body.

we have gone with using the niki minaj remix which Sophie had received permission for.

music will start and build up slowly loader…

1.  we will see a dead person on the floor he will be dressed in gangster clothing and lighting will still be flashing on him like no one has noticed. this will be played by Declan who we hired as an actor. he will have blood and bruises over him which will be done by Amber and it will be set on a kitchen floor where knives are most easiest to supply. the body will be seen in a long shot birds eye view angle so we can see the body and the outskirts of the kitchen
2. the next shot will be an extreme close up of Niyi’s head which reveals his shocked face and shows his innocence through his eyes we get a small glimpse of a diamond earring on one of his ears as well.

music will become faster with more tension

1. a close up is followed of the knife with the blood on and will then quickly transition into the murderers eyes which will be lurking in the shadows these will alternate a couple of times to emphasis that niyi was innocent the lights will be shining on it to emphasis the object.

music will then stop to allow scream to take place

1. when the party people later hear a scream coming from the kitchen from one of the party girls who has walked in on the body, they all enter unaware until we see their hatred for niyi and their shocked faces. this is shown in a mid shot with five-7 people in it. they will be dressed in party clothes and holding drinks

music will strat again slowly

1. we then realise that someone has called the police and so niyi runs out the back door with a group of his friends from the party as they chase after him. this will be a long shot to show the setting and surroundings of the back door and where it leads out to , a street or a garden.

long and slow notes in the music will be exaggerated here

1. we then go back to the dead body to see how bad he looks and we get an extreme close up of Declan’s eyes still open with a tear rolling down his cheek.

music will then carry on as normal

1.  we next have two ideas here one is a screen saying the next day which will then fade into the next shot or one not having one and making the next half of the clip all in the same day. we will try both to see which is better
2. this long shot will show niyi running across the road and through an alley to meet his friends as he hears the police sirens and think they are trying to find him and we hear the atmospheric music of sirens which will be pre recorded and used a non-diegetic sound. as he meets his friends and they all start to run down the alley there will be five split screens to allow us to see the ethnicity and gender of his friends. by niyi and his friends all being black and boys it will help show the negative generic stereotype of crime. they will all be dressed in the same clothes from the party which is why I think it is better to not have the black screen saying 2 days later
3. we then get a birds eye view and crane angle of niyi and his friends running all the way down the alley. the lighting will be minimal but street lights will flood the alley

music will become very quite and long notes exaggerated to allow the viewer to hear the sirens

1. a paper then blows into a puddle upside down to allow the viewers to read a headline and to see Niyi’s face on the front of it with Declan. the head line will be an article about niyi killing Declan at the party. a street light will shining on the article and the picture of Niyi’s face

music then slows down a lot

1. we then go back to niyi running out of the alley and hiding under a bush as he can see the police running down a road to try and find him. the lighting is still minimal but the police jackets are lit from the street lights and oncoming traffic.
2. a close up is then made of the police mans foot running across the bottom of the bush in the street.
3. are final shot is niyi coming out from under the bush and a zoom out of him under a street light frozen looking into the camera at an eye line angle

music will stop and exaggerate the long notes again

By Phoebe M

Screenshot of the email sent to the producer of one of our song choices

We found a good song by Nicki Minaj however we wanted to use the instrumental for this and the instrumental video we found from youtube was re-produced by someone else, which made it easier for me to contact the person. I emailed them asking for their permission to use the music they produced in our film opening and they got back to me saying that I could use it along with their song attached.

By Sophie C

Further research into the music we will be using

A song in particular that we liked was the instrumental to the song ‘Chiraq’ by Nicki Minaj.

I like this song in particular because:

• The instrumental will fit our film opening much better as if there was singing/rapping in it as well then this will take away the audience’s focus on the main character running away.
• The beat of the music has a lot of relevance/similarities to the beating of the heart as it is quite upbeat and this can help create our desired tense atmosphere.
• There are some parts of the music which are different to the rest such as 1:56 and this opens opportunities for us to explore different editing techniques so that it suits the change of music.
• The overall sound of the instrumental helps to represent the character as a ‘thug’ therefore making him look like the criminal who killed the man. (Although he is innocent)

Problems and solutions

The problem, however, with using this instrumental to the original song by Nicki Minaj is that we will have to get permission to use their music seeing as we have not produced it ourselves and it would be considered as copyright’. Since the song was re-produced by someone on ‘Soundcloud’, I thought our group may have a closer chance of being able to get permission to the music. I signed up for an account and emailed the producer of the instrumental to see if we could have permission to use their music in our film opening. We have also considered the idea of discussing with the music department if they would be willing to reproduce the first two minutes of the instrumental to the song so that we could record it and use it in our film opening. The problem with this, however, is whether they would agree to do it and how if they will be able to learn it and do it before December 15th. (Deadline day for our film opening)

Other possibilities/choices

I have also considered other possibilities of music to use in our film opening if the Nicki Minaj instrumental will cause a lot of problems for us. On youtube, there is an account where they produce their own music for movies and allow you to use their music if you ask for their permission and credit them.

Here is an example of some people asking to use their music

Some examples of their music that could fit into our film opening:

Although this song is completely different to the song above, I like it because it is quite dramatic and tense and the ending of it will suit the film opening perfectly. This is because when the wrongly accused victim looks up to see who was actually arrested, he can look shocked and the music in the background will quieten which will pull more focus towards his facial expression.

This song also fits the ending of the film opening, as mentioned earlier.

By Sophie C

Atmospheric Music for our coursework

By Phoebe.M

Phoebe Maloney's "A"level Media Blog

Ideally when adding music to our film opening we would like it to be instrumental and not upbeat. We also have found a music beat that would be great to add as it includes heartbeats that could be added to emphasis the emotions at the beginning when the person is dead, this also juxtaposes the dead person.

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