Editing update #2

We had Mr Corby and Mr Benzie look at what we had done so far and we got some positive feedback. The main concern was the lack of sense it made with direction. Characters would be running one way and then another way the next. We flipped some of the clips over so it was obvious to the viewer that the characters were running in one direction. There was also some talk about the first scene where Clyde smacks Eugene across the face. We were in fear of breaching the 180° rule but with the same idea as before we just flipped over the clips needed for the shots to make sense. I also played around with suitable fonts for titles and credits. For "Fatal Error" I found the font I used for the posters because it is such an iconic font and seems to fit our gritty yet comedic theme.

 

We also got Mr Corby to take a look at our intro as he told us there was an easier way of doing what we wanted to achieve. I liked the idea of the silhouette being an eclipse of the light flare shining through the frame which. We got the effect we wanted and it was much smoother. I added a Lomo Cyan filter over the video to give it a gritty, vintage feel because it was starting to look more like a home movie and I wanted to get a colour scheme that would be different to any of the other film openings. The effect looks really good in some scenes but in others it is not so noticeable but I suppose that is down the the fact that i have spent week upon week sat tirelessly at a computer looking over the clips.

Posters

After our first day of filming I started playing with editing the photos we took behind the scenes to try and capture the theme of the film. I made several posters but decided to choose the one with Clyde opposing Eugene with guns drawn witht the text "FATAL ERROR" in the centre.

I chose this one because the poster of just Eugene is too reminicent of the show "Mad Men" or "The Godfather" and seemed to serious and gangster film. Another one I made had Dave in the standing centre between Clyde and Dave , gaily gesturing a "Talk to the hand" or "Back off" with his hand to Clyde. I may have used this if he had done the same thing to Eugene instead but it made no sense doing it the way he had done. It also gave the impression that he was the protagonist. With the poster I have chosen we can see the title clearly, both the main Antagonist and Protagonist and credits to all the people who worked on the film.

Production Logo

Will came up with the idea to have a silhouette of an archer as our logo and call our production company "Bowman Productions". We are not sure what meaning this has but will has come up with the name for his character and the name of the film and both are great so we have faith in him with this. I guess the message from our production company would be that we are much like an arrow, moving forward and meeting the target perfectly dead centre, or so we should hope to think. Bex went home and designed the logo on her computer then sent it to me to edit into our film. The animation I chose for the intro is a lens flare and radial blur which creates the effect of the archer shadowing the light from infront of it as the frame zooms out from the face of the archer. It then transitions into a still image of our logo and the title "Bowman Productions". We think it fits well and I am glad we did not have to resort to using our combined initials as a Production name.

BBFC

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is funded by the film industry and is a non governmental orginisation (meaning they work independantly). They are responsible for the national classification and censorship of films within the United Kingdom.

They give each film they review a certificate rating.The ratings that they use are in the table below...

Our film rating:

We decided our film , 'Fatal Error' falls under the category of 12A due to it's scenes of imitable behaviour with firearms and mild torture in the begining of the film. Some viewers may find some scenes disturbing but undertones of comedy and humour throughout the film is what brings the film down to a 12A.

Here is what follows in our film which should explain why we have given our film a 12A certificate rating.

Our rating does not affect our target audience as we set it primarly for males under the age of 35 with a secondary audience of females under the same age. They would still be able to watch this film providing they were 12 years old or over.

Mise En Scene

Bloopers

I made a short compilation of behind the scenes photos, videos and bloopers we could all look at. Here is what we have gotten up to over our weekend of filming.

2nd day of filming (November 25th)

The crew met up at my house in West Torrington. We managed to get a lot filmed before it got dark and we were already used to using the camera so the day went by smoothly. We decided to re-film the final scene of the film down a narrow passage at a corn dryers plant next door. We did have to change the location of the opening scene due to heavy rain from the night before completley flooding the set.

1st day of filming (November 24th)

We all went to Osgodby to film the various chase scenes and final scene. We got a lot of footage and the location for the film was perfect. The weather wasn't that bad except the rain from the night before meant most of us went home with ruined shoes and drenched trousers. Overall everything went smoothly and we did well to film everything without the camera batteries dying on us.

Editing update #3

After several weeks of editing we have have come to the final stages of finishing our film. Our main concerns have been the music and transitioning. We have a piece of music that fits perfectly with the arrangement of clips we have and the timing is great. Our problem with this though is the rise to the track has a lot of eery horror style synths that make the music seem out of place. I have done my best to cover this up by blending another track over the first few seconds of our song. It seems to fit in much better than it used to. We had some problems when it came to transitioning as we used a lot of fade to black cuts which was very effective at some points but the overall use of them was overkill and we had to tone down the use of fade cuts. We decided we would cut the zipline scene at osgodby completley due to time slots and the fact that it did not suit the film as best as we originally thought it would. Another thing we cut was the wink from eugene that broke the 4th wall. We thought it was too cheesey as well as his ending one liner " Do you know how to spell death?". It seemed like a good idea at the time because it had an inside meaning to us that we found histerical but it seemed like poorley written dialogue to anyone else. So we changed it when we got up to the final scene to " you forgot one thing..." and then Eugene whips his pistol out quickly. George and Will thought it would be a good idea to add black and white freeze frames to introduce the characters in the opening scenes. We went forward with this idea and added them as well as titles that fade in. Eugene's title card shows his name beside him whether as Clyde and Dave show only their actors names as they are not main characters in the film but are crucial to the opening scenes.

Group & Genre

I am in a group of 4 with George Griffiths, Rebecca Scuffam and Will De Ath. We are all friends so I feel comfortable in the group and we like the same kinds of films which is why we have chosen the genre we have.  We have decided on making an action comedy film which is something that is very uncommon when it comes to student films. Films that are typically like what I have gotten inspiration from are "Snatch" and "Hot Fuzz". "Snatch" is seen more as a gangster film but on the broader spectrum of genres it is seen as a comedy action.

I searched for action comedy student films on YouTube  but found nothing. I watched some comedy student films and action student films to pick up what looks good and what looks cliche and cheesy. I understand that to avoid meeting cliches or making it look like some awful ,half-hearted and cheesy action film then we will have to cover each scene thoroughly and look over anything that might make the film look unprofessional.

Action comedies will usually have some black comedy e.g in 'Hot Fuzz' the deaths are particularly gruesome and violent but they're still quite funny anyway. I want to contain elements of action but still have the film opening  as an overall comedy so it doesn't drift off into a completely serious action film.

The typical storyline of an action film will have the protagonist in an equilibrium and then a problem will emerge that they have to overcome. We want to grasp the concept of a character with goals and morals but without revealing too much.

risk assesment

shooting schedule

shot list

storyboard

This was a very early variation of our script and scenes have changed to suit the genre we set it at.



Our opening begins with a panning shot of Eugene (Will De ath) tied to a chair.
Clyde (Kain Stones) then walks up and slaps Eugene in the face.

Clyde then walks in another room

 to talk to Dave (George Griffiths) about Eugene.

 

 

Clyde then walks through to the interrogation room to see that Eugene has escaped

and we see him running across the horizon still tied to his chair.

A quick shot montage of Clyde and Dave is shown before they run after Eugene.
Then we see Eugene running and falling over out of frame.

Eugene emerges from the bottom of the frame as he takes the ropes and tape off himself and sorts his clothes out. we then see a long shot of Clyde and Dave chasing Eugene across the countryside.

A montage of various chase scene shots are thrown together quickly to create a sense of rush and panic. we then see a shot of Clyde looking confused as he stops and stares at Eugene.

Eugene then leaps onto what we think is a huge zipline

above a ravine or gap of some sort.

It cuts to a long shot of Eugene stuck on a childrens zipline at a park.

Dave and Clyde look upon will , confused before they run after him.

 

 

Eugene runs into a dead end and is blocked by Clyde and Dave at gunpoint.

Clyde delivers a threat towards Eugene and awaits his response.

A close up of will is shown and he turns to the camera, pulls down his

glasses and winks at the audience.

The film title then flashes on the screen and fades to black.

Cast and characters.

Eugene (Will De Ath): Is the protaganist in our film played by Will De Ath. He is captured, presumably tortured and pursued by the 2 antagonists "Clyde & Dave". His ability to remain calm in such a difficult and traumatic situation shows he is proficient with his job and the lifestyle that comes with it. His fashion sense is questionable which adds a lot of enigma to the character. He wears a western style hat, Aviator sunglasses, a grey blazer and black trousers. At the end of the film opening we see that Eugene had a trick up his sleeve all along which brings about the idea that he didn't kill them because he was being kind. It brings up the idea that our protaganist may be a dark horse with dangerous potential which sets the tone for character development. It is almost like David Tennant's portrayl of the 10th Doctor in Doctor Who. A kind and professional gentlemen who holds his wrath back as he knows he has sinister and truly dark potential but remains calm until he has no choice.

Clyde (Kain Stones): Is the main antagonist of our  film opening. He is also portrayed by me. He is the most professional villain of the two and it is obvious he gets irritated by his partner's inability to do anything properly. He is a violent person but with a sense of mercy and morality as he lets Eugene live in order to gain the information we are wondering about when the film starts. He wears a smart almost millitary style black jacket, black trousers,black shoes,black jumper and black gloves. This is not because our character has a very strong love for black clothing but it creates the tone that the character is a dark and maybe disturbed individual. I got inspiration from generic bad guys in Guy Ritchie films and also the way Tom Hardy portrayed Charlie Bronson in 'Bronson'. He comes across as a charming guy, quite patronising but has the power to do brutal things if he wanted to.

Dave (George Griffiths) Is played by George Griffiths and is the secondary antagonist in our film. He is the partner in crime to our very serious villain and the comic relief of the film. His childlike personality and goofy charm is the kind one would expect from a secondary protaganist in a 'Buddy Movie' which is unique as he is the secondary antagonist with these qualities.  From what we can see he is very unprofessional and lacks the skills required to do the work he does. It raises the question, why is he there anyway? We are never truly introduced to any of the characters so it could be both the antagonists are forced to work with each other or maybe they are both related somehow. He dresses similarly to Clyde which could show that Dave looks up to him or tries to replicate his fashion sense. Dave wears a smart black jacket, black jeans and brown shoes. He is not dressed profesionally which is another reason for the audience to question how he got into such a dangerous profession. It creates enigma within itself as he might also have qualities we do not see in the opening scene.