Unit 3: How we created meaning in the film

The opening scene of “Live For The Weekend” starts with the camera following “Chloe”, the protagonist. This was done to show the viewer immediately who the main character is and also to make an initial connection - we are seeing Chloe’s group of friends from her perspective.

Films such as Project X and 21 Jump street (which have similar storylines and fall into the same genre as our film), usually start with titles interrupting the first scene. We decided to use this within our film to meet this convention.

The first titles flash up in time with the dance music which starts whilst Chloe is still in her bedroom. This was done to shift the mood into ‘party/night out’ rather than ‘school’. The music builds as Chloe gets ready (builds up) to going out.

The jump cuts of Chloe whilst she is on her bed are to show the passing of time (the gap between school and going out in the evening), showing that she is just doing nothing for all that time rather than something useful (gives us an initial idea of the kind of person she is).

As the party starts the colours of the shot are generally ‘warm’. This is because we wanted to present a positive, happy atmosphere. The characters are having fun and ‘kicking back’ after a ‘long week’ at school.

Slow motion is used during the party, with a shaky, handheld camera with shots sometimes at angles. These techniques were used to show the effects of alcohol as the party goes on. The characters are going crazy, they don’t always feel in control.

The party scene then suddenly cuts to black then into Chloe’s bedroom, this shows the how drunk Chloe got that she doesn’t remember going from the party to home.

When Chloe is talking to her Dad in the entrance we used over-shoulder shots, these are conventional of “Drama” films and make the viewer feel like they are with the character being talked too - almost like they are peering over there shoulder!

Establishing shots are used at the start of most scenes to allow the viewer to understand the location of where the scene is taking place.

Shakey, handheld cameras are used at the park, this was done to show how the group no longer care what they are doing or really who sees them. It shows how it is informal amongst the group of friends. Extreme close-ups are used when the characters take the drugs. This was done to emphasise what is happening to the viewer as it is a key moment in the storyline.

The next morning when Chloe wakes up, the camera is placed level to the bed with parts of the frame in the way, a shallow depth of field has been used to blue the bed frame and focusing on Chloe. I did this because I wanted to the viewer to feel like they were ‘peaking’ in on this private moment, to make it feel more realistic as Chloe gets up, she is not ‘performing’ for the camera.

When Chloe ‘sneaks’ to get drinks I chose to film this whole section as one shot whilst following her from close behind. The character looks around as if she doesn’t want to be seen. With us (the viewer) following close behind without any cuts, it feels like we are ‘with’ Chloe. This connects us with Chloe, making us not want to be caught. Once the drinks have been successfully sourced the return journey out of the kitchen focuses on the drinks Chloe has sourced - signifying ‘objective achieved’.

As the group make there way up onto the moor, slow motion and sad music start to play. This juxtaposes the mood of the scene which is supposed to be ‘happy’ or ‘excited’, this was done to foreshadow what was to come. When the shot crops in on the phone (in time with the music), this was done as the ‘first clue’, to what was about to happen between Chloe and her father. As the scene continues footage of Chloe stumbling towards the road is cut in between shots of her father driving, this is to show the two characters coming together (the build-up to the climax).

The film finishes with a sudden cut to black with car crash sound effects - to make it obvious to the viewer what has happened, we were unable to record an actual crash in our film for safety reasons, so we did this as the best way of simulating it.

Unit 3: How the film was edited

My work on how the film was edited by Alex:

Alex edited the film in Adobe Premiere Pro CC, bins were used to organise the footage:

The clips were assembled on the timeline and cut down using the Razor tool:

Colour correction was done using the Lumetri Colour panel:

As our graphics were quite simple, we thought there was no need to use Adobe After Effects, so we simply used the 'essential graphics' panel within Premiere Pro:

The audio was inserted onto the timeline and levels adjusted using the mixer and audio effects panel:

Unit 3: How our conforms to the Genre

My work on how "Live For The Weekend" conforms to the "Drama" Genre:

Our film is a "Drama". This means it should exhibit a real-life situation with realistic characters which we see develop throughout the film.

The Protagonist "Chloe" is a school girl that is bored of her studies and just wants to have fun with her friends. As the film continues we see her developing into someone who no longer cares, she starts to take risks with drugs - this storyline follows the main conventions that make up a 'Drama' film.

"Drama" films should also involve some social interaction, have some conflict and a storyline which plays on the emotion of the viewer. Our character meets her friends on multiple occasions and is often offered drugs from the boys. Initially, she and Nikki are against this, however, the boys win over Chloe. This is something that eventually leads to her death and the close of the film.

The film also uses some technical conventions that are common in "drama films" - handheld camera work is used in multiple scenes to create a sense of realism - that we as the viewer were just following someone around the 'real life'.

Often, "Drama" films can be cross-genre. Meaning they conform to more than one genre. Our film could be described as a Tragedy, as 'many horrible events' do occur to our protagonist.

Unit 3: How the exported media product meets the brief

Our film, "Live For The Weekend", successfully meets all aspects of the brief.

The brief states that our film should:

• be a "Short Narrative Film" that runs for a "Maximum of 15 minutes" - our film runs for 00:08:37. It follows the story of a young character over a weekend telling the story of the events that took place. 
• it should be able to be entered for an "Independent Directions Film Festival", be made in a "maximum group size of three" and be of a "recognisable film genre" - our film was made by three students with no support from any production company. It is a short "Drama" film. 
• each member should have "specific roles within the group" and "be original and produced by us" - I took the role of Director of Photography and Sound, Alex was Editor, and Patrick was the Director. All content in the was made by ourselves aside from the music and SFX, these were sourced from a copyright free site.
• The target audience for our film was young people. Our film is suitable for this audience because it contains young characters (all teenagers) who want to party at the weekends and who are a bit bored of school. Young people will be able to relate to this, making them more likely to watch it. We believe this will be true because of similar programmes such as The Inbetweeners which have proved very popular in the past.
• The final video is in mp4 format in h.264, this makes it suitable for uploading to the internet and viewable across most video playback devices. This format also makes it suitable to be edited into promotional material that could be shared on social media. The final film was exported in Full 1080P HD meaning it would be suitable to play at a festival on a larger screen and still appear to be good quality.

The film conforms to the "Drama" Genre by:

• The film conforms to the "Drama" genre in multiple ways as our film follows many typical conventions. The film follows a young girl living her life as a teenager. We see the girl amongst friends and in various environments where young people traditionally 'hang out' such as a park scene, in friends houses and the bedroom. This results in very naturalistic acting which is expected within a Drama film. 
• Various shot types usually seen in a Drama film were used in our film. We used many long shots to establish the scenes, this is best seen in our park scene, it establishes the location and places our main character in the location - helping the viewer understand what is happening. 

• We also used Extreme Close-Ups throughout the drug taking scenes, these were done to exaggerate what was taking place - to make it obvious to the viewer what was happening. 

• During each scene, the film uses multiple camera angles from different positions around the characters (it wasn't just a fixed camera) - this ads 'realism' to the scene, it doesn't feel like we are on a set. 
• The titles of the film break up the first scene with a black screen and white text. This is a conventional way to start a drama film but also a way we picked up from the research of "party" films such as "21 jump street" which follow a similar genre to what our film was based around.

Unit 3: The Final Cut - Live For The Weekend

The final film - "Live For The Weekend":

Unit 3: Rough Cut 4 - Live For The Weekend

Alex (The Editor) has now added the music and stylised the titles. 

There are a few cuts that we want to tidy up within the film before it will be finished.

Unit 3: Rough Cut 3 - Live for The Weekend

I conducted research into how films of a similar drama genre to ours use titles at the start of our film. In '21 Jump Street', a film that we have used previously to gain inspiration from. The titles 'interrupt' the first scene with a black screen with titles overlaying this.

I passed this research onto Alex Hargraves (The editor) and he has put placeholders into our film of where the titles will cut in. In this cut he has also adjusted the colour corrections further - this is now complete. 

Before the Final Cut, we still want to adjust the style of the titles (as they are currently in default font) and also add the music that we have for the film. 

Unit 3: Rough Cut 2 - Live For The Weekend

In the second cut of "Live For The Weekend", Alex Hargraves has started colour correction on the film to make the shots look more appealing. This was done by tweaking each of the individual shots to make sure the adjustments were made specific to each scene that had different lighting. The correction was done in Premiere Pro using the Lumetri colour panel.

There is still more work to do: titles need to be added and music for the party scene and wood scene.

Unit 3: Music - Live For The Weekend

Various scenes in the film we are producing require music to fit with the storyline. For example the party scene and moor scene.

Patrick was tasked with creating music, he initially attempted to make some of his own music using Garageband but after several iterations, we still didn't think the music sounded realistic enough for use within the film.

Party Music 1:

We thought this clip was too repetitive and didn't really have any builds or drops suitable for dancing too at a party.

Party Music 2:




Whilst this track had an increased tempo better for dancing too at a drunken party we still thought it was too repetitive for the story in our film. We needed something to build with a slow tempo from the start and result in a fast dance song with drops etc.

Party Music 3:



Whilst this sample fitted the storyline of our film a little better (it builds slowly) we still weren't happy with how 'realistic' it sounded. It didn't sound like a dance track teens would play at a party.

Party Music 4:



This track was our best yet, we were happy that it started at the right pace and built up to an increased temp that fitted our storyline. We also thought it sounded much more realistic. This was a track we decided we could 'fall back on' if we couldn't come up with anything better before the final film.

Whilst we were editing the film we contacted Producer Tom Zanetti and enquired to see if it would be possible to use some of his music within our film. His management team responded within a few days and gave us permission to use the tracks 'You Want Me', 'Darlin'' and 'More and More', so we decided to use these within the film.

I sourced some 'sad' music for the closing scene for the film from copyright free music site bensound.com. They state the music is fine to use for non-commercial use as long as they are credited (which we will do in the credits). 

The sound effect for the car collision at the end of the film was picked up from freesound.org, who have a similar policy to bensound.