How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?- Jennifer Allan and Sophey Sommers and Artemis Karadimas

Video responce: first draft:

REVIEW

Evaluation

We have started on our evaluations and the bit we are doing as a group is mini commentary of how well all our products work together. We chose to film this using a green screen as we haven't used this before and we hope it will make it more visually interesting! 

Final Review - Artemis

When it comes to period dramas, they are often judged on their historical accuracy. The ones that are believable, credible and realistic are those that receive the highest ratings. We might have been forgiven in thinking that this was too great a task for Allan, Karadimas and Sommers to pull off, however in this case the sense of profundity, obscurity and setting is what makes it convincing. Forsaken flirts with both the power of patriarchy and gender representation in the 1930’s. As with their previous film ‘Asylum’, Sommers, Allan and Karadimas capture the thrilling element in their period drama skilfully.

Fragile mother Myrtle’s life is a portrait of the dominant ideology whereby women were seen as second class citizens to men. Acclaimed actress Katie Sommers plays a woman of the 1930’s effortlessly, not questioning her husband about the sudden demise of her child and acting pretty hopelessly in general. Her perturbed expression and cluelessness allow the story to go on, as her actions enable George (Edward Johnson) to get away with such an iniquitous and immoral act. She portrays the submissive dependent mother with ease and grace as we see the story from her point of view and feel with her the emotional roller-coaster she is on, going back and forth between the past and present. Although it has to be said it is difficult to feel sorry for Myrtle under the circumstances when she asks no questions, giving the impression of her naivety. Would we like to believe that put in that situation we would have seen the bigger picture? Or perhaps we might have been just the same, defeated and accepting of the sometimes cruel hurdles life has to throw at us. 

Johnson applied the phlegmatic and ruthless exterior you would expect a man to have had in the 1930’s that allows him to make the deplorable decision of putting his son secretly into an institution for the mentally ill. His lack of emotion imitates the patriarchal ideology set in the 30’s without flaw. Some may say that he was a little too convincing in his role, stating very matter of fact that his only child had died, deceiving his wife so dexterously and only offering her his cold hard shoulder in her time of need and comfort. The cliff-hanger ending enhances the story, leaving the audience with enigmas and increasing the depth of darkness.

Whilst we may have seen this kind of story before in the past film ‘The Lost Prince’, ‘Forsaken’ depicts a classic tale of deceit and lies, intertwined with love and power handsomely. A mix of history and the ever lasting issue of abandonment compliment this film perfectly. It makes for one of those narratives which poignancy has a lasting impression, long after the final shot. 

Word count: 462

Near to the end.. - Artemis

• We have nearly finished our final film and things that have worked well and don't need improving are the colour and quality of the picture - at first we were unhappy that we couldn't film with a HD camera but the normal camera give the final finish an old and antique feel. The colour also has a sepia feel to it which increases the sense of period. 
• Our title sequence fits in with the time period because it is simple and we used a classic font and colour. We wanted to be a bit more ambitious and have splats of ink to relate to the idea of a letter but decided that this looked too modern for our film. 
• The sound is looking good too, the pieces of music we have intertwined with the diagetic sound add emotion to the footage and story. However we still need to edit the volume to make it a bit louder in some parts. 

FINAL POSTER - ARTEMIS

• In the end we decided that just a plain white font would look best and stand out more. 
• We also decided to to have the film icons in black and overlay them on top of the boy's white shirt so they can be seen clearly. 
• We aligned all the text so it had some sort of order and looked neat.
• We used classic fonts to represent the period we were portraying which was the 1930's.
• The grainy texture and sepia colour were also done to represent this. 

Finished Product

Here is a final video on YouTube

Review Draft - Artemis

When it comes to period dramas, they are often rated based on how accurate they are. The ones that are believable, credible and realistic are those that receive the most credit. We might have been forgiven in thinking that this was too great a task for Jennifer Allan, Sophey Sommers and Artemis Karadimas to pull off, however in this case the sense of profundity, obscurity and setting is what makes it convincing.

Fragile mother Myrtle (Katie Sommers) plays a woman of her time effortlessly, not questioning her husband about the sudden demise of her child and acting pretty hopelessly in general. Her perturbed expression and cluelessness allow the story to go on, as her actions enable George (Edward Johnson) to get away with such an iniquitous and immoral act. We see the story from her point of view and feel with her the emotional rollercoaster she is on, as we go up and down in the past and present memories of her life.

Johnson applied the phlegmatic and ruthless exterior you would expect a man to have had in the 1930’s that allows him to make the deplorable decision of putting his son secretly into an institution for the mentally ill. Only in this period would you find he would have had the power and control over the situation.

The cliff-hanger ending enhances the story, leaving the audience with enigmas and increasing the depth of darkness. It makes for one of those narratives that leave you thinking for a long time after.

*this is only half of it!

Ancillary Task (Poster) Research - Artemis

• These two images show the main characters and their painful expressions indicating to the audience that this is a dramatic love story.  They are also more a less the same size, so one is not dominating over the other, which implies they are equal.
• The title font is typewriter like which relates to the film because in it the protagonist male character writes the protagonist female character a letter using a typewriter. It also gives a hint to the time period. The type of font I think we should use would be a calligraphy type font because in our film we have a letter using it and it would connect the film and poster.
• In the bottom image we can see the male is wearing a green outfit and bag implying he's in the army and also he looks dirty which emphasizes this. This suggests to me that this is what the story might be about. The two lovers separated by war..
•  I like the idea of doing something similar in our poster because it connects the two characters. Plus in the title you can see an image of another character suggesting that this story might involve a third party. 
• We can see that this film is from the director of 'Pride and Prejudice' which is a period drama too so this again suggests it was not set in modern day. 
• I can see from the poster it is based on a book which tells me the targeted audience is more likely to adults because they would be more likely to have read the book. Also it seems to have war in it, which would be more appropriate for adults.

•  The overall layout of the text and background is quite messy which indicates that is how her life is..
• From this shot we can also see her in her natural surroundings which seems to be her bedroom. The drawings on the wall and rips tell me that she is perhaps lower class because it looks quite old and dirty. 
• Because the character is also looking away and out what seems to be a window, I get the impression that she is dreaming of better things because she has this longing expression on her face yet we can see she is unhappy with what might be her current life. 
• It also suggests that this is a social realist film because of the bright, slightly desaturated colour telling me that the audience it's targeted for is more likely to be lower/middle class and British because they could relate more.  

 

• The smart font and dark background suggest this film is a thriller or drama. This is also reinforced by the body language and facial expressions of the 3 characters. Their costumes are quite smart and the dark shadows on the males face suggest he is out for vengeance or is angry..
• 'Thrilling', 'A Masterpiece' and 'Spellbinding' also imply that this is a thriller or perhaps drama. 
• This film is based on a 60's novel which tells me that it is more likely to be targeted towards adults because they would have read the novel. It also explains why the women are standing behind the man, because in the 60's women we were still came after the men. 
• The ratings being from well known and popular British newspaper show the audience it is a British film as does the background and title.

Poster Draft - Artemis

 

This is another poster idea. In the beginning I decided to just have the one image but then I decided that Myrtles character is more of the main character. The story is from her point of view so I wanted her to be on the poster to. I liked the idea of blending the images together because it represents how they aren't directly with one another but are connected in some way. The only thing I need to do now is add an age rating. 
 

 

•  This is my draft for the film poster. It isn't finished yet. I plan on adding another image of Katie (Myrtle) at the top which will be similar to the bottom image in size, colour and expression. This is to show how the characters connect.
•  I decided on a sepia, brownish colour for the overall tone because it is set in the 1930's and I tried to reinforce this by trying to make the poster look authentic and old. Plus we have the whole film set in this tone of colour which is what we did when we edited.
• I took a picture of Kosta (Benjamin) outside because his surroundings in the film are a bit all over the place. In the film he doesn't really belong anywhere concrete, seeing as his father sends him off to a mental institution. 
• The idea for the title came from the fact that Benjamin's whereabouts are revealed in a letter so I tried to make it look like an old letter in calligraphic writing on top of some old brown paper similar to the letter in the film.
• I did think about blurring the images of Katie and Kosta instead of having the title separate them, however I thought the title would be better because in the film the two characters are separated by something. 

Editing Process

• We have finished our rough cut. To create an aged atmosphere we added a sepia effect to all our shots. 
• To show how our scenes go from the past to the present (in the time period of the 1940's) we added in a cross fading transition which fades between the 2 shots. This gives it a really nice feel and emphasizes the emotion in the story.
• We also have the problem of hearing traffic in the background of some of our shots so we are going to get rid of it and add in some rural noises either through garage band or from our own recordings.

Title Ideas

We weren't completely satisfied with the title 'Forsaken' so we came up with some new possible titles.

• Letters 
• Abandoned
• Disowned
• Outcast
• Crestfallen
• Shamed

Second Day Of Filming

Taking a break..

A lot of our shots were hand held

Shooting our first scene where Myrtle finds the letter!

Jenny behind the camera!

The filming!- Sophey Sommers

The filming went well, Artemis and myself did a good job just being two of us; it was hard work trying to do the lighting and having ( sorry to say) the worst equipment in the world. 

We had to re-shoot everything, because we where given a different camera last minute. 

I am really disappointed with the whole equipment thing; on our first time shooting it went really well the camera and most of the other equipment was great, it’s just a shame we had to use a bad camera.

Shots we learnt from - Jenny & Artemis

Last week we shot 2 scenes and then edited the footage together. I think what worked well was the fact we had a lot of footage to work with and had a variety of angles, shots etc. However because of the time period we are setting it in, there has to be a lot of work put into the props and setting etc. Unfortunately we missed out a few things like fire extuinguishers that were on the wall and small things like that that broke up the continuity and showed it wasn't in the 1930's - 40's. We are going to need to film some of these shots again.

We think that this shot was particularly successful because the high angle enables the audience to see the setting and because it's quite big it creates a sombre atmosphere. 

We also like this shot however there is a lack of continuity with the radio because in this shot it's at the side yet in the next shot it's by the window. We also didn't think about the fire extinguisher which they wouldn't have had in those days. However we do like the dark lighting and the fact that a silhouette was created because this carries on the eery ambience. Also the cinematography worked well because the long shot showed off the big hallway and emphasized the atmosphere. 

This shot was quite bad because in it we can see the scaffolding which wouldn't have been present in the 1930's - 40's. We also managed to cut off the top of the female characters head so  the framing was unsuccessful. 
Next time we go to re shoot this luckily all of the paint and scaffolding will be gone so hopefully it will be easier to reshoot. 
We will also keep an extra eye out for things like fire extinguishers and any other objects that might affect the continuity and were not in that time period. 
What also needs improving is the lighting in some of the shots. In many cases it was too dark and this was because we were only all available to film in the evening. Seeing as half term is coming up we are going to be able to shoot during the day.

LIGHTING - Artemis

• We have decided for the most part that we want to work with the natural light in each setting, however this could cause silhouettes so we are going to use portable lighting . In the main hall area, there are quite a few windows and its very spacious so it should be quite bright. 
• We may need to use a bit of lighting when it becomes dark because even though we want the darkness to represent the bad news ahead and create a solemn atmosphere we still need to see the action!
• For the attic scene we do need to use lighting because there is much of a light source so a big torch or maybe even a red head. We will use a diffuser as well to ensure it all looks natural. 

One of the films we are looking too for ideas was Atonement. We like how the lighting is quite bright and a bit de-saturated. It creates a sense of realism and matches with the time period and costumes etc. This picture below is the kind of light and airy ambiance we want to create for the daytime scenes before Benjamin goes to the hospital. 
The image above is the kind of low lighting we like. It highlights the female character and expression because the light hits her face just slightly and the male character is standing in the shadowy background. We were thinking about doing this for when Myrtle finds out Benjamin has died. The scene will still be dark but at the same time enable the audience to focus on her emotion.

REPRESENTATION - Artemis

Our film is going to be set in the 1930's so we need to take into account how women and men were represented in those days. 

• The dominant ideology was that women were very much 2nd class citizens to men and society didn't accept the working mother - only the working spinster. 
• Society's expectation was that a woman's only goal in life was to marry, reproduce, cook and clean. This was reinforced by images in the media of women doing households jobs with a smile on their faces. 
• This is why we have decided to have the Father character, George make the heartbreaking decision of sending his son away to a mental institution and pretending he had died. Women in this time period didn't have much of a voice and this represents that. 
• The Mother character, Myrtle will also be seen as the stereotypical housewife and we will make this clear by having her cooking and cleaning and being at the house all the time whereas George will be absent for some scenes and it will be assumed that that is because he is at work.

SOUND - Artemis

The non-diegetic sound for a film enhances and adds the atmosphere of whats going on in the moving image.

To create a stillness and add to the devastating atmosphere we have decided that a slow piece of music should be for the non-diegetic sound. We looked at several films which have the same sort of strong narratives and are set in different time periods and not in the present to get ideas. 

Atonement was one of those films. It is a romantic drama with a sad ending which is set in the 1930's, so it sort of relates to our film and what were trying to portray.

This piece called 'Elegy For Dunkirk' is played in Atonement. It's very sad and slow - it builds up slightly in areas and creates this emotional ambiance. We thought a sound similar to this would be perfect for some of the more distressing scenes like the scene where Myrtle finds out her son has died and then the shots of her crying and packing up Benjamin's things.

 'Liz on top of the world' is from the film Pride and Prejudice. I like the way it starts of quite quietly and slowly and builds up. This one doesn't have that hint of gloominess to it but I can see it linking in quite nicely and fitting to that time period. Something like this would be good for the scenes we have in mind of the young boy Benjamin playing in the garden because we want to create this happy yet mysterious atmosphere. By building up the soundtrack it increases the tension and indicates something isn't right which is what were looking for. 

This piece 'The Living Sculptures' is also from Pride and Prejudice but it much more gradual. I can imagine this piece creating a sort of eerie atmosphere and enhancing the grief of the scene where Myrtle is crying in her chair and then packing up Benjamin's belongings - I really think a sound like this would be great in helping us create this heartbroken ambience and almost desolate atmosphere. 

For the scene where Benjamin will be playing in the garden our ambient sound will include birds and wind because he will be outside. Because most of the other scenes will be shot inside and things like TV's and washing machines etc. won't have been invented there wont be any additional sound added to the original footage. It will only be the diegetic sound that we hear like the dialogue. 

We've thought about getting our soundtrack either through garage band or through recording sopheys sister play the piano because she's really good. 

Anamatic

 

There were to many shots to include in our storyboard but when the dialogue is being said, the shots will be shot/reverse shot. This is written in the post of the shots lists which also includes the dialogue.

Short film basics - Artemis

We have discussed as a group the type of film we want to make and came up with the following:

• Genre/Style - Period Drama/ Thriller
• Narrative - 1930's Drama about a boy and his parents. The boy develops schizophrenia and the dad sends him away to a mental institution but tells everybody he died because in them days to have a child with a problem would have shamed the family. Years later the mother finds out and goes to find her son. 
• Representation - Our characters are going to be of an upper class. The boy will be 8 and the parents from 30-40 years of age. We decided on upper class because they would have had the means to pull something like this in the past - much easier than citizens of a lower class. 
• Target Audience - Even though this is set in the past, we still want our audience to be able to relate to the characters and the emotions they portray. So our audience is going to be adults and in particular parents. 
• Mise en Scene - 

Lighting will be quite bright and the colour of the footage we will edit and de-saturate slightly to give it that period drama feel. 

The building we have chosen to shoot in is quite old and perfect for this period. It's quite grand so to represent them being higher class. 

To make it realistic we have sorted out costumes for our actors to wear. Things like a suit for the dad and shirt and trousers for the young boy. We have also got some props to add to the setting like an old radio and some toys they would have had in the 1930's.

• Key shots - This short film is going to be about the emotion as it's quite a strong narrative. To portray this fully to the audience there will be a lot of close-ups with a shallow depth of field so to concentrate fully on the expressions and emotions of the characters. 
• We have also included in a few point of the view shots - we feel this will help the audience empathize with the situation and not just the characters individually because in a way this will put the audience in that position.