Evaluation Q1: How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do they represent social groups or issues?

Evaluation Q3: How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products?

Evaluation Q2: How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

Evaluation Q5: How Successful Were Your Products?

Trailer

Final Website

http://cmiseroy.wix.com/drops

Film: Final product editing

The feedback we received with regards to our first draft indicated (as we expected) that it did not produce a profound emotional impact on the audience. It occurred to us that this was likely due to a lack of symbolic coding or representations.
To correct this we made the creative decision to film in the desert, where the footage would be edited over Kamel speaking about the roots of his passion for skateboarding.
In order to produce footage which would aid in emphasizing the emotive nature of this segment, Joe colour corrected the footage in order to achieve this effect:




We also made changes to the discourse of the narrative, breaking the skating up into segments between close ups of Kamel speaking during the interview

This also included lowering the volume of the soundtrack whilst the voiceover is audible, in order to maintain a clear and cohesive atmosphere and avoid distracting from the narrative.

The image below shows the highlighted clips that are solely skateboarding footage, demonstrating how we have segmented the discourse of the film. 

To conclude our film we decided to end the discourse at the same point as the intro featuring an unknown skateboarder in the desert. this not only follows Todorovs theory of equilibrium, as our research found to be conventional, but also allows for viewers to relate Kamels passion to their own personal ambitions. 

The Mad Buddha logo is also featured in order to generate a stronger sense of branding within this product, by linking it to our postcard and website which features the same logo

Website Process

To make the website, we made use of 'Wix', an online service which provides basic, highly customisable website design templates, which grants users a high degree of creative control over the product without the need for knowledge of coding.

The images below show the general process for the creation of the website.

Home Page:

About Page:

Cast Page:

Music Page:

Social Media Page:

Audience Feedback: "Drops" first draft

"Drops" first draft

This is the first draft for our short film. Whilst it effectively conveys Kamels subjective experiences and has a large amount of skateboarding footage, we felt as a group that it did not produce the intended emotional impact on the audience, which we aim to correct in our final draft.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyz01XPHdRM

Editing First Draft

Due to our familiarity with Final Cut Pro X we decided to use this software as our group would most effectivdly be able to make use of it.

When editing the interview we had to sync the audio with the video, as we made two separate recordings on two cameras, one with a microphone attached, and another handheld with a prime 50mm f/1.8, which created a soft bokeh effect, as well as generating cinema verisimilitude, due to the slight destabilisation involved with the handheld shot.

We made use of the trim tool in order to match up the soundwaves visible below the clips, making the process of syncing fairly simple.

Final Postcard

This is our final postcard design. The silhouetting of the subject against a strongly coloured background creates a sense of ambiguity whilst still maintaining strong positive connotations .

Editing Postcard

original image:

When editing the image for the post card, we used adobe photoshop in  order to correct the over exposure and lack of saturation of the sky, as well as the under exposure of the subject (skateboarder).

We imported the image into the software, using a canvas size of 8 x 12 inches (generically conventional size of film postcards). We enhanced the colours of the sunset in order to match the golden colour scheme across our other products in order to promote a strong sense of branding and we decreased the exposure to make the colours appear more prominent in comparison to the rest of the image.

Edited image:

Filming: behind the scenes 2

We focused on capturing the interview which we filmed at Kamels old university, CNAQ in order to generate a reminiscent atmosphere. The interview was captured making use of two camera setups, one mounted on a tripod with a rode mic, situated next to Kamel, in order to maximise audio quality and the other was manned by Joe over the course of the interview. It was set up with a prime 50mm f/1.8 which produced an aesthetically pleasing soft bokeh effect, donating to the emotional nature of the interview.

Filming behind the scenes

On our first day of filming we focused on capturing skateboarding footage at Qatars only skatepark, at Qatar Foundation. We made use of both long tracking shots making use of a zoom lens mounted on a tripod as well as follow shots through a fisheye lens mounted on an x grip (1st image).

The image above shows Kamel approaching the coping to perform a grind, with me filming making use of the fish eye lens. This is a generically conventional way of capturing this type of trick and is likely to increase the appeal to the target audience.

The above image shows Kamel attempting a transfer over the spine into the pool, with me filming on the tripod with a zoom lens and Joe on the fisheye. By capturing two alternate angles we allow ourselves more options when in the post production stage and are able to make use of continuity editing techniques such as match on action.

Music Choice for film

We had a large variety of songs to chose from, but we narrowed it down to instrumentals only due to the continuous voice over narrative throughout the film. Lyrics would likely distract from this and throw off the audience due to overlap.

1: Menace 0711 - Say No Prayers

This track fits the requirements of being an instrumental, as well as carrying positive, uplifting connotations which nicely fit the nature of our films narrative.

2: O.C. - Born 2 Live (Instrumental produced by Buckwild)


For the second track, we made the decision to use the instrumental from the HipHop classic Born 2 Live. Historically, skateboarding and HipHop have always been closely linked, so by including this easily recognisable instrumental, we are more likely to appeal to the target audience.

3: XX - Intro
 

For the conclusion we wished to leave an emotional impact on the audience so we decided to make use of this song for its slightly melancholy nature, which was effective in producing the impact.

Production Schedule