EVALUATION- Looking back at your Preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression to the full product

EVALUATION-What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product

We used a number of different types of software to produce our opening sequence some have been challlenging to use but we pulled through and used other alternatives. We used software like I movie to edit Love lockdown. We used the features such as the volume bar to control the volume of the music and the editing tool to control the pitch and echo when wen extracted the sound of Juliet making the phone call. We also used it to editing parts of tghe evaluation. I also used it to create the animated storyboard.

We used Garage band to edit the original theme tune to make it fit our opening credits.

We also used Adobe Photoshop to edit some of our pictures and crop them.

This was a challenge for me because i had never used any of these programmes before but they seemed to get easy with practice. I feel as though although these programmes tested our patience at time we used them effectively to produce a high quality piece of work that i could see myself going to see in the cinema.

EVALUATION-Who would be the audience for your media product

Love Lockdown aims to attract a wide range of people from different ethnic backgrounds.Its main atrget age range should be 15-25. It aims to atrract both males and females and appeal to a universal audience. Here are the examples of the kind of people who may be interested in watching it.

Kelly, aged 17 , lives in Brixton, white female.

Marcus, aged 16, Lives in Kennigton, mixed race

Lucinda, aged 15, lives in Herne Hill, African

Adrian,aged 17, lives in Catford, African and Carribean

EVALUTION-What Kind of Media Institution might distribute your product and why?

EVALUATION- How does the media product represent certain social groups

In the social sciences a group can be defined as two or more humans who interact with one another, accept expectations and obligations as members of the group, and share a common identity. By this definition, society can be viewed as a large group, though most social groups are considerably smaller.

Other types of groups include the following:

Peer group - A peer group is a group with members of approximately the same age, social status, and interests. Generally, people are relatively equal in terms of power when they interact with peers.

Clique - An informal, tight-knit group, often in a High School/College setting, that shares common interests. Most cliques exhibit an established yet shifting power structure.

Club - A club is a group, which usually requires one to apply to become a member. Such clubs may be dedicated to particular activities: sporting clubs, for example.

Gang - A gang is usually an urban group that gathers in a particular area. It is a group of people that often hang around each other. They can be like some clubs, but much less[citation needed] formal.

Mob - A mob is usually a group of people that has taken the law into their own hands. Mobs are usually groups which gather temporarily for a particular reason.

Posse - A posse was initially an American term for a group of citizens that had banded together to enforce the law. However, it can also refer to a street group.

Squad - This is usually a small group, of around 3 to 8 people, who work as a team to accomplish their goals.


In love lockdown we focus on social groups e.g. gangs,cliques in schools and peer groups within urban, working-class areas.

The character Alicia who is played by Juliet Ayisi in Love Lockdown is similar to the character Alisa who is played by Red Madrell in Adulthood and Kidulthood in the way that they have the same social staus. Alicia is portrayed to be mixed up in gang culture and lives in a working-class urban area which is the same a Alisa in Adulthood. They also have similar characteristics in the way that they both fight for the men and have to deal with the limitations they have to deal with living in the area they do. They also both deal with teenage pregnancy and the effects of gang culture and loved one being incarserated.

EVALUATION- In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

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On set Memories

Final Opening Sequence Of Love Lockdown

Music

As the exam board strictly prohibits us to use any copyrighted music in our opening sequence we had to choose another piece of music which was not copyrighted which still ,ade the opening sequence effective. We was originally going to used Kanye West number 1 hit Love Lockdown as it is where we got the idea of the name and we thought it would go well with out media piece. We found out it was not allowed so we started to research songs that we could use. We looked on youtube but we couldn't find any music that wasn't copyrighted. We then remembered we had friends who produced beats for their mixtapes and we asked our friend Jerome whether he could make use a beat. We used influences from Kidulthood and Adulthood like the ione used in the running scene and also other peoples mixtapes to formulate out theme song. Nickie was the assigned to remake the theme tune for our openeing credits and our logo. She used software such as fruity loops and I movie on the Mac computers to do so.
Below are some of our previous ideas and our influences.

Kanye West - Love Lockdown



Jstar entertainment- we liked the begiinning of this because it has the sound of jail bars and sirens in it and the beat reflects today's youth culture.



Akon- Locked up
This reflects the prison life and urban life not only in England but in America which may appeal to viewers in other countries.

Saul Bass On Titles

We were advised by our Media Studies teacher to watch a documentary on titles by Saul Bass to give us assistance on formulating our credits effectively as this will be another aspect that we will be graded on. Although the video was extremely outdated, Saul Bass still managed to enlighten us to the much thought that must go into the credit process referring to font and symbols.Saul Bass informed us that we must break away from the traditional unattractive titles used for 'popcorn time'. Audiences must be attracted to the film from the very first frame of the film in order to create the necessary climate for the film. As our film is an urban drama, it is also advised that we use a symbol within our credits that can be associated with our film. Handcuffs would be a reasonable symbol as it is assumed that someone may be arrested in our film and Saul Bass repeats that the content of the film still remains a big issue in the credits.Saul Bass mentions that metaphors can also be used in the credits to set a scene for what is to come. The metaphors must be simple and direct eye catchers such as a baby in a prisoners uniform to symbolise the possible consequences of Alicia's aggressive behaviour. She may have her baby in prison.Titles should be long enough to catch the viewers eye and accomodate the film. The font used should also be appropriate to the film, a typewriter font or a cell broken font will be ideal to symbolise the prison aspect of Love Lockdown. This title Love Lockdown will as Saul Bass advises help to establish a prologue for the motion of the film which is the prison sentence for Jermaine which he takes due to his love for Alicia.Finally, Saul Bass advises to use ordinary objects and take them out of the ordinary in order to achieve another understanding of them. For example a baby crawling around in a prisoners overalls in a cell will put an ordinary baby in a strange environment (prison cell) allowing the audience to later understans why this metaphor was in fact used.Saul Bass' documentary allowed us to understand that there is more thought put into the process of Titles that one may think. We must use an appropriate font to connote our film and if required, a reasonable metaphor that establishes the mood and attitude of Love Lockdown.

Design Process Of RLNC Logo Part 1

Here I will take you through a step-by-step designing process of our RLNC logo used at the beginning of our film (shown below).



The idea for this logo came from Nikkie's profile picture on Facebook (shown below)

I, Coretta then suggested making cartoon characters of ourselves and putting them into one image, with our initials being the name of our production, great idea aye?

(2) Then we had to create our cartoon characters, many changes were made to our characters and I will take you through each characters change.

Above is Nickie, initially she had red hair, but then wanted to make it a little realistic in then sense that she would never dye her hair that colour and black would not have shown up, so we went for a honey blonde/brown look and got the perfect result (Shown Below).

Lydia had quiet a few changes made to her character, however i shall only take you through some changes for it'll be boring to go through every step.

This was Lydia's initial design, reason why we gave her red hair was because at the time she had dyed her hair red, so I thought it would be significantly realistic to give her red hair. However when analysed by Lydia herself she disliked it and wanted brown hair instead the cheek.. (shown below)
Then Lydia hated the fact that we had left out her flower, (woops) she also decided she would prefer a bob instead of the hairstyle we had given her, taking all these points into account we created her final cartoon as shown below

I, Coretta along with Lydia were the two picky ones out of our group, Nickie was extremely please with her design for my cartoon character (below)

But I wasnt please with the WEAVE, and wanted a bob also, hehe (Typical me) So Nickie pimped my hairstyle out and kindly took my want into consideration (As I am a Princess) and gave me a bob (shown below) .... :)

The process for Rula was very straight forward and no changes were made with my initial design (shown below) :).
(3) With all characters designed and finished, it was then time to add all elements together, the background the characters and moosh'em together, shown below:

Analysis Of First Draft Opening Sequence

This clip is the produce from our first filming seesion. Although we thought it was successful we made a few mistakes which then came apparent during the editing stage. In the first shot it jilts causing the shot to jump from one shot to another. Also these two different shots have two different background noises so the shots do not flow. The next shot shows a close up of Alicia (Juliet) and the sound goes fuzzy. This close up is proficient but the shot gets hazy and loses focus. The two shot which comes after is good but it jumps to quickly to the close up of he mobile phone.The next couple of shots flow but the background noise changes from each one. There is then a quick jump to her facial experession where she is suppose to hear Ashley(Olu) and Shaniqua (Christina) giggling and making noises. We then she a mid shot of Alicia (Juliet) putting her mobile in her pocket and taking out the prgnacy test this transitions really quickly to a shot of her looking at the test and walking off with no reaction. This is not affective as it doesn't clearly show what is going on and the shots jump to quickly making it difficult to follow. Alicia (Juliet) then runs out of the park and the camera follows. There is then a zoom in of the pregnacy test which is focused and clearly but it zoom in two quickly. The shot then jumps to Jermaine (Toba) getting up from the swing and running after Alicia (Juliet) as he sees something is wrong. The shot the focuses on Alicia (Juliet) when she stops running and turns around to Jermaine and tells him whats wrong. We felt this shot was not good because the dialogue was falsified and not really realistic whereas in a urban drama things have to be pragmatic otherwise it defeats the objective of a urban drama. There is then a shot of Jermaine bursting through the park gates screaming at Alicia to wait then there is digetic music playing whilst the credits come in. We felt this was quite effective as it acts as a pre-credit sequence which is used in many films and sometimes in TV Dramas. Overall we feel that this could have be improved and we could use our skills to produce a better quality piece of work so we decided to start again and use this as a exemplar opening sequence to helps us see what areas we need to work on.

Analysis of Adulthood Running scene

Adulthood

We previously mentioned that Adulthood was a significant influence for our opening sequence. Adulthood begins with Titles and then moves on to silent flashbacks of its prequel Kidulthood. This allows memebers of the audience who have watched Kidulthood to be reminded of how the story ended and informs new members of the audience of the last major event. Although we are not reminding our audience of a previous film, we would like to inform our audience of the events that have taken to land our characters in their current state.

The shots used are short and often flash from scene to scene, this is an excellent idea for us to ensure that our flashbacks establish the main scenes of Love Lockdown. It is vital that we establish our characters in our opening sequence with shots focused on their faces to signify their importance. Characters such as Jermaine and Alicia must be shown clearly to identify their importance whereas short term characters like Shaniqua do not need to be shown as clearly.

The opening scene of Adulthood not only introduces us to the characters and their urban setting but immediately it informs us that the film is based around violence. It begins with a harsh encounter with a male and the boyfriend of another. There are a variety of effects in the opening scene of Adulthood with split scenes to show different areas of the club and the occurances within and speeding and slowing down of pace to echo the club like atmosphere in which many are intoxicated and therefore disorientated like the effects used.

The flashbacks in Adulthood not only give a brief history of the story line but establish the main characters, setting and mood of the scene. We must ensure that we mirror this effective use of flashback to ensure that we obtain the best results.

Fake Blood Recipes

Whilst Alicia washes her hands in the bathroom, we see a transition from clean to bloody hands once she becomes panicked.

Here Are Some Fake Blood Recipes We May Use:

Method 1

1 c. Karo Syrup
1 Tbsp Water
2 Tbsp Red Food Coloring
1 tsp Yellow Food Coloring

Mix together in a mixing bowl and you're done. Try adding blue or yellow for a different shade

Method 2

200ml Water
5 Tablespoons Cornflour (corn starch)
300ml Lyles Golden Syrup (or Corn Syrup)
2 Teaspoons of fresh cream
5 Teaspoons Red Food Coloring
2 Drops Green Food Coloring

Just mix the water and cornflour together, then add the rest of the ingredients. It looks fantastically spooky in itself and is great for bleeding scars and vampire mouths. It doesn't taste wonderful but is totally harmeless for vampires and ghouls of any age and even washes out of clothes well.

Method 3

Or There Is The Conventional Method Of Buying Store Bought Halloween Blood
We will most likely use the store bought vampire blood as it is the most appropriate given time limits etc.

Analysis Of Filming Session Three

After looking at everything that we filmed the last two sessions, RLNC decided that we had a few things that we needed to re-film as some shots didn’t turn out how we expected and also the lighting in the house was too dark. We also had to film the fighting scene and the washing of hands. Originally RLNC and the cast planned to start filming at 6pm, we planned on getting everything completed by around 8pm, as we didn’t have a lot to do this was a realistic target. Unfortunately a few people were running late, causing us to have to start filming an hour later, this meant we would finish a lot later than we planned.

Once everyone had finally arrived, it was time to start filming.One of the main problems we had at our last filming session was lighting, as Olu’s house lights were extremely dim when we watched what we had filmed it was too dark and we could hardly see what was happening on screen. This time we wanted to make sure our lighting was perfect, so in order to achieve this we used tea lights and a lamp to make the room a little lighter, this also helped 2 create romantic effect for the phone call scene.After the last filming session we realised that the camera was a bit tilted during some of the filming, so this time we ensured that all shots were aligned straight and that all shots were steady. As we were now more experienced with the camera we were able to get alot of different shots for each clip.

In previous filming sessions we had problems with the camera battery going dead, so this time we made sure we had a spare battery with us. This worked in our favour, as our battery did die but thankfully we had the spare one, so we were able to carry on filming as normal. We managed to successfully film everything that was needed by around 9:30pm. We are all extremely pleased with what we achieved in our last filming session, and also relieved that we have now completed all of our filming. Thanks to all the help, time and cooperation of RLNC and the cast.

In this filming session i contributed by filming the washing of the hands scene where i shot a range of different shots including a bird's eye view shot (aerial shot), over the shoulder shot, point of view shot and a close up. I found this challenging as i am quite short and i had to stand on the bath and hold the shot steady without a tripod and without being seen in the mirror and still get a good shot when filming for example the over the shoulder shot and the bird's eye view shot. I also filmed a bit of the fighting scene between Alicia (Juliet) and Shaniqua (Christina) at one angle. This became very tedious as people were losing focused and shouting at eachother so it was very difficult to direct and film at the same time. We had to shoot this scene numerous times as the heads of the characters kept getting cut up. Also i filmed the last scene were Jermaine (Toba) is sitting on the stairs and delivering the last line "The things you do for love". This was quite challenging to film as it was difficult to shoot on the stairs at and angle and get his head in the i did a bird's eye view of his bloody hands. It was difficult to get a clean steady shot as i had to tip toe and get a steady hand. Overall i feel this filming session was successful and it was less stressful as we didn't have much to do and we have been through the filming process twice before so we learnt from our mistakes.

Analysis Of Film Session Two

Monday 15th February 2010
11am

The time had come to start some serious filming. The cast were at Ashley's (Olu)'s house, the whole of RLNC were present, the props were ready but where was the screenplay and storyboard? Lydia had left it at home. Luckily, she only lived 3 minutes away from the park. RLNC, Jermaine (Toba) and Alicia (Juliet) and a few extras walked to the park leaving Shaniqua (Christina) and Ashley (Olu) home to get ready for filming later on.We arrived at the park and as it was quite early in the morning, there were not as many children in the background as our last filming session..What would we do? Lydia then left us to improvise and set up as she ran home to collect our Filming Folder including the necessary paperwork and a few treats for our cast. By the time Lydia came back to the park we were fully set up with our extras in the background posing as children.From our last filming, we realised that again framing was a problem and often the tops of heads were cut off. To ensure that this did not occur again, we did practice shots with the movement to get our camera in the exact correct place where body parts would not be chopped off unnecesarily.

We then began to film.Surprisingly, we managed to get through filming a lot quicker minus a few distractions (hunger) probably as we were now "professionals" with the camera. Following the storyboard, we did point of view shots, close ups, mid shots. Definitely a good range.We switched off the camera when it was not in use so managed to do our running shots which went well although our cast did get quite tired running back and forth in the same spot. Finally we had finished our outdoor shots so we walked back to the house.It was now time to use Ashley (Olu), we filmed a scene of which Alicia ran through a crowd of girls and barged into Ashley's house, Jermaine soon followed and punched Ashley to the ground. Although the punching scene was especially humerous, we managed to get the filming for this short part done quite quickly. We used our fake blood to zoom in on the unconscious state of Ashley.Filming inside was difficult as the lighting was not as good as natural sunlight. We managed to film the running up the stairs and barging through the door. Filming from the bedroom was challenging as the room was cluttered and finding space to film was almost impossible. We experimented with handheld shots for birds eye view shots and a close up of Alicia's incoming phone call.The majority of filming was now complete but unfortunately the camera battery was low and the charger was no longer working. We could not film anymore. All that was now left to film was the fighting scene and the washing of hands. It had been a long day but worth the hardwork.We left the house around 6pm pleased with what we had achieved. :) Wooop Go RLNC

In this filming session i filmed some of the park scene when Alicia (juliet)and Jermaine(Toba) were conversing. I didn't find this to be a problem as i had done it before in our previous filming session i just had to film good steady shots. I also was and extra in the scene where Alicia and Jermaine run through a group of girls when runnig to Ashley's house. I also helped to film the bedroom scene. I then did a zoom on th mobile phone ringing but due to the bad quality of the cameras focus was lost and the shot became fuzzy. Overall this was a good filming session it was very stressful and took longer than it should have but we managed to get better quality shots.

Analysis Of Filming Session One

Saturday 7th February 2010
Midday
We arrived at the venue of the character Ashley's house and discussed where we would begin our filming. We had our props ready and prepared for filming. It was now time to decide where we should begin filming.

Due to the fact that our filming was to be done in the daylight, we thought it best to film our park scenes first of all. We took a considerably long journey to Forster Park and to our luck the swings were available with happy children playing in the background. Perfect.

We set up our tripod and referred to our storyboard to begin our filming. We planned our shots and gave our cast the screenplay to learn their few lines. Filming began, the sunlight was perfect although we soon became freezing cold. As we shivered through the scene, we managed to get to grips with the camera and experiment with different shots and zooms.

Becoming more familiar with the camera was especially helpful as Coretta was able to grab an excellent zoom shot of the pregnancy test displaying the Positive icon. We also managed to film a little bit of Jermaine (Toba) running after Alicia. The battery was running low and so we began with our running shots. This required the most concentration as we wanted to have numerous angles and lengths. Unfortunately we only managed to gilm a shot of which Alicia (Juliet) filmed her feet as she ran. We did not manage to see the success/failure of this idea as the battery soon died.

We left the park to Ashley (Olu)'s house proud of filming but disappointed that we did not manage to get as much done as possible. Thankfully, this allowed us to come up with the following aims for our next filming session:

1) Switch the camera off when not filming

2)Bring gloves to set to avoid frostbite

3)Film quickly and effectively

4)Continue to work well as a team

Weather for Filming

Our Opening sequence Love Lockdown comprises of scene that will mainly be filmed outdoors so the weather conditions are essential as if we have to refilm the weather has to be the same as if it is raininng one day and sunny the next the lighting and the mise-en-scene will not match. As the weather forcast shows below we where expecting bad weather conditions as it was thought that it woud rain but we cotinued our plans to film which was a good idea because we got all the outdoor filming done before its started to rain.

Filming Schedule

We decide to produce a schedule for our filming to help us to organise our filming session so we save time by not trying to figure out what need to be done on the day. Also for us to have a set plan so all the ideas that have been agreed should not change. It also give us a time frame to work around so we know roughly the start and our filming times so we can schedule our lives around it. This filming schedule will be shown before each analysis of our filming sessions.

Screenplay

Location Shots

In order for us to film a proficient opening sequence we need to find suitable locations for each shot. In our opening sequence we have a variety of different locations to exemplify the different set used to set an atmosphere. We decide to take pictures of the location we are filming becuase we needed to see whether they were appropriate for different shots and also for us to establish which areas we are going to use.

Sink used for the washing the blood off the hands scene

Toliet used when the character of Alicia is introduced

Staff toliet where the opening and the washing of the hands scene was filmed

This is a shot of the road Alicia (Juliet) and Jermaine (Toba) run down when they exit the park.

Area where Alicia (Juliet) calls Ashley (Olu)

Swings where Alicia (Juliet) and Jermaine (Toba) conversate

This is a long shot of Forrester park's playground

This is a long shot of the woods Alicia (juliet) and Jermaine(Toba) run through

Casting Shots Of The Cast Of Love Lockdown

We chose four actors and actresses who we thought suited the parts of the characters of our opening sequence. We felt we needed actors and actresses who had similar personaliies to the characters in our opening sequence Love Lockdown.

Shaniqua is played by Christina Adedeji. Although Christina is nothing like the character of Shaniqua we chose her because she is quite good friends with Olu and she would be the perfect person to do the bedroom scene with Olu(Ashley). Also she is also a media student so she understands the importance of the filming stage so she would be a good person as she would take it serious whereas others may not be as reliable.

Alicia is played by Juliet Ayisi. We chose Juliet to play the character of Alicia because Juliet is quite attractive and she also has experience as an actress as she is currently studying perfoming arts. We felt her acting skills were suitable as the character of Alicia needed to be portrayed by somebody with experience in acting so the emotions of Alicia can be conveyed to the audience so that people ca relate more to the character.

The character Ashley is played by Olu Oladokun. We decided to use Olu as he comes across as a confident, assertive person who is a bit of a player although he appears to be a practical joker. We thought he would fit perfectly for the role of Ashley as he has simialr characteristics and looks a bit like a lady's man.

Jermaine is played by Toba Faloya We chose to use Toba because he is a warm hearted person who is quite innocent and he seems like somebody who would do anything for a friend which is similar to the chracter of Jemaine as Jermaine is the type of charcter who would even kill for somebody he loved.

Creative risks

When producing a film there are many risks involved and I am not only talking about practical factors such as health and safety but the technical and social factors such as offending people.
In Love Lockdown some of these factors may be the strong language and slang incorporated in the script. Some viewers may find this offensive as they may not agree with profanity which is why as age rating is needed in order for people underage to not to watch it.
The cost of this is losing some potential viewers of the target age range and people who don't understand slang words.
Benefits of this maybe it adds more spice to the film and teenage can relate to it as slang nd profanity is used in thier everyday lingo.

Another creative risk maybe the stereotypical black gang affliated influenced film may only appeal to a limited amount of people and also emphasise the stereotypical view of teenagers, teenage pregnancies and gang culture. This may cost us some viewers if they take offensive are aren't interested in yet another urban drama film. Benefits of this is that it may raise awareness and stop young people from going down the wrong path as the affectssare visually illustrated giving them a more relatable sense.

Final Storyboard for Love Lockdown

W e produced a final storyboard for Love Lockdown because we were not completely happy with the intiall storyboard we created. There was many problems faced for example we could only produce a preliminary animated story board because the second draft of our storyboard was lost. We also found it very time consuming and we only had a short amount of time to do it in so the scetches weren't completely up to the standard we would have preferred. Below is our preliminary draft of our animatic story board. Enjoy :)

Preliminary Storyboard of Love Lockdown

We have done a storyboard to illustrate the different shots and camera angles we plan on using in the production process of Love Lockdown. It was a tedious process as all of us do not have artistic experience ; but luckily Nikkie had amateur drawing skills. Although we have to many shoots we feel as though it is more beneficial because whoever said less is best ;).