Evaluation 5

This question is collaborative work by miles, ceri-beth and myself.

Evaluation 4

link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlDjMWIsJsw

Evaluation 3

Evaluation 2

Evaluation 1

This question is collaborative work by miles and myself.

link: https:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBUkCsyTOZY&feature=youtu.be

Final Film

Here is the link to my final film.

Link:  https://youtu.be/hxNPr0pvozw

Final film editing

The first thing we wanted to establish is the production company and film name/ logo, and that's what we did. I started with and introduction to skateboarding by Kamel with him saying "skateboarding saved my life" I internationally placed this at the start to give the audience a feel of what's to come, instantly expressing the narrative of the film with powerful imagery of him skating in the desert in an empty road. I also edited this clip by enhancing the colours much like the end shots in the desert. The film intentionally starts and ends in the desert almost making a full 360, as if the audience have followed Kamel through his journey. 

Kamel is then immediately introduced with a strong visual of the interview, this was shot with a f/1.4 50mm that created this dreamy Bokha complementing the vibe that is found within the desert shots. 

The interview is purposely casual with Kamel not even talking to the camera but to the interviewee. I like this idea more than a hard core interview because a traditional interview doesn't represent the theme found with the skateboarding culture.

It also feels like the listener is a part of the conversation not being directly talked to. I carefully planned this to happen by arranging the location of the interview inside Kamel's old university, I felt he would be more relaxed in an environment he is used to and get even more emotional when he is interviewed about where he started and his dreams. 

The next most important element was to establish the setting, in this case, Qatar. This is done by two cinematic shots of the iconic skyline of West Bay, Doha. The inspirational music is introduced as Kamel is introduced and the beats are timed to the clips. 

I feel it was very important to tell a story and to do this I planned to link the content of the audio to a visual clip. For example, below is when Kamel talks about how these extreme sports were not introduced into Qatar until recently and the visual shows a few people from the community; one BMXing the other skateboarding. This represents the strong link we have together as a community and also the diversity of extreme sports now being offered within Qatar. 

The next section (highlighted) is purely skateboarding, this allows us to meet the traditional conventions of a skateboarding film using equiptment such as a fish eye and long lens. This section is used to complement our main target audience that is skaters. These shots are straight after the introduction of Kamel and introduce a little bit more about the community. 

One thing that I filmed and added into the film is the segment where I  am standing still at the bottom of the skatepark with the fish eye and following people from the community around the ramp. I went the same way (anticlockwise) and stayed in the same position, looking at the bigger picture I wanted to add a fast segment that flowed and I feel I did that very well in this part of the film. 

The music fluctuates in volume. When Kamel is talking, the sound is lowered to make it easy to understand what he is saying. I wanted to keep music playing throughout, making the film more interesting. 

The next main part is the second skate part, this takes place in the temporary skatepark in Katara. We have set up two angles to capture this segment. One was a wide angle of the whole ramp and the second was a fish eye which was operated by Miles who was on the ramp. These two angles allowed us to create a smooth compilation of the whole skatepark, flipping between the shots making it more interesting and also making sure the editing has continuity making it easy to understand and the cut less visible.  (highlighted)

                                  

Wide angle;

Fish-eye; 

Below is the segment that I refer to above, to make this part more entertaining we planned to sync it with the music as seen in other skateboarding films. Making either the landing of the trick or change in shot sync with the beat of the music. This can make the tricks seem more impressive and helps with the overall feel of the film making it seem better and more professional.

The next part is Kamel talking about what he wants to do to help the community and "give something back". During this script sequence, clips are shown of both interviewer and Kamel in skating competitions. The interview creates a more personal connection to the viewer making the story have more impact and realism. The close ups are used to enhance this effect and making key elements more personal when the camera is closer. 

Far;

Close;

The last segment in the desert is there to conclude the narrative and solidify it, the use of colour changed the connotation from a boring sunset to something from a movie, a fairytale., again reflecting Kamel's swords, "Skating is like a dream".  All the colours were enhanced like the golds, reds and blues and the exposure was lowered creating a silhouette. This is a very powerful way to end the film, its really shows that the film is about skateboarding because of the unseen identity at the end. It represents how far skateboarders are going to skate geographically and also in Kamel's case pushing his education and family.  

When I talked about the film making a full 360, it basically does, the production logo is shown at the end as well. I placed the logo on the same image we are using for the postcard and other products such as social media and the website. This is a powerful shot and also helps to create a sense of branding.

Colour correction

Link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy-yXwnDG6I

The above link is a video of me colour correcting the most important shots on our film (the desert shots). This part is when the story really starts to progress and inspires the viewer complimented by music. To add to the narrative we decided to colour correct these clips to make them more magical. I used final cut pro to colour correct the video. I wanted to portray passion and todo this i enhanced the colour like the yellow of the sand and the sky (gold and blue). 

Final website

Website link: http://cmiseroy.wix.com/drops

Home

Our home page consists of the trailer to give the viewer a sneak preview of what the film is about, this page is designed to firstly influence the viewer into watching the full film because via the trailer and also is is use to clearly represent the brand. This will be the first page the viewer sees and the Drops logo is present also the Mad Buddha production logo. This clearly reflects both our products and I feel advertises them well. 

This page helps to give the viewer a small preview of what is to come using positive imagery and narration.

About 

The about page is used to give the viewer a more detailed description of what the film is about. We have clearly stated a few important facts that might interest the viewer. Firstly and the most prominent is the name of the film DROPS, Below that we have a line to separate the name from the film makers.

To keep with the brand image we have a short synopsis that will be published over our social media sites to promote the film.

Below that we have a detailed synopsis that reflects the film, this also fulfils the same purpose as the trailer in terms of promotion.

Cast 

The cast page is a page dedicated to the team involved with the making of the film. From Film makers to the skater. We have followed the layout for this page from our inspiration symirroretry. We liked how the page was easy to navigate and read and also how they put a face to a name. 

Music 

This page is dedicated to the talented artists and their songs we used. Not only did we think it was nesisary to promote their music because we used it we also went a step further and made a direct link to the songs on Soundcloud along with the artists name and the song name. 

News 

This page promotes any news that the film has received from nominations like THIMUN, to reviews and ratings. We also added a section for updating the viewers on release dates of trailers and the full film. Also any positive news such a large social media sites sharing our content.

More 

In the more section of our website we have a social media page, this consists of all pour social media sites and a hyperlink to them when clicking on the icon. This helps add to the branding of our film and production company. 

Film festival research

Without a box

Link: https://www.withoutabox.com/

Without a box is a website that allows up and coming film makers to find festivals to promote their work. If they dont have a large follow on social media and wants to get their work out there this is a perfect way to do so. The website is free to register and allows you to look at what film festival to place your film in. 

THIMUN film festival

What is THIMUN?

THIMUN is a film festival in Qatar that is aimed at young film makers.

The THIMUN Qatar Northwestern University Film Festival is also available for students interested in participating in a three day workshop learning how to make documentaries and become inspired to use the power of film to make a difference. The Film Festival is designed to encourage MUN participants to become advocates for the issues they have debated in MUN conferences. The film festival provides a platform for high school students to showcase their work to a wider audience through community showing and distribution support.

We have submitted our film into this film festival and we have received extremely positive feedback. We have been nominated for 3 different categories and an invitation to attend the awards ceremony.

Our nominations are;

Best Cinematography 

Best Story 

and the big one with 6 candidates and a QR10,000 prize

Best Picture 

Below is our film on their YouTube channel 

Final edited postcard

For the final postcard we had a few improvements such as the film festival nominations, we decided to add these due to our nomination in the THIMUN film festival and also after doing further research into other postcards.

I am really happy with the outcome of the postcard, i feel the overall aesthetics portray the narrative of our film; passion and following your dream. It does this by having a dreamy effect created by shooting at the golden hour in the desert with a beautiful sunset. I like how we have created a sense of branding by using the same imagery as the website and film, making them easily relatable. Also by using the iconic DROPS logo and font. We have full filled the purpose of the film postcard of promoting the film, we have done this by having a small synopsis of the film to interest the viewer. We also have the film nominations that reflect achievement and can also make people want to watch it. All information is present much as the production logo and film name, also the credits from features, Cinematographer, editors, producers and directors.

Social media

We created various social media pages to promote the film and the production company as a professional company would. On these sites we promoted the video prior by releasing a trailer an also the final video when done. 

We decided to use the most popular social media sites and below is the list:

Twitter;

Facebook;

Vimeo;

Instagram;

Making of the website

This is a step by step process of making the website, we used WIX website editor. This is a simple website designer but it is very effective and can create a professional website. 

Firstly we added the different pages for the website, this design was inspired by a recent website we have been looking at http://symirroretry.com/. We really liked this design and felt it looked extremely professional and easy to navigate. This is why we decided to use their layout as a back bone. 

When designing the home page we wanted to have strong imagery that reflects our film and the over all vibe. We settled on using a similar shot as the desert shot in the film. We feel this would make it easy for people to relate our website to the film, and also to the postcard etc. 

We started off by adding the writing seems as we didn't have the shots yet just an idea. We wanted to use a catchy synopsis of the film to interest the viewer and give them and idea of what the film is about. We chose ' A documentary celebrating a young mans passions of skating in Qatar'.

Next was to design the about page. This page consists of the full synopsis and more about the film giving the viewer and additional detail about the film still with the aim to interest them into watching it. 

When organising the cast page we followed our inspiration 'symirroretry' as seen below;

We liked how easy to read it is buy yet very professional with the smart minimalism. We decided to recreate this and then add in the pictures later.

I really like how the name is associated with a visual imagery of the person, this creates a more personal level with the artists and puts a face to the name.

We also made a page that is dedicated to music, i feel this is important to give credit to the artist and to do so we created a page with their live links on Soundcloud and their cover art.

In terms of advertisement we created social media for the film production company to promote their new film 'Drops' We decided to use the most popular sites such as e, Instagram, Vimeo, Twitter and Youtube.

Trailer

I feel the trailer was an over all success and did its purpose, it reflects the overall message of the video and makes the viewer want to watch the full version. This is helped by a number of things.

1. The magical sunset imagery combined with cinematic videography makes the film seem professional and in that case more appealing to watch.
2.  The colours of the desert mixed with hard core skateboarding targets a mass audience and the niche audience of skateboarders and helps to portray the narrative giving the viewer a small taster.  
3. The influential voice over mixed with the dramatic music helps to influence the viewer into watching more by making them more engaged with the story and then leaves them handing.
4. The voice of audio reflects the film showing passion and determination will help to interest the viewer and leaves them with Kamel saying skateboarding saved my life, the viewer will want to know more, how? why? etc. This engages with the viewer.

When doing it again i would change the music to the iconic 'say no prayers' because its more of a up beat song, full reflecting the film because it is a positive message.

Audience profile & self analysis of first draft

Overall the feedback we got is that they enjoyed the film overall, and like how it focuses on skateboarding by using lots of skate clips, this proves how we have targeted our main audience. Other thing they picked up on is how unique the interview style is, using the rule of thirds and also the cinematic Bokha, they talked about how professional it was because of the multi use of camera angles keeping it interesting even in the interview.

The interviewee picks up on the fact that we displayed failure and also success, they enjoyed the fact that we did but they want to see the progression and process of landing a trick not just a bail. This can also help show determination and how dedicated Kamel is to the sport.

The major thing that they felt was missing is the push on the narrative 'inspiration'. We talked about how we could portay this idea and they felt like a whole new part of the story needed to be added visually. And this is where the idea of the desert came in.

One thing we agreed to change is the beginning, they didn't like how it started with a bail, if we wanted to keep this idea of showing failure and success we had to show progression. 

Sound editing

When editing sound it is important to make sure that it fits well and is used at the right time. Sound was a major way that we managed to target our demographic because of the genre used. We did lots of background research into what music to use and i feel we picked music that fits very well.

Sound much like camera angles can enhance the trick making it look even more impressive by timing the bass line or high snares with the landing of the trick, we have also used this technique to create continuity editing making it easier for the viewer to understand whats going on. We did this by firstly marking the bass line of the soundtrack and then syncing the sharp cuts with them. This improves the overall aesthetic and makes the segment more powerful.

The use of soft background music over the audio allows for the piece to flow throughout and keeping the entertainment level high. 

Video first draft

This is the first draft of our video, we created a first draft to get audience feedback such as improvements and also things that worked well that we can keep the same. 

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

First draft editing

To edit our film we chose to use Final Cut Pro because it is a software that i am familiar with and have used before for other projects. We has 500+ clips that we first had to go through and pick the clips that we would use.

I edited the mass majority of the film due to my team being on holiday and lack of experience with editing video. The first thing i did was match the audio with the visuals of the interview. I had to do this because we had a two camera set up. One was central and was capturing his voice using a rode mic capturing the highest quality sound and the other camera i was operating and i had to capture the soft visuals of the interview using my 50mm with an f/1.8 this created a soft bokeh.

I then organised the clips in terms of location, i did this because i wanted to arrange the clips to the audio and match what he's talking about to a visual image. This helps solidify what Kamel is talking about and makes it more relevant. We arranged the clips into the skate park in QF, then the skatepark in Katara, then CNAQ when he talks about his education and finally any extra clips from random locations.

I felt the first draft was missing a large portion to tell the story, to find out what is missing we are planning to ask put target audience on what to improve or add. 

Post card Design

This is our post card design, over all i am very happy with it and i feel like we have recreated our original idea very well. We took inspiration from another skateboarding postcard that follows the same theme as our called 'We are blood'.

We are blood is about how the skateboarding community is like family almost blood related. If i were to do the photo again i would go back on a day that wasn't as cloudy, i really like the outcome but i feel it would be more effective like the above 'we are blood' poster, it would allow up to have a more golden vide which i feel would've been very effective.

Editing of postcard

Below is a list of what we needed to change from the original image:

• The lack of colouration of the sky
• The slight over exposure of the sky
• The slight under exposure of the subject

Original Photo

Edited photo

Firstly we imported the image into photoshop after creating the size template of 8 inches by 12 inches, this is because i researched the usual size of a film festival postcard. We then had to decide on how we would edit the image. We wanted to enhance the sunset to promote the theme of following your dream by making the sunset magical. We did this by enhancing the colours and adding conventional colours that portray this theme such as purple. We also decreased the exposure to make the sunset more prominent it also allowed us to follow our original design of the silhouette.

The colour gradient we selected was purple and orange. This is because of the colours of the sunset, it made the vibrancy stand out more and look more exciting.