Opening

Filming is finally done! There were a lot of bumps along the ride but I'm glad we finished it. It's far from perfect but I'm proud of what we did. Hope you guys enjoy it.

Evaluation - Question 3 & 4

Demographic Audience from Koji Tsubaki

This is how we attracted this audience - please read the annotations.


For our strategy it would be a NON- THEATRICAL distribution. Why? Because we would like our film to be reviewed by critics and strike a deal with an investor which would like to purchase our film for distribution. Our film is an independent film slightly indie, so for choosing distributors we would like to choose a independent distributors, Our choice would be LIONSGATE because they focuses on independent film, we could also get small distributors from different countries. But if all things fails we would have to be our own distributors, we would post our film on Youtube or Vimeo so it is straight to the customers and after that develop our film company from there. Our release date would be around August / September because the LFF (LONDON FILM FESTIVAL) is held in October and after that enter other films festival as well, locally and internationally.

Top Trumps

I have improved upon my skills quite a lot since the beginning of the academic year as shown in the video that has been made with my group. My performance is especially evident as normally I would have cracked up at any moment. My organisation skill has increased massively as I had to be the be the one to call up the weekly meeting to discuss about the video and the concept we were going to do. Although that backfired as in the end only half of the crew showed up for the final shoot. The reason why my editing didn't improve was because I didn't put in as much effort into it as I was suppose to do but I delegated the task to the others in the crew.

Thing Link Work

Work On Thing Link

These are the work I have done on Thing Link for the evaluation

Narrative


Character


Font and Title


Location

Sub Genres


Techniques

Padlet Convention Of Our Opening!

Created with Padlet

Evaluation - Question 6

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL MIND MUP PRESENTATION

Rough Cut (Our Original Idea)

Story Board

Location Scouting

Vlog #1

Here is the first step into the filming of the opening which is .... SHOPPING YAY!

Lights! Cameras! Too much light dammit!

We wanted to set a dark and calm mood for out lighting so we decided that using the lights by its own is too strong and solid. So we try to test out the reflector.

Equipment:




















without the reflector:

With reflector:

Location Recce

Location Recce - X, Bib, Koji from Histmedia

John Woo Analysis

Character Bio

Character Bio Ray Wu AKA “Pit Viper” Chinese-American Occupancy: CIA Field Operative Age:26 Status: Active Bio: Ray Shen is a Chinese-American and has been with the CIA since his graduation from Miami State University in Criminology. He finished at the top of his class and received an internship from the CIA. He impressed them to the point they recruited him at the end of the month.When he was in high school he received a lot of peer pressure however he was able to hold off until the legal age. Since then he has served the CIA as a field agent for 4 years. Currently he is on an operation. Lee Nguyen AKA “Raging Bull” Vietnamese-American Age: 21 Occupancy: CIA Field Operative Status: MIA Bio: Lee had a rough upbringing due to him being born into a poor immigrant family however because of this he has made valuable friends and enemies as well. He has a grudge against drug traffickers due to his friend dying from overdose and because of this he is emotionally unstable. He was recruited into the CIA when he tried to save his family’s store from the triad. A CIA operative spotted him and took him in. Since then he has served for 2 years. Currently MIA.

Something Personal ...

I don't know whether this will give me extra marks or not but since it is associated with media then I really should be expressing my opinion. I wanted to quickly update this post before this feeling fades from me. 10 minutes before I started typing this blog post I had just watched a Japanese animation movie called "Kaguya Hime no Monogatari" or if translated to English it would be "The Tale of Princess Kaguya".

"The Tales of Princess Kaguya" is a animated movie created by studio Ghibli and of course directed by one of the most well known director in Japanese and probably any animation history. the movie was animated completely by hand with no computer graphics to back it up and thus having this traditional Japanese brush art style. From the cover, it may seem like any ordinary animation however you cannot judge a book by it's cover. This modern day rendition of the Japanese folktale of "The tale of The Bamboo Cutter" is considered to be a visual masterpiece among critics. Also it's deep and breathtaking narrative is as equally astounding.

Summary:

One day a bamboo cutter found a glowing bamboo stalk with a baby within it.  He took this as a sign from heaven to raise it. He took the baby back to his home and raised it with his wife. This baby grew at an accelerated rate and was fully grown within one year. During the time the bamboo cutter raised the infant, he encountered multiple fortunes within multiple glowing bamboo stalks and thus took it as a sign from the heavens that the baby was meant for nobility. With all the fortune received, he went to the capital to build a mansion for the child he raised and for his family. Once the child reached the capital, her training as a princess started and along the process a minister named her princess "Kaguya" or radiant night. After her coming of age ceremony she was visited by 5 princes for her hand in marriage. She sent them all to undertake impossible tasks and rejected them. When the emperor came to ask her to become a concubine she also refused. Discontent with her situation she goes back to where she originally came from, the moon.

Explanation:

As said from the cover and even the summary, it may seem bland and that like a folklore and it is. It is based off a folklore however studio Ghibli has added some extra scenes within the movie to convey a deep and emotional message to the audience. Why did I choose to talk about this movie you ask? Well ... it is about how I took this message and related it to my own life.

 Princess Kaguya didn't simply just upped and left Earth to go to the moon but she contemplated about her feelings, her emotions. The movie shows that at the current moment she is discontent with the current affair and thus tries to look to her past but unfortunately her happy past just felt like a knife is being pushed further into her heart and looking to the future only makes her feel more grim. She tries to make most of the present at all times and thus remains happy with the current flow of emotion passing through her. I can compare it to real life. The more you look to the past the more you realize what you have been doing wrong and that it is too late. The more you look to the future the more you worry what is going to happen to you and your surrounding. the key is to look to the present and make the most of what you can do at the current moment. 

Another message show in the movie is to not allow others dissuade you on how you feel. In the movie princess Kaguya's adoptive father tried to do as much as he can to try and satisfy her in any way possible that HE can think. Problem is the more he tried the worse her misery gets. If she had just followed her own feelings she would have led the life she wanted to have. A sad ballad as it is, the depiction is also quite frank. The consequences are obvious and there are no back doors to it because of missed opportunities. 

Conclusion:

I guess what I was really trying to say the whole time is really the depiction of the film is quite frank and hits you hard on your sensitive side. At the very least it did to me. What may seem like a reward to someone else may be a consequence to you. Try to focus on living and leading a life you want. Happiness is not something that can be eventually acquired as it has always been with us. Happiness in its purest form is the feeling of joy that you are feeling at the current moment. Life is never as it seems so whatever makes you happy right now is the happiness that everyone is looking for and you should feel lucky that it occurs. Us humans are shaped by what we have done and will later be morphed by what we will do so make the most of the present and lead a happy life.

Phew ... now that I have that of my chest I guess I should end this post and pls don't judge me ;)

Another Script for another idea ... Again ...

Hostage Rescue

Casting Crew Size: 5-6 so far
Location: Warehouse

Camera Pan from left of room to hostage silence in the scene

Hostage: (Looking down on the floor contemplating)

Camera behind hostage shoulders intially focused on hostage then later the door as sound from outside disturb silence
Door opens with captor busting through the door then rescuer walk out the door looking at hostage for a brief moment then walk towards the hostage
Camera transition to 2 shot of hostage still sitting down on seat and rescuer over the hostages shoulder trying to cut cable tie

Rescuer: Are you alright

Match on action to close up the cable tie beeing cut

Camera angle aligning hostage face with the dead corpse initially focused on the hostages face

Hostage: Yeah

Camera focus on firearm dropped on the floor hostage looks in the genral direction

Hostage: I should be just fine

Camera close up view of the rescuer panning from behind to hostage for a brief moment then match on action close up of hostage and rescuer walk across camera
Hostage's eyes follow the rescuer until rescuer reaches door then looks at firearm
Match on action extreme close up of firearm on floor with correct lighting to show hostage's shadow walking over to firearm then hostage hands pick up firearm
Match on action track shot of the two sneaks along the wall of the warehouse
Camera placed near confined spot where two cartel members are spotted and focused on
Camera focused back on the two escapees
Rescuer hushes the hostage the camera focused on rescuer and cartel members then rescuer does silent takedowns and signals hostage to follow
Camera 2 shot of rescuer and hostage

Hostage: How many of them are there here
Rescuer: From the outside there are only 7 of them, nothing we can't handle

Rescuer turns around to talk to hostage camera over the shoulder shot of rescuer face

Rescuer: But I'm sure that there are a lot more inside so we should be fine if we don't...

Camera goes to over the shoulder shot of hostage mid sentence and at the end of rescuer's line hostage shoots cartel member behind rescuer
Add sfx of gunshot
Close up of rescuer surprised face and focused on his face then rescuer turns around
camera focus on dead cartel member behind rescuer
Close up shot of rescuer

Rescuer: ... Alert them

Long shot of cartel members busting out of the door bantering in random foreign language slowly searching the vicinity
Camera transition to 2 shot of rescuer and hostage in hiding

Rescuer: Was that really neccessary
Hostage: It was either him or us so your welcome
Rescuer: Anything in mind
Hostage: Easy, we improvise

Camera close up to cartel member walking
sfx tinkering sound
Cartel member look down camera pan to fashbang then sfx flashbang and screen goes white
Hostage jumps form cover to another cover while firing firearm mid air
Close up of hostage

Hostage: I'm out!

camera trackshot to rescuer running out of cover

Rescuer: Improvise!

Rescuer goes runs and guns towrds the exit and gets shot in the leg

Close up shot of hostage with a cartel member behind him

Hostage: NO!

Cartel member hits hostage in the head with the stock of the firearm the black screen transition to title entry sad cello or orchestral music

6th of January Production Meeting

X koji bib 1 from Histmedia

Who watches what types of thriller?

Thriller sub genre audience from Histmedia