BSR Evaluation // Part 8 (Progress Since Preliminary Task)

What was successful about my preliminary task? 

A main success in this task was our creativity. We were given a small brief to follow allowing us to have control over the themes and the situation. The brief was as followed:

"A character opens a door, crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. 

The task should demonstrate knowledge and understanding of match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule."

From this we decided on the idea of a teacher warning a student about her exclusion if she continued to behave badly. This was inspired from a current TV show at the time we were filming this, which was Educating the East End.

The first strength would be that we stuck to the brief we were given and showcased the necessary skills.

(long shot)

Another strength about my preliminary task was the variety of shots we showcased. We wanted to show all the different shots we had learnt about, and also keep such a short piece interesting. We wanted to use the shots appropriately as well. For example, we used a long shot to show the student walking to the office because we wanted to show her surroundings but also to show her whole body allowing the audience to see her lazy body language and therefore her attitude to school. 

(over the shoulder shot)

Another example would be over the shoulder and shot reverse shots. We used these shots so you are able to see who the conversation is going on between and the reaction of the other character to what has been said. Shot reverse shots which can be seen from (0:29-0:35) challenged us by having to make sure we stuck to the 180-degree rule to ensure continuity. We also used close ups to express anger, this allowed the shots to correlate with the emotions felt by our characters.

Also, we experimented with the concept of a flashback by using cross-cutting adding something extra to our final draft. This was also my first time trying to use match on action which I think was edited quite precisely even though at this time I had never edited before. 

What was less successful?


(first draft allowing you to see broken 180-degree rule)

Unfortunately, when filming we did not follow our storyboard correctly resulting in a broken 180-degree rule which you can see at (0:53) where the school girl is on the left instead of the right in our first draft. This could have been avoided with better planning but meant we had to film again to correct it. This created problems as the conditions we filmed most of our work in were not the exact same as our final footage. During filming we should have referred more to our storyboard to avoid this, and our planning could have been better. 

Another weakness was one of our actors was being used by another group. This meant finding days for everyone to be available was extremely hard, which meant we couldn't always film when we wanted to. If we carried this task out again I would consider the actors I chose more carefully, making sure they could commit to the project. 

Another weakness would be the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds means that the audience's main focus would lie on the top imaginary line of the screen. I think on some of our close-ups the rule of thirds could be much clearer, as the top of the shot is quite empty.

(rule of thirds)

How did you improve upon each of these areas when making your BSR? 

I think the final BSR opening is a much higher standard than the continuity exercise in terms of filming, editing, planning and creativity.

We planned much more for the BSR and had more time to carry it out. We did not feel stressed at all towards our deadline, as we finished everything fairly early. We had a shooting script which we followed and stuck to and also made a treatment and narrative structure to have our story all planned out. This helped us create the opening we wanted. Our actors were also very committed and stuck to the days we wanted to film, which we were extremely thankful for. This allowed us to finish filming relatively early, and we also decided we did not wish to re-film. 

At first, the editing took a while, as our idea of parallel editing just didn't seem like it was working, we considered our ordering, and finally started to see it coming together. Although I said editing was a strength, I have practiced editing much more now and feel like the final opening is much smoother. Initially we edited in iMovie than imported the opening sequence into Final Cut Pro, we felt this was the best option for us as we were both quite confident with iMovie. We also had to learn how to use new software such as LiveType and Final Cut Pro. The transition from iMovie, which I have become very familiar with now, to Final Cut was difficult and time consuming due to the amount of rendering we had to do. Importing our graphics caused some technical problems which took a while to be resolved. 

When filming, we found it difficult in some locations due to size of rooms and the angle required. We still used lots of different shots like in the continuity exercise, but found a better balance in the opening so it flowed. We used a tripod in most of our shots, but also experimented with hand held, which came out very still which was very pleasing. We used hand held on shots of Becca getting ready and used it for some tilts. 

(hand held shot)

I feel that we were much more creative with the non linear opening, as we enjoyed creating it much more and were more inspired by BSR as a genre. The parallel editing was something we had never done before, yet found it really worked in how we wanted the audience to feel.

BSR Evaluation // Part 7 (How I Have Improved With Technology)

BSR Evaluation // Part 6 (How We Addressed Our Audience)

BSR Evaluation // Part 5 (How Our Media Represents Social Groups)

The main aim of our film is to challenge the representations of teenage pregnancies always being the result of careless acts of young girls and instead show the hardships some girls are forced to face. It shows young girls in a different light, being vulnerable and taken advantage of rather than willingly being sexually active. The amount of teenage pregnancies of recent years have caused many people to believe that all young people are irresponsible and are forced to think about abortion and adoption, as they are not ready for responsibility and are not in a position that they can support a baby.

The BSR archetypes we feature in our film are the failing man, seen later on in our media,  Becca's single father struggles to take care of Becca and feels like he has failed raising her when he first finds out about the pregnancy. He often takes out his anger on Becca, and they do not have a positive relationship which he beats himself up about. This is not stereotypical as single parents are usually shown as the mother rather than the father. This is also differs in the fact that we portray a man as weak when weakness is often portrayed through a woman. Also later on in the film we see the archetype of the saviour, a boy who tries to aid Becca when she considers self harm at the result of her depression. This contrasts the character of the rapist as it shows a teenage boy to be sensitive rather than aggressive. We also see a follower, a girl who used to be Becca's best friend but follows a group of bullies who constantly pick on her for her pregnancy.
In our opening we see the archetype of the weak but aggressive man, which represents the character of the rapist. He is weak as he takes advantage of a girl who is vulnerable, but shows that he is aggressive through the acts of rape.

These shots show how the rapist is aggressive (linking to the archetype) as he takes up the majority of the screen. This shows him as the more dominant character whilst showing Becca as weak and vulnerable. The scenes of the rape are kept quite short in the way it is edited, as it emphasises the aggression in the rapist's movements in contrast to other scenes. The camera angles used on the character of the rapist are low portraying him as dominant. This represents young boys as aggressive, dangerous and may even show a stereotype of teenage boys being more likely to commit crimes. The high camera angles on Becca portray her as vulnerable. This represents women as weak, and shows the stereotype of women being weaker than men. 

The shots showing the alley is stereotypical as it is where most people would expect something like this to occur. It is stereotypical that rough areas will have a higher crime rate. However using an alley way shows how we conformed to the BSR genre, otherwise it would not create the right atmosphere or look like a BSR location. 
The costumes are stereotypical of the youth today, as it is what is currently fashionable. We were sure not to show wealth through branded clothes to conform to the BSR genre. It represents our characters to be of an average income for working class people, being able to afford fashionable clothes rather than tracksuits (often used in BSR films), which we did not think represented working class people or relate to our target audience well. Our lighting in most alley way scenes are quite stereotypical for BSR, quite dark natural lighting in the alley way scenes again representing the themes of the film, also representing the rapist as a dark character, a villain according to Propp's character types. The lighting in the scenes he is involved in is much more low key than scenes without his presence. 

The sound is not stereotypical for a BSR. The songs used with similar themes are usually quite fast and aggressive, usually what is popular among young people today, as it is quite often dubstep. However we opted for a much slower, softer piece that makes the audience empathise with our protagonist. The anchorage in our opening is the music, as it represents the emotions of Becca, this is quite stereotypical as background music is a quite an effective way of portraying a character's emotions in a film. 
You can listen to our music here:

http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/tomorrow

In our film we use a black actor for the rapist which is stereotypical in British films as they often use old views on race. However, we also used a black actress for the role of Becca, who would be stereotypically white with a quite chavvy personality, especially considering the location we filmed in. This was not intended to have these characters to be of the same race as we did not realise the stereotypes existed and don't have themes of racial discrimination feature in our film. 
 Films like "The Selfish Giant" have an all white cast, yet Bradford is very multicultural, so it is not realistic to the area. Here, we show subversion and conformity to stereotypes established in other BSR films. Films like "The Selfish Giant" have an all white cast, yet Bradford is very multicultural, so it is not realistic to the area. Later on in the film, scenes were to be set at Becca's school, where we would see many different races and cultures, as we wanted to set it in modern times and not to focus on racial issues which is not common in the area we have set our film in. 

BSR Evaluation // Part 4 (Textual Analysis of How We Used Codes and Conventions)

BSR Evaluation // Part 3 (Impact Film4 Had On Each Production Stage)

BSR Evaluation // Part 2 (Our Target Audience)