My Evaluation Page

This is where I'm going to post my evaluation on the opening title sequence : My Evaluation Page

Final Cut (OTS Little Red Riding Hood)

Red Riding Hood | Final Cut from Word Up Studios on Vimeo.

So after a long time of trial and error, Jack, Fabian and I have completed out opening title sequence for our film noir. My main role was to composed the soundtrack and organise the costumes and props. I think I spent most of my time focusing on the soundtrack as I wanted it to be as good of standards as the actual footage, as the members of word up studios are both really good at what they do so I wanted to try my hardest in the parts that I do, to leave a good impression on the audience. We have all worked so hard in our areas to ensure a high quality production to be sent off, Even though its been stressful at times, I have throughly enjoyed the production of the opening sequence. Jack and Fabian have been great team members, I think there has been good communication between each other and have helped each others out to make sure we are all going in the right direction to allow that the narrative flows and suits the audience and typical features of a modern film noir (neo-noir).
This is where I'm going to post my evaluation on the opening title sequence : My Evaluation Page

Hansel and Gretel (Neo Noir)-Continuity Task

from Wil Allen on Vimeo.

Fifty Shades Of Grey (Sweded) Trailer

Soundtrack Analysis (OTS Little Red Riding Hood)

Timings for the soundtrack analysis
0:06-Dark Guitar
0:56-Dark Blues
As you can see I was a bit nervous but hopefully you can see what I getting at in the analysis. I talked about the making of process and how I created the soundtrack for both piece. Dark Guitar was probably the easiest to record as I only had one instrument to focus on, despite this being only instrument meaning I have got to sound as expressive as the Dark Blues track. what I would have liked to do it blend the two together instead of one started after one ends I think it would of sounded better if I linked them together somehow. to make it flow seamlessly. The soundtrack was the main focus point for me on the final production, so I wanted to try and make something that sounded a little different and modernise the traditional film noir music genre (blues) and put a twist on it to suit our film noir.

Foley Update (OTS Little Red Riding Hood)

As a group we have decided to use different sound effect techniques, as my foleying skills weren't up to standards for our final production. Jack has used sound effects that he's had found on (Site name), He has got the door knocks and a few rustles of leaves when the lumberjack walks outside, and the gun shot is another feature for our studio ident. We won't be using the foley that I used as Jack forgot that I created some and due to the rush of getting out production finished, so he decided to use sound effects that he found on internet and used them instead of the foley I created.

Character Profile (OTS Little Red Riding Hood)

Lumberjack (Played by Jack Cullum)

The lumberjack is a lonely character who doesn't feel like he fits into society, so he segregates himself in an old little house in the woods. He takes out the aggression of his past by chopping down trees. He is pessimistic towards his future and everyday he struggles to move on with his life. As a young man, there's nothing in his life for him to look forward to. Jobs seem a struggle to get and money doesn't come easy, any job will be a result. He doesn't talk much he keeps his thoughts to himself as he got used to being by himself. He looks scruffy he isn't a fancy man in shining armor, just an average unemployed man.

Bad Wolf (Played by Liam Cranston)

The bad wolf is a horrible man with lots of money, who bribes people to do his dirty work. He is a very arrogant man with no respect for anyone apart from himself. He persuades the lumberjack to do a job for him as he seems vulnerable enough to take advantage of. He also takes control over red riding, of which gets jealous when she speaks to another man.

Red Riding (Played by Chloe Smith)

Red is a secretive young women, who is stuck with the bad wolf for the rest of her life, however don't misjudge her innocent nature as inside she is manipulative, and ends persuading the lumberjack from her looks to force him to kill someone. She is extremely flirty, as she wants people to recognise her as the bad wolf constantly pushes her aside.

Foley Sounds (OTS Little Red Riding Hood)

These are the foley sounds I created, I used the tips that the foley tutorial/explanation video in the last post I posted. And from the first attempt of foleying, for the 'priest foley task' I did a while back, I used I microphone instead of my phone and I used 'audacity' as recording software, to gain good quality sound effects. I think a few of them aren't too good, however once Jack has edited them into the footage I will give proper feedback on how they work as on their own they sound strange with nothing to follow along with. We are a bit rush for time to meet the deadline, so I didn't have much time to experiment with different sounds. However I do feel like there's better quality to the sound from this second attempt at foleying.

Foley Analysis (SoundWorks Collection: Gary Hecker - Veteran Foley Artist from Michael Coleman)

This is a video that me and Fabian both discovered. It explains how to prepare and create Foley sounds. I found this really useful as from our first task with foleying I found it slightly difficult and my actual output wasn't too good, so I was looking for tips on how to Foley and I came across this video. Gary Hecker states that “timing and a huge creative mind” is key to foleying, and this has taught me to experiment with different sounds as it is difficult to find the right sound effect you need by foleying unless you test a few pieces of equipment and use them in different ways. I will use his methods for when I do my foleying sounds. I've also realised that you usually can not create the effect you want by foleying 1 sound as he had to record multiple parts to get the sound he wanted and then layered them up to get his final product.

I Do Not Own Any Of This Footage It belongs to Michael Coleman
SoundWorks Collection: Gary Hecker - Veteran Foley Artist from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Foleying - Based on Our first Draft (OTS Little Red Riding Hood)

Nightmare

• Rustling cloth on the floor as Lumberjack gets up
• Creaking floors
• Footsteps
• Creaking looking out the window
• Dust falling 
• Footsteps going downstairs
• Rubble on the floor
• Picking up the Axe

Outside in Forest

• Creaking door open and slamming shut
• Wind blowing 
• Branches swaying 
• Footsteps leaving the house
• Leaves rustling
• (Possible some birds)

Outside in City

• Footsteps on pavement
• Knock on door x3 in time 
• Creaking door open and shutting

Bad Wolf''s Room

• Lighting match
• Match flare
• Burning cigarette
• Brushing away ash
• Hand placed on gun

Update On Our Roles (Word Up Studios)

This is and update post on our roles/involvement in our final production, As you can see that my main roles haven't really changed but it is just a reminder of what else I need to do to complete our opening title sequence. The soundtrack is completed (the 'Nightmare Scene' theme and 'Dark Blues' track is now finally completed after hours and hours of experimentation). Props and Costumes Are all done I'll give you an update post on how we found the costumes and props that we used. Aerial camera operator, I wouldn't class this as a main role as we didn't actually use this in our final production, however we used it some of the behind the scenes work, to show an aerial view of the Lumberjack's 'home' location for the nightmare scene. 

All I really need to do now is the foleying, hopefully in the next couple of days I will have a list on this blog of all the different foleying sounds we need and how to create them , however due to me not having the final production I wouldn't be able to do that, And once Jack has finished the editing or there is enough footage I could use to begin foleying I will be instantly researching foleying techniques.

Jack

• Co-Director
• Script Writer
• Editor
• Casting Director

Fabian

• Co-Director
• Location Manager
• Director of Cinematography
• Camera Man
• Lead Technician (Lighting and Equipment)

Wil

• Composer
• Costume Manager
• Prop Manager
• Aerial footage
• Director of Foley

Courtesy to Jack Cullum for assigning the roles 

Dark Blues (Final Version) (Word Up Studios)-OTS

So this is the final version of Dark Blues, Our main soundtrack of the opening title sequence for our film noir. For this version I added drums and changed the instruments in some parts as eventhough  the instruments that I changed suited the style of blues I thought that it didn't really sound dark it gave a quite a cheesy sound so I kept the melody but changed the instrument that it was played on. The melody, which was originally played on an e clavichord, is now played on a glass instrument which creates ambient atmospheric sound. We final version of this soundtrack will be this version or the last version I sent out, which we'll decide as a group which one we prefer.

Dark Guitar / Nightmare (Final Version) (Word Up Studios)-OTS

This is the final version of the soundtrack for the nightmare scene, Not much has changed from the last version, however for this version I recorded this using a different software called  Audacity' as I thought it gave a better quality of  sound using the microphones we have at school, compared to 'Ableton'. Despite this I will definitely use 'Ableton' when recording the Dark Blues track as it gives me more of a range of different instruments to build up different layers and timbres.

Creating the soundtrack for this scene has been fairly difficult as I struggled on getting the right sound, As we started using different instruments (such as Strings), Different scales to give a certain mood/atmosphere and even different tones an pitches. However I think this is my favourite version as I think it relates to the scene well.

Props - What We've Got (OTS Little Red Riding Hood)

So after unsuccessfully looking around for a blanket and pillows, I managed to find this blanket and pillow on line, I showed a few different blanket style to Jack and Fabian and we decide that we wanted to have a blanket which looked quite dull and suited our character, as he is supposed to be a 'homeless man' and i thought that this style worked well for that. We also didn't want to have the colours too vibrant and avoid red colours as we only want specific objects to be red to help direct our narrative.

Finding as pillow as we were just looking for a standard white pillow that was cheap enough to buy and could be easily roughed up. Again I found this on line as, I couldn't a cheap white one we could used. However I think this would work well as part of the mise-en-scene in the Lumberjack's 'home', even though it seems clean now, We will rough it up a bit to suit our character and the look we want

.
So, overall these two products cost around £13, which I think is reasonably cheap considering the style of the blanket. This will feature in some of the footage we will film soon, and then we can see if the blanket and pillow works well or not in the scenes or not. But I personally think that they will represent the lumberjack well, as a distraught man.

Dark Blues #2 (Word Up Studios)-OTS

For this piece of experimentation I use the pervious version of the 'Dark Blues' soundtrack and add different layers I added lower notes to represent a dark mood and changed the dynamics in some parts to build up tension in parts, I was considering to add other parts such as guitar parts as they can give a dark sound and they feature in both of my inspiration pieces.

Me Working On Dark Blues

I used some generic features of blues in this piece using 7th chords and using the blues scale, as well as keeping it slow paced and parts which are off beat. But using these features in a different way to make it sound dark to tie in with our film noir soundscape.

Different Layers For Dark Blues

For recording this soundtrack I used Ableton as it gives me a variety of different effects and instruments in needed to create the soundtrack and add different timbres to give a dark atmosphere and mood. I think the next one I could add a guitar part and a drums, but to add inspiration from a blues drums track to stick with the stylistic features of blues.

Dark Blues #1 (Word Up Studios)-OTS

To keep the conventions of a film noir we wanted to have a blues piece, but I decided that we should  make the soundtrack in the style of dark blues, so it ties in with our film noir. I got inspiration from  Castanets-No Trouble and So what I have done is tried to create the sound but put my own style on it and adapt it to suit our film noir. This is just the basics i have create and over time I will post different versions and add different layers to make it sound similar but still unique enough to be specific to our film. I was also inspired by the famous John Murphy-In a House, In a Heartbeat also known as the '28 weeks Later' soundtrack as I wanted to create some thing simple but builds up tension by adding layers and including Distortion guitars to create the angst and tension for our opening title sequence.
Here's What I Got Inspiration From:

• Hozier - Arsonist's Lullaby.
• Castanets-No Trouble
• John Murphy-In a House, In a Heartbeat
• Ben Howard - Oats In The Water (Slightly I used similar instrumentation)

How To Make Fake Blood (OTS Little Red Riding Hood)

First Recipe - Liquid Recipe

1. 1 cup of corn starch
2. 1 tablespoon of water
3. 2 tablespoons of red food colouring
4. Few drops of green food colouring 
5. Mix all the ingredients together and adjust the quantity of red and green food colour.

Second Recipe - Best Recipe

1. 1/2 cup Tropical fruit punch 
2. 1 cup corn syrup
3. 2 tablespoons of red food coloring
4. 1 tablespoon of chocolate syrup
5. 2 tablespoons of cornstarch
6. 1 tablespoon of powdered cocoa

Third Recipe

1. Add 8 ounces of water to the blender.
2. Add 16 ounces of powdered sugar to the blender (you can find a 16 ounce box of sugar at the store). Blend it up. You may need to turn the blender on and off a few times to make sure it blends well.
3. Add 1 ounce of red food coloring (you can also purchase a 1 ounce jar at the store). Blend it up. Make sure it blends well.
4. Add 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder. Blend it up. Make sure it blends well.
5. Use a spoon to scoop out some of the fake blood. Drip it on a paper towel our your hand.

We can test all these recipes out to see which ones work the best and gives the best colour and consistency so we will be able to see it still, even when we have a black and white filter over it.

Props - Based On Our Test Footage (OTS Little Red Riding Hood)

Herbal Cigarettes - Honeyrose
We will use Herbal Cigarettes in our film noir, this will be used by most of the characters and especially the main characters (Femme Fetale, Lumberjack and the Bad Wolf). We wanted to give a realistic feel to the story and wanted to use something almost exact to the cigarette which wouldn't damage our health, so we researched products that we could use and we found these:

Blankets
We will use a tartan blanket in order to show that this the lumberjack's home, and eventhough we're not trying to give he impression that he is homeless we are tying to show that his life has ruined and feels secluded from everyone else. Obviously we won't buy a new blanket as that would be costly when as we will only destroy it any way as we want him to live in a disgusting environment and not a homely places I'll probably buy an old blanket from a second hand shop to give it that destroyed look.

Pillows
Like the blankets probably use old pillows as they will suit our character. While looking for the blankets i will try and find some old pillows possibly only one or 2 different coloured ones as obviously the lumberjack wouldn't of paid for them so he would have found them, so it is unlikely he would've got a matching pair.

Rubbish
We could probably find some bits of card and rubbish which could use to create a worn down house, this shows that the lumberjack is lower class and has to live in a destroyed house as this shows, what is been reflected inside, as is a stable human being he has collapsed and hit a low point as what has happened in the past.

Red Hood
This prop is essential to the opening title sequence as the name of the sequence is called "Little Red Riding Hood", so it makes sense to have a red hood for our femme fetale. It is also a key prop to the narrative as is used for a piece of forshadowing of whats going to happen later on in the story.

Nightmare #3 (Word Up Studios)-OTS

I have worked on the soundtrack for the nightmare scene and as a group we feel that this piece will set the mood and atmosphere which we wanted to achieve. From previous pieces experimentation, we discussed that we wanted the piece to be simplistic with only a single acoustic guitar, I also recorded another guitar piece, but we thought it sounded bit western and we wanted it to be a bit slower and lower in pitch it is supposed to sound quite sombre and the other one had some high part which stuck out whereas Word Up Studios and I thought it would've sounded better if it all blended into one.

Aerial Footage - Location Footage (OTS Little Red Riding Hood)

This is the aerial footage I filmed while shooting some test footage at our waking up scene location. For this I was using an Syma 5XC, which i got for christmas, We didn't want to use it for our actual film noir, but we thought we could use it to film our location used in our scenes. As it would of been a shame to not use it in our production. This is our first location and as you can see it includes a destroyed house with woods directly outside suitable for our narrative. As you can I'm not the best flier and it isn't the best footage but for the price and what we used it for, shows our location quite well. I would of liked to have recorded more places but as it has a little memory space and battery little then we kind of restricted on what we can film, so we tried to keep the footage as relevant as possible to where we are filming and our main location in the woods.

Filming Test Footage

This is my first appearance in the Word Up Studios Vlog. My main role today was the aerial camera operator, as I got christmas a quadcopter for christmas. The word studios crew discussed ways in which we can used, as it doesn't really suit the shots we are looking and wouldn't fit film noir. So we decided as a group to use the quadcopter for behind the scenes footage of our location which I will release on this blog soon. As you can see at the start of this Vlog I'm not the best flier, but tried my hardest to get some aerial footage of our location .

What I have Done During The Christmas Holidays

Jack Gave us roles for our evolvement in the film noir opening title sequence. My roles are composer, music editor, costume design and We are all working together as producers. Over christmas I did get a Quadcopter with a camera on it, so we will use that to get aerial shots off our location, as part of our location research. My jobs over the christmas holiday were to look at the different character costumes and their props and to come up with some soundtrack ideas for the opening sequence I came up with a few ideas and sent them to Jack and Fabian to see what the thought, so I could see if it would fit in with what they were doing. The most challenging part of composing the different soundtracks were making it synchronous, ensuring the music links in with the atmosphere of the opening title sequence. This is why I composed a few different ideas to see which we all thought worked the best. Currently I'm still trying to come up with idea that Jack feels fits the most in with the nightmare scene.

Nightmare #2 (Word Up Studios)-OTS

For this I was experimenting with a feel and the instrumentation. I personally dislike this piece as it doesn't give a sombre feel and I think that it sound better lower in pitch and slightly slower. We also discussed as a group the the quality wasn't too good as is recorded on my phone, however I have recently got a audio interface so I can record the piece properly to a good standard. I also thought that it sounded a bit western and not what we wanted to achieve for our film noir. So what I need to change is the pitch-It needs to be lower in pitch, tempo-Its need to be slightly slower and needs to suit  the scene a bit better. But I like the instrumentation, I think the single acoustic guitar works well.
Here's What I Got Inspiration From:

• Lee DeWyze "Blackbird Song"
• Ben Howard - Oats In The Water

Nightmare #1 (Word Up Studios)-OTS

This is my first attempt at writing the soundtrack to our Opening title sequence, Jack gave me a couple stimulants to come up with a piece, as he is writing the script thus we wanted it all to fit in well. Jack wanted me write a slow sombre pieces. I recorded this pice on Ableton and recorded a string quartet (contrabass, cello, viola and violin). I experimented with pitch on having the contrabass (a low pitched instrument) playing a held note to create a sense of anticipation then gradually building up the texture and changing the dynamic ranges to give a sombre mood. I also added some dissonance to give a dark atmosphere as it is many for the nightmare scene.
Here's What I Got Inspiration From:

•  Anthony Gonzalez and Brian Reitzell - Towers of the void (Red Riding Hood)

Character Costumes and Props (OTS Little Red Riding Hood)

LumberJack

Upper - Checked shirt with a white top / vest underneath (Stereotypical clothing for a lumberjack and will be undone at the top to show his practical side) 

Lower - Blue/Black Jeans and a Tan leather belt (This also shows that he is a practical man) 

Shoes - Brown hiking / Walking boots (Again to show his practical side as he mostly spends his time walking in the woods) 

Props - Axe (Key Prop to story line as throughout the narrative it reminds him of what he did) 

Hairstyle - Messy spiked up / Comb over (If he has messy hair, that could show his rural nature side r, however if he has a comb over it will link better with film noir and show is serious side) 

Red Riding Hood 

Body - Red Dress (links with Red Riding, as she dressed in red and shows warning signs that she is dangerous), Fluffy collar (Red will show connotations to a little red's hood, Black will work well with the red and will show a sense of darkness and her evil side) 

Shoes - Heels (are a typical shoe for the femme fetal and the look formal and elegant) 

Props - Cigarette (Gets rid of her innocence to show she isn't good), Pistol (Deadly, is discreet / small enough, to show she has little power) 

Make-up and Hair - Long and Wavy Hair (To cover some of her face and not reveal herself to much) Red Lipstick (links with danger) 

The Wolf 

Upper - Black Jacket and Tie (To show that he is evil and dark and to show the audience that he think he is the most powerful) 

Lower - Black trousers (Add to him being evil and links with film noir, with the villain wearing black)

Shoes and Hat - Smart Black shoes (showing a formal business man) Black trilby (occasionally wearing it, he will take it off when the narrative begins to get dramatic) 

Props - Cigar (Instead of cigarette to show that he has the most power) Pistol (Bigger pistol to show that he has killed before) 

Hair - Slicked hair (A common looked for a villain in film noir) 

Gangster 

Body- Same as the Villain without the jacket (This is to show that the gangsters less power to the wolf but similar clothing to show that they work for the villain), some will wear a trilby 

Hair - Slicked back (a common look for a gangster in film noir)

Props -  Pistol (To show they have less power than the Wolf) 

Intended Audience (OTS Little Red Riding Hood)

• Age: 20-35, although film noirs are intended for the older generation, we wanted our production to have a modern twist (Neo-noir) so it would suit a younger audience and also all of our actors and actress are young, so it makes sense for it to appeal to a younger group of people.However Neo-noirs such as sin city appeal to younger audiences.
• Gender: Male, Film noirs are usually aimed at males, even though research show that both genders enjoy watching them, film noir and our production is aimed at males as they usually have a male protagonist as the every man which our does so it makes it more relate able to male viewer then men.
• Nationality: Great Britain And United States (Other English speaking countries), The style seems very British, I would say based on the look on some of the scenes, from the locations and the weather looking very British. 
• Education: For people who have been in secondary education, Not strictly for these people but as a lot of people in or have been in secondary education it could also apply to people in tertiary, as film noir directly interest people in universities and  in higher adult education.
• Race and Ethnicity: All races, Our film noir isn't specific to one race, Usually traditional film noirs are aimed at white people as alot of film noirs were around in a time of racial diversity so white people played all the roles of the characters, eventhough our film noir charatcers are all white, it doesn't mean that other races wouldn't be interrested in it.

All research came from YouGov "Double Indemnity" and YouGov "Sin City"

Audience pete buckingham what people go to see, I don't own this slide it belongs to Elaine Humpleby

• I think that our audience will be for 'Film Fanatics' who are interested in most genres of films, they go in pairs or groups and think ahead of what they are going to see.
• I would say that the genre is a crime film meaning that I would appeal to male and females based on the Pete Buckingham slide, However to the main protagonist being male implies the intended audience is male.

Storyboard (Evaluation on Jack's post)

Everything in red came from Jack Blog and doesn't belong to me, it is just used as analysis work.
When it came to our group we weren't the best when it came to storyboarding. We created them all in one day, very roughly drawn and thinking that we would come back to re do them at a later date. We were going to expand on them, add more detail and annotate them, however due to our eagerness to film we actually forget to redo them and use the rough storyboards.

Here are the three storyboards that we created.

As you can see they were very basic and needed to be expanded on. Not making better storyboards actually caused more problems in the long run as when it came to filming we couldn't always follow the storyboards and were left trying to figure out how to film the scenes which in turn took more time.

What I've learnt from this is that we really needed to improve out storyboards, and if we did we could of produced a much better OTS.

From this post I got a better understanding of how the scenes are structured, as I in charge of the soundtrack I need to know