Applying appropriate visual effects and transitions

In the process of creating the white room we relied primarily on physical means (during the production stage) in order to give our visuals meaning. For example in the opening crosscutting sequence we used mainly warm lighting for the shots of the protagonist Chris's house as to draw contrast between that of Aaron the antagonist's.

We also did this for the conversation scenes which is why in the scene where Chris is talking to Andrew in the café is clearly shot in a warmer light than that of Aaron talking to Wayne. The idea of this was that it would show Chris and Andrew as warmer, friendlier characters to the audience and clearly establish who are protaganists and who are antagonists. This meant that we had to experiment with different types of lighting in order to create the different looking scenes. For the scene of Wayne and Aaron speaking we filmed early in the morning and used only natural light but with the cafe scene we filmed after dark and used the warm interior lighrt of the cafe.

i have provided some examples here of three shots which i feel display the tone of their scenes well. The first is taken from a slider shot under the table in the cafe. The scene was filmed in low light to help communicate the dark tone of the scene to a viewer. The second is taken frmo the introductory crosscutting sequance and is filmed in natural light which gives it a colder tone. THis was meant to display thed

I however did use one visual effect in post production to edit the first shot of Chris which made the shot look warmer and fit with the others. Below I have inserted a screenshot of the raw footage of that shot as well as the edited version.

Another example of visual effects was in my use of adobe after effects in order to reduce the shakiness of the over- the -shoulder shot of Aaron before he attacks Chris. I did this as to make it viewable as well as of a professional quality.

The clearest use of transitions in the film is where I have edited the opening crosscutting sequence to the beat of the song "daydream" as to give it a sense of rhythm.
 As can be seen in the examples i have included below i have attempted to make the secene change shots only on the beats of the song. This is a tecnique which is common at the beginning of films and one which I feel fits the rest of the film we have made well.

Following shooting scripts/ storyboards

Below is evidence of the final shoot for our short film, The White Room, matching a piece os planning that we produced in pre-production before the film. It matches some parts of the storyboard. The storyboard shows Aaron following Christopher and grabbing him at the end. This is also shown in the film screenshot below and is evidence that our shooting matched the storyboard. I thought that a cut to black before the kidnapping really got started would leave the audience interested and wanting more as they would want to know what has happened to Christopher. I thought suspense would be a good technique to use for a crime thriller as it makes the audience feel nervous and excited which is what we would want our film to make them feel.

Although the storyboard was made before the films production and sometimes people don't stick to it, our group has stuck to it well and our final film shows it multiple times.

Below is another example. Although every shot doesn't match, a lot of them are used in our film. These include a close up of Matt (Aaron) opening the door to leave his house. and a shot of each character tying their shoes. Although the shot of Matt (Aaron) getting the balaclava out of his draw is slightly different, as is the shot of Aaron coming his hair, it still takes inspiration from the storyboard, as do most of the shots we used in the first section of the film. The shot of Aaron combing his hair actually features Joe (Christopher) in the final film. The shot of Joe (Chistopher) putting on his shoes starts blurred and out of focus and then fades in to focus. Although this is nto mentioned in the storyboard, it was added for effect but still tooka lot of insperation from the storyboard.

Legal and ethical

Legal considerations:

There are several legal issues that must be avoided when making a film. The six that are of most relevance are below. 

• Copyright, designs and patents act 1988:

This law protects the creations of people within the market place. It means that we are not allowed to take music which we have no claim to, or permission to use and other people are not allowed to steal scenes from our film and put them in their own products. 

For our product, we will need to gain copyright permission from the owners of the music which we plan to feature in our short film.    

• Data protection act:

This law means that we have to be very careful to protect the contact information of the people who we have contacted for this film. It also means that we have to have our actors sign release and consent agreements so that they can appear in our film. This will include the actors in our film such as Joe Facer. 

Ethical considerations: 

• Discrimination:

Discrimination refers to the hiring policy of our film. We must ensure that the policy of the film does not exclude anyone because of their ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation as well as this we must do everything in our power to make sure that our product is diverse.        

• Representation:

Our film risks being accused of misrepresentation due to the protagonists being portrayed as middle class while the antagonists are to be working class (and are shown in the script to be struggling financially) To this end we will ensure that our characters are portrayed in a grounded and realistic manner which could not be considered offensive. 

The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is responsible for the classification and censorship of films released in the United Kingdom. The promo for The White Room would receive a "12" rating from the BBFC as it would feature a moderate amount of threat and violence with little to no explicit language. We will adhere to the BBFC guidelines by not using an excessive amount of explicit language or any graphic violence.

OFCOM is the UK regulatory authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. OFCOM are relevant to the trailer for The White Room as it is being distributed online. This means that it must abide by OFCOM's regulations if it is to be advertised online on websites such as YouTube. There are rules set by OFCOM (section 3 of the broadcasting code) that state they must prohibit material that is likely to incite crime or disorder. Although our film does show part of a kidnapping taking place; it is not overly graphic and I believe it does not incite violence.

If we have a scene that features a recognisable brand we would need to ensure that we seek permission from the owner for use of the product. We will also need to get rights to the music that we use (if any) or any sounds as we are intending to use ticking noises in our trailer to create suspense. However, we are planning to use copyright free noises and if we do use any other noises we will try to ensure that they are copyright free. To gain permission for our noises we can find the website/owner and email them for permission to use the content.

We intend on having a ticking clock noise going over the video to build suspense, to avoid requiring to purchasing the royalties we will use royalty free audio track courtesy of creative commons, but may be required to give credit to the artist, this would depend on the terms and conditions of the provider, this must be checked before using the sound track. 

Following safe working practices

As shown in the previous post entitled "LO1: Risk Assessment", there are lots of risks associated with producing a film. This post details how we will adhere to safety procedures to avoid any of these risks.

One of the main risks when filming on Holland Street (Sheffield) is being struck by a vehicle as although this is a pretty quiet road there is still some traffic which could be an issue as we would need to set camera equipment in the middle of the road. In order to follow safe working practices, we will set up 2 crew members (one at each end of the street) to stop vehicles coming down the road and warn the cast & crew of any oncoming vehicles. Although it is highly unlikely, as Holland Street is in what could be described as a sketchy part of town there is a risk of getting mugged as the crew will be carrying a number of expensive pieces of equipment.

There are considerably fewer risks when filming in our housing locations (Birdwell, Barnsley & Shireoaks, Worksop). As we are filming a few of the scenes at the top of a set of stairs there is a minor risk of actors or crew members falling down the stairs. In order to follow safe working practices, we will place a crew member o the stairs to observe all members of production in order to keep them safe. We would be unable to put warning tape across the stairs as this would be seen in the camera shot. Other than this there are no major risks associated with filming at this location.

When filming at cafe creme, there are a few more risks to take into account as it is a more crowded environment. Hot beverages could be spilt, there is more likely to be a slip/trip hazard due to the nature of the business, there is likely to be objects that could cause harm (e.g. knives, hot drinks being spilt) etc. To ensure we follow safe working practices we will make sure the filming location is as clean as possible and use "wet floor" signs if necessary (to reduce the likelihood of trips/slips); we will also ensure that any object that could cause harm is removed from the set unless it is necessary for filming (i.e. the main character needs a hot beverage for one of the scenes).

The only risk associated with filming on Sheffield Road, Birdwell (Bus stop scene) is traffic. To ensure we follow safe working practices we must ensure that all members of production behave appropriately when filming close to the busy road.           

Following production processes and setting up appropriate equipment

When creating our short film it was of upmost importance to us that the process was kept safe as well as efficient. This meant that we spent long periods of time setting up equipment so that when the actors (who's safety we were responsible for while they were on a project run by us) arrived we could film their scenes quickly and to the best of our ability in a way which would not be of threat to our safety.

It is for this reason that we felt that it was necessary to create a risk assessment for this particular process. Blow I have gone through this assessment and made note of how we have attempted to follow it as strictly as possible so that none of our actors could possibly be in any danger.

Note: When filming our final film we did not utilise all of these locations. As that I am writing about the ways we attempted the risk assessments I will only be talking about the locations in which we did film. These locations were Café Crème, two different houses and Arundel street


1: Café Crème.

It is likely that Café Crème is the most dangerous place I which we filmed. The reason for this is because of the fact that it is a functioning café meaning that it has many pieces of silverware and fragile plates which could cause people to be cut or hurt. People falling and hurting themselves (potentially by accident or by the floors being wet) would also be a dangerous.
In order to make sure that the scene came out to a professional quality we made sure to bring the risk with us as that in our shooting schedule we had stated that we would be with both of our actors by this point in the day. This meant that we would have to make sure that all of the dangers that came we came across could be dealt with quickly so that we didn't waste time. When we arrived at the café we made sure that the table we were shooting didn't have any sharp objects on it and that the floor around it was dry. As well as this we checked that the café had a first aid kit which we kept to hand when we started shooting.
We used two tripods, two DSLRs and a slider  in order to capture the sequence in café crème so that the shot reverse shot structure could be filmed quickly. The slider we used to capture the shot of Andrew arriving at the café.

2: Arundel Street.

When filming the final scene of "The White Room" where Chris is kidnapped. We decided that we would have to be very quick as that the road was operational at the time of us filming. This helped us to avoid the risk of anyone being hit by a car or mugged as that we were only there for around 30 minutes.
We also made sure that we filmed on a day when it was dry so that the chances of someone slipping over were greatly reduced. As well as this I again made sure that there was a first aid kit on scene.
The equipment used here was a DSLR camera and a tripod only. For the first two shots (Chris walking down the street and Aaron following him from around the corner) we used the both pieces of equipment so that the camera remained steady and caught the actions being taken in each shot were shown in as much detail as possible. In contrast to this the over the shoulder shot of Aaron following Chris down the road I shot using only the camera. This made the resulting shot gave an impression of panic as that the camera was shaking.
In terms of Legal and ethical issues the shooting at Arundel Street presented several callanges. As to avoid a potential violation of the Data Protection act we had to make sure that nobody who had not given their consent to be in the film would appear. As well as this we had to consider the impct of using a public area and, as to not inconvenience anyone, make sure that we were not there for too long.

3: Peoples houses.

Shooting at peoples houses presented a series of challenges both in terms of health and safety as well as in terms of the personal safety of all parties involved. The largest health and safety risk we had while recording in these areas was the dog at Matts house. In order to make sure that it would present no problems we kept it locked in one of the rooms in which we were not recording and checked on it regularly. As well as this the dog meant that we had to ask our actors if they were allergic to dogs or if they were uncomfortable working with one present.
When at the houses it was important that the cameras were set up correctly. Below I have inserted an image of me setting up a camera on a slider which is attached to a tripod. This was for a shot which would move from one side of a character to the other while in a conversation. As can be seen in the photograph I am adjusting the lens of the camera so that the character would be in shot to the point I wanted.

footage in the style and conventions of the chosen genre

In our film many of the shots were included in order to create tension as they are in may thriller movies. As well as this we made sure to follow the codes and conventions that many other films have contrebuted to making commonplace. These incude featuring establishing shots of the places where the scenes are taking place as well as following a standard shot revese shot structure in our conversation scenes. I have included evidence of our adhearance to the normal practices of film production below using examples from our film as well as examples from other films which fall into the same genre (that being a crime thriller.