Week 7 Summary 22nd - 28th FEB (Faraz Maqbool)

This week we started to film the opening sequence and we also have our production set and uploaded onto the blog. This has the dates that we have to get our work done and also the dates that we have to film on, these dates have been discussed before hand to make sure that everyone would be available for filming. There is also a set date for when everything has to be done by and that means te whole project and when it has to be finished.

Production Schedule (Marian Hassan)

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Week 6 Summary 15th - 21st FEB (Faraz Maqbool)

This week we took a really big in depth look at the opening sequence that we are going to be creating and we uploaded the production brief which outlines everything that has to be considered in creating the opening sequence such as who the target audience is and where we can distribute the film and so on. We were also able to upload the storyboard so that the viewers can see what we are trying to achieve and what shots we are going to use. Alongside all of this we also uploaded the treatment which also looks at the target audience and the product that we are creating among other things. This week we also talked about possible filming dates and checked the dates we chose aginst the ones that our cast was free so that we could film with no problems, we also made sure that we had a few dates set aside just in case we had to do emergency filming or re film.

Production Brief (Faraz Maqbool)

Production Brief

Treatment (Gareth Hawkes)

Treatment

Storyboard (Faraz Maqbool)

Storyboard

Shot List for our film (Gareth Hawkes)

Shot List

Week 5 Summary 8th - 14th FEB (Faraz Maqbool)

This week what we did was find the props that we are going to use in the opening sequence. We took a long time finding some of the props such as the knife that we are going to use however it was originally supposed to be a big machete, but we were unable to find one. So we have to settle for a knife. We also were abe to round up our xast and this was mainyly down to Marian as she was able to recruit the cast memebers and get notes and pictures of them. We also looked ovr our blog and made changes, not very big ones just some that made the layout f th blog look more nicer to look at.

Theories (Faraz Maqbool)

Mcquails Uses and Gratification Theory
This theory is used as a way or means to understanding mass communication. This theory puts more emphasis on the audience rather tha the actual media product itself. It does this by exploring what people do with the media products they view rather than what media products do to people. It suggests that people choose to view and use media products to meet their own needs. Mcquails theory assumes that the audience are not passive but do take an interest in what they want to watch and make their own decisions regarding what they want to watch.

An example of this is that a person may feel more comfortable and confident to talk to others when they have facts or stories from a certain media product. This in turn will lead them to want to view the media product because they want to and so this is their own choice.

Vance Packards Hypodermic Needle Theory
This theory is actually quite straight forward and easy to understand. It states that the audience of a media product will clearly know the intended meaning of it and that they will accept this intended meaning completely. This theory however is actually very old going back to the 1930s and 1940s and is considered as being obsolete today. However it was quite popular when it was first introduced and the evidence for it was the war and the propaganda and how everyone easily and openly believed what they were told about the war by the media through Radios and TV's. It was not heavily questioned and people just swallowed, however things are different today and people choose what they want to watch and what they want to believe and even then we now know that media has a selective influence on different individuals.

Narrative Codes and Theory of Media
Roland Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. he was able to create a theory which stated that in every story there were five major Narrative codes which are all connected together and that these codes once brought together created meaning. We have only so far learnt of two of the codes both of which are shown below.

1. Hermeneutic Code (The Voice of Truth)
The hermeneutic code is associated with enigmas of the text. So to reveal the truth you would first have to be able to solve the enigmas.

- Thematisation. What in the narrative is an enigma?

- Positioning. Additional confirmations of the enigma.

- Formulation of the enigma.

- Promise of an answer of the enigma.

- Fraud. Circumvention of the true answer.

- Equivocation. Mixture of fraud and truth.

- Blocking. The enigma cannot be solved.

- Suspended answer. Stopping the answering after having begun.

- Partial answer. Some facets of the truth are revealed.

-Disclosure of the truth.

Because the hermeneutic code involves a move from a question to an answer it is one of the two codes (the other being the proairetic or action code) which Barthes calls “irreversible”. Once a secret is revealed, it cannot be unrevealed—the moment of cognition is permanent for the reader. TV Shows like "Lost" use the Hermeneutic Code very clearly.


Proairetic Code (The Voice of Empirics)
A Proairetic Code is a plot action that does not directly raise particular questions -- it is simply an action that is caused by a previous event and which leads to other events. It is not inherently mysterious. An example would be like a person walking down the street or a tile falls off the roof of a building.

Where the proairetic code creates tension in a story is in the anticipation it causes with regard to what might happen next. When we read stories we may try to read the mind of the author and hence wonder why what is happening as it is. This effect can be used by the author to lead the reader astray and hence create further tension.

Prop Notes (Marian Hassan)

PLASTIC KNIFE: Used by Faraz (Edward Wolfe) to kill his victims. It was given to Faraz by the drama department and as soon as we were finished with it we had to return it.









CAR: Driven by Akelah who owns the car. It was used to hit Edward Wolfe in order for him to fall to the ground.



PLAIN WHITE HOCKEY MASK: Worn by Faraz to induce fear and intimidation. it also resembles the mask of Freddie in Freddie vs Jason and that is the killer kind of loof we were going for.


BLUE OVERALLS: Worn by Faraz because it fit in with the appearance of our antagonist. Overalls also convey that the person wearing them is planning to get dirty and Edward Wolfe was planning to get bloody.

Cast Notes (Marian Hassan)

CHARACTER: Faraz Maqbool - Antagonist
AGE: 20
ROLE: Plays the role of Edward Wolfe the bullied teenage studnet who finally has enough of being a victim and seeks revenge against his enemies in a violent gruesome way.
RESONS FOR WHY THEY WERE GIVEN THIS ROLE: As a group we decided that Faraz suited this role perfectly because he is tall and quite wide built, he also has an intimidating stature. It took us quite some time to come to this decision seeing as Gareth Hawkes was eager to play this role, but we believe that in most common thrillers/ horrors e.g 'Freddie vs Jason' the antagonist is usually bigger than the protagonist and looks like they will defeat the victims easily.
We also thought that because Gareth is shorter than the other cast members it would look very humourous to see him chasing them around with a knife, and we would prefer it to be believable.



CHARACTER: Taiwo Giwa - Protagonist
AGE: 19
ROLE: Plays the role of Toby a student who continuously terrorised Alex and made him feel excluded, he was once the antagonist towards Alex until Alex flipped the script and Toby suddenly becomes the protagonist.
REASONS FOR WHY THEY WERE GIVEN THIS ROLE: We decided to give Taiwo this role because he is quite built so he could have intimidated Alex (Faraz) in the past, but at the same time he is not bigger than him because we want our antagonist to appear the most threatening. He also attends Havering College so we can easily reach him.



CHARACTER: Prisca Vungbo - Protagonist
AGE: 17
ROLE: Plays the role of Carla another student who was cruel to Alex because he was different but now realises the tables have turnded. She also runs with Toby to escape Alex's revenge.
REASONS FOR WHY THEY WERE GIVEN THIS ROLE: We gave her this role because we needed a female who looks quite cheeky and loud mouthed to portray a female who can actually bully a bigger male, and Prisca suited this role perfectly seeing as that is her personality, outspoken and quite confrontational. She also attends Havering College so it was no problem for her to act for us anytime.



CHARACTER: Gareth Hawkes - Protagonist
AGE: 17
ROLE: Plays the role of Derek another bully who was unfortunately caught first and brutally stabbed to death by Alex.
REASONS FOR WHY THEY WERE GIVEN THIS ROLE: We chose Gareth for this role because he is physically the smallest of all our cast, we also thought that him dying goes against the stereotype that 'the black guy always dies first' because he is white.





CHARACTER: Iffrah Sessay - Protagonist
AGE: 17
ROLE: Plays the role of a student who is sitting by the computer quietly doing her work and all of a sudden Edward Wolfe comes from nowhere and slices her neck with a knife; she dies instantly.
RESONS FOR WHY THEY WERE GIVEN THIS ROLE: Sh was available at the time we needed her and sh had no problem woth acting as long as her face was not seen and she did not have to say anything.




CHARACTER: Akelah Wallace - Car Driver
AGE: 18
ROLE: Drives her car out of the car park and accidentally hits Edward Wolfe down to the ground.
REASONS FOR WHY THEY WERE GIVEN THIS ROLE: We gave her this role because she is a licensed good driver who attends Havering College and is able to control the car well.

Week 4 Summary 1st - 7th FEB (Faraz Maqbool)

This week was a more of a successful week as we were able to finish up on a few loose ends such as the completion of the preliminary task. We were successfully able to record our preliminary task and also upload it onto YouTube. the video is Embedded on our Group Blog. we however ran into a snag as we forgot to turn the mic on which left us with no sound being captured at all so what we did was added in music to cover over where there was actually supposed to be sound.

we were also able to create a production schedule so that we knew when we wanted to start filming and when we wanted the whole project to be complete by. hopefully we should be able to stick to it. We were also able to create our group logo which says "Legacy" and we were also able to find the location in which we are going to be filming and so we have alongside the pictures put down notes that let people know why we have chosen the locations that we have and how they tie into our film.

Group logo (Marian Hassan)

Logo Notes :
The reason we used this logo is because the colour suits the uneasy atmosphere of a thriller.
I went on google and typed in the search engine 'logo creator' and clicked on the link http://cooltext.com/
I then clicked on the logo 'embossed' typed in legacy changed the font and size then sent it to my email.
We used the logo 'LEGACY' because it fits in with our script seeing as our title is 'The Legacy of Edward Wolfe'

Location notes (Marian Hassan)

The location we are using is Havering College Ardleigh green campus, which is media class room H115 in H block and the Havering college car park.
The reason we chose this location is because it suits our script which is set in a college and a class room, this location is also convenient for our group because it is easy for us to meet up and we do not need to leave campus or travel far to film together.

Preliminary Task Evaluation (Faraz Maqbool)

This is our Preliminary Task for our AS Media Studies coursework. This was our 3rd attempt at trying to do it. The first preliminary we filmed we actually ran in to the problem of not complying with the 180 Degree rule, and we actually did break it a few times. We mixed up some of the camer shots and could not bring things together in the editing part and so had to do it again.

On the second attempt everything went well except the fact that we once again accidently broke th 180 degree rule. the third time was fine and everything went off without a hitch and then in the editing suite we realised that the mic was not on and so no sound was captured and we decided to just put music over it.

we ended up making a lot of mistakes which are highlighted above however we were able to learn from these mistakes and be more aware of them in the future seeing as how easily they can be made. we have learnt the importance of double checking the equipment before we use them to make sure that they are running correctly.

Preliminary Task (Marian Hassan and Faraz Maqbool)

Marian Hassan was the Director

Faraz Maqbool was the Editor