Feedback

We showed our first version of our film opening to fellow Media students, studying at either AS or A2 level. This helped, as they all knew what to look for and to comment on, making constructive criticism. The feedback we got back was:

• Fill the silence/add more sound
• Lack of understanding
• Quickening the pace
• Red and white text did not work

In response to this we made careful changes:

• We added some heavy breathing over the beginning and ending of the film to ensure there was no awkward silence
• We overlapped sound between the clips to make a more smooth and flawless transition, making it seem more authentic
• We changed the font colour so that it is all just white, which we felt works with our film opening

We also altered some of the shot sequences to tell the audience that our protagonist has just left home, and is now returning to fulfil his motive. We added our only dialogue, "Did you forget something?" in order to help the audience understand that he has left his home and has returned, also defining why, at the crossroads, he turns back around with his decision.

Technologies Used

iMovie

To edit our opening, we used iMovie on Apple Macs, as it was easy to use and we all had easy and reliable access to our opening on the school system. The numerous features in iMovie allowed for us to gain our desired effects decided during our brainstorming and storyboarding of our opening, including the pre-designed titles and credits, and choice of font.
For our final credit font, we chose American Typewriter to further imply the feeling of a war film, inspired by the typewriter font for telegrams.

Camera

We used a Canon EOS 600 DSLR to record our shots, due to the high quality. Although used mainly for photography, it is a recommended camera for young film makers, thanks to the quality it produces. This helped to make our film opening appear more professional than if we were to use an iPhone or digital camcorder, as focus in our film was important to build the atmosphere and tell our narrative.

Sound Recording

Our opening required many diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, and we needed to record some of it separately. We used the voice recorder/voice memo application on an iPhone with iOS 7 to record these separate sounds that we could then overlay on our clips.

Garage Band

Garage Band helped when it came to editing our sounds, but originally we used it to create a piece of music for our opening. However, it did not make it into the final version of our opening, as we felt that the opening had a better atmosphere without, the silence creating the tension and excitement we desired.

Making the Gun Shot

At the end of our opening, we needed a gun shot.We decided to replicate our own using things around us, and layering them together in iMovie to reach the desired sound effect.

Production

Companies such as Film4, BBC and ITV all produce Social Realisms, but we felt that a film company like Film4 would produce, or help produce, our film, as they have a long history of British Social Realism, and are famous for it.

Costumes, Props and Make-up

To make it clear to our audience that our character was a soldier, we dressed our actor in army styled camouflage trousers, a black jumper and army style boots. The trousers looked more worn, with the addition of a reparation with duct tape on the front left leg, which we felt contributed to the overall look.

We used a single prop of a camouflage print bag, similar to a day sack that the army uses, to indicate a sense of journey and distance travelled. This also added to the feel of our actor taking on the role of a soldier, making it seem more realistic.

For make-up, we decided to not use any on our leading actor as we wanted our character to appear raw and gritty. Therefore, we allowed the natural features and light affect our character's overall look,

Talent Sourcing

We concluded as a group that our leading actor's looks were more important than their skill. This was primarily decided by the fact that there is no spoken dialogue in our film opening, and the role requirements are not too challenging, so therefore, looks were everything.
Our leading actor had to be male, quite young to capture the vulnerability, but not look as if he were still in school, be rugged and raw. This later swayed our opinion into not using make-up, instead capturing the raw, natural look our actor brought.
We found our actor in Robert St. Pierre, aged 20. His physical attributes include short, medium brown hair, stubbly facial hair, blue eyes, and stand 6'1" tall. The addition of the facial hair increased the rugged, worn look we were searching for, adding to our soldier's overall character.

Our Final Storyboard

Our final storyboard was very similar in areas to our initial storyboard, however there were some changes.
Some shots were very similar:

However, some shots were altered or different:

Due to our increased knowledge of social realism films, shots have been added, removed, or changed completely to accommodate what we felt was best to reflect the genre and atmosphere we wanted to create. These changes have also helped to create more atmosphere and tension, a desired effect in our film opening,