Our film was based around a cop drama, except that we decided to spoof it. Our film is based around cop dramas of recent and back in the day films. Spoofing has only really came into light in recent times, with the exception of films such as The Naked Gun and Airplane.

Our film follows the day of a ‘police detective on the edge’, and from that it also follows the conventions of a police drama. It has a typical cliche storyline, a cop on the edge trying to get revenge against his partners killer. We also had several pieces of mise-en-scene that furhered the stereotype of the police drama. We had appropriate costumes such as police badges, guns, smart suits, Bilal even grew his beard a bit longer to give him a rugged and unrested look. The dialogue we also used mirrored the police stereotypes, with phrases like “You’re off the case!” and “Get in my office now!”. However, the comedy also mirrored spoof conventions, such as a clever use of dialogue, espeically referrencing other police films “Try not to kill anybody this time Beverly Hills Cop…3!!”

Our film also breaks conventions though, as it turns out that the ‘police officers’ are actually students playing an imaginary game, something that wouldn’t happen in real life. Police officers use very little imagination, as they have to stay as grounded and down to earth as possible. Also in an actual plolice drama  the language wouldn’t be as cliche, so we purposely made our dialogue over the top.

The ancillary texts (the poster and th review) also both match up to the genre of the film. There is a seriousness and (more importantly) a playful side to the poster, as it seems quite comical in appearence. The review is quite mature, but the occasional sentance will make you chuckle, just like the film.

Our first draft of the film was a bit of a shambles. We had extracted the audio from each clip and placed it along the timeline in it’s correct place, but at some points some had been pushed out too far, so there was no audio when there needed to be, and some when there shouldnt of been. The audience quickly picked up on this, as I belive it became confusing for them to follow the story, so we went back to the editing room and reworked it.  

Youtube

We also uploaded our video to Youtube, and met some good response! We’ve currently got over 2500 views, and quite a few comments, although not all of them were nice. Most viewers really enjoyed the film, and wrote some very heart-warming comments. However, there were some vulgar and explicit comments, mainly directed my way. It seemed that most people didn’t seem to know the difference between a character and a real person, and so they seemed to think it was appropriate to use homophobic insults. It’s a crazy world out there.

Focus Group

Me and Bilal organised a small focus group of students we knew. Some had already seen the film but some hadn’t. This focus group was aimed more at the poster and review. Using a ‘flip’ camera (a camera that records then can be instantly uploaded to a computer via a usb plug the flips out the side) we filmed the questions and answers. Enjoy

Overall we felt that the film went down really well with all audiences, especially after we added all the changes. A great success all round!

The research into the film was the first obstacle I had to overcome. At first it seemed like an easy task, creating a powerpoint showing research into short films and how effective they are at raising money and getting distributed etc. For the first draft I managed to complete the powerpoint easily and quickly, recieving a good mark for it and I had to make no changes. But the schools folder got deleted somehow, and I lost my first copy. Panic immediately set in and I tried to find another copy, even though I already knew deep down I had put my only copy into the now deleted folder. As I searched through both my computers at home I found a nearly finished version of the powerpoint and new that I could redo it and to the same level of proffesionalism.  I still had a moments panic, as I realised that the deadline was the next day, and I was running out of time! Luckily I had a double media lesson that day and plenty of frees, so I was able to proper complete it. Below is a screen shot and a downloadable copy.

Short Film

For the film itself I had already seen a lot of films, cop films, spoof films, comedy, drama the whole lot. I began using youtube to watch more short films so that I could get a good feel of what a short film should be like. We had lots of technology at our disposal for use in our short film. This included cameras (both filming and photography), tripods, editing suits (including Mac Editing Software) etc. The cameras were pretty good, yet they were only around £150, so they wern’t up the higher end of the market. They used mini DV tapes, which usually had a lot of memory on them, but they needed to be charged after each use, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to get a full days worth of recording. They recorded well, picking up most movements no matter how fast and direct they were. They did have a major fault which was that they didn’t really pick up sound, and when they did it was quite distorted and not easy to hear and understand, so we had to rerecord the sound separetly.  Apart from that the cameras worked really well, and we were pleased with the results.

For the audience evealuation we used mini ‘flip’ cameras, which just recorded and then plugged directly into the computer, so we could upload the footage easily. However, it does not take a good camera to make a good movie, so we didn’t worry about the camera, as we know our movie was pretty good anyhow. The editing software came in really handy. We used Mac MovieMaker, and it performed its functions really well. We were able to the cut and clip and add in effects (albeit only small ones) and add titles and music. The titles were fairly simple but we didn’t worry as we only needed them for the credits and they came out looking pretty good anyhow.

The Poster

I began by looking up posters for films sharing the same or similar genres, and the kind of posters they used. Some were fitting the genre of their films perfectly, but others seemed more mysterious. One of the posters for the spoof cop film ‘Hot Fuzz’ didn’t indicate any comedy in the film, just action. The only give away was the tag line. 

For the film posters I decided to use my strangths, and as a result I wanted to use photoshop. Having been a photography student for over a year and having lots of experience with photoshop, I thought that would be the best way to go about it. After I had sketched out my inital ideas I took some photos of the cast in multiple different poses. I uploaded these to photoshop and and began working on them. Photoshop is an excellent and helpful tool as it allows you to do virtually anything to a photo, however it is also incrediably complicated. The trouble with photoshop is that you have to play around and experiment with it. This was not a good time as I had a deadline coming up and results needed to be seen.

I started by making the teaser poster, with Bilal’s smiling face and nose-bleed. The blood coming out of his nose was from a random picture I found on google, then I cut the blood out of it and copied it onto the original photo. I then used a blending option so that the blood seemed like it was coming straight out of his nose. I then used an overall effect on everything so that it looked like the blood was coming straight out of his nose.

The feature poster was a bit more of a challenge. I already had Bilal and Charles posing with their hands facing each other,  each using a different weapon pose. Charles was holding lipstick and Bilal pointing his fingers like they were a gun. I got a picture of some smoke from google and cut it out, then added it behind Bilal’s fingers, so that it looked like they were smoking. I then got two empty bullet cases and placed underneath his hand, so it looked like they were falling from his hand, just like a real gun. If I had no photoshop skills these posters would’ve been close to impossible, and wouldv’e taken a much longer time.

Film Review

The film review was the easiest of all ancillary texts. The lay-out for a LWL review was fairly simple to follow as I had studied it for a while. The text was also fairly easy to wrie, as I have an interest in film reviews and have written a few in my own time. I used microsoft word to create the entire document, and then I copied an advert from the LWL website and pasted that to the bottom and voila! My review was complete.

Blog

This blog itself is a new branch off into a more advanced media form. Uusally using log books or note books or just a planning folder, the blog brings an air of prefessionalism into the coursework. It was also an easy way to keep track of the work I was producing, especially as I could use it with my phone, so that it was with me whenever I needed it.

film review ad

film review

http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/blog/short-sweet-april-19/

FILM REVIEW

After the initial success of director Alex Platt’s last two films (the family friendly ‘Tis the Season’ and the classic indie horror ‘Let Them In’), expectations for his new film, ‘Cop Out’, were running high.

Once rumours started that he would be combining his directorial skills on this new film with the creator of the hugely popular online film ‘State Of Mind’, Charles Normsaskul, excitement levels of expectant fans reached fever pitch and audiences crammed onto forums and blogs to see if the rumours were correct.

Although ‘Cop Out’ seems to start on a down-beat note, it soon becomes apparent that this was designed to make even the most stern-faced film buffs chuckle. The plot follows Detective Bilal (superbly portrayed by Bilal Zafar) as he attempts to get revenge on his partner’s killer.  As he journeys through this tale he encounters a host of different characters, from his boss to his suspicious new partner, each helping him uncover the past. As the story draws to a dramatic close will the brave detective find redemption, or even be able to smile….
Whatever way you decide to view the film, it certainly has all elements needed for an amazing film. Action – check (albeit entirely comical). Laughs – double check (every time the film runs around another corner it’s like another pie in the face full of laughs). Drama – check, although only for a moment, even the drama is turned into laughter. But what is amazing is the crew’s commitment to it. Even though they wrote it, starred in it and directed it, they still found time to make it during their school time, this was particularly helpful, especially as most of the film was shot in a school! Fitting filming around school work was a major challenge, and pushed the crew members to their limit, to do their best, and it’s definitely obvious that it’s paid off in their favour.

http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/

Little White lies has several different styles of reviewing films. The bigger the film , the more space in the magazine they’ll recieve.