Ideas for final project and Proposal & Treatment

 Idea 1:

Themes: quiet killer murdering corrupted music Artist using noises and songs. This is because they are fed up with modern music, trying to expose the industry to return to its artistic roots.

Narrative: 

Artist in her home, working in her room

A few insert shots of music awards

Mysterious hand turns off the light switch

Living room lights turns off

Mysterious hand turns on the speaker

Music turns on

Curious and confused, the woman walks out of her room to investigate

The mysterious figure appears behind the woman

The figure hits her with a *placeholder*

The woman falls the the ground

The killer takes a picture of the body with an instant camera

Match cut to when the woman’s body pictures being taken by the police

being examined by detective 1

The assistant tells the detective that she was killed due to getting hit in the head multiple times with a *placeholder*

Music still playing, the detective examines the speaker, it is playing old music, there's an envelope on the speaker.

When he opens it, the mail reads FAVORITE CHILD in combination with pictures of the artist with the award’s CEO.

Characters: Killer, Detective; Detective’s assistant, Victim, police cameraman

Technical Codes: 

Camerawork: Close ups and inserts to show character’s expression and important details, many insert shots to highlight important details

Lighting: Dark lighting to conceal the killer’s identity, partial spotlight to show selected detail

Sound: Calming but sinister songs playing/happy songs to contrast the circumstances. Other noises are drowned out by the music. Self composed.

Symbolic Codes: 

“Favorite child” essentially stands for an industry plant, which is an artist selected by the industry to succeed.

Killer is wearing a black suit with white shirt inside, this is a popular fit back in the days which embodies the roots of music.

Typography: I want to make a silky, beautiful, elegant handwriting for text to show the swiftness of the killer

VFX: blood

Idea 2:

Killer kills internet celebrities, trying to expose the internet's biggest content creators of their scummy behavior.

Narrative:

A streamer is streaming, promoting his giveaway in his product

The killer is seen in the background, standing creepily still.

Chat tells him someone is standing there. The streamer turns around, no one is there, he walks out, yelling at his chat that no one is here, joking around where the killer once stood

He got jumped by the killer

We see a small peek of the killer killing the streamer, not direct

Back to the stream interface, we hear the sound of the man screaming for help

The killer walks into steam room, telling the whole crowd the truth, showing that there is zero chance they are going to win the giveaway (showing the product being packed)

L match cut

Match cut to the detectives watching the VOD at the crime scene.

Cameraman takes a picture of the crime scene, flashes to the insert shot of the victim

A paper bag is wrapped around the victims head reading the word: STREAMSCAMMER with the word stream crossed out

Characters: Killer, Detective; Detective’s assistant, Victim, police cameraman

Technical Codes: 

Camerawork: cut between close ups and the streaming camera angle to show two perspective of the scene

Lighting: Colorful and bright to contrast what is going on screen

Sound: Sinister dark song cut in between hyper streaming music

Symbolic Codes: 

Killer is wearing a mask to completely hide their facial features

Typography: Rough but impactful All CAPS

VFX: blood, stream overlay

Idea 3:

Killer kills corrupt politician, exposing their false promises and deals behind the curtain

Narrative:

TV is showing a collaboration between a corporation and the city, politician is speaking

Killer shows up at the politician office

They propose a series of documents exposing the politician of corruption

The politician offers money to the killer

They didn’t want it, instead propose that the politician step down from his position, to “disappear”

Driven by pride and greed, he refused.

The killer tells him there is no choice

He still refuses

The killer then says “I am not asking”, pulls out a gun and shoots the man.

Cuts to the scene where the detectives are investigating the body

The documents are still on the table, this time have the words Corrupt

Characters: Killer, Detective; Detective’s assistant, Victim, police cameraman

Technical Codes: 

Camerawork: Close ups, insert shots

Lighting: Moderate lighting to show the professional environment

Sound: Glitchy sound track and effect to symbolize corruption

Symbolic Codes: 

The immediate offer of money by the politician shows corruption

Glitchy sound track and effect to symbolize corruption

Typography: Rough but impactful All CAPS

VFX: blood, muzzle flash

FEEDBACK:

Idea 1: Achievable, require many fitting props

Idea 2: Achievable, require lots of work on VFX, also require some props

Idea 3: Less achievable, require fitting actors, require complex props

FINAL DECISION:

I will go with idea number 2, since it is the most achievable without having to invest too much into realistic props. This is because most props with idea number 2 are already available or has very cheap substitute. The first idea cost a lot due to having to represent a wealthy person. Idea 3 is simply too risky, expensive to cast and buy props as well as a bit out of my knowledge.

Treatment:

Genre research video essay

 I did genre research for Narrative, Character, Typography, Media Language, Representation and Subverting Expectations for the genre: Crime.

This is the product:

Primary Audience Research

These data are taken from a survey made by me with 20 responses.

 

The majority of my audience (70%) is male. And 30% is female. This question doesn’t contain any other gender types to increase consistency.

The majority of the audience is 14 to 18 years old (teenagers), Two smaller follow up groups are 13 or lower (children) and 40 and over.

Top two genres watched by my audience are Science fiction and Fantasy. Followed up by Comedy and Action. Crime is placed third.

Majority of the audience wanted to watch a live-action movie, which is expected. Though a substantial percentage of the audience likes animations. We can integrate animations into live action which can satisfy both sides.

The majority of the audience usually use streaming services and cinema to access their films. Small percentage of the audience uses physical copies and source files which are factually rarer to find. The difference between Cinema goers and Streaming platforms users is small, streaming platforms wins out by 5%.

The most popular streaming platform by far is Netflix. Peacock and Paramount+  have zero user. Other streaming platforms have their popularity equally distributed.

The majority of the audience either watch movies 1 to 4 times a month (65%). There are people who watch films more, 20% of the audience watches movies often or very often.

30% of the audience watch crime movies regularly. 30% of them only watch crime movies on occasion. 40% of the audience doesn’t like crime movies or doesn’t watch crime movies. The majority of the audience are fond of crime movies at 60%.

This result actually surprised me. It is expected to see murder being the top vote. Followed up by gangster movies which I did not expect and then serial murder. Other honorable mentions are theft, hijack and terrorism which barely made it to the top votes.

The last 3 questions are preference questions:

"What character tropes do you often expect in a crime movie?"

The most popular answer: "A smart, elegant, good looking officer/detective"

"What kind of narrative do you often expect in a crime movie?"

The most popular answer: "Detective versus a mysterious criminal"

"Can you name your favorite crime movie?"

The most popular answer: "Se7en"

Secondary market research

This research is based on the BFI statistical year-book. The main topic is to research about my genre of choice which is Crime. 

This chart shows that most of the audience in the UK uses subscription services to access movies, followed by TV channels and Cinema. Most unpopular non-pirate platform is outdoor screening followed by physical releases. Based on this we can conclude that a cinema release followed by SVoD and finally physical release would be the best timeline for the film.

This chart shows us the average Age of cinema-goers. The mode of the age falls into the age 15 to 24. The smallest groups of cinema goers throughout the years are age 7 to 14 and age 45 to 54.

This chart shows classification of cinema goers by gender and social class. Most cinema goers are composed of Male and Upper middle class. The margin isn’t much so it is best to appeal the both audiences while favoring to appeal to the male audiences.

This chart shows the top 20 grossing films in the UK. We can see out of the top 20 movies, 6 of them (No Time To Die, Cruella, F9, The Suicide Squad, House of Gucci, Black Widow) are crime movies or have crime features in them. This shows that crime movies have a decent demand and popularity in the market.

This table shows the top 20 indie films. The majority of the movies on here are drama movies and comedy movies. Only 1 film in the crime genre being Limbo 2021 and also being the least grossing film out of the top 20.

This chart shows data of films in the major genres releases and grossings. We can see that the crime genre is the genre with the least releases and grossing. This data is very inaccurate since it doesn’t account for movies in many different genres.

This chart shows the demand of SVoD over the years, we can see the clear trend of demand increasing exponentially over the years.

This graph shows the most popular streaming platforms in the  UK. The most popular streaming platform is Netflix. 

This chart shows the top movies watched on said SVoD platform. Most of these films are exclusives.

The Batman Distribution timeline

 We were tasked to research the distribution timeline of a film that is within our genre of choice, my genre is crime so I picked my favorite crime movie - The Batman:

Here is an additional PNG version:

Genre mind-map conclusion

 With careful consideration, I have deducted that the two genre that I previously picked and made mind maps of (sci-fi and fantasy) would be not only too expensive and complicated to make the final project out of but also limits my creativity choices. Due to this I decided to switch my main genre to Crime, which is the genre I have the most experience with. This is the new mind map:

I am currently debating two different scripts for my final project. One which follows the general convention of crime, having a villain serial killer and a detective lead. The other one does not follow the convention, having the lead being both the serial killer and the detective. The killers in these movies usually use very lethal and sharp weapons, this time I wanted to create a killer that can kill with unconventional weapons or simply blends into the crime scene. Which makes the detective have a harder time piecing together the clues and also keep the audience on edge.

Editing practical - The Spy. Results and process

This the point when we actually edit the recorded videos, this blog will go over my thought process and creative ideas when editing the clips that we recorded into a short video. 

 Stage 1: Assembly & Editing

This is the first step of creating a video. I imported the clips into Premier Pro, I looked into the master shot and assemble the entire sequence into chronological order (Because I was one of of the directors, I already had a script in mind so no changes were made to the sequencing). This is the part when I learn the basic controls and interactions and interface of Adobe Premier Pro. After that I got started on editing. I first removed the original audio and then started trimming bloopers and unwanted parts out of the clips. This is to cut out unnecessary action, sounds and cut time.

Stage 2: Color works & Effects

Adjusting color is very important because it keeps our video's lighting and color consistent to the context. First I adjusted the light level for every clip, this is to make sure each of the clips blend into each other seamlessly. Next I added some color filters which makes the colors in the video more vibrant and less flat. This process takes a lot of time because our clips are recorded outdoors which made the lighting inconsistent. 2 clips in particular are way too dark and way too bright but in the end I managed to make them match with the other scenes. This is also the point when I learned how to work with pixels and color contrast and brightness measurements. After that I added one fade in from black at the start of the video to seamlessly begin the short sequence. I decided to not use many transitions (even though it could help show off my skills and understanding) because I believe that it just won't fit with my vision of the sequence, I use only straight cuts to completely immerse the audience like a movie or a film you see at the cinema.

Stage 3: Audio design

By far the most tedious part. This is mainly due to the clips audio being unusable due to unwanted noises. I have to match sound effects for every major actions (frame-by-frame), add a suitable ambience sound and find a fitting sound track. I actually picked two different footstep sounds for the two spies. Spy A has grainy and dirty sounding footsteps, I tried to highlight the inexperience of Spy A. Spy B has clean and swift sound of high heels, encoding confidence and professionalism of Spy B. I decided to pick up a tense music track on YouTube, as well as background white noise to fill in the gaps when I cut the sound effects (each FX clips have their own white noise, if I were to not use another layer of white noise, the sound will just cut off and create a very unnatural sound).

Stage 4: Graphics & Titles

I learned how to create a text element as a clip on the video. I picked a classy looking font to represent the swiftness and cleanness of the spies, which we can see being used for famous spy/special agent movies like James Bond or Mission Impossible. I then made the text italic which symbolizes movement and an underline to make the text encode stability. I made the text completely red to really draw attention since the entire sequence is composed almost entirely with black, white, green and blue.

Stage 5: Fine tuning

At this stage I went back to re-watch the entire sequence again and found some things I wanted to change. I decided to change the color filter, which made the shadows darker and highlights more vibrant, I think that this way I can further highlights the tension and the shadiness of the action on screen. I also applied a fade in for the music at the beginning which syncs up with the fade in from black of the clip. I also added a faint dark vignette to draw more focus on the center of the screen. Finally, I dimmed the color of the final title and added the text "Season 1" under it, treating the sequence as an opening title and sequence for a TV series.

Results:

After every stage, this is my final video product: