End Summary

The film has been completed successfully and the group wish to thank:

• The actors for their time
• Stafford prison, Cafe Nero, and Staffordhsire University for allowing us to film

Vision Media Productions Team
Left to right: Yoann Desmoyers Davis, Philip Swart, Robert Unwin, Kevin Philemon

Good Points

Overall the film was successful and showed the story we wanted to tell. The pre-production stages were the toughest: finding locations, actors and readying a script but we felt the film has done justice. The political aspect of it we felt we had succeeded in explaining and the discrimination and corruption of today are still strong unfortunately.

Bad Points
The only realistic bad points about the experience was the time constraints that were involved to get the production together. Perhaps better planning could ave avoided this but none the less have succeeded and learnt new things. Difficulties during filming were few and we suffered no technical failures. Lighting was the only minor difficulty as filming outside the sun set really quickly and we had to work fast.

Final Film

Here is the final cut of the film, the flashback/back story has been saturated and the colour lowered to create a brown tinted image. The first and last scenes are in full colour to show that it is in the present day. This was inspired by the film American History X


The audio has also been changed, during the recording of audio it was discovered that the actor said the wrong surname for Thomas during the court hearing and was pronounced Dudley instead of Selman, this has been removed and the audio shortened.

Edit with Sound

This is another draft of the film however the audio has been mixed and new sound effects added




Audio added in this edit include:

• Music for the beginning, altered for both the pub and the bedroom.
• Ringtone shortened for more frequent rings
  
• Frequency changed for the vocals during the argument between John and Sarah.
• Music added to the cafe scene at the end of the film.

Draft Edit

This is the first rough draft of the film, the audio has yet to be mixed and the footage needs to be colour corrected

Lighting Sets

To have better control over the lighting we have hired out two red-heads from the stores. These tungsten lights can deliver 800w which is a lot of light. However it is useful to have too much light as it can be controlled using reflectors and gels.
The lights will be used to light all of the scenes we are filming and possibly use them to create early morning light if needed; depending on the shooting schedule

Here is some examples of how we lit the sets for the film:

Kitchen

we set up the Key light behind the cameras into the kitchen so the characters and set were illuminated better. Using the kitchen lights made the room very dark and it would be difficult to film.

Another light was added outside the window to act as the morning sun. This would diffuse the shadows cast by the Key light and give more depth to the scene











This is how the set looks when lit. There is a warm yellow tint to the room as mornings are when the sun rises.
















Bedroom

Only the bed needed to be lit up for this scene and so both lights were pointed towards it. One light was on the right of the bed and the other was on the left. This cast fairly bold shadows but it lit up the set to how we wanted it.

















Pub and Outside

When filming outside we used the lights inside the pub rather than the redheads, here we could get the natural light from the lights and as we were filming at the bar the lights were bright enough as it is.

Here, Norman is lit up and the background is much darker. There is no need to light the background as it is un-important and that it is obivous he is at a bar with the pumps in the foreground.

Outside we used the lights from the street, using a redhead would have caused the wrong type of lighing that we needed and would have looked un-realistic. It is too powerful and would cast shadows too strongly

Camera Setups

We noted down our various camera setups and positions for the main scenes.



The DVX100's were filming at the same time so as editing would be easier (Continuity would be minimised) and it would speed up shooting time if the takes were successful. One would be stationary in a safety wideshot and the other would be filming close-ups or other angles that were needed.



Kitchen



In the kitchen both camera's were set with:

• F stop at 5.6
• Shutter speed at 1/120
• Neutral Density at 1/4

The neutral density was added to decrease the amount of light in the camera, it made it easier to change the aperture (as it would have had to be very high) and gave more range.

Bedroom

The bedroom had a similar setup and the cameras were set up with:

• F stop at 5.6
• Shutter speed at 1/60
• Neutral Density at 1/4

The neutral density was needed in this scene as the lighing would be very bright and as the light would not be able to expand then it would overexpose parts of the scene. Setting the shutterspeed at a lower rate helped too.

Pub and Outdoors

As we would not use the red-head lights in the pub or outside we would need to find as many areas of light possible so the camera's would pick up the image.

Inside the camera's were setup with:

• F stop at 5.6
• Shutter speed at 1/60
• No neutral density filter

The ND was taken off as there was little light as it was.

Outside the camera's were setup with:

• F stop at 2.8
• Shutter speed at 1/25
• No neutral density filter

There was little light outside and so the aperture was opened as much as possible and the shutter speed was lowered to as low as possible. The images were obtained but were slightly dark.

Sound

The sound can be recorded using the DVX100's but to improve the quality we will be using a gun-mic; this is a directional microphone with a cardioid pickup pattern (picks up noise from only one direction). As we are recording the audio through a microphone we will be able to focus it more on dialogue rather than other noises that may be heard such as traffic in the pub car park scene.

The microphone we are using is a Sennheiser 6


This is the microphone, the furry object on the right prevents outside noise such as wind from entering the microphone. It doesn't stop all wind and so care and precautions must be made when recording








Here we are testing the microphone out by recording dialogue through the camera. The microphone is powered by phantom power. Phil (holding camera) is monitoring the levels on the camera display to make sure that the audio does not clip. When the audio clips it becomes distorted and useless so it must be monitored carefully. The microphone is pointed directly at the sound source so that it will record only that sound but is held further away from the actor to prevent clipping.

Here are examples of the audio that we have collected from the tests:

This audio is very clear as the microphone was placed very close to the actor to pick up the best sound. The audio does not clip and it is at a good level to be mixed.




This second recording is much quieter than the first, this is because the microphone is much further away from the actor when he speaks. However if this audio was amplified to boost the signal in the final mix it would also amplify background noise and possibly create a hiss.

Cameras

There are two types of cameras available to us, the XL1s and DVX100. Both delivering high quality images in different ways. The XL1s films in 25 frames interlaced and the DVX100 films in 25 frames progressive. Progressive would be better for making the film look more film-like but having interlaced would give it a sharper motion such as Coronation Street or Eastenders.




25p Progressive Footage

25frames Interlaced Footage



Having carried out tests using both cameras we have decided to go with the Panasonic DVX100 for a more film-like quality. The action seems to flow much better and the pictures are more smooth.

Actors

There are three main characters in the film

• John Clary - Local BNP party leader who has a racist attitude and disapproves of his daughters boyfriend
• Tom - The protagonist of the film, having being discriminated against he is trying to get a job but struggles due to his crime convictions. He is much older than Sarah
  
• Sarah Clary - John's daughter 15 year old daughter who is currently in a loving relationship with Tom

Two actors were roughly our age and so we managed to recruit two people to play the parts of Tom and Sarah

Tom is played by Kevin Philemon











Sarah is played by Toni Randle













For John Clary the character was much older and needed to resemble a father figure. We managed to find an actor to play him. He had a good appearance that could play the part of the father and the tone of voice/acting quality to deliver the anger scenes. We have previously worked with Norman Smith before in a film last year and so it was easier to communicate with him about the characters and the plot.

Here is a run-through of the script with Norman who would play the role of John

Locations

It was important to find suitable locations to film, there are quite a few scenes in the film, they are as follows:

• Pub/outside car park
• John Clary's house (exterior and interior)
• 3 x job locations that are different

Due to time shortage, we have managed to find some possible locations to film.

Pub/Outside car park

The pub scene will take place at night so it was bets to see how the scene swould look at night. At this location in Stafford there was a road very close but the noise was minimal. This photograph was taken around 4:45 and as you can see there is little traffic and no pedestrians. This would be an ideal time to film at this pub/car park.

This was pictured a few minutes later and in this image we can see a lot more traffic which could cause a lot of noise, especially at rush hour.

John Clary's House

John Clary's house is where the main part of the film takes place. The house should not be too big so as nobody has a chance to interact with each other but not too small so it does not look like a politicians house. Here are some of the possibilities:

House 1

This house was found locally and it had a good layout for how the scene would look. John Clary would walk down the stairs and instantly see Tom in the kitchen having breakfast or cereal. There are no rooms in between the stairs and kitchen so the reactions would be instant. There is also a lot of room (length) to create depth of field in the kitchen by moving the cameras and filming in the hallway.








This is a closer look at the kitchen, it is small and from a technical point of view it could cause problems as there is not a lot of space to work in especially if there are more than one camera, microphones and lights. However the small space would bring the characters together in an uncomfortable situation and almost forces them to talk which would be a good look.










In the same house we found a bedroom with a lot of space to film the scene with Tom and Sarah. The bedroom was plain and so it could look like a girls bedroom with a few props such as posters and teddies.





House 2

House 2 was located in stoke



This is the hallway from the front door, the stairs are in a suitable place and there is plenty of room to use cameras. There is also a phone in the room and so it would be very practical for the scene to have one.

This is the back living room leading to the kitchen, there is a lot of space to film but the practicality is bad as a room next to the kitchen is needed where the argument between John and Sarah breaks out. The kitchen is also quite large and so there would be a lot of space between characters and it would be hard to film (unless using a wide angle lens)

House 1 seems the best choice

3x Job Locations that are different

For the location of the job interviews we looked around the Octagon building at university. There was a room with a few desks in and the odd computer screen. This room could easily be changed around to look like three different rooms. There is a bookcase on one side a window on the other and various chairs to change the appearance. This room could be accessed easily and is used very little and is the definite choice for the interviews.


In the closing scene of the film Tom is filling out the job application forms for jobs. We wanted a public place but quiet so we looked at Costa Coffee in Stafford Town. We decided to finalise the location and use it in the film.

Film Layout

We have decided to introduce the film from the end and then start from the beginning. Here is how it will go:

The story will start at the job interview where Tom, the main character will be going through a job application and he comes across a section in the form saying "Do you have any criminal convictions? If so please give details". As he writes down "Under age sex offences, served 1 year" he thinks back to how he landed in this situation; this where the main focus of the film takes place. The next section starts with Tom and his girlfriend Sarah Clary about to call her father John to ask if he can stay the night. She calls him and he approves on his way home from a meeting at the local pub. As John is on his way home he can't help but make a comment at a couple as they pass by ,disapproving of a white man and a black girl in a relationship, his remarks are ignored by him and John walks home to bed.
The next morning Tom is downstairs having breakfast when he is joined by John, who is annoyed and angry of Sarah's choice for a boyfriend, he calls her into the next room where he unleashes his anger in a rage of accusations stating that they had slept together. During the arguement, Tom, who overheard everything leaves feeling sad and depressed by Sarah's father's hurtful comments.
Still outraged and unable to listen to Sarah's protests that they had not slept together John has Tom arrested for stautory rape and is sentenced to two years in prison.
We re-join the present again where Tom is applying for a job and is currently in an interview with the head of the company. The employer is looking over his application happily when he comes across the criminal convictions section. He then tells Tom that his application is good and that he will hear from them within the week. As Tom leaves the room the employer asks his assistant to bin the application even though she recommends him for the job. The employer states that because of his convictions they should not hire him.

Why tell the film in this way?

We decided to tell the film this way because the audience would be interested from the beginning and finding out how Tom became a "criminal" and how this will effect his job interview

Inspiration came from the film Swordfish, the film starts near the end and then re-tells the beginning up to that point( the present point) and then goes forwards in time to the end. Another film that uses this is Forest Gump where for the majority of the film Forest is telling different people how he get to sitting on the bench waiting for a bus. When he tells everything up to that point the film carries on in the present

Political Topics Chosen

The following political topics have been chosen for the film:

• Racism
• Under Age Sex
• Discrimination
• Corruption
  

Racism was chosen because it is a common issue in today's society. Since the September 11th, July 7th attacks and the war on terrorism this century many people's outlooks on race have changed drastically and not for the better. By using this topic in the film we are hoping to point out that not all people are as they seem and that everybody has feelings

Under age sex is used as the cause for Tom to be arrested. Fathers are very protective of their daughters and given this reason the father character will use it against Tom. Given the father's high position as a politician he is able to push the punishment for Tom

Discrimination was chosen as along with racism, this has increased drastically. Racism is only one form of discrimination as well as others such as religion, gender and sexuality. In this case Tom is being judged on his race and that he has a criminal conviction of something he did not commit. It is the law that employees are employed through the Equal Opportunities Act however for the film this will not be the case.

Corruption was chosen as this is common today for politicians to be corrupt. Having the father character be a BNP corrupt politician gave the story drive to have Tom arrested as he is a high power figure and his policies for upholding british workers first and immigration stoppage would be his reasons for doing so. There is also corruption amongst companies today that do not hire people equally and turn away those they feel they do not want. For the film the corruption will lay with the employer/company that choose not to hire Tom as he has a criminal conviction and he is black, creating a stereotypical view that he is a bad person which is wrong for doing so. The film will point this out and show that this type of selection is wrong and that everybody should be emplyed equally.

Developing the Idea

After discussing the story and changing things around this is how the story stands:

A man who is a BNP representitive is walking home from the pub when he receives a phone call from his daughter asking if she can have a friend over to stay which he approves. On his way home he is threatened by two black men.
The next day he finds out his daughter's friend Tom is black and this unsettles him thinking they had slept together causes a row between his daughter and himself. Outraged by this and ignoring his daughter's claims he has her black friend arrested on under age sex charges.
After he has served his sentence Tom finds it hard to get a job as he is being judged by his criminal offence and his colour.

This is a basic outline of the story but it may be changed.

Chosen Idea

The group have gone with idea 3, we chose this idea because we felt it could have more than one political topic in it and it was a story from beginning to end. Other ideas that we came up with only dealt with one topic and was a basic plot. With this story we could add more things or take them away easily and still keep the main story.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Film

To Kill a Mockingbird was one of the biggest films of all time, it follows a court case where a black man has been blame for a crime he did not commit. The story is shown from the children's point of view as they learn to recognise evil and understand how people behave.

This film follows racism and southern American views as it revolves around the court case and how Atticus Finch fights for Tom Robinson's innocence.


Book

The book was the original source for the film and was much longer in terms of material. The book was split into two with the first half leading to the build up of the courtcase and the second half was the courtcase itself. Like the book, the film is told from the point of the children and the audience/readers are drawn on a learning experience of American attributes and their treatment of individuals such as blacks(Tom Robinson) and the mentally ill(Boo Radley).

Compared to American History X this film is slower paced and focused on the politics of interaction as well as the law. Children can provide a learning angle on a film so as it can be explained easily and given a better understanding. Throughout the courtscene we can see the power and equality of the characters from the camera angles:

Here Atticus and Tom Robinson are shown as superior

As Atticus questions Bob Ewell, Bob is shown
as the smaller man

The camera techniques throughout the court case show the superiority of characters and how we know who is good and bad/weak. Camera technique will be important in the film that the group will produce and can be useful when depicting power.

American History X

American History X

American History X is a film based on politics of interaction. The plot revolves around a neo-nazi man(Derek) who is released from prison after killing two black men who tried to break into his car. When he is released he finds that his younger brother(Danny) has taken over his habits and is a white supremacist in the group that he was once part of. Now having served his sentence Danny tries to forget his past and conform his brother back to normality and change his views on other races.

Past and Present

The film often goes between past and present with black and white representing the past and colour representing the present. This technique is a clear way of representing the difference of the past and present as the colour can represent a happier time and that more colours/races can be seen than just black and white which shows Derek's narrow views of race and that there are two seperate colours.

Ideas

Everyone has come up with an idea themselves to develop into a possible three minute production or to explore different political debates/topics

Idea 1

An immigrant living in a country, working in a corner shop for years. His home country bombs the country he is now living in. The film tells the story of how he is now being discriminated against and being treated badly by the government resulting in deportation back to his home country. When he returns some time later after the war he comes back to find his shop and house have been vandalised and that there is still hate towards him and his country.

Idea 2

A white man(Chris) and a black man(Tom) are very good friends however Chris's other friends are racist towards Tom and it causes conflict to which Chris defends his friend. Some time later Tom comes across some of his other friends (who are black) and they become racist towards Chris

Idea 3

A black man and a white girl are in a relationship however the dad of the girl disapproves of this from a racist point of view and has him put in jail for under-age sex (which he did not). The film is about how the man comes out of jail after serving his sentence and tries to find a job but has no luck because he has a criminal record. It shows how a racially motivated action has now ruined his life

Idea 4

A man loses his friend during a messy march in the miners strike leaving him on his own. He then tries to track down his friend coming across police groups and other acts of violence that show the horrors of the conflict between the miners and the government.

All these ideas are based upon interaction and how people are treated, we feel this would be the best way to show the film as we can show drama better than a documentary on the goverment.

Politics

There are generally two types of politics, the politics that links to the government and party groups involved with elections and running the country and then there are other politics such as how we interact with each other and treat people

Government Politics

Government politics are the most common as they decide how the country is run regarding new laws or existing laws. The politicians leading the parties are all in competition with each other for political power and are very driven to let nothing stand in their way.

Politics are common today, usually in criticism; this can be criticism of: policies, laws, politicians. Media can interpret these criticisms into biased opinions of the writers/presenters and influence the reader or viewer. People easily believe the media and sometimes take it upon themselves to change their views on different things. The government type of politics tend to run much deeper than other politics, they can be compared to lawyers who search for facts, stories, scandals and any reason to make sure they win.

Here is an example whereby the media have corrupted a story on Chief of Defence Charles Guthrie and that all politicians do not agree hence Tony Blair having his policy criticised by the "eurosceptic" press and Margaret Thatcher:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/talking_politics/1037096.stm

Interaction Politics

Here are some examples of how politics effect the way we communicate with people. Sometimes not everybody can get on well with another person for specific reasons, these examples represent that:

Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination occurs when an individual(s) is being abused for no reason other than their appearance.
Here is an example of racial discrimination:

http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/1999/01/04/story6.html

After the September 11 attacks in New York, once the names of the people who had been flying the planes were published the British and American public began to change their opinions of people in the East and discrimination began to appear more frequently. The media can twist ways in which we view things and change our opinions to much more biased thoughts.

"One example of this type of discrimination occurred in 2002 to an Arab- Canadian man named Maher Arar. On September 26, 2002, the United States of America detained and deported Arar, a Syrian-born engineer who has lived in Canada since 1987, to Syria for alleged links to al-Qaeda. In Syria, Arar was tortured for these suspected crimes. Arar blames the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for what happened to him. The court investigating the accusation discovered that the RCMP had given the United States inaccurate information that resulted in Arar’s sudden deportation. Thus, there was no real basis for the deportation other than his ethnic relations to the Middle East."

http://www.munity-online.net/east/east/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=2

Religious Discrimination

Religious discrimination is whereby people are judged on their religion. This is where differences amongst religions of how to be good and bad can clash. People may feel very strongly about their religion and insist theirs is the "best" causing conflict.

Here is an example of religious discrimination:

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=21444

Sexuality Discrimination

Sexuality Discrimination is the hatred of those who may have a different sexuality. This could be based on if the person was heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or lesbian.
here is an example:

http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2005/01/13/27411/lesbian-prison-officers-claim-sexual-discrimination.html

From the sources used to show examples of discrimination the result has ended in court trials and even in the newspapers themselves. Media coverage of events such as these can propose biased points of view and have an influence on the public. Evidence given in the media and newspapers is not a reliable source due to the biased perspectives given, usually biased from a government party point of view if the writer(s) support a particular law or policy.

Linking Politics to Film

Having looked through the different forms that politics can be, there are many topics to choose from to cover. There has to be some form of conflict in order for there to be drama. We will all start coming up with our own ideas and put them forwards

The Brief

The brief is to come up with a 3 minute film (exactly 180 seconds and 00 frames) having a political topic, and present it through either a documentray, drama or experimental.

To produce this film there are a number of factors that need looking into, such as politics (current affairs, laws, racial prejudice) to give the story an outline, other examples of political films and how different topics have been represented.