AS Media

Question 1: in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and convention of real media products?

We watched many documentaries and mockumentaries films such as 'One Direction - This Is Us', 'Michael Jackson - This Is It' and 'Spinal Tap' where all three films conform with the theme of our film Comedy/Documentary, however Michael Jacksons and One Directions films was far more serious and more like a fly on the wall documentary whereas our film was more staged. We also watched some other films and television series that fit within the mockumentary style, such as 'The Office'. Watching these films and these televisions series enabled us to compare our own film and get inspiration for it to better our film and make it more comical. We related our film to some things to conform to the genre conventions to make our film stand out from all the others. To fully answer this question i have separated it into four sections: Narrative, Conventions, Characters and Style.

Narrative- Levi Strauss devised a way of analysing narrative and studied hundreds of myths and legends all around the world, from that he found out that we as humans make sense of the world, people and events by seeing and using binary oppositions. He found out that narratives are arranged around the conflict of binary opposites. Basically that binary opposites are the central climax of a narrative structure. Using Strauss' theory, we set up an binary opposition: that Keith and C.Dot are so opposite in how they are and also how we would usually see a musical duo to be, they are the complete contrasts to this.

Another theory that we adopted in our film is that of Barthes' enigma code, this is five codes which are woven into any narrative. The main code we used was the 'Hermeneutic Code' which refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes a mystery to the viewer. The purpose of the author in this is typically to keep the audience guessing, arresting the enigma, until the final scenes when all will be revealed and all loose ends are tied off and closure is achieved. This relates to our film because it raises questions such as, Why are these two characters together? How did they meet? Why was Keith in prison? What was the real reason why they broke up in the first place? Why are they back together?

Characters - Keith Abraham Lovesworth (One of the two protagonist)

Keith is presented as an extremely holy, church goer who has found himself and has been born again. We can tell this because of the clothes he wears, which are very smart, simple and religious looking. We can also tell this by the way he speaks and what he says;' however later on in the opening sequence, you find out that Keith has been to prison which then juxtaposes what we thought we knew of him and does not make him as holy as we thought. The audience sees Keith as a very flamboyant character because of his monologue he has nearing the end of the opening, which the shots of him walking, and when the camera pans down when he is lying on the grass are all shown over his speech, which the viewer found amusing when surveyed, therefore makes him loveable because the viewer knows that he's been to prison yet still found him funny.

C.Dot (The other protagonist)

C.Dot is presented at the start of the opening sequence as non-stereotypical singing partner, who happens to look like a harden criminal that grew up on the streets of London, which from the offset creates an amusing atmosphere as it contrasts Keith entirely as the viewer wonders how they got together as they are completely opposite. Later on in the sequence when C.Dot is looking in the mirror seriously, we still think he will be the serious tone to C.Dot which will continue throughout the whole of the opening sequence and my group all hoped to make the viewer think that they will not really learn much about him as we all hoped they would think he will be the guarded character out of the two. This all changes when he starts speaking because of the way he sounds as we find out that he is rather geeky with a bad stutter; which now makes the audience feel at ease with him as they find him more approachable.

Style: Titles

After doing a vast amount of research on various opening titles for the genre we wanted to create, Connor edited in the titles throughout the task and then added footage in to fit around it. We took inspiration from Justin Bieber's title openings, Michael Jacksons title opening and Spinal Tap's title opening. We wanted to take inspiration from these three films because we tried to keep within our specific genre when researching as we wanted to make it look as professional and as realistic to the three film openings as possible.

Mise En Scene

Costume: For our costumes, myself and Connor wanted to really stereotype the characters as we wanted our audience to be shocked when the two characters started to talk. We decided to dress Keith up all in black smart clothes and make him wear a dog collar, which implies that he is a vicar thus reinforcing the fact of him being extremely religious. For C.Dot, we decided that he should mainly wear hoodies, hats, sunglasses and a lot of gold chains to portray to the audience that he is some sort of gangster.
Actors: Our main actors are C.Dot and Keith, who are played by Connor and Nathan. They play a failed singing duo who won the X Factor and had hits all over the globe but then something happens which make the pair fall out, but now they are reforming the band for the biggest comeback of all comebacks.
Make-Up: We used no make-up during the filming of this opening sequence as we did not need to convey anyone being hurt (blood, gash).
Setting: The majority of our film opening is set indoors, we used the green screen a lot to emulate the allusion of being on stage singing to thousands of screaming fans. It was set in the outdoors for Keith as he loves God's gift to the world (mother nature) and for C.Dot the shots were mostly indoors in the recording studio to represent that he likes to make mix tapes.
Props: We used a microphone, a guitar, gold chains and sunglasses for our props. They all represent their musical back ground and their time in the spotlight.

Lighting:
During the majority of the filming process, we used natural light for Keith outdoors shots to make the film look more real to life. However, the majority of our lighting was the use of studio lights because it made our skin look better when in front of the green screen. Connor used an effect on Premier to make the first few shots in black and white to illustrate the failing of the band, this was pathetic fallacy as the emulated how Connor felt at the time.

Genre Conventions:
Our film challenges the traditional documentary conventions because it is mocking the music industry making it more amusing than serious and factual. It mocks celebrity life and pop culture.
Our film is extremely similar to the film Anchorman as they mock the news industry which makes it the most similar to ours as we are mocking the music industry, they both intertwine together because news and music are connected showing that we based our characters and the way they act on how actors/actresses act in Anchorman which is very sarcastic.

Question 2: how does your media product represent particular social groups?

Question 3: what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Question 4: who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 5: how did you attract/address your audience?

Question 6: what have you learnt about technologies from the process of contrasting this product?

Apple iMac 21.5 inch -
This is the primary technology i used. This assisted me through the whole project, from planning to uploading the final project. I worked on OS X Yosemite, the systems operating system. With lightening fast processors and stunning graphics, this was the perfect platform to create our movie on. The only downside of the Mac's where their speeds when transferring video footage.

Windows Computer (Dell) -
Although most of the project based on the Mac's, i often used a computer for other tasks such as transferring footage from the camera to a memory disk. This was because the cameras which we used where designed to cater for a Windows based system meaning transfers where a significant amount faster. I chose not to use this platform to create our film on due do their less sensitive mouses which made fine editing harder than on the Mac's

Sony 8.9 Megapixel HD Handycam -
This is the camera which we used to film the vast majority of footage needed for our opening. It proved extremely good at shots from afar, recording everything in detail. It was average for closer shots, struggling with some lighting. The feature to easily watch back footage directly on the camera was extremely useful as we could see it before the transfer, preventing any scene re-films. Its upload speeds were painfully slow on our primary PC,the Mac, although proved better on a Windows PC. We were pleased with how easy it was to attach to a tripod, making still shots easy for us to conduct.

Microphone -

From the start we wanted to record an original piece of music for the opening. We completed this using a microphone to capture a good sound quality. Although a difficult task to set up in the recording studio, we eventually managed it, recording the vocals for our soundtrack. Once placed on the computer (audacity) it provided us with a clean sound with minimal sound interference.

Headphones -
I used headphones in many different situations. They proved to be very helpful in the recording studio as it enabled us to listen to the soundtrack which we created (The Traamps - Rubberband mixed with The Game's - Hate It or Love It) whilst singing over it. This would mean the soundtrack wouldn't have to be played outlaid, reducing the quality. I also used them throughout the editing process in order to hear imperfections in the audio which i may not have heard if it were to be played out loud.

Tripod -
We used these to gain access to steady shots by attaching the camera to it. They seemed easy enough tho operate. The only criticism i would have is that they are fairly hard to manipulate in order to change angles of the shots, taking up a lot of time. They also were very stiff meaning it was difficult to move the camera during shots.

Lighting -
When using the green screen, we decided to add lighting in order to create authentic looking footage. Although they were heavy, large and often in the way. We managed to work out the situation, placing it out of shot meaning the green screen would not be interfered with. They added a natural glow to our characters, also meaning the green screen footage was easy to UltraKey.

iPhone (various models) -
These were our go to gadgets, whether it be researching on the go, recording voiceovers or emailing images. They were influential throughout the whole process making little tasks which may have been insignificant back then extremely easy. These little tasks built up to make the whole project, meaning this gadget was one of our biggest assets. The whole of the original soundtrack was entered around these phones. The lyrics had been written on it. The lyrics had been performed using it. The soundtrack had been played through it. It was an all-round winner. I have no criticisms for this piece of technology.

Audacity -
I used this program to edit the majority of our sound. It provided a simple, yet effective platform which could provide easy sound editing for us. Despite this, the program was often glitchy and wound me up due to some outdated programming. The criticism is valid but it could be argued its designed for Windows 2000, a fifteen year old operating system.

Youtube -
I used youtube multiple times. A primary example was for one of the visual effects in which the films characters' music video can be seen. It also aided me through the planning process as aided us in our film research. I would criticise that it often provided slow service and upload times but that was to be expected.

Safari -
This was our research browser. It was another technology that was used throughout the project. Although often criticised as a slower, less supported browser, it seemed to fair well with everything we used it for. It was an obvious choice for our browser as it is native to the iMacs, meaning it was going to be speedy. This also was the home to many other of our technologies such as youtube, blogger and gmail.

Blogger -
We used blogger to document our work from the beginning to the finish. This included our film pitches, the planning leading to production and our final publishing. I would have to complain though, it lacked in user friendliness and was very unreliable. It was hard to navigate but all in all it done the job.

iMessage/WhatsApp -
These are 2 messaging services me and my peers used to communicate both in and out of school. It allowed us to brainstorm and communicate when we were not with each other meaning we could cut out communication sessions in time where we could be doing other tasks.

Microsoft PowerPoint -
This was a great piece of software due to its wide variety of functions and user friendly image editing. Although it may not even be considered in the image editing world with titans such as Photoshop dwarfing it, this program saved me many hours. It cut down the time when creating graphics such as our flagship title scene. I would criticise that it was not as fast on the Mac's as on the Windows computers. This would be due to the fact it was created by Windows' makers.

Microsoft Word -
A program which we used to document a lot of the planning and evaluation. It enabled fast and effective word processing. The file sizes were small and easily transferable and media could be added if necessary.

Gmail -
Used infrequently but enough to be considered as one of our technologies. We often used it to mail larger files to each other but this wasn't often due to our different specialised fields. Mel completing the majority of the documents, Nathan filming and starring in the film and Connor editing kept us fairly separate with sharing documents and media.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 -
I used this briefly to create our film poster. Although a lot of the media was manipulated on PowerPoint. This added some effects that cannot be accessed on PowerPoint like layering. I didn't use this program alot due to its large variety of unnecessary functions that i would not need.

Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 -
My best friend and my worst enemy. The single most important piece of technology in the process. I probably have got into the days where i have sat infant of a computer, tweaking an effect or changing a sound on this program. Before i started this course, i had no experience with this program but its safe to say i quickly learnt. With a huge variety of effects and features, this program is an editors dream. I started with the basics, importing all of our footage and setting it up. Organising took a lengthy amount of time but we managed it. Once this had been complete, i started playing with effects in order to learn what the program was capable of. Key moments of our film were made possible by this program, for example the image based titles. It allowed me to green screen, with great success. It allowed me to fade, distort and change both image and sound with great success. And finally it allowed me to create my film with great success. The program performed in most fields but burdened me with rendering, and unless i frequently rendered, i couldn't watch the previews. Within the entirety of the project, 1/3 of it was rendering. Other small problems were the length of time needed to change colours using the 3-way colour wheel, not providing me with a preview once i had, and minor UltraKey problems in which the background would show over the upper layer, although this was easily fixable. All in all it served me very well despite its time consuming.

Question 7: Looking back at the prelim task, what have you learnt in the progression from that to the final product?

How did you find the preliminary task and what was the hardest thing to overcome?

I found the prelim task to be challenging due to the limited time we had and the lack of locations we had access to. We also found it difficult because we had some previous experience with the Premier software but not enough for us to make the film look as good as we would have hoped. I felt that the camera shots we used were easy to film and we were very successful in doing so, I also found it easy to create a tense atmosphere when we used the flickering shots at the end of the film as we found the perfect location and we were very happy with the shot.
I would say the hardest thing to overcome would be using Premier, I was not the best at using the software and I wish I had more time to spend editing the film as I think I could have done much better and made it look more professional and considering the amount of time I had, I was quite happy with the outcome.

Were you happy with the prelim task?

I would say that i was not completely happy with the final outcome of the short film as i felt we did not use our time wisely and we didn't a sufficient amount of different locations that no one would recognize. I felt we were limited to the amount of filming we could do because of the time of day and it was at a difficult time in the year when it got dark very quickly in the afternoon/evening when we needed shots in daylight. However considering the amount of time I had to edit and film I was not disappointed with the outcome.

How is your final film opening better than your final prelim task?

I found that being in a group with someone different and that has lots of experience using the software to an excessive level was very helpful and made us use our time more sufficiently. We also took a lot more time to film different shots many times until we were happy with the ones we got, we used a lot more range of shots and used the Premier software to enhance our opening sequence. We were not limited to time because we filmed inside for most of the shots which eliminated the difficulty of filming in daylight.

What do you think you have learnt from completing the coursework?

I have learnt how to use my time more wisely when planning, filming, and editing we were able to work together well and each of us were better at some things than others which evened out the work between us. We found the group that we were most comfortable with and who we worked the best with making it much easier to divide the work between us easily and decide who is best at what. I found that with all our different skills we made a good group that all got on well and worked at a very good level. Although some aspects of the planning, filming, and editing did take longer than expected they did all get finished and we were all very happy with the final outcome of our film opening. By bringing all of our ideas in together we all had our own input in parts of the opening meaning we were all happy with the final piece.

Special Graphics

When creating the opening I decided to challenge myself and create a visually stunning title to the movie. This would feature the bands name: The Disciples, with the film name underneath: Back On The Block. I researched many films and how their main title was portrayed. After enough research I found a type of title which would work best on our film.

This title I chose to create requires creating an image with a hollow title which would allow me to place a video behind the picture, creating the effect of a moving title.

To go about this I firstly created the template. A black background with a normal title on, as if it where a poster. The next thing I did was change the 'Back On The Block Title to as vibrant colour as possible to make the hollowing as easy as possible. Due to a tight schedule didn't have time to create the hollowed image on a program like Photoshop. Although it would create a crisper border for the hollowed text, I felt a faster creation would be more beneficial to our production process. I imported the image into PowerPoint and use the 'Remove Background' function. This allowed me to remove the vibrant coloured text leaving a transparent effect.

Once I had created this image, I transferred it to Premier. I then laid it over a video which I had chosen. Choosing the correct video was difficult but I felt it was essential to chose one that had frequently changing 'Disco' colours.

Film Poster

The next step in my process was creating a poster for the movie. This was much harder than i first thought it would be due to the difficulty with fonts on the Mac. The font i used as the primary title was native toWindows meaning i had to externally install it on the Mac. Once i had, i found it difficult to manipulate due to the slowness of the Mac comprehending what was asking it to do. Eventually i found a way to speed this up: by converting the text to a picture and changing it from there. The end product can be seen below. It draws inspiration for the Dark Knights film poster with aspects of it being imitated.

Planning

Timeline

Finished Opening

Here is our finished opening. Connor made some alterations to the fonts and added in another few shots we decided to film, it helps people understand the storyline more and we got very good feedback from the class and teachers. We are finally very happy with it.

Synopsis Planning

What we will need:

Gold Chains, Sunglasses, Bandana, Snapback.
Green Screen, Lighting.
Room to interview in.
Microphone.
Recording Studio.
Sink, Tap and Mirror.
Brink Wall.
Pathway, Trees, Greenery.

Characters:

Keith Abraham Lovesworth (Nathan)

In this I will be playing a religious, eccentric character who cannot sing but has made it big in the music industry with his singing partner C.DOT (Connor). He is a calming influence on Connor and the two are completely different personality wise but when they come together and sing, something just feels right.

Callum C.DOT Flewers (Connor)

In this Connor plays an offensive, serious person who finds it hard to control is anger. He is the one that has the offensive lyrics which offends Keith's church but Keith overlooks this as he sees good in C.DOT.

Costume:

For myself, the group felt as if he needed to always look formal, with various white or black shirts and formal jackets as we felt this would represent me as a religious figure, in one shot i dressed in all black with a white dog collar and a gold chain with with the symbol of Jesus to represent me as a 'Vicar' or 'Priest' which hopefully some people will find comical. Connor decided to dress in lots of gold chains with various hoodies, bandana's and snapbacks to represent him being from the streets of London which people will also hopefully find comical because it illustrates that we are two completely different people from different walks of life.

Location:

Our film opening will be located in various different locations such as recording studios, walkways, brick walls, interview rooms and an almost bathroom looking area.

Audience:

We have pitched our audience to be between the ages of 15 and 30 however not excluding any ages over the age of 30. We did not think anyone younger should be able to view this because there will be traces of drug abuse and offensive language also our group envisaged our fans being older than 14 years or younger as they would be too young to be around when we was big. The film certificate is 15.

Titles Research

To research titles, Nathan had to gather information on films from our given genre and analysis them. To begin with Nathan had to research past films like 'Micheal Jackson's: This Is It', One Direction's: This Is Us' and finally 'This Is Spinal Tap', all of them being movie documentaries about famous bands, and even one of them being a mockumentary, the specific genre we are aiming for. Nathan studied all three of these opening sequences and what I found in common with them is that the titles are simplistic and it shows a back story which is something we are aiming for.

The Disciples Comeback Song

You see a snap shots of this song being recorded in the first 20 seconds of the opening sequence. Although this has been written, some of the lyrics might have changed slightly. The name of the song is 'Live For God'.

(Nathan)

Live for God,
Shake his hand,
Praise the Lord for this Holy Band,
Live for God,
Shake his hand,
Praise the Lord for this Holy Band.

Like a bird soaring high,
Reach to God and touch the sky,
Thank him for the life we live,
And a passionate prayer I will give,
Thank God for this land of heather,
I just wish that I could live forever,

Live for God,
Shake his hand,
Praise the Lord for this Holy Band,
Live for God,
Shake his hand,
Praise the Lord for this Holy Band.

He took my dreams and made them true honey,
Gave me the fame and the life and the money,
Showed me love and showed me pride and made me funny,
Everyday he clears my sky and makes it sunny,
His son was born in December,
And on the 25th we shall remember.

(Connor)

Comin' up from the hood man,
Where the druggys kill each other for a tin can,
Mad 8 year olds cruising with they hoods up,
Drinking special brew from their old sippy cups.

If a boy ever threatens me they better run,
Cos a gangster never leaves his house without a gun,
Always wanted gold chain and some grey goose,
Now i'm in the club with 'em i'll set 'em loose.

Keeping it thoro i've never been a fake sheep,
On my own style like the boys mobb deep,
You clowns fuck around and die today,
Shots through you like a mother-fucking x-ray.

People ask me when the next album gon' drop,
They want that mixture of tight rap and hip-hop,
Paired with Chief Keith and his mad pop,
Next album Disciples Back On The Block.

Basic Script - Connor's (C.Dot's) Interview

Before this interview there will be a shot of Nathan and Connor turning to look at each other after Nathan's interview

Mel - people might look at the two of you and think it's quite an unconventional partnership

Connor - [pause] what are you trying to say?

Mel - Well it's a gospel singer and a rapper

Connor - Thats racist and there is no placism for racism in the music industry

After the interview it then goes on to the first film Logo coming up and the titles will start..

Basic Script - Nathan's (Keith's) Interview

Mel - So what have you been up to since the split?

Nathan - Prison mainly, it was quite therapeutic really. I found Jesus, shared a cell with him. Lovely lad, hispanic, went by the name hey-zeus. [pause] In all seriousness though, i did find the church. i was born again.

Mel - Weren't you born again before the band?

Nathan - Yeah but this was more like an afterbirth

Mel - Have you been in contact with C.Dot?

Nathan - [looks into the distance] I wonder where he is now

Childhood Pictures

Over the last few days we had been watching various opening scenes for movies that relate to our genre and plot, one of the most notable being One Direction's 'This Is Us'. After the opening credits, a montage of clips of the boys growing up can be seen with photos of the boys at various different ages being displayed. Connor remembered an old photo album full of pictures of him at different ages.

Newspaper Article

Today my attentions focussed around creating social media which I could include in our film, i felt this would play a strong roll in showing our characters comedown from the peak of society, to just another failed band. Choosing a popular Newspaper: The Sun, I created the below article.

Shooting Schedule

Second draft

Here is our close to finishing second draft

Moodboard

In this particular lesson Nathan was assigned a task to make a mood board consisting of all the sorts of things we would either like to show in our opening scene or something just to give us inspiration to work from it. A lot of the images are from other documentary films such as One Direction's This Is Us and Michael Jacksons' This Is It.

Final Logo Choice

In the end, my group decided to go with this logo Connor created. We chose this because we felt the other logo gave off a very 80's inspired look with the colours that was used on them and one thing we are not, are 80's tribute artist. This logo represents us as a band, sleek, modern and pure. The white represents the pureness and the black background makes the writing stand out more; whereas the other colours on the background of the other logos do not make the writing the focal point whereas this does that.

Synopsis Planning

What we will need:

Gold Chains, Sunglasses, Bandana, Snapback.
Green Screen, Lighting.
Room to interview in.
Microphone.
Recording Studio.
Sink, Tap and Mirror.
Brink Wall.
Pathway, Trees, Greenery.

Characters:

Keith Abraham Lovesworth (Nathan)

Callum C.DOT Flewers (Connor)

Costume:

Location:

Our film opening will be located in various different locations such as recording studios, walkways, brick walls, interview rooms and an almost bathroom looking area.

Audience:

Institution

The Island Def Jam Music Group

The Island Def Jam Music Group (IDJMG) was an American record label group formed in 1999 when the Universal Music Group (UMG) merged two of its daughter companies Island Recordings and Def Jam Recordings. In 2011, Motown Records was split from the Universal Motown Republic Group and was subsequently merged into The Island Def Jam Music Group. Barry Weiss served as Chairman and CEO of the company.^[3] As of February 2014, artists on the IDJMG roster included Mariah Carey, Rihanna, Kanye West, 2 Chainz, and Iggy Azalea.On April 1, 2014, it was announced that Island Def Jam will no longer be running following the resigning of CEO Barry Weiss. The label will now be reorganizing Def Jam Recordings, Island Records and Motown Records all as separate entities. Being as our film is about a singing duo who is as big in the music industry as Rihanna and Kanye West, my group thought it would be ideal for our film to distributed by our 'record label' and a lot of films that are produced by music companies we have taken inspiration from, for instance One Directions movie and Lady Gaga's tour movie. We took a lot of our creativity from these two films in particular. One of the main reasons that we decided to chose this distributor is because they have had precious experience in producing films like ours.

Interscope Pictures

Interscope Communications (also known as Interscope Pictures) was a motion picture production company founded in 1982 by Ted Field. Its divisions included Interscope Records (which was founded in 1990 as a joint venture with Atlantic Records).

Film Certificate

For mine, Connors and Melanie's film 'The Disciples: Back On The Block', we had to decide what film certificate to give it. When in the planning stages for our film, we decided that giving it an age rating of 15 would be most appropriate as from the outset we chose that our film will involve some traces of drug abuse and some scenes that younger viewers may find offensive, such as when Connor raps in the beginning of the open sequence, a swear word can be heard and generally his language when rapping is considered offensive. After doing some research i found that drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. I believe we do not do this however we do show this openly and talk about it.

Shot List

When filming we wanted to include as many different shots as we could. Here is a list of the shots we have chosen to film and hopefully include in our opening sequence:

1. Close up of Connor
2. Close up of Nathan
3. Panning shot (right to left) of Connor and Nathan in recording studio
4. Long shot of Connor standing
5. Mid shot of Connor sitting
6. Medium shot of Connor at the mirror
7. Close up of Connor looking in the mirror
8. Close up of hands by the tap
9. Medium shot of Connor washing his face
10. Close up of chain on tap
11. Close up of chain in sink
12. Medium shot of Connor and Nathan (at church)
13. Extreme long shot of Nathan walking towards the camera
14. Panning upwards of Nathan standing
15. Panning downwards/ birds eye view of Nathan lying on the grass
16. Close up of stepping in a puddle
17. Close up of Nathan's face
18. Long shot of Nathan walking towards camera
19. Close up/ panning left of Connor and Nathan

We will be adding more shots and we may not include all of the shots listen above in our film opening.

Possible Opening Script

Keith's Monologue when being interviewed.

'As the new generation, my artistry and my faith and creativity is nothing to do with making it because we had kind of already made it, right? I mean when we were playing for nothing in the church it was still like we have made it, we still felt like we were superstars. I look out into that crowd and im like when the fuck did this happen? How did this happen? Who created this? Because I didn’t create this, its for sure, it must be God, its for sure Jesus because it is'nt me because im not ridiculous enough to think for a second that I am not powerful. We woke up one day and we were like, we made it… it worked... I told so many people for so long that I was a star and but I wasn’t and one morning I woke up and the delusion was real. I get to live my dream I get to hopefully live the dream in a way that inspires other people to live their dreams. I always knew it was my destiny but I didn’t know what destiny meant until I saw my fans, God and C.Dot until I saw the birth of the The Disciples. We are destiny, the fans are the truth and they are my reason for waking up in the morning to Moses my pitbull. I'm still the same person that I was, before all of this happened I still walked down the same streets, go to the same Church, I drink my camomile tea with extra shot of basic.'

My group thought it would be a good idea to include various shots of me walking round a city, sitting in different places and just shots of me in various locations. This was all inspired by watching a opening to Lady Gaga's MonsterBall DVD. It will occasionally go back to the interview which will include myself as Keith and Mel as the interviewer from HBO

Song Lyrics

From the start of the production we always knew that we wanted to make a song to accompany the production. Even though we couldn't sing well if we wanted too, it is intentionally bad. This adds to the characters persona's by showing to the viewer the reason why our characters are on the slope to the bottom. Sadly, we didnt get to use the song in the final film but i felt it should be uploaded due to the effort (or lack of) put into it. Here is The Disciples comeback single: Live For God.

[Lyrics]

[Keith]

Live for god,
Shake his hand,
Praise the lord for this holy band,
Live for god,
Shake his hand,
Praise the lord for this holy band,

Like a bird soaring high,
Reach to god and touch the sky,
Thank him for the life we live,
And a passionate prayer ill give,
Thank god for this land of heather,
I just wish that i could live forever,
COME ON

Live for god,
Shake his hand,
Praise the lord for this holy band,
Live for god,
Shake his hand,
Praise the lord for this holy band,

He took my dreams and made them true honey,
Gave me the fame and the money,
Showed me love and made me funny,
Everyday he clears my sky and makes it sunny,
His son was born in December,
And on the 25th we shall remember,

[Connor]

Coming up from the hood man,
Where the druggys kill each other for a tin can,
Mad 8 year olds cruising with they hoods up,
Drinking special brew from their old sippy cups,
If a boy ever threatens me they better run,
Cos a gangster never leaves the house without a gun,
Come from the city repping shit like everyday,
Cos you know in chelmsford that we get paid,
Keep it thoro I've never been a fake g,
On my own style like the boys mobb deep,
You clowns fuck around and die today,
Shots through you like a motherfucking x-ray,
People ask me when the next album drop,
They wanna hear that chart motherfucking hip-hop,
Paired with chief Keith and his mad pop,
Next album diss-ciples back on the block,
Go ahead Hit em up Keith

[Keith]

x 2 Live for god,
Shake his hand,
Praise the lord for this holy band Live for god,
Shake his hand,
Praise the lord for this holy band

Feedback (first draft of The Disciples)

Our feedback was very pleasing as most of it was very positive. Here is what some of the feedback said.

1. Can the genre of the film be identified and how?

Many people could identify our film genre being a documentary by the opening which was very pleasing. However some people did say that they thought it was a mockumentary which it is almost bordering but people still knew it to be some sort of documentary which was good.

2. What went well?

Most of the feedback said that the editing was 'outstanding' and that the concept was very good. Also we were told many of our shots were good too.

3. Even better if?

Many people did not like our interview but that was because it was not filly edited. I now think that we are going to take it out of the film opening and put something else in instead.

4. Does the film present an adequate enigma?

Most of the feedback said yes

The average of the overall grade was between 40-50/60

First draft - The Disciples

Today we showed our first draft to the class, it was not entirely ready as we felt we did not have enough time to make it perfect, we were happy with the outcome but we will still be making a few changes and alterations

Risk Assessment

Planning Stages

When planning me and Connor were trying to decide on which title would look the most professional as we were trying them out on the opening scene. We decided on one that did not have any colour on it as we thought if we used that then we could put any colour as the background if we wanted to.

Production Diary

Here is our production diary, we kept a record of what we did day to day for 2 weeks whilst we were planning, filming and editing our opening sequence of our film, The Disciples. This will be useful for us to look back on as we can see what we did wrong and also what went went well and how well we used the time given to us to film.
We had already been assigned our groups and i was put into a group with Nathan Lorenzo and Connor Healey.

Previously we had created

10th November
We had previously made individual film pitches which we were able to show to our group, we then decided on one of the films to make an opening to. We decided to go with Nathan's idea which was about a once famous duo called The Disciples who were a major musical hit back in the day and now making a comeback. We all decided that this would be the best idea to film and would be the most fun to plan, film and edit. We had to make sure the film pitch was perfect and make any alterations we though it needed before we were to present it to the class in the next lesson.

11th November
This lesson we presented our film pitch to the class as a group and we asked people to give us feedback on what they would do differently and what they would change to make it better, we then used that to make out film pitch perfect so we knew exactly what we were going to be filming.

12th November
Today we looked at films that were similar to the ones that we would be making the opening to. We has 3 films that we thought were most similar to our film that we wanted to make, these three films are One Direction's 'This Is Us', Michael Jackson's 'This Is It', and also one other 'Spinal Tap' which was most like our film as it was more of a mock of a band rather than a serious film about singers and their travels. We focused on how the titles were presented and how they opened the films and noted down anything that would help us with ours.

13th November
We carried on looking at similar films again today and continued making notes on anything that we could include in our film opening.

14th November
Today we were all individually working and keeping our blogs up to date and making sure our lap charts were up to date too.

15th November
[weekend]

16th November
[weekend]

17th November
We all wrote in our lap charts all of the tasks that needed to be done in order to prepare and plan for the film, we then split these up so we all had a equal amount of work to do.

18th November
We were all getting on individually with our tasks given to us, I was doing audience research whilst Nathan did market research and Connor started making a script.

19th November
This lesson we were carrying on with our tasks and we also came up with the name for out film - The Disciples Back on the Block. The Disciples being the duo that is making a comeback.

20th November
Today we were all doing another one of the tasks we were all set. Nathan was doing the institution task and Connor was carrying on with the script that he was previously working on. I was making the storyboard for our film opening which I found quite challenging.

21st November
Today we were all making sure our blogs were up to date and had everything it needed on there.

22nd November
[weekend]

23rd November
[weekend]

24th November
We started filming today as we felt we had done enough preparation to be able to start shooting.

25th November
We were carrying on filming and I made a few alterations to the storyboard I had previously created as we wanted to change a few things as we were filming.

26th November
We spent today finishing off all our planning for the film opening individually and making sure we would be prepared to film for the next few days and know what we are filming.

27th November
We were filming for all of today's lesson, we found it quite easy as the shots we had to get were easy to film indoors.

28th November
We were filming again today, this time it was more difficult as we were shooting outside and we found it harder to get the perfect shot without being interrupted.

29th November
[weekend]

30th November
[weekend]

1st December
We were filming again today and making sure we had all the shots we needed and making sure that they were perfect for us to start editing.

2nd December
Connor started to edit the footage today, we used the green screen to film another part of the opening and Connor was working on some edits that would be included in the opening.

3rd December
We had started adding in the footage to the Premier software, me and Nathan went out to film again as we were not happy with one of the shots that were taken so we did that whilst Connor stayed inside editing and creating more edits.

4th December
Connor continued editing and me and Nathan were catching up with our planning that we missed and also making sure our blogs were up to date.

5th December
Today was the first deadline for the first draft of our film opening, unfortunately we had not got very far with our first draft but the teachers and peers were all very impressed by how well edited and timed it was.

6th December
[weekend]

7th December
[weekend]

8th December
After receiving feedback from the first draft we started making changes and making the opening scene more completed than before which was one of the improvements that needed to be made.

9th December
Me and Nathan we continuing with any research we missed before and Connor continued editing.

10th December
We all made sure our blogs were up to date today.

11th December
Connor got a lot further with the editing and the opening was nearly complete, me and Nathan we making sure all the shots were there and telling Connor if there was anything wrong with what he had done.

Final Film Opening