Audition scripts

MAN 1 - AUDITION SCRIPT
Man 1 is holding a photo showing it to woman 3
MAN 1
That’s little Amelia, she’s 2. And that’s Tommy, he’s 5 on friday
WOMAN 3
They’re beautiful
MAN 1
(Starting to cry and attempting to hide it)
I promised i’d take him to the pictures.
WOMAN 3
Hey! It’s alright!
MAN 1
You should have seen how excited he was.
WOMAN 3
I’m sorry
MAN 1
(Looking up at her in realisation)
I can’t let him down. I promised.
WOMAN 3
What are you going to do?
MAN 1
I’m going home to my boy. Whatever it takes. I’m going home to my family.

MAN 2 - AUDITION SCRIPT
Man 2 is hiding behind a pillar clutching his bag.
MAN 2
(Whispered to himself)
It’s not real. You’re ok. you’re fine... It’s a dream. It’s a...
Woman 1 grabs him by his shirt and holds a blade to his
throat. He holds his hands up above his head
WOMAN 1
I’m not a fan of an easy kill, but
such is life.
MAN 2
No,no look I’m unarmed! I’m
unarmed!
WOMAN 1
That’s your problem, not mine
MAN 2
I’m not a threat to you! Please!
WOMAN 1
Shame, it’s less fun this way.
MAN 2
Please, I’m begging you! Let me go
I can’t hurt you! Let me go, let me
run!
WOMAN 1
Well as you asked so nicely, I’ll
count to three.
She lets him go and he stands frozen to the spot. She leans
in closer to him.
(Whispered)
Go!

MAN 3 - AUDITION SCRIPT
Man 3 is hidden on the stairs aiming with his rifle down at
the woman who is scanning the area for danger. She is
holding a handgun which is shaking in her hands.
MAN 3
You will not take me down little
girl!
"Fear not, nor be afraid. For the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee,
nor forsake thee."
He cocks and aims. As he fires the woman screams out in
shock.
Shit.
WOMAN 2
Where are you!? Come on face me!
Look me in the eye as you kill me!
(Screaming)
Come on then!
MAN 3
He cocks and aims again. The woman is looking up panicking.
(Said with anger this time)
"No sacrifice for sins is left."
The gunfire echoes in the silence.
There you go.
He holds the rifle with the bayonet gently resting against
his face as he shuts his eyes and breathes out.

WOMAN 1 - AUDITION SCRIPT
Woman 1 is looking into a hidden camera (directly to camera)
smiling sadistically.
WOMAN 1
(said quietly)
The lioness will stalk her prey
before the attack, savoring the
moment. My mother used to tell me
not to play with my food.
(smirking)
She’s gone now. And anyway, whose
eating..?
She turns away from the camera and sees Man 2 hiding
unsuccessfully behind a small wall.
(She whistles)
It’s play time junior.
She throws a blade in his direction.


WOMAN 2 - AUDITION SCRIPT
Woman 2 grabs man 2 and pulls him out of danger. They duck
behind some crates.
WOMAN 2
You were a sitting target you idiot! If you’re not more careful than that, you’ll be dead before the day is out.
MAN 2
Oh I am sorry,it’s just...
(sarcastically)
it’s been a while since I last had to fight for my life!
WOMAN 2
If you don’t want my help fine, I can leave you here to die.
MAN 2
Why would you help me!?
WOMAN 2
I’ll defend myself here but I won’t just stand by and watch someone else suffer.
MAN 2
And I’m supposed to just believe
that?
WOMAN 2
Believe what you want, like I said I can go if you want me to. It’s not like I’m busy surviving or anything...
She gets up to leave
MAN 2
Look, I’m sorry OK. I just don’t know who to trust
WOMAN 2
Don’t trust anyone! That’s rule number one.

WOMAN 3 - AUDITION SCRIPT
Woman 3 and Man 2 are both crouched behind a wall.
MAN 2
I’ve never even been in a fight! How am I supposed to do this?
WOMAN 3
You aren’t supposed to that’s the whole point!
Man 2 sighs and looks at his hands
I don’t see how everyone seems to find it so easy to just kill each other just because they were told to. This is so wrong.
MAN 2
I’m sure they all have their reasons.
WOMAN 3
What, so now there is a valid reason for taking someone’s life?!
They see man 3 run past and they watch silently until is gone.
MAN 2
He’s a father. He just wants to go home.
WOMAN 3
We all want to go home! But if I get to go home, I won’t be going a murderer, I would rather die than
that.

Trailer Youtube link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vETR5_y0dxU&safe=active

http://farahdanibethsummer.wix.com/akeldama-film

Logic - Soundtrack construction

To edit the soundtrack for our product, I used Logic pro, as this would allow me to professionally finish the effect of the base track.

By adding effects such as an EQ (equaliser) I was able to improve the quality of my soundtrack as well as edit it to fit my purpose for the final product by cutting out the unwanted frequencies.

I added a compressor to normalise the levels and avoid high and low peaks.

Expenses

Creating the typography

When making the typography, the first thing I had to do was find a base font that I wanted to start working from.  From our past research we decided on the font Bloody impact.

To create the typography I will be using Adobe Photoshop. After creating a background layer and colouring it black, I added an additional adjustment layer to add the text to invert the colour.  







I then edited this text layer by adding adjustment layers to add drop shadows, inner shadows, bevel and emboss, stroke and gradient overlay following the colour scheme of gold and blue.






I then added a duplicate text layer just below the original text layer which created the effect of a whole text shadow.

By cutting out the text and making the background transparent, the typography was therefore transferable to our 3 media products.

Lighting equipment

The lights which we will be using are:

Arri 650w Tungsten Fresnel

These lights allow us to follow the three point lighting rule and light the characters features as well as scenery.

Arri Minicyc Tungsten Floodlight

This filmlight will allow us to create a general wash over certain scenes as well as help in achieving certain shots such as the silhouette desired in the window shot.

Uni-com LED lantern

These Uni-com LED lights allow us to highlight specific features on the characters face as well as emphasising wounds.  The lights are extremely light and portable allowing us to use them even working on difficult locations.

Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction an research, planning and evaluation stages?

• During the planning and research phase of creating our media product, we used many technological platforms.
• The main technology we used to collect and document our research was blogger.com.  This website was useful as it allowed us to write about our ideas, research and evaluate our practical work, alongside embedding images and videos to support this such as embedding the trailers and posters that we deconstructed.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  We used the website SurveyMonkey to construct and carry out an online survey to receive feedback on our initial ideas from our target audience
•  
  We then used Microsoft Excel to develop response graphs and charts in order to present our results clearly way which was easy to understand when referring back to them throughout the planning process.
•  Much of the Research into our trailer was done using the video sharing web platform YouTube, as this allowed us to find watch and deconstruct real media products showing us ideas for our own Trailer; deconstructing films such as The Hunger games and Exam for inspiration. We also used it to find the basis for our soundtrack as it holds a large database of uncopyrighted music. Using Google also helped with finding film websites and posters to deconstruct for the same reason. 

•  The majority of technology used however, was in the construction stage of the process. While shooting the footage for our trailer we used A Canon 550d and an iPhone for the footage as well as a Nikon DSLR D80i for stills as these cameras allowed us to shoot extremely high quality footage and images for a professional looking finish. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• We also used a zoom sound recorder for high quality audio and used a clapper board in order to have perfect synchronisation in the editing process.
• We also used a series of lights in order to achieve the suitable lighting states for each shot including Arri halogen fresnels and Floodlights (for example the backlit floodlight created the silhouette effect desired in the hand on glass shot).

• In post production we used many media programmes to edit our final products. For the trailer we began editing with iMovie to select all of the desired footage. We used this due to its simplistic easy to use layout which saved time in this process.
•  After this we used Final cut 7 to finalise the editing due to its industry standard capability allowing us to colour edit shots to create a professional visually constant trailer. This also helped us to create fx within our trailer such as creating a CCTV shot and a scope shot. We also used this to sync the audio in with the visual.  
  
  

  

  
  

  
• After this we used Final Cut 10 to add sound effects due to its large sound bank which gave us the variety of choice needed to source exactly what we needed. 
• We used Logic and Garageband to mix the soundtrack as well as the voiceover after recording this in a sound booth recording studio for quality purposes.  Logic allowed us to edit specifics of our soundtrack such as increasing the bass for added effect in the final product. 

• For the Poster editing we began using photo editing software such as Ribbit and Pixlr, however after being unhappy about the quality we used Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop Elements to create a more professional finish.  
  
  

  
• We also used Dafont.com to choose the basis font for our typography, which we then manipulated in Photoshop to create our own typography. 
  
  

  

  
  

  

• For our website we used Wix.com as its simplistic user function allowed us to add all of the features which we wanted to our website. Websites such as tech.pro allowed us to explore additional features in Wix that we experimented with to create our final product such as creating a multiple image interchangeable background.
  
  

  

  
  
  
• In the evaluation stages we used social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to share our product in order to receive feedback from our target audience.  We uploaded the video to YouTube so that it is accessible to people for them to feedback.   We also used SurveyMonkey again to receive in depth feedback on our product from our audience.

Final Website

(Link)

Final Poster

This is our final film poster.

Question 2

2. How effective is the combination of your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

As part of the A-level Media course we were given a task to create a series of three different products that were based on a genre of our choice, we choose to use the action/thriller genre. These Media Products were a Poster, Website and Teaser Trailer. We found continuity to be incredibly important in the design of each media product, as an overall cohesive look adds to the effectiveness of the promotional package as a whole. I believe the following three products were successful due to a consistent use of the same features and also by sticking to the conventions of action/thriller it enabled us to focus on the Genres theme. 

• Symbolism 

Firstly, it was important too our group that the characters starring in the film trailer be portrayed in all three of our media products. This was a technique we used as a promotional method, and as means for an audience to identify the characters faces and names with the film, a technique which is similarly used by iconic movies such as Rambo.  It also had the effect of making the protagonists and antagonists symbols of the trailer, and was an effective way of ensuring continuity. 

• Editing

In the editing stages, we adjusted important settings such as brightness, saturation and hue of the characters images and film footage on a series of photo editing sites i.e. ipiccy, in order for the lighting shown in the film poster to be similar to that on the film poster and website. This meant that their was no disparity between the images used, and the film footage, as some of the images had been taken on different days and under different weather conditions.

• Typography/Colour scheme

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Another key feature of Akeldama's representation was the typography we used; the particular font we chose was called BLOODY IMPACT, and we found it from researching different online font companies. 

By using  a bold, textured typography we hoped to grab the audiences attention by making the title on our poster, credits and website  eye catching and appealing. By using the same typography and having limited variation in the colour scheme across all three media products we hoped to emphasise this effect, and make the link between our  typography and film as strong as possible.

 For the colour scheme we used, gold, grey, red black and yellow, as they in kept with the conventions of our genre and also reflected aspects of our film we were eager to portray. This distinctive combination of colours meant it was even more important to use continuity as too many colours would have given the media products an unprofessional finish, and would not clearly represent the industrial theme running through our storyline.

• Iconic scenes

On the website we decided not only to use shots of our cast as we did with the other two media products. But also to exploit a convention used in many action/thriller films and films from other genres by showing shots that represent the most memorable scenes shown in our film trailer. For example on the website which used a slideshow format of each character's picture I.e. there is a medium shot of our character Nyla, and the prop of a hand gun wielded in her hand, as well as an agitated facial expression, this is based on a scene taken from our film trailer. By using the same location to shoot our film trailer as we did to take shots we would later use in the poster and website we again kept continuity high.

• Planning

Before filming had began we had created a detailed storyboard of the shots we wanted to include in our film trailer, this meant we had a wide range of different shots and scenes we already planned to use. We also created shooting schedules before each shoot which listed who would be filming that day and what equipment to take. By planning to take extra equipment such as an additional camera or props we were able to both film and take images simultaneously, this meant that instead of having to recreate poses for our film poster we had actual images from the  shooting day. 

So the mise in scene, across all media products including costume and makeup such as wounds or injuries would be identical over all three.

• Overlapping

One of the most effective conventions we exploited, was embedding our film trailer directly on to the film poster. This means the trailer plays automatically upon opening our website, directly reminding the viewer that they are connected to the same film, and again enforcing a sense of unity between all products.

Question 3

Q3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Pre-production

• Our target audience is males and females 18-30 years old. 
• During our research and planning stage, we produced a survey which we sent out to 100 people within our target audience. 
• The purpose of this was to find out what attracts an audience to a film trailer and what conventions have the biggest impact.

• We chose to use a survey as our primary research, as well as secondary research, into collecting first-hand data because it is quick and easy to distribute across to a large proportion of our target audience via internet media such as e-mail, Facebook.com and Twitter.com.
•  It is also quick and easy to receive responses, by using Surveymonkey.com, responses automatically show on our account.
• We made sure that our survey included both open and closed questions in order to receive both quantitative and qualitative data to ensure a variety of responses. 
• Our survey included questions about what genre, location, type of music are best in a film trailer. 

• These are examples of our multiple choice (closed) questions in our survey: 

• There were many things we took into account when reviewing our responses, for example, we decided to take on board that the most popular film genre was a thriller, therefore, we focused on producing a thriller film trailer as it would attract a large audience. 
• However, there were some questions in which we subverted the most popular choice for many reasons such as availability of equipment/actors, and suitability. For example, our third question asked 'Do you think romance is suitable in a thriller film?' in which our responses concluded that most our our audience did want romance in the film. Although, we chose not to include romance in our trailer as we wanted to focus more on the main genre and conventions of a thriller. 

• We also included an open question of 'What grabs your attention in a thriller trailer/what makes you want to watch the film?'. We used an open question in order to receive qualitative data in order to find our exactly what the person taking the survey is thinking. 
• Their views matter the most in text, so we could gather a clear understanding of what the majority think and like. 
• These were our responses to this question:

From these responses, we learned that suspense and a sense of enigma was most common. We learned that the audience likes not knowing what's going to happen next. Therefore, we incorporated this into our film trailer by using jumps and 'boom' sounds in order to keep the audience captivated when watching the trailer. 

• From question 1, we learned that the most popular film genre was thriller. Therefore, we took this on board and focused on the thriller genre as it would most likely attract a large proportion of our target audience.

• However, from question 2, we challenged the audiences feedback, and choosing 'action' as our sub-genre, as we thought it would fit our ideas/storyline better and have a bigger impact on the audience.

• In question 5, we learned that the majority of our target audience would like to see our main location in our trailer to be in a castle. However, the availability and cost of this particular location restricted us to not using this type of location.
• However, we focused on finding abandoned buildings an came across and unused area under an unused kennels in London.

Our final location:

• In question 6, we learned that the majority of our target audience would like to hear fast paced music involving suspense and climax.We took this on board and in our final trailer, we did use an upbeat soundtrack which leads to a climax when the typography is shown.

• In this question, we also found that the third most popular choice was the sound of a heartbeat. We did take this on board and incorporated a heart beat sound at the end of our trailer in response to a final climax of the trailer.

Post-production

1.

• After we finished our trailer, we wanted to find out what our audience thought of our final piece. 
• In order to receive relevant feedback from our target audience, we posted our final finished trailer onto the worldwide video distribution website, Youtube.com.

• To date, we have received 248 views, and achieved a 100% positive 'like' response.
• Positive comments have been received on the webpage, including:  

• Overall, we have found that audience feedback is very important as it has helped us to produce a trailer and our ancillary tasks to the best it can be, and to attract our target audience successfully. 
• Post-production feedback is also important as it can give us an idea of what to improve on in the future. 

2.

• To add to the strengh of our audience feedback, we produced a final survey called 'Trailer feedback' in which we sent out to a large proportion of our target audience.
• The survey included 10 questions asking what the audience liked about the trailer, and what improvements could be made.
• These are examples of our questions:

Feedback

• We recieved both positive and negative feedback from these. Constructive criticism is good for us as it would tell us what we could do to make our trailer better if needed to in the future.

Positive feedback:

• 100% of participants answered 'Yes' to the first question of 'Do you like the trailer?'

• 100% of participants answered 'Yes' to the question of 'Does the trailer match the genre?'

• Open questions such as 'Do you think the audio compliments the trailer and why?' recieved positive responses also as shown in the image to the left.

• Another open question asked 'How effective was the use of camera angles?', we recieved positive feedback from this as shown in the image to the right.

Negative feedback:

• We recieved a few negative responses also, including:
• To the open question of 'What aspects of the trailer would you change? (if any)', participants replied with:

Question 1

Q1: In which ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our genre is action and thriller. We looked at several existing products and deconstructed thrillers and deconstructed action trailers to help us to identify the conventions and forms that are usually found in our chosen genre's teaser trailers. This meant we could identify if we wanted to conform to this set code within our own product or if we wanted to subvert the conventions. 

The Teaser Trailer

One way in which we stuck to the conventions of our genre was through the location we used. 

• After researching films similar to ours in plot and style to see the type of locations used, we starting to search for one appropriate for our product. 

• It was very similar to location used in existing products - after considering slightly different locations such as an abandoned factory and a run down stately home, our final location was an old industrial estate near the Thames Barrier. 

• The location was perfect as it had a mix of indoor and outdoor shooting locations which was required for our story board and plot. We found with many of the films we looked at that the location was kept as an unrecognisable place so that the audience could feel like the events could happen anywhere - we decided to conform to this convention and ensured that there where no iconic locations which would allow the audience to see that we were in South East London in the shots. 

Costume research for male characters and female characters help us to see the conventions of costume design in our genre. 

• Male characters typically wore plain clothes which allowed movement; combat trousers or jeans, plain t-shirts, quite fitted clothing to allow them to be active without the costume being in the way, trainers or boots. Female characters typically wore similar clothing to show unity with the male members of the group they were with; plain t-shirts or vests, combat trousers or jeans etc. However the woman's clothing tended to be a little more fitted or revealing to appeal to the male target audience - this we did not conform to as our actors did not feel comfortable with this and we did not think it fitted with the characters identity. 

• We decided to use these main conventions in our final costume designs for men and the female characters and have the characters wearing plain clothes that allowed the audience to identify with them but still resemble a collective uniform; this meant plain white or black t-shirts and jeans. This also allowed movement as we needed the actors to be able to run and be physical in the roles.

Mise en scene was important for our film and so we did a lot of research into how make up and props could be used. 

• As this is a action and thriller trailer we had to look at weaponry and special effects that we could recreate on a budget. 
• We researched different types of guns we could use to make the shots look real. Though this is obviously not a social realism film, we wanted to make the weapons as real as possible and used either real ones, such as the bow and arrow, or very good replicas. 

• We did a lot of research into makeup for injuries and bruises so that we could make the characters seem as real in the situation as possible. 
• We did a lot of research and planning into our characters- the clever woman, the wimp, the father figure, the sadistic woman and the fighter - before and so we wanted to maintain the identities we had created for them. We then cast each actor from an amateur acting site based on how well they matched these characters.

We looked into the use of Freytag's dramatic structure pyramid to see how it could be applied to teaser trailers. We decided that challenging this would allow us to maintain audience interest throughout the entire trailer. The structure is based on there being 5 parts to the narrative structure: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution.

By leaving the audience at the end of the trailer with out falling action or resolution, the audience is left with disequilibrium. This is as shown in Todorov's theory in which the narrative goes from calm equilibrium at the beginning, action and disequilibrium in the middle, and then return to the same or a new equilibrium at the end. Our trailer focusses on the 5 characters and their fight against each other in a rich man's sick game for his entertainment - we do not see this man in the trailer and so we have focussed on the contestants and their sense of disequilibrium through camera angles, pace, cuts and sound.

• Most of our idea for the trailer came from our theory work and social link. We looked at the theory of morbid curiosity and crowd mentality - looking at Derren Brown's Experiments - before researching the back story to The Experiment which we deconstructed. This link to a comment on society is quite common to films in this genre as we found that it creates a more realistic terror.

Our final product used the conventions of real media products in our non-diegectic sound. 

• We found through research that most action or thriller film teaser trailers use a heavy drum and bass track or dance  music as the backing track. The drum and base music is used in the trailers to set a fast pace and show it is an action movie. 
• In the trailer for SWAT  the track starts right at the beginning to show the fast pace of the film and that the action starts right from the beginning. 
• We developed this to fit with the modern style of music and chose to use a DubStep backing track made by an unsigned act we know. The alternating slow and fast pace fits with shots and builds up to meet the climax of the trailer. 

• We also used specialist sound equipment  when filming the shots so that we could ensure good sound quality on any lines we wanted to use - in the trailer for Fight Club the non-diegectic voiceover is matched in sound quality with lines from the film. We wanted to make sure any lines we wanted to mimic this on were usable quality. 

• We also decided that using the convention of a voice over was appropriate for our trailer as 60 seconds was a short time to show the general plot. 
• We did not want to reveal the narrative but we decided using a non-diegetic voiceover, similar to Fight Club, was a good way of showing the audience the general tone of the film. We still wanted to retain a sense of mystery and so the voiceover only reveals how one character feels about having to fight. 

Website and poster

Our ancillary products developed the conventions of our genre. We researched existing websites and made a list of the conventions we should use and considered as a group how we could develop them. We deconstructed different posters - Gamer, The woman in Black, Terminator Salvation, The Dark Knight, The Blair Witch Project, and others - to see how they were set out and how much they showed of the characters. We also looked at their tag-lines for positioning and wording.

• Our editing of the poster challenged the typical triangle set up of a poster - we decided to use all the poster space rather than have focal points. Mid shots of the characters were put together in the middle with the name of the film underneath and with the credits at the bottom.  

• We used dark colours to reflect the mystery of the film; the characters do not know why they are there.
• For the website, one way in which we used the codes and conventions of real media products is that we made the background interactive. We found when researching existing websites that a moving background made the site seem professional and fitted with the action genre. Instead of using one fixed background we used 4 that alternate. We also focussed on the protagonists rather than props or antagonists.