Note to the Examiner

Dear Examiner,

Over the past eight months I've been working hard on my Media Studies coursework, hopefully reflected in the below blog. Along the way I've learned many lessons about filmmaking and the presentation of media.

To the right of this post, you'll find a 'Blog Archive', containing a structured account of my project by month. The first post underlines the brief for my coursework and sits under the 'September 2013' section. I hope you enjoy navigating my blog as much as I have enjoyed working on it.

Kind Regards
Maximilien Frankel

My Logo

As I had a little bit of spare time I took the time to invent a potential logo for my media coursework. I did this on photo shop which is a professional desktop publishing program.
This took a day or two, here it is:

Calendar for Preliminary Task and Opening Sequence

This is my calendar which tells you when and what I did.

Evaluation question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task. What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Over the process of filming my preliminary task to completing my opening sequence I have learnt a great deal.

For my preliminary task I simply had to make a short film using only three camera angles. These included over the shoulder shot, match on action and the 180 degree rule. By the time I completed my opening sequence I felt very confident with these basic techniques and the way they can be used to in the editing process to create a sense of continuity and flow. 

I learnt about the importance of good pre production to producing a good media text. This included having a appropriate cast for my film. I needed a girl with a perfect age which I luckily found. I learnt how to make a full script in detail compared to my preliminary task. I also learned how to think of different conventions in my drama and to make my media text fit into the thriller genre.



Throughout the production process I really enjoyed being the director of my own movie. I learnt how to film using a shoulder mount and to make sure it was stable and not moving about. I learnt to deal with problems such as rain which I had not encountered with my opening sequence. I learnt many different camera shots such as a pan shot, which helped to make and entertaining opening sequence.

Finally in my editing process I learnt how to use final cut pro on my own which is much more technical and tricky then imovie which I used in my opening sequence. One of the benefits is that there were many different colour effect as one my cameras was filming on sepia. This allowed me to colour coordinate well. Another benefit on Final cut pro is that it is very intuitive and I also used it to do my directors cut, my opening titles and it was easy to insert sound.

Evaluation question 6

Evalaution question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

I chose Lionsgate as my production house as it is a very attention grabbing shot, taking up the whole screen in my opening sequence to attract fans of my thriller. I hoped that using this audiences would immediately accept a high quality and entertaining film, I would be excited by what was to come.

I chose to put Vanished film title at the end of the opening sequence in capital letters and in white so that it would stand out to my audience and make them think the girls kidnapping. The letters themselves appeared and then disappeared which I though would make the audience clearly understand the metaphor to which resembles the girl in the film.

I used two different types of sound; diagetic and non diagetic. The first one is a non diagetic, dramatic and percussive. I tried to use music which builds up tension as I recognised that my target audience would like films which kept them on the edge of their seats, I did that by precisely using the tense music as it makes the audience nervous and anxious. The diagetic sound includes the screeching of the car going by. This immediately creates tension as if something very bad is going to happen soon.

In my mies en scene I used Scream Masks from the film Scream for my kidnappers as they are widely due to the franchise of the film. My audience will know the Scream films well as it is a classic of the horror genre and by seeing the masks they will immediately associate it with horror and thriller.

Evaluation question 4

Who Would Be the Audience for Your Media Product?

Evaluation question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Vanished Evalaution Question 3 from Max Frankel

Evaluation question 2

Evaluation question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge conventions.

My media product uses conventions through a numerous amount of reasons. For example, from watching various kidnapping/robbery thrillers such as the film the Town directed by Ben Afleck, i used the idea of scary masks from the robbery scene for my kidnappers. I also used the concept of flashing affect in the film Man on Fire starring Denzel Washington for my scene when the girl gets kidnapped. I Finally used the concept of having a young girl getting kidnapped from the film Man on Fire as it is significant.















My Media product develops conventions through a few ways, such as I used the film Point break and Drive robbery scenes to get an idea of how the girl in my film is going to get kidnapped and the speed of it. I also used listened to the soundtrack of The Dark Knight and Gladiator to get a feel for the music I used.

Finally I challenged the way conventions through filming in a more family area of London and not in America which is very mainstream which makes it more unpredictable. I also used a variety of shots for each seen to get different angles to make an impact on the audience compared to using just two or three shots.

Vanished, Opening Sequence Video

Dear Examiner, Over the last academic year I have been working incredibly hard my blog which shows all my progress from the beginning of the year when i started in September, starting with my preliminary task 'The friendship' to now with my final piece opening sequence 'Vanished'. I have shown a massive improvement in both my editing and analysis skills. The evidence for my improvement is shown throughout this blog to produce my final production 'Vanished' which I hope you will like. Below you can view my final piece opening sequence to 'Vanished' a MMF Production.

Vanished Questionaire

                 What is your gender? ( please circle ) – Male or Female

                        What is your age?  

                       What Sub – Genre do you look for in a film?

·      Horror

·      Action/Adventure

·      Sci – Fi

·      Drama

·      Gangster

What kind of music would you expect to hear whilst watching documentary/film?

·      Classica

·      Ambient/Spooky

·      Pop

·      Rap

 Where do you tend to watch sports documentaries/films?

·      Cinema

·      Rented DVD

·      Purchased DVD

·      TV

·      School

Who do you tend to watch documentary/films with?

·      Friends

·      Family

·      Alone

 On average how often do you spend watching a film a week?

·      1 hour or less

·      1-2 hours

·      2-3 hours

·      3-4 hours

·      5+ hours

How often do you spend watching TV a week?

·      1 hour or less

·      2-4 hours

·      4-6 hours

·      6-8 hours

·      8+ hour

  How often do you spend watching documentaries/films a week?

·      1 hour or less

·      1-2 hours

·      2-3 hours

·      3-4 hours

·      5+ hour

 What attracts you to watch Documentary and Film?

·      Actor/Actress

·      Director

·      Friends opinions of the film

·      Family opinions of the film

·      Critics and Reviews

·      Advertisement

·      Institute

·      Genre

Props and costumes Vanished

Key Props and Costume, Vanished

Vanished Charachters

Daniel Canicatti played by Jeof Symonds

(49) The driver for the Tripani family. Canicatti is an aggressive and harsh gangster who has driven on multiple jobs. He is known for being direct and and for being an expert and what he does. Canicatti has been working for the Tripani family for 20 years after his brother was murdered by the Alcamo family. Canicatti is the nephew of Daniel Tripani.

Michael Tripani played by Lucas Rossi

(29) Son of the head of the Daniel Tripani. Work with his brother Vito on heists, kidnappings and assassination. Godson to Canicatti. Known for his extreme violence, strength and obsession with women. He takes no crap from anyone and is very hostile. Going to become head of the Tripani clan after his father.

Vito Tripani played by Charlie Symonds

(25) Brother of Michael Tripani and works alongside his brother. Known for going undercover in jobs, partying, gambling and excessive partying. Very cunning and will do anything for a glass of whisky. Usually has a good relation with his brother but sometimes argue over who's better.















Carolina Alcamo played by Emma Symonds

(8) Carolina is the daughter of Jonathan Alcamo and Jenny Alcamo. Goes to private school in Kensington, known for being cheeky.












Jenny Alcamo played by Jenny Symonds

(39) Jenny is the husband of Jonathan Alcamo who killed one of the Canicatti brothers in a shoot out 20 years ago. They just moved to London after living 20 years in Switzerland for safety. Jenny is a very good mother and protective over her daughter. Her husband and her have a very close relationship.

Directors cut of Opening sequence

Editing my opening sequence

This is my editing on Final Cut Pro, I used Final Cut Pro because it is a very effective editing technique that helps editing an opening sequence like mine hugely. 







FinalCutPro creates high quality video, and that is what i want for my opening sequence to make it as good as it can be, it is also easy to import and export clips\videos. The sound quality is also really good and it allows you to work with multiple channels of audio so you can edit and overlap them. I really need the colour correction on FinalCutPro because I shot on two different days so the lighting is a bit different. In FinalCutPro it helps you correct the problems easily and effectively so that my shots colour is all very similar. I especially needed this as one camera was filmed in sepia and final cut pro help me correct this issue which was essential.



The transitions work really well in FinalCutPro, and they offer many more than IMovie, this makes it more effective to edit on, and also makes sure that the shots transition smoothly. 








Overall, I was extremely happy with FinalCutPro and i believe my editing was better because of it.

Vanished Feedback

After completing my final piece, I submitted it to a number of different outlets so as to receive feedback and critiques on what I could have improved. I submitted links to my films on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, for friends to see and other critics.

Location of Vanished (opening sequence)

Location of Filming

Vanished is filmed at Chelsea Park Gardens in London, Chelsea. This area is associated with wealth which helps elaborate where the characters come from and potentially a reason for the girl to get kidnapped.

Equipment and technology (opening sequence)

1. Canon eos 550d

2. Canon legria hf g10

3. Hama Traveller Compact Pro Tripod

4. RODE VideoMic

5. Final Cut Pro X

6. Shoulder mount

Why I chose Final Cut Pro (opening sequence)

I chose Final Cut Pro to edit with because it looked more professional to edit with compared to other ways such as imovie which was not detailed enough. This is because the quality of the images were much more professional and it had more ways of editing. 

I also found that when I was editing with Final Cut it had more fonts that I could personalise and better effects, this was extremely useful when I was editing my Opening sequence because there is a lot of action in my film and Final Cut Pro let me heighten the action the way I wanted e.g. I could use a flashing effect which added tension and drama which made it look much more professional whilst imovie did not have these effects, which you could clearly see in the difference of my opening sequence and preliminary task.

Final Cut Pro allows you to work with several different channels of audio, and mix those channels any way you choose. The audio tools in Final Cut Pro really give you the flexibility to do whatever your heart desires within the program. We don't always shoot our video in the ideal conditions. Final Cut Pro allows you to easily correct the color of your video. You can also add effect to your video to give it a different look entirely. These aren't your traditional dissolves and fades. Final Cut Pro gives you the ability to make some magnificent transitions that you can not make in any other video editing program.

Finally what I found very useful was that when I was choosing what shots and camera angles I wanted I didn't have to keep deleting them from the bar if they were the wrong length or had the wrong lighting, I could elongate the clip and change things such as the lighting immediately and efficiently

Issues on shoot (Opening Sequence)

When shooting my opening sequence i encountered some problems which i had anticipated and some that i did not expect.

My opening sequence involved the kidnap of a young girl which was filmed outside thus leading to some  problems that I anticipated. The first problem that i encountered was noise from the main road. Because we shot outside we did not have the benefit of a set, to avoid too much sound coming from the road and busses driving past I had to wait till the roads seemed clear. I filmed in the late morning which meant i could avoid to much disturbing sounds as it was on a weekend on sunday when people would be sleeping.

The second anticipated problem was where to shoot my high angle shots. I included a high angle shot because it would add drama as it would show the daughter being kidnapped. Having a high angle shot will make the audience feel further away and thus feeling more helpless. I used my house to shoot as i filmed on my road. I tried shooting from various windows but some were too low and some didn't give me the range of movement i needed to execute my pan like I wanted. Eventually i went to the top of the house and found a window that opened fully and even had a ledge which enabled to film my shot with a range of movements. The fact that there was a ledge helped me use a tripod which helped with the quality of the shot as the ground level shots were filmed with a tripod and shoulder mount, the ledge enabled me to use a tripod to film the high angle shots which guaranteed continuity in the quality and steadiness of my shots.

Nevertheless, there was also some issues which arose just before my filming of my opening sequence which i hadn't anticipated. For instance it started to rain shortly before i starting filming. This meant that everyone needed to be provided with waterproof clothing on the shoot, this included umbrellas for the actors, crew and equipment, between each shots we had warm drinks and warm clothes for everyone which took time to prepare. The rain also meant that the lighting of the film was different and that the sound of rain was an issue as it harder to hear the actors speak. To resolve this we had to ask the actors to speak louder. However i realised that the rain i could take the rain into my advantage by using it to make the film seem sadder and more sinister as rain adds a more depressing and somber tone to the film. The fact that we had to give the actors umbrellas to shelter them from the rain limited me from using a variety of camera angles as they were in the way, although this was a problem i tried to incorporate this into my opening sequence my deliberating keeping the mother and her friend over shadowed by the umbrellas in most shots, giving the opening sequence a similar tone to the girl in Schlinders list as the girl is seen but not the adults and the mies en scene of her school uniform accentuates her innocence. The first time you get a clear shot of the mother and friends faces is when they are running towards the girl who has just been kidnapped which i hope increase the impact of that shot.

Finally the cannon legria hf g10 camera was unexpectedly shooting in the tone sepia. We only found this out once downloading the rushes onto the laptop when the cast had gone home. This made it very challenging to colour coordinate it with the other canon eos 550d as that was filmed in a normal colour. Which resulted in hours of colour coordinating.

Soundtrack (opening sequence)

I looked at multiple options for the sad song i was going to use, when the girl gets kidnapped. I look at several opening sequences and multiple films to get inspired. I eventually found five possible songs to used and then narrowed it to 3: "A very sad song for broken hearts", "very sad piano song" and "very sad piano and violin song" I eventually chose "A very sad song for broken hearts" because I thought that the use of the piano and the keys used added a huge amount of drama which makes it very easy to imagine a girl getting kidnapped. The song is also extremely sad and will really make the audience think which is what i'd like the song to do.

Camera set up (opening sequence)

Camera Placements for Opening Sequence

Shot list for opening sequence

Shot List

These are the shots i’m going to use in my opening sequence.

Main Shots:

• Match on action
• Shot/ reverse shot
• 180 Degree rule

Other shots:

• Over the shoulder shot
• Extreme long shot
• Long shot
• Mid shot
• Pan
• Tracking shot
• Close up
• Hight to low angle shot
• Low to high angle shot