Institutions

The Distributor company we chose was Soda Pictures (a Thunderbird Company) because they support indie cinema and they had been a part of many good documentaries which we used as research for our opening sequences such as Teenage (Dir. Matt Wolf).

Soda Pictures is an Anglo-Canadian film distributor of art house, independent and world cinema.


Furthermore Soda Pictures has been known to work with indie producers so they will fit well with our company of 'The Documentary Producers' they believe in the three E's...Experience. Expertise. Excellence. They believe in first time filmmakers and documenting major parts of history, this is why I feel this would work for our doc because ours is about a culture shift of generations to do with tattoos.

Film Opening Pitch

This was my initial idea to do a documentary for the film opening on tattoos and then my group decided to take my idea on and add what they had too it. So Ben had an idea for drama with culture, we are going to include culture as a focus of the tattoo documentary and then Aaron' film was very artsy (similar to Tree of Life) so we decided to incorporate these artsy shots to the look of some parts of the doc intro.

We used my initial presentation and adapted it for our group presentation...

Genre (Documentary) Conventions

The conventions of documentaries were mentioned in the film pitch.

In the narration video I mentioned a script, the script will be a piece of narration that goes over the top of the opening two minutes. This is a common convention of the documentary genre with voice overs in a clear distinctive voice helping the narrative of the film and encouraging the watcher to listen and think.
All of our footage will be "real footage" none of it is acted or re created for the film. Interviews and real places that are not fictionally made will be included which is a must with most documentaries.
We be using archive footage on two occasion, one is the video of the catwalk (which is shot 8) and the other is in the form of a photo collage (shot 27) of hipsters all looking the same which will be collected online.
Interview exerts will be used to provide thought provoking opinion and information. Which is mentioned in the narration video right at the end of, it will be one of the last shots we get.
We will have non-diegetic sound throughout the whole of the opening, maybe taken away for interview exerts, to add an ambience and atmosphere to the opening.
Visual Coding - the Mise en Scene of the whole opening sequence will add to the realness, hint at narrative and go along with narration. For example in the interviews the person being interviewed will maybe have tattoos or piercings or in the background there might be tattoo art all in the background on walls etc.

Research evidence

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/19/tattoos-generational-divide_n_6445760.html

Provided the incentive and information of employment discrimination, that will be a focus of this documentary, and will be hinted at as a question to be answered in the opening sequence. i can use a quote like this to help with questions for interviews.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKagSW4s244
I used this documentary to get an idea of "real" shots that I can include in my documentary and how to maybe use archive footage. Also it gave an idea of having to use the production company first in the title sequence.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t9vwc
This BBC Two documentary gave me the idea of questions that could be asked for getting tattoos that could be explored through the documentary and lead onto the "choice and consequence" reality of life or getting the tattoo and what it does for your future.





http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27115348
This an article on other countries (there is more than what is shown in the image) views on tattoos and some jobs in Britain that dont allow tattoos in certain places or to be visible.

Archive Footage

Archive Footage For Our Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOjOHly7gig

- This video is from YouTube and this footage from a Catwalk for TopShop and we will use a small short clip as we are not able to record a catwalk as we do not have this footage.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhtowFSi0Vk

- This is another video that we have chosen to add to our short film and this another cat walk and we have chosen a part of this clip, which is a short clip of Stephen James (a model) walking who is covered in tattoos and therefore this will hint that our documentary is about tattoos.

Title Ideas

I've looked at many documentaries online about tattoos and all seem to have feature words to do with skin, ink and tattoos. However we wanted to create enigma for our documentary, so we decided not to add any words like that.

Titles I feel we could use:
Living Canvas
Living Ink
Tatted Generation
Painted People

We were also thinking of the fonts we could use for our title. We used the title 'Tatted Generation' as an example but it is still currently a working title. These are the fonts we decided we could:

Music Research

For our music research we decided to look for YouTube supported, royalty free music. This means we face no copyright issues and are allowed to use the music in our film opening. We looked through many different tabs, to change genre and mood, to find the best song/s for our opening. We have found two songs that we feel best fit the mood and enigma we wish to create in our opening. We have chosen a dramatic/ambient song with a deep baseline to create enigma and a dramatic mood. And we also chose a happy upbeat piece to create a positive vibe about our documentary.

Title Research - for Documentaries

Title Research 

We researched the films McCullin and Ed Hardy : Tattoo the World

• Production team (This is always first and usually has 'In association with' before it.)
• Who filmed the documentary (Usually saying 'A Film by...')
• Cinematographers (Usually with 'Cinematography....')
• Music (Who created the music for the documentary, usually with 'Music...)
• Who edited the film (Usually with 'Film Editors...')
• Who produced the documentary (Usually with 'Executive Producers...')
• With interviews the names and their role in the documentary comes up as they are interviewed

Order of appearance in the opening scene:

• Soda Pictures (With logo, on a black screen)
• A Group production logo 
• A film by Nathan Henton
• Cinematography, Aaron Hunt
• Music, from the YouTube Bands (Names included)
• Film Editors, Nathan Henton & Ben Griffiths
• Producer, Ben Griffiths
• Title of the film (Tatted Generation)

Tatted Generation - Mood Board

Tatted Generation - Mood Board



Skin Deep – A Youth Culture Tattoo Documentary


We gained some inspiration from a tattoo documentary on YouTube. We need to make a film opening therefore we need ‘artsy’ cinematic shots. This documentary includes many of these in its opening. Therefore we will use these shots to make it more film like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw7WMKx6WE4







The Tree of Life - Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki


We also gained inspiration from ‘The Tree of Life’ which is a movie that includes many cinematic shots, therefore if we include cinematic shots like this we can give our documentary a movie feel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXRYA1dxP_0







In Skin - Tattoo documentary by Flying Knee Productions
We looked at multiple documentaries that include interviews and we noticed that every interview is shot at a different angle, therefore we are going to include this technique in our film to make sure the interview scenes don’t get boring and repetitive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC0GChceIVA







Close up tattoo shots.

We looked at some close up shots of people getting tattoos and we thought it looked very cinematic and would look interesting to include in our opening as it would be our filler shots and would complement what is said in the narration and interviews, to ensure everything in our opening scene is relevant.

This is my final cut for 'A Bigger Saw'

Photos during the Prelim Task

Prelim Task - Script

This script is for the conversation scene:

*Lollie enters room via corridor entrance*
Lollie: Now to find out what you know *Removes bag from head (Prolong scene for audience to look at Ben*
Ben: Well I can tell you that your style is way out!
Lollie: *Stunned*/ that’s not what I meant and you know it *Slams table*
Ben: Ah, you wanted to know what songs *Gets cut off*
Lollie: What do you know about me?
Ben: I already told you everything I know *Panicked*, your style is way out! I mean ‘WHAT ARE THOSE?’
Lollie: Ponytails! *Pause*, Wait, Stop. Well no matter, you’ll never escape out of those bindings
Ben: What these *Presents ropes- Pause –Stands up and begins walking out the door*

Lollie: No stop *Begins chasing on tricycle*

However during filming, we were unable to get a tricycle and so we improvised on the day.

Prelim Task - Storyboard

Above is the storyboard that we created for our preliminary task, 'Bigger Saw' that we created on the second day of planning for our task. It overlays the basics of what will occur during the opening scene of the supposed movie and where the camera will be placed and at what angle. This will help us on the day of filming to organise how we create our movie and also when we edit so that we have the scenes in the correct order to create the best effect.

Prelim Task - Music

As in typical horror, the music will play a key part in the movie to create a suspense that will be dropped and mocked when funny events occur. Furthermore when a silly or stupid event happens the music will stop almost in disappoint to the scene or the event that is occurring.

The music we chose was from the movie 'Saw' which the preliminary task is primarily based off and that a large portion of the comedy is based off. We chose this because it is considered sinister and is already revered as being associated to a horror movie series that is globally known. This means that when people hear the music they will instantly think of the horror genre and make assumptions about what will happen.


These assumptions will then be broken by comedic scenes that will catch them by surprise and cause them to laugh out of their own mistakes.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Talk With Pete Fraser

Prelim Task Ideas

Juno "All I Want Is You" Task

Audience

Uses and Gratifications of Media
16-24 year old's are the main target audience for most films.

In today's lesson we were told about an acronym that can used to present Uses and Gratification, which is PIES, this stands for:

Personal Identification
Information
Entertainment
Social Interaction

These are the four main reasons people view media and how they gain gratification from it.

When someone views a piece of media, whether it be a soap like Eastenders, or reading a newspaper article, and feels a similarity to an event or part of their life, this is personal identification.

If someone was the view media for the soul reason to gain information, if it be recent events and happenings in the news, or past historical events in a documentary, this is information.

If someone looks to media for enjoyment, and gets enjoyment from media, this is entertainment. For example watching a comedy film, or reading a humorous newspaper article.

If you were to be the first person to show the school a funny vine, or watch a particular piece of media to just discuss with your friends, this would be social interaction.

Institution

In today's lesson we went over the differences of mainstream films and independent films.