Original Story Board

This is the original story board of our movie, this was made at the beginning of production, and changes have been made since then, which can be found near the beginning of my blog.

McCheese and Callaghan progress: Final!

Hurray! Its been a while, but finally ( actually 5 days ago) me and Elizabeth finished editing the voice overs, and fitting them into place, for the final cut of McCheese and Callaghan!
We spent a few hours fiddling around, importing, cutting, watching, and fitting clips to get what we think was a decent outcome for the McCheese and Callaghan film.
The final copy is now on DVD and has been marked.
Overall I believe this has been a good experience in my opinion, and I have gained new knowledge and experience from it, which will help me in future projects, hopefully improving the quality of my marks in the future also.
Thanks to all the filming, and use of premiere, I am confident enough to step into my next coursework project, and make a better quality piece because of the new knowledge gained, and learning from my mistakes from this piece.
This has been a good experience for me, and I'm glad the filming and editing process is finally over, and the film is finally on DVD.

Thomas Gamble.

Analysis of our final piece

Here is an analysis of our final film, using camera angles, camera movements, editing, mise-en-scene and sound to show representations of action comedy policeman. This post was meant to be added to my evaluation of our final product, but I think this stands out more, and helps get the point across easier. Here I'm going to explain how our final product showed those representations... or didnt, using the specifications listed above. The start of the film opens with a non-diegetic musical soundtrack and a fade in of a picture of both McCheese and Callaghan, with their faces together with flames surrounding them. The music is a kind of rock/ heavy metal song, with lyrics over it. This gives a slight representation of cop comedy, but not to its fullest extent. We could have used a more 70's style soundtrack and done without the lyrics to give it that authenticity, that cop comedies posess. But a the same time itshows the high regard these two characters are held to, and also how high of an opinion they have of themselves.

Then the scene cuts, and there is the diegetic sound of Callaghan saying "Go!" there is a little action then a mid shot of McCheese throwing a shoe. From the expression on McCheese's face, you can see his determination to stop whoever they are chasing. But also you can see the comedic side of it, as it is a shoe that is thrown, there is also a mid-shot of the hencman getting hit by the shoe and falling comically. This shows some representation of comedy cop films, but not as much as it could, there could be something more humorous, like a little fight seen, and the vigilantes actually accidentally knocking them out, as seen on Rush Hour 2. But it makes quite well for a representation of action comedy through the mise en scene and camera shots. There is then the diegetic sound of dialogue which shows you what types of cops they are, Callaghan showing to be more caring, forgiving type, whilst McCheese seems a lot more sarcastic, harsh and straight to the point. There is not very many shots or transitions that really show off how they are cops or their status, which was a flaw in the filming, and planning that didnt really help create the representation of cop comedy, that we should have created, which made it a pretty poor shoot.

The dialogue for each character isnt really detailed, and doesnt really create the stereotype that needs to be there for the representation of cop comedy. Also the sound isnt very good, and doesnt help toward the fact that the dialogue was lacking sophistication and whit. We were trying to achieve the affect that these cops are of a very old school kind of background, and that they are determined to get the job done, such as the representations shown in films such as Rush our and Bad boys. But the dialogue didnt exactly lend itself to this stereotype, making the sound a very poor aspect when trying to create a representation. We agreed that we would haev changed some shots and angles in the film; For example the scene where McCheese throws the shoe out of the door, we would have used a low angle shot, to show his power and authority over the other characters, giving it greater moral toward the representation of action comedy through camera angles. Also if we would have made the dialogue more direct, it would have helped create the representation once again. We think that using more iconography, with a slapstick element which are popular, but also explain more of the exterior characters, as they would have explained more about the characters, making it easier to anaylse stereotypes and the representations of the action comedy used here.

One of the biggest things that went wrong, was the choice of location, In my opinion we should have chosen a realistic location, like a real factory, as the scene is set in a factory, but because we had to film it at school, the mise-en-scene really didnt fit, and you could tell straight away that it wasnt a factory. I would have changed the setting to a more eery and dark warehouse to show some kind of metaphor such as; crime is dirty, or crime is hard work. But mainly show how dedicated the two buddy cop's were to justice and their job. Also in my opinion the dress code which is the mise-en-scene was slightly screwed up, we were wearing casual clothing, which totally through off any stereotypes and steered away from the representation. I think suits would have fit the characters better, or shirts and ties, to give it more of that cop look, helping give the representation and stereotype of a action comedy. Our original idea was to have facial hair, which was soon scratched because it was hard organising fake facial hair, having this aspect would again have created another stereotype, thus helping contribute toward the representation of action comedy. All in all I believe that if we changed alot of the camera angles, dialogue, and mise-en-scene, we would have created a more successful action comedy, but because of our flaws, we failed to create one, but on a plus side, we did get some aspects such as some of the humor toward the end where we are talking to the curator (which is also another stereotype of an action comedy, a damsel in distress) where McCheese mentions Cheese, and Callaghan begs that he doesnt mention it. This was a good representation, the dialogue and body language, which was probably the best part of our film, as it actually helped create the representation for the audience, using comedy and typical story lines.

Shot list.

This is the original Shot list, which was made at the start of production. Things have changed, so this isnt accurate. Locations etc. have changed due to complications in filming and disturbances, previous posts explain the complications and resolutions of these problems. But without further a due, this is the original shot list:

Shot #1
Duration: 10 seconds
Notes: Inside, black background
Cast: McCheese and Callaghan
Camera Angle: Extreme close up
Camera moves: No movement

Shot #2
Duration: 30 seconds
Notes: outside, in the grass
Cast: McCheese and Callaghan
Camera Angle: close up
Camera moves: The camera will slowly zoom out from this shot.

Shot #3
Duration: 5 seconds
Notes: outside, urban, bean bag being thrown at Housley by McCheese
Cast: McCheese and Housley
Camera Angle: Mid shot
Camera moves: No movement

Shot #4
Duration: 45 seconds
Notes: outside, chat between McCheese and Callaghan
Cast: McCheese and Callaghan
Camera Angle: Long shot
Camera moves: Moves backwards as the characters move forward towards the camera

Shot #5
Duration:10 seconds
Notes: McCheese talking to Callaghan (Callaghan not in shot) 180 RULE
Cast: McCheese
Camera Angle: Mid shot
Camera moves: No movement

Shot #6
Duration:10 seconds
Notes: Callaghan talking to McCheese (McCheese not in shot) 180 RULE
Cast: Callaghan
Camera Angle: Mid Shot
Camera moves: No movement

Shot #7
Duration: 15 seconds
Notes: McCheese talking to Callaghan (Callaghan not in shot), hitting a Housley 180 RULE
Cast: McCheese, Housley
Camera Angle: Mid shot
Camera moves: no movement

Shot #8
Duration: 15 seconds
Notes: Callaghan talking to McCheese (McCheese not in shot) Leanne approaches, taps him
Cast: Callaghan, Leanne
Camera Angle: Mid shot
Camera moves: no movement

Shot #9
Duration: 20 seconds
Notes: Leanne talking to M&C (M&C not in shot)
Cast: Leanne
Camera Angle: mid shot
Camera moves: none

Shot #10
Duration: 10 seconds
Notes: MC ask her to calm
Cast: McCheese, Callaghan
Camera Angle: mid shot
Camera moves: none


Shot #11
Duration: 20 seconds
Notes: Leanne explains
Cast: Leanne
Camera Angle: mid shot
Camera moves: none

Shot #12
Duration: 5 seconds
Notes: M&C agree
Cast: McCheese and Callaghan
Camera Angle: mid shot
Camera moves: none

Evaluation.

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

Our film "McCheese and Callaghan" is a comedy action based movie, similar to that of Rush Hour, Men in Black and Bad boys.
First of all the name "McCheese and Callaghan" Sounds like two stereotypical american policeman names, such as Starsky and hutch, its catchy and rolls off the tongue.
In the heart of our opening McCheese and Callaghan our walking along talking about random things, only to be interrupted by one of the henchman, which is quickly defeated, like nothing happened, and the conversation continues as per usual. This could relate very closely to a scene from Rush Hour 2, where they're walking on the boat. In the beginning we are shown McCheese throwing a shoe at a henchman, this random opening brings enigma into the film, like that of most action comedies, where either like in Rush Hour where there is a random robbery, or kidnapping, or a random fight scene, and our film shows that covention of typical comedy action openings.
Another way our film develops conventions is the "Damsel in distress" idea, in our film we have a museum owner, who has had a emerald stolen from her, and as per usual the protagonists go and take up the offer of getting it back. This again is another convention of action comedy, as in most comedy action movies there is always a woman who needs help, one way or another. Aside from that, there wasnt anymore conventions we added to our film, it ran smoothly, lots of witty dialogue, and action, just how it should be, keeping close to the conventions, and themes of Action comedy.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our film, the mise en scene shows a typical action comedy setting, and casual clothing that any one varying from a teenager to an adult could wear. For example McCheese wears jeans, a t-shirt and trainers, thus showing him to be a laid back, casual and cool looking guy. And Callaghan, is shown as the more nerdy, uptight type, as he is wearing glasses, a v-neck shirt and has a slight comb over. These two characters, seem to be quite stereotypical in terms of the comedy side of action comedy, as there always seems to be a cool laid back guy, and a nerdy guy that is alwyas in a fuss. Overall, our film focuses on two particular social groups, Cool - Jock like, and nerdy, but even though Callaghan is sometimes portrayed as nerdy, he seems quite confident at times, making him part of a cooler social group at times, rather than nerdy.

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

Earlier in our research, we had to research figures made from our genre of film, and what institution would best fit our genre, and my conclusion was to use the institution known as "Columbia". I made this choice because it seemed to be the main distributor of the action comedy genre, and after previously watching these films for myself, such as men in black, and bad boys, the company seems to be highly successful in terms of comedy action. Our film has alot in common with that of badboys, the vigilante scene, the mission, the woman and the bad one liners, this is why I believe Columbia would be a good choice, because they produce similar films to that of what we created, so choosing them would be a perfect fit for our film, as they manage to pull off comedy action films so well everytime.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The social groups conveyed in the film, reflect the kind of audience that would watch it, and also the mise en scene of the film would affect the kind of audience also.
The social groups as previously explained are jocks, cool kids, and nerds. Which makes it seem like the audience for the film may be centered around a young adult, teenage group. But then when it comes down to the mise-en-scene, and witty dialogue, it seems to widen the barrier of age a large amount, then varying from teenager, to middle-aged adult. This is because, the clothes worn in the film are typical everyday clothes that you see people wearing, clothes, t-shirts, shirts with logos, and trainers. Also the witty comedy, and action is something that not only teenagers, but adults would enjoy also. This is because it is something everyone can familiarise with, its not like a teenage comedy, where only teenagers can really relate, its a film that most age groups can relate too. And also the clothes worn, are clothes worn by anyone, of any age group, yet again showing the wide range of groups involved. So because of such a wide spread theme, and mise-en-scene, I believe the audience for the film would be anyone varying from young teenager, to middle aged adult.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience in several ways, one of the ways was by using a setting that would be seen to fit the genre of action comedy. Our setting was a typical evil mastermind/ evil genius compound, which was being infiltrated, and instantly, the audience gets a feel for this, knowing what genre there is, and knowing what to expect. Secondly would be the enigma, like all action comedys, or just action, in the beginning there is an action scene, with random occurences, no briefing on where they are, whats happening, who they are, or what they're doing, and this gives the film enigma. This is a key aspect to any action comedy, as audiences love and hate this at the same time, they want answers, having to watch more and more to finally found out the answer, but keeping them on the edge of their seats at all times, trying to figure it out for themselves, and this was another way we attracted our audience. Also as previously mentioned, the humor and casual clothing is something that any audience can relate to, they have it, they use it, so seeing it in a film, is something they can relate to, the random jokes, the bad jokes, the sarcasm, the dress code, its all there, bringing in the audiences attention, as they feel connected, and can relate to a number of things in the film.
In conclusion, all these key things are what we used to attract the audience, and as it spreads out to such a wide range of interests, and social groups, we were successful in applying them to attract an audience.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt alot about technologies from this process, alot more from our preliminary task, and I feel more experienced in terms of technology.
As I acted through out the whole production of this film, I feel like I have learnt alot about how the camera works, the angles, the positioning panning, as I helped set up and position at times, and it was crucial that we got the levels right, rather than us messing up and randomly flailing around with a camera. I feel more confident handling a camera, as I have learnt alot in terms of positioning, zooming,panning, and fitting bits in to make it run smoothly.
For our film, we needed an opening title sequence, and because everyone else didnt feel up to the job, I decided that I would take up the job of making a poster/title for the film. I used photoshop, and before this, my experiences with photoshop were lacking a bit, I was confused with the interface, and tools, and had no clue what to do. But after doing research, and discussing with my group, I soon got into the swing of things, experimenting with different, fonts, effects and layers.
In the end I came up with the idea, of taking both mine, and Nathans faces, and putting them side by side, but with one side of their faces cut off, creating a new face, I believe doing this made it quite symbolic, giving it a hidden meaning of comign together, and being team, in a corny kind of way. And in the background were flames, which I made by using a brush tool to draw random lines, then the smudge, sponge and burn to make it look like they were flickering and more aesthetically pleasing. And at the top the font is a kind of military font I had found and messed around with, to stress the genre of action, thus bringing out the comedy side of the film within the title, through irony.
In the end I learnt alot, and was able to make an aesthetically pleasing front title. I have learnt how to use Photoshop to a better standard, and how to create certain effects, which may be really useful for future projects.

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

In our preliminary task, I believe we didnt have enough experience, we were newcomers in terms of film making, and because of that it gave us a disadvantage, but it also gave us a chance to learn from it. In our preliminary task, we were given specific guidelines, we couldnt expand, but it gave us a chance to learn, and to gain knew knowledge to use in the future. And that is where this new piece of film came in, when we were given the new task, we had the experience, even if it wasnt alot, from the preliminary task, and the research and work done before hand to prepare us for this bigger task.
In the full product, we were free to do more of what we felt was interesting and right, the guidelines werent as narrowed down, but we still had to use the 180 degree rule etc. But from progression from the preliminary task, I learnt alot in terms of conventions, and stereotypes, and the interests of the audience. This was good, because we could pick a genre, and instantly know the conventions that went along with it, so when we chose action comedy, we as a group knew what to do right from the start, but only because we had learnt all of the information and techniques from the preliminary, up until then. Which was great, because it helped so much in the production of our full product. So conventions was a big thing we learnt, and how we could encorporate them into the actual film making itself, to follow the chosen genre. finally was the mise-en-scene, in our preliminary task we had just started learning about mise-en-scene, but as we came along to our full product, we learnt more about it, learning how to adapt it into our films, thus giving us new knowledge, and ideas. Which we instantly used when drawing up our storyboards. Locations, props, dress code etc.
So another term learnt helped put things into proportion, and most importantly, into action.
Because of all the new terms being learned, and watching clips from all different genres, and researching, i learnt much more from my preliminary task, I also learnt about the different use of camera angles to portray stereotypes and conventions, which is another thing we used in our full product, the prime example being the start, a low angle shot to show the power of the two vigilantes. All these terms, and techniques have all been developed and used, and I believe that I have learnt alot more since the preliminary, encorporation of terms, and camera angles, all of which we didnt know in the preliminary, thus giving us more knowledge and experience to really let us go wild, and produce a more interested, fun, and creative piece that uses the correct technical features that are needed, the same conventions, and the same mise-en-scene.

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

Our media project, McCheese and Callaghan was based around the genre of Action comedy, a very perculiar yet funny brand of genre in the film industry, and after doing some research into action comedy distribution I found out the following things. Similarly themed cop/vigilante comedies were very popular with audiences. BoxOfficeMojo.com which is a website dealing with the amount of money movies make) was a useful tool to gauge the popularity of the genre.

Rush Hour: $244,386,864 - New Line
Men in Black: Columbia - $250,690,539
Tropic Thunder: $188,072,649 - Paramount (Dreamworks)
Bad boys: $65,807,024 - Columbia

These figures showed me that this genre is very popular with audiences, depending on the success of the film itself. The top 30 action comedies on the website earned more than £20 million dollars. Although the costs to produce an action comedy vary from high to low (given the amount of special effects and costly shooting locations), there is a mixed cost to profit ratio, varying from low to high. Even so, the distribution of the genre is popular with a lot of studios, producing several action comedies a year, raking in alot of profit for the production studio of each film, as you can clearly see from the amount made from each film shown above.

There were so many distributors of the genre that I had to do a little bit more research to find the best studio. My movie has a typical action comedy storyline so it was obvious that a more creative and dangerouslly minded distribution company would have to be found. I would say that a good production company would be Columbia, as it has a bigger ratio from the figures shown above, they seem to be a realible industry when it comes to action comedy. And seeing as I myself have seen several films from this company, I would say its a safe bet choosing a company such as Columbia to produce the film, because of the way they create their action comedy movies; With a really good mix of comedy and action, keeping the audience on the edge of their sits, and their ribs hurting from countless amounts of laughter.

Rush Hour is the closest action comedy to the one that we developed. It also deals with dictators and a corrupted government and the comedy is mined from the main characters clashing with these groups and trying to bring them to justice, which is, again, very similar to the way our film works.
As well as their previous record for developing successful mainstream action comedy movies, they seem to be very successful in the theme of genre, with films such as minority report, Evolution and A Knights Tale, this distributor seems to be very skilled at mastering the genre of action and comedy into successful box office films through that skillful editing, and hilarious comedy through the action, and violence, and funny script writing that is portrayed throughout. No other distributor seems as skilled to the art of action comedy, so Columbia would be the best fit for our action comedy, McCheese and Callaghan.

McCheese and Callaghan Progress 6..

We had finally finished editing the film, and we were happy with it.
We were then told to create surveys for other students to fill in, so we collected students from the common room in the main part of sixthform, and asked them to watch our film. The students filled in the surveys and our group reviewed them. We got good results but under the heading that had suggestions for improvement, the majority of the students said "The quality of the sound". So we spoke as a group, and decided to go back and watch the film, and whilst doing so, record the voices for each of us whilst watching the film, to make theq quality of sound much more professional.
We got a hold of a microphone, and an MP3 recorder and found an empty room in the sixth form area, and we recorded the voices as the movie went along, as if we were performing a play.
We recorded it several times, and decided on 3 clips that were pretty decent in quality, and we returned back to our classroom and uploaded them to the computer, and we have now started to fit them in with the pieces of film. We still need to slot in little bits to make it look decent, rather than making it look like a foreign film with terrible english dubs.
Another post will be published soon reporting on the final copy of the movie, fitted with the voice clips.