part 5

Camera, angle, shot movement and position 

In this shot you can clearly see that Ayesha subverts the stereotypical representation of a 'Religious' girl that she portrayed herself to be. Ayesha is represented as a rebellious, Confused, troubled young girl, this is shown through this close-up of her as she strips her hijab off in a broken down, gritty alley way. In this close-up shot you are able to identify her facial expression clearly, we see that she has a sad, worried look on her face which connotes that she may not want to go against her family and do prostitution but she is willing to do so purely due to the fact that she is in need of money. The fact that Ayesha goes against her religion and extremely religious family just for money, it signifies how much they are suffering from poverty because it shows that she goes to a far extent of 'selling' herself simply to earn money. 

This extreme-close up shot of one of Ayesha's clients calling her, inquiring about where she is clearly portrays the idea of prostitution. This conforms to the stereotypical representation of women being sex objects as we see that it only takes a phone call and money to sell her body off.

Editing

This is a Long take of the protagonist walking through the middle of the road and heading towards the alley way in a dull, gloomy day. This shot is able to create questions and enigma as it makes the audience wonder where she's going and why she's rushing so much. The editing in this shot is fast paced as we see the girl walking in extra speed, it gives out a dramatic feel and keeps the audience in suspense. As we showed Ayesha walking from her house to the alley way in many different angles it emphasizes her superiority and highlights the fact that she is an important character. 

The Editing here was really well thought out as we switched the shots between Ayesha's mother praying whilst Ayesha is getting changed in a dirty alley-way for prostitution. This emphasizes the harsh reality of Ayesha's lifestyle, It exaggerates the fact that she is doing something incredibly wrong and rebelling against her family. The editing is incredibly fast paced whilst Ayesha is getting changed it connotes that she is in a rush and doesn't want to get seen by anyone. Also the fact that she isn't spending much time to get ready and look elegant it portrays the idea that all she wants is  money, The men are not relevant.

Sound

The sound score in my opening sequence is heard right from the beginning which represents her dull lifestyle as it has a low, depressing tone to it. The soundtrack has an Asian tone to it, which portrays a clearer identity as it represents the protagonists background and ethnicity. As the music goes on it gets louder and busier which engages the audience with the fast paced action that is going on and engrosses them within the film. She is willing to get changed in an alley-way with the risk of exposing herself, this conforms to the common ideology that prostitutes barely have any self respect. 

Mise-en-scene

Location; The stereotypical representation of working class people living in poverty is represented through the location of our film. The broken down, gritty alley way connotes that Ayesha lives in an urban area, it represents the theme of poverty evidently. This location emphasizes the harsh reality that working class people are suffering through, it highlights the idea that she is financially unstable as she cannot afford to live in a better area.

Iconography

The iconography displayed in our opening sequence, such as the prayer Matt evidently portrays the Family's faith and religion. It connotes to the audience that Ayesha's family is extremely religious and reminds them about how rebellious and wrong Ayesha's behaviour towards them is. 

part 4

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

                      Click the link below to view The annotations for our opening sequence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-hq4i0TkvI

Part 3

What impact did the media institution Film 4 have on each production stage and why?

part 2

Who would be the audience for your product?

Click the link below to view our evaluation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl-qIbyLtHo

Part 1 - Brief

Here is the Brief we were working to.

THE BRIEF; 'You have been approached by Film 4 to make a new British social realist film aimed at British 16-24 year olds. To give Film 4 an idea of how your film will develop they have asked you to produce the first two minutes of the film. providing a clear sense of the graphical, editing and musical style your film will use. To protect Film 4's reputation as a leader in British cinema the Film must conform to the conventions of the social realist genre, and meet all audience expectations for this type of film. Finally, to keep costs low, all visual and audio material used in the film must be entirely original, with the exception of stock sound effects.'

I feel that me and my partner done a good job of meeting the requirements of the Brief. For instance we made it clear that we are making the film for our institution company film 4, as the logo is included within our opening sequence and is evidently displayed right at the beginning. The protagonist within our film is 17 years old which meant that the target audience, which are aged around16-17 will be able to relate to her lifestyle and the situation that she is in. In pre-production we done major research on the British social realist genre to conform to the conventions and maintain the audience expectations for this type of film. We watched and analysed a range of British social realist films such as; kidulthood, adulthood, Fish tank, yasmin and few more, this helped us recognize the essential conventions of the BSR genre, and include it within our own production. The feedback we recieved on our opening sequence was mainly the fact that we kept it original as we showed religion and poverty from a different perspective.

THE TITLE; 'Fake ID'

The title of our opening sequence is called 'Fake ID', This title simply connotes the fact that the main character is living with a 'fake' identity, which not everybody knows about. Me and my partner have decided to use this as our title because it represents the theme and narrative of our film which is about the protagonist, living in two separate lives, one of which she implies to be a well-behaved, religious girl and the other secret side to her is that she is a westernized prostitute. This title creates confusion, enigma and questions, as the audience would gain more interest on wanting to know about the storyline and why she has a 'Fake identity'. The reason why we decided to call it 'Fake ID' rather then 'Fake identity' was purely due to the fact that 'Fake ID' sounds much more unprofessional and improper, which again represents the BSR theme and the characters within it, accurately. 

THEMES OF BSR; Throughout our opening sequence, me and my partner have portrayed clear, British social realist themes. Fake ID includes themes such as; Religion, Poverty, sex, Rebellion, isolation and exclusion; All themes are portrayed evidently. The main themes of 'Religion' and 'rebellion' is obviously displayed in the powerful, effective scene (0:30-1:22) of when we see the main characters mother praying whilst switching shots to Ayesha (protagonist) stripping her religious gown & hijab off and getting changed into something much more revealing and westernized. Another key theme; 'poverty' is also denoted within our opening sequence, this is seen through the typical bsr conventions that i have included. For instance we see Ayesha getting changed in a filthy, broken down alley way which connotes that she may be un-wealthy or financially unstable. The gritty location gives out a sense of realism and emphasizes the harsh living conditions of working class people.

                                                                       Yasmin

During pre-production we had a chance to research on British social realist themes, this made a great impact on our own production. Researching on this made me realize that most of these themes display the hardship and reality of working class people, themes such as; Sexuality, Sex, Poverty, Violence, Drugs, Rebellion, Domestic abuse and so on, all portray the struggle that the working class people live in. When researching into how British social realism themes are used, I analysed the themes within five different BSR films. I looked at existing BSR films such as; Fish tank, Anuvahood, Trainspotting, Yasmin and London to Brighton. Having watched all these films I came across many themes, I identified the themes of; Dysfunctional families, Rebellion, Drug abuse/Drug experimentation, religion, Isolation and exclusion. I watched the film 'Yasmin' couple times for inspiration, which is how I got the idea of portraying the theme of 'Religion' within my production. In the Film Yasmin we see the main character going against her religion as she prefers to be more westernized, this influenced our opening sequence a little, as we decided to have the protagonist go against her religion, but we made the storyline original as we had a deeper meaning, the fact that she is a secret prostitute. 

production Log 18

I feel that our production process was very well executed overall, as me and my partner kept to more or less every deadline and planned our entire production process out quite well. At the beginning of the year I was confused on the idea of 'British social realism' but by now, I feel that I have made a huge progress and almost know all the BSR conventions and themes off by heart. I feel that I will be able to explain the definition of British social realism to a new learner quite clearly for them to understand.

I believe that I contributed towards my production process quite well. The storyline line was Written entirely by me, Me and my partner chose this storyline as it was original, something that occurs within reality but isn't shown as often as the typical themes that are shown, such as; drugs and violence. Halima directed the film, then we both composed the music and done the editing together. 

I think that my group functioned very well, as me and my partner are close friends we had similar ideas and opinions when it came to creating the film. Due to the fact that I was close friends with Halima it was good when it came to making last minute changes or plans as we always had a way of contacting one another. Although we worked really well together, me and my partner sometimes got distracted during class time whilst working on the iMac's, as we often went off topic quite easily. Overall, I believe that I wouldn't have accomplished this production without the strong cooperation that I had with my group. 

The key strengths of my progress would have to be the editing of the footage. I think that this stage was very easy to do, in fact I enjoyed doing it as it was interesting to see the scenes in different pace and lengths. 

In the future to improve my production, I think that I would re-shoot each scene more then 2 times so that when it comes to the editing if one doesn't look right I would have more choices and options that I can use to edit together. Another thing I would do is to make sure that my footage meets the required time of 2 minutes long, because this time round me and my partner went overtime and had to cut a lot of the scenes out to make it 2 minutes.

Production log 17

The sound editing within our footage wasn't too difficult, it was quite straightforward. Me and my partner decided that we wanted sound score within our sequence which had an cultural Asian tone to it, because we wanted to represent the characters background and ethnicity clearly. We composed a soundtrack with the help of our music teacher Mr duplesis, The completed soundtrack was ideal, as it had a traditional vibe to it and fitted in perfectly with the Asian family we have portrayed within our opening sequence. This music we have composed is very memorable and has a unique, original sound to it, which is what we wanted to achieve. 

We came across one big issue with the sound editing, which was the overlapping music towards the end of our sequence. This problem made the sound within our footage seem quite jumpy and odd, for that reason we had no choice but to fix it immediately even if it took a while. This issue was eventually fixed, as we decided to insert the soundtrack twice within the sequence, to make it flow accurately. 

Composing music on the iMac

Production log 16

This week was very unplanned for me and my partner, as we had to re-film almost our entire opening sequence all over again. Whilst we thought our sequence was finished, Mr philipson watched our footage back and pointed out that some of the scenes were quite jumpy and also specific shots should have been close-ups and mid-shots rather then long-shots. After talking to Mr philipson we decided to re-film our footage to make it upto the high standards that we planned in pre-production, this included; better continuity and a variety of shot types. Considering the fact that we had to re-film very last minute I think me and my partner did well, as we finished just on time and met the deadline! 

The feedback me and my partner recieved was basically, the fact that we made the scenes faster, made our footage look quite unrealistic and forced. This feedback made a great impact on our sequence, because after receiving the feedback we realised it ourselves and immediately made the scenes normal speed which made it look more believable and realistic.   

Fake ID

production log 15

This week me and my partner got to upload our entire film footage onto the iMac. Firstly we had to arrange each individual clips into the correct order of the film, to see if it made sense and had a continuity flow. Once we completed putting the scenes in order we decided to watch it all before starting to edit, this way we were able to realise if any shots/scenes of our film was missing. Thankfully, all scenes were included and had a great sense of continuity which meant that we were able to start editing the footage immediately and cut out the excess scenes that we did not need. When it came to editing the sound and graphics my partner and I thought that it would be better for us to get the graphics put in and out of the way, before creating the music/soundtrack. This way we will be able to come out with a soundtrack that is appropriate and goes well with our entire finished, footage. 

iMac

iMovie

Production log 13 & 14

Throughout the two weeks holiday me and my partner aimed to finish filming our entire footage, which was quite successful. We followed our plan and managed to finish it off within two days, On the first day we filmed all the outdoor footage which turned out quite impressive, mainly due to the typical British weather conditions. The weather on this day was rainy, dark and dismal which went perfectly with our British social realism theme as it emphasized the depressing reality of the working class peoples lifestyle. The outdoor footage is almost our entire opening sequence, so the fact that we managed to finish filming all of it within 2/3 hours was a great accomplishment for me and my partner. On the second day, we filmed the rest of our opening sequence which was all the indoor footage, which was our main character 'Ayesha's' household. The house we filmed in was quite clean and tidy which was quite a mission for my partner and I as we had to make it look as rough and messy as we could, so that it can represent the theme of 'poverty' evidently. As soon as we created the set of our filming the way we wanted it to be; portraying hardship and poverty, we started filming our scene. This indoor footage was entirely Faiza playing the role of Ayesha's mother. We see Ayesha's mother praying dressed in a burka(religious gown), this represents the main theme of our film; 'Religion'. Within this scene you are able to see few religious symbols such as; the Islamic writing on the wall, the quran placed on the window seal and also the prayer Matt. All this extra detail is taken into consideration as it connotes to the audience that Ayesha's family is very religious, which emphasizes Ayesha's rebellious actions of going against it all.

We completed our opening sequence within the two days. overall most of the footage was filmed following the script, although some shots were changed, because we realised other angles and shots would suite certain scenes better.

Here are couple images of the locations we filmed our opening sequence in; Indoor and outdoor.

OUTDOOR

INDOOR