Review ideas- Imogen Salmon

Imogen Salmon, Mae Webb, Candice Tyson and Charlotte Hudson produce their second thriller film together. With a crew of four directors, due to the vast array of opinions and perspectives combined together, there was potential for a disastrous short film. However, after previous success many we weren’t concerned. The main actors Phoebe Richardson and Megan Harman starred in this debut film as newcomers, with high expectations due to comparison with previous strong lead roles

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Who would have thought the ‘green-eyed monster’ could lead to such occurrences. The spine-tingling thriller False Witness is a short film based on the psychological and physical effects of bullying, through words and actions, represented through the eyes of an adolescent. The statement ‘keep your friends close and your enemy’s closer’ couldn’t be more appropriate as the film interprets a deteriorating relationship of two teenagers. 

The insight given into protagonist Rebecca’s mind displays the depth of lies, immorality and animosity of this ‘false witness’.  Revealing one of the many flaws in the justice system, where insufficient evidence results in an irrational aftermath. This film highlights how lies enable avoidance of punishment, similar to the real-life case of Tia Sharp; with her murderer initially giving a false statement, therefore not being accused of her death.  

The directors purposefully inflict information upon the audience creating omniscience as memories unravel in the form of flashbacks, as if they have access into Rebecca’s mind. Emotions of agitation inflate among the audience as the truth is revealed, followed by an undesirable outcome. 

To talk about: 

-        -  Genre

-         - Key scenes

-         - Reviewers comments (conclusion)

Poster - fourth draft - Mae Webb

After discussion we felt that the image on Charlotte's poster was more effective as it makes the character Rebecca look more evil and tells the audience that she is the antagonist. Therefore we decided to merge both of our posters together to create our final one. We have kept the record button as we feel it adds enigma to the poster and makes the audience want to find out what it's about. 

• We still need to create a production block for our film including our names
• We also need to think more carefully about who would review our film and what they may say.

Recording our voiceover - Mae Webb

Here is a video of us recording the voiceover for our film. During our film we decided to have Phoebe's character 'Becca' talking to the interviewer over the shots of her and Louise to show how she is lying to the interviewer about what happened. We feel this would make the audience feel tense as they know she is lying and are seeing the truth, therefore it would draw them in more as they would want to know if she gets caught or not.
We recorded this voiceover using a voice recorder in an empty room to try and get the right effect.

However we soon realised that because we recorded this voiceover in a room that echoed and used the camcorder to record the sound in the interview room, they sounded completely different and disrupted out continuity. Therefore we decided to record these voiceovers again using the camcorder and in a room that does not echo to get the same sound.

Here is a video of the second recording of the voiceover that we did:

3rd poster drafts- Charlotte & Mae

Charlotte's draft

Here's my 3rd draft of my poster:

• I have changed the billing block so it has our names in it instead of random words. 
• I have also re-aligned all my text so it all justifies to the left
• I have made my title larger and put it at the top of my poster instead of having a review quote at the top
• I have also changed the font of my quote so it is 'sans serif' instead of 'serif'
• I have tried to justify my billing block as much to the left as possible so it is in-line with the title
• Also my characters aren't meant to be orange but i think on this computer they have a more orange tone- i haven't done this on purpose!! They have normal skin tone on the actually poster.
  
  Mae's Draft

'Zero Dark Thirty' Little White Lies- Language and Content - Candice Tyson

Zero Dark Thirty

I have read through each paragraph of the review of 'Zero Dark Thirty' in the magazine Little White Lies and written briefly with annotations what each paragraph is telling us as the audience.

1st paragraph

2nd paragraph

3rd paragraph

4th paragraph

5th paragraph

6th paragraph

7th paragraph

8th paragraph

9th paragraph

10th paragraph

'What Maisie Knew' Language Techniques & Structure- Imogen Salmon

• Immediately, the first word indicates the topic of this film. Divorce. The paragraph then continues to give examples of similar films, followed by naming the directors and the book it is based on. This opening paragraph is an introduction to the context and background of the production of the film. 

• The next paragraph follows with historical context, explanation of how the film is different to it's written version, set in a different period of time. Following with, description of the plot in the opening of the film, introduction of main characters and mentioning the subjective narrative of the film.  

• Paragraph three develops the plot further, briefly describing the events following the divorce, (both parents find new partners).

• The fourth paragraph involves comments of pure opinion of the reviewer Oliver Lytlelton, he describes how well he believes the actors carry out their roles, comparing one couple to another, stating what the script offers them as actors, and how this result in the 'film feel(ing) repetitive'. 

• The review finally concludes with an evaluation on how well presented the film, and a comment suggesting improvement, by instead of just showing what the main character Maisie could see, representing what was going on internally too, showing greater depth into her emotions.

Final Two Poster Drafts- Charlotte & Mae

Here is my final draft- Charlotte

• I decided that I needed a better image of Megan, as we decided it was best to not tell the audience that Megan has been murdered. We decided this so that there is an element of surprise and shock when they watch the film
• I moved my quote around as I think it looks better at the top of the poster rather at the bottom, as I wanted Megan's image to follow down to the bottom of the poster instead of it being cut short with writing underneath- visually i thought this layout looked better
• I've kept the writing of the title as i think it's effective and will look good in the film, i got this font from 'dafont' and it's called 'old press'
• I also thought the writing of the quote looked quite good in an old fashioned style hand writing- it looked more thriller like. The font is called 'Viner Hand'.
• I think over all its an effective poster as it creates mystery and confusion, i think it makes people become interested as it shows two females and 'False Witness' makes the audience question who will be the 'false witness'.

Here is my final draft - Mae

I have added a credit block and made the reviews complete by adding the stars in, I have also put an award in-between these reviews which I think works well.
I decided to align all of these up as I think it looks neat and allows the audience to read down the page. This also makes the 'REC' sign stand out more as it is away from the other text.

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I have cut the images better so they do not look as rough around the edges to make it look more professional. I did this using the 'magnetic lasso tool' on Photoshop and then zoomed in to make sure I had selected it all properly.












I also found a better image of a 'REC' symbol and used this instead as it was less fuzzy. I selected these again to make them straighter.
I think the recording symbol on the poster works well as it creates another dimension to the poster and creates enigma for the audience straight away as they're wondering what relevance this has to the film.

 We decided that the font that Charlotte used on her poster 'old press' was effective so I got this font from 'dafont' and put it on to the poster.

Because the font from 'dafont' is black writing on white writing, and my poster had a black background, I needed to change this so that the writing would be white. I did this on photoshop by inverting the colours.