Filming project evaluation

Let 3rd Chapter productions take you on a journey through the Loophole of horrific past events into the modern world. She's going in for the kill, and doing it for the thrill.

















Myself 'Bethan Graham-Dolman' colaberated with 'George Potter' and 'Jon Campbell' to form 3rd Chapter Productions and created -'Loophole', which was a filming project for an opening of a fiction film. Loophole challenged conventions of our chosen genre/genre's which were - 'Romantic Drama/Noir Thriller'. We were heavily influenced by Film Noir to start with and did allot of research into 1940's film noir, looking into films such as 'Mildred Pierce'.

This gave us our initial idea of having a femme fetal character featuring in our filming project and the general 1940's setting and style of costume. Also the further detail of using flash back footage, which flickered up in our film in a 'thriller style' manner. Exploring further into Film Noir, we stumbled across 'Neo Noir' which is a modern day version of 40's black and white films yet they use colour. A wider range of films described as Thriller or Horror have also bin considered as Neo Noir films. Famous examples include 'Sin City' by Frank Miller and 'Blue Velvet'. We were heavily influenced by Sin City and loved the further idea of having dominant female roles who play assassins and really liked the idea of having the contrast of black/white to colour. As well as the scary killing parts we also were determined to get some passionate romance in there, which all the films we looked at were full of.

This led me personally to be influenced by such films as 'The Duchess' and 'Atonement' known as period drama's due to the beautiful locations there set in. Inspired us to choose very sophisticated locations to film in. The first being Lacock Abbey.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-lacockabbeyvillage/w-lacockabbeyvillage-abbey.htm

This enabled us to get some beautiful scenery shots of the grounds and close ups of the enchanting house. Though getting permission from the national trust was tricky and lengthily is was definitely worth it. Our second location was it the depths of chittoe woods in the heart of Wiltshire. Here we entered the more thrilling/scary part of our film opening, when the atmosphere got a little more uneasy and surreal as our main character 'Scarlet' played by the acclaimed youth theatre actress 'Hattie Eyre' turned nasty! Against A-Level drama student 'Arron Heap' on the floor in picture below.

I believe our film really captured a part of our fascinating imagination, even though we particularly aimed at certain genre's. The audience of our film is incredibly broad. The older generation will be just as interested in our film and the younger age range. Going back to our film Noir influence and time period, the film appeals to 30+ age range, for both female and male social groups. The femme fetal character evokes the girls aswell as guys, the thriller/action edge also highly interests young male audiences of both genders 15-25 years olds. Most certainly I think our film reflects adolescent social groups in a good light, as we have used young actors. We havn't potrayed stereotypical images of our characters, instead we have created original/individual characters. As our film doesn't have a niche theme stuck to it, this is why its something that anyone can watch - leading to be very successful to meet the expectations of our audience. We mix in Neo noir, thrilling action with some romantic, period drama. Aiming to tickle a wide horizon of taste buds. Who could say no to our beautiful scenery, our cutting edge cast and exhilarating content.

Lionsgate would be the ideal distributor company to produce our film, as its the leading independent entertainment studio today. The company have distributed films such as 'Bratz the movie' to 'Saw VI', meaning the organisation have a lot of diversity which our film has too. Also recently launching 'Spirit' from the creators of 'Sin City'.http://lionsgate.com/?section=film The similaritys are ideal.

Most importantly, in being a young media student carrying out this project, I learnt a great deal about new technology I had a chance to explore. From filming the prelim. indoors to the real thing outside in the wilderness, using the tripod could get quite tricky. But also led us to be more imaginative with our shooting strategies, trying out a shaky hand held technique turned out really well. Giving the realistic, thrilling effect . I also learnt alot through editing, using Pinacle for the first time. We sometimes had some difficulties of adding the right audio to the footage and using certain special

effects due to the whole package content. The transitions wern't always able to be tuned to the right timing we wanted aswell. However besides the minor faults, overall we were still able to use our scratchy black/white flash back effect which contributed to our overall atmosphere we wanted to create. http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/uk/Home/

Along side being creative with technology, the filmed project also gave me a window to use other skills and aspects of my life I'm passionate about. From the storyboarding of the film to actually directing the cast, I got a real hands on - location approach to creating the film. Which I think is very important artistically, not just to be stuck behind the camera or the computer screen.

Picture on right, is me on location at Lacock Abbey.

It was quite cold so we did really well! Plus I promise I was more enthusiastic then I look.

From the preliminary task to the final film. I became allot more imaginative in using certain camera shots and movements, going to a more challenging environment enables you to think differently with a wider perspective. I learnt how to use a more sophisticated editing software from windows movie maker to pinnacle, enabled me to become more skillful with editing tools. I also became more organised and did more planning with sorting out locations and schedules for cast, helping me to build up my confidence in meeting new people to ask them to do something for me (giving up there own time for free) was very self rewarding. Working with 2 other boys, was challenging but we did it and worked as a team to finaly create an opening of our film we were happy with. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL4vKKp1BF8