As a closing post on this blog, I will be writing a quick evaluation and summary of my aims, process and outcome with each practical part of the coursework (AV piece, magazine cover and double page spread). Links to view all of the pieces are in my previous post.
Audio-visual piece: clip from 'Partners', a new crime drama
From the offset, I was fairly certain that I wanted to produce a TV show for ITV, given that I wanted to do fiction and virtually all of Channel 5's content is documentary-based. After this, I came to the decision that I wanted to make a crime drama, given that I watch quite a bit of crime drama in my spare time, so feel like I understand the genre. I went for a fairly generic concept and style for the show, the USP being that the two main characters are gay. I decided to focus on typical themes of crime dramas like Prime Suspect and Broadchurch such as the balance between work and personal life, moral dilemmas, and whether murder is ever justified. I also set the drama in a gritty, urban location which added to the overall mood.
I chose a fairly old-fashioned style to film the crime drama in - particularly for the chase scene at the beginning - with lots of fairly long takes, wide angles and in-camera zooms, not like the handheld, quick-cutting style that we're used to nowadays. I tried to choose a section of the drama which would be reflective of the show as a whole and would also show an understanding of crime conventions. I chose to film a section from near the very end of the show (or at least the first season) which acted as the resolution to the show. It also was both a significant turning point and moment of conflict. One of my main influences was the final episode in season 2 of The Bridge, where Saga has to decide whether or not to put Martin in prison. This particularly influenced the arrest scene in my piece, in which Dave stands and watches Michael being handcuffed and taken away in a police car.
Overall, I am pleased with the final result. I think that I had some good camerawork and managed to get great performances from both lead actors which really added to the emotion and the show's overall authenticity. This was definitely something which everyone I showed it to noticed and agreed with. I think that I also was able to find good stock music which felt very conventional of a crime drama. In particular, the scene which I am most pleased with is the afformentioned arrest scene. I think that it says a lot about the characters and has some nice visuals. The sound also turned out surprisingly well, given the circumstances. On the day of the shoot, when we turned up to the location, there was construction work happening very nearby which had not been there when I had recced the location a few days before. Despite this, the boom operator was able to capture decent audio under my direction and, with a bit of tweaking and careful editing and mixing in post production, it sounds pretty solid overall. I am also pleased with the editing and overall flow of the piece. I think that the pacing feels pretty authentic as a crime drama, and the footage I got cuts together quite nicely. I'm also pleased with the costumes which I pulled together, particularly a police officer costume which appears very briefly, adding to the overall production value.
In terms of what I would do differently, the main thing would be the basic concept. I decided to pick a very generic concept for a crime drama and to focus more on the execution. I stand by this decision as I think that my time was better used tweaking the script and planning storyboards, etc. however if I had had more time to think about it then I would have liked to try a concept which was a bit more edgy, whilst also being the kind of thing that ITV would broadcast. The script was also not great by any means. Writing is certainly not one of my strengths, and it shows. While the acting definitely elevates the dialogue massively, a lot of it still seems quite awkward and cliché. The cinematography is not great, either. The camerawork is mostly pretty solid, but some of the lighting and colour palette looks quite amateurish. I filmed mostly during the golden hour and blue hour on a day with very clear skies, which definitely enhanced the overall look, but I could have thought more about positioning the camera in accordance with the available light beforehand. It is, of course, virtually impossible to produce a completely professional-looking video with the resources I had, however in future I would probably allow myself a bit more time to film, so that I could get more takes and spend a bit longer making each shot look good. In future I might also try to have some more stylized shots, although I think that it worked fairly well for this show. I am a big fan of cinematography which is understated and allows you to get more sucked into the story, but I probably could have picked some more memorable shot types and angles to use to emphasise certain moments. If I had more time, I would also go and record some foley and other sound effects to use, just to add extra depth and realism to the audio track. If I was going to be really picky too, then I might dub some of the dialogue to eliminate background noise which cuts in and out of certain shots and is slightly jarring at times. A couple of other things which some mentioned when I showed them the video is that the knife which Michael threatens Dave with is very small and not very threatening, so comes off as slightly comedic. Also, the car which I used in the arrest scene is very clearly not a police car. It looks vaguely like it could be an unmarked police car, and of course I didn't have any police cars at my disposal, but again, if I had more time I could have used after effects to add a police stripe to it in post and make it look a bit more authentic.
Phew, that's enough talking about that.
Magazine cover
This is probably the bit which I am least pleased with. I set out to design a fairly up-market men's lifestyle magazine, similar to GQ and Esquire. I looked through lots of different covers online, getting design ideas, and also read through articles and analysed layouts in each magazine.
I chose to focus more on the actors than the show, as I found that lifestyle magazines were about people more than anything, and the people they featured were their main selling point (hence why you'd want to put big actors on the cover).
First, the positives. I quite like the layout design which I chose, and think the cover feels well-balanced and easy to navigate. I also like the simple colour scheme, including the use of a grayscale image, which gives it quite a luxurious look. I also think that I effectively used contrasting serif and sans serif fonts to make different bits of text stand out from one another. It has lots of the conventions of magazine covers, such as a barcode, price and date.
It looks ok. But it has an amateurish feel to it, and it's very hard to put my finger on the exact cause of it, mainly because it's probably the result of lots of different things. I spent hours tweaking tiny details in the magazine, but really didn't make much progress and struggled to find the cause of the problem. I think that the main two things are probably the main image and the masthead (which also happen to be the two largest things in the cover). The image isn't bad, but it could definitely be better. The posing is a little awkward and the expressions of the two models are more serious than they normally would be on a lifestyle magazine cover. The lighting looks fine but could also be better, which isn't entirely my fault as there was a problem with syncing the flash in the photography studio with my camera. The masthead, again, looks fine but a bit lifeless and newspaper-like. Other than this, the only other thing I can point to as a possible cause of the slightly amateurish look is the fonts I used, as I only used ones included in photoshop, which tend to be very mixed.
Double page spread
I'm definitely more pleased with this part of the magazine, as I think that it looks much more professional than the former. Like with the magazine cover, I was aiming for a luxurious look which you might see in GQ or Esquire.
I spent a long time tweaking the layout and fonts, having looked through lots of similar articles for inspiration, and I think the time I spent paid off. I think the layout is very clear and easy to navigate, and looks pretty close to a professional magazine article. I also included details like drop caps and clothing prices which give it extra authenticity. For the text itself, I recorded quick interviews with each of the actors as a starting point, and I got some really good material to use. From there, I complied the best answers, wrote extra ones, and added in an introduction etc. I used a very simple colour scheme, including grayscale images, to link back to the main cover and make it look sleek and luxurious.
In terms of things which could be improved, the main thing is the image, for lots of the same reasons as in the cover. The lighting isn't great, the poses are quite awkward (Luca is at an awkward profile angle and looks a bit uncomfortable) and it's quite noisy, which wouldn't look good when printed at A4 size. I chose this particular image as I wanted something a bit lighter in tone than the cover image, and this was the most natural-looking shot I had available.
Peace out guys, thanks for reading my blog religiously for the last 5 months as I know you all have done.
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