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Sanctus Libri- Final Cut

This is the final cut of 'Sanctus Libri'

If this video does not play, it can be viewed at:

www.tinyurl.com/sanctuslibri

Storyboard

Here is the storyboard we created for Sanctus Libri-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10544964@N08/sets/72157616451608341/show/

Evaluating 'Sanctus Libri'

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
4.Who would be the audience for your media product?
5.How did you attract/address your audience?
6.What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?7.Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?


1.

'Sanctus Libri' uses a variety of codes and conventions, we made sure of this because our inspiration came from 'Donnie Darko', a masterpiece in our eyes which is the pinacle of the psycological thriller genre. We used a similar ingredient to this film, the scray mask idea because we liked how haunting the strong images were.


(pictured right, 'Frank the Bunny' from 'Donnie Darko')

My partner and I love this convention and based a lot of our ideas around the thought of having a mask. We love the Haunting feel given by the exaggerated features from a mask.


(Left, 'thomas' from 'The Orphanage')




(Above, 'Damien' from the 2006 remake of 'The Omen')




We also used the 'static' technique, the idea of something evil disturbing the film thus givin it a panic fueled expierience. Wanted the audience to feel slightly uncomfortable when viewin the opening to this film to set them in an atmospheric and uneasy mood for the remainder of the film. We used some interesting camera shots, like the mirror convention, where the character briefly glimpses something in a mirror behind them.

2.

This film represents 'extraordinary' people, people who stand out from the crowd.

The character of Adam is wearin a shirt and red tie, this refers to our general hatred to buisnessmen and their corruption, this obviously puts negativity towards the character, he is also generally quite lifeless, kind of like how the music buisness sucks the life out of pure music.

The character of Jack is represented as just an average WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) man, nothing really out of the ordinary about his appearance apart from a bracelet, white boxers and he is topless, the decision to have him topless is to represent his venerability aswell as the white boxer shorts, the idea of eternity is also brought in in the form of his bracelet, we played about with the idea of a ring but thought it just didn't fit with the chracter. He represents society's overall weakness to the power of corruption therefore making the impact of the possession more prominent. We decided not to include females because of 'the battle between mankind' but looking back if the character of jack was a girl she would be much more vulnerable and the effect may have been stronger, but of course there are limitations with age ratings, to have a topless girl we would have to reconsider things and this may change the target audience or even the genre.

3.

The type of company that would distribute our film would most likely be more independant beacause of the films alternative nature, the film would be more 'art house' because of the style of camera work and the plot. Although this could be suuported by an american film company if slight tweaks were made and the film took on a more 'epic' genre. But we feel that a large company such as 'universal' would make us take a back seat with creative control and a true timeless nature would not be recognised.

4.

The Audience for this media product would be people who enjoy seeing somethin a bit different, a more alternative person at the same age group as us (16-19), the film had been popular with everyon of this age group we hav shown the film to, however we have had some positive feedback from a 23 yr old female who usually watches romantic comedys, she said "it's not my usual thing but i really enjoyed it" after seeing it independently online. So there may be a wider audience for this genre than we first thought, especially as the opening shows promise of horror.

5.

The main hook for audiences to see this film is the alternative cinema expierience, the plot also deals with situations and moods of this time, the film will consist of many atmospheric scenes so a teaser trailer will be simple to construct and will be visually stunning. Of course for this film to suceed the audience will have to be appreciative to the archetypal conventions within the film, however the film still has enough conventional material for every day movie-goers. The mis-en-scene and character establishment is enough not to over allienate a more mainstream audience.

6.

This process has tought me that it's usually a lot harder than it looks, but aside from that I had to quickly catch up with the software know-how my partner was so advanced in using and i think i did so to a good extent. We had to use more than one piece of software to suceed in creating our vision, for example the ending (eyes glowing white) was originally going to be achieved by using coloured contact lenses, but we later decided that the eyes needed to glow for a stronger effect for this we used Boinx iStopmotion Ver 2.1 and Adobe Photoshop CS4. Amoungst the other software we used were Apple's iMovie HD Ver 4.0.1, Garageband 2008, and Logic Express 8. Everything was completed by using an Apple iMac and Macbook (apart from what i'm writing right now). Of course the film cannot be completely like what we originally envisaged because of lack of budget, superior technology and actors but we had to use our avaliable resources to their best capabilities, however the process' sometimes got irritationg because of painfully slow export times and the constant threat of crashing or malfunctioning because of the mass of sound and effects on the film. I felt a drive to achieve highly at the early stages of the project because i had a crystalising image in my head and had formulated a storyline which i then pitched to my partner who then helped me expand it, this is often how we work together, because of this we needed to create some of the elements such as the scream heard at about 1mins 33, for this we recorded a female scream onto garage band and then added reverb and echo to achieve a crystallising distorted quality scream.

7.

This question was completed as a podcast style recording which can be heard here

Also, our pre-runner film can be seen below:

The eye-The how

The Final few shots were accomplished by taking a number of still frames and whitening out the eyes using photoshop and then putting them together using a programe called Boinx "iStopmotion". We then exported the file as a 'dv' (the format the film is in).
The final result is a 'possessed' jack.

Audience Research Questionnaire

My partner and I constructed a few questions to ask people in order to get a rough starting direction for the piece. We handed out some questionnaires entitled 'how do you rate, out of 10, the importance of these elements in the opening of a film. These are the results presented as a bar chart.

Planning 'Sanctus Libri'

My main contribution to the planning was the initial idea, I came up with a few camera angles i would like to incorporate and shots and the story built up around them, foe example i had the idea of a light coming from the bathroom (shot 2). We then brainstormed ideas about the narrative structure and i drew up a storyboard for what i would imagine frames to be.

Main Plot 

The positive force of the universe has resurrected the saviour of mankind with more power to deal with the current complex nature of people and the evils which rule them. The negative high power responds with an opposing force far more powerful, dangerous and reckless, the negative being begins manipulating the positive being into making war with human kind, this causes the positive being to gain power as his thoughts and actions become more of a darker nature. A war continues to rage between the two beings and the human race until just as the final battle is about to begin, the positive kills the negative in a furious battle then commits suicide, this is part of a plot to unite mankind.

Location

Our first intention was to use a large tree for the haunting scenes with the demonic figure, However we knew of a different location we had found earlier whilst out researching, a long thin road overshadowed by a tree. We both thought this was better because the representation on the tree was intended to be the 'gate to the other realm' and the new location worked very well because we couldn't see where the road lead to. The Bathroom was chosen because of accessibility and it was also similar to what we had in mind according to the camera angles.

Actors

For the role of the 'negative force'('Adam') we chose Alex McGrill because of his slim build (integral character trait) and general manner of being patient and calm. And the shots he was needed for meant standing still for a period of time.

We gave the role of the 'positive force'('Jack') to me because we felt no one else would really get into it in the way we wanted, because this included jolting around violently as if having a fit. And we had always had me in mind for the part and wrote the narrative around this.

Costume

Jack-We tried a variety of different of costumes and combinations although staying to the initial idea e.g. with and without bare torso. The costume was limited however because of location.

Adam-For the character of adam we needed some sort of disturbing mask, i had one in particular pictured in my head as i was developing the idea. A while ago i bought a 'tony blair' mask that had always scared my partner and i, however we had to do a questionnaire to see what the target audience wanted, we tried a few experiments for the facial costume and the mask turned out to be the best. We dressed Adam in a shirt and tie, this was a paradox because of his evil and destructive manner.

Props

'Evil Mask'- Evil hiding it's true face, also this mask is generally quite disturbing.

Fake Blood- Obviously to show pain and  suffering, that the main character has been hurting .

Red Bed Covers-Danger, death warning.

Clutter-Ever so slight recklessness of the character.

Scales-'Balance' and weighing the mans character, a test.

Empty White Bin- Empty, no waste or corruption amongst the purity, only the slight trace of darkness around the bottom to show evil has been near recently.

White Towels- White=purity.

Circular White Mat- A circle is a symbol of eternity, so this is a prophetic image showing that the character will stay pure in nature and the positive force shall be with him always.

Sunflowers- sunflowers actually move towards the sun across the sky, this is the idea of seeking the light.

Textual Analysis of Three Film Openings

As research into the codes and techniques used in the first few minuites of films, my partner and i decided that an obvious first step would be to observe some of our personal favourite films and break them down into their elements using our new found knowledge of Toderovs' narrative theory and camera techniques, we chose films which we would be proud to make and that fit with our intended genre.

The Matrix Reloaded

The establishing shot is a collection of plain, random, green numbers (an iconic and instantly recognisable trait of 'the matrix'), the shot then begins pulling out revealing a huge mass of 'code' and intricate details, the pull out then slows and reveals that all of the code was inside a small clock, this signifies how complex the matrix is and fools the audience because they were expecting something huge. This also sets up the next scene to pack more of a punch because of the contrast of silence to danger. We see 'Trinity' dressed in tight black leather on a black motorcycle speeding towards the office we just came out of, She dismounts in mid air performing a gracefull backflip whilst the bike crashes into the builtding causing it to explode in slow-mo, she then removes her helmet on a close-up, this immidiately establishes her character as a graceful and destructive force. Guards then begin enguaging her in combat, the lighting is dark which causes her leather to shine as she attacks, this again shows the beautiful and deadly grace she uses, she also incorperates a 'scorpion kick' which has metaphorical meaning and representation of her. The scene then blends into the next in the signature matrix style as she bursts through a window of a high glass buitding in slow motion fireing bullets at an agent wearing a dull black suit. the sound becomes more dreamscape as they both plummet towards the ground, trinitys leather is once again slick and glimmering whilst the agent looks lifeless overall. The agent eventually shoots her in super slow-mo (match on action for effect) and the music climaxes, everything speeds up again and as she hits the ground we see an extreme close up of 'Neo' waking from a dream/vision, this immidiately hooks the audience and breaks the adrennaline. Overall the defiance of basic physics is enough to hook an audience but the film pulls it off because of special effects, dark lighting and general sophistication.

I-Robot

The film begins with mystery elements which engage the audience, we see three 'robot laws' which we can assume will be integral to the story, and the main character (Will Smith) panicing and struggleing underwater, the style is verry shaky to emphisise this, we also see a young girl who is made obvious to mean something to the charracter. He then wakes up with a close up of just his eyes, this is like a wake up call to the audience also, we then see him go about his morning routine (equalibrium) the camera includes a birds eye view that gives the feeling that the audience are observing him. The colour scheme of his appartment is quite blue and gives the feel of 'modern technology'. We are then taken out into the streets of a city with robots amoungst humans and a much more futuristic enviroment that greatly contrasts with the last scene, this shows us that the main character is somewhat different to the world around him. this is an abrupt disruption of the equalibrium we were introduced to. The use of sound needs to be aplauded because of the effective contrasts it creates. The whole sequence poses unanswered questions and enguages the audience because of it.

Star Wars-Episode 3-Revenge of the Sith

Star Wars, the main titles alone excite and engage the audience because of previous films and general epic convention. We are then presented with the generic signifier of a large spaceship and an un-recognisable planet. Two smaller ships zoom past and the camera begins tracking them through a manic space battle as they weave through explosions. They approach another futuristic large spaceship which allows us to see the intricate detail of the technology about the ship. The film is the essense of the genre, everything from laser beams to clone troopers to jedi knights can be seen in the first few minuites. The film uses tracking shots exceedingly well because of the obvious large budget and money poured into special effects, although the opening is rendering on cliche' it pulls it off so well that you don't really care what is happening.