Talent Consent Forms

Digipak The Quiet Kid

Final Cut

How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware and online - in this project?

 

During my post-production process, I got to work with new editing softwares, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, and Final Cut Pro (for easier tools).

Pre-production, we had to set up our bloggers. At first, I was used to my Wix blog site, since the layout and features are fairly easier to use. Coming to blogger, I had to learn how to use new templates and how to embed a picture instead of just import it in. The same thing goes with Youtube and Google Drive links. I had a long time getting used to embedding links, however, I can now do embedding very quickly and fluently. This is the same fo link listing, as it was complicated to find the right way to organize everything at first, but after a while I found a way to do it quick and easy and get used to it.

Additionally, as mentioned in the previous question, I also got exposed to a digital camera for the very first time. I got to practice with camera setting for the best angles, and how to set and pull the focus to the object on a touch screen.

Next up is working with color correcting. This is my very first time working with such professional tool, so there were many key index that I wasn’t familiar with yet, so it took a bit of time to work with these new formats, such as where to look for day-to-night feature. I also worked more fluently with adjusting contrast, highlights, shadow, to make my shots look like they were filmed at night. But the result didn’t come out that good since the sky was cought in few of the clips, and because of the lights coming from the sun that made the scenes way too bright to even get darkened by filers.

For the music of my opening scene sequence, I used music on youtube or from thematic. I switched from Adobe Premiere Pro to Inshot on my phone, which helps me edit sounds easier and faster. I got to practice with extracting sound, from my raw footage, and then I can move or edit it separately without messing up with the footage itself. I also learnt where and when to higher or lower the volume of music to raise tension or when to calm the situation down.

After all, at the end of my production, I think that most significant thing I’ve learnt is using Adobe Premiere Pro, which could benefit me with my professional editing in the future. However, looking back, I still haven’t really got fluent with it, since the format and layout is still pretty tricky and “high-tech” for me, so my goal for the A level’s course is to be better with color grading, sound editing (using Adobe and not a simpler tool), and also better effects and transitions.

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

 

I have no prior knowledge about filming going to the subject, and this is my very first time exposed to editing softwares and using a camera, so there were many clumsiness here and there, and now looking back I figured there are many things that I could’ve done better.

This is my very first time experiencing with such a professional and heavy software like Adobe Premiere, and through out the process, I got to learnt how to correct the color of my sequences to look like night time (since I filmed the shots during daytime), how to add white fading transitions, and how to adjust the colors.

I’ve also had the chance to work with a camera for the very first time, and learnt how to pull focus to an object using touchable screen. This is a big step for me in getting in touch with modern technology in filming, which is essential for nowadays film making.

I also had the chance to apply the camera shots I’ve learnt into practice, getting me used to working with camera angles and camera setting to deliver the message, the chills to my audience.

Editing sounds is also a challenging part as I had to overlap many sound tracks onto each other and whenever I make a small change in cuts or splittings, the overlaps became a mess. Now looking back, for my personal experience, I figure that music should be the last thing to be added or edited, after all of the cuts and editings. For the editing sound part, as I was not very familiar with adobe premiere, I sometimes switch between Adobe and other basic tool such as InShot on my Iphone. I would also want to put this as my goal to learn more about sound editing in Adobe Premiere, so that I could be more professional in my later projects.

Through out my filming process, I’ve also developed my “preparation” skill. From planning up filming schedules, to risks that could happen on set, and talking to my teachers at school beforehand about late filming session after school, and preparing for props (fake blood, bloody t-shirt) - though there were just some simple equipments.

Most importantly, I’ve learnt to build my own blog, which includes all of my coursework and case studies, as well as my research on audience and genres. It was a bit of a challenge at first, because Blogger has many utilities that I’ve never used before. But now I’ve learnt how to create each blog, setting a theme for it, and putting in listing links for audience to easily follow.

Following with my blogs, I’ve developed my research skills. I’ve got to know about many amazing resources for film researching, such as IMBD, RottenTomato, American Film Institute, etc. Through out this year, I’ve learnt more about conglomerate companies, cross-media convergence and synergy, and other media marketing strategies of films of big companies such as Disney, for famous movies such as Toy Story, Enphanto etc. I also had more knowledge on my chosen genre, which is thriller. I got to know more about audience’s psychological reasons behind why they like watching thrillers, therefore can apply these into my opening scene to gain attention from my targeted viewers.

One other skill I’ve established through out the course is my ability to lead and cooperate everyone together under the role of a director. I supervised how each actor should act and express their emotions. There were sometimes we got distracted during filming, but I’ve learnt to collect everyone together and stay motivated during long shootings (which could be very tiring leading to low-quality acting), there fore I managed to push everyone through the whole filming session. This is beneficial for my directing skills, in working with actors and supervise and giving them details to meet the goal and bringing a high-quality product to audience. I’ve built my communication and explaining skills through the process, which is gonna be beneficial if I’m taking part in a filming crew or working in a media project with others later in the future.

All of the skills I’ve learnt through out my course and film production process:

• Working with bloggers (embedding links, link listing).
• Using templates and layouts for my blogger.
• Editing using Adobe Premiere (working with color correcting, splitting and cut clips, transitions).
• Using DSLR cameras
• Using pulling focus on camera’s touch screen
• Using day-to-night mode and adjusting contrast and shadow
• Do film research (case studies, statistics, audience/genre research)
• Writing a screenplay, storyboard

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

 

According to my audience research, my primary target audience is teenagers and young adults, aged 15 - 25 y/o. People of this age group are captivated to the realistic and gory action around the compelling tale. According to my research, the viewer anticipates becoming invested in the characters and the plot. The storylines because they include the audience since they have to figure out the tale along with the characters and unravel it themselves, which makes them want to watch more. The characters because they are typically developed and have their own stories that are disclosed to the audience. With this in mind, I made sure to give some hints of characters’ flashback stories, the complex relationships (vaguely, to make sure things are kept unknown), letting the audiences be invested into knowing more about how the relationships will be developed and unravel later in the movie.

As my target audience is mainly students, I put the setting in the school environment, to make the audience feel related in such situations, and being more engaged into the storyline, as it’s developed in a school setting. Many scenarios in the opening scene are also topics that are currently cared by teenagers and young people: school dramas and bullyings. School dramas have always been everyone’s favorite cup of tea, with many prior films had picked up this particular topic such as Mean Girls, Easy A, Lady Bird, Love Simon, etc. And they have all attracted a good amount (or mainly) of young adult viewers. Recently, in Vietnam, many cases of school bullyings are being pulled out into the light and are now the hot topics for the netizens. I’ve used this topic to put into my opening scene to attract attention of my target audience, not only primary (young people) but also secondary (parents) as now many parents are interested in school bullyings. Therefore, these could be some appealing factors to my targeted viewers.

The adrenaline rush and fast pacing is what people look for in thrillers. This is when the editing comes in handy. However, I didn’t do very rushed or fast paced at the beginning of the scene. After watching the Shining, I was particularly amazed by its opening scene, where the car drives up a mountain to the Overlook Hotel. The camera shots are slow with a horn sound track in the back, everything seems very laid back, but the edginess is just over the roof. That’s where I got my inspiration from and decided to do the same for my opening scene. I started of slow, to let the audience know things are just about to start, making the atmosphere uncomfortable with no excitement or rushing yet. But then at the end of the opening, that’s when I edited many cuts and having chasing and raging music in the background, to satisfy their adrenaline rush after being in a very tense atmosphere. Audience could be both invested into the dark and “unknown” slowly pacing and then get satisfied with the rush at the end.

My film is most suitable to be distributed by Galaxy Play. Galaxy Play is famously known for distributing famous Vietnamese independent films, such as Toi Thay Hoa Vang Tren Co Xanh, Mat Biec, Bo gia, Tiec Trang Mau, Em va Trinh.

Galaxy Play is a video data transmission service on demand of Galaxy Play Joint Stock Company - a member of Entertainment and Education Group, from early 2015 beta, officially launched on January 18, 2016 with your Hollywood tagline, until April 15, 2020 the service changes its name to Galaxy Play.

Most recent film from Galaxy Play, had a budget of 2.1M USD, and got back in return 4.256M USD. But it’s a movie that being shot in complex settings and require some good investments. For my movie, I’m expecting to have a budget of around 1M USD as my budget. My setting is mainly in the school, and no scenes require complicated CGI nor special crops (except for blood, a weapon, and costumes for students), as the plot is mainly school dramas and school life beefs which led to killings.

However, I would need a good amount of figurant/extra students in the background, which could requires some what costs for casting, however this could be helped by editing in more people in the background, help reducing costs. Non-famous actors would be priorities as my budget does not allow casting famous celebrities.

As distributing films at cinemas would requires a big financial source, however, there could still be possibilities as Galaxy Play’s movies are all being distributed at theatres and all got very successful. However, in case this is impossible to happen, I would have my film shown at film festivals such as Viet Film Fest. Film festival is a good way to get my films to viewers without requiring such a big budget like getting them to theatres.

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

Thriller is a genre where audience get that adrenaline rush and curiosity satisfied. When it comes to the opening scenes, chains of action or a puzzling or perplexing could happen, making the viewers intrigued into knowing what could happen next, putting them through the entire movie. While only the opening scene couldn’t make the whole movie, it’s an important component in pulling the viewers’ attention.

First of, for my fonts, I used a very different type of font for my title as well as casting introduction. The letters are written in blocks in the font Blackout-2AM. I saw many films when someone got black-mailed threatned them to do some thing or reporting a missing of their loved one, and on the letter, the letters are attached individually or in blocks (E.g. Detective Conan - Moonlight Sonata EP). I figured that this is a fun and new font to use for film title, especially when the font looks modern and aesthetically pleasing, which is suitable for my primary audience - young adults, instead of using the classic sans-serif or serif font.

I decided to choose my main character as a quiet girl that has a very “mysterious” background. One aspect of thrillers that could pull the audience to stay through longer is the questions threw at them at the opening. Therefore, I decided to have a girl who seemed to got into a drama with her friends, and then ended up killing them. The audience would want to know more about what happened between these girls and whether the motive behind the main character’s action of killing. This could also be relevant to today’s issues with bullying, which is becoming very common in Vietnam these days, and both the victims and bullies were girls, so I decided to use this in my opening scene as well: fights between girls. This could help pulling attention from my secondary audience: adults and parents. As the bullying issues are rising, many parents are raising their awareness and concerns on this specific topic.

I tried to keep the color of my opening scene as natural as possible (except the filters to make some shots look darker like night time), because I want to bring a sense of realism to audience, so that they could have an honest atmosphere throughout the film, like they’re experience the situations themselves, enhancing the thrills and edginess. Even though most thrillers usually have a bit of blues or green tinted colors to make the atmosphere darker and more threatened, I think the day-night look had already help with the building scary atmosphere. Other than that, I tried to keep the filter as natural as possible to create an honest and real vibe for the audience.

For the camera shots, I used quite a few close ups in my opening scene, as close-ups are very common in thrillers, to express clearly the expressions of the actors. At the beginning of the scene, I want the audience to see clearly the emotions of panicked, rushed of the main character slowly turns into relief and satisfied. This combines with brief flashback of a girl fight shows them that she has just done something terrible yet she has no regrets nor remorse. By this the audience could some how have a brief image of her character, someone who just took a revenge. This is especially significant, as through the title of the film “The Quiet Kid”, we know that the main female lead doesn’t speak much, so the only to know more about her is by the close-ups giving us full details of her facial expressions. I also used shaky tracking camera shot and for my chasing scene to create suspense and satisfy the adrenaline rush that people want to find in thrillers, combining with raging music.

The music used in this opening scene is mainly atmospheric music. Instead of going full blown dramatic music from the start, my main target is to make the audience feel real and honest when watching the film. Therefore, dark atmospheric and ambience sound is a better option in creating an earie atmosphere.

Overall, I think that I’ve stuck to conventions of thrillers quite well, from camera work to color correcting to music used. However, the only that’s different is the font, which I think is much needed to stay fit and unique towards my targeted audience (young people), and the fonts also driven towards mysterious, alarming font which is a different way of using a thriller font.

My film’s main character is a girl, involves 2 other characters which are also girls (and a male extra). Because the setting is in the school, my characters are all students - which is relevant to my target audience; teenagers and young adults. Another reason, is because of some bullying cases been happening in VietNam for the past months. The victims and the bullies are mostly girls. I wanted to raise awareness of school bullying by borrowing the image of these bully cases recently in Vietnam, so that people are more curious and intrigued in watching. People have been so used to boys fighting and boys manipulating others since they are known to be the more “violent, rough” gender. However, as been proved in recent cases, many girls are participating in bully fights, and brought many scars from physical to mental to victims. That’s why I chose mainly girls for my characters, to stay relevant to my audience.

However, in my movie, I decided to have the main character choosing a very different option in handling her bullies, killing them. This is, first of all, for the good of my thriller convention and effects, and second of all, to make people think on the other side of the story. These days, on the news, they talk about how victims commited suicide because of their bullies, ending their own lives. While in my film, I have the character taking revenge in a violent way. What consequences could bullying lead to? Is the girl 100% wrong for doing this, after being bullied brutally by her friends?

Through out the whole movie, I would want the story to develop in a way that people could witness the horrorsome of bullying, the fights, the pain, that leads to the killing at the end. There might be people disagreeing and some people could sympathize with the action of the girl. But my major, final want is for people to think carefully about school bullying and how much impact it could have on the victims, and lead them to do terrible thing, even if it’s taking their own lives or taking revenge like in my movie.

I think that these ideas could be some big pulling factors for my movie, as the school bullying issues had been some pretty hot topics recently. With the Kdrama The Glory also highlights this issue, many people around the world, especially students and parents are getting more and more conscious and awared of this. There fore, people would be more attracted in watching media products related to this problem.