{"id":23,"date":"2025-03-14T10:23:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T21:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mediastudies.pinehurst.school.nz\/alina-zhang\/?page_id=23"},"modified":"2025-08-17T00:45:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T12:45:52","slug":"final-flim-opening","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mediastudies.pinehurst.school.nz\/alina-zhang\/final-flim-opening\/","title":{"rendered":"Production"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Production<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Planning for Production \u2013 Idea generation and brainstorming<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This week we have been divided up into our coursework groups and have begun to explore possible themes, narratives and ideas for our film opening. So far, we are considering creating a film within the Thriller genre about digital piracy vs human exploitation during our brainstorming process it was really easy to communicate with my group members and generate ideas, one big advantage our group had was that each group members had really specific skill sets, for example I’m really good at the creative stuff such as drawing and thinking of the costumes. whilst the others had their skills that shows when we worked together during this project.
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Mood Board<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For our colour scheme we decided to go with a green\/blue theme so it would contrast with the deep meaning of the overall message of our film opening, overall making it feel less oppressed but also giving it a surreal feel. Furthermore since our film opening is about digital piracy vs human exploitation there is a lot of ditigal elements like surveillance cameras. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mood board made by Alina<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Planning for Production \u2013 roles and responsibilities.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Today in class within our groups we discussed and delegated some key roles and responsibilities as we prepare to produce our film opening. It was decided that I would be in charge of making the mood board, drawing the story boards, and deciding on the costumes. This is because I am good at more creative stuff as well as experiences from making the storyboards before in previous projects. My first step towards these jobs is to confirm our general plot summary as well as making sure what camera angles should be used before I have drawn the full plan of the story boards. Furthermore I need to check with my team members what kind of character they want to present before I decide on the costumes for each character, For example is the main character clusmy looking or does he look like a sophisticated man. To be successful I will need to check in with my teammates before I have done my tasks to keep them on track and prevent disagreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Characters and their costumes – made by Alina<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Protagonist – played by Zach<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Antagonist – played by Zach<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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News interviewer – Alina <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Story Boards <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here is my groups production preparation to date. The highlights of our project so far have been planning for our film since everyone in our group was so creative so it was fun hearing everyone’s ideas, However, some aspects have been challenging such as settling for a idea since what everyone came up with was so good.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Scene one – person (main character) running toward from something falls over looks up at company logo on a building \u2013 cuts between scenes 1 and 2 with L and J cuts <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This is another angle of the main charatcer running<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Three Three – cuts to evil corporate guy antagonist on top of said building in a news interview talking about Health AI\u2019s company \u201cvalues\u201d \u2013 this scene introduces antagonist as well as the company, Health AI <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Scene four – shows movie title then flashback to main character in a dark room torrenting books from sketchy book piracy website: <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Scene Five – shows movie title then flashback to main character in a dark room torrenting books from sketchy book piracy website: 
Dan McQuillan – Resisting <\/em>AI<\/em><\/strong>: An Anti-fascist Approach to <\/em>Artificial Intelligence<\/em><\/strong> 
Ken Eriksson – Dangers of <\/em>artificial intelligence<\/em><\/strong> 
fulldocument_unreleasedHEALTH_<\/em>AI<\/em><\/strong>_humantesting2025.pdf<\/em>  and in the background the camera pans to a tv showing that one anti-piracy ad on a DVD they\u2019re watching. Main character downloadsfulldocument_unreleasedHEALTH_AI_humantesting2025.pdf<\/em> out of curiosity, showing the unreleased info about Health AI. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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flashback to Health AI\u2019s unethical psychological experiments \u2013 scene cuts between these flashbacks and main character reading the documents on a computer, still with the anti-piracy ad playing in the background <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Story Board drawn by Alina<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Production Process<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As we get closer and closer to our filming week, we are focusing on the completion of our final storyboard, shot list, and production schedule. We have now finished our script and initial planning documents and are close to completing our storyboard and equipment checklist. As an individual, my next steps are to finalise my role in the group, get ready for acting, and finish refining the storyboard. We have decided that our first filming session will be next week after school, beginning with the indoor sequences, as these are easiest to control in terms of lighting and sound. Our biggest challenge so far has been communicating with each other because everyone in our group is more on the introverted side.
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Fliming<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the film, I played the role of a news interviewer, which meant I got to wear a specific costume and deliver scripted lines to introduce the antagonist. During filming, however, I forgot to remove the gum I was chewing, which made my character appear unprofessional in a few shots. Fortunately, we were able to edit this out during post-production. I don’t believe we needed to reshoot anything, as our shots were well-planned from the start. We made sure to capture multiple takes of each scene from different angles to prevent issues like this from affecting the final product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We filmed in several locations, including our school, Jackson\u2019s house, the front of the Auckland Council building, and the Mitre 10 carpark in Albany. We began by filming the school scenes, which was convenient. All we needed was a dark space and a suit jacket over Zach\u2019s school uniform. We chose the photography room and used a lunchtime to get those scenes done. For the scenes outside of school particularly those at the beginning of the film. We coordinated times to meet up after school and film at the agreed locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rough Cuts Review<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In class this week we were given the opportunity to perform some market research on our class as an audience. We showed key scenes from the film as separate clips in a rough edit and also explained our general plot\/theme\/characters to the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a grou, we decided we wanted feedback on clarity of the plot, pacing, audience engagement, and what they liked\/disliked about the film opening because we needed to know if our narrative was easy to follow, if the pacing created the right tone, and whether our creative choices were effective for building interest in the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We created a Microsoft Form to gather this information on aspects such as clarity \u201cIs there anything you didn\u2019t understand?\u201d, emotional impact \u201cHow did it make you feel?\u201d, pacing, strengths and weaknesses, suggested changes, and overall rating.
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Rough cuts review<\/a>Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Edits <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Based on our feedback and our reflections, we have made the following changes: We re-ordered some of the clips to clarify the storyline, made the pace faster by cutting down slower moments, added dialogue and audio to create atmosphere, and refined camera angles and transitions to make the opening feel more refined.
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