The Game - Production Report

Format

We produced our production in the format of a short film this is because we were trying tell a story and not try and sell a product like you would if you were producing an advertisement although it is sort of possible to tell a story through an advertisement. we did this because we thought it would be easier to produce a short film and tell a narrative than it would be to produce an advert.

Narrative structure

our production had a linear narrative. we did this to make the story simple to follow and to make sure that the audience didn't get confused by what was happening in the narrative. Our production had a closed ending so that it had a definite ending. This was because we knew it would be hard to make some form of sequel of our production.
The narrative of our production involves two characters who see a ball and then start to do freestyle football moving across college to various different locations. Along the way they make some mistakes and mess up. They then get split up but end up in the auditorium. This serves as the location for a sort of final showdown between the two characters then as the two characters are about go to catch the ball they freeze and a video game style pause menu appears on screen. We then cut to a shot of a third character sat in front of a games console playing a the game controlling the two characters and he seams frustrated as his controller isn't working properly causing the two characters to make mistakes. The third character then gets up out of his seat and does some freestyle himself in real life. The screen then fades to black and the story ends.

Genre

The genre of our production is sport as most of the scenes feature the character preforming freestyle football and running about. Music chose for my production is similar to what you find on some FIFA video games which helps to enforce the sport genre along with the fact we are doing freestyle football.

Technical Equipment

For our production we used a Canon T2i (550d) Digital SLR camera. We chose to use and SLR camera as it enabled us to change lenses to give the different shots different characteristics which make them look more professional. One example of where we did this is that for some of the close ups we used a 50mm lens so we could have shallow depth of field this means that the background is out of focus but character isn't. This look is used in film and television and it makes the production look more professional. we were carful not to overuse shots like this  so that we had a good variation of shots because it is important to vary the types of shots used so that the audience don't get bored. If we had used a High Definition video camera we would not have had the options for the different lenses to get the look of the shots we used in our production unless we got a professional grade camera like they use to produce films and tv shows and they are expensive.
Also for our production we used a flat picture style on the SLR camera. this means that the picture has low colour saturation and contrast, this means that you retain more detail in the shot so you can do more in colour correction while editing to get the look you want. This is because you can add colour saturation and contrast later on in colour correction after shooting easily but you can't take it away easily. This enabled us to give the footage cinematic look in post production which makes it look more professional.
To keep our camera steady we used a tripod but for some shots we wanted a sort of hand held look so we carried with our hands.
To give our production better motion and to enable us to do some shots in slow motion we decided not to shoot our footage in 1080p as the maximum frame-rate we could shoot in was 30 frames per second which would make slow motion shots seam jumpy so instead we shot in 720p at 60 frames per second so then we could slow the footage down by 50% and it would still look ok.
To edit the footage we used Adobe Premiere pro CS6 which is great software to edit video with as it has great integration with Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop as you can directly import project file from those software packages without having to render out and export first.

Analogue and Digital Video

RGB

Analog

film and Traditional VHS style video tape are analogue systems that record continuously varying colors an signals you have infinite changes when you zoom in you don't lose detail so you can enlarge the image and not lose detail.

Digital

digital film and digital video are digital signals the cameras have sensors that scan the image and take values of red green and blue and records the values of each signal
you get snapshots of the image that make up the image by splitting it up into pixels these values are recorded of a binary system when you zoom into a digital image you lose quality as the signal is not a varying signal and the video cannot work out what the colours would be between the pixels.

Video Formats

video works with electronics and magnetism in stead of using light to generate an image unlike film there are different formats around the world
In the UK we use PAL which stands for Phase Alternating Line it runs at 25 frames per second it is 768 across by 576 pixels in height when it uses the 4:3 aspect ratio using square pixels using domestic equipment it uses 720 by 576 using rectangular pixels.
IN the USA they use NTSC which stands for National Television System Committee it runs at 29.97 frames per second it is 640 across by 480 pixels in height when it using the 4:3 aspect ratio on tv and for home use 720 by 480

in europe SECAM is used which stands for Séquentiel couleur à mémoire, French for Sequential Color with Memory it runs at 25 frames per second like PAL its frame size is 768 by 546 at 4:3 with square pixels on domestic equipment it uses 720 by 546 

pal has a crisper more detailed image but its movement isn't as good quality on NTSC the quality is lower but the frame rate give better movement


In hd PAL SECAM and NTSC the frame rates are still the same but the frame sizes are universal now 
it is now 1920 by 1080 
this is called 1080p or 1080i 

p stands for progressive this means that all 1080 lines are shown at the same time 

i stands for interlaced where it splits the shot in half and only one half is shown at a time but it happens that quick that people don't notice.  interlaced footage processes quicker this means that interlaced tvs are cheaper to produce.  

film

film is made from celluloid and it is coated in photo reactive chemicals which react to light to create the image
film is 35 mm wide and runs 24 frames per second
when editing it had to be physicaly cut and stuck together

it degrades over time and it is highly flammable it is time consuming and costley to edit and film.

What we need to change for the game production

we need to shoot some more action shots for the production and they need to be faster paced than they currently are. Also we need to focus on making sure that we don't make mistakes while shooting