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C.O.D.E.S interview script! Media Studies - “Hi, and Welcome back to films4Review. Tonight, we will be reviewing the latest highly acclaimed blockbuster film ‘C.O.D.E.S’ which is set to premier later tonight. I’m here with Mr Henry Wright, editor and producer at Sun down productions of C.O.D.E.S, a very good evening to you”! - In what ways does your Media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?! - “Congratulations on the success of your new film, how do you think this new film compares with other works which rival your own?”! - ‘Well, this is certainly an original idea. A method of hypnosis using numbers and series? I don’t think thats been used very many times before. It’s not exactly the Todorov model either, the conventional model being that there is a equilibrium within the characters lives, a disequilibrium is created until finally a new equilibrium is created. In this, we begin with an dis-equilibrium, go back to before the unrest was created then jump forward to its resolution, from middle to beginning to end if you like. I haven’t encountered another film which plays on it in the way this does many times before, though I’m sure there must be other examples. The only example I can think of is Pulp Fiction where we see different parts of each characters lives in non-chronological order and maybe Vantage point, though thats more of a different person’s point of view on the events, so in that way I believe we have made our effort to develop that aspect of film. In terms of Mise-En-Scene, we’ve stuck to the general codes. Like in this scene here, you’ve still got your low key lighting for “dark” scenes, where Evil Professor Hawk is over powering Lucy’s mind. Your non-diegetic string sounds to represent tension and fear and your short sharp video cuts, like within the actual possession scene shown here, are all key assets in making the film what it is. For extra realism within our film, I filmed actually on location rather than on a set. The atmosphere of the place I thought would be better captured on an actual station or in a real lecture theatre, again adding further to the realism of the film and so applying more fear to the audience’!

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- How does your media product represent particular social groups?! - “In the past, other films such as yours have been considered rather stereotypical of particular social groups which have been shown within the film. How does this film in your opinion represent these groups?”! • ‘Well obviously our main social group represented in our film are the University Students and graduates currently studying at our nations universities, how they live their lives through this tricky time in their educational process and the challenges they face. I think that is in particular the essence of what I wished to capture in this film, what it is to be a university student. In a way I suppose for some cases, this film personifies those feelings. How you’ve got struggle and worry for your final year exams, anger at your fellow house mates and the irritating habits they have. The whole hypnosis control is how those feeling may combine. So no, I don’t believe its stereotypical of those people, rather an all round view of. ! - Upon choosing your actors for the film, why did you choose such anti-stereotypical actors and actresses? Is there some significance there?! • I presume you are referring to the perhaps peculiar choice of female mathematicians? The idea behind casting Fionna for the role is so the situation can be seen as an unusual occurrence and therefore potentially more real, not that having your mind taken over by number series isn’t, but you get the idea. I casted Rory purely because he is a much younger looking professor e.g. an actor who is 40 years old as opposed to an age around 60. I casted him more for the idea that even younger professors can be seen evil. I suppose the general idea was so that we could widen the age limit of an evil professor so that the ideas from the film could be transferred into real life and applied to far wider circumstances, make the film seem more scary in its applications to real life.’!

! - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?! - “So the film has been distributed to the picture house group and a number of independent cinemas across the UK, any particular reason why it is not going out through bigger organisations such as Odeon?”! • ‘When it came to distributing the film, I decided that it would have more of an appeal towards people of the age range at which the film is set. Naturally, 15-25 year olds go to places like Odeon, Vue, places which are very large, multiplexed type cinemas. Unfortunately, I don’t believe my film would fit into that environment. There maybe a chance that it maybe lost within the other blockbuster films being shown at the same time seeing as it such a rare form of film, more suited for smaller, more select audiences. Eliminating the possibility of distributing to those cinemas, I then 2

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! had to consider private cinema houses. Going to the Film Festival back last February, I was approached by many different distributer companies, all offering their various deals, I forget most of them. The deal I took obviously came from Soda, they offered the widest distribution of the film to independent cinema houses all across the UK. They offered the widest coverage of advertising through trailers, posters, public vehicle advertisements, with possibilities of even a DVD range to be made, depending on how well the premiere does tonight obviously.’!

! - Who would be the audience for your media product?! - “We’ve got a clip here of the official trailer for C.O.D.E.S which we can have a quick look at for the benefit of our viewers… (after trailer has run). Watching that, it doesn’t strike you as a film suited for the younger audiences does it?”! • ‘No, it was obvious from the very beginning of the production of the film that it wouldn’t be for younger audiences. I was restricted by the BBFC so that the film was rated a 15 and so nobody younger I would recommend should watch it. However, I think the film would appeal to all ages from 15 to 25. It’s got the thrill aspect teenagers love but also the mysterious and thoughtful outside young adult audiences enjoy. I personally believe that female audiences may enjoy this film more as it features a female main character and really relates to in particular the female struggles whilst going through Uni which I believe they could really relate to, asides from being over powered by codes obviously.’!

! - How did you attract/address your audience?!

- “When you were first planning out the storyboard of the film, how did you design it to capture the attention of your target audiences?”! • ‘Well obviously the way the film would be advertised would play the biggest role in selling the movie to audiences, in setting what genre the film would be and what it would entail which is what that trailer we just watched captured. However the actual film itself was choreographed just like a James Bond film so that it would start off fast, none of this slow waiting around for the film to pick up a bit. Its fast and punchy right from the start and I believe that’s what this film deserves and what our target audiences enjoy, purely cause it makes the film far more engaging right from the word go. So long as you can sustain that engagement throughout the film, which I believe it does, then it really makes the film for good watching. Obviously, the film is set up to be a psychological thriller, so if you can capture the essence of that within even the first two minutes of the film, it helps to create movement within it. What with 3

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! the hypnosis scene, where the Evil Professor Hawk takes control of Lucy’s mind within the first sequence of the film, it creates the main drive in the Audiences interest in the film. Whats going on, how does that work, whats going to happen next?! ’!

! - What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?!

- “Having watched the trailer, I’m sure our fans would be very interested to know; it does seem to me that quite a bit of technology was put into making the film, has any of it been made using technologies new to you and how did you find using them?”!

• ‘In the making of a film, you’re always looking to improve your knowledge of the various technologies and techniques available to improve the look of the film and during the creation of C.O.D.E.S it was just the same. Instead of actual physical technologies such as boom mics, tripods and portable lighting, it was mainly the editing technology which was new to me. In the past I’ve always used Apple products to produce the films as it just comes more naturally to me. However, on this occasion I decided to use Adobe Premiere instead, purely just for the change of editing software, broadening my knowledge of different software’s available and I must say I was not impressed. I found it could not to do things as simply or as quickly as other products can, and was generally no where near as fun or as easy to use as apple or other editing packages I have used before.! - You must have experienced problems with the new technologies surely?! • Of course they occur, what with inexperience and all. When I first came to using the green screen like we’re using it here, I did experience problems with it. I kept getting darker patches within the video which the computer software couldn’t understand. As I later found out it was not a uniform colour throughout the video which was causing the final video to look grainy and the characters look out of place. I researched the problem, and found that it was down to the lighting of the subject and the screen itself. Applying the knowledge I learned from this to other test takes using the sceen, the video quality improved dramatically. My main problem in the creation of this film surprisingly however was the sound. I had great trouble trying to capture the station noises. Because I didn’t have the correct sound equipment on the set at the time I was filming, it meant the actual sound that day wasn’t captured. Of course this isn’t usually such a huge problem cause you can just go back on another day similar to the day you filmed on. However, when I tried that with all the sound tech in place, I just couldn’t get a day suitable for the audio to be captured. Always too many people, too much chattering going on, all holiday makers on their way to their 4

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! various destinations. In the end, I resorted to muting the video and placing over the top the film music, which I suppose in the end was for the better. Alls well that ends well.’!

! - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?!

- “Looking back from your very first work ‘The Preliminary’, what do you feel you have learnt during that journey in film production?”! • ‘Well obviously from ‘The Preliminary’ I’ve learnt a lot, about which best camera angles to use, audio capture, editing and production, but what I feel I’ve excelled in personally is the lighting and the use of green screen technology. I wasn’t too sure on these areas before, what was better, what was worse. However, with a little research and playing around with it, you do build the confidence to be able to say where to put the lighting with the camera, where to put the camera and when for the best shot possible. Obviously, you can only learn from your own mistakes. One of the big ones which I encountered whilst filming the Preliminary was the awkward lighting conditions within the set. Because it was such a tight corridor we were trying to film in, the only light source was the door window and a rather mossed up skylight. On set, I thought the natural lighting was suitable and so I continued on filming. It was only later during the editing, playing back the video and finding the video way to dark to distinguish anything that I realised that it wasn’t. Thankfully I finally managed to resolve it in the final editing of the video by brightening and various other adjustments made to the video, but eventually I got there, but it did make me realise that you’ve got to think of more than just the cast and the script of a film in detail. You’ve really got to choose your location very carefully for reasons such as lighting, sound reverberation, space; which is actually a bigger one than I ever realised whilst in training was how much space is required for a whole film and audio technicians take up! Though, from all this I have broadened my knowledge of possible camera angles and editing techniques, but these are just the areas I think I’ve progressed most out of all this, picking bits up here and there, what works, what doesn’t, until we come up with the final result.’ !

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- What were you concerns during the production of your media piece?! - “Was there any point where you felt worried about how the film may turn out? Whether there was something that you thought you may have missed out on?”! • ‘Generally, no I don’t think there was. Though, that doesn’t mean I didn’t have encounter patches, oh no. The main one was organising everyone onto one set at one time. Like I mentioned earlier, we had problems with the sound because we couldn’t get the correct sound equipment on set at the time we were filming. It was mainly problems like that. The Lecture scene had to be done in two takes on separate days as Fionna wasn’t able to make it on the first take. However, these problems were resolved when we were still able to crack on and film what I could with the people I had and make it into the film we see tonight.’!

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