Blog Closed

My media blog is now closed and I wont be putting any more post's on it. I have done a lot of research and planning and a lot of construction and also the seven evaluation questions. I also have my groups preliminary excercise on my blog and also our main flim opening. I have learnt a lot throughout the filming and editing process and overall i am satisfied with the work our group got done.

9 Frame

This is a screen crab of 9 photos from our media film opeing. It contains the main 9 shots which help explain the story.

Evaluation- Question 7

Question 7- Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back on our preliminary task we feel we have learnt and progressed tremendously, we have learnt that a story board really helps to put the whole production together and helps to make sure that you get all of the different shots you need, whether than in the preliminary we just went out with all ideas and kept adding things in before the other so we had no real order or structure so it took us a while to do a small piece of film. Also a list of everything we need really helped us so we didn’t forget to wear the same clothes or shoes or small props we might of forgot about to keep continuity good, this wasn’t the case for the preliminary we just tried to remember everything.

We have developed with the camera work as with our final production we have got a lot more movement shots, before this they were all static. Now we have a lot more panning and tracking as it makes the movement of the characters more realistic and lets the viewer relate to the faster pace, for example when we are running in our production its very match on action. We have also developed our editing skills a lot more as we have gone from only using straight cuts to now fading in and out, cutting and overlapping this definitely adds more variation to the film and makes it more interesting to work and allows the film to flow a lot more.

The snapshot on the left is of our opening scene, this allows the viewers to gain a good view of where about we are and the main characters in the film. We have used an establishing shot here and have changed the colouring so it gives the impression it is been recorded on CCTV to develop the idea of your stereotypical ‘youth’ like, boys. The establishing shot was the best shot as that is what CCTV does and allows the viewer to get a better perspective. This however is not something we thought about doing in the preliminary.

This snapshot of the murder scene, is a close up to allow the audience to see the blood on the attackers hands, which clearly gives the viewer an idea that he must of killed the dead victim even though they do not actually witness the murder. This close up also allows the viewer to question what has happened and why he seems to be looking at his hands in despair. Was it an accident?  Is he upset? What really happened? Did he do it? All of these questions can be risen from this close up and it’s positioning.

This is a snapshot of our intro, this is a transition where the camera zooms in, we have decided to use this because it focuses attention on the boys. Also we have adjusted the speed it is slightly faster this makes it more upbeat with the music in the background and we wanted that fast pace to be a key aspect of our film so from start of it we have tried to gain this movement.

The sounds from our preliminary are all digetic but as for our final film, we have used both, non-digetic from the music playing in most parts and digetic when we have the dialogue. The music we choose suits the film as it is upbeat and is called ‘boys will be boys’ implementing on the stereotypical ‘boy’ image we were trying to portray.

In our preliminary we used straight cuts so our scenes cut quickly from shot to shot. In our final film we overlapped our footage and used dissolves to fade the scenes in and out, this allows the film to flow more. As you can tell in the example one scene seems to be crossing into the other.

In our preliminary task we used shot reverse shot, which was a technique we developed from research. This allows the viewer to see the persons from another characters point of view making it more realistic and easier to watch for the viewer. Although this is a good technique to use we did not include this in our film as there was not an opportunity for it.

An important technique used in our media piece is match on action we use this so the viewer can understand that we are walking away from school. This is used as it makes it easier for the viewer to understand what is happening rather than it just skipping from one scene straight another in a different location. This is also used when we are running away from the murder scene. As you can see in the snapshots we are running out of school and in the next shot we are seen walking away from school with it in the background showing we have left and that’s how far we got.

Answered by Roberto Pinto and Adam Lomas.

Evaluation- Question 6

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

This is the camera which we were provided with for the filming of our preliminary video and for our film opening. The camera is the Canon Legria FS200 and it was a very good camera. The quality of the picture was clear and also it was very mobile as it is only a small camera and also it was very suitable for the job we needed to do. We got to grips with how the camera worked very quickly and developed are skills with it by using different techniques such as; zooming in and out, panning and also running with the camera. Also the good thing about the camera was that after we had filmed a clip we could watch it back. This was because of the small screen imbedded on the side of the pull out camera. Due to the fact we could watch it back it became easier to look at what had gone wrong in the clip so therefore we could shoot it again if we needed to.

This is the software which we used to help us edit our film opening and our preliminary exercise. It is Adobe Premiere Pro, it was a very good software to use and once we got to grips of how to use it, it then became very simple and effective to use. However to start with it is very hard to work because it is so detailed. Due to the fact that we used this software our preliminary exercise and our film opening look very good and have the effects needed instead of just clip’s being shown after another clip. We were able in our film opening to fade in and out off clips this gave it a much better effect and made the film opening flow whereas with our preliminary exercise it was just jump cuts because we were new to the software.   

Some other technical software and sites we have used were blogger and youtube we used youtube to gain advice from othe rpeople by sharing our videos and allowing them to post comments. This helped us alot. Also blogger was diary type site we used to keep all of the information of construction, pre-production, research and planning and everything else that went into making our production, it is a simple and basic and easy to use site which was easily accessible and reliable.

Answered by Adam Lomas Roberto Pinto.

Evaluation- Question 5

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Our audience which we decided to aim our film at was the younger audience, mainly 16-18 year old boys as they would be the type of audience who would like our action/horror film. The way in which we attracted our audience was through different things, these were; clothing, football, skipping school and finding a murder!

Clothing would have attracted our audience as all the four characters were wearing clothes which not only a typical teenage school boy would wear, because their look was casual but because of the fact their clothes were trendy and in fashion at the moment. For example, some of the characters were wearing chinos, this seems to be the look at the moment and most teenagers wear them, so therefore they can relate to the boys in our film already through appearance.

Another factor that would have attracted our young audience was the fact that the boys were in to a sport more importantly, football. This is well known as one of the biggest sports around the world and most teenagers participate in or enjoy watching and following football. The boys are seen in the film skipping school and are often playing football in most of the clips; this stereotypes the teenage age group as sporty.

In our film opening the boys are seen running out of school and skipping it for the day. Although most teenage boys don’t do this, they often do something rebellious as most teens do and as a teen they would have liked to know what skipping school would have been like. Therefore they would watch the film and be intrigued when the boys run out.

Finally, finding a dead body and perhaps, a killer over him. This would attract our audience because it brings in horror into the film and a survey which we completed about what genre of film we should do proved that horror and action were the highest amongst the lot. It would attract our audience because it will put them on edge as to what will happen and make them want to watch more.

We also did a rough cut of our film and showed it to our class. We then were able to gain feedback from our class mates on how we could improve our film opening. The comments were positive and helped give us a sense of direction to what we wanted and needed to do with our film opening.  This is how we addressed our audience by doing a survey and also showing a rough cut of our film opening in order to get a response and some feedback to our idea.      

Answered by Adam Lomas and Roberto Pinto.

Evaluation- Question 4

Q4.Who would be the audience for your media product?

The type of audience that would watch are film is a younger audience with a keen interest in Horror/Action films. Mainly the young male audience between the age of 16-18 years old as they have an original look and their appearance and clothing is very fashionable. The young male audience also play a role model to the young teens as they have an original and stylish look, therefore the younger teens will want to copy them to keep in fashion. This younger audience often have a large group of friends and are not the typical rebellious school boys; however they are not the smartest people either. They enjoy playing computer games and football and usually shop at clothes shops such as Topman, River Island, Super dry and jack jones. In their spare time this audience likes to watch football and hang around with their mates and take life as it comes. 
The reason why this type of person and audience would want to watch our film is because it is a Action/Horror film and therefore this would appeal to them.  The reason why it would appeal to them is because it is a fast paced film so it will keep them intrigued and also there is a slight twist with Horror in it so it will keep them on the edge of their seats!

Answered by Adam Lomas and Roberto Pinto.

Evaluation- Question 3

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our Production company name is lunatic productions, we decided on this because it was a word which helped to imply our crazy and imaginative ideas. Our logo came from the name and was a crazy like face emotion this suited the word lunatic, as it was a crazy like face representing someone who could well be represented as a lunatic.

The production company may be directly responsible for fundraising for the production or may accomplish this through a parent company, partner, or private investor. It handles budgeting, scheduling, scripting, the supply with tallent and resources, the organization of staff, the production itself, post production, distribution, and marketing. Production companies are often either owned or under contract with a media conglomerate, film studio,  entertainment company, or Motion Picture Company, who act as the production companies partner or parent company.

We have decided that the most suitable production company for our film would be a low budget company. Because of this we have chosen Film4 this is because it supports low budget cost productions like ours, and it is not a major production company. Also we have found out that Film4 develops and co-finances films and is known for working with the most innovative talent in the U.K., whether new or established. This also means that they would fund part of our production we will just have to raise the rest of the money from either another independent film production company; it would then become a co-production. But we wouldn’t have to rise much as it would be on a low budget.

In our film we have put the production company at the very beginning before the film starts this is because we need to advertise them and allows the viewer to know who they are made by, this may also help the viewer realise what type of film it is going to be, e.g a Hollywood blockbuster or a small production company. We then introduced the editors followed by actors and characters to introduce them all to the viewers, after that we introduced the camera man. This order was chose from the ones we thought were most important and played a great role in the final piece and was a group decision.

We think our film is similar institutionally to the Blair witch project, as it was a low budget film produced. It was mainly filmed by hand held, as was ours and we have a similar genre. Also the film was released by a small company which could be suitable for ours because of our low budget and had to have two months of publicity which would be the same as ours as we both have no real incentive for people to see it for example the big actors or amazing effects, all we have is the interesting and appealing storyline.

Answered by Roberto Pinto and Adam Lomas.