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.

Evaluation- Question 2

Q2. How does your media product represent particular social group?

Dom is one of the four boys in our film opening; he seems to take the role of the leader in the group as he is in the middle of all the action and drama in the film opening. His appearance is a casual look which a typical schoolboy would wear. He wears beige chinos and a casual hoody. His character seems to be the most rebellious of the four boys as he is seen littering and jumping over gates. His character takes the role as the leader of the group in some sense as he seems to be in the centre of all the action because he is the one who catches the murder on camera and therefore automatically becomes the character where the audience will know that all the action and drama will evolve around him. Although Dom is the leader of the four boys when they spontaneously run into the murder the boys are in shock and are now scared, and they are all seen in the end running home. Dom runs home a different way to the other boys and in the end he is shown looking scared. Not the brave leader anymore!

Bradley cooper is an American film, theatre and television actor. He is well known all around the world. He has been in films such as, the A team, wedding crashers, limitless and the hangover. Although he has been in all of these films his character in the hangover (Phil Wenneck) is very much like Dom the character in our film opening. His appearance is often smart wearing trousers but also like Dom he is very causal wearing a shirt and his hair often scruffy. The reason why his character is so similar to Dom is because in the hangover he takes the role of the leader of the four boys this is because he seems to make all the decisions and also is the more dominant character. Although the four characters in are film are in most of the shots Dom takes the leader because like Bradley cooper in the hangover he is centre of all the drama, he catches the murder, he loses his wallet which contains personal information, he runs home a different way to the other boys so is on his own and finally at the end he is in his room, home alone and there’s a knock on the door and he sees a flash back of the incident he caught on camera and it leaves it on a cliff hanger to show that it could be the murderer after him.

Bradley coopers character in the hangover (Phil Wenneck) is similar to are character Dom because of how they both take the lead role in their groups. However the characters are slightly different in the fact that Bradley cooper in the hangover makes all the decision in the group and becomes the more dominant because he is making orders. However, although Dom takes the leader because he is in the middle of all the drama he does not make all the decisions in the group. This is how the two characters differ.      

Answered by Adam Lomas and Roberto Pinto.

Evaluation- Question 1

Q1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

The title of our film is called ‘On The Run’ the reason why we chose to call it this was because during the film opening the boys are often seen running away from things such as, school and the murder they find! Our setting and location for our film was in school and in Cookoo’s hollow, the reason why we filmed here was because it helped set the scene at the start and helped relate to our audience, especially in the school clips. Also the woody background to the location was perfect for our murder scene as it was dark and gloomy which is a great place in a film for a murder. Costumes which were used were everyday teenage boy clothes; the boys wore chinos or skinny jeans and a causal top and hoodys. This also helped relate to our audience. The props used was a football and a knife, the football helped relate to our audience because it is something they would like to do. The knife was used for the murder weapon which helped imply the horror side to the film.  The main part of the film opening was the finding of the body and the camera work used for this was hand held to create a more realistic feature. We used different editing techniques such as jump cuts and fade in and out edits. The overall story for the film would have been, after the boys capture the murder on tape then the person who was caught over the body would try and track down the boy’s this is why the boy’s are on the run hence the title. The genre is Action/Horror and our film opening suggests this because they are running away from things suggesting the action side to it and the finding of the murder suggests the horror side to it. The characters are introduced at the start when they are in the school playing football.    



The speakers in this video are Roberto Pinto and Adam Lomas.

Kung Fu Panda nine frame

I added this to my blog a while back but it was saved as a draft so it has only just been published.

Final Film Opening

Story board

 This is our new storyboard, it describes the basic story of our film opening. It has the main scene's in it aswell.

 However, due to the fact we have recently finished our film the storyboard does not completly match our film but it is almost identical. There are just a few differences because the storyboard was drawn up a while back, whereas the film opening has only recently been finished.

Filming pictures

This is one of the main parts in our film opening. Its the murder scene where we dont know whether the man kneeling be hind the dead body has actually done it. This is why the film is on edge and has a cliffhanger. This makes it very dramatic.

Survey

                                              

This is a survey what we asked our classmates to see what film they would most likely to see. Action and thriller was what the majorty said.

Horizontal Integration

A horizontal integrated company owns or has shares in lots of different companies and these companies can be used to produce, market and supply products. For example a film can be purchased as a feature at the cinema, rented on DVD, purchased as a download and finally purchased as a DVD.

Vertical Integration

Vertical integration is when a company oversees the planning and creation of a product, through to the marketing, advertising and distribution and then on to the retail of the product to the public.A company which is vertically integrated has control over all the stages of a products life. In media this means they have control of three procsesses; production, this includes writting, planning and the creation of the product. Distribution, taking the finished product to the retailer and marketing the product. Finally exhibition, the point at which the product is sold to the consumer.

Synergy

Synergy is the process through which media products derived from the same text are promoted in and through each other and throughout the subsidiaries of a media conglomerate. Synergy is closely linked to convergence as the coming together of the seperate companies associated with different technologies within a conglomerate allow for synergy to happen. Synergy works on two levels; the main text is promoted using the many subsidiaries of the conglomerate, and the individual products used to advertise the main text are linked to each other.

Convergence

Convergence is the term used to describe how technology has brought together previously separate media channels. For example, a mobile phone and a camera work independently from one another but since early 2000's the two technology's have converged and most mobile phones now include a camera. In the film industry digital recording and distrubution methods mean that previously separate forms can be bought together or converged. The digital content produced during film making is compatible with other digital media so can be used on websites or in games. Convergence is just the coming together or merging of two things.

Post Production

 Post production is the term for all stages of production occurring after the actual end of shooting and recording the completed work. Post-production is, in fact, many different processes grouped under one name. These are; video editing, writting, adding visual special effects and sound design/ effects. Post production can take longer than the actual making of the film itself this is because it needs to complete the editing, color correction and the addition of music and sound. Post production can be seen as second directing because through post production it is possible to change the intention of the film.

Production

The production part in media is the actual making and filming of the film. This is when the film has been given the go ahead and they can get deep into and concentrate purely on filming of the film. However its not this simple, there are in fact many different stages of production and different things to consider. It all begins with the producer, he get's everything together and organised, for example the cast, the idea, the development and the crew. Then in order to film the idea and the scipt must be good! then the package, this is where the screen play needs to be written, need to sort out the budget. Atracting investment this is where the producer meets other producers acrros the world, this is essential because without the investment the film will not be made. The planning is very important, they should make sure time is kept for the harder and longer scenes when shooting. Also the budget is very important, this is based on the investment and when they have this they need to draw up a financial plan showing how they are going to pay for eveything. Above and below the line costs, above the line is the script, screen play, actors, producer, director and below the line is the designers. They also need to consider their audience so they need to consider the location and who will want to see the film. Finally the marketing, this costs more than making the film, they need to find a gap in the market for their film.

Pre-Production

Pre Production is the process of preparing all of the elements involved in a film. Pre Production begins once the project has been given permission (greenlit). This is the stage where finalizing preperations for production go into effect. During pre-production, the script is broken down. The individual scenes and all the locations, props, cast members, costumes, special effects and visual effects are identified. At the begining of pre production the screen play is page locked and scenes are numbered, this helps avoid confussion.

Filming

Today we got the final clips for our film opening complete. We have almost finsihed the editing of the film opening and are well on track to have it finshed tommorrow. We worked well as a group and have got all the clips we need to complete the opening.

Filming

Tuesday 24th April we added another little clip to our film opening and are just about there now, we will be doing the final editing on the film opening tuesday and it will be done. We are now communicating and working well as a group and due to this improvement the film opening has come on strong and is looking good.

Editing

After we got a succesful day of filming done, we are now moving on to editing and we have almost edited the whole film opening we just need to get a couple more shots to add into the edits and we will have completed our film opening. The editing is coming along really well and its looking good, we just need a few more parts of the film opening to add and to take a thorough look over what we have achieved. Overall editing is coming along really well and we are close to finishing our film opening.

Filming

Monday 16th April, we got together as a group and went a head with our filming of our opening scene for a film. During easter a member of our group was away so therefore we could not get together and film so we left it late but we got it done. We worked really well as a group and worked hard and smoothly to get a good day filming out the way. We got all of the major shots completed and just a few more tweeks with the film and we are almost there. It was a really succesful day for our group and we came together as a group and worked extremly well to get the work what was needed to be done completed.

filming

We are currently in easter half term and will be looking into doing some filming soon. We got a lot of shots done last week and will be loading them onto my blog hopefully soon, and also we will hopefully edit the shots together and soon be able to complete our film opening.

Filming update

Today we got some good filming done. We all came together as a group and got a good idea of what is needed to be done in the next few weeks ahead. We got a good amount of shots done and the film opening seems to be coming together well in all of our minds. We spent about two hours of filming and we got a fair bit done, we are currently getting to grips with the task of editing it together throught using Adobe Premier Pro software. We are putting the shots which we got today into the software and are seeing how well they come together. This has been a good day of filming for are group, as communication has been improved, and we are also getting the shots we need. hopefully we will be finishing filming and editing soon to complete are film opening.

Filming- rough cuts

We have started filming a few of the shots needed for our new idea. We will be continuing filming soon and will hopefully be finished the shots and come to edit them together to complete our film opening. We will be discussing what shots we need to film and also go over. Also we will check are rough shots to see if we can improve them or if they are ok to put into our film opening. Also we have got a title for our film which will also be added as the title clip in the film opening.

Filming

We have carried on with are filming in recent weeks, however in half term we were due to and had planned to get some filming done, unfortunetly due to lack of communication we never got round to doing any. After some consideration about the film opening we had planned to do, two of us in the group decided that the film opening we had in mind would become far to difficult with the resources we have, so we thought of a new improved idea and discussed it with fellow members in the group and as a whole group we decided that this was a good idea and have therefore gone ahead with this film opening idea instead. We have started getting some rough cut filming done to give us an idea of what needs to be improved in order to make it the best it can be. We also are currently on course to adapt the idea further and hopefully in a couple of weeks have it complete to the best of our ability!

Filming

we started filming about a month ago, for our opening scene to a film. we had a few ideas about what to do it on and have decided to go ahead with one of the ideas. we got a few shots done when we started filming for the first week, however we never got all the shots done. these shots will need to be shot again and we will need to shoot the whole opening to the film in one day! this is because of continuity error. the inside shots what we have will be fine, but due to the weather recently we have been unable to film. however we are hoping to get filming as soon as possible so we can get it all finshed and start editing.