Finished!!!!

Finally i am finished with my evaluation.  I would just like to say thank to all the media department for helping me with my blog especially to my media teachers Mary, Bernard and Phil for always trying to encourage me to do well with my blogs. I would also like to thank  Mickey and Marrissa for allowing my group to use the equipment when ever we needed to make our film. Also to Rebeca for helping me during workshops with whatever I need to do.

Evalaution Question 6- Part 1- Audience feedback and comment

Evaluation- Question 6-part 3: audience feedback and comment

So yesterday all the AS media students went down to Screen on the Green which is located in Islington to watch their thriller openings on the big screen. This was really scary, as i didn't know what to expect when people watched our thriller opening. Would they like it or would they think it was terrible.  So as the students arrived at Screen on Green, i was beginning to get nervous as their was a lot of people, much more than i thought there would be.  So once we had finally begun watching all the films i began to see just how good every one's film was, they had put so much work into them. Trying to make them look like real thrillers and some of them were so convincing I actually thought I was watching a whole film and not just an opening to a film. So the time finally arrived when my film appeared on the screen, judgement day came in to mind when i saw our film on the big screen. After our film had finished, I realised that I didn't actually have anything to worry about as we got a pretty good applause from the audience and my friends said that the film opening was really good.
                                                                                

Cinema where are film was shown

Evaluation: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation 8: looking back at your preliminarytask,what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product

Evaluation 7:What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation 6:Audience feedback and comment

Evaluation" Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learned in the progression form it to the full product?

Evaluation 3: who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation: What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation: Audience feedback and comment

Evaluation 2:how does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why ? How will you attract your audience ?

EVALUATION 1: In what way does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Both of these shots are very similar but are from

different films the top right shot  is ours and the left shot

is from the film ' The Shinning' which was one of

the films we analysed and got ideas from.

Both shots give the audience different 

ideas about the film .Our shot tells the

viewers  it is very realistic  as we have a bench included

and houses whereas the shinning shot of mountains and one car makes the audience

feel as if something is abandoned and that something bad is going to happen to the car. We wanted our location to feel mysterious . Our genre was crime thriller  and i think that using a huge park is a good location .

We also got inspiration from the Tv programme CSI. We took the use of lab scence 

 and included a lab scene in ours. We wanted it to look like someone was analysing  the body by using props from the science departement to give the feeling of our sub genre. We also put Jessica in a white coat to make it more realistic to the audience. We had her looking at parts of the body as they would do this in real like we tried to keep it as real as possible.

Evaluation: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation- Question 8: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back to our preliminary film and than comparing it to our final film I can see that we have improved an awful lot regarding everything from sound to camera angles. For this blog i am going to show you just how much we have improved on from our preliminary film to our final film.
The first thing you can notice straight away when comparing the two films together is camera shots. When you look at our preliminary film you can see even though we used a range of different shots, we didn't use enough close ups. By using close ups it would have made our film so much more dramatic and suspenseful. But if you look at our final film you can see that this time we used a range of shots, and a majority of these shots included close ups. A particularly favourite close up of mine is the close ups of the dead body it creates a sense of mystery. I would say for the final film the framing of the shots could have been a bit better because at times some of  the shots appeared to be a bit shaky due to the camera.

When it came to the editing of our preliminary film we focused more on making our clips flow rather than using transitions and effects. We decided on this because we thought if our clips flowed better it wouldn't really matter whether we used transitions or effects. When it came to the editing of our final film we became a bit more adventurous and experimented a bit, we still kept to the same idea of making sure our clips flowed well. But instead of keeping the same speed of the clips we thought we would increase the speed to see if it would make the clips better. But after we had increased the speed, we realised that by increasing the speed it was making the film really fast this is something that we didn't want to happen. So we decided instead of increasing the speed of the clips we would actually make them slower, this actually worked much better than we thought it would. It made the clips really flow and gave you time to digest what was happening in each clip, even though at times this wasn't the case as some clips were much faster than other clips.

 we slowed down this clip to make the opening flow better




When it came to the Mise en scene of our preliminary film as you can see it was pretty basic as we didn't really have time to think about our Mise en scene or the location of where we should film. This was do to our timing, we only had about an hour to film our preliminary film, to me this was not enough time. But when it came down to it I think we did a pretty good job considering the amount of time we was given to film and edit our film. When it came to our final film we was much more prepared of what we needed and what we needed to do to make a successful film. I think we had a good use of props, which included fake blood, science equipment such a goggles and even the costumes for our characters.I also think we had the perfect location for our film as by filming in Hampstead Heath it was quite, spacious and had an amazing view. We also filmed in one of the science laboratory's in the college. I think this was a really good location to use as it gave the film a sense of mystery and it also showed that we had really thought about what we wanted people to think and feel when it came to them watching our film. When it came to the use of props we wanted them to look as realistic as possible that is why we decided to use fake blood. But when it came to using fake blood we didn't want it to look fake as it would make the film seem boring. So to make the blood look as realistic as possible we decided that I should wear a white top as it is a really striking colour and once we added the blood to the top we realised that it really did look like real blood. When it came to what Jessica should wear we decided that she should wear smart clothes, as this is what you would usually see a detective wearing in programmes such as 'The Bill.' I think with a good location and use of props this has improved our my work an awful lot as it makes our film feel so real and believable.

Jessica wearing a lab coat makes it look professional.






The sound from our preliminary film to our final film has changed dramatically due to the fact that we concentrated more on the sound for our final film then we did when it came to our preliminary. The sound for our preliminary film was quite basic as we didn't really have enough to add sound so we only used a few sound effects. Even though we had dialogue in our preliminary film we thought it was a bad idea to use dialogue in our final film, as using dialogue would make the film so confusing whereas we wanted to make the film as simple as possible so that the audience would be able to understand it better.  I also think that the sound effects we used in our final film are really good as they actually sound like the real sounds would have sounded if we would have reordered the real sounds.

Our planning skills have improved a hell of a lot as we stuck to the idea that we made in the beginning. Also we took our time in the planning process so that we wouldn't make any mistakes when it came to filming our film.  By making sure we planned our film down to the last detail, this helped when it came to the process of filming as we made sure we knew how to film everything and what we would need to make it look right. We also done a lot of research when it came to the filming our film as we wanted our film to look as realistic as possible.

Throughout the whole process of making our thriller opening team work has been extremely important as if we didn't work as a team then our film would have turned out to be terrible. Also by working as a team it gave us a chance to share our ideas and put them together to try and make a good film opening.  Also by working as a team it gave us the chance to get to know other people and also make new friends.

From our preliminary film to our final film my organisational skills have changed a lot, they have changed in the sense that when we were filming our preliminary film we rushed it and didn't have enough time to edit our film to a good standard. This was different for my final film as my group made a schedule of what and when we were going to film and we stuck to this schedule. This improved our organisational because it showed that we were taking our time and giving ourselves a enough time to film, edit and add sound and titles to our film to make sure that we met the deadline.

Throughout the process of making our film we learned about many different types of media technologies and what they do . One of my favourite media technology we learned about and got to use was final cut pro. I enjoyed using final cut pro as it gave me the chance to learn something new but also i learned how to put clips together and how to edit the clips, to get them how you want them. By making a film of my own I have seen just how important media technology is when it comes to making, editing and adding sound to a film.

Final Cut pro technology

 Hand Brake Programme

Soundtrack pro technology

Evaluation - Question 8

Looking Back At Your Prelim Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learned In The Progression From It To The Full Product?

Since our prelim film, I think I gained a lot of different skills. One skill I definitely gained was organisation. When it came to film our prelim film, we were not organised at all.. it was  ore like a last minute thing! We filmed some scenes, then changed our minds.. And started filming all over again! It was hard, long and stressful!  Filming our thriller opening, we had to be organised, or we wouldn’t have been able to film and finish it. We made sure we knew what we were doing, which days we were filming.. The props and costumes we needed.. Plus we made sure we stuck to our plan, so that we would finish on time! I learned that organisation skills are a key skill in filming, alongside teamwork, communication and commitment! Without all of these are films would have not been completed on time.

During filming our prelim film, we hadn’t yet got use to the media equipment as it was only our second time using it! Trying to film it, I found it pretty confusing, as I wasn’t use to it, plus I forgot a few things that we were told during our introduction to the cameras! So basically I was going by what I thought was right! Plus one big problem for me was adjusting the tripod! It kept getting stuck and I didn’t no how to adjust it properly.. it was really frustrating and wasted a lot of our time.

When it came to film our thriller opening, we had a lot of practice with the cameras, so we got use to it.. and were comfortable filming with it. Because we knew what we were doing, and we knew how to adjust the tripod and use the cameras properly, we saved a lot of time. After the prelim film, we gained strong camera skills, which were really useful for our final film.

When we filmed our prelim film, we had dialogue.. We were told we have to have a bit of dialogue. I thought it was not a very good idea, as the sound was terrible in our prelim film, you hardly can a hear a thing they say to each other. It was unclear and made the film look so fake!  After experiencing our prelim film with dialogue, we decided the best option was no to use dialogue in our actual film. We decided to use a suspenseful theme tune instead, as we believed it would create suspense and build up tension. The theme tune was way more effective then a bit of simple dialogue.

During our prelim filming, we only knew the basics; we were still in the process of learning. We only knew few shots and we didn’t really know how to make it look realistic and interesting! But over time, after a lot of practice and teamwork.. We learnt how to make scenes look interesting, how to film different shots to give a different prospective to the film.

Evaluation - Question 7

What Have You Learned About  Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?

Video drive:

The video drive was very useful because it kept everything together, our clips, pictures and presentations.

Camera:

We were taught on how to use the cameras. First we learned how to insert the memory card so that our work was saved safely. Also how to insert the battery by just hearing a click so we knew it was secure. Most important, we learned how to turn the camera on, by just pressing a button. The best way to get stable shots is by using a tripod. We were taught on how to set it up so it didn’t collapse.

Final cut pro:

Final cut is the best programme to use to edit a movie. You can shorten the clips, make it faster, or slower. You can cut out the bad scenes to make the movie perfect. You can also create titles for your movie and also sound. Above all, you can add special effects.

Live type:

This programme allows you to add titles to your movie. You can choose the type of font you want. Change the colours, size and style to adjust to your film

Soundtrack pro:

On soundtrack pro we learnt how to mix sounds together to suit our film. It was easy to add it to our film, but pretty hard to find what exactly we were looking for. It had a huge range of sound effects to choose from.

This programme allows you to convert a video into an mp4 file so you can upload it onto your blog. At first it was pretty complicated but once you get the hand of it, its really easy and useful.

 

 

Evaluation - Question 6

Audience Feedback And Comments
In phils lesson we all watched everyone’s film, this was actually very useful, as we get to see how everyone’s films turned out. Plus it was great opportunity to get feed back on our film, this helped to see what we done well in, and what we could have improved on,

Here are a few things that some of our class mates said:

·         The close ups are really good, and the blood doesn’t look fake, looks very realistic. Titles were clear and visible.

·         Mise en scene- is good.

·         The sound wasn’t that subtle

·         A little too fast paced at the beginning.

·         Close ups unclear = sense of mystery

·         A really good and clear plot or storyline

·         Great props and blood associated with the Mise en scene.

·         Fast paced editing.

·         Lab= Too dark

·         Shaky camera

·         The music fits really well with the genre

·         It sounded like CSI or something

·         The titles in white really stood out.

·         The scenes were a bit dark and I think lighting would have helped.

·         Variety of shots

·         Good music

·         Realistic props- blood on the clothes

·         Out of focus in some scenes

·         Too dark in the lab

·         Sound of camera was a bit off

·         The dead body looked really good- good Mise en scene

·         The location for the lab was really good- made it look realistic

·         Some parts looked unfocused when doing close ups

·         Too dark in some scenes

·         The sound looped too much

·         Good uses of close up and pan of the dead body

·         Music builds up susoense and tension

·         Hand held camera

·         Good use of props- fake blood looked really realisitic

·         Good Mise en scene

·         Some of the filming is a bit dark compared to the rest of the film

·         I think the sound worked well with film and editing, I also like the Mise en scene ( blood and lab scene looked realistic)

·         I thought the locations worked well

·         I think the use of close ups and camera movement worked well.

·         I think that the lab scene was too dark and I think that some shots were out of focus.

·         Variety of shots of the body

·         Montage feel in the lab scene

·         Realistic Mise en scene- white clothes & blood

·         Lightning could have been better

·         The camera work was really well done at the beginning

·         The make up was really good

·         The contrast between the red blood and white clothes was really good.

·         It’s a bit too dark in the lab

·         The Mise en scene of nails.

·         Soundtrack worked well with the clip

·         Editing worked well, almost like a proper Hollywood crime thriller.

·         Lighting was a bit dark for the lab scene.

·         Sound was very good matched the editing

·         Mise en scene was good

·         Very realistic

·         Lab scenes are really dark

·         Good music

·         Good use of Mise en scene – blood with white clothes

·         Writing out of focus

·         Lab scenes really dark

·         Too fast

·         Man in the background

·         Good use shots at the beginning

·         Sound track is slightly gimmicky

·         Lighting could have been improved

·         I think the titles of the film don’t go with the film

·         The sound was good and thrilling.

·         The different closes up shots were good.

·         Good use of Mise en scene- blood

·         The location was appropriate and looked realistic

·         There could have been more close ups and at a quicker pace. It would have been more effective if they didn’t show the girl taking pictures of the dead body to add mystery.

·         Realistic

Evaluation - Question 4&5

What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why? How Will You Attract/Address Your Audience?

As a class we discussed how we can market and distribute our media product, we spoke about all the ways we can get our film out there. We knew it wouldnt be backed or released by big film companies such a Paramount or Warner Brothers. So we had to be realistic and think about ways which would be suitable and doable  to get our films watched and noticed. Our film was low budget, plus it was a student film, so this meant if we wanted our films to get watched we would have to market and distribute on online and social networking sites, which are free and worldwide! These are some of the ideas we came up with, some of these are done online and does not cost anything!

• Facebook  - uploading it on Facebook, would get our film watched by a lot of students our age, plus they can like and comment, this would help us see what they think of our film.
• YouTube - uploading it on youtube, we can see how many hits we get, this would show us whether our film is popular and liked or not.
• DVDs - Our film will also be released on DVD with 200 copies being distributed
• Film Screening  - our films going to be shown on screen of the green in Angel, where we all are going to go and watch it, this would get a wider range of audience watching it.
• Vimeo - Another site were we can upload our film, and get it watched by a wider range audience.

Bernard showed us two websites which are used to distribute films, they were both very successful.

http://www.indiemoviesonline.com/

uploading our film onto this site, would be a great advantage, as this is a worldwide website and is used all over the world and our fil would get viewed by many different viewers, which would expose our films. also people can watch as many videos as they want as its absolutely free and does not cost them a penny! however the disadvantage of it is that its not targeted at helping young film makers, its only used so that people can only watch films.

http://www.firstlightonline.co.uk/


The reason bernard showed us this website was because a film that was published by students actually came first in a competition. this website helps young people from all different backgrounds to develop and maintain their skills, talent, creativity, confidence and other capabilities.
the good thing is that this company is funded by the lottery organisation.

We watched this clip in class > Hey Jumper by Elishama Udorok at First Light
The reason we watched this film, was because it was a winning film made by students! this inspired us all because it proved that young people, such as ourselves can get our film shown to a wide range of audience.

Evaluation - Question 3

Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

Our film is mainly aimed at an older audience, perhaps around the age of 18 and above. Reasons being they would understand what the film is about, and it would create suspense for them. As well as it’s a crime thriller, so it would really interest the younger audience as an investigation is carried out.  Plus I think this would be suited for a male audience instead of a female audience.

My particular audience could be a man, at the age of 18 at university studying science. He has great interest in crime and investigation.  When he finishes university, his future plan is to work in a lab!

In his bag he would have the following:

·         Science Books

·         Uni  Student Card

·         Wallet

·         Reading book – investigation story

·         Reading Glasses

·         Pens

Evaluation - Question 2 (Analysis)

How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

Before we started filming, our inspiration was the TV programme CSI and The Bill, the reason being was that we were thinking to do a crime thriller, because we believed that would create suspense the most. When Sophie was dead, the reason we got her to wear a white top, was so that the blood would look real and it would look as if she actually did get murdered. We could have just filmed her in the clothes she came in, but that would look so unreal and fake.

These two images are quite similar in many ways, such as there both investigating a murder scene, there both kneeling down close to the body to investigate what has happened. However they have their differences, as in CSI the dead body is a male and so is the investigator. In our film the dead body and the investigator are both female. Another major difference is, the body in CSI is discovered in an apartment, and our body is discovered in a park. Both of these images link together as both are investigating a crime.

These two are images look so alike yet they have a lot of differences. The similar thing about these two images are the way the camera is positioned in both images, it’s more or less the same. The difference, well you can tell really, as you can see out camera is just an ordinary one, the camera in CSI is a professional one. Plus CSI Made it look more like an investigation as they had white gloves on, unfortunately we forgot about that, and we didn’t manage to get white gloves for this part of the scene.

Evaluation - Question 1 (Analysis)

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

These two shots are very similar, as they both start of the film by setting the scene. both of them have a wide shot of the place, letting you get a feel of the film. I believe our shot looks more realistic and believable, because of the trees and the bench inn the shot. The shining shot, looks 'Wow' its a bit too much, but yet it works well with the actual film. Both of these locations work well with a thriller, because it gives you a feeling of isolation and loneliness, which gives an idea that, anything can happen!  

Most of our shots are linked with the T.V Programme CSI - Crime Scene Investigation, this is because our thriller is a crime thriller.

When we filmed the lab scenes, we wanted it to look as realistic as CSI, as that was our inspiration from the beginning. We got appropriate equipment from the lab, so that Jessica could carry out a investigation and make it look like a real murder scene. Both these scenes look really similar, as both of them are carrying out some sort of investigation. Plus both of them are dressed similar, they both are wearing a white coat and gloves, this is the appropriate clothing for a lab.

Particular scenes in our thriller opening were influenced by the popular British crime drama ‘Wire in the Blood’. We decided to only show parts of the body, as we thought that would be much easier than the whole body. As you can see both these images are only showing their faces.. This makes it look convincing. The image from wire in the blodd, has the body on a metal slab, but we decided to film ours, where the body was found, we thought it would look more realistic.