Evaluation 4- what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

In lesson, our teacher showed us a website which helps young people to distribute their films. www.firstlightonline.co.uk.

This helped us as it gave us ideas on to how to distribute our thriller movie.  

to be continued 

Evaluation- Question2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 As you can see from the clip from our film it is pretty much the same as the clip from CSI the only differences are that the investigating officer in our film is a girl whereas in the clip from CSI the investigating officer is a man. Another difference between these two images is the location of where the dead bodies are situated. for instance the image from CSI the dead body has been found in a posh apartment. Whereas in the image from our film the dead body has been discovered in a local park. Another  difference between the two images is the gender of the two bodies. In the image from CSI you can see that murder victim is a man, whereas in the image from our film the murder victim is a young girl. The similarities between the two images is that both characters are dealing with a murder investigation. Another similarity between the two images in the way the investigating officers are situated, they are both kneeling down and taken their time in examining the body, so that they don't      miss anything to do with the body.   

Clip from our film

These two images may look the same but they have a lot of differences which makes them different in the their own way.  One of the main differences between these two images is the camera, which they are using for instance the image from CSI the guy is actually using a professional camera whereas the in the image from our film Jessica is using a normal camera.  Another difference between these two images is the location of where the photos are being taken.  Like in the image from CSI the guy is taking pictures from a laboratory. Whereas in the image from our film, Jessica is taking photo's from the murder scene, which is in a park.  Another difference is that the person taking photo's from the CSI image is wearing gloves, but in our film Jessica is wearing no gloves and you can still see her jewellery. A similarity between these two images is the way they are holding the camera, they are holding it more or less the same way. 

Evaluation - How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups- Still images

Evaluation- Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When planning our film we had many inspirations one of our inspirations was 'The Shining.' After we had watched the opening title sequence from 'The Shining' we thought that it would be a good idea to use the same opening for our film.




Opening from 'The Shining'





Opening from our film

 

As you can see from the two shots they are similar in the sense that both films start on a field or forest of some kind. Even though the shot from our film  looks more realistic as we have the bench and you have the scenery which include the view of house and tree's. Whereas in 'The Shining' opening you have mountains and grass the same as us but you get the feeling that the film is set in a abandoned location where not much happens. This location for 'The Shining' is a good location for a thriller genre because it is deserted and isolated meaning things can happen and people wouldn't know about it for a few weeks. This is because with the location being deserted that means that there wouldn't be many people around this particularly location. When decding what location to use for our own film we decided we wanted it to be mysterious and not to obvious of where our actual location was. The sub genre of our film is a crime thriller.

We also based our film on a popular T.V. programme called CSI- Crime Scene Investigation. From this programme we used the idea to film a scene in a laboratory like someone analysing a piece of crucial evidence, to give the film the feeling of mystery and to make it look so realistic.


Guy from CSI analysing a piece of evidence






         Jessica from our film analysing a piece of evidence












   When it came to us filming the lab scene we wanted to make it al realistic as possible, so that people would really believe that she was actually investigating a real murder. We made it look real by using the exact same things you would use if you was actually investigating a real murder. When it came to figuring out what props we would use to make it look realistic and real we decided to use the same idea as the programme CSI. From this programme we took the idea of Jessica wearing a white coat and white plastic gloves. We also thought we would give her a piece of cruical evidence that she could be anaylising just like the guy from CSI is doing. As you can see from the shot from our film the order of our titles is not conventional this was in actual fact a mistake, but by the time we had realised this mistake it was too late to change it as we had already reached our deadline and wouldnt be able to change it.

Realing the body from our film

picture from Wire in Blood revealing  the body

When it came to our film we was also influenced by the popular British Crime drama 'Wire in the Blood.' From the crime drama 'Wire in the Blood' we used the idea of only showing part of the body instead of showing the whole body. As you can see from the two photo's they are same but are different in their own ways. Like in the photo from our film Jessica is actually revealing the body whilst it is still in lying in the crime scene. Whereas in the picture from 'Wire in the Blood' they reveal the body whilst it is lying in the morgue on a metal slab. We decided to reveal the body whilst it is still lying on the floor and in mud because we thought it would seem more real and that is what happens in a real murder. The body is reveal whilst it is still at the crime scene, this is so that the Investigators can see what and who they are dealing with.

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

opening scene from our film= Picture 1

Opening scene from the shining=

Scene from CSI of guy ananlysing evidence= Picture 2

Jessica finding the dead body

Clip from Wire in the blood= picture 3

Clip from our film

clip from CSI New york= Picture 4

Clip from our film

Evaluation-Question 6- Part 2: Audience Feedback And Comment

In Phil's lesson on Monday we had the chance to watch each others thriller films, it was really exciting watching other people's thriller films. As they all had brilliant ideas when it came to what they had based their thriller films on. After we had watched each others films we had to give the feedback of what we thought was good about the film and what we thought could have been improved about the film. After the class had watched our film this is some of the feed back we were given;
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.
A little too fast paced at the beginning.
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
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 suspense and tension
Hand held camera
Good use of props- fake blood looked really realistic
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
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
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
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 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.

Final Film

Deadline is fast approaching...

So we are finally coming to the end of our thriller film topic, this means our deadline is fast approaching. It also means that we are coming to the end of our blogs, I am quite sad about this as I have really enjoyed writing my blogs. Even though it took me a long a time to get used to them, I will be very upset when we won’t be able to write them anymore. As I was saying at the beginning of my blog, yes our deadline for when our films and blogs have to be handed in is fast approaching. Usually when I have a deadline to meet I would be really scared that I might not meet the deadline, but this time I can honestly say that I am not really panicking about this deadline as I know that I am going to make this deadline. I know that I am going to make this deadline as my thriller film is all completed with sound and titles and everything.  The only thing I am panicking about is my blogs I haven’t completed all my blogs yet. Not to worry as I am sure that by tomorrow afternoon at 3:00pm I will have completed all my blogs. By the way this is also the time that our thriller film and all our blogs have to be handed in.  

Deadline Came So Quick!

I can’t believe the deadlines TOMOROW!

It came by so quickly! Its time to say Bye Bye to Blogging and Filming!

At first, the thought of blogging gave me the creeps; i just kept putting it off because to be honest I couldn’t be bothered! Then I realised I was falling behind.. So I had no choice but to force my self to start BLOGGING!

When I started blogging, I was actually pretty surprised, because I was enjoying it.. And before I knew it I was actually blogging regularly, which was actually GOOD!

I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I’m actually going to Miss Blogging!

Throughout this whole scheme of work, i learnt a heap load of stuff and i actually enjoyed it!

We Finally Did It! :D

After that long four hours of media I can’t believe we actually FINISHED!

I was actually proud of myself, and my group.. Because we said we wanted to finish on Wednesday, and we actually did it!

Throughout all this filming and editing sessions, we had a lot of let downs, and so many problems, that we had many reasons to give up.. But despite all of that.. We stuck together as a group and we managed to film, edit, add titles and actually complete our film!

Adding Sound Effects!

We thought we were finally finished, but we forgot one thing! The sound effect!

We decided to have the sound effect of a camera taking pictures, when Jessica takes picture of the dead body to make it seem real and get an effect!

Finding the sound effect was just the easy bit, trying to get the film onto Livetype and sound was the difficult part, but we did manage with some help from Rebecca :D

After we put the sound effects in the right place, we watched the whole film.. With every completed! It actually looked good.. I was happy with it :D

Now all there was left to do was SAVE it with all our names and Final thriller film!

Adding Titles to our Film

So today in Bernard's lesson as we had finished all our editing and adding sound to our film we only had one more thing to do before our film was finalised and that was to add the titles to our film. As I said in my previous blog, we  have chosen what titles to include in our film, all we have to decided now is where to put them in our film. As our media lesson was coming to an end me, Jessica and Rima decided to stay behind and work through our lunch time as this gave an extra chance to get some feedback from our teachers but it also gave us the chance to complete our film during workshop.

The first thing we did when we begun adding titles was to open up Final Cut again and to open up our thriller film, we did this so that it was easier to insert the titles into the corrct places without hvaing to keep changing to different programmes. After trying a different number of fonts, we finally decided to use the 'Arial Black' font. We decided to use this font as we thought it would make our film stand out as it plain and bold, so it would be easier for people to see as the writing is simple and easy for people to read. The next thing we had to decide when it came to our titles is the size, we had to choose whether we wanted the writing for our titles to be big or small. We all agreed that the titles should be of a medium size, so that the audience is able to see the titles.

We decided the order of our titles should be this;

1. Distributor- CANDI Studios
2. Starring- Sophie Hughes & Jessica Rocha
3. Editor- Sarah Bunch
4. Screenplay- Elizabeth Louise
5. Sound- Amy Cooper
6. Costumes and Set Design- Amber Seer
7. Producer- Danielle Smith
8. Director- Rima Begum
9. The Title- Unknown

We decided this order as we thought it would suit the film and we decided to put the title of the film last as it makes the film seem more real. We decided to place the titles throughout the whole of the sequences so that nearly every frame of the film had a title appearing. But we careful chose where to place the titles, we decided to place the titles in the less importanting scenes as this way the audience would miss out on all the important bits to the film. Finally after spending hours in the editing suite we was finally finished, this was a good thing as we finished right in the nick of time as my next lesson was about to start. So after saving all our work and handing back our video drive off we went to our next lesson. This was a huge relief as I didnt have to worry about coming back after class to finish our film, as I knew there was no need to as our film was finally completed.

Choosing our Film Titles

So today in class we had to start choosing the titles for our film. I thought this was going to be an easy process, but let me tell you it was far from easy. We had a lot to think about when it came to choosing our title, we had to think about what titles to include, where should they appear in the film and we also to think about how we should design the titles. Finally after my much deliberation as a group we decided on what titles should appear in our film. Here is a sneak peek of the titles which are going to appear in our film;-

• Distributor- CANDI Studios
• Starring- Sophie Hughes & Jessica Rocha
• Editor- Sarah Bunch
• Screenplay- Elizabeth Louise
• Sound- Amy Cooper
• Costumes and Set Design- Amber Seer
• Producer- Danielle Smith
• Director- Rima Begum

As you can see from our titles they are a few names, which don't look recognisably that is because our teacher Bernard said that we should make up names for people. He said that we should make up names, as we was going to repeat the same name over and over again and he said that if we made up names it would make the film more realistic. 

Adding Sound to our Film..

So today in class my group was ready to begin adding sound to our film this was a really exciting process as this meant our film was finally beginning to seem like a real film. So when adding sound to our film we decided that the first thing we should do is find our overall background music, which will be played throughout our whole film.  We decided to use a soundtrack which we found on You Tube and of course before we added it to our film we made sure it flowed but also that it wasn’t copy righted. As if it was copy righted we wouldn’t have been able to use it. All we had to do now was to convert our soundtrack into an mp4 piece, and then we would be able to add it to our film. After we had converted the soundtrack into an mp4 piece and had added it our film all we had left to do was to add the sound effects to our film. To add the sound effects to our film, we decided to use the programme ‘Sound Track Pro’ as this had a wide selection of sound effects.  I was really excited about this process as I had finally worked out how to use ‘Sound Track Pro’ properly we decided to only use a few sound effects. We decided to only use a few sound effects as we didn’t want our film to be filled with sound effects. When it came to adding sound effects to our film I knew exactly what sound effects to use, we decided to just use sound effects when it came to Jessica taking photos of the dead body. So all we had to find was a sound effect which sounded like a camera, this was perfect as we found the perfect sound. It was the perfect sound as it was an actually sound effect of a camera this was perfect the sound for our film is finally complete.

 

Inspiration For Sound..

When it came to deciding what sound we needed for our film, I decided that our best option would be to use the popular website You Tube. I decided to use You Tube to find our soundtrack, as you will always find what you are looking for when you use You Tube.  So whilst Jessica and Rima were finalising the editing for our film, I decided to start looking for our soundtrack. So I got myself a laptop from the cabinet and decided to work on the same table as my group, as I thought that if I found the perfect soundtrack I could easily show my group if I was sitting on the same table as them.  So after I had logged on to the computer and got on to You Tube the first thing I done was type in Crime scene music and hundreds of pages worth of music came up.  So I decided to start from the top and work my way down to I have listened to every piece of music on the page.  But you wouldn’t not believe this the very first music sound track I listened was exact soundtrack we was looking for. It started off slow then it would get faster as the soundtrack progressed, but unfortunately the soundtrack was copy righted meaning we wouldn’t be allowed to use unless we got permission. And of course we wouldn’t be able to get permission at such short notice, so I began my search again looking for the perfect soundtrack. During this time Jessica and Rima had finished editing our film, so they decided to help me look for the perfect sound track. Luckily after ages of looking for the perfect sound track Jessica and Rima finally found our soundtrack and it wasn’t copy righted, this was perfect as it meant that we would be able to use it.   

Copy Right

Today in class we found out a really crucial bit off information about copyright. Mary and Bernard told us that we wouldn’t be able to use music which had been copy righted as it could be seen as cheating.  It was a good thing we were told about this could we wouldn’t have even checked whether the music was copy right or not.  Mary and Bernard also said that if the examiners found out that our sound track was copy right then we could lose marks because of it. 

Final edit..

So today we was ready to make our last and final edit to our thriller film, I am so excited about this finally edit as it gives us one final chance to put all our ideas together to make an amazing film. The first we decided to do was watch our film so we could see what changes needed to be made, there wasn't a lot but we did have to change some things. The first thing we decided to was to sort out all our clips and to get them into an order that we would be happy with and to make sure they flowed. This didn't take very long as we knew how we wanted the film go, we showed Phil and Mary our film with the parts we had edited so far. They said it was good but gave us some advice about what we could change to make it better. This advice included changing the start of our film, instead of having Jessica taking photo's of the body straight away Phil recommend that we put pictures of the dead body as the beginning of our film. After thinking about we agreed with Phil's suggestion and we change the beginning of our movie, we realised that this made our film a lot better and it look more real. Another suggestion that our teachers made was the scene in the laboratory, they said it would be better to show the scene when Jessica is collecting DNA from the dead body first then having her experimenting with chemicals and trying to find out how she died. We also agreed with this suggestion, so we changed how we started the lab scene to make it flow better. After we had finished editing we decided to change the speed of our clips, we decided to make them really fast as we thought this would be better so we increased the clips to 200% original they was 100%. This didn't work very well as we realised the film was starting to get very confusing, due to the fact that we changed the speed of the clips. So we decided to change them back to their original speed but we did change the speed of a few scene, by making them longer rather then shorter.

Evaluation from our Rough Cut Film...

After me and Amy had successful completed the rough cut for our film. I would say that me and Amy did a really good job when it came to our rough cut, as we had included all the right scenes and made sure are scenes flowed together. But after we had posted the rough cut on to the blog, I had the chance to sit and watch our film over and over again. I decided to watch our film over and over again to see what changes we could make to the film to make our film even better.  Whilst I was watching the film, I was suddenly beginning to see the sort of changes we could make to the film. One the changes I thought we could make would be to change the ending to film, I thought we should change the last scene as to me the end scenes didn’t flow as much as we thought they would.  I decided to wait until our next lesson to make these changes, as I had to wait until I had spoken to my group to see if they agreed with my ideas. Fingers cross that they do agree with my ideas.

Film Titles!

For our film credits, Bernard said to make up names so it would look more interesting and realistic, although I didn’t agree with it, we still went along with it.. As Bernard was only saying it for our own good!

Here are the film titles..

Distributor- Candi Studios

Starring – Sophie Hughes & Jessica Roche

Editor – Sara Bunch

Screenplay – Elizabeth Louise

Sound – Amy Cooper

Costumes & Set Design – Amber Seer

Producer – Danielle Smith

Director – Rima Begum

Found Our Theme Tune!

Sequence Change!

From the start we were confused on how to arrange our film; we were originally going to do it simple, were the location first (Hampstead heath) then pictures of the body, and the end with the lab scenes!

Then we had another idea, mixing up the lab scene with hampstead heath scenes, we thought it was actually a great idea, but realised it would be quite difficult to do!

Then Phil gave us an idea, which didn’t seem difficult to do, he told us to have the body alone at first, so it gets the audience wondering what happened, then have the scenes with the photographer taking the pictures. What Phil was saying, actually made sense.. So finally we decided to re-arrange it in that way.

Final EDIT!

Today we as a group decided that we had to finish our film, no matter what!

So i collected our video drive and memory cards and cracked on with our editing!

First me and Jessica re-arranged the scenes the way its supposed to be.. and yes, you’ve guessed it.. It took LONG!

We were actually getting really annoyed, but we stayed positive! :D

Sophie tried working on the titles, but she couldn’t do them unless she had the film.. so there was no point in her trying!

After we finally finished the editing, me and Jessica started on adding the music! We did eventually find the right one for our film, and luckily we all liked it J

Putting the theme tune took FOREVEVR! Well atleast it felt like that, there were certain bits of it that we didn’t like, so we were cutting it, copying and pasting! We got so fed up, as it wasn’t flowing the way we wanted it to.. so we decided to listen to the whole theme tune with the film.. And thank god that the tune flowed with the scene and it actually sounded quite Good, even though we didn’t like it!

So we were half way on our editing process, after the sound and the editing were sorted, we moved onto the titles!

The titles didn’t take too long, after we learned how to put them in, we added the titles through final cut pro, as it was more simpler.  

We were slowly getting there, and as we completed each step.. the more happier everyone got! :D

Me, Jessica and Sophie decided to stay for lunch, as we planned that we were not leaving till we finished out film! We were determined to finish today!