question 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBUyxy5cJAY
Friday, 24 April 2015
Friday, 17 April 2015
Evaluation: Jessica Cooper
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (e.g. comparison nine frame analyses of your film and an influential film)
My influential film was insidious, I liked the style of the titles and it influenced various scenes that I used in my film.
In the first frame we can see 'IN ASSOCIATION WITH STAGE SIX FILMS' they are a company that produces and distributes low budget films. This shows the production company straight away in the first few seconds of the sequence, in our 2 minute opening it opens with our production company logo called 'SIX 8'. The difference between our production company and the production company for insidious is that we have a logo and the production companies theme sound effect, whereas insidious' the production company logo is written in the same font as all of the titles in the film and opens with the soundtrack and it doesn't have a logo. This maybe shows that the production company is a low budget production company that isn't very popular as they do not have a recognizable logo/sound effect like most well known production companies. Therefore I think our logo is more effective. Using the same font for the production companies and titles is effective as it adds continuity and synergy to the film.
In the second frame of insidious the screen shows the distribution companies. They are 'ALLIANCE FILMS' and 'IM GLOBAL'. Alliance films are a distribution/production company and Im global are a digital distribution company. In the second frame of our film I have shown the company logo and used an associated sound effect. My distribution company is called 'TOXIC PICTURES'. In both my film and insidious the distribution companies are shown after the production company names, but the insidious editors haven't used the distribution companies logos whereas I have which makes the production and distribution companies for my film look more professional and stand out. However, in Insidious the titles have been effectively edited, with smoke coming off the writing and gradually blowing away. This special effect represents the horror genre and engages the audience. The music for the opening in Insidious is played throughout over the production and distribution companies. In contrast I used sound effects for the opening frames of our film that can be heard whilst the production and distribution companies are shown on screen. The music for my film begins after the production and distribution companies are shown. The music in the opening of insidious is very typical for the horror genre as it is very orchestral music, conventionally string based instruments are used to create an unsettling atmosphere. In this violins are played in a very edgy choppy way, at one point the violins are played to create an evil sense of laughter, which would make the viewer feel uncomfortable. The theme music used in Insidious isn't used in the opening as they want to create a motif later on in the film. This music (Tiptoe Through The Tulips) is contrapuntal - we wouldn't normally expect to hear this type of song in a horror film. Because it has been used in this film viewers will have a new relationship with the song and feel fearful when they hear it, this song is used alongside conventional horror images to create a scary atmosphere. Likewise in my film I have used very conventional music for the horror genre.
In the third frame of Insidious the directors name 'A JAMES WAN FILM' appears in a lamp shade. In the fourth frame the camera then inverts around 360 degrees and pans down showing the lampshade of a little boy sleeping in his room. This is the first scene where the protagonist is introduced, using children is a typical horror convention as children represent vulnerability and weakness, this means that viewers with feel sorry for the victim because they are very young and still have a long life to lead. Using a sleeping child is effective as people are generally more vulnerable whilst asleep because you cannot expect anything. This also gives the audience a sense of location in the film. In the third screenshot for our film it shows 'pathway productions' in the right hand corner at the top which is another one of our production companies. The camera then pans around the room showing the house before the crime happened. This also shows the audience a sense of location like in insidious. In the fourth screenshot of our film a flashback effect is used which creates the split between past and present, it then shows the crime scene, in the top left hand corner it says 'IN ASSOCIATION WITH STAGE SIX FILMS' which is similar to the production company frame in Insidious in the first shot just at a different time in the sequence. In this shot the audience are first introduced to the crime scene, in which there are plastic sheets over everything, this creates an enigma as to what the sheets are being used for, and ultimately creates a scary eary atmosphere. Our film contrasts to insidious as it instantly shows the crime scene and what happened so it doesn't build up much tension, where as in insidious the camera just pans around a spooky house giving an eary atmosphere which builds a lot of tension for the audience. Also in insidious it shows the whole house where as in our film it only shows one room, if we had a bigger location for our film like in insidious it could have kept the audience more engaged and would have created a better plot as it would added to the enigma of the protagonist and the location of the incident.
In the fifth frame of our film, the camera pans around the room like it did in frame 3 and then in the right hand corner at the bottom it shows the directors name 'A ROBERT SHAW FILM' which is similar to when it shows the directors name in the third screen shot for insidious, I think that the directors name for insidious was creatively edited incorporating the room where the frame was leading to. Where as for our film I used the same font used throughout with no special effects, being the editor next time I could improve on this by trying to incorporate the directors name into the scene in a more creative way.
The fifth sixth and seventh frames for insidious show the different rooms and come up with titles with a red and smoke effect, these are very effective as they show the typical conventions of the horror genre- using the colour red represents danger and blood which is necessary in a horror film and smoke effects represent fire and danger. In the sixth and seventh frames the protagonist is finally introduces into the sequence for the first time, this adds to the enigma as to what happened. They show the protagonist dead on the floor covered in blood, cuts and bruises with a bloody knife placed next to her, these are effective as they are typical horror conventions like used in insidious.
The seventh frame shows a canted angle of the protagonist, this was used to create an uneasy distorted atmosphere to show that something isn't right. In the shots that show the titles for insidious there are no creative camera angles used, all though the titles for Insidious are more effective than our ones. I think our film challenges insidious as we have used more creative camera angles. Insidious used different interior locations of the house in different rooms where as we use the same interior location in one room, which is something that we could have improved on as we could have used a broader location.
In the eighth frame for both my film and insidious show a close up of a face, in our film it shows the protagonists face with bruises and cuts on it, contouring is used to show she is dead and her body it degrading away, the wounds on the victim give the viewer an insight as to how she has been killed and to show that it was a brutal killing. In Insidious the frame shows the antagonists face where it is first introduces to the viewer, the antagonist looks very old fashioned with a pale white face and a candle lighting the face from the darkness, this shows that the antagonist may be a ghost which makes the film quite paranormal, this is a typical horror convention but also one of the worst ones as you are blind to ghosts which makes you feel fearful of the film.
In the ninth frame of both films the title of the film is shown, for Insidious red writing and a Gothic font is used which is the same font that is used throughout the film, this is good as it shows continuity of the titles. The title is very effective for the genre as the Gothic font and colour red is a typical horror convention. the title comes up with a loud shuddering high pitched sound effect, which emphasizes the title and makes the audience jump. Where as in my film I have used a white Gothic font with no sound effect, the main title for insidious is a lot better than our film as it conveys the typical horror conventions in a more effective way, where we used no sound effect it didn't really stand out or make the audience feel anything, so to make it better we could add in a sound effect like used in insidious to improve it.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? (e.g. comparison stills from your film and the wider media)
Our media product represents the stereotype of women being the weaker gender. In typical horror/thriller films women are often represented as to being the damsel in distress; being vulnerable to men, and often become a victim of murder. We represented this particular social group by casting a female actress having her as our victim, we used special effect makeup to emphasize her vulnerability to the antagonist, by creating realistic bruises, cuts and contour to make her look skinny and weak to emphasize her vulnerability. Women are also represented as to being 'sexy' and 'beautiful' and are only seen as an on show item. to represent this stereo type into our film we decided to have the victim wearing trendy clothing with a low neck top, this shows she is a young weak youthful teen, but it also gives a sexual appeal as it shows her assets and figure. A film that i compared my social media group to was Friday the 13th where we can see a female victim has been murdered. in this we can see that she had been corned into a hole on a boat, this shows that she also had no where to run and was helpless like in our film when the victim is tied up. when comparing the stills you can see that in both the female victim has been brutally killed with the weapons on show in the scene, using weapons shows their weakness as they couldn't fight back as they had nothing to fight back with; again representing them as a damsel in distress. in the Friday the 13th still the victim has died with her eyes open, in films when peoples eyes are left open once they have died it often shows that they have not passed away peacefully, this shows us that she must have had a painful brutal death. In both stills camera angles are used effectively to show the weakness and vulnerability of the female victims, in Friday the 13th a high angle shot is used to show her weakness and in the still from our media product a canted angle is used give a negative eary effect which also emphasizes her vulnerability. Another social group could be unidentified antagonists, in Friday the 13th the antagonist is wearing a mask and in our film the antagonist is not shown so it creates an enigma for the audience as to who would brutally kill these young women and for what reason.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? (e.g. voice over analysis of the institutions that appear at the start of your film and the other titles)
4.Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for our media product would be for 15 years old and over. The genre of our film is horror/thriller so I feel as though it would not be appropriate for anyone under the age of 15. We didn't make our target audience for over 18's because we didn't want a such a niche audience and found that horror/thriller genres appeal to young adults but also to teenagers. To make our media product appeal to a wider audience we made the film so that it would be suitable for a wider range of ages. When carrying out a survey to a class of students ages 16 to 17 asking what their favourite genre is, we found that 15 out of 20 students favourite genres are thriller, horror and drama, which is why this age group would have a great appeal to our film. The British Film Institute have gathered statistics on the percentage of different aged audiences for UK cinema admissions in 2014, the age group of 15-24 had the highest percentage out of all ages at 33%. Using this age group as our target audience would mean that statistically our film would be successful as they are the most likely to view the film, which is why we chose this age group.
This is Tallulah Cooper, she is 15 years old and currently doing her GCSE's at Rainham school for girls. In her spare time she likes to go to the cinema, bowling and shopping with her friends as she enjoys her social life. Tallulah's local cinemas are the Odeon in Chatham, Cineworld in Rochester and the showcase in Bluewater. she often visits Odeon the most as it is the nearest all though when she if shopping in Bluewater she may visit the cinema then. her favourite shops are Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Zara. her favourite films are sinister, the taxi driver and the hunger games. She goes to the cinema roughly 3 times a month depending on what films are out, which is usually with her friends and occasionally her family. She doesn't like to buy DVD's as she prefers to go to the cinema, she has a Netflix account so she likes to watch new films once they have been put on the site and being a 15 year old girl doing this is the cheapest option for her as she gets to watch a variety of films for a set price a month, she watches many different series on Netflix, some of these are Once upon a time, Pretty little liars and Orange is the new black. she watches the TV on a daily basis and has sky, this means she has access to the latest films on sky movies and various other film channels. Her favourite programs are the 100, silent witness and Dexter, she particularly likes these programs, as she is very interested in investigation and drama. She has a great interest in many different genres of films such as horror, thriller, drama and comedy's. Tallulah listens to music on a daily basis, her favourite music artists are Beyonce, drake and Kanye West.
I think that our film would appeal to Tallulah because she is a typical teenager that enjoys going to the cinema, Tallulah like a range of genres but likes to watch horrors when they are out which is why she would like our film. Tallulah likes watching investigation and crime related programs and films, which are features included in our film. If we were to show our film at her local cinema, she would probably like to watch it as it is similar to the programs and films she enjoys.
5. How did you attract/address your audience? (e.g. annotated analysis of your video)
To address my audience i created an online survey on survey money where i devised a series of different questions about film to find some information about my audience and what they look for in a film. Here are a few of the respondents that i got:
From there results I have found that my target audience like thriller films and they watch films very often so I feel as though a target audience of 15 and above would be suitable for my film. We also devised a survey in our class where I found that thriller and horror films were the most watched genre for our age group which would be 16-17 year old.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The first picture is of a computer, in the process of making the film the computer was probably the most important technology, we used the computer to do pretty much everything including our research and planning, setting up the blog, creating the production company logos, editing the film together and using all the programs to do so such as audacity, Sony Vegas, Microsoft word and Power Point. using the computer was a basic skill that I had already learnt to use, all though in the making of the film I have learnt to use programs for harder skills such as editing in which I used Sony Vegas and Audacity, Sony Vegas was the main program that I had used as I used it to edit the film together, I learnt how to create flashback effects, create titles, video effects such as black and white and low key lighting to create negative atmosphere and using different transitions so that there is continuity in the film. As a guide for using these programs I watched YouTube videos on how to edit in flashback effects and black and white filters, in which I had to increase the brightness at the end of each clip and the beginning of each clip to make the transition flash in and out.
The second picture is of a Panasonic HD camera, which was used with the tripod in picture 4. In our original rough cut we used a Fuji photography camera, when looking at the footage we had found that the quality didn't come out very clear and we didn't use a tripod meaning the shots weren't steady and accurate, because of this we had to re film and decided to change the camera and use a video recorder instead, in which the outcome was a lot better. The camera in the process of making was also one of the most important pieces of technology as without it there would be no video footage,we used the camera when filming for both the flash backs and the present day shots. whilst filming for the present day shots i used the tripod entirely with the camera showing long shot angles and panning around the room. Where as for the flashback shots I used the tripod and hand held shots, during this i used close ups and canted angles, these were both very effective shots for the thriller genre as close ups are used to show emotion and more detail, using close ups I could show more detail into the girls wounds and face, this adds to the enigma as it makes the audience wonder how/what could have happened to her. Canted angles are also good as they give a negative eary effect as though something isn't right. When filming I wanted to use push ins and pull outs, I found this very difficult as I found it hard to film without the footage coming out unclear and shaky, to avoid this I decided to use a zoom as I found it was a lot clearer and more accurate than a push in. using the camera I learnt how to film in various different angles and increased my knowledge for camera work as actually doing it gave me a better understanding as to how it works. to get some advice on camera angles and how to film i spoke to a camera man from the BBC who is a family friend and he guided me as to what angles would look good and gave me some ideas for a thriller genre film.
In the third picture is a pair of headphones, this is one of the basic technologies that i had used, I simply used these when editing to listen to the film whilst making it to make sure there is continuity and runs smoothly, we also used these when making the 999 call to listen to the sounds that we had recorded using the Pod-cast and to edit them together and create a phone call using audacity. We also used small speakers so that our group could listen too and for when we showed the film to others for feedback.
The fourth picture is of a tripod, which I had mentioned when talking about picture three. The tripod is used with the camera to get steady accurate shots, I mainly used the tripod when filming for panning and for tilt shots, I used the tripod for both the present day shots and the flashback shots, I used it to show the room to give a sense of location. before the making of the film I had never used a tripod, so it is a skill that I have learnt in the process and was pretty easy to use. when filming I found that you have to carefully move the tripod or it can come out slightly shaky and unfocused, in a couple of shots in the sequence i found that the camera work was slightly shaky and unfocused which would be something i would need to work on for next time.
The fifth picture is of a pod-cast kit, we used this to record the sounds and voices for the 999 call, when doing this I worked closely with my peer Beth Thomas as we worked together to make it. the pod-cast kit was used with a program called audacity, in which I had never used before so I used various different skills such as putting the clips together, editing the voices and changing the tones of them to make the girl seem more innocent and vulnerable and adding in different sound effects such as gunshots and creating white noise. we also used audacity to edit the sound track creating negative sounds, slowing it down, adding in white noise and intense sound effects. All though we had made the 999 call we didn't decide to use it as when getting feedback our spectators said that it doesn't work with the video so we took it out completely and just used music instead.
The sixth picture is of my memory stick, I have always used a memory stick to back up my work. having my work when making the film saved to both the computer and memory stick makes sure its extra safe and backed up if anything happens to it, I also used it to save work from my home computer to my school computer so that my work was easy to access, I used it to get work off of my teacher to help me with my knowledge of media which also helped me when filming and editing.
The seventh picture is of a computer screen, I used this with the computer that that i can see all of my work. I used it with all the programs of the computer, which I mentioned in the first photo. I needed the computer screen so that I could see what I was editing and to put effects and transitions on the videos.
http://prezi.com/tcvl_gt7koiq/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
http://prezi.com/tcvl_gt7koiq/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? (video comparison of the preliminary film and main task with voiceover)
Looking back at our preliminary task I feel as though I have learnt a lot in the progression to the full product.
Being the editor, going from editing the preliminary and the final product my skills have developed massively, I have learnt how to use more complex effective programs such as Sony Vegas and Audacity. In the preliminary I used windows movie maker to edit the extract together, movie maker is a simple video editing program that lets you do basic changes such as adding in simple transitions, basic titles, filters and effects. when editing the preliminary I found that the program was very limited and I wasn't able to make the preliminary as creative and complex as it could have been, also the quality of the video once it had been rendered was not brilliant as it came out quite pixelated, the overall video didn't look very professional. There for I decided to use a different program called Sony Vegas, which is a program for making more complex films, it was a lot more complicated to I had to learn how to use it, to guide me I watched YouTube tutorial videos on how to do the more complex things such as creating the flashback effects and changing the brightness/colour of the videos, for the flashback I had to increase the brightness at the end and at the beginning of each clip so that it flashes in and out which created an effective flashback, for the flashback sequence of the extract I change the colour of each of the clips slightly to black and white and decrease the brightness to create low key lighting as I learnt that low key lighting is used a lot in thriller/horror genre films to create a negative dystopian atmosphere. Something that I could improve in this area would be to learn how to do more skillful editing, such as the smoke effect titles which I was planning on doing but could not figure out how to create the effect, there for I used horror themed titles, when doing this I looked at influential films like insidious and sinister and saw what titles where used and when, and the effects that they had, so I went along these lines.
I was also the sound editor so I had to look for copy right free music that was fitting to our extract, the music track that I had decided on using was called red letter, the music is very intense and fits perfectly with our film as it exaggerates the enigma in our film, i edited the music slightly on audacity for when the camera shows certain objects in the film, for example when the camera follows up the knife the music gets more intense and high pitched to show its a relevant object to what happened in the crime scene. in our preliminary I didn't use a specific soundtrack I just used sound effects and edited them in. I didn't find this very effective as a lot of background noise was picked up meaning the narrative coming from the actors wasn't very clear. in the main task we was going to have narrative of a 999 call but when testing and showing our spectators we found that it didn't work so we just took it out completely, so instead I just used one soundtrack the whole way through, which worked well as when we got feedback from our rough cut our spectators had mentioned that the music was very fitting and effective for our thriller film. In our preliminary we made diegetic sounds by dropping pins on the floor and making loud shuddering noises rather than editing them in, this was quite effective all though we found that other background noises were also picked up like echoes and other students talking in the corridor and we couldn't cut it out because we needed the dialogue, which is why in the preliminary we just decided to have no video noise what so ever.
Being the location scout I had to think carefully about where to film, in our rough cut we had chosen to film in my grandmas house in Lower Halstow. I chose this location as it is right next to the woods in which the woods are used commonly in thriller/horror films so we was going to incorporate them into our film. The house is very big and old so it was very fitting for our film. This was the first location we had filmed in for our rough cut but due to our lack of equipment we had to re film using a video camera and a tripod, so we had to film at my house in Rainham instead as we no longer had access to the first location and was very hard to get to.
The Mise-en-scene for the preliminary was very basic as we had filmed in school, our performance could have been improved as it didn't seem very realistic. in our preliminary we used low key and high key lighting, we done this by turning off various lights, we created flashing effects by flicking the switch on and off. To improve this for our main task, rather than creating the effects in the shot I decided to create the flashing effects and low key lighting by editing them in after creating the footage. This make the video look ten times better as I managed to make the lighting exactly how I wanted it being the same in each shot, which adds continuity, I done this by turning the brightness down in each flashback shot at the same percentage. I also made the shots slightly black and white to make it seem more dull and negative. I found that one of the best parts of our film was the set, our spectators had said that the set design was very effective and looks like a real crime scene. when creating the set I used dust sheets all over the room to make it look old and abandoned, I also changed the furniture and changed the curtains so that the audience can clearly see the different between the past and present shots. We got professional makeup and wounds done by a special effects makeup artist whom which created open cuts and bruises, she also contoured our actor to make her look skinny and dead. we then laid the actor out on the floor and put blood around her with a knife. This was very fitting for our film as blood, wounds, plastic sheets and knives are used a lot in horror/thriller films as they are typical conventions that are used. To help me create the set I looked as various crime films such as the taxi driver which has scenes showing a crime scene, I looked at how everything was laid out and how I can incorporate this in my film.
Something that we could have improved in our film would be how the actor was laid out on the floor. The body looked quite forced and in an awkward position so she didn't look very dead, this caused a lack of realism as it didn't look as though she was dead. So we could change the positioning of the body.
Theo Benjamin-Evaluation
1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our film represents a social group of victims. The victim in our horror film is a young female and this is shown throughout the opening. This is a classic horror convention as in most horror films young females are always the victims as they are vulnerable. A reason we chose a girl to be part of this ‘victim social group’ is because stereotypically girls are the weaker sex and are often seen as defenceless and in need of help, the reason we used a young girl was because we followed horror film conventions and most horror film I’ve watched contain a young, good looking girl as the victim. These girls are always seen as needing protection and often make silly mistakes which lead them to death. A film that also uses female victims is Scream.
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I believe the distribution company that would distribute my film is 'Brain Damage Films' (BDF). I believe the reason why this company would distribute my film is because for the past 14 years they have been one of the largest and most respected independent horror film distributors world wide. They specialise in distributing horror films and therefore help get smaller films off the ground and give them the green light to showing audiences their films. Another thing about BDF is that they have distributed a large amount of 'slasher' horror films and the majority of them have been successful and they still sell DVD versions of the films on their website. So like other media products they have distributed my film is conventional to all the things that they stand for.
Although Brain Damage Films are an American based film company they've distributed all types of horror films, I think that they'd show my film to an American and English audience.
4) Who would be the audience for you media product?
This is Yomi Yusuph, he is a 17 year old boy from London but he currently lives in Medway. He is currently a sixth form student and in his free time he enjoys going to the cinema and socialising with his friends. As he has a lot of leisure time he likes to go shopping at the local shopping centre and buys clothes from Zara and Topman. Yomi’s favourite films are The Purge and Insidious 2, he visits the cinema twice a month and his favourite genres are horror and action.He watches all his films at the cinema as he lives close to an Odeon, he goes with friends so they can enjoy the experience together. He isn’t a fan of watching online films but the ones he does enjoy in the cinema he purchases when they’re available on DVD. He watches a lot of television and his favourite series to watch are Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and The following. Yomi listens to music mostly from Kanye West and Jay Z, he would be the perfect audience member for my film because horror is his favourite genre and he enjoys films with an enigma.
The next picture is off a HD camera. This was what I used to film my main task, it’s essential to the main task as without it there would be no film. It produced videos throughout the entire project, not only for the main task video but for the audience feedback and for rough cuts.
Picture three which is of my memory stick. This has been used throughout my main task and preliminary as I have used it to save rough cuts, sound effects and pictures. This is probably one of the most important pieces of hardware as it has everything saved to it that I used to make the main task. Also used this to save updates and to show progression of each rough cut. Also all the computers I used for the main task were public and therefore anyone work I done would’ve been open for anyone to access.
My fourth picture is of a computer, none of this would've been possible to make without the use of the computer as it kept everything stored and meant I could upload things to blogger, go on YouTube and research things on the internet.
Finally this is Audacity. Audacity was used in our main task hand in hand with a pod casting kit for when we created a voice over in our original rough cut, this was important at the start of the task as it was going to be the only dialogue we used throughout the clip. This changed further on down the line as feedback from an audience suggested that the clip would look better overall without the voice over.
Since doing my preliminary task I feel like I have progressed a lot not only as a cinematographer but my whole sense of film language. This is because during the preliminary I didn’t know many of the different shot types or why certain shots were used. After doing some research and watching many Film Riot videos on YouTube I knew exactly why I wanted to use some of the shots I used, for example I learned that canted angle shots are used mostly in horror films to show the viewer that something’s wrong or something bad is about to happen. Therefore I used this camera shot when the viewer was first see’s the dead body.
During my preliminary task I made many errors such as filming in a bad location. As the co-location scout I should have chosen a more appropriate place to film because the building I used caused echoes to the voices of the actors, the way I solved this problem in my main task was by using a podcasting kit to record dialogue and have no dirty sound or background noise ruin the speech. Overall this turned out to not be a problem in my main task as my final clip used no dialogue whereas my first rough cut did.
The major mistake I made in my preliminary task was accidently using a jump cut, this happened by mistake as I stopped recording one part and then recorded again a few seconds later. The problem with this was that the actors had moved and therefore it was confusing to the audience and could be seen as a continuity error. In my main task this wasn’t a problem as I used long takes and therefore there wasn’t a lot of cutting done by the editor. Also there are flashbacks in my main task which are signified by a white flashing light, when I showed this to an audience they understood what the light signified and why it was used.
Also in my preliminary mise en scene wasn’t concentrated on as our actors were just dressed in their standard school clothes whereas in my main task the victim was wearing an all-black outfit, this was done to take away the audiences attention from what she was wearing so the audience could concentrate on the murder and the mystery of what had happened.
Finally the sound effects used in our preliminary task were very ‘classic horror’ by this I mean they’re all the type of sound effects you’d hear when you watch a horror film and this can get very repetitive if you’re a viewer that watches many horror films. This was different in my main task as we used a very eerie and tension building song which contained a piano.
My film is similar to other media products, for example in the film Sinister the opening scene a flashback of what happened to a family that recently lived at this 'horror house'. This is similar to my media product as the opening scene shows flashbacks of what had happened in the house before and what it is like in the present day. The film Sinister also has its titles in white in the bottom corners of the screen which is the same as my media product. Conventions that are the same between Sinister and my media product are that we both use low key lighting and flashbacks of previous events. A way that my film challenges this media product is that whereas Sinister shows flashbacks throughout the entire film my product shows flashbacks during the opening scene so that there is an enigma and the audience are always thinking about what's going to happen next. Also the film sinister uses one long take for a flashback whereas in my film I use many long takes and get closer to the body. A difference between my product and Sinister was that they show their production and distribution companies after their opening scene whereas I show mine before the clip.
Another horror film which has similar conventions to my media product is the American horror film Scream, as you can see I have used similar titles to these two influential films.
Another horror film which has similar conventions to my media product is the American horror film Scream, as you can see I have used similar titles to these two influential films.
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our film represents a social group of victims. The victim in our horror film is a young female and this is shown throughout the opening. This is a classic horror convention as in most horror films young females are always the victims as they are vulnerable. A reason we chose a girl to be part of this ‘victim social group’ is because stereotypically girls are the weaker sex and are often seen as defenceless and in need of help, the reason we used a young girl was because we followed horror film conventions and most horror film I’ve watched contain a young, good looking girl as the victim. These girls are always seen as needing protection and often make silly mistakes which lead them to death. A film that also uses female victims is Scream.3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I believe the distribution company that would distribute my film is 'Brain Damage Films' (BDF). I believe the reason why this company would distribute my film is because for the past 14 years they have been one of the largest and most respected independent horror film distributors world wide. They specialise in distributing horror films and therefore help get smaller films off the ground and give them the green light to showing audiences their films. Another thing about BDF is that they have distributed a large amount of 'slasher' horror films and the majority of them have been successful and they still sell DVD versions of the films on their website. So like other media products they have distributed my film is conventional to all the things that they stand for.
Although Brain Damage Films are an American based film company they've distributed all types of horror films, I think that they'd show my film to an American and English audience.
4) Who would be the audience for you media product?
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
To attract my audience I handed out a questionnaire which was filled out by different people. I made sure that there was a variety of people so that I could get a range of answers and so I could get the best possible audience feedback. Here is an example of few of the questionnaires. These answered helped the construction of my film.
6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Picture one is of a tripod was used for the filming of the main task. It was key to the main task as it meant my camera work was steady at the points I wanted it to be and it made tilts and pans easier to perform. A main reason why the tripod was important to use was because the videos I watched online on Film Riot said that films with tripods were much more highly rated and more pleasing to watch than films with hand held cameras. Although the majority of horror films used hand held cameras I believe my film was a lot better with a camera used on a tripod.
Picture three which is of my memory stick. This has been used throughout my main task and preliminary as I have used it to save rough cuts, sound effects and pictures. This is probably one of the most important pieces of hardware as it has everything saved to it that I used to make the main task. Also used this to save updates and to show progression of each rough cut. Also all the computers I used for the main task were public and therefore anyone work I done would’ve been open for anyone to access.
My fourth picture is of a computer, none of this would've been possible to make without the use of the computer as it kept everything stored and meant I could upload things to blogger, go on YouTube and research things on the internet.
Finally this is Audacity. Audacity was used in our main task hand in hand with a pod casting kit for when we created a voice over in our original rough cut, this was important at the start of the task as it was going to be the only dialogue we used throughout the clip. This changed further on down the line as feedback from an audience suggested that the clip would look better overall without the voice over.
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
During my preliminary task I made many errors such as filming in a bad location. As the co-location scout I should have chosen a more appropriate place to film because the building I used caused echoes to the voices of the actors, the way I solved this problem in my main task was by using a podcasting kit to record dialogue and have no dirty sound or background noise ruin the speech. Overall this turned out to not be a problem in my main task as my final clip used no dialogue whereas my first rough cut did.
The major mistake I made in my preliminary task was accidently using a jump cut, this happened by mistake as I stopped recording one part and then recorded again a few seconds later. The problem with this was that the actors had moved and therefore it was confusing to the audience and could be seen as a continuity error. In my main task this wasn’t a problem as I used long takes and therefore there wasn’t a lot of cutting done by the editor. Also there are flashbacks in my main task which are signified by a white flashing light, when I showed this to an audience they understood what the light signified and why it was used.
Also in my preliminary mise en scene wasn’t concentrated on as our actors were just dressed in their standard school clothes whereas in my main task the victim was wearing an all-black outfit, this was done to take away the audiences attention from what she was wearing so the audience could concentrate on the murder and the mystery of what had happened.
Finally the sound effects used in our preliminary task were very ‘classic horror’ by this I mean they’re all the type of sound effects you’d hear when you watch a horror film and this can get very repetitive if you’re a viewer that watches many horror films. This was different in my main task as we used a very eerie and tension building song which contained a piano.
Tuesday, 31 March 2015
Evaluation- Beth Thomas
1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The frames are in order in rows- Row 1: Frames 1-3 Row 2: Frames 4-6 Row 3: Frames 7-9
1. Frame one show the distributor of the film which is '20th Century Fox' as the opening of the film. As it is shown at the beginning of the film it makes the audience aware, instantly, of who distributes this film and as '20th Century Fox' is a big studio, the viewers will know that this is a movie that has had lots of recognition. The font is consistent throughout the opening of the film which keeps it professional looking.
2. The second frame is the first scene we see of the film and it is a flashback of her opening presents on her birthday and everyone is laughing and being loving towards the girl but the sound is distant as it is clear this clip is from someone looking back at videos in the past. There is also a text overlay that says 'A Europacorp M6 Film Grive Productions Co-Production'. This is telling you the producer of the film and the co-producers in the first 37 seconds of the film.
3. This clip shows more of the old home movie that is being looked back on, you can hear dialogue of the mother asking her child 'do you like it' when she opens a toy pony' and there is slow, soothing music as a sound bridge.
4. This shows the character Bryan waking up in a dark room and we can assume it is present time as setting of the scene has changed and a flash has been used to resemble a time difference and the music eventually stops 4 seconds into this new scene which can tell us that we are back in reality. Because Bryan is sitting in a dark room alone this could say that he is very lonely and not happy with his life and to assure that this message is put across we hear him to a deep sigh which can mean that tells us he may be upset.
5. This long shot shows us the extent of Bryan's loneliness and also gives us an idea of what time it is due to the moonlit window in the background. The fact that there is no other lights on in the house says that no one else is around but him. Frame 5 also has text overlaying it saying 'Liam Neeson' which tells us the actors name, and as he is well known people will think that it will be a good film.
6. This is a medium close up of Bryan sitting in his chair in his house and just after he sighs he puts a picture frame back on the side of a girl riding on a horse, this tells us the reason he is sighing is because he misses this girl. We can also assume that this picture is of the girl from frame 2 as she is riding a horse and got given a horse as a present so this is obviously an interest of hers.
7. Frame 7 shows a manual for setting up a karaoke machine which may be for his daughter for her birthday which he opens up, sighs again, then takes it with him off set.
8. As the character leaves frame 7 we are left with the picture of his daughter that he put back on the side which gives us the idea that this karaoke machine is for her and that she is an important part of his life. The title 'Taken' also begins to emerge and the fact that this is next to her image could tell us that she is the one who is taken.
9. The last frame ends on 1:30 where it goes to a busy street somewhere in America where a car pulls up and a man begins to get out.
The frames are in order in rows- Row 1: Frames 1-3 Row 2: Frames 4-6 Row 3: Frames 7-9
1.The first frame shows who the distributors of the film are and it has a sound of a light bulb being turned on as the sound of it. This follows the conventions of my influential film as it starts its first frame with the distributor.
2. The second frame shows the production company which is also following the conventions of my influential film as their second frame also shows who produced it but they do it as a title on top of a scene of the film.
3. This shows a normal looking living room with everything in its place. It is a long shot panning right to show the whole of the room. The film Taken also shows a normal situation at the beginning that we can assume is a flashback. Our film also uses music that builds tension and builds suspicion which is following the conventions of Taken.
4. Shot 4 is a computer generated flash to represent that the film is flashing forward or back. In Taken the film also does a flash forward so this is following the conventions of my influential film.
5. This long shot shows what the film has flashed back to and it is a crime scene and the lighting has dulled and it shows a character for the first time. It also shows a name which has something to do with the production of the movie. This is following the conventions of Taken as when the film flashes forward it shows a darkened room and reveals the first character of the plot.
6. Shot 6 begins to zoom into the knife on the floor getting closer to the weapon in the crime scene, in Taken, shot 6 also begins to get closer to the focus point, the making of our film has been closely linked to the conventions shown in the film Taken.
7. Is a canted angle of the character and the knife whereas in Taken their frame 7 is a close up of a manual, this differs from my film but not so much as both shots are important in the plot of the film.
8. Frame 8 is the last character shot of the opening and is a close up of the characters face, emphasizing the damage that is done to the character whereas in Taken this frame shows the title of the film.
9. Lastly is the title 'DESCENDANT' which has a frame of its own and is bold and unmissable. Taken showed its title differently and kept it small and as an overlay so the scene carried on behind it so my film differs to how Taken showed their title.
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media product represents young, vulnerable women who have been a victim of murder. One way in which we created this representation was to cast me as the actress as i can look like a young vulnerable woman. In Pulp
Fiction, Uma Thurman is shown as a vulnerable young woman who has become a victim of a drug overdose, we used similar angles as the angle in Pulp Fiction as it puts an emphasis on the bleeding nose and mouth. The clothes used in our film were a revealing vest top to show the youthfulness of the woman and how her fashion is modern and skinny jeans, this helps to outline the shape of the actors body and to show her frailness is something that would have weakened her, Uma Thurman also wears a revealing top which can represent her vulnerability. The makeup was done by me and I made myself look drained of blood, have a bleeding nose and bruises and a cut on my forehead, this shows that the victim has had a heavy fall to the floor and has been badly beaten whilst being murdered.This is similar to the female character in Pulp fiction as she also has a bleeding mouth and nose which shows shes had a bad fall and is in a vulnerable state. The blood around the victim in our film shows that the woman has been laying in this spot for a while and has been left on her own which puts an emphasis or her vulnerability. Lastly, the positioning of the character is important as it makes the fall look realistic, the characters position looks really unnatural and uncomfortable which shows that she is definitely dead and not just laying there.
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
British Film Industry would most likely distribute our media
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
The focus group/ target audience for our media product is going to be aimed at teenagers who are 15 and over. Having it at 18 would make the target audience too niche, also lowering the amount of people who are watching it, therefore having it at 15 means there is more consumers and the context of the film is based more around this age as it isn't horror enough to exclude under 18's. The film would also be aimed at teenagers who have an interest in horrors and thrillers and have watched films such as Insidious and Sinister, this could be boys or girls as both can show an interest.
This is Kennedy Overton, 17 years old currently studying her AS levels at The Howard School. Kennedy would be someone who the film is targeted at as she is into films such as Insidious, Paranormal activity, Sinister and other well known horrors and thrillers. She usually likes going to watch new films like these in the cinema when they are first released in Odeon in Chatham. Kennedy also watches a lot of films and TV series (Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars and Breaking Bad) on Netflix. She likes going out to parties or gatherings, going shopping and socializing with her friends, she also likes spending time with her boyfriend and her family and is a frequent moviegoer.
I believe that Kennedy would be our ideal audience as she is a female teenager over the age of 15 and enjoys these types of films and would definitely watch this sort of film at a cinema.
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
My questions were:
1. What is your favourite movie genre?
2.Why do you like this genre so much?
3. Have you watched my influential film, 'Taken'?
4. Where do you think the titles should be placed in our opening?
5. Do you think the makeup was an effective part of the film?
6. Do you think the music builds tension?
7. Where do you think the film title should take place in the opening (beginning/middle/end)?
I handed this question out to my class and this is one of the responses I got back. I used a questionnaire as the people in my class would be a typical target audience due to the age group (17). The person that had answered this questionnaire had watched my influential film 'Taken' and our Opening of our film so was able to make a comparison between the two. They commented on how our movie titles were dotted around the screen and not in just one particular place which they said is similar to Taken meaning that our film follows the conventions of my influential film.
The person who answered the questionnaire also commented on the effectiveness of the of the makeup and said that it was useful as it made the character look like a victim and not just someone who's fainted or been knocked out. They also said that the music was useful as it added tension and made you 'wary of what might happen next' and that it builds suspicion. Lastly, the person who answered the questionnaire commented on the fact that they thought the title was put in the clip at the right time of the opening (the end) as it adds to the buildup. Also, as they have watched Taken, they would probably notice that their title was at the same time as our opening.
6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I learned how to use a tripod, attaching the video recorder on top to give it a steadiness whilst filming, as well as this you create a canted angle with the shoe of the tripod by changing it's position. Using the twist in the handle to tighten the movement left and right of the camera, enabling or disabling the ability to do a panning movement, this was used from the beginning of our opening of the film when the camera would pan across the room to show the audience the set of the scene. The tripod also has three legs which can be stretched or shrunk to a size of convenience so if you want a high angle shot you would extend the legs and if you want a low angle you would shrink them, this technique was also used in our film to show different shots of the room and victim.
Me and Jess Cooper learnt together how to use the podcast and co-operate it with audacity which allows you to merge different sounds together and change them, manipulating them to sound different to the voice that you recorded. We made a 999 call which was made to sound like a woman who's house was being broken into and she assistance of the police, in the phone call you could hear a gunshot when she says that the intruders have walked in and then there is silence so we can assume that she is dead then the shot of me on the floor would indicate that this was the woman who was talking on the phone. To record my voice in the phone call you had to use a cable to connect a microphone to the podcast, this microphone picks up your voice but we also had trouble with it as we found it picks up the sound around you so we had to find somewhere quiet to do the recording. We decided in the end that the phone call made with the podcast was not convincing or realistic enough to use so we had to take it out but we now know how to use it for future reference.
The video recorder was used to film the whole opening of our film. For our rough cut we tried using a 'Fujifilm' hoping for better quality but the attempt for that failed as the picture was pixelated and didn't record smoothly. The video recorder fitted to the top of the tripod giving it steady recording which makes the film look more professional. The only time we handheld the camera was near to the end when the camera followed the shape of my arm up to my face, doing this showed the injuries the character had suffered and gives the audience a closer view of it, making the watchers empathize for the character, making it feel as though they are in the room with the victim.
Using a memory stick as particularly important to the making of the film as it can be easy to lose all of the work and is safer to have the work saved on a desktop as well as several memory sticks of our group members, this ensures that the work will not be lost. Also having my work on my memory stick means that changes can be made at home also so you do not have to rely on just the school computers.
The school monitors have editing programmes on them such as Sony Vegas and Windows Movie Maker. For our rough cut we tried using Movie Maker which is a simple way of putting clips together and making titles between each clip but it is a very amateur way of editing videos and didn't work, making it look unprofessional. For our final piece we used Sony Vegas and our editor, Jessica, had to learn different editing techniques and I also tried to learn how to add titles and make flash backs. YouTube had helpful guides on how to use Sony Vegas and create flashbacks, changing the saturation and brightness and also teaching us how to add titles on top of the film which we found Movie Maker was unable to do.
When looking for different types of music to put in our opening, we used headphones to listen to it without distracting others around us., the headphones also gave us a higher definition of the sound so we was able to tell if it was of good quality.
Lastly is the computer which is vital for the making of our film as without it we wouldn't have been able to use the monitors to put our film together.
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
You can see the improvement and progression between the time of my preliminary task (bottom collage) and my main task (bottom collage). In my main task, we learnt how to add credits and opening titles, we also learnt how to create a production company logo and add it to our film. In our preliminary task, we had no credits or opening titles so it looked like an average homemade film with no editing added to it. In our preliminary task the angles were very limited and the lighting was poor and casted reflections and didn't make the scene look very spooky which was the point of our short film. Also, the camera was vertical which was the wrong way to create a film as when watching them on the big screen/cinemas the picture is horizontal. All these factors were changed and improved when we got to the main task. We had appropriate costumes and makeup, the camera angles were more inventive and all horizontal, the lighting gave the scene a sense of mystery and spookiness and it generally looked a lot more professional. The main task shows how much we progressed as a group and how our editing was a lot ore advanced. We also learned how to use audacity so were able to successfully add music and sound effects.
Since the making of our preliminary task to our main task, my skills and understanding of computers and film making has improved a lot. In our preliminary task we filmed in the school corridors where the sound echoed a lot and so it was difficult to pick up on what the characters were saying and also took the scare factor away. In our main task we decided to film outside of school as it made a much better filming environment where we didn't have to worry about school timetables or students interrupting and also if we wanted any dialogue it would have been more audible (which we eventually decided against anyway).
In our preliminary task we used a various amount of camera angles but had little knowledge of how to use the tripod and so did most of the filming without it. We also found it difficult to add sound effects so tried to add our own whilst doing the filming, such as throwing an item at a box to make a banging sound at the same time as the actors were trying to speak but there was too many things going on at once and so it didn't work out well but once we got the main task we had learnt how to add sound effects and overlay different noises, this had a better effect and sounded more professional and made the filming more easier. Also in our preliminary we changed the lighting by hand instead of using a computer because, again, we was unsure of how to do this using an editing programme but by the time our main task was ready to be edited we learnt on Sony Vegas how to change the lighting and filters on the videos.
1. Frame one show the distributor of the film which is '20th Century Fox' as the opening of the film. As it is shown at the beginning of the film it makes the audience aware, instantly, of who distributes this film and as '20th Century Fox' is a big studio, the viewers will know that this is a movie that has had lots of recognition. The font is consistent throughout the opening of the film which keeps it professional looking.
2. The second frame is the first scene we see of the film and it is a flashback of her opening presents on her birthday and everyone is laughing and being loving towards the girl but the sound is distant as it is clear this clip is from someone looking back at videos in the past. There is also a text overlay that says 'A Europacorp M6 Film Grive Productions Co-Production'. This is telling you the producer of the film and the co-producers in the first 37 seconds of the film.
3. This clip shows more of the old home movie that is being looked back on, you can hear dialogue of the mother asking her child 'do you like it' when she opens a toy pony' and there is slow, soothing music as a sound bridge.
4. This shows the character Bryan waking up in a dark room and we can assume it is present time as setting of the scene has changed and a flash has been used to resemble a time difference and the music eventually stops 4 seconds into this new scene which can tell us that we are back in reality. Because Bryan is sitting in a dark room alone this could say that he is very lonely and not happy with his life and to assure that this message is put across we hear him to a deep sigh which can mean that tells us he may be upset.
5. This long shot shows us the extent of Bryan's loneliness and also gives us an idea of what time it is due to the moonlit window in the background. The fact that there is no other lights on in the house says that no one else is around but him. Frame 5 also has text overlaying it saying 'Liam Neeson' which tells us the actors name, and as he is well known people will think that it will be a good film.
6. This is a medium close up of Bryan sitting in his chair in his house and just after he sighs he puts a picture frame back on the side of a girl riding on a horse, this tells us the reason he is sighing is because he misses this girl. We can also assume that this picture is of the girl from frame 2 as she is riding a horse and got given a horse as a present so this is obviously an interest of hers.
7. Frame 7 shows a manual for setting up a karaoke machine which may be for his daughter for her birthday which he opens up, sighs again, then takes it with him off set.
8. As the character leaves frame 7 we are left with the picture of his daughter that he put back on the side which gives us the idea that this karaoke machine is for her and that she is an important part of his life. The title 'Taken' also begins to emerge and the fact that this is next to her image could tell us that she is the one who is taken.
9. The last frame ends on 1:30 where it goes to a busy street somewhere in America where a car pulls up and a man begins to get out.
1.The first frame shows who the distributors of the film are and it has a sound of a light bulb being turned on as the sound of it. This follows the conventions of my influential film as it starts its first frame with the distributor.
2. The second frame shows the production company which is also following the conventions of my influential film as their second frame also shows who produced it but they do it as a title on top of a scene of the film.
3. This shows a normal looking living room with everything in its place. It is a long shot panning right to show the whole of the room. The film Taken also shows a normal situation at the beginning that we can assume is a flashback. Our film also uses music that builds tension and builds suspicion which is following the conventions of Taken.
4. Shot 4 is a computer generated flash to represent that the film is flashing forward or back. In Taken the film also does a flash forward so this is following the conventions of my influential film.
5. This long shot shows what the film has flashed back to and it is a crime scene and the lighting has dulled and it shows a character for the first time. It also shows a name which has something to do with the production of the movie. This is following the conventions of Taken as when the film flashes forward it shows a darkened room and reveals the first character of the plot.
6. Shot 6 begins to zoom into the knife on the floor getting closer to the weapon in the crime scene, in Taken, shot 6 also begins to get closer to the focus point, the making of our film has been closely linked to the conventions shown in the film Taken.
7. Is a canted angle of the character and the knife whereas in Taken their frame 7 is a close up of a manual, this differs from my film but not so much as both shots are important in the plot of the film.
8. Frame 8 is the last character shot of the opening and is a close up of the characters face, emphasizing the damage that is done to the character whereas in Taken this frame shows the title of the film.
9. Lastly is the title 'DESCENDANT' which has a frame of its own and is bold and unmissable. Taken showed its title differently and kept it small and as an overlay so the scene carried on behind it so my film differs to how Taken showed their title.
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media product represents young, vulnerable women who have been a victim of murder. One way in which we created this representation was to cast me as the actress as i can look like a young vulnerable woman. In PulpFiction, Uma Thurman is shown as a vulnerable young woman who has become a victim of a drug overdose, we used similar angles as the angle in Pulp Fiction as it puts an emphasis on the bleeding nose and mouth. The clothes used in our film were a revealing vest top to show the youthfulness of the woman and how her fashion is modern and skinny jeans, this helps to outline the shape of the actors body and to show her frailness is something that would have weakened her, Uma Thurman also wears a revealing top which can represent her vulnerability. The makeup was done by me and I made myself look drained of blood, have a bleeding nose and bruises and a cut on my forehead, this shows that the victim has had a heavy fall to the floor and has been badly beaten whilst being murdered.This is similar to the female character in Pulp fiction as she also has a bleeding mouth and nose which shows shes had a bad fall and is in a vulnerable state. The blood around the victim in our film shows that the woman has been laying in this spot for a while and has been left on her own which puts an emphasis or her vulnerability. Lastly, the positioning of the character is important as it makes the fall look realistic, the characters position looks really unnatural and uncomfortable which shows that she is definitely dead and not just laying there.
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
British Film Industry would most likely distribute our media
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
The focus group/ target audience for our media product is going to be aimed at teenagers who are 15 and over. Having it at 18 would make the target audience too niche, also lowering the amount of people who are watching it, therefore having it at 15 means there is more consumers and the context of the film is based more around this age as it isn't horror enough to exclude under 18's. The film would also be aimed at teenagers who have an interest in horrors and thrillers and have watched films such as Insidious and Sinister, this could be boys or girls as both can show an interest.
I believe that Kennedy would be our ideal audience as she is a female teenager over the age of 15 and enjoys these types of films and would definitely watch this sort of film at a cinema.
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
1. What is your favourite movie genre?
2.Why do you like this genre so much?
3. Have you watched my influential film, 'Taken'?
4. Where do you think the titles should be placed in our opening?
5. Do you think the makeup was an effective part of the film?
6. Do you think the music builds tension?
7. Where do you think the film title should take place in the opening (beginning/middle/end)?
I handed this question out to my class and this is one of the responses I got back. I used a questionnaire as the people in my class would be a typical target audience due to the age group (17). The person that had answered this questionnaire had watched my influential film 'Taken' and our Opening of our film so was able to make a comparison between the two. They commented on how our movie titles were dotted around the screen and not in just one particular place which they said is similar to Taken meaning that our film follows the conventions of my influential film.
The person who answered the questionnaire also commented on the effectiveness of the of the makeup and said that it was useful as it made the character look like a victim and not just someone who's fainted or been knocked out. They also said that the music was useful as it added tension and made you 'wary of what might happen next' and that it builds suspicion. Lastly, the person who answered the questionnaire commented on the fact that they thought the title was put in the clip at the right time of the opening (the end) as it adds to the buildup. Also, as they have watched Taken, they would probably notice that their title was at the same time as our opening.
6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I learned how to use a tripod, attaching the video recorder on top to give it a steadiness whilst filming, as well as this you create a canted angle with the shoe of the tripod by changing it's position. Using the twist in the handle to tighten the movement left and right of the camera, enabling or disabling the ability to do a panning movement, this was used from the beginning of our opening of the film when the camera would pan across the room to show the audience the set of the scene. The tripod also has three legs which can be stretched or shrunk to a size of convenience so if you want a high angle shot you would extend the legs and if you want a low angle you would shrink them, this technique was also used in our film to show different shots of the room and victim.
Me and Jess Cooper learnt together how to use the podcast and co-operate it with audacity which allows you to merge different sounds together and change them, manipulating them to sound different to the voice that you recorded. We made a 999 call which was made to sound like a woman who's house was being broken into and she assistance of the police, in the phone call you could hear a gunshot when she says that the intruders have walked in and then there is silence so we can assume that she is dead then the shot of me on the floor would indicate that this was the woman who was talking on the phone. To record my voice in the phone call you had to use a cable to connect a microphone to the podcast, this microphone picks up your voice but we also had trouble with it as we found it picks up the sound around you so we had to find somewhere quiet to do the recording. We decided in the end that the phone call made with the podcast was not convincing or realistic enough to use so we had to take it out but we now know how to use it for future reference.
The video recorder was used to film the whole opening of our film. For our rough cut we tried using a 'Fujifilm' hoping for better quality but the attempt for that failed as the picture was pixelated and didn't record smoothly. The video recorder fitted to the top of the tripod giving it steady recording which makes the film look more professional. The only time we handheld the camera was near to the end when the camera followed the shape of my arm up to my face, doing this showed the injuries the character had suffered and gives the audience a closer view of it, making the watchers empathize for the character, making it feel as though they are in the room with the victim.
Using a memory stick as particularly important to the making of the film as it can be easy to lose all of the work and is safer to have the work saved on a desktop as well as several memory sticks of our group members, this ensures that the work will not be lost. Also having my work on my memory stick means that changes can be made at home also so you do not have to rely on just the school computers.
The school monitors have editing programmes on them such as Sony Vegas and Windows Movie Maker. For our rough cut we tried using Movie Maker which is a simple way of putting clips together and making titles between each clip but it is a very amateur way of editing videos and didn't work, making it look unprofessional. For our final piece we used Sony Vegas and our editor, Jessica, had to learn different editing techniques and I also tried to learn how to add titles and make flash backs. YouTube had helpful guides on how to use Sony Vegas and create flashbacks, changing the saturation and brightness and also teaching us how to add titles on top of the film which we found Movie Maker was unable to do.
When looking for different types of music to put in our opening, we used headphones to listen to it without distracting others around us., the headphones also gave us a higher definition of the sound so we was able to tell if it was of good quality.
Lastly is the computer which is vital for the making of our film as without it we wouldn't have been able to use the monitors to put our film together.
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
You can see the improvement and progression between the time of my preliminary task (bottom collage) and my main task (bottom collage). In my main task, we learnt how to add credits and opening titles, we also learnt how to create a production company logo and add it to our film. In our preliminary task, we had no credits or opening titles so it looked like an average homemade film with no editing added to it. In our preliminary task the angles were very limited and the lighting was poor and casted reflections and didn't make the scene look very spooky which was the point of our short film. Also, the camera was vertical which was the wrong way to create a film as when watching them on the big screen/cinemas the picture is horizontal. All these factors were changed and improved when we got to the main task. We had appropriate costumes and makeup, the camera angles were more inventive and all horizontal, the lighting gave the scene a sense of mystery and spookiness and it generally looked a lot more professional. The main task shows how much we progressed as a group and how our editing was a lot ore advanced. We also learned how to use audacity so were able to successfully add music and sound effects.
Since the making of our preliminary task to our main task, my skills and understanding of computers and film making has improved a lot. In our preliminary task we filmed in the school corridors where the sound echoed a lot and so it was difficult to pick up on what the characters were saying and also took the scare factor away. In our main task we decided to film outside of school as it made a much better filming environment where we didn't have to worry about school timetables or students interrupting and also if we wanted any dialogue it would have been more audible (which we eventually decided against anyway).
In our preliminary task we used a various amount of camera angles but had little knowledge of how to use the tripod and so did most of the filming without it. We also found it difficult to add sound effects so tried to add our own whilst doing the filming, such as throwing an item at a box to make a banging sound at the same time as the actors were trying to speak but there was too many things going on at once and so it didn't work out well but once we got the main task we had learnt how to add sound effects and overlay different noises, this had a better effect and sounded more professional and made the filming more easier. Also in our preliminary we changed the lighting by hand instead of using a computer because, again, we was unsure of how to do this using an editing programme but by the time our main task was ready to be edited we learnt on Sony Vegas how to change the lighting and filters on the videos.
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