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Group Evalaution Post
Question 4 and 5
Question 7

Final Cut
Seized final cut

Audience Research
First Pitch
Feedback from Teacher on production
Planning for interview after screening
Questionnaire

Storyboarding
Animatic
Storyboard

Preliminary
Preliminary Task

Final cut of Seized

YM - Group Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your full product?

Before we could get on with filming our opening sequence, we had to produce a preliminary task, which ultimately, gave us the chance to experiment with the cameras, and different shots and angles that might be of use in our opening sequence.

For our preliminary task, we were given a brief to follow fully to show we were able to use new equipment and follow instructions. The brief was that we had to film a conversation, with the use of the 180 degree rule, film the opening of a door, and show that we have used continutity editing (the continuity editing was mainly used while filming the opening of a door, too make it look smooth and real). Also, the task was set to experiment with different camera techniques before we set out to film our footage for our full project.

Part of the planning process before we undertook the task of the preliminary task was to decide on a genre that we wanted as our opening sequence. The choices were, Horror, Thriller or Teen Drama. Having chosen the genre we wanted before we did our preliminary task meant that we could focus our filming of the preliminary task more toward thriller, in terms of plot and camera work and editing.

Following the preliminary task, sat down to discuss further the choice of genre and then to move on to create a plot that is conventional of this genre, before we could look at specifics such as costume and location. In our preliminary task, we filmed in school, which while there were restrictions, we didn't have to carry out reaseach to find somewhere suitable. Therefore, one major issue we came across was what location to use. We wanted to find a location that fully fit with the characters and plot of our opening sequence and we discovered we'd have to travel to find somewhere.

The planning involved in our first trip to do our owning filming included a reccie with the rest of the media students in our year to Wilderness Woods. Although the location was nothing like the one we had chosen, this trip presented us with a fantastic opportunity to play around with the camera and different techniques. Through this reccie, we discovered a couple of shots, mainly the dutch angle, that we thought presented our story incredibly well, especially considering our genre.
Before we could go to our first shoot, we had to know what we were doing on the shoot so we didn't waste time. To do this, we set out a plan in the lesson before the shoot and chose the shoots we were going to do, when and where. We used our storyboard to help us make this decision. We also wrote a small script for the small amount of dialogue we have in our opening, this meant we didn't waste time deciding what to say on the day of the shoot.

In terms of carrying out the filming and editing process, sorted 2 dates out where we set out exactly what we were going to film so we know we could get it done within this time frame. This gave us more time to edit the footage, which we did on premiere.

We didn't feel like we came across many restrictions. However, we did use a different camera to the ones the school were offering. This we thought would cause some problems in premiere but it turned out it worked exactly the same. The biggest problem we faced was not being able to have any interior shots at the Heygate Estate, meaning we had to find an alternative location for these shots. This wasn't a difficult task as Ali's garage presented the best option.

In terms of strengths and weaknesses concerning our final product, I think that there are plenty of each prominant in the sequence. I think the continuity editing and cutting rate of our running sequence was as good as we could have gotten it, and resembles that of a similar scene in many thrillers like ours.
Weaknesses definitely include the titles, mainly because we couldn't find a perfect place to put them, meaning they appear quite randomly. If we had more time this is one aspect we'd spent a considerable amount of time experimenting with.

I think the actual filming of our opening sequence went great. We only needed the two days we set as we knew what we were doing so got on with it and accomplished what we wanted. If we were to improve this in one way, I'd say the planning of the dates we go should be done further in advance, as we only planned these days a day or two before hand.

Group Evaluation Question 4 and 5

Who Would be the audience for your film? How did you attract/address your audience?

NOTE: Unable to embed prezi presentation. Please use the link below.

http://prezi.com/22ihqgolggtu/final-audience-research/

YM- EVALUATION (6)

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of making your film opening?

Throughout the process of this project I have learnt many things in terms of technology. The main things being, blogging, filming and editing as prior to this project I had no experience in any of these areas.

Blogging was introduced to me as a completely new way of communicating and recording our progress. Blogging presented many challenges for me, not only learning how to navigate the blog itself but knowing the right way to present the blog and my individual posts. It took time to understand that writing in an essay format wasn't how blogs work, and that bullet pointing and using colour, highlighting and the bold key was the way to emphasise a point. Also, using images and videos to back up what I was saying in my posts was something new to me too.

Collaborating through the blog with the other members of my group was extremely important and something I had never done before. To begin with we were confused as to how collaborating through the blog would be possible, however before long we discovered commenting on each others posts was the most effective way. This meant we could keep up to date with what each other was doing while presenting our own ideas.

The filming of the product was another major learning curve in the process of making our opening sequence. Having never used a camera in this way before, it took several goes at many of our shots to get the positioning of the shot how we wanted it, especially because there were many aspects we need to bear in mind too. For example, the rule of thirds and the 180 degree rule. These things helped us use the camera in the best way so that the composition of each shot was the best it could be.

Personally for me, the final learning curve, editing, was the one I found hardest to get to grips with because I had never used a piece of software even remotely similar to that of Premier. This factor meant that I wasn't familiar with all the names of effects the software offered which made it hard for me to use and really quite intimidating. Editing things like the brightness, saturation and contrast was something I managed to do really easily, as well as playing with the chroma key to wipe away the blue screen we had put in place while filming the interior shots.

We had to go through all the footage we uploaded to our timeline and go through it all, to perfectly create continuity editing, to make the opening sequence look smooth.

Anchoring the soundtrack to the footage so it fit perfectly proved to be a difficult task, especially as the point where the music drops in our soundtrack had to fall at one specific point in our project to give the right feel and atmosphere to the running sequence. The task of fading the music in and out however, I found to be surprisingly easy.

YM- EVALUATION (3)

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

An independent distribution company is the most likely company to distribute our media product. This is because it is a low budget film and therefore won't have all the features to compete against the Hollywood thriller movies. Our product wouldn't have the famous stars in to entice people in to watch the films, nor would it have big stunts or expensive costumes and props to make the film seem better.

An independant distribution company we could use is Optimum Releasing

Many thriller movies are distributed by industrial distribution companies because of their ultra high budget, and famous stars. These companies are very unlikely to distribute our films as these companies tend to exhibit their films in the multiplex cinemas which appeal to the four quadrants. As the target audience for our film is the core audience, leaning slightly towards the males of this range, it doesn't appeal to the four quadrants. These industrial companies also focus on distributing the high budget films and tentpole films that can afford many extra effects that lower budget films cannot. It is because of these reasons that the conglomerate companies will not distribute our film.

YM- EVALUATION (2)

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our opening sequence focuses on the social group of young, white males. Having males in our opening sequence conforms to the conventions of the appearance of this social group in thriller movies as stereotypically men are seen as stronger both mentally and physically and are therefore more able to handle the action and severe events that often occur in thriller movies.

We are portraying this social group in a rather negative light. Our opening sequence suggests to the audience that young, white males relate themselves to drugs and trouble due to the obvious fact that the protagonist has got himself into trouble and therefore is facing the consequences. There are implications weaved into our opening sequence through the flashbacks that the cause of all the trouble is a drug deal.

Mise-en-scene plays a major role in constructing this representation of young, white males. Stereotypically, young, white males in bigger cities appear to dress in tracksuits and hoodies and we conformed to this stereotype by dressing our protagonist in this.

The emergent ideology of this social group says that young, white males live in run down areas where the habitants come from a low economic background. We have decided to keep to this stereotype and pick a location that conforms to this ideology.

In terms of camera work in presenting this social group we use in our opening sequence, the repeating close up of the money in the first flashback reinforces the stereotype that teenage males constantly find themselves in trouble.

Using a male as our villain as well continues to conform to stereotypes that say women are weaker and more vulnerable than men.

The way we presented this social group in our opening sequence isn’t really challenging the social norms related to this social group as today teenage males have a reputation of causing trouble and being a nuisance in society, particularly in large cities- which is the location of our opening sequence. Therefore, I wouldn’t say there is anything ideologically disabling about the way we have presented this social group in our opening sequence.