Navigation Post

Evaluation Posts
Alasdair Sharp's Evaluation Post
Click Here

Yazmin Mian's Evaluation Post
1) Click Here
2) Click Here
3) Click Here
6) Click Here

Luke Bartsch's Evaluation Post
Click Here

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.

YM- EVALUATION (1)

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

Throughout the planning stage of our project, research was a key element to get to know the main conventions associated with thriller films. (For example, titles, plot, characters, mise-en-scene, sound, camera and editing). To produce the best possible opening of our genre, we used these conventions and real film openings that we had looked at in our own work.

Plot


One incredibly important convention of a thriller is the plot. People enjoy watching thrillers for the thrilling storyline, which needs be faultless.
Our plot is conventional to thrillers aimed at the same target audience (core audience) as us.
It relates to teenagers in society today, and the troubles and problems they face. It includes a lot of fast-paced action to keep the audience interested in watching the rest of the film.
In thrillers, the use of big stunts etc aren't crucial to make this happen as the plot itself is often relatable to the lives of the target audience so they feel they want to continue watching. This also helps to keep the budget down. Many of our ideas came from the research we did in 'Shank' (Ali, 2010) where the action and tension was created with a fast cutting rate and fast-paced storyline.
The plot of our film revolves around a typical young male who got himself involved in drugs and shows how dodgy deals to help him keep his family together lead to severe consequences.




Characters


Our protagonist who has the majority of the screen time, is a teenage male. This is conventional of thriller movies because they include a lot of action and stereotypically males are seen to be stronger and more able to handle such situations than females, hence why it is males who are often seen in thriller films where there is a lot of action.
Teenagers aren't necessarily conventional of thriller protagonists as they are seen to be
too young to find themselves in situations which often reveal themselves in the plot. Films such as the Bourne Series (Liman/Greengrass, 2002-2007) and 'Taken' (Morel, 2008) have males protagonists, however they are shown to be older, often in the thirties. However, while having a teenage protagonist may not be conventional, there are other thriller films such as 'Shank' (Ali, 2010) that follow suit.


Our villain is also male, which is conventional because stereotypically males are seen to be stronger and more powerful than women.




Mise en Scene


Considering all aspects of mise-en-scene while planning our opening sequence was vital. In terms of location, all our research showed that thrillers are located in busy places, most often cities, so we decided to film in London so we could get a real city atmosphere coming through to the audience.
Heygate Estate already has a reputation that backs up our reasoning for picking such a location and we decided it was the best location we could find.We chose the Heygate Estate within London to be our main shooting location after we analysed our protagonist and decided we needed a run down area of
London to film, as he was presented as being poor and into drugs which suggests that he needs the money so therefore couldn't live somewhere where the location looked expensive. The

In terms of costume, we again had to consider the protagonist and how we are presenting him. Due to the location we selected, it was obvious we couldn't pick a costume that had connotations of wealth in any aspect as it wouldn't fit with the rest of the opening sequence. Therefore we decided to select tracksuit and a hoodie as stereotypically this is what teenage boys in the city, especially those who are 'trouble' wear.




Props


We used as little props as possible in our opening sequence. This was for several reasons: Firstly, we had to think carefully about how we were going to take all the equipment and props to our location as we were travelling by train, therefore we knew we had to keep props minimal. The props we did have however, was a mobile phone so the protagonist can be contacted by the villain, and a half full beer bottle and a cigarette packet on the table in the flat. This is to show how little he has.




Sound


Choosing a non-diagetic soundtrack to play through our opening sequence proved to be very difficult. We used our research to narrow our choices down so the soundtrack was conventional to the thriller genre. We needed a track that was in a major key and was upbeat so it anchored the running sequence. The track we chose in the end we though was appropriate because it was almost chaotic which is very representative of the life of our protagonist. The voice of the singer sounds almost discordant which adds an almost uneasy edge to the music building the tension for the audience while they wait to see what's going to happen. This music isn't typically conventional of thriller films as lyrics aren't a predominant feature of the soundtrack, especially during action sequences such as our running scene. However we felt the voice gave our piece the right feel to it and therefore challenged the conventions in this respect.


The diegetic sound of the phone ringing is amplified to create an enigma: Who's on the phone? Why? Many questions are raised using such simple sounds, and this is extremely conventional of thriller films, particularly the ringing phone as this is a common theme in thriller movies for the villain to communicate with the hero.


Camera


In thrillers a range of camera distances is extremely conventional. We saw this as an easy opportunity to conform to the conventions of thriller movies and many distances are used within our opening sequence, mainly during the running sequence.


We used a few close ups to show the protagonist's reaction to events, such as being told his family have been taken and seeing a dead body in the estate. Reaction shots are seen very often in thrillers, for example, 'Panic Room' (Fincher, 2002). These shots help the audience understand the characters better as they gain an insight as to how the character is feeling at that particular moment.




We used a couple of extreme long shots to set the scene and to show the audience where the protagonist is. The extreme long shot we used to show the protagonist running across a bridge lets the audience see where he is headed, while emphasising the grubbiness of the location. Again, this shot can be seen in many thriller movies, often during a running or chase scene, to see one or more of the characters running through a crowded city like in the Bourne Series (Liman/Greengrass, 2002-2007).


The positioning of the shot was an important factor we had to consider. As our opening sequence is from from the thriller genre, this meant there was a lot of movement and we decided that central shots of characters wouldn't work. Because of this we use the rule of thirds throughout our sequence to give more of a moving feel to the piece.


Towards the end of the running sequence we used a dutch angle to emphasise the speed at which the protagonist was running. Another reason we chose this shot was because it almost represents the character himself and the way in which his life is slowly being turned upside down.


We use a point of view shot during the running sequence, from the perspective of the protagonist to place the audience with him so they can feel his fear. This shot isn't so conventional of thriller movies however as a group we decided the audience needed to feel more involved if they were to continue watching the rest of the film, and a point of view shot seemed the perfect shot to use to create this effect.


Another technique we put into our opening sequence was shallow to deep focus as the audience was introduced into the flat of the protagonist. We used this effect to show how he was asleep and the sound of his phone was slowly bringing him into consciousness.




Colour


Colour isn't necessarily the most important factor to consider when filming a thriller movie. However, we found that due to the nature of the storyline that the lack of colour is important. Therefore we had to plan when we went to film carefully as we wanted a dull, cloudy day so colour would be minimal and would fit anchor the location we selected. The costume of the protagonist and antagonist is very plain and dark continuing this theme of minimal colour. We chose to keep the colour very dull and grey because this is the conventional colour scheme of thrillers, while at the same time being extremely representative of the life of our protagonist.




Editing


Editing was extremely important for us in many parts of our opening sequence.


To start with we needed to find a way to tell the audience which parts of the opening sequence was a flashback and what was present day. In the end, we decided to make the flashbacks appear in black and white so the audience knew they were different and on top of this we added titles to show the change it dates, to further reinforce the difference in time.


Also, we had to edit all the shot of the running scene using continuity editing, so that the audience couldn't see the cuts and it would appear invisible and seamless. On top of this, the running scene needed to have a fast cutting rate to keep the audience interested and to help build the tension, therefore conforming to the conventions of a thriller.

Titles

Our opening sequence needed us to add titles in to inform the audience of the change in dates, between the flashback scenes and the present day footage.
In terms of font and size, we went for something plain and quite bold so it seemed almost masculine therefore attracting the attention of our target audience. Also, films we had looked at during our independant research showed that many thriller films went for plain bold font. Such as The Bourne Series (Liman/Greengrass, 2002-2007) and Panic Room (Fincher, 2004).

LB- Evaluation Questions

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


Question 1
• Our opening sequence is seen as a conventional one for the thriller genre. As the titles we used were similar to those used in opening sequences like ‘Panic Room’. The form of my opening sequence is conventional as in panic room the titles are similar to our opening, as they are seen throughout the opening and the main titles is shown at the end.
• Our soundtrack is also conventional of the thriller genre as it creates suspense. Our opening sequence also introduces the main character in the first scene. We did this by using close up shots of him, which gave a clear identification of the characters exposition as being the main protagonist.
• We also used lighting to create suspense and mystery by having the first scene in black and white, which is something we saw from our genre research in the opening sequence of ‘Seven’ and decided to incorporate it into our own.

• We thought allot about costume for our main protagonist as we decided he had to look scruffy and run down in order for the character to fit in to the plot, because of this our main character wore tracksuit bottoms with a hooded top to show he was from the area.
• Our camera shots needed to show the scale of the estate; because of this we used a establishing long shot to show one of the building’s in the estate. Our music was chosen because it was quite fast paced and fitted into the tempo of the running scene.

• The genre choice of thriller meant that we had to create suspense in our 2 minute opening, we did this by having a mysterious deal in the first scene, followed by a running sequence of the main character, he also sees someone else who was involved in the deal dead, which gave a more dramatic feel to the sequence.
• From our genre research we looked at the opening sequence of ‘Shank’, which was filmed at the same location as ours. This showed us that we needed to incorporate the location in with the opening sequence as it was important to show the audience where he was living.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?


Question 2

• Our social group that is shown in our opening sequence is a young, white, working class adult, who lives in a council estate area. Our protagonist is represented negatively as he is involved in a drug deal which is seen as socially unacceptable due to it being illegal.
• This is seen as the traditional stereotype of a young working class male from a council estate area. Our mise-en-scene emphasises this stereotype by the costume our protagonist is wearing, like tracksuit bottoms and hooded top.
• In contemporary society these items of clothing are viewed as only being worn by juvenile delinquents. Our film is clearly trying to represent British culture and conforms to the tradition traits of masculinity.
• Our sequence shows the wider issues of London society, as it shows that illegal activity happens a lot in London especially with young male adults, our opening sequence shows how serious the problem is.

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

Question 3

• Our film opening would be distributed by a small independent company, as it is not the sort of film that is considered a tent pole. This is due to it being low budget and a British film. I think that Pathe UK would be a good distributor as it has a wide range of films from ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ to ‘Adulthood’.
• This would be a good distributor to use as it has done youth crime films before and has realised there is money to be made from it. I feel they would distribute our media as they have seen personally similar films succeed so would see our film as a good investment.










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

Question 6
• I have learnt how to blog from this coursework. We used our blog effectively and collaboratively by using blogger.com to post individual blogs and group posts to display research into other films, our own ideas and thoughts on our film opening and PowerPoint presentation.
• As well as this we could scan questionnaires and also include pictures and video. This meant that we had a range of media on our blog. The blog helped to keep all of our independent and group work together in one place, which made it very easy to discuss our film opening. Through commenting on each others posts we discussed our research and agreed what we thought would work best for our own film opening.
• I was the camera man on our shoots, which meant I had to know how to use the camera and the tripod effectively. As well as getting the framing of the shot right, I also had to think about lighting. For the scene inside we used artificial lights to make it dark enough to seem mysterious, while still being able to see the protagonist.
• Continuity editing seamlessly puts the narrative together, we had to think about this a lot in our opening, as in the running scene we had to make it look like he was running continuously. This was a challenge and we had to work hard in order to achieve this.
• We tried zoom in our early shoots, which we then looked back on and realised it did not work well with our camera, we thought it made our film opening look tacky so we tried to not include much zoom in our final opening.

Our soundtrack was taken from a copyright free CD given to us by our media department.This was very useful as this meant we could get copyright free music to use as our soundtrack for our opening sequence.

I also used Premier to edit our footage. I used image manipulation to manipulate the image. I also used the cutting tool to cut out things from our footage we did not want in our final opening sequence. Also we used black and white which was easy to do in Premier. We used this to show the major difference between the two scenes, the one in black and white being a dark illegal activity, where as the running scene is in colour.

AS - Evaluation Questions

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

Our production has used some, and challenged some of the conventions of the thriller genre. The way we have used the conventions is when our action fast paced scene comes in our opening sequence we were able to apply a very fast paced cutting rate to our sequence to allow for the plot to speed up within this scene.We have tried to use titles, plot, characters, mise-en-scene, sound, camera and editing to convey the film in the way in which we think it should be shown.

Characters

We have stuck to the conventions of the thriller genre with a protagonist who is male. Within most the the thriller films a male plays the protagonist as the target audience is mainly male meaning that they may be able to connect with the person in the film. The protagonist of our opening is a little younger than the target audience and goes against the conventions of the thriller genre. This is shown in films like Casino Royal (Cambell, 2006). Although there are some films which accompany us in this us in going against the thriller conventions, for example Kidulthood (Huda, 2006).

Mise-en-scene

We believe our Mise-en-scene to be very good with half of our opening being at the Heygate estate in London. The Heygate estate had previously appearing in the film Shank (Ali, 2010) and we believed this place was the place we want to film. We chose it because we needed somewhere that looks decayed and poor. We believed this to be the place that would convey that image.

The costume we chose for the protagonist we believed to be conventions within the story we are trying to convey. We have put the protagonist in tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie as we believe this is what a person with little money in a run down estate in London would wear.

As you can see in this picture the wall next to the protagonist is decayed ans we wished to portray a picture of poverty.







Props

In our opening we had little space to add props to our scenes and there was not much shot time. Despite this we managed to put in some things at the start to show how poor he is. Firstly we have put in fake money, as this is fundamental to our storyline we think this is very important. The last prop we put in was a packet of cigarettes. This, we believe shows the fact that he is lower class as we believe that more lower class people smoke than middle or upper class people smoke.

Sound

When we got to the stage of finding a non-diagetic soundtrack for our opening sequence we found that the options we had we very limited. We looked for a good soundtrack for a very long time and then we stumbled across something that we decided could fit. For our soundtrack we needed something that started of slow and clam and then climaxed into something that was fast and frantic. The song we found for our soundtrack we believe did this very well.

We used our diagetic sound as a device to create more tension. It would put many questions into the mind of the viewer and this in itself would help us to create the tension and excitement we wish to create with our opening sequence.


Camera

We think that the majority of our camera work was very good. We believe that we were able to show the narrative the way it was meant to be shown because of our camera work. We used a very wide range of shots from long shots to close ups.

We used the longs shots to establish a setting. Also to show what kind of area the estate was to live in. We believe our camera work did this very well and allowed us to be able to convey what we wanted it to very well. This shot is very conventional in thriller films to show a location or setting.


For the reactions shots from the protagonist we used close ups of the face. We did this to show the reaction when he got the phone call and when he saw the dead person lying on the ground. We did this so the audience could see the shock on the protagonists face and to understand what kind of life he is leading at the present time. We also included moving camera shots. We did this to try and let the audience feel included in the film. This would have helped the audience identify with the protagonist.


Colour

Colour was so important in our film. We used colour to distinguish scenes and time and dates. We also used it as a character. We used black and white scenes to show flash backs from the protagonists life and this makes it feel as though it is old as old films used to be black and white. 

We also used a very low brightness on the other shots. This is to show how dark the protagonists life is and how he does not have a very bright future. We think this is used very effectively as the audience think he is saving people yet his future still looks very dark and he may not be able to get back onto the straight and narrow.

Editing

Our editing was another important part of our opening sequence. We had to show the difference between times of the day and different days. We finally decided on making the flashbacks black and white to show they are older and we put the present day into normal colour. We also started off with a montage, we did this because we though having a flashback that used continuity editing may give too much of the storyline away and so we decided to go with a montage.

We also had to put all of the running scene together using continuity editing and this was a challenge but I think we were able to do it well in the end.

How does your media production represent particular social groups?

Our media production represents one social group and that is young white working class males who live in London council estates.

We show this social group very negatively. This is because we want to show that he has done something Wong and now need to help save his family. We are showing that this social group are not going about daily life in the "right" and legal way. In the sequence he see's a the person he did a deal with dead on the floor; he is giving someone fake money. This is not showing his social group in a positive way. This is slightly conforming to the conventions of a thriller as most thriller have protagonists who take the law into there own hands. Our film opening is conforming with the dominant ideology of males being the protagonist in thriller films as the person who goes from "rags to riches". We showed the protagonist to be very poor with the fact that he is in torn clothes and cannot afford new clothes to wear.

He is also shown to be poor by the council estate that he lives in. It is run down and is not kept to a nice clean place. The windows are all smashed and the wall have graffiti on them. This is showing male working class social group to all be people who are poor and live in dirty council estates like this one.

The social group that is shown in the production is a lower class younger males in the and this we believe to be who we wish to watch the production. This maybe a problem for us as some people in the target group may think this is a judgement on the way they live. It shows the protagonist to have fake money which also, they may think this is a judgement on them. This could affect our chances of having our production distributed and shown. This could effect on revenue and it may not be as effect. This picture shows the fake money he is shuffling to give his friend and the ripped tracksuit bottoms.

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

I believe a independent media distribution company like Momentum Pictures would distribute our film as we don't have the Hollywood effects of a blockbuster film or the technology to compete. Also Momentum pictures specilise in thriller films made by independant film makers. We also had a limited budget and this means our technology and expertise are limited this means we cannot compete with the level of editing or the expert camera men they will be able to get.

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

I have learnt a great deal about the technologies used in the process of making our opening sequence. Firstly I have learnt about blogging. This year blogging was a new experience for me. I had to learnt how to post things in a "blog friendly" way and to try and not structure it in a way that would not be aesthetically pleasing. Also I had to add colour to my posts highlighting key words and making headings bold. The blog helps us too colaborate with eachother and help eachother communicate with eachother. It also allowed us to comment on eachothers work and upload videos and prezi's to our blog.

Next was learning about the cameras and what they could do. We used a cameras the school gave us which allowed the teachers to show us what they could do and the kinds of effects we could do on the camera. I also had to learn the rule of thirds and the 180 degree rule. This would help our production and I think allow us to make a good production. The camera we used to film our production was a Sony hdr-fx1000e and the link to it is Here. This camera helped us to do very good quality sound and very good shots. This shot shows how the quality can show from the camera we used as it gets all of the estate in very good quality.

Our soundtrack is from a copyright free CD that the department gave us and this is where we found our music from. We got two soundtracks and we think that our sound is one of the better parts of our production.

Finally I had to learn about all the editing software and the effects we could do in it. This didn't take me long and I was very soon into the swing of editing down all of our content to what we needed it to be. I also decided to learn about Adobe After Effects to help us with our production and I did make some effects but we decided against using them due to different circumstances. In premier I learnt how to use; Image manipulation; Image control; Key frames and key framing; Chroma key; Focus; cutting footage; Opacity and many more. This helped us to create a good production.