Thursday 1 May 2014
Thursday 13 February 2014
Evaluation Question 7
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Below is the video of the preliminary task which I had shot previously in the year when I had little knowledge of filming and editing.
The next video shows the final cut of mine and my partners opening to the film Existence. The editing took much longer than the preliminary task and also the filming was much more complex with a lot more shots to film at many different angles and areas.
Looking back at the preliminary task, there were not many shots that we had to film and so this made the film opening a lot harder to film. That being said, the practice and teaching that I had received from using the camera helped to be able to quickly set up shots and be able to easily film the shots without too much hassle from being in different areas.
The camerawork was a lot more complex in the opening for the film, not just because of the amount of filming that we had to do compared to the preliminary task. There were a few different types of shot that we used such as the tilt/pan up which can be shown in this video below for the actor title of Barney Smith.
Another shot which i thought was shot well was the shot in the tower where we used the lighting for a mysterious effect. Looking back at the preliminary task, there were never any times where lighting was an issue and/or a idea that was going to be used. This shot can be seen in the pictures below where the character of Michael Hajiantonis emerges from the darkness.
Since doing the preliminary task, the most complex shot was the pan shot when the character enters the room. This can be seen from this short clip below.
The editing was the longest haul. It took a very long time to perfect the editing and many hours were spent clipping the shots together and making the shots flow together. The hardest part of the editing was that we had to make sure that our opening to the film was under the 2 minutes set by the examination board. This is a set guideline and cannot be more than that. After having lots of filming, it was difficult to cut all of the footage down and to be able to still have a flow in the editing and the film opening itself.
The titles for the preliminary task were just templates from final cut and so other than the words and titles that were filled into these templates, none of it was made by myself. In the opening to our film, my partner and I had to create an ident. This is shown in films as a small clip which is an introduction to the companies behind the film. In our Ident, I had the concepts of the way that the ident would look and what the company would be called. Below is a picture of the original drawn up plans for the ident.
Below is the actual ident created using motion effects software. Motion is an apple product and is used for creating small clips to edit into bigger films or short videos. Motion allowed My partner and I to take the original image made from photoshop and to create a motion clip.
To conclude, I have learnt a lot since first filming my preliminary task to now just having finished editing the final cut of our film opening of Existence. My camerawork since the preliminary task has grown after using more simple shots and in the film opening using more complex shots and also having a lot more shots to deal with.
This lead into dealing with the long haul of editing and how my skills and experience for editing has grown. The editing for the opening was my favourite part of the construction. Although the editing was a long process I did not get bored of it and after 17 hours of careful editing my partner and I have finally finished the opening to our film with pride!
Below is the video of the preliminary task which I had shot previously in the year when I had little knowledge of filming and editing.
The next video shows the final cut of mine and my partners opening to the film Existence. The editing took much longer than the preliminary task and also the filming was much more complex with a lot more shots to film at many different angles and areas.
Looking back at the preliminary task, there were not many shots that we had to film and so this made the film opening a lot harder to film. That being said, the practice and teaching that I had received from using the camera helped to be able to quickly set up shots and be able to easily film the shots without too much hassle from being in different areas.
The camerawork was a lot more complex in the opening for the film, not just because of the amount of filming that we had to do compared to the preliminary task. There were a few different types of shot that we used such as the tilt/pan up which can be shown in this video below for the actor title of Barney Smith.
Another shot which i thought was shot well was the shot in the tower where we used the lighting for a mysterious effect. Looking back at the preliminary task, there were never any times where lighting was an issue and/or a idea that was going to be used. This shot can be seen in the pictures below where the character of Michael Hajiantonis emerges from the darkness.
Since doing the preliminary task, the most complex shot was the pan shot when the character enters the room. This can be seen from this short clip below.
The editing was the longest haul. It took a very long time to perfect the editing and many hours were spent clipping the shots together and making the shots flow together. The hardest part of the editing was that we had to make sure that our opening to the film was under the 2 minutes set by the examination board. This is a set guideline and cannot be more than that. After having lots of filming, it was difficult to cut all of the footage down and to be able to still have a flow in the editing and the film opening itself.
The titles for the preliminary task were just templates from final cut and so other than the words and titles that were filled into these templates, none of it was made by myself. In the opening to our film, my partner and I had to create an ident. This is shown in films as a small clip which is an introduction to the companies behind the film. In our Ident, I had the concepts of the way that the ident would look and what the company would be called. Below is a picture of the original drawn up plans for the ident.
Below is the finished picture which was formed from the designs I had made and my partner had created this image in Photoshop. The company name was called JJ Productions as both mine and my partners name is Joe.
Below is the actual ident created using motion effects software. Motion is an apple product and is used for creating small clips to edit into bigger films or short videos. Motion allowed My partner and I to take the original image made from photoshop and to create a motion clip.
To conclude, I have learnt a lot since first filming my preliminary task to now just having finished editing the final cut of our film opening of Existence. My camerawork since the preliminary task has grown after using more simple shots and in the film opening using more complex shots and also having a lot more shots to deal with.
This lead into dealing with the long haul of editing and how my skills and experience for editing has grown. The editing for the opening was my favourite part of the construction. Although the editing was a long process I did not get bored of it and after 17 hours of careful editing my partner and I have finally finished the opening to our film with pride!
Wednesday 12 February 2014
Evaluation Question 6
What Have you Learnt About Technologies from the Process of Constructing this Product?
As can be seen above, a voice over of our film opening talking about what me and my partner have learnt from the extensive use of technology in the construction of our final product. Mentioned are Motion, Adobe After Effects, Final Cut and Various other things which were essential in making our film as it is at this point. A full write up can be seen in the essay on evaluation Question 7, which summarizes how we used various medial equipment in order to create different effects.
As can be seen above, a voice over of our film opening talking about what me and my partner have learnt from the extensive use of technology in the construction of our final product. Mentioned are Motion, Adobe After Effects, Final Cut and Various other things which were essential in making our film as it is at this point. A full write up can be seen in the essay on evaluation Question 7, which summarizes how we used various medial equipment in order to create different effects.
Evaluation Question 5
How did you attract/address your audience?
The target audience for the opening titles of the film,
which we created, was 15-25. The scene is set in London in a small hotel room
and then moves into a large building with a tall tower. The link between the
opening titles and the audience is that all of the characters were between
these ages as well. Although this was a student film and the characters were
all 16/17 years of age, the characters were suppose to play roles of young
adults. The link to the audience that my partner and I wanted to create was the
characters age and that they can relate to.
The modern aspects of the opening such as the new smart
phone that the main character has and the flat screen television in the lobby
of the tower has a link to the target audience as modern technology and
equipment. As we live in an age of technology and system devices, some of the
target audience will almost likely have the same smartphone as the character if
not one that is similar and/or having a flat screen television in their house
or even in their own room.
These pictures show the modern technology in the smart phone and the flat screen television in the corner of the lobby.
With the weapon and the killing of the Tyrone in the opening, my partner and I wanted to make the murder as realistic as possible. This being shown as a knife is very easy to get hold of and everyone has a knife in his or her house. The unrealistic side of a killing in a film would be the normality and coincidence of the character having a gun. This I why we chose to use the idea of a knife as the murder weapon.
With the weapon and the killing of the Tyrone in the opening, my partner and I wanted to make the murder as realistic as possible. This being shown as a knife is very easy to get hold of and everyone has a knife in his or her house. The unrealistic side of a killing in a film would be the normality and coincidence of the character having a gun. This I why we chose to use the idea of a knife as the murder weapon.
Crime in London is also a big topic. There are many news
articles and stories about stabbings and killings in and around London all the
time. As crime is normality in London, this can attract the audience, as it is
something that they would be familiar with. This is not something that we
wanted to spotlight in the film, which is why you cannot see the murder weapon
during the killing. Also having a real knife in the location whilst filming
could have been dangerous with the public still milling around the area and
walking into shot.
This is the questionnaire that my partner and I sent out to
determine our target audience and what kind of films and genres people liked.
From these results we could understand what was the best way to display the
opening to the target audience.
According to the survey that my partner and I made for
market research, of 100 people that took the survey, only 35% of the people
that took it were male. The rest of the people were female. The majority of people that took the survey
were between the ages of 30-50. Only 15% of the people that took the survey
were between the ages of our target audience which we thought would be 15-24
before we had even collected the results from the survey. As we already had the
genre of a psychological thriller in mind, the survey collected the results
that the second highest genre of the people’s choice was the thriller genre.
The highest was the genre of comedy. The survey showed me and my partner that
the genre of Thriller would be a good idea as it was the second highest choice
for the genre of film and also most of the people that took the survey were not
even from our target market. If more of the people from our target market took
the survey then the choice for the thriller genre probably would have been
higher.
Some of the comments and responses of people and what they
liked most about their favourite genre, which was thriller, was that the
thriller genre “creates a fantastic thrill which keeps me intrigued” and “a
good murder, not knowing who the killer is and the thriller murder”. This
showed us that people liked a good thrill from the genre and that a murder is
what would make the film more exciting.
When asked what was the three highest factors that would
make them go and see a new film the top three choices from the survey were;
storyline, friends recommendation and actors. My partner and I knew that to
grasp the attention of our audience we would need to create a thrilling
storyline that people would want to carry on and watch and stay through till
the end of the film.
Tuesday 11 February 2014
Evaluation Question 4
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Initially we did not know what the audience was going to be for our media product. The typical thriller genre would usually collect a broader range of people who would be interested in viewing the product at mainstream cinemas, however with the low budget we had and the distinct lack of high quality actors it would be difficult to generalise our films to other of a similar nature. The inclusion of an element of the psychological is also vital in differentiating our films from others of a similar genre, adding a feeling of the intellectual. Although this would narrow our range as a for targeting an audience, we saw this as a positive as we could cater to make the film appeal to the audience as much as possible. We did this by including action and character development, while maintaining a sense of mystery and ambiguity which was considered "Paramount" by the sample audience of our screening. Vox Pop's of reactions to the film can be seen below from various people who were in the audience of the screening, showing what they liked and disliked about the film, as well as what they would have wished to be done better. This sort of feedback is useful as in future projects we can not only see what to do better but what to subtly change in order to cater to a wider audience.
The idea of a 16-24 year old target audience came from the results of surveys we did which will be shown below:
The paper Based Survey was as follows:
1) Please State your age group
4) If there are significant sub genres of this film, please state which one is preferred (space under)
5) State a reason why you prefer this genre/Sub-genre and if there are any specific characteristics of the film genre which appeal to you
6) Please Rate the following films from 1-5, 1 being not seen the film hated and 5 being outstanding -
Se7en
Dual
Skyfall
No Country For Old Men
Dark Knight Rises
7) Where do you prefer to watch films? Please circle 1
This research was majorly infulential in our understanding of what sort of films were enjoyed by different age groups, as well as which tropes we should include and which we should leave out - this was to avoid stereotyping our film in to a specific genre while still making it accessible and typical of a psychological thriller. A follow up questionnaire was held post screening as well, asking similar questions but with a slight bias towards the thriller genre. The questionnaire and results were as follows:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Please State your age group
4) Of the product you have seen, please state what you enjoyed and thought could have been done better. If there were things you think could have been done better - please expand on this
5) Finally, what do you predict to come in the rest of the film?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was filled out on a whole 14 times. Of the people who took part in the screening, 10 were of the age category 16-24 with 3 from 41-60 and 1 from 0-15. This range in audience participation was vital in seeing what could be improved as well as what was enjoyed. A mainly male audience however does not show the effect gender has on the opinions of the film opening which is something which we would definitely change in a future screening. We also found that of the 41-60 year old group, who were all male, 2 out of the three were massive psychological thriller fans. We believed that growing up with films like Se7en, Dual, Fight Club and many others which are influential in the genre it has created a niche market for fans of that age. Because of this, we believe that in future productions we should cater more to this audience as not only would it increase attendance but also possibly allow for our film to go in to the larger cinema's. One of these fans was shown previously in my audience research.
Summarised, The elder age group preferred very specific parts of the psychological thriller genre, not wanting too many stereotypical parts of it but maintaining the best sections. Chase scenes were seen as boring, whether in cars or person, as they had been overused previously and did not uphold much originality.
A final group in which we believe our media product could cater to is that of Media students taking various degrees. As a similar project to one undertaken globally, it can be looked to as an example of the use of more advanced technologies and equipment in order to create a film opening which both looks good and uses steady transitions and sound bridges to maintain a story line, moving from past to present and back again. This narrative structure is one commonly practiced in the genre, and as seen in both the vox pop's and the focus interview above, is one of the stronger points in the genre.
Finally, we found that the certification of the product was going to have a major effect on the audience we were going to attract. Previously in the term, a lot of time was spent researching the guidelines of the BFI Certification Ratings and the categories which were associated with each of these. Deciding on a 15 was a good choice in our opinion, due to what it is allowed and disallowed in this specific category. Quoting from the BBFC website, "No theme is prohibited, providing the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds". This means that we could undergo our exploration of the psychological and pursue the causes of it without having to feel like we would hold back, as a 12 or 12a rating would have us do. Similarly, if we were to have an 18, it would rule out the lower two years of our target audience and also dissuade fathers from our niche audience to take son's as it suggests a more graphic, violent and disturbing tone in which nothing is prohibited. The lack of a moral compass found in 18's compared to the need for a moral compass in 15's was very influential in our decision, as it was the only thing that really determined the two certifications as separate. My partner and I decided that for the sake of a few changes in narrative (providing the final product was made) we could introduce people over 3 years younger to the film legally than a lack of a moral compass would have us do.
What Kind of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product and Why?
The institution that would most likely want to distribute our film would most probably be the Art House cinema companies. Although the Art House cinema chain is actually quite popular and large, our film would require small screening places in comparison to the City Centre cinema style of Multi-Screen Cinema. This is because our film is aimed at a younger generation who are more interested in studying film at University and at A Level than always going to see mainstream action thrillers in mainstream cinemas. The addition of the psychological element to an already overused plot was something which we wished would set our film aside, and as such move away from more typical blockbusters and independent thrillers.
Initially we did not know what the audience was going to be for our media product. The typical thriller genre would usually collect a broader range of people who would be interested in viewing the product at mainstream cinemas, however with the low budget we had and the distinct lack of high quality actors it would be difficult to generalise our films to other of a similar nature. The inclusion of an element of the psychological is also vital in differentiating our films from others of a similar genre, adding a feeling of the intellectual. Although this would narrow our range as a for targeting an audience, we saw this as a positive as we could cater to make the film appeal to the audience as much as possible. We did this by including action and character development, while maintaining a sense of mystery and ambiguity which was considered "Paramount" by the sample audience of our screening. Vox Pop's of reactions to the film can be seen below from various people who were in the audience of the screening, showing what they liked and disliked about the film, as well as what they would have wished to be done better. This sort of feedback is useful as in future projects we can not only see what to do better but what to subtly change in order to cater to a wider audience.
The idea of a 16-24 year old target audience came from the results of surveys we did which will be shown below:
The paper Based Survey was as follows:
1) Please State your age group
- 0-15
- 16-24
- 25-40
- 41-60
- 60+
- Male
- Female
4) If there are significant sub genres of this film, please state which one is preferred (space under)
5) State a reason why you prefer this genre/Sub-genre and if there are any specific characteristics of the film genre which appeal to you
6) Please Rate the following films from 1-5, 1 being not seen the film hated and 5 being outstanding -
Se7en
Dual
Skyfall
No Country For Old Men
Dark Knight Rises
7) Where do you prefer to watch films? Please circle 1
- Cinema
- Online (streaming or other)
- TV
- DVD/Blu-Ray
- Tablet
- More than 2 per week
- Once a week
- Once Every 2 weeks
- Once a month
- Less than once a month
- Arthouse
- Multiplex
- IMAX
This research was majorly infulential in our understanding of what sort of films were enjoyed by different age groups, as well as which tropes we should include and which we should leave out - this was to avoid stereotyping our film in to a specific genre while still making it accessible and typical of a psychological thriller. A follow up questionnaire was held post screening as well, asking similar questions but with a slight bias towards the thriller genre. The questionnaire and results were as follows:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Please State your age group
- 0-15
- 16-24
- 25-40
- 41-60
- 60+
- Male
- Female
4) Of the product you have seen, please state what you enjoyed and thought could have been done better. If there were things you think could have been done better - please expand on this
5) Finally, what do you predict to come in the rest of the film?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was filled out on a whole 14 times. Of the people who took part in the screening, 10 were of the age category 16-24 with 3 from 41-60 and 1 from 0-15. This range in audience participation was vital in seeing what could be improved as well as what was enjoyed. A mainly male audience however does not show the effect gender has on the opinions of the film opening which is something which we would definitely change in a future screening. We also found that of the 41-60 year old group, who were all male, 2 out of the three were massive psychological thriller fans. We believed that growing up with films like Se7en, Dual, Fight Club and many others which are influential in the genre it has created a niche market for fans of that age. Because of this, we believe that in future productions we should cater more to this audience as not only would it increase attendance but also possibly allow for our film to go in to the larger cinema's. One of these fans was shown previously in my audience research.
Summarised, The elder age group preferred very specific parts of the psychological thriller genre, not wanting too many stereotypical parts of it but maintaining the best sections. Chase scenes were seen as boring, whether in cars or person, as they had been overused previously and did not uphold much originality.
A final group in which we believe our media product could cater to is that of Media students taking various degrees. As a similar project to one undertaken globally, it can be looked to as an example of the use of more advanced technologies and equipment in order to create a film opening which both looks good and uses steady transitions and sound bridges to maintain a story line, moving from past to present and back again. This narrative structure is one commonly practiced in the genre, and as seen in both the vox pop's and the focus interview above, is one of the stronger points in the genre.
Finally, we found that the certification of the product was going to have a major effect on the audience we were going to attract. Previously in the term, a lot of time was spent researching the guidelines of the BFI Certification Ratings and the categories which were associated with each of these. Deciding on a 15 was a good choice in our opinion, due to what it is allowed and disallowed in this specific category. Quoting from the BBFC website, "No theme is prohibited, providing the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds". This means that we could undergo our exploration of the psychological and pursue the causes of it without having to feel like we would hold back, as a 12 or 12a rating would have us do. Similarly, if we were to have an 18, it would rule out the lower two years of our target audience and also dissuade fathers from our niche audience to take son's as it suggests a more graphic, violent and disturbing tone in which nothing is prohibited. The lack of a moral compass found in 18's compared to the need for a moral compass in 15's was very influential in our decision, as it was the only thing that really determined the two certifications as separate. My partner and I decided that for the sake of a few changes in narrative (providing the final product was made) we could introduce people over 3 years younger to the film legally than a lack of a moral compass would have us do.
What Kind of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product and Why?
The institution that would most likely want to distribute our film would most probably be the Art House cinema companies. Although the Art House cinema chain is actually quite popular and large, our film would require small screening places in comparison to the City Centre cinema style of Multi-Screen Cinema. This is because our film is aimed at a younger generation who are more interested in studying film at University and at A Level than always going to see mainstream action thrillers in mainstream cinemas. The addition of the psychological element to an already overused plot was something which we wished would set our film aside, and as such move away from more typical blockbusters and independent thrillers.
The age of our target audience is 15-24 and so these would also be the ages studying film at higher levels. This makes our audience much smaller and so probably would not attract enough people for a place in a huge cinema. The niche market of mid 40's however allows scope for a broadening in marketing, and if was proven to be popular in Arthouse could be transposed to main cinema's as a father son or even father and mates film.
Because our film obviously is, and looks, low budget (especially as it is shot in London without big star Hollywood actors), our film may not attract the larger audience for mainstream films, such as Skyfall. This means that if distributed in a Multi-Screen or Multiplex cinema, the majority of people who went there to see mainstream/high budget films would not want to watch our film. Again, this could be questioned as success on a smaller stage would broaden our audience.
The low budget concept also means that if our film was distributed, it would be impossible to have enough money to advertise it on a big enough scale for it to be screened in main-stream cinemas. Because of our low budget, we also would not be able to carry on distributing our film over a number of weeks in Multiplex cinemas that tend to show the same film repeated over a series of weeks. By distributing it within a 'indie', arthouse cinema, people would come to see it, knowing that it would be of low budget.
Because our film obviously is, and looks, low budget (especially as it is shot in London without big star Hollywood actors), our film may not attract the larger audience for mainstream films, such as Skyfall. This means that if distributed in a Multi-Screen or Multiplex cinema, the majority of people who went there to see mainstream/high budget films would not want to watch our film. Again, this could be questioned as success on a smaller stage would broaden our audience.
The low budget concept also means that if our film was distributed, it would be impossible to have enough money to advertise it on a big enough scale for it to be screened in main-stream cinemas. Because of our low budget, we also would not be able to carry on distributing our film over a number of weeks in Multiplex cinemas that tend to show the same film repeated over a series of weeks. By distributing it within a 'indie', arthouse cinema, people would come to see it, knowing that it would be of low budget.
Evaluation Question 3
What Kind of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product and Why?
In order to decide which media institution will end up distributing our media product, we must first define distribution. A distribution company, as a distributor and marketer, is expected to raise awareness of the film through varying marketing campaigns as well as forming deals with other conglomerate's such as Sony in order to aid the DVD, TV and internet release. The above video describes the positives and negatives of 5 different distribution companies; from multinational to English and from part of a firm to independent.
Monday 10 February 2014
Evaluation Question 2
How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?
The below Prezi shows how in our final media product, we represented particular social groups and whether it is positive, negative or fairly represented. The variety of representation is shown through the various characters showing the same social status or contrasting with each other in order to form ideologies and explicit and implicit ideas.
We found that within a two minute opening only containing three characters worth mentioning it was hard to portray a fair representation of social groups, especially as meetings between people are either lacking words or containing people from different social medians.
The below Prezi shows how in our final media product, we represented particular social groups and whether it is positive, negative or fairly represented. The variety of representation is shown through the various characters showing the same social status or contrasting with each other in order to form ideologies and explicit and implicit ideas.
We found that within a two minute opening only containing three characters worth mentioning it was hard to portray a fair representation of social groups, especially as meetings between people are either lacking words or containing people from different social medians.
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