Friday, 13 March 2009
Evaluation
1) In what ways does your media product make use, develope or challenge the traditional forms and conventions of real media products?
The traditional conventions of film making that this task requires us to have an understanding of include continuity and the micro and macro originations. We displayed the name of our peoduction company as part of the titles. Hollywoodland, a film similar in genre to ours employs this same idea. The thrilling atmosphere is emphasised by the titles.
The image of the eye is rather scary, employing this as our logo adds to the atmosphere created by the music.
This image from Hollywood land as part of the opening titles is where we got the idea of incorporating the genre into the titles in the display of the Company's logo.
While making this movie we had to take into account some of the things we had learned from our preliminary task. The shots that were part of the same scene had to be filmed around the same time with very similar lighting and the actors wearing exactly the same clothing. We found this a problem as the weather was constantly changing so the different shots for the same scene looked very different. The main ideas for our opening sequence came from watching other thrillers within the same genre like ‘The Ring 2’ and ‘Collateral’. The story line to these were unusual but really captured our attention so we decided to create a unique story line in the hope that it would have the same effect on our audience. Our media product uses and challenges the conventions of filming making. It makes use of the 5 technical areas of film making. Also, within this genre, the opening sequences usually start at equilibrium and then something happens to create disequilibrium. In my opening sequence, as we only have two minutes to create an atmosphere and capture the audience’s attention, so we decided to begin with a disequilibrium. This challenges the traditional conventions of making a thriller.
Our diegesis was also a very important part of our production process. This is how the film is put together, particularly the sound. Maria and I use the similar style of music that is used in most thrillers to create a tense atmosphere of fear or expectation. For example when you watch trailer, the music reflects the situation that is being portrayed by the director, a good example of this technique in practice the trailer for the movie ‘Seven’. We also make use of diegetic and non diegetic sounds. For example the creaking door in the scene when the bully is following his victim. We also make use of a sound bridge to ease the audience into the flash back making it less sudden and unexpected also the audience are hearing her thoughts. This contributes to the fearful atmosphere that we hoped to create. Also we used camera angles such as close ups and effective lighting to create a tense atmosphere. We made sure all our shots were steady and used a combination of different shots making them look much more realistic and keeping the audience interested through the variety. (screen shots)
This point of view shot adds to the tense atmosphere and deos not distract from the attention on the main character.
For this shot, my actress Lottie was running with the tripod in her hand in order to sucessfuully create this effect. This is an example of our adventerous use of the tripod.
For this shot, the lightiing we used made it very effective, the flickering lights helped to create that particular atmosphere we wanted for this shot as though he had discovered her.
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In my media product there is only one social group represented. This is teenagers. We represented them through the costume. They are at school and they are wearing school uniform. You don’t really hear them speak much but when you do their accents are slightly common and the language used is colloquial. I also represent the social groups through the characters in which they play. The girl is the victim and the boy is the bully who torments her. In doing this I was hoping that teenagers who have been bullied are able to relate to the characters. I have not represented any other social group in my opening sequence.
3 &4) What kind of media institution would distribute your media product and why? Who would be the audience for your media product?
The sort of media institution that I would expect to distribute my product is the cinemas. Sucess within this institution would result in the product being on the maraket as a DVD or video. It could also be put on Youtube. This is because, in order for the story to unfold, the movie will be very long. Furthermore, to reach my target audience and to make the most profit, the cinema would be the best distributer of my product. My target audience would include teenagers over the age of 15 and over and also people who enjoy watching thrillers who regularly go to the cinema. We asked severla members of our class whose genre of preference include thriller and over the age of 15. They had a positve response to the storyline and thought the use of the younger teenage character enabled them to relate to the character.
5) How did you attract your and adress your audience?
We would be targeting teenage audiences through the use of younger characters that they would be able to relate to them. The other range of my audience would be the thriller lovers, who would be entertained by the story line. The audience will be receiving a firsthand account of the happenings of the events throughout from the main character remembering her days at school.
6) What have you learnt about technologies and the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the construction of this product, maria and i have learned that the process is a very complex one. This includes the planning process, the filming and the editing of the film. For Maria and I, coming up with an idea for the film and choosing a genre for our film was the first real challenge we encountered. Ater we overcame this hurdle and decided on an idea and the story line we created a filming script and story board. We started filming very late as it was very difficult to organise our actors and we kept changing the genre of the characters in our opening the sequence. Once we begun to film, we stuck to our storyboard and script and it was very sucessful. We decided to take twice as much footage as we needed in an attempt conjure the best shots possible. After filming we had to edit, we diagreed over the order in which the flashbacks should come in, but in the end, we decided to go with the initial idea from the filming script and storyboard. The software was still challenging but we worked hard at learning to use it . When our film was completed and the editing was done, we exported the video finally completing the process of constructing our media product.
7)Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product.
Looking back at our preliminary task Maria and I feel that we have learned a lot about using the software and making a believable opening sequence. Our editing skills have improved a great deal and we are able to be more adventurous with the software. In the preliminary task, the editing we had to do was not as much of a challenge and we did not do much with the sound. But for this task, the sound was one of the most important parts of the task because it aided us in an attempt to create a particular atmosphere. We have become much more acquainted with the camera tripod and have found using the editing software less of a challenge. We were much more adventurous with the tripod and created some interesting camera angles. We have also learned that a lot of effort goes into making a film. We found the problems we encountered with the filming; the change in ideas and the software were easier to deal with as we worked better together and were more determined to find a plausible situation.
8)What have you learned from your audience feedback.
Throught the feedback from Aaron and Mori, we learned that our flashbacks were sucessfull. The story was easy to understand and the order in which we aranged them in made sense. Pakker's said the flashbacks helped to create the atmosphere and mood of the film' so we decided not to change the order of the flashbacks. Furthermore, when Victor a fellow class member viewed our film, he noticed one of our shots were particularly shakey. This flaw decreased the quality of our film. He suggested we add a transition. We took his advice thus creating a much better product.
1) In what ways does your media product make use, develope or challenge the traditional forms and conventions of real media products?
The traditional conventions of film making that this task requires us to have an understanding of include continuity and the micro and macro originations. We displayed the name of our peoduction company as part of the titles. Hollywoodland, a film similar in genre to ours employs this same idea. The thrilling atmosphere is emphasised by the titles.
The image of the eye is rather scary, employing this as our logo adds to the atmosphere created by the music.This image from Hollywood land as part of the opening titles is where we got the idea of incorporating the genre into the titles in the display of the Company's logo.While making this movie we had to take into account some of the things we had learned from our preliminary task. The shots that were part of the same scene had to be filmed around the same time with very similar lighting and the actors wearing exactly the same clothing. We found this a problem as the weather was constantly changing so the different shots for the same scene looked very different. The main ideas for our opening sequence came from watching other thrillers within the same genre like ‘The Ring 2’ and ‘Collateral’. The story line to these were unusual but really captured our attention so we decided to create a unique story line in the hope that it would have the same effect on our audience. Our media product uses and challenges the conventions of filming making. It makes use of the 5 technical areas of film making. Also, within this genre, the opening sequences usually start at equilibrium and then something happens to create disequilibrium. In my opening sequence, as we only have two minutes to create an atmosphere and capture the audience’s attention, so we decided to begin with a disequilibrium. This challenges the traditional conventions of making a thriller.
Our diegesis was also a very important part of our production process. This is how the film is put together, particularly the sound. Maria and I use the similar style of music that is used in most thrillers to create a tense atmosphere of fear or expectation. For example when you watch trailer, the music reflects the situation that is being portrayed by the director, a good example of this technique in practice the trailer for the movie ‘Seven’. We also make use of diegetic and non diegetic sounds. For example the creaking door in the scene when the bully is following his victim. We also make use of a sound bridge to ease the audience into the flash back making it less sudden and unexpected also the audience are hearing her thoughts. This contributes to the fearful atmosphere that we hoped to create. Also we used camera angles such as close ups and effective lighting to create a tense atmosphere. We made sure all our shots were steady and used a combination of different shots making them look much more realistic and keeping the audience interested through the variety. (screen shots)
This point of view shot adds to the tense atmosphere and deos not distract from the attention on the main character.
For this shot, my actress Lottie was running with the tripod in her hand in order to sucessfuully create this effect. This is an example of our adventerous use of the tripod.
For this shot, the lightiing we used made it very effective, the flickering lights helped to create that particular atmosphere we wanted for this shot as though he had discovered her.
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In my media product there is only one social group represented. This is teenagers. We represented them through the costume. They are at school and they are wearing school uniform. You don’t really hear them speak much but when you do their accents are slightly common and the language used is colloquial. I also represent the social groups through the characters in which they play. The girl is the victim and the boy is the bully who torments her. In doing this I was hoping that teenagers who have been bullied are able to relate to the characters. I have not represented any other social group in my opening sequence.
3 &4) What kind of media institution would distribute your media product and why? Who would be the audience for your media product?
The sort of media institution that I would expect to distribute my product is the cinemas. Sucess within this institution would result in the product being on the maraket as a DVD or video. It could also be put on Youtube. This is because, in order for the story to unfold, the movie will be very long. Furthermore, to reach my target audience and to make the most profit, the cinema would be the best distributer of my product. My target audience would include teenagers over the age of 15 and over and also people who enjoy watching thrillers who regularly go to the cinema. We asked severla members of our class whose genre of preference include thriller and over the age of 15. They had a positve response to the storyline and thought the use of the younger teenage character enabled them to relate to the character.
5) How did you attract your and adress your audience?
We would be targeting teenage audiences through the use of younger characters that they would be able to relate to them. The other range of my audience would be the thriller lovers, who would be entertained by the story line. The audience will be receiving a firsthand account of the happenings of the events throughout from the main character remembering her days at school.
6) What have you learnt about technologies and the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the construction of this product, maria and i have learned that the process is a very complex one. This includes the planning process, the filming and the editing of the film. For Maria and I, coming up with an idea for the film and choosing a genre for our film was the first real challenge we encountered. Ater we overcame this hurdle and decided on an idea and the story line we created a filming script and story board. We started filming very late as it was very difficult to organise our actors and we kept changing the genre of the characters in our opening the sequence. Once we begun to film, we stuck to our storyboard and script and it was very sucessful. We decided to take twice as much footage as we needed in an attempt conjure the best shots possible. After filming we had to edit, we diagreed over the order in which the flashbacks should come in, but in the end, we decided to go with the initial idea from the filming script and storyboard. The software was still challenging but we worked hard at learning to use it . When our film was completed and the editing was done, we exported the video finally completing the process of constructing our media product.
7)Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product.
Looking back at our preliminary task Maria and I feel that we have learned a lot about using the software and making a believable opening sequence. Our editing skills have improved a great deal and we are able to be more adventurous with the software. In the preliminary task, the editing we had to do was not as much of a challenge and we did not do much with the sound. But for this task, the sound was one of the most important parts of the task because it aided us in an attempt to create a particular atmosphere. We have become much more acquainted with the camera tripod and have found using the editing software less of a challenge. We were much more adventurous with the tripod and created some interesting camera angles. We have also learned that a lot of effort goes into making a film. We found the problems we encountered with the filming; the change in ideas and the software were easier to deal with as we worked better together and were more determined to find a plausible situation.
8)What have you learned from your audience feedback.
Throught the feedback from Aaron and Mori, we learned that our flashbacks were sucessfull. The story was easy to understand and the order in which we aranged them in made sense. Pakker's said the flashbacks helped to create the atmosphere and mood of the film' so we decided not to change the order of the flashbacks. Furthermore, when Victor a fellow class member viewed our film, he noticed one of our shots were particularly shakey. This flaw decreased the quality of our film. He suggested we add a transition. We took his advice thus creating a much better product.
Representing – constructing the real
I have represented teenagers in my opening sequence, the bullying of a girl by a boy leading to tragic consequences. The modern age is represented in my movie. The lasting effect of being bullied has on both the bully and the victim’s life. Also I have represented teenagers through the costume. They were wearing school uniform. This also made the audience aware of the location of the opening sequence, the school. Also my other mise en scene is the meeting with the psychiatrist that goes were the video begins. The main character is wearing immediately making her the bad guy because one who has committed the crime. The excluded from my opening sequence is the other bullies. I decided to only have one bully because I thought it would be more of an effect if all the attention was focused on the singular person who she murdered as we did not have time to portray all these other characters within the two minute extract. The form of realism we have created includes the characters. We made sure our older character looked like she was older and had some similarities to the younger character in the flashbacks for example they both had the same colour of hair. Also the music we used meant that the tense atmosphere was created making the whole opening sequence a lot more believable. Our location was genuine as we filmed it within school and they were wearing school uniform making the mise en scene much more believable. The main part is played by a drama student so the acting is exceptional and very believable. The dialogue is minimal. There is not very much dialogue within the flashbacks as they were not required would have been inappropriate. This all contributed to the tense atmosphere of expectation we were hoping to create.
Tolu Lawal
I have represented teenagers in my opening sequence, the bullying of a girl by a boy leading to tragic consequences. The modern age is represented in my movie. The lasting effect of being bullied has on both the bully and the victim’s life. Also I have represented teenagers through the costume. They were wearing school uniform. This also made the audience aware of the location of the opening sequence, the school. Also my other mise en scene is the meeting with the psychiatrist that goes were the video begins. The main character is wearing immediately making her the bad guy because one who has committed the crime. The excluded from my opening sequence is the other bullies. I decided to only have one bully because I thought it would be more of an effect if all the attention was focused on the singular person who she murdered as we did not have time to portray all these other characters within the two minute extract. The form of realism we have created includes the characters. We made sure our older character looked like she was older and had some similarities to the younger character in the flashbacks for example they both had the same colour of hair. Also the music we used meant that the tense atmosphere was created making the whole opening sequence a lot more believable. Our location was genuine as we filmed it within school and they were wearing school uniform making the mise en scene much more believable. The main part is played by a drama student so the acting is exceptional and very believable. The dialogue is minimal. There is not very much dialogue within the flashbacks as they were not required would have been inappropriate. This all contributed to the tense atmosphere of expectation we were hoping to create.
Tolu Lawal
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
In yesterday's lesson, Maria and I added the finishing touches to our video. We changed the font of our titles to make them look much more proffesional and we added some music to the end in an attempt to conclude our opening sequence. The only problem we had editing was whether to add a transition between two shots that where there was a shaky shot. We resloved this problem by using a transition to link the shots together. We spent the rest of the lesson watching other people's videos and giving feedback.
Tolu Lawal
Tolu Lawal
Friday, 6 March 2009
Creative Tools
1. How did digital technology enable you to develop creatively and are there examples of the technology obstructing or preventing your creative flow?
Digital Technology helped me with filming a lot. The tripod helped me achieve different effects, especially making the images still. Also pan and movement shots. We came up with an idea of the actor holding the tripod and facing the camera towards the actor, it came out as a very moving effect. Of course the camera helped us record all of our progress. The most helpful technology was the computer and Premiere Elements, which made our film make sense. We could change the video clips we filmed, add different effects, music and titles.
2. Thinking About Audience – making meaning
How did you respond to the initial brief with the audience in mind?
We thought in a way of a person who didn't see the film and didn't know the ideas we had. We tried to edit in a way that it made sense for a person knowing nothing about the production, ideas and thoughts which were supposed to be presented.
3. How did your analysis and research into the type of film you selected impact on the creative process in pre-production?
We researched horror, thriller and differnet genres of drama to get ideas for our film. We looked at the different effects and ways of filming. We got our idea for the beginning of our film from Mr and Mrs Smith where they are talking to a psychologist, which worked out as a simple idea but effective. To make it Hollywood film-like we got the logo from universal pictures. From this idea I developed my own which goes straight after it. We looked at the editing from horror movies and the effects which make a film scary.
4. In filming and editing, how did you ensure that the meaning would be apparent to the audience? What creative decisions did you make in planning, rehearsing, filming and editing that were influenced by your sense of the audience and possible layers of interpretation?
We ensured that all the filming made sense and logic order. We used appropriate costumes and mise-en-scene. Also we used two main actors who were supposed to be a person in childhood and the same person grown up. We used actors who looked alike and had an age difference. We used a tripod in all the filming because it made the look more professional. Also we used different shots to make it more interesting, unusual and dynamic. We edited the film very thoughtfully because the shots had to make sense by being in the right order, as we had a difficult task in trying to show the future and the past which could only be achieved mostly by editing.
5. How did the audience respond when you trialled aspects of your film? Are there a variety of possible interpretations of your opening sequence that will depend on the cultural situation of the viewer?
The audience found it very scary and thrilling, also they liked our filming. One of the viewers made a comment on a mistake we had which we corrected.
Maria Timchenko
1. How did digital technology enable you to develop creatively and are there examples of the technology obstructing or preventing your creative flow?
Digital Technology helped me with filming a lot. The tripod helped me achieve different effects, especially making the images still. Also pan and movement shots. We came up with an idea of the actor holding the tripod and facing the camera towards the actor, it came out as a very moving effect. Of course the camera helped us record all of our progress. The most helpful technology was the computer and Premiere Elements, which made our film make sense. We could change the video clips we filmed, add different effects, music and titles.
2. Thinking About Audience – making meaning
How did you respond to the initial brief with the audience in mind?
We thought in a way of a person who didn't see the film and didn't know the ideas we had. We tried to edit in a way that it made sense for a person knowing nothing about the production, ideas and thoughts which were supposed to be presented.
3. How did your analysis and research into the type of film you selected impact on the creative process in pre-production?
We researched horror, thriller and differnet genres of drama to get ideas for our film. We looked at the different effects and ways of filming. We got our idea for the beginning of our film from Mr and Mrs Smith where they are talking to a psychologist, which worked out as a simple idea but effective. To make it Hollywood film-like we got the logo from universal pictures. From this idea I developed my own which goes straight after it. We looked at the editing from horror movies and the effects which make a film scary.
4. In filming and editing, how did you ensure that the meaning would be apparent to the audience? What creative decisions did you make in planning, rehearsing, filming and editing that were influenced by your sense of the audience and possible layers of interpretation?
We ensured that all the filming made sense and logic order. We used appropriate costumes and mise-en-scene. Also we used two main actors who were supposed to be a person in childhood and the same person grown up. We used actors who looked alike and had an age difference. We used a tripod in all the filming because it made the look more professional. Also we used different shots to make it more interesting, unusual and dynamic. We edited the film very thoughtfully because the shots had to make sense by being in the right order, as we had a difficult task in trying to show the future and the past which could only be achieved mostly by editing.
5. How did the audience respond when you trialled aspects of your film? Are there a variety of possible interpretations of your opening sequence that will depend on the cultural situation of the viewer?
The audience found it very scary and thrilling, also they liked our filming. One of the viewers made a comment on a mistake we had which we corrected.
Maria Timchenko
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Professional Practice
Tolu Lawal
Maria and I got on relativly well throughout the planning and the filming stages. the only time we began to disagree was when it came to the editing. we both had completly differnt ideas of the order in which the flashbacks were to come in. In the begining deadlines were not much of a problem as we managed to meet each one but as we began to run out of time, missing dealines became a regular thing but we tried to get over this quickly by sharing the tasks more evenly between the two of us.
The health and safety logistic problems we faced were very few. At one stage, we were taking shots of a girl walking through the woods in the dark. In order to minimise any sort of risk to her, we made her walk through a path in the woods instead of through forest areas to avoid any accidents. In the beginning we very good at organising the people involved in the production. We were never both doing the same thing at the same time e.g. if Maria was making the titles; I was looking for music to go with our media product or researching the type of screenshots used in our particular genre. Our actors were not managed very well as we changed the gender of our actors a few times. Once we got the final line up, our organisation was much better. We arranged where to meet our actors and we told the exactly what they needed to wear. The only prop that would appear in my media video would be a knife. This is because it is the murder weapon. The rest of the time, there are no props as we thought they would distract from the tense atmosphere we wanted to create in our opening sequence. Creating a shooting script helped us a lot during the filming because we had a guideline as to what we were doing. We did not change our shooting script a lot. The main ideas remained the same; it was only a few of the shots on the story board that changed. This is because we found that the shots we created while filming using the tripod were very effective and were more creative than our initial ideas. My time management was relatively good throughout this project. Although I feel I have spent too much time planning and researching and even more planning when our actors have failed to show up or have other commitments. So I find that now I have just a little less time that I would have liked to edit and add the finishing touches to my media product.
Tolu Lawal
Maria and I got on relativly well throughout the planning and the filming stages. the only time we began to disagree was when it came to the editing. we both had completly differnt ideas of the order in which the flashbacks were to come in. In the begining deadlines were not much of a problem as we managed to meet each one but as we began to run out of time, missing dealines became a regular thing but we tried to get over this quickly by sharing the tasks more evenly between the two of us.
The health and safety logistic problems we faced were very few. At one stage, we were taking shots of a girl walking through the woods in the dark. In order to minimise any sort of risk to her, we made her walk through a path in the woods instead of through forest areas to avoid any accidents. In the beginning we very good at organising the people involved in the production. We were never both doing the same thing at the same time e.g. if Maria was making the titles; I was looking for music to go with our media product or researching the type of screenshots used in our particular genre. Our actors were not managed very well as we changed the gender of our actors a few times. Once we got the final line up, our organisation was much better. We arranged where to meet our actors and we told the exactly what they needed to wear. The only prop that would appear in my media video would be a knife. This is because it is the murder weapon. The rest of the time, there are no props as we thought they would distract from the tense atmosphere we wanted to create in our opening sequence. Creating a shooting script helped us a lot during the filming because we had a guideline as to what we were doing. We did not change our shooting script a lot. The main ideas remained the same; it was only a few of the shots on the story board that changed. This is because we found that the shots we created while filming using the tripod were very effective and were more creative than our initial ideas. My time management was relatively good throughout this project. Although I feel I have spent too much time planning and researching and even more planning when our actors have failed to show up or have other commitments. So I find that now I have just a little less time that I would have liked to edit and add the finishing touches to my media product.
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