Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Lastly, question 7
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Since the preliminary task I have learnt so much. More recently, time management skills but generally about the technology you have to pick up so much - I had never properly used a Mac before but we managed to edit the whole film on it, in a lot of detail. When we were first given the brief that we would be creating a film opening and we had from October - April to do so it was as if we had died and gone to heaven. We assumed it would be a fairly simple task but we had no idea of how much depth we woud have to go into, the technicalities and detail you can go into on a computer to make sure absolutely everything scene, camera shot, non-digetic and digetic sound, the editting and matching on action is absolutely perfect. For me, that was the hardest thing. I am not good at making things precise and for this that was a struggle. Whilst I was filming, the idea that my hand touching the camera could move it and mess up the whole thing was a scare! At one point I had to zoom in at the right time of a shot and out again but not touch the camera enough to move it and although I'm small handed, I have learnt I am not light-handed - that scene took about 14 takes due to my unprecise-ness! The other thing is working as a team. It generally works very well it is just issues occur when you are meant to be meeting at a specific time but someone is busy, making sure all the work is equally distributed and when we do our work, we aren't letting the others down. Also, if you make a list of what needs bringing in and that isn't stuck with. Or if people miss lessons so you cannot keep track or alternatively, have done a lot since the last lesson and don't want them left in the dark, but what other choice do you have without them being there? Team work always have flaws but it has lots of benefits too. It is nice to have the support of others and know that you can easily get an honest opinion on something and get advice or an alternative way of doing something. Someone elses opinion on something can just be the answer, it was just you weren't looking for it in the right place! I feel I have worked efficiently in the team and have always pulled my weight. It was hard at times to fit in time to join the others filming but in the end it worked out. Obviously, a lot more team work was needed than in the preliminary task but I feel that was a good example of how much we would be working together and because of it we chose our team wisely!
Since the preliminary task I have learnt so much. More recently, time management skills but generally about the technology you have to pick up so much - I had never properly used a Mac before but we managed to edit the whole film on it, in a lot of detail. When we were first given the brief that we would be creating a film opening and we had from October - April to do so it was as if we had died and gone to heaven. We assumed it would be a fairly simple task but we had no idea of how much depth we woud have to go into, the technicalities and detail you can go into on a computer to make sure absolutely everything scene, camera shot, non-digetic and digetic sound, the editting and matching on action is absolutely perfect. For me, that was the hardest thing. I am not good at making things precise and for this that was a struggle. Whilst I was filming, the idea that my hand touching the camera could move it and mess up the whole thing was a scare! At one point I had to zoom in at the right time of a shot and out again but not touch the camera enough to move it and although I'm small handed, I have learnt I am not light-handed - that scene took about 14 takes due to my unprecise-ness! The other thing is working as a team. It generally works very well it is just issues occur when you are meant to be meeting at a specific time but someone is busy, making sure all the work is equally distributed and when we do our work, we aren't letting the others down. Also, if you make a list of what needs bringing in and that isn't stuck with. Or if people miss lessons so you cannot keep track or alternatively, have done a lot since the last lesson and don't want them left in the dark, but what other choice do you have without them being there? Team work always have flaws but it has lots of benefits too. It is nice to have the support of others and know that you can easily get an honest opinion on something and get advice or an alternative way of doing something. Someone elses opinion on something can just be the answer, it was just you weren't looking for it in the right place! I feel I have worked efficiently in the team and have always pulled my weight. It was hard at times to fit in time to join the others filming but in the end it worked out. Obviously, a lot more team work was needed than in the preliminary task but I feel that was a good example of how much we would be working together and because of it we chose our team wisely!
Question 6
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt so much about the technology involved in producing this film! Before we started the task I had no idea how to use the video camera, the movie maker on the Mac or even the tri-pod. It was pretty simple learning about the camera, you just experiement and eventually work it all out. Same with the tri-pod. However, the Mac I can still get lost in, I think it just takes longer to pick up, especially when you have grown up always using Windows. I have learnt about the camera shots and the effects they have so you know which angle when you have decided the general mood of that scene. My favourite scene of our movie is definitely the start, with the panning shot of Amber walking up a street and entering the house through the side gate. It is a nice, easy opening that runs smoothly and sets a scene for the rest of it. I have also learnt from this, that I have awful time management skills! You will be able to tell this from my blog, but I am much more the type to do nothing for months and then spend a day catching up. The problem with this is you always end up leaving stuff out and even random thoughts which could have been developed into great ideas are lost. However, you may have a random amazing thought in a place where you are unable to access the blog. For this reason, I would definitely rather be traditional, and have done all the research & planning and evaluation on paper. This way you could later on jumble it into the right order so it isn't automatically sorted by date.
I have learnt so much about the technology involved in producing this film! Before we started the task I had no idea how to use the video camera, the movie maker on the Mac or even the tri-pod. It was pretty simple learning about the camera, you just experiement and eventually work it all out. Same with the tri-pod. However, the Mac I can still get lost in, I think it just takes longer to pick up, especially when you have grown up always using Windows. I have learnt about the camera shots and the effects they have so you know which angle when you have decided the general mood of that scene. My favourite scene of our movie is definitely the start, with the panning shot of Amber walking up a street and entering the house through the side gate. It is a nice, easy opening that runs smoothly and sets a scene for the rest of it. I have also learnt from this, that I have awful time management skills! You will be able to tell this from my blog, but I am much more the type to do nothing for months and then spend a day catching up. The problem with this is you always end up leaving stuff out and even random thoughts which could have been developed into great ideas are lost. However, you may have a random amazing thought in a place where you are unable to access the blog. For this reason, I would definitely rather be traditional, and have done all the research & planning and evaluation on paper. This way you could later on jumble it into the right order so it isn't automatically sorted by date.
Question 5
How did you attract/address your audience?
When we were thinking about this type of thing, it was during the research and planning sector. This means the audience we were targetting were the wrong ones as it has very recently changed. Therefore I will explain how we inticed our previous target audience.
We gave out a questionaire to a focus group of late teenagers who are also media studies students, so the questions asked grew into conversations and debates and it was great that we could all use media terminology without any not understanding or us sounding like idiots.
When our audience watch my film, I think they will like it as from the word go it completely resembles normal, everyday life. By this I mean by where it was set, the technology present in the scenes, the activities the characters could be doing and the clothing and surroundings in the shots. Everything was normal.
I think this is a really unique thing about our film, considering our genre. I mean, in horror/mystery films, they are deffinitely going to be set somewhere a bit spooky appose to a plesant suburb in Oxford. The only thing that concerns me is we may have gone too normal and the spooky affect won't come across to the audience enough because everything is so normal
When we were thinking about this type of thing, it was during the research and planning sector. This means the audience we were targetting were the wrong ones as it has very recently changed. Therefore I will explain how we inticed our previous target audience.
We gave out a questionaire to a focus group of late teenagers who are also media studies students, so the questions asked grew into conversations and debates and it was great that we could all use media terminology without any not understanding or us sounding like idiots.
When our audience watch my film, I think they will like it as from the word go it completely resembles normal, everyday life. By this I mean by where it was set, the technology present in the scenes, the activities the characters could be doing and the clothing and surroundings in the shots. Everything was normal.
I think this is a really unique thing about our film, considering our genre. I mean, in horror/mystery films, they are deffinitely going to be set somewhere a bit spooky appose to a plesant suburb in Oxford. The only thing that concerns me is we may have gone too normal and the spooky affect won't come across to the audience enough because everything is so normal
Question 4
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Since revamping the majority of my film I feel that the target audience has ever so slighty changed. The original target audience were older teenagers and young adults though I now feel this has upped slightly to just young adults and occasionally some older adults. I feel that if you had to make a trailer of the film, teenagers and that range of age, would not find it appealing. Its quite bleak and not slow, as the main event happens in the first 2 minutes but I guess that will cause the rest of the film to be quite slow. In my experience, I feel children and teens need a more exciting film than that and they either want lots of deaths and a bad ending etc etc or, a nice happy, comedy without blood and gore. This sadly, doesn't offer either of those but will appeal to people who want something a bit different that you have to think about. I think the audience will educated and like things such as potery and literature. It is a mature film though quite predictable.
Since revamping the majority of my film I feel that the target audience has ever so slighty changed. The original target audience were older teenagers and young adults though I now feel this has upped slightly to just young adults and occasionally some older adults. I feel that if you had to make a trailer of the film, teenagers and that range of age, would not find it appealing. Its quite bleak and not slow, as the main event happens in the first 2 minutes but I guess that will cause the rest of the film to be quite slow. In my experience, I feel children and teens need a more exciting film than that and they either want lots of deaths and a bad ending etc etc or, a nice happy, comedy without blood and gore. This sadly, doesn't offer either of those but will appeal to people who want something a bit different that you have to think about. I think the audience will educated and like things such as potery and literature. It is a mature film though quite predictable.
Question 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The media institution would be an independent film festival of which distributes lots of different films. It would not attract the largest film companies such as Universal or Warner, but I think that is the beauty of it. My film is not like eveything you see in the cinema, it has an edge, it is something different. That is why it was hard finding very similar films to research whilst gaining inspiration from massive Hollywood blockbusters. Personally, I think going to see an independent film festival would be a lot better than a trip to the cinema. Its much more exciting, you have no idea what to expect and it may not all be to your taste but it would be something different. It could be like the Glastonbury of films, and Glastonbury has deffinitely got something that will suit everybodies taste, the amount of different ages present who you never see complaining! Films that are shown in cinemas at the moment, are so over rated. I like watching chick-flicks and comedies and you see reviews that give 5 stars from a respectible reviewer and when you see the film it is rubbish! It is sometimes as though the reviewer has been paid to say great things. I have found a film festival which I think would be a great place to showcase my film. http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/festival# It is the leading film festival in Europe and runs for 2 weeks. Because of the amount of time, it gives the impression, they will show a lot of different genres and would love to include our film in something like this.
The media institution would be an independent film festival of which distributes lots of different films. It would not attract the largest film companies such as Universal or Warner, but I think that is the beauty of it. My film is not like eveything you see in the cinema, it has an edge, it is something different. That is why it was hard finding very similar films to research whilst gaining inspiration from massive Hollywood blockbusters. Personally, I think going to see an independent film festival would be a lot better than a trip to the cinema. Its much more exciting, you have no idea what to expect and it may not all be to your taste but it would be something different. It could be like the Glastonbury of films, and Glastonbury has deffinitely got something that will suit everybodies taste, the amount of different ages present who you never see complaining! Films that are shown in cinemas at the moment, are so over rated. I like watching chick-flicks and comedies and you see reviews that give 5 stars from a respectible reviewer and when you see the film it is rubbish! It is sometimes as though the reviewer has been paid to say great things. I have found a film festival which I think would be a great place to showcase my film. http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/festival# It is the leading film festival in Europe and runs for 2 weeks. Because of the amount of time, it gives the impression, they will show a lot of different genres and would love to include our film in something like this.
Question 2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
This is a difficult question to answer. Because the charcters are all 17, the stereotypical view of them will be vulnerable teenage girls who perhaps go out clubbing using fake identification and hang around on street corners intimidating the older and younger generations. This is the general media image of teenagers so I thought it was best to put it out there! However, the two characters in our film are not both acting as teenagers. Roxanne, the vulnerable, naive, innocent girl who is just planning her evening without a clue of the possibilities and what awaits her. In contrast to her, there is Amber, who interestingly we never hear speak (probably as her voice would not be what you would expect from a all in black, tresspassing murderer!) who is also a 17 year-old girl but is playing a murderer who is most properably late 20s - early 30s. The costume Amber wears throughout the film creates the atmosphere and ambiance for what kind of person she is and maybe subconciously we feel afraid of her of at least worried for Roxanne. It may make you take away from the experience absolutely nothing or may make you feel slightly paranoid when in a similar position to Roxanne or just generally paranoid as you know this type of story or the situation is occasionally what you hear about happening on the news, in some remote place. It can affect a range of people and I think it represents teenage girls and that they are vulnerable. They like to make themselves look good and go out and dont worry about getting home and at what time when these kind of things are very common and often are partly the cause of this type of tragedy.
This is a difficult question to answer. Because the charcters are all 17, the stereotypical view of them will be vulnerable teenage girls who perhaps go out clubbing using fake identification and hang around on street corners intimidating the older and younger generations. This is the general media image of teenagers so I thought it was best to put it out there! However, the two characters in our film are not both acting as teenagers. Roxanne, the vulnerable, naive, innocent girl who is just planning her evening without a clue of the possibilities and what awaits her. In contrast to her, there is Amber, who interestingly we never hear speak (probably as her voice would not be what you would expect from a all in black, tresspassing murderer!) who is also a 17 year-old girl but is playing a murderer who is most properably late 20s - early 30s. The costume Amber wears throughout the film creates the atmosphere and ambiance for what kind of person she is and maybe subconciously we feel afraid of her of at least worried for Roxanne. It may make you take away from the experience absolutely nothing or may make you feel slightly paranoid when in a similar position to Roxanne or just generally paranoid as you know this type of story or the situation is occasionally what you hear about happening on the news, in some remote place. It can affect a range of people and I think it represents teenage girls and that they are vulnerable. They like to make themselves look good and go out and dont worry about getting home and at what time when these kind of things are very common and often are partly the cause of this type of tragedy.
Evaluation - question 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I feel my media product, 'Noir' challenges forms of real media products. It is like no other films recently produced. When we were in the researching stage, we found it really hard to find very similar films. It fits into the mystery/horror catergory. Films I researched as I felt were most similar and appropriate included 'Seven' (1995). I feel the way our film would continue (though I havent really thought of what would happen next) would in some ways reflect aspects of Seven or 'Se7en'.When you begin to watch our production, the black and white makes it have an old, vintage feel but it has a modern day twist. Obviously members of my group were acting so the age of them makes it feel young. Also the locations were just streets and the inside of Roxanne's house. This is going to be a familiar, normal setup for the audience to watch. Because of that I think they would not be expecting the film to be a horror, film's of this genre have spooky surroundings such as big, empty, derelict mansions in the middle of a forrest that hasn't been entered in 200 years, or something to that effect! In this way I feel it has challenged and developed the horror genre. However, you dont actually see what has happeed and whether Roxanne is killed by Amber. You just feel that is the obvious answer the film gives you as Amber enters Roxanne's home dodgily and from the scene with the phonecall, we know Roxanne wasn't having her friends round for an hour. The way the production ends gives away what has happened when the title of the film appears you can vividly hear the gunshot. It basically spells it out to you!
I feel my media product, 'Noir' challenges forms of real media products. It is like no other films recently produced. When we were in the researching stage, we found it really hard to find very similar films. It fits into the mystery/horror catergory. Films I researched as I felt were most similar and appropriate included 'Seven' (1995). I feel the way our film would continue (though I havent really thought of what would happen next) would in some ways reflect aspects of Seven or 'Se7en'.When you begin to watch our production, the black and white makes it have an old, vintage feel but it has a modern day twist. Obviously members of my group were acting so the age of them makes it feel young. Also the locations were just streets and the inside of Roxanne's house. This is going to be a familiar, normal setup for the audience to watch. Because of that I think they would not be expecting the film to be a horror, film's of this genre have spooky surroundings such as big, empty, derelict mansions in the middle of a forrest that hasn't been entered in 200 years, or something to that effect! In this way I feel it has challenged and developed the horror genre. However, you dont actually see what has happeed and whether Roxanne is killed by Amber. You just feel that is the obvious answer the film gives you as Amber enters Roxanne's home dodgily and from the scene with the phonecall, we know Roxanne wasn't having her friends round for an hour. The way the production ends gives away what has happened when the title of the film appears you can vividly hear the gunshot. It basically spells it out to you!
Final Film!
We have now completely finished our film! On friday we did the last of the editing and now it is all done. However it is on Roxanne's home computer so until she has uploaded it, nobody else can. Therefore, I will start my evaluation and upload it as soon as she has.
Changes to our final film
After making our first draft and watching numerous examples of other peoples first drafts, we have decided to completely revamp the majority of the film. Not too much new filming will have to take place as by changing a little filming, you can still manage to change how the audience views it and the opinions and emotions they feel can easily be flipped. We have come to this conclusion because we felt it just did not feel like the beginning of a film. The office scene with the detective began to feel unnecessary and so did various other bits. Therefore, we immediately cut the whole office scene so it would have finished with Amber trying to kill Roxanne in the bathroom, then have the film title and a gunshot and bam, the end. The beginning of the film needed a smoother opening to firstly set the scene, and secondly, allow the audience to begin to relax into our film without immediate dialogue which would take concentration and focus away, you rarely are totally engaged in the first 2 minutes of watching a film. With that in mind, we began the film with a long shot of Amber walking up a street and entering the side gate of a house. She looks suspcious and I believe is holding a gun. We have added non-digetic sounds of foot steps which match hers. This panning scene gives nothing away but makes the audience immediately feel uneasy and suspicious of this character. We have then added a small scene of Roxanne alone in her kitchen, recieving a phonecall and discussing her evening plans. From that we know that nobody is expected to enter the house as she is about to have a bath. The way we have changed the film just allows you to know more of what is going on instead of it being a guessing game and then as it ends with a question mark it means the rest of the film would unravel what happened so it seems more and more like a film opening the more we go on.
In addition, we have also edited the credits so the company logo's I previously uploaded which had obviously been drawn out on paper will no longer be our production and distributor's company logos. This is simply because they did not look professional when we experimented adding them to the film and as our film has a dark, morbid story I think everything about the story should reflect that, by having the logo's on a black background. To change this, we will still have the same names for the companies however it will just be the words written without any picture logo. This way it takes no attention away from the wording and the credits seem more central and distinctive.
In addition, we have also edited the credits so the company logo's I previously uploaded which had obviously been drawn out on paper will no longer be our production and distributor's company logos. This is simply because they did not look professional when we experimented adding them to the film and as our film has a dark, morbid story I think everything about the story should reflect that, by having the logo's on a black background. To change this, we will still have the same names for the companies however it will just be the words written without any picture logo. This way it takes no attention away from the wording and the credits seem more central and distinctive.
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