Final product

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1-Rb9KCiCs- here is a link to my final product. 

Evaluation 7- Looking back at your preliminary task do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Throughout the process of making the preliminary task and the going on to making our final 2 minute opening we made many improvements which helped us to make our final product the best it could be; we learnt a lot of about different features while filming out preliminary task. I am going to be talking about the problems we made while filming our preliminary task and why we made certain changes to our opening film cause of these problems we experienced.

   The first problem we noticed while editing our preliminary task was the way we had shot the different angels and how they had affected the continuity of our film we found that we had not got the conversation shots in the same angle which mean that the two scenes jumped between each other and the match on action didn’t work probably; we therefore was more aware of this while filming our final piece and filmed all of our conversation as one take and then changed to the other side and done the same thing so that we could cut the different shots while filming and it meant the we didn’t have any jumping between the different shots. Underneath you can see us pointing out and noticing out mistake and then watching out final piece where you can see we have not made the same mistake.

  Another feature where we made a mistake in our preliminary task was when we was filming Rhia’s conversation scene the top of her head was cut off during the filming we however did not notice this until we came to editing part this meant that we had to keep this in our preliminary task; we therefore made sure that we checked all of the shots we filmed before leaving the filming setting so that we knew all the shots we had taken were the correct ones and we could use them effectively in our final piece. We have shown how we progressed from our preliminary task to our final piece through not making the same mistakes with the camera angles and shot in our final piece.

Throughout our final piece we used a lot of transitions from different shots to make our opening flow better from scene to scene; we first used transitions when making our preliminary task, as we wanted to show how the scene has changed from the different areas. This helped us to know how to use the different transitions and to know where it was appropriate for us to use them in our final piece you can see the different transitions we used in our final piece and preliminary in the photos below.

   

    In conclusion I feel that we had some technology problems while filming our preliminary task which we identified early on which meant that we were able to improve our work for our final piece which made sure we were making improvements throughout and making the most progression that we could make during our media course and it ensured that we made the best product we could make. 

Evaluation 6-What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have made a table (which is shown underneath) of the different equipment that I used during the making of my film, it shows what I knew before I started the course and what I now know having made my 2 minute clip and almost being finished with my as year; it also analyses what I now know and didn't used to know.  

Technology before the course	Explanation of before completing the course to how I find using the technology now;
I movie ·      Editing ·      Uploading into the program	Before the course I had not edited any product which meant that I had to learn how to use the software while editing however I made a preliminary task before doing the main piece of work which helped me to get used to the software before editing the final piece I found this very useful. I found using the software very uncomplicated which made the editing process more enjoyable  meaning I spent more time on getting it right; something which I found hard however when editing was importing music into iMovie however once I had found a YouTube convertor website and worked out how to do it I understood what to do and found it simple from then on.  I have learnt many new skills while editing my final piece these are skills I will take on with me through to A2 year.
Blogger	I had not used the site blogger before so didn’t know how to navigate round the site however I soon leant how to use the site with uploading blogs and being able to preview my blog and other people blogs; also I found it quite easy upload links, video and photos on to the site after doing it once. I now understand how to use the site efficiently which is something I will use in the future.
YouTube ·      YouTube converter	I regularly used YouTube as a site to listen to and watch to videos so I knew how to work around the site and knew had to do the basics such as liking and viewing videos however throughout the process I learnt how to upload videos onto a YouTube account and how to view this while monitoring the video in which I have uploaded on to a YouTube account. I also had never used a YouTube converter which was something that I had to use regularly while making my film to be able to use the copyright music I needed for my film, this was something I quickly learnt how to use it and would now know how to use.
Importing/exporting	Throughout the making of our film we imported and exported many different items into our film and onto my blog; I had not imported any items on to either iMovie or blogger before   editing my final piece or making my blog however I learnt how to do it while completing my blog. The main piece of importing was when importing the footage form the memory card to iMovie this was a very straight forward to do and once I had done it once I knew how to do it and this made it easier in the future. After I had finished the editing process I had to export our finished video onto YouTube I therefore exported the video and uploaded it onto YouTube I had never done this before  once  being shown how to do it I found it easy and I would now be able to do it again. I also had to import photos onto my blog  I found this simple and no difficult to do.
Equipment ·      Tripods ·      Viedo cameras ·      Camera	I hadn’t used much of the equipment before making my 2 minute opening however I had used equipment that was like it similar so found it quite easy to adjust to the new equipment as I could use my prior knowledge. I hadn’t used a tripod before however after using it once it was very easy to use. The camera we used was a Sony I found this camera very easy to use as it wasn’t heavy and focused well meaning I only had to focus what was in the shot making sure it had everything in it and checking the different elements we had to include such as the rule of three, 180 rule and making sure the match on attention was all correct. Overall I found using the camera a troublesome and enjoyable task while filming our 2 minute film.

Evaluation 5; How did you attract/address your audience?

 

We used many different features in our two minute opening to make sure that our opening attracted our target audience and made them want to view our two minute opening. We have included different feature into our film such as the mise en scene, sound etc. to make our film appeal it the audiences.

   The main feature which I feel makes the opening appeal to females is the actors we used we choose to use all female actors rather than having males actor who would have stereotypical filled the role of interviewer this would have been more appealing to males however we felt that having a female fill this role would show some female power this would appeal to females.  It can also give the audience ambition as the role of police interviewer as male role so when a female is filling the role they feel as if it is more achievable for them. The main character being a girl may be relatable to some girl who have been in venerable situations or have had times in their lives where they feel venerable so they may form some kind of attachment to the main character however males may not feel this; we first got the idea of having a female police interviewer from pretty little liars as we felt it would appeal to females the most as shown different scenes from this TV series below is a picture of our main inspiration for having a female lead role.

 

   Another feature which we included in our opening to make it attract audience was the mise en scene the main character was shown wearing a pair of black converse in the opening these shoes are very a very statement brand for the younger generation of people who we want to be our target audience; by using a well-known brand it makes the opening some more relatable to them as they may also own the shoes showing a similarity between them and the characters; we got inspiration for this from pretty little liars also as they are shown to be wearing very on trend outfits with brands being shown regularly this is shown in the picture underneath.

     We also have shown the interviewer wearing smart business wear which many of the audience may also wear to work which shows another similarity to them so maybe able to relate to them through this feature as well.

     The style of music we used was very fitting to our film however may not have been very appealing to our target audience as it has not got any similarities to music which I feel our target audience would enjoy and listen to; this however maybe appealing to some our audience as it gives a different edge to the film which they may not have experience before so enjoy the alternative which is involved in our opening. We can compare our music to the music which was used in other films and TV shows which are target at our target audience.  The main piece of work which we used to as inspiration for our film was from the TV show pretty little liars this show is targeted at teenage girls which is what we wanted to focus; they used suspense music the whole way through the series to build tension throughout and make the audience feel unsure on what is going to happen the main scene where this is used is throughout the first season the music they used was very soft toned and quiet this was the effect we wanted to give our music so that audience don’t fully notice it is there however it still has an effect on them. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngaeGhP-LwE  20 seconds-38 seconds)

 

Evaluation 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

When planning our opening we decide our target audience very early one so that we could adapt our film to the audience and make sure that it fitted the audience that we wanted it to we decided through completing some target audience research that the main watchers of thrillers film were males; however females are watching and enjoying thrillers more often so we therefore wanted our film to appeal to females as the main audience as we felt that this was a market which gets forgotten about in the thriller genre. In this blog post I will deciding the different feature which we included to make our film opening appeal to young females and males. Below I have inserted a mood board for interests I feel our audience would have. In this mood board one of the key things shown is social media this is very key to knowing our audience as it shows how they communicate a lot.

    During our research we found that there was a market being created by females for thrillers as more and more females started watching them; we wanted to cater to this audience with our two minute opening although there would less of target audience to cater for we felt it would fit our film better and I would be an easier task for us to complete as we understand what females look for in thriller films. We therefore choose to have teenage girls as our target audience, we felt that we could relate and cater to this age group cause of this as we know and understand what they want from a thriller as we would want the same thing form a thriller we watch. However we wanted to fully understand what our audience expected from a thriller and we wanted to know this so that we knew what to include and add into our opening to make it fit our audience.

   One of the main pieces we used to compare our target audience to and got inspiration for what to add in to make it fit the audience was pretty little liars this TV series includes flashbacks and has a very female heavy cast list these two things are major similarities to our film plan and things that are shown in throughout our film opening; we felt these things would help to make our film appeal to more female based audiences which was the main aim we wanted to achieve.

 

Evaluation 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

There are three main institutions which make and produce films all year round these three institutions are Hollywood, British films and films made for television; these three institutions produce different types and qualities of films. In this blog post I will be discussing which I think would suit my film and which institution I feel would be best to produce my film.

    I feel that the best suited institution for producing my film is British them in reasons for this is it would have a big enough budget to be able to get the mise en scene correct to give the film a professional feel to it; also with a reasonably budget we would be able to employ a good range of actors who can make the storyline realistic. Another reason I feel that a British film producer would be best to for our is the audience which it would be seen by; this would mainly a British audience which I feel would be best for our film as there is more of an interest in thriller films in the UK rather than other place such as America. As well as this I feel that we need to be realistic and our film is not been produced to a high quality lie Hollywood films so would therefore not fit into this market; we also like the idea of the film being very roughly put together to give it the idea that that it more real life and I fee British films are more successful in making films with this effect.  Another reason which I feel our film is more suited to British films is that the storyline we have based it in very British settings and with very British features so I feel that our film wouldn’t fully appeal to the American audience.
  I believe that our film would be in the cinema for the Marxism of two weeks as it would not have much publicity as only a British  film I believe my film will have more of a audience when it is realised on DVD and will receive more publicity when it is realised onto DVD so will therefore have more success and make more money from this.  

   An example of a British film that I feel shows some of the examples I have used to reason my choose for using British films is gothika (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETaTp6uquEc ) this was produced by castle productions and involves many flashbacks throughout so d similar to our film it also has the psychology aspects which out film involves and demonstrates what we was aiming to achieve in our film also showing why we have choose a British company to produce it. 
 

Evaluation 2 -How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In this blog post I am going to be discussing how my media product represents a social group and how my work challenges the conventions of the different social group in which our work has focused on; I will be discussing the social groups of; gender, age and social class.

   Gender is a very key part of our 2 minute film opening as it only shows the female gender so is typically subverting the conventions of a thriller as commonly thrillers parts are played by males as males are often viewed as the superheroes who save the day and create the happy ending which the audience want; we wanted our 2 minute opening to go against the stereotype of the main roles being taken by males to show a different side to thriller. We also subverted the stereotypes of police work being typically male role with most police interviewers being male, we felt having a female police interviewer would bring a different dynamic to the film by adding a more calm and sensitive side to it then sharply breaking it by having tense scenes straight after the female character is in the scene; this also showed two different types of females one being vulnerable and in need of help and the other being strong and independent. However we have adhere to some stereotype of gender in thrillers as our main character who is shown to be in a very vulnerable state is a female and a very key conventions to females in thrillers are that they are the weak victims and n our 2 minute opening the character who is vulnerable and in a state is female. 

    Age is another social group which is represented in out 2 minute opening it shows two different age groups on being teenagers who are seen as a venerable group of people we have adhered to these stereotypes as our younger character is shown in a very vulnerable state and the older character is shown to be comforting her and showing her that she is safe; this is a very stereotypical relationship between a teenager and adult character in films; as well as this adults are normally shown to be in control of situations and be in charge this is shown in our 2 minute opening as the adult interviewer s shown in a professional way which makes the audience feel that she is in control  of the young character. However we have subverted some stereotypes of teenagers in our opening as in many films and in society teenagers are viewed to always having fun and out causing trouble however in our opening the teenager is shown to be sad and at her worst point in her life whereas she should be out enjoying life. 

  The last social group which was presented in our film was the working and middle class these two groups were shown in very district and unnoticeable ways; with the young character being shown as working class through her vulnerability and the interviewer being shown as middle class through her job title. The two classes which are shown and shown in different ways, the working class was shown with run down close and in a state which suggests the idea that she has a mental illness this is often associated with lower classes as the upbringing mean that they at more likely to experience a mental illness. The middle class was shown through the interviewer she was shown wearing professional clothing showing her wealth and also her job would suggest that she is highly educated and well put together; these two classes show a contrast between each other during our opening. 

Evaluation 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

  In our 2 minute opening we used many conventions of the genre we were aiming to achieve this genre was thriller. We used many different props our setting different editing techniques and sounds we used to be able to achieve the look we wanted to with our two minute opening. 

     The first thing we thought about was the mise en scene so when we filmed we has everything how we wanted it; the setting was a key feature of this as it sets the scene was it what happens to the main character. Our first setting was reculver towers this was for the flashback parts of our film these part where the main parts to create a thriller as these supported the thriller idea. The day in which we filmed was dark and gloomy this helped with adding atmosphere to our film as it looked more dangerous and looked like somewhere which a young girl should not be in by herself as it looked dangerous and mysterious. The natural lighting was also darker which helped to add to the atmosphere as it darker lighter is a great sign of danger which is a key convention to a thriller. Another convention which we adhered when filming at reculver towers was the costume which our main character was wearing this was ripped up grey t-shirt with mud and blood all over it this helps to reinforce the idea of danger and also helps to show that the character is hurt and something awful has happened to her; the costume is a key part of creating the idea that the character is not normal and something has happened to her which would later be discovered during the rest of the film this also helps to tie the audience in to want to watch the rest of the film. The makeup we used is also a key idea as to what has happened to the character this helps to create the idea that it is a thriller as shows danger again. The office space filming also helps to show the genre as thriller as it adheres to some conventions such as the main character has a prop of a blanket which shows her vulnerability and helps to shows how she needed to be cared for. Something however which challenges the conventions of a thriller in the office space is the idea that there is a female interviewing here however police officer jobs are normally taken by males whereas most people would expect the position to be taken by a male not a female.

 

  Another feature which helps to adhere to conventions to thrillers is the sound we used we used background music which followed through the whole of the film this showed continuation flowing throughout the film ; also as the music has peaks we had added the peaks in the tense moments so that it adds to the tension of the film. We also added in some whispers into the build-up of the main character freaking out getting the loudest it can when the character is at her most venerable state this adds to the atmosphere of the film as it makes the audience feel more tense and uptight these feelings are very key conventions to thrillers. We also added some sharp booms in towards the end of the two minutes this was to add tension when the figure is about to appear so that the audience is scared and expect something bad to happen.  

   
 

    Our editing also helped to adhere to the conventions of thrillers as we focused on making the flashbacks being very clear as to what they are; we done this through the effects we added and the order which we put the different scenes in. We decided to start with the flashbacks to get the audience caught in to the film and wanting to watch on, we the added the dream effect so that it was clear these scenes were flashbacks and not actually happening on the current day we went with this effect as we felt that it was the most effecting in making the scenes see like flashbacks. I feel one of the key pieces of editing which helps to adhere to the conversion to a thriller is the scene where we have used point of view shot of the character running and then shot of her running towards the camera going between these shots which creates match n action this is effective as it shows a sense of rush from the character which makes the audience fear where and why she is running; these things all add tension. We also did match on action in the office space to show her  opening the door we done this so the process of her opening the door was slowed down which adds tension as to what is behind the door as it taking her a while to open the door. Another feature which while editing was slow motion we used this during the flashbacks to give the effect that the character is not mentally stable and this is affecting her vision and view of the world.We decided on the idea of having flashbacks from the film ‘I am a legend’  this films uses flashbacks to show different elements to the main character life we have tried to do this with our film adding in flashbacks from when the character is unstable.

The last thing we used to develop the conventions of a thriller was camera angles and shots; we decided to use many different camera angles and shots so the audience a range of features which we had included. One shot however we used quite frequently was a close up we used this a lot to that audience saw the pain and fear which the main character is feeling, also to show the physical pain which the character has experience/ been through to bring her to where she is. Another shot which we was very keen on including during our 2 minute opening was a point of view shot this was to give the feeling that the main character is telling her story through the flashbacks and makes the opening more personal to the character so the audience will feel more tense when something happens to her as they have formed some sort of attachment to the character. 

  

Behind the scenes- editing

I feel that the editing processes has been very success and I feel that I have learnt a lot about the software4 program i movie this was a program which I hadn't very used before started a level media. The editing process has taken us a long time and I have found it very tedious as there is a lot of back and forth between ideas and trying to fit in everyone ideas and thoughts; also learning the editing process while editing our film made the process order however once we knew the basics we found it a lot easier as we knew what we needed to do and how to do it.

  We found a few issues with our footage which meant that we had delays to editing as we had to re film a couple of the first scenes as the focus was not right and there was also a few problems with the script which we needed to change however once we had re filmed the scenes we needed to we was able to get started with our editing. We started off putting the different scenes in order in which we wanted them to go with in our opening after we had completed this we cut and cropped the scenes so it flowed better and we also added transitions in between the flashbacks and current day scenes so there was a difference between the different scenes and gives the effect of the young person viewing the flashbacks in her brain. After we had added in transitions and had all of the scenes in order we had to make sure that the different scenes didn't jump and ran smoothly through the different scenes we did this by added different effects and cutting the different scenes to make them flow. We also added some different effects to our film to make the flashbacks look more obvious which added to the film as it shows the storyline in a more clear and obvious way. 

    Adding the sound into the opening was something which we struggled with as we were not sure what type of music would make the opening flow more; so we spent some time listening to different music and finding the different sound which could use to make the scenes flow through we decided on some copyright music from YouTube called; (……………..) we used this music the whole way through the opening to allow continuation. We then found that there was a sound glitch which was very noticeable so we added in the sound of a bird we also felt that this added to the atmosphere. The last piece of sound which we added in was wind we felt this added to the atmosphere and also it helps to add more dynamic to the film as there is more audio for the audience to pick up on during the scenes without diegetic sound in.  

Equipment;

During the filming of our 2 minute opening clip we used 2 main pierces of equipment these were a camera and tripod; in this blog post I will be discussing how well they worked and the difficulties we faced while using them.  The camera we used was called cannon  we found this was a very easy camera to get used to quickly and know how to use it very easily without having to spend all of time learning how to use it; this was very useful as we didn't have any spare time during out filming schedule to learn how the camera works.  We also used a tripod which was very easy to set up and use it also was a good size which meant that it was easy to get around our different filming areas and to be able to use it in the different areas effectively.  
In these photos we can see the different equipment which i have spoken about and used in the process of filming. 

Behind the scenes- filiming day 2;

The second day of filming was much more complicated having to film in a short period of time and having a small area to film and set the camera up in also made it more complicated. We needed to film the current time pieces which we planned to film in an office space to make it look like an interview our original plan was to film in a little classroom which was at our school this however was frequently unavailable this then became a problems so we found meeting room in our school which gave the atmosphere which we wanted from our overall film opening; we wanted a simple and plain office space so that it would help give off the impression that it is in a police office space. Once we had found the space which we wanted to use us then went to complete the same makeup onto Tia we had picture of the previous days makeup of that we could get the makeup exactly the same as it was on the other filming day; this was to correct continuation throughout the whole 2 minute clip. We then went on to film we ran into some complications the first thing was the camera dying however we was able to go and get another battery which was fully charged we the found that the tripod was broken so had to go and  find a tripod part which would allow us to use it, once we had solved all of our first issues we went on to film the first 4 scenes of our film new ran out of time so we then secluded some more time on the 31.2.16 so we can then complete all of our filming on that date; this will also allow us to complete our editing by our deadline and we aim to get all of our footage filmed and uploaded onto our mac by the 01.03.16 this will give us a month to be able to edit and finish off all of our film by the deadline date.