Evaluation: Question 8 prezi

evaluation question 8 on Prezi

Evaluation-QUESTION 8

When we first started using the camera's we were given a task to film a bag swap.  Before filming we we're told that we needed steady shots nothing out of focus.  At the beginning of our film we started with a clock.  The filming of this as you can see was extremely shaky.  As well as this the person filming had cut out the top of the clock.  The clock was not at any point in the centre of the screen.  For some reason when filming this short clip we had decided not to use the tripod.  However when filming our final film we used the tripod often or we placed the camera on the floor.  In this film we didn't use multiple sounds we just left the sounds as we found them.  Which left us with voices shouting in the background. This is something we didn't want so we changed the sound for our final film.

This shot is taken from another one of our practice films.  When filming we didn't realise how out of focus it was until we had uploaded all the shots on to the computer.  We made sure and were very aware of the fact that none of our shots were similar to this.

In this shot of Prince there is a large space above his head.  The extra space around him is unnecessary and can give away too much of the Mise en scene.  Instead of having so much space above him we could have used it as a close up or a long shot so that we had his whole body in the shot.

 These two shots however are taken from our final film.  As you can see the first one of monica is not out of focus at all.  This shot is also not shaky or fuzzy.  The shot below is of Prince and as you can see we have adjusted the shot whilst filming to make sure that we didn't make the same mistake as last time.  It was difficult to remember all the mistakes we had made in our practice films when filming our final film.  We had to keep reminding each other of the distance and to use the tripod if needed.

This clip is also taken from our final film, we decided to zoom out from the T.V screen and then pan around the bedroom.  Surprisingly we didn't use a tripod for when we zoomed out Prince did it all by hand.  However when we were panning the room we did use a tripod as we had learnt from our previous practice films that our filming can become very shaky without one.  For our final film we decided that we wouldn't use any of the sound that was from the shots.  We muted all that sound and added our own made ones.  We used a multiple amount of sounds and mixed them together to make a sound track.  This was much more effective as we could find the correct sounds and add them where they were needed.  Also whilst filming we found that people we're sometimes talking or laughing in the background.  The sounds we used for our final film were extremely and dramatically different and better to the sounds from our practice films. 

Evaluation- QUESTION 8 Pictures

Evaluation:Question 4&5

 I have done a mindmap of different ways I can promote my film. There are many ways and I want to use all of them. The film I have made is a low budget student film. I do not want to release it fully on Youtube. I want to have a small launch party inviting family, friends and maybe a few friends of friends. This will then allow us to have people telling their friends about my movie. We also are going to advertise our film through social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Hopefully my friends and followers will help promote it. Also I would post a short trailer or clip of the film onto Youtube through a Youtube channel that I will create. I do not want to upload the full movie because people will copy it. I will then sell the film very cheap on dvds so that I can gain money to be able to make more films.

The video I have posted underneath is a film made by a university student. He posted it onto YouTube and so far it has 136,438 views, which is a great achievement for a student film. The maker of the film, Tom Ridgewell has now created a YouTube channel with many more videos for people to watch. He also have his on website which you can access through his YouTube page. This is quite similar to what I would like to do with my thriller because I want to make a YouTube page and post a small clip of my film onto YouTube. This will then help me be able to make many more videos.

Evaluation: What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

When we got told we had to make a film we decided to use Youtube to search for different openings. We then made a mindmap of ideas that we had and finally decided on one idea. We spent 3-4 hours recording our film, which we used a camera, tripod and a camera light to tape. Because we have used the cameras before for two short films we made, so we were quite confident with them. Once we finished filming we started editing using FinalCut Pro. I only know how to do the simple editing on FinalCut Pro, so it was easy for me and the rest of my

 group to make the rough cut. Then using HandBrake we converted the video to an mp4 so we were able to put it onto our blog. When we done our first ever short film, 'Bag Swap' we were shown how to use HandBrake and since then I have found it easy to do and it was quite simple.

After the rough cut was posted we were left with one more week to finish the whole film, adding effects, sounds and titles. Our technician showed us how to use the effects and the different effects on FinalCut Pro so we decided to use an earthquake effect and fade the colour, so it looks more black and white. After doing this we done a bit of sound, but decided to move onto the titles because they were the most important. It was easy to find the different fonts and effects on LiveType but it still took a long time to do. I enjoyed using LiveType because it is very different and I have never used it before. The hardest was SoundTrack Pro because it was hard to get the sounds at the perfect time and for some sounds we wanted a specific part of them which took time and patience. This took many lessons to finish and get perfect timing. We then used HandBrake to post the final cut onto our blog.

In my opinion, without having used the above software mentioned, the video, audio and titles would not have come together in the way that it did. Throughout the making of our film we all blogged about our journey and about using FinalCut Pro, SoundTrack Pro, LiveType and HandBrake using Blogger. I enjoyed using Blogger because it helped me keep an up to date record of each step throughout the journey of making our film.

Evaluation: screenshots for question 7

Evaluation: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Lauren is 17 years old, and is studying her A levels at City and Islington Sixth Form Centre. She enjoys going to restaurants and the cinema with her friends, when she has time, due to the amount of studying she has. Once every three weeks she enjoys going shopping with her sisters and shops from places such as 'H&M' and 'New Look'. She loves following the fashion and enjoys wearing dresses and skirts.

She owns the a MacBook Pro which she uses to do her homework on and to access Twitter and Facebook to talk to her friends. She also has the blackberry storm which uses to contact her friends when she doesn't have access to her laptop.She travels on the train everyday to go college and get home. She loves supernatural and fantasy novels. She also watches shows such as 'Gossip Girl' and 'True Blood'.

I think Lauren's lifestyle fits well with our film because our film is a psychological thriller and contains ghosts, which is similar to the novels she reads. Also shows such as 'True Blood' contain supernatural beings, vampires, which means she likes films with supernatural characters. Also our main character is around her age and the shows she watches are characters between 17-20. Also because she goes cinema regularly with her friends it means she is most likely to go watch the film

Evaluation: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film's main character is shown having flashbacks in our opening title sequence. Another film I know that starts like this is 'Memento'. The two characters are completely different but have a few similarities. Both characters are young males, which is quite popular for thriller movies. Both openings start with a flashback of a murder, but the murder in 'Memento' is created by a gun whereas the little girl in our film is murdered with a knife. Also we actually see the main character of 'Memento' shoot the victim whereas we never actually see Prince stab the little girl. 

Both characters show us their memories in the opening scene which gives us a bit of understanding of their character. When we show the memories we made the clip a faded grey colour whereas in 'Memento' the scene is re-winded. The main character of 'Memento' is shown holding a photo of the dead body which may be something he enjoys doing, but on the other hand, our character is not given any sign that he is the killer and that he wanted to do it.

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

'Amnesia' starts as a narrative opening, showing the audience the main characters and the beginning to the film while the titles come up on the screen. The audience our shown the protagonist having flashbacks of a little girl, who has been killed. We used effects to separate the flashbacks from real life. This allows the audience to understand why he was having bad dreams. As Alfred Hitchcock once said the audience need to know what is happening or they will not be interested. We let them know by introducing the death, but we make them want to carry on watching by not letting them know who the girl is.









 We found it very hard to find a movie to compare 'Amnesia' with, because we didn't use one film as inspiration. We like the idea that in 'Memento' the main character has flashbacks, so we decided to use that for the beginning of our film and our character. Also we liked the idea of the fuzzy TV from 'Poltergeist', so we used it in the beginning of our film. Just like 'Poltergeist' we zoomed out of a fuzzy TV.

I chose the image from 'Memento' where we see a cutaway of the bullet used. This reminded me of the cutaway we used to show our main character holding the knife. The comparison of us using a knife and 'Memento' using a gun may be that it is conventional for thrillers to use a gun whereas horrors use knives.

Evaluation: Audience Feedback and Comment

Our film was shown in class to our peers, so they could give us some feedback. I was quite scared to see what the final cut looked like and what everyone's reaction would be. We planned for 'Amnesia' to be a certificate 15 so it was helpful that the people in our class fit into our age group. We got a lot of positive feedback, such as great editing and sound. We also got the feedback that we wanted. Some said it scared them and they were sitting on the edge of their seats. On the other hand we got told that the lighting was too dark. This is something that we will have to look at next time we make a film.

I wrote the comments we were given into 'Wordle'  which then gave us an image of the words that came up the most in our feedback in a graphic representation called 'Wordle'. This way we are able to see what everyone said in an easy and quicker way. I have posted this onto the blog for everyone to see.

Evaluation: Screen Shots

Evaluation: Audience Feedback And Comment

Final Edit

Today we finished off editing and decided to work as a group instead of separately. We focused on our titles because we hadn't really started them and they are one of the most important things for the opening sequence. It was my first time using LiveType but once i got the hang of it I found it quite easy. We added a couple of effects and then ended up transferring them over to FinalCut Pro. This took quite a while but finally I added them onto the film and made sure the timing was fine.

We finished off sounds and adding some extra sounds to the ones we had. This was harder than LiveType because we had to make sure they had perfect timing. After I found sounds that fitted perfectly with the opening sequence I transferred the sounds onto FinalCut Pro along with the titles. I had to make sure everything was in sync before I was able to save it and convert on handbrake to put onto the blog. It was fine and now I have posted onto the blog as our final piece.