EVALUATION QUESTION 7

Resources 
www.slideshare.com
premliminary task- in blog.
www.youtube.com
Round The Bend via youtube.

EVALUATION QUESTION 6

"I have had so much fun experimenting with all of the new technology that I have encountered during the process of creating my media product. Technology such as final cut, garageband, and presentation sites such as voki’s and prezi have all been a new experience giving me an insight into new technologies that I never knew existed beforehand. I felt rather confident using most of these new program however I did ask for advice from my teacher and fellow peers for some of the software."

"I felt that our editing software, final cut was the most difficult technology that I used because I was unaware of the buttons and did not know what they did. Moreover, after some experimenting and playing around with the keys I began to become more familiar with the technology. I felt more confident the more I used it and efficiently used tools such as cutting, modifying, importing and using transitions. Some problems that occurred was that I was unsure how to quieten and slow down audio, I was also abit confused with how to create the titles.  Overall, after much use I felt a lot more confident and was able to use the software."

"A lot of effort went into creating our media product. Trying to juggle filming and editing  around my other studies and work commitments were really difficult however the effective use of the shooting schedule abled me to stay on track at all times. I spent a lot of time trying to get used to the final cut software and also spend large amounts of time on sites such as Prezi as this was also new to me. I put a lot of time into producing my final media product and I feel that I have done well to produce what I have created."

"In order to alter my final product I would have timed it completely differently. Me and my partner realised at the editing stage that we had filmed far to much to fit into the short opening and ended cutting a lot of the shots. In order to prevent this I would try to time and visualise the shots more accurately to stop this occurring again in the future. I would also try to improve my camera skill, as a person who does not have any experience in filming whatsoever trying being a part of the filming cast was a challenge to myself. I felt that for a large percentage of the shots I did very well, however in some shots I felt I didn’t do so well. This and editing I believe are things I would definitely  I would improve on. I believe that time was largely a limitation because it took some time trying to get used to the editing software to use therefore it didn’t give us large amounts of time to use it as effectively as we wanted to. I feel that if we had longer and less study/work commitments we could have really improved our final editing. Although I do believe that we have done well to produce what we have."

I felt really proud of this shot because the use of the van pulling up beside Lily captures their attention as they can interpret what’s about to happen. I felt that this wide shot allowed us to capture everything that we wanted it to, for example to show the emptiness and darkness building tension. 

Resources 
Final Cut
www.prezi.com
www.voki.com

EVALUATION QUESTION 5

EVALUATION QUESTION 5


Resources
www.youtube.com
Round The Bend via youtube.
www.twitter.com
www.facebook.com
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/guidelines

EVALUATION QUESTION 4

Evaluation Question 4 from kiransaghir95



Resources
Primary audience research/questionnaires
http://www.mpaa.org/
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/guidelines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uses_and_gratifications_theory

EVALUATION QUESTION 3

Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Line_Cinema
http://www.summit-ent.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summit_Entertainment
www.youtube.com
Round The Bend via youtube.

EVALUATION QUESTION 2

"The Binary opposition that we applied to our film opening is good v bad. With this in mind we wanted to highlight the positive characters from the negative. The young girl called Lily who gets kidnapped was the positive character along with her father showing a strong connection between both characters. This will help position the audience to feel the close connection between Spencer and Lily so when she is kidnapped they will feel sympathetic towards Spencer. Joseph the name of the villain in the opening is represented as a negative character due to the choice of clothing that he wears. Although it is not clear within the final video because of the low-key lighting, Joseph wears a suit and a balaclava. This is the stereotypical outfit that a ‘thief’ would wear often when committing a robbery of hiding their identify connotes to the audience that he is in fact the villain."

"Lily was represented as a positive character through her colourful clothing connoting to the audience that she is happy and lively child. Her child like figures including her height and age express to the audience that she is vulnerable and unable to fend for herself highlighting which will cause the audience to feel anger towards the kidnapper as she cannot protect herself.  Spencer was represented as a stereotypical father. With his casual bland clothing it showed that he was a ‘boring’ father that children offer refer to their father as. It is clear that Spencer is single father as he makes Lily dinner and there is no appearance of a mother type figure which allows the audience to notice this factor making them feel sympathetic towards them."

Victim Analysis Villian Analysis




Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_opposition
Round The Bend via youtube.
www.google.com/images

EVALUATION QUESTION 1

Evaluation Question 1 from kiransaghir95

Audio Notes:

Slide 2

In order to carry out my genre research effectively I ensured that I looked into the different sub-genre’s of a thriller.  Noticeably, like many other genre’s, a hybrid can attract a different target audience. For example, political thriller may attracts people who are interested in this subject, whereas a supernatural and conspiracy thrillers may attract a target audiences enjoy these conventions. When completing my thriller Genre research it was clear to me that the importance of building tension was vital as it will keep the audience intrigued throughout. This can be done by including many twists within the plot, an example of what the most recent batman films demonstrated well. In thriller films  there was a sustainable amounts of common codes and conventions which the audience expect see. These include: high contrast lighting, quick cuts, expressive colours and obstructive editing. All of these I believe that I have implemented into our film opening. 

Slide 3

Moreover, when researching into the different types of film theorist it was obvious to me that these three were the most common types of theories that were relevant to thriller films in specific. The binary opposition created by L. Strauss can be applied to any film, an example of thriller film is Spiderman where the oppositions are Good vs. Bad. However these can range from human vs. earth and human vs. technology. In our film we implemented the good vs bad binary opposition as Lily represted the good, and Joesph the bad. Todorov’s equilibrium basic structural purpose can be changed in order to bring twists and turns to keep the audience amused throughout. We decided that we would start our film in the ‘disruption’ stage as we wanted the audience attention to be captures right away. Field’s 3 act plot theory, another structural based theory, highlights the typical Hollywood style movie whereas the stages go through the set up, confrontation and resolution. We have created the opening minutes of a thriller film therefore this would be the part of the set up which is used to capture the audience attention which I think we have done effectively. 

Slide 4

Me and my partner decided to focus on the sub genre of crime-thriller as the tragic news of the abduction of April Jones has surfaced across the news. This gave us the inspiration and idea to use this plot as the base of our thriller film.  As you can see on this slide the conventions are more related to this specific sub-genre, for example the props such as guns and knife are criminalised weapons although they may be relevant in further Genre’s such as horror, or political thrillers. The editing, lighting and shots were similar to the overall typical genre’s so we clearly understand the significance of these shots. 

Slide 5
When deciding what films would be the most suitable films openings to analyse I made sure that they all had the similar plot of ‘abductions’. This was because I wanted to see how they shaped the opening and how the hinted at the plot in the opening sequence. I found by editing these films I was able to compare and contrast what was relevant in all three openings and what really stood out also. I found the title scene for se7en very interesting as it was very different from anything I have seen previously. The analysis of this opening titles highlighted the various codes and conventions that was already included. The opening of Taken was different also, I learn mainly from this the importance of the use of lighting and colour representation. For example the use of the high key flashback lighting and then the sudden cut to low key lighting. The Entitlement was different from the others, the opening was set in four different locations during the first two minutes showing the simplistic time changes and how they could be portrayed.

Slide 6
By conducting all of our research it was clear that we had a lot that we could implement into our film opening. We used a range of codes and conventions including colour representation, quick cuts, the uses of high contrast lighting and low lighting etc. All of these things which may catch the audience’s attention. We also used a range of camera shots especially the ones that were typical to the genre including close ups, long shots and over the shoulder shot which are often used to build tension and show expressive behaviour. During the editing process we made sure that the cuts were quick as this was stressed throughout researching and the obstructive editing seemed difficult but I believe that this was done efficiently by the different shots that we used. 

Slide 7

This slide shows some of how our research has been implemented into our film opening.

For example, the high contrast lighting that is used, the strong colour representation that is used and the use of time change.

Slide 8

Although we did not do anything entirely to challenge the Genre as this was a heavily researched based, whilst editing we came across the chance to use blackouts for some of our title credits which we did not think about beforehand. Me and my partner decided that we would use this method over irrelevant clips as it help to retain the dark, mysterious tone we wished to set. I believe that we this did this efficiently as it allowed the audience to focus on this but not drawing them away from the audio in the background which was important.

Slide 9

These are the 9 main key parts that I believe are the most significant in the opening. 




Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre)
http://www.slideshare.net/bobsled/conventions-of-thriller-films-3300791
http://mediadarren.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/conventions-of-crime-thriller-genre.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Film_theorists
Taken Opening 
Entitlement opening 
Seven Opening
Round The Bend via youtube.

Our Thankyou's!

In order to show our appreciation to all of the people that have helped us complete our final media product we brought them a packet of  chocolates each as we could not have completed our film opening without them. Me and my partner felt very privileged to be able to work with them! The chocolates were handed out to:

Jon- For being the driver of our film as neither me or my partner know how to drive.

Arman- For playing the role of Spencer which meant he had to learn dialogue and give up a lot of free time.

Alina- For playing her part so well, and being so co-operative despite her young age.

ACTION PLAN

These are the tasks that should be completed by the end of the week.
Week Commencing Monday 31st December 2012

• Evaluation Questions 

Editing Process- FINISHED.

This was the last day that we had to finish editing our film before we broke up for our Christmas break. This meant that we would not have access to the Mac's or any other software which meant that it was vital we finished the final media product.

Today we used our time to fix up the following before distributing our final media product

• Any splits that need to be joined
• Change some of the title credits that we were unhappy about 
• Ensure that the music fitted and matched the clips 
• Ensure all transitions/filters were how we wanted to 
• Render all of the final product.

In today's lesson we wanted to finish our media film as we felt that this was capable as we had spent a lot of time on working on this. We watched the final product over and over again to ensure that there was not gaps that needed filling and joined shots that were not connected. After watching the clip so many times, me and my partner was unhappy about some of the credits in the blackout so we decided to change them in order to make them look better. We felt that some of the audio was out of place so we spend some time trying to accurately make the music fade in and out in the correct place.

Once all we had done all of this we had used up our final lesson time so we had to stay behind to export our final product to distribute to YouTube and gain feedback. I am very happy with what we have produced despite the apparent flaws in the video. I believe me and my partner have created something that we never thought we would finish and Its great to see something that we planned so earlier on into the school year finally created into a visual piece of media.
I am proud to present- 'Round The Bend'.

Music Choices

The following are the music choices that we have used in our film opening. We have used these because as you can see the title itself connotes the creepy/eerie music genre's that they are. We used the following as they was exactly what we wanted. We used software such as garageband in order to lower the pitch and edit the songs slightly to make them our own and this will help to ensure that the music doesn't over power the film opening as a whole.

Eerie background music 

Tension build up music 

Pier to nowhere- charlie song 

All of these songs are used specifically at a certain time in the opening.  

Editing process 3- 20/12/12

In today's editing process we wanted to add the final touches and add the music and audio affects that we needed to. This is what we have completed in today's lesson:

AIM- Add the music and audio effects effectively 

• Watched through the video and fix any errors
• Download potential music that we intend to use
• Use the music software called 'garageband' to edit the music
• Add in sound effects into the film opening at suitable times
• Add suitable music transitions 

In today's lesson our main aim was to ensure that we had completed the music and sound affects as we wanted to make sure that we used the most appropriate and suitable music in our film opening. Firstly we looked on YouTube for some music that we can use in the background. We search the tags 'eerie music' as this is what our audiences have stated what type of music they expect to see. After picking out the most suitable instrumentals we added them to garageband and lowered the pitch/speed in order to make it more appropriate for the clips that we wanted to use them for. Once we have placed our music onto the final cut software we then had to use suitable audio transitions/filters to fade the music in well and stop it abruptly playing out aloud. I think that we done this well and I am proud of how effective me and my partner completed them. 

We also added in some sound effects into our film opening. Basic sound effects that we had to adapt to our opening included simple things such as the phone noise which we had to film again via a microphone as this was too quiet to be heard in the original audio clip. Furthermore, we also used the sound effect of a door slamming as this was used dubbed out due to the sped up clip. We did this by filming my partner shutting another door via a site on the macs and then adding the audio clip to the door shutting when Lily is leaving the house. So far this has been a really good task completed and have enjoyed this very much. 

Editing process 2- 19/12/12

This is our second lesson to continue our editing. In this lesson we completed the following:

AIM- To create the finished product (except audio/effects)

• Finished completing the basic cuts, transitions and looping throughout the opening.
• Fixed all of the original audio that were attached with the clips by looping and deleting audio that we did no longer want/need. 
• Added the 'Summit Entertainment' to the beginning of the film clip 
• Added the film title, blackouts and title credits using a specialism software. 
• Watch the final product over and fix any further problems e.g. a split, audio malfunction. 

As you can see we hoped to complete a large amount of editing which in fact took us a lot more that just time available in lesson. Me and my partner worked hard in order to ensure that we was able to complete what we wanted to achieve. We used more new technology during this process for example the software used to create title credits. With this we was able to create our title credits just the way we wanted to and locate them anywhere in the shot which gave us a chance to experiment with this to find the most suitable place. We also learnt how to delete audio which we did not need by looping the audio, this was useful as it got rid of certain noises such as footsteps, breathing which were an inconvenient to and drawed the attention away. 

We also added the 'Summit Entertainment' at the very start of the video as this was the very first thing that we wanted our target audience to see. This meant that another further 20 seconds had to be added on film opening despite the fact that we had shortened it anyways but we knew that we had to have this in the opening. Once we downloaded and added the sequence at the beginning to our film opening and added all the credits we really felt that our opening was beginning to look like an actual film opening which was really good as we have already put a lot of time and effort into what we have done so far.

CHANGES!

We have had to make many different changes to our original planning of our film. The following outlines the changes that we have had to make in order to make our final product more efficient and professional. 

The main problem that me and my partner had was that the whole length of the film in total was far to long to fit into the 2 minute opening we was expected to make. This meant that we had to change and cut some of the shots that we have included in our planning and storyboarding in order to shorten the overall time. The shots that were taken out as a result were:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 17, 18, 24, 28, 30, 34 and 37. All of these shots were filmed, but when it came to editing we then decided what we should cut and what we should keep. 

Because some of the shots were cut, it also meant that some of the dialogue also had to be cut as the shot was no longer relevant, this was partly due to camera faults (not picking up sound). We also had to use our class member's camera at one stage as our camera ran out of battery life as we was filming as we did'nt have access to a plug point. This was not good as when we went to adapt it into our filming stage during editing the screen size was different and the colour balance had changed meaning that we could'nt use those shots either. 

Editing Process- 17/12/12

This is our first editing process in which we completed the following:

AIM- To ensure the visual is correct 

• Picking out the most suitable clips from the shots that we have recorded and deleting the ones that we do not need. E.G. shots that we have filmed multiple times or have made a mistake on. 
• Using the converter program 'Toast' on macs to convert the video files so that it is compatible with the Final cut software.
• Creating a new project and beginning to edit our film.
• Adding all of the clips into one big piece and noticing that exceeded the time limit that we have for the opening. 
• Cutting the clips that we did not use, and shortening irrelevant shots in order to reduce the overall time. 
• Editing each shot individually and beginning to become more aware of the different tools on the program including 'cutting', transitions and modifying effects such as speed.

   

This was our very first time editing our film and it did not go as expected. The converting of files and uploading the content onto final cut was easy but once we realized that we had exceeded our time limit we were unsure about what to cut. This was a long process as we didn't want to get of the really good shots, and affect the plot of the opening so we found it difficult to decide which shots to cut. However after we managed reduce our overall time we were able to effectively start to editing the clips involved using tools such as the split button, cut button and implementing appropriate transition.

Because we have never used a program like this before it took some time for me and my partner to learn how to use the tools as effective as we could so after some tries we managed to use the tools how we wanted to use them. After some periods of time we were able to cut the shots into how we wanted them to be, although very few shots did not turn out well, the majority of them looked really good. We spent a lot of time during our two hour lesson completing this, and we are going to spend more time during our free periods tommorow in order to continue fixing up certain parts. 

ACTION PLAN

These are the tasks that should be completed by the end of the week.
Week Commencing Monday 17th December 2012

• Editing progress updates throughout the week
• Any changes

Filming Session 3

Here is an update on our final filming session:

Filming Session 2

An update on how our filming was today:

Filming Session 1

Here is our how our first filming session went:

ACTION PLAN

These are the tasks that should be completed by the end of the week.
Week Commencing Monday 10th December 2012

• Review of filming session 1
• Review of filming session 2
• Review of filming session 3