Post 24: Evaluation Questions & Tasks Question 1

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

short film

Here I have used the screen grab tool on my computer to capture images from my short film. By doing this it shows my groups film broken down into sections, I will be analysing each section step by step to show if it develops or challenges the conventions of real media.

1) Here shows the production companies name and is featured in the opening credits, this is conventional as real media products often put the credits at the start of the film.
2) This shot shows both the main characters of the film, this gives the audience a good idea of who the film features and shows there importance.
3) In this shot it shows how we have used fades within our film, this is conventional as all films use fade in and fade outs to help move to the next shot.

4) This shot shows the main character interacting with the antagonist, this is conventional as in real media products it shows the bad guy and how he would interact with the protagonist.

5) This shot shows the relationship between the protagonist and antagonist, the shot shows emails and texts from one character to another. This allows the audience to get more of an idea of the time scale that grooming can take place in.

6) This shot shows the same as five, emails being received from one character to another.

7) The shows the relationship between Sophie and Alan and how close it really was. This is conventional as body language throughout a film is very important as it makes it easier for viewers to understand what is being explained.

8) This shot shows the movement made by the character in the film,  this is conventional as in films they have cut aways to make it easier for the audience to understand, it also shows key points.

9) Here is another shot that shows the relationship between key actors, it also cuts to key points in our film.

10) Here is a shot of main character Alan being shown at a medium close up shot to show viewers his facial expression clearly. This is conventional as I know many films use medium close ups to show reactions and expressions.

11) Here shows a suttle calm shot of Alan in the kitchen and this scene of the film has a critical turning point. Alan proceeds gets arrested and this is leading to the end scene of the film. This is conventional as in larger media products there is often a big build up to something bad that happens, this creates tension in the audience.

12) Here is a closer shot of number 11, this is the scene where Alan gets arrested.
13) This shot shows the policeman waiting for Alan outside the front door. This is conventional as it shows the new characters being introduced to the film as it does in real media products.
14) A close up shot of Alan being handcuffed is a vital shot towards our film, it was key to show the props used as it makes it easier for the audience to understand.
15) Medium close up of Alan being put into the police car and being escorted to the station, this is conventional as the police car helps make the police more realistic for the audience which often happens in films as dramas often try to stay as true to the truth as possible.
16) This show shows Alan being confronted in a interview room. This is where we leave the film on a cliffhanger as this is conventional as the audience will buy the next edition of our film to see what happens next.

Poster:

1) This clearly shows a large font that has been used to tell viewers the title of our film. The font that has been used stands out well and has been put in a position that it can clearly be read. This is a convention as a lot of other media products use film titles to advertise there film and will make a poster to get there film across to the target audience. By having a clear font on the front of a poster there audience will promote the film by telling friends and family.
2) This slogan makes the audience ask themselves the question and makes them think before they have watched the film. This is convention as real media products use small slogans to make the audience think about the film more, and when audience members think of the film more the tend to remember the film because of the qeustion asked.
3) This information must be applied to the poster as it tells the viewers who the production company is and who has been involved. This is also a convention as it is seen in all media products that produce a poster and this information must be included.

Review:

1) A clear bold font has been used for viewers to clearly notice what the films called.
2) Large pictures have been used from the film to show the audience what kind of characters will be involved.
3) A tag line has been included to make viewers wonder about the film making them ask themselves questions before watching the film.
4) This information gives viewers more of a idea of what the film is about.
5) A overall verdict of wether the film is worth seeing or not, this information should persuade the viewers to watch the film.
6) Here shows a small description of what is happening in the picture.
7) Here tells the viewer who the production company is, this is unconventional to have in a review unless its with the information aboout the film.

Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?

The aim throughout the process of constructing my main and ancillary text was to focus on keeping all three texts connected together, by doing this it was clearer what we were trying to achieve and also gave us more information about the selected topic. We wanted the tasks to be linked together not only due to their purpose but we would also target the tasks at the same target audience, we also kept the design of each task the same and focused on realistic media products to help develop our ideas.

Here are screen shots that I have collected throughout our film and it shows the main characters together and alone. This is important that we show these characters as they are both on show in the poster. In the poster both the main characters faces have been merged together and it clearly shows that a male and females face have been adjusted to have the same features that Connor and Sammie have. By including both female and male on the front of the poster it will tell the viewers that these two characters have a important roll thoughout the film and that they are both as egual as each other.

I find the poster very meaningful as it features both the main characters clearly and shows the audience that there will be a female and male involved in the story line. It also attracts the viewers to want to find out more about each seperate character.

Here is a screen grab of the review and the highlight of the review is clearly the image of the two main characters behind the text (like how the poster shows both characters mergins together showing both sexes) and because the photograph is so large it stand out with the red writing on show and this is the first thing that audience members will look at. I think that the review will suggest that something is happening between the two chracters in the photograph and it will also suggest that both characters have equal importance throughout the film.

Overall I think that the main product, ancillary text and the film were a great combination as it is very interesting for the audience's interest and would inform many people the stages of grooming. Behind Blue Eyes has been shown in each of our productions and texts and the audience will recognise the name of our film as it has been shown in bold text in all tasks, I beleive that our film has been advertised well as the characters have been shown clearly and the title of the film has been shown on each peice of work in a bold outstanding font, this is called branding as it advertises the film well and shows what we are offering to our audience. The main change that I would apply would be to make the characters on the poster look younger and to change the images used for the review, this is because I would use a more intenese detailed photograph that shows the characters with agression to try and grab the audiences attention.

Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I have been collecting feedback from the target audience for the past month and the feedback has gave us indications of what can be improved. The feedback we received was needed and this would give us ideas for future and other times when we need to use media. Some of the feedback I received when showing my film to friends and family was that some of the shots could have had faster movement such as the office scene, the actors seem to be very slow moving which makes the film a little less dramatic than the audience was hoping for, but this is the feedback I would have wanted to hear as I know what people of that age now like and I could use this information later on in my career.

When creating our film we had many enthusiastic ideas that we all thought were very interesting and suitable for what we was producing, we didn't know if the idea’s that we come up with would work with what we was wanting to achieve so we got feedback from many people, we asked teachers, parents, students and some school staff what they thought of our film. They all gave us feedback that would help us for our next project and this inspired us to create something more challenging as we have had more experience. Our teacher helped us throughout the project and she come up with some great ideas that we would then take away and make it into our own idea, she gave us tonnes of feedback which would help develop our film and this was another great help. The feedback that we received from each person gave us more understanding of what needed to be improved and the good bits of our project were highlighted, this was nice to see as it showed me the hard work which was needed to create our film and the creative ideas that we as a group can come up with and produce as a film.

There are many areas that I would change when creating our film as we are only beginners within media studies, after hearing the feedback received there are many ideas that could be put towards our film but having a small time scale on our first project was a challenge but we succeeded and the ideas we came up with were to a high standard. The main change I would make would be the actors used in our film, the actors were too young and needed to look older so the film would be more realistic; this would improve the film and gain a lot more views as viewers want to see high standard professional films.

The feedback we read back when collecting the information was fairly all the same, the feedback mostly told us that the characters played were too young and this was clear, they also commented on the shots and said they were simple, the shot targeted was the scene where Alan is sitting in the living room with Paige, the shot used was a long/wide shot that captured the characters at a full. In the future I will vary my shot sizes and be more creative with the angle and shot used so viewers find the film more interesting. Now we know the changes and negatives that our film include so we can take this information away and improve what we have already produced, this is what professionals do over and over again and this is what you have to do to create the best media in the world.

Here is a close up screen grab of the comments made from a few of our target audience.

After hearing feedback from our audience view after they had watched our opening sequence gives us a great understanding of there thoughts and opinions that they have to share with us. All of these comments help us and give us more of a idea of what our target audience would want to see more of and these idea's from the audience feedback will help us improve if we were to do the task again. I think that throughou the production of our film asking for feedback form our target audience would help us massively as we would know what our target audience would want. I beleive that our end storyline and characters are beleivable and I was hoping that issues raised throughout the film will be noticeable to our target audience and they will see how easily grooming can be carried out without being noticed. If I was to make the film again there would be many elements that I would change and stay more focused on, for example I would focus on the shot where the emails and texts are shown on screen, the feedback shows that these shots should have been more focused so they are easier to read. I would also focus on using more lighting and sound within our shots as there are some noticeable continuity problems and the feedback has stated this clearly. Overall I am happy with the feedback receieved from our target audience adn the only few changes I would make would be focused on lighting and sound.

Question 4 - How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

In the research and planning stages for my project I mostly relied on the Internet to come up with research that was relevant for what I was trying to find out. I used large search engines such as Google and YouTube to get the most relevant searches, these sites were a great help throughout my project as I could watch other short opening clips and get ideas from many films posted by other students that were suitable for my genre of film. I have used the search engine Google a large amount of times over the year to search for images and videos that would help me and my group. If I did not have these resources then I would have had to of taken the images myself using a flip camera as this is probably the easiest way to capture a image and simply upload by using the USB port. I have used many other programmes such as Windows Word, PowerPoint and Processor to help upload my work onto Blogger with no mistakes made.

In each stages of my production I have used the site Blogger to record my testing’s and recordings of what I have achieved. This is also the website that my work will get marked on, for example my teacher can record how well I am doing by the use of Blogger. This site is used for uploading all work and images that need to be shown to the examiner.

In the construction stages I have used a vast amount of technical equipment that I would have needed to create my short film, if I didn't have this equipment it would have been a struggle to finish the film as all the equipment used was key towards our production. I have used a video camera to capture all scenes and shots of my group’s short film, without a camera it would have been very difficult to capture but I could have used a lower standard flip camera to record with.

In the construction stages I had to use Photoshop CS3 to create the poster for our film, I have had past experience with Photoshop but there were many tools that were new to me so I found this challenge quite hard. I tried to get use to the new tools by using the programme a few times before moving on to creating the poster, this helped a lot as it gave me more idea's of what each tool did. Creating the poster was a challenge but I managed to compleete in within a week. If I did not have the programme Photoshop then I would have created a very simple poster using a Windows programme, Windows does not create something as complex as photoshop so thye outcome of the poster would have been at a lower stadard.

 

 

 

 

 

When creating our film we had to edit the sound levels that we recorded using the microphone that attaches to the camera, to edit the sound we used a software named 'Soundcloud'. The only members in my group that had used this software before was Katie-Mai and Alex Mullins as they have had past experience in the filming industry. This was new to me so Alex and Katie had to explain the stages of using Sound Cloud and in the end it was a very simple technology to use. If we did not have this technology then we would have had to edit the sounds through Premier Pro which was the editing software that we used, this would have produced less high quality sounds and the sound levels throughout the film would have been different so would have made the end outcome of the film a lower standard.

 

 

 

Editing our footage was crucial towards the final production of our film, the editing software that we used was Adobe premier Pro and this software offerd us effects and options that would help develop our film with opening titles and credits shown to the viewer. If this software wasnt available to us then we would have had to use an old software that wouldnt offer us the same ammount of options to help progress our film.

Here is a small presentation using Prezi and it shows the new technologys I have used in a much more simple way.

 

Post 23: Final Products

In this post I have inserted the link to my groups short film, it also included the post cards that we have created seperatly in our group and the film review of our film that I have created.

Here is the Link to my groups film called "Behind Blue Eyes":

LINK

Here is the poster for my groups film:

Here is my film reveiew in the style of Empire Magazine:

The review says:

'Behind Blue Eyes stars up and coming Brit actors Sami Lovell and Sarah Roberts as two young females, Sophie and Paige who are the closest of friends in this short film that builds suspense with a twist. Sophie is an unfortunate, innocent girl who has troubles with her homework. Paige is her friend who she can trust to help out with her problems. Mathematics isn’t the only worry that Sophie has to deal with though, throughout the film she has trust issues with her friends, family and loved ones.

A sensitive and emotional film that builds up tension with friends and trust throughout the film, this strong hearted setting will attract the viewer’s attention and attract many middle aged parents and younger caring generations. The director of Behind Blue Eyes, Katie-Mai Taylor has worked extremely hard with cast members to create a heart touching film that gives families an insight towards grooming.

Sami Lovell plays a crucial part in the film acting out part of a young school girl’s life who immediately catches the eye of viewers, a innocent, respectful female named Sophie who comes across as a fortunate cared for child. Sophie is struggling to find clarity in the life she has been dealt and has much pressure s on her hands, when Sophie receives help from friends and teachers her kindness does not slip away and she always is willing to never let that person slip away from her life.

Behind Blue Eyes writer Alex Mullins has a great connection with film director Katie-Mai Taylor, they have used their unique ideas and friendship to create a film that creates a shiver in spines of viewers. Alex Mullins is known for creating short film comedy ‘The Interview’ and she created this film with Katie-May so they have both had past experience of creating together. The Director of Behind Blue Eyes Katie wanted to create a short film that offers viewers information about grooming and we wanted the audience to leave questioning their children and their own lives. Behind Blue Eyes has followed footsteps of already existing films, "Lolita" (1962) directed by Stanley Kubrick, a story about a young female that involves sexual grooming and "Hard Candy" (2005) directed by David Slade, where a teenage girl raids a man’s home, suspecting he is a pedophile, in order to expose him. British director Katie-Mai Taylor said that she used these films for ideas and inspiration as both of films were very successful, the main inspiration come from the relationship between the groomer and victim. It is hard to notice what the groomer is doing wrong throughout the film. Alan Thorne being played by British actor Connor Jane’s who has had past experience in the film industry disguises the grooming stages to the audience, the writer of Behind Blue Eyes builds up emotion throughout the film taking the audience on an unknowing emotional rollercoaster. No one knows what’s going to happen to Sophie or Paige next and the audience still not knowing if Alan Thorne should be accused of grooming or not.'

Post 22: Post-Production Report

After the filming had been completed we then needed to upload the footage that we recently recorded onto a editing suite, by doing this we were ready to make a rough cut of the film. The editing suite that we used was Adobe Premier pro as this was the software available to us in our group and the only editing suite in our school. In our group we all tried editing parts but some of us had more experience then others, we tried to work as a team but there were elements that some of us struggled with. Although we worked as a team very well we left most of the editing down to Katie-Mai Taylor as she had the most past experience with editing and she enjoyed the task.

By creating a rough cut of our film it gave us ideas of what else could be included to make our film a higher grade, it also gave us a first view of what our film was looking like. By doing this in a group we selected the best shots captured and the shots that would be most appropriate for our film, we chose the shots that showed the action the best as this would be easier for the viewer to understand what is happening.

Once the rought cut was completed and edited together we then went back through the film to see if we could notice any mistakes made, we sat down in a group and closely went through the footage captured. We deleted all shots that we thought were not appropriate for our film or the shots that didnt work for our film, for example the shots below show where continuity errors have been made. These shots couldnt be fixed as it was too late in the production of our film.

When we knew the footage that we put together was completed we went over it again in a short ammount of time to make sure the group was happy with the outcome of the film. After the footage had been edited with our thoughts and ideas put towards the film we then needed to run through the sound levels, we needed to do this to make sure the film runs smoothly with no unexpected sounds being produced from any of the clips. Once we were happy with the editing and sound levels we then needed to include the voice overs and music, by inserting the voice over and music the outcome of the film would be more proffesional and would create a better atmosphere when watching the film. The places where we needed to include sound and voice overs was the office scene and in the background of the montages.

Once the sound levels and editing had been completed we then moved onto inserting appropriate effects and transitions where we thought would be nescessary. When watching the footage over we all agreed that inserting fade in and fade outs would be suitable for the positions chosen, on the right there is a image of how the fade in will look, the outcome of using fade in's looked better then having shots jumping to another shot. Once the transitions, sounds and editing had been completed our film was nearly coming to a finished product. Our film is happy with the overal finish of our film but most of us do wish we could go back and fix the continuity problems. - Alan and Sophie in the living room.

Post 21: Production Report

When filming we kept a detailed plan of the dates that we were going to carry out the filming process and every memeber in my group has the same dates and information.

Wednesday 17th October

- On this date we had to inform actors what they will need to do throughout our film, we also gave them a idea of the script so we could get ideas of where we wanted the actors to be positioned on screen.
- When going through the script we had to make alterations to make it sound more realistic for the actors.

Tuesday 6th November

- Some of our actors droped out due to too other work commitments that they thought were more important, my group and I had to work out what we was going to do in a short space of time. We needed to find a replacement for our actors in order to keep schedule with filming dates.
- Luckily we were able to find a replacement who agreed to start filming on the schedule dates.
- This showed us that complications can happen when least expected but as a group we tried our hardest to avoid these crucial problems that were unexpected.
- In our group we made quick and effective decisions that we all came up with together.

Thursday 8th November

- We filmed in school canteen scene, for the restaurant scene. It went well apart from a few minor difficulties that we discoveredn throughout the shooting.
- The first thing that we discovered was the lack of props on offer to us, for example in the script food was expected to be part of the shot, the line was "Soph, can you pass me the pepper?" because the lack of food available to us we decided to cahnge the line to, "Soph, can you pass the menu?"
- Another problem we had was the lighting available in the canteen. We realised that the lighting on the camera was different to the natural lighting being offered in the canteen, due to this we decided to film long shots of the canteen in a dark light, in contrast the close up shots of Alan are in bright light. We tried to fix this problem by using artificial lighting but the canteen windows were open letting more natural light in, this had a small effect with the end outcome.
- Today showed us that you need to be quick and effective when discovering new problems that occur when filming, we also found realised that we need to pay more attention to the camera especially where the ligthing is concerned

Friday 9th November

- On this date we filmed the maths calssroom scene.
- This stage of the filming went very well as Katie and Alex had already had past expereice of filming a classroom scene as they did this for there AS work. They knew what to expect so this helped us as a group massively.
- We found that all actors and cast knew what they needed to do to complete the shot so this helped a lot, we stuck to the agreed filming times and shot nescessary footage.
- During the filming me and Bobbi was setting up the equipment whilst Alex was instructing the actors and cast on what they needed to do. This saved time and was more efficient and this showed that we can work together well ina  group. Organisation is a key skill that we needed to use throughout all of our filming and because of this the shoot went well.

Sunday 11th November

- We went down to the park and filmed the footage that we needed.
- Considering we had planned the footbage that we needed to film it was a simple process of going down to the park and setting up the equipment that we neededto set up.
- When it come to editing the shot we realised that it wouldnt connect to the bit of footage that we had already captured, we discovered that this shot wouldnt work or make sense to the audience.
- By this we learnt how to not to be afraid to tell someone when a shot is not needed and it isnt working, or doesnt fit the atmosphere that were trying to create.

Thursday 15th November

- On this day we filmed the interview scene for the ending of our film when Alan is getting interviewed.
- The major problem we had when filming this shot was the noise coming from the office next door to where we were filming. We did ask the people in the office next to us to be quite for a few minutes but they refused. After we had got the shot we went back and watched it on the computer to see if we could edit the sounds out of the shot.
- When filming there was a small problem with the actor forgetting his lines, this was a small problem and we simply gave the actor a few minutes to remember his lines and get himself prepared.
- The filming went well and we all worked well as a group, we also discovered how to prevent small problems within our group and we all helped each other well. We learnt that you always must find out aboutthe sound/ lighting when coming up to film in a new location so you can try and prevent them before they occur.

Friday 16th Novmeber

- This day was very tiring for all people in our group as we had to film the office scene, living room scene, hallway/garden scene adn the kitchen scene. We also had to film for the montage and the lcoation of this was at Alex Mullin's house.
- In order to complete all these shots the group and actors needed to communicate to ensure that all shots got completed on time at a high stanard, we needed to be organised and keep control of all the scenes captured.
- When filming we found it hard to move the equipment around such as the tripod and camera as the space we had was very limited. We filmed at Alex's house and her mum is a child minder so we experienced a lot of small noises coming from the children when filming. Due to there being young children in the house we needed to make sure everyone was together and no with the children unless they had a CRB check, this wasnt a issue but it was something to be aware of.
- Filming outside took longer then expected as Katie (The director) needed to get all extras into position, we also needed to talk to the police officers to make sure they were in the correct position at all time, we wanted to get these shots as perfect as possible as we wanted the extras and police officers to look as realistic as possible.
- Overall the filming was a success even though it did take a little longer then expected, this wasnt a problem. In the day we learnt a lot of things such as how to keep control of extras and how to organise the cast in a short period of time. We all worked well together when organising the cast and crew and we also learnt how to keep the moral of actors and cast high when filming shots over and over again.

Friday 4th January

-This date we needed to film the swimming pool scene that included a various ammount of different shot types, this was due to the swimming pool scene being used for two montages that the filming also covered.
- The struggle with filming in the swimming pool was that we had to have a P.E teacher supervising us whilst we filmed as this is part of health and safety within our school.
- The shots captured were all to a equally high standard and the only small problem when filming was that we had to be extremely careful as we didnt want to damage any electrical equipment.
- Due to the limited space available in the swimming pool we didnt use any artifial lighting as there was a limited supply of plug sockets, therefore some of the shots looked quite dark despite the pool being surrounded with walls of windows that let in natural light.
- When filming the montages there was a small problem that we had when sending the text to Sophie and Alan, we found it hard to capture the clip without the text being in focus but in the end we got the shot that we needed.
- The filming overall went well and our group learnt how to make the best use of a location even with techincal difficulties, we also learnt how to get the best shots of screens and how to film safely in a dangerous surrounding.

Tuesday 8th January

- Filming the end montage clips (This is vital for our film as these are the last shots that will be added into our film)
- We needed to find a safe way of recording a mirror being dropped from a certain height so that it would smash, the filming went well and this got done in a short space of time to a good standdard of filming.
- The other main shot that we needed was someone playing the voilin, we had already discussed this shot as we have a friend who was willing to play the voilin for us. The only issue with this was to try and not get her face from not entering the shot as the main focus was the voilin.
- The shots went well and the group took on the tasks well so this means the group can now listen to each others ideas and share thoughts and opinions, the group also put forward ideas about how the actors body position should be.