Friday 8 April 2011

QUESTION 8 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Since we did our prelim film i think we have improved a lot as media students.
Our prelim for some of us was the first thing we filmed and edited professionally and i think we have improved so much and our final film proves my point.

TITLES

In our prelim film the titles were a bit boring, it did not look attractive it was just plain. The title entered in a boring way there was no style it was pretty much boring.
But with our final film we were more creative. We used an animatic to bring in the titles and the titles were more stylised to look like they were typed so it brings more style to our film.

CAMERA SHOTS

We used basic camera shots with our prelim film so it did not bring much excitement to the prelim film but in our final film we used a variety of shots like long shots, low angle, over the shoulder etc. The shot i like is the one were the camera circles Amy while she is drawing. I think it was very creative even though it was a bit unsteady but it turned out alright .

TRANSITIONS

We did not use transitions in our prelim film so it was just cut after cut which was uninteresting becasue our prelim film was supposed to be action packed but in a way it worked. In our final film we decided to use transitions becasue the film started off slowly so the transitions made our film look more mysterious so it flowed better.

SOUND

We used sound from soundtrack pro with our first film but i think we got a bit too excited with all the sounds so i think the sounds we used for our prelim film did not work. For our final film we used soundtrack pro again but we also made Fatama sing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' then combined the recorded sounds with the sound from soundtrack pro to make our final soundtrack. I still think we could have improved it by adding a diffrent sound near the end to build up the tension and make our film have diffrent dynamics because our film did drag on a bit becasue of the repeatative sound.

What made our final film different from the rest is that we added drawn pictures in our film. We traced what was on the screen then we put the drawings in a scanner. It saved onto the computer, then we saved them onto a usb and transfered it into final cut pro. When we were making our prelims it was pretty much just do as the teachers said becasue we were new to filming and we wanted to get it right. So we did not use our imaginations or think creatively. Whereas with our final film because we planned it well we were able to add new things and try and make our film unique.
Im soooooooooo happy finally finished everything!!! goodbye blogger, goodbye media! 

Wednesday 6 April 2011

Evaluation: Question 8

  Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression form it to the full product?


Comparing our preliminary film to our real thriller film, we have improved a lot as Filmer's, and editors.. I am going to explain the comparisons, improvements between the both.



Titles:









In our prelim film, (above left) the titles were short and rushed due to the amount of time that we had left to complete it, we did not follow a conventions of a normal film... we tried but it didn't work,  for example in our prelim we put the title of the film before the stars/ cast.. This was wrong because the people starring in the film are supposed to go first and then its supposed to be the name of the film. 






Camera shots:







When we did our prelim we (above) we used two point of view shots consecutively, and this looked really awful when we watched it after. however in our real film we used a variety of different shots together and we didn't make that same mistake.. this shot (right) id very good because the camera is at a low angle looking up.. which make s a scary mysterious affect. and this worked really well with out thriller! 






Sound:



The sound was good but was really repetitive, i think that if we had some more time than we could have added more sounds and and had more variation in it.  it was better than the prelim in the fact that we made our own sound track for the opening..my singing, with some other sounds from soundtrack pro.. i recorded myself singing 'Twinkle twinkle little star' using her my phone and then we imported it into our film. I think that this was a really good thing to do as it will get us marks for showing that we are capable of making our own sounds to use in our film.  




Transitions:




















To make our edits fit and be more interesting to watch we wanted to include transitions to go from one shot to another.for example fade in, fade out, dissolve, Cross dissolve etc.... I really think this helped to make our film flow nicely and made it look more professional. However in our prelim we used no transitions, it just cut from shot to shot

Below it shows how we used transitions to make it look really creepy and Erie... 
As you can see the clip before is still visible while the next clip is coming one.. this makes it feel like the dolls is still present in the next shot. 





Technologies: 
our group didn't just want the normal conventional opening where its all acting, so we decided to do something different, we were inspired by Sherlock Holmes.. we decided to add drawings with acting instead of just acting..  we wanted our  film to be unique and different from others, therefore drawings were a really good way to go about doing it. we did this by drawing some of the key scenes in black fine liner, this will give it a very stylised and classy look. I went home with the chosen scenes and drew them, we then scanned the pictures in so that it will look exactly as i drew them.. this worked because they looked very much like the scenes in the opening clips .  

I realised that when making our prelim, we did not think about using the opportunities we have to make our film more interesting and unique. We simply filmed, edited it and then added in titles. However, when making our film we knew we had to do something different and it turned out that our decision was good because everyone really liked our unique and creative idea!! 

I think these main things that we have improved on has helped our film to be much better than our prelim and we have learned a lot on how to make a good suspenceful, sucessful thriller film!!!!!!! 

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Evaluation, Question 8

Looking back at our preliminary task, what do we feel we have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Comparing our preliminary film to our real thriler film, I have noticed the improvements that we have made and the big difference betwen the two. I am going to explain, using screen shots of the films to demonstrate the comparisons and the improvements between them both.

The titles.
In our prelim film, the titles wasn't good as we rushed it due to the time we had to complete it, we did not follow a conventional (or appropiate) order and they were out of place. In our prelim we put 'edited by' and all our names (as the editers) as the second title!!! We put this title in too early as the names of the editer(s) usually come in the middle somwhere or even near the end.


As you can see in our prelim film, the name of the editers appear in at 24 seconds into the film and this was the second title!







However, in our real film, the name of the editer came in at 1 minute and 40 seocnds into the film whcih is a much more appropiate position to place it in. Also the title looks better with just one editer instead of a long list of names at the editers!






Camera shots/angles.

We realised that in our Prelim there was a particular shot that we didn't like and it was unecessary. I have compared this bad shot from our prelim to two good camera shots/angles in our real film.


As you can see this shot from our prelim is quite a bad point-of-view shot. This is because the camera is angled at an empty space that has no relevance to the purpose of this shot, and you can see one of the characters (me) just in the corner. Me and the other character (Fatama) were supposed to be in the centre of the shot however I don't know what went wrong!!!





I think this over- the- shoulder shot of Amy is one of our best shots and is much better than the shot above! It is a clear medium close up and we can see her reflection in the mirror.







I really like this birds-eye-view shot of Amy too as it helps to build suspense as it gives off the sense that someone is watching over her (and she is unaware of this)...











Transitions.
To make our edits smoother and more interesting to watch we added in transitions such as 'fade in' and 'fade out', 'dissolve' and so on. I really think this helped to make our film flow smoothly and look more proffessional. However, we did not use any transition effects in our prelim...


I think our prelim would of looked a bit better if we used some transitions such as fade in and fade outs just to make it more suspenseful. Looking at this shot opposite, there is no effect (and this is how it is throughout it) and it may seem a bit dull...






As you can see the over-the-shoulder shot of Amy nicely fades into the cartoon version of her sitting at the mirror.. I think the transition here worked really well because it really made the cartoon vs real life theme really stand out...






Sound
Even though our sound wasn't that great in our film, I feel that we have improved on it. This is because we decided to add in a sound that we made ourselves- Fatama's singing. Fatama recorded herself singing 'Twinkle twinkle little star' using her phone and imported it into our film. I think this was a good thing to do as it shows our campability of making our own sounds to use in our film.


Making use of technologies available to us.
We thought that we needed to do something to make our film unique and different from others. We decided to add in the drawings to our film. To do this we had to draw out some scenes on paper and then use a scanner machine to scan in the drawings. It saved unto the Apple Mac desktops, we copied and pasted them onto our USB stick and then imported them into Final Cut Pro and placed them into our film. They turned out great!! I realised that when making our prelim, we did not think about using the opportunities we have to make our film more interesting and unique. We simply filmed, edited it and then added in titles. However, when making our film we knew we had to do something different and it turned out that our decision was good as everyone liked our unique and creative idea!! (:



 Our prelim titles looks quite dull and too simple











 However, look at the difference! the drawing in the background make our titles more interesting!!!











I think these main things that we have improved on has helped our film to be much better than our prelim and we have learned a lot on how to make a thriller film successful!

Evaluation: Question 6- part 4

Today we went to the green on the screen, we watched everyones films!!! It was soooooo embaressing to watch our one on the big screen!!!!!!!


After we watched the film we got some feedback from other students that watched the film.. here are their responses:






Evaluation, Question 7

What have we learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During our time of making our film, we have learned how to use  different types of technologies and some of them were even new to us! Me and my group have created a  little animatic to demonstrate the technologies that we have used. 




It was fun getting to learn how to use all these technologies that were new to me. I believe I have learnt a lot about technologies that can be used to create a film, and if I make a film again, it should be much more easier for me!!

Evaluation: Question 3

Who would be the target audience for your media product?


In class we had a discussion about who our target audience for our thriller. we finally decided that our target range would be rated 15.



However we would be targeting 18 to 30 years olds.  we have decided this becasue they are more mature, we think that it would be too scary for younger children. We dont think it would be suitible for them.

this would be our range:










We went on to this animation website where you can create characters and scenes for the to be in.. we have used this website to make one to help create a montage of our typical target audience..



We have made this animation of some of the things that our target audinece member would do on a regular basis...
GoAnimate.com: Kim 18 by ethelafrane

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!


This is the typical things that they would have in their bag..








QUESTION 7 What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product

This is me and Ethel talking about all the things we have learned.


QUESTION 6 Audience Feedback and comments


This is a wordle of what people thought about our film opening and here are some peoples comments of our film.








Tuesday 5 April 2011

Evaluation, Question 3

Who would be the audience for our media product?

Because of the aspects of our film and the story line, our target audience is girls and boys (mainly girls) aged at least 13 years and above. This is because the theme of our film is about a young girl who is obsessed with dolls so this might appeal to girls that like to play with dolls or girls who used to play with dolls when they were younger. It may appeal to boys because the the 'thrilling' side of it (as in general, males seem to like thrilling films more than females). I have created a small monatge of what the typical target audience may look like.

 I have chosen the girl that I have circled in red to be our example of our typical audience for our film (her name is Emma). I created a very short animation (on http://www.goanimate.com/) of Emma. Take a look!
GoAnimate.com: Kim 18 by ethelafrane

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

I have also created a montage to show the things that Emma may carry around in her bag.




As you can see, Emma is a typical teenage girl carrying typical things that a girl of her age would carry with them in their bags on an average day. There are three significant things in her bag that I have circled in red; her doll, a Blockbuster membership card and a Vue (Vue cinemas) gift card. These three items give away a hint as to why she is a typical example of who would watch our film. The doll (which she has named Amber) is her 'good luck' doll and she carries it in her bag wherever she goes. She carries this doll around as she used to love playing with dolls when she was younger, however, as she got older she obviously stopped playing with them but she still has an obsession with dolls. She has had Amber since she was a little girl and she feels Amber gives her good luck and makes good things come her way. The fact that she used to love playing with dolls (and still loves them) makes her a good example of our typical audience. Girls like her may be more willing to watch our film as the theme of it is about dolls, however they may dislike the fact that the doll in our film (Annabelle) is evil as they may feel that this is a bad representation of dolls.

The Blockbuster membership card (which tells us that she visits the cinemas regularly) and the Vue cinemas gift card show that she likes to rent out and watch films. The Blockbuster card shows that she is a member and this means that if our film was to be distributed as a DVD she would most likely rent it out and watch it. Also, if our film was released in cinemas it is also likely that she would watch it to as she has a £20 gift voucher!!

Evaluation, Question 6 (Part 3)

Watching our film in 'The Screen On The Green' cinema and getting audience feedback

Today was really exciting as we finally got to watch our film ( as well as every other media groups' film) in The Screen On The Green cinemas in Islington Green (not far from our college). It was good as the audience was really responsive, active and supportive and it was good to see the kind of films other students created. Below are some images I took while I was there...


This is the cinema!!

These are other groups' films playing on the screens


This is our film showing on the screen!!!!!


Most importantly I was able to record some people giving me feedback of our film using my video camera! I have posted them below!














 

EVALUATION; Q8

 LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNED IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?


-Looking back at our preliminary, I feel that we have progressed, becoming more confident with using Final   Cut and Soundtrack Pro and we have learnt from our mistakes, taking them in to help us make the final production as good as it can be.

Preliminary;



Final Production;




-Looking at the preliminary and the final production, the CANDI Studios looks more professional and is more readable in the final production rather than in the preliminary, although we did not make it ourselves, it gives our opening a more  high quality professional look.


TITLES
-I feel that when adding titles to our preliminary, we rushed, as we spent too much time editing and adding sound that we did not have enough time to think about where the titles should go. But when it came to our final production, we looked back at what we have learned about opening sequences - where the titles should go, and thought carefully about where each one should go and what font/colour we wanted to use.


SOUND
-In the preliminary, we worked so much on the sound, which is another reason why we didn't have enough time to add the titles, but when it came to the final production, we used our time wisely and worked on each different aspect equally.

CAMERA SHOTS
-We used simple shots in the preliminary and didn't vary the shots much, we had lots of medium shots and and close ups, but when it came to the final production I feel that we also didn't vary our shots, we also had lots of medium shots, but hardly any close ups. 


MISE EN SCENE
-For the preliminary, we didn't take much thought into it apart from the gun we used and the scene, for costumes, we didn't plan anything for that so Ethel and Fatama just wore what they were wearing on that day. However, for the final production, we took so much thought into it, as we had to change the way our character looked from the first time we started filming. The scene where we were filming helped us to make our decision as it was an ordinary bedroom and we felt that the character we had before didn't fit in with the scene.