All seven Evaulation questions

Below is the Prezi we will use to present to the class, it contains all seven answers to our evaluation;

Final evaluation presentation on Prezi

How did you attract / address your audience? / How does your media product represent particular social groups? / In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We decided to record a presentation of our group answering these three questions, we recorded it and the video is embedded below.

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

Over the course of our filming period we have had to use many different types of technology to create our piece of media.

The camera

For the filming we used a canon eos 600d SLR. Because this camera was Erics and he had experience using the camera and with the use of his photography skills he was the main camera man. This camera was very versatile and compact so could easily take into town and film whenever

with hafting to carry around a lot of luggage. Also because this camera is top of the range it offered us top quality footage. This offered a professional feel to our film and meant we could do many things like blurring subjects out as a transition. With such high quality it shows the audience clear emotions of the main character.

Blogger
Blogger is where we all compiled our work we have done and which is used as evidence and something we can all use and communicate and share idea with each group member. This is where all the planning has been shown and what has lead to our final piece of media footage. Blogger

was new to all of us so we each had to learn how to use it. However it is very straight forward to use a pick up. The only thing I personally found difficult with blogger was getting youtube videos onto my blog. However this was only an initial problem and once I had done it twice was very straight foreward.

Youtube
We used youtube a lot during the course of our media project. We used it at the beginning all the way through till the end. At the beginning we used it for research for inspiration. It also

allowed us to search for professional advice and tips on how to do things. This was very helpful and enabled us to try things which normally only professionals would be able to do. Also,

especially for our group youtube was a massive help as our all of our group were constantly experimenting with techniques and testing them out all the time. Youtube allowed us to get feedback from classmates and possibly even feedback from global media fans.
We also used vimeo, another free video sharing website. It is very similar to youtube however it doesn't have any advertisements like youtube. This is why we decided to use this to display our final piece.

Portable hard drive
This was key to our project as it carried all of our footage and edits. It allowed us to transport our project between school computers and home computers. We also backed it up to a memory stick as some people in our class have had the misfortune of all of their data going corrupt on their portable memory device. For this reason we backed it up as we did not want this to happen to us and lose all our precious clips. Also as we were shooting on a camera it didn't have much memory for our high definition clips. So this allowed us after shooting to put it on the hard drive and delete it from the camera.

Tripod
This was used to keep shots steady and keep quality to the maximum. Also to fulfil the mark scheme criteria of "holding shot steady". Also it allowed us to pan around smoothly. We did

encounter some problems with the tripod, such as not offering the ability to move with the camera and keep it still. This could have been overcome if we had a tripod with wheels on. However these cost a lot of money so we made do. Also we experimented with a long board for moving shots and following a character walking. This gave increased smoothness and flow.

Adobe after affects
This was the main software which the editing was done on. This is another expensive piece of

technology which luckily Eric had. Also all the editing had to be done at Erics house as he was the only one who had computer which was fast enough to run adobe after effects or any modern editing software. Adobe after effects is what professional editors use. For this reason it allowed many possibilities of what we could do. Editing was the thing which probably took us the longest. Eric has had previous experience with after affects so made everything a lot easier for us.

Art of the title
We used this website to find popular and iconic title sequences. This was then incorporated into our editing and creating the title for our film. This was very inspirational and gave us the confidence that our titles would look slick and professional and suit our film.

[Question answered by Daniel Field]

Source

Who would be the audience for your media product?

This question was answered by Eric here is the blog post in which he answered the question.

Conclusion: 

Our film has been directed specifcally towards an older audience, particularly late teens and early adulthood. We have chosen to do this as we feel the way in which our film has been constructed could cause confusions and would need a mature audience for this. The film also has moments of high suspense, violence and challeneging themes.

The film has been directed towards both genders however we feel it is much more likely to be viewed by males, however this doesent mean it has been directed specifically towards them. We just feel that it will relate easier to that gender.

Specifcally no target cultural background has been chosen and we plan to leave this open. However the themes and way in which the film is produced leans into a british and western background which confronts challenges which we feel these backgrounds will relate to best.

[Linked blogpost and conclusion by Eric Hesselbo]

Audience Research [Evaluation Prep]

When answering the various questions for our evaluation, we realised that audience research will be an important factor when we are answering these questions. So over the last few days I have been conducting some basic audience research which hopefully will help my group in the evaulation.

First I looked at the genre that I believed our film to be. I thought that if it was given a defined genre it would come somewhere between a thriller and action film.

Thriller

As can be seen above, thriller movies are most popular with those under the age of 25, however there is still possible audiences in the older age range. So when creating a thriller opening you must consider almost all age groups, however a particular focus should be made in attracting a younger audience of ages 25 and under.

As for gender, one might expect that thrillers are preferred by males however statistics actually show that they are actually more popular with females

This means that there may be some focus on attracting a female audience, however the skewness is not great and the whole film should not be changed in hoping to attract the slightly more typical female viewer under 25. However this would be our target audience.

Action

Looking back at your Preliminary Task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Plan
Looking back at your Preliminary Task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

• Camera Work

During our preliminary task we felt we were doing a lot of improvising, we didn't plan for any scenes or shots and turned up on the day and decided what we wanted to do as we did it, this led to continuity problems such as characters wearing different clothes, a couple of shots were also filmed on different days at different times (suddenly switched from light to dark) as well as the general shots not linking together as well as they could. This was the first time we had studied media and had little knowledge about the huge variety of movements and angles, we felt that in our preliminary task we were able to use these angles and movements as we discovered them. We also learned about the 180 degree rule, which we used through our preliminary task and through our main project.

• Sound

In our preliminary task we used a single running song throughout the majority of the task, any diegetic sounds were purely from the camera when we were recording the scene, and the dialogues audio was recorded as the visual scenes were recorded. However in our film opening project we used a microphone to seperately record the sounds, this allowed us to give a slightly more authentic feel to the opening. This involved pre-recording sounds and detatching this audio and placing it into the footage. When we begun our film opening, we used a music track as opposed to a film sound track. However as we were doing a different task to our preliminary we realised that we would need to alter the soundtrack and we would not be able to use another music track. We gathered a sound track from 'The Dark Knight' and edited this to sync with our footage. Completing the preliminary task before our film opening helped us to see the importance of sound in changing the piece of media. With a different sound track you can really see the change in perception of the piece of media.

• Editing

During the preliminary task my experience with editing was fairly minimal, especially in after effects which I had only used a couple of times previously. However Eric has previous experience and as I watched and contributed somewhat to the editing I felt that I learnt a lot, although I tried to convey what I meant to Eric there was a lot of language that I had no idea about and the editing of the preliminary task really helped me to convey my ideas more easily in the final editing phase. It also allowed me to try a bit of editing myself (we each produced another seperate short film) and I felt that I learnt a wide range of simple techniques which hopefully helped my group in the final stages of post-production.

• Narrative

As I mentioned earlier our preliminary task was pretty much improvisation, we didn't plan the scens and this resulted in a pretty poor narrative, there was almost no storyline

What kind of media instituion might distribute your media product and why?

I have been set the task of completing this question individually, I have decided to make use of Prezi. The basics of what need to be done in order to complete this question are as followed:

• What is a media instituion?

"A media institution is an established, often-profit based organization, that deal in the creation and distribution of advertising, entertainment and information services."

• What are the major/local/possible media instituions?
• Major (National)
• The Pinewood Studios (Pinewood Films project)

In 2011, The Pinewood Studios Group created Pinewood Films to help fund and and provide facilities to independent British films with budgets of approximately £2million. Pinewood Films would invest equity up to 20% per film with the intention to support four films each year. In 2012 only one of the four films they aim to invest in have acquired the funding. Although competition would be stiff this is a possibility as the whole project was set up in order to help fund small-budget films. This would give great publicity as it would link us to the hugely succesful Pinewood Studios (Who produced hugely succesful films such as Harry Potter Deathly Hallows, Captain America, The Dark Knight and are planning big films for 2012 [The Hobbit])

• Film4

Film4 seem to specialise in British films, producing some of the most successful in recent years. Although this could be an option if we had previous experience of successful films under our belt, I do not think that Film4 would be likely to produce our film and I think it may be better to focus on more local organisations.

• Revolver Entertainment (London)

Once again Revolver Entertainment are another hugely successful British film institution films recently produced by Revolver include: 'X: Night of Vengeance', 'Ill Manors' and 'Deviation'. All of these films have a similar theme to our film opening however once again the lack of previous experience would probably cause these institutions to hesitate in offering to produce our film.

• Major (International)
• The 'Big Six'
• Paramount
• Colombia Pictures
• Walt Disney (Pixar)
• Universal
• Warner Brothers
• 20th Century Fox

These are the large international hollywood big six, it is likely that these media institutions would not even consider our film as they are far too large to risk funding and production of such a small film. However I felt I should include them just to show the largest media institutions that are operating.

• Local
• SeptterFilms

A small independent film production company situated in North Oxfordshire (Banbury). Although funding would likely to be little to none this may be a more realistic target of a media institution. There is very little information online about this institution so if we pursued this option we would need to contact SeptterFilms directly.

• Distant Object Productions

 A slightly more succesful and publicised local media institution this would probably be the ideal company to produce our film. The film would be much more likely to fund us than any national producers and are well known and publicised both locally and nationally. Here is a link to the website.

• Which of these institutions would be likely to produce our film?

On an international scale it would be extremely unlikely for any of the larger institutions to produce our film. This means we have to look more locally at companies such as Distant Object Productions or larger national businesses that have set up projects or companies to help fund low-budget british films such as the Pinewood Films project.

• What would be the motives of these institutions?

The motives of businesses would be first and foremost money. This would probably be more relevant to local businesses as there primary motive of suppourting us would be to increase the profits of our business. However when you look at businesses that are on a larger national scale have other methods of profit and any profit made by our film would be miniscule compared to the overall profits of the company. This means that there must be other motives of film companies to produce smaller films or no projects set up specifically to fund low-budget british films would exist. The publicity created by funding smaller films

• How could we convince these media institutions that it would be worth there while to produce our film?

The problem with convincing the media institutions that investing in and producing our film would be worthwhile is that none of us have any previous professional productions that the institutions could evaluate the success of, this would mean that the sole judgement on whether or not the film might be produced would be showing them a small portion or taster of the film. We could of course use the film opening that we have created, show them the planning and production of this film opening which would hopefully be enough to convince the institutions to produce the film. This limits the number of institutions that we can go for of course as many would not consider producing a film with no proof of previous success so a local/smaller film company will probably be the correct route to take.

In summary the media institution that would be likely to distribute and product our product would likely to be either a local institution or a project similar to the 'Pinewood films project'. I think that if we were looking to produce and sell this product we would probably approach as many projects like the Pinewood Film one as possible as these provide better funding and publicity than local film producers could. However as these are so competitive a local film company such as SeptterFilms could be another option. We could also consider at least attempting to gain a larger company such as Film4's attention however I think this is probably unlikely to be successful.

What kind of media instituion might distribute your media product and why? on Prezi

Plan for our Evaluation

We have been set 7 questions to answer in an evaluation of our projects as a whole. We have begun to divide up the tasks between the groups and the following is a list of each question and who will complete each question.

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

 We will be completing this section of the evaluation together as a group. We will complete it as a voiceover commenting on certain aspects of our opening as the opening plays.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 We will be completing this section of the evaluation together as a group. We will complete it as a voiceover commenting on certain aspects of our opening as the opening plays.

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

 I will be completing this section as part of my personal evaluation. I have started planning for this with a prezi previously and

Who would be the audience for your media product?  

 Eric has chosen to complete this section of the evaluation.

How did you attract / address your audience?  

 Dan has chosen to complete this section of the evaluation.

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

 We will be completing this section of the evaluation together as a group. We will complete it as a voiceover commenting on certain aspects of our opening as the opening plays.

Looking back at your Preliminary Task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

As Dan was not a part of the group when we created our preliminary task, we will be completing this section of the evaluation seperately to him. Meanwhile Eric and I will complete this section together. We have decided to contrust a prezi together using the "Edit Together" feature on prezi.

Missing.

Embedded below is the final video of our film opening



Evaluation of our project will be followed up in following blogposts.

Sound Draft

I used Sony Vegas to create a basic sound draft of our opening up until the scene that we have refilmed, it is embedded below..



...because we refilmed some scenes after this and I didn't have this footage I decided to only edit the beginning half, we are also probably replacing the ending of this soundboard draft with a two person dialogue and cutting out the headphones edit where the music plays as the character puts in his headphones, and putting this scene at the start as I didnt have this footage I just put a title in with the possible audio on top of it. In the actual thing we may have the first song play for slightly longer and have Sean put in his headphones and it gradually builds up as if the audience is also putting on headphones, and then he continues to skip songs. This will then play through right up to the phone call where until the chase scene it will be entirely ambient sound, when the chase starts we may play a non-diegetic fast paced music track as Sean runs. I think I've built a good base to build from and we can use this to really polish the soundboard for the final draft.

We might be changing the soundtrack to "Pyscho Killer" by the Talking Heads as I feel it builds up more tension within the scene, as well as foreshadowing a literal "Pyscho Killer" as the person who chases Sean subliminally through the lyrics. The rhythm of the song also goes really well with our opening.

Filming (28/02/12 and 01/03/12)

Our final draft is due in a week today and today we carried out some filming. We filmed the narrative from the perspective of the other character in the dialogue, shot some scenes while bearing in mind extra actors names. We just have to refilm a few more shots which we plan to do on Thursday.

In the mean time I have decided to get a basic draft of a sound track that can help Eric in the final editing. I have downloaded the current video and I will edit the sound up until the time lapse, I will then try to add some sound after that however it will just be a basic draft and is a way for me to convert any ideas that I have into a media format to more easily show what I mean and help Eric to make similar sound additions in the final edit.

Title timing analasys.

Some feedback that we got when showing our opening was that we didn't have enough titles, we have decided as a group to each look at a film opening and see how many, and for how long titles appear. I decided to look at "Panic Room" and Eric looked at "Scott Pilgrim: "

Panic Room is embedded below



Before any of the film begins, the Iconic "Colombia Pictures" intro is shown. This is the equivalent of our opening shown below. The Colombia Pictures actually lasted a lot longer than I expected, raching a length of almost 20 seconds long. Another title is then shown immediately after of "Colombia Pictures" really reinforcing there brand. Any other producers are then shown each title lasting from 2-4 seconds. After about 10 seconds into the actual opening the main actors names are shown, I assume it is the 4 most important characters as these take up a larger amount of screen than actors shown later on in the opening.

After around 30 seconds into the opening the main title is shown, this is shown for 6 seconds (slightly longer than any other titles). The 5th actor who I assume is important is now the final character to be shown alone. This happens as the entire opening (including the colombia pictures intro) passes the one minute mark, so in this opening all main actors and producers have been shown in the first minute. Once again the actors name is displayed for 4 seconds. The actors now begin appearing as two in each scene (i.e two names one on top of the other) still gaining 4 seconds screen time, 4 more actors are shown this way, all actors names have been displayed by 01:08. The casting, costume designers, film editors e.t.c now begin to be shown each taking exactly 4 seconds screenn time. This is consistent throughout the whole opening and the only thing with any more screen time than 6 seconds is the title.