Evaluation question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back at our preliminary task I now see that we were very basic with our video as we had used very basic simple techniques. There was very basic camera movement in the short film as we put the camera on a skate board to create a panning shot of feet walking. This is similar to our final film opening however we made a panning shot by keeping the camera hand held. Although there was little camera movement we did consider camera angles well as we included close ups,shot reverse shot structure, wide angle shots and side angle shots. These were also included in our film opening but we had put more thought into them and why we were using them at the time unlike the preliminary task. Instead of using shot reverse structure in our film opening we used over the shoulder shots. This meant that the conversation included the audience more as it didn’t look like it was from a characters point of view allowing the audience to create their own opinion and thoughts on whats going on which encourages creativity and the imagination of the audience which is what we wanted.

We put great thought and effort into present our characters through mise en scene in our film opening however in our preliminary task costume was only slightly thought through and the setting for our short task could have been better thought out. Also use of lighting was highly considered throughout our preliminary task however a lot of concentration was put towards lighting in our film opening as it was a main point in our film opening especially in the villains scenes in the film opening. Body language and facial expression was also presented well in our film opening as we had to concentrate on making our hero and villain completely opposite in every way. However in our preliminary task body language is only mildly demonstrated as we see slight facial expressions and some sort of pacing.

The editing was only very basic in our preliminary task and I think we have advanced greatly from this and have learned so much and developed important skills such as adding real soundtracks to our film opening learning how to allow the music to fade and fade out and also do the same with scenes. Our action matching is more fluent and seems more realistic as we took more care and generated more experience in the film opening. We learned how to play with effects such as adding titles and creating scenes that were slow motion or sped up but all these effects add to the plot and help create an atmosphere and helps build up and represent tension and make our plot clear where as in the preliminary video we relied mostly on script for this.

In the preliminary task the sound was mainly dialogue with only small sounds added in. We relied mainly on dialogue to help with the understanding of our plot and make it clear however in the film opening we chose not to rely on this and this made things more difficult for us but created a better quality film opening. We also managed to edit in full sound tracks and scores of music this gave our film opening a real professional effect and was also an important aspect in our film opening as it helped us represent moods and character throughout the film opening.

From the preliminary task we see immediately from the plot that we were interested un the comic book genre as we made the short task about an evil villain and a sidekick. This shows that we already and some idea if what we wanted to do and what genre we would like to do our film opening in. This made it easier for us all to come together work as a team and choose a plot for our film opening.

Overall I think we have developed immensely and have learned and gained skills from making the film opening by playing with more advanced techniques to create a better quality video for an audience in our film opening. We really thought through each sector of presenting a film and I think this shows in our film as we played with steretypes,connotations and codes and conventions. I hope you enjoyed our film opening.

evaluation question 6

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

The camera we used was a Canon digital camera. This camera was easy to use with simple instructions and this enabled us to film without any fiddly setting up. The camera also provided good Zoom tools allowing us to create some of our iconic main scenes such as the zoom on the newspaper clipping of ‘Hero does it again’ or the pocket watch. This zoom also assisted us with our sound as we used the sound of the zoom as part of our sound editing. After filming a scene we could immediately play it back on the camera and decide quickly whether the scene needed to be re-filmed and allowed us to correct any mistakes and create progress during filming. The camera was also hand held making it portable and easy for us to position to create different shots with in our film opening and because the camera was hand held we could create easy camera movements in our film. The memory was stored on an SD card therefore making it really easy for us to import and export out material as SD cards fit into most computers and if not can be used with a card reader. This also meant that all our material was also portable and easily transportable.

Blogger is what we used to post all our progress and information on. This allowed us to manage all our research and information easily and created a sense of order and organisation to our planning. This also made certain elements of our research easily accessible and easy to find within blogger. This website also allowed us to embed videos from YouTube onto the website using embed codes this allowed our influences and inspirations to be viewed on our blogs as we featured the videos we looked at. Blogger is also easily accessible as I was able to access the website on my phone so I could upload images from my smart phone and also edit a blog on my phone wherever I was which made more use of my time.

Youtube was easy to use as again it was easily accessible and I could get onto it on my smart phone allowing me to instantly look up an idea for research or inspiration on the go to add to my blog later on. Youtube also had the embed codes so the videos I did watch and use could be included on my blogger account so viewers can see and relate to my ideas and inspirations. I could also easily look up important research information such as opening credits to films, trailers for me to analyse and sounds so I could offer examples to viewers on what we would like to use in our film opening.

For editing we used Adobe Premier. This software was easy to use and was also easy to export and import video footage, images and sound. When editing using this software they offer and editing board which shows colour coded layers representing different sections such as added film, images and sounds. The software also allowed us to analyse our footage frame by frame making it easier to create match on action scenes and also include timed images.

For some ideas and planning we used Prezi. This website was easy to use and easy to register and use. This website allowed us to present and distribute our ideas in an interesting ways as Prezi offers different templates for us to use and make our work more pleasing to look at and the prezi’s themselves allow the viewer to interact with our ideas and this involves our audience more and helps create understanding.

To get some feedback from potential audiences and create awareness of our film opening to the public we used facebook. This allowed our idea to be presented publically and attracted audiences that would be interested in our film as people who were interested gave positive feedback and also constructed of similar age group and gender. Also allowing our focused audience to feel involved in the film making helps create interest and this will make our film opening more attractive and popular to viewers.

Glipho is another blogging website I used to create awareness of our film opening and help encourage feedback from our viewers. On this website I could upload videos and images and this content could be viewed by anyone else using the website. Using this website viewers can leave comments and feedback. The comments we did get were positive and interested in what will become of our film opening. With glipho viewers can also ‘share’ my blog using twitter facebook and their own glipho account. This gives our film opening a chance to be viewed by a more wider range of audience.  I used the two websites to get feedback so I didn’t seem biased and searched for a wide range of responses from different people so we can narrow down more popular ages groups that were interested and help give us a feel for our target audience.

evaluation question 5

Evaluation question 3

A company that would also distribute our film possibley would be Trinity films. They distribute independant films and can even produce DVD's this will make our film more accessable and easier to watch for the public and also gives the movie a sense of independence as we try to sell our idea. Another site described the site as 'As an independant film distributor with a growing reputation for choosing off-centre and groundbreaking films, Trinity required something special from their web presence.'. Our film is certainly different and will stand out as we have created our surreal twisted plot.

A cinema which may show our film would be independant film office. This company shows independent films in certain cinemas in the country. They distribute films that would otherwise not find a UK audience as they do not have the well known popular companies helping them through the production and distribution of the film. As our film is an idependent film this company may consider showing our film.

Evaluaton question 4

 

When we decided our chosen genre was action I looked into examples of this genre that could inspire us in representing and attracting our audience in the film opening. I looked at examples such as batman and spiderman. Y looking at the film openings we could establish when the titles should come in and in what order should people’s roles be introduced to the audience. This is important as it helps us point out the important roles in the making of the film. This also allowed us to see what information was introduced or exposed to the public in the first few minutes of the film. Film openings where hard to track down and watch so I used trailers for some guidance and art of the titles this allowed me to interpret and establish a feel for what material the audience should be allowed to see during the short clip. An example of a trailer I watched that inspired me during the film making was batman dark knight as the villain is shown more than the hero stating that he has more control and authority in the film Dark knight and this intrigues viewers as the plot toys with the opposites of stereotypical codes and conventions.

        We then presented our idea to the public and asked for feedback on the plot we had created. Many people were intrigued by the elaborate creative context. They thought that this idea was unique and that it seems very interesting.


From the video we can see that it is under 18 teenage boys that are interested in our film. I could predict this as the average audience for films such as Batman,spiderman ,Donnie darko and black swan which are all either comic book films or psychlogical films are under 18 year old boys. This is because the comic book genre is more attractive to boys with all the action and having that super hero role model that they see as an icon and can look up to and try and relate to as children nearly every little boy wanted to be a super hero at one point.

Evaluation-question 1

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

The first title in our film opening is for the ‘lexisFilms’. For this we kept a basic font yet the font is thin and looks very ‘TIMES NEW ROMAN’. The serif font we used was birch std ‘LexisFilms’ .This adds a sense of formality to the production company and also implies the complex and difficult plot that will follow. This will also indicate that it is independent minds that will find more understanding within this production.  Tim Burtons Edward scissorhands also uses thin fonts for his titles. I think this is because it creates a fragile yet clear presentation to the audience. This fragile font could also reflect the fragile and yet intense plot of our following film opening and could suggest that this film will include personal weaknesses such as a characters personal problems such as illness and conditions or problems faced by society such as equality, pressure and judgment. Another example of thin fonts used by companies in film openings is ‘PIXAR’ however they use a thin font to make it understandable and readable for their viewers as their audience is less mature and educated than the audience we are aiming for.

                         Our first titles also fade in and fade out. This was done on Adobe editing software. We decided to do this because it is a popular technique used by films we have studied and looked at and production companies such as 20^th Century Fox. This tends to fade in and out this is to just quickly introduce the company to the audience and with this company being well known this is all that is needed to secure quality and quantity within the following film as audiences have learned to put their trust in this company and its films. This is a popular technique as it allows the audience to absorb the title well and consider the films quality. This is also a demonstration of slight editing qualities and this will present some form of modern input. As we show some technological examples of average editing. This technique is also fairly simple looking but is still yet effective as the audience will recognise this technique and will be able to identify the titles.  Examples of film openings that used simples editing and thin fonts would be psycho however this works as this simplicity has almost an opposite affect than what is expected as it attracts viewers as looking original and realistic.

       The next titles are ‘Expectation Productions’. The name of this production company itself is raising the bar for the audience and creating interest as the word expectations means a strong belief that something will happen and this production is expected to be so far formal and complicated and yet interested and encouraging independent solutions and explanations for the situations presented to the viewers. The production name is introduced to the audience with a fade in fade out technique. This is now how our audience will recognise our titles as they all will be introduced to the audience through this technique and it enables the audience to recognise and identify the purpose of the titles. The titles for our ‘Expectation productions’ also bridges across two scenes this is two start the film opening and yet still include our titles in a fluent manor.

The opening scene is where our hero character puts his costume away into a cupboard. This is an iconic and symbolic gesture. Batman the Dark Knight includes a scene where Bruce Wayne puts away his suit. This symbolises a change in personalities within the same character.  This also helps the audience focus on the character instead of his superhero identity and this is a way of us creating two different characters within one actor and enables the audience to bond with the normal everyday character. This is a popular technique used such as Bruce Wayne and batman as DC presented Bruce Wayne in a different way to batman and this enabled the audience to make a connection with both identities. Another example would be Tony Stark who is Iron man.  These characters have been represented differently to the super heroes by having their everyday and personal background shown to the audience for instance both Bruce and Tony are shown to be millionaires. Their love life also plays a role with the character building of the person and bonding with the viewers.  By using this technique we allow our viewers to predict the plot and plan what is going to happen throughout the film however we then present them with a different outcome which recklessly throws off the stability of the plot of the film as now our film becomes quite unpredictable and this is where imagination will have to get involved with helping the viewer understand the concept and the diversity of the plot as we present them with the villain who happens to also be the hero. We then begin to present the viewers with the idea of a contained ongoing battle within the hero between him and the villain. This is a similar event to what happened in spider-man 1 with the green goblin. As Norman Osborn he wants to be a respected figure and a father figure to Peter Parker however after a freak event he develops a disorder which leads him to believe he has a split personality which has evil intentions and a violent nature.

     Immediately because we have presented ‘hero’ and villain’ symbolic characters this starts to imply more to the genre of the film and stereotypically action films will have a good character highlighted by his gentle and general caring nature and the use of costume and is personal views on the people around him . An example of this would be Superman as when he is in the character of Clark Kent we are presented with a ‘geeky, nerdy’ character and seems to be very timid and gentle placid character almost a complete opposite to the strong, bold confident crime fighting ,world saving hero. A villain character will be presented as somehow crippled and odd looking with a very narrow view and strict opinions on important situations and will be shown as a more powerful and dark natured character. An example of this would be the Joker from batman as he has scars on his face self-inflicted so he is ‘always smiling’. This shows mental instability and instantly people are scared of different and can’t adapt to people who are ‘weird’ so instantly this will trigger a fear or a sense of discomfort with the audience and help create his negative evil atmosphere.

Our hero wears a white shirt as this is a stereotypical colour of goodness and is a powerful colour to highlight his role in the film. We relied on this stereotype as with the limited time we were given this was the quickest and clearest way to represent a definite role and the characters personality. The villain however is still the same actor however this time he is wearing the black shirt. The black shows immediate contrast with the first hero character that was presented and this means that there will be opposites in personality and yet because they are the same actor this starts to enhance the plot and the hero’s ‘normal’ identity and adds relevance to the two characters.

Final product

 

Final product with edited contrasts and brightness.