Closing blog post

This blog is now complete and is ready for assessment.

Evaluation

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I found that the preliminary task quite epically failed to be honest. We did hardly any preparation or planning which reflects in the video. We were very unorganized and had no knowledge of the use of technology that had to be used in media at that time. However, i felt it was a good experienced and i learnt a lot from the preliminary task, it was an advantage that it was a bad video as we can learn from the mistakes we made.
One of these mistakes that we have learnt from and improved on for the main task in preparing our actors and locations. We had our actors in mind from the very beginning when we was storyboarding and immediately asked them to see if they were up for it  and were able to do it on the days we arranged. Also i feel our organisation of time has improved majorly as we were way ahead of time for our deadline and started editing our  video before the deadline for the filming which felt good and less stressful. I think we have also improved on our Technical filming skills as we were not very experienced for our preliminary task and didn't even use a tripod to steady our camera to make our film look more professional. However, i think we did a better job in our main task as we felt more experienced and professional using the cameras and we obviously knew more about the different camera angles to use to be effective for this type of genre as we did quite a lot of research into real films of this genre.
After filming we had to edit our film to make it look interesting and more professional, adding things such as jump cuts to show our character was confused and we also had to add in our titles. I believe that our use of editing skills have also improved from our preliminary task. Using premiere pro became easier after a while and we got used to it so it became a good programme to use and it made our film look quite professional and continuous. I have learnt allot from the preliminary task as it let us experience what its like to edit and produce a film but i have also learnt form the main task, how to use premiere pro in a more professional way and use all of its abilities.
Overall i feel that i have progressed allot looking back at my abilities whilst doing the preliminary task as i feel i have produced a good piece of work for my main task, and hopefully my skills in media will continue to expand.

Evaluation

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
In todays world, new technology is very important and plays a huge role in media in various stages of production.
Technology was very useful when doing research and planning for our film. we used out mobile phones to organised the times and places we would meet to do our filming, we also used Facebook to get some audience feedback on our research and we used this website, blogger to blog our ideas and research which was very helpful to keep us organised and be able to view our work easily and not just from college.
To produce our anamatic we used a camera to film each picture that we drew of our story board. we then uploaded the clips onto the computer and edited them all to fit together on a very new technology called Adobe premiere pro. We then used a very popular website called `YouTube ` to upload our anamatic video and embed it onto our blogs.
Using blogger.com really helped me keep track of what i have learnt and kept me organised as you can see clearly what you have done and what you haven't done.
EDITING

Evaluation

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product? 
We are aiming our film at people of the ages of 15-25, and mainly aiming it at males throughout this age group but also particular females too. This gives us a wider target audience and more viewers. We are also aiming it at a social grade of B, C1 and C2, and our psycho graphic segmentation target it at mainly rebels and hedonists as we feel these types of people would enjoy our film the most and understand the genre. 
Hedonists are those who like to have a good time, and people who watch films nearly always watch them with friends or family. Rebels are people who don't want to conform and challenge the traditional way of doing things and are particularly associated with teenagers.


Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience? 

I felt that I was successful in attracting my audience, as when I showed my film opening to my selected target audience and class of 16-20 year olds, I got very positive feedback. Although some thought it may be appropriate for a slightly more sophisticated group as it is quite hard to understand what the character is running from and use of enigma code may confuse our target audience. They recognised that it was a horror/thriller film and said it is very similar to a real film of this genre. We also found that people like a mystery in a film which demonstrates Barthes' Enigma Code and is a common convention of nearly all films.

I feel my text was successful because the audience easily recognised the genre and thought the titles worked very well with this type of genre. 

I successfully attracted my audience by using key conventions which I had seen used in other films of the thriller/horror genre. These conventions are firstly, fast editing for the chase, using many jump cuts to create an eery feeling and to show the characters is confused. This creates a tense feeling to the piece and means the audience are gripped.

The titles needed to be interesting with a scary feel to them, so having white writing on a dark blue neon background made this easy to interpret as an interesting film. My audience especially liked the titles too. A further convention is scary, fast and energetic or slow and eerie, music. My audience thought both the pieces of non-diegetic music fitted and helped create the atmosphere as the music was `spooky` and made it seam like a real film opening. As well as that, they said that they would continue watching the film, thus meaning it was a success in creating an exciting and tense atmosphere an creation.

My feedback for my opening titles is shown below in a video.

Evaluation. Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 


Our film is a small budget film that appeals to a wide audience in the genre of thriller. We feel the of of distribution company that would distribute our film is `Metrodome`. This company distributes many films which tend to start off in a fewer number if screens and in art-house cinemas and then cross-over onto the bigger screens which will attract a few more viewers.

Metrodome is one of the leading independent film distributors in the UK. They acquire films and product for exploitation in cinemas. Metrodome has earned a reputation for acquiring and releasing quality independent films that challenge audiences - from box office smash hits like `Monster` and `Donnie Darko` to the box office success and Academy Award winning The Counterfieters. Alongside high profile theatrical titles, Metrodome’s award winning Home Entertainment department also releases new films, classic cinema, documentaries, animation, stage adaptations, television programming and historical drama. This is the type on distribution we feel would be best to distibute our film as they are a professional independent compnay and shoulb be abloe to distribute or film in the right way.

Because it is such a low buget film, this means there would be not much money spent on advertising the film which may cause its viewers to not know about the film and be unable to go and view it. However the best way of advertising a film is not expensive at all. This is word of mouth; having done research into many different producers and distributors, they all say that word of mouth is the most effective way to make your movie well known and get a big audience. Word of mouth is when one person watches a movie and then tells their friends, family, work collegues and people on facebook there opinions of the film, this means that other people will have positive feedback from that movie and are more likely to go and see it if they have a good review off someone they know and trust. So we would suggest to our movie distributors to do a screening programme, where our movie will be shown for free so the word of mouth will be big for our movie as these people should give some feedback for our movie. Word of mouth can make or break a film.

Another good way of advertising our film is in magazines, radio,tv and newspapers etc. this is a very effective way of advertising as everyone is likely to see or hear our advert. However, as we have decided to distribute with quite a small distributor they may not be horizontally integrated which means it would be harder to advertise into the tv or magazine industry so it would be very hard and very expensive to advetise this way. Also we wouldn't be able to advertise on billboards or bus`s or bus shelters which most films get attention from as it is very expensive and would not fit in a small film budget.

So the strategies we will be using is `word of mouth` to spread the word about our film. Also we would set up an official website on the internet to advertise and market our film, this is a very cheap way of advertising and a good way to communicate to our viewers. This is a very effective way of advertising as most people in our target audience age group use computers, so if we were to advertise on websites such as Facebook or Twitter we would surely get a lot of people interested about our movie. This is a method of marketing a film that many distributors use as it is very cheap and very beneficial to the film.

We would be hoping to get our film into cinemas such as The Electric, Birmingham. This cinema shows lower budget films as well as higher ones too, and we feel our film could crossover and eventually make it into bigger cinemas.

Evaluation

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film opening represents women and teenagers in a very emergent way and challenges many stereotypes.
The first shot we see is a pair of old fashioned raggy boots which are non gender represented which doesn't let the audience know weather the main character is male or female. However when it is established the character is a female there is still no representation or a residual idea of ideology as our character is not being portrayed as a steryoptypical female teenager of today as she is dressed in a hoodie which portrays that she is tough and hard which isn't expected of an emergent female.

Also our main character isn't being portrayed as a sex object, she is not dolled up and doesn't seem to want to attract any type of male attention. This is challenging such stereotypical representations of residual ideology that young females have to appear attractive and care what they look like to attract male attention as they feel they must appear in a certain way that mean find attractive.
It is Emma herself that the film in concentrated on and it is her reaction shots we see, tis makes the audience feel close to her as a person and eables them to create a relationship so the audience seem to care about her and become interested in what she is running away from. This is an emergent idea of a dominant woman.

However, in the next scene our main character walks onto the train and gets a very dirty look off the female teenager sat opposite her; This passenger is also a teenager, but she has a much more appealing appearience which suggests she is of higher class.
The fact that the passenger gives Emma a dirty look because of the way she looks is also a residual  ideology of females being 'bitchy' and represents the way young females judge one another on the way they appear and instinctly react to someone who is not dressed in the same way with similar attitudes. This other character is female which suggests that females are dominant, thus demonstrating emergent ideology.

When Emma wakes up after the train crash, she is wearing more appealing clothing unlike before, she is also discombobulated and doesnt know where she is: Instead of her seeming rebellious, she is now vulnerable  which is very much a residual view of women.

It is denoted to us throughout the sequence that Emma is running away from something that she is obviously scared of because she keeps checking to see whats behind her. It is connoted that this thing is higher than her, something more scary, thus also connoting her innocence and defencelessness. This view is again residual. The vulnerable state of Emma is connoted by the mid shots that show her confused in a place that she does not recognise. 

The mise-en-scene of the forest makes it seem deserted and means she also seems quite small in comparison to the setting which is connoted with a long shot running into the forest, further connoting to us the residual ideology of females vulnerability.

Throughout our film there are no mae characters introduced, this is connoting ideas of residual ideology that men have a domniant position in society. This giving females a dominant and ovepowering representation.

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

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

In comparison with other real film openings, I believe that there are some obvious similarities between real media products of a thriller genre and our film opening.

It is obvious from the evidence above that our film opening titles shows a sign of creativity and also builds a sense of dark and loneliness which fits in with the genre very well and will interest or maybe suspend our audience, this is very typical of a real film opening in this particular genre.
Also, the music piece we have used in our film opening creates a real eery feeling of suspense which also makes it seem like a real film opening as it is very common for a real film opening to create such an eery feeling.
The genre, being thriller/horror had to be presented clearly, we tried to bring this across with big bold titles that show clearly the producers and the companies but also bring the genre across well which is brought through in our dark and mysterious titles. Also we tried to make our opening seem effective by having short clips of film then straight into a title, then another short clip of filming then into another title. we did this three times to show our creativity which in many was is similar to lots of real film openings.
Our film opening is very obvious and recognisbale as belongnig to the genre of thriller/horror. This is shown through the mis ene scence which is very dark at the beginging and gives a sense of enigma as to why the girl is runnung and what she is running away from. This makes our film opening seem very real as many real media products if this genre start with a similar story line and give a sense of enigma, this is very typical and common in a real film opening.

Also, our use of editing and jump cuts brings across that the character is confused and rehabilitated which relates to our genre of film. This is also very typical of a real film opening, to get the audience interested and feel connected to the character and make them care about her and her feelings is what a real film would aim for

Typically a real film opening shows details of cast and crew, the film title and the Production companies, this helps the main characters of the movie be recognised and given credit for their work. I feel that we covered all of this in our film opening which allows it to be viewed as a real film opening.

These conventions are very important in making a film opening recognisable as a real film in its specific genre. We didnt try to challenge these conventions too much as we realised the main conventions obviously do good in a film opening and sell the story well. However we felt the need to break the law of continuity by using a few jump cuts in the last scene. we decided this was a good way to let the audience know our character is confused and we tried to bring real emotion through and effect our audience.

Revulsion - Main task

Time Management: Updates

Filming today went really well, however it was a bit awquard to film as it was 5 o`clock and obviously home time which meant it was really busy at the train station so we had to wait for a while so get a better effect of the main character being lonely. However we got all the shots we needed to get so now we can start editing our film opening.

Time management: Updates

Unfortunately we was not able to film last yesterday as the weather was really bad and there was heavy rain which meant that our film wouldn't look continuous if suddenly it is raining. However, we are going to carry on filming tomorrow day time and night time to get the different effects of the time of day.

Time Management: Updates

Last night we only managed to film shots 1- 10 as it took us longer than we thought it would. However we are going to continue filming today after college and try to finish all our filming so that we have enough time to edit it and make it look continuous.

Time Management: Updates

Today we are going to start our filming of our film opening.
Today we are going to films shots 1,3,5,7,8,9,10,11,12,13 and 14. We have made sure that our actor Emma Wilcox is ready and available and have organised for her to meet with us in Worcester town centre tonight at a specific time. We have also got the props we need at the ready. Hopefully filming will go well today as we will then continue with filming tomorrow after college.

Organisation: Locations

Here is a risk assessment for the location of Worcester town centre and the train station which is where we will be shooting the first part of our film opening.

Organisation: Props/Costume

This is a table showing all the props needed to film our film opening and the source of our props.

Organisation: Casting

Here is a table showing our main actress and extras. Using only three characters we hope this will come across effective as the whole film is based on the main character Emma.