Eval Q 6. Technologies

What have you learnt about technologies 

from the process of constructing this 

product?

BLOGGER:

Blogger Logo

Blogger is a useful technology in our project as it's where we keep all our research and it's where all the work that will be marked is stored, and when you publish a post you can embed videos and link words to useful sites that we can visit later if needed. Also for our evaluation questions all the pictures like screenshots for example that are stored on our blogs can be easily accessed to help answer the questions.

LIVETYPE:

LiveType Logo

This is the software we used to create our company ident which is important as we will use our idents in the film opening, it was complicated at first to use but with the help of John our media technician we soon got to grips with it.

FLASH:

I also used Flash to help make my ident for the animation in it, i then exported and finished it off in LiveType.

IMDb:

We use IMDb to find out information about the films we've been analysing or researching, information like casting, production companies/distribution companies, directors, budget/box office, etc. We also link to IMDb when we're using reference to the films in our blogs as it's a useful website to use for our coursework.

BOXOFFICEMOJO:

Also we used Boxofficemojo to get exact figures for the budget and box office if IMDb didn't have the figures.

YOUTUBE:

Youtube Logo

With Youtube we can embed videos that we need to our blogs , for example useful trailers of films we've analysed, and this is more efficient if we want to go back to them later rather than searching for them again. Also we've made youtube accounts where we can upload our vodcasts or clips that we've made which we then can embed into our blogs so Youtube is very useful for our projects.

FINAL CUT PRO:

Final Cut Pro

This is the software we use to edit and put together our clips that we've filmed or recorded, it's easy to use and still gives a great quality finish, which is good for us as first time film makers. Also when you've finished editing on final cut pro it's easy to export and share to youtube, and it's also simple to upload footage on to final cut pro then from there you can use all the tools to make a high quality edit.

BLOGGER & YOUTUBE & GOOGLE:

Insert Video Tool

Insert Image Tool

Here blogger and youtube are used together as we can upload clips from youtube, and also straight from our youtube channels this is because google owns both blogger and youtube so it's easy to use them all together is this case.

Also you can save images from Google Images and then import them easily into blogger when you want to do a post involving these images, and it's easily done by clicking the 'insert image' tool and then browsing for the images saved.

Add Link Tool

There's also an 'add link' tool where you can highlight a word like a film title then link it to the film's site or a site which we use regularly 'IMDb'. 

Eval Q 7 Progress from Prelim.

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


When i first joined media the first task i was set was to create a prelim, my initial knowledge on films was very bleak and i didn't understand how films were made and anything to do with them. My first insight into some ways in which films where made and some types of shots that were commonly used in film where those that Dave had taught me in lesson. These shots were, shot reverse shot, the 180 degree rule and the match on action. When i was set my prelim i had to incorporate these shots at least once.

Since i did my prelim my understanding and knowledge on how films are made and what goes into making them a success has broadened. I have learnt since shooting my prelim about new and various different shot techniques, angle, editing styles and much more. I have learnt this throughout the year from doing research and also learning from Dave during lessons. This new understanding of how the film industry works and how films are made had enabled me to include these techniques in my own work such as my film opening which myself and some of the other lads in the class made as part of our coursework. One of the fundamental roles that i learnt during the making of the film opening was time management and scheduling everything to make sure that i was on top of all the work that i had to have completed.

When we filmed our film opening we had to create a inbox online on the social network Facebook so that as a group we were able to stay in contact with one another and update each other on when and where we were going to meet to film our opening and also to confirm whether or not we were available to ensure that we did not waste time. Obviously this didn't help due to the fact some of us had jobs and other activities on certain dates so we had schedule it for an appropriate time when we were all available.

My Ident

Also we had to make idents to incorporate in with our film opening so that anyone watching it would know which company produced our films, and the ident i made was ' Paper Plane Productions'

And with the prelim there was not much point in making a storyboard or planning what shots to do in what scenes, whereas in our film we had to plan shooting schedules , and have shot lists showing us what shot types to use in what scenes , and also plenty of storyboards showing the idea has been fully planned.

When we did our prelim we lacked mise-en-scene and we didn't include and props our outfits for our characters which meant that it lacked detail and didn't look very good. However since i have made my prelim the work that i have produced since has incorporated these techniques which has meant that the my films are now better with much more thought and ideas that go into each and every scene, each prop or costume will hold some purpose to signify a certain point, for example the blood on the killer's white apron this was to signify that he's butchered the victim.

Then with our film opening we had to have a larger cast than we did for our prelim which brought complications, such as finding the cast because for each character role we had to make sure the actor fulfilled the requirements needed for the character, and it was especially difficult to plan the dates of specific shoots as our casting crew would be available at different times, so this is completely different to the prelim where we just could used ourselves to film it and was capable of just doing it in school, whereas we had to do location scouting for our film opening to find a location that fitted the requirements that our film needed.

Also for our film opening we had to do a much larger variety of takes than what we did in our prelim as our opening is up to 2.40 minutes long so obviously it's going to of required a lot more footage than the prelim did, but also trial shots were needed in our film opening to test ideas for shots to see if they worked or not , and then there's always the problem with one shot not working so we'd have to go back and re-shoot the scene, or if one of our actors did something wrong we'd have to film another take, so here there was much more to get done than what was needed for the prelim.

Soundtrack

And there's all the editing process that we had to go through with our film opening which we didn't need to do for the prelim as it was much simpler, for example all the shots and to be cut to length or adjusted slightly so that the end product would look neat. But also there's all the soundtracks that we had to make to fit in with our film opening which we never had to do for our prelim so we had to learn how to make these soundtracks as well as incorporate them into our film.

Audience Feedback

Then there was all the audience feedback that we had to collect as well as going through it and understand what worked with our film opening or what improvements need to be done , and this is where all our rough cuts come in hand as from each rough cut we could publish it online , for example we used Youtube to exhibit our rough cuts for our audience to be able to access it, but also they were able to give us instant feedback by commenting on the video, and with the prelim we didn't have to do any of this.

In conclusion the improvements since my prelim are a lot better and have made the work that i now produce a lot better and to a higher quality. This is due to the fact that my understanding is a lot better and i am more aware of which shot types, angles, props etc to use and my time management is a lot better than it originally was.  

This is the Prelim we made at the start of the year:

Then we made our first rough cut which showed some more variety of camera shots being used, which is also showing how we've improved from our first prelim task.












And we then went on to producing a second rough cut of much higher quality as we demonstrated more camera shots than we did in our prelim activity and our rough cut, and this rough cut was an improvement from our first rough cut as in our first rough cut there wasn't much variety in shot angles and takes, there were lots of long takes and lost effect where as we broke down this long takes more in this second rough cut.








Finally we produced our final cut which showed how far we've made progress from our first prelim task , as we demonstrated lots more verisimilitude and continuity editing which had greater effect than our first rough cuts towards our audience.

Final Cut: Audience Feedback

After we released our final cut on to Youtube we invited some of our target audience in to watch and give us instant feedback.

Firstly they thought that the opening sequence worked well with the titles and the build up of suspension with the non-deigetic soundtrack because they said they felt the tension build up. Also with the point of view shots  from the killer they thought that it did well at giving a different perspective , because we didn't just get the view of the teenagers instead it allowed us to understand how the killer would see things. Then they thought that our violent scene was a much better improvement from before where it wasn't believable at all because this time it was more realistic with the short takes and the cut away shots, they thought that the slow motion of the violent scene worked well as well because it gave this weird feeling for them.

However they thought we could of done more to reassure the audience who the main characters were, for example we hardly showed or final girl on screen but had the scream queen's boyfriend on screen for longer,  whereas we could of had more shots of the final girl as she'd be the main character for the rest of the film.

This is some evidence from 1 of our target audience that gave us feedback.

Titles Influence

John Carpenter's Halloween

For our titles in our film opening we were very much influenced by John Carpenter's Halloween title's with the serif font and with the title all being in capitals. Also the titles are shown on a black background which gives it a serious feel to it rather than a comedy feel or romantic, so here it's already providing some sort of exposition towards the genre as this is what you'd expect with a slasher opening title. Also there's a non- diegetic soundtrack over the top which works well to add to the spooky effect and build up tension.

Black Nightmare

So with our title we're going to use the same serif font and use a black background to try and create the same effect as Halloween did. Also we're going make a soundtrack to be the non-diegetic sound over the top whiles the titles are playing to build up the tension for the opening scene.

Soundtrack

First attempt

Second attempt

This part in the opening was the violent scene and we wanted to have the sound effect of a heartbeat over the top, so that it would build up tension and show how the scream queen's heart is beating and this is showing her panicking, and firstly i just put a normal heartbeat soundtrack over the top.

But then realised that it didn't have much of the build up of tension effect i was after , so i went back and edited it so that as we go deeper into the violent scene the heartbeat, which is supposed to be of the scream queen, builds up the tension by beating faster and i did this by overlapping the original heartbeat soundtrack with itself so that it seems to be beating faster.

Rough Cut 2: Audience Feedback

Here our audience suggested that we go back and cut out long takes so that the scene have more of an effect, so we'll go back to Final Cut Pro and cut up our long takes into much shorter takes so we don't loose the audience's interest. Also our violent scene has been pointed out to need some adjusting because it's not that realistic so to make it more realistic and believable we'll use fast pace editing with lots of short takes like with Alfred Hitchcock's shower scene in psycho so that it has more of a believable effect.

Then with this our audience suggested we make a soundtrack for our opening , which is what we were already going to do but haven't yet managed to put it together, but when we will we will take into consideration what they're saying with the gruesome sound effects like with the chopping up of the meat , and then build up tension with a non-diegetic soundtrack which will play with the audiences heartbeat.