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?


Preliminary task brief:
A short continuity task in which we had to film a character walking into a room through the door, sitting down on a chair and talking to another character briefly.


Main task brief:
To film the opening two minutes of a film based on the genre and storyline of your choice. It should last around two minutes.


During each tasks, there are three main stages:

During the preliminary task, I was able to refresh my memory on what I needed to know.


1. Planning:
This stage involved:

• organising group meetings.
• ensuring paperwork was correctly filled out.
• roughly storyboarding.
• hiring out equipment.
• choosing a location and actors
• writing a script.

Since GCSE Media, I'd forgotten about the planning stage of the project and i found this extremely useful, especially as things like shot lists and shot logs can prove to be extremely helpful in the future.

2. Production

During production we had to:

• assign group members roles. (eg. cameraman, sound checker)
• sort out timings
• achieve perfect continuity
• establish our master shots, cutaways etc.
• film all our shots fully from each angle
• learn the continuity rules (eg. 180 degree rule)

The fact that we were working in a team meant that everybody had to learn to communicate. This was a major skill that we all had to develop in order to produce a successful sequence with good narrative flow and continuity. 

3. Editing

During editing we had to:

• capture all footage.
• learn to use adobe premiere pro.
• add a title(s)
• cut the shots accurately and put them together so the continuity looked seamless (eg. when ella opens the door and we cut from her outside to her walking inside the room.)
• make sure the sequence made sense and was a suitable length.

I felt that this was the stage where i learnt the most - i learnt to make titles again and i was able to re-familiarise myself with the software, which i had forgotten about. 

One useful thing i learnt was to place clips on alternating rows rather. So i'd place one clip on 'Video 1' and the next clip on 'Video 2' etc. This meant that seeing where one clip started and another ended was very easy.

As well as those 3 stages, i had to evaluate my preliminary task - this was based on the finished piece and teacher/fellow media student's feedback. I had to state what i had learnt, what i'd do differently, what worked etc. I also had to write how i felt the preliminary task would help me in the future:

Finally, learning to work as part of a team was vital. We had to take it in turns to shoot, edit and do paperwork. I learnt to pull my own weight and to help motivate the rest of the team at times to produce a successful final piece. 

Evaluation Question 6

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


During the production of our sequence, we used a mixture of different types of hardware and software. The hardware was used in the practical side of filming the piece and the software was used to edit and enhance our sequence.


Hardware:


During the production stage, we used many different types of hardware, some of which I had never used before, such as the cannon DM50 directional stereo microphone. I learnt what each piece was called and what each was used for:

I remembered these pieces of hardware from GCSE Media. However, I had forgotten how to use things such as the Paglight and how to extend the tripod - I ensured that before filming anything I learnt how to confidently use each piece of equipment and I felt I learnt alot from doing this.


All of these things had similar advantages - they were all relatively easy to carry around and nothing was too large. We were careful with the equipment and after the health and safety session at school we were very unlikely to break anything or harm ourselves using anything. A particular piece of equipment that i felt had the most advantages was the tripod - it was easy to fold up, change its levels and carry it around in its case. The battery life on the camera battery was also very good and we never ran out of battery.


The equipment also had disadvantages - we constantly had to be careful with the paglight as the barn doors kept closing, which is a fire hazard so they required lots of attention.


Software:


Learning to use software well was extremely important - we may have filmed our shots but editing a continuous and impressive sequence was going to take time, effort, skill and knowledge of all the software.

This programme was called Adobe Premier Pro CS3. It was the main programme that was used throughout the editing weeks - it was used to capture footage, piece it together, cut it, add transitions, add music etc. We used to basically do almost everything.


There were many advantages of this software - it was easy to use following the lesson on how to use it and we were able to do the majority of our work on it. We were able to create numerous timelines so testing out effects was easy too. However, the disadvantages were that I felt the transitions on offer were fairly basic and we couldn't create titles/credits using it so we had to use the mac instead.

This was the programme on the mac, known as Livetype, which we used to create our titles. It had so many advantages - we were able to choose from a wider variety of fonts and the transitions were much more impressive then on the PC's. I was able to use the programme with ease, despite never having used it before and I feel our titles were successful. The only disadvantage of the programme was that we had to export our titles from the mac to the PC whenever we made them, which took extra time and could get annoying.

This programme was also on the mac and was called Soundtrack Pro. It was really useful as we were able to find a huge library of sound effects on here - we found the sound effects for 'GPH Productions' and 'Heartbeat Films' on here. The advantages were that i found this programme easy to use and it gave us a wide selection of material to choose from. However the disadvantage with this programme was the same as with Livetype - exporting things could get irritating.

Advice to others:

• I'd advise people to have a health and safety session before handling any hardware
• Have sessions using the software experimentally before using it properly
• Constantly press ctrl+s to save work whilst editing to ensure nothing is lost
• If you're ever unsure of anything, ask.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?


During our opening sequence, we wanted to evoke the following reactions from our audience:

• shock
• intrigue
• curiosity
• surprise
• empathy

Some of the above reactions are known as 'audience pleasures' - these are things that the audience want to feel when they watch a film. If you're watching a crime-thriller then you want surprises in the plot and you want to feel curious about what is has happened/is happening/about to happen.

Shots during the screening:

We wanted the audience to be able to relate to and empathise with our main character - this is why we have her trip and giggle at the start, to give her some personality so the audience feel they know more about her. 

In order to evoke these reactions, we used a number of techniques. We used cross cutting to keep the audience's attention - when we showed our first edit (click here) the audience seemed to get slightly bored with the long continuous shots. To solve this problem, we decided to cross-cut instead.

We also built up the attack with the use of increasingly dramatic music and choppy shots to let the audience know something big was about to happen, building up the enigma.

In order to attract the audience, we advertised our screening through the social networking sight facebook:

This was very successful, and our screening attracted around 50-60 people. 

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?


We aim to target a younger audience of older teenagers to young adults who enjoy realistic and intelligent movies.

Our audience is quite niche hence the reason that we think our movie would be shown at smaller cinemas that deal with more independent movies, such as the Phoenix, East Finchley. 

We included young actors and confronted the young audience with a situation that could happen to anybody - this gets our audience thinking about the movie and wanting to watch the rest of it.


It's something that could happen to anybody in our target audience regardless of lifestyle, nationality etc. The audience can LEARN from our film.


We also realised that our film could have a secondary audience of those over the age of 25 who simply enjoy the theme of crime. Since our film would be focused around an investigation into the rapist and his past crimes, those who enjoy crime thrillers in general may also want to watch our movie. This broadens our target audience, helping us to reach more people.

Evaluation Question 3

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


Our production company is called GPH Productions. We focus on making gritty, realistic and hard hitting movies that deal with current issues for those who enjoy more intense thrillers. We're trying to reach an audience of intellectual older teenagers and younger adults. Because of our niche audience we'd expect our movie to be independent and released at smaller cinemas such as the Phoenix, East Finchley.

One of the movies we looked at previously was 'The Last House on the Left' (2009, Iliadis). It was also focused around rape and this film was produced and distributed by the company Rogue Pictures. Rogue Pictures distribute other films of a similar genre (ie. thriller/horror) such as 'The Hitcher' and 'The Strangers.' 

Our distribution company was called 'Heartbeat films' implying that they distribute movies that make your heart beat ie. Dramatic, intense fims.

We would start off by exhibiting our film at film festivals such as the 'Sundance Film Festival.' An example of a successful film that was screened there is 'Paranormal Activity, Peli, 2009,' and independent movie which became a huge success.  

Since our film is focused around a British female teenager from London, we would also try screening our film at the London Independent Film Festival as the audience that would be able to relate to the movie the most would be reached through this platform of exhibition. 

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?


The main social group depicted in our opening sequence are typical female teenagers in their late teens. An example of a character like this is Effie from Skins, a character that inspired us when choosing an actress to play our main character.

We tried to repsent this social group through the way Georgia was dressed ie. heels, leather jacket, black skirt:

We also showed how she was rebellious through her drunken trip (adding a slow motion hazy effect when Georgia trips) and her smoking before she enters her flat - we did not try to show them in a bad light, we simply showed what many female teens are like. 

Evaluation Question 1

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



Genre: What genre did we feel our movie would fall under? Thriller. A thriller is made to keep the audience on edge. It contains many twists and turns making the audience constantly ask questions - this can be unbearable for them.  

As shown above, the thriller genre has many sub-genres. 'The Safehouse' fits into the Crime-Thriller sub-genre.

We want our audience to have to examine the backstories and motivations of our main characters and to feel somewhat involved in the movie and to become immersed in it.


Examples of crime thrillers include:

• A Perfect Murder, Davis, 1998

• Seven, Fincher, 1995

Both these films include typical characteristics of the crime-thriller genre - We have one clear 'goodie', 'baddie', dark scenes in shadow, tense music and the sequence increases in pace - these are common of thriller. 

Do we challenge conventional crime thrillers? Yes.

We have a female heroin and the whole movie is from her point of view, as opposed to from a male's point of view eg. Seven. 

We also cross-cut between the present and past events.

Narrative Structure: Conventionally, films have a closed narrative in which time is compressed. (Two hours constructs events happening over months or years) The opening tells us the WHO, WHAT and WHERE of the story and we usually see a series of events crucial the rest of the film's development. 

Typically, a film:

this is based on Todorov's theory.

A buildup to the event is shown through jumpier and shorter clips and the sequence is not shown in real time - we include flashbacks and crosscutting between the past and present.

The action code is clearly set up - the who (victim), the where (her flat), and then when. ("It was the 28th February 2010...")

The enigma code is also set up clearly as the audience wonder why our victim was chosen by the rapist. These follow Barthes' theory. 

Form: 

Our film does conform to these typical features of opening sequences, as demonstrated in the grid of screenshots below:

Comparing our opening sequence to that of 'Seven':

Despite the fact that Seven is of the same genre as The Safehouse, the opening sequence for it is very different. Yes, the main character is introduced but we never actually see his face and it's all alot more mysterious with far more ECU's. There's alot more detail too - however, like our opening sequence there's tense music in the background and titles are also included. 

Style: 

Music; Initially, the music is sad but it slowly changes to tense and dramatic with a loud ending when the attack happens. The dialogue is all straight to the point (eg. "I'm here to talk about my rape experience.") showing that our movie will be gritty and realistic. The pace increases building up to the attack.

Titles; 'typed' up as though an investigation piece is being written.

Use of Binary Opposites; 

Between the shots of Georgia talking to the camera and the flashbacks, we included lots of binary opposites through her clothing (tight to baggy), the lighting (dark to light) and the camerawork (jumpy to static):

Editing Week 2 - 15th March

Last week we managed to do alot on our opening sequence - we put all the clips in order, got our music sorted, did the titles and added sound effects to them.


We're aiming to get signed off by Wednesday morning, leaving the triple media lesson on Friday for any snagging etc.


We experimented with changing the order of the clips - instead of having just Georgia talking at the beginning, we tried alternating between clips of  her talking and clips of her walking and getting attacked. We compared the sequences and found we preferred the first and original order as the music fitted perfectly and we felt that the sequence 'flowed' alot better.


Finishing Touches: We need to do our production logo and include it at the beginning of our opening sequence. We also need to improve the title for 'The Safehouse.'

Editing Week 1 - 8th March...

So we've definitely finished shooting our footage - I'm really relieved, it was definitely the most stressful part of the whole coursework experience. Now editing is our priority and I'm feeling more confident that our final sequence will be a success. I'll update my blog from now on, writing down what the group managed to do:

Monday 8th: This was yesterday - we only had a single period to work on our sequences today. We captured some of the footage and had a session on the mac computer with Ryan - he showed us extra effects we could add to our sequences that Windows cannot do.

Tuesday 9th: Today was had two periods of media and half of lunch to edit. We finished capturing our footage and put alot of it together roughly, slowly forming our opening sequence. We had to make sure it had good continuity and we began to think about extra effects we wanted to add in the near future. This week will be an intensive editing week as next week, Despina will not be here due to the Geography field trip.

Thoughts so far...

I havn't blogged on my personal blog in a while - so far on the project, we've done our test shoot which was weeks ago. We used it mainly to experiment with shots and test out some ideas. It wasn't very successful in terms of creating a rough opening sequence but it did make us realise that we needed new actors and that we needed to uncomplicate the storyline a bit.


For the more final shoot, we did change our actors - we used Georgia as our victim and George as our rapist since his leg was better and he was able to do it. This was a really good decision. As well as this, we made our storyline less complicated - it's now just about a girl who was out partying and who gets attacked whilst going back into her flat. The simple storyline means we can focus more on the filming rather than explaining a long story in two minutes.


Our real shoot was the weekend that just passed (28th Feb) and it was definitely more successful than the test shoot in terms of acting and scripting. However we're still unhappy with some of the shots and we're going to do a final final shoot Wednesday evening between 6-9 to get the extra shots we want.