Evaluation Question 1- In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and coventions of real media products?

Title of Film
The title of our film (the chase) appears at the end of our first scene in the forest. The title is shown in a bank gothic font, in a white colour and a back background. This has more effect than if we used just a plain white background with white writing as it makes the title more bold and interesting, as it follows with the convention of the film. The main title appears over the close up of the characters face, this creates associations with the character, showing that she’s the main star and there’s the possibility that she’s the one that’s going to be chased. When the titles fade to black it creates tension about what will happen next.

Setting and Location
Our first scene is in the forest. Action/thriller films have a large association with forests, due to the mysterious/dark nature to them. Although when filming, the sun was going down so it was appearing through the trees, causing the scene to be bright. This led to the scene not having the correct atmosphere, but when editing we filtered the chosen scenes and lowered the brightness. The following scene is set in a library; it was a place where people go every day, expecting nothing to happen to them. Also when the letter fell out of the book, the library seemed quite an eerie place.

Costumes/Props
In our opening scene our actress wore a simple t-shirt and jeans to represent a mature teenager.  The props we used were a letter, we originally made 2 letters saying different things one saying `we’re watching you` and `don’t go down to the woods`. We then asked people’s opinions on which one they preferred and which would work best with our opening. Most people preferred the `don’t go down to the woods` so this was what we went with. We used a book in the library and a chair.
These are the two costumes our actress wore in the forest and library


Camera and Editing
To film our film opening, we used a film camera and a tripod. The tripod was extremely useful as it ensured we had a steady shot and avoided camera shake. To edit our opening we used final cut express. We used other programmes such as livetype and soundtrack for the credits and soundtrack.Title font/Style
Our title font was Bank Gothic, this was a squared shaped font which appealed to us the most, as we felt it went with the genre of our film well. We used the same font throughout the entire opening and used similar font transitions to make things flow smoother.Story and how opening sets it up
Our opening starts in the forest with the main character being chased. The title fades to black and reveals `2 weeks later`. So the forest scene is seen as a flashback. This is then followed by the library scene, of an establishing shot of the library. This creates the story already, as you have to find out what happens after the library to find out why the main character was being chased.Genre and how the opening suggests
The genre of our film is action/adventure. This is suggested in the opening by having the main character being chased through a forest, this creates a mysterious atmosphere as you wonder why she is the one getting chased and who’s chasing her. How the characters are introduced
Only one character is shown during the first two scenes. This shows she is an extremely important part in the film (main character). Obviously later on in the film more main characters will be introduced. Special FX
We didn’t use any special FX’s in our film as we didn’t have the opportunity too.  Special FX’s are mainly used in films like Avatar or Harry Potter. In our film, we could of used a green screen, so we could easily chose an environment for our actors to be in

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

Our film opening represents women. As our main character is a female. Women are beginning to get stronger parts in action/adventure films, meaning that our character could become a strong main character and becoming a hero. We didn’t over dress our character. We asked our actress to dress in every day wear, so for the library scene she came in skirt and top with a black long coat over the top. Then in the forest scene, we asked her for something extremely simple, so she arrived in a t-shirt and jeans. You see females like this in an action/thriller as if their being chased they’re not going to be that bothered about her appearance. Whereas if we did things differently and over dressed our character, it wouldn’t have the same effect and she would be open to stereotypes. Overall we represent women as a strong social group.

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

A production company is a company who are responsible for producing new media, including films. They also may be associated to the funding of films. Production companies vary in size, depending on whether it sells its products to a film studio or a cinema. However a film can be made with multiple companies/conglomerates.
If our film was made as a Hollywood blockbuster, it would be produced either by Miramax films, Paramount Pictures or Warner bro’s. These companies have been around for years, and have produced films such as Kill Bill, The Godfather, Superman and Pulp Fiction. These are all large scale films which have created a large profit at the box office.
If our film was made on a small budget; it would be ideal to choose an independent film company like working titles. Although our film may only screen in picture houses or specialized cinemas, due to the high demand on Hollywood films our film has a lower chance of making it into the cinemas. If we filmed the entire film in England, we would receive a tax deduction, making it cheaper to film. We could also apply for funding from the national film council or the national lottery.
A popular choice from completely new film makers is YouTube. This is a free service, where anyone can upload a video. A short film can be uploaded onto YouTube in a matter of minutes and distributed to millions of people. Social networking sites, helps film makers share their films by posting a status about it, or just sharing the link with someone. The release date of our film would be during the summer holidays where alot of 16 plus are on holiday, this would attract a greater audience.

Evaluation Question 4-Who would be the audience for your media product?

This is Georgia Brown. She is 16 years old, and lives just outside of Banbury. She dresses casually normally wear jeans and a top. She enjoys spending time with friends and going to the stables to see her horses. She enjoys shopping when she has the money. She shops in places like H&M, Republic and Primark. She enjoys a variety of  films like Mean Girls, Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging, Kick Ass, I am number four and Inception. She enjoys watching them at the cinema and also buying them later on DVD and watching them with her friends or by herself.

She likes to listen to chart music, varying from pop, hiphop. r 'n' b, indie music. She downloads a lot of songs from itunes and is a regular listener of radio 1. I think our film would appeal to her as shes not necessarily a stereotypical girly girl, as she enjoys active activities and enjoys films like inception. Therefore i can imagine if our film came out at the cinema, she would go watch it with a group of friends a similar age and if she enjoyed it, she would more than likely download/buy the film.

Evaluation Question 5- How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience by going straight into action of the film. When it started with the gate opening and closing it creates tension of what’s going to happen next.  It features a young actress, so people can relate to her. The soundtrack creates a great deal of tension, as at the end of the first scene in the forest, the sound levels increase and then the titles suddenly appear, this creates a surprise effect with the audience, also again it makes them watch on as they don’t know what’s going to happen next.

Evaluation question 5

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Evaluation Question 6- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We used a Mac computer to edit our film opening.
The video camera was simple to use and the picture quality was higher due to using a tripod
Final cut was the main editing software we used. It was simple to use, although sometime temperamental. It was effective to use when we had imported all the clips as we were able to cut them to the time scale we wanted, added transitions to make the opening flow and Removing the sound from the clips to avoid distortion with the soundtrack.
We used live type to create all of the titles in the opening. We did this so all of the titles were consistent. This was an extremely simple programme to use.
Finally we used soundtrack pro to create all of our soundtracks as it had a variation of sounds we could use.

If our film was being made many years ago, it would be edited by analog editing. Meaning after filming, we would have to take the film, use a razor blade and stick the film together one by one. This would be extremely time consuming and really expensive too. Digital editing is a lot better, as you can do one section, then come back to it, not necessarily in the right order. Although technology cant correct every mistake.

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 feel that our preliminary task has helped us to be alot more confident with our ideas and filming. Creating the preliminary task was extremely helpful, as it let us experiment with final cut before we went into filming our final idea. We kept with the 180’ degree rule, although in the library scene we broke that rule, but managed to make it flow with our opening as we used a fade in and out transition. We also thought our continuity throughout the opening was good and flowed well.
Even though this was our first time editing or taking any footage at all i feel we did extremly well.

Audience Feedback

We asked a number of people about our opening.
Here are what some of them said:

Feedback 1`I enjoyed the opening, thought it flowed well and like the moment of suspence at the end of the forest scene. The library scene took a while to get into, but thought the soundtrack fitted perfectly. 4/5`Feedback 2`If i enjoyed action/adventure films i think this would appeal to me more, but never the less it looks good`Feedback 3`Really good. Enjoyed the forest scene. Like the spooky atmosphere with the soundtrack and the transistions. Library scene did the same and built up the tension. Would want to see a film like this in the cinemas. 5/5

Our Opening on Youtube

This is our final movie opening, which posted on youtube. 

Soundtrack

We created our soundtrack using Soundtrack Pro. For the forest soundtrack, we wanted a scary mysterious soundtrack, something that fitted in well with the story of our opening. We used sounds like `Movement bell drone` and `Movement bright feedback` to create that atmosphere.

For the Library scene, we wanted to start with something different. We went with a classical piano sound at the beginning, giving the impression it was a normal trip to the library. Then it went into a more eerie sound, making it sound more dramatic.

I feel both of our soundtracks worked well and we learnt a lot when using this programme. Like the others it was the first time we had used soundtrack pro, meaning we were a bit stuck at first, but we asked the right questions and we worked it out.

How We Made Our Credit/Titles

We made all of our credits with LiveType. LiveType is a programme to create animated title sequence for video projects.

I made most of the titles and found LiveType to be a very simple programme to use.

All of our main titles (The Chase & 2 Weeks Earlier) had a black background, with white writing in a Bank Gothic font.  This gave a simple but bold title.

The rest of the titles are in the same font (Bank Gothic)

Bank Gothic was used for `The Day After Tomorrow`. It is normally used for advertising movies, especially Action films.

Editing!



 We used final cut express for our editing software. This was the set programme for film editing on the macs.


After our teacher showed me how to transfer our clips into the right format correctly, i made a folder for our final clips and started to format all of the 47 clips we had.
After this we started editing. Cutting all of the clips to the time length we wanted. We split the editing equally, although there were some lesson when we both edited, giving our own views on what we thought looked good. Once they were all the correct time , we placed them in the order we wanted, then went through each section in detail.


We used the text on final cut to make trial credits, so we knew where we would place them and what they would look like.

We had a few problems with a few of the scene's. For example the last scene in the library we had to brighten it as it was too dark making it difficult to see. So we used the brightness/contrast filter to improve it. This is the scene after we brightened it, although it is still not perfect, its alot better than it was originally.

This was the first time i had used properly apart from the prelimary task, so i had no prior experience. So i learnt alot during editing our film. Although if i'm completley honest, i did find it quite stressful when things went wrong, for example when transistions didnt play properly due to the length of the clip.

Location Shots

Michael was filming our opening of our film. This is him in the library, using our film camera and tripod. We used a tripod so the picture quality was improved and so it avoided camera shake. Also it made it a lot easier to film, as when turning the camera around, it was a smooth and non-jerky action.

This is our actress in the library while filming there. We chose alice to be our actress, as she looked mature and we knew she did drama, so knew she would play the main character well. She went straight into the character and understood what she was doing immediately.

This is the section of the library that we were given. It was the teenagers/science fiction corner. This was a perfect location for our film as it gave us the book, chair and all of the space we needed. The only issues we had were people actually viewing the books in the library. Meaning we had to stop filming so to avoid people being in the shot. overall i was very happy with the location the library gave us. 

Filming Info

Yesterday we went filing in all of our locations. Everything went according to plan and i feel that the filming was really well done! We had a few problems but they were only minor and were easily sorted. for example, we had a small issue with the lightening when we were filming in the forest as the sun was too bright, making the wood scenes look non-scary. We filmed anyways, hoping that when we edit we can use a filter to decrease the brightness, if not we can always re-film the wood scene again on a darker duller day.
Me and Michael split the filming/directing equally. I directed for most of the library scene, explaining to Alice what we wanted her to do, writing problems down and i took a lot of photographs of us filming. In the forest scene i filmed the hand held shot, agreeing that i had the steadier hand, while i was doing these parts, Michael was directing.
I feel we were well organised for our filming, as we had prepared everything during the week. We spent our media lessons creating props and adding final adjustments to our storyboard.
I've definitely learnt that you cant just turn up somewhere and film. You have to take time so you can check the lighting and make sure it gives the right effect. Luckily we had a lengthy time in the library, making sure we had everything correct as we knew it would be difficult to go back there.



This is Michael, filming our opening







This is me with our actress Alice, looking over some footage





 

Permission From The Library We rang the library about 2 weeks prior to the date we wanted to film. Giving us plenty of time to change our idea if the library weren't happy with us filming. We rang the library explaining what we wanted to do and whether they would allow us. They asked us many questions like what we would do if a member of public went into the footage, we gave good answers and they said they would call us back later on in the week. They rang us back allowing us to film in the library. We were extremely pleased as it meant not having to change our idea, also it showed that we had taken risk with our locations. We explained that we would be at the library for 9.00am to avoid large amounts of people in the library. When we arrived we were greeted by the main librarian, showing us the section they had given us, we were pleased and they told us if we needed anything we could ask. We left the library at quarter past 10, after thanking the library for allowing us to film.

Possible Locations for Filming

We went to two possible locations for our forest scene.


We first visited a wooden area in Boddington. This would of been a good area for filming but it was pretty open and didn't give us the effect we wanted.

The second location we visited was another wooded area in Chacombe. This was defiantly more ideal, as it was more of a closed in area and it gave a scary atmosphere when the sun was setting.

Storyboard

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This is the storyboard for our entire film, this is the first storyboard we made for our opening, and obviously some changes/correction could be made in the filming process. Overall i feel we made a clear storyboard explaining our ideas

Soundtrack Mind-Map of Ideas

This is the Mind Map we made to show our soundtrack ideas

Class Presentation

Ideas presentation

This is the presentation that we presented to the class. We did this to gain feedback from our classmates and teacher about the ideas we had for the film. Although we were the last group to show our presentation and we just ran completely out of time and the group were unable to give feedback.

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Genre of Film Opening

The genre we have chosen for our film opening is thriller/adventure. We have chosen this so our film opening appeals to a wider audience, e.g. 15+. Another reason why we chose this genre is that we can use a wider range of location, props and script ideas.


Some thriller/adventure films are:
Kill Bill
Saving Private Ryan
The Dark Knight and
Inglorious Basterds