MAIN Post 12.7: Question 7

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

From looking at my preliminary task and looking at my final opening sequence I feel I have learnt quite a lot and have been able to develop my skills sccessfully. In the preliminary task I didnt use very many different shot sizes or camera angles, we used a few shot reverse shots and one panning shot but that was about it.  However in the opening sequence we decided to use a lot more variety and we filmed a lot more shot sizes and used more camera angles. we kept what shots we had learned to do fromt the preliminary task while alos adding other shots such as close ups to show different expretions in more detail.

 This screenshot shows an example of one of the
close ups that we used.

This screenshot shows some of our text we used

other ways in which I feel my skills have developed is on the editing suites. I have used the suites previously for other tasks however this time I did a lot more and we used a lot more different tools such as sound levels and brightness levels. we also experimented more with what you could do with the text, we created a text that fited our opening sequence were as with our preliminary task was very basic in terms of text.
 

MAIN Post 12.6: Question 6

Post Title - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

 

1: Camcorder - We used the schools camcorder to record almost our entire opening sequence which we could then upload later on. There were a number of techniques we had to learn as well as how to use the camcorder but it was relatively easy.

2: Google - We used Google to find images that we could upload onto our blogs. We also used Google as way to transition to other websites that we needed to go on

3: Flip cam - We did not use this a lot, but we did use it as a backup for speech incase the camcorder did not record the sound to the best of its abilities. We did additionally use the flip cam to record our group meeting but due to technical difficulties we had to scrap this.

4: Youtube - We used Youtube to watch other opening sequences when we were conducting our research. We also used Youtube to upload all footage we had taken so we could link it to our blog.

5: Computer - The computer was the most used technologies we used, without it we would not have been able to do anything. We used them for our blog, We used them to edit and render our film, we used them to do our research, almost everything we did involved a computer in some way.

6: PowerPoint - This program was not used as much as others. What we did use this program for was to turn documents into JPEG's so we could upload files onto blogger easier. We also used this program to take screen shots so we could upload them onto blogger as well. 

7: Scanner - We used a scanner to upload our hand written/drawn files such as our storyboards. Without this, we would have had to take a picture of them with a camera which would not have looked very good

8: Adobe Premier - We used this program to create our opening sequence. We could add effects like cross dissolves etc.. to our footage after we had uploaded it from the camcorder to this program.

9: Blogger - We used this website to record all our work on. Everything we did over the time of the course we uploaded onto this website.

MAIN Post 12.5: Question 5

Post title - How did you attract/address your audience?

In our opening sequence, we used a few ways to keep our audience interested and in suspense. One was by not introducing the characters; this kept an element of suspense and mystery to the opening scene. The use of music I think added to the theme of the scene. It was fast paced and very exiting, it clearly gave the impression that the film was an action adventure/ thriller based film.

Our titles and text also added to the theme of the scene. They portrayed a sense of mystery and adventure. There was no colour so they definitely did not indicate that the film was going to be a happy once upon a time based film, so I do think the title did add to the film. 

From looking on the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) website and reading through their guidelines I would say our film would it into the category of being a 12A to 15 based on the plot of our film and the events that would unfold. There may also be strong language that would be used during the film, this is not curtain as we have not wrote a script or the whole film but its is a possibility to make the film feel more real. There will be a lot of violence as the film is a action adventure based film.

MAIN Post 12.4: Question 4

Post title - Who would be the audience for your media product?

1: Our target audience for our film is quiet varied, our research would suggest our most common type of audience would be adrenalin junkies and thrill seekers, people that like excitement. Another common audience our film would pull in would be gamers, people that like special effects and action films etc... this type of film would appeal to them as gamers would like action films with guns in them as the most common types of games that people play are FPS's (first person shooters) such as Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty. Our research from our questionnaire confirms this as well. Our film would stereotypically appeal to the male audience more so than female audience due to the use of guns and action/adventure. To make our film appeal more towards the female audience, there would have to be a element of romance as well as an attractive male actor that would appeal to the female. Although our main character has a family, we have possibly not made that clear enough in the opening sequence for it to appeal to the female audience. This could potentially hurt box office takings of the film.

2: The gamer audience can vary in terms of hobbies and such but obviously there main hobbies would be gaming. most gamers would enjoy anything techy and electronic such as films, they would also socialize with other gamers around the would via Skype, Youtube and Facebook. The typical age of a gammer would be around about 13 to 21, after that age they normally start to drift off into other aspects of life such as working in a job. It is impossible to say for surtain how long gamers spend actually gaming as everyone has there own preference, some gamers may spend a few hours playing while others may spend a entire day. A gammers dress sense again varies, below is a picture of a gamer and what he is wearing but again this is only one type of gamer. Gamers are most commenly male but there are female gamers, just not as many.

MAIN Post 12.3: Question 3

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

Production companies have the deciding choice when it comes to films. They will normally be responsible for the funds that go into the film as well as help produce the film. Their main role is to help create the idea for the film as well as shoot al the footage and edit it afterworlds. They will normally have people that specialize in each of the curtain areas such as filming and editing. After everything for the film is done and complete, the film is passed on to a distribution company were the film is promoted and advertised which is a whole other topic.

There are a few different ways production companies could raise money to fund new films. One is the option of going to the UK Film Council and applies for a fund. Another is by applying to one of the many charities that loan money to produce the film. Another way to raise money is by taking the film-to-film festivals that can help to fund money for the film.

If I were looking for a distribution company to establish our film: Dispatch, I would probably argue that Paramount Pictures would be the best choice. I would choose them because they have distributed many other thriller/action adventure films including the mission impossible series. Paramount Pictures are very well know and have distributed many other films of different genres as well, they have a lot of contacts with other company’s to help promote the film wit products such as action toys and posters. Paramount Pictures also would have contacts to video game designers, which could result in there being a option to create a video game of our film.  

MAIN Post 12.2: Question 2

Post Title - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

1: Here are some images of our characters in costume

2: Were are two character that we looked at

3: When we were dressing our characters for the filming of our opening sequence, we made sure our characters looked and dressed similarly to traditional spy/agent characters from other films like James bond and mission impossible. We made sure our agent was dressed in a in a smart suit like uniform, we also had one of our shot of him doing a tie up. Almost all spy/agent film characters we looked at had a tie or a bowtie in some scene or another, especially as our agent character was getting ready for a interview so we had to make sure he looked smart. in some scenes of films we looked at, the spy’s/agents were wearing glasses so we decided that it may be a good idea for our character to wear some, it also made him look more mature as well as looking a bit older. Our spy agent looked similar to already existing spy/agents but we put our own twist on it so it still would appeal same target audience. as for our villains, we were not going to be showing the main villain in the opening sequence however the villains that were being shown in the opening sequence were the thug like characters so we decided to look at that type of costume. most types of thugs and robbers dressed with hoodies, guns and masks, based on this we decided to dress our thugs in dark, clothing and hoodies while they were testing there guns, this form of clothing is very stereotypical of thugs and robbers but it would not make since if we dressed them in suits and as such as they are not that type of character so that is why we kept the dress style the same as most other films with thugs and robbers.

MAIN Post 12.1: Question 1

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

In this video we sat down and talked about our experiances of making our opening sequence, what went well, what could have gone better, what we learnt and what we could have done to make the film better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuzDH7aYoEs&feature=youtu.be

Post 12a: Evaluation - Audience Feedback

After we completed our film we wanted to know what some viewers thought worked and didn't work. To see this we took a group mostly made up of our target audience and showed them our finished piece and asked them to give us feed back on what the liked and didn't like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgKYQcO2WsY&feature=youtu.be

Post 11: Final Opening Sequence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUhyqbyCt1M&feature=youtu.be

MAIN Post 10: Post-production

After we finished our filming we then had to edit our opening sequence together. We started off with capturing the footage that we had recorded onto Adobe Premier. It was here we had a problem, due to time and hardware constraints we chose to go against using a logging rush to capture our footage off the camera. Instead of just capturing the scenes we needed we went and captured all of the footage on the camera. This ended up turning out to be a positive as it allowed us to keep extra footage so we could add onto extra parts to scenes to give them that little push they were missing.

 The next thing we had to do after this was to cut down the scenes to the individual shots. This is so that we can put it into the correct order and cut them down so that they were well paced. To do this we used the razor tool, selecting it with either C or by clicking on the razor icon. After we separated them we then got them all in order and placed them over 2 channels. This was so that if we accidental crossover shots they wouldn't be cut down.

 The next challenge we faced was creating the split screen shots. To get this effect we started off by layering the 2 videos on top of each other so that they were running at the same time. We then clicked on the picture that was on top and went over to the effect controls of the video and selected the motion option. From here I then selected scale and lowered it to 50%, we then went to the position controls and placed it so that it was in the corner of the frame. To set the other picture I did the same but just moved it to the other corner of the frame.

 One problem that we uncounted during editing was that for some of the shots inside the garage the lighting was very dim, to the point where you couldn't make out the actors faces. To get around this we used a combination of lighting effects and colour correction. We started off by using colour correction to brighten the picture up a bit. To do this we went to Video Effects>Colour Correction>Brightness and Contrast and then dragged the effect onto the video that we wanted to change. To change the brightness we then had to go into the video effects and play around with the numbers until the video looks better than it did before. The second thing we did was use a lighting effect to shed more artificial light in the scene. This was done in a very similar way to the brightness and contrast effect.

 When we were done we then had to export the video as an AVI file so it could be uploaded to Youtube. To do this we simply went to File then Export, chose the file destination and then waited for it to finish.