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Evaluation question 7

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

When looking back at our preliminary task we can see how much we have learnt since the beginning of our project. Many of the shots used in our preliminary exercise were blurry and unsteady as camera techniques were a new experience for us and we did not think through what we were doing with our shots as much as we did when we were filming our final piece. We had to variation of camera shots and angles in our preliminary task, we stuck to very basic shots compared to in our final product where we used a whole range of different camera work.

When we were filming our final product we filmed each scene several time so that if anything went wrong we would have a selection of clips to choose for to enable us to get to best footage possible into our final product, this was not the case for our preliminary exercise where we filmed things once and ended up with not much footage to use. 

When it came to editing out final product together we were much more experienced with what we were doing and so the clips edited together a lot smoother than the clips in our preliminary exercise. We had more experience not just with the video itself but with the transitions and audio that went along with it. In our preliminary exercise the clips has strange cuts where it jumped to a different shot, whereas with out final product there was a much smoother transition for one clip to another. Our use of match on action was very basic in our preliminary exercise, it was good for a first attempt but the shots did not run as we desired.

Although the editing in our preliminary exercise was not great, it did give us good practice with the program we would be using to edit together our final video, if it wasn't for the attempts at editing beforehand I do not think our final piece would have turned out like it did. Adobe Premiere Pro was at times difficult to use and without experience with it before hand it would have taken us a lot longer to complete our final product and it would have been very frustrating to understand.

Evaluation question 6

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

The main tech we used was obviously the camera, we used a Nikon D3100 because this is the camera that my partner had. We found that the camera was very reliable and easy to use. It managed to film decent quality footage. However we felt the way that it lets you zoom in and out so unideal as the zoom was shakey and not as smooth as we would have wanted.

We used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit our media product together, although it our piece come together in the end we had a love hate relationship with Adobe as it had a habit of crashing when we used it. It was also difficult to get the clips into the right places to edit them together.

Facebook was a great use of social networking for us as it allowed us to interact with our audience and get information about our film out to the public. We used a Facebook page we created for our production company "Fantasy Productions" and created polls for our audience to take that allowed them to vote on certain aspects of our film such as the main characters name. Our Facebook page is also were we released the name of our film and photos of the cast members in costume.

YouTube was a great medium to use, we used YouTube for a number of things. We used YouTube to do a lot of research,firstly we spent no end of hours browsing YouTube looking for inspiration for our film idea, then after we had our film idea picked out we spent our time looking at how other people had put their films together. We also used YouTube to upload our preliminary exercise and our final finished product. 

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

As Fantasy is a very popular genre of film, this helped us attract our audience as people would be likely to want to see it. We also got help by taking some ideas from previous films that were simular to ours and through our Facebook page we set up.

we set up a Facebook page for our production company which you can see in the screen shot below.

We used the Facebook page to conduct polls to allow our audience to get involved with some of the decisions such as the Main characters name. We also asked what genre of film was our audiences favourite and the results that came back where Fantasy so this showed that we were spot on with our gene in relation to our audience feedback. We also announced all major updates on the page such as the Name of our film and pictures of the cast members.

Another way we attracted our audience was through the use of relatable characters. By showing the audience characters that looked and acted like normal teenagers it meant that they would be able to relate the characters more and would therefore be more likely to watch the film.

Our film has a lot of similarities with other films but mainly the film The Lovely Bones. In the film The Lovely Bones we see a teenager age who has been murdered trying to help her family find her killer and struggling with her need for revenge and the wish for her family to move on. In our film we have a teenager girl who has been murdered who also wants to help her family move on but her journey also involves her trying to figure out who murdered her and why.

I feel the unique selling point of our film is that that is has the aspect of mystery to it and its always leaving the audience wanting to know more. This will make people more likely to watch the film because they would be interesting the the storyline and what's going to happen and this will lead to the audiences enjoyment of the film because they will feel as though they are actually in film.

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media product is teenagers/young adults. Below is a mind map that shows our audience and an explanation of what kinds of taste they might have- where they would shop, what music they would listen to, what their favourite TV programme would be, etc.

Evaluation question 3

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The main character in our media product is a teenager girl called Emily Everson . She is murdered and has to figure out who killed her and why. The character she represents and is compared to is Susie Salmon (played by Saoirse Ronan) from the film the lovely bones.

Susie Salmon:  The character from The Lovely Bones is a teenage girl who was murdered. She spends the film watching over her family and her murderer. She is a ghost who can't 'move on' because she needs to help her family find her murderer. She wears normal clothing that a teenager would wear, jeans and jumpers etc. She has to learn to balance her thirst for revenge with her desire for her family to heal. 

Emily Everson: Our character is similar to Susie in many ways, she is also a teenager Girl who has been murdered and is a ghost that can't 'move on'. However the differences between them is that Emily doesn't know who her murderer is and her main reason for not being able to 'move on' is that she needs to find out who murdered her and why. Emily also wears normal clothing that a teenager would wear. Both character have the film based around them and their murder.

Below is a screen grab of our character and the character Susie Salmon. Although their clothing isn't to similar, they are both wearing typical teenager clothing.

Evaluation question 1

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

Our media product develops the conventions of a general Fantasy film film opening. When looking at fantasy film openings we noticed that there were various long shots and close up shots. Looking at our screen grab of 9 different points in our film, it uses a variety of different shots. Shots 2 and 3 show the main character and her friends and their expressions and body language, this is vital in showing the audience how the characters are feeling.

Most of the screen grabs are long shots, this sets the scene and shows the location of the characters which is vital to the fantasy genre. Spacious sets leave room for the character to move freely and any other characters to enter; since it is so open it also leaves a lot of room for sudden things to happen which builds tension.

The lighting in the scenes is usually quite dark which helps build up the tension about what is going to happen. As most of the shots are filmed outside at night the only light you get is the dim light from the street lights on the streets, this makes the mood eerie and again builds up the tension about what is going to happen.

By using normal conventions of a fantasy movie this should help to set the film well, it would be within the audiences expectations and therefore would be pleasing to them. However the opening is original enough that it will not be boring and predictable.

Final product.

This is mine and my partners finished product.

Music

The music we will use in our final media product will be Royalty Free Music.

Film name

After a lot of arguing we have finally decided on a name for our film. Our film name is 'Dead Alive', this is because it plays on the fact that although she was murdered she hasn't 'moved on' and so could be seen as still alive if you didn't know any better. We wanted our film name to be very obviously linked to what our film was about.

Summary of filming

Day 1:

Our first day of filming was quite successful, we filmed all we needed to film for all of the scenes, even managing to film some scenes a few times so make sure we would have enough footage to edit together.

Day 2:

After looking back over all the footage, we decided to re-film some bits and film more of certain scenes. We also decided to edit in a scream instead of filming one as there were a few houses near by and we didn't want to cause any issues.

Company name and logo.

We have decided to name our production company "Fantasy Productions" as the genre of film we are producing is fantasy/ mystery. When deciding on the company Logo we decided it should have the name of the company in it and involve something to do with the genre fantasy.

Below is our chosen logo.

Filming

We managed to get all of our filming we had planned done today, now we just need to look back at the footage and make sure we don't need to re film anything.

Risk Assessment

I produced a risk assessment to ensure that our filming went as smoothly as it could.

Potential problems that could happen	What measurements have been taken to prevent these problems
The battery for the camera could die	Take at least two sets of spare batteries with us.
Bad weather	Check weather forecast before planning to film
People walking by and interrupting  filming	Film in a remote area where not many people would go.
One of the actors not being able to make if.	Getting my partner to take their place and getting a family member to film for us.

Filming problems

We had planned to film today but two of our actors could not make it in the end due to deadlines for other lessons. We plan to film on Monday the 16th now.

Shot list.

We created a shot list to help when filming. Shot lists enable you to get the shots you need quickly as you've already planned ahead. We did all the shots we planned from our storyboard

This is our shot list:

Shot number: One

Shot description: The main character hanging out with her friends

Shot location: My house in Peterborough

Shooting date: 16th of March

Shooting time: late afternoon/evening 

Shot requirements: Medium/long shot showing the friends having a conversation.

Actors: Elliott Dobslaw, James Thomas, Kayleigh Collingwood and Samuel Burton.

Props: N/A

Shot number: Two

Shot description: Main character saying goodbye to her friends and leaving the house.

Shot location: My house in Peterborough

Shooting date: 16th of March 

Shooting time: Evening

Shot requirements: Medium shot showing the main character leaving

Actors: Elliott Dobslaw,James Thomas, Kayleigh Collingwood and Samuel Burton.

Props: N/A

Shot number: Three

Shot description:  Main character walking home alone late at night

Shot location: Pathway located in Gunthorpe 

Shooting date: 16th of March 

Shooting time:  Evening 

Shot requirements:  Establishing shot showing main character walking home alone

Actors: Kayleigh Collingwood.

Props: N/A

Shot number: Four 

Shot description: Two people dressed in black appear behind the main character and grab her.

Shot location: Pathway located in Gunthorpe 

Shooting date: 16th march 

Shooting time: Late evening  

Shot requirements: Medium/long shot showing the main character being grabbed by murders

Actors: Kayleigh Collingwood, Elliott Dobslaw and Samuel Burton

Props: N/A

Shot number: Five

Shot description: Black screen,can hear the main characters screams.

Shot location: Pathway located in Gunthorpe 

Shooting date:  

Shooting time: Late evening  

Shot requirements: screen cuts to black, can hear the main characters screams

Actors: N/A

Props: N/A

Shot number: Six

Shot description: Main characters dead body lying on ground

Shot location: Pathway located in Gunthorpe 

Shooting date: 16th march 

Shooting time: Late evening  

Shot requirements: Panning shot showing the main characters dead body on ground

Actors: Kayleigh Collingwood

Props: N/A

Shot number: Seven

Shot description: Main character looking down at her dead body.

Shot location: Pathway located in Gunthorpe 

Shooting date: 16th march 

Shooting time: late evening  

Shot requirements: Medium/long shot showing the main character looking down at her dead body

Actors: Kayleigh Collingwood

Props: N/A

Roles, actors and costumes.

The different roles in our media piece and the actors that will play them are:

• The main character  who is played by Kayleigh Collingwood

• The friends who are played by , Elliott Dobslaw, James Thomas and Samuel Burton 

• The murders who are also played by Elliott Dobslaw and Samuel Burton as the other people who were going to play them dropped out last minute. We will allow time for a costume change and will use masks or hoodies to make it so you can not tell they are the same people.

When thinking about what costumes the characters would wear we decided that the actors that play the main character and the friends would wear their normal clothes as they are teenagers themselves and so this would be suitable for the characters they are playing.

Below is a picture of the actor who plays the main character in our media project in her costume:

Below are photos of all the actors who are playing the friends our media project in their costumes:

The murders would wear all black as this would enable to them to blend in with the darkness and be unnoticed until they attacked. They would probably wear hoodies or masks to cover their faces so the audience would not be able to tell who they are.

Below are pictures of the actors who played the murders in their costumes:

Storyboarding

Me and my partner designed a storyboard for the film, these are just rough drawings but this will help us know what we are doing when filming.

Here is a picture of our storyboard below.

Location hunting

Me and my partner went out location hunting for places we could film our media piece.

This is a photo of my living room, we decided to film here because one of our scenes is of the main character hanging out at her friends house with a group of friends. As this is my house I can make sure that there are no interruptions during filming by letting my family know what is happening and asking them to keep quiet and stay out of this room.

This is a photo of a pathway that is near my house, we decide to film her as at night time it looks quite creepy as it is only lit up by two street lights either end of the path. This is good for our filming as one of the scenes is of the main character being murdered. Hardly anyone ever uses this pathway especially at night so there is not much chance of us being disturbed.

Costumes

I have put together a college for what outfits our main character and her friends might wear for our film opening. As they are teenagers they would wear just typically clothing that teenagers normally wear.

Ideas of locations

Hanging out with friends scene:

We would want the scene of the main character hanging out with her friends to be shot in a house. Either my house or my partners house would do.

Murder scenes:

Ideally we would want the murder scene to be film either with the main character walking along a dark road or walking through a forest. below are some examples of what we have in mind.

Name of main character

We have decided that the name of our main character is going to be Emily Everson.

Mood board

I have created a mood board for the genre Mystery

Mood board

I have created a mood board for the genre Fantasy.

Research into our chosen genre.

As we wanted to do a film that was of the mystery/fantasy genre I have decided to do a bit of research into these genres.

Mystery:

Mystery is often associated with the crime genre however it is considered its own genre in certain circumstances where the focus is on supernatural mystery. The first use of "mystery" in this sense was by Dime Mystery, which started out as an ordinary crime fiction magazine but switched to "weird menace" during the latter part of 1933.  The general plot of a mystery is that there is a crime that needs solving, it usually involves someone who is trying to solve a crime/mystery (The protagonist) and the rest of the characters are normally suspects.

Some examples of films that came up under the genre mystery are:

Fantasy:

Fantasy is about magic or supernatural, the fantasy genre can be split into several sub genres such Contemporary fantasy; this is where it is set in the present day but magic and supernatural creatures exist either living in our world or coming in from an alternate world. Fairy Tales; This is all about magical made up creatures and environments. Science Fantasy; this is where the story has mystical elements that are explained by science or combines fantasy elements and science fiction elements. As well as many more.


Some examples of films that came up under the fantasy genre are:

Final idea

After looking at our questionnaire results we decided that our film opening should be of the mystery/fantasy genre as these were the two genres that were the most popular.

We have decided that our final idea will be:

A girl who is murdered and comes back as a ghost, she can not move on until she finds out who murdered her and why. The opening would start with her hanging out with her friends and just having a nice time. Then she would leave to go home, while walking home she would be murdered and it would maybe show her looking down at her body. Everything would cut the black and the title of the film would appear.