EVALUATION Q 8 Progression in FCP

Here are three extracts from our final film that are about ten seconds long. The first one is of only the shots with none of the main effects we use like the overlapping. The second one is the same extract with tiles and effects. The third clip is the final product with the titles effects and sound. This is a way to show how we have progressed from simply placing the shots on the time line and how we have used various techniques in FCP like the effects and titles. 

Q8: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

 From my preliminary task to my final film has been a long process where i have learnt and improved a number of skills when filming and editing my film Foursquare.

Pre Production.

When filming our preliminary task we created a jelly baby animatic of the type of shots we were using. We found the animatic quite hard to create and our editing skills were not as good as they are now. We couldn't put the jelly babies in the exact spots that we wanted to so we lost accuracy and meaning of our shots. However, when creating a storyboard of our Thriller Foursquare, we used a variety of shots and our animatic was smooth and fit well together. We thought carefully about the type of shots we were using and made sure we had a wide range of shots included in our storyboard so it was clear when we would start filming. Being able to draw the shots directly meant that it would become more visual and we could draw our shots exactly how we wanted. We used sites like Art of the Title Sequence and YouTube clips of Thrillers for some influence and inspiration. The storyboard and animatic are very important in the process of filming to we made sure it was of a high quality as it is the guide lines we were following when filming our thriller.

Production.

When producing our Preliminary film it was all quite rushed and unorganised. We didn't have our story board with us and we didn't think properly about the mise en scene of our clip. Here in this clip is a screen grab of the opening of our preliminary. The titles are bright red and look unprofessional as there are three full stops after them. We used very basic editing in this shot. The camera angle is quite tilted and the mise en scene of the window is limited and wasn't effective.

We didn't fully understand how to position our camera on the tripod properly so the shot looks unprofessional and messy. However in our thriller film we learned a number number of skills that would help us creating better footage. First of all our shot is filmed in focus and we really thought about the mise en scene and purpose of this shot. This is an establishing shot and we chose to shoot it on the roof so we would have a wider range of footage and a shot that really sets the scene. During editing we were also able to add an effect on this shot, whereby the building are smudged and a little blurred which builds tension and suspense. This is also a point of view shot so we know that we are looking out of the eyes of a character, and positioning them about represents their status and authority in the film just by the opening shot.

 In this shot of Sifan, the camera is slightly out of focus. This is from our preliminary film, The Wait. There are no effects on the shot and like the other one the mise en scene is limited and it wasn't effective. We tried to set the scene however we didn't think about it properly as he is by a window and it is unclear where the character is located. Also, we didn't think about costume at all, so his casual clothes do not represent very much or say anything about the character. However, in this screen grab of from our Thriller we have used effects on Final Cut Pro to merge two images together to create suspense and build tension. We learned this editing skill and applied it to our Thriller because it makes the footage more interesting and intense. Also, our shots are very well done. We have the character looking our into the scenery from the top of the roof from two different views, which shows our variety of shots. We made sure we shot the same thing from several different angles to create variety and speed up and footage to not make it boring. Also we thought about the costume and body language of our character, He is dressed in all back to represent he is the Protagonist and main character of the film. This also represents he is dominant and not a pleasant characters because black has negative connotations. He is standing still and confident which shows he is in control of the action. There were all skills we learnt to represent on camera through the progression of our filming process. 

 This shot from our preliminary film is meant to be a two shot. the shot slightly titled and the lighting is too harsh. Also the ND Filter is on so the shot came out much too bright whereby some objects weren't visible and it doesn't look good on the big screen. Also, the characters cant be seen very well and it is shot from a high angle, signifying that they are vulnerable. when they are not. We learned how the angle of a shot can change the way a character  is meant to be represented therefore this two shot should have been from a level angle, signifying the characters are of an equal status. The four split shot of our characters is used to represent all the girls equally going on their daily routine. This was a skill we learnt, whereby we edited the footage one on top of the other and changed the size of each clip, making the effect of the action happening simultaneously. We thought about the mise en scene in great detail here, each girl is located in a different space, train station, house, restaurant and a park. We wanted to create great variety and show that there girls live very different lives. The music at this part was orchestral and suspenseful, which we edited using Soundtrack Pro, we wanted it to match the Psychological themes of our thriller. Also we thought about props in this shot, like the mascara is an essential item that represents femininity which is the effect we were trying to give off. Showing these girls simultaneously shows they are all the protagonists and victims of the main character who we shot earlier. 

  

 Teamwork!

Working closely with my group enabled us to build on our team work skills. Working together to produce an effective film is all about listening to each other, understanding each other and being able to trust each other.  We learned to organise ourselves properly, so everyday when filming we would make a list of the props we needed, keep a production schedule on us and to ensure we had our story board and that the characters (us) are dressed accordingly. We also had to make a few phone calls to secure our locations and find a decent meeting time where we would all be available to work. We also had lots of fun making our film, we had to rely on one another to make sure we were all individually prepared for filming and that we would all put in effort and time to work together. We also had to make sure we listened well inc lass to learn new skills and apply them to our thriller. Working as a team meant that we would trust each other with the equipment and put all our ideas into editing and filming Foursquare. We made sure we met up often and did things together so that everyone would have equal input and that we would all do well in the subject. I thoroughly enjoyed working with my group and I feel that putting all our ideas together and building a friendship really did help us to get along and make a good thriller opening.

EVALUATION Q 8 Looking back at you preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

In this clip I look back at how we have improved from our Preliminary film to our final thriller opening.

 

EVALUATION Q 7 Different Technologies

During the process of making the thriller opening we used various different kinds of technologies like the internet, equipment, and software. This is a time line of the technologies we used and what we used together.

We of course started off with Blogger which was where we produced all our work and published our film. 

Here we did all sorts of things like embedding clips from Youtube which we often used with blogger. 

We often had to find images on google for research so we used google image sin conjunction with blogger. 

When we finally started filming we used JCV video cameras to record all our footage and still cameras to capture the making of the films. 

Then when we came to editing we where introduced to Final Cut Pro. We also used other programs like Soundtracl pro and Live type along side FCP to produce our final products. 

Also when we came to actually filming our final final we had to use phones to keep in touch with each other and organise meeting times and locations.

EVALUATION Q 6 Audience Feedback

After looking back at the comments we received from the cinema screenings, I made a quick collage of what they thought. Even though they are not our target audience, we will still take their comments into consideration because we wanted to see what other people, who this film wasn't specifically aimed at, would say.

EVALUATION - Q8: What we've learned

Filming: these two shots are a good example of the progress we have made from the prelim and the final film, we have made a great change in the way we film. We had a tilted camera at the start and also the lighting was way too bright for the type of shot we were trying to create but now on the first screenshot we have shown a lot of improvement for example the shot is steady and looks professional compared to the second one.





Editing: our editing skills have improved a lot too in the time from then to now, I used to only be able to use one program but now I can use all three programs properly and can make them work together on final cut pro. We did a lot of editing in class, in the first prelim we barely had any transitions now on this film (screenshot above) we used an overlap which shows our progress from having no transitions or effects to using a wide range of editing skills such as laps.

Teamwork: at the start of the course we were put into teams of our choice and we worked together ever since, we've learnt a lot about teamwork through the planning filming and editing process, I used to work alone on my own blogs and only help with certain things but by the end of the blogging and filming i started to work together with my team and now i work well with my group. I started out an individual worker but ended up a team player and from our prelim theres been a big change, for example at the time of the prelim we all did different things but with the actual film we all filmed at one point and we made the storyboards together too.

Planning: we all did the planning together and we used a lot of media tools such as watching movies and clips on youtube for our final movie but for our prelim we mostly came up with the story in one day and it was an effort of one person mostly but we made a big change in the last one where everybody sat around a table and discussed the story and how we wanted it to go. Our planning skills have improved dramatically because we thought about it more and used a range of things to get inspiration for it so that is a big sign of progress for me and my team. Mise en scene: on our prelim there was barely any but on the final film we had a lot of props like clothing and laptops and it all helped with the feel of the movie it felt more real.

Q8: PRELIM TO FINAL FILM

The prelim was an excellent task, I remembered significant mistakes that were made throughout the entire prelim process:

PRE PRODUCTION: 

 Planning the prelim we used Jelly Babies to produce a story board animatic, this didn't give us a clear idea of shots because we couldn't fix the jelly babies into the positions we needed. This was the only planning we did, for the prelim we didn't see the urgency to plan.

When it came to our real thriller I realized how crucial planning was, as the Jelly Baby animatic was not successful for us we decided to produce a very detailed story board entailing both costume and mise en scene.  

Also during planning the final thriller I researched online for a gap in the thriller market which therefore helped us to decide our thriller genre. By searching for other thrillers on YOUTUBE and ART OF THE TITLE I could use aspects of intertextuality in the final piece.

 Another crucial planning decision was a timetable, this time we produced a filming timetable so we knew exactly what we were filming and when. We also took stills of desired locations so we could compare them and decide where to film

PRODUCTION:

During our prelim we rushed our production stage, we filmed during one lesson inside college- this was not a particularly exciting location. During our real thriller we experimented with a number of locations, because we had planned these locations when it came to filming we knew where we were going. We also took more time filming, we did not rush and we also took extra shots to be 100% sure we had the shot. 

Our prelim was very light- as the picture shows, we did not correctly set the lighting and we used manual focus throughout. However, during our thriller filming we decided to use auto focus and we also double checked the lighting. You can also see on our prelim that we only used basic shots, the camera was accidentally tilted and this was clear to see, when filming our real thriller we used a wide range of shots and even angles to build tension,  this came simply because we had planned them, we also watched a few shots back to make sure the camera was not tilted. We worked on mise en scene to build suspense whereas in our prelim we had jelly baby packets in the background! so this time we also looked at mise en scene.

POST PRODUCTION:

During editing, final cut pro was used for both the prelim and the final film, when editing the prelim we were rushed for time so we didn't use final cut pro to the best of both our ability and final cut pro's ability. In our prelim the edits were basic, and we did not use any effects apart from a cross dissolve to start with and to finish with. During our final film we used mass amounts of effects from the split screens to the overlay of clips, we had more experience with Final Cut meaning we were able to experiment with ideas to create tension. 

We used soundtrack in our prelim and we also experimented with Livetype, however we wanted to keep our titles in our final film simple, we began to produce Livetype titles but we were told we could produce the same effect for quicker on final cut. We used a soundtrack in our film that we got from another source- however we did gain permission and edited this sound to create our desired effect. 

The editing for our final film took a lot more time, we spent ages on getting each clip perfect. We also went into depth at looking at effects and what sort of thing would look tacky, for example we used red font in producing our prelim we later thought this looked very tacky so we opted for black during our final film.

The prelims taught me a lot about planning, filming, mise en scene, props, editing, text and effects. I believe it was highly useful to create a piece without not being 100% sure what you are doing. Because when it came to the final film I could learn from my mistakes and apply that to a successful final film.

Q6EVALUATION - Cinema Reactions

After watching our thriller at The Screen on the Green we asked a few people what they thought of our thriller and this is what they said. 

Q7: What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

This is a voice recording video of me describing the my use of technologies collectively. I refer to the technologies in chronological order and how I used each one separately and then as a whole to create our thriller film.

Q7: TECHNOLOGIES USED

I say 'Post Production' in the beginning when I am meant to say PRE PRODUCTION, slight error.

Q7: A TALK TO CAMERA DISCUSSING THE TECHNOLOGIES USED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.

EVALUATION - Q7: What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

A talk to camera of the technologies we've used.

Q4&5: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

In the blue star, is an image of what our thriller would look like advertised on YouTube. We would advertise it on websites like YouTube and Tumblr as they are popular with our target audience. The trailer of our film could be on YouTube in recommended videos or related links to other trailer.

What our Thriller Opening would look like on Vimeo. We will advertise it here also as it is a popular video sharing site for our target audience of young males (and females.)

Here is a clip of the comments and response to our Thriller posted on Facebook.

We received many comments and likes of our video from friends and family, some feedback was negative and some people said they didn't entirely understand the plot. So we feel that the perhaps we could have told the story better some how, however we received plenty of good feedback of our range of shots, effects, pace and editing.

Here is a QuickTime Player video of the Prezi I made about the type of advertising we would use for Foursquare. It covers the different types of media institution I will use for the advertising and distribution process of our Thriller and how to reach our target audience through current products.

Q4/5: What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why? How Will You Attract/Address Your Audience?

After researching, I have found that their is definitely a gap in the hollywood film market for thrillers, we always aimed for 'FOUR SQUARE' to hit the big screen. Our desired distributors were FLOWER FILMS the company who worked alongside Donnie Darko.

Our target audience is young males, preferably City Guys so we have advertised in places such as:

So that our target audience would have been targeted.  We would have perhaps looked into doing a deal with Topshop to create a fresh item of clothing based on our film, or with IPHONE to create intense 'FOUR SQUARE' apps, and we would have reached cinemas such as Odeon & VUE as they usually do deals with films to reach target audience.


Realistically our film is a low budget, British film using the independent company CANDI Media, however this company does have good digital equipment. We decided to associate our film with Studio8 as we were group 8, to distribute our film we have use low budget schemes.  To get our opening out for others to see we have 200 DVD's being copied, along with a cinema showing where other media groups get to see the work we have produced. 

I looked at this student film and saw that they distributed it via youtube, they have gained over 200,000 views which proves the success. Their film is being watched by people who are clearly sharing it with others this shows me how even though our film is not a big hollywood movie it could still be watched by many people. We have distributed via youtube, blogger twitter, vimeo and facebook  so that our film can be watched by loads of people- since it would not be advertised using a huge campaign.

EVALUATION - Q6: Feedback To Our Movie

Here is some feedback of our film after watching it on the big screen at the cinema. This had greater impact on our audience and we were able to see the real quality of the shots and film opening as a whole on the big screen.

This is an interview video of a response to our movie, which took place outside class in our lesson. This is valuable feedback and the type we need to help evaluate our piece of work before showing to the public.

Q3: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Here is a screen grab of my description of my Character profile presentation.

EVALUATION - Q4&5: Media Institution release

This movie is a student movie that gathered a lot of attention and it was posted on youtube, it was made by students in schools just like us, there was a lot of graphics used and it was released probably on the internet only and not widely distributed. The internet is an excellent way to send out movies because it is free and it can be seen by virtually anyone, they couldn't make it into a big movie because they have a low budget and it's a school so it is an independent institution. The movie was really good for a student movie.

Our movie will be released through the internet on Vimeo, and youtube too so it will have limited release but we have posted it on Facebook and got audience feedback, it was released by CANDI media class and it will be made into a DVD for us and we also saw it in the cinema, so it will have limited release but the Facebook page really helps because we can get some valuable audience feedback.

This is the actual facebook page that it was posted on and at the bottom there is likes and comments.

EVALUATION - Q6: Evaluation of Feed Back

After we got the feedback from our movie we decided to make a wordle of it and post it on our blogs to make it look more diverse and not plain and boring, as the post before this says we did that then we recorded each other's responses to the movie which will be up on the blog soon. Now this is an example of the program we used and it is internet based, it's just a fancy way of showing our work off nicely.

EVALUATION - Q6: Feed Back

This is the wordle we produced in class after we all watched the each others movies and then we got our feedbacks so then we wrote them up on this site to put up on the start of our evaluations.

What we've learned so far from the feedback is that our movie does a lot of things well and it is good because most people liked the dissolves and the fading effect but also the bad things are that we didn't switch up the music.

EVALUATION Q 4&5: Media Institution and Distribution

We would like to follow the same kind of marketing campaign as British films like 'Looking For Eric'. As the film is low budget the type of places the film would be released at are independent cinemas such as The Coronet in Notting Hill and The Screen On the Green in Islington. Buy releasing the film in cinemas like this it would get an independent release to a young public who go to the budget and affordable. 

     

In addition to showing our thriller at cinemas like these, we would promote our film in free newspapers like METRO and the magazine 'Shortlist' as they are examples of the type of media our target audience consumes. 

EVALUATION Q 4&5: Media Institution and Distribution

I looked for some other student thrillers and I found this one which was made buy some students from Hurtwood House. It's called IMMERSED and they posted there clip on Youtube which is also another way which we would distribute our media product.

http://www.youtube.com/user/hurtwoodhousemedia#p/c/7823E01735B3EEF6/9/UhqwLgyzy38

People also commented on their thriller and here are a few comments which they left.

Anybody can access Youtube which then allows people to post the videos on places like Facebook and Myspace which creates a hype around the film as people post them on their walls which makes more and more people aware of their film. 

EVALUATION Q 4&5: Media Institution and Distribution

When we first started planning our thriller we created it with the thought that 20th Century Fox would be the kind of company would produce our thriller. Then we thought about it and we realised that it would be more appropriate that an independent British film Company would. We decided to go with our very own CandI Studios in association with Studio8. 

As an independent film company would produce our film, the way we distribute our media product would be aimed mainly at a low budget. By this I mean we would distribute it on sites such as Facebook, Youtube, Vimeo and Blogger. We posted our video on Facebook so that we could get some feedback.