Part 8 Evaluation - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task, I believe that I have had a lot of strengths and weaknesses which helped me to create my final product at the end of year 12.

Research and Planning

In my preliminary task, there was mostly planning to create a  good preliminary task. One example of our planning was the creation of storyboards. We created storyboards so that our filming would be easy as we would know what each shot would look like. This was a strength for us because we were able to create a good storyboard and as a result, we were able to film shots that would be able to look good. A piece of research that we did that was successful to create our preliminary task was to look at other people's work. By looking at their work, we could understand what level of quality that our work would need to be and we could fetch ideas from other people. This was a successful piece of research because we were able to gather ideas for our preliminary task, despite we didn't really use any of them.

In addition another piece of research that we did was to look at camera shots from different BSR's and other movies. For example, we did a lot of work on seeing how many different camera shots there can be and how we could implement them. One way in which we did implement them was at 00:56 when there was and extreme close up of our character's eyes. We got the inspiration for this from the movie Slumdog Millionaire.  This was a successful piece of planning because it helped us to add more 'emotion' to our piece. We also researched many filming rules, such as match on action. This was an unfortunate weakness in our preliminary task because at 00:39 I was sitting in one space of the bench, but at 00:40 I was sitting at another space. This was a weakness in our planning because we couldn't be able to follow it.

Moving on to our opening sequence, the research and planning were quite different and in my opinion, it was more successful in the opening sequence as we had more experience in knowing different shots and camera angles. For example we did a lot of work into looking at different BSR's camera shots and camera angles. This was more successful compared to our preliminary task because all the different shots in which we looked at which meant that we would be able to see how different scenes can be laid out.
We did have many weaknesses in our planning though, especially in the very early stages. In the beginning, we  created a spreadsheet containing a lot of shots and locations. We used this spreadhset for a few weeks but we ended up scrapping it because we understood that the opening sequence was too boring. This was a very large weakness in our planning because we wasted valuable weeks creating something that would not be used and we could have used those weeks to further improve our opening sequence.

Digital Technology

For our preliminary task, our knowledge in terms of digital techology was not basic, in terms of camera work. We knew how to fuction with a camera, and in our preliminary task we took advantage of all the features that were at our disposal. For example: our camera had a feature to put on lines so that we match the rule of thirds which can be seen (00:06) as Tselmuun is walking out the door. This was good for us because we were able to get some nice shots of our characters in the middle. Therefore, in the preliminary task we had some strengths related to digital technology beccause we were able to use our knowledge of technology to our advantage.
However, there were some weaknesses to our digital technology in the preliminary task. The main one was that it was the first time which I used an editing tool like Final Cut Pro. As I had not done any work previously that related to Final Cut Pro, it was quite hard for me to perform any required editing. So, this was a weakness for me in the preliminary task because I did not know the different features that Final Cut Pro provides, making it harder for me to create a good video.

For our opening sequence, the strengths from my preliminary task carried on. This is because my experience of using a camera in the preliminary task was able to follow on to the creation of my opening sequence since a lot of the techniques such as having the Rule of Thirds lines in the middle was able to get us some good shots, such as (00:45) which shows one of the main characters being in the middle of the corridor. This was a good shot because the background is fairly visible which can give away the location - a school. Therefore, this was a strength in our opening sequence because we were able to follow some basic filming techniques.
Another strength that occurred in terms of digital technology was that I was now more used to Final Cut Pro since I used it enough to understand the basis of it from my preliminary task. Because of the preliminary task I knew how to do basic things such as add music, cut scenes and add some text and video effects. So, what I have learnt from the progression from the preliminary task to the opening sequence is on how to effectively use Final Cut Pro to create a good, small opening.

Creativity

For our preliminary task, creativity was quite limited because we had to follow the brief which stated that we should just create a small piece of two characters walking through a door and having a conversation. This was very easy to but, being us, we decided to make something a little more complex but still being able to match the criteria specified by the brief. Whilst creating our preliminary task we decided to have some comedy inside so that it wouldn't be the dull piece that the brief wanted by having Tselmuun trip up whilst walking on the playground. This allowed for there to be a more diverse piece than normal  So, what I have learnt is that you can get an idea and turn it upside down, but still match what it asked for. 

In terms of our main product, I believe that creativity was not the greatest but was still good enough to create a good piece. It wasn't the greatest because we didn't go away from the popular BSR conventions such as drug use and youth corruption. We went along with these themes because they would be easy to portray since our protagonists were always going to be teenagers which already suits the idea of having youth corruption and the use of drugs would be easy to show because we could have a pseudo product that would look like drugs. So therefore, from my my preliminary task, the creativity didn't really improve in much ways but despite that, I think that sticking to the conventional things is easier than trying to go outside the box and create something that is not relevant.

Post-Production

Similar to digital technology, we were still very new to using Final Cut Pro which meant that after the filming, the editing took time as I needed to get used to the features, but in the end managed to do so. Another strength in post production was that we managed to get our product completed within the given deadline which would be good for creating our full product since we had to meet deadlines because we wouldn't want to waste a lot of time.

For our full product, post-production was quite simpler. Having the knowledge from our opening sequence about Final Cut Pro, when the filming was done, creating a good product was much easier as I had more knowledge from my opening sequence, for example adding in relevant music was a strength for us which played from 00:13 to 1;58. The opening sequence helped us do this because I knew what music would fit it into our piece and how to insert it in.

Evaluation part 7 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

For the production of our media product, we used a range of hardware and software so that we can successfully create an opening sequence. I will be talking about how this software and hardware was useful or not to me.

Pre production

Mac computers is one example of hardware that we used for our pre-production. We used Macs to create most of our pre-production, such as creating the blogs for it and creating the script. The reasons that we used them was because it was the computer that was provided to us and so we didn't really have an option. The cons of using Macs is that I hadn't used them before and so took some time to get used to them. Also, some of the features that Windows PC's have such as Google Chrome was not available to me and so I had to use Safari for the first time which I did not enjoy at the start. Therefore, my personal development with the Macs was good as I am now more used to using what they provide and so I would consider using them for any future productions.

Another technology that we used were DVDs. We used DVDs to gain inspiration for our future opening sequence as we used the DVDs to watch Wild Bill. The reasons that we used DVDs was because they can portray the scenes in very good quality and so we can pay attention to the little details which was a benefit for us because we can see how professional films have little things which can say a lot, in example: having cans of alcohol in a corner of a room can portray how a character is alcoholic and having high quality can allow us to see this. A limitation to having DVDs however is that they are not free and so it means that we can't watch as many DVDs as we want. So, my personal development with DVDs was positive because I now know how good they can be to see little things.

We also used software to help us with pre-production. The most important piece of software is Blogger. We used Blogger for our pre-production as this is where we stored any work that we did before the project. The reason to use Blogger was that it allowed my to store all of my work in a safe place where I would not lose it physically. Also, Blogger is good as I can keep my work neat as it will save in the order that I created it which makes it easy for me to find any required work. There are implications with using Blogger, for example: it can be very frustrating to place a picture in a desired place which can make it hard for me to make my text look neat and in a good order. Also, the fonts available are very limited. My personal development with Blogger was positive because I now know how I could create a future blog for myself in the future as I have the skills to be able to create a good blog, for example I have the ability to insert a powerpoint or a Prezi which can make my blog look good.

Another piece of software that we used in the pre-production was the art of the title website. From this website, we were able to collect a good timeline for us to know about credits, such as where they would go and who would go first. The benefits of us using the art of the title website is that it allowed for us to be able to make our credits for our opening sequence more professional as we would be following the professional layout that real movie producers do. So, my own personal development has improved because of the website as I now understand how credits should be placed and how the credits that are placed first or last determine their importance.

Production 

During the production, one piece of hardware that we used was a camera. The reason that we used a camera for was to get the filming of our opening sequence done. The benefits of having this camera was because of this quality. We were able to film our scenes no matter in what time of day in good HD quality which makes it easy for our audience to see. Also the camera had good sound quality for most parts which makes it easy for us to film as the background sounds could be deleted. However, there are implications with using this camera. Firstly, we had issues because the battery was not very good which means that we had to waste a lot of time if we did not have a socket near us. My personal development did not improve a lot with using a camera because I already had the ability to know how to record something successfully.

Another piece of hardware that we used was our phones. Our phones were used to portray the age of the character and to create foley sounds. We used phones because we all had one and so were easy to implement into the production of our opening sequence. One benefit of using the phone is that it is easy to do what we intended which was for Edward to know that Bailee was ready and using a phone was the best option because it is the main medium for communication between teenagers. We didn't have any implications with the mobile phone because the usage of the phone was straight forward and easy to carry out. My personal development is still the same because I have previously used a phone and so this task didn't really help me to gain any new experiences with a phone.

In terms of software, one piece that we used was Final Cut Pro. We used Final Cut Pro during the stages of production as we were using it to edit whilst we were creating our opening sequences. The reason why we used Final Cut Pro is that it is very simple to use as you only need to drag required scenes onto the timeline which we picked up very quickly. Benefits of using Final Cut Pro is its simplicity and its broad features, for example one feature that came in very useful for us was a feature that allowed us to enlarge our title as the the scene went on which put more emphasis on it. Also, the cutting of scenes was very easy as with a click of a key, we could be able to cut down any scenes to the length that we wanted. There were some implications however. It was sometimes hard to find a good font to use for our credits which made us have to waste more time online to look for an external font outside of Final Cut Pro. Overall, my personal development increased a lot because it was the first time that I used Final Cut Pro and the creation of an opening sequence allowed for me to view the different features which are available on Final Cut Pro and so I am more confident in using it in the future for any other piece of work that requires editing.

Another example of software that we used was Adobe Flash. We only used Adobe Flash for the creation of our institutional logo - FAM productions. We used Adobe Flash because it is good to use to create animated sequences. A benefit of using Adobe Flash is that it can make our opening seem more animated and so can simply attract the audience a bit more than a still image of a logo. Also, there are a numerous amount of features which can make us create anything in our minds, for example we used a cinema camera displaying a "movie" which relates a lot to our work because we're creating a opening sequence for a movie. Adobe Flash nonetheless did have its let downs as it did have a small tendency to crash. This can be very frustrating as sometimes the work was not saved and so we would lose our current progress. Despite the negatives of Adobe Flash, I believe that my personal development of Adobe Flash was good as I can rely it for future projects as it can allow for there to be a creation of very imaginative products

Post-Production

One piece of hardware that we used during our post-production was a projector. We used a projector so that we could show our audience our opening sequence to create our evaluation. The benefits of projectors are that they are able to display our opening sequence to our audience easily. The implications with using a projector is that it can be hard to function with especially for the first time as we didn't know at first how to plug it in, meaning that we wasted valuable time. So, my personal development with projectors was in the end good because I now know an easy way to be able to display our work to many people without the need of help.

Software that was used during post-production was Prezi. Prezi is a fun way to create presentations and is a good alternative to using PowerPoint. I used Prezi when creating my evaluation part 5 as I did not want to use the boring choice of Powerpoint. The benefit of Prezi is that it is a lot more interactive than PowerPoint. The transitions between the slides in Prezi looks more fun as well as the great backgrounds that Prezi provides for our presentations to look better. Also, Prezi has a wider amount of ways in creating presentations, for example rather than the simple slides that PowerPoint offers, we could choose to create a presentation with the layout of a hand which I found to be very fun.

In my opinion, there are no major drawbacks in the usage of Prezi other than you can't feel what Prezi fully can provide without paying for membership. Overall, my personal development with using Prezi wasn't really improved because I had used Prezi before but seeing all the layouts in more detail made me be more acknowledge in what Prezi can really provide.

Another piece of software that was used during post-production was Powerpoint. I used Powerpoint for the third part of the evaluation. I used Powerpoint rather than Prezi because I thought that this evaluation would need be more factual rather than better looking. So, benefits of using Powerpoint is that it looks more professional and so would be more appropriate for evaluations that are more aimed at text rather than interaction. My personal development of Powerpoint did not change because I already used Powerpoint for a long time before and so doing an evaluation wouldn't change my level of expertise when using Powerpoint in the future.

Evaluation Part 6 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation Part 5 - How does your media product represent different social classes?

Evaluation Part 4 - Who would be your target audience?

Weekly Reflective Post 13

In this week, we made progress in our evaluations as thus, I have completed parts 2 and 3. For part 2, I had to talk about how my media product uses, develops or challenges conventions of real media products. We had to talk about narrative, location, effects, lighting, inspiration and if we used conventional pace. This was quite simple because we did use a lot of conventions that are seen in most BSR's, such as using natural lighting and having fairly slow pace. We did this because if the opening sequence was in a fast paced motion, then it would look more like a Hollywood film rather than a BSR.

For part, 3  we talked about who would distribute our media product. This easy for us because our brief already told us who would be the most suitable and so we just had to talk about why we would choose FilmFour.

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

Evaluation Part 2 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

Narrative and performance:

 Throughout the whole of our movie, we used handheld camera movement,as we believed that a tripod would not be of any use for us. This is because we wanted to portray as much realism as we could and a tripod would make every image stand still. Thus, realism would be removed, but would be re-instated with the shakiness of handheld.

 In terms of clothing, we wanted to keep a form of BSR, especially with Omario, our drug dealer. In real conventions, drug dealers do not look very smart, in example in the movie Trainspotting, the drug dealer does not look like the smartest of people, which we would want to use in our opening sequence. We tried to do this by making our drug dealer look like someone not very classy, making him look quite scruffy. For example, when he's being told off by the teacher, he was sucking a lollipop, which could connote that he does not care much and doesn't look professional, something that is normally a convention  in a BSR drug dealer.

However, we challenged a convention in a typical BSR film, with the protagonists' clothing. Typically, a drug user usually looks poor as they wear rags as clothes since they can't afford anything else other than their drugs. Therefore, we wanted to make our protagonist different by giving him regular clothing that would make him look smarter than a regular drug user in a BSR. We did this to challenge the conventional BSR drug user as we wanted our character to be sophisticated, something that is not regular in a BSR.

Furthermore, we had a shot where we were splitting the cocaine for our use. For this scene we decided to go with an extreme close up as this could allow there to be more detail to be seen. What we wanted to show was what we were using to split the cocaine - a ZIP card and a 6th form ID. This is so that the audience understands what age the characters are, as they are using cards which would be in the possession of a teenager. We did this to match the conventions of a BSR, as some movies such as Kidulthood involve teenagers doing drugs. This gave us some inspiration to make our protagonist be involved in the use of drugs as this is typical in a real media product.










Settings/Locations

For our opening sequence, we decided to go for a school. This was so that our audience would understand what sort of character we had as our protagonist - a boy who regularly attends school and gets good grades. Having a school is not conventional in a BSR because most of the teenagers who are involved in drugs would not attend school. This can make an audience member be intrigued in watching the movie because they could be interested in trying to understand how it feels like to have an addiction to cocaine but also be doing well in school.

So, we chose a school to show how studious our character is and also to demonstrate how strong the addiction to drugs are. It would be unlikely to see someone doing drugs in school as they believe that it could be too dangerous. However, because of how addicted our protagonist is to drugs, we got them to do it in a school toilet, as it strongly connotes how far they are able to go just to do some grams of cocaine.

Furthermore, we understand that usually, drugs are taken in dark and compact spaces, which we tried to copy. Because of how tight the toilet was, we were able to match it meaning that our opening sequence could look more like a BSR. We had the issue though that we were not able to change the lighting as it would be too dark to film and we weren't allowed to meaning that we had to stick to the high brightness. In the future hopefully, we will be able to get better lighting so that it matches the typical drug scenes.

Effects and transitions

In our opening sequence we tried not to use many effects or transitions as it usually goes against the conventions, as most BSR's do not try to have many effects as they want to keep it realistic. We decided to follow this convention for our opening sequence as we tried to not use many effects or transitions, but we still did use 2.

Firstly, we did an effect in our movie title as we made it zoom in. We did this so that the audience would be more aware on how the protagonist has given up which is connoted through the increase of the title. This effect goes against the typical BSR convention as many movies such as fish tank just put their title in front of a black screen. We got this idea of a zooming title from the movie 'Skyfall' as they too did it. We thought that it would be a good idea as it could demonstrate the character's current emotions.

We also used a very slight transition at the start before the actual opening sequence begins. We did this because we thought that it looked awkward if it just started and to fix this we just created a slight pause between the institutional logos and the opening.

Lighting


BSR's do not resort to using artificial lighting as they are wanting to keep the realism inside their movie as much as they can which is why they would rather use natural/ambient lighting. As we wanted to make our movie look as realistic as possible, we refused to add in any extra lighting so that it would change how bright or dark a room normally is.

For example, when our protagonist was sitting in the chair looking at his exam, we used natural lighting as we did not change anything. We kept the lighting on how it would normally be in a normal day so that it would not seem unrealistic, something that Hollywood movies enjoy doing.

Which artists/videos, if any, inspired you?

For our opening sequence, we did not get much inspiration as this idea came out of the top of our heads. However, we did get some inspiration for a few shots and events.

As previously mentioned, we liked the fact that in 'Skyfall' their title zoomed in. We decided to implement this ourselves into our own title, something that we believed would make sense as it can connote that our character is saying 'Skrew it' even more as time goes by.

Fish tank also inspired the way that we filmed the shot of 'Bailee' sending the text message, as in Fish tank there is a scene where the camera is walking in front of Mia, something that wanted to copy. Therefore, we copied this as we thought that it would be a good shot  since it captures him sending the message and can also capture any facial expressions that he could express.

Our theme of drug use came from the movie Trainspotting as I had recently seen some clips of it and the theme looked quite interesting to do. We didn't use morphine however as cocaine would be easier to mimic.

Did you use conventional pace when editing? Was your narrative original/conventional?

To maintain the conventional slow pace of a BSR, we had to make sure that our editing did not happen to fast and that we let our scenes flow quite slowly. We attempted to do this by not having fast cuts or very short scenes but instead having scenes that can last 3 or more seconds. If we had gone for a fast sort of pace then our opening sequence would not really seem like a BSR as it is Hollywood movies the ones who usually have very fast scenes and cuts.

We did go quite fast however when Edward got the news that Bailee was ready with the drugs in the toilet. This is to re-iterate Edward's addiction to drugs as he is moving faster than how he moved in the rest of the opening sequence.

Skrew it - Opening Sequence

Weekly reflective post 12

Now we have completed our filming and have been successful in having good editing which included good music to go with it and now, we have started to create our evaluations saying whether our product was good or bad.

The first evaluation asks us very broadly about what our movie was about and what it targeted for example what target audience was most suitable for it and why we chose this. We also had to talk about  what social classes were involved and how we managed to target these specific target audience and finally we had to talk about genre, saying what genre our piece was about and how it suited this specific genre.
It was a successful evaluation because I knew what to talk about and it was easy for me to express what our movie was about and how it managed to reach it.

Evaluation Part 1

The Brief - For our film, the film production was FilmFour. This is because FilmFour is mostly involved in productions towards young people, such as create films that mostly involve teenagers as their main characters. This is so that their main attractions that watch their movies are young people which are their target audience to begin with. Our Target audience - Our target audience is teenagers from the age of 16-24 as this is the perfect audience that would be interested in our movie, as it is aimed at them due to the characters' age. For example, our main characters are 16 years old and so, this can get some more teenagers to watch our product as they could be interested since they could relate. The ethnicity which we would mostly aim this towards would be white and black because our main characters are from these backgrounds. The social class that we would mainly want to attract would be lower class people because they are the ones that are most likely to do drugs (D to E class status), but it can attract some people from higher classes, due to the fairly rich background of the character. Themes used - Our film includes genres that fit into the BSR setting, drugs and youth corruption. Drugs can be seen in our movie in the cocaine scene along with youth corruption. This can intrigue teenagers or people who have gone through these experiences and so, get more people to watch our product. Inspiration from other BSR - The only real inspiration that we got was from the movie trainspotting. This is because trainspotting has a big emphasis on drug use, even though it is not cocaine. We could use Trainspotting to find out about the emotions of characters upon drug use, and try to implement them on our own product.

Week 11 Reflective Post

This week, we got our final scenes ready which was of Omario getting told off by a teacher because of his absence and the poor grades that he is currently achieving. We believed that having this scene would have a good impact on our overall piece because it allows the audience to know more about Omario's character.

Week 10 Reflective Post

This week was our most important week yet, as we created a whole new opening sequence since we thought that the old one was very boring. Our target was to create an opening sequence that would intrigue our audience and contains some action so that our piece wouldn't be boring to watch, something that could make our audience be deterred from watching our film. Our idea is completely new, but based around the same plot - a teenager who is involved with drugs. Rather than just having me just walking outside of my house all the way to the school, we decided to jump straight in to the school scenes and film the teenager's desire for cocaine. This is so that the audience understands what type of personality my character has right from the start which could make our audience want to see more. We believe that this idea is much better than our previous idea as it contains more action and is far more interesting.

Moreover, we filmed the buildup towards the drug scenes, such as the text messages coming in, the reactions of Edward and the walking in to the toilet. Doing this quickly and to a good standard was very good for us as we could get it out of the way and move on to editing as soon as possible as we were falling behind in time because of all the re-shooting required.

Other than filming this week, we created a small Powerpoint slide talking about the type of audience that we would expect to watch our opening sequence. We created this so that we could understand further the purpose of our opening sequence and how it could attract people from different backgrounds.

Meet my audience

Week 9 Reflective Post

This was a very productive week. Firstly, when we came back to school, we put our current filming together and got feedback from our teacher. The feedback was what we expected - it had good some good camera shots, but it was a boring piece.
Therefore, we had to think of a new idea if we were going to have a decent grade for our coursework.