Creative Tools
1. How did digital technology enable you to develop creatively and are there examples of the technology obstructing or preventing your creative flow?
During the course of the year, we learnt how to use different software such as Photoshop, Premiere Elements and how to use a blog.
We began with a preliminary task and we had lots of feedback telling us things that we could improve on. During the process of making our main task opening, by getting constant feedback from peers and teachers, we were allowed to use trial and error in order to make our work the best of our ability.
By using internet search engines like Google to find information and YouTube to find trailers and movie openings for inspiration, this widened our knowledge of movies in this genre and really helped us progress to make our film.
In this project, it was the first time we had used a web blog. By posting constant updates of our progress and documenting everything we did, we were able to receive constant feedback in order to keep our film to the best standard. We learnt how to upload videos onto a blog and how to embed them into posts so that they would appear on the blog homepage.
We had to find non-copyrighted music on the internet to accompany our film. A large problem occurred because we couldn’t find appropriate music that didn’t have a copyright on it. We spent a lot of time experimenting our clip with different songs that we had found and eventually ended up with 2 different songs.
Thinking About Audience – making meaning
1. How did you respond to the initial brief with the audience in mind?
When we were told what our task was, we wanted to either go for a teen romance genre or horror, as these two most appealed to us.
After talking about it and writing down a lot of notes, we decided that a more interesting genre would be horror as we found it easier thinking of a story for a horror genre. We tried to add twists in our story, with hints of different genres such as thriller and teen romance, in order to expand our audience.
We also had to decide on which age group we were directing our film to. We decided on a middle sort of age, of 15 because of the storyline.
However, we had to keep in mind the rules of our school and this restricted us in a few areas of things we could and couldn’t do. We couldn’t have any nudity, sex or drugs etc.
2. How did your analysis and research into the type of film you selected impact on the creative process in pre-production?
We looked on the internet to find ideas to help us work on a film with the genre of horror. By researching famous horror films and watching the openings of them, we had immediate ideas of how we wanted to lay out our film.
Obviously, there had to be certain limitations of what we could and couldn’t do. We couldn’t use that many special effects as that is quite advanced and we do not have the resources to do that. Also about locations, we had to make sure we had the correct permissions to use certain places around our school campus in order to film. Also, we, again had to take into consideration the school rules of no sex, drugs or nudity in order to keep our film as respectable as possible and also to not get into trouble!
When we were storyboarding our film, we had to take all of these things into account so that we didn’t have to change much if we did encounter some problems further on in the project.
3. In filming and editing, how did you ensure that the meaning would be apparent to the audience? What creative decisions did you make in planning, rehearsing, filming and editing that were influenced by your sense of the audience and possible layers of interpretation?
The first cut out of our film was a little bit unclear to the audience, as we heard from the constructive criticism we received. By choosing a complicated storyline which has flashbacks in it, we had to make sure that this was very obvious for our audience so that they could keep up with the story.
For example, the speaking parts at the start and end of the clip were initially unclear and didn’t really make sense as the dialogue was quite vague. After getting feedback, we made this better and changed the speech and we think that now it makes a lot more sense. In ways, now it is a little too obvious and gives away the story, but as an opening 2 minute sequence, it is easy to interpret.
4. How did the audience respond when you trialled aspects of your film? Are there a variety of possible interpretations of your opening sequence that will depend on the cultural situation of the viewer?
When we received our criticisms from our class/teachers, obviously there were a range of different opinions. Realistically, you can never have a room full of people who all share similar interests and like all of the same things, so we had to remember this whilst looking at the feedback and not get too offended by some comments.
For example, teachers are a bit older than students, so they may not be that interested in horror genres to do with teenagers. But the teachers are interested in the technical levels of our piece so we made sure it was to the best of our ability.
We also had to take into account that there are many different religions and cultures so some of these people might not agree with our storyline, which is completely understandable.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Final Changes to Video
Posted by Lisa Mitchell ;-
Annabell were given advice as to how to improve our video by our teachers. This is how we changed all of these faults:
- The running foot shot is a little bit too dodgy.
We removed the shot of Kims feet. We had originally sped up the clip as the filming of this was a bit too slow. We understand that it did look a little weird and it looks better without the clip.
- The sound editing is clumsy.
We have fixed the sound and tried to make it flow more throughout the film. We have also added in another song.
- The meaning at start is unclear.
To reinforce out storyline, we added a different clip of speech at the beginning which we hope will make the storyline a little bit more clear, but not give away too much.
- The music choice at killing is very 1980’s.
The new song that we have added has been split to an appropriate place, in which it relates to the killing shot in a better way and no longer sounds very 1980's. We did not want this, so we cropped our original song at the part that we didn't like, and used another one.
Annabell were given advice as to how to improve our video by our teachers. This is how we changed all of these faults:
- The running foot shot is a little bit too dodgy.
We removed the shot of Kims feet. We had originally sped up the clip as the filming of this was a bit too slow. We understand that it did look a little weird and it looks better without the clip.
- The sound editing is clumsy.
We have fixed the sound and tried to make it flow more throughout the film. We have also added in another song.
- The meaning at start is unclear.
To reinforce out storyline, we added a different clip of speech at the beginning which we hope will make the storyline a little bit more clear, but not give away too much.
- The music choice at killing is very 1980’s.
The new song that we have added has been split to an appropriate place, in which it relates to the killing shot in a better way and no longer sounds very 1980's. We did not want this, so we cropped our original song at the part that we didn't like, and used another one.
Thursday, 18 February 2010
posted by Annabell:
Mrs. Black and Mrs. Downes gave us some things which we have to improve.
these things are:
- the running foot shot is a little bit to dodgy
- the sound editing is clumsy
- the meaning at start is unclear
- the music choice at killing is very 1980’s
And now we are working again on the film, to improve these things.
Hopefully we could change the things into something better.
Mrs. Black and Mrs. Downes gave us some things which we have to improve.
these things are:
- the running foot shot is a little bit to dodgy
- the sound editing is clumsy
- the meaning at start is unclear
- the music choice at killing is very 1980’s
And now we are working again on the film, to improve these things.
Hopefully we could change the things into something better.
Monday, 8 February 2010
Evaluation Questions 2.
1. How did you manage the group dynamics, equipment and resources, interim deadlines and the necessary collaborative nature of film making?
The group dynamic wasn’t all the time so easy, because of Annabell’s sickness and sometimes, because both in the group had different views of some situations or decisions. But we managed it to have the same decision at the end of the each lesson. The equipment was easy to manage, we both share all the editing, filming and all of the wanted deadlines. We worked together as a team and we have been always together for all things we have done. And we finished all tasks together as a team.
2. What health and safety and logistical problems did you solve?
We followed all the rules from the school and haven’t done some special stunds or high angle shots. We kept the filming and the action simple but very effective. We worked with a knife and used it responsibly. Also we always had the right basic for each situation, where we needed anything. We managed it, to become the right level in our film.
3. How did you organise your human resources – the people involved in the production?
We used two characters who named Henry Yueksel and Kim Paxton. They both are in our media studies class so it was much easyier to organise all the filming stuff and the right times, were we can go to film all the film. We also always managed it to work with them in a constructive and organised way. They always had they costumes and they where reliable all the time. Two very authentic persons. That has done our film production much easyer.
4. How did you manage actors, locations, costumes and props? Remember that deciding NOT to use a particular strategy [e.g. not to use any props] is also a creative decision.
We picked a girl and a boy to play the main roles of our characters to follow our story in the right way and with a good structure. We picked two different locations on the plot from the Gordonstoun School. A field and and Gordonstoun house. We have chosen the field because it is absolutely empty and you can’t see anyone walking and also you can’t see any cars or other not useful stuff. Also because there is absolutely much space for filming a girl who is running away from her bad thoughts and her angriness. And we chosen Gordonstoun house because we wanted to have a location who is empty, clear and with no stuff in it. And also we wanted to have a long way, where the character could walk very good, without seeing, what is behind his back.
We chosen the knife because it is the weapton for murder scene.
5. How did storyboarding and creating a shooting script work in practice? Did you make creative decisions to depart from the original plan? For what reasons and with what outcomes?
Our storyboard was at the beginning absolutely to short and uninteresting. So we put in some more special shots and interesting scenes and special effects. We also needed to add more reaction shots and shorter clips to make the film more interesting and special for the people who watch it and also for ourselves. We made a lot of creative decisions and we even add an estra scene, because our film was to short.
6. Although time management may seem a less exciting aspect of the creative media practice, it is possibly the most important – how did you manage your time, and with what success?
It was difficult to manage time to filming ect, because Annabell was sick for 2 weeks at the end of the first term. But during this time period all the film we had done prevestly was all edited when she came back to the lessons. So we both didn’t get behind with all the work, we both worked in different ways, Lisa has done more of the filming and the editing and Annabell has done more of the costume design and the production and the planning of the acting in the film. Also we have always spoken about the situations we have decide to do, because that don’t bring someone to have big arguments. We finished everything together as a group and that always by the right time.
The group dynamic wasn’t all the time so easy, because of Annabell’s sickness and sometimes, because both in the group had different views of some situations or decisions. But we managed it to have the same decision at the end of the each lesson. The equipment was easy to manage, we both share all the editing, filming and all of the wanted deadlines. We worked together as a team and we have been always together for all things we have done. And we finished all tasks together as a team.
2. What health and safety and logistical problems did you solve?
We followed all the rules from the school and haven’t done some special stunds or high angle shots. We kept the filming and the action simple but very effective. We worked with a knife and used it responsibly. Also we always had the right basic for each situation, where we needed anything. We managed it, to become the right level in our film.
3. How did you organise your human resources – the people involved in the production?
We used two characters who named Henry Yueksel and Kim Paxton. They both are in our media studies class so it was much easyier to organise all the filming stuff and the right times, were we can go to film all the film. We also always managed it to work with them in a constructive and organised way. They always had they costumes and they where reliable all the time. Two very authentic persons. That has done our film production much easyer.
4. How did you manage actors, locations, costumes and props? Remember that deciding NOT to use a particular strategy [e.g. not to use any props] is also a creative decision.
We picked a girl and a boy to play the main roles of our characters to follow our story in the right way and with a good structure. We picked two different locations on the plot from the Gordonstoun School. A field and and Gordonstoun house. We have chosen the field because it is absolutely empty and you can’t see anyone walking and also you can’t see any cars or other not useful stuff. Also because there is absolutely much space for filming a girl who is running away from her bad thoughts and her angriness. And we chosen Gordonstoun house because we wanted to have a location who is empty, clear and with no stuff in it. And also we wanted to have a long way, where the character could walk very good, without seeing, what is behind his back.
We chosen the knife because it is the weapton for murder scene.
5. How did storyboarding and creating a shooting script work in practice? Did you make creative decisions to depart from the original plan? For what reasons and with what outcomes?
Our storyboard was at the beginning absolutely to short and uninteresting. So we put in some more special shots and interesting scenes and special effects. We also needed to add more reaction shots and shorter clips to make the film more interesting and special for the people who watch it and also for ourselves. We made a lot of creative decisions and we even add an estra scene, because our film was to short.
6. Although time management may seem a less exciting aspect of the creative media practice, it is possibly the most important – how did you manage your time, and with what success?
It was difficult to manage time to filming ect, because Annabell was sick for 2 weeks at the end of the first term. But during this time period all the film we had done prevestly was all edited when she came back to the lessons. So we both didn’t get behind with all the work, we both worked in different ways, Lisa has done more of the filming and the editing and Annabell has done more of the costume design and the production and the planning of the acting in the film. Also we have always spoken about the situations we have decide to do, because that don’t bring someone to have big arguments. We finished everything together as a group and that always by the right time.
Evaluation Questions 1.
1. At a micro, technical level, how well did you observe the conventions of continuity, the language of film and the grammar of the edit?
Before filming our major task, we started with a preliminary task to practice using cameras for the first time and to help us understand the importance of continuity in a short film. Bringing this knowledge to our major task we were able to make it look as if everything was set according to our storyboard and was on the same day.
Using many different angles and camera shots we explored many aspects of the different areas of film. We used props, effective accompaniment and were able to create our characters through dialogue and costume.
We were able to experiment with different editing skills which we used in our film. Effects such as ‘Fast Blur’, ‘Black and White’ and ‘Ghosting’ were shown in our editing.
2. How many mistakes did you make, and did you improve in the main task having made errors in the preliminary exercise?
In our preliminary task we didn’t have enough footage which resulted in us re-shooting on different days which was bad for our continuity element as it was obviously not shot on the same day. We had used zoom-ins on some of our shots which made it look bad and also a lot of free-hand camera which resulted in shaky shots.
Lack of lighting ruined some of our preliminary shots and the fade in and out of music was very bad.
In our main task, music and sound effects fading in and out was much more effective and our continuity was a lot better. We still needed to re-shoot some of our shots but they don’t look as if they were shot on different days as we kept all aspects of the original shots the same as in the re-shoots (e.g. props, costumes, location).
To reduce shaky shots, we used a tripod so that the camera was still whilst filming. Our lighting was much more effective in our main task as you could always see the character clearly.
3. At a more symbolic, macro level, how does your fiction film reflect or challenge the conventions of the genre or type you are working in? Will it fulfil the ‘contractual’ nature of film genre or will it subvert expectations deliberately?
Our chosen genre is horror, and we tried to find as many ways to represent this by using props and the way we filmed our shots.
We researched other scary movies and saw what was recurrent in each one, and we used this to help the planning of our own horror movie opening. We saw that lots of people in horror movies die, so we created our storyline reflect this aspect or horror.
Something twisted happens with our storyline, like in most horror films. They want to intrigue the audience. This is typically horror genre; we set our film in flashbacks, as in a bad event happened in the past but karma is catching up with the present.
4. Are there any elements of deliberate pastiche or parody, where you ‘play’ with the genre’s codes and history? Are there any intertextual moments where you hint at a reference to another film?
A pastiche is something borrowed for one or more other sources, and a parody is a humorous imitation of a literature piece e.g. black adder.
Our film has neither a pastiche nor parody. We decided not to play around with the genre’s codes and history and stuck to the basics of typical horror genre.
We thought that the storyline we had decided on would be a lot more effective if it was done seriously without humour or something borrowed from different sources.
We kept ours original and made up our own ideas for everything, including sound effects, captions, shots and storyboard.
5. What kinds of audience pleasure are you trying to provide, and how confident are you that you have delivered on this promise?
Mine and Annabells’ film was set as a horror. Our plan was to create something chilling and I think that this was quite successful for our first film. After taking things from typical horror movies into consideration, we were able to construct our own murder scene, build a climax with our running scene and build up tension throughout the two minutes with rock music as the accompaniment and a scream to add to our sound effects.
We tried to keep our shots as interesting as possible and also gripping to watch. We want it to be aesthetically pleasing to all audiences.
Before filming our major task, we started with a preliminary task to practice using cameras for the first time and to help us understand the importance of continuity in a short film. Bringing this knowledge to our major task we were able to make it look as if everything was set according to our storyboard and was on the same day.
Using many different angles and camera shots we explored many aspects of the different areas of film. We used props, effective accompaniment and were able to create our characters through dialogue and costume.
We were able to experiment with different editing skills which we used in our film. Effects such as ‘Fast Blur’, ‘Black and White’ and ‘Ghosting’ were shown in our editing.
2. How many mistakes did you make, and did you improve in the main task having made errors in the preliminary exercise?
In our preliminary task we didn’t have enough footage which resulted in us re-shooting on different days which was bad for our continuity element as it was obviously not shot on the same day. We had used zoom-ins on some of our shots which made it look bad and also a lot of free-hand camera which resulted in shaky shots.
Lack of lighting ruined some of our preliminary shots and the fade in and out of music was very bad.
In our main task, music and sound effects fading in and out was much more effective and our continuity was a lot better. We still needed to re-shoot some of our shots but they don’t look as if they were shot on different days as we kept all aspects of the original shots the same as in the re-shoots (e.g. props, costumes, location).
To reduce shaky shots, we used a tripod so that the camera was still whilst filming. Our lighting was much more effective in our main task as you could always see the character clearly.
3. At a more symbolic, macro level, how does your fiction film reflect or challenge the conventions of the genre or type you are working in? Will it fulfil the ‘contractual’ nature of film genre or will it subvert expectations deliberately?
Our chosen genre is horror, and we tried to find as many ways to represent this by using props and the way we filmed our shots.
We researched other scary movies and saw what was recurrent in each one, and we used this to help the planning of our own horror movie opening. We saw that lots of people in horror movies die, so we created our storyline reflect this aspect or horror.
Something twisted happens with our storyline, like in most horror films. They want to intrigue the audience. This is typically horror genre; we set our film in flashbacks, as in a bad event happened in the past but karma is catching up with the present.
4. Are there any elements of deliberate pastiche or parody, where you ‘play’ with the genre’s codes and history? Are there any intertextual moments where you hint at a reference to another film?
A pastiche is something borrowed for one or more other sources, and a parody is a humorous imitation of a literature piece e.g. black adder.
Our film has neither a pastiche nor parody. We decided not to play around with the genre’s codes and history and stuck to the basics of typical horror genre.
We thought that the storyline we had decided on would be a lot more effective if it was done seriously without humour or something borrowed from different sources.
We kept ours original and made up our own ideas for everything, including sound effects, captions, shots and storyboard.
5. What kinds of audience pleasure are you trying to provide, and how confident are you that you have delivered on this promise?
Mine and Annabells’ film was set as a horror. Our plan was to create something chilling and I think that this was quite successful for our first film. After taking things from typical horror movies into consideration, we were able to construct our own murder scene, build a climax with our running scene and build up tension throughout the two minutes with rock music as the accompaniment and a scream to add to our sound effects.
We tried to keep our shots as interesting as possible and also gripping to watch. We want it to be aesthetically pleasing to all audiences.
Monday, 1 February 2010
Final Video
Posted by Lisa ;- After a lot of hard work finding music, re-shooting some of our shots, we eventually completed our film. Here it is;
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