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.

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;

Evaluation of Major Task

Response to Feedback

Posted by Lisa Mitchell;-

In response to the feedback that Annabell collected yesterday from friends and our teacher, we have successfully finished the editing of our movie opening.

We edited our chosen song according to the sound effects and ambient sounds that we had initially decided to use, by lowering the music when the sounds were playing and fading them back in when appropriate.

We slightly changed the colours of our captions as they were too difficult to see on the black background.

Feedback:

Mrs. Downes;
- Caption colour red on black is very difficult to read
- Escape very like the caption shouldn't it start at more perhaps?

Gabby:
- she looks like she is moving to fast
- when the title comes up all the disappears maybe it should fade?
- phone needs to ring
- so sound?!
- should be longer

Annabell:
- no sound when he walks into the secound room
- a to fast movement from Kim's head
- to much black background
- (he's back?!) sounds a little bit weird, because you can't see anything
- Escape more forward to the ( he's back sound)

evaluation questions:

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

- you can see, that the product is made by students. It is not like a very good film from an very good producer.

· How does your media product represent particular social groups?

- it presents social groups in a very nice way, because with the block you can see, that it is very good, when you work with another person on it. It shows, that we are a social group in our media class.

· What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

- maybe the persons who thinks that our block and our media work is good.

· Who would be the audience for your media product?

- all the people who like to watch a scary and horror story.

· How did you attract/address your audience?

- with the other stuff which we have posted on our block. with the ideas and all the other stuff.

· What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
- that it isn't so difficult to make a little trailer. At the beginning everything is very difficult and new, but after a while you get used to it. And you start to undestand the program.


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

- the trailer, which we have produced in the last 6 weeks, you can see, that everything is much more professional and we have a different screnery, better actors and a very good story. Everything is much better and very interesting.

19.01.2010

Posted by Lisa Mitchell ; -

Today, after going through our film, we have cut down our caption pages and have decided to get some more footage tomorrow of our main character Henri to add a bit more to inform our intended audience about who he actually is.

We are also planning to update our original storyboard as many of our shot ideas have change since our initial plan.

We are still in desperate need of a background song to accompany our video footage.