Friday 30 March 2012

Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation Question 7

The camera we used was a JVC GY-HM100U ProHD Camcorder.
A lesson was dedicated to learning how this camera operated and the prelim task helped in making out filming day easier and productive.

 
We used Garage band to make our music, this is an alternative Software to Sound track pro  but we used it because we found a piece of sound that fitted perfectly and we layered it with a consistent beat.  




Final cut pro was the editing software we used to create our final piece, this is very high quality software that is complicated but because of the prelim, we had previous experience.  

Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?




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


Evaluation Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?



To construct the opening to our thriller we used two technologies, Final Cut Pro and Garage Band.


This is a screen shot of our final edit on final cut pro




This is a screen shot of our music on garageband


We used final cut pro to do the block of our work. We used it to edit all our shots, and arrange them in a sequence. We'd become fairly accustomed to final cut pro as we'd had a lot of practice, with our story boards, our own edits of 'the killers',  our prelim and finally the final piece. Final cut pro was easy to use once you knew how everything worked and posed very useful especially when it came to adding the title sequences as we could do it on final cut pro and drag it in. I was useful as we could edit the speed, transitions, font size and colour all on Final Cut Pro

Garageband was also easy to use as we all had previous experience with it, We went through the programme and went into the different genres of music and the instruments used in the style. We dragged sequences in and overlapped them till we came up with a piece that suited our opening and that we were happy with.
I personally found both pieces of software easy and fun to use, i thoroughly enjoyed using them to work on the software as they didn't pose any problems and helped us to complete everything we wanted to.

Evaulation Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?



Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?




Evaluation Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Thursday 29 March 2012

GoAnimate.com: Q2 by lynda.boudj@live.com

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

GoAnimate.com: QUestion 7 by AleksssD

Like it?

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The technologies we used in constructing our thriller film opening is FinalCut Pro and GarageBand.

A screenshot of FinalCutPro (In the process of editing our final edit)
















It was fairly easy to use FinalCut Pro because I was already familiar with the programme as myself and my fellow group members had grown fairly accustomed to the programme as we used FinalCut Pro to edit our preliminary, our storyboards and finally our thriller opening. It is also a fun programme to use because it was interesting to see how shots can be edited, title sequences put in and effects added to make it look semi professional.




















And a screenshot of GarageBand; which we used to compose our own music. We tried out some music from Soundtrack Pro but none of the music was fitting with the pace and ambience of our thriller. I enjoyed using GarageBand because it had some really good sounds that when meshed and put together created the type of music which we thought really worked with our film.



































The JVC camera was very easy and fun to use once you got used to the technology of it. It played a huge role in helping use film our prelim and our thriller opening. Without it we would have gotten nowhere as we would not have a film..




















Videodrive played a very important role in making our thriller opening. It was very useful as it allowed us to very easily access all of our clips and work that we did throughout the AS year. The video drive allowed us to import and export clips and generally was a great aid in our work.







Question 5: How did we attract/address our audience?








This is a video of some feedback from our target audience.


Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


Typical conventions of thriller film opening includes a title sequence of distributers, associated film companies, casting directors, actors, costume designers, director of photography etc. Also conventionally it would open with suspenseful eerie music so audiences can identify it is a thriller. Opening shots of a thriller have many close-ups gathered from our research of thriller openings like the psychological film ‘Memento’ which has close up shots of symbolic items:

Close up of a polaroid photo suggests this is an investigative movie.


A close up of a bullet connoting violence.





In ‘Memento’ there is a close up of the protaganist in the opening shot with a serious facial expression.


In our thriller opening we applied the same conventions. In this screen shot there is a close up of a medal tin which represents the theme of the thriller which is a young mans obsession with war.







In our opening scene, we made sure we had a few close ups of our main character, similarly to ‘Memento’ opening.




Our opening follows the conventions of film openings, we used graphics to show the production company at the beginning:


Friday 23 March 2012

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?


Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

GoAnimate.com: Question 2: How does your media product represent by AleksssD


 P.S: explicit language towards the end of the animation.



The screenshot shows a claustrophobic and dark environment at the beginning of the opening that suggests to the audience that this film is not going to be a happy one and that target age is for more of a mature audience.



This environment is kept at a constant throughout the opening as the audience is introduced to the opening characters underground lair which is dark and sinister which corresponds very well with our representation of the character which is suspicious, unlike your usual stereotypical representation of a teenage boy of that age.








Through mise en scene we have furthered this representation by using dark makeup on his face and around his eyes to show him as an unbalanced and dark character as is displayed in this screenshot where our actor makes a quite sadistic face. 

Question 3 : What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Here is a slideshow I made on powerpoint and uploaded to photobucket to make it a virtual/interactive slideshow.


Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

There are many conventions of a film opening, which helps the audience determine the genre of the film and who it's going to be aimed at. The conventions include; mise en scene, editing and camera shots. For a thriller film opening, the conventions used will help to build up suspense and create the tension needed. The most effective camera shots used for a thriller are close ups of props and facial expressions which we have included plenty of in our opening to distinguish the importance and significance of these items in our film.

Film openings tend to start in a typical format, here is a list of all the film conventions:

·                Introduce production company logo
·                Introduce distribution company logo
·                A title sequence of cast/crew involved in the film
·                Mood and tone is established through sound
·                Intends to draw the audience in 
·                Introduces key characters (e.g. Protagonist)

And this is the order in which a title sequence of any film (particularly thrillers) follows:

· Production Company: Logo/Indent
· Other companies involved in the film (distributors)
· Film title
· Actors/cast
· Casting
· Costume
· Music Supervisors
· Music
· Edited By
· Production Designer
· Director of Photography
· Executive Producers
· More Executive Producers
· Director (typically the directors name is at the beginning and end of the title sequence)

This is how we have followed the conventions in our thriller opening:






We have pretty much followed the typical conventions of title sequences and film openings as we have the production company first; followed by the distribution company and then we have the director’s name. We also have the name of the film at the start of our film opening; it is introduced exactly 0:57 seconds into the opening.

webcam to gif













I have found that we followed the conventions of title sequences pretty closely in comparison with the film ‘Dead Calm’ and have not challenged the typical conventions of film openings. Both our thriller opening and Dead Calm has the title sequences over a black screen which my group found was more effective and professional looking than a stylized edit which would have being too complicated.

Also, both films have the production/distribution company first, followed by the directors name and finally the name of the film.




However, the film name in Dead Calm is introduced 0:33 seconds into the film opening; exactly 24 seconds earlier than in our film opening.

Monday 12 March 2012

Teacher Feedback

This is our teacher Tony's response to our final edit of our film 'Aberration'.




Friday 9 March 2012

Photos from signing the 'finished list'





Final Cut of Aberration

This is our final cut of our thriller opening 'Aberration'
We are really pleased and happy with our final result and hope we will get a high mark ;D


Statistics Analysis

 Since we are coming to the end of this project we decided to do a quick analysis of our blog to see what has being popular and most viewed. We were interested and surprised to find that people from other countries had also viewed our blog!








Rough Cut of ABERRATION – Feedback


 So far the filming process has being fairly easy and we’ve run into very little problems. However, the same can not be said for the editing process.

Looking back over our Rough Cut I’ve realised we have many minor mistakes that need to be corrected.

For example, as our actor Amine plays with the figurines we put shadowing on the shot to create a creepy effect. However, we did not realise that it would affect the speech and sounds he was making and as a result the sound is incomprehensible and sounds very dodgy.




Also, there are a few names we spelt wrong in the title sequence (my own was epically misspelt) and these also need to be fixed.
                                                          "DUJIC" = DUGIĆ


However, we felt that using a simple font for our title sequence would make it look classic and not over the top. On the other hand we realised that the writing does not stand out very much and the title blends in with the rest of the credits which it should not do.



Lastly, the soundtrack we created on Garage sounds weird and faulty at some points so we need to look over our opening and edit the music to fit it. 

Skills Audit



BLOGGING

Through blogging I have learnt numerous things that really aided me in this coursework for AS and I know will help me progress into A2.

  • How to create, edit and publish a blog
  • How to change the font size, and font type of a blog or post. (including colours)
  • How to add a link to a blog or post.
  • How to upload images to a blog or post.
  • How to upload videos to a blog or post.
  • How to change the design of a blog and add extra features.

Researching 

Through researching I have learnt:

·         How to select information which is relevant to my project.
·         How to analyse films and film openings in technical terms. The different shot types, and technical terms used.


Audio
With sound I have learnt:


·         What Foley sounds are and how they are used within the film industry
·         How to import and export sounds.
·         How to edit sound in SoundTrack and FinalCutPro

Camera

·         How to turn on a camera.
·         How to insert memory cards into a camera.
·         How to put the battery into the camera.
·         How to correctly set up a tripod.
·         How to attach a camera onto a tripod.
·         How to zoom in or out.
·         How to record.
·         How to pan, tilt or track.
·         How to play back using a camera.



Final Cut Pro

·         How to edit audio, video and text using FinalCutPro.
·         How to import clips into FinalCutPro.
·         How to cut clips.
·         How to create imput and output points.
·         How to add and edit a transition on a clip
·         How to add effects to a clip
·         How to save a project in final cut.

SoundTrack


·                     How to import and export sounds.
·                     How to edit sounds
·                     How to fade audio.

LiveType

·         How to add effects to text.
·         How to format text.
·         How to save and import text.

Mise en Scene - Costume

This is what we had in mind at the beginning of this project that our actor would wear. We think that this is a smart yet casual look which goes well with our opening as it does not give much about our character away; wether he is rich or poor etc.





Our final result was pretty much eerily very similar to this down to the last detail except the color of the jumper our actor wore was white not blue.

This is the final result of the costume;