Wednesday 18 March 2015

Q5: How did you attract/ address your audience?


The mise en scene used we had were:
Props:

  • shloer botle
  • cups
  • balloons
These props is very relatable with teenagers now as many do enjoy celebrating with the drinks. Its part of a normal life style when having a party so teenagers or young adults would understand.
Costumes:
  • Mia wore simple, casual wear: jeans, top, coat and scarf
This portrayed the character to be innocent and not creative compared to her rest of her friends as they wore colour clothing: red, blue, green, black and whites. The clothing now is also on trend today, so this would engage some teens how the way the characters represent themselves.

Lighting:
  • Dark-  When Mia is running away; this would appeal to target audience as it is related to a horror/ slasher film; which most young adults and teenagers like those types of genre films.

  • Bright- When they're in the party; relates to audience as some do have parties outside and they're all appear to be happy and enjoying themselves.

Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?



Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?


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

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Wednesday 11 March 2015

Q7 : Looking back at your preliminary work task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product ?


Overall i feel that the difference of my prelim to the final film is huge, because i learnt a wide range of skills and i showed my creativity a lot more.

Q6 : What have yu learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ?

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Q5 : How did you attract/ address your audience. ?


Q4 : Who would be the audience for your media product ?


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Q3 : What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why ?

Q2 : How does your media product represent particular social groups ?

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

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Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product.?

Comparing the Preliminary task with this title sequence production is rather simple. I must say my experience and ideas of production was very much easier and simpler to understand in this production of the title sequence than it was in the Preliminary task. The number of skills I used was far more than I would have used in the Preliminary task.

The planning for the preliminary task was a longer process and did take time and a range of ideas. I had to research what match cutting was, as my group wished to use it as one of the editing techniques that we would further edit in Final Cut Pro.  We organised who would be the different characters and who would want to film or star in the short Preliminary. This was a quick production, as I felt we planned and mapped out exactly what we wanted to do. In the title sequence planning there was a range of different ideas, that was a good advantage, however the problem we struggled to grip onto one idea and stick to it. During the filming in the Preliminary task I didn't feel that confident in both using the camera and the different types of shots were all new to me, so even through researching what match-cutting was, I however didn't really get a clear sense of what the other shots were and how they adapted to make a good film. Even though I wasn't confident with using the camera, we did have everything mapped out and we knew exactly where we would do our match cuts in our location.

On the other hand, in the title sequence production stage I was far more confident and I felt I took on far more of the filming role and working with the camera, as I gained the confidence as well as the knowledge of how to handle the camera properly. Another skill was we had a more varied idea of the different shots we could use and explore, from the extra close ups of different props to bird eye view, and tracking a character, for example showing the journey they took to get to a certain place.
When editing the preliminary, I felt more confident than I did when filming as I felt on this process I could try different things to see what works well and what does not. For example in Final Cut Pro we used the different shots we needed to create a match cut, but what we found quite challenging was making sure both shots seamlessly flowed into one match-cut. However with many attempts we final cut it down to the exact way we wanted it to look, and using different transitions and effects like slow motion we were able to create our single shots into a sequence that we were really proud of. We also used text on the final cut pro, where we selected the place where wanted it to appear clicking the icon we chose what type of font and size we wanted it to appear in. as well as final cut pro we also used Garage-band, where we collected music to put into our film, I was surprised at the huge variety of different sounds available and I was also able to select the type of emotion of sound I wanted and as our film was based on a tension, and fear; we looked for music that created a tension and fearful atmosphere. I extremely enjoyed the editing process and I felt that was where I work mostly strongly at. In comparison to the editing of the title sequence we used a range of different technologies, such as motion, to create our titles and logos of the production and distribution companies and also final cut pro, garage band. 
I felt that during this editing process I had an already advantage because I had already used the Final Cut Pro and Garage-band, therefore I was able to work well and develop my skills even more using those technologies, I also develop the strong skill of teamwork and working together, quickly and efficiently to get our work done for the deadline. 




This is our logo for title sequence, which we used Motion to create. This was an advanced example of the making titles.








We structured out our editing; some people did the sound on Garage-band and some did the editing of the film on Final Cut Pro. This not only made us work as a team and control our time and work but also I learnt how to be independent and get work done one my own, for example like making the Wix Website and posting blogs independently without the help of my group.  During this entire experience from the Preliminary to now creating our title sequence, I learnt a range of different important skills. One would have to be, working as a team and supporting each other and structuring the work out so that everyone would have a chance to show what they could do. Also I learnt, the different shots you can use to create a sequence that can look professional and effective. The editing process was a huge development for me, as learning the skills to create a logo on motion and use Garage-band to create original music, through my own trial and error process. However as well as some good points, there are also some developments that I would have for future productions. One main one is, PLANNING! I found that our team not carefully planning out the our ideas and knowing and sticking to an idea is key, which would save vital time and energy for the any future production.

                                                                                        
This was our prelim video, and compared to our opening sequence has far less skills and techniques.


20. Jessica, Sarene, Eunice, Simona from 283goswell on Vimeo.

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from process of constructing this product..?

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Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?


Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

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Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

My distribution company ident: My production company ident:

Q2. How does your media products represent particular social groups?

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

http://prezi.com/8bbrxx9waixw/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Monday 9 March 2015

Filming- overview

This stage was the most challenging due to various reasons. Firstly, the weather, although we did make that part of our risk assessment we weren't quite expecting it to be that bad. The cold and rain didn't do our group justice int he filming process, we struggled to even get out the camera because each time we wanted to film it would begin to rain. In addition to that, because we made several changes to our story board we could really make a clear understanding of the type of shots that we wanted to use now, so we had to decide that whilst we were actually filming the scenes. We did make quite a few mistakes such as 'overfilling' because we didn't need the in our actual title sequence.

Research overview


Research- Overview

Research into teen dram films:

This was the stage that we really got to have a clear understanding of the two genres 'high school drama' and 'youth drama film', as a group we decided to go along with 'youth drama' because we felt that we could get more marks on location as it wouldn't require us to film near college. We also researched many different openings by viewing other 'youth drama films' and listing our favourite ones. By doing this, we were creating ideas that we could follow up on later in the planning stage. All of this helped us create a clear image of what title sequences require and the importance of the placement of the title credits. Without the research stage you wouldn't be able to understand what the purpose of your title sequence actually is and the effect of the placement of the title credits has on the opening. 





Deadline day

This was the day that required a lot of rushing to finish off the title sequence on time. We came in well prepared and with a clear mind of what we wanted to accomplish by the end of the day; this was to finish creating the soundtrack to our title sequence and check whether all of our tile credits were placed in the right position to have its maximum effect on the audience. From this day I realised how important time management actually is, especially when other factors could affect the editing stages such as team members not being present or making drastic changes to the title sequence.
When using garage band there are a lot of sounds to choose from so you need to have a clear idea of what you're searching for in order to save time- we didn't exactly have this because we changed certain parts to our story board. Therefore, we did waste a lot of time on deciding which sounds to include and where, but in the end we produced a nice soundtrack that went well with the video. All that we needed to do was import it into final cut pro. There was a slight problem however, we didn't have enough time to actually match up key scenes int he tile sequence to our sound track, this was very disappointing to me and Jessica but we had to continue and finish it off either way. We then exported the final video and we were done for the day.


Reflection on title sequence

Planning:


This is the stage that required a lot of thinking and coming up with ideas with the group for our title sequence; also deciding where and when we would add in the title credits including the types of camera shots we would include. However throughout the process we couldn't come up with an established idea; although we did have a rough idea it didn't really benefit us because we didn't have a lot of time left till the filming stage. In the end we had finalized a story (which we posted on the blog) and made into a story board. The story board included various scenes of the title sequence and also th type of shots we would include. However, we didn't come up with the order of title credits at this point so we couldn't place them on the story board yet. A lot of changes were made throughout the production of the title sequence that we should've considered in the planning stage. Implying that we weren't really prepared in the sense that certain parts to the story board weren't possible to re-create. 

Sunday 8 March 2015

updated changes to story board









Blogging health check 1

Blogging health check 1 
02/01/2015

My teacher checked my blog around this date and gave me a response:

You have some really good, interesting individual posts on your blog. Good work. I particularly liked the post on Great Expectations/The Conjuring - it will be interesting to see if any of this influences your filming. The posts on costume and fonts are really good also. 
With regard to your updated production idea, are you sure you can't get access to an indoor room for just one sequence? Is the canal an appropriate substitute. I will disuss with you in class. 
Having said that, keeping an up to date production diary with changes, insights etc  - this is exactly what you are supposed to do. Good work - please keep it up.


After this health check I considered his comments and proceeded to discuss the ideas with my group again but we all came to the conclusion that our story line was still going to change and the party would still be placed by the canal (outside).

Overview of Coursework

Researching
The researching process was a very important point, it allowed me to look up and familiarise yourself with every bit of the topic.
In this case the research into teen drama was a very important for me to get a clearer sense of what it was truly about. I initially thought, I knew everything about the topic, but I was mistaken!
I had to research what teen drama was and how it is loved and the types of ideas that are used. This research was very very helpful for planning. Also the research into title sequences was very important, as I wasn't really familiar with it and of course for the title sequence, learning about a title sequence was the most important thing.


Planning
The planning process was a very large and difficult process but it was an extremely essential part.
The process consisted on us choosing our ideas, picking characters, the location and time managements.
In the future, i will plan extremely carefully as in this was not really what we did during this process. this therefore was why we didn't really have good, productive filming sessions at the beginning and we took a very long time to find a good location.

Filming
Filming was I thought was going to be the most easiest moment and it wasnt as simple as first expected. There was many hours lost because of the rain and horrible weather.
The filming was a long process, which included many good and exciting shots and also some bad, but shots that helped us improve.
To improve for future filming, I will plan clearly every step and all the shots we consider doing as we spent many hours changing our ideas to get better ones.


Editing
This process consisted of many separate processes, we all sectioned ourselves out.
Some of the editing of clips and others done the title sequences.
This was truly much longer and complicated process that I had first anticipated. However the process of seeing the shots coming together is a very for filling  feeling.

During this coursework, I learnt that planning before you begin doing things is essential and will save time and clearly have a structure for the rest of the group. But I have also taken some skills, like using Final Cut Pro, and motion to create the title sequence. Also I learnt the idea of title sequences and how important they are for the film. The opening credits of the story.

garage band editing


This was a rough soundtrack that I edited and produced at home on garage band. Our final soundtrack was produced using various techniques shown in this video.

Final embedded video deadline reflection

Friday 6th March 2015- Deadline of final cut pro

We spent most of this day adding the final touches to the video by editing on the title credits and making sure that they were all placed in the correct order as well as in the right position to create the best effect. In addition to that, we had to finish off our sound track for the video in 'GarageBand'. As the deadline started closing in we came to realise that we would have to rush in order to actually place the sound track over the video on time. 

By the end, we had a completed sound track, all we had to do was export it and then import into 'Final cut pro'; this was when time was very essential but we didn't have enough of it, so everything after this was very rushed- the sound track didn't exactly match certain key parts to our video so we had to quickly line up the scenes to the sound. Overall, we realised that finalising the sound shouldn't have been left to the last day, instead it should've been finished prior to the deadline. However, although we finished right on time, we still weren't very pleased with the final product, it didn't exactly represent all of the skills we had acquired as a group, but it was still a great video at the end of the day. 

Saturday 7 March 2015

Interview with Eunice Alves


Below is the interview with Eunice Alves which plays the character Mia in the film Trap :




Wix website

Today, i focused more in the website. I created a page where/how you can get tickets to see the movie, another page about the film's cast and finally a page with the interviews even though there is only one video. It was quite difficult to wok with Wix because my laptop was quite slow and sometimes it would not let me save the work. Again because of lack of time, the website does not look as good as it should be.

Production Company -- Logo



Below is the logo of the production company that we have done in motion.




The Film's Title

Below is our the title of the film that we have done in motion.
  • Font used : Dripping Marker 
  • Colour : Dark red ( to look like blood )
  • Effects : Bad Film 
  • Background  : television out of signal 





Distribution Company -- Logo

Below is our logo for the distribution company that we've done in motion.





Friday 6 March 2015

Reflection upon my title sequence

Editing

This certainly was the hardest part of all the stages. I guess it was quite hard no only because of the time but also because we had not complete our planning stage properly. We had to some planning at this stage -- (e.g) as i was ordering my scenes in final cut pro i realised we had not have an "ending" for the title sequence, so we spent days thinking what end should we have.Then we decided that our end would be : the killer crossing Mia's name to convey that she is eliminated, that she is dead. But as i joined this scenes to the rest of the title sequence, I, my group and my teacher realised it didn't fit in the title sequence. So on wednesday, two days before the deadline we made a new ending :  Jessica took several photos of me (Mia), then printed in black and white and finally we circled Mia's face in the photos and then made a timetable to convey that she is being watched, someone is stalking her whom is the killer. This time it worked.
I guess one of our big problems in all this coursework was managing time and keep up with the work. The reason might be because looked so far away but suddenly it was knocking the door, i guess it was at this time that "we woke up".
Doing the soundtrack as very very challenging, again because of the time.  It takes quite time to have a good sound track that matches perfectly with the video we are watching , well we did not reach this due to the fact that we left this for the last day, having on mind that we would be finish on time. Even though this happened i am still pleased with the title sequence that i have done.

What i have learned in this coursework ?

Durind this few months that i have been creating my own title sequence, i have been learning quite a lot.

  1. I learned that the planning stage is the key for everything. I did not think about this as i was planning with my group so because of this little mistake our title sequence is not as better as we imagine.
  2. How to work with motion by making the titles.
  3. How to slow or fast motion my scenes.
  4. I got a lot more comfortable and confident in working in final cut pro.
  5. ICT skills : prezi, videos,power points..
  6. To be consistent with an idea.
  7. How to add titles , make them appealing to the audience setting a mood. 

Reflecting upon my title sequence

Filming

This stage was the less difficult for me. We have quite wasted a lot of time recording scenes that were not relevant for our title sequence but at the time we though it would work. The weather also did not help at all because it was raining all the time we decided to film. The party scene was the hardest one to film because it envolved a group of people but fortunately the people acted the way we wanted which made it enjoying to film, Simona was not present on this day -- which had an impact on the the title sequence as we had no one to film in her place. But then jessica took her place. Sometimes we would of forget to use the tripod so some of our scenes which we wanted to look "right", were moving quite a lot. 

What i have done today ?

Today, i finish the title credits ( distribution company's name as a credit; make some title credits longer; re-located some title credits so that they can be seen clearer) and gave the final touches to the sequence of the movie , both in final cut pro. This did not took much of my time, but unfortunately we were still doing the sound, which was quite difficult and challenging due to the time that we had left. The deadline was today, so because of the lack of time , the sound may not match perfectly the title sequence.

Reflecting upon my title sequence

Planning 

At the beginning we have came up with quite a  good idea for the story board and story line , but the problem was that we were always changing our mind, we would not stick to something. Along the four stages we brainstormed new ideas for the title sequence -- something that we should of done when we were planning. At this stage also we were meant to already decide where the title credits would be placed but we decided on the editing stage. 


Thursday 5 March 2015

Title Credits

Today I  mostly focused on the title credits. I tried different fonts for the title credits so they could differ from the Title's font. After some research I found the perfect font  -- Autos -- which looks like this :
Image result for autos fontI liked this font because it's a little bit blurred  and it has something quite disturbing in it creating a mysterious mood. After I had chosen the font I went to final cut pro, to start "applying" the font in the title sequence. When I done this the title credits looked too plain and boring so I decided to experiment some of the effects and came up with an idea : the title credits will appear in a way that it looks like it's part of the actual scene, then I added to the title credit an effect called "Bad Film" which makes the title credit tremble. Because of some scenes are quite quick I decided to choose special scenes where still inside this scenes I would cut a very short part of it and freeze it in order to the audience have enough time to read which title credit. All of this worked very well. I did all this in Final Cut Pro because it had the font already so there was no need to use Motion.
After I showed to my teacher my title credits , she said some feedback :
  • The first scenes that have a title credit in it look good but the following ones is  a little bit hard to read them due to the fact that some scenes are lighter than others.
  • Don't forget the distribution and production's names written in the title sequence.

Wednesday 4 March 2015

Editing, Title Credits and Sound

  • Today, in the mourning I done lots of editing in the title sequence, then in the afternoon I focused more on the sound with the contribution of the other members of the group. We looked at a range of sounds that in our mind would fit the title sequence. We have chosen intense and mysterious sounds  for the beginning -- the establishing shots. I have recorded some editing that we've done, which will be upload later as it needs to be edited.
  • This particularly sound that we chose was really good because every time you hear the beat, it suddenly changes the scene, having a big impact in the audience's mind. It sets the mood, the location which is urban and the genre.
  • Also I continued to do the title credits. Sarene and Simona had done the Production's logo and I did the Distribution's logo both done in motion. I will upload both of them later on as well.

Filming

Today we filmed the ending scene for our title sequence. We already had an ending but unfortunately it was not working well with the rest of the title sequence so we decided to take various photos of the central character (Mia) in various positions and angles to convey that she is being watch by someone. In this photos we circled her face (she is a target). Then in a separate paper we made a rough timetable of what she does daily, to emphasise that same person that is watching her is also stalking her. Because we were not aware if this scene would work we also took photos to the photos of Mia being watched but we've decided that the moving image was the best one to use because the photos looked quite random and vey confusing to the audience.  The photos are in black and white and we used specially a red pen to convey some sort of danger.

Below are the photos that we've made.  :







Then after we filmed, I put it up in final cut pro in the title sequence.

Wix Website

 This was my process of creating a Wix website for our film, Trap. This was the first time I used the Wix website so finding out the different tools and elements on the website.

The large amount of images for the background allowed me to choose the right image for our film. I chose a brick background, as it looks urban and makes the page feel quite mysterious and scary.

I have chosen all the images and colours and layouts for the website, and all that is left to do is upload our title sequence and the rest of the videos, to ensure that our website has an interesting presentation.















http://dainile14.wix.com/trap

Last Filming sessions

Flickr
 This is some of the images from the last session of filming and still image taking we did, this was a quick, 15 minute session, as we just needing some few more clear and nice shot, images and film.

 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/131612346@N05/?

Blogging Health Checks

Blogging Health Check 1

strengths:
- nicely presented with some nice use of ICT

less strong:
- lots of work missing form the checklist - very behind
- time management - frequency of posting to the blog is an issue

to do:
1. complete all missing work from the research checklist
2. improve your frequency of posting - aim for 3 or 4 times a week
3. keep up to date with blog tasks as we move into the planning stages so you don't fall so behind.


Blogging Health Check 2

Strengths:
Research completed and to a very good standard
Beginning to use a range of ICT to present ideas
Caught up with missing research posts impressively

Less strong:
Lots of planning posts missing  - no pitch, production schedule or storyboard.
Labels for the pitch task isn’t always clear
Frequency of posting to the blog has become more haphazard during planning and filming

To do:
1. Maintain much improved blogging
2. Catch up with and [post all outstanding planning and pitch tasks – the storyboard and production schedule must be posted as a matter of urgency
3. Post up your WIX or a link to it
4. Continue to blog and record evidence of your work whilst filming and editing
5. Consider using an even greater range of ICT to present your ideas

Blogging Health Check 3

1. post your WIX as a link or embed into the blog so that we can see it
2. post visual evidence of your filming (photos, videos etc...) as there is very little at the minute
3. post evidence of editing from each lesson (photos, videos, screen cast commentaries using camtasia etc...)
4. post health check feedback 
5. improve your frequency of posting to the blog - 4 - 5 times weekly in these final stages
6. post a skills reflection blog that reflects on the skills you developed during each stage of the coursework (research, planning, filming, editing and constructing your blog)


Editing on Sound on GarageBand


I started experimenting with what type of sound would be effective to use for the final title sequence, this was my drafting process for the final sound.
I used a range of different music tones; I wanted to focus on creating a distorted, dark, scary piece, that was linked to the story/plot of our film.
I used a range of piano keys and some music effects, I explored a range of different effects, as there were points where I found the sound was too over dramatic with some of the piano keys, therefore I had to monitor how much of those I will use.

Monday 2 March 2015

Change in the production and distribution name


We have realised that we would get more marks by doing our own production and distribution names. So we have made some research about which production as well as distribution companies produce Horror/Slasher Films. 

We have came up with the names below: 


  • production name: ominous eye productions
  • distribution name: SimEX films


teacher's feedback about title sequence (rough cut 2)