Filming Session 4 Report

This filming session consisted of the scenes in Ben's house, which was easy to get to from school, however I could not do the original day we were supposed to film, so we had to move the filming back a day and only me and Ben could film because Amelia was unable to get there on that day. This could have been more convenient if more of us could drive as none of us had passed our driving test at the time I had to go to Ben's house, so one of Ben's friends had to drive and if we had filmed somewhere like my house which is slightly easier to get to, but I wasn't to keen on using my house at the time of deciding where to film.
However, they were the only main criticisms as the filming itself went really well and we managed to film in just over an hour. I filmed Ben making a cup of tea and then walking into the living room to watch the news report, which is what we wanted originally and then we decided to film an establishing shot for Ben's house, to set the scene.

Filming Session 3 Report

In this scene, we managed to get one of Ben's friends to act as the part of an army officer. Obviously, we had to go through a few takes first, but this was made less difficult due to the fact that we didn't need any sound as this would be a 5 second clip in the finished result. We were well equipped in terms of costume as our actor goes to army cadets, so this was all easy to film. However, in terms of location, we didn't have a lot of time to plan where we would be filming, so we had to settle for a car park and our actor, instead of marching on an airfield or an army barracks, was in fact marching on a pedestrianised footpath, therefore in the future, we would need to plan our location better, so somewhere like nearby Carver Barracks.

Learning about Prezi's

For the evaluation, in question two, you need to use the programme Prezi, which I have no idea to use, so therefore i decided that i would use the tutorial on the Prezi website to teach me how to use the software. I learnt by the step-by-step option so that i could really understand how to use the programme for when it comes to that specific question in the evaluation. Here is the link for the website that i have used.

http://prezi.com/learn/getting-started/

Research and Planning Feedback Sheet

I recieved another Research and Planning Feedback sheet, during my parents evening last week, which shows me what I need to improve in this aspect of the coursework. All the tasks that have been set are still in the 'Proficient' column, so therefore i will try and improve my marks and make some of the ticks into the 'Excellent column. Here is what my teachers recommends me to do over the half term, to improve my blog:

Research into similar products and a potential target audience - Some conventions work (more target audience)

Organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props - Reports for progress

Work on shotlists, layouts, drafting, scripting or storyboarding - show more

Presentation of research and planning - Your presentation is getting better but early work not enough

Time managment - More focus

Quanity of posts - You could be doing more

The feedback that my teacher left was: More presintation aspects.      15/20

I feel that overall, I could be improving my blog over the holidays to achieve the most marks that I can. I need to improve my presentation mainly and the quanity of posts that are needed.

Progress Report 2

I last did a progress report during the christmas holidays, in which I felt that i hadnt done enough posts. However, i feel that to this present moment that i have kept up to date with posts with what is going on in my group. Our group has filmed the opening to our thriller film successfully and edited it completly. We are now in the middle of the evaluation, which we have already completed some of the questions.

Evaluation

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

Here are some examples of shots from our media product and real media products, in this case thriller films, and how we have challenged the conventions of real media products:

Our main character is shown here pouring the milk into his tea in our thriller film. We have challenged the thriller conventions here because this is not usual for a thriller film as it can be a usual ritual of life at home, however, it gives an insight of what the lifestyle of our main character is like, therefore making it more unusual.

In comparison, this is a picture from the TV series "Dexter", where, similarly, the main character called Dexter is in the process of making coffee, which also challenges the thriller convention.  The problem with this comparison, however, is that our media product is a film and Dexter is a TV series, so the two prospects should be very different, but they are similar in this case.

This scene is where we used food colourings to make it look like blood, which is typical in a thriller film.

As mentioned above, blood is an important feature of thriller films, especially in this iconic image from the famous Alfred Hitchcock thriller "Psycho" which shows the blood of the woman who has just been murdered in the shower going down the plughole

Here are two pairs of frames in which we have developed the forms and conventions of real media products:

This is a scene from a real media product, the military film, "Saving Private Ryan". Films which involve the army have made an impact on the media, mainly after Vietnam and especially in the 1980's and 1990's with films like "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) and "Platoon" (1986).

 Similarly, we have used an army scene and have developed it by using an effect called "Desaturation". This gives the feel to the viewer that this scene is set in the past tense, and this should help establish that our main character's work in the army was in the past, as well as the scenes with him watching the news and making coffee.

In the film "Children of Men" (2006), there is a news report at the beginning like our film, helping establish the current events of when the film is set. This makes the viewer aware of what is going on without too much confusion.

We have developed our news report from this by making it appear on the whole screen, therefore the viewer will see just the news report and not the television that our character is watching the news report on. We considered the latter originally, but as it was difficult to film the news report on the television in the same shot, we decided realistically that it would be better to cut straight to the full screen shot of the news report.

In a lot of cases, many parts of our thriller film can be compared to the American hit TV series "Dexter", however, Dexter is the same genre as our film, thriller.

We have challenged the forms and conventions of real media products.

2. How does your media product represent particlar social groups?

http://prezi.com/rtpgcnujd85x/how-does-your-media-product-represent-particular-social-groups/

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

http://nfgsmedia.wikispaces.com/Hyperion

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

1. An example of the sort of person who would be the audience for our film is a 38 year old male named Simon.


2. He has no children
3. He has a girlfriend he has been with for 3 months


4. He frequently goes to Sci-Fi conventions


5. He enjoys films like "The Matrix", and he has seen the trilogy 68 times. He is also into all the Simon Pegg films like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Paul.

6. He is middle class and lives in a small town near London, like Bishop's Stortford.


7. He is right wing and votes conservative because they tax richer people less and he is well off.
8. He likes the idea of our film because it was filmed and set nearby to where he lives.
9. In terms of money, he is doing well, because he stayed single most of the time and he likes to save his money.
10. He doesn't keep himself fit but is quite skinny and tall.
11. He moved out of his parents house when he was 25 years old.
12. He listens to 1970's progressive rock because that is the music he grew up with and doesn't understand the music of today.
13. His parents also had quite a bit of money and were middle class, therefore they paid for his university fees.
14. He went to a modest university doing a computer science bachelors degree.
15. He works as a IT technician in an office and has worked there since he graduated from University.
16. His favourite hobby is painting army figurines and his girlfriend doesn't understand why he does it.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQUlaBabhow

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

This is an image of the camera we used to film our material. We have learnt a lot with this camera, as, when we did the preliminary task, we were unsure what the buttons meant and the camerawork was shaky at times, however, now, we know most of the buttons and our film is in focus.

Here is another image of the camera we used to film.

This is the computer our group used in our blog work, and the website in this image is our blog on the Blogger website.

This is a picture of me and the tripod we used to make sure our filming was not wobbly.

This is another image of the tripod we have used. We have progressed with using this tripod because, at first, we found it difficult to use, a good example is the filming in our preliminary task.

This is another picture of the computer we did most of our work on.

This is an image of Ben's computer screen where, on the Music software "Logic", Ben created a thriller sound for the opening of our Thriller film.

7. 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 our preliminary task, we have learnt about how to film in a better way, an example of this is in the preliminary task, we have a low angle shot of Amelia compared to the high angle shot of me. Also, the camerawork was quite shaky and, at point, when cutting from Amelia opening a door to her entering a room as the camera angle changes, the screen goes black for a split second and it is still noticeable.
However, we have improved because now the camerawork is less shaky and, when cutting between shots, the screen doesn't go black for a split second anymore. Also, we have included the use of a reaction shot from Ben during the news report, to show the mood of our character.

A screenshot from our preliminary task

Progress report on filming session 4

Due to the fact that our group was unable to all meet together to film the last filming session for our thriller film, as there was confusion with the original day. I have seen the film clip that was taken during the time, and I think that my group did extremely well with the filming, involving many different angles and camera shots.