Progress report on doing the evaluation 1

So far we have done most of number 1 getting the images to compare to our film. We have done most of number 3 and 4. We are have done number 5 and 7.

Evaluation

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

Two Pairs of frames where we have used the forms and conventions of real media products:-

First Pair of frames:-

Here is the title of the existing Thriller film 'Seven'

Here is our title of our film. We have used existing conventions of Thriller films because we have, like existing films used credits so the viewer knows what they are watching.

Second Pair of frames:-

    

This is where, in Psycho there is a plug hole in a bath containing what looks like blood.

This is where we have a scene that has a sink containing what looks like blood. We have strongly used this convention of having a plug hole and having blood flowing into the plug hole as our snapshot is very similar to the snapshot of the film "Psycho".

Two pairs of frames where we have developed the forms and conventions of real media products:-
   

Third Pair of frames:-

This is a real media product (Saving Private Ryan).

This is a snapshot of our groups film intro. We have challenged the forms and conventions of the film "Saving Private Ryan" because we have used the 'Desaturation' effect to give it a past tense effect.

Forth Pair of frames:-
  

This is a news report from the film 'Children of Men'. It has a news report that is featured in the opening scene.

We have developed ours from this by making it fit the whole screen so the viewer will only see the news report, instead of seeing the screen with a background around it. 

We have challenged the forms and conventions of real media products by:-

Fifth Pair of frames:-


This is a snapshot of the film 'Silence of the Lambs'. The location of this part is a gloomy looking prison.

This contrasts greatly to the snapshot of our film where we have our main character in a warm, happy looking house. This is how we have challenged the forms and conventions of existing media products. Because we have used a complete non-thriller location to try and catch the viewers off guard as they do not suspect anything because of the calm, nice looking location.

Sixth Pair of frames:-

Here is an existing media product, the TV thriller series 'Dexter' where 'Dexter' is making a cup of coffee.

  
We have challenged the forms and conventions of existing media products similarly to 'Dexter' by having our main character (who is a killer) do a normal, friendly, calm act of making a cup of tea. We have challenged conventions because our character is not stereotypically a killer.

One of the comparisons we have used have been to 'Dexter' which is a TV series. Despite this, Dexter is of the same genre that we are going for. Therefore our film opening is compared to Dexter.

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

http://prezi.com/z1icuvudgmjp/how-does-you-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?

• Our main audience is a 38 year old male named Simon. 
• He has no children and has a girlfriend he has been with for 3 months.
• He goes to Sci-Fi conventions and loves the film 'The Matrix' and has seen the trilogy 68 times. 

• He is middle class and lives in a small town near London. 

• He is right wing and votes conservative because they tax richer people less and he is well off. 

• He loves our film because it is set nearby to where he lives. 
• He is quite well off because he stayed single most of the time and he likes to save his money. 
• He doesn't keep himself fit but is quite skinny and tall. 

• He moved out of his parents house when he was 25 years old. 
• He listens to 70's progressive rock because that is the music he grew up with and doesn't understand the music of today. 

• His parents were well off and paid for his university fees. 
• He went to a modest university doing a computer science bachelors degree. 
• He works as a IT technician in an office and has worked there since he graduated from University. 

• His favourite hobby is painting army figurines and his girlfriend doesn't understand why he does it.

• He doesnt buy into Bluray or 3D and feels that they are just a phase  and will be gone soon enough.

• He reads comics instead of books and his favourite comic is 'Army of Two'.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

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

This is an image of the camera we have used to film. I have progressed with using this camera because, at first I did not know how to use the camera very well and had to learn what button did what on the camera.

This is another image of the camera we have used to film.

This is an image of the computer we used, and on it, a picture of our blog.

This is an image of the tripod we used to ensure as to the best of our abilities that the filming is not wobbly.

This is another image of the tripod we have used. I have progressed with using this tripod because, at first, I was not very good at using it. This was shown in the poor filming for the preliminary task.

This is another image of the computer we used to do most of our work on.

This is an image of my computer screen where, on "logic pro" I made the music for our groups Thriller film opening. I have progressed using the logic pro software, because, at first I was not very good at making Thriller music or making any music that would sound convincing for an original 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?

              

Report on how filming session 4 went

Overall, I believe filming session 4 went well, it was the part that is in my house where our character makes a cup of tea and watches the news report. I believe it went well because we managed to get the scenes that we wanted. One criticism would be that we couldn't get all of our group to my house to film, meaning one of us couldn't be involved, which is unfortunate. So for next time, it will be beneficial when one or more of us can drive so we can easily get to and from a filming location. Another criticism could be that in some of our scenes that we filmed in this session had reflections of us in the mirror/window, so we have had to do some editing to cut those parts out.

Report on how filming session 3 went

This is our shortest filming session and it is only for about 6-8 seconds of film.And it went quite well, we got the take we wanted to get and there were no obvious problems with it. Therefore, we are happy with it. Our actor goes to army cadets and therefore knows how to march etc and has the right costume. A criticism would be that our location wasn't perfect as we had to film at school and if we had more time, we would have filmed at another location, like Carver Barracks.

Filming the house scene

This week, we will be filming the house scene and we have made a dvd of the news report that will be played in the scene, so it will look like it has just come on the television when we click play. We have continued to do editing and have almost completely edited our main task. Despite the deadline for filming being tomorrow and none of us being able to film by then, we will finish this week and as we are well ahead on the editing, we will be finished in time.

Sound For News Report

We have noticed that when we filmed our news report, the camera picked up lots of background sounds. So we have been looking at ways to get rid of it. We have been trying out using a noise gate on the sound which gets rid of the background noise, when our news reporter is not speaking. We have been experimenting with the use of the parametric EQ to try and get rid of the background sound when our character is speaking. So far, we aren't very successful, because it sounds quite robotic. But the hope is that if we play background music, then the unwanted background sounds will be inaudible.

Risk Assessment 3 - Army scene

Music for the main task V2

Music for the main task V1

I have been working on making the backing music for the main task using Logic Pro to record. This clip is 40 seconds of what I have come up with that I have put on youtube to try and get some feedback, so I can edit it accordingly. Here it is:-

Report on how filming session 2 went

Overall, we believe that our second filming session where we filmed the News Report scene was a great success. We managed to get about 8 takes of the same thing, so we can watch through them all and choose our favourite. One criticism of the filming session would be that it took a while as we had to do loads of takes because our actor kept getting his lines wrong. Therefore, one way to amend this would be to get a more experienced actor to be in our film.

Editing Tutorials

As my group and I will be editing fairly soon, I have been watching some more tutorial videos. As the official Apple tutorial videos do not work on most of my school computers, I have been watching some that are on Youtube.

Report on how filming session 1 went

All in all, our first filming session went well, we got about 3 minutes worth of film. Which will go down to about 10-20 seconds. Two of our group acted in our first session, and despite being novices in acting, they did well. We found it easy to get permission for filming, permission to use the room and permission to use the camera equipment. In our first filming session (the science lab bits) we were almost gifted with one clip as we noticed that the food colouring mixed with water looked like blood. And we decided that using an effect on the clip in final cut express would give a very good effect.

Results of Font choice survey

We have chosen font number 3 which is the most popular one on our survey and is our favourite.

Questionnaire for the font choice for our title sequence

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Film Name and Fonts used in title sequence

After much deliberation, we have decided to call the film: 'Unfortunate Incidents'. We have been researching different fonts to use for the title sequence using a website called www.dafont.com, which lets the user look through a variety of different fonts, and then download the chosen font. Here are a few we have been looking at:-

Risk Assessment 2 - News Report

This is the Risk Assessment for filming the News Report in the science room.

News Report

We have been preparing to do our news report for a quick scene in our main task. To give a sense of authenticity, we have made a background that looks like it could be real.

Our news reporter will be sitting in the lower middle area to give the news report.

Risk Assessment 4 - Filming at house

Lighting

In some of our scenes, the set will be dark, so we will need to find a way to give enough lighting to see what is going on, but for it to be dark enough to give an atmosphere. I suggest we borrow one of the lights from the media department as we can use this for our scene to give a good atmospheric effect.

This all will be especcially needed when filming at our house location as we will be filming fairly soon.

Certification by the BBFC guidelines

We believe that our film will be rated 15 by the BBFC, and here is why.

Discrimination

The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour - We will adhere to this as there will be not endorsement of any discriminatory language and with behaviour, our main killer, is brought to justice and therefore there is no endorsement of any bad behaviour.

Drugs

Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable - We will adhere to this as as there will only be drugs that are affecting our character in a very bad way. Therefore, there is no encouragement.

Horror

Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised - We will adhere to this as there will be no sadistic or sexualised menace or threat.

Imitable behaviour

Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised - This is adhered to because there will be no dwelling detail that could be copied and easily accessible weapons will not be sexualised.

Language

There may be frequent use of strong language (for example, ‘fuck’). The strongest  terms (for example, ‘cunt’) may be acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable - There will be no aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language, so this rule is adhered to.

Nudity

Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without strong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context - There will be no nudity, therefore the rules are more than adhered to. 

Sex

Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely  to be acceptable unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable - This is adhered to as there is no sexual activity in the film.

Theme

No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds - Adhered to as the film is appropriate to 15 year olds.

Violence

Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification - There will be no dwelling of infliction of pain/injury, it will be not very gory as it will just focus on quickly killing without any strong, gory content. No sexual violence.

Some of the content on this page was recieved from the BBFC website.