Q6-Evaluation

From this experience we have learnt how to use various media technologies, for instance we have learnt how to use the camcorder appropriately. We have learnt how to change the settings for example how to adjust brightness levels. We also learnt how to take various different shots on the cam corder, from medium angle shot to good quality establishing shots.

As you can see this establishing shot is very clear and looks very clean. It has just the right amount of darkness/lightness within the picture perfect for a outdoor scene in a horror movie, during the prelim to take a establishing shot as clear as this one here would have been very difficult because we did not know how to use the camcorder also we did not have much practise beforehand.

Using the digital cameras, we were able create a lot of different shots and capture a lot of emotions. For example, an close up angle would be showing how frighten and scared how character was at the time.  A median shot, of the scene would show how erie it really was, and how our character found it hard 'to escape'. 

     

This was an annotation of our film and we used a software programme called Canasta which helps us annotate on a timeline clearly each part of the film. This was very good in helping us outline where we did something good and something that wasn't good. 

Camtasia

Thank You

Blogging has had its ups and downs but it going through our journey of filming and producing our very own media product has been amazing. Thank you for following our blog. See ya!

Q5-Evaluation

How did you attract//address your audience?

From our research tasks and analysing our favourite title sequences we came to a conclusion that our film opening appealed to our target audience by 

Its style/ look of the title credits:

Firstly, the style of title sequence was very simple this was because our title sequences was a horror genre, this has more of a serious touch to it. However if we played around with the look of it too much, we would've made it look animated, then the touch of a scary movie would be gone, and the whole purpose of our movie would be lost.

Mise-en-scene:

Our mise-en-scene is very appealing to our target audience this is because of the stereotypes behind horror genres. 

The setting was a forest, consist of a lot of greenery and wood-like surroundings. These all contribute to the idea of a scary atmosphere and the horror factor. 

The camera angles used were a range this also appealed to our target audience as it is showing a range views from different perspectives. Such as birds eye view, over the shoulder, medium shot, establishing shot.

Actors/Actresses:

Our actors/actresses most definitely appealed to our target audience. This is because our target audience people aged 16-21 and the wider audience being 16-5 year olds. The characters used were a real representation of the normality of our audience. It shows the everyday life styles, the dangers, it allows them to become the character emphasis with the our film even more. Almost feel every emotion, making the movie a little bit more realistic. 

Storyline:

Our storyline appeals to our target audience very much so, as it is showing the everyday life of a girl whose life has rapidly just changed,  and our target audience are young teens so once in there lifetime something has happened and changed them, either for the good or bad. 

Sound track: 

Our soundtrack is very appealing to our audience as it goes well with our clips shown on the screen at the time. The sound track was very fitting to the horror genre as it includes all the conventions needed to create a scary emotion to the audience. 

The role of the rough cut feedback:

The rough cut was very important in helping us make sure we got the most important things included in our title sequences, for example make sure we actually have the title credits put in place. It was very clear and evident to see that as a group we were slacking with our editing sessions as we really were just focusing on the blogging part and needed to invest more time in the edit to make sure everything made sense. As in the rough cut it was clear to see that the shots were not in order which therefore made our film look cheap and unorganised. 

looking back at what we had for the rough cut we had time to reflect  about the fact that the shots we had were they conforming to our stereotypes where they what we wanted, where they most importantly conventions of a horror movie. It was also clear that our film had many necessary

Evaluation -Q7

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 my preliminary task I believe that I have improved on many skills over this short period of time. My preliminary movie was pretty basic, it did not have any exciting factor to it for example there was not any exciting or unique editing skills or camera skills being shown which made my prelim look extremely boring and repetitive.
The new skills that I have learnt and applied are shown in my final media product. I think that I have learnt how to take good establishing and close up shots, also i have improved on my editing skills however i think that i can still work on it because editing for me was very tricky because I did not how to use certain applications therefore i refrained from using them for example after effects.
Before my prelim i had very little knowledge on filming and the different type of camera shots because I had never studied media studies before therefore my prelim was not produced to the best of my abilities. In my prelim there was no sound track included which made it boring to watch also the type of shots involved in the prelim were pretty basic, there were many close up shots etc however in my new media product there are various different shots ranging from establishing shots to extreme close up shots. My prelim was  of poor quality. i was very laid back during my prelim and  did not put much effort into it. My prelim did not included title orders however my final media product did even though the title orders were very simplistic

During the production of our final product i had to put my creative skills to work by coming up with unique ideas in order to make this horror movie as successful and unique as possible. For example we tried to challenge stereotypical ideologies surrounding horror movies. first of all we did this by replacing the typical blonde, tall, female character for a short, asian character who is of small build. we also had to come up with location ideas to film in, and we had limited options, one of the options was a classroom and we had to use lighting and props such as material to make a bright classroom look like a dull, isolated, location in a deserted place. This was very important in our movie because we had to make it look as if the female character had been abducted and as if she is in danger from the villain.
Before filming we had produced a list including all the different types of shots we were planning to film in order to create a unique media product, this list contained various different shots such as extreme close up, medium shot, establishing shots and over the shoulder shots. We had also created a storyboard to ensure that members of the group knew exactly what was gonna happen in the film, this further helped us to keep on track with filming because we knew what we were going to film for every lesson we filmed, we knew the type of shots that we were aiming to take therefore timing was not a big issue for us as we did not waste time each lesson planning what to film as it was already in the storyboard.
We also created a draft time table in which certain aspects of filming needed to be completed for example filming dates and editing dates were included within the timetable to help us with time management however some times we did fall behind which later resulted in us having to re schedule filming dates. We continuously blogged each task in the beginning, we were on track with each blog task however a couple of weeks into the production of our media product we did fall back with blogging as we realised it is extremely time consuming and because we had so many unfinished blog task it was extremely hard for us to catch up.

Here is our draft filming schedule.

Date	Time	Footage	Crew	Location
03/12/2015	20 minutes	Girls (Saima’s character) has been kidnapped. Various weapons and bloodstained props.	Saima Omari Erykah Rizwana	City and Islington 6th Form (Dark Room 333)
04/12/2015	25 minutes	The young girl’s reaction and facial expressions.	Saima Rizwana Erykah	CandI 6th Form (Dark Room 333)
06/12/2015	15 minutes	Girl running away. Scary figure appearing (Omari’s character).	Omari Rizwana Saima	Hackney Springfield Park
08/12/2015	10 minutes	The scenery of the park- bushes, shrubs trees etc.	Omari Rizwana Saima Erykah	Owens Field Park
16/12/2015	10 minutes	Close up shot of blood dripping. Close up shot of moving chair	Omari Rizwana Saima Erykah	CandI 6th Form (Dark Room 333)
05/01/2016	20 minutes	The girl’s (Saima’s character) facial expressions. Various extreme close up shots of her features.	Erykah Saima	Candi 6th Form (Dark Room)
08/01/2016	10 minutes	Various bloodstained weapons and materials.	Erykah Rizwana Omari	Candi 6th Form (Dark Room)

 We explored different locations in order to find the perfect filming spot for our horror movie, we filmed inside the college as well as filming outside. In college we filmed the scenes in which we made a classroom look like a abandoned area where the female character was going to be held hostage.initially we had planned to film the outdoor scenes in Owens Field which was quite local to the college, however after looking at the place carefully we realised it was not the best place to film as it was a public park and many members of the public were walking back and forth therefore there would have been disruption during filming scenes, so we decided to film the outdoor scenes in Springfield Park, Hackney.
When it came to costumes we had decided the male character (villain) will wear a black bomber jacket (leather if possible), indigo blue jeans with black trainers/boots (white trainers can be acceptable too) we decided to stick to dull clothing as we wanted to portray the male character as a serious person who dresses in dark clothing as it matches their personality. We decided the female character will wear a bright top (burnt range colour) and tartan trousers because this type of clothing will make her seem like a college student, exactly what we were aiming for as she was a college student who had been kidnapped by a psycho serial killer, and she goes on the run trying to escpae from this dangerous villain hence why we name the movie "The Escaping'.
Props was a significant factor in our film especially seeing as our film was of horror genre. We decided to use a knife and a hammer looking weapon because we thought it would look good when filming scenes in which these dangerous looking props were involved.

  Arranging travel was pretty easy for my team as we all leaved quite local. Myself, Rizwana and Omari met up on a Saturday in Hackney to film he outdoor scenes, unfortunately Erica could not attend due to personal reasons however this did not effect our filming as we managed without her. Rizwana and Omari took part in filming scenes of me escaping and we all took part in carrying the filming resources/equipment. I took home the fig rig, Rizwana took home the cam corder and Omari took home the tripod.
I believe i have developed many skills during the production stage, for example my filming techniques improved as by this stage i was available to take a good establishing shot as well as a good extreme close u shot, however my filming techniques were still a little poor as i kept on shaking when recording further leading to poor shots which could not be use in our film therefore Omari took over and filmed the scenes I could not film.
We kept our titles very simple, as were were aiming for a very simplistic tile order. People in our target audience we believe would have appreciated if our title order was like this because they are old and mature enough and we thought by adding a animated title order will bore them therefore we did what we thought we would enjoy if we were watching a horror movie and we all agreed we preferred a basic title order instead of one which is animated. Editing in premiere pro was pretty difficult because i did not know the different functions also editing was very time consuming and because Omari was familiar with editing he took over and completed and fixed up on the scenes that needed editing.
In my Prelim there was no editing being done neither were there any title credits which made it seem even more boring however the final media product had edit, we used a editing software called premiere pro which helped us edit our clips for example we used match cut, filters and effect which made our film.
Our teamwork was great as we kept in touch through social media (whatsapp group chat) in order to find out if anyone was absent or if anyone was going to be late this also helped during time management. this was something we did not tend do during our Prelim because our Prelim was made in a short period of time wehereas our final media product was made within two months therefore we had to have god team work and good communication skills.
i believe that i was fairly successful with most products. Some more than others.
The skills i was most succesful in:
-Filming
-Taking camera shots
-time managmnet
-organistaion skills
-communiation skills
-team work
I beleive i worked very hard for the final media product when compared to the Prelim tehrefore many of my skills had improved and developed immensely.

what would i change:
-location
-props (damaged clothing to make the horror movie more realistic)

i can now do various of thimngs such as
Filming
-Taking camera shots
-time managmnet
-organistaion skills
-communiation skills
-team work
something whcih i could not have done before the prelim.

Evaluation- Q3

What kind of media institution might distribute 'The Escaping'?

An institution is a media group or media institution is a company that owns large numbers of companies in various mass media such as television, radio, publishing, movies, and the Internet.


The different distribution companies:
-20th Century fox
-Disney
-Lionsgate
-Warner Bros
-Universal

Lionsgate will be the distribution company that works with us reasons for this is because it is a well know film distribution company in the UK and is known for distributing horror movies therefore we can trust the company and know that our film is in the right hands.

                          

Films Lionsgate has distributed:

-SAW
-My Bloody Valentine
-The Last Exorcism

Lionsgate is not much of a big distribution company compared to companies such as 20th Century Fo or Warner Bros therefore we believe there prices will be cheaper and much more affordable which is beneficial to us as we want to distribute the film at a fair price and refrain from over spending. Because Lionsgate have been successful in distributing many successful horror films we can trust this company hence why we have chosen Lionsgate to work in co-operation with us to distribute 'The Escaping'.  

Evaluation- Q4

Evaluation- Q2

I created this presentation on Visme http://www.visme.co/

Evaluation- Q1

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

 The conventions of title sequence are very important as they allow the audience to make a judgment on whether or not the film is good. I will talk about some of the conventions our title sequence used and its importance firstly our movie was of horror genre and we used ideas from the movie 'Insidious' and 'Se7en' to incorporate into our own seeing as they were both successful horror movies.

Conventions of a horror genre:
-Movie title
-Appropriate music
-characters
-cast and crew
-props
-flashback
-chase
-narration
-Mise-en-scene

Our product uses many of the usual horror conventions such as a movie title and appropriate music. The title is used in order to indicate to its audience the name of the film and what they are about to watch. this is important and a key convention in order to attract the attention of the audience and in order to engage the audience. this convention was used in our media product as we were aiming to use dramatic music in the entrance in order to build an atmosphere and create tension within the room to notify the audience that this is a horror movie.
Another convention our title sequence used was props, we used a knife and a hammer looking weapon, we did this in order to make our audience aware that this is a horror movie and violence may be involved too, we tried to create suspense by including a chase scene between our main character and the villain. this made it clear that the character was in danger therefore she was trying to escape from the villain who was ought to attack and perhaps murder her, hence why we named the movie "Escaping". We also included Mise-en-scene, the location was in our classroom however with the help of lighting and props we made the classroom look deserted and isolated which was perfect in order to make it look as if our main character (who was a young asian female) had been kidnapped.

Our media product follows a title order of....
-Production company
-Director
-Actor
-production behind the movie and finally finishes of with a title.
We decided as a group to stick to this title order as it is most common within horror movies, and seeing as the genre of our movie is horror/thriller we decided this title order would be suitable. we decided upon our title credit by looking at the title credit list in the movie 'Se7en' as we were taking inspiration from the movie.

COMPARISON BETWEEN OUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND 'SE7EN'

Draft production schedule (planning)

1st week	Scenes to film in college
FRIDAY	Teenage girl in the abandoned room
	Villain tying to harm main character
	Take different type of shots of main character and the scene (close up, extreme close up) also different shots of the props.
TUESDAY	Blogging, uploading evidence of filming (pictures)

2nd  week	Scenes to film outside of college (Hackney)
FRIDAY	The escaping scenes, the scene of the main character running away from the villain into the woods (take pictures of filming to use as evidence)
	Take different type of shots of main character and the scene (close up, extreme close up) also different shots of the props.
TUESDAY	Blogging and catching up on missed blog posts, uploading evidence of filming (pictures)