Working on evaluation questions

Today I have been working on my evaluation questions

Creating website

Today i started working on my website

Finishing touches to animatic

Today we added the final touches to our animatic so it would be ready to be uploaded onto our website. We added music to it and put in some transitions were needed.

Collecting final pieces for production

Today we were collecting pictures, music and clips from the internet to use in our final product. We wanted to use intertextuality in our production so were looking a what clips we could use, but we was not definatly sure if we were going to include it.

Master classs at the CLC

Today at the CLC we were given a talk by ...

Second editing session

Today we were meant to be editing but unfortunately Deli the man who was meant to be coming with the equipment never booked in our session so when he had realises it was too late to come as we wouldn't have had enough time. Although we couldn't do our editing we just carried on with our other work.

Website Overview

Today we recieved a production report checklist to make sure we remain on track and know exactly what we are doing.

Researching film websites

Today in lesson we were told that we will be making our directors cut in the form of a website so when had to then go on and look into how other film web pages have been set out, we had to make some notes on how this was done and what makes it good, we wanted to some screen-shots of the websites but unfortunately we were unable to do so. From doing this research I found that film websites have information about the film and they also tend to have trailers on them as well. We were also told that we have to do a website overview before we actually start to create our own website as we needed to work out what will be going under what link and from that then sketch how we wanted it to look.

Evaluation Questions

Today we received our evaluation questions which are:

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challange forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How effective is the combination of your main prodcut and ancillary texts?
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Editing of final production - Session 1

Today my media class went to the CLC in order to start editing our final production that we had been filming. When we were given our footage we started off by watching it to make sure everything was on there that we needed and that all the sound was working properly, after this we began to start cutting clips out of the whole footage that we was going to use and placing them in the order that we wanted them to go in. We was doing this by following the storyboard we had previously done as the footage we filmed was not in the order we wanted it in as we had to film different sections at different times.
Whilst doing this we were told how to do split screen in case we wanted to include it in our production but we decided we didn't want to use it as it didn't fit in with our story. However, as we had a lot of footage we were unable to edit all of it in one day but this was not a problem as Miss Rudhan has booked us in for some extra sessions.

Gathering images & Music for final production

Today in lesson me and my group were gathering some images and music which we could use in our final production. We were looking for some music that would go perfectly with the theme of our production but we did not finalise anything as we couldn't think of anything that we really liked.

Filming our production

Yesterday we started to film the opening sequence of our thriller for our final production. First we started off by going to a cemetery in Dulwhich where we were going to film a short piece of footage that we wanted to include in the final production. When we got there the graveyard looked frosty from the cold and we thought it was would be a really good effect in the film so we started to set up the equipment before it all started to melt. However, one we finished setting up the equipment and was ready to film we realised that the camera wasn’t working so we took it upon ourselves to go to Maria’s house to find out what was wrong, when we got there we tried to charge the camera to see if that was the problem and we found out that the camera wasn’t working because it wasn’t charged so we had to charge it which put us behind schedule a little. Once the camera had finished charging we went back to the cemetery to try again but however when we got there and set up the equipment the light was too bright which meant that we couldn't see anything through the camera so we decided to leave that cemetery to go to the one in nunhead but the lighting was the same there as well so we had to make a decision to either film then or wait until the next day, so we decided to just go to Maya’s house to get on with the rest of the filming. When we got to Maya's we charged the camera and started to set up to film the rest, we then had to start putting the makeup on our actors and setting up outside. When we had finished this we went to our location to start filming, during the filming everything was going well but it was taking long as people kept interrupting and getting in the shot when we was filming which meant we had to do it over and over again and we was also trying to get a variety of shots. After filming outside in the woodlands we went back into Maya’s house to film the final scene of her in the bath dead with her attacker standing over her.
Today we went back to the cemetery to fill the scene that we were unable to film yesterday, when we got there we went to the place where we decided we was going to film and started to set up the equipment. Once we had done this we started to fill the scene. We decided to film some extra parts just in case we wanted to add in more things to the shots we had already got. Whilst doing this scene everything went well.

Animatic

Today we finished drawing our animatic and started taking pictures of it in order to load it onto the computer to gather an idea of how the final product will be. From doing this you can decided on if you want to add or take out anything and you can decide on a definite order for your production as you are able to put your images into order and play them to see what it looks like. You can also use this to help you decide on what type of music you could use to go with your footage. So from doing this we came up with a base of how we wanted our production to be but it wasn't finalised as you have to be prepared for things to go wrong or if you want to change things. We never decided on any music as we thought it would be better to choose that once we had seen the actual footage.

Storyboarding our ideas

Today during the lesson we started drawing up how we wananted each shot to be in our thriller. We decided on what shot types we were going to use like whether they will be close ups, high/low angle ect. We decided exactly where the character would be and what was going to be in the shot with them.

Thoughts and ideas

Today my group stayed after school to think of some ideas for how we wanted the opening sequence for out thriller to be. We came up with two different ideas that we could do for our production. One of which was a psychological thriller about a young child d who was bullied in her younger years which caused her to be mentally ill as she was growing up, we decided that this child would be fascinated with masks as she use to prefer wearing them as a child as other children use to call her ugly. The idea we came up with was that she is in a bathroom playing with her masks and as she leaves to go to her room she looks out of the window into the woodlands and she sees three people wearing mask outside dancing and she turns away in shock to discover when she looks back she realises one of them have a knife and then they disappear. She then goes to her room and starts reading her diary and she starts hearing voices of the children calling her ugly and gets angry and starts ripping it up. And then suddenly the knife that she saw out of the window was on her bed and she starts playing with it.
Our Second idea was of a dead person who's spirit is not at rest as she was brutally murdered and is our for revenge. She has killed many people and now they are back for her. We decided on a graveyard scene where the character will be walking through the cemetery towards her own grave holding dead flowers and when she reaches her grave she screams and throws the flowers down. We also decided on a scene in the woodlands with the main character sitting in the middle of trees with candles surrounding her and rope surrounding the trees. Whilst in there e the people who she had killed would appear from the bushes and tyring to get into the circle but fail. Also we thought it would be good to have a clip of the main character from far but gradually getting closer until she gets so close that you can only see her eyes. All the characters will be wearing a piece of white clothing with dramatic make-up.
After discussing between the group we decided to go with the second idea as we thought it was better and would have a better affect on the audience.

Second case study - Panic room

today i have been watching Panic room and analysing the first 5minutes of it.

First case study- Hide and seek

today, in ma lesson we was analysing the begining of the first 5mins of hide and seek.

Final editing session

Today we were able to add all of our finishing touches to our production to perfect it to the standards they should be at. We added some music in places were we felt it was needed and we were taught how to fade the sound when there was dialogue. Also we added a black and white effect to make it fit in with our genre.

Research continued

Today in class we was reading and annotating some research in order to be able to come up with my own thriller. We were highlighting and annotating things that we thought were important and also things that we thought could help us in the production of our work. We were discussing the sub-genres within thrillers and also discussing Sir Alfred Hitchcock and how he came about and things that influenced him in the work that he was producing.

Editing continued

Today we was editing our preliminary task in order to complete it but unfortunately it is still not finished completely as there are still a few finishing touches to be added. During the editing i came across the fact that the background sound on some of the clips was very fuzzy due to the fact that there was no headphones connected to the camera but I was not able to change this as there was also dialogue in the clip but I am happy I realised this now because it is a mistake that I can learn from and in the coursework I will know not to repeat the same mistake. Today we was told that we could make our production 1minute including transitions as everyone was still struggling to keep within the time frame. Also today we added the effects we wanted to perfect it to how we wanted the production to be and we were also able to add music in the background to give the production the full effect. We were also able to add in some transitions were we feel they was needed in order to make the production flow as smoothly as it possibly could. There are a few things that need to be changed such as the sound fading in places. After today's session I feel happy with the production I have produced and look forward to watching the finishing product.

Becoming familiar with thriller films

During the past week I have been watching some thriller films so i will become familiar with certain aspects that occur within these films. I have also been doing this as I wanted to gather some ideas of what kind of things i would like to include in my production. I have been watching a range of thriller films to get a rough idea of what types of features are included in the different genres within thrillers. From doing this I have been gathering some ideas of how to set out my production. I have been looking at how the codes and conventions of the thrillers are being followed and what makes them interestoing and intreguing. I tried to watch a range of thrillers to see how different sub-genres are carried out and to look at what makes them differ from each other.

Research

I have been carrying out some research on thrillers today to widen my horizon on these types of films to enable myself to produce the best thriller possible when we start to plan our coursework. When carrying out this research i found out that there were a lot more thriller films than i thought there was, i found that there are many sub-genres within the category of thriller and this was very interesting. These sub-genres are:
Action thriller, Conspiracy thriller, Crime thriller, Disaster thriller, Drama thriller,Eco-thriller,
Horror thriller, Erotic thriller, Legal thriller, Medical thriller, Political thriller,Psychological thriller, Spy thriller, Supernatural thriller & Techno-thriller.
I also researched horror as my group was thinking about doing a horror thriller as we were coming up with some very interesting ideas and we thought it would be perfect to put them into the opening sequence of our thriller. When in my lesson we was told about a man named Alfred Hitchcock so I also done some research on him as well as he is a very famous man known for producing thriller films such as Psyhco which is a very popular film. He became famous for his expert and largely unrivaled control of pace and suspense, and his films were both full of fear and fantasy.

Editing

Today we were given our film footage so we could edit it to produce our final production. When we received this footage i was not sure if we was going to be able to hear the sound as we had some difficulties with the equipment but luckily enough everything was fine. During this session we began to choose certain clips from our footage that we wanted to include in our production and started to put them in the order that we wanted them. When editing i found that it was quite hard to cut down a piece of 4minute footage to a 30second production, this was because i found that everything that i wanted to include was too long for the time frame given. When the session was coming to and end we had realised that nobody was anywhere near finished with their production so Miss Rudhan said she would give us an extra session on November 5th to continue the task and she also told us that we could make our production 45secs maximum as everyone was struggling to keep their production within 30secs.

Filming production

Yesterday my group came over to my house so we could film our preliminary task. First of all we had to get Maya and Sean into their costumes and do their hair and make-up before we could actually start the filming, once we had done that we had a couple of run through to make sure they knew exactly what they was doing and then we set up the equipment. When we started the filming we decided we was going to do each shot at a few different angles so we would have a variety of shots to choose from when it came to edit the footage. It was stressful filming the footage as Maya and Sean kept forgetting their lines which meant we had to film a shot over and over again. When we got half way through we thought we was doing so well until we realised that we never had the headphones and microphone connected to the camera so when we realised we had to go back and film all the shots that had dialogue again, this put us behind schedule but we still pulled through even though it took us linger than we thought it would. We carried on filming the production but we was having difficulties with the sound as we failed to hear anything through the headphones, we tried to fix them but we found that the only way you could hear was if the microphone was right at the persons mouth which meant you could see it in the shot and that just wouldn't work. We kept the microphone as close as possible without it being in the shot and just continued with the filming not knowing whether or not we would be able to hear it. Once the filming had come to an end we then packed away the equipment and just hoped for the best.

CLC

Today me and my media class went on a trip to the CLC to learn what we needed to know to carry out our preliminary task. Whilst we were there we were given a piece of footage of a lady making a cup of tea and we were told to edit it to make in look like it had been filmed continuously. They made us do this as this is what we were going to have to do after we had filmed our footage. When doing this task i found it very interesting and found that it was easier than i fort it would be. However, when we moved onto the next task which was to film 2 people talking to each other and edit them together as one was very complicating as we had to synchronize the sound in order for them to be speaking with each other not at each other. When doing this me and my group had some complications as the people who were recording the footage never got the begging which include the clap which was used for the start of the conversation. This meant that we couldn't line up the sound and just had to work around it.
Also, we were taught how to use Green screen technology(CGI), this was very complicating as you had to keep trying different backgrounds to see which one worked best with the footage you had. If you could still see pieces of the green background then you had to change your background so you could only see the the background you want. This was a very good experience and I learnt many things that will help me in media later on in life.

Creating Animatic

Today we took pictures of the animatic we had produced so that we could then upload them onto an apple mac computer and crate a picture version of our production. We will do this by using a programme called i-movie in which we will then be able to download the soundtracks that we would like to use in the production to see whether it will go with it or not. However, a few problems occurred when uploading the pictures which meant we were unable to complete the animatic successfully, this will be prosponed to a later date when we are able to finish it properly.

Character Information

Today, my group and I came up with some background information about the characters that will be in our production, we done this to show why the plot of our production is the way it is. We decided that the man in production will be called Mr Doeski and the lady will be called Dollie, Mr Doeski is the owner of a hit man company in which his targets are people who have betrayed him in the past and Dollie helps him trap the victims with her wonderful charm in order for Mr Doeski to send a hit man to kill the victim. In the production piece Mr Doeski is very angry with Dollie as she is becoming too attached to the victim she is meant to be trapping and is prolonging the process of the attack and the man who hired Mr Doeski is becoming very frustrated as the killing is taking too long and is demanding a quick job or no money and this is jeopardising Mr Doeski's reputation.

We also came up with a script for the short piece of dialogue the characters will exchange which will be as followed:
Mr Doeski: Sit down!
Dollie: What is it Mr Doeski?
Mr Doeski: He's up my ass Dollie, I ain't got no damn time for a delay in my shot.
Dollie: I nearly got him, give me a little more time, please Mr Doeski, Ill have him I promise
Mr Doeski: (Overlapping from 'I Promise') Listen!
Pause.
No more messing with me. . . OK Dollie.

We also produced our storyboard and planned our animatic so it would be ready to be photographed in the next lesson. We also done a run through of our production to ensure we know exactly what we will be doing when we borrow the filming equipment.

Gathering Ideas

Today, we watched an animatic to gain an clear view of what we will have to produce, we also watched several case studies of others work to understand how our work is expected to be and to gather some ideas of how we want to set out our production.
Today my group and I decided that we are going to produce a crime thriller as we feel it is a very interesting type of thriller and felt that we had more creative ideas for this type than what we had for the others.We decided that we wanted it to be set in the 1920's as we felt this would be very interesting and felt that we could produce this to the best of our ability, from this we came up with some ideas for the location and these were a hotel, a basement, a car park, an office, a boiler room or a graveyard, we decided on these as we feel it would create a good scene for tension. However although we have a few ideas for the location we would prefer it to be set in a boiler room or basement. We also came up with some ideas of how we wanted to produce our production.
As we have decided on a 1920's theme we have each been assigned a role which is to carry out research on specific areas from this time, theseroles were:
Researching the cotton club and Bugzy Malone which is to be done by Maria.
Women in the 1920's and how they were represented which is to be done by Chantelle.
Men in the 1920's and how they acted e.g Being a gangster which is to be done by me.
How people dressed in the 1920's which is to be done by Maya.
Shortly after this we bgan to storyboard our ideas in order to produce a clear understandin of how our production will be fimed, we are also doing this so that we are then ready to make our animatic in the next lesson.
Finally we were given a production unit sheet to ensure we keep on track of what we are meant to be doing and to make sure we keep to deadlines.

Preliminary task

Today, I was introduced to my preliminary task which was:
Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down on a chair opposite another character, with whom he/she then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and 180 degree rule.
Shortly after this I was told to get into a group by my teacher Miss Rudhan, which consisted of people whom i feel I could work best with. My group consists of Maya, Chantelle, Maria and I as we all fell that we can work to the best of our ability with each other.
We were also introduced to different shot types so we were aware of what we would need to be using.
Now that we I have been introduced to our task we will be doing some research into thriller films and coming up with ideas of how we want to film our production and what location we would like it to be in.