Wednesday 15 December 2010

Evaluation - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Throughout this project my knowledge of computer programmes such as 'Garageband', 'LiveType' 'iMovie' and 'IDvD' have all improved. 
'LiveType' was used to create our company idents and also 'The Moors' title screen which comes at the end of our opening. 
'Garageband' was used to produce a soundtrack which is used frequently at different points throughout the film opening
'iMovie' was used to burn our product onto discs and give them title screens.

At the start of the project I have knowledge from editing the preliminary task, therefore I was able to roughly edit clips together using 'iMovie' to produce film.
However I had no knowledge of how to work on the sound, or edit the clips, Throughout the course of creating our final product I gained this is knowledge, and this improved our final piece and made it look more professional. 

An example of how I edited the clips is the change of the contrast on the killing scene to accentuate the blue colour filter from the camera, this helps to make the scene look darker and also fits with the stereotypical horror film production. 

An example of how I edited sound is the extraction of the audio from certain clips, such as footsteps which I then repeated and changing the volume to make the actress sound further away.

As well as my knowledge of computer programme technology, I have improved my knowledge of camera equipment use. Previously I only knew how to use a camera and tripod, whereas now I'm able to alter camera setting such as adjust the focus. Other camera equipment we learnt how to use a was the boom mike, which allowed us to achieve a higher quality of sound in our final product. Whilst shooting our earliest footage we realised that the sound quality was poor, especially seen as our location was very windy. We resolved this problem by using the boom mike and now our audio sounds more professional.

Monday 13 December 2010

Evaluation - Looking back at yout preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

In our preliminary task there are many glitches such as; sounds in the background, actors smiling or talking when they shouldn't be, poor lighting, the verisimilitude of the costume, props. However in our final product we had to avoid these glitches being a part of it. 

In order to prevent sound problems we learnt how to use a boom mike which produced a higher quality of sound, although we also need to learn how to edit the sound one our footage was uploaded into iMovie. We learnt how to extract the audio and lip sync the footage, we also learnt how to add additional sound such as ambience, footsteps and music. Over all this meant that our product sounded much more profesional than our preliminary task.

The production of our own music, is again another aspect in which we developed our skills from preliminary task to final product. We used a programme on the macs 'Garageband' in order to produce our own music. This was a necessity as we aren't allowed to use other people's copyrighted products in our film without permission. When producing our preliminary task we didn't know this, although we didn't use any music anyway which hinders its quality and makes it sound amateur. The addition of music to our product helps us to create atmosphere as well as making it sound like a professional piece of work.


We learnt whilst editing that variety of shots and cut away shots were very important, compared to our prelim which uses only one or two shots within any one scene. However I think our product would be improved if a few more cut away shots were used. As well as this we also realised that in order to make our product more visually interesting we needed to shoot the same shots from different angles, which again is something we didn't do in our preliminary task and therefore the editing looks very basic.

With our real media product we were able to gain audience feedback, which helped us improve our film as they gave constructive critisism on which parts were less believable. Whereas with our preliminary task we produced it very quickly which meant that our first draft was the only one we submitted, the opportunity to draft and re-work our final product meant that scenes such as the killing scene were viewed by others and their feedback made it possible for us to improve them drastically.

For the preliminary task the group did not plan or organise the production of the film. When producing our final product we began by drawing up storyboards, and filled in production schedules. We also drafted and re-drafted our idea until it was as good as we could make it. This shows how we progressed from the preliminary task as we made the effort to organise what we were doing in order to produce a better product.

For the production of our final product we always planned in advance to ensure we had all the right props and our actors were in the same costume. For example, before shooting our killing scene we came prepared with the props which included fake blood and a large kitchen knife. As well as this we also stained the white top our actress was wearing with the blood and this meant we had to find another similar one for the next shooting. Though this does slightly damage the verisimilitude and if I were to re-do this in future I would remember that any drastic changes to costume should be the last scene to be filmed. However when producing our preliminary task we weren't as well organised and frequently made use of whatever props were available to us, therefore achieving verisimilitude wasn't possible.

We learnt the difficulties of shooting in the dark whilst producing our preliminary task, there are numerous shots where the lighting is so poor, it is hard to make out what is on screen. We had to learn from this whilst producing our final product however poor lighting was still a big issue with the final product production, because as a horror film the scenes would have looked better shot in the dark, but as we were unable to get hold of the right sort of lighting equipment, shooting in the woods in the dark was an impossible feat, so instead we shot in the daylight and edited the colour on the computers to make it look darker.

Monday 6 December 2010

Evaluation - Who would be the audience for your media product and why?

The horror genre appeals to young audiences aged 15-24, this is because youth audiences typically enjoy the atmosphere created by tension and fear as well as watching graphic violence, more so than the older audience.

Also an older audience will typically prefer a more complex and sophisticated plot lines to a film than the horror, and especially slasher genre, provides. They may instead prefer psychological thrillers which are more cleverly written and are less predictable.

Another reason why our product will appeal to younger audiences is because our cast are all aged 17 which means it is unlikely to appeal to audienes much older than they are. 

Because of the violence violence within the film opening means the film would be rated 15. Teenagers younger than 15 will still typically find the horror genre appealing, this is because they aim to act like their older peers.

 
Male audiences would also enjoy our product because of the 'Scream Queen' we cast. She is blonde, attractive and wears a 'low-cut' top, it is also signified that she is sexually active, and all this applies to the male gaze theory, drawing in male audiences. For example, films such as 'Sorority Row' have cast an almost entire female cast, and all are attractive and wear revealing outfits, in that way we have used existing products and copied them to attract similar
audiences.

Our film is set in Yorkshire and our cast are all from Yorkshire, which means we do not have any cross-over appeal to the US and even other parts of the world such as Australia. In order to achieve cross-over appeal we would of had to set our film in a well known UK location, and/or used a famous actor or actress to achieve successful advertisements which would attract the attention of world wide audiences. The most likely audience for a film like ours will be British, similar audeinces to films such as 'This is England' and 'Dead Man's Shoes' which like ours are set in northern locations and have not cast very famous actors/actresses.