FINISHED BLOGGING!

EVALUATION QUESTION 8- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

PRELIM first time filming with the techniques that we were taught

FINAL FILM after a 2week period of filming our opening sequence

(PASSWORD= Student)

TITLES

This is the title for our prelim film, it is directly in the middle on a black background with a faint red font. This was created on Live Type as one of the first titles we made. We loved it at the time then as we gradually learnt about titles and how they should be readable we realised that it wasn't such a good idea. However the way it is titled slightly is very disorientated and may pass as connotations for the film.

This is the title for our Final thriller. I downloaded it from a website called dafont.com. i really liked that it was bold and stood out, It held some connotations of the film as we placed it next to the London eye that is a circle attraction. Referring to the name THE CYCLE that means rotation/circle. This showed how i have progressed and learnt how to download different fonts that are much more suited to my thriller sequence.

MISE EN SCENE

Props used in these two images are a tesco carrier bag which was used as  a way to kill one of the characters, initial we thought this was a good idea but as we continued research we realised that it didn't look realistic and in a way was comical. Obviously it was suppose to be suspenseful and i didn't think that particular shot suited the genre. We also used a 'hazard' type to barricade the door to indicate that something dangerous is inside the room. This however was a good idea and kind of showed the audience that it may be a thriller.

We learnt for our final film that were had to think about mise en scene carefully and that they are used to create part of the actual storyline. In the first image you can see a girl holding a flower, looking deeply at the petals. In a way an innocent girl can be perceived and the flower is used to indicate her persona and what type of character she is. The other shot is of a woman carrying heavy shopping. The audience can already tell that she has been on a journey and it creates background idea about the character for instance, that she had to go food shopping for the household. This mise en scene was much better suited for the story we were trying to get across.

EDITING

The first shot with the two circles is from our prelim film. We can see that i used a cross dissolve transition which shows the same shot in two different  perspectives. One is from the killers and the other is from the victims, i thought this was a good example to use as it shows that we did try and use the information we learnt from films and audience perspective. The second image is from our final film  we decided to be much more challenging and creative as we incorporated two scenes into one using a transition called 'fade in' this allowed two scenes to merge together. It in a way introduces a new scene while one is finishing. This was useful as we were stuck for time and only had a 2 mins Maxim title sequence.

                                                            

LIGHTING
The first shot is from our prelim task, as you can see the shot of Sheri is extremely dark, allowing the audience not to see her face. This is very bad as facial expressions are often important to portray a successful piece of work. As the shot is also far away (long shot) we are even more at a disadvantage to see who she is. I brought this knowledge and mistake with me along to my final thriller as i remembered that lighting is important and it should be clear who characters are. The JVC cameras helped me with lighting issues (the GAIN button) increased the light tensity and made shots brighter if we didn't have any natural light at that particular shot.

CAMERA

These two shots are from my prelim film, They are actually really bad shots. One of the characters are practically cut out of the shot, this is bad as i later learnt that if this was shown on a big screen for example in the cinema it wouldn't fit in the frame and that part of the shot will be cut off. The second shot has allot of space at the side. Allowing the audience to be distracted and it doesn't look really professional. The over the shoulder shot should have been much more closer and really captured the three actors involved rather than getting the chairs, computer and bags in the background.

These two shots are taken from our Final film. These shots are much better and do fit the content more. They show that i have learnt skills and my progression has been clearly stated. The first shot is the over the shoulder shot and it is clear as to who is the victim. It is very close and it feels as if we are directly behind the guy looking at the young woman. The second shot i would describe as an extreme close up. We can see his eyebrows, one eye and nose. This really does capture his appearance slightly and get an idea of the actor. We would easily be able to identify him in the rest of the film. A variety of shots were used to really show off our skills and knowledge.

SOUND
Our sound in the Preliminary task was BORING it was just one consistent sound and had no excitement. We used the programme Sound Track Pro to add in a scream of when the killer suffocated the victim, even then it sounded rather fake and artificial. I then decided that for the final film we had to make sure that the soundtrack was very tense and suspenseful to create the mood. We ended up creating very unique and catching sound sequence from using the programme sound track pro. From all our audience feedback they all mention that our sound really did fit with our sequence, pace and titles, this allowed me to believe that it was an effective and successful piece

EXPERIENCES

During my time i have also learnt that team work is extremely important. My group consisted of 4 people, at times we had some difficulties were we didn't agree on particular ideas and decisions however we always tried to incorporate our ideas together. Meeting up to film in the mornings were hassle and there was always a group member late, but once we all were together we actively started participating and giving feedback on shots that we liked and didn't like so it was a productive filming experience. one thing that i liked about our group is that we always helped one another, constantly reminding each other about blogs that were due or planning that was needed. We usually allocated specific roles to our group members, for example Elias did soundtracks, Mariama and Myself done editing and Sheri focused on the titles and credits.

Being organised is sensual as you have to be very prepared to make sacrifices for example spend time filming out of college hours rather than going out with friends. We had to be on time when we were asked to collect equipment because of the simple reason that time slots were allocated and there are not enough cameras for every single group. This resulted in many people realising our responsibilities and recognising we had to work as a team in order to have a successful film at the end of the course.

I learnt that you had to be very careful with the equipment as they were very expensive and needed allot of care when handling. JVC camera, still cameras, memory cards, Tripod and flip cameras were the basics that i used throughout my filming process.
Overall my experience was great and i would do it all over again, i have some really nice memories and have learnt so much about technology and how to use Apple Mac computers.
There were a lot of differences between the two sequences, and in watching them, we could really see the differences and development in our editing and production techniques over time.My skills with editing have improved massively since the beginning of the course: initially, there were just lots of jump cuts and a various range of shots that didn't particularly flow together. Now i have learnt to use different techniques such as over layering shots and merging shots to create am overall effect that is more suspenseful for a physchological thriller.

Finally i have learnt that planning before you go our filming is very important as you have to organise who is bringing in particular props for that shooting day. Location for the setting, what time of day you are going to meet because when my group filmed at London Eye (Waterloo) we had decided to go in the morning as it is a tourist attraction so it often gets busy during the afternoon. You also have to do research so you know exactly what elements a thriller holds.

EVALUATION QUESTION 7- What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During my time researching, planning and filming i have learnt alot about different technologies from the process of constructing this product. 

• Blogger- Write posts, embed videos, upload images. Used is to store all our research for thrillers. We were able to change post's accordingly, track changes and keep in touch with our group members. 
• We used the JVC cameras to actually record our footage. They were professional cameras with high quality footage that enabled us to make our films look as nice as possible.
• Final Cut Pro, Live type, Sound Track Pro, Quick Time, Handbreak were all used together in order to complete a really good film. 
• I will now show a short animatic explaining my own journey through the maze of technology that i have encountered while filming, planning and researching,

VIDEOS OF THE TECHNOLOGIES THAT I LEARNT DURING THE FILMING PROCESS
The first video is a slide show with images and text about the technologies i have learnt. The second video is the same but instead of text i done a voice over.

My whole experience was extremely useful and i am now much more advanced on new technologies such as Live type, Final Cut Pro and Sound Track Pro. It has now equipped me into understanding how the film industry actually go about planning, researching and filming the final product.

EVALUATION QUESTION 4 & 5- What kind of media institution migh distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

What kind of media institution migh distribute your media product and why?

As part of our evaluation we need to think about how we would advertise and distribute our films. It is a very important part of actually making our product successful , we also apply this in order to attract a good target audience. Undoubtedly we have to be extremely realistic about our student film release and have to   take into account that Candi Studios are a low budget company but we still have up to date equipment and facilities that will make our films look as good as possible. For our thriller (THE CYCLE) we did decided to use Candi Studios and did it in association with Safari films/ Broadway entertainment as it is a low budget production company so we have to find means of advertising that are not mainstream ideas.

Our film is a student video that will be released over the Internet on Vimeo, embedded onto a blog and may find its way onto YouTube for publicisiation. As it is independent, low budget production company we Will automatically get a cinematic screening a shared screening our peers and families for feedback and approval for a good Thriller movie.

There is an advantage of us being students and actually having the opportunity to film a Thriller movie. Continuously young people are forever spending hours on ends on social networking sites such as Sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Facebook is exceptional useful as young people who my thriller audience is often have hundreds and hundreds of friends on Facebook. Once they upload their video there 'friends' can view it and 'Share' it to their list. This is therefore a continuous cycle that allows the movie to be published and distributed through a social networking site. They can also get comments and 'likes' giving feedback and criticism on their movie.

Example of how Videos are posted/ shared on Facebook

We can also try and distribute our media product through Candi website adverts,  our own personal blogs such as Tumblr, adverts on student union websites and maybe even posters  Keeping in mind that we are a low budget company these are approriate forms of getting public opinion and notice as they don't cost much money and they are cheap and quick methods. As we all know to distribute to a good company there needs to be good forms of marketing.  It will be seen on cinematic screening at 'The Green Screen' cinema in Angel, Upper street, and will be viewed by ourselves and other media students in our college. There will also be a release of 200 DVD copies of our film which each media student will receive and then we will have the choice to distribute it by showing friends and family etc. 

The BBC Film Network is a realistic showcase for film. It provides opportunities for young filmmakers because of the niche audience that is attracted to amateur films and films that don't have enough money to distribute in a high budget way. This way the website gives the filmmakers a chance to get their product to an audience. Here is an amateur film from the BBC Film Network.

This is were we watched our thriller films with the MediaStudies Firm. Lovely time on the 5th April.

This a quick voice recording of the audiece reception after our film had been shown...

How will I attract/address my audience?

My film can attract an audience that enjoys the kind of psychological thriller that involves a story that consist of a killer and innocent victims. Facebook is a brilliant way to attract my audience as my target audience is from late to early ages women eg, 18years-25years who commonly use social networking sites.

 

An example of some student work on the Internet that has had quite a large number of hits is:

 

The Internet has been used to launch this movie to a wider audience as it has been published on YouTube one of the worlds most visited music and film sites that have millions of views a day. This Thriller opening called BLITZ from students that attend hurtwoodhouse performance college made 229 views on YouTube. It has also published through Blogger.com as our media teachers shared the link with us so we could access it accordingly. I think their target audeicne is for about 20 year old as it hold elements that young people may not be remotely interested in. It slightly has elements of crime/psychological thriller sub genres and rally does have some interesting shots. It also shows a transition in time when it says '60 years later' that reinforces that a change has happened which stuns audience. I followed a similar model of launching my film will be shown in a cinematic screening in front of students from the AS media department, i will probably then be able to ask people what they thought about my thriller opening.

YouTube is the most popular video sharing site. It reaches a wide audience and with a YouTube page you can receive user feedback and comments on how well the video actually was, you can remain anonymous. However you have to have signed up with YouTube in order to comment or like videos. This makes publicising better and more effective as it keeps being social involved and they can say what they think. 

EVALUATION QUESTION 6- Audience feedback and comment

POSITIVE FEEDBACK

NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

This is all the feedback that we gained from our class during lesson time. We all watched eachothers thriller openings and commented on the strengths and weakness of the films. Lots of members of the class really liked our titles and the black and white shots with soft edges, that really signify the dream/nightmare. The transititon of black and white to colour shots aswell as our music as they felt it suited the piece well however it could have been more creepy. I think it is useful to get feeback so that you know how to improve if you ever get the opportunity to do something like this again. It made me think diffently about how our thriller could have turned out, especially looking at others. I hope when we finally watch then on the 5th April we will get a good response from the audience. I wish we did have longer to actually film and edit but this is only the beginning of what i feel is going to be a career for me =D

QUICK VIDEO BLOG

This is a quick video blog just showing what blogs i am currently going, briefy explaing our target audience and showing a thriller.

EVALUATION QUESTION 3- Who would be the audience for your media product?

Michelle, 22 years old enjoys outgoing and entertain activities. Shes a journalist for the magazine Vogue, she is very creative and loves learning new things. In her spare time she likes going to the cinema especially with her boyfriend who likes watching thrillers and action movies. She does enjoy the typical stereotypical shopping spree and loves the colour pink. In the future Michelle would like to work on the radio and appear on television shows interviewing famous people. She gets a real buzz out of the media industry and continuously tries to get as many opportunities as possible.She currently owns 67 DVDs and often has friends around on Friday Nights for 'Movie Night'. Her his main clothes shops H&M, Footlocker and Selfridges. 

THIS IS THE MONTAGE OF THE CONTENTS IN HER HANDBAG

I think this is the Target audience for our thriller because of the fact that the victims of the killer are all young females. This way it would attract more of a female audience than it would of males. Furthermore it is a psychological thriller so it has elements of feelings and this is usually associated with women as they primarily are the ones who always 'think'. It may appear to males in some cases for example the being where we have reality shots of Elias turning and tossing this can relate to men when they feel stressed from a long hard day at work.

EVALUATION QUESTION 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We represent a stalker as one of the stills of character from  THE STEPFATHER he is similar to our charter RELLIK (Elias) from our movie THE CYCLE They are both characters who are on a mission to capture female victims and turn their lives into what is seemed to be 'tragic'. Both  these male characters are extremely normal when they approach these females and do not flirt to give anything away, they just have subtle conversations about normal things. This allows the audience to think that these character's are 'normal' and just want to have a friendly conversation with these female character's. The fact that the shot are from the females point of view shows us that they really think that the guy is being nice and just generally showing them some attention. The differences between the two character's is that in The Stepfather the man (David Harris) is out to kill these women after he marries them, just for the simple fact that he wants to invest there money and this cycle just continues when he succeeds. In The Cycle however, he just have a psychological disorder where he is addicted and passionate about meeting girls, going on dates  and killing them for his own personal pleasure.

One distinctive similarity that we wanted to convey was that both 'killers' take their victims to the same place all the time. For instance in The Stepfather he seems to meet them in supermarkets, preferably women who have two children. This can be seen at the beginning and at the end of the film. In The Cycle he takes his victims to the park for walks.

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

Real media products usually consist of:

• The establishing shot that we used was that of THE LONDON EYE
• The Title sequence is usually in a specific order - We had the ident first and then the production company followed by the actors names and then introduced who the music was by, directors and producers
• Setting a mood - the breathing right at the start shows that we want the attention of the audience right from the get go.
• We can usually identify what the subgenre is or the genre of the thriller
• Main characters are always shown during the first few minutes of a film.

INTERTEXUALITY USED FROM OTHER THRILLERS AND SHOWN IN OURS 'THE CYCLE'...

An establishing shot of NY from 'Taking of Pelhem 123 was used to bring us into the setting and storyline itself. So we tried to show our skills of intertexuality through filming an establishing shot of LONDON, London eye a famous attraction. This helps sets the scene of our thriller and draws the audience into thinking that this film takes place in England. It introduces the film and makes the audience wonder about what will happen now.

The other piece of intertextuality that we used was a close up of just the face when Elias wakes up, just like in What Lies Beneath this can be seen when the female wakes up from under the water in shock. The audience then 'jump' as it was rather unexpected. This creates a dramatic response in the audience and they are therefore excited for the rest of the film. we showed our actors state of 'shock' when he awakes from his nightmare, puzzled and out of breath.


9 SHOTS FROM TITLE SEQUENCE AND 9 SHOTS FROM MY OWN TITLE SEQUENCE

 From http://www.artofthetitle.com/ i found a title sequence that was quite similar to my own thriller film. I found 'BLUE VALENTINE' The shots look very much the same in the sense that the font is plain white, on backgrounds that are clear enough for the audience to read. The title of the movie comes in rather early on in the sequence and this follows the main conventions of the order of titles on an opening of a film. The shots are kind of similar as it is a male character with females in different locations, this may show that he is either up to something or just simply likes travelling. The heavy use of colour and contrast is very eye catching and makes it look like an interesting title sequence. There is also a vary of shots from close ups, establishing shots and long shots this is one of the skills i learnt during filming, more varied shots makes the opening look much more interesting and exciting as it suggests what the rest of the film will be like.

I made this title sequence by screen grabbing parts of my film while it played.

This is my thriller 'THE CYCLE' as you can see it looks quite similar and the titles are very simple and clear.

FINAL EDIT OF OUR THRILLER 'THE CYCLE'

FINISHED NOTICE BOARD

LIVETYPE

SOUNDTRACK PRO

FINAL CUT PRO

opinion on Thriller Opening

I actually feel that our thriller opening is quite suspensful and interesting. As soon as the film starts you can already hear Elias breathing heavily. While the 'candi studios' is showing. This will captivate the auidences ear as soon as it beginning, as we wanted to get there attention from the moment starts. As our opening is a series of flashbacks that Elias has, the flashblacks are in black and white with a soft edge background that will suggest it is a dream. The opening has many transparent scenes to show uncertainity and distortment of Elias frame of mind. We kind of want the auidence to be confused so that they will remain interested and intridgued. The opening shows reality shots aswell so you can see Elias movement while he sleeps. (Tosing and turning). I really like our opening. We will now wait on feedback from students and teachers.

Photo slideshow

OUR Group 14

Looking around during the filming process i saw that many groups were struggling or got easily frustrated with all group members surrounded around the computer screen shouting and telling each other there ideas. As a way to keep our filming pace fast we allocated jobs to each member in most circumstances.

For instance when we met up for filming we decided who would bring the props for that day or who would bring the filming equipment.

• Sheri- Focused on the Titles of our Thriller opening and the way it would be presented
• Elias- Focused on the music that went into any scenes we needed, he often used Soundtrack pro
• Mariama & Myself (Demi)- Focused on Editing ad doing all the Importing and Exporting of devices.

 We took it in turn to return equipment if needed.

As a group i actually think we worked rather well, even tough we had a few disagreements we always done majority vote or just tried to incorporate every ones idea the best we could.

Production company name CHANGED

Sadly we had to change our production company name as our Teachers said that they dont consits of just initials so it would look abit sill. our intial idea was D.E.M.S we decided to call it this because it had all our initials and we wanted to seem like our film was made by an independent company. There was no way we could have used  20th Century Fox or Paramount pictures as our thriller was going to be a low budget film. 

However, we were told that it was not very professional for a production company to be someones name and the idea of initials was slightly tacky, so we decided that it was better to use a producer called 'Mike Collins' and another title to be 'In Association with Safari Films and Broadway Entertainmnet'. These sounded more like common production and distrubton companies that you would randomly hear baout or see on trailers or film reviews. The idea of two production companies tells the audience that this film budget is not too much and it is made by an independent company rather than a large .

 

 

SAFARI FILMS/ BROADWAY ENTERTAINMENT

How we actually IMPORTED and EXPORTED

As part of the final finishing touches and getting everything together into one sequence was rather complicated.

• Once we made our sequence on FINAL CUT PRO
• We had to IN and OUT it and the beginning and the end
• Saved this as 'FINAL OPENING SEQUENCE
• We then opened up SOUNDTRACK PRO
• We uploaded our sound track that we were inspired by a youtube video
• We then had to IMPORT our Opening sequnece into SOUNDTRACK PRO
• We then were able to move about the music to places were it seemed best while the clip was playing
• We were then able to watch it on a SMALL SCREEN on SOUNDTRACK PRO
• We then saved this as 'MUSIC'
• Went back into FINAL CUT PRO
• IMPORTED the 'MUSIC' file from our VIDEO DRIVE
• MUTED all other sound that was in our previous opening sequence as we only wanted our NEW SOUNDTRACK to be heard
• Then DRAGGED our SOUNDTRACK onto the tabs
• F13 the screen to watch it bigger and it played with the title sequence

Thats how we in corporated our music track with our film footage, we noticed a couple of errors as while we played the movie we still could hear other noises so we had to keep rechecking that we had MUTED all the unreleveant background sounds

SoundTrack for our Thriller

A QUICK SCREEN GRAB OF THE SELECTION WE HAD WHEN WE DECIDED TO DO OUR SOUNDTRACK TODAY. WE ALREADY HAD THE ROUGH IDEA. BUT FOR THE BEGINNING AND ENDING OUR OUR OPENING SEQUENCE WE USED 'HEAVY BREATHING' TO SUGGEST OUR ACTOR WAS WAKING UP FROM HIS NIGHTMARE

TO NAVIGATE TO THIS WE HAD TO GO TO

-EFFECTS

-PEOPLE

-THEN TYPED IN 'BREATHING'

THERE WAS THEN A SELECTION OF EITHER FEMALE OR MALES BREATHING TYPES WITH A NUMBER OF DIFFERENT EXAMPLES.

Thoughts about finishing

Our Thriller film is now COMPLETED. We are happy to say that we were able to finish at the end of our lesson. It was such a hard task that did aquire lots of time and effort especially the editing process. As i practically put the whole thing together i was rather stressed out as i really wanted our film to look as successful as possible. We were able to add our soundtrack that was made by Elias in our group and it sounded really good with the rest of the film. We also had to quickly get recordings of Elias breathing heavily as if he had just awoken a bad nightmare.

As today was our very last editing, we put in all the names e.g. directors name, actors name etc, Our titles are really simple but still very appealing. They crawl into a black screen  (white font) and slide outwards.

Hopefully everyone enjoys our thriller opening and will be excited to see what happens later on in the film.

OVERDUE video blog 2

The second video blog we made after finishing filming..

WOO!

OVERDUE video blog 1

This is the first video blog we made after filming the first day.. 

Counting down till deadline

-We as a group still need to..

• Make a soundtrack for our movie
• Add in a couple more scenes as the movie is only at 54 seconds
• Improve any editing mistakes
• Add in titles of (Music by, directed, sound by etc..)

4 DAYS TO GO

Sound

We are currently in the process of making a sound Track for our Thriller Opening. We previously heard a really good style which consisted of pianos and drums. It did seem to fit our idea really well but because of copyright issues we cannot just simply download it and use it. Therefore we are going to improvise and make a smilier track to suit our movie and make it ours. We will do this by using the skills we learnt from Sound Track Pro lessons. We will then import it into Final Cut Pro so it plays while our footage is being shown.