Evaluation: Question 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

In this post i will be going though everything we did during the film making process.

For our A2 project we used the Apple macs , we used them because we had all had past experience with using them for our AS project so we all knew how to work them and how to get the best results.
Another reason we used them is because is that they offer a wide range of programs that helped us produce our films successfully. Apple macs are often used in the filming industry because of their high quality and ease of use.

Youtube

Web 2.0 helped us alot over the whole of the film making process. the first thing that aided us as being able to take advantage of a site called youtube. Youtube is a video sharing site which allows anyone to upload a video to the internet for anyone to see, for free. Without the use of Youtube we would not be able to show our final product to anyone outside of the classroom, this also means that our teacher would not be able to view and mark it at home and we would also not be able to embed it onto our coursework blog.  Youtube also aloud us to gather feedback on our rough cut, our ident and our test shots to see what worked and what didn't.

Blogger

Blogger is the next thing that we used, Blogger is a blogging website which is essentially an electronic version of a diary where you can create text posts and also add things such as sounds, images and videos to it. Blogger has a lot more advantages over traditional scrapbook methods, things such as editing a post would be a lot harder in a scrapbook because you would have to start all over again, unlike in Blogger. Also things such as adding video and sound into a post would be impossible if you were using a paper based medium. Blogger also allows us to customise the way our blog looks, and also to give it an interesting and more easy to read layout so that the reader can understand or work better and can easily see the structure of our posts. Another good thing about blogger that enabled us to get our wok done was the feature for us to collaboratively work on our blog at the same time, this means that we can all work on our blog at the same time from different machines, and means we can also view and use different documents at the same time.

Scribd

If we wanted to share our script between our group members so we could either print out a paper based version, or email a copy to every group member and the actors we had hired. The only problem with this are that   they could get lost/deleted or forgotten, this is why we use Scribd. Scribd is a website which allows its users to upload text based documents for people to see. In our case we did not need the document to be public so we decided to to set the privacy of the document to private so only people that are invited are allowed to see it. This helped our group alot because we did not need to go onto the school computer to access the script, we could get it from any computer.

Prezi

To make our posts more interesting and to get the reader immersed  in our work. To do this we decided to use a website called prezi. Prezi lets you create slideshow type documents which can include pictures, images, text, video and sound. Prezi also allows you to post your presentation online for people to see and rate, this also means that we can embed it on our blog and use it as a piece of work.

DivShare

Sharing files between our group without a cloud website would mean either putting files onto a memory stick and then giving it to each group member or printing them out on paper. An example of a cloud network is a website could DivShare. DivShare is a website that allows you to save files fro your computer onto their website and then access them from other computers as long as they have internet access. This feature is good for times when we need to share our group recording of us pitching our treatment ideas so we could all access it from home.

Facebook

Communication was a bit part in the film making process. good communication was needed so that we all knew the shooting times and locations and if someone could not make it then the other group members would need to be told so that we could re-schedule. The same applies with he actors, if one of the actors could not make it on a certain day or time then we would need to talk to each other to find the next best possible day for us to shoot.

Final Draft

When creating our script for our film we needed some software that would let us easily create a professional and easy to read script. we decided to use Final Draft because it is tailored to creating scripts. We did this so that our actors could prepare for the film and learn their lines to make the filming process a lot quicker and easier. We found this program fairly straight forward and easy to use. Below is a screenshot of our script being written in Final Draft

Story Board Quick

We used this program to create a storyboard for our film. The purpose of us doing this is so that we can get an idea of the length of the film and what the characters will be doing in in each shot of the film, this also helped us decide which order the shots were going to be seen and what camera angles to use. Below is a screenshot of our final storyboard.

Final Cut Pro X

Probably the most important piece of software that we used over the process of making our film is Final Cut Pro. Final cut aloud us to edit and create our film with ease. We had previous knowledge of the software from last years work so we knew how to use it so we did not need to spend time learning new software. Final cut aloud us to create transitions, filters and titles that all helped us create tension and suspense within our film. Final cut also aloud us to place music and sound over the film to create dramatic effect, such as the sharp noises when the attacker appears.

Below is a screenshot of us working an creating our film from within Final Cut Pro.

Photoshop

Once we had finished our film we needed to create a movie poster to promote our it, so we needed a software that would enable us to easily manipulate photos and create effects and techniques that we would not normally be able to do if we had hand drew it. We decided to go with Adobe Photoshop, we chose this software because some of our group members had some knowledge on it, we also chose it because it is a well known software and there is a lot of support on websites such as youtube which will help us to create good effects and use new techniques. One of the main reasons for using photoshop over traditional methods is that it is non-destructive editing, this mean that if you delete one part of the image you can get it back by just undoing the process.

Microsoft office

When creating our first treatments or ideas on films we needed a way to write down our ideas. We chose to use Microsoft Office Word, we chose this program over traditional pen and paper because it meant that if we thought of any ideas  to add in then we could just type it in compared to pen and paper where we would have to either write it in small or start again. Another advantage is that we found it a lot quicker to type on the computer compared to manually writing it down.

HD Cameras- Digital

For our film we decided to use HD recorders. We used it because it aloud us to get better quality shots and so the film will be a lot clearer. The camera also aloud us to get clear and more in focus shots when either doing a close up shot or zooming in to something in the distance. An advantage of using a digital camera is that we can put the film straight onto the mac and be edited rather than the old way where the film had to be developed. A benefit of this camera over our previous cameras is that it has a manual zoom control meaning that we can manually control whether the foreground or background is in focus on the screen. This feature aloud us to create the candle 

transition which can be seen HERE

Reflectors

In some places throughout our film we needed extra lighting that could not be provided either by natural light source or a light, so we needed the use of a reflector. A reflector directs natural light into places where it is needed. Reflectors are used to light up areas of peoples faces and to get rid of any dark spots or shadows.

Location Sound Recorders

Although the microphones on the cameras are good, they sometimes picked up noise when it was windy which would sometimes drown out the sound of the actors speaking. To prevent this we decided to use a location sound recorder which we would be able to shield from the wind and we could also get it a lot closer to the actors speaking by attaching it to a boom stick so we could get it near to the actors without being seen on camera. The sound recorder we used was the ZOOM H4n.

QuarkXpress

For a part of our coursework we needed to create a magazine review for our film, to do this we used a piece of software called QuarkXPress. We decided to use this piece of software because it has many features that are good for creating a magazine style page and that also made it easy to use and create the review. Below is a screenshot of us working on our magazine poster from within QuarkXpress. Before we made our magazine review we made a front cover of a magazine to familiarize ourselves with how to use the software and what it can do so that we would be able to make a more professional looking magazine review. Our magazine front cover can be found on the ancillary 2 magazine cover tab at the top of our blog.

Evaluation Question 3

How have you responded to consumer feedback in order to better your media product?

After going through our original individual treatments with our teacher, we used his feedback to significantly alter the path our product would take.


From 6.45 to 19.03 in the video, we receive a lot of feedback about our first pitched idea. We changed several things as result of this, chiefly:

• After the point about the film possibly being too lengthy, we significantly cut the treatment down, and altered plot points in order to simplify the story. This would allow our audience to understand the film still, but still keeping us within the limits of our time constraints.
• When asked how we would go about filming a sexual assault scene, we realised the difficulties that task would present. Due to the serious nature of such a scene, a muck-up on our part could have been highly offensive or even comical to viewers - obviously neither being the desired effect. Because of this, we decided that rather than trying to film the scene, we would instead simply imply that such an assault has/is about to occur, by the dialogue, and the post-assault character behaviour.
• Following the discussion about possible viewer confusion distinguishing between the dad and attacker (stepdad) characters we (at the time) had planned for the film, we chose to just make the attacker a random hood with little or no characterisation, whereas the Father would be open faced and speak softly. Also, there were significant physical differences between the two actors we used.

After 23.12, the second of our pitched ideas gets feedback:

•  The main change here was simply that we were going to combine the two treatments into one main one. In particular, we liked the blood dripping into the sink idea, and this can be seen in our films final product. Unfortunately, due to time constraints and the unavailability of many extras, we made an executive decision to cut the party scene.

SCRIPT

For feedback on our script, we spoke with an ex-student of the school, now studying Cinematography at University. Speaking with him was very enlightening, and we took on board some of his suggestions about trying to keep the script relatively simple, as in thriller films, what is happening on screen is often more important than the dialogue.

ANIMATIC

Following the presentation of our storyboard to our teacher, we were told that the production of an animatic would greatly aid us in getting the idea for our final product across to our target audience samples. We agreed and set about producing our animatic. It is on display in an earlier post, should you wish to review.


 TARGET AUDIENCE

We showed our animatic and pitched our film to a target audience representative; Shelly. Her description was mentioned in an earlier post, but here it is again as a reminder:

 A model member of our target audience is Shelly. Shelly is 21 years old, an adrenaline-junkie, and enjoys watching movies with her boyfriend. She recently began work as a banking and financing accountant at a HSBC branch, nearby her small rented apartment where she lives with her boyfriend, who also works standard hours. Having recently graduated from the University of Bristol, Shelly has quite a lot of student loans to pay, and can therefore not afford to regularly go to the cinema to see box office hits. Instead, she watches B movies and online Shorts, which she can either watch for little or no cost. She is a regular to sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and Dailymotion, where she often comes across Short movies not unlike those by Gamble Studios (our group).

 Following the pitch to Shelly, she said that she felt we were aiming our film at the right kind of audience and that it would definitely be a film she would be interested in seeing. She did however recommend YouTube as the site for displaying our film, as she said it would be most easily accessed by our target audience there, and also our film itself would get more exposure.

ROUGH CUT INTO FINAL CUT

As you are no doubt aware, several problems were present in our rough cut. Of course though, that is what a rough cut is for - constructive criticism. Following comments about plot holes and the speed of edits, and also choice of sound effects, we went at our final product with a vengeance. Shooting new scenes, changing titles, getting new sound effects and signifcantly altering our pace of edits, slowing transitions when the scene was more sullen (such as in the church), and speeding it up when the scene required (such as the chase in the woods). At the last minute, we also decided to add a post-credits sequence, just to wrap up a few loose ends we had previously neglected.
For specific details of feedback and subsequent changes, I have embedded an audio file (of our rough cut feedback) below, along with some of the times at which key points are made, what those key points are, and then how we changed them for our final product.

• Ident sound effect (00:19)
• Blood drip sound (01:10)
• Heart beat sound (01:10)
• Remove diagetic sound from sink scene (02:00)
• Change titles to overlay the on screen action, rather than just against a black screen (04:12)
• Sound in the wooded scene
• Change brightness of wooded scene
• Add sound to make the wooded scene more dramatic
• Bottle smash shot
• Church to house transition 
• Clock sequence needs to be shorter or sped up 
• Add heart monitor sound
• Add heart monitor visual
• Penny's head is cut off in graveyard scene
• Finish hospital scene
• Add more roles to credits to emphasise the rolling credits
• Get the overall film time up to five minutes.

Embedded below is yet again the Final Cut from our movie, along with the times (for the video) where we have made changes as a result of feedback.

1. 0:00 - You see our company ident, complete with the new sound effect of a fruit machine.
2. 0:05 - Newly added sound effects for the "sink" scene. There is now the sound of dropping blood and and an unnerving pulse, like a heartbeat. The original diegetic sound has been removed. The scene has also been given a bit more brightness.
3. 0:24 - Film titles now overlay an on-screen scene (the scene itself is also new).
4. 0:47 - The film title now has the same font and colour scheme ('HELL' in red, representing aggression and hatred) as it does on our film poster. We felt this would help to keep consistency and increase product recognition.
5. 1:30 - Many changes have been made to the wooded path scene. First of all, there is a slight tapping beat, used to build tension and drama. Secondly, the scene has been given added brightness, as before doing so some of the on-screen action was hard to see. Thirdly, the hooded attacker has been given a voiceover, because his diegetic speech was almost impossible to hear.
6. 1:47 - Here we have a (newly added) slow motion shot of the bottle smashing on the floor.  We thought this would serve symbolically as the point in which things take a turn for the worst. Up till this point, the tension has been building higher and higher, but then the smashing of the bottle shatters the atmosphere and kick-starts the assault.
7. 1:58 - There is a loud 'boom' type sound as the man grabs hold of our female protagonist.  We did this deliberately as the combination of the dramatic sound with the on-screen action increases the drama.
8. 2:23 - As advised, we have a transition from the church scene to the house scene. As our own touch, we created a match-on-action effect by having our protagonist leave through the church door and then transition to her running outside her home. We felt this worked very well, and it is thanks to feedback that we decided to shoot it.
9. 2:39 - Rather than the ineffective beeping sound effect (to show the car stopping) that we used in the rough cut, we now have a much more realistic sound of the car's handbrake being applied.
10. 2:48 - Unlike the rough cut, our "hammer dropping" shot now is in slow motion. This was done primarily to give the audience more time to see it, but also because it makes the shot more dramatic. There is also the new sound effect of a blunt impact.
11. 3:04 - Here we have a new close up shot of Penny holding the crucifix. This is symbolic of her father's forgiveness (Christ forgave those who killed him on the cross), also reinforces the conventions of a religious thriller.
12. 3:10 - We have an establishing shot of a hospital in this final cut. This was to set the scene for the clock and heart monitor sequence, where the father loses the battle for his life.
13. 3:12 - The clock and heart monitor sequence has now been shortened. This was due to the feedback we received about it being too boring to watch for a lengthy period.
14. 3:15 - In this final cut, the heart monitor not only has an added beeping sound effect, but it is actually animated to look like a real monitor. Previously in the rough cut, we had just used a still image, but the new animation adds more believability and realism to the scene.
15. 3:32 - Flatline. Not present in the rough cut, this was added to show that the father had died, rather than us having to actually shoot his dying moments. It then transitions directly into our exterior church scene, to further enforce the idea of him dying.
16. 3:35 - We have now corrected our exterior church shots. Where in the rough cut our protagonists head was 'cut-off' the top of the frame, in this revised film her head remains in shot.
17. 3:51 - We have now added more credentials to our credits. This was done in order to show our use of 'rolling credits' more distinctively.
18. 4:09 - Our brand new post-credit scene. Before shooting this, we felt as though our story hadn't been fully told - that there were still many loose ends that the audience would want to see tied. Our solution was this scene. As you can see, our antagonist (the rapist) is walking down a quiet alley way. As he passes the mid point of the alley, we use match on action to show him from the rear, heading toward the alleys exit. But then the sudden input of a non-diegetic 'creepy' sound effect indicates his fate, as the sound coincides with the appearance of our protagonist holding the hammer. The shot is a close up of the protagonist from the waist down, a hammer hanging from her hand. As the music climaxes, the scene cuts to black and the film ends. The implication obviously being that the rapist is going to 'get his'. Penny had been at the church not only asking for forgiveness for killing her Dad, but also for what she was going to do - murder her attacker.

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

As a group we have had to decide how we was going to link our film to the movie poster and magazine review. Throughout All three products there needed to be a common theme throughout.

Firstly, we decided to link the film and the film poster through colour. In the titles of our film the word Hell is written in red. This was so there was a contrast between the white text and the red text. There are also certain connotations of the colour red; Danger, Blood, Hell. This linked well with the religious theme of our film. We decided to do the same on our movie poster. The movie poster will be used as a marketing technique and so with the colour red it will draw our target audiences attention and hopefully they will associate the colours and religious wording to uncover the theme of our film. On the movie poster we also used a biblical typography to exemplify the theme further. To further link the film poster and the film itself, we have used the same font on the film poster and on the film title, as seen below.

Secondly, we wanted to highlight the theme of mistaken or unknown identity. To do this we manipulated the light within the film to silhouette the female protagonist. This enabled us to outline the weapon she was using to protect herself with. We used this idea in our movie poster. This time she is silhouetted in the church window praying. This could mislead the audience, as she is in the church asking for forgiveness off her father and God which is good/Heaven/forgiveness - white, but is silhouetted/black - Hell/evil/sinful. We have also used the same text on our movie poster and the film titles in the film itself. This specifically links the film and poster together. Although the silhouette is different, they are both of the same character.

We used a specific prop within our film to exemplify the theme, a crucifix. This was used to show that perhaps the females family were religious and that by having the crucifix she will always be reminded of what she had done, but to also tell her to follow God and not to sin anymore. We have a close up of this crucifix within our film and decided to once again  replicate this on our poster. This links the film to  the poster as the topic of the poster is the crucifix, although the main focus is the shape of the cross, with the chain in the background of the poster. 

One of the main locations used in our film is a church, this exemplifies the religious theme directly. We thought this may be a good location to incorporate within our film poster. We took the top off the crucifix and replaced the belfry of the church tower and window to show the setting of the film. This was done to intrigue our target audience as the use of unknown identity will market the type of film. 

The use of a tagline is used in both the film poster and also the magazine review. However the purpose of these are different. The magazine review tagline is a convention of empire magazine and we have tried to imitate this in our magazine review. The tagline is something to do with the image used in the review and does not reveal too much about the film. However the tagline used on a film poster is to promote the film and to also reflect the the theme /setting used in the film. It is not conventional to use a tagline within the film itself. 

The blue text below the film title is the tagline for the magazine review. Although the positioning of this tagline is similar to the one in the film poster as that to is placed below the film title. As you can also see, the font used is not the same, this is however, because the font used in the magazine review is apart of our house style and the font on the film poster links in with the film. 

Finally, the film and the magazine review are linked as the magazine review uses a still from the film to promote this film. This image is not one that gives it all away but to used to entice the audience into wanting to watch the film. Here is the still from the film, and then the film review using this image.

Above are a few examples of how we used our ideas to link all of our products together in some way. This was difficult at times as we wanted to follow the conventions of each product. 

Film: 

Here is a commentary explaining certain aspects that we found successful throughout our film. 

Magazine: 

Here is our magazine review. We have tried to follow the traditional house style of Empire Magazine, but changed the colour scheme to make it more original to us. We have tried to use similar feature like a pull out quote, a tagline, an image from the film and a look closer box over the image. We also believe that the actual review was quite successful informing our target audience about the film but not too much that they don't know the full narrative of our short film. We are pleased with the way it looks and would happily print it out and give out to our target audience.

Poster: 

We found that our poster was successful and follows the conventions of movie posters well, although it is original for our company. The theme of religion, and unknown identity is reflected through our movie poster. The girl praying in the window is in silhouette like in our media film, but also represents identity. The red outline of the cross works well to highlight the crucifix and the belfry of a church. The credits are the normal conventions of a film poster and we have tried to stick to the more traditional credits found on any film poster. We have a different font for the "coming soon" as it is not directly linked to our film. 

Overall we believe we have made a successful brand identity and that all of our media products use, subvert and challenge the conventions, but also link well to each other.