Group31: NEWSPAPER PRACTICE VIDEO

Group31: NEWSPAPER PRACTICE VIDEO

Question 8

For our preliminary task first of all i was the actor, so i didn't film at all. We had technical problems with the first video, leaving it inconsistent and jumbled up. The rest of my group came in the next day, unfortunately i didn't have college that day and had a doctors appointment to go to.

Our understandings of filming and editing have improved significantly since our preliminary task was set. First of all our scenes were shot rather unprofessionally, this was because none of us had experience making films. There were 4 of us so not everyone learned how to use the camera at once so we progressed at different stages. One of the main problems were the shots were inconstant, resulting in a badly shot film.
After consulting one of our teachers Annabelle, she told our group how to make our footage more consistent, such as walking through a door mirroring the shot at the other side. Since then we have also learned how fade footage in and out to connect it to the next, helping us make the film more understandable when it changes to a different scene.

Another key skill we have progressed on is the sound of our film. Back when we did this preliminary we had little knowledge of the software we needed to use, therefore leaving in the unnecessary sounds and leaving us without a soundtrack in the background. As you can hear in the film below, there is unnecessary sound from the people in the room talking. This is very unprofessional and something we improved on making our final film as we knew how to change the sound on FCP and export it into SoundTrack Pro. Letting us add in effects and take out unnecessary noise.

We learn't how to use the camera, tripod and software to its best ability. So our films were stable, consistent and sounded professional. Over all i have learn't so much since our preliminary task and i'm really grateful that our media course is taught like this. We have had the help of such great teachers and technicians every step of the way, until the point were we don't need anymore help and feel confident that we can make films ourselves.

Unfortunately our class has had some trouble with our blog, as uploading videos and pictures hasn't really worked. I think this is because the files are originally on the college computers, not letting me copy them from previous blog posts. . At the moment i've been trying to upload my preliminary film shots, however it has been an hour and this is all its shown:

I have tried to use the software ScreenFlow which records what is on your screen and also through the camera on your mac, i would have used this to comment on the video while its playing. Unfortunately this hasn't uploaded. Hopefully i can use this in the future to analyse video footage.

Question 4 & 5

To distribute our media product we would need to be backed by a well known distribution company such as 'Twisted Productions' who produced saw. They would probably take us because of the style in which our film has been made.


If i took a different approach and wanted to distribute it myself, i would enter it into various film festivals and competitions to get it known and liked by a wide audience. If it won the film festival that is a major advantage and when we released/made the trailer it would support us by saying it has been discovered in such a way it has won awards. Alternatively we could put the trailer on youtube, send the link around the web on friends blogs, social network sites and put them on other youtube channels and hope it goes viral. By having the video on youtube we can attract more people to view it if we put keyword such as festival award winning in the title. 


We could also advertise our film quite cheaply by have adverts on the internet before the most viewed videos meaning a large majority will see it. Other forms of adverts i would consider to be way to expensive and unsuitable for such a small production, unless it was back by a well known distribution company.


I would also make a limited number of DVD's and distribute them to various companies/ people that could help back my film. These methods would make sure my film would be successful as it has been proven with students that go private schools and actually hire actors to star in there thrillers. A example of this is:

I believe my thriller is much more thrilling than this example but this video has still got a considerable amount of views

Question 3

Our main target audience for our film would be teenagers ideally 15-18 year olds.
It would not be suitable for anyone under the age of 15 to watch it as it contains horrific violence and gore.
15 is the ideal target audience for a thriller as the majority of people who go and see films are interested in macabre.

The contents of the average bag/ pockets of viewers:

Question 2

I will comparing the similarities and differences between my film 'The Deaths Click' and 'Se7en'.

• Se7en uses more effects such as distorting the image, slipping out of focus or mirroring it at certain points to enhance interest and suspense. 
• The colours used are different, Se7en at first is lighter, and only fades to a red wash when the photos are being developed. By doing this it contrasts the two different atmospheres the director whats to create. 
• In Se7en the actor is doing more to keep you interested. As a posed to our film where the audience has to keep on guessing what the killer is doing. We intentionally made it difficult to see what the man was doing. This added a great effect of uncertainty.
• The red in our film is there to represent bloodshed, such as the victims blood on his mask. a picture is shown of one of his victims in a pool of blood. However in Se7en it is there to show he is developing his pictures of his victims, rather than already giving a sense of blood/murder.

Question 1

I have chosen to compare a select few clips from our thriller to that of the film, se7en.  Inoticed that in the film the use of red lighing highlights the intencity of certain scenes, drawing the viewer in.  the colour red , is effective tool because it evokes feelings such as rage and passion. It also symbolised the colour of blood.  It catches peoples attention, indicating a sence of emergencey, danger and other negative situations. However red can be used in a positive way to gain more viewers by grabing their attention, as it can be used in a positive way as it is also associated with the colour of flowers e.g. roses.    

The use of shadow has been an effective way of creating suspense, some of the most famous and memorable  examples of this are 'psycho, the shower scene,  and Nosferatu when he is creeping up the stairs to the bed room. It is a good effect because you can see the shadowed figure, which more more often than not is menacing. Creating suspense because you can't see there faces adding elements of un-ease and also making the audience curious. This sense of mystery is one of the conventions of a stereotypical murderer found in thrillers.

The style of the titles in our film and Se7en are very similar as they are both slightly distorted, messy and creepy. As they are coming up on the screen they quiver and look like they are vibrating. Whilst adding a professional effect, the titles add a sense of suspense and add to the overall effect of the film.

I chose to compare these pictures in particular because they both come under the conventions of a stereotypical murderer in a thriller. They are both concealing there identity, in ours he uses a mask to hide his face from victims, while the camera never sees a shot of his head unless he has his mask on. Similarly in the opening of Se7en you see only his hands, at first it looks as if he is playing with the razor, but as the credits roll, you realise he is cutting off his finger tips so that he cannot be traced at any crime scene. 


In any opening of films, be it horror thriller, the audience is drawn in by using imagery thats typical to the 'behaviour' of a killer. e.g. cutting up newspapers and hoarding them. 

A typical 
we took the characteristics of a conventional murder when creating ours. we chose to use a basic mask as it is the most effective rather than having a more elaborate one.  Films that have used these include, Jason, Friday the 13th, chainsaw massacre and Scream.  

 

Question 6 part 2

Our film was very popular in the cinema as everyone cheered and a lot of people told us that it was the best
and they would pay money to see it. It was nice to hear what people had to say about our video and gave 

us confidence to make a better film. 
 

After the cinema we recorded video feedback of what people thought and what they liked about our film. Everyone

liked our film and we got a lot of praise. 

Question 6

In our media lesson we were asked watch each others final films and to write comments and feedback.

The two questions we had to answer when we wrote about each others film was. How did it make you feel

and what were the good points about it. After we had all made notes about each others films, 

we got our groups answers people had wrote about us and we decided to make a WORDLE. This a 

good way to portray feedback and comments from our classmates. This was a very satisfying response

and made us feel confident as this was the look we had gone for. The only negative point we recieved

is that sometimes you couldn't fully see what has happening due to a very dark shot. We had done

this on purpose to make the audience curious and to add suspense to our thriller. 

In the cinema our film was a lot better quality than our final edit. This helped a lot as the film was

clearer, flowed better and the dark bits weren't to dark to enjoy the film.

Question 6: Feedback from audience

Question 7

Throughout our media project we got introduced to loads of different form of technology. We were taught and shown how to use these different forms all throughout our media project.

We filmed our thriller on a JVC 3CCD. Best video camera i have ever used! I learn't how to use it very quickly as we were taught about all its features in detail.


We edited our footage on Final Cut Pro.














Once we imported all our footage we selected the footage we needed, cut and edited it to our liking. We learnt a lot of valuable skills that are essential to using this technology. I really enjoyed using final cut pro because it has a professional feel to it and added a professional touch to my film. Once i had been taught the basics i found it surprisingly easy to get the editing flowing. I really appreciate being taught how to master this program in such a small amount of time, with help from all the media staff.

Sound Track Pro made it easy for us to edit and add in sound / sound effects. Although we found it difficult to learn how to import/export and how to actually find the sound effects, it was really effective and easily the best program to use to edit sound for a film. I enjoyed using this program because you can play the soundtrack while the film is playing in the corner.

Livetype made it easy to create titles and import them into FCP to add over our film. I enjoyed all the different effects and styles of titles you can create. You can control the position, timing and style/effect of how it comes on to the screen. I didn't enjoy this program as much as the others but it was still a very useful program to know about.



Blogger
Throughout our media task of learning how to use different technology's we were required to blog about what we have learnt and how we used it and what we thought about the different programs we were using. The blog was divided into different groups so our group activity's were easier to post. My group is group 31. I enjoyed using this site as it will come in handy in the future and makes it easy and enjoyable to actually make a blog.
 

Handbrake is a program that allows us to convert our films and videos into different final formats and ton export to use on different machines such as ipods/iphones. This made it easy to convert and upload it on our blogs. This program is very useful and i would definitely recommend it.

ALL DONE

Overall i found this experience very enjoyable and i would love to do it again, as it really gets your creativity flowing and taught me a lot of skills in a very short time. I would to say thanks to my group for sharing the experience with me and the help ad guidance of my teachers. 

StoryBoard :)

Screen grabs of Prelim film

Screen Grabs of Editing

LiveType and Sound

We were shown in class by the technician how to use LiveType a program for adding text into films. We need to use this to make opening credits for our film. Giving details of the film company, who it's by,and who's staring in. Like Final Cut Pro LiveType need a lot of getting used to as it has many features. It is quite difficult to understand, but once you've got the hang of it you can do all sorts of things, such as making the text scroll, changing colours and adding special effects.

 

We were also show how to add sound effects to our scene using Soundtrack Pro. The thing i found difficult with this software is finding the exact sound you want that will fit in your scene. We were only shown once and i believe after a bit of practice i can become better at it.

Introduction to editing

For editing our videos we used Final Cut Pro. It is professional editing software used for making films and programs for tv. Getting used to the software was very long and difficult and took awhile to learn, how to use  all of its effects such as keys and learning how to chop up layers. Once you have got to grips with it, it is a very useful program and is an ideal editing software.

Planning :)

Sound and titles of our Thriller

We had to import our final edit into livetype and soundtrack to add titles and sound effects to our film. These programs are quite difficult to use but when you get the hang of it you can make it really good. After talking my ideas for sound to the teacher he told me he wanted to hear things like chain saws. I discovered the sound track that we used as it is uncopyrighted i came to a conclusion that we should edit the soundtrack to go with our film. The soundtrack really worked well with our film creating suspense. We were really happy that it ended so well building up the beginning with revving a chainsaw and other distorted sound. The music gets more intense as he enters his dark lair. A lot of the noises were of the genre "Dubstep". This went really well with the slow motion and strobe effect we created. Making it seem really violent and scary. Ending really well.  

Editing our film

We had finished filming but were a bit late to edit as we needed to film more shots. We imported all our footage on to final cut pro. We had a lot of footage so it was difficult to differentiate which footage was which. We found all the shots we need to use and discarded bad footage. With all the different shot had it was easy to it consistent and flow really well. Shortening clips to make they hook up with the previous and next bit of footage. As we got our film completed we added effects as fading in and slow motion to add to the effect wanted to achieve. Some out our shots were very dark but in another sense it added to the audiences interest and curiosity to find out what he was doing. We got a really strong edit done and we were very pleased with the results. We worked really hard and well together considering we were a bit late filming.

Problems with filming.

On thursday 3rd March, our group were meant to start our filming, but unfortunately we could not film it on the monday that week. To our annoyance we could not start because of one of our members from our group did not turn up till 1hour later, and another member did not turn at all. Therefore we weren't organised with everything. We also did not think about what props to bring and what sort of angles we would use when filming. The lesson did not go well at all, so we decided to plan out everything properly so we could be prepared for next lesson.

 We had to note down eveyrthing that we thought of.