GROUP 31!!

Our bloggers. :)

(From left to right: Thao, Czarina, Dennetta and Kim)

Our group failed attempt in trying to show a sign of '31'.

We as a group developed insights to the media world, knowledge of technologies as well as building up friendships.

Overall it was a extremely rewarding experience! :D

Final Edit of Four Walls

Evaluation - Q8

Audience feedback and comment~

We had lots of good feedback from teachers, family, friends and even acquaintances. They generally found it really good altogether as a product and said it almost looked like a real cinematic release opening sequence!

Our group is overall very satisfied from our hard work and the overall outcome had made us extremely proud, which all the months leading to this coursework to the final product had paid off!!! :)

Images= Photos taken by Czarina and drawings made by Kim

Video feedback from peoples responses is also shown in Czarina's post on Evaluation (Question 8) post.

Evaluation (Question 8)

These are feedbacks from a little survey that we have done during our media lesson. We had the chance to watch each thriller films that each group has made in our class. Then our teacher gave us a little sheet to fill in our feedbacks and opinions. These words are the feedbacks from the other groups.

Below this image is a video that I have edited and taken after the Annual Viewing of the Media Studies AS Foundation Practical Work. I only had the chance to ask seven people.

Overall, all the feedbacks that we got for our film turned out to be all positive, which I was very pleased with. Thank you to the people who took part in this video. Thank you for your time.

Video Feedbacks

Group Evaluation - Question 7

Here are some shots from our Preliminary task and a match cut task. However it then shows the improvement of mise-en-scene, camerawork and edits from our first time filimg to our thriller title sequence.

Evaluation - Question 6

For evaluation question 6, we had to get together as a group and think about our journey of progression with the use of technologies; to form the end product.

Evaluation - Q6&Q7

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

What do you feel you have learned in the progression from the preliminary task to the full end product?

As you can see from the clip where the camera is circling around (Me and Thao) it looks very unprofessional- firstly it is hand-held which looks tacky, shaky and ineffective. However, in the original version we edited it to fast forward the action to quicken the speed and hopefully make it seem less professional. We thought this was a good idea because we can establish the shot without necessarily showing the surroundings (which is our college library.) We learned that we could have used a trolley to make it a smoother action, and fast forwarding or even slow-motion edits can change the clip completely. We also learned that using hand-held camera motion does not look effective most of the time too.

In addition, that clip also took extremely long to take, as me and Thao found it very hard to act that scene- due to the fact it was really long so it was hard to keep a straight face. In addition to the second part, we see Dennetta in the background observing- she should have not been there at all. We can learn that we shouldn't allow anything 'out of place' to be seen in the shots or any changes to be moved in the background either.

In the second clip, we see Czarina going through the door- but really slowly as if she was unsure,- from this experience, we should not allow ourselves to slow down our acting as it would look not as fluent as it should be. She should be quick and be as 'normal' as she can. Also, filming that clip was hand-held- we could have used tripod to make it straight to make sure it is professionally done.

In the Four Walls outtakes, we can see the lighting was extremely dark- we learned in the process that it is vital that the use of lighting should be the same- and so should the focus. We used the automatic focusing to make sure that it was at its best quality all the time.

The following clips shows some footage that we did not include- due to the fact that it did not look effective. The use of acting is extremely important- we should not make the actress uncomfortable at all so we could finish up quicker than retaking several times.

Towards the end of the clip, there is a scene in the corridor where the trolley fell over- (in the 'Initial Idea for the Storyboard' post I explained why we chose not to use the idea where we track the corridor- due to the fact it looked shabby with the 'Safe Storage' logo as well as the automatic lighting turning on when there is movement and the trolley was extremely hard to use.

At the very last clip, we see a clip of Thao's eye of the normal footage shot. The shot after is the edited version- with the use of slugs and overlays which made the normal footage much more effective.

In this video clip of the card game sequence, we had to retake this shot several times- due to the fact that the camera panning movement was very stiff and it did not go in the direction we wanted it to go most of the time. We realised this is because we did not loosen the lock of the tripod. If we used hand-held movement, it is important to make it as steady as possible as shaky camera movements look extremely unprofessional.

In this shot, it was extremely out of focused- we did not concentrate on focusing the camera when we was using it at first from our lack of experience. As you can see, it looks extremely unprofessional and we learned that in future we should always keep it in focused- either manually but auto focusing proved to be much more useful especially in dark surroundings- the 'red lines' helped us see whether or not it was in focus or not.

In this clip, (which the whole scene is shown on the 'Match Cut Prelim' post) we can see the poor 'match cut' we used. The scene where Czarina opens the door and a match cut of her closing the door straight after does not look effective. Later on in the Four Walls production, we used a much better match cut where she bangs on the walls with her fist which then jumps into a close up shot of her fist- which you can view on the 'Final Edit' post.

We therefore learned how to make better shots and our knowledge of use of cameras, shots, and ideas had been developed increasingly to the final product. We learned from our mistakes that we made in the beginning, but even after that, we can still easily make mistakes such as being loss of focus or the lack of light in our final production.

- From before our knowledge of the JVC camcorders was very limited- we was newbies using it. From practice, we developed ideas and new knowledge, our insight to how a camera looks on camera and the focusing helped us greatly- we thought about the 180 degree rules, the 1/3 rule and the space above the persons head we all thought about.

Editing on Final Cut Pro, Live Type and Sound Track Pro had been also developed from our developed knowledge and practicing using it helped us to the final product. In the Prelim and the Card Game sequence we did not use Sound Track Pro- Using that software is pretty much straight forward and I believe it requires more creativity rather than knowledge of the software.

However, I believe our Live Type titles could be improved as we spent the least time on that, however overall my knowledge of technologies and knowledge had been developed greatly from the result of experience.

Evaluation - Q5

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Images= hand drawn by myself/ a home made video! :D

Evaluation: Question 8

Q: Audience Feedback and comment?

I took feedback from 5 students that have al studied media either as an A-Level or GCSE. Here is our feedback on strengths and weaknesses of our thriller title sequence:

Evaluation: Question 7

Q: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

From our Preliminary exercise, we used various shots that we had been taught such as a match cut and over the shoulder shots.

In our thriller title sequence, we use numerous extreme close-ups and long shots which show binary opposition,

In order of our first filming to our title sequence, you can see the difference in Mise-en-scence for our match cut shot. For example, the first shot above uses great camerawork but lacks in lightng but however in the third shot, there is dim lighting that makes the mood suit the thriller genre.

As a close up shot, the first shot is a good over the shooulder shot but once agen lacks the mise-en-scene to suit the tension and suspense that was supposed to be created. In our title sequence, we used visual effects which look more effective.

Evaluation: Question 5

Q: Who would be the audience for your media product?

I think that this title sequence film would appeal to both genders simply because men love to watch horror and thriller movies that contain blood and action. Whereas, women are attracted to it because the main actor is a female and the plot for our title sequence applies to women and what they have been through in their life.

With age, it would be aimed at a age range of 15-30 year olds as older seniors would not be interested in the genre of thriller due to the high rate of violence. Also, kids are not permitted to view the film as the violence does not apply to kids under the age of 15. This is we would rate our film as a 15+ viewing.


Below are some examples of the target audience for our title sequence and what the contents of their handbag/manbag:

Brooklyn-Myla, 17 (College student)

Hobbies: Modelling, shopping, singing

Contents: Make-up, hair products, phone, purse, oyster card, vaseline, body spray, camera

(Brooklyn is a good target for the audience as she is young and into the latest films that contain romance, comedy and violence.)

Leonel Velasquez, 23 (Model & Fashion Designer)

Hobbies: Designing new gear, clubbing

Contents: Mobile phone, wallet, keys, bottle of drink, cigarettes

(Leonel is a target for the audience because he lives in an urban area where violence is an everday thing. As seen in the photo above, money is a goal in their life and it is like a battle. So therefore, this type of person would definately be into this kind of thriller title sequence.)

Justin Timberlake, 29 (Singer)

Hobbies: Dancing, singing, making music, partying

Contents: Keys, mobile phone, headset, sunglasses, magazine

(Justin is a good target audience for our title sequence as he is interested in those types of movies. In American, most of the population love to view horrors and thrillers. And as a young artist, it is part of his life to go cinemas and watch scary movies.)

Evaluation - Q3&4

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

Well for our thriller movie 'Four Walls', the ideal viewer would be someone interested in a horror type of thriller, with many psychological and mysterious aspects to it.

To get the audiences attention to this film, it would have to be widely publicized.
(Four Walls = horror/psychological type of thriller?)
It could be argued that it could have a main stream type of audience- but it may not appeal to everyone. But as the genre thriller is broad, it could have many overlapping sub-genres. The type of emotions we want the audience to arouse to are:

• emotions of fear
• suspense
• mysteriousness
• evokes excitement and apprehension in the audience

These can therefore appeal to a wide range of audiences.

Our audiences could be aimed at those who are 'TECH SAVVY.'

Newline had distributed and produced many films.It has been a filmography of many big titles including :

• A Nightmare on Elm Street
• Final Destination I & II
• Blade II
• Rush Hour 2
• Thirteen Days
• Se7en
  

However, another 'ideal' production company that could promote our film is the Vertigo-Entertainment they produced film such as

• The Grudge I, II & III
• Shutter
• The Eye
• The Uninvited
  

They suit our type of genre- horror with a mixture of thriller. They greatly specialise in producing these type of movies.

Images taken from Google images/Four Walls video clip
Background music= Uematsu Nobou - Sign.

Evaluation: Question 3 & 4

Q: What kind of media institution might describe distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience ?

On Youtube, one of the world's best known website for viewing videos, i found a clip intro trailer from student Michael Maksim from Vancouver Film School. It was uploaded 10 months ago and currently has hit a high 158,037 views which shows that is had been a very successful video.

In comparison to our title sequence, both clips could be classed as a low budget simlpy because our sequence was distributed by New Line Cinema and 'Rise of Legends' uses great visual effects and editing but it was done on a computer and does not look like it costed a lot of money to produce.

Distributing a product nowadays is so easily to access since the technology is more advanced. Videos become well known and popular through file sharing between friends and family. Also because of social networking websites like Facebook, MSN and Twitter, people like to share links which does boost up the amount of views. Also, through the website Youtube, because it is a worldwide website so people all over the world view your work. And with that, even companies can promote people for jobs etc.

For our thriller title sequence, we chose New Line Cinema to distribute our film because we had watched a thriller movie in lesson called 'No Country for Old Men' of which inspired us since we loved the film. Also because New Line had distributed good films such as Se7en, The Mask. Another reason why we chose New Line Cinema is because we did research on google for different companies and we felt our sequence did not match a high budget company like Paramount and a low budget company like Working title 2. So we decided to pick a company that was in the middle ranking.

Our film will be released globally like 'Star Trek' so it becomes more popular in the movie distribution world. It will be released digitally and additionally on IMAX cinema because the 3D effect would look amazing and terrying to the audience especially when there are many extreme close ups in our title sequence.

For advertising, I would have a trailer for our sequence that would appear as an advert on TV after 8pm. This is because firstly, our sequence is not suitable for kids under the age of 14 as there is violence and blood. Hopefully at this time all kids will be absent.

Moreover, there should be billboards for example in Vauxhall and posters on buses that advertise our film 'Four Walls.' To the left and above are a few examples of which I used the website Photo funia to transfer our images into a billboard.

Evaluation - Q2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Images taken from Google/Four Walls video clip/hand-drawn

Background music= Uematsu Nobou - Kita no Daikuudou.

Evaluation: Question 1

Q: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms an conventions of real media products ?


Forms of Conventions:

- Mysterious and suspenseful theme
- Slow paced & dragged on music OR Upbeat & fast paced music that suits the action
- Mainly dim lighting or use of shadows in Mise-en-Scene
- Often introduces a main character(s) or victim

In comparison with...





Se7en Title Sequence

Looking at both the title sequences from a glance, they look very similar in terms of Mise-en-Scene, Camerawork and Titles which shows that our production of work was successful as our ideas were inspired by Se7en's title sequence.

One of the main similarites of both title sequences is that they both use extreme close-ups e.g. of an eye. However, Se7en does not reveal the main character as quick as our group did.

Evaluation - Question 8

Audience feedback and comment..

We received some great feedback from our classmates in one of the class exercise. We watched other groups title sequence then our teacher gave us a sheet to fill in and below are the words we got back from our classmates:

Below are some comments of what other students think of our title sequence..

Holly: "I think it was really good, i loved the special effects you did with the over layer, it was really cool."

Canhan: "It was really really good. Especially the sound."

Alison: "I thought it was very very very good, it was brilliant."

Harry: "Very good i really liked it."

Evaluation - Question 7

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

Preliminary Tasks & Other Clips

Following a series of preliminary task, i developed my acting skills and was able to act like a professional in the Four Walls title sequence. In the first preliminary task, it involves two people playing cards which is myself (Thao) and Kim and our objective was to build suspense whilst playing cards. We had a lot of outtakes because we weren't used to acting in front of the camera so it was a little uncomfortable. However, on the day of filming, I've had a lot of practise on acting and was able to get into to character's personality and pulled it off in the end.

As for the camera work, the first time we filmed was the two people playing cards and if you watched the clip above, you can see that there was a scene where we tracks around the table. it was very unprofessional as we didn't have the Dolly for it to track round smoothly, instead we handheld it. Furthermore, whilst we was filming, one of our groups member was in the shot as she was unaware we was filming.

When we was filming Four Walls, we tried to film a scene where we tracks down the corridor but it was unsuccessful because the location where we filmed has an automatic lighting so it will turn on if it sen cor something moving. Furthermore, we had a few problem and one of it occurred in the second preliminary task as we for got to check if the camera was in focused.

Overall, I have learnt a lot in terms of acting and how to control mi self and not to laugh otherwise, it will take time for the work to be done quickly. Also, check if the camera is in focus before filming.

Evaluation - Question 5

Who would be the audience for your media product?

In my opinion, both gender would be suitable for our film. Women because our main character is a young woman therefore, female audience could easily related to her in terms of what she's going through. Male because a lot of young men enjoys thriller and horror movie because they are scary, exciting to watch and also suspenseful.

Here are some examples of who might be for our title sequence and the contents of their handbag/man bag:

Mary Wilson, 18 (College Student)

Hobbies: Reading, going cinema, shopping, traveling

Contents: Phone, purse, make-up, oyster card, reading book.

Mary is a good target because she enjoys going to cinema and she's also very mature and into thriller and drama movies.

Luke Smith, 24 (Journalist)

Hobbies: Reading, writing, traveling

Contents: Phone, reading book, newspaper, pen, notebook, oyster card, wallet.

Luke is a good target because he's a journalist and he write reviews for newspaper so he could make our film popular id he enjoys it.

Evaluation(Question 7)

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

Evaluation(Question 3+4)

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

(3.) This is an example of some student work on the internet (youtube). It is called Genesis and was made back in the year 2004. It has 13,567 views. I could compare this with our title sequence film as it is a low budget student video. By releasing our title sequence on the internet which is similar to Genesis, there would be a big possibility that it would get a worldwide screening, as the internet is the most advanced technology that is used by people worldwide. Through this, we could get feedbacks and views from a wide range of audience.


This is a good way of distributing a product because it may be shared amongst peers. Therefore, they could recommend this to their family and others which means that these students would have the capability of reaching a niche audience or might be a global audience depending on how great the film is. Also, through the internet, there are several sites that allows the audience to have a free access on films which is very flexible for everyone.


This would also allow the viewers to embedd and share these sort of films on social networking sites or on blogs such as here on blogger. And as what I am doing now, this could help other students to guide them with their own films as an example.


Overall, the internet has the capability to help and distribute students' films to a wider audience, especially to their target audience. It is very accessible and is easy to use as it is one of the advance technology made.



(4.) Our title sequence film 'Four Walls' will be distributed by New line Cinema.

We have chosen New Line Cinema as our distribution company because they have the capability of distributing their own films for example No Country for Old Men which we have already seen during in one of our lessons. We feel that this distribution company will help us reach a global release for our film as they have a wide access on distribution.

Our film will have a wide scale release which is similar with Star Trek. We will have a red carpet premier to introduce our film and celebrities.
The format of our film will be in digital to prevent movie piracy. It would be released on the same day globally which is similar with Star Trek as this is one of their techniques in combatting piracy which will prevent those people from illegaly copying and distributing our films.

Our movie would be a Blockbuster film which means that our marketing will be very vital in order for our film to reach a mainstream audience.

Internet - would be the first as it is very successful when it comes to online marketing. It is very advanced. Our own website fanbase/campaign will be created which would allow the viewers to access updates and informations about our film. It would also allow the fans to gather together online and share about their opinions about their favorite actors/actress. In comparison with Star Trek, this film also had an outstanding online marketing scheme, they have also made their own official website, trailers on youtube, networking sites, even on imdb which is placed on their competitor film page for example on X-men imdb page.

Advertising is also one of the successful ways to reach a wide range of viewers which is why we are considering of putting our trailers on television. However, our trailer will be shown after watershed (which means after 7 where young audience would not be able to watch it) because our film includes violence, bloods and etc. which is unappropriate for the kids.

We are also considering of putting our film on billboards, bus stops or even on the sides of the buses which is again, similar with Star Trek. This helped Star Trek to gain support for their top stars and helped them to build an awareness of their film which has reached a big mass of audience as this could be seen everywhere.

When it comes to print media, i would choose 'The Sun' to advertise our film as it is one of the well-known newspaper here in Britain. Also, most of the readers who reads 'The Sun' are from first class. I would also consider Metro as it is free and any class of audience would have a free access of reading Metro newspaper. Since our main character is a young female, I would choose Heat or Hello! as yet again, these are two of the well-known women magazine in the country.