Q8- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

When starting our preliminary, the group were just getting to know each other, and were each practicing how to film the scenes and different kinds of shots. We were trying to get in a wide range of shots.

This shot shows the introduction to our preliminary

This was the first over the shoulder shot we used.

 Medium long shot

 Close up

 Emily's Over the shoulder shot

 My over the shoulder shot

 Close up of Emily

 Close up of me

 Medium two shot

 Medium long two shot

 Long two shot

These shots shown above our evidence of us playing with the camera and filming different kind of shots. These shots helped us learn more and we used similar shots in our final Thriller film. 

The beginning of our film. 

 Emily's Over the shoulder shot

 Medium shot

Point of view and long shot

 High angle point of view shot

 My low angle point of view shot

 Medium shot

 Close up

You can see here that a lot of these shots are similar to the ones we took in our preliminary exercise. 

Furthermore, we did make a few mistakes during the filming of both the preliminary and the final cut. These two pictures below show a high angle over the shoulder shot. The way it was filmed was not so much of a mistake. However, as the shots were both high angles and the the majority of the rest of the films were filmed at a normal angle. When putting the clips into the film, it looked un professional, as the screen jumped from a normal shot, to a high angle shot to a normal shot again. In order to make it flow more in the film, we had to add an effect.  

From this exercise, i have now learnt that when i'm filming from a high or low angle, i need to make sure that i get similar footage to that, so that it can fit better into the film. I have also learnt about timing in the film. By filming 5 seconds extra at the beginning and at the end, i am able to cut out shots i don't need and get an estimated time of where i should put my 'in' and 'ou't marks on Final Cut Pro. Also, that the head of the character on screen, must be touching the top of the frame. From looking at my preliminary and Final cut, you can see the comparisons in the shots, however, you can also see the progress i have made in filming. 

My experience filming these two films were good, as i had a lot of help from Emily on screen. We both helped each other by communicating on how to act to something specific that is going on in the scene. Also, We cooperated very well, we did not put each other off, when having to film the point of view shots, so that was a big help. I now know how to properly use soundtrack pro and livetype, i can now use them on my own without help, so my progress has really increased there, as before the course i had no idea what to do when on the software. My editing in Final cut has become a lot more better, as i now understand the importance of timing, shot ranges, skills and effects. Therefore, i believe the Preliminary was worth filming as it prepared the group for what was coming, it also gave us more time to work as a team and to help each other out. My overall experience of the filming and editing together was fun, as the group was great together, we knew when to laugh and when to do our work. Which is why we worked so well together. 

Q4&5- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/ address your audience?

The type of production our Thriller film is was a low budget film. Our distribution techniques were very different compared to mainstream films and blockbuster films, due to the fact that ours was low budget. Conglomerates have the money to advertise and distribute their film. However, as ours was a student made low budget film, we had to tackle other ways in order to distribute our Thriller. We had our own shared cinema screening and a DVD release of 200 copies. As this is a low budget film, this kind of distribution was very successful.

With the help of the internet, advertising for our film became easier. We were able to put our films onto Vimeo. We were also able to look at the BBC Network site and look at films made. Vimeo is a similar site to Youtube, however Vimeo is for amateur low budget film makers, who want to advertise their work. By putting their work on VIMEO, professionals are able to look at this work and find potential people who would be good film makers or simply be good working in a conglomerate industry. This helps to create opportunities for young people and to get their product on the market.

This is a video by other students. It is their media coursework taken from Youtube.

This video can be compared to mine as the soundtrack in my video starts off with wind blowing and this film does the same. There is a bit of blood being used in this video, where the character is writing in blood. This is similar to my video, as our culprit is crossing off a name in blood, whereas, the culprit in this student made video is writing. So you can see the comparisons between the two, as there is a close up focus on what is going on there with the blood. Furthermore, there are some differences between our videos. There was a bit of dialogue in this video and the titles are on a black background, whereas, we done are titles on the actual film background. Also, we did not use dialogue in our film, as we wanted to make the audience work. Tension is both created in similar ways, as we both build up tension to create suspense.  Both the films are left on a cliff hanger, which is why I felt this was a good example to compare my film to.

In addition, we have both advertised ours in the same way. My group used Vimeo, A Cinema Screening, DVD releases and Facebook to advertise and distribute ours, for a wider audience. This group has put their video on youtube, in order to get a wider world audience. The views are also high, as it has over 10,000 views. For a student made low budget film, these figures are high. The films also receive ratings and comments, so the makers know the audience feed back and responses towards the film. 

I also used this film as an example in comparison to my film, as there is a similar plot. The whole following happened a lot in this film and my film. There was a struggle of the victim trying to break free however, failing and resulting in death. The Mise en scene is also very similar. The location of the following scenes are both taken in the forest. The build up was created in the same way. Similar kind of shots such as over the shoulder shots were used, in order of not being able to see the characters face, which results in the audience working more. 

Bringing you to my conclusion, To attract a wider audience and to distribute our film, we would use the internet in order to gain ratings and comments on our videos. Also, to get our product on the market and show that we can get a wider audience, just by using the help of the internet. 

Q.3) Who would be the audience for your media product?

Here are a montage of images depicting the contents of the handbag/man bag etc... belonging to the typical target audience member for our movie. Which i feel our main target audience is the male target audience.

 

Here as you can clearly see are pictures of things that a typical male would have. From the age range of 14-35 as their are things that the young male audience will have such as the Adidas bag and the football boots while the older med will have man bags and a nice pair of shoes. They would both have a mobile phone and also a ipod to listen to the music they would listen to. For example a young male audience would listen to hip-hop, RnB etc.. while a older male audience would go for more classic songs.

Here is an example of a little lifestyle summary: Max,26, an British born citizen born currently working at a travel angency, he loves to spend time with the family going out as well as hanging out with his male friends, for example going bowling with friends while watching family movies with his friends. He does not shop much but does like to go to game shops like GAME, Game station and other places such as HMV to buy some songs that he prefers. He does go shooping for clothes but not often, mainly going places like Top Man, River island,Sports direct, JD etc...

He is an example of a person that will suit our target audience as our film contains violence, suspense and action what you would expect  from a typical male audience.

Q8: What do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Our preliminary filming was very basic, meaning we used a smaller variety of camera shots and hardly any editing was involved compared to our final product. We put in titles and sound effect into our final product whereas our preliminary piece there were no titles and very limited sounds to create effect. We were able to develop our skills by practising with final cut pro and seeing what was the best way of putting clips together and editing. This meant our final piece looked more professional, also because we had more time to edit and plan how we were going to film. Some clips we filmed we realised didn't look as good and so we didn't use them in the final piece. We just found another way of showing this, through a sound effect, like Lashmi screaming, originally while filming, we couldn't manage to get the right picture as well as the sound, so we decided to put an effect in there instead.

When we made our pre-lim we were a lot less experienced, and so had more trouble deciding on where to film, what shot types we should use, it was harder to make decisions in the time we had and make it work when editing. It was easier though that we had a shorter amount of time, it meant we had to be decisive and spend less time worrying about what to film rather than just film.
When we were making our final product,






to be continued

Question 4 and 5 (Not finished)......

First of all the production my film is an independent student film. Therefore this would require a different type of distribution than a mainstream blockbuster. The reason for this is because we are limited to the use of the internet as we do not have millions of pounds to spend on distributing our film such as advertisements. The internet is used in many ways to to advertise and get views for small independent media productions in distribution/marketing and attracting an audience. The target audiences such as people from our college and also in general students as well. Their are so many examples to distribute an independent student film. Here are some examples of some:

Social network sites: Facebook and twitter.

Video sharing sites: Youtube, Vimeo and the BBC film network.

DVD release of 200 copies, Blogs, trailers, banners, Fliers, Trailers( which can be posted on the video sharing sites), Cinematic release, Local newspaper (maybe small review), Word of mouth, Film festivals etc...

The 3 media institutions/video sharing sites are good for distributing our student films as they each have advantages of using them.

First of all is Youtube which is a very popular site known to many people in the world, reaches a more wider audience to the other media institutions . It lets you post any video at all such as :Music, trailers,films etc... In addition it allows people to comment and 'like or dislike' videos to show how good or bad your video is.

Second media institution/video sharing site would be Vimeo. This is similar to youtube as it lets you upload videos, share videos and view videos. However it does not have the freedom to post any type of video as the site is used to upload movies and short independent movies. It attracts a more niche audience. Which does give us a wide range of audience.

 Lastly the other example we looked at is the BBC film network. This allows people to actually provide real showcase videos/movies to go to the market for young film makers.

 Examples of video's from video film networks.

Youtube:

This video is the most viewed on the youtube chanel hurtwood house media, the reason they found and attracted an audience by using this network/site is by having ratings and comments from people that have watched it. 

Vimeo:

 

Prologue - Short Film from Bradley W. Ragland on Vimeo.

They found and attracted their audience also by the comments and rating system such as likes however it does not have a dislike section as youtube does, which wont allow the audience to know if more like it or more dislike it unless you read all the positive comments to the negative ones. Also it does not show the amount of views.


BBC Film Network:


In this site the way they find their audience is the average ratings they have for example this video has a rating of 4 stars which is very good. Also people can also comment the same as YouTube or vimeo. Theirs a section that says ‘send to a friend’ which is also helpful as if a person likes it they can send it to another person for more ratings, although it might not always be good ratings. However this site does not have views for the video s it would be difficult to see if a lot of people have watched it or not.

Comparisons to my video would be me using a similar model such as Blogger where you can blog posts of videos. Also by receiving comments from other bloggers. However the difference would be in blogger you cannot have ratings from other users of the site. Also in Blogger you can be able to post pictures as well while the other sites wont be able to do that. Unless lets say YouTube posts pictures in a video but still then it would not be a normal image uploaded. Web competitions YouTube would probably get the upper hand as iit has a more wide range to the others as it is any type of video.

Q3: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The ideal audience for our thriller opening would be probably male, name Steve, because they usually prefer films which have violence associated with them, which ours has. He would love to go to the cinema, and he would own the whole james bond film collection. He would be up to date with all the latest gadgets and technologies, and always have the latest phone and gaming device. He wouldn't care that his car is cheap and rusty. A typical target audience member for our film would be for young adults and teenagers, because its exciting and thrilling. Other films he enjoys to watch are Knight and Day, Robin Hood, The Jungle Book, he loves to be left in suspense and always guessing whats going to happen next. He is also a big fan of murder mysterious on NCIS and Midsummer Murders

Question 7. What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In order to answer question seven, the group got together and were each responsible for helping out with something in the film. Temi put together the Final cut production, Whilst, Lashmi and mehdi were responsible for writing the script and producing it for the voiceover. As a group, we then put the Final Cut production and the voiceover together, editing the voice in timing with the pictures and adding in fades. As a result we have this video shown below.