Thoughts on our final piece

After completing the final edit of our film, I am very happy with the final result. I believe that as a group, we achieved everything that we set out to do and we really put our knowledge and understanding of different camera and editing techniques to use whilst doing so.

I believe that the true narrative behind our piece was portrayed very well in the final edit of the piece. After creating the first draft of our piece, we were able to notice any continuity errors that we had made, and were therefore able to reverse these errors in the final edit of the piece. Watching through the first edit also allowed us to be able to see what other shots we may wish to include or any areas where we believed the shots we had used were not necessary. I think that creating the initial draft truly helped us to be able to create the final piece that we now have today, to make the piece as good as it could possibly be.

I think that our choice of music throughout the piece was very fitting and really helped to add to the narrative and feeling throughout the piece. The contrast between the two different sound items helped to define this difference of life Vs death that we wished to portray throughout. I also believe that our use of diegetic sound helped to intensify this sense of mystery felt as the arguments seen between Josh and I serve to produce a clue into the real reason for the murder/death of Jasmine's character.

I believe that the large use of shots that we included in the piece really contributed to the final effect that the film holds. The use of pans helped is to build tension and suspense and the use of close-ups/ extreme close-ups helped to build on this also. They did this by isolating Jasmine's character, making her seem lonely and vulnerable. I also really liked our use of the 360° shot as it allowed us to create an almost chaotic atmosphere, mirroring Jasmine's state of mind and the collapse of everything that she has known.

If we were to create this opening again, there would be a few elements that I believe that we could tweak to make the piece even better. Jasmine and I decided to create a video outlining our views on this which can be found below. 

Evaluation question 7

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

Evaluation question 6

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

Throughout there construction of this product, I have learnt about many different programmes and softwares that I have never had the chance to use before. 

Blogger

Before I began this project, I had never heard of blogger and had never had any experience with using
it. We used blogger as a way to keep track of our progress and to document our experiences and research that we had gathered throughout the process. Having now used it for our media product, I have become very confident with using the software as it is simple and user friendly. I can confidently apply different features to the blog and I can effectively design it to suit my personal preference. I have found using blogger very useful throughout this project as doing so has allowed me to keep all of my work together in one, easily accessible location. 

Prezi

I had never heard of prezi before i began work on this project. Prezi is a unique platform which can allow you to create a professional looking presentation which is simple and easy to follow. In the past, I have strictly used powerpoint to create visual presentations however, the basic layout of prezi is very unique and creates a different effect than a presentation created on powerpoint. Having now used prezi for this project, i am confident with the software and i will be sure to use it again in the future for another purpose.

Premier Pro

We used premier pro to edit our product together. Premier allowed us to really be able to put our own style into our individual films and gave us complete freedom to be as creative as possible. I have not had much experience with using editing softwares in the past so using this program was a challenge to start however, it was simple and straightforward which allowed me to be able to pick up on the different features more easily so that i could have a better understanding of what we could do with the footage we had gathered. Knowing how to program worked allowed me to be able to help Josh in the editing stage and allowed me to be able to make suggestions on how to final product should look.


Use of camera

Throughout the production process of our film, I have learnt many different camera techniques that I will be able to use throughout future projects. As I did not take media studies for GCSE, I was quite behind the rest of my class in terms of knowledge and understanding of the different camera shots that can be used in a project. I now have a far broader knowledge of the range of possible shots that can be used and also the effects that they can have on the audience's perception of the film.

Evaluation question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Characters

Throughout our thriller opening, we ensured that we featured relatable characters to allow our target audience to be able to truly connect with the narrative. As our target audience for the piece was 16-19 year olds, including characters of this age range allows this audience to be able to relate more to the characters and the challenges that each character may face individually. Jasmine, Josh and I all acted in the film and each of us fit into this age bracket. Using actors of a similar age to the characters they are portraying helps to add to the realness of the piece, allowing viewers to become even more engaged with the piece.

Our film features many stereotypical characters in the terms of a vulnerable female (Jasmine) and a strong, dominant male (Josh). My character however, serves to break this female stereotype by appearing strong and independent. Including this character allows the piece to become more diverse, creating a more relatable, realistic storyline.

Narrative

To allow our piece to be more engaging for our audience, we ensured that some of the topics and issues raised were relatable to the target age range. The main theme in the piece is jealousy. Jealously is an issue that is faced in many teenage friendships and relationships, so addressing this topic would allow our audience to be able to relate to the issues that the characters are facing. A strong theme throughout the piece is also friendship, as suggested by the photo montage at the beginning of the piece. In the piece, my character also calls Jasmine to warn her about Josh's intentions but she leaves it too late. This shows the character's real bond that has sadly been allowed to be overshadowed by another person. This is a situation that many teenagers will be faced with on many different levels and it is important to bring these topics to light.

Editing

We also used different editing techniques to help to attract our audience to the piece. The opening of a film is where the tone of the piece is set so using the correct techniques is vital to keep an audience interested and to encourage them to keep watching. We used quick cut editing with a range of close up shots near the beginning, as the intensity of the shots helped to build the suspense for the audience as the death is revealed gradually through snapshots of the crime scene.

Sound

We used two separate sound items throughout our thriller opening. The first song used is called, 'Jealousy' by Frankie Miller. This song does not conform to the typical conventions of a thriller film as it is not particularly eerie or dark. We chose this track because of its lyrics. With very close reference to influence from BBC's 'The Missing', we wanted to give the audience a small insight into what the film was to entail throughout the title sequence. We found that the lyrics in the song linked perfectly with our narrative ad helped to strengthen our plot and storyline.

We used a second sound item called, 'G321-Thriller opening music choice 3.' This sound item was very typical of a thriller film. It included a direct contrast between high and low pitched sounds to encourage discomfort in the audience to help to build the tension. We used this track throughout the shots of Jazz's body, relating the sound to danger. The track coincided with the previous piece very well as it helped to display the direct difference between life and death in our piece. 

Evaluation question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We carried out a survey at the beginning of the planning process of our film opening. Some of the questions included in the questionnaire were, 'What is your age?' and 'What is your gender?' The results of the survey were as shown below.

From the results gathered from the survey, we found that 40% of the people surveyed fit into the 16-19 age bracket. This age range was very suited to our piece as we all fit into this bracket as a group also. Targeting this age range in our piece was very important to us as being of similar ages would allow the audience to be able to engage more with the piece. It would allow the characters to become relatable to them, allowing them to truly become involved with the piece.

The results from the survey also showed a complete 50/50 split between both males and females. As a result of this ,we strongly featured both male and female characters in the narrative to allow the piece to be as dynamic as possible and accessible for everyone.

With close consideration to these results that we gathered, we made sure that we did all that we could to cater to this chosen age bracket to make the piece as suitable to them as it could possibly be. Doing this included choosing the appropriate film and distribution companies, to ensure that the piece is as relatable and accessible to people in this target age bracket as it can possibly be.  

Evaluation question 3

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

As a group, we decided that we would want the film company 'Film 4' to produce our film. We decided that this would be a very suitable company for many different reasons. After some research, we found that film 4 are very well known for the production of low budget, British films. They have also produced many thriller films in the past including 'Dead man's shoes' and 'Black sea' and also many other award winning films. As they have successfully produced films of this kind in the past, we are confident that they would be a very suitable company to produce our film. 

Film 4 is also a British based company. The idea that the company is relatively locally based, helps to support our interest in the company producing our film. The close proximity of the company allows for it to become far more accessible, making the choice a sensible decision, rather than choosing a company on a larger scale such as any of the Hollywood big 6 or companies that are centred elsewhere in the world.

As a group, we very much focused on the idea of making our piece available across different online platforms. We wished to focus on this point as we believed that this was the best possible way to reach our target audience as online streaming is very popular among our target age bracket (16-19 year olds). We decided that hybrid distribution was the route we wished to follow as we believed that this would be the best way to truly allow our film to reach as many people as possible. Hybrid distribution is where the creators keep the rights to their own film, allowing them to release their own products surrounding the product, but allows the film to also be used by specialist distributers to allow it to reach a larger audience. 

We decided that we wanted to allow our film to be distributed on the popular online streaming site, Netflix. The use of Netflix amongst risen dramatically in recent years, due to its convenience and low price, attracting students and other young people. As our target age range is 16-19 year olds, I believe that using Netflix to distribute our film would be the most tactful method as it would allow the piece to truly reach our target audience in the best way possible.

We decided that the best way to market our film would be throughout the use of social media. Social media has become a large part in the lives of young people so using this to our advantage would allow the word to truly reach our target age bracket. We would use social media sites such as Facebook, snapchat, media and youtube to promote our film. We could pay for adverts to be put on these sites to help to advertise our film to the age range that it is targeted towards. We would also use other methods of marketing such as word of mouth, that would also help to promote our film further. 

Evaluation question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions or real media products?

Media question 1 from Hannah Martin

What would we change?

After refection, Jasmine and i decided to create a video outlining our views on the final edit of our thriller opening sequence 

Storyboarding

What is a storyboard?

A storyboard is a sequence of drawings or images that represent the shots that have been planned for a piece of work such as a film or television programme. 

Storyboards allow creators to keep track of what shots they will need to complete their final piece of work. It allows them to be able to have a rough idea of what they would like their final piece to look like and will serve to keep them organised. We created storyboards at the beginning of the planning process of what we wished for our film to look like. These are pictured below.

Over time, our narrative changed dramatically as we began to explore the depth of the characters that we had created. We developed a clearer image of what we wished for the piece to look like so we created new storyboards in order to suit this new narrative. We stayed very true to these storyboards in order to achieve the look we wished for in our final piece. The final storyboards are pictured below.

Shot list

My role

My role within the group was co-producer with Jazz. As producers, it was our role to organise and arrange the filming process to ensure that everything went as smoothly as possible.

Prior to beginning filming, Jasmine and I began discussing possible filming locations for the piece, working closely with our storyboard to ensure that we chose the best possible locations. We decided we would use Josh's house to film as it is very spacious and is very accessible for us all to get to.
It was also our role to organise and arrange times for our group so that we can all be present whilst filming and planning.

It was mine and Jazz's role to ensure that we arranged to film on days that all of our group would be able to attend. We used a group chat on Facebook to coordinate times to make sure that we filmed at convenient times for everyone.

Throughout the filming process, it was our role to ensure that the piece ran as smoothly and as consistently as possible. This included ensuring the continuity of shots and props to make sure that the piece makes sense in the order that it is. We also had to ensure that the costumes being worn were worn in the right places throughout the film to allow the piece to flow in chronological order.