Evaluation

Now our group has finished our title sequence I am going to be doing an evaluation to our title sequence-
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product is a film and the type of genre that our film is, it is a horror film. There were many other genres that we could have picked but we thought of a good idea so we went ahead with doing a horror film. We tried our best to contrast our film with other horror films and still to keep the concept of making the film as intense as we could. We did come up with other ideas for other film genres but we thought, the idea that stood out the most was the title sequence that we have chosen now.
Codes and Conventions of horror films are-
Killer leaves his mark- we know the killer, the characters doing and he can do what they feel is right.
There is always a main character and that character mains to stay alive.
Good Vs Evil- someone good always faces something evil.

In our film we do tick the boxes of the codes and conventions, not all of them but as many as we could do.

Our first convention is that the killer has his own trade mark, in our film our character does have his own trademark and this really sets the genre of horror. The way our character kills his victims seems very painful, the character will start of his murder by beheading the victim. That is not all he does he then burns the victims face to make it look exactly like him. The reason why our character attacks these people is because they used to take the mick out of him because of the way he looked and he wants to seek revenge on them for what they did to him. This is one way of creating horror, not because of the end turn out but what he does in order to make these people look like him.
The second code and convention is the main character role. You could say that Damien is the main character in our film but, later on as you will see the victims also become the main character in the film so we don’t really have main character. Damien is in most of the scenes so you could say that he is the main character, he can also be called the main character because he is always doing something within the scene or because everything is related to him.
The last point is Good Vs Evil, our film is less on the point of Good Vs Evil and the reason for that is because everyone in our film has done something bad. The victims are also as bad as the killer to some extent; the victims had bullied the killer when he was a child because of the way he had looked. There is a little sense of Good Vs Evil and that is that the bullies that bullied him have become good over the years and they have changed but Damien does not see it that way he seeks retribution.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our film does not classify to any type of social group. We did not want it to relate to any specific group and the reason for that is because we wanted it to be different. Not all victims that have been bullied go around killing the bullies; they might stand up to the bullies but not kill them. You could say it is aimed at bullies but we did not aim it to any group because we didn’t want them to get the wrong message across. Damien was not meant to be in our film to represent people that have had server things happen to them, he was used in our film to be as an angry man and seek revenge. The reason why we said that he should have some disfigurement to his looks is because then we could create a story line from it and it will be easier to get the attention and emotions that we would have liked. The gender this film can be shown to is both genders because we have based it on bullying, not only boys get bullied, everyone gets bullied so we would like the gender to be aimed at both types of gender.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
We had researched loads of different types of British type Film Company’s and we had decided to go with Hammer Films productions. Hammer Films productions are what we have chose because they have created many horror films, they specialize in this sector of the film industry. They have mad the big films such as The devil rides out, Frankenstein, Dracula prince of darkness. These are very big films in the horror gender, as you can see the films that I have listed are high budgeted films and they have been very successful in the audience that have seen it. We wanted our whole film to be a British type film and have no other County come into it. Britain actually specializes in making horror films and because we are doing a horror film it was best to keep it British. Hammer Films productions do produce British films and because we wanted it to be a horror type film we thought it was best to go with them, we had also researched on them as well before we had chose our film distributer. Hammer films did get a good response from its audience in the films that they have distributed in many places.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
We have decided as a group that our film will be highly rated and the reason for this is because the graphical images that are being used are very vial and gory when Damien kills his victims. Whilst we was discussing the age we had to think carefully because we had to think what type of audience would watch this and we thought people at the age of 18 and above will enjoy this film. I would say that the age group we would have liked the film to be was a 15 rated film, when we presented our pitch to the class they all said that they think it is advisable to have the age of 18. The reason for that is because of the things that Damien ends up doing and how horrific the film sounds. They though the age of 15 is too young to be shown too. We had agreed because our film was horror we should release it in the horror type period so we wanted to release it on the day of Halloween. To create tension and atmosphere we would have advertised the screening night because we wanted as many viewings as we could get. The release date was to be set on Halloween; this was also done because it is near the holidays that will be good things because it is a school holiday which means more profit will be made. When it is released it will make an impact because it is a new film and many people would like to see something new.

How did you attract/address your audience?
To attract the audience we knew that we would have to introduce bold characters and characters that will please an audience. We had to choose wisely because we wanted people to come and view our film so we had to think of who brings audiences in so we thought that these were the best actors for the job.
Characters that we would want to star in our film-
·         Freddie Highmore--Young Damien
·         Shia LaBeouf—Older Damien
·         Alan Rickman—Damien’s Father

We have used Freddie Highmore to act as Damien when he was young and that is because Freddie Highmore looks like a young and easy going character. We wanted Damien to look all innocent when he was young we sort of wanted to create an enigma because the character changes so the audience will want to know why that had happened. Shia LaBeouf is a dark actor and has a different personality then Freddie Highmore and as Damien gets old he gets bad so we thought it was best to place an insecure actor there. After the fire Damien’s dad becomes an alcoholic, Alan Rickman has been referred to be a hated rude person and does not bother with things other than him. We thought if we can add this in then people could also understand Damien’s lifestyle at school and outside of it.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
We had used three different types of technologies in this project and they were Final cut pro, garage band and blogger. I have never ever used these three software’s in my life. We did get tutorials for them and that did help a lot but I did get stuck quite a few times. Final cut was where we had edited out title sequence. I was selected to edit our film as someone had dropped out, but we all had a go. At first it was really hard to get the hang of but then as you get used to it, it wasn’t too bad. Garage band was not as hard to use as final cut because it was basic. We had produces our song from scratch and I think it seemed to work very well with our title sequence and everybody thought that too. It had created tension because of the beats we had used. I have never also used blogger and that took me time to sign up to, but eventually I got the hang of it. At first I did not use my blogger but now I have tended to use it regularly and that is a good thing because it keeps me on track.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In this whole title sequence I have learnt many things. I have learnt how to use three good software’s which where garage band, final cut pro and blogger. You can learn many skills from final cut pro and garage band and it was what produced our title sequence. I have learnt that you have to be dedicated in what you do and take every opportunity of time. At one point I thought we would have not finished, but with the dedication with my fellow group members we achieved it and produced a good title sequence. At first our title sequence seemed basic but it took us all to surprise because we had to film it at least three times. All in all I am proud of what we have produced because it has given me different skills and it was enjoyable.
 

Location 5

This is James's house but again we could not get permission so we used Aarons house.

Location 4

This is james nans house but again we could not get the permission to use it.

Location 3

The 3rd location that we considered was my house and the reason for this is because it was longer, and tidier. It also had trees which many horror films have, but we was not granted permission so we could not shoot it in my house.

Location 2

The woods was another idea that we had in mind and this would have really set the scene. It was oxlees woods.  The only reason why we could not manage to use the woods was because of asking for permission and we also had to take the props. There was also the danger of setting the woods on fire.

Location of video shoot

This is where our video was shot, we have shot the film in this location because we was not able to get permission from any of the other locations where we wanted to shoot our title sequence.

First Draft Title sequence

This is our film title sequence that we have created. 

Evaluation of the group

This post is only going to be about how i feel the group worked well together and how each member in the group worked. 


Harj (Me)


At the beginning of the course I was very lazy and laid back. I did not do much and I did not contribute a lot. I then had to come to my senses and find a way to prove to the teacher that I can be worthy of the work I produce. We all had to assign job roles for the people within our groups so I took on the Job of having to be the camera man and the editor. Everybody took some part in the editing but I had thought that I had done most of the editing it is a good thing that I had done most of the editing because that was my job role. I did not do any acting but I had the privilege to film our title sequence and get the best possible shots i could get. There was one problem that  I had created is that we was going to film our title sequence but I had to be somewhere. I think it was easy working with the group and we did have laughs and enjoy it all in all. 


Aaron-
Aaron was meant to be our director and guide us through the whole title sequence and I think that he had done a good job of that. Aaron only had one role initially and that was a big job but we had to re film our title sequence but James could not make it so Aaron took on the job of becoming the actor. So I had to help Aaron in directing the shots as we were one man down. In the last time that we had filmed James could make it so we made it fair that he could do some directing as we all had a turn. Aaron did work very well in the group and contributed with everything he helped me edit, place the shots and we also filmed it in his house. There was only one problem that when we was presenting our film Aaron didn't come so Me and James had to present it. 


James


James did give input into the work he was our actor at first but he did not turn up so he had to have a different job role. When James directed he was good because he told us were to place the shots well and he helped with some of the editing as well. He had helped with one of the shots in the title sequence which we had used. James did not turn up to one of the shoots and we thought we would have been behind so we had to come up with something fast and in the end Aaron had to act.

Finishing up

This week we have finished our title sequence, we have completely done as much as we can do to make it look as good as we can. We tidied it up as much as we could do so and made it look as smooth as we could. We are happy with what we have produced and happy with the changes we have made (feedback sheet). We decided to finish editing and not to add anything else in there are two reasons because we did not want the film to exceed above two minutes also we did not want to waste any more time otherwise we would be behind in time. 

Changes i would make

As are near to the end of completing our title sequence I will be talking to you about what I would have changed to it if we had the chance to do it again.

1. I like our title sequence but it was really hard to film and it was totally un expected we thought it would be easy but we found out when we started filming. So it is best to film something you know that you will be able to do. 
2. The footage was okay but it would have been much better if we had more lighting as we wanted to film it in the dark but we could not get enough lighting. We could have used some sort of light to tension and make sure the scene was set. 
3. If we filmed earlier it would have been better as we could have used 3 different locations which would have made it more effective but we didn't have enough time in the end. 

Changes we have done

This week we had begun to change things to our title sequence that we had been told to do by people, we knew what we had to change by the feedback sheets. We had sorted out the cuts and made them as clean as we could between each shot and it is looking much better then before. We had also sorted out shots were the paper comes in, because most of the titles came off the page but we sorted that out and even added effects. We had also changed the characters names that we were told to do and done a research on a actor to see if we think he would be the right person for the role of that character. We had to sort out the song at the end because it just suddenly stopped but that is also complete. There is one more thing to do then we will have completed our title sequence and make sure it is ready to be shown. 

Feedback

12 of the feedback sheets that we got back were 2 out of 3 stars. Most of our feedback that we had got was positive and made us feel as we have created something good. 9 out of the 12 thought that our title sequence that we had created had potential. The other 3 gave us 1 star, which means that we need to do a lot in order to please them. No one in the class had given us 3 stars but we did not expect 3 stars as we knew that we had more work to do and it was only our first draft that we were showing to the class.


Many people like the camera angles that we had used in our shots. The typography was well liked, also the idea of the titles to appear on the paper was a common good note to our film title sequence. Even though many people thought the paper idea was good we had thought that we could have shown it much better then what we had produced in that time. The also like the opening titles that we had done because it had created an enigma of who the character was? What and why he was doing, what ever he was doing?


The downfalls that people thought that we need to work on is make the transitions between the shots more smoother because they are rough cuts. Even though we had to change that we knew that we would have got that in our feedback. Some people did not like the typography that we had used but we have also changed that. Many people did not like that we only had one location, but we was only going to use one location in our title sequence. It would have made it look more effective but we only wanted to have one location. People were saying that the caste was not right so we had changed what we thought needed to be changed. 

Week before half term

The week before half term we showed our first draft to Shaun in his lesson. The class had to fill out a feedback sheet on their thoughts on our film title sequence. They had to say what was good, what needs improving and what does not work at all. Most of our feedback we had got from other people was good and appropriate feedback. There were a few things that we had change and we will do our best in changing them. One of characters were not right for the role so we will have to change them and we are changing the character to Alan Rickman. We are happy as a group for what we have produced after the things that we have changed. 

final cut pro

This is the booklet that we were given in media. We were shown a demonstration on how to use the software but we had also been given this books just incase we forget or missed something. This book was used as guidence and it was a good thing to do becasue if anyone was stuck thent they can just look in the book and it will tell them what to do it is basically a manual.

Job roles

We all had roles within our groups and we had all agreed with eachother with the job roles that were set. In our first shoot james was our actor, but when we filmed in our re-shoot Aaron had to be our actor as james was not able to make it. So aaron was originally our director but he had to also take on the role of acting. We had to film our title sequence three times because the first time it was too dark. The second shoot was okay but we needed more shots so in the third shoot we made sure we had enough shots to cover all areas. So Aaron was the actor and the director. James did help me with about two camera shots and he also helped with abit of the editing. My role was to be the camera man and edit the video. I did take on most of the editing but people within my group did also contribute. James had made the song but it did not go well with our title sequence so me and Aaron had created one. I had put the beats in and we both made the decision if it worked well enough.

blogging

We had to get some permission from Aaron Vanders parents, saying that we were allowed to film in their garden and to have a bonfire. We had filmed our film on Friday, 20th, January and on the camera the footage had looked clear enough. So in todays lesson we had uploaded the shots to the mac, but as we started to use Final cut the shots were not clear enough and the picture was dark. So we have decided to film our film again and we will film it tomorrow. To make the shot look clear we will need to have more light and maybe do it at an earlier time.

What we have done so far

In this post I will be informing you about what we have done within our group to get where we are now. We have shot our title sequence, so know we will have to start editing the shots to the best of our ability and see what outcome we get from it. We will start to edit it on tuesday and try to complete the editing by the end of Fridays lesson. We are nearlly finished in creating our songs, so when we have finished we will have to also edit that and make sure the shots and the voice over fit with the song. We have not done the voice over yet we hope to complete that during this week. We have sorted out the typeography there is only a few things to edit such as the colour, then we will have to find a way how to make the typeography float out of the bin. We have also found a company that will be creating our film, and we have also got our company name as well, which is called HARJ. We have also got a logo for the company. So all that is left to do is to start editing and then put everything together and see what we can create.

Filming day

Today we are going to film our film at 4.00pm. In todays lesson it was a catch up lesson for blogging. We have been advised to update our blogs. We are near enough finished with our song, we only have to add a few more beats then we will be finished. We have to now film our film, edit it, put it into the music add the voice note and put it all together. We will want to start editing our film next week so we will have to film our film today.

The voice over Script

This is going to be the voice over script for our title sequence. We have included tense and dark words and the reason for this is because our film is horror. We have included the word fire because our film is normally based around fire.
Fire is destructive… Fire destroys… Fire burns the flesh… and the soul… it takes away everything you hold dear… it can’t be controlled… it can never be stopped…  A monster born from the flames… The flames around may long have perished… but the fire still burns deep within… And it can’t be stopped… until it has consumed everything in its path.

final cut

This is the video that we had played around with in our lesson today. we had done this because we are going to create a film title sequence so it will be good for us to practise and get used to the software.

Props

We want to make the character look as if he is burnt, so we will have to buy some products. We will have to use, girls make up and some glue. We have been watching some videos on youtube to find out how the burns can look like. Mrs Moore had told us told us what we would need to create this effect. We will have a bonfire because our film is mainly based around fire. So we had to get permission from Aaron's parents to be able to do that in his garden. We have been granted permission to start a bonfire in Aaron's garden. We will have to follow some rules to make sure that nothing else happens.
These are some rules for a bonfire

Bonfire safety tips

Once the bonfire is lit, make sure you:

• keep a bucket of water or a garden hose nearby - in case of emergencies
• don’t leave the bonfire unattended
• keep children and pets away from the bonfire
• don’t throw any fireworks into the fire
• don't burn aerosols, tyres, canisters or anything containing foam or paint - many produce toxic fumes and some containers may explode, causing injury

Once the bonfire has died down, spray the embers with water to stop it reigniting.

Change of filming date

We had to change the day of when we was going to film our title sequence, because had come up. We have re scheduled to film our title sequence and that day would be a Friday, 20th, January, 2012. We will have to change our date on the film on the calendar that we have created because we are not doing it on the date that we have selected.

My production plan

I have added my calendar that my group have created onto my blog because it will keep use organised not olny that the teachers will be able to know what we will be doing on what day. This will not just guide me but it will also guide our group as well. The Google calendar is a good thing because we will know what type of things we have to do per week. We have to hand in our film by the 10th of, so we have added something to do per week in our calendar. Each week we will focus on certain things to do with our title sequence. We cant rush this otherwise we will make mistakes.

titles

Above is the titles that we are going to use in our title sequence. This typeography is good because our main theme in the film is set to be on fire and the writing of the typeography looks like fire. We have not changed the colour of the text because it will look good coming out of the fire in this colour. The titles will be show in chronilogical order in the actual film sequence but they are not in order right now.

poster

This is the poster that we have created. It will be a great way to promote our title sequence. The reason for this is because we have got some themes of the film with fire, and the child killer, also the child is mysterious as you do not actually see his face, only his shadow. The fire can create atmosphere and set the type of genre because of the colour and how horific it looks.

Hammer Film Productions

This is a company that I reckon will do a good job for us, so I would like them to create our film. This film company is British and the company’s speciality is in horror.  We want our film to be a British type theme and it is also horror, so I think that this matches what this film production that we have found. This is a good idea because bigger companies will not want to take our film on because they might think that they won’t get a good amount of money in return.  This is a good company to take on board because it is British, whereas most of the big companies are American, when American people try to create a British type film it becomes beyond the topic but it also can be comical. Our film is totally different to this it is not a comedy it is a horror based genre and we would like people to take it serious.

Thursday 5th january 2012

At the beginning of the lesson sir had discussed with us what we was going to do in today’s lesson. In the first part of the lesson we had to create a Google calendar. We are going to create a Google calendar because it is a way of setting our deadlines. We will be setting dates for when we will be completing things in our film. We as a group will have to decide what dates we reckon we will get the things completed. We will try to equal it out per task otherwise we might rush some things. I think that Google calendar is a good thing because it helps us out a lot. We will know what we are doing and what other things we have to finish off. Google calendar can be good because we can use it as our evidence for our coursework. We can add each other who are in our group, therefore everyone in our group will know the deadlines and what we need to do.

In the second part of the lesson we had started to finish off and finalise our ideas for our storyboard. Our group had to start again because there were things that we had to change. We had changed a few things in our storyboard and we had also checked with Shaun if it was to a good standard. We had also went onto the computer and started to look at some music that we will be using in the background. Unfortunately the music that we had liked had copy right. So we asked Shaun what could we do, he said that it is very easy to create a track like that and he will show us how to do it and we will then create the background music. After we had clarified that we had decided what the voice over notes will be, so we wrote about a paragraph, on what we think the voice over notes should consist of. We have come up with a lot of phrases and we will record a voice and put it in separate shots.   

How to write up a pitch for something to an audience.

1.      The introduction in your pitch should be very brief not giving away to much.

2.      The pitch should not be longer then 8-9 minutes but it should be over 5 minutes.

3.      The pitch should be telling the audience about the film but try not to give too much away.

Make sure you have answered all of the questions before you present your pitch. If you answer these questions there are no way that you will be stuck on the spot if someone asks a question. If you answer most of these questions then you have given out a good pitch.

1.      What genre is your film?

2.      What other genre’s have inspired your film to be similar to this?

3.      Who is the target audience?

4.      When will the film be released?

5.      How much it will cost to create?

6.      How much income you will receive from it?

7.      Which characters will be in it?

8.      Who is the director?

We in our groups had to answer these questions that had been given in our presentation. The presentation will be on the film idea we have come up with for our title sequence. We have to present it to the class and listen to their feedback.

Our presentation for Groundhog Day, our ideas for a new title sequence

In this lesson we as a whole class had to present our presentation in our indivual groups. The theme was a British edition of Groundhog Day. As a class we had judged people presentations and had to give them a mark out of ten for there initial idea and the presenting skills they were using. After the group had finished presenting their idea we had to give feedback to what was good and what was bad in the presentation. We had to give good reason for what we think why the people have used that type of typeography and pictures in their pre title sequence for Groundhog Day.

Our presentation was okay, it was not great because we gave too much a way. The feedback that we had got from people in the class and the teacher made us understand that we had made it look like a trailer rather than a pre title sequence.

Blogging

In this lesson we were given a chance to update our blogs and get them to a good standard. I was behind in my blogging but I had managed to get more of my work onto my blog and get it posted. I had asked my teacher to check what I have missed out to put on my blog and they had told me what to do.

Groundhod Day - Our Own Idea For A Pre Title Sequence

This is the image and typography that my group have used for the film Groundhog Day. This image would be seen in our version on the Groundhog day title sequence as it communicates the three main points that we have aimed to acheive which is;

• Romance - which can be seen clearly in the picture between the man and women.
• The British theme of the film -  having the picture be in London, the capital of England. London can be seen in some romantic comedy's as this is where the love happens.
• Comedy - as you can see they are on an ice rink and this is where we will communicate the comedy to the audience.

We had to come up with a new idea for Groundhog Day which we had to present to the class when we had completed it. There was a male character who is feeling the real heat of Groundhog day he has fallen in love with a woman which he keeps on bumping into. In many different funny ways. But every time he bumps into her she doesn’t know who he is because he is the Groundhog Day, all the time he bumps into this woman he asks her out. We had to use this and give this idea out to the class, using typeography and a screen shot of something. So we worked in a group and we went onto Google and found a picture of two people in love. Then we had gone onto Dafont and found a font that we had put on top of the picture.

Typeography and design

This is the order of which Catch me if you can goes in- Firstly it says which Studio had created it. Then the next type of typography is the Stars, it mostly is shown in the order of most fame. Then the name of the film is then shown. After this it shows the members of the crew who had created this film and what job roles that they had. The Producer and executive producer’s names are then shown. Finally the director’s name is shown last.
The typeography that had been created is a sort of wavy text like it is liquidy. The typeography throughout the whole clip is the same. Off some of the letters there are lines coming off them, this then takes it onto the next shot and it is like a cycle which keeps going on throughout the clip. There is always one character that keeps on appearing and he seems to look like a mysterious guy. It looks like he’s is doing a lot of things, which can kept the audience thinking what is going to happen next. There is mysterious music being played in this clip and that can give away what type of genre the film is about. E.g. if the film is horror there can be rock music or spooky alerts. The title "Catch me if you can" can give away what the film is about because; straight away people will think that a person is on the run, or escaping.