Evaluation activity 7

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

- When we compare our preliminary task to our final work its clear that we have learnt a lot our using the camera. In the past 5 months we've learnt so such. It is very clear that we have put a lot more thought into where the camera should be places to gain better effects.We have also used camera shots better e.g. match on action and close ups. Using these term its clear that we have improved our media skills over this time.

- In the preliminary task there was an incredible amount of dialogue. So when ever we changed an over the shoulder shot we had sure we always followed the 180 degree rule for increased continuity. However in our final media task there wasn't a lot of dialogue, but when ever there was a change of shot in the same scene we had sure we followed it.

- Again in our preliminary task we used a lot of shot reverse shot and over the shoulder shots, this would then combat the amount of dialogue and smooth out the editing and continuity though out the video. When it came to making our final film we knew that we didn't have near the amount of dialogue that we did in the preliminary. However we always thought back to how we edited in our first task when making the final piece. Like in the alleyway scene when Kieran and I have a stand off with harry we used shot reverse shot to show the facial expressions. This helped a lot with continuity because we where able to portray our reactions after each movement made by harry.

Evaluation activity 6

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

This picture is one I took in lesson. Its shown us getting to grips with the camera. At the start of the year none of us where hugely familiar with using a video camera for this sort of task. How ever we all got to grips with the technology very quickly which helped a lot when trying to plan our filming schedule.

We also learnt how important very piece of equipment available is, for example the tripod is a huge importance when filming. We used a tripod for more or less every shot we took which was of great importance. If we had not used it our final project would have looked very unprofessional and poor.

Whilest constructing our final piece of work we learnt that the re-shot was incredible important. This was a benefit of the group working together very well. Which meant we finish all of our filming very, this then led to us spotting mistakes early when it came to editing. This meant we got the re-shot done, which then fitted in very nicely with our work. If we hadn't have been so prepared a re-shot would have been near impossible and made our film have less continuity and effect.

We used premiere elements to edit our opening. Kieran was very fimilliar with this software. This made it simple for him to get to grips with using it for our editing . However i had never used it before. I learnt a lot of what i now know about this programme and how to use it from Kieran. Most of the things done in our opening i know how to do it because of paying attention to Kieran, and playing around with the programme itself.

At the start of the year we where introduced to blogger. I had never used it before and didnt know what to expect. However after a long time working on it, blogger is a key part of our english media lessons. It is now very easy to use.

All of the videos have been posted on youtube. Its very easy to use and very easy to find your own piece of work. Its simple because we all used it many times before.

Evaluation activity 5

How did you attract/address your audience?
This is our opening again, with annotations over the video.

Evaluation activity 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I believe that our general target audience would be a stereotypical male with a variety of ages. Most of the people that would choose to watch our film would be quite a common movie goer. The males would be more interested in our film because as our film carries on the shots would start coming a lot quick as the action picks up the pace. Also our film would follow many of the other gangster film guidelines.


Our film about be for a more mature audience because of the violence and language content that is high in all gangster films. When we did some previous work on audience for our film, we found that most of the males going enjoyed films because of the plot that gets them engrossed in the film. They would also enjoy the action packed twists that would follow our opening.


The music your audience would listen too might be fast pace music either rap, typical pop music and drum and base. The type of clothes they wear, i believe would be whole wide range of different clothing from shopping in topman to river island. They would also watch a wide range of t.v programmes from things like mock the week and family guy.

Evaluation activity 3

We thought has Kieran had the director title on our film, and he was happy to do so. That he would do the directors commentary of our media production. We had a brief discussion on what should be said at look. It was just a case of kieran being more than happy to do it after we had all put some input into the script.


We spoke a lot about of our production company. MKM studios which resembles MGM studios, it is also all of our names (Matt Kieran Mitch).

The opening title would reflect the genre, for a crime/gangster film fancy font and a drop of blood reassembling the violence. However if it was a romantic film it would have things to do on love hearts insted of blood.

Our disrupter and production company would be universal so our film would be bale to make is way around the globe being showed.

It would be hard to get funding now the British film council is no long around to help fund British films. So we would find an investor of foreign film company.

The film would be resealed in the UK first to see how much it makes and seeing if it worth wild releasing it on a global scale for more profit.

Evaluation activity 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In all crime films there have been a armed 'bad guy'. In the part when me and Kieran as the henchmen are walking down the alleyway , we're confronted by a mysterious character at the other end. Like most other crime films the mysterious character is armed. However in most of the crime films they are armed with a gun, harry in ours isn't armed with a gun but a baseball bat. we chose to use a baseball bat because we believed it would still me very effective in look like a powerful weapon. It is also very effect because me and kieran are unarmed which gives the idea that we thought it was a straight forward mission that would be simple and not have any problems getting it done. The clip also fits in with the steroytype beacuse most cime films have a misson like ours, however our doesnt go as planned.

Our film also reprents the sociol group of a gang. In all clips our characters are all wearing suits and look like a steroyical gangsters. We all have our blazers done up and look very clam and collected walking with the briefcase. Even though in most crime films there is a greater amount of people walking in a group, i believe that me and kieran look the part and still give the effect as the other picture.

Evaluation Task One

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

- The first screen shot is how are film is introduced with the title screen. We chose to use this title screen over the other we had previously made beacause its more eye catching and keeps in touch with the openings genre. The text style and background looked very good because after the blood drops onto the floor, the title comes up and looks very effective.

- The second picture was very good at setting the next scene. It shows the next part of the film is set in the woods. It also shows that me and Kieran are very important to the film. Although our film takes place in different areas it was key to show when the scene changed. We did this very well though the editing and continuity.

- The next picture shows the costumes and props we used for the film opening. At all times we where wearing suits, which is the normal thing to wear in crime/gangster films. Also the briefcase is the main point of interest though out the film. We showed this very well because with most of the lighting in the film being dark it made the breifcase stand out, and showed the watches that it must be focused on.

- The next picture was part of our crash zoom used in the last scene. We had the idea of using a crash zoom very early and tried to incorperate it into our film. Many other crime films in media just used the idea of a tracking shot, however this made the scene go a lot quicker. It also put alot of emphasis on harrys character. We had the idea from previous crime films but we chose to develop it into a way which would be more effective and put alot of mystery behind harry's character.

-  The next picture shows the text style we chose for our names being put smoothly into our film. These parts are like most other typical crime films. They are slowly paces and easy to read, it also fits in with they begining. Whilst Mitch is getting ready the film is very slow paced which fits in well with the credits. This was used in many other crime films at the start of  a calm atmoshper, which is then later changed dromatically.

- The next shot of mitch is getting ready. This sets the scene at the begining of the film very well, it also introduces the first character very well. It is very common in most crime films for the setting of the scene to introduce one of the many main characters.

- The next shot shows harry preparing the baseball bat in a postions to strike. This is very common to most crime films becuase it has a sence of violence. It would also be very easy for the audience to establish what sort of genre it is. Its was very easy to relate it to other crime films becacuse all of them have a scence of viloence and fast paced action which is located at the end of our footage.

Mendacity Audience Commentary

When we showed the rest of our media class our final product we got a lot of positive feed back. Mr Oswick said "The opening of the case scene worked really well and actually that shot was framed really nicely with Matt just looking over, the most nicely framed shot in the whole thing i think. It worked really well''. We where very proud of this shot as we had thought about what could make the scene more effect and we really wanted to achieve that. 


David in our class said he liked the sped up shot that goes down the alleyway, he thought that was really good and effective. Again it was another point in our film opening that we put a lot of thought into. We wanted to attempt to put a crash zoom in somewhere to just try it out, but it worked very quite.


Alex also added he liked the way it didn't stay on the same shot for too long and the credits faded in and out to black. He Also said some of the shot techniques like when the shot looked up towards the sky and came back down to a different area. This again was an Idea that we thought a lot about, And it showed off in the final piece because everyone thought it all looked impressive and smooth.




One area Mr Oswick touched on the few pieces of dialogue that were included were very quite and hard to pick up on. Which could be improved simply by having a proper mic or just recording the dialogue separately and link it with the video.

Mendacity Final Piece (AS Media Opening)

Diary of editing

March 27th

After speaking out side media lessons we had decided to use, the two tracks used are called Abandoned and On The Trigger. Kieran had put them over our footage and edited the switch between the two tracks to fit the change in scene. Kieran will then upload the final piece into his youtube account, which i will then later upload onto my blog.

Opening Credits second

After the previous post this is what kieran came up with at home, however he wasn't very happy with it and we as a group decided that we should use the first one with some minor changes.

Diary of editing

March 24th

In our lesson we had all decided that we need to cut one of the smaller time consuming parts out. After discussing for a few minutes in the group we had decided to cut out the toast scene. We would not miss anything very important out. The only thing we had to do instead of having the toast part in, was that me made a sound bridge of the kettle boiling from one scene to the next to have the same content as before.

We also said we would look on websites like freeplaymusic or non copyrighted music for our opening and talk out side of lessons yo what we think is the best and best fitted for our media work.

Diary of editing

March 23rd

Again in todays lesson we sat down at the laptop and still saw we had a fair bit down to get to the two minute mark. We kept cutting the odd second down when ever we could by either adding an effect or different ways of editing and using different cuts to shorten segments. We also said that we would have to start thinking out cutting a few small scenes out for the film to me on or around 2 minutes.

Diary of editing

March 22nd

In todays lesson we had looked over all the footage we had together and had all seen that we need to cut it down seriously if we are to meet the two minutes that we had been given. So once again we sat down and started cutting out a few seconds when ever we could. Another thing that we had to include where the credits, which we had decided they would be a good way to switch from scene to scene saving time.

re-shot filming pictures

15th March re-shot

Today Mitch and Kieran both came back to my house after we had finished school so that we could perfect the scene and make it better once we continue the editing at school. We re-shot the opening part of Mitch making tea. We where happy with the footage we got and where confident that it was a huge improvement instead of what we had in the first place.

This also gave me a chance to take pictures of us filming which i will upload later this evening.

Diary of editing

March 14th

We had all come back over the weekend ready to get alot of editing done. With Kieran being very god at editing he had been doing more of it when he can in his free time. As a group i dont want kieran doing all the work as it is all of our responsibility.

So in today lesson i sat down with kieran and again we went over the footage out started to cut out any part we could to get it down to the 2 minutes. We also stated to add some different efftects, cuts and fades. As we got half way though the lesson we realised that we would have to re-film the opening tea making scene. This was because we couldnt merge to different parts of a clip.

Diary of editing

March 10th

Kieran again brought his laptop in for the editing. Obvious Kieran is very experienced in editing clips together. So for these first lessons kieran is more or less just teaching me the simple parts of using all the editing software, so i can then help in later lessons when needed. When i get home tonight and in the next few lessons will start looking for working title images and start to think about putting the credits and titles together.

Diary of editing

March 8th

For the past few lessons we had started rendering and uploading the footage onto Kierans memory stick for editing on kierans laptop because the school computers are very slow and it would just make it faster and more efficient to get work done. Kieran will also bring in his laptop for media lessons for us to do the editing.

More opening credits

Earlier the week our group started to think about the opening credits which will be used at the beginning for the film. As we where talking and watching the one we already made, Kieran started to think of other ideas previously put together from the rest of the group.

After speaking about all of this Kieran decided that he wanted to have another do at the opening credits.

Diary of filming

February 26th

Today we went to film the alleyway scene. Mitch couldn't make it because he could not get a lift. I arrived on time to meet kieran and harry already at the alley way. The filming went well and got many different shots we wanted despite some rain.

Overall we are all happy with the footage we got over half term. We all agree it should be more than enough to when it comes to editing.

diary of filming

Febuary 25th

We ended up finally filming the splash scene today. We met up at the splash at about 2'oclock and filmed the scenes where me and kieran start running to the suitcase. We all put a lot of thought into many camara shots to use and in editing it should be very clear to what effect works best. For continuity we will start filming in Ashtead tomorrow at about 2:30 to show a difference in light which shows a change over time.

Diary of filming

February 24th

I was feeling a lot better the next day. However Mitch was working until late afternoon and Kieran was feeling under the weather like i was the previous day. So again we decided to postpone our filming until the next day.
We all felt comfortable leaving our filming to the next day because it was half term meaning we had a lot of time and we all knew our media project was the main priority. 

Diary of filming

February 23rd

We said that we would film down the splash today but i was feeling very unwell. I let the group know very early in the morning to stop anymore inconveniences. We decided as a group to film on Thursday which is tomorrow.  The weather forecast shown the other day shows it should be better weather which we as a group said it would be a positive.  

film names

Over the past few lessons leading up to us beginning to film we had started to think of possible names for our film.
We decided that it need to tie in with our films content and out of the names mentioned we decided that will would call our film 'Mendacity'.The basic definition would mean untruthful which would help the opening of our film more powerful ending on a cliffhanger. 

Diary of filming

February 22nd

We all got round to my house around 10:50am to start filming the very first scene of Mitch (the don) getting up and ready. We got all the filming done in just under 3 hours, we were very happy in the filming we got done because we used many different angles and had some very good thoughts about ideas for our next scene.
We also had to over come a few problems whilst filming things like seeing the reflection of the camera in a mirror or shiny object where things we had to over come.

weather during half term

We needed to look at the weather for the filming schedule so we could go out and film without any interruptions. Also the weather would have to be the same for some days which would help with the continuity of our film 

Character Costume photos

Today in lesson we all brought in our costumes that will be used when filming. We chose these outfits as it is the normal gangster outfit. We believe this would be the best look for all of us and think it would have the best effect on the audience.

We still need to get a photograph of Harry's character in costume. He will be a much less traditional gangster, of the rival gang. He would have a much more casual suspicious clothing. He would be wearing things like a dark hoodie and a hat to try and make his identity hiden.

Film Sceduling.

In toady's lesson we started to talk to each other when would be a good time for us all to start filming. As we are at our last week before a week off, we would all be able to get alot of our filming done in half term. This would be better as we are using people that are not doing media studies with us.

Audience Profiling

Most of the very successful crime films where made and published before the start of  the year 2000. This made it very hard to get accurate and recent audience profiles. However many of the successful older films follow clear cliches that were discussed early in my blog. Things like there being a rat in the gang and an undercover cop.

However now crime films are becoming more different to one another. They still get more or less the same audiences together. They are becoming increasing more likely to envolve a romantic part or twist in the film.

Questionaire

We all dicided to make our own questionaire, which we hope will help us get ideas of what to include in our film and what not to.

1).  On a scale of one to ten how violent do you think mordern crime films are?

2).  Do you think is would affect the film postively or negatively?

3). Would you rather watch a modern crime film or a traditional older crime film?

More locations

This allyway again would give the same affect than the other one, which we wanted.

Locations

For our shooting locations the main points we needed where allyways. This is because it would be the main point of activity. We would be filming this part of the film when is a lot darker. This would put a lot more emphasis on how intimidating the figure standing at the end of the ally would be. Also hopefully the lamp post will be on making it have greater affect on the sence.

Picture analysis

This is a kitchen where we will film the beginging part of the scene. Mitch would get ready and walk down stairs into the kitchen. He would then get ready and begin to make him self some breakfast. We will use a number of different affects to be able to make it more affective and less time consuming. We where also thinking of doing a voice over where Mitch would be taking out how this whole day started the to criple his whole industry.

image and props analysis

We will have to use a briefcase for our media work. It will be key for our film introduction as it is the main point of attention.




Also a baseball bat will be the only weapon that will be in our film at the moment.
It will have many different camera angles on it , so it will get the point across to the audience that the character holding it is dangerous

Animatic storyboard

Storyboard 6

The first shot will be is of the characters cautiously carring on walking down the alleyway
The next shot is a first person view of the mobsters peering from the alleyway and looking right.
As they turn to the left it will be the character with the baseball bat after he strikes it will be a crooked camera angle of him walking off this the briefcase.

Storyboard 5

The beginging shot of this sence would be a medium shot , which would show kieran and I standing at the start of a darkened alleyway holding a briefcase.
The next shot is of a strange figure at the other end of the alleyway, a baseball bat slides his arm, which would be shown with a long shot.
After this shot it will be another long shot of the strange figure which will then track its way towards him for a close up showing a more violent look on his face.
Then the two gangsters facial expression changes to being more worried and unhindged.
The last shot is the mysterious character walking away with a long shot.

Storyboard 4

This sence will start with a close up of us walking with a close up of our feet. We will then walk toward a bush and then pick up a briefcase and then walk into the distance.

Storyboard 3

The first part of the storyboard is the boss just ready so he leaves his home. As he Shuts his door it will then turn into a flashback of Kieran and I as henchmen for the mob. We will them be shown with a briefcase running towards the camera.

Storyboard 2

One again we use a very wide range of camera shots to show key aspects of the film.
We will use close ups of the boss putting his tie on ready for bussiness. Also when he picks up his cup of tea.
When the boss sits down to eat his toast we will use a time laspse of him eating the toastover time.

Storyboard sheet 1

This is our first storyboard sheet it explains the opening. The first picture is the credits which will have non-copyrighted music playing over it. The rest of the pictures show the Boss getting up in his daily routine. We will explore a wide range of different shots that will show our understanting of the opening bit of our media course.

Opening Credits video

This video is one of our many ideas on the Credits. Kieran had made this outside of lesson time at home. We all agree that we will use it for our final piece.

Mood bored

Crime films audiences

When thinking about the audiences that would be interested in watching our film would be people aged 15 years old going up to the age of 50. We think that they would have to be a certain age to be able to watch the film but in the same way not too old that it would no longer appeal to them. We think that more males would be wanting to watch the film, because it would be an action packed fast moving film.