Part 8

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

I evaluated the task when we finished creating the exercise, http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/evaluation-this-was-short-exercise-to.html, the tasked helped me understand continuity and the role it plays within a clip and the exercise also allowed me to grow in terms of my editing skills.

 Digital technology- We filmed our preliminary task on a digital camera which was very light and easy to use, it was great for the simple task we had to do. We then had to edit what we filmed so we used iMovie because we had previous knowledge for this program and the school offered us the camera and iMovie. A strength of using the digital camera was that it recorded sound as well as the shot, it was also very easy to travel with and allowed us to film and delete what we needed. However a weakness of the digital camera was the battery life, if the battery was low the camera wouldn't film much which wasted a lot of time. We went out filming once and got there and the battery was dead, the group wasted all that time and had to go back. A strength of iMovie was that it had a precise editor which meant when trying to edit match on action shots we could get it perfect like the shot at 0:25. Also we had used iMovie in previous projects which also helped when editing. Digital technology helped a lot in our preliminary task as we understood how it works which meant when we filmed our opening we knew what the digital technology could do and its limitations. We used the same digital camera which we used for the preliminary task in our opening as we felt that the quality which we got from our preliminary task was enough for a BSR genre film. Since we edited with iMovie we also used this piece of technology for our opening as we were both very familiar with it and knew how it works. When we created our opening we kept the technology the same because we both felt that it was all we needed in order to create the opening as they fit the needs to create a BSR film. I felt that i have gain more experience in iMovie and with the digital camera as well as grown more confident in using them which helped when we had to create our opening as we didn't have to ask for help as much.The preliminary task allowed me to get used to the camera and equipment i would be using in the BSR film, i feel i could use the equipment confidently next year. A strength of using digital technology, especially the camera as it let us film a range of camera shots from long shots at 0:03 in our preliminary task. We then was able to film a wide range of shots with more confidents using the camera in our BSR task. 

Creativity- I joined the group late but the girls made the exercise original as they changed the story to a girl who is still in education but thinks she is pregnant, she is late for school one day because she was taking a test. We then see her arrive at school, when she is confronted by her teacher. We changed the story but we still kept to the brief as we needed to film someone entering a room and sitting down. A the beginning 0:02-0:06 we see her running into school.

They did this because they felt that a lot of young girls now days are getting pregnant at a young age whilst still in education, which i agree with and it made the brief more interesting. The also made the exercise creative by using a wide range of different shot types which I talk about in my continuity exercise http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/blog-post.html, the match on action shot at 0:25 helped create a realistic feel and makes the audience believe that its all filmed by one camera at the same time. We didn't want to create the idea of it all being filmed at once but still wanted it to look realistic. We used non-continuity in our opening as we wanted to show how her life is just repeated, the same thing every day, so we felt that non-continuity did that. However in our draft of our opening we used a lot of continuity because we felt then that it made more sense but it had a very slow pace. We the used the creativity skill from the continuity exercise into our full product because our brief highlighted aspects such as we had to create a BSR film which we did but we added our own theme and we changed the continuity to non continuity in order to create a montage which highlighted the theme of prostitution in the way it looks like she's sleeping with loads of men. Creativity allowed us to expand on the brief in both task and grow and expand on our idea to appeal to different target audiences. However the creativity was less successful as it meant that we had to be careful that we didn't move away from what the task was asking for us. I found it hard to be creative with the camera language in both task which i feel if i could improve my work, this is the area i would focus on as i didn't have much camera language in both task which we did. I don't feel like i worked on these when i created my BSR however i do feel like i had more creativity which meant my creativity skills grew, i felt that the BSR exercise was more original and had a better feel to it than my preliminary task. Next year i would make sure my work is different and more creative by spending more time on planning. As the brief was not as detailed for our preliminary task it allowed us to be more creative and expand on what the brief wanted meaning we could change and make the piece of work which had our own spin and was original, this goes for both our preliminary task and our BSR task.

Post production- The preliminary task helped me so much in our BSR task as the first task helped me become more confident with IMovie and understanding how to edit clips in more detail, something that really helped throughout both task was the precise editor as it allowed me to get the continuity when the girl opened the door in the preliminary task at 0:25. Learning to use this on IMovie then helped me when i was creating our BSR draft (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot0--k23y28) as we had a lot of continuity, i used this skill at 0:02 when she opens the door and also when she puts on her jackets as we filmed it in two bits. Before the preliminary task i never knew what continuity was, the task helped me develop and get a real understanding of what continuity editing was. This then helped me when we was planning and editing our BSR as we had to decide between continuity and non continuity. I feel like a strength of post production for our preliminary task was that it allowed me to work on a new area which i never had looked at or even thought of. Also the skills i learnt in the preliminary task in post production helped me when it came to our BSR film as it allowed me to use my skills with confidence and improved our work as the editing was more tight and i felt because i was used to picking up poor editing with our preliminary task i was more aware in our final BSR. However a weakness of the post production was that i found it hard to edit bits that didn't follow like continuity parts which we did in the preliminary task like the bit when she is walking up the stairs at 0:18, as we had a non continuity montage for our final product i felt that our opening didn't make sense and didn't follow even though that was the effect we wanted to create. Post production from both task has helped me a lot as i feel beyond confident to use IMovie and edit a piece of work, however i still feel for next year i could tighten up on my editing skills as i feel on parts of both our preliminary and BSR they didn't look the best. When we as editing our preliminary i had to add a shot of a clock at 0:33 because the editing didn't follow.

Research and Planning- I joined the class late so i missed the research side but i did independent research by watching clips and reading up on the shots such as 180 degree rule, i also created a blog post about continuity, http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/blog-post.html. I felt that the independent research i did helped a lot when we was filming our preliminary task but not so much we was filming the BSR as the BSR task required different and more detail research as we had to watch movies, look up the genre, ethos and ideology of film 4 and looks at shots and camera angles. We also looked at the opening conventions when it came to our BSR, we looked at the credits which we denote at 0:24, all films have credits. We created a story board for our preliminary task which is in the blog post above, this helped me as i knew what shots we had to film and where the go when i had to edit, we didn't have a storyboard for our BSR but we did have a script. The script acted as a storyboard, as it did the same thing but didn't have pictures. http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/new-script.html. The preliminary task really helped me when i came down to our BSR as i felt that i learnt from my mistake in the preliminary task, as i didn't follow the storyboard as much in the preliminary which meant it was harder when i edited the task however in our BSR i referred back to the script when i got stuck. A strength of research for both task was that i knew what i had to do, i didn't just jump into the work and do what i had to do as i go, i had all the planning and idea there, all i had to do was film and edit. However i still feel like i could us the planning more when editing and filming which i learnt in my preliminary task, next year i would make sure i spend more time on the planning as it helps all the way through the task.

Part 7

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

Evaluation 6

How will you attract/address your audience? 

Part 5 Evaluation

Representation Evaluation

Evaluation part 4

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

You may have to watch the video on YouTube as some of the writing cuts of on the blogger view.

Part 3

what impact did the media institution film 4 have on each production stage and why?

Part 2 evaluation

Evaluation part 2 Who would be the audience for your product? 

Evaluation part 1- Brief

Evaluation part 1- Brief

We used the brief as a guideline during pre-production, production and post production because it highlighted key areas which became our criteria, the brief highlights that we are making an opening for film 4. This sets up the genre that we need to make for the target audience as film 4 are well known for British social realism films, The brief then goes on to highlight that we need to make a British social realism film. This allowed us to narrow down our idea as BSR are well known for dealing with issues which are hard-hitting and situation and themes that Hollywood avoid because they are non-escapist and show the reality of life for some people living in Britain. We decided to use prostitution because we felt that not a lot of BSR or Hollywood deal with this theme, we see her meeting new guys every day throughout the opening. The Brief then highlights the target audience, 16-24 year old living in Britain.  We denote British locations throughout the opening to appeal to the audience more as they know the areas and are familiar, 0:50. We got the idea of showing the location from Fish tank as they show the audience the estates to set up the idea of being in Britain. This was very useful throughout because we knew who we had to appeal the audience too affecting simple things from the title to music. Also the brief states that we need to keep film 4 reputation, which we did though sticking to their ethos by allowing new talent in actresses, low budget and create kitchen sink films. We kept their reputation as we used new talent, created a film that deals with themes that you wouldn't denote in Hollywood and made the two minute opening with a very low budget, which the brief also highlights. The brief gave us a guideline when creating our criteria that we had to meet whilst creating the two minute as it broke down a lot of information such as the genre, target audience, budget, institution and original music. The music you hear was picked to appeal to the target audience as its music young people in Britain listen to. Our soundtrack in the opening sequence which you hear from 0:00-1:45 was taken from free music archive meeting the brief criteria as well as the genre due to the beat and feel of it. I did some pre-production work on film 4 to understand how they work, http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/ideology.html this helped me understand film 4 and the BSR genre.

Our title was 'Damaged Goods' which is shown at 0:39 in the opening, Damaged goods connotes the theme of the protagonist being broken in way but she can still be used, as we denote a kiss mark at the end showing a playful and flirtatious side to her. The title also connotes that she may be broken but she doesn't mind as the kiss mark connote another side, she understands and has accepted her job of prostitution and is trying to get on with her life. Also we denote the 'Damaged goods' in two different fonts connoting that the protagonist has two different sides, one serious and money minded side and the other playful and promiscuous side. The kiss mark reinforces that she like her job and has accepted the way her life and job goes. As the kiss mark which we denote at the end of the title are red this also connotes that she may have two sides making it hard to read and really understand her, red can be seen as love or hate. The two sides also connotes her to be sly and very hard to believe and trust as the audience don't know what side to trust. We wanted the title to look like Happy-go-lucky as we felt that the image gave the title a stronger meaning for the target audience to understand more. The opening represents the protagonist every day night life, it shows how her night life of being a prostitute is repeated to earn money. We see her leaving and meeting clients over and over again on the streets of London to appeal to target audience in Britain. We see how her life is repeated, the same thing everyday, but with new clients and more money.  I briefly explain the opening and movie in my production log, http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/production-log-8.html. Once the opening is over we would see her getting in the car, however we actually denote her sleeping with him, we see her take the money and she how she goes home to her mother and uses the money.

BSR films deal with themes that Hollywood don't, BSR show themes that are hard-hitting and non-escapist. BSR themes show life in Britain as it is, the reality. I conducted a lot of pre production research into the genre of BSR to really understand what the genre was about by watching BSR films such as Submarine, This is England and Four Lions. I also did a detailed study into Fish Tank, looking at the theme and situations the film deals with-http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/fish-tank-case-study.html again to get  a good understanding of the genre and how it represents the themes that its trying to show the target audience. The opening explores the theme of prostitution and poverty as we denote her going out over and over again, getting into to cars on the street corner. We don't actually denote her sleeping with men but the repetition of her meeting guys suggest that she is sleeping with guys for money. We denote her getting ready from 0:08-0:36, were we denote common stereotypical views of what a prostitute wears. We also explored the theme of prostitution using the muse-en-scene as we denote condoms which don't directly represent prostitution but set up the idea, we then later denote her meeting guys at 0:47 which reinforces the idea of prostitution. Poverty isn't clearly highlighted but is the main reason why she is sleeping with people for money because she can't find a job, poverty would be highlighted further into the movie. We denote prostitution in London to Brighton, Prostitution isn't clearly shown but strongly represented through the acting and miss-en-scene which was the idea we tried to create. 

New script

Production log 9

Production log 9

This week has been a struggle as our deadline for production is one thursday, as we decided to change our idea we had to work quickly to get some thing that we liked to submit. We changed our idea to prostitution and we had the idea of showing her getting ready and going out to meet a guy however when we edited it last week and on tuesday we felt that it was to slow and didn't add anything for the viewers attention. We then decided that we should re-film some of our shots we re-filmed in the holidays as they came out to dark when we tried to edit them. As we don't have too much time; me and Ella both thought that it would be a good idea at this stage to work with what we got, so we decided with sir's feedback to make it more like a montage things to show the audience how many times she goes out and about, to get the idea and sense that it's the same thing every night for her. This week also then had to add music to our opening, we found this a bit difficult due to the fact that we wanted a certain beat which we could then match a pace for our repeated clips at the end. We also had to then add our credits and make our title in live type, as we changed our idea, we then had to change the title. Damaged Goods is what we chose because she has been damaged by her new lifestyle but she gets to a point were she doesn't mind her evening life. Sir gave us the idea of adding the lips on our title, which me and Ella both thought was a good idea so we looked up lips. We used free music archive to look for music because it is a copy right free website, We wanted a song also with lyrics. We settled with a drum and bass song from free music archive, we liked the beat of the song and we also liked that we could match the pace with it. Music has been a big decision this week for us because our opening is more like a montage. We also had the problem were we found a song we wanted but it wasn't copyright free. I sent an e-mail but didn't get a reply so we had to find a back-up plan, but we liked the abck up plan.

We also changed the way we were going to put our credits because we didn't like the way the appear on the screen, so we changed it in livetype to a list rather than one by one. We didn't put the credits on IMovie we only had them in live type therefore it was easy to edit. We then created a new title in live type, we wanted a title that connoted something so we had damaged and goods in two different fonts because she's a prostitute but she enjoys it. We then added copyright free kiss marks to show her personality. We didn't want to anything to dramatic because the genre is very plain.

We then had to render our credits from live type to put them into final cut were we had to make the decision of time, placing, length and order. We decided to make them so we have them on the corner of the screen and kept them on screen so we could read them. We decided on the importance by putting the production, and stars first because we thought they were the most important. 

This week has helped me and Ella see what we need to do, however keeping in mind that we don't have much time left as our deadline is fast approaching. It also helped us pick out bits that didn't need to be involved in the opening because they had no meaning. This week has also helped us get everything together and finish off production. We have had to make many new decisions this week whilst finishing production but we over come all these decision, in my view for the best with the best decisions for our work. 

Call sheet 7

Final opening sequence

Production log 8

Production log 8

This week has been a big step as me and Ella decided that our final idea of illness wasn't working. We edited all the shot we had and re-filmed many times trying to convey illness in a new angle however what we wanted to show wasn't being shown therefore when we re-filmed and edited we found it pointless and we were both very un-happy with the opening we had. We also felt that the opening was very slow and boring and had no effect on the audience which is something we wanted and needed to avoid and illness wasn't helping that. Week 8 has showed us that we need to do a lot before we have finished our opening because we changed our idea this week which was a huge decision due to all the pre-production work we did and the time limit we had. 

 

We didn't like anything about our first idea, the shots didn't show anything and the storyline and theme wasn't clear at all. The way we wanted the music to happen didn't happen either as we wanted it to start in her room and flow into her headphones however because the shot order didn't make sense when we edited it we couldn't complete our idea. We also felt when filming our script wasn't being used very well as some shot weren't filmed. Our first idea which we got all the pre production work done for just wasn't working we tried and tried to make it look as good as we could but the filming just looked like a horror movie and when editing the opening it made no sense. We then had the idea of a young girl how was involved in prostitution, me and Ella both wanted to create something that no one else has created. We then had two days to re-film our idea and edit before the draft deadline. The feedback from our new idea was much better then we expected and the feedback we got was things we picked up on ourselves and wanted to change. Me and Ella feel much more confident in the new idea as we feel that we can create an opening which has an impact on our audience. We then didn't want to waste anytime because the deadline was approaching fast. We then created a guideline idea about a young girl who is somehow involved in prostitution. We filmed one day after school http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/call-sheet_26.html. We the roughly edited the shots we had together which we then showed sir and the class for feedback. 

Overall the feedback from both sir and the class was positive in my view because we created and edited the idea in under two days. Me and Ella both knew before we showed our work, what we need to change and add. We will use the Easter holidays to re-film any shots we need to, we just wanted a base to see what people thought about the idea and a rough guideline to see what we need to film. We still need to add music and take out some sound such as laughing and directors commands. We also both believe that the pace needs to be much faster to keep the audience attention but we also wanted to get the idea across about how she has to get ready and prepare for what she is about to do. All the feedback received has helped us with our idea, we also have our own feedback to ourselves which we will fix over the holidays because our deadline is a week after. We both believe we need to add more shots of her with people to show how often she goes out, we also want music which changed in pace to show she still has a normal life (this will help show the change between her normal life and evening life) and we also believe that we need to make the continuity of the lighting and some shots better. The last thing we want to change is some of the shots because they have no effect on the story.
We also need to decide on a new title for the movie as the title 'switch' won't be appropriate for this new theme. The title needs to connote the film in a strong way to show the theme and Britain. The feedback we received was for the version below about prostitution. Without this week we wouldn't have adapted on our idea so much, this week created a base and guideline to re-film in the Easter and to get rough feedback to see the response.

Mini treatment/Narrative

Damaged good's
We picked this as our title because it explains the main character very well due to how young she is, she could be seen as a new item but due to her experiences (prostitution) society would view her to be damaged.  Our new idea is based on a young girl who is involved in prostitution because she doesn't have money to survive the hard life in Britain. Society doesn't view prostitution as a choice for women which in our view we are trying to reinforce but not straight away. She has moved to this lifestyle due to financial status. She lives with her mum how is divorced and can't provide very much for Rosie (the main character) and her half brother. Rosie dropped our of school when her mother and father divorced and has spiralled out of control since then. She was first introduced to the idea of money for sex when she met a few older boys at a party, She then went on to realise that the money was very helpful from buying clothes which she loves to helping her mum out with bills and food. We will use a run down miss-en-scene we most of the props will be found and the lighting will also be found to help the idea of it being her real life and to show how dull and bad Rosie's life is. Towards the end of the film we will she Rosie get involved with the wrong man and she how she deals with the situation of being forced into prostitution, remembering Rosie is very young ( just turned 17). The locations we will use are very simple found places as we want to show her on streets trying to get jobs and we will use a house which isn't very well kept as we want the miss-en-scene to be dull and run down to connote her lifestyle. As we are creating a film 4 film we don't have a big budget to make the locations and everything perfect but this is a good thing that we don't have a budget because it allows us to use what we have and show the real idea and life of Britain. Also film 4 are very big on showing new talent, we are using an actress which has no experience and we aren't using any big piece of technology apart from the mac (iMovie) to edit. The technology we will use is very limited due to the budget however we have access to the school equipment such as camera, tripod and editing computers. This is all we need to film our opening because it doesn't want to be anything glamorous just what we have is what we got.
As you can see our treatment hasn't changed much compared to the last one http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/treatment.html its just the treatment and idea of our film that has changed.

The narrative of our movie is explained above briefly however in more detail it would be a young girl named Rosie who has been pushed into prostitution due to the money. She started when she was 15 just turning 16 because she ran away from home because her parents were getting a divorce. She was involved with the wrong people when she left home and now she can't escape the old life expect now she does it because she wants to and for the money. Over the time the life style of a young prostitute becomes too much for her and she gets involved with the wrong man on one of her jobs. She ends up on a hospital bed fighting for her life after her abused her. Can she win the battle of her lifestyle or does her age mean she's more vulnerable. Rosie has always felt she big enough to fight the world by herself. We see her normal day life in comparison to her evening life over the movie, This is to show her boring everyday life to shock people. Her parents are unaware of her job as she tells them she has the late shift in a corner shop. This topic about her lying to her parent would also be dealt with in the story. We want to show that prostitution happens at all ages and however society and our audience may not be shocked that the character is young. We want to conform to the idea of prostitution being for money, but we are kind of challenging the idea of prostitute not liking the idea of it as she then starts to like it. We also have changed the idea because she then has a chance to stop being a prostitute but she doesn't she carries on.

This week has helped our idea so much as the feedback from people showed us what our audience want and what we need to change over the holidays. This week also showed me that you need to have a back-up plan for everything as there is something that could always go wring. Also this week has helped us with our over idea because we have developed from an illness to prostitution. We both now can see whats wrong with our work and we can fix it, we know when we don't like things. We have the Easter to re-film and edit which is a bonus because our deadline is soon. This week i have also completed some primary research as we both had no idea about prostitution, http://www.womenssupportproject.co.uk/content/prostitution/205,172/ gave me a rough idea for our narrative and treatment. 

Call sheet 6

Call sheet 5

Production log 7

Production log 

This week me and Ella re-filmed part of our opening sequence and started editing, However when we were editing again we found that it didn't flow and we didn't like they way it look as the story or theme wasn't portrayed and the camera language was very poor. We wanted to create the theme of bipolar in a different way but we felt when were filming it didn't seem right. We also started to create our logo in fireworks, we had to create our logo in fireworks because we didn't want to take a logo from Google. We also continued creating our logo in live type, we keep playing around with the text style as we both agree that the one we have is very simple and doesn't have much meaning behind it. However we don't want a style which looks like a horror title or Hollywood title. This week has helped us see what we can improve and how fast filming time goes, also it has helped us see that we need to develop our idea more or look how we can change it to make more sense. We don't want to put too much into the opening sequence because it takes the effect of enigma away. This week overall has been an eye opener as we have realised how fast time is going and that we need to change the direction of our idea to be a bit more smash mouth as we both feel when filming our idea, it seems to be a bit boring and if we was to watch our opening we wouldn't watch the rest of the movie.

We edited what we had together, however we didn't like it so we want to change our idea. But we uploaded the part we edited for our draft. We don't feel that we are showing our theme very well because we feel that our illness is being portrayed in a horror genre. From what we have we feel we could do much better, therefore over the holidays we will expand on our idea and look to approach it in different directions. This week has helped us realise what we need to change and that its not easy to portray.

We also continued with our graphics and title in live type, our title is 'switch' so we thought that a flicker on the title would look cool so we made it in live type. We first created a draft to see what it looked like instead of spending time to realise it didn't look right.

We found live type really easy to use and add animations and change colour,text and font once we got the hang of it. The program is broken down into sections as you have a timeline, viewing box and a panel with everything you need in order to edit what you want. When we were editing the title in terms of our animation we just went through all the ones live type had because we didn't want anything big or over the top because BSR are very basic but still have an idea behind it. For our draft we chose baffle because it has a flicker effect like a switch.

We also started creating our graphics on live type with the same text as the title, but we didn't get far because we have been focusing on our title, filming and editing. We will continue creating the graphics next week and hopefully find a soundtrack. 

Call Sheet 4

call sheet 3

call sheet 2

Our second call sheet, we filmed for the second time as we felt the shots we got the first time didn't work well when we started editing.

production log 6

Production log 6

This week me and Ella started filming and started to create our graphics. When we were filming we found it hard to keep in control of time and keep the shots we wanted due to the look and space we had. However when it was time to edit we found that the lighting wasn't as clear as we wanted it to be, we wanted it to seem dark but when editing it, the shots were to dark however we didn't too much which was the good side.

We also started creating our title and logo, we started to create the title in live type. We found it hard to pick a font we wanted as we wanted something simple but something that had a representation behind it. We then had the problem of finding what animation we wanted on our title when it appeared, we didn't want anything big because the genre of BSR don't have anything big.

We got all our fonts of dafont.com, we found it really hard to pick one as they all look similar.
We chose an animation on live type which we felt added to the theme of our movie. Live type was easy to us once we got the hang of it, we also will create our graphics on live type.

We also started to re-think how we could film again without the issues we found when we first started filming, we are going to try a new location in order to resolve the problem.

This week has helped us see what we need to fix when filming and to show us that filming takes longer then we thought, also when we were editing we found that some shots needed to be re done. We know that we should save time to re film just in case all else fails.