Thursday, 30 April 2015
Week 15 Reflective Blog Post
This was the week where we had to finalise all of our evaluations which had featured me completing my parts 5-8 evaluations which were the longest as it took up the most time in my opinion. i found these evaluations the most channelling because I had tow rite more about less which i had struggled with because i had written what I already knew which didn't seem enough for me to get a good grade on my coursework so I had to ask my classmates on what I could add which in the end had helped me a lot. I found part 6 evaluation quite interesting because we got to hear people's opinion on our final production which had helped us to identify the mistakes we may have made which then enabled us to make our final piece even better than before.
Monday, 27 April 2015
Week 14 Reflective Blog Post
In this week, I began to write my evaluations for my overall production of my opening sequence "Skrew It". I had done parts 1-4 in this week which involved filming, discussing my search and planning, talking about my target audience and mis-en-scene we sued. This week was very productive for myself because I had to get a lot of things done to ensure I had completed my evaluations to a high standard. I managed to complete my first four evaluates quite quick;y because i already had some knowledge on what research we had done into our film and so on.
Friday, 24 April 2015
Evaluation Part 8 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Research and Planning for my Preliminary and Main Task
Firstly, my preliminary task was to create a scene where someone walks into a room, sits down and has a conversation. My Partner for this was Chris Mitsinga. The main type of research in which we looked at before making our preliminary task was researching what other people had done in different schools in the country to know the expectations we should be meeting or doing better. By watching other groups do their preliminary task it gave us the idea to do a job interview based scene. This was because we didn't seem to find any job interviews type video so we though that would be a great topic to do our preliminary task on because it was something different to what we had seen other do which was
our objective. The planning procedure in which we too which helped us get a clear idea on what camera shot/angle and movement to use, the length of the scene and who was in it, we did a storyboard to help us structure our work. Doing the storyboard didn't take as much time as we expected because through our research we basically outlined what we was going to do so when we were doing our storyboard it was a really quick procedure. Now moving on to talk about my main task in which me, Fabio and Myles had done. For our main task we had to film a 2 minute opening sequence with the theme being British social realism.
Our story line is based on a smart and upper class kid who choose the wrong path ad begins to take cocaine with the drug addict that is already in the scene. Our two main protagonists in our opening sequence are called Edward and Bailee who are played by Fabio Fernandes and Omario Morris. The main type of research in which we did which helped us with coming up with your story line was from watching Trainspotting and Fish Tank. We thought that bringing in two films and mixing up their story line would help make our film that much different which would make our target audience of 16-24 year olds more engaged with what our opening sequence is about. A weakness from watching these movies as our example is that we struggled to find the movie to watch so we started to watch clips until we managed to get a hand on both of the movies. However, a strength from watching these movies is that it had made our process of planning and researching becoming a lot quicker and easier to do.
Digital Technology for both Preliminary and Main Task
The main digital technology in which we used for both my preliminary and main task is a camera where we recorded some scenes for both task.s This was a useful resource because in my preliminary task me and Chris already knew how to use the camera as we used it previously so it was easy for us to know the basics. This leads to a strength on my behalf when it came to doing my preliminary and main task in Media because i already knew how to use a camera so it allowed me to teach my group members how to use it and how to follow some rules such as the 180 degree rule. However, talking about the disadvantages, a disadvantage of using a camera was that the battery pack was really weak so it continuously kept dying and needing to charge every 10 minutes which was very frustrating for our entire group. However, a positive from using a camera was that it enabled us to try a new and variety of handheld shots which helped us to make our scene seem more realistic.
Creativity for both Preliminary and Main Task
In my opinion, I think that creativity from all of my group members was the key to our success of producing a good two minute opening sequence for our target audience of 16-24 year olds. The storyboard in which we had created which had helped us to outline what exactly we was going to do. On our storyboard i decided to get very creative with the drawings of what we wanted the scene to look like. I did this so that my storyboard could stand out and so my group members could see what my view on what that scene would look like which we had used in the end. The scene was within the firts 30 seconds when you see Omario walking down the corridor and telling Fabio (Edward) to come for drugs after getting told off by his teacher. I chose this scene in particular to be creative the most on because i felt that this scene brings the whole story line as a whole and begins to show a big difference between the two protagonists of Bailee and Edward. However, my other two group members Myles and Fabio got creative at the scenes towards the end this was because i suggested that we should make our ending the most appealing scenes at all so we could set that cliffhanger feeling to our audience which we hope will make our target audience engage and be appealed to wanting to watch our British social realism film as soon as possible. From this i had learnt more and more ways i could become creative to enhance the original standards from my work that i do.
Post-Production for both Preliminary and Main Task
In our post-production period myself and my group mainly focused on using a software Final Cut Pro to ensure our opening sequence was to the best standard that we could possibly want. We seemed to have multiple issues throughout the period of using Final Cut Pro, this was because it kept freezing on us which led to us having to re upload our clips and edit again which we found annoying. It didn't happen to us often but it was very annoying when it did. Also, we had to deal with removing other clips which were uploaded of previous groups work which had taken up a lot of our time because there were over a 50 clips to sort out of previous groups. Although i had learnt to be more patient when it comes to finalising our work because i tend to want it done ASAP and try to avoid any problems which could lose us time which at that point i had no control over but know i realise that there will always be challenges in the process of finalising random pieces of work.
Firstly, my preliminary task was to create a scene where someone walks into a room, sits down and has a conversation. My Partner for this was Chris Mitsinga. The main type of research in which we looked at before making our preliminary task was researching what other people had done in different schools in the country to know the expectations we should be meeting or doing better. By watching other groups do their preliminary task it gave us the idea to do a job interview based scene. This was because we didn't seem to find any job interviews type video so we though that would be a great topic to do our preliminary task on because it was something different to what we had seen other do which was
our objective. The planning procedure in which we too which helped us get a clear idea on what camera shot/angle and movement to use, the length of the scene and who was in it, we did a storyboard to help us structure our work. Doing the storyboard didn't take as much time as we expected because through our research we basically outlined what we was going to do so when we were doing our storyboard it was a really quick procedure. Now moving on to talk about my main task in which me, Fabio and Myles had done. For our main task we had to film a 2 minute opening sequence with the theme being British social realism.
Our story line is based on a smart and upper class kid who choose the wrong path ad begins to take cocaine with the drug addict that is already in the scene. Our two main protagonists in our opening sequence are called Edward and Bailee who are played by Fabio Fernandes and Omario Morris. The main type of research in which we did which helped us with coming up with your story line was from watching Trainspotting and Fish Tank. We thought that bringing in two films and mixing up their story line would help make our film that much different which would make our target audience of 16-24 year olds more engaged with what our opening sequence is about. A weakness from watching these movies as our example is that we struggled to find the movie to watch so we started to watch clips until we managed to get a hand on both of the movies. However, a strength from watching these movies is that it had made our process of planning and researching becoming a lot quicker and easier to do.
Digital Technology for both Preliminary and Main Task
The main digital technology in which we used for both my preliminary and main task is a camera where we recorded some scenes for both task.s This was a useful resource because in my preliminary task me and Chris already knew how to use the camera as we used it previously so it was easy for us to know the basics. This leads to a strength on my behalf when it came to doing my preliminary and main task in Media because i already knew how to use a camera so it allowed me to teach my group members how to use it and how to follow some rules such as the 180 degree rule. However, talking about the disadvantages, a disadvantage of using a camera was that the battery pack was really weak so it continuously kept dying and needing to charge every 10 minutes which was very frustrating for our entire group. However, a positive from using a camera was that it enabled us to try a new and variety of handheld shots which helped us to make our scene seem more realistic.
Creativity for both Preliminary and Main Task
In my opinion, I think that creativity from all of my group members was the key to our success of producing a good two minute opening sequence for our target audience of 16-24 year olds. The storyboard in which we had created which had helped us to outline what exactly we was going to do. On our storyboard i decided to get very creative with the drawings of what we wanted the scene to look like. I did this so that my storyboard could stand out and so my group members could see what my view on what that scene would look like which we had used in the end. The scene was within the firts 30 seconds when you see Omario walking down the corridor and telling Fabio (Edward) to come for drugs after getting told off by his teacher. I chose this scene in particular to be creative the most on because i felt that this scene brings the whole story line as a whole and begins to show a big difference between the two protagonists of Bailee and Edward. However, my other two group members Myles and Fabio got creative at the scenes towards the end this was because i suggested that we should make our ending the most appealing scenes at all so we could set that cliffhanger feeling to our audience which we hope will make our target audience engage and be appealed to wanting to watch our British social realism film as soon as possible. From this i had learnt more and more ways i could become creative to enhance the original standards from my work that i do.
Post-Production for both Preliminary and Main Task
In our post-production period myself and my group mainly focused on using a software Final Cut Pro to ensure our opening sequence was to the best standard that we could possibly want. We seemed to have multiple issues throughout the period of using Final Cut Pro, this was because it kept freezing on us which led to us having to re upload our clips and edit again which we found annoying. It didn't happen to us often but it was very annoying when it did. Also, we had to deal with removing other clips which were uploaded of previous groups work which had taken up a lot of our time because there were over a 50 clips to sort out of previous groups. Although i had learnt to be more patient when it comes to finalising our work because i tend to want it done ASAP and try to avoid any problems which could lose us time which at that point i had no control over but know i realise that there will always be challenges in the process of finalising random pieces of work.
Tuesday, 21 April 2015
Evaluation Part Seven - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Pre-Production
One of my examples for the Hardware in which i had used which allowed me to set up my 'Skrew It' was by using the Apple Mac. The Apple mac was our main equipment during our pre production work because on the apple mac we used it for Microsoft Excel where we prepared our shooting script, going on you tube and getting examples. The main reason that we used apple macs was because we were provided with these and we didn't really get the chance to change if we didn't like the Macs. The cons of using Macs was that i never had used a Mac before i started Media Studies and i was a bit worried that it would be quite confusing to use but it turned out to be quite easy to understand. Therefore, my personal development was good when it came to using the Macs because I eventually managed to get to grips with the basics of using the Mac.
One of my examples for the software in which we had used in our pre-production work for our opening sequence was blogger. At first i wasn't really confident with using blogger because i rarely heard about it before i began Media Studies so it became very interesting to me when i found out we would be completing and posting our classwork on blog as evidence. One of the cons from using blogger is that i had a lot of issues of presenting my images with some pieces of work and getting them in the right position. Occasionally the images I wanted to use in my blog never appeared i don't know why so i had to write more and leave a web link to show where i had got my image from to ensure that i have some piece of evidence. A benefit from using blogger is that i got to show the work that i produced world wide which I found was very cool and fun to do because i can share my research with people across the world in America and so on. So my personal development with blogger wasn't so great because even up to today I still have issues with my pictures not begin visible to myself and anyone who views my blog.
My second Hardware in which myself and my group had used was DVD's. We had the availability to watch certain BSR's like Train-spotting, London to Brighton, Kidulthood and so on. All of these movies had helped us come with the idea to use certain props like cocaine, the location inside the school and deciding what classes pour characters should be. In London to Brighton we see the scene of the mother and daughter eating chips in the cubicle so we had taken a while to decide whether or not we should have the two main protagonists taking in a block or in the cubicle which we saw in the movie London to Brighton as i said. Tis had helped us with gaining some ideas of how our two main protagonists would take the cocaine. We also saw the movies Wild bill which is based on a man trying to get his family back after being in prison for some time. This movie had helped us to use some different camera shots for scenes that we didn't think was appropriate to use camera shots. An example would be a crab shot when Bailee is walking and sending a message to Edward we also see this at the start of Wild Bill where he is walking out of the prison and along the cow try side.
Production
During our production of making 'Skrew It', one main hardware in which we had used was a camera. The camera we used had allowed its to film multiple scenes of what we wanted to be in the film then at the end look at all of them and se what we can do different or what e could add. benefit from using a camera was that i already had a clear idea on how to use a camera is that it allowed me to help my other group members if they were struggling with certain aspects of the camera. However, one drawback of using the camera was the fact that our battery pack was very weak which meant that we didn't have a lot of time to film because the battery kept dying. At some points we would have to miss entire day of filming just so we can ensure that we can get a lot of filming done in one day to make up for lost time which at the end had worked out well for myself and everyone in my grip as we managed to finish our opening sequence. My personal development when it came to using the camera was very strong because i feel that i am even better than i was with the camera before which could help me in the future.
One major software in which was really important during our production of 'Skrew It' was final cut pro. Final cut pro was a built in software on the mac which enabled us to edit our film entirely which meant shortening scenes, adding effects and so on. One benefit from using final cut pro was that i had already used it once or twice which meant i knew how to use it straight away which had saved us a lot of time in the end as we had finished our production before other groups. Also, my other group member myles, had used it swell which meant that we could get to grips with what effects and transitions to use more quicker than other grouse which saved us a lot of time looking back. However, a drawback from using final cut pro was that at some points it had crashed which meant we couldn't edit at certain points which was very frustrating for us all because we had really good ideas for our credits but couldn't include them in because final cut pro had crashed unexpectedly which was a major drawback for us when it came to finalising our opening sequence. My personal development is still the same because i had previously used final cut pro and knew how to record and delete clips easily.
Another software programme that we used during our production of our opening sequence was Abode Flash. The only point at our production where we had used Abode F;ash for was after we did our credits so we can make our institutional logo. Our institutional logo was called FAM Productions and was shown it moving in the cinema. We did this so our title could relate to where we want to show our movie first before releasing it on DVD's. One benefit from using Adobe Flash was that we had already designed what our logo should look like so when it came actually creating it we didn't spend days or hours discussing what it can and should look like. However, one drawback from using Abode flash is that i never had used it before which had led to leaving Myles with doing the whole creating of our logo with me and Fabio giving our ideas on what colours and how to position our institutional logo. My personal development for using Abode Flash was quite good because despite not being good at using it i have a bit of knowledge of the basics which could help me sometime in the future.
Post-Production
One piece of hardware in which we had used in our post production from our opening sequence 'Skrew It' was a projector. We used a projector so we could show our audience focus group our final version of our opening sequence so we could get feedback on what was good and what we can improve on for next time. The benefit of using a projector is that it allowed us to show our opening sequence on a big screen which could stand out more and be more appealing for our target audience of 16-24 year olds who were also members of our focus group. However, a drawback from using a projector is that it is a very confusing type of hardware to sue because it takes a lot of steps of setting it up and ensuring it is in the correct position which had wasted a lot of time where we could of been evaluating what went well and even better if. My personal development which didn't really have an overall factor when it came to projectors because i was just focused on ensuring that the camera was well positioned so we can see their reactions and asking them questions about our product effectively.
A software programme in which i had used is Microsoft PowerPoint. I had used powerpoint to write up a part of my evaluation talking about how our characters are represented in specific social groups. I only did three slides because there was only three characters in our opening sequence but i managed to write a lot about each characters. On my powerpoint i talked about how the clothes on each character represents that specific audience group mainly. One benefit from using powerpoint is that i already knew how to use power point well which allowed me to finish this part of the evaluation quite quickly and to a very good standard. However, an issue i was having with powerpoint is uploading it onto blogger. This was a problem because i was a bit late on uploading tho apart of my evaluation because my powerpoint wouldn't fully upload onto my blog which was quite frustrating. My personal development with using PowerPoint wasn't really improved because I had used PowerPoint before but seeing all the layouts, transitions and designs in more detail made me be more acknowledge in what Microsoft PowerPoint can really provide.
Lastly, a hardware that we used in our post production of Skrew It was our phones. We used our phones to film our audience focus group. We used our phones because our camera was broken at the time and we had little time to get this part of the evaluation one so we decided to use a phone to record our audience focus group to save time and to prevent us spending a lot of time trying to get our camera to work. One benefit from using our phones was that we could immediately upload it onto our blogs because we had brought our cables which allowed us to upload our video on onto you tube and on our blogs. However, a drawback from using our phones is that the quality and the sound was not to the standard that we had hoped so it was hard to see and hard to hear which was a let down but we had to deal with it. My personal development wasn't as great because i didn'tr eally use my phone for much just only pressing record and holding it.
One of my examples for the Hardware in which i had used which allowed me to set up my 'Skrew It' was by using the Apple Mac. The Apple mac was our main equipment during our pre production work because on the apple mac we used it for Microsoft Excel where we prepared our shooting script, going on you tube and getting examples. The main reason that we used apple macs was because we were provided with these and we didn't really get the chance to change if we didn't like the Macs. The cons of using Macs was that i never had used a Mac before i started Media Studies and i was a bit worried that it would be quite confusing to use but it turned out to be quite easy to understand. Therefore, my personal development was good when it came to using the Macs because I eventually managed to get to grips with the basics of using the Mac.
One of my examples for the software in which we had used in our pre-production work for our opening sequence was blogger. At first i wasn't really confident with using blogger because i rarely heard about it before i began Media Studies so it became very interesting to me when i found out we would be completing and posting our classwork on blog as evidence. One of the cons from using blogger is that i had a lot of issues of presenting my images with some pieces of work and getting them in the right position. Occasionally the images I wanted to use in my blog never appeared i don't know why so i had to write more and leave a web link to show where i had got my image from to ensure that i have some piece of evidence. A benefit from using blogger is that i got to show the work that i produced world wide which I found was very cool and fun to do because i can share my research with people across the world in America and so on. So my personal development with blogger wasn't so great because even up to today I still have issues with my pictures not begin visible to myself and anyone who views my blog.
My second Hardware in which myself and my group had used was DVD's. We had the availability to watch certain BSR's like Train-spotting, London to Brighton, Kidulthood and so on. All of these movies had helped us come with the idea to use certain props like cocaine, the location inside the school and deciding what classes pour characters should be. In London to Brighton we see the scene of the mother and daughter eating chips in the cubicle so we had taken a while to decide whether or not we should have the two main protagonists taking in a block or in the cubicle which we saw in the movie London to Brighton as i said. Tis had helped us with gaining some ideas of how our two main protagonists would take the cocaine. We also saw the movies Wild bill which is based on a man trying to get his family back after being in prison for some time. This movie had helped us to use some different camera shots for scenes that we didn't think was appropriate to use camera shots. An example would be a crab shot when Bailee is walking and sending a message to Edward we also see this at the start of Wild Bill where he is walking out of the prison and along the cow try side.
Production
During our production of making 'Skrew It', one main hardware in which we had used was a camera. The camera we used had allowed its to film multiple scenes of what we wanted to be in the film then at the end look at all of them and se what we can do different or what e could add. benefit from using a camera was that i already had a clear idea on how to use a camera is that it allowed me to help my other group members if they were struggling with certain aspects of the camera. However, one drawback of using the camera was the fact that our battery pack was very weak which meant that we didn't have a lot of time to film because the battery kept dying. At some points we would have to miss entire day of filming just so we can ensure that we can get a lot of filming done in one day to make up for lost time which at the end had worked out well for myself and everyone in my grip as we managed to finish our opening sequence. My personal development when it came to using the camera was very strong because i feel that i am even better than i was with the camera before which could help me in the future.
One major software in which was really important during our production of 'Skrew It' was final cut pro. Final cut pro was a built in software on the mac which enabled us to edit our film entirely which meant shortening scenes, adding effects and so on. One benefit from using final cut pro was that i had already used it once or twice which meant i knew how to use it straight away which had saved us a lot of time in the end as we had finished our production before other groups. Also, my other group member myles, had used it swell which meant that we could get to grips with what effects and transitions to use more quicker than other grouse which saved us a lot of time looking back. However, a drawback from using final cut pro was that at some points it had crashed which meant we couldn't edit at certain points which was very frustrating for us all because we had really good ideas for our credits but couldn't include them in because final cut pro had crashed unexpectedly which was a major drawback for us when it came to finalising our opening sequence. My personal development is still the same because i had previously used final cut pro and knew how to record and delete clips easily.
Another software programme that we used during our production of our opening sequence was Abode Flash. The only point at our production where we had used Abode F;ash for was after we did our credits so we can make our institutional logo. Our institutional logo was called FAM Productions and was shown it moving in the cinema. We did this so our title could relate to where we want to show our movie first before releasing it on DVD's. One benefit from using Adobe Flash was that we had already designed what our logo should look like so when it came actually creating it we didn't spend days or hours discussing what it can and should look like. However, one drawback from using Abode flash is that i never had used it before which had led to leaving Myles with doing the whole creating of our logo with me and Fabio giving our ideas on what colours and how to position our institutional logo. My personal development for using Abode Flash was quite good because despite not being good at using it i have a bit of knowledge of the basics which could help me sometime in the future.
Post-Production
One piece of hardware in which we had used in our post production from our opening sequence 'Skrew It' was a projector. We used a projector so we could show our audience focus group our final version of our opening sequence so we could get feedback on what was good and what we can improve on for next time. The benefit of using a projector is that it allowed us to show our opening sequence on a big screen which could stand out more and be more appealing for our target audience of 16-24 year olds who were also members of our focus group. However, a drawback from using a projector is that it is a very confusing type of hardware to sue because it takes a lot of steps of setting it up and ensuring it is in the correct position which had wasted a lot of time where we could of been evaluating what went well and even better if. My personal development which didn't really have an overall factor when it came to projectors because i was just focused on ensuring that the camera was well positioned so we can see their reactions and asking them questions about our product effectively.
A software programme in which i had used is Microsoft PowerPoint. I had used powerpoint to write up a part of my evaluation talking about how our characters are represented in specific social groups. I only did three slides because there was only three characters in our opening sequence but i managed to write a lot about each characters. On my powerpoint i talked about how the clothes on each character represents that specific audience group mainly. One benefit from using powerpoint is that i already knew how to use power point well which allowed me to finish this part of the evaluation quite quickly and to a very good standard. However, an issue i was having with powerpoint is uploading it onto blogger. This was a problem because i was a bit late on uploading tho apart of my evaluation because my powerpoint wouldn't fully upload onto my blog which was quite frustrating. My personal development with using PowerPoint wasn't really improved because I had used PowerPoint before but seeing all the layouts, transitions and designs in more detail made me be more acknowledge in what Microsoft PowerPoint can really provide.
Lastly, a hardware that we used in our post production of Skrew It was our phones. We used our phones to film our audience focus group. We used our phones because our camera was broken at the time and we had little time to get this part of the evaluation one so we decided to use a phone to record our audience focus group to save time and to prevent us spending a lot of time trying to get our camera to work. One benefit from using our phones was that we could immediately upload it onto our blogs because we had brought our cables which allowed us to upload our video on onto you tube and on our blogs. However, a drawback from using our phones is that the quality and the sound was not to the standard that we had hoped so it was hard to see and hard to hear which was a let down but we had to deal with it. My personal development wasn't as great because i didn'tr eally use my phone for much just only pressing record and holding it.
Friday, 17 April 2015
Evaluation Part Six - How did you attract/address your audience? - Focus Group
Our evaluation part six was our focus group video. In this we showed a random group of students our final opening sequence which we had uploaded onto you tube and recorded their reaction and their opinion to how successful it was.
Overall, i think our audience found it very interesting and it could of done with some improvements such as readable credits that we will take on board and try to do next time if we ever get a similar task.
Overall, i think our audience found it very interesting and it could of done with some improvements such as readable credits that we will take on board and try to do next time if we ever get a similar task.
Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Friday, 10 April 2015
Evaluation Part Four - Who would be your target audience?
Above is our part four evaluation where we are talking about how our opening sequence appealed to our target audience of 16-24 year olds, middle classed and living in London. Along with our target audience we also talked about mise-en-scene, location, clothing and camera angels and why it would be suitable for our specific target audience.
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