Evaluation Question Q7 Learnt Since The Prelim

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

Our Prelim

Our first video task when we started media was that we had to create our prelim using various methods of editing and shot variety. I have used a camera before and editing software therefor it was straight forward for we had to do. However i had never known these shots or names for them which i learnt.




The task was as to create a short film which consisted of 3 camera shots and editing techniques which were, match on action, the 180 degree rule and the shot reverse shot. The video itself was shot in school in our media classroom, which I filmed. The clip is only around 30 seconds long due to the very short dialogue and lack of events. After the film was shot we used Final Cut Pro X to edit the video so it ran continuously.

Our Swede

This was our second task we took was to create a swede for a film of our choice. We chose Taken as it was a well known film and also we could use famous quotes from it which were recognizable. The task its self was simple, however as a group not having very much experience in filming a film, acting and creating a swede. Personally i was pleased with our final result however for our first small film it was relatively okay.

Here is the final Swede we created.



Micro Drama

Our third video task was to create a short film in the "horror" genre. The cast was all of the boys in the media class including myself. I was in the film, however i was the first to die, therefor i could do the rest of the filming. I also edited our version as there was two versions of the short film. We had good feedback on the quality of the film including editing techniques which could be included and more shot variety. This included for example, we used too many long shots in dramatic scenes which didn't work too well. I personally learned from this majorly as i filmed it so i knew for next time i could change it. Also when editing i was told to use more fast pace editing and quick shots for violent scenes which we then used for our film opening.

Here is the Mirco Drama.

Research

We had no research and planning with the premlim which is a large comparison to the research and planning we did for our final cut. The comparison between the two was that our prelim task took us a few hours to complete where as our final cut took months of construction inluding research, planning, shooting and editing.

Due to the fact we chose the Slasher genre, there was a lot research to require the correct research we needed which therefore could be put into our final film. We used this to include key slasher conventions and narratives which we could therefore put into our own film. The research and planning itself took up a lot more time than you would expect, more time would go into this than the actual shooting of our final cut and our trailer put together. Because i had to make sure we had everything planned before hand, as this isn't just a thing that you can go straight in to. We tried to anchor as many things as we could to our audience so that it would match our preferred reading.

Our Trailer Storyboard - Asylum Trailer

Here are the sheets of the storyboard for the trailer of our film. We used these as a guideline to what we had to film. However, we didn't stick to what we had down on our storyboard, we changed things that we thought didn't seem right. Such as the desk shot, we thought our trailer would be much more effective if we didn't include it

Time Management

Time management is a very important factor when constructing any form of media product. We had to occasions where time management was important, for our Micro drama and our Final cut. you have to organize a number of different things. Our bigger project needing planning for gathering cast, managing multiple shoots, dealing with weather changes, starting soon enough to give us time to re shoot if we needed to. 

Pitching

Before we came up with a final idea for our final film. We each had to individually pitch our idea to our class mates. This was useful as we could compare a number of different ideas with each other. It was helpful to see other peoples pitches to see their ideas because it could help improve our group idea as well we could benefit to the others. Personally my idea wasn't that good and could have been developed into a better more substantial idea.

Mise En Scene

Establishing shot

Mise en scene wasn't used in our prelim because it wasn't needed as we filmed in a classroom and there was no story to it. However, in our final film we used mise en scene to signify key elements for example on the right is High Royds Mental Asylum which we used to create verisimilitude. Here is our opening shot, here we give the audience a view of the mental asylum, this was to give an insight into how big of an escape this is as the size of the building lets you know that it is a large scale asylum. The reason we chose this building is because since a few years ago it has been a fully functional mental asylum which we thought was ideal for our opening as we feel it still has the scary feeling about it with its dark, mysterious look which created verisimilitude. 

POV shot

After the scene of the Asylum we go straight to a point of view shot through the killers eyes. Here we used a Mercedes car. We used this to signify how old the character is as he is a Dr in his early thirty's, using a Mercedes would signify his age and that he is an adult character. So we took a shot of him getting out of the car and locking it to give the audience an idea that he has just driven it home, this we thought was an effective feature to signify his age and his social class.

ID for mise en scene

A key piece of mise en scene in our film was the doctor himself with his ID badge. Costume was a very important factor in  our final cut also, the costumes were used to signify a number of different things in our film. For example through the costume we signified that the male character was the doctor as he wore smart clothes and we gave him the doctors badge for mise en scene. 

Our location was ambitious but we felt it would anchor the correct setting for our film as it was an actual mental asylum. But we chose this because it signified our genre giving that it was a rather daunting place. 

Casting

The casting is also a key factor to consider, when looking back at our prelim there was not much acting involved at all. In the Swede and Micro Drama the cating was not as important and we didnt take many things into consideration. Though in comparison to our final film the casting was much more important as our actors had to play important roles. All our characters fitted their stereotypes we chose to use no counter types because we felt that our film was effective enough with out them. We did include key slasher conventions we had found from our research and planning. we included a Scream Queen who fitted the role of the stereotype well due to her costume and the way she was portrayed in our film. This wasn't the case for the prelim because there wasn't as much involved

Rough Cuts

Rough Cut 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPw-VArvi1E
Rough Cut 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrwK8UMsUQI
Rough Cut 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ_MFf__7Lw
Rough Cut 4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifdXbEgtG_0
Rough Cut 5 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI04_fODvmU
Rough Cut 6 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x1WNIPAgAU

Rough cuts were important in our production, the main reason was because we were able to get a lot of feed back which we would take into consideration. This is very important because we can find out whether our target audience had a distaste or didn't like anything in our film. we also used Facebook frequently as most of our primary audience used this resource we could put up our rough cuts to this and gather valuable feedback. In our prelim we only had one shoot we didn't create any rough cuts to gather any audience feedback from. 

Soundtrack

We had to create an original soundtrack for the film which was a difficult process.

For our prelim there was no soundtrack involved at all. this was simply because of time. Therefore if we had of done any planning for our prelim we probably would have scheduled time to create a soundtrack to make our prelim better.

It was difficult in the sense that we were trying to include a soundtrack that would build up the suspense throughout our film, we had to try a number of different sounds and effects to create a sense of suspense which is achieved in a lot of slasher films i have looked at previously such as Halloween and Scream.  

Idents

A company ident is a way of showing the audience who is behind the film as it is a form of advertising. You tend to see a couple of idents at the start of the film before every movie starts you will never see a film without company idents unless it is extremely indie and low budget or even homemade. 

Most idents come with their own jingle, theme song or sound. Dream works is a good ident which includes music and titles with an animation as well.

It depends on how the company chooses how they design their ident for how much it will cost as they don't have to be extremely costly as they are easy to make on an unambitious scale. But most popular idents are very appealing and don't look like they have been made within an hour or so like ours. MY favorite Ident is the dream works one which i have shown above due to its subtle nice style to it.

My Ident

We created our own company idents as part of the criteria for our film opening so we each created one individually using Live Type. However i used another programme to create mine which was Adobe After Effects which allowed me to create a more dynamic effect and text animation.

Here is my idents "Twitch Productions" and "Blue Flame", i tried to make it look as scary as i can so i added a twitch effect to it at the end as if there is a "supernatural" presence within the text. This gave it a scary feel accompanied by the sound effect, worked well i thought. Also i wanted a more simpler and calmer ident so i made "Blue Flame" which was a more calmer and subtle ident.

Shot Variety

With our final cut our shot variety was very important to get the verisimilitude and film feel. Below explains the shots we used in the final cut, prelim and also Micro Drama.

Shot reverse shot

This editing technique is used mainly for conversations, this is also a continuity editing method.

180 degree rule

The rule is that the camera stays in line with the imaginary line, which can be seen in the image of the right. The rule enforces continuity of the film.

Match on action

This editing method is used for continuity and verisimilitude. One shot cuts to a close up of the action of the subject in the first shot as shown in the picture on the right.

In comparison to our prelim the shot variety is very little. This is a thing i had learnt since the prelim. Shot variety offers many different ways to show a character and can also focus on a number of different aspects to signify certain things to the audience.

Individual Roles

In our prelim task there was not much of feel of working in a group because we all knew the task that we had to complete. However i would say it helped me as it gave me an idea of working in a group with people i didn't know as i was new to this school and didn't know anyone. Also i had never fully worked with people when film and editing so it gave me the ability to have guidance and have others give me feedback which in all was more beneficial to the video.

Everyone in the group had individual roles, including filming, editing, cast and light/sound. I mainly throughout the Prelim, Micro Drama and Film Opening filmed and directed them as this is what i am best at. I can not act therefor it would have been stupid to me in the film instead. Also i mainly edited the film and prelim as i had most experience. I think i could offer something beneficial if i wasn't just filming and editing however personally that's my greater skill over acting.

Working in a group was very stressful. I would say that at times some of us contributed more than others however on a whole we all contributed to our film equally, as we split up a number of tasks between us. We helped each other with the blogs and questions, as well teaching each other various techniques and skills with editing and using a camera.