Final Evaluation

Evaluation from louaw

Final cut- The Brief

Audience survey

Please follow the link to the audience survey that Victoria-Louise has made in order to gain feedback from our opening sequence:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xqDRyUVlRT7C4-CiIpUDkES5oZGmLr0E9aEnmTfxInY/viewform

We distributed this survey to family and friends, including ages outside of our target audience. This was done purposely as it helped us to understand whether we had affected the correct target audience (i.e. if they answered the questions in the way we expected).

The results were analysed and these are some percentages to represent the raw data:

89% of males thought the opening sequence presented ethnicity
87% of females thought ethnicity 
90% of males wanted to watch the rest of the film
76% of females wanted to watch on
80% of males thought it was a crime thriller
68% of females thought it was a crime thriller 
70% of males thought the film should be a 15
60% of females thought it should be a 15
90% of both males and females thought it was original 
80% of females thought the representation was correct
86% of males also thought it was correct 
87% of males thought the titles were suitable
81% of females thought the titles where suitable

Rough cut

The amendments still to be made in our opening sequence are as follows:

• Titles should be changed to look more professional by changing the font and the colour. This is because sometimes the titles cannot be seen as the white isn't a bold enough colour. 
• We still need to come up with a film title and incorporate that in the correct order in our opening sequence. 
• At 0.28 seconds, our protagonist's head is out of frame. Therefore, we will have to re-shoot this shot.
• A sound effect of a phone ringing still needs to be put over the top of our footage to make the sound more prominent.
• At around 1.03 the clip needs to be edited to give the impression to the audience that the train is stopping so that continuity is established. 
• A lot of clips need small editing at the beginnings/endings to eliminate shaky-ness. 

Our protagonist

We thought Calum would be the ideal protagonist for our foundation portfolio because he looks like the rugged, european type of character that we really wanted to make his Russian roots more evident to the audience.

Update on editing

After editing our original content, I am happy with how our progress is going because the transitions in place make our opening sequence look more professional. However, after analysing it critically we have decided that re-shooting is essential so therefore we are re-shooting the train station scenes today. This is because a lot of the shots do not fit with the rest of the shots, so make the whole sequence look wrong, so we have written a list of the changes that need to be made and will be carrying out these changes today.

Our current plan is:

1) get all re-shoots completed by the end of this week
2) put in (although we have already found music) music/sound effects into the sequence and determine whether it is appropriate.
3) edit the new shots
4) evaluate our project

The evaluation questions that are to be answered are as follows:
• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

• How did you attract/address your audience?

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

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

After analysing previous student's blog entries I have a clear idea of the length of our evaluation and have decided that a method we should use in evaluation is peer assesment. This means that we are not just evaluating our opinion (which is likely to be biased) but individuals who had no input into the makings of our opening sequence.

Evidence of filming

The following images are proof of our filming, which took place at Denham Golf Club train station. We found this day of filming successful however there are still many re-shoots to do in order to achieve our final goal, which we will follow through with on Thursday.

Update on filming

Day one of filming was successful because we had learnt from previous mistakes so that the process was much quicker than it was originally planned. As well as this I am happy that we stuck to the shot list to ensure that we didn't get carried away.
However, after initial editing we discovered that some shots cut the character out of frame slightly which means that it resulted in an unprofessional finish. As well as this, we think we have made our props too subtle and that we should have made the association with the map being a map of London (i.e. where the character is travelling to) more obvious. Therefore, these are things to consider and alter when we do our re-shooting.

In the next stage of filming we will be visiting a new location of a train station which will take place on Thursday 28th February. We have decided to add more to the shot list within this location because we are worried that we will not have enough content. Therefore, at the beginning of the train station scene we will add a long shot of man walking towards camera, with briefcase and smoking cigarette. Then close up of his face as he takes a toke, then a close up of his shoe as he stubs it out and walks out of the frame. We then have a medium shot of the ticket barriers and watch him walk through them and onto the platform.

Horse and Hound analysis

Horse & hound analysis from louaw

Evidence of props

Justification of props/location/character

Magazine Industry Research

We have been asked to research the following and present to the class in a discussion:

"Investigate and make notes on...
Magazine Industry

• How is it changing/evolving?
• What does the future hold?

Audience and Institutions

• How do audiences benefit from changes in the magazine industry?
• What challenges are magazines (and publishers) facing?

New Media Technologies

• How are NMTs impacting on the Magazine Industry?

Further to this, you need to find and analyse an article that comments on the current or potential future state of the Magazine Industry.

Investigate and analyse the article:

• Source?
• Who write it?
• What is the line of argument?
• Key quote? - This needs to be carefully critiqued.
• How does it link to the wider concepts in the unit and your case study "

The magazine industry

• The magazine industry has evolved into something that is much more digital. However, I don't think that this means they won't be surviving. This is because from the number of articles that I have read on the topic suggest that the number of iPad subscriptions have increased a large amount over recent years, meaning that they are making up for lost sales within the physical magazine sales.
• I also think that the magazine industry is evolving less than you would imagine. This is because people still enjoy having a physical copy of a magazine, and this could be due to a number of reasons e.g. bright colours and images being attractive to the eye when walking through a shop, or the fact that the glossy pages provide a small piece of luxury every week for an individual i.e. it is seen as a 'treat'. 
• In the future, I think the magazine industry will need to change to adapt to these new iPad dominated industries, however this is not a new development because all industries are constantly needing to develop all the time because audiences change, technologies change etc.

The audience  

• Audiences will benefit from these changes to the magazine industry because it doesn't allow for the audience to experience monotony. This means that they are constantly being interested by the industry which may mean that sales will either stay the same or increase. 
• Magazines are facing the challenge of keeping the audience interested, when the magazine is often seen as a 'dying trade'. Therefore, they are having to work very hard to keep up with the times to ensure that their readers don't get bored.

New Media Technologies

• New media technologies have helped the magazine industry to evolve, because consumers are leaning towards these technologies more and more i.e. iPads are commonly used for everything such as banking to shopping. Therefore, due to the fact that consumers are requesting commercial goods to be solely available in one place, the magazine industry are able to adapt to this and use this as a tool to continue surviving.

Analysis of a magazine article

The following link is an article from The Economist about the changes that are being made to the magazine industry over time:
http://www.economist.com/node/21556635

About The Economist

1. the magazine is 167 years old
2. In 2011, weekly circulation of the magazine rose by 11% (up to 200,000 people)
3. Global circulation of 1.5 million per year, with an increase of 3.7% in 2012
4. There are still more print copies being sold (1.487 million copies) than digital copies (100,000 copies)

-The reason for this maintenance of sales of physical copies is due to the target audience. This is because the target audience for The Economist is businessmen, so they would read this magazine on the tube/train on the way into work. Therefore, as there is no wifi on the underground, businessmen still require a physical copy to read.

Line of argument within article

1. Magazines are still surviving and will be for the foreseeable future.
2. the reason for this survival is an increase in the reliance on advertising for funding
3. niche magazines seem to be doing better than large magazines because there is more loyalty of readers
4. people still like having a physical magazine and iPad sales have increased more than web because it "feels more like a magazine". 

Key quotation from article
"Making money in news means publishing either the cheap kind that attracts a very large audience, & making money from ads, or the expensive kind that is critical to a small audience, & making money from subscriptions."
-I think that this quotation is mainly an exact and likely way of summing up the current state of the magazine industry. However, I have asked myself the question- "I won't read magazines such as Vogue due to the lack of actual content (i.e. there are too many ads, not enough editing) so why are they the type of magazine that are said to be surviving?" Therefore, this question makes me think that this quotation isn't as exact as I originally thought.

New storyboard

New Storyboard from louaw

More research...

Due to the changes to our opening sequence, we decided that more research into a few key areas would be necessary so that we ensured not to make the same mistakes as earlier on in the task. Therefore, Victoria Louise carried out research into lighting, as this was an area that all of us felt we were not very knowledgeable on previously.

Print screen of VL's research

As well as this, Scott completed research into an opening sequence that appeared similar to the idea of which we have come up with our new opening sequence. We felt this was necessary so that we could get an insight into some typical shots used in an action thriller.

Job roles

To aid our coursework, we decided that our work would make progress sooner if we all had individual job roles. Therefore, we decided on the following roles:

Louise-Leader/organiser 

Scott-Editor

Victoria Louise- Research

We chose these roles because naturally, I am a good leader and like to be extremely organised. As well as this, during the continuity task Scott proved himself to be passionate about editing and seemed more knowledgeable about it than Victoria Louise and I. Also, Victoria Louise had shown from the start that she was very thorough with research so we all decided she would work well being in charge of this (although we will all contribute).  

New shot list, plot, props and plan

Shot list/ plot

DAY 1 OF FILMING- Sunday 10th Feb '13

• (internal location-office) Medium-long shot of male character in room- this establishes the character and allows audience to familiarise.
• Over the shoulder shot of man at desk looking down and flicking through pages of notes within a file
• Close up of suspect's face (within the pages)
• Tilt left to close up of the male's hand on a gun and his grip tightens
• Close up of phone and man picks up and takes out of frame
• Close up of mans face as he talks and hangs up
• Medium shot from phone position as it rings and he picks up
• Close up of mans face*
• Medium shot from end of table- he stands and puts gun in coat pocket. Puts notebook in satchel and walks out of frame

*as we could not agree on which type of shot to use, we will shoot both and then decide which one creates a better affect.

DAY 2 OF FILMING-Monday 11th Feb '13

• (external location-train station) Long shot of man with the camera positioned from the opposite platform.
• Medium shot of man walking onto train (camera positioned facing the train-now from same platform)- he turns once on the train and looks into camera as doors close. He smirks

Props

1. gun
2. folder containing/with:

-Confidential stamp
-Russian sickle
-photograph of prince william

1. vodka
2. phone
3. pages of notes
4. map of london
5. briefcase

Change to our coursework

Both our group and our teachers felt that our current opening sequence was too complex to carry out with a high degree of accuracy and yet still make it look professional, so we completely changed our idea and have come up with a new storyline, which we believe is more simple yet could be carried out better.

Reasons for props etc.

Why these props?

We decided to use a syringe as our weapon of choice because it creates a medicinal/hospital impression on the audience to suggest that this killing is calculated and meticulous and not just the cliche gun/knife crime. This impression is also reinforced by the use of costume, because the killer wears a lab coat which is symbolic of a doctor figure, i.e. somebody who is supposed to be safe and actually he is the most dangerous.

Why this location?

We chose to do our filming in an old, dingy garage. This is because it it creates a tense atmosphere for the audience so that they understand something bad is happening. As well as this the lighting is naturally dim so created the impression that we wanted to make. As well as this our external location was an alley way because this is a typically dangerous place where people have to be careful. Therefore, it was perfect for the injection of the character.

Props/Costume/Location

PROPS-Syringe

PROPS-Syringe

Organising- 15/11/2012

Continuity task storyboard 17/12/2012

dated 17/12/2012

Continuity task storyboard from louaw

Evaluation of opening sequence so far

The genre for our opening sequence is a crime/psychological thriller. This is because we are inputting aspects of a crime thriller (although it is subtle-due to it being only the beginning of the film) e.g. storyline includes a crime being done, blue and red flashing lights and sirens which are indexical of police.
However, there are aspects of a psychological thriller also because there is a strong focus on emotions and what is inside the protagonist's mind. This is shown in editing from the cross dissolve used to act as blinking, and also the character's flash backs.
The target audience for our opening sequence are young adults of a white/ British origin. This is because the actors will be young adults so the audience will easily be able to associate with them and therefore enjoy the film more.

Animatic

Below is the animatic that we created on Adobe Premiere Pro in order to make it easier to picture the actual opening sequence and to represent editing and camera digitally. We did this by drawing out each shot, taking pictures of them, putting them into the software and then editing them together, using the transitions that will be used in the real version.

Research into psychological and crime thrillers

For our opening sequence we have decided to choose a hybrid genre of a psychological crime thriller.

Information about psychological thrillers:

Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the broad ranged thriller with heavy focus on the unstable emotional states of characters.
It is defined as: Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies (which is often the case in typical action-thrillers), but rather are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind. The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.

Information about crime thrillers:

Definition of crime thrillers:
Crime fiction is the genre of fiction that deals with crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives.
The following films are the top 10 best crime thrillers of all time (as rated by www.flickchart.com)
1) Pulp Fiction (1994)
2) Reservoir Dogs (1992)
3) Se7en (1995)
4) The Dart Knight (2008)
5) The usual suspect (1995)
6) The Night of the Hunter (1955)
7) Strangers on a train (1951)
8) Memento (2000)
9) Shadow of a doubt (1943)
10) Batman Begins (2005)

Shooting schedule

Our actors consist of Reece Collins (as victim) and Aiden (as killer)

Day 1 (Sunday 27th January)

1) POV shot of Reece lying down, waking and beginning to struggle

3) Pan to left (still POV) to reveal syringe on table and zoom in

4) Close up of the syringe with Reece in background panicking 

5) Over shoulder shot of Reece looking over and up to the window

6) POV shot of Reece lying down and identifying the white lab coat hanging up.

Day 2 (Tuesday 29th January)

1) POV shot of Reece lying down, lifting his cut hand up to the camera

2) Over the shoulder shot of Aiden's hand on Reece's shoulder and injecting him

3) Medium shot of Aiden and Reece fighting and struggling-using tracking

4) POV shot of Reece lying down, and Aiden slowly walking towards him

Shot list

• Point of view (POV) shot- e.g. man lying on table 
• Close up- e.g. on syringe and on the man's cut hand
• Panning left- e.g. as the man identifies the syringe
• Medium shots- e.g. of man getting injected
• Shot reverse shot- e.g. as men struggle in the fight
• Tracking- e.g. as men fight

Final idea

The final plot of our opening sequence is:

1) man wakes up in dark room and looks around in panic.

2) man's eyes focus on a syringe, located to the left of the screen.
3) this syringe provokes a flashback of a man coming from behind him and injecting him
4) end of flashback- the man raises his hand to his face.
5) this cut provokes a flashback of a fight between him and the other man, a struggle and eventual cutting of the man's hand.
6) end of flashback- man looks around for possible escape exits and focuses on a window.
7) blue and red flashing lights resonate from the window and sirens are heard.

Research into media institutions

In class I have individually been doing a research project into one particular magazine, Horse and Hound, in aspects such as the ownership of the magazine, and also the the magazine itself.

Horse & hound analysis from louaw

Continuity task film

Continuity task evaluation

How has the continuity task aided your understanding of the film-making process?

1) Shot list and storyboarding

The shot list that we composed was detailed and was set out clearly so that we all understood exactly what was meant to happen and could picture it happening in our heads. We found this useful in laying down the basic format of the short film, however we found that we changed a lot of the shots when we were actually in the situation. An example of this is that we found the over shoulder shots hard to do so often we changed these to high angle shots instead, which we felt gave the same impression. 

Storyboarding was also detailed and helped is imagine what was going to take place. However, the composition of the storyboard was long because we often disagreed as to how the sequence should be shot. As well as this, we found it difficult to put onto paper what we wanted, so therefore it took longer than expected. 

Furthermore, due to these factors I believe that making a shot list and storyboard helped us to understand the film-making process because without them, we would have been completely disorganised and the process would've taken much longer to complete. However, it did take longer than we planned because we took a long time to agree on plans.

2) Filming and editing

The filming process in the continuity task was relatively straight forward because we had organised our plans thoroughly which meant that we knew what we wanted  to achieve. However, I think we were sometimes too ambitious in the style of shots because none of us had ever filmed before and perhaps we should have filmed something more basic. As stated before, we often had to alter shots because performing over shoulder shots were more problematic in some scenarios than we'd planned, as the camera was hard to hold still without the tripod etc. Therefore, a lot of the time shots took longer then we'd planned to carry out. As well as this, I still feel unsure about the fundamentals of the 180 degree rule. 

However, the editing within our film ran very smoothly as we had jelled more as a team and had begun to make decisions individually without having to ask each other constantly. Therefore, it took much less time as we had less to disagree on.

Furthermore, this process had definitely aided our understanding of the film process because we now understood that we could not agree on everything, but simply had to compromise in some situations so that the filming could be completed as quickly as possible. 

3) The importance of research and planning

I would argue that the planning process in the most important stage in the continuity task because if the task is planned well, it means that the whole process will go smoother and quicker, meaning that we will be able to meet deadlines. Because of our delay in agreeing within the composition of a plot/shot list/storyboard, it has delayed us in the whole of our coursework which makes it difficult for us to catch up. 

Furthermore, when we go on to perform our real opening sequence of a thriller we will take what we've learnt and make sure we don't make these simple mistakes again.

Practice storyboard-Terror in the night

Terror in the night from louaw