Friday, 13 March 2015
Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Evaluation Q4 "Audience 1"
Teen drama films were originally designed for the typical teenager, as it was a showing of coming of age, or a relatable film towards them. In comparison to nowadays, teen movies has become more widespread to all types of audiences. Our core target audience was teenagers, but we made our film relatable to all audiences, in order for a higher success rate of our final product.
Based on a YouGovProfile, I gathered research on what someone who like The Breakfast Club (in today's world, not of the 80's), as to what they would also like.
I found that the films, entertainers, etc, that this woman would like, are equivalent to what a typical teenager would like in today's world. The research shows a sense of being outdated, however, in comparison to someone who enjoys a teenage movie today....
I found several similarities in the types of films they enjoy. This showed positivity for us in terms of our target audience, as we felt our movie would be the 'middle man' in this case, as both types of people would enjoy it.
Considering our film is a high school drama, we knew that films such as Kidulthood or Adulthood would not be expected for our target audience to enjoy. I saw this as a personality difference, in which one enjoys the 'nitty gritty' of Youth Dramas, whereas the other enjoys the 'fun' within high school dramas.
We've identified these types of people as our target audience, as we've gone through the films they enjoy, all of which are similar to our final film. This is why, I feel, our final product has been successful to our target audience.
Based on a YouGovProfile, I gathered research on what someone who like The Breakfast Club (in today's world, not of the 80's), as to what they would also like.
I found that the films, entertainers, etc, that this woman would like, are equivalent to what a typical teenager would like in today's world. The research shows a sense of being outdated, however, in comparison to someone who enjoys a teenage movie today....
I found several similarities in the types of films they enjoy. This showed positivity for us in terms of our target audience, as we felt our movie would be the 'middle man' in this case, as both types of people would enjoy it.
Considering our film is a high school drama, we knew that films such as Kidulthood or Adulthood would not be expected for our target audience to enjoy. I saw this as a personality difference, in which one enjoys the 'nitty gritty' of Youth Dramas, whereas the other enjoys the 'fun' within high school dramas.
We've identified these types of people as our target audience, as we've gone through the films they enjoy, all of which are similar to our final film. This is why, I feel, our final product has been successful to our target audience.
Evaluation: Question 6
As a group, we feel we've learned much more regarding technology whilst creating our final product. The three main aspects we feel we've learned the most in, would be video editing, music making and creating the ident.
Video editing (Final Cut Pro): this was one of the most fundamental aspects in regards to making our final product. We've learned several new techniques on the program, Final Cut Pro, such as using transitions, cutting a clip frame by frame, slow motion, the list goes on. We've definitely improved in different skills to create different effects. For example, learning how to make a clip in slow motion allowed the introduction of the Princess to be much more dramatic and comical, one of the scenes that sparked a positive reaction in the audience when viewed. Video editing was definitely a vital technical skill we needed for our final product.
Music making (Garageband): the music in our piece, we felt we needed to make the best it possibly could be. Seun thought that it would either make or break the entire product, as the video alone was at a certain standard the music needed to match. The group, as a whole, learned the process of making music, how you can manipulate certain sounds, use different loops and automate SFX, such as volume or pan.
Creating the ident (Motion): Motion was one of the programs we were clueless to originally, as we thought it was rather complex and specific, however, we all adapted to using it and understood how we could manipulate it into creating our own ident. We realised how we could change the text colour, the motion of certain objects, all in all to create a very unique ident for our production company.
The skills we've gained in all of the aspects have allowed us to become more effeicient, creative, technical and work on the small, specific parts of a media product, as well as the main courses of it. There were several different minor uses of technology we discovered, for example, we realised how to use a shared Twitter account, in order to project our progress online. We've benefitted a lot from using technology, whether it's researching the different film openings of successful movies, or creating the music for our own, we feel we've learned a lot from the given technology.
Evaluation Question 2
How does your media product represent particular groups?
High school dramas are often set in or around high schools and throughout show many different social cliques. The classic codes and conventions of teen film come from American films where one of the most widely used conventions are the stereotypes and social groups. The wide range stereotypes most commonly used include:
- The Jock/Cheerleader
- School Diva
- The Geek/Nerd
- The Rebel
When brainstorming our ideas for our opening film, we as a group decided we wanted to do a High School Drama, and knew we had to include various 'social cliques'. However, in contrast to the classic "American" stereotypes, we decided it would be a interesting idea to base our social cliques on the current popular "Uk/London" social groups and stereotypes.
The social groups we thought of that were currently most popular were:
. The 'Starbucks Girl'
Which would be a british representation of the "Princess character". As in London it is a little bit of a jock that popular and trendy young girls go to Starbucks, as it is the trending place to hang out with friends and if you go there you are automatically considered "cool".
. The 'Hood Rat'
Another British representation of the american Rebel
. The Hipster (a person who follows the latest trends and fashions, especially those regarded as being outside the cultural mainstream) The hipster is a very comical stereotypical thing for people to call each other for fun. It is a very well known "character" used today and we thought since it is well known it will be able to represent that particular social group well and the audience would relate more to the character.
How the character outfit represented the particular group
The "Starbucks Girl"
The "Hipster"
The "Hood Rat"
Our teacher gave us the advice with our costumes to be overdramatic to properly show and capture the stereotype; so how we did this for example with the "Hood Rat" character was get a very over exaggerated fake knife to show the comical side of the film, as well as "The hipsters" over sized glasses and the "Starbucks girl" holding the coffee cup just like the stereotype. Although these representations are over exaggerated, they are all positive representations because they are portrayed so comically and it creates quite a positive image; for example, even though "The Hoodrat" is a mean and threatening character, it is still a positive image because of how comically big and fake the knife is. Also, the sound in our film is also another way the whole opening is positive and comic because of the sound effects and upbeat music used to enhance the funny side of the opening for each character; for example, the overly loud bang sound when the knife is unveiled.
Because this is a High School Drama instead of a Teen/Youth Drama we only included classic teenage stereotypes as it is based mainly on students and how they get to college. And because of this we did not include any Adult Stereotypes, for example "nagging parents".
Evaluation Question 5
How did you attract your audience?
Seun and I made a short commentary over our film to explain what aspects of our film made it appealing to our chosen target audience.
Sunday, 8 March 2015
The Wrap up
Now that we are finally finished I would like to briefly talk about the positives and the negatives that my group faced.
I believe our Idea was good to start with even though it took us a little while for use to be fully confident in our idea but we could have put more detail in our storyboard so we would not have to waste time trying to fit in different types of camera shot types and distances for example we added last minute over the shoulder shots whilst we were shooting. I do believe the actors we finally used were good and played their position well even with our last minute replacement actor Ashley who you will see in our opening sequence.
Over the last 3 months I have dramatically improved my skills in all the software`s we used as to start with I had never even heard of these software`s but by the end I had been able to use all of them with confidence especially final cut pro as I found this specific software hard to use at first but by the time we finished I was able to fully use it. I also got better with using motion and was able to create an ident with Shannon.
My contribution to the group came mainly with filming and editing, I filmed about 80% of our footage because I was the perfect height to film with the fig rig as our main character (Seun) is a similar height to me. I also worked hard on editing as I would spent time trying to film the right footage to put into our editing screen and Id figure out the exact time to cut extra footage we did not want to use. I helped along side my team mate Shannon to come up with names for the credits them I worked to get the credits on screen into the perfect position so that you could clearly see it because the sun was too bright to put our credits anywhere we wanted so we had to find the perfect dark spot to put our credits and we also made thee decision to not use bright colours for our credits because it felt very unprofessional and more like an Indie movie and we did not want to do in that direction.
All in all I am very proud and happy of our work because we spent a lot of time on it and we got it exactly how we imagined it being when we first came up with the idea but with everything in life it could have been better in some elements.
I believe our Idea was good to start with even though it took us a little while for use to be fully confident in our idea but we could have put more detail in our storyboard so we would not have to waste time trying to fit in different types of camera shot types and distances for example we added last minute over the shoulder shots whilst we were shooting. I do believe the actors we finally used were good and played their position well even with our last minute replacement actor Ashley who you will see in our opening sequence.
Over the last 3 months I have dramatically improved my skills in all the software`s we used as to start with I had never even heard of these software`s but by the end I had been able to use all of them with confidence especially final cut pro as I found this specific software hard to use at first but by the time we finished I was able to fully use it. I also got better with using motion and was able to create an ident with Shannon.
My contribution to the group came mainly with filming and editing, I filmed about 80% of our footage because I was the perfect height to film with the fig rig as our main character (Seun) is a similar height to me. I also worked hard on editing as I would spent time trying to film the right footage to put into our editing screen and Id figure out the exact time to cut extra footage we did not want to use. I helped along side my team mate Shannon to come up with names for the credits them I worked to get the credits on screen into the perfect position so that you could clearly see it because the sun was too bright to put our credits anywhere we wanted so we had to find the perfect dark spot to put our credits and we also made thee decision to not use bright colours for our credits because it felt very unprofessional and more like an Indie movie and we did not want to do in that direction.
All in all I am very proud and happy of our work because we spent a lot of time on it and we got it exactly how we imagined it being when we first came up with the idea but with everything in life it could have been better in some elements.
Blogging Health Check 3
"8 posts at health check 3 (final). A steady improvement but still time to get this into a Level 4 mark. I can't find your rough cut or any evidence of you reflecting on what Dan said (or in fact any evidence that Dan said anything at all - as that is missing too...). This is really important stuff that you need to put up on the blog. I also want to see a couple of individual posts this week where you reflect on the process of editing and what your contribution has been to it. But otherwise not bad....but you can do better!"
I feel I've reacted very well in response to the feedback given by Rebecca, as I've done what has been asked and ticked all of the boxes.
Reflecting On The Editing Process
Editing, specifically, came across as a slight challenge. I've edited videos time and time again, but with our project, it felt almost like a strain or hassle. This was due to the feedback given from Dan and a few of our classmates. There would be a minuscule, tiny issue with the film, making the group and myself have to plan out how we erase that issue.
Once that issue had been solved, it was another case of getting the music 100% correct with the video. I struggled to a degree, as every time I thought the audio was done, another issue was found in the video, making me have to reshuffle the audio, meaning the audio wasn't as good as it originally was.
Overall, regarding the sound, I wasn't as happy with it as I was in the beginning. The video, I also felt could've been better. But in the editing stage, we had to do whatever we could with whatever we were given.
Overall Reflection On Our Project
I wanted to give a slight overview on what I thought of our project before completing the evaluation. This way, I'm able to briefly reflect on certain points with our finished film.
The ideas we had from the start showed potential, allowing loads of finer scenes to be included. For example, more close ups to be added in that weren't in the 1st storyboard, etc. If more time were given on making sure our first storyboard was better, that would've made a huge impact on the end result.
Actual actors? I think it was slightly difficult for our group as 3/4 of our members were acting in the film, therefore the group wasn't always behind the camera in order to check the footage.
Lastly, colour correction. This, albeit specific, I felt I could've done a better job on had I had more time to spend on it. Seeing that our plans were pushed closer to the deadline, I had to make the film the best it could be.
Saturday, 7 March 2015
Overview
Our title sequence has successfully been completed. From research, we finally decided as a group to create a high school drama. Our initial storyboard consisted of the main elements we have in our finalised sequence. Changes included: a change in location, change of character, more close ups, change in sequence order. Although, overall our sequence came out how we pictured it. The only element that we did not include from our initial pitch, was that we were going to use stylised titles that fit represent each character - we felt that it was unprofessional and any other film would not include that.
I believe that there were a few aspects that we should have planned out carefully, including specific shots we were going to shoot on certain days, the presentation of our titles, and taking many shots before we felt that it was perfectly executed. I believe that we should have applied what we have previously researched about teen films, on to our title sequence.
My contribution to the title sequence consisted of the majority of editing, creating digital platforms for our film (website & Twitter), and creating titles, as mentioned in previous blogs.
Final Feedback
Just as we was about to hand in our hard drive with our work on it I quickly got a fellow classmate of mine to give the group a final minute feedback
I got Eric to watch it them I recorded him on my phone giving feedback there is what he said.
I got Eric to watch it them I recorded him on my phone giving feedback there is what he said.
- He likes the idents especially where it says Under The Ssea productions
- 'The black screen was a little too long but it was alright'
- 'Camera was a bit shaky at times but it was pretty good
- 'The titles were amazing I like the size and the positioning at the bottom of the screen'
- 'Nice sound effects'
- 'I like the shots on the penny board as it gave a real feel of how the penny board was travelling'
- ' I like where the titles were placed because they didnt block and interfere with the characters' I all in all I am very happy with Erics feedback because he pointed out the exact points we spent a lot of time trying to prefect for example the positioning of the titles and the ident but I was disappointed in the fact he pointed out the camera not being perfectly still because I tried hard to keep the camera still whilst I was filming.
Friday, 6 March 2015
Final day of editing - Deadline day
Seun is currently putting together the last pieces to our title sequence!
He is working on putting the credits in the right order and he is working to make everything make sense from the footage to the music we used.
Seun made the music we are using so he was able to add special sounds for added effect to make our title sequence much more dramatic but we are having issues with our first scene as the sun is shining too bright and he is working on correcting that and make it dimmer.
As we watched the final edit back we realized we did not like when a certain sound effect came in at the 1 minutes 55 seconds stage and we spent a little time trying to correct it so that it makes sense and so the audience can really understand our message
He is working on putting the credits in the right order and he is working to make everything make sense from the footage to the music we used.
Seun made the music we are using so he was able to add special sounds for added effect to make our title sequence much more dramatic but we are having issues with our first scene as the sun is shining too bright and he is working on correcting that and make it dimmer.
As we watched the final edit back we realized we did not like when a certain sound effect came in at the 1 minutes 55 seconds stage and we spent a little time trying to correct it so that it makes sense and so the audience can really understand our message
Blog Health Check 3
" As we discussed you have some good group blog posts up. Yesterdays discussion of editing is solid and id like to see some posts like that - you could document what seun is doing now and blog about it.
futher, blog about your own individual contribution and skills developed,. what have you developed. what skills have you developed that you didnt have 3 months ago , you cold also used todays lesson to gather feedback"
I would like to quickly get more strong blogs up. I also thinks its important to ghet last minute feedback from my class mates to make last minute improvements And I intend to blog all that skills I have developed ober the last few months.
futher, blog about your own individual contribution and skills developed,. what have you developed. what skills have you developed that you didnt have 3 months ago , you cold also used todays lesson to gather feedback"
I would like to quickly get more strong blogs up. I also thinks its important to ghet last minute feedback from my class mates to make last minute improvements And I intend to blog all that skills I have developed ober the last few months.
Editing Session 8
Today's final editing session consisted of finalising the title sequence. This included fitting in our soundtrack with the footage. In order for our sound to fit into the sequence, we had to ensure that the timing was accurate - Seun managed to use the timer on his phone to measure out how long the sound should be within the intervals. We then adjusted the titles and distributed them more throughout the sequence and fit them into the darker areas of the shot so that they could be seen. Our final steps included fitting the sound and sequence. We encountered a problem within the sound, as it suddenly went quiet - to fix this, we went back on to garageband and continued the beat on to the silence.
I also asked a few peers to give feedback on our finalised title sequence.
Amy mentioned that she liked the sound, and how we have framed the close ups, she also liked Ashley's costume. She also liked our updated ident.
I also asked Lady Pearl for some feedback and she said that it was proffesional and she was "blown away"
Blogging Health Check 3
Grade: B
51 posts at health check 3 (final). This has dropped slightly but for only one reason: I can't find the rough cut, Dan's feedback on your rough cut or your own reflection on his feedback. Without this you can't reach level 4. With it you can! So please can you sort this out this week - otherwise you won't be getting the grade that you deserve.
51 posts at health check 3 (final). This has dropped slightly but for only one reason: I can't find the rough cut, Dan's feedback on your rough cut or your own reflection on his feedback. Without this you can't reach level 4. With it you can! So please can you sort this out this week - otherwise you won't be getting the grade that you deserve.
Reflecting on our location choices
We decided to do a High School Drama movie, so it was very fitting to have the college in our opening of our film. The movie opening ends with the all the characters walking into the college which fits with the High School Drama film.
Blogging Health Check 3
"As discussed, you have some good group blog posts up. Yesterday’s discussion of editing is solid, and I’d lke to see some more posts like that – you could document what Seun is doing now, and blog about it. Ask him, interview him? Make sure you explain how specific skills work.
Further, blog about your own individual contribution and skills development. What have you done for your group and what skills have you developed that you didn’t have 3 months ago. Hope this helps. You could also use today’s lesson as a chance to gather some more individual feedback."
In response to Dan's feedback, I intend to include blogs about the skills I have developed during production, and also an update on how I have contributed to the title sequence production.
Reflecting on our costume choices
As a group, I think we choose our costumes very well.
We started by looking at films that we took inspiration from, for example the Breakfast Club, and looked at what each character wore.
For example, for the princess character, she wore a pink top to represent the "girly" type character.
We started by looking at films that we took inspiration from, for example the Breakfast Club, and looked at what each character wore.
For example, for the princess character, she wore a pink top to represent the "girly" type character.
We saw how they represented their characters and choose to do the same sort of thing. For our princess character we choose very girly, over exaggerate girly, snobbish clothing that you would see in general London. For our "princess" character, the popular girl, who was originally played by myself, I choose very ridiculous sized black heels, a leather jacket, high waisted black jeans and a pink top as a relation to the breakfast club princess character. Then the actor changed who played the princess character and I think her costume worked very well because it fitted the character.
I think Akrems outfit worked very well because of the dark clothing he wore and it represented the character well, which was the "hoodrat" and the rebel type character. So it was fitting that he wore a hat underneath a grey hoodie and a black jacket onto to show he was this character.
I really liked Shannons outfit as it fit her hipster character really well, it was the perfect stereotypical outfit with the checked shirt and the hat as well as the prop she used of the penny board.
Thursday, 5 March 2015
Final shoot day for my character
I had to reshoot because there wasn't a scene in our opening sequence of me walking to the college which was a problem because we had all the other characters walking to college except me, so me and Seun spent 30 minutes filming me walking on the island outside college. This was a long shot so we could clearly establish where I'm at this current time.
We also filmed a mid close up of the knife going into my back pocket. We filmed this so the audience can see how silly my character is because what type of person walks into college with a knife in their back pocket?
We keep on going back and starting again because of the pace I was walking at was not fast enough and there was times where I did not put the knife into my back pocket in time for Seun to catch it on camera.
We also went out to film an establishing shot of the college but when we went back to our editing session we put it in our opening sequence and we felt as if it did not fit the feeling we was going for so we scrapped it completely. All in all I feel like this scene of me walking improved our opening sequence and helped level out the screen time we all got.
We also filmed a mid close up of the knife going into my back pocket. We filmed this so the audience can see how silly my character is because what type of person walks into college with a knife in their back pocket?
We also went out to film an establishing shot of the college but when we went back to our editing session we put it in our opening sequence and we felt as if it did not fit the feeling we was going for so we scrapped it completely. All in all I feel like this scene of me walking improved our opening sequence and helped level out the screen time we all got.
Editing Session 7
This editing session consisted of redoing our titles so that they are of a smaller scale, cropping down scenes that dragged on, rearranging the orders of the titles, and also a change of design for our production company ident. We were not satisfied with the previously produced ident, as we thought that there was too much occurring in the element. We decided on a simple animated design that would present the production company. In motion, we also created our film title through using the text tool, and also including an outline, shadow, and glow - all in hues of blue. For our next and final session, we intend on including the produced music to our film and finalising the sequence.
Sound Idea
So, I've just come up with a potential idea that I can use in tomorrow's final edit. We were told that we shouldn't use different fonts for different characters because "you wouldn't see that in an actual film", therefore, I came up with the idea of using the music/sound. Different characters would be portrayed by different sounds/music, for example, 'the Hoodrat' would have minor/dark, urban music play when he's seen in the shot, then when he's not, the music returns back to normal. This, I feel, would be an interesting idea to play around with, in order to make a really good film.
Wednesday, 4 March 2015
Font & Titles Update
We was going to use a stylish fonts for each character for example have the word 'princess' done in pink to emphasis her personality and persona but we opted not too because we felt that it was over the top and made our opening sequence look very amateurish. Instead we decided to used a simple Century Gothic font to just make it blend in but at the same time be bold.
With the white Century gothic font we had a issue with lighting because the background is too bright for us to put white credits, we had to find the darkest spots in our opening sequence to place our credits which was very difficult and frustrating.
For example if we put our Universal Pictures Presents in the top right the audience would not be able to see it so we found a neutral place to put it.
We also decided to create the majority of the titles on Final Cut itself, as it was more simple to apply and to the sequence. We have created the ident and film title on Motion.
With the white Century gothic font we had a issue with lighting because the background is too bright for us to put white credits, we had to find the darkest spots in our opening sequence to place our credits which was very difficult and frustrating.
For example if we put our Universal Pictures Presents in the top right the audience would not be able to see it so we found a neutral place to put it.
We also decided to create the majority of the titles on Final Cut itself, as it was more simple to apply and to the sequence. We have created the ident and film title on Motion.
Published Website
theaveragemovie.weebly.com
When deciding on the content of our website, we took inspiration from the Perks of Being a Wallflower film website, where we decided to include aspects like reviews, the plot of the film, etc.
We decided on using hues of blue as the main colour throughout this project, as it is considered a neutral colour. The colour also has the need for order and direction in life - something our main character lacks in. Images from the sequence are still yet to be included.
Website Progress
Currently, we've had a bit of an issue regarding the website. We had started it, made slight progress, however, the website wouldn't let us log back in. Shannon stated that she would try again when she gets home, which delays our progress to a degree. We hope this is resolved as soon as possible.
Update: We have managed to gain access to our website and are currently editing out layout and content.
Update: We have managed to gain access to our website and are currently editing out layout and content.
Sound For The Film
I've been carefully working on the music for our project. I originally started off with an idea, that I developed alongside the video. As the video is not 100% finished, the sound work is still undergoing.
Editing session 6
Our group split into pairs, Shannon and I working on the movie editing and Seun and Akrem re-shooting some scenes and shot some extra scenes. Some of the scenes we added was Akrem walking because there was a shot missing from the scene and we also filmed an establishing shot of the college for the end of the scene. They also added a close up of the knife in Akrems pocket.
Whilst they were shooting outside, Shannon and I went through out existing footage and took notes of which scenes we needed to re shoot and what scenes we needed to add. After the boys left, we went through our footage and Rebecca came over and helped cut some of our footage that was too long and cut some footage that made it run more smoothly.
Rebeccas feedback was that our shots were a lot better but our film was too long with some shots that needed to be cut because there was a lot of space where no characters were present in the film.
Another feedback from Rebecca was about our credits; she commented that our credits were too big and also could not be in the centre of our shot as it did not look like a normal movie opening. In response to this feedback we changed the size of our movie credits and moved them to the bottom left corner of the screen, but we encountered a problem where in the corner of the screen, because our font is white, you couldnt see the font as clearly.
Rebecca also commented on our movie Title "Average" and where it was placed in the film. She said that our movie title could not be at the end of our film as it would make it too much like a trailer instead of a movie. So we then discussed as a group where to place our movie title.
As a group we decided to place the movie title near the beginning of the movie, shortly after Seun enters the scene.
Whilst they were shooting outside, Shannon and I went through out existing footage and took notes of which scenes we needed to re shoot and what scenes we needed to add. After the boys left, we went through our footage and Rebecca came over and helped cut some of our footage that was too long and cut some footage that made it run more smoothly.
Rebeccas feedback was that our shots were a lot better but our film was too long with some shots that needed to be cut because there was a lot of space where no characters were present in the film.
Another feedback from Rebecca was about our credits; she commented that our credits were too big and also could not be in the centre of our shot as it did not look like a normal movie opening. In response to this feedback we changed the size of our movie credits and moved them to the bottom left corner of the screen, but we encountered a problem where in the corner of the screen, because our font is white, you couldnt see the font as clearly.
Rebecca also commented on our movie Title "Average" and where it was placed in the film. She said that our movie title could not be at the end of our film as it would make it too much like a trailer instead of a movie. So we then discussed as a group where to place our movie title.
As a group we decided to place the movie title near the beginning of the movie, shortly after Seun enters the scene.
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