Audience Feedback

We showcased our film in assembly and this is the feeback we got.

We had a lot of posative feedback, one of the things that a lot of people said was that they got the pliot of the story after watching which is a good thing as we wanted them to understand what was going on.

These are a few things they said:

• A good use of shots within the montage of shots.
• A few basic editing techniques however there were a few editing techniques that made the piece effective.
• Maybe upgrade the camera.
• They got the plot of the story
• They wanted to keep watching the rest.

After the feedback given my group let them know about the restricted recourses we were given at the start of the year and what we had to work with.

Note to the Examiner

Hi, may name is Ollie and i have been working in a group to produce this film. I took the lead on editing which i have never done before and i have really enjoyed the experience. Below is our film "CLOSE CUT", the film is about a paranoid schizophrenic with an obsesion of teenaged girls hair. His objective is to collect the hair and addmire it in his enclosed little room.
Thanks for your  time hope you enjoyed!

Evaluation question 1 - "In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products"

We have used many developments from other films. We liked getting inspired form other films. The main one that is obvious is that main story, we got inspired form the film "a girl on the train". The main plot to the story is a stalker cutting hair, so we decided to research into stalker films and obsession we cam across a film called fear, this is another film that inspired us.

Our entire piece only took place in two locations and these were the train station and a dark storage room which made it look like a little office room for the stalker to keep is evidence. the Store room looked very dark and gloomy we took inspiration form an opening sequence form the TV series a series on unfortunate events.

We edited a shot to make it look like CCTV footage, it went really well, we got inspired form the paranormal activity movies which is mainly filmed on CCTV footage and cameras.







The uses of camera in our piece is mainly inspiration especially the murder board scenes as we have done shots that have been taken from the TV series " a series of unfortunate events.

STORYBOARD FINAL DRAFT

This is our final draft of the story board

SHOT LIST

Here is the Shot list produced by Alex Newbold, one of our group mates.

Evaluation question 7 - "looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?"

When looking back on the preliminary task, I am able to see how much we have improved as a group. When we were filming our first task we were lacking the knowledge of these new editing and filming techniques.

We filmed our preliminary task at school. This didn't help as we didn't get to use as many locations as we could of. also time was a big thing we didn't have a lot of time to do it. As we were only able to film in the school we were faced with the problem of a lot of background noise due to other classes in the proximity. This did effect the finished piece as we weren't able to edit the sound out due to lack of experience.


Another problem we have noticed now as we have the knowledge is the lack of creativity with shots. This is a problem we had as we didn't have the experience back then but looking back over it we can now reflect on it and creatively think of better shots to do for the future.

Comparing our preliminary task to our final opening sequence we 100% notice one big thing at the very start. The sound, we were only able use the dietetic sound of the the dialogue and background noise. We weren't able to use any non-dietetic sound such as music or sound effects. It didn't really make the piece an exceptional piece. Where as in the final opening sequence where it had music and sound effects it really brought the piece out to be a good piece as the non-dietetic sound really made the piece. For example the long shots of the stalker in the piece has dark gloomy music to make thew audience realize that is the stalker and he is the protagonist.

Overall i feel like i have gained a lot of knowledge and picked up a lot of techniques to do with editing and camera work.

Evaluation question 6 - "What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product"

I have never used blogger before my A levels, i have never even heard of it. I now feel that I know how to use it well, i am very confident. I had fun editing my layout and design a blog page. Blogger is a very useful page as it can help people see what you have been up to during your process of the event which for us is making a thriller.

I have used Premier Pro before as i have it in my house so i knew how to use it when we started using it. i Feel that premier pro is a very useful way to edit clips/shots. It is very easy to pick up, however i have learnt new things on the software that i didn't know before such as editing the sound on clips. i didn't really know how to edit the sound on clips before but now i am confident with the software a lot more.

We edited our product on an apple computer. At home i have a windows PC and not an apple. i have used apple before however i only like to use them, after using an apple mac for a few week si do now feel a lot more confident with using a apple mac however i still prefer to use windows.

Evaluation question 5 - "How did you attract/address your audience?"

The main way we attracted audience to our product is through editing, the story line and characters. The editing in the piece was short and fast past making the audience on edge, the CCTV part is very well done, making that shot actually look like CCTV footage making the audience on edge.
The story line is very realistic as it is based on a true even, so we are basically showing the audience a true story through film which with me would want to make me watch it to see what is happening. We found an article in the newspaper about a man cutting girls hair on trains, we developed on this making it into a film we also made it so that it is at the train station no in a train.
We used characters to attract the audience as they may not be able to relate to the victims but they can feel for them. The audience are mostly teenagers and the victims are teenagers making the audience feel for them.

Question 4 - "Who would be the audience for your media product?"

I have watched our product over a few times and thought i through. it obviously came to my thought that the sequence was not suitable for the younger age (below 13) as it is slightly creepy and might be uncomfortable for the younger viewers. I feel that our product is suitable for anyone above the age of 15 as the cast are of that age and people that enjoy psychological thrillers would also enjoy our product as that is the theme.
Due to research i gathered at the start of the year in my questionnaire i found out that the majority of the people i asked were between 15-18 which supports my thought of the audience age group.

SERCRET WINDOW ESSAY

Secret window is a film directed by David Koepp and written by him. The actor Johnny Depp stars in it. The film is a Thriller. The opening sequence starts off with Johnny Depp sitting in a car. He is angry with someone, possible his wife, he finds them and bursts into their room to catch her in bed with another person.

The opening starts off with the logo of the production company and sound bridge of the window screen wipers, this gets you thinking as you cant see the wipers, it makes you think that it could be a train, a heart beats, someone knocking a door? this is really effective and the audience is immediate intrigued. Camera is used very effectively, for example, the first shot is a close up of Johnny Depp's face, this is use dto show his emotion which is anger. The camera really focuses on the actors face only, not the background, this really projects the fact that he is disturbed. Another shot where the camera is used is at the end, where it is a high angle shot of the two people in bed, this shows how angry Johnny is because it is as if he is looking down on them in disgust. In another shot you can see a medium shot of him rushing behind a desk. the way the camera tracks the actor is very effective as it is showing his every move, the way he rushes behind the desks, the way he reaches for the keys just shows his anger very well.

This is my first written essay in media as it is my first time doing media as a lesson, i haven't done very well i know this as i have had feedback and have read it back over myself, i will reflect on my mistakes and learn for the the future. i will practice more of my written essays to get ready for my exam. https://youtu.be/brLAPZydPYQ

BRITISH AND AMERICAN FILM PRODUCTION COMPANIES

When i was researching different film companies both american and British i cam across many power points on slider share and picked out this one as it i was easy to follow and has clear information.

British Film Productions:

• Smaller audience
• Smaller budgets
• Set in the UK
• Less known actors
• Actors are mostly only British

Hollywood Film Productions:

• Budget is a lot higher
• A lot more production companies
• Animation
• Actors are well known 
• More time spent in the film

this is where i got the power point from : https://www.slideshare.net/JadeMelady/british-vs-american-films

STORYBOARD 1ST DRAFT

Here is the first draft of the storyboard

TITLE SEQUENCES

The title sequence is where the film or TV series  present the title and the names of the people included. It helps establish the theme of the film.


Examples:

Star Trek, start trek is a futuristic fantasy film. The title really does show that the film is futuristic as it is shown in space and has a futuristic font.








The Hobbit title also shows what the film is. The first thing that comes to my head when i see this title is, medieval fantasy. it is very iconic as the film is very medieval with sword and battle like features.
Insidious is a horror film. The title is very creepy showing clearly that the film is going got be a horror.