Miss B feedback

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Miss B

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I just wanted to say thanks to everyone, because this project was really enjoyable, thats everyone in the Media Department and my group.

Twas Fun.

My Group Production

Title - Double Edge

Actors - Bekah Murrel - Samantha - Hoaxer of kidnapping.
- Sian Parkinson - Miss K Williams - Really Kidnapped
- Adam Hawksbee - Anonymous - Posts Tape

Music - Track one - Opening
- Track Two - Inside Kidnap Shed
(Both downloaded from Freeplaymusic.com)

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

After the Preliminary Task I think that one of the things which I took on board was how much planning has to be made, and then scrutinised. Things which went wrong in the Prelim had to be planned for and avoided in the Final Piece. So in terms of planning, shooting and editing the Prelim was very important. This is what I learnt.

- Getting everything in order beforehand.

Location, actors, equipment and paperwork all need to be booked, alerted or prepared beforehand for a shoot to run smoothly and productively. In the Prelim this was not too bad as the location was just a teachers room, so we had to just ask in advance, whereas the final piece deadline took longer to find. Actors were just group members so this was not too difficult either, unlike the final piece where we had to make sure we had reliable actors, and brief them beforehand so that they knew when we were shooting and where to go. Planning was something which we did not do enough of for the Prelim but we got away with this, however we learnt that in order to successfully shoot our final piece more planning would be needed, we would have to put more thought into the storyboard and plan out our time to our shooting script plus any brakes or processes required.

- Use of Time

One thing about final piece shoots is that you have to plan how you are going to use your time efectively, for example in my group we planned preparation; like fake blood making, set preparation, shooting; each shot in order, not chronologically but logically, and breaks; whens lunch? In the Prelim you can get away with a bit of an unplanned approach due to the nature of only shooting half a minute, whereas for the final piece you need lots and lots of footage as there are so many more variables, like perhaps actors performances between takes amoung other issues like lighting, set, etc. One thing thats important is to not waste time, which sounds obvious but if time starts running out footage gets rushed and thats when you get weak footage, which leads to more reshoots than should be necessary.

-Shoot, shoot and shoot

After shooting the Prelim and getting into the edit suite the biggest issue was our lack of footage. We had only a handful of shots, of which we had way too few takes. Whats more we had minor differences between takes which lead to inconsistencies in lines of actions, which could break up continuity. So for the Final Piece we knew we had to return with an abundance of footage to make editing easier. On top of that we had to maintain things exact between takes.

Differences

The two Briefs did ask for different things, which does mean not everything about the Final Piece can be pre planned for just from doing the Prelim. This is in relation to duration and creativity, where the Prelim wanted a demonstration of complete control and continuity, and the Final Piece required the same plus creativity, music and titles. The major difference for me between the two briefs was the ability reshoot, this allowed us to quite majorly redirect our idea and restoryboard most of it until we were happy. This also meant that we could get shots to a very high standard on a second attempt if we did not execute well on a shoot. Which was sometimes the case.

Improvements

Between the Prelim sequence and the Final sequence I think that our work has improved so much technically. The editing and camera have both been improved alot, as creativity actually played a part in the Final piece. Our general Film making ability has shown improvements, and I think this comes from a process of learning from our mistakes during the Prelim.

Our Final piece implements many of the rules we learnt about for the Prelim like the 180 degree rule, shot - reverse - shot and match on action, but in a more interesting way, and in a more thought out sequence, where there is a narrative more meaningful than a conversation. I think that the Prelim was very important for teaching us how to monitor and work continuity in a sequence. Which we managed to do in our Final Piece.

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

HardWare
- A Canon Mini HD camera was used to shoot the film, It was the first time using this piece of equipment, but I had previous experience with loweer quality cameras. This camrea was great, I was able to learn about focus and I really improved my camera work, and composition.
- We used a Lighting Set, which was something really new to me, I learnt all about how to use lighting to light the set without drowning it out. And I learnt how very difficult it is to light sets well, and how controlled the set must be.
- Tripod, Directional Microphone and Headphones. These are all things that are only noticable in their absence, but by having acces to these things makes somethings less to worry about and much more proffessional, i.e. sound quality, which was very good.

Software

- Adobe Premier/ After effects, the non linear editing system was something I was familiar with, however in this project I was able to greatly expand my knowledge and understanding of editing, audio and visual alike.

- Razoring, Rendering and Keyframing. I managed to learn so much by experimentation, I think this is because we had so much access to the edit suites, so I was able to try things out, we finished with many timelines with alternate versions, some better than others.

- Contrast and Brightness, which is something I had only used in still images up until this project, but I learnt how to regulate and enhance these things for the sequence for a more professional look.

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

Something that is becoming increasingly important to the audience, in order to create relevance and familiarity, is to use relevant technologies to those watching. This is apparent in films such as One Missed Call (Eric Valette, 2008) which uses mobile phones to tap into modern generations. In our film we used a modern friendship, turned ugly. By blowing things out of proportion we give our audience a ‘what if’ scenario, and this can provide our film with the emotion and personality it needs to attract young females. This is why we used characters our audience can relate to, in order to make events more meaningful to the viewer. We tapped into the recent kidnapping tapes that have circulated the internet, such as ones from the Middle East, in order to create a relevance to the world of today. We imitated videos of hostages from real life situations and amplified them a bit to add drama. I also think that our editing style is something that would attract a young audience, with very quick editing which would leave behind older audiences from the start. The quick cuts teamed with contemporary effects are something that a younger audience would enjoy. In the sequence we also used the Enigma Code to interest and involve the viewer, because this is something which the audience enjoys. We did this by having the early twist, when the ‘kidnapped’ girl gets up it makes the viewer wonder what is going on.

How we implemented this...

- The friendship between Samantha and K Williams is not clear cut. Two different sides are represented by having emotion from each of our characters. Each have their own close ups and ghosting effects.

- Realism, in terms of the hostage video. We wanted an uncluttered tape which is reminiscent of real kidnap videos, unlike maybe an over dramatic style of hostage in Saw (James Wan, 2004). We let the emotion bring the impact in the tape.

- Effects are used throughout, which attract younger audiences as they lean more and more about computing and like to see conventions broken. Ghosting effects are seen in films like Saw and are often used to show the hostage in agony.

- Age of actresses, simply put, it makes it easier for the audience to relate to someone of their own age.

- Enigma Code was something we wanted because it makes for the best types of films with suspense and tension. We did this by immediately including the first twist, what this offers is not only the first enigma of 'whats going on?' and 'why?' but it offers a promise of twists to come.

Did this all work...

Yes! Our feedback showed an average of 8-9 out of 10 for how good our film was, which shows that the audience enjoyed our film sequence, and whats more there were very few who said they would not watch the rest of the film. Our feedback also demonstrated the high understanding of our audience, who generally understood what was happening on screen.

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

Primary Audience
- Age - 16 - 25 yrs
- Gender - Female
- Film Preferences - Thrillers, Chick Flicks (this is a thriller equivalent), Likes films which makes her think.
- Film Viewing - Goes to the cinema regularly and has many DVDs at home.
- Nationality - British
- Fans of - Se7en, Saw, The usual suspects.

Secondary Audience
- Age - 16 - 45 yrs
- Gender - Male/Female
- Film Preferences - Thriller Lovers!
- Film Viewing - Regular or non-regular depending on what films are out.
- Nationality -British
- Fans of - Thriller

I think that this Film is limited to a British audience because the American audience cannot adjust to British films like this. It would need an american makeover to have an impact in the US.