Media Evaluation - Question Eight

For my evaluation from the cinema, I have uploaded some short video clips that show the audience response from our films. Also I have created a word cloud of audience response.

Overall I am very happy with the way that all of our work has come out and finished. I think that it looks very professional and i am truly happy with my groups work.

Media Evaluation - Lauren's Response

Lauren's response to our Media Thriller Opening..

Media Evaluation - Farhana's Response

Farhana's response to our media thriller opening...

Media Evaluation - Question Seven

When i first started the AS Level course i wasn't as well equipped to make a film as i feel i am now. I have developed many techniques which i have learnt from both members in my group and my tutors.

For our thriller opening sequence our group made sure that we used as many shot types as possible. We used a variety of shot types which we learn in our Pre Lim match cut exercise.

This is an Over the Shoulder shot example from our PreLim.

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We then copied and used this in our final idea...

We made sure that we understood all of the required shot types that could be used in our work so that we could make the most effective amount of time.

To plan we made a storyboard that can be seen in a previous blog. We each took turns in giving and expressing our ideas to Alison, who drew the storyboard for our group. We took into account each others ideas so that everyone had some input to the planning stage. We also had group discussions of what we were going to film before we actually went out to film. Making sure that the camera worked before we went out, we would then go and film our ideas. Personally, even though all my group members may not back me on this, i believe that we needed much more planning time. Our first idea went down the drain when we haven't heard back from Transport for London so we had to quickly change our ideas. I think that we planned well, but we should of planned more in advance incase we actually did have problems with our locations, which we ended up having.

Personally i feel that i could of learnt more from the soundtrack Pro software. Both me, Glenn and Alison in our group took a back seat to allow Jack to concentrate on the sound as he was the most confident to do this on his own. However, some lessons when he wasn't in, me, Alison and Glenn both carefully mastered the final piece, and when it came to the deadline, both me and Jack stayed later to make sure it got finished while Alison worked on the titles on Live Type.

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Sound Track Software used for our sound editing

When we was filming our PreLim we had a serious problems with the sound on our piece. This got so bad that we had to put subtitles on our piece. We found out later on that we hadn't done our pre-filming checks correctly and the mic was actually switched to the off position. We learnt from our mistake, and when it came to the actual filming, we carefully checked every part of the camera to make sure it was in working order, as well as filming a few seconds to make sure everything was in working order on our JVC PRO HD Cameras.

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The JVC PRO HD Cameras we used to film our final piece on.

For the editing we all had a strong input on this using Final Cut Pro.

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As Jack knew a lot about this software, he taught us how to do all the processes that would be needed to make our film. We all learnt how to make fades and add extra video from our HD Cameras. Unfortunately Jack had to leave our group for personal issues just after our final edit, so we all took over to make the rest of the film. I took responsibility to make our answer to Question Six on our Media Evaluation. The day before the cinema screening of our media films, we had problems with our film which we resolved just in time for the final cut deadline. We watched our films at the Screen on the Green, as seen below.

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To be honest, we didn't pay too much interest M.E.S which happened to be largely ignored. However, we were lucky that it all turned out all good in the end. I think that we should have planned this more carefully, and in A2 we will definitely make sure this is higher on our list!

Media Evaluation - Question Six

Question Six of our Media Evaluation - A video explaining what we have learnt about technologies from the process of constructing our final piece of coursework.

Media Evaluation - Question Five

Question 5

This is Jacob.

Jacob is a 21 year old Male who works full time in a retail store in London’s West End. He enjoys going out with friends and meeting new people along the way; usually intoxicated in alcohol. He enjoys watching movies and listening to music as well as seeing live bands in his local pub. He regularly visits ‘Vue’ in Leicester Square to see the latest films as well as some odd ones that are still in circulation. He usually goes with his girlfriend, Jasmine who he met at work. He is always listening to his iPod and watches some films on there on his way to and from work. He is a perfect example of our intended audience as he fits all the criteria we were looking to fill.

Media Evaluation - Question Three and Four

Question Three and Four

After a group discussion of what kind of media institution might distribute our media product we came to a decision that we would want a large, mainstream release much like that of Star Trek being a simultaneous worldwide release. We would push for a ‘red carpet’ style release in London’s West End alongside other big blockbusters.

Our movie is very much likely to be released in a Digital format which will mean we can send our film on hard drives to the cinema’s which will be both cost effective and quick. As we feel strongly about Copyright and piracy, we feel a worldwide release would combat the amount of people filming in the back of the cinemas and selling it in countries which the film has yet to be released in.

We have also discussed the possibility of releasing a 3D version a couple of weeks after the general release to allow Imax cinemas to show the film as well therefore increasing our profit.

As well as releasing it, the power of the internet has become ever increasly popular. Like Star Trek releasing various other products related to the film, we feel we could benefit from this too. We could release a solo mobile phone with our branding on as well as posters, toys and other various items of merchandise.


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The trailer for our film could also be released online on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter as well as having adverts on Ebay and Google. We would target the largest sites on the internet for our tailers however this would cost a lot of money to advertise on. We would possibly make this money back after the film has been released, but our budget wouldn’t be incredibly high. We could also release adverts in newspapers and magazines to build up our viewing audience.

Media Evaluation - Question Two

Question Two

Our media represents particular social groups in different ways as well. However, in the beginning of our film, or the two minutes that were screened on the cinema didn’t represent many. Although we see a girl, a teenage girl; on her own which can go along the lines of the stereotypical venerable female. The two teenagers shown in the beginning of the film were a normal, white average class person which makes it difficult for us to put them into specific classes.

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Media Evaluation - Question One

Question One

My media product uses and develops forms and conventions of real media products in many ways. A strong example of how we have successfully used this is with out personally created soundtrack. Our setting starts off as being simple but effective with a low amount of sound in the background. Using Soundtrack Pro we carefully mastered the settings of the volume within the piece to create the desired amount of levels. We discussed this as a group and came to the conclusion that this was successfully used as it would have been in a cinema hit psychological thriller.

We feel that as we edited the actual visual part of the film on Final Cut, using special effects, we correctly captured the right amount of levels. As we felt that it wasn’t exactly the easiest film opening to understand, we decided to add a voiceover into it to allow the watching audience to understand what was going on.

With careful regards to lighting, we used a special filter on Final Cut to allow the levels of light that would be projected onto the screen in the cinema, to be of a high state which we believe fitted the beginning of a psychological thriller. Although when we initially think of a thriller, we could think that it could be dark and eerie, but we wanted to try and challenge the forms of conventual media, we thought we would open up the light, as if it was part of a dream, which was our initial idea.

As with many thriller opening sequences, we found that we would place titles around the moving image but have some parts with a black background so the audience would have a chance to try and take in what they had just seen on the screen. We believe as a group, but it created suspense and tension while the audience watched it and to add fact that they would want to watch the rest of the film.

We introduced two main characters into the film; one of them having considerably more screen time than the other. We didn’t want to reveal too much throughout the opening sequence as we wanted the film to tell a story. As the voiceover fades out, we would want to action to start on screen to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

In conclusion, as a group we believe that our film successfully captured and developed forms of conventual media products along the lines that the audience would be entertained.

Media Pitch Problems!

Due to technical issues, we have had problems trying to put our media pitch onto Blogger. Both the Head of Media at our college and our Media Technicians were unable to solve these problems, so we will submit our pitch on a DVD instead.

Group 33 Have now a Plan B!

Sadly Totteridge and Whetstone Station, along with our whole original idea has officially been flushed down the loo. But now, Drum Roll if you please, GROUP 33 HAVE NOW A PLAN B (YAAAYY, APPLAUSE)

Ok, you may be wondering what plan b actually entails which is much different to our original, well allow us to explain. We are changing the location from near enough High Barnett to Islington, Angel, around the corner from college. This immediately throughs up advantages such as quickness in getting to filming location. Also, with it being so close to college if anything goes sunny-side-up with equiptment, we wont loose masses and masses of filming time when getting the equpitment sorted out, which is brilliant for us.

Plan B Storyboards (Alison Natasha Johns' Animatic one is already available to view) will be available for viewing within the next couple of days, we have been experiencing technical difficulties in uploading our new location shots and storyboards. Thankyou for your patience though! :)

From the four of us, Group 33.

Anamatic Storyboard for Plan B.

If our A-Level assessed my computer drawing, then it is highly probable I would fail AS Media, but however this is not the case! i hope the really super-bad drawings are easy enough for you to understand, however if not, i will give you a very brief summary of what happens.

we decided to start with the smashing of a Jar/Glass (Risk assessment OBVIOUSLY BE CAREFUL..) And we will make this glass put itself back together rather than smash (reverse glass-smash footage), but though its clear im a paint professional im afraid that was a drawing a little out of my capability range! From this point, we will then show you an establishing shot of the park. Then it will flash to a stop sign, to signify something is going to happen. After this we will fade in (also could not fade, sorry folks!) to the image of a girl (acted by yours truely) walking into the park, using CU of the feet we will show you the girl walking to a point. then an over the shoulder shot will reveal a strange man (played by colleague Harry Thomas Kinsley) emerge from a bush. After some speach on my part, and not returned on Harry's, My character will run out of the park and reach a Creepy Door (WooOooo!) and it will end with the character reaching the door.

Analysis of 9 Shots from a Thriller Piece (artofthetitle.com)

The Shining - Title Sequence Analysis.

After watching a few beginnings of thriller movies, i partically liked the opening of the Shining as i thought it was differnet from the rest that we saw.

The title sequence appears to be very simple and easy to understand, but it is not until you look at it in a differnet way, that you see it looks very effective for a 1980's film. The title sequence doesn't start with the titles straight away, which is a nice touch i think. I like the way that the first two frames, lasting for a while of time each, both add to the beginning.

However, i am not sure that the colour of the text, does the best of work to make the film llook interesting. I think that it could be a lot better done, with the choice of colours that reflect the background.

The titles tell us, from what i can gather, that the film is produced by "Stanley Kubrick" which you can see from the forth frame of the picture. The Fifth frame tells us the name of "John Nicholson" but does not tell us who, in relation to the film he is. The sixth frame on the title sequence tells us the name of the film "THE SHINING" which relates to us that the film is starting. The seventh frame shows us another name of "Barry Nelson" but again doesn't tell us who or what he had to do with the film. The second but last part of the title sequence tels us finally what a name has to do with some part of the film. "Based upon the novel by STEPHEN KING" gives us some idea that this film has been made from the story outline from a book, instead of just giving us a name, which can be confusing on some parts of the title sequence. The name "STANLEY KUBRICK" is repeated at the end, but this time actually tells us that they are he is the producer and director.

I think to be honest, that the title sequence isn't perfect and could do with some work to make it fit nicely into the film. All of the titles are placed over the images, which show us the action that is happening in the background, instead of some way film makers choose to do it of putting the text over a black screen. However, i do think that in some parts that the writing does work, for example "THE SHINING" but i feel that for the last title sequence, it could do with something a bit better to contrast with the snow on the hillside.

Learning new skills, Livetype and Soundtrack.

I forgot to put this blog up, after accidently saving it as a draft instead of publishing it straight away!

Last week, our college technician Marisa, took us into the Mac suite to show how how to create a title sequence for our piece (which is one of the most important things) and also how to edit audio for our soundtrack/livetrack if we wished to use one. She showed us first how to use each of the programmes and then took us through step by step as we learnt to do it. Suprisingly it wasn't as hard as we thought!

After the tutorial, we had a chance to play around with the programme and then start to put pieces together that we could possibly use in our work. I found it useful to know how to create the titles as this would play a bit part in our works finished piece.

Marisa then taught us how to make soundtracks for the work which we would be using later on to accompy our thriller opening sequence. We learnt how to mix together and then, using ready made samples from the Mac's harddrive, put together a short composition in a few mins to play to the class! We all found this rather enjoyable as we were each able to learn new skills, develop others and have fun! You can see below the user friendly interface for Livetype, part of the 'Apple' Final Cut software programme.

Planned Location

As from my previous blog entry, you can see that i have written about wanting to film in Totteridge and Whetstone Tube Station. I went along here on my way home using my Sony Alpha DSLR, i tried to capture the station at its lonliest time!

The outside of the station looks in someways, similar to other stations. However, the location of this station is differnet to many of the tube stations in and around London as it it a peaceful and lonely station. The station superviser is not often there, which adds to the element when i get on here everyday, of the lonliness.

The inside part of the station is also very unique. Even though the trains pass through here every 2-3 minutes during peak hours, the station never really gets busy outside of these times. I really like how dark and scary this picture looks, even though it is only 5pm in the evening. This picture was taken about 30 seconds after the last train had departed the platform and it is still empty; a Thursday evening. I took this picture as the Northbound platform is where we would want to film as this is the best looking side, with the most original features.

Even though we have had problems with TFL, we are still waiting to hear back from them. If we film here, isn't certain yet.

Movie Pitch

A few days ago we made a pitch to a Media technician Micky and one of our teachers, Annabel regarding our title movie sequence for a thriller film. We tried on various attempts to upload our video of our pitch and our presentation but we were faced with technical difficulties.

The title of our movie that we have decided was 'Inbetween' which we thought would be good for the type of movie that we wanted to produce. We then chose a subgenre for our film to fit into and we all decided that it would be a supernatural and psychological thriller as we all have some sort of interest in this genre of film.

Our original idea before we had the upset with TFL was to film at Totteridge and Whetstone station in North London with a female leaving a male, going on a trip. We see them say their goodbyes then we follow the female onto the platform. We watch and watch for a few seconds, which we manuplicate to be a longer time, as no train appears to be coming she gets worried. We then see her receive a phone call and she smiles when she sees that it is coming from her husband. But we see the smile melt away as she hears distressing noises in the background of him begging her to come home. After this she then runs down the road, with the camera staying still and her running into the distance.

Our planned original location is Totteridge And Whetstone Station on the Northern Line (London Underground).

We plan to only use two props; a suitcase and a mobile phone. The mobile phone would belong to one person of the group, and I (Harry) have a large black suitcase that we would be using. Regarding to the costume, we are trying to portray young adults in their early twenties wearing casual but smart clothes. For our Mes en Scene, we are filming at Totteridge station which from what i have told the group (since i live in Totteridge) that it is often isolated which does lead in our favor. We will then not film individuals that do not want to be filmed which allows us to stay on the right side of the law. Another reason is that as it is isolated it allows to us to portray exactly what we want to do in our film, which is make her feel venerable.

Our basic sound ideas is that we think we would use a wild-track and soundtrack to finish off our piece. We want it to sound creepy and sad but to fit well with our piece. We want it to start off low but to fit with the word that appear on screen.

Production schedule - this is exactly how we plan to film our project..

Saturday 6th of March - We filmed the first part of film

Wednesday 10th March - Filming

Friday 12th March - Full Filming session

Wed 17th March - Begin Sound track and upload and start editing film

Friday 19th March - Film missing or bad footage and begin our full edit.

I will keep the blog up to date with all our filming requirements and how the shoots go.

The most obvious risk that we would face of filming on a train station would be to mind the gap that the trains pass in. We are not able to go onto the track at any point. We understand that if OCR view anything which they feel to have put us at risk they will not mark us and our paper will get canceled. We also have to watch when people are on the station with our tripod as people can be tripped up!

TFL rejection & where we go from here

I had a phone call with Transport for London a couple of days ago after sending them various emails with no response on their part. I left my contact details with them, as for our group, i volunteered to be in contact with TFL.

After sending various emails, within 1 week they had not got back to us so we have had to change our plans. They said that they will look into it, but due to the small amount of time that i have had to contact them in, we have run out of time.

After a full group discussion as well as talking to our teacher, we came up with three options.

The first option was to chance it and start filming. We understood that this is against the law as it would conclude on the trespassing law, which we do not want to get in trouble with. We voted with everyone in our group deciding that this is not the route that we want to go down.

The second option was to completely go back to the drawing board and do our planning again. We understand that we are very stuck on time so we decided to do this outside of lesson time, to insure that we have plenty of time to do our work, and still produce a high quality film before the deadline. We all decided that this would be the best idea, but to perhaps use some of the film we already have to add a contrast. We want to make sure that we don't run into continuity problems aswell.

Our third option would be to film the outside bits outside the station, which we have already done, but then we would film the inside parts somewhere, which would heavily rely on our edits. We believe that this could be done, however we voted against this.

TFL + Filming Permission = Not Happening.

Yes, the news nobody wanted to hear, TFL have officially fobbed us off (Grrr!) after three permission seeking attempts. We phoned, emailed but they haven't responded, but hey, if we are lucky they may accept our filming request......... next year! So we now have three options:


OPTION ONE: Chance it! (not such a good idea, but an idea all the same)

OPTION TWO: Use very clever editing skill (film the outsidey bits and then film the inside elsewhere)

OPTION THREE: Back to the drawing board for Plan B mock-up.

We will be keeping you up to date with which option we choose, why and what will be happening thereafter. In the Link below, please find the official website for seeking such permission.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/1513.aspx#Permission

Intro to Cameras and health and safety tutorial

During the lesson we learnt everything that we would need to film using the cameras plus all the health and safety requirements that we needed to know. We had to make sure we fully understood everything that was said and then sign to say we had undertaken the training.

The image above shows the form that we had to fill in for health and safety and the camera operation. As the cameras are expensive and we have had little chance to use them before, we had to make sure we knew exactly what we needed to do.

We firstly had to show to the teacher and media technicians that we were able to;

'Take the camera out of the bad'

'Check that the lock is off and the camera is set up for filming'

'Attach a battery'

'Inset a memory card'

'Place the camera securely on a tripod'

After we had successfully been able to do this, we then had to show that we understood the health and safety precautions that we had to bare in mind when we were going to film.

Each time we were taking the camera out of the college we had to;

'Tell the teacher the exact location of the filming'

'Leave contact details'

'Always film in a safe manner'

'Not to use mains electricity or equipment, always use batteries'

'Not to break the law, which includes the issue of trespass'

'Always ask for permission to film individuals and locations'

This was one of the most important things that we had to learn before we was allowed to take the camera out and film; it proved that we were mature and adult enough to look after expensive equipment.

Media Match Cut Exercise