Evaluation

After the first draft and some more editing we were then told about the evaluation- the evaluation is a second part to the film in which you explain everything you have done within seven questions, the seven question are: 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups? 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 4: Who would be the audience for your media product? 5: How did you attract / address your audience? 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? During the process of our evaluation is really useful as we were able to talk fully how we feel and really explain ourselves.

 

First draft: Review.

Today are first draft was watched by the class, as we also watched our classes media products. Whilst watching we also marked the pieces, to see what they could improve on. Overall we thought all of the pieces where brilliant, and it was a really good process to go through- with most of the groups we though the title work needed work on most. The feedback we got back for our piece, was really unexpected but appreciated. The colouring used throughout, was said to look really good and affective, as not all of the footage has yet been added it's not finished, not the sound completely therefore the results we got where a real confidence boost, and pointed us all in the right direction.

Evaluation:

Media evaluation:

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

For the final idea, we decided to do a dream- the idea aspired from all directions; as everyone has dreams in which vary. We decided our audience would be: teenagers both young and old. We decided on this audience not only because we ourselves are in this age range, but because there is more pressure than ever in this time period to perform well, and up to the expectations of their parents, and other pressures. There has also been rises in divorces in families and domestic violence, you might think how does this relate? However there are many more pressures on children whether it’s for these reasons, or others. Children are being forced too grow up quicker than ever before, and adapting skills causing major affects such as: Stress, depression and distraction. Therefore this is are audience as we believe it represents trying to get out, to a place you feel secure away from all pressures, find a place which is your own reality. However waking to find this in fact is just a dream, which is disappointing as shown in our footage, as Rose begins to wake the arguments start to come into affect.

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

Although filming is a major process of the media production, editing requires a lot of time, and dedication. You firstly have to be able to upload all of you footage on to the Mac’s- within the group on a small amount of us had ever used a Mac computer, therefore we had to get used to the new technology. After learning the basics, of the Macs- we soon became aware as we the editing process went a long how to use them- doing the preliminary task also helped a lot- this allowed us to properly prepare ourselves- especially for the music (garage band) on the Macs- we has to crop all shots perfectly- for us. We learnt how to do- voice over, putting affects such as a: ripple- we also looked through all of the titles that where on the Macs, and tried each to make sure it fitted perfectly and gave the right, affect. This is me demonstrating some of the thing's I have learnt during the process, here this is how you crop a clip- we cropped so that the when pulling the clips together they would run much smother instead of choppy. This is how you had an affect (transition affect) for example when Rose runs around a tree we add a: circle affect. This is how you add titles, you have too make sure the title goes with your type of work otherwise, although only small can set of another meaning. This is how you record sounds- we used this to add- whispering affects and also shouting towards the end.

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

After finishing the preliminary task, we moved on towards our main task. After gaining experience of both: filming and editing, we felt a lot more comfortable working towards this. In the progression I feel that I’ve learnt time keeping, the affect and the overall meaning are absolutely essential in making the media purposeful. When looking back to are preliminary task, I’ve realised there were many imperfections that are now easy to correct however at that stage we where unaware of this.

How did you attract / address your audience

To address our audience, we mainly put all of our ideas together, ideas of dreams: Scary, lost, funny and strange where the focus of many of our dreams- we also together looked at how life for us is, how do we feel? Are we motivated, stressed or depressed? As many of us said stressed we decided to explore the stress of a teenager- and how it felt in a half term, on holiday or whilst asleep we all said that this is where we felt as rest. Therefore this gave us a start too our main idea.

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

As my media product, is purposely aimed towards teenagers- age focusing on fourteen year olds to nineteen year olds, I would try and see what at this age is of interest- film wise. However as I am included in this age group, I have an advantage as I can myself put myself into this perspective. The sort of media institution I believe may distribute my media product would be a true story, focusing on age and gender primarily.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

First edit- snap shots- (Print screen)

After uploading all of our footage on to the Mac's, it was time for the first edit, after everything was on the macs and cropped, to how we ideally wanted it. We started too think about putting affects such as a ripple affect as a transition and also more noticable affects for example- colour changes.

In these print screens, we have not yet used any affects, so therefore this is the colour we firstly filmed with.

To begin, this is the first within the footage you are shown- This shot, is when we firstly started to explore with affects- we started putting a saturated affect on to go with the style of our piece.

Here Rose, is just about to jump up, we felt this colour (saturated colour) made the leaves look nice, summary and realistic for the affect we wanted.

We then started to progress even furter with the colour adding more of the affect- (not being scared, but experimenting) what would look best.

This is a further affect that we decided on using- black and white- however we felt that this, lost a lot of the dream affect so we decided to remove this and stick to the saturated affect.



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Anamatics

Drafttt

This is our first draft, for this we footage- we have decided to use many affects, two of the major affects used within are: Slow motion and Speeding the footage up, however backwards. As a group, we thought that using these affects would maximise the affect we wanted. The slow motion first of all, maxes everything slower and more focused on the dream- giving it a sense of meaning instead of Rose just running, the purpose of fast forwarding is when Rose, awakes realising it's a dream and nothing more than reality she gets a shock and remembers everything- this will also be maximised by a close up of her eyes open and then closing for the flash back.

We have our first draft due for the seventh of february therefore, in our lesson today our aim is to find appropiate music, what editing we are planning to do and to edit as much of our footage as possible to ensure we get it to how we ideally want it.

For the basic editing we have begun by using crop and cut- this is to remove anything unessecary and anything that isnt needed. We also started to change the colour- although we thought that we had a good setting for out colour we all agreed that because we are trying to maximise the dream affect to the audience that we would change it. We felt this was a really good affect and we also put editing transitions on for example- a ripple and a circle to make it smooth,

Editing

We have now started to upload our media footage to our assigned Mac- after meeting over five times to make sure that we had a variety of meaningful shots, and too also make it all fit together. When we started to edit we looked at it all together and picked out sections in which would show the dreamy affect. The editing of the Macs were quite limited therefore we had to ask someone who also had a mac but there own personal one at home to put a slow motion affect on, we felt this would maximise the dream affect to the fullest.

Wizard of Oz-- If I Only Had A Brain

As we are doing a dream for our final piece I decided to look at movie openings with the theme of dreams or openings that are mysterious. To get ideas and shots from this, throughout this process someone told me that the wizard od oz was actually in fact a dream so iIbegan to look at clips of the wizard of oz.

As we are doing a dream for our final media piece I decided to look at movie opening with the theme of dreaming with or stuff that’s mysterious, to get ideas and shots from this. Throughout this process someone told me that the wizard of oz was actually in fact a dream so I then began to look at clips of this.

Group talks

After having our group discussion and spending one hour looking at different openings we again had a hard think we decides to have quite a few meetings because we thought this was a necessity to make sure that everyone was completely and everyone’s ideas were being heard. In which they all were, after the meeting we were really happy with our idea, and because we already had an idea we were able to take many ideas from that. For example in our first idea the ghost would whisper, in our new one when the teddy appear there will be whispering with words such as: This is your fault, why did you leave me and where are you? And all sorts of other things. We decided to keep it simple- the field meant that we could get the mise-en-scene perfect what we neede.

Ideas/ Narrative

For our opening, the audience will firstly see Elise playing Rose- she is the actor in our media piece. She’s going to be in a field, but almost looks as if it’s a forest. The girl’s happy smiling like there’s no tomorrow, she’s in her element freedom at last.  Their will be a variety of different shots in the opening for example: Long shots, wide shots, angle shots and close ups.

After we see Rose jumping down from the tree she has been sitting on, we see her running around, almost as if she’s dreaming. However whilst running she looks as if she trying to find something whilst exploring the beautiful nature. She’s so content and private; through facial expressions and body language we know she’s happy.

After foreshadowing the girls looking for something, we move her on in the forest, to another tree she’s standing high and reaching. After reaching we see she grabs hold of a teddy, she hugs the teddy bear holding on tight as if nothing can come between the two. The teddy bear foreshadows lots, in the rest of the story.

We then have a shot of rose running, so happy occasionally spinning around. Running because this is where she’s the happiest in her dream with her teddy bear she doesn’t want to be anywhere else. But as she’s running un-noticeably she drops the teddy and continues to run.  

After the shots in the forest, we then move on to the girl waking up- reality. The first shot we see is of rose waking up, she pushes her self up quickly as if she absolutely distraught she’s woken up she didn’t want to be disturbed at this point the camera is directly in her face for a little while everything pauses. Her dads banging on her door, she ignores this for a few seconds then yelps.

We decided to make the girl have a small dungy room, we got this idea from Harry Potter- When living with his auntie, uncle and cousin he isn’t wanted therefore he has a small room with no space to do anything. Therefore we thought this would connote her type of lifestyle to the audience, and the type of life that she leads.

This is where our story would end, however if it was too continue it would show her life, what happened before the dream she had and what happened after- why the teddy is so important to her.

Recent events

On the seventh of December I was due to go on holiday; therefore I would be missing two lessons- to make up for being away from my group I decided to take short clips while I was away. Most of the shots that I did, were of the sky our new idea is of a dream, therefore ideally it would be beautiful to begin with (the outside) nice and dreamy. One of the particular clips that we might be using is one that of the blue sky with a few clouds just floating, I thought this would be good in case we didn’t have many good sunny days. I would up load this on to my computer or on the school’s Mac- so that we could edit and make this a part of our media piece.

New idea

After much discussion, our group realised that we were still trying to put to much into our video- and took us all a while to realise that it was more about the shots- oppose to what’s in them, of course the mise-en-scene and the meaning of the film is just important.

We decided to go to heading ton hill- we decided this would be our location, after figuring the dream would revolve about mysterious events therefore it needed to be in a small compact space although this would be visible to the audience as it would be in different locations- areas but edited all together. We found the perfect location, and luckily the sun was beautiful and was shining exactly where we needed it. The first shot was beautiful it was of Elise standing in the middle of the tree with the sun hitting the left of her. This looked stunning, she then jumped of the tree and ran towards another dreamily, we also did a shot from a tree to get a high shot. We were lucky to get this filmed, we had some problems with are camera. Connie had informed us that the camera was playing up however Ellie filmed some footage on her way home and the camera was working ok, once at our filming destination the camera screen was black. It took us around 10 minutes to get the camera working, after filming this short piece of footage the camera once again went black, we did what we did in the first place twice and tried to fix it in more ways however after thirty minutes of discussion and trying to fix the camera we were all freezing and decided to leave. It was a real shame, because unfortunately we had everything we needed.

On Tuesday, whilst in media we were trying to figure when we all had a free day but because of our busy schedules with- drama, art and business and psychology exams it was hard to fit anything else in. We decided to go on that day, and get it all done we went to heading ton hill after school and film a lot more that we previously had with a much better quality camera which everyone was really happy about. However it became increasingly dark very soon by this time it was 5 30. We decided to go to South parks- opposite where there was a bit lighter and filmed another short piece of footage. We then decided we would all come out on Sunday to finish completely.