Diary Page

On this page I will be uploading updates of work I have done in lessons.

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11/09/2013

For the two lessons in this week we looked over the course and made ourselves familiar again with relevant shots and angles we would be using in AS media. We also had a look at the media software program we would be using. As an activity in the second lesson we were told to ask individual questions about how to use the software. This helped us to widen our knowledge about it and prepare us for our next project.

13/09/2013

For todays lesson we carried on making ourselves familiar with key terminology and skills we would be using throughout the course. One of the tasks this lesson was to watch a TV clip and write down all the different shots, camera angles, mise on scene skills and editing techniques. This was a very useful lesson for me as I am new to the subject.

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18/09/2013- ‘Ferris Bueller’ exercise

We had been set a task to do in the two lessons this week. We watched a scene from the film ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’. We were then asked to create a piece of film that followed the same ideas of the art gallery sequence. The film piece had to be using similar camera shots and angles, and utilize the same theme. Some examples of the camera shots were close up shots, wide shots, panning shots and point of view shots. They were displayed on-screen in a fast rhythm in time with the music in the background. This was a very interesting task as you had to be very creative when collaborating the footage for art work. This is because there is a limit to how much art you can find around school therefore you have to film displays as art or certain signs like the colourful signs around school that are there to navigate people.

We were successful with this task as a whole and the footage collaborated together looked similar to the scene from ‘Ferris Bueller’s day off’. The scene used fast editing and the different shot types listed above.

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2/10/2013- Preliminary task

This week the preliminary task was set. Our preliminary task was to create a piece of video that includes the following: 1) Match on action shot 2) Shot/ Reverse shot 3) 180 Degree rule. The clip has to include walking through a door and scripted dialogue. For the two lessons this week we had to plan the task with a storyboard and a script. There is more information about my Preliminary task on the separate page.

My storyboard for this task

My screenplay for this task

There is more information about my preliminary task on a separate page explaining how successful we were with the task set.

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9/10/2013- Ken Burns effect

In preparation for our preliminary task we learnt about the Ken Burns effects. Our teacher talked us through some of the effects we could use on the Premiere Pro software. We then had to recreate the Ken Burns effects with music and images. This task was very helpful as it used a lot of fast editing to deliver the images which is very similar to the style for the clip we saw from ‘Ferris Buellers day off’. Below is an example of what I did:

11/10/2013- Today we were filming for our preliminary production. We created a production following the criteria given and gave it a comedic feel. The production was about a few boys obsessed with their gameboys with nothing to have a conversation about. It was stylised containing panning shots, close-up shots and match on action shots.

16/10/2013- In todays lesson I chose the music for our preliminary task, the music was upbeat and rhythmic to fit in with the shot types and genre of the clip. In this lesson Sam started to edit our preliminary video the edits were fast and artistic to resemble the comedic genre of the clip.

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23rd and 25th of October 2013- In these two lessons we finished off our preliminary video, doing the final edits and making sure it looked amiable as a whole.

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06/11/2013- Today we started talking about what genre film opening we might consider to choose for our final production. We looked at a variety of clips and wrote down a collection of ideas to choose from. For example; mystery or comedy. We also listed what kind of camera shot types, sound effects and mise en scene they use in order to deliver their specific genre which helped us consider what kind of production we would have the ability to make- what interests us more.

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13/11/2013- Today we focussed on the type of music or sound effects title sequences use. For example ‘The Pink Panther’ has a very upbeat/mysterious tone however ‘Jaws’ has a very harsh sound to disturb the viewer. Looking at these sound effects gave us an idea of how to produce sound for our production.

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25/11/2013- Exam practise and final production preparation

For the past few weeks we have been focussing on exam practise. We have looked at TV dramas and written essays about these dramas. We have been looking at gender stereotypes, sexuality and class and status. We have been set revision practise to do each week analysing a TV drama of our choice creating a revision source for example a mind-map or writing an essay. All this work collaborated together will help to achieve success in the exam.

We have also been discussing what type of film opening we want to make. I ‘am in a group with Sam and after a lot of research in to different genres we agreed on murder mystery.

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2/12/2013- Understanding title sequences

In this weeks lessons we wanted to widen our understanding in title sequences and learn about how we could make our titles more exiting and entertaining in our final performance. We watched a few clips like ‘Amelie’ and ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ with interesting title sequences for inspiration. We then created titles on Adobe After Effects. This was in order to practise for our final production and to get used to the software. I think I learnt a lot from this lesson and those film openings will come in very helpful when creating my film opening titles. This will help me to produce a variety of titles to therefore not lose interest from the audience when viewing our production.

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11/12/2013- Motion tracking

Today we did some motion tracking. Mr Middleton went through the different stages of creating the motion tracking with text. We started off creating a specific point and then attached the text to that point using the layer options on the software. This gave us practise in creating titles but also the sequence in which they are displayed. This also gave me inspiration to use motion tracking in the future with my film opening as it looks highly dynamic and the use of the software technique interests me.

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Filming over the holidays.

Over the Christmas break we got our first shoot done, I think it is very important to the final production to first test the initial shots before we start filming properly. The main thing I learned from the shoot is how important natural light really is, because we shot at night we had to use a very high ISO (1500 for wide-angle and 2000 for close-ups) this then means the quality is massively affected. Because we want the quality to be as good as possible the next shoot we’ll most likely shoot during the day to make sure we can keep the ISO at a minimum 400 ideally 200. For this shoot we used a track and dolly, this creates a professional feel to the whole production, although, because we didn’t set the track up properly there was a slight wobble in one of the shots.

Apart from these setbacks the shoot was very successful we now have an idea of what we need to do to take our production to the next level.

Over the holidays I spent time looking at film openings and title sequences to understand how they are delivered and different techniques you can use then creating them. Below are come shots from films which I found interesting and would like to use in my final production.

I have done further research in to three opening title sequences which are displayed on my research page under film opening analysis.

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Week beginning the 6th of January

My job on the first week back was to decide on which music we wanted our film opening to have. This was difficult as we wanted something which had a good rhythm which was slightly eerie also. We decided on “Broke for free” by Night Owl this is because the tone is upbeat but gets faster throughout giving the audience an understanding that something unexpected is going to happen. The fact that the music is upbeat makes it easier to fit the shots of our film opening together so that the piece flows smoothly as a whole.

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Week beginning the 13th  of January

This week we focused on creating our ident. We wanted our ident to be individual and memorable. We wanted it to fit with the genre of our film so we chose for it to be slightly mysterious. We made the background completely black and the text an Arial white. The blackness symbolizes what’s coming up; the viewer is unaware of what they are about to see.  For a joint production company Sam and me chose ‘Reedstone Productions’ it’s a play on words with our second names we decided it was clever and sounded professional. ‘Reedstone’ is displayed in a larger font on the screen this is to emphasise the name and to make it stand out so that it is memorable to the viewer. ‘Productions’ was a slightly smaller font and more spread out to look dynamic and in proportion with the word above it. We wanted the ident to fade in to build up the atmosphere and excitement of the upcoming film.

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Week beginning 22nd of January

During the lessons this week we started to create and edit our film opening. We were pleased with the footage collected so far and the film is looking highly promising, fitting together very well and with good timing to the music. Certain shots were slightly wobbly when rendered which we will film again to prevent any bad quality shots. Below is a screenshot of some of the edits we have made so far. This specific shot is a point of view shot of the boy making his cup of tea in the morning. I think the tea changing colour looks extremely artistic. We have decided we want to put a title in the tea-cup as it will look different and imaginative. I think I got this idea because of watching the film opening of ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ they use experimental ways to deliver titles very successfully.

24th of January In todays lesson we looked over all of the filming we had done during the holidays and cut out all of the bad quality shots and shots that we thought genuinely didn’t work or fit in with the genre of the piece.

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27th January Titles

We started looking at titles this week. This is one I created. I chose to have the title on a panning shot, as it travels smoothly with it and looks creatively affective. The lighting on this shot strongly focuses on the gloves, as they are a drastically bright colour however the colours around it are very neutral so they highly stand out. I chose for the title to fade out as it reached the gloves and the actor picks them up, the fade out represents the gloves leaving the tabletop surface. The lighting is slightly dark in the shot above but I think it complements the theme of our production. The colour red on the glove represents danger (the idea of  mise en scene) and the black colour represents the suspicion to the character who kidnaps the young boy.

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5th of February Filming and further editing

This week on Tuesday me and Sam went to do some further filming. We were correcting some of the shots we took over the holiday which were bad quality. The filming session went well however the lighting on some of the shots was not up to standard, for example in the shots of him getting up out of bed and the shots of him walking down the stairs they were just slightly too dark. This Sunday we will be going to finish off all the filming so that we can focus completely on editing and titles for the final two weeks of the task.

6th of February Further editing

In lessons we continued to edit the film opening and create some new titles, this has been going well and we are feeling positive about the task. After the filming this weekend I am hoping to add some motion tracking to a couple of the titles for effect. Motion tracking will complement the murder mystery theme and will add excitement to the production. This weekend I also want to make sure we get a nice variety of shots. For example close-ups, mid shots, point of view shots and all from different angles. This will give the film a feeling of exhilaration the audience will feel this when they’re watching the piece because of the rapid pace.

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12th of February Creating more titles

In todays lesson I fully created one title and started to create another. The title I created and finished was the ‘Written by Beth Reeder’ title. I mentioned this before about wanting to create a title in the teacup shot. I met this target and the title now looks quirky and creative just as I’d planned. I used motion tracking on the title so that it was centered in the middle of the teacup. I think this adds to the authenticity of the film and adds to the production value. I wanted the title to fade in as the milk mixed in the cup with the tea to give the effect that the milk was pouring out the title.

I started to create a second title in this lesson. It’s a wide shot which zooms in on the boys bedroom window. Because we filmed this shot in the early morning the lighting really compliments the setting which is why I think this would be a nice place to situate a title. There are some changes I want to make to this however:

To what I have already done I would like to change the colour of the font, so that it differs from the other titles (stands out) and isn’t difficult to pick out because of the morning brightness in the window. I would also like to motion track the title so that it continues to be stable as the camera zooms in. I’m not certain yet but I might make the title blue because this would complement elements of the mise en scene.

14/02/2014- Finishing off my title from last week and further editing

In today’s lesson I made the changes I planned to the title ‘Starring Jack Fillingham’ I changed the font colour to blue and also added a transition to it so that is started off small and gradually got bigger. This was to emphasise the light shining through the window, the sun rising and a start to another day.

I picked a classical piano track after watching our video through because the beginning scene is meant to be the build up to the ending therefore very mysterious for the scene in which the boy goes missing. I decided that the music we had picked didn’t fit in well with the ending of our production. I liked an upbeat track for the ending therefore I edited it so that the volume of the music increased as the ending scenes became more attention-grabbing and exiting.

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19/02/2014- Editing and creating titles

Here is an analysis of what I have done in todays lesson and catch up session:

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21/02/2014- Fist draft of our final piece completed

The task of todays lesson was to have the first draft of our film opening finished. The music and fluidity were there but we wanted to add effects to some of the shots that fitted in with the genre of the film and emphasised this. For example on some of the shots we adjusted the lighting so that it was darker therefor slightly apprehensive. Here is an example of one of the shots we changed slightly:

Before we edited the lighting of this shot it was much brighter therefor didn’t have that scary feel to it. To make it fit in with the genre we distorted the colour platelet to darken the shot and add greater effect of murder mystery. We decided we wanted the hints of murder mystery to be subtle because we wanted the ending of the film opening to be suprising and unexpected therefor leaving the viewer desperate to carry on watching. This is why the beginning of our film is very naturalistic with the boy making his breakfast, pouring his cup of tea and using his normal choice of transport (his bike).

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5/03/2014- Audience Feedback

Today as a group we watched each others film openings and gave feedback. We filled in a sheet which had a table consisting of plus points, minus points and interesting points. We had a discussion after each production to collaborate our feedback. After watching mine and Sam’s video through the class has a lot of feedback to give for example in plus and interesting points a lot of people picked up on creative shots, tracking and titling. However in minus points people mentioned the continuity of our work. To improve our production we need to focus on the font of one of the titles, the continuity of the tea cup shots and stairs shots, switching the order of one of the titles for effect and the loudness of the music so that it doesn’t sound distorted and bad quality.

One of the film openings that I enjoyed and found really creative was Jess’s. In plus points I mentioned that her idea was really interesting, her mise en scene was very strong and the soundtrack she had really fitted in perfectly with the piece of work. The only minus point I had for her video was repeated shots which she is going to try and cut down when improving.

7/03/2014- Evaluation research

In todays lesson we went over how to write and create our evaluations. To help us Sir showed us past pupils examples for example videos, mind maps, PowerPoint. We also looked at different software’s which are available online which enable you to mix video and PowerPoint together in one big display for example animoto.

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12/03/2014- Evaluation planning

In the lessons this week we were suppost to be planning our evaluations for our film openings. I was unfortunatly ill for Fridays lesson and on a school trip for Wednesdays lesson. Therefor I attended catch up after school and lesson 3 on Thursday to continue planning. Here is some of the planning we completed:

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19/03/2014- Finishing evaluation planning

Today we continued and finished our evaluation planning up to the final question 7. I would like to add more points to certain questions however because some are not answered in enough depth. Here is some evidence of  our further planning:

 

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26/03/2014- Improvements to evaluations

Today I made improvements to the question ‘How does your media product represent particular social groups?’. This is because the answer we already had did not include enough detail and there was much more I wanted to add. Here’s the research I came up with for it:

28/03/2014- Working on evaluations with ‘Prezi’

Today I created a document on Prezi for the question ‘Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?’ I would like to improve this by adding visual aspects as well as text but here is what I have got so far:

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2/04/2014- Adding visual aspects to my Prezi

Today I added more detail to my Prezi presentation and visual aspects, for example I used lots of screenshots to back up certain points I made in my evaluations. I also put some background music behind the presentation. This music was from our Film opening, this added great effect to the presentation:

4/04/2014- Creating two new Prezi presentations and filming group evaluations

Today me and Sam filmed our answers to questions 3 and 4. I also created two new Prezi presentations for question 2 ‘How does your media product represent particular social groups?’ and question 6 ‘What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?’. The production of these Prezi presentations and filmed evaluation went successfully and I feel we have got a lot done today. Here are two images for evidance of these presentations…

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9/04/2014- Over the weekend

Last week in after school sessions and over the weekend me and Sam finished filming for our group evaluations. All the footage was in order and was filmed successfully. Monday and Tuesday I stayed back after school to continue editing our evaluations adding captions to make them more interesting. In todays lesson I carried on editing and also started to create a Prezi presentation. Tomorrow I will add captions to this presentation and hopefully complete our evaluation task.

11/04/2014- Completing the evaluation task

Today we completed the evaluations. Working on adding the Prezi presentations to our blog and editing the last few questions successfully. When exporting question 7, the quality of a certain shot was bad therefor we had to edit the question one last time and export it again this didn’t take long to fix.

Here is some evidence of editing our questions: