Final Cut

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?

Prelim task
Our prelim task was set at our school where we had a routine of stage directions and dialogue, this meant that we had a basic script to learn from so that we could get our shots right and position ourselves correctly. The prelim task was hard to do because of the short notice to learn about how to use the equipment and where to position ourselves so that we got the correct shot and the best possible one that we could get. We had a series of shots to get and then we would have to edit them together so that the prelim task was ready to be evaluated by our teacher.
This became difficult because we didnt really know how to use the software in order to edit the film together and we used a piece of software called Premier Pro. We found it really hard to grasp how to use this and how we would set up the shots and in which order we should put them in.

Hunted First Cut

Hunted First Cut 

February feedback

Your web-log looks good and now needs completing.  Ensure that creative technologies have been used to present your evaluation.

Complete the evaluation fully

Put the preliminary task and your production as last posts then the questions

Add any extra elements to the research and planning.

Set targets for what you need to do over half-term to fully complete the coursework

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Hardware 

To start with we used a Mac Book pro to develop our productions and store all the data from our recordings on here. This is because people see Mac Books as being better as your standard PC so I wanted to know why.
The main reasons that we used these expensive pieces of hardware is because they aesthetically look nice so people naturally know the quality that the apple products possess so people want to learn how to use them for any future function.
They are so much more quicker at loading files that you have already saved to certain pieces of software on the piece of technology. The different software that we needed in order to edit different clips together etc. needed this type of hardware because they would load the content more efficiently nearly instantly sometimes. As well as this the software on the Macs offer a lot more options on how you can chop and change certain things, so even though some things are in different places to the PC's its because they have probably moved in order to add something new into the software.
With a Mac it is so much easier to do certain tasks at the same time because of the screen being so big and broad you can fit loads of different screens on one, this means you can check different actions that happen on different pieces of software that you can check.  With these different functions and option that it offers you it means that you can try a load of different things with the software and have a mess around with a lot more different actions that you can command it to do.

Software 

After Effects 

We used this piece of software for the opening of our film in order to create the tile sequence with our production name and title of the film.  This meant that we needed to learn how to use the software as it requires you to open up your own template and size of how big you want the title at the start. As you can see the screen is blank when you open it and requires you to set your own timeline of what will happen on the screen and when. We learnt the different ways of being able to add affects onto the title by watching certain youtube videos that really did come in handy at stages where we needed it to, this meant we do our title in half the time than what it would of took us to figure out how to use it ourselves. After watching the videos and using a good two hour period of time during lesson we decided what our title would look like and how we wanted it to be set up.
We decided that our title should break out into little pieces and then come back as one with a little flash to enhance the text from the dark background. This to the left is where the title breaks off but like I said before we needed a little flash on the screen so that it would be visible.

We then had to import our title into our main task which was the opening sequence to our film ans that is exactly what we did.This was also the name of the productions fro the film and this was meant to be at the start of the film.

Premiere 

This was the other piece of software that we used in order to put all the shots together and edit bits out whilst adding ones in. Firstly we would take all the shots on the camera that we used to record the shots and then we needed to plug in the memory card into the back of the Macs and then save all the recordings onto the Mac so that we could import them onto this piece of software. After we had done this we could now start changing the different shots and add affects onto them all. We would set all the shots apart from one another on our own timeline that we made on premiere pro, then we would edit them so that we had the same shot but from various angles and shot types so that it looked like a cinematic film production and looked very professional.
The timeline also helped when we needed to overlay audio sounds such as when the character is in a dream and he hears voices, as well as this we also added in background noise so the sound of movement was apparent to give off that dream/imaginary feeling

Coursework feedback

Research and Planning - 11

The research and planning is partially incomplete, but much of the work that is complete is detailed and focussed. There is excellent work into similar products, showing a real understanding of the task. However there is no attempt to look into potential target audiences. The organisation of actors, locations etc is also lacking, but there is a proficient storyboard. Overall there is a good level of care and presentation of the work that is there, but this blog is let down by the lack of audience research and organisation of the shoot.  

Main Task – 38

There is evidence of a reasonably proficient ability to produce material appropriate for the target audience and task. The titles follow conventions, but the editing shows limited only skill in the ability to build up meaningful sequences that convey meaning to the audience. There is a reasonably wide variety if shots and framing. Some shots don’t work, including the shot of a phone that has a reflection across it. At times it looks too much like a trailer as the narrative is not entirely clear. There is limited content and it’s questionable whether the ‘dream’ works. However the camera work is controlled and the sound is well devised, building up tension across the piece.

Evaluation question 3

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

Different companies make different genre films, the reason that they do this is because they attract different people and audiences. An example of this would be that a horror genre will attract teenagers and young adults, where as a sy-fy film such as Spiderman ad the rest of the super hero genre will attract younger kids around the age of 10. However some genres like the superhero genre actually attract a very wide range of audiences as older more so males are still very much attracted to these types of films. In some cases older males who are really interactive with this type of genre of film even collect that characters and figures from stores and keep them.

Our film is related to the well know film of Taken, this would mean that our film would not be produced by the a massive company such as the Warner bros. because they are more situated with Noir film genres and older aged films. I think that our film should be related to more of the 20th century fox this is because it is a relatively modernised film and because we are comparing to the likes of Taken who are associated with this parent company I think that it would be best for us to choose a similar if not the same company because we then show a comparison with the same genre of film.

Distribution

Individual distributors may release one or two films but it has been recorded that some companies have released up to 25 sometimes 30 a week ! this would then average out to over 500 films a year. In the UK on average there are 10 films released every week some by major companies like the 20th century fox or Warner bros. However some of them are released by very small companies which is why it never seems like there are a lot of films being released and this is because they are really small companies don't have an opportunity to be signed up by the parent companies so we do not hear of them being advertised or being shown in the cinema. All media is owned by a company such as television programmes or films etc.The company that owns this has the right to publish, distribute and manipulate their work in order to make profit for the next piece of work. When a major company like Warner bros. are interested in investing into a book to make a film or a comic they have to have permission of the author as it is their intellectual property therefore they have the right to say yes or no o the deal that is offered to them. An example of this would be that the Warner bros. brought the first 4 Harry Potter books for over £1 mil. However the offer can be revoked because the contract that is signed which completes the deal also has a time limit meaning that if the film is not made within the next 2-3 years then the author also has the right to revoke the decision and sell it to someone else in order to receive their money.

Exhibition 

Exhibition is where the film is actually shown or consumed by the audience and this can be done in many differnt ways as listed below:
-Downloading of the internet
-PC
-Smart Phone (Mobile phone)
-Hard drive on gaming console
-Streaming on PC
-Sometimes people do Piracy but this is illegal
These are the many different ways of getting the production to the audience quickly, after the film is released it then usually takes the process of being released on DVD or Blu-Ray but then after a this is done it can then be viewed on the television.