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Evaluation, Question 7

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Evaluation, Ouestion 5

Evaluation, Question 4

Evaluation, Question 3

Evaluation, Question 2

Evaluation, Question 1

Evaluation Outtakes

Our evaluations have now been filmed and edited with surprisingly very little stress involved! Here are some of our outtakes...

Film/ Vlog Outtakes

Here are our outtakes from this entire year from both filming and our vlogs. As I'm sure you can see we had a lot of fun throughout our Media Studies Course but a lot of time and effort was also put in. Here is Mac 4's best bits and also us looking like complete fools... Enjoy!

Evaluation script

Our script is complete and we hopefully plan to begin and finish filming our evaluation on Monday leaving us plenty of time to edit and improve anything by Friday!

Feedback

We managed to interview a couple of the audience members to give us feedback on our opening...

Showcase

Thursday was our Showcase evening. We were able to see our film on the big screen and it was also a brilliant way to see the audiences' reaction. We each said a small part to introduce our 2 minute introduction so we could give an incite for the viewers that have not seen it before.

Preparing for the Showcase

The showcase for our final film introductions is tomorrow, and we have just completed a small script for the introduction to our film. A quick vlog from Anna and I to explain how writing this has helped us with our evaluations!

Evaluation Questions

• In what ways does your film opening use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 
•  How does your film opening represent particular social groups?
• What kind of media institution might distribute your film opening and why?
• Who would be the audience for your film opening?
• How did you attract/address your audience?
• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this film opening?
• Looking back at your prelim task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final film opening?

Beginning our Evaluations

Now that our films have been exported we have moved onto to the evaluation. Me and Lucy have partnered up and have already begun to write up our evaluation.

Final Film: Checkmate

Here it is...

Deadline Day

Time is finally up! Friday was deadline day and our 2 minute film opening has been finished and exported. It is strange to think there will be no more lunch time or after school visits to the media room to edit, but we are all very happy with our film opening and excited for everyone to see it!

Music

We have found the perfect music for our opening 2 minutes. Searching through dozens of songs on audionetwork.com, Anna finally came across 'Vampire Kiss' and luckily we then found it on YouTube and it is not copyrighted. Result!

Finishing Touches

Just a quick vlog to inform you of our progress. We have now finished our credits which are white and fade in and out during the two minutes. They are very subtle and plain which we really wanted as we feel that we don't want anything that will distract the audience from the film. 

We have also completed our Production company. Lucy and I came across a plain Cd and as the group had already agreed on the company name, 'Rolling Productions', we thought it would be quite clever to write the name on the Cd and then role it past the camera. Thinking from a media students perspective we also connected this with a camera rolling and using a Cd again relates to media.

Editing

Rachel and I decided to discretely do a vlog to show the group editing. We are in the process of editing the footage from last Monday and as we feel fast pace shots are important to build the tension, there is a lot of editing to be done. With what we have edited so far we are just below 2 minutes, but we are still not finished and we also need to include the production company and credits which should then meet the time needed.

Vlog from Filming Day

Filming Day

Yesterday was the final day of filming and the group got out nice and early to begin. The car park was empty, we had my mums car and it was a reasonably nice day. We began filming Anna leaving the lift and changing from her red jacket into the black jacket which showed her transformation into the spy was complete. We then needed to film her getting into the car, getting  ready to drive off and then finally getting kidnapped (Yes, we had a lot to do). Surprisingly we finished all the filming in 2 hours.

We managed to get a wide range of shots, and as we had the car we were able to get some mirror shots which worked really well. Luckily, in the corner of the car park there was a trolley which we used to create a tracking shot and also an arc shot which turned out surprisingly well. Once we had filmed Anna entering the car it was then mine and Rachel's debut as 'the thugs'. Although we looked awful as you can see below, we did not want our opening to look ridiculous so we only showed fast pace shots and close ups of our hands and boots.

It was a very productive day and when back from half term we will finish editing and hopefully we will not have to return to the car park for more footage. 

Pulp Fiction opening definition

Here is the opening from the film 'Pulp Fiction' which shows the definition of the word 'pulp'. This is similar to our opening shot. For our take on this, we have decided to have the word 'Checkmate' and the definitions fade in with a similar font. We feel that the fading in of the title and the definitions is very simplistic and has more impact than the type writer sound and font which we had previously planned to use because it will not distract the audience in any way from the main definition 'Defeat Completely' which gives the viewer a small indication of our genre of film.

 

Music

Today, music for our 2 minute opening was the topic of discussion. I really like the opening track from 'Taken 2' and the group agreed that a sound similar to this could be an option for us. For copyright reasons this piece of music can't be used, but hopefully we can find something similar.



Another idea we considered was to use a piece of music that does not actually fit with our film. The contrapuntal music could be a way of misleading the audience and it could also come away from the cliche music used in a 'spy' film.

Update from Anna and I

Final Location

Today, Rachel and I ran into town to get some snaps for our final location. We are going to use the top floor of a car park which is completely empty hopefully giving a sense of mystery. Being on the top floor benefits us greatly as we get some great natural light and the scenery is also lovely.
We have also been incredibly lucky as there is a lift! This means the character can go from inside the airport straight out into the car park allowing all of our footage to be consistent.
Luck seems to be on our side with this final location, and filming shall commence in the coming weeks.

Group Vlog

A vlog to explain the plan for filming at the beginning of the half term!

Fast Pace Shots

The fast pace cuts of these shots in this advert create tension and mystery and as we decided to create a 'spy' film we thought that it would be good to use fast pace cuts as it slightly disorientates the viewer and keeps them guessing for what is next.

Title Sequence

Checkmate!

Me and Anna started to discuss title ideas for our film in lesson today, thankfully Rachel and Lucy arrived to distract us from the awful names in which we were coming up with! We discussed ideas and we all decided that a single word would be much more striking for our title, and this is when Anna came up with the title Checkmate. We all said that it did make us think of chess, which obviously is not what we want, but we thought that by defining as 'defeating the competition' would be really clever and it will connect perfectly with our film. Rachel then thought of Beyonce's music video 'Diva' in which it defines the word at the beginning of the video. We plan to set it out similarly to that and it will also coincide with our credit ideas!

Action Ideas

Quick update from Lucy and I about our new action packed ideas...

Snow Day

On friday we decided to go out and film in the snow. Although Annas lovely dark hair looked great against the white snow and the lighting was perfect, filming was a nightmare. We once again didnt have any of the props and Anna wasnt wearing the correct costume. But we powered through and decided to film scenery shots.

As you can see from the vlog below we all had a 'great' time filming, but we now need to decide whether to carry on and complete our filming in the snow or to wait until it has all cleared up and film on a nice sunny day.



Here are some pictures of the group enjoying the cold weather!

Snippet

Heres a small part of our film so far

The Editing Continues...

After school yesterday we all stayed behind to edit the footage we got on Friday. We have now incorporated the lift into our final film and we think we may need just one more shot of Anna leaving the toilets but apart from that half of our 2 minute film has been filmed and edited. Up next we are outside filming Anna further into her 'spy' like form. Hopefully not long now till we have our final film!

       

 

Introducing the mini tripod!

For Christmas my mum coincidentally was given a mini tripod, Why? I have no idea, (she doesn't even own a camera) but it has been very useful and has been perfect for some of the filming. In Fridays lesson we began to film a couple of shots in the school lift which was very small so the mini tripod was very handy. We also positioned the camera in the top corner of the lift and filmed Anna from a high angle, this made it look like CCTV, which is perfect for our 'spy' film, we also managed to capture Anna quickly glancing at it making it all the more mysterious and suspicious.

We also finished filming in the toilets. We redid a tracking up shot that wasn't as steady as it could be and we also decided to add a few new shots and angles. We have now created a high angled dutch tilt which coincides perfectly with our film as it makes it again look like it could be CCTV. We also have an aerial shot of the makeup bag in which you can see her taking off her numerous amount of bracelets, this close up aerial shot focuses on her removing her bracelets so the audience can see the all important transformation.

Slight Change of Location

Today we did an update vlog on the change of location. We have discussed and come to the conclusion that going up London is no longer the best or easiest option for our film. We feel that using Central London and having all the iconic landmarks will distract the audience from her transition into a spy, which is the main focus in our film. Also, by using places closer to home, we have the flexibility to go and film when we need to and focus on the cinematography.

Christmas Holidays

So with 'BRING THE EQUIPMENT HOME' carved into my hand with a sharpie, you would think that we would remember to bring all the equipment home. Wrong. We all managed to remember the important equipment such as the tripod, the flip and the camera. But what slipped our minds was the props. My suitcase with all the other props in it, has been tucked away in Miss Fosters office in school, over the entire christmas period. As you can imagine we were really frustrated as we had a set date to go up London and although we tried to work around the problem, for consistency reasons we were not able to film anything without the props.

I think forgetting it has allowed us to thouroughly plan for our days out and we roughly think we need about 2 more days which will be spent in Central London. So although we havent been able to film over the holidays, we plan to get started as soon as we get back from our break and use any available media lessons to go out and film.