Task 10 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?

Having the preliminary task almost acted as a practice before the real product and I'm grateful that we had the chance to do it. In the preliminary task I found it difficult to become involved with the editing part of the task as I had no idea how to use the software, someone in my group taught me the basics but it never really went further than that. However, in our final product I found it easier to become apart of the editing process as I knew more about how to edit and create a 'film'. It was also easier to be onboard with the editing process for the final product as the group was half the size and therefore, as there was only two of us, all decisions and final edits could be shown to me and we'd come to a conclusion together before doing anything. I believe that the editing of our final product looks a lot more professional and smoother than we thought it would be and that is due to just getting used to the software.

In terms of working in a group, I found it much easier in the final task rather than in the preliminary task which I thought unusual as there was less people to help. I found it easier as it meant that no decision would be made without me first knowing about it as there was only me and my partner. Although, having a smaller group meant there was a lot more work for both of us to do as we couldn't share the work out between more people. This meant that we were always hands on with our film and there was always something we can do. For example, we found it very difficult to film when we wanted to/ in the time we had as having actors outside our project meant we had to wait until everyone was free to actually start filming. So instead of just wasting time and waiting for our chance to film, we could make sure our planning was up to scratch and think about if we wanted our film to have certain things in it. I think this shows improvement from the preliminary task as I could get more involved in the planning, whereas in the preliminary task it was hard as we all had so many ideas and so we had to cut a lot of it out.

I learnt a lot about how to operate a video camera during the making of our final product. When we were making the preliminary task, one member of our group had had a lot of experience using cameras and so he insisted he was in charge of the camera. This time I was in charge of the camera the most I think, and it really impacted on how you think to direct it. As you're seeing it from behind the camera and not just by the side, you can start to imagine how it will look when everything's added together and so you re-film shots, sometimes in the same spot and sometimes from somewhere else at a different angle. I also understood the importance of the use of hand-held camera and how it can create a more intimate feel. For example, when the camera follows Harriet down her landing it feels as if the person watching it is there with her as she gets ready on that big day. I wouldn't have been able to research and try out this in the preliminary task due to small use of the camera.

My knowledge of camera and filming techniques also expanded during the making of Time's Up as we had to make sure it looked as professional and cinematically correct as it could be. We did this through the use of techniques such as the 180' degree rule and 'match on action' shots. We made sure that our actors were always on the same side of the screen/we always filmed from the same side as this ensured it didn't appear to the audience that our actors were constantly moving which helped the continuity of our film. We weren't sure at first how to include a 'match on action' shot but then we realised that the perfect opportunity to apply it was in the cafe (shown below). In the preliminary task we still applied these techniques but it didn't have the same amount of effect as we didn't know how to do it whereas in the final opening sequence it looked more professional and more though out.

In the making of the final product we applied everything that had learnt from the preliminary task and elsewhere to make sure we made the best product possible. We planned everything from each individual piece of clothing to what we wanted our characters to express on film. Due to this sedulous planning, we were able to make sure that nothing was left untouched and that everything that was shown on screen was due to our decision to put it there. We shot scenes multiple times to make sure we had the perfect shot and practised before we even began filming and if we did a shot wrong then we would stop filming and go over with the actors exactly what we wanted them to do and guided them through it. We learnt a lot between the making of the preliminary task and the making of our final product, but it wouldn't have been made possible if not for the support of others and their opinions which would help construct what we wanted our film to look like as their feedback gave us an idea how an audience would review it. After all the planning, filming, editing and evaluating, I can say that this is a film I'm proud to be apart of.

Task 10 Evaluation : Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Throughout the entirety of producing our opening sequence, we were always learning how to do one thing or another. As media is spread over such a wide platform, we were taught so many different things.

Sony HD video camera 

The main thing we needed to learn to use in order to make sure our film was produced to the highest quality it could be was a camera. 

We had to learn how to shoot scenes and what angle the camera would work best at - we also used the tripod to help us keep the camera steady. One of the things I was most worried about when starting our media product was keeping our shots steady and, in our hand-held shot of Harriet walking across the landing, not making the camera appear too shaky and make it hard to watch. We also had to reshoot some shots due to the fact that they hadn't focused previously. From this we learnt to give the camera time to focus and to not move too abruptly.
We also shot scenes several times, even if we thought they were good the first time, in order to ensure we had the best shots possible. When filming three or four versions of the same shot we sometimes also moved the camera and tripod to a different angle just in case we thought that may look better.

Adobe Premiere
I found this the hardest piece of technology to use, mostly because of the amount of work that had to be done on the software and because of how new it was to me as I had never used it before. We did use it in the preliminary task also, however we were in different groups for that task and someone in my group was very good at using the program and so he told us what to do for the most part and if we were unsure he did it for us.
In our main task we were in smaller groups, without that particular individual, and so we had to learn to branch out and become more independent in our learning which meant we had to take the time to the learn how to use the program.
One thing that we learnt from this program was how to import video footage and cut it down into how long we need it to be. We did this by using the 'C' key to start the cutting tool and then crop before using the 'V' key to use the regular mouse again. We did this as a short cut for the 'mark in' and 'mark out' tool.
We also had to learn how to add in
additional audio: the voiceover and music. Again we had to crop and edit both of these, one of our biggest struggles was trying to balance out the audio from the voiceover and make it sound right in the final film.

Adding in transitions was another thing we had to learn today, especially when adding in the titles as we wanted each of them to fade in and out to make it look professional. 

After Effects/ Photoshop
We learnt to use After Effects in order to create the opening titles for our opening sequence. This was done at the end of the editing for our film. We had to use this quite a bit in order to show all our titles. We also used After Effects, along with Photoshop to make our studio logo. I asked another student who is more skilled with using Photoshop to teach me the basics and get us started on our studio logo. He helped us make our studio logo more animated applied everything he knew into making what we envisioned as our studio logo into a reality, and we have him to thank for most of our studio logo.

Blogspot
Blogspot was something that was new to me and I had not used before. However, I was able to use other website that are similar to Blogspot and so I could easily pick up how to use Blogspot. Once learning how to upload posts which include photos and videos, you basically know everything you need to know in order to use Blogspot which was beneficial for us as we wanted to show off our work as much as possible. This was something that was crucial for us to learn how to use as this is our portfolio and we show everything off on our blogs.

Although sometimes difficult and confusing, we were taught some very valuable things through this task, things that we need to learn and reuse again in the future and in our other media work.

Task 10 Evaluation : Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience? from Vicky Oakes

Task 10 Evaluation : Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Task 10 Evaluation : Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Task 10 Evaluation : Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The main character in our opening scene, we decided would be a teenage girl who is gay. Harriet, who is our main character, has a timer on her wrist ticking down to when she meets her soulmate. We decided to make her soulmate a girl as well to represent sexuality in our opening scene. Stereotypically, in the romance genre, a couple would usually be heterosexual and so in our film we challenge the code and conventions of the romance genre.

Most films in the romance genre show heterosexual couples and receive good reception from the public and the critics for example The Notebook and Titanic. They also mostly represent couples who are no longer teenagers as it is thought teenagers cannot experience love as they over-exaggerate things. Our film challenges the convention that romances have to be heterosexual and between people older than 20.

We chose to make the couple in our film homosexual as opposed to heterosexual as we thought that as times were changing and there have been changes in the law to make gay marriage legal in all states of the USA and other countries around the world, the film would be more well received.

In our film, we represented homosexual relationships as something that can be open and shared with other people. At no point in our film does any of the characters try to hide their sexuality or push away any of their thoughts. Even though other sexuality's besides heterosexual are more respected and accepted now, there is still controversy when releasing a homosexual narrative. For example, Brokeback Mountain was often referred to as 'the gay cowboy movie' when in reality it is a story about forbidden love. We knew that if our film had been released worldwide it would have been a risk to have the two main characters as lesbians but we wanted to show their pairing in a way it is not usually shown.
We chose to represent sexuality and age in our film as it is something that we believed should be represented more in cinema, as more storylines should be inspired by people's voices who are most often unheard.

Task 10 Evaluation : Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Time's Up - Opening Sequence

On the set of TIME'S UP

This image of Ella and I was taken as we set up the camera to film our opening scene.We set up downstairs in order to produce a long shot of our actor, Megan (Harriet), walking down the stairs ready to go out to the 'cafe'. We decided to use a tripod for this shot in case we decided to shoot a vertical tracking shot which we actually did use in our opening scene, but was then cut to a side angle view of the stairs.




We also took numerous amounts of photos of ourselves and the set whilst we were actually filming, one of which being this image. This was taken in front of the front door of our filming location. Here we were filming a close up of the bag which Harriet picks up but this shot was eventually cut from the scene as we used another close up from the same scene, so we decided not to use both as we thought it wouldn't and didn't look right in the final draft of our film.



This photo is taken of Amy applying makeup to our other actor, Megan's, arm. This makeup was applied to show the timer that all humans have in the world that we created in TIME'S UP. We had to change the time on Megan's arm many times in order to show the time ticking down on Harriet's timer. In the film, approximately three or four shots showing the timer on her arm will be used in the final cut of our film. As the film proceeds, the time will decrease in each scene.

For the very beginning of our film, we had to shoot a scene where Harriet has just woken up on the day of her 'meeting her soulmate'. In order to get a close up/birds eye view of Harriet lying in bed, we decided to stand on the bed and hold the camera ourselves instead of using the tripod as it would have been difficult for Megan to move around and act correctly and naturally in the scene. The scene remained dark with only little light coming in, in order to convey an early morning setting.




This image was taken of Ella and I whilst we were filming a long shot of Megan (Harriet), walking out of her house on the way to the "cafe". We were originally going to show this shot through a close up but we decided against it as we thought that considering we had just had a close up of Megan's hand we wanted to show a different shot type for the next bit of the scene.

Mr Judge Feedback - Provisional Mark/Level/Grade: Level 1: 7//20

In terms of an interim grade: Level 1 (7/20)

• Planning and research evidence will be incomplete; • There is minimal research into similar products and a potential target audience; • There is minimal organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props; • There is minimal work on shotlists, layouts, drafting, scripting or storyboarding; • There is minimal care in the presentation of the research and planning; • Time management may be very poor.

Medal:

Script in evidence and a sort of production schedule, which needs a firmer outline and dates of filming, planning, assembly of costumes etc

Mission: 

• Images from the set, the making of etc
• Your sample title sequence exported/embedded from youtube
• Christian Metz boom was written in 1974. That particular post needs a lot more work
• No evidence of storyboards
• Mind mapping of intial ideas
• Your evidence for designing and creating studio logo's and your understanding of the correct conventional title orders as studied in class. 
• Some images/videos are also required to enhance the look and design your blog.

	MINIMAL (L1)	BASIC (L2)	PROFICIENT (L3)	EXCELLENT (L4)	TOTAL
1.RESEARCH & PLANNING [20]	0-7	8-11	12-15	16-20	7/20
2. CONSTRUCTION – MAIN TASK [40]	0-23	24-35	36-47	48-60
3.EVALUATION [20]	0-7	8-11	12-15	16-20
TOTAL GRADE FOR FOUNDATION PORTFOLIO [100]					/100
Minus -39 = U	40-49 = E	50-59 = D	60-69 = C	70-79 = B	80-100 = A

Costumes

In our opening scene we chose to have four costumes: two for Harriet (pyjamas and daywear), one for Louise (daywear) and one for the waiter. We constructed each costume to fit the role of the character, we wanted to show different personality types of Harriet and Louise through our costume choices.

Harriet

The first costume we see Harriet in is her pyjamas; we decided we wanted her to have comfy, non-matching pyjamas as we wanted her to seem quite relaxed until the moment she wakes up. We also decided to have her pyjamas slightly colour coordinated and red to symbolise the connotation of love. This is then pursued in her next costume as she again wheres tones of red.







The second costume worn by Harriet is her casual daily wear, which again we decided to have some red within it to foreshadow the theme of love. We wanted to give her some kind of cover up as we started filming in winter/beginning of spring and the weather shows this as well. We needed to give her a costume change in order for the narrative to make sense as she has got ready for the day and needs to wear outdoor clothes.





The waiter in our opening scene wears a black short sleeve T-shirt and grey trousers, along with an apron. We chose this combination of colours as it best showed what a waiter would wear in a cafe. We thought the apron would be very convinving for mise-en-scene to show the audience that they are indeed a waiter.
(We didn't manage to get a picture of the waiter's outfit)

Task 4 The Pitch : Studio Logo

Ella and I both decided to create a design each seperately before coming together, showing and sharing our work with one another and then combining what we like from each one. Before we seperated to create our own design we had to discuss the main focus/ main image of what our studio logo was going to be. Eventually we decided on an oak tree as it word be a play on our production company's name: Oakford.

This was Ella's design which of course included the big oak tree in the middle of the screen. Her design also included the name of our company to the right-hand side of the tree. She incoporated falling leaves which were blowing off in the wind and were to appear that way on screen, as if they were continuously falling. She also drew a base which is a ground of grass on her design.

My design, which is to the right, included an extra word in the name: Villa. The reason for this is at the time of designing the logos we were unsure whether to call our company Oakford Productions or Villa Oakford Productions but we later decided to just stick to the combination of only our two last names. I included falling rain droplets, which I couldn't draw on the design as it wouldn't have been seen. I also seperated the two names on either side of the tree and placed the 'Productions' at the bottom.

We wanted this for our final design and, with help from a friend who had more experience with the program, ended up with this as our final design.  We chose to keep the grass from the bottom of Ella's design and the falling droplets from my design. We did however change one thing slightly by making our studio name have a 'wipe' effect and have the name appear one letter at a time. It was first made on photoshop by combining the grass and the oak tree and then, using Adobe After Effects, falling rain droplets and the 'wipe' effect was added which gives it a more professional look. We wanted to make sure to have a bright background also so the start of our film would look bright and not deary as it might do had we made the background grey or dark blue. Overall we were very happy with how our final studio logo turned out to be.

Task 4 The Pitch : Mind Maps

This was our final mind map for the planning of our film, the one in which we actually decided to follow and create our film around. 

We wanted to make sure that we included most things if not every detail from this mind map as we thought it was the best one we created. We seperated our mind maps into six sections: Locations, Representation, Costumes, Characters, Plot and Codes/Convention of a *chosen genre*.

For our final idea, which was a romance, we decided we would like the majority of the opening sequence to be located in a cafe, bar, restuarant or somewhere where the two characters could share a drink or food together after they met (which would be shown had we made our film into a full-length feature). Towards the end of planning we decided it would be best that our two characters first meet in a cafe as it is more quieter and gives the scene a more intimate feel and that is what we wanted as this is such an important moment in both Harriet and Louise's lives.

In our opening sequence, we wanted to show that it wasn't going to be a stereotypical romance where two heterosexual twenty-something year-old people meet and fall in love. So instead we decided to have our two main characters homosexual and also two girls, as when 'gay' movies are normally made they usually show homosexual males and so we wanted to show lesbians in our film instead to show diversity. We also wanted to show a younger love story so teenagers could also relate to it as they'd understand what the characters are going through as they are going through it and adults would relate as they have already been through it.

We wanted to keep our costumes basic so we decided we'd have two for Harriet: one for her getting out of bed and one for wearing outside, one for Louise and one for the waiter. We wanted to show Harriet as more of a 'tom-boy' like character so we chose darky colours and unisex clothing. For Harriet, even though only shown for a few seconds, we wanted to have her in lighter colours and even maybe some makeup, in order to give off a more girlier vibe. For the waiter we decided we wanted to give it a stereotypical 'waiter' type look.

There are only minimal characters as as it is only the opening sequence of a film we thought that not many people would be introduced so we kept it at only three.

We tried to create an exciting storyline and one that would captivate an audience and so we decided to add in something different and give it a fantasy-like feel, which is shown by the timer that each person has on their arms.

For the codes and conventions that we wanted to use in our storyline, we decided to use more subtle things rather than cliche conventions. We wanted to include an internal monologue like most romances have and show emotions within that and so we incoporated the use of a diary which Harriet uses to write down her emotions. We wanted to show sexuality within our film and so we used young lesbian characters in order to do so.

We also produced other mind maps which consisted of two different genres: horror and comedy.

Conventional Title Order

Title orders at the opening of a film is to, essentially, show the order of importance of people and companies who made the film possible. The first thing that is shown is the studio logo as they are the ones who made sure the film was made a reality rather than just an idea. The logo is followed by "Studio/Producer presents. This could follow immediately after the studio logo or a small opening section of the film can first be shown followed by the rest of the titles.


Usually the film's title will follow bigger than the rest of the titles or in a different font; something to show that this is the creation all these people are responsible for. After the title of the film, the names of main/major actors will show across the screen however this could also come before the title of the film, depending on how the editor/director wanted the title order to be.


The main actor's name will stand on the screen by itself as this may have ben one of the reasons for the number of people watching and so it is very important, arguably more important than the rest of the cast. An example of this could be in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom could draw in a lot of women and make the audience number larger. The camera person/operator may now appear on screen but sometimes they are left until the end of the film in the complete credits.


The editor's name is then shown across the screen, they are responsible for putting the credits in the order that they are. The composer of the film's soundtrack is presented; their work may be played whilst the opening title is being shown, underneath a verbal scene or across landscapes for example. However, their work also may not be played whilst the opening credits are being shown. The screenwriter is responsible for the creation of the film as it is them who thought of or researched the plotline. Some films change screenwriters whilst in production, in that case whoever wrote the script/ thought of the film idea would receive a "Screenstory by..." credit on screen at some point.

The last two people who are credited on screen is the producer and the director. The producer is shown first and then the director. These two roles are presented last as they are the most important functions to the movie. The director is the last one as it is the one who has constructed the film to be what it is and is the name that should be remembered most.



This is an example of an opening title sequence from The Notebook, one of the films that we were inspired by. Although inspired by the film, we didn't follow it's opening title sequence completely. We did it another way with less titles as not all films follow the same title order and so we did it our own way as the director/editor will have the last say in which way round the titles appear.

Model of Genre Development

In Christian Metz's Language and Cinema (1974), explorations of the development of genre film are shown and we see his evidence and suggestions about the four phases of existence that genres go through.

The four stages are referred to as:

• 1- The Experimental Phase
• 2- The Classic Phase
• 3- The Parody Phase
• 4- The Deconstruction Phase

The first stage, the experimental phase, first originated through classic English Literature. For example Dracula written by Bram Stoker in 1897 was adapted in 1922 to become Nosferatu.  Another case of this is The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari (1920); these two films are classic examples of film born from the experimental phase as they were experimented with and then adapted into film. After the first World War people became interested in this type of film as they could experience danger                                             second-hand rather than being in harm's
                                                   way themselves.


In the phase that follows: the classic phase, films that               remain significant throughout history were produced. Strict conventions were followed throughout this era as they were what intrigued audiences and so the same type of film with only a few plot details changed were made. Frankenstein (1931) and Dracula (1931) are popular products from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Other popular films just like this were made as the public responded well to it and so Hollywood just kept writing and producing the same film over and over again to accumulate all the money that made Hollywood boom and become where and what it is today.

The parody phase originates from appreciation of the chosen genre it is based on but then is often converted to the comedy genre as it mocks the movie or movies it is based on. As this phase produces mockery comedies, it also shows people often not interested in the genre the parody is based on, little snippets of how the original movie(s) was. Two examples of a parody is Date Movie (2006) and Scary Movie (1998); Date Movie being based on the very popular horror film Scream (1996).

The last phase that genres pass through is the deconstruction phase. This involves the making of a mix of genres converted into one collaboration in a single film. An example of this phase is horror-thriller The Sixth Sense (1999).  This gives the two genres a new lease of life and allows new plotlines and enigmas to be constructed. A combination of different genres are very popular in today's cinema and prove to be very successful; for example another mix that is popular are rom-coms. These mixes take certain elements from their individual genres and blend them together, this also allows different audiences to experience genres that perhaps they wouldn't usually watch.

BFI Statistical Yearbook 2014

As we can see from Table 4.1, the most popular genres of film in the UK in 2013 were Animation, Action and Comedy. Animation topped the box office charts with it raking in a whopping £246.6 million followed by Action at £215.4 million and Comedy at £158.2 million. Compared to the amount of Comedy and Action films that were released in 2013, the Animation genre released a smaller amount of films, which shows that Animation is well loved in the UK and the public would rather watch a more childish film even though they have more choice for Action and Comedy films.

We can also conclude that the Horror genre is more popular than the Thriller genre, at least in 2013, from Table 4.1 as, just like with Animation compared with Action/Comedy, there is a smaller number of releases but there is a higher success rate at the box office. Horror also took in £57.5 million but only produced 5.3% of all releases in the UK in 2013 (37 films). Thriller made £29.1 million but produced more of the releases (9.2%).

Table 4.2 shows how Sci-fi topped the board in terms of WPR (Widest Point of Release) with the average number of sites being 422, followed by Western and Fantasy at 327 and 280. In terms of Horror genre releases in 2013 (37) and Thriller genre releases (64), we can see that even though there were less releases from Horror it still produced a higher average number of sites at widest point of release (145) than the Thriller genre which only had 89 as it's average site number at WPR, proving that the Horror genre serves as the most popular choice of the two.

Adventure topped the charts in terms of the highest earned from the box office. From Table 4.3 we can see that Horror produced a higher average at the box office, over £5,000 more on average compared with Thriller, indicating that the genre proves popular in cinemas despite the fact that it was shown at a smaller number of sites.

Table 4.4 shows that despite only having 9 releases (6.5% of all releases in the UK) in 2013, Action still managed to take in the most amount of money from the box office (£64.1 million), with Music/dance placing second and raking in £47.9 million.    

From Figure 4.1, we can see that neither Horror or Thriller took in a reasonable amount from the box office, however out of the two, Horror received the most in terms of All Films/UK films, but Thriller took in more in the UK independent films category. From Figure 4.2, we can see that Thriller produced a good number of releases and so it's results at the box office tells us that the genre wasn't very popular with audiences despite having released more than Horror and over 10 other genres.

Opening Scene script

TIme's Up script

FADE IN

INT. HARRIET'S HOUSE - HARRIET'S BEDROOM - EARLY MORNING

Harriet lays in her bed, she is waking up. She is wearing her pyjamas. She's sixteen. She shuffles around in bed a little and out of bed now and opens her eyes slightly and rubs them.

She sits up. She goes to get out of bed and puts her slippers on.

INT. HARRIET'S LANDING

Harriet walks to the bathroom and closes the door.

CUTS TO WHEN SHE IS READY AND DRESSED.

Harriet opens the door and walks out.

INT. HARRIET'S STAIRS

Harriet walks down the stairs, looks at herself in the mirror. She grabs her diary and walks out the door.

(CREDITS PLAY OVER THIS SCENE)

Mr Judge Feedback

There are significant and far ranging posts that are missing. Please respond to the previous feedback and identify a) what you still need to complete b) when you propose to complete them. This is becoming major cause for concern at this stage.

The most recent missed posts are: Your evidence for designing and creating studio logo's and your understanding of the correct conventional title orders as studied in class. Some images are also required to enhance the look and design your blog.

The BFI data analysis as promised yesterday for completion today.

Please provide feedback, in the form of a new post, how and when you hope to achieve the tasks.