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actors

The reasons behind keeping the main actor, the dectective's, identity a secret was to create ambiguity as the viewers arent aware he is a teenager until later on.

Questions on viewers question sheets:

• what did you understand about the narrative ?
• Did the chosen genre fit the conventions ?
• How did the ending make you feel ?
• Any suggestions for improvements, if we were to shoot the whole thing again ?

overall 23/38 responses had some criticism. Here is a Gauge chart to show which criticism was mentioned the most.

evaluation 7

evaluation 6

Evaluation 4 and 5

Evaluation 3

Evaluation 2

Evaluation 1

Class Feedback

there was a problem with uploading the video so this post is late

we showed the class our final piece and the raised a few good points :

• Phoebe said that she liked the voiceover but was confused about the 2 titles. we explained that the first title was wen Yasmin originally went missing and the 2nd title was the case reopening again as the year has changed from 2015-2016. Morgan also said that if the movie was to be released in cinemas you would know what the movie is called before viewing it.
• Sophie enjoyed the music but pointed out how the phone ringtone should be changed because it merged too much with the music playing.
• Katie also liked the voiceover as not many groups had done it
• serine also mentioned changing the names as it got a bit confusing.

127 Hours

During class we watched 127 hours, which was fun. The movie itself was very intense especially during the amputation scene. Even though the movie was based in a small crack it still seemed to entice the class. I found that the sounds during the amputation scene were really good and extremely effective.

Mock Feedback

by looking over my mock results I noticed I realised aspects that could be changed or added to improve my work. In Section A my analysis wasn't equally spread, meaning that some frameworks were analysed better than others. In section B I didn't use enough keywords which can be easily sorted out by going back over them.

section B

Internet marketing and communication 

case studys i used :

• captain america : civil war (2016) - marketing through twitter
• Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) - Galaxy Getaway Website 
• Frozen (2013) - no use of internet marketing ( very successful) 
• The Interview (2014) - piracy 
• netflix

section A

Gender representation 

we had to analyse a clip from the drama sherlock holmes.  there were many points to be made, one being color representation throughout.

some key stereotypes with gender in the media:

• men are seen as dominant 
• women are seen as submissive 
• men usually carry out the main lead 
• women are sexualised 

10/03/16 media mock

i found that the media exam overall was good. i managed my time better than expected giving equal amounts to each side of the exam. the content for section A was good and i found lots of things to comment on. however i feel like my structure of both papers could've been better.

insidious

Me and Morgan watched insidious at the weekend. the presentation of the title was really powerful and represented the movie well, making me scared already.

walkthrough vlog

here is our vlog with a voice over going through our final piece

10/12/16

here is our final video that has been uploaded to youtube

Exporting 22/07/16

When editing we realised doing it in 1080p reduced the quality. There were alos problems with the placing of the text needed to be moved upwards. after it was exported in 720p the light switch sound faded so we had to try again.

Evaluation Questions

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?

Hacksaw Ridge

During the half term i went to the cinema with a friend and saw 'Hacksaw Ridge'. It was based on a true story of a solider that wanted to be a medic in the Okinawa battle and refused to pick up or even touch a weapon. During the battle he saved 75 men by himself.

Editing 17/02/17

During the half term Alisha an Morgan went to the school to hopefully complete the sequence. I was unable to go but they still kept me updated. They were able to fix the problem with the layered audio. There was still a problem with the time of the sequence as it was 1:44 and still needed an added 16 seconds. They came up with and idea to have a blank screen and the audio playing in the background.

Font choices

Not only was the editing a big part of the sequence but the font used for our titles. After searching we downloaded some fonts from 1001fonts.com.
There are many different font types to use with genres such as crime, mystery and thriller.

'Seven'- the font looks handwritten and adds a very mysterious type of atmosphere.

'Gone Girl'- the font is very simple and simplistic but very effective with a thriller genre.

'Shutter Island'- the font for the title is also very simple but the top of the letters fade into the black background making it spooky or mysterious

Editing 01/02/17

We tried to add the witness statements from Alisha an Morgan but we couldn't add it whilst the orchestral music was already there. After searching our problem we had one soloution which was to make the openening with out the voice overs and create a new project. We would then layer the voice over audio on top of our sequence, this was our only soloution even tho it may decrease the quality.

We then edited some sound issues on the found footage that was placed throughout the opening as some clips we very harsh with sound and cut halfway through a sentence making it sharp. The ending also had some sound from the camera moving which needed to be cut out. Morgan suggested that we made the light switch louder to add more suspense, however we couldn't achieve it as just the click couldn't be cut and enhanced. Alisha then has a new idea to select the sound waves from the click and increase the sound to 180%.

We asked miss foster to help us with adding the audio over the orchestral music. By dragging the audio over to specific parts it was able to work, but the sound didn't match up the way it did before. We had also lost 10 seconds of footage randomly. It used to be quiet as the phone rang but now it isn't

Lost or kidnapped ?

We have not yet decided what happens to me, the girl who goes missing as we have left the the options of wether she was taken or went missing. It would be interesting to see the case work its way into his real life. As in something simple happens in his 17 year old life that is the key to solving the case.

It was mentioned that the missing girl had some problems with her father which could be a prime suspect to her disappearance. Although it poses a good story line I feel as if we could have someone else kidnap her as it would shock the audience. The father could have a criminal record but in the end it's someone no one suspected, someone who had been staking her, a close friend, maybe even one of the friends who were with her or a stranger. A stranger wouldn't really be that interesting as the ending wouldn't be as dramatic as it should be.

However the missing girl could've just gotten lost, not necessarily kidnapped. This may have lead to her getting in a complicated situation. The father could then be accused of the murder of her even though she was lost. This being a possible situation it wouldn't make sense as it is very unlikely she would get lost walking home, knowing the route that she takes everyday.

Shawshank redemption

Prior to watching this movie i had a feeling that i recognised it from somewhere or i had watched it before. We watched this movie as a class as not many of us had seen it and miss said it was a classic. it took me half the movie to realise that i had watched it after i asked miss to confirm what i thought happened which was right. The film itself was so good and really kept the audience interested with many different problems before the great escape.

Editing 25/01/16

this message popped up on our screens and we dint know what to do so we ignored it. when we went back to edit, none of our changes had saved, so we had to redo them. luckily Morgan kept track of what we had done.

After that Morgan and Alisha went to record their voice overs.

Editing 20/01/17

We uploaded the clips of us in the park. There was about 15 minutes of footage which was a lot but it gave us a good range of different clips to use since we only 10-30 seconds of park footage. Each clip would come after a piece of important evidence. There were clips placed in between long shots to break them up as well. We kept the audio on the park footage but turned it down so that I wasn't too loud. Although the clips were 3-2 seconds long we couldn't completely mute the clips or add any sound over them as it would take away them main focus which is how they are having fun. We then started editing parts such as the long pan of the pin board. We cut pictures that were too dark and drew too much attention to them and blanks spaces of the pin board

We had reached 1:55 minutes of footage before we saw that there was one scene where the detective is just looking at the missing poster, turning and flipping it before pinning it on the board. We cut 7 seconds out of that clip as I was too long and unnatural.

We the realised that the transition between the first and second clip sounded weird. After analysing it we could hear something choppy which wasn't in the rough edit that Morgan made. She has used a different clip of him sitting on the chair however we didn't want to change ours as he moved restlessly showing how long he has been awake on this case. Alisha finally realised that if she cut 1 second of the end of the first clip and the start of the second clip it would sound natural.

After editing it all, we had only reached 1:43 minutes. We added more clips but Morgan said that they didn't fit and looked out of place. We then had to slow down some of the clips so that it would put the time up to 1:51.

The Call

this is an orchestral piece found by Morgan that will be used in our film. it is royalty free meaning we can use it without the owners consent.
This piece of music is very suspenseful with a cello creating a deep sound drawing in the audience. There are also added violins for a slight intensity which follow off from a calm piano opening. Hopefully the piece would entice the audience and give them questions such as 'who is he ?' as the identity of the private investigator is hidden. The audio itself goes on for 4:19 minutes and we dont need it all so we will cut it around 1:50 around the piano part. the music will be timed to our opening since when the music quietens the audience are able to hear the non diagetic sound of the phone ringing.

Editing

Wednesday 18th January we began to edit our title sequence on i movie. we went through each bit of footage and only selected the best shots of each scene as we filmed each one more than once, we also added music which was found by Morgan. we still hadn't added our found footage to the sequence, but we left spaces to add it.

Gone girl

Gone Girl has a very different mystery story line to it as you are able to watch a woman create her own death and frame her husband. the film is structured very well as the audience are introduced to her fake death believing that its real only to later on discover that she faked it and framed her husband. the opening sequence includes a lot of establishing shots of the town and house and is also very mysterious.

Zootopia

although this is an animation movie, i believe that it has a really interesting story. its a detective case but the story itself is well panned and original.

since our story also has a detective case, a movie like this shows that no matter what genre or theme the main story has to be panned out well.

Story line idea

We have been thinking of possible story lines to continue our movie. it would have to relate to our genre of mystery and thriller .

At the moment the story is, 3 teenagers are messing around in a park when one goes missing on her way home. she doesn't turn up for 2 days at school so her friends gi ti her mums house only to realise that she hasn't turned up there either. they then go to the police and give in their witness statements however this all took place on 15th December 2015. This is why  private investigator is working on the case as the police wouldn't carry out a case for this long.

We have one idea where the missing persons mum was tired with the police work on finding her daughter and she comes t o a conclusion that they're not doing a good enough job so she searches elsewhere for someone to take her case. she in the end hires a private investigator to take over. This is the reason behind him pinning information from a case that happened a year ago. she found him online, he was very expensive but had the highest success ratings in completed cases so she hired him. the one thing she didn't know is that the private investigator is a 17 year old boy. This gives a sense of dramatic irony as the audience are the only people who know his age.
The movie would then continue on with us following the boy in his 17 year old life and his hidden life, trying to keep his online identity as a secret.
We still don't know if the daughter is found but during our opening we mention that she had problems with her dad which could be a main lead.

The flash Pin board

Recently i have been re watching the flash and i found a good example of a pin board, which is what we  used in our filming.

Rough editing

When we had finished filming, Morgan put together a rough edit so that we could see what the final piece might look like.

Seven

This was my first ever time watching seven and i really enjoyed it. It was interesting to see how the 7 deadly sins were linked into each murder and who was the actual murderer. The film opening was very unusual yet interesting to watch.

Day 2 of filming

we filmed at Morgans house where we ere initially going to film at 12 pm, but there was too much light shining in so we filmed at 4 pm. Kelsey, Morgans brother, would be our main actor where we have shots of his hands pinning evidence onto the board and over the shoulder shots. His face would never be revealed to add a sense of mystery to the opening and it would also play a part later in the movie of it was continued.

we payed a lot of detail to the mise en scene to make sure it looked messy. This would symbolise the investigators attention and focus on the case. Items such as coffee mugs would show that he has stayed up for a long period of time.

the pin board would also be a main prop as it would have information such as, my case files, a missing poster, maps of my house and where i was last spotted, passport pictures, pictures from the footage of me and profile pictures of Alisha and Morgan that would be pinned on the board by the private investigator. There was also a brown folder with all the information about the case, which had Morgan and Alisha's witness reports in them as well as my case file. Even though you couldnt see them we payed close attention to detail.

my information sheet

Case file folder

The computer screens were also important as one showed the found footage of the night i got lost and the other screen had www.tweetping.net on full screen. This showed live tweets around the world but worked well in our opening as it looked as if he was tracking someone.

Filming the found footage

After school on a Thursday we chose to film the found footage of our opening that would be seen by the private investigator. The found footage would be of us messing about in a park and being typical teenagers. we chose to film this when it was night so that it would be more realistic to me getting lost.

Final new idea

After rethinking about our new idea we finally came up with one that we all liked and was better. We are not worries that we will be behind schedule as other groups have finished filming because we are very positive that our idea will turn out well.

Here is a vlog of Alisha talking about our new idea

Starting from scratch

As a group we came to a conclusion that we wanted to restart as we all didnt like the footage that we filmed. The first half where the girl was being killed was really bad but the techniques in the 2nd galf we really good and could still be used. However, it was quite slow and bring and had also been used many times in other peoples openings so we decided not to use it. We spoke to our teacher and we now have to plan, make a storyboard and film all over again.

Second day filming

Our second day filming was harder than the first. i had to cover my t shirt in fake blood, whilst Alisha had to cover her hand in it. since i would be laying on the floor throughout the whole first half i became part of the mise en scene meaning that i couldn't move from my spot. If i did it would break the continuity. There were also a few awkward shots that took about 15 takes to perfect it. one of the shots had to zoom into Alisha eye, but as it was in front of a mirror, we kept on seeing the camera in the reflection.We filmed late around 4:30 pm as we wanted there not be that much light.

British Film Institute

we went to visit the BFI where we were given tips on our filming. During the morning session Tom Woodcock gave us information about film opening conventions, we got to do activities where film openings would play and we would answer a questionnaire about Genre, themes, atmosphere, character and narrative, which are all  macro elements. Later on we spoke abut micro elements such as lighting, costumes, props, font and colour. we done this to films such as 'Napoleon Dynamite'.

In the 2nd part we spoke to Dexter Fletcher and were able to ask him questions about his 3 films. this was beneficial as we could ask him questions that could help our filming process and see what filming is really like. in his film 'Wild Bill' he talked about problems with the weather and decisions that had t be made during the filming process.

outside the BFI

Dexter Fletcher

First day of filming

This is our first day of filming in Alisha's house for the 2nd half of the opening. During this time we faced many different problems that we had to resolve by working together.

• The first scene of the 2nd half opens on Alisha's eye. For this to be successful we had to make sure that thing such as her eyeliner was the same.
• the shot walking down the stairs we had to make sure you couldn't see any shadows as there was a lot of light
• we had filmed with a bag after realising that the bag didn't appear until the shot in the living room. we had to change the scenes slightly 

However after facing these the day ran smoothly and we were able to film all the shots we needed. Some scenes didn't have enough light in them or the natural light wasn't bright enough so we used and LED camera light from school.

                                                                               

Storyboard Video

this is the storyboard to our title sequence put together in a short clip. This would help us to picture our sequence roughly and see what each scene would look like.

Deadpool 2016

today i watched 'Deadpool' which i had waited long to watch. i was excited since there were lots of good reviews for it. i immediately liked the title sequence as it was zoomed in slow motion cuts of a car crash. you were able to see small details of the crash util the end where you were able to see the full picture.

prelim outake

Alisha made some prelim outtakes to help with her editing skills and it was funny to watch.

storyboard making

Here is the storyboard that we planned. As we were planning it we sat in the school toilets where it would be filmed to male our storyboard as accurate as possible. I drew the first half of the storyboard and it was pretty hard to get all the needed details in the storyboard. when we had an idea for each shot Morgan also filmed it on her phone so that when it came to the day of filming we would have a better idea of what each shot looks like as some of them were hard to show on paper.
After all the shots had been planned we decided to put the title halfway through the opening on the girls eye. It would zoom into her eye and as she closes it the title would appear on her eyelid. the camera would then zoom out and she'd be in her house.

On the 18th December, Morgan went round to Alisha's house to plan the second half of the storyboard, since it would be filmed at her house. Unfortunately i wasn't able to go, but there were no major changes to the main idea. They also brainstormed a few ideas for the name of our movie.
They also discussed the timings of each shot.

pitch

on 5th October we showed the pitch of our opening sequence to the class. the aim of this was to see of our idea made sense and if nit what we could do so that it made sense. Not only that but it developed other ideas that were suggested by our peers. Our main idea included a girl being killed the school toilets by another girl. she is being killed to stop the pain of her previous injuries, however these are never mentioned in our title sequence. the girl killing her is also unknown to be her friend, acquaintance, family member etc. This would be revealed in the 2nd half of the opening as halfway through the killing she is disturbed by an unknown figure. after that it would switch back to the 'murderer' getting ready, equipped with a knife (the suspected murder weapon) and then answering the door to the victim. by doing this you were able to tell that the girls were both friends.
We got the heads up from our class however, we were asked to think of a different 2nd sequence as a morning routine was very overused, since we were going to have her wake up and step out of bed.