Question 8 - Evaluation - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the process?

   

   

For the final segment of my evaluation and analytical processing of my AS Media folder, I have been asked to evaluate and interpret lessons and things that could have been improved in regards to both my preliminary task and my final thriller opening product. To conduct this, I will divide the evaluation into three areas: Camera, Editing (inc. Sound), and Planning.

Camera

In regards to the camera work, my first point would be that we have made a significant improvement in the framing of our shots and how much substance covers the screen, below you can see the contrast between two random scenes - one from our preliminary shot, the other from our final edit and see the progress we have made as frame constructors:

 < FROM PRELIM

FROM   FINAL PRODUCT >

The screenshot from our preliminary shows amateur framework setup, for a significant amount of time during that scene, all that could be seen was railings, a wall and the top of the two characters heads - these things weren't thins that were pivotal to the plot, and the shot didn't highlight what needed to eb shown, i.e. the victim. However on the shot beside, from our final product - there is an improvement in frameworking, the shot shows both the location and the protagonist in equal light, highlighting the two most significant things about the scene clearly - the shot and framing was also key for me as an editor because it left significant space for titles to be added on top without blocking the protagonist's face.

Editing


Whilst watching the two videos, I believe as a whole the editing on our final product was much more cleaner, and flowed better than the prelim. A standout scene within the prelim where the editing wasn't on par with the piece as a whole, was the entrance into the boss's room, an instance where the protagonist with the red hat, told his sidekick to "be quiet" because they were about to enter the boss's office had to be added in afterwards and its placing in the scene, when I watch it didn't correlate with the characters hands movements, and it's sound was too high in relation to the scene.

Secondly whilst watching the two clips side by side I see significant improvements in the overall looks in regards to the production value, and effort put in to make each clip look like a professional output. The preliminary video was almost entirely composed of diagetic sound, that seemed to fluctuate between different decibel levels, lessening the quality of the pieces sound. In contrast our final piece had a soundtrack composed for it, and narration fitted around the scenes, giving the piece a more quality - orientated finish.

There was more dynamics in the final piece in regards to the effects and transitions applied to the video clips. In the prelim simple cuts and jump cuts were applied. As apposed to the "Cross fades" "Additive Disolves" "Dip In, Dip Outs" that were applied to the Final opening, and the use of slow motion to highlight the irony of the water bottle.

Planning


Before any of those areas above could be covered, the stage of planning had to be initiated. In hindsight I conceed that this in fact is the most important stage.
Our planning of our prelim was almsot non-existent. It was just a simple case of coming together as a group, and devising our plot and suggesting to each other variations in camera angles that we could use to make our piece better. We were also asked by our teachers to devise an animatics production of our prelim in the planning stages before actually drafting the final cut of it. This you can see below:

Our final product took a much different approach. We were determined to make the perfect piece, which resulted in alot of arguments between peers at the beginning, but our work ethic overshadowed this and we came past it to enter the research stages. For this I researched into other successful films in the specific niche we were aiming for, such as "Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch" from which intertextual references are made in our piece. Storyboards were also composed this time around to really justify and put in prespective the plot of our final piece.

While planning we had to pitch our ideas, get feedback from our proposed plot and watched various videos on YouTube on the FilmRiot Channel Account to see ways of making a good movie great in terms of editing after our finish product had been filmed.

Summary


In conclusion I regard our work a success and the whole process helped me as a media enthusiast encounter a huge learning curve. The AS Media outline forced me to make technical advances in my work, in terms of framework setup and learning how to operate a Mac and the professional editing software Final Cut Pro and LiveType.

Evaluation Q8) Looking backat your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product.

                          

Since we did our prelim our final movie has turned out to be massively different

We changed our whole approach to filming and producing it.

Mise En Scene
As you can see here one of the changes to our approach of filming was mise en scene. As you can see in our prelim our lack of decent prior planning meant our filming location was poorly lit, leading to dark footage. but as you can see we changed our approach and managed to get an even better lit footage in a BASEMENT than we did in our classroom. this is an example of how since our poor planning and understanding of mise en scene in our prelim we have taken a turn for the better.

  
Editing

In our prelim due to the restricted amount of time we had to edit our work, we never managed to utilize extensive effects and other tools in final cut to make our prelim a better product. In our prelim we filmed the action scene of Jem getting hit in a very amateur way. We filmed from an angle that was very confusing and since then we have made considerable improvements in the way we edit the footage as well. In our final film we edited a similar scene in a better way. After Jem got hit we changed the color tone of footage to black and white and froze it all at the point the punch came in contact with Jem's face. We did this also to create meaning in our footage something we did not do much of in our prelim. This shows and contrasts the huge difference in editing skills our two films have and how much of an improvement we have made since

 

Camerawork And Planning

As you can see we greatly excelled in our camerawork skills. This shot above shows the detailed planning and skill we put in. The character walks up to a point before stopping at a good angle for the audience to see him as well as space behind in which another character fills in when he walks in and hits him from behind. All of the sequence is cleary visible and our prior extensive planning even meant that the mise en scene such as the location the actors clothings and even the weapon used were perfect for it.

In summary i have that i have made considerable progession whether it be techniacally or the fact that my work rate and ability to work with my partners to create a good product have improved greatley since the creation of our prelim product.

Question 6 - Evaluation - Audience feedback and comment

 These are a couple of audience feedback we received from students in the collage who viewed out media product.

Evaluation Q8) Looking backat your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product.

Looking back to when we first made our prelim, you can see that we have come on great lengths. Our overall general filming has become better.

In the prelim it was one of the first times we ever had to make a short film. As you can see it was not all filmed that great. The camera shots where a bit out of place and didn't really have that good affect.

As you can see their was not much mise en scene in the prelim, we didn't take into account any sort of setting or what props we used. we just used a pencil which didn't made much sense and lowered the quality of the film. However in the final movie we concentrated a lot on mise en scene as you can see in the canary wharf scene where we concentrated on costume and props like the water.

In the prelim we also had pointless camera shots that didn't add anything to the film, like at the end when the jelly babies are walking away, the shot was not executed very well, and now we are much better at performing good quality camera shots such as the tilt in canary wharf.  We also feel we learned how to do a lot better match cuts, which we demonstrated when the bottle dropped.

Moreover we also learned how to do a lot better sound, as you can hear in the prelim the sound was not made very well, it just sounded like random sounds put together on soundtrack pro. However in the final movie we put a lot more time and effort and we switched to another program called fruit loops which we found easier to use and we made a lot better sound on that program that worked very well with our final film, or example at the very beginning of the film the beat is very exhilarating and gets you hooked and interested from the start.

Question 4/5 - Evaluation - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product? How will you attract/address your audience?

Above is a make-shift scenario I have filmed to answer the question above. The scene above sees an aspiring filmaker (me) pitching the idea of investing advertising finances and completing the entirety of our AS Media Thriller film opening "Lying With The Enemy".

The aspiring filmaker above is pitching to an executive at Film Four, an independent film company that distributed fellow independent film "Looking For Eric". That film was invested in by Film Four and eventually won distribution rights. I picked Film Four distribution because it backs low budget films and has developed marketing techniques to compensate for low-budgets, especially in the case of "Looking For Eric" which on a limited release was able to garner an $11million box-office intake worldwide. Albeit a minor fraction of the worlds most successful film of all time's (Avatar) $2.7 billion worldwide gross, it did make a profit for the company.

When addressing how I would attract/address an audience I stated of how we as young filmakers have generated a small buzz for our film already. Using ours and our colleges resources our thriller opening was able to generate a cinema screening in North London in front of 130 young filmakers and got a very positive response. I then went on to stress that we have marketed our thriller through the interent by going viral and promoting the opening on such video streaming sites such as: Vimeo, YouTube and Blogger.com. our thriller opening would also get a limited release of 200 DVD's something that would certainly generate more buzz.

The pitch above demonstrates that we as filmakers understand the industry and know that we would't generate film investment from such entities as Paramount Pictures or 20th Century Fox. With investment from Film Four Pictures we would hope to make the entire film with a substantial budget and generate a profit from a limited release around London showcasing it in Art cinemas and multi-screen outlets that have installed digital players.

Evaluation - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 3 - Evaluation - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Above is a video of the "Average Dan" a character I have composed to demonstrate who I believe is the target audience for our thriller/ thriller opening, and the day to day contents you would fing in our "Average Dan"'s bag.

Our thriller targets a specific niche in the market: the London gangster genre is a fairly new one and has taken dominance specifically in the noughties decade with box-office successful releases like "Kidulthood", "London Boulevard" and "Snatch". Directors like Guy Ritchie and Noel Clarke have delivered these movies to the masses.

The films above and our thriller target elder teens to men in their 40's. Our "Average Dan" above is into hi-tech gadgets and expensive commodities, similar to the type of characters that feature in London gangster films anyway.
"Average Dan" likes to take care of his body, evident by the gym membership in his wallet, "Average Dan" isn't afraid to spend money, giving reason to why he has a high-sector credit card.

Above is a wordle of the words I would associate with the "Average Dan" that would watch our film.