Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your final product?

The titles used in the Preliminary task, in comparison to the final product, were very boring and plain:

As you can see, the title from the bottom picture, taken from the final product, is much more interesting and exciting, in terms of font, colour and style.

The camera was very shaky in some parts of the Preliminary task:

As you can see, the bottom picture is a lot more steady and clear, as I decided to use a tripod for my film.

The lighting used in the Preliminary task was extremely good:

We decided as a group that natural lighting looked more realistic and was generally better to use for our final product.

The acting in our final product was much better and more professional, as in the Preliminary task, the acting was not taken very seriously, and one of the characters kept laughing:

The acting in our final product was taken much more seriously, and I believe that the acting was good.

In the Preliminary task, my group accidentally broke the 180 Degree Rule:

This is how we broke the 180 Degree Rule in our Preliminary task.

This is an example of the 180 Degree Rule that we did not break in our final product.

Issues encountered in Preliminary task

When filming the preliminary task, I decided to include dialogue, a mistake that I had learnt from when filming my final product. I allocated one day of filming for the preliminary, again another mistake, so had to make do with what I managed to film within the one hour and a half that I had. Because of this, the actors in my Preliminary task kept forgetting their lines, and making up their own, so the story got confusing, as one actor would ask a question, and the other's response would be irrelevant. 

Like I stated above, I only allocated one lesson of filming, so only had one hour and a half to get enough shots for a two-minute clip. Also, as I only decided upon one lesson of filming, I was not able to go back and correct any mistakes that I had made, e.g. the 180 Degree Rule.

My group and I decided that filming each character saying their lines individually, and filming them at Mid-Shot whilst zooming in would be very effective, and would look impressive. However, when we showed this to our teacher, he did not like this idea, and we all agreed that he was right, as it did not look good at all. It became very predictable and boring.

When filming the female walking to the male's 'office', there is a very over-long shot of her feet, which is extremely shaky and wobbly. This was due to inexperience and rushing to get all of the filming done. I learnt from this mistake and decided to use a tripod in my final product, and as you can see from the pictures above, the tripod helped as the final product looks much better.

Examples of Improvement made in Final Product

When planning Virus X, my group and myself decided that it would be a good idea not to include any dialogue for a number of reasons, one being the editing problems that we encountered with the Preliminary task due to dialogue. This made the entire production look much better and more professional. 

I allocated, at first, a week of filming, then if at the end of the week, I hadn't got enough footage, I would use another week. I managed to get everything that I needed to create a good opening sequence during the first week, so got an extra week editing. I was also able to go back and fix any mistakes that I had made whilst filming, e.g. the texting scene, the sun was too bright so you could not see the text. I re-filmed it, and it looks much better.

I had done a shot list before-hand, so when I started filming, my group and I knew exactly what shots we wanted, which sped the filming process up, and we managed to include a wide range of variety when it came to different camera angles. There are many used in the final product, and it looks very good.

When filming the Preliminary task I decided not to bother with the tripod in a lot of instances, which made it look unprofessional, and not very good. When filming my final product, I used a tripod for every single shot, which made it look so much better and tidier. It also added to the professionalism of the final product.

What skills have you improved upon or gained over the course of this project?

The main thing that I have learnt over the course of this project is how to use a camera correctly to film professionally, and how to make best use of a tripod. I have also learnt that you need to allocate yourself a lot of time to film, as that takes more time than editing, in my group's case. I have also learnt to carefully plan what you want to do and set a target of what you want to achieve during each lesson. Finally, I have learnt to always think about what you're filming so it doesn't break any rules, or doesn't contain any continuity errors.

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

Whilst creating my opening sequence, I learnt to use many different things such as technology and computer software.

Camera

The camera that I used was a Canon HV40. I had never previously used a camera like this before, so I had to learn how to use many of the functions appropriately, like the zoom function, the focus function, etc.

Adobe Premier Pro

I had never previously used this editing software before, so myself and Cleo decided to let Haydn (who had previous experience editing films using the software) to do the majority of the editing, whilst constantly giving suggestions and giving it a go ourselves. However, as Haydn became ill during the editing period, both myself and Cleo had to quickly learn how to use the software, so we booked extra time on the computer and tried to get as much practise in as we could. We eventually grasped how to use it, and managed to edit our film with no problems. We had to insert transitions, add titles and cut irrelevant clips.

Blogger

I had never used Blogger before, however it was extremely easy to use and I enjoyed using it to track my progress from having initial ideas about the film, right through to the evaluation of the final film.

YouTube

I used YouTube a lot whilst blogging about my media coursework. I found it useful to find clips to compare my own film to other crime films. It also helped greatly when getting screenshots from current films, and the title sequences of those films.

PowerPoint

I used PowerPoint to create the presentation that I pitched to my class. It was extremely easy to use and it helped me create a professional pitch.

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

In this short video, I interviewed a typical member of the film's target audience:

This video can also be found on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLzAW3EQT9s&feature=youtu.be

Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Audience Member Profile:

Name: Lydia Jenkins

Age: 18

Location: Hull

Hobbies: Cheerleading, watching films, spending time with friends, spending evenings on YouTube

Dislikes: Call of Duty and netball

Favourite Films: Bourne Identity, Inception and Hackers

Favourite TV Programmes: Silent Witness, Whitechapel and The Walking Dead

Music: Indie music

Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

What is a production company?

A production company for a film provides the money and decides upon a budget. They may also decide on the director and the actor and actresses. Production companies often come attached with their own directors, actors and actresses, photographers and film editors.

What is a distribution company?

A distribution company has the responsibility of releasing the film to the public, either theatrically or for home viewing.

As a group, we decided that we would use 20th Century Fox to distribute our film. We have chosen this distribution company based on it's reputation that it has built up over many years, it's ability to successfully release films that go on to become massive hits, and it's capability to sell millions of tickets. We feel that using 20th Century Fox would benefit us massively, and it is the right choice for our film. We will also distribute our film using YouTube, by uploading the film's trailer to 20th Century Fox's channel, which has more than 1 million subscribes worldwide. This is a free form of advertising that we will most certainly take advantage of. 

The film that is most similar to my film is Iain Softley's 1995 crime film "Hackers". This is because it has the same genre as my film, and rather than having physical crime, it is more logical mind crime, which is found more in modern times as opposed to the 70's/80's, where the crime films mostly consisted of violence.

I plan to fund my film by using many different sponsors, as I believe that young-adults, especially males, getting stereotyped is too over-exaggerated in the media, which creates negative results.

The title list included;

Carys Lloyd (Leading Role)

Haydn Kidd (Leading Role)
Haydn Kidd (Camera)

Carys Lloyd (Editing)

Cleo Stella (Direction)

Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social group that I have chosen to represent is young adults, over the age of 18. I have chosen to represent this particular group because I feel that young adults have been very negatively stereotyped within the media as being criminals. I have created Charles' character based on an extremely over-exaggerated young adult, male stereotype to show that negative stereotypes can in fact provoke negative behaviour.

I have targeted the young adult social group by using modern technology (mobile phone) and communicating via that.

This is an image taken from the film Hackers. As you can see by comparing the two images, above and below, the costume is the same for both social groups, the female being in smart formal clothes, and the males being in more slightly relaxed causal attire. 

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

The title of my film, "Virus X" is very clearly shown through titles on my opening sequence.

As you can see, it has a plain, black background, with the word "Virus", in white, in front of a green "X". 

The fonts that I used in my opening sequence as titles, e.g. the Director's name, the actor's names, etc, were consistent throughout the title sequence.

The font that I decided to use is 'OCR A Extended'. I decided to use this font as it fits the genre and the sub-genre very well. It fits nicely in the middle of the screen as white text on a black background.

I had two main location/settings in my opening sequence; Charles' house and Bellevue Park.

The first image is of  Charles' house, and the second is of Bellevue Park.

The costumes/props that I have decided to use are;

"Virus X"

Mobile Phone

Briefcase

Brown shoulder bag

Costume for Camilla Dawson: Black trousers, black and white stripy top, long black cardigan, black high heel shoes and tied up hair.

Costume for Charles Dixon: Jeans, checked shirt, jumper, and gelled spiky hair.


The lighting throughout the entire opening sequence is very light and bright.

The characterisation of Charles' character is very shifty and criminal like. In the opening sequence of the film, he's made to come across to the audience as confusing.

Charles is checking that Camilla hasn't been followed, as he doesn't want anything to ruin his plans.

I have used many different camera angles in my film;

These are only 4 of the many different camera angles that I have used in my film.

I have mainly used the fade transition in my film, but I have sometimes used just a simple cut.

This is a simple cut from one camera angle to another.

This is showing a fade from a title to some footage.

The opening sequence of my crime film, with a sub-genre of mystery is portrayed, I believe, very well through all of the screen shots that I have captured above. It is obvious what kind of film it is just from the first 2 minutes of the film.

Completed Title Sequence

The Edit

I have used a number of effects in my final product, as you can see. These include transitions, sound effects, brightness effects, flipping the screen, trimming clips, etc. 

Production Diary

There were many complications when filming the opening sequence. I initially wanted Charles' character to receive the virus in a coffee shop, however, we couldn't get permission from the coffee shop we wanted as a filming location to use their shop as a location, so we had to come up with a change of plan quickly. I eventually decided to use my house, as I felt that this fitted Charles' character better, and I had access to it.

After all the filming had been done, a member of my group, Haydn, fell ill, so missed a lot of media lessons, so it was down to Cleo and myself to complete the editing of the film. We would have liked Haydn to have been able to help us, as he had more experience with the editing software than we did, as we had never used it before, and Haydn fell under our target audience, so his suggestions and feedback would have been helpful. The editing deadline was creeping up, and Haydn was still ill. Cleo and myself still hadn't finished the editing of the opening sequence, and during the last two days of being able to edit, Cleo had prior commitments, which meant I had to finalise the editing by myself. I did the best I could, and both Cleo and Haydn were extremely happy with the result.

When looking back at the footage that was used, the scene where Charles is at the park, sending and receiving texts was not clear enough so that the viewer could understand what was on the phone. As Haydn was still ill at this point, we had to find somebody who could hold the phone whilst opening a text. We eventually found someone from another group and he helped us re-shoot opening the text message, so it is much clearer, and the audience can now understand what is being said.

Schedule/Shot List

Before I started filming my opening sequence, I needed to have a plan of what camera angles I would be using. These are pictures of the plan that my group and myself came up with.

As you can see, there are a range of different shots to be used, as I hope to get a lot of different shots whilst filming.

My group and I decided we'd spend a week's worth of lessons filming so we booked the camera out on 6th, 8th and 10th of March. We managed to get all of our footage filmed during those lessons, so we we able to spend a long time editing.

The Pitch

Along with my group, I pitched the ideas for my film to my AS Media class. I did this using a powerpoint slide show that I had created. 

This is the slideshow:

The feedback that I got from the class was very useful. They told me that it was slightly over-complicated, having too many characters, that I should just stick to the main two, Charles and Camilla. Just over half of the class didn’t like the reason why Charles wanted the virus, so we took that into consideration, and changed it. They also told me that they didn’t like the ending where both main characters died, so I changed it so that just one of the main characters died.

The class liked the idea of using no narrative, as they believed that it would add to the suspense and atmosphere of the film, so I stuck with having no dialogue throughout my opening sequence. They also liked the idea of having a deadly virus, as more than 75% of the class said they would watch my film in the cinema, with the suggestions they had made. 

When discussing the costume of the characters, they told me that they thought Charles’ character shouldn’t be in formal clothes, only Camilla’s character should. I took this into consideration and ‘down-dressed’ Charles’ character slightly. I believe this worked because Charles is a young character.

The class told me that I had Camilla’s character spot on, and they loved the ideas I pitched about her. They agreed that she should be in formal clothes, and have no dialogue, and it would keep the audience guessing. 

Overall, I used the majority of ideas that my class suggested to me, and I believe I was right to do so, as it has greatly bettered my film in many different ways.

Script

I decided not to include any dialogue in my opening sequence, as I felt that added to the mystery and suspense. I feel that not including any dialogue has benefited my opening sequence, as it has made it stronger. This worked for my film as vital information was included in more modern ways (text messaging). I feel that I made the right choice in not including any dialogue.

Costume, Props, Location & Casting

Costume

The costumes that the characters are wearing are suitable for the characters and how I wanted them to, and how they do come across to the audience.

Charles Dixon (played by Haydn Kidd) was dressed in casual every-day clothes; jeans, a shirt and a jumper. His hair was gelled as to look “normal” to portray a realistic, young-adult character. The reason for this being that at first glance, his character is not the average criminal, which is different, something the audience will appreciate.

Camilla Dawson (played by myself) was dressed in smart, formal, business clothes; black trousers, a stripy top, a long black cardigan and formal, black high heel shoes. Her hair was tied up to show professionalism, as I wanted the audience to think that she was going somewhere business related.

Props

The props that were used are:

• Briefcase

• Brown shoulder bag

• Mobile phone

• “Virus X”

I did not include many props as I did not want to over-complicate things, and I also believe that what I used was appropriate and fitting. By only using a small amount of props, I tried to create a sense of mystery and suspense, which I believe I achieved.

The briefcase is used in the beginning of the opening sequence when Camilla is walking to Charles’ house. There is a shot that focuses on the briefcase, letting the audience know that it has some significance. The briefcase, obviously, contains the virus.

The brown shoulder bag is used by Charles when in the second location. This replaces the briefcase, as he has transported the virus from the briefcase to the bag.

The mobile phone is used, again, in the second location, mainly to inform the audience of the situation. This is where the audience learn that Charles is the criminal.

“Virus X” can be seen in the very last shot, when it is finally revealed to the audience. It is in a small, transparent container to make it more realistic and believable. 

Locations

There are only two main locations that are used in the film; Charles' house and the discreet rural area. The first location is my house, and I decided to use it as it is not the average criminal’s house, which would create mystery to the audience.

The second location is Bellevue Park in Wrexham. I chose this as the second location as it is quiet and discreet, which is exactly the location I wanted.  

Casting

There are only two characters throughout the opening sequence; Charles Dixon and Camilla Dawson.

Charles Dixon is played by Haydn Kidd. I chose Haydn to play the role of Charles because he fitted my initial idea of him. He was the right age, and had all the right features. Haydn doesn’t look like a criminal when the audience first look at him, but after realising that he is actually the criminal, it is very believable. I feel that Haydn fitted the role extremely well.

Camilla Dawson is played by myself. I struggled to find a female actress that I felt fitted the role of Camilla well, and research showed that people thought I was the best person to play Camilla, as she has a very formal business side about her. I feel that I made the right choice to play Camilla, as mine and Haydn’s characters both work well together.

Storyboard

Before starting to film, I needed to have a well-planned out storyboard that includes mis-en-scene, characters, any dialogue and locations. This is my storyboard: