Director's Interview

Evaluation

Media Evaluation

The media task was to produce a two minutes thriller clip over a period of roughly two months. Our media product was supposed to develop, challenge forms and conventions of real media products. Over the period that we had of planning time we were given lots of examples in class, watching films such as the shining, and were also shown last year’s AS thrillers which was good because it gave us an idea of what we had to do, what worked well and what had already been done. Over this time we also had tutorials in how to use the cameras and editing to work best with our thrillers. This was a good task as it would benefit us in the end.

My media thriller ‘The observer’ is about a girl being watched. Our choice of location costume and genre was pretty obvious to the task set to us. Costume was everyday clothes, the location was a computer room in the college which was convenient and as this was the type of place out thriller needed. The types of camera shots and movements were done to get the best out of the scenes we planned to film. We used long shots, close ups medium shots, over head shots, high and low angle shots to show a range of camera works. We chose the ones that best displayed the acting and to make it thrilling. During the editing we added the necessary sound effects to bring it together. We also added a few effects such as slow motion and black outs. 

Our thriller doesn’t really represent a certain social group, however it shows a young average student, which could be portrayed as the youth of today. Her age and status is shown by the costumes and location (college) as it accompanies it and shows us that she is a student.

The kind of media institution that might distribute our media product are ones such as Film 4 or Blockbuster because the thriller is something that has aspects of a real film that you could to watch at a cinema. Our film could also be a small independent U.K release or we could release it on the internet and networking sites because this would allow all different people to watch it.

                                                                                                               

I think that the main target audience for my thriller would be young people e.g. teenagers and people in their early 20’s as they can best interact with the character as they are around the same age group. However anyone who enjoys thrillers could also watch it they just may not enjoy it as much. Male and females may both like this as it isn’t biased in any way.

To address my audience and attract them, i will have to use different advertising strategies. There are many ways in which i can do this. Firstly i can advertise them on websites such as Myspace and Facebook by having different pages where people can explore and get information on the film. I could also view the trailers on websites such as Youtube. Posters are also a good old fashioned way of attracting the audience.

Over the process of making my thriller I have learnt how to use a lot. Firstly we had to get used to the Mac computers although I was already familiar with them. I learnt how to use final cut pro which was a hard task but once I got used to it was alright. I’m glad I learnt this as it has taught me new skills that I can use later on in my career. We learnt how to log and capture our work after each day of filming which was helpful in case we lost any film. This also helped me to get used to the Mac computers. We learnt to use sound track to put the sound into our thriller which actually played an important part of the editing. As well as using the computers we had to learn how to use the camera which was obviously the biggest part of the process. Luckily my group all pretty much got the hang of using them quickly and we didn’t experience any trouble with them. The cameras we used were very good and efficient and I’m glad I learnt how to work them. We learnt how to use WebPages such as www.blogger.com in which we had to leave regular blogs of our progress throughout the task. We also used www.vimeo.com to upload all our finished pieces. This was topped off by a viewing of the years work at the VUE cinema in Islington. This was a great opportunity and experience as its likely your work will never be shown on a screen like that again.

                                                 

Looking back over my preliminary task I feel I have learnt a lot within the progression to the full product. I learnt that planning and organisation is very important as it provides the stability for you work and makes things run according to plan. Research is important to know about existing products. i learnt how to work well in a group and with my chosen team members. Most importantly i learnt to work under pressure and i am happy without final piece. Our thriller got a good reaction in the screening at the cinema, and therefore i believe we done well in our task.

Thriller Editing Day 2

Today was the deadline for our films!! When i came in at lunch the media rooms were packed out and everyone looked stressed as there was only 2 and a half hours left to edit!

My group were no were to be seen but when i spoke to Annie i discovered that Efosa had come in on thursday and made a soundtrack we could use however it was unfinished. 

So when i came back from lunch it was still very hectic in the media department however it was quite calm in my group because we were positive about finishing which was good because rushed work isn't very good! 

We listened to Efosa's soundtrack and we thought it was really good but could use a few extra bits, so as a group we added a few things into it and then were happy with it!

Now all that was left was to add in the soundtrack and then the credits which we were able to do pretty quickly! We pretty much managed to stick to the 3pm deadline for all media students even though my class had till 4.30pm because it was our 3 hour lesson.

I was relieved when it was finished and was really happy with our finished piece as it had a good range of shots and it all fitted in nicely!

Apart from a few little hick-ups over the weeks i think our group worked well together and we got on with the task well and i'm very pleased with how our work has turned out....... Hopefully the audience will like it when it comes to veiwing it in the cinema and more importantly i hope it gets us good marks!

Thriller Editing Day 1

Today was a really good editing day. When i came in my group showed me what they edited when i wasn't there. I was really impressed at what they'd got done and the footage and the editing cuts were really impressive, which made me quite proud! In the lesson we finished editing the film and the ending which was good that we have got that done as most of the other groups havent and the deadline is friday! We began to look at the soundtrack but we was just looking at what different sounds we might be able to use. Me and Annie decided to go and start to do the credits that we can put in on friday.

Hopefully we will be able to finish by friday which i'm sure we will because we are going to meet earlier before the lesson on friday!

Thriller Filming Day 5

Sadly i was unable to come in this day in half term as i had a funeral. I did feel bad on my group, however i spoke to them and they understood and agreed to do it without me. 

When i spoke to them about it, they told me they thought the day went well as they were able to finish the filming and start some of the editing. Obviously in the next lesson i will have to do a lot of the work to make up for the time i missed.

Thriller Filming Day 4

This was our short lesson of the week, so we didnt have much time and what made it worse was that after we checked over our errors last week, we didnt make a note of them so Efosa had to go upstairs and check what we had to re-film again. We were hoping to re-film the bad shots aswell as the last two scenes today and get it all out of the way, however we did not end up doing the last scenes as we didnt have time and have not yet decided what they are actually going to be. We have a few ideas that we havent decided on yet but i think we are just going to experiment when we begin filming next lesson. We need to get the last scenes film so that we can get on with the editing!! As our time for filming is limited, half term is next week and we dont have a lesson on friday, we have to come in on monday for an extra filming day. Hopefully we should be able to start some of the editing on monday aswell :) 

Thriller Filming Day 2&3

Day 2: On tuesday college was closed due to the bad weather conditions. The heavy snow caused pubic transport to be suspended therefore no one could get in to college. No filming or editing could be done today unfortunately!

Day 3: Another unsuccessful day. The room we were using was booked up with another class so we were unable to film. We used the lesson to log our previous filming and watch it over to see if there were any errors we need to correct next time. Hopefully we can get some more filming in next week!!

Thriller Filming Day 1

Today was the first day of filming and it didnt go as we expected, however it wasn't a bad days work. Initially we intended to get a non-media student to be our main character however the person we had in mind was unable to do it for us. At such short notice and because we couldnt afford to loose filming time, we thought the best solution would be to use Antionette - a member of our group. Our second dilema was the room we were meant to be using. on n earlier lesson we asked our teacher to book a room in the library for us to film in but he was unable to get it. We had to improvise using another computer room in college that has a similar layout. The only thing we had to change was a few shots with book shelfs and desks, however i think that the computer room will work better. 

On a better note, the filming that we did get one was quiet good. We experimented with alot of shot types and everyone helped to think of the best ways to film. Efosa has been our main camera-man so far but i believe this works well as he is tallest etc. We were unable to film the scene where the girl recieves the email, as we thought it would be simpler to send it annoynomously, but thats okay because it gives us more practise time and more time to research what we need to do.

All in all i think it was quite sucessful.

Thriller Practise

In our groups we had to film and edit a short practice thriller. Our task was to create a short peice of film containing a shot reverse shot, a match cut nd a few lines of dialouge. We also had to show our knowledge of using the 180-degree rule correctly.
As this was only the groups second practical task, i believe that the task went well, and that the quality of the film was good. We managed to use a good range of shots, including a long shot, extreme close up and a shot reverse shot. The use of the 180-degree rule, also helped us with the plot of our story as it hid what was inside the bag, which left the the audience with unanswered questions, making it thrilling. At the beginning we also used a close up of just the shoes and the bag, which makes the audience ask questions almost instantly.

The editing didnt go aswell as we expected as it was only our first try some of the match cuts and the different scenes did not fit, so we lost quiet alot of footage. Despite this we mamaged to get a few of the shots together and i feel that the end footage was quiet good.