Question 7 Answered by Grainne: Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Screenshots Question 7

Comparing the shots to the preliminary task and the opening sequence, there is an obvious difference between th two. Firstly, because the genres are completely different, the edits are also completely different. So fo instance where the first task involved Match on action edits, our opening sequence has lots of free hand shots which you will not find in the preliminary task. In the bottom left picture shows one of the edits from the preliminary task, this involved a sequence of shots showing the character walking down the stairs. The photo adjecent is from our opening sequence which only involved that one edit throughout the scene, rather then a series of edits showing our character walking down the stairs. This is an example of how the genre we chose limited us with the amount of shots and edits we could do. 

Question 6 answered by Grainne: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Throughout the process of creating our final product we have used a diverse amount of software both via the web, and through software which is installed onto the PC themselves. The first major piece of software we used on the Apple Macs is Final Cut Pro. This was the editing software we had used for the preliminary task and for the final open sequence.

This sofware allowed us to place all our cut scenes into seperate, organised folders, in order to help create a sequence along a timeline which in the end created our final sequence. It also allowed us to place voice overs onto our sequence of clips, as done in our preliminary task. Another piece of software we used in conjunction with this was Soundtrack Pro.

Here we were able to create the short piece of music over the beginning of our montage of titles. Due to the detailed timing on both Soundtrack Pro and Final Cut Pro, we were able to create a perfect fit and create a fade out also which was good for when we created sound bridges into another edit.

In Soundtrack Pro we were able to not only select through different genres and snippets of music, we were also to pick sound effects that were both reallistic and over the top.

Another key, important piece of equipment was the camera with which we recorded our whole sequence with and the tri-pod which gave us our level and professional shots.

These were less complicated to figure out then the pieces of software on the computer, mainly due to the user friendliness of the equipment and previous experience with similar products.

A programme we used via the internet was You Tube. This of course was used for us to upload our sequences and embed them to our blog, and in some cases peer review videos in order to give constructive criticism for our peers to act upon.

If we wished to, we could also annotate out video via you tube in order to perhaps analyse our video. We used it to research our genre previously in our blog and again, embedded videos to our blog.

Another useful programme we used was Prezi. We used this more than once in our blog because we felt it was a great way to present the information we wished to convey.

We could choose to add a You Tube video, pictures, and bits of text in a creative way.

We found the technology to be both creative and limiting. We were able to present research on our blog iniverse ways but then we were also unable to create the exact opening sequence we wished to. We had also experienced problems with the Macs and the storage system which was an annoyance.

Question 5 answered by Grainne: How did you attract/address your audience?

George Middleston

One of three charactersthat can be related to in our sequence and can perhaps attract and address our audience through this.

The fact that sequence is set in a college is also another way in which it can relate to our audience. Those who are of an age of 15+ may be able to understand the culture, so to speak, of being in college or being in the presence of such personalities.

Question 4 Answered by Grainne: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Copy of Audience - Evaluation on Prezi

Question 3 answered by Grainne: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

As previously researched in our blog, we thought that Studio Canal or Film 4 would most likely distribute our film due to the distributer's diversity in genres and, their appeal for quality, creativity and films that are independent. This is more fitting then using a distributer such as Warner Brothers, seeing as Warner Brothers  is much more of a Hollywood, big budget, high tech. equipment production. Studio Canal, although having distributed very popular films is still dedicated to it's independent films that don't necessarily have a large budget or have Hollywood actors and actresses. 

 

With independent films finding funding for such projects money can come from donations, people investing in your movie from a pitch or from a short sequence being shown to them of your film but not being fully sure whether it will create a lot of money. This is only slightly different from large Hollywood films. For instance Warner Brothers tend to only invest in projects that they know they will gain profit from, and they most likely wouldensure this happens through investing money into marketing and such.

Our sequence would perhaps be similar to films such as Submarine, The Inbetweener's Movie in terms of what audience the film would appeal to rather than genre.

Question 2 answered by Grainne: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our opening sequence tends to represent the more "Performing Arts" social group. For instance within the series Glee, the characters which we have portrayed in our own opening sequence are similar to those within Glee. For example one character in particular, Rachel Berry, is portrayed as a very egotistical and delusional person which is a theme that often reoccurs when dealing with "Arty" characters or cliques. This is similar to the character within our film opening sequence, Constance. Instead we have tried to convey it in a more subtle way due to the genre of our sequence being a Mockumentary we can't create a character which is too full-on for the audience so to speak. 

This here is a photo of Rachel Berry, from this we can tell already she is a dramatic character. Within Glee she often talks about herself and pursuing her dreams and often, is openly modest about herself. This is very similar to the way in which we tried to convey Constance Wood to our audience. She also like Rachel Berry is very open about how talented she is and often talks of becoming a famous dancer.

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

Question 1

Construction Final "Talent Show"

Continuity

This is our continuity exercise, in which we had to use a match on action shot, a shot reverse shot and had to use the 180 degree rule. 

Editing problems

The final cut we had created unfortunately was saved over and so we lost the work towards our final cut. To try and save this we imported the rough cut and had to separate the necessary clips and sound so that we were able to recreate the progress we had made with our final cut. We did find that we had some problems in places, particularly with the continuity of sound where scenes had been moved however we managed to overcome this and recreate our final cut.

Extra Scene StoryBoard Panel

Voice over

After much thought, we felt adding a voice over to the beginning scenes would be unnecessary. This is due to the fact that the clips are quite self explanitary in terms of them being "Talents" for a "Talent Show". Also, due to the use of music it has also helped to explain the beginning sequence and more than that, we felt we had to consider the quality of the sound. Would we be able to record the voice over in good quality, or would it be muffled therefore creating a less convincing sequence and experience for our audience.

Update on editing process

We have acted upon feedback we had recieved from peers. We are now to record an extra scene in order for the opening sequence to be more of a beginning rather than a beginning, middle, and end.

We shall be recording a scene of our main character, Constance Wood, actually entering the Talent Show. It will then end there. We might add to our montage of talents depending on how long the sequence itself will be when we've added the extra scene. We have already removed the lift scene but alas, the sequence is still a little over the time limit which may make us unable to add an extra talent.

Talent Show Work Log

The majority of work went into the titles and music at this point. We found music that we thought was light hearted and jazzy, as this is the kind of music you would find in a mockumentary, we believe the music we've found fits well and works with the opening. The titles are simple and traditional as the mockumentary genre often use these types of influences.

Feedback

Overall, the feedback was very positive, the majority thought that it was very comedic and enjoyed it largely. The only criticism we received was to enlarge the titles to make them easier to see.