Here is a version of our final coursework. It is perfectly watchable small screen but the full quality is on the DVD version, which we recommend you watch for its truer depiction of our work:
Monday 22 April 2013
Monday 1 April 2013
Evaluation of Appeal of Our Film to Audience
Our evaluation of the ways in which we hope our film will attract our target audience. Please pause to read individual comments more slowly. This is also intended to be viewed on DVD as it is one of the extras often provided.
Progress in Research and Planning
Prelim:
We did not have a chosen target audience for our prelim task, we given an outline of a situation that we had to follow and certain criteria that had to be met, such as: dialogue, someone walking out of the scene, and shot reverse shot. We did not create a storyboard for this piece.
Our prelim did not follow a specific genre type, therefore we did not have any music playing that would relate to the genre nor did we have a script.
It is therefore not surprising that the sequence feels disjointed and does not convey any real meaning to the audience.
Final Task:
We watched the opening of many films from our chosen genre of Chick Flicks. This enabled us to recognise common techniques for the genre in terms of camera angles, sound, editing and mise-en-scene, for example being set in a school, having girls as the main characters, and the use of non-transparent very visible editing to create a fun and light-hearted feel.
For our final task we produced a storyboard, which included every shot, with the decided composition and specific camera movements. We decided not to include much dialogue in our final piece as dialogue is introduced at the end of the first two minutes as we found in our research of our chosen genre.
Progress:
The fact that we conducted all this research for the final task helped us identify the specific elements that had to be included in our piece, which we did not focus on in the prelim task. Therefore making is easier to identify the genre of the piece.
Progress in Storyboarding and Scripting
Prelim:
For prelim task we didn't have a story board or a script. We were given a basic outline of what turns the piece had to take and basically made it upon the spot. Our planning was disorganised, we chose where we were going to film on the spot, obviously this wasn't thought through as well as it should have been, because the lack of space caused framing issues.
Final Task:
In contrast we planned out each scene and drew each shot so we knew exactly what we were doing when we turned up to our filming location. In fact, our storyboard went through several drafts and was detailed by the time we came to film:
We had written up a script previously so we knew what was being said, but on the first day of filming we improvised what the girls would say to their mothers and they were leaving, so not everything was as fully planned out as we hoped, but still much improved from the prelim task.
We put much more thought into our location, but again we still had to work with what worked best and what was best and easiest for us in general. For example, when we were filming in the bathroom, space was an issue, but worked best for the shot. Also, proximity to the school had to be taken into consideration when choosing our location due to limited time and locations.
Our piece makes more sense than our prelim tasks, this is because no planing was involved when making our prelim therefore it was a bit random.
With our piece it is clear to the audience what is going on. Our storyboard helped us when filming- we were able to refer to it during production whereas we had nothing of the sort during our prelim task.
Progress in Camera Work
Prelim:
We used the tripod for the entire thing, we encountered problems when we were trying to keep the tripod straight, this made some of our shots off balance. We still werent familiar with using the camera at the time, and our planning and how we developed the characters wasn't good.
Camera movements were tricky for example we cut off Rebekah's head a couple of times so the piece didn't look very professional and gave it an unfinished look.
We struggled to use playback when filming the prelim and we recorded over work. Also as we struggled to use it, we didn't watch over what we had filmed so were unable to see what problems we needed to amend.
As we were new to using the camera and how to move them, we struggled to make out tracking shot look effective and have a smooth finish.
Final Task:
This time round we were much more confident with the use of the camera and tripod, making it easier to film. From previous experience we thought that using the tripod throughout the filming was appropriate for our particular production. Although we were confident with the camera we did have to re-film certain moments in our piece where we used handheld camera instead of a tripod.When we watched this back we realised the shots were evidently moving, giving it an untidy finish.Therefore we switched to filming these parts with a tripod, and this created a steady shot.
We found major improvements with our camera work from when we filmed our prelim task. Although we did not use any of our panning shots in our final piece (as it did no fit in with the film) they were much tidier than the prelim task panning shots. Our panning shots were more professional and smooth showing big progress in our camera work.
We naturally used a much wider range of camera angles and distances due to having planning time and a whole day of filmin as an initial shoot with pick ups on other days, whereas in our prelim task we only had a lesson period.
Progress in Editing
Prelim:
In our prelim task we were inexperienced with Final Cut Express and this meant that the editing was a slow process.
We weren't familiar with the continuity issues that could occur, and the fact that two different shots could jump because of a gap in editing. This occurred in our prelim task when there is a jump between two shots because we did not check it in editing.
We did not have any sound apart from dialogue and did not have any experience of using Live Type for credits.
Final Task:
We used layering capacity of Final Cut more effectively to achieve our effects of credits, split screen, and using a page turn effect.
We were more careful with continuity as we understood from our prelim task that it easy to make a mistake. We did this by enlarging the tracks to check we were cutting at exactly the right moment for continuity to be perfectly precise.
We used effects and transitions carefully for example making sure that the page turns were at the right moment, and making sure that the non-diegetic music faded in and out at the right time so the dialogue could be heard.
We included titles, credits and production idents using other programmes such as Livetype, and Photoshop and imported these into our piece. We gained experience from using these where we had no experience from our prelim task. We also used Photoshop to animate our ident:
Progress
We gained a greater understanding of the potential of the editing packages and how they can be combined.
We used a large range of effects
A more layered product created
Editing was less time consuming as we were confident with the tools and layout of the site.
Prelim:
We did not have a chosen target audience for our prelim task, we given an outline of a situation that we had to follow and certain criteria that had to be met, such as: dialogue, someone walking out of the scene, and shot reverse shot. We did not create a storyboard for this piece.
Our prelim did not follow a specific genre type, therefore we did not have any music playing that would relate to the genre nor did we have a script.
It is therefore not surprising that the sequence feels disjointed and does not convey any real meaning to the audience.
Final Task:
We watched the opening of many films from our chosen genre of Chick Flicks. This enabled us to recognise common techniques for the genre in terms of camera angles, sound, editing and mise-en-scene, for example being set in a school, having girls as the main characters, and the use of non-transparent very visible editing to create a fun and light-hearted feel.
Progress:
The fact that we conducted all this research for the final task helped us identify the specific elements that had to be included in our piece, which we did not focus on in the prelim task. Therefore making is easier to identify the genre of the piece.
Progress in Storyboarding and Scripting
Prelim:
For prelim task we didn't have a story board or a script. We were given a basic outline of what turns the piece had to take and basically made it upon the spot. Our planning was disorganised, we chose where we were going to film on the spot, obviously this wasn't thought through as well as it should have been, because the lack of space caused framing issues.
Final Task:
In contrast we planned out each scene and drew each shot so we knew exactly what we were doing when we turned up to our filming location. In fact, our storyboard went through several drafts and was detailed by the time we came to film:
We had written up a script previously so we knew what was being said, but on the first day of filming we improvised what the girls would say to their mothers and they were leaving, so not everything was as fully planned out as we hoped, but still much improved from the prelim task.
We put much more thought into our location, but again we still had to work with what worked best and what was best and easiest for us in general. For example, when we were filming in the bathroom, space was an issue, but worked best for the shot. Also, proximity to the school had to be taken into consideration when choosing our location due to limited time and locations.
Our piece makes more sense than our prelim tasks, this is because no planing was involved when making our prelim therefore it was a bit random.
With our piece it is clear to the audience what is going on. Our storyboard helped us when filming- we were able to refer to it during production whereas we had nothing of the sort during our prelim task.
Progress in Camera Work
Prelim:
We used the tripod for the entire thing, we encountered problems when we were trying to keep the tripod straight, this made some of our shots off balance. We still werent familiar with using the camera at the time, and our planning and how we developed the characters wasn't good.
 |
| Tripod off balance |
 |
| Poor framing |
 |
| Poor composition of shot |
 |
| Did not notice person in background while filming |
Camera movements were tricky for example we cut off Rebekah's head a couple of times so the piece didn't look very professional and gave it an unfinished look.
We struggled to use playback when filming the prelim and we recorded over work. Also as we struggled to use it, we didn't watch over what we had filmed so were unable to see what problems we needed to amend.
As we were new to using the camera and how to move them, we struggled to make out tracking shot look effective and have a smooth finish.
Final Task:
This time round we were much more confident with the use of the camera and tripod, making it easier to film. From previous experience we thought that using the tripod throughout the filming was appropriate for our particular production. Although we were confident with the camera we did have to re-film certain moments in our piece where we used handheld camera instead of a tripod.When we watched this back we realised the shots were evidently moving, giving it an untidy finish.Therefore we switched to filming these parts with a tripod, and this created a steady shot.
We found major improvements with our camera work from when we filmed our prelim task. Although we did not use any of our panning shots in our final piece (as it did no fit in with the film) they were much tidier than the prelim task panning shots. Our panning shots were more professional and smooth showing big progress in our camera work.
We naturally used a much wider range of camera angles and distances due to having planning time and a whole day of filmin as an initial shoot with pick ups on other days, whereas in our prelim task we only had a lesson period.
Progress in Editing
Prelim:
In our prelim task we were inexperienced with Final Cut Express and this meant that the editing was a slow process.
We weren't familiar with the continuity issues that could occur, and the fact that two different shots could jump because of a gap in editing. This occurred in our prelim task when there is a jump between two shots because we did not check it in editing.
We did not have any sound apart from dialogue and did not have any experience of using Live Type for credits.
Final Task:
We used layering capacity of Final Cut more effectively to achieve our effects of credits, split screen, and using a page turn effect.
 |
| Page curl |
 |
| Split screen and credits |
We were more careful with continuity as we understood from our prelim task that it easy to make a mistake. We did this by enlarging the tracks to check we were cutting at exactly the right moment for continuity to be perfectly precise.
We used effects and transitions carefully for example making sure that the page turns were at the right moment, and making sure that the non-diegetic music faded in and out at the right time so the dialogue could be heard.
We included titles, credits and production idents using other programmes such as Livetype, and Photoshop and imported these into our piece. We gained experience from using these where we had no experience from our prelim task. We also used Photoshop to animate our ident:
 |
| Ident on Photoshop |
Progress
We gained a greater understanding of the potential of the editing packages and how they can be combined.
We used a large range of effects
A more layered product created
Editing was less time consuming as we were confident with the tools and layout of the site.
Evaluation of what we have learned about Technologies
Please use the link below to see our presentation discussing what we have learned about technologies through carrying out our coursework:
Presentation on Slideshare but better quality on DVD!
Presentation on Slideshare but better quality on DVD!
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