Dear Moderator...

I hope you enjoy going through and reading my blog. I have put a lot of effort and time into what seemed to be like a large portion of my life for 3 months. On my individual blog you will find a link to my 'Group Blog' on the right hand side. You will also see a link to the other girls who were in my group (Laura and Holly) as well as the link back to our teachers' blogs which are labelled 'BLK foundation blog' and 'THR foundation blog'.

I have tried to make my blog as easy to get around as possible, and so to help you find your way I have labelled all my research posts 'Research' and my planning blogs 'Planning'. Also my evaluation questions, as well as any extras that are linked with, or to do with my evaluation are under the label 'Evaluation'. You can also clip on any on the labels to see my initial ideas, or work through in chronological order starting in September to see my progress. You will also find my preliminary task which I worked on before starting the main task. This is labelled 'Preliminary Exercise Evaluation'.

On our group blog we have all our evidence of initial research and planning under the labels 'Research' and 'Planning' showing our inital thoughts and inspiration and our project developement, as well any other little posts that were conversation between the group. All posts that I was responsible for have been labelled with my name.

As you can probably see my group finished film opening sequence, and my preliminary sequence are at the top of my blog, and the group film can also be found at the top of our group blog.


Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog
Best Wishes

Amelia Conway-5220

I Declare this blog...

CLOSED
all done now

I've had a brilliant time working on this task, and working with Laura and Holly-thanks for being great group members

By blog, see you soon for our next task

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

EVALUATION EXTRAS: Technology used...

Here is a list of all the technology used in my opening sequence for production and post production-this is useful for Q6

Production
· Sony mini DV Camera
· Tripod
· Sound equipment
1. Boom microphone and pole
2. On camera Mics
3. Headphones

· Spots lights
· Clapper board

Post production
· Software
1. Premiere Pro
2. After Effects
3. i-movie
4. Soundtrack control
· Capturing
· Renderining
· Ghosting-layering two shots on top of one another
· Opacity-for the ghosting
· Titles (on the Mac)
· Timelines-5 different ones
· Transitions-fades, dissolves, cuts
· Razoring
· Contrast
· Brightness
· Saturation
· Sound-digetic and non-digetic
· Linking and unlinking
· Audio tracks
· Speed/duration
· Volume-adjusting volume and treble
· Re-ordering
· Parallel editing
· Importing clips
· Frames (zoom)

EVALUATION EXTRAS: Pre-Evaluation Summary

Ok so I though before you read my evaluation you ought to read this to understand my sequence as well as the story of our film as a whole.

Opening sequence- It starts by seeing someone sign in to an acount-this person is called Julie. You then see someone typing in a dark room with a whisky glass beside them. They type things such as "oh you know i love talking to you". This is interspersed with titles on black backgrounds. Then action starts. A teenage girl looks upset and is talking to someone online. You can only see the hand of that person but you can assume it is a man. They continue to talk and the girl says about how she is suicidal and wants her life to end. The muderer, or 'Julie' comforts her and convinces Emma to invite him round. Then scene ends you finding out that there are infact two murderers, the other one is gathering equipment to kill the girl with.

The reset of the story continues with...
The muderers carry on in this same way luring girls by making them believe they are agony aunts and gain their trust. This is splashed all over the newspapers with a boost in teen suicides in London. One particular girl begins to talk to 'Julie' online to make herself feel better after her boyfriend broke up with her. However this girls father happens to be a detective working on the case of the teen suicides. The 'Julies' plot to kill this girl but she leaves clues that she knows her dad will find, to help save her or at least catch the muderers..but will it be too late? will they make it in time? and will the detective ever catch the agony aunts? Who knows..

Cast and Crew

Victim #1/Emma-Amelia Conway

Muderer/'Julie' - Kingsley Adir

Muderer #2- Rick Allen

Directer/producer/editer/writer etc.-Holly, Amelia and Laura...

Feedback of final film...

I've showed our film opening to friends and family and it has been extremely positive, and has evoked some really amazing feedback.
The main points which people commented positively on:

• The main actor-very realistic and scary
• the music at the opening
• the montage at the end
• the shot of the keyboard-very creative angle
• the seamless editing
• Titles look very realistic!! (this one was mentioned a lot)

Some things that people picked up on were:

• Could have shown the murderer later on for suspense, or not shown him at all
• lighting-too distinctly different

Other than that everyone has really liked and all of the people I asked said they would like to see the rest of the film. Also my younger brother said it was scary and he kept asking questions like 'what is he going to do..?' and I don't think he would want to watch the rest of the film BUT- this is a good thing as it shows we have targeted our audience well because we didn't aim to make a film aimed at younger children.

I am really impressed by the feedback and comments and I am really proud that the film I am showing them was created by myself and my friends.

EVALUATION EXTRAS:Differences between the Preliminary task and the Film Brief

Q7) Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The progression from the preliminary exercise to the main task has taught me a lot in regards to technology and how to work to the best of my ability. The two task differed a lot which meant i had to look at them very differently. I have chosen to look at the 5 main stages of the task separately and in detail.

The Brief
Here are the two briefs to compare

Preliminary Task-Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room sitting in front of another characters and exchanging a couple of lines of dialogue with them. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Main Task-The titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes. All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidates, with the exception of a copyright free source.

After working on the prelim, it really helped us to approach our brief with care. Obviously our main task provided us with a lot more scope in regards to how create we could be, as the prelim task was much more structures. It helped us to think more about our target audience before getting started and how to please them. This in turn made us think more about mise-en-scene, and what situations and settings were most appropriate to use. It taught us to really discuss the brief in depth and decide where it was going, and plan it a lot more before we went ahead. In the prelim we tried to do too much which wasn’t possible and so it helped us to keep things simple but effective. I also showed us the importance of planning, and how it was crucial that you check that something is possible before trying to do it. This in turn to us to adapt situations if what we wanted to do wasn’t possible. It taught us to book locations because in the prelim everyone wanted to use the same location and it cause lots of stress.

Pre-Production

The planning of our prelim task had an impact on our film task as it made us look into things more, with greater detail. There much more planning needed for the film brief as we needed to take into account our audience and how to please them. We needed to make much more details notes as well as researching beforehand. I showed me how important a shooting script is as it allows you to shoot out of the order it will appear in the sequence. This was useful as we shot all of the girl’s parts on one day, and all of King’s parts on another so that the process was easier, and ultimately made the continuity better. In the prelim there was no need for research but in the main task we needed to research our genres and our characters to make sure they fitted to the conventions and appealed to our audience. The prelim taught us how to manage our time better. Although we had a much greater time to complete our main task we still had to work fast and within certain deadlines, like the prelim. The prelim had to be really structured without room for much creativity, where as the film brief taught us to play with the conventions, making the piece more creative and abstract. The planning of the prelim task really helped me to get my brain into gear and start thinking about ideas, and I think it made me be more creative in the real thing and play with boundaries.

Production

The production of the prelim really helped when working on the production of the film task. In the preliminary there was no test-shoot or re-shoots so it showed us how important it is to have everything planned before the shoots.

It also made us a lot more conscious of time; we needed to do things quickly, but not rush them. The preliminary task got us back into groups (which we hadn’t been in for over a year) and taught us how to share the shooting time equally giving everyone an opportunity. It also helped us to practice with our equipment before starting the main task. One of the most important things I learnt in the prelim for the production was to shoot much more footage than we needed, even if we weren’t going to edit it. This included taking more than one take of everything, and getting a wide range of angles and a master shot for most shots or lines of dialogue.

One thing we learnt which wasn’t about the actual process of filming, but about the filming day, was to give our actors breaks and asked their opinions on how they thought it was going to make sure they felt comfortable and involved.

Post-Production

The main task required a vast amount of editing, whereas the prelim was very basic, and was completed in one hour-and-a-half lesson. We were able to experiment and be more creative because of this. During post production we used a lot of the skills we picked up in the prelim. We also learnt a lot. To start with it taught us how to work in the groups in the edit suite: editing in shifts and swapping around. It reminded us how to use Premier Pro and how everything works. It gave us a practise in key continuity skill such as shot reverse shots and matches on action. It was the first time we had captured in individual clips rather that capturing the whole thing at once. This was so much easier as it allowed us to drag and drop items from the bin whenever we wanted. It made us think about the institutional ‘look’ and the branding of our product. The main task however allowed us to be more creative whilst working with effects, music and titles.

Overall I found that the prelim was extremely useful for the real editing for our film brief. It reminded me how to use Premier Pro and gave me more confidence to stretch my abilities and experiment on other programs such as After Effects-when creating our production logo animation.

Reflections/Evaluation

The preliminary task helped us to get back into the group working mode. It taught us how to think about all areas of the sequence including filming, lighting, and sound. It taught us how to break down the sequence in the evaluation and really deconstruct it, which is what we have had to have done in the main task evaluation. One of the main things that I learnt to think about how to improve things and accept that things can go wrong and learnt to work around them.

It was important to discuss things in our group and get audience feedback along the way: this was essential! Screening it a few times helped to get this. It reminded us to break down and encapsulate events whilst shooting i.e. problems, and blog them so that we could see where we went wrong and what things went well.

Overall I enjoyed the project so much. It gave me a brilliant insight into the world of cinematic media.