Production Log Week 13

My group and I are almost done filming the opening sequence for our film but we think that there are some scenes that we we will have to revisit because it wasn't shot well enough the first time around. We also think some of the fight scenes which we shot were too unrealistic because the cast didn't feel comfortable with pretending to hit each other so it came out awkward and edgy, so we may just get rid of that segment entirely from the opening sequence. We managed to get some alcohol to use in our film to use as a prop, but the main actor didn't respond well to it and ended throwing up on set but still wanted to proceed recording.

Full Opening Sequence

The Evaluation - Part 8 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I believe that I've come a long way since creating my Media Preliminary Task, I have been able to develop my skills in Media as well as my group and the change is noticeable.

Research and Planning

Preliminary Task

At the beginning of AS Media studies, I was given a brief called "The Encounter" for a preliminary task to complete in which "a character opens a door, crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanged a couple of lines of dialogue". The Preliminary Task required me to get into a group  of three, preferably two actors and a camera man to record the footage. It was also required that we showed our understanding of 180 degree rule, shot/reverse shot and match on action in our recorded footage. In preparation of this my group and I watched other British Social Realism films so that we could gain inspiration and incorporate it into our Media Preliminary Task, we also used what we learnt in our final media product. We also planned our Media Preliminary Task by constructing storyboards and shot-scene plans so that our work would be planned out and not look rushed. This would help in increasing the overall quality of our preliminary task and was even prominent in our final media product. However it was time consuming using constructing these story boards as we had several versions meaning we created some storyboards for nothing, making us work slower than the rest of our class.

180 degree rule: (0;45-1:15) Although it was a requirement for us in our Media Preliminary Task it was useful because it stopped our audience from becoming disorientated. It is a basic rule within recording and it was crucial that we showed we can use it when it's necessary.

Shot/reverse shot: (0:45-1:15) This is useful because it allowed to audience to follow the flow of the conversation and not become bored of staring at the same scene so it keeps them interested, and allows them to see the facial expression of both characters, and the audience could clearly see the expressions of our two characters.

Match on Action: (0:10-0:16) This is useful because it makes the film run smoother and more synchronized so that the audience doesn't become disorientated by the film. Also it allows for a smooth cut which the audience is less likely to notice.

Research and Planning/ Opening Sequence

There have been noticeable developments since our transition from preliminary task to the full product as our research and planning methods evolved. Instead of planning everything on paper like we did for the preliminary task, all of our research was more technologically advanced as we could use the computers that school provided us with to do our research. This made research generally faster as we could directly access the internet and our bloggers to see what we could use in our film rather than having to break away from whatever we were doing to log onto a computer and then do it. This also allowed us to plan our opening sequence on software such as Microsoft Word and Excel, which again let us work at a faster pace and because our work was on a computer it made it easier to distribute to everyone involved in the production. It was difficult sharing call sheets and camera shots when it was on just on paper and could get lost easily, doing it on computers let us make sure our work was secure and accessible by whoever in our production needed it. However although we had more freedom in our work, perhaps we had too much as initially we had an concept with other 7 themes in it that we all thought would work, but eventually came to realise that we weren't really creating a British Social Realism anymore, but more of a Hollywood film. We came to realise our mistake and we chose more traditional themes in British Social Realism films but we still wasted valuable time on a concept that we didn't stick with, although it was a learning experience it would have been better to use our time more productively.

Digital Technology/ Preliminary Task

We weren't too limited in our digital technology as we had all the essentials for creating our Media Preliminary Task such as the camera and tripod and a charger. This was all we really needed cause we were confined to only recording footage within our school for the preliminary task so we didn't really need that much digital technology anyway. We still had the Final Cut Pro software on the school provided Macs so we had a good, well-known editing software to edit on that many other people use. It was our first time using a camera that school provided us and it was difficult getting used to it's settings and options but eventually we found our way around it and used it toward our advantage. We used a rule of thirds setting so that we could effectively plan out a scene, which can be seen at (0:10-0:16) of our Media preliminary Task.

One of our most difficult phases when creating this film was the problem of our camera's battery pack which didn't work for three different battery packs. So we had to ask the teacher to order in a completely new battery pack because all of the others were being used by other students in our class. Until then we had to operate with a battery pack that only let us record for ten minutes at a time at best which was amazingly annoying and prevented us from working at the same pace as the other students but we eventually got around to completing the film.

Digital Technology/ Opening Sequence

The digital technology that we had access to wasn't that different from our preliminary Task as we still had the essentials to record our film, a camera, tripod and a charger. However we still had the infamous battery pack problem as the order never came and we were stuck with the same camera, which we just couldn't use in creating our opening sequence but were fortunate that someone in our group had their own camera we could use to record footage so we wouldn't get too bogged down and be working at a slower pace than everyone else. There were noticeable changes in the camera as our group's camera recorded in low quality and it made what we filmed look bad until the new battery pack had came. The opening sequence suddenly increased in it's quality of recorded footage which may disturb the audience as it was so sudden but it's more useful than it is annoying so we switched back to the school's provided camera. I've already mentioned that we had more access to more software such as Microsoft Word and Excel to use in preparation of our opening sequence.

Post Production/Preliminary Task

It was difficult converting the product which we made to YouTube as none of us ever had any experience in converting and uploading videos so we ran into some problems. When we first tried converting the video we didn't know it had to be in an mp4 format so we were wondering why it wouldn't work for a few days until we realised the problem. This wasted some time as we were trying to work within a deadline and it slowed down our production rate but we were still able to reach the deadline. We also decided to try and edit the film on YouTube's edit software but decided it was a waste of time but we wanted to try and experiment with new things that we could learn from, but we were still in a rush to meet the deadline so we rushed it's production.

Post Production/ Opening Sequence

It was easier the second time around to convert the opening sequence to YouTube as we learnt from our mistakes and this let us stay on tip top of our production schedule. This saved valuable time as the deadline for coursework was nearing and we began to feel pressured by the deadline for coursework. Also because we had more time to experiment and be creative we were able to edit it slightly on YouTube to make it seem better. Also we had a better grip around Final Cut Pro and it's use of editing and we began to experiment with hues of the film so that we could make a scene seen more natural or fit lighting that changed due to weather problems, something that we couldn't do when we created our Preliminary Task because we were too native to Final Cut Pro at the time. The product came out better because we had more time to carefully edit than create a rushed piece of work.

Creativity/Preliminary Task

We had limited creativity because it was outlined what the preliminary task had to have in it, with the requirements and the situation of The Encounter. We did a very generic and popular choice for our Match on Action shot of the character opening a door just like all of the other students. We also had the same generic 180 degree rules and rule of thirds as all of the other groups too so we weren't that creative in that aspect. We did try and place some creativity in by having the protagonist fall and include humour by placing in dramatic music so that we did stand out even if a little bit. However we were not very creative at all in the producing of our preliminary task because we were new to recording footage and didn't want to risk being too creative so we just did what we were told

Creativity/ Opening Sequence

We had more freedom in the producing of our opening sequence of the full product because we were given a camera and told to get out there and record. We were the only group in our class to experiment with alcohol and the use of fake guns which helped immerse the audience into our film by boosting the authenticity of our film. Although we were too creative in the planning and research phase of our opening sequence we dimmed it down to create a normal kind of British Social Realism film. We also tried experimenting with the colouring of the product in the editing phase of our media film to make the colour tinted a certain colour to portray and connote certain emotions to the audience.

Evaluation part 7 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

For the production of our media product, we used a range of hardware and software so that we can successfully create an opening sequence. I will be talking about how this software and hardware was useful or not to me.

Pre-Production

One of the first things I did for pre-production of our product was to gain inspiration for our British Social Realism (BSR) was by watching over BSR films on DVD. This was useful to me because we could see other takes on British Social Realist films and gain a broader understanding of it's values and techniques. I could use these techniques and input them in my own product to better the quality and make a good media product for my audience to enjoy. These DVD's were very high quality and allowed me to pay attention to very minute details that may have been too subtle to have seen on other platforms. These details consisted of condoms lying on the floor, alcohol bottles in the very back of the shot and drug abuse syringes scattered across tables. I used this to include an alcohol bottle in the very back of some of our shots to show the audience what kind of lifestyle the protagonist lived so they could gain a better understanding. However there were some drawbacks to using DVD's such as how fragile the discs are. One of my DVD's was scratched and it stopped the entire film from being seen but i progressed past it by buying another from the internet as they are usually very cheap, especially if the film has been out for a long time. I make the judgement that DVDs were more useful than they werent because it allowed to give me insight on how a British Social Realism film should look.

The Mac computers that were provided to us in school were difficult to manage with, having never personally used a Mac computer before. It was awkward to work off of the school Macs because sometimes it would be suspicious and crash which made me realise it wasn't as reliable as a home PC. Although the Macs did have their benefits because it allowed us to work during school hours to get more work done by the deadline, therefore enhancing the quality of our written work. However I just decided to continue working off of the Macs and i saved my work every few paragraphs to ensure that not too much of my work was lost. Overall, in the beginning the Macs were difficult to adjust to but eventually I learned how to deal with them, they were too useful to be abandoning as they were relatively simple to use.

Software such as Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint allowed us to plan out our film in the various forms of scripts, call sheets and allowed us to plan every single shot that we planned to use in our product. This allowed us to plan what we were going to do and when so that it didn't come out rushed and in a bad quality. I was even able to post some of the work we did on Powerpoint to my Blogger to increase the value of my Blog.

Production

The camera we used during the production of our media product was inconsistent as the first camera that school provided to us was broken, which we had to swap out. Then the second camera had a unique battery pack which was also broken. Me and my group decided to use our own camera to record until school could provide us with a better new camera. This allowed us to stay on top of our schedule with recording and let us gain feedback on it in time to fix the scenes that had problems in it or could have been shot better, increasing the overall quality of our film.

Whatsapp the mobile app enabled me to communicate with the rest of our group and organise when we would  meet to record for our media product. Because of Whatsapp we were able to meet every single planned day and if one of our cast members couldn't make it we were all notified thanks to the group conversation dedicated the the production of our film.

Another software that we used was OneDrive by Microsoft to store the files about the production of our film to other cast members. We used OneDrive to send these scripts and call sheets between each other to organise the film. It is also very safe and secure so I never needed to worry about losing all my work and having to start over.

The tripod that school provided us with was also useful as we could make sure the camera wouldn't shake when we didn't want it to, making the scenes and shots more aesthetically pleasing. We had a problem where the tripod leg was unbalanced and it threw the shot off so we had to use make-shift tripods to carry on made out of stacks of books and bags.

Post-Production

MP3Unsigned.com provided us with music that we needed to fit in our film, it was especially useful thanks to it's wide variety of music choices that we could have selected. We used MP3 unsigned for music because we were allowed to use signed artists' music so we had to find the alternative, unsigned music artists. We chose rap music because we thought it had strong links to the theme and thought our target audience would personally identify with the music as it had a strong urban feel to it.

Blogger was the most important part of production because it allowed us to do our written work from the ease of home or anywhere I was as long as i had a computer or laptop. It was also a safe storage for all my work to be put so that I never really had to worry about losing my work, other than a few other times. Blogger is simple to use and very aesthetically pleasing making working across it more pleasurable and satisfying. Blogger's wide accessibility thanks to it's HTML coding  makes working across it very flexible and easy as you can have powerpoints on it and pictures, making the blog have a higher quality.

Final Cut Pro was another vital software that we used in production of our film. Final Cut Pro allowed us to edit and cut our film together to make it smooth and crisp. It also allowed us to test different transitions to see which one would work best for our film and change the tints of certain scenes to make it have different connotations, e.g. turning a scene into a blue tint would connote anguish. There was one incident where all of our work got deleted but it allowed us to have a fresh start with editing and let us fix what we couldn't before without having to delete too much.

The Evaluation Part 6 - How did you adress/attract your audiencee

The Evaluation Part Five - How does your media product represent different social classes?

Teenagers

Teenagers are negatively portrayed in our film because of how we chose to portray our characters in our full media product. Our main character, is a teenager himself who conveys most of the social problems that we wanted to show in our film. The main character Tate, is an alcoholic, depressed and violent, which some of our target audience may be able to personally identify with as these traits are very common among the youth, especially in today's time. Me and my group wanted bold and brave conventions in our film so that it would stand out among the weaker films. We also thought that these were serious issues that go too unchecked so we wanted to bring it into the light so that our audiences understand the true harm that these items bring. We also bought in the convention of teenage pregnancy  because of Tate's girlfriend getting pregnant in the film with another man. We thought young people who are able to personally identify with being underage and pregnant would need advice and once they saw a strong, independent female, pregnant character they could draw their courage to use as their own.

Men

Our protagonist is a male and presents them in an aggressive and negative way compared to other men in other movies, as to how they usually play the heroes. We subverted this in our film to make our protagonist an antagonist as he is not considered "good" but is actually more "bad". Tate's first response to finding out his girlfriend cheated on him is to go into an aggressive, alcoholic state and chooses not to approach it responsibly. This portrays men as arrogant and childish as Tate doesn't actually address his problem but more runs away from it with alcohol and violence. We wanted audience who can personally identify with this to learn a lesson that they should approach their problems responsibly and not turn to abuse of items to solve their problems in life.

Women

Tate's girlfriend portrays women as irresponsible and disloyal as she chooses to cheat on Tate and doesn't even have any respect for the position that she has put Tate into, only texting him to inform that she's pregnant not even saying it in person. This negative portrayal is intended to nudge audiences on what they shouldn't do if ever encountered in this situation of underage pregnancy. However there are scenes where the audience can really see that Tate's girlfriend is in remorse and regret of her actions which lets them sympathise with her, and understand her situation. It is arguable that she is a counter-type to how women are stereotypically portrayed in films as women are often denoted as wiser, more loyal and anti-promiscuous.

Religion and Ethnicity

Tate's girlfriend is muslim and even though there are laws against sex before marriage she still engages in these activities which are deemed un-moral by her religion and sometimes in society. Tate and his girlfriend's ethnicities are more rare in British Social Realisms as asian people are rarely the main characters. Even when they are subordinate characters they are obedient, shy and intelligent but both of our main characters subvert this stereotype to shock our audiences and break the mould, just like FilmFour aims to do. We had adopted this idea of not having white main characters from the British Social Realism Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and used it to express the lifestyle differences of our characters.

The Evaluation Part Four - Who will be your target audience?