How did you use media
technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
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What software was
used? Adobe
Premiere Elements and Blogger
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What equipment
was used? Camera,
Tripod and Computer
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What were the
technical pros and cons of the software and hardware? Adobe never worked which meant our final piece
didn’t reach our expectations, the camera quality also changed throughout
filming which meant there was a lack of consistency.
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In what ways was
technology used to create the production? Adobe Premiere Elements was used to edit our material
however different software may have worked better for us as adobe didn’t real
meet our requirements and expectations.
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In what ways did
the technology constrain or enable the production to be developed? The rubbish editing
technology meant we were unable to create what we thought was a good opening 2 minute
due to the lack of special effect. The sound quality also wasn’t very good as
we didn’t have specific hard ware which will let us achieve excellence.
How did you use media forms
to come up with something new and original?
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Where did ideas
come from? Inspirations
came from TV shows such as Luther and films such as Taken.
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How did you work
collaboratively to share ideas?
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How did you
change things? Throughout
filming we found we had to change our plot to make it more realistic for us to
create we also had to remove some locations from the opening as it didn’t fit
in the timing we had been given.
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How did you use
tools like Adobe Premier Elements etc to achieve something imaginative? We were able to
change the lighting of the clip to create a better consistency; we also used
their fonts to create titles which were relevant to our genre of film but apart
from that we only used Adobe to edit our clips together.
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What stylistic
techniques were used to appeal to the audience? We used Music to create tension and make an
impact at the end of opening two minutes. Camera shots such as close-up add
tension and make the character seem more people. Low and high angle shots were
used to show authority and power and make the audience feel like they knew the
character.
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What was the
intended outcome of the production? (Assessment objectives, preferred readings,
promotional purposes?) We wanted to create an opening two minutes that was up to
standards with other thriller movies such as Taken by creating a thrilling plot
and good filming and editing techniques. We were aiming for most ages and both
genders as we found, through research, that thrillers were enjoyed by both
sexes compared to a genre similar such as Horror which was mainly aimed at
males. We decided that the popularity of thriller with the female population
was helped by the TV success Luther which was loved by both genders which was
helped by the use of having an attractive protagonist.
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How were these
outcomes achieved in terms of page layout and camera shot choices (codes and
conventions)? We
tried to stick to the conventions of the Thriller genre as it’s a hard genre to
define when watching TV or a movie because many people get it mixed up with the
Horror genre. We stuck with the stereotypes of creepy music and slow shots
creating ….
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What real media
and audiences did you look at? We aimed our opening two minutes at the a male and female
audience from teenagers to adults ,we found that this audience would be
suitable due to research on other thriller movie and who watched them.
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How did they
inform your thinking about your media production? We did a questionnaire with a mix of male and
females and used their opinions and thoughts to direct our choices on the plot,
music and characters. This helped us make decisions which would be appreciated
by our target audience.
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How did you
record all that research? We created pie charts showing all the data and opinions then
used these to analyse what our target audience would expect for our film.
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What primary
research was undertaken? The only piece of primary research we did was
questionnaires; these really influenced our decision and helped us make a
better opening two minutes.
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What secondary
research was undertaken? Firstly we analysed many opening two minutes which gave us
inspiration and taught me a lot about what makes an opening two minutes
gripping. We also found out information on pearl and dean to find some audience
profiling knowledge- this gave us statistics on what audience watched the movie
and how popular they were with different age groups. The rest of the research
was found on various websites.
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How did it inform
the production? It
helped us make prompt decision which would make our opening two minutes a lot
better and gave us a second view apart from us, who was creating the product.
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What is the
effectiveness of these kinds of research? It increased the chance of having a good opening two minutes
but also made sure that all different audiences would enjoy it.
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What quantitative
and qualitative analysis methods were employed? For both our quantitative methods we used pie
charts as this is a quick, clear and easy method. For our qualitative research
we created written answers as this way meant we were able to discuss everything
we had learnt in a lot of detail.
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How did the
results from these inform the production? It helped us make prompt decision which would make our
opening two minutes a lot better and gave us a second view apart from us, who
was creating the product.
•
What is the
effectiveness of these kinds of research? It increased the chance of having a good opening two minutes
but also made sure that all different audiences would enjoy it.
•
How effectively
were storyboards/shot lists/script followed? We didn’t do our story board until very late
into the process this was mainly because we wanted to focus on other things
that we thought were more important at the time, however when we did managed to
finish it was very helpful with the production of opening two minutes as it
meant we could actually picture what the end result would look like.
Post-production
What have you learned from
your audience feedback?
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What editing
decisions were made? How did they inform the production? Throughout making our film we had a lot of
problems with the editing software which limited us a lot. This meant we had to be more precise when filming so we had
less editing to do.
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What particular
editing tools were used and to what effect? We used the scissor tool to split clips into two clips this
meant we were able to precisely edit certain clips; we also used the
brightening tool a lot to adjust the darkness of our clips as we didn’t time
our filming very well with the plot and other clips made on previous days. This
was very helpful as it meant that our opening two minutes flowed.
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How did the
post-production process enhance the overall production? We found the filming part of the project the
hardest and found that after watching many of clips there just didn’t work,
they were either too long, too short, too dark, too light this meant that the
process as a lot longer than expected which meant we were a bit rushed in the
editing process leading to something that wasn’t up to our expectations and
hopes.
In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
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In what ways have
your productions used or developed conventions from real media products? Our main influences
were Luther and Taken which meant that our film was pretty conventional but
also through our thorough research on other genre of film we were able to
develop them into our plot which meant we were able to have a broader target
audience.
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In what ways have
your products challenged or played with conventions? The use of music and type of character were
very stereo-typical to a thriller movie. Our main character Lily was a wealthy
“blonde bimbo” which is a convention of most victims in other genres. We also
had our opening titles over the whole opening two minutes which helped
introduce the characters to the audience.
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Is your work
generic or experimental, or both? Generic
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Have you
developed a style? Not really we stayed with the classic stereo types so we were sure of an
audience that we enjoy our opening two minutes.
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Have you been
influenced by the work of specific directors etc? NO
