Evaluation: Questions 4&5

http://youtu.be/Xx1LDenZvIg

Question 7: What have you learned?

Question 7 from livneedham

Question 6: what have you learnt about technologies during the process of constructing this project?

Working on this project has allowed me to experience a range of new pieces of technology in which I would probably never encounter if I had opted to do another subject. Here are some of the things I learnt about:


Camera Use: In our production we used a DSLR camera as we wanted our production to be filmed in the highest quality available to us. We didn’t find it too difficult to use and we managed to get the hang of it after a short time experimenting and playing around with different buttons. Once we learnt the basics, we took it upon ourselves to try and figure out more advanced techniques like focus pulls and other similar functions. Whilst filming, Shannon and I took it in turns to do the filming, as Phoebe was busy being in front of the camera as our actress. I filmed a lot of our shots from Shannon’s garage and I felt comfortable using the camera taking multiple different types of shots/angles. Relating to this topic, I learnt to use a large tripod, how to set it up, how to get the perfect angle and how to attach the camera to it. Similarly I learnt to use the shoulder mount and how to use it effectively to get the best shot possible for the shot type we were going for.


Sound: During the post production stage, we struggled to find the perfect soundtrack for our thriller opening as none of the free online tracks had the right feel to them, so we decided to create our own music on Mixcraft. Each of us took it upon ourselves to create our own piece of music for the thriller and then we’d decide who’s the best was and use that in our thriller opening. I created a minimalistic yet effective collection of dark and ominous tones from the horror selection of sounds, and I had planned to record a younger student’s voice singing “Whole world in his hands” in a childlike voice for a creepy effect. After due consideration, we made a collective group decision to use Shannon’s creation, after making a few adjustments. It is a similar yet more complex collection of sounds including a choir tune and a heartbeat. We edited it so that the heartbeat sped up as the tension builds up in the film and also we made the music get louder towards the end of the production.


Editing: To be honest, having been more heavily involved in the filming process, I was not as involved with the editing, I would give my opinion on what decisions needed to be made and suggest ideas on the editing itself so I was definitely involved with making sure I had my say on what was done, however the actual editing itself was mainly done by Phoebe as she seemed to take to handling the software the best, whereas I found it extremely difficult to wrap my head around. The programme we used was Adobe Premier Pro, and through watching Phoebe I learnt the basics such as cropping the footage, handling the scene transitions, and doing the titling, however she took it to the next level by putting more advanced effects onto the film. Online forms of blog presentation: Through doing blogs, I have learnt how to use many online sites that allow me to present my blogs in innovative formats. Some of the websites I have used include: o Prezi o Scribd o Powtoon o Slide Share

Question 3: What kid of media institute would distribute your media product?

Question 2: How did you represent particular social groups in your media product?

Question 1: in what ways did we develop/challenge the conventions of real media products?

LAMIA FINAL FILM!

POS Productions is happy to present to you... LAMIA, THE FINAL CUT:

Textual Analysis of the Opening of Saw

Textual Analysis of the Opening of Saw

Textual Analysis of Hannibal Opening Sequence

Textual Analysis of a Title Sequence by Liv Needham

Storyboard

Screenplay

Screenplay Screen play. LAMIA. Opening. Start. Screen goes from black to a close up of a swinging light bulb. The screen will also have a flickering effect, like a flickering light bulb. Title (Phoebe Oldfield) Fades out to black. Bible laid open on a surface, words are underlined and circled. Words related to the devil or evil. The book starts bleeding from one corner as if it was a person. Book closes. Close up of flame. Flash of bible closed with no blood. Title (Olivia Needham) Title burns away. Bible on fire. Is revealed. Pan around the room to a white wall. Slow flickers of light, dark to light etc. Flicker from the white wall to a hand covered in blood leaving a diagonal trail of blood along the wall ending with a hand print. Close up of blood, with a title. (Shannon Nunn) Flash to hands holding a cross, slowly pushing it up from chest to stretched arms. Flashes of different part of the cross. Images of family photos, burning in and out of different photos changing the saturation. Images drop to the floor as a title comes up while they fall. (Created by, Phoebe Oldfield, Olivia Needham and Shannon Nunn) Hand/nail scratch faces off the parents. Flash/fade to, title (Director, Editor and Music) Scatter across the floor of a grudge looking girl, going up the walls. Camera pan around the room, to reveal a girl in the corner not showing her face. Black screen. Main Title (Lamia) comes up. Fast image of Mia screaming. End.

Fitting the Criteria

Hi there,

So last lesson, we watched a few examples of other students final films and got to guess how they were graded and afterwards, we were told the actual grades they were given by the examiners. I found this exercise very helpful because it allowed me to understand how our films would be judged and graded. I learned that it's all about fitting the criteria of the task we have been set, and that the examiners will understand that this will be our first film so it's not expected to be perfect.

When watching these films, I noticed a few features that I liked that other students had used. One thing I liked was the use of flickering images in one of the films, and I want to learn how it's done and include it in my groups video.

Also I liked one groups use of sound, how they made it sound natural and I hope to learn to use sound in the way they did.

Screenplays and scripts

Hi there, During the pre production phase, we have been learning about screenplays and scripts and determining the difference between the two before devising them for our films. So what is the difference between them both? Well.. The word script is generally used in when referring to a piece of instructional writing which usually contains elements like dialogues and story in detail. Screenplay is type of script which also contains the visual aspects along with other narrative details of the story. Unlike a script, a screenplay is limited to movies and TV programs. Simply, a script just contains the words in which an actor will speak during the production, along with a few minor details, whereas a screenplay goes into much more detail about the scene itself. Here is an example of a script: Here is an example of a screenplay:

Conventions of a Thriller

Our plans

Hi there,

Things have been happening and my team have created a plan for our film, including a storyline, character, title, tag line and much more. Take a look at what we've created:

Research and Making Decisions

My group has been doing research on horror thrillers as we have decided that is what our main task production will be, after asking fellow students what sort of thrillers they enjoyed. We spent a couple of hours researching horror concepts and popular horror movies and after this research we decided on making our thriller one based on a demonic possession of a young girl. We decided this because we found the whole concept fascinating and we wanted to show our own take on it. In order to get a feel for the idea, we watched numerous videos of people claiming to perform exorcisms on others, as well as this, I went away and watched some movies with the same sort of possession concept, such as ‘The Last Exorcism’, ‘The Possession’, ‘The Exorcist’ and ‘The Devil Inside’. Watching these movies has helped me to visualise the sort of feel I want for my thriller opening as well as giving me ideas as to what I want my characters/sets to look like. Upon deciding a name for our thriller, the three of us looked on an online thesaurus for ideas in terms of a single word title. However after not being able to find a title through this method, we turned to researching mythology around possessions and stumbled across a demon named Lamia that preys on children, and as we had decided to have our films based a child being possessed, we thought this demon would be the perfect basis for our film, so we have decided to use this demons name for our title.