Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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

When I began to plan my preliminary task I only had a storyboard to go off when filming, but in the end I didn’t even use. As I didn’t use the planning I prepared it took me a lot longer to film because I was on my own as well as I didn’t have a plan to help me so it took me over double the amount of time it should have done. I learnt from my prelim task that before we began to film that we had planned, mind mapped and made sure we all knew exactly what we was doing when starting to film our opening sequence. I noticed the difference between shooting ‘Lola’ and shooting my prelim task because it took me around 2 hours to film all of my preliminary task and it took us 2 hours to film half of our footage for ‘Lola’ even though my prelim task was a lot shorter. This was all down to knowing what we needed to film at the right moment. I noticed that the footage we filmed was very similar to our story board and it helped us get the best quality of footage that we could. Even though we took some extra shots of the same shot we didn’t need to use the extra footage we filmed because our original footage was the best quality we could get. Whereas in my Preliminary task I feel like I should have taken more shots so I had a bigger variety of shots I could choose from the make the clip look professional and well thought out.

When I started editing my preliminary task the technology and apps were all new to me and it took me a lot longer to edit it on my own because I didn’t know what anything was used for. When we came to edit our final thriller we knew how it all worked, like sounds, cutting clips and knowing which shots we were going to use because we had a clear storyboard which we stuck to. The one thing that we didn’t do in the preliminary task which we included in our final piece was sound effects and non-diegetic sound. We didn’t use any noticeably fake effects that people would think straight away that they were added but we did use a track of music throughout the whole sequence which was very unnatural. This worked because the track was very freaky as well as it being very subtle and it worked with our narrative.

When editing ‘Lola’ we found out that choosing the right shots was the hardest part of the whole project because we took multiple shots of the same shot. We shot the film in 2 days, one day was in the bedroom and the second day was at the location both outside and inside (the stairs). We found this benefitted our film better than squeezing the whole film into one day because our biggest part of it was that we had plenty of natural light and because it’s in the winter season there isn’t much natural light.

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Q5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Our ambition to attract the audience was using different types of music that dragged out causing tension for the audience to keep them drawn into the scene as well as using a variety of shots and camera angles to keep the audience intrigued. We also made sure we didn’t show the face of the main character fully to create enigma for the audience and for them to carry on watching ‘to find out who she is and what she’s done’. Our group collected a few different pieces of feedback from people around the class, both female and male for different opinions to see what worked and what didn’t. We found out that the opening production title was the most common positive feedback we got back, we produced this using Adobe after effects. They said that it was ‘very professional looking’ and that because none of the other groups had a production title like ours it made it stand out and caught the audience’s attention. The only negative feedback we did get was not to show as much footage and information of the body.


Other positives we got were that the music worked really well with the theme and narrative and the laugh at the end creates the suspension for the audience, our audience said ‘It creates uneasy watching’ we thought this was good because we didn’t know whether this made the scene have a more horror feeling instead of it being a thriller. The audience also said that the colour theme of red with the nail varnish and red lipstick was a good aspect to add because it caused tension and mystery for them because red has connotations of danger and blood and because there was a body included in the scene it fits in well with the narrative. Our group put a lot of effort into our opening scene to make sure it looked like a professional thriller and by only having one lot of bad feedback made us happy knowing we were able to attract the audience and keep them intrigued and carry on watching.


To attract our specific audience which is young adults we did add the production logo because it was modern as well as having bright colours and effects to it to catch the attention of the audience to keep them watching. We also added girly aspects and modern life props to give the modern feel to the sequence because it will make the audience feel included if they know what the props are instead of having older props which people don’t know of or aren’t used anymore. We did use props like makeup and jewellery which are aimed at more of the female audience than the male audience but with having the body it keeps the male audience included.

Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

We looked into different themes and which type of themes would appeal to different age groups and we found out that thriller are mostly viewed by teenagers and young adults. So we then started making our thriller to fit in with young adults and suitable for teenagers to watch as well. We thought to target our thriller at teenagers (15+) because when carrying out our primary research we asked mostly teenagers and from the answers we got we felt like we adapted our thriller to suit the teenage age group whilst still letting young adults watching it because it’s 15+. This was a choice we made in a group to let as many age groups watch our thriller without limiting the viewers to only one target age group.

Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Question 3 from mollie ridgard

Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Lola - Final draft

Lola - Third Draft

Second Draft Feedback

Lola - Second Draft

Editing

Time Warp Entertainment

How to create a Vignette Effect

Whilst editing our thriller we decided to use a Vignette effect, we didn't know how to do it so we had to research and find a tutorial on Youtube to be able to make the effect work with the thriller we had already completed. We couldnt find a video that went with the programe we were using 'Adobe Premire Pro CS4' but we could only find a tutorial of how to add a Vignette Effect to 'Adobe Premire Pro CS6'. We ended up using this video to help us because it was easy to find all the folders we were looking for as they were all in the same place and it was a basic and easy to undertsand video.

First Draft Feedback

Lola - First Draft

Location Shots

Primary Audience Research Evaluation

Props

(Completed by Irena Mileva, Mollie Ridgard and Lucy Hickling)

Staircase Scene:

• Broken bottles
• Broken picture frame
• Flowers
• Vase
• Scarf
• Clothes/jewellery
• Anniversary Card

Bedroom Scene:

• Red lipstick
• Red nail varnish
• Clothes
• Earrings
• Perfume
• Rings
• Mascara
• Shoes

Filming schedule

Risk Assessment

Shot Plans

Narrative

Storyboard

Completed by Mollie Ridgard, Lucky Hickling and Irena Mileva

Costume

Done by Mollie

The scene when where we see Lauren’s clothing ‘is the morning after she came home from a date with the guy the night before and she has just attacked’. She will be getting ready in the morning by putting on her makeup and brushing her hair. We have decided to dress her in smart casual clothing so it looks like she is trying to look normal in everyday clothing as she doesn’t want to look suspicious. She will be wearing jeans with a smart top and no shoes to show she is still in the process of getting ready, this is to show she is trying to be an ordinary girl. 

Initial planning

Completed by Mollie, Lucy Hickling and Irena Mileva

Actors

Actors - post done by Mollie

Girl: Marisa Onorati, we chose Marisa because we needed a stereotypical ‘girly girl’ but also has the casual effect towards the audience. We need her to wear casual clothing but looking girly, this makes her suitable for the opening scene of our thriller because she will be putting lipstick on as well as brushing her hair but then it will pan to the body. At the start it will show us that she is an average teenager but then shows us the arm of the dead body then it will confuse the audience as they will think she is typically a good girl.

Dead body: Jordan Brightmore, we chose Jordan because we needed a masculine hand and arm which will be poking out from underneath the bed.

Questionnaire

Made by Irena Mileva

Fonts

Made by Irena Mileva

Mise-en-scene

Done by Lucy Hickling

The genre

A thriller can be stereotypically a novel, play or film that usually has an exciting plot that typically includes crime.

Preliminary - The Reveal

Evaluation

Overall I think that I did well in this task even though I was on my own and others were working in a group. My video doesn't have the best storyline but it worked with the type of actors I had and looked believable. Another weakness is that the editing isn't the best as I think I should have taken multiple shots of the same scene as I think I could have used better footage of the shot reverse shot with the speech between the two characters. I also think that during the first scene when she is walking up the stairs I think I could have turned down the diegetic sound lower than it is because it sounds screechy compared to the other clips and I think this is an aspect that brings down my video. I also think that the extra sound I have added at the end when the title comes on ‘boom’ is too late and the timing is off as the sounds comes on after the title as already risen. I think that if the sound and the title appeared on screen at the same time it would give off a better and more mysterious feel towards the audience and would make them intrigued to carry on watching.


The strengths of my video is that all the footage works together and I have added and inserted each scene in the right place and it flows and looks realistic which is a big part of making a video or part of a film because each scene or clip work together well with the next one and it all makes sense. Also my actors did a great job in following my plan of what I wanted to do and made the video look fantastic, they presented well thought out facial expressions which went really well with the theme of the narrative as well as making the scene look very believable.

Editing

When I came to begin editing I did find it difficult to put everything together and it took me a lot longer than others but I feel like I did a decent job on my own and it turned out better than I expected. It did take me a while to get use to using 'premiere pro' but I did in the end. Also I think that I used the right effects and transitions in the right places and it gave the finishing look to the video. When using ‘Premiere Pro’ I used different tools like the cutting tool which at first was very difficult to grasp but I got the hang of it. I also added music whilst still on premiere pro to make the video look professional especially at the end when the title came up and there was a boom with it.

Filming

I missed filming with my group so I had to film on my own. I found it easier when I was on my own rather than working in a group with other people because I felt like the actors listened to me more than they would if we was in a group and it was all my own ideas. I did find it difficult when thinking of different shots to use and how I could portray them to the audience, but in the end it turned out well and it all went together like the action match for example. I used a tripod throughout the whole clip because it was a lot easier to film as I used a pan a couple of times as well as doing still shots which wouldn’t have worked if I was filming without a tripod because the clips wouldn’t have look professional and they would have been very shaken. I positioned the camera in a few different positions but mostly in the 2 corners of the room so it’s an over shoulder shot throughout the conversation between both characters so we can see both the facial expressions of one and the body language of the other. During filming at the start I had very good natural light so we didn’t need to use any lighting equipment but once inside the dark room when the characters were sat behind the table we had to use quite a bit of the lighting equipment because the room was surrounded in black curtains which gave a very mysterious feel to the video but we then use artificial lighting which kept the dark feeling to the video but it brightened up the characters and the curtain. We used the lighting equipment because otherwise the clip would have been very dark, too dark to see all the props and the little aspects of the video.

Preliminary task - planning

Dialogue

Girl walking up the stairs and into the room

Sitting woman on chair

-I've got the results

-It's not good news

-You're lying, know you are

-Show me, show me.

Storyboard

Description

A woman is walking into a room where she hopefully finds out the results of a blood test which will then determines what happens for the rest of her life. It shows her kicking off as she didn't get the results she wanted which she then pushes everything off the desk on to the floor which is an action Match.