Preliminary Task Evaluation

This is my Emaze that I have created in order to tell you about how me and my group prepared and completed our preliminary task. It includes an introduction, what the task was and how we set out to achieve it. We then include a production diary, the tasks we did and how we did them. It gives a detailed summary of our day to day actions in the stages of completing our preliminary task. After we discuss the diary entries, we then show a video and voice over of our story boards and planning sheets. This will help the reader to understand our planning, description and images and our ideas that we set out to do. We then discuss the risk assessments and analyse the potential hazards and harm, as well as the reducing risk level to an acceptable level and how we could control these measures. We then discuss the shooting schedule and how we set out to organise each shooting scene, location, characters and props and equipment. We then include a self evaluation, answering a variety of questions about what we could do better and what we think went well. I then go on to analyse the teacher and peer assessments, averaging the comments and giving a general overall description of the feedback we received. It is then finished with the final video of our preliminary task and edited video of You For You, created by Megan Thomas, Jono Mooney and Chloe O'Hare.

Audience

Films have a target audience of 16-24 year olds. Film companies believe people of this age will be most likely to go and watch the film and buy the dvd's. People of this age are most likely to go to the cinema and pay for a ticket. 

Uses of gratifications - all this means is to gain pleasure from the media, whether thats in the form of a film,a song or even on the TV programme.

We have also learn the acronym which is PIES
-Personal Identification
-Information
-Entertainment 
-Social Interaction

What do we mean when we use the word 'Film' ?

When someone uses the word film i think of a story or an event recorded through a camera. 

What do we mean when we use the word 'Movie' ?
When i hear the word movie i think of a professionally made film. 

What do we mean when we use the word 'Cinema' ?

A place to pay to visit to watch a film.

Top 10 Films (No particular order)

Lets Be Cops

Blindside 

Fast and Furious 7

Ted 2

Wolf of Wall Street

The Firm

Superbad

The Longest Yard

Waterboy
Horrible Bosses 2

How do you find out about a film?

I usually find out about a film through the advertisement in  TV ad breaks. Another way is through social media. This can have a huge influence on todays society as most people are on social media every day. 

What makes you want to see a film?

If I have seen a similar film with some of the same actors. Many people watch a film because they like the actors that act in it.

How do you know what to expect from a film?

The trailer is a huge giveaway usually. There is also hints such as the front cover, film poster and the title of the film.

What are you paying for when you buy a cinema ticket or buy/rent a film?

You are putting money into the cinema, the workers in the cinema and the film company.

Where do you watch films? At home? At the cinema?

I prefer to watch films at home rather than at the cinema, this way you can stretch out and do what ever. Its also a lot cheaper as you can  re-watch the film that you have. You also save alot of money as you don't have to pay for massively overpriced food and drink. 

Do you think that there are differences between watching a film in a cinema and watching it at home on a DVD? If you think there are, then what are they?

Sometimes, it depends on the film. Some films have a 3D effect on and in the cinema they really emphasize this and make everyone wear glasses to embrace this, you dont really get the same feeling at home. 

Are there some films that you HAVE to see at cinema or doesn't it matter?

Yes, there are some films that are a must see. For example the new bond films. This generation especially have grown up in what i believe to be the best bond era and the story is still developing and it only going to get better. I will 100% be going to watch the new one when it comes out. 

What do you understand from the word Industry?
From the word industry I think of all the different industries around the world. For example the music industry, sports industry, film industry and the car industry. 

Juno Evaluation

Evaluation of Juno

Our Juno shot was successful in my eyes, we worked well as a team and everyone had a job, we managed to note down everything on our storyboard that we needed to apart from a few minor details. We missed details such as the hand that Juno holds the orange juice in and the way she walks the wrong way down the alley. We were able to fix the fact that she walks the wrong way down the alley by adding the horizontal flip to the video, this means its almost like looking at it in  the mirror and it will be done the opposite way. We used this so we can get Juno walking from left to right in the wrongly shot footage to her walking right to left. This means it was like the original.  Another problem we had was the fact at some points we missed some of the actions Juno made. These included taking a sip of orange when she was walking. It didn't have a major effect to on the final production it just meant that we were missing little details. 

Our story board was as accurate as we could of hoped for. We didn't seem to miss any shots and we had the right camera angles in every shot. I will go into more detail in the story board section below this evaluation.

Within the group there was a many different strengths. Each person had a different strength, Alex worked the camera in this production and he offered many different skills to get the perfect shots and at the best quality. Millie managed to act superbly well and this meant we could have a serious actor to try and fit the character of Juno as well as possible. Spencer was a late addition to the group. As we had 4 people in our group it meant that not everyone had to do things at the same time. It would mean that one person is free to do any jobs that needed doing. For example when we got to the location to film it we realised that there was not SD card in the camera so Spencer had to run back to class to get one. My job within the group was to make sure everything that we needed was there, for example I had to go and get a guitar as we needed it as a prop. I also had to make sure that no one would interrupt the filming. 

We managed to get all the footage needed, we got quite lucky with some shots. We managed to get the van driving in the background of one of the shots, this is brilliant as it shows that we are trying to get it as close to the actual production as possible. 

Whilst editing I learnt many skills, I learnt how to get the cartoon effect on the footage. I also learnt how to do complete a horizontal flip, this can come in hand when we miss shoot certain scenes. It means that we can get the actor walking the other way across the camera. 

Clearly we couldn't get it identical to the actual Juno scene but we had all the right shots but two, we didn't have the exact effect that they had on the editing part but we tried and it came out really well and it was a good shot at a replica. 

Storyboard Evaluation

Story Board Evaluation. 

To start of this Juno editing task required us to watch the opening scene (the first 1min 5) of Juno. From there it was possible for us to derive a storyboard. This is the first storyboard that we needed to create for Media and we learnt alto from it I learnt that we can't just try and remember what needs to be done in the films its important that you write down the timings, the shot needed and the correct setting and props that you need for each picture in the story board. 


Below is the storyboard that we have created for the Juno Task. 

This story board then gave us a complete and detailed list of all the shots we needed and the framing necessary to film. It also gave us timings and the scenery. The idea of a storyboard is for a complete stranger to be able to pick up your story board and be able to film what you were going to. It needs to have every detail in the film. 

Punchin' Film Presentation

Film Pitch Presentation

First we got put into groups, then we randomly selected a genre and audience to make a pitch for out of the hat . We ended up with a 'romantic comedy' and the audience 'teenage boys'. In our film pitch, we spoke about the synopsis of the film, the characters and the actors we would like to play the roles, the location of the film, our target audience and how we altered the film to fit the target audience, our marketing ideas and our influences.

During our presentation, we were being peer assessed. Our classmates filled out a sheet of paper each, rating the different aspects of our film idea and giving comments on what we did well and how we could improve.

Some comments included:

"You have chosen and relevant and catchy film title"

"Interesting cast chosen to play each character - would need a very big budget"

"The narrative fits the genre well"

"The actors are perfect for their roles"

"Have included 'The Male Gaze' in order to appeal to their target audience, but the overall film may be more suited to girls"

"The film is different from other films of this genre"

"Could've included more visuals to make the presentation more fun to watch. Catered to the target audience"

"Not many enigma codes"

"Good range of advertising ideas"

Overall, I feel that our film idea was a success, even though there are improvements that could be made. I believe that our concept is different to other films and, with a bit more time and thought, we could have achieved a great film idea fitting the genre of Romantic Comedy and for the target audience of teenage boys.

Pete Fraser Talk

Pete Fraser Work

Today Pete Fraser 'The God of Media' from BFI in London came to talk to us and help guide us around our coursework and gave us tips on how to help improve films we make and showed us key mistakes other pupils have made in the past. I learnt many things from him and below are all the things he told us about and top tips on what to do and what not to do. Below are some of the tips he told us and what I learnt from him. 

He made sure to tell us that film openings are not trailers. Many students end up submitting trailers not film openings. If you do this you will end up loosing your effect of the viewer and it will result in you dropping marks in the marking scheme.

Below are key features for a film opening.

Below are some of the key features of the film opening.
- Genre
- Narrative
- Character
- Atmosphere
- Setting

His top tips for making a film opening 
- Start General
- Home in on specifics
- Make your research focused and relevant

He then went on to give us a handy website that is full of film openings. This will be very useful in the future and its a great website to have all of them in the same place.  The website was called  www.artofthetitle.com

Next he spoke about the titles. The names that fly up onto your screen either before or after the film has started. He explained several things I had no idea happen. For example that actors lawyers battle it out to see which actors name appears first in the title sequence. Actors who have their name solo are usually the biggest and most famous actors of the cast and they will play a lead role in the play. Having these names solo will hopefully attract more customers to watch your film. Titles flow through the opening to make sure people don't think that this is a trailer and that it is the actual film.

He then went onto explain about Foley. I again had no idea about this. Its someone recreating the sound needed. For example if there is a part where someone is walking and you can hear the foot steps some one will have recorded the sound of them and only them walking. This goes for several sounds and Pete explained how every noise made in the film that is not speech is made through this process.Below is Gary Hecker and he is doing some Foley for Robin Hood back in 2012.

Organising your project, doing this will help the project dramatically and being organised will mean that more will get done in a shorter time. 

Step 1

Take Stock- there are 20 marks available for the research and planing and for the evaluation of the project. Then there is 60 available for the construction of the video and the end product.

Some top tips for this- Build up research and planning

                                     Build up skills 

                                     Keep evidence whilst filming 

Step 2

Build up skills

Sound

Camera work

Editing

Step 3:

Investigation 

 Step 4:

Brainstorm ideas

Pitches

      Mood board

Feedback

Step 5:

Planning

Experimenting

Story board

Logistics

Step 6:

The shoot

People, places, props, costumes

Directing

Equipment, jobs that people need to do on the day

Step 7

Edit- Take screen shots of process of editing 

Step 8:

Evaluation

Sexist Film Poster

The Film Poster I have chose to anaylase the sexism in is Trainwreck. 

Pictured above is the film poster of my selected film. We can see that she is drinking but he isnt. This is a common occurrence in today's society. The man will try to get her drunk then he has a bigger chance of getting with her. From this poster we can also see that she is wearing a low cut top showing her boobs. This is a stereotype of a women on a night out. Not every women when they go out will wear a low cut revealing top. Another clue that shows us this is sexist is the positioning of the man behind her. The man in the background looks to be more responsible as he is dressed up in a suit wiht a disproving look on his face at this blonde lady binge drinking. The media have twisted this picture in various ways, its trying to say that this is your typical 'blonde girl' that is a dumb, wreckless and lacks intelligence and that all men are respectful and  not as reckless as the women.

Representation

In today's lesson the focus was representation in the media. We learnt about how characters, events and ideas are portrayed to the audience to make them feel a certain way. This is done by presenting different aspects of the media stereo typically.

Representation

The way in which people, events and ideas are presented to the audience. In terms of Media, representation is how the media takes something that is already there and represents it to us in the way that they choose, to make their audience feel a certain way about particular characters or themes. These representations are created by the producers of the film and the people who choose to present us with this are Gatekeepers. A Gatekeeper is any person involved in a media production with the power to make a decision about what the audience can hear, see, read and what they cannot see, hear or read.

Stereotype

Used in media because audience will instantly understand them. Stereotypes can also be referred to as 'Visual Short Cuts' to help understand the concept.

Archetypes

 'Ultimate Stereotype'. An example of an ultimate stereotype is a 'blonde bimbo typically in stilettos and well groomed with no common sense.

Counter type

A counter type is a representation that challenges traditional stereotypical associations, groups, people and places.

An example of a stereotypical French man vs an actual French man

Another example of stereotypical judgement are Arabic men. Below is a picture of an Arabic man vs a stereotypical portrayal of an Arabic