Evaluation

Evaluation

During the planning and production of the media product, myself and my group found ourselves with general appraisal and some slight criticisms to how the product looked as the final version. Throughout there have been many obstacles to overcome but I feel that they have all been for the benefit of making the media product as good as it can be.

My media product develops forms and conventions of real media products in a number of ways. Once the four pitch ideas were made my group and I decided to stick with the idea of suicide that appeared in each pitch. The reason being that we felt people of our age could relate to it and that we can show the characters thoughts and feelings in many ways aside from the most obvious form of crying and panic. The idea of the fast forward motion technique in the opening developed from The Bourne Supremacy as it showed time moving on. For our media project the technique showed how Lucy was isolated from other people which linked to the idea of her feeling alone with no one to talk to. It also gave the effect that so much is happening around one individual situation. I thought that a reoccurrence of the speeding up of time was common in action films in order to show the action taking place or the building up to the major event. As for the voice over at the start, many dramas use this technique to allow the audience insight into the characters true thoughts and feelings so that they feel involved and can form a sort of relationship with them.

The main social group my media product represents is teenagers. The opening highlights teenagers dealing with events in life being unable to cope. In a way it shows the stereotypical side of young teenagers thinking of the worst result to their situations and in the case of the film, suicide. The opening shows how a teenager can be oblivious to the surroundings around them when in actual fact lots of things are going on everyday, everywhere. This is why we decided to use the opening effect of speeding up time in order to emphasize how much actually does go on aside from an individual’s thoughts and feelings.

I think that my media product might be distributed by a Niche (independent) studio for many reasons. First of all, it would have a smaller release and the film is different yet unconventional. The reasons being that the opening of the film is diverse and not a common way to go straight into the film. Also the themes within the film are not related to everyday films that are shown therefore; it would not attract many people to watch as some people find dramatic realistic films quite difficult to watch as the subject matter of suicide is complex. On the other hand it could be distributed from a mainstream studio as the events within the film could appeal to an audience of females who can relate to the confusion and emotions shown of teenage life.

This leads me onto my next point of the target audience for the product. The preparation of the product included many aspects of research and one factor considered was the target audience. From the circulated questionnaires myself and my group were able to come up with a specific audience we would like our film to relate to. We concluded that our audience was to be both male and female between 15-25 years of age, as they could relate to the issue of suicide, pre and post to the event. To address the audience a series of different shots were used. I feel that the opening minute gives the audience a clue to the possible upcoming events and the main message to the film. The opening long shot worked really well as it showed the characters isolation and vulnerable side. Also the audience were able to see the characters full figure which also gave an idea of the setting and where the character had come from. I feel that the transitions to each shot relate to the audience as people from 15 upwards mature from their younger years therefore they see life in a different way, taking issues like suicide more seriously.

From constructing this product I have learnt a lot about the technologies. Firstly, I became familiar with the computer as trial runs were taken before the real editing began. It was fairly straightforward to import what was filmed onto the computers however; I feel that I need to learn how to be more patient with the process as a lot of time was needed in order for what was filmed to run through. In terms of the editing process I feel that I experimented with a wide range of transitions and effects. However, once a few were used I tried to limit the amount of additional effects that were used in order for the product to look unprofessional with a series of fade ins and outs. Consequently, the few that were used worked really well especially the fade in and out as it showed that time had passed from the previous clip of Lucy running away from the scene to her running into her house. If I was to edit another film I think that I would consider using different effects that are not commonly used in other products. Also to allow more time for the preparation of editing at the beginning I did not realise how much time was used for trying new things that were then discarded as they did not fit in well. Otherwise, I believe that the editing went really well especially as I was not very familiar to the Imac system.

Looking back at the preliminary task I feel that I have progressed a lot in terms of ideas, techniques suggested and skills on putting the product together. My previous task was at a beginner’s level and I simply experimented with many factors that did not necessarily meet the brief. However, from then I think I have come a long way with my technique and thought process in the technical side. The feedback from the preliminary task obtained from my teacher and other members of the audience enabled me to take the criticisms and turn them into successful points.

The main idea that has remained in my thoughts for the final product is that less is better and this has shown in my media product.

questionnaire- target audience

Story Board

Reflection of pre production process

So far in our production we have completed the planning of our project including the screen play, storyboard, schedule, pitches, synopsis and research (target audience and influences). At the start we began with the pitches and synopsis which went well. We all worked together on this part and included all of our ideas and thoughts on what would and wouldn’t work. From our collection of ideas we concluded with one pitch that we would use for our production. This was the actual suicide of Lucy Barker. From this we produced a synopsis for our film. This was successful and was a brief description of what was going to happen in our film with some background information.

Following these we produced a questionnaire in which we were going to use to research our target audience. We asked 15 people with questions including what aspects of a drama film they were interested in. the types of dramas they prefer? What their favourite drama is and what they would rate it on a scale of 1-10. From the research we were able to see what our typical audience would be in order to decide how we would film e.t.c to relate to our chosen audience.
With our influences we decided to use a PowerPoint to show how the films we had chosen were linked to our production and what aspects we were going to include or dismiss. The main film that influenced our pitch idea was Kidulthood. The similarities we found were the idea of suicide in which our character, struggling with difficulties in her life, leads herself to commit suicide. We were going to show what happened in her life that led her to the suicide. These included bullying at school and the stress of her home life. Our opening was going to end on her death.

Using the influences we began our first draft of the screen play. Once completed, we discussed our idea with our teacher and concluded that our opening was too much like a film with a beginning, middle and end. Therefore we had to adjust some minor things. Resulting in this we changed our synopsis and pitch idea to match what we came up with. We decided to leave the suicide to the rest of the film and show the characters feelings and actions in a slower process. This was long process and the alterations held us back a while as we had to go back and change factors before continuing. There is not much speech in our opening but we deliberately decided to do this in order to create tension and suspense of what was going to happen.

Once we changed our previous work to suit our final brief we continued onto the storyboard. As we were not at expressing our idea onto images we received help from an outside source. We had a series of shots that show the different camera angles we were going to use with the characters and positioning involved.

The timing used to complete all of the above tasks was not used as good as it could have been. Due to minor changes we had to make along the way we were slightly held back. However, once we were on task our group made progress and we now feel we are on the right tracks in producing a really good opening production, if all works how we planned.

Screen play

Screen Play-Anna, Maria, Chloe, Aisleigh
EXT: Lucy standing in the middle of the street holding a bunch of flowers.

Takes place during the day time

Crowd Laughing
BOY 1

“you alright Luc?”

“Lucy whats up?”

Lucy gets frustrated and hits him with the bunch of flowers (flowers begin to fall apart)

Lucy pushes past the crowd, while still holding the dismantled flowers and starts to run down the street

FADE OUT

FADE IN (slamming the house door as it fades back in)

INT: Lucy runs upstairs, while breathing heavily Lucy runs into the bathroom, slams the door and then locks it She looks in the mirror, still breathing heavily but begins to calm down
At this point she has tears running down her face and smudged make up everywhere Stares
At Herself Lucy wipes the tears away from her face, slowly opens the cupboard and runs the tap She then begins to rummage through the cupboard looking for pills and then finds them and fixates her eyes on them Lucy then picks up the pot, puts one in her hand and then places it up to her mouth

Black out-'6 months earlier'

END

Target Audience

Our film is based on drama and potentially real life situations. We thought it would be very useful to find out different people’s opinions on drama films and what kind of age range preferred them the most. For our target audience research, we conducted a questionnaire containing a series of questions that would enable us to see different people’s views on drama films. We started off the questionnaire with, how would you rate drama films on a scale of 1-10? We found that out of 15 people interviewed, 10 rated drama films as 6 or above (1 being the least, 10 being the most) and the majority of these people were sixth form students aged between 16 and 17. When asked about aspects and features in a drama film, basically everyone put things like violence, action and family and friend related problems, which is something we need to consider including in our film. Our next question presented a list of films such as Kidulthood/Adulthood, Casablanca, 8 Mile, Brief Encounter, Flight 93, Alpha Dog and The Godfather. These all relate to our project and we asked people to tick which ones they preferred the most. We found that Kidulthood/Adulthood was by far the most popular among teenagers and people from this age group. We thought this because its deals with realistic events and many teenagers can relate to it as things that happen in Kidulthood probably occur in every day life. This also helped in deciding what to use as our influences and inspiration. What would you expect to see in the opening to a drama? This question showed us that majority of people expected things such as the setting, some of the key characters and maybe a small bit of action to hint of what is to come later on in the film. Our next question asked was if they preferred films set in the past or present and most people said they preferred present day films. Our final question asked if they thought it was important to be introduced to the main character straight away and the majority of people thought that it wasn’t. All these answers are vital for how we should approach our films and what aspects should be included in it.

Pitch for our film.

For our project we can up with a serious of different ideas that we could pitch to enable our film to be the best it could be. All of our ideas are based on real life issues teenagers and young adults face in today’s society.

Pitch idea 1- Party scene
One of our ideas for our project was to show teenage life outside of school with friends and socially going out. Out main character throughout our ideas is Lucy Barker. The idea begins with Lucy getting ready for a party with her friends at her house. They are in her room with music playing in the background, putting on their make-up and having a good time laughing and enjoying themselves. There is then a fade from that scene cutting to them walking into the party greeting other friends. Lucy is a bit tipsy and gets close to a guy who flirts with her all night. Lucy is unaware that when this guy gets her a drink he spikes it and therefore accepts all the drinks he brings her as she thinks she can trust him. After that her vision is blurred and she passes out. The camera will ‘fall’ to the ground as Lucy does. Time passes and she wakes up in the house not feeling right. The following scenes (that we will not be filming) are about Lucy after this event trying to figure out what really happened and if justice is made.

Pitch idea 2- Bullying
Our second idea for our media coursework was to base it on the issue of bullying as this is a key problem many children have to deal with. We are going to have Lucy Barker at school, being approached by a group of intimidating teenage girls who make snide comments about the way she looks and just generally being abusive and nasty to her. This continues on more than one occasion and we see how the character changes from before and during the bullying. Lucy eventually reaches breaking point and results to drastic measures.

Pitch idea 3- Drugs
Our third idea was the concept of drugs and how many teenagers face problems with the issue of drug abuse. We wanted to show how the drugs affected the lives of those who use them and affect other people around them. The involvement of drugs in Lucy Barkers life is taking them through depression of being bullied and her disruptive family life. She feels that taking them is the only way of forgetting everything around her. When Lucy gets into the new crowd her friendship life is changing at the same time her family life is getting worse. The use of the drugs results to Lucy committing suicide. In this idea we linked the concept of bullying and changes to life.

Final pitch
Through our working ideas we came to a fourth pitch which is going to be our final pitch. It contains elements of realism which we extracted from the previous 3 ideas and implemented them into our final pitch; including stress, suicide, loss and bullying. We concluded out final pitch by looking at similar movies whose ideas we have taken a particular interest in.

Pitch 4- suicide
Lucy is a distressed young girl coping with the recent death of her mum. Lucy is locked in her bedroom accompanied by a bottle of pills and a pen and piece of paper on which her once hidden emotions and heartfelt feelings will be spilt. The scene as a whole will be quite distorted with flashbacks of herself and her troubles along the time frame leading up to her suicide. The final built up of Lucy’s death will be of her writing the last goodbyes on the letter and taking the pills which will lead to her eventual death.

Film Synopsis- Maria, Chloe, Anna, Aisleigh

A reconstruction of the attempted suicide of Lucy Baker, set in the heart of south east London at the present day. In the UK there are around 400 recorded suicides per year. An estimated 30%-50% is under-reported. Masked with smiles and laughter Lucy lives life day by day; surviving. Oblivious to those around her Lucy is trying to find an escape, an escape from her corrupt past, an escape from her deteriorating soul and an exit from the cruel society that tears her down. Lucy finds herself battling with the tragic events from her past, present and unknown future. Unable to cope with the recent death of her mum and ongoing bullying; she feels isolated and alone. At 15 years old Lucy is emotionally frail and socially unstable. Confused and morally broken she begins to break down from the moment she says goodbye. Each day since the death Lucy gets emotionally unstable. Running seems like the only way of escaping her harsh reality. Frantic, quivering and distressed Lucy can’t help but fiddle with the pills that are so temptingly beside her. “Who would have thought something so small can cause something so immense?” Familiar tears flow constant and Lucy’s fate is undecided. With no one to turn to or heal her pain Lucy results to the only thing that’ll answer her echoing question, “When will it end?” For some people-including Lucy, death seems like the easiest and quickest resolution for unhappiness. This story reflects the unacknowledged seriousness of teenagers in need of help from there pasts and troubles.

Practice assessment evaluation -13 steps!

For this practice assesment me, Chloe and Anna worked in a group together to produce a short film called "13 steps". The brief for the film included a door opening with someone walking across a room to deliever short dialogue with another character. The technical brief included the 180 degree rule, shot-reverse shot and match on action.
We rated our clips as well as the other groups from level 4 being excellent to N/A. Overall we rated our own work between level 3 and level 2 basic. Some of the other groups rated our clip in the level 4 excellent category however, i feel that it was not that high of a standard as we had not completed all of the set briefs. Although we had this outcome the majority of others were in agreement with us.

The main strength for us was the editing. We used a series of different transitions ranging from fades in and out to overlaping clips. A good example of this was at the end of the clip where Chloe was asked by myself "what do you have to say for yourself?" All she does is lift her head and the same footsteps from the opening are repeated faded in the background to the full clip of them. This gives a really good effect as it is as if the feet are her thoughts to that question.

A weakness of our work was that we did not include a shot reverse shot between the two characters in dialogue. When we had finished the practical filming we did not realise, until we were editing, that we didnt have the shot. However, if we had the chance to do this again or to make adjustments then this would definately be one key factor we altered.
As for the sound in our clip we used a voice over of the suspects thoughts as she walked into the interview room. This was rather effective as the audience were engaged in this moment of the clip and understood what was going on. The other part of sound we used was at the end of the clip for when the credits ran. We used an investigation theme tune to link with the genre of our clip.

Overall, i feel that the production was a success as one of our first practical assesments. We all worked really well together in a group and i am looking forward to our real practical assignment where we can use all our new and old skills to make it more professional and brilliant.

Practice Evaluation

Filming
Two weeks ago we were put into groups of about 6 and were given a video camera. Our task was to produce a short film with the title 'The Accident'. The short film that I and my group produced went very well. We all had our own ideas and used them all to make our film as good as we could. Individually I got to grips with how to use the video camera as I filmed the majority of the film. We filmed with a hand held camera, used many features such as zooming in and out and shots at different camera angles. Our scenes were basic but the techniques we used on the camera made the clip much more effective to the title of the project. In my opinion the reason why our first attempt was successful is because we all worked as a team and spent time before filming planning what we were going to do. For future production I have learnt that depending on the genre of the project there are specific features available- like using the camera hand half to create a jerky view for a horror film. Also that our individual ideas could work even better if joined with other ideas to produce a more professional clip.
Another type of filming that our group produced was the ‘pencil case ‘scene. The difference with this filming was that we used the tripod for the camera. The point of this task was to use different camera angles and see how they effect the filming. This worked really well and we used over the shoulder shots, birds eye shots, corner shots and close ups. We all worked together in a team and it went really well. for the future I will use of the camera angles we used to help me with my coursework project.

Editing
I especially enjoyed the editing part of our task on the Apple Mac computers. Once we filmed our video clip about the phone call we used the editing software to cut parts out that we thought were unnecessary, add transition effects, titles and credits. At first I found the software quite confusing to use however, the longer we used it the more I understood how to do edit the clip. For this task I felt that our team work was not as good as it could have been as I personally only used the mouse for a minute of two. If I had more time on the mouse I think I would have been able to understand how to use it much quicker than I did. On the other hand we all had input to what effects were used and the timing of the clip. Our finale piece, when show, was not at all what we expected to see. There were blackouts towards the end cutting out most of the scenes. What went well for this section of our practise assessment was the different effects we used that matched the different clips. However, what didn’t work so well were the amount of effects we used that complicated the film. Also we tried to explore all the effects that were available in putting them into our clip but personally it ruined the end result. From this task I have learnt some good tips to assist me in future editing:
-To keep the editing simple!
-if using transitions to use them for a particular effect or use one consistently
-To make tight edits
-Try to film as much footage as possible for editing options.

Sound
For the last part of the practice task we were producing a soundtrack to go with our short clips that we previously edited. I really enjoyed this part of the task because there are so many different things you can control from the tempo to the instruments and melodies used. it was really easy to use and mix instruments from base to orchestras instruments. From the sounds you use you can tell a lot about the film that is going to be shown whether it is a thriller or a romantic genre. As a team we worked really well on this part and all had a go at adding and moving the sections of sound around. We all had our own opinions on the different sounds available but came to a conclusion that suited all of our types. Individually I submitted ideas on the length of the sounds we used and also on using a low drum base all the way through with the sounds with more impact over the top.