Evaluation

Now that we have finished our title sequence, I am going to write and overall complete evaluation commenting on things such as:

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

Our media product which in this case is a film or more specifically a horror film. The codes and conventions of horror films include:

Good Vs. Evil,

Victims are normally young and innocent,
Killer has a trademark,
The main character survives.#Often filmed in a dark and sinister place
Quick shots during editing
Dark music
Plot frequently involves death
Usually involves good and evil

Are film challenges a lot of the conventions listed above. First off our theme has very little of the good vs. evil theme as no one in our film is innocent the killer is not good, for obvious reasons, however his victims were not good either as they bullied the killer as a child verbally and physically because of his appearance to the point that he wants revenge. Linking to this point is the second convention as our victims are young, around 20 years old, but they are not innocent in the situation, for the reasons that I have stated above. The third convention, the killer has a trademark, this is true in our case in fact our killer has two trademarks, the first being his appearance, his face his horribly burnt and disfigured and also that he does not were a mask and he is completely open about his identity to his victims. The second trademark is the way he kills, he beheads his victims and burns their face so that they are burnt and disfigured like him. The fourth convention is also not true for our film as the main character, who is Damien and that in its self is unusual as the main character is usually a potential victim. But at the end with everyone that bullied him disfigured Damien kills himself by burning himself to death.   

Titles sequences must be done in a certain order.
Studio
Director
Cast
Crew
Editor
Writer
Producer
Director

 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film doesn’t really represent any social groups, nor was it really meant to, it is not true that every person who is disfigured or has been burnt and has been bullied for it would go and kill the bullies later in life. But I believe that there could potentially be a message for the bullies in there that if the tables were turned at it was you being bullied that you would feel the same way and want revenge, not to the extent shown in the film however. Damien is in no way supposed to represent disfigured people as a whole, he was just supposed to be shown as a young angry man wanting to get revenge on those who bullied him and made his life hell.

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

We decided that Hammer films would distribute our film because it is a British film company, and we wanted a British film not an American one, and because they specialise in making horror films. And because they specialise in making British horror films we thought that they were our best option as our film is both British and a horror film

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our film we decide would be rated 18 and this is because it would be a very graphic film with graphic imagery used after Damien is burnt and after the murders. However we do realise that just because a film has an eighteen rating that it will be viewed exclusively by people over the ages of 18. Also we decide that the film would be released on Halloween with a midnight screening, to add to the tension. With the timing of the release and the graphic images the film is really aimed at adult males probably between the ages of 18 and 35. The secondary audience is likely to be teenagers below eighteen but will see the film anyway.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The main actors and that we used in our film are:

Freddie Highmore--Young Damien

Shia LaBeouf—Older Damien

Alan Rickman—Damien’s Father

The reason we casted Freddie Highmore as young Damien is purely because he looks young and innocent, and that is what we wanted Damien to look like before he went through horrific injuries. Shia LaBeouf is cast as larger physical and can act quite darkly he is the complete opposite to Freddie who’s young and innocent compared to Shia who’s older and has a darker persona. We casted Alan Rickman because after the fire Damien’s father becomes and alcoholic and Alan can act like the scary, obnoxious rude person, similar to Snape who he played in Harry Potter. These actors could attract people as chances are people who fall in our target audience will probably be fans of series like Harry Potter and Transformers in which some of these actors star.  

Also the fact that oour title sequence is quite mysterious, and doesn't really reveal what he is actuallly goping to do, the fact that he is burning a school photo creates tension as he is cleraly a older teenager/man and the audience do not like to see children get hurt. And that could potentially happen

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

In this project I used tow technologies that I had never used before; those were Final cut pro and Garage Band. I had used other editing software such as iMovie but nothing as complex. We used Garage Band to make the song for our sequence we made the song completely from scratch and I think that it turned out well it really added something to the sequence it got tenser as the sequence went on. Although when we assigned roles Harj was supposed to be editing we all had a turn at editing, none of us had ever used final cut pro so it took us a while to get used to it but once we got the hang of it editing the sequence didn’t take us too long. Also this was the first time that I had ever blogged regularly, I think that it is a good way to keep up with what you are doing and also it is good type way to show who has done what in the group.     

Since my continuity sequnce i have learned many things. Firstly in the continuity sequence we broke the 180 degree rule, and also the editing wasn't great, however i felt that we learnt from these expieriences, and overall it meant that our title seqwunce came out better than it woudl have been originally.




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


In this task I have definitely improved my editing skills have learned to use final cut pro and have improved my knowledge with garage band. Also I have learned that the most complicated idea is definitely not the best thing to do. Our title sequence was quite complicated and as a result did not turn out as good as it could have done, a simpler idea would have been easier to film and to edit, the most complicated ideas take so much more work to film and try to get right that in the future it is probably easier to settle on an easier idea.   

Journal--- Week 10

This week we mainly focused on blogging and adding the final touches to our sequence and writing our final evaluations for the piece before we start our exam preperation. This will be my las Journal post as it is the final week that we are wroking on our sequences, howevr i'm still going to post the title sequence my thoughts on it and my evaluation.

Location 5

This is another location that we considered it is james' house once again permission wasn't granted so we used my garden

Location 4

This is the 4th location we considered it is James nans house, but we had the same problem getting permission so we didn't use it

Location 3

This is the 3rd location that we considered it is Harj's house it was better than my house in many senses of the garden being bigger and cleaner however we couldn't use it as we couldn't get permission from his parents.

Location 2

This is the second locatio that we considered, it's oxleas woods. but we would have had to have taken all our props there got permission from the council and the local houseowners and there was the danger of the fire burning the whole woods down.

Location 1

Thsi is the first location that we considered, it was the eventual location that we used. it is my Garden. the reason that we used my garden is that we got permission and our other locations were worried about giving us permission, and because we could get good shots of the sky from different angles and people commented on how much they liked that first shot.

Group Evaluation

In this post i will talk about my group members and what they contributed to the group.

Aaron (Me)

At the start i was supposed to be directing the sequence and i did for the first shoot, however we decided to reshoot the whole thing and James Mills couldn't make the second shoot so i acted in it, and me and Harj co-directed. for the 3rd and final shot James did direct, so we all had a go at directing.  I believe that i was helpful to the group i had a go at everything and i tried to help anyway i could. Also i designed the promotional poster that we created. the only thing that i did wrong was that on the day we showed our first draft to the class i was not in, so Harj and James had to present it.

Harj

Harj was the cameraman as well as the editor, we all had a go at editing but in the main it was Harj who did the editing. Harj started out at a disadvantage to the rest of our group as he had never done media before, however he picked it up very easily and was quite easy to work with. he didn't do any work in front of the camera but he did a lot of work behind it. the only thing that Harj did wrong was that we had to reschedule a shoot around him because he went to Birmingham

James

James had a go at everything he would have preferred to be in front of the camera, however because he missed a shoot that was not really an option, he directed and was very commanding he told us baht he wanted, and i think that this helped with the shots we got and eventually the overall title sequence. the one thing that James did wrong was that he missed a shoot.    

journal-- Week 9

This week we finished our title sequence, we finished editing it and tidying it up. we are happy with it we made the changes suggested to us and just cleaned up the cuts. we all decided that we were finished editing and we had got to a point where if we added anything else to it that it would not really add anything to the title sequence and would be a waste of time.

What could be improved

As we have nearly finished our title sequence, i'm going to talk about what i would change if i had the chance to do it again. firstly i really like our title sequence but it was a lot harder to film than i, and all my group imagined. so i would probably choose something easier to film. but regarding the footage that we do have i would have paid more attention to the lighting as we originally planned to film at night but it was too dark to see, but thinking about we could have used a torch to create light even at night. also i would have started filming earlier as we had 3 separate shoots and by the end it became a bit of a rush especially with the editing.

journal-- Week 8

This week we made the changes to the title sequence that had been suggested via the feedback sheets, we tidied up the cuts between shots matched up the titles with the paper, and changed the actors that people thought were strange casting we matched the song up, all in all we have just started to tidy it up we are not yet finished but will be by the time i do my next journal post.  

Feedback

Of the 12 feedback sheets that were filled out for us the majority gave us 2 out of 3 stars, (it has potential). 9 of the 12 groups thought our work had potential. whilst the other 3 gave it only one star, (in need of serious work). No one gave us 3 stars, however we didn't really expect any 3 stars as we knew that we still had some work to do and because it was the only the first draft that we were showing.

A lot of people liked the camera angles that we used and the opening shot, a lot of people also liked the typography that we used and liked the idea of the paper and the titles however they feel that it could have been executed better. they also liked the the opening titles created an enigma- who was the character? what is he doing? and why?

The things that people feel that we need to work on our. smoother transitions between the shots, something we were aware that we needed to work on anyway. some people dislike the typography, that we have changed. some people also disliked the fact that we only used one location but we were also going to so that was not a problem for us. people are also saying that the casting was strange but that can be changed if we decide to by just changing the names shown in the sequence

Journal-- Week 7

This week we finished editing our first draft of our title sequence and showed it to the class and shaun. They filled out feedback sheets that gave the their opinions on the sequence, i will post the feedback in a later post,  but mostly the feedback was positive although their is a few changes that we have to make. we have to take Clint Eastwood out of our film, but we will replace him with Alan Rickman. We are all reasonably happy with the sequence and after the changes are made we will be happy with what we have  

Journal-- Week 6

This week we continued to edit are title sequence and i think that it is looking good. we are having trouble adding the song to the sequence as it says that we need to update our version of garage band, but apart for that the editing is coming along ok. this week we also filmed that we thought that we were missing.  On the re-shoot it snowed however it was not visible to the people that we showed to the people it was unnoticeable.  This will be our last re-shoot as we are happy with the things we have.

My Contribution To The Group

The things that i have contributed to the is that io acted in the title sequence, i was not supposed to originally be doing this but we deciedesd that we and james would swap roles and he would direct, also i helped to edit the title sequence however admitidly Harj did the majority of the editing. i also did alot of the research i found the production company that we would use and created our HARJ productions logo. and also the Damien poster was created by me.

Journal-- Week 5

This week we re-filmed our titler sequence as i previously mentioned the fotage was to dark. to avoid this problem again we filmed at a different time of the day. whereas before we filmed after school at sunset we decided to film at sunrise as their was a higher amount of natural light making the footage much clearer and more visible than it was before. However when we began to edit we realised that we needed to add in some more shots we have started to edit what we have and are working out what shots we need before going to the reshoot. and we have also discovered that the voiceover does not fit as we had hoped so we qwill not be using it .

Journal-- Week 4

This week we filmed our title sequence and we planned on starting to edit it. However on Friday, 20th January we filmed our title sequence. the footage seemed fine to us and it looked alright on the camera, however when we uploaded to the macs, it was too dark and the footage was not really visible. so we have decided to re-schedule the shoot, for the Tuesday the 25th of January. This means that we could not begin to edit, we however decided to film our voiceover instead. Once the sequence is shot to an acceptable standard then we can begin to add the affects the song and the voiceover.

VoiceOver Script

In our title sequence we have decided to have both a voiceover and music, we are making the music ourselves and have also written a script for the sequence.

Fire is destructive… Fire destroys… Fire burns the flesh… and the soul… it takes away everything you hold dear… it can’t be controlled… it can never be stopped…  A monster born from the flames… The flames around may long have perished… but the fire still burns deep within… And it can’t be stopped… until it has consumed everything in its path

Bonfire Safety

Seen as we are starting a fire for our coursework, we found out some basic safety rules.

Bonfire safety tips

Once the bonfire is lit, make sure you:

• keep a bucket of water or a garden hose nearby - in case of emergencies
• don’t leave the bonfire unattended
• keep children and pets away from the bonfire
• don’t throw any fireworks into the fire
• don't burn aerosols, tyres, canisters or anything containing foam or paint - many produce toxic fumes and some containers may explode, causing injury

Once the bonfire has died down, spray the embers with water to stop it reigniting.

Schedule Change

We have decided to change the date that we are going to film from Friday 13th january to Friday 20th. This is because Harj couldn't make it and also we were not fully prepared with all the props that we need. Harj has a party in Birmingham, apparently. We need to find a way to buy or make fake burns that we will put on James' face so it looks like he has been burnt. We will still film at the same time of around of 4pm as this is the time that the sun sets and it needs to be getting dark but not pitch black as we need to be able to film.