Part 8 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Strengths:
Creativity-

• The overall success of my preliminary task for the continuity editing exercise was the use of mine and my partner’s creativity, as we led the audience into believing that the girl wanted to desperately tell her mother something very important.
• At this stage we created flash backs to show what the mother thought happened to her daughter for her to be so worried as to telling her(either she was pregnant or she had been attacked) This then created a false answer to the audience as we then revelled at the end that she had just broke the toilet chain.
•  We wanted it to be comical but yet wanted it to be much dramatized and so that’s why i added the slow motion reaction at the end to make it funny.

Digital Technology-

• As it was the first time using all the camera equipment me and my partner was a bit shy to begin with however we got the hand of it very quickly and began doing different shots like 'match on action' where we had the girl opening the door and entering the bathroom.
• This was very successful as we got the transitions for the 'match on action' very tighta and it looked really believable and looked really good!
• Also another match on actin shot we used was when the girl walked done a shot from the front of her and from the back of her and then mixed the two up to create two different shots. 

Post production-

• For post production i feel that the editing was very successful as we made sure all of our tranitions from one shot to the other was spot on as we didnt want any jump cuts etc...
• Another success was that my evalutation was very detailed yet to the point and i think i did really well with it!

Weeknesses:
Digital Technology

• The least successful for this was at one stage i used hand held as I shot a close up of Laura's eyes as she was crying. As it was my first time doing handheld i was a but shakey and so i decided to add an effect to cover it up so that it didnt look very obvious.

Post Production-

• Personally i feel the least successful stage for this for our continuity exercise was as i added in different effects for example slow motion to go into a flash back a strange loud noise appeared interfering with the sound as the girl says "She's going to kill me" in order to change this we had to take the sound of the girl out and make the volume louder then re-add it back into our piece.
•  It worked however it still left a slight muffled sound. 

Research and Planning-

• Least successful for this was that I dont feel personally that i made alot of detailed research as it was my very first task.

Improvements:
Digital Technology-

• I feel that i have improved immensely on a lot of my mistakes during my preliminary task compared to my British Social Realism opening sequence task. This is because i was more comfortable and experienced with the entire camera equipment, and therefore i was able to learn and adapt more.
• This therefore then enabled me to play around more with different shots and shot types for example i used a lot of 'point of view' shots as it went well with my genre/theme.

Creativity-

• All the above links with my creativity as i was able to have more freedom with how and what i wanted my film to be about.

Post Production-

• I improved on the use of Foley sound which we added in through our editing stages. We did this because we needed some sort of rattling key noise's to be happening in order to make Megan’s sister come and open the door.
• Also we needed the sound of keys dropping to the floor as Megan does when she falls through the door. We did so by using a voice recorder/microphone and recorded the sounds our self and added them in and i think it worked extremely well as we learnt from our mistakes in our preliminary task and made sure it didn’t happen again!
• Another thing we improved on was the use of background noises; we totally eliminated most background noises for most shots as we wanted to hear the music instead. However at stages we wanted to hear the music and the noises and so we just turned the adjusted the music on the volume and the same with the noises and we could hear both!

Research and Planning-

• I improved immesely hear as I made sure I did enough planning and research in order for it to help me in the long run, and indeed I did.
• All my planning and research was very detailed and very helpful as it enabled me to finally decide what i wanted my film to be about and what types of conventions i wanted to use for it!

Part 7 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Technology Used Chart- Part 7, Final Copy!

I think the most successful part for this technology was using the cameras for different shot types, also the microphone to create our foley sounds as i think it worked really well and you cant even tell we added it on at the end. Also the editing, using the imacs as i think out cuts and edits are very strong! They are very tight and shots such as 'match on action' really works well as it is well edited!

I think the least successful part for this technology was at the beginning of our piece when we started filming for the first time our shots were far too quick and so we had to go and reshoot all of them again which took up alot of our time as we had only about 1-2 days of filming left till it had to be completely finished!

From doing all this i have learnt an awful lot about the researching and the planning that goes into the making of a film, which is that the production part could not have been executed without doing all that hard work first. Reasons for this is because a lot of detailed research needs to have gone in before you can understand truly what British Social Realism films consist of, and also alot of planning needs to be done as you need to have a basic conventions of what genre/theme you want your film to be. Its a very difficult process the making of a film and we only produced the opening sequence which was tough, however I feel that me and my partner have done a very good job and have finished with a very good opening sequence along with detailed research and planning!!

Part 6 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Part 5 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation – part 5

Part 4- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Part 3- What impact did the media institution Film4 have on each production stage and why?

Evaluation Part 3

Part 2 - Who would be the audience for your product?

Part 1 - Evaluation Of 'Megan's Story' Opening Sequence

Summary...

This year my aim was to make a new British Social Realist Film aimed at British 16-24 year olds. Me and my partner Laura had to produce the first two minutes of a film providing a clear sense of the graphical, editing and musical style that our film will be using. Within these two minutes we had to conform to the conventions of the Social Realist genre, and meet all audience expectations for this type of film.

The title of our opening sequence is 'Megan's Story', firstly this was a working title but as we got editing we began to really connect with it as we felt our opening sequence really is all about 'Megan's Story'. We feel that although it is very plain it is very informing and shows British Social Realism. It also connotes the films genre and tells us that Megan is the protagonist of the film as its all about her struggles. Also as Megan is an ordinary name we thought it would be perfect having it as the title as the whole film is based on 'Megan's Story' and it really gets the message across simple and effective! The themes this film explores are,

• Death
• Family and,
• Alcholism

A brief summary for our opening sequence is that Megan has just recently lost her father and therefore is forced to move home. Megan had to move schools and make new friends. Unfortunately Megan began hanging around with the wrong type of crowd as they influenced her to start drinking. This led Megan into coming home most nights drunk in order to try and hide her vulnerability from her friends and family. When one night her sister who was very worried began letting Megan know how disappointed her father would be if he were still here.

http://leannesands93.blogspot.com/2011/03/draft-treatment.html

^^^^^^^^Hear is a link to my treatment!!^^^^^^

Our film explore British social Realism in many ways as we have used all real locations, everyday casual clothes, and obvious props like for example.. the vodka bottle!

Production Log - week 10

Week 10

Our opening sequence music

Our Music


This is the link to the website we used for our opening sequence - copy right free.


http://www.freeplaymusic.com/

Production Log - Week 9

Week 9

Our Final Opening Sequence

Megan's Story