The Forgotten

Thank you

Dear Moderator,
Thank you for taking your time to follow my blog and growth as a media student. I hope you enjoy this and the experience of watching 'LOOKOUT PRODUCTIONS' opening sequence. I have really enjoyed the course and considering its variety I have learnt, understood and developed many skills that will aid me in the future.

Yours Sincerely,

Dawn Cope 

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

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Question 7
Here's our written answer:

Patrycja 

Dawn

For me, the preliminary was a base for building on and learning new skills. I feel I have grasped various planning, filming, and editing techniques, and I'm sure these skills will be improved during the Final Production filming.

Looking back at the Preliminary task I have realised that we did our best for the first time of filming that we have done. I personally think that we followed, used and obeyed shot reverse shot, 180-degree rule and match on action in order to make the video successful and interesting. By doing the Preliminary task I have understood that without research and planning, it is quite hard to film as you do not know what your filming and make it harder for yourself to achieve the criteria. Things like the storyboard and the script are really useful and should be used as they help the director to lead the actors and tell them what to do next and what to say. While working with my group it was really hard as we all had different ideas that did not quite match together. After having few meetings our conclusion was to try and combine ideas together and come up with one, which then made it easier for us to start the filming as soon as possible. I have learnt that the research and planning is one of the most important part of constructing the video as there needs to be a narrative to the story that makes sense but also all the other things such as shot list and concept to make it easy to direct while filming.

I can see that the planning is crucial in creating a smooth production process. The research is a very important part of this, without it I wouldn't have appreciated the effects of shots, the group meetings and the intricate process behind a clip of film. Any production needs shot ideas, shot lists, storyboards and scripts; without them the filming would become a complete mess and be time consuming whilst sifting through every single shot to find the right one, there would be confusion within a company which could lead to disagreements, and the post production would become cluttered - needing a thorough review on what to keep; which might lead to re-filming. The group meetings were essential to make sure everyone understood what stage they and others were at in the making of the preliminary. When it came to the full product, ‘LOOKOUT PRODUCTIONS’ group meetings were so much better compared to our Preliminary groups meetings. They became far more detailed thanks to the practice we had with the preliminary.

Our group needed to re-film for the Preliminary because, in our ignorance, we didn't put enough effort into planning or our group meetings, meaning many important areas weren't taken into consideration; weather, filming time, continuity, space, surroundings. The weather was sunny and the next day it was raining, we didn’t plan ahead in order to stop us from re-filming again; we had to rush our filming because of the time waited and lack of planning. This mistake helped me realize how essential planning is needed for filming and when it came to our real media product I planned the days that I could film, if the weather was appropriate, what times in the day to start, when to finish and how long the shots should take. Without the Preliminary mistakes I may have made this type of mistake for the real media product, which would have heavily impacted our company’s production of ‘The Forgotten’.

When constructing the preliminary task we realised that sharing roles is also important, as one person cannot be responsible for everything. Our group has decided to make each person responsible for something e.g. Patrycja doing editing with Veronikas help, Dawn filming and doing the script, Anna and Veronika as actors, Anna and Patrycja doing storyboard. This way we makes things even around the group and everyone can get equal marks for constructing the preliminary task and the final production.

The script and story board were keys for communication in the group, as they stated what order the shots would be in, where the camera would be, what shot type, what the actor would be saying at the time, they would also display continuity, how long the shot should last etc; aiding the groups understanding of the production as a whole – helping everyone understand where the production was going and what to do. Creating the script and storyboard for the preliminary was great practice for our real media product because it was a starting point to improve my skills. When I revisited my skills for the Preliminary, I realized that the filming and script were very basic compared to our final production. I have greatly improved my filming and camera techniques with more practice and a wider understanding of shot types, camera, tripod positions and practicality of filming. This process also challenged our communication skills when working as a group, not everyone would agree with each other’s ideas, having differing opinions. This prepared me for our opening sequence productions meetings because we had to make a product that appealed to both of our interests; which promoted our teamwork and collaboration.

Preliminary task was really easy to construct as it did not have to be long and it was a simple story of someone walking in and having a chat with the other person (the brief). While doing the preliminary task we realised that we have not used variety of shots, kept some of the shots too long-which made it boring for the audience to look at, the sound was not clear and some of the shots were not good which made it hard to put together when editing. The task also helped us to find out what logic pro and premier pro is all about, as we had to use it in order to put the clips together. From there it was much easier to construct the final piece as we already had some experience from doing the preliminary task.

Although I wasn’t as involved in editing the clips together in both the Preliminary and final, I have a greater understanding of editing, how to move clips, merge them together, using ‘cross-dissolve’ or ‘fade-to-black’ to transition clips and the ‘echo’ effect to make a clip seem distorted. Whilst filming I began to plan for Patrycja, the editor, and take into consideration the techniques that could be used on shots or filmed more shots to provide her with more material. Concerning the final product, I can see improvements that we could make. We could introduce the characters faster and in more depth through more variety of camera shots and angles. We could make it more suspenseful through the introduction of the characters, possibly involving a flash back to display short scenes of the female characters back-story.

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

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 Question 6

Here's our written answer:

Patrycja

Dawn

In editing I have learnt that in order to make everything work together I need to know the features of premier pro. Doing the preliminary task allowed to learn the basics of premier pro such as how to import a file, how to change the size of the file and overwrite it to the timeline, how to add titles and how to add effects and transitions for both videos as well as audio. When constructing the final piece I have learnt many more features but not only learning how to apply them onto the clips and sound but also what are each of them used for e.g. effects in order to change the look of the video into something new and make it different than just colorful, transitions to change from one clip to the other smoothly.

The whole editing process was hard as it included a lot more features from adding titles which was the easiest part to exporting the video clip to a media file which was much harder as you have to know what media file to choose so that it works on every computer. Adding titles was quite easy as you only had to look for a button at the top bar that says new title, however if you wanted to make changes to the title it would be much harder to find the options to do this. I really enjoyed editing the final video as it allowed me to learn new things that can be done with premier pro for future use. I also learnt the basics of logic pro and how to import the file from logic pro onto the premier pro. Making the sound was much harder for me, so Dawn and I decided to make it even and I did the editing and she did the sound. We also decided to try different things, so I tried to do some sound which was going really well until I didn’t know how to find the sound that I want and were to put it. We helped each other all the way through constructing the product as we made equal decisions and agreed on things together.

Although I wasn’t really involved in editing as much as Patrycja was, I edited one clip on my own – we had called it a day and an idea came to my mind to make the mid shot of our female character more interesting. We had previously found it difficult to edit this clip in smoothly. I began by adding cross-dissolves on the beginning and end of the clip through ‘video transitions’ and ‘dissolves’ to help with smoothness. Then I went to ‘video effects’, ‘distort’ and added a ‘timing’ effect on the entire clip; this didn’t affect the cross-dissolves. I when on the ‘effect control’ panel and used the ‘echo effect’ to make the female character seem like a distortion in time – suggesting that she’s a ghost. When I showed this to Patrycja she really liked it and we both agreed to keep it in our opening sequence. Despite my lack of experimentation with editing, whenever I watched Patrycja as we were sorting out the non-diagetic and diagetic sounds I took onboard what she was doing and this helped me understand and appreciate editing using Premier Pro.

Camera work is one of the most important parts of the production process because without the filming we wouldn’t have anything to edit to make our opening sequence.

We started off with using a camera and a tripod in order to film. We got to know all the features starting from how to switch a camera on, how to zoom, how to watch the certain clip, how to open up the lances and how to take pictures using the camera. The weather was one of the biggest issues as it stopped us from filming because it was snowing and we didn’t want the camera to get damaged, so we had to wait few days in order to film again and match out pathetic fallacy that we wanted. Operating the tripod was not that bad as we have done it before for preliminary task. I learnt how to pan using the tripod so that it is smooth, how to make the tripod bigger and how the tripod needs to be placed in order to have straight shots.

For filming I learnt the basics first; turning on the camera, charging it, zooming in and out, recording, reviewing and deleting videos and of course taking pictures (examples). It was relatively easy learning these things; it took about 20 minutes to experiment with the camera to discover how to use it. I even found that there are special effects that can be used when recording or taking a picture, like having a frame around the screen. However, the main challenge was learning the correct way to shoot a shot with the tripod. Panning is a prime example, it can’t be done handheld, unlike a POV shot, and it must be shot on the tripod to get the correct levels and turning speed. It also depends what kind of panning is required, a high or lower angled position to be specific. During the filming, I did many pans, two of which we used in our production. The first being of the street at night having the neon ‘CAMDENLOCK’ sign. I needed to level the tripod with the floor and make sure the camera was attached and secure to the tripod so it wouldn’t wobble or be a wonky clip. This shot had to be repeated because I found it very hard to have a smooth turn with the PAN. The second being on a balcony – getting a higher shot of the street. The tripod had to be at its maximum height, I needed to have the legs extended and wind up the camera to gain the right height, then I put the legs of it together and began recording. I realized that I couldn’t turn it too slowly or too fast because it would result in a shaky picture. This particular shot’s pan was not used because it was too unstable, yet we used the ending as a nice establishing shot of the area. I’ve learnt that practicing the pan shot is very useful because it requires a steady hand in order to get the smoothest turn and can help with developing other shots.
Learning the 180-degree rule was initially quite difficult because we always had to bear in mind the position of the characters and camera in order to maintain this rule. During filming it took us a while to use the 180-degree rule because of the continuity we also needed to constantly obey the rule in order to make our narrative more realistic. It helped me realise that allot of time goes into filming, even in just a few shots.

Shot reverse shot or match-on-action helps the flow of a conversation seem more believable because it displays the exchange between the characters. It can also happen before a POV shot to reveal who’s POV the audience are seeing; which can be broken to create mystery or suspense as an audience don’t know who’s POV they are seeing. In filming we incorporated match-on-action without a conversation exchange between the characters; in order to maintain the suspense through the lack of conversation. The over-the-shoulder-shot with our male character walking by the female, was very difficult to frame. This was because I needed to ensure the tripod’s legs were evenly lengthened, I had to check the… to see if the camera was level, then I had to make sure the framing was good enough to fit both characters heads in. This one shot took so long to shoot and I needed to do a few takes to save filming it again.

I found out that I couldn’t record and zoom in on a character because the zoom affected the focus on the camera and blurred the image. The zoom was very useful when framing the shots, it helped me experiment with how a shot could be taken, what significant details could be focused on in a clip etc. But it’s not just about how to use the camera, although it does play a very important part, it’s also about timing, especially concerning the weather. One weekend it was snowing which prevented us from filming – I’m glad we didn’t because harsh weather conditions like snow could have really damaged or affected the equipment. The following weekend I had planned to film and was prepared to film in the rain; making sure I was dressed warmly and in water proofs, along with a large umbrella to cover the camera from the rain. I wanted to get most or all of the filming done on that day, basically every shot without the characters to make the filming process faster; less people with you make fewer distractions. I filmed all that day but kept needing to charge the camera. I learnt that the cameras don’t have a long life-time when off the charger and charging them should happen on a regular basis.

Sound is the thing that I know least about, I know few bits such as bouncing the sound off and overlapping different sounds together in editing but Dawn is more knowledgeable with that.

The making of the sound and editing of it, using Logic Pro and Premier Pro, played an important role in the construction of our final product. There’s a large variety of sounds concerning different sections/groups like ‘strings’, ‘guitar’ and ‘electronic’ to choose from; the sounds I used from Logic Pro were loops on the program that had already been made. I spent hours searching through the loops to find ones that would work well with our genre and the camera shots. I searched for keywords on the search bar in Logic, like ‘abstract’ and ‘violin’, to narrow down the list of sounds I had to go through. Once I’d found the sounds I’d click and drag the loops onto the grid in separate rows – these rows would automatically be named as the loop I’d placed in the row and would follow the preferred sound settings for each loop. This was very useful because the similar sounds, like violins, could also join that row and loop, allowing me to experiment with different compositions until I found the right one and until Patrycja had agreed with me. After experimenting with a group of loops, by dragging them underneath each other and making sure the sounds joined at the right timing, I selected the compellation, clicked ‘file’, ‘export’, ‘as audio file’ and put the mp3 on my USB to give to Patrycja. I learnt how to merge and construct unique compositions that suited our genre and I also became more familiar with Logic Pro as I composed. Using audio transitions and adding the sounds and sound effects I’d merged together onto Premier Pro was really exciting because both Patrycja and I would listen and make sure the timing was near enough perfect to finish each clip. I was very particular where the sounds would go, whether or not the sound needed an audio transition, it could cut in too sharp or was too harsh a sound for the audience, and in that case we’d need to lower the volume of it on the clip through Premier Pro. An issue with the non-diagetic sound was that it didn’t cover up the diagetic sound on the shots. During the shots with our male and female character I had added a sound to Premier Pro and directed Patrycja with where to place it, the build-up in non-diagetic sound merged with the diagetic sirens and ended our opening sequence. Watching and listening to this makes it seem like an easy process. However, this particular sound was such a challenge because we needed to overlap the diagetic sounds from the clips to have continuity in the clips and then add and get the right timing with the non-diagetic build-up. I’d say it was one of the hardest sounds to do because each split second made such a difference. I enjoyed it because it challenged our own skills and knowledge of the programs, making us really push ourselves to get a good outcome – let alone perfect you know.

The handy part of being in charge of both sound and camera was that I had an idea of what sounds could be used during filming, made note and searched for them in Logic Pro; which gave me a broader understanding of what sound would be appropriate for .

Blogging was one of the most important areas that we needed to focus on throughout the whole process of constructing the final product as we uploaded every little piece of research and planning towards the final production, the whole process of constructing on how it was made and why we made it like that and not a different way. The evaluation of the product which was also uploaded on blogs- allowed us to get some feedback from teachers and friends in order to find out what we did well and what we needed to make better next time. The technologies that we had to face with were actually making a blog, which was quite easy to do as it’s about ourselves, which we already know about. The other little pieces that we had to focus on was converting files, importing images and videos to the posts, editing the posts and commenting and following each others blogs but also other websites that are useful.

The blog was an extremely useful tool to document my progress, along the way I’ve found how to make a blogging experience easier through various gadgets and how to get files onto posts. Before adding sound or video clips to posts, I had to convert the content into either audio or video files, (mp3s & mp4s); this included editing the content using Premier Pro which wasn’t my strong point but I improved more as I practiced. After I’d done this I’d click on the image or video symbol in a post and choose the files and import them. Sometimes I had to do this repeatedly because Blogger still has glitches concerning uploading videos. I also learnt how to edit previous posts for grammar or spelling mistakes and comment on others blogs too. Concerning the format of my blog, I added gadgets to make it more organized and easier to use. I added, ‘Total Pageviews’ which showed how many views my blog has, ‘Search This Blog’ for people to write in a keyword to access posts easier, ‘Translate’ for other language readers, ‘Link List’ to highlight blogs I’m interested in and recommend, ‘Labels’ associated with my posts again to make viewing blog posts less time consuming, ‘Popular Posts’ to display and suggest appealing posts, a ‘Blog Archive’ exhibiting all my posts on the blog and ‘About Me’ to make my blog interesting and personal. I had never had a blog before and having a blog and maintaining it is an interesting experience, I’m looking forward to creating some more!

How did you attract/address your audience?

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Question 5 

Here's our written answer:

Patrycja
Dawn

Stereotypical audience for genre:

The stereotypical age for the Horror-Thriller genre is younger people, typically aged between 15-30 years; our TA being 16-mid20. Younger people are attracted to the excitement and suspense of the Horror-Thriller genre more often than the older generation,this is because the older generation are matured and would be more inclined to watch Political-Thrillers or Crime-Thrillers to name a few this is unlike the younger generation who are more inclined to watch Horror-Thrillers or Action-Thrillers.

The Thriller genre is generally associated with the male gender. The implied violence in our opening sequence through the mise-en-scene – our female’s bloodied costume – is an aspect within our piece that would typically attract a male audience. This is because they are not as squeamish when being subjected to graphic visuals and or     violence. An example of a film that also uses mise-en-scene to imply violence would be ‘The Negotiator’ which is displayed through the use of firearms, attracting a male audience.

Thrillers involve action, suspense and enigma; these elements are understood as being enjoyed by men because they are associated with adrenaline. Thrillers like ‘The Negotiator’ are therefore less likely to attract the female gender as it is filled with these aspects. Our film is heavily focused on suspense and enigma – the suspense being a build up in the threat of the female character and the enigma revolving around who these characters are, how they are connected, how and why the female character is suggested to be violated and possibly the question to what has made her a threatening character. Our lack of action will also appeal to a female audience because it focuses more on the tension/suspense. These qualities are balanced, not overly masculine or feminine, to attract both males and females. In addition, enigma is a feature that both genders will be attracted to, as anyone of any age, race, ethnicity or gender can be interested in this. We wanted to incorporate these aspects into our opening sequence, hoping to attract a unisex audience. 

How are you attracting that audience?

Involving young actors as our characters, camera shots that depict the lively setting of Camden – a youth filled area – and current trends teamed with creative titles and editing techniques make our opening sequence interesting for a younger audience. Using young actors help our audience to relate to them and be attracted to our film. A young audience would more likely watch a film with actors in their age range because they can associate with their peer group. The young actors in our film also reflect the youthful content that’s captured through the camera. Shots such as a close up shot of a row of fashionable shoes,a high angled mid shot of a skull top and a high angle long shot of a robot were chosen to use young people’s general interest in fashion trends and curiosity of the out-of-the-ordinary keeping them engrossed and intrigued. The high angle shot of the robot is also used to intimidate the audience, through the angle, suggesting a negative event is about to happen and that appearances aren’t always what they seem.

We have displayed fashion in our sequence to also interest and attract a young female audience. Rom-coms are heavily targeted at female audiences and films such as, ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ and ‘Sex and the City’ also use fashion as a means to attract their audience. Incorporating fashion elements that are trending, although not feminine images, they won’t alienate our male audience because the images we have chosen are not extremely feminine or masculine and appeal to both genders. In a close up camera shot, the mise-en-scene displays a neon sign; this is to represent the nightlife in our Camden setting. The highly feminine colours, pink and purple accompanied by a female dancing figure on the sign would attract a female audience via the implications of exiting, bright nightlife. However, this will also appeal to the male audience as nightlife is heavily associated with sexuality the dancing girl in the sign highlights this.

Clubs and pubs (show examples) often advertise using young women, attracting both genders. Nightlife itself is heavily focused on sexuality and can be associated with mysterious or sinister activities. Alcohol being a part of this nightlife in our opening sequence, can be associated with the idea that people can be taken advantage of at their moment of vulnerability, the idea of hidden identities, hidden agenda and drugs or violence are often associated with activities happening at night. Our female character’s costume, as previously said has connotations involving suggested violence which supports this comment. The pathetic fallacy in our opening sequence is a prime example of dark secrets being suggested; setting the scene for our audience. The audience, as young, will either know of the dangers regarding nightlife or will have experienced it themselves and will therefore be interested in what happens to the male character because he is at a state of vulnerability, displayed in our blurred POV shot suggesting his drunkenness. This will attract both genders in our audience, as the excitement of knowing something bad will happen and the tension rising to it, acts as a hook for them.

Our male character is very laddish. He is suggested to be drinking beer in the long two shot of him and our female character along with following the over the shoulder shot. Drinking alcohol, especially beer, is associated with youthful male behaviour. This is an aspect used in our piece to attract our male audience. Younger aged males in our target audience, roughly 16-18 years old, would more likely look up to our male character because drinking alcohol, especially late at night, is heavily associated with ‘being one of the lads’ and being a young adult male behaviour, specifically having fun, messing about, being cool etc. The Strong Bow adverts (show example) suggest this – the idea that alcohol is instinctively masculine would make a younger audience look up to him. In addition, the younger males may appeal to the idea of being late out at night, drinking alcohol and generally rebelling against society – as our male character is suggested to do. Similarly aged males to this character in our target audience, 18-20, can relate to him, as drinking beer and being out later at night is something that they can understand as they may also do this. The male characters dress sense can reflect the 18-20 year olds social economic status – by not having large amounts of money to spend on fashionable clothing. The older part of our target audience 21-25, as expected to have more understanding of alcohol and it’s exposing effects on people, would realise and understand the danger the character could be involved in – especially as he’s drunk and wandering the streets at night – as opposed to the younger ages of our target audience – because they have more life experience. This section of our target audience may also reminisce or be reminded of events in their lives associated with late drunken nights; another aspect that could help them relate to our character. Films such as ‘The Inbetweeners Movie’ have characters that follow a similar stereotype of young British males. On the whole our choice of male character can attract a male audience through his characterisation – one that they can relate to, be intrigued by or understand.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

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Question 4 

Here's our written answer:

Patrycja

Dawn

Our target audience is unisex and aged 16-mid20 years. Their NRS social grade would be a B-D grade – B meaning, middle class and intermediate managerial, administrative or professional. C1 meaning, ‘lower middle class’ and ‘supervisory or clerical and junior managerial, administrative or professional’. C2 meaning, ‘skilled working class’ and ‘skilled manual works’. D meaning, ‘working class’ and ‘semi and unskilled manual workers’. We are aiming our product at the British ethnic background.

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

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Question 3 

Here's our written answer:

Patrycja 

Dawn

We are aiming to distribute our media product into companies such as Momentum, Film Four, and Miramax. This is because these companies are known for the growth of the business rather than focusing on making profit. If we decide to distribute to these companies it could be beneficial for our production as we can have gradual growth and development with companies that are more likely to distribute our productions. Companies such as 20^th Century Fox would require us to pay larger amounts of money to distribute our product and without the funding and equipment suitable for our production, they would not distribute. 20^th Century Fox is well known as their company distributes many films; which can bring more profit for them. They have a high reputation, which makes it more of a challenge for a small company like ‘LOOKOUT PRODUCTIONS’.

We could have promotion tickets or advertisement in newspapers, small posters in the tube carriages, handouts on the street etc. in order to promote our media product, which will help us to get profit and expand our productions reputation. We could also promote on websites that younger audience are more likely to visit such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which comes under the social networking websites where most of our young audience spend a lot of time on.

Film 4, Miramax or/and Momentum would be the perfect distribution for our media product as they will make our company grow and bring more money and publicity to the company. All of the companies above are suitable to distribute our media product as these mostly distribute new films that don’t have a high reputation like 20^th Century Fox. These companies mostly distribute films on TV; which is a good start for small productions like ours. In the future our production could make films that are worth thousands of pounds and can then be distributed by 20^th Century Fox and other such companies with a high reputation.