Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

skills development:

prelim - bad camera angles, bad editing, use of zoom

what we have developed: better range of shots, camera angles and how to use equipment
better editing matchcuts using different effects and programms

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 4: who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Over the course of this subject i feel i have gained many skills and improved the ones i already had. As you can see from our preliminary task the task was not up to scratch and you can see the improvement between that task and our opening of the film. I feel as although i am not an actor i took it more seriously in the opening of our film and i did not edit our preliminary task but edited the opening of our film so that is a skill that i have gained as i was not confident with using final cut pro beforehand. I have learnt many skills with final cut pro including how to put text into the videos and making it a split screen and i also made our indent which was new to me and had fun doing and also adding music etc.

My teen film is much more improved then my preliminary task. We've learnt about the 180 degree rule which is as follows:

Our preliminary task also didnt look as professional as we were reading from a script wheras in our teen film we didnt have a script and had to remember lines. There were also other factors which made it look less professional in our older tasks which were that there was no title, no idents ect.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During this project i have learnt lots about technology and developed many skills on the way. I have used a range of programmes and technology. Some programmes include: camtasia, final cut pro, handbreak, mp3 converter and many more. Technology such as: JVC recording cameras, flip/still cameras, microphones, lights, tripods and more. Final cut pro was a very handy programme and once you get the hang of it , very easy to use! all our editing was done on final cut pro and i'm sure it is used in the real world by many professionals when they make films so i am glad to say i now know how to use the programme and feel confident in using it to edit. mp3 converters came in handy also by getting our music for our film and background noises such as for our ident which i uploaded a step by step of how i done it in a previous blog.
We used JVC cameras to record and tripods and fig rigs to help us by keeping the camera still and the fig rig for the scene where the victim is walking through the corridor.

very useful programmes which have helped us throughout the task:

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

We have attracted and addressed our audience by aiming at our target audience which is around 12 - 18 but can still be watched by anyone who is going through bullying although it is mostly aimed at teenagers as it is a teen film.

We have attracted our audience by having teenager actors and having it set in real settings which is a college and where are target audience group are likely to be at most of the time so this will attract out target audience as they will feel as its something they can relate to and has situations they might have been through. The title 'The Victim' could also attract our audience as maybe theyve felt like a victim in a certain situation and this might be why they want to watch it as it could relate to them. The definition of 'vicitm'.  

 

We have already addressed our audience from our cinema screening which happened on Tuesday 25th at 12.30pm and we recived a positive response, we also have this blog which has been promoting our film and lets you know every step we take trying to create this film. 

                                                     

Question 4: Who would be the audience or your media product?

 Our target audience is from people in secondary school to college which would range from ages to 13 - 18 which is typical for most teen films. Obviously, you can get bullied when you're any age although i think it affects people more in their younger days and also when they are in an environment like school and college where you're around lots of people your age and if you don't fit in its hard to be liked and you will face lots of different people who will bully you just because you're different from them.

Here are some facts and statistics which i found on this website :

As you can see, momst bullying happens to kids and teenagers throughout their high school and college life. This is why we aimed the film to be around this age group and also it is a teen film which responds mostly to teenagers.

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

In the opening of our film we made our own production and distribution companies which are called 'Candimovements' and 'candi18productions' these are small companies based in London.
We decided it would be better to use a small company as it is our first film and with small companies you will have your own freedom, it will be cheaper and you would get to do what you like in your film and adds less pressure but a downside would be that from a bigger company our film would be more popular and bigger budget so you could do more. It also helps if you have a well known company because people migh like them as they have made a good film in the past so they might watch yours in hope it would be good too.

our company ident was made on 'motion' called candi18 productions and looked like this:

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film represents a well known social group which are in many teen films and even in other genres. It also follows the binary opposition of 'popular vs unpopular' which is also a commonly used opposition within teen films. Our social group is the 'nerd' vs the bullies. The nerd is shown by the costume and props. (uniform with glasses, books) the nerds are typically the smart and geeky kids and so these sterotypical props (glasses and braces) would be assosiated with them and shows a clear contrast between this character and the bullies which are dressed in different ways. one is sporty as typically the male jocks would bully the nerd or a group of glamarous girls (such as mean girls) so we decided to have both in our film by one dressing sporty whilst the other is dressed up.

Stereotypical "nerd" appearance includes very large glasses, braces, severe acne and trousers worn high with a trouser brace. They are quiet and would not normally confront their bullies , even though in our film our victim does talk back to the bully she is very hesitant and we can see this in the close up of her face where she isnt directly looking into their eyes and seems to stutter before talking. The bullies are also taller then the vitim which is like they are looking down on her and she is looking up on them which gives them the power although we did not make this clear with our camera angles which we explained about in a previous post.


A real media product which uses similar social groups is 'Teen Witch' the 'nerd' is presented like this:

 similar costume to our nerd character is:
- glasses
- smart uniform
- shirt and tie

This is the opposition to the nerd which we also have in our film.
the popular girls(s), she is wearing nice clothes with her hair done and about to get into her convertible.







similarly, with our film our nerd was dressed like this:

 as you can see, she is wearing:

-glasses
-braces to hold up her trousers
-uniform
-white shirt with a tie which you cannot see in this clip

The cosume is similar to other stereotypical 'nerds' in other films.













in this clip here, we see a bully punching the victim off his motorbike (at 4.26). We also had a similar scene where the bully pushed the victim on to the floor in the ending scene that looked like this:

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use , develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Firstly, we have used a storyline that is very real and happens to lots of people. Bullying is very common in high school and college and this film deals with the problems and how to deal with it which targets people going through it and could also be interesting for others around the same age group. Its also set in a college which follows the conventions of a teen film with actors in the teen age group and deals with situations that teenagers deal with. Our media product also follows binary oppositions which are in most films especially teen films. Our binary opposition is 'popular vs unpopular' and this is a convention of lots of teen films because its what high school is really like.

Other elements such as the title sequence follow conventions of a real media product as they are set out in the same sequence that a real movie would have them. Which includes the order and the time they come in the film.


Here is  quick video which explains some things that happened throughout our film:

Evaluation

As we have finished our film we will now be evaluating it by answering 7 questions each which will be  done shortly. :)

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

WE'RE FINISHED !!!!! FINAL POST

AFTER LONG MONTHS OF HARD WORK AND DEDICATION WE HAVE FINALLY WE HAVE FINISHED OUR FINAL VERSION OF THE OPENING OF 'THE VICTIM'

WE HAVE TAKEN A VIDEO AND PICTURE OF JAZZEL SIGNING THE BOARD IN PRIDE

Even though there is only 2 of us we were still the first to finish in our class. We hope you enjoy the final film and is what you expected it to be like.

changing our blog theme

During break time i thought it would be a good idea to change the background and theme of our blog as it was quite dull and boring. I have taken a screenshot of our title of the film which is called 'The Victim' and looks like this:

 



I made this our background image on the blog so people automatically know what our film is called and may have ideas on what its about :)

Our blog now looks more interesting and hopefully attracts more views.

Ident Sound

As you know we have made the production ident and added it into our film but now we have also found some appropriate music, I thought it would be nice if we could have a stamp sound whilst the text pops up on to the screen i also wanted a hand holding a stamp but couldn't find it so decided to leave it as it is.

I found the sound on youtube which is a video : 

Then used a program called 'clip grab' which looks like this: 

as you can see i have copy and pasted the link into the box and then waited for it to convert into a mp3 file.

The next step was to then drag this mp3 file into another software called 'audio converter' which looks like this: 

and then when this completed it automatically went onto our hard drive which i then imported into final cut pro which is the program we are editing on and then added this into our film and placed it under the ident.

The final video looks like this : 

FINAL DAY OF EDITING

At this point we have completed most of our editing of our opening film, today we changed our title sequences because it didn't look realistic, so we allocated each person a seperate role instead of giving the same person the same job. We also added the ident at the beginning of the film and we're also planning on finding appropriate music for the ident because at this point its quite boring.

Blog Review

Today is the deadline day! we have until 3pm to complete everything. So far we have finished the rough cut and are now going over our editing to make sure its perfect.
We changed the title sequence to make sure each person and their allocated role instead of having all of us doing everything and we will also show their role one by one instead of a few roles at a time.
We added the ident in the beginning of our film but  we also want to add different music to fit in during the showing of the production ident.

Production Ident

Today I have been creating the production ident on a software named 'motion'. We decided to name the production 'Candi18productions' as we are group 18. In this software you are able to create a moving ident to put in the beginning of the film.

I have decided to use this shape which is a group of stars in a circle -

Then I add the text which is 'CANDI18PRODUCTIONS'

Now, we can make the stars move around while the text pops up in the middle and this would be our production ident.

Editing

Today in my free period I have been carrying on with the editing. I realised that in one scene where the victim is looking through her bag it sounds very bad as you can hear the ruffling of the bag.

Here is a screenshot of the scene I have changed the sound of.


As you can see, here, I have brought the volume down in the bits where you can hear the bag but it goes up when she speaks so we can hear her voice.

The tool i used to do this is the pen on the right hand side of Final Cut Pro which looks like this: -

2 MORE DAYS

we now have 2 more days until the final deadline! From now on we will be editing to make sure it is perfect. Stay tuned to see the final movie :)

Re-filming

After re-filming the scene of the victims walking up from the staircase and changing it to them walking down the stairs we realized that the lighting in the background was too light as there is a window behind the staircase and we could not see the characters properly. Unfortunately we now will not have enough time to try and do it again in another way so we will have to keep our old footage.

Final days leading up to the deadline

Right now we have a couple more days until the final deadline of March 12th, at this point we will continue editing and making sure everything is done and ready for the final viewing.

Re-filming (changes)

We were told by our teacher that a scene in our opening film wasn't effective enough as the bullies in our film weren't following the stereotypes of our characters, this is because instead of walking down the stairs we were seen walking up the stairs instead. We decided and planned to change that scene and to change it to us walking down the stairs instead, but unfortunately the lighting was poor when we were filming and decided to continue with the footage we had.

Costume

here is a picture of my costume in our film:

I wore black jeans, a black Sox baseball jersey with a long sleeve black top underneath and a pair of Jordan trainers.

I thought this was appropriate as the majority of colour is black and so usually someone dressed in dark colours in a film is seen as the villain. It's also quite sporty which can be seen similar to a 'jock' outfit but as im a female and I'm playing a female role I thought I could still go for a sporty and tom boy style. 

Also, you can see a clear contrast between my outfit and the 'nerd' in our film. I seem to fit in more whilst the nerd doesn't fit in as no one else in the film is wearing clothing similar to hers. 

the origins of the nerd.

Stereotypical nerds are seen as book smart but socially and physically awkward, they are also stereotyped to have a personality which is shy and that they don't have many friends. One of the first films to feature a stereotypical 'nerd' is a film called 'revenge of the nerds' which was released in 1984. 
The typical film that features a 'nerd' would be set in a high school or college and would get bullied by a 'jock' which are seen as popular in schools.

typical clothing that a nerd would wear:

- glasses
- high wasted trousers
- braces
- smart clothing
- smart shoes








Also, a typical way that nerd would get bullied is physically and verbally. through calling them names and picking on them and also physically pushing them or hitting them, stealing their things and throwing things at them.

UPDATE

Another member of our group was unfortunately kicked of the course, we are now down to just two people in the group, Mary advised us to change a scene in our opening film because it wasn't suitable with the idea of our opening film, so me and Hana have planned to meet up tomorrow to re-film, it might be an obstacle to film as there's only two of us but we'll try our best.

Update

Today we will be re-filming another scene from our film which we had to do as we realised that it will be more effective to have the camera looking up on the bullies instead of looking down. We also need to add more close ups etc.

More bad news to add is that another member of our group has been kicked off due to lack of attendance in class so we are down to 2 members (myself and jazzel) this will be harder for us to film this scene and edit with only 2 people but we will try our best to do the best we can and to still achieve the grades we deserve.

In one scene of our film mary advised us to make it into a split screen as the scene was too long and boring. we've done this in final cut pro by using a crop tool to crop out the background so the camera was tracing Nia. on the other half of the screen will be the title sequence.

Here is a screenshot of our editing.

Rough Cut

Today we have finished a rough cut edit of the opening of our film. We have received feedback from Mary on how to improve our final opening and we have taken her feedback on board and decided to re film a scene on Thursday. We need a range of different shots including close ups and better camera work and sound. We will have our final film finished on March 12th.

ROUGH CUT IS UP !

We have finished the rough cut of our film and we will be posting it very shortly! I hope you are just excited as we are to show you the final outcome to the opening of our film 'The Victim'.

We still have lots more editing to do as you can see and we still need to add: production ident, title of the film and also fixing the title sequence, adding effects, changing sound and much more.
This will all be done by 3pm on the 12th March which is our final deadline.

Here is a picture of us signing the wall to say that our rough cut is done and up.  The next column to sign will be to say that we finished our film. stay tuned :)

Sound

We found a song for the opening of our film here is the link. To do this we went on creative commons because of copy right and decided to get a remake of the song which is non copy right.

We think this song fits in with the opening of our film as we see a character walking on her own and the song is slow and mellow which matches the mood of the character and this will make the audience feel the same.

Editing Process

Today we have been editing our rough cut. Here is a picture of the process