AS Reflection

How did you use media technologies in the construction, research and planning and evaluation stages?

Well I already knew what I wanted to do so I mostly used the internet such as Youtube and Wikipedia to research various specific ideas and the best way to them. I made a powerpoint of my overall idea to help keep it all together. For the actual construction I used a handheld camera to film and a microphone to pick up sound better. I then used Adobe Premiere to edit the whole thing together before uploading to Youtube. To Evaluate my film, I just used my blog here.

How did you use media forms to come up with something new and orginal?

I am a huge fan of Fantasy so I already knew a lot about Media Forms. Mostly I took scenes from Fantasy movies that I liked and tweaked them slightly to make them my own.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I took what I learned from my first video and applied it to my Opening Two Minutes. Particularly paying attention to sound cause that was a big complaint. But like my first video, I used special effects and had costumes and make up and all that. So I think the combination was quite good. Especially considering that stories could be internlinked.

What have you learned from your Audience Feedback?

Be very careful with sound and make sure to have clear footage so people understand what's going on.

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

As I said above, this is a Fantasy movie so I took loads of elements from Fantasy movies. But at the same time I changed them such as the supposed main characters dying at the end of the two minutes. Or rather than in most films which start with a normal opening (kid going to highschool etc.) I start with a very drammatic opening where things are clearly not normal (except for the girl in red with colourful umbrella).

Evaluation Task 7- Progress

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

Prelimniary Task:



Opening Two Minutes:



Comparing the two films I have done this Year, I believe I have learned a lot and my Opening Two minutes is very evident of this. The transistions are a lot smoother, the sound fades in and out and doesn't jump (at least by my fault). The only thing I think remained the same was my camera skills. While its not as noticeable due to my editing, I still don't have a steady filming hand.

One big change I noted was the fact editing has improved immensely. Its a lot tighter and smoother than my other one. I decided to play with more editing transitions that brought really fruitful results. Then I learned how to control the transitions providing me the means to hide get the most of my shots. The one scene, actually, when my sister "slashes" the camera it suddenly cuts... that was an accident but I actually feel it works.

Unfortunately, due to Youtube, the sound of my main task has been botched up. I did have it fading smoothly in and out. Not much I can do about that unfortunately.

Other than that, I still think it came out great.

Evaluation Task 6: Technology

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




Figure 1- Camcorder
















Figure 2- Tripod




















I have learned a lot about technologies from this project. Not only from the physical equipment but the programs as well. Especially in editing on Adobe. From my first project to now, I have gained a lot of knowledge and patience with the program. Like how to use transitions and effects efficiently. The biggest thing also was learning the Adobe's help website is very useful. But I think I learned more from the more experienced Year 13's who showed me how to do certain effects such as the red, black and white shot.

Evaluation Task 5: Audience Attraction

Evaluation Task 4: Audience

Who would be the audience for your media product?





















This is a group of a Cosplayers from the game Soul Caliber (Fantasy fighting game) that I got off the internet. This would be my general target audience. 15-25 year olds. The group I fall into. Anime loving, Japanese obsessed teenager who's idea of fun is dressing up as video game characters and going to Conventions with thousands of others similar to I. A modern, Fantasy loving teen. In my head and in my storyboard, its an anime style story. I believe they'd watch it based on this factor especially if they loved films like the Matrix, Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.

Evaluation Task 3: Commentary

Script:
1. The idea of a distributor and who that might be and why.

For my film, New Line Cinemas would be my ideal distributor. They deal with a lot of well known fantasy and horror films such as Lord of the Rings, Blade and Friday the 13th.

2. What does a production company do?

A production company handles the paper work; contracting, site locating and funding of films. They play a very key role in the film process.

3. Discussion of your production company name and logo and the role of such companies

My production company is “A Banko Productions”. It’s just the initial of my first full name and my last name. Basically my company gathered all the props and actors together as well as securing filming times and places.

4. Where the money might have come from for a film such as yours

Since being an American Distribution Company, I probably would have got the money from one of the big American Film Power Houses like Universal or Paramount or even New Line it’s self.

5. Why the various people are named in the titles- which jobs appear in titles and in what order and how have you reflected this?

The titles that appear in my film are the ones related to the opening two minutes; so all the actors who appear then you hear the music and sound. The titles appear in order of appearance. I am the director followed by the first actor who appears on screen which is my sister. It helps establish who the people are right from the get-go.

6. What your film is similar to 'institutionally' (name some films which would be released in a similar way)

I believe, really, any fantasy film. I based my opening around the opening of Eragon where the one woman is being chased by the villain and to save the egg she sends it away to a random passer-by hunting in the woods. Another film similar to the release of mine would be Tim Burton’s 9; another fantasy epic about 9 rag dolls.

Evaluation Task 2: Representation

I felt that my main character and Arwen from Lord of the Rings share a lot of similarties as well as a few differences. They both are Princesses who know how to fight and aren't afraid to get dirty. I actually based "Princess Hope's design off Arwen's white dress that she wears in the film a lot. A couple of differences between the two are that well one's a human while the other's an elf. Duh. But Hope is not as graceful as Arwen. All of her shots, she's running hard while in the LoTR films, Arwen always looks graceful on camera no matter what she's doing.

Evaluation Task 1: Conventions

The Title:

Setting/Location:

Costume/ Props:

Camera Work/ Editing:

Font:

Character Introductions:

Special Effects:

My opening was based off the movie, Eragon (Directed by Stefen Markus Fangmeier) so it shares a couple of similarties to it. Such as a girl running through a forest being chased by a mysterious enemy while another character is simulatoneously followed. At the time, a couple of things that are different include the girl being chased ends up dying and the scene ends unpredictably. Everyone sort of makes up in their head that Vivian (the second girl) will somehow find the sword and beat the villian but the very end when she dies reveals otherwise leaving a huge plot open that anything could happen.

I think the costumes and weaponry reaveals its a Fantasy. If nothing, else a strange period drama. It could also be down to the blood that could define it as a horror. I left that up to the audience but my chosen genre is Fantasy.

Evaluation Feedback

Youtube Comments:

savioursephiroth1 (Simon):
That was very interesting and good to watch ^_^ The camera movement throughout the whole two minutes made everything quite exciting, and got across the whole imminent danger that was pressent for the character. If I saw this in the cinema, I would definitely stay to watch it, terrific work ^_^

Crystalumina (Rana):
That looked really interesting =3. I liked how it really started out and how you captured the whole mood easily ^ ^. The camera movement was really good too =3 although the sound might have been better but overall it was made out nice and I liked it ^ ^

Punkness93 (Elena):
Very interesting. ^^ The camera shots you have are very nice, a little shaky but nothing too bad. :)
I would just work on evening out the sound a little more and perhaps something to keep the camera steady. Other wise, very nice job. :D

LaurenTheCookieLover (Lauren):
It intrigued me, so yeah, I would stay in the cinema. :D
Looks epic, btw~

Class Feedback:




On the whole, the results are very positive. The only problem is that these are my friends that I asked to watch. The comments could be biased though they present some negatives which pleased me. The class reviews were postive as well so I am really happy with the result!

Opening Two Minutes- Moonblade

Filming Diary

YAY I'M DONE!!!

Yesterday, Monday, Febuary 22nd, I finished filming all the scenes for my movie! It went well. I had to rush a little due to the cold (again) but this time, I believe the clips came out great! Surprisingly the quality was a lot better.

Idea!

Well watching through the footage I have thus far...I really don't like how my sister's lines came out. But I don't want to put in another voice because she did amazing expressions. So I came up with something better.

When she speaks, her screen cuts to black with what she says written in a scratchy text. Meanwhile, some of the titles will scroll across. This is taken from a video game cinematic opening actually. Before the opening song, it has the main character reading a line which sets up the whole game basically (played by Haley Joel Osment) and Kingdom Hearts 1 does this also (which is where the idea came from) for a character who is not supposed to be revealed till the second game.



At 9 minutes in is my main inspiration. When the scene cuts and the text shakes in a very creepy fashion.

Something like that for my own film. I hope it works. Should be good if it does...

Avatar Research

For the exam segement of our Media course, we had to research Avatar (2009 James Cameron film).

I went on the Pearl&Dean website and found these stats on its audience.

Filming Log

So today I got half of my film done!

Now unfortunately, as I stated a few posts ago it was very, very cold. My sister ended up cutting the dress really small and sleeveless and she froze. So we had to really hustle and unfortunately that meant only two takes maximum each shot and a couple of shots were cut to save time in the cold weather.

Another problem we had was a couple of chavs walked through our shots and were very rude while we were trying to film.

Other than that, watching the playback, the shots came out pretty good. The only big problem is...its too cold to do remakes. My sister refuses to do it again so I really need to be careful not to screw anything up in editing and be clever with effects to hide things or make things look better. A movie is only as good as its editing.

Filming

Woo! So Sunday January the 31st; my sister, Alec and I shall begin filming! We'll get started about 9 a.m. Sunrise doesn't look possible I mean its 7:30 in the morning. That's a bit of a stretch to get everyone up. 9 will be just fine!

Prop Pictures

Alright, this is the first katana to be used. This is Prince's Lupus's katana. Now... this isn't the actual picture from the one at my home. Its from the internet. But it gives you a higher quality idea. The one I have is a little smaller and with dragons carved into the sheath.

This is one of the Moon Blades. This is the actual white katana I have just again from the internet. Its white sheath is a symbol of light and hope whereas the other blade is of darkness and anger. Should be good!

Other Blogs Research

The first blog I looked at is Year 13 Sophie's Blog at: http://sophie329959blog.blogspot.com/

Being Year 13 she is making a teaser trailer but is pretty much doing the same process we are for our opening two minutes. One thing I really like that she did was she tested different fonts which I'm considering doing myself...(as shown below)

She doesn't have that many posts (only about fifty) but they're packed full of detail. Just from a brief glance at her posts, she's making a teen romantic drama so she looked at stuff like Skins and Twilight.

Then I looked at Year 13 Josh's blog: http://darkemodouche.blogspot.com/ who provided a bit of contrast since he's doing a horror/gangster type film. He's done a lot of research into this genre and the one thing I really like about his blog is the polls along the side. Even though only one person voted it still provides a little more audience particpation.

Actor Pictures Vivian

So this is Vivian, the other girl of my opening sequence. I chose Vivian beacause 1. she offered and 2. she fit the description of a normal teen but she doesn't look like a Barbie so it adds some uniqueness to her. She is the decoy of the plot. Everyone will automatically assume that she'll get the sword and pull off a Terminator (being chased around by somebody from the past). I'm a little more creative than that.

Actor Pictures- Prince Lupus

This is my Prince Lupus, Alec Mills. I chose Alec after my acting auditions was a flop. I took my teacher's advice and went to the head of our Drama department and she recommended Alec for the part. I also so know Alec is quite good at acting. I've seen him in several plans and can't wait to see how he'll do playing a Villian.















Now as you can see, he's wearing a white shirt. Come the actual filming, I requested he wear a black shirt rather than white. Also, I'll be giving him a hooded cape to go under the jacket which from far away would look as though his coat was extended but also gives him a menacing hood. I don't have to do too much to his skin tone but I will darken the eyes a bit. Actually with his side burns and beard, it'll make his face even darker beneath the hood.

Time Management

Today, my class lucked out to get two hours of Media Studies. Now as you can see, most of my planning work is done except the Actors/Costume/Props pictures. Today I'll be working towards getting those done. In class I'll be finishing off the costumes and then hopefully getting pictures!

I have a few tricks planned. Such as the stab in Vivian's back. She gave me a small coat type thing that she didn't care about and I'm allowed to cut up. I'll have to cut it up now so I'll have to be clever with the camera to avoid the audience seeing the bloodstain on her back. Anyways, in shot 36 where we see Vivian lying on her side showing the stab wound in her back, I don't really want to ruin Vivian's clothing under the coat. Or leave it so it looks weird. So, I'm going to cut the stab wound in the back and then sewing a white beneath of cloth behind it. I'll paint it red and voila! we have a stab wound that only ruins one article of clothing!

I'll be finishing off the dress today too. That's just cutting up the bottom and stuff. I thought of a cool idea for my sister's boots. Since we couldn't find anything she wouldn't mind getting ruined, I'll either make up a pair from an old pair of boots I have or use Wellies. She's wearing a long white dress, so it'll be difficult to see the boots.... Hmm...where are our Wellies?

Audience Profiling

A bit of audience profiling now after my Facebook quiz to actually find out if my target audience is correct. Using the site www.pearlanddean.com I'll research similar films and see what the main age group is.


Alice in Wonderland (2010, Tim Burton):

This is a very dark sequel to the orginal Disney animated classic. Its funny, the story is actually quite similar to the plot of Moon Blade.
They are predicting a majority of the audience (22%) will be people aged 15-24. The next big age group is 35-44 (20%). So quite an older audience. They predict more girls will be viewing than boys. This could be because of Johnny Depp starring. *laughs*


9 (2009, Tim Burton)

A post-war film about 9 rag dolls who are created to save the human race. A very dark, on your edge seat.
Like Alice in Wonderland, this film had produmently 15-24 year old views. But this time it had an audience of 80% boys and 20% girls.

Sound Test Attempt 2

Well it appears no class is going to be in here today so I'm goingt try again with Vivian in recording her dialogue into the computer. This will enable me to sound cut. However, I won't do this with my sister and Alec (villian) because it'll sound more authentic if they're running and you can't quite hear them. However, come the final product and it doesn't sound that great then I'll go back and have them throw their voices in.

Sound Test

Today, to get a bit a head, I decided to record some of Vivian's speaking bits. Mainly her blood curdling scream. However, before we did this I played with the microphone. At the same time, a noisy Year 9 class came in to pratice their oral exams. Our class room became extremely loud and the test was difficult. It showed me one thing.

No matter how good of a microphone you got, the room you're in has to be deadly silent for it to record right. A Year 9 class behind you is not ideal. I think I'll wait till after school.

Time Management Entry

Alright we're coming down to the wire. Ten weeks to go before the deadline! Our teacher would like us to start filming by this weekend.

I just got really one major thing to do which is pictures of my actors, props and costumes. That will all happen in one big swoop. I'll try and get all the pictures up by the weekend and hopefully start filming next week!

Now as you've probably read from a lot of other people, we've had a huge snow fall. This, does not effect me. Actually, I was really hoping to film in the snow cause it'll add quite a cool effect to everything. The only big downfall is if I have to go back and refilm something. The snow may be gone or there'll be tracks where its supposed to be clear. So I'll spend a little more time filming. But that said, snow=cold. My actors are going to freeze. Maybe I'll get lucky and things will warm up but I doubt it.

We'll just see. If worst comes to worst and things aren't working out, I'll fall upon my last resort and film at school.

Script

Well I've written the story thousands of times so I'll just type up what the actors say despite the fact that a normal script is a very detailed with where the camera is and stuff and where the actors move to. I'll just give a brief description of where the actors are and that'll be it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Princess Hope is running with the camera, when she turns her head before she trips-
Prince Lupus: You're mine!
Princess Hope: *trips*

On the bridge after Princess Hope runs past the camera-
Prince Lupus: Get back here by order of the King!
Princess Hope: *stops and turns her head* YOU'LL NEVER BE KING! *jumps to attack*

When the Princess arrives at the Portal-
Princess Hope: *raises her sword to her and whispers* Activate...
Prince Lupus: DON'T YOU DARE!
Princess Hope: *whips her head around before throwing the sword into the portal*
Prince Lupus: *in the background* NO!
Princess Hope: *falls back then looks up at Prince Lupus* You lose...

Sword lands in front of Vivian-
Vivian: What the hell?! *runs up to it before suddenly looking up and gasping then screaming*
Prince Lupus: *raises sword* Foolish girl... I win. MWUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Very, very basic script but I don't have that much dialogue. Its more left up to the audience what's happening with a bit of narrative. Hopefully the audience will get she's running away from him. She's the heroine and he's the villian and Vivian is just the decoy. Awesomesauce.

Checklist Update

Its been a few weeks now and I've covered most of my check list. This is just the tick list. Bold/italics is what's done.

1. Mind Map Ideas
2. Power-Point of Idea
3. Film Treatment
4. Story Board of Opening Scene
5. Photos of Location(s)
6. Photos of Costume(s)
7. Photos of Actor(s)
8. Photos of Prop(s)
9. Questionnaire (Facebook)
10. Research Other Blogs
11. Research Openings of Genre
12. Research Music (YouTube, FreePlayMusic etc.)
13. Write-Up Script
14. Note Down Shot Types
15. Upload Practice Shots (Optional)


Now then, that's 10/15 done. The actors, costumes and props is very easy and I should have that up very soon. The script I will do in my next post so that's why its ticked off. I'll also upload the Powerpoint. Its done just not uploaded yet. As for the fifteenth one, I don't think its too nessercery to do so. Plus I don't have the time due to weather. If I film bits now and the weather changes dramatically come the actual film it'll look odd. So yeah techincally only four to go! Woo!

Locational Photo's- Problems

I found one huge problem with the field. As I stated in my Delays post, its been raining a lot. And with rain, comes floods. The two photos below show some of the flooded areas of the field which might cause complications if it get's worse.





Watching the weather, its only supposed to get colder. Image two is a deep puddle covered by ice. Any colder and we might have to worry about ice hazards. When I was walking around, the ground was hard. Actually, this is good because it'll make filming easier for the still shots and the tripod to stay put. So we'll just see. Hopefully the weather stays good. I think it'd be really awesome to film in snow! That would add some cool effects. Maybe I could even go back to filming in the evening since snow glows blue under the moon!

Locational Photos- Possible Variations

Now as I stated in my last blog post, the one scene I wanted to shoot is no longer possible. So as I was walking along I came across this cool bridge and thought that might be something cool to film. Have the brief fight scene take place on the bridge. It would work just as the scene where she burst through the trees worked. She come around the left bush and then shortly after Prince Lupus appears behind and says his line.



This was a cool spot. I doubt I'll use it but I just posted it in the event that maybe I get a cooler idea.




Like the arch, I found this hill when exploring. It's actually better than the one I was thinking of orginally. The first shot above is of the path my sister would run along followed by where'd she'd trip. I think I'll use this instead of the orginal.

Locational Pictures- Storyboard

Alright well I did it. I managed to get down to the field to take some pictures of my main location. Now I took a lot of pictures for different things so I'm breaking them up in small posts. This first post is the locational shots I drew in the Storyboard.



These are the top of the field that I'll be filming at. This isn't actually featured in the storyboard but its here to give you an idea of what this area looks like on a whole.




This is the first pan shot basically or the establishing shot of the field. As you can see in the second picture there is a bit of rubbish so I know I'll have to think about cleaning up a bit. As for the fence, I can't really do anything about that but I'm pretty sure it won't take anyway away from the shot. I might whack some titles over it to hide if its really a problem.



This is the fork in the road where Princess Hope slides and then runs towards the camera. Okay, so the tree isn't actually there but you can see that the path does split.




Jumping ahead a bit, unfortunately my original spot for this scene to be shot grew over so the pictures above are other possible entrances that my sister could burst through. None look nearly as impressive as that first which made me reconsider a different idea which I have posted in the next post.




Here are different field shots where potentially the battle between Prince Lupus and Princess Hope takes place. The second shot with the horses in the background I won't have to worry about. Since being a fantasy film, it wouldn't be unnatural to see horses.



And finally, the arch. After hours of searching, I found my portal! Woo! I think its quite good too.