MAIN Post 12.7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

In this section of my evaluation i have been asked to look back on my preliminary task and compare it to my final opening sequence and comment on what i have learnt or improved on.

Compared to our preliminary task our idea this time was a lot more complex

I used a better variety of shot sizes a including low angle shot which I didn't use in my preliminary task. One of the main points to our preliminary task was developing our skills on continuity, we did find some problems with continuity in our opening sequence as we had quite a few jump cuts but likely its conventional of romantic comedies to have jump cuts so when it came to editing we were able to add titles and edit out all of the continuity problems and replace them with jump cuts.

I also developed my skills further on the editing suite and learnt how to edit the lightening of the shot by making it darker or lighter. Because a lot of our shots were quite dark we had to learn how to lightening them the picture above shows us using the software to lighten the clip we wanted.

 

    

In our preliminary we didnt have any opening credits with music, so in this task it was a new experience learning about what music we were allowed and what we weren't. I learnt that all music that artist sing are copy-righted unless they are on a website. You can also buy cd's with uncopy-righted music on them but we had a problem when we thought the music from the cd was un-copyrighted but we found out it was already owned, so from that experience i now know to double check and be extra carefull wether the music is copy-righted or not.

MAIN Post 12.6:What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We had to learn how to use the camera and tripod safety as once we had the equipment we had full responsibility and learning the skills with how to use it would minimise the equipment breaking. I had some previous knowledge of how to use the tripod and camera, I had a little knowledge on how to use the editing suite but I developed my skills I learnt how to add a soundtrack, change the lighting make it brighter and how to cut sound and replace it with other sound. I also learnt her to take pictures of the whole room and put them together to make it look like you can see around the whole thing. And finally how to use a flip camera.

We also used internet technologies these have been highly helpful such as Youtube, without the use of youtube we wouldn't of been able to do research for romantic comedies and we wouldnt have been able to but our finished products and focus groups on our blog as we need youtube to upload them too. We also used Divx to upload the opening sequence to first to make it small enough to fit on to youtube as they are a big file. An also very important technology is Blogger it self this has been where we have put up all of our work, at times some things havent worked on her but it has been helpful to use as our work will also be on here and you cant lose it. Google has also been used a lot for research and finding pictures for the blog and just genrel information. I used unsigned band web to find music that isn't copy-righted, it allowed you to pick genres and that helpped so you can find exactly what you want. I used microsoft word to write all of my blog and to save pictures, in also used powerpoint to make mood boards and to save pictures to a jpg file so i can upload it which is a skill i have learnt.

MAIN Post 12.5:How did you attract/address your audience?

This part of our opening sequence attracts our audience as it is an enigma they want to know what happens with the love interest and whether the boss says anything about the text and what will happen in the film and rest of the opening sequence




Throughout the opening sequence we have our main character getting ready and this will also attract the audience as they will want to know what is she getting ready for.

Our titles are also good for attracting the audience as they are bright and colourful and will interest the audience




Our music also helped to attract the audience as it is catching and makes the opening sequence seem fun and quirky it also helps on adding suspense to see where the rest of the opening sequence is going.




To get audience feedback on our film we went around school too find people that were free at the time which fitted to our target audience. We found 3 girls who were either 16 or 17 which was the youngest band of our age range. Also whilst editing we showed some students who happened to be around to give some feedback 1 was and 18 year old girl and the other 19 year old boy.

From analysing the guidelines on the http://www.bbfc.co.uk/download/guidelines/BBFC%20Classification%20Guidelines%202009.pdf website and comparing them to our opening sequence I have decided that our opening sequence is a 12a this is because of the swearing in the title sequence, because it has moderate swearing it wouldn't be suitable for children under 12 unless the adult with them thinks its suitable for them to watch, our opening sequence has no violence,drug use, nudity,sexual scenes, violence, horror or imitable behaviour.
                                                                     

MAIN Post 12.4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our Romantic Comedy involve a young women, as the main character is a young women this immediately targets women of the same age about young teens to mid 20's maybe 30's. Romantic Comedies are a lot more popular with women then men you do get a small percent of men watching them due to them being the partner of the girl watching it. Our target audience would be interested in fashion as the main character has a job at a fashion magazine so there would be a lot about her job in the film. Also people who enjoy love stories would be among our target audience and people who enjoy funny things and laughing.






This girl is 19 for example she looks after her looks and obviously cares about her image, she will be at university, college or may even have a job and would have friends mixture of girls and boys the same age she might have a boyfriend the same age or a bit older this would help he related to the romantic parts of the film. She'll probably live with her parents or at university. 

MAIN POST 12.3 What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The production company always are responsible for the physical production on the film this means they will make the film, sometimes the production company help with raising or funding the money for the production.


There are ways that you can fund for the making of a film the first way is to make an application for a fund from funding production scheme like the UK Film Council they will give you money as they want to keep a wide variety of British films New Cinema have helped them to make funding possible. Another way is looking at charities many charities fund films as well. And once your film is made you can receive further funding from you film appearing in Film Festivals.


I would want SONY to distribute my film. This is because SONY is a massive company who have had many other companies converge with them for instance coca-cola, due to them having many other companies joined with them it would be easier to have my film advertised so SONY could ask to include information about our film on the coca-cola products this would boost our audience widely. SONY also has SONY games and music so it could also include information about our films in their games or on music products. SONY have distributed many popular romantic comedies such as 50 first dates, The ugly truth and made in Manhattan.

To be realistic I would like Revolution Studios to distrubuite my film. They distrubuited 13 Going on 30 so have experience with romantic comdies and the Little Black Book. Revoultion studios are also a good choice as Sony work with the films as well ensuring a more stable distrubuition as more companies will be able to give more advice and their expertese.I would hope that Revolution would pick up my film to distrubuite.

MAIN POST 12:2 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Here our character is wearing a patterned top

highwaisted skirt and blazer.

The other side she is wearing her pyjamas

 

Here we have 2 different characters from film both  pictures represent our characters personality

Our character is like a young version of bridget jones, she is clumsy this is shown through her falling over and things just not going right. She lives on her own but has a boyfriend her bedroom with all her things in it and messy represents her un-organised single life she doesnt have to think about anyone else.  Both these characters are in there sleepwear this represents there care free life and lazyiness.

Our character works for a fashion magazine and she takes her job seriously, this is like the left hand image she is also wearing a high skirt and shirt like our character, the right picture the character is wearing a blazer like our character this makes them look professional and that they take their job seriously. They are also dressed quite fashionably which also our character is by them dressing fashionably and looking good you know that they enjoy fashion and look after themselves.

MAIN POST 12.1:In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our titles also help with displaying the genre of the opening sequence as many of them are include as objects in the clip for instance we have a title put on a fridge with magnets. We have developed the title conventions of our opening sequence as for instance in 10 Things I Hate About You  the titles of the film are edited in over the top, but are in the style and font of a hand written/ graffiti writting this is where we got our idea for developing the genre convention for titles.

Our opening sequence starts with our main character girl called Jenny waking up to an alarm this is conventional as quite a few romantic comedies start by showing how the character is going to outline there day or even just waking up and it being the start of the day, she then turns over taking her pillow over to show our first title "Kings Langley Productions". All of our titles are also pink and grey its conventional for romantic comedies titles to by light baby pinks or blues or red to signify love so we decided to use pink as its girly and silver as it matches our bracelet with the title of the film on it which is in grey. 

This is one of our titles which is in capture in the opening sequence

This is an example of our edited titles

Our opening sequence is quite jumpy and doesn’t flow very well and at the end where our character Jenny is running down the road we have cut the shot and cross dissolved it onto the next clip this shows time and is conventional of a romantic comedy and they are usually quite jumpy. A convention of romantic comedies is showing the character deal with a problem our character has problems finding tights without holes in them and being ready for work on time she falls over on magazines on the floor this is also conventional as it gives an element of comedy. We have shown her room being a mess and unorganised as we wanted to show how personality making her life more problematic for herself, its conventional for instance in Bridget Jones she is quite clumsy and messy and scatty and this is how we wanted to show our character.  

Screen shot of our character displaying clumsiness

The music for our opening sequence is conventional as it is bubbly, romantic comedies have happy music usually love songs, we also didn’t include much dialogue from watching the opening sequence they don’t usually talk as it is just about setting the scene, our character does say "shit" once and this is like the film 4 weddings and a funeral where they swear throughout the opening sequence she also makes annoyed noises to show she is annoyed and angry with her clumsiness which is conventional personality for a character in a romantic comedy. 

This is a expression shot after some dialoque

We have a narrative enigma in our opening sequence our character Jenny is texting her male friend and emailing her boss but accidently sends the text to her boss, these types of enigmas are conventional in Romantic comedies where they set up a love interest and occupation within the opening sequence through a narrative enigma.  

This is the narrative enigma

We have used a variety of shots in our opening sequence such as low angle shots and close up, many romantic comedies use close up to signify important points that will appear or link later on in the film, our camera is conventional as we use a variety of shot sizes and angles to point out important parts and makes it look natural as the angles are basic.

This is low angle shot from under a bed

12a: Audience Feedback

Part 1: Rough Cut
Audience feedback Clip:

We showed our rough cut to 3 16-17 year old girls, we decided to use this gender and age as our target audience were teenage girls. The feedback we got back from the rough cut was that the opening sequence was quite tedious and some shots were longer than they needed to be. They also said that some clips for instance ones with words in were too quick and didn't allow the audience enough time to read the words/ paragraph. Some positive feedback was that our focus group liked how we included some of the titles into the opening sequence and actions of the actress, for instance we have her spit her toothpaste out and as she comes up the name of the actress is on the mirror, they said they found this a convention of the genre we chose which was Rom-Com. We hadn't chosen music by the time we showed them the rough cut and they said they'd expect something upbeat and bubbly.

Part 2: Final Cut
Audience feedback clip:

We showed our final cut to the same 3 girls so they could tell us our improvements or things that they thought wasn't very good. The feedback was good they said they know found it less boring as we managed to cut ot roughly 2 minutes they also said that our choice of music worked well and also helped to make the final cut much for gripping and interesting. 

From others watching the final cut we got some feedback, they said that they liked how the final cut had a lot jump cuts in it as this is a convention of rom-com and they found that it made the opening sequence more bubbly and happy.

MAIN TASK 11

This is our rough cut

and this is our final project

When this file was being compressed it changed to tv format instead of widescreen which films should compress to.



Unfortunatly we had to change our music that was on our opening sequence as it was copyrited and owned by Go Digital. com so this is our improved opening sequence and our final one.

MAIN POST 10: Post-Production

Our first step to editing was to capture the footage by looking at the logging rushes and only capturing the shots that we wanted but we made a mistake and didn’t realise we had to do this so we ended up capturing the whole lot which caused us to make the editing process quite a lot longer than we planned. Because we planned to finish our filming in a day it gave us extra time to do our logging rushes which were quite time consuming. We then used the logging rushes to cut and delete what shots we needed and put them on to the timeline. The next step was to make a rough cut of your opening sequence this is just putting everything together with the titles to show to the focus group then the final stage is perfecting the opening sequence until you are happy then showing it to the focus group again to see how you have improved and what they think of it.

We had quite a few problems when editing and put in a lot of hours but we managed to overcome the problems one way or the other and have ended up with and opening sequence that we are happy with and feel that it follows the conventions of our chosen genre.


The first problems that arise where that some of the shots were unsteady and we didn’t have enough of the shots so we had to use the unsteady ones. The only way possible to sort this out was cutting the shot down as much as possible, we also had this problem with one of the shots and we needed to slow it down, by slowing it down it made the shot look less unsteady so that helped us. We also found that many of our shots were quite dark so we edited the lighting in the final process we had to change the lightening I quite a lot of shots, so from this mistake we know no to make sure that if we are using natural lighting that it is bright enough and if it isn’t try and make it brighter with artificial lighting.

Our second problem was with music, we found it hard to find available music which fitted our genre and that was un-copyrighted. We finally found some music and edited all our shots in time with the music, but when we showed it to our focus group they said that the music was too repetitive and annoying and made the opening sequence quite boring. We tried to find some other music but couldn’t, but we finally did last minute it worked better and wasn’t as annoying but we did have to re cut everything so it was in time with the music which was quite time consuming.

Our third problem was there was quite a lot of giggling over clips and talking; we assumed that if we put music over the top you can just edit out the sound. Next time we will definitely not talk whilst filming as we had to take sound from other clips and replace it.

Our fourth problem was with the length of our opening sequence, from our shot list and story board it didn’t seem that long our aim for the time length of opening sequence was 2 minutes and our rough cut came to 4 minutes 10 seconds. The focus group picked up on this and said they were getting bored, so we cut down some of the shots for instance the one where she's getting changed this didn’t need to be as long, some other shots that we planned to include got deleted like we decided to show a note from her flat mate, to establish she had a flat mate but this ended getting deleted as it didn’t really flow with what was happening, and the shot we had wasn’t very good quality.  By deleting shots and cutting them down we managed to get the opening sequence down to 2minutes 15 roughly.

And our last problem was that one of our titles which was in the opening sequence using objects wasn’t good quality or the right focus, we really liked this shot as it was within the genre of romantic comedies and worked well. So we decided to re-film it this was very last minute and was done the day before the deadline but it looked much better and has been very good for our opening sequence.

We had a problem the day before the deadline our teacher received an email from youtube saying that the music we chose had been recently owned by go digital. com so at the last minute we resorting to our first piece of music we chose called feeling good as this was some music we had ready, we re-edited to the beat and changed the music by title.


This shows us adding in a cross dissolve we chose to add in a cross dissolve because its conventiual




This is what it looked like before we editied lighting

  



This screen shot is showing use dragging the captured footage from the left hand box onto the time line ready to edit



This screen shot shows us brightening the shot as it was too dark




MAIN POST 9: Production

We decided to film across one day as everyone was available and it would be quieter outside as it wasn't a popular time for traffic to disrupt our outside filming. We also decided to film on a day my parents were at work as we needed the drive free from cars.


We decided to film outside first as it was around 12:00 lunch time and it was the lightest part of the day and less traffic was around. Some pedestrians did get in the way when filming and we had to stop and wait until they were out of site of our shots. There is some noise from a van that parked near where we were filming which may have interrupted our clip a little bit.


When filming inside when had to change some of our shot sizes that we had planned to do for instance when she's in the room its hard to get the right shot size as you cant move as round if there isn't much room, we also had trouble with lightening as it was quite a dull day most of the footage is quite dark, we tried using the artificial lighting that was already available but it didn't make much difference. Some of the angles were quite tricky to film for instance the low angle shot where JENNY puts her feet down from the bed I had to go under the bed to film. Another tricky shot to film was when JENNY is throwing her tights at a box of tampons, we had to do about 10 retakes of this as our actress couldn't actually make the tights fall off, we tried using different angles and pushing them off but that didn't work as could see the person pushing them off. In the end we shot her throwing the tights then i stood near to the tights and out of shot and threw them so they fell. 


We also had a problem when JENNY has to have a title on the back of the pillow, every time she rolled over you couldn't see the title clear enough so we decided that she rolls over but sits up so we get a close up of the title. This clip was also very dark and needed to be done more than once.


Overall i feel the filming went quite well, we managed to film it within 3 hours and we only need one lot of filming which is very beneficial as it gives us more time to edit, i feel that if we'd planned our shooting a bit better then it would of gone a bit more smoothly but most of the problems were ones that we had no control over.

MAIN Post 8: Pre-production documenatation

Synopsis of whole film
The film is about a young women called Jenny and her hetic life and unorgansied personality. Shes editor or a fashion magazine and lives in a rented flat with her friend called Sophie. You see her go on lots of dates and everytime something goes wrong, luck comes her way and she finally meets the man of her dreams and finds the love shes been looking for, her life becomes less hetic and she learns to be more organsied.

Synopsis of opening sequence
In the opening sequence we see the young women running around her room showing her getting ready for her day, this is very chaotic as her room is very messy showing her unorgansied lifestyle.  All the credits will be made with objects so we will make them flow with the film for instance fridge magnets.

Treatment

Shot List

We decided to use some of the titles included in the opening sequence for instance having the directors name in the opening sequence as we saw this in some sitcoms we also have some titles that are edited in as not every title can be put in the opening sequence with objects. Both sitcoms i looked at also have all edited titles so it is still staying within the conventions.



Location Recce

We havent used many location as our character lives in a flat with her flat mate so if we showed lots of different rooms it would make her seem like she owned a big flat/house and she wouldnt be able to afford that.


Props and Costume List

Risk Assesment

Shooting Schedule

Day	Shots	Time
Tuesday 22nd February	ALL SHOTS WILL BE FILMED	12- onwards until natural light is too dark

Mise-en-scene Description

Set Design/ Location

Our Rom-com is set in a house the main character is a girls so we are using a bed room that is pink and has white furniture we also use the bathroom and kitchen as she is a young women she won’t have loads of money so we want the sets to look basic and show of her character

Lightening

There was natural lightening coming through the whole back wall of the bedroom, this will be good as we won’t have to use any artificial lighting and it will make the shots look natural, there is also ceiling light in the bedroom and a bedside table light if the natural light is too dim. The bathroom also has windows across one whole wall and as it’s at the front of the house there is a lot of natural light this will once again give the clips natural look, the bathroom does have a ceiling light but we probably won’t use it if it’s light outside. The kitchen has windows along too walls as its situated at the back of the house, there isn’t a lot of natural light but there is artificial lighting we can use. Rom-com are light and bubbly and I think this needs to be shown through having bright lighting preferably natural as it will look more realistic.

Props

 All of are props are used to put across JENNYs personality and information about her life for instance we are going to have fashion magazines all over her bed and floor to show she’s interested in fashion she will also knock over a box of tampons to have the comedy element of the Rom-Com. All of our titles are used with props as we have seen this is quite common in Rom-coms we are using fridge magnets, makeup and handwritten titles this allows the titles to link with the characters ands also gives the natural realistic styles that Rom-Coms have. Many of our props are everyday items such as toothbrush, make up, toothpaste, clocks this puts across to the audience her normal life style so they can relate to her another form of style of a Rom-Com.

Costume

JENNY= when she wakes up she will be wearing shorts and a vest top as her bed wear, when she gets ready for work she will be wearing a tight black skirt, plain top and a blazer her work clothes shows that she has quite a good job as she is dressed smartly and it also shows she quite fashionable she will also be wearing heels as many women the age of our character would wear them too work.

Hair and makeup

JENNY= her hair will be straightened and left down

Character Movement

Through out the opening sequence JENNY is rushing around everywhere as soon as she wakes up she runs out the room, a lot of her character movement is rushing around and worrying this is because her character is un-organised and clumsy and has a very hectic life so this is shown through her character movement. There are also element of her character movement that just reflect her normal life for instance when she is getting ready she is shown brushing her teeth, putting on her makeup and getting dressed.

CREW LIST

Amy: The actress who will be playing JENNY
Becky: The camerawomen and Director

Alice:  Costume and make-up and also Director
Chloe: Props and also Director

Technical Reece

Unwanted Noise: as our location is set in a house the best time to film is when there is no-one else in as there will be noise that we don’t want.

Animals: In our location a dog and a cat live there so we will have to make sure that they are not in our shots or make noises which we don’t want them to make.

Outside filming:  we will have to be aware when outside of pedestrians as you don’t want them in our shot, traffic isn’t a main problem as we want the footage to look realistic but the noise of the traffic make cause a problem, we will have to try and film in a quiet part of the day.

Weather: For the outside scene the weather will affect when we film as we won’t be able to film when its raining as it could ruin the equipment

Cars in drive: We will also need to make sure that no cars are parked in the drive when we are filming as this will make the shot look bad and we don’t want to show the character as having a car

Storyboard

 





Pre-Production Report

From the start we knew we wanted to do a Rom-com opening sequence, our first idea was a girl with a hectic life and how she finds love and how she juggles it with her life. We had a focus meeting with our teacher miss ship and she said that our ideas were too vague and weren’t detailed enough. She also said that we needed to think more about the age of our actress and the detail of her personality and life situation at the moment. From this meeting we decided our actress was about young 20’s so it targeted teens and young adults. We then established her job which was fashion magazine editor and we planned to portray this through the opening sequence we also showed it through elements of props and costume.

Once the idea for the synopsis and opening sequence detail was finished we went on to our pre-production documentations. We had to make some changes in the shot list when it came to do the story board as we realized that some of the shots and angles we planned to do wouldn’t work. We split the work between the group which had 3 people and if things weren’t right when we went over the work we planned what needed to be changed.