Evaluation Question 6- Sophie

Question 6

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

In the main task we used a big variety of different technologies, for example filming and editing, and learnt a lot about them throughout the course of the entire project.

To actually film our video we had to originally learn how to use the camera, the right procedures and methods and the correct framing for each particular shot.

We originally struggled to be able to get the correct white balance, as we didn't know how to set it on the camera, however, in this product we were able to analyse the camera and how it worked, therefore being able to set the white balance on the camera.

no white balance

set white balance

We have learnt that if you don't set the white balance on every shot it makes a big difference, making the shot seem very unsaturated and unrealistic, and so we made sure to set the white balance on our cameras before shooting for any shot for the final product. We also learnt that if you set the white balance on some shots and not others, it would affect the continuity of the video. The screen grabs above are to show the difference, the left image shows the colouring isn't as bright or as saturated as it should be, if we had set the white balance the shot would have been a lot clearer too. The right image shows one of our shots from our final product, where we had set the white balance, the wall is very white and has a much clearer tone to it. If we hadn't set the white balance it would have had quite murky, grey colouring.

We found it quite difficult to get the correct framing for our video as a lot of our shots included our actor running, so to keep the focus on him at all times was rather difficult. However, we learnt how to use a tripod to put the camera on, it moves very smoothly, therefore we were able to keep the him in the frame rather well without having to move the camera ourselves. As our final video is called "Noose" we wanted to include a close up shot of an actual Noose in our setting, the woods. This proved to be rather difficult to get the correct framing as we had to use zoom on the camera to get better shot of the Noose in the tree. This is a screen grab of our final shot of the Noose, this was a very difficult shot to get the correct framing of, I think it could have been better, although we did learn how to zoom and get the correct angle on the camera which proved to be more successful.

One issue we had with the camera was that we had to use two separate cameras for each setting. This was a slight problem as one camera had better quality than the other, this wasn't very noticeable, but was however rather annoying when it came to editing as we had to make sure all of the clips were similar quality so it didn't affect the continuity of the video. The lighting was pretty simple to use, we used a spot light for almost all of our shots. The only thing we really had to learn about the lighting was how the wheel on the side changed the brightness of the lighting and when to use it.

Another thing that we had to learn how to use was the mac; this was the hardest piece of technology to work with. We used the mac to edit our video using Final Cut Pro and Garage Band. Personally, I found Final Cut Pro rather difficult to use however, after learning how to use it properly it wasn't too hard to edit on, although very frustrating. We found out how to apply filters, colour correction, distortions and how to transition with more than just a normal cut, such as wipe and dissolve. We used Garage Band for sound editing, this was easy to get used to using as it had almost everything you needed, as on the side it gave you all of the parallel sounds you could use. Overall, I personally, learnt a lot about technologies from conducting this product as I had never really used any of these before, other than Garage Band.





Dan's Evaluation - Questions 1, 6 and 7

Film: Noose (Link here)

Question 1:

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



The Usual Suspects - keeping his face a mystery

On the left is the unknown character

A significant part of thriller films is enigma, or having the audience ask questions (usually in their head). This is particularly prevalent in The Usual Suspects, especially during the opening scenes. In our film, we very much made sure that a lot of what we were showing was unexplained, as it is only meant to be the first two minutes of a feature-length film. We did not explain who had set up the noose, or whether it had been used, we only implied that the protagonist killed the man in the woods, and we definitely did not explicitly mention the mental illness (Schizophrenia) that our protagonist had. We tried to make our protagonist an "anti-hero", where he is the main character, but he is not necessarily doing what he does for the good of everyone, or even himself.



"I just missed your heart."

"What have you done?"

As such, our narration is very restricted. We have two lines of dialogue (which, funnily enough, is the same amount as we had in the preliminary task), both of which are not really in a conversation, just thrown at the protagonist in passing. This is fairly similar to Hanna, where the only line of speech is said by Hanna just before the title. The protagonist also knows more than the audience does, such as the aforementioned Schizophrenia, who had used the noose and who had murdered the man in the woods. The audience has to piece together the bits of the protagonist's past.

When it came to aspects of mise-en-scene, our film does not deviate too far from the norm of thrillers, except perhaps in colour. During the hospital scenes, the colours are fairly dark and drab as we shot during the night, but during the woods scene in the morning, everything is rather saturated and vivid. This was done for two reasons:

It seems visible enough

1. We needed to differentiate the noose from the background. Our rope was fairly small and thin, and it did not help that the colour was a bright yellow. The OTS shot during our film was actually helpful in showing the noose, as it was placed with a tree directly behind it, causing a clash of colours.
2. Our protagonist is a drug user, and one of the common symptoms of various drugs is seeing the world differently, or hallucinations. We tried to make the woods seem a little psychedelic, without changing the scenery or distorting anything too much (aside from the OTS shot with the noose).

Otherwise, the film stuck to traditional thriller properties, such as urban costumes, blood, pale make-up, mental hospital setting, etc.

Todorov's narrative rules only sometimes apply during our film. Our equilibrium is never really set, as almost the first thing we see is our protagonist escaping a mental hospital. It could be said that our equilibrium was set during the very first shot where an unknown character walks out of the hospital, but that is not particularly relevant to the story, rather a way of using an establishing shot, and leading towards the protagonist's escape.

The disruption occurs in two places. Part one is where the protagonist escapes, and part two is where he spots the noose and the body in the woods. The realisation comes after the second part, where he realises what he has done (purely implied) and runs off into the woods.

Restoration attempt?

Typically, this would lead onto attempting to restore order, and it could be said that the final shot, where two unknown characters walk up to the fainted protagonist is the beginning of the restoration. However, from that point on, the film would continue, and it would be past the first two minutes. The equilibrium would appear again at the end of the film, possibly with the protagonist back inside of the mental hospital.

Question 6:

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

The products we used were:

• Digital Camera
• Spotlight
• Tripod
• Mac (GarageBand, Final Cut Pro)
• Lapel Microphone

In each of our settings, we had a different camera, and this had a small effect on our editing. One camera shot everything in a much higher resolution than the other one, which - while not particularly noticeable - is still an issue that we had to address by making them at least the same aspect ratio. Otherwise, we learned that the batteries run out extremely quickly, and so we needed to work fairly fast. White balance was also an issue, as we forgot to specifically bring white objects, but we worked with ones that we had around us, such as a white wall and Ross' jumper.

The spotlight was fairly simple, and as such there wasn't much to learn. Moving the wheel up made it more powerful, and moving it down made it less so. The tripod was also difficult to put back into its more portable position, but we quickly learned how to do it efficiently.

The Mac was definitely the hardest piece of tech to work with. While I cannot speak for the other members of the group, I can say personally that it was a very unpleasant experience. As a predominant Windows user (and occasionally Linux), getting accustomed to Apple's file system and how each of the applications worked was extremely frustrating. That being said, we did manage. We found out how to apply filters, from colour correction to distortions, we found out how to get the files from two different projects into one main project, and how to transition with more than just a normal cut, such as wipe and dissolve.

Using the Mac and getting a little more used to it has not converted me from Windows or Linux yet.

Question 7:

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

Our group was only like it is now after we started the main task, and as such we were split into two groups. I was with Ross, and our film was about an interrogation between two men.

We were pretty pleased with how it turned out, but there were a few things which we had to improve for our main task. Lighting was one of these areas. Our prelim was set in a dark room, and this was for a reason. We had a standing spotlight which we used in shot to show the victim from the darkness, and we implied that it had been turned on by the interrogator or his colleagues. This still did not really prove to be enough light, especially as this was entirely focused on one of the two people, and as they sat down one was far brighter than the other. This did look odd, and perhaps shifted focus onto someone who was not talking at the time, or was not doing anything relevant.



We have varying amounts of lighting intensity

In our main task, we had two settings, one set at night and one set in the morning. The morning light proved useful, creating nice lighting effects and stylish lens flares, but we also used the spotlight to emphasise particular props like the noose. During the night, we had the spotlight on every shot, highlighting the whole area, or just a particular point (like the hospital sign).

The prelim had some editing issues. In one of our shots, we had broken the 180 degree rule ever so slightly with an OTS shot. We had to remove the shot entirely from the final cut. During our main task this didn't prove to be a problem, has we did not have any dialogue between two people, but even so we spent the majority of the time on the actor's right side.

When it came to sound, we were much better at choosing and placing them in the main task. Our prelim had no ambient sound, just music or dialogue. It felt very much like a film set, and unnaturally quiet. We made sure to change this in our main task, and included ambient sounds for every shot, as well as music and other non-diegetic sounds.

Neve's evaluation question 6

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

From creating our thriller final product i have learnt a lot about technologies good and bad things.

Mac's for editing 

One thing that is the most significant in my learning process would be  the macs to edit using Garage band and Audacity, As i haven't used macs in the past this was a new experience for me a hard one as well.however using all our knowledge as a group we managed to succeed in the editing process of images, image editing wasn't as hard as garage band which as a group we struggled with. I've learnt how to use the basics of garage band and where to place the different sound effects and volumes of each one, i think that i have improved my skills throughout the process from being unable to use garage band efficiently to being able to edit sequence and add sound alone.

editing figure 1

ross's jumper figure 2

For the non diegetic sound effects i have learnt how to choose the correct sounds and edit them properly to create the right affect on the audience. Using final cut pro was also a new experience which again wasn't easy to start with however once I spent time on it playing around with the different effects it got much better. we initially struggled with colour correction when we wanted to colour correct the yellow noose to make it stand out more we overcome this issue eventually  overall with using macs I feel as if I have improved greatly and learnt new things and how to use them properly. (figure 1)

Digital cameras, Equipment and Lighting 

canon digital camera

I have had previous experience with digital camera as I did media at GCSE so using them wasn't completely new for me, However there were new things that i had to learnt such as white balance, We didn't put the white balance on in our preliminary which was why our film didn't look as good as our final piece that has had the white balance applied, We didn't take a specific object for the white balance so we had to improvise and use ross's white jumper (figure 2) however this worked fine. We used a tripod to steady our camera in most of the scenes getting this in the right position and height for the person recording took time and patience. we also used lighting without filters, as these are simple to use we didn't have any problems other than trying to position them properly.

zoom figure 3

When using zoom on the camera we had a tendency to zoom to fast and it look weird, this has shown in one of our scenes where we zoom in on the noose.(figure 3). We didnt use any depth of field in our final piece which would have been good to add to the quality of the images.

Evaluation Question 7- Sophie

Evaluation Question 7

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

Preliminary Task: http://foundationportfolio201667.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/our-completed-prelim-film.html

Our Final Product, NOOSE: http://foundationportfolio201667.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/our-finished-film-noose.html

We have improved vastly from our preliminary task, there are many reasons as to why this is and after looking back at our preliminary video I have seen many things we didn’t achieve, however have now achieved in our final product.

 In our preliminary video I noticed that the quality wasn’t brilliant and I saw that the colouring was slightly off, and quite green. In this screengrab you can see that the wall and door of the shot is off  colour, this is a result of not setting the white balance. We realised that not setting the white balance caused the colouring to go off slightly and make the overall piece bad quality. In our final project, Noose, we set the white balance before every shot and found that it had a much more positive effect and made our film a lot better quality. This next screengrab is of our final film, where we set the white balance.

I also noticed that, in our preliminary video, we didn’t use any lighting and relied on the natural lighting of the corridor and rooms that we were in. However, this shows to have been a bad idea because the lighting was very dark, therefore we can’t really see much in our video.  For example, in this screen grab it shows a shot of our film where our actor walks through

the corridor. You can’t really see what’s going on, and you cannot see facial expressions etc, which means that it’s rather difficult to tell what the story line is. Not only that, but the lighting coming through the windows of the doors makes a bad affect and creates only little stripes of lighting. Therefore, in our final video we used the proper LED lights to light up the area, even in pure daylight, this is because we can’t have any shadowing that’s not wanted. We also filmed in the dark for some of the film so we needed to use the lights to light up the surrounding area and to be able to see the actors clothing as it was really important for the role he was portraying. This screen grab is of one of the dark areas that we filmed, it’s lit up by an LED light as well as a street lamp. This works well as you can see the area very well, also the lighting is good enough to be able to see the actor. 

The camerawork in our preliminary video was mainly hand held, which had a bad affect on the quality of our video as it was rather shakey and made the whole video difficult to edit. In our final project video we improved a lot in out camera work skills and decided to use a tripod for all of our shots, including the establishing shot at the beginning; for this we used a band on the arm of the tripod to move it smoothly to give the shot a nice finish. 

We analysed our preliminary editing and realised that there wasn't much to our film editing, other than the simple cut transition. For our final project we used different transitions which proved a success. The sound editing in our preliminary video was also a big mistake we made, as a group we decided not to edit the sound properly and just left it as it was. Unfortunately, you could hear a lot of muffling   and talking in the background. Therefore, when editing the sound for our final project film we did a lot of research for parallel sound. We decided to completely cut out the sound and edit over by using garageband sound effects and a sound recorder for the voices in our video. This also proved to be a very good idea and gave a positive affect on our video in the end.

A slight problem in our preliminary video was organising costume, we were unable to get any of the actors to wear specific clothing, unfortunately we couldn't get access to make-up either so that made a bad affect as the story line may have been unclear. In this screen grab you can see that our actor isn't particularly wearing any costume or make-up. However, in our final project video we made sure our actor was wearing clothing that was quite casual but scruffy to make him look like a mental hospital patient. We also used make-up for blood on our dead character, also our main character needed make-up to look tired and like he had previously been on drugs, also to make him look sweaty from running. We really improved on costume and make-up as we didn't use any in our preliminary film, however we used it to a great extent in our final project which proved to have a really good affect.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Neve's evaluation question 1

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

In our thriller opening sequence we use different forms and conventions of thriller films such as the use of a protagonist and an antagonist however in our thriller the antagonist is his schizophrenic personality that can take over, the main character is the protagonist. Thriller films usually have a storyline with crime in this is also part of our storyline whilst we tried to work it around mental health crime is still incorporated. We were inspired by shutter island, this gave us the idea of making our thriller about mental health.

Our use of mise en scene is similar to other thriller films, costume being scruffy  and the character looking ill was the desired look we were wanting, the idea of looking like he had done drugs was inspired by a character in shutter island. This character has red lined eyes like ours and is very pale whilst they have very different mental issues (she hasn’t done drugs) we thought the eyes were key in making him look the way we wanted. The costumes used in thrillers are key in showing the characters personality. (inspiration for character).

inspiration for our character.

Thriller films use off screen non diegetic eerie sounds to create suspense and a creepy feel, we have done his throughout to show his mental state and how he is feeling. There is also non diegetic chase music that suggests he is being chased, this is common in thriller films. we have challenged this by using a more upbeat non diegetic song that suggests hes on a mission (he's not!) rather than running away from himself.

children of men title 

our title 

It is common in thriller films to use black and white or dark colours to emphasise the darkness in the film and the thriller genre, our title sequence is white text on a black background this is similar to the thriller se7en however the title font of se7en, is jagged and probably creepier so if we were able to change this we would. The text pace is slow, this slow motion pace creates suspense for the audience, our thriller challenges this because our title sequence is a slow pace and creates a suspense. (screen shots above)

Minority report lighting 

 The lighting in thrillers is usually dark low key light to make the scene have a creepy feeling to it, our thriller is filmed in low key lighting in the evening (figure 4) to create the feeling that the character is doing something wrong and bad (escaping the hospital). lighting is dark in the film minority report which gives it a creepier feel that what going on is dark and evil. Our thriller challenges this along with other thrillers similar.

our lighting 

The narration we used is restricted we did this by not telling the audience what had happened previously in the characters life e.g we didn't say what illness he had, we implied it, we didn't say who killed the boy either, we had to be particularly careful in creating enigma because we didn't want to give the narrative away.our thriller challenges other thrillers that have created ambiguity and enigma in the audience, an example would be shutter island we are not told where the characters are going and to begin with there isn't any dialogue like ours there is just non diegetic sounds. This helps create ambiguity because the audience are having to connote what is happening rather than denote it. we wanted to create enigma which we have successfully achieved.

Tvetzan Todrovs narrative theory applies to our film in some part however not all of it.
equilibrium 
there isn't an obvious equilibrium in our film however it could be argues that the establishing shot by the hospital where a man walks out of the hospital, all people around are unaware of the main character escaping the hospital, for other characters this would be an equilibrium but not the audience as we have seen him escaping. 
disruption  
The disruption in our thriller is when the character has hallucination of the dead body, This is a disruption because the audience aren't aware of what he may have done until he sees the dead body by the tree.
realisation
the realisation is when the character remembers what he has done and begins to run away from the memories.
restored order 
restored order is similar to the realisation as him running away was him trying to restore normality and order to the situation. 
 
 

sound recording

Due to the nature of the sound we needed to externally record being simply voices of two characters, We decided to use the iPhone 6s' built in microphone for the recording. we took to a quite room with our actors of which we needed voiceovers from. This worked well to block out other sounds we didn't want, however the room created an echo in Amy's voice which is noticeable in our film.
        Throughout the film we used non diegetic sounds from garage band and for the background music we used a song from Incompetech, we used the song corruption we thought this best fit our character and state of mind. We didn't use any foley's because we didn't have a seperate microphone and we wanted to create clearer sounds that heighten the mental state of our character, We got these sounds from Garage band and also used Audacity.
https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/music.html

  

audience feedback

audience feedback of our thriller Noose.

We asked Allan Gomez to watch our thriller sequence first, he said that he liked our film however he would of changed the titling, however overall he liked it.

Here is the video of Joe comber giving us his audience feedback. The feedback is towards the end of the clip.