Closing Blog

After such a long year, we have finally come to the closure of my blog post. From all my AS Media classes, I have learnt a large amount of new and important facts and keywords that will help me in the future if I ever come across the world of media again. My teachers Mr. Coppard and Mrs. Jones has helped me progress from the lack of media terminology I had at the start of my AS Media course to being able to use them more fluently in my work. I have learnt how to use different technologies, such as cameras, iMac, etc. Also learnt how to use different websites and software to help present, edit or publish my work which could easily be used in other lesson or even outside school life. I have really enjoyed this course of AS Media and need to get back to work on our examination skill for our AS Media exam in May.

Evaluation: Question 1- IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

Evaluation: Question 2- HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

Evaluation: Question 3- WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

Evaluation: Question 4- WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT

Evaluation: Question 5- HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?

Evaluation: Question 6- WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THE PRODUCT?

As Media on Dipity.

Evaluation: Question 7- LOOKING BACK TO YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

Evaluation: Question Plan

Evaluation Plan:

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

9 Key Frame: I chose to use this way of evaluating this question because it will allow me to pick 9 individual screenshots from different sections of our title sequence that show the answer to the question.

• Unpick the question- Challenge, Convention: These are the keywords in the question, I need to be able to state the convention we used in our title sequence and some challenges to the convention of a crime fiction that it beholds
• Main Points- The conventions in the title sequence are what people would expect to see in typical crime fiction films (i.e.: criminals), the challenges that this title sequence has (i.e.: Comedy elements).
• Evidence- Looking over my 9 key frames and picking each section individually of parts that challenge or stay conventional to crime fictions.
• Analysis- It creates enigma codes by using elements that challenge the genre's conventions, making more interesting to the viewer. Important to keep some of the usual conventions of crime fiction films to help the audience understand what they will expect to see and therefore keeping them happy.
• Key Concept- Genre, Representation, Audience, Narrative

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Powtoon: I chose to use this style as I have not used this website before however it stood out to me the most, it will allow me to explore different social groups, explain why they would enjoy our production and how our title sequence may represent these different groups. This question may be the hardest question for us as throughout our title sequence we chose to make it into a silhouette style opening and so does not show much of the different social groups in it as effective as other title sequences.

• Unpick the question- Represent: This word is very important to As Media, it is a key word that should be focused upon. I must answer the question describing and explaining how our media product shows off socials groups.
• Main Points- My media product represent young aged men.
• Evidence- The clothing and the character within the title sequence
• Analysis- The characters are seen as trying to represent young aged men due to the fact that the characters are in suits which are usually associated with mature people and adults. The characters are also male and shows that they are representing that gender.
• Key Concept- Genre, Representation, Audience, Narrative

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

Infographic: I have chose this style to answer this question, I like this website as it works well to position information, it also looks very professional and will allow me to explain the distributor and the film they have previously distributed on it in a clear way.

• Unpick the question- Media Institution: This one of the keywords in the question, I must explore different institutions that may distribute my film. Distribute: Another keyword in the question, I must think why certain distributors would distribute this movie, I also need to look at examples of film that previous distributors have distributed and link it to my film.
• Main Points- I want Warner Bros to distribute my film because they have distributed many successful films and are a mainstream institution meaning that my film has a better chance of becoming successful. Why I believe it is more beneficial to pick a mainstream institution over an independent institution. 
• Evidence- Example of Warner Bros' distributed film (i.e.: Inception) and how much did the film receive in the box office. Look at an independent institution and look at their film that they distributed and the amount that they receive at box office and compare it to a mainstream box office
• Analysis- From looking at films like 'Inception', it is clear to say that Warner Bros would improve the success of my film rather than a independent film. From the box office amount that Inception received it show that the film was very successful.
• Key Concept- Genre, Audience, Institution

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Voki: I chose this software to answer this question, this software allows me to preset a digital avatar with words to say out loud. This will allow the viewer of my blog to just sit and listen to the Voki as it speaks out what I have written before.

Planning: 

• Unpick the question- Audience: This is the important keyword within the question, it is important to focus all my points on the audience.
• Main Points- Our media product would be for males and teenagers/grown ups (i.e.: 15+), people who enjoy crime fiction films and a bit of humor
• Evidence- Males: There are no females within the title sequence and so shows that the main audience would be males. Teens/Grown Ups- There are scene of violence in the title sequence which involves guns. Primary Audience- Signs of crime fiction elements within the title sequence (i.e.: Detective or police and a criminal, who are conventional characters in crime fictions films and is a typical binary opposition between the good guys and the bad or criminal vs the law)
• Analysis- Shows that our title sequence would have the primary audience interested in it however could also draw secondary audiences to watch it as it may have elements in it that interests them.
• Key Concept- Genre, Representation, Audience, Narrative

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Feedback/reaction video blog: I will create a blog and place the reactions from different people as they watch my title sequence. I will also receive feedback from other people who do not want to make a reaction video out of them. From this I can answer part of the question however I will talk about how the title sequence addresses the audience that will watch. I will also look at different theories and decide on one that I believe describes how the audience become interested in different media texts.  

• Unpick the question- Attract/Address: This is they key word, the question is basically asking how does our film draw in our audience
• Main Points- Our title sequence help draw in our audience by the fact that most of the population are active but also by the different styles we use.
• Evidence- Theories of Hypodermic Neddle Model and Uses and Gratifications Model
• Analysis- Most of our audience said that they were an passive however some also said that they were an active audience. We tried to make it as interesting as we can so that both audiences can watch it and enjoy it.
• Key Concept- Genre, Representation, Audience

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

Interactive Timeline: This is the most interesting style to answer this question, it will allow me to section out the technology used between the progression of our As Media year.

• Unpick the question- Learnt: This is the important key word of the question, it is a past tensed word and is asking about what I have learnt, therefore I should refer back to the past to help with this question
• Main Points- Blogger, DSLR, Final Cut Express, Glogster, Infographic, PowToon, Screenomatic, Bubbl.us, Prezi, Smartphone, iMac
• Evidence- Blog posts
• Analysis- Explain the progression and my knowledge and what I could improve.

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

Top Trump: I have chosen this style to answer this question, I can make a top trump of where I believe I was when I first started As Media and show the progression in knowledge, teamwork and other key skills from what I was when I started to where I am now.

• Unpick the question- Preliminary task: This is asking me everything from my preliminary task to our final production, therefore I should focus my attention upon that period of time
• Evidence- Blog posts
• Analysis- I have now learnt from the problems that occurred at preliminary task (e.g.: Rewinding the tape) and used it so that I can avoid for future recording. 

Evaluation: The Questions

In As Media today, we have been looking into our evaluation questions that we plan to answer in the future. We have seen the questions before however never went into a lot of depth about them. Our questions are:

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
• Who would be the audience for your media product?
• How did you attract/address your audience?
• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
• Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

We were then given a task to put the questions into an order of importance, we had to decide on what is the most important question out of the 7 and what was the least important and explain why we have picked these questions. Although every question is equally as important as each other, we still believed that one question deserve a bit more focus upon it. 

Image: Questions order- 

• Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
• Who would be the audience for your media product?
• How did you attract/address your audience?
• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

We believed that the question that deserves the most focus is: 

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

The reason we believe that this question is very important is because if it was not for the preliminary task then i doubt we would ave been so successful as we are with our title sequence, the preliminary task help us to use the cameras properly, how to white balance, how to edit and use 'Final Cut Express'. We also learnt that when using certain cameras with tapes as our method of recording then it is important to not rewind the tapes while the tape is still in the camera as it will ruin the filming, even getting rid of certain clips of the film.

The question that we thought was not as important as the previous ones was:

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

This question is important however it did not really have much of an impact on our title sequence, it is good that we can distinguish between distributors and decide which one is good for the distributions of our film however it will not help us very well with our title sequence.

Overall, these questions combined together make up our title sequence and so we should remember the importance of each question.

Final: Grifter

This is our final production for our title sequence, 'Grifter'. After receiving feedback from our teachers and looking back over it to see what could be improved, we noticed a few little problems that were in desperate need of changing. After fixing these problems (e.g.: music issues, not adding the titles), we also got a few advice that the teachers believed should be place into the movie to help improve it, when you look between the rough copy and the final, you will notice the changes straight away. We changed the the background colours so that it was not just one boring gold background throughout the title sequence. We also added as little scene within the sequence that helped introduce the character of the film and maybe his interests. This was to help the audience to understand the character and see what sort of setting the character will be placed in.

Editing Diary: Day 4

Today, whilst everyone was away for 'Innovation Week', my group met up at school to finish off our final title sequence. We were dying to get it done so we had some assistance when it came to our evaluation questions. We first need to make the graphic match, Othman was in charge of creating that using Final Cut Express. Samuel made sure that the song for our title sequence is good enough to use. I had nothing to do and so helped Othman with the editing by finding advice from the Internet when he was stuck. Once Othman had finally figured our how to make a graphic match, he did so. Adding additional sounds and our song, we had finished. We uploaded it to Youtube and our blogs and was ready to finish or start our questions.

Filming Diary: Day 4

After getting so far to finishing our final title sequence, we were placed inside another dilemma that would point us back into the direction of filming again. Our teachers, after looking back over our rough copy, believed that because our title sequence did not have any revealing of the character or the exact narrative of the film, it would be best we had a footage that would introduce the character or what the character is interested in. We thought about what to do and came to the conclusion of having a graphic match of the bullet hole that was seen at the end of the title sequence, with an object that circular like the bullet hole. We chose to use a watch to use as the bullet hole's replacement and introduced the realism of the film. Once again we went down to the TV studio to film this scene, getting our props out and ready to use, our group filmed the final scene that was need and had it ready to upload onto our computer so that we could edit it.

Rough Copy: Grifter

This is our group rough copy of our title sequence,'Grifter'. This opening is something unexpected to typical title sequence, following the example of 'Catch Me If You Can' very closely. This opening title sequence came out well however there are little minor issues that could be worked upon. There are a lot of pixel problem where there are different colour dots to the gold background that appears quiet frequently. There are also problems with the sound edit that we hope fix up upon immediately. We also have more text to place into the film title sequence which we did not get to add now however after we get our feedback then we will definitely add into the title sequence on our final deadline. Overall we are pleased that we managed to have a rough copy on the deadline.

Editing Diary: Day 3

The next day after creating the production logo we were really ahead and so had a bit of time to spare therefore I went back to placing an image with the production logo. The image had a white background which ruined the whole production logo, so I chose to edit the image on 'Adobe Photoshop'. On Photoshop, I imported the image and erased the white background using 'Magic Eraser Tool'. Once I had taken out the white background in the image, I went back onto 'Adobe After Effect' to try insert the image with the text. Using what I have been told by my teachers, I managed to add the image and its animation with the text.
                             

This is our production logo after adding the image and text:

Once we were pleased with our production logo, we went on to placing the music into the logo. Using Final Cut Express we were able to import our logo in the software and add the copyright free sounds with it. Using our skill from previous editing lessons (e.g.: Preliminary Task) we were able to add the music to the logo and filter the colour of the overall logo. Once done, we had exported it and I had uploaded it onto Youtube.

                        

This is our final edit of the production logo:

Editing Diary: Day 2

Editing

After we had finished filming our opening sequence, we went straight into editing it for our rough copy. I was in charge of making sure that our group's work was done to how we planned it to be, also I had to make sure our group had the a production logo. Othman was in charge of editing our clips on 'Final Cut Express' following closely what has been illustrated on our storyboard. Samuel was in charge of gathering a suitable sound for our title sequence and creating the text for our title sequence.

      

For our production logo, I had to explore the Internet looking for an 'Adobe After Effect' template that was close to the one we drew in our storyboard. After a long scan through websites and videos, we fount a template that appealed to us. Although we had the template,  we were not done, we need the text and the anchor on the same screen as the template background. I decided to open the template in 'Adobe After Effect'. Once in after effect, I had to place a text, however the text needed to be seen clearly, so we added a drop shadow to the text. Thanks to our teachers we were able to apply text to the background, choose the positioning of the text and how it will appear. Cautious of time, we were advice to leave the image out of the production logo and so we did.

Planning: Ipod Advert

While we have been editing our title sequence, we were reminded of similar example which used the same techniques that we were planning on using. The iPod advertisement was a very similar use of editing. From this video, even though we did not know of the    advertisement until a few days into editing, we were able to get a few influences from it.

Editing Diary: Day 1

This is day one of editing, we have just finished filming our footage (and we finished faster than expected, leaving us with enough time to focusing strongly on the editing, which is the toughest part of our title sequence). As our title sequence is adopting the style of 'Catch Me If You Can' and 'Superbad', then editing is very important. While everyone in my group had assignment for the editing, I had nothing to do, therefore, as I wait to learn how to make our production logo, I went onto blogger to check if our works are up to date so that on deadline day we would be fine.

Filming Diary: Day 3

This was another day of filming, however this time we actually got the whole filming stage done. This was good as it allowed us more time to learn some editing skills and research more for our production. Today we had booked the room and the camera once again and had no disruptions. We place the tripod were we last marked it and got ready for filming. We changed certain parts of the storyboard to fit the position we were placed in. We did not waste anytime today, I was in control of the camera as my scene was all done, this gave me the chance to watch my teammates and note any errors that may have occurred. Taking up nearly the whole of our lesson time we had everything completed and ready for uploading.




We were so happy to have everything completed and took the time to rest and review over our work that we had produce today. Once we were happy with our footage, we packed up the equipment and left the TV studio. We were now ready for the editing, which was the most important part of our title sequence and need the most time focused upon however still pleased that we had finished all of our filming on time and only in two days.

Filming Diary: Day 2

Today was a much better day, we made sure to book out the camera and room the day before so that we could the room all to ourselves. Once we got all the equipment for our production we went on our way, only to be stopped by another media class who wanted use the room quickly. Obviously there definition of 'quickly' was completely different to ours because they were in there for mostly a period of a lesson (50 minutes). Once they had finished we were placed in a crucial situation as we had less time then what we had expected. We went straight in there, expected the room and got into our costumes. I made sure that health and safety was thought about and so i made sure that there were no hazards while we were recording, moving the lighting that was arranged randomly around the room, we got straight onto recording. 

Once we were all done and ready for recording, we placed our camera and tripod down and turned the camera on. The camera was white balanced before so it was just a matter of turning it on, standing in position and pressing the record button on the camera. The first scene was using me and Othman so we both had to stand out of frame so that the camera could not see use while we were set to appear.

We had to record the scene over and over again till we just got it perfect. Doing this scene pretty much ate out all the time we had for recording today. We marked off where the camera on its tripod was so that the next time we came to filming, we had it in the right position, keeping the continuity of our filming like we learnt from our continuity and preliminary tasks. Although today was not exactly how we expected, we were happy to actually get some filming done for the day and hopefully the next time we had to film that we would get a lot more done.

Filming Diary: Day 1

We did not get to start any filming today due to the fact that we did not book out the TV studio room before hand. Therefore we have learnt to book the room and cameras out before hand to allow us to reduce the chance of these problems repeating again. Throughout the double period we had we just went onto our blogs and look for outstanding work. Samuel and Othman searched of copyright free sounds to use in our editing for the title sequence of 'Grifter'. At least by doing this for the lesson we were doing something beneficial for our production. 

Costume List

Costume List Template

Prop List

Props List Template

Equipment List

Equipment List Template by Othman Abdul Ghani

Location Recce

Production Roles: Top Trump

Javan Kinghorn | Create infographics

Storyboard

Storyboard

This is our group's storyboard for our title sequence, 'Grifter':

This part has been changed during filming due to the fact that we could not get out feet in the filming frame