Blog closed

Video upload problems

We have had problems with the upload of our final film opening video. However, we we have it on a disc that will be sent to the moderater.

Evaluation Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Risk Assessment

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

Frame one - The title of the filmThe first frame that I have selected is the film title; My Name is Alice. Our film is set in the era of the 60's, so we have used black and white throughout the whole film opening, to ensure we continue this, we have used a black backdrop with write wiriting to ensure that even our film title is black and white to add to the whole olden black and white film. Having the white font against the black screen makes it stand out a lot, making it very bold to the audience. The title plays a key role as its what splits up the opening to the film and when the films then truly begins. It fits in well as we have a voice over, where the character is actually reading the title aloud to the audience, as well as them seeing and reading it. This creates an rememberable title for the film. The font we have used is kind of fancy, this again shows the innocence and elegance of the film.

 

 

A film that we got inspiration from and followed the codes and conventions from was The Lovely Bones. Our film and this film are the same genre, and therefore this had an impact on the way we decided to create our film title to be as effective as this film title. We have used the same type of layout but using a black background with a simple white font.
 

Frame two - Costumes and propsThere are two characters in our film opening, Alice (right) and Rosie (left). Our film was set in 1966 therefore we had to ensure we had costumes that fit this era. Rosie is wearing a black and white, knee length dress with brogues, her hair half tied up with a ribben with natural curls. Alice's hair is also naturally curly, with a floral collered blouse, high waist buttoned up skirt, white frilly socks and brogues. We have ensured that our costumes linked with the era we were trying to film in to make sure the audience feel as if they are actually in that era. The only prop used was a old fashioned bike. This is because the girls are young and the type of thing you would do in that day and age is bike around and meet friends. The bike really fit in with our era too as it was old fashioned.  

 

Frame three - Creating the enigma
With our genre being Fantasy/Thriller enigma is important to be shown. The enigma was created within our opening as the audience will find it difficult to see why Alice and Rosie have met up, and why Rosie fades in and out of the shots she is in. The audience will think by Rosie fading in and out she is the one that is dead however what they wont realise is that actually Alice is dead but thinks it's the other way round. This causes confusion for the audience as they are seeing things through Alices' eyes.

Frame four - Setting/location
This is a clip of one of the locations we used for our film opening, this was used in the first half of the opening as it was showing Alice's journey to the place she was meeting Rosie. This was located in Glinton, we used this location as they were many old-ish roads/paths, with a lot of greenery, this suited our film opening era as it is how life used to be. There is no sign of modern day houses of car heres, so it helps the audience believe its in the 1960's. We then used a different location for our second half of the opening as the setting was better. Our first location didnt have any field, or large grass areas where the two girls could sit down and meet, therefore this is why we changed the location. The second location had this setting and meant we could film there. A reason for using both of these locations is because they are located in random, isolated areas, showing that Alice couldn't/wouldnt meet up with Rosie in public.

Frame five - title font and style

Throughout our whole opening, we have stuck to one font and style, to keep the theme of basis but effective going all the way through. A lot of film openings do this, therefore we have followed them. Again, the colour of the titles we have used is black, which is to fit in with the black and white theme to create the era this is set in. The white is a contrast against the darker colours used throughout the scenes and shots in our film opening.

Frame six - Genre and how the opening suggests it
The genre we have gone for is Thriller/Fantasy. There are a number of ways in which the genre has come through in the film opening to the audience. This whole film opening is black and white, although its for the era setting it's also suggesting this could be a flashback of some sort to create the opening scene for the film. The way one of the characters, Rosie, fades in and out creates a kind of thrill and spookiness to the scene. The voice over adds to the thriller as it's quite deep and you can tell this girl has been to a dark place. The thriller also links to the fact the main characters are very young, being just 13 years old, which is quite weird to see a young characters speaking like an adult with the depth of emotions she goes through, this is expressed through the use of the voiceover. The opening consists of two young girls, meeting in a disurted place, where no one else is or goes, which makes the opening kind of odd as to why they are being so secretive.

Frame seven - How characters are introduced

The main character Alice was introduced at the very beginning of the film opening, this was shown as her biking down some paths. The actual introduction of her charatcer and her real self has been added through the use of the titles of her name on top of a shot when she appears on screen. With her being the first character shown, and her being there from the start to end, it shows the audience she is the main character and the one to focus on. This makes the audience aware that she is probably Alice from the title 'My Name is Alice'. Rosie is then introduced once Alice has met her at their own little place. Rosie properly appears through a fade in to make her look mysterious. It shows how the characters have a strong bond as Alice has gone out of her way to bike all the way to see Rosie. Another way the characters are itntroduced is through the voice over. Alice actually says "that's Rosie" and explains what Rosie means to her and what she's helped her through. She ends the voiceover with 'and my name, is Alice' telling the audience that the person talking about the top was actually the main character that was on the screen.

 

Frame eight - Camerawork and editing
Throughout our film opening we have used a variety of camera angles, shots and movements alongside a few different editing techniques. The first thing we done was used panning to track the bird that was flying through the sky at the very beginning of the film opening, this was neccessary as it linked to the song being played throughout the scene which was called 'Blackbirds'. We had then gone of to use a variety of shots and angle to capture Alices' journey to the place she was meeting Rosie. Once Alice and Rosie was together over-the-shoulder shots, medium shot, two shot and extreme close ups were used to show them talking and in deep conversation. We had also used cross dissolve to edit the scenes and different shots together well. We made sure the cross dissolve was either fading out to black or white, which again fits in with the black and white theme running through the whole opening. The picture I have attached above is a match on action shot of Alice off her bike and pushing it along where she then puts it down so she can sit down and speak to Rosie.

Frame nine - Story and how the opening sets it upOur film opening is about a girl who believes she is alive, this is Alice, the main girl throughout the whole opening. Alice goes to visit a friend, Rosie, in a isolated place where no one else goes as she believe Rosie is dead, however this isn't true. What Alice doesn't know is that in fact she is the one that died years ago but has been living as if she was still alive, as thats what she believes. The titles will appear after the end of this opening scene where the film would then restart and show the audience who Alice was when she was alive, what she went through, how she died and how she met Rosie. The narration that is said over the top gives away subtle hints that Alice isn't alive, same as some of the editing involved in this opening.

 

 

 

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

Evaluation Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of construction this product?

One of the types of technology that we learnt about was the Sound Booth. We had used this because we needed to recorded Sky doing the voice-over for the main character Alice. None of us had used it before therefore none of us knew how to work it. One of the music teachers gave us a brief after school lesson to teach us how to use the microphone, the sound buttons and volume and the editor for the sound on the computer. In this picture me and Mollie are moving the buttons for when Sky has to speak to ensure that we get the voice-over clear and Laura who isn't in the picture was working the volume to ensure the speech wasn't going to be too loud and muffled.  

Whilst we were all controlling the buttons, Sky had to read over her speech into the microphone clearly to ensure we were able to capture the voice-over the best we could. To the right is the outside of the door showing anyone passing by that we were 'On Air' so they wouldn't disturb us. Again, at first we didnt know how to use the microphone but we had been briefly taught this beforehand. 

This picture was taking whilst we were out filming our outdoor scene of where the two characters meet and are shown together. The equipment being shown here is a tripod, this is where the camera is linked onto so that we can get still shots and also smooth turns. We had to position the tripod accurately to ensure we dont get the scenery lopsided, we found this difficult at times because we had to film on the ground, which isn't exactly flat.

The main techonology we used was the Adobe Premiere Pro. This was where our whole film opening came together. This is where we had put all of the videos and shots we had and put them into one video, whilst also including effects, the voice-over, the music and had edited everything together. This techonology hasnt been the best, but it done what we needed to do. Using this has been quite difficult most of the time due to constant freezing making it hard for us to see whether the video flowed well together and whether or not the editing looked good. 

For all of the filming we used my camera which is a 

Fujifilm FinePix S2995 Digital Bridge Camera, this was because this camera was better quality than the cameras we were given to used at the beginning.