Evaluation Question Seven

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

In our preliminary task it was a continuity task which involved filming and editing. It included match on action when abbie walked through the door, a shot reverse shot when Abbie and Ellie were having a conversation and finally the 180 degree rule. By doing this task it helped us understand each one of these shots and help us get use to the camera and tripod. We felt like they looked effective which is why we used the match on action shot in our thriller, when the thriller is walking through the gate. We felt like we achieved this successfully due to use doing this shot in our preliminary task. It made us improve our editing skills because of the precision you need. We also used the 180 degree rule on the pool scene so it didn't look unrealistic. Overall, we both felt like we learnt a lot in the progression as it helped us achieve successful shots the first time filming. However, we did re-film the match on action shot to make sure we had the right angle, so the killer could walk past the camera when it was on the tripod. It also helped up with the precision when editing and also made us have steadier camera work with a variety of different shots and angles which made our final cut look effective. 

Evaluation Question Six

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

Evaluation Question Five

How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation Question Four

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation Question Three

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

Evaluation Question Two

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Question One

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

Shot List of Final Cut

Fade in
Shot 1- long shot
Shot 2- dutch tilt shot
Shot 3- long shot
Shot 4- long shot
Shot 5- mid shot
Shot 6-extreme long shot
Shot 7- extreme long shot (Zoom in)
Fade out to in
Shot 8-mid shot
Shot 9- mid shot
Fade out to in
Shot 10- close up to extreme close up (credit) 
Shot 11- mid shot
Shot 12- close up
Shot 13- extreme close up
Shot 14- close up
Fade out to in
Shot 15- close up to extreme close up (credit)
Fade out to in
Shot 16, 17, 18- match on action
Shot 19- close up (low angle)
Shot 20- close up (high angle)
Shot 21- long shot to extreme long shot (Zoom out)
Shot 22- close up
Shot 23- extreme close up
Fade out to in
Shot 24, 25, 26- mid shot
Shot 27- over the shoulder
Shot 28- over the shoulder shot
Shot 29- close up shot
Shot 30- close up shot
Fade out to in
Shot 31- mid shot
Shot 32- mid/ close shot
fade out to in
Shot 33- close up to extreme close up (credit)
Fade out to in
Shot 34- close up (Zoom in)
Fade out to in
Shot 35- close up (Zoom out)
Fade out to in
Shot 36- close up to extreme close up (credit)
Fade out to in
Shot 37- long shot
Shot 38- point of view shot
Shot 39- extreme long shot/ point of view
Fade out to in

Final Cut of 'The Last Chapter'

This is our final cut of our opening thriller 'The Last Chapter'. We took the advise which we were given from our rough cut and have made some changes towards it, which we think has improved it.

We hope you enjoy it.

Discarded Loctions/Scenes

At first as shown in our animatic, we had a scene in the school library and also in the photocopier room. We ended up getting rid of both of these scenes and locations. Firstly, we took out the school library location as we felt like we didn't need it to be here. We felt like it would be too public for the serial killer. It would be unrealistic as the serial killer would not plan his murders in a public place when anyone could over look him and see what he was doing. We thought it would make people suspicious and would look unrealistic. However, we still wanted to see the serial killer planning the murders but we felt like Gabby's front room where we did film it in that location in the end was more promising, as it had a plain cream wall, with a large wooden table in the middle. We felt like this location was a lot more suitable compared to the library as it was private, the serial killer could do what he wanted without anyone knowing what he was planning. In the end we felt like this location was very effective because of the low lighting and gritty effect which we accomplished, in comparison to the bright, open, public library which would be hard to look effective.

We also took out the photocopier scene. We did film this and was going to put it into our opening thriller. However, when we did put it in to the draft it was far too long, and needed cutting down by at least 30 seconds, and the only way we could do it without making the narrative look unclear was to take out this scene. We felt like the narrative was clear enough without seeing the serial killer photocopying information due to the front room scene where he is searching through books for information and planning on how to kill the victims.

Improvements

After looking at the feedback, we have took on board the weaknesses of our thriller opening 'The Last Chapter'. We have looked at the weaknesses and have decided how we are going to improve our final cut.

Our weaknesses and how we are going to improve:

• The final scene where the victim is walking through the park. We have decided to improve this by filming the scene later on at night to make the audience feel more tension as the darkness equals a sense of mystery. The noisy background sound was also weakness on our rough cut, and to improve this we would either have to mute the sound out on our editing system 'imove' or redo the scene, and we have decided to redo it as we want to redo it at night. Also, people commented on our camera shots, movement and angles, they said that we could have used a fuller range of different one instead of just a long shot. We have decided to improve this by doing  long shot, point of view shot and also a high angle shot.
• The credits looked to still and unrealistic so we have decided to listen to our audience feedback and to re-film it by using a hand held camera, instead of it being a picture. 
• The scene where the serial killer is walking through the gate into the garden, we got a lot of comments saying this was a good match on action shot, however we filmed it on two different days which meant it went from night to day. By improving this it means that we have to re-film it so that it is all at night to make it realistic and seem natural.
• The final weakness which we had to improve was the music. Due to the music not being in time with the scenes, we will have to re look at it after we have filmed all of our scenes again and make it fit to the scenes so it makes it look realistic and so it creates tension. 

Rough Cut

This is our rough cut of our thriller opening 'The Last Chapter'.

Audience Feedback

After we uploaded our rough cut to our blogger, we had to get audience feedback so we could redo certain parts of our opening thriller 'The Last Chapter' and make it to the highest possible standard. We did this by getting our class mates to watch our opening thriller and review it by writing down the strengths and weaknesses of it on a piece of paper which was in front of our computer screen. By getting both strengths and weaknesses we had an idea of the effective parts within it, which created tension by the music, camera angles and effects and also the unsuccessful parts which we had to re-think and re-do.

Strengths:
When we looked at our audience feedback we had a lot of positive comments from people.

• Everyone in our class said we had a good, clear narrative which was easy to follow. We also felt that it was clear and we were happy that other people were able to follow it easily and understand what was going off at each stage.
• Some people said that we had a good range/variety of different camera shots, angles and movements for example to match on action shot when the stalker/serial killer is walking through the gate. People said that it flowed well, and it showed a good editing ability.
• Our class mates also commented on the credits which we used, they said that it looked very effective by how we have done it. They said that it linked and tied into the narrative as the credits were done on a Polaroid picture which was tea stained to make it look more gritty and have a sense of decay which links in with our narrative as the victims are also dying and because we have used Polaroid picture within our opening of the victims. They also commented on the writing on the credits, being done in red blood which was slightly smudge, as the red stands out from the tea stained background, and also drawing the audience in due to the 'ken burns' crop effect which we used to make it zoom in.
• The clip of the serial killer studying and trying to find information about how to kill the victims was also a part of the narrative which people picked up on. They said it was very effective as we used a range of different shots such as a mid shot, close up of book, and also over the shoulder shot. They mentioned this bit as they said the props which we used were good. They said that the dark, low lighting was effective as we used the prop of a candle to light up the area which he was working on, and also the rope which gives you an inside of what he does when killing the victims.
• The final point people commented on was the burning the Polaroid picture scene. People in our class said this was a strong effective scene, which created tension as it drawed them in. They said the fade out which we used as the flame nearly ended was good as it ended the scene good and flowed on to the next scene. People said this was different and  unexpected and it was imaginary and that we should definitely keep this part.

Weaknesses:

When we looked at our audience feedback, we also had a couple of weaknesses.

• The first negative point which everyone commented on was the final scene where the victim was walking in the park. Everyone said we could of used more variety of different shots instead of just long shots which would have made it more effective. The victim looks around as she has a sense of someone following her, however the audience feedback said that the acting was quite poor, as the victim looks around and sees the serial killer walking from the first tree to the second tree, when the victim is not meant to see the killer at all. People have also commented on the wind in the background. They said that it was too loud and off putting, and it wasn't effective due to this and that we should re film it at night to make the serial killer seem more mysterious. 
• The next negative point which we had was about the credits. A couple of people said that  the credits looked to still and unrealistic and that we should do the credits by using the camera hand held. People said this would be effective as it would create confusion, and a distort effect.   
• Another negative we had was that when the killer walks through the gate on the match on action scene, it is done at night and then it suddenly changes to daylight which meant we have to re-film this as it looks unrealistic and not effective. 
• The last weakness which we got given was about the music. We got told that in certain places the non diagetic music was not in time with the filming, for example the music was meant to stop as the match got lit, however it stopped half way through the match scene. 

By getting audience feedback and reviewing what they have said, it will help us to achieve the best possible grade. We felt like the audience feedback was very reasonable and we agreed on everything which they commented on. We felt like the positive points which were commented on were done effectively and that we did not have to re-film them. However, the negative points will help us a lot as we now know what we have to do to improve on our opening as people have pointed out which parts did not work and was not effectively done, which helps us out as we now know what we have to re-film and what changes we do have to make to make them more successful in our final cut.

Camera work, editing and technology

In our opening 'The Last Chapter' we used a range of different camera shot, angles and movement such as; mid shot, close up, long shot, extreme close up, over the shoulder shot and high and low angle shots, match on action, zoom and panning. We used a variety of shots, angles and movement to create tension to the audience and to keep them engaged. We did not use many hand held shots apart from the credits as hand held shots create confusion and a distort effect which we did not want to create as it did not link to our narrative. However, we did use one when the 5th victim is walking and the serial killer is stalking her, this is to get her point of view and so the audience can see what she can see.

To create our opening we had to use the software 'imovie'. This was new to both of us this year as in year 11 we used a different software. Due to it being new to us we had to learn how to use it and we did this by doing a preliminary task which helped us how to add crop, cut and add effects if needed. We both felt that 'imovie' was a good editing system as it was a lot faster than last year, and had more features and effects. In our opening we used 'ken burns' on the serial killer when he is in the garage, this helped us by not getting in some of the unwanted settings and props. We also used the effect 'vignetta' which gave it a gritty look which added to the atmosphere. We also used the 'mute' button as there was some background sound which was not needed, so we muted it so we did not have to re-film.

We decided to get a picture of 'iMovie' so we could annotate it and to show some of the features which we used in order to create out thriller opening 'The Last Chapter'.

We also had to use a new software called 'Garage Band' which was a software where we could make our own music for our opening of our thriller. It let us use a range of different instruments such as piano, drums, base and guitar. Each instrument had a different sound and effect and we were able to choose from a wide variety of different types. For example, we choose...... as we felt like it created tension and a mysterious atmosphere. We were also able to choose how loud or quiet we wanted the music. We mixed it up and used a range of quite and loud music as it created even more tension. For example when the matches were lit we made the music slowly go out so the audience could hear the lighting of the match diegetic sound. It took us both a while to get used to the software as it was new to both of us, and in GCSE we did not have to creat our own music we could use already made music which made it a lot simpler. However, we both enjoyed using this new technology as it made us be independent by having to create it ourselves and we could rely on anyone else to do it for us. We wanted to increase and decrease tension and by creating it ourselves we had control over it. 

Lastly, due to us doing A-level media, we had to change our camera to an SD camera. By changing to an SD camera it meant that we could import our footage ourselves, straight onto our apple mac computer. We did this by taking out the SD card and placing it into the side of the computer, where it came up with our footage and we just had to click on the clips which we wanted and it would import straight to our 'iMovie' where we could start editing. We felt like it was very easy and simple to upload the footage ourselves, and we did not have any problems doing it.  

Our progression from GCSE and the Preliminary task

Overall, we both felt like we successfully used the technology which we were given to the best of our abilities. Before we did any editing or filming we doubled checked we knew how to use the camera, and the editing software's by doing a preliminary task. We felt like this did help us get used to the technology as we hadn't used it for quite a while and we were given new software's to use. By doing the preliminary task which was the continuity editing task, we were able to try out the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot. Due to us using them in this task and us thinking they looked effective we wanted to use it in our opening thriller. However, we only used the match on action shot in our opening when the killer was walking through the gate. It showed him walking up to the gate, then it continuing on the other side showing him through the gate. We felt like we achieved this successfully by our editing skills and made it look realistic. We used the 180 degree rule on the pool scene so it didn't look unrealistic, however we didn't use it again as it was not needed due to us not having a conversation between two people. We also didn't use the shot reverse shot due to us not having a conversation within our opening. However, if we filmed more than two minutes of our opening we would have used it as we knew how to use it effectively.

When comparing our A-level work to our GCSE work, we both felt like we made a lot of progression as our camera work was a lot steadier, we used a variety of different shots and angles and due to the new software which we were given, and we felt that we could explore and use the best features for our thriller which will make it most effective. 

Mise-en-scene

For our thriller opening 'The Last Chapter', we thought very carefully what props we were going to use. One of our props were the stack of books which we used for when the villain is planning to kill the 5th victim, which is his last victim. We have took a couple of photos of the books. We decided to use these books as they were quite thick, and looked quite old by the dark covers which were ripped. In our opening we used a variety of different shots of the books which we're on the wooden tables, which include: extreme close up shots, close up shots, high angle shot and a mid shot. We felt like these were good props and camera angles to use within our opening as they helped us fulfill the thriller genre. We also used a notepad with pens and highlights scatted around the table as it ties in with the scene, and shows that the villain has been scribbling and jotting down notes which are important to him, which will help kill the 5th victim. We got the this idea from the film 'SE7EN' as we were extremely influenced by this thriller film. In the opening of this film their main prop is the book and everything else revolves around it, as this shows the crimes which he has done to each of the victims. 

In our thriller we didn't need many costumes. For the 5th victim we chose her to wear her casual clothes as she is getting stalked by the serial killer. By having the 5th victim in casual clothing it shows realism as it is what she would wear in her every day life. 
For the serial killer, we thought carefully about this as we felt his costume was very important. After watching the film 'SE7EN' which influenced us, we noticed that the serial killer in the opening never revealed his identity, which made us want to follow this method aswell. We decided to make the killer wear all black as black connotes darkness and evil. He wears a black coat with the hood up at all times. We thought this would be a good idea as it hides his face and makes the audience not be able to see his identity which we wanted to do. By having this as the villains costume it helps us accomplish the thriller genre.

We have also used 5 Polaroid pictures as props, and each one of the pictures is a picture of each of the five victims. We decided to use a picture of each of the victims as the serial killer kills each one of them at a time and then burns the photo of them afterwards. By burning the photo after he has killed the 4th victim for example, it shows the end of her life as the photo turns to ashes. We felt like this would link to the thriller genre.

For our thriller, we also used photographs of the 5th victim. We did this as our film is called 'The last chapter' and it is all based around the 5th victim, as all of the other victims have already been killed. These pictures symbolises that the 5th victim has got stalked by the serial killer, and the killer is planning on how to kill her by knowing her daily roots.

BBFC: British Board of Film Classification

The BBFC which is the 'British Board of Film Classification' is a non- governmental organisation in the film industry. It classify's videos, DVD's and some video games which are under the 'Video Recordings Act 2010'. The BBFC first started in 1912, and began operating on 1st January 1913, which let cinemas have licenses. It was brought in for safety reasons.

Films which are going to be released in the cinema are age rated by a couple of the BBFC's examiners by using the guidelines which they have. They do this because it is the best way to make sure the age rating is the suitable age rating for the film. If an examiner is unsure about what age rating it is, for example a thriller such as 'SE7EN' being an 15 or 18, they would have to asked other members within the BBFC such as the director and presidential team, to be certain.

Universal- Suitable for all- ‘U’ film is normally suitable for anyone aged four years and over. These films should not have any scenes of violece, threat or horror in which could upset the younger audience.

PG- Parental Guidance-  A 'PG' film is for most people, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children. However, if children are watching a PG film they should be supervised by a parent or adult. These film should not frighten a young child around the age of eight. 

Suitable for 12 years and over- The ‘12A’ group only exists for films which are shown in the cinema. This means that anyone younger than the age of 12 cannot see a '12A' film in the cinema, unless they have parental guidance.  

Suitable only for 15 years and over- '15' rated films mean that anyone younger than 15 cannot see a ‘15’ film in a cinema. It also means that anyone younger than 15 cannot rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video work. 

Suitable only for adults- A '18' film is only suitable for adults, which means anyone younger than the age of 18 may not see the film in cinema. It also means that that anyone younger than 18 cannot buy or rent an 18 film. This is due to the inappropriate scenes or strong language and violence within a film.  

To be shown only in specially licensed cinemas, or supplied only in licensed sex shops, and to adults of not less than 18 years- The ‘R18’ group is a special and legally controlled classification mainly for explicit works of consenting sex or strong fetish material involving adults. These films can only be shown to adults in specially licensed cinemas, and video works may be sold to adults only in licensed sex shops. These films cannot be sent in the post as it might nor go to the right place. The following bullet-points are not acceptable: 

• any material which is in breach of the criminal law. 

• material including paedophilia, incest or rape which may include adults role-playing as non-adults

• the portrayal of any sexual activity which involves lack of consent 

• the infliction of pain or acts which may cause lasting physical harm

• penetration by any object associated with violence or likely to cause physical harm

• any sexual threats, humiliation or abuse which does not form part of a clearly consenting role-playing game. Strong physical or verbal abuse, even if consensual, is unlikely to be acceptable.