Thursday, 5 May 2016

Peer Evaluation

We conducted an exercise in which every group in our media class came together to evaluate and constructively criticise each other in order to improve our projects respectively.


This is the feedback we received from the viewing of our final piece:







Thursday, 21 April 2016

Evaluation

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







The usual conventions found in an action film is something we were looking to avoid or put our own twist on; for example, many fight scenes in action films are quixotic in nature. To counter this we made our fight scene hyper realistic to add a gritty edge to the conflict. Furthermore the usually hectic scenes of an action film were left behind due to the impracticality of filming in a densely populated area. Our film does conform to several conventions of typical action movies, including the use of weapons, the building of tension through appropriate music, a fight, a chase and general violence. Moreover the costume choice in our film fit with the conventions of an action film with the protagonist plain clothed for the audience relation to the character and the antagonist wearing a gas mask in order to alienate himself from the audience.









How does your media project represent particular social groups?

Our project can be seen as representing people from a working class background as being violent, as all three characters engage in violent acts that result on two of them being killed. The costume choice is paramount for this representation.



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


The type of institution that would distribute our project would mostly likely be a production company such as Film4 or StudioCanal UK, as they have a track record of producing and distributing independent, gritty, British films.


Who would be the audience for your media product?







The audience for our media product could vary across many levels of society however I believe it would be most popular with the working class, British 16-25 year olds.


How did you attract/address your audience?



Through using violence which is enjoyed in the form of media products such as games and films more by the working class we have attracted the audience along with the gritty realism of the film this could also attract middle class viewers.

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


During the making of our media piece I have personally found that technology can be a wonderful thing I terms of editing work or airbrushing the fine details to make the film better overall. However there are also struggles with technology with the adaption to using a camera without a tripod and using editing software that is completely new to me. Yet I believe that technology only proves to further the distance to which people can go with the simplest equipment.

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


The differences I have seen in the transition from preliminary task to actual final piece is the capability with editing software with the prelim being good but not perfect and the final piece running far4 more smoothly paired with the musical timing which makes the piece better as a whole.

Tuesday, 19 April 2016

Kick-Ass

Marketing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy1rwFY5EmI&feature=player_embedded
Since Kick Ass was an independent film it's marketing campaign was carried out on a very limited budget. Because of this, the film was marketed partially using a viral campaign in which people were hired to dress as the main character and run around various cities to raise awareness of the film.



When marketing the film, Lionsgate were also one of the first film studios to sync up all of it's branding pages across social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to one domain.





The film was also marketed in more conventional ways, such as TV and online trailers and posters.





Reception
Kick Ass was generally well received upon its release:



  • Rotten Tomatoes-7.1/10
  • Metacritic-66%
  • The Guardian-5 stars
  • Empire-5/5
However, it did receive criticism from some critics, such as Roger Ebert, who found the film "morally reprehensible".

Saturday, 2 April 2016

WRENCH (Final Film)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjnyyzmuGJE


Our final media project.


Starring- Callum McLaughlin, Luke Robinson and Mike Corrigan.

Thursday, 10 March 2016

Editing II

10/3/16
Today was the day that we finished our editing process and came out with a finished film. The fight scene proved to be a continually difficult aspect for us to address in terms of making it look realistic to the point we couldn't use some of our preferred shots due to it looking unconvincing.


Despite this we feel like our film has good aspects in it with there being some seamless editing adding an air of professionalism to the film, leaving us with a finished product.


After reviewing the whole film we decided to change the ending scene due to there being a delay between the bullet being fired from the gun and my reaction which made the scene look unrealistic. We instead have used a cut to black as the gun is raised paired with a firing gun sound effect to make the viewer know what is going on but still leaving them unsure of my fate. This change is seen as beneficial to the film as a whole due to its added intensity matched with the music reaching a crescendo and cutting at the point of the gunshots.


We agreed to use the score In the House, In a Heartbeat by John Murphy (known for being the theme for the film 28 Days Later) for music. It fits well with the sequence of events in our film, starting lightly (I walk through woods) and becoming more intense as it goes on (Fight scene) before stopping all together (gunshots) and ending with a soft guitar melody (the killer walking away).

Thursday, 3 March 2016

Editing

3/3/16
The beginning of editing has proved to be more difficult than first thought; we had a lot of excess footage to wade through and choose which made the cut. However there was an issue with the continuity of the film which restricted us in terms of shot selection.
The beginning and end of our film was edited today with relative ease but we left the hectic in between to edit at a later date.

Friday, 26 February 2016

Filming III

25/2/16
The final day of working on the film began with the filming of the fight scene. Despite a few minor scratches and bruises, including injuries from an unused scene which was put up to debate whether or not it would be included in the film but it did not fit well enough with the previous footage, the day was a success.
A cast member had to leave early so we worked around this and shot the end of the film sooner which allowed us to then finish off the film on this day rather than having to wait another day to film a single scene.

Wednesday, 24 February 2016

Filming II

20/2/16
Day 2 of filming commenced with a few minor hiccups to begin with including the misplacing of key elements of the film such as the gas mask. However we soon overcame this obstacle and moved forward and upwards towards finishing the filming. Furthermore we decided to abandon the use of the machete as it was cumbersome and we felt that it would not properly reflect the type of film we were going for as it would give us an unwanted 'slasher' theme.
A few disagreements on shot types and choreography were sorted out democratically within the group which only proved to us how difficult film making can be especially for small independent outfits.


The day of filming ended with the light playing a significant part in our departure from the set but with a full days filming under our belts we feel confident that we can create an outstanding piece of cinematography.

Friday, 19 February 2016

Filming

The 18/2/16 marked the beginning of filming for our project which displayed the problems that may be encountered when filming a piece of media. However despite the problems the enjoyable outing paired with the sense of comradery made the trip worthwhile and eye opening in regards to how we need to conduct ourselves in order to maximise the potential of our film opening. The use of props plays a large part in our project. we decided to use a large machete in our production which has health and safety issues however we handled the use of it remarkably well with all of the scenes that it features in being meticulously planned in order to make sure that the actors in the production were safe. Different camera angles and heights from which they were taken plays a key role in our project as this gives and surrounding effect with the idea being to close in upon the progression of the film until its ultimatum.
Some of the problems that we have encountered as a production team are finding a time where every person is readily available to film. This has limited the amount of filming time that could be utilised over the period in which we intended to film. Furthermore, when all of the team was available there was a stumbling block in the form of creative disputes in regards to how the film should play out which placed a further limitation on the amount of filming we were able to complete to a standard which we would consider using.

Friday, 29 January 2016

Equipment





We will be using an SLR camera for filming. The group is still undecided on whether or not we will need to use a tripod for the production, but we will be taking one regardless in case it is needed.

The editing software used is a choice of iMovie or Final Cut Pro. I am not in charge of editing within the group but we will be using IMovie as this is the software used to film our preliminary task and it was relatively easy to use.

Since the task is to create the opening credits sequence of a film, iMovie is also advantageous as it has many different tools and effects that can be used to add the credits themselves, as we did with the preliminary task.

Wednesday, 27 January 2016

Filming Timeline

November 2015- Planning for production begins: Genre, Costume, Location, Lighting + Props

December 2015- Shot List for Production established

December 2015- Survey results published to display that we have taken target audience in to account

December 2015- Sketched storyboard published, original ideas are shown as part of planning

January 2016- Filming begins. Filming will take place over a period of 2 weeks which will allow us to factor in things like weather in case the conditions don't suit our filming needs

January 2016- Filming is completed

February 2016- Editing of film will take place. This is a process which allows for it to be worked on at any time making it more easily completed than the filming

February 2016- Editing is completed