hurtwoodhousemedia (3 minutes ago)
GREAT!!!!
hurtwoodhousemedia (2 hours ago)
i like how you have embedded the titles into text. works really well.
stephaniemareen (2 hours ago)
Also the music is a very gopod choice!
great idea, the titles work VERY well!
mchltarr (13 hours ago)
Very nice... keep it up!
butterflyheaven03 (1 day ago)
i like this! Nice one guys :)
SerinaBrave (5 days ago)
wow realy good
Friday, 26 March 2010
Thursday, 11 March 2010
7 Evaluation Question Task
TASK1
"In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"
The way we put titles in the film was incorperating them in the actual sequence props. Mostly we highlighted them by using AfterEffects and made the surrounding of the title become slowly darker
4. In the same long "morgan freeman" tracking shot another title shows up. Incorperated in the iPod touch. "Original score by Charlie Clouser". The iPod touch is used to listen to music so nwe thought it would by quite clever to incorperate the Original Score title using the iPod. 
5. "Written by Leaya Hatzakis" got typed into Google. It's "written" in the search box.
6. "Produced by Lukas Dressler" is on a Library ID card because with producer we associate he owns something he contributed a lot and the Library that owns the books allows people with this card to borrow books.
Fox Searchlight Pictures is a film division of 20th Century Fox , established in 1994. It specialises in indie (independant) and British films, alongside dramedy and horror, and is variously involved with the production and/or distribution of these films.
In the early-to-mid 1980s, prior to the creation of Searchlight, Fox previously released independent films under the banner of 20th Century-Fox International Classics; the most notable of the releases under this banner include Bill Cosby: Himself, Reuben, Reuben , and Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
Fox Searchlight's Slumdog Millonaire won the Acedemy Award for Best Picture at the 81st Academy Awards as well as a further 7 academy awards. Other Fox Searchlight films receiving Best Picture nominations include The Full Monty, Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. Because all these films are clever and trying to also give the audience a message we thought our ambitious film would suit Fox Searchlight. Additionally, they produce Low Budget films that are good quality and being backed by Fox they also have the finance to successfully market, advertise and distribute films to a larger audience than the niche audience that would see a film if it was on a smaller completely independant label. Allthough our film is Horror we would like to appeal to larger target audience than just small scale fans of low budget horrorfilms.
TASK 4
The main audience for films at the cinema are 16-25 year old male/female because they have more disposable money. When you are around 40 you probably have a family and no time to go out.Due to the fact that our thriller is more sophisticated and a psychological not extremely gory it also attracts older people who like that subgenre i.e thriller/horror to get out of their houses and enjoy themselves. Therefore, a secondary audience for our film is the older horror-thriller fans who enjoy a night out in the cinema being scared. We would aim our marketing and advertising at this audience in terms of teaser trailers on the internet and in the cinema if we could get a cinema distributor like "Hammer Horror" and posters as we feel this would benefit our film financially at the box office.
TASK 5
"How did you attract/address your audience?"
TASK 6
"What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?"
TASK 7
"Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?"
1) We had to plan a lot more for our Main task because we had so many different props which were vital for our sequence because these included our titles. Whereas the planning for the preliminary task was pathetic in comparison. We organised everything within 10min on the shooting day.
2) For our Main task we had to create a visual narrative instead of relying on dialogue. When we drew our own Storyboard we had to think how the drawings might look in reality whether all our planning is possible to do and whether the images are able to tell a story without any explanation. In contrast to this we got given a finished storyboard with included dialogue. We didn't have to worry at all about the narrative.
3) For the prelim task we shot the whole scene threee times in a row. Firstly as close up, secondly as mid shot and thirdly as a wide shot. The main task was shot from different camera positions, in different rooms, and we shot not only CU's, MS's and WS's we also used tracking shots and we delibaretly broke the 180 rule using a tracking shot which goes around the whole table. All this shots are much more sophisticated need planning and professional use of the camera. Some shots didn't work out the first time so we had to shoot time twice three times or even six times until we had a perfect shot. We also planned to have to shots which would then be connected through eyeline matches or match on action.
4) In the prelim task we accidentally didn't record the sound while filming so we had to overvoice it and speak the words trying to achieve realistic sound. This was already a big challenge. For the main task we did not have any dialogue. We had to put music to our film and dicede which recorded sounds we wanted to keep (book slam and feet walking) and which not (e.g. sound of the photocopier) because they would have been to distracting.
5) In the prelim task we used final cut and simply put shots together trying to achieve a smooth flow. In contrast in the main task we used final cut and tried to achieve the same but also a visual narrative and excitement. We cut the single shots together and wanted to have it 1000% perfect so we cut them together frame by frame. The we used after effects to highlight incorperated titles and put others we couldn't incoperate into it e.g. directed by Felix Klinkhammer or CLIODYNAMICS itslef. We didn't have any titles in our prelim task.
"In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"
The way we put titles in the film was incorperating them in the actual sequence props. Mostly we highlighted them by using AfterEffects and made the surrounding of the title become slowly darker
1. The first title that we incorperated in one of the props is the name of the actress. She wrote "Catrina Kirby" on top of some sheets about murder so if she lost it people would know that it is important and it could be given back to her.
2. In these papers ther was the title "Edited by Elly Sams" hidden. The young researcher highlighted this with a yellow marker. The researcher edited the information sheets.
3. She opens a book and on the information bit in the front of every library book, which tells when the book was lend out and when it has to be back, someone wrote "Director of Photography Luke Gilchrist"
4. In the same long "morgan freeman" tracking shot another title shows up. Incorperated in the iPod touch. "Original score by Charlie Clouser". The iPod touch is used to listen to music so nwe thought it would by quite clever to incorperate the Original Score title using the iPod. 
5. "Written by Leaya Hatzakis" got typed into Google. It's "written" in the search box.6. "Produced by Lukas Dressler" is on a Library ID card because with producer we associate he owns something he contributed a lot and the Library that owns the books allows people with this card to borrow books.
TASK2
"How does your media product represent particular social group?"
We wanted to break the stereotype that clever girls are always ugly. We wanted to represent a strong middle to upper class clever and sophisticated woman. We chose a very beautiful young lady who is clever and is able to do serious research. She wears make-up and glasses. Two things which usually are not shown together. However, even though she is wearing a strict tight up skirt and a boring office short she also wears black shiny high heels. She has a lot of different female amenities and therefore breaks the expectation that woman are not hard working in a office shop or are successful. They can be both clever and stunning.
TASK 3
"What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?"
Fox Searchlight Pictures is a film division of 20th Century Fox , established in 1994. It specialises in indie (independant) and British films, alongside dramedy and horror, and is variously involved with the production and/or distribution of these films.
In the early-to-mid 1980s, prior to the creation of Searchlight, Fox previously released independent films under the banner of 20th Century-Fox International Classics; the most notable of the releases under this banner include Bill Cosby: Himself, Reuben, Reuben , and Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
Fox Searchlight's Slumdog Millonaire won the Acedemy Award for Best Picture at the 81st Academy Awards as well as a further 7 academy awards. Other Fox Searchlight films receiving Best Picture nominations include The Full Monty, Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. Because all these films are clever and trying to also give the audience a message we thought our ambitious film would suit Fox Searchlight. Additionally, they produce Low Budget films that are good quality and being backed by Fox they also have the finance to successfully market, advertise and distribute films to a larger audience than the niche audience that would see a film if it was on a smaller completely independant label. Allthough our film is Horror we would like to appeal to larger target audience than just small scale fans of low budget horrorfilms.
TASK 4
"Who would be the audience for your media product?"
The main audience for films at the cinema are 16-25 year old male/female because they have more disposable money. When you are around 40 you probably have a family and no time to go out.Due to the fact that our thriller is more sophisticated and a psychological not extremely gory it also attracts older people who like that subgenre i.e thriller/horror to get out of their houses and enjoy themselves. Therefore, a secondary audience for our film is the older horror-thriller fans who enjoy a night out in the cinema being scared. We would aim our marketing and advertising at this audience in terms of teaser trailers on the internet and in the cinema if we could get a cinema distributor like "Hammer Horror" and posters as we feel this would benefit our film financially at the box office.
TASK 5
"How did you attract/address your audience?"
TASK 6
"What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?"
TASK 7
"Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?"
1) We had to plan a lot more for our Main task because we had so many different props which were vital for our sequence because these included our titles. Whereas the planning for the preliminary task was pathetic in comparison. We organised everything within 10min on the shooting day.
2) For our Main task we had to create a visual narrative instead of relying on dialogue. When we drew our own Storyboard we had to think how the drawings might look in reality whether all our planning is possible to do and whether the images are able to tell a story without any explanation. In contrast to this we got given a finished storyboard with included dialogue. We didn't have to worry at all about the narrative.
3) For the prelim task we shot the whole scene threee times in a row. Firstly as close up, secondly as mid shot and thirdly as a wide shot. The main task was shot from different camera positions, in different rooms, and we shot not only CU's, MS's and WS's we also used tracking shots and we delibaretly broke the 180 rule using a tracking shot which goes around the whole table. All this shots are much more sophisticated need planning and professional use of the camera. Some shots didn't work out the first time so we had to shoot time twice three times or even six times until we had a perfect shot. We also planned to have to shots which would then be connected through eyeline matches or match on action.
4) In the prelim task we accidentally didn't record the sound while filming so we had to overvoice it and speak the words trying to achieve realistic sound. This was already a big challenge. For the main task we did not have any dialogue. We had to put music to our film and dicede which recorded sounds we wanted to keep (book slam and feet walking) and which not (e.g. sound of the photocopier) because they would have been to distracting.
5) In the prelim task we used final cut and simply put shots together trying to achieve a smooth flow. In contrast in the main task we used final cut and tried to achieve the same but also a visual narrative and excitement. We cut the single shots together and wanted to have it 1000% perfect so we cut them together frame by frame. The we used after effects to highlight incorperated titles and put others we couldn't incoperate into it e.g. directed by Felix Klinkhammer or CLIODYNAMICS itslef. We didn't have any titles in our prelim task.
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Post Production Main Task Editing
1) In comparison to our Prelim Shot this Thriller Opening sequence is much more complicated sophisticated and complex. In terms of filming length, organisation of the shots, creating the right mood and delivering a narrative visually rather than through dialogue.
When we shot our Prelim Task Scene we only shot the whole scene from different positions of the camera and as wide/mid shot and close ups. Whereas the Opening sequence for our thriller demanded us to have Tracking Shots, Close Ups, Extreme Close Ups, Wide Shots. We moved the camera around a lot to have some shots from different angles to have a greater variety of views at one scene. Obviously, tracking shots are also much more complicated to organise and get a good end result than only shooting from a steady position not moving the camera at all as we did in our Prelim Task Production.
Because we had a lot of different shots and some of them even several times our rushtape was much bigger than the one we had in our Prelim Task production. We had to create 4 different LogBin files in which at least 5 different shots where placed to keep track of all the footage we had. In the Prelim Task this was much easier because the LogBins were more or less already set (Wide Shot/Mid Shot/Close Ups) and the rushtape only had around 10minutes or so.
Therefore, when we chose the shots which looked the best for future usage it took as a lot more time when we started editing our Thriller. In the Prelim Task this only took less than a lesson.
For our Thriller Opening Sequence we did not want to use any dialogue and try to deliever a narrative through all the images to make the whole project more sophisticated than the Prelim task. To tell what is happening visually we obviously had to create the right mood in the pictures whereas in the Prelim Task we didnt worry too much about lighting because the environment would be established through the actors and their lines anyway.
2) We had the idea to make our library sequence more exciting and interesting by using jumpcuts, flashbacks and rewinds. We got told off because the teachers said we should not destroy our nice tracking shots with these styles. And apparently they didn’t work anyway. So now we are editing our sequence using after effects. Our incorporated titles get highlighted and more interesting using a Glow Effect. Calmness and Steadiness is ensured through the visual.
3) Diegetic Sound is not greatlt used in our Thriller. You can still hear the bookslam and the heels on the wooden floor, though.
The Non-Diegetic sound we are using so basically our theme song was inspired by the “Dead Silence” Theme Song.
In the song you can hear a Glockenspiel playing which establishes a creepy atmosphere. I personally think of children which does not go well with darkness etc. which might be the explanation why it seems creepy and scary to me. You can also hear strings playing which form dark, sinister and scary feelings about the upcoming event.
With this music we want the audience to get excited about our film. They should also get a bit scared of what is going to happen. Will the researcher solve the case? Is she going to be tortured and eventually die?
Unfortunately, in the end this idea didn't work out very well and we looked for different music and found two pieces which we then cut together and put as our film music. The music came from our school resources out of a file called cavendish music.
4) Most of our Titles, the credits such as "edited by" "produced by" are incorporated in our sequence on a iPodTouch, a Library Card etc. They get emphasised by using AfterEffects such as Glow.
We stuck on one title which is "Directed by Felix Klinkhammer" using AfterEffects. We used the option "Add Text" used the font bank gothic and wrote it on the shot of the photocopier. We inverted the colours of the writing as the photocopier light was sliding underneath it.
We also stuck on the name of our film "Cliodynamics" at the end of our film. Simply in the same font and colour which was white on a black background. We want the title to emerge from the darkness.
5) As mentioned in earlier blogs our target audience is both teenagers and the older generation who enjoys watching sophisticated thrillers that make you feel the excitement of the process solving a crime and finding out what happened when why and how. The film makes you think and trying to solve the riddle. Obviously, some explicit intercourse scenes with the sexy researcher shown in the opening sequence played by Catrina Kirby would be included which then would attract male teenagers. The choices we made in terms of editing are all emphasising the mood of the film. The sound makes you get excited. The titles are written in futuristic and interesting font.
When we shot our Prelim Task Scene we only shot the whole scene from different positions of the camera and as wide/mid shot and close ups. Whereas the Opening sequence for our thriller demanded us to have Tracking Shots, Close Ups, Extreme Close Ups, Wide Shots. We moved the camera around a lot to have some shots from different angles to have a greater variety of views at one scene. Obviously, tracking shots are also much more complicated to organise and get a good end result than only shooting from a steady position not moving the camera at all as we did in our Prelim Task Production.
Because we had a lot of different shots and some of them even several times our rushtape was much bigger than the one we had in our Prelim Task production. We had to create 4 different LogBin files in which at least 5 different shots where placed to keep track of all the footage we had. In the Prelim Task this was much easier because the LogBins were more or less already set (Wide Shot/Mid Shot/Close Ups) and the rushtape only had around 10minutes or so.
Therefore, when we chose the shots which looked the best for future usage it took as a lot more time when we started editing our Thriller. In the Prelim Task this only took less than a lesson.
For our Thriller Opening Sequence we did not want to use any dialogue and try to deliever a narrative through all the images to make the whole project more sophisticated than the Prelim task. To tell what is happening visually we obviously had to create the right mood in the pictures whereas in the Prelim Task we didnt worry too much about lighting because the environment would be established through the actors and their lines anyway.
2) We had the idea to make our library sequence more exciting and interesting by using jumpcuts, flashbacks and rewinds. We got told off because the teachers said we should not destroy our nice tracking shots with these styles. And apparently they didn’t work anyway. So now we are editing our sequence using after effects. Our incorporated titles get highlighted and more interesting using a Glow Effect. Calmness and Steadiness is ensured through the visual.
3) Diegetic Sound is not greatlt used in our Thriller. You can still hear the bookslam and the heels on the wooden floor, though.
The Non-Diegetic sound we are using so basically our theme song was inspired by the “Dead Silence” Theme Song.
In the song you can hear a Glockenspiel playing which establishes a creepy atmosphere. I personally think of children which does not go well with darkness etc. which might be the explanation why it seems creepy and scary to me. You can also hear strings playing which form dark, sinister and scary feelings about the upcoming event.
With this music we want the audience to get excited about our film. They should also get a bit scared of what is going to happen. Will the researcher solve the case? Is she going to be tortured and eventually die?
Unfortunately, in the end this idea didn't work out very well and we looked for different music and found two pieces which we then cut together and put as our film music. The music came from our school resources out of a file called cavendish music.
4) Most of our Titles, the credits such as "edited by" "produced by" are incorporated in our sequence on a iPodTouch, a Library Card etc. They get emphasised by using AfterEffects such as Glow.
We stuck on one title which is "Directed by Felix Klinkhammer" using AfterEffects. We used the option "Add Text" used the font bank gothic and wrote it on the shot of the photocopier. We inverted the colours of the writing as the photocopier light was sliding underneath it.
We also stuck on the name of our film "Cliodynamics" at the end of our film. Simply in the same font and colour which was white on a black background. We want the title to emerge from the darkness.
5) As mentioned in earlier blogs our target audience is both teenagers and the older generation who enjoys watching sophisticated thrillers that make you feel the excitement of the process solving a crime and finding out what happened when why and how. The film makes you think and trying to solve the riddle. Obviously, some explicit intercourse scenes with the sexy researcher shown in the opening sequence played by Catrina Kirby would be included which then would attract male teenagers. The choices we made in terms of editing are all emphasising the mood of the film. The sound makes you get excited. The titles are written in futuristic and interesting font.
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Editing Process
This monday we had our second editing lesson in which we finished logging our shots into bins. (logging means sorting similiar shots(the best ones) into categories (files called bins).
We named every single shot with a special name so we can be able to know imediately which shot is which. The whole "Cliodynamics" rushtape was about 22mins long.
Our Log bin titles are:
1.Titles (all the shots were we see a title incoorperated into probs etc)
2. Library Shots (the ones we shot in the Library)
3. Photocopier (because we did quite a few shots with the photocopier we made a seperate file)
4. Extras ( containing CU´s; OSS´s; tracking shot´s etc)
LogBins are very important to keep track of all the different mainly short sequences of our film. The more files the better. It simplifies finding a shot later when you are editing all together to one sequence.
We also started editing in this lesson.
We cut following shots together:
1. Tracking of books
2. Feet Walking
3. Book Slam
4. again Feet walking
5. again Book Slam
6. OSS reading the book
This is the order we wanted to have our shots in. But while edititng we noticed that we can create a bigger impact and a more interesting sequence if we have quick cuts between 2 different shots. This is the reason why we basically did 2.3.2.3.
We tried to styalise our film wit jumpcuts and rewinds to make the whole sequence more exciting. After two lessons we got told that this is not working so we had to dumb that idea and start with our clear version again and think how we want to use after effects and how to put more titles into the sequence.
We named every single shot with a special name so we can be able to know imediately which shot is which. The whole "Cliodynamics" rushtape was about 22mins long.
Our Log bin titles are:
1.Titles (all the shots were we see a title incoorperated into probs etc)
2. Library Shots (the ones we shot in the Library)
3. Photocopier (because we did quite a few shots with the photocopier we made a seperate file)
4. Extras ( containing CU´s; OSS´s; tracking shot´s etc)
LogBins are very important to keep track of all the different mainly short sequences of our film. The more files the better. It simplifies finding a shot later when you are editing all together to one sequence.
We also started editing in this lesson.
We cut following shots together:
1. Tracking of books
2. Feet Walking
3. Book Slam
4. again Feet walking
5. again Book Slam
6. OSS reading the book
This is the order we wanted to have our shots in. But while edititng we noticed that we can create a bigger impact and a more interesting sequence if we have quick cuts between 2 different shots. This is the reason why we basically did 2.3.2.3.
We tried to styalise our film wit jumpcuts and rewinds to make the whole sequence more exciting. After two lessons we got told that this is not working so we had to dumb that idea and start with our clear version again and think how we want to use after effects and how to put more titles into the sequence.
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Account of shooting day/locations requirements/cast/pre-production
In the morning Elly and me went to the Studio quite early and started setting a lot of the set. We got books out of the library, we got a table other props and tried to set everything up as good as possible. Then Leaya arrived and brought her laptop with which we had a bit trouble because google in which we wanted to incooperate a title suggested "written by Leaya Hatzakis" because we pressed "enter" once before. We could solve that problem relatively quickly though. Trina, our actress, went with Elly and changed and put her make-up on for our shoot. At some point we all were in the studio and started building the floor.
Because we obviously wanted to have a old wooden looking floor similar to one in a typical library.No one had a particular role in our group as Director, Editor, Lightman, Cameraman or anything. Everyone planned everything and organised the things we needed to. All of us got the opportunity to shoot some scenes and everyone also was writing a shotlist, checking the shot, rearranging the set etc. 
1. Trina walks into the set and slams her books into the table. This was a close up shot, of where her books were slammed onto the table. Our first title would be placed in this shot.
2. Trina then moves the books to the side, and opens the bottom book and takes some paper and a pen. This is a mid shot, and we took this shot 3 times.
3. A close up of Trina's eyes reading, and we took this shot 2 times.
4. An over the shoulder shot of Trina writting her name on the top of a piece of paper.
5. Extreme close-up of Trina writting her name (this is our actress title) We took 2 takes of this shot, but at different zooms.
6. Tracking shot using a spider-dolly,
(breaking the 180 degree rule) of Trina opening a book, then holding an iPod, then typing on Google. This shot contains 3 titles, on the library card when she opens the book, (Director of Photography), On the iPod screen, (Original Score By..), and Typed on Google, (Written By..) We took this shot 5 times, as it was a hard shot to get perfect, but by the 5th shot we got it right.
(breaking the 180 degree rule) of Trina opening a book, then holding an iPod, then typing on Google. This shot contains 3 titles, on the library card when she opens the book, (Director of Photography), On the iPod screen, (Original Score By..), and Typed on Google, (Written By..) We took this shot 5 times, as it was a hard shot to get perfect, but by the 5th shot we got it right.7. Extreme close-up of Google screen, With Leaya Hatzakis being written.
8. Over the shoulder shot, Highlighting Edited By Elly Sams.
9. A Tracking shot around her face, close-up.The next shots were taken in the library
10. A shot behind a book shelf, of Trina taking out books, and revealing her when the books are taken out.
11. A very low, tracking close-up of her feet walking.
12. A close-up of a book on the photo copier, being used.
We had to change our location because we shot in the studio (CONTROL ->controlled lighting, controlled baackground noises, enough space etc.) first, due to the fact the library was in use for other students who had to take their exams in the morning, and went into the library (original setting, more authentic) in the end of the day because we needed to have a proper background for the wideshots we took in the library. But this caused a few problems with continuity. So I would stay in the same location next time I'm shooting a thriller opening sequence.
What worked pretty well was the incorparation of our titles. p.e. Typing into GOOGLE, writing a name on top of a sheet, higlighting in a text, having a title on a iPod, using a Library Card to incorparate a title etc. 
Trina had glasses, high-heels, a white blouse and red lipstick as outfit. This should establish the typical but hot looking librarian/researching/studying woman. All the books we chose had something to do with crime or the psyche of the human which we thought relates to resaerching about a serial killer. All the newspaper showed that Trina was researching in the past. But the audience shouldn't forget that we are still in the present which is the reason why we had a MacBook and an iPod on the table. All these props were provided by ourselves.We chose Trina as an actress because she has long hair is not blonde because we thought that would establish a bit more intellect and cleverness rather than having the stereotype of the dumb blonde one in our video. Unfortunately, we had to experience that Trina was very calm and settled and not really stressef or frustated which was actually what we had in mind. We hope that we can change this atmosphere later in editing by putting some music in the opening sequence.
Of course we set some lighting up to ensure that the environment looks natural which worked out pretty well I think.
We recorded synchronised sound on the day and some of the sound effects are going to be enhanced with sounds from special effect banks to draw more significants to them.
What did not work out was working as a group because someone became extremely big headed and tried to take over the control of everything. I t seemed like this person wanted to shoot on it's own and not with the others together.
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