Feedback

Our film is hosted on youtube on the Gordano School Media account. The link below will take you there.

The Robbery

Any feedback or creative criticism would be great to help us improve for future productions. Just comment on this post with your thoughts. Thanks.

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

Before this task, I had never really usen a Mac before, but now I am starting to get my head around them. The video camera was quite easy to get used to, however I wasn't filming most of the time, I was mainly directing. On the Macs we used iMovie and learnt how to edit on there, this was the hardest part.

iMovie:

• Once you get used to iMovie, it is quite easy to use and the timeline is very useful at the bottom. It is so very easy to add music and titles to the scenes and cut them exactly to create seamless scenes.
• There was a great variety of music and accents to choose from. This allowed us to change the mood of our film completely, from thriller to horror to comedy or romance. It was hard to get the right sounds to fit with the scenes but the choice was nice to have.

Equipment:

• We have realised how useful tripods are. Ours helped us out a lot when the cameraman would start laughing and shake the camera, however, we tended not to use it as it wasn't as mobile as we would have liked. We settled for tops of heads and shoulders to rest on.
• In a photography class, we learnt about lighting and I think it would have been very useful to use a reflector to lighten up the scene a tad. Although this effect would have made it seem more professional, there is am element of 'meeting secretly' with the dark room, that adds to the sense of a thriller.

Hosting:

• By creating this blog, I have learnt how easy it is to broadcast ideas and thoughts to the internet and get feedback. You can write whatever you need and someone can comment and reply and all that you have written is there for you to loook back on. It would be very useful in the future to host plans, proposals and ideas beforehand and during the filming/producing so that nothing is left out or forgotten.
• Youtube is also very useful as it allowed for uss to host our film for the internet to see and judge. This accessability is useful as it means we don't have to drag people up to the media room to watch the film and give us feedback there and then. They are able to comment when and where they like and rewatch the film.
  

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

When planning the film, we didn't have a specific audience in mind, only that sixth formers were likely to watch it, however as we started filming, we realised that it was very specific to the school and therefore, others from other schools would not understand the 'inside joke'.

Shots:

• At the start of the film we kept a black screen and faded the titles in, a popular technique used in horrors or thrillers. It creates suspense and excitement for what is about to happen.

• A lot of the shots include only the feeting, walking past, towards or with the camera. This creates the feeling of the unknown. The audience doesn't know who this person is, until they ascend the stairs, and the need to know who or what this person is doing, captures the audience and makes them carry on watching.
  

Music:

• At the start, very ominous music is used, this long ongoing note creates a feeling on nerverending, creating a tense mood, waiting for something to happen.
• We kept the sounds from the feet jumping down as we wanted this to contrast with the long notes beforehand. This sudden sounds was meant to shock the audience and create suspense.
• Accents are used throughout to add to the mysterious atmosphere and draw the audience in through their ears, waiting to hear what happens next.
• The music used during the run is supposed to mimick the upbeat feelng of adrenaline and pace when being caught. The music is known by many and it keeps people watching as it is a song liked my many, whilst still fitting with the action.

Editing:

• We used a couple of shots and edited them in Black and White. This was to create the effect of CCTV cameras. This addresses the situation that everyone knows about, that we are always being watched. This also adds to the fact that the character is possibly not going to get away with their sneaking around and they are waiting for them to be caught. This adds a creepy element to the film that people enjoy watching.
• Many of the shots during the fast music were edited together with short cuts. This use of shorter cuts and more clips was to emphasise the haste and feeling of getting away, that excites the audience and creates tension. The repetition of the same clip from different angles, POV, CCTV and real CUs of the face make the audience slightly confused and feel as if they had been running away from the person. The POV includes the viewer, showing that they aren't just watching a thriller, but taking part in one.
• At the end of the film, we editted in some outtakes as we felt people should see how we create the film and share the hilarity we felt when creating it. This makes the thriller end of a humorours note, making an enjoyable film.

Casting:

• As we couldn't find any actors free when we were free for filming, we chose to use myself and a friend who had some free time from filming their own film. I wrote the script in about 5 minutes, however it changed as we acted it out as it felt quite forced. We wanted this to be a funny scene and our attempts at speaking very seriously about a very unserious matter was supposed to be quite funny, though most of the time we couldn't stop laughing ourselves. We wanted to seem very over-dramatic and the script allowed for this. This scene attracted the sense of humour from the audience ast hey would have to laugh at the silliness of the situation.
  

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

The audience for our film would have to be from Gordano School, as they wouldn't understand the joke about Ms Greenway or wearing ties, otherwise. The ages would range from those in Year 9 to Year 11, but sixth formers may watch due to it being made by sixth formers. Teachers are also likely to watch and enjoy, as they can understand and laugh at the topics at hand.

The people who would watch this would generally love comedy, be quite funny themselves and enjoy watching films withs twists annd enjoy the thrill of the sneaking around.

Year 7s would be unlikely to watch our film as they would probably not understand what is happening, but as they progress up through the school, it would be made clear.

As the film takes a while to begin, people with a patient personality and the enjoyment of the building suspension will prefer this film and take joy in watching it.

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

The genre of our film is a comedy-thriller. Though the characters plans aren't that serious, what happens next will be as they are about to be caught. The film builds up suspense throughout creating the thriller genre.

I believe that Gordano School would have to distribute the film, as people from other schools are members of the public wouldn't understand the inside Gordano joke. The viewers would need to know the uniform, the teachers and the policies of the school to fully understand what is going on, as well as the layout of the school.

The film may be financed by sponsers or the small charge for the film. £1-2 for a copy would be affordable for the students but enough (if enough people bought it) to cover some of the costs for filming and distribution.

Students (year 10-11 and sixth formers) and teachers would most likely buy this film and as it was made by students, I find that a small cost would be sufficient. This film may also benefit from a screening in the school hall for anyone to come by and watch with a small charge to enter. With it being on the big screen the viewers would be able to enjoy it more and as they are all from the school they would be able to enjoy it together. The charge would be the same, from about £1-2 and if enough people showed up as well as buying the DVD, quite a bit of money could be made.

If the film were to be shown in the school hall, I feel that the last scene needs to be cut slightly shorter and a blackout to follow immediatly after. This would create more of a cliffhanger and draw the viewer to watching the rest.

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

Who?
'The Robbery' represents students of Gordano School in years 10-11. This is because yeasr 10 and 11 still have to wear ties but at this age they are more liekly to rebel against it than the year 7s. After being at the school in their 4th or 5th year, they have most likely gained an opinion on the uniform and we wanted to represent those who opposed to it but by putting it into a funny manner.

Though both the characters are female, they could have been male or female, although, males would probably be more likely to do such a thing as break into Ms Greenways office.

How did we portray them?
The film represents these studentsd as rebellious, as they are rebelling against the uniforms, but also slightly dumb and simple minded, due to the fact they think they will be let off not wearing ties if they steal a pair of glasses. This obviously is a plan that won't work, but the simpleness of the plan and the students adds comedy to the clip. They are also shown as overdramatic. The sneaking around, and use of CCTV cameras as well as the speech 'If we're found out, it will be the end of us!' all hint to them being slightly overdramatic. However, this adds suspense as it is unknown what they are talking about until they sit down.

How did we achieve this?
We used a lot of shots with the characters face hidden, shots of them sneaking about, and the use of the dialogue all show a rebellious nature of the students. They are also wearing their own clothes and as the time of day (or day itself) is unknown, we don't know if this is allowed. Also, the character runs away from whoever calls after them, and this shows the need not to get caught, adding to their rebellious nature.

To create their overdramatic personalities, the music played a large part. At the beginning it was quite ominous and intriguing, making it seem like a real thriller. The dramatic accents added a sense of not belonging and not being allowed there. Once they are caught, the music changes from slow, suspence-filled notes to a fast-paced song that accompanies the running. The exaggerated looking around corners and the sudden stop of the music when entering the room also added to this. Inside the room, their language showed them overreacting about what is happening, however the viewer only sees this as dramatic after they find out what the plan is, and realise it isn't very important at all.

The dumb/simpleminded trait was emphasised with the map that was drawn and the extended conversation, discussing the best ways to enter/exit. This, along with the plan itself, hints that they aren't the brightest of people. On the otherhand, the running character is shown as quite cocky when she finds that she had sneaked past possible witnesses. This was shown through the close up and the smile before having to make a run for it.

Other representations?
This film can also portray the serious side to school. The CCTV camera shots suggest that the school is always watching you, and that students need to be on guard all the time and won't get away with anything against the rules. This also suggests that the teachers are very strict if the students are going to such efforts to just not wear their ties. Althgouh this serious matter can be portrayed here, this film adds a bit of humour to a subject many students feel strongly about.

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

Conventions

Match on action:

• This was used as the very first clip. We wanted to start the film with a bang (or thump in this case) and the feet jumping down provided us with that. As walking followed this jump, we decided to add an interesting effect of the walker walking towards the camera and using match on action to shoot them then from behind.

• This really gave the effect that the audience doesn't know who this character is, and already gives the sense of someone sneaking and being suspicious.

• This effect took a while to master, as it needed the correct foot infront for it to look realistic. If we were to perfect it, we would cut it just before the walker steps ovr the camera for the first time as this would have been more accurate.

• This our other main use of match on action. We used a quite a few throughout, such as the peaking around the corner after running or opening the first door and coming through it or starting to walk up stairs and then viewing the character from the top, but this is the main one we used. The character is opening the door and then it switches to the inside of the room, closing the door. There are actually 4 shots in this sequences to show the opening, stepping inside, and closing, but I will only show the two main ones here.

• We chose to use this as it easily explained the movement into the room. The use of several shots also created a sense of haste and rushing, fitting with the music and previous shots. This is a general convention of films, however, by adding more shots between, switching back and forth, and using a slightly different angle, we have challenged this convention. Although it is slightly different, I feel it works well and does what it is intended to.

180-degree rule & Shot-reverse shots:

• During dialogue we used the 180-degree rule which is very common amongst dramas and films as this allows you to understand who is talking and the positions of the characters. An exception of this is 'The Peep Show'. They tend to use direct face shots with the character looking directly at the camera as if you were the person they were looking at or talking to. We used a shot like this during the conversation however it didn't work as well as we would have liked. It would have been better to use two shots like this, rather than other, and use the shot-reverse shot with the same type of shot/framing.

• To follow the rule, we kept the camera behind the characters and used their shoulders to do the shot-reverse shots. This allowed the viewer to know that Rachel was on the left whilst Philippa was on the right. We chose this angle for the rule as it allowed the viewer to see the map the characters were pointing to and refering to.
  

Media Film Evaluation

This blog is here to host my evaluation for my Prelim Film Task in A-Level Media Studies. It'll have stills and annotations to complete the questions and evaluate what, how and why we have done what we have.

The film, 'The Robbery' was created by Rachel Luney and Sofia del Olmo, starring Philippa Godden and Rachel Luney (and the voice of Sofia).

We named it so, as it sums up what the film opening is about. After attempts to think of a clever title that actually made sense, we decided our temp name 'The Robbery' was good enough and fitted the best.

It was created over 3 weeks in the grounds of Gordano School. We completed a proposal form, a story board and a plan before being allowed to film and went on from there.

Our task was to create a shot opening included someone walking along a corridoor, opening a door, walking across the room to sit opposite another character and converse. We were alowed to take any direction with this task as long as it followed these guidelines and ours was inspired by the use of sneaking rather than walking. This developed into someone sneaking around and meeting someone in order to plan a robbery.

We knew we wanted an element of comedy in there somewhere, and didn't decide on what it would be until the main idea was sorted. It was obvious this comedic element would be fitted into the actual plan and what the characters wanted the steal. We brainstormed ideas and came up with an idea that related well to Gordano School.

Location:

• IT1
• Portland corridoor
• Stairs to business studies
• Corridoor between business
• Humanities stairs

Equipment:

• Video Camera
• Tripod
• Apple Macs
• Edited on iMovie
• Viewed on Quicktime

Before we started filming, we acted out the different shots and as new ideas came, we recreated them physically to see if they worked. On the search for a location, we needed somewhere that had a continuous cycle that we could use to sneak, walk and run through. The continuous loop was important as this allowed us to film with a flow, if the corridoor shots were taken if different places to make the scene seem longer, it wouldn't have looked as smooth or as realistic. However, we did shorted some of the tracking corridoor shots as the corridoor was too long and would waste time, therefore we used close-up shots to create this.

After filming, we uploaded the film onto the Macs and used iMovie to edit it. After several attempts to get it to work and to stop letterboxing, we managed to select the shots we thought were the best and ordered them before starting to cut them down. We had the idea for the opening from the beginning so it was easy to create this feel (I will talk about this later) but some of the shots didn't fit as well as we would have liked, therefore we decided to mix some, and it gave a desirable effect, despite the poor shots.

At the end of the film, we included some outtakes, although due to time restraints we couldn't cut them donw as much as we would have liked. We also missed out on adding the credits, which would have appeared accordingly to who was on the screen at the time.

The other posts here will be used for answering the questions and continuing the evaluation of 'The Robbery'.