Completed Evaluation! :)

Media Evaluation on Prezi

Dummy run!

This is our video, which had taken a while to get onto vimeo, but here it is!
A slight analysis of this can be found on my evaluation prezi, which will be uploaded in the next hour!

Untitled from Ellen Lowe on Vimeo.

Sounds, had it saved as a draft but forgot to post!!

As i am reaching the end of the editing process, i have noticed that i required sounds from kieron. Luckily earlier last week he had attempted gun shots from these three materials, and uploaded them to Imovie. His experiment contained the following:

• A - Oxford Dictionary with Metal Corners
• B - A Plastic Ruler
• C - A Boot with Hard Sole

Kieron hit all three items onto a table and recorded the sound with the camera. 

Question 2 of my evaluation!

Untitled from Melissa Bartram on Vimeo.

This is in the form of a podcast, below is the script for reference!

Our opening title sequence was created fore the idea of a film based around social hierarchy, therefore representing how having more money, or a better education or general lifestyle would make you look down on somebody.
Out storyline was that our femme fatale, the blonde character in our OTS, would represent a rich, too-good-for-anyone type of character. This is representing a social stereotype - very much like how we chose the mise-en-scene and actor for our anti-hero.
Although he didn't really represent the character we had hoped he would, our intention was to cast a shady, lower-class male who both the audience and femme fatale fell for. We wanted out lower-class, young audience group to relate to his social status.

Finished!

This is our Opening title sequence for a film noir. Enjoy! Evaluation to come within the next few hours, or maybe tomorrow as i will probably do final tweaking and uploading of the focus group session then!

Untitled from Kieron Marchese on Vimeo.

Evaluation

I am halfway through my evaluation on Prezi, now that the editing process has neared its end, and i will hopefully be embedding it to my blog in the next day or so. These are the questions that i will be using as a framework for the final thing -
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Who would be the audience for your media product?
How did you attract/address your audience?
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Vimeo

VIDEO PROJECT PRESENTATION 1 from fLIX.TV on Vimeo.

This is the video (finally!) of our first presentation of our first idea to a focus group. It speaks for itself when you watch it, and it was our very very first ideas so we have moved on a lot, taking on the advice of our peers, since this date.

Location Shots

Location from Kieron Marchese on Vimeo.

This is the video of location shots, obviously it isn't effective and is quite boring to watch but the experience and final result was exactly what we wanted to get. The first part of the video shows a walk down near the university, i mean, it was a good idea in our heads but when it came down to it it couldn't have been more wrong really. We started wandering the area with the camera, and ended up down towards Elm Hill, a place shadowed by tall buildings, numerous antique shops and vintage looking street lamps. I remember thinking that it would be fine at any time of day, due to the height of the surroundings ect. so it is decided this is where our OTS should be shot.

Final Cut Express

This is a basic screen print of me and Kieron trying to use final cut to edit our video. None of our group had used the Editing Program before and after many attempts and online tutorials (ellen and miss Humpleby sat for ages trying to watch them things!) decided that we can get much more use out of Imovie. Using Imovie is, for us, a much more familiar and less time-consuming program. We may not quite get the effects we need, but its just a case of finding alternatives which will hopefully gain as close to the same quality as possible.

Jessie's storyboard for continuity task!

This storyboard is not an effective way of getting a thorough idea across to everyone what we needed to include in our continuity task.. You can find scans of the story boards on Jessica Whites blog, we decided that for our OTS we would use a much more interactive way of presenting our ideas, in a video.

Location Shots!

Yesterday evening around 4.00pm me and Kieron took out the camera and done some very basic shots, we will upload these to vimeo over the next week and i will post our results hopefully before and after editing to show how we have thought about this. Obviously we will have to create a film noir piece through making it black and white and we will also edit the lighting to create our mysterious effect, as this is crucial when including romance in a film.

Storyboard

Basic Audience Research

We decided that as a group we needed to complete research into our target audience. Looking into how the Film Noir genre uses crime and romance to convey its relationship with an audience we took it upon ourselves to look into the classifications for the genre. You will find some more extensive research into how we came upon the decision to rate the film following our OTS as a 15 on Ellen's Blog - linked to the right hand side of my own. Our gut instinct at this point in time is that our film will be aimed at an audience of both genres aged 18-25.

We have completed the following questionnaire and are going into the city tonight to hand out 70 copies to random people, hopefully most of them will be between the age of 18-25.

Which age group are you included in??

12-17 18-25 26-33 34+

Which gender are you??

Male / Female

Which of the following ways would you rather complete this questionairre?

As it is
Social networking sites (facebook)
Through your door (with return envelope)
Telephone
Text
Focus groups
Interview - Formal               - Semi formal
               - Informal

Understanding Audiences

As a group, we are now moving onto the part of the task in which we need to discover exactly who our target audience will be for our OTS. This will require extensive research but we have all separated to complete a few tasks to decide what influences us when we are in the position of an audience. This is a really positive thing, and what we need as a group so that we can take a much more obvious, clear statement about who our audience is for our final pitch.

I am answering the question, 'Do any of the texts that you consume put you into a niche audience?'

Analysis of a past AS Media blog

I am analysing a blog from a member of last year's AS group, Catrina Rogers.
http://catrinarogersas.blogspot.com/
Here is a print screen of her blog.

You can already see signs of her using the resources she has already got (her blog) for market research through things such as her poll. It doesn't ask a particularly relevant question, but is a very good idea. The colours used, although not particularly relevant, may represent her personality, but i feel the black and pink makes the blog have a gothic feel to it, and makes it less appealing to the eye.. or my personal eye? as the pink is also a very harsh colour. Reading through her opening sentence, we can see that she has a very friendly character and tone to her voice, which helps when you are reading something like a blog. She has a blog archive, making it east to get to the specific work required, but no visible useful links, which i feel are crucial to gain an effective blog for the course. We need to be able to see clearly where she has gained her information from.

Presentation of our concept board.

Today, 16th November 2010, our group are presenting our concept board to our classmates.
The presentation is going to be recorded by our teacher with a video camera so we can post it onto our blogs at a later date as a way of evidencing the experience. We used prezi to create our concept board because we liked how easy it is to create a clear, dramatic presentation that is easy to embed into our blogs, which is what i have done below. Once the film is complete and uploaded, i will use vimeo to get it onto here also.
I think that we have worked really well as a team on our concepts, by spreading the tasks out we can get credit for what we have personally done, yet present it as a team and show how well organised we have been. Also, because it is so well thought out and planned, it will be the perfect basis for our opening title sequence. I am very pleased with the way we have worked, and am happy to continue working as a group.

Concept Board - target market on Prezi

Sound & Characters Concept Board on Prezi

Concept Board-Camera Shots and Typography on Prezi

concept board, my part on Prezi

Concept Board

Concept Board on Prezi

Film Noir Opening Title Sequence Group

I will be working with Jessica White, Ellen Lowe and Kieron Marchese to create an opening title sequence which follows most of the main conventions of a film noir. They are all followers of my blog, and i am following their's so it is easy to find them, also it helps for me to follow the progress of the whole group.
I have chosen to work with these people as i already feel confident around them. This could be either a good or a bad thing, but we will try to focus on the good points that come from it, such as i will never be afraid to voice my opinion, and i can accept their points also. Another obvious benefit from knowing my group well is that it is easily accessible to work together as we live within walking distance from each other, and we work the same days mostly, so it will be easy to meet up for team briefings or to film.
I think we each bring individual characteristics to the group, Kieron is new to media, but has a very strong knowledge of English and Photography (along with both Ellen and Jessica). He has good leading skills and will be able to keep everybody on track. Jessica and Ellen both done media and photography at GCSE, making them probably the strongest with camera's and mise-en-scene. I would like to think my strongest area's are editing and market research, but obviously these are not jobs which i can undertake alone, so the whole group will be helping each other along with the production of our Opening Title Sequence.

10 Film Noir Still Images..

    

A few pieces of research found about film Noir..

Film Noir is a genre of  black and white film, which date back to the early 1940's. The term, 'Film Noir' is French for black film. They use low key lighting schemes and the contrast of light and dark to create atmosphere. Commonly, they will also use a lot of wide and low angles and flashbacks. They feature stock characters specific to the genre, for example the damsel in distress, or the hard-boiled detective. They often feature criminals, making them to a degree a type of crime drama.