Friday 30 March 2012

Evaluation Q7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?




Pre Production:  For the prelim animatic we had to plan out and draw a storyboard that would be used as a way to visualise our idea and our vision .  When briefed on the prelim we were told to make sure to include certain things such as : the character must open a door ,  dialogue must be shared between characters , there must be a match cut , shot reverse shot and the 180degree rule . When creating our prelim storyboard animatic we had to think about using different camera angles , where and how we would show the match cut , shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule .  One skill i think that's very crucial  when you're in the pre production stage is looking ahead , planning and team work . I believe my group did all three and this is what i think we took on board when planning for our final thriller . As we were using this experience as practise for our thriller opening we thought that we would add our Korean inspiration into the prelim by using all the knowledge we had built on Korean ghost stories . I learnt that if you don't plan , make a storyboard or research then your not likely to succeed .






Production:  When  it came down to filming we chose to film in a public children's park that is right next to a church which we thought gave off a spooky feel to the prelim .  As i was the camera woman it was my responsibility on setting up the camera , make sure the floor is even  and that the camera  focus was clear . I found it slightly difficult at first to make sure the camera was set up properly but after a while it all came back to me . However one thing i noticed on set and after filming was that in some shot's people (who weren't meant to be there) were in the shots which in general is something we could not let possibly happen for our media opening . That's another thing i learnt : to chose a more secluded location/area for the thriller .










Here are 3 screen grabs of where and how we decided to do a match cut , we had Kiah are main character walking then disappearing then reappearing . As you can see in the first shot in the background there is a guy walking,  by the time the match cut gets to the third shot he's more visible which on the whole looses the effect the match cut was supposed to give . When filming for the thriller as yet again i was the camera woman i made sure that no one or anything that wasn't meant to be there was there . I learnt that these little mistakes could turn what would of been a professional looking opening to an something amature looking . By the end of filming i looked through on the camera to check if i had followed my storyboard and used a wide range of camera shots in different camera angles and had followed the requirements. Also when we were filming we thought about recording some foley sounds for our prelim however after recording it we noticed that it didn't go with our prelim footage so therefor we decided as a group that for our final product we weren't going to record any foley sounds.


Post production: When it came down to editing our prelim we did so on final cut pro , at that stage we only new a few basic editing skills such as adding a few effects , some fade's etc . When editing and picking out which clips we were going to use i made sure to include the match cut even thought unwanted people were in the shot , we had to work with what we had which is important as we had no more time to film . By the end of editing i didn't really learn that much on editing however as the weeks went on i learnt how to add filters , split clips , add more effects and overlap clips . At the beginning of the prelim i didn't know what the 180 degree was but now after going through the prelim i've learnt that the 180degree consists of two characters , one character is always on the left whereas the other is on the right at all times , no matter what shot they must have the left/right relationship . 

Across both productions i've learnt how to use the mac confidently , final cut pro to edit clips , soundtrack pro to add sound but most importantly to work as a team , plan and to look out for everything and anything that might effect your final product in any way . 



















Evaluation Q6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Monday 26 March 2012

Evaluation Q3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?





As you can see the production and distribution we used for our thriller is Candi studios and 19 productions. The reason for picking Candi studios is because it's a local company that'll  be able to offer our thriller cinematic release, 250 dvd's sent out  and an online release through Vimeo . '19 productions' however is a local korean based production company that can only offer our thriller limited cinematic release, which is  a good way to start trying to break into the korean market. Even though they are both small independent companies and won't be able to give us big advertisments our thriller can still be wideley viewed virally as it's been uploaded on Vimeo . We've also uploaded the thriller onto youtube so there's more of a chance of it gaining a larger audience .

Password for video :student



Evaluation Q1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?

Monday 19 March 2012

Signing off message ~

Evaluation Q2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 Define representation : 



Representation of our main character - 

In our thriller i would say that we have two representations of our main character : we have the 'young bully victim who's stereotype is ..
  • Stereotype - Her stereotype is of a good girl/smart/child like/ innocent bully victim 
and the ghost who embodies certain aspects of the ghost girl character is the film 'The Ring'


  • Stereotype- Dangerous , out of control and spooky .
I would say that the good-girl representation is stronger and made clearer than the ghost character -



The connotation of GHOST  is : 



So by having the 'Jack in the box' it contradicts the connotation of a 'Ghost ' as 'Jack in the box' can be seen as a toy for young children something thats not quiet scary but then again the surprise element of the 'clown' bursting out could what adds the fear factor . In different tv shows clowns are shown and used in a negative light . For example in the 'Sarah Jane adventures' which is a tv show aimed at young teens they did an episode with a scary clown as shown below .


Just like the sarah jane adventures we wanted to aim our thriller at young teens but we also wanted the target audience to reach beyond  18 + . For us to get that particular target audience we needed something that could be relatable to young teens and adults as well : we decided that having a 'bullying storyline' would achieve that .

The Sub-genre we chose was 'Horror with psychological elements' as the horror would stereotypically appeal to men whereas the psychological elements would appeal to females and collectively our thriller would appeal a bit to everyone . 


Camera angle and positioning of our main character + Bullying storyline :





As you can see our main character is positioned at the front isolated and alone . Stereotypically someone who sits at the front is seen as 'smart-teachers pet'. As you can see she's wearing a white ribbon which further shows her innocence , she is also wearing a pink Mickey Mouse top which too adds to her goody to shoes persona







This camera angle is looking down on our main character which could represent how everyone views her. The bullying is good at reaching our wide target audience because at some point in peoples life they've been bullied in some shape or form .


So through .....

  1. Jack in the box
  2. Camera angles
  3. Costume 
  4. Sub-genres
  5. Stereotypes
  6. Positioning of the characters
All these are used throughout the thriller to represent our different social groups.








EVALUATION Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


Film openings tend to start in a typical format, here is a list of all the film conventions:
  • Introduce production company logo
  • Introduce distribution company logo
  • Often carry a title sequence
  • Mood and tone established through sound
  • Intends to draw the audience in 
  • Introduces key characters


I have analysed the beginning of Final Destination 3 and have found that “Hard Eight Pictures Production” have been placed first, followed by “Practical Pictures” and “Matinee Pictures” which share the same screen. After the production logos, the movie title name is portrayed which is “Final Destination 3”. You can instantly tell from the editing that the movie is a horror thriller, as the effects on the production company names have been put in smoky glow and then fade out. The mood and sound instantly establish the spooky atmosphere and draws in the audience.  






After the production companies have appeared on the screen the credits start playing in the same way through the eerie atmosphere, below I took screen grabs of the credits:


















The names and titles have all been put in order:

  • ACTOR:                                                    Mary Elizabeth Winstead
  • CASTING by:                                           John Papsidera
  • MUSIC by:                                                Shirley Walker 
  • COSTUME DESIGNER:                           Gregory B. Mah
  • VISUAL EFFECTS:                                  Ariel Velasco Shaw
  • EDITOR:                                                    Chris Willingham 
  • PRODUCTION DESIGNER:                     Mary Freeborn
  • DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY:          Robert McLachlan 
  • CO-PRODUCER:                                      Art Schaefer
  • EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS:                     Toby Emmerich, Richard Brener and Matt Moore
  • PRODUCED by:                                          Craig Perry, Warren Zide, Glen Morgan and James Wong 
  • WRITTEN by:                                           Glen Morgan and James Wong
  • DIRECTED by:                                         James Wong

In our thriller "Vengeance" we basically looked back at one our earlier blogs which spoke about film conventions, in doing so we used that as our guideline and followed the same order. Our thriller also begins in the same way starting with production companies, the movie title, actors names etc and then finishes with the director. During the editing process, we had to make sure that our titles were in the correct order but once we showed our teacher we found they weren't and that our thriller resembled a trailer rather than a title sequence. Our group then had to change the titles around and make sure it looked as if it was a title sequence. 

EVALUATION Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

EVALUATION Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?


In our thriller, the production and distribution companies that have been used are Candi Studios and 19 Productions. Candi Studios is a local production company that will be able to offer our thriller a cinematic release, with 250 dvd's being sent out and an online release through Vimeo. Whereas, 19 Productions is a Korean production company that have helped guide us break the Korean target market by providing us with suitable information and a limited cinematic release. Both of these production companies are small independent companies that have helped us with our thriller, Vengeance. Our group believe that both these production companies are very suitable for our thriller, although we won't get a big cinematic release and our thriller won't be advertised so hugely, the chances are that through Vimeo our opening may just go viral and gain a wider audience. Also, small independent companies tend to work very closely with movies which will benefit our thriller, and they may promote it through film festivals which will make our thriller more widely known.

EVALUATION Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product?


EVALUATION Q5: How did you attract/ address your audience?

Q5 evaluation
View more PowerPoint from zaiba1995


Below is a video of two girls from our media class, giving their opinions of our thriller:


EVALUATION Q6: What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?


EVALUATION Q7: Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?


During the prelim our task was to film “a character opening a door, who walks into a room and sits down next to another character and they share a few lines of dialogue”. The brief mentioned that we had to have at least one match cut, an example of a shot reverse shot and show our understanding of the 180 degree rule.  In comparison to our final thriller, we had to treat our prelim as a mini version of what was to come for our real title opening, so in terms of this we had to go through pre- production, production and post- production.  During pre- production our group had outlined some ideas of what we could do in our thriller, by doing so an animatic storyboard was produced which would identify the sequence of the shots and what type of camera angle it would be.  Due to the idea of our final thriller being based around Korean ghost stories, our group followed the theme by seeing how it would play out in our prelim that way we could get a taste for how our final thriller would be. Our group’s final prelim idea was that we would have a normal friendly girl (character 1) playing in a park and sitting on a swing, when another mysterious girl (character 2) shows up and takes the swing besides her, character 1 being a friendly person hasn’t seen character 2 before and so asks what her name is, character 2 replies by glaring at character 1 and before we know it character 2 has mysteriously disappeared, leaving character 1 in shock.
During production, my role was to be an actor so I had to play the friendly girl. Our group found that my character had to always be in the background; otherwise the sequence of our prelim wouldn’t match up. Due to the limited amount of time we had to find a set which was close by to film, so we chose Myddelton Square Gardens, what I particularly liked about our location was that there was a church right beside it which gave our prelim an eerie atmosphere.  I took some screen grabs of some important shots from our prelim, you can see that we have used a close up of character 2 opening the gate which was part of our brief, we have been told that shots of shoes are excellent and I think it’s great we used it in our prelim. Next, you will see a shot of character 1 and 2 talking both of these shots were done in a short reverse shot. Finally, character 1 looks around suspiciously wondering where character 2 has gone.
During the editing, sound and effects were added to our prelim. I like that one minute we can see character 2 walking and the next she disappears, it shows that she is a ghost and the dark sound adds to this. Overall, we have established the 180 degree rule where character 1 is always on the left of the screen while character 2 the right side of the screen. I believe that the prelim task did help when it came to making our final thriller, as we were gaining experience on how to use software’s such as Final Cut Pro and Sound Track Pro. 



Evaluation Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final product?

Loock back at the skills you had when you made the preliminary film; in terms of pre production. compare those with the skills you displayed in your final film. Try to sum up what you have learnt across both productions.

In the preliminary we were introduced to storyboards, so in the final film we knew more what we were doing with the story boards and how to show types of shots and zooms in the storyboards. We were given a task to follow in the preliminary wheras in our film it was completely up to us, which gave us a lot more freedom but also made it harder because we had to come up with the ideas on our own.

During the production of our prelim we learnt that you should always check the focus of your clips, because this ended up messing up our clips. So in the final production process we made sure to do this. In the final version we learnt how to eastablish more of the scene using the camera whereas in the prelim we only used a few types of shots. In the final version we recorded a lot more clips than we would ever need, we learnt that it was good to do this so that we would have more footage if we ever needed it.

During editing we hadn't learnt much more in the final process than in the preliminary except how to use Live Type to create titles. In the prelim we had learnt how to edit sound and audio using final cut and how to edit sound using soundtrack pro.

In the prelim We learnt about the 180 degree rule, which means only filming within 180 degrees, if you go over this you may end up confusing your audience as the characters and objects will be on reverse sides.
We also learnt about the 5 second rule in the final production in that you should film for 5 seconds more than you need in the beginning and ending of each shot to make sure you have enough footage. We learnt in the prelim how important Mise En Scene can be as it can influence the audiences view completly, so in the final version we tried our best to use oriental intertexuality where we could for example Zaiba's white costume showing a ghostly figure.

In the preliminary task we learnt how important it was to match cut during editing, so that the clip would flow nicely and as to not confuse our audience, we carried this through into the final project.

Here is a vlog for some more of my answers to this question:
You may have to click this link to view it... The video may be out of sync due to problems with the  youtube uploader




Evaluation Question 6: What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?



I have chosen to answer this question using a powerpoint presentation on sliderocket. The presentation can be view above, if not here is the public link: http://portal.sliderocket.com/BQHIO/My-Presentation-1

Evaluation Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

What aspects of our opening to the film appeal to the target audience (Of 16 to 19 year olds)?
Our target audience liked the idea of the girl who turns into an onryo in the forest, and the location of the college. Since our target audience are mostly in education, an educational centre brings in something close to home during the thriller. Our target audience liked the music from the Jack in the box that ran throughout our film as well as the sound effects of the wind.They also liked the use of the jack in the box, although it was slightly colourful. As well as the white costume that the main character played by Zaiba wears and the white ribbon in her hair which conveyed innocence and purity. The oriental-horror genre appeals to our audience as it it thrillingly scary, and has similarities to other oriental-horror films such as Ringu and Ju-On: The grudge. Our target audience also showed interest in the revengeful storyline and wished that the opening clip was longer!

Our media teacher Dan gave us feedback on our rough cut a while ago. We took into consideration his comments about the two girls not really linking together, in response to this we filmed another scene to show that she was being bullied at school. We feel that it helped appeal to our target audience as many teens have witnessed bullying or even been bullied themselves so they might understand why the character may have committed suicide. However i feel that we could have done with a longer time period to film and edit with so that we could have attempted a suicide scene. If we were able to produce a 5 minute opening we would be able to shown all the essential scenes.


So far we have reached our audience via CInema Screening, at a Cinema local to our college. However no member of group 3 were able to attend so we do not have any feedback from that event. Our thriller will be available on a 250 DVD release, however since the DVDs have not yet been made we cannot collect feedback through the DVD either. So instead I have shown the video to my friends and this is the feedback they gave me Via the social networking site Facebook. We would hope to reach our audience again through Cinema and DVD.











This feedback was given after the final cut of our film. If we were able to re-edit parts of it we would definitely try to respond to this feedback. We would use a different Jack-in-the box, however this was the only one we could get in time... and afford as they are quite expensive. We had to use our own money for this project. We would also spend more time editing the scene and take into consideration the comments on the slow motion effects. We would also need make the link between the two girls more clear. Although it is quite difficult to show so much in a 2 minute video clip.


Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media project?


Above is a Prezi to show my response as to who is the wider audience, the sub genre audience and audience specific to our film 'Vengeance'.

Evaluation Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

In our opening to our thriller, the distribution company used was Candi Studios, and the production company was 19 Productions. Both of these are local studios. Which means we probably would not be able to market our film to a large audience. However the film will be produced on a 250 DVD release. As you can see the distribution company logo and Production company logos below. They would be good for distributing our film in the London area as it is where we are based, or ideally locally in Korea.



For the distribution of our film we would use the Korean distribution company Showbox/쇼박스.  Showbox are one of the larger distribution companies in Korea, which would mean we would be able to distribute our film through the whole of  South Korea. Unfortunately I can not find a copy of their  distribution company logo.

However if we decided we wanted to produce an English subbed version we would use Palisades Tartan is a UK and US film disribution company which help to distribute Asian films to a wider audience. This would mean that our film could be  distributed to  the western companies and possibly world wide.

Our ideal production company would be the Korean production company CJ Entertainment/씨제이엔터테인먼트, Who are a large compnay. This means that they might also distribute for us. CJ Entertainment are a large enough company to distribute our film to  the whole of South Korea. I doubt that the film would be shown in north Korea. CJ Entertainment are probably one of the largest production companies in South Korea, if they produced and distributed our film, it would definitely become a well known and talked about film in Korea.

Evaluation Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I have presented my answer to Question 2 of the evaluation using a 'Go Animate package' and a wordle which represents the stereotypes and emotions used in the opening to vengeance. Below is the wordle.


















Here is the 'GO Animate' Animation on the Stereotypes shown in vengeance. The main stereotypes shown were Onryo, Students, Youth, and Females. All of which were portrayed negatively throughout the film opening.




GoAnimate.com: streotypes for vengaence by aa42425

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

Sunday 18 March 2012

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

What are the conventions of film openings and titles sequences?


Conventions of film openings
  • introduce production company logo; used for the company to brand what they produce some well known companies inlcude: Universal, Dreamworks and 20th Century fox. Korean production companies include: CJ Entertainment/씨제이엔터테인먼트 and AKOM
20th century fox (2009).pngUniversal 100th Anniversary logo.jpgDreamWorks Animation SKG logo


  • introduce distribution company logo; Used for the company to brand what they distribute. Most of the big companies promote and distribute by themselves however a well known distribution company is the American Film Institute. One of the Korean distribution companies is  Showbox/쇼박스. Palisades Tartan is a UK and IS film disribution company which help to distribute Asian films to a wider audience.



  • often carry a title sequence; as you can see in the opening of Chakushin Ari the opening carries a title sequence to introduce they main actors and important people behind the film.


  • mood and tone established with sound; through sound tracks/effects and dialogue.
  • intended to hook the audience into the film, done through narrative
  • introduced to key characters, in the opening of the film.

Conventions of film title sequences
Titles sequences of film opening generally follow this order:
  • -Production and distribution company logo.
  • -Director, Producor, Top actors.
  • -Film title.
  • - Main actors
  • -Film Directors
  • -Film title
  • -Executives, Editors, Music, Costume, Screenplay.
  • -Director/Producer.

Our film


3. Zaiba, Vanessa, Kiah from 283goswell on Vimeo.
The password is student.



The conventions of our title sequence: 

-Introduce distribution and production company logo.
-Carries a title sequence.
.mood and tone established with sound; through sound tracks/effects and dialogue.
.intended to hook the audience into the film, done through audio and video
.introduced to key characters, in the opening of the film. 

Title Sequence order.
  • -Production and distribution company logo: Our production company logo is 19 productions, and distribution company is candi studios. Our title sequence shows the distribution company before production.
  • . Film title: Vengeance.
  • . Main Actors.
  • .Casting, Music by, Edited by, Production design, Co producer, Executive producer, Produced by,  Directed by.

  • How doe our film opening challenge or follow the conventions of film openings and title sequences?

  • Our film opening displays the distribution company logo before the production company logo. Normally the logos would be shown in reverse order to ours.
  • usually a title sequence would follow this order, but ours (in red) follow another.
    • -Production and distribution company logo. Distribution and Production company.
    • -Director, Producer (Not mentioned here).
    • .Top actors. Film title.
    • -Film title. Main actors.
    • - Main actors Casting by, Music by, Edited by.
    • -Film Directors. Production design, Co Producer, Executive producer.
    • -Film title. Produced by.
    • -Executives, Editors, Music, Costume, Screenplay. Directed by.
    • -Director/Producer.

    .mood and tone established with sound; through sound tracks/effects and dialogue. Through audio and sound effects.
    .intended to hook the audience into the film, done through audio and video. done through audio and video.
    .introduced to key characters, in the opening of the filmintroduced to key characters, in the opening of the film

    For the most part we have followed the conventions of film opening, with a few changes in the title sequence order. Our film opening established tone and mood through audio and sound effects, however in some film openings this is also done with dialogue. We have introduced key characters in the opening of our film.