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

Insert Preliminary Task Video V Final Film Opening

When we compare the two, the main difference is the more complex storyline. Also the camera work has improved a lot since filming our preliminary task to filming the film opening scene. The preliminary task initially helped us understand what it took to create a piece, film it, and then edit it all in order to bring the whole piece together.  From this, I learnt a lot as it enabled me to understand what it was I needed to develop and improve on to ensure that my final opening scene was more advanced and looked professional.

• Filming- When comparing my original preliminary task to my opening scene, I can see how I have considered shot types a lot more. This helps make it look professional and well thought out. In order to have included all these shots, planning and storyboarding everything was very important. Also all the research we did this time round into similar and existing films helped as I could build my knowledge which enabled me to produce the best piece possible in my opening scene, which I didn't know when filming my preliminary task. Also when filming, rather than just using the camera, we considered how using tripods and dollies would aid us to add to the professionalism of our piece by making the film quality look better. This is because when using just the handheld camera, like in our preliminary task, it looks very shaky and this in turn makes it look very amateur. In comparison to our final opening scene which we used a tripod to film the majority of films, along with a dolly to film the moving shots where we followed behind our actor. All of the subtle changes to the way we filmed our opening scene, in comparison to preliminary task made our final piece more visually appealing and generally better.

• Planning- I also feel that I have learnt the importance of careful and thorough planning. This is because for our preliminary task, we did create a storyboard, script and shot list, however they were not detailed enough to properly aid us when filming as they should of been. This in turn made it harder for us to film our preliminary task quickly and efficiently. Based on this I new that I would need to make time for planning before shooting our opening scene. This is because it takes a long time to create detailed, helpful storyboards, shot lists and scripts. Therefore my biggest learning curb from creating preliminary to opening scene was to ensure planning was detailed and complete. If not, everything is made a lot harder because instead of looking at the storyboard and being able to see the next scene, shot type, shot length etc, you would have to know it, which isn't easy when also considering everything else you have to when filming a scene.

• Reliable/Flexible Actors- Another crucial part of film making that I found was ensuring you have reliable actors. In our preliminary task we had real struggles ensuring our actors would turn up on certain days, at certain times. We found that when was suitable for us, and suitable for our storyboard based on location and other external problems we may have had due to certain places only being available for filming on at certain times, often the actor couldn't make it. This meant that it made our preliminary task a real rush, making it a lot more stressful than it needed to be. This left us the problem of having to then change actors for our preliminary task, meaning he has to learn the storyline and know his lines in minimal time in order to ensure we had our preliminary task completed on time. Therefore, in our final scene, we ensured we chose a reliable actor who we knew had a track record of being punctual and flexible. This made filming a lot easier as it meant we could say to him that we were going to film it on a certain day at a certain time and we could relax knowing we wouldn't be let down last minute. Therefore, from doing the preliminary I learnt that having reliable actors is very important and from learning this probably helped me avoid this situation again in the filming of the opening scene meaning it was a lot less stressful and more relaxed.

Question 6- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

In order to film our piece we used a Canon HD camera. This camera was HD however, even with this, some of the shots still weren't the best quality. This shows me that even though these cameras were expensive, compared to industry standard cameras they are no match. However, for what we needed, it was good enough. The piece we made looked professional and during the filming we experienced no real problems due to the camera. It was very easy to use, playback was very simple to meaning when we wanted to watch the clips back that we had just shot we could do with ease. We also managed to film during the day and were lucky enough to have got two good days when the weather was bright, meaning lighting was good enough for us to film without it causing any problems. The only problems we did face was the wind, we found that it went straight through the camera, therefore when we played our piece back we had some sounds that ideally we didn't want. This wasn't a problem however as in our opening, there is no dialogue from our main character meaning we could mute the clip and get rid of all background noise. This meant the slight wind noises weren't a problem in the end. This has shown me however that when filming for films, institutions must have to consider all these factors, or get specialist equipment in which is very expensive, this shows me the extent of planning that has to be done before filming and also made me understand that filming isn't as easy as it looks.

When editing our piece we used Apple Macs. We used the software iMovie to then edit our piece after uploading our clips from the memory card out of our camera onto the mac. The main reason for using iMovie besides any other software is that I have had some previous experience of using that software, for example when we had to edit our preliminary task. Therefore, it seemed the obvious choice of software to use as it required the least amount of practise prior to editing as we already knew how to use it which made the editing process more efficient. Our other option for editing our piece was Final Cut Express, however, after a little practise on this software, I decided using iMovie would be the better option due to having used it before and having experience using it and due to iMovie simplicity in comparison to Final Cut. Whilst editing we didn't experience to many problems, however it was prior to editing when we were trying to upload the clips from the memory card to the Macs, we encountered a problem in which the file was the wrong type and was not compatible with the Macs. This meant we then had to waste a majority of one day changing them from one file type to another. Other than this we encountered no drastic problems during the editing of our opening scene. A good thing about iMovie is that it allowed us to improve the quality of some of our shots by adjusting the quality by stabilising them. This added to our piece making it look professional. Overall, in the film industry as technology continues to improve, film quality will continue to improve also as editing equipment continues to grow and improve. From what I used when editing, it is already very advanced, and I only used basic editing techniques which added to my piece vastly. I used things like transitions, colour corrections and stabilisation feature which improved our opening scene.
To improve, next time I would consider learning how to use Final Cut Express, as I feel this would have also allowed for an even more advanced edit and meant our final product would have looked even better.

In order to keep and produce a blog of all our work, we used Google Blogger. I found this slightly frustrating to use at first as it often was hard to insert images where you wanted them and also found sometimes when I viewed my actual blog as a whole, text would hang off the side and not be visible or easy to read. However, after I got used to the software, I have actually grown to quite like it as I feel it gives quite a professional look, easy to keep all my work in one place and finally is easy to start a piece, save it and then edit it and add to it at a later date. If I were to do it again, after getting used to the software I would probably use it again as it did help to have all the work in one place and I never once experienced any technical difficulties with the site meaning it was safe and secure to do my blog work on.

Question 5- How did you attract/address your audience?

The video covers the majority of the questions. I got feedback from someone of the demographic of my target audience, a young adult. Like similar other films in the same genre, by using the expected generic conventions that you would expect to find in this genre it entices my target audience to watch the film. Stereotypically crime/dramas are more appealing to a male audience, hence this is our target demographic.

Question 4- Who would be the audience for your media product?

This is an example of my target audience, young adults, aged between 18 and 32.

My target audience would probably shop in quite mainstream shops, clothing would be purchased from stores such as Topman, River Island, Blue Inc etc. They would be up to date with the latest trends and like to always look well groomed and up to date. This is due to their age, they like to always look good, and in turn shop at these shops which they know will have the sort of clothing they look for.

They would mainly listen to rap music- with the like of Eminem, 50 Cent, Kendrick Lamar etc. They would be very into their music and up to date with all the latest songs and gossip from within the music world. Also they would like going to music festivals and seeing there favourite acts live. They also like music festivals for the social side of things, they like to get involved with things and enjoy spending time with their friends and having fun.

There favourite TV programmes would be programmes like..

• Top Gear
• Match of the Day
• Celebrity Juice

They enjoy action packed programmes that change weekly. Have to be jam packed with action to keep them entertained and interested. Like to keep up to date with the top news, hence watching these sort of programmes to understand and be able to share thoughts with friends about the subjects.

There favourite past time would be meeting up with friends and going down town, seeing a movie and playing sports. During the day they enjoy being active and playing sports, of an evening they enjoy either going out in the evenings or having relaxing evenings in watching the telly or putting a DVD on.

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

The following is answered in a PowerPoint presentation.

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

In this video I am discussing the question above.

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

Our film includes stereotypical conventions that you would expect to see in Crime/Dramas whilst also challenging these generic conventions in other ways.

 Most Crime/Dramas tend to have a good guy and a bad guy. Usually, in the end we see the ending come without a definite conclusion on what's happen. They are often very good at building tension and grabbing at the audience in order to make them want to watch on. Ours, also includes the majority of these things, besides having a bad guy in it. Our piece is aimed at young adults, because of this we have incorporated an expensive well known car, nice house and nice clothing. This enhances our audience because they can relate to this as they are at the point in their life where they are every interested in these things and want these things too. By being able to relate to things, it means the audience engages better with the film. Title sequences in our piece are very standard, meeting the requirements expected.

Another common convention of Crime/Dramas are for them to connect deeply with the audience and catch their feelings and allow them to relate to the text. This goes hand in hand with the uses and gratification theory that I spoke about in a previous post. By using this it means the audience is constantly looking for something from the text that they personally can relate too, meaning they are always active and aware of what's happening. By using this theory, and making our piece very relatable, people are more likely to want to watch it.

Also stereotypically we have a male as the main character. This is very common in Crime/Dramas as they are portrayed stereotypically to be the stronger gender hence playing the lead role, opposed to woman who are often made out to be seen as being venerable.

The camera work and shot types make our piece look verisimilitude. Again, a very stereotypical generic convention of Crime/Dramas is to make the scene very believable and realistic. By using establishing shots, which immediately show the location of the film and set the scene for the audience, it makes the piece seem very lifelike. Set in a large house, it is a stereotypical rich persons house, and the Jaguar car that Xavier the main character then gets into also is very stereotypical and what you would expect from a character like him. Again, enhancing the pieces realism.

A tension building piece of music is also used throughout, the idea is that it builds tension and almost works in harmony with the scenes as you see them. This means the audience will be more engaged as they are using more of their senses. This is a generic convention too.

Overall, our piece uses conventions that you would expect to find in a real life Crime/Drama product. This therefore makes people more interested in watching it as they are fooled to believe it could actually be a true story and could happen, therefore making it more believable and not so unrealistic that they switch off and don't pay attention.