Final Film

Evaluation part 1 - Tom Whitehead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haxrc-6EL5Q&feature=youtu.be

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

During our filming we kept clear in our mind that the film was set to be a drama, and so had to follow certain features of that particular genre in order to appeal to members of the audience expecting a dramatic film and to qualify as the particular genre. We have used typical features of drama films in our film such as emotional music, close up shots to express or highlight the emotion felt by the character which would be shown by facial expressions and also by using voice-overs to explain the plot or the character’s feelings. This helps create a dramatic feel to the film as we are able to see the world the character lives in through his own eyes in order to possibly gain sympathy from the audience members for the main character, Sid.

Our film is similar to Inception or Avatar in the fact that the main body of the film takes place in a separate reality and the character’s mind is able to be affected through tampering of his body, this is where our voiceovers come in. We we’re able to increase the level of emotions within the film due to the theme of a struggle for life being present in the plot. The typical idea for the light being a symbol for life is present in our film as our character is given the challenge of reaching the bright light in order to regain consciousness and with that, his life. This representation of life through a source of light is commonly present in films which share a similar genre to ours as it is a recognisable feature to the audience meaning that there is a higher chance the audience will understand the importance of the light in the plot. In order to improve our film I believe our main focus would have to be on finding different ways to explain the plot or make it clearer. We had a few audience members who we’re unsure as to what was happening during the film. I believe that maybe adding more voice-overs or perhaps enhancing the role of importance of the symbolic light in the darker scenes could help us reach this goal.

On top of this I would have liked to re shoot some of the shots in the darker scenes that take place in the characters mind, whilst he is unconscious. We filmed this particular scene in a blacked out drama studio, we had trouble during the filming of this in this location due to low light conditions and bright ceilings that were unable to be covered up. Unlike most films, our media product challenges the idea of showing the title of the film at the beginning. We decided to present our title differently in order to develop a creative and original way of showing the title of the film. Our title “Mind Over Matter” Is shown hand written on the inside of a get well soon card from the character’s family. The shot zooms in on the words “Mind Over Matter” and then fades to white and then to the next scene. I feel this is an original and unusual way of presenting the title of the film and it worked out to be a huge benefit in other areas as it worked as an excellent feature of our product and it also worked as an effective fade to the next scene.

Evaluation part 2 - Tom Whitehead

Media - question 2 on Prezi

In order to create the poster I used Adobe Photoshop to splice together, edit and publish images and text to create a poster. I believe that our poster is similar to the Dark knight poster featured in this post as both the posters share a similar colour scheme, they both use effective use of lighting effects and they both don't give too much away so that the plot is ruined, they merely hint at what could happen in the film.

Our poster also shares the use of hands reaching towards a light source feature with this poster of the film "Don't be Afraid of the Dark."

In order to create the Radio trailer I used the Apple Mac software package Logic Pro in order to edit, mix and add effects to sounds. I was able to change the timings accurately of each of the separate sounds used in the trailer too to create a desired effect. The radio trailer can be found here.

I feel our radio trailer can be compared to the radio trailers for the movie "Alien" as they both make use of actual audio from their films the trailers are advertising and they both also don't give any of the plot away, but only give a brief insight to what the film is about.

Evaluation part 3 - Tom Whitehead

Audience Feedback diagram (Click to enlarge)

Detailed Feedback example via Facebook

Audience feedback questionnaire

Evaluation part 4 - Tom Whitehead

To help create our film and our blog we used a wide variety of software and hardware. By using this new technology and even some technology we are already familiar with we we're able to hone our skills, improve or even learn new skills. I think that the main piece of Hardware that has allowed us to develop creatively was quite simply, our camera. It is the main piece of equipment we used and was by far the main piece of equipment we used and practised different techniques with.

The main piece of software we used was Final cut pro. This is the software we used on our Mac based systems at college to edit and produce "Mind Over Matter." The software was very helpful as it had a simple layout for adjusting and importing sounds, video footage and text in order to create our finished film. We we're also able to make use of fades and other effects to bridge one piece of footage to the next and wipe out any sudden shot changes or what we called "bad cutting" In order to create clean and effective looking professional cuts we we're able to adjust the type of fade we used from one piece of footage to the next, the colour (if needed) and also the time it took to play the fade.

Final Cut Pro

The final cut windows simplicity shows through on the picture to the right. A list of all our recorded audio and video footage that we are able to drag and drop from the system memory into our film edit (bottom) is located at the top left of the screen, being able to drag and drop these clips heightened the creativity in our group and created a more accessible user interface. The middle clip window is showing the clip we have highlighted in the list of recordings and the right video clip is a preview is the actual finished film.

We spent a long time experimenting with different lighting effects with some stage lights and our camera in a dark room in order to find out what effects or colours work best in the conditions and what come across best on the camera. In order to further allow different lighting effects through our camera we we're able to alter the contrast, exposure or focus of the camera. These in turn either allowed us to film in dark conditions or lighter conditions. Due to the main body of our film taking place in Sid's mind (which is filmed in a blacked out dance studio) we needed to be sure that there was enough light on the shot so the camera could pick up what was happening and focus on the actor so that we can see what is actually happening in the film without lighting up the ceiling or background to show the curtains or the bright ceiling.

We had various problems during the testing of lighting effects due to faulty or short lived batteries in the stage lights and also the candle that was in shot didn't always focus in the shot due to over or underexposure, however after experimenting with exposure levels we were able to overcome this issue.

After playing around with different lighting effects and different lights we settled on shining a small light that had an adjustable brightness level on the white ceiling above where we we're filming. This allowed the light to reflect back down into shot lighting up the actor satisfyingly without lighting up any of the unwanted background.
We uploaded a video of our lighting experiments which can be found on our blog or alternatively, here

In order to record the voiceovers for our film we set up a AT4033 microphone plugged into an m-box plugged into an Apple Mac and used a recording software package called Pro Tools which I have learnt to use in a separate A level I am attending called Music Technology. Pro Tools allowed us to record the voices, split each line of words up and order them as we please, add effects such as reverb, echo or an equalizer and then bounce the voices down as an audio file which can then be incorporated into Final Cut to be edited into the film. We had little to no issues with this process as we found Pro Tools to be a very reliable and effective sound production software. I used a similar software package called Logic Pro to produce, mix and edit our radio trailer. With this software I was able to introduce plug ins such as delay, echo, EQ, reverb or compression in order to create the desired sound.

To round off our project we also created a blog on blogger or blogspot. This is an internet website that allows us to post all our work we have done throughout the project online and allow us to edit our posts, personalise our blog and also post as an individual on the blog so that we can easily see who has done what. This was helpful for us as we were able to upload completed work anywhere in the world as long as we had access to an internet connection.

Evaluation Question 1 - Joseph Tomkins

Critical Evaluation - Mind Over Matter


Full Film

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

Above - Mind Over Matter Poster
Below - Dark Souls  - Humanity
Offering

We kept in mind when filming that if we did not keep our film continuous then there would be flaws in the plot and from one shot to the next which would make it flow less smoothly, especially if these continuity errors were noticeable as we know that continuity is a major factor in film making. Because we tried to avoid errors in continuity however, we were unable to use a few clearer shots which had been filmed before the editing stage as the main character was wearing jewellery in his unconscious state and in the shots which were mainly used he wasn’t. Our film sticks mainly to the conventions of drama as a genre, in that it focuses on a struggle and shows you different emotional stages of the character through the challenge, however, it is more abstract than some typical dramas as it focuses around an area which is only inside the protagonists mind and uses voice over’s from the world around him to try and narrate what has happened to him. Music that we chose as well as camera angels also make it apparent that it’s drama as there are a lot of close ups which show how the character is feeling at the time and when these are combined with the voice overs of the character in the restaurant scene they make an emotional contribution to the film. The film makes a pastiche to Dark Souls where light represents the soul and humanity can be trapped, this is used in our film where the main character has to reach his “light” to regain consciousness and carry on. The film tries to make the audience feel for the character and his pain and struggle, I think that during the work we could have made this better by using better camera angles and explaining more of the story through  dialogue as it’s happening rather than attempting to hint at the story after the character wakes in the hospital. This is similar to films such as Inception and Shutter Island where the majority of the story is based in the characters head, however it is closer to Shutter Island where he is entirely confused and trapped inside a separate reality.

Evaluation Question 2 - Joseph Tomkins

media evaluation on Prezi

Evaluation Question 3 - Joseph Tomkins

Left, Facebook film feedback with comments underneath and a link to the first rough cut of the film which was viewed by our feedback audience.


















Left, Toms feedback from his Aunt on our film which we then took on board in our final cut of the film.

Evaluation Question 4 - Joseph Tomkins

4  How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Editing Of Multiple sound layers on
Final Cut Express along with Video

CeltX With film script segment

Final Cut Express allowed us to easily edit together our film from the carious takes and clips which we had from our filming using the Sony HD1000 (a 1080p HD digital camera) also using pro tools 9.1 aswell as the C-24 Digidesign (Now AVID) desk, and the AKG 4033 we were able to record clear bright sounding voice overs for our film which is one of the main features within our film and a crucial part to understanding our plot line, we have both studied Music Production during our time at college whilst studying A Level music Technology. We were unable to change the exposure to a suitable degree on the HD1000 for filming in the dark which was a necessary part of our film and the darkness required on the set meant that we were unable to use enough light in most of the shots to compensate for this and so some of the shots have become filled with contrast pixels trying to show distinguishing features in the darkness. This has been controlled to some degree by editing in Final Cut Express however it has not been completely erased from the film and therefore there is a noticeable decrease in the quality of the film from the shots in light to the shots in darkness.

M-box and ProTools
Below - Final Cut Express During
Editing with match on action

C-24 ProTools Desk

We used a HD video camera called                    to film our audience questionnaire to gain feedback for our shots which allowed us to make changes to the plot and the shooting script as we saw fit, we were also able to use Youtube to a degree to show our film around a small group at college and gain feedback before submitting the final version of our film and they pointed out some flaws with the quality of the audio in the film which has since been corrected and resubmitted to   Youtube to again be viewed to ask for any feedback.

We used the internet to research poster ideas and radio trailer concepts for our film so that we could draw inspiration from the ideas on professional movie posters and radio adverts, this research resulted in our own posters looking quite professional. In the planning stages of filming we used CeltX a free piece of downloadable software which allows for the easy creation of scripts to create our initial movie script and we posted this to a blog which was created by our group to showcase our work. We also used youtube and final cut repeatedly to add other videos of our pre-production such as our experimentation with lighting in the room which we used for the set as well as practicing camera angles and focusing in dark environments, this can be found here.

Fantastic production. I like how it makes the audience feel that they are "inside the character's mind" , you really felt as if you were there. Good effects with the lighting too. 
- Oliver Mitchell

I think the dark bits after you were hit - are great!
but very well filmed and shot
love the lighting
some of the sound levels moving from that filing sequence to the next need to be checked...
too harsh,...
the restaurant scene - the back ground sound is too much at the start...
(it is for me anyway)
no credits on the end titles of - 1) music!!! and 2) locations etc,..
Also dosent say - who Abbie is
also who the other actors are
third title is not on for long enough cant read it
you havent said what Adie and grace did..
credit is needed ! 
- Sue Whitehead

Like the background music throughout, it adds tension and good effect 
- Grace Oliver

There wasn't that much I could say to improve tbh, seemed a bit quiet on my pc maybe but stuff like lighting was good 
- Dan Emsley