Evaluation Question 7

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

In conclusion I believe that compared to the preliminary task, me and my group have sharpened are camera, editing, acting and planning skills. Since our preliminary task I believe we have learn't a lot which has allowed me and my group to make our final thriller the best that we could have.

Evaluation Question 6

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

Evaluation Question 5

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation Question 4

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

Evaluation Question 3

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

Evaluation Question 2

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

Evaluation Question 1

1) In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and convections of real media products?

Audience Feedback on Thriller

Lot's of people were able to view my groups Opening Thriller Death Period in turn we received many positive and negative feedback, here are some of them below:

The majority who were able to provide positive feedback stated that the editing of the opening thriller was of a very high quality. All if not most of who watched stated that the opening thriller possessed smooth cuts on each scene and that the continuity was high very high in consistency. Everyone who watched also found that Krenar's selection of music was very good and that it fitted with the genre of the thriller because it was used effectively and in sync with each scene of the opening thriller. However some of my friends also found the stabbing scene realistic where Fernando got stabbed but he didn't spew blood, some of my friends new about the body and found it realistic that Fernando didn't bleed because in real life being stabbed where Fernando got stabbed would not cause much if not any bleeding. Additionally some of the people at the screening also thought that there were a good variety of shots used within the thriller and that the camera handling was very steady for most of the Opening Thriller however some of my friends, for example Stiv found my groups Ident be to very pleasing and unique, he stated that it looked and sounded like a professional companies Ident as it was simple and attractive at the same time.

Some people including my family wished that walking took less time being in frame in the opening of a thriller because it is unnecessary unless something tense is going to happen. I believe this criticism is true as it's possible that we could have taken some scenes of walking out and the story still would have made sense and would have seemed to go faster in speed based in the story progress.
Another problem which the audience had about my groups thriller is that there wasn't enough context, in short not enough information was given to provide a easy understanding of what was going on and this has proven to be true through my experience of having to explain some parts of my thriller to my family whilst they were watching it. The final criticism the audience gave about our thriller was that some shots could have been used better to give a better angle of the conversations that were in place in our thriller, if this was done then the audience would be more connected to the opening of the thriller and would be more pleased and willing to listen to the dialog spoken.

Screening

Now that my group had finished our thriller we decided that we would start screening it, I shared it with my friends my family and even my schoolmates in hope to receive feedback and opinions whilst also watching it myself.

When I was telling my friends to watch it they asked me what it was for and why we were doing it as well as what we wanted to achieve with it. I replied and gave them the main information like how we were making an opening thriller for our Media Studies AS, after explaining and answering their questions I sent them the link to the video allowing them to see and react for the first time to something me and my group produced. The video was only 3:59s so my friends didn't mind and were actually excited and surprised by the fact that I created an opening thriller, at least 3 of my friends were able to watch and gave feedback.

As well as my friends other teachers and students were able to watch our opening thriller Death Period, I found that everyone was not drawn away from watching it because the opening thriller title was attractive and interesting. My groups opening thriller was put on the screen in class and lots of the seats were taken, all who watched were able to give a bit of opinions for example some said it was good.

Death Period: Media Studies Coursework

Analysis of Rough Cut

What a Rough Cut says, is exactly what it means and thankfully me and my group were told to create one. We were told to do this before making a final cut as it would allow us to be able to analyse where we could add improvements and where we could fix our mistakes. In turn the rough cut enabled us to be able to think of more improvements and gave us ideas of what we could do before finalising our footage.

To my surprise the rough cut made it possible for people to give feedback immediately on what we did well and what we could have made improvements to. As a result my group was given a much simpler time trying to find mistakes and was provided with tips on what part to improve and what parts to make changes to. Moreover because of audience feed back we were presented with tweaks in scenes where continuity had issues and with scenes where our camera shots lighting could have been improved to either reduce or enhance exposure.

At the beginning of my groups Opening Thriller the first scene shows Fernando the victim walking out his house down the pavement. Although the angle of the camera shot was decent the camera was too exposed however we did not realise this until we gained feedback from the rough cut, so as you can see the rough cut is a vital method in acquiring and identifying ways to improve our opening thriller and without it my group would have missed these mistakes.

Another advantage of rough cuts is that although it allows the audience to give feedback yet it also expresses what they currently think about it and what they think it could become. This will help my group improve our opening thriller as it will provide ideas which we could add to make it accomplish the theme and element of a thriller.

However overall after watching the rough cut myself I had also provided feedback. Personally I was pleased that the shots linked together and worked together smoothly. I also found that our opening thriller did make sense after watching our rough cut so Im glad to say our rough cut made sense and was not in anyway senseless apart from however the last shot where Fernando lies dead in the forest immediately after being stabbed to death.

I do think we can make improvements such as resolving the issues here and there where there are continuity issues due to the camera shot lacking match on action. I also found that there was too much time been taken by some shots where our characters were just walking and so I believe we could fix that by changing the length of the footage in out final cut.

In conclusion I am happy that we produced a rough cut as without it we would probably end up with an end product which wouldn't have shown our full efforts and hard work.

Audience Feedback for Rough Cut

This is our audience feedback for our rough cut.Thankfully 5 people were generous enough to provide their opinions on our rough cut so I have gone and compiled them together and divided them into pros and cons to give an overall feedback on our rough cut. 

This is what they thought went well and was effective:two out of the 5 said that some of the camera work was good good, in  particular the tracking shots. They stated that they were quite steady although the some of the recording was done in hand they also liked the scene where the gloved hand came into frames and they said it was quite conventional to see a shot like that in a thriller. - Good edit choice of introducing the janitor mopping the floor and then cutting back to the character outside, coming in.

This is what they thought could have been improved:2 of the people who gave feedback said that some of the shots would have been better if they were wider e.g. when the character walked up the stairs, his head got cut off as he reached the top. They said we should have done practice runs to see how it looked before actually recording. The majority of the people who gave feedback also said that it was obvious that the building wasn't empty as they could hear students in the classes. Another criticism was that the scene where the mysterious figure was creeping up on Fernando could have been improved by rearranging the classroom so that the mysterious figure could sneak up in a straight line behind Fernando rather than sneaking up from the side where he could have realistically been seen by Fernando. They also stated that in one of the scenes the supervisor was smiling so they said that the acting should be improved so that the characters appearance doesn't brake. The final thing they pointed out was that the final scene where Fernando was found dead should of had a slower zoom out as they thought it was a bit too quick.

This is what they believed we had to do to improve our rough cut:
They said that we should shorten our shots as most of the scenes just show the character walking. They believed that it was important to do this as it would help to prevent the audience from not keeping engaged. They also said we should consider zooming in on the scene where the Villain looks at the phone using options on Premier Pro as it would help to keep the Villains identity hidden because if not, the Villains face would have been shown and identified. They also suggested that we should add suitable music in the background which could help enhance the elements each scene wanted to express. The final thing they though we could improve on was to consider re-shooting the killing shot with just a close up of a gloved hand covering the victims mouth. They said sometimes implying death/danger is much more powerful than showing someone getting hurt.

Rough Cut v2 of Opening Of Thriller

Rough Cut of Opening Thriller

Editing 2

Second Edit of Death Period

This is my groups second edit of Death Period, this time we used the footage we recorded on the second day filming. Most of the editing we did was focused on making our footage make sense. We ensured to straight cut from the last shot we edited to the footage we recorded on the second day. We didn't edit everything perfectly but we were able to edit enough so that we could distinguish where the straight cuts and jump cuts were. Another thing we were able to do on during our second edit was  shave a few useless seconds from the clips that had useless seconds of unimportant walking.

The aim for editing this time was not to only do the same as the first time but to attempt using dissolves and fades however the corridor footage didn't have much in terms of opportunities for theses effects so as a result we didn't add any affects to that scene. However we were able to connect all the shots together and ended up successfully creating a near enough rough edit for our corridor scene. On the other hand we did still have some places where we could have made the continuity much more tight and smooth but that was unavoidable as it was only our second time editing. In total me and my group were able to gain more editing experience and had gotten more used to the tools available to us while editing, in turn I believe that for the rest of the time we to edit I think well be much faster and will be more confident in our choices such as adding background music and adding audio effects where necessary.

Editing 1

First Edit of Death Period

This is my groups first edit of Death Period. For our first edit we decided to shorten some of the clips we recorded and cut the to create match on actions and straight cuts. We didn't really change much in terms of color or effects but we had made significant tweaks to help blend the continuity of our shots allowing our first scene to be created through the linking of all the footage we recorder on day one.

As you can see below we have edited the shots so that the conversation seems to continue although in reality they were recorded separately at different times and at different angles. apart from this we have also made sure to cut in precise areas where two shots should link to make the illusion that the shots show the character continuing to walk from one shot to another. However since it was our first edit we decided that we wouldn't edit too much as we didn't have enough time and because we only needed rough edits as of then.  

Filming 2

Second Day Filming Death Period

On our second day filming I felt more prepared and had more knowledge of how to set up the scene based on our preparations. This time we were getting footage for the next scene most appropriate to save time and finish recording as fast as possible, the scene that we were filming this time was the Corridor scene where Fernando walks up the stairs and won the corridor looking back because he has a feeling someone is watching him however he does not catch the culprit following him and walks on unaware of the danger following him. This time we had all the equipment ready but had some trouble making the scene's environment fit the feeling of our opening thriller however after we resolved that issue we got the footage we needed with no problem.

During our second day filming we had also incorporated new ideas and added a few additions and actions here in their between each shot. We successfully recorded the footage required for our editing later on that week and the shots we recorded were the POV shot, mid shot and long shot. On the other hand we didn't check all the footage we recorded properly to check for any issues concerning continuity but me and my group had fun and were glad we got the necessary clips. 

Filming 1

 First Day Filming Death Period

On our first day filming our opening thriller, we decided that we would start filming the Supervisor scene. We chose to start filming this scene as it's location was the closest giving us enough time to do what we had to do and because we did not want to waste a day of filming and end up not completing our footage. If we had chosen to do our other scenes than we would have resulted in not getting enough footage and would not have finished filming enough to start uploading and editing. On the plus side our first day filming was fun although it was kind of messy here and there we started getting the used to how to record plan and layout our shots.

In this scene two characters are in play, Fernando the ignorant boy and the wise Supervisor. This scene consist of a conversation which briefly explains the reasons as to why Fernando has come to school to do work late, as well as the threat which the Supervisor seems to have knowledge of. In this scene Fernando gets warned but he ignores it.

On our first day filming we also aimed not only to get all the footage we needed but we also attempted trying to ensure that we had used a range of camera shots and composition. In total we only finished recording enough footage for one scene which was of course the Supervisor scene.

Shot List

Scene	Shot Number	Description
Janitor Scene	1 Establishing shot MCU of Supervisor while it zooms out and pans from his feet to his upper body. Time: 8s 2 Mid shot of Fernando with camera panning up from his legs to his upper body. Time: 8s 3 Close up of Fernando scanning his card. Time: 5s 4 Mid shot of Fernando walking through school doors. Time: 8s 5 POV shot of Fernando looking down on his feet then looking up at the supervisor who he encounters. Time: 6s 6 Mid Shot of Fernando being warned to leave by the supervisor. Time: 14s 7 Over the shoulder shot of the last part of the conversation between Fernando and the Supervisor. After the conversation ends the camera briefly tracks fernando and then focuses back onto what the supervisor was already doing. Time: 14s	Fernando enters the school doors and whilst entering encounters the school supervisor who’s on duty to clean school grounds. The supervisor warns Fernando but Fernando keeps walking forwards and ignores the school supervisor. Camera Shots: Establishing shot, Close Up shot, Mid Shot, Point of View shot, Tracking shot. Dialog: Supervisor- "What are you doing here!" Fernando-"I came here because I need to do some work!"... Supervisor-"Alright whatever but move at your own risk" Fernando-'But I do care, I need to do this work now!"
Forest Scene	1  Close Up of Fernando's eye's and face which zooms out into a mid and long shot later on to reveal his location and current situation. Time: 8s	Fernando lies dead and cold in the middle of the forest nowhere to be found. Camera Shots:Close Up, Long Shot, Mid Shot. Dialog: None
Corridor Scene	1 Long shot to Mid shot of camera tracking Fernando as he walks up the stairs to the corridor.  Time: 16s 2 Mid shot of Fernando who is walking down the corridor and feeling like he's being watched Time: 7s 3  Close Up Fernando's upper body looking back down the corridor. Time: 5s 4 POV shot of Fernando looking down the corridor. Time: 5s 5 Long shot of Mysterious figure standing far from Fernando who is unaware and is opening the door of the Computer room to enter the class. The camera tracks Fernando as he opens the door. Time: 9s 6 Static Mid shot of Fernando opening the door from the perspective inside the computer room. Time: 7s	Fernando feels like he is being followed but fails to be aware of the mysterious figures presence whilst walking down the corridor into the computer room. Camera Shots:Long shots, Mid shots, Close Ups, Point of View shots. Dialog: None
Road to School Scene	1 Long shot while Fernando walks down the pavement of his house.  Time: 8s 2 Over the shoulder shot of Mysterious figure while fernando walks past him down the road unaware of his watcher. Time: 13s 3  Mid shot facing the front of the mysterious figure who looks back towards Fernando who walked passed. Time: 6s 4 POV shot of  Mysterious figure checking his target on his phone Time: 3s 5 Long shot of Fernando walking towards school gates Time: 7s 6 Mid shot of Fernando arriving at the scanner where he opens the gates and walks past. Time: 11s 7 Long shot of Fernando walking towards a turn to enter his school Time: 8s	Fernando comes out of his house to walk down the road to school whilst being unaware of the mysterious figure watching him. Camera Shots:Long Shot, Mid shot, Over the shoulder shot Dialog: None
Kidnapping Scene	1 Mid shot tracking Fernando as he takes a seat in the computer room. Time: 15s 2 Close Up of Fernando's upper body where he puts on his headphone and gets ready to log in and do some work. Time: 13s 3 POV shot of Mysterious figure peaking through the doors window and entering the computer room Time: 17s 4 Over the shoulder shot of Mysterious figure drawing close to Fernando Time: 10s 5 POV shot of computer screen showing Fernando unaware and suddenly being stabbed. Time: 9s 6 Extreme Close Up of Fernando's lifeless eyes then zooms out into a long shot of his body and the forest that surrounds him. Time: 6s	Unaware of the danger to come Fernando enters the computer room and does work whilst putting on headphones which leave him vulnerable. Without realising the mysterious figure is looming up behind him and then suddenly grabs and stabs him until his final breath. Camera Shots:Mid shot,Long Shot, Extreme Closeup, Point of view shot, Over the shoulder shot. Dialog: None

Shooting Schedule

Shooting Schedule

Day	Scene	Location	Equipment	Costumes	Props	Cast+Crew
27th Nov 40min	Janitor Scene	School entrance	Camera, Tripod	Site supervisor/janitor Black Tie White Shirt Black Jacket Grey Trousers Black Shoes Fernando White Shirt Dark Grey Jumper Tailored Jumper Black tie Black Bomber Jacket Black Shoes	Mop Bucket School bag Key Card	Krenar Lewis Aliyah Laura Christmel
4th Dec 40min	Corridor Scene	School corridors	Camera, Tripod	Fernando White Shirt Dark Grey Jumper Tailored Jumper Black tie Black Bomber Jacket Black Shoe Mysterious Figure Dark Blue Jacket Black Gloves Brown Shoes	School Bag	Krenar Lewis Aliyah Laura Christmel
11th Dec 20min	Forest Scene	Forest	Camera, Tripod	Fernando Under clothing White Shirt Trousers	Fake Blood	Krenar Lewis Aliyah Laura Christmel
18th Dec 40min	Kidnapping Scene	School Classroom	Camera, Tripod	Fernando White Shirt Dark Grey Jumper Tailored Jumper Black tie Black Bomber Jacket Black Shoe Mysterious Figure Dark Blue Jacket Black Gloves Brown Shoes	School Bag Butter Knife Headphones	Krenar Lewis Aliyah Laura Christmel
6th Jan 40min	Walking To School Scene	On The Road To School	Camera, Tripod	Fernando White Shirt Dark Grey Jumper Tailored Jumper Black tie Black Bomber Jacket Black Shoe Mysterious Figure Dark Blue Jacket Black Gloves Brown Shoes	School Bag Victim on Phone	Krenar Lewis Aliyah Laura Christmel