Evaluation Question 7

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

Looking back at the preliminary task, it could have been edited better. I should have shown the main character walking across the room and sitting down:










I realise this now because of the filming and editing that I did with my opening scene. During the creation of the opening scene, we had encountered problems with continuity and match on action with the first edit. After some re-filming and additional edits, we managed to overcome the continuity problems and make sure the the match on action parts were as accurate as possible. I have also learnt how to do a more detailed storyboard as the storyboard that I did with the preliminary task was limited in the amount of information with the story and camera angles. With the opening scene, I did a more in-depth storyboard showing the narrative, camera angles, the sound and the duration of the individual shots.

The preliminary task taught me a lot about making a short film. Before doing this task, I had no prior knowledge or experience of filming anything. This meant that I made a few mistakes which I have listed above. I then learnt from those mistakes and I think that it shows in my final media product as it has been created to a higher standard than that of the preliminary task.

After we had made our short films for task eleven, we chose our groups that we were going to be working with for the next few months and sat down to create an opening scene to a Coming-of-Age film. Our storyboard worked because it presented our vision of what we wanted the opening scene to look like but was detailed enough to know what camera angles were being used in each take and how long for. This is a vast improvement over the preliminary task's storyboard as that just had drawings about what the end result would look like. It had no detail of sound (except a short script), how long each scene was or what type of camera angles that was going to be in the short film.

We then had to work out what our target audience for our film was going to be. Given that all three of us were males, we decided to go down the route of the male teenager demographic and knowing it really helped us decide what kind of a narrative that we wanted to show. This was overlooked in the preliminary task. However, the short film of the preliminary task featured an all-male cast so it was assumed that the target audience would be males.

We also researched the kinds of sound and typography that we needed to use. This was not researched for the preliminary task. I learnt that the sound and typography had to connect with the target audience but also connect with the character and the narrative. These elements are key to any opening scene or short story as they are designed to hook in the viewer and get them intrigued into the rest of the narrative. It also gives the audience an immediate representation of the genre and seriousness of the films.

During the editing of the first take, we realised that the lighting was way too low. For future shoots, we had to change the lighting to make the entire scene visible. The reason why we shot the first edit in the lighting that we did was because the preliminary task had perfect lighting so we didn't have to re-shoot or change the lighting at all.

Overall, I have learnt much from this course as a whole but especially the progression from my preliminary task and the final edit of Firewall. These lessons will likely guide me in later jobs that I am aspiring to be in as it can relate to any new product or story narrative.

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?

I attracted my audience by showing trailers in advert breaks of popular TV shows amongst the target audience of my film and the same with theatrical films. As another way of attracting my audience, trailers of the film were posted on YouTube and IMDb. I also used social media to spread the word about my film like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If it had been possible,I would  have also tried to get a well-known actor/ress to give a review of the film on the listed social media sites as that would have further increased popularity.

As explained in question 3, a key way of attracting an audience is to use a well known distributor. One of the most recognisable distributors is 20th Century Fox. 20th Century Fox is one of the most popular and successful distributors as it has distributed 2 out of the 3 highest grossing box-office films of all time: James Cameron's Avatar and Titanic. Unfortunately, our film, Firewall, is an indie film which means that it is unable to be picked up by a large distributor like 20th Century Fox but luckily they founded a small indie distributor in 1994 called Fox Searchlight. Searchlight has distributed a number of indie films but also some Coming of Age films such as Juno which is widely regarded as one of the best Coming of Age films of the 2000s.

We made the subject matter of our film to entice our target audience. The subject matter is a teenage boy who is in his room, hacking into the school network to change his grades. This will relate to our target audience of teenage boys (mostly) and girls because technology has evolved so much over recent years that this generation is more technology-based than any other. Also, with the expansion of comic books, sci-fi films and TV shows, there are a lot more "geeky" teenagers who don't feel ashamed of wearing their love and support of those kinds of media. This is represented by the main character as he is wearing a Superman jumper.

Evaluation Question 4

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

The audience that my opening scene will be aimed at will mostly be young teenagers of all social groups. This is so that the audience has more chance to relate to the character and how much he is ignored by everyone else. In addition to the target audience being young teenagers, it would also be ideal if they were to also be male as that would mean that they might relate to the main character further.




Voki Transcript:

Hi, my name is Adam Gadsby. I am 15 years old and I am incredibly interested in computers and electronics along with the main character of the film Firewall. Watching this film made me think about how lucky I am that I am within the same social group as the character but I have friends within that social group that I can talk to. I really connected with the character of Firewall and I think that anyone within my age group would enjoy this movie.

Evaluation Question 3

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

For my Media product, I chose Fox Searchlight to distribute my film because my film is an independent film. This means that 20th Century Fox wouldn't distribute it themselves but their Fox Searchlight division specialise in Indie Films. Below are reasons why they should distribute my film:

"I think that you should distribute my film because it brings attention to the type of teenager that enjoys being by himself. Usually, in Coming-of Age films, they focus on teenagers who already have friends. This opens up a whole new narrative that, commonly, wouldn't be explored.

"I am hoping to entice people in to the film by using billboards, theatrical trailers and TV advertisements. This would allow a good variety of people to see the trailer and get interested in what the film's narrative is. 

"I think that this film will be popular because it will appeal to a wide range of people, including our targeted audience but also from anyone above that age. If you look at other coming of age films, they were able to create popularity amongst their target audiences and more. Our film is going to be no different.

"The reason why we decided to seek your company to distribute our film over other distribution companies was that everyone has heard of 20th Century Fox. It is one of the most well known distributors. We then realised that you have a separate division, solely for distributing indie films, such as ours. It would be a huge honour and a great benefit to you, if we could use your company to distribute our film to as many people as possible. Additionally, you have already distributed a British made film; Slumdog Millionaire. It was picked up by you at the London Film festival and released in America 14 days later on the 23rd January 2009. It won 8 Academy Awards and 7 BAFTAS.

"Another reason why you should consider to distribute our work is that eight years ago, you distributed a coming of age film called Juno, which was a massive success as it made $230 million with only a starting budget of $7 million. I have no doubt in my mind that our film won't be a similar success for both of our companies.

"We will mainly use online forms of promoting our film. This is because it fits with the theme of the film and also teenagers and young adults are using the internet more and more. We would focus on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr) and debuting trailers on a specially made website two weeks earlier than we will on YouTube. This will mean that lots of people will see our advertisements and get involved with the launch of the film by going onto our website which will follow a similar aesthetic to that of the main character's screen in the film."

(Courtesy of Kit Fielder)

As of today, Fox Searchlight have distributed 119 titles. This means that when Firewall is announced to be distributed by Fox Searchlight, it will hopefully peak a lot of people's interest. Especially those of whom fall under our target audience.

The variety of advertising campaigns will hopefully mean that it will reach as many people as possible to get our film the interest that we think it deserves. As well as what I said in the interview with Fox, we will also use;

- TV advertisement trailers
- Billboards
- Radio
- Theatrical trailers before films on DVD and in the Cinema

Evaluation Question 2

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

Evaluation Question 1

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

Final Piece

The final piece of our media product: Firewall

Storyboard of Opening Scene

Props, Location and Fashion

(Courtesy of James Lewis)

Risk Assessment

Filming Log

Filming Log of our opening scene; Firewall

This is our first attempt at filming the opening scene to our film Firewall.



To improve:

- More camera angles, bird's eye view, close-ups
- Lighter
- Different shots of the hands
- More arc shots with a steadier hand
- Text on screen showing distributors
- Non-diagetic
- Change shots up
- Shot showing USB stick going into the computer
- Show something to do with the school
- Input titles


This is our second attempt at filming the opening scene Firewall.



After taking the above feedback on board, we re-shot a handful of the scenes with a desk light on and the curtains open to improve on the main problem that our first edit had.

To improve:

- Add a bird's eye view
- Cut to a close up of the keyboard
- No zoom in/out
- Curtain shot; shorten and straighten up
- As well as some of the above that we have not added in yet


This is our third attempt at filming the opening scene Firewall.



To improve:

- Add music
- Add titles
- Add institution

This is our fourth edit of the opening scene to Firewall



To improve:

- Add institutions
- Shorten the downloading scene

This is the fifth edit of the opening scene to Firewall



To improve:

- Make sure that the institution doesn't overlap the downloading scene
- Music jumps when the character is about to turn it down
- Shorten the downloading scene

This is the sixth edit to the opening scene to the film Firewall



To improve:

- Improve the readability of the institutions
- Try, as little as possible, to have the majority to not go into more than one scene
- Shorten the downloading scene
- Because it is an opening scene, get the character to stay in the room and carry on typing (don't have an 'end')

This is the seventh edit of the opening scene to the film Firewall



To improve:

- Fix ending sound and quick finish
- Add in director institution

This is the final product of the opening scene to the film Firewall



To improve:

- Add production company as Fox Searchlight distributes British films in US

Script

(Courtesy of James Lewis)

Shot List

Typography

These are some examples of the typography in our opening scene

(By James Lewis)

(Courtesy of Kit Fielder)

Sound

A playlist of Possible songs that we could use for our opening sequence:

The following songs are ones which we think would better suit our opening.

Kygo feat. Conrad Firestone Instrumental

This song works well with our opening sequence as it is a chill background music which would compliment our opening sequence without being too over the top. This song fits the purpose  of us having music which is to allow the audience to have something to listen to other than the sound of our character typing on the keyboard.

Nada Funk - Yuma King

This song makes our opening sequence more upbeat yet slightly changes the audiences views on how they view the character. it would make our opening more interesting and gain the audiences attention, but doesn't suit how we originally interpreted our opening sequence.
The song is a good length which matches up with our opening. It also gives the audience a better image of our character.

MitiS & MaHi - Tribute

This would be a good song for background music as it has no lyrics and has a quite consistent throughout and it isn't too upbeat or too depressing. Although, even though it does have good qualities it and would compliment our opening sequence as relaxing background music, it doesn't really suit our characters personality or his actions.

ACTIONABLE | ROYALTY FREE MUSIC

(From Bensound)

This song would work well with our opening sequence as it suits are characters objectives and create a tense atmosphere. This song also offers a different perspective from the other songs and completely changes the way the audience look at the character and the opening sequence as a whole.

(Courtesy of Kit Fielder)

Thinking of a Concept/Final Idea

(By Kit Fielder)

Audience Profile

(Courtesy of James Lewis)

Character Profile

Name: Brian Redford
Age: 17
Height: 6ft 1in
Weight: 133lbs
Nationality: English
Accent: Essex
Skin Colour: White
Hair Colour: Brown
Hair Style: Styled up and to the right
Eye Colour: Blue
Facial Hair: Stubble
Origin: London
Current Place of Living: Thornbury
Moved because: Wasn't making friends at his old school and his dad got a job opportunity in Thornbury doing his dream job
Home: Detached 3-bedroom
Relationship with Mother and Father: Doesn't talk to them as he spends all day on his computer
Relationship with Friends: None, as he doesn't leave his computer and is bullied by just about everyone when he does because of his intellectual abilities
Job: No job
Dress Style: Usually just casual-wear but sometimes he just throws on the first thing that he can find 
Religion: None
Hobbies: Hacking into the school's databases and changing the grades of people that bully  him
Favourite Type of Music: Electronic
Favourite Sports: None
Favourite Food: Whatever food that has been brought up by his Mother. He does like Doritos a lot though
Positive Trait: Focused
Negative Trait: Highly antisocial
Sense of Humour: None and never laughs because he doesn't have any friends to make him laugh
Temper: Loses it when he gets his hacking wrong with a slight problem. With other people, he stays calm, almost all of the time
Ambitions: Wants to either topple governments or (more likely) hack into a well-known conglomerate, and, instead of being prosecuted, getting hired by said company to improve their firewalls
Audience Dislike or Like: For just the opening scene, I think that the audience's opinion will be mixed as they don't really learn anything about him in just the opening scene. If the audience were to see the rest of the film they would probably feel sympathy because it would show the audience that he gets bullied from everyone at school because he is intellectual

Preliminary Task

This task required me to create a short scene of someone opening a door, crossing a room, sitting down opposite another character, exchanging a few lines of dialogue and then walking out of the room. As well as this, I also had to follow three rules:

Match on Action
- This is an editing technique to help with continuity
- The shot should portray a character doing an action then cut doing the same action from a different angle
- This creates a 'Visual Bridge' which can help draw the audience's attention away from the slight continuity issues

180° Rule
- This means that the camera cannot turn more than 180° throughout the scene

Shot/Reverse Shot
- Continuity editing technique in conversations or a character looking at an object
- Ties in with the 180° rule


The Storyboard for my Preliminary Task

This task has allowed me to get some practice with filming and directing which will directly impact the quality of my opening scene. This task taught me about some different camera angles and rules that could be followed to improve the aesthetic of the film.