EVALUATION - AS Coursework reflection

Coursework reflection

Digital technology:
The media technologies that we used for our planning of our film opening were, we used the computers to search the Internet for ideas and to analyse other film openings so that we could see what professional filmmakers we doing and use it to our advantage.
We used the recording equipment, such as cameras and tripods, which enabled us to keep the camera steady and straight for our filming to look more professional. However in our final piece of coursework, as we make a horror film opening sequence, we had the camera handheld most of the time to give the effect of the audience being involved in the film, as though they are part of the action, so we didn’t use the tripod as much as we will this year.
To construct our film we used an editing programme called Ulead 7.0, which enabled us to capture our recordings, and then edit the scenes into sequence to present the film to our liking. It was very good as it let us use different effects between clips for example fade to blacks, and title sequences.
For A2, we are using a new editing programme called Udobe Premier Element 7.0. This has many more effects, which we can use to make our coursework even better than last year.

Creativity:
We used media forms to come up with something new and original. We put our idea together from watching other film openings, and analysing the different styles of opening, and the techniques used. We watched clips on the Internet, using YouTube as our main source, watched film openings on the TV. We read article from The Guardian newspaper, and read other articles off the Internet to gain some prospective on what others people had to say about certain subjects.
We were creative in the way in which we decided to show the scary action happening, with the character being followed, and then murdered. This opening sequence would attract the audience’s attention, as its scary and gets straight into the action. We then suddenly cut back to the day before, with the next scene showing the build up to the murder and why it happened.

Researching and Planning:
The combination of our main product and ancillary texts were effective, but could have been more creative. This is because we used the ancillary texts to help create ideas for our film opening. However, we failed to pull of the professional look, as our camera work wasn’t at a very high standard.

Post-Production:
From our audience feedback, we received constructive criticism and the positive points of our film. From this we could learn what we did right and what needed improving.
I have learned that we used a good variety of different camera shots and movements, however we could have made the shots clearer as the handheld camera does make some shots blurry and the umbrella in the top of some shots isn’t very good. The sound was also another problem. This is because we didn’t know how to delete part of the audio track and keep the part which we wanted, e.g. the whistling in the background. This caused there to be lots of diagetic sound, which only certain parts were effective, such as the breathing heavily, to create a scary feeling, however some people feel that it was too unrealistic.

Using conventions from real media texts:
Our media product used forms and conventions of real media products as we looked at many film openings and took ideas from them to further develop our own ideas. Some of these opening which we analysed include, Prom Night, Blood and Chocolate, 28 Weeks Later, Secret Window, and many more. These are all horror movies, which we analysed, as we were making a horror film, so we could understand the normal conventions they follow.
We developed our ideas based on our analysed films to expand on our knowledge and to try and make our film opening as good as we could.

Nikki