Evaluation

Using the evaluation questions

Throughout planning and filming, we used multiple sources to help us gain the marks we needed. We also took note of the evaluation questions which we felt would aid us in planning.

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

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

• How did you attract/address your audience?

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

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

We considered each question carefully and reflected regularly  ensuring we would gain high marks and make evaluating the project easier. These questions also steered part of our development as it opened us up to the idea of targeting a particular audience which further led us to decide on taking a more political approach to the idea of a terrorist. This spurred the idea of the threat video and moved us away from the idea of using much action in our opening.

We also decided that we would aim for a different take of the thriller genre due to the first question. This is mostly apparent in the music choice as we decided not to use a generic thriller soundtrack for the opening. However, we eventually decided that a more conventional soundtrack suited the opening much better. 

Oblivious (final cut)

This final cut includes all that our group have been working towards for the past few months, a 2 minute opening to a thriller including most of what was on the mark scheme. This cut of course includes the soundtrack we felt suited the piece more, as well as changes in shots and titles present in previous drafts. Overall, I feel that this piece has been greatly improved from the first draft due to criticism from the teacher and other peers as well as a greater understand in film making.

4th draft

This draft includes all the re-shot footage including the threat video in the beginning which wasn't present in the previous drafts. Personally I felt that the titles used were a bit too overwhelming, which most of the group agreed on. Therefore the final cut would include smaller and possibly less titles as well as new soundtrack which was decided during the editing process of this draft. Another change, again, would be the extension of some shots and removal of others in order to change up the pace of the final sequence. Overall though, most of the group as well as the teacher were happy with where the project was going, and we were anxious to complete the final cut.

3rd draft feedback

The main focus from now on was sound, as teachers and ourselves were equally unhappy with the music currently chosen and volume of the bomb ticking. From now on my group and I each searched for a more suitable soundtrack, whilst Benoit made final changes to the edit; cutting out some unnecessary footage and replacing it with longer shots.

The music we finally settled on was a more up-beat and generic thriller track which felt much more authentic and suited to the track. However, as we were still undecided whilst editing the fourth draft, it is only included in the final cut.

3rd draft

Again, much like the 1st and 2nd drafts, we had still not fully edited the font and colour correction. This was due to the expectancy of another editing session to improve on the flaws of this draft. In saying that, we felt that we had almost finished this project as all the footage was acquired and up to standard, and we believed we would not need to re-shoot. Main differences in this draft are with the editing throughout, and camera work in the final school sequence. The most noticeable improvement is that that sequence is far more fluid due to the use of still shots. Additionally, the hold on Joseph's stare towards the end creates tension, the angle of the camera also helps to build this as it is angled almost directly into his eyes from Ashley's point of view.

Filming 3rd draft

Unfortunately I wasn't present for the re-shoots for the second draft, so Jordan and Matthew decided to help out by acting as students in the classroom alongside Ashley. The re-shoots went according to plan as we were well prepared and had discussed what shots we would be taking before shooting. As we had already re-shot, we wanted to ensure we didn't have to yet again, so took multiple takes that would enable Benoit and myself to edit them together and change what worked. In this draft, we mostly focused on the camera work as Mr. Ford had made comments on the way the camera moved during shots- stating that tracking and panning shots were often unnecessary. Therefore, most shots are still; making the transitions more fluid. Not much else changed in these re-shoots, so yet again we did not draw up another storyboard.

2nd draft feedback

As we had used the editing list after the first draft, most of the feedback was positive. However there were, as expected, still minor edits that we must make in order to produce our final piece to the best standard we can achieve. For example, our teacher and other people we had screened the second draft too had made various comments on the music chosen. Although it connoted that the character Joseph was disturbed, it was fairly overpowering and moved a bit too far away from the 'thriller' genre. In order to change this, our group began to focus on searching for music during lessons, as well as discussing further changes we needed to make for our third draft.

Another change we had decided on was cutting out some filler clips, such as walking, and replacing them with extended shots of Joseph's stare to create suspense, as well as more dialogue. This slowed the pace of transitions and lowered the length of some shots towards the end; making them less frantic and more calm and systematic. This reflected Joseph as a character, as he is much less active when in school.

2nd draft

As we planned on re-shooting some shots as well as deciding on which font to use, we did not include titles or colour correction in this edit. Instead, we have just replaced footage from the old draft with the new re-shot footage. Our group was mostly happy with the footage we had taken by this point and decided that the only re-shoots possibly needed would be one's from the school scene.

Filming 2nd draft

For our second draft we decided to re-shoot the majority as there were multiple changes we had to make. This took up a lot of time, therefore Ashley was unable to make it to the re-shooting at Elk meadows, however he did view the footage before it was edited- giving his input.

Before filming at Elk meadows, we re-shot the footage at school which went rather smoothly. We added extra dialogue as we felt that a discussion between two people would gain more marks that just one persons dialogue alone.

In doing this, the character of 'Joseph' was better established as we were able to present his calmness and other persona when in public. This adds to the creepy and thrilling nature of Joseph. As we did not change too much, we decided not to draw out a storyboard, and instead proceed with filming in order to keep the project moving and allowing more time for re-shoots.

Filming at Elk meadows again was just as beneficial. We decided to shoot in the evening in order to acquire darker lighting to fit the opening threat video which is set in the morning- when it would be dark.

This shoot went very quickly as we understood the set more and had less camera angles and shots to decide on. Most shots were kept the same, we just ensured there was no shaky-cam or bad match-on-action between shots, unlike last time. This greatly improved the look of some shots when reviewing the footage. Unfortunately, as Ashley could not make it, preparing the scene took a little bit longer.

Title sequence planning

My group and I each had input in deciding what our titles would be for the final cut, and stuck to that for most drafts. Benoit done most of the editing for this point in as they were only small jobs which he was capable of achieving himself.

The font we decided on was very similar to that of the opening title, however we did change it throughout drafts as we felt it could be improved multiple times.

The final choice was clean and small; enabling the viewer to focus most of their attention towards what was going on in the shot as oppose to being distracted by an overly large title.

Evaluation after first draft (editing list)

After showing the teacher our first draft he gave us very useful feedback which we will take into filming our next draft. We have added our own notes as well as points made by Mr.Ford into this editing list.

Overall we are happy with our first draft as the feedback was somewhat positive, meaning the improvements we need to make are clear and achievable. Hopefully, we will only need to re-shoot once or twice in order to achieve reasonably high marks on our coursework.

Final piece (draft #1)

(1st draft)

This draft is far off of our final piece as we had not yet edited in the titles and final audio pieces which we may dub in. This is just a rough idea of the shots we will use which has helped us to decide on changes we will make in the second draft, which we will again re-shoot at least one more time.

Editing 1st draft

Here is Benoit's blog post on editing the first draft:

'Preview screen from the editing session'

For the first editing session my aim was to at least have a complete draft of our entire sequence that only included the footage itself without the credits or any other visuals added within post-production.

As the director of this project I wanted to approach this editing session with the intentions of taking the footage we had captured throughout the entire course of filming and then edit the sequence to match frame by frame with the animatic. 

'Editing timeline from the rough-cut'

I approached this idea by overlapping the edit I had made for the animatic with the footage for the sequence to ensure that the shots played for the exact amount of time it was intended to last instead of possibly changing the way we planned the sequence to be.

Once the sequence had been assembled, co-editor 'Jamie Gerrish' and I spent a large amount of time playing the sequence repeatedly and analysing our project in order to then see what's the most logical way to handle our project throughout the rest of post-production.

After Jamie and I spent while screening the sequence, we had compiled a list on what needs to be altered within the edit of our sequence; we then came to a conclusion that we must re-shooting the entire sequence. This decision was made after looking at the footage we had already taken and realising what worked and what didn't; then caused us to learn from our first attempt and execute it better in the re-shoots.

Once we all had got together as a group, we all had watched the sequence then Jamie and I explained our thoughts on what we need to change in terms of the editing of the sequence but also explaining why we should re-shoot the entire project. Once the rest of our group had understood our judgement and came to terms with this idea we all collectively agreed on the decision.

Personally I found screening the first draft very insightful as it gave both Benoit and myself many ideas of things we needed to change in the re-shoots. After consulting with our teacher and the rest of our group we made a list of parts of the opening that we needed to fix or change completely.

Filming final piece (At Elk Meadows)

As we had already prepped the set for our opening the day before, we began early so we could complete filming for the day. However, as it was very sunny outside, the lighting was inappropriate for the threat video at the start. Despite this, we decided to go ahead and film it as this would only be one draft of many that we would change later in the course.

Everything else was already prepped and I assisted Benoit with selecting shots and camera angles as well as recording the audio. Ashley managed us and ensured we stayed on schedule as well as obtaining all the shots we needed. Most things went according to plan, however we decided to move away from the storyboard slightly in order to save time for extra footage, and acquire some more interesting shots.

(Shot of Aayush as Joseph)

Already we had began to take notes of assets we would change for the next draft. For me, as cinematographer, I was looking mostly at the mis-en-scene and how come colours related to the character 'Joseph' and what significance to the story they had. For instance, warm colours connote danger and anger are lacking on most shots. One way around this would be to colours correct the shots with an orange filter, but we will see if that works during editing.