Post Production

Post-production 

What have you learned from your audience feedback? 

Improvements from a secondary source- From our audience feedback it was far easier to take away constructive improvements which if put into practise could have vastly improved our production. Issues such as the lighting or sound could have been redone, for example in one of the scenes we see the lights completely change from off to on even though the scene didn't prompt it, we also had issues with the sound that the camera didn't have a very food quality built in receiver meaning our voices were quiet, however due to the horror movie nature we could get away with it as the ambience created by the music meant we could avoid any potential hassle with re-filming the scene or recording our voices to input over the top of our production. 

To get constructive criticism whilst in production was something we could have strived to do, we very much were set in the idea of doing all our film independently so that when we show in the production of the film it would be open to criticism. It could have been useful if we asked for an outside opinion during production as it would have given us a useful insight into something we missed perhaps some little tweak which would attract an audience or help it conform to the stereotypes if the genre. 

What editing decisions were made? How did they inform the production? 

Annotations- Post production we were very much open to improvements, all the constructive feedback we received from other members of the class were put into effect when we added annotations to the production afterwards. This was good when it came to analysing our production for our evaluation as it allowed us to spend time writing in possible improvements to our film as suggested by members of the so called audience therefore meaning we could strive for a more audience friendly production. 

How did the post-production process enhance the overall production? 

The post production process helped us to get a better understanding of the process we would need to go through in order to improve our production, the audience feedback was essential in helping us improve our overall perception of the project as it allowed us to see dimensions which might have otherwise not been seen by us. It was very effective when looking back over our work to have an idea from a group of people what aspects we could improve as it helped us keep out any bias from our improvements, the annotation process reflected these improvements as it was us analysing our own work with the feedback given to us. 

How have you developed these skills at A2? 

At A2 the post production process is very much the same, apart from the fact that we built upon the mistakes we made last time in order to improve the production. The sound was much better and more efficient this year, we recorded a narration in order to make sure everyone understands the story and in order to avoid the low volume we experienced last year when recording dialogue without a microphone. The lighting is also vastly improved, this year we used a lot more intentional shots in the dark to give a feeling that the movie would be constant, all seasons and all times as shown through the shots in the snow, desert and grass and through the light transitions from dark to light and vice versa. The skills we learned last year means we can be a lot more critical of the work we produced, the fact we had a shorter time span to create the production meant we had to be a lot more accurate when it came to filming the production, however at the end of the production task we can look back on it with glee as it turned out a lot better than we first thought and the improvements were definitely present from last year to help us create a truly quality trailer. 

Research and planning

Research and planning 

What real media and audiences did you look at? 

Audience- We looked at different types of audience’s throughout our production, as we were researching opening scenes at the start of the year it was essential to have a decent understanding on different types of audiences, we looked at action, horror and romance opening two minutes in order to gain a wide basis of audience members.  

Real media- the opening scenes we looked at helped us to get a better understanding of the chosen genre, we chose horror in the end as we saw it as the most easily done, action films are very technical when it comes to editing and have quick, fast shots and romance films would’ve just made it awkward as the stereotypes of love involved just make it weird, therefore a horror opening scene made the most sense, we wouldn’t need a fight scene and most of the shots would have to be prolonged as that is more of a convention of a horror film. 

What primary research was undertaken?  

There was a lot of primary research when it comes to my research last year, most of the work we did, involved a personal analysis of our own script, production company, distributing company, editing and shot analysis. Questionnaires were also an essential part of our research and planning, they provided useful information when it came to making our opening two minute scene especially when it came to what stereotypes would be well received.  

What secondary research was undertaken?  

Secondary research was mainly just the opening scenes we analysed at the start of the year, we also used some charts and graphs to get an idea of the type of audiences we would be seeing.  

What is the effectiveness of these kinds of research? 

This kind of research is effective when it comes to research and planning as it allows us to see a distinct difference, the less secondary research the better unless there is a specific example which was helpful in finding out information about specific target audiences. The primary research factor was very effective when it came to helping us describe our production, it was essential that we used every little bit of analysis to get a good grade come the end of the year, for this very reason primary research was effective because it allowed us to gain an deeper understanding of the underlying factors which make up the analysis side of media. 

What quantitative and qualitative analysis methods were employed?  

Qualitative and quantitative data was used in little amounts for our production; the main thing was the questionnaire which had the results from 10 different participants, this helped us to gain an overall consensus on what we should aim for. 

How did the results from these inform the production? 

The results of the questionnaire helped inform our production because it set the tone for what we would aim for when it came to our opening two minutes, it was essential in helping us shape the very making of our opening two minutes as we wanted to get an idea of what people wanted to see. 

How effectively was storyboards/shot lists/script followed? 

The storyboard we drew up at the start was a very detailed version of our overall product, the idea of the Ouija board was forever present throughout and so we could aim easily for one idea and let it develops naturally as we would let it build into a more complex idea. The shot list was done after the production was done; this was because it was far easier to highlight the type of shots we used after we had completed it so that it was an accurate representation in terms of shots. 

How have you developed these skills at A2? 

The use of primary and secondary research continued on into A2 but there was a lot more primary research, this was because it is more essential to analyse the primary research we had, the questionnaires were still present in the research and planning stage and this time we did two because we wanted it to be both an action and a thriller trailer so we needed to get an idea of the conventions and stereotypes of the chosen genre.  

How did you use media forms to come up with something and original?

How did you use media forms to come up with something and original? 

Where did ideas come from?  

Initial ideas- The initial idea for our film was to create a horror film with stereotypical elements in it, at the time we were making our opening two minutes, the film Ouija had just been released in cinema’s, this helped us a lot despite not seeing the film till late November, just from the trailer we could take out stereotypical aspects of a film of that genre and use it for our own ideas.   

How did you work collaboratively to share ideas? 

Research and planning- Blogger was the best software when it came to sharing our ideas; it meant we could equally distribute the workload so we all had an equal amount. This was especially helpful when we had to research what to put in our film with scripts and stuff. It was a lot easier to split the work and do the posts to a high standard rather than completing it all seperatly. 

How did you change things? 

Changes during production- The main change we had to do during our production was to change the setting of the film, our original plan involved going to an abandoned house in Bookham, however as we found out it was a 2 and a half hour walk to a destination which was under construction with personnel all around meaning we couldn’t use the location, the only thing it was good for was research when it came to a location. We therefore had to think of an alternative location, something which was old and had a large living space, we therefore settled for my house, a terraced cottage which from the outside doesn’t look well maintained because its under private ownership who don’t find the time to improve it. However this meant that we had the setting to our film as the cottage provided us with a suitable alternative for a horror film, it was in a very quiet neighbourhood and so interference was minimal but we had to be mindful of the lighting as we were filming over the Christmas period and so it was almost dark by the time we got back from school. Another change we had to settle for during production was the camera type we used, at first we used a professional canon camera with a 48x zoom but its battery life was small and so for the climactic scene we used a Samsung Galaxy S4 mini which had a good enough quality camera to capture the flickering of the candle in the darkness. 

How did you use tools like Adobe Premier Elements etc. to achieve something imaginative? And what stylistic techniques were used to appeal to the audience? 

Editing- The main imaginative invention we made for the opening two minutes was our production company log which flashed from black and white to colour. This was very effective as the last shot of our movie is the flickering of a match and then it gets blown out, the production company log symbolizes this just the other way around, instead of the match being blown out it is lit possibly linking the idea of how light might mean life and the blowing out of the match means death.  

Our original distributing company logo ‘IFM Studio’s’ was also significant as we tried to get across the idea of it being a horror movie by the use of conventional stereotypes such as the dark forest as the background with white writing over the top, this has become significant over the years as a sign of a horror movie as the darkness represents all that people are scared of and the white writing is used as it sticks out far better on a plain black background especially when it comes to the title. 

What was the intended outcome of the production? (Assessment objectives, preferred readings, promotional purposes?) 

Actual movie- We did have the idea if the opening two minutes went well than we would go about making it into an actual film (probably a 30 minute film if we would’ve done it), we all enjoyed making the production and felt we were on track to make the actual film, however because of exams and other issues out of our hands we had to keep delaying the filming of it, eventually we started A2 and had a new project so plans for an actual film stopped. 

Pretence- A target which we had for our production was for the opening two minutes to be a pretence, the idea being that we leave an enigma code at the end of the opening two minutes at which point it would then go back two weeks into the past to show how the group ended up in the house and why they were so interested in the Ouija board to start with. 

How have you developed these skills at A2? 

At A2 we developed all these creativity skills in order to keep a good quality production; we used blogger far more effectively when it came to research and planning and got a lot more of a choice when it came to making our production. The trailer we made was a good quality and made sense come the end of the production but we did struggle to get the shots we needed, it was a case of there being not enough shots come the time we went to editing, this was a massive problem as our storyboard was constantly changing especially seeing me and matt were going everywhere we could to film with very little idea of what we actually needed, this caused problems but also made solutions, the fact that me and Matt took the initiative to go and film some more probably saved our production as without it we would have probably had about a minute of footage as opposed to our eventual two minute trailer as set out in the specifications at the start of the year.  

Presentation on our trailer

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

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

What software was used?

Adobe Premiere elements- During our AS production we used Adobe Premiere elements because it was the most easily adaptable software, it was very significant in our film to have a software which was easy to use and whom anyone can figure out, this was especially prevalent when we had to add all of our shots into the software in order to edit it efficiently to conform to the stereotypes of the genre

Fireworks- The main reason we used Adobe fireworks was for the credits we aimed to use, this was the names as well as the production company logos which eventually were put in our film, we used Fireworks because it is a software I am very familiar with and I can use it quite well in order to create a top class result.

Photoshop- Photoshop was used for the same reason as Fireworks, it is relatively easy to use software and any of us could uses after a few hours practise, the main reason we used Photoshop was because of the magic wand tool as this was very helpful in getting rid of the white background present when trying to save the image as a picture.

What equipment was used?

Tripod- Another piece of equipment that I have is a Miranda 500 tripod. Its legs extend twice and the total height of the tripod with the camera on top is about 5 foot off the ground. The tripod allows the camera to capture smooth and steady shots which you can do for taking images and also video. It is not hard to understand how to use the tripod so it wasn't hard for the others to understand.

Camera- Canon E0S 500D was a good camera for our film, it was small enough that we could take it anywhere with ease, it was also efficient as the strap meant we could just hang it around our necks to allow for us to carry the tripod. The camera also had large memory storage and It allowed us to capture all of our film on one memory card.

What were the technical pros and cons of the software and hardware?

Pros- easy to use, large memory space on the camera, adjustable tripod meant we could film in all conditions whether that is outside or on a staircase etc. All Adobe software is relatively easy to use and are too a decent standard.

Cons- The camera’s battery didn’t last very long so for the final scene we had to film with an IPhone, Premiere elements was a bit too basic when it came to us editing specific parts, for example sound effects or special effects were hard to add to a professional standard and so we stuck with what we had filmed and the costumes we had assembled. Lighting was an issue, we filmed after school in the winter and so we had a very narrow window if we wanted to film outside, it also caused problems for us filming inside especially if there is a window in the shot, we found that in our final film there is a point where the light had to be on in order to film that scene despite it not being on in the scene before.

In what ways was technology used to create the production?

Editing- The main way we used technology to create my AS production was our editing, Adobe Premiere elements was essential in helping us create a quality production, the easily adaptable software meant we could quite simply change the way of our production half way through production if we needed to add an essential bit of the story. For example our match on action shot used on the door handle could have been filmed later and then added in with relative ease if needed to.

Blogger- Perhaps the most essential software, blogger was used predominantly as our research and planning backbone, it was essential both to the production and development of our film as it allowed us to write down any ideas we had as well as helping us to display any of our AS production credits and targets. We used it especially well when it came to displaying the development of our ideas as shown through the evaluation task’s.

In what ways did the technology constrain or enable the production to be developed?

Rendering- The main way technology constrained us was the fact that every little change to the AS production needed to be rendered on Adobe Premiere elements, this was a major problem because depending on the amount of work you do between rendering determines the time it will take, sometimes we found that it would take more than half an hour to render our project, this was especially annoying with the deadline looming as we needed to use as much time as we could to make the project as good as we could.

However the editing software also made it possible to complete our work, its relatively basic layout meant that even with the problem of rendering we could focus on another aspect of our project, for example research and planning and evaluation tasks if permitted.

How have you developed these skills at A2?

Different software (Cyberlink Powerdirector) - For my A2 project we used Cyberlink Powerdirector which was a much more efficient software when it came to editing, not only was it better when it came to implementing and moulding shots into the desired length but it also was far better when it came to adding music, which seemed to be louder, clearer and easier to change the volume at parts if we deemed necessary. For us we used a narration over our trailer so it was essential for us to have full control over the music so that it didn’t take away the effectiveness of the narration. We also didn’t have the same amount of time with rendering, the software was better but at the same time doing the editing on a home computer helped as it was more powerful and so it could run the programs better especially when it came to copying or exporting files onto a memory stick so we didn’t lose any progress.

Two cameras- The fact that we had two cameras really helped with the filming aspect of the trailer, especially when it came to filming abroad, the cameras were both good quality but half way through production we had to lose one as the SD card corrupted after filming in Dubai, with a £50 price tag for a new one it was hard to justify that amount of money when the technology of today with IPhones and Samsung’s setting the market for quality cameras built in we saw no need, in the end we filmed with a Samsung in Iceland and it worked really well for what we desired. For the short time we had two it worked really well because we could record the same shot twice from different angles and then we had a choice of the two meaning when we came to editing we would have had a lot more shots to choose from of course sticking to the 180 degree rule.

More advanced understanding of software- In A2 I had a far greater understanding of the software we used, this includes Photoshop, fireworks and Cyberlink Powerdirector. My skills especially improved in Photoshop where I spent a lot of time working on the end credits of our film to make it look as professional as possible, this meant that I had to look up templates on line and change them around a bit adding in our own production and distributing companies as well as the main acclaim to those who did the most work in a specific part of our trailer. Fireworks was used less this year as opposed to last year because of my increased understanding of Photoshop, I would still feel more comfortable using fireworks as a software because I have years of experience on it but now I would be comfortable using Photoshop in order to increase the quality of the image and edit it more professionally. Cyberlink powerdirector as a software was definitely easier to understand then the Adobe alternative, it was easier to edit our final piece and we could do it in our time instead of relying on the school computers which had the software on, this meant we had greater flexibility when it came to the editing process because we only needed two or three of us around the selected persons house to edit even though three could sometimes cause problems with the ideas for the trailer as we all had different ideas of where the trailer was heading, this was especially made difficult with the amount of selection on the Cyberlink software but in the end we had to agree with the deadline looming.­­­