Monday 13 April 2015

Media Evaluation: Question 6 & 7


What have I learnt?

I have learnt how to use various different technologies, shown clearly through my evaluation; using various different sites and programs to do all of the questions asked. I have also learnt how to edit, and edit well; through using Premiere Pro, the best technology to use for (beginner) editors as it is fairly simple but has a wide range of functions and features to explore and use, things such as ghosting (to blur a shot making it feel supernatural), fading in and out, cropping, changing the saturation, blur etc. We did use after effects to attempt a picture that would fit within our film, but figured it was not that useful and didn't use it again as it was not a relevant program for what we wanted. We also made our music through Mixcraft, a program that we saw was best fit to make our soundtracks as that is it sole purpose; to make music and soundtracks. Mixcraft was hard to use to begin with but then after a long time of practicing we could use it very well and was also enjoyable to use, as you were making your own soundtrack. We learnt how to use the new technology through playing around with it (basic trial and error); we used what we thought looked/sounded good. Within our soundtrack we included 'male choir', 'female scream' 'violin screech' etc, and for our spike noise we placed these sounds on top of each other to create a more dramatic effect; something we learnt as we went along. We also learnt things from tutorial videos done by different people.


From our preliminary task we knew that a mistake we made within it was time planning; the video was filmed and edited all last minute as the original copy was not good enough so we knew that for our main task we had to plan it all correctly and film early to ensure that any changes that needed doing/adding could be done in time. We also didn't plan the film correctly, we didn't like the story line of the preliminary piece so we ended up changing it halfway through which made it harder to film in time. To stop the same happening again we made sure we would stick by the story line, but we also made the story good from the start so we knew we wouldn't have any second thoughts.

Planning and mainly story boarding was key for us and we became much better at it, because as previously mentioned we needed to ensure the story was good so that the filming was made easier as we had a schedule designed around the story board on what we needed to film. The creative decision making went hand in hand with camerawork and therefore improved as we went along as we did some research into films and looked at what camera shots were used at different points. The creative decision making was the way we set the shot up and the camerawork was how the camera was placed so they both improved together, and by the end I think we had mastered it- a personal favourite of mine is this shot:

My editing techniques have improved drastically from doing the main task as we knew that our main problem from filming the preliminary task was making it all fit together correctly, so our continuity had to be perfect to make the film look good and flow.

Media Evaluation: Question 5


We also used the BBFC to classify our age for our film, using the aspects included from research and planning. We used aged 15 because within our full film we would have included strong language and horror/violence throughout the film. We would also apply for a rating of 15 because of the ideas of the hypodermic needle model. This could mean that if anybody that watched the content under the age of 15, it would put ideas into their head that the specific content (i.e murder) would be acceptable. The 15 is also used because of the cultivation theory, to stop younger ages from watching films that include things such as murder, because the more of it they see, the more acceptable it will become. To stop this the age rating is put in place, but also the murderer could be shown to be punished, proving it is wrong to the viewers that are allowed to watch it.

Media Evaluation: Question 4

Media Evaluation: Question 3

Media Evaluation: Question 2

We also used an eerie backing track within our opening, when the girls are shown there is a sense of mystery, almost promoting that these teenagers are in danger- perhaps going against some particular social groups that are within this age category; as this age group can sometimes be the danger.

Media Evaluation: Question 1

The Final Piece

Here is our final piece that we have done for our Media course, a horror thriller called: 'She's Back'.