Evaluation - Question 4

The most important form of technology that we used was Blogger, which has been used throughout the entire construction of our project. Blogger allows us to produce ideas that can be shared and viewed by others in the group, present scripts, drafts, storyboards and our questionnaire. The blogger has a comment sections where my teacher could present feedback and improvements on the posts that I had made and I could instantly correct what was needed. We were also able to embed all of our music, so that we could save time looking for our music, as we could have it stored. 

We also used SurveyMonkey to collect our responses for our research. This allowed us to reach more people than if we had used traditional techniques. The advantages of this allows us to have much more accurate answers in terms of our surveys. We also used Wix to help design and create our website. Overall, Blogger was our main form of technology as it stored our notes and ideas in a neat form with easy access. 

The camera we decided to use was a digital camera that was incredibly lightweight, making it easy to carry around and set up. A memory stick was also inserted into the camera where all the footage would be stored. This also made it incredibly easy to transfer our footage onto a computer. On the day of the shoot, improvements were able to be made there and then, as a play back feature is installed in the camera. This allowed us to review the footage and reshoot anything we wanted to change.

One of our biggest challenges was editing the footage, as this was something not many people had done before. Furthermore, it was a digital editing software that was a new system for us to use. However after the initial use, it was relatively straight forward and easy to use, along with it being good at adding sound effects, music and putting clips together. Continuity for us was really important when filming, so that when it came to editing, it was easy to create a smooth transition between clips. Once the editing is complete and finalised, our product can put onto Youtube. Youtube was also incredibly helpful as it allowed us to use music for soundtrack and watch multiple trailers and films clips for inspiration and help. Furthermore, Youtube is a social media platform that makes sharing content extremely easy, which increases our chance of getting views and growing our audience. 

We integrated technologies, such as software like Adobe Creative Cloud, hardware, such as our camera, boom and mic, and online technologies such as Blogger and Surveymonkey.

The software we used gave us the ability to ease the process of editing the film. The trimming feature in Adobe Premiere Pro CC made it much quicker to fine cut the changing of shots. We were also to add many different transitions, such as a dissolve. We used many different transitions in between the scenes, to add to the continuity of the film. The general ease of the software gave us the ability to spend less time focusing on the film, allocating more time to other areas of the project.

The hardware gave us the ability to shoot high quality camera work, and also help to improve the potential sound quality. It has allowed for the possibility of more shots, as there is also no limit in the amount of shots we could take. We also used a manual focus lens, enabling us to help produce high quality shots.

Evaluation - Question 3

How do your products engage with the audience and how would they distributed as real media products? 

• Discuss, who, according to your survey results, your target audience is, 
• was it a mainstream or niche 
• how did you try to appeal to you audience? Using what representations and narrative devices
• if your film were a real short film, using your institution research blog post, how would it be distributed? where would it be seen and how would it be promoted?
• how would technologies be used in its distribution?

The majority of people who participated in our questionnaire/survey, were fell between the 13 and 18 age category, with a few between the age of 18 to 24. Furthermore, we had an even mix of male and female participants. One of the questions asked was “preferred genre of film”. The top three answers were comedy, action and then thriller, which we found to be surprising. Due to our findings, we thought of adding a few ‘action’ moments, to try accommodate more people, whilst sticking to our overall genre of thriller. However, this was not possible and we decided it was best to stick with our original idea. Another question asked in the survey was  “preferred ending to a film”, to which 'plot twist’ came first with over half of a majority vote. This made it clear that our ending needed to be a plot twist, which no one could predict or see coming. Because of the complexity of the plot and the twist ending, we believed it could be difficult for younger viewers to understand. Therefore, our target audience would be between fifteen and thirty. Furthermore, our target audience would be a Niche market. Even though this tends to attract a smaller audience, it is easier to cater for a smaller crowd, as well as targeting a specific sub group of people, who are likely to appreciate the content of the film. 

I would consider this to be a small productional budget with little profit potential, as well as a very small cast and crew. Therefore, I think this production would work best as a independent media institution and we would distribute our Media in places such as Warp Films, which are a British based production company who produce independent films for specific audiences. They produce films that revolve around British issues and challenge a certain subject matter, which is why I think our film would suit being produced by an independent procuration company. In order to receive the most amount of promotion, our short film would ideally be played in a cinema, during the trailer section before a film starts. Although this is quite unlikely, many people have seen short films because of something like that happening similarly to them. It would be more realistic for our film could be represented in places like the ‘London Short Film Festival’ in order to increase our potential distributors and gain a wider appeal for our film. As mentioned previously, our production budget would be small, so the levels of promotion are limited. However, as previously mentioned, the power of social media is great in getting engagement and promotion due to how easy it is to share on all the various social media platforms. Our main reliant would be ‘Word of Mouth’ which is the strongest form of marketing as well as our website to create further awareness of our film, presenting information about the cast and crew and the behind the scenes to get the audience more prepared.

Evaluation - Question 2

Evaluation - Question 1 - Part 2

Evaluation - Question 1 - Part 1

My Role

My role in this production was the sound. I held a boom pole over the characters in the scene. This may sound quite easy but the pole was quite heavy and I had to make sure not to go too low down or high up, to get the precise sound that we want. I used other sound to edit into the film such as background music as non-digetic sound to emphasise a stressful and suspenseful atmosphere in the scene. For the evaluation I did question 1 and helped with the other questions as I was very passionate about this production. I am extremely happy with the end result as all the work and research into this short film has felt paid off by the work we have all created. 

Mind Map Final Cut