Part 5- How the media product represents particular social groups

Part 6- How we addressed our audience

Part 7- Digital Technology

Part 8- Preliminary Task

Digital Technology

During the beginning of the year, my knowledge of using these HD cameras was not very strong, so I found it hard to get used to the basic functions of this camera. I was also working alongside a person who had no experience in media studies at all which made it slightly more difficult to work quicker. For next year, I will not face this problem because this year I have understood fully how to use the camera and it's functions which will be necessary to me.

Creativity

After analysing the brief, my partner and I chose a theme relevantly outlined in these Film 4 Films, however the use of locations made and mise-en-scene showed more creativity as we made the situation look much more realistic, creating verisimilitude. A disadvantage of this was because we had tried being more creative by using different locations, we filmed at different times of the day, which shows in the video when we show the establishing shot of the polyclinic and when she is actually sitting in it.

Post Production

I was familiar with using iMovie from previous media projects so I could help my partner understand the basic techniques of the software. Also the fact that it was a very simple task with not very much editing required mainly cropping, made the work have good continuity and less effort required. A downfall of this however, was that we were using an updated version of iMovie and had to be trained on how to use it. So the functions had changed, making it harder to become familiar with this new software. Next year, I will ensure to plan my time more wisely and make sure that I have more experience with the software before using it. This makes it easier to understand what you're actually doing, as well as making it less stressful. This also can help play a part in helping others around you that may not be as comfortable in using the programmes and vice versa.

Research and Planning

I am pleased with the editing outcome, and I kept to the storyboard pretty well and used majority of the shots I had drawn up. However, next time I'd stick to a slightly simpler storyline or try and find an alternative place to film as its not always possible to go far out and get to film certain parts of the work during a school week so using a closer location or even the school itself will help save on time and allow you to finish your film quicker. Also, I would give more thought into the actual planning, this includes drawing up the storyboard and the actual time management in order to get the work filmed on time and well.

Production Log 9

During this week, we have been editing our opening sequence in which I have faced many difficulties. Although in the beginning, when I imported all the shots to the library, and placed them in order, the total time was too short after I had trimmed the clips. So to resolve this, I had to put the production company logo and institutional logo on a black screen and increase the duration of these slides to increase the overal running time of the opening sequence. Then, I noticed minor problems such as, very slightly breaking the 180 degree rule and there not being a good and consistent eyeline match in some cases as well as a few jumps. So to fix this, I had to cut the hot and put other extra shots from other clips and close ups to make the whole piece run smoother. The slight jump cut that could not be resolved had to be cut and I had to put the the film title 'Bridges' on a black screen. All the other credits as you would have noticed run over the film at the bottom out of the way. We turned to our peers for some constructive criticism, which turned out to be very helpful for us because their response stated that by putting 'Bridges' on a black screen makes the title stand out to the audience and outlines it's importance to the film. Another problem we faced was the sound. The sound was probably the hardest thing to edit to perfection because as I had to cut and replace shots, the soundtrack did not match the image smoothly at times and shifted the entire sound from the clips along. In the beginning, it was unnoticable, but towards the end when there was very little dialogue then this was a huge problem as the image and sound were asynchronous. To resolve this issue I had to crop the relevant part from the soundtrack, remove all the sound from the actual shots and extend it across till the character took off his headphones as this is shown as non diagetic sound. Then another problem which occurred after this was we had not counted for the time in which we had placed the black screen title in the middle. Placing this clip in the middle, meant that there was ambient sound within the clip either end of the black screen, except the 3 seconds the title 'Bridges' had to appear. The best method in which we ammended this was by removing ambient sound recorded when shooting the establishing shot of the location and pasting it over the 'Bridges' slide. The problem with this, which we only picked up on after was that we used sound from an external location for an internal location which made the sound not balance when played together. When doing it, we did not see this problem, but watching back on it the next day, to have a final thorough check, we identified the fact that it did not match well but did the best we possibly could. If I were to have done this again, then I would remove all the sound from the whole openeing sequence and use soundtracks and voiceovers as dialogue which would improve the clarity of speech as well as remove any uneccessary background sound.

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Production Log 7

This week we have been looking at different fonts for our film title. In the beginning, we wanted to use 2 fonts for the title. One of which had a rough, crackly denotation and the other which had a very asian ethical touch to it. called Samarkan which we found on Dafont which we thought fit our theme perfectly.

 However, we then decided to just change the name to just 'Bridges' as it looks like it relates to our opening sequence more and much shorter and more to the point.

After watching the footage that we have recorded we realised that the opening shot wasn't smooth as we used a tripod it was very jumpy and unclear so we then talked about what we could do to improve this and the realised we were using the wrong equipment.



We then decided to use a monopod, which is commonly used for handheld movements to look clean.
This came out much clearer and looked very steady, so we are going to use the monopod when we film the real shots.


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Production Log 6

This week we have looked at Live type. This is the software we will be using to create the graphics for our opening sequence. We were using it to get a feel about how to use it as it will be the software we will be using to create our graphics. We tested out with the different fonts and then thought we would try out our title which is Broken bridges. We then found a font called Cracked which gave an effect of looking broken . But we then disscused it with the teachers and thought that just 'Bridges' woulod be more or a suitable title as it is more short and just straigt to the point as many Britsish social realism films are. We then thought it would be a good idea to use DaFont to find a font that will stand out and get our theme across nicely. We then found a font that gives off an indian feel to it but still edgy as it is not so smooth.

We also went out and did some filming but it was too dark therefore we have to film again .

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