AS Media

Evaluation: Question 5

Evaluation Question 5 from bellmansam

The genre is teen fantasy. this is similar to the film beautiful creatures, it also shares similarities with the film twilight and the series The Secret Circle these are both also fantasies but they also contain huge aspects of romance where as in our film it is included, but plays a less major role.

we looked at the codes and connections of typical teen fantasy films and compared how we included, or attempted them.

The codes and conventions we looked at were

Many cuts to build tension and suspense.

Confirmed: we included a selection of quick short 'flashback' scenes in which gave the audience a direct idea of what was happening and gave them a feel for the film, building tension and suspense.

Periods of silence.

Confirmed: in the beginning of our film we included periods of silence, this built the tension and made the voice over more dramatic.

High angle shots.

Confirmed: these were at the very start of our opening and gave the audience an idea of the layout and whereabouts of the scene, along with the shaky camera and the quick movements it managed to make the audience feel like they were seeing the film from the eyes of a character.

Vast open spaces/woodland areas in key parts of the film

Challenged: as we were not creating a full film we couldn't include the 'key scenes' otherwise it would become more of a trailer or a short story. but we did manage to work our way around including a woodland scene. yes this is a key scene in the film but as it is initially the opening scene it doesn't quite have the same feel. although it does make the character look alone and helpless along with making the film seem more mysterious and makes the audience feel tension and question what is going on.

Classical eerie music

Challenged: we included eerie music that fitted our genre and the narrative but it was not grand, classical or full of bass like the music of typical films of this genre

Slightly Gothic, darker clothing and make-up

Challenged: we challenged this including selected dark clothes and make up but we wanted it to look less over dressed and more casual so we didn't attempt to fully do this look.

TORODOVS NARRATIVE

Torodov devised a way to break up a narrative into five parts the Equilibrium (this is where the setting is established), Distribution (this is when the story takes a particular direction), Recognition Of The Distribution (this is when the characters and events are interwoven), Attempt To Repair Distribution (attempt to solve the issue), Reinstatement Of Equilibrium(matters and problems are sorted out)

Using Torodovs narrative theory bellow I compared the film Beautiful Creatures with our own.

The equilibrium of the Beautiful creatures film is that one of the main characters wakes up from a recurring dream he has about a girl he has never met but cant stop thinking about, it is set in South Carolina.

The eqilibrium of ours is that Eva is narrating the scene talking about how she wishes she could go back to a time when she didnt know about the curse. the scene takes place in the woods of a small town in England. Eva is then shown on laying on the floor in a ball gown this makes the reader question what is happening it gives the idea that it is a magical film with lots of hidden secrets and twists.

The Distribution of beautiful creatures is when Lena starts to realise that the time is aproacing where she is going to have to choose if she goes dark or light (good or bad) the way she presents her self makes the audience question what the result is going yo be.

The Distribution of our film is when Eva and her friends stumble across a website with a photo that looks like her this is when she then figures out she is a witch.

The Recognition of Distribution in beautiful creatures is when Lena and Ethan realise that the time is running out and that she may turn dark Lena father tries to stop Ethan seeing Lena in fear that it will turn her dark and she will end up hurting him and the ones around her.

In our film Eva and her friend Peter both after looking more at the website discover that she is cursed and will die at the age of 18 which is coming up soon.

The attempt to repair the Distribution is when Lena father sacrifices himself to save his Ethan therefore allowing them to be together but its not over there as she still has to choose what way she is going to go. in an attempt to protect Ethan she wipes his memory clean of her resulting in him not knowing who she is.

in our Evangeline Eva travels to see the witch who put the curse on her in an attempt to cleanse herself of this she then gets rejected and is thought by an older witch how to control her magic in an attempt to remove the curse one final time.

the reinstatement of equilibrium in beautiful creatures is when Lena manages to not go neither light or dark but both then she runs into Ethan once more and they attempt to get to know each other once more.

in Evangeline, the curse is stopped and she is saved but it resulted in her loosing something close to her she then manages to restore this and the film ends on a romantic scene between her and peter realising their love for each other.

CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS: BINARY OPPOSITION

he thought about the narratives in more detail deciding that they depend more on the themes and the character rivalries and conflicts.

he focuses on the good and the bad (he believes that you cant have a story with out them)

In our film the good character is Eva and the bad would be the Witch who cursed her/ theoretically the curse itself.

These would allow the reader to ask questions and be able to follow the film without trouble and confusion which is what we wanted due to the young age of our target audience.

VLADIMIR PROPP

using propp's character theory that in every film there are six types of people, a hero, heroine, father/protecting role, villain, mentor, accompany.

Applying this to our film would mean that the Hero was Eva as she is the main character and the one the film and problems revolve around. The heroine would be Peter as he is the love interest of Eva. the protecting role would be peters father as when he finds out about what Eva can do he is strongly against them being together. The villain would be the Witch the mentor the lovely witch who helps train Eva. finally the accompanies would be James and Ava as they are Evas other close friends.

These are nine screen shots from out opening that our group chose as we believed that they challenged the audience.

the first screen shot shows Eva in on of the very first shots, this is a very mysterious shot and along with the voice over allowing the reader to question what is going on and who she is.

the second image shows Eva on the floor this is the first shot shown of her in the whole film it causes the reader to ask why she is there and try and match up the narration with the clip.

The third image is of the title, this was chosen as it shows the first initial introduction of the film to the audience.

the fourth image shows one of the characters facing away from the screen in this shot he turns around in pain like he has been shot. As this is shown really quickly in the flash back/re wind scenes it causes the reader to question what happened to him and want to continue watching the film. the third shot is a close up of Eva who is in a witch like room this links to scenes later in the film.

the sixth shot is also of Eva in this shot she looks happy and it distinctive shows that the footage is being re wound.

the seventh shot is also of Eva this is a long shot and it is of Eva in a grave yard it becomes clear to the audience that someone close to her has died.

the ninth shot is a close up of a wing mirrored it shows that they are going backwards clearly in time, the rain on the window also help the audience get an idea for the setting.

the final shot is of Eva walking backwards this is also then played forward and shows that the film is now playing in real time and it is at the 'official start' of the movie.

Evaluation: Question 3

Evaluation: Question 6

Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation: Question 7

Evaluation: Question 2

Target Audience Feedback

This lesson in our group we asked six year 8's to help us with give feedback on our film opening. We felt this was a good age group because this age is our target audience. They had a lot of positive things to say about our film opening and also gave us an idea of what we could do to improve.

These were the questions we asked them:

was the genre obvious?
What do you think the genre was?
Did the film engage or interest you?
What was your favourite part of the film opening?
Was there anything in particular you didn't like about the film opening?
Did you like the music- did it suit?
Is there anything about the film you would change or improve, and how?
What would you rate our film opening out of 10?

We also created a questionnaire using survey monkey which anyone was able to respond to once they had watched our opening sequence. We emailed this questionnaire to a large selection of people ranging from ages 6-60 this was to get more accurate results and find out whether out our target audience and other research was correct. We were also able to get a better understanding of the direct audience and their interests.

The link to our questionnaire: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BQ3JJ8R

Our Film Poster

Sophie created many different poster drafts and here are a few.
The photographs on them were taken when filming the first scene of our film opening, when Eva is mysteriously lying on the floor in the woods. The photos were taken using Sophie's Iphone and she also created these posters on her phone too.

Evangeline: Final draft

This is the final outcome of our opening sequence of 'Evangeline'. It took a lot of time and effort to create this product and we are pleased with the outcome.

Blog Reflection

Technology

Throughout my learning journey of creating many different blog posts, I have explored differernt ways of presenting information. I have recently become more familiar with Prezi and think its a great way to present and explore ideas. I have also learnt to upload powerpoints onto my blog by using my new Slideshare account.I used this to present our first group film pitch, My individual film pitch, the institutions task and the film pitch representing genre. When editing our final film, I took the main role of editing our film opening which allowed me to become more familiar with Premiere and the different effects I could put on the sound or video to improve it.

Mark out of 20

I would give myself a 15/20 at the moment. I think some posts in my blog need to include more detail and the analysis needs to be more in depth but I believe I have completed all the tasks given to an acceptable standard.

More thorough or less complacent?

I think i need to be more thourough in a lot of my posts which focus on in depth writing. I think i need to write a lot more to explain what i think/ have to say.

Is it fun to look through?

I think my blog is fun to look through because i believe it is colourful and exciting. The font is dark red and the headings are red bubble writing, making it look eye catching. I also think this is better than having plain black normal font because i am a visual learner so find it benefits me when my work looks more interesting. I have also included images in my posts to make them more visual and break up the text.

Is the learning journey evident?

I think the learning journey is evident because I think I have improved throughout the course of my media lessons since the beginning of year 12. My blog shows how over time i introduced different programmes to present my information.

Targets

I think i need to improve on the depth of my descriptions and analysis in order to achieve a better standard of work and overall try to achieve the best grade I can.

Production Diary

This is a diary showing an overview of what our group did on a daily basis from the beginning of the film making process to the end. It was rewarding to see the progress our group made over time because at the beginning we didn't think we would achieve as much as we have. We worked efficiently as a group and all contributed vital ideas to make our final outcome a successful one.

Script for our new film opening

This is the new and updated script. It is just a voiceover and not actual speech. It is played during the footage of the trees and Eva lying on the floor in the woods (scene 1).
We kept the dialogue minimal becuase we wanted more emphasis on the footage itself than what the characters were saying. We wanted the visauls (mise en scene) to tell the story and not the speech.
Our speech tells the audience enough for them to understand what the film is going to entail, even though there isn't much of it. We find this a sign of success because it shows that our footage is good.

Fonts for titles

We originally had a pale yellow font for our titles i have learnt that titles need to look more professional so we ended up with using a dark maroon colour.

We have used Adobe Carlson Pro as the typeface. We think this looks professional and not too modern.

12/12/14- Filming #3

Today we spent just over an hour filming the first section of our film opening set in the woods among the trees/woodland. Even with our biggest efforts to ensure the filming went perfectly, the camera ran out of charge shortly after getting to our location. We were quite annoyed by this but we overcame this by using an Ipohone 5 to film our footage. The quality of the camera is very good but using a phone meant that we could not use the tripod to raise the camera into the air. It also meanr rhat the camera was not kept as still as what we had originally hoped. Apart from that, filming went really well and the footage we got was successful.

This is Sam towards the
end of our filming session

This is Sam ans Sophie before we had started filming and were considering the
best location for Eva to be laying and also the route the cameraman would
take around the woods before reaching the main character.

This is a shot from the footage we used in our film opening
of Sophie lying on the ground playing the role of Eva

This is Sophie re-applying her make-up
just before we started filming

Shot List: updated

Scene1- this will be a section from the middle of the plot of the while film.

shot of the camera panning/moving through the woods

Eva

Scene2- a series of many different shots in different locations rewound and sped up to show that the film is 'going back to the beginning'. (Which is what Eva wishes to happen).

Music: updated

For our final draft we changed the music in order to fit with the scenes better. Our class feedback included critisism about our original feedback saying 'it wasn't right for a film opening, more suitable for a daytime TV programme'.

Both of the new soungs we have used include a piano sound. This relates them to each other except the second one we used 'breathe me' is more upbeat and louder than 'soda'. This is appropriate bceasue 'Soda' is playign when the video is mysterious and needs to build tension whereas

For the first scene set in the woods where it is quite slow and there is a VoiceOver, we used 'Soda' by the Cinematic Orchestra. It sosunds quite 'twinkly' which suits the scene among the trees well. It makes it feel mystical and gives a sense of a fanasy theme (witchcraft). This is non-diagetic because the music sounds like a children's lullaby

For the second scene after the main title (of rewound scenes back to the beginning of the film) we used 'Breathe Me (instrumentral version)' By Sia.

Representations: updated

Eva Jones is a Young female at the age of 17 and 11 months. She is a friendly, happy, curious character. She goes to a state school which is multi-clutural and mix gender. We know she is curious becasue she is seen looking around and she seems to be exploring in woodland areas.
The music gives the audience that the film is mystical and it makes you want to find out what is going to happen.