Evaluation

From the minute my group and I  were told "right, off you go", we faced many problems which we would have to overcome, such as, editing on Final Cut Express (which was so alien to us), filming all of the different shots, being aware of continuity at the same time and making sure we added the correct elements which would build up tension and show that the genre of our film is thriller/crime. In retrospect, I think it is a fair judgement to say that it has been struggle for us all which led us to have our undivided attention to the task in our spare time also. Now that the project is finished, the struggle was worth it as it made us desperate to make the film opening the best we could. Furthermore, me and my group, having completed the 'Daisy' opening are pleased with the end result and are suprised with how much we have learnt during the process.

The very first stage we carried out was of most importance - research. The research we conducted, provided the foundations of our knowledge about how abductions are reported, how they are represented in films (for example, if the victims were on their own at the time of the kidnapping and how the family of the victims react). Our research did not just base itself around the topic of abductions but also what movie production logos are applied to a thriller/crime film.

Sticking to Conventions
Overall, by analysing our film opening, I would say that we have stuck to the conventions of a crime/thriller film, this could be shown in the font of the title which we used, and the non-diegetic music we added to our opening - a mellow soundtrack and use of dark lighting and a wanting to know what will come next. Furthermore, for an average thriller film, they incorporate many close up shots and extreme close ups as it is vital to see the expression on the character's faces, their reactions are one one of many factors that help to set the tension in a scene.
However, there are points in our opening which are challenging the conventions of a thriller. This can be seen when you see Daisy's point of view in the cellar,  thriller/crime genre films give little away about the antagonist to keep their audience in suspense however, we showed all of the capturer's identity, apart from his head. This still does not give away who has taken her, but has given away more information that would sometimes be given away in this style of film.

Representing Social Groups

This is a screen grab showing how my group has represented the average teenage girl via the way she is dressed. Films such as Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging also represent teenage girls in this way.
Throughout our opening I think we have included the stereotype of men - being that they are 'stronger' and more overpowering than females as Daisy's abductor is male. The fact that Daisy is abducted is reinforcing the stereotype that woman as a whole are vulnerable. Furthermore, we have stereotyped the female characters as when they are seen they are not dressed in a masculine manner, showing that the majority of teenage girls are not tom-boys. My group and I thought that by making all the average female characteristics apply to the people within our film, then the audience watching it would be able to relate more or feel increasingly sympathetic towards Daisy.
In addition, we have stereotyped the classes demonstrated within 'D A I SY', the classes shown in the first two minutes are working class and lower middle class. Daisy would be working class and the abductor; lower middle class, making Daisy the lower of the two. The lower class is always seen to be kept out of the dark and are under other people's control. This forms a parrallel with the situation, that she was kidnapped by someone higher ranking in society.

Distribution of our media product
If our media product was going to be distributed, then I think that we would want it to be noted as a Hollywood film. The reason why we would not go with it being a British film, even though it would be shot in England, is because we figured that Hollywood films based on British events, people and stories for example, have a wider commercial success around the world therefore, giving our film the best chance it could get in making itself known.We chose 20th century fox as our movie production company, this would stay the same if our film was to be distributed as a Hollywood film this is because, other comparable films in plot, production company and media institution have had good success.

Attracting and Addressing the Audience
By analysing our two minutes opening to a film, the costumes which the main character(s) wear, helps to build up their character profile. For example, Daisy wears very normal clothes for a girl of her age. By addressing her character with the right look,  we were trying to highlight her character as one the audience should be able to identify and develop sympathetic feelings towards. By filming our two minutes in the most practical and convenient places at the time, we found, had it's advantages. Even though we most likely would not have filmed in those locations if we had a wider choice of settings, it helps our audience to relate to the situation as the places feel more realistic.
Evaluating our music choice, the soundtrack imported in our short film is probably not something our target audience would have on their IPOD, yet the music incorporated helps said audience to feel saddened.

What I have Learnt About Technologies In the Process of Contstructing this Product
As 60% of the time spent on this project is editing, I feel like I have learnt a vast amount of knowledge of how to edit. This process has not only led me to find my way around Final Cut Express, but also, Garage Band. The rest of the time spent creating our adaption of a crime/thriller, I found out how to use the school camera. Overall, this past term a bold learning curve.
After the first few takes, the camera was fairly easy to manipulate and had we have known what we wanted to film and the specific shots we required in our opening to convey the various angles, movements and posititions, our time would have been best used. Garage Band overall, was a useful tool to have looked at and has prepared me with some knowledge of it, though, I think it fair to say it did not contribute to our film. In contrast, Final Cut Express, has provided me with not just the foundations of how to apply transitions and add in footage, but also how to slow down, reverse and manipulate sound effects/soundtrack.
It is from this knowledge of how to slow down footage that leads me to say I have a particular part I prefer above the others. That part being the two slowed down, black and white shots of Daisy and her dog in the park. This is because the black and white adds a flashback effect, whilst the non-diegetic soundtrack and voice over is being played in the background, all the elements combined make a effective couple of shots and is quite informative as the voice over is letting the audience know that the investigation of her missing is still ongoing.
Looking back I have learnt so much more in this process than I did whilst carrying out the preliminary task and so has the rest of my group as we all shared the amount of editing that had to be done. We now have a more rounded knowledge of how to work the technology we used.  Having said all of this, I can say that it has been stressfull at times though very beneficial and I am proud of me and my group being able to come out on the other side still intact.

Audience Feedback of the Completed Film

In order to get some insight to what an audience would make of our film opening we asked a few people on what they thought worked well and parts which could be improved upon. One of the people we asked said...


"A great movie opening, can be to dark in the cellar, but did have a great effect, not seeing much. The beginning didn't give to much of the story line away which made me want to watch more. Excellent editing of the T.v scene extremely effective movie opening. It gave me chills."

From this feedback, I reckon if I were to film in a dimly lit setting again, then I would consider adding more light and make sure I still have the tension, though coming through the music, costume and dialogue. It was good to hear that Amie said the beginning did not give to much away, which was important to us because we wanted it to end with the audience wondering how it will continue. 

Other people we got to watch our end result said that "it was really good" and that it was clever how we zoomed in on Daisy's eyes on the poster and then transitioned it so it would then go to Daisy's eyes in the cellar. Also a few people said that the part which they were most fond of, was the very first bit when a girl walks past the poster and the whole shot is in slow motion. It was said that the slow motion was a great idea as it helped create a tension and it also added to the sympathetic voice over playing at the same time. 

When Beth was asked what she thought was good about the opening to Daisy, she replied, that the variety of shots was very good, for example, in the park there was a horizontal pan shot, a point of view shot and a long shot. The one thing she picked up upon which could have been improved was the darkness of the cellar, as stated by Amie as well. 

Overall, the feedback which we managed to collect was generally quite positive and from this my group and I felt more at ease with what we had managed to create. If I were to do this again, based on the feedback, I would make sure everything is clear to see and also, I would have added a few more types of shots and angles. 

DAISY- The final film opening

Editing

Editing was a task itself, none of us had an inkling of what to do once we had opened up the programme. As we started off with no knowledge of Final Cut Express, this has made the editing process the part I was most proudest of.
Each of us did a bit editing, this meant that we had a wider coverage of how to work the programme and what each button meant and we helped out each other whilst taking the wheel. We did have our fair share of dilemmas, for example, accidentally having deleted the opening credits, our file not being able to be saved, finding the most suitable transition/ filter.
We have managed to reverse footage, make our footage look like it is on the TV, add a ripple effect in between transitions, add and takeaway necessary audio clips, make some tracks louder than others whilst being played at the same time and much more.
As we are almost at the end of editing the footage we have been collecting over these past weeks, my group and I have started to make sure we reach the targets we set for ourselves each media session.
One thing that editing made us realize was that, by not including any dialogue within our opening, the audience may find it confusing. When we recorded the voice over we played around with it in Garage Band, however, none of the filters we tried sounded good. So we added the voice over in and decided that with no changes to it, it sounded how we wanted it. One other problem we had to solve was that when we recorded a voice for the man that walked down the cellar steps, we thought the person's voice we used to say "Look at me!" did not sound right, after much deliberation. This is when we found that on Final Cut Express, by slowing down the voice it makes it appear much deeper. This voice was then put into our final version of Daisy.
If we had came across this problem earlier on, then we would not have came up with a solution as quick as we did as we had no awareness that audio clips and video could be slowed down.
Furthermore, another problem we would have been able to tackle as easy was how to reverse a shot.
We managed to reverse the shot were it goes from the eyes on the Missing Person's poster, to the cellar. Originally, the first shot the audience sees of Daisy was a zoom in shot, though with the ability to reverse the clip this enabled the extreme close up shots of her eyes flow.

Filming Session #5

As our new idea was to film a poster with the voice over of Daisy reflecting on the effects of her kidnapping we had to book the cameras again and get the tripod.
This was the most planned session of all of the them as it dawned on us that it was getting closer and closer to the deadline and we did not want to still be filming a week from here. Before we went to the corner we were filming on, we made sure we had the poster, sellotape, tripod and camera. This session took approximately 25 minutes to film. We knew the shot needed to film, but while we were there we also practiced other shots and it seemed that the shot we did not plan was the one we would later put in the film. Whilst we were filming there were people in the background and cars driving past, we thought this helped add to the scene.
Most of the time spent filming that day, was spent making sure that the camera was in the right position to follow the girl walking past the lamp post and then zoom in perfectly on Daisy's eyes on the poster.

Filming Session #4

From the audience feedback half way through our editing process it was highlighted to us to there needed to be use of a point of view shot. We knew we had to revisit the cellar, and within five minutes of being down there we knew we wanted the point of view shot to look like you were seeing exactly what she is seeing, so when she blinks the screen goes black. We thought this would look more effective. It did not take us all that long to figure out to show that. We realized, by using our fingers, resting them at the top and the bottom of the lens and then moving our fingers it created the effect that it was someone's eye.
We figured that her point of view would be showing the man that captured her coming down the stairs, this meant we had to ask one of our Dads to just walk down the stairs. This took a matter of a couple of minutes and that was the end of another session. Even though the shot only lasted about five seconds it was absolutely vital to help the audience to see what was going on and help the audience feel sympathy for the victim of the kidnapping.

Music

Finding the correct music and more importantly copyright free music, has been an on going struggle for my group. In the end (due to other student's knowledge of where we could find copyright free music), we ended up on the website named http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/index.html?
This is where on the website it states that all music on the website is copyright free -
http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/faq.html

Once we had found this site, we narrowed our search for the best fitting music by searching via genre. Under the genre Horror, there were many options which we had to choose from. When we first started editing, we found two soundtracks which we really liked, "Quinn's Song - The Dance Begins" and "Warlord", this soundtrack however, was found on youtube and we later found it to be an unusable song.

Quinns Song-The Dance Begins.mp3

My group, due to the restrictions of "Warlord" resulted in downloading "Quinn's Song - The Dance Begins". Our reasons for using this particular song was due to fact my group and I thought the song had a low tone to it and reflected sadness which could be related to that of Daisy as she is in captivity and feels very isolated. The overall feeling of the song had an unease and mellow tone to it and fit in well with our idea of a opening to a film. 

As our editing started to take shape and begin to look like an opening to a film, following a couple weeks of undecisive editing it was time Amber, Grace, Shannon and myself considered everything we had done so far and questioned whether we have looked at all the possible choices for music, amongst other things aswell. Our decision was to search for any other possible songs we could apply to our filming. This is when we found the music we now have, "Dark Walk".

 Dark Walk
The other option which we were also wuite fond of was Awkward Meeting , however, after deliberation we thought that Awkward Meeting did not have the right feel we wanted for the story, it did not seem sincere and low and slow enough. In the description of the track it said 'mystical' which is not what we had in mind. Dark Walk was described as having an eerie, unnerving, somber and dark feel to it which is why we chose this, also to make sure it was the right track we imported it in to our file on Final Cut Express, put it where we imagined it to be and saw if it looked good and added something to our film. With the transitions put in place and the music, it was a mutual feeling to go forth with 'Dark Walk'.