Film Opening - Final

This is the final edit of our film opening.

Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

During the progression from the premliminary task to the full product, there were clear differences in the amount of effort and work we put in for the preliminary task compared to the full product. These we hadn't considered, in terms of preparation, planning, time management etc.

We didn't think about managing time as effectively during the preliminary task because we felt we didn't need to do as much as we could have. This was because we felt pretty confident in our ability to produce a successful preliminary task without thinking to much about it. Admittedly, our preliminary task consisted of the three of us picking up our camera and filming on the day. For the full product however we did think about the time we had available to us which meant that we had planned out what wew were going to do and when we wanted a certain task done by. However, it didn't all go to plan due to room errors which meant that we fell behind schedule but besides that I feel that we have learnt the importance of time management and keeping on target as it can have serious consequences.

Similarly, during the preliminary task there was a lack of communication as we felt we didnt need to do much communication throughout the project. We raised our game during the full product however and created a group chat amongst ourselves so we could discuss anything related to the work ahead of us.

A lot of preparation and planning was undertaken for the full product. We researched everything that was relevant to our work - camera shots and angles, how we could edit and how we could stick to the conventions of our film opening's genre. This was a far greater amount of effort put into the planning and preparation of our preliminary task, where we put a miniscule amount of effort into the work ahead of us. Organisation too had drastically improved from the preliminary task to the full product. This was because we had realised a tremendous amount of effort was needed for the project to run smoothly.

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We have learnt that there is a vast range of technology available to us. We had used several different types of technology in synergy to create our film as effectively as we could.

To communicate amongst one another we used an Android messaging service called Google Hangouts  and this was effective as we could see if members of our group have seen the messages, ensuring that all members of our group knew what to do and when to do it. We also were able to send pictures of work or notes amongst one another also further ensuring our group knew what was going on at any particular point during the project’s duration.

Desktop version of Google hangouts



 The tripod and camera combination allowed to us to film the media product as stable as possible, removing any unnecessary shaking from our film. This made the media product much better than it would have been if it was filmed handheld; however this removed the realness it would have had if it was filmed by hand.

We used an Apple iMac to do all our research through the Google search engine, and we used iMovie for the actual development of our media product by storing and editing our footage on it. We have learnt that there is a vast range of products available to us in order to edit footage to a standard we would like. Software such as Sony Vegas Pro or Windows Movie Maker could also perform the editing task but we stuck.



Sites such as Blogger and YouTube were also used in tasks such as putting up new posts or videos with regards to the project. What we’ve learnt with these is that a great deal can be done on Blogger for example to post up our work and customise it all to look how we would like it to look. YouTube enabled us to search for other media projects to see what others have done, giving us the opportunity to see media products from the past and how we could produce something of similar quality. YouTube was also there for us to search for similar films to what we had hoped to create for our project.

Our youtube video on youtube

Our blogger account

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

After researching we asked twenty students to complete a questionnaire in order to determine what kind of audience we were looking at for our film opening. The students were aged 17-19. After they answered a few questions we collected the data to review the results. What we got back was that the two favorite genres of film were horror and thriller so we decided to stick with our original thriller story as that was what we had originally thought about creating. As our plan was to create a film where the story is based on crime then it made sense that our media product would be of the crime thriller genre. The hybrid between crime and thriller creates suspense successfully and also a crime thriller is known to keep the focus on the criminals which suited our film as the two main characters are a crime duo, showing their actions from the start of the film - the poker game - right to the end - where the victim is dragged into his flat - and the moments after - where the driver and the killer meet. We felt this would be sufficient enough to attract and address an audience effectively as we had researched what they would like to watch and then conducting further research into what we should do to ensure the audience is addressed.