Evaluation: Technologies

What have you learnt from technologies in the construction of your product?

From the very start of researching, planning and creating our product, technology has palyed an essential part. We have used it to find out and store information, to plan and discuss ideas our product, to keep a track of all that we have done with our product, to actually produce our product, and also to evaluate it. We have used a range of technologies throughtouttbeh course of our Media Studies coursework, including technologies from the internet and various different pieces of equpment. Overall, we have used: 

THE RESEARCH STAGE. 

The first thing we did once we had chosen our genre for our opening was to reseach said genre and find out what its codes and conventions were. We also had to research into the history of our genre, and find out which influential people were a part of it, and also what the codes and conventions were then, and how they compare to the ones now. We then had to research who our audience for our genre would be, what their demographics were and what they expected of the genre. To do this, we used:

• TVs, DVDs and Youtube- We used these three pieces of technology to search for examples of real life psychological thriller openings to find out what the specific codes and conventions of the genre are. Since using these technologies for the purpose of my Media product, I have learnt how not only can these websites and eqipment be used for fun and lesuire, but can also be used to help aid my work and provide evidence and examples for work in my other subjects.

  

We did this so that we were able to understand what is expected of typical psychological thrillers and so that when we came to plan our own, it would fit into the definition of the genre.

• Youtube to MP4 converter- We learnt how to use a MP4 converter to download these openings onto our IMACs to analyse them. Aside from my coursewrk, knowning how to use this type of technology can be extremely useful, as I am now able to download important files and information in the future .

  

Again, we analsyed our chosen openings to discover the set codes and conventions of the genre so that our own opening would be as believable as possible.

• Google- We used google to search for the history of Psyhcological Thrillers and to find a bit more about the people orginally involved in the genre. We also used a couple of other websites linked to google to do this, such as Wikipedia and Slideshare.

  

This information helped a lot when planning our own product, as it gave us a foundation to work on. Looking at past examples of psychological thrillers and the diferent people who influenced the genre, such as Alfred Hitchcock gave us an idea of what has always worked when creating a psychological thriller, and what aspects needed to be changed to create a convincing product.

• The last piece of technology we used in our research was SurveyMonkey- We used this website to find out who our target audience was, and to find out what they expected to see in a psychological thriller opening. We did this because we needed to know who we would be selling our product to, to ensure that we made it so that it was attractive for them, so that they would be likely to want to go and see it. This is because our aim was to make money, and the best way to do that would be to create a film which would engage and compell people to see it. We did this by creating a survey, asking basic information about the participant eg. age/gender, and also a lot of questions about their expectations of a psychologica thriller, what they think would occur in the openign, what characters they thought they would be introduced to and also what they thought wouldn't happen in the opening. We sent out the link to the questionnaire via Email, and asked the peopel who we sent it to if they could take out five minutes to complete it. This gave us a very clear idea of what sort of aspects we had to include in the opening, and what not to include to make our opening as successful as possible.

  

SurveyMonkey was a completely new piece of technology to me when we first started this course, however, since frequently using it for the research of my production, I have learnt a graet deal about it, and now feel confident in using it in everyday life, as I believe that it could be a very valuable website to be able to navigate.

THE PLANNING STAGE.

For the planning of our product, we came up with our final idea for our opening, then constructed a storyline, scrpit, character profiles and a shooting schedual for the filming of it. 

For ideas of our opening, we used Prezi as an easy and efficient way to get our ideas across. Prezi isn't like most websites where you display information; it's fun and a bit different, so you'll be much more likely to keep your audiences attention. I was only introduced to prezi for the purpose of our opening, however, since learning how to use it, I have found it useful in many of my other subjects for revising and sharing information with my classes.

All of our next work was then completed using Celtx, which I had used once before. We used Celtx to create our:

• Storyboard
• Shooting Schedual
• Character Profiles
• Script

Being able to use this technology was very important in the planning of our product, as each aspect let us know exactly what we were going to do, why we were doing it, and ensure that we stayed on track of what were we doing.
The script ensured that we knew exactly what was being said, when it was being said and that it all fit into the two minutes. Next, the storyboard helped us make sure that what we had didn't run critically over or under time, and let us know what was going on in each scene, and which shots were giong to be used. Our character profiles allowed our actors to immerse themselves in their characetrs to make them seem as believeable as possible. Lastly, the shooting schedual ensured that everyone turned up in the right place at the right time with all necessary props with them. This all consequently made our production of the opening a lot smoother and less time consuming. 

THE PRODUCTION STAGE.

Moving on to the production stage, we had to fully film our opening, and then edit it all together. We used a digital camera to film, and then Imovie on the Imac's to edit. For the filming, we used Lauren's Canon E051100D which had a large zoom in scale, which was extremely useful for scenes such as the zooming in on the photo of Christian and Alice, and also when zooming in on Alice's face when she returned from the dead. I have never used a camera of this size and qualtiy, and it was a big difference to using my normal small digital camera as we had to work out which settings were best for which scenes, how to get the focus and zoom on the camera just right for both recording and taking photos, and also how to frame our scenes to create a sense of continuity within the whole piece. The camera was a DSLR, which meant that we could use the focus ring to create a more professional and realistic feel to our opening, and it also allowed us to focus on certain aspects such as the missing poster whilst Christian walked behind it. 

We also used a tripod with the camera, which I have used used once before. However, as I only had little knowlegde of how to set it up and use it, we again had to read an instruction sheet so that we knew what we were doing. Once we knew how to set it up properly, we found that the tripod helped a lot with keeping the filming steady and keeping the right framing. It also enabled us to use various camera movements such as pan and tilt. 

After we had filmed the whole fo our opening, we moved onto editing it with Imovie. This editing software was great to use because it allowed us to edit scene together, crop certain parts that we didn't like, or that didn't work well, and different effects to certain scenes eg. the flashback of Matthew killing himself, insert music throught the opening, add transitions from one scen to another and overall add a better quality and improve the filming which we had previously done. This was my second time at using this software, although we used it in a lot more depth than I had previously used. Since using it for this course, I have learnt how to download and embed music, clips and fonts onto Imovie to use in our construction, I have learnt about the different effects and edits I can use to enhance my work, and I have also learnt how to embed and upload my productions onto youtube and any other websites on the internet. I feel like I have become secure and confident in Imovie, and that I know what I am doing on there for the future.

KEEPING TRACK OF MY WORK.

Throughout the course of researching, planning and then producing our opening, we have constantly used the website BLOGGER to keep a track of what we have done, how we did it, and why we did it. I have never used blogger before, and had some troubles with reguarally updating my work, however, I felt that it helped me feel more secure in what I was doing and why I was doing it. I have learnt a lot about blogger in these past couple of weeks; I have learnt how to construct a single post, how to embed videos, images, music and other pieces of work such as prezis onto a post and I have learnt how to custamize and edit my blog to make it reflect the genre that I am working on. I feel a lot more confident using blogger now than I was when we first started this course, and I believe that these new skills will help me in the future if I ever wanted to start another blog, or to even help me with my own personal blogs that I may have.

Blogger was the main piece of technology that was used and is where everything that we researched, planned and constructed was posted onto. I have never used Blogger before starting our coursework. I have learnt now how to use Blogger and what it can be used for. I have also learnt how to embed videos, photos, prezi's etc. I feel that by doing this coursework I can use Blogger again and feel much more confident using it.

At the end of this course, I am now able to realise how much technology is actually available for us to use, and it doesn't always have to be for fun and leisure, technology such as youtube or blogger can be used to enhance your work and skills throughout your whole lives. I am now able to acknowledge the variety of ways we are able to get information across, from soundbites and video clips, to prezi's, survey's and blogs.
This knowledge will help me a lot in the future, not just for Media, but also for my other subjects, then work and eventually to teach others how to use it.  

Evaluation: Institutions

Prelim Task

AS MEDIA STUDIES: PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER OPENING

Here is our finished product: Our Psychological Thriller Opening.

Edited Script

When filming, we found that we had to change and edit our original script a little, as we were not able to fit it all into two minutes. We had to change some of the voice overs and cut one out, but I believe that it worked better in the end and created more of an enigma for the audience.

Here is our new version of our script:

Shooting Schedule

 We created a shooting schedule, again by using Celtx so that we know step by step what we are doing and when to ensure that we don't fall behind or stray off track of what we are supposed to be doing:

Here we show what days we are going to film on, what scenes we are going to film and what time we will film them.

Here shows a description of what we're going to film in each scene:

Storyboard

We created a storyboard using Celtx to show what we are going to do in each individual scene, step by step, and to also show what camera movements we are going to use in them. We have four different scenes, including the opening credits, consisting of 'The Field Scene', 'The Bedroom Scene' and 'The Street Scene'. Embedded in 'The Street Scene' is also a flashback which is sort of a scene inside a scene.

 

This storyboard is going to be our guideline to what we will film, how we will film it and what shots will be used when filming our opening. We have included a range of shots such as establishing shots eg. the field, and two-shots eg. when Christian is carrying Alice. This will help us to stay on track of what we are doing to produce our film as well as we are able to.

Character Profiles

This is the character profile we completed for Christian Carter.

 

 

 

We also completed profiles for each of our characters featured in our opening (Christian Carter, Alice Nate, Matthew Carter and Anna Mckenley; who plays the therapist). We did this so that the actors and actresses performing in the opening were able to get into the role of the character and portray the exactly how we wanted. 

 

 

Here is our character profile for Matthew Carter.

 

 



This is our character profile for Alice Nate.

 

 

This is our last character profile, and is for Anna Mckenely.

 

 

Script for Opening

We completed our script for our opening to ensure that we could fit everything in the amount of time we had (two minutes) and so we knew exactly what the characters were saying and when they were saying it to make sure that the opening was as smooth as it could be.

Final Idea

To come up with an overall idea for our psychological thriller, we put our two individual ideas together to compare them and work out which aspects we liked best about each others. We then came up with the basis of our final idea:

We then came up with the details of our opening, which were again based on both of our separate ideas. We have the protagonist (Christian Carter) beginning the opening by killing his girlfriend (Alice Nate).
The first things we see and hear is a black screen and then Alice's scream followed by two gun shots. We are then shown Christina carrying Alice through a deserted field who we can clearly see has been killed.
Christian then jolts awake in his bed with a voice over explaining that he experiences the same nightmare every night, but that that the incident actually happened. We are then introduced to a photo of him and Alice smiling together, except Alice's eyes have now been crossed out.
We decided to do this as we wanted to create a sort of enigma to why Christian has killed Alice, and to make our audience wan to find out his reasons for this. The photo will then dissolve into a missing poster of Alice, showing that she has not been found, and people are unsure of whether she is actually dead or not.
Christian appears walking down the street, and another voice over is used to introduce a flashback to when he was younger and found his brother on the floor, dead. He will then state that this event caused him to have to see a therapist.
When he arrives at the therapists office, she opens the door to greet him and Alice steps out, but only Christian notices her, connoting that she is a ghost or some sort of figment of his distorted mind. This is the end of the opening.

 

When looking at Todorov's Narrative Structure Theory, we found that our opening idea does not in fact follow the 'rules' of a film, as we do not start nor end with an equilibrium, meaning that we consequently have nothing to disrupt the start or restore at the end. However, I believe that this works well for our specific genre as Psychological Thrillers are supposed to be out of the ordinary and follow their own set of rules which are separate to other genres.  

We also completed a codes and conventions table which allowed us to figure out how we were going to create enigma, how we were going to set up the plot, how we were going to introduce the characters and what the pace and rhythm and the mood and tone were going to be like, and whether or not they would work well together to attract our audience.

Psychological Thriller Documentary

To summarise our research on Psychological Thrillers, we have created a documentary containing codes and conventions of psychological thrillers, the history of psychological thrillers, our target audience and also how our findings have all come together to help us produce our opening. We have included a lot of research which we have found throughout this stage of our production, and this documentary will ultimately be our guide to what we shall and shan't do in our opening.
We have used a range of technologies within our document such as voice overs, clips and music. However, I believe we could have made it even better by embedding these technologies together, such as inserting clips into the history of the genre. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER DOCUMENTARY:

Target Audience

I have made a mood board based on the demographics of my target audience. I have chosen these images as they represent the types of teenagers that we found would enjoy our film. We found that our target audience enjoyed spending their time doing activities such as surfing the internet, doing their nails, playing on game consoles and listening to music. The range of ages that we found was 16-18, which meant that our target audience would still be completing their education. We found all of this information out via both survey monkey and our focus group.

 

Psychological Thriller Opening Ideas