Blog

 

Week 1

8/9/14

This week, we discussed what will happen throughout the course and began to look at short films. The first short film that we looked at was Mixtape. We discussed what made the short film effective so that when it came to us making our own short films, we would know what would make it effective and how to go about creating the short film. I also designed my website this week by putting in the navigation bar to make the website more organised.

 

 

 

Week 2

15/09/14

This week, we looked at the short film black hole. We were focusing on camera angles, editing, sound and mise en scene. By looking at these things we were able to analyse the film and find out how the short film is effective. I also sorted out my whole layout on wix so that text would be readable against the background. 

 

 

 

Week 3

22/09/14

This week, in groups, we searched for any short film which was 5 minutes or shorter, and analysed this short film. We then put this into a powerpoint presentation to present to the class. I chose to analyse the short film the elevator. I looked at how the short film was effective, by looking at how it was shot. We talked about how the sound played a big part in setting the scene and making the short film more effective

 

 

 

Week 4

29/09/14

This week we finished presenting all of our short films and analysed them. We looked at the short films called A favour, Spring cleaning, Memories and the last man on earth. All of these short films had different codes and conventions because they were different genres. This made it clear to us that we would need to carefully think about types of shots in our short films. After we finished our presentations, we decided on what makes a good short film. Examples are lighting and sound to set the mood and establish the protagonist and antagonist. We also said that they mainly have 1 or 2 characters to keep to storyline simple.

 

 

 

Week 5

06/10/14

This week I looked at lots of different genres in and made a brief summary on each one. With this, i found images that were useful to represent the genre. In this week, we also looked at some film posters and looked at the codes and conventions of these. I then analysed these film posters to find out why certain things were used. This would be useful later on in the coursework as my group and I will most likely create a film poster for the film.

 

 

 

Week 6

13/10/14

This week, I finished researching all the genres and chose two that we would potentially want to choose. After this, we chose people who we would be planning to be in a group with. These people would have to be reliable, and trustworthy. In this week, we also started looking at each of our commitments so that they wouldn't affect our filming timetable as we all would need to be there at the same time to film. We began to think about different ideas that we could use for each genre so that we could select a final two.

 

 

 

Week 7

20/10/14

This week, in our groups, we have looked into the two genres that we would potentially want our short films to be based on in a lot more detail by thinking about codes and conventions. One of these genres will be our final choice and we will look into that genre in lots of detail. So far, we have decided to look into the horror and drama genre as a group decision. We watched a few short films within these genres so that we could gain an understanding of what codes and conventions are used. We are also planning to watch films in these genres so that we can see what codes and conventions are used in a full feature film.

 

 

 

Week 8

27/10/14

This week, I created a presentation on both horror and drama. In this presentation, we discussed some of the codes and conventions of a drama and horror film. We also looked at different sub-genres for the two so that we could get a better understanding of both the genres we were exploring. In this week, we also watched films in the genres so that we could find out codes and conventions based on what we watched. A film that we watched was Annabelle. We chose this film because it's recent and also right now, the paranormal sub-genre is popular. We all thought that the paranormal sub-genre was quite interesting so we decided on the film Annabelle. After we had explored the two genres, we chose one genre that we would be basing our short film on and the one that we would go into more detail about. The genre that we chose was horror. We decided this as a group, we thought that the codes and conventions are a lot more interesting than a drama and it would allow us to experiment with different camera angles.

 

 

 

Week 9

03/11/14

This week, we presented the presentation that we had created for both the drama and horror genre. We also listened to everybody else's presentations so that we could learn more about different genres and their main codes and conventions. I found this quite insteresting as I learnt about some genres that i hadn't done research into. We explained to everybody which genre we had chosen and why we thought it was the best compared to others. My group said that we thought that the codes and conventions were more interesting allowing us to be slightly more creative with the whole process. After we presented this, we improved some of our presentation, for example by adding in the websites that we used to gather the information for the presentation.

 

 

 

Week 10

10/11/14

This week, We begun research into the sub-genre that we were interested. This would mean that we would pick the horror genre and look at the one that we were interested in. For my group, this was paranormal. We all agreed on this genre quickly as we thought it was the most interesting. In our group, to make sure paranormal was the best genre, we researched the other sub-genres. This was useful because some of us became quite interested in other sub-genres more than we were before. However, we were all still more interested in paranormal. We began to gather images of the paranormal genre so that we would be able to tell what is commonly used in these films.

 

 

 

Week 11

17/11/14

This week we begun to look at typical codes and conventions of a paranormal film. I found out things like most paranormal films take place in the protagonists house. This is because it creates fear as people think that they are safe in their house. Also i looked at some horror film narrative theory's, this allowed me to understand what most horror films do. Also, as a group, we decided to create a poster on the paranormal genre and gather information for this poster. This information helped us get a larger understanding of the paranormal genre.

 

 

 

Week 12

24/11/14

This week, we continued looking into typical codes and conventions of a paranormal film because we needed as much information we could get on the genre. I found that horror films usually use all three of the following, Tension to create shock, mystery, terror or suspense. Relevance - To make sure that the horror film is seen, filmmakers need to make sure that it is relevant to the target audience. And finally, unrealism – The audience knows that what they are seeing is not real even though there are some horror films that are very graphic. We also watched the film Psycho so that we were able to see if anything specific was used in horror films. Psycho is also a very popular horror film so we thought it would be useful to watch this film.

 

 

 

Week 13

01/12/14

This week, we looked at films that we could watch as a part of our case study for the paranormal film genre so that we are able to look at what these films use to make them successful. We looked at the film 'A Haunting In Connecticut'. We watched this film as a group so that we could look at what is used in a paranormal film. We thought that it used good scenes for a paranormal film. For example, the shower scene which is used in many horror films, like Psycho which we watched last week. We can already tell that a shower scene tends to be a common scene as when a shower curtain is used, it creates the fear of the unknown.

 

 

 

Week 14

08/12/14

This week as a group we presented our presentation to the class. This allowed us to elaborabte on points we were trying to make throughout the presentation. We also watched other groups give their presentation. This was also useful as it allowed us to add in things that we thought were good in their presentations into ours. For example the trailer. I also looked at a summary so that i was able to add in a basic plot to the case study.

 

 

 

Week 15

15/12/14

This week we began to research more about the paranormal horror genre, including codes and conventions and theories. I also looked at a short film titled 'Lights out' so that i could see what a paranormal short film uses to be more effective. I also looked at some examples of a paranormal film and put lots of different posters together to get an idea of what kinds of colours are used in this specific genre.

 

 

 

Week 16

22/12/14

This week, i continued my reasearch into genre, narrative, audience, representation and narrative. I found information that would be able to help me and my group when it comes to planning the film. Representation will help us when we begin to think about the types of characters as i found some information on typical horror film characters which we could use with out short film. However, short films usually have one main character and therefore, we may need to challange representation.

 

 

 

Week 17

05/01/15

This week, me and my group started to design a questionnaire for our short film. We thought carefully about the questions that we would like to ask, and only used questions that would be useful. We also wanted to use closed questions so that the results that we revieve would be much easier to put into a bar chart.  By using closed questions, we got a clear idea of what people wanted to see. We also briefly discussed target audience, we had a look at some paranormal films on IMDB to see who watches and enjoys paranormal films. We used this audience research to decide on who we should give out our questionnaires to.

 

 

 

Week 18

12/01/15

This week,  we analysed the questionnaire results so that we could apply the information to out plot. In the next lesson, my group and I begun to think of a plot so that we were closer to being able to film our short film. We typed and printed out our plot so that each group member had a copy. This would make the storyboarding process much easier so that each of us could do part of the storyboard next week.

 

 

 

Week 19

19/01/15

This week, we completed our storyboard by using our plot. We found this much easier because we had written down quite a detailed plot. We decided to use post-it notes for our storyboard so that if we wanted to change the order of certain scenes, we could easily move the post-it note around. This week, we also begun to think about the props that we may need. In the plot, we include a news article that will be viewed on the computer. This meant that we would actually need to create a news article. Therefore, I begun to create the page and website for this news article with the help of my group.

 

 

 

Week 20

26/01/15

This week, we discussed the props that we would need for our short film. We talked about the make up that we would need for the paranormal character in order to make the charater look effective. We also discussed our cast. We thought that we would make sure that if we were to use people outside of our group, they were reliable. But inb the end, we just decided to use our own group, especially because Georgia and Safa take performing arts at A-level. Safa will therefore be the victim, Georgia will be the friend, and Yusra will be the paranormal character. This week, we continued creating the news article so that it would be ready in time.

 

 

 

Week 21

02/02/15

This week, we completed our news article, we made sure that it looked effective. In order to do this, we looked at the daily mail in order to compare the news articles. This week, we begun to discussed make-up in more detail, and debated on whether or not to use contact lenses. In the end we decided not to because we weren't sure on how long it would take for us to order some. Instead we decided that we may not show the eyes of Yusra's character. We also looked at costumes so that we could make our character as effective as possible. We went to gather some props that we could find, others we were going to bring on the day we would film

 

 

 

Week 22

09/02/15

This week, we started to film our short film, we used out plot and our storyboard to do this so that we were able to stick to it. Before we started filming, Georgia and I begun to use the props to set up where we wanted to film. While we were setting up, Safa was doing Yursa's make up in order to make her look suitable for the film. When we begun to film, we made sure that we took multiple images either for our posters or for evidence. After we had filmed what we needed to, we took more images for our poster and review page so that we had a choice when it came to choosing the image that we wanted to use. Also this week, we looked at some of the footage that we shot so that we could see if anything needed to be shot again and to see if we had anything left to film. We didn't get through all of the footage, but we thought that looking through it all before we edit our short film would be useful so that if we did need to, we could film more on a later date.

 

 

 

Week 23

16/02/15

This week, we all individually looked though our images so that we could use an apporopriate one for our poster. I begun to edit this image to make Yursa look more obvious as I asked a few people what they thought of the image and if Yusra looked obvious. I found that many people thought that she was quite hard to notice. I then begun to look into fonts, but didn't seem to find one that seemed to be appropriate for the poster of the review page.

 

 

 

Week 24

23/02/15

This week, we begun to look through more footage so that we could decide what we would most likely use. We made notes on each thing that we filmed so that we could make sure we would remember what ones we would use. As well as this, we continued to create out posters and double page spread. I started to look at fonts so that i could find out which font would look the most effective on my magazine poster and double page spread.

 

 

 

Week 25

02/03/15

This week, we started to edit our short film with imovie as we thought that this was the easiest editing software to use because it was set out in a simple way which made it easy to edit. We didn't get a lot of editing done in this week because we were all trying to get used to how the programme worked. We also had no experience with mac computers so it took a long time for us all to get used to the computer so this made the editing process take much longer than it would have if we were familiar with mac computers

 

 

 

Week 26

09/03/15

This week, we begun to edit our short film more so that we could make sure that everything was in focus and to make sure that we were happy with what we filmed. We kept replaying everything that we had edited over and over again to make sure that there were no issues with the film. If any of us had an hour or two free, we would try and edit the film so that it would be finished. The editing process so far is the longest as we wanted to make sure that everything flowed well.

 

 

 

Week 27

16/03/15

This week we continued to edit our short film and we individually continued with creating our posters and double page spreads. I created the whole article for my review page so that when i needed to add it in, it would be easier than adding it in later. I edited the page so that i was able to add the text into the page.  We also discussed possible scenes that may need to be refilmed so that we could see if we had enough time to film these. We looked to see if it would be worth is as we needed to finish editing the short film incase we weren't able to film other scenes. 

 

 

 

Week 28

23/03/15

This week, we edited our short film further to ensure that we would be able to complete it. We wanted to get all of our editing finished by this week so that we could add sound in the following week. We also had to film a few other scenes to make the film last longer than it already did. To ensure that we would finish editing, I stayed behind to edit our short film while Georgia, Yusra and Safa went to go and film another scene. Once they returned, we all edited the rest of the short film together. I also completed my double page spread/review page first draft so that i could improve this when I recieved feedback.

 

 

 

Week 29

30/03/15

This week, as we had finished editing our short film, we started to create the soundtrack. Georgia and I had the biggest part in this, however, neither of us had any experience with the programme (garage band) and therefore found it quite confusing to get the hang of. We found sound extremeley difficult as everything we would look at different sound effects, we couldn't get the sounds to match exactly how we would have liked. However, as we wanted the whole film to be ours, we continued to create a soundtrack to fit our short film.

 

 

 

Week 30

06/04/15

This week I uploaded our film to YouTube so that we could all acsess it and also so that we are able to put our short films on our individual websites. I also begun to work on my evaluation so that I would be able to get the project near enough finished. We still needed to show an audience so I was unable to fill out the final answer as this question is all to do with audience feedback. We will be showing our target audience our short films next week to recieve this feedback

 

 

 

Week 31

13/04/15

This week we showed our short film to an audience and asked them to complete a short questionnaire at the end of the short film so that we could see what the response was to our short film. We made sure to give the questionnaires after showing our short film as we wanted to make sure that the audience was actually paying attention to what they were watching. After showing our short film, we begun to analyse the data picking out the main responses for open questions and tallying up the results for our closed questions