Relating to real life
Throughout our film we have tried to relate to real American style living, this is through the use of small parts of mise-en-scene which allow the viewer to subtly pick up on what the characters are like and the components that make up that type of person, in our case, a 'Nerd'.
We have gain information on how to represent our characters by watching American Teenage shows; That 70's show, My wife and Kids, 8 Simple rules. Although televison shows, they show representation of characters which can be moved to film, as the charatcers should not majorly change through different media.
Developing conventions
Through the film creation we have developed the conventions of a buddy comedy by not having a main focus to the film, although the film would has been designed to take the structure of the plan which Mike(Matt) planned out in the introduction, the film itself has no other main arc, this is because, like most buddy comedies there is no real arc which is very apparent for the viewer; for example "Step Brothers" this film, about 2 friends has no main arc which is apparent as the stry is about them becoming friends and living life.
This is were our film relates and develops, as the main arc has been told, but the plan will not go to plan, thus meaning the style of our film has followed along the same route as a buddy comedy, but has been planned out as to five the film more structure.
Through the creation of our film, we thought about the different genre's which our characters could compete with. Creating a thriller would have set the film down because we would have had to add some twists and turns which would be shocking for the viewer to watch. This would have been hard to do within the first 5 minutes because not a lot can really happen for the story to make it appear to be a thriller and the story to develop, as the characters need to be introduced and the main arc described, which does not leave enough time for the truns of the film to be shown.
Creating a hrorror would have been interesting to make, but would suit the characters, although this would have challeneged the conventions of horror films, by having nerdy characters as killers or victims would have changed the way in which horror stories usually set out.
Using a buddy comedy in the style of middle class americans would be the best approach because we would be able to meet the conventions easily, by challenging and changing the ways in which the genre is seen. This would be changing the way in which the arc is set out, as mentioned above.
Challenging conventions
Creating the film to fit the common conventions allowed us to create the film fit for purpose, so the audience would know what they are watching, and so they understand what is going on within the the film and watch the to expect.
Challenging the conventions would mean that the film would need to be changed so that theuser does not expect something would be happening within the film, this owuld be an plot twist which the audience did not expect.
This would be hard to comply with because the introduction would not really allow us to change the conventions which they would expect within the buddy comedy genre.
"Shaun of the dead" one of our style models, is a good example of us not really being able to change and challenge the conventions within the opening sequences because it only opens up with the main plot line after the first 5 minutes, this shows that we would not be able to complete a full plot synopsis or arc explaination within the first five minutes.
6 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Working through the technologies both Matt and I had prior knowledge of what we were doing with the camera and editing software. Since we had been working on previous projects before this task which allowed us to gain knowledge of what we would be using and how.
The camera which we used was a personal Canon Legria hf200, this allowed us to use the camera at any time that we wanted because I could pick it up on short notice, unlike a school camera which would need to be booked in advance, our schedule was all ovet the place.
The camera itself was very similar to every camera which I have used, this is because it works in the same way, Push button to record, and push button to playback. This is the same with all of the camera which I have been using.
The differences in cameras is that the Canon has different preset filters which could have been added to the shot, this would have subtly influenced the film and given the shot a more warm to cold feel, althuogh we did not use this because we thought that the filters looked too bad, and not professional enough.
This camera has a full 1080p rating which allowed the camera work to be done in full HD. Since this make of camera was a canon I needed special software to export the files from the SD card onto the computer, this is the only way to get the files because the canon encripts the files it records.
I needed to import the files using a software package called "ImageMixer 10" this would import the files but keep them in a .HTS file format meaning only a Blu-ray player would be able to read the files. ImageMixer has it's own built in editing package, but it was very simple, and only a simple, cut and move editing software, with some simple transitions.
Comparing to Adobe Premiere Pro it was very basic, which means I would use Premiere Pro out of the two, this is too get a better outcome on the editing side because it is more sophisicated. Premiere Pro is also linked to Adobe Encoder, which would allow me to export the video ready for watching.
Although this compressing into different file formats the quality would be lowered, this was because I was not too sure on what format the examiners would accept it, so I lowered it to the quality of what we used for the previous formats, whic would allow the video to be sent off for marking in a watchable format.
Through the compression I would be using Adobe Encoder CS4, this is because it came in the same package Premiere Pro so I would need another encoder for Premiere Pro so export from. This encoder allowed me to export the film into pretty much any format which would be used:
3G2
Animated GIF
DLX
DV
FLV, F4V
Note: FLV files contain video and audio data encoded using the On2 VP6 or Sorenson Spark video codec with the MP3 audio codec, whereas F4V files contain video encoded using the H.264 codec and audio data encoded using the AAC codec.
M2T
MOV
MP4
MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 formats
MTS
Media eXchange Format
QuickTime
Video for Windows
Note: Adobe Media Encoder cannot import DivX® video files, or AVI files encoded with DivX.
WMV
Supported audio file formats
Adobe Sound Document
Advanced Audio Coding
Audio Interchange File Format
AVI
WAV
MP3
Windows Media Audio
Video for Windows
Supported still‑image and sequence file formats
Adobe Media Encoder supports 8-bit per-channel
Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop sequence
Bitmap and Bitmap sequence
GIF
Icon File
JPEG and JPEG sequence
PICT and PICT sequence
Portable Network Graphics
Targa and Targa sequence
TIFF and TIFF sequence
Note: You can import layered Illustrator and Photoshop files as sequences.
Supported video project file formats
Adobe Premiere Pro
After Effects Project
This would allow me to export the film easily. At first I did not know what file would be the best type to export the film because I did not know too much about the types of file which would give the best quality I did some research and found a forum which was about exporting video from the encoder, it said that the FLV/F4V was the best to export too, as it is very good for frame quality and will run on most video players. This helped my knowledge of the software because this preset export would give my the knowledge to do it in the future.
Learning about Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects was difficult because I had never really used them before, this meant I needed to do some test which would improve my skill and improve the outcome of the film because I would know what to dp, allowing smooth runnings fo the editing process. Although many of the editing packages are the same, I did know some rules and technqiues which I learnt from previous projects, I learnt this knowledge from Imovie, this knowledge was; cutting and placing shots and inserting music. these skills can be copied from each software package which gives all editing software great userability.
I had some experience with "www.blogspot.com" as I had used it in previous projects, this would allow me to easily set up the blog and write entrys. I knew how to host videos and pictures using different sites such as Youtube, Photobucket and scribd which I hold acccount on to host videos, pictures and documents to host on different websites.
7 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in progression from it to the full product?
Looking back at all of my past projects as preliminary tasks, I have gained camera knowledge and editing skills.
the first major difference was research, we did not have to research our preliminary task, this allowed us to drive straight into filming and editing so we could learn aobout what we needed to do within the main project.
We needed to find out about the different genre's which we could try to replicate, the different audience types which would watch our film which us to change how we acted and shot the film which we wanted to do and the conventions which surrounded the genre and film in general.
During the editing of the premlin and other projects u was using Imovie which is a film editor which is very good for a default programme which comes with an apple Mac. This was a good learning experience because I could learn the basics in what I would be doing in other packages which would have the same style and layout so i would know how to use them.
Camera knowledge which has helped me throughout the premliminary tasks because I was able to learn about the different shots which I could implement into the main task. These shots would be panning shots, trackings and different variations of close up shots such as, establishing shots and extreme close ups.
Learning this information before starting the main task was a strength because I was able to learn about what I would need to implement within my main task before I actually started the main project, where I would most likely get it wrong if I did not know about the styles of the different shots which I could use.
The camera was used in different ways because I learnt about different ways to use a tripod, and infact the tripod itself. During the preliminary we did not actually use a tripod, this is because we didn't really see any need, when working with Ben and Josh within the prelim, "Yakuza: Lost Honor", we used our hands and stabled the camera by placing it on a table or the floor. When moving onto the main course it became very aparent that we needed a tripod, for use of steadying the camera for us to use while we were filming. This use of a tripod allowed us to fit the conventions of directing a film, as a tripod would be used to get the littlest movement in the camera would be very bad, as they want the camera to stay as steady as it can. Using the tripod was also a strength because we could be in the shot, and have have the camera film what we were doing.
Through the preliminary task I did not need to reshoot what I had done, this was because we were not trying to fit the criteria of the mark scheme allowing us to create an accomplished a film. This meant through the creation of the main project I would need to learn about reshooting, this would slow down the creation of the project and would cause some troubles with other courses, and the essay work which needed to be done for media.
Learning about reshoting gave me knowledge of what the aidience would want, this would mean I would ge the know what the audience wanted from my film more and more, which would help the evaluation becuase I know exactly what they had said and what they wanted. This was a strength because I would film exactly what they wanted so would get the best from my film.
Through the preliminary and main project the spliting up of tasks was very different. The perliminary task was not really split up because we all wanted to learn about the different techniques which we would use throughout the rest of the course. We edited film together so that we would learn the software, this would change when we moved onto the main project because the jobs would be split up into different sections allowing work to be done effectivly, something which was not majorly done when moving onto the main project.
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