Evaluation

Final Poster

I have made a substantial amount of changes to my poster. As you can see in this poster the background has changed from my draft poster. I took the advice of what my teacher had to say and instead of putting a really colourful background on, I used one of my images from my 5 minute short film as the background. It is much more effective because the poster now looks more sophisticated and more professional than the last poster. In the draft poster all the images seemed like they where floating which did not look very good at all. I knew that it had to be changed in order for me to get a higher mark. I decided to change the images that I had from the draft poster and use a different one for the main image. I thought that this image is more effective because the audience can see the facial expression of Edward and almost allows them to know what he is thinking. The background image I used was of my two main characters of the film. I used my imagination to blur the background to give it more of a dysfunctional look and then add a clear image of the younger brother Edward because the story is told through his eyes. Not only was the background changed from my poster I also changed the PG ratings. On my draft poster I used an American PG rating which was bad because the film is meant to be a British film. The style of fonts I used for the institutional information is also different as I decided to follow the codes and conventions of the Kidulthood film poster. I decided that using the warner bros logo for my draft poster was not appropriate for my film as it has to be original so I came up with my own logo that I have designed from Photoshop and added it on. I am much more happier with my final poster than my draft poster as I put much more work into it and have made huge improvements to it.

Final Film Review

This is the final film review. I have made some changes from the last one to make it better. In the old one all I did was put the plot of the film in it. I have changed that up and I have put what really needs to be in a film review such as what the director has done with the film what he finds good and bad about it. I went to my teacher to give me advice on how to make my film review better and she gave me good advice on how to improve it and I have done so. I have also made some changes with the pictures. I have re-arranged where the pictures were before. I have also put a film rating on it to make it look more professional. Compared to my draft film review this one looks much better. For my draft film review I used Microsoft publisher to do it, which was not a good choice at all because it did not look like a proper review and also the colours I used for the review was not good. For this review I used Photo shop which turned out to be much more effective for me as this review looks more professional. I took some advice from my teachers because firstly the pictures that I used for my other poster was very much distorted. Secondly when I printed of my review for them to mark it you could see the text box and it did not look very good, so i choose to do it on Photo shop. I am much happier with this one because I put more work into it and also it looks like a proper review

Working on evaluation

In this lesson I am working on my evaluation. In the evaluation I have to answer four questions and put it into a powerpoint presentation. I got advice from my teachers that the best way to do it is to put minimal text in it and make it as visual as possible, this is what will get me the top marks. In each slide I have answered each question and have put an audio in them. Part of the evaluation is that I had to put and audio where I explain what is going on in the slides. I have added some of the audio into some of the slides however there has seemes to be a problem with the microphones because it s very hard for me to hear my voice when I play back the audio. I have used the schools microphones which has not been too much help since there are a lot of background noices. My teacher has given me a microphone from her house which is a relief for me since it is better and it is much more easier for me to hear myself when I play back the audio. There also has been another problem, the microphone does not work on all computers which meant that I had to keep switching computers to see if the microphone would work on that computer.

Draft Film Review

Research/film review

Today I worked on my review for my film. Firstly I did a little research on film reviews to get an Idea on what it looks like and what makes it a film review. I took a look at several film review examples on google. From the research that I did all the film reviews I looked at gave a brief summary of the events that happens in the film. I also realized that depending on the target audience and the market it is written for there are several different things that you should keep in mind during the writing a film review. Firstly the age group of the film. This is very important because you should always base your film review on the target audience. For example a review for a school magazine would warrant a different writing process than a magazine that is enjoyed by adults. For a children’s magazine, the review will need to be quite punchy. It should not be too long or contain material that the age group would not understand. Writing for a young audience often proves to be harder than writing for adults. With adult writing there is less need to omit images that are controversial. It is very important not to make the review more formal than it should be or less formal.

The second step I found was that there has always got to be a synopsis in the review. This gives a brief summary of what the story/film is about. Given your own opinion on how you think about the film should come at this stage too. When I started writing my review for my film I took all these points into consideration. Firstly I had to make sure that the review I was writing will suit the target audience. Since my film is an urban realist film and the main characters are teenager I thought that the appropriate age group wild be from 13-20. I Wrote the synopsis of the film first before writing my opinion on the film

Draft poster for film

This is the poster that I have made for my film. I used photoshop to design the poster because I am more used to using photoshop than I am using Microsoft Publisher. I used images from my film for the poster. I did this by opening Adobe Premier and freeze framing the bit that I would like to use for the poster and then copy and paste it on to Photoshop. I thought tht these pictures wer very effective because of the facial expressions that they make and also their posture. I took a look at feature length film posters such as aldulthood to see how they used their images. I think the images give away what is to come of the film and it also gives it an urban realist look. I did some work on the poster at home since I have Photoshop on my computer to make some improvements to it.

I created my own logo on Photoshop because if I used and existing logo for example Warner Bros then it would be copywriting. I also got the background from Photoshop. I thought this background is appropriate for poster because the film has it fair share of disfunction and problems and thi bckground seems like it defines that.

I used the layout of the Adulthood poster as the title is underneath the images. I did this to follow the code and conventions of the film since it is an Urban Realist film. I think that the font of the title is very appropriate since the main characters are fairly young. The graphitic look gives a sence to the audience that it is an Urban Realist film and the characters are going to be fairly young.

I still have more work to do on this poster as I need to add 1 more character the the poster and re arrange the size of the images so it can all fit in.

Film Reviews

I have been researching on film reviews and how they are written and the type of language they use. I will be doing a film review after I have finished editing my film. I looked at a couple of film reviews on others blogs and and I looked at different links for example www.creativereview.co.uk When I looked into someones blog they had a film review of the new Harry Potter film. This is a full feature length film. I have taken a look at Shane Meadows website because he has done a lot of 0f short films but I could not find any film reviews for the films that he had done on his website.

research on differents fonts for films

Today I have been researching on the different kind of fonts that suit the type of genre or the type film. I have been looking at this because I would need to know what kind of fonts would be suitable for my poster that I am doing at the moment. Since I have chosen an urban realist film to produce I had to make sure that my poster would be appropriate to advertise the film. I took a look at severtal urban realist films. I took a look at the fonts of bullet boy, kidulthood and This is England. Each film poster have their own unique style of selling their film. All of them have different fonts and it is well suitable for the film. I have taken some of the ideas of This is England with the image of the 5 stars on the poster and putting quotation on top of it to give it a sense that it was a viewer that watched it. I have created my own font because I did not think that any of the fonts that I looked at was appropriate for my film. For the title I used a graphitic type of style to give it a urban realist look.

Making Poster for Film

In my last media lesson I spent my time making my poster for the film the I was making. Firstly I went on google to research on the different types of posters that urban realist films have. I did ths because I too am doing an urban realist short film so I thought it would be good to look at the key codes and convention of th poster. The research I did was done in order to ive me an idea of how I should make my poster. Ichecked out a couple of urban realist film posters such as This is England, Bulletboy and Adulthood. I looked at the use of colours that was shared on the poster, the ue of imagery and I also took look at the way the page is layed out. It was very interesting to see how each of the urbn realist film posters I looked at had their own unique style to it however you could tell that it was an urban realist film. The use of props and colour that was used in these posters were very deliberate in order to give away the type of genre te film is without actually having to watch the film.To create my poster I used Photoshop because I ammore comfortable with using it. Firstly I looked at the type of fonts that these posters had so that I could try to follow the key code and conventions of the genre. I chose a font for the title before looking at the realistic posters. I learnt tht the fonts are very crucial when making the poster because it has to suit the genre of your film and what your film is about. In my film the main charcter is a teenage boy and a 12 year old boy and the type of font I chose seemed to lok very victorian which did not suit th style ofmy film or the genre. It came to my attension that I shuld have a kind of youthful graphitic look to the title and this worked out much better as i does suit the style of the film and als suit the genre.

I have not finished the poster because I only had an hour. I have made a bit of progress with itby adding the casts names and also the directors names. I will be working on the poster more so that I can get it out of the way and concentrate more on editing the film.

Research on urban realist Posters

In this poster it has all the main characters of the film. I can instantly tell it is an urban realist poster because of the type of colour they have used, the props they have and the posture of the characters. The clothing that they are wearing is what teenagers wear today. The hoodies and the skirts makes it obvious to realise that it is an urban realist. The pose and the posture of the characters are also a dead give away. We know that these are teenagers because normally adults do not screw face or frown and the way the stand is as if they run everything, like they are untouchable. The have a baseball bat on the floor which is a weapon in this film and normally it is teenagers that use this prop as a weapon.

This poster also has all the main characters in the film similarly to the adulthood poster. But this poster is fairly different of the way it is layed out and presented. The title is at the top of poster while the picture of the charcters is beneath it, however this is not the case with the adulthood poster as the picture of the character are at the top while the title of the film is at the bottom of it. It is ironic how the title of this is called this is england and they have the title in the colours of the england flag which is very clever.

Bulleboy poster is different to the two posters that I have already discussed about. This poster has a huge picture in the middle and as the title of the film on the photo however it does have the main character on the page. the layout is very different it has its writing at the left hand side of the page while the other two have there writing at the centre of the page. This poster and and teh adulthood pster seems fairly plan while the this is England poster seems like there are more things on their page

Editting session #2

I recently edited my film on friday with my partner. We had to upload everything that we did on the cameras because we started all over again due to some minor complications. Due to the fact that one of our camera batteries died out on us while filming we had to use another camera which meant that we had to upload our film on two seperate cameras. It took us a while to upload the filming that we had on both camera because we had our old filming on one of the cameras and we thought that we had lost our recent filming. It took us a least five to ten minutes to find the filming that we wanted and we uploaded it on the computer. When we came to edit our film we noticed that some areas of the film the camera lense was very bright and we could not see the charcters face properly in some of the medium shots that we took. My partner and I took several shots of that scene which was good because we could chose and figure out which shot was good and which shot was bad.

I expect to finish the editing of the film by next week as I am going to spend a lot of time puting the film together. I am getting the hang of editing the film i feel ver comfortable doing it. I have not had any kind of problem thus far.

Filming session #2

My partner and I wer filming today and we manged to get everything done. One of our characters had a hair cut and also was not wearing his uniform today which ment that we had to re-shoot the whole film again. This was very frustrating for us because we had only one scene left to do. We did our first scene again which was a bit of a struggle because it was ment to be just outside a school however there was a lot of vans and buses around which got in our way of filming. We had to re-shoot the same scene at least four or five times because we wanted to do a medium shot of the main character but the big vehicle got in the way of it several times. Eventually we got the scene right and this allowed us to progress further on. Our characters were prepared to stay with us for as long as they could in order for us to get our film finished. My partner and I decided to put moe shots in the film so that when we come to edit our film again we can choose which shots we liked or did not like.

The sun was very bright today and it got in the way of our film because the screen was to bright. At one point we could not see anything and we had to wait a few minutes until the sun went down. Our casts/characters were very supportive and helped us to come up with ways to resolve the problem of the brightness. We had to reposition the camera several times in order to capture the camera angle and also to get it away from the sunlight. This took us a while to adjust but we got there in the end and we got the first scene out of the way.

In our second scene we recorded in a park that was very close to the school. It had all the resources that we needed to do our filming. All we needed was a children's area with swings and it had that. This time there was complications with the casts and we got straight to filming the scene. The only problem was the sun, but we took care of that problem by putting paper over the camera. It took us at least 30 minutes to finish the second scene. All of our casts were wearing different clothes even though we told them that we would be filming today but that did not stop us from filming. As time was running out my partner and I knew that we had to finish the film today so that we can just concentrate on editing the film. The swings in the park were frosty and there were a bit of ice around the swing seats. We had to rub all the ice of because the film would not flow properly otherwise. In our first scene the ground was pretty dry so in order for the film to flow we coulnt have ice in it. We managed to finish the second scene without any complications or problems.

For the final scene we needed to film in a house. There was a house inside the school which was very helpful because it was appropriate and available for us to use. This scene did not take as long as the others because everybody was very organised and everybody knew what to do. The only problem was that the house did not have a sofa which meant we had to film the inside of the house somewhere else. We chose to film in the year 10 room in the school because there was a sofa. We filmed a couple of shots of the scene.

During our filming the camera battery died out and this caused a lot of people to panik. Luckily i had a spare camera and we managed to finish everything on that camera. It took us a long time to get this film finished but now we have we can concentrate on editing the film.

In conclusion

Editing session #1

Yesterday my partner an I got to edit bits of ouur film. I found thsi really exciting because it allowed me to discuss with my partner which bits we need or we dont need and how we can make pur film flow accordingly. We had to connect the camera to the computer in order for it to read it. The Software that we used for filming is called Adobe Premier. Once we used the computer to upload the filming that we did from the camera the first step was to place them in order. For some reason the film was not in order even though we shooted the first scene first and the second scene second. The second thing that my partner and I did was to take out the bits of film that w did not need or the bits that would make the film seem longer than it should be. This part was a bit tricky for us because there were a few bits that that we did not need from the film but it was a second of the film that we did not need. We struggled on that bit untill our teacher showed us a very easy way to get rid of it. There were headphones for me to put on to listen to the dialogue. During the process of listening to the dialogue I heard some strange noises that the camera was picking up. I was not sure what it was. I thought that it had something to d with the actual camera never the less I took that bit out so that there would be no strange noises during the film.

In conclusion I thought that so far the editing went very smoothly considering how my teachers were sayin how tough editing was going to be. We managed to get our flim in order and also maged to cut out most of the bits that we do not need. We need to improve on the flow of the film because the cuts on it is to instant and sharp and this is causing the film not to flow properly but that can easily be fixed.

Filming sesion #2

Yesterday my partner and I got the opportunity to do some of our filming with our casts. We decided that w were going to shoot th second scene of our film. One of our actors was runing and hour late which ment that we had to wait for an whoole hour for him Eventually our cast arrived but then our main character luric had an exam in the hall which ment that we could not shoot most of the scene. This was a very big let down because we had planned to finish the whole scene by that day and the fact that he told ushat he had an exam very late was a bit annoying for everyone however this didn't stop us from shooting the film. There were some bits where we did not need Luric so instead which filmed those bits. What made things even more difficult was that Luric got a hair cut and it is very visible to see that. If we filmed him yesterday it would hae made abig problem because the film would not have flown properly. my partner and I have alreasy done some filming with Luric so if we hd to shoot him again he would look totaly different which is why my partner and I decided that we either need to shoot the fist scene again or make a bit where he has to put on a hat in order to cover up the obvious change.

Despite all the major upsetsto us, filming went quite well. Our characters were superb in acting and we didn't really struggle while shooting. My partner and I took multiple shots of each sections of the scene so that when we come to edit the film we will ave multiple choices of which one looks or seems better. There were some things hat we had o cover up whilst shooting. My partner forgot one of the props which ment that we had to pretend that we had it. The prop was ment to be paracetamol in a plastic bag which was ment to to be disguised as drugs. However this did not bring us down as the characters played the part very well and it is not noticable that we did not have the prop.

When shooting we hd a slight problem with the camera because everytime the wind was blowing really hard the camera moved ever so slighlty which caught the attention of something that we did not need. We had to djust the camera several times and we waited till the wind stoped and then we started to film. Our teachers warned us that the camera will pick up unneccesary noices that we did not need for example the wind and because the wind was strong I was afraid that we would not hear the dialogue of the characters. There were some areas of the film where our characters forgot their lines whic ment that we had to cut and re film that area.

Overall it was a hug lose that we could not finish the second scene due to the fact that our main character Luric had an exam to go to and also that he got his hair cut but never the less we got some of our filming done. What my partner and I would have to do nw is to get Luric and Harry together so that we can shoot their bit which is only a small bit so we should be able to do that. We also have to make up a bit where Luric has to wear a hat on to cover his haircut and then the second scene will be over and done with.

Today's Media Lesson

In today's Media lesson I was supposed to be editing my film but I cannot do that because the film that I am making is not finished. Since the start of this course I have been having problems with casts. I was ment to film last week but my casts have not been available for the proccess of shooting to happen. This has affected me hugely as now I have not got a lot of time left to film. Moreover my partner has not been well for a couple of weeks now which is slowing down the proccess of filming. Since I am working with a partner I cannot film by myself. I have asked one of my teachers if I was aloud to take it into my own hands to get the film finished but they told me that you cannot do it by yourself since you have a partner. The film that I and my partner are producing has to be finished by this wednesday which is a big problem for me because I still have a long way to go. I have three scenes in the film and my partner and I have only managed to film the first scene. Yesterday i called my partner and told her that we have to start filming on Tuesday. It is crucial that we get some filming done on tuesday because we have only got till wednesday to finish it. What I am hoping to do is to finish filming everything by Tuesday so we can start editing our film on Wednesday. Editing is going to take a long time to do which is why we need to get everything done fast. It has been really frustrating for me because I always manage to have a downfall to why I cannot shoot my film. Either my casts are not available or my partner is ill. I have already filmed the first scene which is why I cannot use anybody else to cast the film.; I had a backup plan to who was going to be the cast of the film in case my original casts do not make it but I cannot use them anymore.

Filming session #

On friday my partner and I I started to shoot the first sceen of our film with the director Tunji. At first we thought that we were not going to shoot on that day because our casts that we chose to be in our film were late. Eventually two of our main characters came and one of them could not turn up because he was ill. This caused a lot of problems for my partner and I and because we needed to shoot that day we had to find another cast quickly in order to shoot. Tunji told us that finding another cast will not be easy because we needed a boy that was young in a school uniform and we will have to get permission from the head of year and also the parents. My partner and I found a boy that would suit our film and luckly he agreed to do it and we got permission from his parents and also the head of year. We were ment to start shooting at nine o'clock but due to the fact that our casts were very late and one was ill we had to start shooting our film at ten. The problem with this was that we only had the help of the director for two hours, from nine till eleven but this was now cut short to one hour so we had to get filming very quickly.

My main aim was to get throught two scenes but we could only get one scene done which was a bit annoying but we then suggested that we were going to film both scene 2 and scene 3 this week so that we would not fall behind in scheduel. During the process of filming we had to do a number of shoots for each shot just to make sure that when we come to edit our film we have a choice of which shot we like. Tunji told us that everytime we shoot a scene, we should press the record button and wait for 5 seconds before we shout action and the casts beging acting, he also said that when we hav finished shooting we should wait five more seconds afterwards so that when we come to edit our film it will give us time to cut out the bits we do not need. I think that the first scene went really well due to our brilliant acting of the casts and a little help from Tunji. Tunji was showing us the best way to postion a camera at certain times and it worked perfectly.

I thought that I had a really good session of shooting the film on friday because the weather was not very bad but it was quite low key lighting and this is how I wanted it to be because I wanted that to reflect the boys lives. I will have to make sure that when I go to shoot the next scene the weather will be exactly the same otherwise the film will not flow properly.

My shooting schedule for this week is uncertain because my partner is ill which means I will now have to do things myself and also it depends if my casts will be able to make it. I will have to make sure that my casts are wearing the exact same thing that they wore on friday so that the film flows properly. It is crucial that I get all my scenes done this week so that I can start editing my film next week. I have made arrangements with my casts to film on saturday and it this is fine by all my casts which means that day should be the last day that I film. I will need to find a day this week other than saturday when I can film and I will need to make sure that my casts are available.

So what I am planning to do this week is to have finished shooting my film and then next week start editing it. One of the issues that I am having with filming this week is that the weather might not be the same and I will need the right facilities for that day. Tunji told me that the cameras that we are using are not really very up to standard in terms of sound. My film needs a lot of dialogue which means that the chracters will need to know their lines and be very clear in what they are saying, however Tunji told me that the camera will pick up every other sound that there is around. The problem with that is I will have to put the camera quiet close to them if I want to pick out their voice. If there is another sound coming from somewhere else and it is very loud then it will overtake what my characters has to say which means I will have to shoot that scene again.

This week am going to be more organised because I have learnt from my mistakes from last week. Before I filmed my scene I did not have any of the characters numbers which means that I did not have a way to contact them on the day. If I did have their numbers then I would be able to know if they were pulling out or they are still going ahead with filming with my partner and I. I havce found out that it is my responsibility to see whether they are ready to film or not instead of putting the responsibility on them. This week I am going to make sure that I contact all my casts in order to make sure that they are going to shoot the next scene.

My partner has been ill for quiet a while so I will not know if she be well enough to shoot with me on the day which means that I will need a back up partner to help me. I have already chosen a back up partner and he said that he is very happy to help me if my partner will not make it.

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