Wednesday 1st April

During tuesday I used the audience feedback to help make half the powerpoint presentation. The answers we received were clear and helpful. Then this morning jordan added half her of the presentation to mine.

In todays lesson we showed our powerpoint to the class and were recorded on a camera whilst presenting. I think it went well and we each went through a slide and then at the end put all our views and ideas together and ended up having a  conversation almost. We talked about the problems we encountered during filming and how we could improve.

We printed off our powerpoints and handed in our final portfolio. 

Monday 30th

In today's lesson we presented our film opening to the class and got students to fill in evaluation sheets on our product. I think it that it went well and from the evaluation sheets we can use the information in our evaluation powerpoint on wednesday. Jordan and I also got some feedback from Sir after lesson which was useful.

Final Product

During monday after school and tuesday Jordan and I edited all the new film and recorded a voice over on it. We also put a soundtrack on the film. We thought that our second attempt at the opening was much more of a success than the first as we applied more codes and conventions of a romantic comedy, for example costume and voice over.

In todays lesson, Friday 27th March, we handed in both our preliminary task and film opening burnt onto a disk, and I handed in my portfolio of work. I think having to re-film made it much more difficult as we had to produce a new storyboard.

Filming of our Rom Com

After school thursday last week, our group got together along with the entire cast and filmed all of the footage we needed for out project. We found it difficult to stick to the storyboard however once we got everything done it was okay.

However the clips we filmed from thursday didn't make sense to the conventions of a romantic comedy as the costume and plot didn't seem right. This lead us to having to completley re-think our idea and film again today on Monday 23rd march. We managed to get everything filmed within the school and i took a camera home to film certain elements we needed.

Tomorrow we will hopefully put our footage together again to see if this is more of a success than the previous attempt.

Wednesday 11th March

In todays lesson as a group we construced a casting list of people we want to feature in our clip. We tried to use people availble around our scheduling time and people we know who will be reliable to help the filming run smoothly.

We also constructed a filming schedule of times and places when we will film certain shots. We deicded to try and get the majority, if not all, of the filming done in one afternoon because we felt different filming times would be difficult as people may have different costumes, the setting and weather might not be the same etc.

Completed storyboard

In mondays single lesson, we completed our storyboard as a group. We decided to split it up into 3 main sections. In total, we have 26 shots. Predominantly set in school within a class room.

We tried to make it realistic settings to film in and contain a range of camera movements/shots.

Friday 6th March

In todays lesson we delivered our pitch on our romantic comedy "The date" powerpoint presentation. I think we could have gone into more detail with the synopsis however i think that after summarizing the ideas it made it easier for us to begin to storyboard. 

Also, other people suggested a few ideas for our film to make it better and we took these in to account. We have made a brief plan on our storyboard and then we will have to put it into diagrams next lesson. 

Friday 27th february

In today's lesson after completing our preliminary task, we were given a new task of planning a pitch for our film. We had to include:

• A complete film synopsis
• Script for the opening scene
• Detailed description of the opening scenes
• Character profiles
• Power point presentation on the summary of our ideas

We worked well as a group and decided to plan first on paper, and then type up our ideas on to the powerpoint. We typed the script up separately on word. I think the task was helpful in getting all our ideas together and finding the strengths and weaknesses of the codes & conventions we had chosen.

Evaluation of preliminary task 23rd February

When given the preliminary task, i had ideas that the exercise would be fairly easy and straight forward, however during the task i found elements such as places to film and times to film more difficult than first anticipated. Also we came across problems when we had to re-film because of the tape not working properly.

During pre production, as a group we constructed a storyboard, however when the filming was taking place i found that we rarely referred back to it which we probably should have. We tried to ensure that we had planned the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot in our video. Also i think that our ideas were much more unrealistic to the props and setting we would be able to use for example televisions, coffee tables and kitchens were not available to us within school.

When filming, the room we chose to film in was not as spacious as we first planned and it made it hard to use the tripod. Also we found it difficult to work out how to connect the camera to the tripod. However once we had started filming it was fairly easy to keep going. The 2nd time we re-filmed due to the tape getting stuck in the camera, the room was bigger and i found this a major help and it was much easier to get the shots we needed. When filming we tried to ensure the framing was correct and that when we filmed shot reverse shot that the characters were still in the same place as before. I think overall our work was much improved the second time we filmed, and we worked well as a group delegating tasks.

In todays lesson on the 25th we uploaded our video onto the computers and edited. We found it difficult to get the shots in order and to make the video flow at first, showing us we needed to refer to our storyboards more. We did have enough clips to choose the best out of them and this was a major help. We found that cutting most of the clips shorter was something we had to do repeatedly and in the end all the clips flowed. However, overall we thought the video was a success and decided not to use any effects, such as fades in, as it was fine without. The general editing was fairly simple to do and the video has been uploaded onto youtube.

The Video:

Url:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToxFegm5E7A

Friday 13th

In todays lesson we hoped to upload our video on the computer to edit, however we experienced problems with the camera and had to re-record our preliminary task clip.

After we recorded it for the 2nd time we uploaded it onto the computer and next week we should be able to edit and fix anything we don't think fits.

I found the complications with the recording difficult and need to ensure the same problems don't occur when we are filming our main film opening.

Preliminary Task

On monday 9th, in our lesson we were given the preliminary task in groups to plan our short clip. I found it fairly easy, and working as a group helped maximize ideas. We constructed a short storyboard, making sure the setting and props were realistic to what we could use.

On wednesday 11th, during our double we filmed in the photography room. The task took longer than expected and we had to record certain things twice, however we got all the filming done. We decided to make our clip around the romantic comedy genre.

I think that the task has been useful to allow us to understand how much work has to be done for the main opening of the film. Also we realized we worked well as a group, and this will set us up for the main project.

Friday 6th February

In todays lesson i completed my powerpoint on institutions.

I decided to focus on Universal Pictures as it's a major production company for my specified genre of romantic comedy. I found it useful to look at the films they have already produced, focusing on the history but also the distribution and budget of the company.

After, myself and Jordan began to look at our summary of findings presentation that we can produce in groups, however it's proving difficult as the information we need to provide is unclear to us.

I think it will be useful though as it will be a finalization  of all our ideas for the romantic comedy.

Powerpoint Presentation

Today i delivered my powerpoint presentation to the class about my findings on generic codes and conventions of romantic comedies.

I found that 2 out of the 3 films i analysed were infact teen romantic comedies, therefore differed from the codes of a typical romantic comedy.

I now feel confident that i know the basic ideas such as setting, characters and narrative that need to be applied to a romantic comedy.

I found the task useful, however i don't always feel confident speaking out loud to a group so i think it helped me achieve more confidence.

Summary of films

Over the weekend i managed to finish all 3 film anaylsis and i found the task quite difficult to begin with.

I have finished all 5 openings and 3 film anaylsis and during this lesson i was able to construct a powerpoint presentation on the main codes and convetions of a romantic comedy.

I found common generic codes in the essays i had written.

Final draft of 5 film analysis

I finished the analysis of my 5 romantic comedies and found it helpful to identify generic codes in the genre.

Each film had key stock characters and stock settings that teen audiences can easily relate to.

Also i found it easy to apply both Propp and Todorovs narrative theories to each film.

Now i have started to analyze 3 main films:

1. A cinderella story
2. 10 Things i hate about you
3. The holiday

I should be able to use the information gathered from the 5 opening to extract key codes and conventions that apply to all romantic comedies.

Analysis of 5 openings

In today's lesson i chose 5 romantic comedies that i wanted to analyse the openings of. I decided to go with:

• 10 things i hate about you
• She's all that
• John Tucker must die
• Sex and the city
• A Cinderella story

I found the results for the questionnaire very helpful in deciding what genre of film to choose.

Questionnaire Results in powerpoint

After collecting all my results from my questionnaire i was able to determine my target audience for the film.

I found the most popular genre among audiences i asked was comedy and romantic comedy indicating to me for the film to be successful i need to take into account what genre audiences prefer. The least popular genre turned out to be Science fiction and i wasn't too surprised by this as the majority of people i asked where female and stereotypically Sci-fi's appeal to males.

I decided on a target audience of females around the age of 17, who are students. I think i can do well with this decision as i am similar to the audience criteria and therefore can input ideas that relate to myself and audience in.

Overall i have concluded to appeal to my target audience through a romantic comedy.

Essay

In Wednesday's lesson in our groups we constructed a essay with all 4 of our results from our questionnaires. It helped us to be able to generalize as we had more results that were similar and showed us common patterns and trends.

However it did prove difficult to begin with as the questions were quite different and this made it hard for us to relate to each others questions. Overall though it was a very useful task.

It also helped me see how i could have improved my questionnaire by asking different questions about audiences film expectations.

 

Keep on Blogging

Hi Laura

Well done for getting this up and running. Make sure you are using this as a reflective activity and linking your ideas to the purpose of the production unit. I look forward to watching and sticking my oar in as and when it's needed. Keep working hard Laura - you're doing fabulously!!

Thanks for the invite Laura! Keep working hard!

HBA

Audience Questionnaire

I have completed my audience questionnaire. I had to make some changes to ensure the questions were relevant to what information i needed to find. For example i decided to take out questions involving viewing habits in the cinema because i didn't feel it would affect peoples film choice. Overall i think the questions are a success and are a good quantity to ask without gathering unnecessary information.