Grade A!

As each and every group had now produced a final cut, we spent a lesson looking at each groups final thriller opening and peer assessing them in order to help them write our own evaluations. In addition to this, our teacher gave us the grade he believes we achieved and gave us final feedback of what we did well / what we could have improved.

After watching each opening, our teacher revealed our grade, along with the list of what we did well / improvements that could have been made. Our teacher then gave each group a large piece of paper, on which each of the other groups would write 3 comments about your final cut for you to ponder.

Grade achieved: A



Positives
+ Good tilt shot.
+ Good POV shot.
+ Music was a lot better and much more engaging.
+ Pace of editing with music and narrative worked really well, editing was generally really good.
+ Effective tilt.
+ Smooth transitions.
+ Good variety of shots - keeps audience engaged.
+ Good choice of location.
+ Steady camera work.


Negatives
- Last 10 seconds wasn't as smooth, in terms of editing.
- Narrative was a little slow and not engaging.
- Font of titles could have been better.

In addition to the feedback we receive in class, we though we'd make a 'Facebook' group in order for people outside our AS media class to view it. This will help us evaluate our media product sufficiently as we will be gaining the views of people of all different ages, meaning we can see if it appeals to our intended target audience more than others, We can also gain the opinions of other media students from different years and schools, who will be able to analyse it like an official media text.

[Click the Facebook link below to go to the 'Tracker - AS Media Coursework' group page]

Finally Up - Tracker - Final Cut

[Make sure you click on the 'HQ' button for a higher quality video]

This is the final cut of my AS Media Thriller opening entitled tracker. The additional footage as well as any shots that needed to be changed / re-shot have been added and edited to improve the overall flow and development of the narrative. However, there were still some more shots needed and some that we deemed unsatisfactory. Firstly, we were still unable to capture a smooth, pan across Gerrards Cross for a professional-looking establishing shot, and any attempt made our opening appear very amateur, as the camera-work wasn't steady a all. So after looking over the copious amounts of takes, we decided against putting the shot in. Secondly, we failed to re-shoot a reaction shot of Andy as Sebh escapes on the train, thus having to settle for a sub-standard shot that lacks the dramatic effect needed. With more time, I feel that we would of been able to obtain all of the shots that we needed which would leave me one hundred percent satisfied with the final cut.

In addition to changes in the footage, we also though a change of music was needed, as our original, up-beat musical score simply wasn't working. I found a copyright-free piece of music from the Internet, which works much better as it slowly builds the tension which helps hold the audiences attention. This is good as it also fits the conventions of a typical thriller more than our original music.

Overall, I am very pleased with how the final piece turned out. After much fine tuning, I feel the narrative flows, the shots we used work well, and the music helps to build tension, which is a key aspect of the thriller genre. The camera work seems steady throughout, and the titles appear clearly, without drawing focus away from the footage. Additionally, by adding things such as the name of the production company, individual from the main opening, we have achieved a more professional-looking film opening.

Difficulties With Exporting

After completing the final editing of my thriller opening, I needed to export it and publish it on to the Internet to be able to include it on the blog, as well as allow my peers to review it and give me constructive feedback.

However, an error warning kept appearing every time I tried to export it from iMovie (I was advised to first export it from Adobe Premier Pro, then import it into iMovie, then export it as iMovie allows the footage to be exported as a smaller file size to better suit its Internet purposes). I was unable to resolve this, but will be persistent and keep trying to export it as it is vital that the final cut be on the Internet.

9/04/09 - Required Improvements and Last Minute Changes

On the final day of school before the half-term, I had to leave early in order to catch my lift home, so I left the exporting of the final cut to one member of my group. However, unknown by me, they were unable to do so.

My teacher therefore contacted me to ask about the final-cut, and I was asked to go i today to do some last-minute editing and then hand it to him. After watching how I left it on the final day, it was evident that further changes were needed, and a lot of time needed to be shed off in order to meet the 2 minute requirement. Firstly, I began trimming down the lengths of shots, as well as re-ordering them so the flow of narrative became much more tense and engaging. Shortly after, I was joined by the other members of my group - so with their input, we made any agreed changes and then began on the titles. Our teacher had advised us that the titles shouldn't always appear in the same place, so we took this advice on board and changed the location of each title over the footage, and also added more in to make our opening seem more realistic.

After a solid few hours of editing, our final-cut was complete to the standard we were all happy with. So we handed the final piece to our teacher so he could mark it and give us some feedback to include in our evaluation.

1/04/09 - Final Day - Last Minute Fine Tuning

Yesterday was the very last day of filming four our thriller opening. Although I could not make it to the shoot, the other members of my group were successful in obtaining every shot from the list given to us by our teacher (see blog post '19/03/09 - Feedback and Further Improvements'). The members of my group were sure that the footage shot was of a high standard and would be more than enough to be able to finalize our opening.

Today, with the new footage uploaded on to the Mac, we began editing and add last-minute touches to improve the standard of our piece. We began by adding the new footage in order to see exactly what we had in terms of amount and quality of the footage, and put it into the correct order - adjusting length of shots to improve the flow of the narrative and keep to the two minute requirement for the coursework.

Following this, we made a group decision that the music just didn't work. So we decide to get rid of 'Nina Simone - Sinnerman' and find a new, tense, and more engaging piece. I searched the Internet for copyright-free music and found the perfect piece of music. It slowly builds the tension by become louder and faster, so by matching the footage on screen to the music, we were able to make a much more engaging opening.

When the footage was fully edited and the sound matched it accordingly, titles were next. For this, we used Adobe After Affects as it allows some really professional titles effects to be applied, helping to achieve a high standard piece of work. As our thriller is based in a business / work associated location, and the characters look like businessmen themselves, we decided to go with simple, modern looking titles - that were both effective yet not too dominant, as this would draw focus.

Finally, we acquired the help of a fellow media student to teach us some basic skills in Adobe Flash. This is because we wanted to make some professional looking titles for our cinema and production company. They will appear at the very beginning of the opening, before the actual footage starts, as is seen in most professional movies,

19/03/09 - Feedback and Further Improvements

After watching our opening, Mr Michie (Media Teacher) gave us a sheet with helpful feedback including the good points and bad points regarding our thriller.

Overall, we achieved 30 marks out of 60. This results in a level 2 mark band giving us a D grade.

Feedback:
- Camera work is mostly controlled and steady throughout although there is one / two small errors.
- Framing of shots is poor with many shots too far away.
- Some variety of shot distances is evident but this is limited to the first 60 seconds.
- A large portion of the material is the same and this makes it a very boring film - there is no sense of pace of narrative structure.
- Mise-en-scene has been clearly thought out with the effective choice of location, dress and props.
- Editing is competent - there is considerable scope for improvement here which will also improve pace and continuity.
- Shot transitions are mostly ok but they need work - again this is directly connected to the sequencing and continuity of the piece.
- Diegetic sound and non-diegetic need significant improvement - the music feels simply placed on with little thought to how it fits the narrative structure.
- Titles have been well conceived and effectively distributed across the extract.

Targets for improvement:
- You need to cut a lot of material as it is way too long.
- You need to include a wider variety of shot distances and angles to convey meaning - particularly close ups. This will require some re-shooting.
- Some shots need to be held for longer.
- Confusing why Sehb simply sits down for about a second and gets back up again - this has very limited verisimilitude.
- The narrative structures needs to be addressed - this will be achieved by tightening up the editing.
- You need to incorporate the diegetic sound.
- You need to match the pace of the non-diegetic score the the pace of the extract.

My group has taken this feedback on board and will edit our opening accordingly, ultimately creating a better piece of work.

Class Evalutation

We spent a media lesson looking at each group's thriller so everyone could see what other group's had accomplished and offer them constructive criticism if needed. Each opening was shown, and in turn, was briefly evaluated by our teacher and the members of the class. In addition to this, our teacher asked us to rank each opening from best to worst, and the agreed order by the class was as follows:

1. 'Money' (Lewis Yates, Clare Martin and Lawrence Rayment)
2 (Joint). 'Next' (Emily Prescott, Amber Stubbings and Sebh Hundal), 'Reflections' (Andy Johnson, Georgia Shepard, Jade Stevenson and Charli Casey)
3. 'Disturbance of the Un-Woken' (Amber Gamble, Jamie Winter, Gemma Bicknell and Huw Harris)
4. 'Tracker '(Sophie Hogan, Helen Skipworth, Charlottle Looney and Myself)

Of course, I was unhappy with the fact that our group's opening was ranked as the worst, however, and unfortunately, I agreed with them. We now had 2 weeks to make final improvements that will result in the very final cut.