Question 1 - In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms and Conventions Of Real Media Products?

We watched many documentaries and mockumentaries films such as 'One Direction - This Is Us', 'Michael Jackson - This Is It' and 'Spinal Tap' where all three films conform with the theme of our film Comedy/Documentary, however Michael Jacksons and One Directions films was far more serious and more like a fly on the wall documentary whereas our film was more staged. We also watched some other films and television series that fit within the mockumentary style, such as 'The Office'. Watching these films and these televisions series enabled us to compare our own film and get inspiration for it to better our film and make it more comical. We related our film to some things to conform to the genre conventions to make our film stand out from all the others. To fully answer this question i have separated it into four sections: Narrative, Conventions, Characters and Style.

Narrative-  Levi Strauss devised a way of analysing narrative and studied hundreds of myths and legends all around the world, from that he found out that we as humans make sense of the world, people and events by seeing and using binary oppositions. He found out that narratives are arranged around the conflict of binary opposites. Basically that binary opposites are the central climax of a narrative structure. Using Strauss' theory, we set up an binary opposition: that Keith and C.Dot are so opposite in how they are and also how we would usually see a musical duo to be, they are the complete contrasts to this.

Another theory that we adopted in our film is that of Barthes' enigma code, this is five codes which are woven into any narrative. The main code we used was the 'Hermeneutic Code' which refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes a mystery to the viewer. The purpose of the author in this is typically to keep the audience guessing, arresting the enigma, until the final scenes when all will be revealed and all loose ends are tied off and closure is achieved.  This relates to our film because it raises questions such as, Why are these two characters together? How did they meet? Why was Keith in prison? What was the real reason why they broke up in the first place? Why are they back together?

Characters - Keith Abraham Lovesworth (One of the two protagonist)

Keith is presented as an extremely holy, church goer who has found himself and has been born again. We can tell this because of the clothes he wears,  which are very smart, simple and religious looking. We can also tell this by the way he speaks and what he says;' however later on in the opening sequence, you find out that Keith has been to prison which then juxtaposes what we thought we knew of him and does not make him as holy as we thought. The audience sees Keith as a very flamboyant character because of his monologue he has nearing the end of the opening, which  the shots of him walking, and when the camera pans down when he is lying on the grass are all shown over his speech, which the viewer found amusing when surveyed, therefore makes him loveable because the viewer knows that he's been to prison yet still found him funny.

C.Dot (The other protagonist)

C.Dot is presented at the start of the opening sequence as non-stereotypical singing partner, who happens to look like a harden criminal that grew up on the streets of London, which from the offset creates an amusing atmosphere as it contrasts Keith entirely as the viewer wonders how they got together as they are completely opposite. Later on in the sequence when C.Dot is looking in the mirror seriously, we still think he will be the serious tone to C.Dot which will continue throughout the whole of the opening sequence and my group all hoped to make the viewer think that they will not really learn much about him as we all hoped they would think he will be the guarded character out of the two. This all changes when he starts speaking because of the way he sounds as we find out that he is rather geeky with a bad stutter; which now makes the audience feel at ease with him as they find him more approachable.

Style: Titles

After doing a vast amount of research on various opening titles for the genre we wanted to create, Connor edited in the titles throughout the task and then added footage in to fit around it. We took inspiration from Justin Bieber's title openings, Michael Jacksons title opening and Spinal Tap's title opening. We wanted to take inspiration from these three films because we tried to keep within our specific genre when researching as we wanted to make it look as professional and as realistic to the three film openings as possible.

Mise En Scene

Costume: For our costumes, myself and Connor wanted to really stereotype the characters as we wanted our audience to be shocked when the two characters started to talk. We decided to dress Keith up all in black smart clothes and make him wear a dog collar, which implies that he is a vicar thus reinforcing the fact of him being extremely religious. For C.Dot, we decided that he should mainly wear hoodies, hats, sunglasses and a lot of gold chains to portray to the audience that he is some sort of gangster.
Actors: Our main actors are C.Dot and Keith, who are played by Connor and Nathan. They play a failed singing duo who won the X Factor and had hits all over the globe but then something happens which make the pair fall out, but now they are reforming the band for the biggest comeback of all comebacks.
Make-Up: We used no make-up during the filming of this opening sequence as we did not need to convey anyone being hurt (blood, gash).
Setting: The majority of our film opening is set indoors, we used the green screen a lot to emulate the allusion of being on stage singing to thousands of screaming fans. It was set in the outdoors for Keith as he loves God's gift to the world (mother nature) and for C.Dot the shots were mostly indoors in the recording studio to represent that he likes to make mix tapes.
Props: We used a microphone, a guitar, gold chains and sunglasses for our props. They all represent their musical back ground and their time in the spotlight.

Lighting:
During the majority of the filming process, we used natural light for Keith outdoors shots to make the film look more real to life. However, the majority of our lighting was the use of studio lights because it made our skin look better when in front of the green screen. Connor used an effect on Premier to make the first few shots in black and white to illustrate the failing of the band, this was pathetic fallacy as the emulated how Connor felt at the time.





Genre Conventions:
Our film challenges the traditional documentary conventions because it is mocking the music industry making it more amusing than serious and factual. It mocks celebrity life and pop culture.
Our film is extremely similar to the film Anchorman as they mock the news industry which makes it the most similar to ours as we are mocking the music industry, they both intertwine together because news and music are connected showing that we based our characters and the way they act on how actors/actresses act in Anchorman which is very sarcastic.

Question 2: how does your media product represent particular social groups?

Question 3: what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Question 4: who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 5: How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?

Question 6: what have you learnt about technologies from the process of contrasting this product?

Apple iMac 21.5 inch - 
This is the primary technology i used. This assisted me through the whole project, from planning to uploading the final project. I worked on OS X Yosemite, the systems operating system. With lightening fast processors and stunning graphics, this was the perfect platform to create our movie on. The only downside of the Mac's where their speeds when transferring video footage.




Windows Computer (Dell) -
Although most of the project based on the Mac's, i often used a computer for other tasks such as transferring footage from the camera to a memory disk. This was because the cameras which we used where designed to cater for a Windows based system meaning transfers where a significant amount faster. I chose not to use this platform to create our film on due do their less sensitive mouses which made fine editing harder than on the Mac's







Sony 8.9 Megapixel HD Handycam - 
This is the camera which we used to film the vast majority of footage needed for our opening. It proved extremely good at shots from afar, recording everything in detail. It was average for closer shots, struggling with some lighting. The feature to easily watch back footage directly on the camera was extremely useful as we could see it before the transfer, preventing any scene re-films. Its upload speeds were painfully slow on our primary PC,the Mac, although proved better on a Windows PC. We were pleased with how easy it was to attach to a tripod, making still shots easy for us to conduct.






Microphone -

From the start we wanted to record an original piece of music for the opening. We completed this using a microphone to capture a good sound quality. Although a difficult task to set up in the recording studio, we eventually managed it, recording the vocals for our soundtrack. Once placed on the computer (audacity) it provided us with a clean sound with minimal sound interference. 



Headphones - 
I used headphones in many different situations. They proved to be very helpful in the recording studio as it enabled us to listen to the soundtrack which we created (The Traamps - Rubberband mixed with The Game's - Hate It or Love It) whilst singing over it. This would mean the soundtrack wouldn't have to be played outlaid, reducing the quality. I also used them throughout the editing process in order to hear imperfections in the audio which i may not have heard if it were to be played out loud.



Tripod -
We used these to gain access to steady shots by attaching the camera to it. They seemed easy enough tho operate. The only criticism i would have is that they are fairly hard to manipulate in order to change angles of the shots, taking up a lot of time. They also were very stiff meaning it was difficult to move the camera during shots.



Lighting - 
When using the green screen, we decided to add lighting in order to create authentic looking footage. Although they were heavy, large and often in the way. We managed to work out the situation, placing it out of shot meaning the green screen would not be interfered with. They added a natural glow to our characters, also meaning the green screen footage was easy to UltraKey. 



iPhone (various models) -
These were our go to gadgets, whether it be researching on the go, recording voiceovers or emailing images. They were influential throughout the whole process making little tasks which may have been insignificant back then extremely easy. These little tasks built up to make the whole project, meaning this gadget was one of our biggest assets. The whole of the original soundtrack was entered around these phones. The lyrics had been written on it. The lyrics had been performed using it. The soundtrack had been played through it. It was an all-round winner. I have no criticisms for this piece of technology.



Audacity - 
I used this program to edit the majority of our sound. It provided a simple, yet effective platform which could provide easy sound editing for us. Despite this, the program was often glitchy and wound me up due to some outdated programming. The criticism is valid but it could be argued its designed for Windows 2000, a fifteen year old operating system. 



Youtube -
I used youtube multiple times. A primary example was for one of the visual effects in which the films characters' music video can be seen. It also aided me through the planning process as aided us in our film research. I would criticise that it often provided slow service and upload times but that was to be expected.

Safari - 
This was our research browser. It was another technology that was used throughout the project. Although often criticised as a slower, less supported browser, it seemed to fair well with everything we used it for. It was an obvious choice for our browser as it is native to the iMacs, meaning it was going to be speedy. This also was the home to many other of our technologies such as youtube, blogger and gmail.





Blogger -
We used blogger to document our work from the beginning to the finish. This included our film pitches, the planning leading to production and our final publishing. I would have to complain though, it lacked in user friendliness and was very unreliable. It was hard to navigate but all in all it done the job. 



iMessage/WhatsApp -
These are 2 messaging services me and my peers used to communicate both in and out of school. It allowed us to brainstorm and communicate when we were not with each other meaning we could cut out communication sessions in time where we could be doing other tasks.



Microsoft PowerPoint -
This was a great piece of software due to its wide variety of functions and user friendly image editing. Although it may not even be considered in the image editing world with titans such as Photoshop dwarfing it, this program saved me many hours. It cut down the time when creating graphics such as our flagship title scene. I would criticise that it was not as fast on the Mac's as on the Windows computers. This would be due to the fact it was created by Windows' makers.



Microsoft Word -
A program which we used to document a lot of the planning and evaluation. It enabled fast and effective word processing. The file sizes were small and easily transferable and media could be added if necessary.

Gmail -
Used infrequently but enough to be considered as one of our technologies. We often used it to mail larger files to each other but this wasn't often due to our different specialised fields. Mel completing the majority of the documents, Nathan filming and starring in the film and Connor editing kept us fairly separate with sharing documents and media. 

Adobe Photoshop CS6 -
I used this briefly to create our film poster. Although a lot of the media was manipulated on PowerPoint. This added some effects that cannot be accessed on PowerPoint like layering. I didn't use this program alot due to its large variety of unnecessary functions that i would not need.



Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 -
My best friend and my worst enemy. The single most important piece of technology in the process. I probably have got into the days where i have sat infant of a computer, tweaking an effect or changing a sound on this program. Before i started this course, i had no experience with this program but its safe to say i quickly learnt. With a huge variety of effects and features, this program is an editors dream. I started with the basics, importing all of our footage and setting it up. Organising took a lengthy amount of time but we managed it. Once this had been complete, i started playing with effects in order to learn what the program was capable of. Key moments of our film were made possible by this program, for example the image based titles. It allowed me to green screen, with great success. It allowed me to fade, distort and change both image and sound with great success. And finally it allowed me to create my film with great success. The program performed in most fields but burdened me with rendering, and unless i frequently rendered, i couldn't watch the previews. Within the entirety of the project, 1/3 of it was rendering. Other small problems were the length of time needed to change colours using the 3-way colour wheel, not providing me with a preview once i had, and minor UltraKey problems in which the background would show over the upper layer, although this was easily fixable. All in all it served me very well despite its time consuming.

Question 7: looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

How did you find the preliminary task and what was the hardest thing to overcome?

I found the prelim task to be challenging due to the limited time we had and the lack of locations we had access to. We also found it difficult because we had some previous experience with the Premier software but not enough for us to make the film look as good as we would have hoped. I felt that the camera shots we used were easy to film and we were very successful in doing so, I also found it easy to create a tense atmosphere when we used the flickering shots at the end of the film as we found the perfect location and we were very happy with the shot.
I would say the  hardest thing to overcome would be using Premier, I was not the best at using the software and I wish I had more time to spend editing the film as I think I could have done much better and made it look more professional and considering the amount of time I had, I was quite happy with the outcome.

Were you happy with the prelim task?

I would say that i was not completely happy with the final outcome of the short film as i felt we did not use our time wisely and we didn't a sufficient amount of different locations that no one would recognize. I felt we were limited to the amount of filming we could do because of the time of day and it was at a difficult time in the year when it got dark very quickly in the afternoon/evening when we needed shots in daylight. However considering the amount of time I had to edit and film I was not disappointed with the outcome.

How is your final film opening better than your final prelim task?

I found that being in a group with someone different and that has lots of experience using the software to an excessive level was very helpful and made us use our time more sufficiently. We also took a lot more time to film different shots many times until we were happy with the ones we got, we used a lot more range of shots and used the Premier software to enhance our opening sequence. We were not limited to time because we filmed inside for most of the shots which eliminated the difficulty of filming in daylight.

What do you think you have learnt from completing the coursework?

I have learnt how to use my time more wisely when planning, filming, and editing we were able to work together well and each of us were better at some things than others which evened out the work between us. We found the group that we were most comfortable with and who we worked the best with making it much easier to divide the work between us easily and decide who is best at what. I found that with all our different skills we made a good group that all got on well and worked at a very good level. Although some aspects of the planning, filming, and editing did take longer than expected they did all get finished and we were all very happy with the final outcome of our film opening. By bringing all of our ideas in together we all had our own input in parts of the opening meaning we were all happy with the final piece.

Poster of The Disciples: Back On The Block

The next step in my process was creating a poster for the movie. This was much harder than i first thought it would be due to the difficulty with fonts on the Mac. The font i used as the primary title was native toWindows meaning i had to externally install it on the Mac. Once i had, i found it difficult to manipulate due to the slowness of the Mac comprehending what was asking it to do. Eventually i found a way to speed this up: by converting the text to a picture and changing it from there. The end product can be seen below. It draws inspiration for the Dark Knights film poster with aspects of it being imitated.

Planning

Special Graphics

When creating the opening I decided to challenge myself and create a visually stunning title to the movie. This would feature the bands name: The Disciples, with the film name underneath: Back On The Block. I researched many films and how their main title was portrayed. After enough research I found a type of title which would work best on our film.

This title I chose to create requires creating an image with a hollow title which would allow me to place a video behind the picture, creating the effect of a moving title.

To go about this I firstly created the template. A black background with a normal title on, as if it where a poster. The next thing I did was change the 'Back On The Block Title to as vibrant colour as possible to make the hollowing as easy as possible. Due to a tight schedule didn't have time to create the hollowed image on a program like Photoshop. Although it would create a crisper border for the hollowed text, I felt a faster creation would be more beneficial to our production process. I imported the image into PowerPoint and use the 'Remove Background' function. This allowed me to remove the vibrant coloured text leaving a transparent effect.

Once I had created this image, I transferred it to Premier. I then laid it over a video which I had chosen. Choosing the correct video was difficult but I felt it was essential to chose one that had frequently changing 'Disco' colours.