Q2/3) Who is the target audience for your product?
Q4) How does your media product represent certain social groups?
Q5) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?
Q6) What have you learnt about technologies in the process of constructing this product?
Technology
Over the course of the task, I have learnt and understood how to use a variety of both hardware and software. During the start of my research in to the Romantic-Thriller genre, I found YouTube extremely useful for finding typical examples of film openings, i.e. The Mask of Zorro and Phantom of the Opera. This was a great basis for giving me an insight in to what my final product might look like and enabled me to analyse the genre's codes and conventions, like the iconography of blood, low key lit, deserted setting and themes of love and fear. YouTube was also a good platform for uploading some of my evaluation questions. It provided me with simple means of embedding these questions on to my blog from its technological convergence with blogger, via the "insert video" icon that lead directly to "my videos" on my YouTube account. This was very helpful for presenting my evaluation questions as it allows easy navigation for viewers of my blog as they won't need to leave blogger or go on an external source to view my work.
In addition, Survey Monkey was a crucial website to gather my audience research efficiently. I discovered how to make my audience research as effective as possible by designing different styles of questions, such as multiple choice questions to find out the most common themes he audience identify in Romantic-Thrillers, response boxes for a subjective idea of what the audience thinks the generic narrative would be and single answer choices for closed questions to identify the key demographic of my audience, such as their age. This was particularly useful as it allowed me to gather large amounts of data from my target audience in a relatively short amount of time (as it was dispatched via the internet) and the service presented the data I collected in structured formats like bar charts and percentages, which meant that I could easily analyse my results, thus guiding me on the key information I should consider when creating my product.
Whilst I was in the midst of the pre-production of my film opening (planning), I used another online website called Celtx. This was useful for writing the script for my film opening as it enabled me to familiarise myself with a lot of features to script writing, such as the specific structure of the speech and the and the appropriate usage of Italics for the setting of the scene. This meant that my script appeared more professional in format and it helped to make the production easier to follow and understand for the actors.
Hardware was essential for the production stage of my film. I had to use a camera to record my footage for the film in order to convey visually the genre from the action code of an unrequited lover following a female. To do this, I carefully carried the camera behind the characters to create tracking camera movement, whilst I learnt other camera movements i.e. how to zoom in and out by adjusting the lens accordingly. I did learn how to change the mode on the camera to make my shots clearer, specifically the night time mode, but this feature wasn't as effective, so I had to film near streetlamps to make the visuals easier to see. Also, I found the addition of a tripod had a significant impact on helping to illustrate my film opening prospect with the camera. In particular, the tripod helped me to create different shots by adjusting the height, angle and distance of the camera.
When I started the post production of my film, I discovered the software IMovie to create my opening. This software was vital for editing my videos. I achieved this through rearranging the order of my footage by splitting and moving different clips to assist the chronology of the narrative, ensuring that it would make sense for the opening. I further developed the enigma of the narrative by changing the pace of the straight cuts, increasing it to signify the disruption of the female running away and connoting her panic. I also learnt how to add in different types of edits such as fade to black and transitional shots to soften the atmosphere and symbolise a connection between events and characters e.g. using a transitional shot between a female walking past and the perspective of a man looking out of a window to connote his desire of her and to signify his unrequited love for her.
Not only was technology helpful in facilitating the visuals of my film, but it was also helpful for the audio of the film. The website Clip converter allowed me to change the file types of videos (MOV) to audio (MP3), of which was fundamental to insert the non-diegetic music in to Imovie as an audio file. I then used Garageband to split and edit my audio files, cropping them and making them fit in time with the video. The visuals and music worked in sync together to create anchorage, making the piece have an eerie atmosphere and connoted frustration from the lyrics in combination with the visuals, such as when "I can be so cruel" is heard as a piece of meat is crushed. I also found clip converter useful for inserting sound effects, specifically a loud, diegetic phone ping, which really heightened the enigma as the innocent, high pitched sound contrasts with the two girls talking fearfully.
In order to create my title credits, I used the Apple programme, Livetype. Compared to IMovie, I found that Livetype had a larger selection of different fonts, effects and colours that better suited the genre. The formal/old fashioned style of the font connotes romance, whilst the flickering effect reinforces the Thriller aspect and the red colour denotes blood and roses. Overall, Livetype equipped me with the various customisation tools that gave me the freedom to express the key themes of my film opening: obsessive love and danger.
For the presentation of my questions, I found two websites particularly outstanding: Prezi and Powtoon. Prezi gave me the opportunity to make my presentations more engaging as I could make my presentations interactive by letting viewers click on different parts of my answers they want to see. Powtoon however, relied on visuals instead of an interactive experience to be captivating. I think the different animations and effects of the writing made my work come to life through moulding a vibrant visualisation of my evaluation questions.
Q7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?
No comments:
Post a Comment