In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My group's film opening uses many adaptations of the common conventions of film openings. Firstly, our media product begins with various establishing shots, which give the audience a sense of what time period our film opening is base upon and also time of day. A sense of time period is established though the fact in the opening shot a car is shown, therefore it must be present day. This conforms to the usual conventions of a film opening because it uses Mise-en-scène to present the time period of the sequence. The time of day is established because we filmed part of our opening outside and it was daytime, therefore telling the audience what time of day it is, conforming to usual conventions of a film opening.

We also created an aspect of character throughout the opening. Our use of Mise-en-scène has helped us create a link with a stereotypical teenage girl. Posters, wall colour, objects within the room (e.g. a dream catcher) normally relate to a girl of the younger generation. Character is also established through all of the characters' clothing. The two main characters (Phoebe and Daniel) both wear stereotypical teenager clothing, e.g. jeans, T-shirts and jumpers etc.

A sense of enigma has also been created in the last few second of the film opening. The mystery girl, who Daniel is supposedly cheating on Phoebe with, does not show her face at all and there is no way of knowing who she is. The audience face many questions to do with the girl, whose identity is yet to be revealed, which in turn makes the last section of the clip an enigma and creates many questions about the film opening. This also helps make the opening of the film memorable because people will want to know who the girl is.

Issues when Editing

1. During the editing process we encountered the issue of shots not matching up. The shot of Phoebe walking into the house was slightly too far back in regards to the previous shot, so it looked like she had walked in twice and it was noticeable that it was a shot-reverse-shot. We only noticed this when we got Mr Wall to watch our film opening and help improve it by giving us feedback. We rectified this problem by cutting the second clip of Phoebe walking into the house (filmed from the inside).

2. Another problem we needed to rectify was the fact that during the conversation scenes Daniel's voice was a lot louder than Phoebe's, mainly due to the fact the microphone was positioned closer to his mouth and the room had a much louder echo due to having less furniture in it. We did not know how to adjust sound and so therefore resorted to looking up YouTube videos which clearly explained how to do so on Final Cut Pro. We lowered Daniel's voice to a similar level as Phoebe's to try and not make the dialog too overpowering.

3. We also had issues when it came to editing the music. It was a similar problem as the previous one mentioned. We used the same skills we used when we lowered Daniel's voice to make sure that the music did not overcome the audio and that the diegetic sounds within the establishing shots and the dialog could still be heard clearly as they were needed for effect.

Editing Journal

First day of editing took place on: 11/01/2016
Editing took place over a series of weeks.

1. Uploaded all the footage to Final Cut Pro.
2. Spent an hour converting all the footage.
3. Placed all the footage into Final Cut Pro in order of sequence as we did not film all the clips in order.
4. We then cut them in order to gather an idea of how long the piece was going to be to make sure we had enough to meet the requirements.
5. When we started to put the clips with lots of dialog in we needed to cut them immediately as this was going to make the editing process easier for us.
6. We decided to remove all the audio from the establishing clips leading up to the conversation.
7. We eventually found a song which suited our film opening from: http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/3 (Tomorrow song). We then downloaded it and inserted it into Final Cut Pro after researching how this was achieved and how music impacts film.
8. We cut the music in order to stop it overshadowing the dialog and we also lowered the volume of the song in some parts of the film opening to make sure the dialog was easily heard.
9. We then inserted the opening titles (production companies name, Fair Oaks Productions) along with the actors names.
10. We thought it would be beneficial to receive feedback from the head of our department at this stage. She told us that the piece could be improved if we added the diegetic sounds back into all of the establishing shots at the beginning. She also said that we needed to cut a certain clip as it was too shaky and looked unprofessional and that having the production team's names at the end made the sequence look more like a short film, which did not meet the requirements of the task brief. 
11. We took on board all of what our teacher said and cut the clip that was shaky and added in the audio clips that were needed. This then meant that we needed to cut the audio clips to ensure they were in-sync with the visuals.  
12. Then we sped up the opening titles at the beginning and began to insert the names of the members of our production team. 
13. In the final stage we decide we needed an appropriate ending for the music therefore we needed to cut the song in a place which suited the ending of the opening. 
14. Finally, we rendered the entire piece and submitted it for a first round of evaluation. 

2016 - G321 - Distance - Fair Oaks Productions - Final Cut

Filming Journal

Filming date: 09/01/2016

Firstly, everyone agreed it would be a good idea to run through exactly what was going to happen during the day. This entailed running through the screenplay, storyboard and shot-list not only with the rest of the production team but with the actors as well, as this was key when considering time management and the battery of the camera. During this process as a group we changed a few things in terms of shots etc. due to having lots of feedback from the actors and also from just running through the storyboards with the entire team on set helped us open our minds up to better and more effective shots/angles than previously planned.

After this we decided to go outside and set up to start filming the various establishing shots. We did this because we needed to film them before it got dark and also it looked as though it was going to start raining later on in the day, which would stop us from filming and we wanted to get all the filming done in one day. We filmed various panning shots of the house and of Phoebe walking up the path through the door. We had an issue with the tripod when we were trying to film the panning shot of the house and it took us a while to get used to working with it as we were all unexperienced with this piece of unknown equipment. We eventually worked out how to successfully tighten the camera onto the tripod and use it properly. We also needed to re-film some of the shots of Phoebe walking up the path as some we out of focus and shaky. We also attached the microphone and used this to pic up the diegetic sound of each shot.

Once all of the establishing shots were filmed we moved onto filming the dialog scenes. For Daniel's scene we simply set the camera up in the corner in-front of him on the tripod as there was no panning needed. We discussed lighting as a team and decided that a lamp on the desk looked much better than having the main ceiling light on. After we filmed Daniel's scene we moved onto the clip where Alexandra comes in. We went straight into filming this shot because we needed the camera to be in the exact same place. Again, this shot required little skill because the tripod and camera were already set up. The only thing we needed to do was make sure that only Alex's body was visible and not her face (enigma element). We then moved on to filming the close-up shot of Phoebe ringing Daniel's phone.

However, when we moved onto to Phoebe's dialog scene it took us a lot of takes to finally get the shot we wanted. I was in charge of filming this scene and so I set up the camera in the front corner of the room facing the bed (where she would be sitting). The plan was that I would track Phoebe as she walked into the room but the tripod was quite stiff and I could not keep up with Phoebe as she walked over to the bed. We shot this around three times until I tried something new. I started to pan before Phoebe entered the room and managed to make the tripod stop smoothly enough for her to continue on with the scene. This was effective because we were finally happy with the panning shot and the cuts were clean and smooth, which made the whole piece look very professional.

The last shots we filmed was the shot where Phoebe walked up the stairs and when she came through the door and took her coat off. We had to discuss the correct angle for the stairs shot as originally it was going to be a pan shot through the banister poles but we decided after trying to film the shot in that way that it would be best to go with a simple stationary shot facing Phoebe. We chose this because we would have had two big panning shots next to each other and we thought the opening had too much movement and it looked too messy.

Letters of Acceptance

A letter of acceptance is a written communication between a home/location owner and actors with the production company of the film. It normally confirms details of the rights to film on selected locations and also the acknowledgement by the actors of what the film entails and how it will be distributed.

Storyboard (modified)

These are the newly modified storyboards as changes to the screenplay were made.