Preliminary task Final Evaluation.

This is our final cut of the primarily task of what we titled it as "sisters!". The aim for this media product, we to shoot a meeting between two people, showing the traveling to the meeting, then showing the conversation including match-on-action shoots and over the shoulder shoots. In all, I do think we met the criteria for this task really well.

Our original plan was to film a meeting between two sisters whom hadn't seen each other in a long time, one being a "school-sister" whom is very good and well behaved and the other being the "delinquent" who had ran away from home. Even though the meeting of the sisters was very clear, the whole story line isn't completely clear. We first see an argument with the delinquent sister with the mum over the phone and her wanting to go see her sister. Then seeing the traveling, to the reunion. Then the conversation between the two. The aim of showing the delinquent sister wasn't as clear as had hoped. This may have just been to do with the writing of the script.

The camera. In comparison to the first cut evaluation posted on a different blog post, I think the camera work has improved greatly. This is because we were able to re-shoot scenes in which we didn't like.
When we first sat down to film, only one of our actors had recorded what they were wearing on the day. This mean that res-hooting these parts were much easier because it meant there wasn't any parts out of place- her hair wasn't suddenly in a different style- meaning we could improve these parts. However, the other actor which we used was just a friend of the other actor and doesn't even attend to our college. This meant arrange times to shoot did becoming quite difficult as we were running out of time. Additionally, sadly, we couldn't remember exactly how she was presented. Unfortunately, this meant we did eventually end up running out of time in doing this preliminary task- meaning we didn't end up getting to re-shoot all the scenes needed to. Next time, we will defiantly take this into account and use someone who is much more accessible to film and we won't be as restricted to filming times.

The first shot. This is of the phone going off. This automatically puts a teenage twist onto the product already- especially due to the naming on the phone. Comparing this shoot with the first attempt shown in my first evaluation, it is a massive improvement. We also decided to, instead of recording the ring on the recorder we used, we got the music off a copy-right free page on You-tube. This gave it a much more realistic end to it. Continuing on to the teenage end of this product, suggests the age rating of the product would be around the younger teenage years and those who are interested in family drama type products.
On the first shot, we ended up filming it in the studio because it worked much better here with the lighting, however this did make a superficial type of the shot. This is due to the surrounding shown within the shot on the background- its studio equipment making it look false and made up. To result this we should have filmed it in a much more "real" setting, perhaps outside.
Furthermore, the next shot of one of our subjects on the phone to the mum was also shot in the studio- this is why the background is pure black. Originally, we placed her on a windowsill, however this mucked up the focus and the lighting on our camera so it didn't really come out very well. Even though we again used the studio forming a fake part to the film, it also makes it symbolic because she is feeling lost and alone- she just wants to see her sister now.

The editing. When getting to the editing, we decided to use a variety of different techniques- just to experiment even further. This included putting fade-out transitions is some of the shots we used. We also put the voice clip over the top of a different video clip- her talking on the phone and her walking. This led into a fade-in transition with music. This music was also found on You-tube through a copy-right free source. When we first edited the preliminary task, our actor was only walking down the hallway, so the music didn't really appear to be repetitive, however we later decided to include more shots of her walking so we could use a more varied type of camera shots- including panning shots. However when we then came to editing for the second time, it resulted in the music becoming rather repetitive, but if we were to make it different, it wouldn't fit- therefore we stuck with this piece.

We also used the technique of text on the screen to show the credits- to do this we just simply made them crawl across the bottom of the screen. In  this context I do think this did work.

Overall, I think this preliminary task did end up going rather well, it was a shame about the actors however this was a very good learning step preparing us for our later work in media.

Preliminary task first attempt evaluation.

During our first attempt of shooting our preliminary task, we managed to get a variety of different camera shots, some worked really well however we found when we came to editing, some of the shots were out of focus. 

 For example, this is our very first shot, a phone call that our character hangs up on. However the phone was completely out of focus. So I hope to re-shoot this part because it would be much better if you can clearly see the phone.

 This is the next shot in our task, again it is out of focus, which makes it look very messy and I hope to re shoot it to improve our preliminary task.

This match on action is part of our task that I feel went really well. I like the way it smoothly goes into each shot, as I really like it, when re-editing, I think I am more than likely going to keep this part in because I do think it worked very well.

This was a zoomed camera shot. However I really do not like this because it zooms in a little bit and then zooms in again. This is another shot I hope to re-shoot because it would be much better if the zoom was much more smooth.

As a whole, I think this first attempt isn't too bad, however the camera techniques such as the focus and the zoom shoots, defiantly need redoing. Therefore I am planning on getting this group together again to re shoot the necessary shoots and can then edit another attempt. As this was only a rough cut, I did not put it on youtube, hense why this blog post only consists of photos. However, when the final cut is fully edited, I shall add it on this blog and add another evaluation.

Clip one analysis notes!

We got asked to taking note, the same way we would in the exam of a media piece of work, including the camera, sound, editing and the miss-en-scene. These are the notes that I managed to get from the first clip we were shown.

Clip one video

My favorite hobby evaluation

This was a small task given to use as a tester to get us to learn about filming and uploading, alongside editing. The link above is what myself, Megan and Kaya came up with. It was only a small of the head hobby we decided on doing- a ping pong hobby- this was what first came to us and what we found was easily available to us in the college.
Overall, I do believe this was a good starting point for our group because it did teach us quite a few things such as the camera techniques and the use of putting sound in a clip. Prior to this I had never used premier and am quite happy with this result. It may not be the best piece of work, however I do think it can show a good starting point in which I hope myself and the rest of my group improve on by the time we reach our primary task and can look back at this and see our progression.

First attempt of dolly video.

By using a dolly, we found it was a smooth way to show movement in a scene. However something which we encountered was due to the floor not being smooth, it meant to camera did jolt and with wasn't as smooth as had anticipated compared to if we were to use it on a flat ground. 

This technique would definitely come in handy when and if we decided to shoot a moving scene. 

Camera words...

Directional mics: needs to be facing the person speaking. Either above them or below them.

A Dolly: Keeping the camera steady, so the audience has a better experience when watching- no motion thats unnecessary.

Track and dolly: Even smoother because it's on a track.

One advantage of using a dolly is being able to create a tracking shot changing the camera view from a pan or a zoom, you are able to move with the character- for example walking down a corridor. Also , if a camera is heavy and expensive, it makes it lighter and safer- your less likely to damage the camera. It is also more easier to get a higher angle. Notwithstanding the smoothness of the shot that a dolly makes.

Examples of dolly scenes:
Running through a forest- the hunger games






Walking down a corridor
walking outside
running down the road for the bus.

Preliminary Storyboard

Preliminary Outline plot

A Loved one returns and surprises child at school.

Start…
Show a phone conversation between loved ones-
       "When are you coming home"
       "Not for another month :("
       ":("
Or something along that line.
In the background there would be music (to be decided)

Then the loved one would be filmed walking down a corridor- atmosphere needs to build up as this would be an emotional film clip.
The door handle would than be filmed when opening- going to the other side to show them entering.
Pan to the Relationship- close up on her face- Tears
Then they would hug- go to sit down have a short conversation about how much they missed each other (crying) and the Camera angle would go from over the shoulder- then 180 degree shot. Sharing different close up shots.

Preliminary Ideas...

Top 3 Ideas…

Car Park meeting…

Walking up the car park stairs,

opening the door,

then talking…

This seems to be a good idea yet it may be hard to film in the time set given- we would also need a chair to sit opposite- yet that would be rather hard to do in a car park. Although we could over come this by being in a car- yet this would be hard as we don't have access to cars.

Argument…

This would be set in a home. 

The partner would come home and the person in the house could shout at them- slamming the door behind them.

This could work- we would just need to script it right and make sure the argument wouldn't go on for too long because otherwise the Short Reverse Shot would become too confusing and then boring.

Loved one comes home…

This would either be set at a home or in a school.

We could film the family member walking down the corridor and surprising the loved one at school/home. Then they could have a heart felt conversation.

We would have to make sure this was film in enough time.

As we wouldn't have access to a soldiers outfit- we would let the audience know what is happening by showing a text conversation between the parent and child.

TV Dramas.

TV Dramas!

Eastenders.
Corrination street
Downton abbey
Waterloo road
Hollyoaks
Emmerdale
Dr Foster
CSI
Holby City
Casualty
Pretty Little Liars
Once upon A time
Orange is the new black
American Horror Story

My Music Magazine Analysis

My Final music cover.

Design characteristics.
I used a variety of fonts joined with colours. There is a reason behind this- because it would eye catch the audience as there isn't lots of distraction. I purposely done my title a dark bold red with a black line around because just like the actual kerrang magazine, the title is very striking. As shown in the magazine picture on the right. Although unlike the actual magazine, I didn't want to use white as the colour purely for the fact that I believed the red complimented the black much better than the white. I decided to use this image because I believe this image was a good suit for my chosen magazine because it's relaxed, with the semiotic pose of leaning on her arm. I believe this magazine is a good way of meeting the required target market though the lack of writing and variety of fonts, so the audience wouldn't get bombarded with writing.

Improvements? 
I believe for my magazine to improve, I'd like to make a better copy onto the real magazine, however I do believe my magazine to hold some individuality to it. If I were to redo though, I would make the text (other than the title) much more suitable for my target audience- young adults, by making it more like the karrang magazine which is shown on the right and not as "boring". Furthermore, I would have liked to include more photos of different bands just like the example, however due to the lack of images I held, I was unable to do so- which is what I'd do if I were to redo.  Another improvement I would make to my magazine would be to make it much more striking, perhaps by adding shapes with writing on.

Semiotics?
Personally, I believe the main semiotic that is portray in my magazine is the person them self. The all black clothes suggests a sort of danger and curiosity, maybe an upset emotion? With this joined by the pose, I believe it conveys a signal to my target market as a "can't be bothered" "too cool" way, just like the stereotypical young adult way of living.

Making my Music magazine.

For my magazine, I took several images, however I believe these 6 images to be the best ones on conveying the correct theme of my magazine. The last two portrayed the semiotics the best, however I didn't like how close up the image was. I finally chose the middle left one because it was positioned in the correct way- showed a careless attitude and also had her body in, including the positioning of it which made it possible for a title, and cover lines on the side. I liked many of these photos which is why I wanted to still use them within my cover yet not as main focusing- so I decided to use them as small poster features.

I used curves like this one on the right to edit all my photos which I used, just depending on the original photo depended on the final curve.








This is how my final title came out, I managed to muck around with text until I found a bold and eye catching title, the way a Kerrang magazine should be.

Planning for Music magazine.

Plan!
This image of the left shows my original plans for my music magazine. Even though during my creation of my magazine I didn't exactly follow it, I found better ways to create my cover, the best way which I found would portray the best music magazine cover. This image shows that I was debating whether or not the use a close up image for the entire page or a body shot, the reason for this is because I believe depending on what my magazine was, would depend on the best used image size/positioning. I found out that if it was for a beauty magazine, these work best with close ups, however as this was a music magazine I found that it was best to show a body shot to portray semiotics the best. Also in my plan you can see that I was planing to do a title across the whole of the top cover, although when I came to make my cover I found it was better to one side. By the sizes of the boxes on the left you can see that I planned to make my font quite big yet have short words those places. This is was I believe magazines are best catchy when the cover-lines don't give too much away- so the target market by the magazine.

Key definitions.

Media: the main means of mass communication (television, radio, and newspapers) regarded collectively. 

Denotation: Is what the audience can visually see on the page/ TV. 

Connotation:An idea or feeling which a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or 

primary meaning.

Semiotics: The study of signs and symbols and their use of interpretations.

What is media?

What is Media?

Media is a form of mass communication, any form of media could include...

Cinemas.

TV.

Theater.

Blogs.

Radio.

Internet.

Photography.

Youtube.

Video games.

Phones.

Podcasts.

Books.

All of these are ways people can spread new information around the world at different speeds, as time has progressed media has become faster and much better. Media just less than 40 years ago would just include letters or newspapers. 

Analyse of a magazine cover.

            The Masthead it bold yet hidden, suggesting Its a well know magazine so It doesn't all need to be on there.

                    The main image draws fans in to buy the magazine.                                                                                                                  Buzz words are used in cover lines to get peoples attention, maybe if they are interested in that subject 

The Main cover line goes with the image on the background, so in this case youtubers.

Graphics on the text draws eyes, from this example you can see that it's for teenagers due to the informal font and the bright colours.   

 There is a bar-code which 

is important for buying the magazine.

  It is clear that the demographics of this magazine is teenagers. I can obviously tell this due to the bold and bright use of the colours pink yellow and white. Alongside the text, you can clearly see this magazine is for teenagers due to the image used, Zoe Sugg and Tyler Oakley, Two famous Youtubers- icons of many Teenagers. The informal style of the wide range of text is very important for the magazine to meet the needs of the demographics. The reason for there to be a need of a range in fonts is so the audience don't lose the interest when looking at the front cover, which this cover does very well, joined by the colours. The design characteristics of this magazine meets the requirements very well of the the demographics to sell the magazine, because the Image fills the entire page- to make it eye catching. This would help sell the magazine because all the fans of these celebrities would be wanting to buy it and would be able to see it on a shelf from far away, where their parents were standing perhaps. The fact the title goes behind the head of the people in the image is also simple yet very important when it comes to analyse because it shows this is a well know magazine so people would clearly already know the title of this magazine so it doesn't need to be on show for the target market to buy the product.  To improve this magazine I believe the image shouldn't be centred and should be to the left or the right hand side because that way the writing would all be on one side other than down the side of both.

Music magazine analyse and plan

Magazines:

Whilst looking for magazines to analyse, I came across this one from the band 5 Seconds Of Summer- the band that I was searching for. However, this magazine I feel isn't a great layout and isn't one that I would like to use. The reason for this is because it's very crammed at the bottom of the cover yet its quite empty and the top. I would avoid this when making my final music magazine by making sure all text is equally spread out but isn't lots of writing- this bores the reader- which is the main thing on which I intend to avoid. Also as there is 4 members of the band the whole width of the cover is taken up is the image- leaving no space, which is why the writing would be at the bottom. The way in which I will approach avoiding this will be by making the image on the background just one person of a "band" and make sure on the side I will explain that there is a page in the rest of the magazine with information on the whole group. Which will intrigue people to buy it to read the rest of the stories.  

This is another magazine cover that I found. Even though the layout is a bit similar to the one above I much prefer this one because the font of the text is much more eye grabbing and there isn't that much making it not seem as crammed. However like the one above I won't be using a photo that covers the whole width. Even though I will not be making my magazine cover in this way, the fact the Image covers the entity of the page, creates a very simple yet eye grabbing cover.  The reason I will use this one as my inspiration is because the colour of the back ground and just the whole set out of the magazine is much more mature and would be set the older age demographics alongside with the fans of 5 Seconds Of summer. The way this magazine would grab the eye of the target market is because of the big image of the band. Obviously, for my image I won't be using 5 Seconds Of Summer, however I will make my image of one person and make out they are a member from a band. I also like how the Sky Line of this magazine is
"Exclusive posters inside!" the reason for this is because the fans are likely to buy a magazine when they get a free poster for their wall (clearly proving the target audience of teenagers again). Furthermore, in terms of denotation the text in this magazine is very short yet sharp, easily grabbing eyes to read it, this is helping my the font displayed across the top and the bottom of the page, yet not the middle, other wise this would take away focus from 5 Seconds Of Summer.

This is the type of image I plan to use for my magazine, however the layout won't be as "Young Teeny" it would be a more mature layout like the magazine in the middle of this blog^. To make this effect of mature, I will shoot my images for my magazine in a studio with just a plain background. The reason behind this is because I feel like backgrounds that are photos take away too much attention from the main reason of the magazine- the famous person on the cover. Many people see 5 Seconds Of Summer as a Pop band due to one song of theirs, however after listening to their other songs- especially their newer releases they are much more Pop rock/punk. I intend to make this style in my magazine through the clothing just like the one above. The semiotics which are shown in all these images are the bandanna, along with the poses, this is very important as it conveys a very rock vibe for the reader. The poses that are held, especially the single photo on the right, shows a "rock out" sign used with his hands which is hopefully what I would like to get from the person in which I shoot; Which would create connotation in the viewer of the emotion of the signs as they would feel (hopefully) happy to see this, alongside the text font would create a really excited and bold feeling in the audience. Therefore I will use bandannas and eyeliner for the person i shoot- therefore I will use a female for my image. Another aspect which I find very important in a magazine is the pose in which they hold. This i because I believe the pose with holds lots of information about the people in the image/magazine cover. I will place the person I shoot in the pose like the one shown here.

Magazine Evaluation

My Magazine!

My original copy.

This was the photo I chose for my magazine 

background. With its orange background 

it made it much easier for me 

to add a background on photoshop 

when it came to doing so.

The reason I had chosen this photo

 was because I found this image the 

best one out of all the ones taken- due to my glasses, 

most of the images had the glare from the lights on,

 however this one didn't. 

My edited copy.

The first thing in which I done to edit my photo was that 

i cropped it. This was by using the cropping tool. I done 

this because I believe the original copy had too much space

 above my head and if I had a title on that it was get lost in so

 much space- or I would have had to make the title a lot bigger, 

which I didn't want to do. I then made the entire picture black 

and white. The reason for which I done this was because I felt

 like with a more deep photo, it draws the eye more when only 

the writing is bright, rather than lots of colour on both the image 

and the writing. 

The end result of my magazine!

For my magazine, I think the colours of the writing works very well, because it is eye catching, especially the yellow writing- which is the main part of the writing to draw an eye to the magazine. I also think the colour of the background and image being black and white works very well along side the coloured writing. However, I believe that the colour of the title needs to be much more clear. I will go ahead on doing this next time by positioning it better on the background. Also I will make the colour of the title the brightest or boldest piece of writing on this page because I feel that the title has become lost with the amount of writing which is on the image.  Also I tried to use different fonts of the writing to draw in more attention but I found that certain fonts also became lost- which is supported with the writing of "From Zalfie to Narcus". When I make my music magazine I will make sure the background and writing are positioned so that every piece of writing can be clearly seen by the viewer. Additionally, another way to improve this magazine cover would be to move certain texts around more, for explain the "Channing Tatum says" , with it being across the forehead on the image, it is very distracting so I would more all text to the side so even though the text is eye grabbing, it wouldn't take focus away from the image of the magazine.