Evaluation 7

Evaluation 7

As i have now finished my film, i can compare and contrast it to our first ever post which was the preliminary task. When re-watching the preliminary task, we only used a handful of different edits, like the shot-reverse shot. But looking back at the film, i can see that we have used more shots such as, long shots, close-ups and we have used different edits like the flashback shots and match-on-action shots. The skills have improved severely from the first task as you can see when watching them both.   

             

The editing was the most improved thing in my opinion as we only used basic skills in the preliminary and in comparison to our film, our edits are second to none. We used a wider variety of shots and edits including jump cuts and fade to black. These have really brought out the best in our film and i am proud with the outcome.

Overall, i am very proud of the film and the improvements from where me and the group started at to now. I think the quality of our work has progressively got better and i am happy to say i was a part of creating this film. 

Evaluation 6

Evaluation 6 from MattLeesley

Evaluation 5

Evaluation 4

Evaluation 4 from MattLeesley

Evaluation 3

Evaluation 3

If i was to choose a producer to produce our film i would pick Warp Films. Warp Films is an independent film and television production company based in Sheffield and London, and the location would merge well with our genre and location as we filmed in Sheffield and they would know a lot about the local area and culture. It would also be a good decision as our film "Day Aht' In Sheff" is not going to attract attention from big producers like Time Warner and 21st Century Fox so an independent film producer would suit our film the best. Warp Films have produced films such as This Is England and Four Lions. These films and TV programs are evidence that Warp Films are capable of producing successful media products.




I wouldn't use Time Warner to produce our film, and one of the reasons is the budget. Using Time Warner to produce our film would cost us a lot of money which we don't have if we was to produce our film. Another reason i wouldn't pick Time Warner is that they would choose famous actors into the film, with our film being independent, it would take away the reality and local feel to our film. Also we would lose control of the film as they would re-vamp it to the way they like, therefore i would not choose companies like Time Warner.

Evaluation - Question 7

Within the continuity task that we had to complete involved filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task demonstrated various things such as, match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule. I have used these things that I have learnt in the preliminary task in my opening title sequence. For example, we have demonstrated the use of the 180 degree rule in the preliminary task and we was then aware that this needed to be obeyed throughout the opening title sequence. Also, editing within the preliminary exercise helped me with the opening title sequence because it allowed us to cut shots and connect them onto the next one.


Things that we have improved in our opening title sequence compared to the preliminary task is that we used a wider range of camera angles. In the preliminary task, we only tend to use mid shots throughout. Whereas, in the opening title sequence we mid-shots, low angle shots and a range of other shots. The other shots included: long shots, close ups, medium long shots and medium close ups. Another thing that we have improved from our preliminary exercise is our editing. This time round we used music to help the film relate more to the genre. We also, inputted text for the title and to introduce the cast and this was merged in with the 2 minute clip. 

Overall, I think that we have immensely improved our editing and film making skills due to creating the preliminary task. I say this because through doing this, we learned the basics of cinematography and editing the we could then go on and advance for our opening title sequence.

Evaluation 1

Evaluation 1 from ConorHeald

Evaluation 6

Evaluation 6

While in pre-production of our film we used blogger. This is the website in which all our work would be posted onto. Before the start of pre-production i had never used blogger so it was all new to me. Blogger has all the plans we used for our film including storyboards and scripts. Using blogger was a success as it gave our group an easy way in which to store all plans needed for our film. 

During editing we used a software called Adobe Premiere Pro. This like blogger was something that i had never used before. This was also much harder to grasp than blogger as it was far more technical. After a while we all began to get a good understanding of the process and began to edit with more confidence in what we were doing. This is why I believe we could have made a much more graphic Title sequence the one we used for our film was very basic in comparison to what we had learnt. We also learnt how to successfully use a camera in order to film our film. I think that we quickly got an understanding of how to use the camera and therefore were able to efficiently film with ease

Evaluation 2

Evaluation 2 from ConorHeald

Evaluation 7

Evaluation 7 from ConorHeald

Evaluation 5

Evaluation 5

I think that our film ‘A day out in Sheff’ reached our target audience which we had planned to be young adults most likely male who enjoy football and fighting. This is like the audiences who enjoyed films like Green Street or Away Days. Our film met these criteria as it is about football hooliganism. During production, we made sure we got the point of the film across to the audience as early into as possible this is shown through our first 2-minute extract. We also added a small fight scene used in a flashback to show that this film had violent aspects which could attract certain audiences. Using our Post production questionnaires, we asked people if they enjoyed the film then asked them to state what they enjoyed about our film. Many of the answers stated that it was the ‘accurate portrayal of football hooliganism’. This shows that our film attracted audiences and that our films aspects appealed to the audience. We also kept audiences engrossed within the film by using certain editing techniques such as Flashbacks to show one of the characters been hit in the face in a previous fight. This gave the audience an idea on the style of the film.

As you can see from these two charts only 22% of people said they were unsure or didn’t like the film. This goes to show that we obviously attracted the audience we wanted. The other chart asks if the audience believed this film was meant for a male or female audience. The chart shows that it was unanimous in favour of a male audience. This also shows that we managed to reach our target audience of young adult males.

Evaluation 2

Evaluation 1

Evaluation 1 from MattLeesley

Evaluation question 7

Now that I have finished my film I can look back on the original preliminary task we created and see how it compares to our final film.. In this preliminary task I noticed we used very basic cinematography with not using a variation of shots, whereas in the final film I think we vastly improved on this by using a wider array of shots which make the film look a lot more appealing and just makes the cinematography better as a whole. This is shown as we mainly just used mid-shots throughout it with a few other shot whereas in our final film there is a complete array of different shots used.

 However the main thing that I think we improved on from this preliminary task to our final film was our editing. This is because in the preliminary task we only really used basic cuts, shot-reverse-shots and the 180 degree rule, however in our final film we used jump cuts, we changed the colour grading in certain shots, dissolves and many other things. This as a whole completely changed the quality of our final film making it so much better. This can also be slightly attributed to the different tasks at hand as in the preliminary tasks we only had to create a short conversation using editing techniques such as shot-reverse-shot, 180 degree rule and match on action whereas with our final film we had to create the first two minutes and title sequence of a fiction film which allowed us to have a lot more creative freedom. Besides this though I still feel we greatly improved our editing from this preliminary task to the final product. 

Overall, I think we improved immensely from the preliminary task to the final film as we used a lot more techniques in our filmmaking that made it a lot better. I think that the preliminary task allowed us to practice these techniques such as shot-reverse-shot so that we could improve upon them in this final film.

Evaluation question 6

Throughout the process of creating the first two minutes of this film I believe that I have learnt quite a lot in terms of the technologies used. For example within the pre-production especially I used Blogger a lot to detail our plans for the film and what we were going to do, as I have never used a blog before this was new to me so I had to learn how to mage it all from the beginning. I now feel I have a strong understanding on how to use Blogger and blogs in general as I have now amassed around 30 posts on this blog which are all using different things whether it be standard writing like this or embedding a powerpoint on with the use of Slideshare. Blogger was very useful to use as it has allowed me to keep all of my work to do with this film all in this one place that is easily accessible and also has been good for comparing with other people in my group as it is a shared blog. Also during post-production a completely new technology to me was Celtx the software which enabled us to professionally write a film script. This was something that I had never experienced before and had to learn from scratch but looking back on it I think the film script turned out very well and does look professional. The decision was made to use Celtx instead of just something such as word as Celtx creates true scripts and has everything that is necessary for creating a script whereas with word it doesn't provide you with the tools needed to create a script therefore making in redundant as it just wouldn't look professional enough.

During the production of the film we used the editing software Adobe Premiere to fully edit our film. This was something that was a big challenge when first using it as none of us had edited much before, however when we began to understand it we grasped the basics and were able to edit our film. This is one area where I believe we could have improved on as I think if we had learnt more about this software we could have made our title sequence a lot more interesting through editing. Even though I believe the title sequence looks quite good at the moment I do believe it could have been vastly improved if we learnt more about Adobe Premiere. Another successful use of technology was the cameras we used to film as these were very easy to use and we were quickly able to learn the basics and get to filming. I think this is shown in our final film as I think the cinematography as a whole is very good. After this during post-production  I also used excel a lot to create pie charts to showcase the results gathered from our questionnaire in an easy to read format. This was something that I think went very well as we can now show all the results we gathered in a very presentable way and that is why we decided to use excel to create these pie charts.

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation 5 from HarrisonMarsden

Evaluation 3

                                               Evaluation 3

I think that the company that should distribute our film is Warp Films this is because they usually make films that are for a certain type of audience. This is what our film would benefit from as it is specific to a certain audience. Warp films have produced films such as Four Lions and This is England 86. Both films were big successes which is a positive for us as Warp films are good at making highly successful films. We would be better of using Warp Films than one of the big American companies such as Universal. This is because if we were to use Universal then they would go for big named stars to play the characters in a way to attract people to see the film. This would be a bad choice as the actors used may take the realism out of the film whereas using Warp Films they are most likely to actors who fit the roles of Football hooligans.

Warp Films make low budget which is fine for us as our film would not require a large budget. This is the same for other films which I researched such as Green Street or Football Factory. These films were made on low budgets and were successful football Hooligan films.

Evaluation - Question 6

Within the pre-production of the film, many technologies were used. The main source of technology used would have been Blogger. This is because many posts were made about similar films to our own and all other research was posted onto Blogger by each individual of the group. I did not know how to use Blogger at all before hand as it was completely new to me but as time has gone on, i have gained more experienced with the technology and i can happily use this for future reference. The research was followed out mostly on Microsoft PowerPoint by myself and then embedded onto Blogger. Microsoft Word and Excel was also used within pre production. Word was to create the pre-production questionnaire and Excel was to create the charts for the results of the questionnaire. The questionnaire and results were then embedded onto Blogger. The reason for using Word and Excel because within the group I was part of, we all had a clear understanding on how to use these two pieces of software. Another piece of software i learned to use within the pre-production was Celtx. This software is used to create scripts. This software was new to the majority of the class and therefore, the reason for sung this in pre-production was so that we could get a feel of how to create a professional film script. Then from this we could go and create a film script for our opening title sequence.

Within the production of the film, I was introduced to some new pieces of software and hardware. One piece of hardware that i had learned to use within this period was a DV camera and this was for shooting the opening title sequence. The software that I had learned to use within the production was Adobe Premier and this was to edit our first two minutes of the film.

Within the post production stage, We had used repeated technology from the pre-production and production stages. Such as, Microsoft Word to create a post-production questionnaire to see if we had attracted our target audience to want to watch the rest of the film if it was to be released. Microsoft Excel was also used again so that we had a professional way presenting the results from the questionnaire to use on question 5 of the evaluations. But there was one piece of software that i was introduced to within his stage. The piece of software is called Prezi. The purpose of this is similar to PowerPoint, it allows you to create a presentation but there is more interaction for the reader rather than just selecting the next slide. It allows you to select different section on the page and as a result of that, information within the different section will appear clearly onto the screen. I used to Prezi to present question 4 of the evaluations.

Evaluation - Question 5

Did you attract/address your audience?

We believe we have done this successfully. A big factor to this success would be taking into consideration the results of the pre-production questionnaire results. From these results, it gave us a big insight of what the target audience of males between 15 and 30 would like to see from the film and therefore go and create it. To see if we had addressed my target audience, we followed out a post-production questionnaire and the results were very positive.

One of the ways we used to attract my target audience was through the making of the character profiles. When crating this we put the ages of the characters to the age of around 18. The reason behind this is because we believed that the would be average age for our target audience and therefore they would be able to relate to the characters more.

Another way of attracting our target audience was through micro elements through the opening title sequence. Mise en scene was was used through props such as drugs and alcohol which the audience can relate to as a film within the crime genre.Also, a flashback was used within the opening title sequence. The flashback was of the main character getting hit in the face as part of previous fight he had gotten himself into at a previous football match. This is also gives the feel that the film is crime related. On top of this, the flashback will also keep the audience engaged as it gives them an insight of what the rest of the film will be like. I think this has helped attract the audience to want to watch the full film.

From the post-production questionnaire results shown already above, it shows that just less than half of the participants thought that our film was something other than within the genre of sports crime. To change the views and improve our film to make it more like the chosen genre, we could make the opening title sequence less comedic and dramatic.

Post-production questionnaire results from HarrisonMarsden

Post-production Questionnaire

Evaluation 4

Evaluation 4 from ConorHeald

Evaluation - Question 4

Evaluation - Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that the best media institution for my film,  if it was to be distributed, would be Warp Films. I say this because this institution distributes films that have a very specific target audience. For example, Four Lions, This is England, This is England '88 and This is England '90. The reason my film would benefit from this is because it also has a specific target audience which is young men who take an interest in the crime genre of films and football itself. I would choose Warp films over any big american company. The reason for this is because it would take the reality away from the film, if I was to choose a big american company, as you would be paying for well known actors and special effects etc. In our film we do not need well known actors as it would take away the feel of it being a hooligan related film and the audience would be able to clearly identify that the actors are not like this. Also, not many special effects are needed in my film as they are real life situations and do not need to be made to look anything more than what it really is.

Green Street Title Sequence Analysis

 The films title sequences begin with this shot which shows the director of the film Lexi Alexander. This shot then uses a dissolve into the next shot which shows people running through a train station dressed in clothes such as stone island which instantly tells the audience they are football hooligans as they are being very loud whilst running through having a joke with their pals.

The main titles of the film begin here though when the main character is travelling through an airport and we begin to see all the actors who are involved in the film. I believe the use of titles in this film is very effective as it is quite subtle and they aren't overly large or obnoxious but actually look good and come onto the shot seamlessly. This is something that I would like to incorporate into my film as I believe the titles are better being quite subtle. The titles also feature non-diegetic music which I believe makes the titles quite emotional in the case because the main character has had bad news so it fits. In my film I want to include non-diegetic music within the titles to portray the initial mood of the film. However because my films plot is a lot happier than this at the beginning I plan on using a more upbeat song to fit with this.

The main title for the film is put onto the screen through the same way as all the main actors names. I think in this case it works well due to the sad tone of this beginning so none of the titles should be obnoxious or in the way and instead subtle. However within my film I plan to make the title of the film more noticeable perhaps by fading to black to bring the name of the film onto the screen then. After this the title sequence carries on the same as what I have already described. Overall I believe this is a very effective title sequence and is one that I plan to take inspiration for when we create the title sequence for our film.

Evaluation Question 3

 
I think that if my film was to be distributed, the film company Warp Films would distribute it. This is because our film is about football hooligans which is quite a niche market and not something that big American companies would be interested in. Also through looking at other films Warp Films have produced it seems like they would be the perfect candidate to distribute 'A Day aht' in Sheff' due to their films being very obscure and targeted at a niche audience so I believe this film would be a great film for them to distribute. Warp Films are responsible for producing and distributing such films as This is England, 71', and Four Lions which are all unique and controversial films, This is England especially links to our film as it shows a more realistic look on youth culture and shows what people actually are involved in within their lives.

 

 
 
 
If Warp Films were to distribute this film I don't think much would change as our film doesn't need a high budget as it doesn't involve special effects or anything that is in dire need of a high budget. This is show through other football hooligan films that I researched such as Green Street and The Football Factory which don't involve special effects and weren't produced on huge budgets. Therefore this means that the company wouldn't have to interfere with any of our creative ambitions and would have just let us make the film in the style we wanted to make it. This is shown on the Warp Films website as they say how you wont find generic films here so this just shows how they don't care about appealing to the masses and want to make a film as best as it can be for that targeted audience.

Evaluation - Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The film I have created is based around the life of a football hooligan. Therefore, a clear representation of this social group will be shown. Throughout the opening title sequence there are many stereotypes used towards this kind of social group. I believe this was needed within the film. This is because it will give the audience an understanding of what it is like to be a football hooligan. The way these stereotypes are clearly shown is through micro elements such as cinematography/camerawork, editing and sound.

Cinematography:
The way that cinematography/camerawork represents the particular social group (football hooligans) would be the long shots that are shown through the opening title sequence. The long shots always include the three characters within the film. This is to show the togetherness of the group. This is a stereotype of the social group. I say this because these groups of men are always a close bunch so they know that when they head into any trouble they know that their pals have their backs.

Editing:
The way that this represents football hooligans would be through the fast paced editing when James (the main character of my film) is getting ready to go out. I say this because the lives of these sort of people on a match day is very hectic and they're always in a rush to get and start drinking as much as they possibly can before the game. This is so they have less care for when they're out committing crime, which tends to be through anti social behavior. The past paced editing is shown between 0:27 and 0:47 within the opening title sequence.

Sound:
The non diagetic music played within the opening title sequence is a strong representation of a football hooligan. The music played is a non copy write song named "Safe and Warm in Hunter's Arms [Audio]". The song is within the genre of indie rock. Stereotypical, this is the genre of music that this social group listen to. The two most popular bands listen to by these people would be 'The Courteeners' and 'Oasis'.

Evaluation Question 2

Due to our film being about football hooligans we are obviously representing people within that social group. I believe in some ways we are using stereotypes as we have the characters drinking alcohol and also a shot including drugs. This clearly supports typical portrayals of football hooligans as in the media people apart of this culture are often seen as being quite rebellious and not abiding to the laws. There is also a shot in our film of one of the characters in a fight, this is very stereotypical of football hooligans as they are often portrayed as being very violent, obnoxious and constantly getting into fights. 

However in some aspects of this film I believe we challenged stereotypes as we have a scene where the characters are all sat at home just watching football which is something that is very down to earth and that a lot of people can relate to as just because these people get in fights that doesn't mean they can't do things a normal typical football fan would do. I believe this is a very human moment that strongly challenges stereotypes of these people. Also due to our characters being around the age of 18 this means we are also representing young adults. In this case I believe we used stereotypes as we show the characters drinking in this which supports that young adults often drink alcohol and this is a big thing for them at this age. Another way how I believe we used these stereotypes is through our use of cinematography and constantly shooting all the characters together as this shows their strong bond and friendship together as a group and how they all see each other as equals, this is because at this age young adults are shown to care for their friends and are always together.

We also strongly represent men in our film as all of the main characters are men. I think we strongly use the classic stereotypes of men in our film as our film features characters who are going out getting drunk, love football and also love fighting. This uses stereotypes as men are shown to enjoy drinking, sports and also to be very violent. However i also believe we challenge these stereotypes as well as in the scene in which one of the characters is involved in a fight, he is shown to be haunted by it and cant get it out of his head. Even though this is only brief it shows a point of weakness and raw emotion for a man when usually males are portrayed to never show emotion. We also used editing and sound to challenge this stereotype by using a very high pitched noise as he is getting punched suggesting his fear of what happened and how much it hurts him to think of it. We also made this shot very distorted and used a very obscure colourway to show his disappointment and shame that he has in himself.

We also represented this group of people through our sound and specifically the music played within the opening sequence. This song falls under the indie rock category similar to other bands like the stone roses and Oasis who are instantly recognised as being a huge part within the sub-culture.

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation 4 from HarrisonMarsden

Evaluation - question 1

 

Evaluation Question 1

When we were creating this first 3 minutes and opening title sequence of a film we have used many codes and conventions of films within the football hooligan genre to allow the audience to understand what genre it is. At the start of the film there is a strong use of iconography with lots of shots of clothing brands which are instantly recognisable as being involved with football hooligans, alcohol and drugs.
 


 

Throughout this opening sequence there is an indie rock song played which is the genre of music popular within this culture. We made this music very loud as this film is a feel good film and we wanted to get the audience excited and anticipated for whats to come from the very beginning of the film. We however decided to tone it down when the lads are just sat in the house and just include the diegetic sound of the TV in the background as they are all just relaxing and it makes the film feel realistic as this is a very down to earth moment and shows their lives don't just revolve around violence. In this film we established the narrative through the conversations between the characters as they talk about their predicted score for the Sheffield Wednesday game today and also through a flashback as we see one of the characters in a previous fight which confirms to the audience that these characters are hooligans and are most likely going to get in a fight.

 Our use of mise en scene in this opening sequence is very similar to other films of this genre as the costumes we used include many clothing items which are associated with football hooligans with the brands and type of clothing. This helps make the film feel realistic as it is similar clothing seen in other films such as Green Street and The Football Factory and makes these characters feel like they are real football hooligans. We also used props with bottles of beer as we did it subtly with the characters sat drinking before the match which seems as if it is a common occurrence that they do a lot. 

Within this opening sequence we used a lot of fast paced editing to fit with the pace of the film. We also used rhythmic editing to fit with the non-diegetic music which I think creates a very nice effect where we incorporate jump cuts to fit with the beat of the song. The cinematography of the film we used many long shots and medium shots to show both the actions of the characters and their costumes for example when the characters are walking to the house. However we also used close ups for when the characters are just relaxed talking so you can see the facial expressions between them as they have their conversations. For the actual titles of the film we decided to use a very simple but sophisticated font and also just the colour white for them. This is because from researching other films within this genre such as Green Street this is how the titles are and I believe it looks very nice and works extremely well.