What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In the process of constructing our product, our group has learnt about various technologies, most being the camera and using the editing software its self. We learnt how to use different elements of the camera as well as skills such a variety of shots which is appropriate for the mood of our film. Throughout the filming process, we all became extremely familiar with filming gradually extending and making our shots more creative. This would be helpful in the process due to the fact this meant we could be adventurous with what footage we had to film or even re-film. For example, at the beginning of the film, we had filmed at clock but starting with a close up and then gradually zooming out, turning into a long shot. This makes the film more interesting and helps the audience to establish it is set in a girls bedroom.
Moreover, in our original plan we decided to have our whole film about a two contrasting stereotypes of teenage girls getting ready in the morning to attend a dance school. We then decided to change it to two girls getting ready for the days ahead of them, as it seemed more worthwhile and would hold together. This now leads to our finishing product.
Another device that we used was the sound track for the film. As our film was very upbeat we needed a track in the background, this would emphasis the fun and bubbly characters. This was profoundly hard as we were told we couldn't copyright, we had to make our own song. To tackle this problem we used a CD given to us of our teacher which fitted well with our film.
Furthermore, there have been a lot of times where we filmed something and when we edited it, it did not fit in with rest of our film. Therefore we learnt to film as many times as we could to use different angles so that when it came to editing it we had enough footage to rely on.
In conclusion,this experience taught us how to use a camera professionally and use the editing software (Final Cut Pro), which could be used to create a specific effect that we wanted such as the sound and lighting. Learning how to use the technology and different software helped us hugely in the process of construction of our final project, this made us aware of the errors and how we can tackle them if we needed to use the software again.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film was made to show typical stereotypes, doing this creates humour throughout. The fact it is almost making fun of particular social groups makes it open to all. It would be said it is a negative view of particular people but this part creates the humour. A typical blonde, wealthy and well presented girl is viewed aswell as a more disorganised,lower class, bad presented girl. This enabled the product to relate to a wider audience and attract a range of social groups.

Who would be the audience for your media product ?

The primary audience for our media product in terms of gender would be predominately women and girls in there female young to late teens, as our genre is comedy drama and it contains immature humor and relates to daily teenage dramas. We rated our production a 12A for twelve years and above as it is suitable for under fifteens but may contain mild adult humor unsuitable for anyone under twelve years. We got inspiration for our production from film "Devil Wears Prada" as the opening scenes also contrasting life styles and has similar elements of humor to our production. We wanted our film to have a universal appeal so a wider audience would watch it due to movie watchers tending to go for comedies allowing our production to come under that genre.

Relating movies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0grr0MINhE&feature=fvst

This is the opening scene of Devil wears Prada. We felt this related to the particular genre we picked for our main task. We particularly liked the close ups of the shoes and the way the scene portrayed different stereo types in showing her as a not knowing what to wear and coming to work in unsuitable clothing, yet one day she arrives in designer clothes and work colleagues are thrown back. We feel this is good inspiration and a good focus for us to complete the task we had in mind.

What did you learn about the cameras and editing software during the preliminary task?
We learnt how to use the cameras and using Final cut pro to edit which was seem to be not as easy as it looks. Completing our filming task whilst also remebering the 180 degree rule was difficult in order to allow facial expressions and rections to be in the shot, whilst ensuring they matched and looked professional. We found in the end the preliminary task helped us to understand and establish how to use the cameras and edit much better than we would of if we just jumped straight into the task.

In filming and editing of your project, what worked well and what could have been improved?
We felt that involving different shots worked well in our preliminary task. We enjoyed trying a different range of shots and then deciding what worked best, however we felt that the eye direction was not right for the angle as one character was meant to be looking. Also we feel our editing skills need improvement so it flows more smoothly, but we are going to take these mistakes into account and make sure we dont repeat them in our main task.

Give a detailed, specific example of how you have used a shot/reverse shot combinationin your film?
We have included short reverse shot in our preliminary rask in order to show a conversation was happening. Although it was a clear define view a conversation was happening we failed to make the eyeline look clear as Catherine looks like she is not looking at the protangonist but is making eye contact with the camera which is a fail due to the fact eye contact to the camera should of not been made.

Give a detailed, specific example of how you achieve match cuts during the editing process
We did not involve a match cut in our preliminary task, we tried alot of different match cuts during the filming of our preliminary but didnt feel any of them looked suitable or fitted well. This is something we will work upon in our main task trying to gain the best possible outcome.

How did you make sure that you didnt break the 180 degree rule? Or if you broke it, what have you learnt from this?
In our preliminary task we did not break the 180 degree rule as we didnt pass the line for obvious reasons we wanted to get it correct. It was harder than we thought but we felt it was extremley useful and good practice for the main task we will be filming soon.

Preliminary Task

Today we decided to finish of the editing on our preliminary task, and then to upload it on to our blog, allowing us to become familiar with the blog.

We feel our preliminary task was successful although we found faults. As it is our first attempt we delt this was a good way in noticing and identifying the faults and being able to keep them in mind when we film our main task. One of the most noticable faults in our preliminary ask was the eye direction between the two characters. For example when sat down talking the eye direction was not accurate to were it should be, we will now ensure that we don't do this when making our final piece.