Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your Preliminary Task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task, I can’t believe how much I have learnt and how much the quality and standard differed between my preliminary task and my two minute film opening. If you were to compare the two, you would notice drastic differences between them. I noticed that my preliminary task looked a lot less professional and the editing was jumpy and disconnected. This could have been because when I first started media I wasn’t confident with using up to date technology as Macbooks and software such as Imovie as I have never experienced them before. In my preliminary task I was unsure about camera angles and the effects they would individually create. So I think I have learnt a lot more about camera angles and which ones to use and where to use them. I also have learnt how to edit footage on Imovie which I found really difficult at first, but it got easier over time. In my preliminary task the editing was poor and it didn't contain any transitions, however by learning how to use Imovie, I was able to add transitions and improve the quality of my film opening. Also I think I have learnt how the importance of a good storyline can impact the quality of the finished product. For example in my preliminary task there wasn't much dialogue and the storyline wasn't direct and clear, however in my film opening the storyline and narrative are clear from the start. With my preliminary task I didn't really plan what to do and how to do it, where as I believe I did a lot of planning for my opening. I have realised the importance of planning and how vital it can be. For example I created a number of story boards to help the process of filming. I also feel that I have learnt the importance of titles how they benefit the footage. On the preliminary task we only had titles at the beginning and end of the footage whereas in my opening I incorporated them into the footage, as I had learnt how to do this in the process of editing. The quality of sound is something else that I learnt from my preliminary task, because we filmed outside in several scenes and this impacted the sound, so for this reason I stuck to filming indoors for my opening. So that the sound was understandable and clear. I also learnt that adding a soundtrack really does make the opening a lot better, it creates great effects and it adds a lot to the fluidity of the footage whereas in the preliminary task we didn't have a soundtrack which made it a little dull and boring. So I have learnt that in most occasions music really does benefit the footage and the way that it’s perceived by its audience. I have learnt that meticulous planning is important as you need to be aware of your audience and how to attract them, so this is why I conducted research into the conventions of psychological thrillers so I knew what my audience expected. Also I think I have learnt a lot about selecting the right clips to use, because with the preliminary task we never had a time limit so we could just film whatever, however with our film opening we could only go up to 2 minutes, so I had to select appropriate clips to keep our film opening direct effective and therefore memorable.

His Lady In Red (FIRST DRAFT)

The video above is our first attempt at our Two Minute Film Opening. I managed to upload it to 'YouTube' even after all of the technical problems I encountered. I have evaluated certain aspects of this footage previously, however I will go into more key detail about how we improved in my evaluation considering we re- filmed all of our footage.

Production and Distribution Of "Red Road'

I have also looked into the way in which the film 'Red Road' was produced and distributed.
The Production of the film 'Red Road:
The  film Red Road is part of a unique, three-film concept called Advance Party 

produced by Sigma Films in Glasgow and Zentropa in Denmark. The idea behind Advance Party is that the same group of characters would be given to three different directors who would each have to develop a film around those characters. All the films would shoot for the same length of time in the same city, Glasgow.  Sigma and Zentropa had decided to use first time directors paired with first time producers. 

The distribution of 'Red Road':

The film Red Road was distributed by Tartan Films. Tartan Films is a US and UK film distribution company, founded by US-based Palisades Media Group to take over the film library of Tartan Films after it folded in Summer 2008.

I have found this image by searching for it, in 'copyright free Google images'. I have found all of my other images through this process, by using Google copyright free.

Production and Distribution For 'One Hour Photo'

Now that we have finished constructing our two minute film opening we have looked into how psychological films such as 'One Hour Photo' are produced and distributed. 

The production of 'One Hour Photo':
The writer and director 'Mark Romanek' said his inspiration for 'One Hour Photo' emerged out of "a desire to make a contemporary film in the style of the 'lonely-man' films of the '70s." His influences were drawn from films like "The Conversation," "The Tenant," "Taxi Driver" and "The Passenger."

After completing the script, Romanek sent it to producers 'Christine Vachon' and 'Pamela Koffler' who instantly liked the story. Producer 'Stan Wlodkowski' joined the filmmaking team after learning of the project through a colleague. 

The team instantly set about the task of finding the right actor to fill Sy Parrish's shoes. Koffler says we needed someone with that kind of charisma willing to play a character probably unlike anything they'd ever played before." Whilst researching the production I discovered some interesting facts about the film such as: several of Sy's narrative monologues were removed, and several scenes were re-shot with fewer lines. The original version also has older musical scores that were not used in the final product. Also in accordance with photography being the theme of the movie, many of the characters in the movie take their names from photographers. Robin Williams prepared for the role by actually training for two and-a-half days in a Southern California photo development lab. 

The Distribution of 'One Hour Photo':

The film 'One Hour Photo' is an American psychological thriller that was distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures in the United States. The film's limited release began on August 21, 2002 in seven theaters, opening to a $321,515 weekend, with an average of $45,930 per theater. The film made just over $8 million that weekend, and went on to gross $31,597,131 in the US, with an additional $20,626,175 in overseas territories, for an international total of $52,223,306 , this was a moderate box office success, as the budget was around $12 million.

Problem that occured whilst uploading to 'Youtube'

This print screen above shows the problem that we encountered when trying to upload to 'Youtube'. Whilst trying to publish to 'Youtube an error occured that informed us that the connection has timed out and that our video did not completely upload to 'Youtube'.

The image above shows the pop up box that appeared when we were trying to upload our video. To solve this problem we thought that we could burn our film opening to a disc and then upload the footage from the disc to 'Youtube' and then to our blogs. To do this we will need to convert our video to an IDVD file. This will allow us to upload the footage to our blogs.

Publishing to 'Youtube'

Once we finished out two minute film opening, we attempted to upload it to 'Youtube'. We selected 'Share' on Imovie and chosen share to Youtube'. A pop up box came up and informed us that our movie was exporting and publishing to 'Youtube'.

Voiceover

We always knew that as a group we wanted to add a Voiceover, to our footage to add an autobiographical effect. We thought that by adding a Voiceover it would create a unique first person effect and give the viewers a chance to really understand our male character through his Voiceover. However whilst editing our footage and adding a soundtrack we decided that it was best not to have a Voiceover as it would be over powered by the music even if we lowered the volume in certain parts of our video. So as a group we have decided to just have a soundtrack on our movie rather than adding an autobiographical Voiceover.