Evaluation Activity 3 (Callum Doona)

Evaluation Activity 2 (Callum Doona)

 Activity 2:

This character is much like Matt Damon in the Bourne trilogies as they are both the main protagonists of their films, and Jason is always on the run just like my character (William cumber-force). they both get into trouble with the wrong people, as you can see the antagonist chasing behind him.It is stereotypical for black people to be bad which I don't believe in this shows he stereotypical views on the social groups.

The killer in the opening is seen wearing all black and is holding a brick as his weapon. His hood being up and the brick in his hands makes it clear to the audience that he is the criminal in the crime thriller. Also his face is not shown creating mystery and doesn't tell the audience about the age group of the character or any personal information. This is good as due to the limited choice of actors a young 17 year old looking killer may not be too convincing for the audience and may ruin the viewer experience. Finally, the character is male which conforms to most crime thriller films that have a male character as the killer. The fact that the chaser in the opening is a young black actor shows how the stereo type is being conformed by the way that young black teenagers with hood are usually considered threats. In contrast to the young white character who is the victim

Tom in the opening who is the sniper character is like Bradley Cooper in American Sniper. They are both snipers in a rugged environment and they are smiler as they have small dialogue parts which adds tension to the opening, for example "tango down". this character challenges the sniper character in American Sniper because usually snipers are related to  military

Evaluation Activity 1 (Callum Doona)

Activity 1:

The product that we created showed elements of a real thriller opening because of the the title of the film. The title is "Location H" this implies a very sinister and cold setting as Location H is actually the name of the  park we used to film in. for. The credits pop up at some different points in the opening this is so that there is always a bit of action going on, we didn't want to just bombard the audience with writing while there was a chase scene going on as well, we did this as there would be a constant rush as well as seeing who had been a part of this thriller product.

The setting/location of the thriller opening shows how the thriller genre is conveyed, first of all the forest we used was quite dark so the fear was sort of real when we were acting, we had a huge space of land to use for this so we used most of Heath park to film this as then there would be a variety of settings so portray the thriller vibes.

The costumes and makeup we used for the acting were just casual clothing which I honk added to the thriller genre of the opening as it didn't take away a from the verisimilitude of life and how this sort of plot could happen, it's not like blown out of proportion that's why I like it, if it was blown out of proportion then it wouldn't seem as real as it is. The only make up we used was for my character was just a bit of mud from the ground, this was also a way of adding to the real life plot and how it could happen.

 The camera work was probably the biggest indicator of it being a thriller opening as there were a few scenes which are quite creepy even though I know what's going to happen, for example the 360* shot, this is a good use of camera work as one second you can see the protagonist and the next you can't and we didn't edit that, it was just a case of clever set work . On the other hand we did edit a few clips to make them more fast and adrenaline filled to be fast paced and creepy. The way the characters are introduced is fast as they all of a sudden come running into the shot, you only know one of the characters by the end of the opening but you don't know the man in black, this added to he creepiness of the whole plot and it introduces the convention of mystery which again adds to the thriller genre for the plot. We did use a cracking branch for a sound effect this was because we filmed s branch cracking but it was too quite and we wanted the audience to here it as the characters heard it so they could also feel the fear that the character was feeling.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 7 : Michael

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 7 : Michael from michael cranenburgh

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 6 : Michael

Throughout the production process we used a variety of different types of technologies.

The equipment we used included: 

- Canon DSL 650 D

- iMac

- Mic 

The softwares we used were: 

- Final Cut Pro 

- Blogger 

Canon DSL 650 D 

Pros:

• 18 Megapixels allowed High Quality visuals.
• Main equipment used to capture opening thriller film.
• Taught beforehand so quite simple to construct, in terms of white balance and which buttons to press to video.
• Lens allowed focus for greater definition .
• The range of lighting it offered was very useful.

Cons: 

• Battery life was an issue for us since we ran out of battery near the end of shooting, however we recharged it quickly.
• The menu on the camera were initially slightly confusing to comprehend, but eventually got used to it.
• The mic on the camera was quite weak, although we used a small boom mic to help us.

Conclusion: 

Using this camera, I learnt a lot of things such as how to hold it in a tripod, enhance lighting, white balance and filming with it in general. The process of learning how to use it was very interesting. It was a great experience since I had never used a Canon to video something before.

Imac: 

Pros: 

• Used in 2 production processes - pre and post production.
• Used to edit final product.
• Used for research.
• Auto-saved everything.

Cons:

• Occasionally the Macs crashed and froze, however I think it was the softwares itself that froze - to solve this issue we patiently waited or just logged onto a new Mac.

Conclusion: 

The iMac was one of the most vital equipment in the process of pre-production and post production. I learnt many things such as the new softwares like Final Cut Pro and Blogger that i had not had any experience with before this task. 

Mic: 

Pros:

• Enhanced our thriller by blocking out most background noise and focusing on our character's dialogues.
• Professional mic.
• Easy to attach on and remove from camera.

Cons:

• Sometimes we could still hear some background sounds.
• The mic was a pain too carry as well as everything else.

Conclusion: 

The mic was pretty new to our year so we all were excited to use it. It really helped us in our production as it improved the quality of our footage. 

Final Cut Pro: 

Pros: 

• Used to edit any footages that were to be put onto YouTube for our blog - e.g. interviews, focus groups interviews and our thriller! 
• Simple concept, in terms of cutting and editing a single footage.
• Worked well on Macs.

Cons: 

• Sometimes froze when added too many footages 
• Takes a long time to render.
• Quite difficult to cut to the exact spot you want to cut to - to solve this issue I zoomed closer into a single footage and cut to the spot I needed to.

Conclusion : This is the software that ultimately puts everything together and without it we would be unable to get rid of snippets that we didn't want in our final clip. Overall it was really good to use apart from when it randomly decided to close itself. 

Blogger: 

Pros: 

• Used in all 3 production processes
• Easy to blog on.
• Able to alter time and date to have an organised group navigation bar.
• Able to upload things from a variety of websites, such as YouTube, Prezi and Soundcloud.
• Proof of work the group and I has done individually.

Cons: 

• The images sometimes don't lay where I want them to be - however, I attempt to place it elsewhere where it would look just as presentable.
• Having to embed codes is quite long - but, I began to get used to it.

Conclusion : It was good to use and made it easy for us to post everything on to. It was also another place for us as a group to communicate as we were constantly using it and updating our posts.