Pre-production update

This week I have been finalizing my pre-production work for my coursework. I have been making improvements to my storyboard and powerpoint presentation in order to help me with my production piece. On the storyboard, I have now included the editing between each of the shots such as a fade in/fade out. Also I have added detail in the shots to make them clearer and also added colour. On my powerpoint, I have now clearly written about each of the details in my first ideas and shown how I have used them to stick to conventions of the horror genre and similar trailers. Everything on my powerpoint I have now detailed in order to show why it has been done/used for my coursework.

Also I have been going through intertexts of my trailer and in particular the intertext of filming technique.
My trailer will feature similar filming to that in paranormal activity in the concept of handheld camera filming. Although I will also use more intriguing camera shots and editing that that used in the intertexts.

Intertext for Filming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMQQpmm5u3w

After watching The Blair Witch project end scene, I have established that I would like my trailer to have similar conventions of this clip. Being that it is filmed in a remote location in the woods gave me the original idea of the trailer and also there are only a couple of characters involved in the clip and this is another thing I would like to feature during the scenes in the woods as this means the characters can each have more detail rather than not being established at all.

Pre-production first draft feedbacks.

On my first draft of the storyboard for my coursework, I received the following feedback in order to improve my work;

• Complete the details of the project and the date made at the top of the sheet in order for the storyboard to have professionalism.
• Between each shot, include the editing that will take place, e.g. Wipe , Fade.
• Too long shots and therefore it is not realistic. Shots must be 1-4 seconds long maximum.
• Add colour to each shot in order to make the shot more clearer and descriptive.
• Go over shots 15-20 as they are unclear and less detailed as the previous.

By responding to this feedback and using it wisely, it will be beneficial for my coursework as a whole and in particular it will help me while I am shooting the trailer.

Feedback on first ideas

This week in media studies, we presented our first ideas of our coursework to the class in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. I was given positive and negative feedback of which i'm going to act upon in order to make my production better and more appealing to the audience.

Positive Feedback

• Detailed narrative
• Applied terminology.
• Explains the use of location.
• Using survey results in order for the trailer to appeal to demographic.
• Used conventions of the genre.
• Intertext research used for location.
• Interesting title.
• Original storyline.
• Applied Todorov's theory.
• Iconography.

Negative Feedback

• Needed more pictures for dress codes and settings.
• Didn't show the actors.
• Too difficult idea to create.
• Poor font choices
• Filming will be difficult in the dark.

I will use this feedback in order to improve my planning and research PowerPoint and also to adapt the ideas of particularly the narrative in my trailer.

Blog Update: Storyboard

This week I have started to produce a story board for my production of my coursework. I have now finally decided a brief outline of the narrative that I'm going to use. By doing the storyboard, it will give me a view into how to film each shot and also what each shot will be. For example, I have decided that a key ideology of the trailer is handheld camera shots therefore my storyboard shows this.

Update: Editing

This week, I have just started to get to grips of using the cameras in order to help me for when I make my production piece of the coursework, which will most likely be video based. We filmed a simple scene and then uploaded it to a computer and practiced with some simple editing of the clips. This will be useful in order to help us in a later date. This filming and editing is just practice for making our production piece.
Also, we have been learning filming rules/tricks which are useful and appropriate for our coursework.

Surveys

These are my surveys that I have made in order to find out my demographic:

http://www.survey.com/cgi-bin/pollxt.pl?poll=PM2U1AR9V9Q8

http://www.survey.com/cgi-bin/pollxt.pl?poll=PM2U1AR9V3A8

http://www.survey.com/cgi-bin/pollxt.pl?poll=PM2U1AR9V3Q8

Blog Update : Survey

This week I have currently been doing my analysis of the audience and therefore I have done this by sending out survey's for people to complete. My survey's have been sent to a variety of different people including family, friends, teachers and also random people and therefore this maintains that my result is fair and varied.

I have had from 20-35 results and therefore this makes my audience research fair and it gives me an in depth view of people's opinions on my questions.

Blog Update : Research and Planning

This week I have completed the first part of my powerpoint of which I have carried out a successful textual analysis of 3 intetexts; Insidious, Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project. This enables me to take certain ideas from the texts that will help me to complete the production of my coursework.

So far I have decided to do a horror film trailer and therefore I have started to plan out my first ideas for this such as the location/setting of my filming, OSG font choices, Actors and the basic narrative stucture.

Blog Update - Intertexts

I have chosen the intertexts that i'm going to analyse for my planning and research for the coursework of which I am going to make a horror trailer. They all in my opinion have conventions or have idea's that I would like to feature in my film.

The Intertexts are;

• Insidious
• The Blair Witch Project
• Cloverfield

I have chosen these 3 intertexts careful and all for different reasons as I think they will all benifit my film trailer with ideas.

First Idea's For Coursework

I have decided that for my coursework I am going to make a film trailer in the Horror genre and I have decided this because I enjoy watching horror films and I think it should be really interesting.
I want my trailer to be similar to intertexts such as Dawn of the Dead or Night of the Living Dead as this is what I would like my trailer to be along the similar narrative to.

One key idea I have for the coursework, being that we are using handheld cameras, is to do a trailer that is similar to the way cloverfield is based as I think it would be simple but effective.

A Day In The Life

'Day In The Life'

this was on the 18/10/2011 and i took mulitple pictures of my day. i used windows movie maker to edit some photos and music together and then uploaded it .

Starting My Blog

My Alps Grade is C

Feelings about course so far:

• I have found the course so far very interesting and i am looking forward to the course ahead such as the video making.
• I think Media A Level is a lot harder that GCSE so far as it involves adapting my past knowledge to a higher standard.

For the Coursework I think I am going to a film trailer in the horror genre. I am extremely excited by the idea of the coursework and I hope it lives up to the expectations I set upon it. The coursework side of Media Studies has aided me to participate as I am not as confident in the theory side of the course.