Final Cut

The final cut of Auberry Manor has now been completed. As previously discussed in the evaluation we are very happy with the progress and finished product.

Evaluation - Question Seven

Looking back at the preliminary exercise, what have you learnt? Is this product better then the original construction?


A great deal has been learnt from completing a preliminary task prior to our final production.  It allowed us a detailed insight into the factors of completion and also allowed us to build our skills with the software.  This worked particularly well to our advantage as it saved much time and allowed us to feature complex edits.  The biggest lesson learnt, is time management.  It is essential in media orientated work that deadlines are met consistantly.  This was hard at first but we made thorough plans and arrangements to ensure our time was well managed.  This was improved dramatically the second time we filmed and edited, we believe this was because had already experienced the kind of time restrictions. 

The titles we have made are a considerable improvement from last time, they are now animated and have music.  This introduces the film brilliantly and creates a sense of proffesional apprhension for the viewer.

In conclusion, our final piece is definitely better our two preliminary tasks. As a group we feel that we have fully progressed from a low quality, low storyline to a high quality enigmatic plot that engages the audience very well. Overall we are very happy with the finished product.

Evaluation - Question Six

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

Being able to adapt to the equipment and software is essential in ensuring we can complete a professional looking product in a reasonable amount of time.  We wanted to take fulll advantage of the features the Apple Macs provided, for example, Garage Band, Soundtrack Pro and Final Cut. 

Although Soundtrack Pro contained the basic sound effects, but they were limited and so we discovered from garageband that it contained more adventourous and unique effects rather than the typical sound effects which the other media groups may have used.
Some of the editing choices we made were quite complex and did take some guidance to complete efficiently.

Thankfully, our preliminary task enabled us to grasp the concepts of the software fairly easily.  We chose to use our own camera as it was to a better quality and was more convential for our use. 

Evaluation - Question Five

How did you attract/address your audience? 


We attracted our target audience (15 - 18 year olds) using several different devices. The film was constructed in a manner that meant it would be appealing to the target audience. The previous question discusses the majority of appealing to target audiences. Appealing in several ways meant that ultimately the piece would draw the attention of the target audience and convince them to watch the remainder of the film.

Also, when we produced a rough cut, this was then viewed to many audiences including other media groups, random students and the public when uploaded onto youtube.We received many comments including Positive; Good camera angles, variety of camera shots, creativity in production logo, good use of location and Negative; The begining location shot is shaky, no titles, no sound effects/ soundtrack, the tour of the house seems long and no scary/suspense/intense parts.

After recieving these feedbacks, we agreed with most aprts of the critical views as we were not fully ready to complete our final cut. And so we then used the feedback to help us improve our rough cut, to what we have produced now, which is the final cut of 'Auberry Manor'.

Further Notes:
Our target audience is 15, we will research social networking sites that 15 years olds and above are interersting in. The internet is the perfect form of media for this target audience, it has been proved that teenagers spend 31 hours a week on-line. They spend more time on the internet than watch television. So we shall spend the majority of our money on advertising on the web. 

When advertising on the television we shall choose the most popular channels watched by this age group for example Channel 4 and popular music channel's such as MTV and Kerrang! 

Putting our posters on public transport such as busses used for the school run and buses running in and out town.  Advertising in magazines such as music magazines and gossip magazines populary read by teenagers.    

Evaluation - Question Four

Who would be the audience for your media product?


Earlier on in the research and development stages we outlined the target audience for our piece - this was simply defined as a 15 certificate with a 15 - 18 year old mainly Male audience. When working with the remainder of the planning and creating the finished product we decided to adhere to this as closely as possible.


The general interests of this age group are:
- Characters that they can relate too.
- Characters that they can look up to.
- Settings that are identifiable as realistic.
- Fast-paced editing
- Action-packed (often enigmatic) story-lines


We full-filled these criteria in several ways.

Identifiable Characters:

Realistic Settings:

Fast paced editing:

Action packed storylines:

Evaluation - Question Three

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


Rivercoast Distribution is a distribution company that generally deals with Horror-Indie films.  We thought this factor important as it shows they are familiar this genre and may be recognised by potential consumers or cinemas.


http://www.rivercoastfilm.com/

Examples include:
- Junebug
- Birthrite
- Desert of Blood
    - Expect a Miracle
    - American Meth


Here is a trailer of Desert Of Blood - we'll only show a short portion of this just to illustrate the kind of films usually distributed by this company.




The company would be good for us as they have quite a wide range of publication capablities and seem to be quite prudent at releasing more 'indie' films into the abyss.

Evaluation - Question Two

How does your media product represent particular social groups?


We thought very carefully about how to represent the estate agent and purchaser.

They are represented as thinking they are immune. They are naive and upper-class and there is a sense of snobbery.

The type of people who usually feature in horror films are below:

However the general consensus to the look of an office worker and estate agent are below:

Evaluation - Question One

 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 


When creating our opening sequence we deliberated on which of the conventions of horror films we would use. We decided to make quite a clever opening that was enigmatic rather then gory. Hence the removal of blood from the list.

We developed some of the conventions that we believed were quite tacky.

Example between it and a real sequence are below:

The modernisation of characters also helped in challenging some of the conventions.

Creating a 'trendy' look for the characters was key to portraying their niaevity at the situation.

We used the realistic burnt down hotel in order to create a realistic effect of the goings-on. It also allowed a high polished piece of work that we couldn't achieve. We simply didn't have access to huge studios and special effects.

The very tacky (if old) Frankenstein like monster escaping from a cave simply wouldn't appeal to the target audience. We developed these older style conventions into something much more usable for our modern target audience.


In the majority of modern and old style horror films, gore is highlighted.


We took a lot of inspiration from What Lie's Beneath.

Therefore comparing some of the shots below will illustrate some of the conventions that we used:

Review of Final Cut

After several attempts in improving our rough cut of Auberry Manor, including adding sound effects, soundtrack,visual effects and motions. We have finally completed our final cut, ready to be uploaded as an Quicktime Movie to be then uploaded onto youtube for public viewing.

We have done many things to our rough cut in order for it to be at a high and professional standard, this includes re-arranging the clips into an order which makes sense and does not confuse the audience, we also added several sound effects to certain clips to match the scene and sense of atmosphere during the scenes. 

We achieved this very well as we chose very carefully which sound effect as well as the  motion effect should go with each clip to create a sense of meaning.

Our next step is to then move onto our evaluation of our whole project, including; research, ideas, construction then going onto how we achieved our final product 'Auberry Manor'. 

The good things that went well during this project, the obstacles that occured and ways in which we can improve this project if we had time or had to do it again.

AUBERRY MANOR

Garageband - Tuesday 16th March

We wanted to find some unique sounds that other groups may not have featured.  Rather than using the normal sound effects on soundtrack pro, we looked at a piece of software called Garageband.  Here we found a library jammed with exciting, cinematic and intriguing music.  We selected some music we thought appropraite and added it to our sequence.

Rough Cut Feedback

Feedback is an essential factor in creating a successful production.  It is key that the audience can connect with the drama, and have an understanding of its narrative.  If we are not succeeding in pleasing to audience fully we must go back and analyse our sequences.  After 'Auberry Manor' was shown to a class of A2 Media students we recieved some useful comments.  One of which being that our shots were too long, we agreed with this point and adressed it promptly.  Another major comment was an issue with continuity, the group noticed that we have some flaws in our shot orders.  We watched it ourselves and agreed strongly, this also reinforced the importance of feedback.  The postive comments were that our narrative was immediately clear and understood. They also appreciated the time and effort put into creating animated credits.  We found this excersise very useful and have used the comments given, to hopefully create a better film for our audience.

Progression - Friday 12th March

Today was a very productive lesson, we had the chance to finally get down to editing our sequence shots.  We enjoy this part as we like to observe the drastic change a mear colour filter or a sound effect can make to a shot.   As a group we came to the conclusion, after the anaylysis of our preliminary task, that we were going to use as many sound effects as possible.  We used very few in our first production and we found that this was to our disadvantage as we believe they add an extra layer of excitement to the sequence.  We went on soundtrack pro and selected some sounds that we wanted.  These included a creeking door, a womans scream, footsteps and banging. 

Credit Still Shots

These are the two images that we created using Adobe Photoshop CS4, they have been developed into animated sequences with some sound. 

Firstly 'Whatever Productions', we wanted this to fit the genre of our film, so the sequence could flow accordingly from this point.  We started by collecting an image of a heart monitor. 

Changes & Adaptions

During our filming, our storyboard has undertaken serious changes and adaptions.  This was mostly due to the immense inspiration the abandoned locations offered.  We were able to immerse ourself in the story and the plot which opened up many options and ideas. For example, we have a shot of two characters in conversion, during the filming of this we realised the optimum potential for this shot.  The characters were stood directly in front of murky frosted glass.  Considering our story and the elements of suspision and terror, our group came up with the idea of having a shadow pass the glass fom the other side.  We tried this out and it worked brilliantly in creating a ghost like effect.

The idea has undergone several transformations during our research and development stages. The largest of which was the complete change of plot. We have know minorly adapted the story, shots and ultimately the effect on the audience to maximise the 'punch' of the sequence.

Production Company Animated Sequences - Ideas

After looking at some logo designers in the worldwide market we couldn't gleam much inspiration and ended up brainstorming the ideas within our group.

We looked at:
http://www.logodesign.co.uk/logos.php#
http://www.logoquality.co.uk/

The two ideas were eventually used and we have begun to create the titles using a variety of software (mainly Adobe Photoshop CS and Final Cut Pro).

Whatever Productions:

We decided to use the trace of the heart monitor and have the title of the production company appearing during the flat-line. Accompanied with sound we decided it would look proffesional and like the logo's we had seen previously on films. We also wanted the connotations of death and danger to co-operate with the type of horror film that we might be associated with.

Jingleberry Films:

For the actual producer of the film's we decided to adopt a much more playful and friendly scene. It was decided that the text of the company would appear accompanied by some 'splats'. We also wanted to accompany the 'y' of the Jingleberry with a swinging cherry. We hoped that this would also represent an all-round company that focused mainly on those films produced for a younger target audience.

Current Progress - Tuesday 2nd March

We are thoroughly engrossed within the editing and sequencing now. We have created some really good titles for the production companies and have evaluated the footage that we have filmed so far. Unfortunately it seems that we are going to have to re-film the entirety of the estate agency section due to a technical hitch.

We are very happy with the progress so far and look forward to publishing the work as it becomes polished.