Evaluation Question 4
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our 'Saving Santa' film has a certificate of PG because it is aimed at families so has to be suitable for children. Everyone can watch our film, apart from very young children because of the comic fight scenes. We thought that our main target audience would be teenage boys and older children because the comic fight scenes would appeal to them and they would be the ones to enjoy the storyline the most.
I have learnt a lot about audiences whilst making this film and have discovered what genres might appeal to what people. Our film has a comedy genre as well as the obvious Christmas film genre which, unlike Romances which is likely to appeal to women, appeals to everyone and is a good genre for a family Christmas film.
Evaluation Question 1
Title - Saving Santa – we chose this title because it encompasses a simplified version of our films plot into 2 words allowing someone who hasn’t seen the film to comfortably assume what the films going to be about.
· Setting/location – living room: a large, modern spacious room that had an American feel to it. It was graciously decorated, especially the fireplace and the tree, which was useful as Santa came out of the fireplace and so gave us an aesthetically pleasing shot.
Entrance hall: this was a smaller room with 4 doorways in it; it also contained a Christmas tree, which helped add to the Christmassy atmosphere.
Drive: there was a drive in the final few shots, but due to it being dark, you can hardly see it.
· Costumes/props – Santa costume: we got a Santa costume from Lucy’s mums work as she works with children and they had it just lying around.
Elf costume – this also came from Lucy’s mums work and came with the Santa suit.
Robber costume – this was just simple face paint, black jeans, a hoodie and some paintball gloves Chay had at home.
· Camerawork/editing – We all edited and had a go using the camera, the titles were done by Chay and Tom in terms of camera, with Lucy and Bonnie writing the titles. Tom had the idea for writing on the cookies, and so he also wrote on them, as it was his idea in the first place. Lucy and Bonnie filmed the rest of the film as Chay and Tom were in character being filmed. In terms of editing, we used adobe premiere, which was very useful as it was simple to use and gave us a lot of options to edit with. Things like the razor tool was very helpful, this tool enabled us to cut media to make it shorter and use transitions in the middle of the media like crossfade and roll across.
Evaluation Question 5
How did you attract/address your audience?
We have attracted our audience through the props and lighting. The costumes the characters are wearing are colourful, apart from the Robber's, and the props add to the colourful atmosphere created by the lighting. The Christmas tree is the first ting the audience will see when watching our film and it is full of colourful baubles and bright lights.
We have used upbeat music for our film which immediately focuses the attention of the audience onto the film.
Mise En Scene
-Settings and Props
Settings and props can be the most important thing to showing a genre. It can clearly show the genre by what is around. If there is a planet with lasers, the genre is quite clearly sci-fi.
-Costume, Hair and Makeup
This can help to show the personality of a character, the time period and a genre. Some characters are directly linked with a certain costume or hairstyle.
-Facial Expressions and Body Language
This shows a characters feelings and what kind of a person they are.
-Lighting and Colour
Lighting and colour can be used to direct the viewers attention to certain things and highlight the important aspects of the scene. It can also show a characters feelings and personality by using light for a happy person and dark for a angry mysterious person.
-Positioning of Characters/Objects in the frame
This can also direct the viewers attention and highlight important characters and objects. It can indicate relationships between characters.
Settings and props can be the most important thing to showing a genre. It can clearly show the genre by what is around. If there is a planet with lasers, the genre is quite clearly sci-fi.
-Costume, Hair and Makeup
This can help to show the personality of a character, the time period and a genre. Some characters are directly linked with a certain costume or hairstyle.
-Facial Expressions and Body Language
This shows a characters feelings and what kind of a person they are.
-Lighting and Colour
Lighting and colour can be used to direct the viewers attention to certain things and highlight the important aspects of the scene. It can also show a characters feelings and personality by using light for a happy person and dark for a angry mysterious person.
-Positioning of Characters/Objects in the frame
This can also direct the viewers attention and highlight important characters and objects. It can indicate relationships between characters.
Evaluation Question 6
Camera
We used a camera to record the actual film. It was sometimes
difficult to use as it didn’t always focus so we had to move the camera slower
for it to be able to stay in focus. We also used a camera to take pictures of
our progress which we then put on our blog.
Tripod
We used this to keep the camera steady. It was sometimes
better not to have the tripod when moving as it gave us less movable capability
when walking round the room.
Computer
We used this for lots of different programs such as:
-YouTube
We used YouTube to look at other similar film openings and
to find the music that we would use. Sometimes it didn’t always give us usable
music so we had to search through a lot of results to find a good one.
-Adobe Premier
We used this to edit our film. Some of the features were
difficult to use so we had to learn by trial and error.
-Blogger
We used this to show our progress through making the film.
-Photoshop
We used this to make our film poster. Like Premier some of
the features were difficult to use but after trying them out we got the hang of
them.
Title Research
We wanted to choose a font for our film title that suits the genre of the film and the target audience. We chose to use the font at the bottom of the list because we thought it was fun and festive but also original by not being as classic as all the other Christmas films available.
Influence
Our film was majorly influenced by other christmas films likes elf, home alone, bad santa and of course saving santa. The film Arthur christmas really impacted us as well, because this films is where we got the idea of military style elves, and how the elves actually helped santa deliver all the presents. The name of our film ' saving santa ' was taken from the animated version, that film also really made a difference in how our story came about, due to us wanting our film to be just as successful as the other saving santa, but not copying the story or anything. Elf was a major player in creating our film, due to elf's success all around the northern hemisphere, and it becoming one of Christmas's traditional films, as most families will watch elf around Christmas every single year. We wanted our film to be a major contender in the Christmas film category, so we made sure we had all the representations and genre conventions that all these films had, we played it as safe as we could, but we also wanted our film to be unique and stand out from all the other films. This is why we tried a completely different storyline to any other Christmas films out there, it was designed to include every aspect of every Christmas film, thus making it unique. Our credits we also got from elf, as it uses the book to introduce everyone so we took that idea and changed it to putting all the titles on the Christmas decorations.
Risk Assessment
Audience
Our audience for our film is slightly older children, so from ages 8 and up. This is because although it is a kids film, it has elements of violence and due to Santa being kidnapped. So obviously it isn't suitable for kids where it will help destroy their childhood.
Location
We shot most of our film in the living room of our friends house, it is a large, spacious thing, that easily contained our decorations and films adventures. The fact that the house already had a couple of decorations up helped us a lot, as we didn't have to have a lot of decorations to put up, and there were already presents up and around the house that we could rearrange, this saved us a lot of time and effort and overall made the film just easier to make. Bonnie and Lucy had been round before multiple times so we didn't need any recce shots as they already had the perfect place to film. Our film just involves the living room, the entrance hall and you can see a tiny bit of the drive in the background of the last few shots, but due to it being nighttime you cant see anything. There is a brief bit where the audience will see the entrance hall, but their focus should mainly be on the robber with santa over his shoulder.
Costumes
- Santa costume
- Elf costume
- Robber costume
- Red robe
- Elf hat
- Glove
This is our new costume list:
- Santa costume
- Elf costume
- Robber gloves, and face paint
- Dark jeans
- Black shoes
- Tights
- Black shoes
- Elf hat
Production Diary
Monday 10th November
On the 10th we began our planning for our film opening task. Before this lesson we had to come up with our own film pitch idea to show the others in our group, we did this so we could agree on one of our ideas which we would then plan, film and edit. In this lesson both Tom and Chay were absent so it just left Bonnie and Lucy to show each other their ideas. We had to discuss good and bad things about the ideas and thought about which one would work best.
Tuesday 11th November
On the second day, Tom and Chay were here again which meant we could show each other our ideas and agree on a final film opening. We told each other our film pitch but couldn't decide between a couple of them so we presented them to the class to see what they preferred. After this we had decided to go with Tom's idea which was a Christmas themed film but with a different audience to the normal genre, teenagers rather then young children.
Wednesday 12th November
On the Wednesday we got together and started thinking up some narrative ideas, looking for music to use in the film opening, possible locations and unique title ideas. These titles included Christmas decorations which told us we need a lot of props but this was good because at this time of year they can be easily found. Later, Tom and Chay thought a lot about the storyboard, characters and narrative whilst Bonnie and Lucy discussed locations, costumes and props needed.
Thursday 13th November
Today we thought about timelines for other films. We went on the computer to do some individual research to look up other films with a similar genre to ours and saw what order they put their titles in. Our opening scene focuses on the titles so this was an important task for our group. We all watched different films so we didn't all do the same. We wrote down the time at every title that came up and who was mentioned. For example the films title was shown early on but was not the first name that came up. We learnt which order these names usually appear in which will be a big help for us.
Friday 14th November
On Friday we looked at the 'art of the title' website which had lots of successful title sequences from well-known films. We chose a title sequence that related to our films genre and created a timeline for the film. We spent the whole hour taking screenshots from the title sequence, cropping them and putting them in order on one photo to add to our blog. We had to screenshot every time a name appeared, wrote down the time and took a photo of it. This took time as it was a long process but it was needed to help us.
Monday 17th November
In this lesson we were given a list of over 20 planning tasks to do which we organised between the four of us by giving each person a number of the tasks to do. These tasks were to help us plan, they included the storyboard, music, prop list, recce shots, planning photos, a mood board and a risk assessment. We all took on the jobs we thought were best for us so we all had something to plan for the week.
Tuesday 18th November
Today we started planning our own individual tasks, Lucy looked at text fonts and sixes for the titles, Bonnie made a prop list and Tom and Chay began creating the storyboard together. To communicate we have made a chat on whatsapp so we can share thoughts easily and share photos for our task.
Wednesday 19th November
Lucy was absent on the Wednesday so Chay, Bonnie and Tom wrote a title list of who was what role in the production of our film. The logo was chosen which was Bonnie's because it was the best as it looked professional and had a good name.
Thursday 20th November
(No media lesson)
Friday 21st November
We carried on with our individual jobs and peer assessed our blog so we got a second opinion for our work. This was good as we gathered new ideas for our blog and we found what we still need to do.
Monday 24th November
Chay started the risk assessment for our filming and Tom carried on drawing the storyboard and added some text to it. We also told our media teacher our final ideas and discussed when we will film. We worked out when we could all film which was going to be the following Friday (28th) as we all have a free period last lesson.
Tuesday 25th November
Today Lucy brought in the Santa costume for Tom and Chay to try on to make sure it fit them, we needed to make sure it fitted so we knew if we needed to get anything before filming. We also continued to work on our individual tasks. Chay worked on the risk assessment, Tom worked on the storyboard, Bonnie made a title list on her blog and Lucy did the production diary.
Wednesday 26th November
Today Tom finished the storyboard and Chay begun writing the script, Tom has also added timings to the storyboard so it is completely finished. Bonnie worked on her blog writing up prop lists and uploading photos and Lucy added more days onto the production diary.
Thursday 27th November
Today Tom started writing up representations, Chay started the script, Bonnie wrote up about the music we will use in the film and Lucy also looked at music, production diary and worked out what props people needed to bring as our filming day is tomorrow (Friday 28th).
Friday 28th November
Today is filming today, before this Tom and Chay filmed the storyboards and made a voiceover, Bonnie added more to her blog and Lucy added the risk assessment to the blog which included all the possible risks that could occur when filming.
Filming:
When it came to filming, we left school at 1.30pm to go to film. We left at this time so we had plenty of time to film as we had the whole afternoon/evening. We got to our location around 2'o'clock which meant we had about three hours to film. First, we looked at the room we were using and figured out where we were going to place all the props. We used the fireplace, two tables and the mantle piece on top of the fireplace. Bonnie and Lucy decorated the mantle piece with props we had bought and Chay and Tom decorated the tree and picked out tinsel and baubles.
After this we did some practise filming which got us used to the camera and how we were going to film. We didn't actually film this but we looked through the camera to check it looked good. We then checked the lighting, our film is supposed to be dark as it is set in the evening/night so as it was daytime we shut the curtains and dimed the lights. This lighting was good because it created the scene we wanted. We then stared filming the first shots of our film. We practised many times and got many videos so we had enough to edit and eventually created a long duration shot for the title sequence which lasts about 2 minutes which is what we hoped for.
Once we had filmed the first bit, we started to plan the second part which was when Santa gets 'kidnapped' by the robber. This took time as we had to get all the acting and filming just right. Whilst Tom (Santa) and Chay (robber) acted their small fight scene, Bonnie used the elf costume to be in the foreground who was oblivious to what was happening behind her, Lucy was filming at this point using the tripod in the corner of the room.
Once we had filmed the second part, we then filmed another shot which will appear before the 'fight'. We filmed the 'fight' before because it was going to take longer. The third thing we filmed was when Santa (Tom) is emerging from the fireplace. Chay used the camera to film this from the side of the fireplace so it looked as though Tom (Santa) had travelled down the chimney. Santa then stood in the room ready for the following shot (which we filmed before this- the 'fight scene'.
All our filming took about four hours in total which included setting up which took about half an hour. We managed to film everything which was great because we only have to film again if we missed anything or if something isn't right. This means we have even more time to edit which we will need as it is especially important for our film.
Monday 1st December
Today in lesson all we did was watched our shots we had filmed on Friday, we looked at what went well and what could maybe be improved if we have time. Lucy looked at lighting on premiere as the camera had made the footage look dark, we should have made lighting more bright in the room but we thought it was okay as it needed to be set at night, however we could easily adjust lighting on premiere to make it look less dull. Chay and Tom also put the footage onto a computer to see what could be done with editing.
Tuesday 2nd December
Today Tom wasn't in so we continued to work on our blogs instead of editing. Lucy uploaded storyboard photos to the blog and wrote up about them. Bonnie finished the shooting schedule and Chay added some more to his blog.
Wednesday 3rd December
Today Lucy and Tom were not in school but Chay and Bonnie started to edit the draft of our film. They managed to arrange shots in the correct order and add the music. They also added some more to their blogs, but mainly used the lesson to add and edit on premiere.
Thursday 4th December
(No media lesson)
Friday 5th December
Today Lucy added more to the production diary, Tom spent the whole lesson editing the filming and Bonnie and Chay added more to their blogs such as the risk assessment and the shooting schedule. Tom had watched the editing Chay had done the lesson before and then added to it eventually making our draft copy to show to the class, this will allow us to receive feedback for our film and see what we need to do to improve it.
Monday 8th December
Today we watched all the film drafts and gave feedback, we commented on what went well and what needed to be improved. This was good for our group as not only did we get to see all the other film opening ideas, we got to see what people liked about our film.
Tuesday 9th December
Today we received our feedback sheets and Lucy and Bonnie looked through them to see what people had said. Tom and Chay were both absent for the lesson so Bonnie and Lucy sorted out the good and bad comments we got from the class.
Wednesday 10th December
Today we carried on looking at the feedback sheets and looked at what had gone well and saw what we needed to improve. We discussed re-filming as some people had commented on the titles being unreadable. We decided we needed to re-film or do a lot of editing, we then made the decision of re-filming which would then happen the next day (Thursday).
Thursday 11th December
Today in lesson Lucy wrote on the baubles with tipex to show some names for the titles, Bonnie helped with names and what titles to use and Tom and Chay thought about new shots to use for a slight change in the film opening as the props will have to be moved when we re-film.
Filming:
When it came to filming for the second time, we went after school to the house we were using and got there at about 4.00pm, we took about 2 and a half hours to get all the footage we needed. Lucy re-wrote the labels for titles whilst Tom and Bonnie got changed into their outfits. Chay worked out where everything needed to be filmed and worked out what props we could use.
When we were ready to film, Chay filmed the part where Santa (Tom) comes out of the chimney, at this point the elf (Bonnie) was in the background.
We then filmed the fight scene (when Santa is captured) and carries him out the room which will lead to the final part where the wreath is shown.
After this we filmed the title sequence, when doing this Chay filmed the whole shot and to avoid shadows, Lucy shone a torch above to improve the lighting.
We then filmed the final scene where Santa is taken and they leave the house, the door then shuts behind them which reveals the title of the film on a wreath on the door.
This time filming went a lot better than the first time as the props and tree were improved, the lighting was much better/brighter and the titles were different.
Friday 12th December
Today we looked at the footage we had filmed the day before and made a folder of what we liked and what we didn't (good and bad footage) we then put the best filming onto premiere and started to edit. Tom did most of the editing and got a lot of it done. We need to add music to make it better and edit some of the shots. Bonnie, Lucy and Chay added more to the blogs.
Monday 13th December
Lucy was absent from the lesson so Bonnie took in the outfits so that Bonnie Chay and Tom could make the film poster. Using the drama rooms and a tripod, they produced a few images for the film poster.
Tuesday 14th December
Today Bonnie and Lucy added to their blogs whilst Tom and Chay looked for a classroom to film another shot. Lucy added to the production diary and Bonnie added the shooting schedule to her posts.
Wednesday 15th December
Today we added to our blogs, Tom wasn't is school. Lucy added to the production diary, Chay added to his blog and so did Bonnie.
Thursday 16th December
(No media lesson)
After school, Lucy and Bonnie stayed for a couple of hours completing final editing for the filming. We changed music and adjusted some timings to make finishing touches. We then uploaded I to Lucy's YouTube to then put on our blogs, this took a very long time as it had a lot to process. Whilst we waited we added some posts to our blogs, Lucy added more to the production diary and Bonnie added more to her blog. Our film is now ready and up on YouTube.
Re-Filming
On Thursday 11th December, our group decided to re-film. We got to the filming location after
school at about 4.00pm and it took about 2 and a half hours to re-film. We decided to change a few things which we discovered needing improving when we got our feedback back. This included title font as it was too unneat, I took the job of re-writing the titles to make them more festive and neat. Another thing we had to change was the Christmas tree as it was too small, we used a newer and bigger one for the second time filming which had lots more decorations on. I bought the outfits again and we re-did everything as our filming is one long continuous film for the titles.
We managed to capture everything we needed as the lesson after (Friday 12th) we saw that we had filmed everything correctly.
What went better this time was shadows, last time we got too many shadows in the background and the lighting wasn't good as it was too dark. Second time round, we avoided shadows and got some really good shots.
Second time filming photos
Shown above are some photographs I took of Chay, Tom and Bonnie getting ready to film once we had decided on positions.
Below are some photos I took of the scene where Tom (Santa) is taken by Chay.
Feedback
Feedback sheets are shown below, people gave us feedback on what went well and what we need to improve/change.
Overall, people really liked our title ideas, most people said they look creative the way we have presented them on objects in the room. They also liked the upbeat music that played over the top of the filming, however they suggested we used different music for the scene where Santa appears.
Many people liked the part where we used cookies to show one of the names. They said they liked our idea because it is different and original.
However, although we received some really positive feedback, we also got some comments which we need to improve. This included changing the titles so they were more readable but to do this we would have to re-film as the filming is one long shot. They suggested we spent more time writing the titles as the text was too simple and some were unreadable and someone said that the baubles were not good as we wrote on paper instead of on the actual bauble. If we do re-film we would have to write on the baubles, write neatly and make sure we use a range of names as we repeated a lot of the names a lot which was said to improve.
Barthes Narrative Theory
Barthes Narrative Theory is a theory that believes every film has the same set narrative. It starts with an equilibrium, this is a base point for the film. There is then a disruption which changes the equilibrium. Then there is a recognition where the characters realise the disruption. There is then a repair where the characters fix the problem, this leads to reinstatement where everything returns back to the equilibrium.
Characters
Most films will have a set type of characters. There is a hero, normally the main character of the film. Then there's a heroine and the heroines father. There is then a villain. The hero will also have a mentor and a helper. The mentor guides him and his helper helps him through the task he has been set.
Font
New Font
One of the main changes we had to make was the handwriting and font of the baubles. The original writing was quite messy and did not look very festive, so we re-did the handwriting so that it matched what we were hoping for. These were the type of fonts we were hoping to create:
For our first film, the name labels were written on pieces of paper which was then stuck onto the baubles. This time we decided to write on the actual baubles instead, which looked a lot better, although they were harder to write on so we could not be as creative, like with the cards.
This was the handwriting we used for the card name labels:
Film Poster
We have made a film poster to market our campaign which will be displayed on various public transports and in cinemas to widen the audience for our film. Our film will be emphasized around Christmas which is when we plan to market it the most. The trailer will be shown at the cinema at the beginning of other similar films.
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