McBain

"Mendoooooooza!"

Rough cut

Tommy Mac says - don't forget, the deadline for your Rough Cut is FRIDAY 12th Feb).
Tommy will be very upset if you don't post your Rough Cut on your blog. I will also be looking at your planning and research over half term, so do make sure that this is all complete and uploaded.



Who let the blogs out?

At this point, you should have entries covering:

• Initial feelings about the shoots you have undertaken, including exemplar footage/ screengrabs/ evidence
• Analysis of material, considering pros/ cons/ things to consider
• Overview of the work in progress with relevant links to the evaluation
• Any other details you think are appropriate

Remember, if you're not doing at three detailed entries a week you're not doing enough.

Don't forget - the blog is an integral part of your assessment for this element of the course and will form a foundation for 40% of your mark (20% of the entire AS) so you need to get into the habit of maintaining it on a regular basis (at least every couple of days you are working on a project). I will be marking the research/ planning sections during half-term, so you need to be up to speed by then...

All these things that you (should've) done



Here is a list of all the things you should have done (to paraphrase The Killers) or at least should have done by the end of last week:

WORK YOU SHOULD HAVE COMPLETED

• Research
• Scenario
• Scripting
• Storyboarding
• Location scouting
• Prelimary footage
• Animatics
• Production schedule
• Call sheets
• Props lists
• Production of log and continuity sheets

EVALUATION QUESTIONS - check you have covered the bases (to remind you...)

The following questions must be answered: 

• How does product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? - Have you researched these?
• How does product represent particular social groups? -Have you included a social group?
• What kind of media institution might distribute product and why? - Have you researched studios and distribution?
• Who would be audience for product? – Have you researched audience?
• How did you attract/address your audience? – Evidence in planning/ final product?
• What have you learnt about technologies from process of constructing product? – Evidence from blog (shooting/ editing)
• Looking back at preliminary task, what have you learnt in progression to full product?

  TIMEFRAME:By end of...

• 22nd January [revised]
  All pre-production planning (including storyboards, production schedules, call sheets etc.) completed/ posted to blog in digital form.
  Might also include test footage and mood boards
• 7th February [revised]
  All material required for project shot, converted and uploaded onto media servers
  
  During the period 17/01-07/02, you are invited to periodically upload brief examples of work to blog for peer and staff review
• 12th February
  Rough edit completed and uploaded to blog for peer/ staff review
• 22nd February (including half-term “holiday”)
  Final cut begun
• 14th March
  Final edit completed and uploaded to blog and media server in order to gather audience response and feedback
• 15th March
  15 min presentations of work, including initial evaluations and outlines of audience response
• 11th  April (including Easter “holiday”
  Detailed blog entries answering the evaluation questions uploaded, coupled with a video commentary

THE PROJECT:

Blog including detailed research/ planning (20 marks)

• Must include research into existing opening sequences completed (minimum five): analysis linked to evaluation, notes made on how example might be of value to projects
• At least one blog entry dedicated to each of:
• ­institutions (e.g. distribution companies, studios),
• ­audiences (some evidence)
• representation (reasons)

Titles and opening of new fiction film - 2 mins (60 marks)

Continuity features:

• Action match
• Shot/ reverse shot
• 180 degree rule

Other features

• Titles
• Genre-specific features (e.g. mise-en-scene/ music)
• Range of shots/ camera movement (essential
• Range of edits/ effects (if appropriate)

Evaluation (20 marks)

WEEKLY TASKS

• Maintain blog (at least 3 entries a week – OCR suggest one a day) – have you?
• Include images/ video clips supporting work (planning + work in progress)
• Consider all aspects of production process, including institutions, audience and representation
• Include as much detail as you can, justifying choices made
• Link to your work in progress
• Thorough outline of production process

Filming Landscapes

Here are a couple of interesting pages about shooting landscapes, if it's of interest:

http://www.moviemail.com/film-shop/collection/684-Top-10-Landscapes-in-Cinema/

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/15/urban-wandering-film-barbican-review

Rough Trade

Quite a fun project from some previous students I taught.

Some useful stuff from the OCR Blog

You should, of course, be checking the Official OCR blog (links to the right). However, if you're having trouble getting on it, please see below for some useful information lifted from it about audiences etc.

What is recommended for audience research for AS/A2? How can this be presented? Should we discourage the numerous questionnaires approach?
The practice of students giving out questionnaires and putting all the returned examples in their evidence has been discouraged for a long time. The main problem with this approach is not the survey method per se but the limited nature of the questions and the claims made for the responses. For example, asking ten fellow students their favourite genre of film, finding that seven out of ten say ‘horror’ and then using that to justify making a horror film opening as a result. Audience research is more productive if it addresses the following:

• What do real audiences consume?
• Who are the specific audiences for particular products?
• How do media industries target those audiences?

Those questions require research of a different kind to the local questionnaire method; initial research online looking for data about the industry students are dealing with, such as box office figures for films or circulation figures for magazines would be a good starting point. Part of research involves looking for examples of how marketing works across a range of media- for films this includes considering posters, trailers and their selling points, for example.

Later audience research should be considered in a series of stages, each involving formative qualitative feedback. So, for example:

• Pitching the product to the rest of the group and taking feedback, noting the responses from this and deciding how to act as a result.
• Showing early drafts of the work (such as an animatic of the storyboard or a mock up front cover) and asking some carefully framed questions about them to get a sense of the audience’s understanding of the product rather than just a measure of whether the audience liked it.
• Taking peer feedback at later stages and then again on the finished product; asking things like “can you tell me what happened in that sequence, what the relationship between the characters is and what do you think will happen in the rest of the film?” to look for audience readings of the work. ‘

These approaches can be presented in a variety of ways- video extracts with framing commentary from the makers; audio, written. All would help move away from the pie chart of responses model which tends to be fairly unproductive.