Final coursework videos

Below are the final cuts of mine and Luke's romantic comedy.After spending much time comparing the videos, and asking people for their opinions on the two, me and Luke have decided to go with his edit as our final video. (The split screen version).

 



Coursework Evaluation Q7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your full product?

With our preliminary task, there was very little planning. Because of this, we were not able to do as much as we could have if we had enough preparation. I wanted to make sure that this did not happen with our coursework because it would have a big affect on the final video. We therefore did many things such as:

• We considered a few different people for the roles, and planned when to film to suit them all.
• We looked at locations before deciding some of the shots (so we could work the camera work around it).

Timekeeping when making a film turned out to be quite difficult, but we have learnt techniques such as those involving planning above, that allow it to be easier. With our video, we planned many weeks in advance of the filming days to make sure that we did not rush the filming before it needed to be done.

I also feel that I have learnt many things about the technologies that have been used in the process. Before the preliminary task, I had never before used After Effects or Premiere Pro, but after testing skills when creating my film company logo and editing the preliminary task, I now know much more about the editing process and I believe that I am becoming quite good at piecing a video together.

The equipment that we used to film our video was also made up of things that I had not used before. The moving tripod, shoulder mount, and a few other pieces of camera equipment were all new to me. These made the filming more interesting than just having a basic camera and tripod. The camera that we used was mine. We chose this over the school cameras because after looking at the specifications of each camera online, we came to the conclusion that mine would produce videos of a better quality. Unfortunately, it did not make a difference as the software available tended to automatically lower the quality of our videos. To combat this, we put the settings in the best possible combination for our video, and the quality ended up being still average.

As much as the whole editing may have seemed like a waste of time (because we used Luke's edit), I think that it has helped me to learn the necessary skills that will help me in future projects, such as next years.

To conclude, I have learnt quite a bit from the progression of my preliminary task to my full product. The new knowledge, skills, and abilities will be able to help me with my many more projects to come.

Coursework Evaluation Q6

Coursework Evaluation Q4 and Q5

For these questions, I decided to do an interview style video. The video features:

• Ross Woodrow (my brother)
• Steve (my bearded dragon voiced by me)
• Molly (my dog voiced by me)

The video is below:

Coursework Evaluation Q3

The answer to this question is spoken. The video is below:

Coursework Evaluation Q2

Coursework Evaluation Q1

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

Our media product is a two minute introduction to a romantic comedy. Our aim was to create a product that represented this genre as well as challenged some of its conventions at the same time. We spent many hours researching films of this genre, and the stereotypes that come with this type of film. Films such as ‘love actually’, ‘Scott pilgrim vs. the world’, ‘500 days of summer’, and even ‘Shaun of the dead’ all contain many of the typical conventions of a romantic comedy. A few of these typical romantic comedy conventions are listed below:

·         male and female protagonists (girl is popular, boy is unpopular)

·         narration to open/set the scene

·         the main setting is an urban environment

·         there is at least one montage scene

·         there is often a rival lover (sporty, popular boy) trying to take the girl

·         the soundtrack is catchy and is often played during a montage

So how did we deal with these conventions?

First of all, male and female protagonists. Romantic comedies will usually always consist of one boy and one girl who fall in love. We kept this convention as it is a must have for a romantic comedy (unless the story features a homosexual couple). To develop this however, we made the girl the unlucky and unpopular one and from watching our video, it is clear that she is not having such a good time.

In the Luke's edit of the video, there is narration, but my final edit did not have any. I did not want it because I believe we needed to choose either montage or narration, and using both together, (in my opinion) does not work.
The setting of our film certainly sticks to the urban convention. It is set in the areas of Wymondham, Attleborough, and Norwich, which are our local urban communities. I think that films use this setting for this genre of film because it allows many situations to be set up from the landmarks, shops, and general activity that goes on around them. This is why we did not wish to change this convention.
A montage, in my opinion, is one of the most important features of a romantic comedy. It is an easy way to show a situation change, or often progression of a character in either a training montage, or a montage allowing the character to become more associated with the female protagonist he desires. In my film opening, the whole intro is a waking up montage. I chose to do this because it helped to set the scene, and show lots of information in a very short time.
One thing that we do not see in our film intro is a rival character. This is because this character is not often introduced into the film until a later situation.
Finally, the music. As I have said in posts before, music for a romantic comedy must be catchy and usually in a pop style genre. Our music works with this because it follows these conventions.

Looking back, I did end up following a majority of the conventions of a romantic comedy.  I think that the parts in which I did challenge conventions I did so successfully and I would not change these if I was to do the project again.