Any use of music in this film complies with 'Fair Dealing' under the 1988 Copyright Designs and Patents Act (UK), Sections 6(i) and 6(ii);
Fair dealing is a term used to describe some limited activities that are allowed without infringing copyright. Briefly these are as follows:

Section 6

i. Research and private study

Copying parts of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work or of a typographical arrangement of a published edition for the purpose of research or private study is allowed under the following conditions:

· The copy is made for the purposes of research or private study.
· The copy is made for non-commercial purposes.
· The source of the material is acknowledged.
· The person making the copy does not make copies of the material available for a number of people.

ii Instruction or examination


Copying parts of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work or a sound recording, film or broadcast for the purpose of instruction or examination is allowed under the following conditions:

· The copying is done by the student or the person giving instruction.
· The copying is not done via a reprographic process.
· The source of the material is acknowledged.
· The instruction is for a non-commercial purpose

The Final Evaluation

We used Blogger and Google Docs; this helped us maintain and distribute our work online. At first it was hard to understand however the more I used it I became more familiar with it.

These are the still images of the filming taking place, as you can see the conditions are overcast and public being around made it difficult as we had to wait for them to pass so they were not in the camera frame.





Through completing the task at hand, I have developed a range of skills. Primarily through a increase of knowledge on using the internet, although I have always been reasonably knowledgeable on using computers and internet, the exercise increased how assertive I was in using blog entries, hyperlinks, and Google docs. Although I am familiar with blog entries through using social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and Myspace it developed my knowledge further. I also found myself using YouTube for a great use of sources for research purposes, in our written production paperwork. My written skills have improved through organisation, and planning. Our logbook which was essential within the context of the task helped us as a group work through the paperwork, through doing things such as risk assessments, storyboards and scripting. We closely kept to our storyboard and script, although we had to adjust a few shots due to the shots not meeting our strict time deadline, and the continuity not correlating. Re-arranging these was frustrating, and having to adjust our provisional dates to work with the weather played a significant role in trying to film, however because we did work well as a group and had organised paperwork this was an advantage to us.


Charlie was allocated as the camerawomen, and our first filming the shots were uneven, and the camera was unsteady, however I feel that as the director it was not my place to ensure that the camera frames were correct but to ensure that what was happening behind and in front of the camera was. As a group we all did wrong as we did not have correct equipment and also I did’t make use of time management, and shot compositions. The post production skills have proven difficult as the shots were recorded long enough but not perfectly suitable to edit correctly. Directing the actors and the Charlie were hard, as I had the position the characters then check the frame of the shot, and external factors like weather, and noise made it hard to communicate to everyone sufficiently. And both Charlie and I having lack of knowledge as we have both allocated roles where we had minimum experience made it harder, but now my weakness has become a strength.

Our media product we did not focus on any stereotypes, in our research we looked at Notebook and that represented social class through costumes, and how the actors were perceived, however we decided that the only representation of a social group would just be a socially accepted dressed girl and boy. Having them dressed casually would not put the focus not on the costume but the context of the filming. The representation of the girl is a being weak, and a having a lack of independence. The man being dominant and alpha-male as we have shots of her being upset and confused when the man is not there, this can be generalised that the girls lean on men for strength. The clip is a diegsis bout love and lust, and the audience can highly relate to it through it creating a physical and emotional world within the text making it relatable and relevant. We used intertextuality vaguely and our three research clips, Notebook, Grease, and My Sister’s Keeper all closely correlate with our clip. Although audiences would not think that there is a direct or deliberate link to any other film, as we have still maintained originality. The audience would be to a niche audience, of people with a strong interest in romance films, and novels.

We concentrated significantly on the Technical Codes; Camera, Sound, Editing and Mise-en-Scene maintaining a high professional standard, certain aspects influenced this, pathetic fallacy; outside weather conditions. And the levelness of shots as the beaches profile is a slope however we managed to find away around it by using the tripod effectively.

I feel that if we had enough time to change our idea, I think that our original idea would have been more suitable. This would give us more of a complex storyboard and script, this could of challenged us more. Although our clip we have now was challenging it was not challenging not for the right reasons. It was external factors like weather conditions, distances from college and the beach, and the fact that we could not have all members on the beach as Nina was unable access the beach itself, although she remained present everytime we filmed. I feel if we had her opinion our final product could of potientially been improved as she filmed the Preliminary Exercise and with her experience she could of helped. Although this is not her fault, it was our choice of location.

Optimum Releasing would most likely be my choice to be the right media institution to work with. We studied this company previously, it’s a distribution company working closely and dominantly with British Films, especially with low budget and gets funding from other companies. We studied a film called Donkey Punch (2008) directed by Oliver Blackburn and written by David Bloom and Optimum Releasing distributed this film. Various production companies helped such as Film4 with funding. The budget was $3,000,000 therefore this film meets the needs and correlates with what films Optimum Releasing distributes. Although it can be said that a lot of films that Optimum Releasing have distributed have been of horror however that cannot be quoted. Therefore I think they would be suitable for our clip.

Both pieces of coursework I have developed a range of skills. The group dynamic has always maintained high as we all had a high standard of what we wanted our clip to be like. The only problems that arose was absences, and arrangements as we all lived far away from each other. I feel that in the Preliminary Task it was a lot easier as it required less scripting as it was shorter, and with filming it inside there was no rearrangements necessary. Luckily I managed to organise actors for it and had a replacement if Jack could not turn up. Having the equipment was difficult as we all use public transport and doing the filming in our own time (out of college hours) we needed to book the equipment and take it home to then return it back to college, and having the camera, tripod, scripts and tapes were hard to carry everywhere. On our preliminarily exercise we meet the deadlines, however we were pushing on time with our second as so many external factors were inherent.

Editing was Nina allocated role and we only really observed what she was doing, the main problem that arose was the aspect of rule of thirds, and continuity, this was the program that she used.



USE AMBIENT SOUND: background noise
Health and Safety did not play a major part, although in our risk assessment the were a lot of influencing factors, through care and consideration all equipment and actors remained safe! The main aspect was having to keep setting provisional dates, and cancelling them due to actors not being able to come or due to weather. And if we did set up to film and the context not being up to how we wanted it. I penalise myself for not taking full control and being more demanding where the characters stood, and being more precise however I feel when we filmed it the second time I took authority and was more strict on how the clip should be. I have learnt and mastered many skills from the two tasks set, and I have enjoyed working with my group as we have all used our own initiative to conduct our final product.

The First Reflective Main Exercise Blog Entry Thing!

This would be the general idea of the beach positioning, obviously the camera will be move in many alternate angles and camera frames however this briefly describes how it should start.
The research we studied we tried to keep it closely correlated with what we were trying to pursue, a romance. For Research sources we used we YouTube, firstly we studied Notebook then we analysed the technique codes, (camera, editing, sound, and mise-en-scene) this clip was similar to ours with a dominant theme on the action, however there was a large focus on the dialogue and social class. Then we looked at Grease, and older film to hopefully look at the different historical romance and how they portray them, here the use of a handheld camera appealed to us as the movements were more natural and also the background music was a very important theme. Lastly we looked at My Sister's Keeper and recent newly released and this was an emotion clip due to the context. The main reason that My Sister’s Keeper was a main stimulus of focus was due to the music being the main focus and illustrating what the director was trying to convey which was deep emotion as the character had cancer, therefore sympathy was apparent.

Next we had to complete a script for the main exercise, this was finalising what we wanted it to look like, and describing the shot size, duration sound and description/vision of the action. Next was the risk assessment, we have previously done this before therefore it was reasonably easy and we completed it quickly. We noticed the amount of risks we were being faced with, as we were doing it on the beach so were facing a lot of external factors for example weather, the sea. We worked through the logbook as a group, having it in a systematic form made it easier to see what we had completed and what we had left to complete. The main problem with the SWOT analysis was the problem was the fact that Nina was unable to access the beach due to a disability, this meant that it would only be me and Charlie able to control the whole clip. Therefore we allocated myself as the director, Charlie as the camera-women and Nina to do Sound. Charlie and I felt that it might not be fair as Nina would not be able to directly see the filming production and that this could play as a disadvantage to her in the long run. However when we discussed it Nina was still able to watch the filming process from the esplanade.

Our first provision date we wanted to film was the 16th March on a Tuesday, we chose this date as our last lesson was media on all our timetable and we finished at three o’clock therefore there was no limitation on filming in sense of not having enough time, this was a disadvantage to us last time as we hadn’t prepared ourselves with enough time to effectively film as Nina's transport home was waiting. We could not keep to the provisional date set as our actors were unable to come; therefore we chose to set the date for Sunday 21st March. We arranged to meet at 2.30 in Weymouth, the actors were Ali Mitchell who participated last filming and Jenny. The main problem arose personally to me as the director that it was a romance clip and these two people have never met therefore the context of the filming would of been awkward, I felt as the director this could influence how the filming went. However this was not an influencing factor.

The weather maintained reasonably sunny, and was not windy therefore the conditions proved perfect for our situation, interaction with other members of the public was a problem as we would have to wait until people had walked past otherwise they would have been in the camera frame.When filming it was quite hard communicating talking across the beach, as Charlie (camera-lady) had to keep continuity by moving with the shots we were moving further down the beach and I had to keep an eye on the belongings as well e.g. (tripod, camera box).

When we shot all the frames we noticed that the clip was only 1.21 minutes, this was a big problem as we did not effectively use time management to make sure it met the time deadline 1.45 otherwise we would not be able to edit effectively. To resolve this we re-filmed using longer shots than we had scripted. I felt that it was hard trying to direct, due to when we had scripted the storyboard we had a tight boundary of being able to change movements, and it was hard to just improvise on the spot also it would not of correlated with our final paperwork.

Shortly after we finished filming we analysed what we had filmed in the following lesson, and we were dissatisfied with the final product. When filming Charlie had not used a tripod due to a missing part which we had not checked, and therefore she used it handheld. Although in research we were going to use handheld as well as using the tripod the whole film that we had captured was shaky and the positioning was not correct. On my behalf I felt that as a director I should have been stricter on the timing as the clips were too short, therefore due to all these errors we decided to re-film otherwise we would be penalised due to the lack of knowledge applied, and we were not presenting our clips to the best of our ability. We were aware that we had a strict deadline to meet this was the only factor that was influencing us to not re-film, but we were all willing as a group to meet outside of college hours to help effectively meet the deadlines that we had been set.

We then set another date for Friday 26th March; we had checked the weather and rain was forecasted but not till later on in the day this therefore was a risk we were willing to take. We all met at the location with new actors, Ruth and Phil we moved slightly further down the beach this time, we shot the first 3 shots, doing each about three times so we had a wide variety of clips to chose from, doing this also allowed us to not make the same mistakes as last time but using limited resources. However the weather conditions changed and it rained, although we could have carried on and met the storyboard as it would not have changed the context, we could not risk damage to the equipment. Therefore we had to stop filming. Although we knew this could happen we wanted to meet the deadline, and film so we could edit and complete the task.

The next date we have set is Monday 29th March, we plan to do it at 12.15 and we have till 3.00 o’clock to complete it. The weather again we have to risk as the deadline is getting closer.

Journal

Currently were all trying to expand on our idea for filming. Firstly we chose the idea of a psychological thriller however due to lack of research and limited filming areas which would be suitable we decided to change our idea. We had an idea of what we all wanted but we then decided it would be hard to achieve effectively. We then decided to do a romance; by choosing this idea we were able to concentrate more on the camera, editing, sound and mise-en-scene rather than the context of the idea we had chosen. After doing this we were able to then do research of other films with a similar short scene, we have research the Notebook (2004) directed by Nick Cassavetes. The genre is similar a drama romance. We also researched and studied Grease (1978) directed by Randal Kleiser we chose both of these because they had a similar beach setting with not much dialogue but focusing on the action and music.

We have took into account some problems that might arise, such as attention from other members of the public and this could create distraction and unwanted noise. To minimise this problem we will do it either in daytime, or at evening on a weekday so there will be less people around. The picture below is where we hope to film, it a sand beach so we have to be careful when managing equipment, and when moving as it could cause injury. Also we will check the weather and tide times before, to check for (high, low or spring tides) if they could pose a possible problem. Also we would be unable to film in the rain as the equipment would get damaged this is the biggest threat as when we set our provisional date we would have to have it relatively close so we could choose a day with suitable weather.

My contextual understanding of media is developing as im able to fully take a hands on approach for example being the director would require me to take authority in making sure that what we have planned happens, and effectively. Also grasping the idea of what is required, for example shot duration and piecing everything together and this requires a better knowledge on editing. Doing the sequence will again broaden my knowledge as it will help and challenge my knowledge, the main problem which I find difficult will be enabling that our short clip will remain a short clip rather than a film trailer as this could be easily confused.

Our target audience is women, and maybe teens. I do consider them to be a niche audience as there would have to be a specific interest in romance, and love. And that being our dominant theme, however it could appeal to others who share this interest. Our reasearch of (Notebook) correlates closer to the target audience we are trying to achieve rather than (Grease) as this is a musical romance where as Notebook is romance focusing on different social positions and class.


I feel we have managed our time reasonably well although we have not yet set a provision date but we are just completing paperwork, and also the problem of ensuring that our group and actors are all free, and that there will be no complications as a critism of last time is that we did not ensure that everyone was able to defineatly make the provision date that we allocated. We managed to make the set times last time and i am confident that we will this time as if we fall behind i know that our group will arrange to meet out of College hours to keep to our provisional dates arranged. The most difficult part of planning to me was actually defining what our clip would be about, as if we decided later on it would be too late to rearrange our paperwork.

When receiving the Preliminary Exercise it seemed masses of paperwork, and appeared complicated. When as a group worked through it, it became less complicated through working swiftly but being organised. When doing initial idea blasts we had already depicted what our main ideas were it was just expanding on it and putting pen to paper. From this I was able to expand and develop my skills through using internet research appropriately such as You tube where we were able to research clips where we studied technique codes; Mise-en-scene, editing, camera and sound with clips similar to the ones that we used with the situation of ‘The Meeting’. From background knowledge I remembered watching TV series like One Tree Hill with similar camera shots.

Filming Blog

Primarily before starting filming we had to complete a risk assessment sheet; this would analyse all the potential hazards to our group and actors. We rated them as a high, medium or low risk by doing this we could depict what hazards we were at greater risk to mainly being environmental hazards or personal risks associated with the activity. After completing the risk assessment, we had to ask permission from our lecturer Lee Hodgkinson; the only problem that arose was the use of a weapon and the potential violation of the (VCR) Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006; using an imitation of a firearm. Therefore to overcome this situation we had to use a gun from the performing arts and have the imitation firearm checked and approved to use.

After completing the written production as needed so far, we had permission to film. We had already previously booked a provisional date Thursday 28th January at 4.30-5.30 therefore we needed to do was collect the tripod, camera, and tape. After being taught how the equipment worked by our lecturer we only had one problem, one of our actors could not make it due to the distant of college and his home addresses therefore we did not take this into account in our (SWOT) analysis. However we managed to get somebody else Alistair Mitchell to take the part as the male gangster; the leader, with a very abrupt and violent personality. Jaz D'avola played the role of the female assistant; however we portrayed her as defenceless and seductive. We felt as a group the portraying these characters like this would be interesting with the task we were set 'The Meeting' and played with the use of authority and hierarchy.

By using the photography room we felt it was ideal due to there already being a backdrop and spotlights there for our use with permission. Nina Wheeler was allocated the role of using the camera; we all complied as a group because it was all interesting for us to work on what we felt less confident about doing. Using the tripod maintained steady and balanced shots however it was awkward to move due to the shape and weight of it. Using the camera in Nina's hand she felt that it was imitate and more personal shot however it was not as steady as using the tripod. The main problem was continuity; because we were using hand controlled spotlights when I rearranged the lighting for another shot we found that this affected the continuity of the shots however we tried to maintain and degrade this problem as much as we could.