The choice of film I have decided to analyse is a clip from the film 'Mean Girls', In this scene we see groups of girls being to attack one another for the mean things they have said and recorded in a book, known as the 'Burn Book', during this scene we see a lot of fighting as well as teachers attempting to break it up. The song used in the background should also be acknowledged because of the drums used to create a heavy base and create suspense. (0;00-0.20 secs)
This is the clip;
At the start of this clip all we here is the confrontation going on between the girls in the hallways however, the use of multiple layers of sound of arguments upon shouting really accentuates the verbal wars between these girls allowing for the viewer to really understand how overwhelming it could have been in that situation, the shouting also allows for a build up of tension in the beginning of the scene. Soon the camera pans to one of the teachers, Ms. Norbury fighting through the crowds of girls and attempting to break up the fights. We hear we struggling using phrases like 'hey!' and 'settle down!' the strain in her voice obvious as the director tries to accentuate her struggle to be heard, much like her character throughout the film, suddenly shes pushed to the floor and her glasses fall. Somewhere between all of this the screaming becomes a soft focus in the background, just loud blurs in the background as we listen her he glasses shatter, I believe this is done to represent her breaking inside. As Ms. Norbury bends to pick them up, still with the soft focus screaming in the background as finds a piece of the book written about her. As the audience focuses on this, the screaming becomes barely audible, allowing for the audience to really sympathise with her without the attention being taken away by whats happening in the background.
It is important to peer assess one another because it allows your finished product to be reviewed by someone else, other peoples opinions are important because they allow for improvements to your finished products as well as mistakes to be pointed out and other critics to be made and you to develop from there. However, the problem with peer assessment is that it is subjective. Subjective means to have a personal bias that you may favour when reviewing a piece of work, although in my personal opinion i believe peer assessment is a good thing as long as it is constructive.
The group who's film I peer assessed was Chanel, Amy and Dan's. Their silent film was about a boy who decides to steal a drink, whist the boy running away from the scene of the crime, he collides with an unsuspecting girl who then drops her belongings in a dramatic clash. In a rush both the boy and girl climb to their feet, gather their belongings and walk away. however, unknowingly the boy has lost his stolen drink to the girl who walks away smugly with the drink in the air. End of the film.
In my opinion I believe this film has a lot of potential, I enjoyed the idea of the story line with a good strong choice of music which coincided with the conventions of the film genre. however, the storyline could have been developed a lot more. The film could have shown the boy stealing as well as a lot more expression and emotions expressed by the actors, in doing this the storyline of the film would have built up a lot more suspense and drawn the audience in with the actors truly showing how passionate they were, although I know it should be taken into consideration that those in the film are not actors nor do they want to be. Adding more content to the film would have also allowed for a longer film time, which is another one of my critiques.
Another thing I enjoyed about this film was the good use of steady camera angles and shots, doing this allowed for the film to almost look professional and doesn't distract the viewer from the film with bad camera handling. However, during editing I wish that a filter would have been added to allow the film to have a starchy, olden affect to fit with the conventions of the time of silent film but I understand that we are mostly beginners when it comes to Adobe Premiere.
Here is the film;
As for critique for my silent film, the most repeated critique was that my story line should have been extended more to show the build up to the two characters confrontation. It was said I should have developed the story line when the first woman was hit in the face with the door by doing this the viewer could get a better understanding as to why the chase began. Another critic of my work was that I should have spend up my film to allow it to seem similar to films of the genre, however I do not believe my assessor realised I had already done this, I did not want to speed it up further than I had already because I believe that the film would have gone too quickly, not giving the viewer enough time to absorb the storyline. The final critique of my piece was that I should have added more titles into my film with sounds like 'Bang!' or 'Crash' when appropriate, I agree with this as I say in my personal evaluation. If I had enough time and enough confidence with what I was doing in Adobe Premiere I would have liked to add in this detail.
However during my peer assessment I was also praised alot for my good use of slapstick comedy which 'visibly adheres to the style of silent film', the use of camera angles were also praised however I cannot take credit for this as I was not the one filming this piece. Another appraisal for my piece of work was the audio I choose the use. I made the choice to add the well known song 'The Entertainer' to my film as it is a film most would relate to a chase and silent films too.
The brief for this assignment was to create a silent film influenced by the characteristics of work by Charlie Chaplin and other black & white film creators to make our own piece that coincided with the typical characteristics of the genre. Some of the characteristics most often found in black and white films are; light-hearted piano music, black and white video footage, over accentuated expression/emotion and slapstick humor.
For me personally, this was my first time using Adobe Premiere as I am used to using Imovie. Since this was my first time using the software I had my reservations about what to do, however once I got the hang of it I found the software simple to use. I attempted to adhere as much of the skills we had been taught into my film, however once left to finish it in my own time found I lacked confidence in what to do therefore I did not add everything I would have wanted. For example; a classic grainy effect to the film to adhere with the conventions of a classic silent film as colour was too expensive to use when silent films were originally around. Apart from the fact I didn't apply the grainy effect I would have liked, I am overall happy with my finished silent film considering this was my first time using Premiere. An area I would like to improve on next time is the use of title pages, I would like to add more in when there is contract between characters, for example; input a title page exclaiming 'BANG!' when the one of the characters has the door pushed into her. In doing this I believe it would have really adhered with the time of silent films as there was no sound and therefore clips exclaiming sound were often used, another thing I would change for next time is the shaky camera angles. Although I wasn't in charge of filming, as someone who is highly critical of herself the slightly shaky camera angles at times were enough to frustrated me slightly.
Demographic data has one of the biggest influences on marketing in today's business world, as well as this demographic data is one of the biggest tools used by an entire range of businesses, from small start ups to huge corporations. One of the ways demographic data can be used to find out the main buyers of your brand and if for example like the uk where there is a large aging population you can do demographic research to find out how your product can reach the aging population and sell.
Finding; what colours appeal to them or a price range.
Demographic data can help us understand the following; 1) to understand the ideal customer,
2) Demographic research can help lower marketing costs, if you know who to direct the product or service you are selling to then you cut out the middle man. 3) Demographic research can also allow you to seek out new opportunities, for example; a new age range to target your products to. 4) Demographic research can help to discover or create new USP and 5) demographics data can increase revenue by allowing you to target the correct audiences. As you can see, all of these point ares vital when considering the benefits of Demographic data but also demographic data accentuates how vital understanding a customer base can be. If you do not, less sales will be made and soon businesses will begin to lose money. Collecting data can allow you, for example; if we are talking about using demographic data to product advertising. The data can allow you to target where posters can be put, in a city or on a country road? where there are older students in close proximity or parents with young children?
Marketing can be an exceptionally expensive process therefore by using demographics to target the ideal customer, where they are based, what age range are they, what do they look for the a service or product. These are all questions a demographic survey may ask and by doing so can allow for the advertising whether it may be targeting a young demographic through social media or an elderly demographic through letters in the post. Another way of using demographic data efficiently is through looking at the times they are most susceptible to taking in the information/product you are selling. That could be during prime time TV hours or perhaps day time television if the audience you are targeting would be most likely to watch TV then.
In conclusion, demographic data is clearly a very important role. It is able to influence what is advertised and to which audiences by collecting data by those who actually use the product or service, a personalised service like this can allow for better customer to brand connections. Demographic data also allows for money to be spent where it is needed in comparison to companies who just throw their money out there without directing the advertising anywhere which is insufficient.
The first design brief i have chosen to compared is;
This design brief is for a video production. In the brief each important attribute is coloured coded with other attributes in that category, for example; under project is purpose and opportunity. Personally i think this is good because it allows whoever is filling out the brief to write down all the information needed, however making it easy to follow and ensures that all information is recorded throughly. Another detail i like about the brief template is that there is four pages of boxes to fill, this means that there will be no question or piece of information unanswered.
However, in contrast that the first brief template, the second brief template is a lot more minimalistic therefore making the sheet look less overwhelming and more simplistic to read. The template has just the right amount of information to considered whilst filling out the brief without bombarding you with too much to consider about a project. In compassion to the first brief i believe this one is a lot neater to look out however i do worry that using this brief template will not give you enough space to fill out as much information as possible.
The last brief i have to compare is even smaller than the one above, therefore i do not think, that for most, this brief template will allow for enough room write your ideas. personally, the brief does not offer room or prompts to consider whilst creating a brief. The size of boxes is also not enough to pack with ideas for a creation, therefore i am not impressed.
Overall, i believe the best brief template is the first. The prompts of what to consider are detailed and important to consider as well as the colour coded sections and large sections to write in. In contrast to the other briefs which do not contain colour for organisation and the space left to write in being far too small.
Q1) The type of font i have chosen to research is Futura, researching it I have found six companies that use this font however in slightly unique ideas from one another. Personally i favour the font, as a consumer buy also as someone analysing text because of its bold, crisp, block lettering that is simple yet somehow gives the minimalist feel to a cooperate companies logo. Futura was created by german type face designer Paul Renner in the mid 1920's, the font itself was created based around geometric shapes, giving the font its simplistic look.
Q2) The different between typeface and font, generally speaking a font is what you use and a typeface is what you use. However, it goes much further than that. Typeface is the design of the alphabet or the style of the letters or numbers that make up that type style where as the font is the digital file that describes the type face.
Q3) The difference between serifs and sans serif font is that serifs are semi structural details that make up letters, for example; the strokes at the end of some letters. In fonts like Times New Roman or other 'plain' fonts do not have the strokes or flicks of serif fonts.
Q4) Parts of a typeface;
Q5) A font family specify the properties that a font may have that from that of an element, for example a font family may hold may different names and if a browser does not support the font, it may attempt to use a different font instead. There are two types of font family names; family name; the name of a font like 'arial' or generic family for fonts like 'serif'.
Q6) Kerning is the process of adding or subtracting spaces from between specific pairs of characters where as tracking is the process of loosening or tightening a block text. For example, the process of Kerning followed by the process of Tracking;
Q7) Leading, in Indesign terms is the vertical space in between lines. Leading is measured from the bottom of the baseline from one line of text to the base line of text above it.
One of the main, most obvious differences between a high quality upload on youtube and a vine is the quality. To watch a youtube video on a laptop, like the one i have chosen, you are preparing to watch a video of half an hour long, like a short film. Where as with Vine, you are limited to six seconds worth of viewing time therefore everything you want within it must be short and snappy. Another comparison between the two is that with Vine, you are limited to the screen space, your video must stick within the 480x480 pixel screen where as with youtube, 2560x1440p can be reached, therefore the overall video quality is better. With Vine, you will often find that most videos are shot on a phone because the shots can stay within the limited screen space and are much easier to edit than if you were to film on a camera and upload the vine. Although the Youtube video i have used as an example is a 'vlog' (video blog) which are known for their shaky shots and bad angles the use of panning and smooth video transitions within this Vlog can really show just how edited and perfected youtube videos that are not produced by large companies can be these days, where as Vine has not developed as much, there are no perfected, cinematically stunning six second videos on its app, instead six second comedy videos.
My idea for my photo motion is based on a journey to begin on public transport and to end at a gig I am going to in Bristol. The point of my story is to show the lengths we are travelling to, for example; the car journey for us to then get the bus for us to then get the train and be in the city. Then my plan is to show us waiting in the queue, the crowds, to us then getting in, to the performance. I also want to use this photo motion to highlight the anticipation that I will have as well as the crowd atmosphere as I want to attempt candid shots of the crowd because I will then know that those photos will not be false, they will show the true enjoyment of the crowd. The type of camera shots will vary, as I have made the choice to make the photomotion watchable on an iphone. This will mean the photomotion will be filmed as landscape, with the camera shots not varying by zoom etc but by how close or far I am.
My storyboard;
This different between diegetic and non diegetic is that it is what the character can hear and what the audience can here. For my photomotion i am using a mixture of both, as i am going to a gig i am planning to use a pre recorded track from the band which will fade out to the live recording from the gig.
So, here i am. My first day. After years of education you'd think the sentence would be meaningless, just the first day of a new school year that confirms i am, in fact that one step closer to inevitable adulthood *pause here to laugh about that my impending doom* however, my first day, this time around had a different feel to it. The subject floated around my head with a crippling anxiety following the lead. This first day felt like a confirmation that I am a failure, instead of fresh starts and new beginnings on my mind I'm faced with the reality and consequences of false hope and encouragement from teachers only looking to better themselves who had left me to fall at the feet off alevels. I was stuck, suggestions of me facing another year of alevels with years younger than myself sent chills down my spin (ok, maybe an exaggeration but you get feelings towards it) and in my head visions were constant of Buddy in Elf among all of the smaller people, I thought that if one try and fail at alevels wasn't enough, the thought of me continually trying and failing seemed like pointless, not to mention they would probably have to start CRB'ing me soon enough. The choice was easy when it came down to it, I accepted defeat, took a risk and jumped off the metaphorical cliff that was level 3 media. Figuratively this course represents a lot more to me than a qualification, it's my first risk into the unknown and fuck me if it isnt scary. I want to prove to myself I can be good in a subject that doesn't come out of a textbook, I need to know that the relationships i have sacrificed for this course will be worth it and I also need reassurance that spending my apparent, now none existent life savings on a bus pass to get me to lessons and back was worth not spending the money on lets be honest here, McDonalds or Mac cosmetics.
It's a wasted year my already low self esteem still nags at the back of my mind constantly, I knew I wouldn't be the only person who was re sitting the year, in fact i think it is more likely for a student to fail their alevels than to pass them (but that's another subject, boo government) yet once walking into the room full of mismatched students its a reminder that we all have something in common, we all have a passion and this isnt child's play. This is legit. And I found that comforting. I found myself surrounded by people like myself for the first time ever and it never felt better.
Lola, remember this blog entry when you questioned why you make this choice.
