FINAL CUT

Choosing a title

Finally we have come up with a title for our film, which is a big sigh of relief. When we first began the whole process of filming we thought that the title 'Mad Teacher' was perfect, however after listening to constructive criticism and due to changes in the storyline (i.e. the protagonist is no longer a teacher he is an upperclass business man) we had to change that title as it was not suitable for the film anymore.
Quite recently we have all come to the decision that the title for our film is going to be 'Vengeance' - we thought this was more suitable as it is a word that means to punish someone for wrong doing. We thought this is perfect for our film as the protagonist wants to make the Prime Minister be punished for the economic crisis and current state the county is in.

Difficulties and Changes

Since we began this whole process back at the beginning of the school year we have come a long way, and we have altered many of our original idea as they were not practical or they were not realistic. For example when we initially began filming we started with the interview between the Prime Minister (played by Reece Garside) and the interviewer (played by Millie Warren), the interview then intercuts to the Prime Minister with blood and bruises all over and then cuts back to him being normal again. We then realised with some of the feedback that we got back helped us to realise that it is not clear that the protagonist is imagining it, so we decided to not use this as it was not realistic enough. However we have come a long way since then and now our opening sequence is starting to look very good, and all we are doing now is just adding the titles and making sure that it is perfect and just how we want it to be.

When we all looked back at our opening sequence it has become apparent that we could add a few more shots to help make our title sequence more thrilling and will give it more suspense.

The shots that we are going to include:

1. A shot of the protagonist answering his phone and saying to them "I've got it, alright I will meet you outside the Houses of Parliament at nine" - the fact that he does not specify what "it" is creates the feeling of suspense as the audience is not sure what he means.
2. A shot of the Protagonists phone ringing with the caller id 'unknown'- connotes danger. 
3. A over the shoulder shot of the protagonist on the internet looking up 'how to make a c4 bomb - this leads the audience to imagine what is going to happen.
4. A close up picture of he Prime Minister.
5. And finally a close up of the protagonist fixing his tie - this connotes anger/ seriousness. 

The Editing Process

At the moment we are currently in the editing process of our thriller opening title sequence. Editing takes time and patience to get it just right, however it is rewarding to watch back something that we have created as a group that is really beginning to look professional. At the beginning of the year none of us had used the editing software Adobe Premier Pro before, and throughout this whole process we have all come to terms with how to use it and we have leant a lot along this journey. We have all been there to help each other out if we got stuck with something.
Along the way we have faced a couple of problems things such as; intercutting deferent parts of the film with sound and matching them up with the voices. Never the less we never gave up and we got through those difficult patches, and the teachers have always been pushing us to do our best the whole time and they have never given up on us.

This is the editing software we used (Adobe Premier Pro).

This is one of the group members (Finley) doing some editing.

Titles

At this stage of making our thriller opening sequence we are near the stage of adding in our titles. Melissa decided to look at the order that the tiles appear in other thriller films. Melissa looked at the film 'Panic Room' and one of the things that she had noticed was that he the film title was not until the end of the introduction, this not what we had expected (I thought that it would be nearer the middle or the beginning of a film). This research the Melissa did will help us a lot when we are adding the titles to our opening sequence. 

These were what Melissa found:

• _______ Presents 
• A______ Production
• (Actors name)
• (Actors name)
• Film Title
• Music by______
• Editing by______
• Produced by_______
• Written by_______
• Directed by_______

Evaluation Questions

As the deadline for our Media Studies AS coursework is quickly approaching I am beginning to look at the evaluation questions, in order to give myself enough time to do my best.

These are the evaluation questions:

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
6. What habe you learnt about technologies for the process of constructing this product?
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

These are the questions that we need to complete for the evaluation, we have to put together a powerpoint writing about each one of these questions. We need to write in depth responses for each of these questions and include statistics form our questionnaire that the audience who watched our opening sequence filled in. As there is a lot to do I thought the best ting to do was begin looking at the questions early so when I begin my evaluation I will have a clear detailed set of notes to work with.

Questionnaire

It is around this time that we are beginning to look at the evaluation questions, to help us with the evaluation we have created a questionnaire to give us more insight to how the audience are reacting to our thriller opening sequence 'Vengeance'. We will all post the questionnaire on our social network sites, along with the finish product. The questionnaire target specific areas of the thriller opening we have created and asks the audience to inform us on how well they believe done.

These questions are only the first draft, so we may make some changes to them if need be. 

1. From the opening sequence, does it make you want to watch the rest of the film?
2. Does the opening sequence make sense?
3. Do the camera angles work and do they create realism?
4. Are the transitions smooth?
5. Is the non-diegetic score work?
6. Does it have thriller elements within the opening?
7. Is the storyline well presented?
8. Are the props in the opening realistic?
9. Did the characters work well within the opening sequence?
10. Do you think that the locations are suitable?
11. Are the titles easy to read and do they last for long enough?

As these questions are just the the first draft for the questionnaire, I am sure that we will change them in order to get the best possible responses from the audience. Looking back at them, it is apparent to me that people who do not know much about media studies most likely would not know what some of the vocabulary means for example (non-diegetic) or they might not know what the elements of a thriller are. So they will have to be reworked so that everybody will know what we are asking them. The feedback that we receive is important because it will help us to complete our evaluation as we need to know where, what and how we can improved, and most importantly if we have made an enjoyable viewer experience.