Unit 27: Task 1

Unit 27
 

Introduction

Factual programming has a set of issues at its disposal to create an effective and entertaining programme that will keep man audience involved. Factual programmes come about when a certain subject is explored by a person who will then find out facts and relative information about the subject. In factual programming, the subject tends to be aimed towards a single interest so the viewing audience will know what they are watching. The provider will give out facts and an interesting story to the audience. To make sure everything broadcast in the UK there is a regulator known as Ofcom.  Ofcom is for the benefit of the public and is not for commercial purposes. Ofcom protects the public from anything that may cause hurt or harm both physically and mentally.

Accuracy

Accuracy is key when it comes to factual film making because when the public what a documentary they expect to be informed, and when information is given out by these programs it is expected to be true. If the information turned out to be false then this would be when Ofcom would step in and take action against the team who helped put the documentary on air. It is important that the information is true for both sides of the argument to present a fair viewpoint for each side. If the information is not true then they may lose the trust of their viewing figure, which with all of the social networking and the speed of which information can be transferred so fast can be bad news from the network. 

Programmes that must be accurate are things such as the news, which are much of the public’s only way of getting information from around the world. The news is real, and gives an accurate presentation of a story, and offers both sides of the story and they must be careful to give real facts. Although they try to keep a balanced argument sometimes, a bias opinion comes in for example in interviews. If they are unsure about a story, they will only report on what they have on that story but if they have heard rumours on a story, they will stress that it is not fact before revealing the information.

Balance

Balance is when and argument is presented with both parties having a flag bearer for their opinion. This means that the argument is kept balanced and that both parties can present their ideas for the story, this helps make sure that there is no bias opinion circling the issue. Usually when an argument is televised then there will be a host to keep the discussion in check. They will make sure that everyone has their say that everything stays in order and all the opinions are heard.

Impartiality

Impartiality is when the presenter does not take either side of a story; instead, they sit on the fence and offer no sort of opinion. In factual programmes, it is important to show both sides of the argument and offer no opinion. It is important to be impartial as there is two sides of the story and if there is a drift to one side then some of the audience may be turned away. To some networks it is important to them to remain impractical because this helps to maximum their audience. Many people watch factual programmes just to gain the facts, and they don’t want to see an argument because they it gets the mind going and takes the audience member away from the feeling of being relaxed.

Objectivity

Objectivity is when you make a judgment based on what you have seen. For example the information you present to you audience in documentaries are important, because they will make their judgment based on the footage that they have seen on the documentary. Being objective is being able to put an argument across and presenting all of the research gathered without being biased because if they present a bias argument then they will offer the audience an opinion, which many may not share. Giving the audience a chance to make up their own mind keeps the topic alive after the documentary is over. As i have shown with the documentary below which was 'Is Britain a racist country?' which was made by Channel 4. This is the same as an opinion piece because then you offer your opinion to the argument and when the audience can see your opinion and then have their own choice as to whether or not to listen to it.

Subjectivity

Subjectivity is when you make a judgment based on your own personal feelings and opinions, this is forcing your viewpoints on the public, and this can make you seem pushy and even in some cases stupid as maybe not all of the population shares the same opinions as you. Many of these types of documentaries present the topic in a bad way and a bad style to create a bad opinion on the topic and this creates and emotional feeling among viewers. I used the trailer from the very controversial documentary made by Micheal Moore which was Bowling for Columbine. Subjectivity is similar to an bias opinion because that is still your point going out to the audience.

Representation

Representation is when someone or something is being made to look a certain way. In a documentary if you wanted the audience to have a particular view on someone, you would have to show them in a particular way, either in a good way or bad. This can be done in several ways for example if the person does an interview they could a lot of things in that interview which could then be re-edited to make the person look bad, and to make a person look good they could re-edit it another way. To make the person look good you can create a feeling of sympathy for  the person and then the audience grows to like the individual. The media can also victimize the individual and make the out to be something they're not. They can also make some people fall into a certain stereotype and then make them out to look and sound like this stereotype. There may also be a host or presenter which may direct the audience to have a certain opinion on a person and this connects representation to a Bias viewpoint. An example of this is the Jeremy Kyle show and Judge Judy.

Access

Access is when you have the freedom to be able to use something or someone. For example when you use old footage on the subject or in a historical piece of film or an old interview that was conducted before a subject may have died or is not willing to conduct an interview. There is also the need to get access to film someone or in somewhere when you are going to film a documentary and then once you have the permission of the person you need the permission from a site where you will film, unless it’s a public place. In my exmple below I can see that the makers of the documentary used footage from around the time the documentary is talking about.

Privacy

Privacy is when you are able to keep something to yourself and you are at liberty to hand out this information if you wish to do so. No one has to share something to someone or currently the world if they don’t want to. In some documentaries, you see people’s faces being blurred out when they are talking. A person is able to say that they want the image of themselves to be kept private. This is commonly seen in news interviews and on reality television shows were people are seen in the background in things where they don’t belong for example on shows like the BBC’s ‘The sheriffs are coming’ where a person being reprocessed may not want their image show.

Contract with the viewer

Contract with the viewer is when the audience tunes into your documentary which maybe called ‘The moon’ and then you show a lot of shots of the moon and space or pictures and some footage of maybe astronauts on the moon and this is what the viewing audience member is expecting. The example i have used is called Sleeping Rough and is about people sleeping on the streets and if you watch it, its what you see.

My documentary - Beards; Hair Everywhere

 

I feel that my documentary will be accurate, as I have already begun to build up a portfolio of facts that I can use to show what my documentary is about and keep my documentary interesting. I have to keep my argument balanced and considering my subject, which is not too controversial, it should not be a difficult task.

 

I would remain impartial because I feel that this documentary will teacher me as well as my viewers and I will have to remain impartial because I have no other choice. I am going to be the presenter and I will lead the documentary rather than guide it to a place I want it to be. There will be argument in my factual documentary and although the two parties will not meet, I will have to edit my piece to give a controversial but fair viewpoint.

I aim to represent all characters in my story in different ways to give them more of a personality and a background, which will keep my audience more entertained and interested in my work. When it comes to giving my characters stereotypes, I have an interesting scenario because some of them are stereotypical and some are not.

I would be working closely with my characters and like many documentaries my documentary rely on my characters being open and relaxed so if they wish to remain anonymous then I would give in to their needs because they are integral to the story and if I don’t have them I don’t have a story. 

Unit 16: Film and video editing Techniques Review

Editing Technology (Software/Hardware)

The software that we used was Adobe Premier Pro, which is good because once we got used to it, it was easy for use to do the edit. The software was easy to use. We also edited in HD and so when it came to editing the film it looks a lot clearer and gives the film a more professional look. We had to run through the footage when we first got the footage and we found that on a few shots they had a red flash on them, which is caused by mobile phone interference with the camera.

 The software also made it easier to edit the film and the voiceovers that we used in the first scenes because of the different levels of video and audio, which we had to use to good effect. I also think that Adobe was the best program to use because with the voiceovers if we wanted the voiceovers to continue over the footage we just used the razor tool to cut the footage. I made sure that the tapes that we used we labels correctly and that they were kept safe during and after the shoot the labels on the tapes were similar to the labels on the footage on Adobe. We exported the finished film on MPEG DVD 2 which made it possible to put the finished film onto a DVD.

We also exported in this format because this means that we were able to get the audio and the video files separate which means that we can use Adobe Encore to put the film onto a disc. When the work was on a DVD it was then easier to let the director to see it and also it made it possible for use to show it in a after year show which is where the actors will see the finished film.

 

 

Editing Process

It also made the editing a lot easier with the fact that we can put the footage into ‘bins’ for example all of the scenes used in scene 1 we would put into a bin called scene 1. For the editing we had to make the film run smoothly so this meant that we needed the film to have seamless editing and this meant that we can’t have any uncontrolled jump cuts and using Premier Pro it is very easy to find and fix a jump cut. Our film ran with constant parallel editing which we had learnt to do earlier in the year.

 

In the film I used a lot of dissolves and different transitions throughout the film because if I didn’t put them in the film would have looked jumpy and untidy which meant that I wouldn’t be able to keep the audience’s attention which breaks the magic of the film. In the film I feel that in the film I and my team were able to convey information correctly. In the edit we also had to use sound to create a mood for certain shots.

 

I also had to use the editing to control what sort of speed I wanted the film to go at for example in the emotional scenes I wanted the edit to go slowly to keep the tension as high as possible and with the music and the voiceover playing at the same time this was a fairly easy thing to do so long as I got the timing correct. This was a very simple thing to do on Primer pro but it had a powerful effect.

 

Post Production Tools

The post productions tools that I used were things such as the on screen text and sound editing. The screen text was put on and continued through the film. At the start of the film we see the names of the actors used and we did this in white text on a black background to make it stand out. This was the same for all the names of the actors and the font that I used was called 1942 Report.  

 

 

 

We also used these colours and these fonts at the end while we were doing the credits and while we were giving thanks and showing our apparition to the people that had helped us out during filming.

For the sound editing because we were putting the film on DVD and showing it on a big screen we had to make sure that the sound didn’t go of the scale and become distorted. So we were told to keep the sound level at a steady -6 on the audio meters on premier pro and that means that when it came to editing our final edit we had to go through it in massive detail checking that the sound wasn’t over the top. We did this used both the audio meters and also using the sound bar which are in the top left of the picture.

 

Overall review of the edit

In the overall review of the finished film I can safely say that the film is up to a professional standard and it looks and sounds up to scratch with sound levels being at the correct height and everything being in order. In the edit I learnt a lot of different techniques on Premier Pro and I can say that I will take a lot of qualities from this film and from this final edit. The film is defiantly a good working piece and im looking forward to using this work as a springboard for better work.

Music video Blog

I’m am now a part of Youth Productions and we are making a music video for a up and coming artist named Elle Wood (Official Facebook page below) and with us she will make a music video for one of her recently recorded songs and now we are setting the task of making the music video to make her a star.

https://www.facebook.com/ElleWoodMusic?fref=ts

15/5/2014- Today we were two team members down and now we have to think of a whole new idea because our original one was shot down because it had no structure to it. At the start of the day we were just three normal people and by the end of it we had done a magical thing and made what we see saw as a great piece of work. All we need to do now is show that it can be a reality.

19/5/2014 – We now have to educate one member of our team who wasn’t in on Thursday and now we have to make the idea viable one in preparation for the paperwork to begin tomorrow. The other member who was off on Thursday has turned up now and once we have explained the idea to her we can now iron out any cracks in the story ready for paperwork to begin tomorrow.

20/5/2014 – Today paperwork was filled out to an industrial level standard and now we are moving closer to making this film a reality with only four more pieces of paperwork to be done tomorrow and we have to meet the actor who will be in our film scheduling will be done to tomorrow so that after half term we can go straight out and film this video.

22/5/2014 - We have a new plan now and the new plan is a Alice in wonderland based film and now we are ready me and our new director spent the day going through the idea and getting it ready and ironing out the creases. We are ready for the new idea with will be filmed on the Wednesday when we get back.

04/06/2014 - Today we went out to film. I use the film in loosest terms. 3 of our team arrived on set at 11 and the last 2 members and the make up artist with Elle arrived 45 minutes later. It had been raining all morning and so when it came to film we reverted to the contingency plan the contingency plan had several options including try another day, keep filming and see how it goes or find a local location to film indoors. We decided to keep filming because we had the costume and we had the artist so we went for it in the pouring rain. The shoot didn't go well ending in us deciding to pack up and go as the equipment was getting really went and the make up was smearing we had to try our best.

06/06/2014 - Today was judgement day for us and at the start of the day it defiantly looked like it would go swimmingly but at 9:15 we were told our talent has a doctors appointment at 10 and this meant we were behind schedule already. When our talent arrived and we got to the park it was 11:15, we were now 45 minutes behind schedule. Then at 12:30 the batteries and the camera died we called for help and by 1:15 we were ready to go and within 3 hours we had a music video on our hands and a good one at that. All that's left now is to edit it.

09/06/2014 - Today we see if our hard work had paid off. First we had to capture the footage which is easy enough we had all done it before so it was a good start but then in typical fashion a problem occurred a big problem. Although on that day we had a microphone plugged into the camera in all the commotion earlier in the day we hadn't checked that the sound was on automatic or a higher manual level. The should was on but it was extremely quite this seemed like a massive problem and looked like our film wouldn't be done in the 2 days allocated but in the space of 1 hour, 45 minutes and several seconds it was done our director had done it with the help of our chief designer. To me they were hero's but to everyone else they had just fixed a problem. Throughout the rest of the day there was bickering and arguing over what to put in and where but (i think) we are all at peace with what it should by 2:30 tomorrow a musical masterpiece.

10/06/2014 - Today was about 'Wrap stabiling' as piece of software on Adobe Premier Pro which makes the film look twice as good if you have filmed handheld then for me now its a must it makes it look much more pro. The only problem is that a 6 second piece of film took 10 minutes to stabilise which means to put the whole 4 minute piece through would take days, days which we don't have. We are at full power as we want a rough copy by today to make changes tomorrow and to make a fully and ready edit done 1 day before deadline day.

Task 4 My review

At the start of this project I had no idea about Photoshop. I didn’t know how to work it nor did I know how to do anything at all but after watching several tutorials and a few lessons and many hours outside of class I developed so sort of artist quality that I then looked for in my work. When it can to designing my quad poster I thought about many ideas on what to do and many ideas on what It would look like I designed several different templates as I looked for a design that looked both professional and that had some good techniques used.

In the end I choose the design of the picture that we used in the background of the gun battery at Hartlepool with the 4 main characters on the top layer and the title on top. I feel looking at the poster now and now I think of the fact that I had no experience in using Photoshop when I first came to it I’m quite proud of my end product and I think that this poster sets me up for better thinks in the future. The techniques I used were basic but I feel if I was looking at it from a critical view I would say that the poster wasn’t as professional as I would have hoped with the white lines round it but I could have changed that had I had the skills to do so.

When I look at the DVD cover I see also that this is quite basic with the photo in the background and stills from the film on the back. I also liked this more than I enjoyed the film quad poster and when I look at the DVD cover I feel a bigger sense of pride because to me that looks more professional than the quad poster. The main image of the man stood in the field and this gives the film a lonely feel already and because the way the photo what taken I can use the left of the image to put the back of the cover on. The stills of the film on the back all show the main character and the other four main characters.  Looking at this from a critical view I would say that if I could do it again I would probably describe the film better on the back. I also had to put the BBFC rating on the cover which I decided to do based on the fact that the film contained moderate violence some scenes of an integrate nature.

When looking at the DVD label I used a different photo than the one used on the DVD cover this adds a bit of variety to my work and also this photo shows the character of James walking back from where he was killed and this is a good photo because it gives the film a good touch in an emotional way.  This is a very basic piece of work and this was because I wanted to use this picture and I wanted to draw the attention to the character on the front cover of the disc.

In conclusion I feel that the work I have done was to a moderate level containing all the content needed such as the main characters a shot of the location and the tag line I would say it’s good in the sense it gives you all the information needed but I feel it could be improved.

Task 2 -Software skills development

Task 2 – software skills development

This is a jpeg photo and has a total size of 1.03 MB. Its dimensions are 3508 x 2480 pixels. For this picture i used the crop tool for the letter in the soldiers hand. I also used the quick selection tool for the faded solider in the picture which was holding a rifle which I rubbed out. I used the text tool to write the title and tag line for the poster and I colour the title red to make it stand out.

This poster was originally as a prop for our film which I designed; using two spitfires in the background with the faded colour is in keeping with the time of the film because these planes were iconic. Also this includes a character from the film that we took a picture of and put at the bottom of the picture. The writing also stands out and when I used the texts I chose the texts to be in certain colours in this case the colours of Britain and when I coloured the words I used the fill tool. I also duplicated the layer of the planes to make two planes and then I used the move tool to make it smaller.

Task 4 Me and My films

Task 4 – Me and My movies

Relationship between audiences and films

The genre that I have picked to do in this blog is comedy. The reason that I have picked comedy is because comedy sticks in the mind and has a way of sticking in the audiences mind. The reason I have chosen comedy films is that they are always a good watch because they are uplifting and the fact that you laugh can put you into the active watching group.

Comedies also have a wide variety of different sub genres on the both television and film. The most popular on film is Romantic Comedies (Rom-Com) with its best titles including ‘Pretty Woman’ and ‘the wedding singer’. On TV, the most popular genre is Situation comedies (Sit-Com) which include shows such as ‘Friends’, ‘Scrubs’ and ‘The big bang theory’.

Comedy has always been a difficult thing to make and to do. Certain types of comedy will obviously not work with certain people making it very hard to make a comedy for everyone. There are two different kinds of comedy in physical and verbal and the best comedies are the ones that can put both of those together.

Of course, several actors have made a name for themselves while doing comedy films with actors such as Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and Melissa McCarthy. These actors repeatedly star in comedies so when I see their names on a poster or on a DVD cover I see them as a great advert for laughter. I can probably see a film poster or look at the description of a film and it may make a film look like a disaster but when I see a name like Will Ferrell or Eddie Murphy it puts a bit of faith in me and I may change my mind on going to see it.

 

Many films use social networking to get in a bigger audience and comedy films are no exception to this ritual. The websites that are commonly used are websites such as twitter, Facebook and YouTube as these websites will reach almost half of the world’s population. Comedies such as ‘Bad neighbours’ and ‘Frank’ have both got Facebook pages and Twitter pages which allows the film to advertise straight to people and that will bring in more profit to the company.

Facebook pages for the films:

Frank: https://www.facebook.com/FrankFilm

Bad neighbours: https://www.facebook.com/badneighboursmovieuk

 

Active Spectatorship and passive spectatorship are both common in comedies. Active Spectatorship is seen when films go to film festivals such as the Texas film festival and the Vancouver film festival. The festivals are used to give audiences a chance to view a film before its release this can help with the research for the film and it can help spread a good word of mouth for the film (if its good) and be good should the audience decide to review the film. Comedy films also use active spectatorship when the viewing audience watches a film because you are an active spectator with in a comedy film when you laugh at the comedy in the film but you can also do this when the film is in the background (Unless physical comedy is involved).

Films affect audiences in different ways and some films make audiences think in different ways and some films even make audiences act differently in their own personality. Also audiences also have an effect on the way that a film is seen and the way the film is met by the general public. Comedy films are mainly watched for pleasure and general enjoyment there has been suggest four reasons why people watch films and they were put forward by Blumler and Katz who suggested the Uses and Gratifications theory which suggests these four reasons are; diversion, personal relationships, personal identity, surveillance.

Diversion is probably the most common reason people choose to watch films. Many viewers will watch a film just to get away from the problems and reality of their own lives. Comedy films make people laugh which takes away the problems mainly because you’re laughing at other people’s problems.

Personal relationship is a style of pleasure was some people may use films as a substitute for personal relationships. E.g. A viewer choosing to go and see a romantic comedy because they are single and like the idea of a relationship or finding a happy relationship is played out in the film.

Surveillance is another pleasure of film watching that means finding films that might contain information that is useful for living. While this could be considered escapism from own life in Britain, they could also contain information that is useful in life.

Personal Identity and the Frameworks of Interpretation are linked in closely with active spectatorship. Active spectatorship suggests that the audience is made up of individuals who all read and interpret films differently from each other. Age, class, ethnicity, education and past experiences all have some bearing on the way one reads and interprets a film.

Media literacy really affects how people see a film and also how people view a film. A viewer who is more media literate may be aware of how the text is positioning them and may therefore be less suggestible to the messages of the film. Some will not enjoy fantasy films as much because they are overly aware of how the special effects are created and this ruins the magic for them. Comedy films can be ruined this way when some character tries to ‘push’ a joke or when a joke doesn’t come off. Film boffins may enjoy films done by Quintin Tarantino because he uses a lot of references to old films.

Intertextuality is commonly seen in the spoofs of films. Films such as ‘scary movie’ and ‘disaster movie’ are both spoofs. Scary movie is a spoof of scream and disaster movie is the spoof of 300. Spoofs deliberately reference other films to parody them and make viewers who are aware of the film being referenced, laugh at the imitation. Any time a star such as Adam Sandler is cast for example, the viewer is likely to be reminded of previous Adam Sandler films. This can be used to sell a film or it can be used to subvert expectations.

Some argue that films can have serious and damaging effects on viewers. With films now being such a big part in children growing up its important that the films children are seeing are appropriate to their age. Children could be affected if they see too much violence on screen, perhaps they will not feel as strongly about it when they see it in real life but this also means the children may act what they see on screen and this could make them dangerous human beings that do not empathise with people in pain and therefore they would be capable of being more violent in real life.

Films have an effect on audiences but also audiences can have an effect on films. With fandom it can go both ways. Fans are people who love a particular film, genre, character or star and they share camaraderie with other fans. Comedy has no fandom at all with comedy just being a part of general life.

Comedies often have many of the best jokes in the trailers of the films and these jokes will not be as funny when they are in the final film if you have seen the trailer a few times. For some people (Not me) Comedies are a onetime watch. This means that when you have seen all the jokes from the first time that you watch the film you can’t watch it again because you know the joke for other it is also the same for live comedy shows.

Comedy films tend to be big Hollywood blockbuster films which mean that in the end of the film it all works out for the lead character who will come out on top with the prize of sorts for example in the film ‘Grown ups’ the lead character sees that friends and family are more important than money and that you can’t buy friends.

Task 1 - Investigating graphics file formats and applications

In this blog I will describe to young budding film makers how to produce a quad poster for a film to be advertised in the UK and also I will describe how to make DVD cover for a DVD case. These two pieces of artwork will be used to show off your film even more. I will also talk about the different formats and applications used.

The ranges of common formats are programs like Raster, Vector, and Metafiles. I have explained each of the following below:

Raster Graphics - In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a dot matrix data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of colour, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium. Examples of raster based programs are Sodipodi, Tgif, conceptdraw and Adobe Photoshop.

Vector Graphics - Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer graphics.

Metafiles - A piece of graphical information stored in a format that can be exchanged between different systems or software.

File extensions – File extensions are files of which work can be saved for example a common file for a photo is JPEG which when extended is a JIF. JPEG's are common because of the way that they compress images and thats why they are found on clip art on word.

File Extension	Stands for….	Common Usage
.jpeg	Joint Photographic Experts Group	JPEG is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital photography.
.tiff	TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format	A format for various imaging applications, including those that scan and fax.
.png	PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics	It is a format for encoding a picture pixel by pixel for the purpose of sending it over the World Wide Web.
.gif	Graphics Interchange Format, Graphic Image File, Group Interchange Format or Giant Interchange Format.	It is used to display images that may have multiple formats and to store data for games and animations.
.bmp	Also known as bitmap image file or device independent bitmap file.	is a raster graphics image file format used to store bitmap digital images, independently of the display device, especially on Microsoft Windows
.RAW		RAW files are not usable until they have been converted to a format such as Jpeg or Tiff in a software program.
.psd	Stands for Adobe Photoshop Document.	This is the file extension used with this program.
.ai	Adobe Illustrator	vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Adobe Systems

 

Forms of applications:

Examples of Vector based programs are Sodipodi, Tgif, conceptdraw and Zcubes. These are all with big price tags for example the sodipodi and zcubes will cost £999 and the conceptdraw would cost £300. The price of these applications should be a show of how good they are.

Examples of Raster based programs are Paint, Fatpaint, GIMP, and Adobe Photoshop. 3 of these apps are free with only adobe photoshop costing £60 but adobe is the best program to use and is known for its use in schools, colleges and universities because of its easy nature.