Introduction to my blog

This media blog is an accumulation of my own personal work and that which I complete as school work.

Here you will find all my work for the AS year, this will include every aspect of the research, planning, production and evaluation stages that are important in leading towards my final product. Every article following meets the criteria set and I’ve tried to involve some unwritten creativity, which was not required, in order to enhance the entertainment factor.

Planning our continuity edit

We planned our continuity piece over a few short lessons; it didn’t need a lot of time to storyboard and plan as a group because the idea was to keep it short but focus on the plot to show more than just basic examples of continuity. After the basic storyline had been produced we continued to gather the appropriate props and found the location we would need, which turned out to only be a plastic small knife and some work shop equipment. We wrote out a quick script, this didn’t take a lot of time either as there was minimal dialogue, we wanted to focus more so on building an atmosphere than anything else. 

We planned the whole video as a group, each putting forward ideas and different methods; I took on the role of creating a list of camera angles and script- this use of organisation meant that we could film quickly and effectively. We proceeded to film in the lesson that followed this, once we had decided our location and everyone was available, due to our organisation we finished filming within an hour and could edit straight away. We were very lucky as a group that everyone was available and able to contribute to the filming process so that we could get it done quickly, the piece was filmed simply with an iPhone camera- your basic 8 mega pixels. However, much to our surprise, the quality was more than satisfactory and in time. We were also able to find an editing ‘app’ which made it much easier and took us less time to complete this process, we were able to produce a nice little and simple continuity edit.

 Our final continuity edit

Continuity Evaluation

What went well within your continuity piece?

Overall I think the edit was consistent and effectively showed our knowledge of keeping continuity within a clip and that we can expand into more challenging media. I personally believe the best aspects of our edit were the sound bridges over the visuals such as the building music soundtrack and the sound effect of a scream.  We tried to use many different camera angles one being a close up of the knife. The different camera angles allude to a style that makes tension and suspense build, the quickness of the shots and edit make the visuals appear to move quickly which again keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. The repeated cuts to the antagonist remind the viewer that this character is someone to be afraid and weary of.  We used a soundtrack where we felt the music built slowly, this was just taken from the editing app we used. This meant that the suspense of the audience would hopefully rise as the music did until we reached the climax of the scream. I believe that the narrative we chose was interesting; we wanted to keep it short but be able to tell a story as well. I believe the plot twist of the two main characters worked well as well. This is due to the fact the audience would have been surprised to see one of the protagonists turn on their ‘friend’. We found that creating a narrative was fairly easy which was a positive as it meant that we were able to complete the planning very quickly. The whole piece was filmed in natural lighting to add realism; we didn’t want to take away the feel of a normal day alongside the other effects added. We felt that if we created the lighting to fit the mood of the scene it would have given the ending away.

What didn't work so well within your continuity piece?

However we were very limited in what we could use and I felt the soundtrack that we did use wasn’t the most effective and we should have picked one that reached a crescendo. This in turn became a positive as the group were now aware of what we needed to improve in for our final piece. I felt that the quality of acting could have been improved; I think this was because it was our first try at filming in the thriller genre. Obviously we’re not in contact with any real-time actors/actresses so our own abilities will have to suffice, due to this we made sure we didn’t include lots of dialogue.  I also felt that in parts our editing could have been better, this was due to the fact we hadn’t had much experience in editing. I also felt that we could have benefitted from using more professional cameras than as IPhone camera, sometimes due to using a hand held mobile the visuals were shaking and therefore the filming didn’t look as professional. We came to the conclusion that we would use a professional camera and tripod when filming our final piece.

What features from the continuity will you apply to your final piece?

We intend to use fast pace editing to build up suspense and tension, this will include quick cuts between shots. We may also use similar props as the knife we used was threatening and fit in with the thriller genre. We also hope to use sound effects and a soundtrack to add to the atmosphere of the sequence. We would also like to use dialogue and acting in our final piece and hopefully improves this aspect of our continuity piece. We would also like to use the same idea of a violent thriller rather than a hospital or crime theme.