Retention - final film

Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Throughout making this film, I have not only developed my skills in blogging, filming and editing using adobe premiere pro, but also teamwork and confidence.Throughout the creation of the preliminary task, I learned how to incorporate match-on-action into filming. This allowed me to have a wider range of continuity shots which I could then use in my two-minute film. Using Adobe Premiere Pro to edit the preliminary task allowed me to have some preparation in editing for when it came to editing our two-minute film, this meant that I wasn't having to waste time trying to find the right tools as I already knew where they were; which meant I could use my time more efficiently. From the preliminary task to the main task, I feel like I took on more of a leadership role which helped to increase my management skills and made sure to keep the group organised and ensure they each member of the group knew what they were doing and what tasks they had to do. I also helped to ensure that we stayed within deadlines and on target during the filming process as we had to re-film which set us back quite a bit. Our preliminary task enabled us to practice and incorporate our current film skills such as match-on-action the 180-degree rule and shot-reverse-shot. One strength of the preliminary task was we successfully used shot-reverse-shots and match-on-action which makes the audience member feel immersed whilst hiding the editing as much as possible.

I feel that I have gotten exceptionally better at editing clips together. I felt that when I edited the preliminary task, the transitions between the shots were choppy and didn't flow together smoothly. I realised my mistake which helped me to make the editing in my 2-minute film much better and more professional. For our final piece, we developed hugely in regards to continuity. This is important because having errors and mistakes in the final version would make our piece looks unprofessional and it would seem as if we didn't put a lot of thought or effort into the process of editing. Continuity was a big part of our film as we had lots of long scenes in one location and shots that carried on from each other; so we needed to make sure it remained continuous. For example, when one of the characters is walking up to the house and then enters the front door, we needed to make sure the transition remained smooth and that nothing looked jumpy or sudden. We developed massively throughout the process of our preliminary task to our main task. Through creating the preliminary, we learnt to understand the 180-degree rule which made it easier to remember to keep to one side whilst filming; which helped to not confuse the audience as they didn't see the character from an angle that would disorientate the setting. Match-on-action is also very important when not breaking the continuity of the film. We incorporated match on action where one of the characters is opening the door to the house and walking through it. We used the same shot types in our preliminary task which gave us some insight on how to properly edit the shots together.

During our preliminary task, we used all continuity methods such as match-on-action and the 180-degree rule. However when we filmed our preliminary task, we only filmed a few parts of the scene from each angle, this meant that we were limited to what shots we could use in the editing process. We realised our mistake of not shooting the whole scene from one angle and then moving onto the next angle and filming the whole scene again. We developed throughout the main task as when we were filming we knew to film the whole scene at different angles in order to give us a wider and varied choice of shots when it came to editing.

NOTE: I made a presentation to this question on Prezi, but it wouldn't embed on the blog due to Prezi being updated. Here is the link to the Prezi: https://prezi.com/view/ST1dhci7zVHc8iSBlJuX/

Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation question 6 from CourtneyHutton07

Evaluation Question 5

How did you address/attract your audience?

I think that our final film definitely reaches our target audience. One of the things that would help to attract the audience is the use of settings. Having our film set in an ordinary house which doesn't seem to be haunted at all would give it a better sense of realism and make the audience feel as if this is representational of a normal teenage or young adult life. The establishing shot of the house makes it look very homely however it also gives the audience a sense of anxiousness as it is quite an old home and something seems strange about it.

We used a range of mid-shots and shot-reverse-shot throughout the film when conversations are happening to make sure the audience feel immersed within the conversations between the characters. Doing this will help to attract the audience and keep there attention throughout the whole film as they feel as if they are a part of it.

By using a range of different characters with all different personality types, we are able to attract a wider audience as there is a character type that each viewer should be able to identify with. By having this type of feature, it allows the audience to become emotionally invested with the characters because they have someone that they can relate to and that character may become the one they are rooting for. This will grab the audiences attention as they will want to see if their 'favourite' character makes it to the end of the film.

I used an Audience feedback survey in order to find out if we attracted the target audience we were aiming for and what they thought of our film.

Create your own user feedback survey

Feedback Received:

All of the people which answered my survey were between my target audience. This is helpful as it gives an insight into what our specific audience thinks of our film and whether they would like to watch it. By knowing what our audience thinks, we are able to improve the film whilst still catering to our targeted viewers. The survey asked whether the participants would go and watch this film in the cinemas to which all of them replied 'yes' except for one 'maybe'. These results tell us that our film attracts the audience and makes them want to go see the feature-length film; proving that it would be a success amongst teenagers and young adults.

We also wanted to find out what each persons' favourite character was. By asking this question, it gives us an insight into which characters each member of the audience identifies with and which character is the most likeable by the viewers. By doing this we can give the most liked character more screen time which essentially would attract the most audience members as they can easily align themselves with the favourite. The results show that 'Malia' and 'Jace' are the most liked characters. The girls who answered the survey chose 'Malia' as their favourite whilst the boys chose 'Jace' as their favourite. This shows that our characters are easy to identify with and that each member of the audience will have someone to relate to.


As a group, we believe that a successful step in our film was the music and soundtrack. We asked the audience's opinion and they all agreed that the music and sound effects that we used created a tense and suspenseful atmosphere. This is important as it makes the audience member feel anxious and attracts their attention to the screen.

In order to help improve our feedback we asked a question on what we could improve if we were to re-film the film.
One of the improvements was better lighting throughout the Ouija board scene. We had problems with the lighting as the place where we was filming didn't have enough brightness in order for the clips to turn out in high quality, we improved this by filming in the day light however it still wasn't as good as it could've been. We would have been able to prepare better lighting if we wasn't already delayed by having to re-shoot the entire film and was already nearing the deadline.

Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?

The task that I was working towards was the main task, this was to create the opening of a film with the genre of your choosing which lasts around 2 minutes.

In the preliminary task I learnt the basic camera angles such as mid close ups and behind the shoulder shots, I used both of these in my opening two minutes when the characters are having a conversation, I used these shots with the 'shot reverse shot' editing technique. The preliminary and this task have many similarities, the first of which we incorporated the opening of the door and walking to sitting down in my film, this was the exact same as in the preliminary task. We got better at this as we included many more camera angles and levels. This made the film look more developed and professional.

The scene which I am most proud of and which we used the most filming technique in was the attic scene. This showed Jace walking in from a low level shot, climbing the ladder in a mid shot (changing using a match on action when he steps) this carries on from when he climbs up the ladder to getting into the attic, more match on actions and other shots are used in this sequence and I feel that it flows throughout.

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

To conduct this project, I used the website Blogger. Blogger is accessible on any device and is very easy to use, it enabled the group to conduct and view group tasks/individual tasks and confer on them. Blogger allows anybody on the internet to see what we have posted, this could help  the film gain popularity.

To make the feedback surveys I used the site Survey monkey, this was a free site that allowed people to conduct 10 questions which anybody on the internet could view and answer to.

This was an easy website to use and we could embed it into our blog easily. 

This is what the site looks like when making a new survey.

To film this film we used one of the camera provided by the college. However, instead of using the new camera's we chose to us the older camera as this was the only one which we could do an effective focus pull on. As of yet I do not know if this was a good decision or not as a con of this was that it was lower quality than the new camera's, although a pro of this was that we could keep and use the camera for a longer range of time as we were the only group using it. This was the first time that I have used this type of camera and I feel that it went extremely well. If given the choice I would still have chosen this type of camera  as it had all of the basic functions that we needed to film with.

I created the logo on Photoshop, this was done quickly as because I am a graphic design student I already knew how to use it and once we had the image we were going for in mind we easily created it.

To finish the film we needed to use Premiere pro, an adobe app that you edit films on. This was difficult at first to use as I had never been on it before and didn't know how to use it. But before long I had got the hang of it and my group was able to use it with ease. The only difficulty we encountered was taking the sound out of one part of footage and adding it into another with ease to keep to continuity. This worked out well as the viewer cannot sense when this change occurs.

Evaluation Questions 1-7