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

Since doing the preliminary task I feel that I have improved quite well, with the way that I would frame a shot, how the continuity of a piece of work would look and the variety of shots that I would now use rather than just using the beasic few; close up, long shot, mid-shot etc.

In the preliminary task the framing of some of our shots were not very good because for a couple the camera may have seemed to be quite shaky or we only used some very basic shots rather than using a greater variety of shots. However, in our opening sequence we used a greater variety of shots and because it was a chase we could used more face paced shots to make it seem much more interesting. Also the framing of the shots looks a lot better because in our opening sequence we have made it so that everything in the shot is there for a reason and also it looks a lot more interesting. However, in our preliminary task the framing is very basic and at times not everything is in the shot where it should be, for example, somethimes the person in the frame may not be in the centre of the shot.

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

When using our blogs we used quite a lot of different technologies. These were all done by uploading stuff onto posts, however there were several different types of things that we could upload to our blogs. For example, we had to make our blog posts visual so we uploaded a lot of images and videos to do this. This allowed us to display our work in quite a creative way because it enabled us to make our work look a bit more interesting and also it made it clearer what we were trying to show in places because if we was trying to describe something in a post you could just add it into the post so it's easier to understand what we were trying to talk about.

When filming our opening sequence we used the equipment you would expect us to use; the camera and tripod. I was fine with using this as I had used it before, but because I was being filmed for near enough the whole time I didn't really use it because I had to be in the shots. It was important that before we filmed though that we had planned in depth what we wanted to do so we could get the camera in the right place straight away to get the shot done as well as we could. Also we had to ensure that we used the tripod right because we have a couple on pan shots so we needed to ensure that they were smooth and did not look weird. This applied to most of our shots except for a couple of point of view shots. For some shots we had to film them a few times because the camera looked shaky or we hadn't framed the shot well enough to enable us to have everything in the shot that we needed to. When we began to edit on imovie it was quite easy and straight-forward because we knew what shot needed to go where and we knew what order they needed to go in. This was important that we knew this because we was able to put the shots in quickly and edit them correctly so that the continuity of our piece was accurate and made sense to the audience.

For the music of our opening sequence we went on www.freeplaymusic.com to get what we wanted. It was easy to get the music from the site onto imovie to have it in our piece. We had to download it onto itunes on the mac and then just go into sounds, then itunes while on imovie and just drag it into the spot on the timeline where we wanted it to go.

When we used livetype to do our titles I had no idea what I was doing or how to use it. This was a technology that i developed my skills in a lot because now I would probably be able to complete adding titles into an imovie project from livetype after editing them and getting them all in the right places. To use livetype well you need to have planned where you want your titles to appear, where they will go on the screen to be the most successful, and for how long they will need to be on the screen. We have had to re-do the titles on this programme quite a few times because whenever we do some editing on the sequence the length will either increase or shorten so the titles will move on the timeline so whenever we changed anything around we would then have to go back to livetype and sort out all of our titles.

For my eveluation blogs the technologies that I have used are quite similar to any of the other blog posts. The way that I have made them visual is by uploading images to make it clearer and easier to see what I am talking about when writing about a part of our film.

What kind of media Institution might distribute your media product and why?

The production companies that would be most likely to distribute our product would be independant film companies such as, Miramax,Focus Pictures, Lionsgate and Legendary films. This would be because they are all independant film companies that do not follow mainstream companies such as 20th Century Fox, Universal studios, Columbia Pictures etc. These bigger companies would not distribute our media product because they have a much larger variety of audience than the smaller ones do so they would be less likely to invest in a product unless it appeals to several different target audiences rather than just a specific one. However companies such as Miramax, Lionsgate etc do have a specific target audience, and our film is aimed more at one audience rather than a range of different audiences. Our film is supposed to be thriller so it would not appeal to younger kids, but dominantly teens as it is supposed to keep you entertained and on the edge of your seta throughout.

How does your media product represent particular social groups

Our film only presented two types of stereotypes but they are the common two for the type if film we made. it was a chase sequence, so we had the bad guy, in casual clothing with a hood to show who they were and what their role clearly was going to be. We then had the high class character dressed in a suit who seemed to have the most power. We chose to do this because it is easier for an audience to understand what each characters role is if we are following the basic stereotypes of how characters should look depending on their role in a film. It also makes it clear who has the higher status because of their clothing because how smart they look shows you if they were successful or not so you can tell who has the more power/authority.

In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our opening sequence followed the majority of the conventions that you always see in an opening sequence of a film. We ensured that we revealed the storyline, but so that it was clear for people to understand what was happening. We used titles to introduce the roles and responsibilities that everyone played when we was doing our opening sequence. Like most thriller openings the titles were just bold and white so that they stood out and were clear so they were easy to read.

We used sound effectively in our opening sequence to set the mood of it, and make it seem more interesting; the fact that it was a chase made this very important because it also helps make it clear what the genre of the film is going to be. At the beginning the music was quite slow and eerie to give the audience the impression that something bad was going to happen, but we also set the music so that when the chase began it dropped and helped to set the mood as to what was happening.

We tried to incorporate a lot of different shots so that it was more interesting, but so that the location was clear because we needed to introduce what sort of environment the film was in. This was important because in most films the main location is introduced at the beginning of the film so we needed to make this clear what was happening and where. Also it helped make the storyline clearer because we would not just use a long shot for one part of the chase, we would have a shot of the character running at the camera, then cut to a shot either behind or next to the characters running past, to add more of a variety of shots and to make it clearer about what was happening and make it more interesting.

Another convention we followed was ensuring that the continuity was good. This was very important because if it wasn't continuous and there were jumps in our sequence it would have been very obvious because it was a chase and if we suddenly jumped forwards it would look weird and hard to follow. Making sure that it had good continuity was difficult because we was in a car park so we had to get the filming done in one specific place as quick and well as possible in case a car moved, because this would have been noticable and it would be clear if the characters had then moved in the frame as well.