Practice Extract Essay

Below is a practice extract essay on the extract, "24". It discusses how meaning is constructed through the extract, analyzing the techniques used. These techniques include camera angles and shots, movement, sound, editing, and mise-en-scene.

https://1drv.ms/w/s!Amj-9TE_OBl-ji2IqyzFWa-7vZtE?e=wCbzjk

Final Task CCR

Below is my CCR for my final task. It includes four videos, each with a different question relating to the creative process of making the film that was the final task. They reflect on each step of making the movie. It shows my personal journey throughout the project and what went into creating it. The first question asks how does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text. The second question asks how did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project. The third question is how did your production skills develop throughout this project. The final question is how does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues.

Final Task- Movie

  Below is my final task for my AICE Media Studies class. It consists of the opening of a movie that I made with my group mates, Hailey and Deedi. Over the past few months, since January, I have worked extremely hard on finishing this project with a product I am happy with. I’m very proud of the finished product, even though it’s quite different from our original storyboard. Due to the pandemic messing up filming and the decreased communication, we had to improvise quite a bit when it came to some of the scenes. At times it was really stressful and I was very discouraged when our original edited movie was lost as we no longer had access to the school laptops. However, with a large amount of dedication and using what we had to it’s fullest, my group and I created this film that I’m extremely happy with! Even with all the changes we made to our final product, I am proud that it remained true to our original idea and the concept I had come up with. The entire process of creating the film was a great experience and my group mates and I enjoyed every step of the way.

  The movie opening tells the story of a teenage girl whose life has been consumed by social media, ultimately resulting in her being kidnapped. I had suggested the idea of the horror genre when I first partnered up with my groupmates. They were immediately onboard as they were also fans of horror films and we all felt that we could create a good idea for a horror concept. One of my groupmates suggested doing something involving social media, which led to our final concept for our film. After her suggestion, I had the idea to have the main character be stalked and ultimately kidnapped due to how much of her personal life that she put on social media. We ran with the idea and the entire concept formed smoothly from there. Even with all the changes we made, it stayed true to the original idea. I made sure that the idea always stayed clear and made sure the important details remained the same. I was so happy with how it ended with the trunk shot that I had suggested while we were making the storyboard, the inclusion reminded me of how far the film had come from just a single sentence pitch.

Filming Blog

  At the time of writing this, school has been closed until April 15th. Due to the pandemic, COVID-19, schools in my district were closed. Though that was the best decision for the safety of us students, that also created quite a few issues with our final project. Since we weren’t aware of school closing, we weren’t able to check out the SD card that held our footage and movie. Thankfully, I had saved a small portion of it the my One Drive when we first started the project. However, it was only the first few scenes. My group mates and I would also be unable to meet up at all and film anything else. This was because each of our parents wouldn’t allow us to meet up as they didn’t want any chances of any of us getting the virus. I’m hoping that we will at least be able to meet up for one day so we can use our phones to at least film something. With this though, my entire planned out schedule was ruined. As a result, I'll be forced to improvise and take any possible opportunity to film.

On top on that, my group and I would have to begin editing all over again. This was quite discouraging as I had worked a long time on editing before. However, I had no other option so I moved on and started over. I was lucky to have access to editing software on my computer, so I got to work on beginning as soon as possible to make up for lost time. I chose to use iMovie to edit as I had a rough idea of how to use it. Currently my internet shuts off every once in a while so I have to save pretty often but it will be worth it in the end. I plan to work as hard as I can and do as much as I possibly am able to while schools closed. My group and I will take any chance to film. Albeit, that chance is incredibly small as we all will be trying to stay healthy and free from any virus. I refuse to have no product as a result of all this work I’ve done so I will continue to do the best of my ability.

Editing Blog

  While in my AICE Media Studies class on March 11, I continued to work on my project with my group. I got the laptop we had been using and signed into it. I attempted to open Pinnacle Studio multiple times, waiting for it to finish loading and finally open. However, it would not open each time I tried. After trying a few different things, I restarted the laptop which had worked in the past. It took awhile to start but thankfully the editing software opened. First thing I did when I was on was write down each scene that needed to be reshot as I had planned to film with my group mates over the weekend. That way I would ensure that no scene was missed wile reshooting. I also took note of what else needed to be done. After finishing that, I opened Paint on the computer and one of my group mates and I created a few text boxes that resembled those of text messages. Then I moved them into Pinnacle Studio to use. We had decided on making the titles look like text messages since the film was called socially trapped and involved social media and phones.

  I then asked my teacher for help with adding the message boxes to the titles. I had previously had issues with the titles and seemed to be having more problems with adding the titles. My teacher began to show me how to add them but one of the important parts of the section to add titles was missing. Therefore, I was unable to add the titles. I decided to try on a different computer but soon ran into another issue. My second group mate had the camera and SD card so I was unable to transfer the movie to another computer. I called her and made sure she would have it for the next class. Thankfully though, I was able to work on editing other things in the meantime.

Editing Blog

  While in my AICE Media Studies class on March 9th, I continued to work on editing. One of my group mates was absent so that left the two only us to work. This actually made it easier as there weren’t as many people gathered around one little laptop. Therefore, we were able to get more done.  I had filmed a few of the scenes that did not require our actors, such as establishing shot, so I planned to put them into the film. I used the SD card and SD card reader to transfer the footage over and got to work. I moved the new footage from the file to the editing software. I then cut it down until it fit within the spaces I had left for each shot. With it together, I watched it through to make sure it flowed nicely. Then I worked on editing the lighting, sound and titles till class ended.

  Later that day, while at home, I decided to work on editing more as I had time. I have an SD card reader at home so I was able to transfer the work I had done on the movie onto my computer. I put it in iMovie and continued to work. I wanted to finish the majority of the titles so that I would have time to work on finishing it in class. I soon noticed that the way I had originally planned to make the titles was not working. The original idea involved making my own message boxes and placing the text in them. However, the text would not go over the box I had made. I came up with a new idea in which the titles would show up as if they were being typed. That would still keep the desired effect of having the titles look like messages, but would actually work. It turned out nicely and I was able to add most of the titles.

Peer Review

  During my AICE Media Studies class on March 2nd, I had the chance to review a different teams project. Our teacher had told us in advance and told us to be ready to peer review. She had us peer review to help one another. We would be constructive and help them to make their project better. I felt this was a good way to get opinions on what we had done and give opinions to help other groups. We were given a guideline in the form of a worksheet with different things to check off. This included whether the film was the correct length and whether it had the correct order of titles. The paper asked how the lighting and sound in the film was. Also, it made sure that each type of shots, angles, or movements was included. At the end, it also asked what we liked about the film, and what we would suggest to the group who made it.

  We gave our flash drive with our film to the person who was reviewing us and went to get the flash drive from the group that I’d be reviewing. However, they didn’t have any work at all to give me. They told me that they had been having problems with filming and editing. They also said that they couldn’t work since the person with the SD card with all their footage was absent. So, I went back to my group and we began checking ‘no’ on each requirement that they did not have. I also wrote a sentence or two about how the group had nothing for us to review. As for what they could improve on, they definitely need to work on their time management. They could have started filming sooner and had more time to edit. With better time management, they would have had a lot more completed. Which would have helped since they would have had a peer review to help give advice on what needs to be fixed.