Evaluation

Here is the link to my website that contains the questions for my evaluation:
https://joshcoe161198.wixsite.com/mysite-1

Final Product

The Stranger from Josh Coe on Vimeo.

Final Poster

Final Magazine Review

Magazine Draft 4

Here you can see my fourth and hopefully final draft for my magazine review. After receiving some feedback on my previous draft through my survey and within small focus groups, I made some changes. The text itself has been altered slightly to make it all sound like more of a real review, and I've also added a sidebar that features some of my fellow students work. 

Reflective Comment:

As a whole, I am very happy with this draft and hope that this can be my final and finished version. It features everything from the reviews on IndieWire and I have mirrored the design to make it like virtually the same.

Feedback from Young Chamber Event

Last night there was a young chamber event where we were able to display our work along with the surveys that we had created. I used this as a further way to get feedback, and displayed my poster on the media board (top left) along with print outs of my surveys and laptops with the links to them. This shows another way I received feedback on my ancillary tasks.

Reflective Comment:

Taking advantage of this event was a good idea and has helped me to receive further feedback on my poster. It has also meant that I've received a more wide range of opinions from different groups of people which is also good as it creates more of a range within my survey results. 

Magazine Review and Film Poster Feedback

After creating two surveys for my film poster and magazine review, I've decided to summarise the results in one post and talk about the feedback I got. Below, you can see two slideshare's, the first with the film poster results and the second with the magazine.

I am happy with the amount of feedback I have got from both of my surveys and they have helped me see what needs changing and editing. When looking at the results, I can see that most people who filled out the surveys were of the younger generation with ages mostly between 15 - 21. This is a good starting point for me as these type of age groups are exactly the type of people I want to aim my general work at and so their feedback is good for me.
As for the actual in depth questions, they all seem very positive;

Poster:

My first question after answering about your gender and age was 'do you think the poster looks realistic', to which the majority answered 'yes' with one person saying 'I don't know'. This is very positive for me because it means that when people first look at my poster the see it as they would any other film poster, and it also means that the design of it is good. The next question then asks whether they like the poster, and if they think the look of it represents a thriller/horror film. Most people answered yes to both of these questions which is again very good for me, especially in saying that the poster relates to the genre I have chosen. The final question then asks whether or not anything should be changed. From looking at the results, I can see that most people said no, with a few mentioning that the text at the bottom could be a bit clearer and others suggesting I add a studio ident or a trending hashtag for the film. These are good suggestions for me, and with this feedback I can now go on and make these changes to hopefully make what will be a final draft.

Magazine:
With the magazine review, after asking about gender and age I asked the same questions as with the poster; 'does it look realistic', and 'does it look interesting'. Like with the poster, the majority of people answered 'yes' to these questions which again shows that the design of my review appears as real as an actual one, while people also think the design I've created looks interesting at first glance. I then asked whether or not they could read the text, as I'd been a bit worried about whether it was blurry or not. However, everyone who answered my survey said 'yes' to this question which is good for me and means I don't have to worry about the look of the text. The final question of my survey then asks what I can do to improve it. Most people were unsure about what to change, the main suggestions were to try and make it stand out more while one person said the text did appear slightly blurry. These are good suggestions, and I can now create another draft that will hopefully be the final one with the feedback I have gained being added.

Reflective Comment:
Getting some feedback for both of my ancillary tasks has been very useful for me as I can now act on this feedback to make my drafts better and closer to being completely finished. To improve, I could have asked more questions on the tasks however I felt that it was best to keep them brief to encourage more people to do it, and a lot of questions could have put some people off. With this feedback I can now move on further and look to finish everything off.

The Stranger Draft 3

After extra editing and a few changes I have produced a third draft for my short film 'The Stranger'. It is embedded below:



Reflective Comment:
With the film now getting closer to being finished, my next plan is to get some feedback on it which will then mean I have feedback on all three of my tasks making my evaluation questions easier to talk about and moving me further forward. As a whole, I am very happy with my film and as you can from my previous drafts on my blog (here and here), it has come a long way and many things have been changed and edited to bring it all together.

Magazine Draft Questionnaire

Now that I have created a completed draft for my magazine review, I have decided to do exactly what I did with the poster and begin getting some feedback on it so I can decide if anything needs to be changed with the help from other peoples opinions. Below is the embedded survey along with the draft of my questionnaire.

Create your own user feedback survey

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/LG5CH27

Reflective Comment:

As with the poster, this post shows how I've created a questionnaire to collect results on what people think about my magazine review at first glance, and after reading it. This will help me understand what needs changing and also give me a variety of view points with ideas I may not have already considered. To improve this, I could have included more questions within the survey but I feel that it is best to keep the questions brief and to the point to increase the chances of people doing it.

Magazine Draft 3

Now that I have done a few drafts containing the text of my magazine review, I've decided to take it a step further and format it as a the website I based it on, which is IndieWire. As you can see, I took the basic layout of Indie Wire and changed the titles and pictures to help fit my film. This is draft 3, and may turn out to be final draft after I have gotten some feedback on it.

Reflective Comment:

I have moved myself forward massively by creating a third draft for my magazine review, and I am happy that I have formatted it the right way to match the website I decided to base it on. I think that this review works well and looks believable to any readers. To make it better as whole, I could possibly add more photos or change the text slightly, and after I have received my feedback I plan to act on what is said.

Film Poster Questionairee

After working on my poster for a while, I've decided that the best idea now is to create a survey to get some feedback on it so that I can get an idea on what people's opinions are when they see it. I've embed the survey below, along with the poster that they reviewed:

Create your own user feedback survey

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/SRK5FS6

Reflective Comment:
My next steps with this is to share the poster and survey through all of my social media to ensure I can receive as many as responses as possible. I am also going to ask my family and friends to fill it out to give me as many responses as I can get. I think that with the results I will be able to see what people's initial reaction to seeing my poster is, which will help me to improve it and make it stand out even more. On the other hand, I may find that the results are all possible and very little needs to be changed.

Film Poster Draft 2

Today I spent some more time working on my film poster and have created a second draft to move me forward with this part of the ancillary task. I did some quick research online to see what my poster was missing to make it look more conventional. I used this poster below as an example just to notice some of the general conventions a poster has. As you can see from my first draft here, the poster I have already created follows the conventions of having the actors names at the top, the background image as the general location, and the main actors/actresses edited onto that background. My title is also in large font and stands out. The one thing my first draft didn't have that this poster and most poster do have is the small text at the bottom which is hard to read as it is squashed together to fit. This text normally goes through the studio names and distributors, as well as mentioning all the actors in the film and everyone who worked behind the scenes to help produce it. This was something I decided to add to my poster, as well as changing around with the font to help create a second draft.

The second draft for my poster is below:

Reflective Comment:

I think that I am making good progress with my poster and I think that the next post of it is likely to be a finished version as there isn't much else I can do to improve it. Obviously I will need to continue to play around with things like the font and size to ensure that it looks as good as it can, but generally it is nearly finished. My next steps with it are to get some audience feedback so that I can see what people think of my poster and if they see it as looking real and believable.

Magazine Review Draft 2

With the ending of my film altered slightly, I now need to change the content in my magazine review because I wrote it before I'd decided on changing anything. I have already made a first draft of the review which can be seen here. Below is my second draft, I haven't changed many things because I am happy with most of it so far, I've just altered the end of the review so it makes sense with the end of my film.

'Stranger' Review: Short budget thriller grips audiences to the mystery created.

Films with low budgets and short durations are a common thing amongst young students either looking to break into the film industry world, or simply creating a piece for their classwork. In this case, Josh Coe's short film 'The Stranger' relates to his classwork. This modern story about a girl who spends all of her time online, hating and ignoring her Mother, and speaking to random people will be more relatable to a younger generation as the film adopts a more modern theme.

Heidi Cooke's character of Clare, the typical teenager who hates her family and locks herself in her room all night is portrayed very well, and young viewers may be able to see themselves in this particular character. Her mother who is never actually named is played by Mandy Coe, and is a character every parent will hope to never end up like. We see her very briefly throughout the film doing nothing but sitting around drinking what we assume is something alcoholic with a tin of opened biscuits in front of her. Her lack of care and love to her daughter is clear throughout and we can easily see the broken relationship these two have.

As the films goes on, Clare attaches herself to a boy she meets online going by the name of Tom. They soon arrange to meet up in a dark alley where we soon realise that Tom is either not who he has made Clare believe he is, or just a complete murderer. As soon as we see the dark alley, as an audience we begin to predict that whatever comes next is not going to be good. What we don't predict is that the person who stabs Clare isn't in fact Tom, or so it seems. The scene of Clare's dead body fades out to reveal her laptop receiving messages from Tom telling her he couldn't make it, so as a whole we are left wondering what is the truth.
Perhaps what stands out as the film comes to a close is the clear regret we see on Clare's Mum's face as she stands over her grave. Their broken relationship is even clearer to us now, and we feel mixed emotions of sympathy for her Mum with losing her daughter, but also anger that she neglected her so much.

Reflective Comment:
Changing the ending to my magazine review was something I needed to do in order for my new scenes of my film to make sense. My next step is to add a third draft for my film with these new scenes included, and then this new draft will make sense with the plot.

Extra Filming

After watching back my two drafts and talking to some fellow students about it, we've all arrived at the conclusion that my film is missing some kind of twist toward the end, and as a whole it could be seen as quite predictable. Because of this, I've decided that the film would benefit more from an extra scene that created some kind of twist for the audience to think about. My plan was to do that piece of extra filming with my actress, Heidi, tonight, but due to circumstances beyond my control this can no longer happen. The scene we were going to film involved Tom coming to find Clare's dead body, and therefore meaning she had been killed by someone else other than Tom which would confuse the audience. Instead, I am going to shoot a quick scene of Clare's laptop sitting on her bed receiving constant messages from Tom telling her not to leave and that he couldn't make it. This will then make an audience wonder whether or not that was actually Tom who killed Clare and add a twist at the end of my production.
By changing the end of my film slightly, it means that the first draft I did for my magazine review no longer works because in the review I've mentioned how the film is quite predictable with the ending. Because of this, I now plan to compose a second draft for my magazine review that brings in this new scene.

Reflective Comment:
I think that adding this scene into my film will help boost it up in terms with the grade due to the development of the plot. Although I would like to film Heidi (Clare) down the alleyway again, this is not possible right now so I will use the messages coming through on the laptop as a substitute for this.

The Stranger Draft 2

With a first draft completed, I've now moved on and added some music at the start and end of my film to experiment and see how it fits. At the start of the film, I've added some copyright free music I found from research online. I used a website called Purple Planet (http://www.purple-planet.com/horror-old/4583971268), which had a number of free soundtracks I could use, specifically scary sounding tracks. I used one called 'Insidious', and put it at the start of my film just to see how it would fit with the opening scene. I then took the already recorded guitar tracks I created with my Dad and began playing around with them and seeing how they sounded at the end of my film where we see Clare's Mum over her dead daughters grave. I found that these all worked well and helped create a more sad ending. For this draft, I've added the 'Insidious' music at the start, and also one of the guitar tracks at the end just to show how my piece will look with some music. However, I do still need to record the foley sounds and add them in, so this is by no means a final draft.
The second draft is embedded below using Vimeo again.
Media from Josh Coe on Vimeo.

Reflective Comment:
I am much more happy with my piece now that I've added some music. I am not entirely sure whether or not the music featured in this draft will be used for the final one, because I do still plan to play around with some more tracks to ensure that it sounds and fits as well as it can. This draft could have been better with some foley sounds throughout, however I haven't quite got around to recording them yet, but as soon as I did I will create a third draft with these added in and perhaps some different sound tracks just to show how I have tried different things.

Magazine Review First Draft

Today I've decided to focus more on my ancillary tasks to ensure that they get done on time, specifically my magazine review. In my previous post here, you can see that I picked 'Indie Wire' as the website to base my review on as they include independent film reviews which works for me. Below, I am just going to write the review as a first draft as best I can so I have a starting point with the text. In normal black font I have begun writing the review, and in red font I've talked about what I've written in each paragraph and why I've used it.

First Draft:
'Stranger' Review: Short budget thriller grips audiences to the mystery created.
From looking on the 'Indie Wire' website, I've seen that every single review starts with a brief sentence about what the film is and what it delivers to an audience. As a starting point I've picked a brief sentence for mine.

Films with low budgets and short durations are a common thing amongst young students either looking to break into the film industry world, or simply creating a piece for their classwork. In this case, Josh Coe's short film 'The Stranger' relates to his classwork. This modern story about a girl who spends all of her time online, hating and ignoring her Mother, and speaking to random people will be more relatable to a younger generation as the film adopts a more modern theme.
The opening paragraph of the reviews typically start with a quick overview of either what the film is about or who the main character is, along with some information about how the film has been made. In this case, I talk about why the film was created by me and also give a brief overview about my main character Clare and what she is like, as well as talking about how the film is aimed at a modern audience.

Heidi Cooke's character of Clare, the typical teenager who hates her family and locks herself in her room all night is portrayed very well, and young viewers may be able to see themselves in this particular character. Her mother who is never actually named is played by Mandy Coe, and is a character every parent will hope to never end up like. We see her very briefly throughout the film doing nothing but sitting around drinking what we assume is something alcoholic with a tin of opened biscuits in front of her. Her lack of care and love to her daughter is clear throughout and we can easily see the broken relationship these two have.
This paragraph in a review then goes on to talk in more depth about the characters and also presses into more details about the plot itself. I followed these conventions in this paragraph by talking about the way that Clare and her Mum are portrayed by the actors, as well as going in detail about the relationship they have.

As the films goes on, Clare attaches herself to a boy she meets online going by the name of Tom. They soon arrange to meet up in a dark alley where we soon realise that Tom is either not who he has made Clare believe he is, or just a complete murderer. As soon as we see the dark alley, as an audience we begin to predict that whatever comes next is not going to be good. Perhaps what stands out as the film comes to a close is the clear regret we see on Clare's Mum's face as she stands over her grave. Their broken relationship is even clearer to us now, and we feel mixed emotions of sympathy for her Mum with losing her daughter, but also anger that she neglected her so much.
The final paragraph of the reviews I've been reading from IndieWire always close the article up by talking about how the film ends and what type of effect this has on an audience. As you can see from this paragraph, I draw the review to a close by talking Clare's death and the effect it has on her Mother and what this makes us feel as an audience.

Reflective Comment:
Getting this first draft completed for my magazine review has moved me forward a lot with my ancillary tasks and therefore forward in getting all of the coursework done as a whole. With this draft now completed, I can work on improving parts, changing parts, and adding parts to eventually end up with a complete magazine review of my film. Generally, I think that I did this draft quite well and I think the voice and tone of the writing works with the format of a review. My A Level in Creative Writing has helped me a lot to do this, and I was confident when writing it.

The Stranger First Draft

Now that I have put together all of my scenes for my production, I've decided to post a first draft of the whole film. Because this piece is only a first draft, there isn't any music in the film. At the start where you can see my main character tapping her feet, I plan to have some introduction music to help start of the film. And also at the end of the film where we see Clare's Mum standing over a gravestone, I plan to add the music I previously recorded of my Dad playing guitar. The post with the soundtracks I made can be seen by clicking here.
The draft itself is embedded below using Vimeo (it seems boring and quiet but sound will be added).
Media from Josh Coe on Vimeo.

Reflective Comment:
I am very happy now that I have managed to produce a first draft for my film. There are some aspects of it that I think may need changing or things that will need adding. Obviously as I've mentioned I need to add sound at the beginning and end, as well as foley sounds throughout to make it seem less quiet and bare. Also, I am unsure whether or not I want the opening scene to be my actress Heidi tapping her foot, or if I will quickly reshoot something else for this part. As a whole, I think I've edited the clips together well and will be experimenting with some sound over it soon.

Music

With all of the filming for my production now completed, I've moved onto looking at the sounds that will feature throughout, specifically music. The last 30 seconds of the film features Clare's dead body along with her Mum standing at her gravestone. In the background of these scenes, I had always planned to have a guitar playing some sad music to help emphasise the emotion within these scenes. There are many ways I went about trying to do this.
Firstly, I began doing some research online into royalty free music, meaning I could use it without having any copyright issues. After looking online for a while, I managed to find many websites that offered copyright free music, however the style and sound of the guitar work didn't quite match what I had in mind for my production, and so I decided not to go with this idea.
Instead, I began having conversations with my Dad, who can play acoustic guitar, about what I wanted in my film and how I wanted it to sound. We then spent time on his guitar trying to create what I wanted (him playing with me constantly talking about what I wanted changing to fit my production). After a while, we were able to come up with some guitar work that could feature at the end of my film when we see Clare dead. I am not entirely sure which one I will put in my film yet, and so as I starting point I have embed them all below within SoundCloud.



Reflective Comment:
I think that having music featured in my film that I have helped create myself will work a lot better for my production because it is much more of what I wanted and sounds exactly how I imagined it rather than having to use a piece from the internet that sounds very different. To improve this post, I could have perhaps include more of a variety of sounds with the guitar tracks, however I need them all to sound similar so that they fit the scenario my film has created.

Foley Sounds

Now that I have all of the scenes for my film completely done, I have begun to think about the sound effects that I will need. I've decided that the ending scene in my film after Clare dies will have sad music playing and so no sound effects will be needed for this. As for the rest of my film, there are some scenes were I require some sound effects, and my first aim is to try and create them myself.

• Message sent sound: As Clare sends each message to Tom, I want to try and have a sound that acknowledges that the message has been sent. With the iPhone, there is the familiar 'swoosh' sound which would be ideal. However, using this would be copyright and so I am going to look into creating my own, or if I can't finding a free effect online.

• Message receiving sound: As Tom replies to each message I want to have a sound of Clare's laptop receiving that message. Again, I can't use any already existing ones as this could class as copyright, so I will try and find something that is 'royalty free; or attempt to create my own.

• Stabbing sound on Clare: When Clare is down the alley she is stabbed by who we assume is Tom. To make this scene as realistic as possible, I want to try and create a sound of this stabbing to shock the audience. After looking online, I've found that there are some royalty free sounds of someone being stabbed, so this is an option for me.

• Footsteps: I've noticed that throughout my film there seems to be a lot of silence, and so adding in simple things such as footsteps will help bring it all together and make it seem more real. These will be fairly easy to create as I just have to record steps on whatever surface the character is walking at the time.

Reflective Comment:

Looking at the foley sounds for my piece has helped to move me forward with completing my film. With these considered, I can now begin to try and create them or if not look online to find them. To make this point better I could have included examples of the sounds, but it isn't easy to embed them from the internet without downloading them and I don't want to do that until I'm sure of what I need. Overall I think this post works well by talking about the different sound effects I need and how I'm planning to create them.

Plan For Final Week

Next week is the final week of sixth form before our half term break of a week, meaning that I must meet some deadlines with my coursework during this half term break. The date for everything to be done is the 20th February.
The trail I have on my MacBook for Final Cut Pro expires in 13 days, meaning that completing all of the editing of my film is my first and main focus in order to export it completely done before the trail ends. I have one final scene to film which will be done either tomorrow or Sunday, giving me the whole of next week to put it together and begin thinking about and creating music.
I have already made good progress with the ancillary task of a film poster, completing a few drafts already and being very close to posting a final completed task. Because of this, not much focus needs to be set on this task as good progress has been made.
For the other ancillary task of the film magazine review, little progress has been made and so this along with finishing the main task of the film are my main tasks for next week. I need to compose a draft of the text for the review, as this is the main focus for the task. Obviously the design and look of the review is important and must be considered, but I am more focused on ensuring that the text within the review matches conventions.

Film Poster Draft 1

Today, I finished my first draft of the film poster. I spent time super imposing Heidi's image onto the background of the alleyway we filmed at, and tried out different effects with the colours and brightness, as well as trying out different font types as the titles and actors names. In the end, I've finished with a first draft. Below you can see two pictures, one with a slightly lower brightness than the other. I decided to post these two as my first draft to show the difference in visibility of the dark figure at the end of the alleyway. To create this figure, I found an image of a figure from the internet and drew around this figure to give me my own and avoid any copyright issues. As you can see from the pictures, the visibility of the figure is different as I'm not sure which one I'm going to use yet.

Reflective Comment:
Completing a first draft for this was good because it has moved me a step forward with the ancillary tasks and meant I can now focus on my editing and extra filming as well as looking at starting my magazine article. I think that this draft went very well and demonstrates how I want the poster to look. To improve this task, I could have obviously spent longer adding effects to the text and perhaps more to the images, however because this is a first draft I just wanted to get an initial idea for the style and look of my poster.

Magazine Review Format

My other ancillary task involves a review of my film from a magazine, which I've already done some basic research for within my previous posts. Now, I've decided to do some research on what type of website I will write my film for, so I know the style of writing I'm going with.
After research online, I've narrowed it down to one website which appeared to specialise in film reviews for independent films. The budget for my film means that it falls directly into this category, and this website could suit the review I plan to write.

As you can see from this screenshot, the website is the 'leading news, information and networking site for independent-minded filmmakers'. This means my film would suit the website, and this is a starting point for the style I want my film magazine review to be. My next step is to actually begin writing the article, which I will probably do separately before adding the text onto a layout of a magazine review.

Reflective Comment:
Finding a website to base my magazine review for was a good next step with my ancillary task in order for me to begin writing. I think I did this task well because I simply found the best website that suited my independent film. To improve, I could have included more examples of reviews from this website, but I will probably do that at some point in the future when I begin writing mine and comparing the styles.

Film Poster Starting Draft

Today I took some pictures of Heidi and decided to begin and play around with the effects on Photoshop. I have never used it before and so this poster is extremely rough draft to help me have an understanding on how it works. With some more practice, I plan to continue with this and use an actual picture I've taken as the background as well as editing Heidi's face onto the background with much more precision.

Reflective Comment:

In between editing and filming I have now started to work on the ancillary tasks, and working on this brief poster draft has allowed me to gain an understanding on how photoshop works and what my poster will look like. I'd already done a lot of research, and so I had an idea on what I wanted the poster to look like. Tomorrow, I plan to spend a few hours playing around with a few different images on photoshop and constructing a more final version of my poster.

Editing Update

There has been a slight change with my editing now I've begun. Originally in my equipment list (which you can see by clicking here), I stated that I would be using iMovie to edit my footage. However, now it has come to the editing process I have changed my mind and decided to go with Final Cut Pro instead. I downloaded a 30 day free trail of this onto my Macbook which gives me a whole month to get all of my editing done. As you can see from the screenshot below, I have learnt how to work this software pretty quickly and my film is coming together nicely.

Reflective Comment:
I think that switching my editing plans to Final Cut has been beneficial for me and will continue to be beneficial to me as time goes on. Final Cut has a lot more effects I can use and has also assisted my massively with the use of on screen text message effects.

Filming/Editing Progress

Last Monday and Tuesday night I began my filming process which went really well despite some problems.
On the Monday, we spent several hours filming the scenes that take place inside my house. This involved Clare (Heidi) in her room, and Clare's Mum coming up to shouting. All of these scenes went really well, but were very time consuming as I had to film in a variety of different angles. However, as I have now began to put the clips together and edit them, filming with a variety of different angles has proven worth it.
On the Tuesday, me and Heidi went out of the house and down the alleyway to complete the filming that needed to be done outside. Despite the cold weather, we successfully did this, setting up the tripod in specific ways so that me and Heidi could both be in the scene at the same time.
My plan now is to continue editing the scenes I have until they are all put together well, and then this weekend (Sunday 29th January) continue to film the scenes I still need to do. I have over 4 minutes of footage meaning that it is all nearly done. The remaining scenes I need to do involve an additional one of Clare in her room and leaving the house, as well as Clare's Mum standing over a grave stone to represent her grief of Clare's death.

Reflective Comment:
This post is simply an update on what is happening because I have been completely focused on filming and editing recently and so haven't done any new posts.

Editing Research - Text Message Effect

As I've mentioned before, when I edit my piece I want to include an effect that displays what my main character (Clare) is saying to the boy she meets online (Tom). Below are some examples of this effect and these have acted as an inspiration for me:

By including this in my piece, it will mean that I can engage my audience with the conversations Clare is having with Tom on her laptop. It also means that I won't have to rely on my camera focusing on the laptop screen to see their conversations, as this can be hard to achieve with focus, and the fact that it makes the film boring to have to watch a laptop screen. I started to look online to attempt to find ways in which to do this, and the main thing that came up as a recommendation was Adobe After Effects. I have considered using this software but after looking I found that the cost of it is very high, and free trials have been reduced to 7 days meaning I wouldn't have it for long enough. Instead, I've downloaded a 30 day trail for Final Cut Pro which allows me to create a similar type of thing. 

I've been looking a more simpler way of doing this and have been using Sherlock as the inspiration. The text message effect in Sherlock is much simpler and does not actually include some sort of bubble, and the text is instead just displayed on the screen. An example of this is below:

As you can see from this screenshot, the message from the text is very simpler and just appears on screen. This could be used for me as a last resort, but I do want to try and add an actual text effect like the ones at the start of this post. When it comes to my editing process I will have to see what I can do.

Reflective Comment:

This post has allowed me to look at the different options I have when editing the text message effect onto my film. I am a bit concerned about how I'm going to do this because I'm not familiar with the effects that Final Cut Pro offers. When all my filming is done which will hopefully be soon I can play around with the effects and work out what is best to use.

Reflective Blog Entry (Christmas Break)

Over our Christmas break from sixth form I got a lot done with my course. My main goal was to tidy up my blog as much as possible, adding reflective comments to every post to ensure that when it comes to my evaluation I can refer back to the things I wrote about each post. I achieved this goal and now each of my posts includes a comment reflecting on what makes the post I did good and what can be done to improve it. In terms of filming, I wasn't too sure whether or not I was going to be able to find the time to complete it all. As it was, I didn't manage to find a day which suited my actors and me so we were not able to get much done. However, I did manage to get some test footage done with my main character, Heidi, which was very useful for both of us. As of now, I am completely ready to film with all of my actors decided, costumes discussed and ready, and locations sorted. My plan and goal is to begin the final filming process this Sunday (15th January), and finish it off the next night (Monday 16th). If I can achieve this it will mean that I can focus on editing and putting everything together, as well as beginning to put together my ancillary tasks.