Production: Second draft evaluation

Sound:

In our opinion the second draft is a massive improvement to the first draft. We have now added sound into the clip, it is mainly non-diegetic, incidental sound that we have tested with our target audience to find which one they feel connotes an emotional tone. We have also chosen to add some diegetic sound that I was able to find in iMovie, it is a sound of the car starting and racing off with a screech at the end as it turns a corner. Luckily these sounds fitted with our filming, however we do feel that they are important as they are conventional features to this type of film and we feel that it creates the climax that we were hoping for our opening to have that will engage our viewers.

Editing:

We made changes to the editing that includes the sound mentioned about, and we have also improved the smaller detail in our opening, for example we enhanced the lighting. We had a little play around with the effects on iMovie for a while to see what we could create and we made the shots brighter and more visible. This made our establishing shots look way more appealing than they did to begin with as they were dark and a little gloomy as we were filming on a winters day. 

For the second draft we thought that the transitions were our main focus. It was our priority to make the opening a slow pace, this was to create the emotional atmosphere that we were aiming for, we decided to slowly fade the establishing shots out and then as the music gets quicker so will the pace of the transitions. With the hospital shot, we decided to fade out to white, this gives the impression to the viewer of the protagonist remembering something, and having a flashback.

The car is then introduced at the end, as the car is shown the cuts get quicker, and this is to create a tension and it will make the viewer pay closer attention as the pace goes up. It also creates the tone that will make it suddenly more exciting for the viewers.

Production: Sound sourcing, testing and titles creation

Sound sourcing and testing:

Today we looked on copyright free sound sites to find the sound we would use on the opening sequence, we used sites like bensound to narrow it down to three soundtracks to show to our focus group (the picture shown below is taken in the focus group). The group was a mixture of male and female all aged 15+ which is the right group for the target audience, and we played them the clip with the footage we re-filmed added in and had the sound option over the top, we then asked them which one they thought worked the best with the footage. The option they went for was the third one, this was a good outcome for us as a group as it was the same one that we had preferred also.

Titles creation:

As a group in our lesson today we looked through the different fonts and styles that the editing software had and we looked at which ones fitted the conventional theme that goes along with the motorsport sub-genre. There was only one that would have fitted so when showing the focus group the sounds we just asked them whether the titles fitted or whether they looked out of place and they decided that they fitted and worked well with the opening.

Below is the second draft of the opening clip that includes the sound and titles:

Production: Re-shoot day

Today we filmed everything we decided we need to in the evaluation of our rough draft. It went well, and we used the time effectively. I had previously emailed Mr Hopkins about gaining access to one of the grand stands at the track to film the actor walking us the stairs into the stands, I also had to speak to Mr Webber about using a workshop for the day to use for the rest of the filming as it had lots of different aspects that could help the clip. 

In the Workshop we filmed all the different shots of the protagonist putting on the race suit; we find this important because it will show the audience that he is going to be the protagonist of the film. Luckily, we spoke to Jacob and he let us borrow his race gear and helmet again and his friend Sam lent us his boots so that we could form a full costume.

This time we focused a lot more on the consideration of the angles and making sure that the camera was steady as on the first filming day we had a few shaky shots that we avoided this time by taking more copies of the shots so that we have back ups when it comes to editing.

The first time we filmed the shots in the grand stand of the protagonist walking up the stairs we had our shadows and the shadows of the camera in the shot which was an issue when editing because we didn't have different angles to cut in to be able to remove the shadows. This time we learnt from the previous mistakes and made sure that we checked the shots and that shadows weren't going to be an issue this time.

Production: Initial rough cut

This is the clip that we showed our focus, during the focus group we were also watching it and made notes of things that we need to change. This is what we came up with:

• We have decided that we need to enhance the colour on the establishing shots as the ground was frosty on our shoot day.

• We also need to re film the racer walking up the stairs and use a range of shots to with it.

• We need to film the racer putting the race suit on as we haven't shooted that yet and we feel that we need a wider range of footage.

• We need to add sound into the clip to enhance the emotions we are trying to portray

• We also need to add titles that include idents so that it includes the right elements so that it looks like a conventional opening that we looked at in our research and planning.

Issues that we found when we were watching it are that the clip is only 52 seconds long so we will use the elements above to extend the length to fit the 2 minutes, we also found that we will need to take the argument scene out unfortunately as it doesn't make sense without having the diegetic sound of what it happening, and we were avoiding having a script in the opening clip. 

Production: Audience testing

Earlier today we had a group of about 10 people that were both male and female and they were all over the age of 12 so that it would be real answers from the target market of our choice. During this session we showed the group the rough cut of the film and then asked them some questions. We got the answers we were hoping for along with some tips on how we could improve the film, however the main response was that they could tell that it was going to be a motor sport film and this is good as it is what we were hoping for.

This is a screenshot of the questions that we handed out to the group.
From the group we found that we need to add sound so that it adds atmosphere and creates meeting to the shots. Also we found that we will need to do another focus group that involves the different options of sound and titles that we are going to add onto the clip in the second draft of the film. The sound will mostly be non - diegetic as it will create theme of emotion that the rest of the film would have.

Production: Editing

As a group we are doing the editing with input from every one, the editing is taking place on my laptop as I have access to iMovie, however we thought about the risk that if I'm not in school on a day that we have planned to do the editing then the group won't have access to the footage, therefore we created a google drive account which is going to allow us to access the footage on any laptop at any time.