Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our teen drama opening sequence Vendetta uses and develops a variety of forms and conventions previously utilized by real media products. I will be expanding on this statement with reference from four areas of genre, narrative structure, form and style. I have also included a video voice-over of our opening in which our group discuss these topics over the sequence. 

Genre

Our chosen primary genre for Vendetta is ultimately a Teen Drama, but with incorporated elements of Black Comedy as our sub-genre. To make this immediately recognisable, we made sure that we followed the researched conventions set out by our key inspirations, for example Heathers and Thirteen.

We developed our main character Eve from the loose basis of Veronica in Heathers. She is someone who despite being in 'the cool crowd' is independent in her thinking and does not conform to the social 'rules' of her school environment. Another example of this typical character propping up in a Teen Drama is Cady in Mean Girls, who also operates in the same way. Both seek some kind of vendetta against members in their school which is why they are characters extremely relevant to defining the genre of our film.  

Other characters we adopted from previous Teen Dramas include the typical characters of the 'Sleazy Male' (e.g. Tony in Skins) and the 'Stoner'. Both these characters provide immediate links to our key themes of partying, experimenting with sex and experimenting with drugs. We discuss how we incorporated these themes into our opening in detail in our voice-over:

 An example of a film which best epitomises similar themes to what are included in our opening sequence is Thirteen. This can be recognised in the trailer.

We tried to make the setting and mise-en-scene as fitting to the genre as possible. This was mainly in ensuring that our opening sequence looked definitively like a party, which was crucial to the Teen Drama genre. We attempted to make it as realistic as possible, using an actual strobe light to achieve the party effect. This proved to be a challenge when editing, as due to a lack of light our footage became very grainy. However relief came when we used a tool on after effects to get rid of this grain. Our mise-en-scene included beer cans being strewn everywhere, with dubstep music and dancing connoting the party. This was a key element in creating the Teen Drama genre.

We aimed to portray two key events in our opening, those being the overdose and Eve's smile at the end. We believe these convey the desired genre of a merging between Black Comedy and Teen Drama. Firstly, with drug use being such a prominent theme in Teen Dramas, our overdose scene is particularly relevant. When brainstorming our initial idea, we opted for this as the disruption as it was very fitting to the genre. Although an emergency, the fact that our main character Eve smiles at Hannah's misfortune not only provides an enigma code, but also an element of Black Comedy. This is due to Black Comedy being typically associated with treating serious situations in a satirical manner e.g. Eve's smile.

Narrative Structure

After researching the theories behind narrative structure, these proved very useful in coming up with an idea for our film. All films tend to abide by Todorov's narrative theory as a classic narrative pattern. Our opening sequence specifically only features the equilibrium stage and part of the disruption. However, our whole film in terms of Todorov's theory is summarized here:

In order to tell the story we utilized specific narrative techniques in our opening sequence. Here I will exemplify how we used them and why.

Ellipsis - We used this to give the audience a warped perspective on the passing of time. This allows them to recognise that our main character is under the influence of drugs, linking to the party thematic of our chosen genre.

Linear - Our opening sequence begins very non-linear, jumping between events going on at the party with no real perception of time. However, we jump to a linear approach during the overdose scene in order to convey the action in a way that the audience can engage in.

Enigma Codes - We offer many questions to our audience such as 'Who is responsible for the overdose?' and 'Why is the girl smiling after a serious overdose has occured?' This drives the narrative in a way that engages the audience and leaves them wanting to know the answers.

We also included some of Propp's character theory in our opening, although this can't be applied perfectly to our film as a whole as it is ambiguous who victims/villians are. This is due to the theme of revenge that runs constant throughout the storyline. Despite this, both Hannah (the victim) and Eve (the villain) can be applied to this theory. However, the true villain of our film is the creepy teenage boy who plots murder on the girl who rejected him, although he isn't presented to the audience in our opening sequence.      

Form

On learning what was essential in the making of an opening, we tried to incorporate these things into our sequence. I believe that we managed to follow the conventions.

Titles - Here we followed the conventions of an opening sequence as we researched title orders, for example Juno to give us inspiration for our own order. We included the distributor and production company first to follow convention and to also allow the audience to associate our film with other films from the same distributor. These are recognised as important because they are the only ones that arn't super-imposed. We wanted the rest to be super-imposed so we didn't have to cut away from important action, as the majority of our sequence is quite fast paced. For this same reason of not serving as a distraction, we opted for white titles with a simple but fitting font.

For the style of our titles, another influence we used was Thirteen, a teen drama I previously mentioned. Originally, we were going to put the first titles all in the middle. However, with watching the opening titles to Thirteen, we felt we could also put them at the bottom of the screen. This means that more emphasis is put on the title, being bigger and in the middle. They are also white with a black background, a style we adopted in our titles. However, we developed it to suit our party theme by including the effect in the background. 

Engaging the Audience - The audience is unaware of any main characters until we switch away from the point of view shot. This engages them to find out more about this elusive character, and with the enigma code of the smile as well, this urges them to keep watching. At the end of the opening, they still don't know the main character well.

Establishing Genre, Themes and Characters - Special attention is given to Eve, and in her smile her dark side is revealed. This introduces her as one of the main characters in the film, and gives her room to develop into a better person which is typical of a coming-of-age Teen Drama. Themes of sex, drug use and partying are also conveyed to allow the audience to associate the film with the desired genre, and possibly allow them to anticipate what could be coming up. 

Style

I believe the style of our film is one that incorporates many different elements of surrealism to create a style that is original and important to setting our film apart. Here is a voice-over in which we discuss and analyse style fully: 

When carrying out our audience feedback, the words often used to describe our sequence were surreal, creepy and sadistic. As you can see from the voice-over, this is what we were trying to aim for. 

Another teen drama that can be described as 'surreal, creepy and sadistic' is Pretty Little Liars. It has strong themes relevant to Teen Dramas, yet also incorporates a sinister style with themes of revenge and murder. This can be seen in this trailer, where the colour scheme is black and misty, with flashes of colour. We have incorporated this as a background effect in our introduction of the distributor and production company.

However, unlike Pretty Little Liars we use our sadistic-ness for comical effect, reflecting the sub-genre of black comedy. 

Overall, we believe that we created a film that abides by the typical conventions of what we are trying to create - a teen drama title sequence. This heightens audience appeal as they know what they enjoy and therefore somewhat know what to expect from our film. However, our film can bring a little more than expected to give it a rising factor over average teen dramas.

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

When initially coming up with our idea and throughout the entire production process, we put conscious thought into how we were going to represent social groups. In most cases we developed the already existing stereotype, with the exception of age in which we solely conformed to the stereotype. We felt this was imperative not only to create a realism in our representation in relation to society, but to also create relatable characters - an element key to ensuring success of our film. The areas I will be focusing on are age and sexuality but for an overview of all our representations click here.

Age

All characters in our film fall into the teenage age spectrum - specifically the ages of 16 and 17. With the word 'teenager' comes a very specific stereotype of a girl/boy in the process of developing into their personality, with an air of recklessness towards drugs and sex with no care for schoolwork. One TV Drama that fed off this stereotype is Channel 4's controversial Skins that boldly explores the problems teens have within their lives. The following trailer shows the extent to which drugs, sex and partying play a part in the social lives of the Skins characters. 

However, Skins received much criticism for it's overly positive representations of teenage activities, when the encouraged view is that this behavior is dangerous and reckless. Subsequently, it was rated an 18. For this reason, we chose to represent teenagers and their antics still in a realistic light in order to conform with the typical representation - but did this more negatively than Skins in order to apply for a certification of 15. 

We abide by the typical representation by connoting our teenagers to be on drugs. Not only do we do this by showing someone supposedly rolling drugs (no drugs were actually used on set), but we also utilized point of view shots to show that our perception is through the eyes of someone on drugs. We used echo effects to do this and also used slightly blue grading to add to the surrealism of the scene. What's more, many of the characters (for example 'the sleazy male') were behaving rather eccentrically to not be on drugs, suggesting that they were. However, unlike Skins we do not encourage this lifestyle to be glamorous as we portray the overdose very graphically with shots likely to shock the audience. This is representing to the audience a situation when the light fun of suburban teen life goes wrong, done with a realistic approach. The following reactions of worry from the majority of the characters also induced a negative portrayal as the abusive use of drugs marks the end of the 'fun' of the party. 

However, in some respects our portrayal of teenage behavior is positive. What can be noticed from our opening sequence is that everyone is accepting of one another with no element of sexual orientated or race conflict. They seem a lot free-spirited than the stereotype often suggests, with teenagers renowned in the media for gun and knife crime, homophobic prejudice and countless other behaviors that portray them badly. Despite this, we want our audience to recognize that our representation is just realistic as the one often displayed in the news.       


Sexuality

It is obvious from our opening sequence that sexuality is a theme very predominant in teenagers' lives. We can almost see what our 'sleazy male' is thinking when he approaches Eve and we see couples kissing and lounging on one another. From the very start of the planning process, we wanted to ensure that equal attention was placed upon both our couples - one being homosexual and the other being heterosexual. This was with the intent that our film would encourage both to be looked on with normality, whereas the subject of homosexuality is typically met with humor. 

During our research, we discovered that a homosexual character is typically defined by the fact that he/she is homosexual. An example of this is Damien in Mean Girls. In this comedic teen drama, he becomes a comical character solely due to his sexual orientation. A lot of focus is drawn to his emasculation for this reason. This is a montage of his funny moments, most revolving around the fact that he is gay.

However we wanted to convey the topic of homosexuality with indifference, a trend that is gradually developing in the media. One way we did this was by ensuring that our gay couple was no more feminine that our straight male couples. In fact, one member of our couples takes the lead in the overdose scene saying: 'Get over here!', 'Snap out of it!', and 'Call an ambulance then!'. We gave him commanding dialogue to portray him with dominance rather than the femininity gay people are often characterized with.

Not only did we make them appear like the completely average teenager in manner but also in their appearance. They are not wearing any element of pink, which is typical to gay characters, but are simply wearing stylish clothes without being overly groomed. This ensured that we didn't exploit the stereotype.    

The main point we wanted our representation to show was that every teenager has the potential to be themselves even in a negative context such as the huge influx of revenge at their school. This is first seen with the homosexual male and also seen with Eve, as they step out from the crowd and become their own person.


    

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Throughout the pre-production and production process, we kept in mind the desired production and distribution companies and ensured that our film was appropriate to these. Our production company was X-Productions and our distributor was Momentum Pictures, and had distributed films in the past that we wanted our film to be associated with.

X Productions

We imagined our production company to be an independent British company, subsequently producing independent British films. The company would be rather small, meaning that our film would be unlikely to become a global success. However the company would've produced a few well renowned films nationally that attracted niche audiences of predominantly the 16-24 age spectrum. We would hope that our film would become one of these. As for the genre, 'X Productions' will have experienced a wide variety of genres and wouldn't be limited to one. This would allow our teen drama to contain elements of black comedy effectively and confidently.  

We came across the name by accident, simply writing 'x' for our production company when we were yet to think of one. However on further thought, we realized that this could suit perfectly as the producer of our film as 'x' connotes the same secrecy and enigma present in our film. This themes are immediately associated with our film.

A real production company that 'X Productions' could be loosely based on is the independent film company 'Warp Films'. It has produced some of our inspirations, a few being Four Lions, Submarine and Tyrannosaur. We believe that had 'X Productions' been real it would've resembled 'Warp Films' in its values.

E One Momentum

The above diagram represents our thought process on deciding our distributor. It summarizes our options and their previous works. With Heathers being our main inspiration, we had the notion of choosing 'New World Pictures' to be our distributor, to provide immediate association between the two films. However, on further research we realised that 'New World Pictures' had ceased to distribute films from 1997 onwards, meaning that the 'E One Momentum' route was more probable. 

In seeking a distributor, we would've taken our film to a film festival as 'X Productions' wouldn't have had the funding for distributing, marketing and exhibiting the film. Here it would've been picked up by 'Momentum Pictures', who already have experience in distributing films with the themes of drama, darker comedy and female protagonist. In this way, they will have understanding on how to deal with our genre. We would hope that 'Momentum Pictures' could do the same with us as what they did with the global successes of The King's Speech, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Dear John and Seven Psychopaths.   

Exhibition Platforms

We hope that our film would be plausible to be released in not only small cinemas but also in more mainstream cinemas. We feel the themes we explore in our film open a wide audience in which we will get the most reach in national mainstream cinemas such as Vue, Odean and Cineworld. It is unlikely that we would be able to gather the funds to opt for 3D, yet if this option arose it would give a fully immersive experience to the audience that they could only find in cinemas. This would ensure maximum difficulty to stream online. 

Marketing Strategy

Momentum Pictures was the mastermind behind the effective marketing of The Kings Speech, which made $414 million at the box office worldwide. We would hope to follow in its footsteps with a similar marketing campaign, raising awareness through traditional posters/trailers but targetting our core audience through use of social media and interactivity. This would be the main source of our marketing, being an independent British film. We would create pages on facebook and accounts on twitter that allow regular contact with our 16-24 demographic, all the while raising awareness and anticipation of our film with the announcing of new trailers, posters etc. This engages their interest and keeps the target audience wanting and regularly receiving more. Of course we would also create a website much like Dear John, which was positively received by teens. Therefore, we will expect to create a website that attracts teens to the same level.

On the website, young good looking actors are introduced and a variety of home media formats are advertised. The website is also cross media converged, with videos and text. There is also a feature in which visitors to the website 'share their love stories', which is interactive and involves the audience with the themes in the film.



Overall, we believe that our production and distribution companies can be trusted to deliver our film to it's best ability and that we have made realistic choices.  

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience was one of the most important decisions to make when initially coming up with our idea. In our research, we found out that the most frequent cinema-goers were within the 16-24 age bracket. The following diagram, taken from the BFI Statistical Yearbook 2012 (with figures from 2011) visualizes the proportion of 16-24 year olds going to the cinema over the years. The figure currently stands at 31%.

  
With that decision being made, we went on to decide that females of this category age would become our core audience. We felt that we could target this audience the most effectively (our group being part of this segment ourselves) giving our film maximum potential to get as wide a reach as possible. Our exact reasoning is explained in the below diagram:

We also decided on two secondary audiences to widen our reach even further. Followed are two fictional characters who we would imagine would enjoy our film:

We believe that our film has the potential to target a broad spectrum of ages. Beneficially, these ages happen to be those that visit the cinema the most, giving us confidence that with the right marketing our film would be successful.

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Attracting our target audience is vital to the success of our film. From the outset we drew together our target audience, them being predominantly females of ages 16 - 24, males of the same age and parents of the 35 - 45 age bracket. By paying close attention to the content, style and marketing of our film we set out to target this audience in the best way possible.

One of the challenges we faced was ensuring that when drawing in our primary and secondary audiences, we did not come between our chances at attracting other segments of the population, for example limiting our marketing strategy to purely viral. Despite deliberately choosing those groups who gave the most to box office takings, in alienating the rest of population we would dramatically decrease this figure. Therefore we knew how vital our strategy would be in making the film a success.


Audience Reaction

The above clip is of two target audience members watching our opening for the first time. It shows their exact reactions and they seem to be enjoying it. They reacted how we wanted them to react - laughing at the comical moments and relating to the music.

The above clip is an interview with two members of our core and secondary target audience. They identify what they found successful and what they didn't. We were quite pleased that they managed to know exactly what happens in the opening sequence, showing that they can induce a level of understanding about the story line and perhaps predict what will happen next. We also briefly interviewed other members of our target audience which can be found in more detail here: Neil Shah and Katie Dadswell.


Ways in which we engaged our audience:

• Conforming to Expectations - Through films like Project X and television series' such as Skins, our audience are familiar with the party scenes typical of teen dramas. However, we have developed the conforms and stretched to a more negative viewpoint of drug taking, making the party concept more realistic and gritty than the glamour previously associated with the lifestyle we connote.
• Creating Relatable Characters - We tried to represent all genders and ethnicity in our opening sequence, succeeding definitely with ethnicity. Although our gender mix was theoretically equal, both the main characters were female. With hindsight, we could have made one of the main characters male in order to relate more to our secondary audiences. However, keeping our key audience in mind, we feel we have created Eve as a powerful, likable and potentially inspirational character. 

• Use of Shocks and Surprises - Part of the USP of our media product is that it displays realism of the modern British teenagers social lifestyle. When this lifestyle does rarely occur in films, is usually either glamorized or portrayed unrealistically. Using the graphic overdose scene and incorporating the often tabooed concepts of teenage homosexuality and active sex life, we attempted to engage the audience through shock. Thirteen is an example of a film that benefited greatly from this technique and our film would hope to follow in it's footsteps.
• Choice of Film Style - Our film style is very much inspired by Skins and its renowned edginess which can be seen in the below video. As you can see there is a certain haziness that we also tried to achieve through the echo effect. We feel like associations with Skins would be a good thing in attracting our chosen audience due to the fact that it was such a success among our generation. It is engaging and most importantly, different to the style of conventional films.

• Continuity Editing - The montage present in the overdose scene quickens the pace in order to focus the audience to this element of the narrative. The audience are shown a variety of reactions, and are given a choice of which reaction to abide to. Feelings of guilt are encouraged, as the audience are taken out of the action to see people lounging around carelessly. On the other hand, sometimes this provides an element of humor - conventionally to black comedy making light out of a serious situation.
• Enigma Codes - We use these to attract our audience by engaging them with enigma codes. This leads them wondering questions such as 'Is [Hannah] dead?' or 'Why is [Eve] smiling? Did she cause the overdose?'. All of these questions lead the audience into wanting more. This technique is particularly relevant for attracting an audience outside our target, as curiosity is something any age or gender would have at this point. 

Genre Choice

During our research, the biggest factor in deciding our genre was looking at what our target audience enjoyed most. Using content from the BFI Statistical Yearbook 2012 we made the discovery that themes of partying were very much enjoyed by our target audience. As you can see, the films that feature partying as a key theme actually account for their top 2 most seen films of 2011. This clarified our decision to go with the party themes. We also noted that The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 included sure elements of teen drama.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of contructing the product?

Given that we thought so carefully about the concept and representation of our opening sequence, we wanted to be able to demonstrate these perfectly with good quality sound and picture for maximum enjoyment. Achieving this came with deciding on the right hardware to shoot our footage on and the right software to edit our footage on. Although without our research our concept would've suffered, this element of the process is arguably the most important as it allowed us to create the finished product.

Hardware


Initially, we were going to use a mixture of two cameras for our opening sequence: a Canon 550D and a Canon Legria HV-30. This is what we tested in our first test shoot, using the Canon 550D for the long party shot and the Canon Legria HV-30 for the overdose scene and beyond. Hpwever, due to differences in the cameras, on Adobe Premiere Pro the shots from the cameras were different sizes. We then decided to make a decision about which one to use. The following table explains the advantages and disadvantages of each:

However, on experimenting with both we decided that the Canon 550D was a better option to go with. It allowed us to not only shoot in HD but also in 50fps (as apposed to the standard 25fps) which meant that the quality would not suffer as a compromise to slowing the footage down. Usually, auto-focus would've been an easier option but we wanted the manual focus to allow us to create our shots exactly how we wanted them - in contrast the Canon Legria HV-30 did not have this feature. This links to the visual style we were trying to achieve.

On our first shoot disaster struck when we forgot to charge up one of the spare batteries. If we were doing this again, we would advise to ensure that all batteries, including spares, are charged up. Luckily we had got most of the footage that we needed, but had we not, many of our actors may not have been able to return for a second shoot.

A safety precaution that had to be taken when using the camera was that we didn't under any circumstances hand them to members of our cast, or leave them on the floor without being in their cases. We also had to take care not to drop them. With the Canon Legria HV-30 it was also essential that we did not try and push the tape out when it would come out automatically.

Although our party shot is done hand-held, for the overdose and ending we used a tripod to ensure steadiness. With hindsight, we would've also used a tripod for the shots that involved switching on the lights, although this isn't immediately obvious from our opening.

For each shoot, we kit ourselves out with three Arri Redhead lights: two 650W and one 750W. As you can see, they lit out set to a brilliant degree that provided definite contrast between our party scene and our overdose scene. For this reason, they highlighted the change in mood. We did come across some issues however, the main one finding strange shadows in our shots. It often proved a challenge to keep the light looking natural.  

With their power, they could also get boiling very quickly. In fact they even burnt holes through some of our filters. If we ever did this again, we would not spend so much time planning which filters to use, as everything we needed to set the mood was accounted for via grading. One of the imperative safety precautions was to only let our group touch them, and even then only with the specialized gloves on. Another disadvantage of them was that they were very difficult to carry around, with it taking at least two of us to transport them anywhere. Thankfully, most of the time we managed to secure a lift.

Software

We edited our sequence of Adobe Premiere Pro, which we found very effective indeed. We made use of its grading and echo facilities that helped match our sequence to it's genre, and introduce the key themes of the film. We also used this to create the animatic, which helped us in the planning process to predict how long our shots would last and whether they would would in relation to each other.

What we didn't realize when filming our party shot was that they were very grainy due to the lack of light. It was such a problem, that we planned another reshoot of the entire thing, but with the lights on. As some of our best actors couldn't make it, we were brainstorming other people to ask to ensure continuity. However at the last minute we discovered that Adobe After Effects had the potential to remove grain. Although this was a lengthy process, it saved us having to organise a reshoot which I now with hindsight believe was vital to our success. One of the key things we wanted to convey in our opening was spontaneity - something that would've been lacking had the lights been on. We would've had to compromise mise en scene for quality. However, thanks to after effects, we achieved both to our best standard. Below is a video of how grainy our shot was before after effects. You can see it properly if you watch it in full screen:

We also used new media technology to stay in touch, particularly with the use of facebook and in some cases twitter.

The below video sums up all the hardware and software we used in an annotated version of the opening:

This proved to be an entire new experience for our group - and as for me, I had never used technology to this extent before. It was rewarding to see our film opening that we had planned for so long to finally be brought to life.

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Just by watching our preliminary task and our main task, you can tell that our group has progressed immensely since the beginning of the year. The brief for our prelim was to 'create and edit a video sequence that tells a story, follows continuity and makes sense to the viewer'. We had to include an exchange of dialogue, match on action and a shot reverse shot. The brief for our main task was 'to produce a 2 minute opening sequence for a fiction film'. We had to include titles throughout, sound effects and a soundtrack, understanding of continuity editing, clear signifiers of our genre. 

Prelim

The prelim was beneficial because it taught us not to try and over complicate things and to make things as easy as possible. This means sticking to what we knew, and whilst also challenging ourselves to experiment with new things, not taking on too much responsibility. As you can see we stuck to a achievable genre to convey what we knew well. Our prelim with annotations of how it fit the brief is shown below. It also mentions some of the challenges we faced: 

Location

We had to keep location in mind, making sure we didn't over complicate it - learning this from our prelim. For each task, we chose one easily accessible location where there weren't too many disturbances. For our prelim we chose the interior of our school as we would've had to bear the weather in mind, which would've changed throughout the day. However, one of the challenges we faced as ensuring that we didn't film between lesson switches, as the bells would interupt our filming. We filmed our main task in Alice's house, where once asking permission, we were free to do whatever we wanted within reason. One of the challenges we faced was constructing Eve's walk from the party and out the front door in a way that the audience could gain understanding of relative location. We decided to follow every step of her journey exactly to achieve this.

Planning

For both shoots we planned the process using shotlists and storyboards. In our prelim we created a script but did not create a very substantial shotlist - the one we did make we didn't necessarily stick to. We did more vigorous planning as you can see below, the shot list and script for our main task being typed up clearly:

We also had a test shoot and a practice shoot. Having these was essential to a smooth running of the shoot and allowed us to communicate to the actors exactly what they were meant to be doing. Furthermore, we sent them individual costume details in which they arrived at the shoot in, to save time on the day.

I think one of the main things that made our shoot a success was that we weren't as strapped for time as we were in the preliminary. This is because we knew exactly what we were doing and when we were going to do it - partly due to the animatic giving us a rough idea of how long we wanted to make each individual shot. It became the very first insight into how our film was eventually going to look. Therefore we made adjustments accordingly. The animatic is included below:

  

The Shoot

• We arrived at 10 and we asked everyone else to come at 11. This ensured that we had enough time to get make-up and costume sorted out, and also allowed time for people to be late.
• We provided food for our actors.
• We shot many master shots that we could cut back to if need be.
• We shot on the Canon 550D which gave better picture than the Canon Legria HV-30 that we used with the prelim (apparent in the pictures below).
• We focused more on lighting in our main task than we did in the prelim (also pictured below). 

Editing

• We created many different potential sequences and incorporated our favourite elements of each into the final sequence.
• We would only make changes to this final sequence when the whole group was there to agree to it.
• We didn't have to capture picture from the film  (only sound) which we thought was beneficial as that would've been a lengthy process. Using a digital camera, we only had to import from the card. However, we ended up not needing the sound.
• Below are pictures comparing our shot reverse shots between the prelim and the main task. Here you can see the difference in picture quality:

Evaluating

• We discussed this process as a group, whilst also working individually.
• We organised recorded interviews, held focus groups and organised voice over opportunities together as a group.

Overall, we have learnt a lot from conducting both our prelim and our main task. We have also developed as a team and learnt a lot about working with other people. Undoubtedly, the most key factor to what we believe was a successful opening sequence was our development as a team and the equal allocation of jobs that made everything run smoothly.