A2 Media Coursework Blog

Today I presented my animatic to my class and obtained feedback on the positive and negative aspects of my piece. (The positives are in green and the negatives are in red).

A good soundtrack was awarded to my animatic. My classmates proposed that the musical score was appropriate and that it helped to establish not only the genre of horror but the atmosphere of the narrative, which helped to make the “content” of the show more apparent. I personally agree with this because after watching the animatic repeatedly to ensure that each component was viable I felt that the music was the most prominent feature and that it didn’t fail to engage me. This meant that the musical editing was appropriate in terms of engaging my audience and establishing a cohesive opening.

Furthermore the sketching was a good quality which made it easier for the audience to understand the narrative of my opening sequence. This, in comparison to my AS media coursework animatic, is different as I previously used photographs to provide a realistic approach to the narrative for my group’s thriller opening. However, this year I have chosen to draw my storyboard out as this was the best option in order to portray the narrative for my storyline. It was also easier for me to envision the shots and the sort of pace I intended my audience to watch it at. One of the responses towards my animatic that I received was that the animatic was already a clear image of what my final product was going to be like. This means that there is more potential for me to adhere to my animatic, whereas in AS there were slight variations from the animatic.

Another positive response that I received is that of my transitions being effective. They helped to create continuity, coherency and engaging the audience throughout the opening. This means that the editing pace is good and it makes it easier for the audience to follow the text. However, there was a critique of when the main characters were being shown at the end that the pace should have been slowed down. I disagree with this as the pace of the editing has been constructed to synchronise with the soundtrack, therefore, it wouldn’t be right for there to be out of synch titles with such a powerful musical score. This would only disrupt the coherency of the opening. However, this can be achieved by slowing down the fading so that there is enough time for the audience to absorb the content on the screen.

Moreover, there was a critique for ambient sounds to be included. However, regarding my research into various openings, it is apparent that there is hardly any use of ambient sounds, therefore it would be inappropriate for me to subvert the one convention that justifies an opening sequence for a children’s TV drama.

Another critique was that the choices of character shots were good; however shot number 5, when the man comes out of the grave, was proposed to have the character facing the camera instead of his back towards the camera as this is an opportunity to present the characters to the audience. Therefore, this shot will be altered in the re-making of my animatic. Furthermore, resting on the subject of characters it was also critiqued that the characters names should be inserted when they are being shown at the ending so that the audience are more comfortable and not left in suspense.

Having made my initial animatic in Windows Movie Maker, due to technological difficulties with the Macbook I took out not having Adobe Premier Pro on it, I was unable to create a motion effect on my animatic to enhance the visual stimulus of what the shots will actually look like. Thus, I will re-construct my re-make animatic on Adobe Premiere Pro in order to achieve this effect and help guide me along my process of filming. The motion effect will be used at shot number 4, the hand coming out of the ground. The impact this will have is to presume as if the character has immense strength and establish his dominance within the title sequence. Also, another motion effect will be placed on shot number 9, when the character is running. This will help to invoke a sense of tracking as well as the characters movement.

An issue was raised about the hand coming out of the ground like so. It was anticipated that since this is a Children’s TV drama opening the hand coming out of the ground may have been too gruesome for young children. However, I argue that this opening title sequence is aimed at 11-15 yr olds, therefore, this will be a minor contributor to the “horror factor” as I intend to not show it to younger children aged such as 5-9. On the other hand, since I am planning to show this programme during the peak of children’s TV hours, it can be argued that maybe this may disturb young children, therefore, when coming down to filming I do not intend to paint the hand “green” as such to create a zombie-like image, however I would like to keep it realistic in order to draw away from the gruesomeness of the concept of the “dead coming back to life”.