1. Comparison with real media products
Props
Costume Location
We did not use many props in our film,
Most of our film was filmed on the college
but when we did need some, they were
When filming this, we did not have to site, as it is set at a boarding school and we
easy to get. The main props that we
worry about costume. The characters in thought it best and easiest to film it there.
needed were cricket bats, baseball
our film were going to boarding school, so However, we needed to film the characters
bats, golf clubs etc, and we got these
they only needed to wear casual clothes, walking into the boarding school, so we went
from the sports centre. Another prop
so when filming we just used the clothes to the Perse near Long Road and filmed
that we used was a large stick, and we
that we wore to college. outside there. We only filmed when there was
got this from the woodland walk on the
no one else there as we wanted it to look
college site.
abandoned.
This is similar to our
inspiration “The Walking
Dead”, as the characters This is also similar to the
in that are wearing casual props used in “The This is similar to any post
clothes, or the clothes Walking Dead”, as they apocalyptic film/Television
that they would have use any weapons that series, as there would not
been wearing when they they can find, e.g. Baseball be anyone walking
went to work etc. bats, Metal Pipes and around in cities/schools,
guns. and they would look
abandoned.

2. Effects
Credits Type of Action shown
When making our credits, we looked at current There was not a lot of action shown in our
television opening credits to see what order
The effects that we opening sequence, but when it was shown it
they put the titles in. Such as: The Walking Dead
used in our film were was mostly violence, like when one of the
and Being Human. We also used a font that we
quite simple and done characters protects another with a stick.
had seen in the film “Alien”. We used this
on Final Cut. The effects There is also drama shown when a
because it looked very good for Sci-fi films and
that we used were Light characters is saving another from falling off a
programmes. To get this font, we went to google
Rays and making the clip building
and searched “Alien film font”, and there was a
black and white by using
download link. We made the text green and we
colour correction.
thought that this looked more Alien like, and we
However, when using
did not want to use a simple colour like black or
Light Rays, it was
white.
difficult to make out
what was happening in
the clip.
Again, this is like the opening
sequence to “The Walking
When doing the titles, we
Dead”, as when they are
did not use the real actors/
showing clips of abandoned
producers names. Instead, we
streets/cities, the colours are
found other teenage actors/
very dull, and I think this is very
actresses and used their
good for those types of clips.
names.

3. How did you find the construction process?
Which aspect did you find most enjoyable?
The aspect of this project that I found most enjoyable was editing. I enjoyed this most as I liked trying out different effects, fonts and sounds and deciding on the best
one to use. To start editing, Sammie and I went through all of the clips and separated the successful ones from the bad ones. We then out all of the clips that we liked
onto Final Cut and put them into a rough order. Doing this was easy, as we had filmed everything in one day, and we filmed the clips mostly in the order we wanted
them to be in. When we had put them into order, we got all the text clips that we needed and put them with each clip. When we were doing the cast credits, me and
Sammie did not use the actual actor names, we chose other teenage actors from BBC3 and E4 television programmes. The effects that were used in our opening titles
sequence were fading clips in and out, light rays to make some clips look more “Sci-Fi”, and making some clips black and white. Editing, I found, was quite easy, but also
the most enjoyable part of this projects.
Which aspect did you find the hardest work?
The part of this project which I found the hardest to
do was making the theme music. Whilst I was editing,
Sammie was using Garage Band to make the music. It
took us quite long to make it, and when Sammie had
done it, we both thought that it needed a bit more to
make it more exciting when we showed the action
clips. However, we could not find one, and we tried
putting more music together on Garage Band, but
nothing seemed to work. Eventually, Sammie and I kept
the music how it was. I do not think that the music is
bad, but it would have been better if it had a faster,
more exciting part in it when the action clips are
shown. This is the reason why I found this part of the
work the hardest, as it took very long to do and it did
not come out as good as we had hoped.

4. What problems did you face- how did you resolve them?
Me and Sammie faced a few problems whilst filming. One of these problems was finding props. Before filming, Sammie and I knew that we were going to need a lot of props to
dress the set, such as cardboard boxes and black bin bags to give an abandoned street effect. However, that would mean carrying big boxes and bin bags to college and on the
bus. Because of this, me and Sammie thought we would not use these props, but when we went to film we saw that round the back of college, there was a lot of broken planks
of wood and cardboard boxes, so we just decided to film at the locations around the college.
Another problem faced was finding people that could act in our free periods and during lessons Fortunately, three people from our media class helped us and acted i our film
and I also acted in it. However we still needed one more person to act for us, so our friend spoke to his teacher on the lesson that we needed him, and asked to leave he
classroom for 15 minutes, which was enough time to film the clips that we needed him in.
The other problem was that we needed to use the college mini bus for one of our scenes. We asked reception who we would need to talk to if we were to use it for 10
minutes. We then asked the college estate manager, and he let us use the mini bus as long as we were sensible.
How did you find working in a team? How did it help, or not?
I found working in a team very enjoyable and it was very helpful. Sammie and I got along well and we could come to decisions quickly and easily when planning and filming etc. It
was also very helpful working as a team as one of us could be doing one part of the work, e.g. editing, whilst the other could be putting the music together. Also, it was good to put
both of our ideas for names of the characters, the name of the programme etc together and pick what we both thought was the best one. The only problem about working in a
team is that if one of us was ill, a lot of work needs to be done by the other group member. This was a problem when I was ill, and the lesson that day was to do our story boards,
which Sammie had to do by herself. Apart from that problem, I found working in a group very helpful and enjoyable.

5. Legal and Ethical consideration
There were not many Legal or Ethical issues for us when making our opening sequence. One issue, however, was that there were some scenes that represented violence. When we
were planning these scenes, we did not think this was too much of a problem, as our target audience are people our age (16-19) which would normally enjoy action in films. Also,
everyone acting in our film was under 18, which may be a problem, but we thought our target audience could relate better to people their age, and in our film the characters go to
boarding school, so we needed people to be 18 or under to fit the part. Apart from these issues, there were no other legal or ethical problems with our film. We did not use/
represent drugs, drinking, crime, sexual content or bad language, however, some of these may have been used if we were to make an episode e.g. drugs and bad language.
We did not use any copyrighted material such as: music and images. All the music that we used for our film was made in garage band. We did it in garage band as we thought it
would show more skill because we did it ourselves, and by making it ourselves, we did not have to be concerned about any copyrighted music. Also, we used images from google
advanced search. By doing this we knew that none of the images we were using are copyrighted.
These are the images that we used from google:
We also downloaded an Alien font from the internet, but we made sure that it was okay for us to download and that it was not copyrighted.

6. Skills Development
The main technology used when making our film was Final Cut on the Macbook Pro’s. I h used this application before on different projects, e.g. Western Credit sequence and 60
second movie. Because of this, I was very comfortable when using Final Cut, but I also used different techniques when using it. One of these was using a lot of effects such as light
rays and blur. However, when using these, it was hard to make out what was happening in the clip, so we did not end up using this effect.
Another technique I used was colour correction, which I used to make some of the clips black and white. I found both of these easy to use and I did like the effects and I think it
gave the clips more of a “Sci-Fi” looks.
I also used key framing and storyboarding to show what each scene would contain and to explain what some scenes may represent, e.g. violence and genre.
We also wanted to find and appropriate font for out titles, and we were thinking of making our own on photoshop. However, I had seen a font used for the “Alien” film which I
thought would look good, and we found a copyright free download link on a website and we used that instead. I think it looks better than it would have if we made our own, but
using our own may have shown more skill at the end.
We also used photoshop to get images of U.F.O’s to then put onto Final Cut. I found this very helpful as we could not film a U.F.O or get props to look like one.
Another application that we used was Garage Band. I struggled when using this to make music as we wanted Sci-Fi music, but a lot of the music on garage band did not sound
right. This was quite a big issue as it took us quite long to put music together that we were both happy with. Apart from that problem, I found all of the technologies ad application
that we used very easy to use and I enjoyed trying different things on each of them.
Here are some clips that we used the effects on:
With Light rays effect:
Without:
This is why we did not use the light ray effect, because it made it very hard to make out what was happening.
This is the font we used

7. Quality of final product
How suitable do you think your product it?
I think our product is very suitable for our target audience. One reason for this is that the five main characters are all 16-18, and that the the main age group for our target
audience. Because of this, we think that out target audience would be able to relate with the characters in our programme.
Another reason why I think our product is suitable is that there are not a lot of other current television programmes like it, apart from “The Walking Dead”, which is our main
inspiration when making this. And because of this, we think that a lot of people would want to watch it because it is different to most Sci-Fi dramas out at the moment.
Technical strengths and weaknesses
Strengths
I think there are quite a lot of good points for our opening title sequence. One of these is that I think the editing is quite good. At the start, we made the clips fade in and out
which made it look quite tense, but when we started to show the action clips, we just left the clips how they were so it looked quicker and more exciting. I also think that the
filming itself went very well. We managed to get everything done in one day, and there were not too many problems whilst we were filming. It was also quite helpful that when we
did film around college, there were not many people around, so it was easy to film without anyone getting in the way and we wanted the area to look abandoned. The people
acting in our film were also good and we managed to do most clips with just one or two takes. Another strength I think, is that our font is good. I think it is a very appropriate font
as it is from the film “Alien”, and our programme is Sci-Fi genre.
Weaknesses
One of the weaknesses for our opening titles I think is the music. I think the music is very good, but I think it needed to be faster and more exciting once the action clips were
being shown. Although we looked for a long time and tried to do this, we could not find a good bit of music to add in at this point, so we left it how it was. Another weakness is
that even though I think some of the effects that we used were good, I think it would have been better if there were more, good effects on Final Cut. I think if we had done this, or
learnt how to use After Effects for the end with the U.F.O, our sequence would have been a lot better rather than just moving images.
This is what the ending to our opening titles looks
like. I am still quite happy with the outcome, but I
think using after effects would have made it a lot
better.