Production Log of GCSE media studies movie project

2. RESEARCH
For the research of my project, I looked at a variety of films
that were of a similar genre to my own. Because my film
had a plot revolved around the use of computers and
their technology, one film that inspired me was The
Matrix. This was mainly because the main character ‘Neo’
was a computer hacker, which was also the subject of the
main character in my film.
Another factor I had to consider when researching for my
project was the target audience and their age. Because of
this, I had to research films that were aimed at the same
age range as my own. To make it easier for myself, I made
a rather larger scale for my target audience e.g. 15-50,
instead of targeting my film at a ‘niche’ audience.

3. IDEA BRAINSTORMING
I personally contributed to brainstorming ideas, as I
decided on the casting, meaning I had a general
idea of what specific role a person would have e.g.
Camerawork, or what character they would be
playing. As well as this, I brainstormed the possible
genres of my film and what specific codes and
conventions could be included in order to fit the
chosen genre. Based on the fact that I wanted to
make a film more seriously orientated, I chose my
project to be a film of the thriller genre. I also chose
this due to having a better understanding of the
genre. I contributed to the overall storyline, giving
the film an overall theme in the process.

4. SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
So I could make the film to the best standard
possible, I familiarised myself with the program
iMovie. In doing this I was able to edit the film
much more conveniently when necessary. In
addition I also familiarised myself with and used
the cameras supplied by the school, to
complete some practice shooting, so we were
able to understand which shot which type of
shot was more suited to my film

5. PLANNING (STORYBOARD/SCRIPTING ETC.)
For the planning of my production, I created a
storyboard, which included illustrations and
detailed descriptions, to layout the plot of each
scene. Additionally, I created a shot list,
describing in detail every type of shot that was
going to take place in the movie. So there was
clear dialogue included in the film, I created
various scripts for the group to work on. The
scripts included the names of people, and the
specific dialogue that would be spoken.

6. ACTUAL SHOOTING
During the actual shooting of our film, I had three
main roles. Firstly I was director and
choreographer, meaning I decided on the
location, what shots/camera would be used in
certain moments and had some influence on the
way people acted during certain scenes.
Furthermore, I also took the role as actor. I played
the role of the hacker in our movie. Even though
I had no dialogue in the movie, my role had a
huge significance in the movie

7. POST PRODUCTION
Possibly my main role in the production was
editing. I configured certain scenes e.g.
removing certain snippets of a scene that were
not necessarily needed.
I made the choice of music played in the film, I
added sound effects to the movie to add impact
and tension to the movie.
I stayed after school to complete this.