D1-UNIT 3 RESUBMISSION

How meaning is created in Strayed Above

The final media product is in line with client brief due to the visual and special effects. The visual effects applied which include creating a mask path around screens , windows as well as compositing footage to fit within a certain scale. The visual effects show the damage of the  infrastructure to the spaceship as the screens in the spaceship go dark or down meaning the signal has been lost or damaged as before it was working fine before the explosion. The special effects makeup used within the teaser scene as well show how the explosion of the ship has affected crew members such as Kyle Black and in which shows how life is on board the spaceship as communication systems have stopped working and the crew have taken damage. The visual effects also create a sense of realism towards the final product as the visual effects display different space scenes and mask over windows to give the illusion that the characters are in space as we see stars and different galaxies on their screens and on their windows. Without the visual effects the believability of the characters being on board a spaceship is lost as windows do not show the outside and screens will be blank making it look unbelievable ruining the point of the show being in space.

The visual effect also go along side the plot of the teaser scene and again relating towards the brief as since the communication systems are down there are no visual effects present when Kyle Black and Captain Crain talk to each other only the visual effect present is space in the window showing the setting of the scene. The visual effects are mainly coloured blue or dark keeping of what we wanted and stated in our style and time section in our proposal as well as our mood boards as the main colour scheme we decided on was blue. 

The editing of Strayed Above also creates a sense of panic for the audience as they see a cut away to a wide shot of the spaceship exploding. The audience knows about the explosion and sees it while our characters do not. The audience sees the force of the explosion and then will know how the characters are affected within the ship.

Captain Crain looking out the ship within a medium show shows how he wants to explore the space that is front of him this tells us the character motives as he is an explorer and captain of the ship we can see his job role and desires. As well we can see the emptiness of space so in the next shot where the ship explodes we can see how alone our characters are in with no where to go.

Transitions are used in the beginning of Strayed Above to show the passage of time of the ship moving and traveling in space. This shows this is a long journey and since it is slow no action such as a fight or chase sequence is happening the journey is peaceful and calm but this is soon changed later on in the teaser scene.     

The final product meets with the client requirements as the title sequence reflects the spaceship as it features of the interior of the spaceship alone without any characters so the main focus is the spaceship in the title sequence mainly.

The strengths and weaknesses of our final product compared to our initial are as followed.

Strengths:
The strengths of the final product is that they came out as how we planned them and our initial ideas explored within the propsoal . Such as the visual effects and the layout of the teaser scene, no overall major changes are seen to be different with our planning except for make up but this was due to time constraints and the opening credits.

The music that was chosen in the final product matches what we set out to do for the style and time it  perfectly matches with the SCI-FI genre as well as it is parallel to the scenes due to the colour of the scene which is a stark blue which is also another convention  of the SCI-FI genre.

Even though we initially planned for a voiceover in the opening sequence this idea was scrapped to look fit in with the visuals alone. In the end the voice over wouldn't have been good as the audience would have known the information already in the teaser scene and we do not want to bore our audience by making them listen to a lone voice over the visuals in the opening sequence and teaser scene set the story already. The objective which was set out in the proposal to show what the show is about is still achieved without the voiceover.

Weaknesses:

The weakness compare to the initial idea was the time constraints with the production we did not fully plan what lighting we had to use during the planning stages so time was lost in getting the equipment set up as well choosing what lighting gel there had to be. This affected filming as we had to do limited shots this is seen in the opening sequence where the ceiling shot is shaky since this had to be rushed as we were on a tight schedule. Lighting within certain scenes are changed slightly also.

The loss of time was also due in affect due to the 3D gels not being available due to the the tight schedule so scar wax had to be used thus compared to the original idea of using the gels was scrapped making the desired affect of Kyle black's injury looking different. as well the scar wax started to crumble and fall apart near the end of shooting time. 

The initial idea of the teaser scene was changed but the desire affect of showing the characters is still there but the voiceover and explaining the war between aliens and Humans is completely gone.  

The scene shows Captain Crain looking out his spaceship again showing the setting and showing the audience what type of genre this is as SCI-FI elements are shown. 

This shot here shows the communications systems and cameras of the ship working 

After the Explosion the communication systems are down this is mentioned in the brief and is shown here in the teaser scene.

One of the scenes where the Spaceship is in Space travelling towards a planet without these scenes it would be hard for the audience to understand that the show is set in space this as well shows how peaceful the journey is for the crew.