Monday, 29 June 2009
Monday, 30 March 2009
Shadows Evaluation.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The introduction to thriller unit was very interesting and beneficial in which we learnt about the forms and convention of a thriller movie and what makes them successful. Thrillers are created to build up suspense and cause a thrill between and audience. Thriller have been categorised into the sub- genres of Crime , True stories, Sci Fi, Action, Psychological, Espionage and some of those who fit in to same group as a horror and a thriller. All the sub-genres intend to create the same feeling amongst the audience; they just find a different way to convince their audience through the plot. The plot of a thriller usually depicts a everyday character in real life situations.
In creating the thriller opening, we hoped to grab our audience’s immediate attention and leave them wanting to know more. By using numerous amounts of camera angles, we aimed to create the thrill amongst the audience. It has been clearly visible that the opening of any movie is a very important the film as a whole as it is used to pull viewers in. This placed a lot of pressure on us as we were only asked to create the opening , however this also made us very determined and in many ways kept us going. We did our best with the task to come up with the best results we could have as a group.
We wanted to embedd as much of the codes and convention of a regular thriller into our own so it would show how much we could interpret and minipulate them to hopefully improve the level of our work. To build suspense and create a sense of fear we used a lot of close- ups and extreme- close ups to add focus and try to persuade the audience to sympathise with the main character. The P.O.V shot for the bathroom door opening which placed the audience in the scene as the character. The close up of the the bathroom lock helped to highlight its significance , the close ups acts a a guide line for the audience as they are pulled in and want to follow to see what happens next.The use of digetic sounds also added dramtic effect, the creaking of the stairs helped to set the mood of the moment and create unanswered questions in the viewrs mind at the time. As a P.O.V shot was also used at this point the audeince automatically links the creaking of the stairs to the unknown character that they are following for clues.
A house was used to create the sense of realism also it is a very common part of peoples everyday lives. We used well recognised settings withing the house such as the bedroom, bathroom and kitching so that the audience could relate and identify them without having too much trouble. The lighting in the passage also added the eerie mood we were trying to create as it was slightly dimmed. The lighting played a very important part in the story telling and setting of the mood.
Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Although I believe that out preliminary task was a success, there is no comparison to the level of work we completed for our final thriller. The final thriller showed huge progression and more dedication from the group.
One of the most helpful aspects from the preliminary task was the completed storyboard. We used this and made an effort to complete the storyboard before filming the final as it had previously helped us with our organisation and saved us a lot of time. It stood out to us that without the storyboard, everything would appear more complicated and this could affect our final mark; which we were trying to prevent.
Editing the final clip was very beneficial and involved a more detailed knowledge when it came to using Final Cut Pro. It was crucial that we asked individual questions when needed, as we had not had a tutorial that showed us how to use all of the editing tools on the programme. It was necessary for us to ask as a group as the other groups had different ideas and chose to use different editing techniques.
When we did the match cut exercise for the preliminary task, we embedded many match cuts that were unnoticeable in our clip. When we realised that we could use match cuts as an advantage we tried to use as many as we could in our final thriller to add all the possible effect. We worked very well with using the input and output points in Final Cut Pro and did out best to match the action we tried to show.
I believe that because our level of organisation as individuals and sometimes as a group it helped the production of our thriller as a whole.
Looking back from our preliminary task it is clear that we had progresses in using both the media technologies but also how to embed the forms and convention of real thriller films into our own to add effect and create realism. Our time keeping was veryorganised and we worked toether both as a team and individually to reduce time wasting. At some points we separated to do individual work for example in one lesson Ashton was creating the soundtracts whilst me and Alethea carried on with editing. This worked well and we were able to do more work in lessons.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The thriller is aimed at a mainstream audience between the ages of 15 and 35 both male and females from all different classes. In particular, the main female character will attract the majority of the male audience with her sex appeal alone and some other females could possible be able to relate to her.
An example of a person who fits into the audience would be Dareem Phillip, he is 18 years old and is currently attending college pary time and working in a HMV store in West End. He spends the majority of his free time either studying or hanging out with friends. On weekends he usually goes to the cinema, Nandos or stay in with his younger brother John, sister Clara and his girlfriend Elle and watch a movie on the internet. He still lives at home with mum and dad in Streatham and pays rent from the money he gets from work.
If Dareem is not too busy he tends to take Elle shopping but only on occasions as she likes to be a moany cow about him not spending time with her; therefore he does this to shut her up.
Dareem would be interested in our thriller because he likes to scare his younger brother after they watch thriller and horror movies and sinse it is based in a Two storey house like theirs it has a lot of relevance. He will also be drawn in by the female character in the thriller as she has a revealed appeal by the way she dresses . If he doent give in to her looks he will efinately sympathsie with her helpless character as he is very caring and kind.
How will you attract/ address you audience?
I play the main character in the thriller opening; a black female form a working class background. My characters stereotype is a philosophical character of an afro-Caribbean ethic background that is usually killed at some point in the film, if not first. I try to investigate is someone is in the house as I shout ‘Hello, is anybody there’ which in some ways is a well recognised phrase in thriller and horror movies coming form a helpless vulnerable female actress.
The actors listed in the titles are unknown to the audience as ther are upcomign and new actors. This at first seemed as a disadvantage as we didnt have start appeal to pull viewers in and this is one of the reasons why we tried to use editing to minipullate our simple plot to create more effect. Our film was also a small independent production ( CANDI production) therefore many of the actors used were not at all recognise because of our budget.
My feminine side is reflected by the way I am dressed which is slightly revealing. Although I am clothed in a plain nightgown it still appears that, I am trying to seem sexy and possibly available which will pull in a male audience.
Viral marketing will be a huge part of our advertising , sites such a facebook, myspace and profile pic recieves a hig rate on usge on a day to day basic. This is also attract the age group that we want to aimed our film at. We though about the fact that a lot of people can not access the internet and decided that we should also advertise through poster ,billboards and Television( Commercial breaks). Televsion and Internet broadcasts are two vey important methods that we want to use as they are based worldwide and will attract a bigger percentage of our target audience.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
A lot of females will be able to relate to the main actress. The use of Mise- en -scene helps to represent the social class of the character. The clothing doesnt neither depict poor status nor high but is somewhere in the middle. My hair is messy and out which shows the stae of a normal female waking up.
The house itself is very well furnished whcih could suggest that i have a comfortable job as i can take care of my needs. The house is tidy which could be linked to many people in the audience both male and female.
We tried to use as much of our short thriller to reach out the variation of social classes as we knew this would have the advantsge of attractign a bigger audience and recieve feedback from differnt points of view.
.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The thriller would be released as an small independent UK release as we had used upcoming and new actors. Slumdog Millionaire would in some ways have the same distributors as our thriller in the sense that we are trying to launch profession careers for the actors in our thriller.
With advertising we hoped that the audience would give our thriller a change to progress and support it whether or not we had start appeal.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process on constructing this product?
The variation of technology that was offerd to use in the process of our film production was ongoing. It seemed like evryday a new program or equiptment was intorduced to us for improvement of our thriller openings such as the lighting kit. We used the lighting kit and a ret pallet over it to create one of the shadow scene. Although we didnt use the clip in our final thriller it was very beneficial and we didnt consider it time wasting as we had learnt a new skill.
Logging and capturing ecame a very easy job to complete and i was happy that i could log and capture my clips independantly. Using Final Cut pro had both advantages and disadvantages. An advantage being that we could also do anything to the clips we had filmed to turn them into our ideas. Such as cropping out Ashtons body in the show scene at the end and slowing down or adding pace to the close up of the door handle. However the disadvantage came as we couldnt change evrything it also depended on our fimling. W wer told about the five second rule when filming and this is where it was most noticable to us how critical it was. At the beginnign of the establiment show we didnt use the rule and it was veryrd hard to add the input and outputs points in the shot. We did end up doind it though after the help of a few technicians.
Adding sound to our finished piece was a bit challenging however we did manage to accomplish our goals at the level we expected in the end . Micky helped us a lot with the sound editing which made the process a lot more faster.
We had a very little problem with making our Shadows title, we couldnt find out how to change the style of writing. After experimentation we founf it and tried out the majority of them to see which one suited to film best.
How successful do you feel you have created an opening to a thriller genre fiml that attracts a specific audience?
When we watched our thrillers over as a class my group recieved very positive feedback which was good. The thunder and the bathroom door slamming open got a reaction from he audience which we were hoping to get. Also we got the same recation form the audience when the entire AS sets went to the VUE cinema to watch out thriller openigngs and congratulate each other; they jumped and shrieked.
A lot of the audience liked our use of camera angles but in particular they liked the fridge shot. We had place the camera inside of the fridge and they said that it added variation to the camera angles and showed that we were thinking out of the box.
Our thriller was very different compared to the preliminary task and we had improved a lot more. We did still carry our knowledge from what we had learnt from completeing the task both good and bad. Our match cuts were much more invisble and our editing techniques were much better.
I didnt feel that the Shadows tilelt was realsitic. As i have never seen it done that way in a thriller or any other film. I only noticed this when i started to compare our title to the other title that were shown in thrillers.
Overall i do think we got the response we wanted and i am proud of our thriller opening beacuse i know that it involved a lot of emotional break down, hardwork , determination and motivation form others to complete our clip. Our thriller could be identified with other thrillers because of the forms and convention we challenged and managed to carry our such as the use od dimmed lightin and everyday locations.
The introduction to thriller unit was very interesting and beneficial in which we learnt about the forms and convention of a thriller movie and what makes them successful. Thrillers are created to build up suspense and cause a thrill between and audience. Thriller have been categorised into the sub- genres of Crime , True stories, Sci Fi, Action, Psychological, Espionage and some of those who fit in to same group as a horror and a thriller. All the sub-genres intend to create the same feeling amongst the audience; they just find a different way to convince their audience through the plot. The plot of a thriller usually depicts a everyday character in real life situations.
In creating the thriller opening, we hoped to grab our audience’s immediate attention and leave them wanting to know more. By using numerous amounts of camera angles, we aimed to create the thrill amongst the audience. It has been clearly visible that the opening of any movie is a very important the film as a whole as it is used to pull viewers in. This placed a lot of pressure on us as we were only asked to create the opening , however this also made us very determined and in many ways kept us going. We did our best with the task to come up with the best results we could have as a group.
We wanted to embedd as much of the codes and convention of a regular thriller into our own so it would show how much we could interpret and minipulate them to hopefully improve the level of our work. To build suspense and create a sense of fear we used a lot of close- ups and extreme- close ups to add focus and try to persuade the audience to sympathise with the main character. The P.O.V shot for the bathroom door opening which placed the audience in the scene as the character. The close up of the the bathroom lock helped to highlight its significance , the close ups acts a a guide line for the audience as they are pulled in and want to follow to see what happens next.The use of digetic sounds also added dramtic effect, the creaking of the stairs helped to set the mood of the moment and create unanswered questions in the viewrs mind at the time. As a P.O.V shot was also used at this point the audeince automatically links the creaking of the stairs to the unknown character that they are following for clues.
A house was used to create the sense of realism also it is a very common part of peoples everyday lives. We used well recognised settings withing the house such as the bedroom, bathroom and kitching so that the audience could relate and identify them without having too much trouble. The lighting in the passage also added the eerie mood we were trying to create as it was slightly dimmed. The lighting played a very important part in the story telling and setting of the mood.
Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Although I believe that out preliminary task was a success, there is no comparison to the level of work we completed for our final thriller. The final thriller showed huge progression and more dedication from the group.
One of the most helpful aspects from the preliminary task was the completed storyboard. We used this and made an effort to complete the storyboard before filming the final as it had previously helped us with our organisation and saved us a lot of time. It stood out to us that without the storyboard, everything would appear more complicated and this could affect our final mark; which we were trying to prevent.
Editing the final clip was very beneficial and involved a more detailed knowledge when it came to using Final Cut Pro. It was crucial that we asked individual questions when needed, as we had not had a tutorial that showed us how to use all of the editing tools on the programme. It was necessary for us to ask as a group as the other groups had different ideas and chose to use different editing techniques.
When we did the match cut exercise for the preliminary task, we embedded many match cuts that were unnoticeable in our clip. When we realised that we could use match cuts as an advantage we tried to use as many as we could in our final thriller to add all the possible effect. We worked very well with using the input and output points in Final Cut Pro and did out best to match the action we tried to show.
I believe that because our level of organisation as individuals and sometimes as a group it helped the production of our thriller as a whole.
Looking back from our preliminary task it is clear that we had progresses in using both the media technologies but also how to embed the forms and convention of real thriller films into our own to add effect and create realism. Our time keeping was veryorganised and we worked toether both as a team and individually to reduce time wasting. At some points we separated to do individual work for example in one lesson Ashton was creating the soundtracts whilst me and Alethea carried on with editing. This worked well and we were able to do more work in lessons.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The thriller is aimed at a mainstream audience between the ages of 15 and 35 both male and females from all different classes. In particular, the main female character will attract the majority of the male audience with her sex appeal alone and some other females could possible be able to relate to her.
An example of a person who fits into the audience would be Dareem Phillip, he is 18 years old and is currently attending college pary time and working in a HMV store in West End. He spends the majority of his free time either studying or hanging out with friends. On weekends he usually goes to the cinema, Nandos or stay in with his younger brother John, sister Clara and his girlfriend Elle and watch a movie on the internet. He still lives at home with mum and dad in Streatham and pays rent from the money he gets from work.
If Dareem is not too busy he tends to take Elle shopping but only on occasions as she likes to be a moany cow about him not spending time with her; therefore he does this to shut her up.
Dareem would be interested in our thriller because he likes to scare his younger brother after they watch thriller and horror movies and sinse it is based in a Two storey house like theirs it has a lot of relevance. He will also be drawn in by the female character in the thriller as she has a revealed appeal by the way she dresses . If he doent give in to her looks he will efinately sympathsie with her helpless character as he is very caring and kind.
How will you attract/ address you audience?
I play the main character in the thriller opening; a black female form a working class background. My characters stereotype is a philosophical character of an afro-Caribbean ethic background that is usually killed at some point in the film, if not first. I try to investigate is someone is in the house as I shout ‘Hello, is anybody there’ which in some ways is a well recognised phrase in thriller and horror movies coming form a helpless vulnerable female actress.
The actors listed in the titles are unknown to the audience as ther are upcomign and new actors. This at first seemed as a disadvantage as we didnt have start appeal to pull viewers in and this is one of the reasons why we tried to use editing to minipullate our simple plot to create more effect. Our film was also a small independent production ( CANDI production) therefore many of the actors used were not at all recognise because of our budget.
My feminine side is reflected by the way I am dressed which is slightly revealing. Although I am clothed in a plain nightgown it still appears that, I am trying to seem sexy and possibly available which will pull in a male audience.
Viral marketing will be a huge part of our advertising , sites such a facebook, myspace and profile pic recieves a hig rate on usge on a day to day basic. This is also attract the age group that we want to aimed our film at. We though about the fact that a lot of people can not access the internet and decided that we should also advertise through poster ,billboards and Television( Commercial breaks). Televsion and Internet broadcasts are two vey important methods that we want to use as they are based worldwide and will attract a bigger percentage of our target audience.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
A lot of females will be able to relate to the main actress. The use of Mise- en -scene helps to represent the social class of the character. The clothing doesnt neither depict poor status nor high but is somewhere in the middle. My hair is messy and out which shows the stae of a normal female waking up.
The house itself is very well furnished whcih could suggest that i have a comfortable job as i can take care of my needs. The house is tidy which could be linked to many people in the audience both male and female.
We tried to use as much of our short thriller to reach out the variation of social classes as we knew this would have the advantsge of attractign a bigger audience and recieve feedback from differnt points of view.
.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The thriller would be released as an small independent UK release as we had used upcoming and new actors. Slumdog Millionaire would in some ways have the same distributors as our thriller in the sense that we are trying to launch profession careers for the actors in our thriller.
With advertising we hoped that the audience would give our thriller a change to progress and support it whether or not we had start appeal.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process on constructing this product?
The variation of technology that was offerd to use in the process of our film production was ongoing. It seemed like evryday a new program or equiptment was intorduced to us for improvement of our thriller openings such as the lighting kit. We used the lighting kit and a ret pallet over it to create one of the shadow scene. Although we didnt use the clip in our final thriller it was very beneficial and we didnt consider it time wasting as we had learnt a new skill.
Logging and capturing ecame a very easy job to complete and i was happy that i could log and capture my clips independantly. Using Final Cut pro had both advantages and disadvantages. An advantage being that we could also do anything to the clips we had filmed to turn them into our ideas. Such as cropping out Ashtons body in the show scene at the end and slowing down or adding pace to the close up of the door handle. However the disadvantage came as we couldnt change evrything it also depended on our fimling. W wer told about the five second rule when filming and this is where it was most noticable to us how critical it was. At the beginnign of the establiment show we didnt use the rule and it was veryrd hard to add the input and outputs points in the shot. We did end up doind it though after the help of a few technicians.
Adding sound to our finished piece was a bit challenging however we did manage to accomplish our goals at the level we expected in the end . Micky helped us a lot with the sound editing which made the process a lot more faster.
We had a very little problem with making our Shadows title, we couldnt find out how to change the style of writing. After experimentation we founf it and tried out the majority of them to see which one suited to film best.
How successful do you feel you have created an opening to a thriller genre fiml that attracts a specific audience?
When we watched our thrillers over as a class my group recieved very positive feedback which was good. The thunder and the bathroom door slamming open got a reaction from he audience which we were hoping to get. Also we got the same recation form the audience when the entire AS sets went to the VUE cinema to watch out thriller openigngs and congratulate each other; they jumped and shrieked.
A lot of the audience liked our use of camera angles but in particular they liked the fridge shot. We had place the camera inside of the fridge and they said that it added variation to the camera angles and showed that we were thinking out of the box.
Our thriller was very different compared to the preliminary task and we had improved a lot more. We did still carry our knowledge from what we had learnt from completeing the task both good and bad. Our match cuts were much more invisble and our editing techniques were much better.
I didnt feel that the Shadows tilelt was realsitic. As i have never seen it done that way in a thriller or any other film. I only noticed this when i started to compare our title to the other title that were shown in thrillers.
Overall i do think we got the response we wanted and i am proud of our thriller opening beacuse i know that it involved a lot of emotional break down, hardwork , determination and motivation form others to complete our clip. Our thriller could be identified with other thrillers because of the forms and convention we challenged and managed to carry our such as the use od dimmed lightin and everyday locations.
Rushing to finish
The whole filming process was gone in an instant and time had catch up with us. The deadline had reached and every gorup was rushing to finish their thriller opening therefore it was hard to get to a computer. Although there wasnt a lot of editing to be done we wanted the chance to look over our clip and make any modifications.
We had to add sound to the clip which Mickey helped us to do using Sound Cut Pro. The fact that we had already made the sound tracks made Mickeys and our jobs a lot easier as all was left to do was add them to to the time line .
The eerie sountrack that we used was cut in and sometimes repeated in the clip. Before i started walking out of the bathroom the music began and when i spoke it stopped and started again. Add the soung effect for the class was embedde so ell that i was concinced that we actually smashed a glass in the film. A lot of out own sound effects were used so there wasnt a lot for us to do really.
At the end of the thriller opening we wanted to have a scream but as i wasnt filmed screaming we had to try and find one on the sound editing programme.All the screams that were listed were either too dramtic or too urealistic so in the end we decied to not have one to add suspense.
We used Text Edit to create our shadows tile. We decided on a grey background with white writing. The programme was very easy to use and we had no difficulty doing it on our own.
I was nervous when we finally saved our film opening however this was not because i didnt think it was good but because i was nervous to see the response from the audience in the cinema viewing were had next week.
I was happy with our team work and hoped that it showed in our final grade.
We had to add sound to the clip which Mickey helped us to do using Sound Cut Pro. The fact that we had already made the sound tracks made Mickeys and our jobs a lot easier as all was left to do was add them to to the time line .
The eerie sountrack that we used was cut in and sometimes repeated in the clip. Before i started walking out of the bathroom the music began and when i spoke it stopped and started again. Add the soung effect for the class was embedde so ell that i was concinced that we actually smashed a glass in the film. A lot of out own sound effects were used so there wasnt a lot for us to do really.
At the end of the thriller opening we wanted to have a scream but as i wasnt filmed screaming we had to try and find one on the sound editing programme.All the screams that were listed were either too dramtic or too urealistic so in the end we decied to not have one to add suspense.
We used Text Edit to create our shadows tile. We decided on a grey background with white writing. The programme was very easy to use and we had no difficulty doing it on our own.
I was nervous when we finally saved our film opening however this was not because i didnt think it was good but because i was nervous to see the response from the audience in the cinema viewing were had next week.
I was happy with our team work and hoped that it showed in our final grade.
continuing editing.
The P.O.V shot that Alethea filmed was very useful. After we loggeed and caprured it we started editing our clips again. We embedded the clip into the time line where neccessariy which made the clip as a whole make more sense.
Me and Alethea were sitting on one apple mac computure doing the editing whilst Ashton was on another trying to find sound effects that we were going to use. We were going through the editing quickly and the more we progressed the more promise our film opening showed. However the time became an issue againg and we were very worried. We addressed Mary with the issue and she basically said that we should do all of the editing them she would watch it back and tell us the unneccessarity parts that we could edit.
Whilst editing we came across a few problems.Some of the clips were not able to be used because of the story we were trying to tell therefore we had to use some of the old film shots we had.We used the old clip where i was walking towards the kitchen sink and the new clip wher i was drinking from the glass. We thought it would be a problem because we could hear when the cup falls but Mickey said that with editing we could cover it up later.
We were speaking to a student who previously attended the sixth form college and he was telling us that we should put our all into our work and not mess about as we would only be disappointed with ourselves. He helped us with some of the editing for example the door handle shaking was lot long enough so he increased the speed by selecting modify then speed , this also added a very eerie sound effect and we were very pleased with it.
He also gave us his input on what he thought about the editing we done so far and he was very impressed which boosted my confidence level. A little while after he noticed that we wer struggling putting the show scene in the time line. Because the space we used to film the shot was too cramped , ashtons body was shown. We didnt want this and as a group couldnt figure out a way to correct it. he suggested that we cropped the shot to take out the body which work very well.
By the end of the lesson we had very little to do and we were almost certain that we could finish off by adding sound effects and titles in the next lesson.
Me and Alethea were sitting on one apple mac computure doing the editing whilst Ashton was on another trying to find sound effects that we were going to use. We were going through the editing quickly and the more we progressed the more promise our film opening showed. However the time became an issue againg and we were very worried. We addressed Mary with the issue and she basically said that we should do all of the editing them she would watch it back and tell us the unneccessarity parts that we could edit.
Whilst editing we came across a few problems.Some of the clips were not able to be used because of the story we were trying to tell therefore we had to use some of the old film shots we had.We used the old clip where i was walking towards the kitchen sink and the new clip wher i was drinking from the glass. We thought it would be a problem because we could hear when the cup falls but Mickey said that with editing we could cover it up later.
We were speaking to a student who previously attended the sixth form college and he was telling us that we should put our all into our work and not mess about as we would only be disappointed with ourselves. He helped us with some of the editing for example the door handle shaking was lot long enough so he increased the speed by selecting modify then speed , this also added a very eerie sound effect and we were very pleased with it.
He also gave us his input on what he thought about the editing we done so far and he was very impressed which boosted my confidence level. A little while after he noticed that we wer struggling putting the show scene in the time line. Because the space we used to film the shot was too cramped , ashtons body was shown. We didnt want this and as a group couldnt figure out a way to correct it. he suggested that we cropped the shot to take out the body which work very well.
By the end of the lesson we had very little to do and we were almost certain that we could finish off by adding sound effects and titles in the next lesson.
Shadow evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The genre we based our media product upon was a thriller film, and the codes and conventions for this are something that brings about tension and suspense and creates an expectation that something is going to happen but you're not sure what and when. The plot usually reflects real life situations and tends to use everyday characters. Also whilst watching the film, you are expected to have a feeling of anxiety which is due to the tension built in the film. Again, in film openings you are expected to be left at suspense, something that makes you want to continue watching. One film that does this is 28 Days Later http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=sBZnuUZIbBQwhich is a horror thriller; it uses a single character and has a lot of stillness and silence. It also uses diminuendo which builds suspense and theme tunes but only uses a few diagetic sounds to create a normality of the film. In our film we used different elements to create meaning in our thriller. We used an Extreme Close-up of the door as it being locked. This shows the importance of the locked door and allows the audience to wonder and think about what will happen later with the door. We also used a Point Of View shot of the bathroom door open. This was to show the audience what the character sees and to allow fear or anxiety for the character. Also we used a Low angle shot when the female character was washing her face in the bathroom, to make her look dominant and to show that at that moment she is in control. We also used an Over the Shoulder Shot when the character was in her bedroom to see what she was trying to see but also to give the impression that somebody might be behind her. For our Tracking movement we used a around the house, to create an impression that someone was walking around the house. Also for sound we used a lot more non-diagetic sounds to create tension but used diagetic sounds like the creaking of the stairs to show naturalism of the house. As mise-en-scene creates meaning in the scene we used the location of a house, as we felt that it would create a comfort zone for the audience because everyone can identify with this; so this also allows us to mess up the audience comfort zone and bring fear easily.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I feel that from the match-cut exercise to doing the final product I have learnt alot. In our preliminary film we didn’t really take that much time planning and really evaluating our plot, shots and edits. With our final product we had a detailed storyboard, which really helped us stay focus knowing our objective. Whereas, in our match-cut exercise we had an idea of what we wanted, but only jotted a few points down. Also in our final product, we planned where each scene would take place in but, in our match-cut film we didn’t note specific rooms to use; which meant we ended looking for spare empty rooms. After watching both films over, I’ve realised that our filming has improved, especially the panning shots. But the editing is by far of a greater standard in our final film than the preliminary film, our match cuts make more sense, and we’ve learnt how to shorten time in the film by using cross dissolves. So I do feel Iike I have learnt how to plan in detail much better and how to edit better too. To arrange our time we also delegated the work between us, so some worked on the sound whilst others did the actual editing of the film. Also at one point whilst i was filming Kameir and Ashton were logging and capturing in class.
Who would be the audience for your media product and why?
We would be reaching a mainstream audience from ages 16-35 for our product. As we feel that they could understand and get the concept of our film. A typical person who would fit our target audience would be:
Eddie, 21 works in an IT department in an accountant company. Doesn’t have a very big social life, but attends the pub with his girlfriend and rents out movies to watch at home in his sitting room with the lights off. He shops at Primark but occasionally splashes out on gap. He generally has a film interest for things like Star Wars and E.T and loves getting the collectable items. He eats a lot of junk food and has a liking for sushi. Eddie would want to watch our film because it’s all about mystery, and being alone with something or someone around you. He would like the fact that it’s set in the same environment he is in and it could be him in the film.
How will you attract your audience?
We haven’t used big star names at all, because then people are curious to see what the film will be like, and are more interested in the plot rather than the star. For example, films like Slumdog Millionaire Bend it like Beckham, Hot Fuzz and even Kidulthood are British films that were very popular films that either had only one well known star or none at all.
This goes to show that the public do look at the plot as well as the stars. Our plot is simply a woman living in her house and strange things seem to happen around her, with shadows appearing. So we hope that the lack of big star names will still attract our audience. We would advertise through many different forms of media, one being the internet. Whilst your on msn messenger there is normally flash clips or even pop ups that play a clip from the film if you roll over the box even by accident, so this would be a very good way to advertise as many people are logged on to msn messenger. Also through Billboards on busses and telephones boxes where people are most likely to walk by and see it. Again as TV is something that everybody uses we will have trailers during breaks that will attract people to watch the film.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
It reaches out to young people, as the character in the film is of a young age, roughly an older teen. Also I think that it represents middle-class people, as the setting in the film was in a semi-detached house. Also the mise-en-scene in the film showed the household to be not poor but not an exaggerated or a fantasy British home. In the film, Kameir wears some slippers that have a hotel name on them; this can be interpretated as a young mother working in a hotel. It’s good to appeal to the different social groups as this draws more people to watch the film and brings in more money with a bigger audience.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the film process I’ve learned that technology has vastly improved which has helped me a great deal. During the making of the film, we used a hand held digital camera and tri-pod, which allowed us to vary our shot types and angles. Also having a digital camera also benefited us as the picture quality is a lot better than what it would have been like without a digital camera. Also technology in the editing aspect has also been very useful. For example using Final Cut Pro, without this software would have been very hard to edit the clips, manipulate them, making the clips faster or slower even transferring the footage from the video camera to the computer using capturing and logging. Using the new software has allowed my group to add sound effects and create our own music to create suspense and tension through Sound Cut Pro, and it has been very easy and simple to use. Also it was really interesting having to blog as our coursework, this made it more interesting and helpful as our teachers could easily give us feedback; but the only down side was for those who had internet problems it was a bit inconvenient otherwise great.
How successful do you feel you’ve been in creating an opening to a thriller genre film that attracts a specific target audience?
I feel that we have been very successful in creating an opening to a thriller genre, as we had a lot of positive feedback. The majority of the positive feedback was the use of different camera angles and shots also the sound effects. On the other hand some said the pace was a bit slow and also it was a bit noisy from time to time. In my opinion I think this went much better than the match-cut exercise as we has a better plot and it was more planned out; in terms of the storyboard, the location and also the props. Also the camera angles were more creative than the match cuts, for example the shot with the camera in the fridge. Although we thought we might have to change the storyboard, we actually didn’t apart from adding a few shots so the sequence of the film made sense. I feel that we have been successful in our opening, because if I compare our film to another thriller film like 28days later there are quite a lot of similarities. For example they used shots like; long shots, tracking and POV shots which we used. The music they used was a lot of non- diagetic sounds from soundtracks and diminuendo which we also used in our film. In addition there setting and location was somewhere the audience can identify with a hospital and London city, we used a house. Finally the way they created suspense was by using few characters in the opening and there was a lot of silence which is what we did too. So knowing all this I feel we have made a very good attempt at making a thriller genre for our target audience.
The genre we based our media product upon was a thriller film, and the codes and conventions for this are something that brings about tension and suspense and creates an expectation that something is going to happen but you're not sure what and when. The plot usually reflects real life situations and tends to use everyday characters. Also whilst watching the film, you are expected to have a feeling of anxiety which is due to the tension built in the film. Again, in film openings you are expected to be left at suspense, something that makes you want to continue watching. One film that does this is 28 Days Later http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=sBZnuUZIbBQwhich is a horror thriller; it uses a single character and has a lot of stillness and silence. It also uses diminuendo which builds suspense and theme tunes but only uses a few diagetic sounds to create a normality of the film. In our film we used different elements to create meaning in our thriller. We used an Extreme Close-up of the door as it being locked. This shows the importance of the locked door and allows the audience to wonder and think about what will happen later with the door. We also used a Point Of View shot of the bathroom door open. This was to show the audience what the character sees and to allow fear or anxiety for the character. Also we used a Low angle shot when the female character was washing her face in the bathroom, to make her look dominant and to show that at that moment she is in control. We also used an Over the Shoulder Shot when the character was in her bedroom to see what she was trying to see but also to give the impression that somebody might be behind her. For our Tracking movement we used a around the house, to create an impression that someone was walking around the house. Also for sound we used a lot more non-diagetic sounds to create tension but used diagetic sounds like the creaking of the stairs to show naturalism of the house. As mise-en-scene creates meaning in the scene we used the location of a house, as we felt that it would create a comfort zone for the audience because everyone can identify with this; so this also allows us to mess up the audience comfort zone and bring fear easily.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I feel that from the match-cut exercise to doing the final product I have learnt alot. In our preliminary film we didn’t really take that much time planning and really evaluating our plot, shots and edits. With our final product we had a detailed storyboard, which really helped us stay focus knowing our objective. Whereas, in our match-cut exercise we had an idea of what we wanted, but only jotted a few points down. Also in our final product, we planned where each scene would take place in but, in our match-cut film we didn’t note specific rooms to use; which meant we ended looking for spare empty rooms. After watching both films over, I’ve realised that our filming has improved, especially the panning shots. But the editing is by far of a greater standard in our final film than the preliminary film, our match cuts make more sense, and we’ve learnt how to shorten time in the film by using cross dissolves. So I do feel Iike I have learnt how to plan in detail much better and how to edit better too. To arrange our time we also delegated the work between us, so some worked on the sound whilst others did the actual editing of the film. Also at one point whilst i was filming Kameir and Ashton were logging and capturing in class.
Who would be the audience for your media product and why?
We would be reaching a mainstream audience from ages 16-35 for our product. As we feel that they could understand and get the concept of our film. A typical person who would fit our target audience would be:
Eddie, 21 works in an IT department in an accountant company. Doesn’t have a very big social life, but attends the pub with his girlfriend and rents out movies to watch at home in his sitting room with the lights off. He shops at Primark but occasionally splashes out on gap. He generally has a film interest for things like Star Wars and E.T and loves getting the collectable items. He eats a lot of junk food and has a liking for sushi. Eddie would want to watch our film because it’s all about mystery, and being alone with something or someone around you. He would like the fact that it’s set in the same environment he is in and it could be him in the film.
How will you attract your audience?
We haven’t used big star names at all, because then people are curious to see what the film will be like, and are more interested in the plot rather than the star. For example, films like Slumdog Millionaire Bend it like Beckham, Hot Fuzz and even Kidulthood are British films that were very popular films that either had only one well known star or none at all.
This goes to show that the public do look at the plot as well as the stars. Our plot is simply a woman living in her house and strange things seem to happen around her, with shadows appearing. So we hope that the lack of big star names will still attract our audience. We would advertise through many different forms of media, one being the internet. Whilst your on msn messenger there is normally flash clips or even pop ups that play a clip from the film if you roll over the box even by accident, so this would be a very good way to advertise as many people are logged on to msn messenger. Also through Billboards on busses and telephones boxes where people are most likely to walk by and see it. Again as TV is something that everybody uses we will have trailers during breaks that will attract people to watch the film.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
It reaches out to young people, as the character in the film is of a young age, roughly an older teen. Also I think that it represents middle-class people, as the setting in the film was in a semi-detached house. Also the mise-en-scene in the film showed the household to be not poor but not an exaggerated or a fantasy British home. In the film, Kameir wears some slippers that have a hotel name on them; this can be interpretated as a young mother working in a hotel. It’s good to appeal to the different social groups as this draws more people to watch the film and brings in more money with a bigger audience.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the film process I’ve learned that technology has vastly improved which has helped me a great deal. During the making of the film, we used a hand held digital camera and tri-pod, which allowed us to vary our shot types and angles. Also having a digital camera also benefited us as the picture quality is a lot better than what it would have been like without a digital camera. Also technology in the editing aspect has also been very useful. For example using Final Cut Pro, without this software would have been very hard to edit the clips, manipulate them, making the clips faster or slower even transferring the footage from the video camera to the computer using capturing and logging. Using the new software has allowed my group to add sound effects and create our own music to create suspense and tension through Sound Cut Pro, and it has been very easy and simple to use. Also it was really interesting having to blog as our coursework, this made it more interesting and helpful as our teachers could easily give us feedback; but the only down side was for those who had internet problems it was a bit inconvenient otherwise great.
How successful do you feel you’ve been in creating an opening to a thriller genre film that attracts a specific target audience?
I feel that we have been very successful in creating an opening to a thriller genre, as we had a lot of positive feedback. The majority of the positive feedback was the use of different camera angles and shots also the sound effects. On the other hand some said the pace was a bit slow and also it was a bit noisy from time to time. In my opinion I think this went much better than the match-cut exercise as we has a better plot and it was more planned out; in terms of the storyboard, the location and also the props. Also the camera angles were more creative than the match cuts, for example the shot with the camera in the fridge. Although we thought we might have to change the storyboard, we actually didn’t apart from adding a few shots so the sequence of the film made sense. I feel that we have been successful in our opening, because if I compare our film to another thriller film like 28days later there are quite a lot of similarities. For example they used shots like; long shots, tracking and POV shots which we used. The music they used was a lot of non- diagetic sounds from soundtracks and diminuendo which we also used in our film. In addition there setting and location was somewhere the audience can identify with a hospital and London city, we used a house. Finally the way they created suspense was by using few characters in the opening and there was a lot of silence which is what we did too. So knowing all this I feel we have made a very good attempt at making a thriller genre for our target audience.
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Editing.
The morning started of confidently and there was good spirits all around. We logged and captured our shots and then made comparison with the first filmed footages. Some of the clips that was filmed by the whole group appeared to be better however the majority of the clips that Alethea and i filmed were better so we chose to use them instead. We did not dispose of the other clips as we thought we could possibly use some small parts of them to combine with the new clips.
Before starting the filming for the thriller we were told that our final clip was to be no longer than
two minutes in length. It seemed very little and almost impossible to stick to this time and we we worried about not keeping to the requirements.
We started placing our clips on the time line with a lot of excitement . Some of the shots we fimled were not necessary and some wouldnt fit together where the match cuts were needed. We had to rearrange some of the storyboard in order to get a realistic storyline. With the help of the technician Mickey and Marisa we were gliding through the editing process.
As we thought, the time line was filling up quickly and we were not even half way through the editing. We went back over the clip that we already had edited and tried to find places that were not necessary ; could be cut down without attracting too much notice or interupting the fluent flow. There was on section in the clip that we worked hard on trying to cut down; the scene in the fridge. However Louisa looked through an suggested that we added cross dissolves to the stairs scene to reduce time. She also said that it would be a great representation of time and show that time had passed.
We were pleased with the editing we had towards the end of the lesson and kept on showing the rest of our classmates. Mary watched over the clip and suggetsed that we added a point of view (POV) shot to show that the door had opened in the bathroom. It was a good idea but before we decided to carry it out we tried to convince her that the reflection of the door in the window was enough. As we all didnt need to attend the shooting as no one was in the scense; Alethea decide to bpokmthe camera out and fil m the shot on her own.
I must admit i was a little worried about the lighting in the shot Alethea was going to film as this caused a problem the last time and we were not able to use the shot.
Before starting the filming for the thriller we were told that our final clip was to be no longer than
two minutes in length. It seemed very little and almost impossible to stick to this time and we we worried about not keeping to the requirements.
We started placing our clips on the time line with a lot of excitement . Some of the shots we fimled were not necessary and some wouldnt fit together where the match cuts were needed. We had to rearrange some of the storyboard in order to get a realistic storyline. With the help of the technician Mickey and Marisa we were gliding through the editing process.
As we thought, the time line was filling up quickly and we were not even half way through the editing. We went back over the clip that we already had edited and tried to find places that were not necessary ; could be cut down without attracting too much notice or interupting the fluent flow. There was on section in the clip that we worked hard on trying to cut down; the scene in the fridge. However Louisa looked through an suggested that we added cross dissolves to the stairs scene to reduce time. She also said that it would be a great representation of time and show that time had passed.
We were pleased with the editing we had towards the end of the lesson and kept on showing the rest of our classmates. Mary watched over the clip and suggetsed that we added a point of view (POV) shot to show that the door had opened in the bathroom. It was a good idea but before we decided to carry it out we tried to convince her that the reflection of the door in the window was enough. As we all didnt need to attend the shooting as no one was in the scense; Alethea decide to bpokmthe camera out and fil m the shot on her own.
I must admit i was a little worried about the lighting in the shot Alethea was going to film as this caused a problem the last time and we were not able to use the shot.
Re-Shooting.
Wednesday had arrived and hours before we were due to start fimling Alethea told me that Ashton would not be able to come to filming with us. I was furious as we had booked this day in advance and i had to carry all the equiptment to Alethea's house as she wasnt in college on that day. I had a huge responsibity of taking care of the equiptment station to help me carry some of the equiptment.
When we arrived and started to look for the sheet that held all the shots we needed to film, Alethea realised that she had misplaced it. We made a decision amongst ourself to re-shoot the whole storyboard without any rush. I personally thought it was better as the majority of the first shots were not able to be used for edting. Also we realised that a lot of things would be uncontinuos such as the lighting, positiong of some reular household equiptments, bedspread and others. I wasnt wearing the earring that i wore last time so we knew it would be more beneficial of we re-filmed the whole thing.
We knew the process would be a little difficult considering that there was only two of us and we had difficulties when there was three ;we wouldnt let it get past us and we were very persistant on getting it right. Although Alethea was doing the filming whilst i act, i did all that i could with helping her out. For example i helped film the establishing shot of the house as i wasnt needed in the shot.
Alethea did a very good job at both filming and directing and we worked together like a match made in heaven. There was no tension between the two of us which helped to set the concentration level. We were focused to the max and nothing could get in our way; because we wouldnt let it.
Lat minute adjustments were made to the storboard and we changed the shot where i am shown from the back entering the bathroom to having the camera positioned inside the bathroom. We wanted to use a variation of camera shots and we thought this one added the effect that someone was in the bathroom watching.
The day was very successful and we were extremely happy with our results. We were confident about the shots because we had watched them over each time. I think we worked better as two and especially because we were not in a hurry our work showed more promise. I had no worries about our next editing lesson as i knew the shots we had would be placed together to create beautifully embedded match cuts.
When we arrived and started to look for the sheet that held all the shots we needed to film, Alethea realised that she had misplaced it. We made a decision amongst ourself to re-shoot the whole storyboard without any rush. I personally thought it was better as the majority of the first shots were not able to be used for edting. Also we realised that a lot of things would be uncontinuos such as the lighting, positiong of some reular household equiptments, bedspread and others. I wasnt wearing the earring that i wore last time so we knew it would be more beneficial of we re-filmed the whole thing.
We knew the process would be a little difficult considering that there was only two of us and we had difficulties when there was three ;we wouldnt let it get past us and we were very persistant on getting it right. Although Alethea was doing the filming whilst i act, i did all that i could with helping her out. For example i helped film the establishing shot of the house as i wasnt needed in the shot.
Alethea did a very good job at both filming and directing and we worked together like a match made in heaven. There was no tension between the two of us which helped to set the concentration level. We were focused to the max and nothing could get in our way; because we wouldnt let it.
Lat minute adjustments were made to the storboard and we changed the shot where i am shown from the back entering the bathroom to having the camera positioned inside the bathroom. We wanted to use a variation of camera shots and we thought this one added the effect that someone was in the bathroom watching.
The day was very successful and we were extremely happy with our results. We were confident about the shots because we had watched them over each time. I think we worked better as two and especially because we were not in a hurry our work showed more promise. I had no worries about our next editing lesson as i knew the shots we had would be placed together to create beautifully embedded match cuts.
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