Evaluation!!

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The ways in which our opening sequence reflect, develop and change different forms and conventions much like a real media production include; establishing our setting, genre, characters, and narrative. We did this by presenting clear establishing shots of our environment to display the eerie location, and then changing the colour scheme of the piece to grey scale in order to gain more effect. As well as setting, we also used our characters to present our chosen genre of Crime Thriller. Choosing actors who would suit each role in terms of body type or look; and also selecting costume which would reflect their characters in a clear manner. Using the fast paced musical score we were able to present our genre immediately, this paired with the variety of camera angles and shots helped us gain an effective media piece.

A Crime Thriller which has used similar conventions to our opening sequence is the film "Se7en". Using similar characters, such as an In-uniformed policeman, armed gunmen, and also a chase scene, we were able to see a clear resemblance between the film and our opening sequence.

 

 

 

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Being fan's of the Crime Thriller genre we were able to create a media piece which would appeal to our target audience as we believed that we would enjoy it if we watched the film as an impartial member of the audience. Our opening sequence contains three characters, two being antagonists and one being a protagonist. Using gangster type characters we were able to adopt the Crime Thriller genre easily.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

As we are a small independent British production team on a

very low budget, we would need to distribute to a low budget film distributor such as Film Four. This would be as our production didn't cost allot to create, and with a low budget distributor like Film Four, it would be more possible to make a profit and produce more money.

Even though our production would have been on a very low budget, that wouldn't have necessarily effected it's success. There are some British low budget films which have been associated with Film Four that have been a great success; the films "Slumdog Millionaire", "East is East" and "Sexy Beast" have all been extremely successful despite their very low budgets.

 4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

As our media piece is a dramatic genre which contains allot of action and aspects of horror we needed to choose a suitable age certificate for it. We did this by looking at other Crime Thrillers such as "Se7en" or "Dirty Harry" and their age certificates. We also used the British Board of Film Classification, or BBFC website, in order to look at the legal requirements for each age certificate. Even though both "Dirty Harry" and "Se7en" are classed as an 18, we decided that our film wouldn't be as extreme, and that we would class it within the age of 15. This meant that our film would not be suitable for anyone under the age of 15 nor be able to to be purchased by anyone under the age of 15 either. Obviously aimed at fans of the Crime Thriller genre, our piece should appeal to a very vast age range. Beginning at the minimum age of 15 for legal reasons, and ending with a typical age of around 45, we would hope that a range of ages of male and female viewers would enjoy our media piece.

 

5. How did you attract/ address your audience?
In order to attract our audience we used different techniques to gain effect and produce a successful media piece. Whilst editing we were able to change the colour scheme, and also add a fast tempo musical score which we found added the detail we needed, but was also appreciated by our target audience. We also found that our audience could also relate to our main Antagonist, as he was our age, and quite a likable character due to his vulnerable situation.

To gain a further understanding of what our audience thought of our piece we first posted it on Facebook so that they could view and then comment on the video. Overall we found quite a positive response which we were very thankful for; here are a few of our favourite comments...

To gain a further understanding of what our audience thought we also produced a questionnaire about our film. We asked 20 people to complete the questionnaire and again found that the results were generally positive. Here are our questions and the results we found...

1. Did you enjoy our film?

We found a great response to this question, with 18 people answering "yes" and only 2 with "no".

2. What genre would you say our film is?

We found that the response to this question was quite mixed, but the majority still answered in the way that we were aiming for. 13 people thought that our film would class as a Crime Thriller (which is the genre we chose to portray), 4 people thought that it was an Action, 2 thought Horror, and 1 thought Psycho Thriller.

3. Did you think it had a good storyline?

This was our best response to a question as 20 out of 20 liked our storyline.

4. Do you think the characters suited their roles?

Another successful response, all of the 20 we asked believed that we had made a right decision in casting and thought that all of our characters suited their roles within the film.

5. Were the character's roles clear?

We found that the majority of the people we asked understood who each character was, however a few people were unsure about Jack's character. This is understanding as his character was quite mysterious and appeared in a very brief scene.

 

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Whilst producing our piece i learnt allot about using modern technology within media. These modern technologies involved things such as; using a video camera free hand to gain more of an edgy effect, or using the tripod for a steady shot when filming. Using a reflective light board to generate more light as the natural light wasnt enough when we were filming. Taking photographs of establishing shots and different scenes whilst filming using a still camera or our mobile phones. I also learnt allot about modern technologies whilst we were in the process of editing as we were using the school's movie maker software, which was very handy and simple to use. Even though i didn't do much of the editing it was interesting to observe and learn how the programme worked whilst we were in the editing process. I also used the internet whilst in the research stage of my blog, before filming which was really helpful. I was able to find pictures, information and reviews on different films which was a great help before and after filming. I also watched DVD's of different films in order to gain ideas for our own piece helped allot also, i found that different dvd extras provided some great information in the form of deleted scenes or director's commentary. The internet was also very useful when we posted our film on "Facebook" and "YouTube" so our audience were able to respond to it and give us feedback.

 

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at our premininary there were a few complications whilst filming and editing. We found difficulties in filming when it came to lighting due to faulty plug sockets in our chosen location. This effected the quality of the film as the lighting wasn't how we wanted it; also led to problems when editing. As we werent used to the editing software we were using most of the editing of our piece was experimental. Although it doesnt look as effective as we had hoped it did give us good practice for our next piece which was helpful. I think the lack of planning our preliminary task effected the detail and success also. To prevent any possible problems with our opening sequence we decided to do allot more planning, we needed to do this as this piece was allot longer than our preliminary which had a duration of less the 1 minute. We found it very helpful to gain more research on different films and opening sequences aswell as possible camera angles, as we got an idea of what could go wrong or what may work within the piece. We also thought more about our location, and carried out a risk assement which we found useful.
I think you can see a significant change between the two pieces. The variety of techniques used within our opening sequence definatly gained us the effects we needed in order to create a successful media piece, which differed from our preliminary. I believe that the whole of our group was generally really happy with our final opening sequence as it was allot more effective than our previous piece due to our gained experience working in media. I definatly have learnt allot from the two experiences, i found working with the cameras, location and cast not only an enjoyable but also an educational experience which i would gladly do again.

Main AS Media Piece!!

Hello, :)
So we're back for another media project; Lauren, Sam, Perry and myself have returned, however not as "Insanely Good Productions" but as the brand spanking new, "Waffle Productions". We even have a cute waffle man logo. He's even got muscles and sunglasses!! So anyway here we go, the post all about our Main AS Media Piece...

Starting It!

For our main AS Media task we were asked to create an opening sequence to a film (genre of our choice) which should be about two minutes long, and contain a variety of camera techniques, movements and shots. This includes the 180 degree rule which was also needed in the previous task.

Opening Sequence Research!
Before we could go onto doing anything we needed to do some research. First deciding what genre we would use. We decided that Crime Thriller would help us create an effective opening sequence, as we knew of a variety of great films which came under that genre and contained brilliant opening sequences which we could base ours on.

Thinking of the Crime Thriller genre i immediately thought of films such as:
Silence of the Lambs; an American crime thriller which came out in 1991 staring Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. Based the novel written by Thomas Harris the film contains a great aspect of horror and crime and is about Clarice Starling, a FBI trainee who is given a first case of catching cereal killer Buffalo Bill who has recently abducted the senator's daughter. In order to get inside the mind of a psychopathic killer Clarice visits the state prison to interview Hannibal Lecter, a retired psychiatrist turned cannibalistic serial killer, who does help catch Buffalo Bill in his own sinister manner. With a variety of twists and surprises the film contains a great opening sequence which displays Jodie Foster's character completing an assault course which involves her running through a forest type location. Also accompanied by a strong musical score which builds up the tension, as well as the digetic sound of the forest and Clarice's heavy breathing, the opening sequence also contains a variety of wide shots to display the environment, as well as other camera shots and movements to gain effect. I found not only the opening sequence but the whole film very enjoyable and really inspiring.

Dirty Harry; another American Crime Thriller which came out in 1971, staring Clint Eastwood. The film is about the rebellious American police officer called "Dirty" Harry Callahan who's on the hunt for killer Charles "Scorpio" Davies who has recently killed a woman swimming in her high-rise rooftop swimming pool, using a sniper gun whilst positioned on top of a large building in San Francisco. Soon discovering a letter from Scorpio stating that he will kill again Harry is soon racing against the clock to stop the killer. Containing a fantastic opening sequence which involves a variety of close ups, panning and many more camera shots and movements, as well as an effective musical score, the film defiantly inspired us when it came to thinking about our opening sequence.

Our Plot Idea!
Once we had thought of a genre we decided on a plot. As we became a little stumped we decided to play a quick fire idea game to try and help gain some ideas. Quickly after Perry and Sam had shouted "GEORGIA THINK, IDEA, NOW!!" at me, i quickly came up with the idea of having a car in the middle of a bumpy road in a field, then i thought of somebody escaping from the boot of the car and running away. This small idea was all we needed to create an interesting plot which we think will look great once we've filmed and edited it. However before we even thought about filming we decided to create a mind map of things we need to consider for our opening sequence. This included camera movements, camera angles, editing, characters, setting, sound, and

lighting.

Story Board!

Once we had thought of a plot we were able to create a story board in order to understand what would happen in our opening sequence shot by shot.

Location!
It didn't take us long to decide on a location to film. Finding a rural landscape which we needed was quite simple considering that we live around lots of field areas. We decided on a location which was close to school to make sure everybody was able to get there easily. We chose to film in a open space in Glinton, as we were using a car in our opening sequence we needed this large outdoor area in order to gain the effects we were looking for. We also carried out a risk assessment of the area to see what dangers could occur whilst filming.

Risk Assessment!

As we were filming on a location which was outside, we needed to carry out a risk assessment of the area so we understood the dangers. This was especially important as there were larger risks to due filming outside in the country. Thankfully we were very careful when filming and there were no major injuries at all.

Sound!

We decided as we were creating a short piece, that we wouldn't include allot of dialogue, mainly using digetic sounds such as the engine of the car, the sound of a shot-gun, or the natural sound of the countryside.

We also decided to include non-digetic sound as we wanted to include a musical score. Perry had found the perfect song to suit our Crime Thriller genre and what would be occurring within our piece. Once he had played The Sadness Will Never End - Bring Me The Horizon we all agreed that it would be a perfect soundtrack for our opening sequence.

Cast!

To suit our Crime Thriller genre we decided to only use two main characters, a Protagonist and Antagonist, both male. Our idea was that the Protagonist would be athletic as he would inquired to run, dressed in a suit which was been marked or ripped, with a bruised or marked face. And the Antagonist would be quite "rough" looking, preferably an older looking man who could also be wearing a suit. For our protagonist we decided to use our friend Anthony who we knew was quite athletic as he plays allot of sport and could act as well. We chose Perry's dad, Clive to play our Antagonist as he is quite tall, with a large build and looked exactly how we wanted our antagonist to look.

We also added another character to our piece to play the Antagonist's boss who would only be shown on screen for a shot period of time, on the phone to his "hit man". After trying a few boys who we thought may suit the roll, we decided to use our friend Jack to play the man on the phone as we thought that his voice would suit the roll of the mysterious boss.

Costume!
Thinking about the genre of Crime Thriller, we decided to dress our cast in costumes which would suit their characters and present the sort of person they are playing, as well as their situation or role. Dressing our cast in casual attire, we used the style and colour to reflect their character. Dressing Anthony, our Protagonist in mainly dark, smart clothing to display how he could either be an undercover police man or even a detective. Whilst dressing our main Antagonist, Clive in a white shirt but a black jacket and trousers to present his character as a dark and dangerous. For our third and final character, played by Jack, who also plays an Antagonist we decided to dress him allot more casual. Wearing a Fred Perry polo shirt and a blue Harrington jacket he presented a "British gangster boss" look about him.
In order to present our chosen costume, Lauren drew a few sketches of them; here they are below...

Mise-en-scene!

As we are planning to film outside lighting will be quite difficult to control. However we plan to use the natural light which will hopefully present the environment to be cold and eerie.
The main props which we plan to use include: a police badge, a car, and a gun.


Possible Camera Angles and Movements!
Whilst waiting for a chance to film it gave us time to think about different camera angles and movements which we could use within our film.

Camera Angles:

- Establishing shot: This will be used within our film when we display the environment it is set in. We plan to display an establishing shot of the area our policeman escapes into.

- Close Up: As close ups display characters emotion or a significant object we plan to use them within our piece in order to display the panic which strikes the policeman running away from the armed man who had previously kidnapped him.

- Mid Shot: As this is a pretty common camera angle, we have decided to use this in order to display the character's clothing, status and body language.

- High angle shot: A high angle can display a character to be emotional or to show the situation from a different point of view. This could be used to show the intensity of the situation which we hope to create.

- Low angle shot: This angle displays the exact opposite of the high angle shot, presenting a character to be quite powerful and strong. This could be used when displaying the kidnapper as he will be seen as very powerful and dangerous within the film.

- Steady cam: This shot occurs when the camera is held by hand, without the use of a tripod. We think that we could use steady cam whilst following the escaped hostage running through the woods in order to create a fast paced, intense scene.

Camera Movements:

- Zooming in and out: Used in our last piece, this simple camera movement which either focuses onto a person or object or does the exact opposite, could be used within our piece when displaying the characters eyes which could show emotion. As we plan our piece to be quite intense we would require allot of emotion from our cast in order to gain the right effect.

- Panning: Being quite an effective camera movement, we wanted to use panning in order to display our escaped hostage running or the car journey of the car he had escaped from.

Filming!

It took us a while to get an opportunity to film as we had to wait for our cast to be free. However the day came when we got a chance to head down to our location at 9 bridges and film our opening sequence. As Perry lives in Glinton, close to where our location was situated we all went back to his house with our camera and tripod. Perry's mum was nice enough to drive us down to the location so we could film some establishing shots (which later needed to be re-shot). Then once they were taken, Perry's mum drove Sam and myself back into Glinton where we waited for Perry's dad and Anthony who were driving up in our criminal's very nice Jaguar, so we could film some free hand camera shots of Clive driving the car.

After we had arrived back at our location, we were able to beginning filming the main parts of our piece. First filming Anthony pretending to escape from the boot of the car, and then different angles of the car; including trying to put Anthony inside the boot and giving him the camera to see what effect it gave, we were then able to play around with different camera movements and more angles. Filming Anthony doing allot of running in different parts of our location and testing how it would look from different areas, we soon ended up with just enough shots which would help us create an effective opening sequence. I found filming quite enjoyable and thought that we had selected the right cast and was well on our way to create a great media piece.

Editing!

Once we had collected enough shots which involved all of the camera movements and shots we needed we were then able to start editing them and put the piece together. Perry took on the role of editor as he found it easiest and was able to understand Vegas Movie Maker much better than the rest of us. Once putting all of our shots in to an order which we were happy with perry was able to add effects such as the colour of the piece, which we decided should be a grey scale. This gave our piece that eerie, gritty feel which suited our crime thriller genre. He also added credits and a title to our piece, a musical score and a digetic sounds of a gun shot when the criminal took a shot at the runaway police officer, and a plane sound which was heard when the policeman picks up his badge after dropping it in the forest. Getting the timing of the music and the digetic sounds to fit with the shots became quite difficult and took a while, but perry seemed to know how to fix it so our piece looked and sounded great. We also added the scene where the antagonist's boss would say a short line, instructing the "hit man" to go after the escaped policeman. This didn't take long as it was a very short scene, and only involved Jack's face from the nose down, talking into a mobile phone. We thought that the added scene gave the piece more depth but also added another close-up shot to it which helped as it mainly consisted of mid and wide shots. Overall even though the editing process took a little while, it obviously made the piece look great.

Preliminary Task!!!

Hello, I'm Georgia, from the amazingly awesome "Insanely Good Productions" which also consists of Lauren Matthews, Samuel Jones, and Perry Lennon. And this cheeky little post is all about my Preliminary Task, it is here where I'll be talking all about our Preliminary task, whats happening to it and how we're doing creating it, so here we go :)...

Starting The Task!

For our Preliminary we were asked to film and edit a short piece which showed two people sitting at a table exchanging dialogue. We were told to get into groups of four at maximum and that our film must contain the 180 degree rule, a variety of different camera angles, and a reverse shot.

Our group immediately starting thinking of concepts, ideas and different techniques which we could use in our film, we started to draw some mind maps, first of story lines, it didn't take us long to come up with some ideas, which included:

• A Job Interview
• A Doctor Consultation - patient being told their test results.
• A French Conversation - using English subtitles.
• A Teacher Pupil Conversation - pupil confessing something to a teacher
• An Interrogation - police officer trying to get a criminal to confess to a crime.

We then drew up a few small mind maps about camera angles, lighting, editing and costume to gain some ideas which could inspire us to decide on which idea to follow.

After allot of thinking about different concepts and styles we decided to proceed with the idea of a Interrogation. We wanted to create a short film about a Detective interrogating a criminal about a murder which the criminal had committed. We also remembered that we were inspired earlier on in the year as we watched a few crime thriller opening sequences in order to concentrate on camera angles and techniques, these included "Seven", "The Usual Suspects" and "Scarface", we also knew that these films contained great interrogation scenes which we could take techniques from in order to perfect our short film.

Characters & Costume

Deciding on who would play our Detective and criminal wasn't too hard, we had a few people in mind who we knew could act but soon settled on our good friends Samuel White and Ryan Hayes. Luckily they had an experience of acting from the "extremely successful" AMVC musical "The King and I", so we knew they would take the job seriously. Their costume was easy to organise as we just wanted the detective (Sam) in plain clothes, so we just wore his normal school attire; and you could only see the top half of the criminal (Ryan) so we decided to dress him in a grubby old "wife beater" vest to make him look even more creepy.

Here's a few pics of our stars and zac effron in a "wife beater" white vest, just for funzies (: >>>>

Filming & Location

After thinking of a concept we needed to find a location to film, so we decided to take a little walk around school, looking into every room which we thought we could film our "Interrogation". It didn't take us long to walk past the dusty old English office...stop...and ask Miss Lewis for the key. When she warned us of the state it was in we thought that it would be a perfect messy detective's office. I think the only reason why we were alowed to use it was because the English staff knew it needed a bit of clean and that we would do it for them. So after we moved box after box of books and paper, and set up a desk and chair for our creepy criminal to sit behind, we were able to film. Lighting caused a little bit of a problem as we originally wanted a desk lamp to only light the criminal's face, so i ran down the to science technitions and asked for a small desk lamp. The problem occured when we realized that the plugs in the office no longer work, what a disaster! So instead we used normal lighting from the ceiling light in the room, oh well.

Here's a picture of our location :) >>>>

Techniques We Used

As we were asked to include different movements and techniques in our piece, we obviously needed to think about the different ones we could use but still think back to our concept, and what techniques would be suitable and effective. The sort of techniques we used included the 180 degree rule, high and low camera angles, mid angles, long shots, an establishing shot, close ups, and a (little bit of a shaky) zoom.

Just in case your media knowledge is a little bit rusty, here are the definitions on some of the techniques we used:

High Angle Shot - This is simply positioning the camera high above the area you wish to shoot. This shows the character within the scene, down below which can show vulnerability. We decided to include this in our piece to give the effect of a CCTV camera as well as showing the criminal (Ryan) in a vulnerable state.

Low Angle Shot - This is a very simple shot, when the camera is placed on the floor or onto a surface which is below the characters, it often shows authority. We used a low angle shot in our piece when focusing the camera on the detective (Sam), this displayed his power and authority perfectly.

Long Shot - This shot simply shows the characters and their surroundings. We wanted to use it to establish the character's identity and status and display it to our audience, i.e. the detective's standing authority to the sitting criminal.

Mid Shot - Possibly the most common camera shot, this displays a clear angle of a character. We decided to display our protagonist (Ryan) with a mid shot to show his emotion and reactions to his interrogation.

Establishing Shot - This clearly displays the scene of the piece by showing the area or situation to the audience. We used an establishing shot in our piece by shooting a still shot of an old building outside our school. The still establishing shot strongly hinted to the audience that the interrogation was being held in the building being shown.

Close Up - This is basically when the camera shows a close shot of a character's face to display emotion and feeling. We used very few close ups in our piece, only zooming from a mid shot of the criminal (Ryan) to a close up of a photograph of his victim (me), this occurred at the end of our piece as we hoped it ended it in a mysterious and sinister manner.

180 Degree Rule - This is when the camera stays on only one side of the area being shot, as if there were an invisible line going straight through the set, which cannot be crossed. This helps the audience concentrate on dialogue between characters. If the camera passes through the invisible line connecting the two characters it is referred to as "crossing the line". This new shot which is developed from "crossing the line" is called a "reverse angle".

Editing and Evaluation

Editing our piece didn't take long at all, thanks to the school's Sony Vega 8 software we were able to edit our piece in about an hour. Lauren seemed to understand the software quite easily and enjoyed using it so she took it upon herself to do most of it whilst Sam, Perry and myself gave a helpful input of ideas and opinions on how we thought our film looked. It was quite easy to decide how we wanted each shot to blend together using the editing tools. We also decided to add end credits, and came up with a name for our film...

"The Interrogation!"

Even though we are very happy with our finished piece, we obviously still think that with more time to polish it could have been even better. We've had our problems and difficulties along the way, such as plugs not working, or somebody, no names mentioned *cough* Lauren *cough* accidentally deleting our finished video so we nearly lost it but thankfully Sam had it on his memory stick. But overall i think we have succeeding in making our first media film and i am very proud of the result.

So here it is, our finished Preliminary Task... THE INTERROGATION. Its on a YouTube link as we couldn't upload it onto our blogs for some unknown reason, but it is there and that's all that matters :). All you need to do is click on the link, watch and then possibly tell us what you think.

THANK - YOU.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiplgWmatmM