Question 1

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

For our media product we made good use of real media product and likewise made several aspects differ. Our media product involves making a 2 minute opening sequence to a thriller genre film. In conducting this we made strategic on going plan in order to bring the sequence to a success, we researched into areas of our genre and from our own experiences movies we have seen that was related to our thriller genre. We wanted to ensure that each aspect of our film made sense and use key important conventions with other real media products. Individually we analysed film themes such SAW (2004 James Wan),Halloween 1978 John Carpenter), and Se7en (1995 David Fincher).

As a whole we decided to pick out the conventions that created an enigma from the films we analysed so we could incorporate some of it into our own production. All the films we deconstructed were situated around the thriller genre; they also have interesting twists and suspense we were looking for to add to our production. Notable area of convention we used from these films was in the area of shooting, e.g. we took inspirations from the idea of the POV (point of view shot) which was used at the start of Halloween sequence to create a mystery, as it would leave the audience wondering who the killer could be. Also we looked into different facial expression types observed from Saw 2004, in particular a character called Adam Stanheigh at the beginning of the film who looked really vulnerable and scared hence we decided to make use of this for our sequence by making our main character have the same type of expressions, which worked well with our story line as the audience followed through the conventions of a thriller. Lastly,

Se7en opening title sequence inspired us to make good use of extreme close ups in order to give a real insight to the grand opening for the rest of the film. Real media product can cross between genre and sub genre however we decided to strictly stick to one genre, so as to give the sequence an aura of simplicity but likewise create an intriguing product.

We also wanted the narrative of our product to unravel in different ways like Roland Barthes suggests, he suggests that texts may be ´open´ (i.e. unraveled in a lot of different ways) or ´closed´ (there is only one obvious thread to pull on). An enigma is the first of Barthes five codes for a narrative; we decide to constantly build this up through our thriller piece. Claude Levi Strauss suggests a constant creation of conflict and oppositions propels narrative, an also a narrative can only end on a resolution of conflict. An opposition can be something visual e.g. Light and darkness, or conceptual love and hatred and to do with soundtrack, a binary opposition which plays an iconic part in the film. We used this idea for our sequence and synopsis e.g. a villain/Hero.

For our opening scene we wanted to go straight into creating tension rather than a subtle start. Firstly, we implemented different camera angles such as a high angle for the subway scene to create an establishing shot, to medium shot and extreme long shots to show different transitions between the different locations, to a tilt canted angle shot of the bridge which adds to the scare and signifies panic, worry and paranoia. The running and the different panning made the sequence fast paced and eye catching. We made it fast paced so as to increase the tensions. Towards the ending of the sequence, when the main character tries to open the door, we used a zoom so as to show the close up of the lock as she struggles to open the door whilst still fast paced, this would create impatience amongst the viewers as there reaction would be for the main character to open the door, which therefore is a success at creating an engagement from the audience perspectives. The use of a worm eye view shot as she kicks the door was effective in adding to thrill of the sequence.

Using various Mise en Scenes for our media products is important seeing as it adds to the effectiveness of a film and creates an overall excellent “jaw dropping” film piece. The Mise en scene includes, location, lighting props, positioning. For our sequence, we decided to view four different locations to inspect it and consider whether it was suitable for our film and with the thriller genre we chose. Then we decided to use the subway location which looks realistic and is placed in a natural setting, so it fits with the synopsis. We likewise decided to use a rundown bridge as our second location as it looks creepy and adds to the curiosity of our sequence the long bridge would puzzle the audience as they do not know what awaits at the other side which adds to the suspense and tension deliberately added to our sequence. The make up did on the antagonists was made by me, I looked on yotube to check tutorials on how to create a bruise with eye shadows, this shows that he as been punched in the face.

For sounds we used a score music which was up beat and catchy , this matched with the dynamics of the way our protagonists was running , jump cuts were also used so it correlates with the music in the background playing. The music was successful at grasping people’s attention as it added to the thrills of the sequence. For our narrative to be clear and carry audience along we researched into other thriller movies to see the kind of dialogue they made in a similar atmosphere and mood, however it would distract the audience from the main plot, hence my group came to an agreement to use no dialogue so it made it more mysterious.

Media Collage

Question 2

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

Q 2

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(Wait Seconds to Load) In the clip above, here are two characters that have distinctive similarities. The main character in our Rebecca clip is on the right, I chose her because we observe her for the first 1:27 seconds of the opening film. As previously mentioned Rebecca is defined as a female who is a mischievous deceptive character as the audience first view her for the first 1 minute as someone that is weak emotional, confused and vulnerable, however it became the reverse case when we find out that she is in fact evil. This is compared with the female character in “Hard Candy” 2007, she is known as Hayley stark who is a fourteen year old teenage girl.

Their body language seem similar as they both look very angry, aggressive and strong, they sought for revenge on an antagonists male character who is perceived as doing something wrong and evil.

Question 3

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

For our media product, our production company name is titled “TLS”, they deal with the pre production work to the actual production, likewise legal and monetary responsibilities. In general terms a production company is involved in producing either recorded or live entertainment. Most often, the production company for films and television provides the money, and thus sets the budget, and may also make decisions on what director, and actors can be hired.

The film distributors are independent companies who distribute a film product when it’s completed either for the public theatrically or perhaps home viewing. The above question is dependent on the type of genre and style of film we are doing, likewise who are audiences are.  Although our film making is very low budgeted and is a small movie it would be difficult to get high profile distributors to release our film and make it known like Warner Bros distribution. Hence we would preferably look for low profile distributors.

In order to discover who the right distributors are for our product seeing as it is a thriller genre, we discovered that most films we analysed has similar distributors, and I also did extra research by going on IMBD and Wikipedia and looked at different thriller films who had similar conventions with our product and look at there distributors, for example Red Eye, (2005 Wes Craven) is an American thriller distributed by Dream Works Pictures, hence its an ideal for our product. Also Jaws (1975 Steven Spielberg) is distributed by Universal studios and Saw (2004 James wan) distributed by Lions Gate.

Lions gate are high profile distributors, and said to be the most commercially successful independent film and television Distribution Company in North America. In 2007, Lions gate bought a partial stake in independent film distribution company Roadside Attractions. Different films get attention from various different institutions; this is why Lions Gate would distribute films such as Saw and Inception (2010 Christopher Nolan) because of the famous actors, professional and experienced film producers and directors, likewise the substantial high budgets, gross revenue they access etc... This would not favour our film as we do not have these advantages. In addition, British psychological thrillers are not as prevalent as compared with American thriller films and other genres, which make it difficult to find a British distributor. However as we have a low budget and our product is low profile its better to find a smaller, more independent distribution institute that is suitable for our product.

I was doing some research and stumbled across a small short film distribution that may be suitable for our product, it is called ELYPSE. As we have short time circuit to make an overall film, this small distributing company may be preferable , Elypse Film offers what a film needs in order to participate in the worldwide festival circuit: assisting and individual distribution strategy, promotion,  festival submissions . They seek for a good quality short film to offer to client, ranging from different TV channels, VOD, DVDS and mobile phone companies.

Also E4 could distribute. As there wider audience are from 15 + , so as our thriller film is 15+ certificated hence they would be preferable .

Question 4

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

Our target audience and viewers would have similar interest with Bukola, hence the reasons I chose her.  Also she enjoys watching horror and thriller genre’s meaning she is familiar with the codes and conventions of these genres, therefore our production will seemingly grab her interest. Bukola likewise represents the E class of the social groups; therefore our sequence must represent these social groups, who are mainly students. Also as she listens to fast catchy music, our score music could be an area of interest for her.

In additional we also took into account the male gaze theory, where the Male antagonists appearance looks rough with his full beard, and his casual dress sense, we deliberately included this to attract the female gaze, as it were, that somewhat defies convention of having an attractive male character, and therefore increasing the target audience to a more female reach as well as the male.

Question 5

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

As we do not have a wide audience that we are specifically targeting, however we have a wide target audience amongst the younger age group from 15+, and we first attracted our audience by putting posters around college. We also used words of mouth to inform people that a film opening will be made shortly and that they used go check it out via face Book or YouTube.

Our fan and audience page was made on face book , although we could had made one on our blog , but our target audience are not commonly on blogs , hence we found a perfect network site to attract them. Our face Book a fan page was useful for the viewers to interact between each other on how they felt about the opening, the parts they can relate to and also leaving a room for critics. The unique attracting point was when we sold our Rebecca T shirts as a Bargain of buy one get one free. This would attract younger audiences as its something cheap and they would love the look of the T Shirt.

In addition, the protagonist's character and personality is intentionally portrayed as the victim, and we used this to create a narrative enigma, thus leading the audience to wonder about her and possibly sympathize or retract to her character. This is an example of how we are attracting the audience, as we are trying to interest them in the protagonist's reclusive yet intriguing persona. We also intentionally left out dialogue, as we thought that it would interfere with the narrative and the focus of attention which is on the female character. We made this choice because we thought we would attract and address the audience more if we made some parts of the production where there is no dialogue contrast to the loud up beat music which created more enigmatic atmosphere.

Here is how we addressed the audience...

We decided to get more audience feedback after making our opening, on how we fulfilled there interest and in addressing the audience, here are some insights …

Question 6

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

As our media product is based on a production requiring a 2 minute opening sequence of a 90 minute film. We had to come in contact with various filming materials to make sure our production was quality. We used a wide range of different technical motives and technologies in order to create a graphical piece of work. Before we allocated different filming roles e.g. the role of a Director, we had to familarise ourselves with the filming equipments so that we could all assist each other on set if needed. The camera we used to film our sequence is called the VX2000E camera which gratified our piece as it gave it a high quality look, the XLR to 3.5 mini jack is likewise normally connected to the DT100 Head phones via the camera in order to monitor the sounds, this helped us detect the unnecessary ambient sounds we picked up from filming.

The software made accessible for us to use for editing is final cut pro, this software is used to edit moving images; this was used to edit scenes from our films, and put sequences together. As we filmed the park scenes first in our sequence before we filmed the bridge scene, we had to put the bridge scene first so it links well with the beginning location which was the subway. Through final cut pro editing suite we put the juxtaposition of shots of the scenes together, we made good use of transitions to avoid a break in continuity. I myself as the director and the camera person worked together with the editor , so that we could all decide what shots were good and worked well for our film opening.

Final cut pro was easy to use, simplistic and yet very effective, once played around with and the main aspects are grasped, it greatly helped us with editing our footage. Foremost we had to insert our recording tape in a deck, which uploads onto final cut pro automatically, then we log and capture. The timeline and cutting tools were very useful, as well as aspects like the trash feature and the trim feature, and these things helped when it came to refining each part it great detail so we could get it exactly how we wanted and needed it.

Another software I used frequently was Adobe Photoshop CS5 to make the company’s logo, "Rebecca title sequence" and several images on this evaluation. When making the logo I used the different fonts for individual letter from our first names in a Text, each letter was listed as a layer, on the right hand side of the Photoshop screen, its a box that has the list of every layer in a design, then you right click on the layer you have selected by click blending options this then gives a wide range of  designs you could use as a over lay over the simple coloured texts, you could put a shadow on each text to give it a graphical context, which was used for the logo I created. I had few difficulties in trying to find the right colour and graphics to use for the logo as we wanted it to look like a real professional standard company logo and also to fit well with our film genre.

All the programs we used were remarkably easy to use, and we got acquainted quickly with all the tools and got started working with them straight away, and we were very surprised with what we could do once we knew how to use them. Technology helped us get our vision onto the screen in a number of ways. Primarily, without the use of all the aforementioned programs and tools, we wouldn't have been able to edit or record our footage, making our production obviously impossible. Also as we took inspiration from films such as SAW (2004 James Wan), Halloween (1978 John Carpenter), and Se7en (1995 David Fincher) all thriller genres. We watched clips of these on YouTube and meticulously analyzed and broke it down the scenes into a simplistic degree, whilst working out how to replicate certain editing techniques used in our own production; we used a high quality camera and final cut pro for this, and without this technology, we wouldn't have been able to get our vision up for others to see. The idea of current technology, gives a vibrancy to the production piece purely as we was advantaged to have high tech tools where we wouldn't have been able to do without these sufficient tools and devices in order to make our production have high quality.

  

The only limitations we encountered when using the filming tools, was the early days our filming where we had problems trying to make the camera secure on the tripod, as it would fall forward, luckily enough it did not fall of the tripod, but later on we sought help on how to secure the camera on the tripod properly. When also trying to log and capture, the clips was capturing every 6 seconds, however we found that the setting on Final cut pro was wrong hence we corrected this area.  We also had difficulties in finding the right sounds, as its an independent film , we had problems in choosing the right sounds for our opening, the college had a collection of music album storage we could use, however we still wasn’t satisfied wit the sounds as it did not match with the protagonists running also there are legal factors in inputting copy right protected music on our film , hence we had to use either our individual sounds or a copyright free source music from INCOMPETECH where we ended getting our sounds from.

If this production was based on a high budget film, we would preferably use an HD camera, rather than using the VX2000E. This would obviously bring out the quality of our film more, where the viewers would be able to hear the ambient sounds in the background that didn't come out so well with the camera we used, and the sound of the main character breathes from running so it could add to the tense.We would also have liked to have used fruity loops in order to create a score soundtrack as well, as this would be specific to every intense moment of the scenes, also it could simultaneously fit in well with the jump cuts and other editing techniques we used, rather than having to go for an already made sounds, not disputing the fact that our current sound worked like a genius with some of our main scenes when the music gets louder as the protagonists meets the antagonists. Using these possible options, we could had made it more intrinsic for the viewers.

Question 7

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

Before we made our opening sequence, we had to shoot a preliminary clip, so we could get use to media filming techniques in terms of shots etc. The preliminary task consists of a female character walking across a hall way, opens the door and meets up with another female character as perhaps they are friend, they have a one to one conversation which involves eye contact, and there body posture shows an informal atmosphere they spoke for about 5 seconds and then it shows the first character saying good bye and walking of. In this task we had to demonstrate match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

We had few issues with the editing, because of the way we filmed the clip as we was inexperienced, we did not wait few seconds before we filmed a shot, which if any one notice on the end results, it had a certain words repeating twice, as it was fairly difficult to cut out that scene as it would ruin the whole clip. We took this and learnt from it for when we start filming our actual opening sequence, that we should wait at least a good 3 seconds before we start filming the acting. We had to learn how to set up the equipment and how to use it to bring out different techniques. For example on the tripod stand, where we placed the camera, we had to place it so its fixed on a bubble shown on the tripod so the frame looks straight and not look slant. 

 

Pic 1: This is a match on action, is where a current action is either completed or carried on to the next one. We showed this character opening the door to the next scene. We used this idea in our Rebecca sequence where the protagonists kick the door open with her leg which goes to the next scene where she looks directly at the male character.

 

Pic 2/3: We used a Shot reverse shot (or shot/countershot) is a film technique wherein one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking "back" at the first character. We used this in our sequence where at the end of the opening we used a shot reverse shot to see the protagonists come in contact with the antagonists.

Pic 4: Despite the difficulties we faced, we went out and filmed a media product, which is clear in its narrative.  As a group we gained experience performing our individuals role and as working as part of a team. I learnt better interpersonal skills and time management. The filming was an enjoyable experience, and would not hesitate to work with the same group again filming something different.

As the director, I had to dictate the right emotions we wanted the actress to exhibit. I looked at various inspirations, Kill Bill and Hard candy which both represents the revenge game and also a female protagonist which challenge the thriller conventions. However it was essential to incorporate the things we learnt from the preliminary task to when actually shooting our film.  As the director I had to look at the mise en scene from our preliminary task rather than focus on the camera angles as much, although I gave the camera person some insights into the way I wanted the camera angle positioned to bring out the posture or facial expressions of the characters out properly we took things that we learnt whilst doing the preliminary task on board.

As the director I made sure, the actress use the space around her wisely in creating what we ought to create that is a thriller piece. We also took on board some aspects of our preliminary task and made it better once incorporated into our sequence

Pic 5: I decided to make her run from here so that her character is introduced. This also worked well with the establishing shot camera technique we decided to use.

Pic 6: Special effects were important to our sequence so the continuity was not broken, because it was difficult linking both the subway tunnel scene and the bridge scene. However the editor used this blurred effects to join the two together which worked really well as a sudden transition to the next scene.

Pic 7/8: I directed the actress to kick the door in this shot really aggressively here as it builds up the transformation of her real personality which has been disguised by her bewildered run. When observing the preliminary task the Female character walked out of the door, she walked further to meet the second character she talks to, however I wanted to do something a little bit different here in relation to our Rebecca sequence where her first attempt to open the door was unsuccessful, meaning her second attempt must be on target, in the sense that after her second attempt to open the door and she gets through, she would'nt have to walk through perhaps another hall way in the building we will just see her kick the door open and see the antagonists immediately.

Pic 9: I wanted the camera person to focus on the phone here, as it plays a key part in the 90 minute synopsis. This evokes a commentary between viewers perceiving that the antagonists had a narrow escape. For this scene we used the blue screen technology simply meaning a technique that is referred to as colour keying, colour-separation overlay. We input an artificial background so that we could be creative on how we wanted the graphical background to look like.

The preliminary task ended vaguely we took that on board and did not want to replicate this idea on our real sequence, therefore. I wanted a voice on the end of the phone as if someone answered Toms call. My voice was used to create this aspect. This again creates a second attempt of narrow escape.

Overall I have learnt a lot as my position as the director. It has made me realise that to be a real director you need to be committed creative and have a passion for the role. I also learnt that each different filming role should be able to influence the other when needed for example, the director telling the editor what shots should be joined together as it would work better. Which I did that with my group. Also realised each role is as significant as anything else. I also learnt the idea of planning out research before you make the end product, because at times we had to joggle the two together where we would still be planning and doing research on particular things whilst going out to film, which slows things down. Overall it was an enjoyable experience taking part in this production and module.