Evaluation: Question 1

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

In the thriller film genre, we used many of the typical film opening conventions used in real media. These include low lightening, fast paced action setting a plot already, a protagonist and an antagonist and a mood of tense, suspense and drama.  We watched thriller film openings to see if ours fulfilled them in the same way that real films did.

The clips usually start with bright, normal settings of ordinary people. As the plot develops, lighting darkens, setting a creepy, tense scene as the plot unties.

We found that the idea of a  point of view shot when being in the position of attack was quite common. The dramatic fast paced music takes a general pattern of all thriller openings: slow to fast paced to build up tension. The camera angles are differ from a range of types however are generally consistent (i.e medium shot to over the shoulder, to ground level shot and repeat.) The point of view shot when in the 'danger' position is common: I continued use of this because it is good to  keep the audience in the victim's point of perception as they are in the fearful and empathetic position.


Differently to typical thriller films, the protagonist is usually a male who looks dominant, scary and controllative. In ours both roles of protagonist and antagonist are females. The antagonist is not uncommon to be female but can be rare for the thriller genre. Women are quite often the damsel in distress needing saving by the men. The man is often in a position of attack form another man and this is where the violence usually happens. Our film challenged typical gender roles: a burglar being male would have been much more expected. Although the antagonist is portrayed as innocent and vulnerable, as we found occurs in real media films, the protagonist is not a very feministic character as they will wear black and be patronising- so in a way, the protagonist main character is quite masculine like in real media.

The setting is in an ordinary middle-class house. This was important to us; the setting had to look like a natural house that a burglar would enter, so that the audience know they are a 'normal' burglar and not a bank robber or particluarly ambitious. This is quite common in real media: for dramas, it has to look realistic, and the most realistic places you can get is a normal house where normal people live. This was beneficial as it is already set out as we want. Looking at other thriller films, we found similarly locations are set when unordinary things happen to ordinary people, and hence have ordinary settings to portray and emphasise their ordinariness. 

A typical setting of our film opening

A setting showing a house owned by a normal character from 'Girls against boys', a thriller. 

Typography

Our Font is thin and discrete. It is consistent in this: the font is very minimal and basic. I did not want specially attention-grabbing font or anything that gives anything away too much: the film opening is based around a mysterious character slowly unveiling the plot, so a modest and scarce font fits nicely with the theme. In my research of other thrillers, I have found that some follow the same idea of basic black and white colour schemes, although ensure the entire attention is on that particular credit by having it on a plain black screen and not tied into play with the film. However, the majority of thrillers use bold, outstanding writing focused entirely on the credit. This is because thrillers are often action-packed, high budget films and so big and bold fits the theme. This is not the case with mine as it is subtle and plays in with the film whereas real life ones generally do not, so you could say it challenges real life media.

A real media thriller typography example.

A real thriller/action film typography example.

Example of font from my film opening

Costumes

In my film, the outfits were planned to fit the two characters in advanced. The main character who I played, the burglar, was dressed entirely in black and wore a distinctive mask. The mask is often used in real life media when characters do not want to be identified or are the bad guy.

In 'The Strangers,' the protagonists are wearing masks as seen below. This gives them an element of mystery. I wanted to create this in my film opening and so wore clothing that would not give much away about myself like in this real media example, and likewise: a mask to make myself completely unusual and standing out.

From researching other thriller genres, the female victims are always made to be obviously innocent and defenceless: this example shows the girl in white which connotes purity. We recreated this in Rhiannon's outfit the best we could.

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We introduced her character in bed sleeping to emphasise a defenceless young girl. The juxtaposition of an all black, mysterious character and a white, innocent girl creates a tension of evil vs innocent, which entices the audience what will happen when the two come across each other. 

'The Strangers', a real media thriller.

Character introduction

In my film opening, my character is introduced as walking in a house through the back way which immediately flags up the idea that they are not supposed to be there and planting the idea that they are a burglar in the audience's mind.This is confirmed shortly when the film progresses in action: it advances a fast pace. Thriller film openings often do not reveal the entire plot but introduce key themes very quickly but try to keep the plot still subtle to be revealed later on. My film opening 'hooks' the audience interests as the entire plot is not obvious: the audience does not know the character, only what they do. Hints at the plot are heavily suggested that keep themes include this character being a burglar/murderer but their motif is unclear. This is slightly different to most real media as the plot as a whole is quite often obvious when the characters are introduced in depth and key details are revealed.

Evaluation: Question 2

"How does your media product present particular social groups?"

In my film, the only characters are two women.

The burglar is portrayed as a daring, dangerous character through outfit, music and effects. The outfit mystifies the character as unusual and up to no good. The music, starting at a slow and tense pace, builds up as the plot develops with the character.

A woman protagonist is unusual: woman are often victimised to be saved by the main male character. A villainous woman is usually dominant, powerful and exciting.
An example of this is Anne Hathway in 'The dark knight rises.'
She plays astrong, confident woman who is capable of the danger a man is usually portrayed to have.
I wanted to recreate this characters identity: I think it does a very good job at challenging gender stereotype roles in film.

Anne Hathway in 'The dark knight rises' looking confident as a 'bag guy.'

This is a screen grab of me in action as the villain. The black connotes an evil, mysterious character. The black, unrevealing clothing is intended to 1) keep the character covered to as little personal details as possible so no identity other than the one I am trying to create is suggested, and 2) Ensure that the woman characters are portrayed modestly. From research, I have found that many woman characters are sexualised. Even when they do have large parts such as when the villain protagonist, they are usually modelled in tight, short clothing that make sexual suggestions about the character. It is common that the female villain is dominant and attractive: this is to engage a mainly male target audience as it is usually men interested in action. 

For example, Lara Croft, played by Angelina Jolie, is portrayed as a very sexy, dominant character. She wears tight fitting, short clothing, just like this: the more seductive, presumably the more it will attract the male audience. Obviously, this works both ways: it is common for female audiences to be the larger audience of a specific film due to a popular attraction to a male above the line talent actor.

In this picture, she has her legs on show to the viewer with guns strapped around her waist. She is giving the camera a 'come here' gesture and her facial expression and body language look inviting. This is to get people of target audience- males interested in action, intrigued by the look of the female. As this is common in action films, I wanted the female to be a confident, dangerous female without this same, generic stereotype.

Another reason I did not want this image to be portrayed from the act of a female villain is because of our specified target audience. Our target audience is 16-25, female or male. If it was too gender biased, this may influence a favourability to one gender. Also, if the women were portrayed in the sexual way they are in popular films, the age certificate may not be appropriate, narrowing our specific audience and decreasing film sales. Our target audience should not be influenced by characters of our film this way if we want to keep it neutral age and gender, or we might miss out on money if it tips to one preferred audience.

Evaluation: Question 3

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

My production company is called canvas productions. This is connotating a creative, original and artistic sort of film production. It is also connotating it is not a massively commercial, fancy company that has a lot of money to spend on special effects etc, but a more basic, drawing-board and blank canvas style of producing films. 

My company focuses producing on films: it is an independent film maker. This means it does not come from  a large, well known production company with a big budget to spend on films. My film is low budget and relies on acting, editing and effects to make it realistic and entertaining. Realistically, expensive special effects and popular actors would be rare to be included in a film of my type. This means a limited budget.

The money would probably come from private investments from other larger companies. The four main methods of financing a film are:

1. government grants; The Film UK Council can provide fundings to producers from the National Lottery or the British film institute. The government may provide a subsidy or tax to the producer when filmed in the area of their control.
2. tax incentives and shelters; In 2007 the United Kingdom government introduced the Producer's Tax Credit which results in a direct cash subsidy from the treasury to the film producer.
3. private equity and hedge funds Wealthy individuals invest in funding for a producer and risk gaining a net profit 

1. debt finance comes from pre-sales like selling the right to distribute a film before the film is completed. A TV station may provide  subsidiary of the movie studios company.
2. equity finance.

 My film is likely to make made investments from private fundings. It may be on a loan to pay back when profit form film sales is made.

Film titles

In my film title, actors names come first, then the production company and other companies, director, editor,producer, lighting and effect, music, costume design, and writer. The most 'expensive'- the actors, would come first, and as their names are most well-know as a voce the line talent, they would come first to be introduced. The editors and other below the line talent roles are credited when more action happens, because it is less likely people will may more attention to them when something is happening as their names would be considered less valuable to be seen but he audience. 

Other films that would have been distributed similarly are films like 

Although my film would likely be on a low-budget, advertising costs would be a good investment. Indie films like mine often favour low-cost, but by no means less effective strategies, such as social networking which raises word of mouth advertising and audience interaction like getting people to enter competitions or uploading clips of their own.

Although the film is obviously low budget to make, the audience of the action/thriller genre is up in the top favourite genres. This means audience-wise, it would have a mass appeal. This is why advertising would be more important than production: getting that mass audience's attention to be aware of the film is vital. 

Companies that specialise in independent films but have big-budget links from the big 6 such as Fox Searchlight Pictures would be ideal: they would have massive benefits to my distribution as they are already a big company with large budget funds from Fox studio 20th century Fox. It's specialisation in british and independent films would help my case to get them to distribute it.

Films like 'Slumdog millionaire', highly successful film that won four golden globes, was produced on a modest budget of £15, 000,000. It's final budget?$377,910,544.The reasoning behind this? It was distributed by fox searchlight pictures.This film had 'humble expectations', however turned out evidently very successful. The distribution from a Big-6 linked company undoubtedly helped this to achieve such a successful box office.

Evaluation Question 4

Who would the audience be for your media product?

Video upload here

I created an example target audience person, 23 year old Hannah.

She uses social media sites like many young people,and share opinions, reviews, and updates with friends. This is beneficial to me because if someone like Hannah were to read about my film, she may be inspired to go and see it. If she shares a positive opinion on it, then other people, likely in her age range, will also be encouraged to go and see it. Social media has massive effects on peoples opinions pre-viewing of a film: word of mouth is the one element of advertising produciton companies have little control of. My independent film can use this to it's advantage as it's cheap and effective.

People this age go to the cinema most frequently, increasing chances of people this age to see a film within their target age specification. People who are into the thriller genre are already on point for us to intrigue into cinema seats. It is likely they will look out for new thrillers: people generally have a favourite genre so they can compare it easily to other films and discuss it on media sites that may specialise that genre. They can recommend it to friends who may like it if they already have similar favourite films.

Evaluation Question 5

My Ideal audience is 16-24. At this age, the majority of people are involved in social networking sites.

To attract my audience to the film, I set up social networking sites like facebook for my film so that I can interact with people from my target audience, get feedback and promote the film.

On youtube, I used my film opening clip to tag thrillers and action films, so that when people watch other thrillers, mine will come up as a suggestion. This is a great way of getting people who already are interested in the genre to see mine cheaply and effectively.


My film opening is like others of this genre as it is action-packed, develops quickly and intrigues the audience to see the film to find out more.

From feedback I got from social media sites, people of the target audience said they wanted to see a film with the classic thriller genre but with a twist in the tale. I used all the key elements of a thriller to ensure I captures the original, edge-of-seat thriller essence they wanted, however challenged generic thrillers by use of characters and plot.
Music is usually quite tense and create suspense just from watching the opening: it should give the audience a chill down their spine when the music suddenly goes off key. That is how you know when the audience are truly engaged!

I addressed my audience by researching other thrillers and suggesting who their target audience is. Use of violence,drugs, language, explicit etc all make obvious standards to age viewings. Mine isn't too horrific: however, sometimes films can just be declared a higher age certificate because of a few 'jumps' and scares. Due to the nature of the way my film would go, 16 seems appropriate without loosing too much money from audience narrowing. The main age range to go to the cinema is a young adult in that age range anyway, so it is about the best way to ensure a good target audience age will suit the film.
 I found many other Thrillers had around this age range. As I inspired my film opening on other thriller conventions, it would be suitable to base my age range the same.

Evaluation Question 6:

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

Using programmes such as Final Cut Pro widened and developed my knowledge of creative technology. Learning how to make something my own through editing, effects and sound was really fun and helpful for future projects.

Presenting my work in different formats such as Prezi, youtube video and voice recordings was interesting to get to know about the ways in which they work and advantages and limitations of them. For example; youtube is a very good way at distributing information because it is free, easy to use, open to everybody, a very popular website and so can guarantee people will see it (given the right audience or advertising of the media) can be used widely across formats, and gives credit to the producers. It is common for first time film makers to publish work on there to see what kind of audience it attract and attempt to show their work to the world of the internet: it also welcomes feedback for future work.As far as limitations are concerned, you might be waiting who knows how long for it to upload (granted, this part however is where you curse your broadband server.)

Before my amateur attempts at camera work for the projects, I was still at the 'grandma trying to text for the first time' kind of level. After guidance and a lot of practice, I grasped the basics soon enough.
The actual filming required camera skills: I feel more advanced in my photography skills due to the way I learnt through trial and error by finding problems I encountered throughout such as lighting and camera effects. Learning how to overcome this through technology like software editing and advanced camera techniques has been a really useful skill to have. I found it quite interesting how technology can erase over what seemed like major errors in work: I was surprised at how well it rejuvenated our poor lighting skills.

Technology is a really good way to help ordinary people achieve impressive and advances potential through easy to use and cheap programmes of software. There are endless websites informing people how to do advanced things just on their own computers; simple guides to advanced technology helps promote people in every day life like businesses, making low budget or just personal films.
The outcome of these can often be shared quickly and simply online or other formats that will enable them to be seen by many. It is easy to access and so efficient when it comes to things like blogging and film production.

A case study of an independent film I recently researched, 'A field in England', was on a low budget and so could not afford professional editors with high quality editing software. The director, Ben Wheatley, edited the whole film on his mac using an easy, cheap, but effective software Final Cut Pro. The technology allowed him to succeed on a low budget: it is giving everyone potential opportunities to achieve impressive and professional-looking products. The opportunity to use this technology does promote potenital success to anyone with access to it, like myself.

Evaluation quesiton 7 video

Looking back on my preliminary continuity task now, I just want to edit it all to a much better quality due to the more advanced skills I have gained through developing my film opening since then.

My first time editing skills could have definitely done with a brush up: The continuity is noticeably better in my film opening than the preliminary task. I found that when editing my preliminary continuity task, I had to take several shots in order to achieve a realistic continuity: I kept this in mind when shooting for the film opening and planned ahead to keep in schedule re-runs of scenes and allowed plenty of time for filming after editing in case I found errors in my work. Trial and error was the main way I could identify errors and see if I could make my footage work: if it just wasn't feesable, I knew I had more work to do.

The shots I used in my film opening had a much wider range, and were more thought-out and clever than the ordinary, convenient ones used in my continuity task. After researching other film openings with a relative genre to mine, I recognised patterns in filming shots, such as ground shots showing feet when leading up to a climactic point of action which influenced some of my shots as I felt they were appropriate, engaging and professional. After a more in depth research education on film shot varieties, I planned out which shots would be effective and why. Although some ideas were a 'lightning bulb moment' when filming, we justified each shot with how and why we used it.

In my preliminary task, I did not take into account lighting, sound, or much thought into camera shots. In my final construction cut, I used techniques to ensure it was  as consistent in light and sound throughout as we could make it.

Construction- final cut

Preliminary Task

Moodboard

Diary entry

Today I will be making changes to my film opening using my critical feedback I have gathered. I will also tackle evaluation question 1.

Teacher Feedback

I asked my teacher for guidance and feedback on my opening. She suggested making the screen titles more consistent in colour and realistic in number and order. She also recommended the music being too generic: this is contradictory to what my audience said. The music is featured on popular thriller/horror film '28 days later.' Although a less well known music would be more original, it is hard to find music that progresses at the same place my film did like the 28 days later theme.

I came to the conclusion that as the music was deemed good from people of the target audience, their opinions are prioritised and I should value them. If the feedback I get from a wider range of people and ages feel that the music should be changed, I will take it into consideration and see what possibilities I can use.

I made my screen titles more consistent as suggested and added in fake credits so that there was even distribution of names- so although the team consisted of me and Rhiannon, it looks a lot more advanced : we take full credit for lighting, sound, editing and all the other jobs we can't quite invest professionals in!

Using Final Cut Fro I edited the film to be more consistant in background colours and the differences between lighting ins scenes. This was quite easy to accomplish.

Developing my Film Opening From Audience feedback

After considering my target audience, I selected people to take the opportunity to review my film opening and give me any constructive feedback to improve, criticise and praise my work.

My target audience of 16+ was easy to get hold of as I work among them daily.

The main points they came up with included:

"The music fits really well- the way it progresses with the film opening developing to more intense scenes is complimented by the music pace."

"The continuity is good: realistic, accurate flowing editing."

"It is clear from this who the target audience are and the genre is well presented."

"To develop it you could re-colour parts correcting it to a more balanced lighting and colour effect scheme."

The main point here is the colour correction, which I will work on as soon as I can. I may widen my feedback to a larger population including a wider range of age groups- a good, convenient, fast and effective way to do this that isn't time consuming is publishing it to social networks like Facebook. People can pot to comment on the video thoughts and opinions. I can use this to develop it.

Diarty entry

Today I edited all the footage we have filmed on Final Cut Pro.
I decided which music and sound effects to use.
I decided on the theme song of 28 days later because off the way it build up tension and creates a really dramatic feel of apprehension. I also used a classic fast heartbeat sound effect so that the audience feel the adrenaline intended for them. I added in effects like a quick metallic, jumpy sound to make a jumpy, on edge ending. Also included is the footsteps which was hard to fit together in sync because I was obviously not walking in time for all the shots.

I am trying to get my match on action precise which can be hard and frustrating when the footage is a mere millimetre out of place!
I enjoyed being creative with the footage and deciding what shots i'd use where and what camera angles looked best. I must now add in Titles of Actors etc. I have an idea of where they might fit in but hopefully don't ruin too much screens.

Diary entry

Yesterday we got filming done (take two) and will be editing it today. Our other footage that had lighting problems should be resolved this time as we could diagnose what problems we could fix from our previous try and set up differently this time with the help of camera lighting effects.

Diary Entry

27th January

We have gathered our first lot of filming… only to find that the lighting wasps lot darker on camera when playing it back than expected at the time. The footage looks much too shadowed and unclear what is happening. 

As you can see from this screen grab, the footage we recorded is not ideal. I attempted to save it by adding lightening affects to it, which was a waste of time. We aim to resolve this issue by adding more light sources and ensuring that we are filming in the right conditions next time. We also have agreed to meet up an hour earlier so that by the time we have sorted out the scenes again, we will have plenty of time to shoot in our ideal time range of 3-4pm. 

Although some footage was ideal, we are concerned that it may not look realistic enough to be one time frame and may have issues with match on action, especially if filmed at different times. In our second shooting we will now know what problems to look out for. We can improve our film from this: Lesson learnt!

Title

I have been keeping an open mind for inspiration on our film title. The title is important because it can be the difference between "that sounds good, I'll go and check it out," and "sounds like the kind of film I'll wait to watch on TV. When's that other film on?"  It also needs to sound appealing to the target audience. I can't have ten year olds lining up to see it only to be told they are not old enough with a film title like "the story of the cat burglar." It has to be punchy and snappy.
I thought about the synonyms of burglary and put together a word storm for inspiration.

I researched film titles and found many had puns or double meanings. They are a clever and enticing way of hinting what the film is about and how it might link to another meaning. I though about how when people get caught in the act, it is said they they are caught red handed. The 'red' also connotes blood or danger. This is relevant to the film as there is violence involved. This hints that my target audience will be an older age. I was thinking about other ways it could link to my film.

mysteriousweaponmoneystairsthrillerdarkBurglarsymbolbloodtensionviolencemaskdangerdramawantedcriminalhousefamoushidingcrime




suspensered-handed

Diary Entry

22nd January 2013

Today, we are making final preparations before shooting on tomorrow. With all our last minute plans it is quite hard to organise everything, however I am much more confident about our decisions and I am hoping it goes smoothly. Tomorrow will be our first shooting so I'm sure there will be some minor issues we can easily resolve. I am keeping an open mind and making sure I am well prepared...if I fail to prepare, I will almost inevitably have to prepare to fail!

With one member of our group gone, we had to desperately find a new replacement cameraman. I will ensure they know clearly how our shot list is designed to be.

Ideal Audience

Q1 1. Gener Male Female

Q2 2. Age group 0-4 Toddler 5-12 Child 13-15 Adolescent 16-24 Young Adult 25-40 Adult 41-55 Middle aged 56+ Senior citizen Q3 3. Genre preference Thriller Action Horror Drama Comedy Romance Documentary Sci-Fi Adventure Fantasy Animation Q4 4. Personality Types Adventurous Fun Serious Thinker Adrenaline seeker Immature Fearless Cultural Apprehensive Easily entertained Comedic I gathered data from research to find the most popular audience for the thriller genre through surveys and statistics. I found that the genre most commonly suits both genders,aged 16-24. This is our target audience for our film opening.