Amber Bradley's Evaluation

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

The conversation

Similar to our film "Twisted," the sequence for "The Conversation" is established in a busy urban environment. In our sequence this is where the antagonist is introduced. Urban areas are regularly used in thrillers because it fits some of the popular occurring story-lines involving characters who suit this surrounding.

Other conventions of the opening of the thriller genre may include; establishing the main characters, keys props, close up shots, fast pace actions and some others.

In our film "Twisted" we shot a close up of a woman to establish her as the main character and get the audience to familiarize themselves with her. We also filmed a close up of our main prop which was a "key" to establish to the audience that this prop will be something important to the story-line.

The main character throwing something away creates tension and suspense. It tells the audience that she has done something which she wants to forget.

Although our opening is not particulary fast pace, we felt it contained suspence by cross cutting between 2 settings, the fast urban environment and the bleak annonomous empty woods.

The titles in our sequence are simple but the edit is edgy and creates a sense of fear.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film represents an urban middle class life, whe

re a wealthy woman has killed her boyfriend because of domestic abuse.

In marathon man the protagonist is introduced running in an empty park, dressed in casual clothes.

Although my film opens with a si

milar theme of a woman traveling, she is not the protagonist but is the antagonist. We show this by making her stand out in a busy urban area because she is on her own, wearing big sunglasses to cover her face and once she is at her destination she throws something away showing she is trying to forget something. Her smart blazer, designer bag and smart boots show she is quite a sofisticated woman and is wealthy.

In thriller films, they do not normally give away immediately at the beginning who the antagonist is. This was our aim. Although by making our antagonist throw something away showing she has a secret, the way we dressed her does not give her secrets away. she looks "normal." Another film that does this is Jennifer's Body.

Although megan fox plays the antagonist in this film, the way she is dressed does not give this away.

Link to Jennifer's Body Official Website

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product

and why? How will you attract/ address your audience?

This student film has 5,612 views and has been online on youtube for a year.

I have an online marketing strategy and this is a step by step account of how i am going

to construct that strategy. In order to make my film successful on line, i am going to begin

by creating a vimeo. Once this has received a lot of hits i will then upload my video onto

youtube. I can do this because i am aware that it can now be successful. In order to

introduce people to my film i will create a Facebook page to advertise it and send a link

onto friends i have on this networking site. I could also have a screening of the film for

friends/ family and piers to introduce them to the film officially. I will then ask friends to

send this onto their friends and i think this is a good strategy to get a lot of hits. As well

as using youtube i could use other networking sites such as; Myspace, Bebo, Twitter etc.

I could also try to get my film into independent film festivals such as Raindance and they

may then put my film onto their virtual film websites.

Here is an example of a Facebook page specifically for films-

http://www.facebook.com/Film

Who will be your audience for your media product?

When preparing out opening sequence to our thriller, we had to think about our audience. Our audience would be aged between 20- 35, 80% skewed female, and their class will be C2DE.

Our audience is is Technically Savvy and is likely to be working class (profession such as admin officer/ secretary), enjoys socialising with friends, regular cinema visitor, will have their own page on a social networking site (most likely facebook or twitter), reads often (books aswell as celebrity magazines), owns a blackberry, uses public transport, takes pride in their image, busy scheduled, keeps a diary, healthy diet, has an ipod.

This is an image of what you may find in our audiences bag:

This bag belongs to Jennifer. She is a 26 year old woman who works as a receptionist in a solicitors firm.

· NOW magazine

· Diary and Pen

· Purse

· Hand cream

· Selfridges Receipt

· Water Bottle

· Blackberry

· Cinema Discount Vouchers

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

Before starting our film project all 3members of my group were new to everything. None of us had any experience therefore during preperation, filming and editing, we picked up loads of new skills.

Research and preperation:

Before we started filming we had to learn about different genres within the thriller genre. To research these we used the search engine google to look at various websites.

We watched various thriller films, including marathon man, to gain ideas on what skills are used in filming a thriller film e.g. camera angles, shots, music etc.

We watched openings of various thriller films to give us even more of an idea of what to include in our opening. We looked at the camera pace, match cuts, music, titles, and other aspects. We watched these clips mainly on youtube.

Before starting this product i did not realise the usefullness of google and youtube. The information we found out on google was easy to access and helped us a lot with our project. The clips we watched on youtube were easy to access and their was a wide range that we could study and analyse.

Productions:

When filming, we used our storyboard to help us keep track of what we needed to do. The storyboard aloud us to plan in advance; the angles of each shot, the mise en scene, the location and to know who in the group is going to be doing what. It kept us organised and allowed us to seperate tasks into the short time we had. A shot i think we used well in our thriller was the low angle shot of the woman on the bridge. The low angle shot made her look weak as she was so far away from the camera and her surrounding was very big compared to her. When filming we had to take into consideration the weather conditions. This is for the safety of the camera and also the different weather conditions would effect the editing of our final work. When filming shots for our match cut, one thing we need to do is make sure there arent any people in one shot that wouldnt be in the next, as it will look unproffesional. The area we chose (london bridge) was hard for our filming as the amount of people in the area changed rapidly. One minute the area would be empty and the next it would be crow

ded. If we was to film this project again, although i feel we edited it well, i would choose a setting that has a lot less people travelling through it.

Editing:

When editing out final piece of work, we put a lot of effort and time into making it as proffesional as we could. Our preliminary task helped us rehearse for this task and gave us the chance to get used to the software we needed to use.

Our edits from one setting to the other did not fit when we first put them onto Final Cut Pro, so we experimented with different effects to the find the one we thought suited them best.

For our match cuts we took a lot of time, playing the clips in slow motion, to make sure that they looked neat and accurate. We also included shot reverse shot when editing.

To create our titles we used "live Type". This programme contained a number of text styles, sizes, colours and also different effects. You could choose where on the page the font will appear and also decide whether you want a plain background or whether you would like the texts to go over your video. We chose to have our titles over our video as we wanting the tension to continue building and we felt that having a black screen seperationg the clips at any point would reduce the tension built.

For our music we used "Soundtrack Pro." On this programme we could upload our video and playback music over our clip, to see what went well and what didnt. The programme had loads of different styles of music, as well as different sound effect and it also allowed you to overlap sounds. This helped us to make our music as unique as we could. We used two different music clips onto our track, one to suit each setting. In order to make the music sound proffesional we had to learn how to fade it in and out and where it was appropriate to overlap. We also used some natural sound in our thriller opening.

We also put togever a video which explains in word out experiance of different technologies during out filming process -->

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the

progression from it to the full product?

Our preliminary match cut exercise gave us an idea of how the process of making our final opening sequence would be. Firstly we drew up a story board in a single lesson and in our next double lesson we filmed for an hour, then spent the rest of our time editing this work.

our main problem with this exercise was that the camera was not in focus. Although we focused the camera when we started, we did not focus it after every shot which meant that it did not stay in focus. this made the film look unprofessional and was hard to see. This made us extra aware when filming our final piece and we checked after every shot that the camera was in focus. If we did not do this then we would have had to reshoot everything.

This clip shows a shot from our preliminary exercise and shows that the camera was unfocused

When filming our preliminary match cut we did not take a variety of footage. Rather than filming each shot from different angles, we planned what angle we wanted and just shot that. This meant that we could not change our mind about the way the shots would match therefore could not improve anything we didn't like. However because of this, we remembered to film each shot in loads of different angles for our final piece which gave us a wider variety of choice.

When filming our preliminary match cut we did not line up shots properly. This made our film look unprofessional and messy. Because of this, in our spare time we asked for help off one of the technicians who taught us how to line up shots properly and this allowed us to use this skill in our final film.

This clip shows that our shot was not lined up in our preliminary film. T'sharna's head is cut out.

Audience feedback and comments?

After our screening at the cinema, we got feedback off of some of our audience.

This image shows the words that came up most often:

We used Wordle to create this image.

We also asked one member of the audience to give us a video feedback of what they thought and what they would improve:

This interview was filmed in City And Islington College!!

T'sharna Bernard's Evaluation

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

In our film "Twisted"we set the two different scenes at the beginning of the film. This was the train station and the forest. In the station was where the antagonist character was introduced.

In the photo

above (which has been taken from art of the title sequence) from strange days, they used a close up shot of the main prop, the gun. This was done to show the audience what the main props were. we as a group decided to show a close up with our main prop, the key in the characters hand but she was playing with the keying.

The last shot in our film was a close up still shot of a hand, this was done to create suspense and to get the audience wondering but ours was in the forest under and bunch of leaves where as the hand in the image above is not underneath anything and i don't think it is used to create suspense.

How does your media product represent particular social groups

Marathon man opens and sets the scene with a man running around the park in the city. 'Marathon Man' can be compared to Twisted because both films open with someone walking or running somewhere, although in Marathon man, the man that is running is the protagonist where as in the film we produced Twisted it is a woman walking and she is the antagonist even though the audience don't become aware of this until the end of the film.

At the end of the film Twisted, the audience see a character, who hasn't been introduced before, they don't know who it is, or what has happened to them and why they are there. They audience

also don't know whether this character is a protagonist or an antagonist.

what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? how will you attract/address your audience?

this student film had 13,715 views

genesis, A Level student Film

I have an online marketing strategy and this is a step by step of how

I'm going to construct this strategy. In order to make this work, I will upload my video online on to youtube. if the film was successful on youtube i would then try to promote the film in film festivals such as Raindance and Sundance (http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/) As weIl as using youtube, I would use other social networking sites such as; Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Bebo and other networking sites. I would then send links to all my friends and would get them to forward it to there friends so this would create a 'buzz' around my film.

This is how i would advertise my film. This is a facebook link to the dark knight about promoting their film: http://www.facebook.com/darkknight

who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for "Twisted" would come under the class of C2DE and would enjoy spending time socializing, shopping going to cinema's such as "the odeon" and "vue" and just enjoying life.

We took a picture of what we think a person that would watch our film would look like;

We think it would have;

- Smart phone, Blackberry, or iPhone

- Magazines

- Purse

-Essentials, like make up, hand cream

-Cinema Tickets, as they go to the cinema regularly

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

we made an animatic of what we learnt about the different technologies while making the product, some of these technologies are:

-research; blogger, youtube and google

-filming; it was just the camera's

- editing; final cut pro, soundtrack pro and livetype.

looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

When doing our preliminary match cut exercise we had to make a short film with a match cut but it didn't go very well. Our group made a lot of mistakes such as; the film was out of focus so therefore the filming quality wasn't good. Also the lining of the shots were poor, as there was either too much space above the head or the top of the head had been cut off.

When we started the preliminary exercise we didn't really work well as a team and as we progressed into making our actual film our team work got better and we learnt to work together as a team and faster.

We filmed our match cut exercise during a double lesson and spent an hour filming and the other hour editing. Therefore we did not have much time to put it together, whereas with our final thriller opening we had a lot more time to film and work out our shots as we filmed over two different days and edited over something like two weeks.

In our final thriller opening our shots are in focus, so the quality of the filming is good also the framing of our shots has got better compared to the preliminary exercise, as there is just enough space above the characters head.

Audience feedback and comments

People in our class filled out audience feedback sheets saying what they thought about our film. We then went on to the website wordle.net and made a word cloud of all the words they came up with. The words that come up big are the words that came up the most such as "good"

After we finished watching our thriller opening in the cinema at The Screen on The Green, we asked our friends what they thought of our film and here is what some of them said;

"it was good but some of the cuts were a bit slow"

Planning The Preliminary Match Cut

The Preliminary Match Cut

We were given a task to come up with a story board for a match cut exercise, which had to include the following

- A match cut

- Dialogue

-Shot Reverse Shot

we planned to have a character walk down the corridor and into the room. we then match cut it of the character walking into the room.

There was then another character who was sitting on the chair opposite character one, which is where we included dialogue.

story board

This is the storyboard of our thriller opening. We imagined 26 shots that we were going to film, however once we started filming we realised that our shots would change. When looking at our storyboard then watchin out final piece of work you will notice a difference as a lot of shots have changed. However I feel we did follow our storyboard well in term of the order that things happen but the angles of the shots had changed completely. I think this is because we had not been to the setting and thought about the shots before creating the storyboard therefore we did not know what would work and what would not.

Skills Audit; LiveType And Soundtrack Pro

LiveType:

livetype is a programme which allows us to creates titles and change what they look like by adding effects, changing the colour's and the styles. These texts can then be imported into Final Cut Pro, and onto your film.

Soundtrack Pro:

Soundtrack Pro is a programme where soundtracks can be created. There are many different types of sounds, from instrumentals to rock and blues music. When the sound track is done and finished it can be imported in Final Cut Pro.

FinalCut Pro:

Final Cut Pro is a programme where you can edit shots, and create films. There are many different types of effects that can be used to add to your film.

Health And Safety Tutorial

In class we had a tutorial on how to use the cam camera's and the tripods. This was done to help get familiar with the equipment and so that we know how to use everything properly.

We learnt how to set up the tripod and how to adjust the height of it . Also, how to put the camera on the tripod and how to take it off. To remove the camera from the tripod you need to turn the black nob and press the red button and pull the camera forward otherwise it might not come off.

we were taught how to focus the camera, to do this you have to press the 'focus' button. You can tell if the camera is focused by the orange lines that come up on the screen. We were told that if we want to zoom then we should zoom before we start filming. The memory cards don't work unless they are unlocked.

Pitch

Before we started filming our Opening Sequence for out thriller, we had to present a pitch to our teachers.

We had to discuss our original plot with of our film. Our original idea was a Hansel and Gretel themed thriller, involving parents leaving their children in danger because of financial situations. Although this was our original plan, we went on to changing it as we thought our new idea was a lot more appropriate.

Our new plot ended up being about a woman, who has murdered her fiance for unknown reasons and throughout the film she tries to move on with life, but her past begins to haunt her and is slowly revealed.

In our pitch we revealed that we would film in Highgate woods and around the London bridge area. Our setting did not change. We chose these settings because we felt that Highgate woods would give a scary edgy feel to the opening. We chose London bridge because it is a calm urban area that fitted with the woman's lifestyle and character.

We also had to discuss safety aspect when presenting our pitch. These were things such as; DONT film in the rain, DONT touch the lens with your fingers, DO keep the camera in its case when were not using it, DO always remember to cover the lens when not using it.

We did a rough story board to give an idea of what our opening would look like. in this storyboard we had to display different shot to capture our characters in different angles. Each shot would be shot with a Point Of Vue shot, Close Up, Over Shoulder Shot, Pan, Long shot and some others.

Our pitch made us realise that we did have some faults in our plan such as the story line. It gave us the chance to go over our plan and change it so that it was improved. One we made these changes we had a clear idea of what to start doing first.