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

Brief for Preliminary Exercise

To create a short sequence in which a character had to walk through a door into a room, sit down and half a short conversation with another charater. This task was to use continuity and make a seamless sequence.

Brief for Main Task

To create a two minute opening of a film, the film can be any genre and have any story line.

As I have only started doing media this year, the prelimnary task was the first time I’d gone through the process of planning, filming and editing. The prelim was a much shorter task and less was required for it so from this I learnt the basic process which was able to help me and aid me through our main task.

During the planning of the preliminary we had to produce paperwork such as storyboards, shot lists, shooting schedules and these processes were also repeated in the main task. I also learnt how to work in a group to make decisions and listen to everyone’s ideas, and then for the main task how to blog these ideas and the planning process. 

During the filming of the prelim we had to follow continuity rules learnt in lessons such as the 180 degree rule, doing match on actions, 30 degree rule and also how to show a conversation using shot reverse shots. We used all these techniques in our main task apart from shot reverse shot. I also got to use the equipment in the prelim and learn what each piece did, in the main task we had more equipment to look after so I had to take more responsibility of it and I learnt more about the setting up of the equipment and also the paperwork for taking the equipment off site.

During the editing in the prelim and main task I learnt that a lot of the footage filmed was not needed, this was so both had continuity and worked together as a believable piece of media. In the main task even though this was a very important part we also had to look at adding effects and creating titles so the prelim helped make the editing a slightly faster process. In the main task I also learnt how to use certain programmes not used in the prelim such as Livetype. 

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

Hardware

Pros

+ All hardware was quite small and had its own bag so it was easy to transport and take to shoots

+ Camera -Easy to use, and we had learnt how to use it already in the preliminary exercise

+ Good quality microphone

+ Tripod could change levels

Cons

-          Expensive so needed a lot of responsibility

-          Pag lights had risk of fire

-          I wasn’t that used to the camera so had to spend time learning to use it

-           Camera had settings we didn’t know how to use so we could have cut out some of the editing we did after if we knew how to use the effects before

Software

Adobe premier pro CS3

Pros

+ Editing our film was quick as we had used this programme for our preliminary exercise

+ We easy to apply the effects we used such as fade to blacks, ghosting

+ We were able to create our recording sign on it

Cons

-          Wasn’t able to make the our credits so had to use other programmes

Livetype on Apple Mac

Pros

+ Was a large variety of effects, fonts

+ We were able to change the speed of the effects and how long we wanted them to last

Cons

-          Had to export it to put it onto our sequence so wasn’t able to preview it with the film immediately

-          Was a new programme to all of us so we had to learn how to use it unline premier pro

-          Was quite a complicated programme to use

Soundtrack Pro on Apple Mac

Pros

 + Had a large range of sound effects and we used it for our heartbeat and typing on the credits

+ Wasn’t difficult to use

Cons
- Had to be exported
- Was a new programme to us so had to use a small amount of our time learning how to use it


Our Group Equipment

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

o   We chose the genre of thriller because many people enjoy this genre of film

o   We chose the theme of rape as it isn’t a common theme so people will be intrigued by it and drawn in by the fact it is a new type of film

o   We followed the classic narrative of a film but played about with the order, which attracts an audience which enjoy traditional films but are looking to try and something slightly new

o   We used flashbacks to give the movie creativity; people will want to watch a film that is slightly different and has a more creative side, and possibly more artistic side

o   Our opening contains a shock when the victim is attacked through her door, this shows the viewer that this film will be more than a film that taps into your emotion but it also is out to shock you and possibly make you jump when showing the rape

o   Suspense is used in the music and through the flashback showing how unaware the victim is that something is about to happen. The music builds up throughout the piece so the audience are waiting and are expecting something to happen. And the flashback shows the lead up to the attack not giving away exactly when she will be attacked.

o   We used continuity rules and to make our opening sequence make sense, and look polished this way audiences won’t look at it and find it too complicated to watch

o We created a facebook group for our screening to reach out to our age group

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

TARGET AUDIENCE PROFILE

Age- 13-30

Gender- Male or Female

Film Tastes- Thrillers, Psychological thrillers, Horror, Independent films

Target Audience

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

GPH is our production company- we focus on making films that are realistic

-          Situations of teenagers and young adults

-          Quite gritty films that get quite deep and involved into situations

-          Emotional films that look at the emotions of the situations and the deeper effects

-          Psychological thrillers, that are more intense

Example of a film it might produce

THIRTEEN 

DONNIE DARKO 

PHONE BOOTH 

Our films would first be shown at independent cinemas, and then possibly be demanded like paranormal activity. 

 We would then begin to show it at mainstream cinemas such as Cineworld and Vue.

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

Main Representations

AGE: young adults

GENDER: females

Also represent rape victims, rapists

VICTIM- YOUNG GIRL

Outgoing

Party girl

Independent

Likes to drink

Fashionable

Smoker

We used a normal young girl that many can relate to so this shows anyone can be a rape victim, rape happens to normal people. Our victim is similar to Effy from Skins, a well know character, people are able to relate to Effy who is just a normal teenage girl the same way we want people to relate to our main character.

VILLAIN- YOUNG MAN/RAPIST

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

• Our media product we decided to use a clear theme, which is rape but not a common one
• Our media product follows the genre of thriller and sub-genre of crime thriller, however crime thrillers normally focus on the criminal but ours focuses on the victim and how the police are helping our victim
• We use different methods in our film opening to show the conventions such as:

-settings

-costume

-music

-dialogue

SETTING- we filmed our opening at night time as this is when most thrillers are set, night time suggests danger and a sense of not being seen. So we thought to use a long path with cars around which creates lots of hiding spots for a killer 

COSTUME- we dressed our rapist/villain in a hoody as we were then able to hide the rapist’s identity, and give him anonymity. Also gives him the appearance he is a ‘hard man’ which is a character used in many thrillers 

We dressed our victim quite confidently and in a revealing dress to follow the theme of most victims in that they are naive and unaware to danger, also her heels suggest if she was being chased she wouldn’t be able to run

And we dressed her in a baggy hoody for the recording scenes

MUSIC-  we use two different soundtracks 

http://www.freeplaymusic.com/search/advanced_search_ext.php

We used this as it sounds like a typical track used to create suspense and signify danger, it builds up near the rape so our audience know something bad is going to happen

 http://freeplaymusic.com/search/advanced_search_ext.php

We use this to portray our victims situation, she is in hiding and as a victim, so we have music to make her seem innocent and also the music is sad and slow and we use it to almost pull on peoples heart-strings so they have sympathy for her.

DIALOGUE- short simple script which tells the victims story, she is telling the interviewee what happened in a factual way and doesn’t say much of her emotions but we see, like any victims, she has been affected by it and she has been troubled by the event.

Our film conforms to the classic 3 part narrative of a thriller 

·         However ours departs from Todorov’s Theory because we use flashbacks during our opening- so our film won’t be set in real time throughout.

·         Events won’t be shown in order and the audience already know she is in the safehouse (the victims journey) before they know the full details of the disruption.

·         Use of classic character roles in thriller- victim, villain and helpers of the victim

·         Our film is told in the view of the victim, we follow her story and we know her opinion of the event before it has happened.  To make it look more like an interview to a video we added a red recording sign and a border around it.

·        Similar to The Lovely Bones which is the story of a 14 year old girl from suburban Pennsylvania who is murdered by her neighbour and she tells the story from heaven. It is similar because we also have our main character, the victim, tell the story to her interviewer as if she is telling it to the audience.

In this trailer we hear the main character, Susie, narrating the story of the film.

EVALUATION

Project blogging has now ended and from now on I will be posting my evaluation.