Thursday, 30 April 2009
Monday, 27 April 2009
Copyright Free music...
Monday, 20 April 2009
Evaluation...DRAFT
There are a lot of ways in which our media product portrays a real life thriller.
Conventions we have used:
-use of enigma- questions such as who is that? why is he following her? should be asked in the opening sequence of our thriller. We used this to make it more like a real thriller.
-draws audience in- after asking them questions, they will want answers, so therefore will make them want to watch on and see what happens. In our thriller the audience will want to watch more to see what happens to me.
-establishes the narrative, the viewer will expect something to be resolved.
-complex narrative- for example, you might think something is going to happen, then it suddenly twists round and makes you wonder.
-extraordinary events in ordinary situations- for example in our thriller, I am just walking home and then suddenly I am being followed by a stranger. This gives a sense of realism.
A title sequence is a main part of a thriller. It should draw the audience in and make them want to watch more. Films that inspired us for our opening were Sin City and Control. Sin City is fairly modern and we hope our film comes across that way too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c2_B_cWK_M
Some themes used in out opening sequence are ones such as, threat, intimidation, vulnerability and power.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Social groups are represented in our film via the mise-en-scene. We have chosen our location on a park, this represents youth. We chose me to act because then it gives a sense of realism because I look young and vulnerabe. We chose to do our film in black and white to give a mysterious, creepy edge to it, we got this idea from watching the film Control. The music we have chosen is upbeat and creepy. This represents tension and anxiety.
When chosing our actors/actresses we decided that Dan Walker should be the stalker, we decided to make him dress smartly so he didn't actually look like a stalker. We chose me (Holly Costema) to be the girl being stalked as I look young and vulnerable. To make me look vulnerable, we chose something that would make me look young and girly. To make Dan look scary, we chose black because it represents danger. We chose to put his hood up so his identity remained a mystery.
3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The institution that might distribute our media would probably be Momentum Pictures. They distributed Control, and I feel our media is similar to that film.
Momentum Pictures distributes low budget films like Control and Lesbian Vampire Killers. Momentum Pictures,an Alliance Films company, is one of the leading companies in the UK and releases approximately 20 theatrical films a year. http://www.momentumpictures.co.uk/flash/hello/about_momentum#main
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
I think our media is for the young adults ranging from 16-25, mainly because it makes them aware of the dangers they can face on a day to day basis. Also from my audience research task I found out that “thrillers are generally particularly popular with the under 25s and have a slight female skew. With moviegoers in an attentive and focussed mindset, they provide a highly effective, distraction free advertising environment”. http://www.valmorgan.co.nz/nz/audiences/profiles/thrillers/
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted our audience by analysing different thrillers to get ideas and then put them into our thriller, for example we used the black and white theme from Sin City and Control. Also from our questionnaire that we did for audience research we found out that most people like to watch thrillers that are black and white, so we took that into consideration and decided to put our film in black and white. We also addressed some issues that young adults could face e.g. we used being followed by a stranger.
All of our shots are filmed in a public area, this is to create a sense of realism. For the cast, we used ourselves, so the target age group could relate to us.
Feedback:
-"The film was very well shot, and the music gripped me, however, at times I think the filming could have been better" anon
-"I enjoyed the black and white effect applied to the film, and the costumes appeared to match the characters well" Becky Rosser
-"Unfortunately I failed to feel involved as an audience member, and I couldn't really follow the story" anon
-"I think the opening was very well done, and it created enigma and excitement. In order to improve it next time, I think the group should think about how to recognise the location and story better" anon
-"The film, I enjoyed watching. The music I found was exciting, and encouraged the suspense the audience feels" Megan Royce
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt to make sure the battery is full on the video camera before taking it out to film. To make sure you have your tape! To do a lot of takes of the same shot, because you can always chose the best one. We used a Panasonic DV camera for both the preliminary task and our final thriller, it was quite easy to use. It was good practice to use the camera in the prelminary task, so therefore I was more confident with it in our thriller.
To edit we used Adobe Premiere Pro. It was fairly straight forward to use, thanks to Mr Wheatley who went through the programme before we started editing. For the editing we changed the basic colour, to black and white, which was easier to do, although we did want to make it darker, so therefore you go into effect controls and you should be able to change how dark or light the black and white is.To go from one shot to another, we used a dissolve, this made the film 'flow' more easier as there were not just cuts on to the next scene, which would have made it look jumpy.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I felt I learnt a lot from the preliminary task for example, I learnt to make sure everything is continuous, as we had trouble with the lighting in our preliminary task because we shut the curtains on some parts and didn’t on others. Working in a group, you have great responsibility, you have to be flexible and make sure everyone gets an input.
Working with others in the preliminary task helped a lot as we had to learn to share the roles out and get eveyone involved. However, it also would have been good if I worked independantly, although I would have needed help from friends with acting etc. I could have filmed whenever and all the ideas would have been my own. No argueing just getting straight on with things. I do have to admit, we changed our ideas quite a lot because different people wanted different things in my group so therefore re-filming was needed. If I worked alone problems like that wouldn't have occurred.
This clip is a perfect example of bad continuity. The lighting changes when we switch shots. This made me more aware when filming our thriller. We had to take into account the time of day filmed because we couldn't film it all in one day, to make it look continuous.