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

At the start of the year when we did our preliminary task, we were not experienced with camera work and the editing software. For the preliminary task we did not really focus on the technical aspects of the camera work. We didn’t worry about the location we filmed in, it being an empty classroom we found. We didn’t really consider anything that was seen in the background so possibly school bags, desks etc. When editing, it was the first time we came across the software so we didn’t have any editing experience therefore the editing wasn’t probably the best standard it could have been. When filming we used the first shot taken instead of revising each shot we filmed to see whether it was good enough to use. In terms of planning we didn’t really think about a time to do the piece we just used a lesson for filming and a lesson for editing. However this was very different for the final media product that we produced. We first planned where and when we were going to shoot. We thought about the content of our product thoroughly to make sure that every fitted and would be easy to understand. Every shot was taken into consideration and we at least took two takes for each shot. When we edited we fine editing the start and editing of each shot carefully picking what we put into our final product. We chose transitions to run throughout our product, and we picked different time scales for each of them to last ranging from about 0.1 seconds to 1.5 seconds. In my opinion I feel like I have progressed majorly from the preliminary task to my final product and I feel a lot more confident with filming and editing.

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

During the process of constructing our product we used a lot of different equipment. First of all we used blogger to keep a log of all our work that we make and to show evidence for what we have done. From this I have learnt how to use a blog successfully and learnt how to keep up to date with my work. We used Google images to get images for our research and influences for our media product. YouTube was a great way to look at other film openings and find different sources for us to look at and learn how openings to films are structured. For our music we downloaded it all from www.freesound.org. This is a great website for free sounds and there is a great range for the genre of film we have chosen. After downloading the sounds we imported them into iTunes and then found them in iMovie. iMovie is the software we used to edit our film. We found this software prefect for editing our film because it was easy to use, we could insert the text that we wanted and it was good for picking out little snippets from long cuts. We could manipulate the colour of each shot, so we adjusted the brightness and the contrast to give darker effects. For our production company name we used Corel Draw, which allows you to make professional logos and other various stuff. Here we came up with the production company name seen at the start of our product.

4. Who would be the audience for your product?

For my media product the target audience will be aimed at anyone between the 16 to 30 age group as the opening contains moderate violence and shows scenes of distress so it would not be suitable for anyone below the age of 16. Also some of the content in the opening to the film would be hard for some people to understand such as the time shifts so this is another reason why I have chose a more mature audience for my product. I think that the older audience will benefit from this more because they can understand what is going on and can take in fully what is happening.

I created a questionnaire for a small audience of 5 people to fill out after watching my film opening. For the first question I asked what age rating they thought the film was, the majority answer being 15 as it didn’t have excessive violence. A couple people rated it at 18 suggesting the film opening could be classed as a mature film. For the second question I asked what genre of film would our opening come under. Here we had a mixed view of what genre the film was being between horror and thriller. Out of the 5 the majority picked horror and this may be because of our “Saw” influences. The third question I asked was, in one sentence, tell me what you thought of the opening. For this the majority of people told me that the opening reminded them of a typical horror/thriller opening and that the changes in time were good. They thought that the sound was effective and worked well with the actual opening. So after feedback and research into film audiences I would say that my media product would appeal to possibly a teenager/ young adult.

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

Our media product is a low budget film opening made by amateur film makers and amateur actors that no one have heard or seen before so in terms of distribution it is best to start off small by distributed on the internet to get going and building upon that. Sites like YouTube allow you to create accounts and this gives you a “channel” for you to post any videos you choose. This is a great way to get your video out to the public as millions of people use YouTube everyday.

From YouTube there are various social networking sites that help to advertise and distribute products that you choose. An option on YouTube allows you to upload videos onto sites such as MySpace or Facebook allowing you to distribute further so that other people such as friends can see your product(s). Normally small unsigned music bands use these social networking sites to get their music across to the public but this can also be applied by people in the short film industry and sites like MySpace promote this well. Fully customizable pages help to create a page that suits you best and helps audiences get attracted to the product you are selling. Once a few people are noticing your work on these social networking sites, they can suggest your page to other people. Eventually this builds up to a bigger fan base and this is when you start to get noticed for your work.

I think that YouTube is the most suitable for our media product as it has no budget and it is easy to use. As we our not continuing to make short films, maybe Facebook or MySpace are not the best options because they are for people who want to get their work noticed so they can carry on to do more of the same work.

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

In our film opening Sam represented the role of a normal person. We show this by clothes that he wears; being average casual clothes and the environment he is in. Sam, who plays the protagonist in our opening, is in a typical living room sitting down watching the television. This represents everyday lives of the normal person. Jacob, who played the role of the Villain in our opening, wears dark clothing and his identity is never revealed adding to mystery. He represents someone possibly associated with death as he is wearing a hooded jacket, suggesting the grim reaper.

The use of props shows representation throughout the opening to out media product. The red rope connotes blood and death. We used a sack to cover over the victim’s face which represents an air of mystery to what is happening. Around the setting that we used for our media product, we see various sharp objects and heavy machinery representing possibly a plot for something big or the objects simply add to the sinister atmosphere.

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

The genre of our media project is a thriller. The opening of the film starts with a black screen with the digetic sound of sirens in the background. Next we hear an unknown digetic voice quoting a page from the bible. Although we don’t see where the sound is coming from it is still classed as digetic. This challenges forms of and conventions of a real thriller because the audience is in suspense as they do not know what is going on and the shot causes distortion due to not knowing anything. This builds an eerie atmosphere and creates tension.
During the opening we used black and white shots to signify changes from the past to the present. Black and white conventions have been used in the thriller genre many a time. We took our influence for the black and white flashbacks from the 1940’s thriller “Double Indemnity” and the neo noir/ thriller “Sin City” made in 2005. The black and white shots show us that they are distant memories and show that it is not happening in the moment.

The use of red rope in the 360 degree pan throughout our opening signifies blood and death, suggesting that the victim is trapped and death is inevitable. WE took this convention of red objects from “Sin City” where blood is the main focus and colours are enhanced. This is what we aimed to do in our opening because it would create impact.

The lighting during the 360 degree pan is all artificial as we used hi-key lighting. This gave an impression of an interrogation room used in a police headquarters focusing on the victim. Although we used hi-key lighting during the pan scene, we edited it and reduced the contrast to show a more sinister looking place. This made the atmosphere look darker and created a more eerie feel.

The setting of our opening was set in two locations; a metal workshop and Tom’s house. We chose the metal workshop because it looked abandoned and fitted our ideas of what our opening was going to look like. We went for an abandoned looking place because this is a typical convention of a thriller and has been seen in other thrillers and horrors such as the “Saw” franchise where people are likely to be kidnapped and isolated in an abandoned room where they are likely to suffer.

The titles are seen throughout the whole of our opening. We spread them out because we researched different film titles in different films of the thriller genre and the typical layout of titles were spread out throughout the whole of the opening. This made our titles look more realistic and professional. We used a red font for our titles because this again signifies blood and death.

The use of transitions between the 360 degree pan and the flashbacks show a change in time. From the flashbacks back to the 360 degree pan we used sharp cuts to make the opening look as distorted as possible. These types of shots are normally seen in films like “Saw” and short, fast paced shots are seen in nearly all thriller genres so we incorporated this convention into out product.

Preliminary Task

Final Product