Media Evaluation - Nick

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

Conventions of Thriller:

The Victim

The Threat

The Suspense

The Enigma

The Hero

The Villain

Our Thriller Makes use of all these conventions, beginning with the protagonist as he is the one who first appears in our thriller. He first appears at a reservoir where he attempts to get rid of this particular necklace that he has been holding onto. We didn’t want to film this scene in a sort of cheerful place…. Because of the current situation the protagonist is in, the weather and the setting had to represent the feelings of the character. The character is obviously not on top of the world; but more or less incredibly depressed or upset. You could also call him somewhat of a victim also, but it depends on how you interpret the scene. He is obviously troubled by the necklace pointing towards what has been so bad about this necklace that he intends to throw it away? We wanted to portray a sense of mystery to the protagonist as well. We don’t exactly get a full reveal of the character until he lifts off his hood and shows his face to the audience up until that point we wanted the audience to think “what has he got to hide?” We later after the titles come to a scene in which a group of characters including the protagonist are in a slightly lighter and brighter setting than the one that they were previously in. We chose this setting to divert from that sense of danger. The audience is meant to feel as if nothing bad could happen in this place, obviously that all changes when we are introduced to the main victim of the story who is killed without the audience knowing who he was or anything about him for that matter. Once investigated by the group they find he is carrying the same necklace that the main protagonist threw into the water plus the same necklace that Amy (the female Character) is wearing, This Leads towards our enigma:

-          Why did the Protagonist throw the necklace away?

-          Why did the protagonist get rid of it at that specific place?

-          What connects the necklaces?

-          Why was the man shot?

Shot 1: The opening shot, the film reveals the opening setting where the main protagonist is entering the picture. The camera slowly reveals the protagonist with a pan shot.  By being introduced to the setting we can see that the setting is bleak and that he is alone, these subtle suggestions can also point towards the feelings of the character.

Shot 2: Here we can see where the protagonist is walking towards and we are finally revealed were the protagonist is. I like this shot because it raises questions such as “why is the protagonist there?” adding to that sense of mystery in the thriller.

Shot 3: Here in this shot we catch a glimpse of the main protagonist looking at the necklace and pondering over what to do with it… this shot is the first time we see the necklace fully and is can obviously be seen as some significance. I also like in this shot how the protagonist twists his hand by looking at it… Giving him a quite menacing feel.

Shot 4: This shot is nothing but the title of the film “KOSMIMA” Meaning Greek for jewellery.  We thought this title suited pretty well related to the necklace and the term being in Greek would be a plot point that would be later revealed had we shot a whole film. I really like the style of this title. Its dirty, gritty… kind of lets the audience know what type of film they’re about to watch.

Shot 5: This is the First reveal of all the primary characters together. I like this shot just for the fact it establishes the scene of these beautiful gardens, introducing the characters on a brighter note. We also used this shot as a suitable transition from our title to our next scene. I like the way the title disappears along with the wall. It was an interesting editing technique to incorporate into the final product.

Shot 6: After we have a short conversation from the three primary Characters; we cut to this shot where we have an extreme long shot away from the characters, suddenly we pan towards a strange man standing over the edge of the stone banister just looking out into the horizon. The soundtrack really adds to this moment, it has a really eerie and creepy tone that makes this character’s presence seem evil and menacing.   

Shot 7: This is my favourite shot out of all of them, straight after the previous shot we get an extreme close up of the man’s eyes slowly looking towards the camera. Because the soundtrack continues on from the previous shot it still carries on with this creepy tone making this hot that more threatening.  When he’s looking at the camera also; it’s almost as if he’s looking at you which make this particular shot rather uncomfortable when being watched. That’s why it’s my favourite shot.

Shot 8: This shot comes after when the man is shot and the characters have ducked as a reaction to it. This shot captures the panic in the characters faces when they’ve released what exactly just happened.

Shot 9: The final shot of our thriller in which we see a close up shot of the necklace taken from the man’s hand as the two boys observe it. Here you can hear the soundtrack leading off into the ending transition giving off an evil presence towards this necklace.

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

The Characters represented in the film are teenagers which is also the age of the audience that we are aiming for. The Characters in this film are also roughly the same age and easily get along with one another; representing todays modern society of teenagers also. The Three teenagers in scene 2 are also discussing the arrangements of a particular party that they have created, teenagers often host evening parties and this could be seen as stereotypical toward that age group. Scene 1 on the reservoir also suggests depression every teenager goes through a stage of depression in some form or other and this is how we chose to show that. For the reservoir scene We chose this particular day and area because of the weather forecast for that day (which was rain) plus, the particular setting we filmed in isn’t exactly a warm, sandy beach; we choses this area because it looked gloomy representing the thoughts of our main protagonist.

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

Because of the social group that the film is targeted at the best option would be to distribute the film to the internet or direct to DVD. Many people spend most of their time on social networking sites or digital download sites such as YouTube, Netflix etc. To appeal to the audience in which the film is aimed at we would find distribution success most likely in the social media websites like Facebook. If the film were to be a straight to DVD film then we would find sites such as these useful for marketing purposes as many teenagers would see them as they browsed through the website. Sites such as YouTube would also be very useful as they would be able to both advertise and distribute our movie for everyone to view. YouTube is also a cross platform feature, for example YouTube has its own app integrated into Apple’s iPhone, iTouch and iPad; devices that most teenagers carry around with them. Costs would also be cheaper to distribute this film to these particular platforms; if we were to upload it to the internet then we would only be using costs for marketing purposes. Straight to DVD releases would have to have costs spent on the DVDs themselves as well as the marketing however DVD releases can still be uploaded to DVD download sites such as Netflix and Love film; plus we can still find ways to advertise both on sites such as Facebook and YouTube.

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

Our Audience would be the teenage market 12-18 which includes both the male and female market I believe that more males would see the film due to its premise however it does include elements such as the inclusion of female characters which would attract the female audience also. The target for a distribution rating given by the BBFC (British board of film classification) would preferably be a 12 rating for DVD. A common Marketing strategy used in the distribution of movies is to normally achieve a 12 or a 12A rating for their film, allowing more people to go and see it and therefore more income. In Addition a 12A rating only applies towards cinema audiences whereas only the 12 certificate is given to DVD audiences restricting younger audiences from seeing this film.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We used the technique of word of mouth. We showed many friends and relatives the film in the hopes that they would enjoy it and therefore show their friends as well. For this we used social networking site Facebook. Plus to upload the video we used YouTube, and we also uploaded the video on our blog as well were all our data and information on the preliminary and the final product goes.  As you can see we wanted to spread the word of our film production online as we knew that the online community is the biggest community in the world. Because every Video feed goes back to YouTube, anywhere you watch it the video will automatically get more views, and more views means more attention for the film itself; more and more people would see it

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

Many of the technologies that I used to create this film were unfamiliar to me at the time, I knew what they were, I just had no idea how to use them. I think that the big obstacle that was in my way were the iMacs, just for the fact that for the majority of my life I had been using normal Microsoft computers and had only just been introduced to an IMac when in work experience, and before Media Studies it was the first and only time I had ever used them. And it’s because of this that I found editing to be mainly the hardest part to get used to.  Because we were given the programmes Final cut pro, Garage band and Adobe after Effects to edit my film everything was entirely new to me, so it took a few lessons before I could get up and running on the actual editing process. Using final cut pro was exceedingly difficult… It was a bit of a step up from Windows Movie Maker which I had been using to edit my films for the past few years. I think it was the introduction to all these other features which other normal computers didn’t have which stumped me. Yet going through them and learning what most of them did was informative and taught me a lot about how iMacs were incredibly useful for editing. By using these programmes I have gained more experience in using these types of machinery and because of this it’ll be a whole lot easier to perform any other given tasks on the iMac. Another big introduction for me was the lighting and camerawork, up until this point I had no idea that you could not use only natural light for filming and that there were a massive variety of lighting techniques that you could use to create the illusion of natural light.  Camerawork also opened up much more techniques to use with filming; learning the different camera angles, sizes and rules helped me to create a much better presentation for our film.

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

Because the preliminary task was the build-up to the full final product, it was obvious that much had changed since the creation of the preliminary film. Firstly as we had to film strictly on location at Haywards Heath College we did not have to go through the tiring process of choosing our location like we did in building up to the full product. For example we filmed our full product in Nyman’s gardens in which we had to first e-mail/phone the managers and the people who worked there to see if we had permission to film at the gardens. We also had to time it right so that we had enough time to film there. Plus we had to use a load of notice signs to let people know that we were film because it is illegal to film other people without their permission. We did not have to do all of this whilst filming the preliminary as we had the college permission already given to us to film on the campus.  Another aspect that was different to our preliminary was the importance of lighting. For our preliminary we only used natural light; this was troublesome just for the fact that in one shot it would be light and then in the next it would be darker. Whereas in the actual final product we used a number of different lighting effects which we noticed made the final product a much better quality film altogether. In addition something we definitely improved on is the sound included in the film more noticeably on the Foley and non-diegetic sound. Once our preliminary was created it had no non-diegetic sound, Foley or any other addition to the sound from the camera… whereas in our final film sound was a must and it created the suspense and thrill whilst adding to the overall surroundings in the film. For instance footsteps, raindrops and other snippets of Foley were added into the film to make it more realistic.  We also inputted in different pieces of soundtrack to build up tension and suspense.

3 title openings Maddie

 
The Bourne Ultimatum
The opening starts with the release companies name on a black screen which then fades into the main characters name on the bottom left corner which is also on a black screen so nothing ditracts from it. The main title composition is set in the middle of the screen and then fades out. The text colour and font is easy to read and with nothing else on the screen doesnt take the focus away from the title.
Whilst it is fading into other names there is a quick pace soundtrack which then quickens as the black screen fades to create suspense and an extreme close up is shown of a main prop with names of producers on the corner of the screen, small enough to not take the focus away from the image being shown but big enough to see. The colours that have been chosen for the text dont blend into the opening scene even though it is white writing on grey looking paper. The movement of the camera is very quick and has a shallow depth of field making the edges of the what is being shown blurry.
 There are a few focus pulls from the book on the table to the writing on the paper where it is out of focus then a name or place will come into focus and then the camera will quickly move away.

Terminator 2 Judgment day

The opening starts with the release companies name on a black screen in the centre. It then fades out to the first scene. A shallow depth of field is used here to blur the background so you can still see the outline of the people walking past but allows you to see the text clearly. There is a soundtrack played in the background which is quite slow and does not have a fast pace to it which gives an overall effect of the music combined with the images making the scene very gloomy. After part of the first scene is played the title then appears from the fire and thw words get bigger on the screen until it fades out and follows the scene on. The soundtrack played is parallel with the scene shown and the lighting used it quite bright at the beginning but gets considerably darker as it slowly moves into the scene more. The title colour is quite desaturated and then goes very bright as it leads into the film.

BraveHeart

The opening starts with the release companies name on a black screen in the centre. It then fades into the title coming through the image of the clouds to try and make it appear part of it. The text then comes in closer and closer until it fades out into an establishing shot of wales scenery. There is then a slow pace scottish soundtrack of bagpipes as the camera pans around the landscape. I think the soundtrack relates to the film well, which makes it parallel as it is about the scottish winning their freedom in the battle. There is use of focus pulling from the trees to the people below to which it then goes straight into the film.