Final Evaluation - Stephen Neal

1.  In what ways does your Media Product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real Media Products?

Conventions
- We tried not to show faces fully, only partially and very quickly to maintain the enigma and mystery of the film.
- We made sure to leave a lot of mystery with our thriller, for example not using any ambient noises and only using a soundtrack to make sure nothing Is given away about the characters personal lives of origin.
- We made sure questions were raised and a mystery was put into our product, we wanted to use this as we had seen it used in the film Se7en’s introduction.

- However we wanted to be different to most other thrillers so we allowed the audience to see some characters faces however we then covered them so that they could not be distinguished from the other characters.

- The angles we used were sometimes strange and not expected, for example our very high angle on the protagonist. The same as within the Bourne ultimatum.

- We have used some quick cuts when the characters are meeting however we have also used long cuts to show the detail we wanted and the journeys they were taking.

- We used ambient lighting to emphasize the facial expressions of our characters.

- We gave the audience restricted knowledge of the characters to create mystery and enigma.

2.  How does your Media Product represent particular social groups?

- Our protagonist is a young male representing an older male, this would appeal to the younger age group and twenty to thirty year olds

- The “cultists” are teenagers which represents the negative stereotype of teenagers.

- Gender is represented equally within the cultists as there are both male and females within the group and all are equal.

- The protagonist is male however which gives him a power over the other characters due to his extra camera time.

- We have not included any idea of sexual orientation and have not purposefully placed any information regarding sexual orientation as it would not add to the film at this time.

- Only a British ethnicity is being represented within our film introduction as we only feature Caucasian teenagers within the introduction.

The protagonist

- We gave a shot of him looking up at the sky to emphasise and show the audience his troubled situation, but also to create enigma as we did not show why he was troubled.

- The enigma and mystery are common with thrillers as they help add to tension such as in Se7en
- We dressed him in typical British everyday clothes to make him easy to relate to but also someone who could be anybody and with unknown motives.
- We did this to make sure that the target audience would be able to accept the film as reality and not just a film.


3.  What kind of media institutions might distribute your Media Products and why?

Distribution

- I would attempt to get a well knows British distributer such as the ones above to get the most publicity however they would probably not accept a low budget film like ours.http://www.lionsgatefilms.co.uk/index_flash.php
- We would like a specialised thriller distributor to be able to sell our product as much as they can and in the best areas which only a specialised distributor would know.

- Some smaller companies may be interested with our film, such as http://www.dogwoof.com/

- They would be able to market the film to the audience we wanted to attract and show our film in the best areas for our genre.

- The smaller company would be able to distribute it to some cinemas and the right areas which would build the reputation of our film but would not bring a lot of revenue, however they would be the most likely to accept our film.

- The larger company would be able to put or film everywhere and generate more revenue from people watching, however it may lower their reputation from having the best film not lower quality independent British thrillers.
- We could use news usual forms of distribution, for example online downloads from our own website or websites such as youtube. this would save oney on paper, plastics and the DVD's whihc would be great if our film were to be completed and distributed to our target audience.
- There are many ways to access online products through websites and game consoles so we could get to a wide audience and grow our market share of the audience.


4. Who would be the audience for your Media Product?

- Our audience would be young teenagers to middle aged people as they are the most likely to watch thrillers


a scene from the film psycho

 - Out of a selected few people I found that the males tended to like films such as “Pshyco” and“se7en” whereas the females surveyed preferred the “Bourne” series of thrillers.
- We tried to encompass parts from all of these films to attract our set audience.
- Some of the people who have seen our film say that they liked the “moon shot” where our protagonist looks away into the night deep in thought as it helped show his trouble.
-  Mainly the thriller would be aimed at females as they would prefer our male protagonist and his deeper emotional stress whereas men would prefer to watch a more action packed thriller.

5. How did you attract / address your audience?

- The lack of sound creates mystery for our film and would attracts an audience through the intrigue

- The story gives the audience the knowledge of what areas the people come from, but nothing more which again gives mystery to the audience

- The angles, such as the high angle shot with Marcus would be a slight shock to the audience as they come out of nowhere and can shock the audience.

- The typical British clothing used by our actors gives them a universal appeal as they could be anywhere and anyone which would be good for increasing the realism.

(this can be seen in our anamatic with the length of shots)

- The facial expression used help the audience emphasize with our actors and actresses as they can see how they feel

- We used a crime and mystery theme to entice our audience to want to view more and see what is happening later on in the film.

- The sound we used beats along with the important moments in the film which can emphasize what is happening on screen with the actors to the audience.



The Lower Quality Camera



The High Quality Camera



White Balance





Sony Vegas Pro


















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

- We have done a better job with the camera with our framing from our original film introduction.
- Our angles and the shots we attempted to reach have been toned down as we did not have the skill to pull them off fully, as seen above with the very ambitious over the shoulder shot.
- The shot lengths have been reduced instead of our very long hallway scene with no movement.
- The continuity failure of the gun has not been repeated within the final film as we paid attention to smaller details.
- We fixed a problem with the 180 Degree rule when we had broken it so we rotated the shot to make sure that the rule was followed throughout.
- Our construction of story has improved as we no longer had to tell the audience what was happening as we could now do it with the non-dieagetic soundtrack.
- Our visual editing was better in the final production as in the preliminary we used many different software’s to make the film whereas we only used Sony Vegas Pro in the final film
- The titles that are in our final film are good and show the audience some of the future of the film and suggest possible settings.
- The duration of our shots has been fixed, as shown above we had a very long shot in our preliminary of the protagonist walking down a corridor whereas we have not done that in the final product. this is important as it is boring to have so much shown without any cuts and also breaks the tension required for a thriller.
- The various continuety errors, such as the gun, have been rectified within our final product.

Plan for the last week

• Friday 25th March - Re-filming car scene and uploading at home. Hopefully taking all our footage home for editing at home.
• Weekend 26th - 27th - Editing and sorting out the soundtrack for our film
• Monday 28th - Re-filming locker scene as it has been accidentally wiped from the camera. Starting on foley sounds Editing and soundtrack continued
• Tuesday 29th - Brendan departs to America for 8 days and carrying on with editing, soundtrack and foley sounds.
• Rest of week - Soundtrack, foley and editing completed by Thursday 31st March
• Friday 1st April - Everything put together and hand in at end of the day

Urban scene

Our train scene at the bluebell fell through because the train schedule was too scarce to fit in with our filming time. As a result we decided to film in Haywards Heath town as this would be a good contrast with our rural train scene. We went beforehand to scout out some good places for our film and though that the trainstation car park would be the perfect setting for our film as it still has the train reference and we would also be able to film it at the time that people were leaving which could explain the three people walking away. The filming went really well and we got some really good shots that we were very pleased with.

Title Research - Stephen

Se7en

• The sound is parallel to the actions that are happening and are in time with the credits.


• The titles are placed into areas that are not being used and then the shot will move to cover the text.


• The font and text flicker and distort changing constantly. As well as this it is sharp and gives the impression of a sadistic and creepy film.


• Most of the time the font is kept in a black screen to start with before changing to an actual film clip which allows the title to be read, but then makes it harder for the audience to see.

here you can see the change in distortion to legible text.

• The extracts in the background only shows either extreme close ups or distorted views of things so that we, the audience, have to keep guessing at the mystery of the bigger picture and get a full view.

• The images are parallel to the font as they both give strange and distorted views to the audience.

8 Million Ways to Die

• The titles are always across the frame and cover up what is happening in the background.



• The colours stay the same so that it is not disjointed, they also represent a law enforcement colours to help give away some of the story.

• The font looks hand-written which makes it look as though it had just been written down and then used by the law again enforcing the impression of the law.

• The way the film follows the car while giving more information helps solidify the idea that there is a large crime element to the film and that the law will be involved.

• Parallel music to match the thriller genre.

Terminator 2

Terminator 2 Opening credits

• The flames give an idea of the story and what will happen later on.

• The font matches the forcefully images and parallel sound.

• The sound enforces the metal and flame noises.

• The titles always emerge from fire, relates to the movie.

• The terminator robot emerges from the fire with the music getting louder until it clamps down.

• The titles always draw the audiences attention due to their large and controlling font.

Title's research - Brendan Oosterbaan

1st title sequence - 300 300 title sequence

• It makes you feel as if you are on the battle field as it is very 3D. 
• The comic nature of it highlights the blood and the gore and is very ironic.
• It is drawn as a comic book to set the tone of the rest of the film, very gory.
• The music matches the setting of it, greek/sparta. 
• The names of the actors also reflect the images we see e.g. we see a helmet when the actor who plays the warrior shows up
• It also makes you feel as if that level of violence is acceptable and it also shocks you for the violence later on.

2nd title sequence - Reservoir Dogs Reservoir Dogs title sequence

• Music is very up beat and contrasts with the rest of the movie which puts the  violence and meanings into perspective.
• Slow motion walk so we can see who the characters are and what they're names are.
• Does a close up of each character with their name underneath.
• Then it has the credits after the name of the film which may be because they want the audience to reflect on the conversation they just had. 

3rd title sequence - Fight Club Fight Club title sequence

• Music is pulsing which reflects the setting of inside a body
• Very futuristic, which doesn't reflect the film
• Very energetic, which does reflect the film.
• Fast paced movement to reflect the film

Title Sequences: Marcus Pellham

CASINO ROYALE:

Casino Royale Title Sequence

Above are stills from the Casino Royale title sequences. It combines enigmatic imagery [such as the gun] with abstract imagery that refer to key themes or events in the film [ie. the cards]. It also shows Bond, the protagonist, as silhouetted, creating a mysterious character to draw in the audience. Colour is also used to draw the audience's attention to key details. 

DEXTER:

This is the opening sequence to thriller series, Dexter. It uses the constant imagery of blood to highlight the murderous theme of the show, including 'blood' font. Throughout the sequence, he protagonist is seen going through his morning routine. Although the actions shown are tedious, they allow the audience to gain a glimpses of the character and begin to form their own perception on him. This is successful because it is really simple but communicates the theme with the audience.

TERMINATOR 2:

The final opening sequence is Terminator 2. It also uses imagery to develop character and narrative. The titles are shown to emerge from the flames, foreshadowing the key event in the film. A parallel soundtrack is used to build suspense during the title sequence. In addition, the font chosen is dominating and futuristic, which is important as it helps establish setting and character.

Re-shoot of police station scene

After our first take of the police station scene we decided to re-shoot it as we had access to one of the HD cameras plus we had a problem with continuity of the protagonists clothes and the time of day. Also, the time of day had filmed it at made it so that there was a lot of traffic n the road which was distracting in our shot, we solved the time of day problem plus the traffic problem by going back later to re-shoot the scene.

The Problems We Have Encountered 2

• After our problem with the bluebell railway train scene we decided to re-locate to Haywards Heath train station for ease of access and hopefully we would have less problems with them than we did at Bluebell. 
• We also thought that it would be good to have a contrast with the rural church scene. However when we tried to film there the company that worked there were fairly hostile and threatened us with police intervention. Our solution is to re-locate to another urban setting e.g town centre
• Our second problem was with the car scene was that we did not film it at the right time of day. We were really pleased the way the shots turned out just the lighting so we me will have to re-shoot it.
• Our third problem was that we could not get a camera out till 5 days after we wanted it. This gave us a very short time to fit in all our filming. We had to have the camera for three days and shoot every day. 
• We had also planned to do the bonfire scene on a certain day but we had to change it because of the camera being booked out. This meant we had to reschedule to a different date which was a problem for some of the extras we had planned to use. This meant we had to rely on Rory in our group to provide extras from the village we were shooting as he lives there. Luckily he managed to get enough extras for our scene and managed to get everything done that night we wanted to.