Evaluation

Evaluation

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

Our brief was to create a two minute film opening in the style of a film noir so to do this I studied what the conventions that a film noirs process and how film openings work. I found out that films openings are used to draw in and capture the audience to make them want to watch the rest of the film I watched Se7en 1995 Dirc. David Fincher and this film uses enigmas very well to hook the audience so I decided to put this in to my opening, I kept “The Boss” characters face hidden so that the audience want to find out more about him and then I also used the flashbacks to establish the relationships between “Johnny”, “Rebecca” and “The Boss” but I chose not to explain them fully so the audience wants to find out more about what is going on. To research film noir I watched Double Indemnity 1994 Dirc. Billy Wilder, from the research I did on film noir I found that there and many characteristic that appear in most film noirs such as the Venetian blind effect, Flashbacks, Low Key lighting, Voiceovers and the typical noir characters which consist of the femme fatale and the fall guy. In my opening sequence I used many of these conventions such as Low key lighting, I used this to create shadows and keep the scenes with “Johnny” and “The Boss” dark and mysterious. I used a lot of different camera positions to help create a warp sense of prospective, to also confuse the audience I used a disjoint voiceover which doesn’t always match what is going on in the scene this helps to create “Johnny’s” sense of confusion and helps to distance the audience from “The Boss” character. Our characters are very typical of film noir as we have a femme fatale but we played on the typical portrayal of a femme fatale by giving her more casual clothing but we gave her the femme fatale attitude. We also have “Johnny” which is our protagonist, fall guy type character who gets himself into trouble trying to win “Rebecca” and trying to find out the truth this idea came from a film I watched called Brick 2005 Dirc. Rian Johnson. Our narrative is very typical of film noir as it is about the struggle “Johnny” has to gain “Rebecca’s” love and find out the truth and get her out of the mess she is in with “The Boss”. We chose our music because it added drama and emotion to our piece and wasn’t typical of a film noir but it worked very well. We edited our piece to fit with our music and when the flashbacks were happening the music became more dramatic this add emotion. I feel that the titles we used put a modern spin on typical film titles so over all I think we did use and challenge the forms and conventions of film noir.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our opening sequence contains all the typical characters in a film noir, We have the fall guy/ protagonist character who is represented as weakened around the femme fatale character and he gets himself into mess without meaning to and we use close ups and flashbacks to emphasise his vulnerability and that fact he is laying the foetal position on the floor also emphasises this. Our femme fatale isn’t a typical film noir type femme fatale as she isn’t dressed up to the nines but she does have the femme fatale attitude which you can see in the over the shoulder shot in the flashback sequence when she gives the “Johnny” character a seductive look over her shoulder. Our piece also represents teenagers and students as our piece is set in a school and the Mise-en-scene we used help to create the representation of teenagers, we used a bike shed for on location which shows that the characters are young and at a school which is very much like the film “Brick” which I mentioned earlier. Our “Boss” character is more stylistic that our other characters as you don’t get many people like that in everyday life but our the other characters are more realistic. Our representation of 18-25 year olds isn’t accurate to everyday life as not all teenagers are in to drugs and guns and don’t go around acting like gangsters but we had to use these ideas to help create a noir feel.

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

A smaller independent film company is most likely to distribute my product such as optimum releasing or metro tartan as my film is low budget film with more of a niche audience. It is also likely that my film would have a platform release at a few cinemas then would rely on word of mouth to get popular. My film is likely to get an audience at film festivals such as Raindance and Art house cinemas because it is smaller indie film and its needs to work up and audience and gain popularity. As our film is aimed at a young audience I would think that the TV channels most likely to show our film are channels such as FilmFour and BBC3 in the evening slot.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The typical audience for my film I think would be males aimed around 15-25 as it has a sensual woman and thrillerish tendencies which are more associated with a male audience but females may be attracted to the love story element of my sequence, I think that mainly lower to middle class people will be more likely to watch my films and from VALS (values, attitudes and lifestyles) think that experiencers and strivers are most likely to watch and enjoy my film. Our audience will be an active audience and are likely to use our film as a diversion to escape from their everyday life or they may use our film to connect with other people and use it to connect with people (social coinage) I think the BBFC will classify my film as a 15 as it only contains a few uses of demotic language and as it is context a 15 rating would be applicable, with this rating it opens up a whole three more years of audience compared to if it was rated at an 18.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience by using young talent and using costumes to make the characters appeal to a teenage audience. We set our story in a college and used an actual college for our location this will also attract an audience. Our music is a relatively unknown piece of music so this is unlikely to attract an audience, our edit pace is medium pace apart from the flashbacks which are quite fast paced this give the audience a chance to appreciate what is going on. Our storyline is quite contemporary and we used a modern font style for the titles. Another device we used to create audience pleasure is enigma as it will entice the audience to keep watching. The audience will get emotional and intellectual pleasures from watching my sequence because it offers a puzzle and sense of enigma but it also plays on the audience’s emotions. Our film will be aimed at more of a niche audience who are looking to watch the film because of its genre and the noir characteristics and stylistics we used will attract a younger audience I know this because when I screened my opening sequence to my class everybody enjoyed the narrative and the shots we used. People especially said they liked our characters and our use of flashbacks and how the voiceover was disjointed, they also commented on how they could relate to our characters even the situation doesn’t occur in everyday life.


What have you learnt about technologies from the process of making this product?

In the research stage I used websites such as Wikipedia and YouTube I also did my blog on blogger.com, I used the BBFC website to gain knowledge of the rating system. In the planning stage I used a PC and Adobe Premier Pro along with paint to create my animatic and windows media and the internet to find my music; this has helped my research skills.
When I filmed my opening sequence I used a Canon HV30 DV camcorder, a Yoga shotgun microphone and boom pole and a Velbon DV-700 tri-pod we also used a 300W light to create our low key lighting and a Jib-Arm to create a bird view opening shot then after editing on Adobe Premier Pro we had to learn how to compress our file to make them easier to upload onto our blogs. I have also learnt how to edit film and how editing works to create a smooth finish, I also learnt how to fit a piece of music onto my opening sequence and how to record a voiceover.
From using all this technologies I learnt how cameras function and work, I also learnt how focus the camera and use different pieces of equipment to create different effects.

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

I have most defiantly improved my technical skill since my preliminary exercise, I have improved on my rule of thirds and match on action, I am also much better at using a camera before my shots were shaky and distorted and now they are clean and precise. As the producer I did a lot of pre-planning work such as location finder’s checklist and risk evaluations and this has helped me to be organised and manage my time. My analytical skills have improved and I can now easily recognise conventions and how ECMS is used in creating a film. I have learnt that planning really helps your shoot go smoothly and that if you do all the pre-production work you can just get on with your shoot. I was surprised about the amount of work that goes into making a short opening sequence. In our final project we had to overcome a lot of problems such as one of our members leaving our group and me and Kamal having to work as a group of two and having four people work to do. The exchange project I did was the second practice piece I did and I learnt a lot about how characters work and that handles are need on all the shots you get because otherwise editing becomes very difficult. I have also learnt how RAILING and ECMS work to create a certain feel on screen, the second project I did which is called “The Exchange” helped me to in preparation for my film noir as I chose to practice recreating the film noir style, that piece was very stylised and this help me to decide I wanted a more realistic feel on my final project. My knowledge of the film noir genre is greater than what is was at the start of my course as I know all the conventions and character types behind a film noir.

The Long Run- Final Cut

Obtaining rights to our music -PRS

To get clearance for our piece of music we had to visit the PRS website and fill out an application, we have to do this because we are using a piece of music that has royalties and therefore you need to pay to use the music.

This is and example of the form your have to fill in:
Film Title- The Long Run

Brief Synopsis - Johnny struggles with being a teenager falling in love and dangerous encounters with the boss

Context of music use - As background music at the start of the film

Actors involved - Conna Cook, Nicola Wright and Chris Rathbone

Overall budget - £10

Territory of exploitation - worldwide

Rights required - Cinema, DVD and TV

License term - In perpetuity

Music Title - Somnus

Artist- Yoko Shimomura

Writer - Yoko Shimomura

Duration of music - 3Min's

this form is then sent of and PRS talk to the artist and decide of a cost for us to use their music.

What happend during editing

After we had finished filming we used Adobe Premier Pro editing software to edit our piece together first we logged our footage into a logging sheet we did this so we knew where the bits of footage we wanted to use where on the tape. we then used our logging sheet to find the exact pieces of footage we need and capture them to the computer.
we then put the footage into the order we wanted and added the voice over this was difficult as our voice over didn't quite match the action but we used this to our advantage and created a disjointed voice over which helps to distance the "Boss" character for the audience. we also chose to use dissolve transitions to make the move form shot to shot smooth. we then added our music and moved the voice over around to fit with then music and then we finished editing.

What happened during shooting

Our crew met at the studio at college and them we set up our equipment, then as art director make sure our talents costumes were perfect and i also did the make up for Conna who is playing Johnny. Then we set up our lighting, we used one lamp to gain a shadowy low lit effect. after we had filmed in the studio we when to Kamal's house and filmed the scenes with "Johnny" in bed and him embracing with "Rebecca" we decided to use natural lighting to add realism to our piece. we then filmed at the bike shed at college.

overall our shoot when well with no hiccups.

Animatic

Group Meetings

After Nick left me and Kamal were left to make some important decisions.
After the synopsis was finished we had to finalise our characters, decide on a title, costumes, props and how it would look on-screen.

We did a storyboard which was then turned into an animatic which i will post later,
then as i am in charge of mise-en-scene i decided on costumes i wanted to show the difference in personality between the boss and Johnny to do this i chose for the boss to be wearing dark clothes and for Johnny to be wearing light clothes. we also decided that we need a gun, rope to tie Johnny up and make up for the bruising and cuts on Johnny's face.

Kamal then chose music which we then argued over as i didnt feel that the music would fit with our piece but then when the animatic was done kamal put his music chose over the top and it worked very well so we settled on music.

We also had to chose location. we both agreed that we needed somewhere where the lighting could be controlled, this is when our teacher mention that the filming studio would be available to us. so we decided to use this location for the scenes of Johnny and The Boss and then use outside locations for the other scenes. We decided on the college bikeshed, Kamals bedroom and lastly Kamals hallway for the flash backs and bed scene. As producer i then did the paper work for each location including; Location Finders Checklist, Rick Evauation and Risk Assesment sheets

after all of these descisions we felt ready to shoot.