Evaluation
1. In what ways does
your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
In my film “Death’s Promise”
I used the conventional atmospheric, dark and intense music for my thriller
opening because straight off the mark because I wanted to make the impression
to further audiences to guess what my media products genre is, which hopefully
the audiences will succeed, the website I chose to use to be able to have the
appropriate music is called ‘Incompetech’
and also I used a panicky, uplifting, high tempo incidental music to emphasize
the chase scene. In my thriller I used the music from the website Incompetech
to match when intense parts of my media product are coming up, for example when
the protagonist looks at the antagonist on the bridge the music is high in
tempo to match the action going on. As well as audio music I have used fonts from
a website called ‘dafont.com’ to
create the titles that are incorporated at the start of the opening, with this
choice I have tried to reflect the genre like other real productions such as
Se7en, Psycho, etc. Within the editing of my opening I have mostly used the
‘dip to black’ because it makes the audience wonder what’s going to happen
next.
A
lso in my original filming the way I planned it was very long so the use
of dissolves was used to show a passage of time to create awareness of the
protagonist’s whereabouts. During my editing I used the video effects of
adjust->levels, with levels I am able to change the scene/environment with indicators
of black, white, etc. I chose to differ the colour change in levels to a kind
of the night vision look and I think it looks affective rather than have just
having the original filming colour. My
thriller develops the genre by combining it with the horror genre, by having conventions
that belong in both genres; I incorporated a horror themed character because in
thrillers you don’t usually see ghostly/ mysterious figures it’s more of action
killers so I thought to bring it in to make it more intensive and uplifting. In
my thriller I have incorporated the credits during the opening scenes of the
film just like other thrillers such as Memento.
2. How does your
media product represent particular social groups?
For my media product, the
social group of the protagonist is represented as a young teenage boy which is
conventional in such thriller genres along with young teenage girl because they
are seen to be very easy to scare which is popular within the media industry,
such a film that contain this is “The Host” by Andrew Niccol.
Whereas the antagonist
social group is represented as more of a gothic figure who comes from the
depths of darkness which is the convention of a standard mysterious figure who doesn't appear as a threat until critical moments because they are meant to
seem scary within productions.
3. What kind of
media institution might distribute your media product and why?
In my research into
different media production companies I have come with the solution that I would
think that the company called ‘Goldcrest Films’ which is a somewhat known UK
filming company who produced such films as Private Peaceful and Dark Horse
could may be distribute my media product. I chose this institution because it
is very local to wear I live in thought that I don’t need to travel a great
distance to go and promote it to their directors, etc and it has distributed
other thrillers before, such as Black Rainbow and Enigma, which means that they
might be able to produce it to whether they like it. Goldcrest films have made
a mixture of big budget ventures and much smaller independent films so my film
could go either way depending on whether they think it would be a big seller or
not, preferably I’d would think my media product would be a small independent
film because it isn’t as intensive or eerie enough as other thrillers that have
been produced so it would be like some sort of test to see if anyone would come
to watch it, that way the film company hasn’t spent lots of money to make it
and not make any gross profit and also if it does sell much more than expected
then they could develop a sequel that will make more profit next time.
4. Who would be the
audience for your media product?
In my opinion, my media product isn’t aimed at a
specific audience but in general the ideal audience would be between the years
of teen to adult because then they can give the best reactions to films,
preferably I would want the cinematic rating to be a 15. If they were to be
infants or young children they can get scared very easily and it is a rarity
that your see elderly people going to the cinema to watch thriller/ horror
genre films these days. Any
ethnic group could come and see my media product unless their beliefs would
stop them from coming to view it, so if they don’t believe in the thought of a
lot of violence/death then they wouldn’t need to bother coming, which would
then link to the fact that any social group can come to the viewing because if
anyone was to be interested in the look of the product I wouldn’t really mind.
5.
How
did you attract/address your audience?
I’d
like to think audiences have been attracted to my media production. I have
tried to attract my audience by the ways I’ve thought about the storyline,
titles, music and characters in my opening. Attaction to the storyline was the
main focus because it is usually the most significant factor about a film, so I
chose to create the basic summary of a teenage boy being watched by a
mysterious figure which then converts into a chase scene, also by the way I
have do it creates questions and thoughts to what this boy has done in his past
life to anger this figure, which I chose to hint through the titles name
‘Death’s Promise’. With this name I wanted to give these questions and thoughts
a bit more depth for the audience predict their own reasons to why the figure
is angry, the titles consist with the font called “Face Your Fears” by David
Kerkhoff (http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=110) it ressembles the conventions of
horror and thriller into the one font which I liked the look of. With the audio/nondiegetic/incidental
music I wanted to add to the suspense through the film by rearing the music to pick
up on tempo and dynamics when the significant parts of my production were
coming up, for example when the protagonist see’s the antoganonist on the
bridge the tempo begins to get faster and the dynamics become louder in
relativity to the moment at hand. In terms to marketing/advertising my product
in and out of cinemas I will look at other company ideas and convert them into
one brand new idea of my own. One ouside cinema advertisement/marketing that I
have heard of is a Resident Evil game where they only included a bath or an
other object full of blood then over time they included more and more imagery/
text until their audiences finally got the notification to what they were
trying to promote, I
found
thought that idea very effective because it made people think and if the images
were good enough I made them want to know even more abput these strange
advertisements. But to promote my media product inside cinemas would be quite
straight forward, I would incorporate images and quotes on packaging of food
and drink so when people come to buy sweets and pop to watch the movies they
come to see the newly promoted film will be right in their hands which they
would only have to look at, E.g the drink cup promotes The Croods. Also I would
think about using a teaser trailer to give people hints that the film would be
coming out because that is the most popular way of gaining new audiences
because I’d say nearly everyone watches television. Another idea I could upload
my media products video onto Facebook
or Twitter then my friends will be able
to see it then they would pass on the news of the promoting films.
6.
What
have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this
product?
Within the process of constructing my media product I have
learnt about and used a lot of significant technologies. One of the
technologies which I needed the most was the Sony HD Cameras I used to record
the footage, whilst using this camera I had to learn about specific buttons
which were critical for this project like the record button. At the start I
felt it was difficult to work the video camera because hadn’t used it since I
did the preliminary task but after a bit of time the knowledge on how to use it
came back to me. On the camera their was a button which allowed you to zoom in
and out on a scene, which I used quite a lot, to enable to see in on details
that you want in filming. Another important bit of this project was the
blogspot accounts we had to sign up for, with these blogs we had to upload all
kinds of things for us to understand how production companies work and do what
they do to make good films also they will become revision material for exams.
We had to learn how to upload work, images and videos to accompany work for the
project, e.g. we had to analyse camera angles, mise en scene, editing and sound
in opening sequences of one thriller, horror, rom-com film then include the
video to show what we analysed; we went onto youtube, loated the correct video
then we saved the video as a j-peg and inserted into the work submited on the
blog. To insert images and work was very simple because all we had to do was
compy and paste them into newly created posts but some images we also had to
save them and then include them as a j-peg aswell. These blogs needed to be updated
frequently to ensure work was done and that the subject teachers can comment on
our progress and to tell us whether we need to develop work. Another thing I had to learn about the Apple iMac’s and
the software called Adobe Premiere
which
is the site we used to put our recored footage onto to process the film and
edit it. The Mac was quite easy to use and straight forward because it was like
using an ordinary laptop but there were some buttons that were tricky like
logging off we had to click an apple shaped icon at the top left. Whereas Adobe
premiere was okay because I only breifly used it during the preliminary task
and it took some time to get to grips with it, we first had to upload the
filming into a folder named raw footage which we then had to copy and paste the
correct videos into the software, from this point it was just choosing the
appropriate footage to put onto the film real. I had to learn about the video
transitions/ effects, audio transitions/effects and the opacity, etc, with the
audio and video transitions/effects I could determine when I wanted the music
to change into different music or change from scene to scene, e.g. I used dip
to black to symbolise passages of time. Finally I used websites on the internet
to incorporate music and other things such as fonts, I used two websites
inparticular Dafonts.com and Incompetech; these were where I got my chosen
titles and the chosen audio. I learnt how to save/ download them then use
something called import to allow the things downloaded to be used in the
production.
7.
Looking
back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
The preliminary task was very interesting in my opinion
because it consisted of the skills that real film production institutions use
to create their masterpieces and to learn what they do to come up with the nice
shots they make. In this task we had to
specifically learn about working as a group (little production team), operating
video cameras and filming sequences thinking about match on action and the
180-degree rule. Working as a group I have learn’t that people have different
strengths and weaknesses, like in production institiutions the workers have
their specifically chosen jobs because that is their specialitity, e.g. film
crews know how to operate the huge camera’s they use and how they work whereas
sound crews know how to use the audio technology works. So people in my group
had different abilities like for me I
found working with the camera is a lot
easier than using the macs where someone else knew more about operating the macs
than filming. I found operating the video cameras relatively because at home I
know how to use our own which assisted me with the significant skills I needed
to be able to work quickly and carefully. The camera had different buttons which
did different jobs so there was one which had a red dot on the top symbolising
the record button, another button I had to move light to right to be able get
close ups and longshots. Also with the camera we had to learn about the
different angles and shots we could
incorporate which meant we were really only had to maneuver the camera to get
them. The record and zoom buttons were the main two we used to get the footage
because really we used the macs to get other effects. With filming the
sequences we had to focus on the 180 degree rule and match on action shots,
match on action is where the camera focuses on an object from two different
angles and the 180 degree rule is where you imagine a lin splitting a scene and
you can only film at 180 degrees in that area- going over the limit is called
crossing the line, I have learn’t these rules to ensure I can make a good
production.
.jpg/215px-Psycho_(1960).jpg)
Within the process of constructing my media product I have
learnt about and used a lot of significant technologies. One of the
technologies which I needed the most was the Sony HD Cameras I used to record
the footage, whilst using this camera I had to learn about specific buttons
which were critical for this project like the record button. At the start I
felt it was difficult to work the video camera because hadn’t used it since I
did the preliminary task but after a bit of time the knowledge on how to use it
came back to me. On the camera their was a button which allowed you to zoom in
and out on a scene, which I used quite a lot, to enable to see in on details
that you want in filming. Another important bit of this project was the
blogspot accounts we had to sign up for, with these blogs we had to upload all
kinds of things for us to understand how production companies work and do what
they do to make good films also they will become revision material for exams.
We had to learn how to upload work, images and videos to accompany work for the
project, e.g. we had to analyse camera angles, mise en scene, editing and sound
in opening sequences of one thriller, horror, rom-com film then include the
video to show what we analysed; we went onto youtube, loated the correct video
then we saved the video as a j-peg and inserted into the work submited on the
blog. To insert images and work was very simple because all we had to do was
compy and paste them into newly created posts but some images we also had to
save them and then include them as a j-peg aswell. These blogs needed to be updated
frequently to ensure work was done and that the subject teachers can comment on
our progress and to tell us whether we need to develop work. Another thing I had to learn about the Apple iMac’s and
the software called Adobe Premiere 