Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our opening to a film uses conventions of real media products. It uses a variety of shooting techniques such as tracking shots and over the shoulder shots when in dialogue. We used a conventional 'police investigation' sort of plot, and built up a rough opening to a storyline.
We also edited in parts so it cut to flashbacks of what happened prior to our film opening, to help develop and build up the story. This is also very conventional of this genre, i have seen it used quite often to show the viewers about what happened, and to let them figure it out themselves.
Real media products will probably always have credits at the beginning, so that was also something we almost had to include at the beginning.


How does your media product represent particular social groups?
We tried to make all characters involved fit their part by what they are wearing, how they act and what they say.
The police characters in our film opening, we tried to represent as middle class, quite highly paid people. We did this by wearing things like suits and shirts, to show they must be wealthy, and by also showing them working in what looks like a forensic type lab.
The dead body was also dressed in very casual clothing, with things like a leather jacket and jeans, which made him look quite rough, and not particularly wealthy. This makes it look like not such a surprise that he is involved in criminal activity.
The people working in the lab talk about the case as if they are very professional, and know a lot about what they are doing. This makes them fit into the correct social group, that we were trying fit them into.


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




Who would be the audience for your media product?


How did you attract/address your audience?


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


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

Script Layout

This is a layout of a script. This is the layout we are going to do for ours.

This is also the first part of our script and dialogue.

This is an example of another layout of script we could of used:

Route

We had to find our way to Tims house, as that as is where we have decided to do the filming.
I used Google Maps, to show me the way from my house to tims house:

First Initial brainstorm

This brainstorm is the first done, and gave us some rough ideas of genres, setting, storyline and characters we might use in our filming.

E-mails

From: ThwaitesJ
Sent: 18 November 2010 13:46
To: HallsT; SavillJ
Subject: Planning Stages

Hello collaborators,

Just thought I'd clarify that I'll be writing the script for the movie, seeing as we agreed that I'm the best suited for the job. Shall we have Jordan doing the storyboard as planned?

From: Hallst

That seems fair, we already have Jordan writing the storyboard, with you writing the script, that leaves me with the flowchart, I have already done a quick draft which will give us some rough ideas however, ill expand on it soon.

From: Me

Yes, that is fine. I have previously done storyboards in other subjects, and I am willing to create one.

From: Thwaitesj

We discussed earlier that we would use Tim's house for filming the victims house for the movie. Is this final? Also, do we have any ideas for where to film the opening office scene?

Audience Research

There are many types of audiences that you can aim, especially within the film part of the media. There are many different age groups, different parts of the media, and the audience largely depends on the genre of the film. One genre will also appeal to variety of audiences as most people don't just watch genre. This is why most films try and fit into more than one genre - to appeal to as many people as they can.
We are going to try and aim at an audience of the ages between teen and adult, as there is a sort of cross over there, with the type of film that will appeal to them. We have a huge advantage, as we are in this age group, so will we will know what appeals to us. A disadvantage is that is far more complicated trying to ceate a good film clip to this age group than making one for a younger age group.
If we were to target people of an older age group we would probably use something like a romance type film. I do not think this would be appropiate. If we were to do something for the younger age group, it would become tedious and far too silly and inappropiate.
According to the UK box office, 2 of the top 5 films at the moment are horror/thriller films, 1 is a childrens film, 1 is a comedy and the last is a drama history. This gives some kind of insication as to what to films are most popular at the moment, to all audiences.
 We have therefore chosen to target between the ages of teen to adult (13-30). We are doing to do a police/crime genre, as we think this would appeal to this age group. We also want to add a 'mysterious' aspect to it, as it is only opening and therefore short, it would make it interesting and get them thinking, which we think they would also enjoy. An example would be a strange death.

Product research

I watched the opening clip of the film 'Saw' to see how they went about showing the opening scene. I thought it would interesting to see how a 'thriller' type film would begin.
I found it quite useful in that it taught me that you only get a vague idea of what it is about from the opening sequence, most of it is up to the viewers imagination from what they can see.
I also noticed that it also flashed between the opening credits and parts of the clip, which i thought was quite effective.
I would discard the soundtrack as it was quite depressing and include something more 'adventerous' to make it more appealing. Although a depressing soundtrack fits into forms and conventions of the 'thriller' genre, for the opening sequence i think it would be more appropriate to catch the viewers attention.
Unfortunately if we was to make our film opening fit into the 'thriller' genre we wouldn't be able to do hardly any of the SFX needed to give it any kind of the same effect as 'Saw'.

Link to opening of Saw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opz1kxZSk10

I also watched a fight scene from a jackie chan film 'Rush Hour 2' to see how we would go about doing a fight scene if we was going to do one and if it would be appropiate. It starts off with a long build up to the actual fighting, this builds up the suspense, but they also make it quite obvious that a fight scene is about to start, because of the way they build it up. I think it is quite good and if were to do a fight scene, i would take that approach into consideration.
They begin the scene with a close up followed by a tracking shot, this helps to set what is happening, build it up and begin the fight scene.
There is no soundtrack to this particular fight scene, but after watching a few from other films, most of them tend to use music and i think it has a far greater effect with music. They use a lot of fake punches and the noise made when they punch is non-diegetic sound, and if we were to film a fight scene we would have to do something similar.
During the fight scene, there is a lot of editing. They use a lot of quick cuts to seem more fast paced. They also use a mixture of close ups and long shots so the audience can see what is going on as well as character expressions. They ignore the 180 degree rule to make it seem more 'hectic', which is quite effective in fight scenes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9PWjpngkTA

I wanted to look at a sort of a crime/mystery film so i watched some clips from 'Inside Man'. I liked the idea of to keep the audience guessing as to what could happen and them wanting to know what happened and how they did it.
It was good in the way they did, because yoy don't really know what happens until the end of the film, in which the people who broke into the bank (who we know nothing about) make off with all the 'goods' without actually leaving the building. I like the idea of a clever 'catch' to a film, and i think it works especially well in this genre.
These type of films are generally quite slow paced and long winded and as we only have to do an opening scene, it would be hard to make this as affective, and a lot would have to happen in a short space of time, meaning ours would have to be of a faster pace. To do this we could bring in some action or comedy to make it more exciting.
It is also very clever in that in parts throughout the film, they switch to after it happened and show the interviews with all the people in the bank, and again it gets the audience thinking and gives them clues.
The soundtrack to this film is also very clever. It adds more of a mysterious edge to it, as it doesn't really make any relevance to the type of film it is, as the music is quite 'bouncy' and sort of mysterious.
The editing, as you would expect is very basic in the sort of film. They use a lot of tracking shots at the beginning, in which you see the main protagonist walk into the building. which i think is quite affective in opening a film and helping the audience to identify who the main protagonists are.

This link is a trailer for 'Inside Man', which i think sort of shows a bit everything i have just explained: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLxVTyFfQos