Before starting this project we had learnt the conventions of a thriller film for example sound and editing. We knew it was important we showed the conventions otherwise we would not attract any audience and our film would not be successful. The thriller we made shows gang warfare and crime conventions and the antagonist opposing against the protagonist. However we believe we have also challenged and developed some conventions to make sure our final product would be unique.
Used
Another convention we used was a psychological convention of the character waking up and all the previous scene had been a dream. This is a very popular idea as it is seen in many films. In our thriller film these dreams or nightmares as they could be turn into reality and the character ends up trying to escape from his own dreams. We relate to the audience here because the audience fear this and would not want it to happen to them. An example of a thriller film that shows this idea is Inception. They make it so the antagonist cannot escape from his dreams and it becomes reality. The dream sequence is shown at the end of our opening, the character is hit by a baseball bat we make the audience think that it should be the victim of this assault waking up from the dream when intact it is the antagonist who committed the crime, this makes the audience intrigued once again.Developed
We also develop some of the conventions of a thriller film. A convention we develop is music we feel the music and sound was very important as it helps build tension. We decided to use Drum and Bass as we felt it would be suitable as the opening involved action and was very fast paced. If we had a slower scene then drum and bass would have been very unsuitable and the audience would dislkike it. We developed the music because instead of just stopping the music when he takes the headphones out we fade it and make the sound heard from just outside the headphones. When he puts the headphones back in we make it feel like you can hear the sound as if you had the headphones plugged in. A film that does this really well is Attack the Block. They match sound with screen play as he takes out his headphones individually to answer his phone.
Another convention we developed in the opening sequence of the our media product was the Mise En Scene. Normally in a thriller you would expect people in suits chasing a character through a busy city as showed in inception. We decided it would be good if we made the men in suits be running through a forest. We did this to build a sense of mystery and make the audience raise questions. We developed a normal scenario of a thriller film by flipping it and making the audience realise the men were in suits. We found from our research and planning that in Inception this happens and we thought we should be a bit more exciting and try and draw the audience in a bit more by adding a sense of unexplained mystery.
Challenged
We also thought we should show creativity and imagination by going against some normal conventions of a thriller film. A way in which we did this was by changing the title credit. From the research and planning we found that almost all thriller films the companies involved would be shown first followed by the title of the film, then credits for the actors, cast and crew. Although this does seem to be sucesful we decided to go against
convention is by adding in action in from the start of the film, this would not be done right at the beginning because as you could say our thriller is more a psychological thriller. Another film that does the same as this is James Bond: Casino Royale. It starts off with a fast tempo to instantly make the scene more exhilarating. By using a chase scene we drag in the audience because they want to know what happens next. We then getting into the proper psychological story when the antagonist wakes up from the action based dream.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
We decided to lay this question out in a Wikipedia format we thought this would be a good idea because it will differentiate our product. It shows that our media institution does not lack imagination and we have creativity shown without our coursework. Below is the link to our wiki-spaces page.
http://nfgsmedia.wikispaces.com/Andromeda
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The ideal audience member of our film would be very different from other genres such as romance. For example they would be of different age, different hobbies and different beliefs and values.
AgeThe age of our ideal audience member would be between 15-25 years old. We thought because our film is quite exciting and intriguing it would much rather suit the younger generation than the older generation. Elder people may find watching this film uncomfortable as they would not have the same interest as our ideal audience member.
Gender
The ideal audience member would be a male this is because they would be more interested in the content in the film than females. However there would be a proportion of female audience as our film will be interesting as links to true stories.
Class
The class of our ideal audience member would be middle/lower class however they will aspire to the middle/higher characters in the film. Many people will give our ideal audience member a certain stereotype because of their class, gender and age. our ideal audience member may have committed a few petty crimes in his life but this could be because of his tough upbringing.
LocationThe location of the ideal audience member would be in the suburbs of London although he would much prefer to live in a richer part of London. He has recently moved into his own apartment without his parents. He sees drug deals around his area very regularly however there is often police paroling this rough area.
Interest, hobbies and pastimes
The ideal audience member goes to a mediocre college within London however he is failing all of his subjects but normally somehow gets good results. He is interested in violence and crime and wants to live up to what he sees in films. He's also interested in money, music, games, clothes and cars. His favourite music genres are rap and drum and bass. He goes out a lot with his mates and is very interested in girls. He also enjoys watching and playing sports such as football.
Appearance
The ideal audience member of our film is very wary of his appearance and likes to have a good image he spends a lot of money on top designer clothes.
Money
He finds it hard to hold down a good job but he has had one is the past. He spends most of his money on his car the he very much values. He enjoys often purchasing clothes and spends money on drink and illegal substances.
Beliefs and values
The ideal audience member is an atheist and thinks he can do what he wants when he wants, he often abuses the law. He values respect from his family and close friends.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
See annotations on our final product to see how we attracted our audience.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Now I am finished the final product I am able to evaluate the final product and how various technologies had helped us along the way. During the research and the making of the product i used many software programs that i would not have been able to use without the Apple iMac. We also would not have been able to produce as good quality without the HD cameras we used.
Final cut express
Before we started i really was confident on using Final cut express however it was a program that we need to use to edit the footage we had recorded. However soon after we had been taught the basics for the preliminary task I felt I had picked it up well. I was able to play around and manipulate clips. I learnt how to use techniques by looking at tutorials on Google and YouTube for example i know how to put in cross fades and change the audio. Consequently after using this software on a regular basis I am now able to add effects and transitions and trim and audio video. Without Final cut express we would not have been able to produce a product that easily.
Blogger
with other people in my group.
Before starting the project i was aware of photo shop but had only used it a couple of times for old graphics work. However it is incredibly easy to use as all the tools are labelled for instance you can upload a picture from the internet and edit the colors and add special fonts. It helped us to create our group production companies logos which made our final piece have a professional look. I am now confident of using Photoshop by myself and feel that i would be able to create many more logos.
Another technology that helped us extremely well along the way was YouTube. YouTube is known worldwide and a large percentage of people know how to use it. I already had a lot of experience and background knowledge with YouTube, I already knew how to add annotations to my videos, trim video times and embed YouTube videos. Without YouTube we would have not been able to publish our product get back as much feedback which would have consequently meant our product would not have been as good. It would have also effected the amount of research and planning as I did a lot of research via YouTube for example looking at the opening thriller fonts of Se7en and The Dark Knight.
Another technology used during the process of constructing our product was Prezzi. Prezzi is a presentation software website which makes it easy for the reader to pick out key information. Before the project i had never heard of Prezzi, it took me a bit of time to get used to and at first i thought it was a bit pointless but after constructing a few presentations i thought it was very useful and was different from just writing it up in essay format all the time. After this project i am now able to use Prezzi very well and make presentations with ease I feel it is a good idea because it is less boring and can be read by any audience.
Along with other social networking sites such as Twitter, Tumblr and Myspace we used Facebook in the process of constructing our media product. I already knew how to use Facebook as I use it on a regular basis to keep in contact with friends, I didn't really learn anything new although i was able to create a group with just the people in my media project. Facebook benefited our group as it helped us have joint discussions and live meeting over the internet. It was really useful as it let us update each other on what was happening if one another wasn't present in the group meeting for instance filming schedule.
Freeplay music is a another technology that helped us during the construction of our product. It saved a lot of hassle during the editing as we could look on this website for non copyright music therefore we did not have to waste time getting permission from the author. It took us a lot of time on deciding which music we wanted but once we had decided it was easy to add to Final cut. I had no previous experience with this website but i found it by just typing in "non copyright music" in Google. It was very easy to use as it had clear instructions.
During the process of constructing our product we also used offline technologies such as Apples iMac. Without this piece of technology we would not have been able to produce our product. The apple iMac was essential to the success of our product, it is very practical as it has good operating software. It has good features that differentiate itself from other computers. We would not have been able to use any of the editing software we used without the iMac.
Before the project I had very limited knowledge of the Apple iMac. I now feel a lot more confident but only in a few more areas I would be more than happy to use this piece of technology a lot more now and would be very interested improving my skills on it.
Another piece of technology I will be talking about it the camera and tripod used during the filming of the product. We would not have been able to complete the task without these very essential pieces of equipment. The camera we used was a Panasonic HD i had never used this before however it was very easy to get to grips with and we were able to film easily. It was easy to use because you only had to press one button to capture, zoom and pause. The high definition filming standard was of excellent quality and was very effective and beneficial as it gave our production a professional look.
Tripod
The final piece of technology that was used during the process of constructing the product was the tripod. This helped so much as it meant we could steady our shots, without out this piece of vital equipment our production would have looked very poor and tacky. The tripod also helped us learn from our mistakes of the preliminary task. I had used a tripod before and knew how to set it up as is very easy to do so. The tripod was very beneficial and was used in the majority of the shots taken.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
We added annotations to our preliminary task which we filmed back in November, these annotations were able to remind of us what the bad and good points were consequently this would enable us to make sure we didn't make any mistakes in the final product below is the preliminary task with evaluated and analysed with YouTube tags.
After editing the footage we had taken, we decided as a group to put it together and make a rough cut to get feedback from our classmates and teachers. We decided to upload it onto YouTube to see what our target audience thought of it. We collected positive and negative feedback which was both very good so we could improve it accordingly. The video below shows our rough cut.
The video below shows our final piece and how our group learnt from the mistakes of the preliminary and the rough cut. They enabled us to improve filming and editing techniques.
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