Our thriller opening has been uploaded onto YouTube allowing people to see the first two minutes and hopefully will attract my audience to want to see more. Our target audience ranges from 16-24 year olds, which most use the Internet quite a lot and also can be accessed through mobile phones. YouTube is a well known site especially for teenagers because it allows them to view trailers, music videos and video clips for free and easily YouTube being free is a bonus as not many 16-24 year olds would pay to watch our two minute clip. YouTube also allows people to comment/like clips, it also shows how many times the clip has been viewed, so we can see if our thriller would appeal to many people, then we can decide how to distribute our film further. Also YouTube allows embedded codes so can also be posted onto other social network sites. Therefore this would be good way to distribute my thriller film. On social network sites if there is an advertisement for our thriller it gives the chances for people globally to watch our thriller film.
As our films is independent and low budgeted, it would be best exhibited in Art House theatres, for example, Cinema City. Our films include locations around Norwich so it would appeal to audiences from the city. Also at Cinema City in Norwich the manager at the cinema decides what films to put on and what would appeal to people in Norwich and I think that our thriller would. British Independent films do well in countries in Europe and if exhibited through a company like Europa our thriller could be globally viewed.
For young film makers, short film competitions are a good way of getting films viewed. For example, Virgin Media Shorts, DepicT! and reed.co.uk are all looking for films and which are around 2 minutes long, so our thriller opening would fit this criteria. Some competition allow the top 12 films to be shown in cinemas nationwide which would help attract a wider audience. This would be another good way to distribute our thriller opening.
Monday, 11 April 2011
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Sunday, 3 April 2011
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our thriller opening is very male dominated this is because our storyline only includes males and there are no female actors. We didn’t purposely use just male actors, but males fitted our storyline better as they are in a gang representing that they are criminals. We didn’t plan on omitting females we thought that males would suit our characters and storyline better than females because of how males are differently represented and seen compared to females. The unintended male domanice that is included in other thrillers as well as ours, for example, the Bourne films, show that female omitting happens a lot in the thriller genre because males fit the role of the characters well.
In our thriller, we do not have a proportional representation of society because are characters are all a similar age. Two active characters are in their young 20’s whereas the other is 30, so there is only a slight age gap. Therefore youth dominate our thriller and represented as a stereotypical view of teenagers and young adults. Also what the characters wear suggest their criminality, but these characters do not represent all youth of society. We used the actors because they were convenient and fitted into our thriller as youths and the representation of youths. I think the our representation of youths is quite negative, but I don't think our film is suggesting that all youths act in this way. In our thriller the representation of youths in quite similar to the representation youths in Kidulthood, but I think this appeals to our target audience because the youths watching can see how others youths act and identify with the characters and be a part of the film. In a lot of films today youth is represented similarly to ours, so I do not think the audience will be shocked and may expect to see our representation of youths.
In our thriller a big representation of a social group is family. The whole storyline is based on family and therefore it is one of our main themes. The aim of our main character was to get revenge on the man that killed his twin brother, our whole storyline emphasis the importance of family. In thriller family isn't a issue usually stereotyped and if it is it is usually stereotyped as family being enemies.
Saturday, 26 March 2011
Audience Profile
Our main target audience is independent film watchers aged from 16-24. From our audience research it showed that both female and male of 16-20 year olds enjoy independent films instead of or as well mainstream films. We found they enjoyed independent films because of their sense of reality, unpredictableness, the unusual storylines and different actors who have a sense of mystery. We tried and have hopefully have incorporated these themes into our thriller opening. Others that enjoy independent films are those who respond to individuality and some who are trying to make the word a better place - reformers. Our audience will get pleasure from our film because of it's independcy, as they like to see themselves as independent. We intended our film target audience to identify with are main character because of the similar but a wider ahe range would also be able to identify with our sub-genre as older people may watch detective series on TV so able to relate with our film in that way. Our film is an independent film and Essex Boys was a strong influence which is also an independent film. Another film which also gave ideas and techniques was ‘Memento’ it is a psychological thriller which also includes flashbacks as does our thriller. Another independent film that our target will enjoy and can relate to is Dead Man's Shoes which has a similar storyline and aspects of our thriller. our thriller is British Gangster as it contains crimes, criminals, weapons and gangs. Our thriller opening also includes aspects of psychological thriller films because as it incorporates ideas of mystery and suspense. I think our sub-genre will appeal to our target audience because it focuses on youths and their lives today. We used mainly just two different locations one was a garage this created a claustrophobic place which is a well used thriller technique, the dark lighting also help builds suspension. Our second location of filming used city locations, for example, Castle Gardens
Friday, 18 March 2011
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media production was to create an opening to a thriller that lasts up to two minutes. We created a 'British gangster' genre thriller. Our thriller consisted of twin brothers who were involved with a gang. One brother (Archie) is asked to do a job by the gang leader and when he refuses it results in his death. The other brother (Nathan) is very distressed and upset, and then decides to take revenge.
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| Weather in Cathing Justice |
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| Weather in Essex Boys |
One of our biggest influences on our opening is Essex Boys as it has the British Gangster sub-genre which we also tried to create in our own opening but following the same techniques and conventions, for example the dull, grey sky which represent typical English whether, therefore we chose a dull day to shoot our footage. (example above). Our opening and Essex Boys are independent films; which both the locations indicate. For example, Essex Boys and our thriller opening both include scenes in dirty, gritty garages which wouldn't be seen in mainstream films. In our thriller opening we decided to dress our characters in gangster clothing, for example, jeans, hoodies and hats that represent the idea of rebels and youthfulness. Our main prop was the gun which was used to kill the main character brother, a lot of thrillers contain weapons to make the character seem demanding, authoritive and powerful. The gun also builds up tension as it is seen a before the actual murder. I think we made our gun user have high status by shooting low angle shots of him. We used other props such as pens, paper, hole puncher, books and photos this was during the planning of the revenge to suggest the idea of organisation of how determined he is, but when he pushes everything off the table it conveys how unstable he is.
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| The Black Swan |
In the editing of our film, we included flashbacks which is a technique that thrillers such as Memento and Casino Royale used. In Memento they used flashbacks to give the effect that the main character was confused and disorientated and we use flashbacks to try and convey the same effect. In Casino Royale the flashbacks are in black and white to show the past time and in our thriller it is to show the imagination of the main character because he wasn't actually at the death of his brother. Flashbacks are a narrative device that gives the audience details of the storyline, which is another main reason we included them. The lighting in our thriller is quite dark to create the sense of danger and tense atmosphere, which is included in most thrillers, for example, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Bourne films and The Black Swan.
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| The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo |
In Essex Boys a voice over from the young male protagonist is used to help the audience identify with him. In our thriller opening we have a young male protagonist but he doesn't have a voice over but hopefully the camera shots, for example, close ups helps us identity with him. A typical convention of thrillers is claustrophobic space and is used in Essex Boys with a car going through a tunnel and as in our thriller the technique is used to create tension, and also may convey an uncomfortable situation.
The characters in our thriller opening include the gang leader/murderer and the twin brothers. The gang leader/murderer is a threatening, evil man whom most thrillers include. We used Hattie's Dad for this character as he was convenient and we could make him suit the role. In British gangster films the gang leader or the person in charge usually pass their jobs onto a younger weaker characters that isn't sure about being a criminal/gangster. In our thriller Archie has this role. We decided to use Hattie's Brother Jack for this character and he was also used for Nathan, Archie's twin in the flashbacks. As well as these characters being convenient they also fit the criteria of the characters we wanted and also the convey the conventions of thrillers. In some cases this caused a problem as it wasn't always clear to people that they were twins. Twins aren't usually used in thrillers so it was good to try something new and to see if it would work well. I thought it was good but if it didn't look clear it can add to psychological apsect of our thriller.
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
YouTube has helped during the production of our thriller opening because the videos clips are free, it allowed us to search into different thriller clips and openings giving us an idea of how we wanted our thriller to look. The clips also showed us different techniques thrillers use, for example, different camera shots and film noir. During my research and planning of our thriller opening I a variety of videos clips to help show my point and give examples of different techniques and sub-genres. As well as having video clips YouTube has a range of music videos which allowed us to choose the type of music or if an unsigned band the exact music we wanted to include in our thriller opening. YouTube has provided us with lots of ideas and inspiration during the making of our thriller.
As well as YouTube, my blog has been useful during the production. It has allowed me to post my work and allows all of my work to be in one place as video clips, photos and links can be included in posts to support work. On my blog teachers can give feedback which I recieve before the next lesson allowing me to imporve my work for the lesson. The blog was a bit confusing when I first starting using it but the blogger website isn't to complicated and became easy to use. It allows me to keep my work in one place and the labels help others and I to find work easily. Blogger helps my work to be very well organised.
Adobe Premier Elements was the program we used to edit our thriller. It allowed us to crop, use effects, cut and other tools to edit our opening. For example, in this shot we have used effects to make the clip black and white, which helps gives the effect of past time as the clip is a flashback. Throughout our opening we used the time tool a lot, this helped us slow down or speed up the action according to what fitted. The program was quite easy to use as we had practice from our prelim task, but i also learnt new skills and I will be able to take them with me through the media studies course. Adobe Premier Elements was very useful and our thriller turned out how we wanted it to look.
As well as YouTube, my blog has been useful during the production. It has allowed me to post my work and allows all of my work to be in one place as video clips, photos and links can be included in posts to support work. On my blog teachers can give feedback which I recieve before the next lesson allowing me to imporve my work for the lesson. The blog was a bit confusing when I first starting using it but the blogger website isn't to complicated and became easy to use. It allows me to keep my work in one place and the labels help others and I to find work easily. Blogger helps my work to be very well organised.
Digital camcorders was the main piece of technology used when filming our thriller. Throughout the filming of our thriller production my partner and I shared out the camera work so we both needed to know how to use the camera correctly. We shot in two different location which both contain a lot of different camera shots and movements which the camera being handheld helped as it was easily portable. The camera allows us to rewined and fastforward through to see the footage, this was useful because we were able to redo or change shots. The footage was filmed on a small tape which means we were able to move the tape from camera to camera. Also the camera connect to the computer so we were able to quickly and directly download the footage ready to edit.
Adobe Premier Elements was the program we used to edit our thriller. It allowed us to crop, use effects, cut and other tools to edit our opening. For example, in this shot we have used effects to make the clip black and white, which helps gives the effect of past time as the clip is a flashback. Throughout our opening we used the time tool a lot, this helped us slow down or speed up the action according to what fitted. The program was quite easy to use as we had practice from our prelim task, but i also learnt new skills and I will be able to take them with me through the media studies course. Adobe Premier Elements was very useful and our thriller turned out how we wanted it to look.7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full production?
My thriller group and my prelim group consisted of the same people. I was with a friend so it made it more convenient to shoot footage at each others houses. Also working in a group of two meant that we could communicate and include both of our ideas into the opening. It also helped us know how we work as a team when shooting footage, editing and planning. After practice from our prelim task during the whole production of our thriller we were organised, collaborated and managed the production well. Doing our prelim task before our thriller really helped my partner and I learn how to use the editing program to a certain degree, so we knew the basics when it came to editing our thriller. 
Our prelim also helped us gain confidence with using a wider variety of shots. We were asked to do shot reverse shot in out prelim which we also included in our thriller, we also used a lot of close ups to show facial expressions which involved zooming in on the video camera. An example of close a close we shot in our thriller is above on the right. When planning our thriller we did a lot more research compared with our prelim task. For our prelim task we drew a rough, basic storyboard with short details which guided us through the storyline of our prelim task. Whereas in our thriller planning we did more planning, for example, longer and more in-depth storyboarding, exploring how thrillers worked and different techniques used, watching beginning of various thrillers to look at sub-genre, watching previous years to get idea and tips This was useful and helped us in our production of our thriller by following through all our planning.
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Research into other Thrillers
Editing in Memento
In the opening scene in memento, there is a lot of editing techniques because the film is includes flashbacks and the film includes quite a few cuts from the end of the film. As the protagonist suffers from amnesia, the flashbacks involve the audience into his world of disorientation. In the original movie, the black and white sequences progress chronologically forward in time and the colour scenes are arranged in reverse order. Normally flashbacks are in black and white to show that they are in the past. But having the real time in black and white shows that maybe he is living in the past and resolve a mystery. The protagonist is the narrator and his memory and life confused which are shown by the flashbacks which suggest that he becomes an unreliable narrator as he doesn’t know what is real.
Sound in The Bourne Ultimatum
In the opening scene in memento, there is a lot of editing techniques because the film is includes flashbacks and the film includes quite a few cuts from the end of the film. As the protagonist suffers from amnesia, the flashbacks involve the audience into his world of disorientation. In the original movie, the black and white sequences progress chronologically forward in time and the colour scenes are arranged in reverse order. Normally flashbacks are in black and white to show that they are in the past. But having the real time in black and white shows that maybe he is living in the past and resolve a mystery. The protagonist is the narrator and his memory and life confused which are shown by the flashbacks which suggest that he becomes an unreliable narrator as he doesn’t know what is real.
Sound in The Bourne Ultimatum
In the Bourne Ultimatum includes both diegetic and non-diegetic sound is used to create different effects at different points throughout the film. The film starts with non-diegetic piece of music constructed by strings and percussion which is quite tense music and conveys to the audience that the film will have an anxious, perhaps agitated and an on edge beginning. This is then followed and overlaid by diegetic sounds, for example, sirens, traffic, footsteps and shouting. This shows that the film is set in a cityscape area and the sound effects give a sense of urgency, pace and maybe even catastrophe. During the opening scene at one point all of the sounds pause to give sense of relief or it could also suggest that he is hiding an a bit obscure. When the flashbacks start the non-diegetic music becomes slow and including violins reflecting the music and protagonist as she is becoming sad, regretful and woebegone.
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Copyright
When finding music for the opening of our thriller it was hard to find a piece because we had to use non-copyrighted music. Most songs made by mainstream and signed musician are copyrighted which means that we don't have the right to use their music in our own production. It also means that copyrighted songs are not allowed to be cut and put into a different order or a cover of the same to be made. But copyrighted music can help give us an idea of what sort of music we would like to use. We had a choice of using non-copyright music of an website, ask permission of an unsigned bands, make the music ourself or use music under creative commons. Creative commons means that we can use a song just for the purpose we stated and it cannot be cropped, cut or resequenced in any way.The source of our music was http://www.mobygratis.com/, this is a website which specialises in music for independent and non-profit making films, using creative commons .
Sunday, 6 February 2011
In class, we watched the beginning of Memento to give us an idea of what titles to include in our thriller opening. Memento includes titles such as:
- Company Names
- Director
- Cast (Lead Actors)
- Film Name
- Sound
- Costume
- Editor
- Producer
- Co-producer
- Director of Photography
and so on.
The opening to Memento used a lot of titles mainly from the production. In our thriller opening we decided that we didn't need many titles as they would all be similar.
In our thriller opening we have decided to use the titles:
- A Film by
- Company Names
- Film Name
- Producer
- Cinematographer
In the beginning of memento the font of the titles are quite basic but they are capitalise and the beginning and end letter of each word is bigger than the rest, changing the font in these two ways makes them seem different. The fonts we considered were all under the typewriter section on dafont.com for example Rought Typewriter, Uncle Typewriter and 1942 Report. I think these fonts all have a similar type of style which fitted the genre of our thriller opening. The sub-genre of our thriller is British gangster and the font we decided to use was Rough Typewriter because it has a gritty, edgy look which fitted with the characters personalities and some of the scenes in our thriller, for example outside scenes when the sky is grey and gritty. But we also wanted to keep our font quite normal, basic and readable because the storyline is realistic, so if the font was too different, for example, Uncle Typerwriter which is more tatty, bolder and has different size letters it would give the impression that the story has more violence and the font wouldn't show how the main character is feeling or his personatitly at anytime.
In the opening scene of memento for the first 42 seconds the titles are on a black screen, which makes the story like a mystery until the title of the film appears and then the titles continues overlayed. In the opening of our thriller movie we have decided to overlay our titles on the picture as we think this will be the best way to place them because the story is being introduced immediately as are the titles. We are having our fonts in white so they stand out of the dark, dull setting and makes the story seem a dream to the main character.
Friday, 28 January 2011
Cinema Survival: Compare the ways in which Cinema City
Different cinemas attract audiences in different ways especially independent and mainstream cinemas. Cinemas now have to attract audiences as they are losing sales for loads of different reasons such as DVD’s, piracy and recession. Another reason is TV, after TV was introduced in 50’s the cinemas didn’t do as well until Spielberg and Lucas films like Jaws and Star Wars were released.
Cinema City are in the Picturehouse chain and attract their audience because as well as showing films, on Saturday mornings they rent a screen for people to play video games and also sometimes they hold opera evenings, where the cinema is connected up to the actual opera show and the show is being shown on a Cinema City screen. They also offer a membership which saves the customer money every time they go to the cinema. Cinema City Cinema City
A reason people would prefer to go to Vue or Odeon is because they have more screens therefore more times and more films. Whereas Cinema City Cinema City
Overall mainstream and independent cinemas have different way of attracting audiences, but both ways work. With a lot of 3D films being released at present and in the future is making cinemas are getting more and more popular as it is a different experience in the cinema than at home. All of the cinemas should get more and more popular again because of the new technology that is being made. Hopefully Cinema City
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Television Drama
Representation | Stereotypes? |
Age |
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Gender |
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Sexuality |
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Ethnicity |
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Physical ability/disability |
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Regional Identity |
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Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Preliminary Exercise
What planning did you do? How was this useful, and how did you change from your planning?
To plan for our preliminary task we decided on an everyday situation and then put our idea into a storyboard, so we could understand clearly what was happening in every section and follow it as the task went on. Unfortunately we had to change our idea as all the props were not available on the day of filming. We decided to re-storyboard and shoot from home.
What camera skills have you developed? How confident are you with using cameras? And has this confidence changed during the project? Give details of specific camera skills/techniques you have developed and include areas where you lack confidence or need to improve?
During the preliminary task I improved general camera skills and they got stronger throughout the task. Also I think I developed a good technique of zooming in and out on the camera. Also it was my first time filming with a tripod which helped me learn new skills and it really help to make our preliminary task look good quality. The thing I would most like to improve on is learning how to do more varieties of camera shots. But I am confident when using the video camera and will be able to use it well in future tasks.
What editing skills have you developed? How confident are you with using the editing program? Give details of specific editing skills/techniques you have developed, and include areas where you lack confidence?
Editing the film with the Adobe Premiere Program was something new to me as usually I use different programs. It seems very simple cutting out and cropping clips of the movie that we didn't want or need. The biggest challenge when editing was cutting a clip on the movie and moving it into the middle of the movie. But to resolve this problem we asked a year 13 student to advise us and we did manage to do it. To improve my editing skills I would have to spend more time on the program just learning how to use some tools which I don't at the moment know how to work properly. But i feel quite confident to edit on Adobe Premiere and will be able to edit to a good standard. But overall i think our filming and editing techniques lead our preliminary exercise to turn out well and we are pleased with the result.
Thursday, 6 January 2011
Location Change
In our thriller we decided not to use the cellar as one of the locations because it was located in the country so therefore it was difficult for actors to reach the area. Also another problem was that the lighting wasn't very good for filming as the room was too dark. We changed the location to Hatties garage to solve this problem. But the garage is also used in a different scene, but we tried to give the location a different feel by moving furniture around to create a different atmosphere. Also the flashbacks being in black and white will help to change the look of the garage hopefully.
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Marketing Questionnaire
Do you think your occupation affects the films you watch? Or how many?And why?
Do you think your occupation affects the films you watch? Or how many?And why?
All of the people said that different occupations affect the amount of film you watch because if someone is in full time job and has children it limits the time you have free to watch a film, also having children will affect what films you see as most likely you will probably go with your children. But if you are a sixth form student you will have more free time to go and see films. 9 of the people I asked said that different occupations doesn’t necessarily affect what time of film you watch. One Person said ‘If you are a 12 year old boy or a 30 year old man they are both likely to like action film with superheroes’.’
How do you find out about the films you want to watch?
From the graph it is clear that most people find out about the films they watch from Cinema trailers and TV Trailers. They said because trailers are on before a film you have to watch them and plus you see loads of different variation of film which are coming out quite soon, that you then want to go and see. Also a few people said they hear from word of mouth as their friends tell you what films that they have seen or maybe one they want to see. It is an advantage as if you friend goes first they can tell you whether it was good and whether you would enjoy it. Out of the 10 people I ask my questionnaires to it shows that none of them found about films radio or posters. Most people were around the same age so maybe it shows that more teenagers find out films from trailers as maybe they watch TV more or go to the cinema more frequently.
Which do you think is most effective?
Which do you think is most effective?
7 people said that cinema and TV trailers are pretty effective because it gives you a mini preview of the film, showing different snippets showing you funny, scary and different aspects of the film. It allows you to see what actors are in the film and whether they are playing their usually character. Trailers tell you about the films and what is happening but doesn’t give away the whole film, this then leaves it on a cling hanger for the audience who might only want to see because they want to find out what happens or the audience might chose to view it because they enjoy the trailer. 1 person said that radio would be a good way to hear about a film even though they don’t use this way. They said it would be good because it will give you an overall review of the film and also will also give you their personal opinion of the film and others for example an actor. The others said that word and mouth would be a good way as you friend who has seen the film can tell you whether you will enjoy and whether its worth while seeing or not, they can also tell you the story even more so than trailers or interviews.
Do you think your lifestyle affects the films you enjoy?
Do you think your lifestyle affects the films you enjoy?
Most of the people I interviewed said that the lifestyle they have doesn’t make a difference to what types of films you enjoy as two different who have completely different lives can enjoy the same films . But most of the people I asked were from the same area and culture. 3 of the 10 said that they think it did because if for example you have a job dancing, you are more likely influenced to see a film including dance. Also once again older people with children are likely to see more children films with their children.
Exhibition Questionnaire How do you normally view films?And why?
As you can see from this graph most people enjoy going to the cinema to watch films, this is generally because they are brand new out and they have been attracted by a trailer or something similar. People said they enjoy going to cinema as it is a night out and you can the latest films. Also for some people who are in the city for college/work it is easier just to pop to the cinema instead of finding a film you really want to watch. Other people said they enjoy watching DVD’s as they have more choice of what’s on and when, also when watching a DVD it is normally in the comfort of your own home, so you can be in bed or whatever. Others said that when watching DVD’s they are often doing something else and it is just on for background noise.
When do you usually watch films?
Most people said that they normally watch films on the weekends or evening, which suggest that they are normally at work or in full time education. Two people said that they go normally afternoon, this suggest that they go after school or with they children afterschool. They may even have a part time job.
Research Project Questionnaire
Marketing Questionnaire
Age:
Gender:
Are you…
In School? In college/Sixth Form? At University? Unemployed? Part-time work? Full-time work? Other?
Do you think your occupation affects the films you watch? Or how many?
And why?
How do you find out about the films you want to watch?
Cinema Trailers TV Trailers Posters Word of Mouth Internet Advertisements Radio Magazines
Which do you think is most effective?
Do you think your lifestyle affects the films you enjoy?
Research Project Questionnaire
Exhibition Questionnaire
How do you normally view films?
And why?
Do you prefer to watch a film by yourself or with others?
On your own With others
If with others, who?
When do you usually watch films?
Weekends evenings while completing other tasks whenever Afternoons Other
If other, when?
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