end of project

well this is my last post. my groups film opening and continuity exercise is finished and burned to disk. all i can say at this point is i hope whoever sees the finished product enjoys it and that be fair and objective in how you grade it.

question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

genre conventions- in the case of similar films the only one i can think of that is in anyway similar to my groups film opening is Memento. this is seen in how our main character is an antagonist as well as a protagonist meaning he may have committed a crime but he was provoked into it. our atmosphere also gives the impression that the story of the crime is still only part told or something similar to that or that there is something sinister at work. as for the conventional narrative order of the crime at the end of the film in the case of our film it is flipped to the front making our story a reverse narrative. this serves to catch the audiences interest in an unconventional manner

use of music/sound- in the case of music we used the theme from Schindlers list for our flashbacks and film ending because it gives the right kind of sad atmosphere to our film. Whereas for sound somewhat like in Memento the sound in the background are unnaturally loud or non-diagenic. this serves to make our audience pay more attention to the events surrounding the sounds

use of mise-en-scene- the main mise-en-scene we used for our film were rather typical of a crime thriller. that is to say we used a prison uniform, a knife, brandy, a tape recorder, a cudgel, and a file folder. this served to give our audience a clue to what type of film they are watching and gives them some comfort in the predictable which would have made our film more attractive to them because not everybody likes to see unconventional things in a film.

editing- for editing we slowed down our music in some places to fit the pace of our film which goes at a somewhat moderate pace. we also rearranged the clips slightly right up until the end of the project deadline to make the timing of the film fit the continuity we needed. the effect of this is to make our audience see a neat and ordered film

the USP of our film-

question 4 audience reactions

My group and i showed our finished film opening to two members of a potential "typical" audience. We filmed their reactions and then asked them three questions on what they thought about our film opening. these questions were "what did you like about our film opening?", "Was there anything you didn't like about it?", and if this were actually made into a full film would you watch it?". their answers were 100% yes for if this were actually made into a full film would you watch it? Both said that they liked the music we used for the film opening. one said that they liked the sound of the typewriter for our credits. the other one said that they thought we could have made our flashbacks a little more obvious.

evaluation question 4 continued

4. Who would be the audience for your media product

though i also think a "typical" audience member for our product might think the context of the murder was too tame for a thriller in this day and age where alot of people like slasher or horror films. a typical fan of our film might also like to eat lots of spicy or strong flavoured food.

evaluation questions 3/4 continued

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

in the question of cast for our film i think we would try to find new people in the acting industry or use people who have only been in acting for a few films. the reason for this would be to give them a chance to either do something new or to give them a chance to possibly distinguish themselves. this might be the same in the case of the production company my group chose in reverse meaning they would probably be giving us the chance to distinguish ourselves. i think that we might qualify for the new cinema fund in the case of working title films. for a distribution company for our film we chose to use Optimum Releasing which has released films that are kind of gritty and low brow meaning some swearing and violence something which quite a few young people like to watch in films.

evaluation questions 3/4

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

my group and i discussed possibly having shane meadows as a possible director for our film because he does some stuff involving mostly horror but our thriller has some content that might be his sort of thing. we weren't really sure about it. as for a production company we all agreed upon possibly using working title films because they usually do low budget stuff like our film opening. though they mostly specialise in romantic comedys. for our marketing campaign we think with our budget which we think if this were actually a film being made would be in the low thousands or somewhere around £5000 we could only afford to do internet or email ad campaigns for our film. as for the release of our film i think it would be released in fall somewhere around halloween or thanksgiving. as for location we all thought it would be arthouses that would show our films because of the montage scene in our film.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

a "typical" target audience member for our film would be as follows. age 15 to late thirties. have some friends. possibly like rock and hiphop music. their taste in clothing will be eccentric or somewhat wild. they would shop at vintage clothing shops. their favourite tv programmes would be reality shows. they would watch our film because of the murder scene, the background music, and the context of the murder.

evaluation questions that i can do by myself

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

use= filming and looking at what we filmed. it was useful because we couldn't make our project without any film.

problems/limitations= lost tape at one point. at another lost battery power in the middle of filming. we overcame these problems by finding a second tape, and recharging the camera and redoing our filming.

use= elevating camera for high angle shots or cctv extreme high angle shot. useful for 2 reasons we needed high angle shots for the cctv effect for our prison/interrogation room scenes.

problems/limitations= had to stand on chair for full effect with tripod and camera= had trouble keeping balance. fixed this by keeping shots to short takes.

use= editing footage. useful because only a computer could handle all the data of the film openings we made as well as the changes made during editing.

problems/limitations= i find the use of the editing software awkward but do enjoy moving the clips around.

all the online computer programs i used and found useful are as follows. google images for the pictures on this blog. microsoft office online for storing documents. blogger for helping me write this blog. imovie for helping with the editing of the film.

as for low tech we used a flashlight/torch for lighting during the flashback scenes, and during the killing of ben scene we used the streetlamps as lighting. we also used chairs as extra elevation for the high angle shot we needed during the flashback scenes.

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

in our continuity exercise we got the framing wrong on one of our shots and avoided this by doing several of the same shot during the full product. in our continuity exercise our match on action wasn't obvious at first in our final product we didn't really use one. in our final product just like in the continuity exercise we used the 180 degree rule in moderation somewhat in the fact that we shot the scene of cat and ben running up the stairs at our location from two separate angles but unlike the rule we used in the continuity exercise we shot from the side and above the scene we were shooting. in the continuity exercise we had trouble keeping our faces straight during some of our more serious scenes which is something which we see in the final product as well. in the final product our main shot seems to closeups or midshots, and our main camera movement seems to be following the action. we also like in the continuity exercise ended up cutting alot out of the film during editing. we are also planning on using a montage going up to the killing of ben. most of our sounds are natural sound apart from the groan of ben when he is stabbed. we have added a few sound effects such as a typewriter and ticking clock to give our film more personality perhaps.