Our Finished Film.

This is our final film, I hope you enjoy.

Audience Response and FeedBack

We needed some feed back on our film so we got some 16 year olds and got them to watch our film and we recorded their opinions of it.

Evaluation

Evaluation.

Introduction.

Our briefing was to plan and create a short film opening of the thriller genre that should be around 2 minutes long, to do this we had to work in groups of 4 and split different tasks between us, e.g. Storyboarding and character profiling were some of my jobs while creating a mood board was Jordan’s job. We had to ensure that we had suitable dates to film and stick to them where possible though we had alternative dates for when the inevitable postponing of a time had to happen for various reasons. We also had to keep the same continuity with no sudden changes in location or props/ costumes that would spoil the look of the film.

In what ways does your media project use, develop or challenge or challenge forms and conventions of real media and products?

(Video above codes and Conventions)    My project used typical conventions as we decided that they are proven to work and as we had only a short amount of time it would have been impractical spending that time attempting to improve an already effective system.

To find out what the codes and conventions were we researched the internet as well as drawing on our memories of last years media GCSE project to produce a DVD cover for a thriller film. We learnt that the typical conventions for a thriller film are Low key or monochromatic lighting, dark and scary colours that connote danger (e.g. black or red), shadows that are often dark and over emphasised, cramp and dark claustrophobic places (e.g. a small car or building), black and white scenes, quick, jumpy editing (to create atmosphere) and, flash backs.

 (The trailer above or the film Hit and Run Inspired us to have a car incident)
We used the same colour system, dark and monochromatic e.g. Black and red as they connote danger (We used the red colour for our titles and the majority of our scenes were filmed in the night when it is dark for this reason.) We had big dark shadows to create an eerie atmosphere for instance to create this feeling before Alice gets hit by the car, we used slow haunting music as it builds atmosphere and tension especially pieces with Cello tenors, we used a scary setting (a castle at night.) Our locations where cramped and claustrobic, e.g. the narrow corridors of Coity Castle we used these as they provoke a sense          




of anxiety and increase the tension, we edited the film to make it jump in a distorted way (This is most noticeable in the scenes when the ghost is chasing Geoff, as we have many jumps between the two characters and of different parts of the locations where takes place.) (Mention why castle was chosen ie ghosts/haunted look) Also the majority of thriller films feature at least one flash back scene for instance “The Secret Window” which happens at the start to create confusion. We were no exception, we used it to create tension but to also explain the story to the viewer; to distinguish between the flash back and actual present time in the film we made the flash back scene a lot brighter and distorted in comparison, the sound was unusual in this scene as most films have the sound completely removed but we retained normal sound as we felt it was particularly effective in keeping the excitation and anxious mood and atmosphere going.

On the subject of sound, I felt that music is an essential part of what makes or breaks a thriller film and even gives it its identity (e.g. the iconic theme of Jaws.) The typical convention is haunting, slow music with cello sounds. This works very well at building suspense. Orchestral sounds are very good at this too, especially string instruments that have very harsh sounds and therefore perfect for developing atmosphere in thrillers.  We didn’t want to spend too much time looking into alternative types of music so we used the tried and tested convention. We used the convention because we knew that it would work well with our type of fil for all the best thrillers use this type of music as well. The first track we used seemed good at first but we felt it was a little over exaggerated and cheesy, so after gaining some audience feedback we abandoned it in favour of a much better track. This track gave it less of a comedy sense and made it look more like a thriller.

We produced a questionnaire, and distributed it to find out results from students, what they considered were the main conventions in a thriller film. We also researched the Internet, watched videos about codes and conventions in class and watched a few thriller opening scenes to analyse the sequencing for ourselves.

We also followed a multitude of theories such as that of Todorov and Straus

Todorov’s Theory

The piece starts with equilibrium (all is well)

Something bad happens that changes the conditions in the piece. (Disequilibrium)

The equilibrium is restored or a new equilibrium is produced at the end of the narrative.

We have used the theory as at the start our main character is sitting on a bench looking very forlorn, (equilibrium) he then has a flash back to what happened before and when it ends he looks up to see the ghost of the girl he knocked down sitting beside him which causes him to panic (disequilibrium) and the ghost starts to haunt him continuously but doesn’t kill him. (new equilibrium) 

Levi Strauss Theory

Everything has binary opposites, e.g. good-bad, light-dark and heroes-villains.

Our film follows the hero-villain opposites, and the good and bad opposites (though as an enigma code we decided to make it difficult to determine whether the hero was actually a hero or the villain was really a villain. A film that uses this technique is 6^th sense as the main character is a ghost but he thinks he is alive and so does the audience until it is revealed at the end of the film.) We did however slightly go for unconventional story line as it was not linear but was a disrupted narrative. The story was also different as we needed a unique selling point to attract an audience, there’s been both ghost (e.g. Ghost) and hit and run (e.g. Hit and Run.) thrillers in the past but never a mix of the two into the one film. This is one of the reasons we chose to combine the two storylines as it it would provide us with a wider audience and a USP. We were also unconventional with our characters (as opposed to stereotypical), normally men are portrayed as big, strong macho characters who fear very little other than bigger, stronger men, women are regularly portrayed as quite weak and feeble characters who like things done for them, in our story the man (Geoff Ray Porter played by Aaron Tuck) is depicted as a normal person full of worries and insecurities. He is not a macho character.

We used pathetic fallacy to show that teenagers had problems in life as all the scenes that have Geoff after he killed Alice have terrible weather; it is dark, cold and miserable. Whilst when we initially had Alice initially walking across the road the weather was a lot better with evidence of sun (indicating she is a positive person who has a bright outlook on life.) The lighting we used was dark and monochromatic for post accident scenes we did this to not only represent problems in the young of society but to add to the dark sinister mood of the piece which is also a typical convention of thriller films.

(Above video: We liked the idea of having a ghost that followed the victim around and haunting him by being ever present, we had our inspiration from an unlikely source a road safety advert)

How does your media project represent particular social groups?

Firstly we need to decide what the term “Social” actually means, it refers to the interaction of people (or animals) with other organisms (such as people or animals) and to their collective co-existence, regardless of whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary.

In media terminology “Social Groups” refer to specific niches of people (this could be age, hobby, stereotype or gender related)

Hermione Granger from Harry Potter was the character we modeled Alice Freener on because  she is a character with   good work .idy.

Ed from Shaun of the Dead was the character we modeled Geoff on because they are both young people who are very stressed and have given up/ are about to give up on life and not bother anymore, they show this by giving Ed a laid back ethic and dirty clothes, Geoff isn't in that state yet but to show he is troubled we gave him dirty clothes to show how troubled he is.

 How my project represented a particular social group.,- We decided to go for representing teenagers as they were the most relatable, stereotype to our group, also there is a lot of variety in teenagers .g Emos, Chavs, Gangs and Jocks. We represented them as regular people/ young adults who are breaking into he independent way of life, struggling to cope with jobs and money in the current economic climate (We represented them this way to make them more relatable to the majority of similar aged people who would make up the majority of our audience.) We also decided to portray them as bright intelligent people who are earning qualifications for a better future (not all teenagers smoke and take drugs. We did this to encapsulate the audiences’ sympathy for teenagers.) We used the character “Alice Freener” to represent the latter as she is a student who’s in college and is determined to achieve her A levels and thrive in the world. We did this by representing their characters with the type of clothes we had the characters wearing. We gave Geoff quite dirty clothes and a hoody to show that he is a typical teenager/ young adult we made them scruffy and unclean to connote that he is troubled and is struggling to cope with problems, to further show that he is struggling to cope with problems we gave him a cigarette to smoke (as seen in character profiles but no smoking featured in film opening itself so that our film does not encourage teens with problems to smoke themselves. We wanted to emulate reality as closely as possible but were conscientious enough to realise it could promote smoking.) In a similar fashion we fitted Alice with a clean, bright school uniform to show that she is a schoolgirl but also how she has a positive outlook on life and has clear plans and ambitions for her life.

Make up wise we did this by making Geoff’s stereotypical character have a rough, dirty and unshaven face and we had him walk with a swagger to create a sense of security within him however we did this in a way so that it was detectable enough for the audience to tell that his swagger was just for show and he really didn’t have that confidence, this is clear in the scene where he first encounters the ghost and he is transformed into a very fearful character that cries and runs in fear. Alice on the other hand was given bright, clean clothes and a clean face with some light makeup, this was done to create a sense of pride in herself and to represent her as a “go getter” who felt the word was her oyster because she had the ambition to make it happen, to enhance this subliminally she walked in an upright and confident manner. We tried to mimic a stereotypical, confident student.

This was our scene with Geoff and the Ghost in the castle, the scruffy  clothes on Geoff are used to portray him as a troubled teenager/ young person. 

However the roles of these characters roles when Alice returns as a ghost as Geoff who had a car and a job so was better off than Alice (he is dominant) is now the weaker submissive character as he runs in fear of her and has a tear clad face with a trembling complexion (this implies this and the use of high angle shots to make him look defenceless indicates this.) Alice is now in a filthy, blood stained version of the uniform she wore prior to the crash, she now has bruises cuts and bloodstains in place of her happy smile. Her expression is stoic and reflects the same determination as before except her goal now is to give Geoff the haunting of a lifetime. We used this role-reversal to give our film a break away from the typical convention of someone else avenging the dead person.    

           

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

We would have our film distributed in a variety of ways; we would use a variety of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo, as they are commonly used by teenagers (our target audience) and are easily accessable, free and serve as mass advertising. We would put a trailer onto online video streaming websites such as YouTube where the general public of a multitude of companies would be able to access it, which would raise awareness of our film whilst serving as free advertising, if we had a large budget we would advertise on British television to begin with using a British film company such as Film4 as they have their own channel and would be able to show the film regularly and generate a lot of press for us. However being only a small team project like ours it would only ever have a small budget if it were a real film. This is the case with most independent films that struggle to generate the income to further promote themselves.

Who would be the audience for your media project?

The Audience for this film is men/teenagers aged 15-18 because the violent scenes and action is more likely to appeal to men this age than women, however women of the same age would probably enjoy watching this film too because thriller films are not gender specific and there’s nothing in particular that aims specifically at men.


How would you attract an audience?


We would attract an audience using social networking sites on the internet such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo, we would use these because they are free to use and and also as they have such an immense number of users, it would be relatively easy tp attract interest in our film and promote it using a free advertising method. Also we would post clips and trailers on YouTube to attract and interest users for the same reason. But also we could make adverts for our film viral, making it inevitable for people to see it. Bing resourceful; we would combine both YouTube and social networking by posting links from each site on the other to attract wider interest.
  We would also use conventional methods to attract interest such as posters which would be distributed at various cinemas and on bill boards etc.

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

I have learnt about a variety of modern technologies, for instance Macs, I learnt how to use them and get the best out of them (even though they caused an awful lot of frustration and quiet cursing when they decided to be temperamental) whilst operating the Macs I learnt how to use a few particular Mac programs, when we were editing our film I had to use iMovie. IMovie was our choice of software because it was the only editing software we had that would work on the Macs but it worked well and was simple to use. We could add film, music and sophisticated titles  and we had to record an interview to prove that we had a video of us analysing another film, that interview is posted on my blog which brings us onto the next thing I had to learn how to use, Blogger was a website we had to learn to use in order to carry out the AS Media course to the required standard (National Curriculum demands that we use blogs instead of books for the course) at first Blogger was tricky to use/ understand but after a bit of practice I got better at it and now find it quite easy to use. I also had to use the camera and tripod too; the camera was the most complicated of the pair and despite having a fair amount of time in class being trained how to use them proficiently I still had a lot to learn, however judging by the way our film came out in the end, I think its fair to say we were better with it than I thought. On the other end of the spectrum the tripod was simple to use, as soon as I knew how to open and close it filming with it was easy, the only difficulty with the tripod was ensuring it was level but as it was fitted with a spirit level that was easy enough too.  We used mobile phones during the production, we did initially plan to film 1 of the in-car scenes with a mobile phone because it wouldn't fill a lot of space and using a regular camera would be very cumbersome and possibly cause damage, however the quality of the mobile phone's built in camera was very poor in comparison to that of the video camera so would cause continuity errors from the change in shot quality and smoothness, so we just had to use the video camera and be careful with it. We did however use mobile phones for reasons other than filming, to contact each other to let each other know about changes to our filming schedule we used our mobiles for communication. To plan and organise dates for filming we also used social networking sites like Facebook.

Facebook Logo

Mobile Phone

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

I learnt that if you want to succeed with any undertaking on this scale or larger TEAMWORK IS ESSENTIAL as it is vital for everyone to do their part or those doing the majority of the work will complain, get upset and the whole project will fold and become unmanageable beyond repair. I also learnt the importance of organisation and time keeping meaning I had to keep up to date so I didn’t become over swamped in work to do, I also had to learn how to use modern technology and more advanced ICT skills to cope with the Macs and advanced editor programs, using the camera wasn’t TOO hard as I like to photograph railways in my spare time so I was already aware of basic controls.

            I have learnt about the many jobs that have to be done during film making e.g. planning, organisation and the many behind the scenes jobs such as making storyboards and moodboards.

Imovie 09, this screenshot shows the editing software we used, despite it looking complex it was fairly easy to use

Imovie 09, this screenshot shows the editing software we used, despite it looking complex it was fairly easy to use

We had to be organised as there was a very tight deadline that it all had to be in by, so to get it all done we all agreed on doing specific jobs each. For instance I made the storyboards myself using the script. It took a while to get them right and the first storyboard I did was scrapped in favour of a much better one. We used the revised versions because they looked a lot better and were truer to the script than the originals. I was also was placed (voluntarily) in charge of creating the character profiles, this was an important as they were the inspirations behind the character of the characters and gave the actors a detailed description  

            When we started filming we did have a few panics such as the dates we chose were ruined by heavy rain, which meant we had to cancel the filming, however we had thought of this in advance and also arranged other days to film to counterbalance the disadvantage. The other set backs we faced were on particular days actors couldn’t turn up on short notice, however rather than not film we used these days to plan and improve shots further so when they could turn up at a later date we had a better idea on how to film them.

            To make the film as good as we could it had to be realistic- The Mise En Scene had to be right, to give us an edge in this field we spend a good few hours as a group online and in class researching Mise En Scene, the result we feel was pretty good as we wanted the Mise En Scene to depict a regular street view, therefore there was nothing stupid or unrealistic in the film, For instance we had things like cars, benches and normal people.

Conclusion

I conclude by saying that this was a thoroughly enjoyable project that all of us as a group liked working on and strived to make it as good as we possibly could, I learnt many skills and as a team we battled through the disagreements and got it all sorted.

Cut and Shut

Our 'Finished' project turned out to be about 40 seconds too long so we had to cut more parts out and shut the gaps to make it look as it should, to do this we removed some shots from the end as it gave the impression was an actual short film and not just an opening as it should be, we reduced some of the car crash scene as it was a little long winded and not all of it was required for effect, we cut some of the chase scene to save some time as it wasn't necessary and just filled in excess time. We sorted it out and now its within the time limit and looks as good as it should.

Our Logo

Jordan Ore has made a logo for our group, it is a picture of 2 film reels with our company name alongside "Reel Film Productions" it features a clever pun of the word real, so it is humorous as well as giving a serious, professional look to our group and project.

Fulfilling my other purpose

It was intended for me to do some of the editing however Siobhan and Lauren had done such a good job it seemed there was no chance of me doing any, however our teacher had a look at our 'Finished Product' and she said we had to shorten it by about a minute so I was taught how to use I movie 09 too so I could do some editing as well, I have done some shortening of the film and changed some shots around for better effect.

The Battle is Won!

We have finished filming (at long last!) now to start our editing :)
we are doing more of that today, though I had to run home 2 miles to fetch the camera which I forgot to bring originally, but camera business is all sorted now :)

Happy Blogging :)

Ceremonial photo of all actors and behind the scenes people who helped create the film.
(Except Jordan Ore, he wasn't there.)