Question: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Task: Choose 6 stills from your finished thriller that you think illustrate how you have used thriller conventions and opening sequence conventions (3 each). Annotate each still with notes on exactly which convention is being shown and whether you are using, developing or challenging it.
Are film follows traditional media products through the use of the different camera angles we used such as high angle shots, close ups, extreme close ups, All the camera angles you usually see in a thriller movie to create suspense and the enigmas. The mass use of editing , and the flicking back to the unusual object of the ballerina jewellery box, is also used in thriller movies, to create suspense and make the audience ask questions about whats happening at this moment in time, however other objects are usually used.
During the opening sequence we use many thriller conventions and your typical opening sequence conventions, this includes-
Extreme long shot- introducing the Setting
One of the first shots is the extreme long shot of the ballet studio, this means the audience get to recognise are 'theme' which is dance/ballet as they're shown this dance studio from a high angle shot which shows much of the room.
Introduction of characters-
This over the shoulder shot during the opening sequence introduces are characters as all three are in shot and can be seen clearly, it also shows the audience the hierarchy as you see this dark character over looking at two innocent characters it definitely shows who's got the power of the shot.
Credits- Every opening sequence needs credits and ares does to, we chose to use quite a 'victorian' font to fit with the same era ballet comes from so it fits with the theme, as well as this because the font is quite old, it also comes across as quite creepy fitting with the thriller genre of our film.
Task 2- Question: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Task: Select a still from your thriller that you think shows an individual from a particular social group you have represented. Then, select a still of a character from A. another film that discusses the group and B. a still of a real individual, possibly from a news story, who also represents that group. Write annotations for all of the stills that discuss why you have represented this group in your particular way and how your representation compares or contrasts with both your chosen real media text and the still of a real person.
I would say our Thriller opening represented the social group of 'sports group' , this is shown as the two girls in the sequence are dedicated to there ballet are show the perfect skills and dance moves within the opening, it shows they're both interested and enjoy it.
This image shows the representation of a 'sports group' as you see both girls in the opening perfecting there moves together in class, it shows them moving in sync and going to the best of there ability. You can tell from the mis-en-scene of the costumes, leotard with the shirt that they're dedicated to there sport are dressed in the right attire, the setting also shows this as its the traditional dance studio.
Famous ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov shows his dedication to ballet dancing in this image as he stands in triumph as he perfects the move, he's involved in popular ballet dance 'The nutcracker' and is one of the best in the world, are opening sequence compares with this as it also shows dedication to his 'sport' ballet as he perfects the move like the girls do during are opening sequence, it also shows how they are wearing the same costume.
A film similar to ours is 'The Black Swan' This image shows actor Natalie Portman performing during the film, this film is similar to ours due to having the same theme, and it shows how the girl is perfecting her dance moves, and trying to become at the best of her ability to be the best ballet dancer out there, its similar to our opening as it shows how both the girls are perfecting there dance move and are also trying to be at the best of there ability with there particular sport.
Task 3-What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think that a small company such as 'The picture house' in cambridge would be likely to distribute our film as the picture house is a small company and because our film is part of a relatively unknown theme/ genre I think it will work perfectly, also most of our film is handheld and looks very basic, therefore it won't be even looked at by big companies as they seek big budget and perfection movies rather then the handheld low budget film and if its in a smaller type cinema we will get people that enjoy this kinda movie come and watch it rather then have big audiences come in and say then they dislike it. (Niche markeT)
Task: Use the www.IMDB.com template to create a page for your film. You will need to fill in all of the blank information.
Task 4- Who would be the audience for your media product?
Task: Decide on a film magazine that you think would be most likely to carry reviews and adverts for your film. Create a word document that includes an image of the front cover of the magazine, a 300 word analysis of why you think the publication would be appropriate for your film and a 300 word review of your film that could potentially be found in the magazine.
I feel that a magazine such as Empire will be the most likely to carry a review and advertise our movie, I think this because the Thriller infatuation is a movie aimed at 12-16 year olds who are out to look for a good movie to watch with there friends and have a fun time and enjoy the buzz with 'Jump' shots, 'bloody' shots and many Enigmas of a thriller. The storyline of the corrupted ballet teacher will be good for this age group as they can relate to the children as they're only just that bit older and the girl side of the audience may even relate as they may have done ballet( the main theme)when younger. Even though most teen boys won't usually go see a ballet movie the whole idea of it being a Thriller will excite them and entice them into the theatre.
I think Empire is the magazine most likely to review and advertise our film as 'Empire' is a magazine that reviews many films big or small and doesn't just include Film reviews but includes other media reviews. Empire is a modernised magazine which doesn't just come in book form these days its reviews are available on iPad, Podcasts and simply on the web and I feel that recently the Thriller genre has become quite modernised and popular as more and more teenagers love to go see movies such as 'The Women In Black' as its a thriller and they know they will get a buzz seeing the movie and as our film is a Thriller it will fit this modernised film culture and will be most suited to a magazine such as Empire.
Our film is mostly aimed at teenagers from about the age of 12-16 and many teenagers pick up 'Empire' Magazine to read about recent released and whats hot to see at the cinema especially to go with friends, however older audiences do tend to read magazines such as Empire but the InDepth reviews of each films means everyone can see whats the right film for them.
Empire will be a good way to review are Movie as its gives a detailed review about the film, a 1-5 star rating, the plot(summary) of movie and there final verdict, this will be good as people will be able to read the magazine and see if the film is actually suitable for them and there age before wasting any money.
Readers of the review will be able to get a good view about the film as many reviews include a film poster and online usually a trailer, Star characters, Run time etc, this means the audience can make sure its right for them also it will be able to relate to our Hollywood actors and many people relate to stars to think 'this film must be good if he's in it' getting us many more views.
Even though I feel Empire is the right magazine to review and advertise our movie over magazines such as Total Film are very similar therefore if we don't manage to get a deal with one magazine there's always chances with others as they're all mostly alike.
Advertising
Empire is a big magazine in the UK owned by news corporation, even though its only printed in the UK its read worldwide to the interests in other countries, this means it has a huge fan base and if we managed to get advertisement in this magazine are film would become quickly known about in the film industry,
Also Empire uses a 'like' and 'tweet' feature about films and as social networking is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to promote right now Empire will be able to give us this good opportunity to get our film talked about worldwide at a good price, as we don't have the biggest budget. As
300 Review for Magazine-
Infatuation starts of with Two ballet students who attend private ballet lessons at Long Road but over the last couple have week’s people from their class continue to disappear… The two girls become suspicious however they continue to attend the class until they disappear, it turns out the ballet teacher is stalking the kids one by one but no one knows why. Until they find out the secrets of the teacher.
The opening for infatuation follows the usual techniques for a opening, it introduces the characters , the setting and the start towards the plot, infatuation does these things all well and gets the audience well informed on what's happening. As infatuation is a thriller it also follows Thriller conventions introducing many Enigmas including 'Why is this person stalking those girls' 'how come the girls can't see what she's doing' etc. it also follows the use of voyeurism where the lady is taking pleasure of watching those girls even though they can't see her.
Another convention is when there's a ordinary situation with extraordinary things are happening, this is shown in infatuation as its a normal ballet class however there's a twist with the pedophiliac teacher.
As infatuation follows thriller conventions and the usual opening sequence conventions it successfully grabs the audiences attention, as they provide successful enigmas they audience are wanting to watch more as soon as the 120 second clip is over.
Us from Empire magazine really enjoyed the opening sequence, we were glued to the screen and can' wait for the film to be released in the upcoming months!
Task 5-
Question: How did you attract/address your audience?
Task: Re-import your finished thriller sequence into Final Cut and create either a voice-over or text that discusses key technical devices and other strategies that you used to engage your audience.
In our opening thriller sequence we attracted the audience through the title' Infatuation' its such a unusual world and many people have no idea what it means, or what its about, creating enigmas with the audience guessing what this film could be about, throughout the opening sequence we built on many enigmas, keeping the audience on there toes about what will happen next, the use of flashing images, and unusual objects also created suspense on the audience as they wonder what is going on, the sound adds to the disturbance with the crackling noise each time, the unusual storyline and creepiness, keeps the audience attracted, so they keep on wanting to see more.
Task 6- Question: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?Use the stills of you with shooting equipment that you took whilst shooting, screen grabs of software and of you using the software. For each of the stills, note down what you learnt about the equipment/ software, what it allowed you to do and what you might consider its drawbacks.
At the beginning of the Thriller topic, I didn't know much about any of the equipment we used, only a bit with the camera, so since doing the thriller opening sequence I have definitely learnt how to successfully film many shots with the camera even though we faced difficulties with the mirror, I also learnt how to create a soundtrack successfully on garage band and editing sound clips and putting sound clips together, I learnt how to layer on photoshop and combine images and edit colours of photo's, I learnt how to edit a sequence with putting clips together on final cut pro to create a sequence and then further edit clips, make them shake, chance colour etc. And now I feel a lot more confident about using these products, and I feel like I can go more in depth into these products to find out a lot more in the next piece of work.
Apple Garageband- It allowed us to create the soundtrack for our opening sequence simply, during the process of making the soundtrack I feel like I fully learnt how to use the software properly adding in sounds from the internet then using different sounds from the garageband database. Fitting the music was simple with the different blocks garageband give you, I learnt how to modify with soundtrack and fading in and out sounds.
Drawbacks of Garageband would be that the choice of music is very limited especially when you go down into a certain genre you want to portray and its not easy to download more sounds into the database.
Another drawback is that there's not many effects you can use to modify the music/soundtrack.
Adobe Photoshop CS3- Allowed us to
Create Infatuation film posters for advertising and inside the opening sequences , during the process of making these we found out how to layer on Photoshop and do a variety of effects including black & white and text.
Drawbacks of photoshop is that to start with its hard to use and you have to get used too it, or have previous experience or you wouldn't know where to start.
Final Cut Pro- Used to edit the opening sequence. By doing our opening sequence I learnt how to fully use final cut pro, I learnt how to combine clips together into a sequence using there easy 'timeline' sort of feature. I also learnt how to do a variety of effects, shaking clips to make them look more 'handheld' and creepy, as well I learnt how to chance clips colours to black and white to make them look basic, I also learnt how to use a variety of effects to combine clips in a exciting way with 'slide' and 'box' effects etc. it pretty much allowed us to create are sequence and make the clips run smoothly together.
Task 7-
Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back at the preliminary task, I feel as a group we have all learnt a lot about creating a Media product, especially I as I feel that before I wouldn't have realised how much planning and research needs to go into a product before it can finally be done to film, including all the storyboarding, scrip writing etc. I have also learnt how difficult it is to film many of the shots, as you face problems with mirroring however when overcome its simple, I have also learnt how different shots control different emotions with the audience, as close ups tend to create a more sad emotion etc. I have also learnt that each genre needs to be storyboarded differently, especially Thriller as during the process I have realised that thrillers need to be consisted of short 'snappy shots to keep the audience on there toes and show a story, and this can easily be done by 'cutting' shots in final cut pro. I have also learnt how to use Garageband, with adding clips , copy and pasting them to create a soundtrack to fit your particular sequence, and make different sounds fit together to fit with the correct genre. I also learnt how to make sounds fade in/out of a sequence along with other effects. Even though I used garage band more then final cut pro, I did learn how to edit a sequence, cut shots and modify them to a degree they create atmosphere eg black and white clips . In all since the preliminary I feel a lot more confident with creating a media product, I know how to do a lot of things I didn't before.
Task: Create a Prezi that takes your ‘reader’ on a journey from preliminary task to finished thriller. Include images to illustrate your points.
Week 1- 6th January 2012, we shot our prelimary task, this consisted of many camera angles including close ups, long shots and mid shots and panning shots, It consisted of 52 seconds and was about a uncovered murder being hunted by someone with a gun, It told us as a group which people were good at which things therefore from it we could see who would be designated filmer etc. It also taught us how to use the basic features of a camera and let us try out some shots we could use to look good in our thriller.
15th- 22nd January 2012.
We began to look at different thriller openings from successful thrillers such as Vertigo, Inception, Hidden and The Prestige and then chose a individual thriller to look at; we each wrote an analysis on a opening sequence individually and as a group allowing us to look at different thriller conventions and how they were used in a 'thrilling' way. It also allowed us to brainstorm a idea of what our thriller could be like and give potential story ideas, as it told us what works well in a Thriller opening sequence and then things that we maybe shouldn't use.
23rd January 2012- We looked at work from previous years from Long road, so we sat and watched a variety of different thriller openings from previous years and then gave an analysis on what they did, this allowed us to see what worked well within a thriller opening and what actually worked for us and we watched them, it told us what we needed to do how holding a shot was appropriate , how we needed to use a variety of shots, use a unusual object, selecting appropriate mis-en-scene and that editing is suitable to your story, as many groups previously used dull and boring fonts for there credits which didn't work with story or theme, so this was one thing we made sure we didn't use, as a group previously got marked down for this as it ruined atmosphere. It told us how our potential opening sequence could look like in the future and what we needed to do to make it look good.
30th + 31st January
This was when we started planning, we come up with potential ideas for our opening sequence, this gave us many blog posts, as we came up with a variety of ideas for ours to be based on -one of our original ideas were; Assasin (women wants revenge), Darkeness, Theft, Wealth, Ballet lesson, Glamor, Concealing of information. We were late deciding what our thriller was going to be based upon so we quickly chose the Ballet idea and got to work straight away. We decided to go with Ballet because it would be simple as the College already has a dance studio so we realised we wouldn't have to organise filming off-campus and face troubles to do with organising that. We then brainstormed idea's of what we could do with ballet, we all thought about a ballet scene like the one in 'Twilight' but soon realised this just wasn't do able for us, so we then came up with the idea of a stalking, creepy character which then would become our final product idea. We looked at potential mis-en- scene, soundtrack, logo, location and classification of our product.
3rd Feb 2012
We started to plan and film test footage, allowing us to see what different shots we could use in the final media product, it showed us what different shoots could work and what ones just wouldn't. it showed us what angles would work best on our media product, perusing different enigmas, and tension to the audience. Our test footage was successful as we used some of the shots in our final product including the bathroom/mirror shot.
10th- 27th Feb
By this time we had discussed are media product in-depth, and looked at different props and settings we would be using, we also created a shot list, story board, call sheet and got title ideas for our thriller opening. this helped us with when we were going to film each part of the opening sequence, and what was going to be done at which points, and made us much more organised with our filming.
13th- 21st Feb
We filmed our media product during this time, in the setting of Long roads dance studio, then some clips in one of the bathrooms, we did this over a series of lessons, we were productive with our filming as we made sure we booked the dance studio a week or so in advance so that we weren't disappointed when it came to filming if it was being used.
24th Feb- 9th March-
We analyses are thriller opening during this time and wrote about different ideas on how we were going to do each task, we created a film poster for the movie that could be used to promote it and other ways we could promote like social networking and how the power of facebook/twitter could help us cheaply promote our movie as we are quite a low budget film, we also looked into what colours/fonts we should use for our credit sequence on the opening.
24th Feb - 26th March 2012
During this time we created the soundtrack to our opening sequence and edited are clips to create the opening sequence, we used two pieces of software that included final cut pro and garageband, We edited clips on final cut pro by 'cutting' them so they were short and snappy like a normal Thriller opening, we edited clips to make them black and white , speeded up clips, distorted and lengthened clips, all so they attracted the audience. we then created the soundtrack on Garageband which proved quite a task without the final media product, as we wasn't sure on how to fit the product with the sequence as we wanted to make sure the music fit what was going in on the scene such as a intense scene has intense music feel.
No comments:
Post a Comment