Saturday, 21 February 2015
Evaluation - Question Six
6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Friday, 20 February 2015
Evaluation - Question Seven
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
The purpose of my preliminary task was to learn how to use the equipment correctly and to learn how to execute many different shots that we would be using in our own opening thriller sequence. I had to familiarise myself with different pieces of equipment such as the camera, the importance of the memory card and the tripod.
I learnt through my preliminary task that we could experience many difficulties in using the tripod in the correct manor and keeping it stable and positioned correctly with the camera inside as we moved it around and manoeuvred it in different angles in order for us to film the different shots correctly. I experienced so many difficulties whilst trying to use the tripod in the preliminary task that I decided to use a hand-held camera technique in order to film the preliminary task. We decided to turn to the hand-held camera technique because the shots we were producing whilst filming with the tripod was of low quality and were very shaky and unable to watch comfortably and easily. I later discovered that even this technique make the shots look very unstable and that I would have to practise using the tripod and inserting the camera into the tripod correctly so we could then be comfortable with using the tripod when filming our own thriller sequence in order for it to look professional and well executed.
Some of the skills that I learnt through my preliminary task was how to use the camera in a way that I could improve my work. Due to the touch-screen element on the camera I was able to watch back any clips that I had filmed as many times as I liked to see what had gone well and what needed improving once I had watched it back. This helped me to understand that some aspects of mise-en-scene and sometimes the cinematography that I had chosen may not have been the best choice for the particular shot I was trying to film. This helped me when filming my opening thriller sequence because it gave me the chance to watch back what I had filmed and improve it so I had the best possible shot I could have produced ready to edit and produce on Final Cut Pro X.
Overall I believe that my group worked well in considering the appropriate research and ideas in order to create a successful opening thriller sequence. My thriller production follows the relevant and appropriate guidelines and also the generic conventions of the thriller genre. This helps to attract our target audience and give them a potential narrative that will scare them and make them want to carry on watching the film.
The purpose of my preliminary task was to learn how to use the equipment correctly and to learn how to execute many different shots that we would be using in our own opening thriller sequence. I had to familiarise myself with different pieces of equipment such as the camera, the importance of the memory card and the tripod.
I learnt through my preliminary task that we could experience many difficulties in using the tripod in the correct manor and keeping it stable and positioned correctly with the camera inside as we moved it around and manoeuvred it in different angles in order for us to film the different shots correctly. I experienced so many difficulties whilst trying to use the tripod in the preliminary task that I decided to use a hand-held camera technique in order to film the preliminary task. We decided to turn to the hand-held camera technique because the shots we were producing whilst filming with the tripod was of low quality and were very shaky and unable to watch comfortably and easily. I later discovered that even this technique make the shots look very unstable and that I would have to practise using the tripod and inserting the camera into the tripod correctly so we could then be comfortable with using the tripod when filming our own thriller sequence in order for it to look professional and well executed.
Some of the skills that I learnt through my preliminary task was how to use the camera in a way that I could improve my work. Due to the touch-screen element on the camera I was able to watch back any clips that I had filmed as many times as I liked to see what had gone well and what needed improving once I had watched it back. This helped me to understand that some aspects of mise-en-scene and sometimes the cinematography that I had chosen may not have been the best choice for the particular shot I was trying to film. This helped me when filming my opening thriller sequence because it gave me the chance to watch back what I had filmed and improve it so I had the best possible shot I could have produced ready to edit and produce on Final Cut Pro X.
Overall I believe that my group worked well in considering the appropriate research and ideas in order to create a successful opening thriller sequence. My thriller production follows the relevant and appropriate guidelines and also the generic conventions of the thriller genre. This helps to attract our target audience and give them a potential narrative that will scare them and make them want to carry on watching the film.
Thursday, 19 February 2015
Evaluation - Question Three
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Evaluation - Question Two
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My media production consists of three characters who are all searching for a missing dog. These characters consist of two boys and one girl. Instantly the audience would expect the girl to be the victim as she is the only girl making her vulnerable which is conventional to the thriller genre as the female characters are usually seen to be vulnerable, weak and inferior. However this is where I challenged the conventions and made the girl character in the production a secret antagonist. This is unconventional as girls are seen to be powerless against men in this genre who are seen as powerful, strong and dominant and are mostly always the protagonist characters. This is where I also challenged the conventions by making one of the male characters the victim and having him murdered by the female antagonist. This isn't gender stereotypical as females are always seen to be less inferior to men in everyday life as they are always seen as the stronger character physically and mentally. Although I challenged the conventions due to the power of the characters I did however still make them relatable to the target audience I had aimed the piece at. The characters in my piece are all teenagers of 16 and 17 which is also the age of my target audience of teenagers to young adults with an age of roughly 15-25. I made our characters to be of similar ages to the target audience so that the audience can relate to them and ultimately imagine themselves in the situations which will scare them more when bad things happen to the characters of their similar ages.
The characters in my piece all wore costumes that the target audience could relate to by wearing casual everyday clothes such as jeans, converse, a top and a coat. This is what the audience would expect the characters to be wearing whilst on a winters day in the forest as this is what they would consider wearing themselves. The female character also wore minimal makeup and had a casual down hair-do. The only other makeup used was fake blood around her mouth on the reveal of her as the antagonist to show that she had clearly killed someone and their blood remained on her face. This is where the audience could be surprised and shocked as they wouldn't expect a female of this age to be able to do such a thing and have overcome a male character.
My media production consists of three characters who are all searching for a missing dog. These characters consist of two boys and one girl. Instantly the audience would expect the girl to be the victim as she is the only girl making her vulnerable which is conventional to the thriller genre as the female characters are usually seen to be vulnerable, weak and inferior. However this is where I challenged the conventions and made the girl character in the production a secret antagonist. This is unconventional as girls are seen to be powerless against men in this genre who are seen as powerful, strong and dominant and are mostly always the protagonist characters. This is where I also challenged the conventions by making one of the male characters the victim and having him murdered by the female antagonist. This isn't gender stereotypical as females are always seen to be less inferior to men in everyday life as they are always seen as the stronger character physically and mentally. Although I challenged the conventions due to the power of the characters I did however still make them relatable to the target audience I had aimed the piece at. The characters in my piece are all teenagers of 16 and 17 which is also the age of my target audience of teenagers to young adults with an age of roughly 15-25. I made our characters to be of similar ages to the target audience so that the audience can relate to them and ultimately imagine themselves in the situations which will scare them more when bad things happen to the characters of their similar ages.
The characters in my piece all wore costumes that the target audience could relate to by wearing casual everyday clothes such as jeans, converse, a top and a coat. This is what the audience would expect the characters to be wearing whilst on a winters day in the forest as this is what they would consider wearing themselves. The female character also wore minimal makeup and had a casual down hair-do. The only other makeup used was fake blood around her mouth on the reveal of her as the antagonist to show that she had clearly killed someone and their blood remained on her face. This is where the audience could be surprised and shocked as they wouldn't expect a female of this age to be able to do such a thing and have overcome a male character.
Evaluation - Question One
1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
There are many different generic conventions that belong to each genre that makes it
imperative to consider when trying to produce your own successful opening thriller sequence. Some of the generic conventions that belong to the thriller genre is a potential narrative to scare you, dark and gloomy colours, low key lighting, an enigma and close-up shots. These conventions belong to every thriller film which portrays the film as part of the thriller genre and because they are all used effectively in order to scare you.
My thriller piece made use of all of these conventions focusing specifically on the use of an enigma and low key lighting. Such like successful thriller films "Sinister" and "The Strangers" an enigma is used as the antagonist is kept a mystery and unknown until the end of the film. Throughout the film the audience is kept unknown to who the killer may be but is given slight hints throughout in order for them to try and figure it out before the end of the film. However at the very end of the film the antagonist is revealed and it sometimes challenges the conventions as it has an unusual and unconventional antagonist which surprises the audience for example when the killer is a female or a child.
I similarly used this technique in my own thriller piece. I made the antagonist unknown to the audience to create a mysterious atmosphere and to build up tension. We used this specifically in our scene leading up to the reveal of the antagonist when the victim was slowly walking up to the back of the antagonist in a slow point of view shot. This built up tension as the audience were about to find out who the antagonist was and also left them wondering what they would do to the victim who revealed them. This is conventional as it makes it impossible for the audience to build relationships with the characters which makes them fear them instead of fear for them. I also used low key lighting. I used this in almost all of my scenes as it is conventional and effective but also fitted in with our setting and narrative of a dog being lost in a forest. I used this in our beginning scenes of a panning shot of the forest and a low angle shot of two of the characters walking through the forest calling for one of their lost dogs. The use of this technique in the beginning of our piece gave the audience an immediate sense of foreboding and helped them to understand that our film was part of the thriller genre.
The technique of low key lighting is also used in some of the most effective and successful thriller films such as "Halloween" and "The Woman In Black". Low key lighting is used in the "The Woman in Black" in one of the most famous scene for being scary. When Daniel Radcliff the main protagonist in the film is discovering about a new house which is supposedly haunted he is looking out of a dark grey gloomy window. After a couple of seconds a dark face with black hair quickly appears to scare you. The darkness of this scene gives the production a dual and forlorn aura and gives the audience a sense of foreboding as we expect the audience to associate the darkness and black and grey colours with negative thoughts and an automatic uncomfort.
The title of my thriller piece was "Devour". I decided with my group that this was an appropriate title for our film as it fits in with our inspiration and narrative of cannibalism. The word devour defines to engulf or eat up voraciously. We felt as though this described cannibalism very well and that it described an unpleasant action of the way something was being eaten and so it was therefore conventional to the thriller genre.
Overall I believe that my thriller production follows the conventions of the thriller genre as we have focused on interpreting the techniques in our piece in some way to ensure that the audience can understand and tell that our piece is a thriller sequence and also that it scares the audience in some way.
There are many different generic conventions that belong to each genre that makes it
imperative to consider when trying to produce your own successful opening thriller sequence. Some of the generic conventions that belong to the thriller genre is a potential narrative to scare you, dark and gloomy colours, low key lighting, an enigma and close-up shots. These conventions belong to every thriller film which portrays the film as part of the thriller genre and because they are all used effectively in order to scare you.
My thriller piece made use of all of these conventions focusing specifically on the use of an enigma and low key lighting. Such like successful thriller films "Sinister" and "The Strangers" an enigma is used as the antagonist is kept a mystery and unknown until the end of the film. Throughout the film the audience is kept unknown to who the killer may be but is given slight hints throughout in order for them to try and figure it out before the end of the film. However at the very end of the film the antagonist is revealed and it sometimes challenges the conventions as it has an unusual and unconventional antagonist which surprises the audience for example when the killer is a female or a child.
I similarly used this technique in my own thriller piece. I made the antagonist unknown to the audience to create a mysterious atmosphere and to build up tension. We used this specifically in our scene leading up to the reveal of the antagonist when the victim was slowly walking up to the back of the antagonist in a slow point of view shot. This built up tension as the audience were about to find out who the antagonist was and also left them wondering what they would do to the victim who revealed them. This is conventional as it makes it impossible for the audience to build relationships with the characters which makes them fear them instead of fear for them. I also used low key lighting. I used this in almost all of my scenes as it is conventional and effective but also fitted in with our setting and narrative of a dog being lost in a forest. I used this in our beginning scenes of a panning shot of the forest and a low angle shot of two of the characters walking through the forest calling for one of their lost dogs. The use of this technique in the beginning of our piece gave the audience an immediate sense of foreboding and helped them to understand that our film was part of the thriller genre.
The technique of low key lighting is also used in some of the most effective and successful thriller films such as "Halloween" and "The Woman In Black". Low key lighting is used in the "The Woman in Black" in one of the most famous scene for being scary. When Daniel Radcliff the main protagonist in the film is discovering about a new house which is supposedly haunted he is looking out of a dark grey gloomy window. After a couple of seconds a dark face with black hair quickly appears to scare you. The darkness of this scene gives the production a dual and forlorn aura and gives the audience a sense of foreboding as we expect the audience to associate the darkness and black and grey colours with negative thoughts and an automatic uncomfort.
The title of my thriller piece was "Devour". I decided with my group that this was an appropriate title for our film as it fits in with our inspiration and narrative of cannibalism. The word devour defines to engulf or eat up voraciously. We felt as though this described cannibalism very well and that it described an unpleasant action of the way something was being eaten and so it was therefore conventional to the thriller genre.
Overall I believe that my thriller production follows the conventions of the thriller genre as we have focused on interpreting the techniques in our piece in some way to ensure that the audience can understand and tell that our piece is a thriller sequence and also that it scares the audience in some way.
Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Thriller Final Cut
Thriller Final Cut
West Hatch High School - 16807
Elizabeth Cooper - 9040
I also worked alongside :
Kane Faulkner-Wild - 9329
Malu Pillai - 9361
West Hatch High School - 16807
Elizabeth Cooper - 9040
I also worked alongside :
Kane Faulkner-Wild - 9329
Malu Pillai - 9361
Evaluation Introduction
Evaluation Introduction
My production task was to create a 2 minute opening sequence to a thriller film. I had to research, plan and evaluate my piece in the thriller genre. I had to work in a group of three throughout the whole task. My group consisted of myself, Kane Faulkner-Wild and Malu Pillai. Throughout the planning and producing of my piece each member of the group was assigned different roles in order to ensure all aspects of the production was analysed and executed to the best of our ability.
Kane's roles were director and producer due to his confident and demanding character as we thought due to these characteristics he could perform well in getting the group together at meetings and he has a good eye of what looks good when it came to discussing whereabouts we would position our characters and what they would be doing in all the specific scenes.
Malu's roles were director of photography and mise-en-scene co-ordinator. These roles were given to Malu due to her photographic and artistic mind, we found this out when planning our production she awarded lots of imaginative and unusual ides that could have worked well in our thriller film.
My roles were screenplay writer and music producer. I was appointed these roles due to my interesting narrative idea that I produced in our planning of a successful narrative and also due to my strong love for music and I also enjoy researching different sounds and music genres. My group and I ensured that all areas of our production were focused on by each one of us and this ensured that this would greatly effect our production in some way.
I believe that my group and I worked well as a team as we were all committed characters who wanted to produce a conventional and successful thriller piece. All members made a sound effort to smoothly attend all filming schedules and to edit the piece on the appropriate software once we had filmed the whole sequence.
My production task was to create a 2 minute opening sequence to a thriller film. I had to research, plan and evaluate my piece in the thriller genre. I had to work in a group of three throughout the whole task. My group consisted of myself, Kane Faulkner-Wild and Malu Pillai. Throughout the planning and producing of my piece each member of the group was assigned different roles in order to ensure all aspects of the production was analysed and executed to the best of our ability.
Kane's roles were director and producer due to his confident and demanding character as we thought due to these characteristics he could perform well in getting the group together at meetings and he has a good eye of what looks good when it came to discussing whereabouts we would position our characters and what they would be doing in all the specific scenes.
Malu's roles were director of photography and mise-en-scene co-ordinator. These roles were given to Malu due to her photographic and artistic mind, we found this out when planning our production she awarded lots of imaginative and unusual ides that could have worked well in our thriller film.
My roles were screenplay writer and music producer. I was appointed these roles due to my interesting narrative idea that I produced in our planning of a successful narrative and also due to my strong love for music and I also enjoy researching different sounds and music genres. My group and I ensured that all areas of our production were focused on by each one of us and this ensured that this would greatly effect our production in some way.
I believe that my group and I worked well as a team as we were all committed characters who wanted to produce a conventional and successful thriller piece. All members made a sound effort to smoothly attend all filming schedules and to edit the piece on the appropriate software once we had filmed the whole sequence.
Thursday, 1 January 2015
Rough Cut - Miss Georgiou
Rough Cut
Receiving audience feedback is important within our production process as it clarifies the strengths and weaknesses of our piece from a different perspective. It also allows us to notice small errors that we had mistaken and also the things we worked well on and the things that may need improving to make our production better.
We received audience feedback by showing a screening of our production to the whole class including our teachers. They then gave us verbal feedback on what they found conventional about the piece and also what they think we could change and work on to make our production more successful and the ways in which we could do this. Following the class's overall comments our teacher then concluded on what she thinks worked well and was effective within our piece and also the things she didn't really like and understand and how she thinks we could improve these to suit the thriller genre and conventions more successfully. We also uploaded the rough cut of our production onto YouTube where anyone worldwide can view our piece, like subscribe and comment what they think. We received a lot of informative feedback on different elements of our piece with constructive criticism on things we need to improve on.
This type of feedback will benefit my groups production and also the film industry as it will help us to understand how a stranger to our production feels about it as they watch it for the first time. Due to the group continuously editing our piece we have become used to it and we don't sometimes catch silly mistakes that a viewer would who has never seen it before. This means we can understand some problems we found new viewers would experience such as if viewers don't understand our piece first time round or whether they wouldn't class the production in a thriller genre by just watching the first few seconds of our piece.
The main positive feedback that our group received was to do with the soundtrack and sound effects that we used within our piece. The comments mentioned that the sounds we used were very conventional to the thriller genre and was therefore effective in making them feel scared throughout the production. They said the sound we used on our point of view shot was very intense and created tension making them feel scared and worried for what was going to come next. We found the majority of our sound effects and soundtrack from copyright free websites on the internet alongside including some sound effects from the programme we used to edit our piece Final Cut Pro X. The second piece of positive feedback that we received was the low key lighting as they felt that this was very conventional and made it clear to an audience that the production was from the thriller genre. They said the lighting gave the scene a gloomy and eerie atmosphere which is conventional to the genre. We inserted filters over our shots to create a continuous colour scheme and dark aura to hide any complications of when we filmed different shots at different parts of the day. We also adjusted the brightness and opacity to make sure of a constant flow throughout the whole production. The final piece of positive feedback that we received was our choice of cinematography. A popular shot that was mentioned by the audience was the point of view shot that we used to create tension. The shot consisted of a point of view hand held technique that followed up behind the antagonist. The feedback we received mentioned that this created an intense moment within the scene and the audience felt themselves becoming frightened at what might happen.
The main constructive feedback that we received was that some of our shots were a bit shaky. The feedback voiced that some of the shots were noticeable unstable which sometimes put the audience off causing them to loose engagement from our production. Therefore we have understood that we may need to film some shots using stable equipment for example the tripod to ensure that this problem doesn't effect the audience's experience whilst watching our production. The second piece of constructive feedback that we received was the understanding of the narrative. Due to the two male characters wearing similar clothing it was hard for the audience to tell them apart and therefore understand the two different roles in the narrative. Therefore we may have to change the clothing and make a definite stand between the two characters to make the narrative easier for the audience to follow and to ensure they understand the two different characters and their roles in the narrative. The final piece of constructive feedback we received was that one of our shots was much darker than the rest of our shots. The shot was noticeable that it had been filmed on a different day with a different brightness and opacity. This shot disabled the constant flow of our film and therefore created our film to look unprofessional and sloppy. Therefore we will have to arrange a period of time where we can ensure that we will be able to film for a long period of time and get all the shots filmed with the same background and brightness to make sure there is a flow of shots in our thriller production.
Here is some photographic evidence of some of the feedback I received on YouTube.
Receiving audience feedback is important within our production process as it clarifies the strengths and weaknesses of our piece from a different perspective. It also allows us to notice small errors that we had mistaken and also the things we worked well on and the things that may need improving to make our production better.
We received audience feedback by showing a screening of our production to the whole class including our teachers. They then gave us verbal feedback on what they found conventional about the piece and also what they think we could change and work on to make our production more successful and the ways in which we could do this. Following the class's overall comments our teacher then concluded on what she thinks worked well and was effective within our piece and also the things she didn't really like and understand and how she thinks we could improve these to suit the thriller genre and conventions more successfully. We also uploaded the rough cut of our production onto YouTube where anyone worldwide can view our piece, like subscribe and comment what they think. We received a lot of informative feedback on different elements of our piece with constructive criticism on things we need to improve on.
This type of feedback will benefit my groups production and also the film industry as it will help us to understand how a stranger to our production feels about it as they watch it for the first time. Due to the group continuously editing our piece we have become used to it and we don't sometimes catch silly mistakes that a viewer would who has never seen it before. This means we can understand some problems we found new viewers would experience such as if viewers don't understand our piece first time round or whether they wouldn't class the production in a thriller genre by just watching the first few seconds of our piece.
The main positive feedback that our group received was to do with the soundtrack and sound effects that we used within our piece. The comments mentioned that the sounds we used were very conventional to the thriller genre and was therefore effective in making them feel scared throughout the production. They said the sound we used on our point of view shot was very intense and created tension making them feel scared and worried for what was going to come next. We found the majority of our sound effects and soundtrack from copyright free websites on the internet alongside including some sound effects from the programme we used to edit our piece Final Cut Pro X. The second piece of positive feedback that we received was the low key lighting as they felt that this was very conventional and made it clear to an audience that the production was from the thriller genre. They said the lighting gave the scene a gloomy and eerie atmosphere which is conventional to the genre. We inserted filters over our shots to create a continuous colour scheme and dark aura to hide any complications of when we filmed different shots at different parts of the day. We also adjusted the brightness and opacity to make sure of a constant flow throughout the whole production. The final piece of positive feedback that we received was our choice of cinematography. A popular shot that was mentioned by the audience was the point of view shot that we used to create tension. The shot consisted of a point of view hand held technique that followed up behind the antagonist. The feedback we received mentioned that this created an intense moment within the scene and the audience felt themselves becoming frightened at what might happen.
The main constructive feedback that we received was that some of our shots were a bit shaky. The feedback voiced that some of the shots were noticeable unstable which sometimes put the audience off causing them to loose engagement from our production. Therefore we have understood that we may need to film some shots using stable equipment for example the tripod to ensure that this problem doesn't effect the audience's experience whilst watching our production. The second piece of constructive feedback that we received was the understanding of the narrative. Due to the two male characters wearing similar clothing it was hard for the audience to tell them apart and therefore understand the two different roles in the narrative. Therefore we may have to change the clothing and make a definite stand between the two characters to make the narrative easier for the audience to follow and to ensure they understand the two different characters and their roles in the narrative. The final piece of constructive feedback we received was that one of our shots was much darker than the rest of our shots. The shot was noticeable that it had been filmed on a different day with a different brightness and opacity. This shot disabled the constant flow of our film and therefore created our film to look unprofessional and sloppy. Therefore we will have to arrange a period of time where we can ensure that we will be able to film for a long period of time and get all the shots filmed with the same background and brightness to make sure there is a flow of shots in our thriller production.
Here is some photographic evidence of some of the feedback I received on YouTube.
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