Monday, 22 March 2010

Task 2 - How does your product represent particular social groups?

Our Media Production, which is called “Mind”, represents young people within the horror genre.In our Production we have a little blond girl who is captured by a man in a cellar. Her hands are tied together with chains and she is wearing a dirty white dress and no shoes.Therefore she represents young children and shows some kind of innocence that exists to them like in “Hide and Seek”, where Dakota Fanning is having an imaginary friend, who kills people and she can’t stop him.

She also represents the innocence and childishness of a twelve year old, which is captured in her own mind. However the interesting thing about our particular social group as young children is, that it also represents fear as in “The Others”, where a mother loses her child to a group of people, who capture children and tries to make their family members forget, that they ever existed.

Therefore we care about the child in the movie, as in our production the scene is even more horrible and terrifying because it represents the helpless young child, who is being captured and needs care because she can’t help herself.This is also due to the fact that nowadays in the newspapers we hear a lot about children being kidnapped and captured and we used this influence as a basis to lay out our production because this is a natural thing that scares the mainstream audience, because they have brothers or sisters or might even start to think about getting children.

For example the accurate example of the Pakistani boy who had been kidnapped at the age of 11 and now the family tries to get him back, but still he his hopeless in the power of the kidnappers.As well as this there are an awful lot of cases that are re-opened from children being abused, for example a girl called Laura Scheider, who had been captured by her father since the age of 6 and was raped millions of times and got 8 children. She was never allowed to leave her cellar and never actually had the experience of seeing the world. This is a terrific example of child abuse that we also show in our media product when we show the innocent, blonde girl being captured and being on her own just with the kidnapper.

However we also subverted the image of a child, as it is represented in television where a happy child usually adverts for chocolate or something similar and therefore showed the dark side to a happy child in our production. Even though our production, because of the fact that the man puts a mask over the child’s face in the end, might seem similar to “The Orphanage”, it differs a lot because we want to audience to engage with the child and feel the need to protect her, while the media product

“The Orphanage”, represents the child as something evil and uncontrollable that we have no power over. In our Media Production we also use a creepy looking guy, playing the kidnapper, who has dark eyes, is dressed in black and constantly has the same evil facial expression.

This represents the kidnapper and evil character in the genre of horror movies like it was used in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”, where a man is constantly following the victim. This is also represented in “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th” and therefore the audience is used to the bad guy having dark colored hair and its emotionless facial expression that we are afraid of because we can’t identify what’s behind that.

The fact that the social groups young children and the kidnapper contrast each other makes a Media Product work effectively, again shown in “Hide and Seek”, because you get engaged with the situation, again due to the fact that we are used to such stories, because we hear from them every day in our daily newspapers, television, radio and word-of-mouth.

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

. I think if i was to promote and distribute my product i would do it the same way it was done with the new Horror movie Paranormal Activity. Paranormal Activity was done by a newly formed independent company and then they presented the movie on the Slamdance Film Festival. It was so successful that Dreamworks saw it and decided to do a remake. So Paranormal Activity is an example of an independent film made without any studio funding. Another example of this would have been the movie Colin which is a zombie movie that was made for 5 pounds, but people talked about it and therefore it made a huge profit in the end.

However it is very difficult to be lucky enough to get accepted at a film festival so that your film will actually be seen, but still I think it is a great idea because you do the movie the way you like it and then the Media Institutions can think of whether they believe it’s worth to do a remake. Personally I like the „platform release“ because if it develops all over the world you know the movie is great. I think if I would show my film at a film festival an American Institution which would appeal to it is New Line Cinema because they do movies like Final Destination and our movie also deals with the „supernatural“. I believe as our film is a low budget feature that an independent company would be more likely to take a risk on picking up our film provided they had a major studio backing. An example of this would be Fox Searchlight who took a gamble with the 6 million production of Juno knowing that it was, in Hollywood terms, not a great deal of money. However it became a sleeper hit growiong through positive reviews and word of mouth feedback which added to its attraction along with the taboo subject matter. Our film deals with taboo issues and though more thriller like with the right backing has possibilities of being a sleeper hit. Also, Fox Searchlight would recoup the limited budget through DVD sales and selling of the film to its subsiduary television companies such as TCM. Fox are part of the media conglomerate owned by Murdoch who also owns Sky in Britain this would enable our film to be advertised through Murdoch's many media outlets and successfully recoup and make money.

.

Task 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?



"I think the audience for my Media Production would be female and male but mostly males because I think when the movie is completed it will not only be scary but also bloody and males prefer such movies.

I think my age group will be teens at the age of 15 to adults at the age of 25 because they are the age group that spend money for movies that are entertaining, so called „fun-Films“. But still for the 15 year olds it could get problematic because I feel that the age limit is going to be 18. As the main audience is 15-25 males ,

I think the secondary audience would be 25 to 34 year old who enjoy watching horror movies and are maybe even huge fans. Another secondary audience would be 16 to 25 year old females, who are taken to the cinema by their boyfriends. And then maybe people that have seen and liked movies like “The Orphanage” and “Final Destination” or any other horror movie that deals with the supernatural and is bloody because then they would like to go and see our movie as well."

--> These were my original thoughts, however now i think that there is lots to add to that :

I think the kind of person that would watch my media product would be rather young and the age of the mainstream audience – 15 to 25.
I also think that this audience would mainly be males and I claim that there would be more people less educated watching this movie because I don’t think that the horror genre is a typical genre for educated people. However educated people are still a secondary audience because there are definitely some horror fans within that group of people.

As well as this, people who visit universities are in our age group 15 to 25 and some of those might still choose to go and see a horror movie. I think poor people will watch the movie more than rich people, however I think rich people will spend the money on going to see other forms of art, such as the theatre, while poor people rather see it in the cinema or choose to get it from pirate-bay.

Therefore all in all the target audience for my media product will be aged between 15 to 25, less educated and poor males, however there is a secondary audience of random aged and class people who are horror movies and enjoy watching movies within the horror genre. As my target audience includes working and lower middle class and less educated people, I think the way we sell the movie should appeal to the mainstream, who likes more formulaic films.


The psychographic profile of these audiences is basically that those people love horror movies, and enjoy watching them, in the cinema and at home. Also they are fans of dark clothes and some of them wear make-up and are named “Emo’s”. I guess they also like to listen to heavy metal music and enjoy getting together and listen to it together.

I think as a large part of our audience would be rather mainstream, including the lower and middle class people, we should advert our movie on McDonalds packages and on coca-cola cups, because this would have an impact on how good the movie will sell itself, because I believe, that the mainstream audience drink a lot of coke and like to eat at McDonalds.

Task 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

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



This is our Video, however you can only see half of it. To see the annotations made to explain what and how we did it click on that link please -->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyJa-D_jLbE

Task 7 - Look back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?


--> These are pictures of our more advanced Thriller Production





--> This was our simple Preliminaty Task


Preparation
The process of preparing for our preliminary was way easier than preparing for our actual Thriller production.
We started to plan our Preliminary task about one week before the actual shoot day. However a storyboard was already given to us and therefore there wasn’t a lot of planning to do, because the storyboard is the most important part in it.
Also we were given groups randomly in which we had to film.

We started off practising for it, by filming a simple sequence without a conversation to practise shooting movies. Then we started off to think about actors. However as it was only a simple production we weren’t allowed to get people out of classes for one hour and therefore we had to find people that were free at that time.

Even though the storyboard showed that there were supposed to be one male and one female we chose to take two females and made it work with them. Then we started to prepare the cameras, or better said we decided where we wanted to shoot and which lighting we would need and who would help us on our shoot. Then we prepared the storyboard and figured out which shots we had to film in which sequence.


We started to plan our actual Thriller Production six weeks before the actual shooting. However it was way more complicated, because first of all we had to decide for a special idea and get together in groups. Everyone had to present its idea and then we had to vote for which idea to take and form the groups.

When we sat together in groups we had to start off making the original idea better and give it an order. Before creating the actual storyboard we had to talk our idea through with our teachers to make sure that it is possible to film this, or if not, to change it to an idea we could make possible.
Then we started to produce our first draft of the storyboard.

This was very hard because we had to imagine how long each shot would take and where the credits come in as well as sound and the sketch. Our first drafts were changed around a lot and the end version was only finished one day before the actual shoot day, because we always wanted to make it better and more authentic.

Then there was a whole folder to be produces about the Shooting Schedule, Cast List, Props List, Sound List etc. and we had to plan all of this to guarantee that we are well organized. Also we had to find the actors and sign blue-cards for them to get them out of school for that day. We need to make sure we have our equipment and means of transport to get to different locations. As well as this we had to find all the props we needed and buy them if they weren’t available in this school.
Also we had to get permission for exterior shots and book the studio to film in it.
As well as this we needed to tell the set designed how we wanted the studio to look like and had to help creating that environment.
Another thing we had to do was drawing the actual pictures onto the finished storyboard which was quite a lot of work, because it had to show exactly what would be seen in the shot and none of us was an actual great drawer. However we managed to do this as well as finishing the cast list and getting permission from teachers and parents to use the actors.

Development of film making skills
When we shot our Preliminary task our film making skills weren’t that great. We only had an introduction to the video camera and tripods and only one practise of actually shooting something. Therefore, when we shot our Preliminary Task we had to rely on some advice from our teachers to help us frame the shot and we constantly had to be reminded of the 180* role.

As well as this, we had to be constantly reminded of simple things like making sure our shadow isn’t in the way, shooting the shots in an intelligent order, care for the battery of our camera and having the camera straight so the picture won’t be wrong or out of frame.
Also we had to cope with the dialogue existing in our preliminary task and had to record it, without having the microphone in the frame.

When we shot our actual Thriller Production, we were much more experienced, knew how to deal with a storyboard and things like keeping quiet etc. were not a problem any more because we watched many examples of movie sequences from which we could learn. Also we had a look at the Thriller Productions from the old year and they gave us advice as well.


Use of Camera

The outcome of using the camera in our Preliminary task was alright, but there were loads of things that could have been better. For example some of the shots were slightly crooked, blurred or had vague outlines. Also the lighting wasn’t as professional, because we only used one key light to light our production. Also the dialogue and the storyboard were very scripted and basic. It was one room, one script, everything basic and not even sound. Also the camera angles were very simple and basic and not really challenging in comparison to our Thriller Production.

To this our Thriller production was very different. We used the same camera, however we were now able to use it perfectly without constantly being reminded of not crossing 180degree lines etc. Even though sometimes we weren’t sure, however we still knew that we had to watch out for this. Also we used different sources of lighting and way more different camera angles. We had a light bulb, blue moon light and a blue screen, extra lighting from above etc. As well as this we used candles as a light source.

Also we shot in different locations and learned how to still frame the shot and have great lighting even at night.

The camera angles also differed from our preliminary task, because in the preliminary task we used over the shoulder shots, close ups and wide shots. However now we used a wide range of shots that made it effective and even used tilts and tracking shots with the help or railways.
Also there was a huge difference between the two because this time is was much more us actually doing the filming and planning and we didn’t rely on helpful advice from teachers.
We moved from a basic continuity sequence that everybody shot, lacking in sophistication to a production where we had free license to come up with whatever we wanted under the horror/thriller genre and we told a story with visual means.

Also, because we didn’t use dialogue, we used shots and action to create characters and making the audience understand and this was much more challenging than having a scripted dialogue.
Therefore we had to think through our Thriller production on our own, while the Preliminary task was prepared for us and was only a basic, simple, continuity task.


Use of Sound
In our preliminary task we only used basic sound of dialogue. We let the actors speak the given dialogue and recorded it with a usual microphone. The only other noises we used were the footsteps and door, however it wasn’t important to that task and therefore we just kept the sound as it was.

In our Thriller Production we used a wide range of sound, recorded sound in the moment, and added sound and music later. This was way more challenging, and we learnt more from it because we had to think about how we wanted to create the atmosphere from a thriller without using dialogue as in the preliminary task.

In our Thriller Production we had loads of ambient, diagetic sound such as screams, footsteps, wind blowing and eerie noises. Those were recorded during the shoot day, however in our post-production we added more to that, to make it louder and more effective, for example her scream then became much louder and shocking then as if we would just have taken her actual scream which was a little weak.

Final Cut Pro
When we started the process of editing in our Preliminary Task we got an introduction into how to use Final Cut Pro. However this introduction wasn’t that useful because if you work with those products, you can only fully understand and deal with them, if you play around with them for long enough and get secure.

When we then edited the Preliminary Task we just had to log the shots and put them in an order, without the need to check sound or anything else. The only thing we really needed to care about was to check which shot was the best one of ours. To do this we just deleted the ones we didn’t like and then put the shots in the order in which they belong according to the storyboard.
Basically then this work was done, because we didn’t have to add any credits, nor put music or cut together anything.

Therefore this process ended there.

When it came to the process of editing in our production we had to use the technology in a much more advanced way than in our preliminary task.
It started off the same, by simply logging all the bits and pieces, however there were so many more that this was hard work. Naming them all in a different way even though most of them were the same wasn’t easy either.

Then we started to delete the ones that were unnecessary however it was difficult as well, because some shots looked great but the sound wasn’t good enough, for example the screaming bit, and some were bad, but the sound was great. Therefore we needed to keep those as well, to edit them together later.
When we got into our next stage, we had to put those bits and pieces onto the timeline in the order according to the storyboard. When we finished that, we had to cut it together so it looked smooth and the timing was right.

The next step was to add the sound.
First of all we started to make sure that in none of our shots you could hear anybody say anything like “cut” or “action”. Then we looked which noises we already had and figured out the ones we wanted to add. Then we cross-cut them, for example we took the shot of Alabama, but the scream from another shot and added another scream we found in the sound library on our apple to make it effective.

When we finished this, and added our noises such as footsteps and wind, we started off putting in the credits.
We didn’t want the names to just arrive, and therefore we made them fade in and fade out using the given programme. Matt showed and explained how to do it and then we applied it to our process. We put the titles in, in the right order as they should appear and took the names we made up before in our media folder (e.g. – a milano production).

As well as this we gave them a meaning, for example the actors names arrives when he walks into the shot etc. however we couldn’t make all of them fit, but we made sure they are in the right place, not disturbing the picture and you could read the text 3 times quickly.
We finished by checking the whole sequence looked good and fixed the last problem, which was that one shot gave away that we were filming in the studio. Therefore we changed the frame size and it looked good again.

Friday, 19 March 2010

Account of editing process

When it came to the process of editing in our production we had to use the technology in a much more advanced way than in our preliminary task.
It started off the same, by simply logging all the bits and pieces, however there were so many more that this was hard work. Naming them all in a different way even though most of them were the same wasn’t easy either.

Then we started to delete the ones that were unnecessary however it was difficult as well, because some shots looked great but the sound wasn’t good enough, for example the screaming bit, and some were bad, but the sound was great. Therefore we needed to keep those as well, to edit them together later.

When we got into our next stage, we had to put those bits and pieces onto the timeline in the order according to the storyboard. When we finished that, we had to cut it together so it looked smooth and the timing was right.
The next step was to add the sound.

First of all we started to make sure that in none of our shots you could hear anybody say anything like “cut” or “action”. Then we looked which noises we already had and figured out the ones we wanted to add. Then we cross-cut them, for example we took the shot of Alabama, but the scream from another shot and added another scream we found in the sound library on our apple to make it effective.

When we finished this, and added our noises such as footsteps and wind, we started off putting in the credits.
We didn’t want the names to just arrive, and therefore we made them fade in and fade out using the given programme. Matt showed and explained how to do it and then we applied it to our process. We put the titles in, in the right order as they should appear and took the names we made up before in our media folder (e.g. – a milano production).

As well as this we gave them a meaning, for example the actors names arrives when he walks into the shot etc. however we couldn’t make all of them fit, but we made sure they are in the right place, not disturbing the picture and you could read the text 3 times quickly.
We finished by checking the whole sequence looked good and fixed the last problem, which was that one shot gave away that we were filming in the studio. Therefore we changed the frame size and it looked good again.