Used
Cross cutting -
Through our research we have learnt that Thriller films cross-cut between two different scenes. For example 'The Da Vinci Code'. The scenes switch from a chase scene to the main character giving a speech. This make the audience feel that the two are linked and there is a connection in the film.
In our short clip we have tried to use this convention this in our film, we cross-cut between the computer programmer typing on his computer and the car arriving and other character getting out. This creates a sense of mystery and makes the audience realise that the two are linked. We used this technique as it was quite simple yet effective. It is a typical thriller convention and I believe that we made our product more effective by using it.
In our Media product we have used a certain shot composition so we do not reveal the faces of the man in black. We thought that this was a very good technique to use as it creates mystery and tension. The audience would be questioning who the characters were and why the faces are not being revealed. When researching we found this technique in the film The Usual Suspects, the fact that the killers face isn't shown is a major factor later on in the film. The framing of our shots was the major part of the convention that we used to make the shots effective by not displaying the face of the man in black.
We used this in our opening because we believe it is a needed convention in a thriller as it creates a sense of mystery and tension. This is what we wanted to make make our audience feel initially so i believe it was very effective.
Developed
Antagonists and Protagonists
In our production we had a protagonist and a antagonist. The computer programmer is the protagonist and the man in black is the protagonist, we know this because the computer programmer is the main character and the man in black creates antagonism.This is a typical thriller convention and by involving and developing it in our product we made it look effective. With our antagonist and protagonist we have challenged the normal versions because the supposedly victim in our clip is actually the antagonist in the main plot of the film the audience just assumes he is the protagonist, however, the real protagonist is the man in black.
The protagonist in Dark Knight is Batman and the antagonist is The Joker. This is a typical film rivalry as throughout each Batman film Batman is trying to stop The Joker so the Joker is causing the antagonism. This is a great convention and it is most effective in all of the Batman films as without the rivalry there is no film.
Crime and Espionage
The Crime and Espionage displayed show that the audience get a sense that the character is being watched by somebody the whole time, another example of this is in the film 'Phone booth' as shown below. We decided to use different angles and shots for strange angles to make it as if the man in black and the computer programmer are being watch and that somebody is witnessing the whole thing. It makes our opening seem effective because the audience feel like they are watching them secretly and this creates tension because they don't know what is going to happen.
Challenged
Daytime
In a typical thriller its is usually dark as if to set creepy scenery such as the screenshot from 'Dark Knight' shown below, however, in our product the whole product was filmed in the day and it has many shots where full daylight is visible. We tried to make our thriller suspenseful and tense without the convention of darkness and I believe we achieved that. I also believe that it make it more realistic as people may think that daytime is safe but we are going against that. The main thought of our daytime filming was that we realised that people assume that the dark is always linked to danger so we decided to use daylight to make the audience realise it happens in the daylight because people usually feel safe in the daylight.
Delayed Action
The two screenshots below display a shot from the opening on 'The Da Vinci Code' and the ending of the opening to our production 'EDEN'. The point i am trying to display is that in 'The Da Vinci Code' there is a murder within the first two minutes of the film, however, in our opening there is no dramatic or shocking action that happens, the build up makes the audience think there is going to be a murder, but then the audience see that the man knew he was coming and was prepared. The next shot cuts to the film title and then displays in a smaller font underneath '3 months earlier...' this is showing that the action is yet to come.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Josh- How does your media group represent particular social groups? on Prezi
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
We chose to post our question 3 on wiki spaces because we are working on institutions and the first place we looked for information was Wikipedia, therefore we decided it was a suitable wiki to post on.
nfgsaltair.wikispaces.com
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our films target audience is a male audience between the ages of 12-25. We have included the factor of gaming in our film with one of the main characters and the guns and cars involved also attract a male audience. Although the film is quite unique, personally i would say that the matrix is a film that is similar due to the thriller suspense and also the computer based background involved.
Our media product was aimed at particular social groups involving mostly age and gender. We aimed it at 12-25 age group because we believed they were the type of people that would be interested in our story line due to maturity. Also we aimed it mostly at a male audience, you can tell this by the cars, guns and computers all of which are usually male interests, however this may be a stereotypical way of looking at it because the film would also be suitable for a female audience. Also people 40+ may also be interested.
Our audience results showed the general consumption of films in different age groups. It showed that people in a variety of age groups are watching more than 1 film a week and with significant numbers in the 7+ category it could be as many as two films per week. It shows that the audience has experience and exposure to a range of film product.
There is no correlation between age and number of films watched per month. This could be because our sample of participants was very small, it included only 20 different people. 14 of our participants were under the age of 26, this was the younger end of our sample. This may have affected our results and prevented them from showing the correlation. However, our target audience for our production is 12-25 so we are not concerned about the skew towards a younger audience.
5. How did you attract or address your audience?
We annotated our main production on YouTube and displayed how we attracted our audience.
6. What have you learn about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout this year I have learnt many new skills such as how to use; Blogger, YouTube, Prezi, Final Cut Express, Apple Mac Computers, HD Cameras and Tripods. Below i will display in which
way we have used each of our new skills to create our product.
Blogger-
For Media Studies was that we had to start a blog as a group and post our work onto it. I had never written a blog before this course but now i am extremely comfortable with using blogger and think it is a very useful and easy to use site. I found that setting up blogger was very easy and posting was simple. In the blog your are able to tag posts for future reference, this helped me a lot in later stages of planning and especially for evaluating.
YouTube-
Prezi-
Prezi is a presentation software and storytelling tool for exploring and sharing ideas upon a virtual canvas. Prezi is distinguished by its Zooming ability, which enables users to zoom in and out of their presentation media. Prezi is new to me and it took me a long while to become used to it, but once I got used to it I felt that it is a useful tool.
Final Cut Express-
Final Cut Express is an the editing program we used on the Mac's to edit our film. I had never used this program before but I become extremely familiar with it and enjoyed the experience of learning to use it. I thought that it was an excellent a program to use for our course. I would be comfortable with using it in the future and look forward to learning more technical features of the program.
Apple Mac Computers-
We used Apple Mac's for our course because they are needed to run almost all of of the programs we used to create our product such as, Final cut Express and Photo Shop. When i first used the Mac's i found it very difficult as it is completely different from a normal Windows system but over time i have got used to them and now believe they are better than Windows due to the fact that they are practical and are also able to run vital programs that Windows cannot.
HD Cameras/Tripod-
We used Canyon HD cameras to film our product. I have some experience with using video cameras and I found it easy to use them. The Tripod is a very useful tool as it allowed us to use different angles and shots when filming our product. I have never used one before when filming anything and I think that it was extremely useful.
Audit
Start
|
End
|
|
Blogger
|
1/10
|
10/10
|
YouTube
|
7/10
|
9/10
|
Prezi
|
1/10
|
9/10 |
Final Cut Express
|
1/10
|
9/10
|
Mac's
|
4/10
|
9/10
|
HD Cameras/Tripod
|
5/10
|
10/10 |
7. Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
We annotated our preliminary production with ways in which we have improved in our final production since of preliminary task and what we used in our main production because of the use of it in the preliminary task.
In conclusion , I believe that we have been successful in progressing from the preliminary stage to the main task. I feel that we took on what we learnt and also used new features as well. We experimented more with lighting and different camera angles in our main video. Our editing went extremely smooth as we had experience with our preliminary which helped us to be prepared for the main editing. We also tried out some new editing techniques which we felt made our video better such as sound bridges and transitions. Overall I think we have learnt a lot from our preliminary and it helped us a lot.
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