Monday 29 June 2009
Monday 23 March 2009
Cinema Feedback.
Today, the media department organized a trip out to the N1 Centre where we were able experience watching our thriller opening as well as others on the big screen. Us students were all told to meet up outside the Vue fro 9:15am. We were then told to enter the cinema in an ordinary fashion, in our set groups. Once we were all seated, preparing ourselves, trying to contain all the excitement, the lights went out and the screen came on. At this point everyone was excited and was cheering, clapping, screaming and all sorts. This I must say made my spirit come alive and very comfortable/settled, as I was a little nervous of what the audience reaction would be towards my thriller opening. When one of the media teachers mentioned that they were starting to show the film starting from set 1 continuing, I begun to get nervous again as I knew my groups one was coming up very shortly. Our thriller then came up. Everyone begun to cheer and whistle, also calling my name and other group members names out. This helped as it boosted up my confidence. Making me realize all my hard work I had put in. Once mine had finished, again there was loud cheers, clapping, whistling, etc. I was very pleased and proud as people were informing me that they liked our storyline, the fact that it was not the same old “man being the killer” however in this case the woman was the killer. I could tell from peoples reaction in the cinema that they were shocked towards the end as they were expecting too see the man be the prime suspect. I must say I was pleased and impressed with the response which the crowd gave. This was our intensions the whole time and it is nice to know that our hard work payed off.
The Lady Killer Evaluation!!
I believe that my media product used forms and conventions of real media product in some ways. I would say my media product used these forms and conventions as throughout our opening sequence, tension was building up slowly. This caused the audience to be confused, anxious and guessing. This was done by the use of low angle shots and extreme close ups of the two actors feet. The fact that it does not reveal any one’s point of view, or any facial expressions or face, this caused mystery and anxiety to build up as the audience is unaware of what is actually going on and has only imagination and assumptions left to help them. This keeps the audience engaged and urging to continue watching the film, eager to no what is going to happen next. This is what thrillers is all about and if two minutes creates all these effects on the audience, then surly, the audience will be interested to continue watching the film as they are intrigued and curious of what is going to happen or of what the film is about. The camera shots, different sound effect, volume frequency and the different genres of music. With all theses aspects, the audience is left in the dark, unsure of what is going on, or what to expect. In addition, the audience is left feeling nervous and tense as the way which we shot it, made it look as if the audience was walking along with the two characters, unsure of where there going, and who is following them, making the audience experience the journey with the two characters.
In our Thriller, we all reflected on what we learnt from all those tutorial lessons, inputting it into our thriller. I believe that that myself and my group used a very basic, calm, classical shot, to introduce the thriller. We used an establishing shot of the scenery and the location which we were filming in (which was London, London Bridge), then eventually, slowly introducing our main characters which was myself and Tony.
While planning this thriller, our intentions were for the audience to acknowledge and identify me, as the main character. We did this by revealing my face at the end, showing who I am and what I was doing. The person we wanted the audience to identify the most was me, the killer. We did this by showing Nicole's face/description right at the end as she killed Tony and walked away.
I have discovered that an opening to any type of film, not just thrillers, is extremely important as it can determine whether the audience will want to continue watching the film or not. This is vital as if they find the opening sequence appealing, conspicuous, alarming or engaging, they would be tempted to watch more to see what the film can offer. I applied this knowledge when I was thinking of the storyline, as our storyline gives a sense of anonymity or mystery etc, making the audience gagging for what is going to happen next. However, on the other hand, I feel like our opening sequence does challenge forms and conventions as in a normal film or an opening of a normal film like what we have produced, you normally would find the prime suspect to be a man. It would be the original storyline and it would be the stereotype of the audience. Nevertheless, in this case, it is actually a woman who is the killer.
Therefore, the fact that in my opening sequence, the roles have changed and it is actually the woman who is the killer, I feel like it does challenge the forms and conventions of a real media product. This I believe is another advantage for the audience reactions as when the overall opening sequence is revealed and they see the twist in it, they would be astonished, shocked and egger to want to see the rest of the film. Example of thriller’s which we looked at in class, which had good openings are The Shining, 28 days later etc.
I remember watching a documentary that had loads of different directors telling there views and advice on how to structure a film, etc. I feel like I took this documentary on bored and used director’s advice wisely, as our seen does not reveal everything or so much excitement in the opening. It only reveals a little taster of what the film is about, but more in a leading on, guessing way, leaving the big scenes till the middle however still keeping the audience engaged and occupied with just a little two minute appetizer.
In my sequence, we used young teenage actors to play the role of early 20s characters. Our actors were culturally diverse, as we did not just have one type of ethnicity, we had 2 different types. This is the same for race and gender. We wanted our sequence to represent all kind of people, and not just stick to one type of gender, ethnicity, race etc. And so because of this, we involved genders, different races and different ethnicity to avoid any discrimination upon people (e.g. only involving one particular race in the sequence may come across too specific or questionable.). I would say our sequence is represented to ages 16-40. I believe these ages are more appropriate and suitable. Anything above, I do not think it would be very appealing, anything below I think it would be too advanced as it is more appropriate for young adults and middle-age adults, as it is more of a smart, conniving thriller. The only mistake I believe we made was the fact that we only included one type of class, which was middle class. We did not really represent other types of class. Everything about our sequence showed the type of class it was, e.g. the scenery, buildings, costume, surroundings, also the type of people around.
The characters in it are shown to be professionals and so it breaks away from the stereotypical image of what a killer should look like. Also with the killer being a woman, it once again offers an alternative to the regular cliché scenario where the killer is 9 times out of 10 a man. I feel like my media product may take the interest of people who are interested in thriller/horrors movies; however, I do not feel like it is aimed at a particularly group. Reason for this is because my opening is very basic, calm and quite neutral however with that big twist, and there’s no particular social group however there is a particular age group which it is represented to, which is 15-40yrs, as people within these ages tend to be a more daring audience. Reason why we did not make a particular social groups is simply because we want our opening to be open to everyone, no one in particular, so that it will attract everyone and anyone who is simply interested in horror/thrilling films., which includes a lot of gore, bloody scenes, murders, gothic scenes etc.
If I was given a variety of options of which media institution to distribute my media product to, I would consider working with Working Title. Reason why I would choose this company is simply because I believe that a company like this specialize and focus on low budget British films. They are also eminent for British institution and so I think that our product will fit perfectly.
I feel that our thriller opening would do well as a YouTube or internet piece because of the length of it, as it is not very long meaning it will stream very easily as an mp4. Alternatively because of the style in which it was shot e.g. the use of montage sequences and it is slow pace it might be something you may see in an arthouse screening cinema. I do not think it being distributed as Universal Pictures/ Studios will be very appropriate, as there is no assurance ofthe film making any good profits.
In order to attract my audience, I will create links to it online and post it on:
I will also set up a theorem. (Internet clubs e.g. blogging, or fun sites, etc.) As well as advertising it on these sites, I will also be distributing it on these sites as well. I will be advertising my sequence on the internet for more of a niche and not a mainstream audience reason being, not everyone is interested in short films. There are actually specific set of people who are interested into short film. For example, those who attend film festivals. Before my group and I actually started filming, in the spare time that I had, I decided to do some research, and I discovered that there were festivals where people appreciated short films. I found that many people went to festivals such as Coanes and Portabello. Coanes festival tends to focus much more on mainstream and Portabello festivals tend to focus more on niche.
My audience, which my sequence will be represented to, is a both male and female mainstream audience. I believe that it is more suitable and best to represent a sequence like mine to both genders so that it can it can equal for both sexes to watch it. In addition, the footage does not have the storyline, which specifies more for a particular sex, for example – If my sequence contained a lot of action and violence then the main target audience would be for males. My media product would target audience from the age of 16 to 30.This age group I feel is most suitable due to the context of the film. Anything younger, I feel may be to complex and advanced as my sequence has quiet a catch to it, making it far more mysterious compares to an average storyline. The type of class I personally think my sequence would represent is middleclass. As the characters in my sequence represented that class. Specifically, my media product will be represented to film studies university students, which attends a lot of independent screening, who enjoy a variety of genres short films. I believe that this would be a more appropriate audience, as my media product relates to what they are studying. A typical person who fits our target audience is 20 yrs old Susan, who comes from a middle class background. She works in a lawyers office and in her leisure time, enjoys going out on the weekend, to the cinema with either her boyfriend Jack or her best friend Mandy. She is a lively, who loves to have fun in her spare time. Harrods is her favourite place to shop, and is where she is most venerable. She is well spoken and well educated, whilst being I the process of making this thriller opening, I learnt many new things. Technology was one of them. I have learnt to understand alone that technology plays a huge role in the film industry as well as in life. Threw this project, I have been introduced to so many different software’s such as, Final Cut Pro.
This is a professional non-linear editing software applications developed by Apple Inc. The application is only available for Mac OS X version 10.4 or later, and is a module of the Final Cut Studio product. The software logs and captures video onto a hard drive (internal or external), where it can be edited and processed. The current version of Final Cut Pro, version 6.0.5, runs on both Intel and PowerPC processors. It is compatible with many hardware interfaces.
At first I must say I found it very daunting, not just this software but also others I encountered in contact with, such as Final Cut Pro Soundtrack. I gradually became familiar each time I used these software is, allowing me to learn more an actually understand what am doing. As I used theses software’s more often, I became experienced and more confident when using the equipment/machine.
After every lesson, we were expected to blog online everything we did within that lesson. Not only did I learn and experience different software’s but I also learnt how to use the internet efficiently and different sites such as www.blogger.com. A blogger is an online diary, which we had to note everything we did while during this project. I must say while reading back on all those lessons, it really did give me an insight into everything I did with my group. The use of the Internet helps greatly when it comes to promoting and advertising. Websites/social networking sites such as
1.www.vimeo.com
2.www.facebook.com
3.www.myspace.com
4.www.youtube.com
5.www.bebo.com
Vimeo is a video-centric social network site, which launched in November 2004. The site supports embedding, sharing, video storage, and allows user commenting on each video page. Users must register to upload content. Registered users may also create a profile and upload small user pictures as their avatars, comment and "like" videos. Vimeo is where we uploaded our final thriller opening, once everything was complete. It was placed here intentially so that people (the audience) can view it and so that we can get feedback on it, allowing us to know how people felt about it, and their thoughts and opinions.
Without the internet , I don’t see how we could have gotten a much wider audience as the internet provides a wide audience worldwide, allowing us to receive different views and opinions from potential audience. Just like the feedback which we received I class and at the cinema.
As Mary presented our film in the cinema and in the classroom. This allowed us to get feedback from our classmates, which were thinking like critics. Feedback which myself and my group got was good use of costume, theme (especially the whole big twist), good use of camera shots, etc. My experience at the cinema was similar to my experience in the Mac room. I was scared, anxious and nervous of what people would think of my thriller opening. However as everyone cheered when myself and my groups video came on, I began too feel more relaxed and calm. By the end of the video, I felt pleased and satisfied with the audience response, and most of all I was proud with myself and my group’s hard work and effort each one of us put in. I learnt from just the audience reaction and comments that, if you work hard, you will get far in life. I also learnt how to work in a group as in work as a team, united and strong, I also learnt how to over come issues in a positive and civilized way.
I must say this project has opened my eyes much wider, and has taught me to appreciate the internet and technology much more. I also learnt to appreciate films much more than I do, as it is a lot of hard work, effort and determination. Before I used to think it was fairly quick and simple, however now that I have been exposed to a little taster of what it is like to make 2 minutes of a film, I am much more grateful for the films which I have watched, as I think about all the hard work which the directors, producers, actors, editors, etc put in. I have noticed that since this project, when I watch movies or TV programmes, I automatically become very critical and I analyze each scene/clip. E.g., I would say, “o there’s a match cut, low angle shot, nice point of view shot, Etc.”
Reminiscing back at my preliminary task, I feel like I have learnt a lot from it, which helped a great deal while making our final product.
The term match cut is generally any cut that emphasizes spatio-temporal continuity and thus, contrasting the conspicuous and abrupt discontinuity of a "jump cut," forms the basis for continuity ('invisible') editing, such as the ubiquitous use of "match on action." In this more general usage, a match cut would thus contrast with jump cuts most immediately and form part of the "reality effect" of continuity editing rather than the visible fractures of spatial, temporal, graphic, and cause-and-effect continuity of jump cuts. Even within continuity editing, though, the match cut is a contrast with cross-cutting between actions in two different locations that are occurring simultaneously or parallel editing, which draws parallels or contrasts between two different time-space locations. I am pleased that I had a lesson based on this as I had learnt a lot from it, making me more prepared for when it came to making my final product, and making me analyze and understand how you can link different shots with each other, still continuing that form of continuity in movies which professionals use. I must say this lesson did not only help my group, but I feel like it helped other groups as well, as we were able to display it in our final product, allowing us to receive more marks. Threw this, I also learnt a lot about the film making industry, and I now fully understand how much effort, time, patience, and dedication is actually needed, as before we actually started filming, myself and my group had to create a story bored, which is basically a graphic organizer such as a series of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of previsualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence, including website interactivity. This was done so that when it came to filming, it would be easier and straightforward, as all you have to do is follow the storyboard. This makes the filming day much more organized. As the director/camera man knows exactly what shots to do. Due to the storyboard, and organization skills, we were organized when it came to use of props, costume, location, whether we needed permission to film in a certain place, etc. When it came to filming, we had to take many different shots from many different angles, a good number of times.
I am very pleased that we had this task to pull off. I feel like I have learnt many things for life. I feel more articulate, aware, critical and pleased with myself. I must say it has made me think into taking this subject for future references, as I enjoyed it so much. I feel like it is something I would want to carry on doing as a future career.
In our Thriller, we all reflected on what we learnt from all those tutorial lessons, inputting it into our thriller. I believe that that myself and my group used a very basic, calm, classical shot, to introduce the thriller. We used an establishing shot of the scenery and the location which we were filming in (which was London, London Bridge), then eventually, slowly introducing our main characters which was myself and Tony.
While planning this thriller, our intentions were for the audience to acknowledge and identify me, as the main character. We did this by revealing my face at the end, showing who I am and what I was doing. The person we wanted the audience to identify the most was me, the killer. We did this by showing Nicole's face/description right at the end as she killed Tony and walked away.
I have discovered that an opening to any type of film, not just thrillers, is extremely important as it can determine whether the audience will want to continue watching the film or not. This is vital as if they find the opening sequence appealing, conspicuous, alarming or engaging, they would be tempted to watch more to see what the film can offer. I applied this knowledge when I was thinking of the storyline, as our storyline gives a sense of anonymity or mystery etc, making the audience gagging for what is going to happen next. However, on the other hand, I feel like our opening sequence does challenge forms and conventions as in a normal film or an opening of a normal film like what we have produced, you normally would find the prime suspect to be a man. It would be the original storyline and it would be the stereotype of the audience. Nevertheless, in this case, it is actually a woman who is the killer.
Therefore, the fact that in my opening sequence, the roles have changed and it is actually the woman who is the killer, I feel like it does challenge the forms and conventions of a real media product. This I believe is another advantage for the audience reactions as when the overall opening sequence is revealed and they see the twist in it, they would be astonished, shocked and egger to want to see the rest of the film. Example of thriller’s which we looked at in class, which had good openings are The Shining, 28 days later etc.
I remember watching a documentary that had loads of different directors telling there views and advice on how to structure a film, etc. I feel like I took this documentary on bored and used director’s advice wisely, as our seen does not reveal everything or so much excitement in the opening. It only reveals a little taster of what the film is about, but more in a leading on, guessing way, leaving the big scenes till the middle however still keeping the audience engaged and occupied with just a little two minute appetizer.
In my sequence, we used young teenage actors to play the role of early 20s characters. Our actors were culturally diverse, as we did not just have one type of ethnicity, we had 2 different types. This is the same for race and gender. We wanted our sequence to represent all kind of people, and not just stick to one type of gender, ethnicity, race etc. And so because of this, we involved genders, different races and different ethnicity to avoid any discrimination upon people (e.g. only involving one particular race in the sequence may come across too specific or questionable.). I would say our sequence is represented to ages 16-40. I believe these ages are more appropriate and suitable. Anything above, I do not think it would be very appealing, anything below I think it would be too advanced as it is more appropriate for young adults and middle-age adults, as it is more of a smart, conniving thriller. The only mistake I believe we made was the fact that we only included one type of class, which was middle class. We did not really represent other types of class. Everything about our sequence showed the type of class it was, e.g. the scenery, buildings, costume, surroundings, also the type of people around.
The characters in it are shown to be professionals and so it breaks away from the stereotypical image of what a killer should look like. Also with the killer being a woman, it once again offers an alternative to the regular cliché scenario where the killer is 9 times out of 10 a man. I feel like my media product may take the interest of people who are interested in thriller/horrors movies; however, I do not feel like it is aimed at a particularly group. Reason for this is because my opening is very basic, calm and quite neutral however with that big twist, and there’s no particular social group however there is a particular age group which it is represented to, which is 15-40yrs, as people within these ages tend to be a more daring audience. Reason why we did not make a particular social groups is simply because we want our opening to be open to everyone, no one in particular, so that it will attract everyone and anyone who is simply interested in horror/thrilling films., which includes a lot of gore, bloody scenes, murders, gothic scenes etc.
If I was given a variety of options of which media institution to distribute my media product to, I would consider working with Working Title. Reason why I would choose this company is simply because I believe that a company like this specialize and focus on low budget British films. They are also eminent for British institution and so I think that our product will fit perfectly.
I feel that our thriller opening would do well as a YouTube or internet piece because of the length of it, as it is not very long meaning it will stream very easily as an mp4. Alternatively because of the style in which it was shot e.g. the use of montage sequences and it is slow pace it might be something you may see in an arthouse screening cinema. I do not think it being distributed as Universal Pictures/ Studios will be very appropriate, as there is no assurance ofthe film making any good profits.
In order to attract my audience, I will create links to it online and post it on:
I will also set up a theorem. (Internet clubs e.g. blogging, or fun sites, etc.) As well as advertising it on these sites, I will also be distributing it on these sites as well. I will be advertising my sequence on the internet for more of a niche and not a mainstream audience reason being, not everyone is interested in short films. There are actually specific set of people who are interested into short film. For example, those who attend film festivals. Before my group and I actually started filming, in the spare time that I had, I decided to do some research, and I discovered that there were festivals where people appreciated short films. I found that many people went to festivals such as Coanes and Portabello. Coanes festival tends to focus much more on mainstream and Portabello festivals tend to focus more on niche.
My audience, which my sequence will be represented to, is a both male and female mainstream audience. I believe that it is more suitable and best to represent a sequence like mine to both genders so that it can it can equal for both sexes to watch it. In addition, the footage does not have the storyline, which specifies more for a particular sex, for example – If my sequence contained a lot of action and violence then the main target audience would be for males. My media product would target audience from the age of 16 to 30.This age group I feel is most suitable due to the context of the film. Anything younger, I feel may be to complex and advanced as my sequence has quiet a catch to it, making it far more mysterious compares to an average storyline. The type of class I personally think my sequence would represent is middleclass. As the characters in my sequence represented that class. Specifically, my media product will be represented to film studies university students, which attends a lot of independent screening, who enjoy a variety of genres short films. I believe that this would be a more appropriate audience, as my media product relates to what they are studying. A typical person who fits our target audience is 20 yrs old Susan, who comes from a middle class background. She works in a lawyers office and in her leisure time, enjoys going out on the weekend, to the cinema with either her boyfriend Jack or her best friend Mandy. She is a lively, who loves to have fun in her spare time. Harrods is her favourite place to shop, and is where she is most venerable. She is well spoken and well educated, whilst being I the process of making this thriller opening, I learnt many new things. Technology was one of them. I have learnt to understand alone that technology plays a huge role in the film industry as well as in life. Threw this project, I have been introduced to so many different software’s such as, Final Cut Pro.
This is a professional non-linear editing software applications developed by Apple Inc. The application is only available for Mac OS X version 10.4 or later, and is a module of the Final Cut Studio product. The software logs and captures video onto a hard drive (internal or external), where it can be edited and processed. The current version of Final Cut Pro, version 6.0.5, runs on both Intel and PowerPC processors. It is compatible with many hardware interfaces.
At first I must say I found it very daunting, not just this software but also others I encountered in contact with, such as Final Cut Pro Soundtrack. I gradually became familiar each time I used these software is, allowing me to learn more an actually understand what am doing. As I used theses software’s more often, I became experienced and more confident when using the equipment/machine.
After every lesson, we were expected to blog online everything we did within that lesson. Not only did I learn and experience different software’s but I also learnt how to use the internet efficiently and different sites such as www.blogger.com. A blogger is an online diary, which we had to note everything we did while during this project. I must say while reading back on all those lessons, it really did give me an insight into everything I did with my group. The use of the Internet helps greatly when it comes to promoting and advertising. Websites/social networking sites such as
1.www.vimeo.com
2.www.facebook.com
3.www.myspace.com
4.www.youtube.com
5.www.bebo.com
Vimeo is a video-centric social network site, which launched in November 2004. The site supports embedding, sharing, video storage, and allows user commenting on each video page. Users must register to upload content. Registered users may also create a profile and upload small user pictures as their avatars, comment and "like" videos. Vimeo is where we uploaded our final thriller opening, once everything was complete. It was placed here intentially so that people (the audience) can view it and so that we can get feedback on it, allowing us to know how people felt about it, and their thoughts and opinions.
Without the internet , I don’t see how we could have gotten a much wider audience as the internet provides a wide audience worldwide, allowing us to receive different views and opinions from potential audience. Just like the feedback which we received I class and at the cinema.
As Mary presented our film in the cinema and in the classroom. This allowed us to get feedback from our classmates, which were thinking like critics. Feedback which myself and my group got was good use of costume, theme (especially the whole big twist), good use of camera shots, etc. My experience at the cinema was similar to my experience in the Mac room. I was scared, anxious and nervous of what people would think of my thriller opening. However as everyone cheered when myself and my groups video came on, I began too feel more relaxed and calm. By the end of the video, I felt pleased and satisfied with the audience response, and most of all I was proud with myself and my group’s hard work and effort each one of us put in. I learnt from just the audience reaction and comments that, if you work hard, you will get far in life. I also learnt how to work in a group as in work as a team, united and strong, I also learnt how to over come issues in a positive and civilized way.
I must say this project has opened my eyes much wider, and has taught me to appreciate the internet and technology much more. I also learnt to appreciate films much more than I do, as it is a lot of hard work, effort and determination. Before I used to think it was fairly quick and simple, however now that I have been exposed to a little taster of what it is like to make 2 minutes of a film, I am much more grateful for the films which I have watched, as I think about all the hard work which the directors, producers, actors, editors, etc put in. I have noticed that since this project, when I watch movies or TV programmes, I automatically become very critical and I analyze each scene/clip. E.g., I would say, “o there’s a match cut, low angle shot, nice point of view shot, Etc.”
Reminiscing back at my preliminary task, I feel like I have learnt a lot from it, which helped a great deal while making our final product.
The term match cut is generally any cut that emphasizes spatio-temporal continuity and thus, contrasting the conspicuous and abrupt discontinuity of a "jump cut," forms the basis for continuity ('invisible') editing, such as the ubiquitous use of "match on action." In this more general usage, a match cut would thus contrast with jump cuts most immediately and form part of the "reality effect" of continuity editing rather than the visible fractures of spatial, temporal, graphic, and cause-and-effect continuity of jump cuts. Even within continuity editing, though, the match cut is a contrast with cross-cutting between actions in two different locations that are occurring simultaneously or parallel editing, which draws parallels or contrasts between two different time-space locations. I am pleased that I had a lesson based on this as I had learnt a lot from it, making me more prepared for when it came to making my final product, and making me analyze and understand how you can link different shots with each other, still continuing that form of continuity in movies which professionals use. I must say this lesson did not only help my group, but I feel like it helped other groups as well, as we were able to display it in our final product, allowing us to receive more marks. Threw this, I also learnt a lot about the film making industry, and I now fully understand how much effort, time, patience, and dedication is actually needed, as before we actually started filming, myself and my group had to create a story bored, which is basically a graphic organizer such as a series of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of previsualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence, including website interactivity. This was done so that when it came to filming, it would be easier and straightforward, as all you have to do is follow the storyboard. This makes the filming day much more organized. As the director/camera man knows exactly what shots to do. Due to the storyboard, and organization skills, we were organized when it came to use of props, costume, location, whether we needed permission to film in a certain place, etc. When it came to filming, we had to take many different shots from many different angles, a good number of times.
I am very pleased that we had this task to pull off. I feel like I have learnt many things for life. I feel more articulate, aware, critical and pleased with myself. I must say it has made me think into taking this subject for future references, as I enjoyed it so much. I feel like it is something I would want to carry on doing as a future career.
My Evaluation!!
AS THRILLER EVALUATION
With my group our media product was based on trying to create suspense for the audience. The theme for our product was ‘Thriller’ but we also created confusion to keep our audience guessing, and not make it as predictable as others. The product was set to last for just under 2 minutes which wasn’t hard to accomplish but still put a limit on what we could actually use to open our thriller, the concept was very simple but turned out to be very hard. We challenged the forms and conventions of real media products by using match cuts, shots from different angles and distances, location shots showing different parts of London Bridge, emphasising that we have filmed in London and then developed and edited them together and also added an edited soundtrack to create suspense within our product.
Our media product represents a particular social group which we wanted the audience to see as sophisticated and upper class. The actors were dressed very modern to look like business people. Our female lead wore a long black jacket, black shoes with a silver heel which gave good effect in our shots and a black hand bag. Our male lead wore a shirt and tie, trousers, a short jacket and black shoes. Both actors were dressed to look very sophisticated like the everyday working class person. We wanted the audience to see both male and female who would look like there in their early twenty’s, heterosexual and very contemporary.
The kind of media institution that might distribute our media product if we put it on release would most probably be either the internet on such sites like you tube, my space, face book or a small independent UK release, distributed around a small number of UK ‘arthouse’ cinemas. I think this because we have a short and simple British storyline that wouldn’t cost as much as a big Hollywood Blockbuster that would be distributed around the world, plus our thriller is set in the UK and our lead characters are British citizens, and most British films don’t have enough money to distribute their films around the world so there mainly kept in the UK.
The main audience for our media product would be people that like a more suspenseful, sophisticated type of thriller film. For example someone like my cousin Ashleigh who is a 21 year old female who would demographically fit under the description as an achiever. She is more of a mainstream girl, she works in fashion retail, loves going on you tube and face book, does all her clothes shopping in stores like Next, Zara, Coast, House of Frasier etc. She loves UK productions and she is from a highly educated background. She aspires to start her own independent business and is known for her feminist views which could relate to our thriller because it is called ‘The Lady Killer’ and is not about the stereotyped man that kills women but instead a women that kills men.
The main way that I think we could attract an audience would be to market our thriller film through its genre. We could advertise it on posters that could go on buses, in shops, Billboards, on bus stop stands or even in newspapers. Anywhere that could be noticed by the public eye.
Also people of the public like things that they see on TV or on the internet because it includes technology, so we could also market our thriller film over the internet on face book, myspace, etc. or even as a TV commercial that comes on once in the morning, twice in the afternoon and then once again in the evening on selected channels. Another way to market and advertise our product would be to release a trailer that we could post on you tube.
Through the process of constructing this product I have learnt things that I didn’t know
before when it came to technology. Firstly on a practical hands on level my experience of filming our product was very interesting for me because I had to learn how to use the camera correctly, by understanding what buttons done what or how to do a particular shot like long shot etc. I wasn’t so much involved when it came to actually using the final cut pro, but I was there to watch and suggest where we should put a certain shot and I did see how it was done which I would be very interested in using next time. Also we had to record the process of filming onto our blog which I didn’t really understand at first but learned very quickly how to do certain things on our blog like upload our video. Unfortunately we didn’t get to upload our film onto vimeo because our teacher did but I know how it was done and next time I would be able to do it with no complication. By using the internet it has widened the potential audience for our product because anyone anywhere will be able to access our film.
Looking back at my preliminary task I feel I have learnt a lot in the progression from it to the full product. From our lesson on the ‘match cut’ exercise we were able to use what we had learned about it and how to display it in our product before we started the process of filming the product, we were able to include it which was a big success. Through this I have learned a lot about the film making process and I now understand how much time, effort and patience is actually needed because in order for us to start filming we had to think of a storyboard first that everyone on the team could agree with, draw it up and plan out exactly how it was going to happen, the costumes, the props, location, if we needed permission to film in a certain place etc.
Then there was the process of starting to film, we had to do lots of different shots from different angles, repeat the same shots, use different lighting to see if it would look good or not. And also make sure if the weather was going to be alright for us to film because most of the time when we did film we were out in the cold for hours which wasn’t very nice. Also after filming we had to edit our shots together and decide what should go where and with what, make sure the soundtrack suited the theme and finally post our finished product onto the blog.
Altogether I would say that the film process is a long process that needs a lot of hard work, dedication and commitment in order for you to get the end result that you want but also it can be fun and show you the ups and downs of being in a team. I liked this experience and I would like to do it again.
The audience feed back that we got was very positive when we went to the cinema to watch everyone’s final product. We where criticized on our point of view shots, switching between characters, music soundtrack and costume. At first no one understood what was going on because they thought that the male lead was stalking our female lead which in the end was shown that they where wrong so we were happy with the fact that the audience was confused for a split second. Everyone also said that our soundtrack and costume went well with our story concept. So that was good to hear as well. Overall they liked our thriller because it kept them in suspense which was one of our main objectives.
With my group our media product was based on trying to create suspense for the audience. The theme for our product was ‘Thriller’ but we also created confusion to keep our audience guessing, and not make it as predictable as others. The product was set to last for just under 2 minutes which wasn’t hard to accomplish but still put a limit on what we could actually use to open our thriller, the concept was very simple but turned out to be very hard. We challenged the forms and conventions of real media products by using match cuts, shots from different angles and distances, location shots showing different parts of London Bridge, emphasising that we have filmed in London and then developed and edited them together and also added an edited soundtrack to create suspense within our product.
Our media product represents a particular social group which we wanted the audience to see as sophisticated and upper class. The actors were dressed very modern to look like business people. Our female lead wore a long black jacket, black shoes with a silver heel which gave good effect in our shots and a black hand bag. Our male lead wore a shirt and tie, trousers, a short jacket and black shoes. Both actors were dressed to look very sophisticated like the everyday working class person. We wanted the audience to see both male and female who would look like there in their early twenty’s, heterosexual and very contemporary.
The kind of media institution that might distribute our media product if we put it on release would most probably be either the internet on such sites like you tube, my space, face book or a small independent UK release, distributed around a small number of UK ‘arthouse’ cinemas. I think this because we have a short and simple British storyline that wouldn’t cost as much as a big Hollywood Blockbuster that would be distributed around the world, plus our thriller is set in the UK and our lead characters are British citizens, and most British films don’t have enough money to distribute their films around the world so there mainly kept in the UK.
The main audience for our media product would be people that like a more suspenseful, sophisticated type of thriller film. For example someone like my cousin Ashleigh who is a 21 year old female who would demographically fit under the description as an achiever. She is more of a mainstream girl, she works in fashion retail, loves going on you tube and face book, does all her clothes shopping in stores like Next, Zara, Coast, House of Frasier etc. She loves UK productions and she is from a highly educated background. She aspires to start her own independent business and is known for her feminist views which could relate to our thriller because it is called ‘The Lady Killer’ and is not about the stereotyped man that kills women but instead a women that kills men.
The main way that I think we could attract an audience would be to market our thriller film through its genre. We could advertise it on posters that could go on buses, in shops, Billboards, on bus stop stands or even in newspapers. Anywhere that could be noticed by the public eye.
Also people of the public like things that they see on TV or on the internet because it includes technology, so we could also market our thriller film over the internet on face book, myspace, etc. or even as a TV commercial that comes on once in the morning, twice in the afternoon and then once again in the evening on selected channels. Another way to market and advertise our product would be to release a trailer that we could post on you tube.
Through the process of constructing this product I have learnt things that I didn’t know
before when it came to technology. Firstly on a practical hands on level my experience of filming our product was very interesting for me because I had to learn how to use the camera correctly, by understanding what buttons done what or how to do a particular shot like long shot etc. I wasn’t so much involved when it came to actually using the final cut pro, but I was there to watch and suggest where we should put a certain shot and I did see how it was done which I would be very interested in using next time. Also we had to record the process of filming onto our blog which I didn’t really understand at first but learned very quickly how to do certain things on our blog like upload our video. Unfortunately we didn’t get to upload our film onto vimeo because our teacher did but I know how it was done and next time I would be able to do it with no complication. By using the internet it has widened the potential audience for our product because anyone anywhere will be able to access our film.
Looking back at my preliminary task I feel I have learnt a lot in the progression from it to the full product. From our lesson on the ‘match cut’ exercise we were able to use what we had learned about it and how to display it in our product before we started the process of filming the product, we were able to include it which was a big success. Through this I have learned a lot about the film making process and I now understand how much time, effort and patience is actually needed because in order for us to start filming we had to think of a storyboard first that everyone on the team could agree with, draw it up and plan out exactly how it was going to happen, the costumes, the props, location, if we needed permission to film in a certain place etc.
Then there was the process of starting to film, we had to do lots of different shots from different angles, repeat the same shots, use different lighting to see if it would look good or not. And also make sure if the weather was going to be alright for us to film because most of the time when we did film we were out in the cold for hours which wasn’t very nice. Also after filming we had to edit our shots together and decide what should go where and with what, make sure the soundtrack suited the theme and finally post our finished product onto the blog.
Altogether I would say that the film process is a long process that needs a lot of hard work, dedication and commitment in order for you to get the end result that you want but also it can be fun and show you the ups and downs of being in a team. I liked this experience and I would like to do it again.
The audience feed back that we got was very positive when we went to the cinema to watch everyone’s final product. We where criticized on our point of view shots, switching between characters, music soundtrack and costume. At first no one understood what was going on because they thought that the male lead was stalking our female lead which in the end was shown that they where wrong so we were happy with the fact that the audience was confused for a split second. Everyone also said that our soundtrack and costume went well with our story concept. So that was good to hear as well. Overall they liked our thriller because it kept them in suspense which was one of our main objectives.
Watching the thrillers on the big screen!
The Thursday after watching our thrillers in class, we attended a trip to the cinema to watch the whole AS media thriller openings. We had to meet at the Vue cinema in Angle for 9:15 but didnt get in to 10 which i thought was very funny. We entered the cinema and everyone took their seat. Once everyone was seated, the lights turned off and everyone went silent. Once the screen came on everyone began to cheer and clap which again was very funny. The first thriller opening to start was one from our own class, which ment our thriller was going to show very soon. Our thriller came up, and everyone began to cheer and clap. Some of my friends from another media group said that they enjoyed the twist of our storyline making the women the killer instead of the man, and they loved the different shots, which made me very happey to hear because i was incharge of filming. Overall we had good audience feedback and we had accomplished what we wanted for our thriller.
2 /3/09- The FEEDBACK !
Today was actually very much needed after all the work that had been done, we had a very relaxing lesson where we able to watch everyone in the classes Thriller and give them feedback. We watched them on the active board and and gave our judgement after eacher thriller opening, when it came to our thriller we had to write down what our classmates had to say which was very positive, (a big relief). Our themes, costumes, locations and camera shots where very much liked which made myself and my group very proud at what we had accomplished. so in the end we wer all very happy with all our hard work.
27/2/09 - The DEADLINE!
Today was our final day to make sure everything was in order. Although we didnt have much more to do we still had to make some final touches. Tony had decided that he would come in first then when his lesson started Rebecca would take over. I decided to phone Tony and see how he was getting along and ask if he needed any help. He told me to come if i wanted to before my lesson started so i went to meet him in the media room. When i got there i found Tony sitting by himself trying to sort out the sound track. Not much needed to be done so i suggested a few things that needed to be adjusted within the soundtrack, and gave him support. My lesson was soon to start so i told Tony that i was leaving and he said thats ok because Rebecca would be up after lunch. So i left and spoke to my group later and they said everything was successful and everything was finished, which i was very pleasedd with. Overall this project has taught me alot about filming and what it takes, like patience, time, effort, dedication, team work etc. As a group we had our ups and downs but we where able to come together in the end as a team which bought us closer together.
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