Evaluation questions

Year 12 Foundation Production


Evaluation Questions:

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The ways in which our media piece uses technical conventions in order to make the piece look like a legitimate opening sequence is through the combination of camera angles, cast and setting. We established that the genre of the piece was going to be a crime/thriller as we thought this would be the easiest to portray and we had studied many different films in which came under this genre therefore we had the best idea of what effects in which to include and how a opening sequence to this genre would go. The main characters are established almost straight away in the piece as the antagonist is driving the car and the protagonist is in the car boot. The techniques in which we took from other similar films were the use of particular camera angles such as: Handheld shot, high and low angled shots in which establish character status. We also used editing in order to present the piece to be darker; we found this reflected the piece as we tried to create a dark and eerie atmosphere around the piece. The main film we tried to base our media piece around was the film ‘seven’ this w3as because it had much of the seven conventions in which we wanted to include. Below there are a few still images from both our piece and ‘seven’ to show the similarities between the pieces.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?



The genre of our piece is an action/crime/thriller therefore our target audience is people who enjoy this genre and are over the age of 15 which is the age certificate for our piece. We tried to appeal to wide range of audience with by using a variety of different aged actors to increase our target audience. The genre of the piece also helps towards expanding the target audience as action is a much loved genre and is very popular around the world. The costume was chosen by Lauren Matthews and the attire used was very general in that there were no outstanding features therefore not being specific to any particular social group. The stereotype in which we used was that the main antagonist (Clive Lennon) was a big bruiser who had tattoos and a typical British accent this was typical of any British gangster film the use of a Jaguar also gave the piece more cultural significance. Our films directed at more of a younger audience as is shown by the modern costume of the protagonist (Anthony Dinatale) this characterization appeals to a younger audience, as the protagonist reflects the audience targeted





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



Our group decided that if our media piece was going to be produced and commercialized we would use the film company ‘film four’. The target audience for our media piece is for the movie channel ‘film four’ this is because film four has a tendency to play some indie films which have low budgets, they are also a British company and therefore there is more opportunity in which to get the film publicized towards the British audience which is what our media piece is directed towards. Film four which is part of the channel four franchises have attempted to broaden their horizons by bringing in films, film four have had some successes such as slum dog millionaire in which backed by film four and after the Oscars was seen to be a driving force behind the film, we hope that our film would create the revenue and popularity in the same way as independent films such as: ‘Bullet boy’. The reason we have targeted film four is because our piece is not a Hollywood blockbuster but a low budget film and therefore the target audience is particularly small and revenue streams are minimal in comparison to films shown on Television channels such as sky movies. ‘Slumdog millionaire’ was the biggest film of 2009 receiving a lot of Oscars and many academy awards in the process, this shows that film four are a legitimate company who support both high and low budget film and have plenty of successes, the company also has its own TV programme therefore boosting potential airtime for the film.





4. Who would be the audience for your media product?



We decided that the target audience of our piece would be older teenagers; the social groups affected have already been addressed in question two. We decided that the age certificate of our piece should be a 15 this is because the film does not contain any extreme violence or gore. Another point in which backs the choice of age certificate is that our film does not contain any full frontal nudity neither does it have any bad language. We have not restricted our target audience with the age certificate because the target audience for the piece is above this. The audience is dependent on who is portrayed in the piece and for our film we present a wide range of ages therefore appealing to a wide range. The piece contains violence and the props include the likes of: a gun, a car and a mobile phone. We decided that the rest of our piece would include some violence but nothing extreme therefore not quite reaching the rating of 18. Other films in which we have tried to base our piece around are the like of ‘seven’ and ‘inside man’ both of these films are around the category of crime thriller in which was rated 18 or 15 which was the barrier in which we tried to reenact. We used a teenager in our piece which potentially creates a target audience of older teenagers. We feel that the actors reflect the audience in the piece.

5. How did you attract/ address your audience?
We tried to appeal to a wide audience by choosing a popular genre this enabled us to have a range of audiences spanning across a lot of different ages. We tried to establish the characters early so that the audience could sympathize with the character. We posted our AS piece on Facebook and YouTube to get some audience feedback. We felt that we would get good feedback as our main protagonist reflected the audience we had previously aimed at. Here is an example of audince feedback that we received…



We produced a questionnaire in which asked the audience if our piece had reached its preliminary objectives.

-Did you enjoy the film?

18 out of 20 people enjoyed the film.

-What genre would you say our film was?

Out of 20 people originally asked, 13 people thought that it was a Crime thriller which was the genre in which we had previously aimed at, 4 people thought it was action which could be seen as a sub genre within the piece, 2 horror and 1 thought it was a psycho thriller.

-Do you think it had a good storyline?

Everyone asked found the plot of the piece interesting.



- Do you think the characters suited their roles?



All participants found that the actors managed to fit the roles in which they portrayed.



-Were the characters roles clear?



The majority of the audience found the roles in the piece clear however the scene in which the two main antagonists are shown the audience seem to become confused as to who the stranger on the phone was.





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

The technologies in which we used within our piece were: The Camera, Editing software, Tripod, Still Camera and the music. Within the original research for the piece I used the internet and DVD’s in which gave me a broad overlook on the genre (crime thriller) we previously wanted. The internet allowed me to look at the typical conventions in which are traditionally used in thriller based films. The DVD’s were used in order to get some examples of the genre and allowed me to look at the effects and camera angles in which were used in the movie so that I could possibly reenact it into our piece, whilst watching the examples I occasionally listened to the audio commentary to listen to both directors and actors comment on the piece. This allowed me to realize why they used particular techniques and how they created the eerie atmosphere around the piece. During the construction of the piece we used a still camera in order to get ideas for possible film locations, the camera allowed us to look over the locations afterwards and decide on the best possible one. During the filming process we used an ordinary handheld camera in which restricted us with the quality of both sound and picture however the only camera in which we could use therefore was what we had to make do with. The editing software was quite basic however allowed us to do the necessary touches to our piece in order to bring it all together. The software allowed us to put a dark filter on the piece which helped towards the thriller genre. For the evaluation we posted our work on to Facebook, this allowed us to get audience feedback and see what other people thought of our piece.

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

Looking back at the preliminary I see the naivety of us, the camera angles in which we used were quite imaginative however the ways in which the piece was put together did not have the same fluency in which we have in our AS piece. There is a scene in the preliminary piece in which pans across the antagonists face onto a picture this was poorly done and because we were in a rush to get it done so we did not re-do it resulting in our piece looking a lot poorer. The editing in the piece was also very poor as we were new to the whole aspect so we did not have a clue what we were doing so we just stitched the piece together and attempted to put a few effects in however this was no properly done so the preliminary piece seems to skip in some places. For our main AS piece we corrected these problems by giving ourselves plenty of time for which to do it, this allowed us to correct any potential mistakes we made. We also tried to avoid doing any panning shots as the tripod we used was not very sturdy and therefore we could not really do it, so we just had to piece different establishing shots together to make the piece flow more. We also gave Perry a more prominent role in our main AS and allowed him to do pretty much all of the editing. He was much more gifted at this therefore we were able to experiment with different techniques. The main task was a lot more difficult to maintain a decent storyline as it was not a 20 second clip but a full 2 minutes. We have tried to use a lot more variety of camera shots to give different aspects of the piece; this also allowed us to give a different point of view.

Filming

Setting
We decided to set the scene of our piece in glinton behind the church, we found this to be a suitable area as it had quite a rural background which suited what we wanted for the scene. We specified that we needed a wooded area in which had a road of some sort leading up to it to allow the car to be a distinguishing point in the film. The setting was also required to be quite rural in order to make the genre more obvious to the audience. We also through editing applied a darker tint to the scenes in order to give the piece a more dark and gritty feel to once again apply to the audience.

Cast

For the main filming we were lucky enough to get Clive Lennon (perrys dad) involved in the film therefore the film looked more authentic and fit in with the gritty theme, this also helped with the verisimilitude as it allowed the piece to look more realistic. The use of an adult allowed the film to be authentic and fit in with the genre of a police/ british gangster drama. The other actor we used was Anthony Dinatale who was the police detective who was captured, we felt as if he fitted the detective role.

Filming

For filming we had to wait a while due to the lack of equipment (tripods and cameras) and also had to wait for our cast to be free, because of thius we had to rush the process of filming into a couple of hours ihn one day, it was good that we stuck to the same day as it meant that the weather would remain the same therefore retaining the continuity. We found when it came to editing that alot of the establishing shots were ineligible due to the camera shaking so much, this was because of the rushed approach to the filming. We found that alot of our film consisted of mid shots running, therefore we had to cut alot out and edit together pieces in which would show each individual camera angle clearly, but i will talk more about this in the editing section. We had to go back during school time to do some filming in order to get some more establishing shots due to the poor quality of the old ones.  

Roles

Producer- Georgia mumby
Camera- Samuel jones (ME)
Editing - Perry Lennon
Props & costume - Lauren Matthews
Driver/ Antagonist - Clive lennon
Detective - Anthony Dinatale
The Boss - Jack Taylor


Storyline
The original storyline was created mainly by georgia mumby (because i actually love her) with help for the group, the idea we had of the film was that it was situated in a field surrounded by forest, and in the center of this was a car, however we could not find a location that fit this specifictation and therefore had to settle for a different setting, this was behind glinton near nine bridges. The film starts by showing a car windscreen and a mysterious character driving (Clive lennon) and cuts from shots of the location (establishing shots) to pictures of a random person in the boot (Anthony Dinitale) the start has a non diegetic sound running through which is quite an eerie/creepy sound. The piece then suddenly bursts into life as Anthony breaks out of the boot and runs into the rural setting, The camera uses alot of mid-shots to show the chase and also the occasional hand-held camera shot, The piece carrys on for about 40 seconds of running showing him covering all sorts of different obstacles. The music then changes to the original eerie music as Anthony picks up a wallet containing his identification for being a police detective and this creates a sub plot for the film as it makes the audience ask questions about the piece. The piece then carrys on to show the driver talking on the phone to a higher source seeming angry for letting the prisoner get away muttering the words 'He got away' and the boss on the other side of the phone asserting his power saying 'Find him!' this shows the audience who is in charge of the operation. The piece finishes with the music returning to its high tempo part and the audience see the car speed off into the distance.

Editing

For editing the majority of the work was done by perry as he had some experience in this field however the group did all come together when decisions needed to be made, for example when deciding what scenes to delete or what sound effects/ voice overs to put in. The technical part which was stitching the clips together and getting the timing of the gun noise was all down to perry who had a lot more free time in school therefore had plenty of time in which to do it all. The first half of the piece is put together with different buits unlike the second half where the majority of it is in chronological order. For the whole film perry put a dark filter on the piece in order to give it a more 'gritty feel' This also helped to deal with continuity as we filmed on two seperate days so the filter allowed the weather to look the same throughout.

Lighting
For lighting we filmed outside and therefore we used natural light. The problem with using natural light is that the day has to have the same weather as the other if we were filming on seperate days which was what we did. however because of editing we made the weather look the same throughout.

Main AS Media Task

Research on genre
After our preliminary task of doing a police drama we found that the crime genre was the best route to go down therefore we set upon the task of which sub genre to include. The most obvious choice for a sub genre would be a 'thriller' because the two genres are regularly put together and therefore would be easier to put together. Examples of crime thrillers are..

-Seven

-Inside man
Both of these films include very complimented storylines in which come together at the end, therefore we thought that for our opening sequence we would include quite a confusing start with a major twist to immediately capture the audiences attention. Towards the end of both of these films the director purposefully turns the storyline in order to shock and astonish the audience however we are restricted to just a two minute opening sequence therefore we have to try and get some of the elements of these films and cram them into a significantly smaller piece.
Research into opening sequences
Before even going near the filming stage or anything near the practical part of the course we began to study different short clips of a film in which are great examples of opening sequences. The two films in which we studied in this were Seven and Dirty harry, both of these were classic examples of superb opening sequences and therefore were easy to analyse and take different ideas and tips from. For example in Dirty harry the opening scene shows a women swimming and then cuts to a mysterious figure looking down the scope of a sniper rifle towards the woman, however the director is very clever in how he conceals his indentity by brushing all his hair infront of his face in order to create a sense of danger and mystery. And to show the woman being shot the director uses the camera effect of putting a 'scope' in order to show the woman is in danger. After this is when the protagonist uis introduced and has an effective sequence of events to show the character and his surroundings therefore setting the scene for the audience. The director deliberately uses lots of shots include industrialised equipment in order to show that the city is not too glamorous and almost show a modern atmosphere.
For seven the opening sequence includes a compilation of different picture and images which are shown for short durations however are very effective in that every time you watch the sequewnce you see a different image making the sequence very effective. The sequence is also very dark and disturbing with both its lighhting, pictures and music.
Deciding on a new name!

We decided to carry on in our preliminary group as we found we worked well during this warm up exercise. We did however change the name of our group, as for our preliminary task we were called 'insanely good productions' however we felt that this name was too unprofessional therefore decide on the new group 'Waffle productions' this was more of a contempary name and made us more up to date with the current fashions.

Idea's and planning

For our main piece we quickly decided on the idea of a crime/thriller because it was the best topic in which to fit the criteria given. The original idea was based around a technique in which me and perry tried to use, this was were we would pressure one of our group(Georgia) into giving the basics of a film we asked about setting, characters, genre, props, and content in which we would elaborate around. She came up with the idea of...
Setting- Cold winter morning, frost on the floor and a car in the middle of a field looking upon a field.
Characters- One driver and a innocent person the boot of the car possibly policeman?, the man in the car would be mysterious and possibly foreign.
Genre- Crime thriller, possible twist at the end
Props- Gun, mobile phone, car
Camera angles- High shot, low shot, mid shot, steadycam/hand held, close up, over the shoulder.
This was going to be our basic guidelines of the piece. And afterwards me and perry would put detail and decide on the possible content of the piece.

The Music

The music we have chosen for our piece is 'The sadness will never end - Bring Me The Horizon. To avoid copy right we will be informing the bad via email that we are using the track. This is not only courteous however also prevents us from being attacked with any legakl actions if the band is found to be unhappy with how the music is being used.

Possible Camera Angles
Camera angles and movements in which we have considered using in our main are
High angle shot- This is when the camera is placed high up in the set in order to present the character being shown as quite vulnerable, this camera angle can also show a point of view of a particular character ijn order to show there power and status compared to the character shown.
Low angle shot - This is the opposite of the high angle shot and shows the character in shot as being very powerful and immediately presents the character as being higher in status or even authoritarian. This can also show the characters point of view and present to the audience that they are looking up at the character and are vulnerable and weak in comparison to the character being shown.
Close up- This shot is usually used in order to show the audience a close up on a particular object or facial expression, this shot allows the audience to truely feel the characters emotions.
Establishing shot- this shot is shown at the beginning of most scenes as it presents the whereabouts of the scene. An example of this scene would be in the hit tv show 'friends' where at the beginning of each scene the appartement buildings are shown and so is a famous new york monument to 'establish' the scene.
Handheld/ steadycam - -This is where the camera is held where the audience would imagine the characters eye line to be. This shot is done in a modern way as it is done without a tripod and therefore the footage is shwon the to be shaky. This camera movement/angle was most famously shown in the movie 'cloverfield' and 'the blair witch project' which both show footage from the characters perspective.
Mid shot - This is when the camera shows the top half of a person, the shot usually displays to the audience the status and clothing of the character.

Camera Movements
Possible camera movements we have thought about in our piece our...
- Panning - This is when the camera slowly tracks alongside the scene whilst the characters are walking, this is usually used in a car scene, or police chase.
- Zoom in - this is when the camera zooms into a particular item which is relevent to the scene, it can also focus onto a characters face in order to show a more indepth look, and allow the audience to feel the emotions of the character.
- Zoom out - this is usually when a scene is focused on a particular character or item and the camera will move out in oreder to show the whole setting and give the audience, this is usually used in order to set the scene, and is used in an 'establishing shot'
Risk Assessment

Preliminary evaluation

Considering this was our first time on a handheld camera a found that we set upon this task with a professional behaviour meaning that we used all the appropriate equipment needed to shoot a semi-decent film. We were more or less waiting for a week to film our piece as of the schools shortage of cameras therefore on the day the camera was available we jumped at the chance! immediately filming the whole piece in a lunch hour because of the demand for the cameras, we also did this to ensure that the continuity of the piece was right meaning that noone had changed clothes half way through the piece or grown hair.
Overall i found that our piece was more difficult than expected because the quality of image and sound was not as good as we had originally imagined, it was also a shame that the origianl idea of the lighting coming from a single lamp in the criminals face was not available as the plugs in the setting did not work therefore we had to settle for general lighting from a regular source (overhead lights) What did suprise me was how little takes we had to do, i expected that filming would take a few hours because of getting the scene right however both actors pulled it together and did brilliantly.
Another point in which i thought we did well in was the use of camera angles we used shots like: high angle shot, low angle shot, mid shot, close up and 2 shot which allows the audience to see different dimensions of the piece. This was mostly done as an experimental point in order to see what could and could not be done for the real assessment and it helped give us a pretty clear idea of waht angles we can and cant do. The piece was also helped by the use of our two amazing actors, we already knew they had acting skills due to there parts in some of the school productions therefore we knew they could be trusted.

New Yorkk!

On the 3 february 2010 Amvc year 12s took the trip of a lifetime to new york in which dramatically changed our outlook on the media world. In this trip we attended a Filming master class in one of new yorks best teaching studios where we learnt all the basic techniques of making a short film. The 4 hour film class consisted of: Acting, filming, editing and lighting. This allowed us to see the different styles in which a film is made as well as the different techniques used throughout. For the lighting section they taught us how even a simple object such as a sheet of polistyrene can be used to influence the4 lighting of the piece. For the class I was on the acting side which was strange as I was used to being on the other side of the camera however doing this allowed me to see the actors point of view and see how the director takes control and dictates the scene.
We also went on the NBC news studio tour in which consisted of viewing all the different studios in the building these were shows such as: Saturday night live, David letterman show and the Dr Oz show. Whilst we were looking at the saturday night live studio we were lucky enough to see Ashto kutcher and 'Them crooked vultures' which was very exciting.

Genre

Research into genre

Before beginning our preliminary task we began the course by researching different opening sequences from films such as..

-Dirty harry

-usual suspects

-seven

We found that each of these had a police feel to i therefore influenceing our preliminary idea. We found that doing the piece in this way was an easier format and allowed us to expand the idea due to the relatively simple specification in which we could base our piece around. For our preliminary piece we decided on the concept of the dark room with the criminal on one side and the detective on the other, showing the classic battle between good and evil. We found that in these examples the director would use a variety of different camera angles in the interrogation scenes in order to give the audience a different dimension into what was going on, therefore we took this idea into our piece which is shown by the use of camera techniques such as long shot, high angle shot, low angle shot, close up and 2 shot. The use of costume was also very important in these examples as they would show the status difference and present to the audience a sense of authority in the scene which is what we tried to do when showing the criminal (Ryan Hayes) in a white vest showing lower class and the detective (Sam White) shown in regular clothing showing he is quite high up in the police, we did this because we found in each of the films above this use of costume was very deliberate.

Preliminary task

Hey hey! samuel Jones' first blog entry! And in my media group is...
ME
GEORGIA MUMBY!
LAUREN MATTHEWS!
perry.

Preliminary intro
For the preliminary task we were given the original specification which involved someone walking in a room and sitting down in which we were supposed to expand around, so we set upon this task over a number of lessons until deciding on the idea of a police interrigation with the classic central lighting and old school gritty setting. We were given a lot of time to think about the idea because of the schools shortage of camera's, therefore we had to wait sometime to film elongating the deadline originally set by the teacher.

We brainstormed a few original ideas and genres to allow ourselves to see a wide variety of possible aspects in which we could add into our preliminary piece. We ended up on the idea of police interrogation here is a picture of our spider diagrams.
The 180º degree rule

This rule is where the camera is restricted to one particular side of the shooting almost as if there is a barrier straight down the middle of the set, this is used in order to not confuse the audience of the where abouts of the scene. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.

Filming the preliminary

Due to the time in which we had to wait for an available camera our group had plenty of time in which to decide the details of the task, things in which we had to consider about the task were:

-different camera angles/ movement
-costume
-setting
-lighting

Setting

We decided on the old english office which is very gritty, old and we thought lighting would of been perfect which seemed perfect at the time, however when it came to properly filming we found that the plug sockets didnt work therefore we had to change our original lighting idea to just general light. this didnt effect our piece too much however did reduce the authenticity of the setting when looking over the final piece.

Costume
For costume we brainstormed that the detective (Sam White) would be in pedestrian clothing to show he is a higher ranking officer and the criminal (Ryan hayes) was dressed in a white vest with hair spiked up to show craziness and give him an edge.

Camera angles/Movement
Original ideas for camera angles were just the basic mid shot, long shot and close up however when filming properly we tried to be adventurous and used camera angles such as low angle and high angled shots which brought different dimensions to the piece.

high angle shot - This is where the camera is placed high up showing the character down below, the camera presents the actor being filmed in a vulnerable position
Low angle shot - This is where the camera is placed on the floor to show the characters up high this is usually used when showing an authority figure i.e. a police officer or doctor. The camera angle presents the character as dominant.
Close up - This is when the camera is shown close to the characters face, usually shown to present the characters feelings and emotions.
mid shot - Most common camera angle as it shows a good angle of the character and is usually used to identify the protagonist of the film/programme.

Long shot - Shows the whole character and there surroundings, usually establishes the characters status.

Establishing shot - This is used in order to present the setting of the piece towards the audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiplgWmatmM - this is our preliminary piece ENJOY!