AS - Evaluation Questions

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

Our production has used some, and challenged some of the conventions of the thriller genre. The way we have used the conventions is when our action fast paced scene comes in our opening sequence we were able to apply a very fast paced cutting rate to our sequence to allow for the plot to speed up within this scene.We have tried to use titles, plot, characters, mise-en-scene, sound, camera and editing to convey the film in the way in which we think it should be shown.

Characters

We have stuck to the conventions of the thriller genre with a protagonist who is male. Within most the the thriller films a male plays the protagonist as the target audience is mainly male meaning that they may be able to connect with the person in the film. The protagonist of our opening is a little younger than the target audience and goes against the conventions of the thriller genre. This is shown in films like Casino Royal (Cambell, 2006). Although there are some films which accompany us in this us in going against the thriller conventions, for example Kidulthood (Huda, 2006).

Mise-en-scene

We believe our Mise-en-scene to be very good with half of our opening being at the Heygate estate in London. The Heygate estate had previously appearing in the film Shank (Ali, 2010) and we believed this place was the place we want to film. We chose it because we needed somewhere that looks decayed and poor. We believed this to be the place that would convey that image.

The costume we chose for the protagonist we believed to be conventions within the story we are trying to convey. We have put the protagonist in tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie as we believe this is what a person with little money in a run down estate in London would wear.

As you can see in this picture the wall next to the protagonist is decayed ans we wished to portray a picture of poverty.







Props

In our opening we had little space to add props to our scenes and there was not much shot time. Despite this we managed to put in some things at the start to show how poor he is. Firstly we have put in fake money, as this is fundamental to our storyline we think this is very important. The last prop we put in was a packet of cigarettes. This, we believe shows the fact that he is lower class as we believe that more lower class people smoke than middle or upper class people smoke.

Sound

When we got to the stage of finding a non-diagetic soundtrack for our opening sequence we found that the options we had we very limited. We looked for a good soundtrack for a very long time and then we stumbled across something that we decided could fit. For our soundtrack we needed something that started of slow and clam and then climaxed into something that was fast and frantic. The song we found for our soundtrack we believe did this very well.

We used our diagetic sound as a device to create more tension. It would put many questions into the mind of the viewer and this in itself would help us to create the tension and excitement we wish to create with our opening sequence.


Camera

We think that the majority of our camera work was very good. We believe that we were able to show the narrative the way it was meant to be shown because of our camera work. We used a very wide range of shots from long shots to close ups.

We used the longs shots to establish a setting. Also to show what kind of area the estate was to live in. We believe our camera work did this very well and allowed us to be able to convey what we wanted it to very well. This shot is very conventional in thriller films to show a location or setting.


For the reactions shots from the protagonist we used close ups of the face. We did this to show the reaction when he got the phone call and when he saw the dead person lying on the ground. We did this so the audience could see the shock on the protagonists face and to understand what kind of life he is leading at the present time. We also included moving camera shots. We did this to try and let the audience feel included in the film. This would have helped the audience identify with the protagonist.


Colour

Colour was so important in our film. We used colour to distinguish scenes and time and dates. We also used it as a character. We used black and white scenes to show flash backs from the protagonists life and this makes it feel as though it is old as old films used to be black and white. 

We also used a very low brightness on the other shots. This is to show how dark the protagonists life is and how he does not have a very bright future. We think this is used very effectively as the audience think he is saving people yet his future still looks very dark and he may not be able to get back onto the straight and narrow.

Editing

Our editing was another important part of our opening sequence. We had to show the difference between times of the day and different days. We finally decided on making the flashbacks black and white to show they are older and we put the present day into normal colour. We also started off with a montage, we did this because we though having a flashback that used continuity editing may give too much of the storyline away and so we decided to go with a montage.

We also had to put all of the running scene together using continuity editing and this was a challenge but I think we were able to do it well in the end.

How does your media production represent particular social groups?

Our media production represents one social group and that is young white working class males who live in London council estates.

We show this social group very negatively. This is because we want to show that he has done something Wong and now need to help save his family. We are showing that this social group are not going about daily life in the "right" and legal way. In the sequence he see's a the person he did a deal with dead on the floor; he is giving someone fake money. This is not showing his social group in a positive way. This is slightly conforming to the conventions of a thriller as most thriller have protagonists who take the law into there own hands. Our film opening is conforming with the dominant ideology of males being the protagonist in thriller films as the person who goes from "rags to riches". We showed the protagonist to be very poor with the fact that he is in torn clothes and cannot afford new clothes to wear.

He is also shown to be poor by the council estate that he lives in. It is run down and is not kept to a nice clean place. The windows are all smashed and the wall have graffiti on them. This is showing male working class social group to all be people who are poor and live in dirty council estates like this one.

The social group that is shown in the production is a lower class younger males in the and this we believe to be who we wish to watch the production. This maybe a problem for us as some people in the target group may think this is a judgement on the way they live. It shows the protagonist to have fake money which also, they may think this is a judgement on them. This could affect our chances of having our production distributed and shown. This could effect on revenue and it may not be as effect. This picture shows the fake money he is shuffling to give his friend and the ripped tracksuit bottoms.

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

I believe a independent media distribution company like Momentum Pictures would distribute our film as we don't have the Hollywood effects of a blockbuster film or the technology to compete. Also Momentum pictures specilise in thriller films made by independant film makers. We also had a limited budget and this means our technology and expertise are limited this means we cannot compete with the level of editing or the expert camera men they will be able to get.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of making your film opening?

I have learnt a great deal about the technologies used in the process of making our opening sequence. Firstly I have learnt about blogging. This year blogging was a new experience for me. I had to learnt how to post things in a "blog friendly" way and to try and not structure it in a way that would not be aesthetically pleasing. Also I had to add colour to my posts highlighting key words and making headings bold. The blog helps us too colaborate with eachother and help eachother communicate with eachother. It also allowed us to comment on eachothers work and upload videos and prezi's to our blog.

Next was learning about the cameras and what they could do. We used a cameras the school gave us which allowed the teachers to show us what they could do and the kinds of effects we could do on the camera. I also had to learn the rule of thirds and the 180 degree rule. This would help our production and I think allow us to make a good production. The camera we used to film our production was a Sony hdr-fx1000e and the link to it is Here. This camera helped us to do very good quality sound and very good shots. This shot shows how the quality can show from the camera we used as it gets all of the estate in very good quality.

Our soundtrack is from a copyright free CD that the department gave us and this is where we found our music from. We got two soundtracks and we think that our sound is one of the better parts of our production.

Finally I had to learn about all the editing software and the effects we could do in it. This didn't take me long and I was very soon into the swing of editing down all of our content to what we needed it to be. I also decided to learn about Adobe After Effects to help us with our production and I did make some effects but we decided against using them due to different circumstances. In premier I learnt how to use; Image manipulation; Image control; Key frames and key framing; Chroma key; Focus; cutting footage; Opacity and many more. This helped us to create a good production.