Question 8 - Evaluation - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the process?

   

   

For the final segment of my evaluation and analytical processing of my AS Media folder, I have been asked to evaluate and interpret lessons and things that could have been improved in regards to both my preliminary task and my final thriller opening product. To conduct this, I will divide the evaluation into three areas: Camera, Editing (inc. Sound), and Planning.

Camera

In regards to the camera work, my first point would be that we have made a significant improvement in the framing of our shots and how much substance covers the screen, below you can see the contrast between two random scenes - one from our preliminary shot, the other from our final edit and see the progress we have made as frame constructors:

 < FROM PRELIM

FROM   FINAL PRODUCT >

The screenshot from our preliminary shows amateur framework setup, for a significant amount of time during that scene, all that could be seen was railings, a wall and the top of the two characters heads - these things weren't thins that were pivotal to the plot, and the shot didn't highlight what needed to eb shown, i.e. the victim. However on the shot beside, from our final product - there is an improvement in frameworking, the shot shows both the location and the protagonist in equal light, highlighting the two most significant things about the scene clearly - the shot and framing was also key for me as an editor because it left significant space for titles to be added on top without blocking the protagonist's face.

Editing


Whilst watching the two videos, I believe as a whole the editing on our final product was much more cleaner, and flowed better than the prelim. A standout scene within the prelim where the editing wasn't on par with the piece as a whole, was the entrance into the boss's room, an instance where the protagonist with the red hat, told his sidekick to "be quiet" because they were about to enter the boss's office had to be added in afterwards and its placing in the scene, when I watch it didn't correlate with the characters hands movements, and it's sound was too high in relation to the scene.

Secondly whilst watching the two clips side by side I see significant improvements in the overall looks in regards to the production value, and effort put in to make each clip look like a professional output. The preliminary video was almost entirely composed of diagetic sound, that seemed to fluctuate between different decibel levels, lessening the quality of the pieces sound. In contrast our final piece had a soundtrack composed for it, and narration fitted around the scenes, giving the piece a more quality - orientated finish.

There was more dynamics in the final piece in regards to the effects and transitions applied to the video clips. In the prelim simple cuts and jump cuts were applied. As apposed to the "Cross fades" "Additive Disolves" "Dip In, Dip Outs" that were applied to the Final opening, and the use of slow motion to highlight the irony of the water bottle.

Planning


Before any of those areas above could be covered, the stage of planning had to be initiated. In hindsight I conceed that this in fact is the most important stage.
Our planning of our prelim was almsot non-existent. It was just a simple case of coming together as a group, and devising our plot and suggesting to each other variations in camera angles that we could use to make our piece better. We were also asked by our teachers to devise an animatics production of our prelim in the planning stages before actually drafting the final cut of it. This you can see below:

Our final product took a much different approach. We were determined to make the perfect piece, which resulted in alot of arguments between peers at the beginning, but our work ethic overshadowed this and we came past it to enter the research stages. For this I researched into other successful films in the specific niche we were aiming for, such as "Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch" from which intertextual references are made in our piece. Storyboards were also composed this time around to really justify and put in prespective the plot of our final piece.

While planning we had to pitch our ideas, get feedback from our proposed plot and watched various videos on YouTube on the FilmRiot Channel Account to see ways of making a good movie great in terms of editing after our finish product had been filmed.

Summary


In conclusion I regard our work a success and the whole process helped me as a media enthusiast encounter a huge learning curve. The AS Media outline forced me to make technical advances in my work, in terms of framework setup and learning how to operate a Mac and the professional editing software Final Cut Pro and LiveType.

Evaluation Q8) Looking backat your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product.

                          

Since we did our prelim our final movie has turned out to be massively different

We changed our whole approach to filming and producing it.

Mise En Scene
As you can see here one of the changes to our approach of filming was mise en scene. As you can see in our prelim our lack of decent prior planning meant our filming location was poorly lit, leading to dark footage. but as you can see we changed our approach and managed to get an even better lit footage in a BASEMENT than we did in our classroom. this is an example of how since our poor planning and understanding of mise en scene in our prelim we have taken a turn for the better.

  
Editing

In our prelim due to the restricted amount of time we had to edit our work, we never managed to utilize extensive effects and other tools in final cut to make our prelim a better product. In our prelim we filmed the action scene of Jem getting hit in a very amateur way. We filmed from an angle that was very confusing and since then we have made considerable improvements in the way we edit the footage as well. In our final film we edited a similar scene in a better way. After Jem got hit we changed the color tone of footage to black and white and froze it all at the point the punch came in contact with Jem's face. We did this also to create meaning in our footage something we did not do much of in our prelim. This shows and contrasts the huge difference in editing skills our two films have and how much of an improvement we have made since

 

Camerawork And Planning

As you can see we greatly excelled in our camerawork skills. This shot above shows the detailed planning and skill we put in. The character walks up to a point before stopping at a good angle for the audience to see him as well as space behind in which another character fills in when he walks in and hits him from behind. All of the sequence is cleary visible and our prior extensive planning even meant that the mise en scene such as the location the actors clothings and even the weapon used were perfect for it.

In summary i have that i have made considerable progession whether it be techniacally or the fact that my work rate and ability to work with my partners to create a good product have improved greatley since the creation of our prelim product.

Question 6 - Evaluation - Audience feedback and comment

 These are a couple of audience feedback we received from students in the collage who viewed out media product.

Evaluation Q8) Looking backat your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product.

Looking back to when we first made our prelim, you can see that we have come on great lengths. Our overall general filming has become better.

In the prelim it was one of the first times we ever had to make a short film. As you can see it was not all filmed that great. The camera shots where a bit out of place and didn't really have that good affect.

As you can see their was not much mise en scene in the prelim, we didn't take into account any sort of setting or what props we used. we just used a pencil which didn't made much sense and lowered the quality of the film. However in the final movie we concentrated a lot on mise en scene as you can see in the canary wharf scene where we concentrated on costume and props like the water.

In the prelim we also had pointless camera shots that didn't add anything to the film, like at the end when the jelly babies are walking away, the shot was not executed very well, and now we are much better at performing good quality camera shots such as the tilt in canary wharf.  We also feel we learned how to do a lot better match cuts, which we demonstrated when the bottle dropped.

Moreover we also learned how to do a lot better sound, as you can hear in the prelim the sound was not made very well, it just sounded like random sounds put together on soundtrack pro. However in the final movie we put a lot more time and effort and we switched to another program called fruit loops which we found easier to use and we made a lot better sound on that program that worked very well with our final film, or example at the very beginning of the film the beat is very exhilarating and gets you hooked and interested from the start.

Question 4/5 - Evaluation - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product? How will you attract/address your audience?

Above is a make-shift scenario I have filmed to answer the question above. The scene above sees an aspiring filmaker (me) pitching the idea of investing advertising finances and completing the entirety of our AS Media Thriller film opening "Lying With The Enemy".

The aspiring filmaker above is pitching to an executive at Film Four, an independent film company that distributed fellow independent film "Looking For Eric". That film was invested in by Film Four and eventually won distribution rights. I picked Film Four distribution because it backs low budget films and has developed marketing techniques to compensate for low-budgets, especially in the case of "Looking For Eric" which on a limited release was able to garner an $11million box-office intake worldwide. Albeit a minor fraction of the worlds most successful film of all time's (Avatar) $2.7 billion worldwide gross, it did make a profit for the company.

When addressing how I would attract/address an audience I stated of how we as young filmakers have generated a small buzz for our film already. Using ours and our colleges resources our thriller opening was able to generate a cinema screening in North London in front of 130 young filmakers and got a very positive response. I then went on to stress that we have marketed our thriller through the interent by going viral and promoting the opening on such video streaming sites such as: Vimeo, YouTube and Blogger.com. our thriller opening would also get a limited release of 200 DVD's something that would certainly generate more buzz.

The pitch above demonstrates that we as filmakers understand the industry and know that we would't generate film investment from such entities as Paramount Pictures or 20th Century Fox. With investment from Film Four Pictures we would hope to make the entire film with a substantial budget and generate a profit from a limited release around London showcasing it in Art cinemas and multi-screen outlets that have installed digital players.

Evaluation - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 3 - Evaluation - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Above is a video of the "Average Dan" a character I have composed to demonstrate who I believe is the target audience for our thriller/ thriller opening, and the day to day contents you would fing in our "Average Dan"'s bag.

Our thriller targets a specific niche in the market: the London gangster genre is a fairly new one and has taken dominance specifically in the noughties decade with box-office successful releases like "Kidulthood", "London Boulevard" and "Snatch". Directors like Guy Ritchie and Noel Clarke have delivered these movies to the masses.

The films above and our thriller target elder teens to men in their 40's. Our "Average Dan" above is into hi-tech gadgets and expensive commodities, similar to the type of characters that feature in London gangster films anyway.
"Average Dan" likes to take care of his body, evident by the gym membership in his wallet, "Average Dan" isn't afraid to spend money, giving reason to why he has a high-sector credit card.

Above is a wordle of the words I would associate with the "Average Dan" that would watch our film.

Evaluation Q6) Audience feedback and comment

 The people we interviewed were not all the target audience we would be aiming our film at, however these are the people who watched it in the cinema. The people we interviewed are all between 16-18 for the exception of one. Even though they enjoyed the film I do not believe it would actually attract people of this age group, I feel it is for a much mature audience of around the age of 30. But from interviewing these people i feel that the film was a success as they all seemed to enjoy it. 

Question 7 - Evaluation - What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

EVALUATION - Looking back at your preliminary task, What do you feel you have learned in the progresssion from it to the full product?

If you look back at our preliminary work you can see that we have developed a lot. Our general skills with the programs and editing improved because of our experience with our prelim which has made us create a very good thriller opening.

Here is our Prelim

And here is our final Thriller opening

As you can see there is a massive difference between the two clips.
The music we used in the prelim doesn't sound relevant to the clip and it also just begins suddenly which doesn't sound good while in our Thriller opening we have it gradually come in but still fast, we change tempo of soundtrack so it matches the events happening in the clip. You can see a massive improvement in our skills using Soundtrack Pro.

The opening in our thriller opening fades in so that it looks more professional while in our prelim the movie just starts making it look very rough. This also happens at the end of the prelim, the movie just finishes while in our thriller opening we fade it out making it look more effective and more clean.

How the prelim just starts off without a fade effect

The fade out of our Thriller opening at the end

In our prelim you see there's no titles making it look very dull. 

In our Thriller opening we made sure that we can use the titles in the best way possible, we chose the text size, font and colour that we thought would make the opening the best possible.

Mise en scene is a very important section when not only filming but also planning. 

In our prelim there is no mise en scene in our prelim, this is because we didn't plan very much when doing it. In our Thriller opening you can see that we paid much attention to the mise en scene. In the scene when I spot Jem across the road i was wearing a headset and also had a newspaper and also a bottle of water. We also used the bottle to enthuses how important the shot was when I realised who Jem was by dropping it in slow motion. Also i knock out Jem in the car park with a little pole, this is again part of the mise en scene. When we see Jem trying to escape he some kind of lock which he escapes from, he then knocks we out with a different pole.

We put a lot of thought in our mise en scene to make the opening as much tense as possible. Also the mise en scene helps us identify what type of characters they are.

We also improved in our team work skills as the project went on. We communicated with each other much better explaining our thoughts and ideas to improve the opening as much as possible.

We put a lot of thought in how to make the audience interact with our opening, making them feel the emotions the characters are going through, anger, love and hatred.

Here are another persons feedback for our Thriller opening

 

EVALUATION Q 4&5)- What kind of media institution might distrivute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

Our film is a low budget movie, that would be released mainly over the Internet. onto sites such as facebook and vimeo so people can watch and tell their Friends about our film.

 

This is a piece of work done by other students from another college, they had the same instructions as us and also made a thriller opening. It has been put onto YouTube and has 103,400 views and still counting. By putting it onto YouTube it has been able to be shared and enjoyed by people around the world, this shows that the Internet can be a powerful tool with the right guidance and usage. Their piece of work was probably also placed on their blogs and sites like vimeo first and we will try to follow the same pattern as them. 

Our film has been placed on vimeo and facebook and has been watched by 200 people at a small local cinema, it will also be made and released onto 200DVDs. But by placing it on the Internet it could get a lot more views and possible get out to a global audience. 

EVALUATION Q3) Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for our film is mainly middle aged white British males between the ages of 22-50. As our film is in the genre of thriller/gangster, I believe that it will attract an older audience as it is for a more mature person as their would be a lot of swearing and violence in the film and wouldn't be for the faint hearted. Moreover as it is set in London it will be more targeted for people from London. I believe it will also be more of a film for the working man class, not so much middle class as it is not a the most intellectual film around, however some may still enjoy it and watch it.

I have comprised a fictional person, and have put together a montage of pictures of things that would relate to his life. 

This is Gary Hooper, he is your average working class man of the east end. he works as a black taxi driver. doesn't like his job, but it pays the bills. He supports West Ham and goes to watch them every home game and the odd away. He enjoys a drink with his mates down the pub every Saturday night. Also likes to go to the cinema with his wife occasionally.

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

Many of our shots were influenced by shots we had scene from other media sources, many from films but also from advertisements and music videos

Above is our opening establishment shots we used. we used a random moving shot of a man so the audience could get a good perspective of the location our film was set in. the location being London, we thought by having a moving shot of the street it would engage the audience to the norm of the street and how things move by quickly in London by switching to another shot of something else. It also shows the business of an urban environment. the shot also moves from a wide and distance focus on to the individual. As you can see, similar shots were used in the advertisement for Chrysler.

This shot above is from the bathroom scene, we used this shot because we saw a similar one from the movie stepfather. In the stepfather it showed that the person was not mentally sane because he had all of his tools lined up perfectly. We used this in ours as well but with different tools, this was intertextuality to also show that our character was not mentally sane either. We wished we could have used better tools as these ones look very workman like, however it is all we had and we improvised and personally believed it worked.

The image above is our scene when our main character gets punched, their is a very similar scene in the film kick ass where he gets captured, like in our film, and then punched and beat up violently. We used elements of this in our shot, as you can see it is the same camera angle and motion of punching. However in ours we have added a title because ours is an opening.

Evaluation: Question 4&5- How will you attract audience

If we were to market this film as a gigantic cinematic release, one of the key ways of marketing would be through physical means. these could be posters as shown above. i have contrasted the mass marketing of 007 james bond posters with our own counterpart with our main protagonist.

We would also consider using billboards as part of our huge marketing campaign. they would be placed in city centres and places like airports just like they are used here for the james bond film.

We would also consider using press as part of our campaign. we would incorporate strategies already used successfully by big blockbusters like front page covers of magazines and newspapers.

Finally we will consider a nationwide release by showcasing our product in large cinemas like odeon and vue and other large cinema complexed once we have our premier in leicester square just like the bond film did above so kit could it generate significant interest before we expand 

Question 2 - Evaluation - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Above is the opening of Action Thriller film "The Transporter" the films protagonist is Jason Statham, an actor known depicting hard-hitting, London criminals in film. Jason Statham and his wealth of leading bad boy roles provided key characteristics of what we wanted our lead character of our thriller opening to be like. We modeled our costume and narration on Jason Statham films, and he was a key intertextuality reference when consulting on representing the social group of London criminals.

Above is a video I have filmed, garnering my fellow students depiciton of what they think is a typical "London Criminal". From evaluating their responses I can see that automatically their response as teenagers was that a "London Criminal" is a teenager, wearing a hoodie and brandishing a knife. We have made a conscious decision as a group to challenge this social stereotypical view of teenagers being hooded criminals, by making our lead - a London criminal himself - being a middle class Londoner, sporting expensive clothing to try and challenge the view of what a London criminal is.

Interestingly one of my classmates said of how the media represents criminals in a very specific way, and made a reference to specific wealth groups and races - most specifically Black Britons.

EVALUATION - What kind of media institution might describe your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

Here is a successful movie made by another student. Although it is not a opening like ours it shows how popular a video made by students can be.
So far the video has 280,074 views with 2,922 likes and 313 dislikes. 
This shows that you don't need much money or famous people to have a good movie. 


We have put our video on Vimeo which is a well-known for its independent productions.
Our video has also been uploaded on to Facebook and Youtube so we can see people's reactions and how well it does on these well-known sites. The internet is a fantastic way to distribute a small production because it will allow many more people to view it very easily. It is a easy way of trying to get your film out there but there is also a lot of competition.

We was involved with Candi studios which is a small independent studio when making our thriller opening. Because we was with a small independent studio we had a low budget which meant we had bigger chances of not fulfilling some ideas, although it is a small independent studio they have very good equipment which is really useful.

Our movie will be shown in a local cinema as it is not a massive production. After being shown in the cinema there will be 200 DVD's realsed.

EVALUATION Q2) how does your media product represent particular social groups?

These images capture our social group of the film. you can see the similarities between the three. First of all they all have very similar denotations. such as, black hair, white, with facial hair. However the character in our film is a bit younger than the other two, but still is the same sort of character with a similar personality and demeanor. We made our character to be like Jason Statham and danny dier so he is easily recognisable as a hard man gangster who doesent mess around. we done this so that the audience can easily recognise our character and he wouldent need a whole story background with him for the audience to understand him. This was our social group that we made easily recognisable.

EVALUATION - Audience feedback and comment

After viewing me and my groups thriller opening we got many comments back.

We had many positive feedback from our thriller opening.

The slow motion used at the begining is very good
Th tilt shot used at 1:19 is very impressive, also shows the setting in a fantastic way
The voice over used matched the actions  in the opening, an example of this is when the narration says "then he penny dropped" the bottle in the characters hand drops at the same time.
We got many positive feedback for the accent used in the opening.
The titles looks very professional because of the size and font used.


Even tho we got many positive feedback we did have some negative feedback. We got told that there was too much going on for an opening, the opening looks more like a short movie because they are not sure what will happen next.

Our original target audience was young men (around 18-25) but the feedback we got suggested that the audience is more for older men (around 30-40).

Although our sub genre was action we did get told it felt like a gangster movie due to the accent used for the character, but the footage in the opening did make it feel like an thriller-action movie.

Here is some of the feedback i recorded

EVALUATION - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Here is a montage of images i have put together to show what i think my target audience will be carrying with them.

David, 22, a young attractive sales assistant who loves to look good, shops in Topman and Moss.

Average day for David:

Wake up, get ready and go gym

After gym get ready for work

After work hang out with friends

Go home and do a little workout

Watch tv and go sleep

Evaluation Question 1-In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge conventions of real media products?

Our media film is quite similar to a lot opening sequences whether they be independent film to blockbusters to even music videos.

For the opening establishment shots we sourced from the video for Jay Z ft Alicia keys song New York. We fell in love with the shot immediately and we flipped it an used it showcase our vision for the gritty London scenes our film was attempting to portray.
we directly mimicked the spilt screen shots to the best of our ability and we replaced them with London counterparts as you can see above. This use of intertextuality was necessary in helping our audience understand that this is a thriller.

The shot below is a shot from the car chase scene in the James Bond film Die Another Day.
We liked the fact that the shot was angled so it could capture the front of the car while it was being chased. so we managed to pull of our shot by shooting from behind the bus since we never had the logistics help available to us that this blockbuster film did. We used the shot of the white BMW in kings cross and placed it as part of the establishments of the gritty London our film was portraying. The use of intertexuality here helped the audience understand and relate this thriller to the other thriller referenced here.
 

 This shot as you can see is the ever familiar panning shot used in the film Stepfathers. We mimicked it directly to the best of our ability since the safety risk concerned if we were to used much more sharper objects. So we used a couple of tools and placed them in a white tile to show the contrast. this clear intertexual reference helped the audience understand that this is a thriller as well.

This shot of jem being hit by asilhan above while the camera colour turns to grey and freezes was semi sourced from the shot below. this shot below was used in the film snatch which is a guy Ritchie film about the gritty streets of London and we felt it appropriate to use a shot as unique as that since we shared many elements with the film it was originally sourced from. this is the most clearest intertexual reference we used in our film to tell our audience that our film was a thriller like snatch 

This shot of jem while sitting on edge of the bed but with Rebbecca in the scene sitting at other end of the bed behind him is directly sourced from this famous shot of diddy marketing his new fragrance. I came across this shot by mere luck. i was researching famous bedroom shots in google when this result came up. the caption was totally different to what it was originally meant to be and had 'wake up in the morning feeling like p diddy' these referencing lyrics to the famous kesha song tik tok.

Question 1 - Evaluation - CORRECTED UPLOAD - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Above is our thriller film opening that we have submitted for our AS grade - in this altered edit, I have used  Final Cut Pro to insert the intertextuality and inspiration we used for our opening sequence. In this alternate edit of our opening, I have placed the various films and/or videos that inspired our film opening.

This alternate edit demonstrates how we channeled the codes and conventions of thriller film openings. In the first intertextual reference in the top-right corner of the screen. I have uploaded a scene where split screen editing used within a thriller film opening. The inserted reference shows a tram passing through at two different times in the day, we used this idea of split screening during an opening for our thriller opening. We cropped our establishment shots and placed them beside each other to create the split screen effect.

Establishment shots are a key element of thriller film openings. Establishment shots provide an indication to the location of the opening of your film, and can be key determining factors of the plot. We used this code and convection of establishment shots and combined it with split-screen editing.

The second codes and conventions reference I have placed in this alternate edit of our thriller film opening, is the identification shots of the lead character of the thriller. For this we used a tracking shot of the lead character driving a car - in our case the BMW. Displaying and showing your lead character within the beginning moments of your thriller opening is a key form, code and convention of thriller openings, which we have used in our thriller opening.

The following codes and conventions reference within this alternate edit of our thriller opening, is a scene from "A Christmas Story" a french thriller. The opening scene I have inserted from the film shows a silhouette of the villain. We have used this idea of keeping a key character of the films identity hidden within the opening in our thriller opening, by applying a blurred effect to our camera and using brightness/contrasts settings in editing we have hidden our kidnappers identity until later on in the opening.

The closing code and conventions reference applied within this alternate edit of our thriller opening, is the opening sequence of Thriller film staple Guy Ritchie and his film "Snatch". In "Snatch"'s opening, key characters of the film morph into a freeze frame snapshot to highlight their significance to the film openings plot. We have developed this key thriller code and convention and used freeze frame snapshots to highlight key points within our thriller opening, as opposed to highlighting and introducing key characters.

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

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

Here are a few shots from our opening scene, comparing them with other movie openings.

Here is a birds-eye view shot of equipment from the movie Stepfather, underneath is our birds-eye view shot of our own equipment.

Our birds-eye view shot.

Here is a split screen effect from a youtube movie, we also have used the same effect showing that there is not only one thing you should be paying attention to.

Here is our split-screen shot.





This is a shot from the movie snatch. This is the opening scene, when characters are shown there is a still image with their name on the screen. This is to show the audience that these are important moments in the movie.

This is our shot, we freeze the screen when there is an important shot, this is to show that these actions are very important.