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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?