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

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

We wanted our audience to know exactly what the two characters were actually up to at the start of the film. Whilst our primary way of making sure the audience knew was through linguistic signs (the speech), we also felt we could do it through visual representation of a stereotypical burglar/robber. The two pictures below our character shot show two stereotypical burglar looks. We combined forms of both to create our characters. We put our characters in clothing not too dissimilar to that which can be seen in the first picture, to connote their age, but had them carry a briefcase rather than a bag, like in the second picture, to connote that they knew what they were up to. This again I would argue, is another slightly unusual way of doing things which maintains audience interest.

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

Our lack of production experience means our first film would, more than likely, be for a niche market, even if it is a mainstream genre. Having looked online we found an American company called Maljack Productions, which seem to deal with independent films of the genres our film comes under. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is their most prestigious film and, as you can see, it is indeed a film from the Crime genre.

If our film was going to be for a mainstream audience, then possible institutions would include the likes of Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros and Paramount films. These production companies have produced hundreds of films and are so experienced that they can produce films from any genre they like.

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

As I mentioned in my answer to the previous question, our film would have to be aimed at a niche market because of our lack of production experience. Considering BBFC guidelines, our audience would have to be over 15 years of age as our film would not meet the criteria for the next lowest rating of 12/12A. For example, in a film rated 12 ‘aggressive discriminatory language or behaviour is unlikely to be acceptable unless clearly condemned’.

On aims we have more choice over, we would be targeting lovers of the Crime genre. Our target age group would be people in their late teens to early 20’s as when we made our film, again considering our lack of experience, we found it easier to consider what we would enjoy. I believe the film may also appeal to a large proportion of males up to around 50 years of age though, as commonly, males enjoy these types of film. I also believe that, whilst UK citizens certainly would watch it, Americans may take more to the film as it is about one man triumphing against all odds, which again, is commonly and stereotypically what Americans enjoy. The above images are what I perceive to be the closest to the type of person that I am thinking about.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Maintaining the audience’s interest in the opening of a film is paramount. Because of our lack of production experience, we decided that the best way of doing this was to cause an air of mystery and confusion about exactly what was going on, by challenging some of the regular forms and conventions of Crime films. For example, we shot the tail end of a robbery in broad daylight and the environment it was shot in, a park, was also unusual. These ideas throw many questions into the head of the viewer which they want answered, and so hence continue to watch. Some questions could include how they’d gotten away with such an act in the light of day and why they were going through a park.

We complemented doing this by using music of a tense and suspension-building nature. Other common conventions we used included the storyline, character types and ideologies. By maintaining these conventions we ensured we did not lose the interest of the viewer before they’d had a chance to properly enjoy the film.

I have also asked the four people who filled out a questionnaire before we made our film to give us some feedback about how their attention was caught in the opening of our film.

Sophie

Chloe

Seb

Josh

The most obvious indicator of whether or not we managed to capture the audience is through what score they gave us for question two, which asked, 'on a scale of 1-5 (with five being extremely interested), how interested were you in seeing what happened after the opening of our film?' On this question we were given a three, two fours and a five, which suggests that we did to attract the audience worked.

When asked about what conventions they thought our film challenged, the main relative comments were about mise-en-scène and also storyline. As I've said we felt we challenged mise-en-scène fully. We felt though that we followed a typical storyline. The person who wrote the comment argued however that, a crime film opens usually with a murder scene or crime being committed, which suggests the film wasn't as clear as it needed to be about what was going on. Someone was also critical of our character types, claiming they were too young, but I'd say this is not relative as, for obvious reasons, we couldn't make the actors look much older.

Most respondents came up with the same ideas as I have mentioned when asked about what questions they wanted answered. And when asked what else about the film made them want to watch it, nearly all replied that they were intrigued as to what was actually going to happen, which suggests hat we went about attracting/addressing our audience in a correct way.

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

The main pieces of technology used in the making of this film were the camera itself and Final Cut Pro. We didn’t find a great deal out about using the camera as the preliminary task had familiarized us with its use. To make our film really work it was the editing that needed to be of a particularly high standard anyway, and so we learnt a lot about Final Cut Pro, from how to colour correct and create special effects to how to fade music and take out unnecessary diegetic sound.

Before we started to properly edit our film we spent around an hour just playing around with the different video effects that Final Cut Pro has on offer, as we knew the shot that could make or break our film required special effects. Originally we found an effect called ‘Kaleidoscope’ which did pretty much exactly what we wanted. The problem we had was incorporating the image we felt we required, which we wanted to appear momentarily. After delving a little more into the features of Final Cut Pro though, we realised we could create the desired effect without using an image. This was down to the colour corrector tool, which actually proved even more useful later on in our editing. By cutting the piece of film zooming towards the eye into four, we were able to create a blue and white police light effect, as you can see in our film. We felt this was a perfect solution to our problem as it still connoted what we wanted to, and added to the mystery surrounding the opening scene at the same time.

The colour corrector tool also came in handy when we were editing the scrolling newspaper shot as we made an error we almost couldn’t correct. The problem was that we had to reshoot when the camera first starts scrolling as there was a large amount of unsteadiness as the downward movement began. When we filmed that small part again though, we failed to take the lighting into account and so the two pieces of film were lit completely differently and simply didn’t go together. The first thing we thought about was using the colour corrector tool, though the lighting was so different that we weren’t sure we would be able to correct the colour enough. Fortunately though, after some serious experimenting, we got nearly identical lighting, which made the shots look feasible together.

Final Cut Pro was also useful when it came to sorting sound out. We learnt how to remove diegetic sound and also how to fade sound in and out. Knowing how to remove diegetic sound meant we could take away the wind, which then didn’t spoil the atmosphere we wanted to create. The creation of that atmosphere was also helped by our ability to fade music in and out, which gave us more flexibility around how we actually used the music.

Another piece of equipment that proved helpful was the Dolly. This helped us to keep the moving shot in our film (where the camera moves towards the newspaper) steadier. Having not used this in the filming of our preliminary task, what we learnt about the Dolly was that it can only really be used on smooth surfaces, as the wheels are not cut out to handle bumpy terrain, meaning a less steady shot is captured. We had to reshoot a few times before we got a predominantly steady movement.

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

Whilst our preliminary task was not bad for a first attempt, our final product is certainly a lot better, numerous instances of which are highlighted above. The two areas I feel we progressed in most were our use of Final Cut Pro and our filming outdoors, which we didn’t do at all in our preliminary task. There were a number of other areas that we improved on but I feel these two were the most important in terms of making our final product better than our preliminary task.

Filming outdoors meant having to learn quickly. In the natural environment there are constant changes, from the light levels to the external sounds. This means you have to choose carefully when to start filming your shots as sudden changes in these sorts of factors can lead to continuity editing problems, as we found out on two or three occasions.

Our use of Final Cut Pro, as I talked about when considering what we have learnt about technology, has improved vastly. We have learnt how to use the effects offered by the program to create effective sequences. We have also learnt how to edit sound and individual clips to create a desired atmosphere. Overall, our use of all features in the program has improved.

We also ensured we didn't make very basic errors like we did in the preliminary task (see images below). The first image shows a recycling bin which should have been moved out the way. It rather spoiled the atmosphere. The second image shows our camera bag in the background, which again has the same effect.

Other things we have learnt include how to use a Dolly, and how to plan properly for a film. In the preliminary task we produced a script and storyboards, however the research into genres and conventions of openings, etc didn't happen, and I see have definitely seen the benefits of doing this. Mainly, it helps to give your work an aim and some direction. It has also made me realise why films take so long to make, and I will no longer think production companies are being lazy when they say it will be three or four years until the next film in a series!

Temporary Post

How we incorporated our Audience Research

I feel I should tell you about the thoughts behind our characters and setting so that you know how we incorporated the findings of our audience research.

We already knew that the film was going to follow the life of protagonist Steve as, from our research into the genre, we knew that following the life of a criminal is a key feature of Crime films. From our questionnaires though, we took the thought that a Crime film protagonist should 'have a personal interest in a case' and developed the storyline around this comment.

The protagonist, Gary, we tried to make look like a 'hard man' by dressing him in a hooded top, as this is stereotypically associated with somebody who might be labelled a 'hard man'.

The setting is an interesting consideration. Almost all of our respondents said that the opening scene should have an air of mystery surrounding it. They also all said that it should be dark. We thought then, that we would create a resounding air of mystery by shooting in the daylight. This makes you wonder what is going on as a substantial robbery should surely not be taking place in the full light of day. It also captures the attention of the watcher as it goes against their usual expectations and so they are intrigued to see what has happened and why. We were also told that the opening of a Crime film should introduce you to the life of the main character. We did this by scrolling down the newspaper prop that we made specifically to inform the audience of what has happened.

Further Research Evidence II

Continuing to go back through the notes I made before making our film, I have found more extra evidence of research, this time into film genres, that I again forgot to add to my blog at the time.

This is an A3 grid which myself and Frank filled out considering the codes and conventions of seven different film genres, thinking about specific films of our choice from each genre.

This was a big help when deciding on our film genre as we had everything that we would have to consider for each genre mapped out in front of us.

Further Research Evidence

Going back through the notes I made before making our film, I have found extra evidence of research into film openings that I forgot to add to my blog at the time.

These are notes I made on the mise-en-scène of the opening to the film The Silence of the Lambs (1991: Jonathan Demme). This was a class task where we were split into groups. Each group had to take notes on a designated convention.

This was a useful exercise as it allowed everyone to collaborate their thoughts, meaning we didn't miss anything, thus meaning we all knew what to think about when planning our films.

Film Complete!

Myself and Frank have now completed the editing of our film opening! We both feel satisfied with what we have produced. It may not be perfect but then we have to remember this is our first attempt at doing something like this (or second if you include the Preliminary Task) and that actual films take months and even years to edit correctly, and so personally I think we have done a decent job.

I am going to do a more detailed analysis and evaluation when I have time to sit down and go through our film.

Equipment Used

Here is the equipment we used in the making of our film.

Camera & Tripod

Dolly

The Filming Process

Just a few snaps showing myself and Frank in the process of making of our film.

Updates

As you have read we had to change our actor. Here is a picture of Frank who plays the guy who makes the betrayl, Gary.

We also retook location photos as the light was better and decided to add a couple of extra locations to ensure we had enough footage.

Final Filming Session ... Hopefully!

Today we spent three hours filming our final shots.

The short notice meant that we couldn't get anyone else to act so Frank had to take over from Nick; myself and Frank both feel that we did just as good a job though, by taking time over the shots in which we were both needed.

Today we also had the use of a Dolly. This certainly was useful for some of our shots, though we learnt that you can't really use it unless you have a smooth surface underfoot as the wheels are not cut out to travel over rough surfaces without bumping around.

Tommorow then we will begin editing. Hopefully we won't have to go and shoot any more footage!

Reshooting

Having spent another hour editing our film we have decided that we are going to refilm in two days time.

Apart from the fact that the camera is not as steady as it could have been in the footage we have, myself and Frank have also noticed a glaring continuity editing error which we are unable to fix no matter which pieces of footage we put together.

For our next and hopefully final filming session we have booked a camera, tripod and a dolly as we believe this can really help us when moving the camera from a mid shot to an extreme close up shot.

Filming Over, Editing Just Beginning

Myself and Frank have now completed filming for our task and have started to edit the footage.

Filming was a bit of a trial as, after our first session, a lot of our footage corrupted. This meant we had to go and refilm everything, which in turn meant asking our actor, Nick Albiston, to kindly reshoot the shots. Luckily for us he agreed to.

Finding a time when all of us were available was a bit of a problem, and filming the second time round therefore proved more troublesome as there were no tripods available at the time we required. Conscious that we needed to begin editing soon though, we went ahead and did our best to hold shots steady, despite this obviously being a lot more difficult.

Having begun editing we feel that most of our shots are steady in the main and some shots are actually made intentionally unsteady anyway, and so these were easier to film.

I think we may require some assistance with editing in the coming days as we both have a somewhat limited knowledge of the features in Final Cut Pro. We both wish to bring our vision to fruition though and so this will require some slightly more advanced editing. The shot that I am thinking about in particular is the zooming in on Gary's (Albiston's) eye, which ends up providing a transition to the next scene.

Actors & Props

Here are the two actors we have chosen to be part of our film. The other two pictures are of the main props we will use during the filming. The newspaper is particuarly important as it will tell the background story to the film, clearing up any confusion that the viewer may have had after seeing the initial sequences.

Location Scouting

After much debate we have decided that these two areas are best for our film, offering connontations of the key points we want to get across in the scenes that we intend to shoot here.

Crime Thriller Genre Questionnaire Answers

Chloe

1. Yes
2. Less often
3. An old detective like Morgan Freeman or Brad Pitt
4. Mysterious and creepy
5. A typical crime scene

Sophie

1. Yes
2. Less often
3. An old and experienced detective
4. Mad and mysterious
5. Dark, few characters and a sense of mystery

Josh

1. Yes
2. Monthly
3. A policeman who has personal interest in a case. He is quite intelligent and doesn't take long to work things out.
4. A criminal trying to smuggle or something of the like. Either a 'hard' man or someone who owns a nightclub.
5. An introduction to the main criminal and their life.

Seb

1. Yes
2. Once every two months
3. Strong and mysterious.
4. Evil and manic.
5. Dark. Sense of death and mystery.

Crime Thriller Genre Questionnaire

1. Have you ever watched a Crime Thriller film?
Yes/No

2. If yes, roughly how often do you watch a film from this genre?
Weekly/Monthly/Once every two months/Less often

3. How would you describe a modern Crime Thriller protagonist (hero)?

4. How would you describe a modern Crime Thriller antagonist (villain)?

5. How would you describe a modern Crime Thriller opening scene and setting?

Script

Gary and Steve shake hands to signify a job well done. Gary notices police presence.

Gary: Alright mate, looks like we're good to go (pushes him slightly)

Steve: Okay (turns around and goes to walk out)

Gary: (Firmly grabs his shoulder to stop Steve) Pass me the bag

Steve: Why?

Gary: You've carried it this far. Let me take some of that strain for a while.

Steve: (Passing Gary the bag) Oh, okay. Thanks mate.

Gary: Let's go then. I'm right behind you.

Gary remains where he is as Steve unknowingly walks out to the police officers.

Title: 10 Years Later

Gary - (Reading newspaper) We'll see (puts newspaper down on bench)

'Hollywood' Narrative Structure

This picture shows evidence of planning in preparation for filming. It is our 'Hollywood' Narrative Structure for a whole film. I decided to take this task on and left Frank to focus on other areas of planning and research.

The story is basically about betrayl and Steve's quest to bring his ex-partner, Gary, down.

My vision is that, at the beginning of the film, you see how the betrayl was made and the consequences of it. The 'meat' of the film would involve a number of violent scenes and chases between the network of people in between Steve and Gary. The conclusion of the film would see Steve taking Gary down, but only after it had appeared that Gary had got the better of his ex-partner.

Once I had finished devising this storyline I couldn't help but relate it to the film Max Payne (2008: John Moore), another film of the genre we are making. This helped to give me a better idea of how our opening scene should look.

I found thinking about the film as a whole made it a lot easier to plan the for the finer details of our opening scene, as it poses questions like, (looking at a specific scene later in the film) what would the watcher need to see in the opening moments to make them understand that particular part of the film?

Storyboard

This picture shows evidence of our storyboarding in preparation for filming. We completed this together, myself scribing and Frank illustrating, after I had written up the Narrative Structure.

Having considered the film structure, as well as our Crime Thriller questionnaire responses, which I will be writing up to my blog tommorow, myself and Frank constructed an opening scene which we both believe satisfies the needs of a film opening from this genre, and which we can both visualise in our own heads.

Deciding on shots and shot distances could have potentially caused conflict, what with two of us having our own ideas, however I personally think that we managed to construct a better opening scene than either of us could of on our own because there were numerous points at which we were able to build on each other's ideas. For example, I suggested the shot zooming into Gary's eye. Frank, having thought about this suggestion, came up with the idea that we could actually zoom right in through the eye, as if we were going into Gary's brain to see the image of what has caught his eye.

These boards are essential to our success in the making of this film opening and so it was of paramount importance that we came up with a decent initial structure. These boards will mean we can get straight on with filming, knowing exactly what we are shooting and why we are shooting it.

Bullitt

http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/04/04/bullitt/

This is a link (which for reasons beyond my control you may need to copy and paste) to the opening title sequence of Bullitt, a film of the same genre we intend to produce.

The Taking of Pelham 123 Intro & Credit Analysis

Credit Analysis
00.13 - Columbia logo (Production Companies)
00.21 - Columbia Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures
00.27 - In association with Relativity Media
00.34 - A Scott Free/Escape Artists Production
00.40 - A film by Tony Scott (Director)
00.45 - Denzel Washington (Actor)
00.49 - John Travolta
01.16 - The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (Title)
01.21 - Rail Control Center - Midtown (Location Information)

Decision Time

Myself and Frank have decided that we will make the opening sequence of a Crime film, specifically a Suspense Thriller.

We came to this decision after having looked at three openings from a genre of our choice. As you can see below, I looked at Western films, whilst Frank looked at Prison films.

We believe that crime is a key feature in both our genres and so we have decided to 'meet halfway' so to speak.