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!

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