Final Media Project

Preliminary Task

Evaluation

Who would be the audience for your media project?

The target audience we were aiming for were around the ages of 16-24ish and older. This is because the scenes of crime and deviance througtout our film and we tried to capture this in our opening sequence film, due to all the violence, drugs, and language in the film our film would most probably be certified as a 15. We felt that the male side of the population would appreciate our film more due to the content and storyline, however, we did not base our film around this stereotype.

Target audience is very important when making a film as you are obviously making a film for them to watch, so everything that you put into this film must be to there liking otherwise your film will not sell and you will make no profit from doing this (if you were making a budgeted film). Also, bad reviews from one film will make people not want to watch any other films that you make or plan to make in the future. To make sure your film contains everything that your target audience would like to see questionnaires and servays would be a good idea to gather public information before starting your film.

Evaluation - Podcast

Evaluation

1. What kind of media instituion would distribute your media product and why?

I think my media product would be a smale scale film and would probably feature as a film4 production. I think this because I don't think it would be a blockbuster sellout as the continuity is lacking during the film and obviously with minimal budget the quality of our film is not top end. However, I think the story behind our film would make it be on that people would want to watch and get involved with.

To make it more of a blockbuster sellout I would improve the fluidity so that the opening sequence was to make more sense; change the sound effects to make them sound more realistic; improve the quality of the filming and keep continuity throughout the film.

Evaluation - Interview (part 3)

Evaluation - Interview (part 2)

Evaluation - Interview (part 1)

Final Project Completed

We have finally completed our film and downloaded footage onto shared area for examination, now we have to do our individual evaluation of our projects.

Production Meeting

Date: 10th April
Present: Jess, Josh, Alex
Agenda: Final editing and cut ideas for our final project

Bullet Points: - Smooth out rough cuts to make our final film have more fluidity
                     - Add in our soundtrack
                     -  Add in final sound effect needed
                     - Download film on to shared area ready to be sent off to be marked

 Action Points: - Next Lesson complete all film and add in soundtrack
                       - If time add in sound effect if not complete this task following lesson
                       - Final edits completed, download film on to shared area

Order of Titles

Our filming and most of our editing is nearly finished so the next bit is adding in all the titles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbhi-JICKKI

As we know the order of the titles through our opening sequence are very helpful this film was very useful as it gave us all the information we needed about this.

Filming of Our Media Project

We have filmed the main bulk of our film and have put parts of it together on the computer, we still need to film a few extra bits to fulfill our brief. However, I feel as though we are going to need to proper push ourselves with the editing to make our film work.

Skyfall Title Sequence

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/skyfall/#

Thisi s the title sequence for then ewest James Bond film Skyfall. This is a very good example of an action film as it grabs the audience and gets you asking a lot of questions making you want to carry on watching.I like the idea of using random but relative items that are put together in an interesting way using a lot of high-technology and graphic design skills.

As we obviously don't have enough money to pull of something this detailed we could use the idea of random objects to put together parts of the film that leave the audience with questions, therefore will hopefully will want to watch more of our film.

Costume Ideas

The idea we had was an all black costume, that represented a 'bad guy/hitman' type character, also had the idea of suits like the James Bond films. We felt that this would help keep with the conventions our action fim.

Semiotics - The Study of Symbols

DENOTATION: what the audience sees e.g. a cross
CONNOTAION: what something symbolises e.g. symbolises religion, belief, jesus etc.

For example in this picture you can see a few young adults at a party (denotation). This then connotes that they could be troubled youths, on drugs that have a party lifestyle, which then can coincide with crime and deviance this links with the media representation of AGE and the sterotypes that come with this representation.

Key Media Analysis Terms

Verisimilitude: The appearance of something to be real or true

Binary Opposition: oppositions that connote deeper meaning through realtionships they symbolise. These oppositions are subconciously learnt by us and create society's ideas of what is bad or good,

Lighting Terms

KEY: main light on a subject i.e. the sun - low key (soft light) i.e. in a restaurant - high key (hard direct light on a subject)

FILL: a light placed to the side of the subject to fill out shadows and balance the KEY light

BACKLIGHT: a light placed at the rear of a subject to light from behind to create silohettes

AMBIENT/NATURALISTIC: light available before artificial light is added i.e. day light

CHIAROSCURO: strong contrats between light and dark i.e. to distinguish goody/baddy

ACCENT LIGHT/SPOTLIGHT: a controlled, narrowly focused beam of light i.e. to follow a subject

<--- BACKLIGHT

<--- SPOTLIGHT

Editing Devices

Parallel Editing: crosscutting between different locations can convey the impression that two or more events are occuring simultaneously

Split Screen: where the frame is split into sections so that the audience can see different events occuring at the same time. Techniques used in TV series 24.

Editing

These are a few of the different aspects of editing:

CONTINUITY
Techniques - establishing shot, 180 dergee rule, eyeline match, match on action
Effect - realism, fluitdity, maturalism - edit is seamless so action appears real rather than constructed

NON-CONTINUITY
Techniques - juxtaposition and metaphor shot inserts
Effect - fantasy, fiction - stretches realism to give a metaphor for something

TRANSITIONS
- Straight Cut
- Fade to Black - (Night/Day) or could suggest end of scene
- Dissolve/Cross Fade - signifys dreams
- Wipe - signify out with the old in with the new/change

SHOT DURATION/PACE
Short Duration = action and urgency e.g. a chase
Long Duration = intensity and intimacy - focuses on facial expression and other aspects of mise-en-scene which otherwise would be missed

Opening Sequence Samples - Genre

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/forrest-gump/

The final clip i looked at was Forrest Gump.
This time I was focusing oon what the opening sequence gave away about the genre of the film.

As I had already seen this film I knew what genre this film was however, the key conventions that show what type of film this is are the symbolic use of the floating feather going through the city shows that the character is lonely and will be going on a journey.

The happy/emotional music suggests that it is a family film with a feel good factor element to it.

Opening Sequence Samples - Character

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/hellboy-ii-the-golden-army/

The next clip I looked at was Hellboy II - The Golden Army.
This time I have focused on what the opening sequence shows us about the character and the ideas about what we think he/she is going to display in the rest of the film.

My first opinion of the character was that he was obviously a little devil and he could possibly be quite a destructive charcter in the film - not the good guy in the film, this is because I had not seen the film just based on the fire and the symbolic colour of red representing danger.

Questions raised during this opening sequence about the rest of the film were:

Who is the man 'putting him to bed'?
Why is he holding what looks like a gun?
Who is the man/creature thing at the end of the clip?

Opening Sequence Samples - Atmosphere

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoO0ZsQ7tBg

This is the opening sequence to a film called Cape Fear.
I have focused on the atmosphere this sequence creates for the audience.

The first thing i felt was that it was quite creepy and it was obviously a psychologicl/crime thriller type of film, I knew this from the shadows/pictures in the water at the start which could symboloise drowning? Which then indicates murder and reinforces my first thoughts of the film

The music that accompanies this opening sequence is quite loud and strong which  creates an intimidating atmosphere for the audience

Sound FX and Soundtrack Ideas

http://www.freesfx.co.uk/

We looked at this website at all the possible sound effects we could use and downloaded them to our computer. We found useful sounds like gun shots and other gun sounds. This website also produces copyright free music which we found a possible sound track for our film.

Storyline Inspiration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxjMD6tiqtw

We have looked at blood diamond and our inspiration did not come from the whole storyline but the sense of someone having something that someone else wants and then there being a conflict between two sides of people as both sides are after one specific thing. This is our basic idea for the whole film (if we were to make the whole film), we decided to do it this way as we feel that knowing what the rest of the film will be about will give us more ideas of what to put into our opening sequence and what is relevent for this section and what isn't.

Ideas for Setting

These are ideas for our setting for our opening sequence, as we wanted a run-down area look to it. Realistic ideas include:
streets in kidlington/woodstock - as these are accesible and close to where we live
pan of kidlington - to get 'city' effect (even though kidlington obviously isn't a city)
pan of oxford

Chase Scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z5LXyWn3-w

I also looked at the chase scene from the film Drive, the good points that i got from this clip are:

• fast pace
• lots of shots
• close ups
• dramatic car sounds
• location
• the 'close call' shots to add suspense