AS Level Media Foundation Production Evaluation Q7

Q7 Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

We have developed from our prelim by improving our skills and creative minds. Our main strengths where the in the editing because during this we could remove anything that went wrong in the filming this was true for both the prelim and the actual thriller. The weaknesses of our prelim are we broke the 180-degree rule and this disoriented the audience. Before we created the actual thriller piece, we were to carry out a preliminary (prelim) task. The task given was that we made a one-minute clip on a short conversation of some sort. It can be in any situation as long as we kept to 180-degree rule. This is where we have to keep to one side of the action. If we do have to go the other side then we would have to make it clear to the audience that this is what we are doing. For this we would have to have a shot of panning around the other side of the action. We also have to remember about shot reverse shot which is where you have in a conversation; the shot would go to whoever is talking. It can also be an over the over the shoulder shot.

Over all I think we used a variety of shots. We used a lot of medium shots and which changed in between each other especially when the female and male characters were walking up the corridor. Taking in feedback from our classmates who reviewed it, we were told that at one point the 180 degree rule was broken when the male character worked into the meeting room. After having a closer look we did see the problem so this would be something to look out for when creating the thriller clip. But in context on shots, we did use medium shots, long shots, close ups, extreme close ups, over-the-shoulder shots and we also had shot reverse shot which was one of the elements we had to include. As well as the type of shots, we also used a varied amount of angles, from in the middle to high angled shots. However, there wasn’t any from the floor facing up wards so we should think on that in our thriller, as this would show more authority over characters. We also used match on action when we switched from looking at the watch, zooming out of the watch in the different room. We thought that zooming into it and out was very effective because as an audience, we wouldn’t expect it. I thought our titles were also quite effective, very film like, because we made the shot freeze whilst we read the titles so we didn’t miss anything. Also at the end, we thought that when we were closing the extract, the music started before the credits started.

We didn’t have too many problems with the lighting over the shots because they were simply natural lights. However we could have had a bit more neutral lighting on the characters when they are talking. Maybe stage lanterns would be the most appropriate at about 50%. This would just add a little bit more clarity and effect. Also, we should check shadows on the little things for example, the watch shot where half of the hand was dark.
I have learnt many things doing this preliminary task. I have learnt all about match on action and shot reverse shot. I also knew nothing about the 180-degree rule. The prelim gave us a chance to explore lots of different shots than what we knew about. It also made us think about how much planning is necessary so we know what we’re doing on the day where we start filming and when we say Planning we mean not just story line but sound, camera angles and shots.
I think the main things I will need to improve on for the thriller is keeping an eye on the 180 degree rule, using more shot reverse shot and add a bit more lighting to where is needed just to create that extra effectiveness.

We have really developed our skills since the prelim because the actual task was properly planned and storyboarded and we did a shot lists. This helped us to not need to make as many snap decisions on the film set. The questionnaire also helped us to make a decision on a genre, which is different to the prelim, which was a snap decision on what was going on. Also we improved our technical skills by making it fit together and look a lot neater and more professional than the prelim.

AS Level Media Foundation Production Evaluation Q5 & Q6

Q5 How did you attract/address your audience?            And

Q6 What have you learnt about technologies from the progress of construction this product?

The film 'sinister' was an inspiration on the lighting and the flashing. It was like a super8 film but instead of the boogieman we have a priest. We aimed to make the opening as if someone was watching the super8 and then getting scared and interested.

This shot is of the opening credits it is an establishing panning shot. We chose this shot because it reminded me of a film that stuck in my head and was really thought provoking. This was made apparent when we asked people to comment on it and the first thing they asked about was this shot. The props where also made by us with the names on. We had this idea from the start and we were very happy because it turned out how we had imagined it. This will attract the audience because it is quite interesting for the audience and will not give them the chance to get bored as there is quite a lot going on the piece.                         In this we learnt that a long panning shot at such a low level was difficult it took us 4 attempts and we then split the long clip up. We used strait cuts to other clips because it make the film more interesting for the audience and this helps split up our long panning shot because when we put it in with no editing on the clip was like 1mins 30seconds and this gave us hardly any time for the rest of the narrative.

This bit attracts the audience because the audience member is usually going to be this age. The costume of this character is very similar to the clothes in which the audience would own, this helps the audience relate and makes the film more attractive. If the audience can relate to the character it is more personal to them when something happens to the character.                         The technical skills we have picked up were how to pan with no tripod and the only stability being the hands. This was also a good setting pan as it helps you to see the church from the outside making them build up what the setting is. We also used the golden mean where my body moves through the line of the mean.

The close up we used here shows that we understand the technical aspects of a thriller because it disorientates the audience. This is good to help elevate tension by making the audience member so uncomfortably close to the actor. The jump cut from the actor turning his head into the zoom onto the eye and then back out to the body. These jump cuts may make the audience jump as the eye is so big on the screen and we tried to make it happen at a high tension bit in the music and the sound effect on the top of the door being loud also will hopefully make the audience jump.

the shot is a long shot of the actor walking to the pew. The editing to get to this point was normal cuts. What we did was put a fade to black on to help increase tension when the priest is in the shot. This was a thought that we had to make it more interesting after watching it through without. Other miner tweaks we made after watching it through was some sound effects of high pitches screeching to make the tension in the piece higher. 

AS Level Media Foundation Production Evaluation Q4

Q4 Who would be your audience for your media product?

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organization, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films within the United Kingdom. It has a statutory requirement to classify videos, DVDs and, to a lesser extent, some video games under the video recordings acts 2010

I believe that ‘father of sin’ should be awarded a 12 because it involves most of the below:

‘Home media only since 2002. Suitable only for persons aged 12 years and over, not to be supplied to anyone below that age. It is illegal to knowingly rent or sell a 12-rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game to anyone under the age of 12. 12A-rated films are usually given a 12 certificate for the VHS/DVD version unless extra material has been added that requires a higher rating. The content guidelines are identical to those used for the 12A certificate.’

My target audience is from the age of 12-26 I feel anyone can watch it but we are aiming it mainly towards that age, as this is the majority of the people that we quizzed. Our target audience would be students so they are still at school and most of their time is spent at school. Most of the people that will watch our film would have an evening or weekend job and pay for it with the money that they earn from this job. The Ethnic background could be very different as it could be aimed for Christians even though it is very controversial but others such as agnostics may watch it because it is a good thriller film. The audience should expect to see a religious thriller when they go to watch it and a religious thriller is exactly what we have delivered. This is because there wasn’t that many about and we thought it would be a brilliant unique idea that hasn’t been done before. This was most of the motivation and also difficulty. The audience also wants a unique new film rather than a follow on film. The audience want to see a new story that they haven’t seen before this was a bold move as most films are based on books but we chose not to do this because we wanted it to just turn up in the cinema.

The top rated sub-genre is psychological thriller. We have done our thriller with this in mind having a rather scary priest who is creepy and he plays with peoples heads as will be seen in the opening.

The best thing people liked about a thriller is suspended we are using suspense in the way that the audience know the priest is there but the boy doesn't this makes the audience more tense we believe.

The largest chosen director was Steven Spielberg we couldn't really link this to our price because we are directing it ourselves.

Surprising twists came in at number one on what appeals to our target audience and we don't really have this but it could unfold in the later part of the film, which we aren't focusing on.

Most people think props costume and make up are important we have taken this on bored and made our main focus to be on props and costume in our opening.

Our questionnaire says that the plot is the most important element of a thriller film so this is the reason we spent a lot of time writing the plot out and matching it to the shot list.

Music is the main thing that builds suspense cording to our target audience this is why we aim to use it as affectively as we can we have looked into ideas of why should be cool and have a good idea in our heads.

In our 2mins of the film we do have the action unfolding quite quickly because this is what our audience want.

It is set in the present because that is what the audience want it is also better because it makes it closer to home for the viewer.

In our piece we have as little plot reviled as we can we want the audience to question what this man is doing and why.

we are trying to use the information that we got wisely by planning what we were going to make after the questionnaire results had been counted. Mainly, we tried to follow what the majority said apart from not many people were for a religious thriller so we took it to try and change peoples minds on this so that people didn’t just think that a religious thriller was just teaching people about say Christianity. We wanted to change that by making it controversial thriller. The questionnaire results made us choose a different path and helped to guide us in the direction in the way that the audience want.

AS Level Media Foundation Production Evaluation Q3

Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

PREZI

AS Level Media Foundation Production Evaluation Q2

Q2 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 

Similarities

·         They are both killing because of religion.

·         They both wear black hooded robes.

·         They both are set in there ways to get what they desire

 

Differences

·         The man out of The Da Vinci Code kills people with a gun, whereas our character kills people by ‘a touch’

·         Our character never shows his face to the audience but the character out of The Da Vinci Code his face is seen immediately

 

The roll we wish the priest like character to represent is the villain. We feel the audience decides his age, as he looks exactly the same in the past and present. He is more of a never ageing spirit rather then a real person. The gender is a man through the title ‘Father’ and the fact the actor was a man; we did this because in the time that it was set men were seen to be ‘superior’. The character is mostly like a shadow where you don’t see much of him and it’s mostly a black outline, the only feature if him we see is his chin and lower face. The costume that we used was a hooded robe because it despised the person in the robe. The location we filmed him in would be the only location he would be in throughout the whole film. He was always in the shadows and we filmed him in low light because he was an evil, dark character.

Although it’s quite hard to see, the priest out of FOS and the character in The Da Vinci Code look and seem to be very similar. They are in a very same situation. The appearance of them seems to be similar. The only factor I can point out is that we can slightly see the villain from the DVC whereas on our thriller opening, we see nothing but his/her hand. In regards of the role of each of the characters, they are both playing the same sort of role. They are both having a chase. They are both either looking for someone or picking on a victim

.

We thought that because of the massive similarities from the Da Vinci Code, our priest would be the fantastic match for this character. The priest/demon on the Da Vinci Code has a very violent way in getting what he wants where as our priest uses secrecy to kill. Our character obviously doesn’t want anyone to see his face and the demon in the DVC obviously has a little less to hide. Obviously giving more questions for the audience to ask

As Level Media Foundation Production Evaluation Q1

AS Level Media Studies Foundation Production Evaluation

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

A thriller is something with an exiting plot with usually a dilemma. The thriller genre is found in a number of different materials from books to films and T.V. this makes it a very good genre as there are a lot about to analyse and to get inspiration from.

A sub-genre is a genre within a genre, as the whole genre is thriller and a ‘sub-genre’ is a small category off this.

 The sub-genre we chose was ‘Religious’ and ‘Conspiracy’ because we felt it was the easiest to pull off than anything else, as we didn’t have any budget to have huge explosions or things like that. I thought it was a good idea because the people that watched our piece says that it looked very good with the equipment we used. A lot of our audience didn’t like the sound of a religious thriller because they didn’t really know what it was. They thought it would be something boring with a holy man reading the bible or something and it isn’t it is one of the creepiest, in my opinion, forces because no one really knows what it all is. The elements of the genre I used would be things like it being set in a church with dull lighting to make the church seem like a scary or tense place to be. We also used the thriller elements by having a victim which was the young boy that walks into the church, although that is not so clear at the start, and a villain who is the priest which we see that he is the villain as soon as he is shown on camera by the flickering and the tense humming noise. We developed a lot on the stereotyping of characters as the boy is in his teens and therefore is more vendible than an adult but we challenged the total stereotypical attractive woman in trouble with a scary male trying to kill her.

Typical shot types

Long shot

•       This is also known as establishing shot this is used to introduce the audience to the scene or surroundings.

•      

This can be used to create many different feelings depending on what the surrounding is such as if the surroundings are dark with an old house it most likely will be a thriller

A long shot can be used to make it more metiers for the audience because if it is framed really well it can confuse the audience.

Mid shot

•       This is from the torso upwards usually this is to show the body language of a person to the audience and also to show if they have anything in their hands.

•       For example someone with their back up against a wall with a gun in their hand would be a spy or agent.

These are used in thrillers a lot because it shows the characters feelings and so you can feel as if it is you as a person standing there because this is mainly what you see through your eyes.

  

Close up

•This is usually of a face or can be of a significant object or subject. This shows to the audience that the object will have sufficient meaning in the movie.

•For example a close up of a gun would tell you that there is going to be some fighting in the film.

Close ups are used in thrillers because this disorientate the audience by being really close and not knowing where it is.

Close up from ‘Psycho’

Two shot

•This is for establishing the relationship between the two acting subjects, this helps the audience clear that these two people like/dislike each other.

•For example if we had two television presenters standing next to each other they would have an equal distance apart and know that they are of equal importance.

Two shot from ‘Pulp Fiction’

Low angle shot

•We use this shot to show the audience that the subject be it a person or building are big and strong. This shows the audience that this person may even be the ‘bad guy’.

•An example of this could be in a western the outlaw comes in on his horse and it may be a point of view shot from the town folk this makes him look big and scary.

High angle shot

•This shot is used to show the week as being very small sometimes used so the audience feel sorry for the subject as they may be in danger.

•For example a bully comes along to a kid it may be the point of view from the bully down to the kid this would make the audience fell sorry for the kid.

High angle from ‘James Bond’

Typical Editing

Transitions

•Transitions are the ways that two shots are joined together

•The most commonly used transitions is called a straight cut; this is where one shot will cut straight to the next one

•Using transitions make the film seem continuous and it keeps the pace in the film

Fades (Black/White)

•This is where one shot will fade in or out using black or white

•Using this type of editing can tell the audience that time is passing

•If the fading is done quickly it can also be used for flashback scenes

In thrillers these make higher points of tension we use it so our clip flashes to black to make the priest seem as if he is making the camera break with his power. This is mysterious and disorientates the audience.

Dissolves

•Dissolve is a gradual transition that fades from one shot to the other.

•Dissolving editing can be used to show time passing

•It can help continuity and helps to show moving from one location to the next

These are used usually when the clip wants to show time passing these aren’t used as much in thriller openings they may be used after an opening to show that time has passed.

Fade In/Out

•This is where a shot fades in or out from a black screen, or to a black screen

•This effect is used to show time passing

•If it is used at the beginning or the end of a sequence it can give the effect that it is peaceful

These are not typically used in thrillers because they are a bit to pleasant and usually slow for it to build tension.

Shot Reverse Shot & Jump Cut

•SRS

•This is a way of editing two shots together from different camera angles

•Using shot reverse shot gives the audience the impression that a conversation is taking place

•JC

•A Jump cut is an abrupt cut between to shots

•Using a jump cut shows drama

•It can be used at the beginning or end of action

These will not be used in our opening because we do not have a conversation and these shots are only really needed for them.

Cross Cutting

•This is where the action cuts between two different sequences

•This creates a link and either parallels or contrasts between the storylines

•Using this type of editing creates tension in the film

Cross cutting is used to make the audience see what the characters don’t usually know the other side of the story that is going on.

Typical Mise-en-scene

Setting Eerie, realistic and isolated places that make people scared or tense when they visit a place like that in the future. The feeling watching the film is the same feeling we want people to have when they walk into a church we want to make them look in the shadows of the church

Costume Realistic and believable we want the characters to look like the audience members to make them feel like it could happen to anyone of them we want them to be scared that they can relate to the character with dress sense.

Actor’s Male often cast, as protagonist/antagonist women are usually victims we had a male cast as both because we thought it would appeal more to a male audience and we want to target the audience into feeling scared and we want them to relate to the character so they think that they will be the next victim.

Props Weapons are everyday items such as kitchen knifes which are not usually used in everyday life as a weapon so makes the killer more believable and makes the story that little bit closer to home. We don’t have a weapon; as such it is more a possessor that is unknown that is what makes it scarier

Lighting Low-key lighting, shadows and darkness is good for a thriller as it helps disguise the villain this also makes the audience more scared if they too are watching the film in the dark like most people do. Lighting is also a huge factor on whether the weather is good or bad because if it is dark and raining we usually assume that the weather is reflecting the action. Lighting helps hide detail and makes the characters more mysterious.

Typical Sound

The typical sounds that are used have different heights of tension in the music. Usually the sounds start off quiet and calm as it is introducing the audience to the setting. It is also usually calm theme song when the credits are being shown. The sounds nearly almost mirror the tension of the opening. The theme song, if the credits are first, carries on through the opening but if the credits are after plot of the opening then there isn’t usually a theme song till the credits start. There is some types of sound are used to increased tension usually high or low tones to discomfort the audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iegvm6skE10

The sound effect of the door creaking in the correct place can increase the tension by confusing the audience and making them predict something that may not happen. The audience sometimes get misled into feeling safe then a loud sound comes through the speakers.

Typical Narrative

In most thriller films the narrative follows the point of view of the protagonist. This character is followed all the way through the film and will definitely be in the opening of the film. The film is usually built about this person in thrillers it can either be about the good character or about the bad character. Sometimes when it is about the bad character. When the bad character is followed there isn’t usually a rounding up of the film. Mostly the bad character doesn’t get eliminated and I feel that makes the whole film scarier.

Effective thriller openings

Shot types can make or break a thriller if they are used affectively then the thriller can look amazing although if the shots are bad or are framed badly it could ruin the whole feeling of the film. Extreme close-ups are used to make the audience disorientated and not know where they are these are also good to make the audience see the feelings of the actors and then can relate to them. Mid-shots are the most used in thrillers because it shows mainly what’s going on in the frame but with a bit of audience input putting together what sounds and movements of characters imply with what is happening in there eye shot. Long shots are used to make the audience aware of the setting and to try and make it a familiar sight for the audience; this also makes it feel closer to home so the audience relate to it and makes it tenser. Some affective narrative constructions like flashbacks are used in thrillers to make the plot have a back-story and maybe an element of mystery. The present characters don’t always start knowing the flashback so the audience knows more than the characters. Shot editing at high-tension points are usually quick pace and strait cut. Whereas when it is low tension then it is slow pace and fades.

The Da Vinci Code has been a real inspiration to our piece of work because the religion behind was powerful. We wanted to make a thriller that made the audience think a lot. We thought that the mysterious character that wears the robe is and interesting character, because the reason he was doing all the killing was down to religion and this made us think that our character could do the things he does because of religion. This then made us think of another film ‘Night Of The Hunter’ where the priest kills people because of religion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUqj2OOEeXc

	In the background of these shots is an establishing shot that makes the audience see a familiar building and makes the audience understand where the film is set. The fact that they have images laid over the top of them shows that the setting of the film is indirectly shown to make you focus mainly on the mathematical drawings and less so about the setting.
	The low-key lighting that is used in this piece really tells the audience that the film is going to be dark or maybe evil. It helps disguises some of the things in the opening sequence and you have to really look at the title sequence thoroughly to appreciate it properly. Some of the imagery in it is really thought out and some disguising some of the faces makes the titles a lot more mysterious

 

The title image is simple yet affective because it has a plain background with the title looking three dimensional and there is a outline of ‘The Vitruvian Man’ with wings which was a Da Vinci drawing and angel imply wings.