Stolen final cut

Survey

This is the link to our survey for our final product. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dERMQmJGUi15NWJjU0VRZkdXbWF1UlE6MQ

evaluation

In what ways does your media product develop or challenge forms and conventions for real media products?

—I think that our media project challenges conventions of physiological crime thriller and develops them. Before I made my media project I looked at different films to see what kind of genre would suitable to create I also took into consideration what our research said this would help me to understand what key conventions I would need to include. The films that I looked at the most was ‘The disappearance of Alice Creed’ this film includes the disappearance of a girl, who was abducted by two men. I believe this was an effective thriller film because it was a best seller, I looked at some of the conventions included in this film and tried to include them in the best way I could into my media product. At the beginning of our film there is a detective scene, this develops the conventions of a crime thriller, the idea and inspiration behind this idea were crime/murder mystery crime television programs like midsummer murders, we also wanted to add to the physiological convention so created this kind of effect when both of the characters are in the bedroom. The only way that our film challenges forma and conventions is in the way that our titles are laid out, throughout  out title sequence they follow the  traditional conventions apart from the title of the whole film is the last one to come up, so it is right at the end of the opening. From the research we found that most films do not do this, however some do, we thought that if we did it this way it would create a stronger feeling of tension and uncertainty.

         How does your media product represent particular social groups?

—Our media project represents particular social groups in the way that males and females are presented. In          the very first scene there is one male and one female. The male is the stronger character out of the two and the female is more venerable.  This idea also carries one throughout the rest of the opening, where the males has control over the girl he has kidnapped. Our film is very stereo typical as the films we had researched also have the male as the stronger and more dominant character. The way our characters are dressed also show this as the antagonist is dressed in dark plain clothing this shows that he is a mysterious character, while the antagonist is dressed in a white dress, this shows her innocence and purity. We also used the camera angles to show the authority of the male character by using lows shots to film him, therefore making him look larger and stronger, we also used high angle shots to film the female, making her look smaller. 

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

—         After doing some research into film institutions I have come up with two production companies that I think would be suitable to distribute my media product. The first is hammer film productions, I think this production company would be suitable because they have produced films like The Resistant. This film is a thriller and has features that are similar to my media product for example it includes a female character being stalked by a male, it also includes a detective scene similar to the one we have included. This film also focused on the characters feelings and emotions through a variety of shots. I also think that Cinema nx would be suitable because they produced The Disappearance of Alice Creed which was a film that I looked at a lot for inspiration throughout the process of our film. The Disappearance of Alice Creed is a typical thriller film also including the kidnapping of a girl, however in this film it is done for money and in our film it is clear that the man has done it because he is a physco therefore reinforcing the genre.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

         —After reviewing the criteria for certain age certificates of films on the BBFC website I would personally rate our film at a 15. This is because it has the potential to be a scary film but does not involve any gore or graphic scenes that would make it an 18. We had done some research in the planning stages of making our film and from our research had agreed that it would be suitable to aim our film at ages 15 and above, we also found out that most of the people that found the idea of a thriller film appealing were male, from this we found ourselves aiming our film mainly for males over the age of 15. Even in the opening of our film it has conventions of a horror and has potential to be quite scary and disturbing to anyone under 15. furthermore the Disappearance of Alice Creed is also a 15, because this film is similar to my media product I think it is suitable. From our research we also found that we needed to aim our film at females as well. As we had both female and male main characters we felt this would attract both genders, although I still feel it would appeal to males more as they are the more dominant gender throughout the opening. 

How did you attract/address your audience?  

During the planning stages we created questionnaires  and surveys to give to people in order to get a wide verity of opinions from a wide verity of people.  This helped us to gain knowledge of what kind of films people enjoyed watching and would pay to see at the cinema. From this we found out that most of the people we’re aiming our film at enjoy physiological thrillers or crime thrillers. This gave us the opportunity to look at both genres and see which one appealed to us more. In this process we found that a lot of films combined the genre of physiological and crime to make a hybrid, this is what gave us the idea to do the same. I am confident that we did well when looking in the what audience we wanted to attract and if this was not done as well we wouldn’t have come out with a product that wasn’t as good as ours is. To improve our film I would have put regular updates of it on Facebook in order to get feedback as we went through the process, this way we would have been able to work with our audience as much as possible and incorporate their ideas as well, because we got some feedback when we posted our final cut that we could have changed if we received the feedback earlier in the process.

Audience feedback

Why people enjoyed our opening –

It really gripped you into the story at the very start of the movie and you are left wondering what will happen to the character's next.

The music and atmosphere were good, however maybe the beginning interview could have been shorter.

Excellent. Very chilling, scary and tense. My attention was held throughout. Wanted it to carry on to find out what was going to happen. The lighting and music especially set the scene really well.

It was full of suspense and had a very chilling atmosphere to it. The editing was spot on and the filming of it was aesthetically pleasing. I felt it achieved its objectives of being a thriller film due to the feelings it gave me whilst watching.

told you what the film was going to be about. made you think about what could happen. made you want to go watch the film.

Why they found it engaging –

You want to know what happens to the character's in the movie, does the girl escape and does her mum ever get her back.

told you what the film was going to be about. made you think about what could happen. made you want to go watch the film.

Yes as right from the beginning, with the deep pessimistic tones of the music, I was eager to find out what was going to happen next. The police interview, although I could sense had been some what rushed during the process of filming, actually set the scene brilliantly, engaging the audience by putting them in a state of wonder as to what the two subjects were talking about. The title's section I thought was done excellently and engaged the audience as it only gave you tiny not-giveaway snippets of the plot which is clever.

You want to know what happens to the character's in the movie, does the girl escape and does her mum ever get her back.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this project?

—         Form the continuity task that we did before we started the planning process I learnt a lot about filming and how difficult it was to just get a simple shot.  From this we realized that continuity is the most important thing to get right when filming, we also learnt about the 180 degree rule, this difficult when we were first introduced to it but throughout the process of filming it got easier. When creating our opening I found that the camera was easy to work with but personally found that I struggled with the editing process. When the clips were imported into première pro I found it easy to cut them and re-arrange, but editing the titles in order to make then more interesting I found difficult. A problem we faced when trying to upload certain clips after filming was that our mac froze disabling this process and forcing us to wait until the next day to talk to our teachers about the problem. I have learnt from this to always be one step ahead and don’t leave anything to the last minute otherwise it can put pressure on you and effect your final outcome.

         

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

         —From the beginning when we were given this task I feel that myself and my group have made significant progress. In the planning stages of our task although we did plan allot we thought that it would be easier to see what worked if we were actually went out and physically did it. When we came to actually filming our task we realised this was not true, as we were struggling to find different and versatile shots. Another thing we struggled actually filming the shots, we wanted to be versatile with our filming at first so included pans, and zooms but after uploading this footage realised it was shaky therefore couldn’t use it, forcing us to re-shoot. We also didn’t plan how long one shot should be so when we uploaded all of our shots we were about 30 seconds short of footage. From this we realised that we should plan exactly what we are going to film and how long it should be in order to have the right amount of footage.  As our plan was weak this caused us to waste a lot of filming and editing time re-thinking what shots we could do in order to create a more exciting and gripping film. Our opening changed dramatically from our original animatic, again reinforcing that we didn’t plan as much as we should have. Looking back on my preliminary task I feel that I have learnt many different skills including being able to plan accordingly, camera skills and editing skills. If I was to do this task again I would make sure that I spend more time on the planning stages, I would also take the time to look at premier pro and see what facilities were available to me, this would allow me to plan what editing we could do and ensure that we left our selves enough time to do it. 

Music and Titles

For our opening we have found it difficult to find the right music.
we have all looked for some indivudually but found that they were all either not tense/scary enough or to horror like. our music needs to be scary yet build ths tension, preferably and single intrument like a piano, flute, violin as we have found from our research this is common in thriller films. durring my search for music i have found very up tempo music, this is not right for our opeing becuase we want it to set a dark tense atmosphere.

Durring the editing of our film we have thought about ways to make our titles more interesting, with the help of our teacher we came up with the idea to judder the words when they appear on the screen, this will add a very chilling effect to the opening, our group have seen films that include this in the title siquence and feel that it is suitable for ours too. We have thought about ways to creat this effect and have realised that it would be very time consuming, as we have left it untill quite late we are unsure weather to continue this idea. this is the film se7en which includes this effect.

Editing 28th March

On the 28th of March our group edited together the dective scene. We found this quite easy as we had alot of different shots from different angles becuase we used three different cameras it was easy for us to do this. We also used a varity of shots such as mid shots, close ups and extreme close ups, this allows the audience to connect with the characters. We felt these worked well when we edited the film together. We also feel this gives the opening a more tense and interesting atmosphere.

Survey

Here are some question we may consider when asked for our survey

1. What do you think the genre is?
2.why do you think this?
3. what time of media instetution might distrabute our media prodct?
4. why do you think this?
5. who do you think is the target audience?
6. did this media project target you?
7. do you feel you conected with the characters.