Evaluation question 7

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

The purpose of my preliminary task was to become familiar with the equipment we would be using, getting an understanding of many times it takes to get a show right, and overall to practise filming. The equipment involved was a camera, tripod and memory stick.

During my preliminary task i learnt how difficulites may occur during filming. My group and I and major issues with the tripod. When we tried to screw the camera onto the tripod, it would not sit comfortable and was on a slant, also when trying to pan a shot the camera would shake. Therefor we filmed the preliminary task using a handheld camera approach. We edited the preliminary task on final cut pro x, this was a new software to all of us and we only used the basic tools such as: blade, and dragging clips in. The feedback from the preliminary task outlined that our filming was unstable and shakey, therefor we should have practised more with the tripod and worked out how to install the camera on to it properly.

The skills i picked up when producing my preliminary task. I learnt the basics of final cut pro x when editing the footage we had and cropping out the shots that were of bad quality, i also learnt how to playback what i had filmed on the camera, this allowed me to see how the shot went and if we needed to re film it or adjust anything during the clip. The preliminary task also gave our group a chance to understand the roles each of us had when filming. Bettie was the camera man in the preliminary task, but due to the poor feedback she no longer wanted to film, and Malu offered to forfill her role as filmer. Overall the preliminary task gave our group a chance to work togther and produce our first media product, which lead to a better understanding of how difficult it is to film. This later benefited when producing our thriller film, because we had to plan our time effectively knowing how many shots and film clip can take.

Evaluation question 5

Evaluation question 4

Evaluation questin 6

Evaluation question 3

Evaluation question 2

 2) how does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our media product we originally planned to have six characters, but after re thinking the production. We narrowed it down to just three characters so it wouldn't be confusing. The characters were two boys and a girl. The boys were Fred and myself. The antagonist was the girl Bettie. This challenged the conventions of a thriller film, as females are seen to be weak and vulnerable. As a group we thought to have a female antagonist, as it would create a bigger shock to the audience.
We also went unconventional having both the boys as victims and no protagonists. The stereotypical boy would be seen as strong, over powering and in control.

Bettie role for most of the film was an everyday girl teenager, this was done to hide her identity of being the antagonist. The mis en scene, costume Bettie used was: jeans, jumper, converse and a coat so she looked like a normal teenager. Having Bettie casually dressed allowed the audience to easily relate to her. This is because we targeted our film at 15+ but mainly at he age range of 15-25. Therefor a stereotypical teenager would be easily relatable for someone in this age range, as the audience will either be a teenager or had just been a teenager.

All three characters in our media production were subversive to there gender. Bettie was dominant, clever and the killer. The boys were both powerless physically, mentally and they were both the victims. Although all the characters were displayed in a unconventional manor, our target audience is 15-25 so the characters we used were aged 16 and 17, this makes it easy for our target audience to relate to the characters even though they are unconventional of a thriller film.

The stereotypical thriller characters would be a strong male antogonist, usually masked or u identified. The stereotypical victim would be a innocent female, weak, vulnerable. Obviously in our media production we choose to be subversive and different to the rest. I think this was a good idea as it makes the film intriguing and orignal. Finally we choose not to mask Bettie as she was already masked by her gender, because it was not expected for Bettie to be the antagonist.

Coursework Evalution introduction/ question 1

Coursework evaluation

 My task was to create a two mintue media production, thriller film. The previous posts we have done helped to further my understanding on what to include in my thriller film, after constructing our individual narratives we was put into groups. I was put into a group with Bettie Cooper and Malu Pillai. Each member was assigned to different roles that were needed in order to create a succesful thriller film. My roles were director and producer, and I effectively carried out when and where to meet, positions of camera and characters and overall took my roles seriously. Bettie roles were screenplay writer and musical producer, the reason Bettie had these roles is because she is very creative and our group narrative was focused round her idea, therefor the screenplay writer had to be Bettie.
Malu's roles were director of photography and mis en scene co-oridnator. These roles were carried out by Malu because she has a good eye of how each shots should be filmed. Also Malu gave a good amount of input when planning the storyboards of our film, therefor mis en scene co ordinator was a role Malu was willing to for fill. Overall the group and I worked well to break down the film and split up our roles equally, in order to construct a successful thriller film. Bettie played a huge part in editing and bringing the the film Together. Malu took control of filming and keeping hold of the equipment for the group, and I brought in Freddie to help us film and came up with a lot of ideas that were used throughout our film.

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

The conventions of a thriller film include: Antagonist, low key lighting, quick cuts, shadows, tension building music, montage of shots and more. Throughout our media product we tried to include as many different codes and conventions but we mainly used, low key
lighting and tension building (with music and montage of shots) similar to 'Saw' and 'Sinister'  The use of tension building by montage of shots, and tension building music, outlines to the audience that it is a thriller film. It also puts the audience on the edge of their seats and builds up to a big scare, for example in our film before Bettie is revealed as the antagonist There is a build up, of a range of shots that linked into the music that was building up faster and louder. This was planned because in other successful films such as sinister they have a similar sequence of tension building before the big shock or scare. 

I also looked at the film 'the shining' and noticed that a shot reverse shot between a possible victim and the antagonist, this inspired me to use the shot verse shot in our thriller film. This was used when Bettie turns round to face Freddie, their is shot of the antagonist (Bettie) 
then the reaction from the possible victim (Freddie).  During filming this was quite difficult, as we had to make sure the camera was in the same place as Bettie. Also due to the ground being unequal in the forest, it took a long time to get the camera straight. But overall I think
then shot reverse shot worked well in maintaining the audiences fear for the possible victims in the forest. The inspiration I got from the shining was evidently constructed within our film. Undertaking the role of the director I ensured that the editing technique, shot reverse shot was done successfully. 

Another film we looked at was 'the women in black' this is where my group and I was inspired to use low key lightings. The low key lighting brings out an eery and scary feeling within the film, so this was inspirational and vital that we included low key lighting within Devour. In one of the scenes from women in black, the man is looking out of the window and the women in black's face appears on the window. The reason why this shot was so scary, was due to the low key lighting creating a eery atmosphere. Therefor in our thriller film we used different edits from Final Cut Pro to extract a dimmer and gloomy look to the film. Our thriller being filmed in the forest was very difficult as we only had about a thirty minute period were the actually lighting was naturally low key. Therefor using final cut pro's tools such as the filters 'Film Noir' and 'Luma Keyer' 

Final group thriller

West hatch high school - 16807

Kane Faulkner-Wild - 9329

Elizabeth Cooper - 9040

Malu Pillai - 9361

Research- Group narratives - Miss Georgiou

Group narrative

In my group there are three members Bettie, Malu and myself.

Group member 1 - Kane Faulkner-Wild

My Film is going to be located in the forest. It will consist of a group of friends that take a stroll into the forest, they have an argument and one of the characters walks a head of the group (female), what no one noticed is that they was being stalked by a two men in white masks. once the girl is far enough ahead of the group the two stalkers show themselves. 

The group who are remaining split up to try and find the girl not knowing that she is now with the two masked men. The group then meet back up after not finding their missing friend, but now there is another missing in the group.

The group decide to stick together and leave the forest assuming the other two must be together. The group then see one of their friends laying dead in the bushes. They then panic and try and run out the forest and they bump into the two men.
The mis en scene will be set in the forest.
Iconography - The white masks.
There will be cinematography, a range of different camera angles to make the killers scary.
Our target audience will be 15 plus, mainly between 15-20 but aimed at the mass market as it the thriller genre is watched by all ages.

Advantages:
- Uses the conventions of a thriller film, i.e the forest location
- unidentified killer (masked)


Disadvantages:


Group member 2 - Bettie Cooper

The narrative I've come up with is the theme of cannibalism. This is when people eat other people. I think this is an unusual narrative an the idea is quite mysterious and disturbing. I think this would surprise people which is an element of thriller. Two characters are walking in the forest when they discover something isn't right and they are not alone. They could be walking their dog and when it runs off and goes missing they have to split up to look for it by themselves. This could be where something starts to go wrong and things start to become suspicious.My idea of a good setting for my short thriller sequence is in the forest at night time. I think this would be a good setting because it is automatically associated with frightening themes at night time. The iconograpy that we could use would be masks. This could be to show a hidden identity and make the murderer seem more mysterious and unknown. The use of masks makes sure that the audience cant build a relationship with the characters and it makes them anticipate what they may be like and what their intentions are. A good use of iconography would be weapons to use in my short thriller sequence. These weapons could include things such as a knife, a gun or perhaps a bat. This is because it is conventional to the thriller genre because the antagonist usually uses weapons to assist their attacks but also because it makes the audience feel more frightened and it creates suspense to what the weapons will be used for which always leads to death, pain or brutality.I think the weather should be cold, muggy and dull. This is because it is conventional to the thriller genre as it immediately gives a negative and cold feel to it, it makes the audience feel as if something bad is about to happen. and it gives them a sense of foreboding.

Advantages:
- Unusually and different narrative, not many people will think of the idea.
-

Disadvantages
- Hard to film if we were filming the eating scene
- Could be seen as a bit unrealistic



Group member 3 - Malu Pillai

In this opening sequence, it would start by showing the setting of where the scene is set by displaying a panning of the forest. The lighting that would be show would be at a low key as it would create more suspense and enigma which is conventional for the thriller genre. After the setting is displayed, the frame would then display a slow zooming in into the two characters walking their dog so that we see a rough image of what the two characters look like and hear a typical conversation they would be having to represent their personalities. After this is displayed, it would be cut so immediately the focus is on the dog once it starts to sense that the bad omen is nearby and runs off. As the dog is running off, it will then cut straight into one of the characters point of view angle so that as the audience we can see what they are viewing and can see everything from their perspective to add more suspense. The camera angle will then change into a extreme long shot so that the audience can see the two characters split up and go different directions while we also see the focus on the background showing that they are isolated and have no one to help them adding more tension to the sequence. After the two characters have shown their two different departures would then change into the dogs point of view perspective and would slowly starting zooming in towards the back of the antagonist once the dog discovers that she is a cannibal and is eating the other characters. At this point we would then show her turning round to face the dogs perspective with her face covered in blood in a slow editing to add more suspense and shock towards the sequence and to add enigma and to display what she has done. After this the sequence would slowly fade out to leave the audience in shock and leave them with an untold enigma.



Advantages:
- Having the dogs POV camera angle is unusual
-


Disadvantages:


Final Group Narrative 

Character:

Kane
Bettie
Kane's Friend
Maisy
Billy
Stacey

Rough cut - Miss Georgiou

 Rough Cut 

Audience feedback is important when constructing our production as it helps our group understand what we have done well, and what needs to be changed. The feedback is to help us improve and highlight errors that we may not have noticed.

We gathered audience feedback each time we edited our clips because we would ask other groups what they thought of our footages so far. Once we had finished editing our rough cut we showed it to the whole class and teacher. Everyone gave a verbal feedback on what they thought was conventional; for example, the soundtrack we had playing throughout was seen as a positive and clearly identified the film as a thriller. The constructive Cristian we received was the shot where better turns round to reveal she is the antagonist, here the lighting was way to dark and will we change that when we film again. We also uploaded our rough cut production onto youtube publicly, this means anyone can view, like and comment on our film, Devour. We have gained five likes, and three comments which have positives and constructive comments which we can use to improve our rough cut.

Due to being so involved with making and producing the film it is easy to think that the audience will understand the narrative. Having a stranger watch the production, and seeing if they understand and follow the film is vital. In our rough cut we did not included the clip with the dog in, therefor shouting "Bella" is a bit miss leading as the audiences could assume it's a human. The feedback from others will Benefit my groups production and the film industry as we can adapt and change scenes to statisfy the audience,  also when recieving positive feedback it gives the group a moral boost, which keeps us all workings hard to succeed.


The main three positive comments we recieved were the: soundtrack and sound effects, low key lightings and finally the cinematography. The soundtrack we used was called 'house of leaves' we downloaded this soundtrack off a free copywright website. The feedback we got was that the soundtrack was very conventinal to the thrillers genre, this lead to the audience feeling scared and being on the edge of their seats. This is what we hoped the soundtrack would bring to the film. Secondly the low key lighting was another aspect that the class and teacher thought was a positive to making our film successful. We used different filter on Final Cut Pro x to keep a low key lighting on our film, we also adjusted the brightness to try and match the lighting due to filming at different times  of the day. The feedback was that it left a eery and thriller feeling to the production. Finally the cinematography we used was recognised, especially the scene where the points of view of Fred walking up behind Bettie. This made the audience feel the tension between the characters and increased the shock when Betti finally turns round.

The main constructive feedback our production received was some of the shots were slightly shaky. This lead to the audience stuggling to concentrate on the film, therefor our way to improve this would be to ensure the camera is correctly set up on the tri pod to avoid errors. Another constructive feedback was the narrative, we did not film enough shots to clearly tell the narrative, also Miss pointed out that the two male characters looked too similar, and should change their outfits to help the audience understand. Therefor we will need to add and change shots to overcome this feedback. The final and main constructive feedback was the shot that was Bettie turning round. It was clearly filmed on another day and the lighting was a lot darker than the rest of the shots. To avoid this next time, we will need to organise days and times when we can all film, and ensure the lighting is the same.