Evaluation
1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our film opening was of an action/adventure genre and not only contains, but also challenges the forms conventions of that particular genre, with this genre, the main conventions are, fast-paced, sinister characteristics, dark lighting etc. Meaning we have used various techniques from previous films and ideas to help inspire us to create our film opening. For example inspirations for our leading character were people like Evelyn Salt and Mrs. Smith, we were inspired by these females, because they had strong characteristics which showed that they were dominant and powerful. Additionally we used had to show the female character in our film opening to show traits of aggression, by looking at all these examples as inspirations we decided on ways that we could make the characteristics for our character Veronica, similar to them, so her fierceness through her walk and no facial expression whilst she was in action. Evidence for this is we showed various parts that contain some sort of danger or violence in the opening, one of the main ways that we portrayed the female role to be sinister was from the non- diegetic sound that we used, which was to show, mystery but also something for our audience to look at and wonder what the rest of the movie will be about. The type of genre that we chose, which was action/adventure/thriller was chosen because we wanted to show a female character that challenged all the stereotypical views of women, subverting their opinion to what they think women are like in these type of movies, which is mainly the damsel in distress. Also another way that we challenged forms and conventions of our media products, was by keeping key attention to detail when it came to props to show the characteristics of the characters, for example, Veronica the female assassin was shown wearing red lipstick, this was to connote blood and death, red is such a violent colour and it's bold but also show darkness, which is what we wanted to portray, as well as being a fiercely feminine and seductive colour. We also looked at other films to inspire us, we were inspired by the film 'Kissing Kate Barlow' as this showed and female killer, leaving a signature kiss mark after she had murdered her victim, but after a lot of discussion we decided not to use a signature kiss mark, because if we don't think that the film opening would flow, and it would be hard to portray that within the first two minutes of an opening, which could make our opening look more like a trailer and we didn't want that.
2. How does your media product represent different social groups?
Our film opening represents one particular group in a less than conventional way, this being the role of women in modern day films and in fact the way that audiences perceive women in films which also contain strong male roles. In our film opening the representation of women is different to the modern day Hollywood stereotype of them being a weak and fragile gender; in many ways female characters are often represented in manners which make them appear to be no more than a subordinate accessory for lead male roles. We wanted to challenge this wide-spread concept through using a powerful and independent lead female role; one who has obvious strength and dominance over male roles which would usually be expected to have the upper hand over women. She is in fact an assassin who hunts down men that remind her of her dark past. This means we chose to represent women as a strong and dominant type of gender who is capable of being more powerful then men. Another representation that is expressed in our film opening is the representation of London as a city. Meaning we chose to show London as a city which isn't always glamorous, but can have a dark element to it, however although the representation of London isn't that of a law-abiding city it still remains quite suave and sophisticated through the use of glamorous characters.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
During our post-production we carefully considered various distributers and decided that the kind of distributer that would distribute our film were Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures. This is because they previously distributed films like the Mission Impossible films and other well known action adventure films such as Super 8, which are a huge success and are well known worldwide. I believe they would distribute our film because it is an exciting and thrilling film which relates to their genre of films, also they are well-known film distributors that have distributed worldwide films which have made a large amount of money. As they have distributed many films that have made a lot of money, we can see that they are quite successful. Another point is our film is unique and portrays the role of women as a dominant character compared to men who are shown is weak and vulnerable people in our film. We didn't go for distributors like ICON because they seem to be more independent and are shown not to distribute many movies that are supposedly blockbusters, we want out film to feel as if it a huge blockbuster, as we are relating it to movies such Mission Impossible we feel that it is on that level to be an action packed and explosive. So this is the main reason to why we think that ICON would not be the best distributor for us because it hasn't distributed movies that would like to compare ours too. Another distributor that we were thinking of using, but didn't, was Universal Studios, but we felt that they do more comedy films, we don't know of many action/adventure movies that could be compared to ours, the type of films that Universal Studios have distributed are, Johnny English, which is a spy movie but it dominated by comedy, also movies like Wanderlust - another comedy - is also distributed by Universal Studios. At the end we felt that the best distributors for us was Paramount Picture and Bad Robot merged together, as they both did the Mission Impossible films and have been merged together before in other movies, so to us, we feel that they would go well together for our film opening.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for our film opening would be targeted towards teenagers and young adult in most cases, however it may appeal to other age groups as well. This is because most teenagers enjoy watching action/adventure films which are fast paced exciting and a thrilling experience, as they love explosions and fight scenes, some examples of scenes are gun fights, car chases, dangerous encounters, etc. The gender was fairly mixed which was a big mile stone for our group because in most cases action/adventure films are dominated by a male audience because the male gender love a good car chase or the suspense and the tension built up from a fast paced scene. Our film opening is also targeted to females as it the lead character is female which subverts opinions of women, and by young teen girls or young women watching this they may feel more of a comparison with it and like a dominant female character that, has control over men and has the upper hand. Also males will also be appealed by this film as they would watch a action/adventure film with a lead female role because there is still all the fast paced and built up tension that is shown in other action/adventure films. From doing a questionnaire we found out that both females and males would be interested in a female assassin movie because it brought more excitement and was less stereotypical, also after getting some audience feedback on whether people would watch a movie with a female lead role, from our feedback, our target audience which was teenagers to young adults, they said that they liked the concept of a female assassin because it was different and even though it had been shown in movies such as Lara Croft, it hadn't been shown as much, so our target audience did like our concept of a lead female role. Even though we want to attract teenagers, we also are attracting a wider audience of an older generation, as were trying to show 'old school' corrupted businessmen, that would be the type of people to kill anyone that would get in the way of something that they want, it shows more of London down to the 'nitty gritty' and this would appeal to older men that want to look at more challenging storyline and plot for revenge, but also has the comparison to movies like Snatch, Goodfellas, Scarface etc.
5. How would you attract/address your audience?
In our film opening we used various techniques and conventions to help address and attract our audience. We done this by making our story realistic and used appropriate costumes and props to help create this picture in the audiences mind. Evidence for this is a fellow student Jai Pearce aged 17, which is the right age for our target audience commented on our film opening saying "I enjoyed the film opening because it looked very real due to the fact they were suits and was film in places like car parks and airports, which created some sort of adventure and need to find out more about the story." Another part that attracted the audience was the various ties of camera shots and angles. Evidence for this is Mr Goddard who is a much higher age compared to our tart audience, commented on our work saying "I liked the use of camera in the final scene underneath the car, it showed creativity." This shows we attracted a variety of people, and what’s better is we managed to do this for our own audience and others. Other ways that we would attract out audience would be by try and show certain characteristics from the clothing, for example Veronica, the female assassin was wearing a leather jacket, black fitted trousers, aviators, a scarf and red lipstick. The glasses represented the mysteriousness of her character hiding her face, as she didn't want her identity to be exposed.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Our group has learned various skills and techniques on how to create a film during the last few weeks. Whilst filming we used a DSLR, which is professional camera which gives the clean look our film opening, making it clear and looking a professional movie, by using this camera we learnt skills on focusing and un-focusing, which made our footage look slender. However we used vital resources such as Final Cut Pro and LGFL audio to help us complete our task. The use of Final Cut Pro was most essential because we needed that software in order to place our footage and put it together. Examples of work we did using final cut pro were things like adding diegetic and non-diegetic sound, changing the speed and duration of certain footage, adding transitions to help create special effects for the film opening, and finally cutting and moving the footage to help gradually create the film. We also had to use the free downloadable music website LGFL to select relevant music and sounds for our film opening. This was also vital part of our technology usage because it was a good source to find certain sounds for our film opening, there were many different types of sounds that we could have chosen, the ones we chose, were the ones that we thought was the best and merged well with our footage. Finally I learnt that music plays a key role in our genre because it must create a mood for the audience and music helps create that in their mind and without the film opening wouldn't be as mysterious and wouldn't show the build of tension when something was to happen.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I think we have developed on many things within our film opening compared to the preliminary task. For example we managed to learn from our previous mistakes like un-professional and false camera work. Evidence for this is we managed to perform, at our very best and have received positive comments towards our camera work. We also learned that we needed to use costumes because it enables the film to be more real. Therefore we used various costumes and were successful because we also received positive feedback from it. However we also gained some skills and learned things like the 180 degree rule and the importance of various camera shots such as the shot reverse shot within a conversation, we tried to keep the 180 degree rule when doing our main practical task because it was important for us to show everything from one side to show consistency. Whilst doing the preliminary task we learnt how to edit a scene, even though the preliminary task was only thirty seconds, by using Final Cut Pro first hand, when doing the main practical task we already knew how to cut, which was basic but we had the a familiar knowledge of how to use it once we had finished filming. Everyone at first found it hard to edit as we didn't know how and this helped us when doing our main task because, we would have been in situation where we didn't know how to use the program and it would of been harder for us to edit and would have taken more time. By doing the preliminary task we also got used to the camera and using a tripod to film because, when it can to the real practical we needed a tripod so that the pans, were smooth and the camera was held still, so when filming we got used to using a tripod and figured that without it, most of our shots wouldn't be smooth and would shake much more.
1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our film opening was of an action/adventure genre and not only contains, but also challenges the forms conventions of that particular genre, with this genre, the main conventions are, fast-paced, sinister characteristics, dark lighting etc. Meaning we have used various techniques from previous films and ideas to help inspire us to create our film opening. For example inspirations for our leading character were people like Evelyn Salt and Mrs. Smith, we were inspired by these females, because they had strong characteristics which showed that they were dominant and powerful. Additionally we used had to show the female character in our film opening to show traits of aggression, by looking at all these examples as inspirations we decided on ways that we could make the characteristics for our character Veronica, similar to them, so her fierceness through her walk and no facial expression whilst she was in action. Evidence for this is we showed various parts that contain some sort of danger or violence in the opening, one of the main ways that we portrayed the female role to be sinister was from the non- diegetic sound that we used, which was to show, mystery but also something for our audience to look at and wonder what the rest of the movie will be about. The type of genre that we chose, which was action/adventure/thriller was chosen because we wanted to show a female character that challenged all the stereotypical views of women, subverting their opinion to what they think women are like in these type of movies, which is mainly the damsel in distress. Also another way that we challenged forms and conventions of our media products, was by keeping key attention to detail when it came to props to show the characteristics of the characters, for example, Veronica the female assassin was shown wearing red lipstick, this was to connote blood and death, red is such a violent colour and it's bold but also show darkness, which is what we wanted to portray, as well as being a fiercely feminine and seductive colour. We also looked at other films to inspire us, we were inspired by the film 'Kissing Kate Barlow' as this showed and female killer, leaving a signature kiss mark after she had murdered her victim, but after a lot of discussion we decided not to use a signature kiss mark, because if we don't think that the film opening would flow, and it would be hard to portray that within the first two minutes of an opening, which could make our opening look more like a trailer and we didn't want that.
2. How does your media product represent different social groups?
Our film opening represents one particular group in a less than conventional way, this being the role of women in modern day films and in fact the way that audiences perceive women in films which also contain strong male roles. In our film opening the representation of women is different to the modern day Hollywood stereotype of them being a weak and fragile gender; in many ways female characters are often represented in manners which make them appear to be no more than a subordinate accessory for lead male roles. We wanted to challenge this wide-spread concept through using a powerful and independent lead female role; one who has obvious strength and dominance over male roles which would usually be expected to have the upper hand over women. She is in fact an assassin who hunts down men that remind her of her dark past. This means we chose to represent women as a strong and dominant type of gender who is capable of being more powerful then men. Another representation that is expressed in our film opening is the representation of London as a city. Meaning we chose to show London as a city which isn't always glamorous, but can have a dark element to it, however although the representation of London isn't that of a law-abiding city it still remains quite suave and sophisticated through the use of glamorous characters.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
During our post-production we carefully considered various distributers and decided that the kind of distributer that would distribute our film were Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures. This is because they previously distributed films like the Mission Impossible films and other well known action adventure films such as Super 8, which are a huge success and are well known worldwide. I believe they would distribute our film because it is an exciting and thrilling film which relates to their genre of films, also they are well-known film distributors that have distributed worldwide films which have made a large amount of money. As they have distributed many films that have made a lot of money, we can see that they are quite successful. Another point is our film is unique and portrays the role of women as a dominant character compared to men who are shown is weak and vulnerable people in our film. We didn't go for distributors like ICON because they seem to be more independent and are shown not to distribute many movies that are supposedly blockbusters, we want out film to feel as if it a huge blockbuster, as we are relating it to movies such Mission Impossible we feel that it is on that level to be an action packed and explosive. So this is the main reason to why we think that ICON would not be the best distributor for us because it hasn't distributed movies that would like to compare ours too. Another distributor that we were thinking of using, but didn't, was Universal Studios, but we felt that they do more comedy films, we don't know of many action/adventure movies that could be compared to ours, the type of films that Universal Studios have distributed are, Johnny English, which is a spy movie but it dominated by comedy, also movies like Wanderlust - another comedy - is also distributed by Universal Studios. At the end we felt that the best distributors for us was Paramount Picture and Bad Robot merged together, as they both did the Mission Impossible films and have been merged together before in other movies, so to us, we feel that they would go well together for our film opening.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for our film opening would be targeted towards teenagers and young adult in most cases, however it may appeal to other age groups as well. This is because most teenagers enjoy watching action/adventure films which are fast paced exciting and a thrilling experience, as they love explosions and fight scenes, some examples of scenes are gun fights, car chases, dangerous encounters, etc. The gender was fairly mixed which was a big mile stone for our group because in most cases action/adventure films are dominated by a male audience because the male gender love a good car chase or the suspense and the tension built up from a fast paced scene. Our film opening is also targeted to females as it the lead character is female which subverts opinions of women, and by young teen girls or young women watching this they may feel more of a comparison with it and like a dominant female character that, has control over men and has the upper hand. Also males will also be appealed by this film as they would watch a action/adventure film with a lead female role because there is still all the fast paced and built up tension that is shown in other action/adventure films. From doing a questionnaire we found out that both females and males would be interested in a female assassin movie because it brought more excitement and was less stereotypical, also after getting some audience feedback on whether people would watch a movie with a female lead role, from our feedback, our target audience which was teenagers to young adults, they said that they liked the concept of a female assassin because it was different and even though it had been shown in movies such as Lara Croft, it hadn't been shown as much, so our target audience did like our concept of a lead female role. Even though we want to attract teenagers, we also are attracting a wider audience of an older generation, as were trying to show 'old school' corrupted businessmen, that would be the type of people to kill anyone that would get in the way of something that they want, it shows more of London down to the 'nitty gritty' and this would appeal to older men that want to look at more challenging storyline and plot for revenge, but also has the comparison to movies like Snatch, Goodfellas, Scarface etc.
5. How would you attract/address your audience?
In our film opening we used various techniques and conventions to help address and attract our audience. We done this by making our story realistic and used appropriate costumes and props to help create this picture in the audiences mind. Evidence for this is a fellow student Jai Pearce aged 17, which is the right age for our target audience commented on our film opening saying "I enjoyed the film opening because it looked very real due to the fact they were suits and was film in places like car parks and airports, which created some sort of adventure and need to find out more about the story." Another part that attracted the audience was the various ties of camera shots and angles. Evidence for this is Mr Goddard who is a much higher age compared to our tart audience, commented on our work saying "I liked the use of camera in the final scene underneath the car, it showed creativity." This shows we attracted a variety of people, and what’s better is we managed to do this for our own audience and others. Other ways that we would attract out audience would be by try and show certain characteristics from the clothing, for example Veronica, the female assassin was wearing a leather jacket, black fitted trousers, aviators, a scarf and red lipstick. The glasses represented the mysteriousness of her character hiding her face, as she didn't want her identity to be exposed.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Our group has learned various skills and techniques on how to create a film during the last few weeks. Whilst filming we used a DSLR, which is professional camera which gives the clean look our film opening, making it clear and looking a professional movie, by using this camera we learnt skills on focusing and un-focusing, which made our footage look slender. However we used vital resources such as Final Cut Pro and LGFL audio to help us complete our task. The use of Final Cut Pro was most essential because we needed that software in order to place our footage and put it together. Examples of work we did using final cut pro were things like adding diegetic and non-diegetic sound, changing the speed and duration of certain footage, adding transitions to help create special effects for the film opening, and finally cutting and moving the footage to help gradually create the film. We also had to use the free downloadable music website LGFL to select relevant music and sounds for our film opening. This was also vital part of our technology usage because it was a good source to find certain sounds for our film opening, there were many different types of sounds that we could have chosen, the ones we chose, were the ones that we thought was the best and merged well with our footage. Finally I learnt that music plays a key role in our genre because it must create a mood for the audience and music helps create that in their mind and without the film opening wouldn't be as mysterious and wouldn't show the build of tension when something was to happen.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I think we have developed on many things within our film opening compared to the preliminary task. For example we managed to learn from our previous mistakes like un-professional and false camera work. Evidence for this is we managed to perform, at our very best and have received positive comments towards our camera work. We also learned that we needed to use costumes because it enables the film to be more real. Therefore we used various costumes and were successful because we also received positive feedback from it. However we also gained some skills and learned things like the 180 degree rule and the importance of various camera shots such as the shot reverse shot within a conversation, we tried to keep the 180 degree rule when doing our main practical task because it was important for us to show everything from one side to show consistency. Whilst doing the preliminary task we learnt how to edit a scene, even though the preliminary task was only thirty seconds, by using Final Cut Pro first hand, when doing the main practical task we already knew how to cut, which was basic but we had the a familiar knowledge of how to use it once we had finished filming. Everyone at first found it hard to edit as we didn't know how and this helped us when doing our main task because, we would have been in situation where we didn't know how to use the program and it would of been harder for us to edit and would have taken more time. By doing the preliminary task we also got used to the camera and using a tripod to film because, when it can to the real practical we needed a tripod so that the pans, were smooth and the camera was held still, so when filming we got used to using a tripod and figured that without it, most of our shots wouldn't be smooth and would shake much more.