opening titles - main project

Here is our final opening sequence:

Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use or challenge forms of real media aspects? -

Such as our effects that we have used during editing, we believe that we have a successful film beginning in terms of our effects and camera shots. The camera shots that we have used are both varied and appropriate. We have maximized our lighting as we have filmed outside during the day in spring, this will hopefully reflect the mood in the opening of the film. the genre of our film is a thriller and our opening sequence is about a 17 year old teenager (Dale Brookes) revising for his upcoming exams on the side of a cannel. Suddenly the boy gets a text of his mother to get home quickly and this is were the tension builds up and he is rushing home. As he is walking he receives another text which then says "HURRY UP!!". At this point he is running home with the fear of whats happened. As he comes to his house he suddenly realises that the front door is opened. He slowly pushes the door open the door and he suddenly see the something horrific which makes his eyes wide open and also makes him drop his folder. In our sequence you do not see who the boy see's however this is what makes the film look great and also draws the audience in.

Who would be the audience for your media product? -
Our audience would be the likes of teenagers and young adults and fans of independent and student films. Our film is a psychological thriller and our media group enjoy the genre, as do other students in our college that we have asked, so we would target those that are most likely to enjoy the film. We have decided that is our target audience because we wanted to create a film that we would like to watch, and thought that our audience should be the people that are like the members of our group. We feel fans of independent/student films would be interested in a film like ours due to the minimal budget we used and by not really spending any money we have created a successful opening sequence to our production. Also, with the re-opening/ rebranding of the British film industry (Working Title and Ealing Studio's) our film can also target fans of them. With the independent movie business now thriving and movie festival around the world taking an interest in independent films most notably the Cannes movie festival/awards were many independent films are screened to the world.





How did you attract/ address your audience? -
We addressed our audience by surveying several members of staff
and several students on whether they enjoyed our film concept. Our results conclude that most members of staff do not like many psychological thrillers that they have seen in general, and a significant number of students did enjoy most psychological thrillers that they have seen, so that is how we established our target audience. We used some psychological thrillers such as Along came a Spider (2001) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdoursSfYLw to help us create an atmosphere in which we could entice an audience to watch our film. With teenagers/young adults being an important part of our target audience we used technology throughout with an i-pod and mobile phone being seen most of the time during our film . These are some of the main props of our production, this technology has been strongly linked with the younger generation in recent years. Fallen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP-ey0cVs0M is another film we have strongly likened our production like Along came a Spider and is produced in the same way with it also being a psychological thriller although both of these films have a huge budget esipically in compared to a film like ours.






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

We have learnt how to film a scene, compose a scene for example make sure the lighting is appropriate and make sure we do not break any rules such as the 180 degree rule, and the rule of continuity. Lighting is a key area of any film because you need the lighting to represent the mood you wish to portray to your audience. as our film started brightly but got the atmosphere progressively darker this is also in correlation to the film as the intensity of the scene reaches its peak. We also had to obey the 180 degree rule and got over this problem several times by using different camera shots to work around it. We also had to obey the rule of contunity and we broke this a few times but tried our best to keep to the rule as much as we could.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

COSTUME
Our character is presented in casual clothing, accurate for his generation. The characters clothing such as the jeans, jacket and trainers, all represent a youthful social background

PROPS
Our antagonist represents a teenage social group. Props such as his iPod, support the idea that the character is from a teenage social group, as teenagers are often associated with Mp3 players and iPods. Another prop which suggests a teenage social group is the characters folder at the beginning of the clip; this folder convinces the audience that the character is a student. The mobile phone also helps the audience to understand the social background that the character is from because the mobile phone is another association that the public have with teenagers in general.

LOCATION
This location is a working class area, which also supports the social group of our character, because students can usually be associated with poorer backgrounds or associated with living in working class estates, particularly when at university or in college.

There is an example of how we tried to capture our target social group for our project at the top of the post. This is a shot from the film series “Jeepers Creepers” in which there is a cast of college aged Americans. We had to update the costume and props to a more present fashion, and also try to address a more British attire.

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

We feel if our film was going to be distributed it would on a nationwide release with independent British film companies interested like Ealing Studios. For cinema's it would be released in we would expect it to be possible shown in the Cornerhouse in Manchester which is famous for showing its independent/foreign films. Production companies like Coffee Films etc we feel would be very interested in a film like ours because it represents the type of film they would be interested in. Then you have movie festivals that would also be interested in screening films like ours i.e Cannes which was mentioned above.

Production of Main Task

Having drawn up our plans, we decided it was time to comense filming on our main task.We decided to do it during the Easter half-term and the first lesson back from half term. We roughly have filmed up to 3-4 minutes of solid footage. We have decided to class our production as a Drama/Thriller. We feel that our shot selecting has been good with us using the area to our advantage by using the canal, fairy steps and underpasses. However, we thought it would be important to not to give to much of the film away in the opening sequence because this was main problem with our last bit of production work. Another advantage we had was the weather with it helping create a good atmostsphere. A decision that we all decided on was lack of speech in our production with the view to using a voice over but os far this only an idea.

shot list

Here is a rough shot list of our film.

1. First there is an establishing shot of the antagonist, which uses a tilt, and is an extreme long-shot of this character. This shot lasts approximately 10-15 seconds long.
2. Another shot is of the same character reading through his folder in an Over-the-shoulder shot of him. This shot lasts approximately 7-8 seconds.
3. Next is of the antagonist lying down on the grass, this uses a high angle canted shot, and lasts 8 seconds.
4. The character then receives a text in an over-the-shoulder shot mid-shot, and lasts 4-5 seconds long.
5. Next is the character looking at the text and is an extreme close-up of the text. This lasts approximately 2-3 seconds.
6. Also there is a long-shot of the character standing up which lasts 4-5 seconds.
7. There is then a wide tracking shot of the character walking, long-shot, which lasts 7-8 seconds.
8. Then there is a shot of the character's point-of-view as he approaches a set of stairs. This shot lasts 3-4 seconds.
9. there are then a series of shots which lead to the character's house. One of which is the character receiving another text while he is in the tunnel, this is a long-shot which lasts 5-6 seconds.
10. Then there is another point-of-view shot when the character approaches the door this lasts 3-4 sconds.
11. There are then a series of cuts that last about 1-2 seconds each and are close-ups and 1 long shot of the character's folder and the character.

research on film beginnings

19/03/10

We have minimal budget so we can not make a hollywood standard opening, but several films have influenced our decisions and also our style for our film opening. Such films would include Hancock, the Matrix, and also some previous AS media films. To influence our film on the basis that we have no budget to spend on the film, some AS media students including our group watched a film called "shifty" which also had a very small budget. So this film also had to use technical ability in the camera work and editing to influence the audience rather than pure action which the Matrix and Hancock have. We also watched such films as love actually which had a respectable budget, but they still spent minimal on their opening scenes, and were still effective. this also influenced us because now we were convinced that you can still make a good opening scene despite having little funding.

synopsis

18/03/10

In our film, our antagonist is going to be a student who is relaxing and revising for upcoming exams, this gives the impression that he is an ordinary teenager with a normal life. He will get a text message and will then go home, he will then receive another message, and will then continue walking home. When he gets home he will find the door open, but shut to, he will then open the door wide and look towards the camera which he is apparently horrified or surprised to see. This is when the titles come up at the beginning of the film.

We will be filming by the side of a canal at the beginning, while the character is revising and listening to music, but then he gets the text message and is told to go home by his Mum, he then proceeds to go home, at this time he walks down a set of stairs, under the canal, continues down the street, and then up another set of stairs before approaching his house. After this he will then enter his house by the canal, and that is all of our locations.

storyboard and planning

23/02/10 - (blog was written on 02/03/10)

Last week we were unable to do any of the blog because the servers were disabled, therefore we had to work on paper. During the planning of the main task we were asked to write our primary idea in the form of a storyboard, where we would say what the lighting would be like in each shot, what each shot would consist of, how long each shot would last, what type of shot it was and also give details of what would happen in that shot. This would essentially help us when in production of the film so we do not go off track, and so that we are prepared with a full script, rather than making it up as we go along; below is the planning for the task.

We are going to be filming in Stretford because it has the easiest access for all of our group members. We will also be using a canal, a pathway leading up to that canal, and also a member of our groups house. There will be one character; who starts at the canal and later goes home. The filming is going to take place in the day so our potential lighting is increased. We will be using an ipod, a mobile phone, and also a file full of notes as props in the filming. The filming is going to take place in the day so that we maximise our lighting.