Our finished production

Evaluation Question 7

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

Earlier on during this course we had a preliminary task to show the new skills we had learnt with the camera and editing software. The things I learnt during the preliminary task started with the making of storyboards to plan out the shots types and what would be able to be seen in the shots, but to do this we needed to learn shot types like shot reverse shot, which is used to capture conversations between characters

                                        

As you can see from this picture, camera one captures the medium shot of the two characters and camera two will capture everything the man says with camera three captures everything the women says. Then during editing, the two sets of footage will be merged to create a shot reverse shot scene where the camera swaps the image from the male to the female and back again when necessary. And while on the subject of shot reverse shot, we also learnt the about the 180 degree rule, which is shown on the diagram by camera X , when shooting shot reverse shot it is important to never cross the hypothetical 180 degree line. This line allows cameras to go anywhere around the front of the line, but not the back so that during play back it doesn’t confuse the audience by jumping all over the set and changing camera angle.

Another I think I learnt about was match on action, with is where the camera will take a shot of something then it will change to a closer shot of the action happening. For example in this picture there is a medium shot of a person, going to scan his card. Then shows a close up on this card being scanned.

Theses skills I had learnt, imputed into my main production a lot, as I was the director, I chose specific camera angles to set the mood and scene how I required. For example, I used a close up on the barrel of the sniper to put the audience in a feel of danger, therefore tensing the mood.

Another technique I used that I learnt from my preliminary task is use of the arch shot, including the 180 degree rule. We used an arch shot around the sniper but didn’t cross the 180 degree line.

I found that during the preliminary task that the creativity in shot types and angles was something I found easy and enjoyed. For example the positioning the people to show different things was easy and was enjoyable, so for our main production I included lots of different shot types and creative positioning such as the “looking down the sniper” shot. However when doing the preliminary task I realised that I disliked dialogue during as scene as it can spoil the mood but also it is difficult to work with, in relation to background noise and actors ability in some cases. So we tried to minimise dialogue in our man production, giving more mood and feel to the production.

I found that research and planning was developed in our main production from the preliminary task by the use of shooting schedules in our main production. These important pieces of paperwork were the timetables we would keep to during the filming process; however these weren’t needed during the preliminary task because we filmed all three preliminary tasks in an hour.

I also found that during construction we had developed our skills since the preliminary task by gaining more experience with the cameras and the sound equipment. This is because we had several full days used with them rather that the 20 mins while we film the preliminary task.

For the evaluation, I found that my skills have developed further by my main production evaluation being more detailed to match the increased length of the produced, rather than a 15 second preliminary task.

Evaluation Question 6

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

 

During research we used Macs and the internet (using Google, you tube, wikipiedea, Blogger etc) to find our information about our target audience and genre as well as researching the BBFC and film distributors.

              

            

During construction we used the digital recording cameras to film our products footage, still image cameras to take pictures of what we were doing, boom mic’s and poles to capture sound on set, as well as a sound recording studio to record the emergency phone calls. After we had the footage and recordings we used Premier Pro and sound booth to put all the clips together to construct the film opening.

                 

I found that Google, you tube, Blogger and wickipiedia easy to use, maybe because they are user friendly. However I found Premier Pro more difficult to use because they are very complex programs which don’t function as simply as the web based programs. Premier pro and sound booth are very technical programs which are why it took me a while to get use to how it works and what you can do with the programme. We had a camera tutorial before we started filming and i found recording shots was fairly easy even though I only recorded the basic stuff, because I was directing the shot most of the time. I had not used blogger before so it took me a few days to get use to idea of posting.

While on set we found that lighting was a big issue at night as on the video footage we couldn’t see the actors. So we used lots of bright torches as we had no plug sockets available, these where attached to old beams with duct tape. We had to re-record some footsteps sounds and find “chambering a round” sounds on the internet. We picked up from the experience that while on set it is important to get as many shots as possible and try them in different ways, so that you can get the sound first time, rather than later having to re-record it. We also would rethink where we shoot the sniper scene because we need bigger lights.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address you audience?

The interviews we did where not what we had expected because the teachers over 35 didn’t help us with the UK film council stats, this is because they disagreed with what they had put. We interviewed an early 40s male and a late 30s women who both said they dislike our picked film genre. This was an unexpected turn on what the UK film council had predicted. We set out to check the UK film council’s stats and get an updated target audience. And from the evidence we obtained, we think the stats may need updating.

The questions we asked are:

• What is your favourite genre of film? (from this we could obtain a general idea of what kind of  people liked particular genres)
• What age are you? (this is to correspond the age of people who like certain genres)
• What’s your gender? (this is to see whether certain genres correspond to gender)
• Would you like to see a film which includes action, mystery and implied violence? (we asked this to see whether our audience would like our genre of film)

The results from these question determined what we would include in our film production to attract audiences to watch our film and make sure it could satisfy the film needs of a large majority of people.

Our film included weapons which do tend to draw some people into watching a film, as well as a mysterious title and storyline. So through a use of props, costumes e.g. long dark coats, we can create an intriguing mood. Our film also used a variety of sounds to keep the audience awake, such as loud gunfire and sirens as well as telephone calls and helicopters, an all used within two minutes.

I would promote our film in different media fields to be seen by all audiences, such as on the web for the younger generation and the television for older viewing as well as billboards and magazines.

 Our group using popular media to keep viewers interested

Keeping the tension so the mystery is more intense

Evaluation Question 4 :

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our film was initially aimed at people in classes C2, C1 and B. Ages 15+ and male.

This is because we thought that a murder mystery would have enough action and mystery for a male to enjoy (this being very stereotypical for males). However we found females to enjoy the genre as well. With this new evidence, taken from a general survey, we found that we would have to reconsider our audience.

We choose the original audience because we thought we could relate to the audience and so we did what people our age would want to see as in genre and how much action etc and then from taking that concept we developed our ideas to satisfy the wants of our predicted audience.

When we looked at the UK film council stats we where surprised to discover that over 35 women were most interested in our genre of film. Next interested group were 35 + males, so apparently older people prefer our film genre of film. This is where we started to reconsider our audience.

After looking at the BBFC (British board of film classification) we compared our film introduction to some other similar films, such as Sherlock homes (12), Mystic River (15), Dial M for murder (PG) and The Fugitive (12). We looked into why they were classed as they are, by looking at what langue, violence, gore, nudity, horror and influential characters. Also by viewing the BBFC guidelines, we came to a conclusion that our film should be a 12. This shows people this isn’t a graphic or disturbing film, it’s an implying film, meaning that it doesn’t show the intensity of the action.

Our film could be released by a big multiplex cinema it’s a film for a national audience it’s similar to other big films, It targets a mainstream audience in the masses rather than a niche audience in which is a smaller more specific type of audience.

Our predicted target audience:

        

• Teens (both 17)
• Males
• Both interested in action, military and crime genres
• Both people are from rural areas, and are members of the ATC, the both go to De Aston six form

The reason they would want to view our film:

1. It includes action 
2. It contains crime

Our actual target audience:

• Female
• 48
• Interested in crime, romantic comedies, and romance genre
• A mother
• Raised in Manchester and moved to the countryside

The reason they would want to view our film:

1. Interested in crime and mystery
2. It’s not a graphic film so it can be viewed by a larger audience

 

Evaluation Question 3

what kind of media institution might distribute you media product and why ?

What’s a film distributer?

A film distributer gets a film into the cinemas, onto DVDs/ blurays and onto film rental companies and iTunes.  These companies are also responsible for planning when and where it is shown on TV.

Our film would properly need a large film distributer due to our high interest genre of film, So it would need to be made widely available. Our film is similar to largely popular and largely distributed films, such as “Sherlock Holmes”, “Shooter”, “The Wire” and “The Fugitive”.

I think our product would benefit from a large distributer such as LION GATE because we have a high number target audience and they are a well-known company. They would be a good distributer to have because they would be interested in our media product because it is similar to some stuff they have distributed in the past, such as “Savior” (a war film about the Bosnian war) and “Monument Ave” (a film about criminals).

There are several example of small budget films that become successes such as “Blair witch project” made in 1999, its budget was $35,000 but grossed around $248,300,000 worldwide. Because of its genre (horror) being filmed on a low cost camera gave a sense of realism. As well as saw from 2003 which budgeted $1,200,000, which is a lot but grossed $103,000,000 and has gone on to produce 6 sequels. 

I would expect our film to go a multiplex because our film is a thrilling murder mystery, which is a popular genre amongst the masses as we saw on the UK Film council’s website. I feel that we have a mainstream audience for our film because we have based on genre of film which is most second most popular genre according to the UK film council as seen on this screen shot.

For the marketing of this film I would advertise it on YouTube and Television, where it can be seen by a large number of people, especially older people who are our target audience. So advertising on “alibi” (a murder mystery channel) would be a intelligent thing to do to maximise our audience.

Evaluation Question 2 :

 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product has only white males from ages 16 – 50+, it shows a large 50+ male as being the police chief, and the assassin is a young white male , also you only see the eyes.

I think our police chief is stereotyped, as he is a white male, 50+ , with a rather large build to show he doesn’t do field work, but more office duties. This isn’t a negivitive stereotype, unless you’re a police chief who is tired of people assuming he’s a overweight aging man. Apart from that our film product doesn’t stereotype any particular age, physical ability or sexuality. However gender is only male, this is because we couldn’t see a part for a female character in the first two minutes with her being seen as some ones wife, or someone’s lover on the street corner, which would confuse the killers motives.

We showed some characters as middle class, with long coats and mannerisms, but some working class, with camouflage coats and jeans. But also upper class with a man in tie blazer and shirt, who speaks with a upper class accent.

The upper class man is seen in a well lit room, on the television during a news broadcast, while the majority of the shots are based on the middle class man, then the lower class man is seen in the dark.