1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The first convention we used was having a complex narrative structure, with false paths, clues and resolutions. Thrillers tend to use this, mainly to keep the audience questioning what is going on and also to make the viewers try and work out what is happening. This convention can be seen in our thriller opening right from the very begging where Rosie is walking a long the tracks but at first all you see is her feet, this immediately makes the viewer question whether she is in danger or not. As the next clip shows she isn't in any immediate danger so the fact that she's on the edge of the train tracks is a false path. As the opening progresses so does the complexity of the story line as the audience is still not sure why the young girl is there. The sound also builds up throughout this, so when the girl is playing the tone and mood is unsure and as soon as the music gets more tense so does the situation. We see that the girl is being watched but we don't see who is watching her this also makes the audience question what is happening, and who is watching her and why are they watching her. The mise en scene also makes the audience question in our thriller opening as the girl is wearing very innocent and simple clothes and the man is wearing all black which makes him very mysterious and gives the audience no clues as to what he is about.
This convention can be found in many real media products, as it is a common factor of lots of thriller films. An example of a film that contains one very similar to our complex narrative structure is Frailty, a psychological thriller that focuses on the strange relationship between two young boys and their father. It includes many false paths, and everything doesn't appear to be what it seems as their father believes he has been summoned by God to kill demons. The relationship between the family seems to be normal but there is a lot more to it and the story line constantly has the audience questioning and wondering why. This is similar to our thriller as the strange family bond is there deep in the complex narrative. This shot shows the family in an ordinary, everyday life situation that has the audience wondering what is going to happen next, and questioning what is happening.
The second form we used that is commonly known to be in thrillers is the reaction shot. In our opening Rosie reacts to the twig snapping and seeing the man Nigel and we show this using a mid close up shot of her face. Reaction shots are usually used in thrillers where the audience can't see what the character is reacting to and can only see the response. This is effective when keeping the audience guessing and asking questions which is what we were trying to achieve in this shot as the audience could see the man walking down from the waist down and they've seen the back of his head but we were trying to keep him as a mysterious character keeping his personality hidden. In this case it has worked well although maybe a clearer shot of her facial expression would have been more effective but paired with the dialog the audience can completely understand how shocked she is.
A thriller which includes a shot similar to the reaction shot we have included within our opening is The Departed. In this the man reacts to what is said and done, giving the impression he isn't too pleased with whats happened without having to say anything, this is slightly different to what we included in ours as he doesn't say anything unlike Rosie but both are still very effective.
Developed
One small but significant aspect of a thriller is the presence of innocence in what is seen as an essentially corrupt world. The girl is presented as an innocent character by her presence, the way she dresses and her facial expressions and Nigel is the corrupt part of her world especially because he has forcefully taken her away from her family and friends and she is the innocent part of the whole situation.
This is also found as a convention within The Sixth Sense, a psychological thriller about a trouble, isolated boy who is able connect with the dead. The birthday cards in this shot symbolise innocence and the corrupt part of his world is the fact that he can hear and see the dead.
A convention which I feel is an important factor to develop within our thriller is mise en scene which echoes/mirrors the protagonist's plight. In any film the mise en scene is very important and thrillers are no exception to this as the mise en scene needs to be relevant to Rosie and their feelings/emotions. For example if the character is feeling sad they should be put in a sad place with dark lighting where as if they were happy they should be in a happy place with soft, bright lighting and happy surroundings. This convention is important in our thriller opening as there are essentially two main settings, one full of gloom and the other a happy, safe place. These are the train tracks where the girl was probably the happiest, and the setting and lighting would recognise this as the scene would be very happy and light. The other is the lock up place where she is held by Nigel, we don't show the inside of this within our opening but if we were going too we would make the footage very gloomy and dark to represent her feelings there. These two settings contrast each other mirroring the contrasts in mood the young girl Rosie has. We have also used the music in the background to represent this, as when the mood changes so does the music, this is to build up tension and create a darker tone relating to what is going to happen.
In the thriller, Black Swan, they have developed this convention throughout the opening and the film. When she has finished her dance all the lights are on her, showing that she is pleased but when she is dancing it's dark and gloomy and in other shots as well when she isn't happy the mood is a lot darker because of her feelings and attitude.
We have challenged the usual concept and running order of opening credits by putting the title of our film at the end of the opening sequence. This is not common within a lot of films as it usually appears by the beginning to build up to it. We did this to build up tension and to make the audience guess what it could be called. I think it worked well within our opening as it did exactly what we intended it to do especially along side the use of music, how it also builds up in pace with the credit and clip movement this making the tone much more tense.
The psychological thriller, Hardy Candy, they unlike us have not challenged the usual concept and running order of the opening credits as they have put the title of their film at the beginning. This is also effective but doesn't build up any tension at all so I feel that we were successful in challenging this convention as it really worked in our piece.
We don't have the protagonist in the opening sequence, as the main character is the investigator and in the opening we show the build up and the reasons as to what he will be investigating. This shot shows the only to people that appear in the opening although you never fully see the mans face, you get a good indication of Rosie's character, we have done this to create a sense of mystery as to what is to come by carefully using specific camera shots in order to keep the mans identity hidden and including no real indication on the relationship of the pair. If we were to put the protagonist of our film into the opening a lot would of been given away a lot sooner, and therefore it wouldn't of been as effective as it should of, a lot of the mysterious and tense moments would be ruined. This worked well within my media product as it did the exact purpose it was intended to fulfill, keeping the audience guessing and questioning by not giving too much away.
In the thriller film The Machinist they have not only got the lead character in the opening shot but also include the title of their film at the beginning. The main character begins at the opening this gives the audience a good idea of whats to come as they know they'll be seeing a lot of him and by starting the opening with his face it makes the film more personal however we didn't include our main character in the opening in order to build up tension and add some mystery to it. By doing this we would make the audience question what was to come a lot more so therefore we challenged this convention effectively.
Used
The first convention we used was having a complex narrative structure, with false paths, clues and resolutions. Thrillers tend to use this, mainly to keep the audience questioning what is going on and also to make the viewers try and work out what is happening. This convention can be seen in our thriller opening right from the very begging where Rosie is walking a long the tracks but at first all you see is her feet, this immediately makes the viewer question whether she is in danger or not. As the next clip shows she isn't in any immediate danger so the fact that she's on the edge of the train tracks is a false path. As the opening progresses so does the complexity of the story line as the audience is still not sure why the young girl is there. The sound also builds up throughout this, so when the girl is playing the tone and mood is unsure and as soon as the music gets more tense so does the situation. We see that the girl is being watched but we don't see who is watching her this also makes the audience question what is happening, and who is watching her and why are they watching her. The mise en scene also makes the audience question in our thriller opening as the girl is wearing very innocent and simple clothes and the man is wearing all black which makes him very mysterious and gives the audience no clues as to what he is about.
This convention can be found in many real media products, as it is a common factor of lots of thriller films. An example of a film that contains one very similar to our complex narrative structure is Frailty, a psychological thriller that focuses on the strange relationship between two young boys and their father. It includes many false paths, and everything doesn't appear to be what it seems as their father believes he has been summoned by God to kill demons. The relationship between the family seems to be normal but there is a lot more to it and the story line constantly has the audience questioning and wondering why. This is similar to our thriller as the strange family bond is there deep in the complex narrative. This shot shows the family in an ordinary, everyday life situation that has the audience wondering what is going to happen next, and questioning what is happening.
The second form we used that is commonly known to be in thrillers is the reaction shot. In our opening Rosie reacts to the twig snapping and seeing the man Nigel and we show this using a mid close up shot of her face. Reaction shots are usually used in thrillers where the audience can't see what the character is reacting to and can only see the response. This is effective when keeping the audience guessing and asking questions which is what we were trying to achieve in this shot as the audience could see the man walking down from the waist down and they've seen the back of his head but we were trying to keep him as a mysterious character keeping his personality hidden. In this case it has worked well although maybe a clearer shot of her facial expression would have been more effective but paired with the dialog the audience can completely understand how shocked she is.
Developed
A convention which I feel is an important factor to develop within our thriller is mise en scene which echoes/mirrors the protagonist's plight. In any film the mise en scene is very important and thrillers are no exception to this as the mise en scene needs to be relevant to Rosie and their feelings/emotions. For example if the character is feeling sad they should be put in a sad place with dark lighting where as if they were happy they should be in a happy place with soft, bright lighting and happy surroundings. This convention is important in our thriller opening as there are essentially two main settings, one full of gloom and the other a happy, safe place. These are the train tracks where the girl was probably the happiest, and the setting and lighting would recognise this as the scene would be very happy and light. The other is the lock up place where she is held by Nigel, we don't show the inside of this within our opening but if we were going too we would make the footage very gloomy and dark to represent her feelings there. These two settings contrast each other mirroring the contrasts in mood the young girl Rosie has. We have also used the music in the background to represent this, as when the mood changes so does the music, this is to build up tension and create a darker tone relating to what is going to happen.
Challenged
We have challenged the usual concept and running order of opening credits by putting the title of our film at the end of the opening sequence. This is not common within a lot of films as it usually appears by the beginning to build up to it. We did this to build up tension and to make the audience guess what it could be called. I think it worked well within our opening as it did exactly what we intended it to do especially along side the use of music, how it also builds up in pace with the credit and clip movement this making the tone much more tense.
In the thriller film The Machinist they have not only got the lead character in the opening shot but also include the title of their film at the beginning. The main character begins at the opening this gives the audience a good idea of whats to come as they know they'll be seeing a lot of him and by starting the opening with his face it makes the film more personal however we didn't include our main character in the opening in order to build up tension and add some mystery to it. By doing this we would make the audience question what was to come a lot more so therefore we challenged this convention effectively.2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Evaluation on Prezi
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The link below is to our wikispaces account where we have answered this question.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
This is my interpretation of our ideal audience member. Rebecca, usually shorted to Bec by her close mates has a long term boyfriend of 7 years who enjoys similar things to her as they met at Uni and were in the same course, Architecture. She particularly likes psychological, thriller films as she likes mystery and suspense and films that make you question and think about things, although she does enjoy the odd chick flick and comedy. Rebecca reads a lot of novels and is a very creative person and likes spending time reading blogs on the internet and watching videos on YouTube. She isn't too interested in listening to much music and prefers classics and old songs from her childhood, ones that remind her of her family. Her boyfriend and her are very eager to travel the world as both haven't traveled out of the British Isles before, and are currently saving up but spend any spare money on watching films and going to the cinema. They are also a stay in and watch films couple as Rebecca enjoys watching films from her sofa which she as found out about online, these are usually not mainstream ones.
The link below is to our wikispaces account where we have answered this question.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
This is my interpretation of our ideal audience member. Rebecca, usually shorted to Bec by her close mates has a long term boyfriend of 7 years who enjoys similar things to her as they met at Uni and were in the same course, Architecture. She particularly likes psychological, thriller films as she likes mystery and suspense and films that make you question and think about things, although she does enjoy the odd chick flick and comedy. Rebecca reads a lot of novels and is a very creative person and likes spending time reading blogs on the internet and watching videos on YouTube. She isn't too interested in listening to much music and prefers classics and old songs from her childhood, ones that remind her of her family. Her boyfriend and her are very eager to travel the world as both haven't traveled out of the British Isles before, and are currently saving up but spend any spare money on watching films and going to the cinema. They are also a stay in and watch films couple as Rebecca enjoys watching films from her sofa which she as found out about online, these are usually not mainstream ones.
We felt that our film would be most realistically suited to people between the ages of 20 and 30. This is because of our some what complex story line which is also about a serious event which wouldn't appeal to a younger audience as it may be disturbing to them. We have made our ideal audience member female as the little girl in the film would be something they could easily relate to, having fun as a young child, also the situation that the girl is in would create a lot more fear with the female viewers as it isn't something they would like to be in. Despite this I think that the interesting story line and fear factor would also attract a male audience, especially if any of the men are fathers to young girls as their protective side would be instinctive and this would add a fear factor for them as they would never want their own child in that situation. Relating back to a our target audience post which we made during our audience research, the person we wanted to target wanted a setting that promotes realism and authenticity which is something I felt we did well. We also looked at films our target audience enjoyed and I feel we have succeeded in this as they enjoy ones which contain a lot of suspense and tension.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
To answer this question we have added multiple tags onto our final opening video on YouTube.
Overall I feel that we attracted and addressed our audience well as we catered for their expectations and thought about what they would think when watching it.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the whole process of this project I have learn't a lot about various technologies both online and offline. While there was a few I was familiar with there was also some which were completely new to me.
With some previous experience using blogger and other blogs I found using the website Blogger relatively quick and very easy to get used to I wanted to be able to
We used YouTube as a group to upload videos of our work. I feel that I was the most inexperienced of my group in terms with using YouTube's video up loader service as I've previously only used it as a media player to watch videos on. I found this aspect of YouTube a very easy process to pick up and use especially tagging and annotating our videos, which was something I did not know how to do before but now I can do so with ease. YouTube has also been a great help to our group when receiving feedback on our opening instantly, in order for us to make any necessary improvements. I also used YouTube as a way to record any needed improvements on our rough cut that we uploaded, I did this by annotating the areas of the video where I saw extra work was needed. From this we were than able to play this while editing an it was very useful. Also having the history of videos that we watched saved proved helpful for us as a group when we watched tutorials or interesting film openings we were able to just check the history. To keep our accounts looking connected I also added a background to our YouTube account page and edited the colour scheme to relate to our blogger account. YouTube was a very easy website to understand and use.
As an Apple Mac owner myself I didn't have any concerns about using the Mac to work with instead of a PC however in some cases it wasn't as easy to use as a PC may have been, especially when print screening but overall using this computer was essential as they are needed run a lot of the programs we needed to use during this project such as Final Cut Express. They were a very practical and useful choice and I had no trouble using them.
This editing software was probably the technology I was the least familiar with having never used an editing software before doing this project. When doing our preliminary task I learn't a lot about importing footage and how to cut it and lengthen and shorten areas. I found this technology to be difficult as there was just so much you could do on it however over time I picked up a lot of the processes and got used to using the tools and I am now able to cut footage, add audio, add in many effects such as cross fade and dissolve. I was even able to work around problems by looking up a useful tutorial as on some areas of our clips we were unable to add a cross fade effect due to the clips being too short but by using the necessary tool and process I can now do so with ease. I actually really enjoyed the experience I gained using this software as it was a great program to use for what we were trying to achieve and I feel that I would be very comfortable experimenting and using Final Cut Express in the future.
With a fair amount of previous experience in Photoshop I created the logos and the backgrounds for our group. It was a great software to use to make an interesting and different logo as you are able to transform layers, creating a lot of different effects and it was really simple to play around with, changing the colours and using various images in order to make the logo. I did however learn about all the different overlay effects which was something I've never thought to use before.
Facebook
We also used Facebook as a form of keeping in contact with each other when working on the blog at home, this was really useful to find out exactly what people were doing at a specific time as we had a group message going throughout the whole process of our thriller opening. We learnt that this proved to be very useful.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In order to answer this question we added annotations onto our preliminary task video on YouTube.
To answer this question we have added multiple tags onto our final opening video on YouTube.
Overall I feel that we attracted and addressed our audience well as we catered for their expectations and thought about what they would think when watching it.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the whole process of this project I have learn't a lot about various technologies both online and offline. While there was a few I was familiar with there was also some which were completely new to me.
With some previous experience using blogger and other blogs I found using the website Blogger relatively quick and very easy to get used to I wanted to be able topresent out work in an effective and neat way and I feel blogger really made us able to do this as the design was easily adaptable by adjusting the layout, fonts, html and backgrounds etc. I also really liked how you were able to tag all the posts with useful words and descriptions, which made everything easier to relate back to and keep track off, especially individual and group posts. I found being able to put a tag cloud on our blog and an archive really made us able to get the best experience of using blogger effectively. I also found blogger to be a really successful method when posting work, including pictures, text and embedding videos.
We used YouTube as a group to upload videos of our work. I feel that I was the most inexperienced of my group in terms with using YouTube's video up loader service as I've previously only used it as a media player to watch videos on. I found this aspect of YouTube a very easy process to pick up and use especially tagging and annotating our videos, which was something I did not know how to do before but now I can do so with ease. YouTube has also been a great help to our group when receiving feedback on our opening instantly, in order for us to make any necessary improvements. I also used YouTube as a way to record any needed improvements on our rough cut that we uploaded, I did this by annotating the areas of the video where I saw extra work was needed. From this we were than able to play this while editing an it was very useful. Also having the history of videos that we watched saved proved helpful for us as a group when we watched tutorials or interesting film openings we were able to just check the history. To keep our accounts looking connected I also added a background to our YouTube account page and edited the colour scheme to relate to our blogger account. YouTube was a very easy website to understand and use.
To make some of our text posts more interesting to read we used a website called 'Prezi'. It's an online slide show application creator, which at first I found it very confusing but after investigating some of the links and working out how to insert and change text and add shapes in, I really like the outcome. I found Prezi to be an impressive form of showing information especially how you can direct the path of what is viewed. It's a very useful website creator and I have already used it outside of this project in other work as I found it to be so successful.
As an Apple Mac owner myself I didn't have any concerns about using the Mac to work with instead of a PC however in some cases it wasn't as easy to use as a PC may have been, especially when print screening but overall using this computer was essential as they are needed run a lot of the programs we needed to use during this project such as Final Cut Express. They were a very practical and useful choice and I had no trouble using them.
This editing software was probably the technology I was the least familiar with having never used an editing software before doing this project. When doing our preliminary task I learn't a lot about importing footage and how to cut it and lengthen and shorten areas. I found this technology to be difficult as there was just so much you could do on it however over time I picked up a lot of the processes and got used to using the tools and I am now able to cut footage, add audio, add in many effects such as cross fade and dissolve. I was even able to work around problems by looking up a useful tutorial as on some areas of our clips we were unable to add a cross fade effect due to the clips being too short but by using the necessary tool and process I can now do so with ease. I actually really enjoyed the experience I gained using this software as it was a great program to use for what we were trying to achieve and I feel that I would be very comfortable experimenting and using Final Cut Express in the future.
With a fair amount of previous experience in Photoshop I created the logos and the backgrounds for our group. It was a great software to use to make an interesting and different logo as you are able to transform layers, creating a lot of different effects and it was really simple to play around with, changing the colours and using various images in order to make the logo. I did however learn about all the different overlay effects which was something I've never thought to use before.
This website was one I have never come across or heard of before but was very simple to use. I learnt that you are able to add text, photos and hyperlinks with a click of a button once you've set up an account and you are also able to save and publish work as well very easily. I found this webpage wikispaces to be very useful.
We used this website to get our music from for our thriller opening, it was relatively easy to use to search and download music just by looking at the page and working it out for yourself.
To film our opening footage we used a tripod to make sure our shots were smooth and steady. It was easy to set up and adjust and move about and proved to be a very useful piece of equipment throughout the filming stages. This photo shows Will using the tripod with the camera fitted on top.
The camera we used was a HD Canon. I had little to none previous experience using recording cameras but it was easy to learn and pick up how to turn it on, zoom, pause and take photos and also view previous footage. The camera we used was good because it made us able to film in a HD format which resulted in our filmed footage being a great quality. This photo shows Harry using it.
When carrying out some audience research I signed up for the site survey monkey, on this site I was able to create a questionnaire and share a link to it on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This site was very helpful to our group when finding out about a target audience. It was also very easy to understand and I learnt how to use it with ease.
We also used Facebook as a form of keeping in contact with each other when working on the blog at home, this was really useful to find out exactly what people were doing at a specific time as we had a group message going throughout the whole process of our thriller opening. We learnt that this proved to be very useful.After looking back into what I've learnt throughout the project in relation to the technologies, I've realised that even though I thought I already knew a lot about certain technologies I've learn't a lot more than a I previously knew and have gained a lot of experience working with different software and equipment which I never had before.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In order to answer this question we added annotations onto our preliminary task video on YouTube.
I learnt a lot from carrying out this preliminary task as it gave me more knowledge into what to expect for our opening in relation to confidence using the equipment and software we were expected to use. It also made me think a lot more about research and planning as looking back I definitely felt a lot more was needed so as a group we knew exactly what we wanted to achieve especially with the storyboards. Also doing this made me want to research into the genre more.
It was really helpful to be able to see a rough cut of our opening as it made me realise exactly what was still needed when editing our opening. I also found it useful that I was able to add annotations to the video on YouTube to highlight the areas exactly where we needed to work on. Therefore I was able to refer back to this in the last stages of editing which was really helpful.
We also added some annotations to our rough cut on YouTube to answer this question.
It was really helpful to be able to see a rough cut of our opening as it made me realise exactly what was still needed when editing our opening. I also found it useful that I was able to add annotations to the video on YouTube to highlight the areas exactly where we needed to work on. Therefore I was able to refer back to this in the last stages of editing which was really helpful.
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