Final Task :Evaluation

How Does your media Product use,develop and challenge the codes and conventions of real media products?

The media product that we as a group have made fits the codes and conventions of a typical mystery film with some adaptions made so that it has a niche in the market for that genre as there are a lot of mystery films to compete with. We found from our research that our main product adopts some of these codes and conventions and so does our ancillary texts. The Ancillary texts are a poster which i have made which show the dark lighting which is a typical convention of the mystery genre. Also on the poster the main character is centered in the middle of the page aswell as a tagline and credits.

The ancillary text is recognisable as it contains shots that are in the opening sequence like the Title Linked and shots of the ghostly figure and of the main character. These images will be recognisable and if one is seen then they will be able to identify the film if they see the other. The setting and characters and lighting in the ancillary texts help portray the genre of the film to the audience and they will be able to identify if they are interested in the film or not. 

 

This is a frame showing our Main Title. We placed this title towards the end of the clip to make the audience wait for the big title. They have to keep watching the whole sequence just so they know the title of the film. The title is placed on a black background. We have noticed from our research that a lot of movies use this effect and we decided to replicate this for our opening sequence. We used this as the dark backround gives a great impact on the audience.This is the kind of effect we want to impact upon our target audience as the dark colours are used in a lot of mystery films and prove to be very effective at capturing the audiences full attention. This dark background for the titles is used in mystery films such as the Da Vinci code and Sherlock holmes. The dark backround also sets the atmosphere up for the film and the genre is clearly portrayed to the audience through the use of these dark colours that create a dark and sinister atmosphere. We have researched and used different codes and conventions which are important parts of setting up a mystery plotline.

This is the setting we used for our opening sequence. It is set in a estate as this represents the social class of the girl. It is shot in daylight as it is supposed to show a girl as she is walking home from school.

This frame shows the props that we used in the opening sequence. The props used in an opening sequence can give a lot away about the plot. The props used, which are pills, the significance of the girl taking the pills is that she is upset and depressed. she is also in her school uniform which represents that the reason for taking the overdose is linked to problems arising at school.

We used special effects in our opening sequence to create a different image of the stalker. These special effects help portray to the audience the character that is supposed to be from another world. This special effect is creating enigma, tension and suspence as the audience will be unsure of this characters role and why she is following the girl.

This is a shot of the opening sequence where we tried to use a creative type of camerawork.

The non – digetic music playing throughout our opening sequence definitely sets the mood for the rest of the movie. There are also some sound effects used in our opening sequence which stimulates the audiences’ senses. We used a banging sound for when Manny turns round at the beginning of the clip. We dicovered that the use of soundeffects is important in a opening sequence. We used these codes and conventions based on the opening sequence of the movie se7en.



Final Task : Evaluation

We have now completed the opening sequence and it is now uploaded to my blog. From now on we can't change anything in the clip as the deadline has passed. We are now concentrating of completing our evaluation. for the evaluation we have to answer the following questions and upload the answers onto our blog:
How does your media product:
a)use develop challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
b0represent particular social groups
2. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
3. Who would be the audience for your media product?
4. How did you attract/address your audience?
5. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
6. Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

For our evaluation we have to have a group interview answering the questions, An individual commentary of video
A group presentation of the piece to the class
and an individual blog entries answering the questions.
i will be answering these questions over the next week.

Final Task: Final Edit !!

Here is our final opening sequence which Manny and me have worked very hard on :)

Final Task : editing

We have been editing our final footage for about 2 or 3 weeks now and we are happy with what we have done. Last week we spent a lot of time improving the continuity of our video as some shots did not fit together well. We managed to sort this out and add titles into our video This broke up some of the shots and has improved the continuity of the whole sequence. Music and sound effects were also added to the sequence to create a eerie atmosphere and to convey the nature of the film to the audience well. Thanks to Mr Earl we added suitable sound and the titles were inserted which improved the whole sequence.   Today is the final deadline for the sequence after this deadline we will no longer be able to edit the sequence and this is the piece that will be marked. As Manny is not here today i will export the clip and upload it onto my blog.

Final Task: Progress

In the the last week we have filmed our new footage that we are going to use. Last Thursday we shot the first half of our opening sequence. We were pleased with what we had shot as we took more care when we were shooting and this time we used a tripod so the camera isnt shaking as much this gives the shots a more finished look. We have also included a range of shots this time including long shots and closeups as this is what the criteria asks. We experienced some roblems with the tripod as it was hard to turn the camera when is was on it. This means that some of the shots went wrong and this slowed down the shooting process becasuse we had to make sure that we moved it right. We sorted this problem out before we went to shoot for the second time. Also we wer shooting a close up of a phone to show a text message but the camera would not pick up the text on the phone because it was too bright. Manny also solved this problem by turning down the brightness on her phone and the camera was able to pick up the text message. But after we reviewed the footage at school we discovered that we can't hear the sound coming from the phone so we will add in the audio that manny will record off her phone.
We went out to shoot the second half of our footage last night. We filmed Manny recieving a text message and her running upstairs to the bathroom where the mysterious person(me) appears in the mirrors reflection and persuades her to take the pills. This did not take that long to shoot. The only problem that we encountered was there was not enough room on the landing to film Manny running up the stairs so i had to hold the camera instead.
We are now editing the footage and hope to have finished editing it by next week.

Final Task : Progress

We have not filmed our footage yet and we are going to film it tonight instead. We have decided to find sound effects and edit them into the opening sequence this is so that it sets the scene better and it will definitly add to the mystery and eeriness of the sequence. We need to find a sound effect of a door creaking or a door shutting when the girl is in the bathroom so that she turns around and when she turns back round to face the mirror she sees the girl who is standing behind her. We are also undecided as whether to add some music into the sequence as on our rough cut we got feedback that the sound on the clip sounded weird. If we did put music in it then we would put it when the titles were coming up as from watching similar films there is usually some sort of music in the opening sequence.
We will probably have to film some of it next week as we dont think we will get it all filmed in one night. This means that we will have less time to edit therefore we will come in and edit after school and in our spare time as well as in lesson in order to get it completed by the deadline and also so that it is of a good standard.

Final Task:Problem

We submitted our rough cut at the deadline and it was reviewed over the half term when we off. We recieved feedback for it this feedback stated that our opening sequence lacked a variety of of camera shots and was too simplistic  the title sequence needs to be improved we will look at other films of this genre and see what the title sequence is like on these films and then try to base ours on this in addition to this it has been suggested that we should alter the effects used for the titles as the lightening and the flashing of the titles dosen't look that good. Also we recieved feed back that it was hard to tell what the story was so we have been advised to film some more footage so that the narrative is clearer to the audience. Also when i played it back the lighting looked odd and this is another component that we have decided to change, we have decided that we will film some of it in the light as the girl will be walking home from school and this will be represented by he wearing a school uniform.
We have come up with a plan of the shots that we are going to re shoot as this will make it clearer as to what is going on in the sequence. The sequence is still starting off with the girl walking home from school in her school uniform but she is paranoid that someone is following her so she keeps turning round to look behind her she then starts to run to her house as she is scared she quickly runs in through her front door and starts to cry hysterically she then recieves a text message which says something threatening like "im going to get you" she then looks at the phone again and it is blank. she is then going to run up to bathroom and consider taking an overdose as she is looking in the mirror she sees somebody standing behind her in the reflection of the mirror. the person standing behind her is daring her to take the overdose and then it switches to the main title of the film.
We are no longer filming from the girls point of view as we need to include a variety of shots.
We are going to film our footage tonight after school and possibly another day this week as we predict that we will need more than one night to film this. Next week we need to start editing if we are to meet our deadlines. i am going to come in and edit it after school next week as we wont have enough lesson time to edit it all.