Sunday 29 April 2012
Monday 16 April 2012
Hufan Jama - Question 7 : Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
My group and I found it difficult to come up with an initial idea due to the many reasons such as location and coming up with a narrative. Location became a worry as the location in the school is under reconstruction and leaves us with limited choices. However after watching some openings/ trailers to thriller films we came to notice that we could use the fact the school is being reconstructed to our advantage as in films such as ‘prom night’ there are scenes of isolation. We then looked at some thriller films such as ‘’Prom night’’ and ‘’Black Swan’’ which inspired us and allowed us to come up with a thriller narrative of our own. Overall I feel that my confidence as well as my skills in filming and editing has improved compared to when we first began our preliminary task.
In my progression I learnt that planning is the most important part, so we made our storyboard and our script before actually filming. I thought this was very helpful as it helped structure our piece. Because of our storyboard we knew what shots came first and how long they were going to be or if the setting was to change. This made it easy to film and if we weren’t happy with a shot we would just change it or change the duration of the shots. The main thing I learnt from my preliminary task was the ability to use the camera as well as the tripod. I think if we hadn’t carried out a preliminary I would have found it very difficult to do the full product.
In the preliminary task we filmed a conversation between a student and teacher we only used over the shoulder shots and didn’t really expand and use a variety of shots. We also placed the camera further away from the student in order for to make the student look smaller and more vulnerable. The camera was placed closer to the teacher in order to make her look bigger and more intimidating. We used dialogue in our preliminary task but chose not to do so in our final product. We thought we could use a variety of different camera angles in the final product to make our montage look interesting rather than simple. This helped us develop our camera skills as we spent a lot of time focusing on what camera angles worked and which didn’t. Also from our preliminary task only one person was in charge of filming however we thought that each person in our group should try filming at one point, so all of us were familiar with using the camera, tracks, tripod etc. Although our preliminary task didn’t consist of any music we were showed how to add tracks onto Imovies.
Our use of Mise en scene has improved drastically since our preliminary task
; the setting for our preliminary task distorts the reality in a way as our setting for our preliminary task was in a spacious room which didn’t look like a teacher’s office at all. However we thought long and hard about what the setting should look like for each character. We thought about lighting, so we used the hall, turning all the lights off but keeping the spotlights on Vanessa making her the main focus. This was effective as it made everything around the character dark. I think the location we decided on for the stalker scene was brilliant as the lighting made our character appear as a silhouette, which was amazing because it made him more mysterious as the audience were made to feel intrigued by his hidden identity
For our preliminary task we didn’t focus on clothing which had a big impact on representation as our teacher character was dress in a hood. This was subversive towards the stereotype of teachers and didn’t fit our product. We learnt from our mistake and made sure this wouldn’t happen in our final product. Understanding the importance of costume we created character profiles, mind mapping what the characters should look like etc.
I believe our product was successful as we tried something different which was we decided to do a montage. Which I think worked well and as it showed a relationship between the two characters. Because our product was a montage we were able to use a variety of camera angles of her dance.
For our production company we thought long and hard on what it should have been called. We played around with a few ideas and later came to a decision that we would use a picture of an animal and example would be ‘’TriStar’’ (flying horse) or just the name of an animal for example "Lionsgate’’. So we created our own production company naming it ‘’Foxlight Productions’’. I thought the name was a really good idea however we were unhappy with the background and so we played around with the background colour and decided a dark colo
ur was more appropriate for the chosen genre.
ur was more appropriate for the chosen genre.
Overall I feel that our final product was good, however I feel improvement could have been that during the dance rehearsal (1.33-1. 41) there was a lot of empty space which wasn’t needed therefore we had to filter it. Another improvement would be the location for the dance rehearsal which looked like an empty dull hall instead of a setting which could instantly been recognised as dance studio like the space. However as we did not utilise our time efficiently we were unable to make changes and had to work with the location we had.
Hufan Jama- Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
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Our production company is called “FoxLight Production" we were inspired by Fox Searchlight Pictures because they were an independent but successful. They have also produced films “Black Swan” which was very similar to our final product also I think it would be more likely for an independent company like Fox Searchlight Pictures to distribute our film due to our low budget. We created a distribution company “Fourminded” Films. Momentum Pictures is one of the leading Independent film distributors in the UK so we thought that it would be suitable for them to distribute “Recrudescence”.
Hufan Jama - Question 2 : How does your media product represent particular social group?
Sunday 15 April 2012
Raye Douglas 7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?
Long before making our final product we were given a preliminary task to complete. This allowed us to practice filming and editing to get the hand of the camera and iMovie. I got the hang of editing using the apple macs quite quickly. We used a similar shot in the prelim task to our final - we filmed a shot of Hufans' feet in the prelim and Graces feet in the final, this shows that the practice with the preliminary task influenced us for our final product.
Using iMovie in the preliminary task i feel was the biggest help when it came to our final opening film as it made editing fast and easy and our title sequence easy to pick up from the practice, during our prelim we experimented with different shots such as wide shots, tilts, over the shoulder shots and learning about the 180 degree rule. I learnt that when filming a conversation between two people you use over the shoulder shots meaning when you film one person you have the other persons shoulder in the shot. Shot reverse shot is a method in film making used when one person is filmed looking at something or someone and the next shot is then the person or thing they are looking at, this creates continuity and lets the audience understand what the other person is looking at. I learnt that the 180 degree rule was to be used in a conversation between two people opposite each other where an imaginary line called the axis connects the characters, by keeping the camera on one side of the axis connects the characters so the frame makes sense, if the camera crosses the line this is called jumping the line. Here is an example of me using over the shoulder shots in my prelim task....
Raye Douglas 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
When filming our final product we used a handheld sony camera, a tripod and tracks to film our piece. We used tracking to shoot the shots of Immad as the janitor walking down the corridor, the camera to film all shots and the tripod for the tricky bit of filming when shooting Grace, this allowed us to keep a steady shot and make the camera on a downward tilt to portray Graces' character as timid and weak.
Blogger was a website that made a huge impact on the making of our film, whenever we watched openings for thriller films we thought could influence us in our idea we documented on our blog so we could refer back to them when stuck for ideas or in need of inspiration.
In school we used the application iMovie on an iMac to create our film, i feel this technology made it a lot easier for us to make a movie montage for our opening, we had used the software once previously to make a tester film which is placed on our blog before editing our film. I learnt a lot when editing, for example how to cut clips, how to crop images such as our production company logo to fit the screen and how to allocate our shots at certain points to create a flow of continuity, for example one of Graces' dance move flowed to show her opening the title of her name.
Facebook was a technology that we used to promote our film and reach our audience. We made a Facebook page for our film giving film shots and information about our film to search who would like the page and who would like the film the most. If our film was actually being sold and distributed we felt this was brilliant practice for promotion for our film as 175 million people use Facebook everyday, we also felt this was the appropriate network site as our target audience was 15-30 year olds.
YouTube was a key piece of technology we used for our final product. When choosing the soundtrack to our finished product i felt the best place for us to look on youtube for openings of thriller films we felt would help us decide on what kind of music we wanted, we looked at films such as black swan, prom night, silence of the lambs, the hand that rocks the cradle and the dark night. After looking at these films we continued to use youtube to search for songs without copyright that we felt were appororiate for our idea, when then looked on the 'DylansMusic' page where we found many thrilling, dramatic, mysterious and orchestral music where we chose to take a song 'Dylan' had made for our film.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fWwdB6puO_Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Raye Douglas 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
completion from start to finish. They are the bosses of the film which is why they are mostly the first thing you see at the start of a movie- like ours.
As we are an independent company we would have to get our funding from somewhere we could trust and who would also give us enough money to fund the film. I feel the best place to ask would be 'The National Lottery'. They recently funded a film called 'Tony' a film about a serial killer. I feel our film would be quite similar to 'Tony' so it would be a good idea to use them for funding.
In our finished product the titels started with the production company, then the distribution company we made ourselves 'A FOURMINDED FILM' we then had a montage of the titles starting with the director, then produced by then edited, then music composed by then 3 actors, then the title.
I feel the biggest similarity to our films opening is 'Black Swan' and 'Prom Night'.
Raye Douglas 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Casting was very important to us when thinking of our film as the whole opening is introducing the characters that would be in the film. We wanted to use quite stereotypical characters as our treatment was quite teenage phycological thriller stereotypical. Our central character is a girl named Vanessa, a college student. we felt like our character was very similar to the character Donna Keppel in Prom Night. I feel using a teenager as our central character was something we could all relate to. I feel having to have school as our location lead us to the decision our central character would be a teenager.
I do feel Grace fits a stereotype of a typical beautiful teenager- i personally feel teenagers are portrayed with a sense of rebellion , confusion and trauma so making her the victim was a good idea.
There are other films that have a teenager similar to our main character who plays the victim such as 'Black Swan' 'When a stranger calls' 'The Uninvited' and 'The Roommate'.
I felt is was very important Vanessa looked sweet as the protagonist is mainly an innocently looking person- usually a woman and the antagonist is usually a mysterious evil looking person- usually a man.
Dancing is seen as something creative a peaceful so making her a dancer shows a sweet and innocent side to her that will soon be ruined when her and the antagonist meet again.
I would say our treatment and casting is quite similar to the film 'Prom Night' from what you can see of the clothing of the janitor and the stereotypical look of Vanessa.
Saturday 14 April 2012
Sophie Turner Thriller Evaluation Q2
Our central focus character, Vanessa, is a collage student, so it was important for us to focus on the representation of teenagers in our final product. There are several main teenage stereotypes that are portrayed often in real media. In my opinion the major representations are rebellious, popular and antisocial (outsiders) In order to represent a rebellious group, the characters will perhaps be seen smoking, loitering or wearing dark clothes. An outsider will be represented as quite, awkward and usually intimidated by others. In my opinion there are two distinct forms of popularity within most major films. There’s the friendly, preppy group of teenagers and there are the dominant, intimidating, social manipulators; who are stereotypically, stylish, attractive and athletic. We wanted Vanessa to be a popular teenager although we wanted her to be slightly isolated from society at the same time. Although these two characteristics may be contradicting, we intended Vanessa’s athletic hobby to be personal to her and to symbolise a form of escape from the outside world. Dance allows her to be one with herself, outside of the dance hall she is a social and well-liked girl.
Representation of Protagonist & Antagonist
We conveyed this representation by conforming to the stereotypical appearance of a popular teenage girl, slim, pretty and blonde. We chose for our protagonist to be blonde as Vanessa was based around Donna Kepple from Prom Night. We were also keen on adapting Hitchcock’s trademark blonde bombshell ‘damsel in distress’. We had to establish the fact that Vanessa was the victim of the story, we conveyed this by involving a high angle shot to foreshadow a sense of vulnerability.Our antagonist was also based on a character from Prom Night, former teacher Richard Fenton. Analysing Fenton led to the idea of the stalker being a janitor as we thought the idea of him being in such close proximity frightening. We chose to represent our stalker as a janitor as they have access to all areas of the school building and often go unrecognised, which presents him as sneaky and enigmatic. We conveyed this mysterious and threatening representation by effective use of sound, camera angels and mise en scene. We made sure not to reveal the antagonist’s face (including ground level shots of walking feet) clothed him in black and furthered this representation with an eerie soundtrack.
We followed the stereotypical thriller convention of having a female as the victim and a male as the aggressor. As women are often represented as the vulnerable and easy targets and men as strong and dominant, whether they are they are the attacker or the saviour.
Sophie Turner Thriller Evaluation Q3
Before producing the film we would have to choose a suitable company to pitch our film idea to, as the institution that produces and/or distributes our film will finance the project. We wanted to produce our film on a low budget so an Independent Film Company would be the most appropriate to distribute our film. I would approach Momentum Pictures with our project as Momentum Pictures is one of the leading independent film distributors in the UK, releasing many thrillers including ‘Limitless’ and ‘Frozen’.Although on a low budget we intended on a wide release for our film, as we hoped to eventually see our film on the big screen and in stores. Similar to the production of Paranormal Activity, which developed originally as an independent feature on a low budget of $15,000, yet became highly successful. During research I was attracted to the media institution Fox Searchlight as the company has distributed such successful and profitable films as Black Swan.
So Fox Searchlight and Momentum Pictures would be the institutions I would pitch our idea to in hope they would fund and distribute our film. Consequently, Fox Searchlight influenced the name of our production company “Foxlight” and I considered these two real media institutions when designing our own company logos.
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