Critical Evaluation (Mori and Aaron)

Evaluation of the Piece

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

As we are following the conventions of real films we am hoping that our sequence will look as realistic as possible. We are using the correct equipment for filming, obviously nothing like the real film crew use but good equipment for our level. We are also using credits very similar to those of real films, this is an area we have really tried to concentrate on as it contributes largely to the professionalism of the film. I also think that the editing is an area which we are very strong in and it will help to make our piec4e as realistic as possible. We have also stuck the rules of film, we chose to do this because I think it would have been harder to challenge the codes and conventions as it would have to be obviously different and I think this would just have looked unprofessional. Our film is a thriller and in a film of this particular genre has certain aspects such as the topography of the film for example the room in the film "Saw" in the opening scene, as it is Thriller/Horror we are exposed to the codes and conventions of the genre so the viewers immediatly know what the film is going to be about. In a thriller we both thought that it is vital to get the correct soundtrack to go with the film as we have seen in movies such as The Godfather, Hostage and Saw. These films contain the deluge of feelings through their music showing the audience the genre they have created. In most Thriller and Crime movies there shot selection is specified to not show the faces of the villan, we as film makers have adopted this too create a sense of suspense.

A certain code and concention which we felt was essential to stick to was that studio logo: this is a screen shot of our logo sequence in our opening piece.

Shot selections of Crime is mostly kept under suspense from the villan's face. We have been inspired to do this from movies such as Charlie in "Charlie's Angels". This method allows the sudience ot create their own image in their minds, thus making it more interesting to watch.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media does not focus on any particular single social group, it looks more at specific groups. We see what it is like to be a teenager in a boarding school but wee don’t see any interaction with other teens in the film so it is hard to show socially how teens act. We show this by having the teen working in the afternoon and then even sleeping, this shows that it is hard being at a school because not only do they have to work in the afternoon but they need to sleep as well. This gives the audience a good insight into boarding school life, even if it is just short. We also think it is good as it will leave much up to the audiences imagination. Other social groups are not really looked at in the earlier piece that we have only done, but the business sector would be looked at in some detail and dodgy dealings with bad people. In the first bit that we have filmed you also get slight details of what these bad men are like as they have to kidnap the child and torture him so this shows how bad people can be. As this is a film about business we should be looking to attract people in the business area who can empathise with the characters and also enjoy the movie, however so our Certificate of the movie should be rated a 15 as we both think it is suitable to attract teenagers.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I would expect a major film company like New Line Cinema to help to distribute the product. Not only would the film company help to give the film an expensive image but they would know exactly how to get this film selling well as a DVD and even over the internet and in cinemas. This film company would also have good contacts in the media industry adding to the chance of greater sales. I would also have promotional videos on You Tube and iTunes this would help raise awareness of the film. Things such as trailers and film posters should also help our distribution of our film

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for this film would be from ages 15 upwards. The violence was too great but we also think this film would appeal to mainly men as it has violence in it, and it is a quarrel between two men. It may be seen by some women but the balance will be largely towards the men as it is a Thriller film.

5. How did you attract and address your audience?

In order to attract and address the specific audiences advertising would largely be needed, it would be out in a men’s magazines meaning that it is more specifically directed towards men. Also trailers can be played at the cinema before films a similar genre, so the right audience see it. Trailers can also be played on the TV later at night after the watershed when older members of the public are watching, and on different channels for an example an action channel such Sky Movies Action/Adventure.

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

We have learnt about three different technologies in greater detail than we already knew. We have mastered the control of a camera, learning how to film, take pictures, view recorded footage, change effects and much more. We have also learnt computer about moving recorded data from a camera onto a computer and then onto the video editing program which is the third technology we have learnt about. We know how to edit video that we have filmed. We can make the video look professional through effects as well as presentation, including titles which can be changed using the program Adobe Photoshop and then transferred onto the video program which we were using called Premiere Elements 4.0 to finish the editing and produce the final piece.

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

We have expanded our knowledge in all areas of the media studies course. We have learnt more of the rules and regulations of the film to keep my film looking professional and of course making sense. We have also leant many different shots over the time of making this video which have come in very useful during the filming of the main piece. We have learnt far more about the video editing program Premiere Elements 4.0, we feel that we are far more experienced now and could edit any video that we needed to. We know the effects and tolls which help to make the final piece more professional, realistic and a higher quality.

8. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Here is some examples of feedback from members of the school who have watched our film:
16 March 2009 11:34
Tolu & Maria said... "I have seen Mori and Aaron's film and i think it is very good. They make very good use of the camera and tripod throughout and the variety of shots and music add to the atmosphere of suspense they had created. The acting in their opening sequence is brilliant making their project much more beleivable."

12 March 2009 12:20 vigges said... "You are the only guys with an obviously more hefty content of us with that water - torture scene. I liked it. The Low Angle shot is well made and the physical demanding parts are well set.The intro with the car is good and builds up tension and makes the audience want to see more of the plot."

This feedback has showed us a few things about what we have created and therefore futhers us a media producers. Our previous film's audiences have criticised our shots saying they were too shaky. As this film has many hand-held shots, for example when the victim is being dragged down the hallway we needed to make sure that we did not repeat the mistake, to ensure this we took the hand-held shots several times. Also a previous comment that victor made in class saying that the music did not work well with the video, this helped us to realise that we needed to change the music to fit our film better.

THE FINAL PIECE

This is the FINAL piece!

We have finished! We thought that it would be a good idea to put the video on the blog, as it means that friends, family and anyone else who wants to watch our piece.

General - Post by Mori

In the last few weeks we have been rushing to finish the piece, after finishing the filming at was straight to the computers to do all the editing. We anticipated that this wouldn't take too long but we were wrong this is a long and slow process, we ended up coming back at nights to try and finish the editing as we simply didn't have enough time in our lessons to do it all. today we finished the piece and it is looking just as we wanted it to. We are incredibly happy with what me and Aaron and I have done. Also in the last few weeks i have been doing a large amount of written work, each of us were given certain questions that we had to answer which we have done and put onto the blog. Also the evaluation which is a very large piece which was hand written as it is easier to concertrate on what we are writing when we're using a pen rather than a keyboard and then it had to be written up on the computer and screen shots applied to it and then posted on the blog.

We have had much deliberation about titles and soundtracks in the last few days at first we wanted to have two different soundtracks so that we could create different moods for the two different scenes, but then we dicided that it would be too much having two different soundtracks within two minutes. also we have been working to produce the titles like made, this was hard and takes a long time as they have to be made on photoshop layer by layer and then moved on to premiere elements and changed on thier to make them link up and make a title.

Questions On The Sequences 3 - A Post By Mori

Creative Tools

1. How did digital technology enable you to develop creatively and are there examples of the technology obstructing or preventing your creative flow?

Digital technology was a huge help to us in the making of this piece, it meant that certain aspects of the piece could happen and look good at the same time. For example we wanted our torture scene to be very dark limiting the visibility of the viewers making it look as if worse things were happening than could be seen, this meant filming it in a very dark room which was difficult to get right so we were able to film it in an almost pitch black room and then use the technology on the computer to increases the brightness and therefore make it the perfect visibility that we wanted for the scene. Digital technology also means that the titles at the beginning of the piece can look as if they were of a high budget film, this is very important for us as we want it to look as high end as possible. We were able to use applications such as Adobe Photoshop to create these titles and then move them into Premiere Elements where we edited the film. I didn’t find that technology ever obstructed our piece it was only really a help, apart from when the camera batteries ran out!!

Thinking About Audience – making meaning

1. How did you respond to the initial brief with the audience in mind?

We responded to the initial brief well by conducting research and doing a brainstorm to help us review our options. Our first thought for genre was teenage drama which we thought we could make look the best and also we know how teenagers think and what they enjoy, so they would be a good target audience. We then thought that the target audience for a film needs to be larger, we can’t just have teenagers wanting to watch our film, we need more and we also thought that dialogue does not sound too good with the cameras we have and in a teen drama we would need lots of talking as that’s what teens do, we would also have more to explain if it is a drama as the storyline is likely to complicated and we don’t want the audience to get confused as they won’t enjoy the film. So we looked at thriller, it has a larger target audience of teens through to older aged member of the public and it is slightly more tilted towards men but women are likely to watch a thriller as well. Also thrillers have more basic storylines than dramas and therefore it will be easier for the audience to understand.

2. How did your analysis and research into the type of film you selected impact on the creative process in pre-production?

Our research into thrillers and opening sequences helped a great deal towards what we wanted to do. It gave us inspiration and ideas to create the best possible piece that we were capable of. For example we saw lots of different openings on You Tube and we thought that the thrillers looked by far the most effective and would be best for us, we saw mainly gun shots and deaths, although that way was effective I wanted something slightly more original than guns something that would be a bit harder to film, so we choose to film a drowning sequence, which we didn’t see so much on You Tube so it meant we could be really creative and design the scene in the exact way wanted.

3. In filming and editing, how did you ensure that the meaning would be apparent to the audience? What creative decisions did you make in planning, rehearsing, filming and editing that were influenced by your sense of the audience and possible layers of interpretation?

The editing and filming is when we mostly had the audience in mind, as we were always trying to make the piece so it made sense to the audience. For example in the first half of the piece when the men are walking through the house we were going to skip a part when they are on the stairs so that we could make the torture scene longer but then we thought about it and we would have had to break the rules of continuity as it would not make sense if they just arrived at the top of the stairs, well the audience probably would have guessed that they walked up the stairs but it would have looked as though a part was missing. We also had an idea for the bedroom where we would have a shot of the boy in bed and then one from the other side looking at the kidnappers as they entered the room but we thought about the 180 degree rule and thought about it from the audience’s point of view and realised that such a small scene could start to get very confusing for audiences.

4. How did the audience respond when you trialled aspects of your film? Are there a variety of possible interpretations of your opening sequence that will depend on the cultural situation of the viewer?

The general thoughts n our piece were positive, everyone seemed to enjoy it and managed to get some positive feedback on the piece so that we could do some adjustments to make it as good as it can possibly be. People mostly like the torturing scene the best and found the drowning very effective. They said that the titles needed a bit of work (we hadn’t quite finished them) as well as the editing in the house as there was a bit where an actor looked at the screen, so we just needed to tighten things up slightly.

Questions On The Sequences 2 - A Post By Mori

Here are some more questions on the production of our film.

 

1. How did you manage the group dynamics, equipment and resources, interim deadlines and the necessary collaborative nature of film making?

The group dynamics worked very well, we got to decide who we worked with and through out the year we have managed to see within the group who we would work best with. We also worked with lots of communication, for example if someone had another commitment they would just send a quick email to tell them and then the other member of the group would fill in for you on that day and you would fill for them the next time. We also managed the equipment well, usually we both filmed and decided before hand what shot each other would do, this made filming quick and efficient. I found that I could make interim deadline fairly easily, most of them were on the blog which I enjoy using as it is easy to use and I feel that I need to write on it after I have done anything significant towards the film.

 

2. What health and safety and logistical problems did you solve?

 

I felt that we did not have very many health and safety issues during the filming of this piece, the only parts which could have proved slightly dangerous were in car scene and the torturing scene.

We avoided danger by acting sensibly in the car and wearing seatbelts. And we avoided danger in the torturing scene developing a danger word system in which the actor being tortured just said the word ‘help’ and then we stopped whatever was happening, this meant we instantly knew and could stop quickly.

The only real logistical problem was finding a car and someone to drive it but in the end we thought to ask a matron from a boarding house and it proved very easy.

 

3. How did you organise your human resources – the people involved in the production?

 

At the beginning of the course we picked the actors which we needed for our piece and asked them if they wouldn’t mind featuring in it.

Once we had finalised who was in our play we talked it through with them and found out when they were available and when they may need to act in their films. We were then able to start shooting our piece. Before each filming session we would sit the actors down and inform them of the different scenes they would be doing and exactly what we required of them in terms of movement and acting. We also went through it with them when we arrived at the location where we were filming and did dry runs before actually taking the real shot, this meant that they knew exactly what to do and this also gave us what we needed and nothing went wrong.

 

4. How did you manage actors, locations, costumes and props? Remember that deciding NOT to use a particular strategy [e.g. not to use any props] is also a creative decision.

 

I have discussed how we managed our actors in the previous question. The location, props and costumes where all decided on upon before filming anything. The locations required a bit of research, we went out with a camera and took films and pictures of possible locations and then reviewed them in the class room, managing to pick the perfect locations around the school campus for the particular scenes. We also did much research for the torturing scene, for this we mainly used the web to look at different methods of torture and what we needed to look the most effective. We looked at hanging but decided that it would be too difficult to pull off and too dangerous so we decided to have a drowning scene and we found the perfect prop, a clear box which could be filled with water. We also found metal chairs, which were perfect for the torturing as it meant that it looked uncomfortable for the victim and also cheap as if they didn’t care what he had to sit on. Costumes were very simple for this piece as we only needed two different ones, the boys clothing which is anything that we might wear ourselves and then the three kidnappers who we decided to dress in black suits which were also easy to locate we simply used our smart uniform from Sunday School, we were also going to give them shades but we thought it would be slightly to unoriginal and cheesy!

5. How did storyboarding and creating a shooting script work in practice? Did you make creative decisions to depart from the original plan? For what reasons and with what outcomes?

 

Storyboarding was an essential part of producing this piece; it gave us a firm base to stand on. It meant that we knew exactly which shots to do before starting to film, it also meant when we went out to film it could happen very quickly as we knew the exact shots to take once we arrived. Although the storyboard was incredibly useful we didn’t stick to it exactly, for example when designing the torture scene we weren’t fully sure what we were going to do, so we decide on hanging the victim but after thoughts and initial torturing scenes we changed our mind this was mainly due to the difficulty of finding a different place to hang the boy and not actually do it without it looking bad which would have looked unrealistic and unprofessional, so we decided to drown the boy instead, which turned out very well and I am glad we decided to do it.

 

6. Although time management may seem a less exciting aspect of the creative media practice, it is possibly the most important – how did you manage your time, and with what success?

 At the beginning of the whole process of making this piece we sat down and looked at what we had struggled with when making a film last year and we both immediately looked at each other saying ‘TIME’. So we put a great deal of thought into timings of the piece. I found that the filming took longer than I would have liked in this previously made film and he found that the editing took longer than he had anticipated. So we decided to split the time equally, half filming and half editing. As it turns out we took far longer to film the scenes than we had planned for which is ironic as in the end we found that we had to cut lots of good material as the piece was too long. But the editing had to be more rushed than we would have liked but it worked out well in the end. I think we should have allowed slightly longer for the filming but we also need to spend less time planning as we spent a lot of time on planning we which had not even allowed time for, which is perhaps the main reason why we had less time editing than we would have liked.

Questions On The Sequences - A Post By Mori

Here are a few questions that i have answered to tell you a bit more about certain parts of the piece. 

1.     At a micro, technical level, how well did you observe the conventions of continuity, the language of film and the grammar of the edit?

 

I think that we observed and kept to the conventions of continuity very well, I think we have made it very clear what is happening in our piece and at no point is it difficult for a member of the audience to understand the film. We did this by ensuring that we filmed scenes on the same day, ensuring that the light and the weather is the same, also when we had to film on a different day we made sure that the actors where wearing the same clothes. For example we filmed the boy being kidnapped on a different day to the to when we filmed the torturing scenes, so we made sure the boy’s actor wore the exact same clothes as he was wearing during the kidnapping he would not be given different clothes by his kidnappers. We helped to make the kidnappers scarier by using specific camera shots and editing techniques. We wanted the kidnappers to have a dark, scary image so we made sure that the faces of the kidnappers were not revealed until the shot just before they grab the boy from his bed. This increases the tension and your mind can always create a scarier image than we can.

 

2.     How many mistakes did you make, and did you improve in the main task having made errors in the preliminary exercise?

 

I would like to say that we made no mistakes, but I am afraid this is not quite true as everybody makes mistakes, But we managed to keep them at a minimal!

The main problem with my preliminary task I felt was that I did not shoot enough film, this therefore meant that the final piece would never be as good as there is far less to edit meaning you have to settle for a shot which may not be completely as you wanted it. This therefore prepared me well for the main piece of coursework, which I made sure that we shoot more than enough film, this minimalised the chances considerably of having a bad shot. Some mistakes made where positioning problems when we had to pause the recording to let something happen and then continue rolling straight after, I found that things were just slightly in different positions, e.g. when we did the shot of the car pulling up outside the house, we actually had the car reversing (which we changed later on the computers) but then we had to have the men getting out of the car from the same position and we found out later after reviewing the footage that the car was in a different place only by the slightest of margins but it is very obvious when the shot changes quickly. We managed to overcome this problem fairly easily when editing the footage on the computer.

In shooting lots of footage another mistake came about, not a terrible one, one which can be conceived as positive but nevertheless a mistake, the piece was too long, this meant that we had to take out some shots and considerably shorten others, slightly changing modes we were trying to create.

 

3.     At a more symbolic, macro level, how does your fiction film reflect or challenge the conventions of the genre or type you are working in? Will it fulfil the ‘contractual’ nature of film genre or will it subvert expectations deliberately?

 

I think that our piece will not challenge the thriller genre or it’s conventions, because we are using non-linear programs its makes it harder to pull off such things. I thought it worked very well sticking to the conventions as this ensures that audiences will fully understand the piece rather than watching it all and not understanding what it trying to be created, or not feel what it we are trying to make audiences feel for example tension.

 

4.     Are there any elements of deliberate pastiche or parody, where you ‘play’ with the genre’s codes and history? Are there any inter-textual moments where you hint at a reference to another film?

 

We have tried to keep the piece as simple as possible so it will be effective without having to have brilliant actors or the perfect equipment. At one point I was thinking that it may be effective to hint at the torturing scene in Casino Royale in which James Bond is sitting on chair frame and being hit by a rope in the genitals, this is because this scene from the prestigious James Bond film would be recognised by our target audience (as James Bond is a very similar genre to that of our piece) who would associate the brilliance from Casino Royale with our film. In the end it was not hinted at because people could have compared them and although it would not be a fair comparison, it could still show up our piece considerably.

5.      What kinds of audience pleasure are you trying to provide, and how confident are you that you have delivered on this promise?

We are trying to create a thrill for the audience, one which will provide tension, action and mystery. I think that we have reached this target successfully for a number of reasons, we have the tension which builds up as we see the kidnappers getting closer and closer to where the boy is, the audience will know what is going to happen but it is the build up which will provide this tension and suspense. We also have the action, the boy who is being kidnapped is tortured in a small dark room, this is not necessarily so pleasant for the audience but it helps to create a realistic and action packed image which is pleasurable. The final pleasure is the mystery and what is to come, this fast and action packed start to the film will ensure the audience wants to continue watching the film to experience more of what they have seen, but they will also be thinking about why the boy has been taken from his school and tortured, they will therefore get pleasure from wanting to know the reasons for all of this, and that will make the audience feel excited as well.

 

 

 

So Far - Aaron's Post

These past few weeks we have worked hard in order to meet our deadline for our coursework. We have filmed all of our needed sequences and also due to editing we have learnt the technical values of continuity as we have had a camara problem where the sequence shot had a slight glich however by cutting the shot we have managed to solve the problem.

The conventions and codes that we have tried adding to describe our genre is infact not just done by our props but done by our camara shots such as not showing the kidnappers face in the beginning and also by our lighting so that we can give a dim effect.

the main thing for our preliminary task ws to learn from our mistakes. One of the mistakes we have learnt was the dialogue and so we avoid any dialogue so that it did not sound bad. The way we have edited our film is also according to the way and when we want our music to come on e.g. in the beginning of the car scene we have no music because we want to hear the car engine.