Final Film

When looking back at our film we decided we didn't like certain aspects of it. For example we didn't like the order of the footage we thought that it seemed too simplistic so we decided to film some more footage and change the order. 

We decided to film some more close up shots in the darkroom and we wanted to film some shots that almost make the audience anticipate what is going to happen. You can seen this when the shots include the stop solution, this can be seen in a couple of shots in the opening. We really like the effect that this creates. We also changed the order of the opening by breaking the park scene up into pieces and merging them with the darkroom scenes to make it seem like they are flashbacks which makes the storyline easier to understand and follow. We also filmed a point of view shot of the girl being killed and falling to the floor we thought this would be really effective because we have the idea of slowing it down and putting it just before the title which when we put it together seemed to run really smoothly. 

We also changed the font our title was in because we decided that the old font didn't really match our film the way we wanted it to, by changing it the title is now much clearer and simplistic which matches the credits.  

Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 
Technical Difficulties
Some technical difficulties that we happened to encounter was that when filming some shots there wasn't enough light in the scene and the space was too small for us to put lights in there also we found that the camera would run out of charge quickly which meant that we were against the clock. Also when it came to editing Premiere Pro was sometimes hard to understand when comparing it to iMovie which is more simplistic but less effective. We also had to work on the same Mac every time we edited our film because it was saved to that particular Mac which made it hard when for some reason we couldn't use it. In addition sometimes we found that when it came to editing the clips that we filmed they were alot darker and quieter then we thought so we had to edit them which altered the quality of the footage making it look terrible, this then caused us to re-film these clips.
Software and hardware
The software that we used was Premiere Pro. We decided to use this because we found that you could do alot more with it compared to iMovie. One problem with this software was that because it was so advanced we found that sometimes we didn't know what we were doing so we had to look at YouTube videos explaining how to use it. We used my own camera which is a Nikon D5200, with this camera we found that it was easier to use because i already knew how to use it and the footage that we filmed with it was high quality, which made out end product look professional.
Shots and edits
One shot that I was really proud of was the close up of the murder weapon which is being dropped by the hooded figure, we decided to use a slow motion effect on this shot because we thought that it would emphasise the importance of the weapon. We found that it was easy to do this on Premier Pro and looked really effective. I also really liked the way that we edited the shots of the man tying his shoe laces, what i mean by this was that we edited them together so the action of his hand would flow smoothly through the two shots. I like these shots because we managed to cut the clips accurately to make them flow.

Improvements
The improvements I would make to our product are edit the shots so they are more effective and snappy, grabbing the attention of the audience. This would also make our product seem more appealing and would include more conventions of the thriller genre.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?
When deciding what type of film we wanted to make, we found that our decisions were influenced by our own age group. Because we are 16/17 we found that we were naturally attracted to films that were most commonly associated with our age group and those of which we found appealing, we thought that choosing a genre of film this way would make making the film, and coming up with ideas a lot easier, in addition we thought that it would be easier to make the film opening/story line attractive to us because we would be seen as part of the target audience. The genres we found that were more attractive to our age group were either rom-coms or thrillers. In the end we decided to chose the thriller genre because we thought it would be easier to make it appealing and exciting to the target audience. We also wanted to target females in our target audience because we found that thrillers were popular with males but not females and we wanted our film to be a film that was different. We made our film attractive to females by having a female main character, she is also being presented as being the protagonist of the story. We thought by having a woman in our film that our film would be targeting females because they would be able to relate to them more then a male viewer would.
We also thought that by having an interesting storyline we would attract more people. When choosing  our storyline we wanted it to be something that was different, that is why we decided to have the main character being crazy and slightly mental. We thought this wouldn't be expected by the audience and therefore would be really good and would make the film attractive. When looking at characters in our film we had both male and females which attracts a wide range of people.
The shots that we have used include a close up of the main characters eyes looking straight into the camera which makes it seem like she is looking directly at the audience and therefore make it more appealing because she is literally staring the audience in the face, which directly addresses the audience. There is also a point of view shot which puts the audience in the characters shoes which I think allows the audience to feel what the character is feeling and then again directly addresses the audience.

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Question 1

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

Narrative

Our narrative uses a non linear structure which isn't as common as linear. Our narrative is non linear because as you can see in the opening you see the killing which is stereotypically in the middle and if it would have been in the middle then our narrative would have a linear narrative because the climax would be in the centre of the story. Our film has the climax at the start and then the rest of the film includes the resolution. We challenged the conventions of a linear structure by adding flash backs in the opening while she is developing the photo, you see what she thinks is a killing. This highlights that our narrative doesn’t have a linear structure. Our film is in chronological order but then again we challenged the conventions of the stereotype by adding flashbacks. We liked the narrative that was used in the film Identity which in the opening shows the audience a lot of different information to do with the film and then spends the rest of the film explaining the pieces of information that was introduced to the audience in the opening, we thought it worked really effectively and creates suspense and confusion. We also challenged the stereotypes of the thriller genre by having a female protagonist, but then it also conforms to the stereotype by having a male protagonist. We also really liked the idea of our main character turning out to be mental unstable which in some cases could imply that she is the antagonist of the story and therefore again challenged the stereotype of the thriller genre. 

Sound

Within our opening we have included eerie sounds for example dripping water which we think creates suspense, this therefore conforms to the conventions of a thriller because the sounds within a thriller film are supposed to create suspense to the audience. We also used the sound of the camera clipping which links to our narrative because our main character is a photographer. By using this sound I think it makes our film challenge the conventions of real media products because I think photographers aren’t normally seen in thrillers but then again there has been occasions where photographers are in thriller films as stalkers and therefore they become a convention of the genre. The music we have chosen for our opening I think conforms to the stereotype because it creates suspense and entices the audience because there is a climb in the music when the title of the film in introduced to the audience. 

Location

Our opening starts off with the photographer in the darkroom we think the idea of the darkroom conforms to the stereotype because it is a dark and unknown location, it also has the typical red light which suggests to the audience that something bad is going to happen. The darkroom is also quite a secluded place and it’s also very mysterious in the way that you don’t know what is going to happen when developing photo which adds to the atmosphere and adds to the suspense of the opening. So having our opening partly set in a dark room conforms to the stereotype of real media products. We also used a park as the other location, I think this challenges the conventions because a park is typically scene as a happy and bright place where children can play together, but within our opening we have completely subverted the idea of a park and made it dark and almost abandoned which then helps it meet the conventions of real media products because it is almost scary and that makes the opening climatic.  

Editing

Within our editing we decided to make our shots snappy to create suspense and builds up tension for the audience this is a convention of real media products and we found that when we used this technique in our opening it really attracts the audience and makes them aware that it is a thriller. We also added a red tint on the darkroom scenes which adds to the narrative and the colour red is a convention of the genre because it denotes danger and death. 

Shots

We used a lot of close up shots which is a convention of real media products as you can see in the opening of the film Identity. Close up shots create suspense and almost makes the shot more personal. There is also a point of view shot that is used in our film which is another convention of the genre, this shot puts the audience into the characters shoes and allows them to be more effected by what happens in the film. We have tried to use a range of shots throughout the opening to our film. We have used long/establishing shots to introduce a setting which is a stereotypical shot to use.

Credits and Titles

We went for bold fonts for our titles and the name of the film because we wanted it to stand out. We liked the idea of the letters coming one by one in the title of the film as you can see in our film, we got this idea from the film Identity, we thought it would look quite effective. We also used white font to make it stand out against the background and we liked the idea of the film Shutter Island’s title, with it against the plain background. I think by doing this the audience notices the title easily because there isn’t anything else to look at.  

Post Production: Editing and sound

Target Audience Feedback

Target Audience Feedback

We decided to get some feedback on our first version of our film so we randomly selected people to view the film opening and give feedback on it. What we gained from this feedback is that our  storyline wasn't clear and that the audience didn't really know anything about the dog walker which we thought would be effective because it is an opening to the film. Also we also found that our music wasn't right in some places so it ended up sounding unedited. what we will do now is go back and change the sound so it flows better and sounds more professional to the audience. When we discussed what we could do to change the amount of information the audience knows about the storyline and characters we decided to not change it because we thought it would be effective for the audience to find out about the character throughout the rest of the film, this therefore makes the audience want to what the end of the film because there are so many unanswered questions. 

Film Edit 1

Character Costumes

When filming we tried to stick to our planning as much as possible when it came to the costumes. We wanted the "bad guy", Terrance to be dressed in black clothing so we had a black hoodie and black jeans, exactly what we planned.We had him looking down in the photo because it acts as a character profile and makes him come across as mysterious and within the film opening his head is always down. We also added black trainers instead of black boots because we thought the shoe tying scene would look a lot better and it was more convenient. 

We included the camera as a prop in this photo. We followed the plan when filming because we had her wearing neutral colours. With the outfit for the dog walker we also tried to follow our plans by having loads of layers including a scarf and a hat, we thought that by having loads of layers the character would come across as being innocent.

Ident

For our ident we decided to join our second names, Tyson and Ratcliffe to create the name Ryson and we found when researching dents that the name is normally followed by either entertainment or productions. Also when choosing the font we decided to pick one that was simple and recognisable.  We then inverted the image so the background was black and the writing was white, we chose to do this because it highlights to the audience wha type of genre the film could be. The darker colour implies that there is something shady about the film and possibly the characters, which intact is true about our main character. In addition we thought that the white font stands out more on the black background compared to the white background. We positioned the text both at the top and the bottom so we would be able to put a picture in the middle which we thought would make it look professional and effective. the reasons why we decided to put an image of giraffes under and tree was that we thought that it completely contradicts the genre of the film so if our production company was real it would be effective for all genres and types of films.                 

Titles

When choosing a font for our title we wanted something that represented the thriller genre so we researched some names of thrillers and tried to pick a font that was popular within the films that we researched. 

We used a website called DaFont and chose three different fonts so we could choose between them and experiment to see what we could do with them. We also noticed that this text was a lot like The Maze Runner Scorch Trials title, in a way it looked slightly destroyed and falling apart, which suggests to the audience the theme of danger is prominent in our film opening. 

When we chose our text we decided to invert it on photoshop, therefore the text would be white instead of black. We wanted it to be like this due to the fact that the text would be on a black background and we desired it to contrast against it. Furthermore, in order to represent the theme of good and evil which will be a fluent theme throughout the opening.

Ident research

For our ident we decided to research some famous dents so we could get some ideas. When looking at Lionsgate ident i liked the bold lettering which was located in the centre of the frame. I also liked the contrast of colour between the lettering and the background, it is really effective because it makes title stand to, this implies that the name is important. Then I looked at Paramount a thought that small writing wasn't effective on the other hand i thought that the moving picture was really effective and made a easy transition between the blank screen and the titles. The setting is also neutral which allows the ident to fit with any film which is produced. 

The Universal ident uses bold font which makes the name stand out therefore it is very effective because the audience notice it and remembers the name. The dark background also makes the title stand out and there is the idea of space which i think suggests that the ident is aim at everyone and that it is 'Universal'. 

The Fox ident has a sky line of a a city in the background which allows the ident to be more realistic and attractive to the audience. The title is lit up and is white which again makes it stand out against the background. 

The ideas i have got from these idents is to use light coloured font because if i would have a dark background it would stand out, also i will be aiming to create one which is universal so could be used to any type of genre of film. 

Risk Assessment

call sheets