Evaluation

Preliminary Task Evaluation:

Evaluation:

The finished preliminary task is above.  

I feel, especially because we only had 3 members in our group, that we were quite able to handle our roles without much hardship and difficulty.  Yusuf was in charge of the floor plan, Nathan was in charge of the Storyboard and I, Nile, was in charge of the script and where everything was going to be filmed.  

First of all, we all were going to do a prison scene in which involved drugs and one friend setting up another friend.  We then presented our idea to our media teacher and she helped us improve the film.  We ended up, as a group, deciding that we should make a, sort of, crime/comedy film containing a scam artist and the victim.  What mainly influenced our decision was all the crime shows my friend, Yusuf, watched.  

We had some difficulty when filming our film; because we had to film it in college we couldn't exactly expect there to be no background noise.  We had to put up with students and staff coming in and out of our shots.  At one point, we had to wait 20 minutes to film one scene because it was the lower school's lunchtime when we were filming and there were students needing to go toilet, students needing to go meet teachers and staff needing to walk past us as we were shooting.  Also, there was the issue of continuity in a sense that everyone had to be wearing the same clothes as they had on when we shot our first scenes and some of us came in to college wearing different clothes so we had to film every scene again - extremely tiring.  We also conformed to the 180 degree rule when filming mine and Yusuf's conversation in the room which was relatively easy.

The camera angles we used weren't too difficult to use.  We used the low-angle shot, high angle shots and POV (Point of View) shots.  We also used a dolly shot, which involved us using a school trolley, placing the camera on top of it and wheeling along the camera in the scene which has Yusuf walking down a corridor.  We used a CCTV shot but didn't include it in the final production because we realised it didn't exactly go too well with the match-on-action we had to have in this film.  This was probably the most difficult shot because we didn't have anything to place the camera onto, Nathan (the cameraman) had to stand on a chair, holding the camera above his head in order to film it - it took us numerous attempts.

Overall, our preliminary task did go according to plan.  I just wish we had a bit more time to really edit the shots and get the camera angles we needed.  I think if I had another chance to do this, I would concentrate more on the camera angles we actually needed and how an actual film is shot - in other words, do a bit more research!  

Main Task Evaulation

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

Our movie was of the action/thriller genre and we've communicated this through various camera angles, shot types and other conventional action/thriller methods.

Firstly, to start our film, we have a shot of our character (Ryan Lawson) running.  The low angle shot of his feet are conventional of an action/thriller because it produces a sense of mystery.  Also, you can't hear the footsteps, you can only hear the heartbeat which adds to the idea of mystery.  As the audience, you don't know where or what he's running to, you just know that Ryan must be running to or from something because his heartbeat is speeding up.  Also, we made sure the camera was behind the character as he was running to indicate that maybe somebody was after him.

The title sequences, influenced from "Mr and Mrs Smith" and "Enemy of the State", are key in our film because it tells the audience which genre they're watching.  You wouldn't find "Clissold Park, London   4:35pm" in a comedy or a rom-com.  We also used a "soft-edge" transition for the title because we wanted to represent the type-writer theme; that's how close we could get to representing that. 

    Mr and Mrs Smith (Title Sequence)

    We integrated this title sequence into our film because we liked the calm, silent, mysterious font and arrangement.   For example, the small font and the cut-to-black scenes.

 

Question 2: How does your product represent particular social groups?

In our film, we concentrated on the nature of a adolescent 16 teen.  It represents the vulnerability of young adults and how easily they're put into certain situations.  It relates to the film "Enemy of the State" relating to how easily an ordinary young person can be put into situations that threaten their life completely, changing their world forever.
We've also represented the social group relating to the government.  We've represented them as people who are omniscient; they know who you're talking to, they know where you're going and they know when you're going there.  We represented this in the last part of our opening sequence by having Ryan Lawson just returning home and a few seconds later, the audience see an unknown person knocking on the door telling the audience why he has been running so frantically through the park home.

Question 3: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 4: How did you attract/address your audience?

In this establishing shot, we have Ryan running frantically avoiding contact with two extras in our film.

This appeals to the young generation of the audience because it relates to their agility and they can relate to it how scared Ryan must feel.

In this 360 degree low angle shot of Ryan's face, the audience feel as if people everywhere are watching him because in the shot, Ryan's looking around like somebody who believes everybody's watching it.  The audience feel the sense of paranoia too and this is what people look for when they go and see a thriller.

The black screen in this part of the film creates the suspense the audience want.  Mr and Mrs Smith influenced this title sequence and I feel as if it makes a thriller a thriller. 
You, as the audience, are left in mid-air, in a sense, and aren't quite sure what happens next.

In this scene, the trees give the audience a horror kind of feel.  We also planned this shot because we saw that the tree to the bottom right looked a lot like a crucifix and we wanted to show this because the film is about running from the law.  Ryan is running from the rules in a way.  We were quite lucky to find a tree that looked like this as not many trees grow in this way.  We chose this location and the shot carefully.  The overcast weather and the trees give the audience a sense that this film is going to be quite a dark thriller. 

Question 5: What kind of media institution would distribute your film and why?

Well, I've done some research into action films and some of the films that have influenced our film (Enemy of the State and Mr and Mrs Smith) and have noted down the media institutions that have contributed into making their films.

Warner Brothers have distributed films such as: Batman The Dark Knight, Harry Potter Films, I Am Legend and Jack The Giant Slayer and these are all some of the highest grossing films of all time and that's we've decided to go with this distribution ompany.

20th Century Fox distributed films such as X-men: First Class, Avatar, Taken 2 and A Good Day To Die Hard and these films were also massive in the cinemas and the box office.  The movie Avatar made a masive box office profit so we've decided to go with these two distribution companies as they'll be able to promise us a massieve box office proit.

Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Summit Entertainment are a few of the distribution companies we have chosen to possibly invest our money in.  We have chosen to invest our money in 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers because they can promise us a mass audience and a huge box office profit; also, they'll be able to successfully distribute our film to many people and have the money to advertise our film online,

We wouldn't go with a distribution firm like Summit Entertainment because they're more of an independent company and wouldn't be able to offer us a mass audience, they'd be able to offer us a niche audience and that's not what we're after as a blockbuster company.

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

How I've used technology in my film. by nilewilliams on GoAnimate

Animated Presentations - Powered by GoAnimate.

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



Below, is the clip from our opening sequence I couldn't embed into my Prezi presentation.  The clip is about the 180 degree rule which proved to work very effectively in our opening sequence.