Callum Leach's coursework evaluation

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

 We based our film on creating enigmas in the hope of increasing audience anticipation further making them want to watch the rest of the film - this is generally the purpose of thriller openings, although when I analysed 'Casino Royale' I felt a bit bored but it added to the intense ending of the opening. However the restricted narration of this works extremely well once the action kicks off in a flash back as the anticipation for action from the and audience is at it's peak. We wanted to build this into our opening, but it did not last any longer than 10 seconds (the mask scene). We incorporated this scene because we wanted to shock the audience when their suspense levels were high, thus putting them on edge for the rest of our thriller.

Also, from the first discussion about our thriller opening we wanted to build in flashbacks so the use of them in Casino Royale only encouraged us further to use this technique and make us develop those used in the film to give our own unique spin on it as I've never seen it done before. We took further inspiration from this opening about the us of dark colours and lighting to give a dark and sinister feel. To further this we added a vignette effect to prevent audience confusion, showing flashbacks clearly. This contributed to the mood of the scene, and also made the audience interpret the mood of the character as well. We needed to ensure that when filming we had similar weather/time of day so that we wouldn't break continuity, however with our tight schedules this was not always possible, so in post production we had to adjust the brightness of the shot.

These pictures show similarities, although we decided not to use a black and white filter as we didn't intend to show time.

In addition to this, we felt the iconography of putting the protagonist in dark clothes suggested a dark past so when discussing costume it was suggested that the protagonist wear all black to coincide with the lighting and colour, contributing to the persona of the character.

Similarly to Casino Royale and I am Legend, we decided not to give away the identity of the protagonist early on as we felt it would build on the enigma we were creating, making the audience ask "who is this guy?" much like I was when analysing the two films. In addition, we used an almost identical method of showing the protagonist as was done by Francis Lawrence in I am Legend, giving the audience their first real look at the protagonist through eye line match and facial expression, after establishing shots followed by a speeding car.

Medium shot

           
          Establishing shots

Birds eye view (unavailable to us)                                                

Speeding car

               

                       

               

                  

                     

   Close up           

                      
                Eyeline match






                          Extreme close up that breaks the 4th wall






We challenged the close up in I am Legend and replaced it with an extreme close up to give a more intimate relationship between protagonist and audience.


We used dramatic background music (like in 'Fast and Furious 7') to add intensity, restricted narration (like in 'I am Legend') to improve the enigma

(b) From the beginning we wanted to set the scene for our thriller, so when showing the logo for our production company we decided that it would work best to have total silence, like in the film Gravity. From personal experience, some movies can come across as tacky when sounds/tones accompany titles to advertise. The silence is broken when the title of the thriller appeared, accompanied by soft diagetic bird song. This is the calm before the storm, also giving the audience a chance to take in our title and establish a mood. The letters are spaced out, in capitals on an out of focussed shot, making the audience again ask questions.

(c) 

A simple yet memorable design that would hopefully symbolise well produced films.

Both throw the audience into disarray as the film could go anywhere from this point. This helps set the scene.

Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

After being in contact with several potential actors and weighing up our own schedule in relation to theirs we realised it would not work out and that it would be a better choice to simply play the roles ourselves, considering there was minimal real acting involved. This was not a problem because the persona of the protagonist matched well with myself - an older looking male. We chose this persona due to the stereotype surrounding it that young men are immature and the most likely to be causing trouble. We furthered this with costume - dark (possibly like his past) coloured typical clothes of a young person bring negative connotations of trouble makers and chavs. When choosing this costume I decided to use old clothes so I would come across as a lower class man who would do a lot of things for money, perhaps that's why he is running? This is inferred further by the low key lighting. During the shots of the protagonist running we wanted to use as many high shots as possible to make him seem vulnerable and give a feel to the audience that he is being chased by something bigger, stronger and more powerful than he is, much like the stereotype that this social group would get into those positions. In addition to this we used rapid cuts to give an intense feel.

We did this because we felt it would be an interesting character to create based on the context, moreover making the audience want to carry on watching after the first 2 minutes, so in this 2 minutes we did all we could to create the tip of the iceberg of this interesting character. In addition to this, we can relate to this character, so it allowed us to create a more realistic character. Also we considered having the antagonist in a suit to shower power, but instead represented him in a similar way as his power is inferred by the protagonist running. This can be seen in this shot where we broke the fourth wall to make the audience empathise with whoevers point of view they are seeing.

Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The production stage
To improve quality we may hire equipment and personnel to make the film as we are inexperienced.

The distribution stage
Our thriller would be partly distributed ourselves, taking advantage of the possibilities in this digital age, as new mobile devices, consoles and suppliers of films are very successful these days. To boost this we may pitch our thriller to distributers at free events such as indie wire and find a method of gaining more revenue and being able to pay distribution fees while still making a profit.

Film exhibition stage
It would be shown on mobile devices such as tablets, consoles such as Playstation 4s and through suppliers of films such as Sky. In addition to this it would possibly be shown in independent cinemas such as the Duke of Yorks in Brighton.





Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?
The narrative of our thriller is based on enigmas and uses a non-chronological order, making it very complex to follow. Along with the violence and mature themes, our thriller would be rated at least a 15. However, the target audience would be late teens to late twenties with no gender stereotypes considered. Anyone that enjoys movies that make you pay attention and think would be the bulk of our audience. With my favourite movie being Shutter Island, my main inspiration came from it as every time I watch it it keeps me engaged and on the edge of my seat asking questions I already know the answers to for 2 hours.








Question 6 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
In the preliminary task we had an issue with editing where we had to decompress video files. Luckily we learned from this and compressed all of our files before hand to save time.

Another major problem was that myself and Jake were unable to navigate Tony's files, making it impossible to edit whenever he was unavailable to help.





Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?
Loss of group member - for our prelim we had Max in our group, so with him leaving gave us a larger amount of work which we hadn't experienced during the prelim. Not only did this affect our blog, it affected our organisation as Max acted as the organiser for the prelim. Despite this being a negative in the short term, it has hopefully improved us ready for the second year coursework as we had an enhanced workload to cope with and we believe that it we produced a good quality product. To deal with this extra pressure we divided responsibilities to reduce stress and improve organisation. Tony, a photography student, took on the roll of camera operator, I took on the role of director as I wrote the storyboard and plot, me and Jake did most of the sound editing, finding copyright free music and creating foleys, and finally we all contributed to motion picture editing, however this was only doable when Tony was around as we could not navigate his files.



In the preliminary task we had an issue with editing where we had to decompress video files. Luckily we learned from this and compressed all of our files before hand to save time. Also we wanted to organise our files better than how we did in the prelim, however Tony created these in a way in which me and Jake could not follow as there was lower quality files in the wrong place and we did not want to put these into the product encase they effected quality.

 In addition to this, we had an issue with audio recording where our foleys and dialogue was low quality and almost inaudible, so instead of using it we rerecorded it. To prevent this happening again we connected an extra on board microphone as well as a microphone held by Jake to pick up background sound. All the of the equipment we used was our own as we were confident and familiar with it and we did not want to risk having more issues with the technicians equipment. The content that we have learnt since the preliminary task, particularly lessons on narrative helped us create a story board and work on what would be a good thriller opening.