Thiller Opening Sequence (Final Product)

Evaluation Question 7

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

In the preliminary task that we were asked to produce was a few seconds long however, the opening sequence that we produced is a two minutes thriller opening sequence. In the progression from the preliminary task to the actual thriller opening sequence I learnt a lot in terms of use of camera angles and different types of shots that made it look more effective and realistic. I didn’t know much about the use of camera angles during the start when we produced our preliminary task which led to it not being to a great standard. It was because in the beginning I didn’t know much about the camera angles, editing and shooting which reflected on our work clearly.  During my progression from the preliminary task to the actual thriller opening I did a lot of research into the actual codes and conventions of a thriller which was vital for the thriller to look realistic.

For the shooting of the preliminary task we used an IPad and the quality of the camera of the IPad was not that great which didn’t make it look professional. However, learning from this we made sure that we used a professional HD camera which made the quality far better in comparison to what we got from the IPad. This was partly because of less knowledge about of the task that we were supposed to do as we didn’t know what was best for it. Also, I thought more about the mis-en-scenes, props and costumes which are essentials for a film in order to make it look more realistic and relatable for the audience to enjoy it. In our preliminary task we didn’t really focus on those things and looked at it in much more detail during our research of thriller openings. For example, we filmed our opening sequence in a more realistic location (a house) and our actors were wearing casual clothes according to the need of the shot. We avoided the mis-en-scene in all of our shots.

In progression from my preliminary task I learned that target audience plays a vital role for a movie to be successful as it should meet all the criteria of a thriller film. We didn’t have much time during the making of our preliminary task to do a questionnaire for our target audience, however doing a questionnaire for our opening sequence helped us gain some feedback from the target audience which then we were able to apply to our opening. We kept the interests of the target audience in mind throughout in order to meet all the wants and needs of the audience. Doing the preliminary task was very useful as it helped us develop our skills in terms of research on what is expected.

Throughout the process of developing my skills I also learned how to use IMovie. As for our preliminary task I used the editing app on the IPad which didn’t have many features which could be added to create an effect, however, this wasn’t the issue with our main task as now we learnt from the previous task and used a Mac to do our editing, which had a lot more features then what was there on the IPad. This allowed us to use many different features that weren’t available on the IPad. After the completion of our final product my skills strengthened and I think I am capable of editing to very high standards as now I can apply several different transitions and editing procedures such as using ‘match-cuts’, ‘fade out’ without any visual failures as well as using the ‘180 degree rule’ which at first I was struggling to understand.  We also felt comfortable trying different editing apps in order to make our piece look effective.

During our preliminary task there was an issue with time as we didn’t get much time to film our preliminary task which then as a result wasn’t to a great standard. Despite this task we decided that we will have deadlines set for our main piece in order to have enough time for each part including filming and editing. However, this was still sometimes a problem as my team wasn’t able to collaborate with each other and give enough time to work. This lead to us being lacking behind in terms of our deadlines but we didn’t let that become an issue and tried to finish all the other things like blogging in the meantime, which also made me learn the importance of time.

Overall, to sum up everything, throughout both productions I learned many skills from editing to camerawork and I believe I have developed all the skills to a high standard which also benefitted my work. However, I believe the thing that affected us most was the use of tripod which helped us to get still/controlled shots which focused on the actual piece. I think I improved thoroughly from the preliminary task to the main product in terms of all the media aspects.

 

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this produc

t?

Hardware: we used a digital SLR camera to do our filming. The first day of our filming we had a bit of problem using a professional camera as none of us was fully aware of its functions and features. There were a variety of settings that could adjust the lighting and the clarity of the picture. It had to be set to auto in order for it to work with the lighting and suit the settings. When we started filming we weren’t aware of the tripod which we came to realise about later. The shots that we did without a tripod, holding the camera in hand were very wobbly and not clear. This wasn’t visible on the camera itself but when we watched it on computer we realised that it hadn’t come out that well. However, when we filmed with a tripod it made the videos more stable and helped us to get clearer shots. During this process, I learned the importance of a tripod and how it makes the shooting easy and handy. The camera we used had a much better quality of shots then when we used an IPad. The quality was not as clearer and it had no feature to fix the lighting of th shot. The IPad was the mini step towards the using a professional camera. During the process of filming i also learned how to use a tripod, as when we started our filming we were filming everything by holding the camera in our hands. However, after learning about the tripod we used it to film which helped us get more stable and clear shots as compared to the shots we had dont without using the tripod. I was succesfully able to use a tripod for our filming.

Previously, for our preliminary task I used IMovie for editing on the IPad which had very less features compared to the windows movie maker that we used for our final product. At first, we faced some problems with the editing as we didn’t know many features that were there to use. Many of the transitions in the movie maker looked faked when we used them on our product however, I realised that editing was very time consuming and had to be done with full concentration. Th vido overall was good but i think it would have worked better for us if we edited on the macs instead of movie maker as the features which are provided on macs are not there on movie maker. Also, IMovie has more transitions that can be put in between to make the video look more effective.

I used many different internet sites such as: blogger, Prezi, YouTube. I was familiar with YouTube but I had never uploaded videos on it which was a new experience for me but it was not as much challenging. Before this I had never used blogger before. It was a totally new website to me and it was at first hard to get on board with it because of the things that couldn’t happen on blogger. I had to write everything on word and then copy paste it. I had also never used prezi before which was a new experince for me. Prezi has its own way of making things look more efective and attractive. Its similar to what we do on powerpoint but the layout is what stands out. Overall, the sites and editors that i used taught a few new things and some of which helped me to gain more knowldge about its use.

Overall, I learnt a lot about technologies in the process of constructing our final product. It was challenging at first but I found a way around it. I gained a bit more knowledge on how to use IMovie on apple and how to add different features to it. In terms of blogger, I learnt how to create your own blog and publish things to it. Whenever, I use all these technologies next it would be a lot more easier and smoother than it was the first time. After using all thse products and website to make our media product as effective i came to learn that its not an easy task to make a film as it has many before and after processes that need to be kept in mind while thinking to start filming. The little aspects of technology can effect the media product emmensly.

Evaluation Question 4 and 5

Evaluation Question 3

 

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our thriller film the social groups that we focused on were gender, age, sex, and ethnicity. The main protagonist in our film is a female which is less often in films in general as females are presented as the weaker sex. They are damsel in distress who needs to be saved by a male character in a movie. Therefore, we experimented with gender roles by having a main female protagonist, who is a victim as well as her own saviour. She doesn’t need a male character to come save her day as she herself does the job and has power of her own role.

During my research I ascertained that mainstream media products like Donnie Darko and seven which are action-thrillers have a male dominant character. However, other films like the hunger games and the boy next door the main character is the female and they aren’t portrayed as weaklings. Similarly, for our thriller films we conform to the stereotype of thriller films. We wanted to go against the norms and create something that the audience wouldnt normally see in a thriller. We decided to use a female main character as i believe it will also help the female audience of our film to relate to it more. This challenges the idea of always seeing a male protagonist in the film. Women usuallty in films are shown as damsel in distress and are treated as sex obejects by men. They are always in the background being the lead man's love ineterest, there costumers are always revealing short dresses or bikini to make them look more appealing to the leading man.

The character in our piece is opposite of that is not in backgroud opposite a lead man. She is the lead herself however she still does conform to some extent because of her victimised state. Another main aspect of challenging social groups is that the main character Mary is Asian which is not what we usually expect to see in films. Asian people are usually presented as baddie's and they are in the background. They are always mocked and made fun of in films for example in the tv series The big bang theory the character of Raj is always made fun of, although he is one of the main characters he still joked with and bullied by his other mates. Even though the main character of our piece is an Asian she hasnt got the typical asian accent and subverts the stereotype as she was born and rasied in the UK which allows her to get the proper british accent and this applies to both of our main characters.

The female character in our thriller film is portrayed in a positive light and not as the bad person. Similarly, the second character of Maya her friend is also portrayed as a friendly person. As our film features teenagers this might to some extent limit our target audience as the adults critics might argue that the content is not what an adult might prefer to see and it might be boring for them. Because the main characters our teenagers this allows us to attract teenagers above the age of 15. Our female character is similar to that of Mary Rose who represents power and control over her own character throughout the film.

Evaluation Question 1