EVALUATION

Q1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.

Below are 9 stills from our title sequence 'The Duo'.

Below there are shots from the title sequence of the film Se7en. Like our title sequence in 'The Duo' it gives snapshots into what the film is going to be like. In Se7en there are lots of extreme close-ups and they give off the sense of what the film is going to be about which is a crime thriller following a rather psychotic murder who kills following the seven sins.

The soundtrack is also very tense like ours it gives the feeling of suspense and again helps the audience realize what is likely to happen in the film to come after the titles. Even if a viewer went into the cinema without any knowledge of what the film was actually about they would know instantly when the titles start playing.

The titles also highlight the key people who took part in the making of the film such as the actors and the director.

In Se7en we don't see any costumes or the faces of actors all we see is a lot of detailed mise en scene and character's fingers and hands. The micro details in Se7en's title sequence are amazing, we can even see the skin being peeled away from the tips of fingers and the movements of the pen as it writes onto paper.

We developed and changed this in our title sequence so that the audience could see much more of what was going on and detail on a wider scale. Our sequence is also more easier to identify what is going on and what is likely to happen in the film.

Here is the URL to the actual title sequence for Se7en:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY

Overall our title sequence is an actual film with titles added in which makes it more of an introduction to a film while in Se7en it is more of a montage that gives ideas and clues to what the actual film would be like.

Q2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product does identify the stereotypical image of the girl being under threat from an intruder who is a man. In the film Halloween we can see the intruder dressed in dark clothing and almost always sticking to the darkness just like our film 'The Duo'. This is another classic interpretation that the bad characters in films always wear dark colours and present a dark image about themselves and an almost ghostly quiet feel. Our own 'bad' character in our film presents this same image as being the quiet killer. It wouldn't make sense to have a bad character in a film dressed in bright happy colours would it? The dark clothing also emphasizes the dark nature of the character that most bad guys in films often portray.


This can be seen in the picture on the left from Halloween of an intruder wearing a mask who is seen in the film gaining access into the house and chasing after the woman obviously trying to kill her. We see in the photo that he is wearing dark clothing that don't outline his natural body shape which gives him an almost alien look which makes him all the more scary. The mask that the character wears also adds to the scary feel that the character presents because it gives the character the inability to show emotions because of the mask. It is almost as if he is locked in a single emotion
constantly.








This is similar to our killer in our title sequence
is wearing a hoodie shown on the right. This is a rather stereotypical approach to creating an evil character as we often identify people who wear hoods as bad or rather a nuisance individuals and an annoyance to everyone else. But the black that our character also wears helps block out the shadows normally created if he were to wear a different colur and thus we can't easily define his shape which again creates the similar feeling of an abnormal figure instead of a human.

In comparison the character played by Jamie Lee Curtis is dressed in light clothing that helps emphasize the differences in attitudes and emotions that both characters present to the audience. Where one character has evil intentions and the other is simply the victim. The character played by her also feels more open and absolutely not another bad character. The fact that she is dressed in light casual everyday clothing shows how little she was expecting the attack.

The female character in the film Halloween shown on the left however is shown in a very different way from the killer. She is shown in coloured clothing separating her easily from the killer as instead of dark colours the light colours give off a sense of openness about her. However this makes her all the more a likely victim of such a dark character who is played by Nick Castle in the film Halloween.


This is the same for the female character in our title sequence shown on the right. For example she is the only character that we see the mostly bathed in light from inside the house while the intruder is almost always sticking to the darkness. A key mise en scene is the use of two different types of socks of different colours when we see her lean over to turn on the tap in the bathroom to fill the bath with water. This shows her as spontaneous and probably a character with a very bubbly personality making her all the more likely to be a victim of a crime. She presents a typical character to be placed in the spot of the unexpecting victim.

In our film we used classic interpretations to allow audiences to better understand the overall feel of the film. Many directors also use this kind of method in their professional films sometimes. It film is simply to scare people and not dwell on the complexity that many thriller and films involving murder often consist of today.

Our actual titles were done on black backgrounds and flickered. It created the effect of suspense and tension. This is also similar to some other films that use black backgrounds for titles that cut away from the actual title sequence instead of putting the titles ontop of the sequence itself.

Q3 & Q4) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

www.facebook.com

http://twitter.com/

http://www.youtube.com/

Q5) Who would be the audience for your media product?

A key aspect of probably any member of our potential audience is the love or at least general interest in horror/psychological thriller's and also be between the ages of 16 and 27.

For example:


"Tony is 18 years old but looks much older than his actual age. He has
two younger brothers and one younger sister. Enjoys any genre of film especially thrillers and comedies. He works part-time at a restaurant while studying at college and shops at Next, Topshop and Zara. He treasures his ability and love for rock-climbing and occasional snowboarding overseas. He is interested in business and studies it in his free time. He also has an interest in art and anything to do with mechanics. He is finishing his last year at college and studying Film, photography and psychology.

He enjoys almost any kind of music genre but especially rock n' roll and
jazz and likes getting free stuff as he knows how hard it is to get anything for free these days. He often watches movies and downloads music on the internet but if he really likes a particular song or movie he will go out and buy it from a store. Tony also is a huge fan of technology, from mobile phones to computers if it has some form or another of electricity running through it he knows about it. "















I think a person such as the one above would enjoy the film because he clearly likes thriller films and is no doubt to any opportunity to see one.



I also think that because of the slight stereotypical attitude of the film it will be easy for a viewer of his age to relate to the characters in the film.

Q6) What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The Camera

In the beginning of the whole process we had to learn how to use the camera equipment which was from JVC. Then came the lighting which was vitally important in especially our film as we were filming at night. We had to intergrate them both together so that the lighting equipment lit the scene in just the right way so that the camera could capture it without it looking grainy and out of focus and eventually unable to use.

Using the Software

After we had finished filming and checked that we had all the clips we needed we could start on using the software to finish it all up and piece it all together. We started with using Final Cut Pro to upload all our clips and begin sorting them out into separate sections. We then started using the cut tool to delete of the parts of the individual clips that we didn't need and began piecing them all together to make the whole film.

Once we had roughly put together all the clips we started on the titles. To do the titles we had to use Live Type ad do each title individually then save them as Quicktime movie files and import them into Final Cut Pro which we then placed in between the clips of film

where we wanted the titles to be and re-saved the file again to make sure we didn't lose anything we had done so far.

After finishing doing the titles on Live Type and making sure that our overall title sequence was not more than 2 minutes long we started on the soundtrack. To make the soundtrack for our title sequence we had to use Soundtrack Pro. Once we had it loaded up we had to decide what we wanted our soundtrack to achieve and the feelings they had to promote to
the audience and we knew that our soundtrack had to promote the sense of suspense in the film.
Once we had decided on this we had to start putting it together and to do this we had to choose individual instruments or sounds and put them together on the timeline and make sure that they flowed together perfectly without losing beat. We also had to import our final title sequence with all the clips including the titles put together to Soundtrack Pro so that we could make sure the sound played at the right time during the film. We added fade in and fade outs to the beginning and ending of some of our tracks for added effect and we also added the sound of a heartbeat near the end of the film again to add more suspense and also because it would have been impossible to record a real human heart using the equipment we had.





Once we had finished the whole soundtrack we had to export it and import it to Final Cut Pro to add it to our overall sequence and complete the whole editing process. Finally we had to export our finished product with the soundtrack from Soundtrack Pro, titles from Live Type and the clips put together on Final Cut Pro to a Quicktime movie file so that it can be put on Blogger and also played outside of the editing software.

Q7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Comparing two different types of shots of two identical phones, in this case two mobile phones.

The image on the left is a close up of a handphone from our preliminary film 'Phone Call'. The shot in itself is not very interesting, there are no other aspects of mise en scene to be seen accept for obviously the table that the phone is ontop of. It also is not in very good focus as we can't see the keypad clearly, however the idea was to only have the screen clearly visible so that the audience's gaze will only be directed at the screen and not the keypad. This was obviously a mistake as it makes the shot not look very professional.

The shot on the right of another mobile phone from our final title sequence 'The Duo' is far better. In this shot every aspect of the mise en scene including every aspect of the mobile phone is clearly visible in stunning detail. Unlike the shot above there is also another piece of mise en scene that the phone is lying on which is a towel that one of our characters brought in with her into the bathroom. Although it is only one additional item it flourishes in rich texture that adds complexity to the shot and thus makes it more interesting. The phone is also at a slight angle and also propped up by the towel which also adds to this. Also this time instead of making sure the viewers gaze was on the screen of the phone, we allowed the audience's eyes to freely look over the shot and the detail in it before being drawn to the phone suddenly by it starting to ring.

What I learned:

In this simple comparison I learned that the closer the audience is to a scene the more detail there must be in it to keep the viewer interested. I also learned to keep everything in focus regardless and trust the viewer to allow their eyes to find the object that is of most importance in the shot.

Comparing clips of using a mobile phone.

On the above there is a short clip of a character answering a call from her mobile phone from our preliminary film 'Phone Call'. In the clip we see that the camera doesn't move much, infact not at all, it continuously stays in the same position with the audience looking at the left side of the character's face for the entire phone call. Afterwards we quickly realised that this would make the viewer quickly lose interest in the scene unfolding before them.

On the below the first one is a similar clip where the female character from our final film 'The Duo' is also answering a phone call. But in this clip there is alot more variety, for example when she answers the phone the camera tracks upwards towards her face as she turns around while answering the phone and then we cut to where the camera is leading the character into the other room while we can still see her talking on the phone. We also see her moving from dark to light areas as she moves from the bathroom to the hall and into the bedroom. All this adds detail and variety to the shot again making it more interesting and more likely to keep the viewers engaged.

What I learned:

Like the comparison between the two still shots of the two phones it is important to maintain variety within the shots so the viewer does not become bored and also it makes a more better and realistic film to watch in general because of the added mise en scene.

Comparing characters moving to different locations.

The last two clips are of two scenes where we have characters moving from one location to another.

On the top again we have a clip from 'Phone Call' where we see two characters leaving a room after having a conversation. In the clip the camera remains stationary the whole time. Again after filming and editing and watching the finished preliminary task a few times over we noticed that this made it very boring and feel overly long because of again the lack of variety in the way the camera was placed and the lack of different kinds of shots. We also noticed that the lighting in the shot was very dim and we could hardly see the actors faces or the mise en scene around them except for when thery were seated at the table. Our initial plan was to only light the characters when they were at the table but this quickly became obvious that it wasn't a very good idea as it made the scene look artificial and fake.

We remembered these mistakes and took note of them when making our final title sequence 'The Duo'. Shown below the first one video is the area where we perhaps used what we had learnt the most. It is also the most comparable part of the whole sequence as it also features a character moving from one location to another. In the clip we can see that there is again a lot more variety in the use of different camera shots and angles although we purposely made sure that the face of this particular character was not in view of the audience. We also used lighting much more effectively. It was especially important because we were filming outside in the dark and needed to use lighting equipment to be able to light the scene effectively but without losing the feeling that it is set at night. This is where our preliminary task came into play as it taught us a lot about how to use lighting to its fullest potential. The multiple different camera shots and angles again kept the audience interested in this relatively uneventful scene and also helped create the mood of suspense that we really wanted which was another thing we learnt from watching our preliminary clips. And finally the lessons we learned from lighting made sure that we could light the scene perfectly so the viewers could see what was going on and yet still acknowledge that it is dark all around.

What I learnt:

From our preliminary clip to our final title sequence I learnt how to use lighting to effectively light a scene and not lose the sense of darkness at the same time. Also how to use different camera shots to add interest to a uneventful scene and also varying the frequency of the cuts between camera shots to create suspense.

Q8) Audience feedback and comment.

Before and after the film we as a group recieved a lot of comments and feedback from the people who saw it.

Below is a video comment from a member of the audience who saw the film the day it was shown and it was after we had returned to college:

Below are a few points raised by multiple members of the audience who saw the film in the cinema and also before it was shown in the cinema:

• we liked the camera angles because they’re executed very well and give an in depth view of the individual characters. Suspense was created very well because of excellent use of match cut.


• The acting could be improved, as she is part of the mise en scene. There were parts were the acting wasn’t very realistic, maybe having used more shots and camera views. Or even keeping the acting very short, like the use of dialogue.


• Yes, guy and girl. Scared girl. Hooded guy. Quite typical story line as well as stereotype, there was an interesting twist because of props used.


• 15-20 young adults at the most


• intense, cliché, urban


• Good continuity, the camera action followed on smoothly from each other and it all made sense.


• Lighting could have been improved by making the hallway and certain areas darker


• Sound at the start could have been better matched to the actions


• The bad guy was wearing black and hooded (sterotype)


• Similar to panic room in the sense that someone is becoming a victim in their own house


• This would be best for 15+ interested in crime/drama


• Tense, Dramatic, Cliché, Sinister, Eary


• Sound was very atmospheric in places and created a sense of suspense. Sound delivered when it needed to, sent shivers down your spine.


• Could have made the transition of the girl spotting the man better, as I didn’t quite grasp that she saw him.


• 15+16.


• Dark, suspenseful, surprise, horror, discomforting


• good location, good use of props, lighting angles, cupboard.


• soundtrack could have been improved.