Monday 28 March 2011

Alannah Perry Question 2

how does your product represent particular social groups? In the opening of our film teenagers are represented firstly as fans of music stars and lovers of music, you see this when they are shouting and dancing waiting for the star. They are also represented as those that get easily caught up in media and music stars- the stalker writes a fan letter and is in the crowd however she acts different to the rest of the crowd, she just watches the music star and does not shout and dance, we did this to try and make the audience believe that as the plot thickens she's not what you think she is- a fan. We decided to represent teenagers as music lovers because when we did our market research we asked people who where 16- 17 what they did in the free time, the biggest number said they listened to music and so we thought that if we decided to make our film involving teenagers and their love of music then it would reflect teenagers realistically however to make it into a thriller we were trying to show how love for music and music Artist's can go to an extreme.

Sophie Munden - Question Seven

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?


For our preliminary task we had to use the cameras to film a person entering and existing a door and a conversation, using shot reverse shot. We then had to edit our work so if ran smoothly.
You can see that we managed to edit our product smoothly and we carried on to use these skills in our final product.
However, since the preliminary task, we have learnt how to compensate with lighting and use more effective camera angles. In our first attempt of filming we used little variety of camera angles and it only constituted of mid-shots. We progressed in the making of our opening credit sequence by experimenting with extreme close-ups as well as mid-shots. We also used high and low angle shots to represent character types and their power roles in our product. Furthermore, we learnt not to shoot the scene facing the light source (in our case the daylight) as it created unwanted silhouettes and shadows in our preliminary task.




Before filming the preliminary task, we learnt about the 180 degree rule. This is when you keep the camera on one side of the person or object you are filming so not to disorientate or confuse the audience. We used this skill in our preliminary task and our final product.

Sophie Munden - Question Six

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


Throughout the course of this project we used many technologies, such as:











  • Video and still cameras

  • Tripods

Computers





  • Film editing software


  • Photoshop


  • Microsoft word, PowerPoint


  • Internet

  • Blogger

These technologies have allowed us, as students, and others in the general public to create films to a respectable standard. This development in technology has closed the gap that used to exist between the public and the media institutions.


While creating my product i found technologies very accessible to me and the majority were very user friendly. However, problems such as lighting while using the cameras came up. Due to this problem we had to edit our product in a different way and cut scenes we had originally planned to have in our media product. Because of the editing software, in particular 'Movie HD' that comes free on an Apple Mac we were able to fix problems like this and combine our film work and sound effects.


Websites such as YouTube, and copyright free websites helped us in our research to find music, upload our product and research other media products such as inspirations like Taxi Driver and Cape Fear.

Sophie Munden - Question Five

How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to attract our audience we looked back at our research and chose to adapt our storyboard by using popular and modern interests and issues.



From our audience research we found that the majority of people we asked spent their free time using different aspects of the media, this led us to the idea that one of our main characters would be a Hip-Hop/R'n'B artist as we hoped to attract the audience through their interests and hobbies.


In addition to this, the idea of celebrity-stalking is an issue in the world today and therefore we incorporated this theme in our product, by having our main character as an 'obsessed fan' of the artist. The audience can relate to this.
While doing research for our product
, i came across articles in the news that highlight the issues of celebrity-stalking in modern society.

"It is becoming obvious that celebrity-stalking is an unwelcome modern phenomenon, with victims in the public eye ranging from Gwyneth Paltrow to Tony Blair's former spin doctor Alastair Campbell."





Our findings also showed us that the villain was the preferred character type. Because of this we chose to attract our audience by focusing the camera work and sound on the 'obsessed fan' (our villain), trying to create the storyline from her point of view. We did this using close-ups on her face and hands to show her emotions and actions. The voice over adds to this as well, explaining that she is his "number one fan".

This is a popular technique used in psychological thillers, for example the film, Taxi Driver, one of our inspirations while making the opening to our film.

Sophie Munden - Question Four

Who would be the audience for your media product?



Our media product is aimed at quite a wide variety of teenagers and young adults around the ages of 15 – 25. We chose not to appeal to a specific gender as we wanted a wide audience and our audience research applied equally to both sexes. Therefore, we gave our film a certification of a 15.





Because of this decision we distributed our questionnaires to people between these ages in order to find out their interests and habits to help with constructing our ideas and our final storyboard. We found that the majority of our target audience like listening to Hip-Hop and R’n’B music and therefore spent a vast amount of time enjoying it. We used this in our storyboard by having an Hip-Hop artist as a main character.




As the themes in our product our quite mainstream (music of popular genre, fans etc..) this would attract a mainstream audience, however the camera work and editing of our product, for example the cutting from the girl writing a letter to the star waving to his fans, implies a more indendent product therefore appealing to an indendent audience as well.

Sophie Munden - Question Three

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Although our product addresses mainstream themes, such as music, artists and their fans, the production values of it show that a more independent institution would distribute it.
Mainstream films are more dependent on big turnovers and dramatic storylines, sound effects, camera work and other special effects. Because of this the costs are high due to showings in cinemas, advertising and generally creating the product.
Our product does not do this as it has a much slower build up in all aspects of the film. There are no special effects and it shows a much more challenging storyline as it continues to cut between scenes of the obsessed fan writing a letter and the artist waving to his fans. A distributer like PolyGram would be fitting to our product as has distributed psychological thillers such as Usual Suspects.
The advertising of our product would be minimal, mainly relying on film reviews in magazines such as Vertigo and Little White Lies, film festivals and world of mouth.

Sophie Munden - Question Two

How does your media product represent different social groups?

In our media product, we present three main social groups, the star, the stalker, and the fans.


In the first picture is the Hip-Hop star, Craze. Using sartorial codes we have shown that he is weathly. He has a clean, neat hair cut, jewlery on his wrists and around his neck. As well as this, he is wearing a white t-shirt which not only makes him look healthy implying his sucess but it simbolises his innocense and implies he is the victim the film. We shot this scene from below (low angle shot) in order to indicate his importance in the story line and his power as he is the 'star'.

Here we have a screen shot of the stalker. In the general media stalkers are represented as unhealthy, both in their appearence and emotional state. We have shown this through her clothes. She is dressed in a faded baggy dress and a faded grey hoody, her hair has not been brushed and she has no make-up on. This all adds up to give a feeling of uncaring. The way in which she is staring at the camera creates a sense of amazement as if she is mesmorized by what she is looking at.

This is a shot from the scene showing the fans of the star Craze dancing. Fans today are poceived as a large group of people who all share the same interest. By having the people in the crowd close together it gives it creates ideas that they are one person rather than seperate characters. Furthermore, we chose to place the guy in the blue jacket in the center as his clothing is a similar style to the artist himself.

Sophie Munden - Question One

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

Psychological Thriller:






“A suspenseful movie or book emphasizing the psychology of its characters rather than the plot”

“In a psychological thriller, the characters are exposed to danger on a mental level rather than a physical one.”



In our media product we tried to use the conventions of a psychological thriller in the sense that we focused our opening scene on the representation of the characters rather than events that take place.


Click on the pictures to go to the opening scenes.



In our product we used mainly close-ups and mid shots of our two characters in order to capture their facial expressions. We edited our product so that it cut to shots taken from different angles of her face and hands to emphasise that she was the focal point of our film and to highlight the importance of her character and the letter she was writing. This was done due to the fact that we wanted to concentrate on the emotional journey of our stalker and her victim (Hip-Hop star, Craze). We see this done in the opening scene of Taxi Driver as we are first introduced to him with close-ups of his eyes and the taxi . It slowly develops to the job interveiw, leaving the storyline ambiguous, like ours.


For the credits of our film we used envelopes dropping onto a table which we had written on. This represents the letters our obsessed fan writes to the star throughout the course of the film. We deliberately chose to have the letters entering the screen from the right in order to create an unnatural and uneasy feeling since reading from right to left is normal. This effect links to the genre of the film.


We got the music for our film from a copyright free website and chose the beginning sequence of ‘Echoing Chemical Reactions’ by Theodore Kalantzakos. The slow continuous build up of tension in this particular song adds to the atmosphere and mirrors the slow build up of tension in the plot of our story. This repetitive music is used in the film Cape Fear. Furthermore, the voice over helps the audience to understand the character’s/obsessed fan’s emotional state, emphasising the importance of this rather than the events taking place. The repeated ‘I’m your number one fan’ (lyrics from the song by The Beautiful South) not only implies an unhealthy state of mind but links to the camera work as we see the obsessed fan writing these words in her letter, intensifying the suspense.

Finlay McGow - Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Below is a presentation answering the question above.




The preliminary task was also great at teaching me how to set up the camera and then when I was finished how to transfer it onto the computer. Without it I could imagine the final product taking up more time and the quality also not being as good. If it wasn't for the preliminary task I may not have noticed that whilst filming we were filming into the light, which would have lead to having to film again, which may not have been possible due to getting the actors or the time of day, or weather conditions may have caused further delays.

Finlay McGow - Question 6

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

We used many different technologies throughout the process of this whole project. We had our hardware
-Video cameras


-Computers
-Tripods

Then we had our software
-Microsoft word
-Film editing software
-Photoshop
-Blogger
-Prezi
-Free music sites



All of these technologies play a big part in the production of this opening sequence. However they also provide normal people with the ability to produce films to a decent standard, so they can be based on their content rather than the quality. This leap in technology over recent years has closed the gap between the people who produce media and those who receive it.

There were a few difficulties that I came across with using some of these and that is mainly not getting your desired effect that you want. For example we had to change our project because certain camera shots did not come out as we desired them, such as lighting difficulties, if you look at our preliminary task you will see how the lighting was too dark and the actors came out in silhouettes. Other issue’s would be the amount of time it will take to do a bit of editing, obviously with more practice it will be easier, but starting out it does tend to seem very unfriendly to use. I felt this problem when trying to get the voice over the music to go in time with the film which took up a lot of time.



We then have all the presentation software, such as Prezi. Prezi is a new presentation format that makes a presentation more dynamic and hands on. It enables the person viewing the presentation to move more freely and zoom in and out, very similar to a virtual brainstorm. This technology I found very useful in presentation and I thought was great to get across my point to my viewer. However I found it slightly annoying to use and more time consuming as a result.

I did find that all this equipment we had available to us, became friendlier to use over time and you could constantly improve your skills. Because of this it makes you feel more confident that you are doing a good job therefore making you stress less than we did at the beginning, for example during our preliminary task. This meant your ideas were not so constrained to your ability to handle the equipment and it enabled you to actually produce what you had mind in mind without having to change too much.
The technology that we had in all was varied and fun to use. It gave us the accessibility to do what we wanted to a good standard and quality. I felt my experience of the equipment and software was good as I could do what I wanted after i had learnt the skills to use the properly.

Finlay McGow - Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience through utilising popular ideas. We used a storyline that hopefully appeals to current trends and interests people, as it links in with current issues that people can face and see happening in real life. By aspects of popular culture such as the genre of music that we choose for our music star. We used our market research to help choose the genre of music for our music star, seeing as RnB and Hip-Hop were the two most popular we decided to go along with a Hip-Hop star. We believed that by following our market research, we could attract our audience by relating to what they actually want.


Another aspect from our market research we found was that prefer a villian in a film over a hero. What we did to utilise on this was to focus on Rosa who played our stalker. We focused on her mainly with our camera shots and sound effects. Address our audience by giving them the story from the villians point of view but also attracts them. By focusing on the villian we are responding to our market research and actually giving the majority of the audience what they want.


Finlay McGow - Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our media product is aimed at a wide audience of teenagers to young adults, so from the ages of 15-25. For this reason we gave it an age rating of 15. It is also aimed at both genders as its content does not strongly identfy with either sex.



Because we targeted this market we handed out our questionnaire to them. This helped us to build an image of our target audience's hobbies and interests. From the feedback that we received we used to develop our idea for our final product. WE tried to fit in what the audience had shown us they enjoyed, for example the feedback we received told us that the majority were 'Hip-Hop' and 'RnB' fans.

Finlay McGow - Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

This film I don’t think will be part of a mainstream distributor, as it does not meet the majority of markets you would say it is aimed more towards a nice area. I see this because mainstream distributors such as New Line Cinema, want big turnovers. This demand for a big turnover means they want the product aimed directly at the mainstream market, so that it is big enough to provide those larger turnovers. This product would not be able to provide a big company with its turnover due to its niche audience and limited release.


 For the reasons above, a much smaller company may distribute this product as they will not have such a demand for high turnovers. As this is aimed at a niche market you would see this film on a limited release in cinemas and then onto DVD. As our product has low production values, quite a lot of viewers may avoid the product as it looks basic and the quality of it isnt as high.

Advertising for this product would not be massive and it would rely on reviews and film festivals for people to learn about it and become interested. For these reasons I could see this product being distributed by an idependent company such as PolyGram, as they have released previous psychological thrillers such as the Usual Suspects.

Finlay McGow - Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Below is a dynamic presentation that you can view which answers this question.






Looking at our music star we see that he looks very healthy, and is well dressed. You can also see that the way he is acting looks very confident, this is a very big contrast to his stalker who looks very secretive and hidden. The star is also wearing jewelry which shows that he is well off, this also helps him fit into the stereotype of music stars within his genre of music. The stereotype we have tried to fit him into is one about looking perfect and showing it off, for example 'bling' looks of expensive jewelry. This tries to represent the social group of music stars and even wannabes who act like music stars are not.

Finlay McGow - Question 1

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


In many psychological thrillers the opening sequence is used as a set up for a character, but not what is going to happen later on in the product. You see this in Taxi Driver when he is doing an interview for a job. We have tried to do this in our opening sequence as well by focusing on our main actress, using different camera angles, to try and show her importance and to try and allow the audience to try and think about that character and their personality. You could say we have challenged conventions by introducing our victim around the same time as our villain. By doing this it could change the perceptions of the audience by what is going to happen as they would not know who the true villian is until later on.


We thought it would be an interesting idea to do our credits on envelopes, as it symbolises our music star receiving fan mail. We also have challenged conventions by having the letters fall in from right to left; this makes our viewers feel slightly uncomfortable. This Idea fits into the conventions of psychological thrillers making people feel uneasy.





This is the final shot of our opening and it shows are actress in the crowd. This may unnerve the audience as they start to see her obsession with the star. You also notice that she is amazed by the sight of this star as she is the only one standing still staring will the other members of the crowd are jumping around and smiling. This shot shows that she is a different type of fan than t he others.

In this shot we see our actress writing a letter to the music star. You notice that she is writing number one fan, you hear this repeated a number of times in the voice over. This enables our audience to both see and hear what’s going on. The voice over also allows our audience to get into the head of our actress and get a better idea of her character. This follows the conventions of the genre by wanting to get the viewer inside the head of the person on screen.


The music that we used in the background follows the conventions of many psychological thrillers as it builds up a slow uneasy tension that makes the viewer uncomfortable. This type of repetitive music can also be found in the movie cape fear, with those very distinctive and dramatic horns in the background which start straight from the beginning. The voice over we have used gives the viewer a sense of whats going on and as it is in time we with camera shots helps them realise whats actually going on, but at the same time not fully letting them know whats going on. The use of repetition in the voice over again goes along with convention as a clue for an unhealthy mind.



Our product both uses and challenges forms and conventions of real media products. I have shown you key areas were are product meets conventions, such as with the music and the voice over. But challenged forms and conventions with how we introduced our credits.

Alannah Perry Question 1

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

In our media film the main character is a stalker which is a common convention in a thriller. cape fear and one hour photo are some examples of films that have stalkers in them. In each film the staler has an obsession, in one hour photo for example the man is obsessed with a family which reflects who he is, a lonely man with no family and so therefore he wants what he can't have. However in our film as we decided the stalker would be a teenage female we decided that her obession must be relevant to teenager's today and so we decided that she would be obsessed with a music star, as many teenagers could relate to this however the obsession turns into something more deadly.





Also in a lot of thriller films the opening is very suggestive but doesn't give to much away which we tried to do, we showed a fan writting a letter to a star and we established a storyline but made sure that we didn't give too much away so the audience would have to wait for it the plot to unfold.

Wednesday 23 March 2011

Sabrina Fayyaz - Question 5

Sabrina Fayyaz - Question 4


The target audience for out thriller would be teenager because the context of our thriller is based around teenagers, for example the stalker is a 16 year old who has developed an obsession with a young hip hop star. I also think that it would appeal to teenagers because it doesn’t give too much away, in the beginning of our thriller we see a teenage girl writing a letter this gives us an insight of the storyline but at the same time doesn’t give too much away




Our media product is aimed at 15 (teenagers) - 25 (young adults) therefore we have certified our pyscholgical thriller at the age of 15.




We distributed questionnaires to help us come up with these various decisions, we done this so that we can take the audience's interrests and hobbie and include them in our thriller, we found out that majority of teenagers enjoys Hip Hop and R'n'B so we took this idea and used it and based our main actor around a Hip Hop/ R'n'B star.
Our questionnaire also helped us identify that the most popular character in thrillers are villains we included this in our final task.
.

Sabrina Fayyaz - Question 3

Sabrina Fayyaz - Question 2

Our sequence represents a small group of teenagers, which are generally quiet and are hidden from the public eye. I think this social group have had troubled home lives and are disturbed by personal events either at home or in school or college. This particular social group seem to be very obsessed with events, this was ideal for our opening sequence because it shows the audience the quiet group are always the most rebellious and outgoing than other teenagers.


The sartorial code that is being used in our sequence shows the audience that she tries and blends in with other crowds, this is shown in the crowd scene where we see different people jumping and smiling. Her sartorial code makes her less obvious, yet it adds a lot of drama and gives the audience a clue that her obsession with the star might progress into a unhealthy craving.


Sabrina Fayyaz - Question 1

Tuesday 22 March 2011

Changes

When we began filming our opening sequence we came across difficulties with the locations and the order of our story board. The lighting in the corridor was an issue as it appeared grey rather than the white bright light we wanted for the setting of our 'psychiatric ward'.
Therefore we made some changes in our storyboard and chose to focus on the 'stalker' and base our opening sequence on her writing fan mail.

Tuesday 8 March 2011

Film Details

Title of film: Crazed

Casting:
  • Actor: Yacine Loumi
  • Hip-Hop artist 'Craze'

           
Stalker   
  • Actress: Rosa Torr
  • Stalker


Music:
Copyright free music

Introduction: Echoing Chemical Reactions by Theodore Kalantzakos
Voice Over: Sophie, whisper lyrics from 'I'm your No.1 fan'  by Beautiful South


Filming:
Wednesday 16th:

Period 1-5:
Music editing and record voice over
Planning shots
Film opening sequence of credits using envelopes

Period 6: 
Letter scene, Rosa Torr
Crowd Scene, Rosa Torr & crowd

Period 7:
Star scene, Yacine Loumi

Monday 7 March 2011

Locations For Film Shoot

This is where we plan to shoot the scenes in the the psychiatric ward. 










This is the location that we have chosen to film our obsessed fan walking down the street.