Evaluation

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

We have decided to look at reaction shot and jump cut.

Jump cut

Jump cut is when you miss our parts of a scene so the time is missed out and it goes quicker, this is so the audience do not get bored. A good example is if someone was climbing a mountain they would film the actor at the bottom then show them at the top. We were inspired to do this from many films. We did some research on jump cutting and it is used all the time in many films. In our opening scene we used it quite a lot and i think this is very important. The main time that we used it was when Elizabeth was getting ready. For example we only filmed her painting her nails on one hand, only putting her tights over her feet. We also cut out Paddy saying bye and getting dressed properly and it jumped to him putting his shirt on. These are all very small but it helps speed it up slightly. This may build tension because there is parts of the story that are missed out and that  might make the audience wonder what happened inbetween them.

These are print screen shots that we got to show how it jump cuts to the other leg.

An example is from a film called Casina Royle;

Reaction shot

We got our idea of using a reaction shot from the film Usual Suspects. Reaction shot is focusing on some one's reaction to something. It can show if someone is worried/scared/upset/angry etc. In our opening scene we used it to show how Paddy was feeling. We decided to zoom in on his face as he was looking down at his phone, it shows his looking worried. This makes the audience want to watch more because they do not know why he is worried, what is going on or what has happened. Another example is when Lizzie is laughing before she puts her lipstick on this shows that she is a bit creepy and something has happened.

A close up from Usual suspects to show his reaction. This is good because he looks worried but you do not know why.






Developed


Music


Before starting our filming we looked into a lot of different types of music. We found the perfect piece. It was a piece of music with a piano in which we wanted and at the beginning it started quietly and high and by the end it had got deeper louder and more vicious. This helped to build most of the tension. This has developed our video not only the increase of tension but it has made it more romantic. Many films only use one of these but we found music that relates to romance and tension building at the same time. In our piece of music there was a deep note that repeated itself this built tension because it was very strong.

Almost every other film uses this method of having correct music. For example is The Usual Suspects.

Dialogue


We did most of our research into looking at films to see what sound they had in them. We realised after looking at many that the ones with silence as the sound worked a lot better. So we decided to have no dialogue through the whole opening scene as we felt it makes the audience more unaware of what is happening which makes it seem more suspicious.

Credits

We also had our credits appear after every little scene. This builds tension because everytime it finishes the audience would want to carry on with that scene to see what happens but it changes to credits every few seconds and changes scene or story so they do not really know what is going on and want to know what happened after. Most films have the credits over the film so it is easier for the audience and not so frustrating.

Challenged


We tried to challenge our self a lot in this opening because we wanted to make it look better and to learn more.


Storyline
First of all our storyline was very risky as many thrillers would have rape, murder, kidnap, stalk or props in the opening scene to get people to go and watch it. We decided to take a different approach by not showing that and keep the audience guessing. Secondly having prostitution in the film made it very hard for us because it was hard to find actors comfortable enough to be able to act and dress like they did.


Actress
Secondly we decided to have a woman as the main character. Usually a man would be the strong, dominant actor and a woman would be the one that is weak.. This is very unusual for thriller films as they would usually have a man around thirty/ forty. We decided to have a woman so it is not so typical in her twenties.

 This is an example of another film The Tourist where the woman is dominant


Lighting
We had a very difficult decision whether to film in daylight or darkness. We decided daylight as all thriller films film in the night usually to make it more scary so we decided to do the opposite and we thought it looked good as it is only a little part of the film that is outside. Secondly the camera is not very good so filming in the day improves the quality of the film.


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

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

Our thriller film is mainstream as we have aimed it at a mass audience rather than niche. Men will enjoy this film as it has quite a strong sexual element to it, however women will also enjoy this as a female character is the most dominate role in the film. We have looked at films with similar themes and have found which companies distributed them. Salt is a recent film starring Angelina Jolie, this also has an actress as the main character. Salt was distributed by Coloumbia Pictures and Sony Picture Releasing. We also looked at another film where a woman plays the most dominate part, Kill Bill also has this element to it, this was distributed by Miramax films.

                         

One of the companies we choose to go with that we may use to distribute our film was Mira max, this company also uses a lot of technological convergence, one example of this is that they have recently decided to explore the blu-ray market. The text below is taken from Merrimack's blog; 

"Blu-ray also offers interactive features that can (and should) be a portal to new down loadable content and algorithmic search, so consumers can sample and buy additional films from the Miramax library. In the not-so-distant future, consumers will be able to go a step further and upload their purchased Blu-ray/DVD content via the “cloud” into their own personalized and fully accessible “digital locker” (roughly equivalent to having one’s own personalized TiVo with no storage constraints)."

This is an example of technological convergence. This is very useful for our film as it would come across as much better quality. This would empathise on the clothes she is wearing, the brightness of her lipstick etc. Also because our film will be released in the near future it is very important to keep up to date with new technologies such as blu-ray. 

Kill Bill has released a sequel, as our film has a similar theme to this we also have the opportunities to make another film to follow "Dangerously in Love'.  

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

This ideal audience member is a woman called Katie but usually know as Kate by people who are close enough to her to say that. She is 32 years old living in the UK her whole life except when she travelled in Australia when she was eighteen. She is quite an intelligent woman working as a lawyer in the middle of London. She also studied in a university in London which she got good, respectable grades.

This is how she looks very powerful in smart clothes.

She likes to do horse riding when she visits her parents in Essex most weekends but also likes water sports when she goes on holiday. She enjoys a wide range of films but particularly thrillers. She likes the thriller films when there is one dominant character especially a woman for example Angelina Jolie. Whenever a film comes out that has a lot of publicity whether it is bad or good she would go and see it to have an opinion. She tries to go late at night when there is no children and on Tuesday as it is cheap Tuesday. 

She takes great care with her home and especially her garden. She likes to keep it clean and tidy and is a bit flashy. She likes new technology she finds it fascinating. She always gets the new gadgets out and at the moment has 3d telly on her wall. Her Mac white computer is her most important asset as she does a lot of work from home. She also likes to read up on latest news and gossip on websites instead of buying the newspaper and magazines. She is very busy business woman so she like to watch up on TV dramas on the Internet.

She has very strong beliefs and opinions on government and just generally how things are done. She is a strong believer of woman having power especially woman having a career instead of traditional ways and being able to do jobs that men are stereotypically known for doing for example army. She is a very strong believer in the world moving on into new technologies instead of being traditional for example using computers at schools and work instead of pen and paper.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We had a few ideas and techniques that we wanted to add into our film so our audience were more attracted to it. Firstly we hardly gave anything away in the film for example we did not see clear links between people and nothing partiularly happened. Secondly we added extra props in so the audience little parts of the film for example prostitutes outfit, her ring being taken off or the money. Thirdly we added in music that built tension. Fourthly we did a lot of cross utting so the audience would get a bit confused.

Question 6.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of contructing this product?
During the planning and filming of our opening scene to Dangerously in love i learnt a lot more of new skills.

Camera

One of the main things that i used the most was the cameras. We had to get use to using the video cameras when we did our preliminary task to get use to how it works. We had to learn how to do things like zoom in, zoom out, on/off, pause, play, rewind, fast forward. After learning all of this which i did not know before i felt more confident in doing the real thing. When we did the real thing i learnt different ways of getting different effects.

Tripod

A tripod is the stand that holds the video camera filming to keep it steady. I learnt how to attach the camera to the tripod and move the tripod so the camera moves horizontally and vertically. i found a few problems when doing this because sometimes the tripod was to short and tall for different aspects of the film. We tried to use this as much as possible so it looked more professional but on parts hand held it so make it more realistic for the audience.

Blogging

I learnt a lot of things using blogger. This was where i wrote all my posts to keep my group updated on what i have done and to show the work i have produced.

First of all i learnt how to create a blogger account and how to use it. I learnhow to create a new post, be able to view my blog, edit my blog, delete a blog etc. This was the basics but i did not know how to do this before.

Secondly i had to start developing my blogs and had to start getting tips on how to use this program better. Luckily i knew how to change font, size, colour, underline/bold/italic text, add bullet points, add a numbered list and use ABC.

Thirdly i started getting more familiar about blogger and wanted to develop and learn even more. I learnt how to add labels so everyone knows which blogs were mine and how many i have done. I also learnt how to add photos from Picasso web albums, URL, my computer and this blog also add videos from YouTube and my videos.

Overtime i started learning more and more things about blogs and this really helped me to gain more skills.

Macs

Macs were the hardest technology to get use to. I found that they are completely different to a normal computer or laptop.

First of all the keyboard is very flat and small which i found it hard to type on. Secondly the keys are different to do different things such as print screen is control alt 3 instead of having a print screen button.

Final cut express

Final cut express was a program that we had on the macs at school which was used to upload our footage and edit it. Once we got the footage on using a URL lead plugged to the camera and computer. I have learnt that final cut express is a very good program as i did not know you could ass music, cut footage out, add effects, speed up footage, slow down footage and many more. 

YouTube

I learnt how to create an account on YouTube. We needed to do this because we needed to upload our preliminary video and final video on to there. This was good because now we can just type in our video name and watch it. We right clicked on the address and then pressed paste on the blog to copy the link.

We also used YouTube in other ways as well. We show research, planning, other films we had to watch clips on YouTube. If i wanted to have this link on my blog i learnt that i had to press the insert video icon and then go on from YouTube, i then clicked on the one i wanted and pressed select. This would insert the video on the blog.

Question 7.

Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product.

Doing our preliminary task was really helpful as it gave us a practice run to learn everything that goes with filming.   We learned how to;

• Cameras- We were a bit wary of using the cameras when we did our preliminary task as we had not used them before. After filming it we had a basic knowledge of how to use them and all the different aspects. We progressed a lot as we carried on doing research into different ways of using the camera and also when we did practice filming to see how it looked.
• Time- When we did our preliminary we were not aware of how long to spend on the task. When starting our film we realised that to get the best footage we had to control our time better and always do extra film so we had enough to edit. 
• Sound- When filming our preliminary we did not realise how much sound the cameras pick up so in that you can hear laughing, breathing and moving. So when it came to our film we realised that we had to cut the sound out completly and cover it with music.
• Lighting- Looking back at the preliminary task we realised straight away that the lighting was not right for our film as it was very light. So that gave us the idea to test out different lights for our film opening.
• Uploading- When we did our preliminary task we learnt how to upload the footage using a usb, work out where it goes on the computer, put it on youtube. We were quite familiar with this but having to do it again made us feel more confident about it.
• Editing- We learnt and progressed on editing a film as we did a lot more on our opening than our prelimary such as slowing and speeding up footage, cutting parts out, organising the time, usingfinal cut express better.