For my AS Media coursework I did a two minute film sequence and I worked with Ellice Macro and Mark O’Brien. We all took turns at acting/filming/editing. My particular contributions were acting as I was featured in almost every clip, I also did some of the editing and some camera work in the shots I wasn’t involved in.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The genre of our film was mainly Horror we used music, costume, setting, lighting and effects to show this. It was vital in using these things as if we hadn’t the film wouldn’t look like it belongs to the horror genre. When editing we decided to change the majority of the film to black and white as the film looked more serious and mysterious.
Within our film we ‘twisted’ the story a little as Mark our killer was shown to be friends with the protagonist Jess in the three days earlier part, this was to create enigmas as to why someone who’s friends with them would turn into a killer? We did this as it wouldn’t be something we normally see in a horror. We thought this idea would be likely to prove successful as it was a twist in the film. A film I looked at that has a ‘twist’ in was the others, which I looked at the opening sequence for in our blog.
http://jessellicemark.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html
We think our ideas did work but there were things that could have made it clearer, from our audience feedback I can see that we should have made the ‘3 days earlier’ part clearer, perhaps include some dialogue to give the audience a better idea. Also if I had actually been attacked it might draw the audience in more. We should have considered these things during filming.
Our film fulfils the requirements of an opening sequence as it gives a basic storyline and shows the protagonist and the killer throughout the two minutes. It shows costume/weapons/props and effects used in the editing process which show connotations of the horror genre. An example of this would be the end shot of a zoomed in close up of marks hand holding ‘the weapon’ it is also in black and white as most horror films use low key lighting.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our film uses teenagers, males and females and also represents criminals as Mark was the murderer.
In our film Ellice was shown to be killed and obviously I was next. We used females for these parts and a male as the killer. This can show the venerability of females, especially young females in contrast with men. It can also show issues of the stronger sex and power.
For my costume we used makeup and made my hair quite messy to make it appear like I had been running through the woods for 3 days. I wore something simple as it was easy to run around in and fall over when appropriate in shots.
When in the three days earlier clip I was shown in what someone would wear on a normal day to show that nothing was out of the ordinary. Mark when we saw he was the killer wore black as a connotation that he was the ‘bad guy’ we also zipped his hood up, just cropping his eyes into camera as it did not give away the character completely.
We did not use speech/dialogue or voice over throughout our clip. The only sound that was made from a character was I screaming which obviously showed fear and let the audience know I was the protagonist throughout the film.
I was running mostly throughout the film, this created enigmas such as, what is she running from? Who? Why? And so on, this was also pointed out during our audience feedback.
We filmed at ‘Cut wood’ park which is where the name for our film came from. We filmed at about 7/8ish at night as it was going dark to get a low key lighting effect when filming. We have actually captured the sun set in some shots; here is an example from one of our film stills.
As mark is the ‘teenage killer’ I think we chose a good location and time to shoot as I represented him in the way we wanted to portray him to the audience. I think we did this well as our audience knew immediately mark was the killer, we also show him in the light of day when we were ‘friends’ we put this section in colour as it shows myself and Mark getting along.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
We have chosen to use ‘DNA’ films to use, as they have produced similar themed/genres of films such as 28 days later, 28 weeks later these were mentioned in our audience feedback. Another film they have produced that can be linked is ‘notes on a scandal’.
I think that this film company would take on our film as we have used the horror genre which is mainly the genre of films they produce.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
In terms of gender I would say its equal for both males and females. For age I would say a range of 16-25 as People younger than this may not watch the horror genre and people over that age may not be interested in this sort of film. Our main audience would be people of that this age that are particularly interested in the horror genre.
This is a good age/gender range to target as most young people do go to the cinema to see films, this is a good point financially and for good word of mouth or perhaps bad.
If this film were actually being made we would use someone who’s a traditional actor for the horror genre. A secondary target audience would be older people or a different race. I think our film is for anyone really except people younger than 16 because horror films are usually set for people over the ages of 15 or 18.
How did you attract/address your audience?
In our film we started off with a disrupted equilibrium as it was showing clips from after the disruption had happened.
A sense of time was created by our clip in the middle showing ‘3 days earlier’ re storing the equilibrium before anything was disturbed. Our understanding of the characters is shown clearly as the protagonist (I) is shown in almost every clip and the film would follow me throughout, this would show a good understanding of Marks part as the killer because he would be the one following me. The story is set by already knowing something’s wrong by the mise en scene, from screaming-costume.
Enigmas are set up in our film and we know this from question six of our audience feedback
‘6) What, out of the sequence, would make you keep watching?
Find out if she is killed and why she is being killed’
The main point of the film is to find out Marks reasons for trying to kill me, or is he successful in killing me? This would keep the audience interesting and keep them watching.
Contrasts in character have been created between me and mark, as we are shown as friends and then enemies. This would also create enigmas to why he has befriended me?
There is a long shot of the three days earlier part which then zooms in on me and mark and in this part we are shown as friends, laughing and getting along to show the audience that we were friends.
We have used only ‘3 days earlier’ this part was unclear to our audience and we now know that if we were to redo this, we could make this part clearer by adding dialogue explaining where we are/why. We added the three days earlier caption to show what was happening before the equilibrium was disrupted.
We have built tension throughout the clip and I think in some parts the music went well as it was slow paced then fast paced. We have built tension as in one part of the film Mark was walking yet I was running which is showing no fear at all from mark.
We did this to show the fear of the protagonist from the killer; it also represents the power structure.
I think that a key message our film sends out is
• Keep your friends close and your enemies closer
As mark and I were close and then he turns on me, this we don’t know creating enigmas to solve by watching the rest of our film.
In our audience feedback a particular point about our music was made. It was very fast paced which did not match some of our shots, an example of this was the zoomed out shot of marks feet as he was walking slowly. Our first panning shot of the woods went well with the music as we filmed to it. I think the lighting was quite decent in every shot as we wanted it to be quite low key, this was enhanced by the use of the black and white effect added throughout the majority of the film.
I think another particular shot was quite effective was when Mark chased me with the camera hand held; this created a ‘blur witch’ sort of filming affect. We thought this shot was one of the strongest as it showed a different use of the camera and disorientated our audience.
Effects applied to our film were slowing down/fastening up a clip this was to change the pace of the tow characters to show the contrast between them.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Use of technology in our work has been vital.
I firstly uploaded our drawn out spider diagrams. I did this simply by scanning them in and uploading them to http://tinypic.com/ which then converted them into HTML.
I already knew how to use a blog and how to post etc, so when doing this process I found it quite easy. I also knew how to embed video clips and upload etc so these parts were easy.
The most difficult parts were filming and editing. The camera was tricky to use and it was hard to remember not to tape over previous work etc, but I do understand how to use it now.
Editing also got confusing as sometimes I cut the wrong part of the clip etc.
I have learnt that by using the editing software it can change what we filmed dramatically and is crucial in defining the genre. Obviously we had limitations during filming as we don’t have the money to create the sort of films that are shown in the cinema but with the camera/editing software we managed to create a believable opening sequence.
We filmed a few shots several times as the characters did things wrong/didn’t get the right angle/disruptions during filming. E.g. someone walked in on our shot so we had to redo.
An effective way to upload our audience feedback was to actually film our audience giving us answers to the questions we asked. This was easier then we could re watch it and note every detail of what the audience said to us. It also shows what the audience really think as we didn’t cut out any of the clip.
This shows good use of technology and what we’ve learnt to use throughout this course.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Our preliminary task was based on the western genre. We did not carry on basing our film on a western as we have no means for the mise en scene of a western. Our preliminary task used dialogue and shots were a lot longer and used a tripod throughout. In our actual film we used shorter shots and no dialogue between characters as it would have given the whole story away immediately. We also used a range of camera angles/framing/composition and use of the camera during our film.
As our preliminary and actual film are different genres we used different editing to create effects. The acting in our actual film was taken more seriously as in the preliminary we had to shoot several times as it was not taken seriously. The lighting used for our film was low key and filmed out doors as if we’d filmed inside it would have been limited. Outdoors we had a lot of options; we also managed to film in two different woods, which wasn’t noticed by the audience.
We filmed at different times of the day for our film. ‘3 days earlier’ was filmed during the day to show how rapidly mark turns against me. We also filmed the close up at the end of mark holding the stick during the day, this was not noticed as we used a black and white filter over the top and the helicopter in the background created a nice sound effect because we slowed this clip down.
Conclusion?
I think the initial idea for our product was successful as we thoroughly thought out what the story line is, and what would happen in the rest of the film, and how to keep the audience watching by creating enigmas within the first two minutes.
We used a range of different camera angles and use of the camera which proved to be successful as in contrast to our preliminary were we limited ourselves with the use of the camera.
I think that we did a good job of acting in this film but some parts could have been done more seriously and instead of looking straight at the camera we should have pretended like the camera wasn’t there.
I think if we were to redo this film we could correct our mistakes and make things clearer.
We should have used different paced music in some clips and should have made the ‘3 days earlier’ part clearer. It was clear to us as we knew it involved friends going to the woods to ‘camp’ but this wasn’t made clear to the audience, perhaps if we’d of shown the actors setting up tents etc this would have created a better mise en scene but we did manage to capture myself and mark getting along which was vital of the audiences knowledge as we wouldn’t know who was actually following the protagonist.
I think we should have thought things through more thoroughly when filming although are initial idea proved to be good as it created an interesting intriguing storyline for the viewer.
Jessica Hill,x
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