Final Media Product

41. Alex, Anil, Zubeir, Shumon from 283goswell on Vimeo.

Evaluation Question 7

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


In our preliminary exercise, we used a variety of camera angles and shots to to create an effective scene. We used low angle shots during the conversation scene in which the psychiatrist was portrayed to be looking down on the patient, which would show the patient's vulnerability. Additionally, we used a series of close ups such as the close up of the door handle and the patient to show their facial expressions which portrayed their feelings and thoughts. 

We also used close ups in our actual product to show the facial expression and emotion on the face of the killer. 

We used many shots similar to the prelim and some that we hadn't used in the prelim. One of the aims of the prelim was to use a match cut of two people talking. We took inspiration from this and used a match cut in The Executioner to show the killer throwing a towel over the body and we also see it from how the victim would see it. 

One of the most important things we learnt from the prelim was about how and where to place the titles. In the prelim, the titles came up on the screen over the moving images. But in our movie, we decided to use titles on a blank screen that would come in between shots. This was much more effective as it provided all the information while still maintaining the audiences' attention. 

 

In both the prelim and the final piece, we followed the 180 degrees rule:

The 180° rule is a guideline in film making that states that two characters or objects in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. This means (e.g. in a conversational scene) if the over the shoulder shot of one characters is shown from the right shoulder, the other character must be shown the same.

Overall, we learnt a lot from the prelim, which helped us to ensure that we were better prepared for The Executioner. In the prelim, we hadn't really tried anything out before filming. However, we made sure to try out all the shots in the classroom from the correct angles to make sure they would blend in well in the film. We also gained more knowledge of how to use sound and used foley sounds and music that suited our film opening.  

Evaluation - Question 6.

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

Final cut pro:

In order to produce the opening of our media product, we used various technologies such as 'final cut pro', 'soundtrack pro' and 'sony vegas'. We used final cut pro in order to put together the film as a whole, we used this program in combination with soundtrack pro which was used to match the sound to our opening to match foley sounds. for instance footsteps, dragging of body and writing. Also we used it in order to create an effective diegietic soundtrack which works well to capture our audience's attention and keep the on edge.

Here is an example of a technique in which we used in final cut pro and how we did this:

Sony Vegas:

We used sony vegas as a separate programme in order to create the titles as we couldn't find the correct font in which we all agreed on. To make the title for my movie opening I used Sony Vegas Movie Studio. I wanted to use Livetype to make the titles but my group were behind schedule a bit so I decided to use a program that I was comfortable with and would be able to produce something. I thought about making the title a title on black screen. This would be placed at the beginning which would then be followed by the narrative.

the following screen grabs are some examples of how I used sony vegas in order to create the titles:

here I have chose the font in which i want to use, in this screen grab I am editing each titles in order for the titles to appear for 3 seconds each.

Here I have selected the time frame for each titles and testing it to ensure that they work correctly, after I will then import this into final cut pro and integrate each title in between scenes.

Soundtrack pro:

We used soundtrack pro in order to create an effective soundtrack for our media film opening. The ways in which we used soundtrack pro in order to combine all these technologies is that we used the final edit from final cut pro, exported this into a soundtrack pro, and then used the video to match sounds in the correct areas. we then combined all sounds to create one soundtrack which was the exported back to final cut pro and added to the overall film. We wanted to create an effective atmospheric sound in order to keep our audience on edge and to also attract our intended audience. 

To conclude, the above technologies have all been used in order to construct our film opening. We used sony vegas in order to create the titles effectively as we couldn't find the font in which we wanted to use apart from sony vegas. This helped us to create an effective title sequence to go with constructed opening of our media product.  Final cut pro was used in order to add shots together, and create different types of shots such as the match cut in which was used to show the before and after effects of the towel being thrown over the body. once our final edit was complete we then exported this to into soundtrack in order to create an atmospheric, engaging soundtrack for the opening of our media product. 

Evaluation Question 3- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film is mainly aimed at young people, and the representation of them can be very contrasting at times; they can be represented as a problem within society however they can be represented as the hope for society in terms of education. Below are a list of words often stereotypically associated with young people and teenagers in particular.

In our movie, we have used some of those stereotypes such as violence and villain. We have used close ups to portray the killer's feelings through his facial expression. We have used a dark hoodie to dress the killer- an item of clothing that is associated with young people- and leather gloves. The audience would instantly recognize this character and stereotypically view him as threatening and sinister. Finally, the actor who played the role of the murder victim is also a teenager, which is a contrasting representation of teenagers because he is seen as vulnerable but the other teen is a killer. Finally, we have stuck to the stereotypical portrayal of teens by having a dark skinned killer and a light skinned victim, although we have challenged one of the conventions of typical films and have a male victim instead of female.   

Evaluation Question 1

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

In The Executioner, we used, developed and challenged typical conventions of real media products. One of the things we followed was to use an establishing shot, to help set the scene and atmosphere for the film. We used the images of gravestones and statues, as well as the clip of the chapel to set our scene of the cemetery and to create an eerie atmosphere.

An example of a good film opening that sets the scene well is ‘Source Code.’ The credits are introduced from the start and the first thing we see is ‘Vendôme Pictures’, the production company, in front of a dark background.  Then, the rest of the credits are shown as the film begins with serial shots of skyscrapers in Chicago and the title of the film appears in quite a subtle manner; the opening scene all accompanied by ominous and eerie music. This was an opening I really enjoyed as I think they used the establishing shots really well. The scenes of the city and skyscrapers imply fast-paced action and a sense of urgency for the rest of the film, which is a popular convention of action-thrillers.  

                                                                                                                                                                                   Another typical form we followed was to use a tracking shot, which are often used in thrillers in order to reveal something that the storyline may revolve around. Here, we have used this shot to slowly reveal the dead body.

The use of titles is one of the crucial components that construct an effective movie opening. It provides information as to who is involved in the movie, which is very important because audience usually  create a point of view of the movie within those opening minutes. The titles can be used to lure the audience. For example, if it is made by 20^th Century Fox, the audience are more likely to respond in a positive manner as it is a globally known company who are associated with many highly ranked movies. Also, the titles provide information such as the director and producer and the main actors. This is significant because well known directors and actors will always receive the audiences’ attention more easily. Due to their previous success, they will instantly excite the audience. One opening titles I really enjoyed was from the movie ‘Smokin’ Aces.’

It uses a stylised sequence for the titles, which makes the opening quite different from the opening of most films. It also works well because of the way colour is used. We see this opening has been edited to be ‘posterized.’ Instead of normal footage, it is a type of stylised editing which uses a dominant colour in each shot of this opening. It also keeps the opening a more upbeat atmosphere, and the music used in the opening to ‘Smokin’ Aces’ helps to do this.

We made the titles appear in the order they are expected to appear in real movies, to make our opening like a real media product. This is the typical order:

·       Production companies

·       Distribution companies

·       Movie title

·       Main actors

·       Other (usually lesser known) actors

·       Castings by

·       Music by

·       Production designer (Make up, costume, props etc)

·       Edited by

·       Director of photography

·       Written by

·       Director

These were the titles of The Executioner:

·       Production company

·       Distribution company

·       Film by (director)

·       Main actors

·       Other actors

·       Castings by

·       Music by

·       Edited by

·       Director of photography

·       Produced by

·       Co-produced by

·       Written by

·       Director

 The shots we used dissolve in and out to change the scene, which complimented our product and the music we used because it created a slow paced, tempo. The colours we used for the titles give the writing a cold, metallic effect, which parallels with the theme of death (knives are also cold and metal). When the names in the titles appeared, we made sure to use quite a large font, as it would be the only thing on the screen and the centre of attention. Instead of using a narrative opening or the titles on a blank screen followed by the shots, we had the titles come up in-between shots. I think this would be effective for our target audience because it provides all the information of the titles while maintaining the audiences’ attention.

                

Evaluation - Question 4.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media product may be linked to the following words/phrases which are accompanied with a thriller opening film. the audience emotions may also affect who is attracted to our media product.

Here is a quick clip of who we think would be the audience for our media product, here i have created a video of what they thought captured there eye overall.

Editing Titles on Sony Vegas

To make the title for my movie opening I used Sony Vegas Movie Studio. I wanted to use Livetype to make the titles but my group were behind schedule a bit so I decided to use a program that I was comfortable with and would be able to produce something. I thought about making the title a title on black screen. This would be placed at the beginning which would then be followed by the narrative.

To begin with I added the titles which were three seconds in length. The first font I used was Verdana however when I watched it , it looked really simple and plain so I changed it to another font while look much better. This one was called “SoulMission”.

After changing the font style and size, I added a hard flashed in-between the texts to add a more thrilling effect. 

A member in the group suggested that I should make the names with the same fonts and keep the other texts such as “Casting by”, “make up by”, “Directed by” etc as a normal font. I think this was a good idea as it made the names of the people in the production company stand out more. They deserve their names to stand out since they helped.

For non diegetic sound I had the idea of adding a cinematic boom as the titles changed. Originally I thought it sounded good. It had a nice effect but after getting feedback from my teacher, I realized that the cinematic boom made the movie more of an Action Thriller rather than a Crime Thriller. This was obviously wrong so I took it away and kept just a background track of Behold the Darkness by Medwyn Goodall. 

I started the track with a fade in offset so it builds up instead of just starting at a fixed volume. I also ended it with a fade out offset. 

Target Audience of Our Opening 'The Executioner'

Demographic Characteristics of An Audience:

Demographic characteristics include the following which are all factors affecting a persons choice of genre to a film in which they are most likely to inherit.

• Age 
• Gender 
• Ethnicity, race, and cultural background
• Sexual orientation

As our movie is in association with film 4, we are more than likely to have an inherited audience. Film 4 broadcast various movie ranging from different genres and sub genre's. However, due to the opening of our thriller being a thriller, our target audience may be narrowed down to male orientated, in which is most likely to be watched by a male instead of a female. This may be due to females being more feminin, in which would rather watch a romance than a thriller. Also age will affect our target audience, due to being a thriller we may attract an age range between 15+ as teenagers like to being on edge, scared and getting there adrenaline pumping. Ethnicity, race and cultural background may also affect the target audience, due to a persons moral values. (e.g. a specific ethnic background may affect if someone was to watch a film in which contains strong sex or violence.)

To conclude the opening of our thriller 'The Executioner' would probably inherit an audience of young teenagers of 15+ and would be mainly male orientated.

Foley sounds

Foley is the reproduction of everyday sounds, used in the production of films. These reproduced sounds can range from the scatter of leaves, footsteps, squeaky doors and breaking glass. Foley sounds which are so well integrated into a film can go unnoticed by the audience, in which helps to create a sense of reality within a film.

Foley artists search to recreate the realistic ambient sounds that a film may portray. Foley sounds are used to enhance the auditory experience of the movie. Foley can also be used to cover up unwanted sounds captured on the set of a movie during filming. Such as Birds humming or passing traffic.

As a group we carefully listened to the sounds we had already captured on set, however there were also some sounds in which we wanted to cover up such a background noise. In order to do this we created our own Foley sound to create a more realistic sound in which actually occurs within that scene. We have also used it to cover up background noise, such as the crew talking behind the scenes.

Below I have attached some sounds in which we, as a group created to integrate into our final product of the opening of ‘The Executioner’ a Thriller.

Here I have attached a foley sound in which we created for the opening sequence to 'The Excecutioner'.

Production - Rough Cut

The above video is our rough cut for our thriller opening sequence. We have taken the feedback given into consideration and will be further editing our sequence in order to create an effective thriller opening. 

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Rough Cut Response

Although you couldn't post your rough cut due to technical difficulties I thought I would add some comments - I'm sure it will be posted.

I thought the chapel filming went well and Zubeir's part works well. The titles look good and the music is quite convincing alongside it.

I'm not convinced the 'blinky' effect is that effective (boom boom).

Having the long title sequence at the start delays the impact, so you might integrate this a bit more and work on the soundtrack.

I don't feel you need to do any more filming - just complete the editing so this becomes a really strong product.
Well done but keep working up to the deadline

Rough Cut - Evaluation

Many of the shots we chose were typically due to the media conventions of thriller films. for example, many thriller films contain tracking and panning shots to emphasis location and to reveal objects, in which we used a tracking shot to reveal the body. Many close ups were used to present the antagonist and his actions and facial expression which again would help to emphasis our understanding of who this character is and why he commits such criminal actions.

We have decided to use a string of titles at the beginning of the narrative behind a blank screen. which would work along with the sound in order to create suspense and allows the audience to raise questions of what may appear in the narrative simply due to the style of the fonts and the sound in which occurs with it. However we thought that we may integrate the titles in between shots rather than having a string of titles at the beginning. Due to our target audience being teenagers we thought that a string of titles behind a blank screen may become boring after a few seconds. Therefore we integrated the titles in between shots which again would allow to build tensions and keep the audience on edge.

We used various aspects of mise en scene within the rough cut of our media product such as costume, in which the protagonist in dressed in all black clothing, wearing leather clothes and a 'hoody', which portrays this character as violent and threatening in stereotypical terms. in addition the use of props such a the diary and the knife covered in blood suggests that this is a character who may be a potential serial killer in which records his killings and future intentions.

in order to finish our final media product, we need to change the titles in which are going to be integrated within shots rather than having a string of titles at the beginning as they would be behind a black screen and therefore may bore our audience as we are targeting teenagers aged between 13 - 17 years old. in addition, we have to create a soundtrack in which will go along with our finish product. the aim is to create an atmospheric soundtrack in which will keep the audience on edge, builds suspense and adds drama to our overall thriller opening.

To conclude to improve our rough cut and create a thriller audience targeted at our intended audience we have to rethink some of the effects used, such as the 'blinky' effect which we are presented with at the beginning of our thriller opening.

Arlington Road - Title Sequence Remake

This is our remake of the title sequence of Arlington Road. In class, we'd watched various clips of opening titles to films. Our task, using FinalCut Pro, was to place the opening titles to Arlington Road in chronological order and then edit the opening and ad our own titles. We had to include all the commercial information such as the production company, distribution company, film title, director, main characters, editor, producer, music composer/artist and writer. We had to make sure that we got that information in the correct order, like in a real film. We knew how to do this from all the different film openings we'd watched in class and did it in a similar way.    

Once we decided on the titles and their order, we had to focus on the font of the text, the position of the font, where in the clip it would be placed and the colour/s we would use. 

The clip below is the alternative opening titles that we have created to give the film a more interesting opening from the original.

In our version, we have decided to place our production company in the first scene when we see a blurry video. This works very well because it helps the text of the production company stand out and the blurriness represents the boy's point of view. We have used the colour red for the font in our remake of Arlington Road. This not only connotates danger but also help to make the information in the titles stand out.  

Filming - Shoot 1

As we prepared for shoot 1, our group was very well organised and everyone came equipped and we were on schedule. We were able to work efficiently as a team due to great communication and work ethic.  One of the key strengths was that our props and costume were spot on. Both of the actors featured in our movie were well prepared and dressed appropriately for their roles. We had also prepared our props well, such as the fake blood used to make the murder apear realistic. We also took a normal notebook and adapted it to appear old and dirty by using boiled tea bags and burning parts of the book.

One of the weaknesses within our shoot was the lighting, which we only noticed after we uploaded our videos to the Mac. Some of the shots appeared to be quite dark as the inside of our location was darker than expected, however we have used the 3 way colour corrector to lighten up those shots although it appears to be quite 'powdery'.  Due to this problem we may have to shoot parts of the film opening again, to get the lighting correct.



This is a picture of the chapel at Abney Park Cemetery. We filmed our scenes inside it, as it was a suitable location for our idea of the opening of the thriller. We also took some some extra videos and photos outside the chapel, but inside the cemetery as we may later decide to use some of them to create an establishing scenario.

Feedback From Ainsworth Dennis

  

During the first days of the editing process we decided to get some feedback of what we have done so far. We can then take into consideration what has been said which may help us later in the process of editing, to get it just right!

Planning - Target Audience

As a group we decided upon what our target audience would be due to the content in which will appear in the opening sequence of our thriller. However, we also discussed who would more likely be attracted to our film. Since our opening sequence will contain flashes of blood and a dead body getting dragged, we thought about making the film a 15 parental guidance. We predict that it will be favored by teenage boys more as they tend to watch these type of films often. This could be a form of an inherited audience. Also our title 'The Executioner' gives the genre of the film away therefore will attract an audience interested in Thriller/Horror. 

Planning: Title Sequence Inspiration

After watching a lot of film opening such as Taking of Pelham 123, Buried, Enemy of the State and many more the two most influencial title sequence are Seven and Momento.

the titles in Momento started with a black screen with blue titles. Then it follows with a narrative opening title sequence.

This is a very good idea to use. It starts off with the important names such as: Production company, Directors and so on and then it follows with the least important names and titles. We want to use something like this for our opening sequence. However we do not want any title to overlap to another shot. So if we do use this in our one then we will make sure one title goes on one shot and a different shot goes on another shot.

Another movie that influence us a lot is Seven but this time it isn't the titles. It's the book in the beginning. 

We want to use something similar to the book. In our one we are going to se an old dirty diary that belongs to the killer. There will be a shot of the pages in the diary flipping. We might put some titles on the page but again that might overlap in between shots.

If we do use the title sequence like in Seven then our writing will be in red instead of white. This is because we want to create a bloody thrilling atmosphere.

Planning - Camera Shot Practice

We choice to film and edit this small scene in which will apear in our final product. we chose to create this scene in order create a strong visual interpretation of what types camera angles we may use. Also it helped to choose a type of pace in which the scenes will be for the scene we have chose to create a slow pace in order to create suspense of the body being dragged. As we have a tight schedule, we thought that practising  the filming would be a good to visualise and be well prepared when coming to the real filming.