Final Evaluation - Sam Rushton
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Thursday, 28 April 2011
Monday, 25 April 2011
For our media coursework, we had two options, design a magazine or film an opening sequence to a film. We choose to film. Our film had to be the start of a film and last no more than 2 minutes. I worked in a group with Liam Bentley and Sara Saghir. Our idea was a fast paced, action, thriller, that involved gangsters and drugs. I thought of the main idea after many unsuccessful ideas fell down.Me and Liam basically did everything, we did a huge amount of research before we even took hold of camera (as seen on the blog), we looked at many films as well as researching the film industries that we wanted to produce the film. Sara has hardly been in lessons, and therefore done little on the blog, she also did not come to any of the filming days or help editing. I was the director of the film, this meant that I had a lot of responsibility as it was my duty to organize actors and shots, and overall produce the film and keep it looking the best it can be. We worked hard in the filming and editing stages to keep the film looking as smooth and continues and possible. Liam was a great member to have working with me, he came up with a lot of good ideas and ordered props online. He gave a lot of effort in helping find filming locations and gave up a lot of time with me to keep our final product looking as good as it does.
The genre that we had to adopt was the thriller genre, we then diverged into sub-genres, the sub genre we choose was crime/gangster. We have used typical conventions like high action fast paced editing (jump shots etc.) Music to create atmosphere, and the typical ‘bad guy’ with a balaclava. However not everything is what you would expect to find, we have experimented with different camera angles and used a flash back into the past from the start of the film. It was important to do some things differently to keep the film from being exactly the same as other films in the same genre and therefore keep the genre fresher, we also wanted to make it differently so it appealed and attracted to people who found it different and interesting. The audience seemed to lover our film and found the new camera angles different and interesting, they said that it kept it exciting and the editing kept it feeling fast and again added to the appeal and excitement. Our film clearly belongs to the thriller crime0gangster genre but does many things to set it apart from different films of that genre.
The group we have represented is criminals/gangsters. The overall image we paint of them is fairly stereotypical at times E.g. the balaclava. We present them as what they are really, dangerous criminals motivated by money and power.We had ‘the torturer’ in all black and a hockey mask. His showed him as a strong, scary, mysterious individual. The two men who attack the car are also masked adding the mystery who these men are, they have no speech in the opening sequence. The are both very violent, for example the torturer attacks the man with a drill and the balaclava man attacks him with a baseball bat. We also have scary music when the man is about to be tortured adding to the fear factor involved with these men.At parts the criminals do fit with the dominant stereotype portrayed by the media, that there all involved with drugs, kidnapping and other criminal activities, but I feel we take this to another level by showing them physically torturing someone.
We want our film to be made by and distributed by a British film company. We have decided on Film4. We want the film to be a gritty British drama and feel Film4 would be the best to create this, as they have created gritty films like trainspotting and This is England. I believe our film would appeal to fans of coarse the Thriller genre and crime/gangster genre but also fans of action and horror. I doubt that our film would have the same effects on American audiences hence why we want Film4 to distribute it. As I said before Film4 has always been about hard hitting, emotional gritty films and that is why I believe that is why they would be perfect for our film.
Our film will most likely appeal to males aged 16-25, of a western ethnicity (probably only European). The social economic group it will appeal to isIt will appeal to fans of thrillers as well as fans of crime and gangster films. It will also appeal to fans of horror and action films.I believe thrillers have a huge amount of fans, but gangster thrillers have a smaller loyal niche market. Who will pay to go and see the latest film in that genre.From our feedback we found out that everybody loved it and they said they would go and see the film, this shows that even though our film is in a sub-genre it appeals to many people who aren’t even fans of this genre.
Audiences of this genre expect it to be hard hitting and exciting, which we delivered right from the start through fast paced action. The Equilibrium is disrupted as this man is taken by masked men. We create many equilibriums from the start: Who is the person being tortured, who are the kidnappers, why are they doing this. Chronological are film changes, the start of the sequence is not like actual start, after the torture scene it goes back and says ‘5 hours earlier..’. We use many enigmas, like who are the people trying to capture the ‘victim’ who is the ‘victim’ and what has he done to the gang?. We build tension by sinister music and the use of cuts to black. We have used crime ideologies, like ripping off gangsters is not a good idea and they will come back for you.
We learnt about many websites that can offer excellent information in helping research and create movies. We found lots of interesting and useful videos on YouTube. We could embed videos onto our blog that we found.We also learnt about video editing software (iMovieHD), which allowed us to cut, trim and paste clips into were we wanted them, we could also put in titles and even use effects e.g. The CCTV effect we used. We would have preferred to use higher quality HD camera’s to make our products look slicker and more professional but this out of our control.
I think our final product came out very well and just how we wanted it, I believe its key strengths to be its high pace and levels of action, a weakness I feel is the un-explanation of who the characters are, but this was meant to be an enigma to draw the audience in and then to be revealed later into the film.
Sam Rushton
Friday, 8 April 2011
Liam Bentley-Evaluation
For our project, we had to make a 2 minute opening sequence for thriller. Our idea was thought of by Sam. The main story line of our project was that someone was kidnapped, and on the first scene we would show the torturer and him getting tortured, then going to a flash back 5 hours before, showing how he got caught. We started to do a lot research and put all of it onto our blog. Looking up thrillers on YouTube getting many ideas, finding out about film industries etc. we also bought some props of eBay and other websites and took pictures in which we posted on the blog. The people I worked with are Sam Rushton and Sara Saghir. It was Mainly Me and Sam who contributed mostly to the project, as we did most of the Posts on the blog, but mainly, she didn’t come to any filming days, and did not help with any editing. But overall I still think we did very well with the project with just me and Sam mainly contributing to the whole project. Our main roles where all just split out equally, therefore we all help out with each role, e.g. editing, filming, research. Sam worked very well, and did a lot of work to help create this project. I don’t think I could have done this with out him, as he did come up with the idea, and he helped a lot.
The main genre of our sequence had to be a thriller, so there are many conventions which show this throughout the film. We tried to push this through the first part of the sequence. The location was set in an old, garage, with lots of tools and junk everywhere, which created a scary, unknown place. Some of the mise en scene we used, like the mask we bought online, made it look scary and push the genre ‘thriller’. When the camera does a POV shot, when moving across a table picking his weapon, there are lots of knifes and metal bars, which add to the genre thriller. The sound at the beginning, is every deep tones, and the editing is made a lot slower, with titles coming in between as he comes up to the camera which makes the viewer very scared, and tense, up until the scream, which wants to make the viewer jump, and scared. I know this part of the sequence was the best as we did a questionnaire and found out that most people liked this bit, and found it scary. This made us very happy, as this is the response we wanted and this also goes towards the conventions of the genre ‘thriller’. Through out the rest of the sequence, we find that it is more of an action thriller. We can see this through mainly the sound and editing conventions. The sound we use is very fast and action packed but still makes the viewer tenser, because as the music kicks in, we see the editing get a lot faster, with fast pace cuts and a lot of different shots. This adds to the action/thriller genre we tried to create. When the main character is getting into the car we have lots of close ups, one mainly of his hand when putting it into the car he is shaking, and we have another close up/medium shot of him, really showing his facial expressions, which is shown as scared, which also makes the viewer scared. After this we get some more conventions, as we see some more props which would add to the genre thriller, as we see balaclavas, baseball bats, and for the action side of the genre we see cars. And more sound which is fast pace and fits well in the sequence.
Our media product represents only two groups and that is mainly, the victim, and the criminals. We see the victim in the first shot as he is tied up, and is wearing a dirty tank top, with ripped pants. The victim throughout the film is dressed in grey, which is a lighter colour, so we can see that he is the protagonist and the victim. We see that he is the only person who speaks through the sequence apart from the person he is on the phone to, who is unknown. He is also in every scene of the sequence, but in the main part, he is running away, so he is clearly shown here that he is the victim. Soon after we see that he gets caught, now really clearing up that he is the victim as he has been put in the back of a car, going to an unknown destination.
The criminals are shown very clearly, mainly by there costumes or Mise en scene. At the very beginning, the criminal is wearing all black, with just a mask on, and I know from all horror or thriller movies that who ever is wearing a mask is usually the bad guy. Also we see him use a weapon, to torture the victim which also suggests that he is the criminal. And finally, at the end of this scene, we have a low angle on him making him look big, so he is powerful, and clearly see his mask. The main part of the sequence we see two people wearing balaclavas, which suggest they are the criminals, as they are also dressed in black/grey colour. Also when we see the people break into the car, in the CCTV camera effect, we see that he is a criminal there, as they only break into cars. The stereotype here is that the bad guys are mainly men, as are the protagonists. But we tried to make it different by having the victim a man as well, because it has become more popular to have women as the victims.
I think that it would be distributed by Hollywood, Universal. The main reasons for this are that we wanted it to be a kind of gangster/thriller, and we looked at films like ‘Scarface’ which is distributed by universal. Also, unlike British films, we don’t get ‘GRASS’ as it just focus’s on the action and the horror effect. So we get more of an action packed film, not showing the emotions and feelings really deep, making the viewer sad about the film, like most British films do. Also many British films are of the genre, ‘social realism’ and our film is a horror/thriller/action. Having many different genres link to Hollywood films like Spiderman, this has many genres.
I think the main target audience for our product would be between the ages 15-26. This is mainly because these are the people that usually go the cinema, and I would like as many people to watch it. Also the action/thriller genre is perfect for the aged 15-26 because it’s what they have been brought up to watch by Hollywood films, with lots of action and horror, which also are the main genres at this time, in the cinema.
I think that it was the beginning that really attracted the audience because there are a lot of enigmas and it is the creepiest part of the sequence. This is shown by the mise en scene and sound as we have a scary location, in an unknown, isolated place, with lots of stuff in the garage like metal bars weapons. The equilibrium and the disruption are all in different places as we start at the disruption, and then jump back to the equilibrium. So it is a bit different, but more people would like that as it’s not just a typical film, which would attract the audience. The sound makes it a lot scary, as we have deep tones, or strings in the background, and gets higher as he walks towards the camera, this could also attract the audience. There are a lot of enigmas like, why is he there, who is the person in the mask, what has he done etc. which would want the viewer to carry on watching to find out more, which could attract the audience. We tried to build as much tension as possible in the opening scene to really attract the audience so they would want to carry on watching.
I have learnt a lot during the construction of the product. But also I new quite a lot already. The blogging of the product I learnt quite a lot, like how to embed a YouTube video onto the blog. I also learnt that you can get different kind of fonts from the internet, as we used a font called, ‘project y’. The main part I learnt was how to edit, using iMovie. I liked the editing so I got used to it right away which was good.
Comparing the prelim to the final product, I can see that we have become more advanced, as we did a lot more smooth editing, and invisible editing. We also learnt to use a lot more camera angles and different shots to make it a lot more interesting. And finally we also wanted to make sure nothing was in the shot apart from what was nessasery, because in our prelim, we had a camera bag in one shot, and it disappeared in the next, making it look unreal, so I think we have learnt a lot during the final piece.
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