For my media piece, I chose the practical option and made an opening sequence to a film called ‘The Night Before’.
The genre of the opening sequence is phychological. We decided to choose this theme as we thought it would be more tensing and attract more people more by creating mixed emotions. we used a scary style of music which let the audience know that it was a spooky film and left them in that sort of mood. the music creates tense and sorts the film for being mysterious.
We used media conventions in our film to help set up the story. We used different camera angles in the film to tell the story we used all angles such as close up shots, long distance shots and medium shots. This was effective as it gets into detail and shows the differences in the angles and shots. For example, in our film, it showed Saliah when she was just awaking and beaten up and showed her eyes in detail. This is then where the audience saw how her eye makeup had smudged and blackened. Without this close up shot, some of the audience may not have understood what had happened, so this gave them more of an idea and helps establish the narrator.
The music has a spooky feel to it and creates tension for the audience for the film being spooky. It changed speeds in parts and lowered then higher again where she was starting to remember the night before and what had happened to her. It creates a difference and the flashbacks to avoid confusion and makes flashbacks. Without these elements, the tension wouldn’t be the same and wouldn’t occur in the audience’s reaction.
A narrative as needs a beginning, middle and a end. However, because our practical was only a opening sequence, there wasn’t really an ending. The only ending was where you see the beaten up looking girl starting to walk off in the distance trying to get home. We don’t see what happens to her as this is where the film would then take off.
To find out if our video was effective, we asked 4 people to feedback to us there ideas and thoughts towards our film. We asked them questions such as ‘what genre does the sequence belong to and how could you tell this?’ We received the answers we wanted by them replying by saying it was a horror/ thriller. When we asked different questions towards our film they responded on the lines we wanted them to which then made it clear that our choices for putting various music, lighting and camera angles worked as it was effective on our viewers. However, we asked the group what we could of done to make our film better and they replied with ‘maybe a clip of how she got there’ also the feedback we got of some other people via face book, they said ‘the flashbacks could have been shorter and more frequent, and Saliah’s make-up could have been more smudged to show she slept on a bridge. The party scenes could have included Saliah to make it clearer that she was there and what happened to her.’ This was our downside to the film but overall people enjoyed it and understood what was happening.
Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our opening sequence was a thriller/horror. The main people we represented were a young social group, as a few young teenagers were at a party and woke up the morning after lying on a bridge, is also a teenager.
From the party we cannot tell what sort of people are they are as the only scenes we see from the party are flashbacks and are the glimpses we see stereotypical of teenagers- where they are lazy and look sometimes morbid or very slouchy. This sort of thriller is similar to skins however it is not as scary with the music and so on. Saliah looks different to the skins characters, also her as skin color and nationality might have something to do with her attack and we could get a wonder of whether it could We can obviously see that there are some villains or maybe just one at the party as she got kidnapped. The group we have mainly focused on is young people and then victims. This is where saliah, is the victim for our film.
The victim in our film is a teenage girl at a party. She is a girl that is who has been drinking too much as we see her with a glass and might not have the full control she normally has. This is might make her more venerable to being more under attack. Also Saliah is dressed for a party in some skin tight pants and a sparkly top with silver high heels on. She is dressed to attract attention; this also might make Saliah more likely to get something happen to her. Her appearance is smart and she looks pretty as she is attending a party. She has fancy make up on and is looking at her best again, typical of a victim. As we see her in the opening, she is looking rough as if she has slept on a bridge all night just above a river. Her eye makeup on her face is all smudged and she has blackness around her eyes where she looks bruised. There isn’t much speech in the film apart from the flashbacks where the party noise is playing and where Saliah wakes up and starts to fret and worry where you can hear deep breathing noises. This brings tension as the audience can see she is starting to worry again. Her facial expressions also give off the sense that she is bewildered and afraid. Her shoes are off and she walks bare footed when she finally gets up and walks off in the distance. She is shivering and shaking as she was freezing again showing she is weak and in danger. This is a good effect, as it makes the audience feel like they are with the character, walking. Her body language is small and unconfident. She walks off with a hunched back to keep herself warm. When she is panicking, she manages to grab her bag and get her phone. This is a good prop as when she looks at it there isn’t any signal as this isn’t very clear in the film, it still shows that she is a modern up to date teenager with the latest gadgets, although in this case her phone couldn’t help her.
Question 4: Who would be the audience for yout media product
As my opening sequence had a horror/ thriller style theme, the audience viewing can vary, I think mainly the target audience for my sequence would be the young adult age group ranging from 16 to 25. It would probably attract more males than females. However some females enjoy Thrillers. For example: a 19yr old male teen would be a perfect candidate. He would buy the thriller films or horror films from HMV where they sell a range of CD’s and DVD’s with many different genres. He may listen to metal or rock music or something that revolves violence as they all have a linking relationship between them both. The sorts of programs they would watch would be ‘Star Trek’ and then the usual everyday viewings from teens such as ‘Skins’ or ‘Hollyoaks’.
In films, they would expect films to obviously catch their eyes and expect parts of the film to have violence and sex scenes. They would expect the trailer to the film to be left on a cliff hanger so they will want to find out what happens by watching the rest of the film. When watching the film they want it to have a good plot where they can enjoy the film, leaving them with a clear mood of whether the film was scary or weird so they can then talk to people about the film.
The second target audience would be the older adult age group around the ages of 34-50, as they know that not all films are real and mostly made-up, so when watching a film, they wont be completely scare themselves, but however leaving them with a feeling of whereabouts or ‘on edge’. However they might want mystery elements to puzzle about.
People these ages are good for the media companies in sales, as they’re more likely to go to the cinemas on nights out with their loved ones or friends or just to simply buy the film on DVD, as they should have an income coming in. most young people have relatively small incomes but generally can spend it as they like. They will hopefully be a profitable audience
Question 5:
In our film, we have found out through our feedback that many people liked out title ‘The Night Before’ as it is catchy and mysterious. From the opening sequence, we can see a girl that has been kidnapped or something has happened to her the night before, when we see her lying on a bridge in the freezing cold in the morning. This is then what starts off the mystery and the beginning of the film.
In the film, it starts off with showing the girl on the bridge, bruised and battered and wondering how she got there, but then it shows that she has flashbacks of the night before. This really catches the audience’s attention as it quite different and has a different feel about the film. We have used different transitions to create these flashback scenes really effective. We used blur, where this makes the audience have an illusion as if they feel like they are this character, also another transition where we see her drinking from the glass from her mouths point of view where this makes the audience look from the girls prospective.
In my opening sequence, there isn’t really a basic equilibrium because the audience can tell this girl has been abused and battered on this bridge and can tell she has been to a party from the night before but they don’t really know what is happening. I found out it wasn’t very easy to follow when we got the feedback from the audience as only one person responded and the others didn’t really follow. The disruption is where this girl is lost and she doesn’t know where she is.
In my film, I have built up mystery and suspense, worry and fear. I have done this the most by using the flashback effects. In my sequence fear and worry is very important and plays a big part in my sequence as my genre is thriller/physiological which it needs to create a sense of wonder as to what’s happening to this poor girl. I think I did a good job of making the audience wonder as to what’s happening as from the feedback they did seem puzzled and wanted to know more about what’s happening to her.
In my sequence, there are many enigmas being carried out, for example: what is she doing? How has she ended up there? Where is she? Will she be alright and get home? How has she got beaten up eyes? All these enigmas make the audience want to carry on watching the film or maybe as a sectioned drama. It keeps the audience interested and lets them enjoy the film also.
The chronological side to my sequence has been set over a few days as the girl was at the party one night, then the morning after she’s on a bridge therefore I couldn’t film all on the same day. Even though the party was inside we can see on various shots the nighttime darkness peeping through the windows from the house. Whereas when we was filming Saliah on the bridge, it was early morning time so we filmed from different shots as we didn’t actually shoot in the morning, we shot during the day but had to get into different positions so the brightness was too much. Also at the end, when she is looking back at the bridge this was the time in the evening where the sun was setting so it looked like it was in the morning, because it had the sun in the background and gave off an illusion of it only being the sunset.
In my sequence, we use a lot of different angle shots, were the point of view shot in the flashbacks, and was quite effective as the audience enjoyed feeling like what she was doing. It makes the audience feel like there a part of the film and puts them in the characters position. .
The editing side to the sequence was very important to our sequence, as it had the biggest part to put it all together. Adding music was another editing effect we included to give the extra feel about to the audience making them feel on edge and in suspense with some mystery scary music. The tempo was high and a slow beat were this creates suspension and tension. Also another effect was the flashbacks where this draws the attention to the film from the audience, as it is not used in every day filming and is very effective when wanting to create mystery and tense for the film.
Question 6:
The most helpful tool that helped dramatically was the internet in our final product. As it has so many helpful and useful websites such as blogger, Wikipedia, imdb, YouTube and so on, it helped me find out what other genre of films was included and similar to mine. A main website was blogger which has helped me record down everything I have done within the task and helped me to upload clips. When I received my feedback, I then put this information on the blogger to note down what was done in order for me to then create my evaluation. On my blogger, I uploaded clips from you tube and then analyzed them. During the planning stage, I used imdb a lot which is a film and movie database sharing lots of information about different facts about the films.
When actually making my film and editing, during this process, I learned at the very beginning how to use the camera, but it wasn’t until actually going out and shooting was I getting more familiar on the different shots and angles. I found out with the camera, that it is important that when filming for long periods it is vital that the battery life is spent only when needed. As it will lose its battery life quickly, therefore taking spares is crucial. I’ve also learnt about how much sound is actually picked up when filming or shooting a scene or clip. Only the slightest bit of wind can be picked up on the camera and without knowing this when filming can ruin the scene, so knowing where and when to shoot is a good point I have learnt. When editing the scenes to create the film, I wouldn’t really say there was any disadvantages, but if there was I could say I found it a little confusing and there wasn’t really as many transitions or sound effects to choose from as I’d expected.
When collecting our feedback from our film, we filmed 4 people whilst asking them questions about our film. They was filmed and put under the spot a little, we started them off whilst they were watching the film then carried on with questions. This helped a great deal as not only did it save time but it was a good way to see the outcome. A disadvantage to this way of shooting was that the audience may have felt under pressure and might not want to give their truthful and honest opinion.
When I looked back from my prelim task to my final task that I had created, I can definitely tell there is a difference with improvement between the two as on the prelim, we were trying to still figure out how to start using and working with the camera and how it worked with different shots and angles. We still used the tripod on the prelim; however we didn’t use it properly by keeping it still.
There also weren’t as many different camera angles or shots were as on our final piece, here we used medium, long distance and close up shots with the camera varying the shots to create different effects with the camera to make our piece unusual and interesting. We have improved our technique by keeping the camera tripod as still as possible when shooting when needed. It was important to do this effect; otherwise, the film would have looked rushed and not filmed in detail.
We used more different effects when editing the piece as we had flashbacks in a scene to create the dizziness of the girl that was lost and her remembering her night before. We used the different transitions to show a variety of different affects, This looked effective when we had finished editing as when we looked over the slides ran smoothly into each other without any flickering and overall made our film look professional.
When were in the middle of editing, we wanted to make sure that when the audience watch our film, they would understand what was going on, so we checked it all made sense.
In our final piece, our characters were much more distinctive and effective than in our prelim as the main character had a bigger role to play and when watched back looked more exciting and fun. As she didn’t know where she was, the flashbacks created a tension feeling wondering whether she will get home. More ideologies eg. what’s going to happen to her? Were created when watching our final piece more than our prelim which obviously made it more exciting yet mysterious. Also the use of costume and make-up helped define character more. Saliah has her make-up smudged whereas on our prelim, she didn’t have any on and no extra make-up was added. We used more props in our prelim which created a better sequence as it looked like we had put more effort into our final piece.
We used a better choice of lighting and sound in our final piece as we changed our lighting when we used a close up on Saliah’s shoes. We filmed this outside as we filmed most of her outside also. As we filmed her on the bridge and her shoes separately, we had to make sure the lighting looked near enough the same, otherwise it wouldn’t of had the same effect. When Saliah was led on the bridge, she was surrounded by trees which made the atmosphere look dark and bewildering. She looked like she had just woken up and it was in the morning. As you see her walking off into the distance, she looks around so the camera angle changes to be her were the sun in the sky is setting showing a pinkish colorful sunset. However it doesn’t look bad as we have given the impression that is in the morning so it looks as if the sun is rising. The use of a better location and lighting than the prelim also made it feel more genuine.
Conclusion
Overall, I think that our sequence was a success as our audience feedback showed that they enjoyed our sequence and thought it was catchy and more or less understood the story line. They thought the location was excellent and the characters situation was realistic as these are the sorts of stories that people tend to hear about.
We didn’t really have many downfalls; however, I think if we had more time and money to travel to different areas to get more of a feel for the tension, we could have chosen a different area to shoot. On the other hand, we were all pleased with where we shot our footage and it looked the right destination for what we was looking for. We could have also filmed a bit of Saliah at the party, not from the point of view shot actually watching her around the party as if we were the villain’s point of view.
Taken as a whole, I believe we did really well in our final product, we completed it in time and the feedback was really good and I think if we were to create another one in future we would happily be able to do it.
No comments:
Post a Comment