Friday 4 May 2012

evaluation questions - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Due to the psychological content of our film opening, vertigo would best suit the distributor of our media text. A similar film distributed by vertigo is Outcast, the film synopsis is similar to our story line in “visited”, When Mary (Kate Dickie) and her teenage son, Fergal (Niall Bruton), move to yet another new home, it soon becomes clear they are hiding from someone or something, terrified of being found, Our film “visited” has a similar story line in which a young character if suffering from delusions and is confused between thought and reality, although the audience is unaware of this until later on in the film. Warp films would be unsuitable for distributing our film as the psychological thriller genre is not a typical genre they would produce, warp films instead produce’s more British style films. We selected vertigo as it has released a greater number of thriller films in comparison to other independent film companies

Wednesday 2 May 2012

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




 Constructing our film, much was learnt through the use of technologies in our product. Specifically the main technology’s we had to come to terms with is our digital camera and the use of adobe premiere during the editing of our final piece. The camera was a bit difficult particularly to operate steadily during filming, however this was made easier throughout filming as we were helped by the use of a tripod; our main fault in the product itself I think was our framing in the camera, this was difficult to achieve during handheld shots and we feared that it could affect how professional the scenes seemed; however taking several takes of the scene helped us obtain, in my opinion a fluently filmed final product.

  The use of Adobe premiere was also a technology which I’ve become more accustomed  to during the editing stage of our final product; this was the second time I’ve used this editing programme, however, after my preliminary I still felt a bit hesitant to use it, as I thought It was quite complex and extensive. But during the editing of our final piece, the programme started to ease the more we used it.  Tools like cutting scenes became easier, and our final product became generally quite fluent, especially with the aid of our diegetic sound and use of credit titles.




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


Looking back at my preliminary task, I must say I have learnt a lot in almost every area. In our preliminary task, it really didn’t go to plan and to be honest we didn’t have much of a plan anyway. So our final product was a much better attempt then our preliminary. The main problems we had in our preliminary were general fluency in editing, and assignment of production roles. However, in our full final product I believe we took this into account and the fluency in editing of our final product was actually quite decent, therefore one thing I have learnt from the progression to the final product is the use of adobe premiere, I felt quite intimidated by this software when editing my preliminary, however during the editing stage of our final product I was able to come to terms with the programme and generally feel more comfortable using it.

 However, one problem that I think carried on to our media final media product was the organisation of production roles, especially casting. We actually started filming using completely different actors then the ones in our final completed product, but using the previous cast outlined inconsistency in production work, there were many days planned for filming in which original cast found difficult to organise, and to be honest we( me and Harry) should have been more organised as well. But we were able to sort these problems and use only two characters in the whole opening  which I think was a much better idea than the initial cast of four or five, especially for the genre we were appealing too.

Friday 27 April 2012

Evaluation questions-How did you attract/address your audience?

We tried to attract our target audience, which is predominately teenagers, by typically using two teen characters in cast, in the film the main female character is supposed to be the age of a teenager, therefore by using amber as our main character it should help more towards engaging our target audience and helps the audience identify and compare with the character on screen. As our audience is mainly teenagers, the film is more relatable to the viewer. Also with the use of James as a mysterious hooded character represented as a possible hallucinations is further use of addressing our audience;  our film is set to outline characteristics such as hallucination, paranoia and anxiety, quite uncommonly represented in the media. Therefore by including scenes like ambers non- verbal communication in response to the mysterious figure is a technique we tried/ used which we thought was key in helping to attract an audience.

Evaluation questions-Who would be the audience for your media product?


Our target audience for our media product is targeted towards youth in general, but particularly teen females – this is who we’d expect to watch our film as our main character is a female protagonist, and is dominant in screen time. However our film could possibly also appeal to horror/thriller fans as the construction of the film has been represented as a very dark sense for the film constructed by using dark sound, low key lighting and the use of James (male character) – all contribute towards the psychological horror/thriller essence represented in film. We gained this idea from previous films we’ve studied for example the strangers; we got the idea of James and the mask from this movie, as we thought this would fit into our psychological thriller as was certified 15, and was basically designed for a teenage audience, which was our target audience. Our use of a female protagonist was also based on silence of the lambs in which a strong female character was represented, however we thought we’d twist it to have quite a vulnerable character.

Evaluation questions-How does your media product represent particular social groups?


Our media product represents a number of particular social groups, particularly representing females as our main character for the film. It also represents youth in general, the use of just two characters one male and one female identifies both sides of gender alongside representing general stereotypes. The male character (although has no dialogue) seems strictly dominant in our film and is obviously more in control of the scene (however being a possible hallucination), whereas, the female character is portrayed quite stereotypically vulnerable in our film – this further represents females. The fact that our character is meant to be aged between 15-17, outlines the realism of paranoia/anxiety  that is not typically seen in society (especially not for a teenage girl).   

Saturday 10 March 2012

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

Our film opening "visitors" was inspired from several psychological thriller films, prior to filming our opening we looked at a few examples to gain knowledge as to how suspense can be created During our planning. myself and James Looked at the opening for seven, we attempted to copy the style of credits create suspense and enigma as to what is going to happen next. The style of the text from seven was used in our opening 'visitors' to engage the audiunce and to try and create a feeling of mystery and enigma Our film opening visitors took inspiration from the Donnie Darko bathroom scene- in which donnie is talking to a large rabbit but seems confused at what he see's similarly thus co insides with our end scene of amber using Non verbal communication to convey a look of confusion expressed using facial expression. Donnie Darko The penultimate inspirtation for visitors was taken from the pyscological thriller 'stragers' in which banging noises can be heard from within the house in which the film is set, similarly we used this idea and combined it with non digetic sound to create an enigma. The masked Charecter from the stragers was used to help the audince question the enigma of the film. Similarly we copied the style of the masked charecter from the 'The strangers' as it helped convey mystery as to why he is following the female charecter in 'visitors' and makes the audiunce question if he is physically real, or if he only can be seen be the female charecter as a dillusion. The scene in strangers in which loud non digetic sound can be heard before the appearce of the masked charecter. The scene in visitors after the loud banging can be heard, the female charecter walks toward the source of the noise, followed by the introduction of the masked charecter.

Monday 5 March 2012

opening sequence - location

For our film third eye we havge chosen a set few locations all of which will be set in ringwood town: The film will start in a cafe (Cafe Aroma), then the character will be tracked through ringwood town until she comes to a house. She will go into the house and go into the living room where she will pass out, then awaken in the morning, in which the film opening will then end.
Location in order:
Cafe Aroma (outside seating)
 ringwoods streets (The close, Quomp)
My House (hallway, living room)


 

Monday 20 February 2012

Opening titles credit sequence

I have analysed two opening title credit sequences in order to get a feel of how me and Harry shall use Credit titles in our film Third eye. I have picked Goodfellas and Panic room to analyse as both have quite different credit titles, Panic room is of the same genre as our opening sequene therefore is a decent fim to analyse.
Goodfellas opening credit sequence

Production company:  warner bros. – Irwin Winkler
Director – Martin Scorsese
Cast: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino
Executive Producer: Barbara De Fina
Based on the book ‘Wiseguy’ by Nicholas Peleggi
Screenplay –Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Peleggi





Panic Room Opening sequence credits
Production company – Columbia pictures a Hofflund/Polone production -  an indelible picture
Cast – Jody Foster, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakem, Jared Leto
Film Title – Panic room
More Casting -  Kristen Stewart, Ann Magnuson, Ian Buchaman, Patrick Bauohau, Paul Schulze
Casting – Laray Mainfield
Costume designer – Michael Kaplan
Music – Howard Shore
Film Editors – James Haygood, Angus Wall
Production designer – Arthur Max
Director of Photography – Conrad w. Hall, Darius Khondji
Produced by – Gavin Polone, Jody Hofflund, David Koepp, Cean Chaffin
Written by David Koepp
Directed by David Fincher










Friday 10 February 2012

Third eye - casting

For our cast we will only be using 3-4 charcters, alongside a few extras during certain scenes, other than that me and Harry will be handling pre production, filming and editing. we think it would be best for our psychological thriller to limit the amount of characters, so our audience can really identify and understand the characters in the film, as we are oinly doing an opening.
 Cast
 Main Character (suffering from hallucinations) - Kirsty Brown
Friend - Mel Knight
little girl - TBD

Third Eye - Classification

Classification

Our film ‘third eye’ will be classified under certificate 15. I think it should be certified 15 from the BBFC (British board of film classification), as there are mild elements of horror, some use of strong language, Mild drug reference, and elements of imitable behaviour included in our film.

Monday 6 February 2012

Third Eye - Distribution

We have chosen Vertigo films for our distributing company as they are a British independent film company and distribute quite a varied selection of films.  We believe that with Vertigo films, they are more likely to accept the distribution of our film, as it is a British company (distributing Our British film) and also the fact it is an independent film company makes it more likely for them to distribute our film rather than use a big labelled distributor like working title or warner bros.  We have picked vertigo films specifically over other British independent distributors (for example warp films) as Vertigo seems to distribute more thriller/horror genre films (genres quite similar to our psychological thriller ‘third eye’), thus we think Vetigo would be more suitable than other Independent distributors.



Monday 9 January 2012

psychological thriller - Storyboard

we will name our psychological thriller Third Eye



For our psychological Thriller we've decided to fix on an idea that the main hallucinations will be of a little girl. We beleive that this would be better then simply having hallucinations of a man, as we beleive that a little girl will appeal more to our targeted female audience. However, we will include other random hallucinations to reinforce the enigma of our opening.

First Scene - Firstly we will start off our film with a scene in a cafe between two female characters - the main character explains her worries of hallucinations to her friend.  She claims to have been seeing images of a small girl and other random visions; her friend comforts and supports her, they then both leave the cafe and head seperate ways.

Second Scene - Tracking of the main female character walking through the streets to her house , as shes walking through she keeps seeing her little girl and the same mysterious figure wherever she looks

Third scene - Female main character gets back to her house, shes trippin - keeps seeing the same little girl and occasionly a mysterious hooded man. She then runs up stairs and goes into her room slamming the door as she enters.

Fourth scene - She puts her back to the door and sighs in relief, then she sees a flash vision of the man at the window, she rushes towards the indow and draws the curtains. After she walks to her bed, she sits in bed contemplating, then finally after a while passes out.

Fifth Scene -  This will be our last full scene, and will be portrayed as a dream, with quick shots of her previous hallucinations will be used aswell as a couple of new ones. suddenly it will refer back to the main character suddenly awakens.
End Credits