Task 7: looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task, I can say that I have developed my knowledge and understanding in a media product, in all aspects: planning, sound and post production filmmaking and the use of camera.

This media shoot was more important in comparison to the preliminary task, we had to put in much more time and effort into planning 'Askew'. We weren't given storyboards, dialogues or any details, we were simply told about the basic requirements: an opening sequence for a thriller film of up to two minutes. 

We had to come up with the whole idea, to do this we had to discuss in the group what we wanted to do, we did a lot of research on psychological and mental disorders, this inevitably added up to an existentialistic opening sequence as in her diary exerts she talks about time and what she is doing, the fading writing.

To do our own research we:

-Looked at different opening sequences to thrillers

-Analysed different psychological and mental disorders

-Discussed what we wanted this sequence to look like

-Got inspired by different ideas (E.g. The Smirnoff Vodka advert)

-Decided upon a look to the sequence

We also had several options within the thriller genre to choose from; such as horror, narrative, thematic, etc. and after we had looked at all these different areas, we opted for a thematic opening sequence. we had to go into more detail, We had to choose our shoot location and so we also had to arrange the required props, set design and plan all the shots, something we hadn't done in our prelim task.

In terms of film-making this meant, more time, planning and thinking was required to be put in so that our sequence would have to visual intentions we wanted it to have. We chose to make the sequence a thematic one; which meant we had to focus on details, especially in terms of mise-en-scene. Every little thing that would be seen, or not seen, adds to a specific meaning, or feeling that would affect the audiences' interpretation upon the viewing of the final product. Details such as the mouse, was one of the shots we spent most of our times arranging. One thing I learnt was that it is important for the shot to be logistically possible and realistic so that the shot works out. We suffered in the case of the mouse, since the shot we had in mind didn't work out due to technical issues that we hadn't kept in mind (the camera could not zoom in beyond a certain point). Due to this, we had to change the shot on the day, and luckily, with the aid of post-production, we managed to make the shot look good in the final product.

Another shot that was especially tricky to make was the whine bottle passing in front of the fruit bowl, this shot we had actually planed but had not thought through how to make it work effectively, what we had to do was set up the camera on a dolly and tracks to move it across giving it the effect we wanted. We then had to set up the bottle in a place sufficiently close enough to cover the entire fruit bowl, for this we had to find a stool and place books onto it then add the whine bottle approximately one meter away from the camera, whilst doing the shot we had to push the camera along keep focus and pan to keep the bottle in shot.

Another shot that was planed but on the day adapted was our ice cube, the idea was to have the ice cube dripping then follow onto a puddle on the floor having titles in it but this changed when we realized we could not effectively film it, so instead we melted the ice cube using hot water out of a peppet, the room was to cold that day to have the ice cube melt on its own.

In terms of sound, we had to tackle a completely different skill since we used dialogue that was recorded from the build-in microphone of the camera in our prelim task and decided to compose a soundtrack based on the events of the sequence for 'Askew'. We had to learn how to use Sound Track Pro, which is a great software for sound composing and mixing. We layered the voiceovers (that we recorded along in the recording studio) with ambient music and heartbeat sounds that were in the Sound Track Pro sound beds. 

Our sequence heavily depended on Adobe After Effects, which is quite overwhelming yet extremely powerful software for adding the special effects to any video. It works in a very similar way to Adobe Photoshop; the only difference is that it is for motion instead of pictures.
We had used Final Cut before in our prelim task, however we did not know how to use After Effects. After spending our time and patience on it, we got the hang of it and played around to see what we could add to our sequence. We added in the smoke, the journal entries that we had handwritten, different layers and we played around with colour to give the changing blue, purple and red. We found that After Effects changed the outlook of our final product and made it look like a complete polished media product.

Task 6: what have you learnt about technologies from the progress of constructing this product?

Task 5: how did you attract/adress your audience?

Powerpoint task 5

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Task 4: who would be the audience for your media produce?

With our idea of a thematic, artistic sequence, we decided that it would not be understood by all people.


We decided that the sequence would best appeal to a more educated audience, and a slightly older more sophisticated one as ultimately our film is about gerascophobia, which is fear of ageing.


We though these types of audience would like the artistic and creative look it gives off, and the idea of the story. We also decided upon this audience group as our sequence is not a conventional opening to a thriller, therefore the film that followed would also represent this idea of an unconventional story.


We decided against marketing our film towards the younger generation as we thought that there is a lot of films which appeal to this age bracket, so with our sequence we are breaking into a new type of audience--providing something for everyone.


even though we had a specific audience type in mind we would still include the younger generations, we feel that in the sequence there are parts that would appeal to a younger audience, the plot may be loosely relatable, the idea, based around a young womans life that drastically changes,this could draw a younger audience in. 


We also though about gender, researching to find out what different genders would perfer in a movie. we saw/assumed that a female audience would be more interested in going to see a ‘chick flick’ in the cinema as opposed to our film, however, being able to comment on this as our group was made up of boys and girls, we came to the decision that actually the film would be marketable to both genders, in short it is not gender specific. 


We also looked at different cultures within our society to see if it would be marketable to everyone, our group was made of, a British person, a German, a Swiss and an Indian, we decided that  most cultures would approve, as we all did.
as a result of all the different groups in society that we lookad at we decided that our film would be highly marketable in today’s market, and although it may not be to everyone’s taste, it would certainly draw in various watchers

Task 3: what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our media product is an unconventional film. Our voice over throughout is British, which implies that our film may be British made, with British money, which also suggests it would be low budget, as Britain is know for producing those films of a more grimy. We decided that Vertigo would be a good distribution company for our media product.

Vertigo is a British production company which is known for its release of the more naturalistic and realist movies which require a specific taste, releasing films like ‘football factory’.

This is why we have decided that ‘Askew’ would be distributed by Vertigo, we feel that our film isn’t entirely conventional. In short with the films artistic influence and different style, we thought Vertigo would be best for us. However, in our title sequence we used Artisan entertainment as our production company as we thought that similarly to Vertigo, it specialises in specific films with an artistic quality such as 'The Blair Witch Project', we found it more appropriate than a company like Vertigo.

Task 2: how does your media product represent particular social groups?

Being a thematic title sequence, which involved no people, we found it difficult to evaluate what social group ‘Askew’ would represent. However, with further thought into the question, we figured that there must be a possible answer. We looked at the wider picture and considered that the social group that would like to watch the sequence would be young educated women.

This is represented through the mise en scene which would be the diary entries and the voice over. Both of these demonstrate, correct use of grammar and spelling, philosophy, which suggests the idea of education and culture. 

We decided the use of language such as solitude and self fulfilling prophecies these are words that the younger uneducated market like teenagers may not understand, this language is more common in young adults in their 20's or 30's, therefore we decided that our sequence best demonstrated this social group.

We also thought the idea of keeping a diary isn't as common in the younger generation therefore making it more recognisable by older generations. The gradual deterioration of the hand writing and ink stains that appear as the diary entries continue suggest that time is passing. There could be some representation of mental illness in society, even though we don't stress this point.

 

               

Task 1: In which way does your media produce use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

 It psychologically challenges the conventions of a classical thriller product as the opening isn’t set in a dark area and isn’t placed in some wood in the middle of nowhere.
The audience has come in expecting a generic movie filled with the typical aspect of such a movie and they are greeted with the mind chalenging images.

The music to the opening sequence is dark and mysterious, this reflects in the shot choices as every shot changes from normality to obscurity. Each shot is cut using brain scans showing the mental element of the film, this has developed from the opening sequence of The Andromeda Strain mixed with the opening sequence of Seven. this showed that we looked at two opening sequences that are very obscured looking, the opening to Seven reveals basic ideas as to what the movie is about, and opening to the andromeda strain shows that the movie is about espionage and government secrets. This keeps to the conventions of a media thriller product.

The shots begins with beauty and then changes using light to more graphically challenging images, such as the computer mouse which changes to a dead mouse.
And the window in which we don’t know what to put on the green screen.

The idea of what our thriller has changed several times in the past weeks working on them. It started by bieng a psychological thriller based on the paranoid fears and a scitsophrenic’s mindset. The idea has now shifted to a time changing story incorperating hand written letters and showing time passing using the dead mouse, the melting ice cube and the hand written letters bieng incorperated into the sequence as opposed to the brain scans that we were using to show that it was a thriller based on the psycosocial behaviour.