Video and Evaluation of my media product (Shadows Present)

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I analysed other film noir openings for inspiration and ideas for my media product I think that our product is quite close to a film noir opening, because it keeps the audience on edge and keeps them thinking who the main character is. Our film noir was inspired by Detour, we choose this particular film noir because in the beginning it shows a man who is running away from something and it goes into a flashback, and in a way our opening is like this, but more updated. We looked closely at the different types of shots they tried to use, such as putting the venation blind effect on the main character and we have done this too but the only difference is our frame is just black and the main character is the only thing we lit up. We used the venation blind effect a lot of the time in the interior setting to give the effect of a dark hotel room in a run-downed city. But the only different thing that we did was that we did not use any diegetic sound instead we used some non-diegetic sound and a few non-sync sounds. For example when the main character unzips his coat. We did this to emphasis how he is alone in the room. But when it came to the dialogue we had no non-diegetic sound so it would be easier to hear the actors. For editing, we tried to use a lot of cutaways of the gun, notepad etc. to make it clearer to the audience of what is happening and how Chris has been set up. I think that we have developed film noir, by using it’s lighting and narrative. But also I think at the same time we tried to challenge it by changing it’s characters, for instance we have no femme fatale and also the music we used.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I think that our main character does represent many male characters from film noirs, for instance the way that they are average men and then they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and there whole life gets turned upside down, because they have a lot of guilt on their mind. The only difference we have done is that the costumes that the characters wear are modern and not formal. When in most film noir’s like Detour the man is always wearing a suit to show successful they are. We tried to make our main character look depressed most of the time, and how we made the room dark in a way was try and portray how he is feeling so much guilt inside. We used some hard light on both characters to try and bring the shadows in. For instance how we used hard light on Josh’s feet to emphasis his steps while he was walking near Chris, we did this to make it seem how tense Chris was when Josh got closer. In our film noir we were trying to represent Chris as a normal nineteen year old, that get’s into trouble, this is a stereotypical teenager in my opinion because they think they can do whatever they want without getting into trouble. But our character is different to most film noir’s as normally the character is in their late thirty’s and is successful.

What kind of media distribute might distribute your media product and why?
I think that our media product would be distributed by an independent film distributor, such as Optimum Releasing, because our media product us an independent film and may not sell in big multiplexes, but somewhere like an independent cinema like an art house. Also it might be shown at film festivals such as Rain Dance and Sun dance. I think that once it has come out of the cinema it would be consumed by DVD and then eventually go on to television. I think that small company’s like Channel four would show it, because they are normally interested in independent films such as This is England. But it would be shown late at night slot at about 10, because it would be rated a 15.

Who would b the audience for your media product?
I think that our media product would be viewed by and appeal to a teenage audience especially boys because in the opening it includes a lot of action. I think that our media product would be viewed by an active audience as the audience need to interact with the character to feel his emotions. I think that our product would be rated a 15 by the BBFC this is because it includes violent scenes that would not be appropriate for a 12 year old I do not think, because the concept of people killing other people young children might get the wrong idea. Also I think that we might use strong language just to show how stressed the main character is. Also if we put it a 15 we open our media product to a larger cinema audience than if we put it a 12. We did mainly primary research before we started filming, we did things like a questionnaire and asking our friends and our family so we could get a different age range. We asked questions such as Do you like crime films? etc. this was to see what kind of people would be interested to see our film noir opening.

How did you attract/address you audience?
We attracted the audience by keeping them hooked in to the story, by keeping the audience wondering who the shadow is who is stalking him,an enigma. I think that we attracted our audience by using Visceral pleasures, we did this by the music how it is upbeat and changes its tone by getting fast and then slow, Also as the music is slow, it makes the audience tense as what is happening on the screen is not relaxing it keeps the viewer wondering that something bad is going to happen if the music is that slow. Also I think that it would give the audience emotional pleasures, as the film makes the audience interact with the character there fore they feel the character’s guilt. . Also I think that the interior shooting makes the audience hook in because it is just a dark room and we were trying to achieve it look like a hotel room but this way it looks more mysterious and confusing. I think that the prop we used which was the knife in the exterior shoots, keeps the audience in because you are wondering who the man is. At first we used loud music but our media teacher commented that it seemed like a trailer for the audience to go watch it.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have been using YouTube a lot to research how other film noir openings are like, for instance I watch D.O.A but that did not intrigue me to watch the rest of the film which is not what I was looking for. Also at the very beginning of this project I used Wikipedia in order to find characteristics of film noirs and also to see what keeps the audience hooked in. During this project I have been keeping a blog to show my understanding of this media product. But also during that I would compare my own blog with people in my class to see how interesting their story is. Also I compared it with people in my group to see if I understood the narrative right because we had a lot of brainstorming lessons and sometimes I did not understand the full narrative but after reading the blogs I do know. During filming we used a lot of technical equipment such as a Canon HV30 DV camcorder, Yoga shotgun microphone, boom pole, IPod headphones and a Velbon DV-7000 tri-pod. Also in the interior shooting we used a 300W light and a gobo for the venetian blind effect. During the editing we used software called Adobe Premiere Pro and using the software we managed to compress the film down to a Windows Media Player file therefore being able to burn and watch it as a DVD.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I feel from my preliminary exercise I have improved shots that I have done. I have not always been the director but I have learned things. Now I think that the framing of our piece is better than it was. Also I fully understand the rule of thirds and the 180 degree line rules before in my other two exercises I never really understood, but now I think that our media product shows that I fully understand.
I think that we had a long time to plan that’s way it went so smoothly. We had every detail planned that way we wouldn’t waste our time when it came to shooting. I think I have improved from my last two exercise because we had less time to shoot and edit it was harder to get things right because we were trying to rush things to get them done. Also because we had set jobs it made it easier because we new what we had to do in order to achieve the shoot, but in the last two exercises everyone in the group was doing everything which meant that it wasted their time when they could of done something else that would have been more useful. Also now I understand how to keep the audience on edge with a film and I am quite aware of the film noir characteristcs.Such as the Venetian blind effect for lighting.

What happened during editing

During editing we did make alot of changes during editing. But what took up alot of time is the titles we were doing but mainly it is more of how the titles entered the screen, for instance dipping to black and where we had to put the titles. The first time we had the people starring in the clip on the woods scene when Chris is running it came in right hand corner and then when Josh was on the screen we put titles there to. Then we put our individual jobs that we did during just a black screen and you hear Josh and Chirs fighting. Then it came up with up a piece of paper on the package just showing "Shadows Present."
Our final piece for our titles we had each individual black screens just once each of our names, and then at the end there was a big title "Shadows Present" just white and the it fades into white and red, then all of a sudden it fogs and goes off the screen.

The music on our first piece was very loud and in your face and a lot of people from our class said they didn't like it as it was like a big film and not the intro to a film. But now it's soft music that goes great with the film and what is on the screen.

What happened during the shoot (interior & exterior)

Exterior
We filmed on Wednesday 5th February in the woods near our college called Alexandra park. We used the storyboard to help us about what we were going to film. Chris and Josh were our actors so whenever they needed to act Chloe and I filmed them and this gave us a chance to follow the storyboard and also give our own opinion of what kind of shot we wanted. But after we filmed it we showed it to Chirs and Josh if they thought it looked right just to make sure. Josh and Chirs also decided to do some extra shots of Josh rolling down a hill while Chris pretend to shoot him but we never included those shots in our clip. Also with our props (the package) we put mud on it to make it looked like it had been through alot of people before it came to Chirs.
Also we added an extra shot of when Chirs drops the package and then there is just a plain shot of the package on the floor then it goes back to Chris. I never liked this shot because when it was just the shot of the package it is straight and in my opinion the package would have been wonky if it had dropped out of Chris's hands. I never said anything as I never that we had filmed that till we got to the edit suit and it was too late to film again in Alexandra Park.

Interior
The week after on 15th February we filmed are next piece in the studio in our college. Again, we used the storyboard to guide our way to what to film. We didn't really add an extra shots in the studio because we didn't have any ideas of what else to film, but what we did film we shot it like about 4 to 5 times over just to make sure we have enough shots for editing. Chloe and I tried giving ideas to Chirs and Josh but they never liked our ideas so we never used them in our film. We used a lot of props in this shot compared to when we in Alexandra Park but that was only trying to emphasis where Chirs was(in a hotel room) so we used things that were in the studio like a fan and notebook etc. Again, most of the time Chloe and I shot this, only because Chris and Josh were in the film, but again we asked for there opinion if they think that it was ok.

Conducting a Questionaire

25 age range as they are the main cinema audience and they are who we would be aiming our noir towards. She also asked people aged 40, 28 and 14 to see if our film would appeal to a wider audience range as well. My job was to analyse the results and below is a table showing what I found out explaining how the information we gained from each question was useful to us.

We will attempt to incorporate our findings when creating our opening sequence to make it more appealing to our target audience of people aged between 15 and 25. The question about black and white films (question 2) will be particularly useful when we are in the editing suit and are choosing to add any effects to our film. Our results show that black and white films aren’t a popular choice and that they would turn off/over the TV if they saw one was on. Our role in creating our title sequence is to get people to stay tuned in and watch on to resolve the enigma(s), but if our audience would choose not to watch it just because it was in black and white, then perhaps we shouldn’t add that effect. Question number 5 also proved interesting with the results as it shows how people can be interested and ‘hooked’ in a film opening even if there isn’t any music to accompany it. We will still use music in our opening piece as we feel it’s the key to creating the right noir atmosphere, though it is useful to know that we won’t be turning away our audience if we chose to have loud sound effects, plain speech or dead silence instead. Although the resuls we gained were useful, there were still some things we could have done to gain even better results. Firstly we could have asked a bigger sample of people to gain more accurate results with defined replies on each question. However, I think the outcome would still contain similar results, and wouldn’t be of any further use to us. Also, we could have more questions requiring a more detailed answer (open questions) to gain more feedback from each person we gave the questionnaire to. But they may not have been as keen to fill it out if they had noticed how detailed it was. Overall, I am pleased with the results we discovered as they’ll be very useful to us in the future

Anamatic for Shadows Present

This is our anamatic the storyboard, sound and the putting together of it was all done by Chris our cinematographer.

The anamatic influced me especially with music because it sounds like a film noir and also it upbeat which makes more interesting.

Storyboard for our film noir opening

This storyboard is the oard we are going to follow for our camerawork for our film noir opening. It was made by Chris(our director) also Chris made an anamatic which we used the storyboard for as well.

Treatment for M-E-S for our film noir opening

I have discussed with my group my M-E-S treatment and they all agreed it was fine so here it is;

Location
Man running in the flashback is going to be set in the back of our college, at a park called ‘Alexandra park’ we choose this place for exterior scene because it has a lot of trees and it would be good if it was sunny as you would be able to see a shadow through the trees for our silhouette man. Also you do not get many outside noises and not many people go down there so it would not be a problem when we have to come to edit to get rid of the diegetic sound. When the man is sitting in the room we have chosen the studio in our college because it’s very dark and a good place to give out shadows and it would be very effective for our venation blind effect.

Costumes
Both times exterior and interior we our going to have our main man who is running to be wearing wrinkled clothes and black clothes and a little stubble on his chin because it shows that this man is in his late teens and he is not experienced in making rational decisions in life.The shadow is just a black figure so it does not require a lot of costume but my plan was that we get the actor who is playing him to dress all in black and not put any light on him to make him more silhouette.

Lighting
When we come to the interior (man in the room) it is going to be darkness and then it has a few seconds of the venation blind effect over his face. When we cut to the flashback then comes back every time we come back to the room it gets lighter. This shows that he figuring something out which is that the silhouette has been watching him all this time.When it is exterior in the park we are going to use natural daylight on the man running but with the shadow we will need some lighting so that we can put a shadow effect on him on the ground so that it appears that the shadow is bigger and more powerful then this man.

Performance
In the beginning when we see the man in the room his facial expressions is relieved to show that he has just gotten away from something and he escaped. But when we go in and out of the flashbacks you see his face getting more anxious and nervous.At the ending when he is in the room you see his face relaxed and clamed then there is a lose up of his eyes which seem scared and nervous like he has released something.

Props
A desk (available at college)
A chair at the desk (available at college)
A angle desk lamp (available at college)
A fan (for the desk, available at college)
A black folder, a pad of paper, a few Biro pens and a mobile phone (to decorate the desk)
2x large brown envelope packages (1 to use and 1 spare)
A drinking glass and water
A fake knife and a fake gun
2x black & white photos of our main character walking, and a paperclip to hold them together
An A5 black notebook with a date in it
A magazine cut-out collage of a nameless address and phone number
A fake ice-cube (or real ice from the college cafe if they have any)
A piece of paper with 'Shadows Present' handwritten in bold onto it
The main character's costume and the shadow man's costume (as described above)