Video diary

Day 1 of filming

Day 2 of filming

Health safety

Evaluation

Question 1: In what ways does your media film product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real products? I.E film openings

Other thriller films use the original conventions of a woman being helpless or is destined to die. Such as silence of the lambs which also features a helpless woman who is running away from the villan. This challenges the conventions because instead of using a helpless man/woman half way through a film we decided to kill them off at the begining because we could only construct the opening to a film, so it was better for our piece to start with this interesting scene. we also challenge convention, because there is usually a herione of the story that survives, we kill off this character at the beggining. Our film uses a climatic scene at the begining of the film, which is different to most thriller openings; for example seven which has more of a montage of clips together. Also there is sometimes a narrative voice used over other films pieces, like a diary being read out or a poem; such as in the film iopening of 'to kill a mocking bird' which uses a 6 year old actor narrating at the start. Whereas we do not use this in our piece, but it was considered in our planning stages.

Question 2: How does your media product represent social groups?

the representation of females in our peice shows them to be eak in someways and less in control to the male characters. we see this from the main character beinga woman and in the end goes through so muich trauma and pain, that she ends up dieing. Yet we see the male stalker not being hurt at all, infacty the male is represented to be the stereotypical survivor. the poster on the wall of the girls bedroom suggests a teenagers lifestyle, the fluggy toys which we see after the woman has closed the curtains also suggests a teenage girls life, as well as seeing the pictures tuck on to the mirror. The flowery pattern on the bed duvets suggests to us that the girl is typical to gender stereotypes. the helpless girl begging for her life also has a strong representation of the girl being weak.

Question 3: What kind of media institution would distribute your media prodcut and why?

The microwave scheme would be an idea to start on funding for the media product, this would be benifitial for our product because this scheme funds for lower bedgeted films, which our film would be. the challenge is the competitive process we would hacve to go through; for example the shortlisting and only a handful of films geyt fiunding from the scheme. Another option would be aquiring funding from the UK fim council; this would help for us because it would give us more funding for our product. the advertising process we would go through, would mostlyu be viral; this is the cheapest way of advertising our product to the public and aso it can go through such, social networking websites, as facebook and myspace. This would spread word of mouth helping us to advertise even cheaper. the production budget will obviously be different to the distribution budget, so we will need more funding on another side for our distribution budget. most of our funding would go into the DVD release, for several reasons; because this was benigicial for some films like shifty which sold alot of DVDs through its promotion campaign. this is what we hopre our dvd release would be like through promotion from local stores like HMV and virgin megastores which could make display space for the product.

Question 4: Who would be your audience for your media product?

The core age of people who go to the cinema are normally aged 15-24 which our film will be mainly focused at. The problem with this is that the older audience is starting to go to the cinema, and our film is not really focused at an older audience so we lose some of our potential market audience. the we have chosen to target our film at 15-24 year olds, is because the younger aged audeience might appreciate the story qualities of this piece more. this is why it would probably not stand out as much to an older audience because they would possibly be too afraid of watching our piece which will put them off of going to see it.

Question 5: How does your media product attract/address your audience?

The attraction of our piece would be mostly be the trailer of which would be very quick paced. Youtube will also be the big attraction for our audience because we will be advertising most on this website, over 15 million people in England visit this webpage a day watch our product. The thriller genre attracts a younger audeince which helps us to address the audience.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of construction this product?

MACS

Cameras (still) - SLR - this means better pixulated photos

Camera (motion)

Tripods

Imovie

Dafont.com

Youtube.com

Blogger.com

Freesound.com

Garageband

I have learnt many different things about technologies, and through this process I have aquired skills that have helped me with editing and filming. The programmes like Imovie has helped me with my editing skills, because through this process I have been given the chance to edit our piece and work on our piece, which has helped me to understand the MACs better. websites like freesound and dafont have helped us to aquire different sounds, which has helped me in learning to mix these sounds with help from the programme garageband.

FINAL PIECE

Final Idea

We will have a shot of the moon, at the beginning of the film, with a slow zoom out with an over voice of a girl resiting a poem. Black and white photo from inside of the car through the window, this will be a point of view shot from the stalker. There will be a freeze frame, to cut to the girl closing the curtains. The camera will the move to the girl in her bedroom getting ready for bed, this will be shown through a point of view shot from the web cam in her room; zooming into the girls eyes, there is then a graphic match of the girl in her nightmare in a coffin, the girl will then wink to the camera and giggle. It then cuts back to her in reality becoming restless in bed, cutting back to her in the coffin, more giggling as she comes towards the camera and the audience. The man is seen to be in the corner before the girl notices, the camera follows the girl sitting up with a match on action from the side view. When the girl is sat up it shows the gun put up to her head, she obviously protests, the gun shot goes off, as it does it cuts to a black screen, there is another gun shot and the titles and production names come up. In the short clip of the beginning of the film, a man will be looking at pictures stuck up on a wall, which is then juxtaposed to the actual event.

Initial Ideas

Plan 1:

• Creepy looking toys in the room. Possibly a pan shot of this.


• There is a gunshot twice, on the first shot the screen goes blank and on the second the titles come up.


• The stalker is seen, holding photographs after the title sequence.


• Story telling on video, camera cuts to girl waking up (graphic match on the eyes)



• Match on action, as girl wakes up, from the side.



• flashbacks using black and white photos, nightmare, flashes back to the girl and back to the nightmare.

The locations which would be needed in this would be:

-a bedroom

-a point of view from a car

-a regular house

-a street/alleyway

Plan 2:

• A male, being the main character


• The character is running towards something, the audience doesn't know what, with an overvoice telling the story.


• An urban setting would be used for this


• An anti-climax being is that the man was running for milk- this is a false panic for the audience.

The locations which would be needed in this would be:

-Jitty (blaby/whetstone)

-A dark street

-Photo of shot

-Subway - tunnel

-Garages

Plan 3:

• Two young boys outside smoking, messing about in an open space.



• A third man walks through this open space wearing long trench coat and a cap.



• He sees the two boys, there is then a flash back to the two boys when they were younger (new actors about 7 or 8)



• We see the man in a trench coat in all of these flashbacks



• It then goes back to the present and the two boys notice this man



• The characters stop, and the mans movements are sped up so he is walking to the boys faster.



• The camera is on the floor and we see in the shot a base ballbat fall to the floor with blood on it.

The locations which would be needed in this would be:

-Garages

- A park

Shooting Schedule

Tuesday 9th March: set up scenes, film light sections-beginning

15:00-16:00 - film beginning

16:00-16:45 - construct up film set

16:45-17:00 - group discussion on how the lighting should be and where the camera is

17:00-18:00 - experimenting with lighting for coffin scene, black sheet in bedroom

18:00-18:15 - review the filming on camera



Friday 12th march: film the rest of our film

15:00-16:00 - pictures of outfits - set up

16:00-17:00 - use of camera

17:00-18:00 - break/ poem development/ come up with film name

18:00-18:30 - healthy and safety

18:30-19:30 - film dark parts, bedroom scenes if possible and then outside parts

19:30-20:00 - coffin scene

20:00-21:00 - coffin scene



Saturday? : Extra filming if needed



Equipment used:

Tuesday - lighting equipment, camera (video), camera (still), black sheet

Friday - lighting equipment, two cameras (video), black sheet

Saturday - (equipment used on friday if needed)

Timings

22nd febuary - finish off questionnaires, blog updates, starting storyboarding and voice recordings of drafts.

1st march - finish storyboards, sounds and scripts.

8th march - costumes, characters, re-make of existing characters, decide who does what.

15th march - Shooting (after school) filming schedule, video diary and check weather.

22nd march - editing film

29th march and 5th of april - half term - finishing off blog + catching up, research into using MACs, cameras and editing.

12th april - editing film

19th april - evaluation

26th april - evaluation

Experimenting with camera shots

Research in to audiences

Research Into Fonts Positioning of Titles

Analysis of Fonts and Titles:

In this title, the font colour is red, this connotes blood and anger of which feature quite a lot in this film. It is also on a black background possibly to catch the eye of the audience, of which it is aimed at. The thing that sticks out the most in this title is that it gives the impression that blood is dripping down from the letters, which is quite misleading because this is film is not much of horror, it is actually a comedy with an element of gore to it. The way the title is tilted gives the impression that it has flown in giving the impression that this is quite a strange film with lots of different things.

This title is a lot different to the first; it looks much more immature and childish, due to its target audience being children mostly. The title is bevelled to create the effect that it is 3D. The main words seem to follow a wavy line

Reseach Into Film Openings

Deconstruction of the interpreter:

• Smoke clouding the camera- green light suggesting a sense of calmness


• Sound of wind whistling in the open space, building up the tension and creating the idea its an open space


• Titles appear letter by letter filling in the shot


• A camera shot of the blind man capturing him in a black and white picture


• Very natural light at the beginning and then goes into a more darkened lighting when they enter the building


• Death in the opening suggesting that the film is a thriller


• The idea of not knowing whats going to happen throughout the film, gives the sense of mystery.


• At the beginning when showing the opening title sequences and logos of the distributors in the making of this film, one of the logos is created by a picture of a target shot, giving the idea that this film will feature guns and death


• Long shot at the beginning capturing that its a desolate place


• In the first shot (which establishes the setting) the transition is a dissolve breaking away to show the car



• After a while it cuts back to the land rover possibly portraying it as an important part of the storyline.



• The cut to the notebook which the man carries around with him, suggests this is also another important object to the storyline


• As the characters move in a more enclosed environment the natural lighting then goes, and artificial lighting is then used


• The music and setting most suits the sense of mystery until they walk into the enclosed space where the music fades and comes back as a more strange type of music

Deconstruction of Die Hard IV

• In the dvd opening it shows a type of blue prints of the main location of where the film is set
• The 20th century sequence starts off by the lights which shine on it, go off and a there is a sound as if there is a power failure
• tracking shot and establishing shot of all the laptops and computers possibly saying that this location is quite modern and FBI headquatres type place
• Theres a man, on one of the computers as it says on the computer 'unlocking password/username
• Constantly going black and showing actors and producers names, followed by a change of scene
• Close up of a woman and talking to the man about codes enphising that they are doing something illegal
• Cuts to another computer screen
• On the computer screen a lot of names show up and there occupations, flashes back to black screen showing the films name in block capitals in the centre of the screen
• The music in this opening of the film, is in some ways a lurky type of music with drums beating louder every few seconds like a heartbeat
• In the background of the computer screen there is a sort of robot face with orange eyes, connoting a sense of danger
• When each name comes up on the screen they disappear as if being erased by a computer
• Between each transition of the names there is a quick flash of some kind of technology blueprints
• The man we first see asks if what hes doing is legal possibly making him out to be an innocent character who is being manipulated in this first scene
• Also it seems that the opening is now coming to an end, as the names start merging with the motion picture instead of seperate black screens
• Then uses an elipsis to a new destination establishing that its a regular house on the outside
• Then cuts to the inside where a man is playing a violent game, where he is shooting people which a sense of foreboding for what is to come in the film
• The audience see the bomb under his desk before the man, so it gives a sense of irony
• It then cuts back to the computer screen, and we assume that the mans name which is seen on the computer screen, saying 'deactivated' next to it, is the man that just died
• After that all but one name have 'deactivated' next to it suggesting that, that one name will have some significence to the plot of this film
• All of these types of shots; and music suggests that this film is an action/thriller that could be very violent

Film noir:

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography.

Deconstruction of Double indemnity:

• On the title opening on the DVD, it gives an idea to what the films like and uses small clips in a montage to give an idea of what the film is like

• The man on crouches in the title sequence is dressed in black and looks as if he's a detective in a stereotypical appearance

• The car speeding down the road gives the sense of rush; it is also alongside fast paced music, giving the idea that the film will be quite full of 'rushed' action

• The man in the speeding car is put in the dark to highlight a sense of mystery about him, so you don't see his face until he gets into his office

• We understand in the film opening that the man is a insurance salesman and we meet in the opening a woman he is obviously quite infatuated with her due to his playful banter with her

• There is a change in scenery and a flashback features at the beginning showing a big house, with narrative of the man over the scene

• We as an audience assume that the man has been injured in this past tense scene from what we see in the present tense when he is limping

• We get the thought that the woman is in the relationship with her husband for the way she ask about the accident insurance possibly talking about the man becoming injured or killed. This can be seen through her body language and the way the camera goes into a close up to her face

• The woman is very provocative in someways, as we can see from when we first meet her, adding to the idea that this film will be a thriller- with the theme of temptation and jealousy

• The woman seems to have no excitement in her life in the way she has a little playful banter with the insurance salesman, she sort of tests him as well to see how clever he is

The postman always rings twice:

• It starts off with a bird eye view, filming the carpet then a book appears in the shot on the floor with the name of the novel being 'the postman always rings twice'
• When it gets into the actual motion film it films a shot of a sign saying man wanted leading the audience to believe that a man is wated for a crime rather than a job giving a sense of forboding
• The first shot of the woman is of her legs, then pans up her body as if is it a point of view shot of the man who is working there
• We later find out that the woman is married to the boss who is quite fat and unattractive, so this becomes a quite a surprise for the audience who are watching
• You see throughout the opening how the two relationships (between the provocative woman and employee) becomes a lot stronger
• The representation of women in this film makes out as if they are all not to be trusted and lure men into false sense of securities
• The representation of the travelling man makes him out to be untrustworty and and quite mean