Question 7

In the preliminary task I learnt a lot about continuity editing and how to make a simple routine flow properly. To do this I had to adhere to the 180 degree rule, add match on action and shot/ reverse shot.



This clip shows the beginning of the action and the establishing shot which gives the viewer an idea on the space the action is talking place in. Establishing shots reflect a mood, for example in this clip it shows that the woman was waiting for the man in an empty room which connotates secrecy and there would be a sence of mystery or perhaps lonelyness.




Shot/ reverse shot is used during convosations which i used in the preliminary task. I did not use this in my opening sequence but I did use match on action when the girl was taken and when the woman in the kitchen was turning devices on eg the kettle. The 180 degree rule was also used in the preliminary task throughout so that it makes sence to the audience and so they understnad what side each character is on. This means that i had to film on one side and not film beyond 180 degrees. The 180 degree rule is vital in continuity editing.

Here are a few examples from my opening sequence when I used the 180 degree rule, match on action and establishing shots.

180 degree rule:


The scene in the kitchen consisted of continuity editing and therefor i had to aply the 180 degree rule. My group filmed so that we were one side of the character even on the extreme close ups because otherwise it would delude the viewer and they would get confused.


Match on action:



Match on action helped make the action seem more exciting when they girl was kidnapped by cutting between short clips that match together but from different angles. Match on action makes the action more interesting for the viewer to watch.

Establishing shot:



In my opening sequence I used an establishing shot of the field and panned to the left to give spacial awareness and to show that the park was dark and empty. The establishing shot give a mood for the action that is later to come.

Question 6

What technologies are new to me?



Before I started my work on blogger and my opening sequence; Slide Rocket, LiveType,Imovie,Bloger and Bubbl were completly new to me because I'd never used them before.

I made this video to explain what technologies I have developed my skills in.


What technologies have allowed you to produce something creative?

The following technologies allowed me to create my opening sequence. I had to be creative when making my thriller opening because my group and I had to think of the plot synopsis, film and direct the film and also edit the whole thing. The final product was very creative because these technologies allowed my group and I to make what we visioned and make it look professional.

• IMovie
• Camera & Tripod
• LiveType

Question 5

My group made these vox pops and put together a focus group to find out if we have appealed to our target audience of young people, particulary girls. The focus group was a good way to get an inicial response from those people and to hear what they have to say as a group. This was helpful because we consider our film to be a social film that would be played within a friendship group.
The vox pops were needed so that we could ask specific questions to a range of people to see who it most appealed to and to find out the most effective way that our film appealed to them.  





My screen cast goes through my whole opening sequence and describes how the costume, music, charcters, plot and camera composition connects to my target audience.

My Media Opening Sequence

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I am targeting my film at the middle class which make up 20% of the population. The target audience would be from 18-24, we are aiming at students or young people who are just entering the world of employment. We feel that females are more likely to purchase our film due to the strong female heroin role. We choose students because we want them to interpret our film in a creative way and to hold a long attention span. We want our target audience to be very sociable therefore our film could be watched by a number of people at a social event, students would be ideal for this role. Also we are aiming at the individuial to be a self actualiser who are creative and would understand the choices we made within our film can impact them more, therefor making it more enjoyable for them.

 

Opening Sequence: Second Draft

Question 3

Pathe is a french company which started in 1896. Pathé became the world's largest film equipment and production company, as well as a major producer of phonograph records.

We chose Pathe to be the distributor to our film because they are more suitable for low budget- filmed on sight films. They also distribute films that have a creative twist to them that appeal to a specific audience. For example they would include plots and events that only a niche market would be interested in. Therefor Pathe are more involved with developing films that specialize in intreging but unique messages.  Pathe is associated with creative film that include deep meaningful messages to the viewer, those types of film challenge the mundane conventions of the chosen genre. 

In our opening sequence we have added unusual family elements that set our film a stray from other Thrillers. Our film isnt just to get the audiences heart pounding but we have tried to display the explosive emotions within a family. The emotional connection between sisters is really what our film is about and we want to stress this point and show this relationship throughout the kidnapping story. Our Film is aimed at older teenagers who may have been through trauma within their family or in young life growing up. Therefor Pathe is a good choice as it would help us be distributed to certain people and our film will be known as a Thriller with other issues displayed.

Pathe have distributed a similar film to ours which is called 127 hours. It explores deep feelings and gets the audience eager for the main characters survival. In 127 hours we get taken on an emotional journey where the emotion hurts just as bad as the bleeding. It has the same family aspect as we have in our sequence because a lot of time is spent talking about his life and his family. The setting is also the same throughout the film- this is the sign of a low budget film. 127 hours is also creative because it breaks away from conventional thrillers by having a strong background story and not just problems that need to be solved.

Question 1 & 2

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

A typical convention of an opening sequence is production and distribution logos, these are used so that the company can brand what they produce; these come prior the titles which play throughout the opening sequence. Titles play an important role as they give everyone credit who played an important role in the making of the film (such as the main character). Usually titles come in order of importance starting from the most crucial roles and ending with jobs that require less dedication. Other conventions from opening sequences are establishing shots, clues and a soundtrack, these all combine to establish a mood/theme so the audience can get a feel for the film. Establishing shots and extreme close ups hide the characters identity so the opening sequence leaves the audience guessing and only gives them clues. The soundtrack increases in volume and pace when a climax has been reached which adds suspense and excitement. The last convention is whether the sequence opens as equilibrium (with a mundane start) or disequilibrium (starting with a problem), ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles’ starts as disequilibrium with a rushed and panicked mood. I’ve used titles, copyright free sound and the paramount distribution clip within my opening sequence as well as an establishing shot of a cold, isolated field. My sequence opens with disequilibrium and shows clues that a girl is running away from danger by using dark, dull colours and fast cross cutting. The music was also eerie and sinister. As my chosen genre is thriller my group chose to add mystery to the storyline, especially in the opening sequence. We also included two main characters - the villain and a vunerable young girl.


How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I’ve represented young, vulnerable girls who are unaware of the dangers when growing up. We also represented their friendships within my opening sequence and how important it it. We have included a photo of both the teenage girls together in the kitchen scene to show their close relationship and their happy facial expressions highlighting the importance of friendship between young girls.  

We also placed the camera behind some branches to give the impression that the villain was hiding. We represented the villain as disturbing but discrete, this describes the typical villian in a thriller because they are not normally revealed until the very end.   

 

Opening Sequence First Draft

Title font

I found this font on dafont.com, its called 'Nervous' and gives a distorted appearance. This is the font my group is going to use for our opening sequence.

It ties in with our opening sequence because we want to portray the girl as very nervous and panicked through camera work and we will be building up the tension throughout the sequence. We also want the viewer to feel nervous while their watching and this font will help do this.

Producing a Shooting Schedule

Producing an Animatic

Producing a series of storyboards

Copyrights use to the Hotline Miami soundtrack

Production logo used in my opening sequence

In our opening, including our titles we had to produce a logo for our mock-up production 

company which has developed the film opening. 

The logo designed is influenced by the electronic soundtrack and historical decades in which the film is set in.

The logo itself uses a series of complimentary colors which create a contrast between the forms in the logo, much like the contrast between the mother and daughter in the film. However this logo appeared to friendly to be the production company of our thriller, therefore we changed the layout of the logo and added in dark colours to make it match then genre a bit better.

This is the new logo that will appear in our final draft:

Music used in my opening

The music in this track appeals to the style of music I would pefer to use in my thriller opening, It starts with a minimal synth riff which could easily be looped to create a theme to the peice, the rapid drumbeat which accompanies, the style of the music itself fits well with the past atmosphere which we plan to create in addition, a rushed suspenseful opening which mixes elements of noire and surrealism.
This next song plays a very ambient series of melodies which I feel would could heavily accompany the climax of the opening, after the suspense has hit a high point the music slowly draws itself out to this monotone, ambient peice. Like the other track, the synthesised, 80's themed tembre produces an unsettleing series of emotions.

This final track, witchunt is unlike any other peice of music I have personally listened to.
I plan to use this track in the surrealist sequences of the opening, the mix features from ambient, electronic and darkwave peices of music create a heavilly unsettleing peice of music which again, creates a huge contrast between the two peices.

Props and Costumes

 Costumes: Considering the setting of the opening, costumes are a setpeice towards the set period and the first impressions of the character, we wanted the mother to appear 'stuck in the past' To do this the costume of the mother is dressed in classic, floral dress/shirt inspired by the 70's the outdated look of the mother will hopefully give the audience the notifications of the setting, the daughter however will wear more modern casuals, jeans and some sort of sweatshirt.

 Props: One of the key props in one location of the family's living room is a boom-box radio (appropriate for the time period) the camera tracks from a newspaper to the radio and then cross cuts to another scene. Another major prop is the kettle, which boils over time as the camera cross cuts between segments, this use of personification through the kettle boiling develops the tension and emotions behind both characters.

Choice of Actors

Hannah- 
The mother of the teenager that gets kidnapped. She is in the clips where it is set in the kitchen, Hannah will be dressed in normal, casual clothes because it is a mundane atmosphere. 

Shannen-
I will play the teenage girl running in the field away from the kidnapper because i have clothes that fit the costume that my group wants her to be wearing.

Lewis-
Lewis will play the role of the kidnapper because he is the only male in our group and we envisioned the kidnapper to be a man. He also needs to help with the camera work while me and Hannah are in the frame because the kidnapper is the character that appears least.

Dialogue

[Radio]:

‘So that’ll be coming up.

More breaking news today, there has been a significant rise in the amount of child abductions, mainly effecting females aged in their mid-teens. We would like to take this opportunity to alert both parents and children to be aware of the dangers that can arise in any neighborhood, especially late at night. Mandy Corfeild was the last recorded victim abducted in London, who has not been found.'

Our dialogue is set up to be part of a radio station playing throughout the opening sequence until the climax is reached. This sound will switch between diegetic and non diegetic sound due to the cross cutting between two locations. We are going to edit the audio quality by dropping the bass and eq level and adding in a low level of white noise to create a more immersive atmosphere. My group and I are going to do this on a music editing program called 'Audacity'.

The head of the Media department, Mr Metacalfe has previously worked in the radio buisness, announcing news bulletins, My group asked him if we could record him reading out our dialogue for our opening sequence.