G321 Film opening

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

Look at you final product and select six stills (take screenshots using cmd+shift+4) that allow you to answer this question.

Things to consider.

You have made film opening to a thriller – what do you usually expect to find in a Thriller opening. You should have done a least one analysis of a Thriller opening in your planning and research. You have also would have watched other media product that influenced your product. How does it compare with them.

Aspects to focus upon - 6 suggestions, but feel free to use your own and add more

Narrative (so what happens in your clip) compared to what you expect in see in a Thriller opening.
(Conventions: an enigma is created, a crime is committed, a crime is prepared for, a victim is identified, a fear/problem is identified/created etc.)

Character – who do we see in your opening, what do we learn about them, what role do we expect them to play. (Conventional thriller characters – weak vulnerable victim, flawed hero, anti-hero, antagonist/bad guy)

 Font and titles – how are they used? How are they presented? What order do they come in? What font was used? What about the name of the film?

Location – what is the location for your opening? How has it been represented (what do we see, what does it look like)? Is this typical for a thriller?

Sub-genre – are the characters, mise-en-scene, narrative, location all conventional in terms of the sub-genre you’re working in?

Techniques used – talk about you camera angles and effects used and talk about why you used them, sound, music (e.g. close up on hand to disguise identity of characters, handheld to suggest POV, black and white to give it timeless quality) etc.

IF YOU CAN MAKE REFERENCE TO EXISTING MEDIA PRODUCTS THAT BACK UP YOUR ASSERTION THAT WHAT YOU CREATED IS CONVENTIONAL/UNCONVENTIONAL - PLEASE DO.

It should look at little like this

 

 

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

This is asking how your constructed the characters in your film and what type of character they are.

Remember TV Drama. There you looked at how representations are created using sound, editing, mise-en-scene and camerawork, with reference to these talk about how you created your character.

 

Take a picture of your main or most interesting character from your film (or all of them). Place it along side a character that is similar in terms of representation. Now compare and contrast the two characters. 

Here's a way you could do it in Prezi. (Be warned this is only a half-finished version - so expand on your points)

 

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 Look at the research and work you should have already done for this task.

In your explanation of your choice of distributor mention the following:

- other films that they have released that are similar to your product

- the way they advert films - look at the theatrical posters and trailers - and explain why that would a good fit for you product.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

To answer this question you must refer back to the audience research you did prior to your filming. There were two tasks set - this and that - so use what you can from your findings to help you answer this question.

IF you didn't do that audience look at this task here - find a film that is similar to yours and get some data about who went to see it.

Take a screenshot of the audience breakdown - explain what site you got it from and what information you believe it gives you about your audience.

Try to identify an age group, gender and class group. Now you've got the basis to develop an idea of what you're target audience would be:

How did you attract/address your audience?

You will need to have uploaded the youtube version of your final product just for this purpose - so upload it - and called it 'YOUR NAME Evaluation Question 5'.

You will use YOUTUBE's annotation tools to add NOTES, SPEECHBUBBLES, and LINKS to your video:

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=92710

These annotations will highlight the ways in which your Film Opening links to other similiar films in order to attract the particular Audience you have previously identified.

Your annotations will refer to genre conventions, use of music, similiarities with other movies and what you have identified as the Unique Selling Point of your imaginary film.

It should look a bit like this

 

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Think about the technologies you have used and 
- explain how you used them
- what you learned from the process
- how they were useful
- make a point about how they all worked together (e.g. converting GarageBand to MP3/photoshop to png.24)
- highlight any key techniques you learned and used with the software (e.g. keyframing on Final Cut) 

Technologies you have used:
Free Online Software/Resources - Youtube, Blogger, Freesound, Sound Cloud
Mac Sofware - Photoshop, Final Cut, GarageBand
Hardware - camera, stills camera etc 

How to present your answer
Take a picture of you with the equipment and annotate.
Use the logos of the software and screenshots from your final Final Cut/Photoshop/Garageband documents.
Or use Prezi to combine images, text and video. 

FOR EXAMPLE - SEE THIS UNFINISHED EXAMPLE

 

7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing
task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to
full product?

Have a go at answering the question - embed you're Prelim if you want
to or at least back up your points with screenshots from your prelim.

Some tips -
You learned several key techniques during the prelim: close-up,
match-on-action, 180 degree rule, shot-counter-shot
You used these techniques to prove you could editing them together to
create coherent logical flow to the action (continuity editing).
You could explain that these techniques then allowed you to use
continuity editing for your Thriller and make ensure a logical flow to
the action.

OR
You may have used several of these techniques in your Thriller opening
but for different reasons.
For example:
In your prelim you used a close-up shot on the door handle to give
specific information to the audience about the movement and intention
of your onscreen character. This then led into the match-on-action
shot of the door opening. The use of the close-up was to help the
audience understand what was happening. In your Thriller you might
have used the close-up on hands and the feet of the killer (for
instance) in order to keep their identity and face a mystery. So you
could argue that you have taken a technique learned in the prelim - but developed 
it to use it to create a different effect/meaning. So think what you did with the other techniques.

Man opening door

Man on his way to slay the innocent

 

Either approach is valid - just be sure you use the terminology
correctly (look for definitions if you're unsure) and back-up your
points with appropriate images and video.