Evaluation Video

Paranoia Final

Question 1

In our film opening, we have attempted to follow the conventions of a thriller more than we have challenged them. The first convention we chose to follow is having a main protagonist and antagonist. These two characters are both introduced at the beginning of our film, though the identity of our antagonist is not revealed until the end of our film opening. Another part of this convention that we have chosen to follow is having our protagonist in danger. Although the protagonist does not know this until the end of our film opening, it is made clear to the audience that he is in danger. We have incorporated an enigma in our film opening as well. This comes in the form of a tattoo on the antagonist’s hand. The tattoo is linked to the identity of our antagonist, though the importance of the tattoo is not revealed until the end of our film opening. We have used conventional micro elements in our film opening. We have attempted to use a conventional soundtrack throughout our film opening, similar to soundtracks that are normally found in other thrillers. We have fast paced editing with short shot duration during the flashback sequence in our film opening in order to create a more dramatic and tense atmosphere. We used a nice effect when the flashback sequence starts and ends, so that the viewer will better interoperate what is happening when the flashback sequence starts. We have used conventional ‘mise en scene’ elements during our flashback sequence, the location we used was a dark underpass with gloomy unnatural lighting which set the mood of this sequence.

Question 2

Our media product doesn’t have a wide variety of social groups in which we represent.
One particular scene is located at an underpass, and there are two people walking home late in the underpass. They represent the social group of teenagers/young adults because of the walking home at a late time, quite dark and smart casually dressed. This would give the idea to the audience that they are coming back from some sort of party or other social event, giving that typical youth representation. Our antagonist Dr Adams played by George Burchmore shows a certain dark hooded character that stalks his victims. He is dressed up in a hoody, tracksuit bottoms and trainers. He also has a weapon on him, which he uses to beat down one of the 2 protagonists. Because of the way George is dressed, in a way gives out a negative representation of the urban characters, wearing what George does, as he follows the protagonists and ends up killing one of them.

Having this scene in our media product does not make it a targeted product for a certain age range, as it shows the youth representation, as in our media product, another scene filmed is located in a psychiatrists office, making it more of a serious and chilled out environment. This location appeals to more of the older type of audience, somewhere between 20-35 age range. But the media product itself is targeted at 15-35 year olds.

Storyboards for Main

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

Our movie is unlikely to be distributed by a large conglomerate like Disney, Warner Bros Co. Because it is not mainstream and popular in the general public, it is more likely to distribute through the internet, up for download or be a TV movie that has a sequel possibility or produced as something bigger in the future and become a film franchise like the James Bond or Batman franchises.

These distribution methods a liable because, we are an unknown production company that has just produced there first film (supposedly). So because of this it would be better to target an audience on the web or TV because they don’t have to go out to the cinema to watch it so they can immediately access it to give our media product a chance.

The reason why I think that it could become a TV film is because allot of TV films are indie low budget films by under the radar film companies, like ours. Also our product has many openings for a franchise because of its un-closed and unique story-line that is quite incomparable, this gives the movie potential to mould into what sort of movie it could be. TV is also an easy way for viewers to consume our product as it is just on TV and you would not have to go through the trouble of buying things.

Our media product is an ‘art house’ film because of our unique use of mise en scene in our production with our tattoo idea that people can catch on to easily. Our film could be distributed through a company that deals with ‘art house’ films like ‘Hollywood art house’.

If our film were to be distributed only throughout the internet it would gain low profit because our audience is not of the stereotypical computer generation that is less mature and would not have anything that they could connect to through the dialog or the mise en scene. We would also lose money through pirating on the web through torrenting as well.

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

There was a mix of the idea and narrative that mainly attracted the audience selected. With the idea being unique and having the antagonist in all scenes, which the viewers will not be aware of but exciting to watch none the less. In one scene particular, where the two characters are in the dark location and one dies, this will terrify the audience but also will enjoy watching it too. In our opening we had a lot of point of view shots in the murder scene, which the audience will enjoy, as they can pretend to be that actual person walking or just in that position facing the other characters. We also used a lot of close ups mainly on the office scenes to draw in the characters emotion and also give the audience an understanding of the situation. They are witnessing perhaps real life situations which make the opening very powerful, we did not use a good technique in making the audience jump as we wanted to keep it to stereotypical thrillers and not horrors that do it. We also used traditional thriller conventions in our opening and not make it difficult for ourselves with conventions from horror or any other genre. The impact of having the right conventions, the camera shots and sound will be strong and the target audience will benefit from this.

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

The camera we used to film in our main was new to us as none of us had used that sort of camera filming wise only for the preliminary, we shared the responsibility of cameraman between two of us but gradually became easier and quite fluent in the production process. The strengths were that the camera was HD and had good control with holding it. The weakness of the camera equipment was in small areas it’s difficult to manoeuvre and also the tripod was difficult to hold and move especially with the pan shot. We learnt whilst filming that particular shots would be more effective in this thriller genre, i.e. point of views and wide shots. After filming, we used the editing program called Final Cut Pro, I think that the editing software given to us has been very good to; also the fact that major films have used this software has made editing enjoyable too. At first we found it quite a struggle and gradually became more accustomed to it, in our preliminary we speeded up the ending and compared to our main, we used slow motion to come out of the flashback. Also we looked at possible transactions used in our main, mainly fades that represent time passed, and also we used brightness which reflected in the mise-en-scene with the location in the dark tunnel to lighten it up. Garageband has been very good in making good sound for suspense and terror with instruments like piano, cello and drums, and also converting it and you can export it into your editing piece. It only took us about 10-15 minutes to come up with a good sound to fit mainly the flashback scene. We also used Blogger to distribute our findings and work onto this technology and is a mix between social and educational which makes AS Media quite enjoyable, the strengths is, it can have as many posts as you can, you can label it and choose who actually wrote the post. The weakness of it is when adding an image or video it not free flowing like other services and is more static. We think our end product is very successful given the amount of time and effort put in, right at the start of this long process we would have not thought about this idea and implemented it well without the technology such as Garageband and Final Cut Pro. We can also take good experience with us into A2 Media Studies and learn from our weaknesses, we know that particular people in our group are good with certain technologies with George having a good understanding in Photoshop and he designed our logo in it. 

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task. What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The genre of the preliminary was a thriller with the sub genre being psychological thriller; we kept the same genre because of the good feedback we had got from our preliminary. The storyline for the preliminary was a stalker but we had changed the idea for our main was a friend who died and the murdered being a psychiatrist it is almost a plot twister. We also did extensive research into the thriller genre with the narrative, camera shots, sound and Mise en scene and also examples of certain films. The narrative was mainly in an opening quite short and more silence with sound being full of suspense and terror.

In the preliminary, we found out that the point of view shot represents the person and the movements and emotions of the character in a way that other camera shots would not be able to do, and we used it effectively. Compared to our main, we used a lot of point of view shots as it made the opening full of suspense and gives nothing away to the audience. In our preliminary we realised that we did not use close up shots for an in-depth look into the characters emotions at the time and we have progressed to a point that close ups are essential to our opening sequence as it gave the audience a chance to see the emotion being portrayed, an example of this was when Jacob came out of the flashback after remembering what had happened. We took full use of the large area in the tunnel and used a wide shot to give the viewers a look at the two victim’s fate and the antagonist.

Overall we have learnt to improve the camera shots with point of views etc. Also just the general knowledge of the thriller genre made us maximise our performance to get good success in our opening sequence.