Friday, 30 March 2012
Evaluation Question 1
In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We decided from the start of our research into film genres that we would like to have our Main Task genre as a thriller. We did a lot of research into thrillers and although we changed our storyline a few times during the process we have always stuck to this genre. However, we are unsure at the moment exactly which genre our film fits into. At the beginning of planning our storyline for our Main Task we focused on typical thriller conventions and as we developed our ideas we have also included a few typical psychological thriller conventions; we liked the idea of having it as a psychological thriller because we can have twists and unanswered questions in our opening scene and this therefore makes the audience more intrigued to watch more. Our film includes elements from both genres and this makes it unlike typical thriller and psychological thriller films.
While researching thriller conventions we began to learn a lot about where a typical location would be to shoot our opening scene. A typical thriller opening leaves the audience with a lot of unanswered questions and this is something that we thought would be effective to use. The location is usually somewhere typical like in a field or a wood at night but while we were considering doing this for our opening sequence we also had to think about the quality of the equipment that we would have and the weather conditions that are very unpredictable. We also had to bear in mind about the amount lighting of shooting in somewhere typical like in the woods at night because a professional film will have good quality equipment and they can make their own lighting whereas we do not have this luxury. After a lot of consideration about where to shoot we came up with the idea of a bathroom and this created the creepy effect that we were looking for. We removed all things from the bathroom that were not appropriate for our genre, for example we removed all the make up and decorations so that the mise en scene for our opening sequence will remain in the typical thriller conventions. The white bathroom walls and wooden floorboards give the bathroom a creepy effect and the amount of blood used in the bath instantly tells the audience the genre of this film is horror or thriller. For the mise en scene we have not challenged the typical genre conventions at all because this is something which is essential for telling the genre of the film. From the first few shots the audience could think that 'Delusion' is a horror, for this reason we decided not to show a body and use the plastic cover in front of the lens to create a blurry mysterious effect and this tells the audience that it is more of a thriller film.
We shot our opening in the morning, at this time there is little sunlight but as time progressed it gradually became lighter and we therefore had to edit the lighting on the Macs. We edited it darker because this creates a spooky effect and puts the audience on edge because having it shot at night is a typical thriller convention. In typical thriller films, murders most commonly take place at night and not in broad daylight, so having the lighting changed to dark makes our opening seem more professional. In this aspect of the film we have not challenged typical genre conventions at all because having it shot at night creates the whole atmosphere and gives the film an overall sense of creepiness.
For our music we simply went onto Youtube and searched for music that would fit well into our opening sequence, we were looking for something slow and slightly scary to create tension. Using background music is a typical convention for a thriller film because it creates suspense and mystery which immediately lets the audience know which type of genre this is going to be. We found a piece of music which we thought worked very well with our opening sequence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0LwGL8QMCA After listening to the song lyrics a few times we felt that this song added juxtaposition to our Main Task because the woman is singing about love and this seems slightly unusual when watching the opening sequence. This music also took away from the effect and made our film seem a bit like a music video and the genre was hard to tell. We then did a little bit more research and found a song which consisted of only instrumentals and is suitable for the opening sequence, this is because there are no lyrics, therefore the audience's concentration will be purley on the character. Due to the fact that our music has such a strong effect on our opening sequence we decided against having narration beacuse this could take away from the mystery. For the majority of our film we have muted out all the sound but we have left a few shots unmuted because this creates realism and makes the character more believable. We kept the sound of her being sick for example, this is so that the audience get the full affect of what is happening. By having no narration and no character speaking, we are pushing the boundaries of typical genre conventions because we are telling the audince the genre of the film solely through the characters actions and the music that is playing. This challenged us because choosing the exact right music and other things including mise en scene and camera shots are essential for telling the audience the genre of the film.
We decided to have a young woman play the main character, this is because it is not a typical genre convention and it is quite unusual to see this in an actual film. Having a woman makes our film original because it is most commonly a male character who is the murderer, this could impact our film in either a positive or a negative way. The audience might decide that our film looks unique and decide to watch something with a twist and a bit more originality rather than going to see a typical thriller film which all seem to be similar in a way. The female audience could also relate to this character, therefore giving us a wider range of audience. On the other hand it could have a negative impact due to the fact that some people prefer to watch something which consists of typical genre conventions because this is what they are used to watching and the prospect of watching something which seems unfamiliar to them could drive them away; in this way we are challenging typical genre conventions and pushing the boundaries.
We use a lot of elements and we do challenge typical genre conventions in some ways, which doesn't necessarily mean that our product will be hard to sell, it means that we have an original product with unique selling points and this should attract a wider audience. While we have challenged these media conventions, we have also used a lot of them and for this reason I think that our product overall will get a positive response and sell quite easily.
We decided from the start of our research into film genres that we would like to have our Main Task genre as a thriller. We did a lot of research into thrillers and although we changed our storyline a few times during the process we have always stuck to this genre. However, we are unsure at the moment exactly which genre our film fits into. At the beginning of planning our storyline for our Main Task we focused on typical thriller conventions and as we developed our ideas we have also included a few typical psychological thriller conventions; we liked the idea of having it as a psychological thriller because we can have twists and unanswered questions in our opening scene and this therefore makes the audience more intrigued to watch more. Our film includes elements from both genres and this makes it unlike typical thriller and psychological thriller films.
While researching thriller conventions we began to learn a lot about where a typical location would be to shoot our opening scene. A typical thriller opening leaves the audience with a lot of unanswered questions and this is something that we thought would be effective to use. The location is usually somewhere typical like in a field or a wood at night but while we were considering doing this for our opening sequence we also had to think about the quality of the equipment that we would have and the weather conditions that are very unpredictable. We also had to bear in mind about the amount lighting of shooting in somewhere typical like in the woods at night because a professional film will have good quality equipment and they can make their own lighting whereas we do not have this luxury. After a lot of consideration about where to shoot we came up with the idea of a bathroom and this created the creepy effect that we were looking for. We removed all things from the bathroom that were not appropriate for our genre, for example we removed all the make up and decorations so that the mise en scene for our opening sequence will remain in the typical thriller conventions. The white bathroom walls and wooden floorboards give the bathroom a creepy effect and the amount of blood used in the bath instantly tells the audience the genre of this film is horror or thriller. For the mise en scene we have not challenged the typical genre conventions at all because this is something which is essential for telling the genre of the film. From the first few shots the audience could think that 'Delusion' is a horror, for this reason we decided not to show a body and use the plastic cover in front of the lens to create a blurry mysterious effect and this tells the audience that it is more of a thriller film.
We shot our opening in the morning, at this time there is little sunlight but as time progressed it gradually became lighter and we therefore had to edit the lighting on the Macs. We edited it darker because this creates a spooky effect and puts the audience on edge because having it shot at night is a typical thriller convention. In typical thriller films, murders most commonly take place at night and not in broad daylight, so having the lighting changed to dark makes our opening seem more professional. In this aspect of the film we have not challenged typical genre conventions at all because having it shot at night creates the whole atmosphere and gives the film an overall sense of creepiness.
For our music we simply went onto Youtube and searched for music that would fit well into our opening sequence, we were looking for something slow and slightly scary to create tension. Using background music is a typical convention for a thriller film because it creates suspense and mystery which immediately lets the audience know which type of genre this is going to be. We found a piece of music which we thought worked very well with our opening sequence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0LwGL8QMCA After listening to the song lyrics a few times we felt that this song added juxtaposition to our Main Task because the woman is singing about love and this seems slightly unusual when watching the opening sequence. This music also took away from the effect and made our film seem a bit like a music video and the genre was hard to tell. We then did a little bit more research and found a song which consisted of only instrumentals and is suitable for the opening sequence, this is because there are no lyrics, therefore the audience's concentration will be purley on the character. Due to the fact that our music has such a strong effect on our opening sequence we decided against having narration beacuse this could take away from the mystery. For the majority of our film we have muted out all the sound but we have left a few shots unmuted because this creates realism and makes the character more believable. We kept the sound of her being sick for example, this is so that the audience get the full affect of what is happening. By having no narration and no character speaking, we are pushing the boundaries of typical genre conventions because we are telling the audince the genre of the film solely through the characters actions and the music that is playing. This challenged us because choosing the exact right music and other things including mise en scene and camera shots are essential for telling the audience the genre of the film.
We decided to have a young woman play the main character, this is because it is not a typical genre convention and it is quite unusual to see this in an actual film. Having a woman makes our film original because it is most commonly a male character who is the murderer, this could impact our film in either a positive or a negative way. The audience might decide that our film looks unique and decide to watch something with a twist and a bit more originality rather than going to see a typical thriller film which all seem to be similar in a way. The female audience could also relate to this character, therefore giving us a wider range of audience. On the other hand it could have a negative impact due to the fact that some people prefer to watch something which consists of typical genre conventions because this is what they are used to watching and the prospect of watching something which seems unfamiliar to them could drive them away; in this way we are challenging typical genre conventions and pushing the boundaries.
We use a lot of elements and we do challenge typical genre conventions in some ways, which doesn't necessarily mean that our product will be hard to sell, it means that we have an original product with unique selling points and this should attract a wider audience. While we have challenged these media conventions, we have also used a lot of them and for this reason I think that our product overall will get a positive response and sell quite easily.
Evaluation Question 2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The only one character shown in the opening of our film is a woman therefore I will look at how women are represented in our film ‘Delusion’.
In the opening scene, the audience will immediately assume that this character is a heartless murderer and alcoholic; this is an obvious and reasonable thing to think while watching the first few opening clips of our film. In a typical horror/thriller film the majority of murderers are antagonistic males and this opening clip instantly goes against this stereotype which means that the audience are going to be immediately intrigued and continue to watch with anticipation. Once the audience have made this assumption, they will soon find out that this person is actually very vulnerable and weak and not the strong character that they presumed she would be when they watched the opening few shots. They would presume this because it is not your everyday average middle class woman who can go around and kill people in her bathroom; but because of the way that we have portrayed this character in the first few shots this is what the audience are bound to think. In reality, this character is particularly soft and helpless and this becomes slightly clearer when you see the shot of her head in her arms visibly upset and emotional; at this point the audience may question themselves and begin to re-think their first thought of this character. In some ways we have continued to include some stereotypical behaviour for a woman to have in a horror/thriller film due to that fact the she seems powerless and shows regret and shame for something that she has done, while on the other hand a stereotypical male character in her position would seem somewhat pleased and satisfied with his actions thinking himself to be more powerful than he actually is.
The shot of her reaching for the Vodka bottle is the first glimpse the audience get of her emotions and expressions, from this first sighting you can noticeably see the indignity on her face and the sorrow she feels for committing this crime. Having her drink straight from the bottle could suggest that she in an alcoholic or it could simply be that she wants to forget the situation that she is in; either way, this is an unusual scenario for a woman to be seen in during a horror/thriller film, in most cases it would be the aggressive male with a drinking problem and it is very uncommon to see a woman in this condition. Also, the use of the plastic screen that we put in front of the camera lens creates the illusion that she cannot handle her drink because her vision is blurred and this implies that she is not thinking straight; if this was a typical horror/thriller film the woman would most likely not be drinking at all, even if she was it would be the smallest amount possible, this is because the women are generally the victims. The shot of the woman looking in the mirror gives the audience another chance to see her emotions close up and then when you see her scratching the blood off her hands it is an immediate indication that she feels guilty for what she has done. This is a typical feeling for a woman in a horror/thriller film because they do not have the strength and power that a man has in these circumstances.
The shot of her reaching for the Vodka bottle is the first glimpse the audience get of her emotions and expressions, from this first sighting you can noticeably see the indignity on her face and the sorrow she feels for committing this crime. Having her drink straight from the bottle could suggest that she in an alcoholic or it could simply be that she wants to forget the situation that she is in; either way, this is an unusual scenario for a woman to be seen in during a horror/thriller film, in most cases it would be the aggressive male with a drinking problem and it is very uncommon to see a woman in this condition. Also, the use of the plastic screen that we put in front of the camera lens creates the illusion that she cannot handle her drink because her vision is blurred and this implies that she is not thinking straight; if this was a typical horror/thriller film the woman would most likely not be drinking at all, even if she was it would be the smallest amount possible, this is because the women are generally the victims. The shot of the woman looking in the mirror gives the audience another chance to see her emotions close up and then when you see her scratching the blood off her hands it is an immediate indication that she feels guilty for what she has done. This is a typical feeling for a woman in a horror/thriller film because they do not have the strength and power that a man has in these circumstances.
In the unlikely event that a woman is the murderer in a horror/thriller film, the killings would most commonly be more planned and thought out, rather than a brutal attack causing the victim to bleed excessively and due to the amount of blood in this woman’s bath, this kind of violent attack seems to be the case. This will make the audience question her actions and analyze her behaviour more closely as they attempt to figure out the intentions of this character; they will be unfamiliar with a woman being the villain and continue watching to see the reasoning for her murder. As the film progresses the audience will gain more understanding of this character and witness the personality change and the events that lead up to this killing. The personality of this character at the beginning of our film is going to be similar to a typical woman victim in a normal thriller/horror film; innocent and naïve, but a series of unpleasant and horrendous events cause this characters personality to change and results in these killings. This is not a typical storyline for a film of our genre because the murderer is usually in the same state of mind from start to finish, but then on the other hand the murderer is not frequently a woman. We like to challenge these stereotypes of women in horror/thriller films because it shows the audience a different side to the usual films of this genre and it creates a more exciting and exhilarating atmosphere because the unexpected can happen.
Evaluation Question 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our film which is a psychological thriller I think will definitely give us an automatic mainstream audience. Psychological thrillers is one of the most popular genres and therefore this should give our film a positive reaction, however, the fact that this genre is so popular could possibly give it a lot of competition and this could result in it having a negative response.
Our film would be shown in an Odeon cinema, this is because of its popular genre and storyline which make it perfect for the big screen rather than an independent cinema. Odeon play a wide variety of genres and thrillers are one of the most popular, therefore our film 'Delusion' would easily fit into this cinema. Having your film shown in an independent cinema would be for reasons such as if your genre is unique or if your characters and not well known.
Fox Searchlight Pictures was established in 1994 and is a film division of Fox Filmed Entertainment alongside the larger Fox Studio 20th Century Fox. They specialise in British films, alongside dramedy (comedy and drama) and horror. They distribute a wide range of genres and have in the past produced films such as '28 Days Later', 'The Hills Have Eyes' and 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'. The first two of these movies are horror films but the third movie mentioned is a thriller and extremely similar to our film. This is definitely a potential company for our film because it has distributed films of our genre very successfully in the past.
Columbia Pictures Industries is an American film production and distribution company and it was founded in 1919. They distribute a wide range of genres from comedy films such as 'Big Daddy' to 'Secret Widow' which is a psychological horror film. They also distribute very successful psychological thriller films such as 'Perfect Stranger'. This company would also be a potential company for the distribution of our product, this is because they are an extremely well known company. For them to distribute our film would be to associate it with a really high quality standard of movie.
Our film which is a psychological thriller I think will definitely give us an automatic mainstream audience. Psychological thrillers is one of the most popular genres and therefore this should give our film a positive reaction, however, the fact that this genre is so popular could possibly give it a lot of competition and this could result in it having a negative response.
Our film would be shown in an Odeon cinema, this is because of its popular genre and storyline which make it perfect for the big screen rather than an independent cinema. Odeon play a wide variety of genres and thrillers are one of the most popular, therefore our film 'Delusion' would easily fit into this cinema. Having your film shown in an independent cinema would be for reasons such as if your genre is unique or if your characters and not well known.
Fox Searchlight Pictures was established in 1994 and is a film division of Fox Filmed Entertainment alongside the larger Fox Studio 20th Century Fox. They specialise in British films, alongside dramedy (comedy and drama) and horror. They distribute a wide range of genres and have in the past produced films such as '28 Days Later', 'The Hills Have Eyes' and 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'. The first two of these movies are horror films but the third movie mentioned is a thriller and extremely similar to our film. This is definitely a potential company for our film because it has distributed films of our genre very successfully in the past.
Columbia Pictures Industries is an American film production and distribution company and it was founded in 1919. They distribute a wide range of genres from comedy films such as 'Big Daddy' to 'Secret Widow' which is a psychological horror film. They also distribute very successful psychological thriller films such as 'Perfect Stranger'. This company would also be a potential company for the distribution of our product, this is because they are an extremely well known company. For them to distribute our film would be to associate it with a really high quality standard of movie.
Thursday, 29 March 2012
Evaluation Question 4
Who would be your target audience for your media product?
We interviewed 5 candidates and from this interview we can clearly see who would be the target audience for our Psychological thriller film. Starting from candidate A, this person seemed very enthusiastic and had good knowledge of films of the same genre as ours, she said she likes 'good story lines and plots', this indicates to us that she prefers thriller films to films that have a lot of comedy in. She also says that she likes horror, this is also a good indication because some horror films could contain psychological twists and this tells us that she could be a possible candidate for our target audience.
Candidate B is quite different to candidate A, this is because she prefers comedy to thriller and horror, although she does say that she likes murder in films. This is one positive thing about this candidate and even though our film does have a murder in it, we also have a lot of twists and this candidate would not be a part of our suitable target audience.
Candidate C claims that psychological thrillers are 'harder to watch' and that he prefers 'comedy and action films' and this immediately tells us that he is not entirely appropriate for our target audience; this is because a film with twists requires your full attention and concentration and someone who says that this genre is hard to watch is not going to focus properly on the film.
Candidate D seems to be another suitable candidate for our target audience. She appears to be quite specific in what she likes in a film and clearly states that it must captivate her from the start and we think that the opening of our film draws you in and makes you want to watch more. She does also say that she likes comedy's but if a psychological thriller caught her attention from that start then she could enjoy the film just as much.
Candidate E was the youngest of our candidates and is the least enthusiastic about our genre. She clearly says that she gets very bored when watching psychological thrillers because she doesn't always understand the storyline; we think that this is appropriate for someone of her age because our genre takes a lot of concentration and the twists are very complicated to work out.
The target audience for our film from these candidates are going to be candidate A and D. This is because they both have a lot of knowledge about our genre and what to expect. They both seemed intrigued with the title of our film and genuinely seemed like they wanted to watch it. They are both women and this means that they can also relate to our main character who is also a women around a similar age. At first we thought that our target audience would consist of teenagers, both male and female, around the ages of about 16-22 years old but this interview proves that we can have a wider range of audience seeing as candidate D is slightly older at around 24-30 years old. We would also like to think that this film would appeal to the male audience too but the man that we interviewed was not particularly familiar with this genre and if we did another interview we would interview a different age range of males.
We interviewed 5 candidates and from this interview we can clearly see who would be the target audience for our Psychological thriller film. Starting from candidate A, this person seemed very enthusiastic and had good knowledge of films of the same genre as ours, she said she likes 'good story lines and plots', this indicates to us that she prefers thriller films to films that have a lot of comedy in. She also says that she likes horror, this is also a good indication because some horror films could contain psychological twists and this tells us that she could be a possible candidate for our target audience.
Candidate B is quite different to candidate A, this is because she prefers comedy to thriller and horror, although she does say that she likes murder in films. This is one positive thing about this candidate and even though our film does have a murder in it, we also have a lot of twists and this candidate would not be a part of our suitable target audience.
Candidate C claims that psychological thrillers are 'harder to watch' and that he prefers 'comedy and action films' and this immediately tells us that he is not entirely appropriate for our target audience; this is because a film with twists requires your full attention and concentration and someone who says that this genre is hard to watch is not going to focus properly on the film.
Candidate D seems to be another suitable candidate for our target audience. She appears to be quite specific in what she likes in a film and clearly states that it must captivate her from the start and we think that the opening of our film draws you in and makes you want to watch more. She does also say that she likes comedy's but if a psychological thriller caught her attention from that start then she could enjoy the film just as much.
Candidate E was the youngest of our candidates and is the least enthusiastic about our genre. She clearly says that she gets very bored when watching psychological thrillers because she doesn't always understand the storyline; we think that this is appropriate for someone of her age because our genre takes a lot of concentration and the twists are very complicated to work out.
The target audience for our film from these candidates are going to be candidate A and D. This is because they both have a lot of knowledge about our genre and what to expect. They both seemed intrigued with the title of our film and genuinely seemed like they wanted to watch it. They are both women and this means that they can also relate to our main character who is also a women around a similar age. At first we thought that our target audience would consist of teenagers, both male and female, around the ages of about 16-22 years old but this interview proves that we can have a wider range of audience seeing as candidate D is slightly older at around 24-30 years old. We would also like to think that this film would appeal to the male audience too but the man that we interviewed was not particularly familiar with this genre and if we did another interview we would interview a different age range of males.
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Evaluation Question 5
How did you attract/address your audience?
This is our film poster for our Main Task; we have based it on two other film posters and also incorporated a few of our own ideas to make it match our genre and show typical genre conventions. Having a poster to advertise a new film is an extremely clever way to make people more aware about the film and attracts the right audience due to the fact that this poster includes typical genre conventions for instance the overall darkness of the poster clearly tells the audience that this is a horror/thriller. We have also included the actors/actresses names at the top; this is to attract people who might have seen a movie including these actors before and this makes them more determined to watch it. We made this poster using Photoshop, this was my first time using this software and I found it very easy to use and it had good tools for making our poster.
The Ring
We chose to base our poster on this because it looks very effective and you can immediately
determine the genre of the movie. We took the idea of putting images
from our movie into the text of the title but instead of using one
clear image we decided to have a selection of difference images, this
is because our title is quite long and having one image would be very
difficult to fit into this. Our images are quite blurry, this is due
to the way we shot our Main Task using a plastic screen over the
lens, therefore our images are not clear. On the other hand this also
creates a dream like effect to the title and this is something that
we focus a lot on in our Main Task. In the title you can see the
characters and themes, as well as blood and this is a typical genre
convention.
We liked the way that The Ring poster
didn't have an image of the character in the middle of the poster and
we chose to copy this idea because it leaves it to the audiences
imagination and this makes them want to find out what the movie is
about. We chose the image of the woods and the path leading into the
distance because it has got a very dark background and clearly shows
the genre of the movie. Like The Ring poster, we put a quote on the
poster because it shows that the movie has been watched and approved
by someone and this attracts the audience even more, we also had to
chose a source who is respectable and this is why we chose The
Guardian.
The Grudge:
This poster gave us a lot of
inspiration for our own and how to attract our target audience. The
background for this poster is black, with the only light in the
middle which is on her face emphasising the crazy look in her eye. We
thought about using an eye shot for our poster but then decided on
copying the idea from The Ring poster. Like this poster, we used a
slogan to let the audience know something more about the plot. This
slogan 'It never forgets, it never forgives' tells the audience a lot
about what this movie is going to be about and without it there would
be no clue as to what the plot is about. We chose the slogan 'When
two paths meet' because this suggests that something bad for example
a murder is going to happen during the movie.
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Friday, 16 March 2012
Evaluation Question 7
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt in the progress from it to the full product?
I will first look at how editing our preliminary task prepared us well for shooting our Main Task, this is because we got a bit of practice and got the chance to use the cameras and other equipment that we could possibly use in our Main Task. The whole preliminary task was a good experience and boosted my groups confidence when it came to shooting the Main Task because we had already had some practise.
Preliminary Task
We had to do a few attempts at shooting our final preliminary task due to the fact that we came across a few problems along the way while shooting the first two attempts. The main problem was the location and lighting which made shooting extremely difficult, particularly in the first preliminary that we shot. After shooting the first preliminary task and attempting to edit it on the Macs was when we realised re-shooting is part of the process towards the final product. We chose a location which was not suitable for the shot reverse shot that we had to include, this is because the lighting on one side was very bright and the other side was quite dark.
Camera Skills
My camera skills developed while shooting the preliminary task because while you are working you become more confident and begin to know how to use the camera properly. At the beginning of shooting our preliminary task, as a group we were quite unsure of exactly how to use the equipment such as the tripod but as time progressed we gradually became more confident due to the frequent use of the cameras. While shooting we also were able to come up with ideas of how to position the camera and use different techniques such as point of view shot and match on action. We realised the best way to shoot these shots was to shoot them twice so that we have no point in the preliminary task that we have any movement cut out, this would not be match on action and this was one of the shots we had to concentrate on and include.
Comparing our preliminary task to our Main Task, the Main Task is far more creative and requires a lot more skill and patience due to the fact the we have to include a lot more techniques and editing the whole clip took roughly 4 hours.
Computer Software Skills
Editing our preliminary task on the Macs was quite difficult at the beginning due to the fact that our group has not edited before on this software which was iMovie. We each use the same clips, but edited them on our own, choosing the effects, transitions and music that we wanted. By editing our preliminary task on our own proved to be really useful when it came to our Main Task. We all had input in editing this and each had our own ideas which we would include while editing and see if this worked well with it or not.
Choosing the camera angles and shots to use in our Main Task proved to be quite difficult because we had quite a lot of ideas and we had to portray the characters feeling a moods while showing things such as the Mise en Scene. Having the examination preparation lessons were very useful when it came to shooting our Main Task because we had to watch a lot of short clips from TV dramas and looking at the techniques used increased our own knowledge. In our Main Task we didn't have to concentrate on crossing the 180 degree rule because we had a physical barrier in the way which was the bath and this made shooting a little bit easier. Compared to the preliminary task where the camera angles are quite basic, this tested our skills and ability to use the cameras. We didn't use the tripod for shooting the Main Task because we wanted to create the effect that the character was delusional, hence the fact that our title is 'Delusion', so we held the camera while also holding a plastic screen in front of the camera lens to make the shots a bit blurred.
Editing on iMovie was a long process compared to editing the preliminary task because we had a lot more footage to edit and choosing the best shots to use was quite difficult because we had so many and the whole clip can only be two minutes. We edited it and then we had to cut out a lot because we had a lot more than two minutes and we had to adjust the clips to fit the time and also correct the match on action. We edited so meaning is apparent to the viewer, this was when we showed the character cleaning the bath, we added transitions to suggest that she has been cleaning for a long time, where as while watching the clip, you only see her cleaning for about 30 seconds, if we were to show this in real time it would have taken overall about 5 minutes.
Choosing the music to use was also quite difficult because you have to relate it to your genre, which for us was thriller. We chose one piece of music which was quite unusual and put this into our clip but while editing and after listening to it a few times we looked at other pieces of music similar to this which could fit a bit better into the storyline and genre. The final piece of music we chose had no lyrics and we chose this because the instruments used were quite spooky and added dramatic effect to the clip. If we had kept the first piece of music that we had chosen this could be seen as juxtaposition because the lyrics were about love and we did not want to have this in our clip.
Understanding of genre
The genre for our Main Task is a phycological thriller, we chose this because there are a lot of ways to easily show this genre within a two minute extract. The music used clearly identifies our Main Task as psychological thriller and this immediately tells the audience what to expect and this is also a genre convention. We shot this clip in the day and this meant that there was a lot of bright light and this wouldn't have been as effective as having shot in the dark. We edited the lighting on the Macs and this creates effect because it looks like night and this is also a typical genre convention. We looked at the Mise en Scene and while shooting we ensured that all the things that are normally in this bathroom were moved and out of shot because they would not be in a typical thriller. We also included some of our own props for the Mise en Scene such as the cigarettes and fake blood. Smearing the fake blood across the bath is a genre convention because this suggests that there has been a murder and this is commonly used in thriller movies. Also the spinning of the camera at the end of the clip is also a genre convention because this shows that the character is deluded and adds to the fact that this is a thriller because of the shots of blood while it is spinning out.
Saturday, 10 March 2012
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