Sol Goss's AS blog

Monday, 25 March 2013

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

Since the completion of my preliminary task, my knowledge has advanced and I have learned a variety of new skills which have enabled me to apply them to my thriller. When we first began the preliminary task, I had little knowledge in gaining research, planning, editing and shooting for a film. With little experience in editing and shooting, only little experience from taking stills. When we began the preliminary task, we were put into groups. Working in a group was something we had to adapt to due to not knowing each other, and different opinions.

Research

With our preliminary task, research wasn't much of an important factor because of the preliminary task not having a genre to it. This meant that the research involved researching camera angles and shots, and also specific rules when shooting. For example, I learned that close up shots are used to show the emotions upon a characters face, to engage with the audience. And that a high angle shot is used to show that the character or object is vulnerable, and has a lower status than the other characters. With the help of research I learned what the 180 degree rule was and why its used and shouldn't be broken, it's a crucial part of filming when filming a conversation which is there so that you don't confuse the audience. Furthermore, other terms i had learnt through the preliminary task and research were shot reverse shot; a film technique where on character is shown looking at another character and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. I had also learnt the film technique of match on action as well. The progress I've made with research from the preliminary task has been very efficient, allowing me to add the knowledge of what i've learnt about planning from the preliminary task and apply that to the research into the thriller genre. The research I've done for the thriller has allowed me to gain the knowledge I now know about the genre which is vital; as well as watching thriller films I never would have watched unless particpating within the subject of media. Through researching films of the thriller genre, we learned and were able to notify the importance of conventions with the genre, meaning that we could apply this knowledge we've researched to our media product, the thriller opening. My research included films such as 'Witness', 'Animal Kingdom' and 'Heavenly Creatures'. As well as researching films, I researched into other texts such as 'The Lady in the Lake' a novel. For any media product, research is vital as this is how you are able to gain knowledge in that specific area, for us being the thriller genre. By analyzing real media products such as 'Animal Kingdom' our group was able to take generic aspects of that thriller and apply references to our own.

Planning

For any media product, planning is essential. With the preliminary task, aspects of planning such as costume were not taken into consideration, so we just went along with what we were wearing on that day, noting that if we didn't complete filming in the time given in the lesson then continuity would be an issue. For the production of our thriller as a group we took note of costume and used it as a way of conveying the representation of social groups, race and gender. Through planning other aspects such as which intertextual references we were going to include were important and this type of knowledge would have only been acquired through research. For example when planning intertextuality, we used the 2 wide open car doors and added this to make a reference to our thriller when using the white van and having both of the vans doors wide open.

Camera angles and shots

An example of a tracking shot used

This is an important factor to take into consideration. With the preliminary task, we explored a variety of camera angles and shots which were gained from researching them. For the preliminary task the way we planned our camera angels and shots were through the use of storyboards. The progress that I have made with my knowledge of camera angels and shots, is that I have greater understanding of why certain shots are used, for example a low angle shot is used to express the authority, or importance of an object or character. For the thriller opening, we made a shot list which included the camera angles and shots, and as a group preferred using a shot list instead of a storyboard because we found it easier to add a new shot if we needed to.Another reason why we favored a shot list was because the shot list was done electronically on Microsoft Word, so when had lost a copy of the shot list we could just print off another copy, this would have been much harder with a storyboard because we had hand-drawn our storyboards. Although as a group we found it effective to have a detailed shot list as well as a basic storyboard because we found it a lot easier to visualize, so knew what we were doing.

Additionally, when shooting our preliminary task I had less knowledge in camera angles, so the perlimanry task included limited camera angles. However since then, my knowledge has increased in camera angles and their uses, so a greater variety of angles and shots were used in our thriller opening 'Transit'. This is another way how I have progressed into becoming much more confident in both using the camera angles as well understanding them as well.

Tutor Feedback

Tutor feedback played an important role in producing our thriller. Tutor feed back allowed us to make improvement upon editing, planning, and research as well as ways to improve our evaluation drafts. When we received feedback on a bit of work, we are notified by blogger in emails as well as it saying that there is '1 comment' on the selected piece of work. Once I read the feedback I could apply it and improve that bit of work. For example for my question 4 of the evaluation, my tutor had told me what i had done well, and then informed me on how i could strengthen my work. After reading the advice I then applied it to that question, a successful way of making progress on work.This is an effective way of feedback partly because of how easy and quick it is.

An example of the feedback my tutor gave me on quesion 4

Audience Feedback

The questionnaire

Audience feedback, like tutor feedback, is very important in seeing what your peers thought of the media product. Once we had completed the final cut for our thriller opening, I electronically sent a questionnaire to both males and females so that I could get some feedback. I sent the questionnaire to people between the ages of 16-21, because this is our demographic. The questionnaire asked several questions such as 'does the soundtrack effectively reflect and enhance the mood & action?' so that i could gather what people thought the negative and positive parts were of the opening. I collected a small sample of questionnaires and overall received a positive response to the thriller. One participant said that the soundtrack 'reflects the grittiness well' however the same participant noted that it 'took them a time to find the link between the watch and the girl'. This is an improvement we would make as a group, if given the chance to do the thriller opening again.

Colour grading

Sound and Editing

The preliminary task enabled us to give us a chance at editing using Adobe Premier Pro. This was a first time using this software for many of us, including myself. Prior to this, i had never used editing software before, so was all completely new to me. The preliminary task allowed us to experiment with Adobe Premier Pro, giving me the knowledge to do basic edits and effects. The things i learned included: Inserting in and out points in video points to cut the clips making them shortened, I learned how to use video transitions as well such as fade to black, and also how to include titles. These few lessons when editing proved vital when it came to editing our final thriller production. However gained a lot more progress when editing the final production. With the help of the members in our group I made a lot more progress in editing and for example learnt how to use colour grading, which alters the look of the footage.

The effect of changing the colour

Within the preliminary task we weren't made known of diegetic and non-diegetic sound so therefore didn't know its importance within a media product. So for the preliminary task when editing we left all the diegetic sound in. This gave the effect of making the situation unrealistic but made the mise-en-scene realistic. Nevertheless when doing research and planning into soundtracks with my group for the thriller production, we learnt that sound was extremely important. When shooting and editing our thriller opening we made it top priority to keep an even balance between diegetic and non-diegetic sound so that we could get that realism from the mise-en-scene as well as to build tension. Another way in which I have progressed since the preliminary task.

Working Within a Group

Working within a group allows for greater creativity. When working with my group when producing the thriller, one of us would come up with an idea, then another one of us would improve upon that making it more creative. What this meant is that it improved our teamwork together, making us more comfortable within the group through sharing ideas and suggesting for improvements. Working within my thriller production group allowed us to come up with ways to establish the genre in our film, as well as allowing several responsibilities to us as individuals so that we were more efficient as working as a group. The result of this meant that we could come up with a wide variety of ideas, and also we could come up with ideas fairly quickly due to our individual roles. Another advantage of working within a group means that we can help each other understand certain factors within the thriller genre. We all carried out individual research into media texts so that we could distinguish things such as: the type of thriller, character roles and location advantages. This also meant that we could do the shooting process very quickly and come back to shoot another day if we needed to, which we did. One do the best advantages of having assigned roles within a group and working with a group means that we can help each other and reduce stress, making me feel much more comfortable working in a group since the preliminary task, therefore making progression

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

An example of a tracking shot used

An example of the feedback my tutor gave me on quesion 4

Audience Feedback

The questionnaire

Colour grading

The effect of changing the colour

Thriller - Final Cut

Mood Board for our Thriller

Question 2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Menacing stereotypical Afro-Caribbean youths, with concealed identities

'Transit', our thriller opening, interacts with several different social groups. Firstly, the representation of young males from an ethnic minority has a reinforced stereotype, this is done through the character John, who is from an Afro-Caribbean background. His presence within 'Transit' is very mischievous and appears to be damaging to society due to his dodgy role. His costume is full black (excluding the white t-shirt) and has his hood up which suggests that John is trying to conceal part of his identity. We chose this form of costume for John because it portrays a realistic representation of adolescent males in urban areas in society. Johns costume is also very similar to the appearence of young males in the London riots, who wore hoodies and other forms of apparel to disguise their identities because of the crimes they were committing. His realistic representation portrays that he is a shifty and possibly dangerous character, through his costume. So this makes the audience assume that he is a dangerous character who is up to no good, a reason why we chose this costume for him. This is how John reinforces the stereotype, however, his common stereotype of Afro-Caribbean young males is switched and he becomes the victim of what possibly could be seen as a racist attack as he is threatened by a white male in his 40's named Bill; reversing the stereotype of what is portrayed by the media.These are ways and reasons how our media product represents specific social groups. Although this representation of a deviant youth is from an ethnic minority, it may offend ethnic minority communities because it strengthens the negative representation of this group which is shown by the media.

An image of John in his stereotypical costume

Secondly, we have Bill, the oldest character who is a white male. Like John, Bill conveys to stereotypes but also breaks certain representations. For instance Bill is an electrician in his early to mid 40's, he is represented in what is typical for a handy-man - in heavy duty work wear. Bill is hostile to John in the opening of 'Transit' and the audience view Bill as a more trust worthy character than John because part of Bill's career is to be in other peoples houses as he is an electrician, he is also in his early to mid 40's which effects hi stereotype, because this age category doesn't suffer the bad publicity as youths, John's age group. John stereotypically is the character who is feared more than a male in his 40's like Bill who has a career to focus whereas John is seen as the menacing character.

Furthermore, Bill breaks the stereotype by being the older white male who is alarming and feared considering that John stereotypically has this fear to his character.

The representation of females in 'Transit' is limited due to there being only being one female role. The only female role in 'Transit' is Hanna, who's role is fairly minor. Hanna breaks the stereotype of women in film by costume. Her costume is that of an average dressed teenager of the modern day, and doesn't have a glamorous costume like those found being worn by femme fatale's such as Eve in 'Once Upon a Time in America' whose costume features pearls (to signify tears) and another femme fatale being Laura Manion in 'Anatomy of a Murder' (1959) whose costume involves the revealing of skin, unlike Hanna's costume.

Laura Manion from 'Anantomy of a murder' note that skin visible

Hanna may partly break her stereotype, however reinforces a female stereotype with in film, when she is found dead in the lift and therefore represents the stereotype of the traditional femme fatale being the victim and is killed because they are defenseless. A way our group could have played a twist and reversed this stereotype is that we could have made it that Hanna defends her self successfully from her attacker, and make an escape. This representation of female youths could possibly offend those wanting help bring gender equality particularly in film, because we are not promoting gender equality. An example of a character with a strong lead in a film would be Lisbeth Salander in 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' and if were to expand upon 'Transit' to make it a full film, then flashbacks of Hanna would be included and possibly show how she is a strong female character, like Lisbeth Salander. Hanna's look is based on Lisbeth Salander, noting the hair.

'The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo' - Lisbeth Salander

As a group, we decided to base Hanna on protagonist from the action thriller 'Hanna'. Hanna (from the action thriller 'Hanna') is a 16 year old who was raised by her father to be a skillful assassin. She is perfectly able to defend herself from those wanting to kill her. However Hanna from 'Transit' is killed off in the lift.

Traditionally in thrillers the female character is a passive victim, for example in the thriller 'Psycho'.

Hanna from 'Transit' having a very similar appearance to Lisbeth Salander

Character Profile

An image of John

Character Name: John
Age: 16-18 years old
Character Type: Protagonist

John is an Afro-Caribbean adolescent who is caught up in devious acts. He appears to be a fearful character, whose job is simply to carry the mysterious content in a black bag. He is young, so is vulnerable to the dangers of carrying such content, but still appear alarming to others. He is a character who lacks emotion, maybe because he has been through a lot of difficult situations which goes on to him being a youth which lacks morality.

He is based upon characters which live in similar locations to that of Anglia Square, the character Sam from 'Kidulthood' and the squeal 'Adulthood' is a perfect example of someone similar to John. Sam is from an ethnic minority, like John, who lives a troubled life in London who lives in a block of council flats. His name, John, can be seen as ironic because it's such a simple name for a character with so much mystery to him.

Sam from 'Kidulthood' with council estates in the background

An image of Hanna

Character Name: Hanna
Age:16-18 years old
Character Type: Antagonist

Hanna is a white female between the ages of 16 and 18, similar to John's age. She is there to receive what John is delivering, the black bag with mysterious content. She is young and as well John being vulnerable, so is Hanna, the fact that shes a lone female in such a vulnerable location waiting for Johns visiting. The location make her vulnerable because it is so open and complex, a location where everywhere inside looks very similar. She is also waiting on the top floor of the car park, making her even more vulnerable because her only way to escape, would be to go down, she doesn't have the option of going up. Also being on the top floor means that it is furthest from the bottom another disadvantage. However there place is hidden from the outside world due to it being empty and dark.

Hanna is based on the protagonist from the action thriller 'Hanna' who is a skillful assassin which suggests Hanna is able to defend herself, but that may not be the case in such a place.

Sunday, 24 March 2013

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

Question 5)

Questionnaires were essential in gaining effective feedback for our thriller opening, ‘Transit’. After ‘Transit’ was viewed, I electronically sent both males and females within the age range of 16-21 the questionnaire. I thought that this age range would be most suitable because of our demographic being between these ages. Also due to our demographic being 16-21 year old males, the majority of people I sent the questionnaires were to be males, however females also took part so that I could benefit from having a fair rating from the audience (this also meant I could see which gender found it most appealing). Because of ‘Transit’ having a male target audience, my evidence of questionnaires has been chosen from 2 males and 1 female.

As evident from the feedback on the questionnaires, both negative and positive feedback was received. The positive feedback which was given includes: easy understanding of the narrative, and good use of camera work and editing. It could be said that a reason why 2 of the participants in my samples gave the understanding of the narrative 4 out of 5 (the other scored it 5 out of 5) is because of it being a linear narrative. This means that it's a sequential narrative which has a beginning, a middle and an end in that order. Story techniques such as flashbacks were not included within the narrative. This could be attractive to our audience because it means that a great level of detail is not needed when watching 'Transit'.

Accompanying this, another aspect of 'Transit' which showed popular by the questionnaire was the good use of camera work and editing. In all 3 samples it was given 5 out of 5, which is most likely because of our groups choice of using DSLR cameras in manual focus which enables contrasting depths of field; giving a more professional feel and cinematic look. Also with the editing we made the decision to decrease the saturation and included a green tint to the edit. The use of DSLR cameras would have attracted part of our audience because it gives a cinematic look to the thriller opening, giving that cinematic feel which some people may look for.

Furthermore, the soundtrack showed to be an attractive factor for people who took part in the questionnaire, they all said it reflected well with the film. One participant stated that 'it reflects the grittiness well', the soundtrack may have been very appealing to to the audience because the soundtrack includes a fast playing beat and instruments as it plays on. The soundtrack also has a very intense modern feel to it creating a sense of a tight, gritty atmosphere. The advantage of using a modern sounding soundtrack means that it fits our thriller because of it being set in the present day, using a soundtrack with an old feel to it would not fit era its set in, and could possibly confuse the audience. This is another reason why the soundtrack showed popular among the audience. The soundtrack had a huge impact on clearly notifying the audience that 'Transit' is the opening to a film in the thriller genre, a reason why on the questionnaire every participant gave the question 'is the production clearly the opening of a thriller film' a 4 or 5 out of 5.

The shot of John which is difficult to view

As well as positive notes, there were also negative issues with 'Transit'. For example one of the issues involved was lighting. One participant of the questionnaire noted that 'there was a scene where the lighting was very dark'. This attendant of the questionnaire gave the question 'how do you rate the standard of mise-en-scene to include colour, figure, lighting, objects?' an average mark of 3 out of 5. I believe that his reason for this is mainly because of the issue of lighting in one of the scenes, where it is a little difficult to view. This is an example of how the mise-en-scene was dark making it unclear in certain scenes; like when the character John went down to pick up the watch. This can give the effect of loosing the audiences attention with the action. What we should have done was consider the use of using lighting during this shot, which would have massively improved the scene.

Another issue which was raised by a participant of the questionnaire was that 'the link with the watch took me a time to work out' when asked the question 'was there any parts you found confusing or hard to understand'. This link with the watch was proposed to be a vital part within the opening becasue it was there to build tension and suspense in the thriller and let the audience know that something very negative was going to happen. And if the audience didn't fully understand this, then it wouldn't hook them to watch the rest of the film. I feel that the reason this participant found it difficult to understand the link with the watch was due to lighting. If lit well, then the scene would have been much clearer, making it a lot easier to see what was going on. Another way our group could have made this link clearer would be by including a flashback. This flashback would have to include John handing over the watch to Hana and also what this would have done is show a stronger link between the 2 characters.

Regardless of this the use of intertextual references is another technique which would help hook an audience into watching the full film. References to other films are included within 'Transit' for instance when John approaches the white van and finds both van doors wide open creating a menacing shot which makes the audience ask questions. This is an intertextual reference to Australian crime thriller 'Animal Kingdom', when 2 policemen approach an abandoned car with both of its doors wide open. Intertextual references help hook the audience by making them feel intelligent that they've found a link between a scene or shot. In such a way interetextual references would help hook an audience because the members of the audience to work/notice the reference may have enjoyed the film that it is linked to, allowing them to think that this is worth watching because it has influences from that film; In the case of 'Transit' the film 'Animal Kingdom' has been referenced.

'Animal Kingdom' shot of the car with the doors open

'Transit' shot of the van with the doors open

A generic convention of thrillers we used, were the use of enigmas. For example an enigma in 'Transit' was the black bag, and the content inside this. This is unknown and this enigma allows room for other enigmatic questions to be asked by the audience, such as why does Bill have such an interest in John and Hanna? An enigmas intention is to create mystery so that the audience can keep interest and try answering the unanswered questions. In the questionnaire samples the participants said that the sequence held their attention and 2 participants scored it 4 out 5, the other 5 out 5. The use of enigma's would have helped influence this to hold and hook their attention.

Next, one of the females who participated in the questionnaire said that she wouldn't watch the full film if made, when asked the question 'would the opening inspire you to watch the rest of the film'. It was not stated why she wouldn't. But it can be presumed that this may be because of the only female character in the opening being Hanna is killed off very early on. This may give the assumption that the rest of the film may only have a male cast. What we can learn from this is that we may not have produced an opening that is attractive to the female audience, however this was not the target audience we were looking for.

Having 'Transit' set in the present day means that costume is going to be up to date; costume could be seen as an attractive factor to the audience because it means that the audience can relate to what the characters are wearing. Another important factor to take note of is that when addressing the audience, we made the decision to do it in an emotionally detached away. The reason for this is because the audience would have found it difficult to relate to the character John as a result of his numb response to the finding of Hanna's dead body in the lift.

Altogether, the use of questionnaires worked well in finding the audiences responses. It was a quick and easy to understand way of seeing how well we attracted/addressed our audience. It can also be gathered that our group addresses and attracted our audience effectively because the lowest mark out of 10 for the rate of the overall product was 9. However the killing of the female in the opening didn't show to be popular among females. This suggests that it put off certain females in watching the full film if it was made.

Overall though, the most important factor to take into consideration of attracting an audience to keep their attention, would be the cliffhanger. It is one of the most important elements with the opening because it provides that hook which is needed. Our cliffhanger involves Bill's boot aggressively being placed in the elevator door, preventing it to shut and makes it open. We decided that this would be an attention grabbing cliffhanger to make sure that the audience wouldn't loose attention in the action. This also makes the audience ask questions as to what happens next?