ALL BLOGS COMPLETED!

This is to show that I have finished all the tasks that were set for us to blog including all of the evaluation questions.

EVALUATION

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

EVALUATION

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

EVALUATION

QUESTION 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

make animated gifs like this at MakeAGif

EVALUATION

QUESTION 4- Who would be the audience for your media product?

Final - SENSES

EVALUATION

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

EVALUATION - Question 3 on Prezi

EVALUATION

QUESTION 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?


Representation often rely on stereotypes - recognisable characters which are instantly understandable to the viewer. Stereotypes can either be represented positively or negatively, for example a blonde bimbo or a black criminal. A representation involves a conscious decisions, for what they decide and what we see. 

The social groups I have represented in my film opening are women which heavily contradicts how are they portrayed in regular society. Women are generically portrayed to be housewife's and very feminine and not at all typically associated with crime. In our psychological thriller opening, our main character is a psychotic woman who has a fetish for other women's hair. All of our victims in our opening are also women which is quite typical of them to be victims of crime as that is how they are portrayed in society. 
In our opening we have represented women in a negative way as they are represented to be psychotic criminals, however some may interpret this as a positive representation as it breaks the barrier of women not usually being the criminals and stereotypical main character in a thriller film. 

EVALUATION

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


There are many conventions of a film opening, which helps the audience determine the genre of the film and who it's aimed at. The conventions include, mise en scene, editing and camera shots. For a thriller film opening, the conventions used will help to build up suspense and create the tension needed. The most effective camera shots used for a thriller are close ups of props and facial expressions which we have included plenty of in our opening. 




The conventions of a title sequence for a thriller film opening, goes as follows:

1. Production Company: Logo/Indent
2. Production Company: Text
3. Other production companies (distributors)
4. Film title
5. Actors/cast
6. Casting
7. Costume
8. Music Supervisors
9. Music
10. Edited By
11. Production Designer
12. Director of Photography
13. Executive Producers
14. More Executive Producers
15. Director

Shown from our rough cut is how we have followed these conventions in our thriller opening.

Another thriller film opening that also follows these conventions is The Stepfather. 

However, in comparison to the shots of ours, The Stepfather includes the production company's ident, and the production companies as mine has only been taken from a rough cut which we later improved on. 

Editing - SoundTrack Pro 2

After adding sound effects to our opening, we decided that we needed some instrumentals so that the footage flows more. Therefore, on soundtrack pro, we decided to add in dark orchestral sounds to link the footage together.

Production - Footage.

This footage shows a part of our process of production whilst we were editing on Final Cut Pro.

Senses - Mini evaluation.

After posting the rough cut of Senses, we realised that there just wasn't enough footage as it was only 53 seconds long. We realised that our opening needed to be at least 2 minutes long. Therefore, we found that we needed to add more footage so that it will be at least 2 minutes long. Overall, we genuinely didn't have enough footage. However, because we filmed a scene on the bus which was initially supposed to be a main part of our opening, we could add in some footage from that scene to make it longer. Also, we decided to have the credits roll over a blank screen to make our footage longer.

Last Day - SoundTrack Pro

 As discussed before, we have decided to use the first 10 seconds from 'Initiation' to build up tension in the opening of the thriller. We are aware of the copyright of the song and therefore we decided to slow down the pace of the song so that it is original and it lasts longer into our thriller. We also faded the song in and out to make it smooth. We added the song on Final Cut Pro so that we could edit the track. 

 

It is the last day of editing and these screen grabs show the process of adding on foley sounds and a soundtrack to our final thriller opening. We have used the following sounds:

• Natural sounds - City
• Natural sound - Room
• Whoosh air
• Impact crashes
• Heartbeat
• Walking 
• Screams
• Clothes
• Scissors
• Drone - Suspense
• Drone - Etherel
• Drone - Dark and scary

All of these sounds contribute to building tension and creating suspense in our thriller opening so that the element of thriller is emphasised.

Last Day Of Editing

Here are a few shots of editing the day before our deadline.
As shown we have included a few other shots we weren't going to use initially to ensure the duration of our opening was a minimum of 2 minutes.
Today we'd also had to edit our title sequences to make sure they were within the green box guideline. This is so it is visible when it's shown to an audience.

Soundtrack Pro

This screen grab shows the process of adding foley sounds using Soundtrack Pro. We have decided to add sounds such as footsteps, natural environmental music in the background, screaming and cutting of the scissors. These all contribute to creating tension and suspense to the thriller opening.

Editing - Final Cut Pro

Here are some screen grabs we took to show our process of editing on final cut pro. It shows how we have used video transitions like cross dissolves and fade in and fade outs to make our footage look smoother.

Day 2 - Filming

After our initial filming process, we decided that in order to make our opening more effective and stronger we filmed some extra footage so that we can include it in our sequence. They were mostly close ups and extreme close ups. This is because this would reinforce the thriller elements within ouro opening. Also, as the screen shots show, we decided to film from different perspectives so that we have varying view points to choose from.

Rough Cut

This is a rough cut of our thriller opening. There are many aspects that put us in a strong position. For example, the pace of the footage makes the opening more effective and creates more suspense. Also, the layering of footage with the different transitions allow us to experiment with the pace of the opening. However, there are other edits which we need to carry out. For example, we need to add some more footage into this to add depth and to make it more fluent and effective in creating suspense and tension.

Day 1 - Filming.

These are some images that we have taken during the course of filming and preparations for the filming of our thriller opening. The shots of Lyah and Chanel were taken when we were filming at West Ham - the attack scene. We decided to try out different shots to see which would give the best result. This included trying to film from the psycho's (Chanel) perspective. However, we decided that this would look really unprofessional and messy so we chose to shoot an over the shoulder shot using the tripod to make it steady and balanced.

The other images were taken at Chanel's house. This was the last scene of our thriller opening. We had to prepare the props for the scene which included images of short hair taken from newspaper, magazines and the Internet and also extracts of hair cut from extensions and wigs.

Shot List For Senses...

Scene 1:
1. Extreme close up of Psycho's (Chanel's) eyes.
2. Pan of side of Psycho's (Chanel's) eyes.
3. Over the shoulder shot getting on bus.
4. Close up of Psycho's (Chanel's) feet.
5. Long shot of Psycho (Chanel) sitting behind Victim on the bus.
6. Close up of Victims neck.
7. Several close ups of Psycho's (Chanel's) hands. (smelling hair, with scissors, touching hair, cutting hair)


Scene 2:
8. High angle shot of woman walking. (P.O.V)
9. High angle medium shot of Psycho (Chanel) walking (P.O.V)
10. Close up of woman's head on the floor.


Scene 3:
11. Long shot of Psycho (Chanel) looking at the wall.
12. Medium/long shot of Psycho (Chanel) taking off wig.