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

TASK BRIEFS:

The pre-lim task was very helpful in pointing out the things that could possibly go wrong and important things we needed to do, before starting work on the main task, in each of the planning stages: pre-production (research + planning), production and post production.

PRE PRODUCTION: PLANNING

PRODUCTION:

 

For both shoots it was also important to make sure that everyone got an opportunity to film some of the shots, not just one person.

POST PRODUCTION:

FEEDBACK:

Feedback for our prelim was by teachers and other media students so the technical aspects were focused on (as the aim of seamless continuity was more technical).

For our main task, feedback was by our target audience and was focused more on the creative aspects and more opinionated. We haven't spotted any continuity errors yet so the pre-lim definitely helped on that level!

WORKING AS A TEAM:

Being in my group, I have learnt a lot about communicating ideas and being organised with meetings and agreements. It has been very easy to share thoughts and ideas during the course of producing our opening sequence and I think that has been a big part of its success. We have all worked very hard on this project and I have really enjoyed working in my group. :)

6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this project?

During the production of our opening sequence I learnt to use various different pieces of hardware equipment:

Canon HD Mini DV Camcorder

We used this camera for our pre-lim exercise but this time we experimented with the auto and manual focus, which was new for me.

Tripod

Most of the time we used the tripod to get smooth, steady shots but whilst improvising some shots we were able to be creative with the tripod:  e.g. putting it on the table to get a HA of Dawn (above).

I would advise anyone using a tripod to make sure all the legs are on the same level using the bubble on the side, as our camera was wonky at times so we often had to reshoot shots.

Paglights

Aside from making the shots well lit, we found that on our test shoot different shots were lit differently depending on the angle we were shooting from, so we used these lights and other lamps as well to keep continuity. 

The advantage of using artificial light is that you can create different effects easily, for our shot of the curtain however, we had to wait for the natural light outside to be bright enough.

Shotgun microphone
Our final shot is the only shot with dialogue, so we needed to remember to put the microphone on when shooting this shot.

I didnt expect the microphone to pick up even the smallest sounds as it is quite sensitive, so when shooting this shot we had to make sure there was no noise that could be picked up by it.

During post production I was able to develop knowledge and skills of the non linear editing software we used, 'Adobe Premier Pro':

I learnt how to alter the speed and duration of a shot. Like this wide master shot:

Incorporate a dissolve into 2 shot:

And how to add titles

I also learnt how to upload to Youtube!

Although our production process went smoothly and we didn't have any major issues, with hindsight I would have spent more time planning other possibilites for shots we could use as we had a lot of spare time on shoots which we used to improvise shots instead.

5) How did you attract/ address your audience?

We addressed our different audiences in different ways, as different groups will be attracted by different aspects of our opening sequence.

Enigma appeal: The narrative is held back and the story is told through the images. The audience try to work out what the shots are of and what has happened, so they ask questions and are kept interested - everything isn’t given away.

MARKETING

As our audience includes young people, if we were to market this to our audience, an online viral marketing campaign would be suitable, with trailers and clips of the film available on Facebook, Youtube which can also be accessible on phones, making it a cross platform approach as well.

This marketing approach is very similar to that which made Paranormal Activity a recent success:

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

We held a screening for our opening sequence and gave people a questionnaire to fill out:

Group 6 Audience

+ Things they liked: Shots, imagery, lighting, music, pace, colour scheme and curtains

-  What they thought could be improved: Sound, phone dialogue, the dissolve shot

* The most popular answer for the second question on genre was 'Thriller', the next most popular were crime/murder mystery and horror.

* Most people answered that it is a British independant film (the ones that didn't said it could be either independant OR mainstream)

* All but 3 people gave us a rating of  7 or above (out of 10).

The positive feedback and ratings showed that although some improvements can be made, we did reach our target audience effectively.

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

Our primary audience was the audience we were trying to appeal to. As our product developed, it became clear that certain other groups would also enjoy watching our film opening, this was our secondary audience:

A profile for a typical member of our target audience

One of the questions on the questionnaire we handed out at our screening was: Who is the film's target audience?

:) Most of the responses stated an age range of around 18 - 30.

:/ 2 said the film targeted people over 40.

The feedback implies that the audience is broader than we intended, in terms of age.

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

‘Dawn’ is a low budget, British independent film produced by a small production company, Papercut productions, which produces independent films for niche audiences who want to see something different from mainstream Hollywood blockbusters: 

…. so will suitable for small scale distribution by a small, UK based company that supports independent films called Reverse Pictures.

Reverse Pictures is similar to the UK based distributor, Dogwoof, which also supports and distributes independent films.

As it not a Hollywood blockbuster, 'Dawn' wouldn’t be distributed to large chain cinemas.

It would be distributed to independent cinemas such as the Phoenix in East Finchley to reach our audience of young adults/students who are looking for films that are different and unique.

Dawn could also be shown at film festivals such as The London Independent film festival or Raindance film festival which both support British independent films.

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

● With the use of Strauss’ theory of binary opposites, ‘Dawn’ represents gender by going against the stereotype, particularly in the thriller genre, as Dawn is the female murderer and 'John' is the male victim in the opening sequence.

Dawn's character, however does conform to some female stereotypes concerning actions and dress code:

The male character, John, also conforms to some male stereotypes concerning his character in the context of the whole film and dress code. 

● Also, young people are represented as being sociable people that like to go out, drink and meet new people whilst also being naive and careless by putting themselves in dangerous situations.

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

Our media product is an opening sequence of a fictional psychological thriller film. We had to consider elements such as genre, narrative, characters, music and style of real thrillers, in order to appeal to our target audience and produce an opening sequence that is unique, yet recognisable as a thriller film.

Brainstorm of Genre Conventions:

Iconography:

● The fallen wine bottle, wine glasses, vase and flowers, the messy room and the dead body make up the mise en scen and signify that a struggle has taken place...

Similar iconography appears in:

'Se7en' (1995, Fincher)

...and 'Memento' (2000, Nolan)

● The dead body is usually, visually, the main focus of the scene. We developed this by making the body a part of the mise en scen. The focus is on Dawn's reactions and what she is going to do next.

● The lighting and location break genre conventions as the sequence is set in an average, well lit house at dawn and not in a dark, eerie location:

The cell in Silence of the lambs (1991, Demme)

...contrasts greatly with our location

● Some typical murderers and villains in thrillers are:

We go against these conventions as our protagonist, Dawn, is the murderer:

Being an ordinary young adult, the audience is is more likely to identify with her and put themselves in her unfortunate situation to ask themselves ‘What would I do?’.

● The narrative of our sequence takes place in real time, the morning after the crime or event has taken place, similar to 'Se7en' :

This opposes the Todorov's classic narrative pattern, where a state of equilibrium is set up at the start of the film.

● The story is introduced through the sequence of images which introduce the characters and establish the setting, generally conforming to the function of opening sequences...

...however, it leaves the viewer to piece together the events of the previous night (which will be revealed directly later in the film).

The out of focus shots and CUs also enforce Barthes' enigma code, often used in thrillers to make the viewer question what has happened and what will happen next.

● The arthouse visual style of our sequence breaks genre conventions. We used a warm colour scheme (yellow and orange) as opposed to a conventional cold colour scheme (blue, black, grey):

Inspired by 'Eternal Sushine of the Spotless Mind' (2004, Gondry)

The pace is slow with fades and dissolves between shots, many of which are out of focus and CUs. This opposes quick cutting and is conventional to psychological thriller openings, such as Seconds (1966, Frankenheimer)

Titles are a typical feature of opening sequences. Thrillers usually have added, weird effects on the titles to reinforce the eeriness of the genre:

'Insomnia' (2002, Nolan)

The titles for our sequence are superimposed onto the shots,  fade in and out, are lower case (except the names) and our final title 'dawn' has the blur effect on it:

Although the visual style goes against conventions, the soundtrack to our opening sequence, 'Exiled' from freeplaymusic.com, is slow, sad and quite creepy (similar to 'Insomnia', above). We minimized the dialogue in our sequence which allowed the music to reinforce the genre.

● Our opening sequence had to follow the narrative and genre conventions of psychological thrillers in order for it to be recognisable as a thriller and for us to reach our audience however, we broke visual and character conventions to make it unique and appealing.

Finished Editing

After 3 shoots and weeks of editing we have finished our sequence. Here's how it has developed:

1st Test Shoot:



2nd Test Shoot:



Final Sequence:

Arty Style influences

Some clips that I think could help us carry out our arty style and with editing techniques:

Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind (Gondry, 2004)
(watch from 0:50 when the titles start, i like the sequence at 3:25)












Also Insomnia (Nolan, 2002)
I like the really close up shots of the blood on the fabric, we could do something similar...

Final Shoot Reflections

I think we got all the shots we needed on our final shoot. We finished early which was worrying so we redid some shots just incase. Hopefully we wont have to reshoot.

Test Shoot 1 : Reflections

Our first test shoot went well. We did all the shots we'd planned to do with time to spare. At the end we improvised some shots. We filled in the shot logs so editing will be easier when we get back to school.

Soundtrack Idea!

Group meeting 2: Reflections

After our first teacher feedback we have to reconsider some narrative aspects of our idea such as the party.
I am very pleased with the group meetings so far, I think we've progressed a lot in terms of developing our idea for the opening sequence. We're all constantly coming up with ideas and communicating them within the group is quick and easy.

Group meeting 1: Reflections

I thought our first group meeting was successful- we agreed on a great idea and established similar styles, programmes and films as possible influences. I am looking forward to seeing how this idea develops and working on it with my group ;)

Clips of influences

The idea of someone seeing things that aren't really there was influenced by the hallway scene from 'The Shining' (Kubrick, 1980):



The idea of a character witnessing a murder comes from Shaft (Singleton, 2000)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuPzRwY708A

The idea of a character stalking another comes from Following, (Nolan, 1998)

Initial Ideas

Here is my brainstorm of possible events our sequence could revolve around:

Genre Research

Research

After our group meeting in class, we decided that the genre of our opening sequence would be 'Thriller' I looked through the various sub genres, of which psychological thriller interested me the most.

From Wikipedia:

This is mainly because it doesn't rely heavily on the use of props  (guns, knives etc) as much as 'elements relating to the mind'- which could become complicated but allows us less limits and more space to be creative as potentially, any thing could happen.

COURSEWORK

The coursework project starts here. From now, all work posted will be associated with the main coursework task. The link to the group coursework blog is in the links list.