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Jack Taylor Evaluation of Media Coursework
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Name: Jack Richard Taylor Name of Film: Shadow Runner Certificate: 15 Genre: Thriller Group Members: Jake Parsons, Nick Norman Introduction
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Music: The music we used was influenced mainly from our interest in Dubstep but also the film; Layer Cake. The music is made by an artist called D1, and to use his music we had to get copyright permission from the artist himself, which gratefully he did. The music allows our film to build up tension and does this by developing on itself using different types of sounds and wobbles, this creates dramatic tension. Comments were positive for the music, with most people saying that “the music fits well with our film” Editing For our editing we decided to use a common feature used in action-thrillers and other types of crime films. This is simple and fast paced clips used in a short amount of time. This picks up audience interest and drawing them into the film. The feedback we received was mainly "good editing” Setting In our film we decided to film in a car park at night, so our film had a dark & mysterious mise-en-scene. A comment we received about the films setting was “where and when you have filmed really creates tension, well done” meaning we probably did the right thing filming the plot at night. A typical crime film convention is that main action is shot at night, especially criminal actions like robbery and murder, which was represented in our film, creating a more sinister feel to the film. Elements in the film In our film we decided not showing the mysterious mans face giving him a hidden identity similar to that in Layer Cake as we never learn the male protagonist’s name. We also used stairs in our film, this is a typical element of thrillers, as it adds to the feeling of a chase and therefore creating suspense and tension for the audience. In What ways does you media product use develop or challenge forms and convention of real media products?
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There is only one character on screen in our film, who is male. However there is a suggestion of another character, but this character is not shown. The main character represented as male who has a past filled with crime and because of what he has done, he is now being followed and consequently going to be punished for his crimes. However in the film he shows no signs of ‘being violent’ but from his expensive, designer clothing he seems to be a young middle classed male. Audience feedback showed some one asking “Why did you not use a female character instead of a male character?” This was because we don’t really have a representation of women as there where no main character females used in the films we researched before filming, however this could be suggesting that women are usually represented as more innocent and don’t get involved with gang-crime, as we represent gang-crime as a masculine world. We represent men as criminals who like violence, and have a need to break the law. Original thrillers represented men as rebellious figures, however nowadays we represent them as power hungry characters, and that the only way they can prove their power is by committing crime’s and making people fear them such as the gangster film The Godfather. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
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I have decided to research a few crime films to find out what company distributed their films. I researched GoodFellas, Trainspotting and Shining. I found that The Godfather was distributed by Paramount Pictures , The Shining was distributed by Warner Bros, and Trainspotting was distributed by an art house/ independent film distributor from the
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We researched the films that inspired us and found the people who seemed to enjoy it the most from each film. (information acquired from imdb.com) Who would be the audience for your media product?
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With all 3 films I researched the most popular age group were the under 18’s Male, closely followed by the 18’s – 29’s Male, however the gender ratings were very close in all 3 films, therefore we presume both gender’s enjoy each of the films equally. We thought that the audience would of been under 18’s Male, as this category is the most common age group that enjoys watching action-thrillers about young adults (teens or early 20s). However, because of this information found from imbd.com we knew that males would enjoy it more, and therefore we targeted them more than girls by making our character in our film clip male.
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Our target audience for our film was young adults and mostly male. I think that the fact that the main character is a young adult, and male, would help to attract many people but mainly our target audience to the film, as they could relate to it and would find our film enjoyable to watch. We also attracted the audience with the urban/dark city mise-en-scene, with a empty, dark and gloomy car park, places that the viewers could relate to as this is an appropriate place for a crime to take place, but also because as it’s a real place (not fictional) the audience can relate to it as many of them would of been in a multi-story car park. We also thought attracting our audience came from creating lots of suspense and tension to keep the audience hooked. We believed we successfully did this as we had many comments such as “I was really hooked and I couldn't wait to what was going to happen next” How did you attract/address your audience?
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We learnt a lot throughout the production of our crime film opening, regarding different aspects of technology including camera work and editing. We developed shooting knowledge, and how to capture certain shots due to the lighting we were given, and learnt that filming one shot once wasn’t good enough if we wanted the best imagery, also a full battery was essential. Feedback showed us that the majority of our shots were steady and well shot. We tried to explore different uses of the camera, with some interesting angles and shots used. We learnt how to best capture high angle shots and long shots, and how to manoeuvre the camera to represent it as looking through the eyes of a character. We had difficulties with some shots, and realized wheels or a skateboard would make things much easier, though we didn’t have access to these so compromised with hand held filming. Editing became quite simple after we got the hand of the program (Final Cut), however we had to learn certain effects on the program such as reducing the frames per minute, colour changes of the clip, cutting shots down, adding effective titles & transitions (to make it more realistic and an effective opening to a thriller film. However we did have some problems with the editing software given to us, where it did not allow us to save our project work at the end of the day. This made our process of editing the film much longer as the only way to save the film was to render and export it each time. This meant every time we wanted to continue to edit we had to import it each time as one whole film clip. This gave us extra problems because this meant we had to cut and chop down different clips each time we wanted to add an effect to a certain part of the film. I would also say that my internet skills have improved as now I feel more confident searching for facts used in my research and planning. But also I feel my internet skills have improved by using e-blogger to upload all my coursework. I have found out how to upload pictures, videos and text to a blog so others can view it easily. As a group we have also experimented with a programme to create music called Garage Band. I would now say I am more confident at doing this but as a group we decided not to use any of our created music in our actual film clip because we could not create the right sound to help build up the tension and suspense, which was a vital part of our film. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
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We feel we have learnt many aspects from the preliminary task and learnt more along the way. During our crime film planning, we already experienced most of the main points needed; story boards and scripts. However we needed extra information for filming to go smoothly, like camera angles, and camera movements, This is what the preliminary task did to help us understand. The essentials of making a film and some basic techniques such as, the 180 degree rule, shot-reverse shot and match on action. The editing process was easier the second time, as we were already familiar with the software and how to edit/rearrange our footage. However we had to learn how to sequence shots more efficiently, as that wasn’t needed in our preliminary. We also had to learn how to use titles on the film foreground, and add in special effects for our thriller film to make it more suspenseful for the audience. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
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In Conclusion I feel as a group we worked well with each other and controlled the task in hand well. I feel our opening of a crime film worked well, and looked realistic, because we had feedback such as “I really like suspense created and I felt as though I was watching a real life crime film” I have found filming a scene for a movie is a lot harder than I expected because you do not realise how many shots needs to be created to fill at time of two minutes. For example to produce our film we had over two hours of footage to create the only the first two minutes of our film. Overall I am very pleased with all my research, planning and the final piece film. Conclusion
