Film Evaluation: Question 7

7. Looking back on your preliminary task, what do you have learned in the progression from it to the full production?

Since our preliminary task, I feel that I've learned a lot more about film film making, along with the editing and making of the film. For example, before we did this, I had never used a tripod dolly to move the camera and thanks to this I was able to make some amazing shots that moved and that really added to the drama of the shot. If you were to compare this to our old preliminary task, the camera stays in one position and it rotates every now and then, however in our actual project I learned how to move both the camera and the tripod in order to look my professional.

Although I had edited short videos in the past, I'd never actually made something that needed to have so much work put into it with some changes every now and then. This is probably why our preliminary task didn't look as professional as our final product because we were quite inexperienced. We didn't really think about the way the lighting looked or how good the camera position should be, but in our final task these were all things we improved on. For example, there's a shot when it looks at the main character sitting at her desk, behind her are some curtains covering a window. When we did this, we made sure a tiny part of the light came through so it wasn't too dark. This just shows how we now think about everything in the mise en scene.

The camera shots used in the preliminary task also weren't really thought out much we tended to just do what we thought would look good or would suit the situation. However in our final project, every shot was really thought out and not only did we think about what would suit the situation, we also wanted the shots to emphasise on what the characters were thinking and feeling and what they meant. For example, we did an extreme close up on Roseanne's face in order to emphasise the fact that what she was reading was dramatic and could affect her life. In our Preliminary task, we used a close up on the phone quite a few times in order to show that time was short and it also had to build tension. The difference between the shots in our preliminary task and our final project is that all the shots in the first one were to create an atmosphere and all the shots in our final one created an atmosphere and meant something, which I feel is what film makers aim for

Film Evaluation: Question 6

6. What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During out media product, we learned about a lot of different things, like how to use the certain editing software we were given and how to create animations for the production company logo.
Because our film was a Noir, we had to have a black and white filter. We learned to add this through premier pro. Our original plan was to have everything black and white but have the colour red show up - similar to Sin City. However, we learned that this wasn't as easy as it seemed as it would mean showing every little bit of red on the screen and it made it incredibly hard to edit, so to avoid any complications we didn't add any of this and just kept the entire film as black and white.

We also got to use equipment like the dolly, which allowed us to move the camera on the tripod on wheels. This made it look smooth and meant we didn't have to do it handheld. The best use of the dolly was when the main character - Roseanne - stood up from her chair and put her coat on. This looked especially good as not only was the camera getting closer to her, the camera was also moving in a different direction, so it looked very smooth and professional.

Instead of using After Effects to make the production logo, we used a software called Cinema4D. This allowed us to make more animations for the logo. Also, to make this better, we tried to find sounds of cogs spinning round. We added this in Premier Pro to make it sound more effective.

In regards to the sound in our project, we had to make separate volumes for each piece of sound. Some parts were much louder than others and some were quieter, therefore we had to separate the audio for different clips so we could definitely hear everything on the screen. For example when we recorded the narration (which we recorded in the studio at Landau) we had to turn it up so the audience could hear it over everything else that's going on. With the music in the background, we had to turn it up and down in certain areas. An example of this is when Roseanne turns the music on her radio down and the music goes down whilst she turns it down. We learned how to do this in Premier Pro which boosted our knowledge about how the editing software works.
 

Film Evaluation: Question 5

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

The main way we attracted our audience was by creating an enigma near the end of the clip. We slowly built tension throughout the clip so the audience didn't know what was going on at the beginning but as the clip went on it became more apparent. The theme throughout the film is revenge and action, so we hope that this would attract an audience from films like 'Tomb Raider' or 'Batman'. Also, we hoped the narration would give it a very dark feel - similar to Fight Club - so the audience would feel the need to keep watching and to see what happens.

We hoped that with the black and white and the narration over the top, the audience would feel a Noir theme and would be intrigued by it. Films that have take this approach are ones such as the Sin City and it's sequel. These films are incredibly popular and made $74,000,000 at the box office. With this in mind and our film being similar to this, we would hope that the narrative would attract an audience too, as in Sin City, almost every story in it is about revenge, just like our film. And our clip really builds up this fact as the ending line is 'whoever you are, I will find you', which is also very similar to the famous line in 'Taken'.

Film Evaluation: Question 4

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

Our film is a Thriller noir that focuses on a young girl getting revenge for her dead parents. Because it's both a thriller and a noir, we have a primary and a secondary target audience. Our primary audience are adults from age 25-32 and maybe slightly younger. We chose this audience because in 2014, these ages were more popular with films like 'Django Unchained', 'Captain Philips' and 'World War Z' (information from the 'BFI Statistical Yearbook 2014'). These films are more action-thriller films which is what our film is so we aim to reach out to this sort of audience.

Also, with the main character being a woman, we would hope this would attract more of a female audience. With a lot of action thrillers, the audience - a lot of the time - usually ends up being a male audience. For example, when 'Captain Philips' came out, the audience for it that went to watch it was 69% male and 31% female,
which shows that females do in fact go to watch this genre but it's over taken by men. But the female audience for much more serious films like 'Les Miserables' take over the male audience - again showing that females like these films. But for films like 'Filth' which was a very dark thriller, there isn't really a massive difference in the percentage of the gender that went to watch it, as well as 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire' which was an action film led by a female character. Therefore, with our film, we would hope we have a mature female audience.

Because the film is a noir, we would hope this would make our secondary audience cult fans of this genre. fans would be people who love the genre of noir and would be from ages of young adults to older - maybe elderly people. Also, because the Noir genre is usually set in America with deep, gritty American narrators, we would hope the main country this would get a lot of recognition would be in America. However, our film is about an British woman and it's not the same as an American male narrator, but there are films like 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider' which is s British female and is very popular in America. Therefore we would hope it would reach out to the U.S and cult fans of the noir genre.

We think our film has similarities to 'Taken' and 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire'. We feel like this because of the motive of our main character - similar to Taken, as it's revenge - and we also have a serious female protagonist - similar to Hunger Games. The audience for Taken - according to YouGov - are mainly male and aged 25-39 and are leaning right wing. Also, their favourite hobbies are going to the cinema, listening to music and going on the internet which is a good audience for us as we want people to be as normal and casual as possible.
The audience for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire are mainly female and aged 18-24 and they are leaning more towards left wing. Their hobbies, however, are the same as the Taken audience so there is the common interests for these audiences. And we would hope that with our film being a mix of both genres in different aspects, it would bring both of these audiences together to watch the film.

The most popular noir film on IMDB is 'Strangers on a Train' so I researched what the audience for this was. It's mainly people aged 60 and over and they are nearly left wing. And their hobbies are writing, going to the theater and going to museums and galleries. We would hope that this would make more elderly people from fans of the noir genre would go and watch this as well ad the other types on audiences I've mentioned.

Film Evaluation: Question 3

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

Our film is part of the noir genre and as 'Sin City: A Dame To Kill For' is a Noir film, we thought we should choose the same institution that distributed it - The Weinstein Company. Last year, it made $6,317,683 on it's opening weekend and it total it made $13,757,804. This shows that the distributors that get films into cinemas are successful and make a lot of money for their film. We would choose this company because they would back our production company. Our own production company would not be able to afford to market the film or get it into cinemas, therefore it we would want a larger company with more money distributing our film. As they distributed films like 'Sin City', 'The Imitation Game' and 'Big Eyes', all quite big films with big stars. Our film is also the correct kind of film for the production company as it is Noir and most of the films they seem to distribute are neo-noirs of some kind.

Our original plan was to have Warner Bros. distribute our film because of it's history with Noir films as it was one of the first companies to make noir films in the 1920s. When Warner Bros. first started, they didn't have a big budget they made noir films that were dark and didn't have very good lighting. However as they went on they made more money and were able to make better films. For example, they made the first film with speaking in called 'The Jazz Man'. Even today, they are distributing films with noir films like 'The Dark Knight' which is seen as a neo-noir.   

Film Evaluation: Question 2

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

We would hope our film represents a younger, female social class. With it's female lead character and she is quite young, it would make sense that they would be able to relate to her. Also, because the film is in black and white and the introduction scene is set in an older house with an older woman living in it, it could represent an older social class.

It seems to be very unconventional for a young person to play a main role in a thriller film these days, especially if it were to be a female. One of the most recent films with a younger character as the main role is 'Stormbreaker' but that was in 2006. A thriller film this year where the main cast are all young people is the film 'Maze Runner', however it's a very male dominated film. This is why we decided to make our character a female as in breaks the conventions of most thrillers and it's very uncommon. Usually, if a female character is in a thriller film, they are represented as the 'Damsel in distress' role which doesn't make them look strong and makes it look the the males always have to save them. They also very rarely get their own narration as well.

Film Evaluation: Question 1

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

Our media product challenges other real media products as it is in black and white which is the theme of a noir film. There really aren't many black and white noir films today, however one of the most significant is Sin City which is known for it's use of noir cinematography along with it's voice overs. A lot of noir films today are mainly known as 'Neo-Noirs', they are still in colour and are often very dark in the form of a thriller. In a lot of ways, we used a lot of ideas from Sin City by using a voice over of the main character explaining some of the main parts in her life in order to make an enigma. Voice overs are important parts of Noir films, they're are one of the most iconic parts of them. They're usually in a dark and gritty way, and we hoped that at the end of her narration it would sound dangerous or threatening and the audience would worry about what she's going to do next.

We wanted to challenge modern day thrillers and see how it would do against them. As they are all in colour, we thought it would be good to challenge other thriller films with making this black and white and show how people would still be interested despite the lack of colour. However, the titles had some colour with the beginning of every word being red. We did this because we still want people to feel some colour and it also links with Sin City when they sometimes show colour despite it being black and white. Sin City was a huge inspiration for our media product as it seems to be the only modern day film in black and white as was ours.

Other conventions we used are from the film 'Taken'. The last line of our introduction is 'I will find you' and the famous catch phrase from Taken is 'I will find you, and I will kill you'. This phrase is used a lot in lots of thriller films as it makes the main character sound powerful and threatening, so we thought it would be good to put this into our product as it would work with the story.

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Coursework feedback

Research and Planning - 16

Excellent script, Organisation of actors and cast is excellent, schedules, recce, props and equipment etc. the film is also well planned with a full pitch. The storyboard is written and I would have liked to see a traditional drawn one though. However overall this is a detailed and confident preparation and planning effort. The research into potential target audiences is not as good as the rest of the blog, this is disappointing. I would have liked to see secondary research onto his genre as well as a look at demographics etc. However the research into similar products is wide-ranging and excellent.

Main Task – 52

An excellent and confident film opening. The camera work is controlled and there is a variety of shot lengths and framing. Close attention has been paid to creating meaning through editing, notable in the close-up eye cut between the letter shots. The titles are appropriate and used in accordance with institutional conventions, particularly when the logo changes to black and white to match the film. Excellent use of sound, especially when the non-diegetic music switches to be diegetic as she turns down the volume. I would have perhaps like to see another location and a little more attention paid to mise-en-scene to gain top marks, and perhaps one or two more varied shot lengths. On the whole an impressive piece of work.