Question 1: In what ways does your opening sequence use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real opening sequences?
Question 2: How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?
Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Question 4: Who would be the audience for your opening sequence?
Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?
Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
Question 7: Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Question 2: How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?
Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Question 4: Who would be the audience for your opening sequence?
Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?
Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
Question 7: Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I have tried to stick to the codes and conventions of thriller films and horror film openings in order to appeal to the appropriate target audience.
In the opening I have set the basis for the rest of the film – A main character who portrays and mystery image with a gloomy texture, later you see to fine that she has a split personality with wants the audience to carry on watching.
However there is one convention in particular that I have challenged to create an enigma to try and convince the audience to continue watching. Flashing images and no voice over and a women, in the norm its an older man so i have challenged this by doing the opposite as its a young girl.
From the research of thriller genre, this is how i wanted to portray my opening sequence and how i wanted to portray Cara (killer). I wanted to show her as being the for front of the sequence dissimilar the se7en film but keeps the same flashes of her and things around as thriller films. i have used canva to portray another technique and show how i used and challenged conventions.
Evaluation question 2: How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?
There is little speaking throughout the opening sequence so its difficult to tell social class, but all the actors in my opening sequence are women and i have done this to represent how women are important as women are normally shown as a low social group and put in the background. The main character is a young girl that has clearly a mental illness and we have fixed on throughout, we have tried to portray how she is feeling and what goes through her mind and why shes doing what shes doing.
Evaluation question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Evaluation question 4: Who would be the audience for your opening sequence?
This opening sequence is designed to appeal to women aged 16-25. The choice to have all female characters in the opening was to appeal to the female audience more as it would help them to identify with the characters more easily than if the story followed a male lead.
The possible 15 rating would imply that the story is relied on to carry the film, so is likely to attract the target audience, and wouldn’t be too intense or explicit. The vast majority of thriller's that I have come across have a 12 rating, including;
■THE REVENANT (2015)
■ SE7EN (1995)
■ THE CELL (2000)
■ THE CONJURING (2013)
■ FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)
To appeal to the target audience and make it clear that this film is a thriller, I have aimed to follow many of the common conventions of the genre. One in particular is displaying realism and suspense, which I have aimed to do by creating characters that are a similar look to other movies like the ones above but exactly the same and i have tried to challenge. Also mystery/ thriller films tend to have some sort of journey or struggle, and these are often and internal struggle, in my case I have combined the two. The audience will know what to expect but there's always twists within the movie.
The film should depict a journey, but as I am aiming for a rating of 15, the film would show some violent for instance, as its appropriate for the story line, this would appeal to the target audience. Again, to keep the film to the general conventions, the film would not be very explicit, although is allowed to be to a certain extent, I wouldn’t push the film to the end of this rating as I wouldn’t want it to be too heavy viewing, or have the risk of it being knocked into the next category up.
The film should depict a journey, but as I am aiming for a rating of 15, the film would show some violent for instance, as its appropriate for the story line, this would appeal to the target audience. Again, to keep the film to the general conventions, the film would not be very explicit, although is allowed to be to a certain extent, I wouldn’t push the film to the end of this rating as I wouldn’t want it to be too heavy viewing, or have the risk of it being knocked into the next category up.
Evaluation question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?
Evaluation question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
Throughout the whole year we have used a range of technologies whether that be through the medium of internet and specific website or Vegas pro and other editing software. We learnt our technology techniques throughout the year. In the research part of our research we filmed a short piece showing the basic camera angles: shot reverse shot, 180 degree rule and match on action. Here is a short slide share explaining this. |
To start my research, I went to imdb.com and art of the title and looked up the top films for different genres, then as I settled on the mystery/ thriller genre, I started to look through the top thriller films and watch many of the openings to those. to get a feel of how a typical sequence would look and how to replicate it.
I watched many opening sequences in YouTube so that I could begin to see factors and ways in which they made it clear what the genre was and how they portrayed it. I found that horror films were no stranger to the jump cut or uncomfortable string-based music. On the other hand I found that comedies often have quite upbeat music to start and visual humour to entice the audience early on. You tube is also where we uploaded our videos
The movie se7en always stuck out to me as a good opening sequence and good genre so I looked on the internet at various websites to try and gather as much information as I could to go along with this. Such websites include:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114369/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_(1995_film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YV2_TcCoE
http://filmschoolrejects.com/features/25-things-we-learned-from-the-se7en-commentary-jkirk.php
I researched into different aspects of the horror/ thriller genre as I knew this was what I wanted to go along with. I looked at prezi's and slideshares.
The movie se7en always stuck out to me as a good opening sequence and good genre so I looked on the internet at various websites to try and gather as much information as I could to go along with this. Such websites include:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114369/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_(1995_film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YV2_TcCoE
http://filmschoolrejects.com/features/25-things-we-learned-from-the-se7en-commentary-jkirk.php
I researched into different aspects of the horror/ thriller genre as I knew this was what I wanted to go along with. I looked at prezi's and slideshares.
I have also used canva recently in on of my evaluation questions.
We filmed quite a lot and uploaded and edited through vegas pro, we designed story boards and videos of us making our sequence and planning.
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We found the use of Vegas very useful with music editing and video editing, as when I had to extend the music or change anything within the scene, We were listening to the music and I had to work out where to cut to create a loop so that I was able to make the music whatever length I needed. When I found the right moment to cut, I pressed ‘M’ to set the marker, and again when I found the end of the section I wanted to loop, and came back to it and cut.
Here I have used markers to show where“Point A” and “Point B” are. I could tell where one section of music started and ended and where i could put cuts in within the scene, which made extending the music and changing scenes so much easier. Here i have attached a few images of examples of editing.
Here I have used markers to show where“Point A” and “Point B” are. I could tell where one section of music started and ended and where i could put cuts in within the scene, which made extending the music and changing scenes so much easier. Here i have attached a few images of examples of editing.
I also came across the cookie cutter tool. This was very helpful in making the flashes scene appear as if it was a memory or someone blinking. I applied the tool to the video and created darkened edges. This was used alongside the black and white effect to make this look eery.
Evaluation question 7: Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
At the start of the year we were asked to film a preliminary task. this was a short video showing our basic skills of camera and editing.