Self Assesment

Question 7. How have you improved from the preliminary task to the main task?

I feel like I have improved a lot since my preliminary task in most areas.
I think my editing is of the same quality here as it is now. Sound, however, I think is terrible because of the way in one section of the clip, it is almost completely silent before jumping into a loud, windy sound. I think now that I have learned how to control the sound, I have applied that to my new video. I think that I have now also improved greatly in my mise-en-scene as I have given more thought to setting, costume and props. Cinematography is my most improved area as I now give far more thought to the shot types and the angles I use within the shots, as you can see here, a majority of the clip is made up of close ups and long shots whereas now I think more about different, more abstract shots to use to make the film more interesting and exciting for the audience.

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

Possible distributor companies to consider with an example of one of their films.

• Momentum

- Main films include: Tamara Drew, The Kings Speech, The Fighter, Limitless, Chalet Girl, Insidious, Dear John, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Skyline, The Rebound, The Young Victoria, Milk, Let the Right One In, Amelie, P.S. I Love You, Men Who Stare at Goats, Defiance.


- Momentum seems to be the favourite at the moment because of the range of different thrillers it has within its list of films.

• Studio Canal

- Main films include: Bridget Jones's Diary, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, W.E, The Awakening, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Bel Ami, Carnage, Mirror Mirror, Brighton Rock, Unknown, The Burma Conspiracy, Kill List.


- Studio Canal would be one of our main choices in distribution company because a majority of films they produce are thrillers or have thriller sub themes in them.

• Artificial Eye

- Main films include: Melancholia, A Separation, The Big Picture, The Hunter, Eros, Russian Ark, The Edge of Heaven, Offside, The Trial of Joan of Arc, The Tales of the Four Seasons, Zidane, Tales of the Four Seasons, Life is a Bed of Roses.


- Artificial Eye is not one of our main choices, this because it is an indie film company, only showing the films in selected cinemas and to very specific audiences whereas our film is more directed at the mainstream cinema chains like Empire, Vue and Odean. We feel like our film would be aimed at a bigger audience.

• Walt Disney Pictures

- Main films include: Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Tron, Peter Pan, Tangled, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Herbie, Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, Pirates of the Caribbean, Aladdin, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Pocahontas, Toy Story, Iron Man, The Muppets, Sleeping Beauty, Up, Hannah Montana: The Movie, WALL-E, Finding Nemo, Hercules, A Bug's Life, Mulan, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Bedtime Stories, High School Musical. 


- Walt Disney Pictures is more a family based company whose films would appeal to a huge range of people whether they are lower class or upper class, or 3 years old or 93 years old. Our film is directed at a far smaller range of people, for example, the certificate for our film would be a 15, so it would not  appeal to anyone younger and would not be likely to appeal to anyone above the age of 50. Our specific target audience is from 16-30.

• Lionsgate

- Main films include: Saw Series, Disaster Movie, Bratz: The Movie, Killers, Kick-Ass, The Expendables,  Dirty Dancing, Rambo, American Psycho, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Abduction, The Hunger Games, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Safe, Good Luck Chuck, Why Did I Get Married?. 


- Lionsgate is more based around quite risky films to release mainly in the horror genre. Our film is not risky to release because it is a stereotypical thriller film that most companies would release.

• Summit Entertainment

- Main films include: The Twilight Saga, Man on a Ledge, Remember Me, Knowing, Sorority Row, Step Up, American Pie, Insomnia. 


- Summit Entertainment we decided were not right for our film simply because it just didn't fit with our film and, again, was slightly too mainstream.

• Warner Bros. 

- Main films include: 42nd Street, Harry Potter series, Sherlock Holmes, Final Desination, The Hangover, Inception, The Blind Side, Sex and the City, Orphan, Star Wars, I am Legend, P.S. I Love You, The Departed, 300, V For Vendetta, Corpse Bride, The Phantom of the Opera, The Excorsist, The Polar Express, Terminator, Scooby-Doo, Bait, Batman.


- Warner Bros. was one of our original choices because of its range of films and some films similar to ours. However, we decided Warner Bros. would be too big to get our film into straight away as it really only produces films with big stars in the cast and crew.

• Entertainment One

- Main films include: The Grey, The Twilight Saga, 50/50, An Education, Mirrors, The Runaways, The Howling, Alice in Wonderland, Closer to the Edge.


- Entertainment One, like Artifical Eye, was slightly too indie for our film and didn't have the advertising our film needed.

• 20th Century Fox

- Main films include: Titanic, Water For Elephants, Knight and Day, The A-Team, Avatar, X-Men, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Jennifers Body, Deception, Shutter, Walk the Line, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, I, Robot, Moulin Rouge, The X-Files, Romeo + Juliet, Independence Day, The Crucible, Mrs Doubtfire, The Vanishing.


- 20th Century Fox, like Warner Bros., was too mainstream and too bigger company for our film and would not fit our film just yet.

• Dreamworks/Paramount

- Main films include: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, The Uninvited, Paranormal Activity, Lovely Bones, Disturbia, Shrek, War of the Worlds, The Island, The Ring, What Lies Beneath, Saving Private Ryan.


- Dreamworks/Paramount was our second choice for distribution company. It has a good range of films especially in the thriller genre giving us a range of other films to have alongside ours as inspiration. However, we felt the company was ever so slightly too mainstream for our film.







_______________________________________________________________



OUR FILM:
We have decided as a group to use Momentum Pictures for our video production distribution company. We have used Momentum because a lot of the genre's and storylines of other films they have distributed matches with our video production, also Momentum's main films relate to the thriller genre and has distributed some well-known films today. 

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Assessment 23/1/12 MCU

WWW


- All four posts complete, but will need more effort and detail to finish them properly.
- Some attempt seems to have been made to make some posts supervisual, make sure you embed this work or get help doing so.
- SPAG is good, just one sp 'focusses' should be focuses. 


EBI


- You need to write in more detail for Q2 and Q4. You should write about other social groups as well as age, what about gender? Ethnicity?
- Put Q2 and Q4 as seperate posts for now, so that it is easy to see what you have done.
- 17-50 is much too large a target audience. I agree that anyone in that age range might go to watch your film, but who are you actually targetting? You cannot please everyone so who have you made the film for?
- You must state specifically what you have put in your film that will appeal to your audience. E.g. specific shots, editing, clothes, music.


Remember you will need all your posts to be supervisual, think about how you can do this. I would like you to start going beyond prezi and images, consider creating a voice over commentary or a mini-documentary to reach level 4.

EFFORT GD (for now as we are in early stages, but more effort and detail will be required) 

Question 5. How did you attract/address your audience?

How did you attract/address your audience? on Prezi

Example Film Viewer Profile:

Name: Becky Thomas
Age: 19
Background: Middle Class

Becky has just finished sixth form and is now on her gap year before attending University. She is currently spending her time working in HMV and is also taking time to do charity work in her local area making her application for University more appealing.

Becky enjoys hobbies such as reading, playing sport, listening to music and watching TV. When she watches TV, she enjoys programmes such as Friends, New Girl, QI, Spooks and Eastenders.
When watching films, her favourite genres are horrors, thrillers and comedies. Her favourite films include The Woman in Black, Bridesmaids, Se7en, The Excorsist and Sweeney Todd.

Becky likes to be with her friends and they go to the cinema as often as possible seeing a range of films, especially if they are in her favourite genres.

She enjoys listening to pop, indie and rock music. Her favourite bands and artists include Greenday, Katy Perry, Rhianna and Coldplay.

After her gap year, she will be studying Criminology at University because of her deep interest in those sorts of topics.

She enjoys doing girlie things like shopping and hosting sleepovers, as well as parties. She likes to shop in Primark, Dorothy Perkins and Topshop.

Question 6; What Media technologies have you used?

Technologies we have used:
- Jing
- Imovie
- DaFont.com
- TriPod
- Camera
- SD card
- Fig Rig
- Blogger
- Youtube
- Live Type
- Itunes
- FreeSound
- Bubbl

Tools/Effects we used
- We used a master shot to display to the audience where the film will start.
- Fast/Slow/Reverse was used to slow down certain shots to make the shot more eerie.
- Brightness and contrast was used to darken the shots making them seem scarier and making the audience feel uncomfortable.
- Cuts were used in between each shot to seperate them and to move on to a new one.
- Sound extracts were used to create a louder doorbell sound effect.

3 Technologies and why they were used
- We used slow motion to create an eerie feeling as the audience had a better view into the damage that had been created by the killer making it uncomfortable to watch. We used it when we tracked back from the phone making it look like it was from the killers perspective.
- We used the effect of 'Ghost Trails' to make the shot look more blurred and again, make it look like it was from the killers point of view. It made the shot look like the person who was looking was on drugs or was not 'all there' and he/she was disorientated.
- We made the shots darker through the colour and contrast adjustment scale to make the whole clip more creepy and to make it all very enclosed.

We used these 3 technologies in this short video we created to show the viewer an example of what they are hearing about in the short clip.

Question 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the conventions of a real media product?

Our opening sequence uses and develops most of the typical conventions for thriller films.



Within our opening sequence, we developed conventions of real media by adding in key elements from the typical thriller films. For example, within the cinematography, we used typical thriller shots such as extreme close ups and tracks to make the audience feel like they are looking from one of the characters points of view making you feel like you are involved in the story and to give them clues about what could possibly happen in the future within the film. As another example, the props, setting and costuming are probably one of the biggest issues with the films because if they are not right then your film is going to fall apart.


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