A2 Question 1

Question 1 - How have you used digital technology to complete your production work? (A2)

How have you used digital technology to complete your production work?

In my opinion digital technology was vital in the success of the production of our thriller opening "Closed Doors". We used digital technology in all three sections of the production process - Pre-Production, Production and Post Production.

We used digital technology in the Pre-Production stage to create a storyboard for our thriller opening, digital technology enabled us to produce a storyboard very quickly and it was good because whenever we made a mistake or wanted to edit it, it was very straight forward to change it. Digital technology was also very useful for the Pre-Production stage of the process because it meant that we could do our own research into things to help improve our opening. For example we took time to research well-known production and distribution logos, this was useful because we got ideas from these production and distribution logos which helped us when it came to us having to make our own logos, and i feel that without doing this research our logos wouldn't have come out as good as they did. We also used digital technology to set up an online survey which a lot of people completed, the survey was related to what we could do to make people watching our thriller opening enjoy it more. If we didn't have digital technology then we would've had to find some way to make a physical survey which would've been a much longer process. 

We also used digital technology in the actual production of our thriller opening. Firstly we used a camera which was used obviously to the film the thriller opening. On the camera we also had a camera lens attached to it which was very beneficial as it made it easy to zoom in and zoom out whenever we wanted to which was very useful. Whilst filming we also used a microphone which again was attached to the top of the camera, this meant that the sound quality of everything was much better than it would've been if we didn't use the microphone. We also used a bright light which was used to light up the names of the victims on the wall, the light was important because the location that the thriller was set in was very dark and therefore without using the light it would've been impossible for the audience to read the names.

Finally we used digital technology in the Post-Production stage of the production process. We used a program called Final Cut Pro which was used to add things to our recorded version of our thriller opening and more importantly we used it to put all the shots together to make one final version. Using Final Cut Pro we added sound effects such as screaming and background music to make the audience watching our thriller opening feel the suspense just that little bit more. We also used this program to add text into the film, we added the names of the people involved in the production of the opening and included them in their own individual shot so that the audience didn't get distracted by it when Janith was walking etc. We also used digital technology to upload the final version of our thriller opening onto Youtube so that people could view it and so that we could import it onto our blogs. 

To conclude i feel that digital technology was very important in the production of our thriller opening and if we didnt use digital technology our final version of our thriller opening would've been much worse.

Evaluation - Janith Perera

Evaluation Activity 1

In what ways do your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products (i.e. of film openings)

Here are 9 still frames for our thriller opening.

From top left to bottom left the frames are:

1) The production logo.

2) The distribution logo.

3) Shot of setting and idea of location.

4) Mid-Shot of protagonist.

5) Protagonist holding weapon with 'blood' stained on the weapon.

6) Names of the victims.

7) Producers credits.

8) Protagonist approaching the victim.

9) The title 'Closed Doors' fades in as protagonist is just about to hit victim.

Evaluation Activity 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our antagonist, who was played by myself, negatively represents teenage males in our thriller film opening as I am represented as a violent murderer. We conformed to the stereotype of male teenagers being violent, aggressive and cruel as at the end of the opening we get the feeling that I am about to kill another woman. 

Our protagonist was specifically chosen to be a male character. It adds a sense of dominance to the character, which is contrasted with the female victim.

A male character conforms to a villain, as a general stereotype to men is that they are more powerful and intimidating than a female. This as a result adds a mysterious atmosphere to the overall antagonist. The social group represented in our thriller opening is age. The age of our protagonist is representing the age range of 17-20. We found that using an actor around the age group of 17-20 that it would be easier to relate to younger adults/teens.

The dark lighting in the garage may also tell us a bit more about the personality of myself the antagonist. The fact that the lighting is dark may indicate to the audience that I am dangerous because in the dark it is hard to see what is happening and in this particular event in the opening there is a murder and this tells the audience that he is a violent and dangerous person.

Evaluation Activity 3

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

In my opinion distributors would be interested in our thriller film because it is a classic thriller film that everyone enjoys, it builds up a lot of suspense and would leave the audience on the edge of their, which is what a thriller is supposed to do. Also due to the fact that the protagonist's face is not shown it will make it a mystery for the viewers as they will want to know whom it is.

One distributor that we think could be interested in investing in our film is New Line Cinema as they have distributed a few thriller films similar to our one such as "Seven" which is also about a murder. The film "Seven was also very successful meaning that New Line Cinema should be interested in distributing our film as they will want the similar amount of success that "Seven" gave them.

Evaluation Activity 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

For our target audience of our thriller opening, as a group we collectively decided that the audience we would be targeting would be at the age of 15-25 year olds who would be mainly males however females too. Therefore we decided to have a film certificate of 15+. The age rating for our film is a 15 meaning that anyone aged 15 and over will be able to watch this film.

We decided that the age certificate should be 15 because from my audience research (questionnaire) that I conducted from my planning for our opening, I found that most peoples’ favourite sub-genre was action and crime and the majority of participants were aged 16-20. In addition to make our thriller more realistic and intriguing for the audience we for example used blood to convey many thriller conventions we knew that would not be appropriate for a younger audience to see.

Some key thriller conventions we knew we needed to make sure we included in our thriller opening to attract our audience were:

•   A good story (an intriguing plot to endure the audience in to watching the film)

•   An action-packed opening chapter (the introduction of a good thriller always sets the pace for the rest of the film)

•   Keep the audience questioning to what is happening and what is going to happen

•   Attractive, visuals are clear and look intriguing to audience

•   Intriguing sound effects (Non-diegetic sound to build up the suspense)

Evaluation Activity 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

We used a simple idea that all films use around the world, which is a poster.

We looked at a variety of thriller posters to help with our ideas; this poster was created with Microsoft word. Our target audience is the young demographic, specifically ones who are 15 and older. Our surveys helped decide this as most 16-26 year olds enjoyed thriller films.

I believe posters are extremely important in attracting an audience as this is the first thing they see and the first thing that stays in their mind about the movie, so it extremely important that we spend time on this.

Posters create anticipation for a movie, it catches their attention and makes them want to find out more about the movie. Word of mouth also helps with this.

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Here is a list of equipment we used to film our opening-

·      Canon DSLR 65D

·      Tripod

·      Rode Microphone

·      Types of lighting

Canon DSLR 65D-

·      The camera is small and portable, perfect for small projects such as ours, it was very easy for the cameraman to handle this and easily move it around.

·      Once you get into the menu it is quite easy to work out what you need to do to get started and film.

·      We could change the focus from automatic to manual, which suited our project as we could add many blur effects perfect for a thriller.

·      Although the camera was easy to use, there were many advanced features that we could not use as there wasn’t enough time to learn all of it therefore we could only use the basic knowledge we knew.

·      Also, the camera battery life was quite short even when fully charged, which meant we had to be good with our timing when filming.

Rode Microphone-

·      This microphone could be easily attached to the top of our camera.

·      The sound was of a very high quality, which made the opening sound more professional.

·      Although the quality was good, the microphone picked up small sounds in the distance too, which meant it had to be cut out when we edited it.

Types of lighting-

·      We used a variety of lighting, which worked well with our thriller, as our aim was to produce a lot of shadows.

·       Our lighting helped just show parts of the face and it ended up being very effective, as we did not want to give too much about our antagonist away.

·      Even though our aim was to produce many shadows, we were worried that the lighting would produce too much and not be effective which meant we had to be careful in how we angled our lighting as well as making sure to not bring the lighting too close.

For our editing we used a number of different programs such as-

·      iMac

iMac-

·      The iMac has a variety of different programs, which meant we had a number of programs available to edit with.

·      We could access our blogs using the iMac.

·      There is an auto-save option available, which meant the work we forgot to save, was saved for us and we did not lose any important work.

·      The iMac doesn’t have a very good memory space so we met quite a few problems, due to the bad memory, the programs often ended up crashing.

·      The iMacs allowed us to access Final Cut Pro to edit our thriller openings. It is an advanced software with a number of features available.

Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task. What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Pre-Production-

Firstly we worked on our preliminary task, we were not given that much time to plan it so we had to come up with a suitable idea that was quick but interesting. On the other hand we had around 2 weeks to plan our thriller opening, which gave us enough time to plan properly and produce something that reflects our knowledge.

For our thriller opening we were only allowed to film on the school premises, which didn’t give us a variety of places to film. Whereas for our thriller opening we were allowed to film anywhere, which helped a lot as we could produce the thriller effect we wanted.

With our preliminary task we could only use props that we had in school, which was not a lot.  For our thriller opening we had a variety of props we could use from, but a simple hammer, hoody and fake blood was enough for us.

Also with out thriller opening we had different types of lighting such as LED hand held lights and LED lights for the camera. This helped us to produce shadows and create a scary effect, but on our preliminary task we had no professional lighting.

Production-

For our preliminary evaluation we only had around 50 minutes to film, which meant that we had to be quick and avoid mistakes to not waste time. Whereas for our thriller opening we had around 2 weeks to get it filmed however we filmed for about 5 hours. Having the longer time to film meant that if we made any mistakes then we had time to correct them. We had time to take further shots if any shots didn’t turn out how we wanted it to.

Before we started filming for our thriller opening we had to do a number of things. Firstly we had to make sure that the antagonist looked like a murderer we did this by making him wear a black hoody, we also had to write all the names on the walls and we had to get the woman in position. Whereas for the preliminary task we had hardly any time meaning that we wouldn't have been able to get all these things ready.

For our thriller opening we had around a week to film meaning that we could wait for the weather to be perfect. In our case we had to wait for it to be a rainy day as this adds to the thriller effect.

Post Production-

For our preliminary task we were able to use Final cut Pro but it was extremely difficult as we did not have that much experience and knowledge on the program, also we only had one lesson to finish editing and upload it. This helped our final product though, as the basic knowledge from the preliminary task helped us understand and know what to do.

Evaluation Activity 7 (Gavin Fernandes)

Evaluation Activity 7

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

Firstly, looking at both our preliminary task and our actual thriller opening you can see that there is a big difference.

Evaluation Activity 6 (Gavin Fernandes)

Evaluation Activity 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation Activity 5 (Gavin Fernandes)

Evaluation Activity 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Real movie products usual attract their audiences using public advertisements to catch their attention about their film for instance, trailers, posters, merchandising etc. Hollywood Films tend to have a bigger budget to spend on distribution of the film.

This is a poster that I created for the marketing campaign...

Here I created a poster using the programme Microsoft Word. Firstly I researched posters from real movie products, particularly within the thriller genre. Then I had incorporated these ideas into my own design and took detail from posters within real movie products. If our movie were to be released, then I think that our poster would look something like this.

Our target audience for our Thriller Film 'Closed Doors' is the young demographic, consisting of anyone above the age of 15. We decided upon this as we found from our research that thriller films usually appeal to people aged 16-25 as the suspense and the excitement is something that intrigues them about a thriller film.

I think that posters and visual advertisements are very successful in attracting a specific target audience... 

•  It intrigues them
• Can make them share the movie with other people
• Can make them research more into the film (i.e. visit websites, watch interviews)
• Makes them excited to see the film
• Catches their attention
• Create anticipation for the movie release

Examples of thriller posters...

Posters-

The posters are normally the first form of marketing released, they actually sell the genre and the concept to the audience through their font, colour style and image- having the potential to build a theme around the title. Posters also have the potential to reach a wider audience and are very cost-effective, they can be produced even before the final product has been completed.

Trailers-
Another form of marketing that we could utilise, is the use of three different trailers: the sizzle trailer, the teaser trail and the official trailer (definitions can be found below). This is the most important element of marketing as it sells the film to the audience and creates a certain ambience. It is the first and only exposure of the film content and therefore helps attract the audience as they are given glimpses of what they can expect- building the excitement.

Sizzle Trailer-

A sizzle trailer is when the studio announces that they are releasing a movie. This is used to let people know it isnow being produced which therefore allows people to become excited and it starts the talk of the movie-allowing it to reach more people before it’s release

Teaser Trailer -

A teaser trailer is released to keep the waiting fans excited, showing them some special moments from the trailer and giving them more of teaser of the movie itself.

Official Trailer-

An official trailer is closer to the release date, its to show the larger fan-base what they’re waiting for. It also now generates more publicity as more and more people start watching it and sharing it.

Internet and Social Media-
As we know our demographic is an audience who frequents on the social media scene, we have decided the best way to address them all would be through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social platforms. This form of viral marketing is not only cheap but interactive, therefore it engages the audience and is a method of pull marketing. This also allows our target audience, when we peak their interest, to comment, share and expose our film to a potentially global market.

Conventions of a Thriller

• A villain and a hero
• Thrilling to audience
• Tension and suspense
• Twists and turns
• Cliffhangers
• Red herrings- misleading the audience with information
• Clues pointing to the end

It is extremely difficult to apply all the conventions in just the opening because of the duration is very limited, it would be too much just for the beginning of the film. We didn't want our opening to have clues pointing to the ending just yet as it was too early in the film. Therefore we did not give away too much information as it we didn't want the audience to feel as if they watched the whole film.

Evaluation Activity 4 (Gavin Fernandes)

Evaluation Activity 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

For our target audience of our thriller opening, as a group we collectively decided that the audience we would be targeting would be at the age of 15-25 year olds who would be mainly males however females too. Therefore we decided to have a film certificate of 15+. The age rating for our film is a 15 meaning that anyone aged 15 and over will be able to watch this film.

We decided that the age certificate should be 15 because from my audience research (questionnaire) that I conducted from my planning for our opening, I found that most peoples favourite sub-genre was action and crime and the majority of participants were aged 16-20. In addition to make our thriller more realistic and intriguing for the audience we for example used blood to convey many thriller conventions we knew that would not be appropriate for a younger audience to see.

Audience research (questionnaire)

In my audience research (questionnaire) I found that many females took my part and therefore we reconstructed from our initial idea of aiming directly for males to targeting both genders to engage in our thriller opening.

I think that it may not be appropriate for an older generation (as you can see in my questionnaire) older people do not tend to go for thriller films. This is probably due to the conventions that are seen in the film such as:

• Disturbing events and situations
• Fast paced actions at times
• Scenes that make the audience 'Jump'
• Loud music that adds tension

Furthermore some reasons why we chose age certificate 15 and not younger:

•  'Jumping' scenes may not be appropriate for young viewers.
• Disturbing events
• Plot line is aimed for an older audience 
• Detail of blood on hammer could disturb younger audience.

Similar Thriller filmFrom these two similar films, some other key thriller conventions we knew we needed to make sure we include within our thriller to attract our audiences is (ELEMENTS TO INCLUDE):

An existing film that is similar to ours is the Purge which in comparison has the same film rating as our Thriller opening (15). The Purge involves suspense (like ours), and unsettling disturbing scenes (like ours). Both films are very likely to draw the same type of audience due to the fact that there are lots of similarities. fff

 

Some key thriller conventions we knew we needed to make sure we included in our thriller opening to attract our audience were:

• A good story (an intriguing plot to endure the audience in to watching the film)
• An action-packed opening chapter (the introduction of a good thriller always sets the pace for the rest of the film)
• Keep the audience questioning to what is happening and what is going to happen
• Attractive, visuals are clear and look intriguing to audience
• Intriguing sound effects (Non-diegetic sound to build up the suspense)
• Keep the audience on the edge of their seats and thinking throughout the opening.

.

Examples of our target audience

Here are examples of what my target audience may be like and shows the characteristics they possess and convey.

Audience research profile from ferng027313

Evaluation Activity 3 (Gavin Fernandes)

Evaluation Activity 3

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

This is a prezi i made of me explaining how and who would distribute our thriller film opening. 

How the distributors gain a mass audience: