Evaluation; Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

To gain knowledge and understanding the forms and conventions of an opening title sequence we were required to watch a number of thriller movies. The main forms and conventions we found in majority of title sequences are the institutional ident of the production companies, the movie title and titles of which inform the audience, for example, who the director and editor/s are. The conventional opening title would introduce the main character/s of the movie and would also introduce the setting and location, and finally, the use of sound indicated the theme, tone and genre of the up coming movie. To demonstrate our knowledge of the forms and conventions, whilst planning our sequence, we made an effort to include as many as we could and as many would fit our title sequence to help illustrate what we wanted illustrate. We compared our title sequence to the opening title sequence of "The shining" to highlight the conventions we used.

In our thriller opening we chose to use the convention of an institutional ident. Ours being "candistudios" a low budget production company. The screen shots of "The Shining" dont show the ident, but one is used at the very beginning.
From the moment our film starts we are introduced to the main character of the film, "Cohen", and the entire sequence follows him on his journey. During this time we are introduced to another main character, unknown, dressed in black. In "The Shinning" we aren't introduced to the characters but are introduced to a small yellow vehicle which we assume plays an important role in the movie.

Titles then begin to fade into and out of shots on the screen. As it is an opening title sequence we expect them. "The shinning" Shows title also, but movies such as "Collateral" do not. The title of the movies are both shown at different points of the opening. Ours being at the and and "The Shinning" just before the end.

The location in our sequence is vital, we see a shift from residential to rural areas (forest). As ours was low budget and we had minimal resources, the showing of location was not as clear as "The Shinning" as aerial shots were used.

The sound plays an important part in the opening of a title sequence, the soundtrack we created was upbeat at faced paced to indicated the fast pace of the theme of the movie and genre overall. "The shinning" uses an orchestral soundtrack to open of which creates an eerie atmosphere and gives the audience a clue of what the rest of the film holds.

Evaluation Q7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Problem 1:

The positioning of the camera was incorrect, as Rico's character was captured out of the frame. This could have been solved by using a pan. There is also too much space in the frame. We sorted this out by making sure that the character was in frame during each position of the action completed, and by doing this George starts off in long shot and moves in to a midshot without moving the camera.

Problem 2:

There is too much empty space in the frame. All the action in this shot is going on to one side of the screen. This makes it feel unbalanced and uncomfortable for the audience to watch. In our final product, we fixed this by making the action go across the screen from one end to the other.

Problem 3:

In this shot, the eye-line is too low down the frame, and there is too much space above Rico's head. In the real film, we ensured that the eye-line of the characters was in the top 1/3 of the frame and that there was little or no empty space above the heads of the characters.

Problem 4:

In the preliminary match cut exercise, there is too much camera movement in one shot. The movement is also very jagged, as we used a chair on wheels as a dolly, therefore we lacked the precision in camera movement that would make the shots look professional. In the real film we fixed this by making sure we moved the camera smoothly using the arm on the tripod.

Problem 5:

In the preliminary match cut exercise, this example of a match cut does not work in terms of continuity. It looks like a jump cut because of the position that Rico is now in. In our final product, we made sure that in the editing process that all our shots matched. We paid particular attention to shots of characters walking - we made sure that we cut the shot on the character standing on the same leg as they are at the beginning of the next shot etc.

Sadly, when filming the preliminary match cut exercise, the microphone did not work. This meant that we did not capture the short sections of dialogue in the storyboard. To improve on this, we always made sure that the microphone was picking up a substantial amount of sound whilst filming our final product.

Also, we could not take mise en scene in to account when filming our preliminary match cut. This is because we were given the task during one lesson with no warning. This meant that our actors were not in appropriate costume, we could not secure an appropriate location and we had to use what ever props we could find in the short amount of time between storyboarding and filming.

The editing pace we used during the preliminary match cut was quite loose; in several shots, we could have cut to the next shot at a much quicker pace than what we did. Through completing this task it taught us the power of editing pace, so we became much more vigilant about the editing process. We followed advice from our teacher to bring the shot in at the last possible moment, to cut at the first possible moment and always to cut on action. This was important in maintaining a dynamic pace to the film which would make the audience feel exhilarated as they feel like they are moving with the pace of the film.

Q5 EVALUATION- Who Would Be The Audience For Your media Product?

The Target audience for my media product would be a man called Bob Dick, He works as a Business consultant and makes 36K a Year. He drives a Bentley and has a blackberry curve for work. he wears glasses because his sight is not up to par which makes him look like a nerd.

Bob would be my target audience because he tell me he likes conspiracy theory film just like the film we have made and after we had a cup of tea he gave me two ticket to watch Micheal Jackson, unfortunately he died.

Q2 EVALUATION-How Does Your Media Product Reflect Differant social stereotypes?

The typical stereotypes our media product shows are The Bad Guy dressed in black which was me and my co-actor George jackson as the agent.

Another stereotype that strikes up interest is the fact that the bad guy is black and the stereo type is that black people are always getting into trouble, and the secret agent was white which is also typical as James Bond (007 Films) and Jason Bourne (Bourne Supremacy) are white.

Evaluation Q5- Who would be the audience for your media product?

Meet Tim. Tim is the typical member of the target audience for 'Outsider'. His interests include conspiracy theories, cult films, spy movies and music from the 70's and 80's. He is a self-confessed nerd, and could be considered a tech savvy person (with his iPod classic and iPhone). The fact that he enjoys spy movies means he will enjoy the plot involving agents going on throughout 'Outsider'. Tim also enjoys cult movies, which means that he would be a devoted fan. If he were a devoted fan, he may talk about the film with his friends and spread the word about it on the internet. Tim is 30 years old - government topics concern him more than the average teenager, so topics raised in the film will be more tailored to him.

Evaluation Q2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

When making a film, social groups must be represented accurately to make the film convincing to the audience. For example, if a businessman was filmed wearing a tracksuit, the audience would not believe his position in society and therefore question the rest of the film.

'For Your Eyes Only' was an inspiration to our film, as the plot revolves around missing or stolen documents. The James Bond franchise is also extremely popular, as the leading role is very dynamic and likeable. We wanted to adapt this feature of the Bond films and take it into our own film. There are a few similarities between our characters that make this link apparent. Both Bond and Cohen (the 'good guy')are wearing smart suits. This indicates the social class they hold (Cohen would be a middle class working agent) and their position in business - in this case they are both government agents. This immediately demands some respect from the viewer, as we know that the character is high up on the social and business hierarchy. In this picture, both characters are wearing red ties. This makes them stand out on screen against darker backgrounds. However, Cohen is holding a briefcase whereas Bond is holding a gun. The different connotations behind these items is very important in creating suspense just through the character; with Cohen, we know he is important but we are not sure why as he is only holding a briefcase.

The Bourne trilogy was also an inspiration to 'Outsider' as it is all about government agents constantly chasing someone. The costume we chose for Rico's character (as the 'bad guy') mimics that of Jason Bourne. Rico's character would be working class, and this is represented in his casual clothing. The darkness in their clothes suggests that they do not want to be seen and want to remain anonymous - this arouses suspicion in the audience which creates suspense, as they can sense that something is going to happen. The casual nature of their clothing suggests that the characters want to blend in to the crowd, or just not stick out at all. This also arouses suspicion, as if they were completely innocent the character would have given this no thought.

Evaluation Q3+4 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

'Outsider' is a low-budget British film made by a group of amateur students. Taking these circumstances into consideration, 'Outsider' would be released by a low-budget production company - similar to WT2. However, we decided to release our film through Candi Studios. We chose the fictional production company Candi Studios as it is a low-budget production company that specialises in unknown amateur film-makers like us. This makes Candi Studios the ideal production company for our film, as it would tailor the release of our film personally to the target audience without breaking the bank.

On such a low budget, we could not afford to release our film in such a widespread way as a production company like Paramount could. This is due entirely to funds, so OOH advertising would be very limited with Candi Studios. However, using the internet is free and extremely accessible by many people. Our thriller film could be distributed through many websites, including: YouTube, Vimeo, 4docs and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. This would be a successful way of distributing the film, as you can find things very easily online and when you see something on the internet it is very easy to share it with friends. The larger the fanbase during the pre-production stages, the higher the chances are that the production company would endorse and distribute the film.

It is possible to attract a large audience for a film purely over the internet - as illustrated with these examples of online student films:

You can watch the title sequence to 'Outsider' on Facebook right now:

or on YouTube: