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:

Evaluation Q8 part 2 - Audience Feedback and Comment

This is a video containing several voxpops about our film 'Outsider'. After the official screening of our title sequence, we asked people to give us feedback on what they liked and what they thought we could have improved on. This was very helpful to us, as it gave us a different perspective to the film, and told us what we achieved particularly well throughout our time of working on the film.

Evalution-Q 5: Who would be the audience for your media product?

As our film is about a government conspiracy and is similar to the stories of James bond and bourne then our film would be best suited for the male gender as they would be in to a spy films and a government conspiracy and who's age group would go from a teenager into a manf 30 or even 40s.

This is a montage of all the things of the target audience would have and use in there everyday life's:
This is what the average man like "John" who is a 25 year old man and these are some of the things that he would use in his everyday life as he would use a wallet his watch which most men would use and a mobile phone and also as this film is for the man he would also use aftershave.

Evaluation Q6 - What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

This is a short animatic that we created to show what we have learned throughout the year to successfully produce a short film. To make this animatic, we took still photographs of how the camera works and screen grabs from various editing programs. We then put them together in Final Cut Pro, and George recorded a voiceover to explain the process. Making an animatic is a skill that we learned during the course of the year, so we chose to exploit it once more in the evaluation.

Evaluation- Q 3&4: What kind of media instituion might distribute your media product and why? how will you attract/address your audience?

Me and my group have made an armature film so we decided that our film would be best suited for a low budget production company like working title two. Instead we opted to go with candi studios as it is a fictional production company and we felt it would benefit the release and distribution of our low budget film.

ways in which we could distribute our film would be through the Internet and networking sites like YouTube, vimeo and 4docs and we could also distribute our film to websites such as facebook and myspace. Once our film had been recognised than we will seem to have a strong fan base and that is what we would want to achieve as we would be working for a low budget production company. as we would distribute our product online then that means it would be assessable by everyone so there is an opportunity for us to make a name for ourselves as a lot of small time movie makers get to make their name through the Internet.

These are some examples of As coursework found online on a website called youtube:

Here is a link of our video on two diffrent netwrok sites facebook and youtube:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1430388040464&subj=1255744690#!/video/video.php?

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp_q-lnNOqo

Evaluation; Q3/4 what type of media insitution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

Because myself and group members would be seen as amateur film makers i think that our film would only be successful if it was distributed through a low budget film production company, much like working title 2. The production company ident, "candi studios", we used in our sequence is a fictional production company we felt would benefit the release and distribution of our low budget film.

Ways in which us as students would distribute our film to begin with, would be through streaming websites such as YouTube, Vimeo and 4docs. Once people recognize and demand our movie we will know we have a fan base which is key for any level of success in the future. With a strong fan base pre-production, small production companies will be likely to take on the job. The internet is accessible by everyone and from personal experience, things seem to spread through the net rather quickly like a virus and so automatically hold opportunity for amateur movie makers.

Below are some examples of student made productions with a strong fan base.





Their are many ways in which we could attract our target audience, even with a low budget. A range of billboard posters, magazine and newspaper advertisements, internet pop ups, possibly even some form of broadcasting on radio stations. They would have to be bold, eye catching and intriguing without giving away too much of the plot.

We decided to put our title sequence in the eye of the public and uploaded it to:
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp_q-lnNOqo
And Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1430388040464&subj=1255744690

Evaluation; Q5 Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

John is your average 27 year old working class guy who enjoys read fiction novels and watching conspiracy thriller movies. He works a 9 to 5 job in administration and has two children under the age of 5. This would be the contents of his bag on a usual day, on some occasions may have documents also.

Evaluation; Q2 How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

After looking for characters from thriller movies that are in some ways similar to one of the characters in our opening title sequence, i came up with Roger Moore as James bond in the 1981 movie "For your eyes only" not only are some of the characters similar, but in many ways the plot of the film is similar ans they involve missing/stolen documents. And in some ways the Bond collection of movies inspired us.

Both Bond and our character, "Cohen", are clearly presented in smart business like suits. This clearly shows that each of the characters have some status and wealth in their fields of works. In this case both being types of government agents.
Their clean cut hair and sharp clothing suggest their character personality; sharp and witty. Both characters are seen, in my point of view as friendly and welcoming people. Even though Bond is pointing a gun, but in comparison to Cohen (holding an innocent looking briefcase) seems slightly threatening.



Another character inspired from a movie is the unknown spy. Even though Jason Bourne in the movie "The Bourne Identity" is seen as the "good guy", our "bad guy" is show to be very similar in a number of ways. One main way would be the clothing our spy wears; dark and very sleek clothing which looks rather suspicious to many.

Evaluation- Q 2:How does your media product represent particual social groups?

The outsider had two main characters which are both shown in the picture above me George Jackson who played an government agent and Rico Francis who played a mysterious spy. These two characters in some way are very similar but in most ways are very different as one is seen as a good character and the other as bad. Rico portrays a bad character as he is wearing all black and most of the film he is wearing a balaclava. I on the other hand play a good character and a complete contrast to Rico as I'm wearing a suite and seem very business like and not mysterious I seem to be very Innocent whereas you look at Rico and you expect there to be trouble as he is the bad character in this film.

This pictuire of james bond is where we got the idea for my character as he is like my charcter as i just like james bond is a goverment agent.

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

Candi studios is our movie industry and we choose them because they offer a great route for those starting as film directors and offer great reliability for any project and mostly students because they have a bright future if the film is a hit which, we would have if given the opportunity by Candi studios, and the route we would take isCandi studios a low budget company which invests in many student films Although Candi studios do not have a channel on T.V They have a partnership whit cinema's around london which suggest if the fil is good enough it will go to the big screen where ove 100 people can watch it at once. Also the marketing for our film could be done by using the Internet by making social networks regarding the film this is because 1 in 2 people have internet access and also using public spaces for our advantage meaning we could stick notices of our release date or the date the film is going to be shown on film four, also if the financial department have enough funds to use billboards to stick posters and other sources of marketing would be using the radio to reach other audiences. However all this marketing clearly depends on the budget Candi give and also the amount needed to produce the film itself yet, the best mean of promotion is word of mouth therefore meaning no cost is needed and it is the most efficient method and this could also lead to great exposure in the long term.

Evaluation Q8 part 1 - Audience Feedback and Comment (wordle word cloud)

Our thriller title sequences were shown to a preview audience (before the official screening) made up of 4 other groups in our class and the people were asked to give feedback about the sequences they had just seen. The way in which they did this was by answering a series of questions along the lines of and including 'Does this film have any intertextual references?' and 'Pick 5 words to describe the sequence you have just seen'. This word cloud shows the responses we got to our thriller title sequence, 'Outsider'.

Evaluation; Q8 Audience Feed Back and Comments (part 1)

Our thriller openings were show to an audience who then asked to give feedback on our sequence. One of the questions of the many questions asked was to pick five word that described the sequence as a whole. I chose to put the words chosen by the audience in to a word cloud(created on wordle.net) to clearly demonstrate them.

Evaluation- Q 8: Sequence feedback word cloud

This is an extra part of question eight in the evalutionit that we decided to do it is a word cloud that I created, where I obtained all the words from the other groups in my class. I created this word cloud on a wordel website where you can make and create your own word cloud's and make it in any style you wish. when I was creating this word cloud I decided to hand pick the words that stood out in their evaluation that seem to sum up our film. I believe that the other groups in my class have identified correctly as these our the words that help to show how I wanted my film to be perceived.

Edit of rough cut with soundtrack

This is the rough cut of our title sequence with the added soundtrack. We edited the rough cut to take on board criticism that we received regarding the titles, transitions and general editing. We were also advised to change the name of the film from 'The Briefcase' to 'Outsider', as it makes the rest of the film more ambiguous.

The soundtrack is almost finished. We decided to make it sound contemporary with a processed drum kit, electric bass and a synthesizer. The soundtrack is not quite ready - it needs to be remixed, as the levels are not quite balanced enough for the ultimate cinema experience.