Q8: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Below is our Rough cut view:

We used our rough cut video as our Final Thriller opening because there was some complications with our group at the beginning of the project. Because the day we filmed the preliminary video, we thought we would roughly edit it to gain some skills for our final movie. However, some members of our group refused to do work and because we were so short in time we had to use the preliminary video for our final movie. From this I gained organizational skills and i also learn't that i need to have a back up plan just in case something goes wrong. Also, I've learned to work alone, without depending on teamwork and also be able to work under pressure. Overall this helped me plan a bit better .

Comparing our rough cut to other professional movie opening sequences, I learned that There shouldn't be too much going on at the start of the movie as this confuses the viewers/audience. So in our opening sequence, we carefully chose the scenes and created an interesting beginning for a thriller movie. We've also learned how to split the screen and show two different point of views/stories going on in different places. For our Final movie we've also added some credits and title sequences. 


This coursework was a very useful experience as I've gained some personal experience as well as gained some professional filming techniques.

Q7: What have you learned about technologies from process of constructing this product?

I've learned that technology is very useful - because it helps us construct our thriller movie, the camera work we used was all wisely picked, to suit the certain scene. I believe the use of camerawork help us build a lot of tension and suspense.

For filming our thriller movie opening sequence we used a professional JVC camera. this was very helpful because we were able to get clear and professional shots and also the camera had many other handy techniques which we used in our film such as the 'focus' effect and zooming.

This is a tripod this was used to hold the camera still so that we were able to get a steady shot of certain scenes so that the film looked realistic and professional.

Lighting kit was really important as it helped create a certain mood and effect for our film especially in the last scene.

SOUNDTRACK PRO:

Soundtrack pro is very useful because it help you add music into your thriller opening. We made our own beat to form some kind of a music that would suit the thriller genre. This was the first time I was introduced to soundtrack pro, I believe that AS Media has helped me a lot as I've learned new skills and techniques using this certain programme. I found using Soundtrack pro very fun as there was a lot of beats we could add to our original background tune to match our scenes and create a suitable atmosphere for the viewers. 

FINAL CUT PRO:

Final Cut Pro is a programme we used to cut and edit our clips to make it into a big thriller movie opening which is just under 3 minutes long. This programme is also very useful because it help you use the razor blade tool and cut the clips at the right time to make it seem more realistic. This wasn't the first time I used final cut pro - as I've used it in secondary school for Media GCSE before. I was pretty familiar with this programme and had not much trouble at all. 

LIVE TYPE:

This programme helped us to make a title sequence for the thiller, after we've gathered the soundtrack and the movie from Final Cut Pro we had to use Live Type for credits and title sequences of our Thriller opening. 

Q4&5: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

The ways in which i would distribute our opening sequence: 

By posting it on youtube...

Posting it on Vimeo...

Through word of mouth... 

And i would also post the video on social websites such as:

As an example of a student Media Opening sequence of a Film I've found the following video on youtube which has received great comments from the viewers:

"Endorphin" is a 2008 short film directed by film student Michael J. Sirois. It won Best Film at the 2008 CUFS Student Film Festiva

This video is very good because it had all types of different shots and the soundtrack is there to put the audience into a certain mood. Also the lighting is good, which was what we couldn't get to be perfect in our movie. 

Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our movie consists of 4 actors (Netitia, Jin, Sam and Lorenzo). They're all great actors, however if i could choose from professional actors that have starred in thriller movies it would be the following actors/actresses:

NETITIA:

Maggie Grace, young actress had starred as 'Kim' in the movie 'TAKEN' 2008. I'd choose her to act as Netitia (the girl that gets kidnapped and tortured), because in the movie 'Taken' she had amazing acting skills and i had goose-pumps the first time i watched her!! so i think that she would have a great reaction from the audience and the movie would look very realistic. 

The following video shows how effective and realistic 'Taken' is. This also depends on the director and now only the actors. So i think that Pierre Morel is a great director for making the movie so eye-catching and realistic:

JIN:

Christian Stolte could be a good actor to play the role of Jin, who's the man that tortures the girl. I think he'd be an good actor fort his role is because his appearance looks scary and mysterious. He has starred in movies such as the 'Law Abiding Citizen' where he plays as Clarence Darby, a rapist, robber and a drug dealer. He was knows for committing more crimes in the past. 

In the following trailer, you can see his role and straight away you can tell that he would be suitable for this role. 

We can get sites of Darby at 0:35, 0:50, 1:00, 1:23 and from 1:26-1:33. 

LORENZO:

Paul Walker, most known for his acting skills in 'The Fast and The Furious'. I think that he'd be a great actor to play as Lorenzo because he is charming and on the other hand you would suspect that he would have an evil side which is not obvious at all. He has an appearance of a womanizer which is also handy because in our opening sequence, Lorenzo flirts with Netitia to get her to go where he wants her to. 

This photo is from one of his movies, he has a good communication skills with women which is what we would need for someone to act as Lorenzo who charms Netitia.

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

Our thriller is very conventional because the female is the victim and she is lured into danger by a male .

This similar to the movie 'Silence of the lambs' directed by Jonathan Demme. This is because the victim in the film is a female which is very similar to our opening sequence.







This is a scene from our thriller which shows the female victim just like the female victim shown in the screen  shot from the 'Silence of the lambs'.









This scene in silence of the lambs shows the female victim helping the male stalker .

This imitates the scene above where the victim and the male stalker are in conversation and she is being entertained by the male stalker.

This shows the male stalker watching his female victim ready for an attack .

 This again shows the similarity between our thriller and 'Silence of the lambs' .This is a shot of a male stalker stalking his female victim waiting for the right moment to attack her .  

This scene from 'Silence of the lamb' shows the male stalker attacking his female victim.

This scene from our thriller shows the female victim been attacked and taken into a basement .

Q3 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our film is targeted at people aged 12 or above.

The image above shows the age restrictions for films. The reason our movie is 12+ is because some scenes might be unsuitable and threatening for young children to watch.

I would imagine that one of our viewers could be a female teenager.

I've chosen a female to be my main audience because I believe that the film is more about the torture of a girl. Selena, 17, a college student. She could be studying Film Studies. She likes to shop and her hobbies are to dance and playing the guitar.

On the other hand, this could also be an enjoyable movie to some male audience as well. I would imagine mainly to men aged 16-27.

Chris is 19 year old singer. He would enjoy this movie because he likes movies that look realistic and I think that he would also enjoy the soundtracks. 

Q6: Audience feedback and comments - 2

This is the audience feedback we've recieved which we've edited on 'wordle':

As you can see, the audence have mainly commented on the lighting which was very dim. The mistake we had made while filming our thriller opening was that we didn't enough light as most of our scenes are shot in the basement and the lower ground floor corridor.
Most of the audence agreed that our sound was good, however there was one viewer that said it would have been better to use less complicated sounds as it distracts them from the movie itself.

Q6 Audience feedback and Comment - 1

In our last lesson with Bernard, we started our evaluations for our Final Cut. We started of with Question6 with was to find out the audiences reaction towards our film and get some feedback from the other students in class. Bernard shows us a more creative way of showing the feedback our blog by using the website (www.wordle.net). So I've experimented a bit on this website and wrote down all of the feedback we've recieved from our class...

Unfortunately as I'm doing my blogging at home now, I'm unable to use the wordle website. But my plan is to post the feedback comments on my blog as soon as i get to college tomorrow morning!


TO BE CONTINUED.............