Ollie's evaluation

Evaluation - Ollie Woodward

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real life media products? (film openings)

Frame 1: The first frame is a mid shot of Vinnie Jones holding two double barrel shotguns shows that he is ready for conflict. We can also tell by the determined, angry look on his face that implies that he means business. The fact that he is wearing a black leather jacket and the skinhead haircut shows that he is a bit of a 'hard-man' and also looks like he might enjoy putting people in pain. The way he stands up tall implies that he is a confident man and knows that he is well respected and a feared person.

  

Frame 2: The second frame shows a medium long shot of a group of men around a big, antique looking table. The fact that the table looks antique looking and they are surrounded by old looking objects shows that these men care about money. They all have a rather serious look on their face which may imply that they are dealing with business (most likely to do with money). The man who is holding the cup of tea (far right) asserts the idea that this place is their safe house where they all can relax after dealing with their business, earning their money.

Frame 3: Vinnie Jones is shown again in a close up looking rather angry and frustrated. The fact that he is pointing his finger in quite an fierce manner implies that he doesn't like to be messed with by anyone, which links back to frame one when I said he is a bit of a 'hard-man'. His bold, silver chain also asserts the idea that he likes to spend money and look flash to make him look like a big deal to other people who do not know him.

Frame 4: The black man is shown in a mid shot and comes across as a rather important person. We can tell by the fact that he is dressed quite smart by wearing a black blazer with a black shirt underneath. The way he is dressed can assert power throughout the film. his facial expression shows that he may be dealing with business that he might not be happy about, I realize this as he looks rather frustrated by the way he is ferociously staring right at the person in front of his desk as if he was shouting. The background implies that he is in an office which also assert the idea of power and importance of this man.

Frame 5: The big, bald man is shown in a medium close up to show how he expresses anger and frustration in this frame by the way his face is screwed up as if he is shouting something taboo. The fact he is also pointing his face in a violent manner also shows that he is not a man to be messed with. What he is wearing also asserts power as the big, beige, sheep's-wool coat over a smart suit are stereotypically what gangsters wore.

Frame 6: In this frame Jason Statham and his partner are shown in a medium long shot loading their double barrel shotguns getting ready to deal with people that get in their way. The look on Jason Statham's face looks like he has been told something bad and caused him to pull a face as if he was disgusted by the news. The fact him and his partner are both wearing black suits show that they are not messing around when they deal with business.

Frame 7: The group of men are shown in a long shot walking down a dodgy alley with the man in front holding a big, black bag possibly with a large amount of money in it ready to do - what it looks like  - a big deal with another gang. They are all dressed in smart, black clothing like overcoats and suits which also implies that they want to look powerful in front of the enemy's. The fact that they have to meet in a dodgy alley may show that this deal may not go down very well.

Frame 8: In this frame, all the group are shown in a medium shot waiting in the car while the man at the steering wheel is on the phone they all show curiosity in this photo by their facial expressions and the way they are staring at the phone looking disappointed. The fact that they are in a car shows that they needed to be somewhere, it also shows that they would go quite far to make the deals they are about to encounter.

Frame 9: Finally, in the last frame all 4 of the group are shown in a long shot walking again with the same black bag they had in frame 7. The leather black bag may be a known icon for having money or guns inside it. They all again look very serious in what they are doing showing that they intend to do business to earn the money they patiently wait for. The back 3 people look like they are having a debate on what to do, while the front man who is holding the bag looks more concentrated and serious, therefore it may imply that he is the main guy for the job they are about to do.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? 

Within our 2 minute film opening both ourselves Myself (Adam) and my teammate Malcolm (Stanley)  are displayed as two young immature teenagers Adam that got into some trouble with a drug deal which caused them to fall out for a very long time. Revenge is wanted by the two characters…until they meet again in the street. This would make the genre of the story a thriller as it thrillers are usually centred on drugs and violence. Our group researched some thrillers for example: Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (which is what my 9 frame was on), Fast and furious 7 and Layer Cake and studied how they acted and stereotypically how people who are involved in drug deals are dressed for example you can see in our 2 minute opening, I am wearing a long overcoat. In today’s society, men are stereotypically involved in drug deals and violence and that is what Malcolm and I are trying to display in our film opening. The 2-minute opening will demonstrate how young people can remorse a lot of bad decisions that they have made in their life which may be caused by peer pressure or bullying so they are represented to be frightened and helpless. Stereotypically teenagers that hang around in groups or ‘gangs’ are known to cause problems in our society or to other people. We want to address to the audience that a lot of young people can be peer pressured into something that could ruin your life and destroy friendships and this is what I hope that our 2 minute opening represents.

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

Distribution is essential and one of the key things of a film it is part of the progression of making your film presented to the public so they are able to view the film. I believe that many media institutions could distribute my film product. There are numerous media institutions such as National Lottery Fund as it is a UK film. This would go through BFI then allocated to people making the film. A media institution is a company, public or privately owned that creates and/or distributes media products. Most if not all of these media distributors, distribute films that are so successful they win awards. As my film genre is a thriller, I think that a media institution that has distributed a wide variety of horrors and thrillers than the other distributors would distribute it my film. This will not only attract more attention to the film product it will bring an extended audience. The national lottery fund has distributed films such as The Kings speech and Woman in black; this primarily would attract the audience in, as they are aware of the genre that it supports. The company has continued to be successful throughout the years and is very well recognized.
  

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Phil Mayweather is a 18 year old boy and lives in Maidstone, Kent. Phil enjoys going to the cinema with his friends as he likes to keep updated with the recent films. Phil loves being on the edge of his seat and enjoys watching thrillers such as: The Avengers, Fast and Furious, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. But if there is nothing that he likes on at the cinema then he would gladly watch TV shows that are thrillers like: Prison Break, Breaking Bad, Dexter and Better call Saul. He tends to watch all these shows on Netflix. Phil likes to listen to all types of music, he wouldn't listen to anything and like it.
I think our film would appeal to Phil as I think it would intrigue him into finding out the end but also entertain him and keep him on the edge of his seat. He would also be interested because it is similar to most of the films he watches himself.

Question 5: How did you attract/ address your audience?
 1. How old are you?
a. 15-25
b. 26-35
c. 36-45
d. 45 or over

2. What is your favourite genre(s) of film?
a. Thriller
b. Horror
c. Action
d. Rom-com
e. Sci-fi

3. Do you watch the Genre of our film?
a.Yes
b. No

4. How do you like films to start? straight into a dramatic moment, introduce characters or be told the basic premises of the film?

5.When should titles be seen? before the start, during the start or after the start?

6. Do you have any preferences about whether a film a film should have music at the beginning or not?

7. When watching a film trailer what kind of story's do you like more?
a. fictional
b. Non-fictional
c. True story

I created a questionnaire which included 7 questions to learn from the audience what type of films they like and what they like about it to get an of what genre is the favourite.

To get the results I needed, I printed off 20 copies of my questionnaire and handed them out to a variety of people from different ages. 5 copies were handed out to 4 different age groups: 5 were handed out to people aged 15-25, 5 copies were handed out to people aged 26-35, 5 more copies were handed out to people aged 36-45 and the last 5 copies were handed out to people aged 45 and over. I made sure that they were equally handed out to both sexes.

When the whole 20 copies were complete, I then completed a graph for every question, which revealed the most popular result for each question.

With the results in mind it helped me a lot to think about how I could improve my film to make it more appealing for my target audience. My film is intended for people aged 15+ who our group had already decided on to start with along with that genre of the film we wanted our opening to a film to be a thriller.

Question 1

There were 5 questionnaires given to each audience group so there were 5 people for each.

Question 2

6 people liked thriller

4 people liked horror

5 people liked action

5 people liked rom/com

Question 3

17 people said yes

3 people said no

Question 4

9 people said they like the film to start with a dramatic moment

4 people said that they like to be introduced to the characters

7 people said they like to be told the basic premises of what the film will be about.

Question 5

4 people said before the start

10 people said during the start

6 people said after the start

Question 6

13 people said that there should be music at the beginning

7 people said that there shouldn’t be music at the beginning

Question 7

8 people said fictional

3 people said non-fictional

9 people said true story

After studying the outcome of the questionnaire it has motivated our group to carry on with the thriller genre and for it to be based on a true story. It was very helpful to get feedback from my target audience, the reason for this is having a variety of opinions, will help my two minute opening to draw in a wider range of people instead of just what I think people will like. The questionnaire has given me a starting point to lead off for my future trailer.

6. What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The tripod was a very important piece of equipment but neither I nor my group had used it before so were uneducated to how it is used. The tripod is a part of equipment that is used with the HD Panasonic camera. It can be stood at different levels and it holds the camera securely at the top. By using the tripod it made some of our shots more steady which made it look more professional then it would of if it was hand held. Throughout all of the shots we could use the tripod especially on our scenes that included shots like an establishing shot and tracking.

My group used a HD Panasonic video recorder to film which. This was one of the most important parts of technology that we used as it enabled us to record all of our scenes that we needed for our two minute opening to a film. The camera had a clear lens and allowed us to see the view clearly,  it also didn’t freeze and when we replayed the filmed scenes it ran smoothly. When using an iPhone camera, putting it onto a computer to edit scenes together would be unreliable as the pixels are low and the iPhone is mot created to record a professional piece. The camera was portable due to its small size, unlike cameras used for Hollywood films that are carried on your shoulder, so it was easy to film in different locations.

The computer was also the most important thing throughout this project, without the computer I would not have been able to upload any of the filming that we did and most importantly would not have been able to edit any thing together to make the final piece. YouTube was important as it was used to put up any videos like feedback from the class and the designed storyboard. As well as the computer being important, our blogger account ‘KMHO’ was also very important as it held all our work for our film on it and kept it in one place which kept the group organized.

We used the Voice recorder so that we could add speech into our film opening as it made it sound a lot better than the diegetic sound recorded as we were filming. Like the tripod, I was inexperienced with this piece of equipment either so I was learning how to use it and practicing until we were ready to record our final piece. The transcript within the film was short as it was only a two-minute opening so I added the voice over to make it look like it was what the actor was saying in his head in the scene, which did not take long to edit due to the length of the opening.

As a producer and director, I had to keep our work in a safe place in order to reduce the risk of losing it and also so we had a back-up. To keep our work safe I saved all the documents such as: 9 frames, our preliminary, pictures for our storyboard and other pieces on my memory stick. I made sure I took my memory stick every lesson so that we could access our work and update our blog.


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

From the time when we made our preliminary task to our main task, my knowledge and understanding of computers and the making of films has improved a lot. Our group was asked to use three camera techniques in a short film clip of only 2 minutes. These camera techniques included stability; shot reverse shot and 180-degree rule, as I was aware of all three shots I found it straight forward to link them all together. I knew that to carry out the stability shot I had to use a tripod which I had never used before, this is another skill that has improved between the time of my preliminary to my main task. To edit our preliminary task together we used final cut express which is an editing program we were all new to.

Our group created a small storyboard of the short film. We managed to find it very easy to film and we had recorded it instantly so that we would have a reasonable amount of time to edit our clip to a high standard. We used final cut express to edit our filming, as we had been given a chance to have a look at the software a few lessons before so knew briefly how to work it.

We decided that the clip needed some sort of music in the background to add to the effect of our film. As a group we all thought of a song that we thought would be the most appropriate for the scenario. We found that we had no way of uploading our chosen song to the computer so in the end we had to spend £1 on iTunes. After editing the scenes together, the film was then complete and we used all three techniques and finally added the music. We was happy with our finishing results and felt the preliminary task was a success. As a group we gained more knowledge of the software and technology that we would be using later on in the course.

Once we decided on who was doing each role for our main task we all begun with our individual work. We all shared a lot of roles in the preliminary task, we decided that we would do more of our own work and would then come back after finishing a task to review the work that we had completed and put it together, we found that this is a much more effective way to work.

I filmed our preliminary task with a tripod and hand held but at the time I did not have a strong knowledge on how to use the camera in the most effective way. By the time our main task come about I had a much better understanding and our film was recorded with more inventive and interesting angles that would be more appealing to the target audience.