Evaluation Question 3

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

I have made a powerpoint presentation answering the question above. The presentation will show tell us about the film distribution companies and which specific ones could be used to distribute the thriller opening sequence me and my group have made.

   













   

                                                                                                                                                            

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?  

This Prezi presentation will answer this question. It will tell you how I think my groups thriller opening sequence represents particular social groups, like gender and age. 

The characters in my groups thriller were created to be normal people who were out as a group of friends and came across this abandoned area. The characters were created to show emotion, like being scares or surprised at what they come across. The characters use mise-en-scene by the camera work as in certain scenes the camera angles were different so we could show the characters in the best possible way. For example, at one point the camera was to the left of the characters; this was so we could purposely show the audience there facial expressions and body expression. The sound also creates tension as the sound of the characters footsteps build the suspense as to if something is going to happen to them or if any sudden movements take place suggesting something is about to take place.

These pictures are of our characters that we had chosen to be in our thriller We chose these people to be in our thriller as we thought they represented the characters we wanted the best.






This is a picture showing how we got our inspiration. These three characters represent out characters as they are a three and they go through things together. We hoped that our characters would portray tension and suspense just like the characters from Happy Potter.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Below is a link to a Tumblr Blog which shows the answer to the question abaove.

http://mediaaaheather.tumblr.com/

These pictures below show how the questions are places and presented on the Tumblr Blog and how the text is displayed once a bubble is clicked on.

These pictures show how our thriller uses tension, suspense and excitement.

These pictures are taken from my groups thriller. These specific section show tension as in the first picture its quite dull and it is just a path and we as the audience don't know where it leads to therefore its causing tension to what is going to happen next. 
The second picture shows suspense and excitement as the door is leaving us to think about what might happen next and the excitement is building up as we watch as anything could happen. Something could take place that could make the audience surprised.

 

Thriller Evaluation - Draft

My thriller opening sequence uses the conventions that any other  thriller would use. My opening sequence shows mysteriousness and adventure with thriller behind it all. It lets the audience wonder and think about what might happen. The mysteriousness allows the audience to think about it all, thinking what's going to take place, is anything dramatic going to happen. My thriller gives of suspense which is what we need for the audience to want to stay and watch the rest of the film.  The mysteriousness develops as the opening sequence goes on.

The thriller represents a social group of teenagers. We cans see from the opening sequence that there isn't a specific type of social group, just 3 teenagers who are on a day out and come across this abandoned building.

The type of media institution that might distribute my thriller would be a film institution. An film institution that is interested in thrillers and wants to show a thriller. The best institution to show it would be those who have already produced thrillers as they know about them and would already have the target audience. It is important that the right institution distribute the product the thriller can have the right coverage and have the right target audience.

The target audience for my thriller opening sequence would be teenagers around the ages of 15-18 and people who are into thrillers and like the mysteriousness and suspense. The reason it would be suitable for this age group is because it wouldn't be a gruesome, over the top scary thriller. It would just be a normal straight forward thriller so this age range fits the best.

I have attracted the target audience by the way the opening sequence is portrayed.  The opening sequence is very catching so it grabs the target audience straight away. The audience would want to carry on watching at it leaves on somewhat of a cliff-hanger. The title also grabs the target audience due to the way that is portrayed too. The title sequence appears and each letters dissolved, linking to the title name of 'abandoned' as the idea is for the letters to be abandoned, one by one. The target audience would like it because it catches their attention and they wonder what is going to happen next.  Below is a picture of the title sequence we made.

From constructing the thriller opening sequence I have learnt how to use a professional camera properly in the right way. I have learn what camera angles work best depending on how you want to the scene to play out. I have also learnt how to edit as I went into this not knowing how to edit and finished knowing all the little tricks of what to do. Editing has allowed me to play around with the software and see what looks best for each scene when we are editing together. I have also learnt little things on the editing programme, like how to take bits out of clips and how to drag clips out etc. I have learnt that technology is a pig part of this industry and area and that you have to know everything to do with editing on order to get a good piece out of it. I have also learnt that technology allows us to make things better, for example, if there is a small part we don't like, we can play around and edit the clip; like extend it, shorted it, split it, make it slower, make it faster, change the contrast, add sound and put effects on them. There is always something to do to in order to make something look better within the project.

From when I did my preliminary task to now, doing my final thriller opening sequence task, I have learned a lot. I have learned from scratch on how to use the Adobe Premier Pro editing software, I have learned how to make titles in adobe after effects and I have learned more about camera angles and what shots look better. When I did my preliminary task I didn't really know what I was doing, I had never done anything like it so it gave me a chance to play around with things and get to know it all. By doing the final task, I have learned everything to do with Premier Pro and I have learned to keep working with the clips we have in order to make them better. This task has allowed me to keep working to make things better and to focus on what we have in front of us in order to make things work. This task has also shown me that filming and editing is not an easy task. It takes a lot of concentration and effort in order to come out with something you are happy with.

In my groups draft edit of the opening sequence, we had a problem with matching dialogue up with the mouth movement of one of the actors, we didn't have a production company in the sequence and the music at the end didn't drag out long enough in order to finish with the very end of the sequence. With all these issues, for our final edit, we sorted the problems out to get to where we wanted and where we were happy with the sequence. We sat as a group and figured out what to do in order to make the sequence good. We sat down and designed and  produced our own production company in Adobe Fireworks which added to our opening sequence making is seem more professional. We then sat and changes to dialogue to the mouth. This was the hardest part for us and we had to split the sound clips we had in order to make things slower and match. After about 30 minutes, we had matched our dialogue sound up with the movement of the mouth. The last improvement was to drag out the sound at the end of the clip; we did this and now the sound matched the ending to the sequence. Below is the production company we developed and produced.

When the thriller screenings too place, we got some feedback on what people thought about it. The feedback we received were good things, bad things and what we could improve if we had to go back and do it again. The good things that were said about our thriller opening sequence were that the location we had was good, it matched the task and build up what we needed in order to have a good opening sequence. The part that seemed to go down well with the audience was out title sequence. The feedback we received was that the way the title took place was really good and looked really good. They liked the way the letters faded out one by one as it linked to the title of the thriller 'abandoned'. The transitions received good feedback; the audience said that most of the transitions looked good and matched well with scenes. We were also told that the way the story build up was good. The audience liked how the story moved on and developed throughout. The audience are always wondering what is going to happen next. Another good piece of feedback we received was that we had a variety of camera shots and sizes in the opening sequence which build up the story, mysteriousness and tension. The different shots and sizes meant we had used a variety. The last piece of good feedback we received was that the ending of the opening sequence was good. The audience liked how it went from the title sequence to the swaying door at the end as it gave of 'creepiness'.

Although we had a variety of good comments, we also had a few comments that weren't so good about our opening sequence. The first thing that was said was that there is one piece of dialogue where a character says 'She's been gone a while, shall I go and find her?' and the mouth didn't match the sound dialogue. We did have a problem with this so we tried our best to split the sound up as much as we could to get it to match the mouth. This problem was initially a big problem and managed to get it somewhat right for the final edit, however, the audience still noticed the problem. The one jump cut we have in the thriller looked  odd to the audience as they said it didn't match the rest of the transitions, however, this was the idea. It was a tense scene, therefore we didn't want a dissolve transition otherwise it would take away the tension. The audience also said that the repeated sound throughout the thriller wasn't very good. They could tell it was repeated, however, we wanted it to sound like it would if you were in the area, in woods with trees, birds and leaves. The clip where the girl walks through the overgrown area apparently was too long. The audience said we should have either cut a section out and sped the scene up. This particular section, I had noticed it was a little bit longer than what we would have wanted it, however, if we had sped it up and cut a section out, it wouldn't have looked right so we decided to keep the scene how it is. We were also told that we could add a few short takes into the thriller to give that little bit of extra variety to what we already have. The last thing we were told for as improvement was rather than having the smaller girls back to the camera while the boy was saying 'She's been gone a while, do you want me to go and find her?', we should of had her facing the camera.

I personally, don't agree with the comment about the bad jump cut. There reason we have a jump cut in our thriller is because we have to have a variety of shots. We have very similar cuts throughout the thriller so we have added a jump cut into a specific section where we think it works well. We added it in to the part that gives tension as the jump cuts allows things to cut quickly, building the tension as to what is going to happen next.

Overall, this task has been difficult as it is something I have never done before. Although I found the task difficult, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed working as a group, filming and editing everything together. The task has allowed me to get to know the editing software, the filming work and  get to know how things work in order to produce something like an opening sequence.

Here is the link to our final edit of our thriller opening sequence, Abandoned: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RdeCqs_1Is

Abandoned Opening Sequence Thriller - Final Edit

         

This is my groups final edit of our thriller opening sequence.

Me, Alex and Beth knew we had to improve our draft edit so to do this we
added a production company to the beginning, which we made.

We then improved the dialogue and made sure everything was clearer and
louder and lastly we made sure that the ending clip was expanded and
didn't end so quickly as well as dragging out the backing track with it.

We are happy with our final edit as we have shown improvements and we are
happy with the way the filming has happened, how the sound works and the
overall thriller opening sequence.

Draft Edit - Abandoned Thriller

  

Today, my groups draft edit of our thriller was completed and put up onto YouTube.

Our Thriller is set in an abandoned location. There are three people, all of which are teenagers who have been out for the day and come across the location our thriller was filmed in. The location was in a large forest like field with an old abandoned metal framed building.

The thriller starts of with a mystery person walking down an old looking path. This mystery person is breathing heavily and gives the audience the impression that they are scared.
The next scene is the teenagers coming across the building and looking confused.

The teenagers then decide to explore the building and see what is around, little did they know what the building holds for them...
As the opening sequence continues we find out that two of the teenagers go missing; we don't know how they disappear, all we know is that they have gone.

The teenager that is left is now on her own, what does she do?
She is left with the mystery noises.

The last teenager is left scared, hears a noise and runs, runs for her life to get away from the building and she doesn't want to be the next one to disappear.
The title sequence then appears as the opening sequence is over. The title links to the title of the thriller as it is called 'Abandoned' and the letters disappear too.

This is our draft edit as there is no production company, the dialogue isn't very clear or very loud and the last bit of the opening sequence (the swinging door) needs to be extended with the backing track extended and made louder.
These will be changed ready for the final edit.

Planning - Brainstorm and Questionnaire

In today's double lesson, me and my group spent the first hour finishing off our planning for our Thriller.
We did a questionnaire and a brainstorm with planning on, including title ideas, evaluation process and improvements.
The questionnaire we have done is focused towards specific ideas that will halp us build our thriller as to how people want to see it. If we have response, it means we can make the thriller to match peoples interests as much as possible rather than just making it up as we go and then the audience not liking it.
The questionnaire is very much focused towards our target audience of teenagers as they are the people who like thrillers.
This piece of research allows us to work with the answers to create a thriller that is good and that people will like.

The brainstorm planning sheet has all our ideas as to what we are going to call our thriller. We have decided to take the name 'Abandoned' as it fits our location that we filmed in and it fits the way we are filming.
The brainstorm also contains our evaluation of the process and the improvements for the next time.

Both of these planning stages will allow us as a group to look back on what has been said and will allow us to make sure our thriller meets the criteria as to how we and others want it.
It is important that we have planning with different title options as we wanted to make sure we had the right name and not just a name that didn't mean or relate to the thriller much. The title planning was one of the most important stages as the title would portray our thriller in either a good way or a not so good way; we want people to be interested.

Here are the pictures of our questionnaire and our brainstorm sheet.