The Final Film

 

This is the finally product of our film which is named 'Reunion' however we do realise it is not of the best quality and standard of an actual film but we do hope you enjoy it and take into consideration the amount of time and effort put into making this film.

Thank You,

ACD Productions.

Evaluation - Bloopers

These are the bloopers we made while making the film, bloopers were made throughout the film this was because we had our moments were something went wrong or were Sasha (Adaora) or Daniel forgot their lines and were out of character. Bloopers allowed us to be more confident and comfortable with each other when making this film because we knew it was not just one individual who made mistakes that it was all of us.

I believe without Bloopers this film would not have been made to how it was now, if the main characters were both in a position were they were serious all the time it would reflect on how they acted and performed meaning the film would not have been finished in time. The bloopers occurred very often when we were film and they were common mistakes it was not on purpose to get past these mistakes we laughed it off and started it again.

Evaluation - Personal Write Up: Roisin

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
 After doing some research into different thriller genres and watching various thriller trailers on YouTube, as a group, we decided that we wanted to make a psychological thriller. We used the film called ‘The Gift’, which centres around a man who seeks out revenge on a former classmate who once bullied him, as inspiration for our plot and used the form and conventions of this film to help us create our own original psychological thriller film which was in itself a challenge for us. In most thriller films, music is used to create tension and suspense, so therefore we incorporated music into apprehensive and tense scenes throughout our film. We also used camera shots such as a low angle and high angle shots which are commonly used in thrillers to show the antagonist’s power over the protagonist. Props such as knives and guns used as murder weapons are normally always seen in thriller films, and so we included a knife which the antagonist uses in order to kill his victims. To emphasise this key object we used a close up camera shot which we also see a lot in thrillers to focus the audience’s attention on this weapon creating a sense anticipation of what is about to happen. Our film challenges the power dynamic of men and women in usual thriller films. Although our film essentially shows the power that men have over women, at the start of the film we learn that the female, Sasha, who for the most part plays the weak protagonist, was actually the one who bullied the male antagonist, Daniel, in the film, showing that actually, Sasha once had power and superiority over our male antagonist, toying with the usual stereotype shown in thriller films of men predominantly being the stronger sex.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents the social groups of race and gender. Our antagonist is a white young male seeking out revenge on his former classmates who used to bully him. Our protagonist - one of the classmates - is black, who is eventually killed by our antagonist. Like in most horror films, this presents a racial hierarchy of white people being on top and black people being at the bottom. The fact that our black protagonist is killed by our white antagonist, represents the idea that white people have power over other races and also illustrates the stereotypical horror film where the black characters are killed off first and the white characters are given a higher chance of survival and are most likely to stay alive until the end of the film.

Gender is also a social group represented in our media product. Our antagonist is male and our protagonist is female which already creates a patriarchal structure to the film. The first female to be shown in our film is killed off in the first two minutes by the male antagonist who seemingly gets away with the murder, this represents the stereotype that men are more powerful and dominant than women. However, power over women in our film is represented in more than one way, in one scene of our film (the picture above), the male antagonist is standing over the female victim shown through a low angle point of view shot from the female’s perspective, which portrays the lack of power that the female has, however, showing the authority and control that the male has over the female.

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

If our film was made on a bigger scale and a larger budget, it could be distributed by a major international company as it follows the forms and conventions of a regular psychological thriller film. The film is also not tied to specific British culture or slang, therefore it would not be hard for other countries and cultures, especially in the US, to understand and follow. However, companies like Film4 Productions, Netflix and YouTube would be ideal media institutions to distribute our film. Film4 Productions is a British film production company owned by Channel Four Television Corporation. The company has been responsible for backing a large number of films made in the UK and has developed and co-financed films such as 12 Years A Slave, Slumdog Millionaire and This Is England. Considering Film4 develop and broadcast their own UK-made films to a UK audience, they also broadcast well-known Hollywood films on their Film4 channel, this could help our film gain huge amounts of popularity in Britain and acquire enough publicity to even reach an international audience. Netflix, although a globally popular media platform, could be an ideal institution to distribute our media product as it is an internet-based streaming platform for films and TV shows, which means that with our target audience being primarily teenagers and young adults, we could easily reach out to this market as it is widely accessible amongst these audiences. We could also use YouTube to distribute our film. YouTube is a video-sharing website bought by Google in 2006 which allows you to upload videos for free. This means that this platform could be a cheap, easy and profitable way for our film to reach out to a large amount of people.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

When creating our media product, we researched what themes and what kind of thrillers would appeal to different target audiences. We knew we wanted to make our film for a target audience of teenagers and young adults, both male and female. Therefore we intended to make a film which would be suitable for a target audience of ages 15-24 to watch. We chose this age group as our target audience after examining age demographics for psychological thriller films, finding that most people aged 15-24 watched and enjoyed psychological thrillers. We also found that there was not much difference in the amount of males and females who watch thrillers, so we therefore set out to make a film suitable for both genders. After taking this research into consideration, we decided to make the film age rating a 15 as our target audience is 15-24 years old and we didn’t want to restrict these age groups from viewing our film, we also felt that our film didn’t have the extreme violence and gore that we are most likely to see in an 18 rated film, so therefore felt that a 15 rated film was best suited to our product. However, we didn’t want to expose our film to younger audiences below the ages of 15 as we believe the film would not be suitable for these ages.

How did you attract/address your audience?With previous research we had carried out on our target audience, we knew we needed to make our film attractive for teenagers and young adults aged 15-24. We attracted our target audience by using all young actors around the same age group as our target audience so that people can relate to and sympathise with the characters, especially as the theme is based around bullying which is a common problem for teenagers around this age range. We made sure our plot was quite simple and easy to follow and understand for our target audience, not making it too complex where the film could get confusing for younger viewers. The audience will also be attracted to our film by the enticing plot, they will be eager to carry on watching to find out what is going to happen next and how many more victims will receive a visit from our antagonist Daniel. To help attract a larger audience, we have posted our film on our YouTube channel where it is free to watch our product and any comments made can be used for improvements.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Throughout the whole process of creating out film, I have learnt many skills from using the camera and tripod to shoot different shots and angles to using different websites and softwares. When planning and constructing our film, we had to set up a blog on Blogger to hold our coursework on. We had to keep track of what we were doing and conduct research into different types of thrillers to help us determine what exactly we wanted our film to be. Everyone in the group was able to access the blog and so therefore it was easy to share the coursework evenly between us and make any improvements or updates from home or from school. We also used Survey Monkey which allowed us to create a survey to distribute amongst people who would answer various questions about what type of things they wanted to see in thriller films, which helped in giving us feedback about how we could make a film that audiences actually want. We therefore used this to help us make any alterations and improvements to our product. We also used YouTube to watch numerous film trailers and scenes from other films to take inspiration from, for different camera shots and angles that we could use to make our film the best it could possibly be. We also used YouTube to upload our video onto as extra backup and so that anyone in our group can view the film when needed and any comments or likes on the video could be used as feedback. Celtx was another software we used to create our script and plot for our product. Lastly, we used the software Adobe Premiere Pro on an Apple Mac to edit our film on, adding titles, sounds, music and cutting scenes to create the sense of continuity.

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

Looking back at my preliminary task to now, I feel that I have learnt and improved a lot since in regards to time management, using a camera, editing and team work. I have learnt how to work in a small group and managing my time correctly when meeting up for filming days and getting deadlines in on time. I have also learnt how to use software and websites such as Adobe Premiere Pro: editing scenes, adding sounds, texts and special effects, Blogger and survey monkey. I have also learnt that planning plays a huge part in film making and without it, there is no real direction as to where the film is going, so we all as a group found that planning our every scene was very important to make our film a successful product. Our preliminary task was a great way to to introduce us to camera work and editing but since then I feel our camera shots, angles and editing skills have become more complex and intricate in detail and we have now learnt how to overcome any problems and difficulties with using the editing software that we might have previously had.

Evaluation - Personal Write Up: Chandler

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

From the outset, I believed that we should attempt to make a psychological thriller film, with heavy inspiration from the film “The Gift”, where the protagonist of the film aims to get revenge on his former classmates. Conventionally in films such as the one we aimed to make, a male takes the lead role. This is something that we ended up conforming to, and opted to stick to the usual binary structure of a male overpowering a female. This binary structure is challenged however, when it is revealed that the character Sasha (who is played by Adaora), used to bully Bobby (played by Daniel). Despite this challenge, the usual binary structure is restored as Bobby ends up getting his revenge on Sasha and taking her life, and thus asserts his male dominance. Utilising the various camera shots and angular techniques that we learnt, vital story driven moments during the film such as the reveal of the knife were zoomed in and focused on, another convention of real media products. The utilisation of music in our film was also very essential. Music in media and films plays an important part in setting the mood, and our use of non-diagetic music exemplifies this, as it is eerie and dark and the heavy drums at the end of the film signifies the tension of the rest of the film that is yet to come.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As aforementioned, the most obvious display of social groups in our product is that the protagonist (Sasha), is female, and is the character who ends up getting killed by the male (Bobby). The fact that this murder occurs two minutes into the proposed film, and how Bobby seemingly gets away with this displays the conventional stereotype of males being smarter and dominant than females. Prior to her killing in the film, there is a low angled POV shot, showing how to Bobby, Sasha looks miniscule and this is a further display of the power dynamic between the two characters. Furthermore, racial media conventions and stereotypes are shown in the film. Regularly in horror films, it is the black/racial minority character that ends up dying first, and this occurs in our film as Sasha is the first character to die.

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

Our film does not display any cultural barriers within it, for example region specific slang, and so would be really easy to distribute in other countries. However, due to the low budget production of our film, an international release is not likely. Because of this, the ideal media institution to release our film would be on YouTube, where many amateur films are content is posted. Because of YouTube’s international viewership, it could mean that many people across the world see our film. On top of this, YouTube is a free application where it is possible to both upload and view films meaning many people could access without a fee – and free stuff appeals to people. After this is uploaded, it could be then possible to get even more feedback from the wider audience who viewed our film as a result of the upload on YouTube, and improve our film. An alternate institution that could potentially distribute our media product could be an independent film company. Film4, a subsidiary of Channel 4 are a well-recognised and prominent independent film company with their own channel on British television, and are the masterminds behind such hits like Slumdog Millionaire and East is East which were released to critical acclaim. Publishing our product on Film4 could mean that our film gets national attention, and coupled with the fact that Film4 also broadcasts Hollywood and Bollywood films, could also mean international attention too.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

During the planning phase of making our film, we conducted various surveys and made research on the ideal target audience of thriller films. We wanted our product to appeal to both male and female audiences, and our research and surveys concluded that a target audience of those in the age bracket of 15-24 would be suitable. People in this age bracket seemed to be most interested in psychological thrillers. There was not much difference in the male and females who watched thriller films, and so no gender specific changes would be made. Because of the age 15 being our lowest age, we decided to make the content in the film suitable for the ages of 15 and up, and so made the film rating 15.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The primary way we attracted our audience within the film was the use of young actors. This would mean that in a way, it was possible for the target audience to relate to the characters they saw before them straight away in age. One of the main themes that is touched heavily upon is bullying, and many people in the target age group suffer from this. The plot of our film is very easy to follow, and is not complicated and oversaturated with loads of characters. Also, YouTube is a popular social networking application which many people in our target audience use, and so this allowed us to reach out to our target audience in that way.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

There are many things I have learnt personally from creating this media product. Firstly, the use of video editing software, namely Adobe Premiere Pro, which allowed us to edit the film and cut the various scenes to give the sense of continuity and provide the music for the film. Blogger is another software I learnt to use, this time browser based. Blogger allowed us to document our construction, planning and this very evaluation effectively. Blogger allowed us to keep a concise track of the work that we had done at any various point in the making of our film. We also utilised YouTube not only to eventually upload the film, but also to watch various industry standard trailers and opening of films for inspiration. We also used a Celtex, an industry used software to create our script and the calendar aspects for the film for an effective schedule. Survey Monkey also helped significantly, as it allowed us to gain feedback prior and after our film made on proposed ideas and after the actual film had been made. It was also very easy to utilise each software, especially the Google-owned ones (Blogger, YouTube, Google search engine).

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

From the initial preliminary task, I feel that in terms of media knowledge I have come a long way and have progressed well. This includes operating a camera, working in a team, using new software and an improvement on my writing skills and a better understanding of what it takes to be in the media industry. I have also learnt through this task that target audience research and audience feedback is very vital to the making of any media product as it was target audience feedback that allowed us to change the film and make it better. 

Evaluation - Podcast: Adaora

Evaluation - Personal Write Up: Adaora

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

As a group we had to make decisions on what genre we wanted the film to be based on. Some of my group members leaned towards physiology horror however I was more convinced we should do a thriller film. The thriller film would have included usual jump scenes and predictable ending. After discussing as a group that we should make a psychological film we had to do some research. This included watching different trailers in order to conduct ideas on how to begin to make a trailer. The main film that inspired us was ‘The Gift’ this was a psychological film where a man wanted revenge on his former classmates.  We were challenged by attempting to develop an original plot for a psychological film as most ideas vary around the same ideas. Most media companies use the same plot but change a few things an example of this would be the film ‘Paranormal Activity’.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product only represents the concept of gender in this particular social group. This is because our films plot is about a young male named Daniel who wanted revenge on his classmates, a particular classmate named Sasha. The gender representation in our film is that Daniel had power over Sasha, as you can see in the print screen this is a POV (point of view) shot. Daniel is in a position which makes him look more superior to Sasha. He is seen standing looking down at her and she is looking up to him. This is the typical stereotype where people comment boys are stronger than girls. This comment can be made because Daniel kidnapped her, tied her up and then killed her. Furthermore at the end of the film Daniel crossed off Sasha’s name showing that even after her death he still has power over her. At the beginning of the film Sasha was portrayed as the antagonist because of the verbal language she used against Daniel in the first opening of the scene however this soon changed when Daniel kidnapped her, Daniel then became the antagonist.

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

I have done some research and have concluded that the most popular institutions in the UK are BBC and Film Four. Before making a film, we would have to pitch our idea to the institution seeing if they would produce the funds needing to make this film into something huge. If our film was at a high standard rate it would be shown to a cinema in the UK and would then be sent to a few cinemas in America to see whether people enjoy this film, this idea then sets what fate the film has. Whether it will be shown in a national or international cinema. After being in the cinema it would then be released in shops and be sold on DVDs allowing people to have access to the film. Due to the fact this is only 2 minutes of the film we could distribute the film to a company like YouTube this allows us to upload the film for free without paying a fee for advertising etc. Also YouTube is available to anyone meaning anyone could view our film.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We researched that people within the ages of 18 upwards watched psychological films however we did realise people within the age ranges of 15 + enjoy watching thrillers. So, we decided to base our target audience around our age group. We researched successful thriller films such as ‘Paranormal Activity’ and ‘Final Destination’ and noticed it attracted people around that age range. In a age 15 film there are particular scenes you are not allowed to show. We used this to our advantage by not showing how Sasha died knowing that will would be violating a code as a target audience was aged 15 upwards. If our target audience was only 18 upwards then we would be expected to show Daniel murdering Sasha.

How did you attract/address your audience?

In the two minute opening of our film we tried to engage our audience by using different angles shots in the film. We ensured the storyline was easy to follow, we accepted our target audience to be understanding of the situation as they may have being bullied or may have been the bully or witnessed someone being bullied. This situation would occur around the same age as our main character Daniel was bullied by Sasha. This defeats the theory that boys are stronger than girls because boys are supposedly stronger but Daniel had obviously been affected by Sasha's action which caused him to live a double life in seeking revenge on her.The music also helped build up the tension and to attract our audience in the film. The music chosen was from the Bat Man film. We uses this particular background sound because it gave off that creepy effect and set the atmosphere for the audience. The ending of the two minute film was a cliff hanger, we aimed to make sure our target audience needs were met. This meant including a villain who was male that killed a girl. We dressed our characters in comfortable wear allowing the audience to connect with the characters. At the ending of the film a rose was seen on the table and Daniel sniffed the rose and threw them on Sasha’s dead body. This engaged our audience because it allowed them to see how twisted Daniel really was.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

At the beginning of the course we were told to make a blogger account, we were told this was were all our coursework would be stored. It was a software that allowed every group member to access this website at home and finish any work they had left to do. This also gave our teacher access to see how we’re progressing. We also used a software called Survey Monkey this allowed us to make surveys to hand out to people in order to get feedback and see what people wanted and how to make our film successful. I learnt that using this software was a great way to make questionnaires, simply because you typed the information onto the website and the website would create a questionnaire for you to either put on a social networking site or to print out. We used USB sticks a lot to transfer data onto the computer. We used the Apple Mac to edit our film on a software called Adobe Premier Pro, the Mac also gave u access to YouTube which allowed us to upload our video. Lastly, we used a video camera to record the film and a tripod to help position the camera still.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I feel as if I have learnt how to use camera and how to set up a tripod which were the basic steps. Also I learnt how to work in a group with people who I would not really associate with but we were able to get the job done. The preliminary task helped as a foundation, learning how to use the editing software and learn different techniques in order to help edit our film in a more further depth. Adding sound, texts and special effects. I do think overall it wasn’t easy that it was difficult because you have to plan everything out before you can start filming. At first my group did not plan which lead to us having to change the whole plot of our film but after we had planned we were able to make a finish product. I also learnt media is not about recording scenes that you have to research, edit and use different software's such as the Adobe Premier Pro and Bloggers account.

Evaluation - Reflection on finished work