Question Four & Five

Question Eight

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

Wow, It really does seem as if we just started the media course and our preliminary tasks were set just the other day or so.. This shows that time has passed significantly!!! When we were first given the task to make a normal/boring activity into a suspenseful clip, I thought to myself that it was going to be impossible to make. 

Just to make it clear this task was called 'The Bag Swap' and to summarize quickly what this involved us to do was to include two characters switching over a bag. Simple as that. But seen as we are media students we had to make this 'Idea' into something interesting that involved a deal of suspense and tension, so the audience will actually be in gaged. 

As this was our first filming task, myself and my group members found it slightly difficult to adjust the camera the way we want it, for example the close-up quality-making sure it is not blurry and that the audience can tell what we are filming and also the lighting on the camera.. I wasn't quite experienced when it came down to filming and handling the camera, so I was slow getting to grips with it but eventually at the end I managed to shoot full on scene's for our thriller. Which made me feel great and much more experienced !! 

''Infact, the whole progession from the start of the course uptill now has been a great success. I started off not knowing how to handle camera's or get a perfect shot or even how to edit a single scene THEN end up creating a 2 min thriller opening, which obviously includes all the editing and titles # the main things I wasn't clear of at the beginning.'' 

Here Are Some Pictures From The Preliminary Task 'The Bag Swap'  And From Our Thriller Opening 'The Return' 

The Beggining Of The Bag Swap..

Obviously now that I am more familiar with the whole filming process, I notice now that this shot has too much spacing showing before the actuall scene startss, which is very poor Mise en Scene. 

Taking this screen shot and comparing it to the beggining of 'The Return' you can see a clear difference! As the shot is perfectly angled and partly shows the room.

The Return Opening Shot..

As you can tell much more better and well planned out.

Firstly I didn't purposly crop the top bit of this shot.. This is how it was filmed in the first place and I just print screened it.

Now you can see how poor the filming was, we didn't notice that the actors head is cut off when filming and when we did, it was a awfull quick zoom out.. Which by the way looked slightly bad in the film.

A HUGE difference now.. It is a much tighter shot of the character and the Mise en Scene! We're not cutting out the face of the character or showing any excess background. 

I guess one point that made our final opening more successful than the preliminary task was the timing & planning. For the preliminary task we literally had one hour/half to do all the filming and come back to put them together and make a sequence. However for our final opening we had a more relaxed timetable.. We had a rough plan ( although it did change freqently as well as our storyline ), and we were also able to film out side of college time, whether it was the weekend or holiday. 

Overall the whole filming process was a wonderful experience, although we went through a lot of ups and down, but at the end of everything, we managed to make our thriller opening a success! 

The MAIN Things I Have Learnt In The Progession ..

* How To Use The Camera.. 

-Camera Shots, Angles, Movement

* The Mise En Scene..

- Like I Mentioned Before At First There Was Alot Of Excess Scenary Compared To The Final Opening (much tighter)

* Working With Other People In Groups..

- It was nice to get to know my group members, I believe I have built good relationship with each of them. But at first no one knew what the other person is like! 

* Edit and Sound !!

- At first I would have never thought that I will understand how to Edit something using final cut or add a soundtrack. But this is one of the biggest point I have gained a lot of experience from. And now I can finally say that I Know how to use each of the programmes.

 

Question Two

'' How Does Our Media Product Represent Particular Social Group ? '' 

The main social group our media product represents is teenage girls aged 15+. I believe our opening shows this by the following aspects;

- Our character Hanifah is in her bedroom on her laptop. 

This is typical for most teenagers, sitting in their rooms chatting to their friends etc (not necessarily girls). 

- The clothes/costume. 

Most teenage girls tend to wear their pyjama's when their at home. Being a girl myself I can say it is more comftable and relaxing to wear this type of clothing. 

We chose to have our main character in this type of clothing as we find it more realistic then wearing jeans and a hoodie at home. 

We had no trouble choosing the costume for our character to wear.

- Mise en scene/make-up 

This point is obvious.. As we ALL know girls love their make up!!

There's no doubt. Therefore we decided to have a shot of her putting any sort of make-up on, to clearly represent the social group. 

Now we had a mid-shot/over shoulder shot of her mirror reflection putting on red lipstick. ( although you couldn't notice the colour, as we added the effect black and white )

A)

A)

 

               

A)

A ) Here I compared the Character from 'What Lies Beneath' with one shot of our opening. 

Similarities; - They are anxious about something they either see or hear. Both shots include stairs.

Differences; - The clothing; Our character is wearing pyjamas whereas the other character is wearing a dressing robe. Another difference is the fact 'What Lies Beneath' is showing the character going up the stairs, while Hanifah is going down the stairs.

B)

B)

B) Although this comparison is nothing to do with characters, I thought it was important to discuss the shots. 

It was a great similarity as they both included a smooth panning shot of the Mise en Scene.
( I couldn't upload the video of showing this )

C)

C)

D)

D)

D) You can clearly notice the similarity and differences between these two shots. 
Our Character Is Shown From Behind Opening The Door.
Whereas The Other Character Is Shown From The Opposite End Opening The Door. 

E)

A mid-shot of her reaction

E)

A close up of her reaction

E)

   F) Finally this is the last shots I will be comparing.

F)

                      F) In both openings we have a smooth/slow zoom, on the 'Point' each character is looking/react to; 

What Lies Beneath; the bath room, the bath filling up, steam.

The Return (Our thriller); The memorial paper, the wind blowing to show some suspense effect.

F)

Question Seven

Question Six- Part Two

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK;

Today 05.04.11 the entire AS year in media, went to watch our thriller openings in the cinema aka the screen on the green. This was a wonderful experience as we all had the chance to not only see our own thriller opening but our friends and other groups opening on the 'Big Screen'. 

To be honest, I was quite nervous because we didnt know the order they were playing the openings in, so we never knew when our turn would be! ( my heart was literally beating ).

Below is the video, I recorded on my phone of our thriller opening showing..

( it might be abit dark, due to the fact I couldnt have my flash on )

(You can hear my voice in the background if you listen carefully, and you can tell by the things Im saying 'how nervouse and anxious I was.. Quite funny actually! )

So that was the video I recorded while our opening was playing.

one point I LOVED the most, was when everyone was familiar with our soundtrack and therefore started singing along the words to it, although it was only the instrumental. This was a good sign for us, as it showed that we achieved the target audience.
Another point that I was glad to catch on my phone was the suspense of the character opening the door and the camera showing the memorial paper. This REALLY shocked the audience,as you can hear them lower their voice. I really felt proud to hear their reaction, because when we showed our opening to class members, not everyone understood the storyline. So Im glad everyone at the cinema got the gist of the .RIP paper.

Below are some videos of couple of friends commenting on our thriller opening. I dont blame them for asking 'What was your thriller about again?' because we did just watch 45 openings, therefore there no doubt anyone would remember exactly who created what.

Famida Azad ( Group 33 ) Commenting On Our Thriller.

Reema Akther ( Group 6 ) Commenting On Our Thriller Video!

 

 I asked my friend to give feedback to our opening, in order to add to my evaluation. 

So here it is.. I had a feeling she would mention the soundtrack, which was Rihanna-Unfaithful (Instrumental), because she was one of the many people, singing along to the soundtrack, as our opening was playing.

THANKS SANCHITA ! =D

HERE ARE SOME OTHER THRILLER OPENINGS OF OTHER GROUPS I FILMED..

Question Three

'' Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product ''

The target audience for our thriller would be mainly Girls aged 15 and over. The reason being, if we had a high age certificate immediately we would loose the majority of our audience. The type of audience we are trying to attract and think would be interested in watching our opening would be those who enjoy films with a ' surprising twist'. 

I Chose to upload this film as the character in the film does not remember anything he does or has done in the past. Similarly to the character in our thriller, although we established that 'it was only just a dream' towards the end the character does not know about the same memorial paper in her 'dream' is actually on her bed.

I have created a typical audience member for our thriller movie and below is a collage of her belongings, bags and personality. Here is her story; 

'' Avalon, 16 years old dropped out of school as soon as her mum ran away from home. She lives with her old neighbour on Broad shire Avenue. Avalon enjoys the typical teenage activities like going out with friends, cinema's, park etc. Her dress sense is very different to her friends as she mostly wears the colour black and silver and stays in her trousers or jeans. 

Below is a frame of words Avalon friend's describe her as; 

- Phone

- Lipstick

- Lip Pencil

- Ipod

-Head Band

- A Wrist Band 

- Money

Question One

'' In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products? ''

             The Return                                                                            The Panic Room

  
 





   

Here Our thriller challenges panic room, as their titles appear early

                  



























In Our Thriller 'The Return', The Title Of The Film Appears At The Very End Of The Opening. Therefore Our Thriller Plunges Straight Into The Storyline. This Idea Challenges The Opening Of Panic Room As It Starts Of With Establishing Shots Of High-Rise Buildings. Although we both have the titles/names running on the screen while the opening is playing.

 

















Both 'The Return' And 'Panic Room' Start Of Their Opening With The Film Production Company. Compared To Columbia, A Well Known Film Production And Distribution Company.. We Have Used Our Very Own College Studios Also Known As A Low Budget Company!                       
                                    
                                             

     





                                                            
                                                       

Question Six

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK;

            

 Today's media lesson was very interesting and exciting as we were able to watch each others thriller openings!

At first when Bernard told us that this was going to be the motive for this lesson, as part of our evaluation, I started to get a little nervous. And to make matters better our group was the first to be shown. What a coincident right? 

After the whole class watched our opening, they had to write a little paragraph based on these two points;

- The Strongest Points Of This Opening

-How It Made You Feel 

( Include; Mise En Scene, Lighting etc )

Then as soon as all the openings in our class was watched, it was time for everyone to go back to the desk (in their groups) and review all the feedback's. To be honest I was looking forward to this part because It was the first time we showed our opening and I wanted to know what the audience thought of it; Good And Bad Points.

Overall I was really pleased with the feedback we received. The majority of the audience commented on The Good Choice Of Soundtrack, Editing, Colour And Title Appearance ( Of the thriller and credits ).

Although some feedback given were not as good as the ones listed above, I still appreciate the fact they mentioned it. As it makes you aware of what you have to look closely at next time, you come across editing/making a film/opening.

Baring in mind my group had a lot of ups and down when it came down to both filming and editing, therefore it was really good to see that the audience in our class thought 'the black and white effect' for instance was effective, when actually we weren't sure ourselves about the idea. So it was nice to know some of them understood the fact we were trying to show 'it was a dream'. 

I believe its very important for the audience to understand what is happening in a film or opening otherwise they remain clueless...