Q1 - How does your media product use, develop or challenges forms and conventions of real media product?

I have decided to compare our thriller opening The Return to another thriller opening called Panic Room. I have chosen to compare our film with Panic Room because they both have a narrative opening.




 Also, as our thriller opening challenges the traditional way of opening a thriller, using a narrative title sequence, I thought it was a good idea to compare it to a the conventions of a real thriller.
In order to make the differences clearer, I have made a little montage of both videos.

As you may see, our opening sequence challenges Panic Room in several ways. Panic Room have Columbia as their distribution/production company. As our film is an independent student film, it is produced by our college's studio City And Islington College Studios.

Panic Room have their title shown right at the start of their opening sequence, while ours is at the end. Also, they have started their opening sequence with an establishing shot of New York when we have immediately started our opening with the story.

Our thriller also challenges the conventions used by Panic Room by using a wide range of shots. While they only have establishing shots and a long shot at the end, we have used mid-shots, close ups, long-shots... But this is mainly due to the fact that they have decided to start their opening sequence with establishing shots.

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

Q6 - Audience Feedback

 Class Feedback... (28th march)

Wow, that was interesting! We had a chance to be able to see how our class' mates react to our opening sequence.

The most common thing that came up was the music, the soundtrack. Most of them likes it, some loved it but some hated it. It was interesting to see different point of views.

Another thing they talked about a lot was the black&white sequence, which we used in order to emphasis the fact that it was a dream. Again, some loved it and some didn't like it. However, some didn't understand why it was there, which I think is a really bad feedback unfortunately. It's very important that the audience understands everything, and that nothing feels out of place.

Another thing our audience loved was the titles (both opening and the title of the movie). A good point for us because it took us quite a while to make the "wipe" effect wiping at the right time in order to make it seem it disappears as the character walks "into" it.

Audience Feedback... (5th April)

  

Yesterday, everyone doing media had a chance to see their films on the big screen, at The Screen On The Green (an independent cinema in Islington). We also got the chance to see other groups' work!

As you can see, there was a long queue in front of the cinema. In fact, there was 200 students in total! 200 students seeing our film... Wow. We started to panic...

After having a little chat with our friends and one of my group member, Marry (one of the media teachers, here on the picture) came at the front to congratulate us of our work. This was it! The show was finally starting, after 2 months' worth of work it was finally ready to be shown. Our first film, on the big screen...

The films weren't shown in any particular order (or it didn't seem to be anyway) so we couldn't really know when our film was going to be shown. We saw really good films out there, it was good to see other ideas being developed on the screen and to be able to "compare" our work with others'.

Wow, that was really funny. We expected everything, everything BUT people singing along the soundtrack! It was fun though, and it clearly showed that the soundtrack we used matched our target audience. As the film continues, I was getting a bit worried because when we showed our film to our class, some people didn't quite get the story... But when the memorial was shown on the screen, our audience became quieter. This definitely got their attention. When the memorial was then shown in between the magazines she threw on her bed, our audience had a really good reaction to it. They got it, this was a relief.

After the show, I interviewed a 3 people to ask them feedback about our film... (Even though they had a trouble remembering our film! It wasn't surprising actually because after viewing 45 films... You can't really remember everything!)

Some great feedback here, thanks to Ada, Vanessa and Evie! :)

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!