Evaluation - Task 3/4 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address you audience?

This Thriller Opening Sequence by AS Media students from Liverpool was uploaded onto Youtube in April 2009. The video has had nearly 2000 views and has recieved good feedback through its comments. The choice to upload the video onto Youtube has helped to atrract a wider audience and has been successful in doing so. Online video hosting sites such as Youtube and Vimeo are great for sharing/promoting/releasing amatuer and low budget movies because anyone in the world with internet access will be able to view it. Amatuer low budget films are also not very likely to be commercial or profitable so there wouldnt be much dedication to promote/advertise through TV ads, posters, flyers etc, and these type of websites can help by showing your video as related videos to ones already on the internet.

Our film was produced under a low budget and we will take the same route as the AS Media students who have chosen to use Video Hosting Sites to release their film because it has been successful in attracting audiences. We will also have a cinematic screening amongst our peers at the 'Screen on the Green' where we will be able to recieve feedback as well.

Evaluation - Task 5 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Image Montage

Typical audience member:

Fred, 18, college student, loves watching films, enjoys listening to music, going out with friends, shops in Republic, plays for local football team, likes texting, loves eating, social networker...

Evaluation - Bektas OZER

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

Most movies have 3 possible intro types. It can be a discrete opening (like we decided to make our media product). An opening sequence where it goes straight into the story/plot and the other type of intro is a mixture of both. Most thriller movies start with wide shots of an important location in the movie or extreme close ups of a prominent character in the movie, such as the ‘se7en’ intro. In most thriller movies the institution that produces the movie is identified at the beginning as is ours, e.g. ‘CANDIstudios’.

The purpose of most thriller movies is to give off suspense and make the audience jump at unexpected times. For thriller movies, certain types of music and titles (font) can be used to compliment the movie and make it even more suspenseful. Sound can go a long way in aiding the raw movie with more tension. Good suspenseful music/audio can turn an ordinary intro sequence into something more sinister and frightening. Fonts used in the titles can be as effective as the audio/music. Commonly used fonts are serif and sans serif. Serif is used in more traditional and serious movies, such as drama movies e.g. ‘The Pelican Brief’. Sans serif fonts are modern and are regularly seen in thriller movies. The type of font will, most of the time will be in direct correlation with the type of movie. In our case, we decided to use a bold sans serif font to follow the recent thriller movie trend.

Our movie rarely challenges thriller movie conventions but embraces them. We wanted our movie to come across as a real thriller media product. We went for a slow seductive opening sequence to confuse and glue the audience’s eyes on the movie. I feel this was accomplished well and embraces thriller movie forms. Our intro was very similar to ‘Arlington Road’ and ‘The Thing’ prequel. Both use a very dark and mysterious opening and are heavy with video effects, this makes it a discrete type of opening (Screen captures of our movie and ‘The Thing’ below).

'Arlington Road' opening

Our movie

'The Thing' remake opening Task two - How does your media product represent particular social group?

Our movie does not represent any social groups as no characters are included in the opening sequence we created. We wanted to portray a rugged and urban area. This type of opening is similar to ‘Arlington Road’.

Our movie'Arlington Road'

Task three & four - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product an why? How will you attract/address your audience?

I found this interesting video post on a very popular video sharing website. It is a thriller intro project from other students and another sixth form/college. In this case YouTube has been used to release it to a much wider potential audience. The video has had over 11,000 hits, so the decision to release the video on to YouTube can be considered a success. In relation to our media product it is very similar because of the fact that 16-19 year old students made it and also the movie budget would have been low. Low budget projects such as our thriller intro is most likely to gain as much views as possible if the media product is released online. Video sharing websites such as YouTube and Vimeo can be very useful for amateur film makers. Unlike YouTube, Vimeo is a website which specialises for film makers. Video quality and resolutions are much better than on YouTube and most amateur film makers post on Vimeo to get noticed. Our own media product will get a screening cinematic screening at 'The Screen on the Green' and shared screening with other peers and the potential audience for our product, if released online is huge.

Task five - Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience that watches our media product will most probably be in the same age group as us. A typical audience member would be, Daniel, 18, is a college student who loves music, owns a blog about technology and is a thriller movie fanatic. He enjoys going out with friends, eating take-outs and shopping at 'Blue Inc.' He also enjoys social networking. This is what you would find in his bag:

Task six - What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

(In separate post)

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

At the begining of the AS media studies course I had not used a MAC operating system before, therefore I found it difficult to grasp the basic controls of a mac, such as a simple 'copy and paste' job or capturing a screen grab. However after using a MAC regularly In class I started to function the computer fast and smoothly without much fuss. I am also planning to purchase a MAC computer or laptop because I really enjoyed using the exclusive software and the general feel of using something different than PC.

Preliminary task

Looking back at our preliminary task, I feel we have made obvious and natural improvements of our media product. When we began our preliminary task I found it difficult to even function the JVC digital tapeless camera and generally the use of it. In another practice task called 'card game' (which is also posted on the blog) I forgot to turn off light filtering so the end result was very dark, which we did not want. As we progressed through making our product I checked all the settings on the camera were correct before beginning to film shots.

In the preliminary task we only used the most basic of shots, we did not use many shot types or use many (if any) effective camera angles which resulted in our preliminary looking very basic. The framing of this exercise was atrocious and even worse so because a tripod was used. However as we were watching more and more real thriller openings we discovered the camera was rarely in a static position for a period of time. So with inspiration from Arlington Road we decided for the camera to be constantly in motion, which gave a good 'out of control' effect and gave the movie a level of tension and suspense. The mise en scene in the preliminary task was very limited as it was only a practice project however as we progressed to the final product the mise en scene included a wide area with various shots and angles.

Clip from our final cut opening

However as we progressed through the making of our media product we learnt how to effectively use a variety of shots in different angles. My editing skills with FinalCut Pro drastically improved throughout making the final product. In the preliminary task we barely used any video effects or clip transitions. However after naturally getting better because of good practice tasks such as the preliminary activity, we managed to use many video effects and transitions in our final product. The video effects and transitions we used worked well in aiding our product look and feel like a real thriller opening to a movie.

Evaluation - Task 2 - How does your media product represent particular groups

Our opening title sequence does not clearly represent a social group because no characters were shown, but the locations show that it is a urban and rugged area where working class people are likely to live.

Evaluation - Task 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

A conventional Thriller Opening Sequence is expected to create an element of suspense and thrill to engage the audience. It is also expected to set the tone and genre of the film by the use of titles and sound. There are 3 types of conventional opening title sequences; Discrete, Plain Background with titles and straight into the film. Most films would start with a title to show the audience what institution produced the film and they usually show the names of producers, directors, actors etc throughout the title sequence. The fonts used for the titles can help to reflect the film. For example, serif type fonts look more formal and serious compared to sans serif fonts which are more modern and plain. Film openings usually start with a very extreme shot of either a wide shot of a location or a close up of a main character to introduce the audience to where the film is set, who the characters are or both. The structure of a film can also determine how the film starts, for example; a slow seduction structured film would probably start with a slow opening sequence which introduces the story to the audience, and a quick thrill structured film would start with a very exciting and thrilling opening action shot. The title of the film usually comes in straight away at the start of the film after the institution title or at the end when all of the names of people involved have been shown.

Film - The Thing

Our Opening Sequence to 'Rejected'

Our opening sequence follows most of the conventions of a film and starts of by introducing the institution 'CANDI Studios'. The structure of our film was 'Slow Seduction' with a discrete title sequence. 'The Thing' and our title sequence both started of conventionally with a institution indent, followed by a close up with titles of peoples names throughout the title sequence. Both opening sequences are also made up of a series of shots merged together with transition effects.

Evalutaion - Task 8 - Audience Feedback and Comments

Words Montage

These are the words used to describe our thriller opening sequence by our peers

Video Response

Changes in light of feedback from roughcut

As a group we decided to make wholesale changes from our eventual rough cut. This is because we we're not happy on the direction the project was going and how it turned out. We missed out vital shots which would of taken the project to another level and we couldn't re shoot the shots needed because of continuation problems. So we decided to shoot a whole new opening. Our initial inspiration for the project was the 'Se7en' thriller opening. However we turned our attention towards 'Arlington Road' and began to take inspiration from that.

After thoroughly researching the school archive of works from previous students we realised nothing similar had been done before and our final cut project would be unique and original amongst other student's projects.