Final post

This is the final post of my blog

Who would be the audience of your media product?

We researched our target audience before we made our media product finding out what what they like around the age of 15 with what expectation they had for films and this then enabled us to decide how much this information will assist our creative planning for our work. The audience of our media product will be aimed at 15 year olds but first we would have to get a classification of the BBFC and they are the British board of film classification. But if we were to put it on web 2.0 were it is user generated content like you tube then we would not need to go to the BBFC. Earlier on in the blog we have also gone on to talk about what our ideal audience member is on this date 08/12/09 This is Henry, he is around 18 years of age with normal teenage hobbies and interests. He likes to shop in places like Burtons and Topman for clothes. He likes to hang out with his friends and go to the cinema on weekends. The type of films that he enjoys are mostly horror films but he also likes action and comedy so films like paranormal activity, doomsday and step brothers. The music that he is into is indie rock like kings of Leon and foo fighters but he does also like rock music like queens if the stone age.

13/01/10 Post production

We have started doing some work on our piece so that it can be the best as it possibly could so we are just tweaking a few things and using particle illusion to finish it off. After this we should hopefully show it to an audience.

05/01/10 What Producers, Directors and Editors want to acheive

Director The director is in charge of the making of the film, giving the story and main plot line. The director also insures that the attitude of the film is set to the genre of the film and he does not let that go off track unless that is part of the film. The Director is also in charge of the artistic aspects as well as the dramatic aspects. Editor The editor is in charge of putting the shots together while making sure that they all go together and if necessary put special effects in. Producer The producer is in charge of fund raising, hiring actors and organising the film distribution when the film is completed.

18/12/09 Production label

We have agreed to make a production label to go at the start of our movie. We have not come up with a name yet but our idea have been something around maybe "Empty shell industries" or "Head shot company" so something that relates to our intro.

14/12/09 Questionare

We made a questionnaire to find out what the audience expects. We had one of our members in our group count out the results and come to a conclusion, below is what he found out. From these results we can see that most people thought that action was their favourite type of film but some people didn't say that they had a favourite genre but liked most. I also found that setting and cast was the most important part of films but some people did like others more for example one of my question's said that was 9/10 this contrasts the 4/10 that another person gave. A person gave a 0/10 for violence whilst another gave 8/10. It depends on the person on what rating they give because some people like violence whilst others don't. The results we got vary as shown below in the questionnaire. We also got comments on what people thought about our media product and the results are below but on average we got good comments as i think we got the right target audience in for our media product so that is why i think they enjoyed it. Questionnaire for "Alternative Justice" Please tick 1. Are you? Male? [ 5] Female? [6 ] 2. What age range do you fit? 12-15 [ ] 16-20 [11 ] 21+ [ ] 3. What is your favourite film genre? Action [ 2] Thriller [2 ] Comedy [2 ] Horror [ 3] Teen [ 1] Family [ 1] Drama [ ] Romance [ ] Other [ ] Please State………………… 4. On the scale, mark how important each factor is to you (On average is highlighted) 4a. Special Effects 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 4b. Violence 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 4c. Action 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 4d. Era 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 4e. Setting 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 4f. Cast 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5. What did you think worked well in our film opening? (lists of comments below)

• The music and camera shots
• The sound went really well with the theme
• The location and sound
• The opening sequence and the suspense at the end
• Liked the locations
• The intro music
• The screen effects and the music
• Foregrounded sound of breathing kept audience wondering
• Everything, the title sequence went well
• The sound and image worked well together
• Suspense, music, dramatic, tension, acting and locations

6. Were there any negative areas for improvement in our media product?

• There was some parts were the speech was a bit that stuttered
• No it was ok
• Maybe some of the shots could get tightened up
• Not really
• Couldn't find any
• I think it was good
• No
• Not really, over all very good

14/12/09 Looking back at you preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at our preliminary task i think we have learnt a lot more doing our main media product as it allowed us to be more creative with our idea unlike before were we just had to do a person walking in a room then exchange a line of dialogue. I have also learnt that proper planing is needed and knowing what you can get hold of to help with your Mise en scene is also very important. With this task as being more important than the preliminary task we also worked well together in the group that i was in and we co-ordinated with each other to get ideas and eventually get the finished media product that we have now. Our management skills i think have improved as you need to manage the group, equipment, locations and time as you need to know how much time you have to film and edit your product. We also have a deeper and fuller understanding of how to film, edit and research for our media product while exploring the technology that we had available. We also had a specific link to our media product from the film "Shooter" and we worked around that taking ideas and specific social groups to use in our media product. Mostly i think since the preliminary task i have learnt about 3 main steps that take place and they are planning, production and then post production. Our planning is now a lot more effective and easier to understand as we now used the storyboard template that we were given a lot more effectively. When we went to film and and edit what we have captured we did this as best we could while knowing how to save time as this time around we learnt that you take dialogue shots from one character all in a row then go to the next character to let the say all of their dialogue as before we moved the camera every time from actor to actor and this was not very time efficient. With the post production we made small changes to try and make our media product as best as possible as in this process we added small details to the sniper scope and made sure we did justice to the fading to black and other cross overs so that it can be the best it can with what footage we had, this also allowed a lot more creativity from last time as before we could not experiment at the end as we only really had a short piece to work with and the only thing that we could be creative with was the cross overs between cuts but the still were not really needed.

14/12/09 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We have learnt a range of skills with the technologies that we had available, but with the camera we used a Panasonic NVGS500 and with this we could use varied settings on the camera to get different effects. We used the white balance for one part of our video to create a bleached out look. With these cameras you could also do the auto and manual focus and that allowed us to get sharper focus to suite our needs for some of our shots in our media product. We also had to make sure the aspect ratio was the same the whole way through so that all the shots were wide screen and that it did not change because we had to keep the continuity. This camera with its settings allowed us to manipulate the images and get full potential for creativity from the camera.

When we had to edit the footage we got we used adobe premiere pro and that allowed even further creativity as we could add text, audio and picture transactions, separate audio from the video, separate editing and adding a title that was created to suite our media product. We also experimented with particle illusion and that allowed us to be creative and get ideas on what type of social effects that we may use in our media product. Photo shop was also needed to create the snipe scope effect that we were using in our media product and we then layered that over the video to show the effect of the sniper scope aiming.

With the Internet i used Blogger and with this you can change your blog with the background and also gadgets that help you navigate around my blog. I also was exploring the potential you can get with your blog and i put fishes that you can feed at the side of my blog just to add a bit of colour and movement to a plain blog. We also used YouTube to help us research title sequences and reference them on our blog. There was also freeplaymusic.com were we could find music for our media product that was not copyrighted. We also got sound effects from flashkit.com and that helped us find a suitable phone ring to add to our media product, we also were trying to find a gunshot noise to put at the start of our media product when the titles appear but we didn't in the end because as a group we decided that the noises would clutter our work.

14/12/09 How did you attract/address your audience?

We address our audience by making sure that we kept to the guidelines of a certificate 15 film keeping in mind that our film was about an assassin so we had to make sure that the content that we put in fit into the guidelines that we were also set out for a action film. The bbfc classification for a 15 film on the theme is that "No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds" and i think that our media product is suitable for a 15 as the theme is appropriate. The guidelines are intended to ensure that as Mark piper of the BBFC said when he visited our school to talk about classfication that "the right aaudience sees the right film".

The way that we find out our audience expectations was to use a questionnaire and give it out to people that may be interested in our media product idea and respond to what the audience have said that has been mentioned earlier in the blog. We found from the questionare that people thought that action was their favourite type of film but some people didn't say that they had a favourite genre but liked most. I also found that setting and cast was the most important part of films but some people did like others more for example one of my question's said that was 9/10 this contrasts the 4/10 that another person gave. A person gave a 0/10 for violence whilst another gave 8/10. It depends on the person on what rating they give because some people like violence whilst others don't. The results we got vary as shown below in the questionnaire. We also got comments on what people thought about our media product and the results are below but on average we got good comments as i think we got the right target audience in for our media product so that is why i think they enjoyed it.

14/12/09 What kind of media institution might disturbute your media product and why?

If our media product was a Major feature film we would have to distribute it would be through the "film distribution association" (fda) as the fda is an umbrella organization for individual distribution companies such as "Icon" or "Universal". They would then distribute it to the cinemas like odeon and the vue but also to small independent cinemas like parkway. They would also arrange the publicity such as posters, trailers and also arranging the stars of the film for interviews. The posters and trailers that would be used to create hype for our media product is known as above the line advertising and that is what the distribution company have to pay for, we would also have below the line advertising where we would go and talk about our media product on chat shows like the Jonathan Ross show were we would talk about our media product and this is normally free but arranged by the distribution company but co ordinated with the shows as they need content for that show so generally the show makers and the distribution company are compliant with each other. But the best way for our Media product to be distributed will probably be done with web 2.0 as user generated content is the best way to get a lot of views from around the world and it would be cheaper than any other method. A web site that we may use is "YouTube" as it is easy to use and has a high viewer rating. We know that it may do well as there was a retirement video that was made for one of our teachers leaving De-Aston and the views had around 2000 or more and i think that some of those views were with other people in the room when it was on so roughly i think the amount of people that saw that short film was around 5000 or more and that is if there was only one other person in the room when the video was getting played.

14/12/09 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The representations that our media product shows social groups such as highly trained assassin with a murky world of semi-official government business. The assassins social class is different from the police chief as the assassin is highly trained and skilled that has had possible military training and also maybe a government official killer/exterminator. But the police chief is different as he is is having a crisis with the weapons dealer and hires the assassin as he has more power than the police chief. The weapons dealer is almost powerless in his social group when the hit man has his sniper on him but he seems to have wealth and power at the start as he has guards and weapons. 

The weapons dealer when you first see him on screen has a dominant role with his guards as he walks past them and they make way for him and that may show that in his type of social group he has the power as he overcomes two guards with guns. The dog that was used also shows the aggressiveness of the two guards. The mise en scene that we used factors in certain social groups as for costume we had guards with these leather jackets and the props they had was a big dog and guns and this merges with the fact they are young guys trying to big and tough with what they are wearing and what they are using to portray a sense of power. 

The shots that we used with the close up of the Hit mans face to keep his identity unknown from the audience has a secondary function as it also fits into the social group of a shadowy criminal group as he is partly visible.

14/01/10 In what way does your media product use, develeop or challage forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product challenges forms from other media products by what people expect from a movie opening, as we have researched title sequences and found a common similarities such as there is a title, main actors, director, producer, production company, distribution company, music, effective mise en scene, introduction to main storyline and possibly some text on screen. We researched the title sequence of "James Bond" and exploited it as much as possible with such ideas like the movement of the barrel around the screen. The research that we found helped us make our title sequence as instead on having a barrel move around screen like in "James Bond" we have a red sniper scope move around the screen as if it was trying to find something or scope something out. We also have used some interior and exterior shots that have been developed from other media products that we have researched such as the exterior shot in the film "Shooter" and they way that we exploited that research was we set up our hit man shot similar to the shot that is in the film shooter.

08/12/09 Sound FX

We were looking on http://www.flashkit.com/ and we were looking for rifle shot sounds to go with our title sequence. We finally found the right sound to go along with a sniper rifle. Here is the link to that sound.......

08/12/09 Filming date

On the 29th of november we started filming that weekend so the following monday we could then put our footage onto the computer ready to start editing. There wasnt any problems with the filming and some of the shots we did were more succesfull that the others but i think we had good time management on that weekend and that helped us get all the shots. The only other problem was that the tape got wet and we thought that we would not be able to get the footage of because it was broken but we did in the end but we could not keep the tape.

08/12/09 Cross-hair

We have made a cross hair on photo shop and its red with a space in the middle. We intend to make this a layer on top of our video with the names dissolving in. We have tried this out and we think it is effective.

We experimented with different cross hairs against the background but we came to a conclusion that red was best because it was a lot more clear and concise.

08/12/09 Story board

We have come up as a group a story board to follow when we are filming. This is what we came up with and i helped with drawing the illustrations.

08/12/09 Audience

This is Henry, he is around 18 years of age with normal teenage hobbies and interests. he likes to shop in places like Burtons and Topman for clothes. He likes to hang out with his freinds and go to the cinema on weekends. The type of films that he enjoys are mostly horror films but he also likes action and commedy so films like paranormal acativity, doomesday and step brothers. The music that he is into is indie rock like kings of leon and foo fighters but he does also like rock music like queens if the stone age.

08/12/09 James bond opening sequence

As a group we all enjoy the Bond films so we took partially the same idea for the title sequence and modified it to suite our title sequence so instead of the gun barrel showing a point of view that lets the audience look down the barrel, we will just do a cross hair so it makes it look like the scope of a rifle instead. With our title sequence our original plan was to move a cross-hair of a sniper scope across the page to reveal the names of the actors. There diagram below shows what movement we wanted. There was only going to be three names in the title sequence and 1 more for the title of the film but we added an extra character to help with the mise en scene so we now have to do for cross hair titles.

08/12/09 Editing

As a group we have been editing for the past 2 weeks trying to fit every thing together and we are getting their but we just went over a few shots that we have done and we had to do a re-shoot as this one shot that we did did not work as well as it should do, we also decided to do a voice over for this one shot instead of using the audio that we recorded with the camera aswell.

20/11/09 Test shots for flashback on "Hitman"

We have all helped do the test filming for the flashback on the "Hitman" scene and i helped edit it. This is the tet shot but as you can see we could not bring an actual rifle into school so we had to make do with what we had and that was a dark sound recording studio with a tripod stand as the "Sniper rifle" and a school chair.

19/11/09 Test shots

We are going to do some test shots to get used to the cameras and experiment with the angle shots so we can find the right angle for the right shot

17/11/09 Props

We will need a selection of props to make our title sequence and that should contribute to a realistic Mise en scence. Our props will include:

1. An air rifle with a scope (Sniper rifle)

2. Possible camouflage to go with the countryside

3. Phone box And phone

4. Home phone

5. Police reports and top secret reports

6. We might use a bench in the location we are filming

7. Cloth to shine the rifle

8. Crate with fake guns in to show the weapons dealer moving weapons

9. Possibly a van

10. Black T-shirt for "Hit man" in phone box.

11. Smart suite for police chief and badge

The rest of the props we have but here are some of the stuff that we are looking for. These are links to what we need or what we are trying to get that's similar. Camouflage on Amazon Brown File

17/11/09 Possible problems with our title sequence

I think that we may have have a problem with our timing as we may not have enough of it so we might have to fade to black sooner than we have hoped for.

13/11/09 Scenes after our title sequence

We have planned out what scenes we are going to have separately from our dialogue as we are going to plan that later.

1. Close up of phone in phone box (guys face talking into phone)"Hit man"
2. Over the shoulder shot of a guy in a chair (Police chief) looking at a police file on the "Hit man"
3. Close up of the words significant to describe the "Hit man"
4. Flash back of "Hit man" shinning his gun barrel , over the shoulder shot to hide his identity
5. Guy in phone box exchanging more dialogue with the Police chief
6. Police chief with a different file on a "The Crime lord
7. Close up of the words significant to describe the "The Crime lord"
8. Flash back of the "The Crime lord" with his hired men putting weapons into crates and moving them about
9. Location shot of the bench with no one around
10. "Hit man" then puts phone down
11. "Hit man" in prone position on a hill with weapon
12. Long distance shot of "The Crime lord" exchanging a weapon, over the shoulder shot of "Hit man"
13. Medium close up of "The Crime lord" further into the deal
14. Close up of trigger with heavy breathing in the background with no outside noise
15. Fade to black

11/11/09 Film Referencing "Shooter"

I have found a film that introduces the characters in camouflagelike we want to do and also doing the same thing as when they show they guy looking through the rifle scope and showing it on screen. Film reference: http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=shooter

11/11/09 Actors

We have decided what actors we are going to have and they are just us aswell as camera men. We also think that we are capable to do the acting required for our shots.

1. "The Hitman" is going to be acted by Henry Reynolds
2. "The Police cheif" is going to be played by Matthew Gilooly
3. "The Crime Lord" is going to be played by Matthew Sharpe

10/11/09 Music ideas

The music we had to use had to be copyright free so that made it harder as we then had to look for music on sites like http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ and this provides copyright free music. I have looked on this site and have done a bit of research in to what music might work for our titles.

1. http://www.freeplaymusic.com/search/category_search.php?t=v&i=1202 (Force combat, Army angels)
2. http://www.freeplaymusic.com/search/category_search.php?t=v&i=1512 (Assembling Revolt)
3. http://www.freeplaymusic.com/search/category_search.php?t=v&i=1218 (Barbarian)

10/11/09 Idea for Titles

As a group we were thinking about making the titles appear when the sniper scope moves over in certain areas of the woods. We estimated this would last about 30 seconds.

10/11/09 Camouflage and Location

As a group we were discussing were we could possibly film our title sequence and what props we can get hold of. Henry has a good idea of were to film as he lives near Willing ham woods and that has a bench in the middle of it. the only problem I'm worried about is the light might be too dim in the woods. We also think that we can get hold of some good camouflage so that should add to a more realistic Mise en scene.

9/11/09 initial ideas for title sequence

We were thinking about making our title sequence with the storyline of a hitman getting called for a job to kill a guy that turns out to be one of the most wanted men in lincolnshire as he is the biggest crime lord with a lot of power. we were also thinking about calling this film "Alternative Justice" as the person ringing the hitman up is the cheif of lincolnshire police. The twist in our story is that the hitman does not know who and what type of person he is killing. We are also aiming for this film to be an age ristriction of 15 possibly lower as we are not going to show someone getting shot or putting fowl language in.