Evaluation - Question #7

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

I have learnt a lot from the point I finished filming the preliminary task to the present day. I have gained more knowledge in all areas; from editing to sound to mise-en-scene. Back when I was filming the preliminary it didn't occur to me that you could make an audience feel a certain emotion with the camera, I have learnt that through particular camera angles you can do this. For example, long-lasting close-ups of a person's face can you feel different emotions from angry to feeling sorry for that character. If there was a close-up on a crying person the audience are likely to feel empathy towards that character.

Kind of following on from the last point, lighting is a key part of shooting a film. Lighting shouldn't be out of mind when planning the mise-en-scene. You can use lighting to a great effect to control the mood of a film. For example in a noir film you would use as little lighting as possible, to keep that tone you find in every high quality noir film.

Also I learnt something from sound. I didn't include any sort of music on top of my preliminary. In my opening I included a tension-building sting. Over the process I found out that sound can change the tone of a scene as well as changing the pace. The sting in my film was a great factor in rising the tension levels.

Furthermore, there is more to sound than just stings, sound effects, a score and/or a soundtrack can also help to improve a film. In the end of my opening I have multiple knife stab effects, sound effects can help enhance particular story points. They can also inform the audience in more detail of how a character is feeling. In my case the stabbing effect made the attack seem more painful, making the the audience feel more empathy towards the dying character. In my preliminary I didn't feature any sound effects. With soundtracks and scores I learnt that you can create all different types of moods and tones, the right piece of music can create any emotion.

No equipment were used to make my preliminary other than the camera itself. For the end product it was key that I had a tripod to shoot many films. The constant shakiness of a camera can put off an audience from even watching a film. It can be handled well (like in Cloverfield) but more often than not it comes off irritating. So as I progressed I learnt that film equipment can be a very important part of shooting a movie.

Here is my preliminary:

Evaluation - Question #6

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

Whilst creating the opening to my film I used a range of technologies. From the beginning of this process I have been using this blog. It was fascinating to see how easy it is to create a piece of writing and post it onto the internet. This website taught me that it's pretty simple to get your work into other people's hands thanks to the internet. To edit my film I used Camtasia, this software was very easy to use. I learnt from Camtasia that due to the improvement in technology it is now so much easier to edit a film then it was many years ago. I say this because on the software with just a few clicks you can rearrange shots, add in credits, import music etc. After editing, I uploaded my film to YouTube. YouTube taught me, just like blogger, that it due to technology it is easy to share your work. The rapidity you can upload a video to the website and get it seen by so many people is astonishing. You are also provided the service to edit your videos on the website. It seems that online now you can rework your craft for free. There was a website I used in my research phase called surveymonkey.com This website gave me the opportunity to create a questionnaire. From this service I learnt that there are some great ways to research and find out about an audience through the internet.

Evaluation - Question #5

How did you attract/address your audience?

One of my film's genres is horror. To find out what things an audience enjoys seeing in a horror film I created a questionnaire. From the results of said questionnaire I added the elements people loved seeing into the opening to my film. For example one of the questions I asked was "In your opinion, what movie-making techniques (eg stings, PoV shots) are most important for a horror film?". Here are a few of the responses: "I've always thought with horror, less is more. The idea of something scary is usually better than just showing something scary. And I think horror films should mostly be normal dramas, but with the characters lives in peril", "Leaving some things slightly off camera, leaving elements to the viewers imagination". I thought these points made were great. So I incorporated these ideas into my film. Throughout the start of the opening I left the main character Jules' face outside of the shots. This was to leave what he looked like to the audiences imagination, which was part of what the people I asked enjoyed about horrors.

Jules with no head in the frame

One of the next questions was "What's your favourite type of horror villain?". I asked this to find out if the typical horror audience would watch my film based on the script I wrote and the type of villain I had included. 'Psychopathic killer' came second in the poll with 36% of the votes only just behind 'zombie' which received 45% of the votes. So it turned out a lot of the audience would love seeing my 'psychopathic killer' in the horror movie.

A later question was "Are you a fan of horrors that include other genres (eg horror-comedy, horror-romance?". I had a strong suspicion that my film would definitely be multiple genres, so I decided to ask this question just in case it was a terrible decision. I turns out that everyone I asked prefers a multiple genre horror film over just a plain horror film. In fact one of my other questions was "What's your favourite horror movie?" and a few people replied with Shaun of the Dead a fantastic example of a successful horror-comedy. Therefore I carried on my idea of a horror-thriller-detective film.

Evaluation - Question #4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

At the beginning of production I targeted my film at an audience of both genders aged 20-35. I will start by noting elements that my opening doesn't incorporate that would appeal to people not of my target demographic. The general view of 13-19 year olds is that they only enjoy films that contain many, many explosions. People believe this point  In my opening sequence there is not one single explosion, or even an over exaggerated visual effect. One reason is that I didn't have the budget to include such extravagant effects. But more importantly none of this would improve the quality of my film. On the other end of the spectrum I don't think my film would appeal to the elderly. The elderly are depicted as loving only old films - especially dramas, westerns, and war films. I think the age range I mentioned at the beginning would be the optimum age due to what they are stereotypically known to like. They are not to keen on explosive, flashy films, but also not 100% with massive dramas. In my film I aimed for a thriller filled with character arcs and a fast paced but original story.
Fight Club seems like a film that has targeted a similar age range to the one I have targeted. I have used quite a few similar story-telling techniques that Fight Club has used. Just like that film my film is focused on two characters - one a bit more than the other. This audience seem to enjoy films being told like this. As well as this I have a small plot twist, Fight Club has a much larger one which has a lot greater in many people's eyes.

I made a 'writeboard' to find get feedback from the audience to see what kind of people did enjoy it: http://123.writeboard.com/63j33si3yld0etx8xe3i98uh

As you can see on the website, the age range I targeted seemed to have the greatest understanding of what I was aiming for. They also seemed to enjoy the opening the most.

Evaluation - Question #3

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

Due to various factors it looks like my film would be distributed my an indie company over a big company like Fox or Sony. One of the reasons I suggest this is that I have used 'unknown' actors. There is a bigger chance that an independent company would distribute my film then one of the big ones due to my film having no A-List actors. Studios would rather distribute films with A-Listers as they have a bigger chance of bringing in the success. However some films distributed by independent companies do have big stars in their cast. For example The King's Speech had Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush playing the leads. All three being very big in the entertainment business.
Another reason an indie company would be more likely to distribute my film is because of franchises. A film like Skyfall is part of the mega-successful franchise that is James Bond. A bigger company would distribute a James Bond film as they are guaranteed success. James Bond is a household name and almost everyone and their grandmother will want to go see this film at the cinema. The bigger company will be able to distribute the film to all these people in all the different countries with ease. As my film isn't part of one of these well-known franchises it is will not be as eagerly anticipated. Therefore it wouldn't need to be distributed to all the different territories.
There is also the fact that my film doesn't have a typical 'Hollywood' storyline.A lot of indoes produce unique films and that's what I fell my film is.
Also, as I have created a small, British film, it is more likely to receive success in the UK than any other country.
However it may not be safe to distribute to cinemas at all. Due to all the features missing in my film that you can find in mainstream blockbusters (A-list actors, huge budget), more money could be spent on distributing to cinemas than what is grossed in return. There is the choice of distributing straight to online services such as Netflix and iTunes. These are global names, a huge number of people around the  world use these services. There is also the film Joss Whedon wrote that was recently released: In Your Eyes. This film was distributed online through vimeo. The public were able to purchase the film for $5 and watch it through the website. This could be a good pathway for my film.

Evaluation - Question #2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The opening to A Dish Best Served Cold doesn't feature many characters. In fact there are only 2 that can be classed as "main characters" and one of them dies by the end of the opening. However I have still used the characters for representation. I made sure that the character that died (Jonah) was wearing an Ipswich top to show the audience where the film was set. For me I wanted to create something more interesting than just a caption on the screen explaining where the film was based.
With Jules I made the actor where 'ordinary' clothes to make him seem like any other person living in the town. The character isn't supposed to have a stereotypical look that gives him away as a murderer. He wears a casual jacket and jeans to present him just like everyone else.
Since my actor's ages were roughly around the same age I wanted the characters to be I didn't have to change anything to do with appearance in that sense. The actors also didn't need to incorporate any extra factors whilst shooting because of this.
In terms of accents the actors were once again fine as the characters they were playing are from the same town as themselves.
And again my actors are around the same age as I wrote the characters to be. So no special details were used to persuade the audience to believe the characters were of a different age.

Evaluation - Question #1

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

Just like a real film my film features a range of action and enigma codes. Since the genres of my film are detective/thriller/horror, plenty of enigma codes definitely enhance the effectiveness of the opening. Some enigma codes I have included in my opening ask things like: character decisions, what characters do, what some items mean. One specific example is when I don't reveal the main character's face (Jules), the audience question who's life they are watching.

For my story I decided to follow 3 distinct genres, one being broad (horror) and the other 2 being more specific (thriller and detective). Real films often have multiple genres attached to their name. To show that my film are these genres, I have included various techniques in my opening. At the start of the opening there are 2 production companies shown. Right at the start the titles of the production companies instantly give off a certain tone for the film.

The word 'perimo' means 'to kill' in Latin, that word along with the image of the magnifying glass give off a mysterious vibe. Connecting to the 'detective' genre. The other production company is 'Slime Productions', I felt that the animation shown for this company linked to the horror genre I was aiming for. I also emphasized the genre through sound. Towards the end of the opening a sting begins to play, stings like that are often found in thriller movies.

Related to that are the titles. I have used, for the title and the actor/director credits, a font called 'Comeback of the Damned'. I specifically chose this font because it created this fantastic horror vibe. Another reason was because in the back of my mind I had planned to get Jules to write some letters to people, and this font was in the style of a person's handwriting, so it fit perfectly.

Much like a real film I also targeted characterisation as an element I should focus on. Jules Blonde is a mentally unstable killer. To show his instability I made the actor perform a certain way. Towards the beginning of the film I needed Jules to prepare a meal. Since he has this insane mind I made the character grab a banana and randomly chop it to pieces. The fact that it's a banana and out of nowhere he just chops it and leaves it leave the audiences a sense of astonishment, they are wondering why the character would behave so strangely.

Another one of Jules' traits is that he believes he is always the smartest person in the room. I researched and found out that classical music often correlates to “self-perceived intelligence”. This made me include that piece of music at the start of the opening, it was to suggest the big-headedness of the character.

Through mise-en-scene I also attempted to show more about the characters. One of the key parts of the costumes in my opening was that I wanted Jules to wear dark colours. The darkness gives the obvious connotations of evilness, and Jules is an evil character - he kills people.

Jules wearing dark-coloured clothes

To help further the plot points I manipulated the camera into certain positions. For example near to the start of the opening I have shot a close up of a newspaper article. The newspaper states "killer murders tenth policeman". The fact that it is a close up shot, and that I have kept the camera on the prop for such a long amount of time tells the audience that this is an important detail. This shot can also be seen as another enigma code.

Another prop I made sure received a lot of focus was the knife. I gave it so many close ups as foreshadowing, as you can see in the opening it foreshadows the death of the character at the end of the opening.