Monday 28 September 2009
Tuesday 14 July 2009
Friday 3 April 2009
Thriller Evaluation
My media product uses, develops and challenge forms and conventions of real media products in various ways. A way in which my product does this is through effects such as slow motions. For instance, during the murder scene we used slow motion in order to create a heavily tensed moments which would increase the audience’s heart rate. There are different movies, which influenced us into creating our sequence similar in particular, ‘My bloody valentine’ that is a newly released movie. We were inspired by the idea of Valentine’s Day as it was around the time in which we were beginning to film therefore; we thought it would be a good idea to have our sequence based on Valentines Day. However, we challenged ‘My bloody valentine’ by instead of making a horror thriller like the one they did, we decided to turn it into a simple romance thriller, which is different to the movie released. This meant that our media product challenged the horror theme of ‘My bloody valentine’ as ours is not a horror based thriller.
As well as effects, our media product also uses different type of camerawork to develop our understanding of real media products. An example of this is our match cuts during the murder scene where the murderer is following the character. We showed the character being followed from different angles such as from the back, which then, pans to the murderer and focuses on them until we show the character being followed from the back again. There are also many different camera shots when the murderer is at the cemetery picking off rose petals. For instance, there were over the shoulder shots of the character throwing petals on the grave as well as, medium shots from the side showing the same action.
The sounds we used for our media product develops the forms of real media products. This is because we used slow, strings based music at the beginning of our sequence to create a calm and peaceful yet somewhat mysterious atmosphere. The sound gradually softens and you hear less of it when the murderer is following the couple up the escalator. The sound quietens slowly as it reveals the murderer following the victim. There are minor sound effects of knife slashing, in the background to show the victim being stabbed where the music is muted therefore this builds up the tension. With the slow motion of the murderer stabbing the character to the camera, there are just continuous heartbeat sounds to again, increase the audience’s heart rate.
Editing of our media product develops the conventions of real media products through the order of our clips in the sequence. For instance, it is very straightforward to understand how the day goes on as the order of our clips are chronological. There were not many effects that we wanted to use for our sequence apart from slow motion and fade. Even though we planned to, we never decided to make our thriller partly a flashback as we were running out of time and it would have been slightly too complicated. Similar to real media products, ours shows chronologically the murderer following the victim, killing them and then ending up at their grave.
Mise en scene was a key feature used in our sequence to develop forms of real media products. An example of this was our symbolic rose used in our sequence to represent valentine’s day and love. Hate was shown at the end when the rose is broken in half by the murderer. The snow also helped our thriller look rather scary as it reflects a cold-hearted feeling that the audience could feel towards the murderer. It also shows that it could have been another day possibly in the future, way after the murder.
Our media product represents particular social groups such as teenagers in London. This is because the main character who is the murder is a teenager holding a knife to stab the victim. This is a media panic in Britain and their contemporary ideas of a teenager holding knives are increasing therefore, we decided to base our thriller on these ideas. The age of the people who would watch our thriller would be 15 and over. This is because our thriller is rather violent and is about on sexual jealousy, which would not be suitable for a lower age. The audience may mainly be girls as they are more into romantic movies than boys are however, boys may want to watch it as it involves violent scenes. In addition, the idea of a female protagonist having a female murderer as well as a female victim is rather unusual in a normal thriller. This meant that we challenged the forms of real media products.
The kind of media institution that might distribute our media product would probably be British film release. In addition, Warp might distribute our media product, as they are interested in producing unique and different styles to other films as they focus on people with interesting tastes. This is because right at the beginning of our thriller, there is an establishing shot of ‘The Angel’ in the N1 centre which is significant to a London location therefore, it would be recognised straight away as the footage of the angel wings captured is quite famous. Also, our film has a teenager stabbing a victim with a knife which is a stereotypical judgement of urbanised culture in London about teenagers On the other hand, this could be a Hollywood Blockbuster as the quality of our thriller isn’t cheap and there are other similar Hollywood romance thrillers such as mentioned earlier, ‘My bloody valentine’. ‘London to Brighton’ is also a film, which influenced us as it was realistic and grimey, set in a British location that was cheap. We took on board their idea of realism and twisted it to our own idea by using female teenagers as main characters similar to ‘London to Brighton’ where females are the victims. As well as British films, Hollywood films also have a mixed culture where there is no specific type of race or religion of characters within certain films. Our thriller would not be suitable for just YouTube or through MySpace. This is because, the films shown on the internet are mainly of poor quality and not carefully planned like ours is.
The audience for our media product would mainly have to be young adults. It could be for people in Britain who want to find out about how the urban culture in Britain has developed such as ideas of teenagers holding knives. Similarly, our thriller involves teenagers as the main characters especially the murderer who is a teenage girl carrying a knife and not afraid to use it for her own purpose. People who are in relationships themselves or feel jealous about others in a relationship may want to watch our media product as they could relate themselves to the main character for example, knowing how the main character feels about being jealous of another girl having the man of her dreams. People would want to watch it as it is based on realism and it has a new and unique storyline involving two females as murderer and victim. Some people may want to watch it as it is quite gory involving violent murder scenes such as the murder scene in our opening where the murderer slashes the victim.
We would attract/address our audience in different ways. For instance, we could attract them by having characters that look appealing to the audience’s eyes. The characters may be attractive which could encourage the audience to watch it. We could also market our thriller through the genre, as it is kind of a psychological romance thriller. The genre appears interesting to people so they may want to watch it to find out more about this particular genre and how it fits to our thriller. We would advertise our film through a trailer as there could be many dramatic scenes that could be edited into a trailer, which would make it appealing and interesting to watch. Possibly, we could advertise it on an internet campaign as many people are using internet nowadays and it could catch their attention. However, advertising our film in places as if McDonalds would not be a bad idea as our film is pretty much aimed at young adults therefore, it would be more likely that they would eat in McDonalds and see our advertisement and be attracted by it.
I learnt many things about technologies from the process of constructing this product. For example, the practical experience of filming was very new to me because I have never done anything like this before. This gave me a taste of what it would be like actually working in media and actually creating a film yourself. I felt like I was actually a real actor and director at one point! I learnt a lot about camera such as different shots like long shots, medium shots and close ups and how to shoot them. I also learnt able different angles of shots. I also learnt that by using close ups, it enables the audience to view the character’s facial expressions in order to recognise their feelings and thoughts. This helped me analyse other films that I watch at home or in cinemas. Using final cut pro was also new to me because it looked so difficult at the beginning and I thought I would never understand it. Finally, the more I had a go at using it the more I enjoyed it and got the hang of editing our video. We were taught how to use final cut pro by playing around with a clip from a film, which we had to cut different clips and put it together in order to make sense. The first time I did it, I could not make the editing to look clean, instead it looked a bit rough and it did not really make much sense. However, the more I practiced in editing it the better I got at it and I made sure I used the skills I picked up for our thriller opening sequence editing. The blogging enabled me to reflect on what I did each day and how everything went during the film making process and it allowed me to plan for what we would do different next time if we had made a mistake. When we released our video on our blog, we knew that other people who made their own video would be watching ours and comparing it. This allowed us to receive feedback from them as they would come up to us and tell us our film was good or bad.
Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt a lot in the progression from it to the full product. This is because the ‘match cut’ exercise we done allowed us to see many mistakes that we have made during the process. For instance, we saw that while we were shooting, we left a lot of headspace for our actor, which made the camerawork appear quite low. This meant that, before we edit our actual media product next time, we would make sure that the headspace is not how it was in our preliminary task. The storyboarding and planning allowed us to carefully set out what we needed to do and make it perfect, as we are aware of what we are doing in each step. The full product compared to our preliminary task showed a massive improvement through quality and standards of the film. This is because our full product actually looked like a real movie whereas the preliminary task looked much lower in quality.
As well as effects, our media product also uses different type of camerawork to develop our understanding of real media products. An example of this is our match cuts during the murder scene where the murderer is following the character. We showed the character being followed from different angles such as from the back, which then, pans to the murderer and focuses on them until we show the character being followed from the back again. There are also many different camera shots when the murderer is at the cemetery picking off rose petals. For instance, there were over the shoulder shots of the character throwing petals on the grave as well as, medium shots from the side showing the same action.
The sounds we used for our media product develops the forms of real media products. This is because we used slow, strings based music at the beginning of our sequence to create a calm and peaceful yet somewhat mysterious atmosphere. The sound gradually softens and you hear less of it when the murderer is following the couple up the escalator. The sound quietens slowly as it reveals the murderer following the victim. There are minor sound effects of knife slashing, in the background to show the victim being stabbed where the music is muted therefore this builds up the tension. With the slow motion of the murderer stabbing the character to the camera, there are just continuous heartbeat sounds to again, increase the audience’s heart rate.
Editing of our media product develops the conventions of real media products through the order of our clips in the sequence. For instance, it is very straightforward to understand how the day goes on as the order of our clips are chronological. There were not many effects that we wanted to use for our sequence apart from slow motion and fade. Even though we planned to, we never decided to make our thriller partly a flashback as we were running out of time and it would have been slightly too complicated. Similar to real media products, ours shows chronologically the murderer following the victim, killing them and then ending up at their grave.
Mise en scene was a key feature used in our sequence to develop forms of real media products. An example of this was our symbolic rose used in our sequence to represent valentine’s day and love. Hate was shown at the end when the rose is broken in half by the murderer. The snow also helped our thriller look rather scary as it reflects a cold-hearted feeling that the audience could feel towards the murderer. It also shows that it could have been another day possibly in the future, way after the murder.
Our media product represents particular social groups such as teenagers in London. This is because the main character who is the murder is a teenager holding a knife to stab the victim. This is a media panic in Britain and their contemporary ideas of a teenager holding knives are increasing therefore, we decided to base our thriller on these ideas. The age of the people who would watch our thriller would be 15 and over. This is because our thriller is rather violent and is about on sexual jealousy, which would not be suitable for a lower age. The audience may mainly be girls as they are more into romantic movies than boys are however, boys may want to watch it as it involves violent scenes. In addition, the idea of a female protagonist having a female murderer as well as a female victim is rather unusual in a normal thriller. This meant that we challenged the forms of real media products.
The kind of media institution that might distribute our media product would probably be British film release. In addition, Warp might distribute our media product, as they are interested in producing unique and different styles to other films as they focus on people with interesting tastes. This is because right at the beginning of our thriller, there is an establishing shot of ‘The Angel’ in the N1 centre which is significant to a London location therefore, it would be recognised straight away as the footage of the angel wings captured is quite famous. Also, our film has a teenager stabbing a victim with a knife which is a stereotypical judgement of urbanised culture in London about teenagers On the other hand, this could be a Hollywood Blockbuster as the quality of our thriller isn’t cheap and there are other similar Hollywood romance thrillers such as mentioned earlier, ‘My bloody valentine’. ‘London to Brighton’ is also a film, which influenced us as it was realistic and grimey, set in a British location that was cheap. We took on board their idea of realism and twisted it to our own idea by using female teenagers as main characters similar to ‘London to Brighton’ where females are the victims. As well as British films, Hollywood films also have a mixed culture where there is no specific type of race or religion of characters within certain films. Our thriller would not be suitable for just YouTube or through MySpace. This is because, the films shown on the internet are mainly of poor quality and not carefully planned like ours is.
The audience for our media product would mainly have to be young adults. It could be for people in Britain who want to find out about how the urban culture in Britain has developed such as ideas of teenagers holding knives. Similarly, our thriller involves teenagers as the main characters especially the murderer who is a teenage girl carrying a knife and not afraid to use it for her own purpose. People who are in relationships themselves or feel jealous about others in a relationship may want to watch our media product as they could relate themselves to the main character for example, knowing how the main character feels about being jealous of another girl having the man of her dreams. People would want to watch it as it is based on realism and it has a new and unique storyline involving two females as murderer and victim. Some people may want to watch it as it is quite gory involving violent murder scenes such as the murder scene in our opening where the murderer slashes the victim.
We would attract/address our audience in different ways. For instance, we could attract them by having characters that look appealing to the audience’s eyes. The characters may be attractive which could encourage the audience to watch it. We could also market our thriller through the genre, as it is kind of a psychological romance thriller. The genre appears interesting to people so they may want to watch it to find out more about this particular genre and how it fits to our thriller. We would advertise our film through a trailer as there could be many dramatic scenes that could be edited into a trailer, which would make it appealing and interesting to watch. Possibly, we could advertise it on an internet campaign as many people are using internet nowadays and it could catch their attention. However, advertising our film in places as if McDonalds would not be a bad idea as our film is pretty much aimed at young adults therefore, it would be more likely that they would eat in McDonalds and see our advertisement and be attracted by it.
I learnt many things about technologies from the process of constructing this product. For example, the practical experience of filming was very new to me because I have never done anything like this before. This gave me a taste of what it would be like actually working in media and actually creating a film yourself. I felt like I was actually a real actor and director at one point! I learnt a lot about camera such as different shots like long shots, medium shots and close ups and how to shoot them. I also learnt able different angles of shots. I also learnt that by using close ups, it enables the audience to view the character’s facial expressions in order to recognise their feelings and thoughts. This helped me analyse other films that I watch at home or in cinemas. Using final cut pro was also new to me because it looked so difficult at the beginning and I thought I would never understand it. Finally, the more I had a go at using it the more I enjoyed it and got the hang of editing our video. We were taught how to use final cut pro by playing around with a clip from a film, which we had to cut different clips and put it together in order to make sense. The first time I did it, I could not make the editing to look clean, instead it looked a bit rough and it did not really make much sense. However, the more I practiced in editing it the better I got at it and I made sure I used the skills I picked up for our thriller opening sequence editing. The blogging enabled me to reflect on what I did each day and how everything went during the film making process and it allowed me to plan for what we would do different next time if we had made a mistake. When we released our video on our blog, we knew that other people who made their own video would be watching ours and comparing it. This allowed us to receive feedback from them as they would come up to us and tell us our film was good or bad.
Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt a lot in the progression from it to the full product. This is because the ‘match cut’ exercise we done allowed us to see many mistakes that we have made during the process. For instance, we saw that while we were shooting, we left a lot of headspace for our actor, which made the camerawork appear quite low. This meant that, before we edit our actual media product next time, we would make sure that the headspace is not how it was in our preliminary task. The storyboarding and planning allowed us to carefully set out what we needed to do and make it perfect, as we are aware of what we are doing in each step. The full product compared to our preliminary task showed a massive improvement through quality and standards of the film. This is because our full product actually looked like a real movie whereas the preliminary task looked much lower in quality.
Sunday 29 March 2009
Thriller Evaluation
When we made our started our media project we worked our idea around current influences. I worked in a group of four. We all contributed to ideas and built our storyline around each of ideas we contributed. Our film is called . “Love Me, Love Me Not”, Hamsa Aden came up with the idea of the story line and we all worked around it. Some ideas of our film came from the movie “My Bloody Valentine” which was successful at the time we started our project.“My Bloody Valentine had gained a lot media and public attention, maybe because of it’s mixed genre, which is why we thought this would be a good film to focus on working along. After hearing about the film we thought we could apply the same elements to our film by focusing on love as well as still keeping our film in the thriller genre. We used connotations of e.g. love, danger and blood to convey meaning. In our film we used a red rose as a connotation of passion. In the film our protagonist (Fouzia Abbasi) destroys the rose at the end of the film showing our audience that in the film love is killed compared to our protagonist murdering the victim (Qiu Ling Lam).
During the making of our film we really progressed in using techniques to match the conventions of a real thriller film. We understand certain films have conventions which they follow.
Most movies have an equilibrium which is disturbed and then by the end of the film the equilibrium is restored. We challenged normal conventions by creating a new equilibrium. In the beginning Hamsa and Qiu Ling play the happy couple but then the equilibrium is ruined by Fouzia, who murders Qui Ling. Since the story is from Fouzia’s (our protagonist’s) point of view it makes this an alternate/new equilibrium.
At the beginning of the film we used an establishing shot to try and match the one in ‘The Shining’ and also ’28 Days Later’. In The both films an establishing shot is used to introduce the place the film is taking place. Our opening shot is of the Angel wings in Islington. We decided to use this as our establishing scene as the wings are commonly associated we The Angel in Islington.
During the making of our media product we challenged usual conventions of real media products by using a variety of non-diegetic sounds. We used sound effects more than conventional movies which often focus on natural sounds. We used the sound effects to challenge the conventions of real films but at the same time try to imitate them.
The people we used in our film are young. We portrayed our actors as being middle class rather than paying a larger focus on a particular social class. We tried not to focus on much on social groups. As our actors were all young and dressed accordingly to people our age, it made it easy for us to relate this film to our age group. In our movie our main character, the protagonist is female. This can be related with sexuality, as often villains and criminals are often portrayed as being male so this way our film is also challenging conventional methods of film. This gives an interesting twist to our film as some aspects of it are out of the norm yet the film still follows normal conventions of film making.
We could work with a company such as WARP Films or Working Title as they work with low budget films to create successful blockbusters. I think our media product would be distributed in the UK only, rather than being distributed world wide as but this would depend purely on the break-through our film has on the British film industry. If our film is profitable in the UK it could be re-released in the USA. I think our film would be distributed on DVD for a short amount of time but this would solely depend on whether it made it worldwide. A channel such as Film4 focuses on British, art-house or independent films rather than international hits and blockbusters which is why the films success would affect its distribution so much.
The audience for our product would be our fellow peers as they fit our target audience. As our product is aimed at people in their late teens our product would be ideal to those around us.
And this would also fit well to the genre of our product as it contains violence, so it would have to be aimed at people in their late teens and over.
I thinks the main audience for this product will be young as they would able to identify with the main character in having liked someone but being unable to tell them how they feel.
We would use a wide range of marketing techniques to attract the audience. We would attract our audience by advertising where our target audience is most likely to notice. We would use the internet to create good publicity for our film by maybe adding preview pages and special trailers to social networking sites. By adding a preview clip to sites such as Facebook or Myspace, this will help us reach a wider audience. Since our movie is more art-house it would be good to keep a decent level of advertisement to keep interest and originality within the product.
Although we don’t have a strict target audience, so we would focus on making our advertisement appealing to young people. We would probably advertise our product magazines aimed at young people. We would also work with fast food chains such as McDonalds as young people enjoy fast food and often go there.
I have learnt a whole range of things during the construction of our product. At the beginning I found a bit unfamiliar using the video camera as I hadn’t used one before but after we were shown how to use them I familiarised myself with it.
I learnt the most in the edit suit as this was a technical aspect I was not yet used to as this was my first time using these programmes. We used Final Cut Pro, I established the main tools we used for our product such as the razor tool and cross fading and I adjusted myself with them. I also worked with other programmes such as Live type and Sound Track.
I think we achieved a great understanding of filming since our preliminary task. We have gotten better in all aspects of our project. We learnt a lot about planning and that we had to plan very thoroughly to get our media product to the level we expected it to be. With all the practice we had using certain programs we have also gained experience in how to use them. All are camera work improved due to the practice during our preliminary. Certain aspects of filming such as match-cuts we have learnt to use better since the beginning of this course.
Creating our Preliminary Storyboard
On the 3rd of December we worked in our arranged groups of four to come up with a storyboard. Our aim was to create a storyboard that insisted of someone reading a magazine in a thrilling way. This was a practical to help us towards our final thriller. From our previous introduction to the camera on the day we were well aware of how to use them. We all practised turning the cameras on and off and we were shown how to insert end remove the tape and how to use a tripod. We practised using the focus on the camera and also went over the basics of filming such as medium-shots, close-ups and tracking. After finishing our storyboard we went down to shoot our scenes in our decided location. We filmed all the different shots at least three times so that we could choose the best ones to use in our finished clip.
Friday 27 March 2009
Media Thriller Evaluation
Over time the media has provided a set of generic codes such as camera work, mise-en-scene, sound, lighting etc but everything and everyone who either works in media or is associated with it manipulates these conventions, they may not change it completely but in one way or another they tweak it and develop it to suit the needs of their project. This is what we done in our project we were aware of the general codes and conventions within the media and specially thriller movies. For example; the colour red has many connotations such as love, passion but on the other hand it is very symbolic for danger and blood. We incorporated one main iconographic images into our project which was a red rose, it portrayed love so we twisted it and showed it being broken and ripped in half –this suited our title for the film which was ‘Love Me… Love Me Not’ we were able to play with this image in several ways, with typical petal picking of love me and love me not and the connotation of romance.
When looking over our finished project I realised that we didn’t really change the codes and conventions much, we just conformed to it. I think we done this unintentionally and we weren’t aware during the course of filming and editing whether we were breaking the conventions or not but in a way I think we did because if we didn’t, then our film could be somewhat boring and too standardised. One convention I think we stuck to was in our editing and filming. We applied the 180° rule and checked rigorously that we followed it.
I don’t think that our film represents any specific social group but there are only three characters in our project two of which are females we were young people, at the age of sixteen but I don’t think we were playing the part of young individuals but more so those of grown ups. As we do not represent any certain social group via age, gender, race or sexual orientation I think that we are very flexible and may attract a large cross section ranging in differences from class to age if we had created a whole film. However I think our film does challenge the usual, typical story lines as we have a female killer, the complete opposite to the standard so I think more people would be interested in our film because it isn’t predictable.
As our film complies to the medias set of generic codes and conventions it would be suitable for institutions to distribute our film I don’t not think however that it will be a big Hollywood film but that it would be successful for UK release as its initial idea for the film was inspired by the title of another that was out at the current time in cinemas, the film that inspired our group was called “My Bloody Valentine”. It had a horror element with a small twisted romance somewhere behind it, although we hadn’t watched the film we managed to come up with a story and shortened it to make our opening sequence instead of horror we also decided to used thriller elements combined with romance to create our finished piece of work. Eventually after UK release like many other films our film will be suitable to TV viewing. If we were distributing our film in the real media world then we like most film makers would like our film to be successful so we would have to have a unique selling point. To get our film to be a major success we would probably have to go through the big six companies such as Warner Bros, Twentieth Century Fox or Universal pictures this was we are able to break into American and the Hollywood scene which should and normally does, generate huge profits.
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1943308800/tt1179891 - My Bloody Valentine IMDB
As mentioned above I think that our film will be suitable for several audiences because it is flexible. However our film will probably attract a more younger, modern audience. Someone who is either single or in a relationship it doesn’t really matter, it should appeal to all of them. I think the film will be popular among the younger generations as they will be able to identify with the characters of the film, eg many females experience jealousy or have been in a situation where they are attracted to the opposite sex but encounter problems in trying to reveal their feelings. Also the characters are not ‘posh’ they are just normal people who the audience will be able to relate to. We would also attract our audience by advertising, I think mainly in magazines and internet campaigns as we are a young generation it is certain that potential customers and our desired audience will see our adverts and then pay to watch the film in cinemas.
Through our media project I picked up numerous skills and developed many that I already had for example; I was able to develop my communication skills and group work skills as this project required commitment from everyone and also patience so everyone in the group could have their say. A more hands on skill that I developed was how to use the camera and camera equipment, but the basics such as blogging came naturally as I use the internet regularly. However where I learnt the majority of skills was in the edit suite, using such programmes as final cut pro, live type and sound track it was the most challenging but also essential to the project making it what it is. The main and somewhat most challenging part of the project for me was the editing of the film because I had never used final cut pro before but over the course of the project I familiarised myself with the basic such as using in and out points, then gradually used more tools such as the razor and effects such as cross fades.
Looking back over this task and the preliminary task I see what we have achieved, how we progressed and how we furthered our knowledge. In the beginning we were very much amateurs with basic skills and still are but have grown confident in using equipments such as cameras, tripods and the more technical aspects such as everything on the macs from firefox to final cut pro. I have learnt from this experience that it is very difficult to make a short two minute video and that planning really is best also overall with filming and editing I think we would have been better off and not in such an anxious state I we stuck to the work instead of being relaxed and messing around. Our groups preliminary task was never actually completed as we were not committed and did not know how to use the equipment and didn’t really try. Our camera techniques compared to the newspaper project were must better e.g when we were in the graveyard, also we found that our footage was much more steady and saw that using a tripod made a real difference when filming.
When looking over our finished project I realised that we didn’t really change the codes and conventions much, we just conformed to it. I think we done this unintentionally and we weren’t aware during the course of filming and editing whether we were breaking the conventions or not but in a way I think we did because if we didn’t, then our film could be somewhat boring and too standardised. One convention I think we stuck to was in our editing and filming. We applied the 180° rule and checked rigorously that we followed it.
I don’t think that our film represents any specific social group but there are only three characters in our project two of which are females we were young people, at the age of sixteen but I don’t think we were playing the part of young individuals but more so those of grown ups. As we do not represent any certain social group via age, gender, race or sexual orientation I think that we are very flexible and may attract a large cross section ranging in differences from class to age if we had created a whole film. However I think our film does challenge the usual, typical story lines as we have a female killer, the complete opposite to the standard so I think more people would be interested in our film because it isn’t predictable.
As our film complies to the medias set of generic codes and conventions it would be suitable for institutions to distribute our film I don’t not think however that it will be a big Hollywood film but that it would be successful for UK release as its initial idea for the film was inspired by the title of another that was out at the current time in cinemas, the film that inspired our group was called “My Bloody Valentine”. It had a horror element with a small twisted romance somewhere behind it, although we hadn’t watched the film we managed to come up with a story and shortened it to make our opening sequence instead of horror we also decided to used thriller elements combined with romance to create our finished piece of work. Eventually after UK release like many other films our film will be suitable to TV viewing. If we were distributing our film in the real media world then we like most film makers would like our film to be successful so we would have to have a unique selling point. To get our film to be a major success we would probably have to go through the big six companies such as Warner Bros, Twentieth Century Fox or Universal pictures this was we are able to break into American and the Hollywood scene which should and normally does, generate huge profits.
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1943308800/tt1179891 - My Bloody Valentine IMDB
As mentioned above I think that our film will be suitable for several audiences because it is flexible. However our film will probably attract a more younger, modern audience. Someone who is either single or in a relationship it doesn’t really matter, it should appeal to all of them. I think the film will be popular among the younger generations as they will be able to identify with the characters of the film, eg many females experience jealousy or have been in a situation where they are attracted to the opposite sex but encounter problems in trying to reveal their feelings. Also the characters are not ‘posh’ they are just normal people who the audience will be able to relate to. We would also attract our audience by advertising, I think mainly in magazines and internet campaigns as we are a young generation it is certain that potential customers and our desired audience will see our adverts and then pay to watch the film in cinemas.
Through our media project I picked up numerous skills and developed many that I already had for example; I was able to develop my communication skills and group work skills as this project required commitment from everyone and also patience so everyone in the group could have their say. A more hands on skill that I developed was how to use the camera and camera equipment, but the basics such as blogging came naturally as I use the internet regularly. However where I learnt the majority of skills was in the edit suite, using such programmes as final cut pro, live type and sound track it was the most challenging but also essential to the project making it what it is. The main and somewhat most challenging part of the project for me was the editing of the film because I had never used final cut pro before but over the course of the project I familiarised myself with the basic such as using in and out points, then gradually used more tools such as the razor and effects such as cross fades.
Looking back over this task and the preliminary task I see what we have achieved, how we progressed and how we furthered our knowledge. In the beginning we were very much amateurs with basic skills and still are but have grown confident in using equipments such as cameras, tripods and the more technical aspects such as everything on the macs from firefox to final cut pro. I have learnt from this experience that it is very difficult to make a short two minute video and that planning really is best also overall with filming and editing I think we would have been better off and not in such an anxious state I we stuck to the work instead of being relaxed and messing around. Our groups preliminary task was never actually completed as we were not committed and did not know how to use the equipment and didn’t really try. Our camera techniques compared to the newspaper project were must better e.g when we were in the graveyard, also we found that our footage was much more steady and saw that using a tripod made a real difference when filming.
Wednesday 25 March 2009
Thriller Evaluation
Our media product was a 2 minute opening to a thriller film, in my designated group was Fouzia Abbasi, Qiu-Ling Lam, Krisztina Omoergie, we were collectively Group 19. When we came together we decided to embark into the romantic thriller genre aimed at a younger generation then would be the norm. In preparation for this project I watched more films in the thriller genre, to analyse the opening scenes and seeing where I could emulate such great films for example a classic such as ‘The Shining’ directed by Stanley Kubrickwhich, begins fairly normally, not trying to give away to much, which is conventional of most thrillers, where as a modern day thriller such as ‘The Inside Man’ directed by Spike Lee, a crime/conspiracy thriller, it begins with the central character ‘Dalton Russell’ (Clive Owen) giving the audience the Who, What, When, Why and leaves the ‘How’ for the audience to discover throughout the film. I wanted our thriller to follow the standard structure but at the same time we would put our own spin, because we introduced the antagonist or villain of the story (Fouzia) and we introduced the victim (Qiu-Ling) and we tried to confuse the audience as to why would Fouzia kill Qiu-Ling, if she was in love with me. So in that sense I believe we both followed and challenged the norm at the same time.
I believe our media product represents at all young people aged 15 – 21 because our films cast includes a wide diversity from mixed race and background, to Chinese and Somalilander. It represents London, as the most diverse city in the world; also with the final edited product it threw up questions of sexual motif for example if Fouzia was in love with me and she couldn’t bear to be without me then normally, the crazed stalker would kill the person she wanted but in this film she kills the Girl (Qiu-Ling) so maybe she was in love with Qiu-Ling.
Well if we created a feature length then, it would probably be an independent produced film, probably by a film company such as WARP Films or Film4, because they would offer us as a group the artistic direction we need as they are experienced in low budget yet hard hitting films, that are critically acclaimed and do relatively well for films of that stature. I would push for an international release because I believe the message of the strenuous weight a relationship places on your mind can push anyone over the edge, especially when it’s fuelled with desire, passion and lust makes for an attractive story that must be told.
The audience for this product would most certainly have to be late teen early twenties, specifically because of the violent but also because of the message. Also it’s meant for the teens because it might be something there going through or about to grow through, evidently not to the same extent as the film but in a more general sense, because at 15 – 18 you are still learning the mechanics of a relationship, and you still might not understand how the littlest actions have sometimes the biggest effect. This film aims to fill the niche of informing adolescents that they can still feel the effects of adult problems. Lets look at the typical person this is aimed at ‘Frank is 17, he is currently in college and in his first year doing an apprenticeship to be an electrician, he is currently in a happy relationship with Kayla who is also 17, even though Frank is happy he still picks up a few phone numbers or two when he is socializing ‘he doesn’t know that maybe one day maybe one of these girls will fall for him and he is unavailable. This kind of person needs to know that love is confusing as an adult so as a teen it could be fatal in conjunction with an already hormonal time for the girl.
To attract our audience I think we would first show it to a select group of film critics from the local national newspapers, once we get the feedback we called maybe go back improve it slightly. Then we would advertise on terrestrial TV channels during prime, it would be the ‘must see’ movie of the year ‘Spine-Chilling’ etc. Another way is via social networks such as ‘MySpace’ and ‘Facebook’, we would build up a buzz around the film especially since more young people use these means of media, it would be perfect. I would say it would be more of a rising director and a group of talented actors that one day might rise to the top if given the right backing from the British film industry and its audiences.
Overall I think that I have learnt a lot about technologies from the process of filming because I learnt that when your filming even if some things like weather can work to your advantage, also that most of the work takes place on the other side of the lens, as it only records what you point it at, so good planning and executing even when it seems unlikely you will get good footage to just power through and you never it might be better than you planned. I enjoyed using software such as ‘Final Cut Pro’, ‘Live type’ and ‘Soundtrack’ because they allow your idea to come to fruition , even the smallest drum or transition add to the product as a whole improving more and more. I used the internet as well to document this project on the blog provided, reading back and then watching the video posted on the blog shows our entire process from beginning to end.
Looking back at the preliminary tasks the match cutting exercise and the thriller newspaper task, I have seen how we all have grown, from making mistakes like leaving to much space above the head, to shaking camera. Also in the planning we were definitely much thorough and detailed, the editing was a lot easier this time because we knew already, exactly what the finished product looked like, although it was still stressful. Another lesson I learnt was that although sometimes its good for everyone to play a part, you should as delegate jobs to people strong points to maximise efficiency and quality.
Second Day of Filming
Today the plan was to film the scene were we showed me and Qiu-Ling as the happy couple just strolling round the the shopping centre, while unknowingly being followed by the devious Fozia. When we arrived we thought it would be better if we used a high angle shot to show the couple and then slowly show them being followed. this was well excecuted by Krisztina and me and Qiu-ling were well directed by Fozia. we also captured Fozia, using a point of view shot, following us up the escalators and into the cinemas. We were going to film more but we had to return the equipment back to the media department.
We are braving the weather for the cause
Today is my first proper filming day because the first filming session, i was absent due to a ear infection, so i had to go to the GP to get some prescriptions that would clear this up as soon as possible. the second filming session was a disaster as it took me Fozia and Krisztina (Qiu-ling was absent due to Chinese New Year) over an hour to reach our filming location which was a cemetery in newington green due to traffic and road works. When we arrived we discovered that Fozia had left the tape back at college, it wasnt big deal because we knew Fozia was a hard worker, so the time lost we would swiftly make up with extra filming sessions.
Well after two large snowstorms the college was closed 2nd & 3rd of february. So today, which is the wednedsday, was my first filming session. Although not many groups went out because the snow had not yet propely melted. The Specific Plan was to show Fozia entering the grave yard and get match cuts of her making her way to a grave, in this we used a a variety of shots; point of view; over the shoulder; medium long shot and when she was at the grave to get a close up of her removing the petels one by one, then still in close up, her turing her hand into a fist. I was especially happy with how three of my shots turned out, the 1st was a medium long shot of Fozia walking the down the footpath, what made it good was fresh snow on the graves and the sunlight that caught the edge of the camera creating a flash of lasting light across the camera, another point was how the gravestones obsecured the view i had of Fozia, this created a mysterious dracula like effect as she was there and gone in a second. The second was a stationary extreme long shot, filming fozia coming of the footpath and turing towards the camera then walking past it, this was good because the melting muddy snow and the sun shining down on it created a solarized effect, of which i must say i didnt plan but came as a great addition
Overall today was a success as we accomplished everything we set out to do. And as a added bonus the fresh snow, melting snow and the sunlight improved the mise en scene and made some of the shots look like a professional effect.
Well after two large snowstorms the college was closed 2nd & 3rd of february. So today, which is the wednedsday, was my first filming session. Although not many groups went out because the snow had not yet propely melted. The Specific Plan was to show Fozia entering the grave yard and get match cuts of her making her way to a grave, in this we used a a variety of shots; point of view; over the shoulder; medium long shot and when she was at the grave to get a close up of her removing the petels one by one, then still in close up, her turing her hand into a fist. I was especially happy with how three of my shots turned out, the 1st was a medium long shot of Fozia walking the down the footpath, what made it good was fresh snow on the graves and the sunlight that caught the edge of the camera creating a flash of lasting light across the camera, another point was how the gravestones obsecured the view i had of Fozia, this created a mysterious dracula like effect as she was there and gone in a second. The second was a stationary extreme long shot, filming fozia coming of the footpath and turing towards the camera then walking past it, this was good because the melting muddy snow and the sun shining down on it created a solarized effect, of which i must say i didnt plan but came as a great addition
Overall today was a success as we accomplished everything we set out to do. And as a added bonus the fresh snow, melting snow and the sunlight improved the mise en scene and made some of the shots look like a professional effect.
Planning for thriller
Today we were told to start planning for our thriller project, so in the beginning we began brainstorming ideas on sugar paper. We settled on an idea i came up with, it would be a romatic thriller, which was to show a young man and women walking in the park, we show having a major argument because the boy was flirting with a girl who was passing by, they then split up. We were then going to show how the break up had sent the girl over the edge and she has now become obsessed with the young man. As you can see we had planned a feature length film and not an just a 2 minute opening. so we had to shorten it drastically. We shortened it to we show the young couple waking through the shopping centre, while being followed by a mysterious young lady........then we would show this same young lady making her way to a grave yard....the key part of the whole opening would be the picking off petels from a rose, which would tie in & connotate the romantic genre we hoped to denotate ..........Also we decided on a title
Love Me..........Love me not
Love Me..........Love me not
Inspiraton from Inside Man
I tried my best to find just the opening scene but it doesnt exsist seperately and without enfringing the films copyright and legal use i just decided to post the trailer. Well basically i remember watching Inside Man almost a year ago because the way it began was very unusual, in a sense that it clealy state the Who,What,Where,When and then leaves the How out so it can be told during the movie. This is what came to mind when i was told we had to shoot the opening to a thriller.
Friday 27 February 2009
Thursday 26 February 2009
Thriller Project
After officially being set our media thriller project we came together in our group once more and bubble stormed our ideas of what we could do, building on what one of the groups had thought of as one of the ideas we became very keen on the idea and chose this as the basis for our project. We drew several more bubble storms on ideas but this time making them more specific to our chosen idea, from that we had created small sub sections such as the music and images, characters, camera work and mise en scene.
However although we had a clear idea of what we wanted to do for our project we seemed to encounter many difficulties our main one was that we developed the story too much and ended up with a whole film instead of the two opening minutes and began thinking of ideas that would be very difficult. So, we decided to keep it simple and choose one part of our story line and incorporate it with our key images and icons for our opening scenes.
We were definite on using a rose and photo images as our main iconography for the project and for the music which will dramatically have an effect on our work we decided to use a steady beat representing the characters heart beat along with an assortment of strings and others. During this time we also thought of the camera shot we could use to make our work effective and we thought about how we can make our work interesting by using various angles, effects and match cuts.
After we were confident and positive about what we would be doing for our thriller project we decided on what roles we would have to play, we concluded that everyone would help in editing, sound and camera work. Although I was reluctant to take part in the actual film and be shown I was willing to let that go and do what was needed to help the group Krisztina who also held the same view as me previously also agreed that she didn’t mind. Eventually the characters and roles were cast hoping to please every one in the group and meet the aim of our project.
We decided on the story line of; two people – a happy couple were being stalked by another girl who was jealous of the couples relationship as she was in love with the guy. Our main scenes that took up the bulk of the two minutes were of the girl at the guy (Hamsa’s) gravestone because she had killed him we would also work in our iconic images of the rose as intentionally we came up with the idea that everytime Fouzia picked a rose petal and threw it to the ground it would go to a flash back of the happy couple and by seeing her doing this it also linked in with out title which was; love me love me not. The next step after planning our skit was to decide on roles and start filming.
Initially I was going to play the role main character and Hamsa and Fouzia agreed to play the other parts but as I was away for two lessons me and Fouzia switched roles because it would be best for the group as most of the film was based around the obsessive character. We had agreed on this but unfortunately on the days that I was not in, my group had done little filming as they arrived at the place of filming only to realize they forgot the tape. We knew we had lost time and we were behind everyone else. This should have made our group more focused but it didn’t as we still messed around and had a very laid back attitude to the project also we had put a lot of effort and though into planning, we knew what we were going to do, where we were going to do it, how we were going to do it but it took us a very long time to get round to actually filming. Thankfully we started working and knew we had to finish our project and no longer take it as a joke. It seemed that we were just very unlucky because college was also closed on the day we had media so yet again we had lost time that we were becoming very short of then on Wednesday despite the undesirable weather conditions we went out and starting filming, this day we got everything we thought we needed to complete our project now all we had to do was edit.
When we had sat down to look at our footage we realized some parts we had filmed were missing so we had to go and film extra but we also knew we had to re-work our story so we could use all the clips previously filmed to make a new story line as we had no time to film a whole new set. Unfortunately on Wednesday Hamsa wasn’t in so we decided to quickly short a scene where I was being followed, chased then murdered by Fouzia. We done this as fast as we could then immediately returned to the edit suite to continue editing.
Lesson after lesson we edited but it wasn’t until the week of the deadline like the practical filming that we actually starting editing, we worked extremely hard on it and would often miss breaks and lunched to edit our work. When we finally finished editing our video, we needed sound and music. As I said I wasn’t very good with creating music I helped out a lot with the editing and Fouzia done the music and sound and we put the two together and were very pleased with what we had achieved. Our ending story line was still the same but instead of having flash backs of a happy couple it was; a happy couple in the beginning, a scene of me being followed then a murder. On Thursday 26 February at lunch me, Krisztina and Fouzia went to one of the editing rooms to see our work we were pleased with it so went to lunch me and Krisztina said we would come back after lunch and work on it as we had a free period, we came back but we weren’t allowed to enter the room because there were other classes doing their work. So disappointed we left the last and final thing we need to do is add in the titles and then our work would be complete, again me and Krisztina said we would come in at lunch on Friday – the deadline and add in the titles we also let the rest of our group know and hopefully they will turn up too.
Over time the media has provided a set of generic codes and conventions such as camera work, mise-en-scene, sound, lighting etc but everything and everyone who either works in media or is associated with it manipulates these conventions, they may not change it completely but in one way or another they tweak it and develop it to suit the needs of their project. This is what we done in our project we were aware of the general codes and conventions within the media and specially thriller movies. For example; the colour red has many connotations such as love, passion but on the other hand it is very symbolic for danger and blood. We incorporated one main iconographic images into our project which was a red rose, it portrayed love so we twisted it and showed it being broken and ripped in half –this suited our title for the film which was ‘Love Me… Love Me Not’ we were able to play with this image in several ways, with typical petal picking of love me and love me not and the connotation of romance.
When looking over our finished project I realised that we didn’t really change the codes and conventions much, we just conformed to it. I think we done this unintentionally and we weren’t aware during the course of filming and editing whether we were breaking the conventions or not but in a way I think we did because if we didn’t, then our film could be somewhat boring and too standardised. One convention I think we stuck to was in our editing and filming. We applied the 180° rule and checked rigorously hoping we followed it.
I don’t think that our film represents any specific social group but there are only three characters in our project two of which are females we were young people, at the age of sixteen but I don’t think we were playing the part of young individuals but more so those of grown ups. As we do not represent any certain social group via age, gender, race or sexual orientation I think that we are very flexible and may attract a large cross section ranging in differences from class to age if we had created a whole film.
As our film complies to the medias set of generic codes and conventions it would be suitable for institutions to distribute our film I don’t not think however that it will be a big Hollywood film but that it would be successful for UK release as its initial idea for the film was inspired by the title of another that was out at the current time in cinemas, the film that inspired our group was called “My Bloody Valentine”. It had a horror element with a small twisted romance somewhere behind it, although we hadn’t watched the film we managed to come up with a story and shortened it to make our opening sequence instead of horror we also decided to used thriller elements combined with romance to create our finished piece of work. Eventually after UK release like many other films our film will be suitable to TV viewing.
However although we had a clear idea of what we wanted to do for our project we seemed to encounter many difficulties our main one was that we developed the story too much and ended up with a whole film instead of the two opening minutes and began thinking of ideas that would be very difficult. So, we decided to keep it simple and choose one part of our story line and incorporate it with our key images and icons for our opening scenes.
We were definite on using a rose and photo images as our main iconography for the project and for the music which will dramatically have an effect on our work we decided to use a steady beat representing the characters heart beat along with an assortment of strings and others. During this time we also thought of the camera shot we could use to make our work effective and we thought about how we can make our work interesting by using various angles, effects and match cuts.
After we were confident and positive about what we would be doing for our thriller project we decided on what roles we would have to play, we concluded that everyone would help in editing, sound and camera work. Although I was reluctant to take part in the actual film and be shown I was willing to let that go and do what was needed to help the group Krisztina who also held the same view as me previously also agreed that she didn’t mind. Eventually the characters and roles were cast hoping to please every one in the group and meet the aim of our project.
We decided on the story line of; two people – a happy couple were being stalked by another girl who was jealous of the couples relationship as she was in love with the guy. Our main scenes that took up the bulk of the two minutes were of the girl at the guy (Hamsa’s) gravestone because she had killed him we would also work in our iconic images of the rose as intentionally we came up with the idea that everytime Fouzia picked a rose petal and threw it to the ground it would go to a flash back of the happy couple and by seeing her doing this it also linked in with out title which was; love me love me not. The next step after planning our skit was to decide on roles and start filming.
Initially I was going to play the role main character and Hamsa and Fouzia agreed to play the other parts but as I was away for two lessons me and Fouzia switched roles because it would be best for the group as most of the film was based around the obsessive character. We had agreed on this but unfortunately on the days that I was not in, my group had done little filming as they arrived at the place of filming only to realize they forgot the tape. We knew we had lost time and we were behind everyone else. This should have made our group more focused but it didn’t as we still messed around and had a very laid back attitude to the project also we had put a lot of effort and though into planning, we knew what we were going to do, where we were going to do it, how we were going to do it but it took us a very long time to get round to actually filming. Thankfully we started working and knew we had to finish our project and no longer take it as a joke. It seemed that we were just very unlucky because college was also closed on the day we had media so yet again we had lost time that we were becoming very short of then on Wednesday despite the undesirable weather conditions we went out and starting filming, this day we got everything we thought we needed to complete our project now all we had to do was edit.
When we had sat down to look at our footage we realized some parts we had filmed were missing so we had to go and film extra but we also knew we had to re-work our story so we could use all the clips previously filmed to make a new story line as we had no time to film a whole new set. Unfortunately on Wednesday Hamsa wasn’t in so we decided to quickly short a scene where I was being followed, chased then murdered by Fouzia. We done this as fast as we could then immediately returned to the edit suite to continue editing.
Lesson after lesson we edited but it wasn’t until the week of the deadline like the practical filming that we actually starting editing, we worked extremely hard on it and would often miss breaks and lunched to edit our work. When we finally finished editing our video, we needed sound and music. As I said I wasn’t very good with creating music I helped out a lot with the editing and Fouzia done the music and sound and we put the two together and were very pleased with what we had achieved. Our ending story line was still the same but instead of having flash backs of a happy couple it was; a happy couple in the beginning, a scene of me being followed then a murder. On Thursday 26 February at lunch me, Krisztina and Fouzia went to one of the editing rooms to see our work we were pleased with it so went to lunch me and Krisztina said we would come back after lunch and work on it as we had a free period, we came back but we weren’t allowed to enter the room because there were other classes doing their work. So disappointed we left the last and final thing we need to do is add in the titles and then our work would be complete, again me and Krisztina said we would come in at lunch on Friday – the deadline and add in the titles we also let the rest of our group know and hopefully they will turn up too.
Over time the media has provided a set of generic codes and conventions such as camera work, mise-en-scene, sound, lighting etc but everything and everyone who either works in media or is associated with it manipulates these conventions, they may not change it completely but in one way or another they tweak it and develop it to suit the needs of their project. This is what we done in our project we were aware of the general codes and conventions within the media and specially thriller movies. For example; the colour red has many connotations such as love, passion but on the other hand it is very symbolic for danger and blood. We incorporated one main iconographic images into our project which was a red rose, it portrayed love so we twisted it and showed it being broken and ripped in half –this suited our title for the film which was ‘Love Me… Love Me Not’ we were able to play with this image in several ways, with typical petal picking of love me and love me not and the connotation of romance.
When looking over our finished project I realised that we didn’t really change the codes and conventions much, we just conformed to it. I think we done this unintentionally and we weren’t aware during the course of filming and editing whether we were breaking the conventions or not but in a way I think we did because if we didn’t, then our film could be somewhat boring and too standardised. One convention I think we stuck to was in our editing and filming. We applied the 180° rule and checked rigorously hoping we followed it.
I don’t think that our film represents any specific social group but there are only three characters in our project two of which are females we were young people, at the age of sixteen but I don’t think we were playing the part of young individuals but more so those of grown ups. As we do not represent any certain social group via age, gender, race or sexual orientation I think that we are very flexible and may attract a large cross section ranging in differences from class to age if we had created a whole film.
As our film complies to the medias set of generic codes and conventions it would be suitable for institutions to distribute our film I don’t not think however that it will be a big Hollywood film but that it would be successful for UK release as its initial idea for the film was inspired by the title of another that was out at the current time in cinemas, the film that inspired our group was called “My Bloody Valentine”. It had a horror element with a small twisted romance somewhere behind it, although we hadn’t watched the film we managed to come up with a story and shortened it to make our opening sequence instead of horror we also decided to used thriller elements combined with romance to create our finished piece of work. Eventually after UK release like many other films our film will be suitable to TV viewing.
As mentioned above I think that our film will be suitable for several audiences because it is flexible. However our film will probably attract a more younger, modern audience. Someone who is either single or in a relationship it doesn’t really matter, it should appeal to all of them. We would also attract our audience by advertising, I think mainly in magazines and internet campaigns as we are a young generation it is certain that potential customers and our desired audience will see our adverts and then pay to watch the film in cinemas.
Through our media project I picked up numerous skills and developed many that I already had for example; I was able to develop my communication skills and group work skills as this project required commitment from everyone and also patience so everyone in the group could have their say. A more hands on skill that I developed was how to use the camera and camera equipment, but the basics such as blogging came naturally as I use the internet regularly. However where I learnt the majority of skills was in the edit suite, using such programmes as final cut pro, live type and sound track it was the most challenging but also essential to the project making it what it is.
Looking back over this task and the preliminary task I see what we have achieved, how we progressed and how we furthered our knowledge. In the beginning we were very much amateurs with basic skills and still are but have grown confident in using equipments such as cameras, tripods and the more technical aspects such as everything on the macs from firefox to final cut pro. I have learnt from this experience that it is very difficult to make a short two minute video and that planning really is best also overall with filming and editing I think we would have been better off and not in such an anxious state I we stuck to the work instead of being relaxed and messing around.
Wednesday 25 February 2009
Thriller editing
Thriller editing
This is a very crucial and important week for all thriller media students. Our group have an aim to finish our editing as quick as possible which is why me, Qiu-Ling and Krisztina were dedicated to stay in through our break and lunch time to try and do as much editing as we can. Unfortunately, Hamsa was not in today as he had a back pain however, he was determined to finish the work as soon as he comes back tomorrow. After college today, me, Qiu-Ling and Krisztina decided to get started on the sound for our thriller. As Krisztina, and Qiu-ling did a lot of work today I decided to stay for longer after college to put some sound on our video clip just to check and see what works. I kept on playing around with sound pro and came up with loads of ideas in the editing room. Because of this, I lost track of time and didn’t realise that I stayed at college till 6.30pm when everyone was gone and I was the only one left asking Mary who was a helpful media teacher to listen to my sound and see if she liked it. I received positive feedback about the sound I have created and I am quite exited to show the rest of my group what I’ve done. We will decide tomorrow as a group when we meet up at lunch time whether or not the sound fits in with our thriller and see if we could add any adjustments.
Before editing our video clip today, we decided to go outside and record a quick clip of me murdering Qiu-Ling as part of our opening sequence. We have decided this as we went through all of our footage to see where we could put each clip and realised that it didn’t make much sense without a murder scene. As a result of this, we used our initiative and asked Dan to give us a knife so we could use it in our college Basement and made it look it we was at the back of the N1 centre in Angel, where we shot the previous scene of Hamsa and Qiu-Ling. Krisztina was recording me and Qiu-Ling’s murder scene. This took up our break time but it was worth it because we got quite a lot done in one day. We are at a stage where we are almost finished and tomorrow we will just edit the video to make it perfect. We will add some finishing touches such as effects and make sure our clip lengths are correct. The sound is almost done so we will just make sure everything fits perfectly together. After this, we will add in our title and cut it with the key images in our sequence such as the rose petals.
This is a very crucial and important week for all thriller media students. Our group have an aim to finish our editing as quick as possible which is why me, Qiu-Ling and Krisztina were dedicated to stay in through our break and lunch time to try and do as much editing as we can. Unfortunately, Hamsa was not in today as he had a back pain however, he was determined to finish the work as soon as he comes back tomorrow. After college today, me, Qiu-Ling and Krisztina decided to get started on the sound for our thriller. As Krisztina, and Qiu-ling did a lot of work today I decided to stay for longer after college to put some sound on our video clip just to check and see what works. I kept on playing around with sound pro and came up with loads of ideas in the editing room. Because of this, I lost track of time and didn’t realise that I stayed at college till 6.30pm when everyone was gone and I was the only one left asking Mary who was a helpful media teacher to listen to my sound and see if she liked it. I received positive feedback about the sound I have created and I am quite exited to show the rest of my group what I’ve done. We will decide tomorrow as a group when we meet up at lunch time whether or not the sound fits in with our thriller and see if we could add any adjustments.
Before editing our video clip today, we decided to go outside and record a quick clip of me murdering Qiu-Ling as part of our opening sequence. We have decided this as we went through all of our footage to see where we could put each clip and realised that it didn’t make much sense without a murder scene. As a result of this, we used our initiative and asked Dan to give us a knife so we could use it in our college Basement and made it look it we was at the back of the N1 centre in Angel, where we shot the previous scene of Hamsa and Qiu-Ling. Krisztina was recording me and Qiu-Ling’s murder scene. This took up our break time but it was worth it because we got quite a lot done in one day. We are at a stage where we are almost finished and tomorrow we will just edit the video to make it perfect. We will add some finishing touches such as effects and make sure our clip lengths are correct. The sound is almost done so we will just make sure everything fits perfectly together. After this, we will add in our title and cut it with the key images in our sequence such as the rose petals.
Sunday 1 February 2009
Wednesday's lesson (rainy day)
The last lesson we had was for shooting. The people present were me, Hamsa and Krisztina. We planned to go to the cemetery that day and do our rose scene. We booked the camera for Monday overnight in order for us to get all our recording done. We were not completely sure about how to reach our location so we got on the bus and the journey took ages because of the traffic. The weather was also terrible as it was raining. When we got to the cemetery we were finally ready to start shooting. Sadly, we took our our camera to set it up and realised that I had left the camera tape at college. This was very unfortunate but it was a mistake. We got over the fact that we couldn’t shoot that day and made a stronger plan for our next shoot. We decided that we were going to spend our spare time outside college and record our clip because it wouldn’t work unless we used more of our time. This plan is hopefully going to be successful as we have decided as a team to work much harder and corporate more for the project.
Tuesday 27 January 2009
First filming day for thriller
Wednesday 26th January
Yesterday was our first opportunity to start filming shots for our thriller sequence. Sadly, the only people available in our group were me and Krisztina. Hamsa couldn’t make it because he was ill but promised he would definitely be present on Wednesday. Qiu-Ling had to celebrate her Chinese new year so she couldn’t make it either as well as Wednesday she will be absent. I and Krisztina decided that we had to try and get some shots done by ourselves as we didn’t really want to waste any time. We planned to go to the cemetery and take out the video camera overnight. Unfortunately, this wasn’t possible as we weren’t aware that we had to book the camera a couple of days in advance in order to take it out overnight. As we only had an hour left to use the camera and bring it back, we decided to get some shots of me nearby. We went into the car park and took a medium shot of me walking pass a car. We took a few different shots of the same action and decided to call it a day as we didn’t have all our group members to help us. We tried our best by ourselves but obviously more people were needed in order to work better. We finally decided that we were going to wait till Wednesday when Hamsa comes and we could all go to the cemetery together.
Yesterday was our first opportunity to start filming shots for our thriller sequence. Sadly, the only people available in our group were me and Krisztina. Hamsa couldn’t make it because he was ill but promised he would definitely be present on Wednesday. Qiu-Ling had to celebrate her Chinese new year so she couldn’t make it either as well as Wednesday she will be absent. I and Krisztina decided that we had to try and get some shots done by ourselves as we didn’t really want to waste any time. We planned to go to the cemetery and take out the video camera overnight. Unfortunately, this wasn’t possible as we weren’t aware that we had to book the camera a couple of days in advance in order to take it out overnight. As we only had an hour left to use the camera and bring it back, we decided to get some shots of me nearby. We went into the car park and took a medium shot of me walking pass a car. We took a few different shots of the same action and decided to call it a day as we didn’t have all our group members to help us. We tried our best by ourselves but obviously more people were needed in order to work better. We finally decided that we were going to wait till Wednesday when Hamsa comes and we could all go to the cemetery together.
Monday 26 January 2009
Our second film practice
The preliminary film
Our task was to create a video clip on two people having a short conversation sitting down. We had to include at least one match cut in our clip. The group was me, Krisztina, Hamsa and Qiu-Ling. As a group we decided that Krisztina and Hamsa were going to be acting in the clip however; all of us were still going to participate in camerawork and editing as well as sound.
To begin with, we planned to make our clip appear interesting and mysterious by recording krisztina from different angle shots such as close-up and long shots. However; we will not be showing her entire face. This creates a sense of tension and suspense towards who she is and what the short clip is roughly about.
I think that our second practice film went particularly well. This is because, we were a little bit more organised and experienced in how to use the camera better than the first practice. We also remembered the 180 degrees rule that we have been taught. As well as this we learnt a new skill in match cutting and were excited to try it. Our film didn’t go as well as we wanted to as our editing skills were not really good. This is possibly because we haven’t had much practice on editing as we spent most of our time recording different shots for our clip. On the other hand, our second practice film went fairly well compared to our first one.
Between my first and second practice films I have learnt a few things. For instance, I learnt about match cutting and how important it is to use it in a clip. It shows a character for different point of views such as a character walking into a room from a long shot and then a character walking into the room from a side view. It allows the audience to view the character doing the same action in a different view. I have also learnt that our group needs more practice on editing as we appear to be a little bit weak when it comes to editing our video clip.
I feel that we tried to follow the forms and conventions of real films. For instance we did over the shoulder shot of Hamsa on the computer, exposing a bit of the computer screen. This is shown in many films as the camera comes closer to a person in an isolated room to build tension. This shot is imitated by our group as we used the camera to get closer and closer to Hamsa as if the camera is Krisztina walking into the room. The lighting we used was natural which followed the forms and conventions of some real films as they use white, lighting in order to show that everything doesn’t appear out of the ordinary however; they may use music and sound in order to suggest a sense that the movie is a thriller. We used a low angle shot from Krisztina’s feet and the camera moves up almost reveals her face but it doesn’t which plays with the audience. It makes them feel as if they are about to see her face but they don’t. This is used in many films in order to build suspicion. The Mise en scene we used were table, chairs and a computer screen. This is used in real films as an important scene could be set in a normal ordinary room.
The practice film allowed me to make comments on representation as it outlines a significant the conversation between two people in the scene.
Our task was to create a video clip on two people having a short conversation sitting down. We had to include at least one match cut in our clip. The group was me, Krisztina, Hamsa and Qiu-Ling. As a group we decided that Krisztina and Hamsa were going to be acting in the clip however; all of us were still going to participate in camerawork and editing as well as sound.
To begin with, we planned to make our clip appear interesting and mysterious by recording krisztina from different angle shots such as close-up and long shots. However; we will not be showing her entire face. This creates a sense of tension and suspense towards who she is and what the short clip is roughly about.
I think that our second practice film went particularly well. This is because, we were a little bit more organised and experienced in how to use the camera better than the first practice. We also remembered the 180 degrees rule that we have been taught. As well as this we learnt a new skill in match cutting and were excited to try it. Our film didn’t go as well as we wanted to as our editing skills were not really good. This is possibly because we haven’t had much practice on editing as we spent most of our time recording different shots for our clip. On the other hand, our second practice film went fairly well compared to our first one.
Between my first and second practice films I have learnt a few things. For instance, I learnt about match cutting and how important it is to use it in a clip. It shows a character for different point of views such as a character walking into a room from a long shot and then a character walking into the room from a side view. It allows the audience to view the character doing the same action in a different view. I have also learnt that our group needs more practice on editing as we appear to be a little bit weak when it comes to editing our video clip.
I feel that we tried to follow the forms and conventions of real films. For instance we did over the shoulder shot of Hamsa on the computer, exposing a bit of the computer screen. This is shown in many films as the camera comes closer to a person in an isolated room to build tension. This shot is imitated by our group as we used the camera to get closer and closer to Hamsa as if the camera is Krisztina walking into the room. The lighting we used was natural which followed the forms and conventions of some real films as they use white, lighting in order to show that everything doesn’t appear out of the ordinary however; they may use music and sound in order to suggest a sense that the movie is a thriller. We used a low angle shot from Krisztina’s feet and the camera moves up almost reveals her face but it doesn’t which plays with the audience. It makes them feel as if they are about to see her face but they don’t. This is used in many films in order to build suspicion. The Mise en scene we used were table, chairs and a computer screen. This is used in real films as an important scene could be set in a normal ordinary room.
The practice film allowed me to make comments on representation as it outlines a significant the conversation between two people in the scene.
Thursday 22 January 2009
21/01/09 Fouzia Abbasi
Today's lesson with Dan gave us more ideas about our thriller and how to develop our ideas. Hamsa came up with an idea that we should focus on one character more in order to make the thriller more dramatic and better focused. We also edited our idea. Instead of having the stalker be the main character's girlfriend, we decided that the stalker should be another girl character who is obsessed with a boy and hates his girlfriend. We went with this idea because we felt that it made much more sense than our initial idea.
During this lesson, we changed our ideas about the location. Instead of going with our first idea and having the stalker pick off petals from a rose in a park, we changed it to the person being in a cemetary. This would make our mise en scene appear much stronger as it has connotations of death and murder. Our idea is now, the obsessive stalker reflecting into a flashback of how they followed the happy couple and killed one of them.
As well as this, Me and Qiu-Ling also switched characters. Qiu-Ling was going to be the obsessive character however; I will be taking her role as she will be away from two of our media lessons. We wanted to do this because Qiu-Ling's initial character would be in most parts during the opening scene and if she misses one week of filming, we thought it would be best if I did it instead. We planned to firstly, do the filming of me in the cemetary picking off petals from a rose and then doing the shots of Qiu-Ling and Hamsa being a happy couple and being stalked by me. Krisztina will be helping us organise what we should do in the scene and how we should do it as she would do the main directing.
On Monday, I plan to bring in my costume for the filming and Me, Krisztina and Hamsa will be going to a cemetary in Stoke Newington to film the first part of our scene.
During this lesson, we changed our ideas about the location. Instead of going with our first idea and having the stalker pick off petals from a rose in a park, we changed it to the person being in a cemetary. This would make our mise en scene appear much stronger as it has connotations of death and murder. Our idea is now, the obsessive stalker reflecting into a flashback of how they followed the happy couple and killed one of them.
As well as this, Me and Qiu-Ling also switched characters. Qiu-Ling was going to be the obsessive character however; I will be taking her role as she will be away from two of our media lessons. We wanted to do this because Qiu-Ling's initial character would be in most parts during the opening scene and if she misses one week of filming, we thought it would be best if I did it instead. We planned to firstly, do the filming of me in the cemetary picking off petals from a rose and then doing the shots of Qiu-Ling and Hamsa being a happy couple and being stalked by me. Krisztina will be helping us organise what we should do in the scene and how we should do it as she would do the main directing.
On Monday, I plan to bring in my costume for the filming and Me, Krisztina and Hamsa will be going to a cemetary in Stoke Newington to film the first part of our scene.
Wednesday 21 January 2009
Fouzia 19/01/09
In Andrew’s lesson, we had an A3 sheet of sugar paper to put down all our ideas about the opening sequence to our thriller. We focused on key images/icons, music/sound, settings and locations, lighting, camerawork, storyboard, audience and production schedule. Together, we came up with what we needed in each of these elements and agreed on the best ideas. We thought mainly about the key image/icon that we were going to use for our thriller, as it would be symbolic throughout our clip. We decided that we were going to use a rose to symbolise our sequence as it a romance thriller theme. We also came up with a good title which is ‘love me, love me not. We all agreed with this idea and decided to get straight into planning the mise en scene, camera, sound and editing for our thriller. We wanted to leave the storyboard for Dan’s lesson because we were not completely sure about our story for the thriller and needed to discuss it with Dan before continuing.
However; we managed to come up with many ideas for technical elements which would be put together to make our thriller. Firstly, as well as using the rose as a key image in our sequence we decided to add another iconography which were polaroid images. The music and sound we decided to use for our opening sequence were sounds of heartbeats which would build tension as it would allow the audience to enter the feeling of the character. We have also decided to use steady beats involving voilins and strings. This would show the audience that our thriller is romance based. There are a variety of camera shots which we will use for our sequence. For instance, establishing shots to show the location and isolation of the character within the scene. We will be using a few handheld camera shots to create an effect of a character being followed or stalked. There will be tracking shots which will allow the audience to feel as if they are following a character and seeing what they are doing. We are going to have a panning shot of the polaroid images being scattered on the floor or table to reveal the images to the audience. We were thinking about the setting and location of our thriller which would preferbably be in a park, dark alleyway and London street. The lighting we will be using for our sequence would be bright and natural at the daytime however; we will turn the lighting to darker tones in order to reflect the thrilling mood of our sequence while a character is under tension. We decided that our thriller was going to be for both teenagers and adults as it could be for someone who is interested in a romance thriller genre. We came up with a production schedule to make sure that we have our timing and date under control. We decided that we were going to be doing 2 weeks of filming and 2 weeks of editing to make it balanced.
However; we managed to come up with many ideas for technical elements which would be put together to make our thriller. Firstly, as well as using the rose as a key image in our sequence we decided to add another iconography which were polaroid images. The music and sound we decided to use for our opening sequence were sounds of heartbeats which would build tension as it would allow the audience to enter the feeling of the character. We have also decided to use steady beats involving voilins and strings. This would show the audience that our thriller is romance based. There are a variety of camera shots which we will use for our sequence. For instance, establishing shots to show the location and isolation of the character within the scene. We will be using a few handheld camera shots to create an effect of a character being followed or stalked. There will be tracking shots which will allow the audience to feel as if they are following a character and seeing what they are doing. We are going to have a panning shot of the polaroid images being scattered on the floor or table to reveal the images to the audience. We were thinking about the setting and location of our thriller which would preferbably be in a park, dark alleyway and London street. The lighting we will be using for our sequence would be bright and natural at the daytime however; we will turn the lighting to darker tones in order to reflect the thrilling mood of our sequence while a character is under tension. We decided that our thriller was going to be for both teenagers and adults as it could be for someone who is interested in a romance thriller genre. We came up with a production schedule to make sure that we have our timing and date under control. We decided that we were going to be doing 2 weeks of filming and 2 weeks of editing to make it balanced.
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