Evaluation Task 2: How does your product represent particular social groups?

How does your product represent particular social groups?

 

For our opening title sequence, we made the decision to use our Media Studies teacher, who is a 38 years old white British middle-aged man. Due to the idea of us not having a budget at all, we could not hire an actor to film for this opening sequence. With a bigger budget than we worked with on the day, we could of potentially put a lot more effort on the costume and props we used throughout the day.

     Instead of using our media teacher, we could of then hired an older looking actor to portray a police detective who looks like he is wiser and much more experienced in life. To portray a stereotypical middle-class, middle-aged man, who is single and an alcoholic, the costume choice we made was ordinary working clothes aka.

 

a long-sleeved shirt,

black trousers,

black belt,

shiny black shoes,

a tie,

a long overall coat.

 

    To put across that Adam was playing an alcoholic, we made him look very untidy and not very cleanly shaven, he fell asleep from the previous night in the same clothes he was wearing the night before, so his clothing were creased, his shirt was un tucked and his tie was hanging loose around his neck. Older alcoholics normally have many wrinkles, bad skin and do not tend to look after their appearance.

   To make Adam look more like a stereotypical detective, we could of used the stereotypical detective hat to go with the suit, maybe a briefcase, a detective badge on his coat or blazer, he could of maybe smoked a cigar.
   Due to not having a budget at all to work with, the car was difficult to get hold of, so we had to end up using one of the teachers old car. If we were to distribute this film into an American film company, we would most definitely be able to use an American detective car, just like the image to the right.

 

  I researched older male actors who would suit the role for the middle-aged detective. I came across two very well known actors,
 

   Ed Harris [63years] and                                                               Hector Elizondo [77years]



For our role actor, we wanted him to look quite mysterious and to have that sinister look to him. Our actor would not have much hair to maybe show the stress he has been through in his past life, as stress leads to loss of hair.

 



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

Comparing Credit Listing 4- Se7en

SE7EN

 

 

The Credit Listings in order:

1. Film studio
2. Producer
3. Director
4. Starring Actors  x2
5. Title of Movie
6. Additional actors  x15
7. Casting
8. Music /Composer
9. Costume Designer
10. Editor
11. Director of Photography
12. Co Producers
13. Co Executive Producers
14. Executive Producers
15. Writer
16. Producers
17. Director 

This opening sequence matches up this the Silence of the lambs almost exact, however like Shutter Island mentions the Directors and the Producers firstly. They have mentioned all the Co Executive Producers and Executive Producers. This could show that there was a huge team of Producers rather then one man. Unlike Silence of the Lamb, this credit opening is not introducing a character yet; so can have many more graphics and editing effects in it. The editor have taken the theme of books and writing a applied it to the credit text by doing each word in a different font.

Comparing Credit Listing 3- Silence of The Lambs

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

 

The credit listing:

1. The production company
2. Staring actors x3
3. Title of Movie
4. The additional Actors x15
5. Casting
6. Music/ Composer
7. Costume designer
8. Production designer
9. Director of Photography
10. Editor
11. Novel Author
12. Executive Producer
13. Screen play
14. Producers
15. Director

Silence of the Lambs opening sequence starts with  the Production company name, (A Strong Heart/Demme Production), comparing to the Shutter Island which doesn't mention there Production Companies name. Following this they mention the three staring actors (Jodie foster, Antony Hopkins and Scott Glenn) in order of appearance. They also edited in another 15 additional actors in the movie. Like, Shutter Island who have marketed the movie around the big names, they have credited all principles actors involved and not counted on the big name. This company have ordered them appositionally to shuttle island instead of starting with the Producer and \Director, they have ended with them.

As this was made 20 years age, the text is black and white (capital letters) is dull and boring although was very clear. The graphics of this opening as limited because it is a introduction to the character and not a Kyle Cooper opening sequence. This is what my group need to be aware of.

Comparing Credit Listing 2- Shutter Island

SHUTTER ISLAND

 



1. The credit listing in order:
2. Director
3. Producer x2
4. Screenplay
5. Novel Author
6. Director of Photography
7. Three main Actors in order of Success
8. Editor
9. Music/Composer
10. Title of Movie

Additionally, the soundtrack of the sequence is loud and chilling and would like to add music like this to our thriller as I feel it would inherence and give a kick that our thriller needs. The red and white text has been edited to have a 'flicker' effect. Although this adds to the creepy and horror sensation; it isn't clear enough and you cant read it very well.

The order of the Actors (Ben Kingley, Leonardo Dicaprio and Mark Buffalo), two extremely big names and one well known actor in order of success. This indicates that they have marketed this movie based on the actors appeal. Interestingly, they haven't mentioned the Production Company or Distributors only the individual credits.

Martin Scorsese's films...

• The Wolf of Wall Street
• Goodfellas
• The Departed
• The Taxi Driver

and many more.
 

After this the names of the producers and the writer of the screenplay show on the screen. The name of the author of the novel is also mentioned to give credit to their creative input into the film. The three main actors are mentioned...

Ben Kinglsey

Leonardo DiCaprio

Mark Buffalo



which suggests that they are A-list actors and that the film will be based around them as characters. This is followed by the name of the editor and the music director. The last title in this sequence is the name of the film. The opening sequence has low orchestral music used to increase the tension and create an unsettling mood. It allows us to associate with people and places as to whether they are good or bad. As well as being able to alter the audience's mood.

Comparing Credit Listings 1- The Falling

THE FALLING

 

 

The credit Listings:

1. Production company (Warner Bros.)
2. Associate companies
3. Producer
4. Director
5. Principle Actors
6. ‘Also  starring ..’ –other actors
7. Casting
8. Costume Designer
9. Music
10. Co producers
11. Editors
12. Production Designer
13. Director  of Photography
14. Executive Producer
15. Producer
16. Writer

This order is also have many similarities as Silence of the Lamb and Se7en. For instance , they genuinely credit more people, more of the actors, the production company ,  costume designers and production designers , the executive producers. In my opinion, this is down to the age of the movies. Shuttle island is  20 years older  and more recent . I think that through time the order and credit listings have changed. 

All Editing Sessions

EDITING SESSIONS

1.

Today, we went up into the editing suite to start finally editing our thriller. First we created a log bin and the rushes bin.

We started to organise which shot we wanted to use by dragging the shot we want to keep out of the rushes into the log bin, then we named each shot to make it easier for us to identify each shot.

We started to progress by cutting the part we needed out of each shot and putting it into the timeline.

 

 

2.

We continued editing our short films. This time our task was to finish the film off and to make the cuts flow into one, so that the audience would not be able to acknowledge the cuts at all. This was quite a difficult task; as our camera angles were not as accurate as they could of been, for example using the 30 degrees rule. Our aim for next time, now that we've learnt about the 180degrees and the 30degrees rule would be to take those into practice and use them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.



To finalise our thriller we need to edit in 'Final Cut Pro'  is the background audio, to get rid of any muffling or spoken directions we say in the video and to find a soundtrack and to edit it into our sequence.

Firstly, we compared the audio quality captured on the camera microphone and the hand held microphone. To do this we needed to modify-stereo unpair and listen closely, copy and paste the chosen sound to each speaker and stereo pair them back up.

We added a cross fade on most of the audio to make it sound more smooth and fluid. In some of the audio we had people talking through it; to repair this I cut it out and copied a section of another audio that sounded similar and doubled it up to fit the gap and cross faded them all together. Our thriller opens with a TV playing, we thought that it would be effective to have a news report on in the background to support the idea of the asylum on the newspaper. The media department had a range of different new reports. I imported this to run through most of the thriller. To be even more realistic sounding, I marked up where he walked out the room and changed  the level of this audio from -2 to -11. This would make it sound like it was playing in other room. Lastly, we added a dark and dangerous soundtrack to come in when he looks at the newspaper. However, I changed to level so it is extremely quiet until the outside shot of the car; I increased the level to make it even more effective. We now have a finished and polished product!

Shooting Day

Shooting Day

     Before the day of the shoot, I prepared all the necessities we would need to carry out a successful thriller. I needed to remember our storyboard due to the fact it was the key to knowing exactly what we needed to carry out for our thriller. We also had props we needed to get ourselves before the day; Pro plus tablets, alcohol bottles, cereal boxes, crisps, a newspaper, clothes etc. 
    
    In the morning of the shoot I was eager and raring to go, but I was also a bit nervous as I had never filmed anything properly like this before, so it was all new to me, and I was a little worried that we wouldn't get everything done in time, but really there was nothing to worry about as the day went to plan extremely well.

   
  When we arrived for the shoot, I was very prepared and I had brought everything with me that I needed to bring, whereas my other two colleagues were not as organized, there were a few things they had forgotten to bring to the shoot, so our schedule had to be delayed due to the fact we had to get these items. Before we could even start we had to set up the room to suit our protagonist in the thriller; he is an Inspector who is an alcoholic, so his flat would be very messy with hints of alcohol bottles everywhere. To do this we just messed the room up, by opening a packet of crisps and dumping on the table next to a glass of vodka, with the open bottle, the TV still on etc.

     
     The location of the turrets was in a very quiet country area, it was very small; it had a small lounge, with a small kitchen in the corner of the room. I thought that we created the concept of the look we wanted exactly, with the flat looking like it did; I don’t think we could have done it any better. On the shoot day we all played a role, first I played the role as the director calling “roll camera” “cut” “action”. We had three different areas in the room we wanted to film, first I was director, then on the camera filming and then on sound. I was particularly good at setting up the room in order to film; I was also very good at smoothly moving the camera to show our actor getting dressed, so whenever we needed the camera to be moved whilst filming I took over. The only minor problem we had on our shoot day, towards the end of the day, was that it getting dark outside quickly and we needed to portray that it was in the morning so it had to look bright outside. Luckily we had two big side lights to use to show that it was light outside and it worked extremely well. The most successful part of the shoot was the day going to plan, so everything else just fell into place very well, we were with our schedule. The part I enjoyed the most about the shoot was filming on the camera, I really enjoyed doing that and experimenting each time, with different shots. I am really looking forward to seeing the film in the edit; I am most looking forward to seeing my part that I filmed.

    Our production group worked really well as a team, although we were quite quiet at first and not sure where to start as soon as we got going, we were all very cooperative.