Evaluation of final edit

Evaluation

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

 

The final product for our opening thriller sequence followed and developed many of the typical conventions of a thriller movie such as the titles as often in this genre of movie, the background of the titles is black to foreshadow that something bad will happen as black is the colour we associate with evil. We also developed on the mixture of positioning of the titles in the opening sequence as some thrillers start with titles and some thriller have an opening scene and then titles. We decided to take on board both ideas and combine the two by starting with a couple of titles and then having our footage which then led into the remaining titles.

 

The typical camera shots which are used in thrillers are pan shots to show a location and the people who are present, and also gives the audience knowledge on which characters may be important for the remainder of the film. We used this idea with pans of the park and developed it to show the importance of the boy as the pan follows his movement on the bike. Close up shots are also well associated with thrillers  as this shows the character's expression which is often unusual in thrillers. We challenged this as we used an upwards tilt into a mid close up of the man as we didn’t want to reveal too much of his identity at the start.

A typical editing convention in this genre of films is the use of cross cutting between different characters actions and we used this many times within our final product as we showed the different movements of the boys and the man which sped up as the footage progressed to build tension.

The sound of thrillers is usually eerie instrumental non-diegetic music and therefore I searched for eerie background songs on YouTube and listened to them all until I found one which I thought was best for our thriller opening. I chose the following clip as the sound is eerie and unusual as it has no beat or structure to the song and the instruments used appear to be mainly percussion so that each note is continued and fades into the next one giving the sound a mysterious tone and therefore creates tension to the footage, and without the music, the footage wouldn't seem like a thriller, as it would be natural sounds.

 

  
I decided to develop the typical conventions of a thrillers sound by adding a second song to the sequence in order to build tension further. I looked on YouTube for dramatic background music and found this piece which has a strong drum beat which builds up louder and faster as the music continues. It also has a sense of panic in the tone of the song as a chant builds up in the background which adds a sense of danger to the track.


To develop the convention of eerie sounds building tension further, I overlapped the eerie track with the dramatic track to build more tension as the different tones and instruments created a creepier and more exciting sound to accompany our product.
 

Another convention of a thriller would be to position the main characters in the centre of the shot where they first appear, however' we didn’t feel this was necessary for our thriller as we aimed to portray a natural environment through the use of a variety of camera angles instead. The main character who is the older male that kidnaps the child in the footage, is first seen in the background of a long shot and we still don't see his face as he has his back turned to later reveal his identity which builds tension and makes the scene seem more mysterious.

The main character can be seen in the background of a long shot which challenges the typical convention of a thriller where a close up is used to introduce the character as we wanted to make the audience wait to see the males face to add mystery to our opening sequence.

This convention is also present at the beginning of 'The Black Swan' where the character has their back towards the camera, however this is not the first moment which we are introduced to her character as we are shown a sequence of her feet to start with and similarly in our sequence, we started with the main characters point of view of the floor, so we kept to a lower angle before introducing the character in a central shot. 

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The final opening sequence which we created represents two social groups. One is the social group of which the young boys fit into which would be middle-lower class teenagers. This is represented through mise-en-scene as the costumes of which the characters are wearing, are casual clothes which boys of that age are expected to wear during sport such as football.

The boy who receives a phone call represents middle lower class teenagers through his dialogue as it is not proper spoken English and his accent proves to be from the East Midlands. The attitude that he portrays when he puts the phone down after being told what to do by his Mum represents the stereotypical mood which the media put with teenagers.

A screen shot showing the teenage boy's costumes.

This is a screen shot from the opening of the thriller 'Prom Night' which also represents this social group of middle class teenagers through her costume as she is wearing casual clothes with a hoodie and t-shirt and as the film is called 'Prom Night' the audience can estimate that she is older than the teenagers in our clip as she will be going to prom.

The other social group in our final edit was a suspicious older man who is casted as a kidnapper aned therefore fits into the social group of a middle aged male criminal. The man is represented as mysterious through the camera shots of low handheld point of view shots of his feet as he walks leaving a mystery as to his whereabouts. He is also presented as dangerous as his costume is dark and he has a hood up which suggests he is trying to keep a low profile and hide his identity. The sound of his heavy breathing makes him seem out of control and this represents him as a scarier character in a small social group.

Screen shot of the older male's appearance.


 This is a screen shot of a middle aged male criminal from the same social group shown in the thriller 'Prom Night' and we are able to class him in this social group as he is armed with a knife and is murdering members of the teenagers family therefore commiting crimes. The camera shots of him leave the idea of mystery to the audience as we see his feet before we see his face and short takes are shown of him so that we are not able to fully see his appearance, and this is what we tried to do in our thriller. Also this characters costume is dark and scruffy to give the audience the impression that he is a dangerous character.
 

We aimed to convey the two separate social groups and represent the older male as a criminal to contrast with the current stereotypical views in the media that the teenagers are the ones doing the crimes and causing trouble. We were successful as the teenagers are represented as the innocent victims, but are still represented as their social group through their costume and speech, and the male is clearly a criminal and the unusual use of camera shots such as introducing him slowly through point of view shots and upwards tilts to add mystery to his social group.

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

 

Who would be the audience for your media product?

 

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience through the theme of the thriller which was the idea of a child being ‘snatched’ by an older man, which is becoming an increasing issue now more than ever so the younger generation will be attracted to the film due to their interest and curiosity on such a topic. This topic of thriller can be compared with the film 'Taken' as it has similarities in the plot of the film such as the child getting kidnapped. The titles of our movies have similar meanings as 'Taken' and 'Snatched' are synonyms of something being removed and in both cases it is a person.

The trailer for 'Taken' which has a target audience of young adults for both genders, therefore comparing our thriller to this proves that our target audience is suitable.

The social group of the teenagers may also be easy to relate to for some audience members as they may be in the same social group and therefore the thriller will address them as they will feel as though they are a part of the action.

Also, we took the idea from ‘The Happening’ to present the opening sequence as a normal day at a park so the lighting is natural and the characters are acting as they usually would in that environment, and then something bad happens.

 

The natural scenes of the park in 'The Happening'.

The natural scenes of the park in our final product.

This addresses the audience as they believe the narrative more as it seems as though it could happen to them any day. Also as the characters are young in our final product, the younger audience can relate to them and their attitudes and presence throughout the footage which makes it more enjoyable for them to watch.
 

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

I have gained a lot of knowledge about different technologies through the production of the thriller opening sequences as I didn’t feel confident before when using video cameras and computer software such as Adobe Premier Pro CS4 and after experiencing it through the construction of the product I now feel comfortable with the programs and equipment. I have learnt how to use the video camera correctly such as using a tripod to achieve a steady and focused image when necessary as we didn’t use a tripod in the preliminary task and the shots weren’t all focused, however in the first draft we used a tripod and this made a huge difference.

 

This is a photograph of the video camera we used during the filming and editing stages. It is a JVC Everio HD camera and we used it to film all of the footage in the first and final drafts, however it took me a while to get used to the different settings and how to approach different camera angles.

 

 

We used a different camera to record the sounds in the final edit as the JVC everio wasn't the best quality for audio. The camera we used to record the sound was a flip camera as the sound was loud and clear which made it easy to edit into our sequence.

This is a screen shot from our preliminary without using a tripod.

This is a screen shot from our draft using a tripod.

 

However for the final product we decided to not use a tripod as the camera shaking added to the creepy character of the man who had many point of view shots. I have also learnt a lot about using Adobe Premier Pro CS4 and Adobe After Effects to edit the footage we had created. Before producing these videos, I had never used these editing programs and therefore didn’t have any knowledge about them, but after experimenting with the different effects and looking at tutorials online, I now feel that I am able to produce a high quality piece of footage using the programs.

 I learnt how to add transitions between shots to make them blend more smoothly such as the cross dissolve which proved to be most successful in our products.

 

I learnt that I needed to look at the tool bar to the left of the screen and select effects. I was then able to type into the search bar which effect I desired to use and I dragged it into the footage at the correct point.

 

This is a screen shot from our final product, showing a cross dissolve transition.

 

I also learnt how to add sound to the footage from other recordings and music and to adapt the volume accordingly to the part of the scene it was heard in.

I did this by going onto sound controls and moving the height of the bar which represented volume throughout the scene to the correct level depending on what was happening in that footage. This knowledge was very helpful when I put all of the sound onto the final task as I had experience from the preliminary and draft task. The print screen above shows the stages I went through to ensure that the ringtone sound effect travelled through the scene at the correct volumes. The ringtone was first heard in the background of the point of view of the kidnapper and therefore needed to be quieter, and as it changed scenes to the boys I increased the volume as it would have been louder to them in reality.

The music didn't require a volume adjustment and I was able to adjust the positioning of the music at the right moments of the footage. I found that the eerie music was effective throughout the whole footage and therefore had to make the volume quieter at points where the other sounds such as the ringtone came in. 

I learnt how to use Adobe after effects in order to create the titles on our final product. We did not use this program for the prelim task or the first edit and we found the Adobe premiere pro CS4 hard to work with when producing titles. I experimented with the titles and found that using different transitions were effective, and was able to import them into the correct part of the titles as the procedure was similar to adding transitions to footage on Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and therefore I was using previous experience to help me with the new program.

This is a screen shot of the production of the titles which were positioned at the start of our final edit. This was created using the Adobe After Effects program as there were more options aimed at titles.

This is the tool bar for the program which enabled me to add different effects and transitions to the titles, improving the overall quality of them.

 

These were some of the options on the program that I could use for transitions on the title.

This is the timeline of our final product which was on the Adobe Premier Pro CS4 program which we created during the editing and sound stages.

 

 

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

I feel that I have learnt a lot since the preliminary task as I was not aware on how much work goes into producing a short film. In the preliminary task, we were successful when planning what we wanted to film in the footage and worked well as a group to share the roles and have equal parts of the production. I believe this helped us to continue to work well throughout the production of the full product and the preliminary task prepared us for how much hard work we needed to do.

In the progression from the preliminary task to the final task, I have learnt many different techniques when editing as before we started the preliminary task, I had never used the editing software and found it interesting to experiment with the different effects and options that it offered. The preliminary task reflects my lack of knowledge on the program in comparison to the final task as the different shots appear to jump from one another and it is clear to see we tried to cover this up through the use of transitions, especially the cross dissolve.

A cross dissolve in the prelim task to hide the lack of continuity between shots.
In the final product, the camera shots appear to link together more smoothly with a wider variety of transitions such as:

 a fade in at the start

and a wipe which presents the titles at the end.

I believe that there is an improvement within my abilities to film and record sound since the preliminary task, as the camera shots in the preliminary task lack variety and the foucs is poor in comparison to the final product where we have used a variety of more imaginitive; camera angles such as handheld point of views and upward tilts. The sound in the preliminary task was of a poor quality as we weren't aware of how different it would sound on a computer compared to the camera and this is something that I have worked on to improve the overall product and I am pleased with the improvement between the videos. I have also learnt that I need to manage my time more wisely as during the progression between these two tasks, I have slacked and not produced the work in the period of time set which has allowed me to fall behind and as a group we rushed to finish the preliminary and first draft, however' we learnt from our mistakes and for the final task we met the deadline which shows progression.

 

Preliminary Task

Final Product