Friday, 13 April 2012

Blog Finished

Evaluation

How does your media produce use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


Decipher is a Crime/ Thriller film this means that its vital and very important that we have the correct conventions that would make the film suit the genre and make the film look good when finished and shown to the audience.  In order for the film to work and look appealing to the customer's we need to make sure that all the conventions are meet to the correct standard to look like a crime/ thriller.


The conventions that we need, have to be powerful and connect with the audience to attract them to watching the film. When you watch crime drama films you see that lots of films involve stark lighting which would link to our film throughout as we have dimmed the contrast and the brightness of the whole film.


                                                      Here you can see stark lightning taken from what we created in the film. You can see that it has a main focus on the face of the person and around this you see that its very dark so that there is a main focus on the character.  We have used stark lighting in our film to have a mysterious and dramatic effect to keep the audience guessing on what has happened or what is going to happen. The reason that this is used in the film also it to hide the identity or Reece until later in the film where you see the truth of the character.


Another typical convention would be the canted angles, when we were doing our research a member in the group was looking at Casino Royale and decided that they liked the shot and if we could it would be a good idea to implement this into our film making so we got the opportunity to do so and we did and we are all very impressed with the result that we had got from this.







We also use black and white in the film to show the flash back scenes which are very effective as its clear to the audience that its in the past and that Ryan is trying to refresh his mind. This is a typical convention is crime/ thriller films as when you look at Casino Royale you can see that its used here and looks suspicious and makes you wonder what is happening. In our film we used black and white to show that time has passed and Ryan is trying to remember what was happening and its used to show that the past is in his mind and he is thinking about what happened on the night. The black and white scenes have also been slowed down slightly this was used to show real time and that he is struggling to the the information.







Typical conversion would be the titles that we have created, The Dark Night is noticed as a similar style as it has a black background with the white text that is bold, the difference between this and ours is that we have inner titles and that our name of the film is at the end whereas in most films its at the beginning, the reason we have done this is so that if people are interested they have to look and watch the rest of the film to see the name.


When we are looking at Casino Royale and The Dark Night diagetic sound would also be used, we use this alot when we have created our film, the main times we use this is in the dialogue when we are speaking at this happens a lot in our film mostly in the interrogation scenes. 


In Decipher, we use representation a lot especially with the social groups you see this in the interrogation scene, you see Ryan which is a common character that is wearing normal everyday clothes and looking quite common which to the audience would suggest that that person would be committing the crimes as he is working class and looking rough and wanting to start fights. you then see Reece which is in a suit and is upper class, from this character you would expect that he would be posh and would not cause any problems and would be helping the community, however this has been turned around in our film and in fact this person if the murderer and causes all the problems this is not scene until the end and then is subverted.


We also have another representation of the woman, as women are scene to be innocent and quite, scared etc, the film takes this in mind and sticks with this as the character does not have any dialogue to say suggesting quite and over powered and then she dies at the end this is seen in all good and crime films that stick to the conversions that the audience can see and love and gets them involved in what is going to happen next, always playing mind games.


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


When we were deciding what instusution we are going to be using and looking at for the film we as a group chosen Warner Bros, the reason for this being that when we were doing research most of the films that we are looking at from Crime/ thriller dramas were distributed by Warner Bros.  The departed, The Dark Night and Swordfish were all distributed by Warner Bros and have been very successful. We are also going to be Warner Bros due to the fact that they are very well known for creating film and the success for the films that they make and produce.


As well as using a well known institution we are going to be using our own personalized area which is called DynamiteKitty Studios, the reason that we have decided to have this is becuase independent companies have been known for producing many Crime/ Thriller dramas.  The logo that we have for the DynamiteKitty Studios is a black and white Cat/ panther. The use of the black and white links in with the titles that is on the film.


What would the audience be for your media product?


The audience that we would be looking at when doing a crime film would be very similar to films that have been produced by company's such as Warmer Bros. They would have a specific audience for each genera of films ranging from romantic film to action and Horror/ Crime films.


The audience that we would be looking at would be aimed at people that are intrested in Crime films, interested in seeing the action of death and danger and what happens before the build up, how the film is actually presented. 
The target audience that we are going to have and aim our crime film at would be people that are interested in the film and the opening of what we are going to produce:

The average age of the people that would come and watch the film would be people in the age group of 18- 35 and 36- 64 the reason that we have came up with this age group is because it would have an age limit on it of 18. the main reason that we think this is with the film having people being murdered in this it would be very dramatic for anyone under this age range. As a result of this younger children would not be allowed to see this a the film has clear violence.



This would also link with the genera of the films as the target audience life style would be for the classes we have chosen would be, Managers would ware suits and ties, as would people in the film they would be wearing the same type of clothes. 


On the social Stratification table the people that would be very likely to come and watch our film would be people that are in the social group of C1, B and A. This means the people would be the lower middle class, the middle class and the upper/upper middle class. This basically means that people that have enough income to be able to afford to go to the cinema to pay the money to watch a film would be the people that have a good income.  one reason that we think this is most likely is the simple reason that is shows the same representation in the film with the working class being framed as the evil and the person committing the crimes when in fact this was not true and would link with the out side world as people are looked upon as they think people that are not as posh and don't have as much money always cause the problems. 




How did you attract/ address your audience?


one way in which we are attracting the audience to our film would be through the typical conventions that we mentioned before, with the use of black and white and the use of the camera shots etc.  We would also attract people by the use of the representation of the social groups, as some of this would be true to the crime / thriller genre some of the representations have been subverted as this is apparent with the upper class committing the crimes when you would expect it would have been working class.


The way in which we are also attracting people would be when they are watching the film and to make then have to plot out what happened as there would and is twists in the film such as revealing the murder that would be unexpected so early on in the film, by doing this it makes the audience want to know why this was done and who was responsible, the only way in which they would be able to find this would be to watch the rest of the film. 


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


When I have been making the film Decipher I have learned lots of different technologies such as making sure that everything that has been planned before trying to go ahead and planning along the way, i found the best way was to know what you were doing before it was done as it could cause big problems when further on in the process.


I have also learnt that to make a film look as realistic as we can, we need to have the correct props, such as in Decipher we have the blood to suggest that someone has been injured or something more serious, we also have the handcuffs which are not seen, we have the knife which is covered in blood which shows that its been used, and the use of the clothes that we have on. All this is used to show the audience that the film has been thought about and that we have done as much as possible to make the film look successful.


I also thought that its vitally important to have a steady hand when using the camera, if the tripod could not be used the camera would be getting used free hand which can lead to the camera being shaken when walking etc. To prevent this issue Katie's dad made a steady cam which worked very effectively as the camera could sit on a pivot which allowed us to be able to walk with the camera and move swiftly without the camera moving too much.


The editing- this was proving quite tricky at first as we had never used this before but gratefully a member in the group was use to this software and brought the laptop in with Adobe After Effects and Elements on the laptop that could be used. With this software it allowed us to be able to edit the work to a good standard. It allowed us to be able to create the titles and but the footage in order to edit it and look good when playing to the audience. 


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


The most i feel that i have learnt when doing the media tasks would be to make sure that continuity is touched upon much more when creating the final project, when we are doing the project at first we did not have much idea on what we needed to look at and do in terms of the 180 degree rule etc. I also feel that I have learnt a lot about having to keep everything the same, you need to make sure that you have enough footage of the same scene, the more the better as if you were to miss something if if it did not look right you have more footage from different angles that you can include in needed. In the continuity and prisoner clips we had some footage that was missing as this was a issue we needed to make sure that this was prevented in the final clip, in order to make sure we had everything we done a 40 min clip with the camera not moving to ensure everything was included as well as this we have over 3 of the same scene with the camera at different angles etc.


I have also learnt that we need to have the Mise- en- scene in a full aspect that we all understand, this would include making sure that we have the same clothes on at all times when filming and that the blood from the flash back of Decipher was on the same side on the face in the flash backs and in the interrogation area. We also needed to make sure that with the different areas in mind that we were going to with the final project we had to make sure that the places that we go to suit the genre and it would look good and that we stick to the continuity of the 180 degree and the other rules that are in place for a positive and worth while watching film that I hope that as a group we created.

Talking about the final cut

http://katiesawesomeasmediablog.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2012-04-04T06:38:00-07:00&max-results=7

Here you can see a link of the final cut that we created from Katie's blog.

When watching the clip you can automatically see the institutions which are Warner Bros, we used this for the simple reason that they are very popular and that most films by them are very successful. They also produce lots of crime/ thriller films.

0.20 At this point you see a personalized institution which is DynamiteKitty; this is something that we have stuck with throughout the final project and when we first started the media project and sticking with this through our continuity projects etc.

0.25 and throughout you see the titles, these are black and white we have used these simple but very effective titles for the simple reason that it suits the clip perfect, this links with the crime/ thriller genere. The titles use a simple swipe in and swipe out effect which again keeps it simple but easily readable to people watching. The reason that Black and White was also used it to link in with the flash back scenes that also run throughout in the clip.

0.40 Here you see a clip of the interrogator which is Reece, this person is blacked out almost to secure his identity as he is used more often in the clip. The shot works really well with what we are trying to create, the mysterious and suspicious effect. We used the camera and titled it slightly to create the canted shot which you can see. To darken the shot the editing software was used and at this point we needed to change the brightness.       

0.48 At this point you can see Ryan Taylor (Barry) this is the person that is being interrogated for something that this person did not do but this would be seen throughout the rest of the clip. Again you can see that the brightness and the contrast has been changed and this is similar throughout. Here we have tried to created an injury to the head which looks really effective and keeps the people watching interested in how this happened which would be seen in the flash backs.  

1.02 You can see that there are 2 people in this shot and this is the person interrogating and the suspect. This shot looks effective as it shows nothing around this area and its totally black which shows the danger of the clip and makes people suspicious of whats happened. You can see very faintly that there are some lights in the center of the table this is one of our props, the tape recorded which is used to make the clip look more realistic and as though this is a proper interrogation that is being recorded for evidence.

1.07 here you can see that it goes into the flashback scene, you can see that this has changed to black and white which shows that its in the past and Ryan Taylor is refreshing his mind and trying to remember what happened on the night of the accident which will be seen later in the clip.

1.20 you can also see at this point that things are much slower this is because we have slowed the clips down to make it look to the audience that Ryan Taylor is struggling to remember what happened and to make it look like a more realistic situation.

1.22 Here again you can see more titles that run before and after the flashbacks this again has been used to slow the process down (Inner Titles)

1.54 Again you can see the flashbacks but you see a change of scenery at this point this is when they have left the house and walking looking for somewhere to go. Camera angle is used here to show the open area and to look as though someone is watching them and they have no idea about it.

2.06 This has gone back to the interrogation at this point the camera is looking directly at Ryan Taylor we done this as it shows the fear and the sadness of the person trying to remember what happened and being framed for something that he didn't do.

2.19 at this point you can see that the camera is titled this angle is called a canted shot this looks very effective and is showing the argument, you also see that it looks as though the male character is higher at this point showing that he is more dominant and overpowering towards the girl.

2.23 you can see that the girl pushed Ryan Taylor suggesting the argument it getting heated and can turn out dangerous, this is why Ryan Taylor is being interrogated. (More to be seen throughout the clip)

2.32 Here you can see an unexpected character enter from the left this person is holding something in his hand suggesting that he is potentially dangerous and is heading over to Ryan Taylor

2.35 Here you can see the unexpected person raises his hand and the weapon that he is holding and goes to hit Ryan over the head which shows why the head injury has happened. Before Ryan gets hit the screen goes and fads to black to show that something has happened and that he has been knocked out.

2.43 you can again see Ryan interrogated and is looking directly at the camera this again shows that the audience can see the fear and the scared face.

2.45 you see a flask back of the woman on the floor dead this person has been killed by the unexpected person however they think it was Ryan as they were arguing.

2.55 at this point you can see the face that was hidden at first the reason that you can now see this is the simple reason that its the same person that hit Ryan and killed the girl, as this person is the interrogator he is protecting himself from getting locked up for a murder and has flipped the story around to make it sound as though Ryan is being framed.

3.16 Here you can see Reece, you can also see a weapon in his hand which is a knife with blood on, you can see that this would be the weapon that killed the woman that Ryan is being framed for

3.30 At this point you can see the name of the film which is Decipher. When you watch lots of films you usually see this first before the rest of the clips are shown. However we have flipped this around and put it at the end as it keeps people interested and makes they have to watch the clip to see what the film is called.

Thursday, 12 April 2012

Making Of

http://vimeo.com/39797589

Here you can see a link to Vimeo, this basically shows the steps that we were talking and discussing when we were making the interrogation scene and the way in which we approached the making of the film, we done this to make sure that the group as a whole would be happy with what was getting produced and what the final outcome would be like.