Task 7

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


Planning for the prelim task we hardly did any planning at all. We got given a script to work from that had all the lines of the actors and the angle shots that we had to shoot on. We did not cast in advance we just got someone from the other class to come in whilst they were in a free. We got given a room to work in which and we just used the stuff in there. We pretty much made everything up as we went along. However in the main task we did masses amount of planning. We made set sketches and thought about all the mise en scene that we need to have. We had to write a cast list so that we could let everyone know in advance what they needed to bring and what they needed to do. We made storyboards so we knew what shots we needed to do. We had to organise the time that we were going to do each shot so that the actors could come at a right time. Because we had so much mise en scene in our thriller and we needed loads of actors there was a lot of planning involved.

You can see very clearly that our camera skills have improved loads. You can see in the preliminary task one of the shots is out of focus. In the main task we would not be able to get away with a mistake like that and before each time we started rolling and did a new shot we zoomed in a focused up. You can see from the prelim task how important it is because it makes a huge difference. At first in the prelim task we went for very simple shots and we didn’t move the camera however we then tried some hand held shots for P.O.V and it actually worked rather well but you can see it was unsteady. For the main task we kept the camera on the tripod to allow the camera movements to be smooth. We also used tracking for pan shots which made it flow and it looks so much more professional. In the preliminary task you can see that the framing is not too good. There is no head space which is a positive thing however the positioning in some shots was too much to one side and chopped off to much of their head. We also had to think of angles of the camera to give the audience impressions on the characters. In the main task we didn’t really get a chance to do this because there were not many main characters and two lines of speech and in the time that the character was on screen I felt that he himself became part of the massive amount of mise en scene we had. However the angle we kept simple and the composition of the shot was good.

This one on th left is from the preliminary task and is very out of focus. The one on the right and is anexample of a tracking shoot we did.

All of the groups’ technical abilities have improved tenfold form the prelim task. First of all it was the cutting of the shots. In the prelim we very much just cut the shots out and stuck them in with not too much care and consideration. However on the main task we took a long time choosing which shot would be the best to use and then carefully cutting it in the right place to the seconded. We did this a couple of times before getting perfect and how we wanted to.
The sound in the prelim was very simple and we just recorded the ambient and in post production we over lapped the clip and the sound to make it seem more smooth and it flowed a whole lot better. In the Main task we spent most of our time on the sound. Recorded none of the ambient and it was all done in final cut pro. We got the songs off of I Tunes and then imported them into final cut pro and then put a high pass on it and adjusted that accordingly to make it sound like it was coming from a TV. This was for the office scene only and then for the studio we put a reverb in it to make it sound like a big room.

In our main task we put text on top of the video and even though we kept it simple because otherwise it would distract from mise en scene we did fade ins and outs and made the text different sizes. In the prelim there were no titles. Also in the main task after we had finished we put it though after effects all we needed for this was to colourise the studio scene to make it seem like it is in the 60’s. we did this by changing the RGB colour and making it slightly greener and a little bit of yellow. In the prelim we did nothing with after effects and didn’t know anything thing about it so we mastered a whole new part of the post production process.

The one on the left is from our main task after we had put after effects on it to make it look like the 50' and the right is from the prelim with no after effecrts.

Task 6

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

Task 5

How did you attract/adress your audiance?

Task 5

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Task 3

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

As our distributor we chose Fox searchlight productions. There are a few reasons why we chose this distributor, one of them being that they deal with international films so they will show all over the world in America and Europe. This film is too small for Hollywood and for a big disturber like Warner Brothers because it has no big actors or famous director so fewer people will be interested to go and see it. Fox searchlight will take a risk on our movie and invest in it because we do lots of little movies rather then a few big ones that make lots of money. 20th Century Fox would not pick up our film because it is low budget and it is not guaranteed to make loads of money.

Task 2

How does your product represent particular social groups?

Our movie does not represent any type of social groups that are obvious. What it does do though is challenge the perception political figures in the 50’s and figures of authority. For example in the 50’s black people only got jobs like cleaners because it was at a time were black people were inferior. Therefore when we were casting we did not get any black people as we wanted it to be as accurate as possible. We were going to get a black actor to be dressed as a sweeper boy and start sweeping up in the end scene because these are the kind of jobs they had more runner boys however we could not find a person to do it in time but this is not an important part of our sequence so it did not matter too much but it would have been good for attention to detail.

Also the film crew on the set such as director, producers, camera men exacta were all men because they had more power in society at that time and women generally did not get given powerful jobs because they were seen as inferior. We took this in to consideration when casting for our thriller. We did get one girl to be a member of the crew to the assistance of Marilyn because we felt that she would have one and it would most likely to be a woman. I think that this adds to the accuracy of our thriller and gives it more of a feel of being in the 50’s. The woman that did get good jobs were movie actresses or singers like Marilyn.

Task 1

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

When we were adding out titles into our video we as a group had think about how we will show our titles and came to the conclusion that we should make them simple because it is more about the actual sequence and because of the amount of mise en scene in it having big flashy titles would make it look too much and take focus away. This means that our titles don’t challenge forms and conventions of real media.

In this bit of the sequence we put the actress’ name in front of the iconic picture of Marilyn Monroe and the wig of Marilyn because then the audience, if they didn’t know who she was before, will now know who the actress is playing.

This frame was originally where we were going to put Monroe. We thought that this would have been a good place to put it because it would have made the transition from modern day and the 60’s. However we found that artistically it didn’t look right because as well tilted down to like the Monroe didn’t follow smoothly so we put it at the end And now it looks a lot batter

When we got to putting in the director we decided to put it on the top of the screen of the diamonds. We did this because we thought that the audience can make the connection between the directors’ job in reality and the movie on the screen. Also this needed to be the last title that we put on because we didn’t want any titles on the shot of the studio. This is why they are all put quite closely together.

This is the first title that we put in and the reason why we put this first is because they are the production company and they are providing the money for the film so they need to be put first.

We put in our priduction 'Seventh Sky Production' because we need to comfor to what the audiance expect from a normal film opening sequence.

We put the production designer in the clip because the that job entails organising the props and set design and therefore the audiance can make the connection between the persons job and what is in the picture. We included the laptop also so that the transformation between modern day and the 50's is more apparent. It also gives the audiance a better of idea of what kind of person the detective is.

We put in all the actors names because we conformered to what the audiance expect to see and people are interested in who is in a movie.