Final Edit

Evaluation Question 7

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

Here is a preliminary of my preliminary where we practiced some shots to see what they look like on camera and give us some ideas as to what we could do for our preliminary task. I added some titles to show what sort of shot each one is to help us.

Here is my preliminary task where we put our filming knowledge that we had learnt to practice. The task helped me see what shots look like on camera, how to use final cut and how to export the video. With the combination of this and other inspiration clips,we saw what shots we could include and where to include them. I learnt that camera position if crucial because at the end, it is difficult to see what is going on in the room. We could have improved this by changing the angle or position of the camera.

From our preliminary task, we made a recreation of the beginning of Juno's opening sequence. This allowed us to use everything we knew and apply it to our video. I used LiveType to create the titles which gave it animation and made it more interesting. I found it a challenge to use the software but i did so successfully. The main aspect that I took away from this is the order of titles. I learnt what order they should go in and how they can go over the image and I could move them using the wire frame.


                       

Before creating our Main thriller opening, we watched some clips that could be inspirational to us and learnt about narrative theories so we could decide if we wanted to follow them and conventions or challenge them.




Here are some pictures of our story board in early stages. From the Juno recreation, we learnt how important a story board is and how the detail can help. We wrote down everything we needed to know about the shots such as the angle, whats happening, camera movement and so on.


Here is my rough cut. I began editing on the beginning section but the whole thing is pretty rough.




I asked my target audience what they thought of my rough cut and used their feedback to change sections and improve them. This is a rough cut before I created my soundtrack. I wanted to use my inspirations with a combination of what the audience thought would work well with the film content.


From this stage, I made my sound track on garage band and began playing around with it until I came to something I liked. I then had to export it on SoundBooth and import that version onto my final cut timeline.

Overall, all of this came together to build my final product. i do feel it was a success even though there were many aspects I could have improved upon. I learnt a lot about technology and the film industry throughout this course and i have tried to apply everything I've learnt to get to this stage.

Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation 6 from LeenaTulsidas7

Evaluation Question 5

              

This is an annotated version of my thriller opening to show how I attracted/addressed my audience.
                 

        This is a scene from The Tourist which has an inspiring exchange where an envelope is placed on the table, with smooth and sly movement which is influential to our exchange. (From 6.15 onwards)

Here are a few videos of what people I asked said about my thriller opening:

                       

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

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

              

Here is some extra research that I had previously found out about Vertigo Films:

Vertigo is known as the leading British independent film and distribution company. They currently make more films per year than any other film company. They go into almost every genre such as thriller, comedy, horror, family films and many more which makes them so suitable. They take pride in their breaking new talents and emerging creativity. 
The company finances/ co-finances for a variety of budgets. It is the co-owner of Protagonist Pictures, although its films are not exclusive to the company.
Protagonist Pictures is commercially minded and thrive for creativity as do vertigo making it perfect for independent films.
Vertigo films seems to be most suitable and shows wonderful successes considering their flexibility. They have been part of production and distribution of very well known and successful British films such as StreetDance 2, StreetDance 3D, Horrid Henry, The inbetweeners, The Kings Speech and many more. 

www.vertigofilms.com

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I looked at our main female character and who she would have similarities with. The first character that I feel shares many similarities with is Angelina Jolie in ‘Salt’. Salt is an action thriller spy film which is very much similar to our film opening.

Angelina Jolie is shown as a strong independent woman who is being accused of being a Russian spy and is constantly on the run in an attempt to get away and clear her name. The difference between their roles is that Angelina Jolie is innocent whereas our main character is an antagonist agent but with the similarities of them both women on the run. The look of both characters is very similar with the fair skin, greenish eyes, long hair and similar makeup. The only major difference between the two characters is the hair colour and ethnicity. Our character has a typical spy/agent look with the black clothing (black jacket and trousers) and hair out however, she has brown hair rather than black which differs from stereotypes as well as her being Hindu (brown) rather than a white woman. Many action thriller films with females as the main character (including Salt) portray them in a sexy stereotypical way which we wanted to escape from and did so by keeping our characters look very simple. The women in most thrillers are either innocent, trying to protect someone/something or have help from others. We chose to break this convention had keep the female character independent who has male companions but does not need help from them, suggesting the strength of women in modern society.
In addition to all this, a major difference between the two characters is their age. Angelina Jolie is a lot older and mature looking whereas our character is only 17. I tried to look slightly older to give it a more professional feel but it was difficult due to my age.  

Another character that shares similarities to our character is Jason Bourne from The Bourne movies such as The Bourne Supremacy. The film is also pretty much the same sort of genre to ours and Salt. Jason Bourne is a former CIA assassin who has suffered from amnesia over the sequels. The story line is differs from ours as he focuses on attempting to gain more information about himself and his past as he is involved in a conspiracy which the CIA are a part of. A similarity in story line is that he is on the run as well as our character however, he is on the run as he is being accused and framed of stealing documents, on theft of $20million in allocation money whereas our character is guilty and is doing it to gain money.

The main difference between the two characters is their gender and age gap. We chose to have a female as our main character to break stereotypical representations and conventions of characters. The dress sense is once again very much similar to Jolie’s in Salt and our character (black clothing). The similarities between Jason Bourne and our character suggest that women in modern society are just as strong and able as men and should not be underestimated, breaking the stereotypical image of women.

All of these factors pull together to link to my target audience. I feel as though it appeals to my target audience of 15+ because of the modern and young look of the character. Having a female character in comparison to a male character offers the young generation a different experience rater than watching a stereotypical form of a male.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Here are 9 frames from my thriller opening which I will use to explain how typical or not of an opening sequence this is. I will use the frames to support my opinion as to what extend my media product uses, develops or challenges forms and conventions.

Genre and how the opening suggests it

The opening suggests the genre of our film instantly as we are introduced with a non-diegetic sound track and jittery titles. The effect of the titles may mislead the audience and portray the idea of the film being a horror. However the constant beat/pulse of the sound track almost diverts the audience away from the idea. The sound track overall has a constant pulse and builds up in areas to reel in the audiences attention which I made on Garage band. I played around with the sound by adding loops in and changing them around using effects. I also added in some diegetic sounds (police car and dogs) in an attempt to build tension and make those sounds stand out as dogs and police cars are a form of security, which she is trying to escape from.

The first frame shows how we tried to indicate the genre is thriller with the sub genres of crime/action/woman on the run in our opening. The first frame shows a male character placing a confidential envelope in a brief case which suggests the criminal side to it. We tried to create suspicion and enigma by not not showing the faces of the characters so much. The main female characters face is only shown towards the end of the opening once she has escaped. Shot 7 also suggests the genre of a woman on the run/action thriller as two men dressed in black walk towards each other into the middle of the path, blocking the woman's way causing her to try and get away. 

How characters are introduced,clothing and props
In our opening, we introduced 4 characters; a male who has confidential information, a woman who is the main character (antagonist) and two men dressed in black from the government agency. This long shot on the right shows when we as the audience are introduced to the two men who go after the woman. We chose not to show a lot of them in the opening so the audience would be left wondering who they were and why they were going after the unknown woman. We used the action code and placed the two men in the middle of the shot to show that their actions are very important to the film and that it will effect later events. The way they walk into the middle and then follow the woman is synchronised to suggest that they are professional. However, I don't think 
their profession as agents was made 100% clear in the opening. The audience can easily mistake them for villains too or even 'thugs'. I feel as though we could have shown them a little earlier or shown features of them to suggest their role as characters.

The first character to be introduced to us in the
opening is a male who's identity is not shown. We only see what he his handling from behind him with over the shoulder shots and with mid shots inspired by the opening of 'The Usual Suspects'. 
We do however see his face when he comes out of a building looking around him which suggests there is something suspicious about him. This is also implied right at the beginning when there are camera shots being taken of him from behind as the camera tracks forwards, suggesting that he is being watched constantly (inspired by 'Enemy of the State'). We know that his actions too, will effect events later as he has a connection with the main female character. I showed this through my editing where the watch that he has dropped in the room fade-dissolves into the females watch, showing a clear link between them. This is where we are first introduced to the main character. We placed her in the middle of the shot to show her importance as a character, however, her whole identity is also not completely shown to suggest that there is something secretive about her. The only time we see her whole face is at the end of the opening when she smirks and walks away with glee about her escape from the men. 
The camera constantly switches between her and the male character to show the link between then and indicate that they are walking towards each other. The sly exchange between the two characters also suggests that they are skilled which proposed the idea of them too being professional.
All the characters are wearing black to show that there is a big link between all of them and possibly portray that they are/were from the same sort of work field. The only props we used for our media were a watch (to show the link between them) and brief case as we did not want to over power the video to show significance to the case. 


The Title of the film/Title font and style

The second frame shows the title of the film, 'Angelus' which means agent in Latin. We really liked the name because it sounded like English but wasn't which makes the audience wonder what it could mean or be about. The title also has the word 'angel' in it which plays with the idea of it being the opposite to the main characters personality and how she is in fact an agent gone rogue..You can also see the differentiation of text layout in frame 4 and 8. The main title is the fourth title into the opening.
We used a simple font for the titles so it was clear to read and looked quite sophisticated. They were made on After Effects and had a jittery movement to them where it almost flickers which was inspired by the titles of Cargo and Se7en.

In both title sequences, there was a mix of the layout of text over the moving image and on black backgrounds which I applied to my own opening.
In both title sequences, there was a mix of the layout of text over the moving image and on black backgrounds which I applied to my own opening.

Camera work ,Editing and Special Effects

We used a variety of shots throughout our opening to keep it interesting with a mix of close ups, mid-shots, long-shots, point of view shots and over the shoulder shots. We tried to keep the camera moving as much as we could from our inspiration of 'Snow White and the Huntsman' by using panning, tilting and tracking. I used white for the titles as it stands out over the video content and the black background. We also chose white for the titles rather than another colour because white shows purity and good which is everything the main character is not, as with the name of the film. A lot of our opening consisted of mid-shots since we were trying to hide the faces of the male and female characters (mainly the main female). I think we could have included more shots with different angles to make it look more dynamic (low angle and high angles). I constantly used everything I had learnt in my preliminary task when editing my footage such as the 180 degrees rule and match on action. I kept my eye on where the camera cuts and at what point the shot it should go from to ensure consistency. I really enjoyed editing because I could change some of the shots the shots and improve them in a way that I wanted. When I was editing my opening, I realised that we had filmed in a way that looks like we were both walking in the same direction rather than walking towards each other as you can see in the image. I dealt with this by using the ‘flop’ effect which flipped it over to make it seem as though I was walking towards him which is what was intended. I used the pen tool quite a lot to fade in and out of the film content as well as the sound track.

I didn’t use any major special effects for my opening because I wanted to give it a natural impression. I did however use colour corrector to make it look slightly more on the blue side to give a wintery yet dull atmosphere as with outdoor scenes in The Bourne Identity. I also used cmd+J to make the characters walk backwards and speed up when it rewinds to show the exchange. In addition to this I used some video transitions to fade dissolve from one image to another (with the watch)

Setting/ Location
We had two locations; a small room and Central London, the first being a

small room. This is where the first character is introduced where he is shown placing confidential information in a brief case. This arises the question of his identity and location amongst the audience until he is shown leaving a building, looking around suspiciously. We showed the main location using an establishing shot of Central London with a tilt of the sky working its way down to show the city road. We also had a pan moving to the right to show the city location which is also where we are introduced to the second character. We chose to follow conventions and shoot in London because the majority of action thrillers are based in main cities. This also gave it an urban/modern feel which would appeal to our target audience of 15+. I think it also makes the audience feel comfortable and welcomed as they know the world of the location. We tried to go on the sunniest day possible to ensure a clear picture which also made it easier to colour correct.

Story and how the opening sets it up

Our story is based around a woman who gets hold of some confidential information stolen from the government and is now on the run from agents and the police. Her main aim is to use the information against the government in attempt to gain a large sum of money. The link that she is going to meet the male to get the confidential information can be made when his watch dissolves into hers which then shows her looking at the time suggesting they are synchronised for them to meet.

We decided to challenge Todorovs theory of narrative and begin with the disruption rather than the equilibrium. We used Barthes’ hermeneutic code which hides the truths from the audience (their identity and why the event occurs).
We tried to make it clear that the female is the antagonist by hiding her face with mid shots and having her being followed by two hooded men. The ending where she smirks suggests her manipulative/cunning side, portraying her side as a villain. However, I don’t think we made the role of the two men being good very clear as they look like thugs following her. We could have improved upon this by showing them earlier on in the opening or a feature about them which suggests their role.I think the fact that she acknowledges their presence and tried to escape suggests they may be the ‘good guys’