FINAL THRILLER OPENING

EVALUATION - QUESTION 1

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

EVALUATION - QUESTION 2

HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?


Representation in Media products usually relies heavily on stereotypes. The problem with this is that stereotypes are based on a small truth and then they are exaggerated and generalised, being quite often negative. In our film we are mainly using the representation of children. Children are usually seen as innocent and vulnerable. We do use this representation, however, we break it down, showing that the girl is not really what she seems. The representation of children in thrillers and horrors may very often be stereotypically evil.

Our main character has both sides. At the same time she is innocent and a victim of her own mental disorder, she behaves in an evil way. The voices she hears lead her to this evil side, therefore she is at the same time the villain and the victim, because she is also suffering with her disease.

We used mise en scene to create this 'false' image of innocence. The girl is dressing normal like normal children. The colourful tights with flowers are very child-like. She also wears a white T-shirt with flowers, very child-like and innocent. The pigtails is the main feature as it really does connote childishness and innocence.

We broke the innocence and represented children as evil figures mainly by the use of editing. Filters with creepy effects made what looked innocent, look scary. The use of some props like blood, the ripped teddy bear, the scrapbook, etc also helped to portray this stereotype. Many other thrillers and horrors use children as a scary element.


Another negative stereotype that we use is mentally disable people. It is very often used in thrillers, especially psychological thrillers. Mentally disable people are usually presented as freaks, psychopaths, serial killers, murderers, evil, harmful, dangerous. The idea that mentally disable people cannot control their actions and do not have a normal acceptable behaviour frightens ‘normal’ people.

Our character Amy is mentally disable and the more she gets into her illness, the creepier and scarier she gets, this is why towards the end of the clip we show her rage, she is losing the plot and cannot control her madness anymore, ending up taking evil actions.

EVALUATION - QUESTION 3

WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

Here is the short film 'Panic Attack' I was talking about:

EVALUATION - QUESTION 4

WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?

Mirella is a 19 year old girl who loves any type of film. Because her age, gender and social class fit our core audience profile (as I mentioned in the prezi) I thought she would be the ideal profile example for our target audience. Here is an interview I made with her via Facebook:

EVALUATION - QUESTION 5

EVALUATION - QUESTION 6

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?

EVALUATION - QUESTION 7

LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?



Our animatic for our prelim looked more interesting because we used pictures instead of drawings. However, as we did not have much time to spend planning some of the pictures weren’t very well framed or with a good lighting. Our storyboard for our film included a variety of different shots and it was much more informative, telling the type of shot we should make and with the titles included.

In terms of camera skills I think although we had some good framing in the prelim and we attended the expectations of the rule of thirds and a 180 degree rule, in comparison to our actual film, we had a wider variety of shots also attending the expectations of the rule of thirds and a 180 degree rule. So I would say we improved our camera skills.

The mise en scene improved a lot from our prelim to our film. The prelim was filmed in College without many props or preparation of scenario. The only prop that we had was two (empty cups of coffee).

In our actual film we had a variety of different props. We also thought carefully about location.

In terms of lighting, we did have some problems with lighting in our prelim as we were close to a window.

We tried to avoid lighting problems in our actual film by filming outside and filming in parts of the house that were well illuminated. However, ome shots did get a bit dark, so we had to edit them to try and make them brighter. In general our lighting was better in our actual film.

But what really improved were our editing skills. There is a massive difference between the editing of our prelim and the editing of or film. We learned how to use many different filters and transitions. In our prelim we only used a few transitions and slow motion. In our actual film we used many different filters.

In our prelim we used match cut and shot reverse shot. The match cut wasn't very effective but the shot reverse shot worked very well following the 180 degree rule. In our actual film we used match cut more effectively and we also used jump cuts effectively, all following the 180 degree rule.

We also learned how to add titles in a more effective way. Before we only knew how to add the text, and in our actual film we learned how to create different effects to our text, like shaking, blinking, letters falling down.

There is also a big improvement in our sound. We learned how to use many different sound effects overlapping each other. Our sound in our prelim is very simple and based on sounds in Soundtrack Pro, but in our film we used a combination of sounds we found in the internet with Soundtrack Pro sounds. We used sound effects like drums, birds, together with the piano music, and we also used voices (the baby girl talking).

FINISHED!!!!!

It feels so good to be DONE!!! We are so proud of ourselves with everything that we have done, hope we get the grade we deserve!! =]

A quick film we made talking about our finished opening.

FINAL VERSION!!!!!!!!

Editing sound

This just a screen shot of the editing we had to do to the final edited opening with the sound. It took a bit more time but we eventually got through that little phase and managed to get the sounds all at the right place.

Change of title AGAIN

Once again we have had to change our title due to the fact our teachers don't highly approve of it. This however has made us pick a simple title which we all consider as nice to fit to our film. It is called 'Amy'.
After hearing the criticism, Mickey advised us that our title sequence should also be a bit longer, he thought it was too short.

Concerns from the rough cut sample

Having showed three of our teachers the rough cut of our film opening, their opinions have varied mainly positive. However there are some concerns such as the length of the film, the genre and the title change.

Time length:
Dan and Usman have both considered our film as short but can be worked with when adding title sequences by extending them. Right now our film is 1min 20 seconds and it is required to be maximum 2 minutes so we have a lot of spare time to use. Whereas Mary agrees with us that we definitely need to go out and film more footage because we have a great film opening but it is just too short. Hence we have decide to film Tuesday morning, tomorrow.

Genre:
Again our genre is meant to be a psychological thriller however our teachers, having watching our rough cut have said that it is becoming a bit out of context of a psychological and looks/has more horror elements making them consider our genre as maybe being a horror thriller. However we have explained our storyline to Mary - which is focused on the girl's disturb and her journey through the mental illness - and she has seen that it can be then said to be a psychological thriller, with some elements of Horror, and so we can stay with this initial genre.

Title Change:
We as a group have decide that we feel to change our title. At first it was called 'Shanelle' but due to changes of the girl and putting the actual name to what we have edited it just did not fit. So we decided it was for the best to change it. Asking Mary for her opinion on this we finally came up with a new name called 'Untarnished'.

Our film New Title: UNTARNISHED

We have decided to rename our film and call it:

 UNTARNISHED


Untarnished means not tarnished or discoloured not tainted or spoiled.
We decided to give this our film name because our main character in the film is seen to be guilty in reality but she just has her own perception of reality therefore making her guilty in the eyes of others.

The title of our film has two meanings:
1) Her actions are out of her control which means she is untarnished
2) However because she does not know what she is doing therefore makes her the opposite of our title.

Editing- Title sequence

Today's lesson, Mary told us about using the 'title safe'. This guarantees that no matter what kind of screen our film is played on the titles will not be cut off as long as it is within the first rectangle. This was actually a good thing that she told us this because when we put it on some of our title sequences were out of this rectangle box so we had to quickly change this.

More Rough cut feedback

We have had the feedback and we will take on the criticisms.

Interviews asking about what we did

Here we interviewed each other about what we did to contribute to help our film opening.

Working in Lesson

This is us working during lesson. We all do different things during the lesson.

Angeline usually does the editing of the music and blogging.

Anaya usually helps us with the group blogs and with editing.

Rachelle usually does the group blogging and helps editing.

Fabiolla usually does the editing.

Additional Filming

We had to do some more filming as we did not have enough footage. Therefore we have decided to film some of the following:

- Anaya's Cat
- TV- Cebeebies
- Mirror with writing
- Kids Drawings
- Location of Anaya's House

Extra Blogging-Help from teacher

When we did not understand something, we took the initiative to ask a teacher for help.
here is an example...