Evaluation task 3:

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?

The opening sequence is made for an apocalypse film, about a man who is inside a room in a tent which various different strings and cans attached to it, at the end of the opening scene the man leaves the tent and follows one of the strings with a bell on it which is ringing which leads to a door this is meant to make you think that there is an enemy or someone/thing outside the room who is trying to get him.

Our thriller is a low concept but because of the many special effects that would be used throughout the film it would make it a high budget film because of the expense of them.

Our thriller would do well with a production company such as DNA films, this is because they have produced well known films such as 127 hours, Slum dog Millionaire and 28 days later- which is a lot like our thriller. The company has worked with well-known producers like Danny Boyle who produced 28 days later. A Production company as well known, as DNA films would benefit on our thriller because it would bring it would publicize the film a lot especially in other countries.

Another potential company that could produce our thriller would be Warner Bros this is because they have also produced films which are similar to ours such as inception, I am legend, dark knight rises are many others. Having Warner Bros produce our films would be the best as it is so well known and therefore we would get a lot of views and publicity.

Spider man opening sequence is also similar to our opening sequence because they have the screen cut up by close up shots of the spider web, this reminds me a lot of our string opening credit parts. It is directed by Kyle Cooper who we have studied before and as we found out is an extremely well know director.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f5ykkGJvMU

28 Days Later had a budget of 6 million, which I feel would be an suitable budget for our thriller too. If we had a budget from a film from Warner Bros we would benefit from it a lot because our special effects would be even better and therefore more entertaining to watch, because it is an apocalypse film it would need to specialize in the special effects side to make it realistic and worth watching, this is why it would benefit with a higher budget like I Am Ledgend’s budget which was 150 million, but comparing the two films our concept is much lower to I Am Legends and therefore our budget would be suitable with 6 millions like 28 Days Later.

We also looked in to other productions such as Vertigo which we know a lot about to but we decided as a group that DNA films is more well known than Vertigo and therefore it would be an advantage using a production company that I well known that we know would get us the amount of views that our thriller needs. 

http://www.dnafilms.com/

evaluation task 2

How does your product represent particular social groups?

Because we chose to have one actor staring in the opening scene of our thriller, this means that we can only talk about one social group which is 'white male' which is very popular in hollywood films and 'white male leading stars' usually dominate films, this is very cliche as most leading roles are white males.
Obviously if we had a proper, high budget Adam Grant (our actor) wouldnt be employed as we would use a well know actor such as Tom Cruise which would be the more popular vote of actor.
Our actor Adam Grant looks completely out of place in the environment that the film is shot in, for example Adam has a skin head in the film which isnt normally paired which a large country house in surrey which is where it is set in. This gives an edge to our film as you think he looks out of place and then begin to question it. This is further supported by the fact that the windows are boarded up which suggests that the character could even be squatting.

We have also thought about the rest of our films which would have other actors including females which would be leading roles, although we cant talk about their social group as they arnt in the opening scene.

Our thriller is a positive representation of a 'white male, for number of reasons. We have represented him as a hero in the opening scene, this is very simular as the opening scene staring Tom Cruisein War of the World. Both Tom Cruise and Adam Grant are both represented in the same way and are from the same socal//racial group, they are both leading males.


Comparing screen grabs:
Close up of the main characters in the film, 'white leading male'

evaluation task 1

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
















(NOT IN ORDER)

TOP LEFT:
This shows an axe which is a classic weapon that you would see a lot in horror films for the audience this has connotations of violence and horror and death instantly we asume that he is not going to chop some wood which is what it is meant to be used for.

TOP MIDDLE:
This was shot through a stair case rails which makes the viewer think that someone is watching the character again an idea common in horror and thriller films.

TOP RIGHT:
Here we have the character reaching to the door handle to see what is making the noise behind the door, this shot creates a lot of tension as its the last shot and we dont find out what is behind the door. However the slow creep towards the door creates a lot of tension for the audience.

MIDDLE LEFT:
This shot shows the mess and the trap in one shot, it shows that the character has been living in the area sluvenly for a long time. It also shows the trap which looks strange which would make the audience think a lot about what is going on as it is one of the first clips. The audience would obviously be confused or question the string as they even know it was a trap until you saw them all together and attached to the tent.

MIDDLE MIDDLE:
The title for out thriller is called the 'Third Circle' this makes the audience think because the name has nothing to do with what they have watched from the opening squence. we used black and white for a sudden title and to make it stand out. we also thought it would be better to use a blank screen instead of the title over the top of movement as it is an important part.

MIDDLE RIGHT:
This shot shows the trap with the strings, it is the second shots so the audience are going to be confused and probably waiting for a reason of why there are strings everywhere. It also shows who made the production and who it is by, this would give the audience an idea of what the film might be about. We made this shot one of the first things as its important,we also used a focus pull for technique

BOTTOM LEFT:
This is show wide shot of the whole set which make the audience understand why there is string and cans hanging everywhere.

BOTTOM MIDDLE:
Here is the main actor of the film, this shows the audience that the actor could well be famous or well known and therefore give them an idea of how good the film is.

BOTTOM RIGHT:
This shows the bell which is the main sourse of the trap which when it starts ringing tells the character that there is something behind the door.

EXAM QUESTION

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. Both preliminary and main tasks may be done individually or as a group. Maximum four members to a group.

editing ideas

Whilst editing our film cut of our thriller we came across the Spider-Man opening sequence and and title sequence, this was a lot like our ideas as they cut up the page with zoomed in shots of the spider web, in ours we use the string and traps which also cut up our page. There is mostly animated or they used a lot of special effects to create there scenes, although we don't use any of that I think that we could potentially look into using some as a lot of our thriller will have special effects as it is an apocalypse film and it wouldn't work as well if we didn't use them.

YOUTUBE CLIP OF OPENING TITLE SEQUANCE

ideas production names

As a group we have come up with various different production names for the title sequence:

-guava productions
-helmet productions 
-edge productions
-tent productions 
-decay productions 

Evaluation of shoot day

The day before our shoot day we were told that we would be shooting the next day, we had to re-schedual beause of the snow, we made sure we were completely organised and had all our props ready for the morning, this included going through recycling bins collecting any old tins and general rubbish, sorting out the tent and making sure we had all the string and bells ready.
The morning of the shoot went well because the weaether was right, it was sunny which meant it would create a bright morning light inside the tent which is what we needed.
Before shooting we had to set up all our props and the area that we were to shoot in, this included moving sofas out of the hall way and then we were put into groups to do different setting up jobs, Gil and Frankie put up the tent, I cut and put up the string and Owen washed up the tins from the bin. We also had to set up the camera and the lightings as we needed extra lighting, we used red heads and blonds to create the lighting we needed, we also had to bpard up the window as it was bringing in too much light, we made this look as if he was hiding from something outside, the boardings looked broken and had holes in letting in beams of light.
For our group we all took in turn with the rolls; camera man, lighting, sound and general other jobs, this made it quicker splitting the jobs up but also let everyone have a good at the different role making it fair. I really enjoyed doing the camera work because it had been a while since we had filmed our pre-lim so it was nice to be able to use it again. It was also interesting learning how to create different shots or make them more intersting like focusing unfocusing a point.
We had problems with the lighting, the room was too light so we had to board up the windows, we were looking for a morning lighting so we didnt want the light too bright.
The best part of the shoot was the last scene was when the actor was about to turn the handle when it turns it its self, this part is meant to be thrilling and scary. I think it worked out well because it was the last scene so it leaves the sequence with a twist and it makes the viewer want to finish watching it. The part of the shoot that I wish had gone better is the part when we were trying to show the bell ringing, this was hard because it just made it look like someone was shacking the string to make it move and made it look unrealistic.
I personally enjoyed setting up the set for the shoot because I think our set is interesting and had a lot of work to it, I also enjoyed using the camera because I enjoyed learning the different angles and ways to use the camera.
I feel that our production team worked really well through out the unit including the preparation and planning of the thriller because we all had different ideas and skills that we could use to make it.