Final Evaluation / Josh Woolhouse questions 1-7

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


Our film show cases the genre crime thriller, it incorporates this as the story line represents, a crime and the film is a thriller as it is fast tempo and you don't know just whats around the corner. our film develops this further as we see new leads opening up for the film direction to go in, we have a good plot that can branch off in any way it wants, it engages the audiences minds.
our film inspiration was that of csi, lord of war, and life on mars, lord of war has interesting camera work and is really deep, as in it has an underlined message through out the opening sequence, csi more compares to our films plot, and there are many similarities with camera editing, plot, camera angles and mise en scene. i have research lord of war, the lord of war opening sequence is very smooth, dark and gives straight forward showing of what the film is going to represent, as its straight to the point. there are a variety of special effects used and camera work. it is edited really smoothly and continuous, the colours light and diegetic sounds in the sequence are very consistent. through out the start of the crime scene, it is describing what has happened and giving the audience a head start into what the film is going to be about, the lighting, colour and mise en scene are also consistent to the genre, crime thriller, there is more dialog in our film compared to the lord of war and is easier to guess what the films plot is going to be like, the audiences minds are early engaged and the opening sequences open up many different branches of different plots the audience will soon try to figure out.



How does your media product represent particular social groups?


Our film the crime scene represents two different aspects of today's society and shows two different classes and types of people, the main gender of people represented in the film are male, mainly because men are mostly associated with crime, and situations of unrest, this does not mean to say we are trying to suggest only men commit crimes and women do not feature and take a role in everyday life,the show represents, truth and how in real life it is mainly mindless, teenagers who are stabbing each other and committing crimes, the detectives are of ripe age and represent the more adult view of the audience, the film is targeted towards a wide range of people from old to young as the characters portray this in the style of how they act and the props they use to get into character. the film is mixed race but shows a true reflection of a northern society where white males, predominately outnumber foreign males, the film is true for the area, whereas if it was filmed in other parts of England the whole cast would have to be changed to show a true reflection of the area, in our case we represent a northern society.






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


Our film is more of a small production and due to the current society we are trying to represent would more be a small production like that of films of Shane meadows, and produced by warp films, but as proven in America by the hit series CSI detective shows, and films can be marketed and made by big Hollywood company's who can add a certain Jena se cua, to the film with high budget special effects and props, also highly payed actors and a team of specialised editors to make the whole project come together. our film would more suit a TV movie, as it has a good plot, good script and would entice the audience for a lengthy period of time, as they would follow the story to eventually lead to a big finish as do all crime genre films. the film would be real eased as there is defiantly a gap in the British film industry for a good British murder investigation. the film opens many opportunity's up for merchandising and franchising the film, firstly if marketed and advertised in the right way, money is there o be made, DVDs can be sold also with more interest books and more stories can be followed off the film, to make other films following different characterbut using the same style of crime, writing, props, and acting. although you do not want to lose the seriousness of the film as it is not a funny issue like a comedy or cartoon based film where toys can be marketed, fun posters, and gimmick's. other doors open to the film could be through the use of various technologies like game consoles, this would be optional depending on how popular the film was within this particular age group of society. there are opportunities to franchise the film to offer spin off series maybe on television, or spin off films, and through books, where company's pay to use your company's name over there own projects.



Who would be the audience for your media product?



The audience of the project would be a wide variation, as it involves many aspects of society but mainly over 16 years of age would be satisfactory for this film, as from this age people can understand and relate to the character and the events of the film, they would be able to understand the understated message throughout the film, showing how crime costs life's and is never the right option. in market research i did about this various subject i did however find that the main audience who would view the film would be of 20 - 40 years of age, and were 60% women, ( evidence on blog). harry brown released in Nov 2009 is a crime film showing the life of young and old in the country and the effects of crime, also has detectives in the film, but they play a less part than in ours, the rating for the film were good and showed how British people love a good British crime film related to real life in the UK. other British films have been, the krays, the bank job, green street and Italian job, all other successful British produced films.

Our film would best be classified at 16 as the violence is not appropriate for that of anyone under 16, although there is minimal bad language and graphic scenes, the ideas portrayed by the film would not be of best viewing for a young teenager or child. http://www.bbfc.co.uk/


How did you attract/address your audience?


Our short film, expresses a fault in true society, and shows what happens everyday around the UK, as two of the films key actors are around the age of a typical student, the film appeal and shock this age group, it could make the audience think more about the subject surrounding knife crime, like the effects and the aftermath it creates, everyday everybody young middle aged or old hear of horrific crimes, we have really tried to bring this alive with a sense of seriousness, also using a light dramatic tense, so the audience can relate to the characters and follow them as the story progresses, seeing not only the effects of serial knife crimes on a side of society we do not often see but also how, detectives who see this sort of thing every day deal with such things.

Different camera shots are used throughout the film to try and show the audience different emotions of the characters, how the characters are with each other, there status, and how they are each effected by the crime. during the first clip we see a close up on one of the main characters ( detective walshaw) showing his emotion as he sees the horrific body, other shots used to create dramatic effect are extreme close ups, medium close up, pan ( to establish the scene) and zoom. The audience are really being allowed to put themselves in the bodies of the detectives and using cleverly placed flash backs throughout the scene, the audience builds up a picture piece by piece of how the victim was murdered, and begin to build there own case analysis together, just as if they are working along side the detectives, it engages the audience and as well as feeling an instinctive emotion towards the seriousness of the topic of the film, the audience instinctively tries to solve the riddle of the plot.


what have you learnt about technology from the process of construction the product?


The camera we used was very easy to use, although was quite hard to negotiate with different terrain, where it is hard to get a good footing sing the stand, the night vision on the stand was very useful as was the zoom in and out as it was very clear and enabled us to take many different shots to work with. the main weakness of the camera was really the mobility of it in un-even areas, as it was often hard to get an even base.
The filming process was quite a struggle, we planned our filming over a period of a week, briefing the actors, and timing when we would have the props at the setting etc... unfortunately on the day of the filming the weather was breezy, and raining but we due to the tight time line we had left, we had to grit our teeth and bear it, we also agreed that the bad weather could really add a certain mood to our scene, and entice the audience even further, other problems during our film was that one of our actors fell ill so we had to find a last minute replacement, fortunately we found one who plays detective Neilson in the film. In the face of such problems i think my team and i coped rather well and we came up with good plans and covered ourselves for any slip ups. editing the film was hard ad the start but during the course of two weeks i got use to the system of final cut, and working with different equipment like the microphone system to record the films over voice, and also finding suitable backing tracks to play throughout the movie. i learned many new skills using final cut, it is really quite simple, cutting and chopping clips and fitting them together so they play continuous and smoothly, where the audio matches in every scene and the on screen visual continuity also doe not differ. i used an added different effects like incorporating sound within the movie, sequencing and rendering the clips together, also adding special effects like a flash back. the audio is controlled through out the film, as i used final cut to edit where and how loud the sound will be. the effects used really brought the clips together and made the film what it is, the complicated story line would have been harder to incorporate into the film if it hadn't had been for clever flash backs using various special effects.


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


During the pre-filming stage, i knew that research would play a key role in our film and how successful it would be so this was our main priority, we targeted a specific type of genre we would be interested in filming, that would challenge our imagination and technological skills, so we researched the area of crime, and different movies and TV shows, our research gave us many ideas of a storyline, props,characters, different effects and ideas for our plot and overall short film. our second but very important task was time management, so i wrote out a schedule of which we had to keep to a six week deadline that would spread our time out evenly giving us enough time to plan, film, edit and finish in time to complete our blog, (evidence in blog), the schedule was shown to each member of the team in draft and should be uploaded onto the blog.
now we had a time plan the next most relevant tasks were devising together a plot and from a plot we could draw together our ideas on a story board and eventually specify our main ideas and little details that make the film onto a script, which we had done twice as we modified it along the way, our ideas were discussed and the main plot of the story was typed up, we them moved on to write the script which was then printed off and gave to our actors. due to being let down several times by in sufficient actors, we postponed the filming and had to write a new script. the main purpose of the film though was to show and effect the audience, so to do this i realised camera angles were very important and would play a key role in how the film was judged and how the characters and plot would be perceived by the audience, so we carefully matched and linked in shots into the script to give us a bigger sense of direction and understanding of how we wanted the film to be perceived, long shots, medium, close, POV, pan tilt and establishing shots were all used during the film. the planning of the shots made it much easier to edit, as i knew what direction we needed to go in, and which shots to use to give the best effects,the planning must have saved us at least 2 days, of which we were still on the back foot off. planning is essential as the whole process is smoother and cleaner, everybody in the team was briefed and knew there jobs and what there main focus was, as showing in the blog evidence as we gave out cast titles. my main use of specific shot types has improved yes as i took control of a large percent of the filming, i learned new angles and skills and was keen to be experimental and see if different things could we used and if we could use the surrounding environment to create better shots, my tilt and pan shots improved and i am quite proud of them as they are dominant in the film. as well as filming i did a large percentage of editing, and got use to the equipment quite easily, so i am now very confident in using different technology, and also exploring different equipment, and learning to use it.
Through out the project i would say i took part in mostly everything and gave it all a try to the best of my ability, from planning, filming, acting, editing and researching, i feel the end project was successful especially the film given the time we was given to work with and on top of this the unfortunate incidents that held us back, but i feel we could have done more work to produce more evidence to show the hard work we put into the short film on the blog, and this is the only weakness i would say we have, i enjoyed the whole process, and we are very confident in the final piece we produced.

link to the audience review on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvIjY7DQVp8

This link, is an interview of the audience answering questions that we asked them to observe featuring our project.