The genre of our film crime thriller, it is a crime thriller because the story is about a murder that leads on to other murders, similarly linked to CSI but our own style of the television show. It starts off with a murder and detectives are investigating it, which is basically quite similar CSI like its effects and its plot but a movie. We include flashbacks which very much shows the viewer what has happened but without giving too much away and the character/murderer away. The film is very dark, which is influenced by Reservoir Dogs a film by Quentin Tarentino, which includes a lot of violence, blood and swearing, our is a tamed version of a thriller as it is a 15 rating, it doesn't include much of what i said in some parts just toned down slightly. Reservoir Dogs is very well edited and in our film we have tried to keep it very similar but added our own touch to it, we have added plot twist which keeps the viewer on the edge of her seat. The influence is from CSI as we have increased the tension and added a personal level as we have added Detective Walshaw, he talks over the film after most scenes about what he has been through and what he is thinking at that moment in time. Our film contains less conversation as Reservoir Dogs as in Reservoir Dogs it is based in one big room rather than all over the city in our film. Our film contains darker lighting and later scenes are shot late at night to add a bit of horror to the thriller and to keep you on edge.
(For comparison pictures refer to Final Evaluation / Chris Mellor / Question 1 & 2 photo's)
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our film it contains mainly male cast members as any normal person would presume that males cause more murders than females, but we have a few female Crime Scene Investigators. Also the age of the characters are around 30-35 as they have much more experience than someone who has recently joined the force although there is one character who is a new CSI, who slips up quite a bit later on in the film. In our case our cast members are from Northern England so we all speak like we are slightly from Yorkshire, which is true to the area. The cast is mainly white male but there are a few from Asian descent and African cast members. We are trying to send a message out about knife crime these days and how people are getting affected by knife crime how it can affected anyone and it can happen anywhere. As we are trying to speak out for people who have been affected in the past and want to raise awareness of knife crime and help to stop it or rapidly reduce it, so we don't have to suffer anymore. This links to our target audience as it is for teenagers and younger adults plus old adults. The teenagers to teach them not to carry knives and to teach them that this is what might happen sometime in the future. The young adults to learn if they carry knives now what it could lead to and to the older adults to keep telling there sons and daughters that it is very bad to use knives and to tell them to not carry knives around with them and not to get sucked in with peer pressure.
(For Comparison pictures see blog entry Final Evaluation / Chris Mellor / Question 1 & 2 photo's)
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
This film is very low budget and uses a small production much like Shane Meadows's films and Warp Films. This film could prove to be a success as in America such shows as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: New York and CSI:Miami are very big and popular over in America. This shows that if a film is produced well and is talked about and advertised well. Such films as Reservoir Dogs are shot with quite a low budget and still sell well, this film would boost the economy of low budget British films such as This Is England which proved a big success and sold very well throughout England. I would class this as a TV movie because it is an independent film with similarities to the hit television series CSI, you can tell this from watching the opening sequence, it is set out in a way that looks very much like a TV show but is very much a movie. The film would be released over the Internet for a few pounds and if it receives good reviews and people want it on DVD then we would dispense it over the website and maybe dispense them to well known sellers such as HMV, WH Smith's and Asda. This opens up other franchises and merchandising, such as if the film does well then there may be a sequel to it, maybe turned into a television series or a spin off, or perhaps a book or comic, or possibly a video game, as in the past games generally do quite well after the movie has released. But it generally depends on how well the film has done as there wouldn't be any money to be made if the film only sold a few hundred copies of the title, it would have to sell a few million DVDs to sell any merchandise.
(For logo's refer to Final Evaluation / Chris Mellor / Question 3 Logo's)
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The main audience for our film would be a wide variety of over 15's, this film should appeal to most people mainly people would like shows like CSI and the general crime/thriller genre. The main gender for the film is male as males generally like horror/crime/thrillers rather than girls, but from our evidence from our research using a questionnaire that 60% of the women like watching crime/thriller films, although females are stereotyped as liking more softer films such as romantic, family and comedy films. From our research we have also found out that our main audience is in fact varied from the ages 20 - 40. A similar film to ours is a film called Se7en which stars Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman,it is another crime/thriller, which proved a very big success, which proves that a crime/thriller such as our film sells well. Our film is a classified 15 film as there are some slightly scary moment but nothing over the 15 rating, there are a few swear words used and one minor scene showing graphic detail within one scene which can be edited out if it proves a struggle to be appeal to the audience.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted the audience by making a film about things that were happening everyday, we chose knife crime, as ever murder in the film happens differently just with a knife. We thought that if we made a film that was touching and based on things happening around the world, that we would send a message out to the young adults and older adults and make people more aware about knife crime. From our research we found out that the audience that would watch us the most would be varied between 20 - 40 so we centered the scenes around something that would appeal to that age group. We researched a few films to see if a main character helps people understand the story more, so we added Detective Walshaw to narrate and tell his story about what he's been through, we thought that would be a good idea to use. We have used camera shots which gives the audience the chance to see a brief encounter of what has happened as we show flashbacks in the film but we do not give away too much detail, just the brief idea what has happened. We use quite a few point of view shots throughout to give the sense that the audience is actual witnessing what is happening. It is a good shot to use as it gives the audience a different experience when they watch the film and a few shots where they feel like they are in the scene with the characters from the film. We use close up shots also to show expression on the characters faces so without saying anything they can tell how the character is feeling. The different shots, if they are edited well will make a good suspense and will keep the audience on the edge of there seat.
6. What have you learnt about technology from the process of construction the product?
I have learnt that the camera is not as hard as you would think to use as the buttons are generally easy to work out how to use, we used a HD camera which made the sound and the picture much improved. The only problem was keeping the camera still on certain terrain as the base wasn't that adjustable, so had the just grin and bare the weight of the camera while filming certain shots but we only held the camera for the flashbacks to give a shakey feel to it, as if you were actually watching it happen. We had a few problems when filming but only minor issues such as finding extra actors for the film, but we had to rely on friends to help us do the filming but it proved to be a good decision as it worked out better than we thought. We had a few problems with the weather as we were set to film and then it started raining, which we thought might give it a crime/thriller type of atmosphere but we thought we would wait to the cloud passed, so the camera didn't get damaged and the actors weren't too uncomfy, the floor was wet when we filmed, so as i was layed on the floor i was very soaked when we stopped filming. We used a camera we had never used before in our film, the HD camera which we were used to using the small handheld camera, they were both easy to use as once you have had a fiddle about with the camera you know how to use it. We also hadn't edited before so the editing process was very new for us, but we felt like we did a good job at the end of the day, we used Final Cut to do our editing as we found it easier to use than iMovie we did the best we could. We found the sound blender very useful as the background noise was different in a few scene, so we blended them together to help the film sound similar between scenes. We used a song which was royalty free, so we could use it without getting into trouble for using it as it would be illegal to use a song in a film without asking the band/ record company for copyright reasons.
(For photographs of equipment we used refer to Final Evaluation / Chris Mellor / Question 6 Photo's)
7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Before we started the main part of the planning we thought about what type of film we would like to base our film on, after a big discussion we decided that we would pick a crime/thriller to film. We then started researching into the genre and watching films such as Se7en and television programmes such as CSI, we then decided that the sub genre would be detective/mystery. We then started on a script, we then changed the script one more time. We knew that we would need some good camera shots like a point of view shot and a few close ups to show the emotion on the characters face. I feel very confident about using the equipment now, the camera will be easier to the use the more that i use it. Also using Final Cut, I found it easy to use now as i have quite a few hours of editing experience now along with the other 2 members of my group. We did about 40 minutes of different takes that we edited down to 2 minutes of film, as we had a lot of backup film, so we could chose which camera angle or view we would like to use and if edited together it didnt look right then, we would have backup film to replace it. I think we have done very well to say that we had never used the camera before, never edited a film before and never had to plan a film to shoot, we found it easier than we thought it would be as, once we got started we didn't want to finish, and added an extra 40 minutes to the film which was then edited to 2 minutes. All of the group knew there roles in the planning, so we found it very easy to work on the film as we had planned everything we could possibly do. Apart from the incidents that we struggled on as I have stated earlier on in my evaluation, the only other thing we could have done a bit more on is presenting more evidence on the blog as we hadn't put as much things on as we would of liked to. But overall I think as a first time effort it was a success and I am very happy in the final product and I am looking forward to the next time we get to film the same sort of thing.
(For still pictures of our work refer to Final Evaluation / Chris Mellor / Question 7 Still Images)
audience review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvIjY7DQVp8
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