Final Evaluation / Chris Mellor / Question 1 & 2 Photo's

Our Film

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CSI:Crime Scene Investigation

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The top 4 photos are from our film 'The Crime Scene', while the other 4 are from the television show 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'

Photograph 3 is very similar to the other photo 3 as the three people from our film are talking about evidence they have found and in the CSI photo the two investigators are doing the same.

Also photograph 1 from our film is very similar to the one from CSI as they both are holding up evidence.

The other 2 photo's show how they are both the same genre of film/programme.

Final Evaluation

The Crime Scene

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

As the title suggests, the media product is a crime thriller. In the opening scene the audience is given many clues as to the convention. The use of the music, which is initially dark and heinous, creates an expectation of mystery. This is then developed by the site of the ‘crime tape’. Along with the ‘voice over’ leaves the audience no doubt as to the fact the film is a murder mystery and that the murder has already taken place.

Our film develops these conventions as the audience are introduced to new leads exploring the crime, such as ‘flash backs’, reminding the audience of these leads, helping them to assimilate their own conclusion. Also the dialect during the phone call leads the audience to another predicament.

We chose this convention as we are all interested in films of this nature. I particularly enjoy the dark but humorous side of Quentin Tarantino and how his films have a tendency to leave the audience in the dark right up to the bitter end with usually a final twist, which sometimes is where the film started. For example, Reservoir Dogs; the opening scene in the café indicates the team of criminals will be successful in the robbery as opposed to each of them getting killed or killing one another. Films like this influenced us because of the unpredictable ending and how each twist leads you to another suspect. We tried to recreate this convention using’ flash backs’ to get the audience thinking about other possible suspects instead of leading them straight to an expected end.

‘The Crime Scene’ opening sequence equates closely with a popular crime drama ‘CSI - Crime Scene Investigation’. The drama sometimes opens with the murder having already taken, indicated by the ‘tape’ and the CSI team at the scene. Our production compares with this drama in the use of ‘flash backs’, i.e. CSI often show the audience figments of the teams imagination whilst they re-create the crime scene as they believe it could have happened. Our production shows similar ‘flash backs’ of our investigators thoughts, i.e. one of the detectives suggests a possible hit and run and this idea is then shown to the audience. This is a good persuasive technique which helps build in twists as it may not be an actual event.


IMAGES OF TAPE FROM CSI AND OUR CRIME SCENE


2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents ‘justice’. A crime has taken place and must be solved and criminals punished. The social groups could be either gender, both capable of solving crime. Our production is multi-racial and has no class distinction. ‘The Crime Scene’ target audience is sixteen plus non gender specific.

IMAGES OF OUR CHARACTERS OPENING SCENE AND CSI

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

Our film would most likely be associated with lower budget distributors such as warp films and Film4 in contrast to big Hollywood studios such as Warner Bros. pictures. Directors like Shane Meadow create films not only with an entertainment value but an influence on the audience. ‘This is England’ dealt around the racist struggles England were under at that time, and like Shane Meadow we try to capture a growing problem in today’s society, and feed this message to the audience.

Although we see our film as a small production, ‘The Crime Scene’ is definitely something that could be produced by major Hollywood studios. We relate our product closely around the hit drama ‘CSI’, who are distributed by big production companies like Arc Entertainment. Our production is more likely to be a TV movie/drama series as opposed to a big Hollywood blockbuster. A crime drama like a good crime book is something you are in for the long haul. It has a developing; twisting plot which will unfold and grasp people’s interest over a number of weeks to a remarkable finale.

As with any organisation/production its success will offer opportunities for franchise and merchandising. Our film has certain advantages for merchandising as the genre is crime/thriller which introduces a wide range of products to market such as action figures, whereas a comedy would struggle in selling this type of brand. Marketed and advertised correctly, our product can make money merchandising with posters, books, magazines, DVD’s, toys, t-shirts etc. Today, even low budget films have advantages for advertising through the internet where they can upload trailers and pictures on different networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. This is where the word of mouth becomes a major credit in selling your product. In our film, we focused a lot around the mise-en-scene to capture a sense of real life crime. In terms of marketing, we have opened a lot of doors and can be specific in our merchandising, e.g. selling board games relating to crime and mystery, crime solving console games and crime novels.

IMAGE OF FILM DISTRIBUTION COMPANY

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience our media product aims at is sixteen plus non gender specific. Our film relates to real life, including knife crime and the distort it brings to the families of those involved. People from the age of sixteen plus can understand the message more than a younger audience. Our film is strongly influenced by other similar crime/thrillers such as ‘Seven’, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Harry Brown’ and we relate our audiences to those of these films. Our product will also appeal more to those who have a real passion for solving mysteries and forensic science. In our research we found that more people between the ages of 20-40 watch crime genre films and shows and that 60%of these are women. Sixteen plus would be the most appropriate classification for our film as they are scenes of violence and crime which a younger audience may find disturbing. The film deals with social matters which don’t apply to an audience under sixteen.

LINK TO THE BBFC

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Our media product engages with a mixed audience from the ages of 16 +. We knew whilst planning and researching our product that we would attract our audience more if we could make particular sequences personal to them. From our wide ranged audience, those interested in murder mystery, and forensic science would have a great interest in our product, as each murder is scientifically looked into and from our opening sequence you can see Detective Lodge carefully taking blood samples and other peculiar substances. We also attract our audience looking into real life issues such as knife crime. As our audience varies from the ages of 16+ we knew that tackling this everyday crisis would engage a lot with this age group. We understand that a majority of our audience will or would have been involved in these terrors at some time and representing it in our film really addresses them individually.

Using different camera techniques, we were able to involve our audience more, as if they were part of the film. We used different shots such as point of view and over the shoulder allowing the audience to feel a part of the investigation. Flash backs also engaged our audience as it gave them a brief vision of the crime, without giving away too much information as we want the viewers to make their own minds up as different murders take place.


6. What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing the product?

Throughout the duration of filming and editing our media product, myself and the team have learnt a lot about the technology we used. The camera was our first challenge as none of us had ever used one of them before but with practise we all became associated with how it worked. Our good practise benefited as we found out how to film in ‘night vision’ which we used in our opening sequence as flashbacks to portray a dark, grunge feel. Although we had our strengths with the camerawork we also had our weaknesses, such as keeping the camera steady as the stand would sometimes give way. Also the batteries we were supplied with kept dying, which pushed back our filming, and in the end we had to have our camera attached to an extension lead.

During our filming process, everything that could have gone wrong did. We had a six week plan (find on blog), of how we would have liked our project to run. Unfortunately we were pushed back due to the illness of one of our actors and extreme weather conditions. To overcome this problem a lot of previous planning and preparation had to be forgotten and a new script was written. This was a radical decision we made but we managed to overcome this obstacle down to our dedication for each other and the film. We set a day and time to film and didn’t go back on our word, even though the weather turned out to be breezy and raining, although the conditions did add a particular mood to the sequence. We also owe many thanks to our friend, Jeremy who took time out to help us film as arranged actor Oliver Nielson was still ill.

When we came to editing, we used new equipment to enhance our film like the microphone system, used for the voice over and the software final cut. This again was an obstacle for us as we were all used to using imovie, but we become very familiar with final cut and prefer using that software. There were many different effects we found useful such as simply cutting and rendering scenes together, making them more precise for a smoother flow. We also incorporated sound within our movie like the ‘voice over’, and the music which creates suspense.

INCLUDE SCREEN GRABS ILLUSTARTING THE EQUIPMENT AND SOFTWARE YOU HAVE USED OR TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE EQUIPMENT.

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

Looking back over the duration of our preliminary task I have learnt how important planning and research is in the progression to the full product. We all individually began researching into different genres which we would enjoy tackling and what would challenge our creative ideas. We looked into many different types of genre such as, horror, comedy, action, adventure, sci-fi, romance, etc but we all agreed that crime/thriller was the perfect genre for us as we were all interested in crime films/shows therefore this was a good genre for us to develop our creative ideas.
We looked into many different crime/thriller films/shows like reservoir dogs, seven, lord of war and CSI which influenced us massively and helped us begin to present our ideas together into a story board and script. When watching different crime films for our research we payed particular attention to the camera shots so we had a good idea what shots we needed to capture our audience like those films captured their audience. We also payed attention to the lighting, props, outfits, dialect, music, and scene editing so we would have a good idea how to create a certain mood which is specific to the genre crime.

After writing a script we all thought was original and entertaining we began to look for locations, somewhere which would really capture the tension of our product. We came across many different locations which would suit our script but settled for an old Victorian house. From putting in this research and planning it helped us when we came to filming and editing as we knew exactly what to do, step after step. Our organisation made our filming and editing smooth and didn’t have to worry about certain shots as they fitted to our surroundings. We used many technical shots like, long shot, close up, medium shot, establishing long shot, point of view, etc which all blended together and created a smooth, enjoyable sequence.

After having extremely good practise with the equipment like the camera and different editing software’s, I am proud to say that I am confident in its use. Using the equipment became more than just a task to me but a joy, and I look forward to using the equipment again. I am also very confident in the success of our final end product. We did face a lot of unfortunate events but tackled them all thanks to our planning and commitment. I believe that our film is a great success, especially taking into consideration the difficulties we faced. Although our full product task has been challenging and at times frustrating, I have enjoyed it thoroughly. I am very proud and positive in our full product.

INCLUDE STILL IMAGES FROM EACH PROJECT

Individual Task - Research on opening title sequence - Seven

Film Researched – Seven

Directed by – David Fincher

Genre – Crime/Thriller

Plot – In an unidentified city of near-constant rain and urban decay, the soon-to-be retiring Detective William R. Somerset (Freeman) is partnered with short-tempered Detective David Mills (Pitt) who recently transferred to the department. They find themselves jointly investigating a series of ritualistic murders inspired by the seven deadly sins.

Link to film – http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/03/26/se7en/

Camera work

The camera work in my chosen opening title sequence, (seven) is very interesting and important for the style of film it’s portraying, crime. The only camera shots used are all close ups or extreme close ups, which are all of the killers work, such as drawings, writing, books, scissors, and pictures. These camera shots all blend in well with the titles, which are both presented on either a black still image or as part of the shot. Other camera techniques are used like Pan, although only slightly towards the end as the camera follows the side of what appears to be books or records. The way the camera work has been used is very important as it is almost difficult to understand what you are seeing, which has purposely been done to leave the audience with questions and draw them more into the film. Some of the camera shots shown are on props from upside down or from strange angles which is interesting as it gives an unbalanced surrounding and plays with the audience imagination.

Editing

The editing in the opening sequence plays a major role on the genre of the film and how the audience are going to interpret ate it. Each clip cuts quite sharp, which makes the audience unable to see fully what is happen, or what is in the shot. The pace of the editing and effects used to dilute the shots makes it seem almost like a blur, or a dream. The editing combines well with the sound as it follows the music’s tempo and builds up near the end for suspense. The technique of building up the editing towards the end creates a real mood of thrill and is to me very much like a heart beating faster and faster. This can have the audience on edge and make there hearts beat faster and faster, really involving them in the film. The lighting used throughout the sequence is very dark and plane, indicating it’s not so happy side.

Sound

The music and different sound effects really create a dark, terrifying atmosphere. The different effects used are almost uneasy to listen to, which tell the audience that this killer is frightening and isn’t going to be easy to watch, or catch. It instantly draws you in and prepares you for the crime about to take place. As said before, the editing flows well with the music. As the tempo of the music builds up, so does the pace of editing and the music becomes loader and heavier. The music is very dark and grunge, immediately setting the scene.

Mise-en-scene

The mise-en-scene is very particular in the opening sequence to ‘Seven’. A lot of the props used are difficult to make out due to the style of the film and the tension it is creating, but we see books, pens, photos of people (victims?), scissors, tweezers, and pieces of hair. These props are all purposely arranged although when watching it, it’s like your watching shot after shot of random items. The colour of these props are all dainty and plain, indicating there secret of existence, as if we are seeing them from the shadow’s. Although most colours’ we see are mainly grey and black, we are introduced to the colour red. This could represent the power of the killer, and the blood of his victims. Other mise-en-scene we see is the killer’s hands which play a key role throughout the opening sequence. You can see that they have dirt under the nails, scratches, marks and plasters on which represent him to be a creepy, and dangerous.

extra prop and scene images

This is the flat of the victim Chris, in the opening sequence.

this is the knife used in the opening sequence to kill the victim, the knife is around 6 - 8 inches long and around 2 inches in width.

This is the escape route the murderer takes at the side of the house after stabbing the victim, you can also see where the murder drops his knife in the struggle to flee the scene.

link to film

link to the film the crime scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9XlzNrZRxI

The Crew

Name: Chris Mellor

Official status: Actor, Director of cinematography, Co producer

Role in the opening sequence: victim, Craig Brookes

Name: Thomas Lodge

Official status: writer, co director, co producer, Actor, Director of costume and design.

Role in the opening sequence: Detective Lodge

Name: Josh Woolhouse

Official status: Director, Producer, Actor

Role in the opening sequence: The killer

Final Evaluation / Chris Mellor / Questions 1-7

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

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.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

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