Final Media Product - Live To Tell

After all the hard work my group members and I went through we believe we have finally completed our opening to a film. Finishing this off has really been and achievement all the time we spent after school trying to edit this opening to a film has been hard work. The feedbacks we received from the pupils that watched the rough cut were into consideration and we added and removed certain things from the scenes, for example we added a heartbeat sound to the chase scene, we believe this made the audience feel as if they could relate to the scene. Hopefully people enjoy this because we tried hard but could of tried harder to complete this, but we had a some good times doing this.

The Final Product - 'Live To Tell' Directed By Myself (Richard Poku), Lynette Carty & Deon Hunte    

Evaluation Question - 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 preliminary task I believe plays a big part in the actual final product. We did not try hard when it came to the preliminary task, in fact we actually completed this task within a few hours of our teacher telling us to make one. My group and I did not even make a story board before shooting the preliminary as this was not taken as serious  unlike the final product, we ended up making the storyboard after we had done the preliminary task. We also had to us our Blackberry phones to video the scenes, so we believed this was not serious, however we had a different approach when doing the actual filming.

Now doing the actual filming we believed that we had to actually come with a good storyline and storyboard, reason being that it would set guidelines allowing us as a group to avoid and overcome any barriers, this was achieved as the storyboard had everything we needed to add and it could have easily been changed if needs be. Using the techniques from the preliminary task such as being able to preform the 180 degree rule and the others, Match on Attack and of course Shot -Reverse Shot we were able to make some of the frames of the final piece look really good because we were now paying attention to the lighting and other things audience would notice. Which brings me to the improvements we made when shooting the actually opening scene, we began to think about the location, costumes and the props. This was not concentrated on when doing the preliminary, whereas we had to concentrate on these things so the audience are able to portray things and have a good understanding of where we as a group were coming from when filming. Unlike the preliminary task we had to now focus on where the scenes would be located, we had to focus on this because it allows the audience to see some realism and actually believe that the genre of the film must be a thriller. 

I believe I learnt a lot from doing the preliminary task first because it made me see that a lot of planning and research needs to go into filming how ever small the piece may be. The planning and research as you see through out this blog was immense and this was only for 3 minutes of filming which makes you think that a lot needs to go into these films for people to publish a really great product. I also conclude that our group could have been more organised and aware of the amount of work we would have had to put out, but overall there has been more positives then negatives. What we could improve on next time is definitely time management and selecting rolls for people, these two issues could have affected us as a group really bad as an individual was not pulling his weight and we believed they should be giving this course their all because we were doing the same and this course work was all about teamwork. One thing I believed I achieved throughout this course was being able to concur the software programmes on the iMac, I have learnt a lot in regards to editing films it was not as easy as I thought it would be but helping one another (teamwork) allowed me to feel comfortable when doing editing. The name Alfred Hitchcock Junior says it all when it comes to my camera skills and being able to pick locations, this was definitely the most successful part of the filming and that is what I believe as an individual. 

Finally the overall finished product to me is very good, the reason why I do not believe it is excellent is because I feel that we have not captured every aspect of the thriller genre itself, we may have made the final product have some scenes of suspense but we have not managed to make the audience jump. On the plus side the feed back we have received happens to be really good, most people we have shown have left wanting more, which I believe is a really good thing as we have made them feel part of the film.  

                              

Evaluation Question - Question 6 (What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?)

Technology has played a big part in the film industry in recent years it has become easier for companies to produce, distribute and exhibit films. It has also played a big part in the everyday life of our audience and most living humans nowadays, for example mobile phones, iPod s and other portable technology devices. It is even known to man for people to use their phones to record short movie passages, although this would not be as clear as a camera, it would still be able to get the job done. In fact I believe members of a different group that also study Media decided to shoot their media product using an iPhone.

We had to use technology throughout our whole period of getting our Media coursework done, we had to start off our blogging on this website (Blogger.com). Before we were even able to begin our filming we had to do some research and this meant we had to use the Internet to access YouTube & Google. This was quite easy to use as through out life I believe I and my group have mastered some aspects of using the World Wide Web, what I can say is that blogspot is something I did not know about previously but has now grown attached to me. When this was introduced to me at first it was as if I had to start a new language, this is because I had no understanding of this website until it was finally taught to us. We had later noticed technology has come a long way as the years above my year group did not even use blogspot to show off their course work, there was a time when everything had to be written out, luckily blogspot was invited to help us and make our lives easier.

When we actually started the filming we were giving a camera that was to catch all the filming we were looking to do, the camera was a Canon digital concept camera not exactly what we expected if I'm being honest with you but I believe we were given a camera that would get the job done. It was an easy bit of 'tech' to use but Lynette a member from my group found it hard to operate, after a view words of wisdom by myself she was able to get the hang of it and we began to produce wonderful shots with the camera. The technology allowed me to enjoy the filming for example, being able to zoom in action and create different angles allowed me to feel comfortable that our media product may end up looking really good. The camera we used gave me the name 'Alfred Hitchcock Junior' so that shows how good I and the camera worked as a team, it has also brought out some hidden confidence and I feel more confident with handling cameras.

After filming had finished we began to move on to our editing stage, this is where we are able to refine our filming and add some improvements. I believe this part was quite difficult because none of us in the group had ever use the iMAC's software called iMovie. The iMAC software was seen to be very difficult because it is not what something that I'm or anyone in my group was used to, however the programmes on it supported us throughout our whole editing stage. I've learnt a lot from this new technology and it has definitely made our lives easier because everything was on one programme and this included transitions, music, text and being able to make credits.

This picture shows you the first stage of editing were we had unscrambled every shot and began to order the shots in the places we thought would be suitable for it to be. We asked for a bit of assistance from an A2 student who had already done what we were doing, he helped put up all the frames on the software as this is what we found difficult.

I thought that I would use a iMac programme called garage band, reason being was that we did not have a sound track at first so I thought that it would be good if I produced a beat that would work well with the actual opening to a thriller film. However we ended up finding a great track by The Weeknd an RnB artist and this really went well with the whole theme.

   

Evaluation Question - Question 5 (How did you attract/address your audience?)

There are various of ways in which film institutions attract/address their audience for example literally going up to people and asking them what type of movies they liked. In my group and I case we decided to ask a few students from our school what type of thrillers they are likely to go for, what we did was that we went around asking people what they believe should be involved in a thriller. Most people believed that a thriller should have aspects of crime, mystery and a bit of action. Whiles going around with the camera we asked a range of young adults/teenagers, the range of ages was 15 to 19 year old pupils. Reason being is because of the certificate age, we wanted to know what people liked from ages 15 onwards because that is who we believed our opening would be aimed at. The advantage of doing this video was that we a real detailed understanding of what people liked and what they believed we should do throughout our media product.

To also attract/address audience we made a questionnaire, reason being is that we wanted a written response as well as a verbal one. The paragraph above has some similarities to what we did with the questionnaire, we also wanted to see what we could add and take into consideration whiles doing the filming. So my group and I asked various of questions that would have given us understanding, for example we asked ' What type of thrillers do you like' underneath this we had a several different types of thrillers below for participants to choose from.

After gathering up all the information from our future audience we took what everyone believed we should add to our final piece into account and we as a group believe we have done well after using their ideas as well as our own. A few changes were made because we did not think if we had followed some their ideas we would get the good end product we wanted, for example making our opening to a film about a psychological thriller. We as a team thought that this would be very hard to do especially in the space of time we had to do it in, as a result of this we decided to go for a hybrid of thriller sub-genres which we believed as a group would have a more diverse look to our finished product and we still added some of the ideas from the people  we questioned.

We gathered up all the results from the questionnaires we did and we took each thing into account. We used the main questions to decide what our thriller would involve such as, 'what location would the media product be shot at?', 'what type of thrillers do you like?' and what type of villain would you like to see?'

Another way we tried to attract/address our audience was by putting a storyline of our thriller opening but this was only to give the audience an idea of what we may be doing in the finished product. We as a group believed putting this on our blog for people to see would build up the suspense therefore making people and our main audience keen to watch the our media product.

Evaluation Question - Question 4 (Who would be the audience for your media product?)

The audience chosen for my group an I film in terms of the traditional certificate of the film is 15, reason being that not a lot of children under the years of 15 tend to watch a lot of thrillers. I believe this because they are frightend of little things that may make them jump and want to watch more. We took to account that some thriller films have lower (age) certificates, such as Bourne Identity which was a 12A film. I believe this was done to get a wider range of audience allowing the company who made film to make a lot of money.

My group also decided that we would target both genders (male & female). We decided for it to be both genders because our film shows both aspects of male and female things, as Mandy (Jenessa Tawiah) is a female and the Attacker/Stalker (Abiola Fatusin). For example men are seen dominant over women and men are able to relate to this because this still goes on in our society today. The I and my group showed this in the film was by making the Attacker/Stalker (Abiola Fatusin) leave his victim Mandy on the floor, the camera angle is shows the audience the prospective of the victim Mandy looking up to Attacker. We also believe it would be beneficial to have a male audience as the media product has fast suspenseful scenes which is something men like to see in thrillers. Women would also benefit from this opening to a film as the women would be able to relate to the drama filled side of things, for example when Mandy recieves the annoymous letter addressed to her and it has a heart shaped picture with a quote at the bottom saying ' its no fun if your heart's not in it'.

I and my group also chose from the Audience Category Theory of Young & Rubicam, through Young & Rubicam we thought our target audience would be the 'Mainstreamers'. The reason for this choice is that we believed our media peoduct would have aspects of safety and security, this fits in nicely with 'mainstreamers' because they look for the sense of belonging. The sense of belonging goes really well with our idea to make the audience believe that they are part of the film. The way in which we attracted this type of audience was by setting questionnaires to get an an understanding of how they feel and act towards thrillers.

Using the Audience Category Theory of 'VAL' (Values, attitudes & lifestyle) we believe our target audience would be 'Strugglers & Experiencers'. 'Strugglers' have some similarities with what I was explaining in the paragraph above ('Mainstreamers') the similarities are that they are primarily concerned about their safety and security. This relates to our media product a lot as it has safety and security part to the film, for example when Mandy walks through the path way and is then being followed by the Attacker/Stalker. 'Experiencers' are motivated by self expression and we would want our audience to be able to relate to this because a lot of self expression is shown through out the film.

We also used Life Matrix to help us decide what type of audience we believed suited our media product, after looking through what types of audience are involved in this theory we believed we came up with a few. Fun/Atics is one of the target audience we chose as they are able to relate to the plot of our film as we want active young people that are seeking for some sort of enjoyment of the film. In this case they will get a lot of different types of emotions thrown at them, from being up and wanting to know what happens next to feeling involved with the film.   

Evaluation Question - Question 3 (What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?)

I believed that because we are British and we are a small group of students, so we should go for a media institution that are aimed at trying to develop young talent. In this case I believe that Film4 would be able to distribute our media product.

I believe that Film4 is the best choice as they have distributed a wide range of films, this also includes thrillers. Film4 produced ‘The crying game’ and this film was good enough to be nominated for six academy awards and winning one of the six awards (Best original screenplay). This allows be to believe that Film4 would be able to lead us into great things as they have a really high status, which therefore allows our film to become known.  Film4 also has an ethos and one of the points is to develop UK talent and that is exactly what we are looking for; As this chance allows us to break through any barriers that my come our way, also gives s a chance to express our talent to others.

  

Flim4 would also be a good reason to distribute our media product as it is situated in the United Kingdom. This is once again a great thing as our film is located in the UK, which would then allow the audience to notice some verisimilitude. However they may need to distribute internationally meaning they would need help from American conglomerates. Film4 have already used The Weinstein Company, this has occurred more than twice for both great films such as ‘Kings Speech and the Iron Lady’, both these films went in to achieve great success.

We as a group have to also think about our film being produced and distributed internationally, this opened our eyes to other possibilities. After acknowledging this we thought about major Hollywood distributers, for example Warner Bros, 2Oth Century Fox and Paramount Pictures.

A few of these conglomerates own the biggest production, distribution and exhibition compaines in the world. The compainies would help my media product be successful as Hollywood dominates the film industry and thats where all the money is. These can also take risks unlike most British distribution and exhibition companies, and because of this they produce more films. 

These major Hollywood companies have both Horizontal & Vertical integration; this means that the company produces, distributes and exhibit their films. An advantage of this is that the major companies have a positive effect on the British Film Industry for example, Working Title (UK) worked with Universal (USA) work well as partners to produce films. 

So I may move sides and go for a American and British partnership, reason being is that it would allow our media product get a lot of attention and the positive feedback it needs. Audience would also automatically think this film is really good as the distribution company as a name for itself, so for our product to be associated with this company is really good.

Evaluation Ouestions - Question 2 (How does your media product represent particlar social groups?)

Our film represents late teens which are from both genders, male (attacker) and female (prey). We wanted the audience to feel the innocence of the female and we captured this by having a close up of the girl. We made her add to the innocence by asking her to wear a pink jumper which symbolises a guilty, feminism and gentle emotions.

This actually works well with normal thriller films because women/girls tend to be those innocent characters that end up being attacked. I believe the group and I worked well in trying to achieve this view of the innocent girl, we also added glasses to the look which gives once again some type of symbolism of a guilty person. (Jenessa Tawaih's Costume)

With class we wanted to make the audience believe that she is a Working class child but at the higher side of Working class people. I say this because we made her walk through the path way with a headset and made her play around with her blackberry, meaning she has money to buy a few luxury things. This is also aimed at young adults/teenagers as they are all familiar with the gadgets involved and they are also familiar with today’s fancy clothing trends, meaning the targeted audience would be able to relate to the film really well.

As for the male attacker as a group we wanted to use the normal thriller convention of making him wear all black, so he definitely fits in to what the audience believes an attacker looks like. We also made the attacker seem like he is a type of ‘druggy’ as he had a distinctive itch whiles he walks, as if he was need of something and in this case he was in need of the innocent girl. The colour of both actors’ clothes was also made to show the stereotypical male dominance over females. The black colour of the male was to show a mysterious, overpowering and evil. This type of clothing was used for many thrillers for example ‘Dracula’- a mysterious and evil character.

The social group that matched with Abiola Fatusin's Character (Attacker/Stalker) is a working class teenager. We as a group wanted to get the affect of troubled youth that are involved in gang culture, for example the actors from 'Kidulthood'. They had the stereotypical look of a young teenage gang member, which was similar to the Attacker/Stalker clothing but we wanted Abiola to seem more of an attacker rather than a 'Yob'. 

Evaluation Questions - Question 1 (In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real meida products)

The conventions of my group’s thriller contained a suspenseful account of a failed attack (Crime). In one of the scenes the innocent girl is attack by someone (attacker) for no reason and he fails to finish off his prey. This part of our film was done so that we could draw in the attention of the audience making the want to know and see more. One of the last shots where the girl who was attacked opens the envelope to find a note saying ‘it’s not fun if your hearts not in it’, after this the opening sequence automatically goes in to a cliff hanger. This holds the audience’s attention, which then makes them more aware.

As we as a group went for the subgenre of crime/drama/mystery thriller, this was because the main plot was based on someone being attacked in a cold, scary and dangerous location. We decided to go for crime as audience would easily be able to relate to this type of thriller and if this was not true it was great to see how the antagonist (the attacker) decides to attack a vulnerable passerby you could say (protagonist).

We used a typical convention of thrillers and that was the location of the main scenes, he setting had actually played a big part in making the audience see some verisimilitude. We did this because we know people do not always feel safe walking through path ways where there is hardly any light. This was a typical setting for a thriller and we wanted d the audience to feel what the person who was attacked was feeling.

Another typical convention we used was a type of a detective situation, where we made police noticeable in the opening sequence. We did this as a group so that the audience would see the verisimilitude once again. Having a shot of the police station hopefully should have shown the crime part of the opening sequence, also showed the realism therefore making audience more alert and wanting to know whether the mystery would ever get solved. This also relates to the costumes the actors wore, for example I was told by the group to wear a shirt, tie and trousers so that I look the part (detective).

As you can see we used the look of Morgan Freeman in 'Se7en'. We chose this look because detectives must have the smart sophisticated look. This was done to add realisim because you do not see detectives in rags and causal wear unless they are going undercover for a job.

I guess our film challenged the convention because unlike those well known films such as ‘Bourne Identity’ we decided to change the background sound to more of a suspenseful beat, rather than an upbeat song.  We decide to use a small part of Madonna’s song ‘Live to tell’. We used the introduction and a bit more of the song throughout the opening, as we believed that the title of the song says a lot about our thriller. The slow tempo allows the audience to wait for something to happen; we went for the digetic sound throughout each action scene so the slow music builds up the tension. Films in the industry that go for slow tempo music during an action scene the suspense  for example, ‘The Last House on the Left’.

Feedback from Rough cut version

My group and I believed we had finished all the editing, meaning our final media product was complete. As we were satisfied with everything, we were about to burn the film on to a disk but myself and Lynette thought we should get some feedback from students. We asked them to be honest and that they should tell us if their should be any improvements.

The feedback we received were constructive criticisms and praise :

• "Didn't the girl die after she got caught, how can she be fine a week later?" After explaining to the pupil she later understood and when she watched it again she realised the Attacker/Stalker did not kill Mandy.
• "Oh my gosh ! that is really good"
• "I think you should lower the sound in the running scene and add a heartbeat adding to the suspense" (A2 Media Studies student)
• "The locations in this are really good, well done!" 

I believe going to students to ask for their views on what they think of our film was the right thing to do. If this was not done my group and I would have felt that we could of added a few things before burning it on to a disk, we then would have been living in regret and this may of affected our final grades.   

Editing Stages

After doing all our filming it was now time for editing and re shaping our final cut to get it looking top notch for people to watch. Editing stages allowed us to make improvements and also add things we were unable to see using the naked eye, what also made this easy for us is that we used a programme on the Apple iMAC. The programme called iMovies allowed us to do every type of editing you could imagine from adding sounds to including credits and transitions, so you can say it had its positive things to say about the editing.

My group members and I had never come across any of these programmes on the iMAC, we hardly used the iMAC in fact, so getting help from others was needed:

This picture shows what we needed help with bear in mind this was our first ever encounter with this software. This was the first stage of editing were we had unscrambled every shot and began to order the shots in the places we thought would be suitable for it to be. We asked for a bit of assistance from an A2 student who had already done what we were doing, he helped put up all the frames on the software as this is what we found difficult.

After getting used to the editing programme Myself and Deon began to produce what we would call a piece of art, whiles under strict orders from Lynette who was acting as the director and basically telling us what we should put in order.

There were times when I believed I had lost all the work, which definitely made my heart sink as I thought I would have been the reason why my group failed. I did not stop panicking until I finally got assistance and was told that the programme saves automatically after something has been changed .

As days of editing went by my success of concurring the software was soon to be completed, you could say i built up a lot of confidence and thought I'm able to do anything. So an idea came to mind and I thought it would be good to use a iMac programme called garage band, reason being was that we did not have a sound track at first so being able to produce a beat would have been a brilliant idea, but as I was getting into producing Lynette found a great track by The Weeknd an RnB artist and the song really went well with the whole theme.

   

We were able to add a title page and credits during the editing stage, this made the film look quite professional because it had some similarities of thriller films that have been realised and noticed for how good they are.

During the editing stages we were able to apply some lighting to the frames we believed were dark, it allowed the visibility of most shoots to improve. We were able to add stabilisation to shots that was believed to be shaking throughout the filming stages.