Friday 4 March 2011

Evaluation

Brief: To create a title sequence and opening scene of a new film.


Genre: Action Thriller


Target Audience: 15+ both male and female


In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of real life media products?
When doing the research and planning for our title sequence, we made sure that we would follow all the codes and conventions of the genre that we decided to choose for our title sequence. We did this by researching on lots of different films.

During our title sequence we wanted to make the audience want to carry on watching, so this is why we left the ending on a cliffhanger and making the audience think who is the kidnapper? I feel that to follow the conventions of an action thriller we need to give little pieces of information away at a time to give a sense of mystery. Some of the elements of an action thriller are dark, spine-chilling, restlessness and discomfort. I feel that we incorporated all of these elements into our title sequence and doing so we created a successful narrative to our title sequence. By creating these elements within our film we used different camera shots and editing process like such things as our split screen. This was done so that we could show two clips at once and would also suggest that our kidnapper has a split personality. Our group sat down and talked about what we wanted to call our title sequence, we wanted something that wouldn’t give too much away but yet still gave clues to the audience on what might happen. This is when we decided that we was going to have one word that associated with “Kidnap” this is when “Seized” was then created. I believe that our title sequence looked professional and was really successful when finally completed.

Who would be the audience for your media product? How does your media product represent particular social groups?
We decided to target our title sequence at people 15+ both male and female.  We decided to do this as we felt that there would be no restrictions on what we could or couldn't include in our title sequence. We also decided to aim in at 15+ audience because if we didn't do this then we would have had to be very careful on what we could include in the narrative as kidnap is a very sensitive subject. Another reason why we targeted this audience was that we felt that the young people love films that show energy and excitement within films and it would appeal to them largely. We used young people of a similar age to your target audience in this film to appeal to the audience more. having actors the same age as our target audience will make them realize that this does happen to people and can raise awareness and make sure that they are being careful on what they do in there everyday yo day routines.


What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
After doing a lot of research on different types of media institutions and different films and who they are distributed, we decided that we would want a institution that is going to be well recognized with our title sequences genre. after a lot of thought and trying looking at various other films we decided that we was going to use "Lionsgate". We decide that they have great experience with action thriller genre films and that they would be the best choice for us. They have distributed films such as "American Psycho" and "Saw". Lionsgate have two different introductions to films , both have the cogs turn inside the gates, however when the gates open one has clouds behind the Lionsgate where as the other has red, dark clouds. we decided to use the one with dark, red clouds as this is the one that is mostly used on thriller films.


How did you attract/address your audience?
We decided that we wanted to create a title sequence that no one has ever seen before so that they would immediately be drawn to watching the rest of the film. We then started by exploring different camera shots, music and transitions and how they would come across within the film. By having someone of a similar age to the target audience we found that this would be able to relate to the audience and they would know how the young girl was feeling.Being able to relate to a film with draw them back in to watch the rest of the film.


What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Having used video camera's before but not in such a sophisticated way, we straight away realized that we would have to be careful making sure that the title sequence ran smoothly. this allowed me to learn a lot more about the cameras functions. Also only having used iMovie in the past, when it came to using Final Cut Pro i was quite reluctant on how i would do using it. Once we got started and learnt the basics of the programme it all started to become a lot easier and we was exploring and finding new and quicker ways of completing things.


Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Form the preliminary task to the full product i have learnt lots of new and useful skills. One of the most important skills that i feel that i have learnt is time management and how to use the time we had efficiently. We had lots of deadlines that we had given ourselves and we wanted to make sure this was done so that we  could finish out title sequence and make sure that everything was completed that we need to. Another thing that i have learnt is the importance of having a storyboard. Without having a storyboard we would have not been able to keep up with what we wanted to include in our title sequence and may even had forgotten to include an important element in our title sequence. I have also learnt that there can be many obstacles filming on the open street, such as people walking past, cars driving past and animals. although this does not sound like a big problem it is when its wasting the time and ruining the shots and continuity of the title sequence.


Overall i feel that we have created a professional title sequence that has followed the codes and conventions of a title sequence. I also feel that with all the research we done before hand it helped us portray the narrative through and has exceeded all expectations on how our finished product would look. 



Our Final Title Sequence