1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?
A typical thriller movie has suspense, tension, twisting storylines and cliff-hangars, all of which are usually portrayed through music, camera shots, costumes, make-up, dialogue, editing and just basic mise-en-scene. Our movie Stanley Depreto: SERVED RAW uses and develops these conventions in a number of ways. Well firstly the movie storyline is very horror/thriller based, it’s about a secret cannibal who kidnaps young people and eats them, although this sounds more like a horror film to add a thriller element we made it so that in the movie he gets caught and arrested by the police and in questioning he is forced to reveal everything about his victims also causing him to reveal his childhood with an abusive mother, all through very graphic flashbacks.
We used a lot of close-up’s throughout the film which added to the thriller feeling, because it shows the expressions that are going on with both characters.
Our music we tried to build as much tension that we could i.e. when there was a reverse shot of Shannen the music matched what the shot was doing and building up tension. Also as the film developed towards the end after the news caster could not be heard and Stanley was yelling towards Shannen the music was made sinister to match what was going on, on the screen. The music was a mixture of slow, drowny brass instruments, with sharp yet soft piano accompanied by tension building strings, which are all the main components of thriller music according to our research.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In the introduction scene to the movie there are two characters, a male and a female. Stanley who is a mentally disturbed, middle-aged, working-class man. He was abused as a child which was when he was launched into the cannibalistic diet. You can tell initially from the size of the home that he is quite well-off and has some money showing that he is working-class but his rugged facial hair and long grayish-black hair (showing he’s middle-aged) may give off a scary, sinister look. His dialogue and actions illustrates he’s mentally disturbed, when he comes down the stair and licks the girl and then says “you’re not ripe yet.”
The girl is a teenager, who’s just looking to have fun and live life, but also doesn’t look out for danger, which is how she gets herself into the predicament. She was taken when she met Stanley after her birthday party , which is why she is wearing a red cocktail dress. Although the girl is not seen in the movie other than the beginning she’s the one who helps the police capture Stanley.
Shannen
Stanley and Shannen
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product, and why?
I looked into several different media institutions many of them being from Hollywood or bought by a Hollywood and I could see the film being distributed by either Universal or Working title. However I mostly see it going with Universal for a multitude of reasons. American can reach to wider range, and also are very daring in what styles of movies they distribute and how they distribute them. However being a British-based film (in that it’s a British setting, actors, location etc) the film is less likely to be taken on. Which brings me to choosing a British company like working title, being a home-grown piece of work it would be easier to get distributed by Working title though they do not have the publicity Americans have. Working title are more known for doing RomCom’s such as Four weddings and a funeral, Billy Elliot, Love Actually. Whereas Universal is known for more of a range of movies, they’ve done films such as Dracula, Frankenstein, Scarface, Jaws and many, many more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQXfBbWgncw
(Video of Jaws opening sequence)
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
When I first started the project I wouldn’t of minded the film going out to 15+ however researching into BBFC Guidelines I realised that the film would probably be rated 18 because of the blood, violence and gore. I don’t feel the film is gender, sexuality or ethnicity biased however I think that males are more likely to watch the film.
(Video of Jaws opening sequence)
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
When I first started the project I wouldn’t of minded the film going out to 15+ however researching into BBFC Guidelines I realised that the film would probably be rated 18 because of the blood, violence and gore. I don’t feel the film is gender, sexuality or ethnicity biased however I think that males are more likely to watch the film.
5. How did you attract/ address your particular audience?
Our audience was aimed at 18+ aged people, no particular sexuality or gender. I did this by using various research methods such as questionnaires, interviews, text analysis of famous thriller/horror movies like Stigmata and found out many things about thriller/horror films that would help me attract the target audience. I found that viewers think that to make a thriller film successful it would have to have suspense, good characters; I also found that 55% of our poll said they preferred thrillers that were based on true events. So we researched into cannibalism and tried to make the movie as close to the situations we came across in our research as possible. Then finally took everything into consideration and adapted our idea to attract the people who we would want to watch it.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
To get the movie we made we had to a variety of technology in order to create it. Firstly we had to use equipment from the college, for the lighting we wanted to enhance it so we used the 3-point lighting technique, using 2 small lights and 1 large, brighter light. We had the camera and tripod which enabled us to do multiple camera shots. Like panning, tracking, medium shots, mid shots and handheld shot. However doing handheld shots is not as easy as we thought it would be, because it was hard to stop the camera from shaking.
The editing was all done on an Apple Mac computer in a programme called Final Cut Pro. We had to take the tape and log all the shots onto the system separately, then start dropping all the shots in the order we wanted them to go in the final project.
The log machine
However some disagreements went on within the group and editing stopped for a while, but we managed to come to an understanding and carried on with the editing. We got all the shots into the correct places and began adding transitions on sound and slides. A few times we noticed that the sound was not matched together and had to cut out some sound. We then went to a technician and asked how to create our own animation for our logo, at first we came up with an idea for our ‘company’ called Bighead Productions, which was a bear which head keeps growing and expanding until it bursts and exposes our title. However an audience member felt that it was too childish for a thriller/horror movie, so we had to redesign. We ended up using a programme called After Effects to create a text saying ‘Dark Arts’ (which is our new production team name) and make it show up on the screen scrambled and eventually clear to show the phrase, we also recorded multiple people saying “Dark Arts” and then put them all together so that it’s said at the same time as the words showing up on the screen. We also used After Effects to design the credits that appeared. Lastly we picked out the music for the whole thriller piece and found one that matched perfectly.
Editing in final cut pro
7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In the preliminary task I learnt a lot, like the 180 degree rule, where the camera has to be in front of the scene and never behind and not breaking the 180 degree line. If it weren’t for the preliminary task I would’ve not learnt about that. I also learnt how to open my creative side when it comes to thinking of ideas. I found out how to do a number of camera shots (over-the-shoulder, close-up, medium-long, tracking and panning etc.) and got to practice doing them. I also learnt how to think fast when it came to mistakes in the film because when we came to watch the film through we found mistakes within the dialogue, the actual shot, and we hadn’t put in a two-shot. So we had to re-shoot and came up with a completely new and improved idea. So I learnt a lot from doing the preliminary that I could’ve potentially messed up in when shooting our final product.
No comments:
Post a Comment