EVALUATION Q8

Overall, we've learned how to:

• work in a group. 

• use camera, we've improved our shots. They're more stable, straight and much more prossefional :

also to use focus:

comparing to where the small detail was in full focus:

• use sound 

the first piece we made only had two sounds, which didn't really fit with the film. 

comparing to where we used digetic sounds, as well as non digetic music which created tension.

• our editing (split screen screen)

• plan and organise our work. 

• titles

comparing to:

First of all working in a group was something that has improved on a large scale. we managed to share and take in ideas, which we then commented on in an appropriate way.

Our camera skills have improved majorly, form not knowing how to use a camera all the way to making a thriller opening. Our skills on getting shots like the close up and extreme close ups into action has really improved. 

Learning how to use the apple mac computers was hard, and using the mac softwares that help edit our films was extremely difficult. But we managed to over come that problem and got used to it.

Blogging was a major issue, we had to get into the hang of, and regularly post things on the wall, but again we managed to get into the habit of it. 

When we did the first perliminary we had a lot of problems. The lighting was really bad we had too much shadow, compare that to our final it was much better. However we did have soem darkness but to give the sense of fear. Another problem we had with the perliminary was the focus. when we were filming the cards, it wasn't clear. With the thriller we had no problems.  

The perliminary had no titles because we didn't have enough time to do that, but with the thriller we had all the titles rolling. Talking of timing, with the perliminary we had a lot of problem with organising our time. we ended up filming one shot too many times. However with the actual filming of the thriller we were organised and took on responsabilities of how long we would spend on a scene 

Another problem we had was the sound, with the perliminary we had a lot of background nose, and we didn't know how to get rid of that. whereas with the thriller we used final cut pro to get that sorted.

Finally the best thing about this whole project is the fact that we got our ideas into reality, and it was us students that did it!!!!!!

EVALUATION Q2

                                     

                 Looking at the costume of the character, she has an apron on and obviously you can tell she is a woman. To say what this character represents is clearly defined by her costume, she represents a house wife. To compare this representation to another thriller i would use 'Psycho'. 

This a mid shot of the female character from 'Psycho' whats similar about this to the image above; where the female character from 'Black Widow'  is the cleanliness. These two images show the neat and tidiness of a stereotyped woman.

The differences are that the female character in 'Psycho' is the victim, which is a typical convention and within 'Black Widow' the female is the murderer.

EVALUATION Q4&5

This short film is a by some university students called 'Picnic'. This was uploaded onto YouTube about 2 years ago, and has had quiet some attention. 

You can tell this film is on a low budget and so they have gained their attention to their short film with the use for YouTube, their production company is probably themselves. They've created an account on YouTube, like a blog and have advertised their short film on this, theres a little bit about the group that have made the short the film as well, also there are other small films as well.  

They haven't really used a variety of things that can help promote their short film.  

Me and my group being part of a sixth and made out opening with the college, we are a low budget student video therefore it will be released on vimeo, it is also embedded on our blogs. It will also be showed in a cinema with otehr college peers watching, and it will also be released on DVD.

If me and my group wanted to go further with the disrtubuting of the film then we can use options like social networking sites.

We can promote our film on sites like facebook, twitter, bebo etc. Due to our film being certified at 15 and above alot of people on these sites are 15 and above, so there is a more wider chance of people seeing the film being advertised. 

Another way we can promote our film is events such as the film festivals.

Going to events like this or being invited to events like this gives us the chance for our film to be seen by big production and distributors. Because we are students we wouldn't have so much money to pay for big named distributors. 

Q4+5

Q8

Our film turned out to be hugely different to our prelim film. We put time in and received a great result an outstanding first film. I think we improved on all section especially editing.


M.E.S

Editing

Sound

Camera work

Plaining

Q7

Using the video below

EVALUATION Q7

Q4+5 How will you attract audience

The way we will attract our audiences to consider our different audience interest for example majority of teens these days join a social networking site, our older audience we would suggests large events.
We have to think BIG there is no point struggling making the film and aim for example only a site called vimeo however we would also think of using vimeo as we would try to catch every ones attention.




Social Networking sites:

Social networking sites are very affective towards publishing, so this was also our first idea because everyone in our age group has joined some what a social networking site. The large audience means more support which would lead to larger audience. Site like YouTube are also very affective as you can make a partnership with YouTube to promote your film and lead to a greater audience also in YouTube you can choose to create your own channel and allow viewers to watch your trailer or promotion video.

In class we found in YouTube a channel dedicated to an independent film called "My name is Jerry". The film had more attention then expected even though it was made by university students.





EVENTS:

Events like film festival's which we also discoverd in class has a big role for the independent films.
What we could is get a whole lot of students with their films and make a big event that would benefit a lot of people including the students. This would help a lot in advertisement sector which we can include in magazines newspapers bus stops etc. The film festival have a lot of attention so this great enjoyment also for the people who are interested in independent films.

EVALUATION Q6 [part 2]

Today was amazing! I felt so pround watching our thriller on the big screen, it was so sudden and I thought "Oh my God, we made this!!" After watching about 50 thriller openings, I got more confident and I though out thriller was unique and stood out, because no one had simillar idea. Also, the feed back I got was very positive and the little things people said after watching- "oh I liked your one!". Screen on the Green is such a nice place, and the atmosphere was brilliant too, everyone was so excited, aplaused and laughed! What a great experience! :)


This is the feedback I got (apologise for sound in some of them!) :

EVALUATION Q4+5

We, as a sixth form college students have created piece of a low budged, indepentent movie. There's no way we can place our thriller into the real, cinema world. However, I think there are many things we can do, to distrubute our movie and address and attract our target audience.

 

• Social Networking. Today,  almost everyone uses social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Youtube, blogs and so on. We could advertise our movie by creating posters, which we will upload on our sites and send to friends and post, this way it can be seen my more and more people. We could also create trailer, which we again can post on Youtube, and can be seen my more people. We can create a page on facebook, similary to "London Shots Film Festival" (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7842147031) , giving all the details and updated about our movie. We can also create a channel on youtube, where we can post our thriller, opening and updates about thriller.

I've found a good example of indepentend movie, called "My Name Is Jerry". There's a channel on Youtube (, with the trailer, special scenes and so on. They have a video of the actor talking about movie, encougaring audience to watch it. (http://www.youtube.com/user/MyNameIsJerryMovie)

They also have a special way of advertising it. There's a little competition going on; audience should watch trailer or even the movie on DVD, they should film themselves acting, dressing and speaking the way Jerry does. Then upload the clip on youtube, and advertise their clip: via facebook, twitter, emial and so on.The winning number of views wins the contest and gets the prize. This is a good way of having fun, and brining audience into advertising the movie. We could do comething similar.

• Film Festivals

Another example I found is a university student, making short films. http://www.youtube.com/user/RadekBNU). These movies have won many awards in film festivals, such as "Best Short Film". They're screened in film festivals, and this way get the attention of audience interested in indepentend movies. The movies are uploaded on youtube, because they're short it can fit it two parts, there's also trailers for each movie. We could do the same, either post the movie or first few minutes. We can also arrange film festivals, such as London Independent Film Festival, London Short Film Festivals.  

• Another good way could be screening the film in the cinema, we could rent one for one screening, invite family and friends to enjoy. We could advertise the event by social networking, posters in school and so on. If this idea fails due to problems wint renting the cinema, we could talk to college stuff if we could screen the movie in college, with people who are interested in it. More than that, we could screen more student movies, so we'll end up with "movie session".

Question 2

Real actors was not an option i don't think it was either suggested, so instead we had to use of what we were given we are media students selected randomly put together. We had fill the shoes of an adult and a married couple i wouldn't say it was hard but we lacked the experience. The way we played this roles are through our stereotypes of the gender of each adult.

so for example it would suit married men as the would fantasize there wife would be a normal housewife. This is seen in Black widow wheres the wife is at home doing the cleaning, choking and washing. The story could relate to olden films that stereotype wife's being at home with their clothes (uniform) apron slippers and dress also the husband comment when he gets home "honey I'm home" also fits the stereotype. This is from a movie called perfect housewife (i think it is also an independent film).

 The shots taken from Black widow is the character (widow) looking out the window as if she is trapped this can be compared to the film above stereotype wise that the wife's stay at home seems like prison. The M.E.S also can be compared to the film where the widow has an apron, slippers and dress.

EVALUATION Q2

We couldn't use real actors, we only had people in our group so we ended up with a teenager being an adult in the movie. However we represented practicular social group based on the stereotypes.

• women: when the movie starts, the camera's tilting upwards and we see whan she's wearing. Part of Mise en Scene is costume, we thought about it carefully. Our character in wearing slippers, apron, dress... all of these are examples of what a houswife would wear at home.

(shots taken while camera tilts upwards)

•  Before doing anything we represented women as the ones who are doing something, such as typical house work thing. The wife is cleaning the table (we added subtitles later on). This represents wousewifes as the ones who clean. The OVS shot and high angle clearly show us what the housewife is doing, and we're looking at her from the top, in a way it also gives her lowe status.

There are many thrillers which represent women in a similar way for example Psycho:

There's a mid shot on a woman doing something, we see what she's wearing. Both women (in Psycho and Black Widow) look neat, which represents them as taking care of the way they appear. Unlike in Psycho, we decided to put more attention to what the wife is wearing, as it is very important in the opening as the characters are introduced, and practicular social gropus are represented.



EVALUATION Q6

This is one way me and my group collected feedback after everyone had watched our opening. Everyone wrote a few things down on the editing and how it made them feel. Typed all the comments up on wordle and looking at the most used words, overall our film was 'good' and 'great'. so we've done a really good job.  

Question 6

We had a lesson were the whole class watched each groups film and we had to comment give them feedback on the positive of there film. We had a positive feedback and reaction while watching the film.
Bernard give everyone paper to write the comments to give to each group.

Bernard suggested we use wordle to insert each feedback to wordle and this what your results would be.
The way wordle works is that the most common word is the biggest and bold.
I am happy to see that words like "GREAT", "WELL" and "GOOD" this suggest that our film is liked by the rest of the class.

Also, i am a happy to see that the most important parts like the M.E.S "POISON" which was very eye catching.

Q1: In what ways dies your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

For this question it would be reasonable to compare our film with THE STEPFATHER.

        

 Black Widow - The Stepfather

                     
                           

   First comparison

The first comparison i would make would be the production of each. Black widow on the left is set on the husbands work place where's the stepfather is set at the house which he caused all of the murders. We can see similarities on both scenes we see that the both are establishing shots and first shots off the both film.

Second comparison

The stepfather starts with pan of the items you would expect to see as they are men's item we are not surprised at first as we know these item are related to the title stepfather. However, the slow music that suggest that its not what its seems we later find out these are tools that are associate with the crime. This is similar to the "HARMFUL" poison on Black the Widow because the poison is associated with the crime that might happen.

Third comparison

Extra close up on the widow in Black Widow is seems she can see through us which is scary as it looks like its interactive similar to The stepfather where the character off the stepfather looks straight at the camera as it seems he knows we are there. The similarities of this shots also shows the two criminals which cause harm to there love ones.   

Forth comparison

The shot were in The stepfather there is pictures of the family seems to be very close and happy as all the characters in the pictures are all smiling meaning he are happy and full of joy were are confused and see that they seem such a close family. Here is similarities in Black widow where the widow is playing with here weeding ring at this point we are thinking they are happily married but we are proved rong later.

EVALUATION Q1

Black Widow + The Stepfather

example 1

In the begining of The Stepfather, the camera slowly pans to the sharp, shaving objects to put focus on something sharp and dangerous which might be coming up. As it pans slowly, audience gets into the mood of slow and atmospheric opening. In our thriller, everything seems to happen slowly: the wife goes into the kitchen, opens the frigde and so on. As soon as she pours in the rat poison, we decited to have the ECU on the 'harmful' sign, and we did it twice, so the effect of is a 'big bang' and from slow pace, something suddenly happens. This I think creates tension and connotes something bad is happening.




example 2:

In The Stepfather, we see a MS on the stepfather, and in a way we're introduced to the character as he's almost looking straight at us. We decided to use CU on the wife's eyes, we thought this will make it more dramatic and suspicious, as it won't completly show her face. Eyes can tell a lot about the person, so in our CU it looks like she's expecting something, which again I think creates strong tension. We're introduced to the character and the way they feel. 



example 3

As we decided to create a psychological (/crime) thriller,  we really wanted to show the contrast between normal and unormal. In the Stepfather, the camera turns as the dead boy's body appears to show something's not right, this happends suddely and we don't even expect it. In our thriller, the contrast is where the wife puts the bleach next to the milk. The two objects, similar size, have a completly opposite function. This, we can almost say- a binary opposition creates the contrast we wanted to achieve by normal and unormal. It creates tension, but also is a convensional thing for psychological thrillers.




example 4

The stepfather starts with introduction to the location, the camera's tilting on the houses and the tilting stops where the get to the stepfather's house. The location in the kitchen is introduced by long shot on the stepfather and we see the kitchen as part of Mise en Scene. In our thriller, we decided to use POV shot where the wife walks into the kitchen. This gave the feeling that the audience is actually going inside and at the same time the location was introduced.




example 5

The titles start to apear when the location is introduced, we decided to do the same; this puts focus on the production company, before the narrative actually starts. So we end up with waiting for the movie, but at the same time we see the location + production, and then the movie starts.




example 6

In the Stepfather, the camera slowly pans on the family pictures. This not only tells us more about the house and possibly characters, but shows their relationship. We know who lives in the house (form pictures) and we see something's a bit wrong, we wonder what happened to them? This feeling is really important, it creates suspence. We've given SOME information and wonder. This gets us infolved with the movie. We tried to achieve this, by using ECU on the ring, when the wife is playing with this. It gives us more information- we know both characters are married, and we wonder "why did she pour the poisons to the food?" "why does she try to kill him?" "will he eat this?" and this is SUSPENCE! ...the audience wants to carry on watching the movie to see what happens. (see, you're taken in!)



example 7

When the stepfather does everyday things such as washing the dish or making breakfast, simple shots, such as over the shoulder, or mid shot form the side were used to show his actions. We thought it only showed his normal actions, but with something so wrong such as pouring the rat poison to the sugar pot we need to use shot that emphasises how bad and weird this is. We placed the camera to the table, at the level the sugar and the poison is, so it puts all the focus to it and creates tension and mystery, because we're fully focused on what's happening AND we exactly know what the wife is doing.




Suspence
It's convensional for a good thriller to create suspense. In Alfred Hitchock's words, "suspence is an emptiotional process" and "we can get the suspence element going by giving the audience information". I think that we tried our best to create the suspence and engage the audience in an emotional level. I think we achieved this by the use of match cut, and the last scene where the husband comes home. At this point, our audience should be emotionally involved as they wanna know what will happen to him, why would the wife try to kill him and so on. This is the suspence, as audience is given the information, and they know more than the character.

Here's Hitchock talking about the difference between the mystery and suspence:

EVALUATION Q3

 

Sara, is 20 and currently working at HnM as a part time job. At the moment she is aiming to become part of the media industry. She loves music and is always up to date with fashion, music and technology. Her friends really enjoy her company as she is the chatty one. She really enjoys her a social life and is really active when with her friends, like eating out, shopping or going to the cinemas.

EVALUATION Q1

Well our film is a thriller and within that genre there is just a whole load of typical conventions. Within our film we have used some conventional codes from a thriller movie however not exactly to the full extent.

Looking at this screenshot of one of the titles appearing on the kitchen desk. We had the titles over an action that the female character was doing. We did this because a few of the thriller opening we have seen do the very same, this is done in the opening of the film 'Seven'. Its effective because its a typical way of starting an opening therefore we felt confident in using this technique.   

 We also used the lighting the way almost every thriller movie does, shadow darkness and etc. obviously we used this technique so we can present the tension and suspense rising within the opening. the lighting i feel is only effective to an extent, its the things that happen really gets the opening going, the lighting just get the audience prepared.                                         

 Here within the Mis-en-scene, the props we use are really effective, we have the use of binary oppositions with the milk and the bleach, mixed! we did that because we wanted to present the ordinary with something murderous.

 Before we started filming we were told many times that normally in a students opening there are not enough close ups. So here is an extreme close up of the bleach. We did this so we can show the audience that there is a dangerous product being used.

 The location here is to show the innocent male character not being aware of whats happening at home. We did this because in most thriller films we see the victim being completely unaware of whats going to happen, so we decided to have this technique. This is something conventional within a thriller, the victims unawareness.

Again the Mis-en-scene, the props used here: rat poison and sugar, binary oppositions. I dint think this is something you see typically in a thriller movie, however i do think its conventional, the whole idea of it is a way of developing more into the story.

Extreme close ups are one of the things that were stressed on alot. These close ups emphasize on the characters facial expression or an object either to show how dangerous it is or what emotion is being expressed from the character. We tried to give out hints to the audience by using this extreme close up to what might  be coming next. Its similar to the close ups in the film 'Seven' of the hands, trying to hint things out but not fuly giving evrything away. 

Ok this is where we decided that the idea of a split screen would give the audience what each character is doing while the conversation is happening. We thought that we shoudl give the audience an idea where each character is. 

                                               

The film 'Seven' has extream close ups on the hands of the character, same to what we have done but with close ups on the characters eyes. Also there are shots of the props used within the title sequencehowevevr with extream close ups, again similar to what we have done. Another thing is titles, they are over the rolling film exactly what we have done. So overall we have used conventional codes for a thriller, we've also developed our story howevevr only to give out a few hints of what might happen during the film, whats different with the title sequence of 'Seven'; is that its not exactly straigh foward however an audience can work out what might be happening.