AS MEDIA EVALUATION By: Fatima AlSayegh

Q1- WHAT DOES YOUR PRODUCT USE OR CHALLENGE CONVENTION AND HOW DOES IT REPRESENT SOCIAL GROUP OR ISSUES?In my media piece, I have developed and challenge real media products. My media product is 1 minute 39 second opening sequence and targets a Thriller/Action audience. We used some conventions such as certain camera angle used in different film openings or the use of non-diegetic sound. Using these techniques helped us to increase our customer satisfaction and gave it a more professional scene as our customers expect it to be. Especially in thriller/action films which aim to provide a lot of suspense mystery scene for the audience which is what we aimed to do.

For planning I have developed the idea of Todrovo theory in my story. Sam started in ‘equilibrium’ when everything was balance he had powers but he decide to live a normal life, going out with his friends etc. This is then disrupted by a problem to cause ‘disruption’ which is noticed in our short opening sequence, Jessica get kidnapped meanwhile Sam and his friend was waiting for her. ‘Recognition’ Kidnapper calls Sam from Jessica phone; Sam recognized that his friend is facing the consequences. ‘Resolution’ Sam and his friend were looking for Jessica. ‘New equilibrium’ Sam saves Jessica. Todrovo’s theory would then go on to say that a series of events take place before the ‘new equilibrium’ is established which we used in our opening sequence.

In the slide above, there are six screenshots which I have taken from my final opening sequence and in the next part of my evaluation I am going to explore my media piece compared to existing real media products.

Screenshot 1:- The first close up and high angle shot it was inspired from the film ‘Knight and Day’ where there is a scene dedicated to set up the gun fight which involves focusing on the hand and the gun, this convention of the thriller aspect with the use of gun and the person who tries to reach the gun. We used non-diegetic sound such as fast heart beats .

Screenshot 2:- The second shot is two shot it was inspired from ‘Ride Along 2’ the scene where agent James and detective Ben having a conversation, it was helpful to show both of the characters having a conversation, in my media product we focused on showing there facial expression and the body language of each character , this shot is straight away implies that there is something going on . We used two different sound, diegetic with the dialogue and non- diegetic for the incidental music.

Screenshot 3:- The third shot is medium close up it was inspired from the film ‘Django Unchained’ when the hero was trying to self defence himself from his enemy and save his kidnaped wife, we used non-diegetic sound as an Incidental music.

Screenshot 4:- The fourth shot is a close up shot, it is similar to shot 1 where we used high angle to show the action that is taking place, as the main purpose is to signify the audience that there’s a fight about to happen. It clearly give the audience the idea of what’s the reason behind this fight. We used non-diegetic sound , having an incidental music is important during the fight it let the audience be eager to know more.

Screenshot 5:- The fifth shot is a low angle shot it was inspired from the film ‘Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ the part when the girl was pushed down and she tried to reach the gun in the floor, we used non-diegetic sound as an Incidental music.

Screenshot 6:- The sixth shot is medium close up, by purpose we decide to show the furniture behind both of the characters , It was inspired from the movie ‘ Spy’ the part when they where looking for Susan Cooper a desk-bound CIA employee. However the film ‘Spy’ shows many more shots. Non- diegetic sound was used.

My media product aimed teenage and adults who loves action/thriller films. Our opening sequence shows the meaning of being a true friends and by not being selfish while caring about your friend, showing how friends could come together which a lot of young teenage doesn’t know the meaning of friendship these days. As can be seen in our opening sequence Sam was looking for Jessica the whole time and not to give up, he sacrifice his life just to save his friends to not be killed. After doing all the research I have found that the people who enjoys thriller/action films are teenage and adults which was around 30% of adults and the other 70% is teenage. This had helped me to know more about what genre of film to produce.

Q2- HOW DOES YOUR PRODUCT ENGAGE WITH AUDIENCES AND HOW WOULD IT BE DISTRIBUTED AS A REAL MEDIA TEXT? While producing my media product I have looked at different settings which would appeal to a certain age groups, In my product I have looked specifically at Action/Thriller themes which made me produce based on that genre as it would appeal more to young adults audience, we created our movie script and storyboard based on Action/Thriller . I did a questionnaire which helped me to find out more in detailed of what my audience would like to see in thriller opening sequence and what do they like mostly about thriller films, based on the information I collected I produced my media product. I used different techniques through the process of making the film such as editing, transitions, sounds and effects which made our media product more professional and enjoyable.

Depending on the success of our film, I would like it to be distributed by a large UK film production company such as 20th Century Fox Film,

One of the reason why is because they had produce many action/ thriller movie such as “Spy” which is a well-known film and it’s very similar to ours in the gun scene and the agent part as it target action/thriller genre of audience, although ‘Knight and day’ was a big inspiration for our opening sequence in the killing scenes that took place as it involves guns and knife use. To finance a film such as ours, by the development of online technology it offers a new ways in which films can be funded by the uses of crowdfunding to obtain funding from the audience using websites such as Kickstarter, Kickstarter would give us the chance to encourage our target audience to pledge money in return for a variety of rewards. It could be possible to partner up with a conglomerate such as Alibaba picture it’s a Chines organisation group who pays for some of the production companies. Since 20th Century Fox is one of the Big Six studios we could promote and market our film by the use of synergy which helps the studios to maintain their dominance over the film industry, another alternative could be to obtain bank loan, if the bank believes we are asking for sensible amount of money and that we will be able to gain profit and pay them back, they will most likely loan the sum of money.

Q3- HOW DID YOUR PRODUCTION SKILLS DEVELOP THROUGHOUT THIS PROJECT?

I developed my skills using digital technology in my portfolio, especially during the production of the opening sequence , I have learned many topics such as editing, camera angles and shots, props conventions, soundtrack conventions..

The first thing we focused on our opening sequence is camera movement we looked at different camera movement that we could involve in our media product, camera movement had helped me to have the knowledge and skills of where to place the camera on a specific duration and at what scene. Here are couple of examples of camera angles and shots

• Extreme close up :- It’s a shot used to generally magnifying beyond what the human eye would experience in reality. With no background details.

• Low angle :- Used to show how the character is powerful and help to give the audience the a sense of confusion.

• Canted Angle :This techniques is used to suggest point of view which show the audiences that the camera has the eye on a particular character , seeing what they see

• Dolly shot :- When the camera is placed on a moving vehicle and moves alongside the action.

• Tilts :- Used to show the audience a movement which scans a scene vertically.

Props conventions had helped us and the audience to establish each character role and personality within the opening sequence . We used different props such as gun, knife, face mask to follow the action scene that will took place. However we used other props such as cans and cell phones to give the audience the feeling of verisimilitude.

Soundtrack conventions, Incidental music which is a background music plays a large role in our media product it influence the audience by the style of music heard in the background for example we used fast upbeat heart beats soundtrack conventions to give the audience the audience the feeling of frightening.

Editing is an important part to consider in an opening sequence, editing had helped me to make the engage all the part together and make the opening sequence understandable to our audience, during the stage of editing I have learnt a lot of stuff one of them is special effects which give the audience the feeling of mystery I have applied fade in and fade out, flashing, jumping and etc. These special effect had made my movie more professional , I had also used special effects on a text font. As can be seen I have used in the end of our opening sequence the text “ Coming Soon” with some animation which dissolve in the end. Editing had made our opening sequence more attractive and eye catching.

Q4- HOW DID YOU INTEGRATE TECHNOLOGIES- SOFTWARE, HARDWARE AND ONLINE- IN THIS PROJECT?

Even before I started studying media course, I had a little knowledge about some of the programs already but still I was not confident enough, as my knowledge and skills were only up to a basic standards. Compare to now I had a great experience and skills I feel a lot more confident with technical things such as Wordpress, YouTube , Movie Serif etc..The main thing I learnt whilst the process of our thriller opening sequence is that we need to film it twice so we had the advantage of choosing between the best scenes and select the best one for the opening sequence . Since I was the second director and the movie plot writer for our thriller opening it taught me many things such as: different shots , editing techniques and how to manage choosing the scene without changing the story plot.  There are my reasons and skills which I have learned throughout technologies from the process of constructing this product:-  

Camera

Although I've used a camera before, the camera that we used for this project was different to previous one I've used.  The camera was easy to use as its show clear indication of the record button. I learnt a lot about the functions of the video-camera and variety of camera technique, such as using specific camera angles to help give a specific effect, one thing I have learnt was when we zoom in the video loss quality so therefor we had to move the camera much closer to the subject, for close up to preserve the quality during the course of project , the camera was very simple to use. I was able to learn some function within the camera. However we had some disadvantages of the camera it has produce low quality videos under the low and high lighting, we had to shoot with our IPhone camera which made us realize that it shot much pro than our camera “Aspire Park scene” due to a lack of time. So therefore next time if I’m shooting any video I will get a pro quality camera. The camera was small so it was portable to carry it anywhere.

WordPress

I used WordPress to present my coursework. I’ve never used WordPress before so I had no idea how to use the website. I was looking at some well-known bloggers that started with WordPress . Through the project I have learnt how to use the website with the help of WordPress signage which guide me and made it easier for me to create a page , however some of the people find WordPress really complicated compare to other blogs website in editing settings and designing the page the way you need it which I was having a huge problem with but later on I tried to watch useful videos which helped me. WordPress is also easy to users to use it. Wordpress is useful as it give the examiner digital access to our work . Some of the other thing that I have learnt was changing the font, setting, checking for spelling mistakes.

YouTube

YouTube was used a lot during this project, as I used it to look for examples of different shots types and camera angles which I find it useful. And upload our final production and the Interview. By using YouTube I have learnt how to upload videos, edit title and how to link it to Wordpress . YouTube is easy to uses it is linked to your Google account therefore you can create a YouTube account. Another advantage is that YouTube is also a free service and used by millions of people and it target a large number of global audience which could promote and market our opening sequence. One of the most useful things I have learnt was uploading videos. For example, when I was uploading my individual editing opening sequence. I learnt to add description, tags and to make my video private or public.

Serif Movie Plus

 Serif movie plus is a video editing tool which has been really beneficial for creating my individual editing to collect ideas for the final production . This program has many features and it’s easy to use made me learn the basic things in film production programs like adding sounds (Non-Diegetic Sound), creating sounds (Diegetic Sound) ,and adding captions below the video. It did have made our film opening look very professional.

Sony Vegas Pro

Sony Vegas Pro is a video editing tool which has been really beneficial for creating our final production. This program has many features and it’s difficult to use. There are many things I have learnt such as, cropping the video, editing , organizing video structure and add special effects to the video and much more . Its filled with various tools and features which ensure success video editing which had beneficial us, being able to control the sound, brightness. Using this software has been very essential to making our final production successful. The major drawback to this program is that’s complicated to uses and takes a while to get used to it.

Google Google made everything accessible and easy to us, Google is a search engine which has become very hand during this project. Google is a very easy service to uses and it’s free. We used Google to search for resource which helped us to create the blogs and the videos production. Google has a filter search which allows your search results to be more accurate, which mean we were able to gain useful information much faster at a high speed.

PowerPoint       I actually learnt more about the basic technology such as: PowerPoints when creating the mood boards for target audience research and the schedule , and it also made it easier for me to save everything I posted in slide in case if anything get lost. This also helped me in posting it to SlideShare. 

Wikipedia

While doing my research I was using Wikipedia to gain more information about camera movements, angles, film industry history, The Big Six American Studio, different companies which distribute media product. To have a good background about media production.

 Putlocker

Helped to find the film in the internet and analyze it instead of buying the film which could be a time consuming and cost effective, I also captured some pictures for my film research