2. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE,
DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF
REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
Our product is a political thriller. We have used, developed and challenged forms and conventions of real media
products. We utilized some key concepts of the quintessential thriller genre, but we also adapted it, so that the
audience has some familiarity with the genre. The adaptation was also made for the audience to experience
some variation in the conventions of the thriller genre, which will prevent de-sensitization from viewing, keeping
them engaged at all times.
During the research stage, I watched various movie opening title sequences alongside thriller openings. I did this
to fully understand the primary conventions of the thriller genre, and to take inspiration from other genres to add
variation and make it original. I analyzed in detail, how the mise-en-scene, lighting, editing, camera and sound
were used for effect and credibility e.g. how quick camera cuts, suspenseful/eerie music, and diegetic sounds
can steal the comfort of the audience, by presenting a number of mysterious events occurring at the same time.
One of the films I came across was the Sci-Fi Action Thriller,
Transformers: Age of Extinction. I particularly liked the font they had
used for their title as it was explicit. When we met as a group, my
team members also liked the font of the film, so we tried to find a font
that matched similarly in terms of look. Furthermore, to make it
suitable for our opening, we made the background black, and the title
white, to juxtapose the deceit of Joseph’s personality with his outer
‘normal’ appearance. As the colour black symbolizes death, evil and
mystery, and white symbolizes innocence and purity, we used these
colors to reflect my character, who is mysterious and evil, but to the
world - innocent.
3. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR
CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA
PRODUCTS?
I also gained some inspiration from the psychological thriller Se7en.
In the opening title sequence, the film shows the antagonist
undertaking various unusual tasks at his desk. The use of it’s mise-
en-scene tells the audience that the tasks are unusual e.g. putting
pictures of dead children into a scrapbook. The group and I felt that
if we adapted this into our product, it would reveal what the
characters true intentions are, so that when he faces the outside
world, the audience experience is more riveting, as everyone else is
oblivious to his true identity. With this notion in mind, we had to
focus on putting the correct props within the frame. As a result in
our opening segment, my character’s desk included a screwdriver,
nails, scissors and a bomb. These objects are associated with
violence and change, which matched the macabre tone of our film.
Furthermore, we wanted the antagonist to be played by a male
figure, as stereotypically, the media tends to portray men as
terrorists who are largely involved in terror activities, in contrast to
women. If this is true, hopefully its made our piece more convincing
and my character more sinister. The introduction of my character
reflects masculinity due to his costume, which is a grey shirt, black
trousers and black formal shoes – items that are typically worn by
males.
Se7en
Oblivious
4. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR
CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA
PRODUCTS?
Mise-en-scene (Cinematography)
As we were filming in bright day light, we had to color-correct our opening title sequence, to make it appear
darker and eerie. This was because our concept of the film and my character were both drawing upon the
themes of dark and eerie. This is a common convention in thriller films. The beginning segment of our sequence
was completed using low key lighting, with my character being a silhouette. We wanted to make my character a
silhouette, in order to gain a sense of his ambiguous identity, and to highlight the props within the frame. We
kept the mask Joseph wore within his threat video, on the left side of the desk. The reason behind this, was to
make it clear to the audience that the whole opening sequence took place within one day. Also the effect of the
mask being on the left-hand side, connotes to that aspect of his personality always remaining with him.
5. The news articles relating to terrorism, were used to reinforce how deranged and heavily
radicalized Joseph was. We shone the bright lamp light on the news articles, to signify how all of
Joseph’s focus is on the subject of terrorism and how polluted his mind is, because to him this is all
normal. I gained this idea from watching most cartoons, because when a character is shown to have
a light bulb ping above their head, this signifies to the audience that the character has come up with
what they believe is a good idea. With reference to the use of the news articles, this connotes that
our film is of the political thriller sub-genre. This is also how we adapted the mise-en-scene of
Se7en. Se7en showed the antagonist’s abnormal side, by prop placement and gestures and so did
we. However, we adapted it so that it fit our macabre concept. We challenged the stereotypical
convention of thrillers being continuously dark, by making the frame much lighter in the school
segment. We did this to reflect the drift in his personality, and to reinforce his innocent façade. In
order to make the cinematography outstanding, we shot our opening in 24 frames per second and in
anamorphic to make it look more professional and cinematic.
6. In our drafts, we included the shot on the left of my character speaking to his father.
Mr. Ford told us to re-shoot this as the mouth and majority of the face should be seen,
as having half of the face held no significance. This informed our decision to re-shoot
the scene with the camera focused on the lower segment of my face, making the
sequence logical and so that there was diegetic sound, which improved the diegesis.
In addition to this, our previous drafts were extremely dark which made the visual
presentation unclear. We then color-corrected this scene so that the audience could
see what is occurring within the mise-en-scene, and we still kept low-key lighting as it
consistently reflected the somber, mysterious and ominous tone of our film.
7. • Camera
At the start of our sequence (threat video), we maintained a close-
up shot throughout, using a GoPro camera. From the very first
lessons of media, I learnt that the close up shot is the most
intimate shot, hence we used it in this segment as this was the
most intimate part. In this close-up shot we showed very little
background to center and concentrate on my characters sinister
mask and eyes. The close-up shot takes the audience into the
mind of my character, as the audience can see my character’s
danger, through his eyes piercing into the screen and indirectly
evoking fear through the dialogue. This shot can be used to make
the audience feel extremely comfortable or uncomfortable about a
character. We used this to make the audience uncomfortable and
apprehensive. Hopefully, this shot made the audience fear for
Joseph’s victims. We challenged the thriller conventions by
maintaining the close-up shot for approximately 20 seconds and by
having my character pick up the handheld camera to deliver the
last line: “let me remind you.” We did this in order to make his
message personal to each audience member and to depict how
Joseph thinks he is superior to everyone else.
Throughout most of our sequence, we used a medium
shot to signify what my character was doing through
his body language etc. We also used a medium shot
for the dialogue interaction between Joseph and his
classmate, as we felt it showed both reactions of the
characters whilst they spoke. We also used it here to
give the audience a thrill, as they know Joseph is
fooling his classmates by acting innocent. He does this
by looking down and pretending to be a shy, as an
introverted person would be. This also highlights the
ironic relationship the two classmates share. Joseph
has put on this façade so that nobody can guess his
secret. The fact that the classmate is completely
“oblivious” to this, proves how frail Joseph’s
relationships are.
8. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR
CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA
PRODUCTS?
Sound
Our entire group agreed that sound was the hardest aspect to consider, during the production of Oblivious.
We had issues with sound right from the development stage to editing. We found our soundtrack for the
bomb-assembling sequence after many trial and errors. We could not make our minds up regarding if we
wanted to use contrapuntal music or parallel music. During lessons, me and Jamie were constantly listening
to different soundtracks, which we felt had potential to be in our opening title sequence. In all of our drafts we
had used a song called A Horse's Soul. All three teachers detested this soundtrack for our piece, because
they said it wasn't thrilling and it actually distracted them from our visual representations. Finally, me and
Jamie continued our research and found a chase soundtrack. Chase scenes are always riveting and always
keep the audience engrossed in the action. This is why we felt this music choice was correct, and when we
showed it to Mr Ford he loved it and appreciated how hard we worked to try and find a suitable track. This
was another aspect where we challenged the thriller conventions. Mr Michie also appreciated how we
developed this form of media by my character actually having earphones in and clicking the play button on
the phone, making the music diegetic. However, it was also non-diegetic as it sets the fast paced thrilling
tone we were trying to portray. Furthermore, we tried to add in a sound bridge as Joseph has the music
playing until he takes one earphone out after his dad calls him and the volume decreases.
9. Editing
Due to Joseph being the primary character, we kept him centralized in nearly every shot. We did this
because the audience should always have their eyes on him and see how his character develops. In some
segments, we switched from one shot to the other swiftly, to build a sense of urgency, as Joseph wanted
to get to school as soon as possible. The soundtrack complimented this very well, as it sounded like a
ticking clock being fast-forwarded. This editing constructed suspense-which is the primary convention of
thriller films.
The dilemma we kept having as a group, was that we were adding unnecessary shots which were buying
time. After numerous amounts of discussion and feedback from teachers, we cut out these shots. As an
example, some members such as Benoit felt that we should cut our sequence whilst panning down at the
bag. The problem with this idea was that we were force feeding the audience too much, when the
audience should conclude ideas themselves in thrillers, as the guessing process makes the film more
thrilling. Other group members like myself, felt we should cut it at my characters stare, as it keeps the
ending of the opening ambiguous and makes the audience want to watch more. I believe If our product
makes viewers want to watch more, we have ultimately succeeded. Furthermore, I noticed that many
thriller films start off with slow pace and then build up. We challenged this by putting the audience
straight into action with the threat video, not making the audience bored.
10. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR
SOCIAL GROUPS?
In the current time of some British Asian’s going to join ISIS, we felt we should represent this social group stereotypically
and atypically. We ultimately decided to represent this social group because in the research stage, I produced a survey
where a few people stated they would like the characters in thriller films to reflect society. I believe including characters that
reflect society makes the film more relatable and more empathetic, which significantly improves the audience experience.
We stereotypically represented this social group by having myself as the teenage boy, who has become radicalized by
terrorism, and is about to attack with precision whilst keeping everyone oblivious to this. Most adolescents are considered
as being private, rebellious, and self - contained within their own minds. This description is fitting to Joseph’s character, and
through these means we have created a stereotype using representations from the media which is currently emphasizing
the war on terrorism (e.g. ISIS) However, within our group, we figured that people may assume that Joseph was of an Asian
ethnicity, which could potentially create conflict in the minds of the audience, when paired with the theme of terrorism. We
did not want to influence the stereotype in a way that invited negative connotations, and was to become associated with my
ethnic background. Thus we decided to give the character a neutral name: Joseph. It is common that people are uninformed
with regards to the fact that as a result of colonialism, countries such as India or Pakistan also have inhabitants that have
various religious backgrounds e.g. Catholic’s in Goa. Whilst we have tried to depict racial ambiguity, we have also
emphasized the notion of isolation (which could be linked with themes of racism) through the glances that the students give
Joseph when he is late. We wanted to portray the idea that the students immediately gain suspicious thoughts, which leads
to one of the classmates particularly questioning his late arrival.
11. Furthermore, we portrayed Joseph as a masculine character because stereotypically, a
male is often viewed as being more intimidating, which is the personality we felt that
Joseph needed to have to make our story convincing. We made his character masculine
using the costume, props and sound. He wore a grey shirt, black trousers and black
formal shoes. Most masculine men wear these types of clothes on a day to day basis
when they are going to work. Hence, we wanted the audience to feel as if Joseph thinks
he is going to do his job. Whilst Joseph is assembling the bomb, there are many objects
on his desk which are linked to masculinity such as: a screwdriver, nails and a measuring
tape. These objects are linked to masculinity because they are commonly used whilst
undergoing manual labour. Due to the fact that women are stereotypically deemed as
the weaker gender, most manual labour is done by men. Another aspect we gave the
character to seem masculine was how he altered his voice in the threat video so that he
was anonymous. The fact that he altered his voice to a very baritone one connotes that
only a masculine voice is intimidating and taken seriously.
12. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE
YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?
If we completed our film, I feel that it could be distributed through social networking sites such as YouTube,
Facebook and Twitter. Uploading to these sites will be free of charge, and there is a possibility of it going viral as
we have picked a very controversial topic. Our product can be used to spread awareness of these things and
possibly bring about change within schools, by making their security tighter. This will prevent tragic stories such
as Oblivious. If our product was to become viral and caught the eye of a film producer, I think that they would
work on the script and convert it into a high budget feature film. This would increase the audience for our product
due to the abundance of finance for advertising and merchandising e.t.c
In addition to this, a film producer might want to distribute our product because of its unique narrative, which I
have never seen before, and due to the erudite use of the key aspects within a thriller film. As our product retains
familiarity, we will lure in a large number of people as they will notice we have used numerous conventions of
typical thrillers such as: low key lighting, riveting music and suspenseful screenplay. They will also notice some
developments we made such as: close up shots with a handheld GoPro camera and a swift, alluring start.
After having considered the above, I started to look at various thrillers which were produced/distributed by
different institutions. I have come to a conclusion that I would like our product to be distributed by companies
such as Universal Pictures or New Line Cinema. This is because these companies have distributed films close to
our genre and they have been successful. New Line Cinema distributed classic films such as Se7en and
Universal Pictures also distributed classic films such as Cape Fear. I personally enjoyed all the films that these
companies have distributed and think that some elements of Se7en and Cape Fear suit our media product.
13. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE
YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?
New Line Cinema could distribute my media product because they are such a large company who
have plenty of experience in distributing successful thriller films and also other films. Furthermore,
they have created films such as Se7en, which has very similar visual presentation to our product.
On the right is one of the posters for the film Se7en. I thought this version of the poster
suits the tone of our media product the most because it has retained ambiguity and
also given an insight into the tone. By looking at the images depicted within the
number seven, we can tell that the film has a serious tone as nobody is smiling and
the pictures are quite dark. New Line Cinema have constructed this poster well as the
use of pessimistic adjectives on the bottom of the poster makes the audience link it
with the number seven. This makes the audience more curious about the film, so they
would want to go and watch it. Most thrillers are dark, both in narrative and lighting so
this poster has kept some familiarity for the audience, but the ambiguity invites them.
Also, Kevin Spacey, the antagonist didn’t want himself on the poster, opening title
sequence and he didn’t want his name mentioned during promotion of the film. This
was because he wanted the thrill and suspense element to be the most powerful, as
these are the most significant elements of the thriller genre. This is how our media
product will be distributed as nobody should know about my character to build curiosity
and lure people in to watch the film. This is also why we kept the title Oblivious, it
doesn’t give anything away.
Another aspect of this poster that matches my media product, is how the men shown
on the poster are presented as being masculine. I know that they are presented in a
masculine way through the use of their costumes. Both men are wearing a long coat,
shirt and tie. A shirt, tie and coat is a form of iconography as you know that only men
wear this selection of clothing.
One of the main themes we have depicted is danger. It is evident that Se7en also
presents danger, as it has utilized a tally of seven in a creepy style, which makes the
audience feel uncomfortable. The fact that it is in the color red reinforces this as the
color red also symbolizes danger as its commonly associated with blood etc.
14. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE
YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?
Another institution which could distribute my media product is Universal Pictures . Again,
this is due to the fact as they are an extremely large company who have given so much to
the film industry with numerous hits and films which are similar to ours in some ways.
On the right is the poster for Cape Fear. The most eye catching element of this poster
is the use of the males eyes looking directly at the audience. This is identical to our
media product as we used this to keep the ambiguity of my character. We produced
this ambiguity as you can’t see anything other than his eyes. We also used a close up
shot to intimidate the audience as it makes the shot more intimate. Additionally, this
poster has been edited cleverly as it makes it appear as if the male is hiding in the
water, away from society. This is also what my character is like within our media
product. He wants his true identity to remain hidden from everyone.
Another similarity with this poster and my media product is the use of the white font in
front of the dark background. This may have been used here so that the title is visible
and to highlight how ‘Fear’ of the character staring ahead, is the driving force of this
story. The title is in bold capital letters because its more eye catching.
The photograph on the bottom of the poster has a tear between the male and female
on the left. This hints to the audience that maybe the man, who is staring ahead, has
caused some relationships to be broken. It also stereotypically portrays women as the
weaker sex, as the woman is firmly gripping onto his arm whilst he has his arms
wrapped around another female, as if he is guarding her. This could link to our media
product as we did not include any females. However if it was to be made by a big
institution, then female characters would be added.
15. WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT?
Age
According to the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the target audience for
members viewing our media product should be 15. This is due to factors such as
discrimination and strong violence existing in the plot. We also found this fitting to the film,
as all the characters in our media product are approximately this age, which makes the
audience able to identify even more with the characters. If the audience are able to relate
to the film, then there is a chance that this will evoke emotions such as anger or empathy
towards some characters, making them stay engaged throughout the film. Initially we
wanted the target audience to be 15, because during the research stage, the survey
results informed us that nobody younger than eleven had seen a thriller film. According to
my survey, the results found that most thrillers are typically seen by people who are aged
24+. Thus as a group, we felt that thrillers are not made for individuals younger than
eleven years, due to the content being controversial and possibly influential in nature.
Whilst we were already in the knowledge of thrillers being viewed by people aged 24+ , we
discovered that the second common age category for viewing thriller films was 15-19. The
survey also highlighted that people prefer to watch films which reflect society in some
form, and as a production team, we aimed to make the film accessible through these
means, so that the film had purpose and meaning that could be extended to any one and
every one.
16. Due to the macabre nature of the film, we initially believed that the media product would be viewed mostly by males, particularly as
there are no female characters within the film which other women could possibly identify with. However, the feedback from the
survey showed otherwise, as 50% females were reported to watch the film after it had been broadcasted on YouTube. Also, some
cultures associate the hands and eyes with femininity and spirituality, which could have been interpreted by our female audience,
through the camera work which was shown in the beginning of the film, highlighting the eyes and hands.
This taught me that gender roles are social constructs, and rather than believing whether the film relates more to a ‘man’ or
‘woman’, one should question whether either sex is able to relate to human emotion and enjoy the film for its diegesis. The font
used within the film could be considered as being rather masculine, due to its hefty and overbearing look, stereotypically
considered of men. However, it could equally appeal to females as well, along with the other thriller conventions such as sou nd,
narrative and colors, which can be enjoyed by both genders depending on the likes and dislikes of the individual.
Race
I believe our piece targets a large range of races as it has myself who is actually Indian, which would attract members of Asian
decent within the audience. My name is Joseph and the story is set in England along with English characters. All the characters in
our media product have a British accent, this makes the film applicable to speakers of the English language, as they will be able to
comprehend everything clearly.
Gender
17. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT AND ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?
We created our opening title sequence always having our target audience in mind (15). Most
school children will find our story relatable as the second segment of our media product is set
within a school. We have depicted this through the use of mise-en-scene and sound:
Our frame consists of a notice board, poster, desk, worksheets and fellow students. This makes
it clear to the audience that the setting has moved from a bedroom to a classroom.
Additionally, when my character comes into the classroom, he says “Sorry I’m late sir”, whilst
students are doing their work.
As our opening title sequence is dominated by males, I feel that the costume of the characters
will appeal to our audience. My character is seen wearing a stylish black bomber jacket within
the threat video. A bomber jacket is the current fashion trend and it is stereotypically worn by
males, this means the audience can relate to his fashion sense. I also feel that this will appeal
to our female audience, as they may find this fashion sense attractive/ may want their partner
to dress like this. Ultimately, its good that the costume will appeal to both genders, as this
means more people will watch our product. We used this close up shot to make it seem as if
the audience is actual.
18. We also used a close up pan showing all the news articles on Joseph’s wall. I believe this will attract
our elder audience, such as people who are 24+ and who familiarize themselves with current affairs
using newspapers. The close up pan shot is used here, to clearly show what is written on the
articles. The audience need to read what is written on the articles, as this will reinforce how heavily
influenced Joseph is by terrorism. Additionally, when this shot comes up, the pace of the opening
slows down and the music gets quieter. We did this in order to make the audience wonder why this
has happened, which will keep them engaged at all times.
Overall, I think that its evident that I have attracted and addressed my audience well. I did this by
considering how the mise-en-scene, camera, editing and sound created meaning within our media
product, ensuring the audience never get bored and stay engrossed within the action.
19. AUDIENCE SURVEY AND RESULTS: QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
I created an audience survey to gain feedback on our media project to see what was successful and what we could
have improved. Below are the responses to the questions I asked. We gained 10 responses to our survey. This
was less than the first survey because I didn’t upload it to Facebook. However I’m glad we got more than five
results as there is more of a range and it shows that the data is reliable.
I first asked everyone what
gender they were. I needed
to know this in order to see if
our product attracted the
audience I targeted, which
were males, and if I could
attract females. 50% of the
people who saw my product
were female and 50% were
male. This means we
satisfied a large audience.
20. I then asked what sub-genre the
audience felt our media project fit
into, providing them with the
opportunity to tick multiple options.
100% of the audience chose
Psychological and Crime. I can see
why they chose this because my
character isn’t mentally stable and he
is performing illegal activities.10%
chose Horror, 40% chose Political,
20% chose Drama and 30% chose
Action. I did not understand why
people chose Horror, as I did not
include horror elements, but I
realized that the audience may have
interpreted the political and crime
theme as ‘horror’. However I
understood the choices for the other
categories, as our product
incorporates conventions of these
sub-genres.
What sub-genre of thriller do you think our
opening fits into? (Can tick multiple options)
21. I was glad that 50% of the people
who answered my survey were
between the age range of 15-19,
as it showed we targeted our
audience correctly, whilst taking
the different aspects into
consideration. 10% were 19-24
and 40% were 24+. This proved
that our product was very
convincing and attracted a large
audience.
22. 60% of our audience said that the
Camera and Lighting in our media
project met the thriller conventions the
most. The other 40% said that Music
and Plot met the thriller conventions
the most. Costume got nothing. I had a
feeling this was going to happen, as we
wanted to make the costume real. We
were happy that these four aspects
were appreciated by the audience, as
these are the aspects that provided the
audience with familiarity and variation.
23. 100% of my audience said they
wanted to watch more of this
film. I think this is great news as
this was the aim from the
beginning of the project. This
means we successfully
incorporated aspects such as
mise-en-scene, editing, camera
and lighting to create meaning
within our product.
24. WHAT DO YOU THINK COULD'VE BEEN IMPROVED WITHIN
THIS OPENING?
The last question I asked was regarding what improvements could have been made within our
product. I felt the response below was the best, as at one, point Mr. Ford told us to include a
shot of him talking. He said this so the audience can see the teacher, but we didn’t include
this. Perhaps, if we included this we could have added more dynamism to our product.
25. Audience survey and results: Qualitative
Analysis
Upon having viewed my media product, I received the following feedback from various individuals:
Age: 30, Gender: Female- “I loved the opening and wanted to watch the whole thing!”
Age: 17, Gender: Male- “The opening is gripping and you don’t want it to cut off at two minutes. Also, great
use of the technical areas.”
Age: 22, Gender: Female- “I loved the concept as it was relatable to what is happening in the world right now
and it was cleverly assembled.”
To estimate how successful or unsuccessful our media product was, I asked various individuals what they
thought about our media product. I was rather surprised as to how many females enjoyed our product, as
seen above, as well as individuals above the age of 15, who felt that it was ‘gripping’ and ‘relatable’ to them.
It was beneficial to gain feedback from people who watched our opening, as it provided us with a sense of
accomplishment, due to maximizing the target audience which we did not expect would occur.
26. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM
THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?
I learnt a lot about technologies during the process of constructing this product, even though I did not edit it
myself. My fellow group member, Benoit helped me understand the logistics of the software we utilized- Adobe
Premier Pro, through information-sharing. Adobe Premier Pro is a fantastic software which gives you the liberty to
produce some inspirational work. We were lucky that we didn’t have to buy this software, as it is very expensive.
Our fellow group member, Benoit had this installed on his computer, as we had previously made some short films
together. Before we started constructing our media product, I did not know how to use a DSLR camera efficiently.
After being continuously put on the spot through our continuity tasks and learning things from other group
members, I can now say I’m confident using one. We shot our opening title sequence on Benoit’s DSLR camera.
The camera is of good quality, creating detailed images and has a great sensor. This made the cinematography of
our media product look sublime. We also began using his tripod. During the early days of filming, we all noticed
that the tripod was too stiff, so we were not able to gain the efficient smoothness within our shots, making it
appear unprofessional. This was when we started to borrow the school’s tripod, which was much better. Adobe
Premier Pro allowed us to insert graphics, such as the streaming icon in the threat video to signify that Joseph
was recording it in that moment.
27. In the beginning, we were also using Benoit’s
microphone which connected to the camera. After
filming our dialogue scenes, we noticed that the quality
of the sound was very poor, as we could hear the
background noise and there was muffling. I then came
up with the idea to use our fellow group member,
Jamie’s phone. We then used his phone to record all
the dialogue during the opening, because it was very
clear and did not pick up any background noise.
Furthermore, in the school segment, when my character
walked in the classroom, we had the camera panning
out and then panning back in when he sat down. Mr
Ford looked through this many times and said if there is
no meaning of a specific shot, then do not use it. We
then brought the camera back to get a stationary wide
shot of Joseph walking in. This was a better option as it
also worked as an establishing shot.
Some new equipment that I got to use was the
GoPro camera. I used this in the beginning of
our media product (threat video). I feel that this
camera has enhanced our final product, as it has
built a stronger connection between the
audience and Joseph. When Joseph pulls the
camera towards him, the audience are engaged
from the start and feel uneasy. This is vital as the
phrase ‘The first impression is the last
impression’ also applies here. If the audience are
engaged from the start, they will be anticipating
everything that happens in the film. This builds
suspense-one of the most important thriller
conventions.
I’m thankful to our media teachers for teaching us why
a specific shot is used and how it creates meaning.
Before choosing media as an A-level, I did not
understand the relevance of some camera angles e.g.
I believed a close-up shot was only used to define a
characters facial expression.
28. LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO
YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM
IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?
I feel that I have made significant progress and improvement since our preliminary task. During the early
stages, I felt as though I was beginning to struggle, as I did not know how much research was required of
me for this project. I then gradually understood and started to pick up the pace. Before starting the
preliminary task, our whole group thought it would be fairly easy. We were mistaken and it was surprising
as to how many continuity mistakes we made, which made our clip look unprofessional. Our continuity task
was shot over three days, because there were problems with the fluency of the sequence. In the first draft,
we used too many unnecessary camera angles of the same shot, which disrupted the flow and gave the
impression that I was placed in different places, even though I was not. Additionally, we could not perfect
the match-on-action due to this. We then worked on perfecting the match-on-action within our full product
and I believe it was very good. We tried to make the continuity task as alluring as possible, so we used
diegetic sound such as the punch and suspenseful background music to build intensity. We found it
astonishing how you could take dull raw footage and then transform it into something worth watching by
developing these aspects. After doing this task, we became more knowledgeable about editing with
continuity and we collaborated well as a group. I feel that we would have been unsuccessful doing this if
we did not have such a creative and passionate group. After receiving feedback from our teachers, we
tried to improve our continuity task as much as possible, but we made a slight error of not deleting the
background noise of the café.
29. We learnt how to make an efficient shot, prop and editing list which guided us through our real
filming process. Creating this ensured that we did not forget to include something which we
had decided on. The first storyboard we created (continuity task) was very brief and it
changed a lot during the process of filming, to include more detail such as specific camera
angles. The storyboard for our opening title sequence was much more detailed, but we
wanted to visually see what our film would look like. This lead to us creating an animatic.
Creating the animatic was a beneficial process, because we learnt some logistics of editing,
which helped us for the editing of our final media product. I learnt during the production of the
full product that it is better to use the phone microphone, rather than the camera microphone,
as it just focuses on the voices and does not pick up background sound.
During the preliminary task, I did not research the genre we were depicting, but I later did this
whilst planning our opening title sequence, so I watched many thriller films and analyzed what
the primary codes and conventions were. I also noted how these films utilized aspects such
as mise-en-scene, editing, lighting, sound and camera to construct meaning. I now feel much
more confident using all the equipment and undergoing the research, planning and production
stages, because I now have experience of what needs to be done.
I’m very happy with the progress our group has made during all stages of this project. We
made many mistakes, but this was good as it provided us with the opportunity to reflect on
these, whereby we learnt from these mistakes and made the necessary changes needed to
improve our product.
