2. The Group To create my product there was three of us in a group, Me, Nathan and Jack. Nathan was the person who played the victim called James, Jack played kidnapper and I played the role of the cameraman.
3. What we had to do What we had to do was create an opening sequence of a movie which was about 2 or 3 minutes in length.
4. Opening sequence Before we even started to create our opening sequence we looked at many genres, however we thought that the thriller genre would be the most exciting and attention seeking. We also looked at movies from the thriller genre to get some idea of what would be expected of us. After having multiple thoughts on what we would do we finally decided to the thriller genre and then decided that are story would be based on a kidnapping
5. Q1- In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? We first chose to decide on what the title would be and how it would look, so we looked at multiple videos and found that title were dark, broken and some were the same colour as the background but lighter. Nathan then went and created the title and the group reckoned that this would fit perfectly with the genre and it also matched some of the other titles of similar products.
6. Q1- In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? After Nathan created the title the group decided the title would go at the end of the opening sequence as it would create suspense and tension, also after looking at the full opening sequence and then the Abandoned title appearing it would grab the viewers attention and also let them know in some way what has happened to him.
7. Q1- In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? The group came up with ideas on what shots we would use for example showing the kidnapped persons close up just in the way they show it in saw. After looking at all the other opening sequences we decided that we use different shots without changing similar scenes which match our genre.
8. Q1- In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? To make the opening sequence very similar other movies we used a typical plotline and the use of a victim and villain made it go well with the concept of the thriller genre. A further thing that matched our genre was the rich, young man with wealthy parents and he gets kidnapped. He is portrayed as wealthy by his dress sense, smart phone and the text from his mother saying he has been given a sum of money from a sale.
9. Q1- In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? The setting we used for the movie was a back ally and the college boiler room this would go perfect with the genre as it is a type of place for the person to get kidnapped rather than from a place with high security etc. At first we decided we would choose an old building behind college how ever we were unable to get permission to use it so we used a boiler room in college. Which went fantastically well with our genre. This scene in snakes in the plane looks similar to our boiler room shot.
10. Q1- In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? To establish where out film is going to be set we used an establishing shot for example a movie set in Brooklyn would maybe show the Brooklyn Bridge so to show our film was going to be recorded we took pictures of the church based next to the college.
11. Q2 – How does the media product represent particular social groups. The social group we wanted to represent was a rich, young and modern teenager. We made him look rich by the smartphone and text, young and modern by choice of clothing and ripped up clothes.
12. Q2 – How does the media product represent particular social groups. To my knowledge teenagers are portrayed as either one of two types. Either ‘thugs’ or those of nice, helpful and respectful. In the movie we wanted to show them as rich, uptight arrogance. In the movie looking at James his appearance it shows him as a well dressed but lazy. His jeans are ripped and he is shown as highly stubborn.
13. Q2 – How does the media product represent particular social groups. We chose to show our character as stubborn, unruly and rich this done by his expressions and the items he had e.g. the iPhone and smart looking watch. We wanted to show we had met the social group and by asking the audience on what we thought on our character was correct we got feedback and in this it confirmed what we believed.
14. Q3 – What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? This part of the task I carried out I researched the many different film institution. As we already know there are two main institutions American and British. British films are often portrayed as cheaper movies and this would suit our style as we are making it as realistic at cheaper prices. A company we could use to distribute our movie would be Lions gate Entertainment UK who are extremely well known and will not fail in distributing the movie all over the world and could be interested in distributing resulting in high revenue.
15. Q4 – Who would be the audience for your media product? Looking at the research carried out I believe the target audience would be people aged between 18 – 24 this putting it in the young adult range. However also personal knowledge would tell me that people aged between 14 – 17 would also be interested this is after the feedback I got back from my questionnaire I sent out. Also because the movie would be distributed by a British institution it would also generate more interest from British public.
16. Q4 – How did you attract/address your audience? As well all know there are many ways you can attract audiences. First would be to use well known characters which match the characters age for example in harry potter there is Daniel Radcliff who is the typical age. Another way is to create a major suspense and leave the audience wanting to know what is going to happen next this is shown in our movie when James (Nathan) goes through the black door.
17. Q4 – How did you attract/address your audience? I believe that the main attention grabbing thing is the use of sound that is heard over jacks music. The load bag created the greatest attraction. Also when the whole video slows down when he is ripping the tape of his hands this creates special effects and that is what youths are into this day and age.
18. Q5 – What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? I have learnt so much in every thing I have done over the past couple on months the technologies have been fantastic. I have learnt so much in using different types of technology the first is the Cameras I have used, with cameras I have used how to take videos at different frame rates different angles. Another thing I have learnt is how to use blogs and what they are also used for. We all know what the internet can do but for this coursework it has been an extremely helpful and I have to say it has been really helpful in finding the many different things we have done during the whole process of creating our product.
19. Q5 – What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? iMovie - before I started to do my coursework I did not even know what iMovie was or it even existed, I was a complete amature in using iMovie and I had never used it and it took some time to get used to it but when I started using it I found it to be simple helpful and the things it could do were fantastic.
20. Q6 – What have you learnt from the preliminary task to the full product. I have learnt everything has to be done in top quality and every thing has to be done to a high standard so that we could have something of good quality and not of a cheap and unprofessional standard. The image has to be pristine and needs to be smooth this can be done easily with professional cameras but with bog standard cameras this would be harder. The editing has to be of quality which stabilised the images and did not cut from one take to another without smoothness and perfection.
21. Q7 - Conclusion Overall I believe that my groups video was a fantastic product and I am glad that I have done it with two fantastic people. The quality of the video was fantastic and the use the technology was fantastic. The people I worked with were helpful and friendly and I would never say no to working with them again.