Task 7-Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

when looking back on my preliminary task there are four main areas of improvement, these areas are:
Planning and preparation, the used of camera work, sound, the used of final cut pro and after effects.

The planning that went into my final task was much more complex and detailed than the planning of the preliminary task. With the preliminary task we found a convenient location and took any two people who we could find who were willing to participate. We then used any props that we could find in order to give the scene meaning so really there was barely any planning evolved with our preliminary task. Our Thriller opening sequence on the other hand had weeks if not a month of planning put into it. The first thing that we had to do was to come up with the idea and once we were set on our idea we had to decide whether we were going to attempt to film on location or build a set for our sequence. As we decided to film part of our sequence on location we had to phone a set of locations and ask their permission to film at their location. As the other part of our sequence was going to be filmed in a built set, we had to draw up a series of set designs so that we had an idea of what we wanted our set to look like, we then storyboarded of sequence, drew up a shot list and a dialogue script. We then had the issue of casting and rather than picking at random we had to find people who looked the part and portrayed the characters in the way in which we wanted the to be portrayed as. Once this was done we had to acquire all of our props whether we borrowed them of purchased them. And the final step was to build the set. So as we can see the planning of our Thriller opening sequence was much more in depth and complex than our preliminary task.
The use of the camera in our Thriller opening sequence was much more complex and planned than our preliminary task. The setting up of the shot was much more complex in terms of eye line matches, looking space and head room. In some of the cases we used tracking shots or zooms where as when we filmed our preliminary task all of the shots were fixed shots so we set up the camera in a fixed position for the entire of the scene. The rules of camera work such as the 180 degree rule were obeyed and kept to as we had a much better understanding of it and how if disobeyed it can make a scene very confusing.

The use of sound in both of the tasks was hugely different as in the preliminary task we only used the inbuilt microphones and added no sound effects or music but in our Thriller opening sequence we used a directional boom 'mic' in order to get a better quality of sound. We also used sound track pro in order to add electrical sound effects and to give the scene more of an atmosphere.

Our use of final cut pro and adobe after effects was also vastly different. In our preliminary task we only used final cut pro so that we could use straight cuts to fit the shots together. Adobe after effects was not used at all. In our thriller opening sequence however we used final cut pro in much more detail. We used titles to give our sequence a professional feel we also used transitions to join both of the scenes together in a smoother way and to allow sound to fade out and back in.
Adobe after effects was used to colour grade the sequence to give the first half of it a sepia tint to make it feel like old footage. We also used it in order to create our title card and give it an electrical feel in order to make it stand out.
Overall I think that my film making skills have vastly improved in terms of planning and preparation, camera work, sound, and editing since my preliminary task.

Task 6-What have you learn't about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Task 5-How did you attract/address your audience?

How did you attract/adress your audience?

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Task 4-Who would be the audience for your media product?

There would be twon main audience types for our thriller:

One would be people who would be taking an interest in the historical content of the film and this would most likely be due to the sequences based in the 1950's period.
Films that these people may have previously seen that attract them to our film would be films such as:

'The Green Mile'

The reason why people who had seen this film would have a potential interest in our film would be due to the similarities in the ideas of prision scenes and execution.

The second audience type would be more of a typical thriller audience but mostly those who had enjoyed films such as:

'Nightmare on Elm Street'
and

'Friday the 13th'

The reasons why fans of these films would be particulally interested with our film would be due to the similarities in the storyline in the way in which they revolve around the idea of resurection and revenge. As we know that in both of these film the killer is resurected and extracts their revenge. And at the end of our opening sequance we get the impression that the villian in our film may about to get revenge and possibly repeat his actions.

Task 3-What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The kind of institution that would be likely to accept our film would be a smaller independent film company such as Vertigo Films, the reason why they would be more likely to accept a small film like ours is due to them having a tendency to distribute lower budget independent films and as we have no famous crew or cast a large company like Warner Brothers would be less keen to distribute our film. The reasons why vertigo is likly to distribute a small film is due to it not having as much money as larger Hollywood companies and therefore can not afford to distribute larger films as they will require to much of an investment

Other small low budget films that Vertigo Films has distributed are:

These are all examples of other low budget small scale films that Vertigo has distributed, and therefore says to us that Vertigo may be likely to take on another small scale film like ours. Our film will be likely to be a straight to DVD film due to its lack of famous Cast or Crew. This would be useful to a film distributor such as Vertigo would be because Vertigo has its own DVD label so would be able to produce the DVD's directally rather than having to seel the film writes on to another company.

Task 2-How does your product represent particular social groups?

The main social group represented by our thriller are criminals. Criminals are represented by the character 'Randell Meritt' who is the potential villian in our film:


The picture on the left is a screen grab from our sequance and the photo on the right is a shot of Ted Bundy who was the first human to have the term serial killer applied to them. Our film does not represent 'Randall' as a two dimentional character who is similar to Bundy in the way in which he has no chance of redemption.


The Governor in this film represents the older upper class of society this can be seen through the way that he is dressed in a smart suit. Along with the Gaurds they can be seen as figures of authority are are portraied in a positive light.


The methords we used to portray this character in a positive light was to shoot him from below and therefore immediately put us in an almost child like position and are therefore forced to look up to him, both physically and psycologically.We also dressed him in white so that he stands out against the dark background of the rest of the set. This portrays him as a righteous and almost angelic character. This makes the act of murder that is going to be commited justified and makes it seem like the right thing to do.


The young girl in the film (Laura Bell) represents the younger generation of society (young girl) but potentially represents the 'heroin' in this film.

She was portaied as a positive character and the way in which this we did this was to light the room in order to give a warm feel to the room which when combined with the previous sequance feels more relatable as we are more used to seeing films in this colour format rather than the sepia tint of the first half which allows us to relate to her portraying her in a more positive light.

Task 1-In what ways does your media product use, develop or challange forms and conventions of real media products.

Our thriller follows the majority of normal film conventions in the opening sequance in the way of title cards and choice of shot. We also used positon of shots in order to convey who is authorative in this scene and who we should 'look up to'.



This is the first image that is shown in our thriller and it conformes and develops the existing title convestions in the way in which we have put our distributor first as they are responsible for funding the film and have therefore invested the most into the film.


We then added our own production company as they are responsible for the production and post production of the film. And therefore come second to the production company in terms of importance and therefore come second it the credit sequance.


This shot upholds typical conventions as it is a wide shot of the entire setting in which this scene is taking place and therefore works as an establishing shot and shows the audience where the scene is taking place and helps to minimise confusion.

This shot was used to imply significance to this character and develops upon typical conventions as it shows that to the audience who they need to focus on and who is siginificant to the scene.

This shot is used in order to show this character is significant but also shows to us that he is an authorative figure as the 'Hero shot' is used and he is shot from below which puts us in a lower position than him and we therefore are made to physically look up to him which makes him authorative.

Post Production Work.

After our thriller we began the editing proccess using  the Final Cut Pro editing software. We firstly had to 'check out' our work from the Final Cut Server and sent it to our desktop. Once this was done we opened Final Cut Pro and opened the file named 'rushes' which contained all of the video clips that we had filmed over our shooting day. We then created a new folder call 'Log bin' and watched all of the clips from the rushes folder and moved ones which could be used in the final opening sequance. Once we had selected the shots that we wanted we started the editing by dragging a wide shot of the scene down onto the final cut timeline in which we could cut the shot up and use the segments of the clip that we wanted to be in a wide shot. We continued to drop shots onto the timeline until we had a rough draft of our opening sequance. One of the ways in which we made our opening sequance flow and seem fluid was once the dialogue started we kept the same audio clip running throughout the sequance and placed other audio clips on top of it. We then cut back to the person speaking in order to show that it remains as diagetic sound. It Also reminded the audience that the character speaking was an important one in this scene. Quite often we cut to a close up  of the criminals face when a question was asked in order to draw significance to him and to show that he has no enthapy with the other characters in this scene. We then later decided to add a Radio Broadcast at the start of the sequance in order to give the main character (the criminal) a larger back story without a really long prision sentence being read out.

(This is a snapshot of the final cut time line and the editng windows)

 In order to join the prision scene to the pub scene was we waited until the 'bag' was pulled down over the criminals head and added a fade transition so that the screen was black then we started the pub scene with someone walking away from the camera joining the to clips together. Once we had our sequance on the timeline we started to add credits over the top of the sequance listing key crew and 'Characters' or actors. We then used Sound Cut Pro which is a sound editing software to add sounds such as electrical sounds of generators and electric shocks. We also added a 'Busy Room' sound effects in order to give the pub more of an athmosphere.

Once this was done we Decided to add a title card of the word 'resurgence' and the way in which we did this was to create the word itself in Photoshop and then cut letter out and rotated them and slighty changed the size of the R so that it was larger than the rest of the text. We also selected the font. Once this was done we moved this into after effects and started off by creating a set of layers and blured the bottom layer and then then added the effect of a bad TV effect in order to make it look more like an electric current. We then added a lighting effect to the background and then we imported it into final cut and played an audio clip of an electic current over it to enhance the electric feel to the title.

We then added a radio broadcast in order to give the sequance a more realistic feel. It also allowed us to give a larger back story to the sequance without having a long detailed section of dialogue during the prison sequance which would seem

We chose vertigo a our distributor as it a small english distributor which would be more likly to take a film like ours.

This is a screen shot of the title cards at the start of our sequance. This is a name of a production company that we though of ourselfs named 'Blue Print Productons'

This is the shot that we opened with as it allowed the audience to get an understanding of where this scene is taking place, and an idea of the setting.

This is a close shot of 'Randell Merrit' this shot was used to show that he has no regret or responces to anything said to him. It also draws significance to him and tells the audience that he is an important character.

This is a shot that we used to show the govener when he was speaking. It once again shows the audience that he is significant but it also gives the audience a feel for the time period due to the way he is dressed.