Final Product

This is my final product that i have finished for my AS level Media Studies course.

analysing representation of gender in a clip

The clip i chose to analyse was from the TV series Strike Back (S04E09) Shadow Warfare

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

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the product? 

I feel that i have learned how to effectively manage my time to create an effective media product as my preliminary was rushed so it was not as good as it could've been whereas my main product turned out better than i had anticipated. Another thing i  feel that i have improved on is how to use a camera and camera equipment, i feel that i have made an improvement in the quality of camera by holding it steady and improving my zooming in/out of the camera to improve the picture and effect within that specific scene. Also i have improved moving the camera (panning) to give a more smooth and less jerking movement, this helps to give my product a more professional look. I also think that since my preliminary task i have gained more knowledge and understanding for the mise-en-scene to create a more effective looking product. I had also improved the quality of sound to get a good end product by using the right sounds and getting them at the right levels to add a deeper effect. My props and costumes had improved as well to give a more realistic and believable look and feel to the product, my costume used genuine equipment which gives it a much more realistic effect compared to the costumes used in my preliminary as that was shot rather quickly so not as much effort was put into the costumes and props. My editing has improved a lot, as in my final media product i have used more editing techniques, such as slow motion and transitions between scenes.

Evaluation Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt a lot about different sorts of technologies, for example I now know how to effectively operate a camera to create a product and also how to use a tripod to create smooth shots and panning. I have also learnt a lot of new computer technology skills, such as iMovie as I hadn't had any experience on iMovie before working on my media tasks and also I have learned a lot of new skills on Photoshop and how to create an ident for my main media task, I have also learnt how to get and import sound effects into a media product. A big skill that I have learnt during my media task is how to use blogger and YouTube as I had no idea how to use them and upload projects on them, so I have learned a new skill for the future if I decide to make any more YouTube videos. Another thing i have learnt about technologies is that i should not rely on them all the time as mistakes can and will happen, so i should always create copies of my work to ensure that all of the effort i put into my work is not lost if something does go wrong with the technology and also that i know it is safe.

Evaluation Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my audience with the conventions of a Thriller and by keeping it basic so that there is no confusion within the narrative, this attracts the audience as they are able to fully understand the narrative of the film. I also tried to incorporate factors of other Thriller and Zombie films so that it would be attractive to those who are a fan of the zombie/thriller genre, for example I gained some ideas for the mis-en-scene from various TV shows and Films, such as writing 'HELP' on the barn door, i gained this idea from both The Walking Dead and Dawn of The Dead.

How does your Thriller hold the audience's attention?
My Thriller holds the audience's attention by not revealing much of the story away and keeping them guessing and thinking about the danger and the mysterious being that only the audience knows is there, by doing this it causes the audience to know more than the character within the film does which makes them concerned for the character's safety. Also with the audience knowing more than the character it makes them want to see that the character gets along safely and does not get harmed.

Why would they want to carry on watching after your opening has ended?
The audience would want to carry on watching after my opening has ended because i purposefully ended it on a cliffhanger of the main character raising and firing the gun towards the camera, this leaves a lot of questions unanswered for the viewer, such as 'who was he shooting at?' and 'will he be safe?' so by leaving it on a cliffhanger it leaves the audience wanting more and to know more.

Audience feedback, what did they say they enjoyed?
I got a range of feedback and from different age ranges. My target audience (15-25) that i got feedback from was very positive and they thought that the narrative was good and the way that it was told was very good. The older generation (25-50) that viewed my product and gave feedback also gave positive feedback but it was not as strong as the younger generation, a majority of them said that it was very good and if it were a real film that they would go and watch the full product whereas the others said that it was good but it was not the sort of thing that they would go and watch.

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

Who would be the audience for your media product? 
The audience for my Media Product would be people aged about 15 - 25 as this is the typical sort of age which watch that sort of thrillers, they would usually be male and middle class as it is not typically the sort of media product in which you would expect upper class people to watch or female.

Why would they watch your film?
They would watch my film as it may be the sort of genre which they are interested in, also it may be because they want to see a thriller film that is a bit different to the normal sort of Thriller that you may expect. Another reason the might watch my film is because the may like other Thriller/Zombie films, so they will view mine as they like the sort of genre/narrative of my product. By adding guns it will attract my audience as a majority of men like guns and weapons.

What would appeal to them?
There is numerous things that would appeal to them, for example, an appealing factor may be the use of blood and weapons as this is the typical and recognizable thing that is in Thrillers and Zombie films so this might attract the audience to watch it. Also by having the typical things that are expected in the thriller genre it means that it is what may be expected from a thriller genre and contain what is expected from it. 

Refer to the audience feedback you received on the finished product – who enjoyed it most?

The people who enjoyed my film most was the younger generation, which was my target audience. This shows that my film worked well at attracting the younger audience and that my film did a good job of what it was supposed to do. The reason they enjoyed it most was do to the thrill factor and that it had included what they would have expected from a zombie/thriller film, which is good to get feedback on as it shows that I have managed to make my film appeal to the intended audience and included what is needed to make it effective.

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

What kind of media institution might distributed your media product and why?
My media product might be distributed by a mini-major film studio if it was to become a full feature film as it is not the sort of film that would get almost annual releases, as it would take a long time in production. Also my media product is the sort that would not get distributed by major film studios, but mini-major film studios instead, for example 28 Days Later was produced by the British Film Council which is aiming at distributing British film productions nationally and internationally, this would be good for my product as it would not only get a wide audience for my film but it would also bring attention to the British Film Making industry. 28 Days Later was a huge success, which lead to it getting a sequel but the sequel was distributed by a different company, so by distributing it internationally could grab the attention of bigger Film production companies which could mean that I would be able to get a bigger budget and make a better film sequel.
If my product was to be distributed by a film company, it may be distributed by the British Film Council as it would've promoting British film but it has dealt with my film genre before so they will be experienced in how and where to distribute my media product.
http://film.britishcouncil.org 

 Also It could be distributed on television as a series or serial as there are a few zombie/thriller media products that are currently showing on television, such as Z Nation and The Walking Dead, by distributing my product as a television series/serial it could mean that it gets a large audience internationally and could get released on DVD once a series has finished.

Evaluation Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My  media product represents the older generation as my main character is older instead of younger, this shows that its not only the young who are in the military and survive in an apocalypse as in most zombie/thriller media products they show younger generations, but i thought that by having an older lead character would challenge the typical convention and also make it seem more realistic. I also think that having an older male character as the lead character brings a strong and positive role to the media product as he is shown in military gear which has positive connotations on it's own, but by showing an older male character also brings across a strong authoritative figure. This also follows the stereotype that older men are more 'in charge' and authoritative, so my product does stick to this stereotype. When i used the low angle close up shot of the character it shows the authority and control that he has over the situation.

Which social groups feature in your film?
The social group that featured in my film was a middle class man who was wearing military clothing, this implies that he is/was military. As i only had one lead character within my film i have not shown a range of different social groups, however if my film was a full-length film i would have introduced different characters from a range of different social groups as this would make my media product more realistic and believable.

How have you portrayed them?
I have portrayed them in a positive way as the military clothing and weapons could represent justice and protection, also i have shown that by entering the door that says 'help' shows that he is responding to someone's call for help which can suggest that he is the 'hero' within the narrative, it can also show that he is a good samaritan coming to someone's aid. Also with the character carrying a gun it shows that he has authority and is able to protect himself, this gives the connotation that the character is skilled and strong enough to look after himself.

Evaluation Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I used forms and conventions from real media products within my media product, for example I got some of my ideas from the TV show The Walking Dead as I got the idea of having writing on a door from The Walking Dead as I think it adds effect and recognisable features from actual media products, I believe that this also helps to get across the genre and what can be expected within the product. Typically films of the thriller genre use busy environment and are in urban/suburban areas, I challenged this conventions by using a very different environment, which was a farm. Using a farm is a complete binary opposite to the usual thriller environments, I did this because it takes away the sense of security from the character by placing him in a vulnerable area. Apart from this my product conforms to the main thriller conventions by having an enigma which is usually solved by the lead character, and the lead character usually being police, government or Military and also that there will be a rational or supernatural explanation to the enigma, which in my case was that there was an outbreak. Within my final media product I also used the ideas from a book that i read, this book is where i got the inspirations for the costume and props, which was military clothing with and assault rifle for a prop. I also got the idea of shooting my film on an 'abandoned' from from The Walking Dead also as there are parts in the series which are shot in abandoned farmlands. 


What conventions of the thriller genre have you used? 
I have used many conventions of the thriller genre, such as including a bit of action, suspense and curiosity so that the audience is grabbed into the film to watch it, as the aim of a thriller film is to create suspense and excitement for the audience to please them, which is what I have done.

Have you challenged any conventions?
I challenged the convention of the thriller taking place in a busy/populated urban/suburban location as my film took place in a post-apocalyptic world where it is not busy or populated and it is not in an urban/suburban location, as it is on a farm in the middle of nowhere which is a binary opposite to the typical setting for a thriller. I chose to do this as it gives my product and atmosphere and makes it more effective with more scenery unlike an urban area.

making the changes decided by the audience

In my final product I made the changes and improvements that were made by the audience to make
my product better and more suitable for the audience.
the changes I made were:
-the titles
-sound
-adding some shots of the 'zombie'

By adding these in I believe that I had improved the quality of my product so that it is more appealing and overall better than what it was before I improved it.

Audience Testing

I showed my media product to my target audience (which was teenagers) who were in my class so I was able to get feedback from multiple people and see what they thought I could change or improve to make my final product better. a thing that was said a lot was that the music was drowning out the rest of the diegetic sound so they found I hard to hear it, and also that the text at the beginning did not stay on the screen long enough to read all of it, so this is something in which I can improve on when it comes to adjusting and improving my final product.
apart from that, generally the feedback was positive and they thought the narrative was good and was understandable, they also thought that my opening titles worked well and was effective in establishing the genre and does help to portray what genre it is.

Rough draft

Rough draft:

(Video will be uploaded Monday)

evaluation:
I think that some aspects of my draft worked well whereas others did not, for example I think that my opening text did not appear on the screen long enough for the audience to fully read it, so in my final product I will have to lengthen the amount of time that it appears on screen so that my audience has time to read all of the text. within my draft I did not have any sort of footage of the zombie figure apart from a POV shot, to improve this I will add more footage but not so much as I want to keep the identity of the figure a mystery and not give away too much information so that it leaves unanswered questions that will attract my audience. Some of the diegetic and non-diegetic sound did not work well, or was too loud so for my final product I will have to adjust the sound so that it does not drown out some of the diegetic sounds, or so that some of the diegetic sound does not seem too loud and unnatural within the scene.
Overall I think my rough draft turned out okay but it has opened up my eye to see what I can to improve and alter to make my final product better and more realistic, with completing a rough draft firs it also means that I can see what timing I am at and how much more footage I can put in/take away to make sure my final video does not overrun the two minute target by a ridiculous amount.

Titles

For my title I had the title of the film (DAY 785) in a rough font and in red so that it sticks with the genre convention, also with the colour of red that I chose could symbolize blood and danger which would relate to my media product as it is a horror/thriller.
My original idea for my titles was for it to appear whilst action was happening behind it, but after gaining audience feedback and re-thinking it, it turned out that the title was too large and was also making the audience pay attention to the title instead of what was happening behind it. Because of this I decided to have my titles separate to any action that takes place to avoid distracting the audience.
I finally chose to have my title at the beginning and have the text on a plain black background with the title text on it so that it is easier to read and is also not taking the viewers attention away from anything else that is happening. Also by having it at the beginning of my product it allows the audience to see the title of the film first so they can get a gist of what the film is going to be about.

This is my final title design

Evaluating my preliminary task

my preliminary task turned out well and the angles and shots of the camera worked well and gave a clear narrative to the story behind the film. the angles used were good and worked well, these angles and shots worked together and gave a clear and smooth transition between cuts.

Sound

For my final product I used a variety of sound effects and non-diegetic music in it.
I sourced some of the sound effects from iMovie and the rest from a website called soundbible.com, as this site offers a wide range of sound effects which are very realistic and are able to add a  good/suspenseful effect to my film. For example I managed to find a realistic sound of a rifle being shot which I used for the scene in which the protagonist fires the rifle, my audience thought that his sound effect was good as the rifle sot sounded powerful and had the echo afterward which gave an added sense of realism to my product.
I sourced the music from www.purple-planet.com, this site allowed me to gain access to effective and scene-setting music which worked to give my product an added atmosphere to it as the sound allows the audience to suggest what is gong to happen within the scene so it was important that I found the best suited music for my product, I did this by applying the different music to the scene and showing my audience and getting their feedback on which one suited the scene the best. With my audience feedback I chose what music to use and which scenes I was going to put it over. I was originally going to have music running over the entirety of my product but after I got audience feedback they said how it would be better if in the beginning scenes I did not have any non-diegetic sound and just had the natural sound within the scene, such as the twigs snapping and some birds singing in the trees.

Editing Footage

Here I was editing the opening titles to correct the timings and make sure that the transition between the ident, titles and opening scene worked well and wasn't too sudden or too slow. I did this by adding a 'fade to black' transition before and after the large amount of text that appears so that it flows well with the rest of the product.
At first I couldn't decide whether to have a normal cut between the titles but after trialling it and seeing the effect and feedback of my peers I chose to use the fade to black as it was more appealing and also gave it a smoother finish instead of jumping too quickly to the different scene.


In this section I was editing the speed of this scene as I needed to speed it up so that my product does not overrun the 2 minute mark by much, luckily even with the footage sped up it still looked natural and did not look odd. I also added a 'cross dissolve' transitions between the two scenes where my actor is walking along the bridge so that it gives it a sense of an advancement in time and it gives it added affect to the audience.
I received a lot of positive feedback on using the 'cross dissolve' technique as the audience commented on the effect that it had saying that it was 'effective and different' which means that it worked well and was not a sort of technique that is used often.


At the end of my product I had a slow-motion effect on the footage of when the bullet shell casing hits the floor, I did this because I thought it added a good effect and makes it seem as if time is slowing down, also with it being slow motion it can add a sense of discomfort which is what I was aiming for.
I received very good feedback about using slow motion as the audience that I showed it to said that it allows them to see the shell casing spin in the air which they thought was effective and different in terms of that it isn't something that is usually seen within other media (film) products.

within my product I used a variety of editing techniques to create different effects, for example I added a filter over the footage so that it creates a more gloomy and slightly unnatural look to the final product, by adding the filter it also made the genre of my product clear, making it seem like a horror or a thriller film of some sorts. In the end scene I used a fade to white transition between the actor pointing the gun at the camera and shell casing hitting the floor, I put this transition at 0.2 seconds so that it would be a quick jump from the gun firing and the shell casing hitting the floor, this is more realistic and also by having it as white it acts as the flash from the gun being fired.

Filming Day

To film footage for my film, it only took one day as I managed to agree timings to go to the shooting location and made sure that my actor was not busy on that day.

During my day of filming we arrived at the location in the morning and quickly set up the props within the barn for the later scene. After I had set up the props and equipment in the barn we went over the plans for the day and the narrative to the story so that my actor could understand the situation in which my product was based in. Once we had set up and got ready I gathered the footage in which I needed for my product, I shot it in order of how my final product would go so that I knew what I had shot and what still needed to be shot.
After looking through my shots on the camera at the location I noticed how a few shots needed re-shooting as they were either out of focus or were not very good so I re-shot them, for example one of the shots in the barn was not very good as in part of the footage the actor was behind a pillar as a piece of action was taking place, so I had to re-shoot that scene in a different position which allowed me to shoot and see the action that was taking place clearly.
The weather on the day of shooting was quite overcast and slightly foggy which worked in favour of my product as it gave the footage a more eerie and spooky effect. Also it was fairly dark as there was a lot of cloud coverage, which again added an affect to my footage giving it a more post-apocalyptic look and feel.
An issue with filming on that day was that the ground was very muddy and the bipod to the camera kept sinking into the mud which sometimes made keeping the camera steady a little bit tricky, but I managed to overcome this by finding a way of keeping the bipod still so that I was able to shoot footage without the camera sinking into the mud. Another issue was that part of the costume kept falling of and moving about so in some shots it was in a different position to what it was in before, so some of these shots had to be re-shot.

Production schedule

23rd & 24th Filming at location

25th-29th Editing footage and assessing whether re-shoots are needed, if so then decide what parts need re-shooting and how to make them better.

changes to my film and ideas

Originally my film was going to be called Day 185, but I changed it to Day 785 as I thought that with it being a longer time later (over 2 years) instead of a few months as this would add more effect as it shows that the situation is not recent and the older and damaged props would suit better instead of after a few months as the damage would be more expected after an extended period of use.

I also changed some aspects of the props as on the assault rifle initially had a form of optics on it but I decided that in a post-apocalyptic, battery-operated optics would not be very practical as the batteries may run out at any time which would not be ideal.

Another aspect that I changed was the opening as I changed it from my initial ideas as i realised that the opening that intended would last longer that the time limit that we had. Before i was going to have a collage of different shots followed by the opening and titles but then I realised that having both the collage of shots and the opening would take longer and would substantially run over the time limit.

Also I had to miss out the dialogue as my actors were unable to attend so I could not have a scene in which dialogue was exchanged.

Issues with filming

I encountered issues with my film when it was during production, the main problem with my production.

One issue was that the dates i had in place for filming were not convenient for my actors as one-by-one they had to cancel which was very unfortunate, but luckily i managed to cast my father as the main actor and changed my ideas of the film opening slightly to suit the situation that i was currently in. Luckily the footage worked and it made for a good film  opening, by having only one actor and using the shits and angles i used it raises questions at the end which i believe is good as it catches the audiences imagination and thoughts, allowing them to wonder whet the opposition is and how the actor will overcome it.

Another issue I encountered was that some of the ground where i was filming was very muddy and sunk a bit which caused a few angles to look a bit odd, but i made the camera level, even so some of the angles added e=an effect to the final production which was unplanned but did turn out good.

Risk assessment for my filming location

Below is the risk assessment for the location that i will be shooting at.

call sheet

below is a copy of my call sheet which I used for my production: