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

I have learnt a lot in the progression from my preliminary task, to the main film product, & these videos show that. I'm going to explain how I have improved the titles, music, transitions & locations from the preliminary task to the main task and what I have learned in the progression from the preliminary task to the main opening...

                                 

   Preliminary Task - 'The Deal'                                               

Main Film Opening - 'Loanshark'

Titles...

We have definitely improved on our titles from our preliminary task, to our main film task. We chose a plain simple font, which did not match the genre, this time round, we chose a font which looked a lot more interesting, and really matched the genre of our film opening.

The colours were also very bland, we chose black, and had the text over black & white moving images. We changed that, and instead went for a metal coloured title, with a black background. We thought, after we had done the preliminary task, that the audience may not be able to see the text clearly, and we had to change the colour, so it was easily visible. This made it seem inconsistent, so we decided for our main opening, to go with a black background so it's easily visible & it looks a lot better than before.

Transitions...

We chose to use the same transitions used in our preliminary task. We thought they looked good before, and we also used colour fades, they allowed us to easily transition between text clip and moving image, without looking too odd, or digital. We kept the transitions the same length, and learned that certain transitions can signify the meaning of a scene, for example flash back transitions. We didn't use digital transitions as we knew most films nowadays don't use digital transitions, they use cross cutting, fades and super imposing to go from one shot to the next. 

These clips show the same transition we used, in this case we used cut to go between one shot to the next shot, in both the preliminary task and the actual opening. We thought that this looked really effective and wanted to use it in the actual task. I think we did it a lot better in the actual shot than we did in the preliminary task. 

Music...

In the preliminary task, we used music from YouTube, and credited the artist in the credits, we had to look hard to find music which we thought would really fit. We ended up going with a dramatic piece of music, it did fit in with the genre and what was going on on-screen. When it came to getting music for our main task, we decided to enlist the help of some sixth form music students to help create our music. We told them we wanted something dramatic, but using guitars, drum & base, and some sad piano music. When we got the finished pieces of music we were amazed at how good they sounded. I think the music we used in our preliminary task wasn't as good as the music we used in our main task, and the music we used in our main task was fitted a lot better with the genre, than the music in our preliminary task.

I also learned that sometimes you have to edit music with another editing software before placing it on your film. In the preliminary task there were periods of silence, and the cutting of music was awful as I couldn't fade out the music, and I didn't know I could use audacity at the time. When editing the main opening, I realised that I had to edit the music first before I could use it, therefore I was able to include fades in and fades out, and there weren't long periods of silence instead. 

Locations...

We were restricted in where we could shoot, we decided it would be easier filming in school, as we were all busy outside of school, we managed to make some areas look quite convincing, such as the kitchen scene, which was actually shot in our common room, and the field shot, which was shot on out school field. I think we chose our locations a lot more carefully this time compared to our preliminary task, as in some scenes, it still looked like a classroom, rather than a meeting room. However, when I got the feedback, I noticed that some said that a variety of locations could have been better, so in future, we may think about filming outside of school.

Overall I think I have learned a lot & improved from the progression from the preliminary task, to the main task. My editing skills have definitely improved, so has my camera skills, I definitely have improved the planning, and thinking about what location would be good, how to set out a shot, what to include, how to layer the titles, and have improved my teamwork skills. My analysis skills have improved, and since doing media, I have learned to look at the small things when watching films and TV shows, I notice the different shots, the continuity, music, transitions, titles etc. and has really opened my eyes and made me think more about the production of films and TV shows.

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

I decided to create a video, explaining how all of the technologies I have used have worked together to create our film opening sequence. The programs I have used are Google, YouTube, Serif MoviePlus, Audacity, a video-camera, & outlook (so I could share any videos, information etc with the other members of the group).

Evaluation - Audience Feedback & Comment...

For this question we decided to interview a group of boys, aged from 16 to 19, about our film opening. We asked them about the editing, shots, what they liked, and what could be improved. I also interviewed my mum, to get a varied response from young males to women aged 40+. Overall the feedback was good, they liked our editing, choice of shots, music, dialogue/drama, and thought that the sound assets could have been improved, more variety in locations, improving sound quality, choice of camera and lighting.

Here is feedback from my parent:

 What did you like about our film?
It was good. It was a good  first performance. The titles were good, and the way you did them was very effective.

What did you think about the editing?
I thought that the transitions were effective, the cuts were good.

What did you think about the shots?
There was a good variety of shots, depicted the scenes very well, was able to see clearly, no blurry shots, good camera control.

What could be improved?
Maybe changing the gun, and how he came out holding it, but apart from that everything was good.                           

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

This is how our film would be distributed. I discussed whether it's independent or mainstream, marketing, cinemas it would be shown in, & media promotion...

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

I decided to do a montage of photos showing what my target audience would have in their bag. Because our target audience is men, aged between 14-35, I had to guess as I'm not a man! I did some research, and chose items which I think would be in our target audience's bag. I have also done a wordle for a little lifestyle summary as well.

As I said, I decided to write up the lifestyle summary of a member of our target audience as a Wordle, I thought it was different, and creative. It goes as follows;

'Tom, seventeen, aspiring college student, loves going to the cinema with his friends, loves grunge/rock music, plays the guitar, loves action/thriller/horror movies, hates doing homework, doesn't like doing chores, can be quite lazy, shops at River Island, Topman, trendy, wants to be in a band.' 

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

'Loanshark' Main Character Vs. 'Taken' Main Character & 'Mission Impossible' Main Character...

Our film represents particular media social groups through character. I'm going to be comparing our main character with the same character role from another mainstream film. 

Because of the lack of opportunity to search for, and hold auditions for our main character, we decided to use a student from our sixth form, however because most students have different timetables, and other commitments, we went with Graham, as he was the best choice to go with. He looked the part, and looked exactly how we wanted our main character to look. Our target audience are males aged between 14-35, so Graham was the perfect choice being young and average looking.


Most action films tend to typecast their main characters, so for example Daniel Craig being cast as James Bond as he dashing, strong, Liam Neeson being cast as Bryan Mills in 'Taken' as he is strong and has experience in action films, and Tom Cruise being cast as Ethan Hunt in 'Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol' as he has had experience in action films, looks dashing & is strong etc. 

So we decided to make Graham's character look average, and more realistic by allowing him to have a family, having financial problems, and wearing casual clothing. Compared to Liam Neeson's character (opposite), he doesn't look as if he would be the type to go against hardcore criminals. This was our goal. We wanted his character to be able to be related to by the audience, we wanted them to be able to sympathise with his character, and want to watch to see how he copes and whether or not he succeeds. This is what most people can relate to, seeing people who are exactly like them, being able to succeed in the unlikeliest situations because that's what they want to do.


Finally, because he is a average, fairly poor man, he doesn't have all the fancy gadgets like Tom Cruise's character in 'Mission Possible' does. This means that he has to this on his own, with just a gun and his bear skills. This makes it that little bit more realistic, and more relatable with the audience. 

Therefore, our main character represents the average man, aged between 20-30, so our target audience can relate to him, and that he can show that main characters in action movies don't have to be buff, good looking & experienced characters, and can show that just because you are not skilled, doesn't mean you can't do anything,  and that anything is possible when you put your mind to it.

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

In order to explain how my media product uses, develops or challenges forms and conventions of real media products, I have decided to compare 9 shots from a title sequence of a thriller/horror opening, with 9 stills from my own title sequence. 

Max Payne...

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/max-payne 

Loanshark...

 Both use similar font colours - metallic, on dark backgrounds, however, ours challenges the conventions, by using transitions not commonly used in film openings in this genre, they typically use either fades, or cuts, like the ones used in the film opening of Max Payne, shown above. Fonts are different, Max Payne film opening uses more of a bold, metal looking font, our's is more slick, less action based, more thriller. 

Most of the openings I have seen - James Bond, Max Payne, The Dark Knight Rises - all start off with a animation opening, instead of having credits in between action like ours does. We decided to challenge the convention of having credits after an action sequence, and not having an animation,as we liked the idea of have an action sequence with credits as it didn't take away from the action like the James Bond opening can do, as it's very long, colourful and abstract, and we didn't want our          

audience to become bored.      

Music wise we kept to the common convention of our genre and used instruments typically used in  music in Action films. The music in the opening of Max Payne uses drums and guitars, it's similar to what we used, we didn't want to challenge this too much, and we developed the convention to suit our film. We didn't want the full on drum & base, loud action music that we typically hear in a action film, we wanted a drum & base with guitar, something that is not too over the top, but fits in well with the film & genre.

Both openings show the gun, which is the main point of the film, what the genre is centred around. In Max Payne, there is an animated gun which spins round, with the titles swirling around, in our opening, we see our main character lifting the gun, about to fire it, with the credits coming after it. Most films use this in their openings, as guns and other weapons are a symbol of action/thriller films, for example, in the opening for the movie Skyfall, there is a shot where you see a shadow of a man,  holding a gun, and James Bond is centred around guns, cars and other weapons. It allows us to present the genre to the audience, and to see what could happen.

Unlike most action/thriller films, we decided to put our film title at the end. The title of Max Payne is in the middle of the sequence, before the actors names come up. We decided against that, however, most films within our genre tend to put the actors names first then the crew members names, the film Max Payne does this differently, they put the crew members names first, then the actors. We decided to do it following the convention of most films, having the actors names first, then the crew members - Director, Writer, Music Producers etc. We decided to use this convention rather than challenge it, as it made sense when we were editing it. 

                                                                                                             

Finally, we kept to the stereotypical storyline, our film is very similar to 'Max Payne' in the sense that he has a goal, to kill the enemy. Every action film has a goal that the main character sets him or her self,  our film is no different in this respect. However we have tried to portray this typical storyline in other ways, and not copy other action/thriller films with a similar story line.