Dear Moderator,

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blogs, I hope you like them! My group blog is linked to my invidual blog, you will find the group blog link on the right. There is also a link to the blogs for the other students in my group and a link back to our teacher’s central blog, called 'BLK Foundation', which has links to all the student and group blogs.

On my individual blog, you will find all my individual research and initial ideas and planning, mainly from the early stages of the project before I got together with my group. You will also find my work on the preliminary task, including the video clip, reflections on the development of the project as it progressed and my answers to the evaluation questions.

On my group blog, you will find evidence of my group’s planning and project development work, and all the research we did together that influenced and inspired our project.

I have linked my finished film opening sequence to both blogs. 

I hope you find it easy to navigate my blogs. Everything is organised in date order from the start of the project in November 2009 until we finished in March 2010. I have used labels to identify all the research, planning and evaluation work I have completed on my individual blog, and the labels titled 'Question 1', 'Question 2' e.t.c.' will show all the posts related to each evaluation question surrounding the final project. On the group blog, we have used the same system and I have also labelled the posts I was individually responsible for, with my name.

All the best,

Thomas Aston [Candidate No. 4045]

THIS BLOG IS NOW CLOSED

THIS BLOG IS NOW CLOSED_

QUESTION 7:

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

QUESTION 6:

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

QUESTION 5:

How did you attract/address your audience?

QUESTION 4:

Who would the audience be for your media product?

QUESTION 3:

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

QUESTION 2:

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

QUESTION 1:

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

What I've Learnt:

I learnt lots about the evaluation process such as the importance of teacher feedback and how to organise a film screening for audience members. 

I also learnt more since the preliminary task about working as part of a team, having meetings to discuss ideas and sharing work about the group, and I am very proud of how our group worked together!

The Main Task:

The preliminary task taught me how to create continuity in a film sequence, and make a simple narrative make sense to the audience. When the main task came along we had to think about much more than just making the film make sense.

The main task taught me about identifying and planning to appeal to a specific audience, as well as making the much more complex narrative sequence flow and make sense. 

As the preliminary task just took place in the foyer and one room of our schools media department, the planning surrounding the shoot was not overly complicated. However, when doing the main task we focused a lot on the planning of the location and the storyboard in detail as we aimed to have the sequence use every floor of the house and much of the surrounding area!

I also learnt more during the main shoots about the workings on a shoot and how important it is to get shots not from just any angle, but angles that will make sense in a continuous sequence.

Using the knowledge gained from the preliminary task we always had a master-shot for each area, and during the main shoots I learnt about the importance of master shots to establish the setting and context for the action in the scene. 

On top of this I realised the importance of keeping a shot log, and keeping any actors involved (especially if not part of the group) happy - something that was not really an issue during the preliminary task as the actors were both part of the group.

Even though we had encountered continuity errors in our preliminary sequence, I think the main thing I learnt in terms of the production during our main task is how important it is that the actors do EXACTLY the same thing in each angle or take of the same shot – one wrong placement of a hand and it can all go wrong!

To see what I mean watch our 'Behind the Scenes' exclusive video which I edited:

To see where we went wrong watch this Exclusive 'Errors' video - highlighting all the hidden mistakes...

The Preliminary Task:

Preliminary Brief: To create a continuity sequence of a conversation between 2 people, including within it the use of shot-reverse-shot, and all the rules of continuity, (e.g. 180 degree rule.)

The preliminary task focused us on creating a continuous real-time sequence that made sense to someone watching it.

Titles: Adobe After Effects

At first the plan was to fix the titles onto various surfaces in our sequence like the Tv drama Heroes...

Unfortunately, we did not succeed but we came close. We used Adobe After Effects to try and achieve our desired titles but the process of tracking the motion path of the titles in three dimensions was frustrating and very time consuming due to the fact that it was very hard to find suitable tracking points.

We also realised that our idea would be much more achievable if we had still shots – but this may have taken away from our final sequence.

Advice to future groups: It is possible to fix the titles to surfaces, just make sure that you have 2 or 3 perfect areas of high contrast for the computer to track, otherwise it just won’t work.

Editing:

We used Adobe Premiere Pro to capture, edit and export our sequence...

All being confident users of this program from previous projects we tried to use this program to its full potential. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our film, no crazy or fancy effects were called for when we produced our film, but we did make the most of the blur effect and obviously the lighting and contrast adjustors. I also made use of the main audio mixer when, dubbing, and mixing our final sequence audio.

Tripod:

As most of our film was shot handheld, we not did not use the tripod to a great extent, but instead did make use of it as a sort of extension/crane for the camera operator. 

(Tom and I operating the tripod as an extension. This shot is when Matt runs out of the window room and stops as he hears the door being kicked down!)

We did use the tripod for some still shots in more difficult positions...

We used the tripod for the master shot of the car pulling up...

Advice to future groups: If you want to fix the titles onto surfaces quickly, make sure you have STILL shots – only obtainable with the use of the tripod!

Camera:

We experimented a lot with our camera before we started the real filming:

We particularly focused on working the manual exposure settings and the manual focus, both of which we used a lot in our sequence. We were able to work the manual focus and exposure settings well according to our environments lighting, but we did not attempt to use any focus pulls in our sequence as although possible, the focus wheel was tricky and inconsistently sensitive when operating it. 

I would advise all future groups doing this project to utilise the manual focus feature of the camera as it gives a much more professional look to the film and can be very rewarding when trying to apply greater meaning to a shot.

Appealing to our Audience: Themes

The themes of our film such as:

• violence
• missions
• rescue
• father son relationships
• fear
• action and tension

...are also very specific to our audience,

and our opening sequence aims to bring our audience many pleasures and fears including:

• tension
• speed
• immersive action
• fear
• fighting
• pain
• mystery

WE studied the pleasures and fears experienced from other films of the action thriller genre and applied them to our own film: 

Appealing to our Audience:

We decided to choose the genre of Action thriller as it brilliantly fuses the two probably most popular genres of our 20-40 year old male audience. 

We also decided to conform to the conventions of this undoubtedly successful genre and did so through the use of:

• immersive camera work
• fast-paced editing
• the focal build up of tension
• enigma
• the addition of the fight scene which down very well with our audience!

Audience:

Primary Audience:

• Male
• Aged 15-30 (the film was planned to have a 15 certificate by the BBFC)
• Enjoys going to the cinema
• Enjoys going out with friends, partying, gaming, sport, and social networking
• May have an averagely paid job
• Or be a student

Secondary Audiences:

• Girls of the same age range, either that enjoy action films themselves or are going with their boyfriends
• Older/middle aged males who still enjoys action films, gaming etc

Below: A mood board of our target audience from our group blog...

Our target audience are male and enjoy watching big high-budget movies. They like films like James Bond, Mission Impossible and the Bourne Trilogy and also watch TV Drama like Spooks and 24.

Overall, after having produced the opening of our film, the target audience has remained the same as planned.

We also ask the question ‘who do think is the target audience for this film?’ at our screening and got very positive results as most people identified 15-30 year old males!

BLACKOUT RELEASE:

There would be a big international release with a premiere in London as the film is set in London... 

The film would be released into all the big cinema chains such as Odeon, Cineworld and Vue and many copies would be made to ensure the film can be screened in all the big multiplexes...

This kind of release is done a lot with big action films  such as James Bond, Die Hard, and the Bourne Trilogy to name just a few. We are trying to reach a mass audience of big cinema goers, are main target audience being 20 year old - middle aged men, with a secondary audience of teenage boys!


AVATAR is an example of a huge high-budget film with a international release - it was very successful due to huge marketing campaigns and getting the film into all the big multiplexes...

Institutions:

Our production company, AX productions, is an international company making big high budget films for a mass audience. They make mainly action/adventure/thriller films so would naturally have a bigger male audience then female. They could be compared to the likes of Sony Pictures, who make a huge number of successful films.

Our global distributor, Focus Entertainment, would also be a big mainstream distributor, perhaps like Sony Entertainment or 20th Century FOX and would distribute our film worldwide. 

Infinite Pictures are our UK distributors and could be compared to the likes of Icon.

Focus on GENDER:

The villain in our sequence is very stereotypical, driving a car, armed with a handgun, fighting and knocking out his target.

However, our hero could also be classed as the victim in this scene and therefore does not conform to the stereotypical young male...

He is:

• scared
• tired
• foolish

Typically females are the victims, for example in horror films such as:

The female is cast as the victim - this is the stereotypical role for the female to take when there is a victim involved as they are made to seem vulnerable and helpless. However we used a male as the victim which goes against conventions of real media.

Focus on AGE:

Our opening sequence represents age in terms of experience. Older age in our films case does not mean that someone of a younger age can out-run you!

With age comes experience and that’s exactly what our film shows...

We also thought carefully about each shot and its framing to get across that the 'bad guy' had more experience and was in control...

Style: Influences

Here (above) is a trailer for season 8 of hit US drama 24. As a religious watcher of this program it has been one of my main influences during this project, and from this trailer you can see how 24 use nearly all hand-held cameras. We also tried to capture the action by using handheld camera techniques, bringing the audience right into the scene and imersing them in it as if they were present.

The video below also shows this handheld technique put into practice and is evidently very successful!

Style:

The style of our film conforms very much to the idea of a typical action thriller but with one twist. We have edited our film such to obtain a fast pace; with the soundtrack adding to it to create a real sense of rhythm. We have also used fairly neutral colours and edited the lighting and contrast on our film to give it a professional high-budget blockbuster look – all things typical of a big action thriller.

Here (above) are just a few examples showing how we edited the lighting and contrast to acheive a high budget professional look as well as some beautiful camera-work and focus pulling.

The one twist to our typical action thriller opening can be found when we look at the binary opposites created:

We have the obvious: 

• Hero vs. Villain
• Experienced vs. inexperienced
• dangerous vs. vulnerable
• light vs. dark (villain dressed in black)

(Below: Light vs Dark - Theme used in film POSTER)

...but then we have the setting of our opening... We chose to set the sequence in a family home; this shows realism, but it also creates a disruption to the norm as the ‘safe family home’ is a stage for this terrible event. 

• The safety of the home vs. the event.

Form: Titles

Our opening sequence follows a format seen in many films, for example, the Bourne films and 'Blade Runner' example below:

 Our sequence, like these films begins with titles and the theme music and then suddenly bursts into the opening sequence which, with the fast-paced nature of the opening, has a big impact on the audience. 

 The titles fulfil their function introducing the various production companies, the distribution company, the actors, producers, the director, and some more important roles.
 
We looked at many other opening sequences to try and follow the conventional order of the titles, with the actors just before the title, and ending with the director.

Later after the production I found the treatment of the order of titles on the internet as follows: