FINAL FILM & EVALUATION

Main Task - Evaluation draft

Questions:

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

Mentality; a film about family, relationships and death is based around the conventions of thriller as it enables the audience to connect with the characters and attempt to relate to what they are going through. It does this by enticing a “thrill” through allowing them to question the truth behind the plot and then empathise with the storyline. Thriller has many conventions with the main being the ability to keep the audience “on the edge of their seat” through confusion and giving them the urge to seek more, but at the same time it has a strong convention of only one protagonist. Mentality develops this through not fully showing the direction at which the story is heading but also through only have James Watson as the main character.

However in an attempt to challenge these conventions I wanted the film to have more of a family feel rather than drama and confusion so I decided to only really develop the thriller side towards the end of the film thus making it slightly different to what has been done previously.

What do you think?

-          How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

 I personally feel that the main product is reinforced through the use of ancillary texts, such as the poster and magazine article that I produced as it enables the audience a slight “inside view” to what the story could be about but essentially on whether they would be interested in the film as a whole before they saw it.

What’s your opinion?

-          What have you learned from you audience feedback?

Overall what do you think of Mentality?

From that feedback I guess there are areas that could be improved, particularly on making the film clearer in terms of displaying the thriller side at the end. I feel that the shot of the folder in which holds the information needs be a great deal clearer as it withholds all the vital information that the audience need to know in order to understand the storyline of the film as a whole. Therefore I will work on this, and attempt to correct it in the future.

-          How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

For the process of my product, I had to use a variety of media technology which ranged from basic to advance. Firstly I use Adobe Premier Pro in order to edit my film, which helped to add effects, fix the sound and to put the clips together in order; this was fairly basic as I had used previously doing other media products. Other products that I have used before include Photoshop (for the poster) and publisher (for the magazine article).

To display all the work that I have done over the course of this project I uploaded it all onto my blog which was very easier, through converting work into images such as poster analysis or using a website called Scribd which was an easy method of uploading documents such as the script. I was also using YouTube to display some relevant videos in which used or produced, for example; the interview with my actor.

Main Task - Magazine Article

Main Task - Final Poster

Main Task - poster creation

The original image

The image, changed to black and white, on the basic black background

A secondary image, placed on top. Connoting the person inside him.

added title

Tag Line, Title, actors

Main Task - Location shots

on location we took a few stills that could be later used for the poster/magazine article, etc.

Main Task - Target Audience

Questionnaire

1.     Male                      Female

2.     Age:

-11                         12 – 21             22 – 40                         41+

                

3.     What is a thriller?

Scary                     Funny               Questioning                  Romantic

4.     What is your favourite Thriller movie?

Taken                    Salt                  shutter Island                Inception

3. Why did you enjoy this?

  The unknown               the actors         Adventure         Other

4. What would you like to be included?  

   Blood                        Death               Love                 Twist                 other

If other, please say:

I conducted a questionnaire, asking 20 people, 10 male and 10 female, all of varied ages about thriller movies in order to find out who my target audience would be.

The results showed:

Main Task - magazie article

One of the pieces of work that we have to do as part of the overall project is to make a magazine article. therefore i decided to research various forms of film articles, this was particularly focused on the "empire" magazine. As a result of wanting to make it more valid and reliable to my own film, i only looked at that o thriller films too, providing me with the research that i need!

In order for me to get an overall view at this i looked at the front cover and then analysed the article inside looking at the language, layout, images, graphics, etc.

The Dark knight:

 Inception:

I then looked at various articles based on thriller movies. i found that the language used was prodominately formal with occasional infomal areas in order to make it more personal to the reader. This therefore made it persuasive and  essentially attracted the target audience to having a potential interest within the film.

Main Task - Character Creation

Over the course of pre-production many characters were created in the process, this was to make it seem more realistic and add depth to the story.
Originally I started with simply one character called James Watson, and then through doing exercises in class.. such as having 5 minutes to write down about him and his past. I was able to develop this to apply his sister and their strong/close relationship.

I then had to decide why they were so close, which resulted in the abusive childhood in which they grew up in providing them with a close relationship.
The abusive childhood then meant that I had to include an abusive parent and a reason behind the abuse!

Finally i decided to have a psychiatrist to help deal with these issues in his life, but one that provides a twist!

Overtime i have created more characters to the story giving it a realistic and exciting feel, in order to keep it interesting... this is important particularly for a thriller movie as it must incite thrill to the viewers!

Main Task - Pitch feedback

When i did my pitch to the class, I was able to get feedback from the class and teachers. This meant that i could take on board this information and feedback and then hopefully be able to apply it to my upcoming work.
Some of the feedback included:

- How will you manage to fit the whole film into 5minutes?
with the result being that i would have to try to speed up some scenes that were less important but still neccessary to be used.

- why does the psychiatrist kill charlotte?
because they had a past, that ended badly. he wants to get revenge on her!

- How will show why psychiatrist wants to kill her?
I hope to do a shot of the file on his desk that shows his entire plan, therefore converying to the audience the plot of the story!

Main Task - Risk assessment

General Risk Assessment Form


Division / Studio                                                                                   Simply Studios

Department / Series                                                                             Media

Business Unit / Production                                                                  Sawtry College, Fen Lane, PE28 5TQ

Address

Producer / Editor                                                                                 Ashleigh Hughes

Tel:                                                                                                     01733 246504

Mobile:                                                                                                07714619968

Period covered by assessment Version number                                    January - April

Outline of risk assessment

Summary of what is proposed Prevent risks that could occur, through considering everything

Team members / experts                                                        Samantha Bean, Ruth Cooper

contractors / etc.

List those involved

Site / Office / Location Yaxley, Peterborough, Sawtry

Outline site/ locations involved

Assessor Nam                                                                                         Ashleigh Hughes

Signature

Date completed 25th January 2012

Authoriser Name

(if not Assessor) Signature

Date authorised

Hazard list – select your hazards from the list below and use these to complete Part B (add others where appropriate)


Assault by person


Cold environment


Vehicle impact / collision


Working at height



Risk Assessment Form – Part B

April 2007- DC

Activity1 – car collision, physical “hit”, standing on roof

Location – Yaxley/peteborough

Dates / times: 25th January

Hazards2

Assault by person

Cold environment

Vehicle impact

Physical fatigue

Working at height

Who exposed

Staff

Environment

Public

Risk3

Danger

Illness

Problems

Control measures

Ensure there is enough people around to make it secure

Not actually hitting or crashing the car

Main Task - Diary entry 7

For some research on Target audience i will create a questionnaire and then conduct a series of interviews within different age groups in order to find out which "group" is most attracted to Mentality, it will also be to see whether they would prefer the film to include other factors such as "romance" or "death" in order to make it more appealing to them.

Main Task - Diary Entry 6 and research

As a result of Paul (the main character) having broke his hand, it has become important for me to try to avoid being able to see it in the shot. therefore i decided to conduct some research looking at how the media such as soaps, films and dramas attempt to prevent issues such as pregnant actors or other injuries that have been sustained.

Particularly looking at british soaps, in which with-hold regular actors it is common for them to become injured and often for them to fall pregnant. Looking at Eastenders; the character of Tanya was pregnant therefore resulting in the camera only being able to take a shot of her from the shoulders up-wards. They even resulted in using costumes that were dark such as black, to make it harder to notice her pregnancy.

Character Biography

James Watson
James Watson was a abused as child, his father beat him regularly as a result of the emotional tradegy of losing his wife. He was very close with his sister, and meant that they were very protective of one another.
When they were old enough James and his sister moved out to live on their own, as adults. However as his sister has previously been in a relationship with a psychiatrist to which ended badly it meant that she was in danger.
The psychiatrist met regularly with James as a result of his childhood, however it was not the only reason that they met.... James was unaware!
The pyschiatrist was wanting revenge on his sister through the use of her close brother. He managed to "convince" James to attack his sister resulting in a fatal car accident, where she died.
His weak emotional state meant that it was easy for the psychiatrist to manipulate him, and use this to his advantage at getting revenge. James However is a very conclusive person and must find out what happened!

Research - special effects

For my film i have decided to include a car accident which means i will of course have to edit this in order to make it look realistic. Therefore i decided to do some research of films that have previously done this, and attempt to learn.

Twilight:

The car crash scene when Edward saves Bella is shot with a still camera, and shows reactions of the driver and the car. I have decided that from this i will cut from shots of the driver before the accident, then show the car "losing control", then once again at the drive and finally show the result of the accident.
I think this will be the most effective, especially as i'm going to film the scene in slow motion and then speed it up in editing. I'm going to do this to ensure safety, but also so that it gives me the ability to control the shots.

Main Task - Diary Entry 5

Today is hopefully the last day for filming, i have only 3 scenes left:
- aged 15, James
- Car crash
- Psychiatrist

however my main character has unfortunately broke his hand therefore i will have to find a way to hide this either by covering the hand or attempting to cut it out of the shot!
Thankfully we have filmed most of the scenes so far so it's easier to do, but it will be difficult.

Main task - diary entry 4

I began filiming this weekend and was able to do all of the scenes apart from 3, which will be possible to do during the week. However I will have a problem with filming scene 5 - the car crash, this is because i will have to look at the "explosion" effects, to know exactly how im going to have to film it. as a result i intend to do this during my lunch times or lessons, to fully understand.
Overall, i should have completed filming by the end of this week!.

Main task - sound

We have looked in lesson at how to dubb a film, this will be very helpful for my scene in which involves a car accident, because i will have to film this in slow motion although the chances are that the weather will be grey and windy therefore it will cause a lot of background noise. Therefore if i "dubb" the scene it may make it look a lot better!

Main Task - Diary entry 3

As a reuslt of having to use a variety of locations within the film I will have to go and get some location images, which theoretically should enable me to visualise how i want the film to look.
For example; for the car crash scene i will need to find a quiet road in order to not interupt drivers but one that also does not look disserted or the scene will potentially not have the same effect.

Main Task - Magazine article

One of our tasks for this project is to make a Magazine article, therefore as a result we decided to research this during our lessons specifically looking at the layout, text, language, images, graphics and colouring that is used in order to make it work and to work well.

Firstly we looked at the front cover of empire magazine, a well-known magazine for film reviews, and how it has used the layout, images and colouring to attract their potential customers. I have analysed the front cover of one edition of Empire Magazine:

 Then as a class we went into more depth and looked a series of film review articles, to understand how it is different and similar and what techniques they have used. This was particularly focused on language and layout!

We found that:

- Language was often persuasive and good english

- Images were prodominately used, some in which covered the entire page to display to film itself

- images were rarely stills from the film itself but photos that were clearly taken for this purpose, i.e on the shoot

Main Task - Diary entry 2

After writing both my script and production schedule i think that I'm ready to begin filming, although am having a great deal of trouble in terms of arranging times that can work for both myself and the actors. This is because i am currently doing exams therefore my free-time is generally based around revision, and my actors have a fairly busy careers, although i aim to have it done by next week at the latest.
As a result I am in constant contact with my actor in order to ensure that we can get the footage as soon as possible.

Main Task - Radio trailor

Why radio?

different target audience

encourage people to research the film

cheaper to air

wider available audience

provides internet links

stand out, be remembered



My Radio Script:

• V.O. "Life was always simple, happy and fun"
• sound effects of arguing and of car crash
• V.O. " but things aren't always as they seem"
• Quote from film - Police "I'm afraid she died in a terrible accident"
• Voice clips from film
• Quote from film - Psychiatrist "hello James..."
• V.O. "Mentality, coming soon!"

I will put this together through making a video trailer and then detaching the image, therefore I can see visually what the trailer explains and then after will be able to look at whether it works or not and what improvements I may need to make.
To do this I will use the Adobe Premier Pro software, as this is very good and simple to use for this type of work.
Specifically for this production I will need to get someone to do the Voice over and to ensure that everything sounds right together.
My target audience is 20s to mid 40s, and I think this will help to attract them as it includes that of real life experiences.
I will want to show this on radio stations such as heart FM or Kiss FM radio as they are generally known for young adults as well as family people, therefore giving me a wide audience which will definitely include my target group. 

Main Task - Production Schedule / Shot List

 /Date of shoot:

Equipment needed:

HD Camera

Lighting

SD Card

Scene 1/14

Location : Queensgate car park, Peterborough

Characters in scene: - JAMES

Time to shoot: 1 hour

Shot 1 – JAMES walks out roof door, mid-shot .

Shot 2 – Panning shot as he approaches the edge, in slow motion.

Shot 3 – close-up as JAMES begins to climb onto the wall, then pan upwards.

Scene 2/3

Location: Yaxley, Peterborough

Character in scene : - JAMES (aged 15), SAM (aged 11) and DAD

Time to shoot: 30 mins

Shot 1 – Close up of JAMES opening eyes, looking at clock (reads 6:00am)

Shot 2 – Mid-shot of him walking out of his room slowly

Shot 3 – JAMES walks into the lounge, and sits down. Within the same shot SAM walks around the corner and smiles.

Shot 4 – Close-up of their faces as they hear the floorboards creaking, their DAD walks around the corner (angry)

Shot 5 – close – up of DAD as he shouts and raises hand to JAMES

Scene 4/5

Location: Yaxley, Peterborough

Character in scene: JAMES and SAM

Time to shoot: 45mins

Shot 1 – Extreme Close-up of JAMES opening eyes, zoom out to see him holding a box
(have 10mins to rehearse zoom)

Shot 2 – panning of JAMES walking towards the car and then drive off

Shot 3 – establishing shot of car pulling up to new building

Scene 6

Location: Old A1

Character in scene: SAM and JAMES

Time to shoot: 1 hour 30mins

Shot 1 – close-up of SAM driving and singing. Her face changes dramatically

Shot 2 – wide shot of behind a man (JAMES) walking out in front of the car, the car then turns quickly

Shot 3 – SAM unconscious in the car, blood is running down her face

Scene 7/8

Location: Yaxley, Peterborough

Character in scene: JAMES and POLICE

Time to shoot: 30mins

Shot 1 – Extreme close-up of POLICE knocking on door

Shot 2 – JAMES answers the door, tired and confused

Shot 3 – Mid-shot as JAMES invited them in, they walk through

Shot 4 – Mid-shot, they sit down and shot-reverse shot as the POLICE tell JAMES the news of his sister.

Shot 5 – JAMES is shown in mid-shot lying on the sofa, staring at the wall.

Scene 9

Location: Yaxley, Peterborough

Characters in scene: JAMES

Time to shoot: 30mins

Shot 1 – high angle shot of JAMES lying in bed asleep, he rolling around restlessly.

Transition – Jump cuts

Scene 10/11

Location:

Characters in scene: JAMES and RECEPTIONIST

Time to shoot: 1hour

Shot 1 – wide shot of JAMES leaving his apartment

Shot 2 – wide shot as he arrives at new building

Shot 3 – Mid-shot of JAMES entering the office room and being welcomed by RECEPTIONIST

Scene 12/13

Location:

Characters in scene: JAMES and PSYCHIATRIST

Time to shoot: 1hour

Shot 1 – PSYCHIATRIST receives a phone call and must leave the room

Shot 2 – JAMES spots a file with his name on it, camera zooms in
(10mins for zoom)

Shot 3 – he walks over and high angle of him looking at the information

Shot 4 – PSYCHIATRIST walks in, wide shot of both characters

Shot 5 – panning as they both walk to sit down, ending in a close-up

Shot 6 – extreme close-up of PSYCHIATRIST on the chair counting down.

Main Task - Storyboard

Main Task - The final script

Mentality

Main Task - Character biographies

Main Task - Diary Entry 1

I was reading through my script with my media teacher and decided to change the ending of the film, in order to make it more "thrill" seeking, therefore re-wrote my script.