Clear Bets

This is the final film opeening which we have completed, it has sound and titles .

Evaluation Questions

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

Our final media challenges both the forms and conventions of real media products. The Genre that we had chosen for our main product was Ganster/Mafia, and this type of genre is normally very common to pop up in the ideas of other media products but rarely is it that successfull. This meant that we had to develop our idea away from the main stream of which most Ganster ideas go down. This was going to be a challenge for us as we did not want to move our product so far away from the Ganster theme that it was unreconisable, yet we also did not want our product to maintain only the sterotypical Ganster events which would be copying other peoples work basicly. A Sterotypical Ganster film normal involves mobsters which are run by one family, and would fight in the streets yet also run there own underground buisnesses which brings in all of the money. Normally these are what the different mobs our fighting for until they gain full control over everything or the all get busted by the police. The films are normally very dark and have dull lighting, the camera angles also normally show another person point of view although they are not actually present in the film, this allows the viewer to feel apart of the film and almost of the feeling they have some sort of part to play themselfs. This can be done by the camera being slightly unsteady showing that it is not on a tripod or track, but as in the audience are just seeing what a third party present may be wittnessing. However our film oppennig uses both point of view shot where the camera moves just as someone is there wittnessing the events, yet we also have some shots which are as still as postible when using a tripod. These shots can be shown by our CCTV shots which would not be realistic if the were moving or seeming the move up and down as if he CCTV camera was breathing.

Another way we challenged the conventions of Ganster Films is the lighting that we have used. repeating what I have mentioned earlier normally the Ganster Films have dark lighting, We on the other hand start with the dark fading in to daylight via a lamp which is present behing the main focus at the start. The lighting stays like this throughout with the eseption of the CCTV shots.

 

 2. How does your media product represent a particular social group?

Our product is aimed at the younger side off teenagers/young adults. Our Characters are dressed in casual clothing and look more up to date than a conventional  ganster would look like, although we cannot really pick on one individual social group as in our film they are all merged together to produce this and this couldnt be depicted in a everyday situtaion as it was styled to be out of the ordernary, for example you would never get a 18year old assasin jumping over a back garden fence to assainate two 16 year olds playing poker in a house. This is one thing that I believe that we should have made clearer in the planning of the film early in the year.


3. What media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Although our film is low budget; close to no budget and has been produced and filmed by a very small British group we could possibly draw up a small amount of  interest from major American distrubuters, but this is very unlikely to get even a response from these companies and the budget would need to be through the roof to be able to use them. Although this could be seen as a set back, we are more likely to get interest from a small British copany such as Film4 and other smaller companies which work together with Film4, this may be good because they may not expect our production to bring in a major turnover or for us to have a big budget and plan. However, this could end up having its benefits as if Film4 and its partners distributed our film we wcould possibly have exposure to their television channel, internet site and there is also the possiblilty that the film could turn big because of the previous films that Film4 has brought the British screens. Film4 already have an established fan base among the British population, and this would allow our film the promotion it would have needed to attract as much attention to become profitable. Film4 have distributed low budget British films, therefore I believe this media institution would be more beneficial to our film than a big Hollywood distubuter such as 20th Century Fox or Warner Brothers.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our chosen audience was an age group of 15-25 year olds, with us thinking that our film would more likely to want to watch our film. This is because we believed that this age group were most likely to watch newer gangster/thriller films that developed on ideas already set up by media like The Sopranos, Scarface and the Godfather.

As we had decided to aim the film at an age group of 15-25 year olds, we decided to have the film rating at a 15 so it would be available to a wider range of people, even though this meant making some of the violence and drug scenes less obvious and not the main target at all times of the film. This allows us to widen the target audience.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract our audience we needed to think of a way to make the opening so eye catching that they wanted to see the rest of the film. We did this by comming up with the idea of having an event at the begining of the film that would be of significance later in the film. This almost leaves a cliff hanger at the begining of the film leading the audience wanting to find out why the events happened and what will happen after then. To do this we had the assain shoot both the poker players at the begining of the film and then shoot out the camera ending the scene this shows the events and then a brief glimps of the emotions running threw the assain. We believe that the cliff hanger will make our audience want to know why he had shot the other charcaters.


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

I have learnt a lot about technology while constructing the film, in particular the use of cameras, editing software. Although I wasnt present in the final production and therefore couldn't be filming, I still played a big part in finding locations and different angles, and also filmed much of the preliminart i did  with my previous group and our  Juno spoof. I learnt how to film professionally and that I must have a few seconds of film before and after the action to allow time for editing. The editing software was the part I found most  difficult to use and I think we did well to edit the film together after facing difficulties such as our original setting for our film began to have problems fitting us in and we had to change to Luis's house, and struggling to find appropriate titles. However I would now be much more confident using this software, and feel that our final product shows we had a good understanding of the software. Blogging was also very new to me, and although it was a struggle to get images and links onto my blog, I think I overcame these problems using the help given by our class teacher and learnt to blog quite well.

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

I feel that I had learnt a lot since my preliminary task, and when comparing that to my final piece you can see the difference in quality and skill behind it. When filming the preliminary we only filmed just more than what we needed, so I learnt from this and in our main task our group filmed lots of different angles of the same clip, for example the first shooting at the resturant we had loads of extra shots that we ready to be used.

We also learnt that the microphone and editing software were not easy to use, and the microphone did not have a good enough quality to put in our final piece. This was a problem through out our filming and editting. In some cases we just didnt put any sound in at all.

New Risk Assessment

Action Carried Out	Risk		How this can be prevented or changed
Filming the first shot of the opening scene.	The fence in the back garden which can cause injury on the fall down or even getting cut from the wood. There was also on one side thrown bushes, could also be sharp objects in the bushes which could cause cuts.		Placing a mat at the bottom of the fence. This can be resolved by cutting certain areas to prevent these and using common sense
Lighting up the inside	The inside is dark which could cause picture quality problems as the camera may not be able to pick up low lighting		Using a reflector to reflect light from a lamp in the room helps bring light for the camera for a better picture quality
Props and Clothing	If the clothes are baggy the clothes could catch on something and cause an accident		Get actors to wear tight clothes to prevent this happening.
Incense stick	The stick could fall off and cause injury by heat		Not lighting the stick or placing it away from the actors
Cat	The cats walking all over the place from garden to house and maybe they could trip up		Placing the cats out of the way
Bread Knife		The Knife could maybe cut someone.	If someone gets cut get plasters and we could cut the bread before the filming

One Step Closer

After all the problems that we have had with the construction of our final piece we finally got back on track, although its a little bit behnind the rest of the class. The venue for our filming was changed to Luis's house due to a lack of comunication which happened between the resturant and our group. This is the last draft before we should have finished the openning all together.

Although we have improved greatly in our filming techneques, there are still some problems which came up and were spotted after we had finished editting. The first main problem is the continuity break within Zygi's hood. This because when he walks into the french doors he has his hood up, but when he comes through the door from the shot of inside the livingroom his hood is down. Then when he leaves and is outside the house once again his hood appears to be up, this breaks the contunity rule.
Another problem is the timer on the CCTV as throughout the openning the timer is in sync, but when the shot moves away from the CCTV inside and jumps to a point of view shot then to the CCTV outside the timer had gone back in time once again breaking the continuity rule.
There is once again another problem aswell. We were unable to add any sound into the opeening at this time but when we go back and edit the openning we should be able to correct this and post the final production on youtube before our deadline.

Once we have corrected these problems and made sure Zygi keeps his hood either up or down we shoulod be finished and can start to evaluate our product.

Sound Track

We will have to get a song from audionetwork for a small fee, but this will make sure that the song is copyright free

Production

My group is not here today so i do not know if we can get the the final filming done this weekend. If we get the filming finished it would give me couple of days to do all the editing. The other members of my group will do an edit, we will then choose the best edit to show sir.

Production

We chose to film in a restorant which proves to be a challenge due to getting the right time for filming due to the opening hours.
We have to get some more shots done from different angles and to retake some shots as the camera did not focus due to lack of light. We are thinking of having more lights so the camera can auto focus.
We did not use a tripod when we filmed so some shots are not steady.
Hopefully we can finish the filming this weekend so we can finish the editing before Easter.
Our rough cut looks more of a trailer than a opening of a film as it cuts back and forward.