Mikeybevaulation
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Thursday, 24 March 2011
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Evaluation Phase
When we first started our project, the group had mixed ideas on what genre we where going to do. One of us wanted a thriller type of sequence while I myself wanted to create a tense horror, in the end we decided to make a hybrid action thriller sequence, good examples of this style would be films such as “Crank” and “death race”, However we knew that we couldn’t just rip off a big Hollywood hit so we decided to create a more intense sequence rather than one just full of action, we wanted to make the audience feel included. We thought this would be successful as most action films will mainly just dazzle the audience with explosions and bright flashes, but we thought an audience would prefer something different like seeing through the characters eyes while they fought for survival. After showing the sequence to a group of five people we received mainly positive reviews, they appreciated that we had tried something new and that it was a very well done attempt.
(Refer to questionnaires on blog for evidence)
Our sequence only featured one type of social group which was criminals. In our sequence we showed stereotypes of criminals as people who will do anything to save themselves as well as picking on the weak and defenceless. At the beginning of our introduction sequence the “hunter” is shown to have a choice in who he pursues, we then show him chasing the smaller and slower person. This enforces the stereotype that criminals prefer to go for the weak and helps give the idea to the audience that the “hunter” is a criminal. Throughout our sequence speech was used through clips of an interview when one of “Tagged’s” players is shown, the character in the interview is shown to be in a psychological mess, we chose to include these clips of Billy because it supports the stereotype that criminals are mentally deficient which again helped our audience understand the idea that tagged was based around criminals.
Finally to enforce the idea on what social group our piece represented we chose the location of a prison like setting , a tennis court that had a grey stone floor and was surrounded completely by metal cage walls.
In the process of making our opening sequence we thought about what institution would want to promote and help to produce it, if it was a real commercial media product. First we searched for films that had a similar design to ours, we found that films such as: Saw, Crank and death race which where all action/thriller hybrids and had all been supported by Lions Gate films we also found that Lions gate had supported more action/thriller movies that anyone else. If our movie was real Lions Gate would be the ones most likely to support it as they seem to be a producer interested in this type of genre.
Before we started “Tagged” we thought about who it should appeal to and if the target audience was large enough to go for. Firstly we researched films of the same genre as ours and looked at what sort of audiences where interested in the action/thriller genre. After doing our research we discovered the main audience for action/ thriller movies were males in the age range of 15-25 living mainly in the UK.
The audience that would be interested is a mass audience and would be right for our product because it would be a type of film young adrenaline junkies would be into watching on the weekend.
Our product could also appeal to people of an older age, as more and more today the older generation (35+) are starting to give these types of film a chance.
When we had decided on our genre, we thought about what our audience would expect in the opening sequence of an action/thriller, because we had a deadline to meet and an time limit on our opening sequence we decided that instead of setting up an equilibrium and a disruption we would get straight into the action with sharp quick chase scenes and explain the story quickly through some easy to read slides and a narrative device of a past winner of a game of tagged, we chose to do this because we realised that the main audience would want mainly want a rollercoaster effect rather than a big build up of storyline. The music we used in our opening sequence had to fit the genre of our film, we chose a fast beat techno track which fitted nicely on the chase clips in our opening sequence.
Throughout the process of constructing our opening sequence, the internet and editing programs such as “Photoshop” and “Imovie” where extensively used. Firstly the internet is what we used for all of our research, however we understood that sometimes information could be false or distorted so we had to use multiple sources when researching things like audience. Also the internet was used as a blog in which we could post all of work and really see how a simple idea changed into a complex opening sequence. For our development we only used two programs because we they covered everything we needed , Photoshop and Imovie where really straightforward to use once we had been instructed how to use them. Photoshop was used to make the slide backgrounds and titles and Imovie was used for editing our collected footage, on both of these programs we discovered many techniques previously unknown which will be used in future projects.
Overall I think that our opening sequence turned out at around 80% of what we wanted it to be, it’s strengths where that it defined it’s genre very clearly and also seemed to work very well in hooking the audience. However it had a couple of weaknesses such as the lack of action footage, which was due to us not being able find people to partake in filing and I thought this turned our opening sequence into something more for a crime thriller film, which was not intended, also due to editing issues we had to completely remove music in some parts which removed some of the atmosphere in the opening. This was mine and Mike’s first attempt at making an opening sequence to a film and I personally think that despite it how basic it was, it mainly did what we wanted it to which was to hook the audience and set the genre so I would think that it would come ¾ close to a real thing used in a film of this genre.
(Refer to questionnaires on blog for evidence)
Our sequence only featured one type of social group which was criminals. In our sequence we showed stereotypes of criminals as people who will do anything to save themselves as well as picking on the weak and defenceless. At the beginning of our introduction sequence the “hunter” is shown to have a choice in who he pursues, we then show him chasing the smaller and slower person. This enforces the stereotype that criminals prefer to go for the weak and helps give the idea to the audience that the “hunter” is a criminal. Throughout our sequence speech was used through clips of an interview when one of “Tagged’s” players is shown, the character in the interview is shown to be in a psychological mess, we chose to include these clips of Billy because it supports the stereotype that criminals are mentally deficient which again helped our audience understand the idea that tagged was based around criminals.
Finally to enforce the idea on what social group our piece represented we chose the location of a prison like setting , a tennis court that had a grey stone floor and was surrounded completely by metal cage walls.
In the process of making our opening sequence we thought about what institution would want to promote and help to produce it, if it was a real commercial media product. First we searched for films that had a similar design to ours, we found that films such as: Saw, Crank and death race which where all action/thriller hybrids and had all been supported by Lions Gate films we also found that Lions gate had supported more action/thriller movies that anyone else. If our movie was real Lions Gate would be the ones most likely to support it as they seem to be a producer interested in this type of genre.
Before we started “Tagged” we thought about who it should appeal to and if the target audience was large enough to go for. Firstly we researched films of the same genre as ours and looked at what sort of audiences where interested in the action/thriller genre. After doing our research we discovered the main audience for action/ thriller movies were males in the age range of 15-25 living mainly in the UK.
The audience that would be interested is a mass audience and would be right for our product because it would be a type of film young adrenaline junkies would be into watching on the weekend.
Our product could also appeal to people of an older age, as more and more today the older generation (35+) are starting to give these types of film a chance.
When we had decided on our genre, we thought about what our audience would expect in the opening sequence of an action/thriller, because we had a deadline to meet and an time limit on our opening sequence we decided that instead of setting up an equilibrium and a disruption we would get straight into the action with sharp quick chase scenes and explain the story quickly through some easy to read slides and a narrative device of a past winner of a game of tagged, we chose to do this because we realised that the main audience would want mainly want a rollercoaster effect rather than a big build up of storyline. The music we used in our opening sequence had to fit the genre of our film, we chose a fast beat techno track which fitted nicely on the chase clips in our opening sequence.
Throughout the process of constructing our opening sequence, the internet and editing programs such as “Photoshop” and “Imovie” where extensively used. Firstly the internet is what we used for all of our research, however we understood that sometimes information could be false or distorted so we had to use multiple sources when researching things like audience. Also the internet was used as a blog in which we could post all of work and really see how a simple idea changed into a complex opening sequence. For our development we only used two programs because we they covered everything we needed , Photoshop and Imovie where really straightforward to use once we had been instructed how to use them. Photoshop was used to make the slide backgrounds and titles and Imovie was used for editing our collected footage, on both of these programs we discovered many techniques previously unknown which will be used in future projects.
Overall I think that our opening sequence turned out at around 80% of what we wanted it to be, it’s strengths where that it defined it’s genre very clearly and also seemed to work very well in hooking the audience. However it had a couple of weaknesses such as the lack of action footage, which was due to us not being able find people to partake in filing and I thought this turned our opening sequence into something more for a crime thriller film, which was not intended, also due to editing issues we had to completely remove music in some parts which removed some of the atmosphere in the opening. This was mine and Mike’s first attempt at making an opening sequence to a film and I personally think that despite it how basic it was, it mainly did what we wanted it to which was to hook the audience and set the genre so I would think that it would come ¾ close to a real thing used in a film of this genre.
Monday, 24 January 2011
Questionaire
Here are a group of questionnaires we collected from students in our class, firstly we picked students who had never seen the opening before so they wouldn't be biased, by using the questionnaire's we can see what we have done is right or wrong and how it can be improved. According to the four students we used the opening sequence was enjoyable and it's genre was clearly defined as a crime thriller e.g films like Se7en and Sin city.
The students also suggested a suitable age group for our type of film which was 16+ this is what we intended because of the films high levels of violence, and the inclusion of criminals.
Signed Rob
Thursday, 20 January 2011
TAGGED
Tagged, our finished product uses a number of techniques to make it the short you see here. To achieve the desired effect of morbid curiosity and of course its entertainment value, I decided on an approach that are not typical of mainstream media. The usage of cross cutting, the different transitions and scenes, not to mention the title slides to tell the back story, but without revealing too much, by doing this it would make the audience want to know more, to watch more.
Photoshop was used in combination with iMovie HD to create the title slides.The background for the title slides which introduce our production company, the other slides, which have the typewriter text were made using photoshop and iMovie HD. The typewriter text gives the short a largely official, perhaps military feel if you go to on extreme of the spectrum.
Various video effects were used such as changing the colour contrasts, as well as making certain scenes black and white or seemed aged. Specifically the interview scenes, and scenes in which a first person view is used using a hand held camera. The hand held camera shots had to be edited into black and white and the contrast et cetera changed to set them aside from the rest of the short, using the hit film 'Predator', as inspiration.
Signed
Mike Bolton
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Animatic Storyboard
This is an animatic storyboard we have made to gauge a rough estimate on timings, music, angles and what we have to work with. By creating this board, we are now able to list the issues that are presented and correct them. Some of the issues we have discovered is the timing of some shots as well as now knowing we need more titles and more screen time to allow a further exploitation of angles and techniques to maximise the desired effect.
As a result, we have decided to add several more shots and titles to try and better explain the situation which is presented in this sequence. With the current sequence, we have over a minute of filming spare which can now be used to pick up the slack and smooth the edges over.
Signed
Mike
Monday, 6 December 2010
Equipment and Technologies To Be Used
For our film opening sequence, we will be using different equipment and technologies. For our equipment we will be using: a DV tape camera and it's tripod, an apple mac, with this equipment we will be able to film and edit all of our footage that we need to make our opening sequence. The technologies we will be using will include: the internet and Imovie Hd, these will be used for research and development when making our opening sequence.
By using all of these things effectively our opening sequence should turn out quite well, with the DV tape camera we will be able to film at multiple angles which will greatly enhance the visual experience, also with it's tripod footage can be shot smoothly without any shaking. With the apple macintosh, our footage can be edited on each second and show a continuity of time. With the internet we will be able to research anything we may need to improve or redesign our opening sequence, before we decide that our opening sequence is done, we will post it on youtube and take positive criticisms from the youtube community on how we can improve it.
Signed
Rob
By using all of these things effectively our opening sequence should turn out quite well, with the DV tape camera we will be able to film at multiple angles which will greatly enhance the visual experience, also with it's tripod footage can be shot smoothly without any shaking. With the apple macintosh, our footage can be edited on each second and show a continuity of time. With the internet we will be able to research anything we may need to improve or redesign our opening sequence, before we decide that our opening sequence is done, we will post it on youtube and take positive criticisms from the youtube community on how we can improve it.
Signed
Rob
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Titles
The titles in an opening film sequence are critical to the films success. First of all the production company is introduced, this tells the audience which company is supporting the film. Secondly the main characters are introduced in such a way that they stick in the audiences memory for when the film really begins.
Title sequences are built specific to the genre, for example a horror film will have its titles separate from the motion picture. Using Dawn of the Dead as an example for a horror sequence.
Now when compared to a action movie like Lord of War, there is a distinct difference in their styles. Dawn of the dead, (first link), has a sequence built to make the audience question what is going on in the film and how it occurred, it draws them in and makes them curious. Lord of War, whilst not the opposite draws in the audience by making them wonder where the bullet will end up in its life.
Dawn of the dead introduces its production companies and studios first before introducing the films title, proceeding to them introduce the main actors in the film before finally settling on the director at the end. Lord of War introduces the main character first and then the films title before revealing secondary roles, the producers and finally the director.
After discussing which particular style of title editing we want to use, we have decided on a horror style introduction, using the pauses in between footage to create a sense of confusion and interest to draw an audience in.
Signed
Mike & Rob
Signed
Mike & Rob
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