Main Task - Post 12.7 - Question 7

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

1) In the preliminary task when it came to editing, it's fair to say that none of us were too keen on Adobe Premier Pro. Myself and Charlie had previously experienced using Adobe Premier Pro at GCSE, however that was a while ago and we were a little rusty to start off with, although we did grasp it again fairly swiftly. I felt our editing in the preliminary task was fairly good however the shots seemed to jump too quickly to one another, and so we needed to improve upon that in the main task.













  And so in the main task when we had to edit, we made sure that we helped the shots jump from one another in a swift fashion. We did this by allowing plenty of time for a person to stop talking before switching to the next shot, and to make the transitions more smoothly for the main task we added fades and cross dissolves to interlink each shot. 

Here you can see above how the over the shoulder shot of Danny then fades into a closer shot of him over the shoulder.

 

Main Task - Post 12.6 - Question 6

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

For this task I have created a moodboard on powerpoint in which I have indicated what types of technologies I have used in the build up to the main task.

Main Task - Post 12.5 - Question 5

How did we attract the audience?
I think that our film attracted the audience because they wanted to see how it would differ from a successful action film such as 'James Bond', Danny attempted to play this role despite his short time on film.

Feedback
For feedback on our film, we merely walked up to people in our peer group and asked who would like to watch our film and give some feedback. A few people in our media class were a little busy but a few were able to watch and tell us what they thought.

Film rating
For our film 'Poker Face' we had to look at the http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ website to determine the films age rating. We had to look at each and everyone of the ratings and what they said, after this we decided on the rating of 12a. This was down to the fact that we had swearing twice during the opening sequence, which ultimately rules out the rating of 'U' as it states no severe language, only mild words such as 'damm' and 'hell' are allowed. It also rules out 'PG' because although it allows words such as 'shit' (which we used twice) it depends on the circumstances and context in which the word is used, seeing as we used 'shit' in an 'aggressive' fashion then it cannot be a PG. So 'Poker Face' must be classed as a 12 or a 12a.

Only DVD and cinema releases determine the difference between 12 and 12a, and so if we wanted to push 'Poker Face' to DVD release straight away then it would be a 12. However for cinema release it would be classed as a 12a.

Main Task - Post 12.4 - Question 4

Based on our research into a possible target group, we noticed that at the time we asked several age groups varying from 15 to 50. We did this so that we could try and notice a few trends, and we noticed that the most common trend was that 15-18 years olds (particularly males) were seriously interested in the action genre. And so we arrived at the target audience of 15 to 18 year olds for our main film.

Here (left) is Jovell from our target audience.

One person in our target group is named Jovell, he is in our class too. He was ideal to focus on because he fitted exactly into out category as he is 16 and loves action films. And so Jovell attends school 5 times a week from roughly 9am until 3:30pm, he has very little time on his hands when he comes in from school as he has plenty of homework to do for the following day as well as studying for his up and coming exams. He does not do much on the weekend besides watching football on the TV and playing for his sunday league team, so realistically only on saturdays is he free. He likes to attend the cinema however due to him not having a job he finds it hard to buy himself and treat himself to nice things, the last film he saw at the cinema was 'The Expendables'. He will not just go and watch any film as he is constantly obsessed with the action genre, if he sees advertised a good action film then he is determined to save up the money and go to the cinema with his friends to watch it. His favourite film of all time is 'James Bond - Casino Royale'.
 

Main Task - Post 12.3 - Question 3

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

If our film 'Poker Face' was to ever be produced and distributed by a film company then there would be a key question that we would have to consider and that is, 

Could we afford to have the film distributed by a well known company?

In reply to number 1, due to the fact that we are a low budget British film we clearly would need some kind of financial backing from a large media institution. I would class us as an independent film, in this we mean that we would have no problem in shooting in our film, it's just that when it comes to the films distribution we would need some form of 'donation' from a large institution. However these would need to take a chance on a little film like us if they wanted to make some money. Looking at possible film franchises suitable for us, I opted for the well known British film distributor 'A working title', they actually helped produce many well known films such as '2012' and 'Transformers' (Note that they are two hugely successful films based on action)

Main Task - Post 12.2 - Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

For this post we are asked to show how the characters that we portrayed in our film contrast with famous actors from our chosen genre of action, and so from our main film I have taken a few screen grabs of two of the characters in costume in comparison to two famous actors from the action genre.

Firstly I have grabbed a picture of James Bond, seeing as he is such an iconic figure in action we wanted to replicate his image by creating a character like him, so we made 'Dwain Jefferson'. Danny in our group opted to play 'Dwain'. We took many things into consideration before shooting, unlike in our preliminary task we wanted to make the characters believable in their roles. We researched in Post 4 of the main task what it actually took to become a 'secret agent' like James Bond.

In comparison to James Bond we have Danny as 'Dwain Jefferson'. We wanted Danny to look smart and authorititve, this is clearly shown as he bursts through the door and grabs me playing 'Vinnie' with his suit on. James Bond is known for his spectacular entrances but clearly we could not replicate some of his stunts on the school premises. 

In similar contrast to Danny and James Bond, we needed to make myself, Ben and Charlie believable in our roles as we looked to portray a mafia squad. Similarly to our research into James Bond for Danny, we looked at what it would take to play a mafia squad. Looking into that, we found originally that a mafia squad are incredibly similar to american gangsters. American gangsters recently featured in their own film (gangster squad) and so we looked to inspiration from them.

In comparison to the american gangsters, we looked to play convincing roles just like them. In the screen grab from our film 'Poker Face' you can see that we are all dressed differently, I am dressed in a plain white shirt, black trousers and black tie, Ben (middle of picture) is dressed in black trousers, shirt and braces, and then Charlie (right of frame) is dressed in black trousers, white shirt, bow-tie and top hat. We all took on different costumes to differ ourselves from one another, much like in the film 'Gangster squad' (picture above).


To conclude
The mafia squad - we all dressed accordingly to try and play convincing roles, I felt we achieved that. I felt that we portrayed  the mafia squad as tough, aggressive and authoritative. Much like the typical american gangsters like 'Al Pacino' from 'The Godfather' or 'Ryan Gosling' from 'Gangster Squad'
'Dwain Jefferson' - I felt Danny played a convincing role considering he was only in the shot for a matter of seconds, he comes in and instantly gives this 'dangerous' feel to him. He plays a mysterious and demanding role a lot like a 'James Bond' figure or even 'Bryan Mills' from 'Taken'

Main Task - Post 12.1 - Question 1

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

For this task we are asked to write a directors commentary for our main task opening sequence, we are supposed to comment on how our opening sequence uses or breaks away from conventions. Conventions include  the following,

• Structure of sequence
• Style of presentation
• Style/colour of font
• Genre
• Narrative enigma
• Introduction of characters
• Camera
• Sound
• Editing & Special Effects
• Mise-en-scene

Due to time issues, I am unable to fully do a proper directors commentary for our opening sequence, and so I have taken the opportunity to film myself talking about all of the conventions mentioned and why they are used or broken. And so below is my video for talking about the conventions.

Main Task - Post 12a - Evaluation - Audience feedback

We have now shot the main task film, we are now required to do the next 7 posts individually as we look to complete the main task. However below is a video of two of our target group, they have watched the final film and have kindly given their feedback to us about 'Poker Face'.

Main Task - Post 11 - Final Opening Sequence

I cannot seem to link the actual video to this page, usually when you want to import a video from youtube onto the blog you have to click onto 'insert a video' then go to upload from youtube then search for your designated film, however our film does not seem to come up, and so I have created a hyperlink to show our main film.

Click here to see the completed 'Poker Face'

Main Task - Post 10 - Post Production

This has been done on a domain computer at school.

Main Task - Post 9 - Production

The following pictures are shots of us prior to filming the main task, we have taken pictures of the equipment that we will use in the filming/recording process.

Here is a picture of myself with our sony camera that we used, I also have headphones round my neck.

Here is a picture of Ben holding the sound mic.

Here is a picture of danny setting up the camera ready for use as it is attached to the tri-pod.

Here is the tri-pod standing in its smallest position on its own.

All of the recording equipment came in this bag.

Main Task - Post 8 - Pre-production documentation

Synopsis of the whole film 
Dwain Jefferson, an undercover cop is on yet another case, as he hunts down a mafia squad holding his girlfriend captive at her own will. Dwain constantly searches for clues that may lead him to the whereabouts of the mafia squad and his girlfriend. The mafia squad want nothing but Dwain's father million pound fortune, will Dwain eventually have to give up his fathers money for the sake of his girlfriend? Or will the mafia squad torment Dwain and his family at the same time as gaining the jackpot sum of money?

Synopsis of opening sequence 
Camera is over Dwain as he is in his office depressed about the loss of his father and potentially his girlfriend, opening credits come across the desk. The camera then cuts to the mafia squad playing poker as they hold Dwain's girlfriend captive. He phones them and demands they let her go, he then hangs up and suddenly burts through the door, the camera fades and the films title appears.

Crew list - the film
Myself - 'Vinnie'
Danny - 'Dwain'
Charlie - 'Sonny'
Ben - 'Tony'

Crew list - off screen roles
Myself - Director/editor/pre-production
Charlie - Chief editor/pre-production
Ben - Pre-production
Danny - Pre-production

Mise-en-scene description

The shot list

The script

 Our timeline/ treatment

Storyboard

Location recce

Main Task - Post 7 - Focus Group

Our target group for our main film is 15+ and our age range is anyone between the ages of 15 to 25. Our target group is predominantly males however females could watch the film.

Main Task - Post 6 - History of chosen genre

In this post we are required to research into our chosen genre of film, seeing as my group were to make an opening sequence for an action film I looked into various types of action films throughout the ages, from the  1920's to the present. In previous tasks I have restricted my media usage to the minimum, and so for this post I decided to try something a little different and create what is called a 'Prezi' for post 6 instead of just plainly writting up my findings. I hope you enjoy looking at my Prezi.

Click here to look at my prezi!

Main Task - Post 5a - Macro/Micro analysis of an opening sequence from your genre

I have looked at Batman (1989) for my first micro-macro analysis of an opening sequence for the action genre. I have broken this video down into Macro and Micro analysis, macro meaning large and micro meaning small.

MACRO analysis

Narrative - meaning written words and or verbal dialogue.
The following appear in order respectively.

• Warner Bros. presents
• Jack Nicholson
• Micheael Keaton
• Kim Basinger
• A Guber-Peters company production
• A Tim Burton film
• BATMAN
• Based upon characters appearing in magazines published by DC Comics Inc. 
• Robert Wuhl 
• Pat Hingle 
• Billy Dee Williams 
• Michael Gough 
• and Jack Plalance 
• Casting by Marion Dougherty 
• Costume designer Bob Ringwood 
• Ms Basingers costumes by Linda Herikson 
• Music by Danny Elfman 
• Songs written and performed by Prince 
• Editor Ray Lovejoy 
• Production designed by Anton Furst 
• Director of photography Roger Pratt (B.S.C) 
• Based on Batman characters created by Bob Kane 
• Executive producers Benjamine Melniker, Michael E. Uslan 
• Co-producer Chris Kenny 
• screenplay by Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren 
• story by Sam Hamm 
• produced by Jon Peters and Peter Guber 
• Directed by Tim Burton 

Representation - Dark, gloomy, mysterious

Genre - action

MICRO analysis

Sound - Haunting and powerful music throughout.

Camera - camera pans and zooms in parts, high angle shots also appear.

Editing - None

Special effects - None

Mise-en-scene - dark setting, lots of what appears to be metal that is eventually made out to be a batman symbol.

Main Task - Post 5 - Title Timeline

For this post I decided to look at the film 'The Amazing Spiderman', in this task we are asked to look at the timings of the titles for an opening sequence of our chosen genre (action). We are asked to individually look at the opening sequence of an action film and construct a timeline based on the timings that appear in the sequence.

Here is the video in which I devised my timeline from, this is the 2012 film 'The Amazing Spiderman'.

Below is the actual timeline that I created after watching 'The amazing spiderman' opening sequence. As you can tell a lot happens in the short minute or so that is shown, what is particularly noticeable is that music plays for the majority of the titles, also only half or so of the whole opening sequence is related to the 'Spiderman' concept, the first bit mentions the films producers 'Columbia' and where the idea came from in 'Marvel'

Main Task - Post 4b - Narrative/Character research

Following our groups decision to do a film based on a secret agent and a mafia squad as the centred characters. I have researched what it takes to be as part of a mafia squad and to be a secret agent.
We have five people in our group and we have decided that we will switch roles so that we can all feature in the film. We will have 3 people in the mafia squad and one secret agent.

Secret agent

I have looked into what it takes to be a secret agent, after looking at various pictures I have noticed a correlation between them. A secret agent tends to look somewhat similar to the character of James Bond, a secret agent is mysterious, charming, yet dangerous. When it comes to Danny playing 'Dwain Jefferson' we want him to wear a full suit and go all out just like a James Bond figure.








Mafia squad
We looked into what it took to be an American gangster in a far greater amount of detail than the secret agent. The reasons being that there were more of us who had to play the roles involved. We want the main task to be realistic and so we looked to gain as much information from the internet and other sources, a link is below for steps on how to be a typical American gangster. Myself, Charlie and Ben need to dress convincingly for the main film, so even just by looking at the poster above from 'Gangster Squad' we can tell that we would require to wear a shirt, tie, trousers, and possibly braces and a top hat.
Click here for advice on how to dress like an American gangster