Final

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?

Websites/Blog






Before I began doing AS media, I had never used a blog, an
Apple Mac or any film editing software (such as Final Cut Pro or iMovie)
including sounds, text etc so when I began I had pretty much no idea what to
do. The first form I used was my blog and originally quite overwhelmed. My
first impression of blogger.com was daunting as it was all too new for me.
However, once I got started and added a phew things to my blog, I found it
quite easy and straight forward. One of my favourite aspects of this site was that
it has a very modern essence. By this I believe that there is a sense of
community and togetherness, where anyone and everyone can share information and
interests. 









Furthermore, in a way, it is relevant to the industry. I
think this because technological convergence is continuing to progress allowing
more & more pieces of information to be quickly and easily published across
the internet. This brings something new to the table as it can constantly be
changed and updated to suit the continuous daily change, unlike books for
example. To begin with, I mainly used the blogger text and images. After this,
I progressed and learnt how to put YouTube videos onto my blog, pasting the
HTML code into the HTML section of the blog and converting it into a video in
my blog. After this, I began to experiment with different websites to add
diversity and to strengthen my blog, rather than just simply using plain text
and images directly off the blogger.com site. I was constantly learning and
finding out about interesting new sites to use for my blog work, such as:
slideshare.net, prezi.com, scribd.com, dafont.com etc. 








The sites I believe I have used most often on my blog during
the production of my thriller opening are SlideShare and Prezi. In my opinion,
Prezi is a highly developed, intricate and diverse form if a slides how/power
point. Prezi allows it's users to be quite free and creative with their
presentation, using a combination of text, images and videos on the same or
different path (ways of viewing them). Like the first time I use most sites, I
was quite much, especially at this sure because if how advanced an in
detail it is. However, within a few minutes I became comfortable with the site.
Now, I find prezi.com easy and highly effective to work with. It is also makes
the view more entertaining and pleasing for those who watch it as it has more
depth than a simple slideshow on PowerPoint for example. By depth, I mean Prezi
allows individuals making a slide to pretty much add layers to it, e.g. if there's
an uploaded picture, Prezi makes it possible to zoom in to any aspect of the
image and add another image, a video or text, then zoom right out either back
to the image, or more interestingly to another image, video or text. I also
used the site slideshare.net quite a lot. This site allowed me to upload and
embed PowerPoint presentations and Word documents to my blog, showing the use
of multimedia. For example, in only one post I could upload a PowerPoint
presentation, Prezi, Word document along with a few images and additional blog
text to explain in depth one Blogpost. The combination of all of the above
together strengthens the aspect of my multimedia usage. 







Although, for the evaluation of the project I began to
experiment further with websites to challenge myself and enhance my knowledge
for different software's. It was at this point when I began to use other
websites like photopeach.com, beeclip.com, dafont.com, scribd.com and
screenr.com. When I discovered photopeach.com I was quite relieved, as this
site allowed me to make a video then edit it by adding text and images. Pretty
much a mini, more basic and simple version of the editing programmes I used to
edit my opening. Similar to Prezi, beeclip.com and scribd.com is like an
developed version of PowerPoint, but different in some ways. This site shows
yet another way of showing a slide on my blog and is a diverse, useful
presenting technique. Dafont.com was used to research and investigate fonts to
use for my production name. This is an easy website to use, probably the least
daunting of all that I have tried in this process. It simple to get around
and find what you think is necessary or looking for. On this site, it is
possible to even find things that are different to what you are looking for,
but still could come in useful as well as expand and develop ideas making them
more creative as there is a variety of styles and fonts. Last but not least
there's screenr.com. Personally I believe this is an amazing site with
outstanding functions and abilities. What Screenr does is allow you to record
all of or a section of the screen, along with a voice over. It is good to show
and explain what you're doing and/or how to do something.



 

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

 


 

Question 5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Before considering how i would attract my audience, I would have to look deeper at what audiences are attracted to. Below is a graph on what I believe audiences are attracted to;

Created with Padlet

Now I will see which of these things are associated with Mad House;

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

On a whole, the target audience for my film opening would be for young adults. Originally my target audience was people aged between 18-35, but after doing research into my target audience I found that people younger than 18 have interests in the opening and would watch and recommend the rest of the film. As a result of this, I altered the target audience from 18-35 to 16-35. To test the accuracy of my chosen age range for a target audience, I got people in, above and below the age bracket to watch the opening then asked them if they were interested. One of the individuals I asked is 15. After watching the opening, she had a buzz of enthusiasm about the film, eager to watch the rest. Although there may not be highly explicit scenes of crime and violence, if the complete film was to be made there probably would be. I don't think it would be appropriate for those under the age of 16 to see this. I also asked a few people above my target audience. Some didn't really understand the storyline, possibly because it's not a topic they would have to comprehend of go through at their age. Others enjoyed watching the opening, but said they wouldn't watch the rest of the film as it's not their 'style' of film.

Looking deeper, I found that more specifically the target audience would lean more to a male orientated audience. This is because not only is the main character is male but also during my research I found that of all the people that view thrillers, it is heavily male populated by males for this genre. Below is a graph showing the difference between people who would watch my thriller and people who would watch 500 days of summer. Although 500 days of summer isn't a thriller, it can show just how much it varies in a demographics sense.

This charts shows clearly that the female bar is the highest in general, more particularly, it is highest for females. This indicates that romantic comedies are celebrated mostly among the female category. This also would depend on age, it is more likely that it is young men to watch Mad House and older women to watch 500 Days of Summer. The results of both films contrast each other completely. It is said that females are more likely to watch films that involve romance, emotions, chick flicks etc. Whereas males tend to enjoy action, violence, blood and gore etc. Psychographically, the storyline for my opening is more relatable and generalised among the young adult population.

For this reason, I believe the target audience for my film would be young adults particularly males. Reasons why my film, and this genre in particular is male dominated is as follows: thrillers tend to shows a lot of violence; they are often quite fast moving with has many things going on at one time; most questions remained unanswered for the majority of the film.

Question 3: What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product & 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?

 

I also used a range of shot types. For example;

In terms of editing, I used a range of techniques to enhance my films noticeability as a thriller. Throughout my opening, I use only low key lighting. This is because during my research, I found that most thrillers use massive amounts of low key lighting. For example;




This opening mainly shows objects and very little of the character, to a way more extreme extent than mine. However, even with this, you can see the use of low key lighting and high amounts of audience enigma.

First Draft/ Rough Cut Feedback

I showed my opening to a few people and asked some to do written responses, some gave permission for me to film their responses and some let me do both. I aim to take all criticism in a positive way, change what the audience feels necessary and also see if I chose my target audience correctly. I chose to make most people in my target audience watch it and give feedback as well as some people younger and older to see how accurate I was and if I should change it. Firstly, below are some of the written responses that I received:

I think that Shanon’s film opening is realistic and gives you the feel of the movie, she also presents tension and creates a different type of mood. She’s used many different camera angles, for example close shots, far away shots and short shots, she’s chosen accurate music for her story line and kept it to her target audience she has chosen which I could tell from just watching it her target audience is teenagers. What she needs to do to improve is make the characters more obvious and the story line a bit more clear and what I got from her film opening was that it was just about a boy/young man who chooses the hood and a normal girl but what I would of done is make it a bit more different, like add a little twist because nowadays every soap/TV drama is similar or has the same story line. – Tashanie Powell

I think that Shanon’s film opening was very imaginative. This opening has made me want to watch the movie. I love the way Shanon has filmed her opening, she used allot of different effects and the different angles are really good as well. At first I didn’t understand why the girl was running, but that’s why I would want to watch more of the film to find out. I thought there was a lot of long shots of the girl walking as well, maybe she should cut them down. However, I really liked the guy getting dressed, how Shanon sped up the process, then slowed down the coat zip up, then sped it up again. I thought that was really good, my favourite part. – Tyese Pitter

I think there were good things and bad things about the opening. There were really good effects used e.g. the fades, speeding things up. However, at the end it suddenly switches to a nice day. Was this intentional? Maybe Shanon could go and film the hospital part again when its dark to stick to the rest of the opening. Unless the change was trying to show a new day that would have been made more obvious if the film was continued. Overall I think it is a good opening and would love if she made an entire film. – Chealsey Macrawley

After watching the opening I don’t particularly think I would watch the rest. It’s not exactly my thing and possibly is aimed towards a younger crowd. Nonetheless I think it was alright, god effects. If the opening was made for maybe something I would watch, I’m sure I would watch it. – Andy Bailey

I also got permission from some people who watched my opening to film their response and give feedback on how to make it better. Here are their responses;

After receiving all this feedback I think I could make my target audience change slightly. I made 2 people under the age of 18 watch it and both said they enjoyed it and would recommend it. However, I think having 35 as the maximum age was good as when I asked for feedback from people above this age, both said they liked it but it isn't what they themselves would watch. I gathered that the effects I used in the opening were good, as pretty much everyone commented on them as a positive. However, after receiving this feedback I think I should cut down the length of time Lauren is walking and re-film of edit effects into the shots if Maudsley Hospital. A decent amount of questions were being asked after the opening, which I believe is good as many believed that the answers will  be revealed throughout the film.

Rough Cut

Target Audience Profile

Target audience profile

Production Logo

   

This is my production logo that I created on Final Cut Pro. Below is an evaluation of what I done and why I done it;

This is the image that I used for the background of my production logo;

The image appears to be a different colour in the production logo is due to the effects I put on in Final Cut Pro. I added a flashing effect as well as an 'aged paper' effect. I also added an overlay of the same image to add an effect called 'quick flash and spin', this is when we hear the chimes.

This is the sound effect of chimes I used for the production logo. I replayed the sound of the chime twice during the logo, one after the other. 

Daniel's Production Logo

I also designed the production logo for my partner Daniel. His production logo is called 'DS Studios'. This idea is to represent the coming together of 'Daniel' & 'Shanon' in the 'Studios' to make films, taking the first letter of both of our names. 

This was a simple template that I got off Final Cut Pro that I added sound and text to. On YouTube, I found a 'splatted ink sound effect' to go with the look of the logo.


I replayed the sound effect, to match the times when in splats during the logo. After this I added the text 'DS STUDIOS' in Daniel's chosen font.

Alley - way

Today I went to Woolwich to take some photographs of an alley-way we may film in. Above are the pictures.

Title Options

Whilst watching other openings, I found that many add the title of the movie in the opening, usually at the end with sound (sound tends to vary depending on what the film genre is). After seeing these, i decided I would like to do the same and add the title of my opening 'Mad House' at the end of the opening, with quite a scary sound as its a thriller. I used clips of songs (Kanye West - Monster ft. Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z & Bon Iver and Beyoncé Ft Jay-Z - Drunk In Love). The other sounds were clips I found on YouTube. Above is a compilation of these.

Filming ideas places

Today I went to Crystal Palace to take some photographs to show where we may be shooting.

Inspiration

Six Feet Under

                               
What I like most about this opening is the effect on time. I like how some parts are sped up and some parts are slowed down. For my film I would like to speed up aspects of it.

One aspect I was planning on speeding up is the process of the murderer getting ready. This could give the impression that he is in a rush to do something, such as murder. I would have a montage of shots of him getting ready, step by step. Originally, I was going to spread each step out, throughout the opening. However, I believe a fast paced montage of shots would be more affective.

What I also like and would like to incorporate into my movie is how the text moves with the actions on screen. As well as this, I like the emphasis of the individuals body parts, rather than their body on a whole. 
The focus on the hands alone builds up tension in the audience, as well as slight enigma. In my opening, this could be incorporated when the murder is getting ready. The focus on his hands alone keeps the suspense as well as hiding his face. This should keep the viewers on the edge of their seats, wondering who the man getting ready is.

I also like how many of the actions happen on-beat to the music. The music I have been looking at to use for my opening, all have a beat that could easily have things happening in sync with the music. I believe this would be affective in my movie as often when things happen in tune with the music, the audience jump or seem shocked. Overall, it seems to tie things together nicely.