Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

Our media film challenges and conforms with many conventions of an opening sequence.

Dark Clothing

The main actor in the opening sequence is wearing black this fits in well with general conventions of a film to help the audience understand the genre of the film as a horror almost instantaneously. The Dull colours also represent the actor’s mood and how the film is going to pan out.

 

Poster

The initial poster in the opening scene shows instantly to the reader what the character in the shot is doing. The Missing poster immediately represents the content of the first chapter of the film and should create a level of enigma for the audience. This develops the conventions of an opening sequence as films generally try to let the audience know what the film is about however not as blunt as this.

 

Opening scene

Our opening scene challenges conventional thriller openings which traditionally starts with an extreme long shot (establishing shot) to signify the type of environment that the movie is being influenced by. We have intentionally decided to use a medium close up of our main character placing a poster up on a lamppost, this is because we have thought about the full story of our movie and this scene ties in with the final reunion at the end of the movie. 

 

Establishing shot

To make our opening seem somewhat like a contemporary thriller opening, we have included an establishing shot but this comes after the initial scene. As you can see here, we have used simple techniques such as match on action to sustain the continuity of the film in order not to create confusion for our audience.  This develops the traditional conventions of a film as in most films; the establishing shot appears at the beginning of the film almost inevitably.

 

Extreme close up of eyes

The eyes are the gateway to emotions so we have exploited this by included an extreme close up of our main character. This portrays to the audience that the character is deeply distraught and in thought which is then reinforced by the succeeding flashbacks. The flashbacks tie in with the extreme close up as after the flashback is finished match on action is then also used and our main characters eyes look downwards which shows negative emotions.

 

 Black and white

We have used the traditional technique of portraying flash backs to the past by making them black and white, this should instantly make the audience realise that the shot is in the past. This fits with the conventions of not only an opening sequence but mainly the conventions of any film.

Flashbacks

To convey to the audience the relationship between the main character and the missing girl in both scenes (flashback and modern day) we have used different emotions. In modern day scenes which are shown by natural high key lighting, the main character is continuously looking sad and miserable; this contrasts with the portrayed emotions in the flashbacks which consists of mainly smiles and laughter. This ties in with all flashback conventions when looking back on happy times as flashbacks are normally used to recall positive past memories, good alliteration.

 

Fire scene

The fire scene fits in with many main conventions in film as it shows the main character losing all hope creating a weak enigma for the audience. The main character is holding a picture of the lost girl while staring longingly into the fire. As he throws the picture in the fire and watches it crinkle up, this coincides with his mindset and he is literally giving up hope and watching her slip away.  

 

Streetside

Emotions such as frustration are the main forefront of this scene as he releases all frustration and anger which is shown by the smashing of the bottle.

A wide range of emotions are shown in our opening piece which conforms to all opening sequences to maintain the audiences suspension of disbelief.

Final Piece (Opening Scene Introduction)

Apologies sent from the camera company

After alot of effort from Isaac and his family they finally contacted the camera company about the faulty camera that they sent us for the first shoot we did. They have offered us another 3 days with the camera which would be useful for us along with 50% of any hires after that.

We are planning to use the camera in the Easter holidays when we can maximise the use of the time we have with the camera. The next time the camera is hired to us we are hopeful that we will use it more efficiently.

Second Draft Film

We have now added title to our second draft and it has started to look more like an opening sequence rather than a music video. We agree that some shots are still to long and some of the titles should be made to look more proffesional.

We have used the advice form the questionnaire from the first draft to improve our second draft here are the questionnaires:

We have used 1 new person to tell us there opinion to give us more of a variety of answers. We will be using this information to improve our final piece.

Draft Film

As you can see we have not yet added any titles. Also some of the clips are very long so we need to shorten them down to make the opening sequence more interesting for the viewer. This should help the viewer establish an enigma with the film.

We have showed the film that we made to an audience and gave them a questionnaire the results from this are shown below:

Filming Pictures

Filming

First Day

On the 21st of Febuary 2011 the camera was due to be delivered by the camera company. The scheduled delivery time was from 9 am onwards on that day. I arrived at Isaacs where the camera was addressed to a 9.30am. The camera arrived at Isaacs at approximatley 11am. When the camera arrived we soon determined a problem the camera needed time to warm up before it would turn on. When me an isaac had overlooked the main features of the camera and were comfortable about how to use it. We the set off to meet Joe.


We rang the police enquiries help line to see where we could have a fire for later on in the day and what the rules were for making a fire. the police advised us to get the land owners permission for the fire and make sure it did not cause any damage or hazard to the public i.e. compromize visibility for cars on nearby roads.


When we began to film the neccessary shots shown on our plan we soon began to understand that the shots and storyline we chose weren't as entertaining as we first thought. We never the less carried on filming the pre-planned shots  until late that night. When we reomved the filmed images from the camera onto the computer and watched back we were unhappy with the results. We instantly began to think of fresh new ideas for our film. We had one day left to film the new shots so we arranged to meet early the next morning.

Second Day

I arrived at Isaacs at about 9am on the 22nd to maximise our filming time for the day. We soon found out in the morning that the camera was faulty as it had not charged all night. We tryed different plug sockets and re-setted the camera but it still did not charge. We now realised that we had to minimise the use of the camera by only shooting each shot a limited amount of times therefore increasing the probability of making mistakes.

When we were at Isaacs that morning we thought of an idea that the young girl would be missing. After asking around to relevant people at school we found that it would not be viable to use a girl under the age of 16 without there parents permission so to remove complication i asked my girlfriend Poppie Smith who studies drama at GCSE level at our school. As she is 16 and close relationships with her family made it much easier for her to be the actress in our film.


We came up with the idea of placing posters in different places. We had the idea so that we could film the different shots and cut to the others quickly to give the illusion that the main character had been placing posters everywhere in the hope of finding the 'missing' girl.

We shot the film at a high intensity throughout the day only breaking to have lunch. We had to do this as the camera was due to be picked up the next from 9am-5pm. Throughout the day i was trying to contact Poppie to arrange a time to meet. We went to my house to prepare the shots for when Poppie was available. Earlier in the day we rang my grandad to ask permission for us to use his land to shoot the fire scene. My Grandad agreed we could use his land and made a time of 7.15pm.

We realised we was out of time to meet Poppie so we arranged to meet her after at mine. We set off to Crowland to meet my Grandad and film the fire scenes. When we returned we picked up Poppie and broght her round to film the neccessary scenes.

We finally finished the days shooting and gave the camera back to Isaac to take home and upload.

Shortly after Isaac had taken the camera home we found that we had left the cameras 'shades' on from the shot by the lake when the sun was reflecting to much on the picture. Those shots need to be re-shot by us.

We are hopeful that the company we hired the camera off will hire it to us for free as they hired us a faulty camera, if this is to happen we will re-film the shots that we believe to be poor and try to film some more match on action shots to make the film more interesting.

We used flashbacks in editing so that we could give the illusion of the main character looking back to the past. We used this three times in our film at the present time.

Here is the weather report for the days we were filming.