Wednesday, 12 February 2014
AS Evaluation- Question 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Thriller Comparison
Overall, I believe that I have created a successful thriller sequence. This is because, I incoproated conventional micro elements for example, costume within mise en scene. before doing so, I also researched into all of these elements, and how they were added to other successful thriller films. Lastly, I made sure that my sequence appealed to my tagert audience by adding these elemtns and researching other films. The use of my unique narrative also added to this, as the audience are engaged to this and my unique characters added.
I believe that the micro element used that best shows my creativity is the use of mise en scene. This is firstly because of make up and costume. The wedding dress highlighted the bride/killer's importance within the sequence. This showed that she was once innocent. The fact she murders victims in this costume, further highlights her deteriorating mental state. Her make up and hair is also messed up, showing her negative emotions and the fact she is broken.
Setting is another aspect of mise en scene. Within my sequence, the main setting is the dark secluded room. I believe this is creative as the bride's negative outlook makes the audience engage with her character. She is shut off from the rest of civilisation, which causes her negative mind set to be shown explicitly. Aswell as this, another element of mise en scene is lighting. Low key lighting was used alongside this setting. The darker lighting caused suspense as the audience were unaware of what would happen next, causing them to worry more. The dark lighting also showed the bride's mindset and negative emotions, causing the audience to engage with her further. This type of lighting is conventionally used in thriller productions to cause suspense and makes the audience fear for the worst.
The bride's body language/facial expressions are highlighted all throughout. When she is sat in the room, she seems miserable and pained as she reflects on the negative events that unfolded around her. This causes the audience to sympathise with her on some level. Her body language when she murders victims contrasts to this. She appears strong and menacing, showing that she strives for revenge and she enjoys killing these people. From this element, her character appears more sinister. She frightens the audience as she has the power to make them feel for her and against her.
I believe that the micro element used that best shows my creativity is the use of mise en scene. This is firstly because of make up and costume. The wedding dress highlighted the bride/killer's importance within the sequence. This showed that she was once innocent. The fact she murders victims in this costume, further highlights her deteriorating mental state. Her make up and hair is also messed up, showing her negative emotions and the fact she is broken.
Setting is another aspect of mise en scene. Within my sequence, the main setting is the dark secluded room. I believe this is creative as the bride's negative outlook makes the audience engage with her character. She is shut off from the rest of civilisation, which causes her negative mind set to be shown explicitly. Aswell as this, another element of mise en scene is lighting. Low key lighting was used alongside this setting. The darker lighting caused suspense as the audience were unaware of what would happen next, causing them to worry more. The dark lighting also showed the bride's mindset and negative emotions, causing the audience to engage with her further. This type of lighting is conventionally used in thriller productions to cause suspense and makes the audience fear for the worst.
The bride's body language/facial expressions are highlighted all throughout. When she is sat in the room, she seems miserable and pained as she reflects on the negative events that unfolded around her. This causes the audience to sympathise with her on some level. Her body language when she murders victims contrasts to this. She appears strong and menacing, showing that she strives for revenge and she enjoys killing these people. From this element, her character appears more sinister. She frightens the audience as she has the power to make them feel for her and against her.
An influence of mine was the film 'Orphan'. This film is popular and is conventional within the thriller genre. This is an influence of mine as the storyline and characters are unique and contains conventional micro elements that help make the film a success.
The narrative is based around an orphan that appears to be a innocent, young girl. She is fostered by a new, welcoming family. However, she isn't as she seems and is actually and older woman in a child's body. As can be seen, the narrative is extremely unique. I believe the successfulness of this film is because of the unique narrative. This influenced me as I made my storyline more unique, wanting to appeal to a wider audience.
The orphan is an extremely unsuspecting killer as she is a female child. This causes her to become more sinister as she tricks the audience as she is believed to be something she isn't. The fact that she is so brutal, also makes the audience feel sympathy towards the family/victims for being so open and unaware. This overall influenced me, as I wanted the characters added to my thriller to be unique. The audience should engage with the characters and feel certain emotions towards them such as fear or sympathy. I made my killer a woman, as she is unsuspecting yet surprising and sinister. She too tricks the audience, causing them to feel tense and uneasy.
Audience feedback
Feedback from an audience is extremely important when having made a production. This is because, it needs to be known to you that your film will make a profit and that your chosen target audience would watch the film. Lastly, you'd need to be assured that your chosen micro elements applied to films succeeded and appealed to the target audience.
I recieved feedback for my sequence by forming a focus group. From this, people within the group discussed the positive points that they saw within my sequence. I also gained constructive critisism which can help me improve, next time. Overall, this source of feedback helped as the group was made up of my chosen target audience of 15+. Aswell as this, I formed a questionnaire that I gave people aged 15+ to fill out. This was extremely helpful as I gained more knowledge as to what my audience liked about my sequence. I asked questions such as 'do you think this sequence contains a high element of shock/surprise/suspense?' and I asked 'would you want to see more of this, if made into a full film?' I found questions like this important, as I could view if my production would make a profit and appeal to it's audience. Feedback such as this is considered benefitial for production companies and the industry. This is because, this feedback allows the company to see if their production would sell at the box office. Further from this, large industries that produce these films, make blockbusters, which expands their target audience as film success can spread worldwide.
Here are three positive comments that I recieved:
1) 'Good use of costume, it makes the opening more appealing to watch.'
This can be refering to the wedding dress used. I thought the costume used was extremely important and helped show the character of the bride in her destressed state.
2) 'Full of suspense. The music helps this.'
I analysed many different music pieces before choosing the appropriate non diegetic sound to play within scenes high in suspense. Suspense helps draw the audience in, as they start to engage with the narrative.
3) 'Unique plot, haven't seen this kind of sequence before.'
I aimed to create a narrative that was extremely unique. Although I added conventional micro elements for example, low key lighting, I didn't want to use the traditional thriller sequence. This is because, it has been viewed by many audiences, and another conventional narrative can disencourage them.
I also recieved constructive comments from this feedback:
1) 'Could add more shock rather than just suspense'
Although I believe that shocking frames and ideas are added, I could have added more of the shock/surprise element to engage the audience futher.
2) 'Less dialogue, more sound effects.'
In the beginning, I believed that dialogue was needed for the frames to make sense to the audience. However from feedback like this, I found that clearer frames and more sound could do this equally.
3) 'End scene was confusing'
The sequence ended with the groom and his knew partner sat on the sofa. Luckily, this is only the opening sequence therefore, this would be explained in the rest of the film.
Overall, I believe that I have followed the aims of the brief. This is because my opening sequence contains micro elements that are seen within other successful thriller films. Therefore, I used influences to create a strong opening sequence that would appeal to my chosen target audience. I have made a post containing my final sequence here. From this, it can be seen that the brief was followed as I created a two minute thriller secrets, containing researched conventional micro elements such as cinematography that would appeal to my target audience.
I recieved feedback for my sequence by forming a focus group. From this, people within the group discussed the positive points that they saw within my sequence. I also gained constructive critisism which can help me improve, next time. Overall, this source of feedback helped as the group was made up of my chosen target audience of 15+. Aswell as this, I formed a questionnaire that I gave people aged 15+ to fill out. This was extremely helpful as I gained more knowledge as to what my audience liked about my sequence. I asked questions such as 'do you think this sequence contains a high element of shock/surprise/suspense?' and I asked 'would you want to see more of this, if made into a full film?' I found questions like this important, as I could view if my production would make a profit and appeal to it's audience. Feedback such as this is considered benefitial for production companies and the industry. This is because, this feedback allows the company to see if their production would sell at the box office. Further from this, large industries that produce these films, make blockbusters, which expands their target audience as film success can spread worldwide.
Here are three positive comments that I recieved:
1) 'Good use of costume, it makes the opening more appealing to watch.'
This can be refering to the wedding dress used. I thought the costume used was extremely important and helped show the character of the bride in her destressed state.
2) 'Full of suspense. The music helps this.'
I analysed many different music pieces before choosing the appropriate non diegetic sound to play within scenes high in suspense. Suspense helps draw the audience in, as they start to engage with the narrative.
3) 'Unique plot, haven't seen this kind of sequence before.'
I aimed to create a narrative that was extremely unique. Although I added conventional micro elements for example, low key lighting, I didn't want to use the traditional thriller sequence. This is because, it has been viewed by many audiences, and another conventional narrative can disencourage them.
I also recieved constructive comments from this feedback:
1) 'Could add more shock rather than just suspense'
Although I believe that shocking frames and ideas are added, I could have added more of the shock/surprise element to engage the audience futher.
2) 'Less dialogue, more sound effects.'
In the beginning, I believed that dialogue was needed for the frames to make sense to the audience. However from feedback like this, I found that clearer frames and more sound could do this equally.
3) 'End scene was confusing'
The sequence ended with the groom and his knew partner sat on the sofa. Luckily, this is only the opening sequence therefore, this would be explained in the rest of the film.
Overall, I believe that I have followed the aims of the brief. This is because my opening sequence contains micro elements that are seen within other successful thriller films. Therefore, I used influences to create a strong opening sequence that would appeal to my chosen target audience. I have made a post containing my final sequence here. From this, it can be seen that the brief was followed as I created a two minute thriller secrets, containing researched conventional micro elements such as cinematography that would appeal to my target audience.
AS Thriller Evaluation
My initial brief was to create a two minute opening sequence that contained codes and conventions typical of the thriller genre. This had to be created in groups. My group members were Amber-Louise Reed Johnson and Jazz Chrystie and myself. Within the production, group members had to be allocated to certain roles. Consequently, filming and editing would run smoothly and quickly as everybody in the group would have an assigned job. Firstly, Jazz was made the producer as he purchased all props needed and did not have a huge acting role therefore, he could supervise the making of the sequence. Jazz was also the mise en scene coordinator. Mise en scene is a huge contributer within the media industry and the making of a production. Amber was appointed the director of photography and filmed the whole sequence, this is because she was skilled with the equipment that would be used, for example the camera. Amber was also the sound producer and was responsible for sounds used within the sequence. She was succesful and filled this role well as she found conventional sounds before hand, and knew how to apply the. Lastly, Amber was the editor as she had experience using Final Cut Pro X therefore, she could edit the final sequence successfully. Within the sequence, we needed more than one actor therefore, the whole group had an acting part in some point of the sequence. I believe that this was a positive aspect as we could act as the characters we had created, therefore we knew first hand want we wanted the character to be like. From this also, the audience would engage with more believable characters.
My roles included directing, main acting and screen play writing. Firstly, I was in charge of directing other actors and the technical crew therefore, I had to be available to instruct others to make filming run smoothly and quickly. The role of a screen play writer is extremely important and I was appointed this role as I was the main creator of the narrative and storyboard. The opening sequence was made from detailed notes I made on each frame. From this, I learned how to make a well planned sequence and my team skills strengthened. I also learned how to instruct others rather than to be instructed. Overall, my group worked well together as we all knew our specific jobs that had to be done within these allocated roles. To improve next time and strenthen our group skills, we could have planned the filming schedule more sufficiently and should have made sure that the days were appropriate for everybody. However, because of well planned frames, there were no arguments.
My roles included directing, main acting and screen play writing. Firstly, I was in charge of directing other actors and the technical crew therefore, I had to be available to instruct others to make filming run smoothly and quickly. The role of a screen play writer is extremely important and I was appointed this role as I was the main creator of the narrative and storyboard. The opening sequence was made from detailed notes I made on each frame. From this, I learned how to make a well planned sequence and my team skills strengthened. I also learned how to instruct others rather than to be instructed. Overall, my group worked well together as we all knew our specific jobs that had to be done within these allocated roles. To improve next time and strenthen our group skills, we could have planned the filming schedule more sufficiently and should have made sure that the days were appropriate for everybody. However, because of well planned frames, there were no arguments.
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