Film Evaluation

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

Opening sequences are created to establish characterisation, setting, narrative and genre. In our opening sequence we introduced three significant characters as well as portraying them as actual characters not just people. Using establishing shots we also developed a setting for the opening. By our use of characterisation, setting and character actions, we established a genre and narrative in our film opening. As we used some interesting shots while keeping them in black and white we showed the visual style of our film, and by having a character the audience can relate to, and by making him into ‘the good guy’ we have created an ideology. Our opening sequence challenges the conventions of existing British films as it is in black and white. This is an effect that is very rarely used in British films and we were unable to find another like it.

A still shot from the short film "The Trunk" and our own media "Jack Roller"

A still close up from the gun in "Dirty Harry" and "Jack Roller"

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film has three characters, a detective inspector, a hitman and a criminal boss. The way these characters are represented in many ways fits the classic film ideology. The hitman in the film very much sticks to the conventions of the character in Britain. He is large, white, middle aged, wears a lot of gold and sports tattoos. This is a typical representation of this type of character as used in the film ‘Snatch’. Although not all British hitmen would be that easy to recognise, when the audience would picture a hitman this would be the image that came to mind.

The character of the criminal boss is one explored in many films and is usually represented in one of two ways. The first is more smartly dressed in a suit and is more poker faced. The second is more normal in appearance and tends to be more of a troubled character, therefore more dangerous. The criminal boss in our film represents the latter, but to reinforce the theme of a British film wears clothes not uncommon from films such as ‘Greenstreet’ and ‘Football Factory’. Both known for their excessive violence and mentalists. Our character is in his thirties, white, average build, male with probable short hair.

In our film the detective inspector is portrayed as the good against the not so savoury characters in the film opening. In this way we as an audience relate much more to the detective inspector, as his age is closer to the age of the film’s demographic, as well as his attitude towards authority and his appearance. The opening sequence creates a juxtaposition between the good of the law and the deviant criminal organisation. This is how the film represents these social groups. Cultural signifiers of this character are his combed over hair, race, middle class appearance and smart clothes, although worn untidily.

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

We decided our film would be made in association with Film 4, as they have already created their own audience demographic for distributing our independant lower budget British films, compared to the high budgeted glossy Hollywood films. Following the success of films such as ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and ‘This is England’, Film 4 make it possible for the smaller time film makers to have their work distributed and watched by an extremely large audience that never would have been able to be reached before. Due to our film following conventions of other extremely successful British and American films, the already established viewers and supporters of Film 4 would be interested in our film, especially as we ourselves were influenced and are fans of existing Film 4 productions.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media product would be between ages of 16 and 25, this is based on language, character representation and audiences of similar films, as well as the existing viewer base of Film 4. Our film uses it’s chosen conventions to appeal to viewers of specific genres, these genres being crime thriller and action. Our film would be given a suggested UK certification of 15, this is to protect and guide younger persons from the use of language, moderate violence and themes unsuitable for a younger age group. This certification will make it illegal for anyone under the age of 15 to watch or buy our media. Having our film distributed by Film 4 will mean that it may also be played on other Channel 4 related channels. This means our film will be played to their already established audience, although after it’s initial TV premier other television channels may want to screen the film, then it would be played to their audience. In terms of controlling the audience watching our media in this way it is almost impossible, although the age rating and suggestions will be announced before the film is shown.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted the audience by using stylish visual effects as well as costume, setting and props. By casting the hero of the film as the same age as our projected audience we were able to address and attract them into following the film as they could relate in some way to the character, and therefore cared and were interested in what would happen next. We posted our opening sequence on Facebook to see the sort of age and if or not it would attract an audience who would potentially want to see the finished film. From our findings we found a majority of our positive comments were from the age group 16 to 19. This would mean that we have successfully estimated the audience in which to address as well as attracting them to the media.

We also collaborated a questionnaire for 20 of the film’s audience, as a whole the opening sequence gained extremely positive reviews, below are the questions asked and our results:

1. Did you enjoy the film?

18 of the 20 People asked did enjoy the film. The two who didn't said they did not enjoy the genre.

2. What genre would you say our film is?

Out of the 20 participants the majority of 13 thought it was crime thriller and four people thought it was action. This is good as it had aspects of both in it. Although 2 people thought it may be horror and t hought it would be a psycho thriller.

3. Did you think it had a good storyline?

All 20 of our sample said that it was a good storyline for the opening sequence

4. Do you think the characters cast suited their roles?

Again all 20 participants said the characters cast worked well with thier given parts

5. Were the characters roles clear?

1 out of the possible 20 participants did not understand the character of the criminal boss this may be because we took a risk by only showing half of his face and keeping him on the screen for such a short time.

Judging by the responses received not only did we successfully manage to target the audience we hoped to target, but we managed to attract them to our film and gain positive feedback.

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

During pre and post production I was able to use a whole range of technologies that were new to me. During filming I was able to use the camera to create clear and attractive film as well as additional technology, such as the tripod to keep the camera level and the movements flowing and the SD memory card that allowed me to easily transfer, carry and save film effectively. From first hand experience I have learnt the best techniques when creating digital film, from filming, setting up the camera and writing the data on a device to share and edit. Another crucial piece of technology in pre production was the editing software, Sony Vegas 8. Yet again I had no prior experience with this or any other piece of editing software, but through persistence and patience I have learnt to smoothly edit together clips with effective transitions, as well as adding effects, music, credits and many other additional features.

For both post and pre production tracking my progress, sharing the video, researching and gaining images would not have been possible without the internet. Since the launch of sharing sites such as Facebook, Youtube and Blogger as well as many more, it has become increasingly easy to share films, text and other forms of media easily among friends or strangers. This meant that our evaluation of the film could be made more precisely by viewer feedback. This was immensely helpful in the production of the film for getting our media seen as well as many aspects of planning. The internet is also full of audio commentaries as well as dvd extras to guide us on our film.

Modern day communications such as email and mobile phones mean that the group could stay in contact through all aspects of the film production and work together even though we were all at some points in different places. Because of this I have learnt how to manage time and tasks effectively and send them to where they need to be with little hassle or fuss. Our mobile phones were also used for taking photos of possible locations to use in the location reports. As well as this we ended up using the back lights of our phones in the filming of our opening to light the car.

One of the editing technologiew we used was the 75% black and white filter this technology allowed s to use this stylish visual effect on standard clour film

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

Watching the preliminary back it is clear the group had an extremely limited capability when it came to using technologies such as the camera and editing software. For our opening scene we had a lot more experience and practice before shooting and editing the final film. This showed through the final piece and the whole film looked a lot more professional.

We have also learned that whether a film works or not is entirely down to the planning. This is why nearly all of our time schedule was used for planning. The more precise the planning aspects of the film are, the quicker and easier filming is and the less editing needs to be done. Good planning also adds to the consistency of the film and the authenticity.

Involving new technologies in the production of the film is a great way to get the most out of a vision as well as getting the end result seen and recognised. New technologies are also usually better and cheaper than existing products, with many great technologies such as Youtube, being free.

Using existing genres and conventions from existing films that inspire the media I have produced, has made it easier when thinking of the character representation, who will be distributing the product, the target audience and what would and wouldn’t be effective in aspects that were not fully thought out when devising the preliminary task.

By creating an opening sequence I have found that to create a clear narrative that works well over 2 minutes is much harder than one that is only 30 seconds. As our piece was around 2 minutes long there was much more that needed to be done when producing it to keep the story clear and the film still interesting.

Like in the preliminary we had to make sure that all the filming had contiuety this means that the characters and setting are the same in each frame. After the first attempt of filming we needed to do some more establishing shots so we had to wait for a day when the weather conditions were exactly the same as the first.