The way that my media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of media products by is that in our film we incorporate generic conventions such as close ups of peoples faces or the main thing in the scene that is happening. For example in our film there is a close up of side of someone head whilst that person is getting strangled. This is quite common in films and TV shows such as crime scene investigation where the attack is normally the main thing in the opening scene and is normally full of close ups, points of view shot, over the shoulder shots and at an angle.
We've also filmed it in widescreen as it’s the most common format in Films and TV today. The way that our film challenges the standard conventions is to apply it and also experiment with other things such as establishing point of view shot. The use of the conventions does indicate which sub-genre the film is in as the technique used is generally used in most crime dramas to depict how the crime committed before going to the main storyline. In Donnie Darko, the opening sequence depicts a place which is baron with a person, who is in the middle of the road, waking up. The music in this opening sequence is quite fitting for the since that it’s put with and shows that he’s something special. We do have some suspense that the opening sequence that Donnie Darko creates and also having one character in the whole of the main opening sequence, but we have gone with a faster paced start.
There are different social groups which can be attributed to the main character in out film and also in Donnie Darko. Groups which can be identified because of race or disability could be show in the main characters. Both are judged for being out of the culture of the majority because of race or disability. In the film Donnie Darko, Donnie suffers from Schizophrenia and is stigmatized throughout the film by his family and other people because of it. The same can be said about the main character in the film that can shape shift into animals.
The kind of media institution which could distribute our media product would be a low budget corporation as we are aiming at a more direct audience then a high budget film who would try to aim for everyone to get as much money as they can get. We would be more accurate on what happens in this kind of situation. Hollywood studios would have less factual stuff such as the way that they would work at a crime scene and more pleasing to the eye with big explosions in every scene. This film could be a TV movie or an internet only release to save money producing it for cinemas and then for other media afterwards. We would have more people watching it if it was on TV then if it was shown in a cinema. Our film does offer opportunities for merchandising as the main characters can be depicted in dolls, the clothing wore by the characters can be used by clothing shops to get people entering their shops to get them and the phone used in the opening sequence to can advertised with the film.
The target audience for our film would be based around a male audience whose ages are around the mid-20s as the style of this film as a lot of detail to take in as well as some amount of violence which might scare away younger people and women who normally like other films such as horrors and animated films. This is shown in our research that males are more likely to watch theses films. Other films which are similar to ours such as Donnie Darko target males around the mid-20s age. The classification I think would be suitable for our film would be 15 as there is a lot of gore or violence in our film. Also there aren’t any sexual scenes or a lot of swearing in our film.
The way that we attracted and addressed our audience was to have the main character as a male who the target audience can compare themselves with. Also the age of the main character can also attract the target audience in as they expect an older experience looking person would suit that role then a youngish looking one. There is a few points in the film would appeal to certain people such as the way the detective works. This would be portrayed in more detail then in normal shows to bring in the audience who like to see thing which are like what they normally do in real life. The audience is also in with the action when see the attack as they see the viewpoint of the killer before they attack the victim. Also they allowed witnessing everything of the attack so they can try to become detectives in the film as well.
I have learnt a lot about the technology from the process of constructing the product such as the camera equipment and the editing software. There weren’t any particular effects that I found to improve the look of the film. We got our soundtrack from a pre-recorded non copyright CD we were given to use which is fine but if we wanted a better fitting soundtrack, we would assign a person to write it or get someone music and try to use it in the film. Comparing the equipment we used in the first opening sequence to this one, we had two different cameras. The first one we used in the first film was a normal small camcorder which with the size of it, the quality of it was mostly poor but it was adequate for filming first person shots. For everything else it was poor and after the first film we ditched it for a larger HD camera. In this film, we got a larger good HD quality camera which was great for us. For most of the shots it was great and the interface on the camera made it easy to use. For first person shots, it wasn’t ideal because of its size but that wasn’t a real issue. Besides the cameras, we used new editing software, Final Cut, and from the first film, quality of the software and the ability of it to actually edit down to the fine detail make it far better then basic iMovie which made editing quicker and more exciting. We also used a title making software to adjust it into what we expected it all to be like.
There are different social groups which can be attributed to the main character in out film and also in Donnie Darko. Groups which can be identified because of race or disability could be show in the main characters. Both are judged for being out of the culture of the majority because of race or disability. In the film Donnie Darko, Donnie suffers from Schizophrenia and is stigmatized throughout the film by his family and other people because of it. The same can be said about the main character in the film that can shape shift into animals.
The kind of media institution which could distribute our media product would be a low budget corporation as we are aiming at a more direct audience then a high budget film who would try to aim for everyone to get as much money as they can get. We would be more accurate on what happens in this kind of situation. Hollywood studios would have less factual stuff such as the way that they would work at a crime scene and more pleasing to the eye with big explosions in every scene. This film could be a TV movie or an internet only release to save money producing it for cinemas and then for other media afterwards. We would have more people watching it if it was on TV then if it was shown in a cinema. Our film does offer opportunities for merchandising as the main characters can be depicted in dolls, the clothing wore by the characters can be used by clothing shops to get people entering their shops to get them and the phone used in the opening sequence to can advertised with the film.
The target audience for our film would be based around a male audience whose ages are around the mid-20s as the style of this film as a lot of detail to take in as well as some amount of violence which might scare away younger people and women who normally like other films such as horrors and animated films. This is shown in our research that males are more likely to watch theses films. Other films which are similar to ours such as Donnie Darko target males around the mid-20s age. The classification I think would be suitable for our film would be 15 as there is a lot of gore or violence in our film. Also there aren’t any sexual scenes or a lot of swearing in our film.
The way that we attracted and addressed our audience was to have the main character as a male who the target audience can compare themselves with. Also the age of the main character can also attract the target audience in as they expect an older experience looking person would suit that role then a youngish looking one. There is a few points in the film would appeal to certain people such as the way the detective works. This would be portrayed in more detail then in normal shows to bring in the audience who like to see thing which are like what they normally do in real life. The audience is also in with the action when see the attack as they see the viewpoint of the killer before they attack the victim. Also they allowed witnessing everything of the attack so they can try to become detectives in the film as well.
I have learnt a lot about the technology from the process of constructing the product such as the camera equipment and the editing software. There weren’t any particular effects that I found to improve the look of the film. We got our soundtrack from a pre-recorded non copyright CD we were given to use which is fine but if we wanted a better fitting soundtrack, we would assign a person to write it or get someone music and try to use it in the film. Comparing the equipment we used in the first opening sequence to this one, we had two different cameras. The first one we used in the first film was a normal small camcorder which with the size of it, the quality of it was mostly poor but it was adequate for filming first person shots. For everything else it was poor and after the first film we ditched it for a larger HD camera. In this film, we got a larger good HD quality camera which was great for us. For most of the shots it was great and the interface on the camera made it easy to use. For first person shots, it wasn’t ideal because of its size but that wasn’t a real issue. Besides the cameras, we used new editing software, Final Cut, and from the first film, quality of the software and the ability of it to actually edit down to the fine detail make it far better then basic iMovie which made editing quicker and more exciting. We also used a title making software to adjust it into what we expected it all to be like.
The things that I have learnt for the progression of it to the full product are the planning, filming and editing our film. The planning at first was a bit vague to work on but we improved it to the point where we knew what we had to do in every scene. The research into the genre also helped use to realise what we needed in our film for us to produce something which can represent that genre. Although we only had 2 people in our group which made everything a lot harder then it would have been if we had more people on board. This is shown up on how late we actually filmed it as we were waiting for extra people to help us film it which did delay us filming it. If we could do it again we would have filmed it with people we knew we could trust to come along and film so we could never have this happen again. We would also have an extra person in our group to get rid of this problem. The use of specific shot types such as match on action have improved after experimenting with this in our prior project so we could know which is suitable in each situation. I feel more confident with all the equipment we used as we did practised it a lot before and we did used it a lot in filming and editing. I think our end product is quite successful at fulfilling the task although I would change some stuff like the type of camera used and the amount of speech in our film next time.
