Evaluation Question 7: Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?

What I Shall Discuss

• My previous experience of filming and knowledge of terminology before my AS.
• What I did pre-production.
• What I did during production.
• What I did post-production.
• What I learned and would I do it, if I could do it again.

Evaluation Question 6: What Have You Learnt About Technologies From the Process of Constructing This Product?

Recording Equipment

DSLR Camera

In the production of our product we used a Sony DSLR camera and Canon 1200D, before I started the AS Media course I had not had any experience of using DSLR cameras. However, since I have learnt different cinematography techniques from the filming of our swede. One thing I learnt and experimented with was adjusting the depth of field. Adjusting the depth of field can give the film a much more authentic and professional element.

(not the exact model we used)

SD Cards

Other than using a USB memory stick I had never transferred information from one computer to another, at first I was wary of ejecting the SD card and the importance it had. But now I can confidently transfer files from my camera to Final Cut Pro X.

Garage Band

Garage band was another form of technology I had not encountered before until this year. I had experimented with a few things but hadn't created any credible soundtracks. Despite this I created the soundtrack to our film opening using the software (exceptions to the non-copyright music we discovered on Sound Cloud). I wanted to create an intense soundtrack using synths and percussion and Garage Band was great for this, especially once I had become familiar with the loop feature.

Final Cut Pro X

We used Final Cut Pro X as our main editing software for the film. Until I had edited the Prelim's and Swede, I had no experience with Final Cut before. I learnt how to use basic tools such as the 'blade' tool, the transitions menu and how to share my product to social media such as YouTube or to save it as a 'master file'. Once I had learnt how to use these tools and others, I also learnt the shortcuts to them so I could make my editing much more efficient. After I became comfortable with these simple editing tools, I started trying some of the the more complex tools that would further aid my efficiency or the quality of the product its self. For example, the 'snapping' tool allowed me to be much more accurate with my cuts while also speeding up the process of the cut. Once we had finished ordering our shots in Final Cut, we decided to colour correct each shot to make sure it looked authentic and real. We did this using the 'balance colour' tool. It was simple but it improved our product significantly.

Blade Tool

Transition Window

Sharing and Saving

Colour Correction

Snapping Tool

Blogger

Personally I had never blogged anything before or come into contact with any blogging site. However, Blogger was a crucial factor in our research development of the film and also all the information we needed for pre-production, post-production and evaluation. I developed skills such as:

• creating posts.
• tagging posts.
• creating link lists for people to navigate my blog easily.
• adjust the colour and font of my text in order to highlight important information faster.

We also took inspiration from our classmates blogs, we could gather more information much faster using the efficient Blogger.

YouTube

I had used YouTube frequently prior to starting this AS Media course, however, I had never posted a video to YouTube - only ever viewed videos. YouTube allowed us to have all of our Rough Cuts, Swedes and Prelims all documented in one place that easily accessible. A feature of YouTube I discovered and frequently used throughout production, was the ability to embed the video into a blog post. This made the process of watching the YouTube much easier when visiting the blog. Also it doesn't require opening another tab as a simple link would.

Evaluation Question 4 & 5

Evaluation Question 4

who would be the audience for your media product?

A target audience is a demographic of people who you will aim to market your media product towards, for example aged males aged 15-30 (our primary target audience).

A primary target audience is a more specific target audience that will be the main consumers of your product and the majority of your marketing will be targeted at these people. This is also combined with a secondary target audience who will be another demographic who may also be interested in your media product because of a possible use of hybrid genre.

Our primary target audience are males aged from 15-30 because Action films were the most commonly watched films by this demographic in the year 2014. The reason why our primary audience is male is because males are more attracted to Action films that contain fast paced editing and violence, both of which could potentially feature in our film (if it was a full production).

Our secondary target audience could be a girlfriend or partner who has been brought to see the film, therefore our secondary target audience would be 12-40 females.

For our film to be able to viewed by our primary and secondary target audience we feel like the best rating to give our film would be a 12A. Doing this would allow us to reach all our target audience. By giving our film a rating of 12A we have followed lots of other films which are from the same genre as our film. An example of a film similar to ours which has the same rating is James Bond Spectre. However, it is known that the BBFC are rather bias towards larger productions and therefore we could end up with a 15 rating. Something that we have thought about when trying to decide our classification is language, in our film we would not use a lot of strong language because it would not be entirely appropriate to our primary target audience. However, We researched the BBFC guidelines and they said that "The BBFC's Guidelines state that strong language (e.g. f***) may be passed at 12 or 12A", depending on the context in which it is used, who is using the language and its frequency. Aggressive uses of strong language may result in a film or DVD being placed at the 15 category. The BBFC say this about discrimination "Any discriminatory language or behaviour will not be endorsed by the work as a whole." In our film we do not feature any type of discrimination which results in us being able to keep our 12A certificate. 

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 3: What Kind of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product and Why?

Definition of Distributor

• Taken from Wikipedia

"A film distributor is responsible for the marketing of a film."

Top Distributors

1. Warner Bros

2. Walt Disney Studios

3. Sony Pictures Entertainment

4. 20th Century Fox

5. Paramount Pictures

6. Universal Studios

Evaluation Question 2: How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

Our film is an indie film with a low budget. Indie films such as productions from Warp Films concentrate mainly on the representation of the working class population. This is similar to what we have done, we have filmed this in the North of England in Yorkshire. The North usually signifies the working class.

Age

Our primary target audience is 16-25. The actors in the production are both aged 16, however are aiming to represent an age group closer to 20. The costumes of the characters represent this age range as they are informal training/sports wear. The male protagonist is short, fair haired, well built and has a neutral-southern accent. The male antagonist is a binary opposite in the sense that he is tall and dark haired. The protagonist is wearing lighter coloured clothing, whereas the antagonist is wearing mainly dark colours with exception to his blue running shoes. The audience can choose to attach themselves to either of the characters, however both looks can appeal to the audience, with the protagonist possibly attracting the female gaze and attracting a secondary target audience.

Stereotyping

The fair-haired, attractive, well built, male protagonist presented by Daniel Craig in James Bond is a perfect example of an agent stereotype and we have replicated that with our male protagonist.

Daniel Craig as James Bond

The female sidekick of the protagonist is another example of a stereotype. James Bond inspired the Action genre with the character of 'M' in having a female sidekick and we have represented that in our film. Both of which have southern London accents, that are stereotypically middle class.

Gender

The only gender that appears on screen in our film opening is male. This is because the primary target audience is 16-25 year old males. If the characters on screen are male then it allows the audience to identify with the characters. Also, there is a female voice presented in the opening as well. This is to allow a possibility for a romantic relationship between the protagonist and the female. The male audience will watch the film for the action (as read on BFI, men were drawn to watch films with a strong action element.) whereas the females will watch for either the attractive protagonist or the romance element as females are much more likely to watch a romantic film.

Ethnicity

Our film contains exclusively caucasian characters. This is not intentional but for the reason that there is a lack of availability of other ethnic groups in our school and surrounding area. Thus meaning we may not appeal to the wider audience of multi-ethnic groups. In the successful production of Star Wars, every actor that appears on screen is white, with exception to the voice of Darth Vader. However, this did not appear to affect the popularity of the film as it made $461m in the US box office upon release.

Sexuality

Our film does not explore sexuality, however conventionally, most films are based upon the characters being heterosexual. In the full production of our film opening, there is a likelihood of the protagonist having a heterosexual relationship with his female sidekick.

Northern Demographic

Evaluation Question 1: In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

Conventions Used in Our Media Product

The majority of our conventions have been taken from Working Title productions as they have made more films in the action genre, whereas Warp Films produce more low budget films like horror and comedy.

• Total ident length of 44 seconds - this is conventional because the average length of idents in a film opening is around 40 - 50 seconds.
• 2 animated titles - the animation in the titles in the titles is conventional in action films and is often used with motion tracking, as is our titles.
• Establishing, high angle, long shot - as seen in Mad Max and James Bond Casino Royale
• Non-diegetic sound - the sound of the typewriter typing out the location is a common convention in action films such as James Bond and the Bourne Film Series.
• Non-diegetic music - often used to build suspense in fast paced action sequences such as James Bond Casino Royale and Captain America Winter Soldier.
• Fair haired attractive protagonist - also appears in the James Bond series and also in Captain America Winter Soldier.
• Extreme close up - appears in the training scene for Arrow and also the opening scene of Mad Max.
• Tracking shot - tracking shots are conventionally used in action films because it is much easier to follow fast paced action with handheld motion or dollys.
• Over the shoulder shots - used in Mad Max, James Bond Casino Royale, Arrow and also Captain America Winter Soldier.
• MacGuffin plot device - used in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Mission Impossible III. Our MacGuffin is the backpack and also the memory stick.
• Fast paced editing, short clips and fast cutting - used conventionally in the action genre because the primary target audience is often young and fast editing keeps the attention of that young audience. Examples of fast paced editing would be in Arrow.
• Extreme long panning shot - can be found in Mad Max, James Bond Casino Royale and Captain America Winter Soldier.
• Two shot - not only found in action genres but in most other genres. Signifies to the audience that there will be a relationship between the two characters. Whether it be romantic, allies or their nemesis. Examples being in the James Bond Series and also in the rom-com About A Boy.
• Female sidekick - Most popular female sidekick being 'M' from the James Bond Series.
• Chase scene - it is a convention in action films as it can be seen in Mad Max and also Casino Royale. Casino Royale's chase scene is on foot and we took inspiration from it as it also features some forms of 'parkour'.
• First person - Arrow season one.
• Slow motion - used in the chase scene of Casino Royale.
• High pitched non-diegetic music - creates suspense in action films (Mad Max) and we also took inspiration from the majority of horror films too.
• Semiotics - the locations of the shots were conventional as they appeared to be in a working class run down area, for example, the Casino Royale building site can be compared to our run down area that we used. The costumes are conventional because it is often that the protagonist will wear lighter coloured clothing than the antagonist. However, this clothing can still be monochrome, as viewed significantly in the superhero-action film Captain America.

Disagreements to Conventions In Our Media Product

• The use of only 2 titles - the average amount of titles in a film is 25, however in Warp Films productions this number is significantly lower. Therefore it can be argued that this is both a convention as we are essentially producing an indie media product and also unconventional in the way that it is against most Working Title productions.
• Handheld cinematography - most action films will use a dolly when panning however as we have a low budget, we cannot afford a dolly and therefore handheld provides a more authentic panning shot.
• Semiotics - the appearance of the antagonist is unconventional as he has long hair, whereas most action villains have short hair - bald. 

Film Openings Mentioned:

Final Cut

My Contribution

This is a blog post on what roles each person played in our group.

Director-

• Robbie - Deputy director
• Alex - Director
• Tom - N/A
• Me - N/A

Cinematography-

• Robbie - Co cinematographer for the chase scene and main cinematographer for the gym scene.
• Alex - Main cinematographer for the chase scene and co cinematographer for the gym scene.
• Tom - N/A
• Me - N/A

Editor-

• Robbie - Co editor for the Gym Scene
• Alex - Main Editor for whole production + input into the Gym scene
• Tom - Co-editor for the Gym Scene
• Me - N/A

Music- 

• Robbie - N/A
• Alex - Found music from other sources
• Tom - Found music from other sources
• Me - N/A

Actor-

• Robbie - N/A
• Alex - N/A
• Tom - Protagonist
• Me - Antagonist

Pre Production work-

• Robbie - Location scouting
• Alex - Shot list 
• Tom - Story Board, Call sheet , Team manager
• Me - Screen Play

My Specific Role

My main role was the actor, however it was me and Tom who came up with some of the foundations of the chase scene. I had some of the idea for the free running and Tom had the idea of the training scene. I was given the role of music as I have the most experience with music in the group. It was difficult to create music that fit the genre of our production as I have only ever created acoustic pieces before. I was sadly then unable to produce music due to inexperience of this genre. Finally, I thought it would be best if I wrote the screen play as it was a simple task, However we didn't use it.

Source- https://wattfilms.blogspot.co.uk

Alfred Hitchcock's MacGuffin

Definition
"In fiction, a MacGuffin is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation."

We took inspiration from director Alfred Hitchcock in having a MacGuffin in our film opening. The bag/memory stick is the main focus in the opening, however we intend to not have it included in the rest of the film. In doing this the audience can forget about it, only for it to be used in the climax of the film and link the story together.

Examples

• George Lucas - R2-D2 was described as a MacGuffin. He is the "main driving force of the film"
• J.J Abrams - In Mission Impossible III Abrams uses the rabbit foot as a MacGuffin, it was the object that Ethan needed to deliver to Davies
• Steven Spielberg - The crystal skull is another example of a MacGuffin in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. However this was seen as an unsatisfying MacGuffin. Spielberg himself said "I sympathise with people who didn't like the MacGuffin because I never liked the MacGuffin".

Feedback on Rough Cut 6

Source- https://wattfilms.blogspot.co.uk

If you were to give the film opening a rating out of ten what would it be?

Response 1- 8

Response 2- 7

Response 3- 9

Response 4- 8

Was the narrative clear during the film opening? If not why?

Response 1- Yes

Response 2- Yes 

Response 3- Yes 

Response 4- Yes 

Did you find the film opening engaging or did you find yourself bored?

Response 1- It was engaging, and fast paced, good for a film opening.

Response 2- I did, it worked well and I would watch the whole film.

Response 3- It was.

Response 4- Yes it was engaging.

Rate the cinematography out of ten?

Response 1- 7

Response 2- 8

Response 3- 8

Response 4- 7

Rate the editing out of ten?

Response 1- 9

Response 2- 9 

Response 3- 9

Response 4- 8

Rate the setting of ten in relation with the genre?

Response 1- 6

Response 2- 6

Response 3- 5

Response 4- 6

Rate the music of ten?

Response 1- 9

Response 2- 9

Response 3- 9

Response 4- 8

Did you feel there are any improvement that need to be made?

Response 1- Exposure varies.

Response 2- Maybe a better location?

Response 3- Colour correction needed

Response 4- Gym scene could have had dimmer lighting to feel more like a real gym scene.

Specifically which part of the film opening did you enjoy and why?

Response 1- The gym scene worked really well.

Response 2- Gym.

Response 3- Chase scene.

Response 4- Match cuts and how they linked with the gym scene, this made the narrative so much clearer.

Point Break Analysis

Source- https://wattfilms.blogspot.co.uk

Casino Royale Analysis

Source- https://wattfilms.blogspot.co.uk

Spectre Analysis

Source- https://wattfilms.blogspot.co.uk

My Ident

Action Films

History of Action Films

The early Action films include The Mask of Zorro and mostly Western films. The first Action films of the 40's and 50's included a lot of war and cowboy orientated narratives. Many of which inspired producers such as Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman to create a new form of Action film, the spy-adventure films, based upon novels from Ian Fleming. The 1960's was the introduction of James Bond films, this was pivotal to what we know now as an 'Action film'. It was the birth of the 'modern-day Action film'. This includes fast paced car chases and quick cutting between shots. In the 70's Bond had more competition in the Action genre. The 70's saw detective films and urban crime dramas  delve into the Action scene. Films such as: The French Connection and Dirty Harry. Asian Martial Arts also broke out into the Western cinema with the introduction of actors such as Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. Moving on to the 80's we saw actors such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone dominating the Action genre. Also, the combination of two forms of Action film was becoming more and more popular in an Action hybrid. For example, science fiction (The Terminator) and Horror-Action (Aliens and Predator). Penultimately, the 90's saw a lot more CGI in films such as Terminator 2 and one of the most successful films of all time Jurassic Park. Terminator 2 was also an example of the beginning of the film franchises, with producers starting to make sequels to films in order to generate more revenue from the newly formed 'franchise'. Finally, the 2000's and onwards have seen much more technology, not only within the films but also within the production also. For example, 3D has become very popular in recent years and with an increase in budgets for most high end movie studios, due to the increase in popularity in the film industry; the introduction of these things becomes much more popular and the advancements are much more realistic.

Conventions

• Most action films have a viewing certificate ranging from 12-15, this is because most Action films have a high budget and therefore need to make more money in the Box Office to succeed. In order to make more money in the Box Office, the film must be available to the majority of people. I believe our film would be rated 15 because their is often a bias for micro budget indie films to receive a higher viewing certificate than larger productions. Also, there is potential for violence in our film and the use of weapons.
• Can be hybridised with Sci-Fi/Advernture/Romance. The hybrid with another genre allows the film to targeted at a secondary target audience. In our film, there is a possibility that our film we become an Action Romance, the protagonist and his sidekick may form a relationship as the film progresses.
• Major Hollywood producers and distributers usually are involve in the production of Action films, this is where we challenge conventions, our film does not have the Hollywood budget and therefore does not have Hollywood producers and distributers. Our film is a micro budget indie film which is unusual for Action films as they usually use a lot of special affects and famous locations.
• Action films are often editing with a fast paced and our film conforms with this because our target audience is young adults and therefore we need to make sure to attract their attention towards our film.
• A common convention in Action films is the use of dramatic non-diegetic sound such as music. Though out our film opening we have fast paced music that builds to a crescendo to create suspense.
• The majority of Action films are set in famous locations such as London, New York and some European locations (especially in James Bond) such as Vienna. However, our location was less well known, this was down to our budget. Our location was a small, relatively unknown town in the North of England. This is unconventional because an Action film being set in a stereotypically working class area such as the North of England is rare as they usually portray middle class British actors.

Feedback on Rough Cut 4

Source- https://wattfilms.blogspot.co.uk

If you were to give the film opening a rating out of ten what would it be?

Response 1- 7

Response 2- 7

Response 3- 8

Response 4- 7

Was the narrative clear during the film opening? If not why?

Response 1- Yes.

Response 2- Yes.

Response 3- Yes.

Response 4- Yes.

Did you find the film opening engaging or did you find yourself bored?

Response 1- It was engaging and fast paced.

Response 2- The opening was engaging.

Response 3- No the music needs to be more appropriate to the scene. 

Response 4- Yes it was engaging.

Rate the cinematography out of ten?

Response 1- 6

Response 2- 7

Response 3- 7

Response 4- 7

Rate the editing out of ten?

Response 1- 9

Response 2- 7

Response 3- 8

Response 4- 8

Rate the Setting of ten in relation with the genre?

Response 1- 6

Response 2- 6

Response 3- 5

Response 4- 6

Rate the music of ten?

Response 1- 9

Response 2- 9

Response 3- 9

Response 4- 8

Did you feel there are any improvement that need to be made?

Response 1- Music needs to suit the scene.

Response 2- No.

Response 3- Need to improve the narrative.

Response 4- Extend the match cuts.

Specifically which part of the film opening did you enjoy and why?

Response 1- Match Cuts.

Response 2- Chase scene.

Response 3- Chase scene.

Response 4- Chase scene.

Rough Cut of the First Scene

This is only a rough cut because the audio will be cut from the clips and be replaced with the music that the rest of the opening will have. This is true for the second half of this scene. The first half will be raw audio of the cars and the natural surroundings to provide tension and a sense of authenticity, however, when the protagonist turns from his phone and into the chase, the music will abruptly begin.

The Brief: Storyboard

Storyboard 

This is the story board for the brief. We have followed it best we can, but this has not been possible because of various reasons such as:

• The weather - prevented us from filming all together.
• An idea which is better than the last one.
• Location problems - the angle has not worked in our favour.
• Time restraints

Source: http://wattfilms.blogspot.co.uk

Match Cuts Rough Cut 4

This rough cut opens with our titles, these may be the titles we use in the final cut but there is a possibility we will change our direction and use After Effects to change the motion of each title. On the other hand, these titles are fairly conventional in the action genre as they are animated.

There is also a possibility that the match cuts we have used here will no longer be used as match cuts, but instead in a separate opening scene that provides more of a narrative than we have currently. 

Media Essay: Digital Marketing and Consumption

Digital marketing is a form of advertising and a form of production. It includes many things such as: social media, television and radio broadcast. Over the course of this year I have researched two different British production companies to analyse how they produce their content. First of all I looked at Working Title. They are a British production company who are owned by a bigger US conglomerate (NBCUniversal). They usually work with high budgets and use big stars in their leading roles. Secondly, I looked at Warp. Warp are a British Indie production company who contrast to Working Title by working with smaller budgets and making social-realist films set for the most part in the north of England.

Working Title heavily use digital marketing to advertise their content. For example, with the film ‘About a Boy’ it was advertised on television and in some cases, radio stations advertised it too. About a Boy was made in 2002 so it was too early for digital marketing such as social media sites. However, because of the enormous budget of $30m Working Title were able to advertise it to the mass market on television. By using television Working Title could easily access a wide market but for a large cost. If About a Boy was made now it would probably be marketed on places such as YouTube or Twitter but in 2002 these things were not available to Working Title. The main character in About a Boy was Hugh Grant, he will have made getting on to radio stations much easier because he is a well-known ‘house-hold’ name thus giving Working Title an advantage over other production companies such as Warp.

In recent times things such as Google ads have made digital marketing much easier for production companies as it will advertise suggested ads for free. This means smaller companies like Warp can get their film advertised for free on a website. The way Warp use digital marketing is a bit different to Working Title as they do not have the mass amounts of money that they do. Warp will create a website domain for their film and for their most recent films they will most likely have a social media page as well, this is free and also accessible to the masses. One of Warp’s most successful films, ‘Four Lions’, was marketed using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to post the trailers and other information. Four Lion’s trailer was mainly marketed at a certain audience because they don't have the budget to market to the population that Working Title can.

The consumption of British film has changed dramatically over the years. Consumption is how the consumers are able to access the content produced by production companies such as Working Title and Warp. More specifically digital consumption includes platforms such as paid subscription based services and streaming sites such as YouTube.

Working Title’s titles are much more likely to appear on platforms like Netflix and Hulu due to the superior budgets. But most of their digital revenue will come from DVD or increasingly Blu-ray sales. This will be because of the digital camera becoming more popular with directors and producers. Working Title’s ‘The Boat That Rocked’ was released on DVD, Blu-ray and also as part of a streaming service even though it was released in 2009 which was the beginning of the rise of Blu-ray over DVD.

Similarly, Warp will distribute most of their content focusing on DVD sales. Warp don't have the budget to cover the costs of becoming established on a major subscription site such as Netflix, which is why Netflix produce a lot of their own shows to distribute to their consumers. ‘Four Lions’ was one of Warp’s highest earning films, but most of the revenue was not made through box office (although it did generate £6.9m) but instead the majority was the sales of DVDs.