Thursday, 7 April 2011

Evaluation

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

Film Noir is argued to be a movement rather than a genre, developing conventions where gender is manipulated to be empowering females, where women would have been subservient in the 1940’s. We have kept to the old Film Noir conventions but developed them by modernizing the conventions like ‘Sin City’ as it uses animations and colour to attract a modern audience. We used standard conventions but with a modern twist, trying to develop Film Noir so that it would suit today’s audience. We challenged the conventions of a thriller by subverting the music; as generally non-diegetic music is used to build atmosphere and tension; Jazz music was used to contrast to the action, additionally this connotes the female’s power, as these actions would be repeated on a daily bases, camera angles help connote her power using P.O.V.’s. A voice-over was replaced with dialogue and non-diegetic sounds, to suit a modern audience. We kept it black and white for the opening challenging standard thriller conventions, as people prefer watching coloured films, because of this we can modernise the film by using colour for the remaining time. Also adding in more modern changes with modern police and reporters helping to widen our target audience. The sub genre is made apparent by the contrasting gender with most thrillers having males as the dominant role, also using expressive lighting to create a sinister atmosphere, also connoting the female’s significance, and black and white. Sin City was our main influence, however we broadened our understanding with, LA Confidential and BatMan. Although they are not black and white, they connote the darkness and power much like our piece. Ideas of corruption as shown throw both films; we wanted to portray this in our opening, as it is a common convention of Film Noir.

To sum up I think that I have got a good mix of developed and challenging conventions. The reason for this was to make the Film Noir be attractive for a younger audience, with use of low angles and close ups connoting the female’s significance. Also how I have used my research of other thrillers to help influence my work, this is the section where I needed to experiment with other thrillers, as it would allow me to challenge my pieces conventions, helping it suit a wider audience.


2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Film Noir is set in the 40’s when women were subservient to males. Film Noir represents the female gender to be dominant, unlike many thriller films which often represent males as the more authoritative gender. The use of low angles and close ups help connote her powerful status, PO.V.’s allow for the female to have much more screen time than the other males, this helps connote her significance in the opening, we found that this was essential to connote her powerful status. Whereas close ups and high angles connote Tom’s weakness as he left helpless, in comparison to Heather’s complete power, this was mainly in the last scene on Tom being tortured. Where people where gambling, close up’s were a great way to show facial expression as in many shots we wanted Tom’s fearfulness and nervousness to be connoted through series of close ups, The use of camera clearly represent’s the difference in dominance, as Tom’s character is presented as weak once faced with the female character, connoting her dominance.

I used camera angles and distances to help connote the female’s dominant status, as females are stereotypically subservient to males in thrillers. My piece due to its genre, challenges stereotypical assumptions, and uses camera and lighting to empathise the female’s power and males weakness.


3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Independents could invest in the film; this is because Film Noir has a niche market, ultimately making it pointless to release it in mainstream cinema. Therefore DVD and TV is where the film should be distributed. Our piece uses German Expressionism, as we used expressive lighting to create large shadows that connote the female’s dominance in comparison to the males. Additionally the film could be released as an Art House film, delivering to a niche audience. Film Noir was prominat in the 40’s therefore it would needed updating to compete in the 21st century market, with a modern twist on the conventions, in context of today’s society. Due to the film being in black and white, set in the 40’s, and my target audience research, I think the audience would be a middle aged adult. The Internet would be a good way to gain a new target market, as few people are familiar with the genre, therefore the Internet may attract a wider audience to our modernised genre.

Film Noir being a niche genre, distribution is limited therefore linking into other genres is a good way of reaching a wider audience. Art House and German expressionism are two separate genres with similar conventions that I can help use to reach that wider audience.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Due to the violent nature that is shown through the Femme Fatale, the film would not appeal to anyone below the age of 15. Therefore we used our research on BBFC, to rate the film 15, as the content is more suggestive than scary. On a wider scale Film Noir generally has an older audience, on the other hand it fits in the Crime Thriller genre, which will help widen the audience suggesting that those who are younger may enjoy the overall film. Modernising our opening so that it is more similar to thrillers nowadays will attract a wider audience, as it will not be too specific to Film Noir. Our piece is not gender specific as the crime genre is mainly male orientated, however, the film empowers the female gender which contrasts with similar thrillers. Gender is very important in Film Noir and is one of the only genres where woman are the more powerful.

The audience could be any where from 15 to 80, but with a modern twist I hope to target a younger audience, which will make the Film Noir’s genres audience wider, this is related to Film Noir fitting into Crime Thrillers. Also because of the dominant female gender, the film is not gender specific as it has conventions that will attract both male and female. We did not do enough research on other similar Film Noir’s and whom they attract, this is something I could have done to work out a more detailed target audience.

5.How did you attract/address your audience?

We used questionnaires to begin with – and throughout the process to find out the audience views within the thriller genre, where the majority of people enjoyed Crime Thrillers. For target audience feedback we used Facebook and YouTube, the feedback was used to improve our piece making changes to editing and shot fluency. As its rated a 15, we used P.O.V.’s to include the audience within the section, furthermore creating a sense that the audience are witnessing something horrific. This justifies why the BBFC rate is 15, as young children would find the piece too scary. Film Noir uses P.O.V’s connote the females power but also empathise her violence. If I had the chance I would add to my research, getting a wider audience to fill in the questionnaire but also make the questions more specific. Also use the audience feedback more often as it will help improve the piece during the making processes instead of an evaluating stage at the end.

Using Facebook and YouTube as a good way for me to get feedback, however it was something I needed to do throughout getting constant feedback and improvements. Also I needed to use my research more specifically as I did not find out exactly the Film Noir audience or thriller audience, this then hindered my production. But how we addressed the audience I feel we had done well using P.O.V.’s and close ups. We are addressing our audience instantly by connoting corruption using bold camera angles and expressive lighting.


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

I found that the camera was very easy to learn to use, but the editing software was much more difficult and took several attempts to get right. A simple problem that we faced was the camera becoming blurred, this was not apparent until we loaded the footage onto premier causing us to reshoot and waste time. As well as this, the tripod easily became uneven making our shots appear wonky. I think the camera equipment is good; to make sure we didn’t make the same mistakes twice we did general checks on all equipment before filming for our 2-minute opening. During our editing we had several problems with the Mac’s as we were unable to get them to import the file, this was a major problem as it stopped the groups progression, we resolved this by uploading the clips separately then importing the files onto the desktop. My overall all use on Adobe Premier has improved dramatically as I now am able to use the majority of the tools for example import/ export files, crop clips and sounds and also enter new title, also it has taught me to look at certain things like shot lengths and transitions of shots which are vital in making the piece smooth and flow.

To evaluate modern technology has allowed me to produce a professional film sequence, mainly being able to use a digital video camera to upload the clips to a Mac easily and us to create an advanced and quickly, this made the filming process very quick. We had our set backs with technologies but was able to overcome them. My skills on the editing software have improved dramatically as I am now able to understand why particular shots are used to create mise – en – scene. But also to asses the strengths and weakness of the group, and where we could have done things different to allow progress to carry on.

7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you think you’ve learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Since the Continuity task I have learnt the importance of research and planning, although we did a lot of planning, we found it was not thorough enough as we straightaway abandoned our shot list. Our lack of planning was made evident when we finished our shot list by only getting 1-minute 20 worth of footage out of our 2-minute deadline. However as the task progressed we were able to plan a lot better sticking to our schedule and making each filming session more beneficial. I believe we have successfully completed the task set out to us, as we have met the criteria. Furthermore I think we have got some good shots that are slightly different to the normal thrillers. The final piece was much harder than Prelim Task as we needed an extra 50 seconds of filming. In all aspects of the filming process we needed it to be much more thorough, planning our shot list was going to be a priority, this was something that we did not take into consideration for our Prelim but needed to do, and especially think of shot variations because of our Genre. Film Noir has aided our genre, this is because we where able to challenge standard Thriller conventions. One of the being how gender was represented, we where able to use the camera to connote the Femme Fatales significance where in many thriller, camera would not be used as strongly to connote power.

Mainly important the research and planning stages are as they will determine the rest of the project. But also how I have learnt new skills and become more confidant when using the camera as I am now able to understand shot meanings and why angles and distances are used. These are things that I did not know before the prelim task and now use for my final piece.

Target Audience Evaluation

"I think the content of it is great how you lot have added effects such as black and white instead of colour gives it that classy look, but the transitions of when tom is getting beaten up could do with a minor tweak when heather hits him round with a bat make it more believable to make it more believable but other than that, I like how with every blinking eye that video blacks out"

The beginning shots are varied which show the thought that went into shooting and storyboarding, it also makes it look more professional. In some places around 0.36 the audio from the actors are slightly quiet and drowned out by the music but the idea of it is there and the shots are good. The transitions could be smoother but the sharp effect makes it more interesting. The varied shots after 1.08 are good as they add an effect to the film and makes it more appealing to watch. I also think after 1.28, how the shots go black as he is blinking is a very effective way of showing it, makes it different and more powerful and engaging to watch. The only thing i'd say that needs improving is the sound control at 0.36, but apart from that the film is well made and shot.

The dialogue at start too quite

Target Evaluation –
After getting back to our audience we found that the majority of people enjoyed watching the opening, however there where parts that can be improved, also people thought that we could redo the dialogue due to it being too quite. People began to think that the black and white effects was done to make the opening seem “classy” however this was not our goal, we wanted to produce a Film Noir that went back to the originals, therefore we used black and white. There for perhaps we needed to re think our target audience due to the current target audience not understanding the concept of the film, however this could become more apparent for the rest of the film.

Everyone said that the first 30 seconds or so, was great and looked very professional, but began to slip towards the end. Therefore this was mainly down to the editing at the end, as it seemed inconsistent with the rest of the opening. Because of this we need to go back and look at our editing making sure that the shots where more fluent, as people felt it is not as good as it could be. One shot in specific that we need to edit is the shot where tom gets hit, the reason for this is the audience felt that it was not believe able and was obvious that he wasn’t hit, furthermore if he was hit, he would be injured significantly and unable to be pleading afterwards. This was very useful information as it allowed us to rethink certain shots and get an idea on what the audience want to see, therefore I think that we need to go back and change some of editing pace, so that the scene becomes more believe able for the audience. Additionally people felt that the dialogue was not to standard with gambling dialogue not being loud enough due to the music, we needed to change this as the dialogue denotes toms weakness being vital to our Film Noir genre.

After looking back out our target audience research, I found that it was not accurate this caused us to consequently produce a film for the incorrect target audience. We had not done enough research on what I target audience wanted from our opening, as not many people knew about the Film Noir genre. Because our target audience research was not as thorough as we thought miss leading us through our planning and actual making of the opening to our final stage where we found that we could have done more research. To sum up, our research on target audience was not good enough, it meant that our final product did not have the correct audience, this meant that we needed to improve our target audience research so that we knew exactly what people wanted from a thriller, also a gap that could be filled in the thriller market, hot a film that works but no audience enjoys watching it.

Final Piece

Typography Changes

We have had to make many changes one of them was our Typography, as we found that it was too cartoony and did not go with our chosen genre. After doing some group research we found that Serif was the main font used in Film Noir titles. Therefore we chose to use this for our titles keeping to the codes and conventions of Film Noir. The reason that Film Noir use Serif is mainly because it is a very simplistic text, also help to create a mysterious atmosphere to the opening of the scene which is generally created with in Film Noir.

Teachers Feedback 2

After speaking to the teacher who gave us some feedback on our progress and how we can improve our opening. First of all we needed to decide how we where going to fill the last 40 seconds, we proposed some of our ideas, and then together we narrowed it down to one with the teachers input keeping in mind the convention of Film Noir. This then lead on to using the extra 40 seconds to make the female more of a violent and aggressive character, furthermore how we were going to film the actions. He advised us to use as many bold and daring shots as possible connoting the female’s dominance. The feedback given on our editing was, we needed to rearrange some of the shots, perhaps add some in to help it flow also we needed to keep in mind the length of each shot as there was no rhythm. Non Diegetic music was not thought of much, however we where told that a contrasting sound track would connote the violence seen on screen. I think that going and getting a teachers opinion on our work was a vital stage as it has allowed us to get the most from the shots that we had, also is a great learning curve to what problems we have faced and how we can improve.

Rough Cut Evaluation

Our Rough Cut was not long enough as we still had roughly 40 seconds to go. Therefore we where going to have to come up with some more footage that will fill in the gap and allow us to further connote the female’s dominance. The title sequence that we had put in for the opening was well positioned however we had picked a inappropriate font to be used with our specific sub genre, therefore we choice Serif Sans as it is a much more simplistic font, that will go with the conventions of a Film Noir better, this will also help the shots flow. We found that making our shots flow was harder than we expected, this was mainly down to our film not being properly edited but because of this there was no rhythm making our piece seem jumpy, this is mainly where tom was taken from the chair and put on the floor and finally put in a sac, these 3 shots needed to be edited smoother, as currently they did not make sense confusing the audience as they watched it. We tried to correct this briefly by making the shot length nearly the same where possible. This is something that we are definitely going to have to amend for our final cut. We also found that using transitions could be a possibility for our final piece, as this would hopefully make some shots flow easier. The diegetic sounds that where on the piece needed to be re done, as we are unable to hear the conversation-taking place out side. We also needed to change around the dialogue at the pool table as the accents used did not suit the aim of creating a Film Noir opening. Non – diegetic music was not added and this is something that we need to think about for our final piece, as it is essential to build tension in a scene. Lighting was also a problem in our first attempt, as all of our indoor shots where way to dark; we need to over come this by reshooting or changing the contrast on premier. Lastly I felt that there was not enough bold shots like Close Ups and P.O.V.’s used to capture the female’s dominance and help connote her significance over the males.

To sum up, my rough cut taught me that I needed to change some things with my piece. Also for things like editing where shot lengths and fluency is a very important part that I hadn’t thought of, this makes the piece seem very jumpy and unprofessional. Also about how important my research was, as we needed to go back and look at conventions of Film Noir that we can integrate back into the next 40 seconds of the opening, this would also help connote the Femi Fatal dominance being a very important convention of Film Noir.

To sum up, my rough cut taught me that I needed to change some things with my piece. In particular editing where shot lengths and fluency is a very important part that I hadn’t thought of, which makes the piece seem very jumpy and unprofessional. ( comment on a specific part of the opening so it is in context) is thereanythong else about the rough cut that you learned

I realised how important my research was, as we needed to go back and look at conventions of Film Noir so that we can integrate back into the next 40 seconds of the opening different elements, showing how the genre is not only familiar, but also different; this would also help the audience identify with the opening and connote the Femme Fatale dominance being a very important aspect of it