Sunday, 29 March 2015
Thursday, 26 March 2015
Evaluation - Question 1
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iq-FQOoOaL-s7ECfjQQUYKwhdqarB7G81Os0UA4ga0s/edit
Click on the link to view Question 1 of my evaluation
Click on the link to view Question 1 of my evaluation
Evaluation - Question 2
If the slideshow does not work, this is the link: http://www.slideshare.net/njpowersx/question-2-media-46317301
Evaluation - Question 3
What have you learned from your audience
feedback?
How did you respond to the original brief with the audience in mind?
Straight away, we were asking questions such as what would we like our genre to be? What would our target audience be? How can we do this? We finally came up with a storyline each and we congregated all our ideas together and came up with a final piece.
After creating the storyline and looking at the guidelines on the BBFC website, we decided that our film would be targeted at 15+ teenagers/young adults as our film did not contain hard drug abuse and strong language but did include upsetting scenes. For our brief, we were asked to make a 5 minute original film for our advanced portfolio, our group decided on a psychological thriller. Last year when we did our two minute film for our foundation portfolio, it was hard as we had never done anything like it before so we knew this year it would more difficult to create an interesting storyline and to execute it well but it was easier as we knew the technology and the software we were using. Our AS film was a psychological thriller, which made it considerably easier for us to do research and we were familiar with what had to be included and how to do certain things. We wanted to create a film that appealed to the older teenagers and young adults, so we created a questionnaire including the storyline and asked people from ages 15-25 what they thought before we carried out the filming. Majority of the respondents were positive and said they would like to see it in cinema.
What we did for our audience research?
For our audience research, the group did a post on blogger about the potential audience and did some research into it. We decided we wanted our film, Lost Possession, was going to be a 15 as it was a complicated storyline and at that point, there could have been some drug use in the mental institute scenes. Looking at the BBFC website, we looked at what was to be included in a 15 rated film and the difference to a 12A, this is how we decided on it being a 15 because of some of the content that may be shown. We asked random people around college some questions about our film, we used both male and females of different ages and asked them what they thought of the film and what we could do to improve it, this was helpful within our research as it allowed us to see some non-biased opinions about the film as they were people we did not know. We later asked people on Facebook what they had thought. They had to watch a YouTube clip of the rough cut of our film and then answer the following questionnaire, we then could see what they thought was a good aspect of the film and what could be improved.
Why was identifying our audience important?
Identifying our audience was important straight away. As soon as we knew what the target audience would be, we could start researching what to include in our film and what not to include on the BBFC website because of the age certificates. Our film was aimed at 15+ teenagers and young adults. Straight away, the audience helped us decide on a final storyline which would appeal to them as it a big concern and their feedback helped tremendously. In our original storyline, it includes a mother who dies, we thought this would be more appealing towards the female audience so we added some psychological and thrilling aspects that could encourage the male audience more to watch the film. Some people said the storyline seemed complicated, this helped us as we knew we had to include more conversations into the film so it is more understood by the audience.
Video Questionnaire:
One of the creative decisions we made as I have mentioned previously in this evaluation was the video questionnaire. It was significant because we could include real answers that were honest as they didn't have time to think about their answer so we could see the actual response. It also helped me personally, to get to know the camera more on a personal level as it gave me some experience on how to work it moreover, since I had not used Final Cut Express since the previous year, we all took it in turns to edit the video questionnaire together, this gave us all the chance to better our skills at editing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5FNl8R-MP0 This is the link to the video questionnaire.
Rough Cut:
The rough cut wasn't optional as we had to upload one. This was a good idea as we could upload the film and show the audience what we had put together so far without the actual finished product. We attached a questionnaire to the rough cut link where the audience had to fill it in and answer the following questions, this way we could see what their opinions were before we finished our end product without their interpretation of the film. Some responses talked about the music in the rough cut, saying we needed more that suited the genre and more in general. We asked them if they thought an all female cast was appropriate and it was a mixed response as some said yes and some said no. This all in all helped us create the film we have as they have had a say in what needs improving and what didn't.
Questionnaire Responses:
The rough cut and questionnaire actually really helped us finish our final film as their ideas about the music needed encouraged us to include some more in parts we had not thought of. As the storyline is quite original, we didn't want to create the same cliché, conventional psychological thriller, so throughout the film, sad piano music was added so by the end the audience was not expecting Katherine to have been the killer of their Mother. After asking them more detailed questions about what sort of music needs to be included, they said more thrilling parts therefore at the end of our film we added a car crash sound which is shocking at the end as it is unexpected.
How did you respond to the original brief with the audience in mind?
Straight away, we were asking questions such as what would we like our genre to be? What would our target audience be? How can we do this? We finally came up with a storyline each and we congregated all our ideas together and came up with a final piece.After creating the storyline and looking at the guidelines on the BBFC website, we decided that our film would be targeted at 15+ teenagers/young adults as our film did not contain hard drug abuse and strong language but did include upsetting scenes. For our brief, we were asked to make a 5 minute original film for our advanced portfolio, our group decided on a psychological thriller. Last year when we did our two minute film for our foundation portfolio, it was hard as we had never done anything like it before so we knew this year it would more difficult to create an interesting storyline and to execute it well but it was easier as we knew the technology and the software we were using. Our AS film was a psychological thriller, which made it considerably easier for us to do research and we were familiar with what had to be included and how to do certain things. We wanted to create a film that appealed to the older teenagers and young adults, so we created a questionnaire including the storyline and asked people from ages 15-25 what they thought before we carried out the filming. Majority of the respondents were positive and said they would like to see it in cinema.
For our audience research, the group did a post on blogger about the potential audience and did some research into it. We decided we wanted our film, Lost Possession, was going to be a 15 as it was a complicated storyline and at that point, there could have been some drug use in the mental institute scenes. Looking at the BBFC website, we looked at what was to be included in a 15 rated film and the difference to a 12A, this is how we decided on it being a 15 because of some of the content that may be shown. We asked random people around college some questions about our film, we used both male and females of different ages and asked them what they thought of the film and what we could do to improve it, this was helpful within our research as it allowed us to see some non-biased opinions about the film as they were people we did not know. We later asked people on Facebook what they had thought. They had to watch a YouTube clip of the rough cut of our film and then answer the following questionnaire, we then could see what they thought was a good aspect of the film and what could be improved.
Why was identifying our audience important?
Identifying our audience was important straight away. As soon as we knew what the target audience would be, we could start researching what to include in our film and what not to include on the BBFC website because of the age certificates. Our film was aimed at 15+ teenagers and young adults. Straight away, the audience helped us decide on a final storyline which would appeal to them as it a big concern and their feedback helped tremendously. In our original storyline, it includes a mother who dies, we thought this would be more appealing towards the female audience so we added some psychological and thrilling aspects that could encourage the male audience more to watch the film. Some people said the storyline seemed complicated, this helped us as we knew we had to include more conversations into the film so it is more understood by the audience.
Video Questionnaire:
One of the creative decisions we made as I have mentioned previously in this evaluation was the video questionnaire. It was significant because we could include real answers that were honest as they didn't have time to think about their answer so we could see the actual response. It also helped me personally, to get to know the camera more on a personal level as it gave me some experience on how to work it moreover, since I had not used Final Cut Express since the previous year, we all took it in turns to edit the video questionnaire together, this gave us all the chance to better our skills at editing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5FNl8R-MP0 This is the link to the video questionnaire.
Rough Cut: The rough cut wasn't optional as we had to upload one. This was a good idea as we could upload the film and show the audience what we had put together so far without the actual finished product. We attached a questionnaire to the rough cut link where the audience had to fill it in and answer the following questions, this way we could see what their opinions were before we finished our end product without their interpretation of the film. Some responses talked about the music in the rough cut, saying we needed more that suited the genre and more in general. We asked them if they thought an all female cast was appropriate and it was a mixed response as some said yes and some said no. This all in all helped us create the film we have as they have had a say in what needs improving and what didn't.
Questionnaire Responses:
The rough cut and questionnaire actually really helped us finish our final film as their ideas about the music needed encouraged us to include some more in parts we had not thought of. As the storyline is quite original, we didn't want to create the same cliché, conventional psychological thriller, so throughout the film, sad piano music was added so by the end the audience was not expecting Katherine to have been the killer of their Mother. After asking them more detailed questions about what sort of music needs to be included, they said more thrilling parts therefore at the end of our film we added a car crash sound which is shocking at the end as it is unexpected.
Monday, 23 March 2015
Evaluation: Question 4
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Filming Equipment
Sony HD 1000 Camera:
I loved working with this camera as it gave clear, high definition results to our shots, also provided us with great advantages as we could experiment with shots as it often gave a professional result. This camera has a good depth of field which made our shots look very realistic and professional. Compared to the cameras we used in our first year project the camera transformed the shots and the manual focus were very helpful in many shots, mainly our close ups. We feel that this camera was very easy to operate and captured the shot and audio up perfectly. The only downside to this camera is that it took a while to import our footage onto the Mac's, even though this wasn't a major issue with the actual manufacture of the camera, we felt that it wasted time which we could have been editing. However overall I really enjoyed working with this camera as it was easy to set up with the tripod and gave amazing results on our shots.
Zoom Recorder:
The Zoom recorder were very useful when it came to the production of our film, as in the narrative we have a voice over from the mother who has unfortunately passed away. So we used the zoom recorder to capture this audio who is reading a letter, I felt it was easy to work the zoom recorder and captured the sound clearly. The only fault there is with the zoom recorder was it picked up everything, including breathing and slight mistakes. However we felt it was very easy to edit this when we imported the audio. We used the zoom recorder again for our Radio Trailer and found that if you don't hold it so close then it picks up the audio more clearly without any mistakes. Overall we was very happy with our results using the zoom recorder as it was hassle free and wasn't time consuming as the audio was easy to record and import.
We had another option of going into recording studios in college to record our audio, however we felt we didn't need to, as even though the result may have been better, that option would have been very time consuming, and as the slight breathing is captured on the zoom recorder it adds to the emotion of the letter that is being recorded. So therefore we was very happy with our choice and wouldn't change the audio.
Digital Cameras, Fujifilm
In the process of our production we decided to make a photo diary of our filming which we used my Fujifilm Finepix S2980, by using this it was very easy to take places with us as it was light weight and I already knew how to use it. However the other people in my group didn't find it difficult to use and we ended up using it as a group camera.
By using digital camera's it helped us provide primary photographs for many things in our planning and production:
We used it for our character profiles, to get shots of our characters in costume and make up.
We used it for our location photos, which gave clear shots of our potential location for our film.
We also used it for our Photo storyboards and Title sequence storyboards, which we took in the process of planning to help map out our shots.
Overall we used this camera to help mainly in our planning and research as it was just very easy to handle and was very convenient.
We also used another Digital Camera which was better for our more professional photographs for our film poster etc, so we used the
Panasonic DMC-GF5 to achieve the best quality photos we could so then our film poster would look more professional which would increase our success. We used the two digital camera to our advantage and used the appropriate and most convenient camera when needed, which overall as a group we were happy with both results.
Research
Internet and Google Search Engine
When it came to planning and research the internet and Google were our main resources as it provided us with many websites that we then went on to use, and provided us with accurate information which would have potentially ruined our main product without it, for example location details. Without the internet our research and planning would have been very limited and I feel the internet has impacted on our main product as it gave us the resources and websites to plan.
YouTube
I personally used YouTube a lot through the process of planning and production as through planning I researched into Title Sequences and other similar films which fit with our genre. This helped us with planning as we all did individual research and then came back as a group to discuss and plan. YouTube was very helpful as when it came to uploading our radio trailer, rough cut and our final film, it was accessible to a wide ranged audience which we could get feedback from, plus as it was uploaded on a worldwide website we weren't restricted on who it was available to.
Facebook
Again similarly to YouTube, we used a worldwide known social networking site, Facebook, to collect feedback on our on-line questionnaires about our rough cut and final film. As all our group had Facebook Accounts it was very easy for us to all 'share' our link to the questionnaire so then more people would see it, and we would potentially get more feedback. As it is worldwide we also included it on our film poster at the bottom to link media platforms, as we linked it to a Facebook page for our film, Lost Possession.
Without Facebook we wouldn't have a stable platform were we could recieve honest feedback, as majority of people who our audience is targetted at would possibly have Facebook, so by using a media platform were we can recieve feedback from the right audience helps us get structive criticisms and helps make our film more successful.
Google Docs and Google Images
We used Google Docs mainly to create our on-line questionnaires for our initial film idea, our rough cut and our film poster, which we then uploaded on Facebook. Google Docs were very helpful in creating questionnaires as we used Google Sheets which were easy to operate and was helpful when creating multiple choice questions and extended questions. Google Images played a big part when it came to research as when we did individual research we looked into similar films, iconography and the genre itself, the images helped illustrate what we wanted to achieve in the post production stages and helped visualise what our main product would look like. Overall Google Docs and Images helped thoroughly with post production and was very easy to maneuver.
Ipiccy.com
I used this website when creating my own individual rough film poster, I wanted to personally experiment with editing websites and I didn't feel confident on Photoshop on my own. So therefore I used Ipiccy.com which is an on-line editing website, I was quite happy with my result however I felt that the final film poster had a more professional look to it by using Photoshop. However I enjoyed using different websites just to see if it could be done a different way. I did find it very easy to add layers and edit the contrast and brightness etc. I think this website is better to be used to edit normal photographs and not to create professional film posters, however the result weren't as bad as I expected it to be.
Digital Software:
We have used Final Cut Express editing software throughout our first year film and this year for our second year film, and I personally think it is priceless. Everything it so easy to operate and has a place which is easy to find, also this software give you the opportunity to edit and add visual effects, adapt audio if needed and add transitions, text and music. I am thoroughly happy with this software as I find it very easy to use and we wouldn't have a film we were proud of if not.
We got the chance to experiment this year by adding more transitions it to make it flow better, including Fade in Fade out effect. Colour corrector was a very useful feature which we used often to make sure all our clips matched, this was helpful as by correcting it with technology saved us from manually going to film it again in the same lighting etc. It saved us a lot of time as it wasn't difficult to merge clips and audio. The only downfall was it took a long time to export the film, however it is understandable with the memory size of the film. Overall I am thrilled with the results due to this software and would like to use this software on personal projects in the future as I'm very satisfied with the structure and results of Final Cut Express.
Photoshop
When we first started to create our final film poster I wasn't personally confident with Photoshop, as the layout etc threw me a little. However a member of my group knew how to work Photoshop quite well, in which I learned a lot about how to layer images and texts, and how to change the contrast etc. I now feel more confident with this editing software and overall I think the film poster looks very professional and sophisticated. Especially in comparison to the rough film poster I made on Ipiccy.com.
Evaluation and Extras:
Prezi- Presentation software
I really enjoyed using this software last year in my evaluation and find it just as enjoyable this year. I like how you can make an evaluation question look visual by having it in a presentation. I chose templates that suit and relate to what I am talking about in my evaluation. I feel this is a good way to summarise all the process of creating a film, and assembles all initial ideas, planning and research. I would definitely use this in the future if I ever had to do my own presentations.
Celtx
In the process of post production, we used the software of Celtx to script our dialogue which was going to be used in the film. As we have previously used this in our Preliminary exercise and our Foundation Portfolio, we already knew how to use it and it is very straight forward when coming to scripting. I wrote out the rough scripts onto Celtx as I felt comfortable doing so, and I feel it is one of them very manageable software's that takes little concentration which I enjoyed as it weren't a difficult process which made it very quick to do which favoured us as it gave us more time to film and edit.
Blogger
Last but certainly not the least, Blogger, I feel that blogger is a great way to show collectively what our group has done, It was very easy to keep our work organized and we could quickly identify if anything needed doing or were missing. As a group I feel we have separated our posts equally when it came to group work, I find that blogger is a great way to create multimedia posts by easily including YouTube videos, audio and images. This makes the overall blog look more visual and professional. Without Blogger our work would be all over the place and we wouldn't be able to present everything we have done in the project in a collective and assembled way. We changed the layout on our blog to make it look more professional by widening the blog post so then everything looked neat and presentable. I have never found any difficulties through the process of working with Blogger and I would definitely use this website in the future when it came to group projects.
Overall I feel our choices as a group with new media technologies have helped us produce a great film with a radio trailer and film poster to promote it. Without the access to the internet, editing software such a Final Cut Express and getting the chance to use a more professional camera, I feel our film wouldn't be as successful and we wouldn't have been as happy with the outcome.
Filming Equipment
I loved working with this camera as it gave clear, high definition results to our shots, also provided us with great advantages as we could experiment with shots as it often gave a professional result. This camera has a good depth of field which made our shots look very realistic and professional. Compared to the cameras we used in our first year project the camera transformed the shots and the manual focus were very helpful in many shots, mainly our close ups. We feel that this camera was very easy to operate and captured the shot and audio up perfectly. The only downside to this camera is that it took a while to import our footage onto the Mac's, even though this wasn't a major issue with the actual manufacture of the camera, we felt that it wasted time which we could have been editing. However overall I really enjoyed working with this camera as it was easy to set up with the tripod and gave amazing results on our shots.
Zoom Recorder:
The Zoom recorder were very useful when it came to the production of our film, as in the narrative we have a voice over from the mother who has unfortunately passed away. So we used the zoom recorder to capture this audio who is reading a letter, I felt it was easy to work the zoom recorder and captured the sound clearly. The only fault there is with the zoom recorder was it picked up everything, including breathing and slight mistakes. However we felt it was very easy to edit this when we imported the audio. We used the zoom recorder again for our Radio Trailer and found that if you don't hold it so close then it picks up the audio more clearly without any mistakes. Overall we was very happy with our results using the zoom recorder as it was hassle free and wasn't time consuming as the audio was easy to record and import.
We had another option of going into recording studios in college to record our audio, however we felt we didn't need to, as even though the result may have been better, that option would have been very time consuming, and as the slight breathing is captured on the zoom recorder it adds to the emotion of the letter that is being recorded. So therefore we was very happy with our choice and wouldn't change the audio.
Digital Cameras, Fujifilm
By using digital camera's it helped us provide primary photographs for many things in our planning and production:
We used it for our character profiles, to get shots of our characters in costume and make up.
We used it for our location photos, which gave clear shots of our potential location for our film.
We also used it for our Photo storyboards and Title sequence storyboards, which we took in the process of planning to help map out our shots.Overall we used this camera to help mainly in our planning and research as it was just very easy to handle and was very convenient.
We also used another Digital Camera which was better for our more professional photographs for our film poster etc, so we used the
Panasonic DMC-GF5 to achieve the best quality photos we could so then our film poster would look more professional which would increase our success. We used the two digital camera to our advantage and used the appropriate and most convenient camera when needed, which overall as a group we were happy with both results.
Research
When it came to planning and research the internet and Google were our main resources as it provided us with many websites that we then went on to use, and provided us with accurate information which would have potentially ruined our main product without it, for example location details. Without the internet our research and planning would have been very limited and I feel the internet has impacted on our main product as it gave us the resources and websites to plan.
YouTube
I personally used YouTube a lot through the process of planning and production as through planning I researched into Title Sequences and other similar films which fit with our genre. This helped us with planning as we all did individual research and then came back as a group to discuss and plan. YouTube was very helpful as when it came to uploading our radio trailer, rough cut and our final film, it was accessible to a wide ranged audience which we could get feedback from, plus as it was uploaded on a worldwide website we weren't restricted on who it was available to.Without Facebook we wouldn't have a stable platform were we could recieve honest feedback, as majority of people who our audience is targetted at would possibly have Facebook, so by using a media platform were we can recieve feedback from the right audience helps us get structive criticisms and helps make our film more successful.
BBFC
BBFC were our starting point on our project as before we started planning or researching into potential genres, we looked at what age certificates actually required. We researched into films that have been banned or being resubmitted as a different age certificate and considered what potential audience we wanted to aim our film at. So for me BBFC website helped to clarify and show us the age classification framework for our age certificate '15'. This then showed us what was accepted and denied in 15 age rated films.
Google Docs and Google Images
We used Google Docs mainly to create our on-line questionnaires for our initial film idea, our rough cut and our film poster, which we then uploaded on Facebook. Google Docs were very helpful in creating questionnaires as we used Google Sheets which were easy to operate and was helpful when creating multiple choice questions and extended questions. Google Images played a big part when it came to research as when we did individual research we looked into similar films, iconography and the genre itself, the images helped illustrate what we wanted to achieve in the post production stages and helped visualise what our main product would look like. Overall Google Docs and Images helped thoroughly with post production and was very easy to maneuver.
I used this website when creating my own individual rough film poster, I wanted to personally experiment with editing websites and I didn't feel confident on Photoshop on my own. So therefore I used Ipiccy.com which is an on-line editing website, I was quite happy with my result however I felt that the final film poster had a more professional look to it by using Photoshop. However I enjoyed using different websites just to see if it could be done a different way. I did find it very easy to add layers and edit the contrast and brightness etc. I think this website is better to be used to edit normal photographs and not to create professional film posters, however the result weren't as bad as I expected it to be.
Digital Software:
Final Cut Express
We got the chance to experiment this year by adding more transitions it to make it flow better, including Fade in Fade out effect. Colour corrector was a very useful feature which we used often to make sure all our clips matched, this was helpful as by correcting it with technology saved us from manually going to film it again in the same lighting etc. It saved us a lot of time as it wasn't difficult to merge clips and audio. The only downfall was it took a long time to export the film, however it is understandable with the memory size of the film. Overall I am thrilled with the results due to this software and would like to use this software on personal projects in the future as I'm very satisfied with the structure and results of Final Cut Express.
When we first started to create our final film poster I wasn't personally confident with Photoshop, as the layout etc threw me a little. However a member of my group knew how to work Photoshop quite well, in which I learned a lot about how to layer images and texts, and how to change the contrast etc. I now feel more confident with this editing software and overall I think the film poster looks very professional and sophisticated. Especially in comparison to the rough film poster I made on Ipiccy.com.
Evaluation and Extras:
Prezi- Presentation software
I really enjoyed using this software last year in my evaluation and find it just as enjoyable this year. I like how you can make an evaluation question look visual by having it in a presentation. I chose templates that suit and relate to what I am talking about in my evaluation. I feel this is a good way to summarise all the process of creating a film, and assembles all initial ideas, planning and research. I would definitely use this in the future if I ever had to do my own presentations.
In the process of post production, we used the software of Celtx to script our dialogue which was going to be used in the film. As we have previously used this in our Preliminary exercise and our Foundation Portfolio, we already knew how to use it and it is very straight forward when coming to scripting. I wrote out the rough scripts onto Celtx as I felt comfortable doing so, and I feel it is one of them very manageable software's that takes little concentration which I enjoyed as it weren't a difficult process which made it very quick to do which favoured us as it gave us more time to film and edit.
BloggerLast but certainly not the least, Blogger, I feel that blogger is a great way to show collectively what our group has done, It was very easy to keep our work organized and we could quickly identify if anything needed doing or were missing. As a group I feel we have separated our posts equally when it came to group work, I find that blogger is a great way to create multimedia posts by easily including YouTube videos, audio and images. This makes the overall blog look more visual and professional. Without Blogger our work would be all over the place and we wouldn't be able to present everything we have done in the project in a collective and assembled way. We changed the layout on our blog to make it look more professional by widening the blog post so then everything looked neat and presentable. I have never found any difficulties through the process of working with Blogger and I would definitely use this website in the future when it came to group projects.
Overall I feel our choices as a group with new media technologies have helped us produce a great film with a radio trailer and film poster to promote it. Without the access to the internet, editing software such a Final Cut Express and getting the chance to use a more professional camera, I feel our film wouldn't be as successful and we wouldn't have been as happy with the outcome.
Saturday, 21 March 2015
Thursday, 19 March 2015
Evaluation Question 3
Evaluation Q3
link -http://www.slideshare.net/shannonhulme77/what-have-you-learned-from-your-audience-feedback-46998739
link -http://www.slideshare.net/shannonhulme77/what-have-you-learned-from-your-audience-feedback-46998739
Evaluation Question 1
In what ways does the media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
At a technical level, how well did you observe the
conventions of continuity, and the language of film and editing?
The conventions of continuity were a key focus for us during this
project. This is because in my AS year we has some continuity issues within a
shot reverse shot conversation that was
key to the storyline. Due to this we had to re- film the full conversation
again as the actors were doing the wrong actions at the wrong time, for example
a cup would be in a characters hand in one shot and not be in the next shot of
them. We also experienced this problem when we did a journey exercise at the
beginning of the year as a character was walking slowly in one shot and the
next it was too fast to continue. Whilst following continuity editing we
carried out the basic 180 degree rule that we used within our preliminary
exercise during our AS year. We stuck to these rules of continuity editing because
if we hadn’t the audience would become confused and not recognise that the
characters are within the same setting and scene will look overall abnormal.
We also used other editing techniques in order to create our film. We
used elliptical editing which means we used simple cuts, fades and dissolves, that all indicate
different amounts of time has passed, in order to make out film snappier and
more interesting for the audience. By
using these techniques it clearly indicates to the viewer that there has been
passage of time and scene may also change. We used this process mainly in the
graveyard scene as there were long sections of the main characters Elizabeth
and Lilly walking which were then cut and altered to make the sequence shorter
so it keeps the audience interested.
We also used the technique when the two
sisters go to visit their long lost sister. There is a scene of them walking up
to the mental hospital and then the next shot is of them walking into
Katherine’s room. We used elliptical editing here as we didn’t want to use
unnecessary boring footage of walking when we could have faster shots that
would intrigue the audience.
In terms of
the content, how does your film reflect or challenge the conventions of the
genre you are working in? Does it fulfil the nature of film genre or will it
subvert expectations deliberately?
I feel we have used stereotypical thriller
genre conventions within out film such as a plot twist. Thriller films usually advertise that
they contain plot twists and ask the audience to refrain from revealing spoilers
to other potential viewers. We decided to use a plot twist at the end of our
film, we did this by keep Katherine’s past a secret and due to this the ending
is dramatic and may shock the audience. However we have also subverted the
thriller stereotype as usually male characters are featured within thriller
film and we decided to use an all-female cast. Also the women within
psychological thrillers are generally the characters that are viewed as
mentally unstable. For example in Girl Interrupted which has a large female
cast, women are mostly seen as being mentally unwell. We have conveyed this
stereotype as the mental patient within our film is a women. However there are
also two strong female characters that are central to the storyline and they
are portrayed as not being effected by a mental illness even though they have
to go through a lot of stress with their mum dying and them being introduced to
their long lost sister. This subverts the stereotype that women in
psychological thrillers are generally seen as insane and unstable. When a film
within this genre is set within an urban area such as ours is, the unstable
characters are generally appear as normal people at first. We have subverted
this stereotype as Katherine is established as being mentally unwell at the
begging of the film. We have used a stereotypical look for the Katherine within
the mental institute, we were inspired by Angelina Jolie’s character within
Girl Interrupted so we have used similar plain clothing. We have also given Katherine
messy hair, minimal make up and a stressed out appearance just like Jolie’s. We
have also given the staff within our mental institute a uniform just like the
type that is shown in other films. Overall our film does follow stereotypical
conventions of a psychological thriller as it focuses on a mentally unstable
women with a dark past. However we have subverted stereotypes by using original
idea such as having an all-female cast that includes strong women and having a
plot twist in the storyline that no one is expecting. Below is our film, Lost
Possession compared with Girl Interrupted. These images suggests that we have
used stereotypical shots within our film too, for example we used a close up of
Katherine’s face and within Girl interrupted there is a close up of Lisa’s
face. Close ups are effective within psychological thrillers as the genre is
meant to focus on a characters mental state and feeling and close ups are
usually used to show the characters emotions.
Are there any
elements of deliberate pastiche or parody, where you ‘play’ with the genre’s
codes and history? Are there any inter-textual moments where you hint at a
reference to another film?
During the
development of our film poster we were inspired by the film poster of The Conjuring.
The angle that the body is facing away from the camera suggests an
uncomfortableness and it also suggests that the individual has something to
hide. This is true within our film as the character featured on the poster is
Katherine and she is the one who holds onto a secret until the end of the film.
We also used similar shading effects and the same write writing for the title
as the conjuring poster. This suggests that there is a link between these two
films as they are presented similar however our film falls into the category of
a thriller and the conjuring is more seen as a horror film. Although there is a
mysteriousness about both of the posters and this is stereotypical to both
genre’s storylines.
In conclusion I am confident that
as a group we have achieved producing a film that will bring the audience
pleasure. As well as using both stereotypical features of a thriller and using
our own original ideas we have also incorporated Richard Dyer’s theory as
everything is going wrong at the start of the film but it is resolved by the
ending. The main character Katherine, is shown in to be mentally unstable which
is stereotypical of women within this genre. This links with the theory of
Steve Neale as he believes that using conventions causes excitement for the
audience as they are able to pick out the key features. We see how her mental
state effects other people within the plot but we have an original plot in
terms of two of the women within the plot remaining positive throughout the
film. We didn’t want to follow the stereotype of women within a thriller film
completely as this may seem boring to the audience especially if they are
female as they may view it as sexist. By doing all of this I believe we have
been successful in creating an intriguing psychological thriller that will
engage the views and appeal to a wide audience.
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