Dear Moderator

Hello and welcome to our blog!

Thank you for taking the time to look around. It will be easiest for you to navigate around our blog using the labels on the right hand side of the page.

Under the 'Research and Planning' label, you will find evidence of all the research, planning and development wok we did as a group during the pre-production, production and post-production stages of our film opening project.

You can see exactly what post each candidate contributed to during this process as we have also included individual contribution label names for each group member. All research, planning and development posts contributed by the names candidate will appear when you click that label.

Each member of the group has also completed their own evaluation, although we have collaborated to use some content, such as the SoundCloud music. You can access our responses to the evaluation questions under the individually named Evaluation labels.

Our finished film opening sequence is at the top of the blog, and each candidate has their preliminary task video sequences as part of their answer to question 7 of the evaluation.

You can also filter our posts by labels or date and there is a blog archive if you want to look through chronologically. Unfortunately we are unable to fit all of our work onto one page, so please click "older posts" if required to do to.

You will also find a link to the class film blog which contains links to the other group blogs from our school under our group image.

Once again thank you for taking the time to look around our blog, and we really hope you enjoy looking at our work!

From,
Shani Thanki-Franklin - Candidate number 0831
Enya Phillips - Candidate number
Ysabel Hudson-Searle - Candidate number 0331

This blog is now closed!

Thank you for being with us through the research and planning all the way to the evaluation! We hope you have enjoyed watching us progress and produce our final piece of work.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Genre
Our film is of the Thriller and Revenge Drama genres and this affected many of our choices throughout.We wanted to cover topics that are considered particularly disturbing and controversial and therefore chose to make the film about a young woman who is looking for her sister who was sent to a brothel.

Narrative Structure

Todorov's Narrative Theory

Unlike Todorov's narrative theory, we decided that it would be more effective for the audience if we were to start with a disruption as opposed to a state of equilibrium. We would then introduce the prior state of equilibrium later on in the film if we were to continue by showing the audience how life was before the protagonist's sister was kidnapped in order to give the audience more contextual knowledge about the protagonist and her situation.

We wanted our opening sequence to create enigma, causing the audience to raise questions such as:

• Who is this woman?
• Why is she so sad/angry?
• What is the relationship between the man and the woman?
• Why is she so sinister when talking about the man's father?

The fact that we left the opening with a sense of sinister ambiguity was because we wanted to interest the audience and lure them into watching the rest of the film. We thought that this was a good way of capturing their attention without giving too much of the information from the film away.

We chose not to follow the character theory of Propp for most of our characters throughout our film as we believed that it would make our film more realistic and representative of the world at large:

• The protagonist of our film is neither hero nor villain. She is a good person who uses means which some would consider to be immoral in order to gain what she wants and needs: her sister.
• The protagonist's sister is the equivalent of the damsel in distress, and therefore could be considered to be the princess/the prize. However, the role of the prize could also be played by the protagonist's boyfriend, who runs off with her at the end.
• The protagonist's boyfriend does aid her, yet he is completely outraged by this when he finds out and it takes him some time to come around to the fact.
• We do have a distinct villain, which follows Propp's theory, yet he is not completely evil. He has redeemable characteristics, which can be seen through his son's loyalty. Despite this, though, he is an awful person.

We wanted to challenge the stereotypes found in many revenge drama films as well as sticking to some of the other stereotypes in order to create a believable, realistic film opening which is more representative of the world at large: both men and women can be manipulative, strong and independent and no one is completely good or evil.

We chose to use the common depiction of a Femme Fatale in the film opening but stated that this connotation of the protagonist, Rose, would be challenged later on in the film. A common example of a femme fatate is in the Film Noir era of Hollywood in the 1940s and 50s.

Exaples of femme fatales from the 1950s Film Noir era include Brigid O'Shaughnessy from The Maltese Falcon and Ava Gardner from The Killers.

We wanted to have a female character who would defy the normal stereotypes surrounding women in many films and television dramas of the thriller genre. We believed that usually women were depicted in a few ways:

• The sensitive damsel in distress 
• Completely cold, heartless and resourceful
• Using her sexuality to get what she wants

However, we did not feel that these depictions were realistic and as an entirely female group, we wanted to take this opportunity to show women in a different light. We achieved this by merging the main ideals of women presented in media together, showing that despite the fact that she is resourceful and does use her sexuality to obtain what she wants to some degree, she is also sensitive and falls in love with her clueless boyfriend during the film.

Our narrative references were:

• Revenge
• Kill Bill
• Haywire
• Hanna

We also used "The Hangover" as a reference for the fact that the film starts with a disruption, but made sure that we were aware of the fact that it was not of either the thriller or revenge drama genres and so we would not be able to use it for references to do with iconography or mise en scene.

As well as this, we used Kill Bill for the confusion of the opening sequence, which also starts with a disruption



However, our opening was not as action-packed as this one. We wanted to achieve a still, serene eeriness

Form and Style
Titles

We chose to have our titles similar to "Kill Bill",
But have them in between shots instead of after
the main action of the scene in order to create
enigma and suspense.

"Kill Bill" titles occur after the main action of the
opening sequence.

The Main Shot - The Hug

Although we used a similar technique to the hug in Vampire Diaries, the main difference was the expression the hug revealed. Both show the hug from a character's point of view in order to reveal the thoughts and feelings, but our hug revealed a more sinister character, as opposed to Vampire Diaries, which is more thoughtful, reflective and upset.

Colour
We chose the colour red for our film opening as it has sinister connotations and is also associated with love and blood.

Music
We chose a song we already knew as we felt that it would give us the sultry mood we required and was mysterious enough to provide the tense atmosphere needed for our film opening.We took our inspiration from Bank's Waiting Game which had a sultry mood and mysterious characters in the music video and the song had a slow tempo without being sad. Since Enya knew the songwriter/singer forthe song, we were able to get permission to use the song in our opening and therefore avoud copyright Infringement.

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

When considering the social groups that we wished to represent in our film opening, our main priority was combatting some of the stereotypes that are associated with our particular genres (Revenge Drama and Thriller) which are mainly concernted with gender. Representations of women in these genres was a big aspect which resonated over the majority of our chocies  due to the fact that our group was made of entirely girls. The main way in which we combatted these stereotypes was through the portrayal of our protagonist, Rose.

The stereotypes we focused on are as follows:

Combating stereotype of blonde women.

As well as this, you can see from the last image that the protagonist's fiance is completely clueless to any ulterior motives she may have and she appears to be resourceful.

Stereotypical damsels in distress, awaiting their saviour: the
hero of the film. Most likely male.

The Characters

The protagonist/hero equivalent Rose

• Resourceful
• Strong
• Independent
• Attractive
• Intelligent
• Determined
• In love (later on in the film)
• Has a conscience
• Everything bad she does is to save her sister
• Dominates the opening sequence, even when fiance comes in

The clueless boyfriend

• Less dominant/powerful in the opening sequence, reflects his lack of knowledge, innocence and naivety in the film
• Caring
• In love from beginning
• Forgiving
• Innocent
• Naive
• Kind
• Worried about father

The victim/damsel in distress: Rose's sister

• Maintaining stereotype: woman in trouble. We wanted to challenge stereotypes without making it too unidentifiable for the audience
• Sent to a brothel
• Only referred to throughout most of the film. Until Rose finds her
• Picture is seen in the opening sequence
• Saved by Rose in the film
• Rose's main aim/reason for deceiving the boyfriend

The "father"

• Evil
• Heartless
• Only love for his son
• Not seen in opening sequence
• Referred to in opening sequence
• Father of Rose's boyfriend
• Reason Rose dates boyfriend in the first place

We wanted to portrey women in a more positive light in the film by showing that they too are able to be resourceful and intellegent whilst also being attractive and maintaining their femininity through the character of Rose, regardless of whether or not what she is doing is morally correct.

Evaluation Question 3

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

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As well as the link to the US and global market, we thought LionsGate would be fitting due to it's base in the UK which specialises on marketting and release for explicitly the UK audience. It has previously distributed films such as The Hunger Games to the UK market to a great success and we feel as though our film in particular will have more of an appeal and an angle with regards to marketing due to the fact that is was produced in the UK.

Due to the target audience, the film would be less affected by the holiday seasons than a family film which would benefit he most from releasing its film in a time when children and teenagers are out of school and therefore have more of an opportunity to go to watch a film. on the contrary, the audience we would like to entice would be more likely to respond to a film in a cinema when there are less likely to be youths in there with them as it decreases the appeal for adults between 20-30 and therefore we would like to release our film during the term.

The film would possibly be in cinemas, both chain and smaller, for apporximitely 6-8 weeks as we would want to give the opportunity for the target audiene to see the film in their desired type of cinema/their desired setting. This would enable busy adults to come and see the film in the cinema as it is around for a substantial amont of time.

In terms of the UK marketing, the main focus would be on the fact that it is set and produced in the UK with an all-British cast as well as the fact that the topics in the film are gritty and controversual. This is more likely to appeal to the UK audience with a stong sense of their Britsh identity/heritage,, particularly for our target audience of adults.

It would be through a mixture of platforms, both Web 2.8 and more conventional methods such as an advert in order to reach a larger number of people and we would use Web 2.0 in an interactive method, using opinion polls, ect, to keep the audience intregued in the film. This provides a more personal approach and can be used and seen through many different divices such as PCs, smartphones and tablets. However we would also have an advert which would go online to Youtube and to the film website, facebook and twitter as well as on certaintelevision shows after the watershed when adults ar emore likely to be interested in the programmes on television and, for the UL audience and particular those in London, have a poster campaign in undergrounds in he busier parts of London, in particular central.

ThePlatforms
We would want to optimise our opportunity for a profit on the film by distributing it to its target audience on as many platforms as possible. We feel as though a mixture of conventional and non conventional distribution techniques will be useful as the younger bracket of the target audience are likely to use Web 2.0 for watching films and the older bracket of our target audience are more likely to watch a film on a more conventional platform such as the television or on dvd. We would sell the rights to the film to elevision broadcasters and airlines in order to make an easier profit. The fact that we chose LionsGate as our distributor would hopefully secure us multi-national release on numerous platforms:

Cinema


DVD and Blu-Ray


Online Streaming


Television

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

• Women aged 18 and above - Target
• People who enjoy films such as "Kill Bill"
• Men aged 18 and above
• We wanted to broaden this to more mature teenagers ages 15 and over to increase 
• our profit margin as we felt as though the topics would be appropreate for some teengaers
• Lovers of the thriller genre
• Lovers of revenge drama
• Lovers of the television drama: "Revenge

The main effect of this particular audience is the fact that the marteking technique would be different to that of a more family audience. The distribution would be more centralised on the UK context as opposed to the thrill and the distribution would be more aimed around the fact that adults are more likely to watch a film after it has come out on DVD or is on television than in the cinema.

Evaluation Question 5

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

• The marketing would be more targeted towards the older audience members of ages 20 and above as that is our primary target audience. this would be achieved through advertising on television after the watershed ect.
• We aimed for a film of certificate 15 due to the moderate violence, controversial and sexual themes and swearing. We thought that the themes we used were controversial and gritty: kidnapping and human trafficking. We felt as though we would be able to tackle the gritty subjects within the film whilst sticking to the guidelines for a certificate 15.
• The protagonist is young (in her early twenties) which would make the film more appealing for that age bracket
• Rose is an attractive woman: people, in particular both teenage and adult males, are likely to watch the film for the sex appeal
• The action present in the film would be appealing, particularly to the younger and teenage audiences. Action is one of the most popular genres in the UK currently and by incorporating this into our film, we are more likely to get a response from  broader audience.
• Woman playing lead is strong and independent. Would appeal to feminists
• Older audiences would be interested in the gritty topics as well as the more nice audience/lovers of indie films 

A method of sticking to the certificate 15 guidelines
and still having a sex appeal

Evaluation Question 6

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

Our Test Shoot

The things we realised we needed to improve after the Test Shoot were:

• Lighting. We had initially attempted sultry lighting by making it darker.
• Sound. We had made modifications to the sound before being entirely happy with the shoot itself, therefore our sound was bad once we had added shots
• Speed. We had not judged how long each action would take and therefore went over the allocated time
• Continuity. We had not thought about all the continuity errors which might have occurred
• Light. We had not properly understood the dynamics of the location and therefore lights could be seen in some shots
• Dialogue. Our dialogue was not natural and seemed as though we were just setting the audience up for the events of the film
• Product placement
• Breaking the 180 degree rule

Our real film opening

We managed to improve:

• Lighting. We made everything brighter and had the lights always coming from the same place and then made the shots more sultry through the grading in the editing process
• Payed more attention to the 180 degree rule
• Payed more attention to product placement
• Kept the sound at one level as opposed to the more undulating nature of the sound in our test shoot
• Actions were quicker and then slowed down when editing if needs be
• Red. We made the shots with red in them more obvious during the editing process: grading

Lighting

Test Shoot

Main Edit

Both shots were taken using the same lip gloss, but the Main Edit had better lighting and grading, showing what we had learned in the process of producing the opening.

We had many lighting issues in the Test Shoot

We learned from these issues and managed to solve them in time for the
Main Edit

Sound
In terms of sound, there were also many improvements.
The soundtrack in the main edit is more consistent and we muted the more unnecessary sounds to make the mood more sultry

We learned this through doing the main edit and discovering what did not sound right. The Test Shoot was a particularly important learning curve in terms of getting to grips with the production and post production processes.

What we used

Hardware
The Canon HV30 and its compatible shotgun mic


We found this camera to be particularly useful for the following reasons:

• Auto focus and manual focus. We usually used auto focus, but manual focus was useful when trying to capture the lipgloss shot
• HD. The camera could capture high quality footage, which was particularly helpful with the perfume shot as it meant that every detail of the perfume spraying was captured
• Digital. We could watch the footage back immediately and then judge whether or not we needed to redo a shot. It made the camera lighter and more portable. We could capture many shots without having to reset the camera or put in a new roll of film. It was the cheaper option. Footage could rapidly be transferred to our editing suites.
• Viewfinder. We used this to see what we were filming and also give the actors the ability to see what was going to be seen on shot as it could be turned around to face the actors being filmed. This improved the framing.
• We were supplied with a tripod, which meant that most of our shots were more steady and we could shoot from higher angles than we could if we were to hold the camera
• Zoom. This was useful as our film opening comprised of many close ups. The zoom function made it easier to capture these.
• Shotgun mic. We were able to eliminate some of the background noise and have recording directed to the place where we were filming.

However, issues were not completely avoidable.

• The tripod was not low enough to be used in some of the shots, resulting in some being noticeably more shaky than the others, such as the first shot of the shoes tilting up to Rose and the shot of the man walking in.
• When zooming in too far, the image became out of focus. This meant that it was difficult to focus the lipgloss shot the way we wanted.

For lighting we used 30 watt Gulliver Lights as they had dimmers, which would give us the sultry mood we required for our film opening.

Software

We used Adobe Premiere Pro SC5 during the editing process. It is a quick and user friendly method of editing which alowed us to play back what we were to play back our progress instantaneously and we were able to use the Three-Way colour corrector and the ProcAmp tool when doing the grading for our film opening, which helped us achieve the sultry mood we required and helped us to define the red in the shot more as an implication of blood to forshadow the later events.

For the titles, we used LiveType and Premiere Pro for the VENGEANCE title this enabled us to alter the titles as a separate entity for the majority of the titles and then we decided to use Premire Pro for the VENGEANCE title as we felt that the title we had used in the test shoot was more effective and resembled blood more.

Communication

We used a range of methods, many of which involved Web 2.0, including

• Having meetings in person - it was easiest to understand one another and arrange editing and the shoot easily.
• Facebook - A good way to communicate with one another as all three of us had Facebook and the messages saved, therefore it is an easier way to communicate, particularly as all of our smartphones had Facebook apps and we were able to refer back to plans we had made beforehand.
• Whatsapp - This was useful when exchanging a quick conversation with another member of the team as opposed to the whole group. However, we were not particularly reliable on Whatsapp.
• Text Messaging - Particularly useful when keeping in contact with one another when on the go: for example, communication when meeting at the location
• Google Drive - In partcular for the proposal and the script along with other doccuments, the Google Drive was more useful than Microsoft Word as it allowed all three of us to edit the doccument at the same time and therefore work was done quicker and we were able to communicate on the doccument as opposed to having to open a new application.
• Email - Particularly useful for contacting the media department with any issues we had during the shoot or with any questions we may have had.