1)In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Before the production of our thriller we researched into many different thriller films to find ideas on what would be needed to make it specific to the thriller genre. Our main character Monica in our thriller is our Femme Fatal and is seen wearing black stilettos and a black coat
making her appear mysterious, this idea was inspired by Helena Bonham Carter’s character as Marla Singer in Fight Club. The black used in her costume makes her appear sinister and evil. We also liked how Marla is associated with smoking which is a generic convention that defines Marla’s level of deviance and her rejection of rules, particularly to a contemporary audience. Therefore having our main character smoking makes the film fit with the Thriller genre and also adds mischief to her character. Smoking inter-textually links our thriller to the classic heroines of film noir where the cigarette was a symbol of sophistication and heightened sexuality connoted in the close shot up of Mara with the camera focusing on her lips.
In ‘The Third Man’ the character Harry Lime often holds a cigarette and therefore indicates to the audience his superior mischi
evous role and contempt for authority.
For the two gangsters we used in our thriller we planned the generic costume of a black suit and tie iconically used in Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction. Our original idea was to base our gangsters on Pulp Fiction’s Vincent and Jules but the two actors we had caste were unavailable and therefore we had to compromise costume with the two actors we worked with. We used the coats they were wearing and put their hoods to make them appear more threatening whilst making the mise-en-scene more contemporary so the audience could engage more closely with the action.
The idea for the soundtrack was inspired by Peter Jackson’s use of The Intermezzo from Madam Butterfly in the climax of his film Heavenly Creatures. The classical ambience contrasts with the grittiness of the mise-en-scene in the close up shots of the victim lying presumably dead in the muddy gravel. The soundtrack makes the scene feel more emotive and powerful. The music continues as the Fem
me Fatal goes home to wash the blood off her hands and seems to awaken in her a comprehension of her actions connoted by the cross dissolves suggesting a close relationship with the victim. Peter Jackson’s film uses a similar technique. Before the two girls Pauline and Juliet are about to walk into the woods and murder Pauline’s mother the music from Madam Butterfly adds poignancy and stresses the tragedy, thus injecting the mise-en-scene with an apocalyptic sense of violence and sacrifice of the death of an innocent woman.
Before the production of our thriller we researched into many different thriller films to find ideas on what would be needed to make it specific to the thriller genre. Our main character Monica in our thriller is our Femme Fatal and is seen wearing black stilettos and a black coat
making her appear mysterious, this idea was inspired by Helena Bonham Carter’s character as Marla Singer in Fight Club. The black used in her costume makes her appear sinister and evil. We also liked how Marla is associated with smoking which is a generic convention that defines Marla’s level of deviance and her rejection of rules, particularly to a contemporary audience. Therefore having our main character smoking makes the film fit with the Thriller genre and also adds mischief to her character. Smoking inter-textually links our thriller to the classic heroines of film noir where the cigarette was a symbol of sophistication and heightened sexuality connoted in the close shot up of Mara with the camera focusing on her lips.In ‘The Third Man’ the character Harry Lime often holds a cigarette and therefore indicates to the audience his superior mischi
evous role and contempt for authority.For the two gangsters we used in our thriller we planned the generic costume of a black suit and tie iconically used in Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction. Our original idea was to base our gangsters on Pulp Fiction’s Vincent and Jules but the two actors we had caste were unavailable and therefore we had to compromise costume with the two actors we worked with. We used the coats they were wearing and put their hoods to make them appear more threatening whilst making the mise-en-scene more contemporary so the audience could engage more closely with the action.
The idea for the soundtrack was inspired by Peter Jackson’s use of The Intermezzo from Madam Butterfly in the climax of his film Heavenly Creatures. The classical ambience contrasts with the grittiness of the mise-en-scene in the close up shots of the victim lying presumably dead in the muddy gravel. The soundtrack makes the scene feel more emotive and powerful. The music continues as the Fem
me Fatal goes home to wash the blood off her hands and seems to awaken in her a comprehension of her actions connoted by the cross dissolves suggesting a close relationship with the victim. Peter Jackson’s film uses a similar technique. Before the two girls Pauline and Juliet are about to walk into the woods and murder Pauline’s mother the music from Madam Butterfly adds poignancy and stresses the tragedy, thus injecting the mise-en-scene with an apocalyptic sense of violence and sacrifice of the death of an innocent woman. 2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The main charact
er of our thriller is female. The femme fatal visually suggests the character of Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction, but unlike Mia she comes across as the independent female capable of fighting her own battles whilst Mia is dependent but also manages to come across as a victim of drug addiction. Our main female character is considered to be the villain in o
ur short sequence and in control of a group of thugs, whilst the victim is the male and thus contrasts with the generic convention of the dominant generic male. This goes against the forms and conventions traditionally used in the cinematic preoccupation with representing woman such as Marilyn Monroe playing the ‘dumb blonde’ in Some Like it Hot. We wanted to use this idea to give the film a different viewpoint of the female character who shares characteristic with the character in Kill Bill known as ‘the bride’ seeks her revenge with not much help from anyone else.
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our thriller film if it were developed would like to be exhibited in an Art house cinema as it’s a low budget film (if it was to be funded by a film company) and would appeal to this particular audience better than multiplex. This is due to the way it’s been produced and would target an audience who would be more interested in the way in original ideas rather than the amount of special effects and high quality features. It would be a similar style to Working Titles earlier works and there lower budget films such as My Beautiful Laundrette. If it couldn’t get the funding needed then it could be distributed via the internet using the popular video sharing site You Tube where people would be able to watch and comment on our Thriller. It could also be placed on social networking sites such as Facebook, this particular website is known for its large fan base and therefore our thriller could be viewed by thousands as well as commented on.
The main charact
er of our thriller is female. The femme fatal visually suggests the character of Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction, but unlike Mia she comes across as the independent female capable of fighting her own battles whilst Mia is dependent but also manages to come across as a victim of drug addiction. Our main female character is considered to be the villain in o
ur short sequence and in control of a group of thugs, whilst the victim is the male and thus contrasts with the generic convention of the dominant generic male. This goes against the forms and conventions traditionally used in the cinematic preoccupation with representing woman such as Marilyn Monroe playing the ‘dumb blonde’ in Some Like it Hot. We wanted to use this idea to give the film a different viewpoint of the female character who shares characteristic with the character in Kill Bill known as ‘the bride’ seeks her revenge with not much help from anyone else.3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our thriller film if it were developed would like to be exhibited in an Art house cinema as it’s a low budget film (if it was to be funded by a film company) and would appeal to this particular audience better than multiplex. This is due to the way it’s been produced and would target an audience who would be more interested in the way in original ideas rather than the amount of special effects and high quality features. It would be a similar style to Working Titles earlier works and there lower budget films such as My Beautiful Laundrette. If it couldn’t get the funding needed then it could be distributed via the internet using the popular video sharing site You Tube where people would be able to watch and comment on our Thriller. It could also be placed on social networking sites such as Facebook, this particular website is known for its large fan base and therefore our thriller could be viewed by thousands as well as commented on.
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience of our thriller would be males and females. Females would be able to respond to our femme fatal and be inspired by her independent sophisticated character. Males would be drawn to our thriller due to the high amounts of violence. When targeting an age for our thriller it would be likely to appeal to the 17-35 demographic. This is due to the characters being in the age group of 16-18 but the structure of our storyline and background of our film may appeal to the higher age group. The film would be certificate 15 due to the drug references and large amounts of violence. Our film is based around the more classic thriller such as Psycho as it doesn't use so many special effects nor CGIs. Our inspired director was Quentin Tarantino’s and the strong representation of strong independent women, thus our audience would likely to be interested in Jackie Brown and Kill Bill which isn't a thriller but follows the similar conventions.
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
It was our femme fatal we were using to attract our audience as the opening shots are quite dark in the references to drugs and harsh violence. We were trying to appeal to a male and female target audience by having the female lead appearing as the villain but also the added violence which audience research suggested was most popular with the male audience. There was also a large percentage within our demographic wanting suspense from a thriller film. Therefore we tried not to give too much away within our opening sequence to make the audience want to see more and find out more about the lead character’s purpose in hiring thugs to do her dirty work. This also links to the other high percentage of subjects in our research who claimed ambiguity adds to appeal. Our film was viewed to year 12 and 13 students so that we could gain audience feedback and what overall worked well within our film. There was a high ratio who didn’t think our soundtrack worked within our Thriller, this wasn’t surprising as we weren’t confident on our soundtrack, therefore a change in soundtrack would be considered if we where to re-edit our Thriller. It was also unclear to some her being referenced as a drug addict and that it didn’t appear relevant. However overall feedback on our camera work and editing was rated 4 out of 5 with the overall rating of our thriller being around 7 out of 10.
The target audience of our thriller would be males and females. Females would be able to respond to our femme fatal and be inspired by her independent sophisticated character. Males would be drawn to our thriller due to the high amounts of violence. When targeting an age for our thriller it would be likely to appeal to the 17-35 demographic. This is due to the characters being in the age group of 16-18 but the structure of our storyline and background of our film may appeal to the higher age group. The film would be certificate 15 due to the drug references and large amounts of violence. Our film is based around the more classic thriller such as Psycho as it doesn't use so many special effects nor CGIs. Our inspired director was Quentin Tarantino’s and the strong representation of strong independent women, thus our audience would likely to be interested in Jackie Brown and Kill Bill which isn't a thriller but follows the similar conventions.
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
It was our femme fatal we were using to attract our audience as the opening shots are quite dark in the references to drugs and harsh violence. We were trying to appeal to a male and female target audience by having the female lead appearing as the villain but also the added violence which audience research suggested was most popular with the male audience. There was also a large percentage within our demographic wanting suspense from a thriller film. Therefore we tried not to give too much away within our opening sequence to make the audience want to see more and find out more about the lead character’s purpose in hiring thugs to do her dirty work. This also links to the other high percentage of subjects in our research who claimed ambiguity adds to appeal. Our film was viewed to year 12 and 13 students so that we could gain audience feedback and what overall worked well within our film. There was a high ratio who didn’t think our soundtrack worked within our Thriller, this wasn’t surprising as we weren’t confident on our soundtrack, therefore a change in soundtrack would be considered if we where to re-edit our Thriller. It was also unclear to some her being referenced as a drug addict and that it didn’t appear relevant. However overall feedback on our camera work and editing was rated 4 out of 5 with the overall rating of our thriller being around 7 out of 10.
6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
For the construction of this thriller film I have learnt about how different cam
era angles can have an effect on the action. For example in The Third Man the city of Vienna is frequently shot at a canted angle making it appear surreal, we utilised this technique in our thriller when the femme fatal is washing her hands to emphasise the sense of nightmare and disorientation. It was also interesting to include strong establishing shots to i
mmediately communicate genre and location. The medium long shot of Monica walking down a long path in what appears to be a scrap yard connotes her moral disintegration. It was interesting to see the effects sound has upon a film and what a difference it makes with music and without. We wanted to have a modern soundtrack to give the film a contemporary edge but due to new requirements from the exam board our music had to be 50 years old. Therefore we worked with this to come up with a better idea and the music ended up making the scene appear much more dramatic and emotive by using the Strauss soundtrack. Within our group the edit w
as found to be the hardest part. The software Adobe Premier Elements isn’t the most advanced which made it harder to add special effects and features which could have made our film better. Also certain shots wouldn’t flow into each other as easily as we imagined. For example, the scene where the Femme Fatale is applying her lipstick was shot a number of times, in the edit we had to check continuity and that she didn’t have more lipstick on at the beginning of the sequence than at the end. Another complicated edit was when the two gangsters are walking down the alley way. We had intended to have a shot of them walking into the alleyway but we couldn’t use it has they were going in from the wrong direction and due to the lack of time, we weren’t able to re-shoot the scene and it had to be cut.
For the construction of this thriller film I have learnt about how different cam
era angles can have an effect on the action. For example in The Third Man the city of Vienna is frequently shot at a canted angle making it appear surreal, we utilised this technique in our thriller when the femme fatal is washing her hands to emphasise the sense of nightmare and disorientation. It was also interesting to include strong establishing shots to i
mmediately communicate genre and location. The medium long shot of Monica walking down a long path in what appears to be a scrap yard connotes her moral disintegration. It was interesting to see the effects sound has upon a film and what a difference it makes with music and without. We wanted to have a modern soundtrack to give the film a contemporary edge but due to new requirements from the exam board our music had to be 50 years old. Therefore we worked with this to come up with a better idea and the music ended up making the scene appear much more dramatic and emotive by using the Strauss soundtrack. Within our group the edit w
as found to be the hardest part. The software Adobe Premier Elements isn’t the most advanced which made it harder to add special effects and features which could have made our film better. Also certain shots wouldn’t flow into each other as easily as we imagined. For example, the scene where the Femme Fatale is applying her lipstick was shot a number of times, in the edit we had to check continuity and that she didn’t have more lipstick on at the beginning of the sequence than at the end. Another complicated edit was when the two gangsters are walking down the alley way. We had intended to have a shot of them walking into the alleyway but we couldn’t use it has they were going in from the wrong direction and due to the lack of time, we weren’t able to re-shoot the scene and it had to be cut. 7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Our Preliminary Task allowed good practise into getting used to the software we would have to use when it came to editing our thriller film. The software Adobe Premier Elements we used was quite complicated as none of the people in my group had ever had to edit a film before so it was good to be able to get used to that beforehand. The Preliminary task also helped us get used to the filming equipment we were provided with to use during the shoot. This allowed us to practise different shot techniques such as ‘canted’ as well as learning skills in making one shot flow into the other. For example the 180 degree rule. W e also had to be able to negotiate effectively when planning Therefore we made sure to use the information we had gained from our audience research to enable us to make the Thriller successful. We each had our own responsibility to turn up when shooting and to be available when our actors where available as well as help sort the shooting schedule. I’ve learned the importance of planning every aspect of mise-en-scene so that the shoot ran smoothly.
The audience feedback has helped us to understand and reflect on aspects of our thriller which the general public wouldn’t un
derstand. For instance the feedback made us realise the narrative is quite hard to understand as it isn’t clear how there is a connection between our main femme fatal and the victim and how he’s being beaten up. We would also evaluate our soundtrack as a lot of people said it didn’t reflect the mood within our thriller.
Strengths in our production are that we all worked together in following the brief efficiently and including conventions of a Thriller film. We researched thriller conventions such as the Femme fatal smoking used from Marla Singer in Fight Club and the blood going into the drain which referenced the shower scene from Psycho. We gained ideas from our audience research to appeal to a wider target audience by including action and suspense. However we struggled when it came to filming due to the cast not always being available to film. Also we hit a low point when we found out we couldn’t use the soundtrack we had originally planned and found it hard to come up with a new idea, therefore none of us are too keen on the soundtrack overall. If we had more time it would be good to try and film our thriller again as this experience shows us that we are capable of producing an opening to a thriller film which includes suspense, challenges the representation of gender and utilises diegetic and non diegetic sound and titles. Evaluation of Monica’s Last Song
Our Preliminary Task allowed good practise into getting used to the software we would have to use when it came to editing our thriller film. The software Adobe Premier Elements we used was quite complicated as none of the people in my group had ever had to edit a film before so it was good to be able to get used to that beforehand. The Preliminary task also helped us get used to the filming equipment we were provided with to use during the shoot. This allowed us to practise different shot techniques such as ‘canted’ as well as learning skills in making one shot flow into the other. For example the 180 degree rule. W e also had to be able to negotiate effectively when planning Therefore we made sure to use the information we had gained from our audience research to enable us to make the Thriller successful. We each had our own responsibility to turn up when shooting and to be available when our actors where available as well as help sort the shooting schedule. I’ve learned the importance of planning every aspect of mise-en-scene so that the shoot ran smoothly.
The audience feedback has helped us to understand and reflect on aspects of our thriller which the general public wouldn’t un
derstand. For instance the feedback made us realise the narrative is quite hard to understand as it isn’t clear how there is a connection between our main femme fatal and the victim and how he’s being beaten up. We would also evaluate our soundtrack as a lot of people said it didn’t reflect the mood within our thriller.Strengths in our production are that we all worked together in following the brief efficiently and including conventions of a Thriller film. We researched thriller conventions such as the Femme fatal smoking used from Marla Singer in Fight Club and the blood going into the drain which referenced the shower scene from Psycho. We gained ideas from our audience research to appeal to a wider target audience by including action and suspense. However we struggled when it came to filming due to the cast not always being available to film. Also we hit a low point when we found out we couldn’t use the soundtrack we had originally planned and found it hard to come up with a new idea, therefore none of us are too keen on the soundtrack overall. If we had more time it would be good to try and film our thriller again as this experience shows us that we are capable of producing an opening to a thriller film which includes suspense, challenges the representation of gender and utilises diegetic and non diegetic sound and titles. Evaluation of Monica’s Last Song
1 comment:
Isabel's evaluation reflects mainly excellent generic understanding. She engages consistently with the 4 key concepts and communicates her ideas with confidence and fluency.
Stills from researched films and her production appropriately strengthen her analysis. A pleasure to read.
Excellent: Strong Level 4: 18/20
Well done Isabel
Post a Comment