Another close up shot we used was inside the house when I was getting ready, for example when I reach for my phone when replying to a text message. With the use of a text message, it helps to get across the story without the use of dialogue. Furthermore, it is more easier and quicker as it takes only one shot to know what is going on.
Another shot we used in a similar way was the establishing tracking shot when Estephanie was walking along the road, but with Touch of Evil, they had two characters in the scene. This establishing and tracking shot, it helped to set the scene so the audience have a feel of what the scene is like. I have noticed that most thriller movies open with the setting the scene, and most scenes are set in the city or in a suburban house. This is how we opened our title sequence.
The title, Touch of Evil is shown over the shots instead of separating the titles from the film itself. For our movie, we put the titles (such as Directed by and Edited by) over the film. But we used a black background with white font for our title just as the title sequence had finished.
Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Dustin Hoffman, the star of the
thriller movie, Marathon Man is similar to the victim in our title sequence because the c
haracter of Hoffman is one of the main characters and the first character we see in the movie. In the same way, we filmed our main character first who ends up as the victim.
They are both represented as independent characters. We can see this through the mise-en-scene such as the character of Catherine putting waking up to an alarm instead of someone else waking her up, and also through the way she dresses with a nice dress and heels. The character of Hoffman seems independent as he is jogging around the park by himself. The only difference we see is that Catherine is planning to meet her friend whereas Hoffman does his own thing by himself.
The characters from the movie Marathon Man has inspired us all as they are all independent. There is an antagonist and a protagonist in every movie. In our title sequence, we do not actually see the protagonist, only the hand with the black glove as we didn't
want to give everything away just from the title sequence.
Question 3 & 4: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?
I have an online marketing strategy and this is a step by step account of how I am going to construct that strategy.
Firstly, I will upload my video up onto facebook which will be seen by my friends online. There is automatically a comment box underneath for anyone of my online friends to write down their comments about it and there is also a 'like' button which is clicked by whoever likes it. After collecting their comments and views on my video, I will then make necessary changes and then upload it up on youtube which is then seen by a wider audience instead of just my online friends viewing it. For my video to be viewed by a large number of people, I will advertise it onto my personal blog on tumblr which allows my blog followers to view it. The advantage of posting it up onto my personal tumblr page (catherinevalentina.tumblr.com) are able to re-blog so their followers can see it, and their follower's follwers can see it etc. I can also make a facebook fan page (Shawn of the Dead) for updates about the film and the behind the scenes part on it.
For a more advanced way to advertise 'Never Alone', I will make a poster and advertise it in college on the public student billboard. And I can also design flyers which has the details of the facebook fan page, email address, youtube link and a personal tumblr blogging page. This will hopefully attract our main target audience who are typical teenagers, mainly focusing on the females because it will be advertised at college where students from the age of 16 - 19.
And hopefully, once the word has got around, there would be a link up at the screen on the green cinemas to view the rest of the movie once it is done. And if it is successful with great feedback, I would then publish it in cinemas such as the Vue or Cineworld. And maybe after 2 weeks in the cinema, I will then ask Film 4 to sponsor our movie by showing it on TV for everyone to watch in their own home and in their own time.
Question 5: Who would be the audience for your media product?
Meet Chelsea. 19 year old college or university student who loves to go out and have fun on a friday night. She's been living in London her whole life until she moved off to university in Sussex. She would be the typical teenager who I would personally target for my target audience for 'Never Alone'. The reason for this is because she likes to go out and have fun, which is very similar to the character who we see waking up in the morning and getting ready to meet her friend on an ordinary friday.
Chelsea loves to dress up to make herself look older to grab the attention of teen boys her age. She cares about how she dresses and also how she looks. She is also into fashion magazines such as 'Vogue' for updates and tips for fashion and make up. This magazine is what you'd find in her bag. You'd also find an iPod, make up bag, her blackberry phone, purse, keys, a packet of ready salted crisps and cigarettes and a bottle of water. She is not likely to shop at Primark but she is likely to shop at Topshop and New Look.
People such as Chelsea is targeted because their sense of personality is very similar to the personalities of the characters in our film.
Question 6: What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
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The internet in general was essential for our course. ‘Google.com’ was one of the main search engines we used to collect still images from. We also used websites such as
These websites was used for researching the main aspects of a thriller movie which helped us with our own title sequence. We compared our ideas with popular movies on art of the titles.com which helped us in a way that we could make sure we had everything needed in our title sequence. These websites was used for our research planning part.
We were then introduced to a blogging site which is called ‘blogger.com’. Some already knew about this site and how blogging works, but to us three, we didn’t know much about it. We learnt that a blog was similar to an online diary entry. You could post pictures, videos, links, documents, and written work such as what we had learnt that day or what we had created. We also discovered how to change the layout of our blog to make it look creative.
A Video Camera was essential for this course as our final outcome is a short 2minute thriller title sequence. We learnt about the camera itself and it’s health and safety rules and regulations. With only a short amount of time using the cameras, we made sure we had to plan out a ‘storyboard’ first before actually filming. When filming, we used additional equipment such as the tripod to hold the camera steady in place rather than having a hand-held camera all the time. The tripod allowed us to hold the camera steady in place from different angles and heights such as an aerial shot.
Once we had recorded all what we needed. We used a program called Final Cut Pro. This program was used for editing our title sequence (cropping a recorded clip and matching it up with another recorded clip). We also learnt how to use effects on between two recoded clips such as a fade or dissolve which made the sequence play smoothly.
Once the sound and the tiles were sorted, everything was transferred onto Final Cut Pro. For the final time. These types of technologies is what we used to reach our goal in making a quick 2minute thriller opening sequence.
Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?
When we started filming the preliminary film of the 'bag swap' we didn't really know how to accomplish a successful match cut. But with further practice with the 'match cut' preliminary film, we learnt how to tackle that problem. This became very easy for us to film our short title sequence.
Another difference I found with the preliminary film with our final film was that we were able to use a range of shots such as long shots and close up shots. With the preliminary, we were afraid to use an extreme close up as we had a time limit of only an hour to film it, whereas with our final film, we had a couple of weeks to plan, film and edit.
I have also learnt more about making a good soundtrack and mixing sound elements together to make one track and also with I also noticed that our team work improved as we were able to sit down and talk about the plan over a weekend to make sure our storyboard was spot on.
Question 8: Audience feedback and comment
Our group created a 'word cloud' of our class's feedback. This was before viewing it in the cinema with the rest of the media department.
After the screening in Angel's Screen on the Green, on Thursday 22nd April 2010, I filmed people's initial feedback on my short title sequence.
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