1. In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• Our product used enigma code, in which 2 cases of its use are quite obvious. Enigma code is used in a few films such as The Usual Suspects, The Machinist and Dark City. For example, in Dark City, the protagonist wakes up to find a murdered body in his room, while he is completely unknowing of the elaborately orchestrated plan that he is an integral part of. We are not aware of whether he did kill the woman or not, but as the film progresses, some gaps are filled, whereas others are left open, creating an enigma code in the plot; who has framed the protagonist, or not?
• The use of the bag that the protagonist, Dwayne, is carrying at the beginning is fought over by Dwayne and the henchman, without its contents being revealed. The second use of the enigma code is that Warren Grey, our main antagonist, remains completely unseen in the beginning of the film, and if it were to be feature length, would remain veiled, creating a sense of foreboding and suspense. Enigma code is an important structural part of many thrillers, and can be a part of labyrinth plots. The audience are hooked by the mystery, our natural curiosity for finding the truth drives the audience to keep watching to find out who does what etc.
• Our use of the protagonist/antagonist element was quite clear cut. Our peer evaluation feedback said that our use of clothing and props made the differences between the protagonist and antagonist very easy to distinguish, which in some cases is somewhat formulaic, but 9n our case, we needed a distinguishable difference between the good and bad characters. Dwayne, our main protagonist in the opening minutes of our film has stolen something of value, and is trying to keep it from the henchmen, who press him for it. The henchman wear dark clothes, with high collars, to show their dangerous. Dwayne is dressed in normal attire for a man, which shows his vulnerability and everyman desperation. Also one of the henchmen is smoking, which shows how different he is from Dwayne, who is on edge, while the henchman is relatively calm.
• The three narrative stages of a thriller are equilibrium, disruption and resolution. While ours lacked the equilibrium, as the opening is fairly brash and violent, the disruption occurs within a few frames of the film starting, with the introduction of the henchman. Later on in the film, as part of our synopsis, Dwayne is killed. This means the resolution will come later on, and could not be included in the first couple of minutes, but the opening certainly left plenty of room for a resolution to be made. An example of a film opening in a fairly disruptive way is The Fugitive, where Harrison Fords’ wife is killed during the credits, in black and white sequences. The rest of the film is one long, complicated resolution as he battles to find the one armed man who killed his wife.
• Our use of camera work represented a watchful eye over proceedings; it didn’t delve deep under the surface, but didn’t remain as a detached voyeur. Our use of the high angle shot as Dwayne runs down the alleyway is meant to represent a CCTV camera, or Warren Greys deadly gaze. We also kept the shots tight, and near to the actors, or in some cases, allowed the actors to walk/run towards the camera, showing that there is a trap. The use of an alleyway as our setting meant that we could create a sense of no escape from the tight confines of the alley. We didn’t use low key lighting, and instead opted for natural light, as it was during the day. To create harsh shadows or shadow veiled characters would have been unrealistic, and created a sense of misguided style to make our project more glitzy. Furthermore, our peer evaluation supported our views, by saying the use of natural light, was good, although I can see how it could be perceived as lazy. Although low key lighting is a significant contributor to the mood in many thriller films, to create a sense of danger and evil charisma, it seemed somewhat out of place for our opening sequence.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• The 3 characters in the opening sequence are Dwayne, and the 2 henchman. Each one is depicted in different ways. The first henchman, who engages Dwayne in a rough and tumble conversation is dressed in a slightly overbearing, black trench-coat, with his hands dug deeply into his large pockets. He smokes, and seems comfortable with the whole situation. He is the typical henchman; charismatic, risky and threatening. His body language is fairly relaxed and at ease, while his facial expressions express an underlying desire to get the bag back, even if it results in a blood-spattered ending. Henchman 2 displays similar characteristics, as the patrols the end of the alleyway with a pent up angst. As a result of these henchmen, the main villain, Warren Grey, is portrayed as a ruthless man, who doesn’t hold death and destruction far up on his own moral code, without even appearing on-screen. In many ways, the henchman are the product of a thriller stereotype; tough, strong but ultimately flawed, as is shown when Dwayne escapes by catching the antagonist off-guard with a heavy punch to the chin.
• Dwayne is very much on edge, tensed up, and scared. Judging by his reactions to the henchman, he is aware of the consequences of his robbery, but he is still defiant in the face of danger. Like many heroes in the thriller genre, he is resilient and strong, but is not invincible, which is a typical characteristic of heroes such as Bruce Willis in Die Hard or Christian Slater in Broken Arrow. The camera work in our opening also represents Dwayne as vulnerable. It is hot from above, and with the henchman in frame, to suggest he is under the influence of Warren Grey, and that the henchmans presence is always felt when he is in frame.
• In general, all the characters are White, of British origin, and are around the early-mid twenties of age. This is also typical of the thriller genre. For example in Transformers, the 2 main leads, Shia LaBoeuf and Megan Fox are young adults. It is unusual to find an older action hero like Sly Stallone on John Rambo or likewise; it is uncommon, so we opted for the more typical age of the characters.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?
• There are vast amounts of media distributors, ranging from small scale setups to huge companies. 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros are probably the most famous. Some companies such as the aforementioned Warner Bros would be a bad choice, as they have released films from The Maltese Falcon up to the Harry Potter franchise. They have also released films such as Zodiac, Run Fatboy Run, Get Smart, Inkheart and Under Siege. Most of their releases are high profiting comedies, action thrillers or romances. They would not undertake our film because British film is still conquering the United States, with the exception of Slumdog Millionaire and a few others. Our film centres around revenge, but the concept has been done before, albeit not in the same way, but the key points are relatively similar.
• A distribution company that would fund and release our film would be Delanic Films, who are an independent film distributor operating out of the UK and Ireland. Their films include Freebird and Swing Vote. The founders are Joe Simpson, who has worked for MGM and Columbia Tri-Star, and Glyn Allanson, a veteran in the advertising industry for 20 years. They use British actors such as Gary Stretch, who has been in films such as Rock N’ Rolla and Dead Man’s Shoes, a film by Shane meadows, who is a British director.
• Delanic Films are also represented at the Toronto Film Festival, so they could show our film before a wide release to acquire information on the general publics opinions of the movie. This is a good way of seeing if a film will do well. Generally they do, as they are selected before their showings, so only the best get through.
• Delanic Films could acquire the licence to exploit the film. The producer is paid for this right, and after the film is produced, and then the marketing will sell the film to the audience. This can be done via billboards, radio, television, trailers in the cinema, buses, and magazines/newspapers. Websites can now create quite a large gathering for a film through use of Internet trailers, viral images and actor/director/etc interviews. Also, they can premiere the film at the Toronto Film festival, which would drum up interest if it’s a great piece of work.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
• The audience for our product would be males aged 18-30. This is because males in this age group enjoy action/thriller films such as Transformers, Die Hard or Reservoir Dogs(which was an independent film). As our product falls under the general thriller outline, then we must aim at the most productive market for the thriller genre. Also, the leads are both males, and the 3 characters in the opening sequence are ale, so they’d be more willing to grasp the concepts of the film perhaps more strongly, so it would resemble a manly ensemble cast such as the one in Snatch; Brad Pitt, Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones and Benicio Del Toro. The film made a $20 million profit, opened at over 1000 screens, and re-ignited British cinema.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
• Our film opens with Dwayne running down an alleyway, with several cuts to various angles, which is snappy and fast paced. The dialogue opens with some strong profanity, and there is some violence with the punch. Crime is a theme raised by the opening, typical of many old and modern thrillers ranging from The Public Enemy in 1931 to 2008’s The Dark Knight.
• The music we used is intense and throbbing, setting the mood nicely for a tense, taut thriller. The camera work is uncomplicated, which allows the audience to immerse easily into the story. It also raises a few questions of what’s to come. Why has Dwayne robbed someone? Does he get caught? Repercussions of the robbery? Who is the employer of the henchman? What did he steal? These questions all create interest, and the use of the enigma code means that the hooks are into the audience early on. The worst thing you can do is bore your audience, so it is important to grab them early on and never let go.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
• During the preliminary, I had minimal exposure to the technology we used, so during this task, I filmed as much as I could, despite being in the film. I learned to set up the tripod, attach the camera to it, and manoeuvre it. I also learnt how to set the white balance, which was always difficult because the cameras we used on each filming session was different, so each camera worked in a different way.
• Other technologies I encountered include: the Apple Mac, the editing software and music software on it (although we didn’t use GarageBand, I still used it up until the change of plan that meant a musician would orchestrate our music).
• I learned the basic controls of the editing, how to cut sections, and how to raise and lower sound levels, although the more complex techniques I didn’t need to use, so therefore had no need to grasp, but I still need practice before I’m a decent editor.
• During our first shoot, we didn’t set the white balance, in a bout of laziness and haphazard sloth. Unfortunately, not till we went to edit the footage did we realize it was tinted blue, for some bizarre reason, so we had to re-shoot that part again. Since then, we have always made sure the white balance is set properly.
• Our peer evaluation said that we didn’t use a wide variety of transitions. Personally I felt like we didn’t need a fade, wipe or any other fancy transition that would add nothing to the narrative. The fade is quite a slow transition, so it wouldn’t fit in with our theme at all, and the wipe is quite a wacky way or transitioning, and our project is quite serious. Other transitions may have been added, but would have been unnecessary. However, our transition to our credits was quite plain, a cut to black with the words floating on screen in blood-red, so we could have been more inventive with the use of music or graphics.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
• Our biggest improvements were with the camera framing and our match-on-action. In our preliminary our framing was poor and our match-on-action wasn’t sharp enough, the 2 shots didn’t correlate smoothly.
• There are 2 match-on-action shots in particular that I think the group achieved very well. Firstly when Dwayne is running down the alley it cuts from a LS to a high angle shot. We edited this part very carefully, so even his footsteps matched between frames, and he was in the next shot where he ended in the last. The second shot was when the first henchman rounds the corner, and then it cuts to in front of the henchman. We paid attention to which leg I walked off of before the cut, and the distance I covered being shown as I walked around the corner, so it would match with the next shot.
• Our framing was also tight; we used long shots, OTS’s, and mid-shots that concentrated on the character, and not the extraneous material behind or around them.
• Also, I think the whole group knew how horrifically basic and mundane our preliminary was. The music was tragic, our dialogue was boring and our use of the ‘After a long winded chat…’ screen meant that our peer evaluations were cementing our own thoughts about our preliminary; it was very bad. We spiced up the dialogue to resemble a typical gangster conversation, and it worked out to be essentially the characters repeating the same basic phrase under different guises. We also got a musician to make our music, which was a real problem in our preliminary.
• Another valuable lesson I’ve learnt is that preparation is vital. Last time we charged in like supercharged army, whereas this time we got our props and actors well before we started to shoot, but we did have some problems with the props, so it didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. It is difficult to organize a set group of people at a certain time when they live in different areas and are free at varying times. It is difficult at best. I felt we worked around that well, although our amount of re-shoots nearly escalated into a farce, but we managed to wrap it up nicely.
• Furthermore, our editing was supreme compared to last time, as we’ve all gotten to know the controls of the software.
Posted by Michael McGroarty
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