Evaluation Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product

This video demonstrates the progress we have made from doing the preliminary match cut exercise to the production of our final product, Broken Alliance.

Evaluation Question 8: Audience Feedback and comment

These are some photo's from the day of the screening of our films and some audience feedback videos of people saying what they generally thought of Broken Alliance.

Evaluation Question 6: What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

This is a video which illustrates what technical progress we, as a group, have made.

Evaluation Question 3&4: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

This is an example of a student thriller sequence which was uploaded onto YouTube. It has 1238 hits already. Our film could be distributed in a similar way to this one as it is a low budget student video. A Facebook page could be set up for the film and links to it can be sent to all my contacts and they can pass the link on to their contacts, creating a chain so the film will end up with a wide distribution and an audience of technically savvy young people along with other Facebook and YouTube users. Also, a twitter account could be set up with links to the YouTube page, which will get people talking about the film and creating a frenzy about it, making it more successful with an increasing number of hits. By distributing our film on the Internet there is a potential global audience as the internet is used worldwide. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and Bebo along with YouTube are all good ways of targeting a potential global audience as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IQoaL00N8g&feature=related

Evaluation Question 5: who would be the audience for your media product?

This is the contents of a bag of a 18 year old student who would be an ideal person to watch Broken Alliance.

The items are:

• Sunglasses
• A purse
• An oyster card
• Student id
• Money
• Bankcard
• Nail Varnish
• Mirror
• Keys
• Mascara
• Two phones
• Ipod

She loves watching films, especially thrillers, and is always going to the cinema and doesn't mind spending money on DVDs. This young person is very technically savvy, as you can tell from the Ipod and two phones, which is why she would like to watch Broken Alliance as it has the modern aspect and the 'secret device'. The female characters would also appeal to this girl by their appearance. She likes to keep up her appearance and wants to do well in life, shown by her college id, sunglasses and make up, so the main characters being 'glammed up' business women would also draw her into the film.

Evaluation question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups

When we constructed our characters we relied on the mise en scene to reveal who they are as we didn't include any dialogue. Our three main characters represented particular social groups:

The busy business woman

This character was an inspiration for our mise en scene from Panic room. This shot from the city shows a business woman, like the ones in Broken alliance. we wanted to represent the females in our sequence like this to appeal to the female audience. We tried to make our characters look like the stereotypical business women with the trench coat, high heels and bag, similar to this character from panic room. However with the business woman who dropped the device in the cup, we decided to put her in an all black outfit and sunglasses to reinforce the mystery.

Homeless person

when we were constructing the character of our homeless person we wanted him to look as realistic as possible. We googled pictures of homeless people to see the kind of mise en scene we would need for him. I think we achieved this successfully through the use of make up, old clothes, a throw, biscuit crumbs and a dirty cup to represent a homeless person. The difference was, as this is an action thriller which is meant to be suspenseful, we made him an undercover tramp, illustrated by the device, rather than an ordinary one.

Evaluation Question 1: How does your media product use, develop or challange forms and conventions of real media products?

This is a screen grab from the title sequence of the Dark knight thriller film. The tile of the film appears at the end of the title sequence, similar to how our title appeared on Broken alliance.

Panic room started off with a panning shot of the city, which we incorporated into our title sequence. as it is an action thriller, we wanted to use the city in our filming and we have already taken photo's which convey this. A lot of thriller films which inspired us had various city shots.

Earlier on, when looking at title sequences, dawn of the dead was one which really stood out. from the inspiration of this film we decided to cut between titles and shots and to put our titles on a black screen. This heightens the suspense of the title sequence and leaves the viewer wanting to watch more of the action.

At the beginning of Broken alliance we have a shot of a bird flying in the sky, similar to this film 6 feet under. This is used as an introductory tool to the film, preparing the viewer for what they are about to watch . It also contributes to the introduction of the City.

This clip from the action thriller movie Speed, which i looked at earlier on, also shows the use of the City in a thriller film. This inspired us to use this convention of an action thriller as it was available for us to use and made our film more realistic.

Evaluation Question 8: Audience Feedback and Comment

This is our audience feedback from when our title sequences were watched in class. these were he words people used to describe our film. Overall the feedback was generally positive. Although some people said they didn't really understand it, this mad us happy as it shows that our goal to make it very suspenseful was achieved.

Livetype: Making titles for the film

We wanted our titles to correspond the the suspenseful theme we had going. Using live type we made our titles which was quite simple. We chose what font we wanted to use and added the effect, as this screen grab shows...



Then, we put our titles onto a black screen as we had planned...


After, the titles were put into our sequence. To keep our editing less stressful, we put each title into Final cut pro as we went along constructing our sequence. this helped us keep track of what titles we had left to do at each point and where in the sequence they had to be.

Soundtrack Pro: Making the soundtrack

As we had already had a tutorial of how to use Soundtrack pro, we were already familiar with using the programme. We wanted our sound to be suspenseful to reinforce the action on the screen. Once we chose our sounds and uploaded them onto the timeline we had to arrange them so that it sounded correct and sounded right with our sequence. We imported our soundtrack into final cut pro so that we could fit it to go with our film and titles.

Broken Alliance rough cut

This is a rough cut of our title sequence. We put the titles on a black screen with white font and cross cut between the titles and two different pieces of action. This was inspired by Marathon Man, which we watched earlier on as part of our research. The aim of the cross cutting was to create suspense so the audience would have to think to try and figure out how the smartly dressed woman on the platform and the undercover beggar on London Bridge are connected. The device being dropped in the cup gives a hint but the viewer would have to watch more of the film to find out, which was the effect we wanted to bring across. We also got the idea of cutting from the images on the screen to the titles from the Dawn of the Dead title sequence which we found really inspiring. We wanted to have the element of time as well, like in collateral, so we included the shots of the clock to emphasise that the woman on the train platform was waiting impatiently.

Final cut Pro: Editing

When we finished filming Broken Alliance, we transferred the clips from the memory card to our video drive, then we imported them into Final cut pro. Firstly we had to sort through all of our clips to find out which ones we would use. Then, using our storyboard as a guideline, the clips were cut and put into order on the timeline. Even though we got all the shots from the storyboard from when we filmed, we didn't follow the storyboard exactly because we wanted our film to flow in the best way and some of the shots didn't go together well. When the clips were laid down onto the timeline, we then had to cut some of them to make sure they ran into each other smoothly. For example, in the scene of the beggar on the bridge, we used a match cut to show the device being dropped into the cup. At the end of the sequence we used the fade out effect to establish it was the end, we also faded into each title and out of each title in the sequence.

On Shoot Photos

These are on shoot photos from when we filmed 'Broken Alliance' over the two days. One of our locations was London Bridge, where the undercover beggar scene was filmed. The other scene, with the smartly dressed person waiting impatiently, was filmed on a train platform at London Euston station. We decided to film in the city because of our Action-thriller sub genre, and the city is usually a convention of this sub genre. We were able to finish our filming over two days as we had planned carefully what we would be filming, where we would be filming and the time we would be filming each scene. We overall found filming very enjoyable and there was a good element of teamwork.

Animatic Story Board

This is an animatic storyboard for our title sequence, when it comes to filming and editing we will use this as a guideline. However, the final edit may be in a different order. Also the titles included in the story board are an idea of what titles we will put in our actual opening sequence.

The order of the sequence in the storyboard:

• Panning wide shot of London from London Bridge
• Production company
• Wide shot of people walking on train platform
• Director
• Close up of character 1 tapping feet on train platform
• Tilt to fully reveal character 1
• Starring actors
• Wide shot of beggar sitting on London Bridge
• Music by
• Close up of character 1's walking feet
• Mid shot of character 1 pacing up and down on platform
• Costume designer
• Long shot of character 2 walking towards beggar on London bridge
• Side view of character 2 walking to beggar
• Cut to birds eye view of device being dropped in cup
• Writers of the film
• Over the shoulder shot of the sly nod to confirm between character 2 and beggar
• Co-producer
• Close up of character 1's face
• Extreme close up of character 1's eyes
• Editor
• Over the shoulder of character 2 spying on character 1
• close up of character 2's face
• Make up by
• Panning wide shot of train driving off
• Long shot of character 1 walking off train platform
• Title: Broken Alliance
• Bird flying in the sky

Pitch and Final Locations

This is our Pitch which we had to present to our class and teachers in order to get permission to go out and start filming. In our pitch we included:

• A brief Outline of the Film
  
• Why it would make a good thriller
  
• Our Working Titles
  
• Planned Locations
  
• Props, Costumes and Mise en scene we would use
  
• Preliminary ideas about sound
  
• Institution detail
  
• A risk assessment
  
• A skills audit
  
• A production Schedule

After we received filming permission, we decided to use Candi studios as our production company as this is a low budget student film.

Also, our final decided two locations are:

• London Euston train station

• London Bridge

Preliminary Match Cut Excercise

Our preliminary match cut exercise was to storyboard and film a conversation using match cuts. This task helped us become more confident with using the camera before we go out and start shooting the real thing. Before we started filming the conversation we storyboarded the camera shots we would use and followed the sequence when filming. Afterwards we imported the shots into Final Cut pro where we edited it into a short sequence. Although the sound wasn't very clear, i think that we were able to film various shots which was good practice for our thriller film.

Cameras & Health and Safety Tutorial

Our health and safety tutorial of how to use the JVC cameras was really helpful because when we go out filming we will know how to use them safely. During the tutorial for camerawork we learned how to:

• Put the memory cards in the camera


• Switch the memory cards( A and B)


• Turn the camera on and off


• Setup a tripod


• Put the camera on a tripod


• Lock the camera on a tripod


• Unlock the camera on a tripod


• Take the camera off a tripod


• Focus on the camera


• Open and close the lens


• Record footage


• Playback footage

'The Bag Swap'

We had a group task which was to storyboard a 'bag swap' in an exciting way. Then we had to film it in a short sequence of camera shots then edit it. Two members of the group did the actual bag swap and all of us contributed to the camerawork and editing on Final Cut pro. Afterwards, we uploaded sound from Soundtrack pro and put on a title using Livetype. This task helped us get familiar with the camera work and was a good exercise for us to practice our skills on filming and editing.

Using Soundtrack pro and Live type

We had a tutorial on using soundtrack pro and live type to help us when editing our films.

In the Soundtrack pro tutorial i learned how to:

• Listen to instrument sounds
• Drag and drop them into the timeline
• change or delete any unwanted sounds
• put multiple sounds together in the timeline

In the live type tutorial i learned how to:

• change the style of the font
• change the size of the font
• add effects such as texturised backgrounds, shadows, fades and floats etc
• play the effects on the timeline

• 

News and Current Affairs

Kidnapped British yacht couple 'need urgent help'

A British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates three months ago have said they are in urgent need of help.
"We have not much time left and are being badly treated", Rachel Chandler told a journalist from the French news agency AFP who met them in captivity.
She and husband Paul, of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, were captured while sailing towards Tanzania on 23 October.
Mr Chandler, 60, said the couple could not meet the pirates' ransom demands and begged the UK government to help.
The pirates have threatened to kill the couple if their demands for $7m (£4.4m) are not met, but the Foreign Office has said it does not pay ransoms or give substantial concessions to pirates.
full story....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/8489958.stm

I think this story on the kidnap of the British couple could be inspireing for a thriller film as the kidnap and ransom creates tension, anxiety and suspense.