Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Monday, May 11, 2015
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?
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How did you attract/address your audience?
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Transcript:
My audience was teenage girls and up, Mature, due to the amount of blood. Blood is a fetish in film (e.g./As explained in Kathryn Bigelow's The Set Up + on other occasions, states that "violence is a fact of our lives, a part of the social context in which we live.") which attracts a wide audience.
Another way in which I attract this audience is by advertising/hinting at the movie on sites such as Facebook, Skype, Tumblr. Using Poll Junkie was how I first decided to appeal to a female teen-and-up audience, along with questionnaires handed out on the street - and women were the biggest respondents to my product.
Features actually in the video which made people pay attention to the opening was the techno at the very beginning; Fatty Boom Boom by Die Antwoord. M.O.ON.'s Abyss was used in order to show intertextuality with the film opening's influences Hotline Miami.
Transcript:
My audience was teenage girls and up, Mature, due to the amount of blood. Blood is a fetish in film (e.g./As explained in Kathryn Bigelow's The Set Up + on other occasions, states that "violence is a fact of our lives, a part of the social context in which we live.") which attracts a wide audience.
Another way in which I attract this audience is by advertising/hinting at the movie on sites such as Facebook, Skype, Tumblr. Using Poll Junkie was how I first decided to appeal to a female teen-and-up audience, along with questionnaires handed out on the street - and women were the biggest respondents to my product.
Features actually in the video which made people pay attention to the opening was the techno at the very beginning; Fatty Boom Boom by Die Antwoord. M.O.ON.'s Abyss was used in order to show intertextuality with the film opening's influences Hotline Miami.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
There is a positive (or arguably not-so-positive) representation of cisgender women due to the fact that unlike most Thriller films, the convention is to have the woman as a love interest. A femme fatale. A minor character. They will also be scantily clad as whores (Only God Forgives), or as naïve children (Leon).
There are very few Thriller films tailored for females, and due tot he fact that I am one with the womenfolk and they seemed to be the most interested in my project during market research, I felt the need to include them. Not as background characters, but protagonists and antagonists; actual characters.
This is done so through the use of personal embellishments: Lisa is dressed in a jump suit and cap, but has added a skull and crossbones bandana to reveal an edge to her character. Additionally, Summer wears urban attire whilst running through the streets - and is by no means fetishized whilst lying dead on the floor covered in blood. One voyeuristic shot features a close up of her face, but this was added so as to fetishise the gore as opposed to her beauty. All voyeurism is not seen through a male gaze; the viewer is watching a sequence of events, making them feel unattached - and in their shoes with the use of POVs (running in the street, the removal of the shroud).
So basically, teenage girls are being represented doing shady things at night, but said shady things are not selling themselves, getting murdered or smoking cigarettes a car park. Local Identity is also being represented; specifically, East Midlanders The location where filming occurred was Nottingham (however, it could be argued that all cities look the same.) Accent saves us there: apart from Lisa (our token 'Southerner'), Summer Keeling (girl on the phone) spoke with a thick Kirkby accent that may have gone a little American but, uh, the heart was in there.
So basically, teenage girls are being represented doing shady things at night, but said shady things are not selling themselves, getting murdered or smoking cigarettes a car park. Local Identity is also being represented; specifically, East Midlanders The location where filming occurred was Nottingham (however, it could be argued that all cities look the same.) Accent saves us there: apart from Lisa (our token 'Southerner'), Summer Keeling (girl on the phone) spoke with a thick Kirkby accent that may have gone a little American but, uh, the heart was in there.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
First and foremost, I learnt that shooting in widescreen was going to be nigh impossible whilst using a canon 100d - so I had to improvise by making crop bars which cut off a part of the clip in order to give it a more cinematic widescreen effect. To accomplish this, I literally just coloured the edges of a transparent image on GIMP and overlaid the image onto the adjustment layer above my film; as such, I learnt that the technological convergence of software was vital to filmmakers - as a borader range of tools at you disposal means you have more room to manoeuvre with creative pursuits during the editing process.
Premier Pro as a technology was also a great use whilst constructing my product due to the fact that Premier Pro allow me to color grade my footage. This was down with the RGB Curve, the cineon converter and the three way color wheels. What I learnt about technologies was that anything was possible within reason if you search hard enough for a youtube tutorial.
Tutorial I used:
EQ BALANCE
The EQ balance adjusts the sharpness and volume of the sound (I think). For example if you sharpen an image you will begin to see low resolution grain around the edges of an image and a starker colour contrast. As such, I adjusted the EQ for the phone conversation in the film opening; this made it sound as though I had recorded someone's phone message as opposed to grabbing sound from another clip (summer in the phone booth) and adding it in during post-production.
This tutorial informed me about the EQ balance and I am so grateful to the makers:
With After Effect, I learned that it was possible to adjust the dimensions of an image, which I had to use whilst inserting the "Feature Presentation" intro (inspired by their use in Tarantino films such as Death Proof and Kill Bill.) Said intro was grabbed from this youtube clip., which I learnt was possibly through the use of a clip converter website; by typing ss before 'youtube.com-of-whatever-clip-you-want-to-download's' hyperlink, you get sent to another website which is similar to youtube2mp3. This was told to me by a friend in the US who also studies media. Which was done over Skype, on my phone: yet another example of technological convergence which proved useful, as communication with other creative sorts influenced the overall look of my film opening.
Without Youtube, I'd have no tutorials to steal or ideas to nick from existing film openings. Without Youtube at my disposal, my film couldn't be displayed to you lovely examiners. Also, I learnt in this project how to adjust the resolution to a higher quality which gave the opening a more polished effect than my previous endeavours (max. resolution for AS1 and A2: 360).
In the process of constructing this product, I also found that features on the CANON 100D Camera could be altered to change the quality of my picture. ISO and shuttered were set low during the indoor/night films, which lessened the amount of noise and grain in the image, but also meant that I had to consciously look for light (artificial, natural, already visible) whilst filming.
Premier Pro as a technology was also a great use whilst constructing my product due to the fact that Premier Pro allow me to color grade my footage. This was down with the RGB Curve, the cineon converter and the three way color wheels. What I learnt about technologies was that anything was possible within reason if you search hard enough for a youtube tutorial.
Tutorial I used:
EQ BALANCE
The EQ balance adjusts the sharpness and volume of the sound (I think). For example if you sharpen an image you will begin to see low resolution grain around the edges of an image and a starker colour contrast. As such, I adjusted the EQ for the phone conversation in the film opening; this made it sound as though I had recorded someone's phone message as opposed to grabbing sound from another clip (summer in the phone booth) and adding it in during post-production.
This tutorial informed me about the EQ balance and I am so grateful to the makers:
With After Effect, I learned that it was possible to adjust the dimensions of an image, which I had to use whilst inserting the "Feature Presentation" intro (inspired by their use in Tarantino films such as Death Proof and Kill Bill.) Said intro was grabbed from this youtube clip., which I learnt was possibly through the use of a clip converter website; by typing ss before 'youtube.com-of-whatever-clip-you-want-to-download's' hyperlink, you get sent to another website which is similar to youtube2mp3. This was told to me by a friend in the US who also studies media. Which was done over Skype, on my phone: yet another example of technological convergence which proved useful, as communication with other creative sorts influenced the overall look of my film opening.
Without Youtube, I'd have no tutorials to steal or ideas to nick from existing film openings. Without Youtube at my disposal, my film couldn't be displayed to you lovely examiners. Also, I learnt in this project how to adjust the resolution to a higher quality which gave the opening a more polished effect than my previous endeavours (max. resolution for AS1 and A2: 360).
In the process of constructing this product, I also found that features on the CANON 100D Camera could be altered to change the quality of my picture. ISO and shuttered were set low during the indoor/night films, which lessened the amount of noise and grain in the image, but also meant that I had to consciously look for light (artificial, natural, already visible) whilst filming.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Editing: Sound
DIEGETIC
Sounds Added:
Sounds Added:
Sounds Added:
- Phone Vibration
- The static of the phone conversation (Altered by adjusting the EQ balance)
- Footsteps and breathing during running
- Phone dial tone
Sounds Added:
- Hotline Miami - Abyss (Techno soundtrack/ambience)
- Die Antwoord - (Fatty Boom Boom at start of credits)
- Developing tense ambience
Editing: Title Sequence
PHOTOS TAKEN ON CAMERA
Photograph taken of my power snack.
Photograph taken of a duvet
Photograph taken of my onesie.
Photograph taken of my keyboard...by accident, I think.
Photograph taken of my turntable. The light was nice.
Taken from the A History of Espionage text book.
Taken from the A History of Espionage text book.
Taken from the A History of Espionage text book.
Taken from the Tattoo Art art book.
Taken from the Tattoo Art art book.
Taken from the Tattoo Art art book.
Taken from the Tattoo Art art book.
A photograph taken of my bedroom wallpaper
A photograph taken of a skirt that I had hanging on my wall. With the sunlight seeping through the red curtains, it gave the fabric a pink-ish tint.
Taken from the Art Nouveau: A Compendium art book.
Taken from the Art Nouveau: A Compendium art book. These were picked because I wanted to hint to the readers about the 'female' influence in the film opening.
Taken from Mafia Story textbook
Taken from Mafia Story textbook
Taken from Mafia Story textbook
Taken from Mafia Story textbook
Lotsa lotsa money
I then used GIMP to overlay text.
Each image started life as super-bright but in the editing process, I felt that black and white was more in key with the genre. Moodier and such.
FIlming #2
Lighting/Mascot: Danny Johnston
Actor(s): Lisa Briers, Summer Keeling
Time: 12pm - 2am (Daylight)
Better shots gather that were well lit as opposed to the first filming session. However, we forgot to include some shot such as Lisa putting on her rubber glover and snapping them (match on action)
Actor(s): Lisa Briers, Summer Keeling
Time: 12pm - 2am (Daylight)
Better shots gather that were well lit as opposed to the first filming session. However, we forgot to include some shot such as Lisa putting on her rubber glover and snapping them (match on action)
Costumes
Blue Overalls
Blue hat
--Shall be worn by the Cleaner
White Shirt
Black Tie
Blood FX
--Shall be worn by the Corpse/Assassin
Jeans
White shirt
--Worn by Runner
Blue hat
--Shall be worn by the Cleaner
White Shirt
Black Tie
Blood FX
--Shall be worn by the Corpse/Assassin
Jeans
White shirt
--Worn by Runner
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