Question 8: Audience Feedback and Comments!

Here are some videos that we took before, during and after the screening:

Harry Kinsley's comment after watching 'Of Unsound Mind'

Michael Lewry's comment.

Francene and Alexandra's comment.

The atmosphere before the viewing of all our clips in 'The Green Screen'.

We were pleased with all the comments and found that all of them were postive and was happy that they found that our film was unique and interesting.

Evaluation Q;5. who would be the audience for my media product?

'Farhana, 17, currently studying for her A levels, a particular interest in Psychology, loves to go out with her friends to the cinema, shops in high street; Topshop, River island, Dorothy Perkins'

From this interview that i conducted with Farhana, i feel that she is the main audience for our Thriller film 'Of Unsound Mind'. I felt that she was of the right age group as it is centered around a teenager-- of which she is. I also think it would mainly appeal to her because of her general hobbies and day to day life, she enjoys watching television and films and also has a specialised interest in Psychology, as she does the lesson in her A levels which makes our film even more of an appeal to her.

EVAULATION. Q2. How my media product represents particular social groups

'Carrie (1979)'

I felt that the film Carrie was quite similar to my film 'Of Unsound mind' I think this is especially shown in the two stills above.

Carrie, is about a white, young adolescent female of a middle class origin, this compares fully to the Character in our Thriller opening-- White, teenage female. For this reason i feel that the social group that my thriller film would represent would be young, white, middle class people who may have a particular interest in Psychological thrillers. The comparison of the Mise en Scene in both 'Carrie' and 'Of Unsound Mind' is quite similar with the main characters both in some sort of hospital or institutional gowns. The only difference i found in the two stills is that in my thriller opening the surroundings are in an open area (a band stand) whereas Carrie is in an enclosed environment which could represent being trapped not only in a room but also in her mind, which would have been an effective thing for my group to do to show further representations.

'Carrie' I felt inspired me because though it is an old film, made in 1979 it is still widely enjoyed today and may not be what is considered a 'conventional' Thriller film. Carrie's frame of mind was attempted to be recreated in our Thriller opening, using effects that may give the audience the idea that our character too has powers beyond normal means.

EVALUATION: Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

To understand and mantain enough knowledge in the different forms and conventions of opening title sequences we watched several different film openings of all different generes especially openings that are films based on the Thriller genre. The main forms and conventions we found in majority of title sequences are the institutional ident of the production companies always coming immediately at the start of any opening.

These are 9 shots from my title sequence created for a Thriller opening. Our opening i feel both represents real conventions for this kind of media product and but also challenges it in certain aspects. The order of our opening titles are in correspondence of the order they are presented in Panic Room's opening title sequence with the exception of where the film title is placed. However, we realised after carefully placing our titles that Panic Room does not follow the order of titles that a lot of other films have, with things such as the director, writer and producer coming at the end of the title sequence instead of at the start as a lot of films do (in rank
order).
I felt that our opening sequence was most similar to the opening of the film Se7en. In the Thriller film 'Se7en' There are many differences which would make our film seem as though it does not have many or any comparisons to it, however there are certain things within our opening that correspond and are similar to it. In our opening, throughout we used fading and overlapping tools which was also used in the Se7en, mainly of close ups of miscellaneous objects like notes and diaries and books, we similarly did this when overlapped a close ups of a leaf and the teddy which was in it throughout. This is also similar to Se7en because there are various objects that are shown throughout such as note books and sharp metal objects helping to create a theme and set up an idea with the audience about what is coming in the film.

The use of sound in all the opening title sequences indicated the theme, tone and genre of the up coming movie. To show our knowledge of the forms and conventions, whilst creating our sequence we oredered the titles as we thought was appropraite and to how many would fit in our sequence to help illustrate what we wanted present. In our thriller opening 'Of Unsound Mind' we used the convention of an institutional ident to start with. using "candistudios" a low budget production company which could be like a existing company 'working title 2'.

The sound plays a very important role especailly in our opening title sequence, it was the main source that created tenstion, which we also found was similar in many film openings. The soundtrack we created had a constant heatbeat in the background, this made the tension of what would or might happen stronger and therefore more effective and so possibly reveals the pace of the entire film.

The sound plays an important part in the opening of a title sequence, the soundtrack we created was upbeat at faced paced to indicated the fast pace of the theme of the movie and genre overall. "The shinning" uses an orchestral soundtrack to open of which creates an eerie atmosphere and gives the audience a clue of what the rest of the film holds. This is similar to the film Se7en, the pace of the film, steady helps to created the wished atmosphere and so make the audience prepared for what they are about to watch in the rest of the film.

EVALUATION

1) How media product is used, developed, challenged forms and conventions of real media products?

Here is my 9 still title sequence. You could see that there were effects used to evoke a sense of thriller and tension.

Another tool that we used was layering 2 clips together so it presents a scary psychological theme, for example when she's sitting on the ban stand by herself while the walls of the band stand are moving round it expresses that she is in her own world.

For our titles we used a sharp font with a blue effect so it blends in with what the girl is wearing. Moreover the shot of the teddy bear fading out was a useful technique which flowed with the soundtrack but indicated an illusion of it disappearing hence showing an insight of the girls mind in this clip 'Of Unsound Mind'.

We used some long shots and close ups to allow the audience to see every detail of the clip and mise en scene.

Here is the title sequence of Se7en. The shots here are all close ups so it is very effective in allowing the audience to see every detail of mise en scene, similarly to how we used a close up of the teddy bear and 'Jessica's eyes'. The titles are small and in white and kiddish style writing which presents to us that it may be a psychological thriller. Compared to our titles they were spooky and striking and more memorable. Although the title sequence isn't completely similar to our title sequence, we used this title sequence to influence ours as our titles are in different places on the screen just like 'Se7en'. Moreover the effects that were used in this title sequence are similar to the way we used some effects. For example when the girl is on the bench touching the bear, we used a dark suspensed effect.

Another title sequence that we used as an influence was 'Panic Room'. We tried using the style of the titles used in the title sequence on ours which i think we have done pretty well because our titles come out as striking and suit generally well with the rest of the clip. In addition they were presented in different places of the screen like 'Panic Room'.

2) How media product represents our particular social group?

We used a young girls to attract audiences of youths which should attract these types of audiences but through the use of edit and soundtrack of the title sequence it would broaden the audience to those who like thrillers especially psychological.

In comparison to the film ' Fatal Attraction', Glenn Close is a female psycho who kills unreasonably. This similar to our film 'Of Unsound Mind' because they are both female characters which is going to attract the female audience as well as the male audience. Moreover because both are psychological thrillers it will engage those who like to watch psychological films. This character has inspired us to include a female character in our 2 minutes clip because it creates more tension as well as giving the audience ambiguous thoughts to make them want to watch more of the film.

3 &4) Media Institution that may distributes media product and why. How we would attract the audiences.

This is one of the pieces that a group of AS students made and posted it on youtube and recieved 11,458 hits which shows that it has gained a great amount of audiences. This proves that this is a realistic way of gaining a wider audience and since it was a low budget film with limited access to technology, it shows that it can still be distributed and interest others through the use of the internet. Moreover, youtube is a worldwide website that is accessed by millions of people around the world which allows distribution to a greater market and it is easier to be recognised.

Here is another clip of a singer who started off posting videos of herself singing and everytime she posted a video she recieved as many as 15 million hits. This lead to her being recognised and becoming and international singer.

5) Who would be the audience for our media product?

Our typical audience would by young female teens. Here is images of things that will be in a typical young female teens handbag and there is also a video of the target audience and why it would appeal to them.

7) What i have learnt in progression from the the preliminary task to the full product.

Here is one of the first filming activites that we had to do. This shows our steadiness of the camera and how we could use Final Cut Pro to match the clips together and make it flow. It clearly shows that we had a lot of glitches and needed more time to improve it as well as more time to practise with the tools.

And here is out final cut that we did for our final clip 'Of Unsound Mind'. You can see that we have made a major improvement as we explored Final Cut Pro and used many effects. On our first match cut activity we only learnt how to put certain clips into the timeline and not use the other effects on making it more interesting. Moreover our final cut includes sound and more effects and titles which was not included in our preliminary task. This was because it was the build up of learning more on how to use the Dual Macs and the programmes.

EVALUATION: Q8. Audience feedback and comment

Jessica Comerford: These words in the above picture are from Wordle and are the instant reactions and feedback we received from our class before showing it in the cinema. The words that were predominantly used in each groups feedback were 'Effective' 'good' 'shots' 'Breathing' and 'Soundtrack'. Although four of the words on the wordle seem to be quite general it may show that the audience did not fully take in the message that we tried to give across. It however shows that we created a competent piece that was enjoyed and we felt it represented things and feelings we wanted to get across, especially by the word 'Breathing'. A lot of the audience after watching felt that it was very different from other Thriller openings they had seen, with it not being a narrative opening.

Farhana Maleque: The words in the Wordle represent the immediate comments from the rest of our class members once they watched our 2 minute clip. I have identified that the bigger words are the ones that were the most used from the feedback. The students found our 'shots' 'really' 'effective'. Also 'soundtrack' and 'breathing' came up a lot and we were pleased to find that we successfully aimed to make the features of our clip obvious. I am pleased with all the comments and have portrayed a unique Thriller opening clip that the audience was not expecting.