Media A2

For our main task, our objective was to create a professional and eye catching short films with duration of approximately 4-5 minutes. As a production team we start viewing a wide variety of different media products, from different genre, different target audience, and the list goes one. When analysing these products we discussed between us and to our supervisor about which genre would really challenge us, to make us push our self to use different professional editing software and equipment to try and create our own movie using the similar codes and conventions from the movie we have analysed. At the start of the course we were eager to do a film based on the genre of a tragic Romance. This idea came to us after watch a film called ‘The Fault in our Stars’ which a fantastic film which the original book was written by the talented John Green and the screen play was written by Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber.  

Through-out the course we came decided that we should change the genre of our short film. We decided on this because the first film we created on the genre of romance didn’t have enough to meet the correct codes and conventions of the genre. This meant starting a whole new research and different analysis. At the start we picked two different genre and one was obviously Romance, the second one we picked was thriller/horror. After long countless hours discussions we decided that it would be better to follow the genre of Thriller/Horror because it has such a wider platform and a wider target audience.

 

Having such a vast number of diverse thriller/horror movies it made it more interesting to truly analysed these media product and actually notice how similar most of the codes and conventions are. This meant that we had that our short film had to meet the codes and conventions but also match with other thriller movies by making it look similar but without copying shot to shot. Having a great cast on your set to be part of your movie is really important because they the one who will make the film come to live and make everything come together as one. We start looking and working out who would be best to suit the character that will be cast in our short film. We came across a website called StarNow which is an online actor agency website where anyone create a media product can go on that website and asked for actors or actresses to be part of their media product. So we started search and found and actor from our local area called Connor Simpson we got in contact with him via the online agency website and he replied with excitement and ready to perform for our short film. As we came towards filming the media products we produced storyboards and scripts which include codes and conventions of the genre that we are covering. By having storyboards and scripts this meant that while filming we had a guide and directions that we can follow to make sure that we are shooting the correct scenes which matches and supports our media product research.

 

To make your movie a best-selling movie it’s really crucial that you understand your target audience. By understanding your target audience it will make sure that when you release the movie you will definitely have a wide audience if you have questioned them and asked what they would like to see in the film or even what they would like to hear in the film as well. If your target audience enjoys the media product then they might encourage they friends and family to go watch the media product which will gain the film company money because nowadays everything is about money and without money it’s really hard to produce and successful media product. The target audience are the people who will be watching your media product and maybe criticise it leaving you with great and amazing feedback or really negative and hurtful feedbacks, I talk about this later on during the process.

 

We felt that our camera shots were the most important because this was what the audience will be seeing and reacting to but also its how the audience will see the similarity between our short film and real, professional movies even profession and award winning short films. During mine and the group’s deep research into different media products which once again was of the genre of Thriller and horror, we was really engage into how the media products was shot using a variety of effective and professional shot types.  As I’ve included in my portfolio are different typical shot types which are commonly used in these media products. The shot types which I studied was personally really effective and really matched the genre of Romance because at a really emotional scene there might be a shot of the actor’s face which really shows the character’s real facial expressions and the emotion within, this create a sort of tense between the audience and the characters. This is really effective because that’s the film interacting with the audience and really engaging them and making them feel interested and part of the film. Camera shot that I was really fascinated to was camera shots from the film ‘Woman in black’. This was a film that I analysed to again gain more thoughts and designs that we as a group could recreate for our own short film. Some of the camera shots that I got really interested with was the establishing shots that their use in the movie. Establishing shot is where the viewers would get a full wide shot which you can see and familiarise your-self with the locations and see everything in the scenes. This is an effective shot because the viewer hasn’t actually been on the set locations so having them see the location makes the movie more believable and understandable. In our short film we used this shot to familiarise them self with the locations that we was filming in. This worked really well in our short film because it supported and was appropriate for the genre and concept of the short film. In this shot there was our actor in a selected location which was a wide field surrounded by a forest.

 

As I’ve mentioned part of the location, from my research I have come to a conclusion about location that it’s the most important part of any movies created. The location is what makes the movie feel like a realistic world and as if you were there, it’s what sets the scenes of the movie. This is a part that needs to be decided carefully because if you have a movie under the genre of action you but set on a flowery field because that would match and be appropriate for the genre but however that location would be for a romance film. We went on a location hunt in our own local living area; we came across a field location which is surrounded by a forest. Because of this

Location was surrounded by a forest it meant that we tried filming in twilight during the evening as it would start to have a faded darkness on the field and from analysing different thriller and horror movies we noted that most of these films have a low key lighting to create the atmosphere and tension between characters. Although we really liked the idea of having a low key lighting and it was a portion of the codes and conventions of the genre because we didn’t have a portable light or the budget to invest in one it was hard to try and film in low lighting as the camera we used which was a Nikon D3100 doesn’t pick up objects or people in a low key lighting making it hard to be seen to the naked eye. We didn’t say ‘no’ to filming in a low key lighting as we have access to professional video editing software called Adobe Premier, which a professional filming company would use to enhance lighting and make everything clear for the audience to see, but because we didn’t have the high level of knowledge and skills that they would have we wasn’t able to do this so that’s why we decided to film using a higher key lighting but still be tight around other codes and conventions of the genre.