PREZI ISN'T GOING ON

Sir,
I've had this problem for the past 2 days and i've just been saving it as a draft.
I don't know why it isn't embedding but the embed code is there with a screen shot of the prezi on question 7 just so you know i've actually done it.

Matt

Question 1

1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

A thriller is a genre of film that tends to raise the viewer’s adrenaline levels. They produce a high level of anticipation through fast editing and a villain driven plot where he or she presents obstacles that the protagonist must overcome. Thrillers tend to use literary devices such as red herrings (a clue that turns out to be not used in the final plot. For example a gun which is suggested throughout the film as a murderer weapon, and in the final moments, the murder weapon is a knife and the gun was a pointless prop) or a cliff-hanger (where the plot isn’t solved in the film. The plot may never be revealed (like the Italian Job) or the plot could be solved in a follow up film (the Bourne Trilogy).
Thriller films, such as Batman – The Dark Knight, tend to have a fast paced opening to make the viewer want to watch more. Some key elements used to try and attract the audience’s attention are:
A big question; If there is a big question in the first 2 minutes of the film which attracts and engages the audience, it’ll make them want to watch the film to find out what the answer is. This means that the movie draws the audience in quickly. Another key aspect is pace. If the film is too slow and boring then the audience will just pick another film. With just these two elements, the opening will successfully draw in the audience.

In The Dark Knight, the actors themselves are asking questions – Who is the Joker? Why does he hide his identity etc. etc. Batman’s opening is also very fast paced and keeps the audience on the edge of their seat. 1
In insanity, we used both unconventional and conventional camera shots and angles. The conventional camera shots were the shots were we included a lot of things in the frame. For example, when Hayden is leaning over the victim’s body, you can see nearly all 4 corners of the rug and the killers batch of candles on the floor. We also used shots which involved lots of depth of field changes, for example, the focus changes from the graffiti on the wall to Hayden’s face.
Thrillers can either end in the plot or end in a cliff-hanger, so the film can have follow up films. Thriller openings normally end in cliff hangers before the titles, this makes the viewer want to know more and ask questions. In our opening we make the viewer ask the questions, who is the masked killer? Why has he killed that guy? What is he doing? This is conventional because it we are making the viewer want to know what is going on and what has sparked the opening.
Another conventional aspect of our thriller is the use of sound. In thrillers, sound plays a large part in making the viewer feel uncomfortable, scared, happy etc. etc. This can be seen in many different openings, such as Batman – The Dark Knight. The opening starts with an eerie high pitched tone; this makes the viewer uncomfortable because they don’t know what is going on. This then leads into a low frequency boom which smashes the glass. This comes unexpectedly and could make the viewer jump.

The Dark Knight Opening Scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYBEquZ_j0

We decided that a masked killer would be more interesting and is sticking to he convention of hiding the killers identity but through a different way – a mask. It meant that our camera angles and lighting wouldn’t have to restrict us from being right up in the killers face. If we hadn’t masked him, then we would’ve had to use different camera angles and adapt our lighting so the viewer couldn’t see his face. The use of an actual mask is quite common in action films such as Batman, Spiderman, films where the villain can be portrayed as crazy.
We also felt that because our thriller was a Psychological thriller, a mask would fit in to the conventions because of 2 reasons. Firstly he may not like his identity because a physical or mental scar from the past or he may find that he is a different person when he’s wearing the mask.
We decided that a conventional title should be used. A one worded title is often used (Batman, Spiderman, Leon, Eraserhead, Scarface, Spartacus, Jaws, se7en). This is because it makes the film easy to remember and stay in the audiences head. The simpler the word, the more memorable the film (UP)
At the beginning of our thriller, we open with a quote. This is quite unconventional. The only other thriller film with a quote is the Butterfly Effect. The film opens with the quote 'It has been said that something as small as a flutter of a butterflies wing can alternately cause a typhoon on halfway around the world.' The quote intrigues with the audience and gets them thinking. This quote makes the audience realise that something, even as small as a flutter of a butterflies wing can cause something devastating such as a natural disaster on the other side of the world; and effect people that the butterfly doesn't even know, ruin people's lively hoods. Our quote, written by Albert Einstein, is a definition, 'Insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.' The quote is saying that a person can be found as insane if they do the same thing over and over again whilst at the same time expecting different results. We all may do this at sometimes in our life, does this make us crazy? The quote is also ironic how it is coming from a scientist, one of the human race's most famous scientists, a man who does experiments over and over again and expects different results. Does this make him insane? It then makes the audience ask why I the quote being shown? It'll make the audience prejudge what is going to happen in the film, is it going to be the villain killing people over and over again and the protagonist trying to prevent the deaths from happening.
We decided that we should utilise the use of the mask by doing lots of macro close ups of the mask. This would have made the audience uncomfortable because the line of sight makes the murderer look like they're staring out at the audience, making the audience feel uncomfortable is a convention of thrillers, but doing it by having the actor stare down the lens so it looks like they're staring at the audience is a very unique and unconventional way of doing it.

We also decided to use the conventional way of showing the victims body which is leaving it until the end. We felt that this built up tension for the audience, and with all of the other inputs from the sound and the camerawork, we felt that it would make the user want to watch what happened. We did this through editing all of the body shots to cut out the body or only show a little part of the body, for example the feet. We would then leave all these body shots until the end.

The editing used was both conventional and unconventional, as it built the tension through slow editing and leads into fast editing. The slow editing is quite conventional for a thriller as the pace is picked up in the moments of tension. The editing then builds up as more is revealed, the body, the wound on the body, the identity of the body etc. etc. The editing then gradually gets quicker to the point where there around over 6 shots in fewer than 2 seconds. This is a montage of the killer’s faces and was put in to make the audience remember the killer and feel threatened.

We chose to have our titles all wearing the mask because it would keep the sense of mystery of who was behind the mask. We also thought that the font used fit in with the psychological thriller theme, it was weird and overcomplicated if it was written out. This is quite conventional as the

The location was a secluded area under a bridge, surrounded by fields and trees near the A1, just outside of Stamford in Lincolnshire. The walls were covered in graffiti and there was a river. The area also had a train track. It meant that under the bridge looked like it had been deserted and no life had been there in years. The light was poor and was coming from behind the actors when a long shot was used. This gave a silhouette effect and made the villain look even more suspicious and scary. When we didn't want the actors to be in silhouette, we simply turned the camera round, still using the 180 degree rule, to be looking towards the train track, this meant the light was coming from the side, lighting up what the camera was seeing. This was good because it meant that no external flashguns were needed to produce extra light and filming was made much easier.

The setting was quite conventional as it was very secluded and was in a peaceful area which is where murders would happen.

Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The term representation refers to how an audience see things and relate to things. For example identity. The key markers are class, age, gender and ethnicity. Representation is how the identity is created through either text or a moving image (a film). Representation has other key aspects such as the actors themselves, lighting, camera shots, sound, editing, props, costumes and setting.            
The first screen grab is of the villain kneeling over the body of the victim. In the shot the light is lighting up the whole of the shot so everything can be seen. The light is coming from behind the camera which means the nothing is silhouetted. In the shot, you can see candles, a cone, the rug that the victim is on which has dust and dirt all over, suggesting that the rug has been there for a prolonged period of time, the rope tying the victim’s hands together, the bin bags covering the victim’s eyes and the villains mask.

To represent the ‘insanity’ of the killer, we made him pretend to dance with someone, whilst holding a bottle. It made him look weird and like he was insane. We also made him twitch at some points and there is also a scene where smashes the bottle.

We decided to use a male as the killer because we felt it’ll come across as more brutal and he may look stronger in a battle with a man. Whereas if a 5ft skinny woman was fighting a man, who was 7ft tall and had the build of a body builder,  it would look slightly unrealistic. We not discriminating a female killer, we just wanted to film to be as real as possible and not look faked. 

The villain - Hayden - is dress in a white shirt, black suit trousers and smart black shoes. This suggests that he takes pride in his appearance and makes up for the fact that no one can see his face by presenting his body in a smart and fresh way. Hayden is knelt over the victim’s body in a way that shows he has respect for him. This may show that he treats his victims with respect and thinks that they still judge him after they have died.

'V' from V for Vendetta is a very good comparison to Hayden in the way that he dresses smartly, wears a mask, and he kills. Both 'V' from VFV and Hayden wears the Guy Fawkes/ anonymous mask. The mask in both films is to protect the identity of the villain; although 'V' from VFV is actually the hero/protagonist. They both dress smartly. As you can see 'V' is dressed in smart protective clothing, whereas Hayden is dressed in a smart shirt and trouser with black smart shoes. It shows that both take pride in their appearance.

In INSANITY, the villain wears a mask that has been portrayed in the past decade as a hero's mask - VFV and the activist group Anonymous both wear it. The mask was originally the face of Guy Fawkes who can be portrayed as a hero by some, and is a villain to others. This may be anticipated by the audience as if Hayden is in fact good and could be a freedom fighter.

In INSANITY, we portrayed Hayden as a killer mainly through his actions of killing. But we also wished to portray Hayden as a villain on how scary he looked. We thought that the mask would have done this as if a hero wears a mask then it's normally friends, for example, Spiderman. Simple mask that wouldn't scare anyone in a dark alley. Whereas the Guy Fawkes mask is a mask that, since it's so creepy and mysterious, would be scary in a dark alley.

During the opening, there are several points were Hayden, the villain, is shown to be higher in the social hierarchy through the camera shots. This is done through the camera work by being at a low angle, this makes Hayden to appear a lot bigger than Connor, the victim.

We also represented Connor as the victim because simply he was dead. He had a large wound on his chest/stomach. We felt that the audience could clearly see that Connor is dead because of his wounds and his death like actions.

Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

As a group, we have decided that we should use Paramount Pictures. Paramount Pictures is one of the world’s largest and top grossing movie studios and is the fourth oldest existing film studio. Adolf Zukor, a Hungarian film enthusiast, started the company in 1912 under a different name.

We felt that because Paramount pictures were based in America, which the film would be distributed to a larger audience and would be seen on a much larger scale. This would create a bigger hype for the film would then result in the distribution of the film worldwide. This would therefore save us having to go to many different Media Institutions in different continents to get the film global.

Paramount have distributed some of the most successful Thriller films in the last decade including The highly anticipated World War Z which is set to be released in the coming months. Paramount is one of the most well known media institutions in the world and has an eye for the new and most unique films in the industry. Because they are such a well-known media institution, they have a lot of followers on social networking sites and a lot of people will be included in the mailing list. This means that more people will know about the release of INSANITY if we were to go with Paramount Pictures.

We chose out indent because we felt that it was a simple design. The shape used (a triangle) is used in a lot of album artwork and logos for companies and can be recognised by many, but what makes our stand out is that the triangle is positioned on top of a wood. This looks cool and will stay in the memory of the person/s watching the film.

I think the money made will mainly come from DVD sales and online renting (iTunes). This is because people are being put off going to the cinema because of the high prices. Although some companies, such as Orange, do deals to try and encourage people to attend the cinema.
Another benefit of being with a large and well-known Media Institution is funding. The more funding you can get from the institution, the higher quality the film will be.

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

‘No one younger than 15 can buy or watch the either on video or at the cinema. The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour. Drug taking may be shown but the film must not promote drug taking. The misuse of easily accessible substances, e.g. solvents, is most likely to be not accepted. Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised. Dangerous behaviour must not be dwelled upon in such detail that it could be copied. Easily accessible weapons must not be glamorised either. There may be frequent use of strong language, e.g the F word. The strongest terms, e.g C word, may be acceptable if justified. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is not acceptable. Nudity may be allowed as well as sexual activity. Violence may be strong but pain should be dwelled upon. No themes are prohibited.’ This is what the BBFC say about films with the certificate of 15. We think INSANITY should be a 15 because of the frequent use of strong language (F and S word) and because of it’s violent nature, although the pain is not dwelled upon, hence why the film isn’t an 18.
We also felt that the film would sway more towards the male gender as it is more of a violent and disturbing film, although it would be sexist to say that only men will watch the film.
The films age range is specifically aimed at 15-25 year olds but does not discriminate against the older generations as taste of films is all down to personal preference. Some of the older generation may love thriller and psychological thriller films and therefore want to watch them. If they want to watch it they can, there is nothing in the film that would discriminate against the older generation or offend them.

We researched our audience by giving out a questionnaire to members of the public of both sexes and all were under 25. This would give us a small insight in to what people between the ages of 15 and 25 want to see. We also wanted to see how often they attend the cinema and how much they would spend on a DVD. As INSANITY is a psychological thriller about a killer, there will be gore so we asked if the viewer thinks that gore ruins a film. 

In the results, we found that most people of that age do not attend the cinema as often as it seems. Only 50% had visited the movies in the last month which would mean that mot of the sales for the film would come from online watching and DVD sales.

The main result that we found useful in planning our film was that 75% of the people asked thought that the overuse of gore in films would ruin the film and make them want to stop watching it.

A typical audience member is Guy. He is 17 years old and enjoys thriller and horror films. He mainly watches them on his own when he's downloaded them from iTunes. He does this because it's easy for him as he owns a laptop and can watch the films anywhere in the house. The films are also downloaded onto his hardrive so he doesn't need internet to watch it. This means he can go round a friend’s house and watch it with them, put it on his phone or iPod and watch it on the bus, or just watch it in the garden on a lovely summer’s day.

Like most 17 year olds who own a laptop, he uses social networking sites to talk to his friends, meet new people, follow his favourite bands and keep up to date on the latest news. These websites (Twitter and Facebook) are a really good way to advertise films. The owner of the website will use cookies on the browser to gather information on what the user is looking at. This then means that the right adverts are shown to the right people, meaning that the sales of the film, music and product are high because they've gone to the right person.

Because the audience member - Guy - is into thrillers and horrors, he is also into gaming. This also means that the watchers of the film could be interested in a game to be released, based on the plot of the movie. This would result in hours of fun and even more of a target audience.

Question 5

How did you attract/address our audience?

The first screenshot is of Hayden crouching over Connor's body. You can see Connors wound in the screenshot and it's almost as if Hayden is scared and is looking over his shoulder and searching his surroundings.  The surroundings didn’t show a lot, it mainly showed the graffitied walls and the uneven rocky ground that was Hayden’s home, although the audience wouldn’t have been able to clearly realise that it was. This would attract an audience because they'd want to see why Connor is injured and what is going on. It creates a big sense of mystery and

Hayden is crouching over his body, why Connor has a wound and what is just going on. The screenshot is taken from near the end of the opening scene and stays on the screen for a very short period of time. Over 6 shots come up as a montage of what is going on. In this montage, you see the killer close up. We decided to do this because it’ll scare the viewer one last time before the movie starts.
We also decided that the wound shouldn't be too gory because we didn't want the audience to not progress in the film because they felt the first wound they saw was too disturbing.

In the background, piano music was playing and was slowly building up to the last shot. This meant that the piano music was getting louder throughout the montage of shots. We did this by changing the automation of the volume of the song in Logic Pro 9. We made the volume go to +3.4dB (instead of staying at the 0.0dB – the rate at which it was recorded). It attracts the audience because it’s building tension, it’s getting more tense as the song goes on and it’s building up to an end.

The second screenshot is also taken from one of the 6 very quick montage shots of the killer. This shot is of Hayden in a crouching position (which isn't in the shot) holding a candle which has gone out. This is makes Hayden seem religious and makes the audience want to know what he is doing, whether it's praying or whether it's some type of sacrificing ceremony.

Again, because it's in the quick montage of shots and it's building up to the final shot, in the background there is piano music being played. This music could draw in the audience because it's quite cliché of the music to build up to something spectacular.

The next screen shot is at the beginning. It is one of the first shots you see and will make the audience definitely want to watch more. This is mainly because they want to know what is going on, they may not care about the plot of the actual film but they at least want to know about what the person with the black shoes are doing next to a river with a bag of rubbish.

The sound being played whilst this shot on is Charlie Chaplin's 'The Final Dictator' speech. The speech itself is one of the greatest speeches of all time (in my opinion) and has a very strong and meaningful message to it. The main part says 'Greed has poisoned men's should and has barricaded he world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.' Listening to the speech and watch the film makes the audience think what is happening, is this man with the black shoes a freedom fighter, is he trying to show a company or the government or someone that they're being bad and that small people can fight back? It makes the audience want to know not just what is he doing, but why.

The final screenshot is of Hayden dancing to the piano music. We edited the shots to fit in with the music because of a few reasons. We firstly thought that it would be more professional to edit the film to the music so the viewer can easily concentrate as both of them are going at the same rate and speed etc. etc.

When Hayden dances, it'll make the audience ask why is he dancing? Is he mad? Has he lost someone close to him? It'll then make them want to watch it in full to see if anything happens, as the music is still being built up towards the montage and the final shot.

Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Whilst using a digital camera I have learnt mainly how to maintain a steady shot and how to position the camera to make sure that everything need is in the frame and nothing is cut so you can't see the full object.
We also used the 180-degree rule and stuck to it by making sure that the camera wouldn’t view certain things. If the camera had different bits of graffiti on the wall, we’d know that the camera had been moved to far round and it needed to be moved back. This was handy and reassured us that we weren’t breaking the rule.
We also used a tripod with a ball head throughout the production (even for the low and high shots) for steady shots. The advantage of using a ball headed tripod is that the camera can be moved more steadily when panning. This meant that we could film smooth panning shots in the production.

I also learnt how to make sure that the lighting is effective. This was handy because it meant that when we were shooting, I wasn't in any snookered if the light had changed and was creating a lens flair, which I cannot control. I therefore knew how to order the filming of the shots to make sure that the changing light didn't affect the shot.

Throughout the editing task I used iMovie, which is, an editing program made for novices and is created and licensed by Apple for Apple computers only. I was the one who was in main control of the mac and ended up having the role of editor. This was mainly because i had the resources at home, which made editing very easy. I learnt many things such as how to create flashes in iMovie and how to create good opening credits. I used tutorials online to learn how to do this and not just clicked around the program, hoping I’d find how to do it.
For iMovie, I firstly imported all of my footage from the SD card. Unlike another movie editing software that is the industry standard (Final cut pro) I didn’t need to change the format my clips were in. From there I started a new project and ordered the clips in the project area. I then cut down the clips so they fitted together and didn’t jump. I then added in the music and the sound effects I needed and cut them down. We decided to edit in the quote through credits at the beginning of the opening because it meant that the quote wasn’t in some messy handwriting that one of us did, it was professional text.
We also used a lot of flashes in the production and edited in the flashes for just over 0.2 seconds, so they were lightning quick.

The biggest learning curve experience I had was probably the planning. I felt that the planning, even though it was a long and gruelling task, it benefitted on set when i needed to tell the actors what to do and I had a rough idea of where the camera needed to be.  It also benefited in the editing because I then knew what we wanted the opening scene to look like and how it was going to go.

To put all of my planning and notes for marking and for sharing with my team, I used Blogger, a blogging site run by Google. It allows anyone with a Google account to start a blog and upload pictures, videos, links to specific items and bits of text. The site is really easy to navigate and has very good feedback insights. This allows you to see who is visiting your page (country, browser, Operating System), which gives you a sense of how popular your blog is worldwide. I used the blog to mainly upload my plans and information to update not just my group, but also my teacher.

To upload the videos, I used YouTube, the biggest video sharing website in the world. YouTube is the most used video sharing website in the world and is visited by millions of people each day worldwide. It’s a good way to share videos and short films and get noticed. We thought that even though we wish to publish our film through Paramount, it’s also a good way to show other media institutions what EVS productions are capable of.

Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I developed as a filmmaker in many different ways throughout the project. I first of all developed my camera skills by in advanced listing the amount of shots I would use in the production, and made sure that the shots were going to be that of a much higher quality. I did this by making sure the shots were steadier and incorporated everything that the viewer would need to see in the frame.

I also improved the planning by not just using a storyboard, but by listing the shot types I was going to use. I also went to the location before the we actually filmed the production, so I could get a feel for what the location was actually like and whether we would need to change if the groups were too weather worn on the day of the shoot.

I feel the Prelim task went well and we the overall film was good, but the shots were poor and not stable and the narrative was a bit weird and hard to follow. The cuts in the short film were also poor because of the amount of shots. They restricted the editing to basically use what we have and we couldn’t use a backup shot. This meant that the shots used were the only shots that we could use in the editing, which meant that we had jump cuts and shots that didn’t fit.

We improved the amount of shots in the real production by making sure that we had up to 4 backup shots that would all fit and would all make sense if the original shot was lost, deleted or we decided we didn’t like it. We also incorporated many different shots, unlike the Prelim, such as the panoramic long shot, the over the shoulder shot and a shot which showed hierarchy well. The shots all fitted together and weren’t all over the place, which meant that the opening was easy to follow, and was easy to understand.

We used the 180 degree rule well and kept the camera in front of Connor’s body at all times, so it meant that the rule wouldn’t be broken. When we needed to move the camera, we made sure that the shot followed the actor round and could be understood by the audience.

I feel that you can clearly see an improvement from the Prelim to the final production purely because the final production looks much more professional than the Prelim through it’s steady camera shots and it’s editing.

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Insanity Directors Commentary Question 1 - Conventions & Unconventions

Insanity opening