Task 7- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

When looking back at the shooting of our preliminary task I can see that we have actually improved quite a bit. Firstofall in terms of stylizing our sequence, which is something which we didn't do in our preliminary task. It is hard to compare as both products are just so different since one has an actual story line and one is a thematic opening sequence of a thriller.


In our preliminary task we have a lot of really fast cuts which distracted the audience from the story of it. We chose to make the cuts that fast in order to keep up the continuity since one of our actors kept moving in between the different takes although we kept telling him to stay the same. I think this is part of the reson why we then had the idea of not using people in our sequence at all or at least someone who could stay still and do the same thing in every take. Many of our shots in our main task are stills which were just setting up certain transformations. The camera is only moving in one of our shots where we have a tracking shot of good fruit changing to bad fruit through a wine bottle. In order to make the still shots more interesting and to make our whole sequence a little more stylistic overall we added in moving writing, which was representing diary entries. 

In terms of sound we had our actors speaking in our prelim task underlaid with sound from the room in which they were, creating a very realistic and purely diegetic use of sound. In our thriller we only used non diegetic sound and added in some ambient music and a few layers of sound of someone speaking. The soundscape we created was designed to slightly disorientate our audience and to further increase the style of our sequence. 

In terms of our use of colour in the sequence we changed the hue and saturation of all of our shots to create more vibrant cholor schemes. This resulted in the fact that throughout our sequence we go from purple, to blue, to purple, to red and finally to black and white to represent our protagonists state of mind throughout the sequence. In our preliminary task we just used the pictures as they were, not adjusting any of the colour which made it quite plain, showing a great contrast to our main task.

Task 6- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructig this product?

Overall I would say I learnt a lot about technologies from the post editing process of this sequence. Since we used after effects which is quite a complex programme, we took a little while to learn how to use it. But once we got into it I think it became easier and I became more efficient in doing the things I wanted to. Since our whole sequence is based on after effects and every section is created by the use of after effects it was crucial to be thorough in what we were doing. As we went over the sequence and created it bit by bit, with our shots only as a base of the product, we tried to look especially closely at the visuals of it, seen as our sequence is a title sequence and therefore doesn't have a story as such.

Task 5- How did you attract/adress your audience?

Powerpoint task 5

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Task 4- Who would be the audience for your media product?

I think that our target audience would involve two main types of social groups. Educated young adults for one and adults who are educated and aged 30-40. The young adults would be aged 15-24, they would be highly educated, more wealthy and probably quite intelligent as this would be a film where you actually had to think about the subject matter. Our adult audience would be aged 30-40 also quite educated, possibly quite wealthy and intelligent as well, since the subject deals with a topic that worries many adults of that age. Another possibly social group which might be interested in our product would be artists of graphic designers due to the unusual and modern style of our piece.   

Task 3- What kind of institution would distribute your media product and why?

I think that a suitable institution to distribute our media product would be 'Artisan Entertainment'. I think this would be an appropriate media institution as the style of movies which they distribute are also that abstract and arty style of film as ouropening sequence is as well. Artisan is also a film distribution company which is not as well known as some of the other which means that they would be a little bit more likely to distribute our film, since we only had a small budget and we aren't known filmmakers. Films which they have distributed are ones like 'The Blair Witch Project' which also had a very small 
budget of $60,000 and their style is very abstract in that it is a documentary turned into a thriller. Our thriller is also quite abstract and arty due to the way in which we stylized our title sequence and the way in which we introduced the topic of the film. 


Distribution companies like Lion's Hate, Fox Searchlight or New Lne Cinema are too well known for a production like ours. I also think that the style of our film wouldn't really be appropriate for their companies. 


Another company which could potentially be interested in distributing our film although I thin they are too well known for that, are Paramount Pictures since the only recently did 'Paranormal Activity' and from that once again slightly abstract style our thriller might just fit in. I do believe however that our sequence is not a horror movie it is more of a thriller and it gets people to think although it is still thrilling the audience.  Our opening sequence also in a way reminds me of the opening sequence of 'Se7en' as both of them are title sequences, designed to slightly confuse and stress the audience and both of them are thrillers. So I think that stylewise possibly 'New Line' could distribute our thriller as well but I still believe that they are too well known for us. 


So overall I think that Artisan Entertainment would be most likely to distribute our film since we are not well know, we had a low budget and the style of it is very arty and abstract which not everyone might want to see. 

Task 2- How does your product represent particular social groups?

In terms of social groups for our media thriller I think that the appripriate social groups would be adults aged 30-40.

Our title sequence deals very specifically with aging and the problems which come with aging. Since the sequence is set up as consecutive diary entries of one woman slowly going insane at the thought of aging. This is a problem which many people encounter in a less extreme version and it is therefore representative of adults within that age range of 30-40 years old. The slightly odd thing about this is that normally adults are represented as the responsible ones, yet in our sequence it is a woman who behaves irrationally. 




These are film stills from 'Love Actually' and 'Two Weeks notice'. In both films the adults are responsible and very rational looking after people around them who require being looked after, sometimes functioning as a parent or just a friend. It is very rare to come across adults in movies which behave irrationally and non responsible and I think that this is why our sequence represents adult of that age as it shows another side to them which is less reliable but in some respects more intriguing.

Task 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In our opening sequence we looked especially closely at the design of our sequence and the style in which the titles were presented. First we thought we would use something quite normal like 'Courier' trying to keep it basic and medical. We then started thinking about problems with aging and thought we could set the whole thing up as consecutive diary entries and that was then also the style in which we decided to present our titles. We now have them handwritten throughout the whole sequence.

The unconventional thing about our title sequence is the style we chose to use and the way in which we chose to present our titles. They look like parts of the diary but what is more conventional is that we pulled everything else out of focus once the titles appeared to pull the audiences attention on the names which most introduction sequences try to do. Many movies have a title sequence which focuses purely on the presentation of the titles which makes our sequence a little more conventional since we tried to focus our whole sequence on the use of the titles. Another conventional thing about our sequence is that we presented the titles in the order in which they are normally supposed to be presented. That means that we first show the production company, then the director, then the stars, then the director of photography, the the original score, then the screenplay, then the production design, then the editor, then the producer, then the director again and then the title of our film.