2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Our media product has shown forms of challenge and conventions of real media, in the context of many problematic issues firstly being the weather; During filming we encountered an extreme weather issue during the winter season, all our previous filming sessions which were completed and sequenced during tolerable and stable weather. Continuity errors were a prominent problem considering clothing halfway through filming our extra, Ryan ripped his jacket whilst filming, rendering the jacket obviously inappropriate for filming, so we had to search for a perfect match. Because we had to film with such a huge time gap in between filming sessions, the weather and lighting issues were present
14. How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary tasks? Being an action genre, we anticipated and planned accordingly to ensure that genre signifiers were present, we wanted the audience to know and feel that they are viewing a real media convention. Achievement of this was ensured through the combination of signifier camera, editing, sound and mise en scene, all delivering a prominent action genre signifier.
15. What have you learned from your audience feedback? To obtain a precision based audience feedback, we needed to expand and investigate our target group of 16+ males, asking them what we needed to include in our media product.
16. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages. With the development of media technology to accomplish our media product using many technologies such as PhotoShop, Blogger, Premier Pro, PowerPoint, Publisher, word, Cubase 5, Reason 4
17. Using Cubase 5 and Reason 4 we were able to create and manipulate the sounds you hear in the film, using a few sound samples to enhance important props and scenes in the media text for instance the money being shuffled by Daniel. Enriching the video with sound gave depth and character to the text.
Editor's Notes
The key conventions we aim to use in our short film are these 5 you can see hereSteady cameras following running actors involve the audience into the filmStill camera shots emphasise the proximity of the characters and the direction they are runningTracking shots and Crab shots follow running characters, left to right, forward and backwardsRapid edits show the characters agile movements and makes the audience ‘try to keep up’Pans and Tilts are used for jumps over surfaces and sprinting to specific destinationsCostume designs such as a moustache and sunglasses for villains and good looking heroes attract the audienceMost action films are located in an urban area, on roof tops or within buildingsThe music has to tie in with the movements of the characters, and so fast music is best for thisWe wanted a upbeat tempo to the film enhancing the key conventions of an action sequence
Definite presence of lighting issues, as shown above the sunlight was very strong during later filming in comparison to incredibly gloomy and slightly damp in the screenshot below.
Also, the change in weather affected our screen play, and so our original plan had to be put off due to snow over the winter season. Filming on different days created patches of damp to be in one scene, and a clear day in the next.
Also because of filming at different times, I carry the bag in my hand in one take, and then have it over my shoulders on another take. Another problem we encountered, was that Ryan started off filming with a hat on his head, and then after a few months, he lost the hat and we had to continue without.
Being an action genre, we anticipated and planned accordingly to ensure that genre signifiers were present, we wanted the audience to know and feel that they are viewing a real media convention.Achievement of this was ensured through the combination of signifier camera, editing, sound and mise en scene, all delivering a prominent action genre signifier.We wanted the audience to understand and feel that they are reading an official film review and they are viewing a professional film text, by including several genre signifiers.
To obtain a precision based audience feedback, we needed to expand and investigate our target group of 16+ males, asking them what we needed to include in our media product. By enquiring with our target audience of 16+males and asking them what they would like to see in our media product, by actually understanding what the target audience expects and wants from an action genre gave us a heads start in understanding the importance of specific genre signifiers, particularly in an action genre, we did ask what they would prefer in a hybrid genre e.g. thriller and action. We wanted a professional look and feel to our media product and felt we could achieve this by asking and understanding what the audience wants.
With a diverse access to media tools and software allowed us to experiment and traverse an interesting action orientated product, allowing us to create and develop a product with ease, being able to upload it to the internet and distribute it with no time wasted at all, being able to tweak our product as time went by and our knowledge of what the audience want to see developed.
Using the sampled sound was a key concept to delivering a genre signifier using high octane Drum and Bass music for the chase scene and action themed music for the start.
