Final Export Of Film

Final film poster

Radio Trailer

This is our exported radio trailer for our film, "Gr££d."

Evaluation: Question 4

Evaluation: Question 3

Link to mind map:

Evaluation: Question 2

Link to Prezi:

Evaluation: Question 1

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

Genre

When producing my media product I used, developed and challenged several varieties of forms and conventions used in many typical drama films to enable me to produce a professional viral advert, film poster and final film. First to start my production I looked at different examples of films under the genre of drama/thriller, such as: The Descendants, The Godfather and The Help; I compared and contrasted the similarities between them all such as storyline, adverts, audience profile and their film posters.

  This research enabled me to understand further on how drama/thriller films appeal to their audience, which varies in gender, sex, age, location and so forth.  For example, drama films aimed at an older audience tend to have more realistic and relatable storylines, possibly films that are set in the past such as the subgenres of historical and period pieces which have truth behind them. Whereas drama’s aimed at a younger, youthful audience tends to have certain storylines based around themes such as love, for example, The Notebook.

Furthermore, dramas aimed at a younger audience are more likely to have sub genres such as thriller where the plots are slightly more tense and associated with energy, movement.  These are characteristics associated with a younger audience, hence why certain storylines may be appealing to them.

After looking at similarities between different films, I had decided that our film would have to have aspects of thriller and relatable context in order to appeal to our audience profile, being both male and females which are young adults. I started to plan a rough storyline and mind map simple, yet interesting scenarios which I could incorporate into a short film.  Creating a storyline was quite simple as I had a rough idea of how conventions in drama films worked, for example, how creating an opening, middle and conclusion helps to plan out a film.

Beginning:

Middle:

Conclusion:

The narrative I created follows certain conventions of a drama such as the exhibition real life situations with realistic characters. Destiny has lost her job, her tenancy and has no money to afford the basics such as food and shelter. This makes our characters realistic as our audience could relate to going through difficult times concerning money.

Another aspect of our characters that I feel is relatable is the way Destiny’s friend, Maddy, has to lend her money and support her which is a situation that people may have found themselves in before. Dramas usually portray a journey of character development within their storyline. This is shown in our film ‘Greed’ as Destiny develops from being poor, to a millionaire back to being poor. The purpose of this is to move to audience emotionally, seeing certain characters go through bad times in their lives such as having no money and having to kill themselves. 

A journey from being unhappy:

To happy after visiting the Loan Shark:

Another convention of a drama storyline is that they are structured with climax and anti-climax moments such as at the end of ‘Greed’ where Destiny finds out she has to kill herself which also supports the convention of a moment of realization as Destiny realizes she did the wrong thing when agreeing to the Loan Shark.

There are serious representations of real life situations within our storyline such as money worries and lending money. This follows the conventions of a stereotypical drama as there is no fantasy elements of ‘Greed’ that make the audience unable to escape within the film. These events during the film are represents emotions and situations at their true heights and dramatizes them, showing emotions at their best and worse.

Some aspects of our short film challenge the usual conventions of a drama. For example, happy endings/resolutions are included within a drama, bringing any conflicts to a halt and putting peace back into the equation. Our film ‘Greed’ has a negative ending; Destiny receives the letter containing the information that she has to kill herself at the end of our film. This is a tragic turn in the storyline and doesn’t support this specific convention of having a happy ending.

We used a male Loan Shark to follow the stereotypical role of the dominant character within Drama films. This helped create the innocent personality of Destiny as she is the one succumbing to the Loan Sharks contract and having to do what he tells her to do. This may appeal to the audience as it creates tension and makes them question what they would do if they were in that situation. If we contradicted stereotypes and made the Loan Shark a female, the character would not have been as brutal.

To conclude, our film does include many conventions included in the genre of a drama such as realistic characters and storyline. Our characters are dramatic and show emotions in their true height. However, some aspects of the film challenge traditional conventions, which could be because our film is a drama/thriller and also because when creating the storyline we wanted our film to stand out from any other drama film.

 Conventions

Within our film, we displayed continuity through match on action, shot reverse shot and 180 degree rule. Match on action is used in the occasions where we needed to add effect on a certain item, including the phone when she calls the Loan Shark. Match on action is important when adding emphasis to a film. Furthermore, it's a good way of directing the audiences attention to a certain object, such as the scene of Destiny laid in bed, which is full of Match on Action as we thought the scene would be too long as just one shot (Medium shot.) 

Shot reverse shot is used within Destiny's conversations with Maddy and the Loan Shark. This use of editing gives our film a pace and makes the film more interesting to watch. During shot reverse shots, the audience is also able to see the characters facial expressions which is crucial within our film as it shows how Destiny is feeling when speaking to Maddy about not being able to give her the money back and the Loan Shark when he is telling her that she has to kill someone for the money she wants to lend. This technique of shot reverse shot is used within existing films such as Shutter Island, where they are in conversation and it shows the characters facial expression whilst speaking.

During these conversations we used sound bridges to smooth out the cuts between shots, which makes the scenes seem more realistic. It makes it look more realistic as it leaves necessary gaps between the characters speaking and answering. We also used a sound bridge over the office opening where Destiny knocks. The knocking sound was added with the Loan Shark's speech over the top, to make it seem like the Loan Shark was saying "Come in" whilst Destiny was still  knocking. This gives the Loan Shark a eager, rushed kind of persona that we wanted him to have.  As always, we also applied the 180 degree rule to all conversations.

 Furthermore, we included a montage within the ending of our film. This montage included quick editing and music that follows the beat of the shot cuts. This makes the film more energetic and appeals to our younger audience. Within this montage, we haven't used any continuity shots, which breaks the rule and follows the emotions of the main character, Destiny as she goes on her spending spree after receiving her money. Other films include montages to show a change in time and build up a fast pace. We decided to do a montage after watching Ghostbusters and the montage they used to show the amount of things they did in a short amount of time. Our montage is based around 1 week, so this could also be an effect of ours. 

 

However, within the rest of our film prior to the montage, the use of Mise en sine and continuity is important. The film wouldn't make sense without continuity and with a plot like ours, with a twist, the audience would need to understand what was happening throughout the whole film. This also makes the film look more realistic to the audience, as when watching, it will just flow. This was specifically done through costume, props and scenery. When filming the scene within the park, we encountered an issue with the lighting. To resolve this we filtered the film with colour correction to darken the shots of Destiny to match the lighting of Maddy's shots. Also, another continuity issue was within the Loan Shark scene where the pieces of paper were different on each shots as they were filmed on different days. To solve this problem we had to wire frame the medium shot to crop out the sheet of paper. Contrary to this, we had a few advantages including planning beforehand, where we created production day packs to keep a track of where we were at and what needed to stay the same such as clothing, props and scenery. Furthermore, we needed to keep our continuity consistent, so this helped us to do that along with remembering the scripts that were necessary.

Before:

 

After:

Audience Pleasure

During watching our film, our audience should receive some pleasure from viewing our storyline in the way we have filmed it. Richard Dyer's theory relates to why we watch films, including: Energy, Abundance, Intensity, Transparency and Community. Our film supports this theory as our film shoes energy within the montage at the end of the film. This burst of energy may provide audience pleasure to our audience and make them want to watch it as they want to be energised and motivated. Usually films use action and fight scenes to create this effect however within our film we use fast pace editing during the montage. This grasps the audiences attention. Abundance is also included in our film as Destiny gains money which she spends on a house, car and paying all her friends back. This captures the audience in a dreamland and makes them question what they would live like and spend the money on if they won them lottery and had all that money themselves.

This burst of energy is also shown in the film Rocky, where the montage shows him training for the fight. This, followed by music made a fast pace montage that helped the audience to understand how hard he trained. 

Uses and gratifications theory plays a vital part in the pleasure our audience will receive. This theory is based around the audience using films and not getting used by the film. Our film has morals about greed within the storyline, this means the audience may use our film to escape into our films 'utopia' and question their own abilities with money and how they're coping. The audience for our film may gain pleasure from watching our character suffer financially, as it makes them feel better about the situations they are in themselves. This gratification is not forced upon our audience, but the opposite. Our audience can either reject, use or play with the media we have provided for them. However, there are many reasons in which our audience would use to use or play with our film rather than reject it. 

This is similarly portrayed in films such as Jumper where a man is able to steal money from a bank without getting caught due to his ability. This creates a Utopia for the audience as they imagine themselves with money and the ability to do what the main character did.

Other that escapism, our film is an example of a diversion. The character, Destiny's story provides a diversion for the audience, as it lets them forget about their own problems whilst basking in the characters. Furthermore, this links in with the fact that the audience can compare the characters choice of lifestyle with their own. Many people may enjoy doing this, as they may believe they would have known a better thing to do in Destiny's situation. As the audience is in control, the consumption of the media helps them gain emotional satisfaction and nag help with the issues of personal problems. This means that our audience may come to conclusions about what they should do in any situations of their own by watching our characters make the mistakes they don't want to make. 

Evaluation Question 4- Maddison Brown

Evaluation Question 3- Maddison Brown

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=7E3F6B5DF9D1224F%21715

Evaluation Question 2- Maddison Brown

http://prezi.com/wyyfqd09dtcd/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Evaluation Question 1- Maddison Brown

Our film displays continuity through match on action; shot reverse shot; and 180-degree rule. The editing of the shot reverse shot is used in conversations. The edit is shown through Maddy and Destiny’s conversation and Destiny and the Loan sharks conversation. We used sound bridges to trick the audience to smooth out the cuts between shots. This makes the conversation flow more and appear more realistic. (show an edit photo of sound bridge and shot –r-shot). The match on action is used in the same way. We used a sound bridge over the office opening by using the knocking sound and the Loan Shark speech to make it seem like an ordinary office. (show an edit of sound bridge over match on action). We also applied the 180-degree rule to all conversations. These traditionally happen in all films to show continuity. 

Photo from Usual Suspects

Photo from GR££D

The film does have a montage with quick editing and music that beats to the cuts. This is good because it makes the film more energetic and breaks the middle of film up. This also breaks continuity as there is no continuous shots. Also with the use of mise en scene we also kept continuity to make the film realistic and believable to the audience. This was specially done through costume and make up; props; scenery. One problem we did have occurred when editing to film is that the shots from the park scene have different lighting as they were filmed on different days. To overcome this error we filtered the film with colour correction to darken the shots of Destiny to match Maddy’s shots. We also had problems with the continuity on the Loan Shark scene where the Loan Shark gets Destiny to sign the contract we used two different sheets of paper so we had to wire frame the mid shot to crop out the sheet of paper.  The advantage we had when filming was when the park scene was out of focus on Maddy we only had to re-film Maddy’s part, this is good because Destiny’s hair changed colour so it would have made it hard to connect her with the same character in other scenes. Another advantage we had was planning beforehand; we used production day packs to keep a track of clothing; props; scenery; shot listing and scripts. This helped us keep our continuity consistent.

The film reflects a few conventions of psychological thrillers. One of these is using a male to play the villain or false hero. This convention is shown in Angel Heart, The Box and Cape Fear. The use of the male lead of a villain creates a more dominant and powerful character. This is a natural stereotype from audiences. In other genres this is also a convention such as horror where you have Freddie; Jason; Jigsaw; Scream. They are all following a male stereotype. It is not very often in psychological thrillers a woman is the villain. One film that has challenged this stereotype is Fatal Attraction however a male lead that does wrong is still involved.

 We used a male Loan Shark to hopefully follow the success of the stereotype of haunting; powerful; dominant. This helped create the innocence and scared personality of Destiny as she is bounded to this contract to kill herself. This creates more tension and excitement for the audience. If the Loan Shark was a girl I don’t think it would have had the same effect as lead villain females are normally jealous, wanting beauty, controlling. These conventions do not suit or storyline as the Loan shark is not envious of Destiny.

Photo from Fatal Attraction showing gender stereotypes

Another convention in thriller film is the use of dark or twisted music. However, in our film we used rap/gangster music for the montage. We used this because we wanted to break up the film and create energy to the audience as the first part of the film is a slow pace and long beginning.

One of the conventions we used from other films is the use of suspense. When Destiny gets told she needs to kill someone there is a build up of suspense of who she has to kill. This is then built upon the climax at the end when Destiny gets the letter. This use of suspense is used in films such as The Amazing Spiderman when Peter uses his webs to catch the Doctor but he is waiting ages then a web moves. It is also used in Cape Fear when the husband is in his house and he is waiting for Max to attack.

Photo from Amazing Spiderman 

Photo from Cape Fear

In  our film we follow the drama convention of using no or little fantasy and keeping the storyline realistic by using money worries and loan companies to suggest realism. We also use the factor of job loss to show the modern style of the film. in summary, our film does include many conventions included in the genre of a drama such as realistic characters and storyline. Our characters are dramatic and show emotions like in dramas. However, some aspects of the film challenge traditional conventions, which could be because we wanted our film to stand out to break convention. 

In previous questions I have displayed some of Richard Dyer’s theory. This theory relates to why we watch films. The sections of this theory are:

• Energy
• Abundance
• Intensity
• Transparency
• Community

Our film supports this theory because our film shows energy with the break of continuity and music in the middle of the film. This shows that the audience want to watch this film because they feel they need to be energised and motivated. Our film does not do this is a common way, normally films use action, fight scenes and fast pace cutting. We used fast pace editing and cutting to speed up the film and grab the audiences’ attention.

Our film again supports this theory because of abundance. In our film Destiny comes enriched with money. When she has this money she spends it on a car; house; paying Maddy back and getting her life back. However, since Destiny is full of greed she uses the money on materialistic objects and nothing for her own real benefit. This utopia to the audience makes them feel in a world of fantasy of what they would do with £2 million. This is parallel to when someone wonders what they would do if they won the lottery. This shows the audience become captured in a dream land. The montage also happens in Rocky films and creates energy to the audience. 

Photo from Rocky Montage showing energy

 Gr££d shows intensity when Destiny opens the letter and when she makes the choice of killing someone. These parts of the film are intense because they create suspense for the audience. This is done through the letter as it is a mysterious letter. We used close up shots to show Destiny’s confusion when she first sees the letter and we used slow acting to display Destiny’s emotion. When she opens the letter the audience see who she has to kill. However there is no name just a photo. To display Destiny’s emotion we used a key frame to zoom is on her face and a freeze frame. The freeze frame also shows a mug shot still photo with the look of emptiness and sadness. This happens in the box when they are faced with the box and we can the actors emotion. 

Photo from The Box showing emotion and intensity 

The film shows transparency as Destiny isn’t hiding anything she isn’t hiding that she has no money or that she does have money. Maddy is transparent because she shows an honest and confronting personality to the audience. However, the Loan Shark does challenge this as he does say that Destiny has to kill someone he keeps the secret of who that person is.

Photo from The Box showing transparency 

The film displays community as Maddy and Destiny are good friends and Maddy helps her out. However, we also see Destiny is alone a lot, she seems to have no family, no job and no other communication through social networking as she can’t afford internet. This shows the audience the Destiny needs sympathy that she is so alone and her only way out is through a Loan Shark. This is also shown in Gangster Squad when John needs to get a squad together and gets one of his friends to help him, Jerry. Jerry then falls for Grace who then asks Jack for a favour as a friend to hide Grace from Mickey. 

 photo of Jerry and Grace displaying community by becoming acquaint.

 Mickey and Grace displaying affect which shows a different type of social community

Photo of the gangster squad showing community in their friendship. 

c) Are there any elements of deliberate pastiche or parody, where you ‘play’ with the genre’s codes and history? Are there any intertextual moments where you hint at a reference to another film?

In our film we have used ideas from Angel Heart to help us set the scene and film it effectively. We used this scene because the shots are not complex and the scene in Angel Heart is similar to what we wanted to achieve. In the short film Room 8 that I researched we wanted to use similar camera shots to when Destiny first meets the Loan Shark. Another part of the film was the montage. For this part we looked at Teen wolf, Rocky, Scarface and Dirty Dancing we used all these different genres of films because we wanted to see how they used the music in collaboration to the cuts.  

To find research for our film we looked at Angel Heart and The Box. These films follow the theme of selling yourself or making a life changing decision.  From these films we used: the plot twist of agreeing to a sin and getting revenge. These films have also impact some short films we used to base our film around. One of these short films is Room 8, a film about a man who is imprisoned with an inmate who has an “escape plan” however this is a trick for people who are not paying for their sins. From this this film we used the same setting and shot frame of when the Loan Shark is introduced. (Show images). Another film we looked at was Black Button, this film follows a man trying to make the decision of killing someone and having a lot of money to walking away to freedom and heaven, after he chooses the money he is sent to hell for greed. From this film we used the conversation and characteristic of the judge in our Loan Shark. This type of conversation was also in Angel Heart when Louis cypher is speaking to Jonny Favourite in the church. (Show image). From these films we also looked at their film posters. The convention of The Box and Angel Heart show there is 2 or 3 main characters focus on; a mass use of black; simplistic features; mysterious tone. These poster helped us aim our film at a similar audience.