Media Film Evaluation
My film, Amnesty, uses thriller conventions such
as low-key lighting to add a sense of darkness, evil or depression throughout
the film. I believe that following conventions is a good way to go when
creating a film because they are conventions for a reason. They are effective
in what they do. Another example is our use of a graveyard scene. Graveyards
emit senses of depression and add drama to the storyline.
A common theme in Thriller films involves
innocent victims dealing with problems given to them unnecessarily. In our
film, our protagonist's parents are killed without reason, leading him to want
revenge on the killers. Weapons such as guns are also common in Thrillers as
they are known as dangerous, instantly causing tension and fear when seen. We
used guns for this reason.
Our target audience was first going to be
working/middle class 12-40 year olds but after creating the film and noticing
the amount of violence and blood used, decided to raise our age rating to 15+.
The film is aimed at both males and females, but because of the amount of
action and the inclusion of guns, is aimed mostly towards males.
To distribute our media product we would talk to
the people over at Metrodome to see if they could lend us a hand. If so, we
would use the 'microwave scheme' which allows us to use a small amount of money
and the film could be shown in cinemas and online via a website. To get our
film out there and grab some attention, we would use viral advertising
techniques such as sending a viral e-mail with a link to our film trailer.
To attract viewership we created a short trailer
showing off the best bits of the film and sent this virally. We attempted to
use word of mouth to spread the name of our film through social media such as
Facebook and Twitter by creating an 'Amnesty' group and starting the #Amnesty
trend.
During the shooting and editing of our film I
have developed my filming and editing skills. I have learned how to properly
use a tripod and position cameras for best affects, how to use back-lighting to
improve focus on the priority in the shot while using low-key lighting, and
have been taught by group members how to properly edit a film from start to
finish.
To make our product we used a variety of
different technologies. These technologies have vastly helped us create and
improve our media product and we would probably be stuck without them. Needless
to say we used computer systems, but we also used a large variety of other
technologies such as two digital video cameras, Internet explorer and Google chrome
(for Blogger and countless other websites), Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, Adobe
After effects and Premiere Pro, and finally Windows Media Player and Movie
Maker.
The digital video cameras were used to film our
product, to put it simply. We used digital video cameras because it is very
easy to use, we can instantly re-shoot if need be and delete any bloopers that
are not required, not that we needed to delete any because the digital video
cameras have a large amount of space to store video. Finally, digital video
cameras are a great choice because you can simply plug them into your computer
and move the video across onto the computer without any troubles, ready for
editing.
Internet Explorer and Google Chrome served to
same purpose, to allow me to surf the internet. This was incredibly useful as
it not only allowed me to blog to document my progress, but also to research
which gave me more options to take when filming and improved the film
drastically. Some of what I found on the internet is conventions of Thriller
films that we could follow to improve our film’s storyline and overall
atmospheric feel and look. (Internet explorer was used at school whilst Google
Chrome was used at home)
Microsoft Office Word and Microsoft Office
PowerPoint were used for similar purposes. They were both used to prepare
documents for me to upload to my blog. Word was used to prepare text documents
and PowerPoint was used to prepare other pieces such as pictures or
presentations. PowerPoint allowed me to make my work look more presentable and
Word allowed me to ensure that my work is all spelled correctly and makes
perfect sense.
If I were to be given the same task again, I
would make adjustments such as preparing a proper script, spend more time on
constructing an interesting storyline and put more thought into characters and
how they
are shown within the film. I believe that me and the group that I was
a part of have done well to achieve what we have, but some improvements were
possible, had we the time to pretty much start from scratch and adjust our
film.
