Our media product (short film) uses, challenges forms and conventions of a real motion picture with many different methods. As a group we think we have constructed our film professionally by developing it the way they do in the real film industry. The first convention I will be discussing in terms of our film will be the camera shot sizes that have been chosen. In our film we made sure that we used all the shot sizes. In the beginning scene we have used an extreme close up of Alex’s eyes. With this choice of shot and it being so early in the film it already gives off a few signs that this man could be quite mysterious. From this the audience could also think he could be unnatural in a predisposed way. Other uses of extreme close ups in the film include Alex writing letters to show the detail and make it clearly visible for the audience to read what he is writing. When Alex is about to post the letter there is also use of an extreme close up of the letter in his hands. With the use of this shot and the text to go with it this can be seen as mimicking the parody silent films. It gives that effect that the messages are helping the audience of what is happening in terms of the films narrative. These shots have only been used when Alex is writing messages which will give the audience to think about in terms of what is actually meant by them. In this sequence there is also the use of a medium close up when Alex is texting on his phone. This shot was taken from behind so you see him from the back. The purpose of this shot being used here was to see Alex using his phone and with this being one of the first shots you see we wanted to hold that assurance for a little while by not revealing his face. Throughout the film many close ups have been used especially in the scenes that contain the friends of the two (Alex and Melissa). In these scenes close ups were used because we needed to clearly show the audience who was speaking when the conversations were taking place. The extreme long shots and long shots start to appear in the middle of the film and particularly in the park scene. This is because there is a sudden transition of location to a more open place. This is why we have used this hot so the audience can easily identify the setting and this shot will also set the atmosphere. With the use of these shot sizes it makes the film a lot more interesting with the variation used. Other techniques were used throughout the film such as dominant and submissive shots. When we used the dominant shots they were mainly of Alex to show that there could be something dishonest about him. We did not always show shots of Alex in a dominant way, we did make him submissive with high angle shots. In the beginning scenes we used many submissive shots of Alex to show his is vulnerable in terms of the narrative at the time. These included shots of Alex writing a letter and texting to try and communicate with Melissa which shows that he is failing at it. In the friend’s scene with Alex and his best mate an establishing shot was used to set the scene. In this scene a consistent number of over the shoulder shots were used to show the reactions and responses in the conversation. In the park scene we used another technique which was loose framing. When Alex is seeing if Melissa is coming we made sure that there was plenty of room around him to give more meaning in terms of his life. This framing suggests that Alex is free and vulnerable and with Melissa nowhere to be seen in the shot it suggests that Alex is very alone. In our film there is also use of horizontal composition when Alex is about to post the letter. The use of this composition makes him stand out but not in a positive way. It makes him look rather odd and unsettled especially when he looks up at the camera. Within the film there is not much camera movement but when we did have movement we used the techniques that would be seen in a classic thriller film. In the park scene we used a forward tracking shot to create tension for the audience with a steadicam being used which also involved the audience. A pan was used after this technique to create interest to where Alex was going. The significant piece of camera movement was at the very end of the film when a hand held technique was used to reveal the death of Melissa. The camera is also slightly canted which creates unease for the audience. In our film we have used sound very effectively by having phone messages playing in the opening scenes of the film. These messages will be played when Alex is in his living room and when he is writing the letter. The phone messages are basically Alex trying to get in contact with his Melissa with the dialogue starting off soft and then becoming aggressive. The use of swearwords within the phones messages also show how angry Alex is getting and gives the audience a hint of what his personality is like. With the use of these messages we did not want to anchor the audience so they are free to perceive. In other scenes such as the park scene ambient sounds are heard this makes it more real and sets the mood. Except from the phone messages every other sound is diegetic and comes from within the story. Other dialogue within the film includes the conversations that take place in the friend’s scenes. In this conversation Leanne says “She broke up with you weeks ago” which reveals to the audience a narrative twist, with the audience thinking before that Alex was actually going out with her. You see a narrative twist all the time in thrillers and we thought we would use one in ours. In the other friends scene between Alex and his best mate, towards the end of the conversation Alex says “and she’s still mine” this gives the audience something to think about in terms of what it actually means and there could be many different assumptions. This line is also said going into the dead scene, with the use of this sound bridge it links the scenes very well. The last piece of dialogue that is heard in the film is “No new messages” which signals the end of the film in a sophisticated way with everything being revealed. The lighting in our film is hard light throughout because it is basically light from the sun. We did not need to film any scenes in the dark but the end scene is more soft light than hard light. This is because it was filmed inside and required light from another source. It is a very dark scene anyway in terms of death; the lighting corresponded with the narrative. Another lighting effect we used within the film was the letter scene where you see them being posted through the door, the last shot you see in this sequence is slightly darker which indicates time has passed. The film had five different settings with the first few scenes being set in Alex’s living room which is very symbolic in terms of his character. With Alex sitting in his living room for a long time the audience will instantly think that he has something on his mind. The kitchen was also used in Alex’s house for the dead scene which makes you think of the ways she could have been killed with knives around etc. Other settings included exterior locations such as the street, a park and a pub garden. We used the street for Alex to wait by Melissa’s friend’s car which made everything seem like he was staling them. The spacious park being used as a meeting point made everything tenser. A shot in this scene includes a bench with graffiti on it which makes the location creepy and insecure. Also the open space adds to the loneliness of Alex’s life. For the other friend’s scene we used a pub garden as it is a typical meeting place for men which made everything more realistic. The use of the pint glasses in this scene gave a more mature and grown up theme to the film. Other props used in the film were the use of letters which were the most significant props in the film. This is because the film is called “The Last Message” so it was very important we had loads of letters. Junk mail was also used in the letter scene to make the film more real as everybody receives junk mail. In the beginning scene there was a mobile phone which was used to emphasise how desperate he is to get in contact with Melissa.
In the opening scene of the film the costume that Alex is wearing is a black T-shirt and jeans. This basically shows the audience he has nowhere important to go as he is just lying around the house. The black T-shirt also shows a little bit about his personality as well and it is quite a mysterious colour to go with the role of the character. Throughout the film you see Alex wearing a long black coat which gives other connotations of evil and devious. The other characters in the film wore their normal clothes which gave the audience a chance to relate to normality. In the last scene of the film where Melissa’s death is revealed, Alex’s and Melissa’s costume is the same. We chose to both have them wearing chequered shirts so it adds to the eeriness of the psychotic issues Alex possesses. For the titles in our film we chose to use a classic combination of white writing on top of a black background. The font we used was also a serif font which looked like we had written them ourselves. This corresponds with the films narrative of writing letters. Our titles included the company name, title, actors, director, screenwriter etc. In our film there are many editing techniques that uses, challenges forms and conventions of a real film. In the beginning scene there are a number of dissolves used to show considerable time has passed. These are also long takes which shows how bored Alex is becoming. This edits continue through to Alex writing the letter and you start to sympathise with him. During this scene we also used a jump cut when Alex throws a screwed up piece of paper behind him to show his aggression and emotions. A jump cut is also used to link the scene to when you see Alex holding the letter. At the start of the scene simple match on action edits are used when he is about to post the letter. When the letter was posted a jump cut was used to show the interior of the letter dropping. This was the part of the film were we used a number of dissolves to show another time lapse with different letters and junk mail being posted. Then this faded out to show it was the end of the scene. The edits we used for the next scene were a number of reverse shots to show the reactions and responses in the conversation that was taking place. After this scene the edits became slow again with Alex waiting at the park. A number of dissolves were also used to show another time lapse. The slow edits continued until Alex got off the bench to see if Melissa was coming. The editing technique we used here was Alex walking towards the camera until it was black and then straight away the camera was placed behind Alex to aid the continuity. When Alex was looking for Melissa the edits became a little shorter to emphasise the fact that he is becoming stressed. In this scene slow and fast editing was used to signify boredom and stress. In the other friends scene more reverse shots were used again as it was a conversation and at the end of the scene we faded it out into the last scene with Alex saying “and she’s still mine”. The last scene contained one long take with eventually revealing the death of Melissa. Most of the edits we used in our film were very subjective in tricking the audience into taking Alex’s side and sympathising with him. As our film is about dealing with a psychological breakdown it does raise awareness of the mentally ill. The theme is also very obsessive and with the protagonist being male it does make a statement about men. The film could suggest that men suffer more when breaking up from a relationship. That is why we have sent this message out so we can challenge forms and conventions of a real psychological thriller.
With our film we had to produce ancillary texts such as a film poster and a review. The colours on my film poster are red and white which correspond with the genre of our film. This is because red and white is usually associated with the genre that of thriller. The film poster is subjective with it containing conventions that make it very biased. The use of anchoring in particular makes the audience accept what they see. On my poster is a main image of Alex looking straight at you with you only being able to see half of his face. This anchors the audience into mystery which is a typical convention of a psychological thriller. The tagline also anchors the audience with it being “How far would you go to make someone yours”. This suggests that Alex could go to extreme lengths to get what he wants and the audience will have to go find out if this is true by watching the film. The font that is used on my poster is the same one that applies in the opening credits of the film. With both having a serif font it looks like it has been handwritten which corresponds with the films narrative. The text that all three contain is the same in terms of who is involved with the film. The purpose of the film poster is to advertise the film whereas the film and review is to entertain. The review is objective because the person who is writing it has to say things he does not believe to suit the audience. The audience for this is intelligent but this also depends on the complexity of the review. I structured my review with comparisons to other films, good points, bad points, etc with a chatty tone to my writing. My persona when writing the review was in the form of a critic as I had to be harsh but suit my audience at the same time. I had to make sure I made some positive points in my verdict to keep my audience happy. Overall the combination between my main product and ancillary texts are very effective because they all have a relationship. When an audience like a media product they tend to want to find out more about the actors, and maybe the issues involved. After our film was made we showed it to different within different age ranges. These age ranges were young teenagers, older teenagers, adults and the middle aged. After the young teenagers watched it we had responses with them basically not understanding the narrative which we did expect. Our certificate is a fifteen so we knew that it was not aimed at them anyway. The people we showed it to after were the older teenagers who came back with a better understanding of the narrative. They also came out with different assumptions about how the film panned out which showed that they did not quite grasp what was going on. With the certificate being fifteen older teenagers are eligible to watch it but we did not expect all of them to fully understand it. Then the adults viewed our film and said it took a while to get into but picked up and had a great narrative twist. These adults are more in the age range of our target audience and we had a few positive responses. The last age group that we asked to watch our film were the middle aged. They thoroughly enjoyed it as they could grasp the psychological breakdown and they liked the mystery, especially the men as they tend to like working things out. As a group we were really happy with this because we agreed our target audience would be middle aged men. From our feedback we gathered our strengths which were the mystery involved in the film, the film flowing well, and the different range of techniques that were used especially with the camera. We were happy with these comments and made sure these stayed in the film. However, the feedback we got did contain some weaknesses about the film such as the film taking a bit too long to get going with it being slow at the beginning. Another weakness we found from our feedback was there were not enough sound effects and we decided as a group that if we were going to make changes it would be to add in these sound effects.
With new media introduced it gives us the chance to access our content at any time and in anyplace as long as you have a digital device. With it being digital it gives people the chance to give interactive feedback instantly. The difference between new media and traditional media is the fact that you can digitize content more by it being easy to transfer. The new media has characteristics with it being more manageable, networkable, and interactive. With the rise of this new media it has increased communication between people around the world. We have expressed ourselves through blogs. With the use of our blogs it gave us a chance to show our research and basically the construction of our film to the world. With producing this generated media it becomes globalised which shortens the distance between people all over the world. With distributing our media product to global audiences it has a great chance of being seen. The website “YouTube” for example is worldwide which contains millions of media products. When doing research for our short film we used YouTube to give us an idea of how they have been constructed. We also used Google images to find film posters so we could analyse them and have a better understanding. We also used a range of websites to research the genre in order to know conventions to use in our film. We also used websites to research the symptoms of people who are mentally ill gather information for ideas of our film. When constructing our media product we used a high tech editing program to put it together. On these programs are various techniques that can be used in order to make the product of professional standard. For example, you can now add titles which were very easy to do whereas in the past you were not able to do this and you had to add them in an unprofessional way. The use of blogs were also used for the planning process as we could post planning schedules, possible locations, idea of narrative structure etc. We also posted our shot scripts by taking images of them and then uploading them. When evaluating the film we now have the chance to post it globally (YouTube) and receive feedback from people. This was never the case before as traditional media could not allow interactivity to take place. We have evaluated our film but by getting verbal responses after they have watched them rather than receiving them digitally. With the new media introduced producers and us have the chance to create a high quality media product to distribute to the world. The only bad thing with the globalisation is the risk of your personal details being sifted through. With the use of new media technology it has been very beneficial in terms of creating a media product to a high professional standard.
