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Evaluation Q7

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

Evaluation Q6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

Evaluation Q5

How would you attract your audience?

Marketing is a big part of attracting an audience and creating a hype before release. Having a well made film will also be beneficial as people will recommend it to their friends and family. 

 

Evaluation Q4

Who would be the audience of your media product?

The audience for our film will be from ages 15 and above.

 

Evaluation Q3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think 20th century fox would be a perfect distributor for our film.

Evaluation Q2

What social groups are represented in your media product?

Our film portrays taxi drivers, nuclear family and youth/females.

Feedback

Following the first showcasing of our film to all our family and friends we received some feedback.

 

Evaluation Q1

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

In our film we both used and developed conventions of the psychological thriller genre in attempt to make our opening unique and entertaining.

          

Evaluation prep

After finishing our opening and being very pleased with the outcome it was time to get started with the evaluations. I have started already and it is taking much longer than I first anticipated, with planning and then getting down to filming and then editing it has proven to be very time consuming and I'm going to have to get a move on.

They'll be starting to go up soon.

Storyboard / Shot List

Sorry, I forgot to post this before! We did make a storyboard before filming our video but because all of our drawing skills arent very good we found it difficult to express our views and decided to write out a 'shot-list' instead.

These are all the shots we initially wanted to have and we filmed all of them. However when it came to editing some of the shots didn't fit right together so we decided to switch them around and some, we decided to eliminate completely. 

Dialogue

The dialogue in the taxi was shown as one sided however while filming we tried to help our actor (my dad) by having a real conversation with him so that the conversation would flow more naturally. Here is a video of the unedited footage to show you how we took out the different parts we thought were effective and made sense alone.

Film Synopsis

If we was to extend our opening and make it into a feature length film, as a group, we have decided that the story line will consist of the mother and her baby who are trapped in the boot enduring all kinds of abuse; physical, mental and sexual. Although, this character will be the main protagonist the driver will also have other victims under his control.  There will also have a heroic character that comes to the rescue them, weather that is the police or a family member we are still undecided. The journey to their rescue will have a variety of suspects but we have made the audience omniscient to create more tension which is rare in psychological thrillers. 

Location

The location we decided to film the first part of our opening was done on a quiet road where both Ciara and Emily, two members of MAC 4, live which was useful because we had access to the houses which is how we got the ariel view of the taxi. The road is also quiet so we could be more relaxed during filming. Another reason we choose to film here is because the mise-en-scene shows it is ordinary and therefore misleads the audience. These are all factors we considered before we began filming.

Then for the second part of the opening we drove to Whitewebbs, a more isolated location down the road. This setting creates a more creepy mood as there are many trees which create a sense of being trapped. This conforms to the conventions of our psychological thriller genre. 

Our locations were well thought out and concentrated on the mise-en-scene and the connotations they portray. 

Final Film

Our film is finally done, it's such a relief. I am very pleased with our final product many hours went into producing it and overall I think it turned out well. Some feedback footage will be uploaded soon.

Feedback

We realised that the baby crying was slightly crossing the boundaries so we thought it would be a good idea to get some feedback. We received mix feelings about it but overall, as a group, we decided that we liked the shocked reaction and thought it represented the conventions of the psychological thriller genre that we were aiming for.

Reaction to opening

We showed Shaileyee our rough footage to get some feedback for what we could improve and what she thought overall. This is what she said:

Change of Music

Tara showed us this song and we all thought it would fit perfectly with our film. we tried it and it did! We asked the group for thier opions and with some mixed feedback, as a group we decided that we liked this one better.

Film Draft

This is a draft of our final film. A few things still need to be edited though.

Film Title

We have decided to push the boundaries a little bit and have a sound of a baby crying when the shot of  the boot is shown as well as the young girl calling for 'help'. We thought having a nursery rhyme as the title links well to this and it also creates a sinister tone-linking to the genre. We researched some lyrics of well known nursery rhymes but liked 'rock a bye baby' the best.

  I really liked the line 'when the wind blows' but this is already a film so we couldn't use it. However, 'when the bough breaks' was also a line we thought would work quite well as 'breaks' has connotations of something damaged which relates the protagonist's mental state. 

Title Sequence Research #2

'The Walking Dead' series has an amazing title sequence which helps create an eery, sinister tone which reflects on the context of the show. I especially like the way the titles quickly cut and not fade like most do.

As well as 'Teen Wolf' being my favorite programme at the moment, it also has an amazing title sequence. The font, the transitions, everything!

Title Sequence Research

Every Tv show or film I watch has now changed from, looking at the camera angles and shots, to the title sequences. I particularly liked the title in the crime drama 'Line of Duty' but I can't find a clip to show the fade in and out transitions. Here is the font they used which is also great, and I think this would suit our film genre really well.

The size in font changes when it reveals the name of the programme 'Line of Duty' which gives it a more dramatic effect. 

Another title sequence that caught my eye was from 'Easy A'. 

I think the lining up of the writing on the floor etc. is really cool and I liked the idea of having one title unravel from the wheel of the taxi onto the road. Unfortunately this not possible to do on iMovie so we can't. 

Music

We want the ambient sound of the taxi because it is our unique advantage for our film and i think its important to emphasise that. However, we also wanted to create an eery tone to the opening without making it obvious. We all decided that classical music would work best to create this, after looking at different types we've all decided that Frank Sinatra- My Funny Valentine.
Due to copyright reasons we will have to find way to play the music without having any issues. We thought it would be perfect if the music would come from the radio of the taxi.

BBFC

I have researched which age would be the most suitable for our film using the BBFC website. Our group have decided that if the film was to be feature length there would be violent and sexual scenes containing strong language as the taxi driver is a psycho serial killer who rapes his victims.  I thought age 15 would be appropriate for the film as the things we would want to include such as sexual nudity and violence which is what we would want to include to fit the psychological thriller. However I also looked at age 12A as the lower the age restriction so it could appeal to a larger demographic. However, unfortunately, I think our film will be too explicit for this audience. Through my research i have found that age 12A have found that if the film was too be this age restriction violence and sexual scenes would have to be reduced and we want the film to be more explicit so its more scary and therefore would to be more appealing to an older audience. I think an age 18 restricts the demographic too much and by looking at what makes an 18 I don't think the film will be too that extent.  So after reading in detail the different categories i have decided to make the film an age 15 as this will allow us to make the film what we want as well as having a broad demographic. 

Inspiration

After watching many different films, trying to watch predominantly physiological thrillers as this is the genre we have chosen for our two minute opening. Our teacher told us about a film called 'The Bone Collector' which has a taxi scene. This interested us as we will also be using a taxi in our opening. The taxi scene in this film helped us gain some inspiration for the effective shots we can use. I especially like the shot of driving past the rubbish in the road and we will also try to include some creative shots.

  


This film was made in 1999, and was given an age 15 restriction. This will have to be kept in mind while thinking about the rating for our film. We would also have to keep in mind the time this film was made. During this time period, it was much stricter to what the youth could watch however now its much more lenient as the barriers have been pushed and we have become desensitized. Due to this we could maybe put the rating lower depending on the BBFC requirements.


We also gained inspiration from the film 'Taken' which is a well-known psychological  thriller. As this is a more recent film it gives a clearer outline of the conventions used in this genre that we will use or develop in our opening.  It is also a age rating of 15 so will give us a a better idea of what our film would be rated at along with the use of the BBFC website.

New Idea...Again

Things keep getting in the way. We over complicate things way too much and its starting to take over. But little did we know, Emily has had the perfect idea sitting in her drive way!!! Her dad is a taxi driver, what are the odds? After finding this out we wanted to incorporate the classic, black, london Taxi in our idea as it puts us at an unique advantage. After thinking about how, we came up with a simple, yes, simple idea. We have decided to concentrate on the taxi and the driver throughout the whole opening. The idea would consist of a variety of capturing shots,  that will persuade the audience that the driving is genuine, by showing close up shots of family photo, wedding ring etc. There will be cut shots of the driver talking to 'passengers' throughout the day. The ending of the opening will reveal an empty taxi....

Inspiration

This is some inspiration for the beginning of our opening. We thought we'd make the most of the landmarks of London that we have access to.

New Idea Vlog

Vlog of us explaining our new idea.

 

Idea Change

After filming a short part of our idea we decided that we didn't like it as much as we did originally and we didn't feel it was to the best of our ability. We were not prepared to put our name to something that wasn't amazing. After brainstorming ideas and watching loads programmes and films that we can get inspiration from there was one film that really sparked our brains; The end scene of 'Friends With Benefits' gave us the idea of filming in a busy train station because there is a good atmosphere. Here is the clip.