Evaluation- Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The media plays a crucial part of our society today, they make up the stereotypes of different social groups. This is something that our group haven't really thought about, all that we was trying to aim for was the stereotype of a 16 year old girl. But now having taken these social groups into consideration, you can actually see that our product does represent a few different social groups.

The first social group that we represent are 16 year old girls. No matter what type of person you are, if you are a girl you will be able to relate to our character one way or another.

Secondly, I think the next social group we represent are young Caribbean girls. Our character Samantha Evans is a traditional Caribbean girl and I think other Caribbean girls could look up to her.

Finally, the last social group I think we represent are the lower class people. As you can see Samantha comes from a poor background and I think people from a poorer background, both male and female will be able to relate to her.

Evaluation - Question 1

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

As I was doing my research on a number of different thriller films I always came across the same forms and conventions. I feel that all thriller films use the same basic types of conventions but they turn them into their own. I think these conventions are the: music, mystery, pace of the film, colours, gender and themes.

Mystery: This is the main way I feel you can tell that a Thriller film is actually a thriller. Every thriller film that I have researched has some kind of mystery or suspense in it. The mystery is mostly reviled at the end of the film but gives the audience clues the whole way through the film. This is so the audience are at the edge of their seat and are kept wanting more.

Music: The music for thriller films are always very tense. Usually starting off with a slow pace which keeps building up until it is very fast. The music in a thriller film for me makes the film, if you don’t have the right music then you can forget about the film. The music is what gets the audience at the edge of their seat, as the music gets faster so does their heartbeats. If this happens then you know you have picked the perfect music for a thriller.

Pace of the Film: Just like I have explained with music, the pace of the music gets faster and faster. So does the pace of the shots within the film. The pace of the shots usually matches up with the pace of the music. The shots are a lot faster when action is happening but seem to be slower when the protagonist is trying to work out what is going on around them or trying to solve the mystery.

As you can see from Batman: The Dark Nights title sequence below, the pace of the music and the pace of the shots match up. The faster the music the faster the shots.

Colours: I think that colours play a massive part in making a title opening sequence. You will find in a thriller title opening sequences the colours are usually blank and white, with some lighter colours coming to it noun and again. Red is often used as it symbols blood/death. For example, Se7en title opening sequence (I will include pictures of this title opening sequence to show you the different colour used). I think it is important to get the colours right, if the audience see dark colours they will feel the room where there are get smaller and make them tense, which is the overall goal for a thriller film.

As you can see from these pictures se7en's title opening sequence uses red which stands for blood. Also this sequence uses very light colours with black, this makes the black stand out.

Gender: Usually in thriller films the antagonist is male. This is because even in now day's men are seen as the stronger people and movies like to be very stereotypical. Even if the antagonist is not always human they are still normally percieved as a male type. The antagonist may work by himself or may have an entourage helping him. The protagonist is usually a mixture of female or male.

Themes: This is want I think separates thriller films from each other. Thriller film usually uses the following themes: Isolation, Betrayal, Revenge, Outcast, Obsession, Trouble Childhood, Jealousy, Loneliness and Love/Passion.

Overall our group have tried to add these conventions into our own Title Opening Sequence to make it look as good and professional as actual film Title Opening Sequences.

Preliminary task and Grimaldi Title opening Sequence

This is our prelinary task followed by our final Title Openng Sequence 'Grimaldi'.

Our DVD & Cover

After myself (Sam) and Moe finished editing our groups Title Opening Sequence called GRIMALDI, we had to burn it onto DVD. The following picture is of our DVD which has our final piece on it.

Once we put our DVD into its case we felt in looked a bit dull and boring, so we thought we should make it look more professional. We decided to print out our poster twice (which was created by Taylor Beahan), we then measured it to fit the DVD case and slotted the fitted poster into the DVD case. We felt it looked so much more professional, especially with the age certificate of our film on show. The following picture is of our DVD Case with our poster on the front.

Shot List

Throughout our Title Opening Sequence we decided to use a varied amount of shots in order to create a product which is at a high standard, along with making it look professional. Also by showing that as a group we had considered different shots and have given our audience the best angle/point-of-view for every bit of action, we believe that this shows all the best qualities possible in delivering a very high standard Title Opening Sequence.

The list below is the shoots which we used in our Title Opening Sequence:

• Over the Shoulder
• Medium Close-Up
• Shot Reverse Shot
• Close-Up

These shots plus a few more, allowed the product be more to entertaining for our target audience. whilst still coming under the selected Genre which happened to be "Thriller".

Evidence of us working

We have taken a couple of pictures of us all working. This is evidence that we have actually been working.

Myself (Sam) editing:

Moe Editing:

Farah and Taylor doing some research:

Production Company Logo

Our whole group felt that we need a company logo. We think this will make us look more professional and we want to put it into our Title Opening Sequence. Firstly we have to come up with a group name which we can be called. As myself (Sam) and Moe will be busy editing our final piece, it has been left up to Taylor and Farah to come with it. They have decided to keep our group name simple, which we have stated we want to do the whole way through our project. Our group is now called SMFT, which stands for, Sam Moe Farah Taylor. Myself and Moe are both really happy with this name, as so is Taylor and Farah.

Now we have got a group name it was time to get a group logo. This was Farah's task as she has got some experience with making logos.

The picture below was Farah's first attempt at making our logo. She felt it wasn't eye catching enough.

This next picture below is Farah's second attempt at our logo. She felt it was an improvement from her first try but it still isn't quite right. So now Farah is going to try to put in some colour to it. Also her inspiration for this is Film Four.

The next picture is our Final Group Logo. As you can see farah has added some colour to it and we all think it is a great logo for us.

Character Profile

The Character's name in our film Grimaldi is Samantha Evans. Samantha is an ordinary 16 year old girl, she has posters of her favourite pop stars on her wall, along with playing with her make-up. Samantha is Caribbean and is from Trinidad and Tobago. She loves playing all sports but her favourite sports are Football and Netball. Along with all her sports she is a very girly girl, Sam keeps up with all the latest fashions and loves having girly gossips with her friends. At the moment Sam is in her first year at college and hopes afterwards to go onto university to study sports science.

                                                 Samantha Evans

Samantha Evans is played by an up and coming actress called Magnolia. Magnolia is a friend of Farah Warda (member of our group) and she was more than willing to help our group out by acting in our Title Opening Sequence. 

Shooting Schedule

As a group we thought it was really important to make a Shooting Schedule. We did this so we knew exactly step by step what we will be doing on the day we are filming. Also we think that this makes our group a lot more professional.

Our Groups Shooting Schedule:

Monday 29th November

9:30am: The group, consisting of Taylor, myself (Sam), Moe and Farah meet as per usual during the media lesson and briefly discuss the procedures of the day and how it is going to take place. We will also continue to update our blogs during this brief meeting.

11:00am: Farah heads of to the location of our shooting (her house) prepares everything including props, bed, laptop, alarm clock, clown, video camera and tripod.  This process should take around 2 hours to setup.

1:00 - 1:30pm: Farah goes to meet our actress (Magnolia) at lee green station and head back off the location of shooting and prepare for filming whilst waiting for the rest of the group to arrive.

2:00pm: Myself (Sam), Moe and Taylor meet outside of Greenwich Community College ready to depart and make our way to the location where we are going to shoot our Title Opening Sequence. The journey should take roughly around an hour and a half and split into two parts.

2:15pm: Get 122 bus from outside of Greenwich community college to lee green Sainsbury.

3:00pm: Get 261 bus from outside of Sainsbury’s to our location, Kingbolton Road.

3:30pm: Reach our location and start to get ready to shoot our Title Opening Sequence.

3:45pm - 4:30pm: Sit down with the actress and discuss every process of the shooting and explain everything in detail whilst always making sure she is fine with everything and getting her consent before filming.

4:30pm - 4:45pm: The actress gets herself ready by changing to her costume whilst we setup the camera and prepare all the angles and shots that we are going to take of each clip.

4:45pm - 5:15pm: Filming!

5:15pm - 5:30pm: 15 minutes break to energise ourselves and prepare for another hour of shooting.

5:30pm - 6:30pm: Filming!

6:35pm: Finish filming.

6:40pm - 7:00pm: Sit down with the whole group and look through all the clips that we have shot. Also have a discussion to see if we are all happy with all the shots taken or if any shots need to be re-filmed.

7:00pm: IT’S A WRAP!!

Risk Assessment

Before we filmed our Title Opening Sequence we all filled out a risk assessment sheet, along with signing the important paperwork. Our actress Magnolia also singed a release form. This document is her giving us permission for her image to be allowed in our film.

What is a Risk Assessment:

A Risk Assessment is a systematic method of looking at work activities, considering what could go wrong, and deciding on suitable control measures to prevent loss, damage or injury in the workplace. The Assessment should include the controls required to eliminate, reduce or minimise the risks.

Example of Risk Assement:

Our Groups Risk Assessment:

Location & Props

Location:

As you can see from a previous post we have researched different locations which we feel we could use to film our Title Opening Sequence. At one of our meetings we all agreed unanimously that we should film it in a house. We thought this would be for the best because our synopsis gives it away that it should be filmed in a house, also we felt that it would be a lot easier to film in a house rather at a shopping centre or woods, where there would be loads of civilians interrupting us. We will now be able to film our Title Opening Sequence without interruption and hesitation. We also felt a house would keep it simple and we feel by keeping it simple we could make out Title Opening Sequence excellent.

Now we have decided to use a house to film in, all we need to do is actually find a house we can use. As our character is a girl, we all said that we need as house with a girls bedroom. This is because the bedroom plays a key part in our piece. Our Title Opening Sequence would look stupid if we used a boy's bedroom. Farah then said we could use her house, she said it would be easy to travel to, it is girly bedroom and it already has a lot of the props we need. So myself (Sam), Taylor and Moe all agreed Farah's house would be the best location for the job in-hand.

Pictures of Farah's House:

 

Props:

We will be using a number of props while filming our Title Opening Sequence. Our main prop will be a toy clown (Grimaldi) as the whole film revolves around it. Also luckily for us this is the only prop which we have to purchase. As we haven't got a budget, the money will be coming out of our own pockets. All our other props will be provided my Farah which is already at her house.

Props we will use:
                                                           Grimaldi

Bin

Alarm Clock

Possible Locations

As a group we have all put in ideas for possible locations which we could use for filming our Title Opening Sequence. We have whittled it down to three possible locations, which are:

• A House
• The Woods
• A shopping Centre

A House:

We have decided that a house would be a good place to film our Title Opening Sequence as we have discussed that we would have all the props which we need in it. These props are things like a bed, alarm clock and a stairway. We can make a house very eerie and scary along with us being able to make it a perfect place for a thriller film.

The Woods:

While we were doing our research we all decided that the woods could be a really good place to film our title opening sequence. As our title opening sequence genre has to be a thriller, we all feel that the woods could be the perfect place to make a thriller. The only problem with this is that our group will have to travel quite far to the nearest wood as we all live in the city.

A shopping Centre:

We all think that a shopping centre could be a good place to film our title opening sequence as we think we could make dramatic scenes with a clown chasing the character through the shopping centre. There is a problem with this know as there will be many civilians there and good disrupt our filming, which could be very time consuming.

Final Synopsis!

As I have previously said before, we may well change our synopsis a little bit. We have, but this time it is our final synopsis. We have decided to change our synopsis a little bit due to the fact we feel that we have come up with better ideas, along with making it sound more realistic. Our final synopsis for our Title Opening Sequence is:

Our title opening sequence begins in a girl’s bedroom where we are given a view of the room twice, once from an audience's point of view and the second is a more dramatic entrance to the room including the added visual effects to emphasise the element of a thriller to the audience. We then see the main character (Samantha Evans) tossing and turning in her bed until she gets fed up with the clown's melody and therefore projects this anger and throws the clown to the floor and goes back to sleep.

(Alarm clock goes off)

A view of the alarm clock shows that the alarm clock in going off and therefore Samantha has to wake up in order to start her day. After turning off this alarm clock and turning the lights back on, Samantha realises that the clown she threw on the floor is back on the side next to her alarm clock. Therefore due to her uncertainty she grabs this toy clown and takes it downstairs and throws it in the bin believe she has got rid of this abnormal toy. Only to realise once she goes to shut the front door to go back inside, a dark hand is projected in front of the door stopping it from closing and causing Samantha to scream in both desperation for someone to help her and fear of what or who could be behind the other side of this door.

Grimaldi Poster

This our film poster for GRIMALDI:

Poster Development

All of us as a group thought it would be necessary to make a film poster for our title opening sequence. Myself (Sam), Moe and Farah does not have to knowledge to make one, so Taylor stepped in and said he will do it as he has done one before. All of the following film posters are the different progression stages of the poster which has all been done by Taylor. Although Taylor is the one who has made all of these, every person in the group gave their ideas and had a lot of input in them.

First Development of Film Poster:

This is our first developed film poster. We all felt that there was a lot more to be done, we felt it was too plain and simple. If we want our film poster to be great we will have to add loads more to it, maybe a bit of colour would look good as well.

Second Development of Film Poster:

This is the Second developed film poster which Taylor had done. As you can see Taylor has added the colour red around the title of the film. He has done this because red is the colour of blood and we want it to relate with the bloody reference which we are making in our Title Opening Sequence.

Third Development of Film Poster:



This is our Third developed film poster and as you can see from the last one it has really come on leaps and bounds. Taylor has now put in four evil clown faces rather than just the one. Taylor has done this due to the fact it looks more dramatic and scary. Also each face represents each person in the group as you can see with our names in the corners. Taylor has also made blood drops come down from the Title, we all feel that this makes the poster stand out more and relates even more to our Title Opening Sequence.

Fourth development of Film Poster:

This is the fourth and final developed film poster. We haven't done a great deal to this stage, all that Taylor has done is put the age certificate onto it. This is very important as only people over the age of 15 will be able to view our film. You will be able to see from our first film poster to our last, it has changed very much and I feel our final film poster is perfect. I think our film poster looks very professional and I feel Taylor has done a great job on it.

GRIMALDI

In class Myself (Sam) and Farah decided that we needed to come up with a name for our title opening sequence. We both came up with some possible but we felt that none of them was good enough and did not connect with our piece. We was really struggling at this point and it felt like we was back to square one. All of a sudden Taylor jumped into our conversation and said he has already done some research on a name for our title opening sequence. Taylor said call it GRIMALDI. Me, Farah and Moe all looked at each other and thought the hell are you going on about. Then Taylor explained the whole idea, he said Grimaldi is the surname of the 'godfather' of clowns.

Joseph Grimaldi (18th December 1778- 31st May 1837), is the most celebrated of all English Clowns and is credited with being 'the first white faced clown'. Grimaldi is considered the 'Godfather' of modern clowning, this is due to him replacing Harlequin to the white faced clown.

We all feel that Joseph Grimaldi can be very relevant to our title opening sequence and our film as a whole. We feel that there is no better way of making a clown based film than having the master of clowns involved in it. The name itself has a lot of history behind it along with sounding quite ominous. Grimaldi was the ultimate clown and we would nothing more than to pay respect to him. The name is quite different and interesting, we feel the audience will see the name of the film and then want to go and watch as they will be intrigued by it. Therefore we are very thankful for Taylor's research and shall be calling our project 'GRIMALDI'.  

Our Script!

This is our groups script for out title opening sequence. We have decided to keep it simple and not have too much dialogue. We want to make it all more dramatic by using sound and not speech, so therefore we have decided we will have a minimum amout of dialogue.

Our Script:

                                                  GRIMALDI

  By Sam Doona, Moe Hassan, Taylor Lewis and Farah Warda

Fade in.

(Clown Carnival SFX)

INT. Bedroom

During the early hours of the morning SAMANTHA EVANS is asleep.

SAMANTHA EVANS is asleep and wakes up to look at her alarm clock.

                                       SAMANTHA EVANS

                                                HUH, STUPID CLOWN.

SAMANTHA EVANS Picks up her bag and put her books into it (Clown SFX)

                                                            GRIMALDI

                                                           EVIL LAUGHING

SAMANTHA EVANS goes downstairs to get a drink picks up her keys to throw in her bag.

                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                SAMANTHA EVANS

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                WHATS THIS DOING HERE?

SAMANTHA EVANS Comes back to put her purse in her bag sees the clown again.

                                                       SAMANTHA EVANS

 WHAT??? IS SOMEONE PLAYING A JOKE ON ME (scratches head, looks around)

SAMANTHA EVANS Goes out to throw the clown in the dustbin, turns around and is grabbed.

                                   SAMANTHA EVANS

SCREAMS

                                                GRIMALDI

                                LAUGHS

(Eerie clown SFX)

Fade out.

Example of a script

Myself (Sam) and Farah both looked and went through some different types of scripts. All of us as a group have decided that we should look at some examples of scripts, so we know what we can base ours on. Also we feel it is important that we upload an example of a script, so people will understand what ours is all about. The example script which I will be uploading helped us loads and taught us a lot about how we should do our own script.

Example Script:

FADE IN.

EXT. PRIMARY SCHOOL - MORNING.

Through the windows of a ground floor classroom a maths lesson

is underway.

INT. PRIMARY SCHOOL, CLASS ROOM - MORNING.

CHARLOTTE HANSON is searching for her pencil.

PETER UPSON, a jolly boy with floppy hair, makes a noise like a

FART and everyone GIGGLES.

ADAM TRAVIS, a naturally malevolent child, notices Charlotte and

nudges his friend TONY PALMER, who grins.

With the reactions of an assassain Charlotte looks up and sees

the two boys starting to laugh.

Morally appalled her hand shoots indignantly into the air.

CHARLOTTE

Miss!!

The TEACHER looks up from her marking.

Tony’s eyes are wide with panic.

BLACK.

SUPER IMP. - TITLE.

BACK TO SCENE.

Tony stands by the Teacher’s desk. He is small with messy hair

and a look of shame. The Teacher is quite young, although in

this setting she is older than the hills.

TEACHER

Why did you hide Charlotte’s

pencil Tony? Don’t you know it’s

wrong?

TONY

(quietly)

Adam told me.

Disappointed she shakes her head.

Adam squrims in the corner of the room.

TEACHER

And if Adam Travis told you to

jump off a cliff - would you do

that too?

TONY

No miss.

The Teacher nods at him, the logic of her argument plain to see.

TEACHER

Well then! Go on, give Charlotte

her pencil back and get on with

your long division.

Sullenly Tony takes the pencil and starts the long walk back.

The other children watch darkly from their moral high ground.

TONY (v.o.)

It’s not fair. I wish she’d jump

off a cliff.

His bottom lips juts out in depression.

Mechanically he sticks out the pencil for Charlotte, who takes

it from him in a prissy fasion.

CHARLOTTE

Thank you very much Tony.

She gets on with her work and he sits down again.

TONY (v.o.)

What if Miss told me to jump off a

cliff?

Adam punches him on the arm.

ADAM

(hissing and furious)

GRASS!

Tony turns away and ignores this, starting to do his Maths.

TONY (v.o.)

No, I wouldn’t jump off a cliff if

Miss told me to. Does that mean I

shouldn’t do what she says either?

Tony looks up from his sums, his forehead furrows in

concentration.

TONY (v.o.)

If you apply her logic to any

authoritarian relationship then -

Tony sticks his tongue out to make more space in his head for

thoughts.

TONY (v.o.)

Surely that means obeying the

commands of any ruler is always

the first step on the road to

totalitarianism!

The pencil slips from his hand and bounces on the floor.

TONY (v.o.)

Of course! The sublimation of

personal responsibility to the

will of either a single leader or,

in the broadest possible sense,

the society into which one is

born, what Rosseau describes as

the “General Will” - is not only

the avoidance of our natural duty

- but - it lays us open to abuse.

His jaw drops open in astonishment.

TONY (v.o.)

If we simply accept what we are

told then what is to stop our

acceptance of future actions being

taken for granted and thus our

name being put to deeds we would

not wish it put to!

He folds his arms and sits back on the small wooden chair.

TONY (v.o.)

E.G. the German public and the

holocaust of the Jewish nation in

the 2nd World War!

Charlotte is staring at him like he is mad.

Another thought strikes him and he looks around the room at the

collection of seven and eight year olds.

TONY (v.o.)

My GOD! I must explain this to the

others! I must, inject them with

the revolutionary zeal necessary

to bring about the overthrow of

the oppressive establishment and

thus bring about the birth of a

utopian future!

The Teacher is still marking maths books.

Adam is fighting with Peter.

TONY (v.o.)

All children will be equal! Black,

white, Asian and Leyla Fuyad, who

isn’t really any of those but does

have a bike that can’t go

backwards.

LEYLA is chewing her pencil and staring vacantly out of the

window.

SUSIE is drawing horses on her maths book.

TONY (v.o.)

No one would work unless they felt

inspired to!

The Teacher is subtly reading her horoscope below the table.

ANDY is picking his nose.

TONY (v.o.)

We would learn with the beauty of

nature and everyone would have an

EQUAL TURN IN THE SANDPIT!

INT. SANDPIT - DAY.

A child drives a toy car wildly through the sand.

INT. CLASROOM - DAY.

Tony’s eyes are wide with inspiration.

Leyla is still staring out of the window.

TONY (v.o.)

I must leap to my feet and say:

DREAM SEQUENCE:

INT. CLASSROOM - DAY.

Tony is on his feet, his fist raised - he takes a deep breath.

The rest of the class look at him.

TONY (v.o.)

Friends! Romans! Countrymen! And

Leyla Fuyad! Do not submit to the

mindless crush of authority!

END DREAM.

INT. CLASSROOM - DAY.

Adam is trying to break the solar cell on his calculator.

TONY (v.o.)

Do not so passively bow your heads

in the face of Mr.Green the

Headmaster just because he can

simultaneously point and click his

fingers!

INT. SCHOOL HALL - DAY.

MR.GREEN simultaneously points and CLICKS his fingers.

DREAM SEQUENCE:

INT. CLASSROOM - DAY.

The rest of the class listen to Tony as he talks, arms

outstretched.

TONY (v.o.)

Throw off your shackles and tear

down these walls! You have nothing

to lose but your break time

biscuit and the year five’s

superior rights on the climbing

frame! Who is with me?

Thirty eager hands rise into the air.

INT. LONG CORRIDOR - DAY.

The doors swing open at the far end and the children start to

charge SCREAMING down it.

TONY (v.o.)

Put down your Berol pens and pick

up your swords and let us storm

the Nature Gardens!

EXT. THE NATURE GARDEN - DAY.

Children charge across the grass - one boy has a large flag.

INT. SCHOOL HALL - DAY.

The children are singing hymns in Assembly.

TONY (v.o.)

Together as a single nation with

one pure, out of key voice, let us

sing rude words to the hymns in

assembly!

PETER

(singing)

“Someone’s weeing Lord, cuym by

ahhh!”

EXT. PLAYGROUND - DAY.

The children run around with their anoraks zipped up.

TONY (v.o.)

Let us unite in putting our coats

on backwards and zipping our

Parkas up until we can NO LONGER

SEE OUT!

INT. LONG CORRIDOR - DAY.

The children charge SCREAMING.

TONY (v.o.)

And let us charge into battle,

running down all the corridors

wearing nothing but the INCORRECT

FOOTWEAR!

END DREAM.

INT. CLASSROOM - DAY.

Tony smiles.

With a rush of adrenaline and a SCREETCH of chair legs, Tony

stands up.

Charlotte and Adam stare at him, the room falls silent.

The Teacher looks up from her horoscope and fixes him with a

hard stare.

TEACHER

Tony?

Tony clears his throat.

Peter Upson makes a noise like a FART and everyone LAUGHS.

Tony pales, swallows hard and sits down.

He shoots Peter an evil glare, Peter is still LAUGHING.

TONY (v.o.)

I bet no one never did that to

Lenin.

FADE OUT.