Evaluation: 1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Genre

A major part in achieving a proffesional look to our media product was by clearly establishing a genre so that the correct audience could identify our product and enjoy it as much as possible. After choosing our action thriller we took many steps in trying to ensure our prouduct had all the elements needed to accurately reflect the genre. 

Themes 

We took inspiration for themes of action thriller mainly from three films: 

We felt that these three films accurately represented the genre. The themes that are clearly present in all three include; fear, isolation, death, violence, revenge, speed, action and suspense. We tried to replicate these in our opening sequence. Our opening sequence included most of, if not all of these themes thus solidifying its position as an action thriller. The action and speed are clear throughout the begining as the victim runs into his own house. The suspense, fear and isolation is created as the victim hides in his own home and violence is present at the end in the fight scene. 

A screenshot showing fear and isolation in our sequence

A screenshot showing violence and action in our sequence

We did not challenge the genre much because being a fan of action thrillers i knew it was a tried and tested genre that always pleased audiences. However we did include more enigma perhaps than a standard action thriller. This was done through the use of the ending where the screen turns to black after our victim is hit with a gun. The audience are left questioning whether the victim is dead or alive. This in no way challenges the genre but it does develop it slightly adding more thrilling and suspending elements.



Iconography 
 In order for our genre to be clearly established we wanted to include as much action thriller iconography as possible. 

This is a mood board showing a summary of  the action thriller genre and inconography associated with it:

Here is a comparison between one of our film stills a poster of 'Taken' (Pierre Morel, 2008):

 

































Characters

Another large part of filling any genre is by portraying the correct character types. After studying other action thrillers we found out that there were 3 main character roles:

The Villian

The Victim

The Hero

Only two of these characters are shown in our opening sequence with a film narrative that involves the third being introduced later on. In our film it is one of the villains and the victim that is introduced as keeping the hero a secret for part of the movie is a main concept of the narrative.


Our victim

Our villain

Narrative

Todorov’s narrative theory states that every film starts with an equilibrium, then encounters a disruption, then a resolution is found and then at the end a new equilibrium is reached. Our film challenges this model slightly because our film instantly starts with a disruption. This creates more enigma than usual in a film because it instantly throws the audience. However after this point it follows the normal narrative model since a resolution is worked towards and then the film ends on an equilibrium.

The film follows a parallel narrative structure since the film constantly cross cuts between Matt Lockwood trying to escape his capture and Matt’s father attempting to save him. Th parallel narrative is similiar to 'Finding Nemo' which we researched in the earlier stages of our project.

Our film follows the binary opposites theory as suggested by Levi Strauss. Many of these opposites are present in the opening sequence, for example:

• The contrast between the comfort and safety of the family home and the danger of the event taking place within it.
• The fear that the victim character shows compared to the calamity of the villain
• The difference in high levels with the victim hiding at the top of the house while the villain approaches from lower levels
• The difference in the villains dark and mysterious clothing compared to the victims light and casual clothing

Form

Our opening sequence sticks to all the main conventions of an action thriller film. It begins with titles informing the audience of all the production companies involved and then kicks into a fast paced chase scene. We looked at other opening sequences to get the conventional order of titles and followed them for our sequence. 

'Bourne Ultimatum' is a film with a very similar structure to ours. It begins with titles on black screens and then kicks straight into action.

We researched the conventions of an action thriller and used all of them in our sequence. Elements of violence, enigma and suspense were all used. 

The main function of an opening sequence is to introduce the film genre, characters and include titles to inform the audience of the people involved in making the film. This was all done in our opening sequence making it a successful piece of work.

Style

When  deciding on the style we wanted to portray our group was always certain on having a fast paced film with an epic film. To create this we had to use a number of techniques:

• A powerful soundtrack that follows the pace of the sequence, (fast at the begining, then slowing and quietening as tension starts to build), gives our film a well rounded proffessional film because it adds to all the themes being thrown at the audience
• The film begins with extremely fast cuts making the pace insanely quick. This really gives off the action epic feel we were going for. The pace slows throughout, helping build tension and hook the audience.
• We rarely used the tripod for any shots to give more of a raw feel to our sequence. This really helped add more interesting shots adding to the fast and blurred feel.
• We added a lot of contrast when editing to make our film look more glossy and proffessional.

This is a chase sequence from 'District B13' which i personally took inspiration from and aimed to portray the same style. I think the chase is very comparible to ours when looking at style.

Final sequence + thoughts

 

This is how our final sequence has ended up looking like. I am so proud of the work that our group has done and couldn't be happier with the way the final sequence has turned out.

Looking back at my initial hopes for this project i can safely say that i have satisfied everything i planned on doing. I have improved my camera work through practise and have aquired many editing skills such as the ability to track motion in shots. I am certainly proud to say that i have completed this piece of work and look forward to showing people what we have created.

Tracking Motion for Titles

In order to place our titles on surfaces and create the illusion that they're part of the surface in the shot we will have to learn how to track motion in Adobe After Effects.

This is a tutorial video showing us how to use the motion tracker. It is extremely useful and after attempting a few of teh techniques shown i am hopefful that this may work.

Opening sequence rough cut feedback

After having teacher feedback and audience feedback our group is very satisfied with the quality of our rough cut. The music needs to be re-done and a few sound effects put in but apart from that it is almost complete. The only things that need to be changed in my opinion is the final fight scene because it currently has a few continuity issues. This is why on our re-shoot we will only re shoot the final fight scene and a few other shots.
Overall i am very happy at this stage of the project and feel that i am meeting my objectives very well.

Style Research

This is a chase scene from the film 'District B13'

This is very cimilar to the style we are trying to achieve with our film. The use of certain shots we may attempt to mimic. The fast paced editing is also a big factor in what we are hoping to get into our test shoot. 

The colour scheme of the urban environment is directly related our film because the setting of ours will be similar. From this I can see that even in a dirty looking environment an epic chase scene can still be created.

Proposal Feedback

I am very pleased with the feedback we got from our proposal. I am hoping in this next week to be able to storyboard our whole sequence and take it into the production stages. The only advice we had was to change a part of the narrative which i am quite happy about because i now realise that the bit we originally had didn't make much sense.

In change to our first proposal i think instead of running upstairs the main character should be chased upstairs by the criminal in this opening sequence. This should solve the issues that confused some people with our proposal.

Personal Influences