Media Evaluation

‘The Meeting’

Choosing a group was not a problem. Stephanie, Phoebe, and I decided to work with each other as we all had similar ideas and knew that we would work well. To help develop our media product we analysed conventions of real media products to see how they suggested the genre in the openings. We looked at three different genres of film: Romance, Romantic Comedy, and Thriller. Initially we thought about producing the genre of a Christmas romance, as the time of year was festive. However, we decided against this as we thought we would be time pressured to film everything as quickly as possible, before the festivity wore off. We also thought that it would be quite difficult to make a film like this, work well, it also would have been quite clichéd which we didn’t really want. We started to move away from this idea where we watched another thriller; ‘Enough’. This film was really inspiring, so as a group, we decided that we wanted our film genre to be ‘thriller’.
We came up with the idea of filming in London, as we thought filming the underground, and Hyde Park would anchor the genre. Both places are isolated (depending on the time of day) and quite weary. London is also the capital which related to mystery and detectives, which was an idea that was suggested. In the end we decided to film in Oxford instead, as we figured Oxford is similar to London. We have a train station and parks such as Christchurch meadow and University parks. It was also difficult to organise a time that we could all go up, considering we would need to be there early in the morning, which would mean we would have to stay a night in London, and also we have other commitments, such as a part time job. So it was not essential to film in London. As we had decided on the genre of our film we started focusing on a lot more openings of thrillers. We looked at the mise en scenes, camera angles, lighting, and semiotic codes. The opening of the thriller ‘Enough’ was very normal, like everyday life with cheerful music. However, the camera was a person’s point of view, as if he were watching the waitress’s every move. Another signifier that suggested the genre was the title of the film flashing up in red writing over a black background, which appeared ever so silently. The colour red connoted danger and violence. The idea of beginning the film like everyday, normal life was a nice effect, as it makes the audience weary and uncomfortable as they know something is yet to come. So in response to this, we began our film similar to this style. Before beginning our film, we prepared to pitch our film to teachers about our thought process, synopsis, and storyboard. The teachers viewed our ‘blogs’, and watched our preliminary film, which they were impressed with. So this resulted in allowing us to start filming and to borrow the camera equipment that we needed.
Our film begins with blue effect flashes of the character, ‘Emily Shrampton’ in a bathroom acting strange (drinking alcohol, showering with clothes on) etc, to suggest that she has problems. Over the top of this, we selected music found on a large audio internet base, where we researched the atmospheric music we wanted to create. It took some time to find the right sound that we were looking for. We wanted something with a subtle beat that suggested a normal day, but also something with a bit of edginess and suspicion. However, we did quite like the natural sounds, such as shower noise of the water, as it anchored the scene. The transitions of the flashbacks are smooth and fade in and out of each shot. The blue effect suggests illness, which relates to the character, as she is schizophrenic. The flashbacks are sharply edited and fast pace, which reflect the genre, as it gives out information that the audience engages with to predict and reveal the twist. The film then leads on to the character ‘Helena’ who is a detective, leaving the train station to meet ‘Emily’. We film the journey of Helena walking, which suggests normal life, as the woman (Helena) could just be going to work. On this journey from the train station to Christchurch meadow, we film her walking down little old cobbled Oxford streets, capturing Oxford spires and passing a classic red telephone box, which anchors traditional Oxford. This connotes busyness of the city, which leads to stress, and intelligence, which relate to the plot of our film; the mystery of a death storyline, the use of detectives suggests the cleverness and intelligence, similar to ‘Inspector Morse’, and the city stress suggests the problems that arise upon people, similar to the character ‘Emily’ (the separation from her brother when parents died, and the unexpected death of her brother).
Our media product does represent a social group, in particular the character Emily Shrampton, who is a schizophrenic, dysfunctional young woman, who has never properly recovered from the death of her parents and separation from her brother. We represent this stereotype by filming her strange actions in the bathroom, where she wears clothes in the shower, drinks alcohol in the morning, and takes pills. She is viewed with heavy black makeup around her eyes and water smudged red lipstick, which connotes danger and anger. We use the ‘close up’ shot various times in the flashbacks, which convey emotion from the character, which the audience empathize with. The character is female, so the gender suggests vulnerability, as she has been affected from a traumatic past experience.
As our media values are low, our film would be considered by an Art House distributor, with a minority audience. Our film product is low budget and filmed locally, so we probably would not be able to get our film assigned by a big institution, such as ‘Warner Brothers’.
Our target audience for our media product would be above the age of fifteen years, as the film contains heavy social problems that one character portrays. This would not be suitable for a younger audience, as some complex behaviour is shown. The decision of choosing the genre, thriller, indicated that an older audience would view it. We chose this genre to suit the age of our interests and older, hoping to produce a mature film that adults would engage with. To address our older audience we used social problems that may occur during youthful times, such as the schizophrenia and coping strategies, such as the alcohol and drug consumption. This period of life would be aimed at university students, which older adults could relate to, or understand, and also adolescents would be warned not to take such actions, verisimilitude to the TV drama ‘Hollyoaks’.
During the process of constructing our product we learned about new technologies such as, composition of shot. This enabled us to explore different camera angles and things that were significant in mise en scenes e.g. anchoring something to suggest. Lighting was another source we had to think carefully about. One of our scenes is set at a train station, which we wanted filmed in the morning light, so this had to be filmed early one morning. Pedestrians at that time of morning have different actions and moods; for example, people are in a hurry to get to work, whereas if it were filmed at lunch, people would be less chaotic and more relaxed. So it was important that we captured people in the morning, as it was an indicator at what time of day it was. Continuity was also another source we had to think about. For example if we filmed something one day, and then continued filming the next, the costumes or small objects would be noticeable. For one of the scenes we filmed in a bathroom, which happened to have a large mirror covering a wall. Whilst filming we had to consider carefully where we positioned ourselves as we did not want to be seen in the mirror. Sometimes this required us not using the tripod, as it was too large to fit in the limited space without being seen. This was a challenge in itself, as we did not want to jeopardise the quality of film.
Whilst editing we figured out various transitions and sound. We had difficulties putting the audio on top of the footage, as we wanted it to fit in time with the scene changes and shot transitions whenever the beat of the music changed. This worked perfectly until we added the flash backs of Emily at the beginning, which made the music fit no longer. We worked around this by copy and pasting the first few seconds of the music several times at the beginning, so it was just a repetitive sound, which actually worked quite well. This delayed time, which then enabled the audio and the footage to fit.
The preliminary task was helpful for our final film, as it gave us a chance to learn how to use the camera, and experiment the different camera shots, such as, 180-degree rule, match on action, and shot reverse shot. We also explored other camera angles, and looked at the different affects and quality of film, when using a tripod and hand holding the camera.
Our class peers watched our first draft of our film, and they gave us back some useful comments, such as the audio needed to be looked at, and that our credits looked professional.
Recently we have lost our complete film from the Macs at school. Unfortunately we did not save our work onto a memory stick for safety, so everything has disappeared. However, we have the majority of our footage still left on the tape, and a first draft of the film uploaded onto ‘you tube’ which is very lucky. We have spent months on editing our footage, and now we will have to start over with limited time before the deadline. We have already started editing it again which has not been too difficult as we have remembered time lengths and shots that we had in it before. All we have left to do is film one short scene of the detective ‘Elliot’ in the office speaking to ‘Helena’ on the phone, and then edit it. This should not take too long. To a certain extent we have been very lucky that we still have the footage.