7. Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt from the progression from it to the full task?

We have learnt that it is important to keep some kind of record of things that we did already, so situations like one on the preliminary task with the door handle is not taking place again. As it is taking away marks for continuality. However, in our film some of things were out of our control, like weather, which was extremely important as we were filming outdoors. Therefore, we were filming in the rain and sun it can be noticed in our film, as well as different times of the day; morning and afternoon. Further more some scenes have been re-shouted, this also has its effects, as our main character has his shirt tucked in and out.
Also we gained more experience with “Final Cut”, that we used to edit for both preliminary task and film opening. Because we have been more familiar with different ways of using the Final Cut, procedure for editing our film opening took less time; editing for “The Taken” was more precise.
Main difference between our preliminary task and film opening is that in preliminary task we only used diagetic sound there was no other non-diagetic sound/music used. Therefore, this was the skill that we had to learn meanwhile editing film opening.
We have also learnt that we must do a great deal of planning before we go out and film the real thing. For example a shot list, location shots a story board and have analysed similar genres to ours.

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

The first shots that we filmed were unsteady and shaky, as they were filmed with hand-held camera when the director was walking behind or next to the character. Most of those scenes were re-shouted, because we and Ms. Smith decided that the quality of our filming is not satisfactory. This situation clearly shown that never mind how good the editing software is, it will not improve poor camera work. We decided to use a tripod to improve this and a hand grip attached to the camera.We have tried our best to make our media product as authentic as possible as we have used editing techniques to highlight who is good or bad character as well as who is being followed.That editing can be used to make a film slow or faster.Editing can be used for cross- cutting as we did.Editing can be long hard process and needs a great deal of time on it.

5. How did you attract/ address your audience?

The genre of our film is a criminal thriller on the borderline of horror, we have used spectrum of ideas in order to attract attention of our audience. We have used beautiful location; its features give to our film opening more glow and Hollywood style film feeling. We have used variety of shots both to show our characters and the location. For example: panning shots of the city of Manchester, detailed extreme close up’s or unusual filming technique where our bad character is filmed from the back to keep his identity unknown and on his front shots, his face remains secret until end shots. Also, our soundtrack is ear catching and complies amazingly with our cut rate and the mood, and the atmosphere of the opening. In post production we added extra train sounds to highlight fast moving and vibrant city, where anything can happen at any time.
Furthermore, when editing we have not used sheer volume of effects, as editing should be not noticeable for the audience; we strongly believe that our product looks authentic and honest for our audiences. Our media product is mainly aimed at male aged between 15 to 25; this group is seen as those who like the most violence and mystery in the films. Therefore, they are prefect fir for our production and they should enjoy huge part of our film, if not everything.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The primary target audience are mainly male aged between 15 to 25. As target audience is usually divided to categories: psychological, demographic audience and social groups, we are mainly focusing on c2 & c3. “Group C2 (31%) is the largest group, and are the mainstream focus for most media texts, these are employee's and workers who read tabloids etc.” “Group C3 (19%) are the "unskilled" or "blue collar" (no suits) workers, and they often only just have enough money for luxury products, these include occupations such as shop assistants.” (quotes from http://rbsmedia.blogspot.com/2009/01/audience-categories.html ). These 2 groups together would cover 50% of all mentioned on above website. Therefore, we would still cover enough without covering those “more intelligent” groups; as we would focus on the largest group, which is c2, with some of c3. Nevertheless we would also consider our secondary target audience, which would include: females and Group D “(10.5%) are the unemployed people, or people who live off benefits, who don't usually have any spare money to spend on things they do not need but want.” At the end of the day media products need to make profits the fact that group D is seen as they spend on things they do not need but want. Therefore, they can be identified as regular cinema goers that we are also aiming for. Our film could be more suitable for niche target audience as it is mainly aimed at 15+ males.The region of interest would be the north west.The ethnicity of the audience may well be white britsh and black caribbean as the people on the film are of this ethnicity.

3. What kind of media institution would distribute your media product and why?

We have invented some distribution company in our opening credits, which does not exists just yet. Our aim would be to find effective, creative, reliable and not too expensive distributor. Distribution involves acquiring a film and making sure it reaches the widest/largest audience possible. Therefore, we would like the distributor to concentrate on getting to our specified target audience, in order to advertise our media product to them, by various methods of marketing. This is main and most important part of the distribution process, as never mind how brilliant the product is, if is has not got good enough marketing campaign it will not be successful, in terms of profits.
We also would like the distributor to use a lot of the viral marketing, internet mainly(e.g.: emails or websites) to reach our audience we could also use social networking sites like Facebook and file sharing sites like You Tube. Because it is one of most suitable for our target audience, who are males 15+. However, the method of marketing that is seen as the most effective out of all is the word of mouth, that we would hope to create by advanced screenings and positive reviews; in media that are also aimed at our target audience.

Just to make sure that our distributor will not omit any of our target audience, we would like the distributor to also use more traditional ways of advertisement; trailers and posters (e.g.; tv channels with similar target audience to ours, screen in the city centre and outdoors, public transport; bus stops ). On the internet movie database website production companies such as Dimension Films, Woods Entertainment See more » have distributed Scream and this is a film similar to ours.The corner house cinema could advertise it for us. A low budget, independent britsh film company Vertigo Films is a British film production and film distribution company and they have disributed films similar to our genre thriller.They might be interseted in distributing our film.Working titile are british film production that might distribute our film as they have distributed low budget films such as shaun of the dead.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In “The Taken” there are only two characters both are male, there is no female appearing on the screen at all. We have used common stereotypes where females are not taking part in some situations as they are not necessary, as well as females can not cope with some situations. Also males on their own give more negative representation.
We also have used the ethnicity of our characters; bad character is black and he is following white character, who is his victim. This is a stereotype that is heavily used in Hollywood productions. Even though sometimes that stereotype is not used in that obvious manner like we did in “The Taken”, black characters have something “wrong” about them, but they not necessary need to be bad character. Nevertheless, black character gives negative representation. In terms of age our characters are in between 18 to 20. This age represents young people who have been recently classified as adults and at that age make one of most important decisions.
We have represented social class/status in our location and costumes. Stereotypes classifying people in the hierarchy upper/middle/working class is frequent in today's society. We have represented it in contrast between our characters; the way they are dressed. The costume of the “baddy” was kept in dark colours, in youth and urban style. Whereas, the victim was wearing white shirt with blue bag and some gold accents in his outfit. White colour is representing him being innocent victim and gold suggests his richer background.

Our location was not incidental, as it is seen as one of most posh residential quarter in the city of Manchester . This is again highlighting the differences between people from different backgrounds with different social status.

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

When we started planning our film opening, we based our idea in film opening of “Se7en” and “Scream” (see analysis on the blog). The genre of “Se7en” is thriller and horror as well as “Scream”. Therefore, our film opening has clear mixture of both.

We have used variety of shots; starting from extreme close ups to smooth high angle panning shots of the city of Manchester, from 23^rd floor of the Hilton Hotel. We have not shown “baddy’s” face through out the film opening (except one of the final shot) in order to hide the identity; keep him anonymous. As it would be for audiences to find out later in the film. Just like in “Se7en” where in opening all the audience can see are hands/fingers; we have shown legs/feet many times.

Our ECU’s were mainly showing feet/shoes when walking; to reinforce that there are trouble coming as well as to highlight that Andrew’s character is followed.
When we were editing we have used few jump cuts to make Andrew’s character looking like he is escaping, but in the same time he is still followed.
Our sound is mixture of sound track Hard Scary hip-hop beat (rap) – Instrumental; diagetic sound of the city an 4 o’clock in the afternoon and footsteps in the background; also when editing we improved the sound of the train, so it was louder and clearer, and complied smoothly with our non-diagetic sound.
After we decided on the genre of our film opening, we started to think about the mise en scene. We decided to dress Andrew in white shirt with blue bag and some gold accents in his outfit. This was made to show Andrew’s character as innocent victim and to suggest him being from well of background. Just like character in opening of the “Scream” where a female character is also dressed in light/pale colours and she is also innocent victim. Therefore, Andrew’s character was highly contrasting to “baddy’s” character, who was dressed al most fully in black and cloths were more casual. Our location also was used to highlight the differences between our two characters.

Boring walking altered by incredible establishing shots

When we were editing we were told we were over five seconds. So finding out the ending last seconds wern't that good as just a shot of a light .We took this out and also we were told there was to much walikng and not much going on and boring as only entertainment at the end. So we shortened the shots down as we were told we could be under the time a bit. Further more we were going to go out and get more shots to put in of the background and the area. Therefore, half of our group went to Deansgate at Thursday afternoon and they managed to film some interesting establishing shots. So, we could use them to cross cut "boring walking " with beautiful shots of Manchester. Most of those shots which we used have been made from 23rd floor of the Hilton Hotel. This became possible due to Andrew's convincing abilities.

First "draft" of THE TAKEN

Today at morning media session we managed to put all shots together in "Final Cut". Also we have our music ready. Overall, our film opening only needs some improvement on editing and adding music.