Britney Spears Presentation

        

        

        

Music Genres

Music Genres

Here is a kinetic text video I made on Adobe After Effects where I show every single music genre as to help introduce the A2 topic of music videos. Every genre in this video are the recognised genres of the 21'st century which can range from genre's known to everyone to some which are completely unknown to the general public.

Favourite Music Genre's

In this blog post I will writing about my three favourite music genre’s which are firstly Trap music, secondly Drill music and lastly Rap music. I will also be writing about my favourite artist for each music genre, which are A$AP Ferg for Trap music, Chief Keef for Drill music and Travi$ Scott for Rap music.

Trap music is a genre of music that started in the early 1990’s in the southern states of the United states, most notably Georgia. As described on Wikipedia trap is is “typified by its aggressive lyrical content and sound, where the instrumentals are propelled by 808 kick drums or heavy extended sub-bass lines, double-time, triple-time and other faster time division hi-hats, layered synthesisers, and "cinematic" strings.” Lyrically trap music has an immense similarity and what can be argued as being identical to the lyrical topics which are used in Rap and Hip-Hop songs, the themes which are typically used includes topics such as the ghetto, drugs, violence and poverty in the ghetto’s of the USA. Some of the most recognised and praised artists in the Trap music scene include such artists as “808 Mafia, Southside, Sonny Digital, Young Chop and Metro Boomin”.

A$AP Ferg

My favourite trap artist is A$AP Ferg who is aged 26 is part of the hip hop collective A$AP Mob which I actually have seen in concert. He originates from Harlem, New York and is signed to the record labels: Polo Grounds and RCA. In 2013 the trap artist released his first studio album named Trap Lord which is why he is now nicknamed The Trap Lord which fits accordingly to the music genre he takes part in. As i have already explained I have seen A$Ap Ferg in concert, I also own his album Trap Lord, the thing i like about A$AP Ferg’s music is that it is original sounding, it sounds modern and it can really excite me because of his fast paced beats but on other songs he can be very calm and have slow paced trap beats, so i really like his originality and variety. I found out about A$AP Ferg because of his ties with A$AP Rocky which is one of my favourite rappers. A$AP Ferg also directs his own music videos, and he mostly decides to make music videos for his more fast paced songs, some of his songs follow the rap/trap music video conventions, such as filming in the ghetto and in the streets for example with his music video for Work (Remix) but on other songs such as Hood Pope and Let It Go, A$AP Ferg really gets creative and tells a story, he was nominated for a BET Award for best music video director in 2013. A$AP Ferg does have a website which is called www.asapferg.com where his tour dates, new and old music, updates and merchandise can be found as seen bellow:

Drill music is a sub genre of hip hop and it began in the South Side of Chicago with new and young adventurous rappers and producers from Chicago. Drill music has a few notable and recognisable conventions such as Violence, Drugs and dark lyrics which often refer back to Chicago life and the struggle of living in the Ghetto’s of South Side Chicago, as for beats wikipedia describes the sound of Drill beats as “ominous trap-influenced beats”. Drill music can really first be traced back to 2010 but really began to pick up in 2012 after its huge popularity in Chicago and the rise to fame of certain Drill artists such as Lil Durk, Fredo Santana, Lil Reese, Panos, & Chief Keef. 

Chief Keef

Chief Keef who is 19 years old who is also known as Chief Sosa and Almighty Sosa is from the South Side of Chicago which is where Drill music originated is a young drill artist and who is non debatably the the most recognised artist in the Drill music scene, mostly because he is the artist who made Drill music more international rather than a music genre listened to by only people from Chicago thanks to songs of his such as Sosa and Don't Like which gained a huge amount of radio play and popularity across the world, Chief Keef was first signed to Interscope Records and later ended up signing to 1017 Brick Squad and then creating his own label called Glo Gang which is when he released his first studio album called Finally Rich. I have never seen Chief Keef live but I would love too because he seems to “hype” up the crowd ver well. I found out about Chief Keef thanks to his song Sosa which became very viral on the internet a few years ago and since then I have been following his career, I also own Chief Keefs album called Finally Rich and I like it very much because of the fact that it seems very original because of the fact that he is such a musical pioneer thanks to the fact that he was really the person that raised Drill music into an internationally known music genre. Most of Chief Keef’s non musical content is very simplistic such as his music videos, for example the music videos for the songs Sosa and Don't Like which were both filmed in one house and are just different shots of Chief Keef and his crew with guns, drugs and money because he could not leave his house to film a music video because of the fact that he was under house arrest. His website does a very good job at portraying Chief Keef, it shows Chief Keef supposedly high from marijuana because of his squinting eyes surrounded by smoke, the use of the colour red is also widely used because it represents blood and violence which is what he associated to and is part of why he is so popular; From his website one can access his online store, watch his music videos, listen to his new music and stay up to date with his News tab as can be seen from the screen shot of his website bellow:

There is quite a bit of controversy over the Rap genre, many will argue that rap is a genre on its own and many others will consider rap a way to deliver lyrics over a hip hop beat, but in this post I am considering rap, a music genre. Wikipedia describes rap as more of a lyric delivery style saying “Stylistically, rap occupies a gray area between speech, prose, poetry, and singing. The word (meaning originally "to hit")as used to describe quick speech or repartee predates the musical form.” Though most people think of the beginning of rap originating back to the commencement of hip-hop the word rap was actually already in the english dictionary back in the 1960’s with the meaning “to converse” wikipedia describes it now-a-days as “a term denoting the musical style. Today, the terms "rap" and "rapping" are so closely associated with hip-hop music that many use the terms interchangeably.” Some of the most notorious and well known artists of the Rap genre include artists such as, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G, Nas, The Wutang Clan, Eminem, Jay-Z and Kanye West.

Travi$ Scott

My favourite rap artist is Travi$ Scott who is 23 years old and originates from Houston, Texas, he is signed to Kanye West’s label G.O.O.D Music, and in 2013 he released his first mixtape named Owl Pharaoh which is where he gained quite some popularity and how I found out about him because of his song Hell Of A Night which gained popularity in the underground rap scene, in 2014 he released his second mixtape named Days Before Rodeo which is an introductory mixtape to build anticipation for his upcoming first studio album set to come out on July 8th 2015 called Rodeo. Personally I own and I loved his Days Before Rodeo mixtape and is personally one of my favourite music projects of all time. The reason I like Travi$ Scott is because of his rapping and producing skills, I think that Travi$ Scott is an amazing producer, he actually started out as a producer, producing beats for artists such as Kanye West and Jay-Z and from there began to rap, a lot of his songs are created by mostly him both producing and rapping where as most rappers only rap and have a producer make the beat separately and there for, for this reason I find Travi$ Scott very talented because he does both jobs himself; His work is also very creative and he is not afraid to take risks on his songs and try some new sounds or techniques. As like with his music Travi$ Scott is very adventurous and creative on his music videos and will try new techniques, as with his Quintana pt. 2 music video which features footage taken with a custom extreme wide lens, but in his videos even though he tries new things he still follows quite a few rap video conventions, such as women with little to no clothing, throwing money, cool cars etc. which I like as well. Travi$ Scott does have a website but it is very minimalist, it only shows the cover to his new single entitled 3500 and the links as to where one can listen to it, as can be seen from the screen shot bellow:

Introduction to A2

Introduction to A2

Here is a introductory video to my A2 blog, which will be focusing on Music Videos and all that is in included in that topic. This year I will be creating my own music video along with a team of a few other people, I will also be starting my A2 blog to track every moment of my progress towards actually filming the music video, then editing it and finally finishing it and uploading it to YouTube at the end of the A2 year. I cant wait to begin this new and exciting project and I look forward to showing everyone the progress and improvements I will be going through in the coming year.

(Evaluation Task 7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

(Evaluation Task 7)

This is a Prezi presentation explaining how I believe that I have improved my skills on Camera Work, Editing, Working with Sound, Mise-En-Scene, Planning our project and finally Group Work between the time we shot our Prelim Task and the time we shot Our AS Thriller.

(Evaluation Task 6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

(Evaluation Task 6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Above as can be seen on our thriller we have annotated it at different moments and explained how we have used technologies in our thriller. Bellow is what is written on the video's annotations:

Technologies we used:

1: We filmed the thriller with an NX5 Camera, and added in titles using adobe premiere pro; we chose the font we wanted to use and its size, and faded it in each time to give a calming effect at the beginning and end of our thriller.

2: We adjusted the volume of our protagonist typing so that it sounded realistic with the movement of her fingers.

3: We added in a non-diegetic soundtrack at the point where the audience felt something was about to happen, as it increased in volume and tension. After downloading the soundtrack cut bits out and used only the bits we needed to increase tension our thriller.

4: We downloaded a non-diegetic sound effect of a lock being picked because the original sound from filming wasn’t loud enough, so this meant we had to adjust the volume of the downloaded sound to match the action in the footage. We overlaid this with the soundtrack.

5: We found another sound effect to match our protagonist turning round at the sound of the door closing, coming in straight after a brief black out.

6: We increased the volume of the sound of our antagonist attaching a silencer to his gun; because he twisted the silencer three times, we had to cut and edit the sound to get the pace right undelaying.

7: We cropped two different shots and moved them on to the timeline next to each other so it looked like one.

8. The non-diegetic soundtrack rises and falls as the protagonist runs down the stairs as we felt this increases the tension for our audience.

9. we bought sugar glass and was a practical effect we used during production.

10. fade to black as the title fades in and we changed the levels of the sound so they fluctuate and intrigue the audience with on going tension.

(Evaluation Task 5) Pleasures your target audience can take from your thriller

(Evaluation Task 5)

TRANSCRIPT:

Pleasures your target audience can take from your thriller

Genre

Our Thriller is a subgenre of thriller, it is an Action Thriller which means that along with the basic thriller conventions which is that the film has an exciting plot, typically involving crime or espionage, it additional and mainly uses action to create tension and suspense, including things like fighting, big stunts, car chases etc. All this to make the audience feel on the edge and thinking that something bad could happen to the protagonist during these action scenes. Our Film is a Action thriller because it has an exciting plot which involves crime, but it also mostly focuses on action and makes the audience feel like the main protagonist might get hurt, as like in our thriller opening sequence where our protagonist gets into a physical altercation with somebody a lot stronger than her meaning that she is at risk which creates tension and makes the audience feel on the edge, as an Action Thriller should.

Films that have influenced our thriller opening sequence are such films as Lucy, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Salt, Kill Bill Parts 1 & 2, and Charlie's Angels; These films have influenced our opening sequence because they depict a female in a position of strength and power like, like the protagonist in our opening sequence rather than being weak like females stereotypically are in thrillers and action thrillers; Films like Lucy are the type of film which influenced our opening sequence the most because it shows how the female is at first in a state of weakness in comparison to a male but as the film progresses she begins to over power the male and ends up being the opposite of what she was at the beginning of the film meaning that now it is the male is a position of vulnerability and the female in a position of power and control, this is what takes place in our opening sequence.

Setting

I think that the setting of our opening sequence would be appealing to our target audience, for the simple reason that it feels relatable, it is filmed in the house hold of a normal family, so there is a chance that a large percent of members of our target audience grew up in a house like this one; This makes the whole film more realistic in the eyes of our audience because if they see it happening in a house which is similar to the house they grew up in or live in then it makes the plot more of an actual possibility that could happen in their minds, rather than a film where the white house is invaded by terrorists because to the viewer it feels like it is less likely to happen and therefor makes the film less realistic in their eyes.

Narrative

Our thriller opening sequence is appealing to an audience because it is so intriguing and really makes the audience want to watch the rest of the film because they have so many questions unanswered, which is really the point of an opening sequence, to make the audience want to find out more. in our opening sequence we leave the audience with a few questions which we believe will leave them interested and wanting more, firstly, who’s the man on the board and how does he relate to the man breaking in (if at all)? secondly, why did someone break into the house? what is the assignment that the agent (the female protagonist) is working on? What is she hiding in the computer and/or the hard-drive? How come she can fight so well (has she been trained? Why is the intruder so well trained and why does he have a gun in England? These questions which are immediately left on the audiences mind within the first 3 minutes of the film will make the audience interested in the films narrative and keep them watching it. 

As for the two characters which are seen in our opening sequence, there is a few reasons the audience would take pleasure out of seeing them, firstly with the male intruder, at the beginning we don't show his face and how he looks like, which sparks curiosity within the audience, also his dark coloured clothing, the gun in his hand and his sneakiness when breaking into the house makes the audience feel apprehensive, all this within the character brings out feelings in the audience. As for the female character she looks like she could be anyone just at home, and the audience are able to relate to her at the beginning because someone broke into her house and she is scared and the audience can relate to that because it is what people hear about in the news often and they feel like it could happen to them, and that is why they begging to feel fear and they feel scared for the female character. By the end of the opening sequence the female character becomes someone which the audience can rally behind, she has defeated the intruder and she has also overcome the stereotypes of a female character in an action/thriller and the audience like that.

Music

Our audience can take pleasure from our sound track because what it does is enhance the feeling they feel when watching the opening sequence. For example when there is the fight sequence in our opening sequence, rather then it just being fighting which could get boring, we added fast paced music to make everything feel faster and more intense. When they're is the shot of our female character passing the intruder in the upstairs corridor, instead of it just being her running past him we added music which gets louder right as she passes him to show that this part is important and it adds intensity for the audience, which begins to question weather she will make it past him undetected or not. Another example of when we used music to enhance a scene in our opening sequence is when the protagonist and the intruder meet downstairs for the fight, when the camera is looking at the male the music is one note of a low pitch to represent the male but when the camera turns and you can see our female protagonist in the shot, another higher pitched note representing the female is added on top of the male note, and it is also a lot lower showing that the female is overpowering the male character. So yes I think that the audience does take pleasure from the soundtrack because if it amplifies the emotions of the audience and if there was no music then the film would just be boring.

Titles

In our titles we give the audience the basic information concerning the creation of the thriller, such as the production company in charge of the film which we named OxCliff Productions, we also show the company which also worked on the film, which includes Black Line Films and Pura Vida Studios, we have these titles at the beginning of the opening sequence to show the importance of them to the audience, it is the first thing one sees when watching the film, this is especially evident with the first title (the production company) which is simply the name on a black background so that is the only thing the audience see’s when watching that. Later on in the opening sequence the names of the Main Actors in the film, which include, Michael Nailand, Cressida Hope, Kerry Jackson and Tyler Smith, we give the names of these actors because they would be the names of the characters one see’s the most in the movie and also the names of the most famous actors in the movie, these titles can please the audiences because they might be excited to see their favourite actor. Another title which is shown in our opening sequence is that of the producer, in this case the producer of the film is Ryan Washington, and after that we show the director title, which says that the film was directed by Ian Daniels, these two title are the last titles shown before the film name because they are very important, traditionally the name of the films producer and director are put last to show their importance and that is what we did, the title of the director can bring pleasure to the audience because maybe they like films he has directed before this one and are their for excited to watch this one in hopes that it is a shod as some of the directors past creations. Finally the last title we put in the opening sequence is the film title which in our case is called Vengeance, it is the last title in the opening sequence so that it is the last title the audience will see and it will stick in their minds so that the audience can hopefully tell their friends about the film, it is also the title which is is the largest in size and it is placed in the centre of the screen as oppose to the other titles which are either to the left or to the right so that it sticks out more to the audience and it shows its importance, it is also placed over a black background so that it is the only thing the audience is looking at. In the title vengeance we give a bit of information about the film, vengeance means “punishment inflicted or retribution exacted for an injury or wrong” meaning that there will probably be action in the film and probably violence, so that a punishment is inflicted, the audience does not know who the punishment will be inflicted upon in order to leave a certain level of enigma in the audiences mind, they know that it is going to happen, they just do not know to who. 

Editing / Filmstyle

I think that our opening sequences editing techniques and film styles would be appealing to our audience for several reasons, firstly our opening sequences include quite a few fast jump cuts which adds to the intensity of the scene and makes everything a lot more intense, which does a good job of drawing in the audience because if everything was slow paced and not much was happening than the audience would get board but since it is very fast paced and filled with action it is more appealing to the audience, especially the male percent of the audience because stereotypically, males like action films, and fast cuts are one of the conventions of an action movie so it appeals heavily to a male audience. One of the film styles we used in our thriller opening sequence is equally appealing to an audience, the film style in question is the type of filming we did during the fight scene, it involved a lot of quick movements and small zooms on moments of impact, for example when the female protagonist punches the intruder in the neck the camera shakes and slightly zooms in then out quickly. The effect that this film style has on the audience is that it enhances the action feel of the film, the films style makes the scene look like it has a lot more movement in it and it increases the feeling of the impact, all this making the fight look a lot more intense than it really is. Another film style which we believe is appealing to our audience is the close ups and extreme close ups on the main female protagonist’s face, we added quite a few of these shots in the opening sequence to show the audience her facial expressions, in order to show how she feels in that moment so that the audience relates with her and knows how she feels, this helps us show how she was scared at the beginning of the scene but grew courage through out the scene and by the end, fought her fear and fought the intruder and won. Another editing technique which we used in our opening sequence and which could bring pleasure to our audience is the way in which through out the opening sequence we show where the female protagonist is in the house and then we next show where the male intruder is situated in the house and we keep this process going through out the sequence until it culminates in the two characters meeting downstairs and fighting. I believe this is a editing technique that the audience enjoys because it updates them on where the characters are situated in the house throughout the sequence and it makes the audience feel like they know more than the characters. This technique also creates tension because by showing where the characters are, the audience can slowly see them get closer and closer to each other and they begin to anticipate that something might happen as they see the characters get closer.

Codes and Conventions of Genre

In our thriller opening sequence we both abided by some of the conventions of an Action/Thriller but also challenged some conventions. One of the conventions which we have followed is with the soundtrack we used, when there was moments of action we used faster paced music to add to the effect that things are happening fast and that it is intense, this can be seen and heard in the scene where the female protagonist is hiding all her equipment. We also slowed the pace of the music down when there were moments of tension rather than action as to accentuate the feeling the shot is supposed to give off, which is that the audience is meant to believe that some sort of action for example a fight will happen, not that it is happening at that moment, this can be seen and heard in the shot where the intruder is making his way up the stairs. One case where the conventions of an Action/Thriller were at first followed but later on challenged is with the way the Intruder and the female protagonist are portrayed, at first the male intruder seemed to be smart and strong and the audience had it in there mind that he was going to attack the female protagonist and win because stereotypically in thrillers the intruder is the one in power and his victim is his prey. Also following the conventions, our female character at the beginning of the opening sequence was portrayed as weak, scared and vulnerable when she found out that someone had broken into her house and this follows the conventions of an action/thriller because females are stereotypically in those films, week and scared and most of the time need to be saved by a man because they cannot save them selves, an obvious example of this though it isn't a thriller is Superman, the female is the victim and cannot save her self and the male (superman) comes in and saves her. At the end of the opening sequence the conventions of an action/thriller are challenged because both characters are portrayed in a different light, the intruder gets over powered by the female and gets punched to the floor then knocked out with a bottle which shows that the male character wasn't as strong and as capable as the audience believed him to be at the beginning of the opening sequence. The way the female protagonist is portrayed at the end of the opening sequence is also challenging the conventions of an Action/Thriller because instead of being scared and vulnerable as she was at the beginning of the film she turns out to be very well trained and sneaks up of the intruder and attacks him from behind and quickly disarms him and follows to knock him out, all this happening very quickly which shows that she is not weak and vulnerable but that she is actually in control of the situation and is well trained, and it shows that she doesn't need someone to save her or that she will killed, which is what stereotypically happens in action/thriller.

(Evaluation Task 4) Target Audiance

(Evaluation Task 4) Target Audience

My target audience for my thriller is quite extensive because it could appeal to so many people. Because the thriller is so action packed I decided to make one of the characteristics of my target audience that they're male, I have decided this because stereotypically male audiences prefer to watch action and thriller films because of the constant action and violence which take place in films of that type, females on the other hand stereotypically prefer films of the romantic genre and in my opinion my thriller falls into the male preferred films category rather then the opposite, therefor I only found it logical to make my target audience male. 

I have also decided to make my target audience of a younger age, between 19 and 22 years old, because I believe that that is who will be more attracted to the film because, of a few things, firstly we have a few things in the films which would draw in a young male audience, first of all an attractive mane female character which could draw it the audience, men are more likely to go watch a film if the mane female character is someone they are attracted to rather than not, it is the same thing with women, they are more likely to go watch a film if the mane male character is an irresistibly attractive man rather than an ugly one because it adds extra incentive to go watch the film.

I made my target audience American because the film is in english. I believe that will have more success in the country which has the biggest film industry and the country which the film is set in and the language spoken in the thriller is the official language of the country. I believe that the film will be appealing to audiences across the world, but in my opinion it will have bigger income from the USA therefor it is logical to make the target audience be from the USA because it will lead to bigger revenue.

Another characteristic I have added to my target audience is that they already like films of the same genre and same type as my thriller because if they already enjoy films like mine then they might be on the “look out” for films like them, because they enjoy them. They are also most likely to give the film a positive review if it has characteristics which they already know that they like, this will lead to more people going to watch the film because of the good reviews left by them.

As for hobbies and job’s, I decided that I wanted my target audience to have rather inactive jobs and hobbies, so that our film with all the action scenes it has in it, would be exciting and palpitating to the audience because they are used to such inactivity in their life.

To help portray what I envisioned for my target audience i decided that I would create several social media pages for my target audience which would be symbolised by one made up person which I created, called Darealest Comptonia, bellow are screenshots of the social media pages i created, a Facebook account, a Twitter account, a Instagram account and a Tumblr account, four of the most used social media websites:

Facebook Page

Twitter Page

Tumblr Page

Instagram Page

(Evaluation Task 3) What kind of institution would produce your film? (UPDATE)

(Evaluation Task 3) What kind of institution would produce your film? (UPDATE)

This post is an update to my “What kind of institution would produce your film?” post where I had decided that the film production company which would best suit my thriller would have been “Dark Castle Entertainment”, Now that there has been quite a few changes to the theme of my thriller I know believe that it would be more fitting if the production company in charge of producing our thriller would be The Kennedy/Marshall Company.

The Kennedy/Marshall Company logo

The Kennedy/Marshall Company is an American film production company based in Santa Monica, California, USA. It was founded in 1991 by two people, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy; Kathleen and Frank are a married couple who founded the company and named with their last names, Kennedy and Marshall. Frank Marshall, born in 1946 in California, USA is a Director and Producer, who has been and executive producer on such films as: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981),  The Color Purple (1985), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). He has also been a director on such films as Congo (1995), Eight Below (2006) and will be the director for the upcoming (un-titled) Jason Bourne sequel. Kathleen Kennedy is a film producer who was born in 1953 in Berkley, California, USA. Kathleen has been a producer since 1981 when she was an associate producer on the film, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), since then she has been a director on such films as, Jurassic Park (1993), War Horse (2011) and will be a producer on the next 3 upcoming Star Wars films. In October of 2012 Kathleen also became the president of LucasFilms, she has worked on 60 films which has racked up 120 Oscar nomination’s.

Frank Marshall

Kathleen Kennedy

The Kennedy/Marshall Company itself is a quite important film production company in the film industry, it has been the production company in charge of thirty-six films, many of them being very popular action films and thrillers like ours, such as: The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), The Bourne Legacy (2012), Munich (2005), The Sixth Sense (1999), Congo (1995). I believe that having The Kennedy/Marshall Company as the production company in charge of our thriller would be a very good choice because of the experience and success they have already had with these past films, meaning that they would be able to manage our film better then a Production company who is more generalised in terms of what film genre’s they work on.

  The Bourne Supremacy (2004)                           The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)                               The Bourne Legacy (2012)

           Munich (2005)                                                The Sixth Sense (1999)                                               Congo (1995)

Not only has The Kennedy/Marshall Company created some very popular thriller and action films but they have also worked with some A list actors which are very common to the the thriller and action genre’s and are very good actors and very popular which could easily boost the popularity of the film itself causing the film to make more money and there for more profit for the next film we make. Some of these A list actors which the company is familiar with are Julianne Moore (A Map of the World), Matt Damon (The Bourne Ultimatum), Jeremy Renner (The Bourne Legacy), Daniel Craig (Munich), Brad Pitt (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button), Bruce Willis (The Sixth Sense).

               Julliane Moore                                                      Matt Damon                                                        Jeremy Renner

             Daniel Craig                                                            Brad Pitt                                                             Bruce Willis

In terms of budget and revenue for and from there films I will be giving the example of the last three films they were a production company for which are: War Horse (2011), The Bourne Legacy (2012), Lincoln (2012). War Horse had a budget of 66,000,000, it made $14,527,972 on its opening weekend in the USA alone, as for its total gross world wide the film made $177,584,879 nearly making triple what they had as a budget. The Bourne Legacy had an estimated budget of $125,000,000, on its opening weekend it made $38,142,825 in the USA and in terms of overall global gross it made $276,144,750, meaning that the film made over double the amount of money which was spent as its budget. Lincoln ha a budget of $65,000,000, on its opening weekend it made $21,049,406 and in overall global gross it made $275,293,450, meaning that Lincoln made over 4 times in gross then what was spent on its budget. Obviously The Kennedy/Marshall Company spends a lot of money on their films but it is clear to see that the films they produce are high grossing films which make quite a lot of profit. It would be smart too pick The Kennedy/Marshall Company as our production company because it would enable me to really spend a lot of money to be able to express myself artistically and hopefully create the best possible product for the audience and hopefully make quite a lot of profit to be able to keep doing it on future films.

            War Horse (2011)                                          The Bourne Legacy (2012)                                          Lincoln (2012)

I believe that The Kennedy/Marshall Company would want to work with us and be the production company behind our film because our thriller idea has potential to become popular because it has a thriller, action film script which is stereotypical for a typical thriller/action film and is similar to those the The Kennedy/Marshall Company have produced in the past. Along with the help of a large sum of money which the company usually gives as a budget and their connections with A-List Thriller/Action film stars in the industry then it could lead to a great, high profiting thriller film.

(Evaluation Task 2) Representation In Our Thriller

(Evaluation Task 2)

In terms of representation within our thriller we focused on one certain category, that being the representation of gender, both male and female. In this essay i will be showing how we represented gender in our thriller with the aid of 5 screenshots from our thriller, which show the representation of gender in our thriller.

In this shot we see our main female actress, turn out of fear and surprise when she hears the sound of a door opening downstairs. This shot portrays females as weak and helpless, because the look on her face makes it look like she knows something bad is going to happen and she cannot do anything about it. The stereotype surrounding female’s is that they are weak and that they need a male to protect them from danger, this stereotype is formed by TV and films such as superman where a women is weak and vulnerable and needs a man to come in and save her. This is how we wanted the audience to feel when seeing this shot, we wanted them to underestimate this actress and think that she would need somebody to save her. Another stereotype which is represented in this shot is that of a blonde girl and that they are stereotypically less mentally capable then females of another hair colour. The fact that our actress is blonde makes the audience think that she is maybe not that intelligent and that she does not know what to do in a situation where she is possibly in danger, with this shot again we wanted this to be what the audience were going to think of a blonde, pretty female.

In this shot our female character, does something which goes against the stereotypes that have been formed in the minds of the audience during the shot which can be seen in the first screen shot. She does this by taking off her hi-heels, by showing this we wanted to achieve two things, firstly we wanted to her to take of the heels for practicality reasons, she wouldn't be running away from somebody in hi-heels because it would simply be harder and it would just slow her down; Secondly but most importantly we had her take of her hi-heels because we think that it is showing her “take off her feminine stereotypes”, hi-heels are a type of shoe which women wear and is considered stereotypically something women wear to look pretty and taller, which oxides by the stereotype that women only care about how they look and physical appearance, but by taking off the hi-heels she is taking off this stereotypically feminine side of her self and is getting ready to possibly defend her self. This contradicts with the shot in the first screen grab because in that one the audience believes that she is weak and vulnerable and abiding by the stereotypes of women but by taking of the hi-heels in this shot she contradicts those stereotypes.

In this third screenshot we see the shot where our main female actress de-arms the intruder and elbows him in the throat. This is an important scene because it is the first time the two characters make physical contact, it begins with the intruder turning around and the female character running up to him, grabbing his gun and taking it out of his hand and then throws it to the side where the intruder would not be able to get to it; This is very important because it contradicts another female stereotype which has been reinforced by the shot in the first screenshot, this stereotype is that women cannot fight, and our character walks up to the intruder and makes it almost look very simple and very quick, this is done with the help of fast camera movements from left to right, fast paced music and quick cuts made during the editing process making the entire shot look very fast paced which ads to the effect that she knows what she is doing, she can do it very fast and that she can obviously fight. the next thing which our female character does is elbow the intruder in the throat which immediately make him fall which once again surprises the audience who have this notion that women cant fight, it is also because she is fighting against a man who is a lot bigger and a lot stronger than her, which follows the male stereotype that they are strong and know how to fight, but when she manages to hurt him so quickly it makes the male intruder look very weak in comparison to our female character, which ends up contradicting the male stereotype. To help give this across more clearly to the audience we have added a sound effect in post production which amplifies the sound of her hitting the intruder in the throat which makes our female character look a lot stronger, we also move the camera very suddenly when she hits his throat to make it look like there was more of an impact when she hit him.

On this fourth screenshot we see the shot which comes after the one where our female character elbows the intruder in the throat, and here we can see the intruder on the floor, coughing, and holding his throat in pain. This shot is important because it makes the male intruder look weak and the female character look powerful, this is done by having filmed the shot in a slight high angled shot which means that the camera is placed higher then the subject and is looking down towards the subject which can make the character look very week and vulnerable, especially in comparison to the female character which is standing up high above him and looking down at him. The fact that he is looking up at the female character in pain makes it almost look like he is asking for mercy down at her feet, which puts our female character in a state of power which is contradictory to the outcome of the fight which the audience would have predicted because of stereotypes they already have in their minds, that males are stronger then women and that they should be able to beat women in a fight because women are weak and vulnerable.

In this final screenshot we have a shot of our female actress standing above the male character, smashing a bottle onto his head. This shot is as well of great significance because of the way it is set up and what is happening in it; Firstly the shot is shot at a low angled shot with the male intruder in the fore-front, the shot is filmed in a low angled shot, which is when the camera is somewhere below the subjects eye-line and is facing upwards at the subject, this makes the character look powerful and in control. To add to the effect that the female character is powerful she is also smashing a bottle on to the intruders head, which is the final blow in the fight meaning that the fight is over and that she won it, to make this moment more powerful we have increased the diegetic sound of the glass breaking on his head. The fact that she won the fight is contradictory to the stereotypes that females cant fight, she disproves this by beating him and being intelligent and resourceful by disarming him and finding a bottle to smash on his head. This shot is very contradictory to the shot seen in the first screenshot where the audience is lead to believe that the female character is vulnerable and scared and will have to possibly hide or be saved by someone, but instead she contradicts the stereotype and actually overpowers the male character and wins the fight.

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

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

In this essay I will be comparing my AS Thriller to several Thriller films. I will first compare my thriller to the thriller called No Good Deed (2014), I will compare shots from my opening sequence to shots that were used in that movie which are similar to mine. I will also be comparing the titles in my thriller to the titles of No Good Deed and how they are similar. 

No Good Deed (2014)

Comparison of thriller opening sequence to No Good Deed (2014) shot for shot: 

Screen Shot from AS Thriller

Screen shot from No Good Deed (2014)

This is the shot of the male intruder in our thriller walking through the front door of the female protagonists house,  in comparison, next to it is a shot of the male intruder sneaking into the house of the female protagonist in the film No Good Deed (2014). The first similarities that these two shots share is that both shots show the same action happening, that of a male breaking into a females house through the front door. Both shots show the front door slightly open with the intruder wearing inside the house, Both shots show the intruder, which is slightly more darkly lightened then what is in the background, this is done because darkness has connotations of scariness and evilness which is what we want our intruders to be perceived as, and this is probably what the director of No Good Deed wanted from the shot too. Another similarity the two shots have is in terms of Mise En Scene, both actors are wearing relatively dark clothing, as to not be spotted, but it is not obvious either like if they were wearing black hoodies and a mask, they are dressed more smartly. One difference which our shot has in comparison with the shot from No Good Deed is that in ours you cannot see the intruders face, because we wanted to leave a certain mystery behind his character at the beginning, so that people didn't know who he was or what he was doing there, which creates suspense for the audience, the director of No Good Deed did not do this because the character had already been introduced early on in the film.

Screen Shot from AS Thriller

Screen shot from No Good Deed (2014)

The next to shots are similar for several reasons, firstly because both actors are doing the same thing, they are both walking up stairs and seem to be on the search for the female protagonists. As for the similarities in camera work, both shots are high angled shots looking down the stairs, the shots are taken so that a certain level of depth is created in the shot, by having the stairs look like there some sort of a spiral down. Both shots show where the top of the stairs begin so that it does not make the staircase appear larger then it actually is by not showing the top which could lead to the audience imagines that the stairs continue for a while. As for Mise en scene, the set for both shots make it quite clear that it is taking place in a home, in our thriller it is thanks to the carpeted floors and the house type decorations which include an old sowing machines and some family photos on the wall and for the shot in No Good Deed its simply the architecture, for example the banisters which you would find in a home and not in for example an office building, it is clear that it is shot in a home also thanks to the decorations hung up on the wall, for example the decoration type carpet on the wall of the stairs.

Screen Shot from AS Thriller

Screen shot from No Good Deed (2014)

In these two shots, the first similarities is the action, both female protagonists are peering around the corner of a wall, looking at the intruders; Though both females are looking at the intruder they do have different facial expressions, the female in No Good Deed has a frightened facial expression which makes it appear as if she is hiding from the intruder where as the female in our thriller has more of a facial expression which makes it look like she is planning something which means that rather then really hiding from the intruder she is observing him. A similarities both shots have is that they both have something in the right of the screen to make the shot less boring, in our thriller we have book shelves with books, in No Good Deed there is a blurred out bannister in the foreground, with out these in the shot it would look a lot more boring because it would simply be a large blank wall besides them. Another similarity between both shots is that they are both shot from the position of the person that they are looking at which is in both cases the intruder, in No Good Deed it is shot from down the stairs which is where the intruder is standing and in our thriller it is shot from down the flat corridor which is also where the intruder is placed, by doing this it is informing the audience that they are looking at the intruder because they are looking in the direction of the camera.

Screen Shot from AS Thriller

Screen shot from No Good Deed (2014)

In both these shots the female characters are going down a hall way, though in the No Good Deed shot the character is running where as in our thriller she is carefully walking, this says a lot about the characters, it shows that the female in No Good Deed is scared of the intruder where as in our thriller it makes our character look more confident and curious rather than scared. Both Shots are filmed from behind the female character as to show where she is going rather than filming the character from in front because then the audience would not know where she is going, for all they know she could run into a wall, but by filming it from behind it allows the audience to know or predict where she is going. Another similarity between both shots is with the decoration of the set, in both shots the is reminded that the character are still in a home, in our thriller we have done this by hanging several photos on the walls to the sides of the character which makes it seem very family like and homely, the same thing is done in the No Good Deed shot by putting family type photos on the walls which are next to her.

Screen shot from No Good Deed (2014)

Screen Shot from AS Thriller

Once again the main similarity between these two shots is that both female protagonists are doing the same action, in this case it is holding something in there hand and swinging it in the direction of the intruders head to try and knock him out. A similarities between both shots involves props, both female characters are holding a bottle in their hands, it is a wise choice for a prop because it is something which is easily findable in a house and can act as a good weapon. Another similarity between both shots is that they are both shot from a low angle meaning that the camera is placed low and is facing up towards the characters, the reason this is done in both shots is because of the connotations tide behind this type of shot, it makes the man look vulnerable, weak and smaller than the females because they are lower down than them, it makes the females look very powerful because they are higher up than the males making it look like they are superior and are in control, the reason this has been done is because in both of these shots it is the turn of the female to be the one in control and the one inflicting damage on the male, it is when the stereotypes of a female are broken, no longer are they weaker than then male and scared by the male, they are now the strong ones and the ones hurting the males instead. One difference that the shots have, is that in our thriller we filmed the shot in a “Dutch Tilt” angle, where as the shot in No Good Deed is straight; We shot with a Dutch Tilt angle because we believed that it looked different than a normal shot making the scene appear chaotic, crazy and fast were as it seams that the director of No Good Deed wanted more of a simple looking shot so that the audience can concentrate on the female hitting the intruder on the head.

Screen Shot from AS Thriller

Screen shot from No Good Deed (2014)

In these two clips both the male character in No Good Deed and the Male character in our thriller opening sequence are on the floor and looking down in shame after having been hit by the female protagonist. Both these shots are filmed from a slight high angle meaning that they are lower then the camera which make both of them look weak and vulnerable, this is after they have been overpowered by the female so it makes sense that this is how we wanted to portray our character at this moment and so we did so with the help of this high angle. These shots are important because it gives the ending of the story because both these scenes happen ant the end of each film; It shows that the female protagonists were weak at the beginning of the film which is the typical stereotype of a female and usually how a female is portrayed in a thriller, also at the beginning of the film the male characters were the strong ones but as the movie progressed the female characters started to become the more powerful ones and and began to dominate the males and by the end of the film they had broken the stereotypes of females and that of males making the female the one who won the fight and came out the strong and dominant character and the male characters ended up being weak and vulnerable and have there stereotypes broken.

Comparison of Titles in thriller opening sequence to those in No Good Deed (2014):

Production Company Title No Good Deed

Production Company Title AS Thriller

Actor Title AS Thriller

Actor Title No Good Deed

Producer Title No Good Deed

Producer Title AS Thriller

Director Title AS Thriller

Director Title No Good Deed

Film Title No Good Deed

Film Title AS Thriller

There are quite a few similarities that our thriller opening sequence shares with No Good Deed (2014) when it comes to titles. Both use the titles to mention the people who worked on the film, in the case of our AS Thriller we gave recognition to the production company in charge of the film,  the main actors in the film, the Producer and the Director all these titles can be seen in the opening sequence of both thriller, and in both our opening sequence and the the opening sequence of No Good Deed (2014), the title of the film is also written. A similarity between the titles used in our opening sequence and those used in the opening sequence of No Good Deed (2014) is the font, both titles are written either with the font “Times New Roman” or a font which is very similar, this font was used because of the fact that the letters are quite thin, meaning that the titles do not take up a lot of the space on screen but is still legible. Another similarity between both opening sequence is the size of the font, both have used a font size which is between medium and large so that once again it does not take up to much screen space but is still big enough to be reading to draw the viewers eye to the text. The placement of the titles is also quite similar in both opening sequences, the titles are placed either to the left or to the right of the shot because even though we want the titles to be looked at we don't want them to be the main focus of the shot, we also want the audience to pay attention to the film, it the titles were in the middle then the eyes of the audience would be naturally drawn there and they would not focus on the rest; The fact that having text in the middle of the screen draws the audiences attention is also the reason why we put the name of the film in the centre of the screen at the end of the opening sequence with nothing playing behind it, because e that is what we want the audience too see, in No Good Deed, although the title is not in the centre of the screen, instead of it being either on the left or on the right it is in the bottom middle of the screen which still draws the eye to it more than the other titles but the director obviously wanted the audience to focus on the film as well as the title of the film. Another similarity between the titles in both sequences is the colour of the text, both texts are brightly coloured as to attract the audiences attention to them, in the case of our opening sequence we used the colour white because it is a bright colour and it easily contrasts with many other colours which came up on screen, No Good Deed used the colour red for the same reason but additionally because of the connotations behind the colour red which is that it represents badness and evilness. An   additional similarity which the titles in both opening sequences share is the amount of time they are on screen, all the titles are on screen for about two and a half to three seconds even though they are read a lot faster then that, it is put for this amount of time just incase someone reads slowly, the point of the titles is to give recognition to the people who worked on the film and if the persons name is not on screen for long enough to read it, then it would defeat the titles purpose of being on screen. The name of the film is the title which stays on screen for the longest amount of time so that it really sticks in the audiences minds and shows that this is the most important title out of them all.