Final cut of "La Femme Rouge"

Here is the final cut of my film opening.

Evaluation - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In the process of making my final cut of my film opening I have used many different technologies to construct my final piece. I have used different websites to research my film and others like it, I have used different programs to edit my footage and I have used different pieces of equipment to capture the necessary footage needed to create my film.

In order to research different films with the same genre as mine I used the popular film and television database of www.imdb.com. This website was very helpful and had lots of information that I used to research and plan my opening. I also used www.google.com to get copyright free images for my ident.

The equipment I used to collect my footage for my opening were two different types of cameras. I used the standard digital camera to shoot all of my clips and I used an SLR camera to take the photos of men which I also used in my opening. I learnt how to use both of these types of cameras and the advantages and disadvantages of both.

I used two different programs to edit my final cut of my film, originally I used Adobe Premier Pro to edit all of my footage together and this is the program I used for the majority of my film. I also used Avid to try and edit my film in ways that Adobe couldn’t however, this process took too long and so I decided to stick with using Adobe. I also used Photoshop to edit the photos of the men that I took and drew circles around their heads and crossed them out, to do this I used a tablet which connected to the computer so I could draw it with my hand rather than a mouse. To make my idents I used another Adobe program, Adobe After Effects. I used this to both animate images and text in my idents and I also used this to create some of my titling in the opening sequence.

I also used the website www.youtube.com to upload and distribute my final cut as well as other films I’d made throughout the year such as my preliminary film and I also used this website to upload my idents.

Evaluation - What kind of media institution might distribute your film and why?

As I have stated before I believe that my film would fall under the independent film genre, I think a more independent company like “Warp Films” would work on my film. My film company is called “Cake-Tin Production” and its ident many feel that it has a more comedic feel to it rather than a thriller genre. I also have “Cutting Edge Entertainment” as a secondary company linked to my film as many films have more than one company involved in it’s development and distribution.

I think that a company like “Warp Films” would become involved in the type of film I produced as, as I’ve said it is more independent than mainstream much like the films they are involved in now such as “Submarine” and “This Is England”. Although my film is not similar in plot lines as these two examples I think it is more similar to this type of film than mainstream films such as “Fast and Furious” or “Step Up” for example as both of these films have franchises and are more commonly known as mainstream.

Evaluation - Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

My target audience for my film is someone who likes films that made you think about the plot make you think about what is going to happen. Some classify audience through their social class, my audience would be those in a higher class, as stereotypically those who tend to be of a higher class watch films that make you think rather than those who watch more action films that tend to have a less engaging plot. When planning my film I wrote an audience profile of the type of person that would go see a film fitting my genre. My audience profile was that of a university student Patrick who studies films studies. He enjoys independent films however, he also enjoys watching mainstream films. He likes to watch films that no one has seen and that “fly under the radar” so to speak. He’d rather pay to see a crime or thriller film rather than the typical RomCom as he feels they all vary along the same plot line. He likes watching films as he likes to escape into the film and live vicariously through the characters on the screen.

Evaluation - Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Our preliminary task which we did at the beginning of the year is vastly different from the final opening I created. At the beginning of the year when we were set our preliminary task we were only told to do a sequence of someone walking through a door to have some dialogue with another character within the room then the character walking out of the room. Our preliminary task is rudimentary and compared with our final coursework there is a vast difference. For our preliminary task was a person walking into a room and having a thumb war with someone in the room then walking out again.

As opposed to my final coursework piece for our preliminary task we did minimum planning as we just needed the shots not necessarily a solid script, we didn’t have a strong plot as we only needed the shots. Our preliminary task only took an hour to plan, shoot and edit. This compared to my final piece which took months to plan, film and edit. As the preliminary task took such a little amount of time it was a shock when I had to spend months planning and executing my plan for my final cut of my film opening. I started out with a rough idea of what my film would be about that I then developed over time, I then started to plan where I would film my opening. This compared to my preliminary task was quite arduous.

By creating our preliminary task we learnt to use the software and camera equipment, I have learnt many different techniques. By learning how to edit clips together to get the continuity correctly, so as the character walked through the door, then from the other side of the door they were still walking through. We also had to edit the sound so even when the camera wasn’t focussed on the face of the person speaking you could still hear their voice. By learning the basics of editing at this early stage in the course it was much easier to edit my final opening.

Evaluation - In What Way Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

I believe my film challenges and uses the forms and conventions of real media products through everything in my film opening.

I believe that my opening challenges the forms of real media products through the mise-en-scene among other things. By shooting my film in black and white with red titles it challenges the stereotypical mainstream film, I feel that my opening is not what you’d expect from a mainstream film and so uses the “art-house” theme and fits in with that type of film and challenges the mainstream perception of thrillers and films focusing around serial killers if that is how the audience interprets my piece. Also my film opening uses the classic view of a femme fatal character with her demeanour and general on screen presence. Her costume and make up reflects this as it is in red as many people associate the colour red with blood and this is what I was trying to come across in my opening, a sense of foreboding.

The way in which I use forms and conventions of real media products is through my sound, I use non-diegetic sound in my opening. This is usually the case in film openings, most openings consist of a montage of shots and a song over the top, and this is what my opening is like also. However, a way in which my opening develops the convention of an opening sequence is that I use photo’s within my opening sequence, the images of the men with their faces circled and crossed out. Photo’s aren’t usually used in openings of films, if they are they aren’t usually used with clips as well. There are some opening sequences which use images for example the opening of “Letters to Juliet” this films uses images as an opening, although it is not the same genre of film. However, it does not intercut the images with clips as my opening does.

Evaluation - How did you attract or engage your audience?

I used audience research in order to gain insight into what would attract my audience to my genre. I spoke to a range of people who enjoyed different genres of films. When I asked what do you look for in a film? Many of my participants replied an interesting plot. This is how I decided to attract my audience as I wanted to make my film opening engaging and leave them wanting to see more. I wanted to leave my audience asking as many questions as possible so they would want to go see my film.

I looked at other films in the same genre as mine, for example “Se7en”. This is a film about a serial killer who no one knows until the most climatic point of the film. This was one of my participants from my audience research’s favourite films so I interviewed her more to see what she liked about the film and how that could translate into my opening. She said she liked the intrigue, an how in the opening sequence you couldn’t see Kevin Spacey’s face, she said it added to the mystery and intrigue of the character. I then used this information and translated this into my film by you never seeing the woman’s face.

I thought that my film would attract audiences that like mainly “art-house” films. It doesn’t fit the stereotype for mainstream films as it is more film-noir. I think my film will appeal to the audience of more film buffs. I wanted to make a film that made you think rather than a typical Hollywood “RomCom”.