Louise Wilmshurst ‘The Brief’Evaluation

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

Genre can be defined as “a set of conventions-recognisable usually through iconography, familiar narrative, mise-en-scene, actors, and style of representation.” Sub-genre can be identified as a subcategory within a particular genre i.e. our opening sequence would be classed as an action-thriller film. However, a hybrid is a film in which two or more genres are used in one film e.g. a martial arts action thriller. In order to understand what the actual codes and conventions for existing opening sequences are, we carried out extensive research, such as analysing a variety of thriller opening sequences in terms of camera, editing, sound and mise en scene. We achieved this through allocating 4 films per person to analyse in our group and we then shared each other’s ideas after this. I found this extremely useful because it gave me inspiration as to which fonts suit which sub-genre/hybrid film types and how much of the following plot of the film should be incorporated into the opening sequence. An example of how we chose to keep in line with forms and conventions was through the titles. This is because from our previous research we had learnt how to list the titles correctly, and we identified this as essential to continue to display that we understood how a professional opening sequence should look. As well as this, we kept in line with conventions by keeping the titles small and to the side of the frame, which is common in opening sequences so that more emphasis is put upon what is in shot. Also, we decided on having our titles in red because this colour connotes danger, blood etc. that many thrillers incorporate into their films-thus keeping in line with conventions again.

The screen grab to the right shows how we kept in line with codes and conventions when using titles:

The screen grab below shows an opening sequence that we analysed, called Se7en, which inspired us to use a black screen for our film title because we felt it encouraged us to focus more on the title which was important in this circumstance.

Despite keeping in line with some conventions, we attempted to develop the forms of an ordinary action thriller. This is because although our protagonist is portrayed as a Russian spy (i.e. very conventional) we wanted to develop the convention by showing the build up to the crime as opposed to the crime itself. This was done to give a different spin on the view of the Russian spy to the audience and make them want to see more. However, we also chose to challenge conventions throughout our opening sequence. An example of this is our use of light because most sequences that we analysed in our initial research used low key lighting and generally kept light to a minimum, whereas we decided to use a lot of light. This was done to suggest to the audience that our protagonist is not as dangerous as other factors may suggest i.e. sound and titles. Furthermore, this idea of the “bad guy” turning out to be the “good guy” definitely challenges conventions.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?The main social groups that we hoped to represent when making our opening sequence were age, ethnicity and class (however, ethnicity was our primary objective). Why age?Our intended target audience is 15-30 year old individuals which is partially why we decided to use an actor of our age-group, with the intention that the target audience would find it easier to associate with the protagonist and therefore the plot. Furthermore, by dressing the protagonist in youthful clothes e.g. jeans and converses, it was subtly targeting a particular age group.Why class?We were inspired by James Bond films whilst developing our opening sequence, so we decided to attempt to target a particular class of people because (although James Bond’s are watched by a variety of people) the intended class within target of these films are middle class (i.e. A/B socio-economic group). This is because these types of people are the ones to fully appreciate the mise-en-scene used within James Bond films. Furthermore, we wanted our film to use the same theme so we attempted to represent the middle class. However, due to a non-existent budget we had limited options however the first setting was a spacious, well furnished office with a leather briefcase which we intended to portray a middle classed atmosphere. This is shown here (see clip 1.00-1.16):

There were several ways in which we insinuated his Russian roots, for example the foreign language spoken over the phone (see clip 0.45-0.48) and his dark hair and beard, as well as smaller details such as the Russian sickle and Russian vodka which is shown to the right:

Why ethnicity?We chose to represent the Russian race very stereotypically by portraying them as the “bad guy” spy. We identified this stereotype throughout our research (e.g. in many James Bond films where Eastern European “bad guys” are used) and used this knowledge to shape the characteristics of our protagonist.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

During the production of our opening sequence we came across a film that was very similar to ours in many ways, including shot types and plot (i.e. it uses the same stereotype of Russian spies). Due to it’s similarities, I have come to the conclusion that the same type of media institutions would be willing to distribute our media product. Furthermore, Salt was produced by a major Hollywood studio called Columbia Pictures, so this would be the ideal institution to distribute our product. However, this may be unrealistic because after researching the film Salt, I found that they had a budget of $110,000,000 which was spent primarily on pyrotechnics. This is a major difference to our opening sequence as we had a limited budget so this could affect the chances of a major Hollywood studio being interested in distributing our film. I therefore think that a more realistic institution would be a British TV film company (e.g. made by Channel 4) because they have a reputation for allowing a large quantity of people to view the film at once, however on a smaller scale than cinema.

Similarities between Salt and The Brief:Plot of Salt:

“As a CIA officer, Evelyn Salt (Jolie) swore an oath to duty, honour and country. Her loyalty will be tested when a defector accuses her of being a Russian spy. Salt goes on the run, using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative to elude capture. Salt's efforts to prove her innocence only serve to cast doubt on her motives, as the hunt to uncover the truth behind her identity continues and the question remains: ‘Who Is Salt?’”From the above plot summary, there are similarities between the two films, for example they both use the Russian spy stereotype, and also both protagonists use precision/skill to reach their goals within the films (as shown in the highlighted regions. As well as this, Salt uses a large amount of cross dissolve transitions which is similar to our opening sequence (see clip 0.15-0.18).

The Brief would be likely to be distributed by a large firm because there is a gap in the market for a film like this. This is because the mise-en-scene of the opening sequence suggests to the audience that if they continue to watch the film, they will learn that the protagonist is not the fiend that they originally expect him to be. Therefore, through this subversion of conventions it makes a gap in the market.

Who would be your audience for your media product?The target audience for our opening sequence is young men between the ages of 15-30 years old within a socio-economic group of A-B (with the exception of students). The reason behind the gender of our target audience is that our research suggested to us that males prefer thriller films (particularly with action in) to females. This has become especially evident in recent years where female actresses are used in action thrillers to appeal more to the males. Furthermore, this was emphasised when we conducted an audience survey post production, as shown below:

As previously outlined, the reasoning behind the age group of our target audience is due to the fact that we believed that this age group would be more interested in the action aspect of the film. We learnt this from identifying the target audience of other action thriller films, for example Salt (which uses the aforementioned method of using attractive actresses to make the film more appealing). As well as this, the mise-en-scene used incorporates a youthful feel for example clothing, as the protagonist wears jeans and converses which is not the stereotypical outfit of a spy.

We also decided on a target audience with a high socio-economic group. This is because we identified a link between the conventions of an action film with wealth due to the gadgets that are often used. Therefore, these gadgets are associated with an impression of wealth because they would not be readily available to the every-day citizen. Furthermore, we decided that individuals with slightly more wealth than normal would be more likely to identify with the film/actors and enjoy the film more.

How did you attract/address your audience?

As well as this we attempted to create familiarity with the audience in order to attract them by the mise-en-scene. The main way in which we achieved this was through clothing, because the protagonist wears casual, youthful clothing such as jeans and converses on his journey which breaks the stereotype of what most people perceive as a “spy” uniform. As well as this, one prop that we used was intended to create familiarity also, as the mobile phone that is used (see clip 0.38-0.44) is one in which a large quantity of people have (particularly the target audience of our film). This is shown to the right:

Once we had identified the target audience for our opening sequence it became apparent that we should use aspects of our target audiences’ lives in the protagonist’s journey so that familiarity could be established and the audience could feel a connection between them and the protagonist. Firstly, we attempted to do this through location. This is because the train station setting is one that most people in reality will have had an experience with, so it proposes a threat to normal life because a “dangerous” character enters a place which is familiar/safe to all. The audience is clearly aware of the location being a train station because of the long shot of a train initially, as well as the sound of an announcement over the microphone (see clip 1.32-1.34).

Camera work was also used to attract/address the audience. This was because our use of a point of view shot (see clip 1.32-1.34) and an over shoulder shot (see clip 0.27-0.30) created a link between the audience and the character. We had also learnt from our initial research that in order to attract the audience in a thriller film, there were certain conventions that were set in order to do so. An example of how we used these conventions to create suspense was through the music score, as it was tense and built up slowly which is what you would expect in a thriller film. However, we decided to include a more energetic vibe to the music score also because this is more typical of an action thriller film. After the production of our opening sequence we decided to carry out an audience survey to see whether we had been successful in the way we had attempted to attract and address our audience. We did this by firstly distributing a questionnaire and the film to friends and family (including to people outside of our target audience-to use as a comparison) and later by posting it on YouTube and asking for feedback. Out of our results, the most successful data from the questionnaire showed that 89% of males thought the opening sequence presented ethnicity, 90% of males wanted to watch the rest of the film (compared to 76% of females), and that 70% males identified the correct rating of the film as 15. These results suggest to us as a group that we have attracted the audience correctly because they gained the information that we intended them to when filming. To the right is a screen grab of the survey that we made and posted onto Google docs.

The chart to the left shows that the majority of people identified what we were trying to represent during filming.

This graph shows that the majority of people identified the correct rating for the film.

Feedback from our audience survey

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?Before we started our project I had no experience at all of using Adobe Premiere Pro, cameras, tripods etc. and even an Apple Mac so I have definitely learnt a lot. Throughout the production stage I have edited parts of the opening sequence, used the camera effectively and set up the equipment correctly, as well as posting blogs in different ways i.e. voice recordings/podcasts/SlideShare documents.

During our continuity task I began to grasp a limited amount of knowledge on how to take the best shot i.e. making sure that the camera is securely fixed to the tripod to ensure a steady shot is taken. There were some problems that we faced while filming. One example of this was that we had a large quantity of snow when we had organised to film the train station scene. This was problematic because some trains were not running which meant that the emphasis would be taken off of the ‘journey’ effect we wanted to gain (i.e. the audience being aware of the fact that the protagonist is travelling to a destination) if there no actual physical trains in shot. Therefore, this meant that we had to postpone filming which put us behind of schedule. As well as this, we had issues with filming the train station scene itself. This was because many stations would not allow us to film there which caused us a lot of trouble, and at one point we thought the plot would have to be changed. However, we overcame this by identifying another train station which was more barren than others and managed to film there successfully, although again we were put behind of our schedule.

Another problem that we encountered in the filming of our opening sequence was a wasting of time. This was because we were inexperienced with using the camera equipment so initially it took a long time to set up the equipment correctly. This meant that at the beginning of shooting there were many shots that were not good enough (e.g. we had not secured the camera to the tripod well enough so therefore had unsteady shots). Furthermore, we also had the initial issue where we did not check the content we had filmed whilst going along, so this caused a delay in the schedule when having to organise a large amount of re-shooting content that could have been avoided easily. However, we quickly learnt from these issues and after the first round of shooting we had the process moving much quicker.

I have learnt a large amount about Premiere Pro and found that I enjoyed the process of editing a lot. An example of the type of skills that I have learnt is learning how to use transitions effectively, i.e. the cross dissolve used with the credits create effect well however I am now also aware that this effect would not suit everywhere within the film and should be inputted for a specific reason. As well as this I have learnt the basics of Premiere Pro well such as cutting a shot shorter and inputting music and credits into the film. We also found Premiere Pro extremely useful in altering the sound and lighting. This is because as we had so many re-shoots we found that the natural light was different each time which lessened the continuity when all the shots were put together. Therefore, we used the effects on Premiere Pro to change the lighting and make the shots appear to have more continuity. Sound was also altered because we found that at the train station scene in particular most sounds were overpowered by the noises of trains, so therefore we made sure to alter this by turning down some layers of sounds using the programme. However, we found that when using Premiere Pro on the Apple Mac it struggled when holding a lot of material (i.e. when we had finished filming there was a lot of content on the laptop) so we found that it was extremely jumpy when playing back our content, despite having rendered all of it. This was problematic because we would often miss details such as if the camera jumped slightly. Although this was a problem, we ensured that we went through each clip very slowly, however this was time consuming and often made us behind. The image below is a screen grab of how we changed sound layers on Premiere Pro.

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

Since the continuity task I feel that we have invested a lot more time in the planning side of the project, such as by storyboarding extensively (including identifying length of shots), making/improving shot lists, researching our genre, establishing props/costume/locations, and allocating specific roles for each member of the group.Storyboarding was a useful process because it allowed us to fully imagine what the film would look like ultimately and make amendments based on this. I feel that this process encouraged me personally to be more creative because ordinarily I excel in facts and figures whereas in this task I needed to be creative which was initially difficult. However, after establishing our plot it became easier to be creative when thinking about props/costume etc. which I think was essential in the representation of our Russian protagonist. As well as this, allocating specific roles for each group member was important because each of us then knew our role within the group which was needed as initially we had issues in the functioning of our group. This was because (in my opinion) we did not establish a leader for the group at an early stage which made it difficult to make decisions which lead to arguments. However, after discussions about this we decided that from now on I would lead/organise the group, Victoria Louise would be in charge of research and Scott would be in charge of editing. Despite these roles, it did not mean that one person did all of that work however they simply had the responsibility of ensuring the research/editing was up to standard.

This process of planning and research really prepared us well for the filming stage because it made us organised meaning that delays were kept to a minimum and our work was being generated on time. This was very different to the continuity task where we were constantly behind due to a lack of organisation.

This improvement in our camera work lead to an increase in our confidence when using the camera. This is because we became more aware of how to execute a successful shot which gave us the confidence to experiment more which shot types, for example using zooms and point of view shots.

This shot which was part of our footage for the continuity task and is very different to the quality of the shots we were taking in our final product. This is because the actresses head is not in frame and the arm is the focus of the shot (which clearly isn’t intentional). From watching the old footage it is clear that our technique had improved in the final task because there was much less of a tremble to the camera which meant that we had learnt more about how to use the equipment effectively.

Overall, I think that our end product is good. This is because we used mise-en-scene effectively to encourage the audience to experience what we intended (as proven in our audience survey). However, I do think that if we were to do this project again we would have more success because we caused a large quantity of delays purely through lack of organisation initially. Furthermore, these delays effected our filming process which has therefore lessened the quality of our film. Since deciding to keep our opening sequence simple and basic I think it has helped us (e.g. by not getting carried away with our intricate ideas) however hindered us because it has limited how professional and how ‘thriller-like’ (i.e. how scary) our film could be.