Incognito evaluation

Incognito EvaluationJoe Candlin

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

Our media product is representative of the common codes and conventions of the thriller genre, however we have also tried to hybridize our product with the horror genre. By looking at films and TV series' such as 'American Horror Story' and 'The Blair Witch Project' we decided to include some key horror motifs in our sequence, one of which can be seen in the POV handheld camera footage that is edited in. We took direct inspiration from 'The Blair Witch Project' in this case as it was described as being one of the films most gripping features because of the way it made the viewer feel involved in the action. Our product follows the traditional conventions of a thriller in that it has the main character in some form of danger as well as there being an ongoing chase/stalking. We decided to challenge convention in the same way that the movie 'Se7en' did in that we did not reveal the antagonist's face at first but instead using the reveal as a climax of the events on screen. Obviously ‘Se7en’ was a full length film so they had a lot longer to build up to the climax, whereas we were only making a sequence meaning if we wanted to include any interesting plotlines it had to be explored fairly quickly or at least teased at them. This technique builds suspense as well as making the villain more intimidating as people are known to fear what they cannot see/understand.


A large inspiration for our title sequence’s more eerie scenes came from the movie ‘The Blair Witch Project’. This is a ‘found footage’ style horror film shot entirely in the woods, this means the only camera used was a handheld being operated by one of the actors. This is an extremely low budget technique meaning that virtually anyone can make use of it, we took advantage of this by implementing handheld camera shots into our sequence. The angle and motion of the shot makes audiences feel connected with what is happening on screen as it seems more authentic, therefore making them engage more with the suspense and tense atmosphere. Obviously we had to make it a bit more clear that we were intending to show the perspective of the handheld camera so I added the ‘REC’ overlay to each handheld shot.

‘The Blair Witch Project’

‘Incognito’


Significance of font

When we began coming up with the initial ideas for ‘Incognito’ I made the title screen that can be seen on the right, however we developed the idea further and with that came a change in appearance for the title itself. We decided to take a more modern approach to the title and after researching popular thrillers we found that a lot of them had large spacing between characters and quite often had a very basic background. Looking back at the transition we made; the finished title is a lot easier to read, is more memorable/iconic and also looks a lot more professional than the original.


Camera and Lighting

One of the main focuses of the sequence was to get the portrayal of the antagonist right. We wanted it to appear as though the protagonist was effectively being stalked by this mysterious character that wouldn’t be revealed until the end of the sequence. We achieved this through combinations of low angles, POV shots and prolonged shots that made the audience expect something to come. In terms of lighting we decided early on that we would be shooting outside meaning that we would be using mainly natural lighting. The use of natural lighting meant that a lot of the visual changes would be done in post production, a lot of the shots were increased in contrast and decreased in exposure so that the sequence seemed a bit darker but more crisp to look at.

Sound

Sound was used in our sequence to convey a message to the viewer. We wanted the viewer to be able to establish the situation just from associating the sound/soundtrack with what was on screen. The use of audio motifs e.g. whispering whenever the antagonist’s perspective was shown helped us to establish how the viewer felt about specific characters. The soundtrack changed throughout the sequence; at the beginning it was an ominous track that was quite eerie but mysterious at the same time and when the antagonist was revealed it switched to a more sinister track and immediately let the viewer know which type of character (good or bad) they were looking at.

In what ways does your media product use/develop/challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Mise en Scéne

It was important for us that the location was somewhere ‘off the grid’, we wanted it to appear as though the protagonist was in the middle of nowhere. This helped to escalate the tension as it gave the impression that no one would come to help him. Having researched popular thrillers and horrors we noticed that a lot of films took place within the woods; ‘The Forest’, ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Exists’. Even though these films aren’t necessarily thrillers we still took inspiration from their development of tension through use of their setting. In terms of costume we kept it very basic, the protagonist was dressed semi-casual, he was originally intended to be a detective but it seemed more realistic if he wore normal clothes (this also made him more relatable) so instead we made him look like an off duty detective. The antagonist was dressed fully in black so that he was entirely mysterious

Editing

Following on from the idea of isolation that we were trying to convey between the protagonist and any possible help, another way this was emphasised was through the phone ringing sound effect which was edited in. Early on in the sequence the protagonist is seen making a call; the phone rings for a while, the shot then cuts to him being watched by the antagonist, the screen goes black and the no signal effect plays. The sequencing of these shots lets tells the audience that he is being watched and no one is around to help. A transitional effect was used where multiple clips flashed up on screen for a moment, these clips contained mainly close ups on branches, twigs, creepy trees etc. Although this was creating an eerie transition it was also subliminally emphasizing the setting the events were taking place in.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We have two main characters in our sequence; the detective, who represents the police and enforcement of law that is commonly seen in the thriller genre and we have the killer, who is the main antagonist of the sequence and portrays a mysterious villain rather than the usual bank robber or murderer. We tried to create a sense of the supernatural and an animalistic portrayal of this villain as we felt it was more intimidating to the viewer. We achieved this by using whispering audio motifs whenever the antagonist is present which creates an eerie sense around the character. We also used POV shots from the killer's perspective that make it look as if he is stalking the detective like an animal; combining this with the heavy breathing, the whispering and the sound effects it allowed us to create an eerie and threatening antagonist. The detective is not really in the spotlight, although he does hold a significant part of the screen time the focus is mainly on the antagonists pursuit of the detective. We tried to make him look like an off duty police officer to give the impression that he is looking for the killer on his own time, suggesting the killer has become an obsession of his, a lot like the character John Luther from the TV series 'Luther'. A lot of the time in thrillers the protagonist is a 'loose cannon' type of character and we tried to reflect this in our protagonist as well.

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

If the sequence were to become a full product I feel that it could be distributed by a variety of media institutions. It wouldn't be in a documentary or educational style which rules out institutions such as National Geographic. Because the sequence isn't nailed down entirely to one genre or theme and the lines between genres in the current generation have been blurred (even though we have labeled it as a thriller) it could be distributed by most companies ranging from Netflix to the BBC, the product wouldn't be absolute on any themes and wouldn't have anything unsuitable for viewers around the age of 12 meaning the product would have variety in who would distribute it. The most realistic form of distribution our media product would have is on social media, the product would be posted to YouTube and promoted through platforms such as Facebook, Twitter etc. If we were to go an alternate route to social media a viable option would be new line cinema who are known for distributing films such as ‘Se7en’, ‘The Conjuring’, ‘Into the Storm’ etc. they are known to distribute thrillers, horrors and a wide variety of ‘non a-list’ films which makes it a suitable institution for our product.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

The sequence was intended to be suitable for viewers from the age of 12 upwards, this is why we rated it a 12 on the bbfc age ratings. When doing our audience research a large majority of our audience feedback came from people around the ages 12-18, with a few anomalies such as teachers, parents etc. We felt that this was this audience was able to understand and the sequence whereas a younger viewer may get confused by it, therefore making their feedback irrelevant.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

We didn’t believe that ‘Incognito’ could have been placed into the 15 age rating because of the guidelines on the BBFC website. ‘Incognito’ wouldn’t explore any controversial topics/themes and would probably contain moderate violence but not anything extreme.

Because of this we decided to place it in the 12 category. The 12 category wouldn’t have any sexual nudity, extreme violence/gore and would instead have themes suitable for young teenagers and upwards.

• How did you attract/address your audience?

At the moment the traditional thriller e.g. 'Die Hard' isn't necessarily the most gripping or interesting thing to audiences, a lot of the most popular shows and movies today have supernatural themes or something that at least makes the viewer think e.g. 'Inception' and 'Interstellar'. The top three TV shows on IMDB at the moment are 'The Walking Dead', 'Daredevil' and 'Game of Thrones'; all shows with supernatural or fantasy based themes. When creating our thriller we didn't want to follow the basic and pretty much outdated thriller template and instead looked at the modern audience and what interests they had. This is represented in the scene where our main character confronts another version of himself. Originally we hadn't intended for there to be a supernatural theme in the sequence but after the first and second draft seemed to be building up to an anti-climax we decided to add the scene in. The whole sequence gave the impression of someone watching the protagonist so the supernatural theme fit in quite well with the already established eerie atmosphere

Audience Research/feedback It was important that we asked the right

questions when carrying out our audience research but it was equally as important that we asked the right people. If we were to ask a person below the age of 12 or someone who was immature we would come out with answers like this to open ended questions such as ‘what draws you to the thriller genre?’. Not only do we gain no information from this it is annoying to receive responses such as this.

However when we asked more mature audiences we got better answers that aided our production of the sequence. In this case we asked the same question to a higher year and we were able to find out that a lot of them valued tension and suspense the most in a thriller film.

Audience Research/feedback When looking at certain

questions from our audience research it is clear that audiences value sound/music very highly in a successful product. This made me realise that I needed to focus on sound a lot more than I had initially expected. After this feedback sound became one of the strongest aspects of our sequence.

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

When creating the sequence we had to learn to use and understand camera work, editing and sound. Out of the three I think I am most confident with camera and editing whereas sound was more improvised but still to an acceptable standard. We filmed on a Canon G16 and I edited on Final Cut Pro X. I learnt that you don't need the best equipment to make a good product, its more about the technique and the person using the equipment that makes good products. Take the fact that we were using the built-in mic on the camera for the entire sequence, we didn't have a industry level mic but we managed to create a sequence with decent sound that still conveyed the right message through editing and improvisation. The camera we were using was amazing but wasn't exactly built for the type of filming we were doing yet we still made it look really good even if there are some shots that could be improved. I originally was editing on Premiere then I moved over to Final Cut which I had to learn how to use but ultimately I ended up having a better understanding of Final Cut than I ever did of Premiere. One of our main research tools was SurveyMonkey, this was where we conducted the surveys that were answered as audience feedback. YouTube was a main research tool in the production of our actual sequence as we could research past students work and see what went well and what didn’t for them.

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

Edit File

When looking back at the edit file I realise now that I could have saved a lot of time and made the edit a lot easier for myself if I had organized the timeline better. On Final Cut to have something on the timeline (clip, sound etc.) it needs to be connected to something else on the timeline which is what all the thin green/blue bars are. When I started the edit the first thing I placed on the timeline was an audio file which became the base of the timeline, meaning if I wanted to re-arrange any clip orders I would have to cut the audio it was attached to and drag the two together, this is why there are multiple cuts in the same audio file. If I would have placed a clip first, the main timeline would consist of all the clips one after the other with the audio files above and below

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

The continuity task was a way of getting to know the equipment, group and software we would be working with. One of the main things we needed to make sure we illustrated knowledge of was the 180 degree rule. The rule was essential to our production of ‘Incognito’ and any further projects as it allowed us to portray a narrative in the clearest and most professional way possible.

Another purpose of the continuity task was to grasp an understanding of what ‘continuity’ in film actually was. We gained understanding of how a film needed to make sense to the viewer; cuts needed to be smooth, nothing could be out of place, sound and visuals needed to be up to par and most importantly we needed to actually be able to convey meaning through what was on screen.

Preliminary Task


Skills Audit Progression Continuity Task


Over the course of the two tasks I have learnt about various aspects of the four technical areas; camera, sound, mise en scene and editing. When the production of the continuity task began I didn’t know how to film or edit to a good standard but now I am confident in my skills in filming and editing. One thing that I need to expand on is my knowledge of sound. There was an extensive amount of research and planning that went into the tasks (more than I initially expected) however this research proved to be very useful in the long run as we began to realise how difficult and time consuming the sequence was going to be. Even though our sequence didn’t stick completely to our original shot list/animatic the fact we had a general idea of what we wanted before we went out and filmed was very helpful. In the continuity task we were unprepared and because of this we ended up making mistakes such as clothing changing mid sequence which we had to make excuses for such as “30 mins later...” The continuity task proved to be useful as it allowed us to realise what mistakes we were making and iron them out for the production of the main task. After the production of the main task was complete it was still not fully over as we screened it to multiple audiences to find out what improvements we could make (which is why we ended up with around 3 final drafts). The first cut of the final draft was over 3mins long and because of this we had to screen it to audiences to gain feedback on what we should take out. We found that audiences felt the ending was unnecessary as we were feeding them information that they already knew/needed to be interpreted on its own, because of this we removed everything after the scene where the protagonist is confronted by his double to leave anything ater for interpretation (after all this was only the title sequence and it was intended to tease at the plotline).

Overall I am extremely pleased with the product of our task and audiences seem to be giving mainly positive reviews of it, which lets us know that we have succeded. I felt that as a group we worked well and that we each fulfilled our roles in order to create a professional-looking product.

Continuity Task

Incognito evaluation

Internet

Transcript of Incognito evaluation