Emily Stansfield AS media work

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

Whilst studying films, it became clear that the opening is usually the most important part, as it has to draw in attention of the viewers by setting the scene and the mood. Successful film openings leave you wanting to know more, sometimes this is done by using a cliff hanger or unanswered questions. Many film noirs use the technique of using non-linear story lines for the opening; this means the beginning of the film is showing you the end, which then means the viewer is keen to see what has happened. The noir 'Detour' is a good example of this, as it starts with a depressive man sitting troubled at a bar at the end of the night, with voice overs creating an enigma comes in - the viewer is keen to see what got him in this state.

The film noirs I have researched usually all follow similar characteristics, which are femme fatals’, ex-detectives etc, and they also follow certain codes and conventions, these include deception - which we projected through our double cross, murder, who done it and gangsters. We tried to make our opening follow these conventions, by using pretty much all of the above, along with the non linear story line. However, we did try challenging the usual techniques of noir by seeing an actual murder at the beginning, whereas normally you would be told of one in a voice over. Also, to make our opening more modern, we had a look at neo noirs such as kill bill to get ideas such as tracking feet along the corridor.

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

Our media product represents teenagers/young adults in an environment that is high tech and modern which compliments their age group.

We created these particular representatives because our target audience would be the same age as characters on screen. We thought this would create a more modern feel to film noir. Typically, film noirs appeal to men more than women, this is because they include crime and 'dark' narratives which are more masculine in terms of genre. The characters we chose reflect those you see in other classic noirs, eg; the femme fatal, who is manipulative, dangerous and deceiving - femme fatals are usually characters you dislike. Whereas the “hard-boiled” man who is trapped in her misguidance is usually in a downward spiral, who you often feel sympathetic towards. We tried to make our characters portray the conventions as much as possible in what they wear and how they act. For example, the femme fatal in classic noirs are usually seen wearing red to portray danger and high heels for sexuality so we took this into consideration whilst choosing a red coat and other costume for the femme fatal. Dark clothing is also a ‘must-have in noir’ so we decided a long black coat would suit the genre for our other character.

The messages we were trying to create with our representatives are also very similar to other noirs which often show people being mislead, which we have shown through our ‘double-cross’.

3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media text?

I think Miramax Films or Warner Bros would be good companies to distribute our film, reasons why I think this is because they are both well known and well funded film institutions. They have both also distributed other neo noirs such as Kill Bill and Blade Runner, which have both turned out to be popular, rated films.

Our film would be best to get a cinema audience at popular chain cinemas such as Cineworld and the Odeon, where the film will be widespread and available for people to watch around the country, this way, our film will get as much publicity as possible.
Channel 4, or E4 are television channels that I think would be most likely to show our film, as they usually have programmes aimed at younger audiences, such as skins. It would be more likely to be shown in the evening, as it has scenes of violence.

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

As I have already mentioned, the typical audience for our film is most likely to be young, male adults because they would be able to relate to the characters who are in the same age group, also because we have aimed for it to be similar to films such as Kill Bill, which was popular with people around this age. However, I also think our film would be popular with an older age group as it involves crime and ‘who done it’s’.

When we done our active audience research, via a questionnaire, we asked people in our age group questions on whether they would enjoy a film like ours, the results came back positive, but I think we should have also asked different age groups, this way we could have a definite target audience.

Our film is aimed more at a working class audience rather than a higher class this is because the characters were also based on this class so it would be easy to relate. Taking in consideration of BBFC ratings, I think our film would be restricted to a 15 due to the fact there are scene’s of violence.

5: How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract our audience, we firstly had to think about the age group we were targeting and then apply our music, characters and themes to suit the audience.

Our film begins with dodgy, suspenseful music so that from the start it gives our audience the feel to what the movie will include, therefore making them want to watch more. For the same reason, our first character seen will be wearing a long dark coat, and holding a gun which implies gangster culture which will intrigue the viewers. We also had to think how our opening titles would attract the audience, so we decided that when the name of the movie was first seen, it had to create a good impact. The best way we thought to have done this was when the first gun shot sounded, the title “Bulletproof” would literally ‘bang’ on the screen, we chose a hard looking font as it would suit the genre of the film better than a softer, abstract one. During editing, we still had to think about how to create suspense and so we used a variety of fast-paced shots, not a lot of which was a long shot as we thought close ups would be better to create audience pleasures.

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

Through out this project, I have found the Internet to be the most vital technology – mainly through the research stage. I have been able to look up and learn about what makes successful film openings, how to attract an audience through suspense and conventions of classic film noirs via the web. Being able to do this has helped me understand what the project needed to make it the best possible. Youtube has also been helpful when I want to watch other popular film openings to give me ideas and tips. Obviously during the production, the Canon HV30 DV camcorder, VELBON DV 7000 tripod, 300w flood lights, YOGA shotgun microphone with the boom pole and the editing software on the macs’ have been very important. Without the right equipment during filming our final product would look extremely poor quality and we would not have the presentable results and to the slandered we have managed to achieve.

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

When I look back on my preliminary exercise, I can see a huge improvement not only from the finished product, but also how I’ve worked and how my confidence has grown with using the equipment. We got criticisms on our preliminary exercise for making basic errors such as crossing the 180 degree line and the rule of thirds, by listening to these criticisms I was extra cautious whilst observing every shot and made sure these mistakes were not made and correcting them when they were. Negative feedback from the exchange exercise also had an impact on my noir opening; feedback regarding the soundtrack in the exchange was negative, so therefore we tried a variation on the noir to make sure it works well.

As we had a dead-line for this product, time keeping and organisation was very important so the first group meeting we had we chose our individual jobs and expanded our ideas depending on that. For example, I was the art director, so had to concentrate on how I wanted things to look and what costumes and props were needed. We also decided to film out of class time, when the college was empty not only because we needed the space, but so next time we had a lesson we could begin editing straight away and also film any additional scenes without wasting time