Below is my music video analysis.
Media Evaluation.
For my media project, I chose to film an thriller film, I chose to work in a group with Nathan Bees and Alex Hanks. Our final thriller film opening was called Stars of CCTV, we went with Nathan Bees film synopsis because we felt his was most like a thriller film opening and fulfilled most of the codes and conventions toward the genre.
The final film meet most of the codes and conventions of a thriller genre, to find these elements of the genre, I analysed 2 other thriller films, these where Black Hawk Down, 2002, Ridley Scott and The Bourne Suprenacy, 2004, Paul Greengrass. I chose these two film to analysis because both had different story lines and one was factual and the other was fictional, I did this do get a wide range of different thriller genres that use different aspects of codes and conventions when being made, but at the end I found out that they both used the same filming techniques to reach the audience.
I also developed my understanding of the film industry during this process, I researched the ways in which a film is distributed to audiences and institutional felicities, this generated knowledge of the film industry and gave me an insight into the film industry and ways in which our final film could be distributed to the audience. This also developed my knowledge into film distribution companies.
Our group developed our final film by firstly creating a film synopsis each, we then discussed each film and pick an idea that we liked and we could develop into a complex yet effective thriller film intro, this turned out to be Stars of CCTV by Nathan Bees. From these we then developed our own synopsis version of the idea so we could create our own shooting scripts and storyboards for our film, all these documents contributed to our development of the Stars of CCTV film intro.
If I was to do my media project again I would spend more time looking at the codes and conventions of the thriller genre, this is co I could develop my knowledge of the genre we are aiming our film to achieve, I would also investigate more into the filming techniques that would enhance our final film to generate the look and feel of our final film towards the audience.
I would also next time use a more complex video editing software which would have the tools we need to edit our film thoroughly, it would also be able to edit the sound better so it would sync better to our final film this would enhance our final film and be able to better match the story board and film plan.
I chose to do a thriller opening for several reasons, the first being I have created some films in the past so I had some back knowledge in film making and I could also learn new skills that I could use for future films that I make. I also chose to do a film so I could use my skills I’ve developed over the years into it and that I’ve never done a film before so I would also enjoy it.
I also chose to produce a thriller opening film as I could film and help edit the film, skills I already have abut that can be improved and some new skills learnt, we had Nathan write the script as this was a strength for him and Alex help edit and acted in the film, again skills he had, so we all used our best skills to produce this film.
Here is the final version of our film intro.
Stars of CCTV intro link.
Here is my media diary for my media project.
For our film opening, we have decided to choose Nathan’s idea of a opening thriller film, for this we have each created our each version of his idea using the title and character names.
Title: Stars of CCTV
Stars of CCTV starts with a character called Theo Noone running down a dark alley way at the dead of night. Theo is running from the police, who are looking for him after an incident which involved a drug dealer, who he visited today to get a supply of crack cocaine for his best friend Baz Muller, Theo doesn’t like who Baz has turned into but he doesn’t like seeing his friend all anxious.
Earlier that day, Theo went to visit Baz’s dealer, Scott Hanks, to get Baz’s fix, but Scott knows that Theo is getting it for Baz and knows that Baz is in a really bad way, so Scott decides to increases to price of Baz’s drugs at the last minute, but Theo couldn’t afford to pay, but he had to get these drugs so decided to do something that he has never done before, with anger and rage running through Theo’s body, he hits Scott to the floor and beats him up badly, moments later he opens Scott’s boot of his car, grabs that bag full of drugs and runs off, but what Theo didn’t know was that the whole incident was caught on CCTV.
The intro then goes back to the beginning with Theo running down the ally, Theo stops and is out of breath, but he hears the police behind him catching him up, so he carries on running down the alley, at the end of the alley is a quiet residential road, so Theo doesn’t think to stop. As Theo reaches the end of the alley way, he runs into the road were there is a moving car with its wheels screeching on the road, but its to late and he is hit by the car, he is uninjured but by this time the police have caught up with Theo and he is arrested.
This is my initial thriller film genre opening.
Title: Seek & Destroy.
Duration: 2 minutes maximum.
Synopsis: The Scene starts with a single character named Edward Ground, A successful con man from London, running down an ally way in the suburbs of a city at the dusk of night with a ruck sack full of money.
After the opening scene, the story goes back 1 week were Edward is at an Casino in Bristol, Edward is having huge success and ends up winning 10 Grand by the end of the night. While at the Casino, Edward meets A business man, Grant Blair, he informs Edward that he could win up to £500,000 from a one off poker game happening in a decaying mansion. Edward pauses and thinks about the opportunity of winning £500,000 but realises it’s to good to be true, however greed takes over Edward and Edward replies back to the business man, ‘Ok, I’m in, what’s it going to cost me?’, ‘Nothing’, says the businessman ‘I give you the million to enter the game’, Edward then becomes confused ‘But you sad that I could win £500,000?’, ‘I know, but the prize money is £10,000,000 and if you win, I’ll give you £500,000’ the business replies ‘and if you don’t then you’ll be killed!’
The next scene is the day until the poker game, Edward is starting to panic because he knows that if he doesn’t win the 10 million quid then he will be killed by Grant Blair and his associates, but Edward knows that he can’t get out of this now, but he also knows that the player won’t be some small time players, these will be big winning businessman that hate loosing, but Edward doesn’t want to get killed. After thinking for hours about it, Edward comes up with a plan to steal the money during the games is in play.
At the game, Edward decides to go to the toilet, this is when he makes his move, the money is stored in a secure vault and Edward set up a CCTV camera with live feed to his phone, so he knew the code. He typed in the code and the door opened, there was the 10,000,000 pound, Edward stuffs the money in a bag that he found next to the vault and runs.
Later the Business men went looking for Edward and found he took the money, this is when the story follows on from the start, Edward gets away and runs to Monaco.
Here is my version of a shooting script for Stars of CCTV, using my own story board and version of the film.
Here is my version of a story board for Stars of CCTV, using my own version.
Film Analysis
To start my film analysis, I first watched Black Hawk Down, directed by Ridley Scott, 2002. The start of this film featured percussive, orchestral, native music to the region of Africa that the film is based in, these created a tense atmosphere to the audience.
The next shot the audience sees is a quote attributed to Plato, the quote is about war giving the audience signs about the theme within the film. The shot then transitions to a boot print in sand, this shows signs of human presence and also modernisation, this can also be used as a symbolisation of war within the area as the boot print could of be produced by a solider.
Once the establishing shot appears of the dead body and shows pauperism and starvation within a third world community, text appears with facts about the story behind the hunger and poverty, this is the film maker using other medias apart from sign and sound to describe the story shown to the audience.
The Film Noir technique is also used in the opening scene to the film, the camera shots are almost black and white and the opening scene is in a low frame rate, this used the convention of a thriller by making the audience want to know more because the scene is mysterious, this is also backed up by the shots of dead bodies and confusion within the other characters.
Finally, at the end of the opening, a slow tempo, non-diegetic sound of a helicopter is synced onto a black shot, this is then followed by a quick cut to a wide angle shot of a modern, high tech chopper over a city, this shows the audience civilisation and alienation that the modern chopper is lost in a third world, urban location.
My second film analysis was The Bourne Supremacy, directed by Paul Greengrass, 2004. The opening of the film again used percussive, orchestral music when the Universal scene was shown, this creates an distressed feeling within the audience, this also creates the mood of the film.
The director has also chosen to use sound effects at the start to confusion the audience in what is going on, he uses sound effects like and woman crying, rain and thunder as a flash back with the gun fire, sound effect used as a transition from the flash back to a close up of the character in bed. These sound effects help generate the mysterious, dark, gloomy atmosphere to audience as the sounds don’t match the images shown to the audience.
This flashback scene also has the theme of alienation featuring heavily in it, the scene has city shots and car shots that makes the audience feel lost in a sea of our own creation. The colour in this scene is also very grey and dark which helps creates an enigma to the audience making the scene mysterious and making the audience feel they want it to be solved.
The next scene shows the main character to the film, the director used film Noir for its use of shadows within the scene. Film Noir is used in this scene to emphasise the main character and to help portray a young masculine. The scene is also shot handheld, this emphasises the characters (Jason Bourne) heavy breathing and generates realism towards the audience.
Film Distribution.
The aim of film distribution is to get the greatest number of people to view the film in as many exhibitors as possible, these exhibitors can be cinemas at first then it can be stores like high street DVD stores, supermarkets and even online stores like Play.com and iTunes. The aim of a distributor is to create an appropriate advertising campaign for the film, to achieve this, the distributor needs to create an advertising campaign that attractants a target audience.
To find the target audience to the film, the distributor employees researchers that first look at the films aspects that could be used to influence a target audience into watching the film, this aspects can be genre of the film, the story or even the cast. This can be easier if its a big budget film made by a big budget institution that has the money to employee famous stars, but its harder to use this aspect if the film is made by an low budget, indie film institution that doesn’t have the money to employee these people.
Once the researchers have found an aspect of a film that would appeal to an audience, they then need to advertise this aspect to an appropriate target audience by using certain media’s that reach this audience, these media can be internet, television and social network sites, but the media’s used need to viewed or used by this target audience. New media’s used today are sites like facebook where the use is bombarded by adverts and messages from advertising institutions and sites like Spotify which match appropriate adverts to your genre of music and usage.
There are two types of distributors that are used depending on the film institution that made the film, affiliated distributors tend to deal with films from Major film studios such as Universal Studios in the USA and Pinewood Studios in the UK, some major film distributors are Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) which deal with big budget, international films such as MGM distributing the 2006, Columbia Pictures film, James Bond, Casino Royale, which took a gross revenue of over $594,000,000. But indie film studios such as Film Four Productions in the UK and Aardman in the UK are dealt with unaffiliated distributors such as Optimum Releasing and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, these distributors deal with smaller budget, low key films. An example of this is Optimum Releasing distributing the 2006, Film Four film, This is England, which took a gross revenue of just over $8,000,000.
Unaffiliated distributors are used to distribute lower budget films so the film has a better chance of being shown at more Cinemas and being sold at more retailers, this makes the film reach a greater number of audiences. This is where major studios and distributors have an advantage as they are better known by audiences and the films being made have more money spent on publicity so can sometimes suppress films being released at the same time by indie studios.
Our Film.
As our film will like be produced by an indie film studio such as Film Four Productions, it will have unaffiliated distributors to distribute the film to Cinemas nationally and internationally, with the likely chance of another distribution companies dealing with the film outside the UK. From this the distribution company will have to create an advertising campaign for the film, the aspects they could use to advertise the film could be the thriller genre or the drug plot, from this our films target audience will likely be the younger generation, aged 16 to 30 who are excited by the thriller genre and like more real life films with the plot to go along with.
The adverting campaign that the distribution institution will likely create for our film will likely be online, this is due to radio and television is expensive and more likely won’t reach our target audience as it’s not a well used media for our target audience, the most likely media used for our film will be social networking sites like facebook and twitter, this is because they are cheep the advertise on and free to create pages on and will also likely reach out to our target audience.
The Stages for a Film.
- A film producer comes up with an idea for a film, like Frank Marshall with The Bourne Supremacy, 2004.
- The next stage is the producer meeting with a Film Studio so they will finically back the film and help produce the film. But before the film is produced a film director is found and script writers start writing the scripts, as well as develop the initial film idea from the producer, the cast is also found during this stage. For the Bourne Supremacy this was Universal Studios who funded the film and found the script writers and director to the film.
- The film is then produced with all the mise-en-scene to the film build, make or bought so the scene are to the script.
- The footage then enters the post-production stage, this is when the footage is edited together, colour correction is used to create the feel for the shot, sound is editing and or recorded, this can be music for the theme and background music as well as voice overs and sound effects.
- The film is then sent to the distribution company where it’s copied onto film, or a digital hard drive depending on the cinema’s needs. The film is also advertised.
- The final stage involved the film being hired out to a cinema to be shown to audiences, it is also being copied to DVD’s by the distribution company so it can be sold to the public at a later date once the film is no longer in the cinemas.
