We did a focus group with 5 individuals between the ages of 15-24 (our target audience) to get their views on our sequence. They were each given a questionnaire with 5 questions.
The first question was structured as follows:
The genre for the sequence you just saw is ‘Thriller’. Did the sequence look like a ‘Thriller’?
Yes No Not Sure
3 people ticked the 'yes' box while one person said 'no' and the other person was not sure.
The responses suggest that most of the respondents thought that the sequence looked like a thriller. Since not every respondent responded 'yes' this tells us that we may have needed to do slightly more to the sequence to perhaps make it look more like a thriller.
The second question was structured as follows:
As someone between the age of 15-24, do you think that the sequence appeals to 15-24 yr olds?
Yes No Not Sure
3 people ticked the 'yes' box while one person said 'no' and the other person was not sure.
Most of the respondents believed that the sequence appealed to 15-24 yr olds. Since not every respondent responded 'yes' it suggests that we may have needed to do more to the sequence to make it appeal more to that age bracket (15-24).
The third question was structured as follows:
What did you think of the storyline?
Obvious Interesting Complicated Boring
Not Sure
2 people thought it was interesting, while 2 people thought that it was complicated. Only one person thought that it was obvious.
Since two people thought that the sequence was interesting and two people thought that the sequence was complicated it says to us as a group that our sequence performed well. This is because we wanted our sequence to be interesting and as a thriller slightly complicated.
The fourth question was as follows:
Did the sequence look professional to you?
Yes No Not Sure
One person ticked 'yes' while three ticked 'no'. Only one person ticked 'not sure'
Since only one respondent responded 'yes' it shows us that we should have done more (in terms of the editing) to the sequence to make it look more professional than it is now.
The fifth question was as follows:
How would you rate the sequence?
1 2 3 4 5
Three people rated the sequence as 3 while one person rated it a 1. Only one person rated it as a 4.
Although the results suggest that the sequence was good overall in the eyes of the target audience, it also tells us that we should have done more to the sequence for a higher overall impression. The reason why we are not entirely pleased with the overall result is that it was mainly a '3' whereas we would have preferred an overall '4'.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Director's Commentary
We have now sorted out the 'log and capture' problems we had with our video camera and the iMac.
Some of the scenes in our commentary have been slowed down because they were too fast for the commentary (audio) so we had to make sure that they were synchronised with the commentary (audio).
Some of the scenes in our commentary have been slowed down because they were too fast for the commentary (audio) so we had to make sure that they were synchronised with the commentary (audio).
Monday, 10 May 2010
Sunday, 9 May 2010
The Other Opening Sequence Analysis
Another opening sequence we studied (outside class and before the production of our main task) was that of the film Munich (2005, Steven Spielberg).
In the opening sequence of Munich the mise en scene is dominated with a mixture of low lit lighting and the darkness of the night - this combination of light and dark connotes a sense of normality but is perphaps foreshadowing a dramtic event. In the background we can hear non-diegetic drumming as if something is approaching or about to happen - in our sequence we used an altered version of this technique (through the Mystery Man character), instead of the drumming we used loud footsteps to portray the same sense of an impending circumstance (by the Mystery Man in our sequence) portrayed in Munich. The mise en scene also shows us a group of individuals trying to climb over a fence suggesting that they maybe trying to escape from something. After the individuals arrive at outisde their destination a hand-held medium, tracking shot shows the individuals in a hurry to get inside a building. Their urgency is demonstrated by the 'shaking' of the shot/camera as it tracks them. With our sequence we implemented a similar version of the hand-held/'shaking' tracking shot through the shots of the Mystery Man's journey to the interrogation room.
The Munich opening sequence was an important source of inspiration for our own opening sequence as it influenced some of the scenes in our sequence (such as the shots/footsteps of the Mystery Man making his way to/approaching the interrogation room).
Theatrical Poster for 'Munich'
Trailer - http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2929131801/
In the opening sequence of Munich the mise en scene is dominated with a mixture of low lit lighting and the darkness of the night - this combination of light and dark connotes a sense of normality but is perphaps foreshadowing a dramtic event. In the background we can hear non-diegetic drumming as if something is approaching or about to happen - in our sequence we used an altered version of this technique (through the Mystery Man character), instead of the drumming we used loud footsteps to portray the same sense of an impending circumstance (by the Mystery Man in our sequence) portrayed in Munich. The mise en scene also shows us a group of individuals trying to climb over a fence suggesting that they maybe trying to escape from something. After the individuals arrive at outisde their destination a hand-held medium, tracking shot shows the individuals in a hurry to get inside a building. Their urgency is demonstrated by the 'shaking' of the shot/camera as it tracks them. With our sequence we implemented a similar version of the hand-held/'shaking' tracking shot through the shots of the Mystery Man's journey to the interrogation room.
The Munich opening sequence was an important source of inspiration for our own opening sequence as it influenced some of the scenes in our sequence (such as the shots/footsteps of the Mystery Man making his way to/approaching the interrogation room).
Theatrical Poster for 'Munich'
Trailer - http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2929131801/
Ratings
The rating for our film sequence would be 12A. We are aware of the fact that our target audience is those in the 15-24 age boundary but the reason why we believe the rating for for our film sequence would be a 12A rather than a 15 is because of the content of the sequence.
As of 2009 the BBFC rating system is based on the number of issues shown in the film. There are 9 main issues/categories that the BBFC awards a film a 12A rating on but out of those 9 only 1 issue is present in our opening sequence (which is 'Violence').
For a 12A rating the BBFC states that:
"Moderate violence is allowed but should not dwell on
detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood,
but occasional gory moments may be permitted if
justified by the context.
Sexual violence may only be implied or briefly and
discreetly indicated, and must have a strong contextual
justification."
The violence in our film sequence is moderate as there are no violent scenes which are dewelled on for too long nor is there any emphasis on blood though there is some emphasis on the victim-character's unspecified-injuries.
Even though we believe that our sequence should be awarded a 12A certificate we also believe that we have the correct target audience (15-24). The reason for our belief in the target audience of 15-24 is based on the context and narrative(s) of our sequence. Our film sequence has multiple narratives which interchange between each other quite quickly meaning that it can be to some extent difficult to keep up with the narratives and decipher the events as they happen. We feel that younger children may be faced with this problem as younger children are not as cognitively developed as adults/adolescents (15-24) in terms of being able to handle fairly complicated narratives.
As of 2009 the BBFC rating system is based on the number of issues shown in the film. There are 9 main issues/categories that the BBFC awards a film a 12A rating on but out of those 9 only 1 issue is present in our opening sequence (which is 'Violence').
For a 12A rating the BBFC states that:
"Moderate violence is allowed but should not dwell on
detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood,
but occasional gory moments may be permitted if
justified by the context.
Sexual violence may only be implied or briefly and
discreetly indicated, and must have a strong contextual
justification."
The violence in our film sequence is moderate as there are no violent scenes which are dewelled on for too long nor is there any emphasis on blood though there is some emphasis on the victim-character's unspecified-injuries.
Even though we believe that our sequence should be awarded a 12A certificate we also believe that we have the correct target audience (15-24). The reason for our belief in the target audience of 15-24 is based on the context and narrative(s) of our sequence. Our film sequence has multiple narratives which interchange between each other quite quickly meaning that it can be to some extent difficult to keep up with the narratives and decipher the events as they happen. We feel that younger children may be faced with this problem as younger children are not as cognitively developed as adults/adolescents (15-24) in terms of being able to handle fairly complicated narratives.
Saturday, 8 May 2010
What have you learnt about technologies from constructing this product?
For us, operating the camera was a simple and mainly easy process. Although the camera was easy to operate we did suffer a few problems in terms of how we filmed our footage. During the filming of our footage we didn't observe some of the basic rules of filming. For example, in some of our footage a few members of our group can be heard talking in the background of a scene that's being filmed. We weren't aware of how sensitive the microphone on the camera was and because of the unwanted diegetic dialogue/sounds (from the public, cars, birds and as well as from some of our own group members) there were a couple of moments were we had to disregard some footage (e.g. in one interrogation scene the camera picked up the sound of glass breaking from outside the room we where filming in). Although there were a couple of moments were we had to disregard some footage which was ruined by background noises there were some other moments where we able to get rid of those unwanted sounds. Getting rid of those sounds was due to Final Cut Pro's ability to be able to intricately edit the diegetic and non-diegetic sounds of a scene. For example, in one scene where the Mystery Man was walking, the cameraman could be heard saying "Slow down, you're walking too fast" and then during the editing sessions we were able to use the 'Pen' tool to mute the dialogue completely and then use the Pen tool again to increase the sound level of the non-diegetic footsteps that we had added by importing them from Garageband.
With Final Cut Pro we were also able to figure out how to use other tools, most of which we were able to find and operate easily due to what the icons for those tools depicted. For example, with the 'Bladetool' it was easy to figure out that it's use was for cutting video and audio footage whereas the tool - 'Snapper' (which was represented by a bold right-facing arrow) took more time to understand what it's use was (we eventually found out that it can used to get rid of small gaps between video footage in the Timeline). Final Cut Pro made the editing process of our sequence a fairly pleasant experience as it was easy to use (after getting used to it) and if there was something we didn't know how to do there was plenty of online tutorials for us to read/watch.
With Final Cut Pro we were also able to figure out how to use other tools, most of which we were able to find and operate easily due to what the icons for those tools depicted. For example, with the 'Bladetool' it was easy to figure out that it's use was for cutting video and audio footage whereas the tool - 'Snapper' (which was represented by a bold right-facing arrow) took more time to understand what it's use was (we eventually found out that it can used to get rid of small gaps between video footage in the Timeline). Final Cut Pro made the editing process of our sequence a fairly pleasant experience as it was easy to use (after getting used to it) and if there was something we didn't know how to do there was plenty of online tutorials for us to read/watch.
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