Music Video Analysis

Rihanna - What's My Name

What images do they use?

They use the initial artists of the song and create a story of them both flirting with one another as if they meet for the first time. It all sets place in a super market and has some establising shots of the city.

Close ups of hands and of the lead singer walking down the street, this involes her lip singing but this only occurs during certain bits of the music video.

How do these images link to the song?

The images shown link to the lyrics as they generate  a story therefore making the images shown relevent, making a clear linkage.

FINAL FILM!!

OUR FINAL FILM!

Evaluation Homework

Evaluation

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms 

and conventions of real media products?

Whilst planning our film we used our research to interpret what scares people and what sort of horror appeals to them. We used a sense of realism as that is some feedback we collected from our research. We also took another aspect of our research in consideration whilst thinking of our film as we left suspense to draw the audience in and to only give them snippets of what they will experience when watching the "whole film".

A lot of movies that we researched involved a lot of point of view shots and wide shots that we involved, wide shots allow the audience to observe the surroundings 

and make the character seem isolated and alone which conforms to a typical horror. The lighting in this also demonstrates the idea that the girl is in a "safe" location which adds to the stereotypical conversions of horror. This shot also reflects typical teenage behaviour and what excites them, being alcohol and freedom, the girl also hides this from her parents which is evident in this scene. 

We also involved a lot of over the shoulder shots and point of view shots when the stalker is shown to leave his identity a mystery, the lighting in those shots also represent his nature and bad intentions as it is dark and his clothing being black and his hood covering his identity. The shots of him we involve include close ups of him evidently stalking this girls social networking sites and of him calling her just to hear her voice. This also conforms to the idea teenagers are vulnerable within society in relation to advertising there social life online, making it obvious they are home alone, posting pictures of themselves everywhere etc.

 The first shot we are exposed to of the girl is a low angle shot, showing her power in the situation of her saying bye to her parents, therefore reflecting her freedom and also reflecting her mood being high and happy. This shows the girls childish nature due to her coming out to say goodbye to her parents, it is also reflecting with her clothing being casual and her hair being up representing elements of venerability. 

There is a point of view shot that is a high angle showing how her status within the clip changes, as she becomes more vulnerable. We were inspired by the film: Paranormal Activity when filming our opening as it has a lot of wide shots also conforming to realism which is something we chose to follow in our horror. We feel that our opening does not conform to the sterotypical style of horror having the setting correspond to the genre also we feel that the opening credits portray our genre, although we deliberately wanted the audience to be aware of something but be distracted by the feeling of the main character being happy which the sound reflects. 

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

In our opening film, we chose to focus on teenagers being vulnerable and how they are perceived through social networking sites and the effect of it. We used extreme close ups to capture the moments where we are exposed to the stalker stalking the girls pictures, also we showed constant close ups of imessage chats showing how teenagers are so dependent on contacting there friends through technology. Our other character represents older men and how they are alone and creepy, also represented by the clothing he wears. 

Throughout our opening, we see the girl applying makeup which shows how she cares about her appearance instead of being responsible and focusing on the important things such as her safety, which is later on mocked by her leaving the front door open and the stalker being let into her home.

Question 3: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 4: How did you attract/address your audience?

ADD SCREENING

Question 5: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 

FINAL DESTINATION

Click on the animation below to view video clip.

THE SHINING 

Click on the animation below to view video clip.

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

Macs

We used the macs to edit our footage, It took some time to get used to due to it being so different to the windows software. We used a programme called 'Final Cut Pro' to edit our actual footage. I also used my personal Macbook air to edit on.

Final Cut Pro

This is the programme that we used to edit our footage, called 'Final Cut Pro'. Ive never used this programme before so we had to use alot of youtube tutorials on how to do certain things (such as audio adjustments, cutting clips, changing the sounds). Due to me being the editor I learnt a lot about this programme via google, youtube. I personally prefer iMovie due to it being easier to use, although Final Cut had a wider range of transitions, and settings that could be beneficial to our movie. Due to me previously working on iMovie I had a general understanding of the programme so thought that using final cut pro would allow me to understand how that programme works. Although this was difficult as Final Cut pro was only installed on my personal mac making it difficult as I was unable to edit it during college. Although half way through editing the programme was installed on the school macs which was a big releif.

Youtube

I used Youtube in order to find ways of working Final Cut Pro by watching tutorials, I also used Youtube for our soundtrack 'Girls just wanna have fun', we emailed the person who posted that video to ask for permission in order to use that audio for our final piece.

SHOW EMAIL

 

Cannon

Using the camera again was not a problem due us learning from our preliminary task, however we gained a deeper understanding of how to zoom and focus by changing the settings from automatic to maual for particular shots. We also had a shot of the main character looking in a mirror so angleing the camera perfectly so you couldnt see it in the reflection was something we had to try a few times.

Arri 300

We did try and use the lights whilst filming but we chose not to use them as it moved away from our genre of horror so we chose not to, also our location made it difficult due to the stairway being so narror, so keeping the light consistent would have been difficult. Therefore we chose to use natural lighting, as we did want to take  the realistic approach.

Alice Programme

I used this programme to gain a better understanding of mis-en-scene in films and how setting and props correspond to the genre of the film. We took this into consideration as our location was a house opposite a park which creates mystery and fear, we also filmed at night when it was dark following the stereotypical horror style.

Microphones

We used these microphones for the first time whilst doing our final film, as in our preliminary task we didnt consider using them. Due to us following a realistic approach to our genre of horror, we had to use the microphone in order to pick up ambient sound. Although we did experience muffled sound being picked up which was a problem, so we did use some presynchronized sounds in order to cover the certain diegetic sounds we did not pick up.

 

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

Research (Coursework)

Our group have decided to completely change our idea as we didn't believe our current one was working so we done something very risky and decided to start all over and use our planning more conveniently.

This is some research on opening credits to successful horror movies so that we could get some inspiration from them by combining things we like and making it our own. 

 The shining was an amazing film that was mentioned as a favourite in our interviews when asking people what there favourite horrors were..

In the sequence we pan through the mountains as we watch a car driving deeper and deeper into the unknown. As the camera follows the vehicle into the wilderness, all kinds of connotations are developed through the opening minutes. For example the disorientating viewpoints at the beginning  establish the dramatic tone of the often surreal and disorientating action that it set to follow and likewise the shots of the car near the edge of the mountain offers us a perfect metaphor of a family who are on the edge of a emotional collapse; a key dramatic element which develops throughout the course of the picture. It is really the use of sound though that helps to makes the opening so darn creepy. Blending perfectly with the imagery to provide a haunting undercurrent to the horror on the surface, the animalistic noises send chills down your spine and absorb you into the world on screen. All in all there is really this sense of something terrifying just waiting to happen and it makes the build-up all the more suspenseful and unsettling. 
The titles are a light blue which really stand out, more or less bright like a hazard sign, a warning due to the brightness of the blue, the transition is it scrolling up on the screen almost like something bad is on its way linking to the car travelling to somewhere but the destination isn't revealed leaving elements of mystery and suspense. 

The Killing was a film that we were inspired by as their opening credits stood out for us. 

CLICK HERE TO SEE CLIP OF THEIR OPENING CREDITS

We thought that our credits could respond to our genre and leave elements of mystery, as we use sound to juxtapose with our credits which allows to audience to connect with the character, as the happy song allows them to not want anything bad to happen as they connnect with the song, although the credits bring the theme of horror.

We conducted some research in order to see what kind of things in horror movies appeal to them so we could embed things whilst filming our final piece.

Brave - Film poster analysis

Midsomer Murders Case Study

Camera Shots, Camera Movement, Editing, Sound, Movement, Composition and use of Mise-En-Scene

Midsomer Murders is a British detective drama, targeted at an older demographic, this is evident through the dialogue exchanged by the actors being so prominent and the people shown on camera being typically of an older age demonstrating a clear level of maturity. This is also illustrated due to the show having a grainy feel in terms of its resolution and composition. This drama differs from reality purely for entertainment purposes due to the relationships between the characters being more friendly rather than professional, which is also shown through there being continuous non-diegetic sound helping  to build mystery, positioning the audience to expect something to happen allowing it to follow through to be mainstream. The point of the show is to keep the audience in the shadows of the entire picture and reveal clues throughout to build suspense and unraveling truths slowly through the police detection.

Although the camera work gasps a sense of realism due to multiple camera technology not being evident in this drama, allowing us to undertand the more personal approach to the dilemmas. Shot reverse shot is constantly used to emphasize the friendly relationship between the characters, as the police officers are represented more like friends rather than a professional force, this is also illustrated through the uniform and body language of the main characters have a laid back approach and gossip other than take statements. There are point of view shots although the narrator isn’t truly identified which conforms to the typical behavior of detective dramas. There is also use of slow panning around to show the reactions of all characters to possibly divert some sort of clues from the characters body language which unravels aspects of the crimes. This places all possible suspects in a shot positioning the spectators to judge the situation. With the use of close ups and medium shots the characters emotions are clearly shown through these shots with no dialogue needed.

The mis-en-scene of the detectives costume reflects their working class, but juxtaposes with there profession as they are laid back and friendly towards the anti authority approach to policing. 

Main Task Research & Planning

GENRE

We have chosen:

DRAMA/CRIME

Inspirations:

We thought this movie covered the areas we were intrested in such as crime 

Rolling with the nines

Kidulthood

i

Top Boy

Ill Manors

Sket

Target Audience:

We decided to target teens as our drama clip will be based as a reflection of teenagers in Hackney, with the obvious drama they may experience/ed so we decided to conduct a survey asking what genre people in our college prefered as they fit our target audience:

We drew up some of our ideas on paper to help construct our ideas further...

OUR PLAN -

During our planning process we concluded that our ideas would take too long to fit in our 2min time frame of our opening scene.

So we reconstructed our planning sheets so we had a clear idea of what props we would need and allocate the relevant location for our opening sequence...

We took a big risk and decided to change our genre and initial idea due to it not working out.

We had numerous amount of filming days and there were problems with our actor in relation to costume not being the same so it reflected clear organisation problems.

Here is the planning we done for our second idea as we felt it was well developed and was a better story line:

SHOT LISTS

FLOOR PLANS

CALL SHEETS

STORY BOARDS

SCRIPT

Obsession Script Final2