Final Film

Evaluation Q7

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

Our first use of the camera equipment and experience of filming was 'The Package'. Being given a short film task with a broad prompt (simply the title 'The Package') was a good first experience with the equipment and softwares, as it gave us free reign to explore a range of different techniques and styles of filming. The final product was a significant influence on the style of our film, especially the more modern, dynamic pieces of camerawork, such as the handheld shots following the first victim/antagonist, shown below:

The shots are extremely similar in setup, but the slight shakiness and the colour and lighting lend a darker tone to the version from 'ShadowMan'. Another example of shots we reused from 'The Package' to 'ShadowMan' is the over-the-shoulder shots shown to the right.

Producing the final cut of 'The Package' gave us opportunity to use the Final Cut Pro editing software, and work out our own styles of editing. The film uses a range of camerawork, both dynamic and less so, and required a lot of editing to provide the fast pace we wanted, making it a perfect trial. Obviously,  it being our first outing into the world of filming and editing, there are imperfections in 'The Package', it seems to be predominated by shots of Max's character walking around, which somewhat damages the exciting pace we strived for, and the music does not fit perfectly with the imagery, as we did not spend a huge amount of time searching through music websites to find the perfect piece.



Our actual Preliminary Task was naturally far easier than 'The Package', due to it's shorter length and less stringent requirements, as well as the addition of a fourth student to our class. 'The Package' and the camera practice it had given us proved invaluable and allowed all four of us to get the task completed in relatively little time. We used shots from 'The Package', such as the door handle match-on-action and the over the shoulder shots, as we found that they were relatively easy to do whilst still being effective.



When it came to the filming of 'ShadowMan', we had to organise our actors and get everyone to out-of-school locations for the first time. For both our previous tasks the cast had been comprised of other Media Studies students, and all of our filming locations had taken place within school premises. This new level of required organisation proved initially to be a problem, as we were unused to filming in public and relying on the attendance of external actors. We were also unprepared for the volume of shots we would require, due to the significantly shorter length, and lesser complexity, of the two prior tasks. These, however, were fairly insignificant issues, as although they were initially irritating, we very quickly adapted to our new circumstances, and thus in filming days 3 and 4 we were able to be efficient and effective in our filming of the scenes.

Overall, in the progression from our first tasks to the final product of 'ShadowMan', the key things we have learnt have been organisation, planning, and equipment use in greater detail. The two tasks gave us a good idea and an excellent starting point in terms of using camera equipment, sound apparatus, and editing software, however the use of lighting and Motion software, as well as organisation with external locations and actors, was more or less completely new to us, and in addition to this the actual filming and editing of 'ShadowMan' gave us a far greater insight into our use of what we already new.

CM

Evaluation Q6

We have learnt a lot about technologies during the film making process. We certainly experienced many problems, none more so than sound but dealt with it accordingly and are satisfied with our final product. If we could re-do anything, we would certainly spend more time focusing on the sound in our film as we didn't realise it's importance to the opening as a whole. However, we were pleased with our use of the Camera and other technologies during the process and are happy with the final product. I have definitely learnt a lot throughout the production process and am pleased with the way in which I, along with my partner dealt with the new technologies that were put in our way. I feel as though I am ready for the future and am certain that I will not make the same mistakes that I made this year in our next project.

MT

Evaluation Q5

How did you attract/address your audience?

The targeting of our film was heavily based on age, due to the increasing destruction of gender barriers and norms in the modern film industry. We rated our film a 15, as shown in Question 4, and chose to target slightly older cinema goers, although we hoped to retain some of the excitement and key features of the modern thriller genre, and thus attract a younger audience as well.

In the course of our research and planning phase, we carried out a questionnaire in order to get a better idea of how to target and address an audience. This can be seen below.

From our results, we felt as though the subgenre we favoured was best targeted at the 25-30, predominantly male market. Film Noir, and the features of it, including suspense and tension, were most popular with this group, with younger members of the group surveyed favouring features such as fast pacing and action, which would be difficult to achieve with the resources and experience available to us, and was also not something we were particularly keen on trying to do.

In order to gauge the success of our film in terms of audience and targeting, we showed our film to a group of potential audience members, and then asked where the film could be improved and how they felt it might appeal to them or other age groups or target audiences. Some of our audience members had already filled out our Research and Planning questionnaire, and we specifically ensured that these people were asked about how they felt we had represented the opinions they had given us.

I have put our key findings and feedback from our screening into a Prezi, in order to best depict the information we obtained.



CM

Evaluation Q4

In the course of our Research and Planning, we made the decision that our film should be certificated BBFC 15. This is not only an appropriate rating for the film, but also contributes to our targeting of the film.

Our key target demographic has been the 25-30 male market, and an active cognitive audience. However, we believe that 'ShadowMan' could in fact appeal to a far wider audience than this, both in terms of gender and age, due to the fairly sophisticated tone of the film. The film has the violent themes and fast pace that might attract our specifically targeted audience of younger men (and even a younger audience of 15+), whilst also retaining the style, substance, and strong storyline of the Noir genre, which may attract the slightly older audiences of 35+ and even 45+.


To generalise tremendously, our model viewer would likely be a fairly intellectual male in his late twenties, possibly a cinema enthusiast or artistic individual, the sort of person who might be an amateur film critic or aspiring director or screenwriter. American arthouse films such as 'Her', as well as more eminent, male audience-targeted films such as 'Fight Club' would likely appeal to this individual, alongside films of a similar nature to ours, 'Road to Perdition', 'Batman Begins', and other dark gangster/vigilante/revenge stories being good examples.


The hope, of course, is that although we could entertain a niche audience of this type, a wider audience may be attracted to our film in larger chain arthouse cinemas, venues such as Clapham Picture House or Ritzy Brixton, although this would undoubtedly be limited by the film's rating. The film's reach would also have an effect here, as larger multiplexes such as Cineworld or Vue may not show 'ShadowMan', especially not on multiple screens or on huge 3D screens such as IMAX.

CM

Evaluation Q3

As seen above, our Ident has a fairly high production value to it and in particular works well with the genre of our film, a Thriller. Many Thriller films will have similar production companies as that is the area they specialise in. We wanted to create a production company that looked both quirky and edgy, but seemed to fit with this idea; that they only produce thriller pictures and are not diverse, unlike companies, such as Twentieth Century Fox. As to why we chose the name, 'Paranoiac Productions', Charlie and I are not particularly sure. We were browsing the web ideas and happened to stumble across the word, 'Paranoiac' and we instantly decided that it would be the name of our production company. This is because it sounded edgy and thought it fit the mood and tone we were looking for in our film, 'ShadowMan'.
Essentially, a production company helps to create a film. They will aid with areas such as the money involved with a film, the casting, finding and employing a director and actors. A production company are also in charge of the equipment  that is used on set during filming and so will have to deal with broken equipment. They are also in charge of the actors safety and so are responsible for any injuries that may occur.


You can see above, an annotated clip of our film, informing you on who might distribute our film. We were testing out a few different titles and so explaining the different fonts that occur throughout.

Who might Distribute our film:

• Independent British Company, such as 'Vertigo', who have worked on micro-budget productions, such as 'Monsters' by Allan Niblo and James Richardson. 'Vertigo' are based in London and are the kind of company we would expect to distribute our film as they are known to pick new, up and coming thrillers. 'Vertigo' are undoubtedly a small company who aim their films at a british audience and nothing else. They vow to produce and distribute at least 4 films per year, meaning that our film would be something they could possibly be interested in. 

• Film4 would also be another distribution company that would distribute our film. They have distributed films to a British audience, such as 'The Inbetweeners 2' and 'Frank' starring Michael Fassbender. However, the big-budget feel to the Ident at the beginning of the film, might mean that a company, such as Film4 would be turned away from our production. 

Distribution:

• The distribution process is undoubtedly similar to exhibition in that it is split into Majors and Independents. 
• Majors are those affiliated to large Hollywood companies, such Warner Bro's who distribute 18.3% of the films we see nowadays and United International Pictures (UIP) who release films connected to Universal and MGM studios and have distributed 10.2% in comparison to Warner Bro's.
• These films are usually mainstream Hollywood blockbusters and so would not fit the style of our film in any way. Most of these companies will either be subsidiaries of even larger conglomerate companies or have branches into other countries such as the UK and even the Indiewood market, who interestingly produce more films than Hollywood per year. 
• The smaller more independent companies as aforementioned ('Vertigo Films') release a much wider range of films in comparison to the larger conglomerates and often focus on particular Niche audience's in specific countries, instead of aiming for a multi-international audience.
• Companies such as, Artficial Eye and Metrodome will distribute titles, which include Foreign Language films, Docu-Drama's and like our film, non-mainstream, cleverly shot independant  films. Artificial Eye have distributed independent films, such as 'Nymphomaniac' and so would fit our film perfectly. 

MT

Evaluation Q2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our protagonist can be compared to Tom Hank's character in 'Road to Perdition', Michael Sullivan. Both characters are motivated by their families, lose family members to organised crime, and change their allegiances in a fashion that places them at odds with dark and powerful figures. The key difference between the characters is that Sullivan spends the remainder of his film running from his new enemies, whereas the protagonist of 'ShadowMan' specifically goes looking for his enemies in order to exact a kind of vigilante justice and vengeance. This character does conform to certain tropes, especially those surrounding revenge ('Vengeance Feels Empty' [1] 'Who's Laughing Now?' [2]), there is also a sense of remorse and self loathing within the character, conforming to the 'Dirty Business' [3] trope. This sort of vengeful character is not really a figure who can be used to represent any particular social groups, however his position as a white man means that he is a privileged figure, and may suggest why he feels such responsibility to his family, as his character would traditionally fall into the breadwinner/protector archetypes. Our use of an older, male, main character is also an example of targeting, as a key part of our market is the 25-30 year old males.

In terms of gender in general, the opening to 'ShadowMan' only ever has male characters onscreen, which may be neglecting a need for female characters, and could alienate female audiences. However, the absence of women in the opening could be said to emphasize the loss suffered by the protagonist. In any case, the fully male cast of our opening sequence represents the world of crime as a male dominated enviroment, which in turn implies that men are more predisposed towards violence, murder, and other forms of crime. The murder of the protagonist's family has implications that they were unable to protect themselves, and that he was able to protect himself, which enforces his status as a would-be archetypal breadwinner/father figure.

'There is also a clear social hierarchy evident in our film, although this is existent in the crime world, where the two antagonists are at different tiers of the criminal hierarchy. This is denoted by their clothing and attitudes. There is evidence of wealth in the second antagonist, and this can be said to be categorising people based on income. As mentioned earlier however, the characters in which this is seen are both in some form of criminal organisation, which distances it from reality and social hierarchy in the workplace or generally.' [4]

All in all, our opening sequence contains strong representations of gender and social status. The representation of gender, although not wholly negative, does conform to tropes and archetypes, and thus could be accused of perpetuating stereotypes. In terms of representation of social status, although potentially negative, due to the categorization of characters based on income and social standing, is fairly representative of the world of organised crime, a world which we were not really concerned with in terms of negatively representing it.

Below is a clip from Road to Perdition demonstrating it's plot and aesthetic similarities to our film, 'ShadowMan', the representations of male dominance and male behaviour are especially notable, as well as that of criminal hierarchy.

[1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VengeanceFeelsEmpty

[2] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhosLaughingNow

[3] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DirtyBusiness

[4] Representation in 'ShadowMan' http://alleynsmedia-mead.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/representation.html

CM

Evaluation Q1

^^^^Annotated clip explaining just some of the conventions of original Film Noir movies and how they link to our own film.


Another annotated clip, with more on Evaluation Question 1:



MT