Question 7 - Looking back at your pre-lim task, what do you feel you have learned in progression from it to the full product?

Mistakes made in my pre-lim

Something that we encountered in our prelim task was continuity errors. For example, the two shots above show the drugs in different hands, however we didn't show the change in hands. Therefore, we were especially careful in the main task to keep continuity as we realized that a lack of it takes the viewer out of the film world. 

Another flaw with this scene is the set. We didn't clear the room as well as we should have and therefore the viewers would have been taken out of the world of our film. 

Additionally, we filmed in front of a window. This meant that the camera left a shadow on the shot which was not very professional.

Areas to improve

I feel that the thing we focused on most in our main task to improve was the continuity.

New techniques in the main task

One thing that we wanted to incorporate in the main task was the use of fake blood. This would have meant we could shoot someone and have a realistic looking wound. However, because we didn't practice using this during our pre-lim, we didn't get the consistency right and it didn't look realistic.

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

Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

In this video I referenced the ABC1 system. C1 refers to the lower middle class, which is where I feel people will be able to relate to our film.

Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The characters within our film are Hugo Vega, Ricky Sideman, Mr Phelps and Delta.

The character of Hugo Vega was a symbol of power within our film playing the character of a drug lord. I feel that this can be generally be classified in the social group of the professional criminal. 

Another character is Delta. I feel that the social group of hackers is something that is growing within crime and in this respect I thought it was necessary to have this represented in our media product. 

Edward Snowden is someone who brought the idea of a hacker to light and because of this we wanted to mirror him to some extent with the character of Delta. Also, the name Delta sounds like a stereotypical name for someone related to mathematics and science which could appeal to the viewers who have a more basic understanding of the topic. 

The only other character easily attached to a social group of the character of Ricky Sideman. 

I feel that the character of Ricky is somebody who may be considered a chav. Additionally, the way in that he appears to be regretful and out of his depth in the level of the organized criminals was intended to show that these kind of people in society may not be aware of the depth to their crimes and may become regretful in future. 

Finally, the fact that Mr Phelps does not seem to be attached to a social group represents the mystery surrounding his character. It makes him less relatable and therefore harder for the viewer to assess.

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms & conventions of real media products?

CAMERA WORK

One shot that we definitely wanted to include was the mid shot of a character holding a gun against a character. In our planning we identified this shot in addition to the one above of Jules as something we wanted to replicate.

The reason that I felt this shot would be a good part of the conventions of a crime film to include is because it shows the facial expressions of the characters whilst also showing the fact they have a gun. This meant that we could display the resolute facial expression that Hugo has in the film whilst shooting Rickie. Furthermore, we wanted to have the character on the side of the shot as it meant the gun could be placed in the center emphasizing the power it has. 

Another camera shot that we wanted to use was the close up. It is a common camera shot used in crime films and we felt it allowed us to show the emotion of our character more effectively than another shot. Especially in this scene where Hugo needs to look intimidating and assertive. 

ICONOGRAPHY

One key part of the iconography in crime films that we wanted to incorporate was the use of guns. They are a symbol of power which we felt we could utilize to show the power that the character of Hugo Vega has and the fear that he can strike into people. 

COSTUME

One way that we attempted to develop upon real media products was our use of costumes. A very common costume used by crime films is the full suit with the white shirt, as seen above. However, in our media product we took the decision to have the lead character in a black shirt, without the suit jacket. I think that the black shirt is a symbol for the darkness that Hugo has and a white shirt wouldn't have created this effect. 

G.B.H Final Video

Props, Costume and Clip Synopsis

The props that we will require within our clip are as follows:

Picture of the gun prop we intend to use.

• Gun: We need a gun for the part of the clip where Dan's character gets shot. The prop of a gun is something that is symbolic within the crime genre and this is something that we are looking to incorporate into our title sequence. Obviously we can't use a real gun so we will use a realistic looking cap gun for the filming of the scene.

This is the cocaine prop we previously used.

• Cocaine: Yet again, we cannot use real cocaine within our clip for obvious reasons so therefore we will look to recreate this with either some kind of powder or crushed up vitamins, like in The Wolf of Wall Street. 

• Film Blood: After Dan's character is shot we want to depict him bleeding and to create this effect we are going to use film blood which will let us show him bleeding from the mouth. 

The envelope we used in our prelim. This time it will have pictures in it.

• Envelopes: We could use envelopes in our scene for a couple of reasons. One of the ones we are sure on is that we want to pass pictures of Jay's character on so that my character knows who to kill. We could also use this for the passing over of money like we did in our prelim task.

These are the costumes that our characters will be wearing:

The costume Hugo Vega will wear

The white shirt we've chosen to change

• Charlie Adams (Hugo Vega): Black shirt, dark grey tie and black trousers. The actual clothing itself is something that we wanted to show the organized nature of the crime taking place. For example the shirt and tie suggest affluence which is something we wanted to represent. The clothing colors was something intended to be symbolic in that the black symbolizes death. Furthermore the choice of black subverts the usual choice of white shirts for criminals within the genre. The white shirt was something we used in the prelim however we decided to change this. Charlie is also regularly available to film, has acting experience, and understands the end product that we are trying to create.

• Aidan Emberton: My character will be wearing a light blue shirt and black jeans. The shirt is meant to represent the organized part of our crime whilst the jeans also show that my character is more laid back than Charlie's.

• Jay Cheshire: Hoodie and black jeans. As a hacker we wanted to show Jay's character as a shady teenager who got involved with hacking and crime. Therefore we felt that the use of the hoodie brings in the idea of wanting to be hidden and also the typical idea of a teenager in a hoodie causing trouble. We also feel that Jay has the look of somebody who may take in interest in hacking 

• Daniel Tallon (Ricky Sideman): Green jumper, jeans. Dan's character is more of a lower down, street dealer type and we wanted to represent him as someone who wouldn't look too out of place in every day life. Dan is also regularly available which helps with our filming schedule.

Below are pictures of the set we have chosen to use:

The set with all of the furniture left in

This is the set we have chosen. Whilst in this picture there is a lot of furniture in the room, when filming we are planning to take this all out. This includes the pictures on the wall. This will allow us to create a set that we like. The window in this room is useful because it gives us some control over the lighting. With the blind we can let more or less light in changing the look of the room. An advantage of this room over some of the others that we looked at is that it is quite small. This means it can be created to appear as a small office type room belonging to just one person. Also if there was a broader space it might not look as hidden and closed in. Finally the corridor outside of the room meant we can create an alleyway type look if we want to.

This is the general plan for how our title sequence will look (storyboard and plot outline):

Initial Storyboard

An advantage of having a storyboard meant we knew exactly what shots we needed to film which both saved time and ensured we didn't forget anything.

Final Storyboard

It starts with Charlie's character talking to Dan about a drug deal and the conversation takes a turn for the worst and Dan gets shot. When the gun is fired music starts to play which gives a high paced feel to the title sequence. The screen pauses on a still of Charlie holding the gun in the air and the credits for his character come on screen. Then it cuts to a scene where me and Charlie's character are talking and he hands me a envelope with somebody to kill on it. A still of me looking at the contents of the envelope comes up and the credits for my character come up. The envelope shows Jack's character and it cuts to him in a poorly lit room, with his face lit up by the laptop he is using to hack a government website. It pauses on him with the titles for his character.

In terms of filming, this is an example of one of the weeks plans for the cameras we have at college. It shows when we have planned to film:

The final filming schedule.

We planned to film on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday that week

Finally we have decided on this font for our title sequence:

How the font may look for our title sequence

 What I personally liked about this font is how it vaguely resembles some kind of graffiti but also has an official type look which is reminiscent of money. Within the title sequence, we intend to have a freeze frame of the character with this font over it and I feel that because we are considering a black and white look that a white font with a black outline means it will be visible over it and not add color to the scene. The font is called 'Bigdog' by the user Justin Biddle on the website 'dafont.com' and is free for personal use, so if we were to publish the film we would have to contact him.

Other fonts considered:

'Shadowed Sheriff'

We considered this font because of its bold appearance however we didn't feel it matched the genre we were aiming for.

'Gunplay'

One draw of this font was the broken up aspect of some of the letters and its resemblance to official fonts used by the army. However I felt the roundness of the font and the 3D letters were a bit unprofessional which conflicts with the classy yet criminal nature our characters portray.

'Bad Mofo'

This font was interesting because it resembled a font seen in pulp fiction. However, we want to create our own image and the font also looked slightly unprofessional due to some of the letters being lower case. 

'CM Moving Forward' 

This font was something that I felt was good as it resembled the action genre and this is a part of our film whilst not being the primary genre.Although I felt that the font Bigdog was more of a match for what I was trying to create. 

Overall, we will be using the same font throughout our whole title sequence: bigdog. 

This is the script that we created for our filming:

Ricky walks in

Hugo: Sit down.

Ricky: Come on man, this kinda shit happens to everybody.

Hugo: This is the last time you fuck with my stash!

Ricky (standing up): Please, we go way back… I swear to god this wont happen again.

Charlie stands up and shots Dan

Hugo: So I’ve got a job for you and he’s a hacker. Knows everything there is to need to know about my operations. And I need him dead by the 18^th of March.

Mr Phelps: I better get going.

Hugo: Get it done!

Mr Phelps gets up and leaves

Target Audience Research

These are the questions we asked in our vox pops:

1) How old are you?

2) How often do you watch crime films?

3) What is your opinion on violence in crime films?

4) What is your opinion on hard drug use in crime films?

5) Why do you like crime films?

6) Do you like crime films were the protagonist gets away?

7) What puts you off from a crime film?

8)  Who is your favorite director of crime films?

9) What do you think about the use of bad language in films?

We chose to ask open questions as we felt that it allowed us to gather a wider range of information, even if it does make it harder to analyse. For example, the question 'why do you like crime films?' allows us to find things we may have not previously considered, as opposed to if we asked if a specific thing was good. We asked the questions about drug use and violence to our audience as these are themes that would be prevalent within our clip so we wanted to discover people's opinions on them. We asked the bad language question for the same reason.

My initial reaction from having watched our clips is that the crime genre is something that is very popular among the 16/17 year old age range. The general ideas were that the themes of violence and drug use within the films were not to be taken too seriously and were entertaining. A popular director was Quentin Tarantino.

Analysis

Above is a pie chart showing how often people said they watch crime films. Whilst it is not perfect in that 'fairly often' isn't a time frame in the same way that 'once a month' is, I feel that it visually represents the answers well. Looking at the chart it is fairly apparent that, at least for the people we interviewed, people do watch crime films quite regularly.

With regards to the key questions about drugs, violence and bad language, we discovered that people around the same age as us had no problems with any of the three things. In fact, not a single response to people's opinions on them was negative, which suggests that we can take free reign with using them to a realistic extent. I feel that 'realistic' is definitely a key word though. For example, for the question about drug use, a third of the responses referred to it adding realism. This gives me the impression that if we overdid it, it may not seem as realistic because it may not accurately represent the lives that criminals live. 

One question that I felt could make a big difference to the potential outcome of the film and therefore the beginning to some extent is question six. For example, one answer was that if the ending made sense they didn't mind if the protagonist got away or not. Therefore, I feel that this is something that would be key going forward. This was something that was perhaps in the back of my mind however hearing this in the vox pops was useful as it brought it to our attention, ensuring it made sense.

Similarly, question 7 was helpful as it allowed us to see what people wanted from crime films. The general response was that it should be full of action, violence and crime. One response was that 'not enough violence' put them off a crime film. Therefore, violence is something that will be a part of the title sequence so that people know that it is a part of the film. 

If I were to conduct another session of target audience research, I think that I would ask closed questions, ask a larger number of people and also a wider range of cultures and ages. Asking closed questions would allow me to analyse the data even further because I would be getting a set response and also allow me to have some kind of control over the answers. Asking a wider range of people both in terms of numbers and background would allow me to gain data that is more representative of society as a whole. However, one benefit of asking the people that I did ask is that they are they kind of people that tend to watch crime films and therefore their opinions on the subject may be more valid than asking somebody who has no interest in them.

Certificate Research

Initially I thought that our film would have been an 18 due to the theme of drugs within it and the crime genre. However having done further research on the BBFC official website I have found that the following was acceptable for a 15:

Because of this a have decided that a 15 age certificate would be appropriate for our film. A lot of films within our genre are rated as an 18, for example pulp fiction, because they often promote drug use or show gory violence. Although, I don't feel that our clip reaches into 'strong violence or gore' and therefore it is only a 15.

The Oceans trilogy is rated a twelve because there isn't any drug references.

An example of a crime film that is a 15 is The Godfather. The BBFC website cites that fact that this film has strong violence as the reason why it is rated 15. I feel that because someone gets shot in our clip, this would count as strong violence in a similar way to The Godfather. 

Separate from The Godfather, the theme of drugs within our clip is also a factor that would contribute to the 15 age rating.