A New Year

A New Year has started and i am happy to post that Me and my teammates (Mediatronics Productions) have already started creating the prototype of our next short film this year. We have gone through a lot together and i personally believe that this years short film will be more professional , enjoyable and of better quality than our last short film "Sweet Vengeance". This short film will be of the Thriller genre. We have just made out a rough outline of our story and characters yet, but having time , we hope that our film will be fully ready in two months time. The software that i am planning to use for Video Editing this time around would be Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and Adobe After Affects CS5(Since my laptop can now support the Creative Suite 5 Versions now). Sony Vegas Pro for Audio Editing etc.We have decided that this new short film of ours should not only be fiction itself but a mixture of Fantasy and Reality. We want this short film to be appealing to wider audience and thus we have decided to make this film on a topic that can be understood by all.(We have a few ideas but our topic is not final yet). We have moved on from the horrifying clutches of "Sweet Vengeance" to a more ground reality (non-fictional) world of Thriller and Suspense.

Furthermore , our teacher Ms.Fauzia gave us a marked assignment of analyzing 3 Media Products (short films in our case) , related to the same genre that we plan to make our movie on. (Thriller).

NEW YORK(2009)
Being closely related to our genre , New York is a 2009 Bollywood Thriller Film on the cruelty on Muslims in the U.S.A after 9/11. Mostly , Thrillers films follow certain conventions such as quickly cutting and changing shots in action sequences and juxta-position , which is followed in New York as well. The main protagonist and the FBI have all been shown MALE. This is a popular code/convention of Thriller movies which many do not seem to notice.(Most characters in such films are Male , rather then female). This film has used a variety of shots , which are noticeable in movies of the same genre. For example : at one point (Climax) the action sequence is slowed down to create enigma among the audience. This is popular among other Thriller films such as SALT(2010) and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE(1996). Point of view shots are also common in Thriller/Suspense films which are plentiful in New York(2009). Inspired from this film and some others , we plan to use the Point of View/Masking technique to our fullest in our upcoming short film. New York and other thriller films also quickly switch scenes and the pace of the film. For example : The character may be talking to a couple of buddies in one shot and the next scenes may be a car chase. New York also displayed this characteristic by switching back and forth between action sequences which made the film more interesting to follow and watch till the end.

SALT(2010)
Salt is a film about a Russian spy(Angelina Jolie) sent to the US to infiltrate a covert operation. It has broken many conventions. Firstly , usually in films , the female gender is shown weaker than its male counterpart. This is not the case in Salt. Angelina Jolie(Salt) has been shown leaping across rooftops and ledges throughout New York City. In one scene, She jumps off from a bridge to escape. This is a convention broken by this film. Salt's action sequences are top notch and completely follow the codes and conventions of Thriller/Action movies. They involve Salt fleeing the scene with FBI patrol after her. She reaches a point where she has to face the FBI in hand-to-hand combat. (Strangely enough) , the FBI does not seem to fire at her when she is at her most vulnerable. Salt is probably the most diverse thriller film i have seen to date in terms of Camera Movements and Panning. The panning and the variety of shots in Salt in both conventional and beautiful. I am planning to use some of those shots in our upcoming short film.

THE GODFATHER(1972)
The famous Godfather is more of an epic crime thriller but contains all the important characteristics of a regular thriller/action film. The Godfather has a different story to what we are planning to make in our short film but the codes and conventions of the film are whats inspiring. Firstly, a convention has been followed that the main gangster(The Godfather) is always of male gender. The powerful male is shown to beat up his wive(s)/mistress(s) , (yes , he has more than one wife) probably as a sign of superiority over the female gender. This convention has been followed in the Godfather. In thriller movies , the usage of Point-of-View Shots and Over-the-Shoulder shots are very common , which is what has been put into the Godfather, the opening sequence of The Godfather begins with an Over-the-Shoulder shot of a man begging for the Godfather's help. In particular crime/thriller/action movies , the dominant male(gangster/don) has been shown to have mistresses/prostitutes and surprisingly the wive(s) do not mind. Scarface(1983) is another example of such a film.

Sweet Vengeance

Final Film Sweet Vengeance


Premier of our Film

Nearly done with the Final Project and Storyboard

Shooting my final film

Final Started my final Project

Experimenting with Camera Angles (implemented in Sweet Vengeance)

Adobe Premier Pro (Implemented in Sweet Vengeance)

Final Film Logo

Film Film Logo

This post contains the logo of my final film (compared to the logo of Twisted Pictures) the company responsible of many successful films of the horror/slasher genre. We decided to make one for our team and final film. (Sweet Vengeance). We made the logo on Adobe After Effects CS4.

Audience Research

For our target audience , we carried out a group interview to find out which age groups are more interesting in watching films of the slasher/horror genre. The result was that mostly young adults tend to watch movies of the genre.
It is particularly true that we are also in the age group (age 15-21) and so we were able to relate this to our own personal preferences as well. Lastly , we were able to create a media product very similar to what we(as an audience) would also enjoy and like.
Also during the interview we also noticed that young teens and people in their early twenties were actually not irritated/annoyed/bored throughout the movie but they themselves wanted to sustain the "frightening feel".
Although most teens enjoy movies of the horror genre but there are still some older people(middle aged etc) who still enjoy the movies of the slasher genre to date.
Below is the result of our interview:

Premier of our Film

23rd of February 2011,

We had a screening of our final film along with other classmates films in our school conference room. It was a pleasant experience of us as we were first time makers. We also noticed the audience's reactions and analyzed them. We came to know that even though most females do not like films of the slasher/horror genre , most of the females still liked our films. They were involved in the action and seem to "go with the flow" , this means that during the scenes where we tried to create enigma (we could actually see enigma building up by analyzing the audience's reactions. This was very motivating and encouraging for first timers like us , we could actually see our hard work paid off finally. Me and my teammates were very happy with our film but still some changes needed to be made. (Updated) : we have corrected our film again and i have uploaded the final edited film on my blog.

Furthermore , we also distributed questionnaires after the premier of our film. I have uploaded them(below).

Final film "Sweet Vengeance"

This is our final film:

Evaluation of the Final Project (QUESTION 1)

Q.1 In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media

products ?

There are indeed many forms and conventions used in our final project, which are also seen in real media products. For example: in many movies of the slasher/horror genre the "action" is not fast paced and is more moderate paced. Some scenes indeed lack action and it is the skill of the filmmaker that is

put to use in these kind of shots(to build up enigma in such shots).

Firstly, in most slasher movies enigma builds up when the "victim" (which in my case is a male)

has no clue of what will happen to him. He is going on with his everyday life when the viewers are

shown "Semiotics" or signs which help them identify that something will happen to the victim.

There are many examples of such films for example House of Wax, Glass House: The Good Mother,

Saw 2 and Saw 3. But the movie which most closely resembles ours is Glass House: The Good Mother.

The opening scene begins with the Victim (male) going about his everyday life with his wife. The use of

Semiotics can easily be identified for example: the first shot begins with the wife cleaning the sink and we can clearly see

 blood which develops tension in audience's mind(they are sure that something is just not correct about the woman) / gives the impression of a sociopath.

(when the victim is about to put fresh fish for his wife to cut in the same sink we saw earlier, the wife does not approve. This indirectly tells the audience that the woman may be disagreeing because of a number of reasons.Some strings are left unattached so that the audience can make up their own story(on a number of occasions).

This gives the audience a sense that the "killer" is either mentally disabled or is

a "sociopath". The killer is of course the woman , as semiotics have been used to "display" her as a unique character.

We have also used various semiotics in our movie to create enigma so that the audience

Won’t be able to take their eyes off the screen, for example: when the victim of our movie returns home, his

television set is already running and also the signal has been disrupted. This alerts the audience to ask themselves whether someone

 is hiding in the house waiting to strike. This results in enigma and a sense of horror and anticipation. (also the disrupted signal on the TV has been used in a number of movies before so that in itself is a code for the audience and when they see it they know something is wrong- and it symbolizes the isolation of the victim.)

Above: A screenshot of the television signal disruption from our movie. When the victim enters the house, the

television is already on and the signal is disrupted. A sign that somebody may have already intruded into the

house before the victim.

Secondly, sound is an extremely important component in horror films. Thus we took plenty of time

deciding on the sound. I have followed the conventions of real media products with my sound effects/tune which is similar to Glass House:

Good Mother and the Saw series. The sound treatment of these films starts off with a soothing tune and slowly develops

into a more deep and menacing track which increases anticipation of the audience in the film.

Thirdly, most of our time was spent in deciding on treatment of the shots of our film. The shots have a major impact in affecting

what the audience will think of our film. Many shots closely resemble the shots in real media films, for

example: this is a comparison of the opening shot from our video and of the movie "House of Wax".

Above: The opening shot from Glass House: The Good Mother and a similar shot which we used in our

film.

Shots like these usually have a slow accompanying soundtrack. This is the shot which gives the audience a

rough idea of "WHERE" the scene is taking place, the surroundings, day or night etc. Shots like these are

usually set at night but we broke this convention because we wanted to make the audience think of early

dawn when we shot this. (The victim of our film is back from partying probably at a nightclub or bar).

We have shown high class society and thus we have shown a south asian whose nickname is Henry ,  his age has been shown roughly in his early 20’s. 

We also focused greatly on the logo of the other production companies. We observed that although the logo of the production company is shown usually in the very beginning of the film , the names of the team appear a while later. We decided to follow that convention. The first image you see below is the logo of our media team , while the second shot of a widely recognized institution "Twisted Pictures".

Codes and conventions challenged: 
One of the very main conventions of the horror/slasher film genre which we broke was that we did not show the male as the killer. Although this has already been done in Glass House : Good Mother (shown the female as the killer) , it is common to show the male as the killer in the genre. We did this because we thought that this would attract females to watch our film , most females may not watch the film from the slasher genre because most movies show the victims of the plot to be females. We , on the other hand , chose to make the female gender "stronger" and more influencing in  our movie as compared to the male victim. We thought that females would enjoy watching "their" gender in power which is rarely seen in the genre.


Another convention which we broke was that mostly these films represent white people as the actors etc. We decided to represent and chose South Asian actors as we belong to a South Asian Country and we wanted to represent our people in the film.

Evaluation of the Final Project (QUESTION 2)

Q.2 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The title of our media product is "Sweet Vengeance”, as the name suggests it is about vengeance to right a wrong. Our product mainly represents two social groups. Firstly, it represents females

who are usually either betrayed or cheated. Such women (like the killer shown in our film) are

more likely to become mentally challenged and thus commit crimes at least according to certain gender stereotypes- the kind of stereotypes one finds in slasher films.

 From our movie, we have tried to

make our audience more aware that the crimes which those women commit are to be blamed on the

people who cheat on them. We have used silent semiotics in various parts of our film to make the audience

understand the story.

Above: The female killer has been shown as a damaged person in our film. She is mentally not stable, which explains

why she seeks revenge from our male character. We have tried to explain that this happens in real life as

well and should be stopped before more people harm each other.

Secondly, our media product also represents the young generation. Mostly, people from the age 18-26

are in a very fragile state mentally. And if such people consume an excess of alcohol and drugss they commit crimes which they later may

regret. We want to make society aware of the consequences of such freedoms at this age. This mostly

happens in the elite class of society who have a lot of money to spend. They are usually the ones which

can afford to go to expensive nightclubs etc.

Above: A screenshot of our victim. We have made him look rich. He is shown getting out of his own car

with his personal driver. Only people who have a lot of money can afford such luxuries.

Our point was to criticize, what our society is going through. What we have shown is very

common amongst a certain class and, we have tried our best to deliver this message to the audience.

Above : People traveling in public transport in Karachi , Pakistan unlike our main character. This shows that our main character is of high class society as the majority of the people in our country do not have the money to afford car and driver.

We have also tried to show infidelity and betrayal in high-class society and eagerness to get revenge.

We especially wanted to stress on the "high class" because such incidents usually occur with people who

have  a lot of money and thus have a lot of leisure time to spend.

Below: a shot of our male character (HENRY)’s house.

Below : A shot of Burns Road , Karachi which shows a busy street with multiple apartments. Burns Road is usually occupied by poorer people (usually living on rent) nowadays. The majority of the population in our country lives in such small apartments and busy streets. On the other hand our character "Henry" has been shown living in a peaceful suburban residential area without traffic etc.

Henry also has an answering machine which is uncommon and most people do not cannot afford it. This is another indication of high class society.

Furthermore , Henry receives messages from two girls on his answering machine. This is very uncommon in Pakistan. Pakistan is a religious state and the majority of people here are Muslims. Muslim society does not allow young men and girls to interact with each other. In fact most girls do not even attend Co-education schools as it is the decision of their parents not to let them. The girls are shown to be fluent in English which is a privilege only the high class society can afford as most girls do not even get the chance to get higher education due to the early marriage customs in Pakistan.

Above : Girls in a classroom in Pakistan (Only Girls School).

The names of our characters Henry and Ria are acually the character's nicknames. Since we have represented high class society our characters have nicknames and want to be called or known by those names. This is true in modern society of Pakistan. They are basically Muslims but they want to be called by only those names which they like.
Our female killer character "Ria" has been deliberately shown a killer to attract female audience. Since most girls in Pakistan are not like that , we thought that they may be fascinated to see how some girls even may react to male. So we broke this convention of showing the killer as male and victim as female.
Our film also has a South Asian Cast. We wanted to represent our country so we decided to cast South Asians in our films. Secondly , since most films in the slasher/horror film genre have scarce South Asian cast , we thought that it would be a good idea to implement this new idea and we thought it would attract South Asian audience greatly. 

Evaluation of the Final Project (QUESTION 3)

Q.3 What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

We felt that "Dimension Films" would be a likely institution  to distribute our media product. This is due to

various reasons.

Firstly, Dimensions films has been producing slasher films since 2005. Dimension films has been

very successful with this genre and has produced many top of the charts movies in its time. Dimension films is a big

and respected company and as it is being respected in the market , we think that if it were to market and

distribute our media product then many audiences would purchase our product only because Dimension

Films has a good reputation in the market. Thus it would indeed help us market our products so that it

reaches the audience. Once it reaches the audience, we hope that the audience would probably like it

and thus would benefit both the Dimension Films and us as well.

Some of Dimensions Films famous Slasher/Horror movies are:

Scream (1996)

Scream 2 (1997)

Scream 3 (2000)

Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)

Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996)

Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998)

Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return (1999)

Children of the Corn: Revelation (2001)

Furthermore , Dimension Films has had a excellent reputation in making horror/slasher films and they have a large loyal fanbase which is indeed why most of their films have been top-of-the-charts.

Evaluation of the Final Project (QUESTION 5)

Q.5 How did you attract/address your audience?

There were several ways in which we attracted our audience towards our final media product.  Firstly , the sound(lead and backing soundtrack) which we used in Sweet Vengeance was very soothing . Not only to our ears but also to our audiences’ ears.  We carried out a viewing of our film in our school during school hours (as mentioned in Evaluation Q-5) and we saw that when the movie started the audiences were relaxed and they didn’t look as if they were in a state of shock etc. But, from the scene where “Henry” enters his house and the Television signal distortion scene, the soundtrack changes to a more deep and in lay man’s words “Scary” soundtrack. During this period, we noticed that some of our audience came up closer to the screen to analyze what was going on, and some on the other hand already looked horrified.  So, the sound was one method we used to attract our audience.

Secondly, we kept dialogues in our product to a minimum. This enabled the audience to focus more attention on our soundtrack rather than the dialogues.  Besides the answering machine recordings , there were no additional dialogues added to the movie. Soundtracks, if used correctly and at the correct time can influence and change the tempo of the film completely and we wanted to implement this.

Thirdly, we did not give out everything in our opening titles. After viewing popular slasher film opening titles we found that  opening titles are meant to attract audience to watch the whole feature length film rather than give all of the suspense away by adding unnecessary details. We immediately cropped out the details we had put in our unedited version of Sweet Vengeance. We created enigma, and left “some strings unattached” i.e. some parts of the story to be discovered by the audience itself. This would motivate the viewers to demand the feature length film.

Above: We have purposely shown the Television already open and disrupted when our male character Henry enters his house. This makes the majority of the audience ask themselves “Why is this Television on?” “Did someone already visit his house when he was away?” “Is someone hiding in his house at the moment waiting to strike?” This creates enigma and horror, and the environment we wanted to create in our movie for our audience so they “keep wanted more”.

By the end of our opening title, the audience would have many questions unanswered, for example: Why did the female want to kill the male? Was the male drunk when he got home? Did he party all night? Did the male survive then? Was this all a dream? Will the male wake up in his bed now? So there is a definite chance that the audience would want to watch the full film.

There are many things which would attract the audience towards our films. The title "Sweet Vengeance" hides alot , makes the audience want to find out more. For example: mostly , the audience would definetly want to know what "Henry" did , why is the girl following him? The misc-en-scene would attract the audience , being a horror story it is shot in an isolated house , which is a very common convention for horror/slasher films for example: SAW 2 and HOUSE OF WAX were also shot in isolated houses and were very sucessful.

Evaluation of the Final Project (QUESTION 6)

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We have learnt a great deal about using new technologies during constructing our opening title.  Firstly, we learnt how to use many new editing software which helped in the making of our opening title. Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, Adobe After Effects CS4 and CS5 and Sony Vegas are the software we mainly used. At first, we didn’t know how to operate them but with consistence, patience and experimenting we were able to learn a great deal. Technology has indeed brought us closer together and thus we are able to take advantage of some softwares which made our final product look better and more professional.

Above: A shot of our edited footage of our previous car scene (which was later cut to save time). We shot this in daylight but we wanted our footage to imitate early dawn so we edited this footage in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. We used the “4 Color Gradient” to adjust the colors on each side of the footage. By using this software we were successfully able to “tint” our footage.

Above: We made our title using Adobe After Effects CS4. We used the “Jiggy” effect to make our title look more interesting and horrifying.

Above: We were able to make Polls by using Internet. This helped us in gathering data from our audience so that we could clearly see our target audience and improve our opening title till the end. So we were able to exactly know about the likes of different people and our target audience in general.

Above: A screenshot of editing our footage in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4.  We were also able to connect with each other, by using email and send footages to each other so we could utilize our time and finish our project in time. This helped us in saving up time for evaluation and correcting mistakes.  In other words, Technology has made our life easier. Overall i think that technology is a blessing because it has made us save time and create a better product more efficently and easily.

 

Evaluation of the Final Project (QUESTION 7)

Q.7 Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?

We have leant a great deal when we look back at our preliminary task. We have worked on everything in our final film- which we did not do earlier: Mise-en-scene, Camera Angles and Movements, Character placement, Editing and Sound. When we first began our Preliminary task we didn’t know how to use various software and only knew the very basics of Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. This ultimately affected our final product greatly.

Above: A snapshot from our Preliminary Task. The background was meant to imitate a principal’s office. Notice the poor background (therandom door, the computer wiring etc) which is not usually found in a principal’s office. The office was meant to look formal. Also in this shot, notice that there is not enough headroom and too much space behind the subject’s head. At the time we could not use modern editing techniques thus we could only rely on the camera and our amateur shooting skills.

Above: A snapshot from our final film “Sweet Vengeance”, notice enough headroom in this shot. This place is a rich person’s house. Notice the large Television and Channel Surround Sound speakers which only a well off person can afford. We also edited this in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4; we used Auto-Contrast and Auto-Color to adjust the uneven color of the environment.

Above: Another snapshot from our Preliminary Film.  We shot this in school premises so you can easily notice that the Student and Principal (in the above snapshot) are wearing the same uniform. This was a huge mistake and we made sure that in our final opening titles we made our character’s wear proper dresses which matched the environment we were trying to create.  Also notice that there is white board.

Above:  A Snapshot from our final film. Notice that although we shot this in daylight, we have added the 4-color gradient in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 to make the environment look more like early dawn than daylight. 

The snapshot above is the “very simple” ending of our preliminary film. It shows the credits flying away. It is approximately 5 seconds long. Notice that the font is very simple and there are no effects used. Such titles would be a waste of time for viewers if they were to watch them in our final product, which is why we made sure that we utilized and took advantage of new technology and various software to make our ending title look more interesting and impressive.

Above shown is the ending title from our final movie. Notice that the font used is not simple and vengeance is purposely written in the “Chiller” font to imitate blood.

 

Evaluation of the Final Project(Rough Work)

This post is a rough evaluation which i wrote to make sure that i have enough content to write my fair evaluation. This is thus a practice evaluation attempt. The "fair" and proper evaluation questions are answered on the First and Second pages of the blog.

We had to answer the following questions to evaluate our final film:

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Answer:

- Our film is from the suspense/horror/slasher genre. Such films require some enigma and since we have been doing opening titles, we tried to create some enigma at the end of the opening title after some slow paced shots.

- Though there are no marks for it, good acting was necessary in our film because we needed to be able to describe the reactions of the actor and make it clear for the audience to know the atmosphere of the time and for that good acting was needed.

- We have also broken a convention of slasher films. Mostly the male is the killer, however in our film, the female is the killer. We hope that this will attract females to watch our movie as well.

- We have also used betrayal as our theme and also as the reason that causes the girl Ria to take revenge from Henry. That is explained a bit through the voiceovers in the answering machine.

- The color for Ria’s clothes were black because it portrayed her as being the killer and also as the person who would take revenge. The color black often represents gloom, revenge, anger hatred etc. so that is why we used Ria’s dressing in black.

- We kept the shade in our film dark purposely, to bring in the mystery and gloom that was to come in the end. We used soundtracks as well to create the thrilling atmosphere. We used tracks by two musicians. Kevin Macleod(http://incompetech.com/) and Danish.

- We used formal dressing for Henry to show that he was a rich person and also to show that he was in his twenty’s as well as we needed to show that he was an older person and our actor was seventeen. The shot of Henry coming in the car also showed that he was a rich person, a mature person, having a driver added to it as well. We chose my house for the location because we thought that a big house would add to the personality of the character of Henry.

- In the opening credits we gave the name of Dimension Films and our own production company as we had seen it in many films that although the logo would appear separately, their names would be given in the opening credits as well. It was just something we used to make the film seem more professional. 

 




- Most production companies have their own logos so we made one for our group.

Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Answer:

- The only social group it represents is the high class society and some of it is depicted through the dialogues of the two girls who have left messages on his answering machine. Those dialogues show the way of talking and conversing of the high class society.

- Our film also represents the females in this modern age and their behavior towards males, especially in the high class society and this is also done through the dialogues of the answering machine.

- The formal dressing of Henry and his house and car show that he is a rich man and that he belongs to the high class society.

- We have also shown the betrayal and unfaithfulness between couples in the high class society and the eagerness for revenge.

- The reason why Henry acts really tired is because he comes from a party and this is further clarified through the messages heard on Henry’s answering machine. It depicts the undisciplined and care free attitude of the high class society and the types of social gatherings they have.

Nearly done with the Final Project and Storyboard

On the 13th of February 2011, we completed our editing phase for our final Media Studies Project. All that is left is a few sounds that need to be added. We have used music by Kevin Macleod, a professional musician who has royalty free music on his website and allows his music to be used for free without copyright. We have also used a track made by a local musician by the name of Danish, from Pyramid Studios, Karachi. 
All the group members i.e. Andrew, Afia and I played a part in editing. Each of us took part in editing,  I mainly edited the soundtracks that we have used in our film. I have also made the logo and added sound effects to it. Since our project is nearly complete, we hope to upload our videos by the end of this week on our blogs and we are happy with the movie so far and I hope that our audience would also be captivated by our film and watch it.

This was our storyboard.