Evaluation of opening sequenceSweet Revenge

Daniella Worth

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

For my opening sequence I chose to focus it on a romance action genre. This is because there has been very few films on this genre and I think that an audience varied from age 16+ would enjoy watching it. Its different from what you find in 21st century because of the time period its set in; 1920’s. The start of the opening sequence show effects that its set in the 1920’s and towards the end, where the narrative begins, it turns to normal high quality picture. This tells the audience it’s a modern film representing the 1920’s.

We wanted the opening sequence to attract both genders. If we made the genre romance, the audience would have a higher percentage of females and vice versa with the genre action, with males. The hybrid of the genres makes the audience a wider range and it applies to both males and females.

Edited effects to make the audience know about the set period.

Removed effect to make it a modernised version of a 1920’s film

The location is set in two bedrooms at the beginning and a restaurant at the end.

The font we chose is old English and fits well with the genre and time period.

Both characters are shown with weapons, but separately as they do not know they are both spies.

My opening sequence Mr and Mrs Smith opening sequence

• We researched different films that were the same genre as our opening sequence. Mr and Mrs Smith had the same storyline that we had in mind at the time. Romance/Action was the genre but we wanted to make it different to what people would expect from Romance/Action movie, so we set it in the 1920’s.

• In the Mr and Mrs Smith opening sequence the narrative started at the beginning; they had counselling sessions because they couldn’t behave as a normal couple, hinting at the storyline. Ours started with what we wanted our audience to think would happen; planning on killing each other. Three quarters of the way through the sequence we started the narrative, making the ending a cliff-hanger.

• The genres of both opening sequences are the same just with a different narrative. The differences are that the time period have a big gap; ours is an older version of Mr and Mrs Smith as theirs was made in the 21st century, ours set in the 1920’s but still made in the 21st century. We had to maintain our target audience so we made the sequence fade out from sepia noise to colour.

We also researched other films with the same genre as us, such as; Knight and day Fast and Furious

We also looked at action films made in the 1920’s so we knew what mis-en-scene would be appropriate to include in our sequence. Along with romance films set in the 20’s and from the 21 st century so we had a clear vision of what would appeal to our target audience. We included shots like the shot reverse shot, low angle shots and free hand from one object to another. As they are most common in action romance films. We didn’t use analogue in the opening sequence because it made it seem more suspicious, the romance had a twist.

Silent shadow Dear John 1920’s

In Fast and Furious, the characters have an obvious close relationship because the protagonist is trying to save the damsel in distress in the opening sequence.

The location of the film is in a desert indicating that nobody id around to see the action that will be taking place.

It starts off with an establishing shot that shows the setting.

The fast cars link to the ideologies which are racing cars/ action.

The equilibrium indicates that there will be another disruption later on in the film as its starts with a disruption.

It shows the female protagonist meeting a number of males (romance) then later shows her with guns and the male protagonist (action).

The location is a café where she meets males. When action is taking place the location is on a plane and outside.

The vision of guns indicates a disruption later on in the film.

The enigma in this opening sequence is ‘who are all the men ? And what is there role?’

An enigma in this sequence is ‘why is the protagonist saving the girl?’

Stereotypical women in 1920’s

Challenged stereotypical women in the 1920’s

Stereotypical men in the 1920’s

Stereotypical women in 1920’s

Challenged stereotypical women in the 1920’s

Stereotypical men in the 1920’s

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The stereotype you would find in a 1920’s movie for a women would be a “flapper”; old fashioned, well behaved and polite. We challenged the stereotype of the typical 1920’s women and made her adventurous. The props; Gun and feather bower, challenged the stereotypes and made her sexy and suspicious and made her role partly the ‘hero’ and the cliff-hanger made her the ‘princess’. These you wouldn’t find in a typical 1920’s lady. The anchorage of this women would mean the total opposite of what connotations the audience would expect.

The males stereotype wasn’t challenged as men in the 1920’s would usually take the role of being hero because they were seen as more dominant. They would always take control of fighting events in action films. The denotation of the man would be what you would expect.

Women 20’s

Man 20’s

These would be the stereotypical dominant men you would find in a 1920’s film, normally in gangs.

This 1920’s ‘flapper’ is normally found to be independent

What kind of media institute might distribute your media product and why?

• The major labels: Universal or Warner bros would be appropriate to distribute my media product as it is aimed at mainstreamers, aspirers and succeeders, aimed at the higher groups in the socio-economic scale. Only would it aim at the lower groups, would be for age as our film is targeted at 18+. The questionnaire shows that just under half of the students don’t have jobs.

• Advertisement for our sequence would apply to BBC3 and channel 4, for the younger to middle aged audience and BBC1+2 for the older audience.

• These would include the trailers and shops that sell the film. Posters and billboards would be put around cities for the higher socio groups and towns for the lower groups.

• The recording artists for the songs in our sequence/film could attract the attention of our target audience.

As the film would belong to a conglomerate, synergy would be able to pass on advertisement for the product.

• The characters in the film could model for a big magazine company and appear on the front page with headings reading the name of our film; ‘sweet revenge’ and captions and puffs giving short a short description of the film. Along with interviews from the protagonist actors.

• The younger generation have a big impact on the internet, therefore billboards on homepages and groups to follow on Facebook and Twitter would appeal to them, part of the AIDA acronym.

We did a questionnaire on what would be your favourite film genre. The majority of the boys chose action and all of the girls chose romance. None chose both but it give us an idea of what males and females are interested in. Making the genre a hybrid of romance and action, gave a wider audience instantly. As gender roles have become increasingly more equal and non--stereotypical, both genders are more likely to watch a range of genres.

The age range is 18+ up to any age. Older people would like the film even though its been modernised because its set in the time they grew up in. The film would have had a high budget spent on it so the socio- economic group would be from working class to upper class (c2-A). Mainstreamers, aspirers and succeeders are the most aimed at characteristics that Young and Rubicam came up with.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

This questionnaire focussed on the younger generation of our audience.

This shows that just under 50% of students don’t work but the film would still apply to E and D in the socio-economic group.

It also shows that every student we asked would agree with romance/action being an interesting choice of genre.

How did you address and attract your audience?

• To attract the audience in our sequence we added special FX to make the film look like it had been made in the 1920’s.

• To assure the audience that it wasn’t going to have the effect all the way through the film we faded it out so it would appeal to the younger generation and give a modern effect. Even though its set in the 1920’s, we used young attractive actors for the protagonists which will attract male and females.

• The narrative has a twist to it as the cliff-hanger shows at the end, which would attract all ages and both genders because it makes you want to watch more. As we made the film a hybrid of romance and action it will attract both genders according to our questionnaire.

• The non- diegetic soundtrack gives the audience generic knowledge of what could happen in the film.

• The modernised side to the set will attract mostly mainstreamers, and aspirers as they seek security in conformity and tend to buy well known brand names; conglomerate companies such as universal and Warner bros.

What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing this product?

• In the process of creating my product I have learnt that creating a blog on www.blogger.com lets you keep all the work and research you have done over a period of time, however long you want.

• We have used Youtube and google to get the style of clothing and what props and costume would be appropriate for the opening sequence .

• We used youtube as a source to find out different genres and what the popularity are on the hybrid we chose; romance/action.

• Without imovie training I wouldn’t of known how to use the programme and what icons to use for changing effects , volume, quality, sizes etc. Imovie allowed me to get more of an understanding of how to use final cut as I have used it in the past and we needed to use final cut to make small changes in our sequence, such as the split screen.

• I had to watch films and their opening sequences to receive ideas for my product. The films I watched were; Night and Day, Mr and Mrs Smith, Silent shadow, Dear John, Mohicans, The great Gatsby , fast and furious and a few more.

• We had to scan our storyboard and risk assessment sheet on to the macs so we could upload them to our blogger. We was going to scan our questionnaire but the scanner had been taken for other uses, we then had to overcome this by copying out the questionnaire straight on to a post on Blogger.

Continued…

We used tape recorded cameras to shoot our footage. We had practise using them at the beginning of the year, filming the preliminary task, so we had the experience. I had to ask how to change the setting to widescreen on the camera so our clips would have better quality on the computer. We also used a tripod to support our camera and so we could get the correct shots. We had to use iTunes for out soundtrack. We searched for the soundtrack on YouTube and once found we had to convert it to an mp3. By doing this we had to use Google's’ converter as it would not upload straight to iTunes. Once we had it on iTunes the track would automatically be on iMovie. For my evaluation I have used PowerPoint. I have had to print screen still images of our opening sequence and get images off Google. I also had to pause the videos I have researched and watched on YouTube to get still images from them. I Then pasted them on to PowerPoint. We had to be really specific with the tool on iMovie that cut the clips we had. Although you could undo a cut, it was important that you used the point carefully so we didn’t lose any work. We also had to keep making sure that we ‘applied’ the effects to a clip so that they didn’t make a separate clip and disrupt the sequence. We did this and lost a section of our clips, we then had to reload the clips off our tape and start over. On the computer we had the time of what our clips added up to at the bottom, we had to reduce the time and cut a lot of filming.

When I first used the programme ‘iMovie’, I found it difficult to use and to find icons. I wouldn’t have been able to use the programme correctly if I didn’t have instructions. Now I know how to use the programme, the icons are easy to find and I know how to find other applications that link the programme. I learnt how to cut at specific points, I didn’t have to use the cursor and got taught to use the arrow keys to make the cut specific. Since I used I movie in the preliminary task I have found that there are a number of different transitions, effects, and soundtracks. I have also learnt that you can change the volume of the track that’s played over your clips and that you can overlap tracks so the cross fade.

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

Conclusion

My strengths were remembering where the icons were and what they did. I uploaded the music and the music we chose changed three times, I were able to delete and re load them to our piece with out deleting or mixing up any of our work . I found that cutting clips and rearranging them were easy to grasp and deleting sections that we didn’t need. One of my weaknesses was finding films that had the same genre as our sequence. We found a limited amount and had to then look at separate genres that weren’t hybrids. We looked on different search engines; Google, Bing, ask, and YouTube.Overall I think that my project has turned out better than I expected as I didn’t know how to use the software when I first started. When I began to understand the basics of iMovie the sequence was making progress and getting better as we asked for opinions off different people and asked people what we could do for improvement. The effects we chose went really well with the genre and the time period it is set in. When the effects faded out, I think that it made the film look like it had a big budget spent on and would make a big sale.

Daniella Worth