Evaluation.

My AS-Level Media task was to create a film opening. I had to plan film and edit this opening entirely by myself.

I chose to create a film noir style film opening. For this, I looked at many different film openings including ‘Snatch’, ‘Blue Steel’ and ‘Sin City’ and I tried to compare my media product to the opening of ‘Sin City’. To do this, I used a femme fatale character, dressed all in red and a male character wearing reasonably smart clothing. For the titles, I created a black background with red writing. I used this because the writing stood out and was bold and dynamic in front of the black and it also connected with the femme fatale’s clothing. Red is the sign of evil or the devil so I thought it was the perfect colour choice for my film. To create suspense, the camera only shows the female character for the start of the film. When the male character enters, you cannot see his face until the dialogue begins. This creates enigma as the audience will want to know who he is and why he’s there. The film is a mix of film noir and thriller genres. It is film noir because of the characters and the comparison with ‘Sin City’ but it also has some thriller conventions such as the shooting and setting the photo on fire. This also creates enigma as the audience will want to watch more and find out why she killed the man and who is in the photograph. I used minimal sound in the opening, just creating the sound of the wind and using a gunshot effect. I think this creates more enigma and places more importance on the mise-en-scene rather than the sound. I used reasonable slow editing to begin with and it quickens as the opening continues. This builds the pace and draws the audience in to the scene and also builds up towards the peak of the scene.

My media product mainly represents two kinds of social groups: the male victim and the powerful, independent female. These two characters break the norm of stereotypical characters as the female is usually less independent and the male is normally in charge. I wanted to reverse this stereotype for my film as I thought the female character should be stronger in order to be the strong lead character. I created this representation by showing the female character in the camera longer than the male and using low angle shots to suggest her superiority. She also wears the typical femme fatale costume as she is wearing red. This will be recognisable to the target audience as they will have seen film noir or thriller films before. I decided to use subtle hints about the male character. I wanted to represent him as a criminal but I thought that if he was running around with a knife and a hoodie that it would ruin the style of the film so I decided to have his costume as quite smart so he looked like an important business man and then showed that he is an assistant of a killer. This representation worked quite well and it made the film more interesting. I also think that this creates a good representation of criminals because you can’t always tell when people are criminals or when they are trustworthy. The camera also doesn't show a shot of the character's face to imply that he isn't the hero character.

My film doesn’t look very much like a large budget blockbuster film: mostly because I didn’t have a large budget for it. For this reason I think my film would have more of a niche audience and would be distributed by an independent film company for the viewing on places such as film 4 or at independent film festivals around the UK. Film 4, for example often has special film nights in which they show only certain genres of film. I think my product would be shown on a film noir or thriller night as then it would get the correct audience and people who prefer chick flicks or comedies wouldn’t watch it. It may be released for viewing on the internet, again for niche audiences, because it is a very low budget, independent film and it wouldn’t be able to use lots of money to distribute or to advertise it so the internet is a perfect place to distribute and advertise films quite cheaply but also making sure that it gets a lot of viewing from the correct audience. I would not expect this film to become extremely popular and therefore it probably would not need to release merchandising but I decided that later on in the film it would use a lot of interesting music so it may develop to create a soundtrack for the film which could be distributed with the film itself online.

The audience for my film would be small and very niche. It would probably be young as I used younger actors, however, the film would probably need an certification of either 12 or 15 because of the killing and the dark substance within the film. This would mean that people under the age of 12 wouldn’t be able to watch it, therefore making the audience between the ages of 12 and 35. Mostly females would watch this film because of the strong female lead but males would also want to watch it because they are more likely to enjoy this genre of film. The audience will probably be people who enjoy watching independent films and not the large blockbusters in cinemas as it will only be found online or on channels such as film 4, which has independent and low-budget films. People who enjoy expensive, blockbuster films would not enjoy it so that would mean a smaller audience. However, although the audience is niche, there will probably be a lot of people interested in seeing the film as it is different to most other films and it has a powerful storyline.

The film uses typical conventions for the genre so it was simple techniques that target the audience. Anyone interested in film noir or thriller would be interested in this film and by using ideas influenced by other films, the audience would enjoy it. My film matches the expectations of the audience because the specific niche audience of the film would be aware of the budget etc of the film so they would therefore have an idea of what to expect. Hopefully, for some people, the fact that the film is unknown is something that draws them to watch it. This would be very helpful to me whilst attracting the audience because something as simple as the budget would entice the audience. The use of young actors, though not entirely optional, would attract the younger audience for the film, which is my target audience. It also helps the audience to put themselves in the place of the character which is what people want to see in films. This would also help to attract and address the target audience. 

Specifically, my first shot would draw the audience in as it is very simple but it creates enigma and the audience will begin to ask questions about the character’s importance. 

The titles will hook in the audience because they are very effective and they slow down the pace of the 

opening. By having them on a black background, it cuts away from the scene and creates dramatic tension. The soundtrack, although minimal, also addresses the audience as it creates the sense of horror and the wind in the background builds suspense. Finally, the camera angles don’t often show both characters in the shot together so while the camera is on one character, the audience will be wondering how the other character is reacting and the expressions that they would have and the editing always cuts away from the main source of the action which builds even more tension within the audience.

During the creation of this product, I discovered a lot of new technologies and equipment. Firstly, I had never used professional recording equipment before the beginning of this task, that was a very enjoyable process for me because I was able to discover filming in a more professional way rather than filming on a camera-phone. I also learnt about the need to use a wide variety of shots and the amount of filming that you have to do in order to make sure you have the correct shots for editing. I discovered that lighting is extremely important as I filmed on a sunny day and the direction of the camera made a huge difference to the lighting in the shot. The editing was interesting for me as I didn’t realise how much was needed to do in order to get good editing. It also takes an extremely long time which is something I didn’t know before starting this project. I was able to use an Apple Macintosh computer to do my editing. I had never worked on a Mac before so that was quite challenging to begin with but once I got used to it I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also found out about Garageband and iMovie. 

These pieces of software are extremely interesting to use and are also fantastic for editing. I didn’t have music in the soundtrack for my opening so I didn’t have the pleasure of using Garageband properly but I did some practice and testing and I loved the freedom that you have whilst creating your own piece of music. It was extremely enjoyable and a great way to improve your musical skills. I also decided to put my product onto YouTube to see what other people thought about it. This was interesting because I had never used YouTube uploading before the task and it was good to learn about all the different things you can upload and set up on YouTube. I will definitely use it again so I’m glad that I learnt about it.

I have learnt a lot of new things during the process from my preliminary task to my final product. Firstly, I got the chance to properly plan my product in my final piece. I also got the chance to work individually which was a lot more hard work but it also had many advantages and it gave me more freedom with ideas and time planning. My confidence has improved greatly during the process and I am extremely impressed with what I have achieved. When I started the course I had no idea that I would be able to create a film opening and I am very proud of myself for being able to do that. As well as creating the product, I have also learnt many things about shot types, music and editing. For my preliminary task, I only had chance to film a small amount so it was great to learn about more shots and creating different moods with the different camera angles that you can use. Music wasn’t used in my preliminary task but it also wasn’t used in my final task so I didn’t learn a lot about that aspect of film-making but I had the chance to mess around with Garageband so it was a lot of fun. Finally, editing was the most important part of my final product but I did little to no editing on my preliminary task so it was quite complex to learn about all the different editing techniques in such a short space of time but it was enjoyable nonetheless and I feel like I have learnt a lot of new things within this project which makes me extremely grateful that I took the course.