Evaluation

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

Our media product follows some of the forms and conventions of real media products within the thriller genre. We used a lot of close ups to conceal who our killer was until the last minute. The idea behind our murderer is that he is a serial killer and that the question isn't "who dunnit" but rather "why did he do it" because people will know by the end of the opening "who did it". This is why we have the unconventional shot of the character looking at the camera in both the murder and work scenes. It is so that the recognition is there and the real mystery is what drove this ordinary looking man to become a murderer and how will he be stopped. We also used a lot of shadows and darkly lit places to conceal our main character until the last moments. For example, in the shot of the weapons being placed in the bag, you can't see the person only his hand.


How Does Your Media Product Present Particular Social Groups?

The social group that our media product represents is accountants and the age group is late teens early twenties. We wanted our main character to be older, but we couldn't find an adult who had the time to appear in the film. Our main character is an accountant who is quite young and so probably new to the job. In the opening shot he seems quite bored with the monotony of life, this could be because of the stereotype that all accountants are boring. He is shown as a bit of a loner as well in later shots. For example, he walks through the town centre alone on his way to work and he is alone at his desk at the office and is being ignored by his co-workers. I think that because he is in fact a murderer it's giving a negative representation of accountants and young people, however he is the only character we come across so it doesn't suggest that all young people and accountants will end up being serial killers.

Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

I think that the audience for our media product would be the 15 to 25 age range. Because the main character is so young I don't think it would appeal so much to older people. I think that the younger audience could relate more to circumstances that may occur later in the film. I think they could also identify with the idea of being the loner at work because you are still quite young and haven't established yourself yet.

How Did You Attract / Address Your Audience?

Younger audiences like for there to be action in their films. Our product has this to a certain extent with the shooting at the end of the opening.

What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?

During this process I have used the Macs to edit the film. We used iMovie to edit the film (cutting, adding in transitions, title cards etc.) We used Garage Band, (and I saw how to use it for the first time) to score the film. We used iDVD to burn the film to disc and come up with the menu. During the making of this product I used Blogger for the first time, I had never really thought about creating a blog before. I also used my Facebook page to let my friends and family know that there were polls on the blog and to ask them to comment on our work so far (not many of them did). I like using the technologies available to us because I feel that it makes the whole process a lot easier after having seen the editing programmes used elsewhere, which look a lot more complicated.

Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?

I feel that we learnt the importance of a tripod after the preliminary task. Some of the shots in it were a bit shaking, so we tried to use the tripod a lot more in the full product, especially when filming the shots where he is putting the weapons into the bag. We also learnt to plan our time a lot better to incorporate the need for multiple shots if things went wrong, e.g. There is a shot in the preliminary task where George pushes my notebook off the table, we had to be able to place the items back in the right place if one of us laughed and ruined the shot. In the full production we couldn't afford to waste time on things like that so hoped we could get it right the first time. We also learnt how important it is to keep the continuity going, otherwise it would look silly.

Got some storyboards

Well, looks like Calculated Killer is finally wrapped up nice and tidy. In the interest of comparing the finished product to the storyboards that were made to plan it, principally drawn by your truly with group consultation, I'm posting all six brief pages of the necessary shots here. It's interesting to see how similar some shots were created by, and how different most of the others turned out in the end. But it's almost inevitable that that would be the case.

(Click images to enlarge them)

=(B12)*MURDER OFFICIALLY FINISHED

Well, we finally managed to film, edit and score our entire opus in a respectable window of time. Seriously, it's all done. We've shaved off the crap bits, hazed out the sound errors and set the whole two-minute spiral of madness to some GarageBand-borne beats that almost took as much creative interest as the project itself. The resulting opening, which works like a bizarre short film but luckily leaves enough of an enigma not to be totally disowned as an opening at all, is actually pretty satisying. I use the word actually as it's no secret that I didn't expect the most out of our media film. Such previous endeavours as Darkwood and The Curse of El Bellendo had me convinced that perhaps we were doomed to failure amongst our forays into the cinematic world. Thankfully Calculated Killer (Alright, I lied about =(B12)*MURDER) actually seems at lest 3/4 decent. I'll be uploading some extra DVD-esque production material later on when I can rouse my carcass from the bed/computer chair for more than two minutes. Peace out.

Stroke of luck? more a stroke of genius I feel dear William.
Anyway as my companion so unenthusiastically stated filming has begun on our thriller opening!
Things generally went ok on Monday night, lighting was a prominent issue throughout, however i feel on the whole we generally confronted the issue and produced footage that reflected our astounding media ability!!

We were hampered by a few more teeething problems, one of which the fact that our acting skills are hardly the equivalent of that of "momento" or "stir of echoes" however we worked hard to avoid the 'student' look we'd witnessed in the work of previous years.

Now We're Actually Filming

Filming has begun, and finally our thriller is genuinely on its way in a medium other than pencil and paper. It's nowhere near finished by any means, we got maybe about a third of all the footage we need on Monday, which was when we decided to get all the night shots sorted before we dare to figure out a convenient time for all three of us to shoot during the day. It wasn't entirely perfect - a few shots were too dark, too shaky, too... weird, etc, etc. But I was surprised at how much the shots that DID work worked.

It was a bit of a stroke of luck that the setting turned out as well as it did, as I had a fairly pessimistic idea that we'd get to this underpass that only George had seen before today and it would be somehow totally unsuited. But it actually turned out alright, except for maybe the fact that most of the shots of oneself mincing along less-than-coolly towards the underpass were so dark that you could barely tell what was happening, and turned out to be what I think were the worst shots attained during the brief shooting period. But apart from that it was swell - it had the brightly-lit Clockwork Orange quality that looked pretty sweet on camera.

However, shooting the sequence has made me realise that plotwise, the film is less than fantastic, since the murder involved in this location would never, ever work and turned out to be totally ridiculous and nonsensical. Why would you shoot a guy in the face in some brightly-lit and frequently-travelled pathway after standing around waiting in a balaclava and holding a gun outside for ages waiting for him to turn up? It doesn't make a great amount of sense, sure, but hey, we can work with it. I just hope people will get their heads around the rest of the plot - office worker by day, killer by night and such. Far-fetched doesn't even cover it.

Inspirations

The opening scene of Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000) is a fantastic opening for a thriller movie. There are a lot of close ups throughout the scene which creates a sense of mystery for the audience. For examplw we don't see the main character's face until near the end of the scene. It confuses the audience and makes them ask a lot of questions, so they will have to watch the rest of the film to find out the answers. I think it would be a good idea for us to use a few close ups in our opening so that we dont reveal everything that is happening in one go and create a sense of suspense for the audience.

Alright, our preliminary task is DONE

Oh, so we've finally finished our preliminary task. It's a brief odyssey of mystery and intrigue, touching upon harsh subject matter such as coercion and financial difficulty. At least if you look deep enough into it.

Glowing critical praise includes:

CHARLEY: "It's great."
GEORGE: "There's some great acting ha ha ha ha."

Well, with reviews such as this, our A*s are in the bag! In truth, I think it turned out as good as it possibly could've. The camerawork was a little shaky here and there, where perhaps a tripod could've been better, but it didn't look as shaky on the LCD screen as it does when maximised to a full computer screen. In terms of continuity, however, it's pretty sound. I think this is mostly because we didn't pick particularly complicated actions to keep continuous, although we did have to repeatedly replace Charley's props each time they were 'displaced' by George. Which turned out perfectly fine, actually. And, hey, mad credits to the two thespians who had to wear the exact same (visible) clothes for the two days of filming, even Charley kept her hair pretty much the same. So I think in terms of continuity and actual technical filming, it's turned out pretty good.