1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? The use of green screen through out- used in films such as Sin City and 300. It does not lend itself to many types of film but I think it works well in my film as I have also gone for a a stylized, over the top. Also my flythrough credits scene is different to conventional credits as most credits just appear on scene, flat on top of the of the image. My credits sequence pulls the viewer into a virtual tour of a 3D space as they fly through the type. My hero is also very unconventional as he is not the typical friendly do gooder. He is far grittier and does things his own way rather than the best way like such famous heroes as Wolverine (X-Men) or Raurshack (The Watchmen)
2.How does your media product represent particular social groups? My film intro does not as such represent particular social groups. I have however portrayed my hero as more of an anti hero than a hero. He is "badass" (as cliché as that sounds) and instead of coming across as the friendly neighbor hood hero often portrayed in comics and films he comes across as aggressive and mis-directed. The attacker is portrayed as a middle class person. They wear decent clothes and have a good appearance. I wanted to portray him almost as a normal person to imply that the city is so bad that everyone has been brought down into crime
3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? I used Marvel and Columbia as the institutions I would use to distribute my film this is because they are two institutions reknowed for working on action and super hero films, such as Iron-Man and Hulk and the Spider-Man trilogy which the the genre I have chosen to use for my film opening. Marvel is a comic book company and within the last couple of years has branched out into making films (based on the comics) as well.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product? My initial targeted age group was 18+ because i had plans of making quite a violent film however when i started making it i realized it is possible to do it without violence and put the rating. By having a lower rating it opens up a larger portion of the market able to see the film so a 12 or 15 would be better especially as a film based on a super hero is more likely to appeal to younger teen viewers. I realised this because at the time a similar situation occurred to a real film (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) where they decided to censor the film so that they could turn it from an 18 to a 12a to make the film accessible to the target audience. FOr this reason i decided to make the film a 15 instead of an 18 because I wanted toi keep an aspect of strong violence in the film.
5.How did you attract/address your audience?
From the beggining I knew that I wanted my film to be quite a high age rating because I wanted to do something comic book-esque but on a more sinister level. I looked at current films based on super heroes and they are rarely above a 12 rating though because they are often more child friendly. I was more interested in a film like Sin City or the watchmen though as they both originte from comics but they are a more grown up style of comic. To make my film more like them I wanted to include violence and if I were to continue the film drug references and storng language. This would make the film more appealing to and older generation because it makes them more realistic. In real life if someone gets shot in the leg they wont just clutch it looking in pain or fall to the floor screaming they would be more likley to be shouting profanities because it is what todays culture is like. This makes the film more relateable.
6.What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? I have learnt a lot about using the program adobe after effects. I had no experience with the program before i started my media project but over the year I have learned some quite advanced techniques that can be used in the program. I really enjoy working with After effects as it is a professional piece of equipment capable of producing high quality pieces of work if you are willing to put in the effort. The program is generally not to hard to use once you have the basics under your belt but it did take a while to get used to. Through out the year I have created a 3D set using basic 3D modeling techniques, created the effect of realistic gun blow back, effectively used key-lighting to place people acting on a green screen into a different background (in my case i was placing them into my 3D set.) and made a 3D fly through credits sequence. This taught me a lot about using camera layers and key framing to animate the camera movements.
7.Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Since my preliminary I have learnt a lot about editing especially with special effects using adobe after effects. I have also learnt a lot about different camera shots and movement to create effect (although I did not have the chance to demonstrate this as I shot the whole film on green screen therefore there was no camera movements. ALso since the preliminaries I have learnt a lot about organization and continuity. To get everything how you want it you have to organize everything in such way so that you have all the clips you need in the order you want. Also editing is very timely so I had to divide my time well so that I could fit in all the editing and allow myself time to put everything together to make the finished film.( especially as the 3D set itself took roughly 15 hours to create and render.) I also learnt about how to cut the scenes to make them flow (giving them continuity). This is very important because if the shots don't link together and flow then the film will be discontinued and look bad! Transitions can help scenes which don't appear to link normally to link like in my final film after the credits scene finished originally it went straight to the first shot which look bad. To change this I had to add a pause with a fade in transition effect to make the scene flow better.
