Evaluation #1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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

 The design of the title is conventional of an action movie because it has bullet holes, signifying the violence that a typical action genre involves, in particular with guns. The bullets are shot into the title screen making it more dynamic and violent, making it look more high budget instead of a plain title showing. The title also has a metallic effect, relating to action conventions where it could reflect weaponry such as knives or guns.

In the trailer, there are multiple establishing shots to show the audience where the movie takes place. These shots include rural and urban areas to add more locations, making the film seem more high budget. This shot shows a significant and well-known landmark (the Burj Khalifa) which would help to popularize the trailer and implies that the action in the movie is worldwide and the protagonists/antagonists are very powerful.

In this shot we see the antagonist in black clothing and a pistol in his hands. This is conventional of an action genre as antagonists generally dress in black to blend in to darkness and makes them more mysterious. However, they are occasionally seen wearing masks to hide their identity but in this shot we show his face to show the serious expression he has on his faced. He is also equipped with a pistol that is conventional of an antagonist to use as when they are assigned to assassinate someone, they want to so it with small, portable equipment to complete his mission quickly. However, they can use bigger weapons such as assault rifles for bigger tasks, like you see later on in the trailer.

There are multiple shots shown in the trailer to express the atmosphere of scenes and characters emotions. This high angle shot gives a sense of vulnerability to the character, but shows his determination as the camera is moving with him, adding a dynamic element to the scene. The editing in the trailer is slow at the start but starts to build up more with quicker cuts and more prevalence given to characters. This is conventional of an action genre as they are very much fast-paced throughout and the various shots are compelling to the audience.


The story of the trailer is conventional of an action movie as it involves the protagonist chasing down an anonymous character, adding an enigma to the audience as to who he is. The audience are shown that he is linked to various terror attacks around the world, another cliche of the genre as the antagonist plot usually affects everyone on an international level.

The introduction of the characters in the trailer are conventional of an action genre as the first person you see is not showing their face and has their back to the screen walking away. This adds an enigma as to who is this person and what makes them so significant, creating intensity and makes people carry on to watch. This is cliche of the genre as producers like to take their time introducing the characters to add more suspense.

Audience and Genre

Audience and Genre

The trailer myself and the production team created appeals to the audience as it is one of the most popular genres that appeal to the most amount of people, therefore increasing its popularity. As it is an action genre, people expect to see some violence and a narrative that involves the protagonist trying to overcome the antagonist. This allows people to escape from their lives and relax by watching something entertaining. It also allows for something a little different to the average person's daily life, immersing themselves in a different world which could help to release them from their stress. As we leave many enigmas within the trailer, such as why someone is being hunted and chased  down? Who is responsible for the terrorist attacks? etc., it allows viewers to interact with others that have seen the trailer to talk about their opinions on it and what they think the answer to the enigmas are. This allows people to socialize while at the same time popularizing the trailer and the movie production, making it a success in the marketing and distribution process of the film. Finally, audiences are able to identify with the characters as we have dressed them in casual uniform as well as formal suits, relating to multiple lives that come from various backgrounds, increasing the audience volume. A key feature in our trailer is to entertain the audience with quick paced editing and tense music. This relates to the uses and gratifications model theory, where Blumler and Katz point out one reason people apply the media to their lives is to be entertained. This meant that in the production of the trailer,we had to make sure people had a positive reaction to it and would want to see the full film. This also links to another reason Blumler and Katz reflect, where people watch the media to escape their daily life troubles. 

Laura May's Male Gaze theory is evident in our trailer as the protagonist is male and so is the antagonist, conforming to a convention of the action genre industry. As women are rarely initiated as main characters in action genres, we have conformed to this and in turn this attracts a mainly male audience. We also involve a damsel in distress to make a personal motive for the protagonist, relating to many action movies of its type. 

Evaluation #4 - Use of Media Technologies

Use of Media Technologies

Camera
The Canon 500D was the filming camera we used. It is not too big so can be transported easily due to its portability. It also films in Full HD so that our film can look high budget and the high frames per second increase the smoothness of the film. The camera also has features that allowed us to film in the dark, as we wanted to film characters in the dark so our trailer can adhere to the conventions of an action genre.

Phone

We used the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge to film shots where the camera was not available. This was primarily used when filming abroad such as in Dubai and Iceland as the camera could not be taken. However, the S6 has one of the highest quality cameras on the mobile phone market, filming at Ultra 4K HD at 30 FPS, allowing less pixels to ensure the footage is of highest quality and an untroubled video where frames are not skipped which would diminish its quality.

Tripod

The tripod was used to help stabilize the footage we were filming. We attached the camera onto the top by screwing the bottom of the camera where a screw hole was to the screw on the platform at the top of the tripod. 

  

Evaluation #2 - Syndicate Trailer: Narration Analysis

Syndicate Trailer: Narration Analysis

Editing Diary - Day 5

Editing Diary - Day 5

For the final day of our editing we had the music fitting accordingly with the intro, narration and main body of our trailer so we wanted to ensure the conclusion of the trailer was of similarly high quality. We decided on concluding the trailer by creating a montage as they were often seen in action movies as the increased pace and number of shots adds more onto the storyline and showcases the action qualities the movie would hold. We began by collecting the shots we had left to use which would be placed in quick succession.

The shots were placed with particular effort into contrasting the shots highlighted. We used a car chase scene we got in Dubai along with other shots which emphasised the qualities of the trailer. The protagonist was seen in most of the shots to keep the audience constantly engaged with the trailer. The shots gradually got shorter as the music got quicker until eventually both cut out onto a prolonged shot of Bill saying:
"leave it to me"
The low angle shots puts particular emphasis on the characters and we deemed this as the most effective way of ending our trailer.

Lastly we added the various actor credits in the trailer which was relatively difficult to do due to the random order of the shots. Eventually we placed them on shots which we thought would work well. With the protagonist and antagonist getting prevalence as we believed that that was important. We also added the finished titles which had been animated in Photoshop and the end credits to make the trailer seem that much more professional.

Editing Diary - Day 4

Editing Diary - Day 4

For the fourth day of editing we ensured to carry on from where we left off. This included continuing the action scenes we had. Particularly involving the prolonged shots we had acquired. We also decided that we should use some dolly shots we had of Dubai and Iceland which we managed to get through the use of a car. The Iceland shots were filmed with a phone so they were rather difficult to edit properly. The shots were filmed in a format which the editing software struggled slightly with as the shots appeared in the library horizontally and not vertically. To counter this we incorporated the tools available to rotate the shots and format them properly although this did lead to the shots being magnified, they were still of quality which we were happy with.

We also incorporated shots which featured both the protagonist and antagonist in a sort of standoff with the idea that they further contrast eachother and allows us to further the plot substantially as we believe the audience would be engaged with the rivalry. This also accompanied the music to a certain degree as the prolonged shots we had allowed the music to gain some sort of pace before we incorporated the montage of shots towards the end.

We were also able to engage more with the sound in our trailer as some of it was of lower quality. We implemented the shots we had onto different layers which allowed us to edit them depending on what we needed. Some shots were specifically for the visual effect to go with the music whilst other shots played a role in the audio alongside the music. There was specific focus on trimming the shots to fit the music and make the trailer more fluid as a whole.

Editing Diary - Day 3

Editing Diary - Day 3

After creating the intro previously, on the third day of editing we needed to focus on the main part of the trailer. This included placing all the various scenes into a rough order. We wanted to ensure the prevalence of shots remained on Bill's protagonist with the occasional contrast against Matt's antagonist to add emphasis on the roles the characters play in the movie. At the beginning of the sequence we incorporated shots from the scouthut, Conor's house and Iceland to make the trailer seem more dynamic as the differing backgrounds make it feel more like a blockbuster film. We wanted to make the trailer gain pace as it continued to increase tension and highlight the plot of the trailer to the audience.

After the initial shots we added the chase scene in London and various shots of the protagonist. We were focusing around incorporating scenes with guns as much as possible as to suit to the genre. We tried to ensure a range of shits were evident including a high angle shot, long shot and a pov shot. Overall we were placing the shots in a particular order as the shots of Dubai and Iceland acted as the exotic locations you usually see in action films and so we placed them accordingly with our more rural shots. We were lacking a bit in terms of these exotic shots though as we only had limited footage available to us at this time.

One of the main features of the third day was finding a suitable soundtrack to the trailer as we couldn't properly edit the various shots without the music as we wanted it to time well. Eventually we found a good piece which we deemed acceptable as it was dramatic and added tension as it went along as it gradually got quicker. It was also useful as it fit into the two minute time frame we had for the trailer. Eventually we primarily edited the shots we had with the music selected to make the trailer seem professional. The last shot we had was a long shot of Bill with a  it of dialogue. The dialogue is fairly vague and adds an enigma to the trailer whilst the music incorporates a slight drop into silence which adds much needed effect onto the dialogue.